Disclaimer: At the begining of the fic.

Warning: Still T

Not much else to say, lovely AN at the end.

SKY

Fourth Cloud

"Shizu-chan"

The blonde haired man whirled around in his spot on the ledge of the tall decrepit building, the action seemingly making him sway. Dangerous, dangerous… The man with the raven hair thought.

The same man that had just stepped through the unhinged rooftop door of a decrepit building in the outskirts of Ikebukuro, crunching debris under his black dress shoes, his calm and sly trademark façade full on. Or at least that was what he pretended, if the panting-caused grimace on his face was something to go by.

The same man that had been running all over Ikebukuro just half an hour ago, searching like crazy for the very same blonde now in front of him. Unbelievable, he inwardly scoffed. And indeed it was, because Izaya Orihara did not pant even after running for hours, chased down by the fortissimo of Ikebukuro. His legs did not cramp to the verge of collapsing under his weight thanks to his parkour activities and his cheeks definitely were not burning a deep crimson. But actually they did, and that wasn't the end of the symptoms he was portraying: His ears buzzed, small quick puffs of uncontrolled breath made clouds of white vapor in front of his flushed face from the sudden drop in temperature and adrenaline pumped through his veins, propelled by an abnormally accelerated heart-beat. His mind was reeling, going in circles, frustrated, desperate; was that fear he felt or –did he dare think- worry? He didn't really care at the moment. What he could firmly assure was that he was positively fuming. Because, above everything else, Izaya Orihara did NOT make irrational and emotion-induced mistakes.

Rio Kamichika… Damn you.

The information broker dashed through the streets of Ikebukuro, gliding right through the crowd that, at the sight of him, instantly opened up a path for him and standing by the side with an incredulous look on their faces. Where was the rampaging blonde? No one knew. So, why was Orihara running? Yet another question without answer.

The agile man's mind was currently set on reaching the observation decker of the 240-meter-high Sunshine 60 building, located in Sunshine City before remembering two important things:

1.- To enter the observation deck, you needed a ticket, which obviously the blonde wouldn't have bothered buying just to 'see the sky from the tallest place in its utmost beauty', as he had said.

2.- It was a freaking Sunday so the place would be literally packed with tourists and cheesy brats on their dates. No way, the brute wanted to be alone for sure.

He slowed his pace in two, three long strides before coming to a halt in the middle of the street. If Izaya was any other person, he would be swearing like a sailor and pulling on his hair right about that precise moment. But, alas, he was Izaya, and that, yet again, differentiated him from any other pathetic and weak human. Izaya needed to think of himself as something superior, as someone so proud and perfect that mistaking him for another individual would be impossible, so he always compared. In his mind, he always was THE Izaya Orihara, no matter how critic the situation situation, he was himself, irreplaceable, unique. Omnipresent.

Picking up his pace yet again with a growl forming on his throat, he headed in the complete opposite direction to the one he had been going on for another 15 minutes, towards the back alleys that lead to the outskirts of the city until the second tallest building in Ikebukuro came into sight, the ominous and decaying concrete structure abandoned a long time ago looming over him with a easily recognizable silhouette with a mop of bleached hair on top, shining under the light of the setting sun that tore the sky into angry red lines. The view made him exert himself one last time as he stepped on the first set of stairs of the building to finally reach the top, where the broad back of the fake blonde greeted him.

He didn't make those types of mistakes, he did not! And the primate with the single neuron in front of him simply opted for turning back around as if nothing had happened, resuming his previous stance: hands in pockets, hunched back and defeated shoulders, but always with his head, or more specifically his eyes, always up to what seemed to have become the man's obsession.

The brunette took one, two slow, calculated steps closer to the bigger man, once again making a crunching noise that didn't seem to bother either. As if waiting for something to break the soft whispering of the wind around the rooftop, the latter one uttered something under his breath, or just spoke too low for the other to be able to hear it, he didn't know. The paler man waited to see if the taller man would repeat himself, but he didn't, so, with a sigh escaping his wind-parched lips, made it his job to question the man about it. That time around, the answer was louder, clearer, and though it wasn't something he wouldn't have said to the blonde any other day, hearing it coming from him in his state now made the melancholic sentence wounding, sharper than the switchblade on his pocket, for it cut through him as nothing had ever done before. Not that he would ever admit to it to anyone, not even himself, for the rest of his life. One day of weakness is what he was allowing himself, nothing more.

"I can't break it… the sky. I can't reach it, so I can't break it, shatter it. Not now, not ever."

And the brooding man had yet to turn around.

"…What about me, Shizu-chan?"- Later on he would reflect on the cheesy line that had fled from his mouth and have a round of hysteric laugh at his own pathetic self, but if you, by some chance, knew about it and asked him whether he regretted saying it or not, of course he probably wouldn't answer you and in return he would make sure to make your life a living hell, but certainly he did not regret it and he knew it deep inside himself.

This time he did receive the attention he had been seeking when the sickly man turned once again to face him with a questioning gaze above his fever-flushed cheeks, somehow urging him to elaborate.

"Shizu-chan, how many times have you chased me down, even catching me a few times? How many fights have we gotten into? How many blows have we taken from each other, how many buildings have we jumped, how many alleys have we run through? And guess what, Shizu-chan? I'm still here, am I not?"

Silence.

"I'm here, Shizuo. I will not break."

He finally came up to the former bartender and wound his arms around his middle slowly, even tenderly, as he pulled him down from the collapsing ledge to the security of the still stable rooftop. The other had yet to spoke or make a move, but as Izaya started to withdraw his hands from his wide and strong back, Shizuo lifted his own and grabbed a fistful of the other furred-lined jacket in a desperate attempt to get a hold of a solid anchor that wouldn't let him get lost. He slumped against the smaller body, nestling his head in the crook of a pale neck, but soon the weight was too much for the wiry body and both men stumbled to the ground.

Izaya looked down onto the unbelievable soft mop of bleached hair and internally scoffed. Just like a little pathetic drama, Shizu-chan was only missing the pouring rain to make it even more dramatic. He smirked and sighed, albeit with difficulty from the weight on top of his chest. Or was it from the funny feeling that had settled inside of it? It felt like happiness somehow, but he knew it wasn't from having saved the man. He realized it was because the new situation he found themselves in had given him the upper hand, a more favorable, superior stance over the brute, a more dominating one, and that made him felt as giddy inside as a kid with a new toy for Christmas.

"Celty~, my love, can you get the door for me? I'm somewhat busy right now repositioning my dislocated shoulder~!"

The man dressed in white saw his soon to-be-wife (his own words) pass in front of his bedroom towards the front door without as much as a sign of acknowledgement to his antics. It had been his fault, really. He shouldn't have tried to peek at her when she was changing, but how could he resist? A dislocated shoulder paled in comparison to the great sight he caught before being hurled against the wall opposite to her door by a black shadow. Finally relocated, he twisted his arm and draw a big circle backwards in the air with it for good measure before stepping out of his bedroom towards the front door where he could already hear the intense clicking of his lover's PDA and a voice he knew too well. Turning the corner at the end of the corridor, he was greeted with Shizuo's large body being supported by the lithe brunette, and Celty's hysteric typing, showing her PDA screen much too quickly for the raven-haired man to read what she was trying to say.

"Celty, dear, why don't you start by helping Izaya with Shizuo to the spare room and we'll ask the questions later, ok?"

The mythological celtic being seemed to realize then the bad condition the blonde was in and conjured quite a lot of dark, thick tentacles that wrapped around his extremities and middle, carrying him face-down through the corridor towards the other end of it, where the room was. The other three followed swift, Shinra at the front already putting his stethoscope on his ears.

After a complete diagnosis, the conclusion reached was that of a simple cold gone a bit bad, with abnormally high fever. Shinra of course wanted to know how the man got to 45ºC without collapsing or burning from inside out, but Celty (and Izaya) hadn't allowed him to experiment nor dissect 'a little' as he had said Shizuo's body. He could only reach one conclusion: the man's strength came with some other alterations, such as a highest body temperature than that of an average person. With a long rest, some food and lots of liquids Shizuo would be up and about again in no time.

"You can leave him to us now and go back home if you want, we'll take care of him"

"Hmm, nah, I'm taking him"

"Hah?"

"What you heard, I'm taking him with me to my apartment, just let me grab some cooling pad from your fridge, I run out of them some time ago." And with that, he left towards the kitchen.

["Did Izaya really save him? I don't believe it, Shinra…"]

"Yeah, I know, right? But, hey, as they say, every dark cloud has its silver lining! Even if it's his type of contaminated cloud I suppose… Which brings me to the next question, how did he carry him here?"

"Oh, please, Shinra, surely you don't think I've been carrying his monstrous weight all around Ikebukuro, right? Of course, I caught a cab, and of course I'm taking another one to my apartment."- Izaya re-appeared from the kitchen with his usual teasing swagger, holding a plastic bag with some cooling pads in it.

"Of course… Wa-wait a moment right there! The driver let you both in?"- His mocha eyes went wide and his jaw ajar from the realization.

"Hm, he had his reservations at first, but he saw Shizuo was asleep so it wasn't as dangerous for him as having me making him suffer for the rest of his life"- He smirked, uncontrolled devilish mirth alighting his crimson eyes.

"I think you missed the evil laugh right there at the end, Izaya"- Shinra laughed good-naturedly.

"Nah, too much of a bother, I reserve it for special occasions, like when I'm alone with my secretary in the office just to freak the hell out of her and things like that."

Shinra knew he was not kidding. Celty had called for a cab already and took Shizuo with his shadow down to the front of the building before it arrived, careful of not being seen. Izaya got into the car with a very unconscious Shizuo Heiwajima hanging from his side, a strong arm drapped over his shoulders, and once again went through the process of 'persuading' the frightened driver so they could reach their destination, Shinjuku.

Yeahhh... I'm back... SORRY! I know I'm very very late with this, I won't put up excuses nor explain why (too much of a bother and you wouldn't be interested) but just know that his story has been biting at my brain for forever for not paying it any attention. Hope the new chapter didn't disappoint you, because I know some of you were eagerly waiting for it, even leaving reviews to make me pick it up again. I got stuck so many times with it, it wasn't really coming out as I wanted (incredible right? Being as simple, cheesy, predictable and short as it is) but suddenly yesterday night at 3 am inspiration hit me like a truck so I had to get up and write with a torch on the bed the fic before writing it all in one go this afternoon. Btw, I positively hate writing the character's names like that, they sound sooo much better Japanese version, it's the last time I'm doing it. Ah, and I'm sorry for remarking so many times Izaya's selfish perception of himseld as a God-like being, but I think my fic needed it.

I'm thinking of finally making the last chapter M rated. Yeah, it'll be the last one. And it'd be the promised IzayaxShizuo (that order), but don't expect too much from it, I suck at writing smexy scenes (if you've read my other fics you'd know). I don't think it'll take as long as this one to get out, as I've got it all tought out from the boost of inspiration last night.

Again, sorry for making you wait. Hope you like it.

Gusi~