(A/N) Hey so wow this is the second to last chapter guys. Like,, wow shit oh my god.

Blackfallstar9: you are literally the light of my life i s2g. I get so excited to read your reviews specifically cause they mean just that much to me and this one is no different. Im so suprised that anyone hung around this long- let alone the fact that you've literally been here since day one. I hope you are here for the last of this.

Kitkatlove96: wow im so glad you decided to read this! I know its,, to take in. thank you so much and for reading and reviewing. And no, i'm not offended that you ship me and blackfallstar (/ω＼)

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Shizuo's hands are trembling into instability as he grips the rail up the stairs. When he first found out that the address led to Dracula's Castle in Romania, he was more than a little confused, but in retrospect, it was so Izaya. It was dramatic, and gothic, with a past so tragic the details have turned to fables turned to brutality as the words crossed from mouth to mouth. It was so like him that Shizuo is upset that he didn't realize it sooner. Izaya was dramatic and so very extra that some big castle up in the mountains was right up his alley. It doesn't make the building any less foreboding. The air is heavy with the weight of a tragedy and it makes Shizuo's hair stand on end. When the wind picks up, it blows across the stone and picks up the scent of long standing sorry and the dust of the buildings bones settled with the new life being breathed into it.

This place is huge. It pisses Shizuo off to see Izaya burn his money like an old king. No one needs this much space, and the grand display of wealth burns what he refuses to acknowledge as envy. But if Izaya's in there, then he's going in too. He still isn't entirely sure why he's here. He doesn't know whether he's here for information about Itzal (or how he would get it for that matter) or if he's here for Izaya himself. He feels so lost in his own head.

Loneliness had been something that Shizuo had long since accepted as a part of his life- it's what it meant to be him with his strength and power. Those that showed an interest weren't really interested in him, they were interested in his strength or possibly saving their own ass. And then there was Izaya, who showed up out of nowhere and rocked Shizuo to his core from the first second they made eye contact in high school. He was adamant in his position to never fear Shizuo, and while originally, he believed that Izaya was only interested in him for his strength, the countless dinners they had had together had told another story.

Izaya had told Shizuo that his interest had stemmed from the rumors he had heard in middle school of this guy with super strength. Of course he wanted to know whether it was true or not, but once they had met, there was a spark of interest that went beyond Shinra's desire for experimentation. Rather than the why or how of Shizuo's strength, he wanted to know the what. What drove him? What was worthy of being a target and what wasn't worth the time? But more importantly, Izaya wanted to know what was important enough to Shizuo for him to hold back. The answer was boring, and Izaya thought it might be. Shizuo had said his loved ones: friends, family, lovers- the basic list of those that were close to him.

Izaya was unimpressed, as Shizuo might thought he would have been. He commented on how quick Shizuo had answered, almost as though it was obvious. To which Shizuo had asked Izaya how it couldn't be. The sad smile that set in just long enough to reach his eyes reminded Shizuo of their history.

From what he had learned, Izaya was a latch key kid. His parents had chosen their careers over their children and the result was Izaya being too young and too isolated to be a good enough role model for his sisters when they were left in his care. He cared about them, as much as he tried to deny it, but Izaya was far too protective of the twins to really pull off the "aloof brother."

It was kind of cute. Izaya tried so hard to hide everything that he was really interested in or what he really cared about because his line of work made those weaknesses. No one knew that Izaya had an affinity for horror movies (especially the supernatural kind). No one knew that he watched things like Buzzfeed Unsolved and stupid cartoons when he had the time. No one knew that he was excited for the new season of Haikyuu or that he played the second Psycho Pass in one sitting. These were things that Izaya had told Shizuo with a childish smile on his face and a heartbreaking preface of "I know it's stupid but-"

It made Shizuo think that he wasn't allowed to enjoy things, and he probably wasn't. The leash that that yakuza guy had on him was so tight, he couldn't even breath naturally. Every single move, every flutter of his lashes, every word, even every meal was strategically calculated to make him everything that Shiki had asked him to be. He didn't say any of that outright, but from the disdain he had picked up when Shinra had spoken about it, to the way Izaya always looked like a deer in the headlights when Shizuo had brought him up, he could figure it out. He's not as stupid as everyone thought he was. Well, he was, but he had his moments of clarity.

That didn't matter to Shizuo, though, as he pushed the twelve foot doors open. They gave immediately to the force of Shizuo's strength and swung into the darkness of grand hall. The castle itself, in short, creeped Shizuo out. He had a keen sense of what was right and what wasn't, and the grounds left a bad taste in his mouth and made his skin crawl. He felt like something very bad had happened here, and while he wasn't great at history, he had a vague sense that this place's history had something to do with it.

He sincerely hoped that Izaya himself hadn't succumbed to this suffocating sadness, but with the way that phantom blood smudged the air around him, Shizuo feared for the worst. He tells himself that that can't be what he's smelling, that the wind that carries heavy with the scent of iron had to do with the gnawing of ugly uncomfortable death that he believes marred this place at some point in its history. He follows the scent anyway, leading him through courtyards and hall ways until he finds the tower that the wind is funneling from, to a door surrounded in beds of red dahlias. The smell of blood is stronger here, shattering Shizuo's feeble hope of long forgotten memories on palace grounds.

He's taking the stairs two at a time, and practically skips up the last set until he's in front of another heavy oak door at the farthest wing of the castle. There's a few of them on this floor, all lined up in sequence with one another in a way that seems like a scene from a bad horror movie instead of Shizuo finding out if Izaya is alive or not. It's the second door on the left that has the strongest smell- the largest feeling of phantom life and movement, as though there was once a living body behind it. He can smell Izaya, can smell the faint hints of vanilla and bourbon that tend to float around him like he's dangerous but can be soft. There's also the smell of blood, so hot and raw that it makes his stomach fall to his feet, and when he find his courage enough to open the door, his hands shake as it pushes against the resistance of the wood.

The sight before him looks like something out of a horror movie. Discarded knives were scattered all over every surface. Worse than that, there is a rumpled pile of stained brown sheets and a stain so incriminating in the middle of a mattress that it looks as though someone had been murdered. The room reeks so heavily of iron that it spins his head into putty. Shizuo can't help but fear the worst. There's too much blood- too much pain so saturated between these four walls that it makes him feel guilty. He knew the kind of state Izaya's mental health had been in and still did nothing at the request of Shinra who hadn't seen how soft Izaya can really be. Shinra hadn't seen the way Izaya's eyes shine when he gets excited or the way that Izaya covered his mouth when he laughed cause he thought it was ugly and loud. Shizuo always tried to make Izaya laugh.

Izaya isn't here, though. He's not in the bathroom, or the closet, and he's not tucked under the bed like Shizuo might have thought he would have been. The amount of dust Shizuo kicked up when he went running through this castle proved to him that no one had shuffled through the main halls in quite sometime, not Izaya, and surely not a coroner or police officers inspecting a body. The blood had dried, but it stunk too much to be much older than a day, if that.

He'll kick down every damn door in this building if that's what it takes to find Izaya. He's gotta be in terrible shape- limited mobility by his own blood loss. He needs help. He's needed help for years, and Shizuo was either too dumb or too blind to see it. Maybe he was both, but he's here now, and being late was better than never showing up at all. He was here, and he was scared that it was too late, but if he wasn't, he'd be here for Izaya for however long it took to make him better. And if not better, he'd be here to make sure that Izaya's burden was at least easier to bare.

Shizuo left the room back as he found it, maybe with a bit more splintered wood, but that didn't matter. He was ready to start destroying this tower brick by brick, ready to not stop until he found Izaya and made sure that he was okay and he was alive. What he wasn't ready for, was Izaya to come strolling out of the room right next to the one Shizuo was just in.

He looked horrible. His skin was staunch white- nearly translucent as veins stuck out underneath his paper thin skin. His cheeks were hollow, and almost as sunken is as his eyes. His mouth was pulled tight on a frown that looks forced, but his eyes were flooded with so much relief that Shizuo knew he's faking dismay. He was weaker, starvation slinking the lean muscle he once had off of his body and leaving him a skeleton wrapped in skin. He looked like a ghost, and if not for the tremble in his fists and the raw fear that chased out the solace in his eyes, Shizuo would have thought he was.

"'Zaya-" The nickname tumbled off his lips with a sigh.

This was wrong. Izaya shouldn't be afraid of Shizuo. He never was, and he wasn't supposed to be now.

"What are you doing here?"

His voice cracks when he says it in such a way that Shizuo can't help but go to him. The way they embraced was something desperate and ugly, but Shizuo wouldn't have had it any other way. Izaya was here and breathing in his arms, and he was covered and bandages that hid scabs that had torn open with the way he was clinging to Shizuo's shirt.

Shizuo put his chin against the top of Izaya's head, rubbing soothing circles into Izaya's back- flinching as each vertebrae stabbed into his hand.

"I was looking for you."

"You shouldn't have. I thought you wanted me gone," he was whispering by now, sounding more as though he was trying to convince himself more than he was Shizuo.

"It's not like that anymore," Shizuo said, and gripped tighter around Izaya's shoulders.

And like that, Izaya was pushing away, holding Shizuo at arm's length and taking another step back for good measure. "Right. This isn't about me. It's about Itzal, isn't it?"

Shizuo perks up immediately at the mention of his name. "You know where he is then?"

"Something like that," he sighs, and again his eyes are filled with fear and pain and it makes Shizuo sick.

"What's wrong?"

"God, where do I begin? I took some time to myself out here, and then I hear something that sounds like a wild animal trying to escape its confines, and when it's quiet again, I see you standing in the hallway with this determined look on your face, and," he pauses. "-I don't know. I don't know anything anymore, and I definitely don't know about you, or what I'm supposed to do about you."

"Wait, so you just heard me rummaging around in there, and you didn't think to come investigate?"

"What do you want from me, Shizuo? It's a haunted castle, you're hardly the first thing that's knocked shit around in presumably empty rooms. If I hunted down every slamming door and heavy foot step, I'd never stop searching."

Shizuo missed this so much. Missed the ways that Izaya was crass when he wasn't hiding, and the way that he was honest and logical in the ways that Shizuo wasn't. He chuckles then, low and deep in his chest in a way that makes Izaya snicker from his stronghold against the door.

"I missed you," he voices then, with a sigh so soft that Izaya would have thought he'd misheard if Shizuo hadn't repeated. "I've missed you so much."

"Are you sure it's me?"

"Again with that?" Shizuo's temper piqued behind his voice. Why was Izaya so hell bent on putting himself second. Why can't Shizuo have them both- miss them both equally?

"I'm being honest, and you should too," He spoke with a detached eloquence- one Izaya normally reserves for clients, and in that instant, Shizuo can see Izaya slipping a mask back into place.

"I am being honest," he growled. "I came all the way out here to find you-"

"So that I can find him for you." Izaya interjected. "You don't need to be so decisive. I can see right through you, Shizuo. You're selfish- just like everyone else."

His declaration stung Shizuo, not only because Izaya looked so broken and tired, but because he was right. He doesn't know if he still would have come out here if he wasn't sure that Izaya knew, and he can't say that we would have cause then Izaya would call his bluff. Izaya doesn't have time for liars or lies themselves. According to Shinra, most, if not all, of the lies that Izaya told, were to himself.

"Do you want me to leave?" He asks hoping to alleviate some of the tension by giving Izaya a choice.

"No."

His answer is quaint and comes too quickly to be anything other then absolute.

"Where is he?" He asks, which he regrets immediately from the way Izaya flinches back like he'd just been hit.

"You don't want to know. I promise. It's only gonna make everything worse."

Shizuo doesn't understand, but then again he's never understood. His conclusion comes out cracking in his voice when he asks, but he has to know. "Does he really hate me that much?"

"No- God no," and he said it so surely that Shizuo may think there's something bigger that Izaya isn't telling him. "That's not the problem."

"Then what is?"

"I can't tell you."

"'Zaya, please," and he's begging because this man is the key to his happiness, and he's hiding like he's done something wrong in a way that makes worry ebb into the crevices of his mind. "I need to see him- to know that he's okay." His voice is shaking on desperation.

"He's not!" Izaya yells then, loud and clear enough to echo along the stone of the empty hallway. "He's not fine- hasn't been fine in years. Maybe decades. He's a mess, and barely a shell of a functioning person because he's felt like an outcast his whole life, and the one time he gets something good- something that he thinks he can hold onto, the rug is pulled out from his feet and he lands flat on his face again. I can't take another heartbreak, and when you find out about me, you're gonna leave, and this image of puppy love is gonna fall to nothingness, like it should have when I left you on that roof."

Shizuo's stare is blank and empty, and what little color there is drains from Izaya's face.

"When 'he' left you, I mean."

But it's too late, and Shizuo is already reaching forward to grab at Izaya before he has the chance to calculate an escape route. He was trapped then, by an unbreakable strength and the weight of Shizuo's golden eyes staring craters into his face. He knows what he said, and he knows that Shizuo finally has an answer because Izaya was too stupid, too lost in his own emotion to register what was coming out of his mouth before he blurted out this biggest secret he's ever kept in his life.

"Show me."

"Show you what," it's feeble, and poorly executed, and Izaya knows he just backed himself further into a corner.

"Izaya."

It's commanding in a way that makes tears swell behind Izaya's eyelids. He hates this- hates the control that Shizuo has had over him since the beginning. Hates the way that he caves under the expectation he can feel without having to see it carved into Shizuo's kind eyes.

He summons his suit, mainly because he doesn't know what else to do to get Shizuo to let go so that this whole thing can be over and done with. It can't possibly hurt more to be right than it does to stave off the truth from coming out, but the sooner Shizuo sees it with his own eyes, the sooner he leaves, and Izaya can break down in peace.

It feels different this time. The previous times that Izaya had pulled on his suit, it had been cold, but there had been a mirthful sense of joy that always seemed to go hand in hand with impending danger. This was different, however. This was freezing and sorrowful and made him feel like he was thrown into a pond in the dead of winter. It feels empty.

Shizuo's grip goes a bit slack on his wrist. "Izaya, look at me."

He can't. He can't bring his eyes to settle on the disappointment that he can expect already on Shizuo's face, and the expectation in his voice hits like a physical blow against Izaya's heart. Shizuo didn't let go of him entirely. His touch never completely left Izaya's skin, and then there's a tug, and Izaya folds immediately into the embrace that Shizuo is pulling him into.

"I'm sorry," Izaya whispers, choking around the tears he didn't know had started falling. "I didn't mean for this to happen."

And he didn't. He didn't mean to fall in love with Shizuo not once, but twice. He didn't mean to drag him along and lie to him about who he really was. He didn't mean for Shizuo to see him the way he really was, and he didn't mean for Shizuo to know him.

He should have never taken this job. He should have said no and gone back to the way everything was before- when he was lonely, but stable, when no one cared about his well being, and he didn't have to feel guilty. He wished he could go back to before he knew what it was like for Shizuo to be in love with him.

"No, I'm sorry. I should have figured it out sooner. I thought about it, and I should have said something, and we could have avoided all of this." He's squeezing tighter at Izaya's shoulders and takes no time supporting both of their weight when Izaya's knees give out.

The expected outcome was something far worse. Izaya was ready for disgust and rejection and violence, not the single most tender embrace he's ever been in and a determination set so raw in Shizuo's voice, that it carries with it a promise to protect.

He couldn't pinpoint the exact moment that his suit vanished, but he felt the warmth of Shizuo's hand at his jaw chase away all of the cold isolation from his powers. That kiss was more fragile and tender then a feather ghosting past either of their lips. It's a question, of whether this is still okay, if it's still okay for them to be close and intimate because despite everything they had done in their personas, this is still too raw- too vulnerable for both of them.

Shizuo is the first to pull away, but he doesn't stray far. "I really should have known it was you. No one else can affect me like you do."

Izaya still can't stare at him like he wants to. He's too overwhelmed by all of it- by the way Shizuo is running a hand through his hair, or the phantom taste of Shizuo on his lips, that he's missed far more than he would have liked. Instead he stays where he is, leaning on Shizuo for support and drinking up every ounce of acceptance he had denied himself of for so long.