Notes

Izaya's name spills from his mouth as he races forward. There's a clatter of metal on gravel as his phone hits the ground and bounces once, twice, and then comes Izaya's muffled gasp of pain . His legs fold under him but Shinra is already there, his hand catching him as he falls. Another shaky breath slips from Izaya's mouth as Shinra grabs him a little too tightly.
"You're okay," he murmurs, lowering them both to the ground.



Joy springs through him as he realises that he can know Izaya in this way, too: light and carefree, the way that friendship should be. Here there is no decade of lost time weighing on their shoulders, no carefully manufactured distance between them. Here he can touch Izaya the way he never could before. A brush of the shoulder, the space between their swinging hands closer than either of them would ever have dared to be in another life. He wants to look at him as much as possible, absorb every part of him, the things he never knew before.
And in this reality he can. It's permitted.