So. I have well and truly fallen into temptation.

This will be a two or three shot. Depends on how Izaya's feeling.

1: Bon Voyage

It starts with a hypothesis: Izaya does not mesh well with crazy people. At all.

Of course, he can deal with them every so often, watch them from afar and snicker gently - and sometimes not so gently - about their character faults, as long as it's only every so often. And he's aware that most people call him crazy, but it's just not true. Izaya is perfectly sane most days of the week. Or most hours of the day. Or most minutes of the hour. After you break it down to the milliseconds, his peculiar brand of psychopathy doesn't seem so bad. So.

So.

Izaya can honestly say that he can't stand crazy people. And honesty to him is like virginity to other people - it comes naturally until adolescence kicks in. Does that mean that he never tells the truth? Maybe. Then again, maybe not. Izaya likes to think that his childhood never happened, so how can anything be true or false to a man like that?

Screw reality. Just screw it. Mash it, squeeze it, crush crush crush! Izaya loves doing this. It's his version of community service, if you will. Insert a faintly disturbing smile here and push the button. Add a tilde or two, and if something really messed up along the way, you'll get another Orihara Izaya. Yes, two in the same city. Izaya would be delighted. The rest of humanity, not so much. Shizu-chan is firmly and immovably in that category of people who would not want another Izaya, ever, not even to save his life. Then again, Shizu-chan doesn't exactly need help to stay alive....most of the time.

It's been years, but Izaya remembers each and every exception to the rule as if they happened yesterday. Ikebukuro's strongest man is still a man, and no human is perfectly self-sufficient.

My, what a tangent.

Let's rewind a little bit: Izaya does not mesh well with crazy people. However, crazy people are usually human - headless fairies excepted. And Orihara Izaya loves humans to the point of death and beyond. In other words, he doesn't get along very well with the people that he's sworn to love. These two statements put side by side do not seem to make much sense, not even to Izaya himself, but he's not willing to give up either - because both are absolutely true. What to do, what to do?

Well, it's no good worrying about such things in your head. Izaya firmly believes in the power of trial and error to solve every problem in the universe, including his own. Trial and error in this case means talking to humans on the street - random or not - to see how he naturally reacts to them. By the end of the day, it should be obvious which part of him is stronger, the part that loves humans or the part that...doesn't. At first, Izaya plans to follow through with the whimsical idea on some ambiguous to-be-determined date in the future. It just so happens that he gets the perfect chance to test his aforementioned hypothesis much sooner than expected, on a beautiful morning in early spring.

A beautiful, snowy morning.

The kind that Izaya wakes up to with an enormous smile on his face - because he has a good feeling about the day ahead. He swings on his fur jacket (the only time of the year that it doesn't look out of place) and after pacing around the house looking for his gloves, he ends up leaving home without them. The air is cold, frosty, and full of living people. His good mood only gets better from there.

The first stop is an empty alleyway where he finds a dead man, or rather, a man who wants to fake his own death. It's probably for the life insurance money, but Izaya's not interested in petty personal details like that. The man is only important because he's the first one. Nothing more, nothing less. Fifteen minutes later, Izaya is completely and totally and utterly bored. Really, it's not fun when the prey drops down on his knees and begs for mercy.

Oh, well. It gives him another Very Good Idea, so Izaya doesn't care all that much. He whispers into the man's ear, feels him trembling, and leaves the anonymous victim behind in the snow. Then he forgets about the not-quite-dead man completely because there are such pretty snowflakes on his shoes and he almost destroyed them by skipping down the stairs. Hmmm. Perhaps he should not skip around today.

...Alright, it's decided then. No skipping until the snow is ready to melt.

He nods to himself with beautiful satisfaction and continues down the street.

The thick wad of cash extorted from the pleading man bounces lightly against his coat pocket. It's not normal for him to accept money in return for silence, but today Izaya feels like breaking his routine a little bit. He might as well. Experiments do imply a bit of experimentation, don't they? Besides, his food storage at home is getting sort of empty. Russia Sushi is a marvelous sight to see right after making the decision to buy food; he goes inside for obvious reasons.

Tuna, codfish, a tiny bit of mushroom, wasabi, garlic, and peppermint. It's surprisingly delicious. The cars in the window are whizzing by like dynamite shrapnel. Izaya watches the wheels spin around and around, then he watches a stray cat on the curb watch the wheels spin around and around. Five minutes later, he finishes his meal and has the random urge to order catnip sushi.

It drops out of his bag and onto the street as he walks away.

He doesn't bother to pick it up. It's snowing, after all...and he has places to go, people to see.

Far from that intersection, he rocks on the balls of his feet and draws an enormous smiley face on the sidewalk. A number of people stop to watch him, mostly bewildered to see an adult acting just like a child. He's pleased. While there are many ways to draw a crowd, simple things like this always work best. Seeing as there are plenty of targets to choose from, it takes a while for Izaya to make a decision. In the end - that is, ten minutes later - he goes with a woman that has cotton-soft blond hair tucked tightly under a gray cap like tiny beansprouts, not because she looks special, but because...Just because.

The quick choice may have something to do with the fact that Shizu-chan has been making his way over for the past two minutes or so. Izaya can hear him roaring from a mile away. Literally.

Oh my, isn't it a little bit early for the bodyguard to be running away from work?

...Oh, bother.

The beansprout hair woman disappears from his vision - probably because there is a blur of black and white and gold dashing towards him like a bullet. With the firm handle of the switchblade sliding over his palm, Izaya says, "Hello, Shizu-chan."

"Izzzzzaaaaayyyaaaa," hisses the black and white and gold blur, and then they are trying to dance like water buffalos in a muddy swamp. Snow isn't very good for fighting, unfortunately.

As for the snowflakes on his shoes that he has been so carefully protecting...well, they die. When Izaya finally notices, he is almost traumatized by Shizuo's plan-breaking talents. Really, there seems to be nothing in Izaya's life that is immune to the blonde man's interference. He decides once and for all to accept the hypothesis, because if getting along with crazy people means getting along with people like Shizu-chan, then it's just not happening. Survival instincts strain against their chains; he kicks them back and throws his entire weight into a thick slash up and down Shizuo's chest.

He misses the major organs on purpose, mostly because he doesn't like disembowelment in the middle of the street. An empty alleyway would be better for that kind of business, but there isn't a single one close enough to lure the violent Shizu-chan into.

Instead, he slashes again, down and down. Shizu-chan retaliates with a vending machine and two trash cans that spill rotten milk all over the snow. The thick fluid sinks in and disappears completely. Izaya blinks and approves. Apparently, even Shizu-chan has a soft spot for picturesque wintry weather.

Bonding moments like this are Izaya's favorite, but today he's missing the usual warm and fuzzy feelings.

"Izaaaaayyyyyyyaqaaaa!"

It's not even fun to be chased around.

Saddened and disappointed in Shizu-chan's failure to cheer him up, Izaya decides to cut the meeting short in order to appease his wet jacket. The fur against his neck is limp with melted snow and he worries that the damage might be permanent. He also worries that his love for humans might be broken somehow, like a cellphone that's been held underwater too long. Maybe a vacation from all this planning business will do him good. He has been working extra hard to wake Celty's head, so doesn't he deserve a break?

Hmmmm. A vacation.

Would Shizu-chan be willing to let him stay in Ikebukuro if he promises not to talk to anyone?

...

Probably not. Shizu-chan is still Shizu-chan. The result is several hundred times more likely to be another fight.

Izaya resolves to ask at the earliest opportunity.

And the earliest opportunity is chasing him down with a stop sign. How convenient.