Can you light my shadows?

A/N: Thanks to my friend, who gave me some wonderful ideas on how to continue this thing, I got to write another chapter. Hope you like it and leave a review, please! Also, beware of POV changes this time.

Shizuo's POV

The blonde's day had been peaceful so far.

That was, until his cellphone rang. It was an unknown number, and he considered for a minute to let it ring – after all, he wasn't really interested in buying anything or something like that. But it could also be something important. He picked up the call and her ever-so-calm, but annoying voice reached his ears.

"Hello, Shizuo-san. My name is Namie Yagiri, I'm Izaya Orihara's secretary. How's your day going?"

Although the blonde was surprised – why was Izaya's secretary suddenly calling him? He knew the raven had one, but he didn't even knew her name. The blonde cleared his throat.

"Pretty well, thank you. May I ask why you are calling?" At least, she couldn't just randomly call him.

"Yeah, I actually wanted to ask you a favor. Could you come over and look if Izaya is alright for some time?" The blonde paused on his way on the sidewalk. This was unusual. First, Namie was never concerned about the raven. Second, she should assume that he was neither. So why did she ask him to "look after Izaya"?

"Why is that?" The woman on the other side of the line started to speak again.

"Well, you see, he's been kinda out of it lately. He's doodling your name all over his notes, so I figured it might have something to do with you, sorry if I'm wrong." Shizuo blew a small cloud of smoke into the air. He's doodling my name? Namie continued, apparently, she wasn't finished yet. "Also, he's been murmuring your name when he fell asleep on his desk today." Shizuo almost laughed. Izaya falling asleep during work? That was like the earth suddenly stopping to move. But it seemed like even the devious information broker had something like a human side.

"Yeah, I have nothing to do anyway..."

"That's very nice of you, Shizuo-san. I'll leave in about half an hour because my work here ends at seven o'clock, and I wanted to make sure he's alright."

"Why that? Do you care about him that much?" He heard a low chuckle that seemed to be held back a bit, probably Izaya was in the next room. Namie lowered her voice before she answered: "I fear my salary is going to drop if he's not himself."

The blonde softly tapped his cigarette on a small wall beside him. That made sense.

Probably he should make his way to the flea's apartment, since he was currently in the middle of the city and Izaya's apartment was in the outer boroughs. He took the metro to get to the flea's house, noticing on the way that he'd never been there; he only knew the address.

When he arrived at the office complex, a young woman with straight black hair approached him. Namie. He'd seen her only a few times, because, well, she worked for his enemy.

"Good evening, Shizuo-san. Here is a key and my phone number, if something should be wrong. If you need anything, just call me. It's Friday, so I won't work tomorrow and the day after."

Shizuo nodded quietly, suddenly becoming aware of the awkwardness of the whole situation. Here he was, supposedly trying to … kind of help his worst enemy. Well, more like his fight-companion. He'd never really considered them enemies.

He swallowed, taking the things Namie gave him and told her goodbye. Before he took a step in the direction of the building, he saved her number in his phone, put it in his pocket and adjusted the black tie.

She seemed like a nice woman, Izaya had never really talked about her. But well, they were fighting, what did he expect? That Izaya would tell him his whole life while dodging signs, cars and vending machines?

He chuckled to himself, threw the cigarette on the sidewalk and opened Izaya's door.

The hallway was quiet, clean and smelled like a mixture of vinegar and artificial colors. Nothing unusual for an office/apartment complex in the middle of Ikebukuro.

According to the signs outside the door, Izaya's apartment was on the very top, with access to the roof. It kind of fit him.

The blonde raised a fist and hesitantly knocked at the door, marked with a single piece of tape that had "Orihara" written on it, in a pretty clumsy handwriting.

No one answered. He knocked again, this time louder. When still no answer came, he considered knocking the door down, then his hand met the key in his pocket.

Several keys, to be exact. There were signs attached to every one of them, spelling "basement", "roof", "Izaya's room" (the flea locked his room?) and finally "apartment front door".

The key fit perfectly, but what had he expected? Very carefully not to knock anything down or disturb, the blonde took a step inside the room. It seemed to be a little corridor, with the famous jacket on a small knob in the wall, various pairs of shoes and umbrellas.

No sign of anything devilish, creepy or unlike the flea. The doors weren't labeled, but judging by the little mirror and the light switch outside the room, the room at the very end seemed to be a bathroom. He'd rather not walk in there and instead decided on the first to the right.

He carefully opened it, arriving in what looked like his office.

His sense of policy started to sting him when he considered taking a peek at some of the papers as he walked around the room slowly. It was very neat, everything had a place, but nothing was labeled in any way. Could he tell them all by heart?

At the desk, there was something that looked like a doodling paper of some sort. All kinds of addresses, weird code names, phone numbers and little doodles of chess figures could be found on that paper, as well as – he swallowed hard – his own name. Sometimes underlined, sometimes in a cheesy, princess-like handwriting.

The computer wasn't switched on as well as any other electricity in the room. There was a couch at the other side of the room, with a small table in front of it.

His famous chess figures decorated said table, standing randomly on the board like he'd left in the middle of a game against himself.

The curtains were shut and the room was rather dim light, creating a ghostly atmosphere.

The other room on the right turned out to be some kind of room for all kinds of unneeded paperwork that he didn't want to throw away, accompanied by some other trash.

The final room was the last chance, if he didn't find Izaya there, he was either not here or hiding somewhere in the apartment and had been watching him, and Shizuo wasn't pleased with either of the possibilities.

The room was locked. It took him a while before the keys came to his mind again, before he thought of the one labeled "Izaya's room" again and finally it clicked and he turned the key in the hole.

He entered a room, completely dark, only a simple bed and a wardrobe as well as a small table beside the bed were standing inside of the room.

It was free of any decoration or ornaments, completely plain and simple. As he opened the door, a strand of light fell on the floor, perfectly surrounding a bundle of blankets on the bed.

Shizuo took a deep breath and approached that "bundle", he was pretty sure it was Izaya. When he saw the first strands of raven-black hair, it was confirmed.

Here was the flea, sleeping at eight o'clock – which was not that strange, because it was late autumn and already dark as hell – and he … for some reason, Shizuo couldn't just accept the fact that Izaya slept there right in front of him.

They were enemies, for heaven's sake! This was the once-in-a-lifetime-chance, a normal person would kill or at the very least punch them very hard.

But he couldn't do that. The flea looked so vulnerable and tiny, and he shifted in his sleep, causing Shizuo to freeze for a second – had he woken him?

But Izaya's eyes stayed closed, his sleep seemed to be restless and not really good. He kept trashing around and when Shizuo lowered a hand over the raven's forehead, it was hot.

The flea was really not alright, Namie had been right in calling him.

He pulled out his phone, having the feeling he should tell her what was going on. But instead of calling, he texted her instead, not wanting to disturb Izaya.

You were right, Izaya is sick.

It took her only a few minutes to respond while Shizuo went to the living room-thingy in the other part of the flat, putting down his jacket there.

Take good care of him, okay? Thank you again!

He shook his head. Was she expecting him to do this? Well, he had a few weeks off at the moment, it was almost Christmas vacation and the whole city was in a rush.

When he returned, he saw a half-awake flea, hair messed up by the blankets, dressed in boxers and a shirt that was far too big for him, his whole face was flushed and he was panting.

At the sight of Shizuo, he pulled blankets over his body.

"Shizu...chan?"

Even his voice sounded sick.

This wasn't like Izaya, but screw it. He had to take care of that black-haired mess.

"Yup, it's me. Your secretary – Namie? - called me and told me to look after you."

Izaya chuckled, a slightly amused glow flying through his eyes.

"That's just like her... why should you look after me?"

Shizuo cleared his throat. Here came the difficult part.

"She told me that you haven't been yourself and you were... well, acting weird."

Before Izaya could protest, Shizuo made his intentions clear to the young man.

"Just to clarify this, I just take care of you. Nothing more and nothing less. Understood? Good."

Izaya's POV

Izaya could do nothing but nod, Shizuo had a very dominating aura and his aura was probably low as fuck right now. Well, he was sick. He'd caught a fever and the headache he had yesterday was probably also the fault of that stupid flu.

Shizuo left the room, probably getting something in the kitchen or something.

The black-haired sighed. How had things ended like this? He wasn't supposed to be looked after by Shizuo! (Although he couldn't really deny the fact that he definitely didn't dislike it. It was more of a surprise-what-am-I-supposed-to-do-oh-my-god-feeling.)

Thinking hurt his head, so he dropped the heavy thoughts and tried to fall asleep again. But the room was starting to become cold because the door was open and Shizuo had left, and suddenly the bed felt so empty and big and a vulnerability crept up to his heart. He was honestly relieved when the blonde returned.

In his hands, Izaya could vaguely see a wet towel, painkillers and some kind of soup. How had he managed to do that in, like, three minutes?

Then again, the soup was one you only needed to warm up and the towels and painkillers were lying pretty obvious on the kitchen desk.

Shizuo pulled a chair out of nowhere and seated himself beside the raven. Said black-haired felt a wet towel being placed on his head – it felt surprisingly good, calming and reassuring him that he wasn't floating off to some kind of creepy fever dream – and a bowl of soup was almost shoved into his face.

He shook his head, attempting to say something, but his throat was dry and he couldn't speak.

"Huh? What was that, flea?"

He tried to gather some saliva in his mouth and made another attempt at speaking: "I'm trying to say that I'm not hungry."

Shizuo sighed, putting the bowl on the table beside his bed.

"At least drink something, alright?"

Izaya nodded, gulping down a sip of water along with the painkillers. They didn't work right away and all he noticed was the weird taste on his tongue.

"Okay, flea. Listen to me."

Shizuo had leaned a bit to the front, their faces only a short distance apart.

"I'm gonna take care of you, but you have to listen and obey to everything I say. Otherwise, I'll leave."

"Does... does that mean you'll stay?"

Shizuo sighed. Apparently, Izaya had hit the nail on the head.

"Yeah, I figured. Unless it's not okay with you, of course. I mean, I don't want to bother you and if you think you'll get better without me, I'm gonna leave."

Izaya softly shook his head and locked eyes with the blonde, crimson meeting amber, staying like that for a few seconds. He didn't have to say that he wanted the blonde to stay, Shizuo knew it anyway.

"Okay. Now that this is settled, where can I sleep?"

Izaya shrugged sheepishly, he didn't really have a place for the brute to sleep.

"I won't sleep on the couch! I tested it already and I could as well sleep on the floor. Seriously, what's the point of a couch if it's not soft?"

Izaya was about to say "Well, I like it when it's hard", but he realized how wrong that sounded and kept the comment to himself.

Speaking of things sounding wrong. He really had nowhere to sleep for Shizuo. He wasn't used to people staying at his apartment, after all. The brute sighed and ran a hand through blond hair.

"I guess I'll have to sleep in your bed then."

Izaya didn't complain. Did he have the right to? This was Shizuo. The man who kept him alive at night, who was keeping him in reality. In the past weeks, the thought of Shizuo's arms wrapping around him had became more and more tempting.

He forced himself to look away while Shizuo was undressing, staying just in his boxers. The blonde lifted the blanket and made himself comfortable under it, in a distance to Izaya that was close, too close for the raven's messed up mind. If he just reached out his hand, he could touch him, but if Shizuo's arms reached out, he could easily pull him close to that warm body, the body whose heat he felt even through the blanket.

"Izaya, you alright?"

The black-haired felt a hand touch his shoulder gingerly, could feel the blonde's eyes piercing into him.

"Y-Yeah... I guess so..." His voice was wavering, shaking, one could easily tell the nervousness that spread in his mind.

"If you need anything, just wake me up. And I will wake you when I notice that you have one of those damned fever dreams, alright?"

The black-haired nodded, registering the similarities of this and the dreams he'd had a few days earlier.

Shizuo's POV

The blonde sighed. Izaya really seemed to be out of it... he'd never seen the black-haired so messed up like this. But it was pretty common to catch a flu at a time like this, at least the weather was as bad as weather could possibly be.

Before he went to sleep, he pulled out his phone once again and texted Namie again:

Izaya's alright, I'm staying the night. Oh and by the way: where did you get my phone number?

The answer was fast, as usual. A beeping tone along with his display suddenly being lighted up told him Namie was still awake and conscious enough to respond.

He frowned when he read the message.

It was the top number in Izaya's speed deal. Besides, there was a heart next to your name.

A/N: I'll probably involve Namie a lot in this, because I kind of like her. Normally, I would use Celty, but how would she know when Izaya's weird? So it's Namie this time. Hope you liked it, please tell me if you did!