(A/N) This is it my dudes. I'm really sorry I waited so long to give this to you, but here we are! Freshly beta'd and ready for the close of this arc. I'll probably add a chapter just to inform you all when the third arc is officially released, so be on the lookout for that lol. Anyway, this has been a wild ride wow.. The longest fanfic I've ever written is a hannibal fanfic I wrote back in like... freshman year that had eight chapters and was mainly just weird middle school porn. I'm so glad you all took this journey with me and my beta's. The first chapter of this fic was posted back in February of this year, and now here we are, nine months later and it's finally complete. This really is my baby. Anyway, enjoy the last chapter of "Everything Stays." I'm looking forward to "Love Like You"– the final instalment of The Night Watch Series. See you soon! ^3^

It's easy to tell where Ursus is. There's a gigantic hole in the side of one specific warehouse in the forest of buildings below him, and electricity stings the air like the crack of a whip. Izaya is hurt. His arm is broken. His ribs are broken. His breathing is labored. Everything is dull and screaming at the same time, like he's drowning in a black abyss of gasoline while the fire lights at the edges and burns him.

Dust is settling after a dent is made in the steel of the warehouse's walls across the way. Helectric shoots out a bright white bolt and Izaya can vaguely make out Ursus rolling out of its wake. The static hisses loudly around the tin of the buildings in such a menacing way that Izaya knows he isn't getting out of this unscathed.

Maybe that explains his reckless actions.

Izaya dives in between the two buildings and lands just out of her line of sight. Ursus coughs a few times and makes an attempt to stand. Helectric uses her powers to throw a piece of machinery and Izaya reaches out to stop it with his powers, but he isn't fast enough. He watches helplessly as it crashes into the side of Ursus' head. Blood splatters out like stars across the concrete floor of a night sky. He collapses lifelessly, and for a second Izaya is terrified at the prospect. Immediately, he feels like he's gonna barf.

He dives at that point, and delivers a hard round house kick to the side of Varona's temple. It shocks him. The electricity radiating around her wraps around Izaya's foot and claws its way up his leg. Izaya gets thrown away from her with a force hard enough pool blood in his mouth. Copper bites hard at his tongue while he tries to stop the burning in his foot.

"Didn't get enough from Akabayashi?" she purrs, with so much snark that Izaya wants to punch her in the face. "Never thought you were one to hit a girl."

She rubs her jaw uncomfortably.

"You hit me pretty hard. Didn't you, lover boy?"

Izaya doesn't answer for a minute. He's a little too busy assessing his surroundings and means of attack. He can't touch her– not without starting another small fire on his feet.

"I didn't hit a girl. I hit a criminal."

He just needs to keep her talking.

He thinks back to all of the things that he learned in physics– many laws of which are being broken right now– but he remembers that water is bad, metal is conductive, and Ursus is in a lot of danger.

"You think you're so perfect– the second you showed up, he never stopped talking about you. Even out of our suits, you took every waking thought and injected yourself into every fiber of his being."

There isn't any chance for rain, Izaya thinks. He's gonna have to get creative. Considering that his spikes jet from his person, he doesn't want to take any chances of the electricity to catch and engulf him again. Chances are, he won't be able to take another hit like that, and he's already pushing it the way he is now.

"I was supposed to fight him."

The roof shakes with Varona's fury and a stupidly dangerous idea hits Izaya harder than she hit him.

"I was supposed to win."

He scrapes together what's left of his strength to start popping the bolts supporting the ceiling. If he manages to claw his way to Ursus, then he can take them both away from this before the roof collapses– at least long enough to wake him up. Ursus still isn't moving aside from the gentle push of his shallow breath sweeping against the concrete, but Izaya isn't exactly in a position to be analyzing his health or his own.

"But you got in the way. You thought he was all yours, but you were wrong, Izaya," she spits like his name is acid in her mouth. "You're nothing more than some coward informant overstepping your bounds, and now I'm gonna do what Shiki should have done in the first place."

Her hands lift above her head and the crack of static roars so loud in Izaya's ears, he's getting flashbacks to when he got struck by lightning. It feels so long ago– decades in the past– when he was still hated and was condemned to live and die alone. Now here he is. He's risking his life to protect someone he loves and who loves him back. He has friends that would miss him. He has people there to help him fight his demons, and people that would mourn him if he lost his battle. He can't give in here. No matter how much he hurts or how much he wants to stop, he has to fight.

Izaya stands so quickly that Varona is thrown a little back from her position hovering in the middle of the room. Her concentration falters, even if only for a second while she's drawing in her power to attack. Izaya uses that time to go after Ursus. He uses his telekinesis to pick him up and pointedly ignores the exhaustion that seeps into his brain and body at the movement.

Izaya's spikes knock out the final support for the building just as Varona throws her attack. He braces for impact, for the bolt to pierce into his chest like a knife and light him ablaze before Ursus, but nothing happens. Izaya is thrust into darkness and keeps his eyes shut. There's silence. There's cold. There's nothing.

Then there's a blue light, just beyond the skin of Izaya's eyelids. They flutter open with the breeze that ruffles his cloak behind him. He's on the roof of his apartment building. He's surrounded by familiar buildings, and sights, and sounds, and the moon is impossibly large in the sky as he stares at it.

Izaya falls to his knees then. The weight of his injuries is too much. He's too tired to do much else as he spits out the blood that filled his mouth from the over exertion. He touches his face, pushing his fingers passed the illusion of fabric and feels them come away warm and wet.

It's blood.

Blood from his eyes and nose that have dripped down his face like tears at the amount of strength he pushed through his body to get them here in time.

Ursus is lying behind him when he turns. The injury looks a lot worse than it probably is. Izaya's seen him take hits and stabs like no one has ever seen, and Izaya isn't too worried about it, but he still decides to bring him to Shinra. He has to go back to find Varona.

He knows she isn't dead.

He can feel it in his gut, and he can hear it in the whispers of his powers still lingering around the demolished building. They can't find her, and he is too weak to go searching.

First things first, Izaya needs to get Ursus to a doctor. He figures that Shinra is the best bet. They obviously seem to know each other if Ursus brought him to Shinra in the first place back when Izaya was hurt, and he could use another check up with the blood dripping from his face like rain water.

He really overdid it this time.

Izaya gathers what's left of his dignity and strength and crawls over to Ursus. His breathing is normal, if a little shallow, and he's still out cold. He's so warm– even with the distance between them, Izaya can feel it cradle him like a cocoon. Izaya lays down beside Ursus. He places his head on the other's chest just to hear the gentle thrumming of his heartbeat against his ear ear. Placing his hand in Ursus', he delivers a gentle kiss to parted lips.

They really need to get going, but the more and more Izaya thinks about it, can he really pass up this opportunity? He finally gets a chance to find out who Ursus is– the man that has consumed every waking thought since they met. He can't just pass up that opportunity right?

Yes he can.

He has to.

He can not even begin to imagine the trust he would lose if he did something as stupid as that. Ursus will tell him in time. They will share their secrets and everything will be okay.

He hopes.

But that's all Izaya can really do– just sit and hope for the best. He can sit and hope that Ursus, or whoever he is under his mask, will love Izaya just as much as Izaya loves him. No matter who he is, Izaya would still love him. He's sure of it. He can feel it in his chest when his heart skips a beat at the idea of waking up to this man's face every morning, can feel it in the onslaught of emotion he feels when they kiss. He's never loved anyone like this before. He doesn't even love his dear humans as much as this. This is different. It's pure and real and raw and Izaya wants to be all consumed by it. It's not like he isn't already.

Izaya pecks his lips one more time before hugging his body close to his and concentrating heavily on transporting the both of them to Shinra's couch (give or take a few feet respectively). He knows that this is gonna be it. Izaya knows he's gonna pass out as soon as they arrive, but he also knows that he can trust Shinra to protect him and his secrets. It feels good, he thinks, to have someone he can trust again.

With a small smile at the notion, Izaya moves them both. The cold envelopes them both and slips from them just as quickly. He vaguely hears a concerned Shinra call out what he thinks is his name, however it's all blurred with the unconsciousness bleeding into his brain like Izaya's bleeding into Shinra's couch.

He sleeps after that, deep and heavy, and intentionally avoiding the problems he's going to have to answer to when he wakes up.

When he does wake up, he feels fuzzy. He feels more like he's having an out-of-body experience– like he's there watching himself from a third person rather than seeing his life through his own eyes.

Shinra's talking to Celty about someone. Izaya thinks it's him for a second and blearily opens his eyes. He can't make anything out aside from the two blurry figures hovering over his bed.

"Try not... move," Shinra says with what Izaya can barely make out as a sympathetic smile.

The doctor's hand reaches down and Izaya registers the feeling of a cool hand against his forehead before he falls asleep again.

This time when he wakes up, he can see Ursus sitting next to his bed. He's holding his hand gently– his chest rising and falling in steady motions. His head is down with his face buried into the mattress. Ursus isn't wearing his goggles. There's a bandage wrapped around the back of his head instead. Izaya can spot the blood peeking around the top of his bandage. He drags his eyes lazily across his own body.

There's a big cast on his arm that's already adorned with Shinra's name and a big fat heart. He smiles weakly. Izaya can feel the way the brace around his ribs chokes his breathing, but he can't feel any pain, which is a first. His suit still seems intact as he notices the black swimming across his neck and around his nose.

Ursus' grip on his hand tightens ever so slightly, and Izaya sighs. He can't really move much aside from his eyes. His eyelids feel heavy as they tug down into his field of vision. He's still tired, and as he can't really do much but rest up anyway, he figures he might as well sleep. Izaya closes his eyes again.

They open when Shinra starts squeezing the pressure cuff around his arm.

"Just checking your vitals." He smiles. "He's really worried about you, you know? You should heal faster. He wants to talk to you, okay?"

Izaya smiles. He was worried. Unfortunately, Ursus wanted to talk, and that could mean a plethora of things, good and bad. He didn't want to think about it. He didn't want to think about how much he wanted to kiss Ursus and let Ursus have him– all of him– every aspect of him from his current joy to the sins of his past. He didn't want to hide anymore, and he wasn't going to. He was going to show Ursus who he was, and how dedicated he was to this thing that they had built together.

Izaya tried to stand at that point, but his feet never touched the ground. He hovered in front of Shinra, the blanket falling off his hips and to the floor.

"Iza- Itzal! You shouldn't be using your powers so dubiously! You've been bedridden for days!" Shinra squeaked.

"I..." His voice sounded off to his own ears, too low and too full of emotion, "I need to see him. I promise I'll come back to bed, but I need to see him. Where is he?"

"On the roof," Shinra stated, concern still quivering in his voice.

Izaya leaves after that. He heads out the window, his powers still not allowing his feet touch the ground.

Ursus is leaning across the edge of railing when Izaya spots him. His mask is back on, goggles in place, and Izaya snakes his way between him and the cigarette he was about to smoke and kisses him slowly. He's surprised to say the least, and wastes now time dropping the lit cigarette in favor of wrapping his arms around Izaya's abdomen as gently as he can manage and pulling him onto the roof.

Izaya feels like he's on fire again. He didn't notice the chill that had set into his bones with the absence of real physical contact until now. It burns his skin in the best of ways and he can't help but melt.

"Wait," Ursus sighs, "There's... something I wanted to tell you."

Here it comes– the big reveal. All of that time spent waiting has finally lead to this moment, and when Ursus reveals himself, Izaya will do the same. They will be happy, and they will be in love, and Izaya will accept him for whoever he is.

Ursus tears his goggles off before peeling back the spandex that wraps the rest of his face. His eyes open and he looks so trustingly happy and–

Oh no.

Of course. It had to be him. Who else could it have been?

He should have known. Izaya should have known better than to immediately cross him off his list.

A kind honey gaze settles nicely over his unbelieving eyes. He'd wanted this look to be directed at him for years and now that he has it, it burns with an evil realization. His bottle blonde hair is sticking up in awful ways. Dried blood flakes off beneath his bandage of the wound Izaya wasn't quick enough to stop. His smile is just as gentle and pure as his voice when he speaks, the words breaking Izaya's entire world around him. He would never love Izaya. He couldn't possibly bring himself to love Izaya.

"My name is Shizuo Heiwajima. You saved me a while back and I never really got the chance to thank you."