Day 1: Denial

9

To join the black parade

Here's the last of my lyrics asks that my ~~mysterious unknown anon oh who could they be~~ sent me that I'm going to use to post another fic. It's just a silly practice fic that I started a little while back and I was like hey this is cute let me edit this a little.

Anyway!

“Shizu-chan?” Izaya asked from his place a few feet away on the couch. He was hanging upside down on his back.

“Yeah?”

“I’ve got a scenario for you.”

“Hm. No thanks.”

“Aww don't be that way. Indulge me okay?”

“Ugh.”

“No listen. If I ever got kidnapped…”

“Here we go.” Shizuo grumbled.

“No listen!” Izaya whined, crawling over to him. “If I ever got kidnapped, and my keepers wanted you to pay them a ransom, how much would you pay?”

“I wouldn’t pay it. Moving on.”

“Oh that’s so mean!” Izaya said, pushing on his chest. “You wouldn’t even try to save me? How depressing!” he didn’t sound depressed though. In his disturbing, Izaya-like way he seemed rather amused at the idea that Shizuo would just let some group snatch him up and torture him to death despite their relationship. Shizuo scowled.

“I wouldn’t pay any ransom because I would punch whoever had done it in the first place. And then I would punch you once I got you out of there because I’ll know that you got caught on purpose just to annoy me.”

“You really think I’d go to all that trouble just to cause you grief?” Izaya asked as though it were an absurd insinuation, yet he was smiling. Typical, Shizuo thought.

“You went to all that trouble to ask me that dumbass question. Of course I would rescue you, dumbass, I’d just be pissed because you know better than to let that shit happen.”

“Well excuse me. I didn’t realize I was never allowed to get caught off guard or make a mistake.”

“Well now you know.”

Izaya huffed dramatically. He folded his arms and straddled Shizuo, hovering over the other who was splayed out across the couch with his back pressed into the cushions, staring indifferently. Izaya threw his arms around Shizuo’s neck and kissed him. It wasn’t dramatic or out-of-the-blue- Shizuo lived in a state of expecting Izaya to kiss him. He couldn’t say that kissing the other was what he could call ‘ordinary’, but he was certainly used to the other taking priority of his mouth at all times. Izaya could start up an annoying conversation simply for the sake of surprising Shizuo with a kiss.

Shizuo’s hands wandered up Izaya’s waist, up the inside of Izaya’s shirt and he was lost in that moment. Nothing else existed in the world except him, Izaya, and this intimate space between them. It was a sense of privacy and companionship that he had never felt with another person before. He was incredibly grateful.

Of course, that didn’t mean that he would act like it. Izaya was still Izaya after all.

“Mm. Thank you,” Izaya purred when he finally let go. “That was quite a pick me up. Just what I needed after being so horribly devalued and mistreated.”

“Oh knock it off already. Didn’t you get what you wanted?”

“Shizu-chan,” Izaya tutted, though the corners of his mouth curved upward, “When your romantic partner and one and only true love asks you how much money they’re worth to you, you can only simply answer all the money in the world.”

“I don’t have all the money in the world. I do, however, have a foot that can be used to kick someone’s ass. Including yours.” he pinched Izaya on the cheek, frowning in his annoyance.

“Ow! Shizu-chan, there’s no need to be so grumpy about hypotheticals!” he rubbed at the sore spot the second Shizuo let go, even though Shizuo hadn’t pinched it that hard. It was turning red regardless. “So then? You wouldn’t pay for me? You wouldn’t do whatever it took to save me?”

He cupped Shizuo’s chin and squeezed his cheeks with his fingers.

“Fine,” Shizuo said, and with his lips forcibly puckered like that he sounded muffled, which seemed to amuse Izaya. “I would do whatever it took. Climb any mountain, destroy any obstacle.” He pried Izaya’s hands away. “Are you happy?”

“Hardly.” Izaya said with dubious eyes. “Your commitment is clearly performative. There’s no heart in it at all.”

“I’ll show you heart.” Shizuo said before tackling him onto the couch. There was a sharp squeal and Izaya was helpless as Shizuo tickled him by running sharp fingers over his thighs and kissing his neck. Secretly, Shizuo loved the sound of Izaya’s laughter when he was being tickled. He also loved torturing Izaya until he was truly begging for mercy, gasping for breath and clinging to him as he let go. He loved the feeling of Izaya’s breathing calming down against his neck.

Then there was quiet. There usually was when Izaya lost composure like that. Shizuo tucked himself against the couch with Izaya pressing his face against him. He didn’t want to ruin the moment of quiet, so he idly let his eyes wander, his hand resting and rubbing up Izaya’s lower back. After a while he got bored.

“Izaya.”

There was no response. Shizuo scowled, rolling his eyes. Of course Izaya was gonna be dramatic. He could never really expect him to be any different.

“Oi Izaya.” He said, ducking his head against the little nook he’d made for himself against Shizuo’s chest. Izaya still didn’t respond though so Shizuo gave him a little shake. “Hey Izaya!”

“Hm?” Izaya looked up suddenly, eyes droopy. “What?”

“Oh, were you sleeping?”

“Mm.” Izaya mumbled, pressing his face to Shizuo’s chest again. Shizuo ran hands through his hair and looked at him closely. It appeared that he wasn’t pretending.

“Oh you were? Sorry, I thought you were pretending.”

“Mm. Sounds realistic.”

“Yeah, you’re annoying like that.”

Izaya looked up sleepily and smiled at him. When he leaned up, Shizuo gave him a kiss.

“You‘re in a good mood today. What, did you blow up a village or something?”

“How rude. I haven’t done anything all day but lay on the couch talking to you.”

“Hm. That doesn’t sound right.”

“It is! Now, let me go back to sleep. I’m going to take a nap.”

“Eh?”

“Let me sleep!” Izaya whined. “I’m tired.”

Shizuo studied him with a frown. That didn’t sound too far from the truth, but Izaya was almost always severely behind on sleep.

“Maybe you should join a sleep study for the morally depraved.”

“For what, a couples retreat? That’s not my first pick for a romantic get away, Shizu-chan.”

Shizuo cast his eyes aside. “I don’t have trouble sleeping. You’re just a pain in bed cause you’re so squirmy.”

“I don’t have trouble sleeping either,” Izaya purred, moving his face to press against Shizuo’s and giving him a gentle kiss on the cheek. So many kisses today. Maybe Izaya really was sleepy. “I have the ultimate protector with me in my bed.”

And that was what finally did Shizuo in. He could practically feel his own hard exterior crumbling around him. Izaya’s smile was textured against his face like he knew instantly too, but the damage had already been done.

“Y-You…” Shizuo mumbled, “You know I’d never let anything happen to you while I’m around.”

“Mmhmm. I know.” Izaya tucked his face against Shizuo’s shoulder and cradled himself against Shizuo’s arm.

“I’m the only one who can hold you hostage, got it?” Shizuo added, trying to sound aggressive but he just sounded affectionate again.

“Of course,” Izaya said sweetly, almost already gone back to sleep, “Why else would I be able to bother you like this?”

“You can always bother me.” Shizuo said without thinking, “Whenever you want. About anything. Even your stupid hypotheticals that mean nothing.”

Shizuo felt Izaya’s hands curling into his shirt as he got into a more comfortable position to sleep in.

“Don’t worry. I will.”

For those who missed it or just want to relive it - Izaya’s Hospital Arc: A Summary

Bonus:

this is a canon scene it’s true i was there

i've been sitting on this post for a few days now and it's literally just, me making assumptions about kudos i've noticed on fics lately (particularly aci since i've been checking that fic every week for book club these past few months) and this'll make me seem more insane than i already come off but by this point. how much lower can i go?

just going from top to down as of today.

[ShibaLee] i know you from your art on here!! tumblr user shibaleeart i'm happy to see more people in potentially enjoying the stories this fandom has to offer :>

[reiscm] shizuchansmilk?? what are youuu doing here? i didn't know you read shizaya fic tbh and i was surprised to see you here suddenly, relatively recently too. does that mean you just started the fic then?? after at least a year of being in the fandom right? maybe this wasn't from your first time reading it (same) but at the very least it shows you visited it not too long ago… i may be delusional in thinking i could be a contributing factor there because, why now? it's not like i'm the only aci advocate out there but i've probably been the most vocal about it around this time soo… well whatever it is, hope you had fun with it! i'm so curious what drrr comedian shizuchansmilk thinks about hit fanfiction a cheap imitation 👁️

i'm also recognising some of the other names around here like [anonymooose] and [durarasaiki] even though i haven't the faintest idea who they might be. i've just been seeing them lately across different shizaya fics which probably means these are the people doing their shizaya fic dive around this time. i have nothing more to add there i just, think it's cool noticing the same names across fics like yeah, we all feasting on the shizaya tag rn.

[ya_boi_twink] it took me a second to recall where i'd recognised your name from and then it hit me. i knoooow you! tumblr user yaboitwink in my notifs… i appreciate you, and i'm glad you liked the things i made for it c:

[bun_o_ween] oh i know you're here because of mr crapo. i hope you guys had fun with it! i wanna take the chance to also admit that like. the moment i found out you were that sebastian writer i experienced the wildest sense of deja vu. because. i had seen your name on ao3 before. but when i checked your fics there was no way i'd read a fic from you?? so then i realised i must have recognised you... through other kudos on other fics??? dude. i must sound crazy, i have no way of proving this because i actually don't remember what fics these were i just vaguely remember it was either bsd or tgcf? that i was looking at fics for, trying to find something to sate my hunger at the time. and i just remember, noticing your name across like a few of these fics in a row and thinking "heh someone else has been going down the same rabbit hole" AND NOW I SEE YOU AND CRAPO OF SHIZAYA FANDOM HITTING IT OFF it was surreal. like. my awareness of you had zero to do with black butler, i could not have predicted that you would have been the random ao3 user i'd seen apparently enjoying some of the same fics i was not too long ago. wow.

there are like two separate flamingo related names around here [niceflamingo] and [flamingoo] which doesn't mean anything but for some reason they are standing out enough for me to want to mention them. i feel like i've seen ao3 user flamingoo in the kudos of some other fic before but idk.

[Luzki] omg hey!! twitter artist vi_138_ woah hiii funny seeing you here :0 especially like. not so long ago? since i'd imagined you would've been aware of the fandom for a while since you seem more invested in the alts than shizuo and izaya in particular? well it was cool seeing that you'd read this one, i hope ya had fun!

[frogsarefriends] right under that is artist hallucxnating >:O i know they've read the fic already but it was cool to actually recognise their kudo down here, especially since it's like. not recognisable just from the name alone, but you've shared links to this ao3 as your writing so now i know it's you. my impression is that you came into the fandom through slavhew since, i'd connected the dots at some point that you two were friends which. made a lot of sense since i noticed you both started being active around here at the same time lol. but hey!! welcome to the club :D

[7FlyingPancakes7] this is one of the ones i'd noticed earlier on during book club, i distinctly remember checking a chapter while walking home one night (because i do that i guess) then BAM what the hell?? i just see tumblr user mari-lair's ao3 appear down there, totally out of nowhere for me. for context this was a writer from the tpn fandom i recognise from like 4 years ago? idk it's been a while, i didn't talk to them much but they were active in the fandom at the time so i'm familiar with their name. i haven't been keeping up with them but last i'd seen they seemed to be into tbhk with no indication as far as i was aware that they'd shown any interest in shizaya. nothing wrong with that it was just unexpected, so i was just like woah!! how did you get here? i am so curious how they may have come across this fic, was it some rec from a friend? how familiar are they with shizaya? how invested were they in the story and characters? enough to go down more of shizaya's greatest hits? anyways, that was just a fun little small world moment for me.

[psych0tastic] hey isn't this…. axietoh? like, the artist who used to draw shizaya like 5 years ago? what are they doing here so high up the list? 🤔 i have no clue lol i still follow them because i really like their art style but i hadn't noticed their interest in shizaya resurfacing... i suppose they just haven't been too active on these socials in general. anyways their name stood out to me and i was like, wait….. well it's a shocker seeing their name so high up here, were they reading this fic for the first time there or were they revisiting it and happened to have not kudo'd it until then? well anyways, it's nice to see they've revisted the fic within the last two years at least :0 that's cool to me.

[MiyukiWynter] dude i was feeling crazy just now trying to figure out where i'd recognised this name from because i'd swwooooorn i'd seen it from somewhere like as someone on twitter?? i think i was mixing them up in my mind with unrelated (as far as i'm aware) twitter user miiyankhr but turns out they're someone who's fics i've seen in the tags before. i haven't read them myself but apparently they just posted a new one two days ago so that's crazy.

[Dodomka] heyyy it's dodo from twitter, hellooo 👋 they've been the biggest supporter for my deep in the sauce fic tweets and for that i appreciate them very much :3 didn't expect to see them here tbh i wasn't aware of when they'd first read the fic but as i was expanding the list a few times to write up this post i noticed their name here and just thought that was neat. shout-out to them!

[mochi010] there's a user named mochi that has shown up in my twitter notifs somewhat regularly and they have nothing on their account so i have zero clue what they might be like outside from that they've been liking my shizuo and izaya retweets. their handle isn't even mochi so i have very little reason to believe this could be them but idk, maybe? no conclusion has been made here. well i already spent time writing and cleaning up the paragraph, guess i'm leaving it in.

shout-out to [ouiouipussay] and [ramenflavorpacketsnorter420] just for having some names that stand out lol. i don't recognise you from anywhere but, i guess now i will if i ever come across those names again.

[Stupidusernamepolicy] i struggled to find you amidst all these names for the writing of this post 💀 had to ctrl+f that shit. but i remember seeing your name here while i was going through the list some days before and being like "oh hey!! it's slavhew :)" but okay there's actually a tangent i've been wanting to go on from here.

outside of aci i've actually been noticing you and hallucxnating double duo'ing under some fics together, like after the story era which i'd reread after hallu reminded me of its existence in a reply, and also sacramental which i had reread because of your reply, lol. i find this quite funny, just like. this visual representation of you two reading and recommending fics with each other. then you talk about it on twitter and more people like me are visiting this fic too. chain reaction of sharing stories :)

ALSO [anonymooose] and [durarasaiki] spotted down here in some of these kudos too!! that's craazy. wow. i tell you guys i'm recognising these names i'm not just crazy 😭

[NotElectricT] this took me a second to dig up again since it's quite buried down that list at this point but the plan i'd had in mind for this post was to end on this one since i saw them kudo it right in front of me (through the vc stream) and i didn't think this post would get as long as it did but... well i already wrote it 😬 but yeah, this is my good friend note! check out this art they made for, still one of their favourite chapters, sharks fly. it's sandwiched in between some squid game au they made for a gift exchange for me..... it's a long story i don't wanna talk about it (embarrassing......)

but what i do wanna talk about!! is how note (referred to as "patient zero" regarding aci book club by the only other patient lol) just decided to read this fic completely of their own volition?? i didn't tell them to do that and for sure didn't expect them of all people to try reading it, ever (they're not really a fic reader) but they just did that, two years ago. and that was like, insane to me at the time because it's seriously so out of their depth guys they don't do enemies to lovers.... they still don't lol. but i was insane about this fic back then with no one to really be insane about it to so i just yelled about it to these friends out of context and i guess???? that was convincing enough to get this one to start the longest fic they'd ever read 💀

i had much fun having someone experience the fic i'd been insane over..... like i'm smiling about it rn thinking about the time i did a live reading of the chainsaw man (as i like to call him) chapter which was so fun i kinda forgot i had a hamilton musical i was supposed to watch that evening... that was awkward. and other chats we exchanged regarding the fic (they were reading chapters whenever they felt like it which i enjoyed because i like pacing these things out) but for some reason (i think things just happened around the time that disrupted the momentum) they never made it past chapter 26 😔 which was tragic to me but oh well....

well i'm am even more insane about this fic now because of this convoluted chain of events that gradually built and cascaded me towards whatever the fuck i'm doing now!! god. i've never made so much, anything, like ever. until now. because both note and rosa (who has not kudo'd this fic as far as i'm aware lol) made the decision beyond my expectations to commit to, a book club. which i organised. and i've been having a lot of fun! so much fun, there's all this wild "marketing" stuff i've been churning out in record fucking time by my standards. i've never felt so creatively fulfilled dude, never finished a thing in my life until these past few months. so that's awesome, and it's in large part because of note having committed to this fic again. so that's some of the story behind that one kudo haha.

and now we're at chapter 49, we're supposed to be talking about it tomorrow, which is today by now since it's 1 am but uhhhhhhh writing is so hard. i was supposed to just be cleaning up this draft i'd written like 5 days ago? i am now very hungry. there's actually more i'd drafted up from here just from more names i recognised as i kept expanding the kudo list that day buuuut i'm fuckeeeen cutting this off right here. i need to stop. the end.

tw: gore

And that’s it for chapter 3!

Chpt 1 // Chpt 2

Chpt 3: part 1 // part 2 // part 3 // part 4 // part 5

(You can find this comic on tapas / mangadraft and spoontasti’s fic on ao3)

i always wondered if they would’ve gotten along had they met earlier in their lives

probably not but who can stop me

anatomy of a heart // open up

cardiogram.carrd.co

do you think Ray used to hate this gesture knowing why Isabella touches their ears

(do you think he misses it?)

watched episode 13 of durarara x2 and unfortunately izaya was extremely relatable