A/N: Added a small scene here to help mend a plot hole that started to fray as the story grew longer!
Shizuo had been having a peaceful night. He has the evening off from work and personal commitments alike, had every intention of sprawling out across his couch and rewatching bad action movies until he fell asleep with the sound of manufactured violence lulling him to unconsciousness. It's a good plan, a comfortable plan, and he's just reaching to tug his tie loose in preparation to do exactly that when his phone rings.
He's furious even before he hits the button to pick up the call.
"What the fuck." The words are raw in his throat, as angry about the interruption to his plans, the interruption to his peace, as about the actual identity of the caller himself. "It's my fucking night off, Izaya-kun, what do you want?"
"Shizu-chan." The false intimacy of the nickname grates over Shizuo's nerves, but it lacks the brittle edge it usually has, that it should have. Shizuo's hand goes still on the fabric of his tie, his face creases into confusion as he struggles to close his attention on what, exactly, is stalling the heated flood of hate on his lips. "You remember how you said not to call unless I was dying."
"Yeah." Shizuo's fire is dampened by the unfamiliar tone in Izaya's voice. He can't place it, there's something there that he's never heard in the sharp skid of the other's usual vocal range, and the amusement flickering in the words is distracting, keeps bringing his attention fluttering away into irritation instead of focus.
"Well." There's a rough sound, wet and raw, and when Izaya speaks again that tone is louder than ever, Shizuo can barely hear the everpresent laughter in his throat at all. "I thought I'd -" The static of noise again, scraped inhuman over the line so it takes Shizuo a moment to realize that's a cough, that's Izaya's throat working around air and liquid together. "Give you a chance to gloat."
Shizuo blinks. He's not seeing anything in front of him anymore; all his attention is given over to the other end of the phone pressed to his ear, to framing the context Izaya's not quite giving him. "Wait. What the fuck are you talking about?"
"Sorry I didn't hold out for you," Izaya is saying, but Shizuo isn't really hearing the words; he's gaining traction off that first phrase, unless I was dying, and his adrenaline is skidding into overdrive over Izaya's choking speech. "I-I guess they saved you the trouble."
"Who's they?" Shizuo blurts, but he doesn't give Izaya a chance to respond, that's the wrong question anyway. "Where are you, tell me."
"Don't worry." Izaya's voice is sounding fainter. There's no laughter in his tone at all, anymore; he sounds weirdly mortal without it. "You don't have to finish the job, Shizu-chan."
"Izaya-kun," Shizuo starts, but he's growling in preemptive frustration even before the line clicks and goes dead. He calls back even before he throws open the door to his apartment, as takes the stairs three at a time to the street, but there's no response, like he knew there wouldn't be.
He keeps calling anyway, redialing over and over so the electronic neutrality of voicemail keeps him company through the night-dark streets of the city. He can feel the faint tinge of Izaya in the air, the oil-slick awareness of invasion clear enough that he can follow it across the park, as he cuts diagonally over nearly-deserted roads without thinking about anything but the thud of his heartbeat coming too-fast and that same repetition of generic voicemail, the polite request to leave a message after the tone without any of Izaya-influence Shizuo can all but taste in the air around him.
He hears the ringing of the other phone before he rounds the corner to actually see it. It's an echo of the buzz in his ear, delayed just enough to be its own sound and coming tinny from the dampening of the alley walls, but it's still clear enough that Shizuo is letting his phone fall from his ear as he takes the corner so sharply he nearly clips the wall with his shoulder.
Izaya's sitting up, slumped against the dark wall and staring at the glowing screen of the phone lying over his unmoving fingers with a smile Shizuo is pretty sure he isn't supposed to see. He turns his chin up as Shizuo steps into the narrow alley, the yellow glow of the streetlights catching his skin into unhealthy pallor, and Shizuo has just processed the dark streak over his lower lip and trickling down to the collar of his shirt when Izaya drags his mouth into a smirk that doesn't touch his eyes at all.
"You didn't have to come," he says. His voice is a little steadier than it sounded over the phone, more usual in its lilting taunt, but without the amplification of the phone speaker Shizuo can tell how faint the words are coming, can see how slow the movement of Izaya's eyelashes are when he blinks. "I told you." He tips his head away, coughs around a breath that sounds more like a gurgle. The light of the cell phone goes dim, falls into the notification of a missed call instead of an active ring.
He doesn't actually look all that bad, in the dim lighting. There's that dark smear across his chin, streaking the back of his knuckle where he must have wiped at it, and his face is a little weird, one side swollen out-of-symmetry with the other. But his hands are lying open at his sides, wrists tipped up to the unnatural light from the street, and the angle of his neck is slightly too steep for comfort, says that it's the wall supporting the weight of his head and not Izaya himself.
"What the fuck happened," Shizuo says without entirely expecting a response. He drops to a knee, rests his weight on what has to be filthy ground so he's not blocking the light on Izaya's pale features.
Izaya blinks, slowly again. His smirk loses its edge, relaxes into self-deprecating softness as his gaze slides out-of-focus on Shizuo's face. "I tried to sell the wrong people the right information." When he coughs again Shizuo can see it shake through his shoulders, like Izaya's incapable of restraining the motion at all. "They decided my life wasn't worth it to them."
"They were right," Shizuo snaps. He's reaching out for Izaya's shirt, ready to touch the torn edges he can see across the other's waist, feel out the stripe of pale skin above blood-dark injury, but well-trained self-preservation keeps his hand just shy of contact, pulls his gaze down to the apparent weakness of Izaya's hands as he tries to calculate the likelihood of getting a sudden knife in his ribs.
Izaya's laugh is weak, shattered glass in the noisy quiet of the city. "I'm not going to stab you." Shizuo glances back up and Izaya is watching him again, his head angled more sharply sideways now so the vulnerable line of his throat is offered up to the light. "I can't feel my hands." He takes a long, rasping breath, swallows and grimaces at the sensation. "I couldn't hurt you even if I wanted to pick a fight."
"You don't want to pick a fight?" Shizuo scoffs, but he does reach out, sets his fingers against the cut fabric to scope out the length of the tear. Izaya flinches, shuts his eyes, but doesn't move to push him away. "Bullshit, no way."
"You can believe what you want, Shizu-chan." Izaya is smiling again, his head tilting farther sideways. "I only called you to let you know to start missing me."
"Fuck you," Shizuo growls, but Izaya doesn't answer. Shizuo can see the curve of his lips go slack, the tension of pain in his features relax into unconsciousness, and just starts to process the tilt of his shoulders when Izaya starts to slide sideways to collapse to the ground. It's reflex that throws Shizuo's arm out to catch him, instinct that sends him leaning in to take Izaya's boneless weight on his shoulder, and then he looks down and sees his shirt going dark against the point of contact.
"Shit." Shizuo wraps an arm around Izaya's shoulders to steady the balance of his body, shoves one-handed at the other's legs until he can get the support of his forearm under Izaya's knees. All the front of his brain has gone quiet to make room for the spreading chill of panic turning his blood into ice and sending his stomach swooping into nausea. He can feel blood seeping through his shirt and undershirt in quick succession, chill and clammy by the time it touches his skin, and if Izaya's habitually dark clothing doesn't show the color Shizuo's white shirt is going to look like a crime scene before they get back to his apartment.
He takes the most direct route back, stepping over landscaped hedges and taking stairs at nearly a run. Izaya's inordinately light; holding him is like carrying a doll, if a doll was composed of what feels entirely like sharp-edged bone. His shoulder is digging into Shizuo's chest, his elbow pinning hurt into Shizuo's forearm, but Shizuo doesn't stop to adjust, or maybe just to abandon him, because his shirt is soaked entirely through, now, and if he slows down he has to think about the fact that he's pretty sure Izaya's breathing is getting weaker with each inhale.
Everything looks worse once Shizuo kicks the unlocked door to his apartment open and gets them inside under the light. Black and red pull apart into distinct colors, the illumination turning Shizuo's shirt crimson and painting all the tears in Izaya's shirt bloody red to contrast the breathless pale of his skin. Shizuo considers his options for a moment before striding to the bathroom, fishing a towel free with the tips of his fingers while keeping a precarious hold on Izaya's unmoving form. He tosses it across the couch before depositing the other onto it and is rewarded immediately with stolen color catching into the towel instead of the fabric of the couch itself. It's pointless to change his own shirt; it's ruined past hope of saving now, anyway, so he ignores it, pushes the buttons at the cuffs free and shoves the sleeves up past his elbows before he starts peeling the remains of Izaya's clothes off.
The jacket is still mostly intact, although Shizuo doubts the fur at the sleeves and collar is going to come clean of the stained red soaked into it. But Izaya's shirt is a mess, ripped to tatters by the edges of knives and heavy with liquid as Shizuo yanks it up over the other's head. It's worse underneath; all the skin he can see cleanly is translucent-pale, clammy to the touch for all that it's smeared over with drying red from a dozen cuts. Some are smaller, shallow and thin enough that they're sticky with forming scabs before Shizuo touches them, but there's a long deep one over the sharp edge of Izaya's hip, still dripping blood to soak the towel under him, and one in his shoulder that looks like a stab instead of a slice, so deep Shizuo can't tell how far the damage extends. Then there's a mass of bruises, imprints of knuckles wrapped around knife handles or maybe knees; it's impossible to tell the cause apart, now that it's just purpling swelling over what are almost certainly at least three cracked ribs.
The injuries painting Izaya's skin scarlet are bad, far worse than Izaya's most successful attacks on Shizuo. But they're not enough to explain the shallow pant of his breathing, the white of his parted lips, so there's more still. Shizuo tears the fabric of Izaya's jeans as the easiest method of getting them off. Between his fingers the denim splits along the seam, bares skinny legs up the the edge of boxers and there's no blood, no injury at all until Shizuo shoves Izaya's still form over. Then he finds it, the bone-deep slice so high on pale thigh that the knife that did it tore through the bottom inch of Izaya's last remaining clothing.
"Shit." It's still bleeding, a sluggish trickle that shows no sign of stopping in spite of the pool of red on the towel where Izaya was lying. Shizuo glances up but Izaya's still unmoving, his head twisted awkwardly against the cushion and his arms limp around his waist. At least he's breathing, even if Shizuo can hear the whine of effort on every inhale. Shizuo leaves him where he is, bleeding into a towel and stripped nearly to bare skin while he goes to retrieve the first-aid kit he leaves out on his bathroom counter as a matter of course.
Shizuo doesn't think about washing his hands until he comes back out, is dropping to a knee and actually confronted with the prospect of stitching Izaya's skin back together. He stares at that injury for a moment, contemplating how much effort he actually wants to go through, before he reaches to grab a handful of alcohol wipes and tears the packets open all at once. They don't take all the blood off his fingers any more than they clean the color off Izaya's skin, but he can feel the chill of evaporating isopropyl, is sure Izaya would be cringing at the pain were he conscious, and that's going to have to be good enough.
It's strange to push the needle through Izaya's skin. Shizuo's not used to turning this level of focus on the other, or at least not this precisely controlled effort. It's all backwards, to be pulling Izaya's skin shut instead of doing his level best to tear it open, but the bleeding slows as the raw edges come together, and if the stitches are irregular and inelegant at least they're doing what they're supposed to do, the same as they do when Shizuo isn't fast enough to dodge the edge of Izaya's knife. He closes up the awful wound in Izaya's leg, moves up to remedy the one at his hip, the deep stab in his shoulder. There's still too many more, but he picks and chooses, stitches shut two, three of the worst before giving up on the others. They're clotted anyway, and he's more concerned about keeping Izaya from actually bleeding out on his couch than he is preventing the evidence of scars.
By the time he finally lifts his head, Shizuo can feel his legs cramping from the awkward angle of leaning over the couch. But Izaya hasn't moved, hasn't so much as stuttered a breath or fluttered his eyelashes. Shizuo lingers a moment, staring to ensure Izaya's not going to stir, before he gives up on what promises to be a lengthy wait and pushes to his feet.
The phone call comes next. It rings through to voicemail four times before there's finally the click of connection, the wordless protest of a groan before Shinra's voice says, "What's going on?"
"Izaya Orihara's unconscious on my couch," Shizuo blurts. It seems the fastest way to catch Shinra up on the situation, and he's too exhausted to form any sort of reasonable explanation.
"Oh." Shizuo can hear Shinra blinking himself into attention in the pause before he continues. "What did he do to you this time?"
"It wasn't me." Shizuo glances back at the couch, though Izaya is just as still as he was a moment ago. He walks into the bedroom anyway, lowers his voice enough that the words won't carry. "He -" He's exhausted, coming down off the rush of adrenaline into lethargy, but some unformed self-preservation still stops his words while he contemplates the best entry point to this story. "He was bleeding out in a goddamn alley. I brought him back here. It was closer than your place." It's easy to invent rationality now that the panic of the moment has faded, convenient reasons rising to the surface of Shizuo's thoughts. It's far easier than considering the impulsive motion that took him directly home without considering other ramifications.
"Is he still bleeding?" Shinra sounds faintly bored and mostly tired.
"No."
"Is he gonna die before the morning?"
"How the fuck am I supposed to know that? You're the doctor here."
"I'm not actually there, at the moment. He's breathing and he's not bleeding?"
Shizuo huffs, shuts his eyes and pinches at the bridge of his nose. "Yeah."
"I'll be over in the morning then."
Shizuo's eyes come open. "What? Shinra, you can't -"
"Call me if he gets worse," Shinra orders, and then the line goes dead.
"Fuck," Shizuo says, clearly against the unresponsive mouthpiece, and then he tosses the phone onto the desk and considers the problem of his ruined clothes. He tugs his shirt free entirely, popping buttons free rather than bothering with unfastening them, wanders into the bathroom to find a towel. He wipes the sheen of red off his chest, splashes water up against the back of his neck before rinsing the cloth back to damp cleanliness and returning to the couch.
It's easy to shove Izaya where he needs to be, twist his arms up so Shizuo can wipe the blood off his skin. It doesn't do much for the swelling at his ribs - that had to be a kick that broke those - or across his cheek, and Shizuo has to go back four times to rinse the cloth, but by the time he's done he can drag the bloodstained towel free and there's just Izaya on his couch, wearing a lot less clothing than Shizuo ever expected and significantly more pale and battered than the blond thought would ever happen except at his own hands, but he's still breathing, and he's not bleeding anymore, and those are both a relief in a way Shizuo doesn't think about too much.
It's still a lot of skin to see, and a lot of uneven stitches. It's that that pushes Shizuo to his feet again, that brings him back from the bedroom with one of his shirts in hand. It's something of a trick to work Izaya's arms into the sleeves, and the whole thing is overlarge even once it's on, showing up the bony frailty of Izaya's shoulders and waist and hips, but at least it covers him, mostly. Wrapped in the white of a clean shirt he looks better, only a little bruised and paler than he should.
Shizuo's still staring at his face, watching the motion of air across Izaya's mouth, when too-thin shoulders shift, Izaya's throat draws tight around a groan, and that's all the warning he gets before there's a pair of crimson eyes staring back at him.
There's a very long moment. Shizuo's fingers itch for the distraction of a cigarette, the excuse of a smoky inhale to distract him from the unblinking attention of Izaya's expression. But his hands are empty, there's nothing when he takes a breath but air, and then Izaya blinks and Shizuo lets himself do the same, carefully, like Izaya might lunge at him if he's too quick about it.
"Where's your shirt?" Izaya's fingers are touching the bottom of the white fabric around his shoulders, worrying at the hem like he's as on-edge as Shizuo, but when Shizuo jerks his chin towards the corner it's a long moment before Izaya looks away to follow his motion.
"Oh." The laughter is more of a comfort than it ought to be, especially given the breathy cough that cracks it apart, but at least that has the ring of familiarity unlike any other part of this situation. "That's a lot of blood."
"Yours," Shizuo clarifies, like it's a competition. "Not mine."
"Yeah." Izaya rolls onto his back, tips his head to glance at Shizuo through his hair while his fingers drag the fabric of the shirt up over his hip. "This isn't the scenario I pictured when I imagined you covered in blood."
"I can't believe I'm agreeing with you," Shizuo growls, but he can't muster any fire under the words. They fall flat into the weird stillness, hang there growing awkward and heavy until Izaya smiles, bright and quick so his teeth flash as he turns his head in towards Shizuo.
"What happened to my clothes?" His smile is bright but the words are weak; his fingers are shaking when Shizuo looks down to see them curled absently around the shirt. "Are you planning to take payment for your doctoring out of my body?"
Shizuo rolls his eyes, shoves at Izaya's shoulder. He means it to be gentle but he overestimates Izaya's condition or underestimates his own strength, can see the smile flicker into a grimace of pain as his fingers touch startlingly bare skin inside the too-big collar of his borrowed shirt. "If you think my shirt is bad you should see your own."
"Yours looked like you murdered someone," Izaya points out, and Shizuo snaps back with "Yours look like it was you who got killed." He doesn't mean to swing it back around to sincerity but as soon as he hears the words on his tongue he's bracing for the silence, the shudder of quiet as Izaya's eyes pull sideways and away again.
"I didn't mean for you to save me." The words are soft, almost a whisper. Shizuo doesn't lean in, still skeptical about Izaya's intentions even as wan and shaky as he appears. "I was just." A hand comes up, flutters away explanations. "Letting you know."
"Oh come on." Shizuo's blood is burning, his hands forming into fists so strong he's tearing at the skin of his palms without realizing. "Like I was just going to let you die in the street." It seems absurd until he says it, until the recollection of dozens of fights and the scrape of knife edges, the burn of bullet wounds reminds him that Izaya would have left him to die, has left him to die on more than one occasion.
"Isn't that what you want?" Izaya is smiling again, turning his head away towards the ceiling so Shizuo can just see the sharp half-formed curve of a smirk that's not aimed at him at all, anymore. "You want me dead, out of your town and out of your life where I won't be a bother anymore." His smile cracks wider, the mania underneath turning his features into a mask of put-upon amusement. "You should have just left me."
"Shut up." Shizuo grinds his fingernails against his palms, tears the crescent shapes in his skin wider. "Just shut up, Izaya-kun."
"I would probably be dead right now," Izaya goes on, entirely ignoring Shizuo's command. His fingers are trailing over his skin, pressing in against the raw edges of Shizuo's stitches in his leg until Shizuo's fingers twitch with desire to snatch the pressure away before he starts bleeding again. "Or at least unconscious in an alley. No one would come for me, you know." He's still smiling, faintly, like he's not really listening to his own words, still picking unthinking at the pattern of stitches. "Pathetic, huh, that it's my worst enemy who cares enough to save my life."
"Shut up." Shizuo leans in, closes his hand on the collar of the shirt around Izaya's shoulder. It leaves prints of red from his palms but he doesn't notice in the first moment. "Just stop fucking talking."
"Shizu-chan." Cold fingers touch his jaw, Izaya's turning that smile on him and his voice is going teasingly soft. "I thought you were going to take advantage of the moment and kill me, not -"
"Shut up." Shizuo grabs at Izaya's hair, closes his fingers into a fist on the dark tangle, and crushes his mouth to the other's like he's trying to steal the last of his breath away.
It does stop the flow of words, at least. Izaya goes as silent as if Shizuo has cut through his vocal chords directly, like the impact of lips against his has wiped out his usual taunting coherency. But then he's parting his lips, opening his mouth wider in invitation, and Shizuo just wanted to get Izaya to stop talking but he's not pulling away, he's not refusing, and then he's tasting the slick metallic burn of Izaya's mouth and Izaya's tongue is sliding against his lips and there are fingers at the bare skin of his shoulder, nails scraping so hard they're probably drawing blood and Shizuo doesn't care. He drags at Izaya's hair, wrenches his head sideways, and he's just getting a better angle on the other's parted lips, just feeling his blood start to burn hot under his skin, when Izaya's teeth close on his lip and there's a flash-hurt of pain from tearing skin.
"Fuck!" Shizuo jerks away, which is not the best decision - the pull drags against the sharp edge of Izaya's teeth, scrape pained friction over his lip before he's free and staring down. Izaya's eyes are dark and his lips are bright, stained red with the blood Shizuo can feel seeping over his tongue, and he's starting to grin, razor-edged amusement before Shizuo can think to get his hand around his shoulder and dig the tips of his fingers in against the deep stab wound he just finished stitching shut.
Izaya arches up off the couch, his face dropping into breathless pain, and Shizuo pushes in against his mouth again, shoves him flat to the couch and holds him still by his hair. Izaya doesn't move away when Shizuo lets his shoulder go so he can drag his fingers down over the texture of bones just under the surface of Izaya's skin; he's got his hand fisted in Shizuo's hair, is pulling with what would be painful force if his limbs weren't so shaking weak from blood loss. They both taste like blood, Shizuo can feel bruising and stitches under his fingers through the fabric of his shirt around Izaya's body, and then he pulls back to take a breath and Izaya's inhale catches audibly in his throat. When Shizuo blinks Izaya twists away, lets blond hair go in favor of angling his arm over his face. Shizuo is still trying to get his bearings, still touching his tongue to the burn of Izaya on his lips and staring at the thin wrist over Izaya's eyes, when what he can see of the other's mouth goes shaky around a breath and a sound alarmingly close to a sob spills from his throat.
Shizuo freezes. He can feel the ice of shock run through his veins, locking him in place and stopping his voice for a moment, wiping his thoughts blank and white. All he can do is stare wide-eyed as Izaya curls in against the side of the couch like he's trying to escape being seen, presses his face into his elbow and starts choking on the sound of tears.
"Jesus christ." Shizuo sounds as shocked as he feels, the words as cold on his tongue as his blood is in his veins. "Are you crying?" He grabs at Izaya's arm without thinking, pulls it away from the other's face without even having to try, and Izaya tries to turn his face away but he is, even Izaya can't possibly do such a good job of feigning the damp on his lashes and the shake at his mouth.
"Fuck," Shizuo says, and then he's moving, jerky and stiff with panic but too desperate to stay still. "Stop, jesus, stop crying." His fingers hit Izaya's face, slide across the edge of his cheekbone to curl over his mouth, to dampen the worst of the coughing sobs coming up from the other's throat. Izaya's not looking at him, his eyes are shut tight with desperation, but Shizuo can't stop staring, can't pull his eyes away from the absolutely unprecedented sight of Izaya's composure shattering.
"Stop," he says again, harsher this time like that will have more of an effect. He's still got a hand in Izaya's hair to match the one over his mouth, bracketing the other in place, but he can't look away, can't cover his eyes until he ducks his head to press his face into the hunched edge of Izaya's shoulder. "Please stop, anything would be better than this."
There's a weak laugh, choking around sobs and the cover of his hand. Shizuo can still make out the words, the attempt at taunting under Izaya's voice even as it falls flat. "So emotional manipulation is the way to get a rise out of you?" Izaya takes a breath, drags strength back into his words for a moment. "Good to know. I have to keep things exciting, I don't want you to f-forget about me." His voice breaks in the middle, teasing shattering into weird sincerity that shivers down Shizuo's spine even before Izaya appends "Shizu-chan" in that awful broken tone.
"Shut up." Shizuo settles his hand tighter over Izaya's mouth to cut off his speech, shoves harder against Izaya's shoulder with his forehead. "Just stop talking, Izaya-kun, stop crying."
It takes longer than he expects. He can hear Izaya trying to regain control, choking on the torn breaths in his throat and tensing his shoulders like he can force himself to calm down, but the shaking has the uncontrolled edge of a broken dam. Shizuo doesn't ask for details - he doesn't want details, he didn't want this to begin with - but he doesn't pull away when Izaya's breathing starts to even off into hiccuping gasps, doesn't lift his head even when the damp of the tears on his fingertips has dried into salt. There's too much here, more than he is ready to touch or talk about now and probably ever, but wrapped in Shizuo's shirt and breathing hot against Shizuo's fingers Izaya seems almost human, and even once he's caught his breath neither of them move away for a long time.