A/N: Sorry for the wait. Here's chapter 3.


Nothing to Fear

Chapter 3

After an awkward, but sickeningly sweet dinner, Izaya had retired to bed and firmly refused to leave his king-sized comfort until after noon the next day, even if he wasn't really sleeping too much in it anymore.

Izaya's strange sleeping habits weren't really affected by the pills anymore. Rather, not properly. Izaya found himself waking up randomly in the night and being forced to limp and stumble around his bedroom in order to entertain himself. An hour or so would pass and he would pass out again. Then three or four hours later he would be up and pacing his room with a wince in every step. He had always imagined the blonde would be a deep sleeper but he had no desire to rouse a slumbering monster in his condition either. So for a week he tried to entertain himself, dragging his laptop to bed at some point as well.

He'd thought he had Shizuo fooled.

But Shizuo always had a way of messing with his plans, unintentionally as it may be.

"Izaya what the hell are you doing at night?" Shizuo growled over breakfast one morning and Izaya paused as his mouth closed around the spoon of oatmeal. He stared at the annoyed blonde in bemusement before swallowing and laying his spoon down.

"You heard me?" He asked rhetorically. Then continued, "Mmm~, sorry Shizu-chan I didn't mean to wake you up."

"Whatever, flea. One night I can understand but you've been at it all week long." Shizuo stopped, brown eyes flashing over him with some concern, "The pain killers are still working aren't they?"

Three and a half weeks ago, Izaya might have mocked that concern. But honestly the TLC he had shockingly received from his favorite monster human and left over lethargy from the heavy painkillers mellowed out the urge.

"Yes." He said shortly, letting his spoon plunk back into his bowl. He didn't really want to explain himself. His sleeping habits were the norm for him now, a necessary disappointment.

Shizuo twitched a little across from him and gritted out, "So what the hell are you doing up every night?"

Izaya smirked, "My, my Shizuo-chan… what an intimate question." He ended with a sickly sweet coo.

"Fucking flea!" Shizuo swore, viciously grabbing his bowl, dropping it in the sink, and stomping to the front door as he gave off a familiar 'I'm-gonna-kill-you' vibe, pulling out a cigarette and lighter. Izaya watched him slam the door in amusement as he continued to eat.

Luckily, deflecting Shizuo was still as easy as ever.


The deflection as it turned out, was a useless effort. Shizuo hadn't really dropped the subject, much to Izaya's irritation. It wasn't that he was ashamed of the habit, but it was a weakness. And Shizuo was still… well a rival of sorts, if not an enemy. Izaya couldn't really call him that. He never could.

High school might have been when Shizuo had called him rival too, but Izaya knew that presently he was considered an enemy to the blonde. Shizuo had never become that in Izaya's eyes. He loved humans, yes, every single one of them.

Shizuo Heiwajima.

A monster-like human? Perhaps, sometimes.

Unpredictable, unreasonable, impossible Shizuo had always been something more. Not enough and just too much to just be loved.

He was just… more.

Izaya was a self-proclaimed selfish man. He had always wanted more.

After three nights of deflecting Shizuo's increasingly frustrated questions, Izaya answered them. Unwillingly.

Izaya decided to try his newer prescription and the nightmare returned.

Izaya marched. His fingers moved ceaselessly, relentlessly pounding on the keyboard, hoping they didn't shatter under the force. The bright screens blinded him with light but the darkness would suffocate him. The presence of Them had appeared faster this time. Izaya had hunched in close to the monitors, trying to keep his breathing steady.

Distance.

Ignore Them and maybe They would disappear without noticing him. A foolish hope. They always found him. But never this fast. Maybe that was why he couldn't keep steady, why he kept half-turning to look at Them. They were so close. He could feel the hands testing, ghosting over his back, his wrists, as if trying to decide how they would take him. The whispers were in his ears.

'Izaya…'

It was so cold.

'Izaya…'

They seemed indecisive, but Izaya knew what would happen first and what would happen last even if everything else changed. Ice entrapped his neck and Izaya sucked in a broken inhale as he stared at the bright light in front of him, desperate to keep it there.

'Izaya!'

Were They closer? The whispers were getting so loud now.

The ice spread all over him like hooks, a violent tug, and he was falling backwards into the dark where there was no light to speak of.

"No!" Izaya screamed, knowing what was next. They were going to kill him. He was going to-

"WAKE UP! FLEA!"

Crimson eyes opened to light. Panting, he soaked in the sight of his familiar bedroom ceiling and tried to sit up. Residual panic made him thrash with quickened breath when he found that he couldn't move his arms.

"Goddammit Flea, calm down! You're caught in your own sheets!" Rough hands grabbed his shoulders, holding him still and Izaya's breath caught in his throat at how warm they were against the cold chill that had set into his skin. As the sheets were pulled free of him, Izaya stared up at Shizuo.

"S-Shizu-chan…"

Shizuo threw the sheets down on the ground, turning a glare on him. Izaya stayed still, unwilling to test the sudden, familiar look of anger glinting in his eyes. His lack of movement didn't stop him from feeling the after effects of what must have been a very physical reaction to his nightmare and he shuddered from the sting of pain in his abdomen as he inhaled.

The anger muted but didn't disappear as Shizuo seemed noticed. The blonde stormed into his bathroom and returned quickly with his old painkiller subscription. Izaya opened his mouth to protest but a harsh snarl of "Shut up, flea!" closed it quickly. He was forced to take his dosage and Shizuo left again to fetch a glass of water from the kitchen.

Izaya held the pills silently, staring at them with a look of resignation. He hadn't had a nightmare quite that physically violent for a couple of years and it just had to resurface when Shizuo was around to see it. And despite Izaya's constant jabs at Shizuo's intelligence he knew that the blonde was frighteningly adept at simply knowing things he had no business knowing. Especially when it was something Izaya was desperate to hide.

Shizuo had to have caught on and Izaya wasn't sure how to avoid the conversation to come.

After swallowing the pills, Izaya fell back onto his pillows and turned away from where Shizuo had brought in one of his kitchen chairs and sat down, staring at him from the side of his bed. The anger had seemed to disperse but Izaya could still feel the tension in the room. The eyes boring into his back didn't help.

"You don't have to stay Shizuo-chan."

"…"

"Are you just going to stare at me all night? How cute-"

"Are you going to wake me up screaming again?" Shizuo questioned with an uncharacteristically quiet voice.

Izaya had no reply. He stared at his dresser against the wall, following the contours of its structure as he thought about what he was so tempted to do. The nightmares were something terrible. Something dark that crippled him enough to alter a normal aspect of life because he was… well, terrified of them. For all of his confidence and abilities, the reality lurking in his nightmares was a personal demon that was never too far from his thoughts.

He had never even told Shinra about why he slept like he did! And he was going to tell the man who vowed daily to kill him about them?

"WAKE UP! FLEA!"

But he was still here. For over three weeks, he was still here. Maybe Shizuo didn't hate him that much.

Izaya didn't turn around and Shizuo didn't walk away. Instead Izaya spoke, slowly and fighting his medication as he did so. Izaya hazily thought to himself as he detailed his dream aloud, that Shizuo couldn't possibly be smart enough to confront him after making him take the painkillers and loosening his grasp of control on his mind and his tongue.

Nonetheless, he talked and Shizuo listened.

Izaya fell asleep, murmuring things but later he would be unable to recall just what he had been saying before finally losing consciousness. When he woke up the next day at noon, the chair was gone along with all signs of Shizuo in his bedroom; but he knew he had felt that stare on him until his own eyes closed for the rest of the night.

When he made his way to the living room, he saw Shizuo on the couch talking on the phone, TV muted on some sort of martial arts documentary. Izaya heard him say his employer's name and quietly made his way to his computers.

Sitting down, he scrolled through his email and informed Shiki that no, he was not quite ready for a negotiation job unless he could do it behind a computer screen but he would be more than capable to set up a mike and ear-piece for that upcoming translator job next week. He sent it off with a small frown. It was never a good thing to have Shiki in any way upset with you. Izaya was sure that the man knew his lack of presence and work was not his fault but it hadn't made the man happy. Damn it, Izaya wasn't happy. Unable to hit the streets in order to hunt the men who landed him like this he was confined to a small window between medically-induced sleep and Shizuo to get any leads. There was nothing for it now, he would just have to wait. And Izaya was a patient man when it came to any type of revenge.

He was in the middle of reading his chatroom logs, a bit amused at Tarou Tanaka's concerned messages floating between Setton and Saika, when Shizuo spoke to him.

"Flea."

Izaya dragged his eyes off the screen and looked at Shizuo blankly. Waiting for the confrontation of the night before. Izaya had already compiled a list of defenses against whatever the blonde might aim at him.

"Tom needs me to take care of someone on his rounds today. I should be back in a few hours. You won't keel over and die while I'm gone will you?" Shizuo questioned bluntly, slipping on his blue shades as he stood from the couch.

Izaya floundered for a rare few seconds at the completely different topic before recovering with his learned finesse, "I will attempt not too. We don't want Shinra to mourn his wasted work, ne?"

Shizuo snorted a laugh, turning and waving a hand back at him as he left.

And that was that. Izaya stared at the closed door for a few seconds before his attention returned to his computer when a small ding alerted him to a priority email. He was curious to see it was from Shiki. Opening the email, he was given only a few lines of text.

One containing four names. One ensuring that the aforementioned four were taken care of. One mentioning that despite interrogation of the four, the group's 'leader' was still AWOL. And one more that stating that if the Awakusu-kai found anything, they would let him know.

Izaya might have felt relieved, maybe even a little flattered, that Shiki seemed to be taking Izaya's out-of-commission status personally but there was a familiar chill running down his back as he reread the third statement.

He had always teased Shizuo about being an instinct-driven animal but Izaya hadn't survived for so long as an underground information broker by not honing a few instincts of his own. And this was one that he had been sharpening for years.

And it was screaming that he was being hunted… and that by the end of it, he might end up dead.