Fraternising With the Enemy

Disclaimer: Durarara isn't mine.

It was in the middle of July and the weather was stupidly hot. In a place like Ikebukuro, there was little reprieve from the heat. Days in particular made most of the residents feel like they were melting into the tarmac. The only time anyone felt like leaving their homes was at night where the temperature was at least bearable. Because of this, the centre of Ikebukuro was full of people that evening, all in one large heaving mass.

Most of these were normal people going from A to B in an attempt to get on with their lives. Some of these people were not so normal; and it just so happened that two of these unusual individuals were unwittingly on a collision course.

The first of these two was a tall young man with bleached hair and a bartender's uniform. In stark contrast to his violent reputation, Shizuo Heiwajima was strolling at a leisurely pace behind his employer Tom. This had been a good day in that he hadn't harmed anyone, something that did not occur as often as he would've liked.

Lighting a cigarette, he watched the crowds as he walked past with a slight interest. Tom was currently on the phone so there was no one to talk to. Because of his tendency to violence, people often avoided him. This meant he was quite a lonely person. Not that he'd complain about it. There weren't many people to complain to for a start.

Whilst Shizuo was moving dreamily up one way, Izaya Orihara was skipping down the other. He was in a great mood. A few more people had taken the bait on one of those suicide forums and now 'Nakura' was on his way to meet them. The wide smile on his face and the skip in his step was the opposite of what you'd expect from an apparently suicidal person.

Once they reached the middle of the street, Shizuo's eyes found themselves settling on what seemed to be a familiar figure in the crowd. The energetic movements and smug expression meant that this person was unmistakable. Before his brain could process this recognition, his body had gone on to automatic and he was ripping a bin up from the ground and launching it at his enemy.

Izaya had little warning but as he could see the bin flying at him, he was able to move out of the way slightly. The bin still managed to clip his arm, which obviously hurt like a bitch.

"Iiiizaayyaa-Kun!" The guttural growl was well known and any passers-by who had witnessed the flying bin moved quickly to get out of the way.

"That really wasn't nice Shizu-chan." Although he tried to act calm, inwardly Izaya was seething. This was just typical. Whenever he had plans something like this just had to screw with them.

"I told you to stay out of Ikebukuro, Izaya-kun." Shizuo's eye was twitching and his hands were clenching and unclenching as he reached out towards a stop sign.

"I've got people to meet Shizu-chan, can't we leave this for today?" A very unlikely occurrence but it was worth a try.

"Not until I've pummelled you." And with a roar of rage, Shizuo swung the sign round, narrowly missing Izaya and leaving a crack in a nearby building.

This only angered Shizuo more since he'd failed in his mission and so he pressed forward, swinging wildly as he went. Tom hadn't bothered to follow, choosing to stay back until the destruction was over. As this happened so often, Izaya easily dodged and dived out of the way. Because of the ease with which he did this, he was unprepared for anything unexpected.

In this case, it was an empty packet on the floor. Shizuo swung at Izaya's head with the aim of knocking it off of his smug body, and as Izaya went to move out of the way, his foot landed on the packet and slipped sideways. He had managed to move out of the way enough to avoid a head on collision but the sign still clipped the side of his head. As he saw the metal coming towards him, all he could think was: this is going to hurt like hell. Then everything went black.

The sign made a loud clanging noise and then Izaya's limp body collapsed on to the ground. Shizuo could only stare as his rage started to subside. He'd actually managed to hit Izaya; finally given the bastard what was coming to him.

"Holy shit." Tom had run over and was looking worried. If Shizuo had murdered someone in the street, this was worse than his usual beatings. Reluctantly he leant down to check the lifeless figure for a pulse. "Oh thank god." This he could live with.

"The little bastard's alive?" It was typical of the smarmy bastard to survive what would kill most people.

"Luckily. Covering up a murder is not on my to do list." They both were distracted from their conversation by Izaya starting to twitch. Slowly his eyes opened, the one on his left side already starting to show a mark from the impact.

For a minute he lay and stared up at the ground, his eyes struggling to focus. Shizuo was starting to feel his rage returning and picked up the sign again, ready to finish the job. The man on the ground had noticed the movement and glanced in Shizuo's direction.

"Why can't you just die?" He swung the sign back again and instead of moving, Izaya closed his eyes and flinched. There had even been a small amount of fear there. The unexpected action confused Shizuo who moved his weapon slightly and implanted the sign into the ground next to Izaya's head. Both of them were panting and staring at each other.

"Shizuo?" Tom slowly moved forwards. "What's going on?"

"What the fuck are you trying to pull?"

"…Why are you angry?" He sounded uncertain, something that had never happened in all the time he had known him.

"You… You know why I'm angry! It's your fault!"

"Um… Who are you?" This was met with a stunned silence.

"…Are you fucking with me?" His eyebrow was twitching and the veins on his forehead were bulging. Izaya, flinching in pain from the hit on the head he'd taken earlier, slowly sat up. His head was killing him, his body hurt whenever he moved, and on top of all that he had another question to ask. As the blonde man was currently twitching with repressed hate, he decided to direct this question to the other guy who seemed much friendlier.

"Can I ask you something?"

"Ok?"

"…Who am I?" Tom and Shizuo just stared. This was definitely beyond the scale of weirdness that they were used to.

-Page Break-

Shizuo sat on the black, leather armchair, tapping his foot on the ground and glaring across the room at Tom who was pretending not to notice. Shizuo hadn't known what to do. On the one hand he could've easily killed Izaya. But he wasn't a monster, no matter what people called him. Even he couldn't bring himself to attack someone who apparently didn't know what they'd done. If he was telling the truth anyway. Shizuo doubted this was the case.

Tom had been the one who'd suggested they should take him to see Shinra. The guy knew Izaya well so would spot the fakery, and they wouldn't have to feel as if they were leaving an injured person alone on the street. Izaya had struggled to stand up and so Tom had had to let him lean up against him. Shizuo had downright refused to touch him.

When they'd explained the situation to Shinra he had been sceptical, but once he'd clocked Izaya's confused expression, he'd led him into a back room. Shizuo and Tom were waiting in the front room in tense silence.

"What's taking him so long?"

"Just try to relax. We're going to find out what's going on." Tom knew the man was getting frustrated and tried to speak in a soothing tone. Personally he wanted to know what had happened. He was being kind of nosy. When Shinra emerged, he almost recoiled at the intense stare he received from both of the men.

"Well?" Shinra had ducked behind the doorway.

"…You guys are kind of intimidating."

"Just tell us what happened!" Shinra sighed and stepped out.

"How hard did you hit him?"

"Hard."

"Right…" What else could he have expected from Shizuo? "Well whatever you did, he doesn't seem to remember anything. Names, places… Weird right?" His interest wasn't shared by the others.

"And?"

"And?"

"What can you do about it?"

"Nothing. In this kind of situation you just have to wait to see if he remembers anything on his own."

"I see…" Shizuo stood up. As far as he as concerned that was the end of it. The man was 'fine' so he could leave.

"Where are you going?"

"Home."

"Um…" He really didn't like the way Shinra was hesitating. "Do you think you could maybe take Izaya with you…?"

"What?!" Shinra physically recoiled from the volume.

"He can't really stay on his own at home since I don't know if he can look after himself…"

"You have him!" They had apparently been friends in middle school after all.

"I can't! I'm too busy."

"You're too busy? You?! You're basically a shut-in, you never bloody do anything!"

"Ouch. Harsh. I do work from home thank you very much! Besides… I don't want to be dealing with him right now."

"You think I do?!" Shizuo had never been able to stand the little bastard so that didn't make sense at all.

"Well it was your fault." This he regretted saying instantly as Shizuo stuck his fist through the wall. "Ah! I just had that re-plastered!" Things like this happened frequently with Shizuo around.

"Send him to his family or friends or something!"

"His family aren't the nurturing type… And he doesn't have anyone he could ask." He'd tried phoning Izaya's secretary but she had just said 'good' and hung up.

"Why are we even talking about this? He's faking it!" Izaya was clever so you could never trust him.

"I don't think he is Shizuo." Tom could remember how confused he'd seemed. That would've been hard to fake, even for Izaya.

The fact that both of them appeared to be yelling at him meant that Shizuo was getting very frustrated. Deep breathing had never helped in calming him down and so he decided to get rid of his rage in the usual way; taking it out on random furniture.

"Wait! I like that table! Shizu-… Ah. Well… I guess it does look better in the middle of the road…" Celty was going to be livid when she got home.

"Just tell him to leave!" If they threw him out, he'd have to give up playing that stupid game and go home.

"Would you throw a small kid out in the middle of the street in an unfamiliar place? Because it would be the same thing."

"It would be if he wasn't lying. Can't we just take him back to his apartment?"

"It's not just that he'd have problems looking after himself. People don't really like Izaya… As you well know. A lot of people might see this as an opportunity."

"So you want me to be his babysitter and his bodyguard?" A chair joined the table in the middle of the street.

"…Please stop destroying my home."

"Right! I am going to prove to you guys that he is a fucking liar!"

Shizuo stormed out of the room, slamming open all the doors in the hallway until he found the room Izaya was in. The man was sat on some kind of examining table (Shinra was running an underground surgery in his home after all) and staring blankly at the wall. When he saw the person he recognised as the man who had tried to kill him earlier, he didn't look overly keen.

"You! Stop fucking around!"

"Fucking around?" Izaya tensed up. This man kept yelling at him and trying to attack him. He didn't know what it was that he had done either.

"You little-." Shizuo was at him in seconds, grabbing him on the shoulder and forcing him into the wall. As this was the same shoulder that he had clipped with the bin earlier, it hurt a lot.

"Please! That really hurts!" He was grimacing. His arm felt like it was about to be wrenched out of its socket.

"Admit you're faking it!"

"I don't know what you mean." The confusion, pain and general exhaustion meant that he couldn't deal with this situation very well. It was a horrible feeling but he couldn't help it. He started crying.

"What are you-?"

"Please let go! I don't know what you're talking about. Just let go, please. I don't know what I did but I'm really sorry." Izaya Orihara was crying. And begging. No matter how good he was at faking it, Izaya had too much pride to do anything like that. He wasn't sure the man was capable of emotion. Shizuo released the man and backed off, staring with a mixture of horror and revulsion. Shinra and Tom had waited for the shouting to stop before they went to survey the damages.

"Damn Shizuo, I'm gonna need to give him something for that arm now."

"He's not faking it."

"He isn't." Tom could understand why the man was shocked. "What are you going to do?"

"What?"

"Someone needs to keep an eye on him, it might be better if it was you."

"Why me?" If anything he was the worst person.

"Because if anyone tries to kill him, you can defend yourself. We can't so much." This made more sense. People didn't like to screw around with Shizuo.

"…If no one else will do it." If Tom insisted then he would have to. He owed the guy a lot after all. "But when his memory comes back, I'm killing him."

"Fair enough." Shinra had heard this exchange and breathed a sigh of relief. Celty wouldn't have liked having Izaya in the house. And he wouldn't remember that she was headless either, something that would probably lead to panic.

"Izaya?" The man looked at Shinra. "That's Shizuo. You're going to be staying with him until you feel better, ok?"

"Him?" It seemed Izaya shared Shizuo's opinion. "But he hates me."

"It's ok. He's actually a nice guy, he just has a bit of a temper." Izaya glanced back at Shizuo, staring at him like a watchful feral cat.

"Can I go then?" If he had to take Izaya home, he'd just take him back and stick him in his flat so he could leave him there. As long as he kept an eye on the man and made sure he didn't die (until he regained his memories at least), that was all he needed to do.

"Yep!" Shinra hopped up and handed Shizuo a small paper bag. "Painkiller for his shoulder. Just in case."

"Fine." Shizuo looked over at Izaya, who was still giving him that uneasy stare. "You. Get up." It was hard to know how to talk to the man since they never spoke civilly. Not to mention the fact that Shizuo wasn't much of a talker either. Izaya reluctantly got to his feet, almost falling over as he did.

"Maybe you should carry him?" Shinra regretted saying this when he saw Shizuo's face.

"Maybe you should shut your mouth."

This is a random fic I felt like writing so I'm just gonna try it out and see how it goes :3 It's probably been done before but I wanted to try this story and if I don't upload it, it's unlikely to get finished XD Thanks for reading and any feedback would be much appreciated.