Sorry about the late-ish update but I was out of town with no wifi for a couple of days, forgive me.

Warning: yaoi and rape

Disclaimer: I own none of these characters, they all belong to their respectful owners

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"Give back what you fucking borrowed!" Shizuo snapped, gripping the collar of a sleaze that apparently 'forgot' to pay back his loans and lifting him off the ground.

"L-Listen, I don't g-got the m-money, alright! Just let me go!" he said trembling, holding his hands up and wanting to get out of this little predicament.

Tom sighed and Izaya stood beside him watching as Shizuo was about ready to throw the man out the window. It wasn't anything new to him now, Izaya had pretty much gotten used to Shizuo's outbursts of rage during work and had long since dismissed calling him a monster because of it.

"Shizuo, take it easy alright?" Tom tried to reason with him, placing a hand on Shizuo's shoulder that was quickly shrugged off.

"Not until this bastard gives back every last dollar he borrowed!" he growled fiercely, eyes flaring fire.

"Shizu-chan," Izaya tugged at Shizuo's sleeve with wide child-like eyes. In the past week, Izaya has learnt that Shizuo just can't seem to resist his innocent expression. Especially in times like this, which seemed to help Tom out a lot since Shizuo would usually destroy everything and sometimes even break the person they were trying to collect debt from.

"Y-yeah?" Shizuo looked at him, a slight blush spread across his cheeks as he stared.

"Calm down ok? Tom is going to get the money ok?" Izaya began to tug at Shizuo's arm to drag him away from the man while Tom handled the rest. They both made their way down the stairs of the one bedroom apartment.

In the time that Izaya had spent with Shizuo on his jobs, he knew that when Shizuo's anger was piqued, it was best to drag him away from the scene and get some fresh air.

"That better?" Izaya smiled, standing next to him.

"Yeah," even though he'd never admit it out loud to anyone other than himself. Shizuo did like this Izaya a lot better. But some of his cheeky attitude was starting to return such as his teasing. Though Izaya made sure never to step over the line and made sure that what he said wasn't able to piss Shizuo off completely. It was better than nothing, Shizuo had thought. At least he wasn't depressed like before and he was becoming his normal self.

"You get way too cranky at times like this Shizu-chan!" Izaya pouted.

"Sorry," Shizuo bowed his head as Tom came down the stairs with a small bag full of cash. "You get it?" he called.

"Most of it, yeah," Tom nodded. "How about we call it lunch and have a break, you've been working pretty hard."

"Sounds good," Shizuo ashed his cigarette and followed Tom with Izaya walking next to him, no longer clinging to his arm to which he had missed for some strange reason.

[Week five and already Izaya is returning back to the way he was?] Celty asked, Shizuo decided to visit since Shinra had called in for a hot pot, and apparently Izaya loves those.

"Yeah, but doesn't over step the line which is nice. He's not as annoying as before either." Shizuo said, standing outside on the balcony with Celty. Izaya was busy helping Shinra with the cooking.

[Don't you ever wonder?] Shizuo looked at the message while Celty paused; she then typed a new message to explain what she meant. [Don't you ever wonder who made Izaya like this?]

Shizuo's gaze turned towards the city in front of him, he watched the dancing lights as night had fallen. He had been wondering who had turned Izaya from a manipulative bastard into a caring innocent child. He exhaled, "I don't know. But if I find them, there dead!" He slammed his face into his open palm, growling.

Celty jumped at the sudden action but didn't turn away. [Well, I've been doing a little digging and I've not come up with anything.]

"I see," he grimaced at the comment. "He's not said a word about it either. And I don't want push him until he's ready to tell me. Otherwise who knows what might happen to him."

[That's true. I'm a little scared to ask him because I know he doesn't trust me completely. So I was wondering if you might ask him, since he trusts you a lot more than us.] Celty said.

"He might say a couple of things about it, but even so it won't be enough to explain it fully. He might trust me more than anyone else, but I know that he doesn't want to mention anything about because of the memories that might come from talking about it."

[You have a point. Now I see why you want him to be the one to say it instead of us getting him to say it.] Celty said.

The sliding glass doors opened suddenly, alerting the two. "Shizu-chan~! Celty~! It's ready!" Izaya beamed.

"Alright, we're coming." Shizuo walked inside followed by Celty who closed the door behind them.

Shinra had already put the large pot on the small table in the living room. Celty made herself comfortable next to him while Shizuo and Izaya sat opposite them.

Shizuo noticed how giddy Izaya was about eating hot pot with just the four of them. It surprised him at how much Izaya loved this sort of dish. He made a mental note about it then focused on what was in front of him.

About half way through the meal, Shinra decided to make conversation.

"So, how is living together?" he wondered.

"It's fine. Nothing knew has happened since the last time you ask." Shizuo answered, placing a sliver of meat into his mouth.

"But it has been fun," Izaya smiled.

"Really?" Shinra wondered. He was curious at how the two former enemies have been getting along since before they couldn't even be in the same town without them killing each other, and now they sat side by side eating and not even a hint of tension was in the room.

"Yep!" Izaya nodded. "Shizu-chan is fun to be around."

Shizuo blinked at the question and gave Izaya a confused look. Since when was he fun to be around? The only thing fun that they've done together was watch a movie together that Izaya had really wanted to watch since he hadn't seen it. And even then it was just sitting on the couch in silence as they watched.

"So, nothing bad has happened between you two? No fighting? No arguing?" Shinra pried, trying to get some answers as to what their lives were like now.

"We do argue from time to time." Izaya's gaze fell to his bowl half full of food. Seeing the sadden look on Izaya's face, to which Shizuo knew he was remembering something bad, he pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped Izaya's mouth since he had juices at the corners from eating since that seemed to distract him from this thoughts.

"Your mouth is dirty." Shizuo explained before resting the cloth in Izaya's lap.

Izaya smiled. "Thanks Shizu-chan." He started eating again.

Shinra blinked at the sudden action. Celty sat just as stunned. Shizuo had noticed this and turned his head to avoid eye contact and explain his actions, then went back to eating.

"I guess things are going better than I expected, right Celty?" Shinra turned towards her.

She nodded.

…..

The following day.

Shizuo had the day off and he decided that the laundry needed doing and the apartment needed a good cleaning. Izaya was helping as well, since he was also living there and he didn't want Shizuo to do everything today.

Izaya was folding the clean clothes and sorting them into different piles while Shizuo was giving the floor a vacuum. "Hey Shizu-chan!" Izaya suddenly spoke up.

"Yeah?" Shizuo replied, turning off the vacuum to listen.

"You said that I can trust you with anything right? And whatever I say doesn't leave this room right?" Shizuo noticed that Izaya stopped folding the laundry. He sensed that Izaya was going to say something heavy and it seemed very important.

"Yeah, what's wrong?" he sat down on the couch, staring at Izaya.

"I know you've been wondering about what happened to me, and how I got this way," he paused.

Hearing the silence drag on for a minute Shizuo turned away. "You don't have to tell me I you don't want to. I don't want you to remember anything unpleasant." He rubbed the back of his neck.

"It's ok. Besides, I've been thinking about it for a while so it's ok. I know you've been wondering about it," he gave a half-hearted smile followed but a sad laugh. "I know exactly what you've been thinking. Who made me like this? It's obvious you'd want to know since I've become so different."

Shizuo remained silent. He didn't want to push Izaya anymore then what he was pushing himself, Shizuo could tell that Izaya had come to terms with this and he knew that Izaya was definitely out of his comfort zone to be talking about this matter. But silence was all he could offer, it was better than words because he knew he would say the wrong thing and make Izaya shut up about the matter.

"Before my disappearance a while back, I had to do a job which was to gather information about this underground group that had just started and were causing trouble. So I decided to spy on them for a few days just to see what kind of work they did. They mostly specialised in drug trafficking and human auctions and that sort of stuff. I remembered thinking it was bland and that it was no cause for alarm. But I was wrong.

"As it turns out, the drug trafficking and human auctions were just a cover up for what they were doing to their captives, or at least it was one of the lesser crimes that they were committing. After I observed them in their human auctions, I noticed that most of the humans they were selling were girls and that most of them had been ruffed up with heavy bruises and hickey's all over there body."

Shizuo's eyes widen. It was just like when he had first seen Izaya after his disappearance. But he didn't point it out nor say anything for him to continue. He forced himself to stay quiet but he did have a lot of questions about this.

"Anyway, after observing what I needed, I reported back to the one that gave me the job. I had explained everything to him, and he asked me to meet him at a warehouse in the west of Ikebukuro where I'd get my pay. I waited for an hour and was about to call it quits then black mail the guy later for not paying me. but the same guy I was being paid by had attack me along with these other guys to which I recognised were a part of the gang that I was asked to spy on. As it turned out, the guy was part of the gang and it was all a set up to kidnap me. Pretty smart plan huh? I had no clue why they had asked me to do it until the very last second."

Shizuo said nothing.

"They kept me in a small room with no way of escape and barely any food and water. And well," Shizuo noticed Izaya's trembling. He could tell he was struggling with the memory even though he couldn't see his face. It was beginning to hurt Shizuo the way Izaya hurt mentally like that. Before he even realised it, he was already reaching out to pat the raven on the head. "And that's where they—"

A knock at the door sounded, cutting Izaya off and leaving Shizuo's hand to hover over his head.

Cliff-hanger! Sorry about that, but this is where things are going to get a little more interesting, I will say that there is going to be drama in future chapters and I will continue to explain Izaya's back story with this.

Tell me if there's any OOCness with this story. I hope that I am keeping the characters in their roles and all that stuff.

Please give me a review. It helps me out a lot.

Until next chapter.