Work Text:
This is all Shizu-chan’s fault.
Well – to be fair, it’s your fault, too, but that’s because you let his rude suggestion get to you even more than it normally would’ve. You were tired and maybe just a little disheveled after a long evening of rough sex with that brute, but the stress of long work days and new routines doesn’t excuse the moment of weakness.
You like the work, anyway. You like humans, but – contrary to Shizu-chan’s ill-informed beliefs – that doesn’t mean that you can’t have a few other interests on the side.
“Like what, then?”
“How can I be expected to answer when you ask me out of the blue like that, Shizu-chan?” you remember wondering, and Shizuo’s omniscient grin pissed you off more than anything else had all day. So your temper was running a bit short; Shizuo’s is always ten times shorter, anyway.
“I know,” he murmured brightly after a moment of quiet thought, and his arms caging your chest from behind were almost more than you could handle. He had an idea, but he presented it as a challenge and you accepted without a second thought like the idiot you are.
You keep reminding yourself to think a little more when you’re with him, but he’s always trying hard to make things like that impossible for you.
It’s just – a trip to the beach? In America, the land of enormous platefuls of hugely caloric food and – and traveling for things like this is just a wasted effort, anyway, when the beaches in Japan are just as good!
“I hate you,” you tell him now, and he chuckles with his idiot hands comfortably filling the pockets of a worn pair of jeans. You wonder for the umpteenth time what, exactly, ever happened to his sudden outbursts – y’know, the ones he’s supposed to have almost every time you open your mouth to tease him.
They must have been blown clean away by the wind here – really, it’s incredible that anyone can stand to visit for all that it’s always gusting away at breakneck speed. It’s cold, anyway, but the stupid wind makes it freezing and it messes up your hair and clothes within moments of your first step out and onto squeaking sand. It throws that sand into your eyes and bites your legs and your patience is practically nil at this point because of it.
And, somehow, that also failed to keep you from joining Shizuo for a trip down to the blustery sand from the cozy beachfront house that you – naturally – paid for.
“You could’ve said no,” he reminds you. You’re not even sure whether he’s talking about this walk or the vacation at large, but to be honest it’s unnecessary either way. You know, but what’s done is done and you’re unhappy enough about it as it is.
No need to overthink – or, ah, maybe there is. Right – you’ve forgotten again, already…
“Don’t try to pretend that you wouldn’t have just nagged me about it until I gave in,” you snap as your foot catches on a half-buried piece of driftwood. You pitch forward but manage to right yourself without cutting your sentence short or accepting help from Shizu-chan. He makes an obvious move to catch you, of course, but you brush his arm aside and reject his wordless offer to warm your hand in his own.
“Take it easy,” he sighs.
“Vacations exist to be relaxing, Shizu-chan,” you complain.
Shizuo shakes his head. “You’re not letting yourself relax, though. Whaddaya expect?”
“Less wind,” you politely suggest. Shizuo responds with a scowl, but his irritation doesn’t show in the way he reaches over to take your hand by force.
“Still cold?”
You glare down at your feet as a familiar blush crawls its way up your neck and face. It certainly helps, but the price is the irritation of having to listen to Shizuo chuckling at your ages-old reaction. He never gets tired of it, and you can’t seem to make it disappear.
“Where are we going?” you wonder after a long interval of shiver-inducing cold that somehow manages to weasel its way completely past the should-be-impenetrable defense of your favorite jacket.
(The fur makes it look a lot warmer than it actually is, extra-heavy winter version of the usual one though it may be.)
Infuriatingly enough, Shizuo makes a point of tightening his grip on your hand every time you let your discomfort show via a shiver – the occasional sneeze – sniffling – that kind of thing.
“Just walking,” he decides.
“Shizu-chan – this beach never ends,” you whine.
“You didn’t have to come.”
“You wanted me to!”
He laughs. “Yeah, I did, but that’s ‘cause the thought of you wasting away in that stuffy little living room was honestly kinda depressing.”
“For your information, I –”
“You were working, right?”
You feel your face heat up all over again. Shizuo’s gotten disturbingly good at reading you – but, then again, it probably wouldn’t be too hard for anyone to guess that you’d try to comfort yourself with what might as well be your only vested interest right now. Americans are amusing, too, but you can feel Ikebukuro calling for you, and besides – it’d just be rude to ignore the many job requests that you’ve been receiving lately. You don’t even have to do any of the research in person; for the time being, simply working the vast web of hints and rumors and minor informants is sufficient.
It keeps you entertained, anyway.
“Is that a problem for you, Shizu-chan?”
The blonde smiles sheepishly and cradles the back of his neck in his hand. He’s incredibly awkward about it, but maybe that’s part of what you find so endearing in this monster of a man. “No,” he decides, “but this trip’s supposed to be like a long date” – his voice cracks at that and he glances away, down the beach and his own cheeks are suddenly dyed a healthy red – “right? So I’d like to see some things with you, walk around…”
“We can see things in ‘Bukuro.”
“This is special.”
You sigh. Shizuo cannot be reasoned with.
“Let’s get a little closer to the water,” you suggest. Neither of you is dressed to swim, of course, but at the very least you wouldn’t mind getting your toes wet as long as you’re all the way out here. If nothing else, it’s better than dragging out an argument that the two of you have already been carrying on and off for days.
“Sure,” Shizuo readily agrees. The look on his face says that he’s relieved by that small show of interest, but just to ensure that you get the message he tugs on your hand before suddenly quickening your shared pace.
Things like that piss you off, sometimes. You always used to assume that he was an awful person – not even human, actually, and while you may know now that he is at least that, that doesn’t mean that he’s on the same level as everyone else – but, really, he’s actually incredibly warm. Sweet. Funny. Sentimental, even, and you hate wondering just how much you actually deserve to be treated that way. He tolerates so much, refuses to get mad most of the time and even without that he’d have the looks to be a great catch.
It’s just that – well, it’s like you’re being indirectly pressured to change a little at a time. It’s like you can’t help doing that, either, and that’s as scary as it is infuriating. You sometimes feel just a little bit inferior to that brute, but he’s told you more than once that he envies just a few of your characteristics.
(Intelligence, for one, greater agility and I dunno, it’s just – like you think everything all the way through, Izaya.
Shizuo’s always been impulsive, too, but if he can say anything like that in all seriousness then he must still be at least partially oblivious to how he’s already started to affect you.)
It’s actually pretty funny that you can never stay mad, though, and for all that you hate it you know that you’ll never stop coming back for more.
It’s late evening, the sun’s just starting to go down, and you’re mad and cold and shouting to be heard. The dry sand slips frustratingly beneath your feet as you walk with Shizu-chan, and it really does sting. The wind is just right for picking up the top layer and sending it flying at dizzying speeds straight into the exposed flesh of your legs.
Shizuo – as pain-immune as ever, it seems – gestures with his hand at a bunch of clear pools just up ahead. “Tide pools, right? Wanna go check ‘em out?”
“You’re such a child, Shizu-chan,” you sigh patronizingly, but your mental image of Shizuo seeking out little fish and the sticky arms of sea anemones doesn’t prevent you from continuing to move toward the water with him in tow.
So now you’re the one leading the way, eyes maybe a little bit brighter than they were before and you’d never admit to it but you actually really like the idea of a happy Shizu-chan playing on the beach like some three-year-old kid. He doesn’t know that, probably, but he calls you on your moment of hypocrisy with a little annoyed sound – tongue and teeth and wordlessness and you barely hear it but that’s enough to qualify as communication when it’s just the two of you.
“Shut up,” you respond, and he clears his throat as if to feign innocence. His hand tightens again about yours, but the expression on his wind-stung face doesn’t change much. He’s watching you and you know it, but he can’t help his own interest in the ocean and these so-called tide pools and the tiny groups of people out laughing and playing and speaking a language that he doesn’t understand. It’s foreign to him and he’s maybe a little too easily impressed, but that’s why you call him a child.
Trying to hide your own fond smile, you quickly return your gaze to those tide pools. They’re unconnected to any of the ocean’s grand expanse, so tide pools they may technically be, but it’s immediately obvious now that there’s nothing living in them and that they are, after all, just a bunch of sand and salt – just like everything else, you decide with a little hint of returning bitterness.
Despite that, though, you can't help noticing that the water is still enough here that it reflects the brilliance of the setting sun and the silhouette of anyone who happens to lean way over the surface. You can see straight through to the bottom, and the sand in places is so waterlogged that it tries to suck the weight of your feet way down into it.
Shizuo laughs. “Wow, look – it’s like quicksand, sort of…”
Unthinking, you grin back up at him. “Try not to get lost in it, Shizu-chan. I wouldn’t be able to pull you back out.”
He frowns melodramatically. “I’m not that heavy, flea.”
Flea, huh – jeez, it’s really been a while since you’ve heard that one…
You’re – well, you, of course, so you’re quick to pick that up as yet another topic for brooding, and as your mind gradually returns to wandering you find that Shizuo’s tensed up beside you.
Anxious, maybe, because he wants to see you smiling and enjoying yourself. Because he hates that shell of yours, too, but he tries to tolerate it quietly like he does everything else. That doesn’t mean that he doesn’t work hard and discreetly to pull you out of it, but repeated failures – you remember that you’ve already passed a full week here in Oregon – must be wearing on him.
He doesn’t prompt you to continue the conversation, and so it dies again as easily as that.
It doesn’t matter, you tell yourself, and so you try to capture with words everything that you see around you. The mountains and the thick flesh of mint-green forest littered with tidy little dwellings and narrow roads. The closer rows of houses and apartments lining the dry sand farther up the beach. The sun reflecting off of everything, the rocks and broken shells and mammoth formations out in the water, wave-carved to resemble Greek arches.
It’s a form of control, maybe, and you’re not a poet but it is pretty enough and the languages of humans have always interested you, anyway. You know three already, which should give you plenty more options for long-winded and meaningless description.
In capturing everything, you’ll make it yours, and isn’t that good enough?
The fact that the wind is the only thing marring the smooth surface of the glassy, could-be-crystal (and lots more in Russian and English and Japanese) water’s not a big deal, but it does make you hate it that much more. It makes you hate that you haven’t passed the stupid tide pools yet, and actually you’ve hated the wind all along –
– and the cold and his hand breaking away from yours and the total absence, now, of anyone else but you and Shizuo on this stupid beach –
– but you hate the silence more than anything, after all, and you know that all that idiot sees when you finally glance up at the sky is the way your eyes briefly light up at the pink and purple and blue of the setting sun.
You lose track of the words – all of them, every single one in three languages and he just looks so – so –
– so good, framed by all of that, that you stop walking and let him slow beside you with his brown eyes wide and curious.
You notice – really notice, now, that chocolate-hazel glint as it’s magnified by the sun’s gold – so that his eyes practically glow, themselves, and your chest tightens as you realize it.
He’s really doing his best, and all of it – every ounce of his tireless devotion and muted effort – is for you. He’s the one that got away only to come back, and no matter how much you push he’ll never disappear completely.
You’ve known it all along, but the pain and pleasure of realizing it anew has never gotten old. It won’t, either, and that just goes to show how incredible your Shizu-chan’s patience actually is.
This is his fault. It’s a vacation. So maybe it wouldn’t hurt to thank him, just once…
“Sorry,” you murmur, and this time you don’t look away.
“Sorry?” he repeats, quizzically with his head half-tilted to one side.
“You look tired…”
(It basically translates to an acknowledgment of all the hard work he puts into things like this, but skip as many steps as that and there’s just a little too much room for interpretation.
You’ll have to try harder…)
“Nah,” he sighs, not really seeing where you’re going with this but playing along all the same. “I was kinda thinking the same thing – ‘bout you, though.”
You shake your head. Take his hand back and hold it awkwardly in your own, smaller one.
“I’m fine, and you know what? I like the beach,” you decide, “because I like you, Shizu-chan.”
He blushes and tries to turn away – of course – but you catch him with a kiss and don’t let go until you’re sure that you’ve regained his totally undivided attention.
“I-Izaya, thanks – I guess, but –” he splutters, looking more distracted than ever now but nevertheless lending you very willingly whatever concentration he’s still clinging to.
You cut to the chase because you feel like an idiot and it’s cold here and maybe – just maybe – you’d like to get rid of some of the guilt that’s been accumulating over the long haul of awkward days, unsentimental complaints and wordless refusals…
“You try too hard, Shizu-chan,” you note, and before he can even really start to get annoyed you clarify, “but that might be a good thing, ne? It couldn’t hurt for me to contribute a bit every now and then, too.”
Shizuo stares blankly down at you for what must be a long time. The wind – it’s still as strong and mercilessly loud as ever, so maybe it’s a miracle that you can even hear each other – drags several strands of blonde into his eyes, temporarily blinding him so that he has to reach up and fix it.
He takes another moment to look at you after that, too – wide-eyed and anxious, still, but now he seems to have some greater sense of purpose. Maybe it’s that that has him pulling you down to sit on the sand beside him, cross-legged and apparently completely unconcerned by the wetness that’s already seeping through your clothes, too. It feels like melted ice and you’re about to complain about it when Shizuo sighs, low and deep with his hand dipping into one of the nearby tide pools.
“You don’t have to force yourself to like it,” he offers, and to your surprise the wind is somehow a little quieter this low to the ground. “I want you to like it ‘cause it’s fun, not ‘cause I’m – um – ‘trying too hard.’”
The way he says it, like he doesn’t agree at all or maybe like he’s embarrassed that you’ve noticed.
“It’s fun,” you decide. “It’s not entirely my thing, Shizu-chan, but” – you laugh, made giddy, almost, by the lightness you can sometimes feel when Shizuo says clumsy things like that – “you are – or hadn’t you noticed?”
Shizuo raises an eyebrow. “Hasn’t been obvious lately.”
“That hurts! Besides,” and you lean in to kiss him again, “you’re supposed to just know.”
He blushes. You can practically feel his heart pounding in his chest.
“Y-yeah, okay,” he stammers, still red-cheeked and bright-eyed, “so why’ve you been complaining so much, then?”
You sigh and cozy up to Shizuo’s chest; he’s incredibly warm, almost feverishly so, and you remember again why it is that the cold doesn’t bother him the way it bothers you. You – you’re more sensitive than the average person to things like weather and temperature.
That and a million other things have always made the two of you perfect opposites.
“Sorry,” you repeat. “Um… Can we just call it force of habit and leave it at that, Shizu-chan?”
You expect him to answer quickly, not with words but with a tired grunt or maybe a sigh, and when he doesn’t you quickly start to worry. You give him time, not wanting to learn too soon that you’ve genuinely – and maybe finally – managed to piss him off.
Still nothing after several minutes, though, so you start to pull away –
– and Shizuo, startled and slightly annoyed, catches you by your upper arm and pulls you right back, closer now with your head tucked under his chin and his warm scent filling your head.
You really can feel his heart beating, now, and a lighthearted chuckle from Shizuo guarantees that he can feel yours, as well.
“You want something,” he murmurs with his lips moving slow and hot beside your hair, “tell me. I don’t mind helping at all, alright?”
“Okay,” you squeak, embarrassed now and really very happy that Shizu-chan can’t see your face. “Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it,” he laughs. “It’s not like I wanna force you to change or anything, Izaya. Just want you to relax a little.”
You choke on whatever you were about to say, and when you shiver it’s not even because you’re cold. You struggle closer to Shizuo anyway, though, throw your arms around him and duck away from his quizzical gaze – can’t let him see the tears, after all, ‘cause it’d more than just humiliating if he saw you crying for sheer happiness.
This is one of those moments – the rare ones that find you so happy that you’re in tears and furious, unable to believe even after all these years that Shizuo can read and treat you so well.
What you want, you have. It’s right here – he’s right here, and for all that you complain and repeat the same old mistakes and offenses again and again, every day of every week and all the months wound about the year’s smallest finger, you know – both of you do – that nothing’s ever gonna put an end to what you have.