Notes: I'm closing in on finishing Fragility now; the end is in sight, but there's still quite a ways to go, I've got a backlog of this fic to post so I'm well ahead of the game and I'm going to be able to update this every Friday. How does that sound?
Title:
Part:
Words: 2829 words
Prompt: Shizaya, cuddling... Just any IC fluff. ;_;
Disclaimer: It's not mine. It all belongs to others who I am in no way associated with and I make nothing from writing this, got it?

part two

Celty showed no indication that she'd heard him even though she probably had. Instead, she went and took his place at Izaya's side. Very slowly, she reached out and placed her hand over Izaya's and gave it a gentle squeeze.

Turning away, Shizuo quietly opened the door and slipped into the hallway. He could clearly hear the quiet hum of the refrigerator and the sound of Shinra's heavy breathing and soft snores coming from the living room. Closing the door to his bedroom behind him, he crossed the hall to his bathroom and flipped on the light as he stepped inside.

His limbs felt heavy and he blinked several times in the bright light of the bathroom.

A quick glance in the bathroom mirror told him that he was a mess. There were dark circles under his eyes from his lack of sleep, and his eyes themselves were blood shot and a little puffy. There was dried blood smeared across his face and even in his hair. His clothes were stained and his shirt wasn't even white anymore, it was mostly all just a mottled brown stain. And his hands... they were smeared with Izaya's blood.

Still trembling, he raised his hands for a closer inspection. Even at the sight of it dried and flaking, it still made his heart thud painfully, his stomach twist, and that lump was lodged in his throat again.

Even though his hands were still shaking, Shizuo stripped off his clothes, throwing them to a corner of the bathroom. Stepping into the shower, he pulled the curtain across and turned on the water. It came as a slight shock to his body – cold, too cold – but he didn't bother to try and adjust the temperature. The cold would help wake him up.

For several long minutes, Shizuo just stood there under the water that had turned a shade of reddish-brown as it washed away some of the blood. Shizuo watched it swirl away in the drain, mind blank.

As goosebumps started forming along his chest and arms, Shizuo finally moved and grabbed the soup off the small ledge. He scrubbed at the remaining dried blood that the water hadn't been able to wash away. Getting the blood out of his hair was a little more difficult and his fingers snagged in both tangles and congealed blood as he washed it but he didn't curse in frustration.

Once he was clean, Shizuo just stood under the cold water, staring at the white tile in front of him. He could see a distorted reflection of himself.

Sighing, he wrenched his attention away from the tiles and turned off the water and stepped out of the shower. He grabbed a shower from the rack and quickly dried his hair before wrapping it around his waist and leaving the bathroom.

Shinra was still asleep in the living room when he emerged so the apartment remained in almost dead silence that rang in his ears.

When he re-entered his room, he found Celty in the same position that she'd been in when he'd left. She didn't look up at him and it was pretty obvious that she was averting her attention as Shizuo dropped his towel and pulled out fresh clothes – another bar tender outfit, as always – from his closet and dressed.

[ No change. Shinra said that he can't be sure when he might wake up. ]

"Thanks."

An awkward silence fell between the two of them, neither moving for several agonizingly long minutes until Celty broke it.

[ You really are worried about him. I never realized before how much you did actually care about him. ]

Shizuo didn't respond but looked away, pointedly staring at the carpet. He hadn't known until that day either.

A hand on his shoulder jerked him back to reality. Celty was standing beside him, holding out her PDA as she gave his shoulder a comforting squeeze.

[ It makes a lot more sense now. ]

"What does?"

[ Your behaviour. You cared about him all this time but never knew how to express it. ]

Choosing not to say anything – not that he could actually think of anything to say to that – Shizuo returned to his spot at the side of the bed. His hands were much more steady this time when he hesitantly reached out and took the informant's hand. He could feel Celty's intense scrutiny before she took her leave, the door closing behind her with a soft click.

The morning dragged on and Shizuo didn't move except to occasionally shift to keep his legs from falling asleep. He didn't have much of an appetite, and even though his eyes started to burn a little from lack of sleep as the day wore on he couldn't let himself.

Shinra drifted in once or twice to check the equipment and to change Izaya's bandages along with seeing if there had been any changes. And Celty would come in on occasion to pester him to eat, even a if it was just little. Eventually she just left a bowl of rice for him on the table with a stern message to eat at some point and try to get some sleep.

Both of them were worried about him, but Shizuo found it was difficult to care when all that mattered to him was that Izaya wake up.

I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I can't do anything right... So please... please wake up... I need to tell you that.

.:-o-:. .:-o-:. .:-o-:.

Shizuo was half-asleep when Izaya's hand twitched in his. That one movement jerked him back to alertness and he nearly shot up from his position sitting at the side of the bed. Instead, he simply settled for leaning anxiously over him.

His eyes were squeezed closed but fluttered open for a brief moment. Finally, he managed to open them – although they were lidded from exhaustion – and Shizuo let out a breath he hadn't known he was holding.

"Izaya?"

The informant glanced over at him and Shizuo sucked in a sharp breath. The solitary eye lacked the gleam of amusement and lust for something that it usually held, it was dull and the color of rust instead of the familiar bright red that Shizuo was so accustomed to.

He felt his heart jump up into his throat.

Blinking at him, it seemed to take him a few seconds before he registered that Shizuo was leaning over him. Then it took him a few seconds to realize that Shizuo had said something to him.

"Shizu... chan...?" His voice was rough and soft from misuse and how dry his throat was.

The drugs had probably left him feeling disoriented and woozy and Shizuo was pretty sure that all of the blood that he'd lost didn't help either. However, the relief that he felt was still countered by just how broken the informant seemed. He had to bite down on his lip to keep himself from crying in relief and sadness.

With trembling fingers, he reached out and lightly touched Izaya's cheek. It didn't escape his notice that Izaya winced just a little when his fingers made contact, but he relaxed almost immediately. Still, it made that knife in Shizuo's stomach twist painfully.

"Where...?"

"Don't worry, you're safe."

I'll protect you I promise. I won't let anyone hurt you again.

Izaya frowned and made as though he was about to say something, but he seemed to think better of it and remained silent. He glanced around the room, taking in all of the medical equipment that had been set up beside the bed and then taking stock of all of the tubes and needles that he was hooked up to.

"I called Shinra, he had Celty bring most of this. You... were in pretty bad shape." Shizuo ignored the way his voice caught in his throat; if he kept talking, then he could hold back the tears. "He said you were lucky to have survived."

"Unlucky... is more... like it." He let his eye drift closed.

Shizuo froze, his heart stuttering to a halt. No. He would not think about that, couldn't. The blade twisted painfully in his stomach and blazed red hot. He should have known that Izaya might have felt this way. He was such an idiot.

Something in his posture must have alerted Izaya, because the informant was watching him closely with a frown, "Were you..."

"You're a fucking idiot. I hope you know that." Shizuo's shoulders shook from the force of his suppressed sobs. Damn it, he was not going to cry. Not in front of Izaya. And definitely not when he needed to be strong for him.

"Shizu-chan..."

His voice was still impossibly soft, cracking in all the wrong places. Weakly, Izaya managed to squeeze Shizuo's hand holding his.

"Why... are you...?"

Carefully pushing himself to his feet, Shizuo leaned over and pressed his lips to Izaya's forehead. It didn't matter right then if he was confusing the hell out of the informant, they could work through all of this later.

"I'll get Shinra." He gave Izaya's hand another squeeze before moving to untangle their fingers and fetch the self-described doctor.

What he didn't count on was the desperate strength which Izaya clung to his hand with. Glancing down, he saw that his eye had gone wide and he was trembling.

Why does he look so vulnerable...?

"Please..." Very weakly, he tugged on Shizuo's hand and shifted over a little in the bed to make enough room for him to sit on the edge of it. The message was clear: I don't want to be alone. Please stay.

Unable to deny him anything when he looked at him like that, Shizuo settled down onto the side of the bed; mindful of Izaya's bandaged form. He'd throw himself out the window if he caused him anymore harm. He held the smaller man's hand gently in both of his on his thigh.

Izaya settled down, the heart monitor slowly settling back into the rhythmic beeping of before – it had spiked dangerously when Shizuo had made to leave. The blond didn't doubt that either Celty or Shinra had heard it.

That assumption of his proved correct because only a few seconds later Shinra had slipped into the room with them.

Luckily, Izaya had settled back into a sleepy state of wakefulness and didn't notice the dark-haired man at first. And when he did, he seemed just a little wary of him but relaxed quickly. Shizuo's heart contracted painfully at what that could mean. Questions bubbled up inside of him – What happened? Who did this? Where did they take you? I need to know, please – but none of them were appropriate to be asked then. He could ask later, he could wait until Izaya was ready to answer them.

Shinra had a slightly happy grin on his face when he saw that Izaya was awake and he gave the two of them a knowing wink. His grin only grew bigger when he saw their intertwined hands.

"Well, this is something unexpected."

Gently, Shizuo stroked Izaya's knuckles as he glared at Shinra who had the good sense to flinch and hurriedly raise his hands in a placating gesture.

"I didn't mean it like that!" he back-pedalled wildly. "I didn't expect to, you know, I'm sorry!"

"Shut up..." Izaya rumbled, eye closing and nose wrinkling as though he was in pain. He tightened his hand in Shizuo's before relaxing just a little.

"You okay?" Shizuo asked softly.

"... head hurts..."

"Sorry..." Shinra slowly approached, speaking in hushed tones. "How are you feeling otherwise?"

"... tired... I can't feel... anything... really..." he frowned. From the pauses in how he spoke, it was probably taking up a lot of his energy to say that much.

"Rest," Shizuo murmured, shooting another glare at Shinra. "Don't bother wasting your energy on Shinra."

"Hey!"

Izaya seemed to debate for a few moments about whether or not he wanted to argue with Shizuo about that, but his exhaustion won out in the end and he nodded slowly before relaxing into the bed. It didn't take very long until he drifted back off to sleep.

Silence permeated the room for several long moments, the only sound that of Izaya's calm but heavy breathing and the steady beep of the heart monitor.

"How was he?"

Shizuo didn't look at Shinra when he spoke, watching Izaya's face. He looks so peaceful... It took him several more minutes to answer, Shinra waiting patiently for him to do so the entire time.

"Confused. He didn't really know where he was for a while... he seemed afraid too." Somehow, Shizuo found that his voice didn't shake, didn't crack, like he'd feared it would. He sounded so much calmer than he felt. "But he relaxed once he recognized me."

"Yeah, I noticed that," Shinra replied softly. "I don't think that will go away any time soon."

Shizuo nodded. He focused on Izaya's face, the bruises, how pale his skin was, how fragile and broken he looked... all of that he carved deep into his memory.

Even though he probably knew that Shizuo wasn't paying attention anymore, Shinra kept talking; he was rambling, really, as he went about changing some of Izaya's bandages and checking on the more serious injuries. Shizuo knew that it was just how Shinra was and ignored it.

"... should be stable in a few days. Celty can come check on him from time to time to make sure he's recovering like he should–"

"I'll take a few days off." Hell, he'd never taken a vacation in his life; he'd had so many jobs that he cherished the ones that he could keep for longer than a month. And Tom was a good friend, he'd understand.

"She can – huh?" Shinra blinked, startled out of his rambling explanation. "You don't have to–"

"You just said that the next few days would be important." Shizuo looked away from Izaya and met Shinra's eyes. He knew he probably looked like shit and, really, he was exhausted and was on the brink of the collapse but he could wait until later when he could afford that luxury.

"Well yeah, but – are you sure that's alright?" Biting his lip, Shinra nervously fidgeted about a little as he adjusted one of Izaya's bandages.

"It's fine."

"That means you'll have to change his bandages and feed him and help him to the bathroom and–"

"I know."

Shinra sighed, running his hand through his hair. He looked just as crappy as Shizuo felt, even though he had managed to squeeze in a few hours of sleep. Although from the looks of it, it hadn't been as restful as it should've been. Both of them were too worried to actually sleep – Shizuo more than Shinra.

"Well, alright... so long as you know..." Shinra trailed off. "But I'll still ask Celty to drop by to make sure he's doing okay. She can bring you anything you might need."

Shizuo nodded. He was tired, and sleep was starting to look oh so tempting now that he knew that Izaya was alright. It didn't matter so much that he'd be sleeping on the floor.

After a few more minutes – although it was more like hours – of lecturing Shizuo on things that the blond didn't even bother paying attention to, Shinra eventually left with Celty. He'd managed to extract a promise from a dead tired Shizuo to call him if anything happened or if Izaya suddenly took a turn for the worse. Celty was practically herding him out of the door even as he called more instructions over his shoulder as Shizuo finally slammed the door closed behind them.

One thing that he was glad to see was that the blood had all been cleaned away. Now the hallway just smelled of bleach and crappy air freshener.

That was one reminder that he could live without.

Celty had left him a small meal on the counter along with a note – Eat this please. – and he managed to force down a good portion of it before his stomach threatened to expel its contents. He wound up dumping the rest of it into the trash before slowly walking back to his room after making sure that the door and windows were all locked.

He'd left the door to his room open a crack and Izaya was exactly where he'd been before. Although he'd curled up on himself a little and his face was scrunched up into one of discomfort. Shizuo sighed.

It was going to be a long night.

.:-o-:. .:-o-:. .:-o-:.

An update every Friday, that sounds good doesn't it? In total, Fragilityis at 28 105 words right now and it's slowly winding to a close. But like I said before, there is going to be a sequel. :3

Okay, this is a pet peeve of mine, but please leave a review – especially if you're favouriting or alerting my work. I'm normally not very picky about this, but when I get about ten or twelve people favouriting/alerting my work and only one or two people review it's just a little disheartening so please, I'm not picky about what you say. A simple 'I like it' would be fine with me. I'm sorry if I seem catty, but I've got cramps right now and my parents are having a party downstairs that I've been barred from (as usual) so my mood is a little down in the shits.

Reviews are love.

Twilight.