• EDIT: May 1 2010. Apparently this site screwed up my formatting yet again. I hope it's easier to read now. For the fully-formatted versions of my fics (and for more fics, in general), please visit my livejournal page, which is linked in my profile :D Thank you for reading!

» title. Point Blank
» summary. They keep on missing each other. Shizuo and Izaya, across different worlds, across different lives.
» classification. PG-13 • references to canon (some vague, some more obvious), AUs, hints at reincarnation • Shizuo/Izaya, hints of Izaya/Kida, Izaya/Mikado, Kida/Mikado, Celty/Shinra, Shizuo/Celty~ • 3616 words
» dedication. to caffeinexsugar (livejournal) :D Happy Birthday to you! :3

Reviews, comments, criticisms are always welcome :)

•
•

They keep on missing each other.

•
•

"This is why humans are so interesting," Izaya stifles a giggle—he is human, but unlike the rest of the world, he is aware of each of his little faults: and that includes his propensity for giving into manic laughter at socially-inappropriate moments—as he watches the revered ceremony on the platform elevated from the masses of mafia families gathered in lavishly-decked tables. "So, so interesting!"

Ryuugamine Mikado is being crowned as the inheritor of the Vongola Seal, as the boss of the mafia family that stands above the piles of corpses in the underground world. Such a meek boy with such a grandiose name—Izaya is sure to enjoy tugging on the feather-light strings (as sharp as diamonds if he wills them to be) in the future, like he did in the past.

The boy with folded shoulders as the king of the underworld is laughable and bone-chilling at once—Izaya remembers a certain moment regarding pens against guns and swords and it is bone-chilling indeed—but even more interesting than that is the knowledge that only Izaya knows (for know, but if any others know, it's because he will grace them with the knowledge and definitely not because they discovered it).

The knowledge that the boy's best friend, most trusted friend is the leader of the rival mafia family with as much history as Vongola—yes, Izaya lives for this type of thing, for this type of potential strife, for this type of unraveling anguish. Ahh, yes, Izaya can almost taste the salty tears that these pawns will shed, can almost see the bitter blood that will burst from arteries, can almost feel the burning rage that will destroy everything on its wake.

The giggles that threaten to escape him again stop on their own when his eyes spot a certain person from across the room.

"Shizu-chan," he exhales, a little breathless, and he suddenly forgets to watch the delicious pain simmering beneath Kida-kun's proud and encouraging smile as Mikado dons on the infamous Vongola ring. He feels a strange spark of respect for Mikado-kun—after all, getting both Izaya *and* Shizuo as members of his family, as part of his elite set of Guardians... that deserves at least a standing ovation.

Izaya almost sighs a can't-help-it sigh when his eyes travel down from the blond hair down to the trademark bartender suit. Figures. He is a little miffed that Kasuka didn't even try to school Shizu-chan into knowing that bartender suits are never fashionable, especially in the mafia world.

Instead, Izaya brings his trusty switchblade out and carves a hole into the wall behind him. He's confident of his agility and, more importantly, his illusion skills, but it never hurts to have additional escape plans. Or twenty of them. Especially since it's getting to the part where Mikado-kun is going to call out his Guardians away from wherever they're lurking and into the center stage.

The fact that Izaya (escapee from the world's most impregnable prison and illusionist extraordinaire) and Shizuo (the world's strongest man, even with the surprising lack of unsightly bulging biceps) are both going to reveal their positions as being allies... It's bound to raise hell.

And since it's Izaya and Izaya never misses a prediction—Shizuo pales when he sees the organism that is but an annoying louse to his eyes dance around the stage like he owns it, before he snaps his metal spoon into two and starts catapulting the twenty-seater table within his reach.

Izaya feels the sharp whoosh of wind when the table misses his head by an inch.

He feels a smirk forming on his face—

(the crazed look on the Slasher's eyes boiling ever-so-slowly
the Otaku Duo's cheers for go Shizu-tan, hit Iza-Iza with the burning power of your love! overpowering the ring of gunshots
the calculating gaze Mikado-kun watches the altercation with
the pained grimace that clings on Kida-kun's form)

—and he doesn't notice anything else, anyone else.

(Though a small part of him wonders whether things will change if any of these projectiles hit their mark.)

•

"Don't you want to form a contract with me?" Izaya asks in wonder, red eyes focused on the single boy in the middle of the cage filled with lifeless sacrificial lambs, "I can give you power."

A lot of his fellow kind resent him for the position he has over Hell—and he's even proud to admit that he deserves that kind of hatred. Though if you ask him, he'd say that he deserves love more, not that he wants it from the creatures with the same knife-sharp nails and shark-razor fangs as him. He wants love and for the longest time, he wasn't sure who to want it from.

At this moment—centuries after he first cracked open ruby eyes—he now knows who to want love from.

"I can make them suffer from the same pain and humiliation," Izaya has long tired of slow seduction, since humans usually collapsed to their knees and ankles at first glance of his form, but he tries to use his most appealing drawl, "I can—"

"Shut up, you flea," the young boy with brown hair that is now red from all the matted blood snaps at him, so brusquely so interestingly, that Izaya forgets to hiss back in displeasure at the insult.

Instead, his voice drips with more honey than ever, his teeth smoothing into dentist-approved shapes, his sharp leather heels softening slightly to just click-clack against the floor drawn with various demon-summoning circles instead of puncturing the cement. Izaya's lips tingle—he wants to taste this young boy's soul—wants to corrupt this brilliant light in the middle of the whimsical carnage—wantswantswants—

"I'll escape here using my own strength!" There is uncertainty and powerlessness there—spiced with a dash of despair and prickle of pain—but the brilliance is overwhelming. Izaya didn't think that there'd be humans like this boy, didn't think that there'd be humans who will be able to resist the spider's thread dangled coyly in front of him.

Izaya can offer the power to other humans—to the occultists with power-glazed eyes and sin-dirtied coats; to the children with drugged stares and battered bodies; to the humans outside with overflowing greed and insurmountable cowardice—but he decides not to.

He doesn't form a contract with the boy—Heiwajima Shizuo—but for some strange reason, he follows him like a shadow, like a guardian, like a demon circling its prey.

As a demon that's supposed to tempt humans into surrendering their souls in exchange for some fleeting power, Izaya wonders on who really was captured with the spider's web.

•

"You can still go back," Shizuo calls out to him, rough voice echoing into the night, "You can still go back to us!"

Izaya laughs and laughs and laughs until the stitches on his stomach protest and cry and tear apart. But he doesn't mind the pain—he enjoys it, because instead of concentrating on how painful it is, he thinks about the victory that went along with the wound.

And yes, Shizu-chan is entertaining, vastly entertaining, and he's most probably the only reason why Izaya stayed so long in such a complacent village that is so focused on peace instead of building its military prowess.

Izaya can't help but think that it's perhaps destiny that led them to this—previous comrades now enemies—no, no, no that's not right. Izaya has never been loyal to anyone but his own curious ambitions; Shizuo has never been particularly civil to Izaya.

It's interesting how Shizuo is the one who's with him now, monstrous force held tightly between clenched fists and strong desire to bring Izaya back to where Shizuo thinks he belongs.

"Even if you've always hated my guts, I've always considered you as my most important person," Izaya tells him offhandedly—he doesn't think too much about it, it's probably true, it's probably not.

(Celty has always been in a strange bubble of 'untouchable' because she's the head of the village; Shinra has always been too masochistic for Izaya's tastes; his sisters have always been less bothered by family ties instead of their own crush on Shizu-chan; everyone else has always been way too easy too manipulate to matter.)

Well, maybe it's a little true.

But that doesn't matter, because the only purpose of the statement is to shock Shizuo into a stuttering mess—and judging from the other's spaced out look that's slowly giving in to a spazz—it's a success.

Izaya is already kilometers away from the Valley of the End—the best place for dramatic partings, in his opinion—when he hears Shizuo's roar.

(Though a small part of him wonders if things will change if he allows his twisted heart to be pried apart by those superhuman hands, if he allows himself to be consumed by Shizuo instead.)

•

"What, shocked?" Izaya's voice is flat, but he's somersaulting with glee deep inside. "Shocked that your girlfriend Kanra-chan is actually a wholesome crossdresser?"

It wasn't supposed to be like this.

Hands find purchase on his shoulders, on his neck, squeezing with a force enough to pulverize bricks. Izaya scrambles away, fumbles for his switchblade that he stashes on the garter of his branded underwear. He is laughing—alternating between coughing oxygen back into his lungs and biting at the arms that seem intent on burying him on the floor—even though it's not supposed to be like this.

He's supposed to be a magician thief that will steal the Pandora's Jewel on the Imperial Palace's display. He's supposed to infiltrate as the newbie secretary in the police force.

He's not supposed to flirt *and* be serious with one of the most promising detectives. He's not supposed to reveal his disguise an hour before his heist.

"Izaya-san, where are you—" Kida's voice dissolves into garbled static when Shizuo crushes his transmitter with the heel of his hand.

"I'll kill you, kill you, kill you, kill you!" Shizuo's grin is feral—and even though the first phase of the heist's plan is now shot (but wouldn't Kida-kun be a nice boy and help him out anyway? especially since Mikado-kun's safety is in his pretty, pretty hands)—Izaya feels like he has won already.

(And he wonders if—)

•

Izaya likes humans, not youkai, because youkai are even dumber and easier to manipulate than humans-with-so-little-power-yet-so-much-greed. He doesn't care for the ability he inherits from some bothersome person from his family—hates the ability a little, actually, since it distances him from the humans he so dearly loved.

But on his way home—shoes caked with mud from his special after-school activity of being chased by supernatural beings that want to eat him alive—Izaya meets a kid that seems to be the same age as him.

Izaya is prepared for the other to ignore him, to shy away from the 'weirdo kid', but the other merely harrumphs and sticks his tongue out at him.

They'll never see each other again—for Izaya will be sent to another foster family since the current one is all but fed up with Izaya's creepy smiles and cryptic remarks—but Izaya will always remember that moment: that moment where he feels most human.

•

People might call him a manipulative bastard—and they won't be wrong—but Shinra is an even bigger ass than him.

A duel for honor, for Princess Celty's honor, and Shinra all but shoves him into it.

Izaya doesn't mind, really—it's easy to act like a knight drunk with love for the night-black fairy who's rumored to control the shadows of the land—but physical duels are annoying. The sword is heavy (with Old Language inscriptions that he can recite forwards and backwards—but why carry such a luggage when he can ask Kida-kun sweetly to carry it for him? When he can coax Dotachin and his lackeys to go play house with it? When he can chop-chop-cut Namie's ebony hair with it?) and the armor is suffocating.

But when he sees his opponent—a knight that's rumored to be in love with Princess Celty—a smirk breaks out of Izaya's face and he swings his sword effortlessly as though he's playing with his beloved switchblade.

Even if he can't really pinpoint why—he knows that this fight is worth fighting.

•

"Aww, Shizu-chan is afraid of women, is he?" Izaya teases the newest member of their party, easily catching the way brown eyes follow the princesses' luscious curves, easily catching the way that powerful body freezes and shivers whenever a female arrives within a certain radius.

Shizuo is barely out of the military training camp but he comes with high recommendation from Simon—but Izaya can't help but want to tease him until his cheeks flush as red as his shirt, tease him until his gruff voice is anything but unintelligible moans, tease him until—well.

Izaya blinks to chase the images away, without even so much as a tinge of pink on his face. He loves humans, but he doesn't really regard anyone specially. An unfamiliar sound echoes in his chest—something like a triple-beat instead of one—and Izaya wonders—)

•

He's his brother too, but why does Shizu-niisan never look at him that way?

Is it because they've been separated for too long—? Is it because of the red eye that he hateshateshates?

Is it because he's been with Kasuka for the longest time—? Is it because Kasuka doesn't possess loathsome red eyes?

Izaya doesn't like this Shizu-niisan—doesn't like how this Shizu-niisan doesn't hold him close on nights where lightning forks dance around the sky—doesn't like how this Shizu-niisan is close to anyone other than him.

Izaya doesn't like this Shizu-niisan.

So he instead focuses on helping out Shingen in his malevolent plans, instead focuses on keeping his smirk off his face when he thinks about how this is just another game to him, instead focuses on making sure he can recover the Shizu-niisan from a century ago, from before the two of them were sent as test subjects in the dimension warp experiment.

Izaya doesn't like this Shizu-niisan, so he'll get back the Shizu-niisan he likes.

No matter what it takes.

•

The fact that they turned to him—the detective who they don't bother to hide their loathing for—tells Izaya volumes about the severity of the case in hand.

Izaya thinks about turning down the case—a high school student with a god complex isn't really his thing and it's not interesting enough—but before he can waltz out of the conference room, someone grabs him by the fur of his jacket.

He raises an eyebrow in curiosity, shrugging off the stuttering apologies of the other policemen in the room and waving off the shaky advance of the security guards.

"You will help out in this investigation," blond guy hisses to his face. Izaya wonders if this primitive person has learned something about personal space. He doesn't hesitate moving in semi-serious speed—left hand chopping at the other's wrist, right hand cutting off the other's ID and tie loose. He bounces on the balls of his feet, tilting backwards when—Heiwajima Shizuo, according to the ID—Shizuo tries to grab him by his neck.

"Since you asked so nicely," Izaya drawls, skipping a few steps backwards as he watches how ten bumbling policemen try to hold Shizuo and his out-of-nowhere(?) rage down. "I'll help you out~ "

And as compensation for being pulled into the high-profile case, they offer him a briefcase filled with crisp newly printed bills. But Izaya doesn't find that amount of money interesting. Instead, he asks for them to assign 'Shizu-chan' as his partner for the investigation. It's a change of pace from his usual mode of operation, since he prefers working alone rather than being affected by other factors, but Shizu-chan is just so interesting.

And Izaya wonders—

•

"This is why humans are so interesting," Orihara Izaya whispers giddily against the cylinder that once held him captive, frozen in time, shielded from decay, readied for conquest, "so, so interesting!"

His father might have failed from taking the world and breaking it into tiny little pieces and rebuilding it into his liking—but he *is* more powerful, more powerful than before. He gets his inquisitive scarlet eyes from his father's cloned cells, gets his all-consuming want for love and humans from his father's unfinished goals, gets his seductive lilt from his mother's contributed genes, gets his unhealthy and inappropriate obsession from his mother's unrequited feelings.

Unlike his father who wielded the powers of illusion—he is born from generations of perfected research; he is a human that is above all the other humans.

He will start building an empire that will never be shaken by anything—what shall he call it? Millefiore, maybe, like a shower of a thousand flowers that will bloom upon the battlefield?—he will start gathering an army that will be loyal to him and only him.

Every good leader is flanked by a very useful right-hand man—and if he remembers correctly, one of the heirs of this generation's Vongola is a normal teenager living by the countryside... Ryuugamine Mikado, yes that's the name!—so he should find one as soon as possible. He'll be his natural chirpy self and he's sure that his friendly smiles and promises of power will surely awaken that desire to rule, to win, in Mikado-kun's blood.

He also needs people that will dirty their hands for him—needs people who will look at him as the grand savior that seats righteously upon his shining throne—hmm, Kida-kun is very useful and very reliable and very appealing to watch...

He also needs—

(an ache resonates in his head
a thought gnaws at him from his memories
a want trembles within him, strong enough to cross dimensions and worlds and reincarnation)

—"Shizu-chan."

And in this world, just like in the previous worlds, their paths are still closely linked, but since they're too different, Izaya too complex and Shizuo too simple, they will never be—

•
•

They keep on missing each other.

•
•

"I-ZA-YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA—!!!"

Izaya ducks, knees nearly touching the ground, standing up straight once the immediate threat of a vending machine beheading him whooshes by. He faintly wonders whether Shizu-chan really adores saying his name out loud—it has to be the fifth time in the past five minutes since Shizu-chan started yelling his name like the caveman he is.

He runs, feet light and legs quick, towards a dead-end. He knows it's a dead-end, but he can't help but run towards it, can't help but want to see Shizu-chan's face bloom with triumph before bursting into rage when he realizes that his triumph is but a fleeting moment...

Shizuo yells another garbled battlecry, a sufficient warning for any sane person to stay at least a kilometer away from the site.

Shizuo catches him by his belt (Izaya lets him) and throws him towards the dingy alley wall (Izaya encourages him).

"Ahh, I really hate it when you become like this," Izaya taps his fingers playfully against Shizuo's temple. He is rewarded with a tighter squeeze on his collarbone and a headbutt that he avoids with a sharp tilt of his head. "See? You're brain cells are not working that well~"

"I told you to never show your face—"

"Ah-ah, but Shizu-chan, you didn't have to go hunt me down," Izaya adds a layer of whine to his voice, even as his eyes are sneakily darting around to spot possible escape routes, even as his hands are prying apart the hand that is like a wrench against his neck, "I even made sure you weren't working on this side of Ikebukuro!"

"How do you—what—you—!!" Shizuo goes over the stages of confusion quickly, rage restarting full-force when he realizes that yes, the 'flea' has been stalking him again. Izaya wouldn't really want the other to think that he's special—he's not the only one Izaya stalks—ahem, observes, after all.

"Oh, don't be like that, Shizu-chan," Izaya wiggles, trying to disrupt the other's balance and trying to get some air into his lungs as well, "you should know that I enjoy spying on a lot of people~"

Izaya sees the incoming fist, as though it's in slow-motion, sees the ten possible ways to move away from the attack.

The fist hits him squarely on his cheek—red-and-purple-and-blue bubbling to the surface within seconds. The deep-seated hatred reserved only for Izaya fades away from Shizuo's face. Shizuo looks flabbergasted at his fist actually making contact with tangible human flesh. With Izaya's flesh.

Izaya feels a lifetime's worth of wondering reaching a crescendo.

He slithers his hand up, the blade's edge catching and destroying the clothing that it encounters, slowly reducing the bartender suit into torn pieces of cloth. Shizuo doesn't seem to notice—his eyes seem entirely riveted on the sight of a bruise actually forming on Izaya's face.

Izaya laughs—the pain in his cheek ignored in favor of the giddiness that builds in his chest—and leans in close to the stupefied Shizuo.

"You caught me," he whispers and the grin and the grimace and the smirk are all melting together and he knows that this is a victory of parallel lines exploding and crossing into each other, "Shizu-chan."

The future changes in that instant—
—and Izaya knows that he doesn't have to wonder anymore.

•
» end.

My second Shizuo/Izaya fic—and the first long-ish fic for DRRR!! I hope I didn't fail at the characterization too hard OTL

Universes/Fandoms butchered (aka: referenced), in sequence-order: Reborn! [Hibari/Mukuro-ish] → Kuroshitsuji → Naruto → Detective Conan → Natsume Yuujinchou/xxxHOLIC(?) → Merlin(?)/Code Geass (??) → Tales of Abyss → Pandora Hearts → Death Note → Reborn! [Byakuran/Shouichi-ish]