(A/N) I am horrifically sorry about how long it has taken for this. As college started for me, this project got shoved to the back burner for a while. The idea of multiple endings has been abandoned, however the fic itself has not. Once again, I'm sorry.

Blackfallstar9: I'm so sorry that I left you hanging like this. Your reviews always light up my day, and I make it a habit to go back and read them whenever I got down. Here's the next chapter, I'm sorry about how the split got cancelled, and I hope you're still here reading this.

Jojo: welp,, since the split got cancelled, you get to find out which one he chose! Thank you so much for your kind words and i hope you enjoy the next chapter.

Crystal Bruner: Thank you! Reviews really are my main motivation, which is part of why continued to update this on a03 without updating it here.

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There's something in the way Shinra's eyes pleaded for his patience that drove Shizuo to take his advice. It doesn't feel right. There's a gnawing in the back of his head that's screaming at him that this isn't right, but there's not much else he can do. Shinra was worried about Izaya taking an "extreme" and from the way he delicately explained what goes on with Izaya and his knives behind closed doors, Shizuo doesn't like the idea.

He knew what he meant.

He knew that Shinra was worried that when cornered, Izaya, unable to deal with it because that little fuck never learned any coping methods, would take his life in an attempt to avoid his problems. It made Shizuo sick to his stomach to think about it, but the notion of Izaya doing it because he didn't want to see Shizuo that bad made it even worse. It was a nail in a coffin, of sorts, or some other complicated metaphor that Shizuo didn't have the time nor the desire to figure out.

He felt as though he was "damned if he did, damned if he didn't" kind of situation. He didn't know how, but he knew somewhere in his gut that Izaya was hurting himself. Be it not eating, or sleeping, or cutting like Itzal did, it didn't matter. All were bad, and all were self destructive, and all were a very real and actual possibility, but for the first time, he decided that he would trust Shinra's judgement. He was chasing a fleeting chance at some one-sided puppy love with Izaya that caused him to attempt to prematurely bury the hatch with Itzal despite any real ability to really reconcile that.

He wanted to. By God, he wanted to. Shizuo craved a boon– craved that he would be able to hold Itzal in his arms again and that he could forget, even if just a moment, that Izaya was right and had been right all along. He was a monster. He was destructive and destroyed everything he had ever tried to protect.

But this isn't about him.

This is about finding Izaya and helping him so that he can help Shizuo find Itzal. Shizuo'd always been the one with the one track mind. He had a goal, and he would see it until the end, so why now? Why, when there was a very real possibility that either of them could be dead and alone, rotting in their own respective territories, when time wasn't just not on his side– but against him in his decision, did Shizuo find himself completely drowning in self doubt?

He can try and hide the reason behind some fabrication like heavy curtains in his mind to distract him, but he knows where the apprehension stems from. He knows that the poisonous roots of indecisiveness and personal self loathing are intertwining in a spire behind his eyelids and sucking in every absolute in his head and his heart. He hates it. Shizuo hates it more than he's ever hated Izaya, or the thugs that force him into a rage on a regular basis. He hates it more than Varona's betrayal. He hates it more than he's ever hated himself.

However, that's just how life shakes down sometimes isn't it? It kicks and screams and fights for some chaos or malevolence until it gets it and then it either stretches on begrudgingly in a haze or it's killed at the hands of his owner.

And for the first time, Shizuo thinks he can see things from Itzal and Izaya's perspective. He understands why someone would cut themselves just for the sake of having any form of control, and he understands why death would be easier and in fact welcomed in the face of inner adversaries. He's felt like this for a measly two months and Izaya had been rotting in the empty shell of his apartment for years– decades even– that were spent dealing with this alone. Shizuo knows he has people he can talk to. He has Celty– has always had Celty, and he has Shinra, who seemingly has an endless well of knowledge about Izaya. But Izaya didn't have anyone. Izaya was left with a piss poor excuse for a friend and the overwhelming knowledge that everyone wants him dead. And unfortunately, it's true. You either wanted Izaya dead, or you didn't know who he was. It was a fact, one that had been carefully introduced and illustrated by Izaya himself in order to protect his loved ones.

He was an asshole to protect the ones he loves from getting hurt because of him. If he kept them all away- pushed every individual he had ever cared about at bay and away from his person than he could protect them from those that wanted to hurt him. His sisters, his friends, and any potential lovers had to be rejected so that they wouldn't be hurt. That's how Izaya's job works. He essentially gets paid to sell people out, and with that comes casualties and anger- both of which thrown into a stew of desired revenge and frustration. He never wanted anyone, seemingly all but himself, to get hurt. And the problem with that is that it meant shoving anyone and everyone so far out of harm's reach that he was alone to fight his own demons, and he was breaking. He had been chipped at for years upon years of misplaced anger stemmed from a lack of understanding, and his pristine crystal of a facade was giving way under the pressure of his daily life.

His constant exposure to the stress of his repetitive existence and the knowledge of his isolation was pressing down on him harder than the weight of the sky on Atlas' shoulders. He was suffering and alone because he wanted it that way at face value, but the glances that lasted a second too long in people's directions while they talked to their friends and held hands with their lovers told of his lies. He wanted that. He wanted companionship, but didn't want to support the weight of guilt in his danger by association. Izaya couldn't handle this for much longer, and any added weight would make him shatter.

At least, that's what Shizuo had hypothesized. He couldn't be sure. Shinra wouldn't talk to him about it, and Celty had gone into that dead end shuffle of conversation that she would when ever she was keeping something from Shizuo.

Shizuo wishes that he could tear down all the red tape. Everyone around him seems to be lying to him about something that must be pretty big. He can handle it when it's coming from one side (that side normally being Izaya), but when it comes from every angle, he drowns under the weight of their sideways glances at one another.

It's the worst when Celty lies to his face. She may not have a head, but she is far more expressive than any of his either friends, and the way her shoulders pull the muscles taut as they sink when she types out out that she "doesn't know how to help him" make him angry. He's never been angry with Celty before. If anything, Shizuo had always sought her out as a source of comfort– something to calm him down when he was at his wits ends, but now she was keeping things from him like she didn't trust him, and it sank into his skin just as heavy as the gaping hole in his chest.

"It's not my secret to tell," she had told him one day.

Then whose was it? Who was this mystery person that knew all?

It was Izaya, of course, but he was off-limits. It was a secret that Izaya knew and was keeping for whatever reason. Shizuo didn't know whether it was to save his own skin or to save Itzal's, but he knew that their lines crossed. The red strings of fate were knotted between those two. He knew it, and from the pensive face that Shinra gave him every time he asked about it was anything to go by, then Shinra knew it too.

There was something– something major that he was missing. He knew it was exactly what he needed. It was the leaflet, or the clue, or the hammer to the wall signifying the dead end in front of him. He just couldn't figure out what on Earth it was. He knew where it was. He knew it was off in Romania where ever Izaya was, and he knew that no one here was going to give him the answer that they all knew. He feels as though every move is being scrutinized by the privy eyes of those that call him a friend. Celty, Shinra, Simon, Tom– fuck, even Kadota was purring at him like he was so close, and yet so far away.

This double edged sword was cutting into his skin and marring him with a myriad of scars. Shinra had his concerns that Izaya would end his life if Shizuo acted on his desires for a council with the informant, but Shizuo knew that leaving Izaya all the way out there all alone was just as bad.

If not worse.

At least if he does something reckless while Shizuo is there, there's someone to call emergency services. And it's with that thought in mind that Shizuo retrieves his phone from his back pocket and sends one text message.

He's decided to take his brother up on his previous offer to pay Shizuo's way to Romania.

I feel like i let a lot of you down, and im terribly sorry for that. Thank you for staying with me if you're still here. I'm almost done with the next chapter now.