(A/N) Hey i actually got this up in reasonable time :00 I'm actually kind of proud of myself! This chapter has some pretty graphic depictions of self harm, so please be warned, and stay safe.

Blackfallstar9: I am a mess every time I read your comments tbh like,, you're so amazing to still be here after all this time and your kind words never cease to make me incredibly grateful that I have the pleasure of writing for people that appreciate this story as much as you do.

Xx-xX

Izaya was close to vomiting, again. His stomach was eating itself up with guilt and the primal, ravenous hunger of not being filled in so long. He was sick, both in the head and body. The cuts in his wrists were worse than they had ever been, and the blood had long since sunk into the mattress. His sheets were once white, but now they were a deep crimson, almost brown, that reeked so heavily of iron that it made his already sick stomach recoil in anguish. He couldn't help it.

He didn't have energy to do much of anything aside from cut and cry and even the latter was coming to an end with his dehydration.

He knew his wounds were infected. The myriad of scars was caked with cracked and drying blood; a mountain of it had dried in thick globs over hot wounds. He was lethargic, not even being able to work, even if from his disgustingly bloody bed.

His phone rings on the nightstand next to him among the pile of used knives tossed after another session. He answers it reluctantly, deciding that it was better to keep up the façade then to have someone worry about his well being and go after him.

"Oh thank God, you picked up," Shinra sighed in relief over the receiver.

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"Well, you up and left when Shizuo told you it was him and went to Europe to brood about it, and now no one can get a hold of you, and you sound sick. I'm worried about you, man."

Izaya laughed dryly. Shinra had every right to be worried about Izaya, and both of them knew it. Shinra had some sort of intuitive sense about Izaya and had possessed that talent since they had first met. He knew when Izaya was doing bad, and he knew when things were going to get worse. He had called because he knew Izaya was doing bad. It was comforting, almost, to know that someone had actually cared, but even then the disgusting voice in his head told him it was all just a misplaced sense of guilt.

Shinra had been around far too long to not have some sense of duty in regards to Izaya's life. It was funny, almost. For the longest time, Shinra was a terrible friend, but now he seems to be trying everything in his power to keep Izaya around.

"Izaya, this isn't about Celty," Shinra cut in. "I know you're thinking that I'm only doing this because I want Celty to think I'm a better person, but I want you to know that even though I love her more than anything in existence, you are still my best friend. If Celty wasn't here, you would be the most important person in my life, and just because she is, that doesn't discredit your worth. I don't want to say you're like a brother to me because of... our history, but you're like a brother to me, Izaya."

Izaya doesn't fight the weak smile that pulled at his face and splits his dry lips. Blood tasted as familiar as this banter and it's welcome with a not quite sigh of relief.

"Are you okay?"

No. He knows he's not, but Shinra has already wasted too much time and concern on someone that would be much happier slipping into their forced isolation. However, like with most things Shinra did, he went into it with ridiculous gusto and was determined to keep him alive no matter how much Izaya had yearned for the opposite.

"I'm fine, Shinra." The lie slipped out as to broken of a whisper to be convincing, but that didn't stop them from coating Izaya's mouth like something bitter and poisonous.

"I know you're not," he hissed into the receiver, "But if you would just talk to someone- anyone for that matter. It doesn't even have to be me. You're not alone in this anymore, Izaya. There's people here that care about and are worried about you. Celty pesters me to check on you almost hourly, and Shizuo stops by almost every other day to see if I've heard anything from you."

His breath catches in his throat. "You didn't tell him anything, did you?"

"No, but he's not as stupid as you think he is-"

"Debatable."

"Izaya, I'm serious. You should see what this is doing to him."

"Yeah, of course he wants to find me. I'm the best informant in Japan. Let me guess- 'If anyone can help me find Itzal, it'll be him.' He said something like that, didn't he?" Izaya spit.

"Izaya, it isn't like that. I'm sure that's part of why he wants to find you, but he seems really worried about you. It's not like you to just disappear on us silently with no trace."

"What are you talking about?" he asked. "I disappear all the time- it's part of the job."

"This time is different. The city is empty without you. It's like everything is feeling the energy of your loss. Hell- everything is! No one has any idea what's going on anymore. There are turf wars everywhere. People are being robbed and murdered left and right and everyone is drowning in their own ignorance. Izaya, even the yakuza is floundering out there. They used to be the peacekeepers, the ones that everyone was afraid of interfering with. And now, without you, even they have no idea what's going on."

There's a pause. "I can't come back."

"Why not?"

"I just can't." His voice is quiet now, barely audible. He sounds helpless to his own ears and he can't imagine what it sounds like to Shinra.

There's a scoff on the other end of the line. "What are you so afraid of?"

Izaya hung up after that. He told himself he didn't deserve that kind of disrespect, and that Shinra was in no position to make such remarks, but he knew Shinra was right. He knew that his friend was calling his bullshit, but he couldn't stop the way his stomach swelled to nausea at the thought of facing Shizuo again.

He thought that he was over this, but the crushing knowledge of Shizuo's identity brought back every horribly suffocating feeling of unrequited love that had plagued Izaya in high school- the impending rejection that pressed into his heart and tipped his shoulders forward on that first initial meeting from genuine interest to sinister intent. Izaya doesn't think he can bear that weight at close proximity again.

When he had realized what love felt like in his heart and the immediate bitter aftershocks of knowing who it was he yearned for, Izaya filled the hole it made with everyone and anyone willing to take its place. He used Shinra, Shiki, and every nameless mistake of a human that he let inside of him to fill the gaping space.

But it wasn't enough. It would never be enough to replace how raw and all encompassing what he felt for Shizuo was. He felt like he was drowning in oil for years. Almost a decade was spent with his mouth and nose being filled with ugly emotions that stopped his breath and thoughts of the second Izaya saw him in high school. His adoration was immediate. It was a spark of interest that made the adrenaline from the yakuza dim into nothing more than a watered down fragment of a high. Shizuo became his everything. He was an insatiable addiction- an itch that no matter how much he saw him and fought with him, he couldn't scratch it.

And suddenly it all cleared up.

He stopped yearning for abuse because he would take whatever interaction he would get. He was pulled to the surface and out of his own sorrow by sheer force from someone who had entered his life on a bed of secrecy. Ursus gave Izaya the love that he craved from Shizuo, and when the truth came out, it turned out to show Izaya what it meant to be loved by Shizuo. It showed him what he had wanted for so long, and showed him how good it could be even when they knew nothing about each other.

But that was the problem. It was good, great, even perfect when they knew nothing about each other but the basis of a skewed similar morality that they both shared and a physical proximity. But now Izaya knows everything about him. He knows that he has a manic sweet tooth and cares almost too deeply about his friends in family. He knows that nothing will ever come between him and his little brother. Izaya knows that his best friend is a headless woman, and that he works with one of his best friends from middle school everyday. And Izaya also knows that he hates him. He hates him more than anything else in the world, but the thought itself is almost comforting in the notion that at least they do have something in common outside of their suits.

Shizuo will never hate Izaya as much as Izaya hates himself.

If he had been a little more cautious- a little more patient with Shizuo when they first met, their relationship could have been something else entirely. But he didn't know when to quit, and Shizuo didn't know how to listen. Unfortunately for Izaya, he didn't learn the latter until the seeds of hatred had already rooted into irrevocability.

Izaya forces himself to stand. His conversation with Shinra, despite being emotionally taxing had given him energy he didn't know he needed. It felt good to talk to his old friends, even if they were berating him, because that just showed that they cared. Celty had sent him a message when he first left. Those two simple words spoke of eons of progress between the two. She wouldn't ever be directly hurtful to his face. She was too nice for anything more than some witty banter that tip toed the lines between jokes and honest insults.

"Stay safe," she had written to him, and every once in awhile, when he thinks the pressure is too much, he'll reread it.

Mikado had also tried to stay in touch in the beginning, but Izaya didn't have the energy to maintain those conversations for long. Mikado had the best intentions, almost always did, but when he would go on and on about the destruction brought on by the rival gangs and the absence of the yakuza in any of this, Izaya always felt partially at fault. He knew that if was still in Shinjuku- still acting as informant- that none of that would be happening. He knew it was ridiculous to shoulder all of the blame, but even Masaomi messaged him from time to time just to let him know that his old tricks still worked when the gangs got too hot-headed. He appreciated the interaction, enjoyed the notion that two people who have every right to hate him indirectly showed that they were worried about him in their own little ways. Both of them, like a twisted form of Hansel and Gretel would leave a trail of breadcrumbs of information and interesting happenings in an attempt to pull Izaya by force out of his slump.

Though Izaya never took the bait, they kept trying anyway. Mikado had gotten a hold of Izaya's personal phone number when he was still running with the Dollars, and he had seemingly forgotten about it until he got the first text message. Shizuo can't reach out to him. Izaya didn't allow Shinra to give out that number, and lucky for him Shizuo didn't think to ask anyone else.

Regardless, the efforts, no matter how fruitless they may be, are the only thing that keep Izaya from taking the final plunge. There's a certain level of determination that sets in when you're worried about leaving others behind. He doesn't like the idea of leaving behind someone to deal with his loss. It's a mentality that paints his friends in a selfish light. He isn't staying alive for himself. He's staying alive for Shinra, and Kadota, and even Shizuo. He's staying alive for every hot pot he won't get invited to just because of distance. He's staying alive for the phone calls and the text messages that go unanswered because he doesn't have the energy- and he's staying alive on the hope that maybe something will get better.

That's been what his entire youth had been. Izaya had just forced himself to get up and put on this mask that everything was okay because he was holding out for the idea that maybe one day, he would stop needing to pretend that everything was okay. That hasn't happened yet, and as the months turn to years, Izaya was afraid that he'd be faking it his whole life- as though the day would never come that Izaya was able to be honest about how he's feeling. He didn't believe in holding out for a happy ending, his inner pessimism dipping into the nauseousness that came with hope.

Izaya's head spun in a disgusting mixture of regret and sickness from his wounds. The blood loss made him light headed beyond belief, but the infection that made his skin burn and itch in a way that was grounding. It was disgusting, and he knew that he should have felt ashamed of himself, but he couldn't help the way he yearned for the decisive weight of a knife in his hand, and the numbing sting of the blade plunging into his skin to add to the myriad of scars littering his body.

His wrists were the worst. Before all of this, Izaya couldn't be bothered with the theatrics of exposing more skin to split. His sweater sleeves were ruined with the way the hems were tugged by gritted teeth, but he needed it before he could decide against it, and the job would always be haphazard and rushed. Now the plasters that should have long been replaced, pulled at the skin on his inner and outer thigh uncomfortably as they pressed into the stitches tied with shaking hands. He didn't care enough- couldn't muster the energy necessary to clean the self inflicted wounds, or stitch the skin with any semblance of care for whether or not the wounds actually closed.

He was tired. His powers had careened him into himself and into this fucking castle of sorrow for him to wallow in. He was sad, perpetuated by the bad taste the air had to it, like the energy of the building itself was still the epicenter of torture that it once was when rumors of Dracula's existence fluttered through the towns like fog. The blood shed here infected Izaya's dreams, and while he knew this, and he knew the way that guilt and anger swallowed him, he did nothing to stop it. He let the suffering of the souls lost in this castle bleed into his being, and sat apathetic of the effects.

The bed creaks as Izaya pulls the sheets off. He'd planned on washing them tonight in hopes that it would rid the air of that foul copper smell, but the incriminating red stain absorbed into the layers of the mattress seemed to have different plans. The fatigue in Izaya's bones drags heavy as he takes his phone and a knife with him into another room of the castle. He'll have someone come out tomorrow and get rid of the bedding, but for now he's choking on his own self disgust.

Izaya goes straight to the bathroom connected to the en suite of the new room, and digs under the sink for the first aid kit he had made sure to have in every room. His hands are trembling as he peels the soiled bandages from around his wrists, and gingerly pulls at the cotton pads fastened to his hips. Those come off with a wet shulk of blood clots pulling the skin taut against the hardened black of the pus on the surface. The infection is apparent all over his body. His eyes catch the empty reflections of crimson long gone dark in the mirror.

He doesn't even recognize himself.

Izaya stares at this person in the mirror with revulsion. He looks sick and weak- skin gone nearly translucent without proper blood supply, and bags that pull heavy enough at his eyes to sink fatigue into his expressions as well. The cuts are bright and angry and bleeding against the pale of his skin. He looks horrible, and for the first time in months, chokes on his own weakness in a way that isn't total apathy.

He used to be so beautiful. What had happened? When had he stopped being able to motivate himself to even eat or drink? When had his aspirations melted into nothing more than background noise as he shook and pleaded for his next chance to feed an addiction to something that was going to kill him anyway. It felt nice- to feel something at all that wasn't an aching need to carve into his own body.

Izaya gingerly steps into the shower and decides that he's going to take better care of the wounds. He washes his hair and cleans each infection with feather light touches and an antibacterial soap that stings much more than any stab into his skin. The poorly made stitches come out next- untied with his fingers and pulled out like he's ripping off a wax strip. The towel he uses is clean and fluffy like the ones he used back in Ikebukuro, and he can't believe how much he missed the little comforts of life.

Starting with the right wrist, he sprays the antibacterial medicine into the bruised yellow slits and hisses audibly at the discomfort. He repeats the process with his left wrist and both of his legs. When he brings the threat to the eye of the needle, his hands are steadier than they have been in months, and even more so as he takes the time to meticulously close every cut deemed too deep to heal on its own. The cotton pads get a healthy coat of a similar antibacterial ointment before they are pressed into his skin and secured with medical tape. He pulls on a pair of black boxer briefs that are far shorter than he would be comfortable being seen in and a sweater like the ones he used to wear in Japan. He even goes through the effort of towel drying his hair and pulling on a pair of socks before exiting the room and seeking the comfort of a clean bed that doesn't smell like his own blood.

He's beyond exhausted by the time his face meets the pillow, and his eyes close to embrace the first restful sleep he's had in months. Instead of dreaming of murders and torture and betrayal, he dreams of kind, golden eyes and a smile that's made his knees weak for a decade.