Author's Note: Updating early! I leave early in the morning tomorrow for the airport, then I'll be in the air for like 5 hours and I land in Philadelphia at like 4:30/5:00PM. I am very excited! And I'm excited that people are reading this fic again. I know I keep mentioning it, but I really am! For all of you reading this author's note, thank you! Because I have an announcement.

On my Tumblr, I am doing a giveaway for some Code Geass charas. If you are at all interested in trying to win, you should skip on over to my blog and check out the rules. The giveaway ends on Christmas and not a lot of people have entered, so your chances are pretty good.

You can check it out right here: murder-status. tumblr. com/post/13952516885/giveaway-time-for-my-13-000-post-so-some-of

(Don't forget to take out the spaces when going to the link)

Thank you! Happy reading!

Immaculate are the clouds who never hide their pain. A vivid flash. A monstrous roar. A downpour like an emotional meltdown of anger. Of pain. The most solid rage. They never hide what they're feeling. They aren't like me.

Who in their right mind would want to be like me?

I made it to the roof using the apartment's old fire escape just as the storm hit the city. Cold rain immediately absorbed into my jacket, striking my body like bullets before chilling my skin as it soaked through my clothes. The humidity in the air was as thick as the tension in my shoulders. I felt like the weather was speaking to me. No. For me. It was telling the world all of the things I didn't know how to say on my own.

This world was choking me.

Desperate to break free, I precariously balanced on the railing that lined the top of the building, careful not to let the wind push me before I was ready. Fifteen stories below I knew I could meet my end. Once and for all. Everything I ever wanted. One step, and a sudden drop away. I could fall. I could fall, and make it look like an accident. Balance had been lost in my weeks of inactivity. I wasn't used to holding myself up this way. I wasn't used to my abandoned talents anymore.

Dizzy and confused, I stepped back, deciding to carefully lean over the railing until my mind was made up. I closed my eyes, praying the answers would come to me. I wanted to die, but I wasn't entirely sure if this is how I wanted to do it. I wanted to get out, but was I so desperate that I'd leap to my death? The trouble of finding the answer was throwing me for a whirl. Jumping isn't rare for the suicidal. In fact, if a person is going to do it, it's probably one of the more guaranteed ways to go. Still, I was restrained. Part of me still held on to the hope that somebody in the world would care enough. I'd caused enough disasters. To clean up my body? That was just cruel… as cruel as Kasuka could say I was.

Everything he said was the truth. The actor did not need to see me, or know what I had been through. He did not need to know what my life had transmuted into… just that every shadow to envelope me was fully earned. I had done enough in my life to void the excuses, feeling that the only way to repent was by death. And I brought it upon myself. Looking around at the surrounding city, I could not have been more sure that Ikebukuro and all of its people were far better off without me. What could this city possibly need me for when all I had done was beget conflict for my entertainment?

And Shizuo…

I closed my eyes, soaking in the feeling of the rain… it's smell, it's taste, it's sound. All of it. And I thought about Shizuo.

What reason did he have to believe that I wouldn't turn this around on him in the end?

Guilt flooded my chest.

Ignoring all other thoughts - especially those that screamed in opposition - I rebalanced myself on the building's railing.

There'd be no goodbye letter this time.

Waiting for the next flash of lightning to play as my green light, I drew in a deep breath, telling myself over and over that I was finally ready… excited that this was finally coming to an end. Eager to hurry, despite being ahead of schedule. Whatever. Did it even matter?

Releasing the air I had filled my lungs with, I watched in a bit of awe as a brilliant flash of electricity touched the earth somewhere in the distance.

"Goodbye," I told the world, sliding my eyelids closed.

I couldn't stop thinking about how much I would have liked to see the stars one more time, but in a way, I was glad they were concealed by the overhead storm.

I began to lean forward into the devastating bliss that was the end. I could feel myself so close. So ready. So-

"IZAYA!" a thunderous voice tore through me, freezing me in place.

Frowning, heavy tears instantly welled in my eyes as the most familiar pair of strong hands gripped my arms, pulling me away from death. Unceremoniously, I slipped backwards, landing on top of him with a splash and a thud, instantly finding myself scrambling to escape him.

I wormed out of his arms, unsteadily bringing myself back to my feet. My knees quivered and I wasn't sure just how well I could hold myself together.

"WHY DID YOU FOLLOW ME?" I yelled, through downpour as Shizuo picked himself up from the ground.

I backed away, feeling threatened by his uninvited presence.

"What the hell are you doing?" he answered with a question. "Are you fucking crazy!"

"An hour ago you didn't seem to think so," I shot. "I'm ready."

"Ready for what? Ready to die? Izaya, you can't just go throw yourself from a rooftop!"

"Why not!"

"Don't be stupid. You just fucking can't!"

"Wouldn't it be better that way?"

"Better for who?"

Something inside me snapped. I found myself, tears still coming down as hard as the rain, staring desperately into Shizuo's eyes. Genuine concern flashed through them, or so it seemed, as another flash of lightning spent a quick second illuminating the sky.

"Izaya. Better for who?" he repeated. "Better for me? You? Tell me. Who would it be better for?"

I bit down on my bottom lip, fighting back another collection of fierce sobs.

"How can they be better for you if you die, Izaya?"

"Because… " I choked. "B-because… everything, every word, Kasuka said… he's right."

Eyes growing wide, Shizuo took a step closer to me. I took one step back, feeling like we were already too close.

"You heard that?" the concern in his voice expanded.

"I think the whole fucking building heard it!" I snapped. "I told you. I told you I should die, Shizu-chan. I told you that it would be better that way. This place will be happier that way!"

"No. No, Izaya, that's not true!"

"Kasuka is right! Even if I am telling the truth-"

The blond man across from me clenched his fists. "Stop it, Izaya. Why would you listen to him!"

"BECAUSE IT'S TRUE! Because it's fucking true!" I sobbed. My words were swirling around in repetitive circles. I could only think of one thing - death. "I don't deserve life. I don't deserve you!"

"Izaya, why are you doing this to yourself?" Shizuo inquired, reaching a hand out to me. I slapped him down immediately. "Why do you want this so much?"

"I don't want to manipulate you. I don't want you to waste your time on this waste of a person! Just let me go." I took another step back. "I want to go."

"Why? What makes this world so unsuitable?"

"It isn't the world," I continued to cry, pointing to myself, "I-it's me. It's me that's unsuitable!"

Frustration expanded within him. "WHY?"

His constant flow of questions hit me like the swift currents of high tide. I felt like I was being stolen away by the undertow, where I was given absolutely no control over my own fate. He would not relent until he was through with me.

"It doesn't matter!"

"Doesn't matter? Izaya, of course it fucking matters!"

"How? If my existence were wanted why couldn't you keep defending me!"

I knew I was being irrational, unfair, impossible… But it was all I knew. It was my only defense. To be a challenge was all I had to work with.

"Because you're still a human being!" Shizuo said, as if he were reminding me of something long forgotten. "You're still a person just like the rest of us! You have flaws, and you screw up, and you -"

"I destroy, Shizuo. I destroy people."

Pinning me against the rooftop's railing, I found myself trapped between Shizuo's strong arms, perfectly unwilling to budge. My only escape was to go over the side of the building. While that was what I wanted more than all else, I couldn't let him see. I couldn't pin this on him. I didn't have the heart.

"Why do you want to die, Izaya?" he asked, forcing the question with a stern tone in his voice. He wasn't going to sway.

"That's irrelevant," I once again ran away from the answers.

"No. It's not. Tell me. Why?"

"I just do, okay! No reason. I just feel like I need this!"

"Izaya, you don't get to need this. You don't get to lust after something you can't take back!"

"No action can be taken back. What makes this any different?"

"Because if you die, you don't just come back! You don't get to wake up from the grave and decide you want life again!"

"I realize that!" I continued to retaliate, doing my best to force him away from me. No use. He was too strong, and I too weak. "But this is my life! This is about what I want!"

"If it's about what you want, tell me! Talk to me!" he pleaded, "What is it? What's so wrong that you're so sure you want to die?"

"Let me go, Shizuo!" I wept, sudden exhaustion hitting me like a gust of wind.

"Go where?"

With the tears racing down, I hid my face in Shizuo's shoulder. We were soaked from head to toe, treacherously pushed into the side railing. Enough force from his strength could easily have sent us both over.

"Let me…"

Trounced, Shizuo let out a hefty sigh as I began to shiver from beneath him. "Tell me everything… and you can go anywhere you want."

"Sh-Shizu…"

"If nothing else, give me this…"

Giving up? Was he… was Shizuo giving up?

"I… I…"

"Please," he implored. "I can't let you go without knowing why. I couldn't live with myself if I did…"

He was giving me a choice. For the first time, Shizuo was laying out the options before me, rather than telling me what to do, or forcing me into it. I could keep it all bottled away. My secrets. My thoughts. My sentiment. I could keep them locked where he would never extract them, and I could continue to live this miserable existence. Or… I could let it out. I could give myself up. I could surrender my skeletons in exchange for absolute sovereignty.

Wrangling in a deep, quivering breath, I did my best to regain enough composure to earn my rights to freedom. If I was going to die, I figured I may as well honor this last request. Somebody out there deserved to know. Somebody deserved to get something useful out of me. And if that somebody were anybody, I knew in the depths of my soul that it needed to be Heiwajima Shizuo.

"It all caught up with me…" I sniffed, doing my best to explain. "I wanted… to be anything but ordinary… S-so desperately. I wanted to know what it was to love. And… I… I…"

"You what, Izaya?" Shizuo pushed me to keep going.

"I wanted to love this… this thing… I wanted to love humanity and all of its unabashed flaws b-because it had so much to offer… So I cheated, and I lied. I caused pain. I caused death. I wreaked havoc all in order to perfect this beautiful, sick, disgusting love of mine. I… I wanted to rule it… f-for the sake of loving it deeper than anybody else cold hope to. I was so in love…"

"And what happened? What changed?"

"For what I'd done… for this love… I realized that the world couldn't love me back. That for all of the scars I'd left across the hearts of humans… both innocent and guilty… weak and strong… I was only hurting what I so adored. One day it just hit me. Terrified, I woke up from a nightmare, feeling like I'd been run down by the subway… realizing that my obsession with this world had done nothing but leave me cold… and alone…" The rain began to slow down into a light drizzle. The chill of my drenched clothes began to seep down to my bones, as cold as the emptiness in my heart. "I don't want to be alone… but I don't deserve anybody. Even if I didn't want to die… I know I'll never change."

"You don't have to change…" whispered Shizuo.

"But I do," I retorted, another thick stream escaping from my eyes, "It's the only way to atone…"

"You don't think your suffering is enough?"

"For my list of evil deeds?" I shook my head. "No amount of suffering… Just look what I've done. To you. To Kida Masaomi. To Celty-san. To everybody… You would be hard pressed to find a human in this city who hasn't suffered by my hand… Kasuka is right. I don't deserve life. And this world doesn't deserve my poison. I'm nothing… just a parasite."

He faltered slightly at the creature he so often compared me to. "I understand, but-"

"How could you ever understand, Shizu-chan?" I cut him off. "How could you ever know what this feels like? How can you stand there and honestly believe that you get this? All of those times I've called you a monster… I should have been speaking to myself."

"No…" his arms reworked their way around my waist, to which I replied by coiling my arms around his shoulders, moving to bury my face in the crook of his neck. I needed to be close to something substantial - something warm. I needed to be held. "Because I know pain… and I know suffering… and I certainly know regret. Yet, amongst it all, I have known love."

"What does that even mean?" I whimpered hopelessly.

"I know what you deserve."

Pulling back from the railing, Shizuo lifted me in his arms. Confused, I stared deeply into his steel orbs, each of my limbs now coiled around him, frantic not to let go. A small smile tugged at the corner of his lips, causing my bloodstream to go insane with the rapid gale of adrenaline. My heart was speeding at homicidal rates. I tried to speak, to wonder aloud what could be going on, when my words were captured and swallowed alive by his mouth crashing into mine.

And I knew… I knew without a doubt in my mind…

Shizuo was not about to let me die. Not tonight.

I never said I was an angel.

There's a simple explanation for it all.

It's all my fault.

The snow melts away.

I'm close to the ending now.

I don't want to be saved.