I uploaded chapters 39-51, so you might want to go back to 39. :)
Chapter 51: Area 51
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Unwelcome visitors were not something Shizuo was looking forward to seeing again when finally getting home after such an eventful day, but he was too tired to care that he would have to sleep on the couch instead of his bed. After the insanity that had been the whole Karisawa thing, he hoped that he wouldn't have to see Izaya again for a very long time. Izaya's mere presence always augmented his feelings of guilt, and no matter how many times he helped or protected the flea, or simply did not bash the bastard's head into the nearest wall like he wanted to half the time, he would still never be able to redeem himself. Without meaning to, his eyes drifted lower to his hands when he recalled just how light the flea had been, but he immediately shoved them into his pockets in an attempt to forget about it. He'd realized a long time ago that he himself was responsible for what went down that night, but undoing things of the past was not within his power, so all he could do now was allow Izaya to metaphorically punch, kick and scratch at him until the man would finally be satisfied.
"Welcome back," Kasuka greeted as expected when Shizuo opened the door and walked into the apartment, but a feeling of uneasiness rose within Shizuo the moment the sound of his brother's voice reached his ears. The tone was much colder than usual, and that icy look in those brown eyes nearly sent a shiver up his spine. He recognized the stare; it was the same one Kasuka gave him whenever he did something wrong, although he couldn't even begin to guess how he'd screwed up this time around.
"What?" he snapped without thinking, but he ended up regretting using such a harsh tone when he saw the way in which Ruri flinched the moment he'd opened his stupid mouth. "You know what?" he then continued as he glared at Kasuka. "How about the two of us talk somewhere more private?" He didn't wait for an answer. Instead, he marched towards his little brother, grabbed him by the arm and then pulled him inside the bedroom before slamming the door behind him. "What's your problem?"
Kasuka's already half-closed eyes narrowed further as he fixed his foolish brother with what could only be described as a rather angry stare. "After everything that's happened, you still follow Izaya around."
Clicking his tongue in annoyance, Shizuo folded his arms in front of his chest and returned the cold stare thrown his way. "I didn't follow him around. We had something to take care of, and it was taken care of. The end."
Kasuka shook his head in disappointment. After keeping silent for so long, he decided it was about time he shared his thoughts on the matter. "You know, nii-san, at first I thought it was adorable how in denial you were about Orihara Izaya, but now it's just sad. Of course, that was before the whole forcing yourself on him thing."
The erroneous assumption infuriated Shizuo, so the words spilled out of his mouth before he even knew he'd spoken them. "The hell you talking about? I'm not in denial about anything!" he roared and took a step forward. As expected, Kasuka didn't even flinch, and that indifferent attitude reminded Shizuo that his brother was not someone he could intimidate; not that he would ever want to intimidate Kasuka.
"You're in denial about your feelings for Izaya," Kasuka stated as though it was an irrefutable fact. It wasn't very often that he got angry, but he couldn't deny that he'd been feeling his blood simmer ever since he saw Shizuo walk out of the apartment with Izaya.
As though he'd just been slapped in the face with those words, Shizuo took a step backwards. Kasuka's opinion regarding his so-called obsession with Izaya was something he'd heard before, but it still shocked him to hear his little brother insinuate that there was something more besides pure hatred going on between the two of them. Did his little brother really think that he'd done what he'd done because he liked the flea? "Are you insane?" he asked, disbelief marring his words as he took yet another step backwards.
"What else am I supposed to think? The second you see Izaya, you run after him, and even though you claim to hate him, you had no problem with―" Luckily, he managed to stop himself in time. The thought alone made him uncomfortable and the sudden surge of a murderous intent coming from Shizuo served as a warning to not go there. He was nowhere near done though. "Even now, after everything that happened, instead of staying away from him you chase him around like a lost puppy the second he comes anywhere near you." Judging by the blond's expression, it looked like he'd struck a nerve, but that expression soon hardened and before he could react, Shizuo grabbed him by throat and slammed him into the wall. All the air inside his lungs rushed out at the impact, and he found himself struggling to breathe while his brother's hand was tightly wrapped around his neck. Fortunately, it wasn't anywhere near as bad as it could've been considering he'd just pissed off Heiwajima Shizuo, and even though the hit had been quite hard, he wasn't hurt.
"Coward! The only one here who's in denial is you!" Shizuo roared like a crazed beast, but he came back to his senses and relinquished his hold on the easily breakable neck when he felt Kasuka's warm hand tighten around his wrist. Somewhere in his mind he knew that he'd gone too far, but he was finding it hard to control himself when all Kasuka did was irritate him with erroneous assumptions about him and Izaya as well as keeping secrets from him. Despite all that, he was not so far gone as to hurt his little brother more than he already had after losing the hold he had on the rage boiling within, but he still grabbed a fistful of black hair to hold him there when it looked like Kasuka would try to walk away. "You don't get to run before you hear what I have to say!" His remark was met with silence, so he leaned in closer until their noses were almost touching; this way, he could stare directly into those seemingly emotionless eyes. "You keep saying that I like Izaya because you can't accept the fact that your brother is a monster. It's much easier to believe that I gave in to my desires and I attacked him than to face the fact that I did it out of hatred."
"That's not tr―"
"It is!" Shizuo interrupted him. "And just to show you how not in denial I am, I'll go ahead and admit that I felt some sexual attraction towards him that night. The bastard looked pretty hot with a split lip, glaring up at me in defeat with that expression of agony as I kept twisting his arm." He was certain that Kasuka would contradict him, once again tell him that it wasn't true, but his brother stood stock-still as the shocking confession sunk into his mind. "It's one thing to find someone attractive and another one entirely to like that person. I hate Izaya, but I can't deny that the little shit made me want him that night." Their destinies had been twisted beyond repair, and he couldn't undo what he'd done, but sometimes he couldn't help but remember the Izaya from his dream who loved a monster even though he shouldn't have. "In another world, in another life, perhaps the two of us..." Instead of finishing what he was about to say, he left the words hanging, and after a few more moments of silence he finally unclenched his hand from Kasuka's hair and went to sit down on the bed.
Kasuka seemed calm, considering what'd just happened, but it didn't really come as a surprise to Shizuo anymore that his brother would keep his cool even after getting slammed into a wall by someone who could break his bones with almost no effort at all. "You don't know how it feels like to want to pulverize someone with your own bare hands when all you feel is hot boiling rage rushing to your veins and your whole body burning with hatred. You drown in anger, and no matter how much you want to escape the feeling washing over you with the force of a tsunami, you're trapped under a sea of hatred until you finally let it all out through unrestrained violence. I simply... I couldn't stop myself before letting out all that resentment I had bottled up inside me over the years." His voice quivered towards the end, but he couldn't say that it was surprised, not after confessing such atrocious things to Kasuka.
Instead of running away like he wanted to, he swallowed the painful lump in his throat and continued. "You see, I had it wrong. The flea is not just an insect I could step on and then walk away as though I had done nothing wrong. The bastard is human too..." And of course Izaya was human, even though at the time Shizuo had refused to see him as one. With each vicious blow, each ruthless thrust into that bleeding body and each word slicing into the man's pride, he'd ripped away chunks of what made Orihara Izaya more than one of those humans who feared him. As he raised his head, mocha eyes met Kasuka's pitying brown ones, but it was only for a brief moment before he lowered them when the intense gaze was too much for him to bear. "If that's how you think I like someone, then..." Finally―even though he would've preferred to avoid the discussion―he'd told Kasuka exactly how he felt towards Izaya. His hands went slack after previously having been balled into fists, and the next words coming out of his mouth were barely audible even in the silence of the bedroom. "That's the truth, Kasuka. It's up to you whether you accept it or not."
Fighting the impulse to run out of there, Kasuka sat down next to the miserable-looking creature that was his brother. He gently wrapped his arm around Shizuo and pulled him closer until his brother's head was resting against his shoulder. "I'm sorry, nii-san." The truth hurt so much that he could hardly breathe, but he couldn't run away and leave Shizuo alone to wallow in misery.
"Why are you doing this?" Shizuo asked in a tired voice. He'd just told his sibling that he was a monster, and yet the idiot was giving him a hug.
Instead of answering, Kasuka raised his hand and placed it on top of the mop of blond hair. "Because I care about you, nii-san."
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It was late when Izaya arrived home, which was why he was surprised to find his sisters waiting outside the door of his apartment. The twins rushed to him the moment they saw him, and before he could even ask what they were doing there, Mairu was hitting him in the chest with her much smaller fists.
"Iza-nii is a liar!" she raged as she continued to hit him.
Beside her, Kururi looked like she was one step away from crying, and even though Izaya claimed to love his sisters the same way he loved the rest of his humans, he still felt a pang in his chest after seeing their betrayed expressions. They were glaring at him like he'd just done something terrible, but he couldn't remember having done anything to make them call him a liar. Finally, when it looked like Mairu might just punch him in the face, he captured her wrists and pushed her gently into the wall so that she wouldn't hurt herself.
"What happened?" His question however was met with silence. "If you don't tell me what's wrong, your nii-san can't fix it."
"You told us that we could go on a date with Hanejima Yuuhei, but we saw on TV that he has a girlfriend!" Mairu shouted while glaring at her stupid brother; she'd always known that Izaya was no good. He had given them hope only to viciously stomp on it afterwards. "You did it on purpose, didn't you, Iza-nii? You knew he'd announce he had a girlfriend, so before that happened, you wanted to make fun of Kururi and I. I've always known you were an asshole, but this just goes to show what a horrible person you really are!"
Stunned by the accusation, Izaya simply stared at her with his mouth agape. While the purpose of the whole date thing had been to punish Kasuka, he couldn't deny that he'd enjoyed seeing his sisters happy. For once in their lives, his sisters had been grateful to him for something. Now though, their hatred seemed stronger than ever, and even though he hadn't meant for it to come to this, things had still gone wrong and there was nothing he could do or say to make them forgive him. It was much easier to let people think what they wanted instead of trying to prove them wrong. Besides, everyone always assumed the worst when it came to him, and he didn't have the time nor the patience to explain himself. Instead, he simply shrugged before releasing Mairu and retrieving his key from inside his pants' pocket. "Go home," he said as he thrust the key into the lock.
"You'll pay for this, Iza-nii!" Mairu promised before she grabbed Kururi's hand and they both stormed down the hallway.
Izaya watched them until they disappeared inside the elevator before he let out a sigh and stepped inside the apartment. "That went well..."
He was tempted to check his email to see if he'd finally gotten what he was waiting for, but the exhaustion of the day's events was too much, so instead of heading towards the desk, he took off his jacket, dropped it on the sofa and then went up the stairs and into the bedroom. He nearly collapsed on the bed, and even though he was tired, he couldn't fall asleep when all he could think about was Shizuo and how nice the idiot had treated him after he lost consciousness.
To make an already strange situation even more bizarre, Shizuo had also given a hand in punishing Karisawa. While it was odd, it wasn't completely unexpected. By telling Shizuo all the ways in which he'd broken him, he'd made the beast experienced remorse. It was what Izaya wanted ever since that very first time when he realized that making the monster of his nightmares regret his actions was a good way to take revenge on him, but such a thing was not enough; he wanted and he needed more. Izaya had always known that no matter how much he tortured Shizuo, his thirst for vengeance would never be completely satisfied, and as such, it only made sense that he'd have an ultimate plan for destroying the beast. He wanted his revenge to reach the grand finale so that he would finally be able to forget that someone named Heiwajima Shizuo had ever existed. All he needed now was the last piece of the puzzle, which unfortunately was also the hardest one to procure. Going through with the plan without that one piece was feasible, but it wouldn't be nearly as satisfying.
"Patience, Izaya, patience. Revenge is a meal best served cold," he reminded himself as he stared up at the ceiling of his own bedroom, but the words seemed to be lacking conviction when his ears rung with phantom screams of agony echoing through a filthy Ikebukuro alley. With bony, thin fingers, he covered his ears to block the sounds, but how could mere hands keep away a torrent of mental anguish? He'd tasted fear in the form of his own blood gushing out of his body, the memory of that coppery taste and smell anchoring him further into the nightmare that was that night. Ikebukuro's beast was fear itself, so no matter how nice Shizuo behaved, or how many times he would say sorry or save him, it would never dissipate that terror deeply anchored into Izaya's very soul. Because he'd felt fear, he felt shame, and as such, nothing could ever soothe his wounded pride.
"Shinra..." he murmured in a wounded voice as he lowered his quivering hands. If it hadn't been for Shinra, he would've been dead, and without him in his life, Izaya had no one. He'd tried doing something nice for his sisters and he'd gotten burned while the stupid beast had a loving freak of a brother who would defend him no matter what he did. He could almost taste the bitterness on his tongue, especially when deep down inside, he was coveting for a similar relationship to what Shizuo had with Kasuka. He'd hoped for something like that from Shinra, but after what happened, it was impossible. Besides, how could Orihara Izaya ever forgive someone who would try to murder him? And wasn't it stupid how even though he despised Shizuo, his thoughts would always fly back to him? Why was it that the stupid beast had never listened to him before? Why didn't Shizuo play the parts Izaya had wanted him to play? "You always do the opposite of what I expect of you." Though flat, his voice could not fully conceal the negative sentiments he held towards the man, and since he could no longer sleep when his head was filled with murderous thoughts, he stood up and went downstairs.
"I really do hate you, Shizu-chan," he murmured as he sat down in his desk chair and opened the laptop. "If only you would just... disappear." Frowning, he clicked the link to the email he was expecting, but he ended up letting out a noise of frustration when he didn't find what he was looking for. "Soon, Shizu-chan, soon. That's a promise."
Now feeling thoroughly irritated, he opened one of the drawers and pulled out a cigarette pack and a lighter. He dreaded the idea of getting nauseous whenever Shizuo smoked in his presence, so he lit up cigarettes whenever he found the mental strength to do it in an attempt to overcome his trauma. So what if Shizuo had burned him with one? There wasn't even a scar left, and the smell had never really bothered him before to the point that he'd feel faint, so he simply had to remember what it was like to not associate the tobacco smell with the rape. He glowered at the burning cigarette between his fingers before he turned to face the view outside his window. The smoke coiled around his thin frame like a snake threatening to choke him within its deadly embrace, but before the cigarette could touch upon dry lips, he lowered his hand and placed it back on the armrest. Smoking was not something he'd ever envisioned himself doing, but temporarily poisoning himself with such a disgusting vice was a necessary step towards recovery.
As though he didn't already have enough on his plate, he would now also have to deal with the consequences of Karisawa posting those fanfics online. Oh, he had no doubts that the fujoshi would take them down, but that didn't necessarily mean that the people who had seen them would automatically stop talking about them or whatever they thought was going on between Shizuo and him. Those people would never know how badly it hurt to read that disgusting piece of 'literature' and how different the real thing had been from their sickening fiction. For that, Karisawa deserved a much worse fate than what he'd already bestowed upon her, but no matter how much he wanted to watch that annoying light in her eyes extinguish while he choked the life out of her, he would never take it that far. There was a limit to how much of a villain even he was.
Old him would've most likely laughed it off with a shrug or perhaps even use it to piss off Shizuo, but the current him was too damaged to not be affected by it. The fingers of his left hand dug into the chair's armrest as though he was anchoring himself there so that he wouldn't go after Karisawa, but at least he had the consolation of having made the fujoshi cry tears of blood over her burned manga. A dark chuckle slipped past his lips as he reveled in the memory of how he'd punished the fujoshi, but the chuckle turned into a hiss a few moments later when his fingers got burned by the cigarette he'd forgotten to snuff out. He nearly jolted out his desk chair, that burning sensation on his skin reminding him of a similar cigarette being pushed against his neck. While fighting the impulse to retch, he bent down, picked up the half-burned cigarette and crushed it into the ashtray he bought specially for this; whatever this thing was that he was trying to do. The tobacco smell however was bothering him a lot more after feeling the scorching heat on his fingers, so he got up and hurried away from his desk and up the stairs where he would once again try to get some much required rest.
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"Nonononono," Shinra kept murmuring whilst his eyes were glued to the TV screen revealing his beloved Dullahan being chased by the police. The footage showed her for only a brief moment as she was speeding down the street, but Shinra immediately recognized the black rider as being none other than Celty. It wasn't the first time the Dullahan was being targeted by the police, but it never before looked like the entire Ikebukuro police force was after her. He, better than anyone, knew that Celty could take care of herself, but that didn't stop him from wishing there was a way to help her. She was strong, but her fear of the men in uniform was nearly as bad as her phobia of aliens, so of course she had to be terrified by all those officers trying to get their hands on the mysterious, black rider.
"Celty, my darling, I'm sorry for being so useless!" he cried out as he ran to the TV and dropped to his knees. "Your future husband is only a powerless human who can't even save the love of his life!" Her image appeared for merely a second on the screen again, and he found himself hugging the TV and bursting into tears as feelings of helplessness overwhelmed him. He wouldn't even be surprised if after this she would end up suffering from policophobia. With tears running down his cheeks, he continued to cling to the TV until the reporter announced the ending of whatever show she was hosting. The urge to go look for her made him jump to his feet, but he pushed that thought aside mere moments later when he realized how pointless such an endeavor would be. Instead, he proceeded to pace the living room―no different than a lion trapped inside a cage―while he waited for Celty to lose the police and find her way home like she always did.
About half an hour later of worrying and trenching the living room, Shinra thought he heard a sound outside the door. He nearly stumbled as he ran to open it, but instead of being blessed with the sight of his beautiful Celty, what he encountered in return was a very tall and very thin man. "Is there something you―" The intruder charged at him and Shinra tried to push him away, but his head ended up getting slammed into the wall and a hand wrapped so tightly around his neck that he could no longer breathe. He immediately reached for the scalpel inside the pocket of his lab coat and tried slashing at the man, but the intruder caught his wrist and twisted it until Shinra lost his grip on the weapon. The thing clattered when it hit the floor, and Shinra watched in a panic as it was kicked far away from him.
His throat burned with how hard he was being choked, so he wasn't surprised to see black spots staining his vision the more the hand tightened around his windpipe. He didn't even have enough strength in his still working arm to shove the other away, so when the man punched him again, he nearly blacked out from how hard he'd been hit while his previously still intact glasses broke and fell off his face and down on the floor. He felt the sting of a cut on his cheek from the broken glass, but the pain was insignificant when compared to the horrible pounding inside his head and the painful throbbing in his neck. The walls around him spun and the brutish grip―now on his broken arm instead of around his throat―made him fall down on his knees. A bony hand was buried in his hair and his head was pulled backwards, until their eyes met and he saw the sadistic smile plastered over the unknown visage and those sharp teeth reminding him so much of a wild animal. "Who a-are you?" he hissed in both pain and anger. It was only after he caught sight of the blood smudge on the wall out of the corner of his eye that he realized his head was bleeding.
"Someone who'll make you scream," the man stated. His smirk grew crueler when his prey's eyes widened in terror, but it wasn't enough―it was never enough―so he raised a fist and repeatedly slammed it into his punching bag's face, all the while enjoying the sounds of pain while warm blood covered his hand. If he couldn't have Ruri, then this guy would have to do in the meantime.
The coppery taste of his own blood almost made Shinra gag, each punch impacting his face spilling more of the crimson liquid down his chin and onto his clothes and floor. He tried to gather his scattered thoughts so that he could figure out a way out of the situation, but even those fled momentarily when the man once again savagely slammed his head into the wall behind. As he fought to recover from the hit he'd just received, Shinra could've sworn he heard and felt his brain rattle, and even with the blinding pain threatening to send him into unconsciousness, the doctor in him struggled to file his injuries. The fear of another blow to the head sent shivers down his spine, and he couldn't deny that he felt relief when he was grabbed by the arm and hauled to his feet by this monster of a man who seemed to be deriving pleasure out of beating him to a bloody pulp. "Why a...argh...are you d-doing this?" he inquired in a weak, shaky voice as his knees nearly buckled while he was being dragged towards the living room.
"Because I can," the man answered, laughing maliciously.
After so many hits to the head, and with the walls still spinning around him, his weak attempts at wrenching his arm out of the man's hold were nothing more than laughable. A punch to the stomach came next, and all he knew after that was pain as that sadist of a man he'd never seen before slammed his forearm against the doorway and then pushed until Shinra felt his radius and the ulna break under the force, bones tearing through both muscles and puncturing skin. He screeched, but the sounds were muffled by the hand covering his mouth while the man kept him pinned between his body and the wall. Only after he'd stopped screaming was his broken arm finally released, but the sudden movement as the gravity pulled it downwards made him shriek all over again.
"Keep your mouth shut. As much as I'd love to hear you scream, I don't want uninvited guests bursting through the door."
One eye was nearly closed shut after the many punches he'd received, but he still glared at the man with all the hatred he could muster. Unfortunately, a murderous glare couldn't kill another person or get Shinra out of the situation he found himself in, so when the man peeled him off the wall and shoved him into the living room he stumbled backwards and fell on his behind. He couldn't see the bones sticking out through his lab coat's material, but there was blood on the sleeve and even though he was a doctor who was used to seeing injuries, it felt as though he was about to pass out. At that point, he didn't think it could get any worse, but the man proved him wrong by pouncing on him like a beast and covering his mouth with one hand while hooking his other arm under his knee and jerking really hard while twisting until the femur crunched and then broke under the strain.
Wild shudders wracked Shinra's whole body, sweat and blood mixing and dripping down the side of his face while he felt his pulse pounding through the raw mass of agony that was his leg. It seemed as though a broken femur was his breaking point, so he couldn't stop his eyes from filling with tears any more than he could stop shrieking into the man's palm for what felt like an eternity even after his broken limb was released and left to fall limply on the floor's living room. Panic like he never felt before slammed into him when his other leg was captured, and he started struggling and screaming into his torturer's palm, pleading with his eyes for him to stop.
The man laughed and laughed and laughed as he continued to twist the other leg while he watched Shinra with sadistic pleasure as the doctor struggled and shuddered in terror and pain beneath him. Those big, wide eyes filled with tears and that despair and fear he could see in them only spurred him on, so instead of breaking his leg like he'd done with the first one, he twisted and eased his grip a few times, each time seeing the panic in those dark grey eyes grow and grow until Shinra was frantic with the imminent pain he knew he would soon experience.
"You have one chance. One. Where is Ruri?" he asked and pulled back his hand so that the doctor could answer.
Finally, the reason he'd been beaten and tortured was revealed, but Shinra couldn't give him an answer even if he wanted. If Ruri wasn't at Kasuka's place then he didn't know where she could be. "Plea...ahh...se s-stop," he begged with tears in his eyes. "I d-don't... know. I don't. No i-ide...a, p-plea... ahhhhh!" His pleas turned into shrieks, and with a sudden and powerful jerk while twisting his leg, the bone finally gave away under the sadist's cruel hand.
The need to hear those screamed overwhelmed him, so he thoroughly enjoyed the shrills of agony for a few moments before slamming his elbow into the doctor's ribs to break a few of those too. He would've loved to expand on his torture, but he didn't want to get caught, so he got up and headed towards the door and out of the apartment, leaving the doctor for dead on the floor.
Shinra's eyes were wide, his face red and his mouth gaping in a desperate attempt to gulp in air that wouldn't come. The more effort he put into it, the worse everything hurt and the more he chocked and whimpered and whined with each tiny movement his broken body made. All he felt was pain, pain and more pain throughout his entire body, please make it stop, but he was alone and bleeding on the floor with no one to help him while he choked and gurgled on his blood and his limbs lay uselessly on the floor. They burned and pulsed and throbbed, the serrated edges of the broken bones mercilessly cutting into muscles and skin the more he twitched and jerked. Unconsciousness pulled at him with everything it had, but he feared he might not wake up if he gave into it, so instead he bit into his lip and fought to stay awake even if it hurt more than anything he'd ever experienced before in his life.
And why was it that he was thinking of Izaya in such moments and about how much worse it must have been for the Informant to be beaten, tortured and raped by a real monster? Stop it, stop it, stopitstopitstopit! What he needed to do was try to breath and not die on the floor of his and Celty's apartment. He hoped that when she finally arrived home, he would be awake to tell her that he was not fine and that everything would be all right.
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Celty was still trembling by the time she reached the apartment building. Her whole day had been a nightmare, and all she wanted to do was run up to Shinra and cuddle in his― No, not that!She was still mad at him, but she knew deep down inside that she would eventually forgive him, though she was not ready to do so yet. Still, the safety of their home sounded nice, and even if it wouldn't be Shinra's arms, his presence as they both watched TV sounded like something she sorely needed after being chased by the police throughout the entire city. Her limbs shook with fine tremors whenever flashbacks of her 'adventure' slammed into her mind, but the tremors turned into violent trembling when she saw the bloody door handle.
Please let him be safe, please let him be safe,she prayed before she pressed it and stepped inside, a feeling of nausea hitting her hard when she saw the blood smudge on the wall and some more of it on the floor. She ran into the living room, now in full panic over Shinra being hurt, but what she found was much worse than she had imagined. For a moment, she just stood there, frozen in a panic, but a low whine of what could only be agony went through her like electricity and she dropped to her knees next to Shinra. His face was swollen, with one eye closed shut and blood cascading down his nose. As bad as it looked, it wasn't what worried her. Even without pulling back the coat's sleeve, she could see that his right arm was broken. It was twisted at an unnatural angle, and even though she had an idea on what to do, she couldn't get her body to move when the one lying broken on the floor was Shinra and not someone she didn't know or care about.
"C-Cel...t-ty..."
She immediately pulled out the PDA to tell him not to speak and to save his strength, but his next words tore her heart to pieces and then crushed them to dusk.
"'m f-fii...ne..." Hurts.
With the speed of light, she typed her reply and pushed the PDA in front of his face. [You're not fine!] There were many questions she wanted to ask, like who had done this, and what were his exact injuries, which Shinra most likely knew about, but with him bleeding she didn't want to waste any more time than she already had. She pulled back the PDA and typed a message before pulling out Shinra's phone from inside the pocket of his lab coat, dialing the number for emergencies and then using the automatic voice function to ask for an ambulance to be sent to their address.
In her desire to comfort him, she raised his back a little with the purpose of placing his head in her lap, but that somehow jolted his broken arm and he couldn't suppress a yelp from slipping past his lips. She nearly jumped back, but the fear of causing him further damage forced her to stay in place. It hurt to see him in pain and it hurt to know that she hadn't been there to protect him. The idiot was trying to smile even though he was obviously suffering, and the only thing she could do was gently stroke his head while they waited for the ambulance.
I'm sorry I wasn't here to protect you...
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A/N: This fic is now up to date. I'll post the new chapters as I write them. Thank you for reading.
