To Love, A Beast.

It didn't take long for medical assistance to arrive. Strobe lights flooded the room, illuminating the two, and with it came men and women clad in white. Izaya made no move to greet them, simply jerked his head up for his gaze to follow them as they shuffled around. A team lifted Shizuo onto a stretcher while another carefully wrapped the disembodied limb in cloth. One placed a hand on Izaya's shoulder, and the raven didn't move to shake it off. He was led to a room with a glass wall showcasing the doctors working on sealing the blond's gaping wound and slowing the bleeding. He was only dimly aware of being stripped down completely and forced to lay down on a metal table as his injuries were checked and treated. His stump and fractured wrist, it seemed, were faring well since his last meeting with them. On the other hand, his recently injured wrist trapped in some infection, and his eye…

It wasn't pretty.

While he waited, bare back flush against uncompromising metal, he uncurled his hand to reveal the rumpled slip of paper and taunting words.

It was an English proverb, one that had a mixture of anger and admiration rising within him - anger from the taunt, and admiration for its cleverness that would be on par with something Izaya could have come up with.

'All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All play and no work makes Jack a mere toy.'

How fitting.

Yet how careless of him to not notice. It should have been clear save for the random numbers and letters sprinkled about to throw him off, and yet he never even started on that path for it to mislead him.

His gaze flitted over the ceiling, along the fluorescent lights, and across the room as needles found their way into his body. Once his eye was bandaged, they pulled him up into a seated position. Sponges were worked along every crevice, curving over his prominent ribs, arcing against the slant of his spine while an electric razor ran along his head. Muddy water trailed down his chest and drizzled onto the floor as matted black strands of hair fell around him like a halo. Izaya turned the paper over in his hands once - twice.

27 N, 142 E.

The coordinates, at least, he had seen immediately, and that gave him enough of an idea to know that they weren't quite far off from Japan's southern coast.

But it didn't matter, did it?

It was yet another facet to a cruel joke, one he would have enjoyed laughing at if he were on the other side. The only way out of this game was death, and he had a couple too many limbs left to consider stealing the endgame for himself. It was an oddly enticing prospect, but…

He gradually released the breath he was holding, the air whistling out from in between his teeth as the doctors filed out of the room from one of the three doors - the second was where they had entered from, and the third was where he expected to progress. However, as he ran his fingers through hair too short and eased out each breath like it was his last, he found himself grasping onto this tentative peace.

Across from him, Shizuo was wheeled out of the room in a similar state of undress, and he bit his lip in thought. His previous prediction was accurate enough, yet now, he wasn't sure what to expect. His eyebrow twitched in irritation, mouth curving downward. It was another reminder that he had no power in this game - mere influence in the direction it takes. At the start of this, his weaknesses, even though they well-hidden beneath layers of facade, were exploited, poked and prodded at until they thrived and festered like open wounds swarming with maggots. Like all injuries, they seal, however messily, but while a flimsy gnarled layer of skin covers it, it simply allows for another injury to appear elsewhere, another glaring weakness in integrity, another opening to take its place.

Skin becomes weaker and weaker as more wounds mottle its surface, and their toll becomes heavier and heavier until it can no longer handle the burden.

It appeared that the freshest cut was inflicted upon himself through Shizuo.

Trying to understand it was like trying to find a black cat in a dark room, except there was no cat. Yet no matter how he may bail water, no matter how good he was at it, there was still a hole in his ship - and the first law of holes? When in one, stop digging.

Eventually, he stood, wavering on his legs for a couple beats before padding down the hall. It opened up into a small room where one side tapered off into a chasm, the other displayed a screen, and at the center lay a prone brunette form face-down. Bare feet scuffed along gritty sandpaper floor, and just as it had been when he came across Shizuo strapped to that grotesque machine, he knew with cold certainty what this next trial would be. The raven first approached the edge, peering down into what must have been underground caves judging by the faint trickling of water. Falling down would have one expect to be broken upon stone, and surviving it would mean frigid water and an encapsulating darkness, so those must be pleasant alternatives to going through with what the gamemasters planned.

Finally, Izaya approached Shizuo and knelt down next to him. Where his arm must have been was instead wrapped thickly in gauze, and his gaze lingered there longer than necessary. When the roles had been reversed, when it had been his leg that missed its continuation, he imagined the brute must have felt guilt, the type that had you drowning on air too thin, even when it was felt towards a man you hated for a decade. Hated…

Izaya without his leg compromised his mobility, and Shizuo without his arm compromised his strength. What was it called… equivalent exchange?

Like the raven, the blond strands were cropped down to their brown roots. He tilted Shizuo's face to the side and flicked his forehead once, then twice, before pursing his lips at the lack of reaction. "Nice to see you're still alive," he muttered under his breath, just as the floor jerked beneath them.

It took a surprisingly small amount of hesitation for him to lift the monster onto his shoulders, wincing underneath the weight as he shuffled forward against the movement of the floor. He helped the brute last time; he could help him once more. The timer in front of him burst to life in a countdown from 24:00.

A room built like a conveyer belt with sandpaper for the floor to eat through the flesh of one's feet to be endured for an entire day, without the solace of any clothing to act as a buffer - he had to admit, he was impressed.

Having the male draped across his back, feeling the soft easy pants stir his hair, experiencing the other's inexplicable warmth beyond that of an average person - it all brought back the very first night they were brought here. Shizuo, who couldn't move, pitted with him in a cage where the informant had been weary of toeing the line separating them. It had been raining outside, just like he could hear the faraway echoes of dripping water. He had been carrying him, ready to jump from the shifting floor of the truck onto asphalt.

There, they made a truce. There, while they were thrust into an unfamiliar situation, they had remained the people they were.

Now? It may appear to parallel that situation, but he couldn't imagine returning to that time of easy bickering.

A breath, then two.

"Here we go, Shizu-chan."

23:00.

His foot had started to chafe, and knots of tension tightened his body as he ambled forward.

22:00.

He keeled over underneath Shizuo's weight, rivulets of sweat darkening the grit of the floor as the brunette slid off his back.

21:00.

He began to value each step taken with his metal foot when the motion of the floor sped up.

20:00.

Blooded imprints were left on the floor. Shizuo was growing almost too heavy for him to bear.

19:00.

The blood was enough for his foot to turn sticky, clinging to the ground like molasses. To distract himself, he recounted his fondest memories, his favorite experiences with people, and when that had grown too much to grasp onto, he simply hummed obscure tunes underneath his breath to the rhythm of his steps.

18:00.

One, two. One, two. One, two. A simple rhythm, now made faster as the ground accelerated, and a simple cadence to the melody of squelching and hollow-sounding steps and lilt of a soft voice.

17:00.

It was cold.

It was so, so cold. I'm freezing, and it's so goddamn cold.

He wandered the forest for what felt like an eternity. There was no life whispering between the trees, but that didn't stop him from calling out.

"Hello?" His voice was hoarse, his body tired and shivering. "Is there anybody out there? Hello? Is there anybody out there?"

His feet accidentally caught against a block in the road, and he tripped, falling forward only to slam his shoulder into a tree, shaking it violently as a few leaves fell to the ground. Shizuo grasped one and felt its texture before it crumbled in the grasp of his fingers, as though it were no more than ash. He looked up at the sky, and there wasn't one star in sight, no glow to be found.

Shizuo watched the pitch black darkness, soft breaths forming in the air before he moved away from the tree and began his call once again. "Hello? Is there anybody out there? Hello…"

Suddenly, he blinked and stood in his tracks, looking left and right as he found more and more trees that stretched out endlessly. "Is there… anybody…" He couldn't recall how many times he had repeated this same sentence over and over, searching for someone, anyone, so that he wouldn't be alone in this black forest. How did he even get here? Where was Japan? Where was Ikebukuro? Where was I-

The last question had been subsequently lopped off as a menacing giggle was heard, and between the trees a pale figure danced effortlessly, unabated by the biting cold while it grew closer and closer.

Instinctively, Shizuo withdrew a foot back, balling his fists up as he watched this strange creature dance. When it got within enough distance, he was able to recognize just what - or who - it was. "Izaya," he muttered through gritted teeth and a tightened jaw.

The figure was silent as it twirled around a tree and stared at the other with a small, sly smile. It had unnaturally pale skin, and its hair was a shade darker than black, as though it drew in all the light around it. An incline of its head made way for a grin while it remained silent.

The tension that Shizuo felt expanded leaps and bounds with every second that passed. "What?" He asked, voice wary and distrusting. "What is it?"

"Do me a favour," the figure whispered before it vanished.

A moment of disbelief passed before impossibly cold fingers brushed against the skin underneath his shoulder and another around his neck. It burned, as if he were touching the sun, before nails began to dig into the flesh of his arm. Pain ignited, so overwhelming in its nature that Shizuo's only instinct was to scream as he dropped to his knees, attempting to tear away the apparition's grasp away from him, yet the energy from his body was washed away.

Spots danced in his vision while cold blood ran down his dominant arm, the figure letting out another giggle as fingers ripped apart skin, flesh, and crushed bone into dust. Shizuo's body spasmed before going limp. Those same fingers satisfactorily slipped away, blood dripping off one of the creature's hands while it stood tall over the body growing cold in the snow.

"And suffer."

When Shizuo had roused, the remnants of his dreams were already chased away by the waking nightmare, and all he could feel was something that was not there. Just like a hallucination, it was only tricks of the mind made for viciousness. He felt lethargic, his entire body leaden with the lull of rest attempting to drag him back down, and he would have let it had it not been for the discomforting absence of pain. Where his arm originally was, it was replaced by a limb of gauze. He tried to move it, but in lieu of what he wanted, what he got was a pathetic nudge of a numb stump.

His mind began to echo with thoughts, and he could already feel the pressure in the back of his head. Where there used to be a tangible mass of flesh and bone covered in skin, there was nothing. It's gone. It's really gone this time and it's not coming back.

It was as if he could see an invisible outline of what used to be, non-existent fingers wrapping over his palm and skin creasing, yet he knew it was a lie. The brunette didn't want to think how this would affect him in the short-term - as there was not going to be a long-term. With a crucial limb gone, he had practically turned into a human baseball bat.

His eyes followed the trail of blood, leading up and up into a chasm of abyssal darkness. The other arm, the one that still remained, was draped around bare, slim, and bony shoulders, of which he already knew who they belonged to. He was able to get a good look at the other's body - decrepit and starving.

A leg for an arm.

The blood from Izaya's ruined soles trailed down and covered his own leg in crimson as he tuned into the raven's humming. He looked down and examined himself. The skin on the front of his lower legs was a raw red, the result of being dragged across the sandpaper for hours on end. For anyone else, the skin would have been long gone, but Shizuo wasn't anyone else.

It's like it's there, he mused, but it's not. "Hey," the brunette near-whispered, throat sore as he talked. "Izaya?"

At first, the only sign that the raven heard him was the minute lift of his head, before he stated, "Rise and shine."

A few seconds of silence passed as Shizuo tried to recollect his thoughts, opening his mouth and closing it repeatedly as he tried to pick a few words to cobble together to form a sentence. Who knows where those sick fucks took my arm and what they're planning to do with it. "I'm… awake. Where are we?"

Ever so slightly, Izaya was trembling underneath him, a motion that would have gone unnoticed had it not been for him taking the effort to speak. "An island south of Japan, apparently." His voice was clear, syllables rolling out of his mouth with the smoothness of water. Not animated, yet not without inflection.

"South of Japan," the brunette mumbled quietly, echoing what Izaya had said. "That's…" A taunt. A reminder of how we're stuck here. "Can you pull me up?" He asked, actively deciding not to think about that fact.

Izaya complied, straightening to allow the other to stand and withdrawing his hands from the other's arm. However, as soon as Shizuo's weight was off his back, he slumped forward, eyes clenching shut as the world momentarily devolved into smears of color. Distinct lines of tension corded his back as he inhaled slow, deep breaths.

It was like Shizuo woke up exactly at the point where the raven was just about to collapse. "You okay?" He asked, body tensing as he prepared himself to catch Izaya should he fall.

"I'm touched by your concern." There was a heaviness in his limbs that gently whispered into his ears to stop and rest, but he took another lethargic, dragging step, biting his lip against the fire in his foot.

An intake of breath or two as Shizuo looked at the white wrappings of gauze, the pain - or lack thereof - still there, before looking back to the informant. "You tried to jam the machine." A beat passed, and he added on, "I think."

"I did," Izaya confirmed, not turning around to address Shizuo as he spoke. "Though as soon as I turned it off, you were offered the mercy of losing your arm to a blade rather than having it painstakingly ripped out. A pity." Despite the nature of his words, it lacked the caustic bite.

The brunette sighed and instinctively tried to ball a fist on his phantom arm but winced quietly instead. "I don't want a repeat conversation, so at least try to match up your words with how you feel."

"Talking about my inebriation?" he stated dryly. "I didn't think you'd still be caught over whatever ridiculous things I said when you have just lost your dominant arm."

I guess we're… no, we're not.

"You know, spending all this time walking aimlessly without your wonderful company reminded me of a time where I had the pleasure of watching drunkenness live. It really is something watching a human who had passed out suddenly awaken and make for the bathroom, crawling like a demented crab. This was after I watched him flirt with his own plate..." Izaya continued to prattle on and on, switching from one topic to the next, expertly redirecting the conversation elsewhere. His steps continued to drag, fatigue becoming more and more evident with the slight slurring of words and hitching of his breath.

A while into the raven's chirpy ramblings, Shizuo's ears automatically tuned out his words, and he entered his own world of thought. Looking down at the sandpaper as his feet took one step after another, his mind wandered back to the questions posed by him from when, courtesy of Izaya being a lightweight, he received answers he wasn't sure he wanted to receive.

"I remember that I asked you if you hated me, and you took a moment before saying yes," he suddenly interrupted, head bobbing up to look at Izaya. "Then I asked you if you loved me, and you laughed before drinking." In front of him, Izaya had stiffened, but the brunette pressed on, no emotion being betrayed on his face as he continued to speak shamelessly. "I asked, 'Do you still want to kill me?' and at first you didn't answer. You talked about roses and how you never experienced how it's like to be a human being, and I had to shake you a few times so that you could regain composure of yourself. Then you told me 'No, I don't want to kill you.'" Another noticeable tension in the other as he nearly missed a step, catching himself before he could trip. "I asked, 'Why?' You told me that I killed for you, cheated for you, waged war for you, did all the things no one else would do for you, and you couldn't possibly kill someone like that."

.

.

.

"And?"

A single word spoken in a single breath, dropping like a weight.

"You told me that we're both monsters, and that only monsters belong to each other," he continued, voice still flat and monotone. There wasn't a point in concealing anything anymore. "You love me." Anything. "I don't know how or why because it goes against everything you've worked for your entire life. Before all this, if I died, you would have celebrated around Tokyo, and if you died, I wouldn't have cared, but everything's changed. Everything." At this point, he just wondered how the raven would try to deflect it, turn it into his favor, or try to regain control of the conversation, all old tricks in the book that have long since been used up.

Instead, all he received was, "Too bad."

"I just felt like saying what was on my mind. Just like you did. Do whatever you want. Not like much matters anymore, you know?" He idly ran a hand down the gauze, waiting for what the raven would say, if anything. Maybe a quip or two.

Yet Shizuo was met with silence, and so he took that silence as a sign that the conversation was over - not until Izaya collapsed, at least. The brunette gaze trailed to the ground, watching his feet move along small, crimson footprints. Thought took up residence as the shuffle of feet over grit filled the room, along with the increasingly labored breaths of the informant. Walking ahead of the other, his expression could not be discerned, and perhaps it was for the better.

Abruptly, Izaya faltered, scraping his knees on the ground with his hands shooting out to break his fall. The sole of his foot was a swollen undecipherable mess of red, blood trickling down into the dirt, and Izaya remained there, unmoving as the floor drew him backwards.

That's the call, Shizuo thought, as he walked forward and wrapped his remaining limb under one of Izaya's arms, pulling him up and leaning him against himself. "Climb on my should-" Forcefully, the raven slipped away from him, only to have a hand shoot out to grasp his arm to keep him from retreating further. "Don't," the brunette said, taking a breath, "do that."

Izaya jerked his arm in another futile attempt to free himself, before finally turning to face the other. There was an electric anger in his gaze, a sort of challenge that once would make Shizuo long to hit him with something heavy like a pick-up truck. "Clearly you plan on doing whatever pleases you," he hissed, lifting his arm in appraisal. "So it appears I don't have much of a choice." They had both stopped, Izaya with his foot hovering slightly above the ground and Shizuo with his shoulders drooping in weariness, caught in this confrontation of cold fury and heated irritation.

"And what do you want me to do?" The other asked as he ground his teeth together, trying to suppress his own anger. "You want me to let you fall to your fucking death?" Another breath was taken, and he let his teeth show in a grimace. "Is that what you want?" Once again he tried to ball up a phantom fist, but he only felt unfamiliar numbness.

"I would settle for you being a less presumptuous simpleton, but it doesn't seem either of us will get what we want." His ire was a living thing - shifting, changing, growing. Watching humans, he knew there was supposed to be something gratifying about shouting in a blind rage until your words ran out, even when the aftermath of telling everyone you hated them and to not come after you wasn't as pleasant. And yet, he could not allow himself to descend completely into it. Anger was useful to an extent; rage made you careless.

"Presumptuous?" He demanded, grip tightening ever so slightly as he took a step forward, just as Izaya reciprocated the gesture. "Then why don't you tell me yourself? Or are you gonna keep silent, and let what I said go without second thought? What's it gonna be?"

The words came easier, quicker, each syllable refining perfectly in his mouth to slip out without any hesitance. "What you said is so far from reality that it deserves to be left without a second thought." The vague pain pressed into his arm went unnoticed; as did the fact that they were gradually nearing the precipice. "Who could possibly learn to love a beast?"

"Then…" His grimace closed up into a frown, and his spine straightened. The brunette's eyebrows relaxed, but traces of irritation were still left in his voice. "Then I hope - and I really hope - that you're right." Unease gripped his chest, uncertainty raising his hackles.

He observed the transformation in the other's features, watching pique simmer down into confusion. "So easily satisfied," Izaya mockingly marveled, tugging at his arm once more. "Go on, get angrier. Your face was designed to express rage and loathing. It doesn't suit it to have any other expression."

Shizuo and the raven were already reaching the end-game, and he didn't see a point in playing into his tricks. The informant's attempts to rile him up only served to annoy him. "Just shut the fuck up, Izaya."

The longer this drew on, the less he was inclined to keep up the draining fury, and the more chinks in the armor appeared. There was a truth at the core of his existence - a yawning emptiness, liberally coated in mockery and charm and facade. It had always been there, and the brute had always been adept at chipping it away. With the events of the past couple weeks, Izaya knew he would have to end this quickly lest his mask fall away all-together at Shizuo recklessly digging into him. "Counterintuitive when it was you who demanded a response to your baseless 'theories.'"

The brunette gave a light shrug. "Well, I guess that now neither of us are obligated to answer each other." He looked to his side and blinked, seeing that the void of darkness now occupied a swath of his vision. "Though you don't have to, it'd be really nice if you got on my shoulder right about now."

Izaya's gaze followed the other's, and he started away a couple steps, gingerly allowing his foot to touch the floor. He wasn't walking anywhere near fast enough to match the pace of the conveyer belt, but he didn't dare want to disgrace himself further after bearing audience to his drunken spiels, especially when they were both so scantily clad. He gave the other a look of reproach, mind spiraling back to the campfire and acidic gas.

The difference between then and now was that Shizuo couldn't forcefully carry him.

His face scrunched up in displeasure and indecision, before the brute startled him with, "COME ON!" Wincing inwardly, Izaya hesitantly wrapped his arms around the other's neck and lifted himself up, just as Shizuo's arm easily slid underneath him to support his weight. Without the recalcitrant raven holding him back, the other easily bound ahead and started walking at an even pace.

The current time was 16:20. That meant they had sixteen hours and twenty minutes remaining to bear each other.

Blood continued to drizzle down Izaya's feet, dripping along Shizuo's leg before trailing to the ground. It was a murmur Shizuo was likely not meant to hear, but one that reached his ears nonetheless as the raven shifted, discomfort and mortification etched into every fiber of his being. "Oh, how you enjoy humiliating me."

Shizuo was in disbelief, the surprise clear in his tone as he muttered back, "Jesus Christ flea, you think I like having your dick touch me?"

Izaya bit his tongue hard to keep himself from sputtering, yet his nails dug red crescents into Shizuo's flesh. "Could you at least speak with a little more tact?"

"And how exactly was I going to be more tactful with what I said?" He didn't feel the raven carving into his back, nor the tiny trails of blood that followed along with it, but he didn't miss how the other grew tense, his wiry frame clearly betraying his discomposure. Indeed, he was quite discomforted with it too, but he tried to bear with it. They'd be here for sixteen hours, and while it probably wouldn't get any better, it shouldn't stay unbearable for too long.

They lapsed into tense silence after that, one that gradually loosened as Izaya uncoiled, allowing his fatigue to sink in and have him drift into an intermittent sleep.

16:00.

Some people say that fate and destiny are real, and others say that they have our own, absolute, free will. Some people will want to say that their choices are already made for them - how fate attaches its strings to their body and dangles them to their end goal - their destination in life.

Shizuo wondered just what the hell kind of fate would be set in stone for him if all choices made by him were moot. Was he a fatalist? If one asked him that question, he wouldn't know how to answer. Good guys don't always prosper in the end, and sometimes, the bad guys win. One can read children's stories to kids, and they'd be happy that the brave knight saves the princess, but real life is much gloomier and darker, muddier and greyer than the black and white of fables.

15:00.

He served as a person of many, of hundreds of thousands, that were subject to a fate similar to his. A gruesome and abrupt end to what was once a half-decent life that was led by a twenty-something-year-old Japanese male, and another twenty-something-year-old Japanese male. It was funny - how everything sounds so similar when one put people into such broad tags, like humans. Everyone is a 'human.' Even the lowest of scum and the most virtuous of saints. The ones who kidnapped him and Izaya? They were human, too. Cruel, twisted, morbid, and psychopathic, they nonetheless are of the same race shared by so many other people.

Does that mean they're worthy of forgiveness? To Shizuo, if he ever saw the face of who did all of this, he would most certainly tear them apart to such an extent they would be rendered a bloody smear across the floor, so the answer would be a clear no. But while revenge fantasies may be nice, it would be like trying to push water uphill with a rake; a waste of time and something that would not solve anything.

And what about Izaya? The man in his grasp who was missing a leg and what was practically an eye, he was human too. Born human, with human traits, though with a personality so 'inhuman' some people would doubt that claim, but so undoubtedly concealing the same emotions and traits shared with some seven billion people on planet Earth, it can't be dismissed. With having the same emotions came the same weaknesses. Except Izaya simply isolated those weaknesses so far away that they were practically in Pandora's box.

14:00.

Shizuo was not an armchair psychologist. He could read people well enough, but not amazingly, and so he wasn't always right in those sorts of regards, often making misjudgments in the process. Someone like Izaya, however, was an oddball, an exception. At times he was incomprehensible, and at other times he was so easily seen through that it was appalling.

The raven knew about the feeling of love. That much was certain, yet his idea of love was corrupted, a convoluted facsimile of what it really meant. He had never experienced it, only his twisted image of 'love for humanity' that was applied constantly, seeping into every word that left his mouth as he ruined Shizuo's life, or sowed chaos amongst the residents of Ikebukuro, or…

Never, however, had he seen Izaya be quiet for longer than ten seconds - the only exception would be if they were punished by Simon for making a ruckus in his restaurant, and that the only silence that was ever shared was during the time while they both ate food - without having something up his sleeve. Never had he seen Izaya settle down for once in his life and do normal people things, like have conversations, talk, laugh in genuinity, share jokes, or anything like it.

… Apart from that one time they had fish, which, in retrospect, Shizuo found just a bit strange, but maybe it was just another thing Izaya would have used to prod at him had it not been for what happened.

13:00.

Eleven hours had passed. He wondered just how the hell Izaya carried him for so long, albeit at the cost of practically all the skin on his actual foot and a good deal of blood. Had it not been for that, well… he'd have been stuck who-knows-how far down into the abyss, just to starve to death in a damp pitch blackness, where attempting to break out would have the cave collapse above him. He was at least grateful for that. Not the way he wanted to go out.

His feet were starting to get a little sore, but it was nothing too bad. The sandpaper grated his nerves a little, but he had long since gotten used to it, and the desensitization to touch helped alleviate it. Doing this same motion over and over and over again gave him the slightest hint of tiredness, but thankfully his stamina was nigh-infinite.

12:00. Halfway there.

Shizuo's mind wandered back to Izaya, seeing as how he was both the closest thing to him and the fact that he had nothing else to think about. He thought of when Izaya got drunk while he only got buzzed, and the answers that the raven had given. It was strange, seeing how Izaya became more and more carefree and whimsical while still managing to retain some of his sharpness, but it was a gateway into what he was like under the many different masks he wore. The raven didn't actively try to piss him off, and the answers he gave…

'Do you love me?'

Then Izaya laughed. 'I hate drinking.'

Perhaps things were a bit different when he was sober, but one doesn't become a completely different person when they're drunk, especially when Izaya was considered. He didn't want to admit it, but there was a sliver of truth to the drunken man's words. The way Izaya acted once he told him all of that, the way in how quickly he became angry and lost his composure.

Maybe it's true after all. He did all the things that no one would ever do for Izaya. He admitted it himself.

Maybe… maybe Izaya-

The raven convulsed in his arms, jerking awake in the same manner one did when they felt as though they were falling. His head lifted from where it rested on the crook of his neck, eyes peering blearily up at Shizuo in confusion. His foot twitched, perhaps in remembrance of the pain it endured, yet now the sole was crusted over with dry blood intermingled with flecks of grit. All at once, his irises cleared, going from a muted shade of brown to that rich rustic red, before the color dipped underneath a fringe of dark lashes. His head lolled back onto the other's shoulder as a quiet groan of exasperation escaping his lips. "What are you thinking about?"

Shizuo's train of thought violently came to a halt as he blinked, raising his eyebrows in surprise. "I'm thinking about how the hell you slept so little."

"Shizu-chan's shoulder doesn't make for the best pillow." His words were slurring slightly, as though he were still caught between wakefulness and sleep, but the sharpness of his eyes indicated otherwise. Abruptly, he giggled, more out of genuine amusement than mockery. With their closeness, the other could easily feel the laughs that rattled his rib cage, hear it disconcertingly close to his ear, feel the ebb and flow of air leaving the raven's mouth.

The brunette took a moment to readjust, having Izaya's breath stick to his skin unnerving him just slightly. "What's so funny?" He quietly asked as a crease formed between his brows, mildly irritated despite being a little bit curious.

"Ever thought there would come a day that I would be sleeping on your shoulder, fully conscious of the fact that I am?" Izaya tilted his head to the other side, away from the musky fragrance clinging to Shizuo's neck. "It wasn't too long ago that you were trying to throw convenience store trash cans at me, and I was trying to carve out your stomach."

Shizuo huffed. "What I'd give to have that back…"

"Oh~ I thought you'd be enjoying this. You always said you'd be happy if I left you alone. I'd gladly do so now."

"This might just be the complete and total opposite of leaving me alone."

Another laugh, one that was more disquieting than the last in its lack of derision, but it was mercifully directed away from him. "I am not attempting to carve out your stomach," he amended.

Shizuo rolled his eyes. If he's not trying to carve out his stomach then the ex-blond isn't trying to beat his head in. Correct, but still. "'I cannot tell a lie.' Yeah, and you would if I gave you a knife."

"No," he muttered, almost in dismay and yearning. "I wouldn't."

There was something different in having the raven's warmth this close, considering how the past times they were like this involved carrying him on his shoulder and back. With the proximity, the scent that was decidedly Izaya was free to waft up into his nose, intermingling with the bitter tang of blood and antiseptics. Such a smell was always so far away and on the chase, but so close up, it was different, like he entered a separate bubble of atmosphere - one that he… admittedly, it was a step up from cold metal and sandpaper.

Shizuo chewed on his lip for a while, then bothered himself with a response. "Can't believe I actually trust you on that one."

"You told me that I said that I didn't want to kill you anymore," he drawled, turning his gaze back to the other. His expression was carefully blank, voice tinted with inquisitiveness. With composure regained, he freely trod on territory that had him slipping and falling before, as if to show that whatever reaction he originally had was insubstantial, that his nonchalance now was how he truly felt all along. "Hypocritical of you not to believe it yet try to force me to."

Izaya was right. To an extent. He was certainly a hypocrite, but so was the raven, who proved it time and time again. "Never said carving up my stomach would kill me," he commented.

"But apparently, I love you." There it was - that caustic bite, that sliver of teeth revealed behind lips pulled back in a smirk, that lazy half-lidding of eyes that indicated he was back. "Who would so severely maim the person they love?"

The response was a face of flat annoyance. "I don't know Izaya," he retorted sarcastically, "Who would?" The answer he was expecting was 'Nobody, you brute,' but he'd wait.

And Izaya didn't miss a beat, speaking with the casual indifference of one who didn't appreciate the situation he was in. "Perhaps whoever birthed you."

Immediately, red flags were sent off, and his volatile anger rose tremendously before he barely managed to quell it right before it broke past the boiling point. "Nice, Izaya. Real nice. You're just a charmer, you know?" His voice dripped with toxic amounts of scorn that it was evident how riled up he was.

The raven hit a sore spot, and he downright basked in it, lavishing every second of undisputed victory and made it known to the other. "Ah, so it's working. I was wondering about that." It was small moments like these did Izaya truly feel a semblance of normalcy, and yet he would be reminded of his impaired vision, of his frail wrists and phantom leg. A bitterness would form at the back of his tongue then, one that he had grown accustomed to swallowing down and brushing aside.

"This is just between you," he emphasized by squeezing the raven slightly, "And me." His eyes narrowed as his frown deepened. "Don't fucking mention anyone else."

That movement, the pressure of Shizuo's arm on the back of his legs, was enough to remind him of just how much the brute thought he was in control of the situation. The corner of his lips quivered in suppressed irritation. "'Between you and me,'" he scoffed, forearms tightening. "Tell me, what is it that inspired you into thinking I was worthy of your help?"

"Because if I let you die then that'd mark me as a monster. That's the one mentality that's kept me from ripping your worthless flea ass apart whenever I wanted to." His eyes filled with a rapidly expanding fire that grew from a darkness in his eyes to a quake in his bones. "You were never worthy of saving, Izaya. Had it been between anyone else, had it been between two normal people, one would have been dead five minutes in, and their body would be wasting away in some part of the island." Rage wrapped itself around him like a tourniquet, a substance flowing through his veins that charged his emotions like electricity to a light-bulb. He was it, and it was he, as it always was. "You think you're some sort of high-class king that deserves to be treated like a god? Well HERE WE ARE NOW!"

Shizuo hadn't even noticed how the tracks had stopped, or how the timer flashed from blue to red at 11:11 as Izaya involuntarily ducked his chin to the side in response to being subjected to Shizuo's volume. "Maybe I'm a monster, but there's something that I have that you don't, and you never will." Just as Izaya wanted, he would get to see a face so contorted in fury and a tone not unlike that of a savage beast, experience it from a seat that couldn't get any closer. His grip went far beyond discomfort and into keen pain. "No one loves you, and no one ever will."

Bleakness was crawling into Izaya's skull, one that was kept at bay through steady albeit constricted inhales, trying to tune it all out - everything from the pressure in his brain that eroded his focus to the flow of thoughts he forcefully diverted. The silence and passage of time only seemed to fan it, but his attention was drawn towards the sudden stillness. "Shizu-"

"Shut the fuck up before I make you shut the fuck up. Close your stupid mouth for five goddamn minutes."

He twisted to the side, pushing away from Shizuo's chest and craning his neck towards the screen.

Shizuo's grasp lightened up as he snarled, "You wanna fall? I'm not stopping you this time."

"Could you listen-"

Before Izaya had a chance to complete his sentence, the floor beneath them jerked into motion once more, accelerating dizzyingly fast. Weary due to the wave of anger that broiled to the surface, Shizuo didn't manage to respond on time as he was thrown backwards. His naked back slammed against the wall while Izaya was spared mercy; and then the brunette's body turned over began to spin, falling down and down and down as they were consumed by darkness.