Industrial pollution veiled Ikebukuro in a manufactured dusk, gritty and translucent, as the midday sky arched above. Izaya roamed the streets, the rivers which carved the valley of buildings, restlessly, almost studiously. His head curved around corners, his hands twitched impatiently on the alley walls and storefronts where he rested them, paused in his search.

Shizu-chan...

It was one of those days when Izaya's feet felt perfectly quick, when his adrenaline was poised on springs, when his head was clear, transparent with venom. One of those days that required an outlet.

"Shizu-chaaaaan?" He tweaked his voice up at the end like a schoolgirl and grinned at the echo as it ricocheted between concrete surfaces.

He manipulated his voice like a lure, and the fool always took the bait.

Today, though, the fool was slower to bite. Izaya's cocky smile acquired confused eyes as the informant grew increasingly vexed.

Today was not always. Today was different.

Today is new!

With that thought, Izaya abandoned his confusion. The reason for Shizuo's absence, Izaya was sure, would prove to be a pleasurable investigation. He skipped further into the core of the city with the malicious glee of an imp.

Shizuo stepped over the pile of unfortunately bold gangmembers at his feet, dusting his hands on his pants. The minor slashes and jabs he received were still bleeding, but wouldn't be for much longer; they were papercuts to the bodyguard.

Shizuo focused on these small things, inspected himself, searching for an excuse not to acknowledge the murmuring onlookers surrounding him. He pushed efficiently past them and ambled on his way.

I hate violence.

The thought blew away as swiftly as it blew in as traces of a certain familiar scent caught his nose.

"It stinks," Shizuo muttered, and his step quickened.

They met on either side of a skinny road snaking through a maze of back alleys. Shizuo's hackles raised at the sight of the informant perched nonchalantly on a garbage can.

"There you are! You've kept me waiting an awfully long time, Shizu-chan." Izaya hopped off his seat, the sharp ruby red of his eyes glinting with amusement.

"I have no obligation to you, fucking FLEA!" Shizuo ground his cigarette against the pavement and sprang forward, feeling his newly clotted wounds stretch and disregarding them completely.

The steep angry V of Shizuo's brow, the lumbering thump of his footfalls, the gravel in his obscenity-ridden voice grating against the heavens...Izaya laughed out loud.

"I missed you, Shizu-chan! Ever so much!"

Izaya twirled a good distance in front of the belabored bodyguard, tempting a comfortable fate, one he knew all too well. His joy was in eluding it. He turned onto one of the sidestreets as his former seat-the garbage can-missed him by an inch.

Shizuo stumbled after, face red with exertion, the consequence of underestimating his injuries. The reopened wounds trickled down along with sweat. He made the same turn in a sloppy, wide arc, expecting to catch merely a glimpse of Izaya's cowardly ass far in the distance.

Shizuo instead stopped cold in front of the informant sitting cross-legged in the middle of a dead-end alley. There was not a soul in sight.

"Were you going to give up?" Two beats of a smug chuckle slapped Shizuo's stunned face. Then...

"I-ZA-YAAAAAAAA"

The yell, to Shizuo, was almost a rallying cry. With that yell, Shizuo found the place inside him devoted to hating the man before him, the deep well of black which supplied the hatred to his bloodstream, pushing it throughout his veins.

Even his major arteries despised the guy.

Everything in Shizuo despised Izaya Orihara.

And that everything ran at Izaya with full force.

Izaya sat waiting. The arrogance on his face was familiar, but-

Why isn't he running?

Izaya had decided: today would be different.

In a flying leap, arms encircled neck, legs clung around waist, and before Shizuo could even remove his glasses, lips met lips.

And bit.

And drew blood.

Instinct tensed Shizuo's muscles against Izaya, but the informant anticipated resistance. He swiftly slipped his tongue past Shizuo's lips, raked it across the roof of his mouth. Shizuo froze with unspeakable horror, now conscious past instinct of what was happening.

The experiment so far tasted to Izaya of cigarettes and the blackness in Shizuo's veins. He recognized the latter for what it was as he sucked on the bite he inflicted.

"Love you too, Shizu-chan~!" Izaya squeezed Shizuo tighter in his legs' grip.

"Love, ehe." The informant removed Shizuo's sunglasses, tossed them to the ground, began playing with Shizuo's hair.

"Tell me, Shizu-chan. How does a beast like yourself find release? Have you kept some...convenient acquaintances from the bar? Or perhaps you guard Tanaka's body more closely than I thought-"

"ENOUGH."

Shizuo hurled Izaya to the ground. Izaya clung just stubbornly enough, though, to send Shizuo staggering with momentum.

"You damn flea." Shizuo reached for his sunglasses, but Izaya was there first.

"Ahaha!" Izaya put the glasses on, flipping them up and down on his face.

"Blue! Not blue! Blue!"

"Give those back, you bastard louse!"

Shizuo lunged for him, but Izaya scuttled back against the dead end wall in the nick of time. He dropped the glasses into his pants while sticking out his tongue.

"Come and get 'em, nya~"

Shizuo gritted his teeth, his wounds streaming dangerously.

"Damn...you..."

He lurched against the pain, which was more annoying than crippling, progressing menacingly toward his dark-haired target like a slow but inevitable horror movie monster.

"Get...my glasses...OUT OF YOUR PANTS!"

"Mmh, I'm feeling lazy. Make me."

Suddenly Shizuo blocked out the sun, looming over Izaya in an ominous crouch. He made quick work of Izaya's belt, and his hands clamped down solidly on waistband.

R-r-r-ip.

Shizuo's grip split the pants on one side, tearing through a pocket and and all the way down Izaya's thigh.

"I'm sure your strength becomes you in the bedroom, eh?"

"SHUT UP."

After a bout of repulsed groping, Shizuo's hand closed over the glasses and yanked them out of their unsavory location. They would require a power washing, or perhaps a chemical shower, before he could don them again. Shizuo slipped them disgustedly into his pocket.

"You brute!" The mock distress in Izaya's voice recaptured Shizuo's attention.

Izaya lay askew before him, jacket falling off his back, shirt forced up to his chest, exposing thin stomach, underwear barely keeping his dignity beneath the gaping tear in his pants. He tossed his head dramatically.

"Just look at me! You've done everything short of ravishing me, you monster!" He dropped the act and whipped his head toward Shizuo.

"Whaddya say you finish the job?"

"You sick sonofabitch." Shizuo curled his hands around Izaya's throat, blunt fingernails digging into the skin of the informant's neck.

"I always-pegged you-for liking it rough." Izaya choked out the words, still retaining his insolence as the vice tightened on his throat. He shimmied his pants down to his ankles, shrugged completely out of his coat, inclined his head as much as Shizuo's grip allowed, and teased the bodyguard's ear with a stifled whisper:

"Are you-telling me-the great Shizuo Heiwajima-requires love to fuck?"

Shizuo's grip slackened a fraction of a bit in surprise.

It was all Izaya needed. The informant's smile widened before he promptly ran his tongue up Shizuo's jaw.

I want...to cut myself on this bone. To impale myself on him, over and over and over and over! He's just far too pretty. Far to pretty for me to let him go today...

Shizuo sprang away like a sailor who's glimpsed a Siren and knows the myth. Izaya didn't give up; he sauntered toward Shizuo on hands and knees.

He was a live pheromone: His eyelashes were each transformed into beckoning fingers, his shoulders, sloping side-to-side with every step, called to mind those of a sinuous wildcat. His mouth curved in a wicked grin. He wriggled out of his shoes as he crawled and let his pants slip off to lie behind him in the dust of the street.

"Why?" Shizuo's shock immobilized him, reduced him to single syllables. He was sweating with restraint. Restraint against what, he refused to acknowledge.

"Why, you ask?"

Izaya breached Shizuo's lap, grinding deliberately as he maneuvered himself into place. "I was just craving...a change of scenery."

He illustrated exactly what type of scenery he meant as he fingered the button of Shizuo's pants.

Shizuo swatted Izaya's nimble fingers away. Izaya knew the bodyguard was now putty in his hands, and regarded this final, halfhearted act of defiance as extremely cute. He thought better of disclosing this thought. He waited patiently.

Eventually, he was rewarded. Shizuo lowered his head and wordlessly picked up where Izaya left off.

As soon as the pants were down, Izaya smashed his mouth against Shizuo's, hard enough, he hoped, to bruise. Shizuo tore the informant's shirt open, pinned him to the nearest wall by his wrists, forced his tongue roughly into the kiss. Izaya reciprocated; Their tongues twisted over, under, interlocked with each other, searching for the deepest, rudest possible angles. It was more of an infiltration than a kiss.

A low growl rumbled through Shizuo. He ripped his tongue out of Izaya's mouth, connecting a string of saliva to the base of the informant's neck. He seized the pressure point there mercilessly between his teeth, drawing deep satisfaction from the mark he knew he would leave.

A guttural shriek of pleasure wound out of Izaya. His head arched back, pressing against the wall as his hips bucked spasmodically.

His blood was up. So was Shizuo's, a physical manifestation of what they were both feeling.

Izaya's glazed eyes followed his underwear's trajectory into the sky.

"You're bent on destroying my clothes, it seems."

"Talk to me when you've paid for all my busted shirts."

Shizuo spat on his hand, greased himself up, folded Izaya's legs up and back.

"Not even a finger?"

"In your dreams."

Izaya sighed at the sky. "Ah, well. Worth a shot."

Shizuo pulled no punches. The pain was immediate. A searing, rhythmic pain that melted Izaya's mind down to its most simplistic desires. Each jab shook Izaya's breath, and the informant found himself clinging to the bodyguard.

Shizuo laughed. A genuine, hearty laugh to see Izaya's fists balled up in his shirt and the stricken impression on his face.

"How do you like this scenery, flea?"

Somehow Izaya was still able to smirk.

"It's worthy of a picture, I think."

It didn't take long. They collapsed into a panting heap when all was said and done, dirtied and fervent. Izaya pulled his jacket back on and zipped it up all the way. Shizuo watched with a tired grin on his face.

"You'd do well on a street corner in that, I think."

"Heh." Izaya stood slowly, cautiously. "Today was fun, huh?"

"'Fun' is the word you use?"

"I had a blast."

With that Izaya leaned down and kissed Shizuo in his hair. He departed with a final ruffle and his footsteps faded into the city once more. Shizuo remained in the alley a while after. He reached for his glasses, remembered where they'd been, and dropped his hand in revulsion. Instead, he lit a cigarette and crossed his arms behind his head.

"Till next time, flea."

~~~End

A/N: Alright. So feelings. I'm not really sure what this thing is but it was fun to write and I love Shizaya so...cheers. And a good day.