"I'm not leaving you back here, Izaya." Shizuo said with his back to the informant, sounding more serious than he had ever before. "I will come back as soon as I have found something we can use to treat your wounds. You have my word on that, even if it doesn't mean much to you. And if I don't come back, then you have to assume that those monsters managed to kill me. Do you understand?"
There was almost something like warmth within the ex-bartender's light brown eyes when he looked back at the injured informant. He seemed so full of determination that, for a moment, Izaya really was convinced that his rival was going to go out there and risk his life trying to help him. It left the informant in awe briefly.
Izaya's eyes moved from the blade of the knife he was still holding in his hand to the debt collector and back. Then he turned it around so that the blade lay gently in his hand and moved forward a couple of steps with obvious difficulty, offering the blond man his knife. "Take this with you. You might need it to defend yourself if you run out of bullets."
Shizuo took the switchblade speechlessly.
"And don't die." Izaya added lowly, looking at anything but Shizuo in what might have been embarrassment at the unexpected moment of companionship they were sharing.
"You, too." Shizuo replied, sliding the knife shut gently and putting it into his pocket carefully, like a prized possession. "Try to hold on while I'm gone, don't let anyone in."
Izaya rolled his eyes at that. "Yes, mom, I won't let any strangers into our home while you're out."
"Do you have to cheapen the moment?" Shizuo asked, looking slightly frustrated at suddenly being interrupted while he was making such an honest effort at accepting that, for once, he had to care about the informant's well being, if only because his own life depended on it as well.
"Sorry, I'm not used to...that." Izaya admitted, though Shizuo had no clue exactly what he was referring to.
"Alright, I'll be back." And with those words and a gush of wind that rustled his hair as the door opened and closed, the debt collector was gone, leaving the injured and distressed informant to his own devices.
To say that Orihara Izaya almost went crazy in the time he had to sit alone, in an abandoned storage room, surrounded by blood thirsty monsters just outside the door and at the mercy of his arch rival, while he could feel life seeping out of him with every drop of blood that soaked into his dark shirt and jacket, was an understatement.
To tell the truth, Izaya had always had trust issues – courtesy of his parents, who never seemed to give a shit about him – and had never relied on anyone but himself, as far as it was possible. He had certainly never had to trust someone other than himself with his life and having to do so now went against everything he had ever taught himself, broke every self imposed rule he had depended on to survive this long in the kind of business he was involved in.
By the time he heard the sound of footsteps approaching the door, he had bitten his lip bloody from pure stress, scratched at his scalp compulsively and had contemplated suicide – although only briefly as a last resort – on several occasions, just so he could feel like he was more in control of his fate.
He was vaguely glad that he hadn't had his knife with him, because he could have done a lot more damage to himself that way. After all, he knew himself well enough to be aware of the fact that he was very capable of dealing with extraordinary, stressful situation. He also knew that, once he had reached a certain limit, he could resort to drastic and desperately reckless measures.
"You still conscious?" Shizuo asked gruffly. His clothing had gained a couple of tears and there was blood on his fingers. His eyes were widened in alert, scanning the dark room quickly and finding his temporary teammate curled up against the wall that was farthest away from the door.
"Ye...yes." Izaya replied, staring at Shizuo, as if he was some sort of fata morgana. He rose shakily from his pitiful position on the floor and managed to take a few steps, before having to lean against the wall closest to him for support, because vertigo made his vision go dark for a couple of very long moments.
There was a hand on his shoulder, steadying him and he just didn't have the strength to shake it off, even though its presence there was as hard to tolerate as letting an irritating insect sit on his skin. Not that Izaya was usually particularly bothered by being touched, heck on certain occasions he really enjoyed it, it was probably just his automatic response to being touched by monsters.
"You're back." Izaya breathed, disbelief softening his features and making him almost look like a completely baffled kid. Had Izaya been someone else, Shizuo might have found it entertaining, maybe even cute.