This fanfiction is dedicated to Bekah.

Prologue.

The sight of Shizuo Heiwajima dying was easily the most nauseating thing Izaya Orihara had ever laid eyes on. Nor was it something he had ever imagined himself witnessing. No matter what he had tried in the past, Izaya had always been fairly certain that Shizuo was invincible; the first day they met, Izaya had watched the man get up and walk away after being run over by a truck. Shizuo wasn't human, he was a monster that kept coming back stronger and stronger each time you thought he was down, and that's what made him so exciting. No matter how many times Izaya tested that he never truly believed that he would be able to kill Shizuo Heiwajima, and if he couldn't then what could?

The answer was cancer.

The irony of Shizuo's downfall would have made Izaya laugh if he hadn't felt so sick. Shizuo, who could walk away from being hit by a truck as though nothing had happened, or who thought he had 'tripped' when in reality he had been shot several times, was going to die from a disease. Izaya had stolen the ex-bartender's file from the nurse's station on his way in, to educate himself on what exactly had beaten him in the race to kill his monster.

Shizuo had extensive-stage lung cancer, which meant that the cancer in his lungs (which was undoubtedly a result of his smoking habit) had spread to the rest of his body. At this point getting any sort of transplant was futile, they hadn't caught the cancer quickly enough. All the hospital could do at this point was make sure Shizuo was comfortable until his time came.

And if Shizuo's physical appearance was any indication, it didn't look like he had long. The fake-blonde was tucked neatly into a hospital bed, several monitors running at once and numerous IVs running into his arm. His skin was ashen and the texture like candle wax, and his chest rose faintly even though each breath was heavy and labored. His over-processed blonde hair had begun to thin due to the chemotherapy the doctor's had given him in an attempt to delay his death, and something about it made him look ten years older than he actually was.

It was pitiful, and the most tragic thing Izaya had ever seen. When Izaya heard the rumors that Shizuo was dying he had hardly thought anything of it; in fact, he had actually been extremely amused. Silly rumors like that, especially pertaining to his Shizu-chan, floated around all the time; people liked to invent ways to make the 'invincible man' seem not-so-invincible. Still, Izaya had called up Kadota just to make sure (as an information broker it was his job to know everything, after all) and he had honestly be stunned speechless to hear that everything he had heard was true.

Kadota had heard it from Tom. He and Shizuo had been making their usual debt-collecting rounds when out of nowhere Shizuo apparently collapsed in a hacking, sputtering mess, retching blood onto the pavement. Tom had said that Shizuo had been coughing a lot that whole week and hadn't really thought much of it after the ex-bartender passed it off as "a cold or somethin'." Knowing Shizuo and his level of intelligence that probably is what he thought as well. Too bad his symptoms hadn't shown up sooner, than maybe he would have more time to live.

Despite what Kadota said, the news was so outlandish that there was no way Izaya could believe it unless he went saw it for himself. So he had set out for the hospital, and now he was here. And even as he read the file he had snagged with Shizuo's name on it he still refused to believe that this was really happening, that Shizuo Heiwajima was dying... until he saw him lying in that hospital bed, looking like death was knocking on his door.

Shizuo didn't look like he was awake, and if it weren't for the slow beeps on the monitor next to his bed, the unnatural stillness of blonde's body would have been enough to convince Izaya that he was already dead. The informant approached the bed slowly, sweating under the furry collar of his coat despite the cold chills running up and down his spine. He almost tripped and fumbled to find the arm-rest of a chair next to the slumbering beast, his entire body collapsing into it.

Izaya leaned forward, his heart feeling heavy as stone as it threw itself full-force against his ribcage. The hand that wasn't desperately clinging to the arm-rest for support reached out and poked Shizuo's cheek instead. The skin was icy and unpleasant, and it made Izaya recoil. Shizuo felt like a corpse.

"Ne, Shizu-chan better not be dead yet," He found himself say in his usual light, airy tone, despite the emotions that ravaged him on the inside. "Not until I get to say my goodbyes."

"What do you want, flea?" The voice was quiet and hoarse but distinctively Shizuo's. The ex-bartender's eyes still not open yet, Izaya hadn't expected the words to come out of his mouth.

The informant jumped several inches out of his chair, hand clutching the spot over his chest where his heart was trying desperately to escape. "Shizu-chan, you startled me!" He exclaimed as he settled back into his seat, careful to keep his expression casual and grinning like always. "I really thought you were dead for a minute there!"

The blonde's eyelids were struggling to open with a sleepy, sluggish slowness. "Not yet." He said in a wheezy, heart-breakingly weak voice. Weak. Shizuo Heiwajima sounded... weak. "Why do you want, Izaya?"

The informant swallowed past a lump in his throat that he hadn't felt before. 'Not yet'. Shizuo had said it himself, had resigned himself to his fate... his Shizu-chan was going to die, by something out of both their control. It just wasn't acceptable; Izaya was always in control. He almost felt... envious of whatever was doing this to Shizuo; Shizuo was his, and he was only permitted to die by Izaya's own hand.

That's it. If the cancer was going to try and kill Shizuo, then all Izaya had to do was kill the monster himself before the disease had the chance! In an instant the informant's favorite knife was in his hand, the blade out and glistening and pressed up against the waxy skin of the dying man's throat. "I'm here to kill you of course, Shizu-chan~" He said in a whimsical tone, his maroon eyes flashing as brightly as his weapon. "Today is finally the day I take your life. You can think of me as your personal grim reaper, since your time is running out as it is~" The informant let out a bubble of amused laughter which dissolved into hysterical snickers.

All Shizuo did in response was stare at him with sleepy, glassy eyes. Izaya had never been this close to them before, nor had he ever noticed how they were really a more of a golden color rather than brown. But the lack of expression on Shizuo's face was pissing him off, and the blade was trembling ever-so-slightly in Izaya's hand. After a moment Shizuo's eyes closed, a painful sounding sigh passing through his lips. "Can you make it happen fast?" He asked in a dignified tone, despite the frailty of his voice. "I don't like this whole 'dying slowly' thing."

Izaya was frozen for a moment, then the knife slipped out of his grasp and clattered onto the floor. No. This wasn't his Shizu-chan... his Shizu-chan would never let himself be killed by him. "No." Izaya leaned back in his chair to put some distance between himself and the monster, shaking his head. "That's not like my Shizu-chan."

Shizuo stared tiredly back at him in silence. Izaya rose out of his chair in an instant so that he towered threateningly over the dying man, and he brought his fists down angerly upon his chest. "This isn't how it works!" He shouted, his voice unsteady and bordering on hysterical. "I threaten you and you try to attack me! What's wrong with you?!"

Shizuo's eyelids closed and Izaya was stunned by the length of his eyelashes, something he had never noticed before; it was nice that they hadn't fallen out because of the chemotherapy. "I'm dying, Izaya." He said with heart-wrenching resolve. "There's nothing that can stop it and its happening so slowly and it hurts. You'd be doing me a favor if you just ended me now."

Nausea boiled in the pit of Izaya's stomach and he was forced to swallow back the bile raising in his throat. The weak, defeated man laying in the hospital bed was not the Shizu-chan he loved to hate... he was so pathetic that he was sickened at the mere sight of him. "If I would be doing you a favor then I won't kill you." He said in a cold tone that he was struggling to make sound even.

Shizuo didn't show much of a response to the news so Izaya kept talking, moving about the room touching things and flicking switches because it felt uncomfortable to stand still. "This is such a dreary way to die, Shizu-chan; there's no windows in this room and everything smells like hand sanitizer. No one even brought you any flowers or balloons. Doesn't seem like you've had any visitors, either."

"Simon was here. He started crying though and he demanded that the doctors fix me so they made him leave." Izaya's back was turned as he listened to Shizuo's weak words, so he dared a small smile; that was so like their big black Russian friend. "Kadota and his crew and Tom offered to stop by, but I don't like goodbyes so I told them not too. Celty and Shinra are in Ireland still looking for Celty's head, I told them not to fly back just for my sake. And Kasuka is in Australia or New Zealand or somethin' shooting a movie and he can't make it back."

The smile fell away from Izaya's lips. It honestly was a miserable way to die, with no friends or family there to make his final moments not so bad. It was the kind of lonely death Izaya had always pictured for himself, not someone like Shizuo who had friends and family that cared about him. The raven-haired man couldn't even think of anything nasty to say at this point to bring Shizuo down because honestly, he couldn't get any more pathetic than this.

"Besides," Shizuo continued, even weaker this time and so softly that Izaya had to strain just to hear him. "You're here. I guess I always knew your face would be the last one I ever saw... I just never thought it'd be like this."

It wasn't until that moment that Izaya realized that the little blips on the monitor that were tracking Shizuo's heartbeat had begun to slow down. In an instant he had whirled around and was back at the blonde's bedside, his hands grasping Shizuo's hand out of some sort of instinct. In all the years they had known each other it was the first time their hands had ever touched, and it was colder than Izaya had ever imagined; Shizuo had always seemed like the kind of guy who would have warm skin all the time, this just felt wrong.

"Shizu-chan, what are you doing?" He asked in a voice that sounded desperate and panicked and so unlike himself. "Shizu-chan, you better not be dying...!"

The ex-bartender opened his eyes half-way, his lips twitching at the corners in the first genuine sort-of smile he had ever aimed his way; it was more tragically beautiful than Izaya felt comfortable realizing, and it made his heart lurch painfully in his chest. "I'm kind of glad you're here, flea." His voice was barely a whisper as his eyelids fell closed again. "Its nice to see a look on your face other than that usual smug smirk..."

Something was stinging Izaya's eyes. Tears? No, impossible. Izaya had never cried once in his life. But then what was this moisture running down his cheeks? Whatever it was, at least Shizuo's eyes were closed and he wasn't able to see. "Don't die, Shizu-chan." The words came out before Izaya had any chance of stopping them. "You can't... I.. never planned for this." His hands tightened around his enemy's. "What will I do without my monster?"

The question wasn't rhetorical, and Izaya was desperate for an answer. If Shizuo was leaving him, then he at least owed him some advice on how to go on without him. But the monitor next to Shizuo's bed flat-lined before a reply ever came, and Izaya sat frozen in horror listening to the long, irritable sound that announced the end of Shizuo's struggle to cling to life.

After that moment time became indefinite. No doctors or nurses rushed in in an attempt to revive Shizuo, probably because they knew it was futile. Izaya continued to cling to Shizuo's cold hand, more hot moisture pouring down his face in disgustingly large quantities. Short, hideous gasping sounds were being made in the back of his throat and his nasal cavity, but he was only partially aware of them. Everything was drowned out by the realization that had only hit him when it was too late: Shizuo Heiwajima was the best thing that had ever happened to him.

It was a strange thing to think about someone he had contemplated killing so many times, but the truth of it hit him like a stop sign to the face. Shizuo was exciting and impulsive and unpredictable and never boring. He was so unlike any human Izaya had ever encountered, so different that he had doubted many times if Shizuo was even human at all. Shizuo was the person Izaya had woken up every morning hoping to see ever day since the day they met. How could he go through every day for the rest of his life without constantly checking over his shoulder to make sure a vending machine wasn't about to be hurled at him, or feeling his heart race at the slightest smell of smoke? How was he supposed to live without him?

The answer came very simply: he wasn't. Shizuo was a perfect foil of himself, there would never be anyone else like him; everyone knows that you simply cannot have yin without yang. Besides, it wasn't as though he was leaving anything behind; his precious humans would get on without him just as they had before his birth, Shinra had Celty, and his sister's would undoubtedly care less. He could die now, alongside he beloved monster, and the world would hardly notice his absence.

Feeling suddenly calm, Izaya rose from his seat. He found extra needles in a drawer and in no time had himself hooked up to Shizuo's IV; he didn't know what sort of medicine it was, but enough of anything could kill him. He located the pump that administered doses of the medicine into his bloodstream and clutched it in his shaking palm. Izaya crawled into the bed next to Shizuo and draped his arm across his waist, leaning his cheek on his chest. It was saddening that he couldn't hear the blonde's heart racing due to their close proximity, or feel any warmth radiating off of his skin. Not only that, but this snuggled-up position was the most intimate Izaya had ever gotten with a human, and this was with a corpse.

"Heh... in the end, I'm even more pathetic than you, Shizu-chan." Izaya whispered, beads of hot moisture beginning to roll down his face once more. He craned his neck and pressed a kiss to the dead man's cheek, his lips lingering close to his ear so that he could whisper, "I guess this means you win."

And then he settled himself back on Shizuo's chest, closing his eyes as he squeezed the pump in his palm. His other hand sought out Shizuo's and interlaced their fingers, gripping tight as fog filled his mind. Moments later Izaya Orihara passed away peacefully, as easily as falling asleep, happier than he could ever remember being, because he was in the arms of the man he hadn't realized he loved until it was too late.

.

A/N:

This took a while to write, wow. I honestly had to take breaks in between because I was getting really depressed. I promise that the rest of the story will not be this sad, but I hope the prologue was enough to draw your interest and hopefully you will continue reading. If you guys enjoyed the prologue, please let me know by leaving a review. Pretty please? With a Shizu-chan on top? (*snickers* Shizuo is always on top)

Just wanted to mention, I got the title from a set of lyrics from the song "Alone" by Eyeshine. For those of you who don't know, Eyeshine is Johnny Yong Bosch (Izaya's English Voice Actor)'s band, and they're really good. You should definitely check out the song if you have the time.

By the way, if anyone is interested, I have an Instagram and its a lot easier to get in touch with me via that rather than on this site. My screenname is Hyper4Hetalia so say hi if you want! I cosplay Shizuo so I have a lot of Shizaya on my account~ I also have a youtube channel that has some Shizaya cosplay videos up. We're called HiddenKumaCosplay and you can find us at youtube channel/UC6CWDu_t-4wPVZS2wW9sg0Q

*Just want to add that I have little to no medical knowledge. Anything medicine-related was researched on WebMD or I saw it on House. If something bothers you because its not accurate, don't worry- there won't be any more hospitals or doctors in this fanfiction.