The blond man fumbled with his hands awkwardly, as he handed a small, red bag with a cross on it to a thoroughly confused Izaya, who almost let it fall out of his hands.

"Wow, you really didn't expect me to return, did you?" Shizuo asked, feeling a little guilty for the distress he had caused his temporary ally. "You really don't trust me, I guess."

Izaya, who had been gazing at the med pack, was now staring at Shizuo, as if he had just teleported here.

"Can you blame me?" Izaya asked shakily after some time and for probably the first time, he was really glad to hear the informant talking again.

"Guess not...I'm sorry, I guess. For scaring you." They were both aware of how forced the apology sounded and avoided eye contact as much as possible. "Thanks for borrowing me your knife."

Izaya simply nodded and let the weapon slide back into his pocket, opening the first aid kit carefully with trembling fingers.

"Thanks for this." He muttered, raising the health kit to emphasize what he was talking about.

"You're welcome." The blond debt collector replied, feeling very awkward with the sudden peace and the forced niceness and formality between them. Izaya felt like even more of a stranger to him, when they were interacting with each other like this. Although they were basically always insulting each other, they had always treated each other with quite a lot of familiarity by doing so.

"I don't blame you for not trusting me." Shizuo said suddenly, trying to come up with anything to break the uncomfortable atmosphere. He watched Izaya shed his jacket and raise his shirt to look at the damage that had been done to his side. They both hissed when they caught side of the wound. "I mean, I don't trust you as far as I can throw you."

Izaya suddenly chuckled, something that must have hurt, considering the state the skin on his stomach was in.

"If you say it like that, you'd have to trust me an awful lot." Izaya sniggered, but there was something dangerous hidden within his eyes. "Remember that time you did throw me? I flew so far..." A sudden dreaminess filled Izaya's eyes, as if he had actually enjoyed being sent flying down half a block. It was obviously an act. "Man, I was in the hospital for well over a week. I'd never had a concussion quite like that."

It was disturbing that Izaya'd had enough concussions to be able to compare them with each other, but it didn't really surprise Shizuo, considering that he had been the cause of quite a lot of them.

"Yeah, well you probably deserved it." The blond man grumbled and watched Izaya flinch and grimace as he poured some sort of disinfectant liquid all over his stomach.

The informant's eyes were closed and his face was crumpled up in pain, his teeth gritted while he breathed raggedly and waited for the burning sensation to disappear enough for him to move on to dressing his wound.

"Do you...want me to help you?" Shizuo offered half-heartedly, observing the informant struggling to open a pack of sterile compresses, his hands shaking even more than before.

"S'okay...I'm used to patching myself up." Not to mention that Shizuo would have probably had no clue how to dress a wound properly and would have ended up doing more harm than good.

"How'd that happen anyway?" The ex-bartender inquired, leaning against a wall and trying to find something to distract himself from the looming feeling of being completely helpless, of not knowing what to do and where to go.

"I got clawed by one of them. I think he was trying to jump on top of me to pin me to the ground and claw out my intestines –" Izaya shuddered, but continued wrapping a bandage all around his stomach to keep the compress in place. "I'm pretty sure that, if he had succeeded, I couldn't have pushed him off by myself. He was pretty strong...and fast. And he screamed really loudly, I don't really know why. Seems kind of stupid, to announce yourself like that, if you're planning to attack someone. He still sucked at parkour, though."

"Parkour?" Shizuo asked, puzzled. "One of those things knows how to do parkour?"

"As I said, he was pretty bad at it. He jumped like an amateur, wasting a lot of energy and using the wrong stance to land. If he was human, he'd probably break his hands and feet landing like that." Izaya was finishing up, using some sticking plaster to keep the bandage in place. He finally sighed contently and leaned back against the wall in a much more relaxed manner than before.

"You feel any better?" Shizuo asked to keep the conversation going. The worst thing he could think of right now, was Izaya going to sleep – and he looked pretty damn ready to doze off right about now – and him having to deal with this situation alone. It was good to have someone to talk to, even though they both weren't brave enough to really discuss what exactly was even happening.

"Yes, actually. A lot. It's astonishing, really, my wounds barely ache at all."