Sick Bay

Well this was embarrassing, he, the great Izaya Orihara had the flu. He'd admit this was a fun twist to the game he loved playing, but a terrible inconvenience, he'd so wanted to bother Shizu-chan today. But no, here he was, stuck in bed feeling awful, and his only hope was that…

CRASH

Well scratch that, it seems the monster of Ikebukuro had decided to come and play with him today. He could only hope that Shizu-chan was still stupid enough to not know exactly how his complicated elevator system works.

PING

Well that hope just flew out of the window, he blamed Namie; she never could appreciate the things he did.

SLAM

Were he any less of a person, he'd crawl under the covers and hope that the door that just came off of its hinges wouldn't hit them in the head but he just leaned back and felt a small rush of wind when the door flew past him.

"IZAYAAAAAA!"

The monster stormed in with killing intent written all over his face. Izaya faced what would certainly be his certain death face on and at least sat up straight and proud, he didn't even bother trying to run away – his legs were jelly and his head fuzzy. His would be killer marched over to the bed with glee written on his face, the protozoan was enjoying this too much.

"I'm gonna make sure you stay out of Ikebukuro for good, damn flea." He started gouging his hand into the wall, probably to grab it and crush him with it, when he finally seemed to realize that Izaya wasn't running for his life and was instead lying in bed with an admittedly pitiful expression on his face. His nose was red and his eyes were puffy, just staring at the bleach blonde with a deadpan face.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" The informant had to chuckle at the bluntness of his favourite plaything.

"Well, as my bad state in front of you should show, I have the flu. A bit of a bad situation I'll admit." He kept his signature smirk on his face, hoping to spare himself some dignity in the face of his enemy.

"Grr, damn it! How the hell did you catch the flu? Even back in high school, you never got sick."

'Shizu-chan remembers that?' The thought was a stray one and Izaya was shocked that he'd thought about his greatest enemy with a rather… soft tone.

"Well, Namie brought in some chemicals and slipped them into my coffee, apparently she thought I'd been annoying lately." The guard, that Shizuo had temporarily dropped, came back up again and he resumed his growling.

"You're always annoying, I can't blame her." There was a hitch in his growling and Izaya was certain that the monster was actually not trying to laugh.

"Well, it's not fair to kill you when you're so… pathetic. How are you feeling?" Red eyes widened at the question, Shizu-chan was going to pass up the opportunity to kill him? Normally Shizuo would have jumped on the chance to send him six feet under like this. Just because he was sick, did that mean Shizuo was going easy on him? 'No way! That is not on!'

Instead of replying to Shizuo's question, Izaya leaped out of bed and through the hole in his wall Shizuo had made by throwing his door into the room. He fell a couple of floors before landing perfectly on his feet, like a cat, in a crouch.

"IZAYAAAAA!" That was better.

*/*\*

He'd ended up running to Shinra's, Celty had been out on a job, which was surprisingly not called in by him, and the underground doctor had insisted on patching him up and giving him medicine like a mother hen. Izaya had tried to protest, but running all the way from his apartment in cold winter weather and moving fast enough to escape Shizuo had tired him out greatly.

Afterwards, Shinra had been called to a factory where someone had been in a bad accident and couldn't be moved at all, Izaya was told not to move from his sick bed while Shinra went to work. His 'friend' had said that he'd call someone to take care of Izaya while he was away and Izaya hadn't even had time to put up an argument for being babysat before the brunette was out the door and dialling his phone. Personally, the informant wouldn't have listened to a word his old schoolmate had said and gone off to work, except Shinra knew him just a little bit too well and had seen fit to strap him in and take his knife away. So now he was stuck… terrific.

Moments later there was a knocking on the door, the informant kept quiet – hoping the person would go away – before the door came flying into Shinra's place. If he could have, he'd have paled rapidly. It was official, Shinra wanted him dead too, why else would he send Shizuo to look after him? He'd like to say that he was happy with his life and he had no regrets, but he'd be lying. He could only hope that his beloved humans were going to be so boring without him – who deserved excitement if the mastermind had fallen?

"Oi flea!" The shout was so close that Izaya nearly jumped, but still was restrained, so instead merely bruised his wrists. He turned his head a little, to see Shizuo looking at him in concern.

"You were spacing out, what scheme are you plotting?"

"Aww, you always suspect the worst of me Shizu-chan. Can't you for once believe that I have a headache and was just trying to spare myself some pain?"

Shizuo brought back his growling and glared, soon after he realized that the look would be more effective if he took off his sunglasses. "Oh I know you're in pain, Shinra gave me the lay down and I saw you earlier. I think you'll be happy to know that I'm enjoying every minute of this." He glared weakly at the smug and slightly sarcastic tone before ridding himself of the look and putting his most annoying smirk on.

"Oh I'm simply ecstatic." Shizuo cracked a small smile at his nemesis' use of sarcasm before composing himself and silently hoping that the flea hadn't seen.

"How brilliant, unfortunately I still can't kill you unless I want Shinra, Kadota and Celty mad at me, today I'm really not in the mood to be yelled at by two friends and a dullahan so I guess you're off the hook… for now anyway." Izaya smirked again and rested his head back on the pillows as Shizuo started talking about random things to try and make him feel bad – obviously it didn't work – and it amused him greatly if he was stuck like this.