Author's Note: The two of these chapters combined makes over 5,000 words. Oops.

Izaya was well known in Shiki's den. He came here often enough, and most of them recognised him from the days long gone when he had lived here too. It meant that now he was simply waved in without a second thought, it meant that no one stopped to kick him out or question why he was there. No one ever questioned why Izaya came to visit, he just did, and that was that. It was just a rule, whenever Izaya came to call, Shiki would see him, no matter the day or the time or if he had other guests. What Izaya wanted here, Izaya usually got.

But it didn't mean that he liked coming here. It was filled with memories, and the angry ghosts of his past that didn't seem to want to go away. It was filled with bad reminders of what could have been and almost was. It was filled with Shiki, and that was what pissed Izaya off the most. Because whenever he was around the man, there was something, something, something that Izaya felt that he didn't like. He knew what it was, but it didn't mean that he had to like it; it didn't mean he had to accept it. After what Shiki had done, he didn't want to feel anything but hate for the man. He didn't want to feel this bitter end of love for the man who had been his first everything and his undoing.

"Izaya," came the confident curl of his name when he stepped foot into the room. Nothing more needed to be said for Izaya to realise that this maybe was a bad idea; maybe he should have gone to Shinra after all. That blabbering buffoon would surely be better than this. "You're bleeding,"

Offering a scoff and a cocky smirk back that he still wasn't really feeling as if that was all the confirmation Shiki needed, Izaya stepped forward into the room a little further. He stumbled slightly, but made no move to acknowledge that, and thankfully Shiki didn't either. Izaya could feel the man's eyes on him as he walked closer, towards the sofa in which Shiki sat, sprawled out across it. He could feel the glances of the two men that stood behind him, those dimwit bodyguards that Izaya had known since he had first come to the city. He still didn't know their names; he still didn't care enough about them to find out. He eyed them back just as disdainfully as they were eyeing him up, and when Izaya finally arrived at the sofa, stood before them, Shiki seemed to pick up on the animosity in his eyes.

"Out, both of you." Was all the command that they needed, and Shiki didn't even bother to glance at them as they left. He observed the look on Izaya's face, fighting back the urge to smirk again at the younger man, hell, the boy stood in front of him with that look on his face.

"Well, sit down, and take off your shirt. The least I can do is stop you bleeding to death in my home." He spoke at last, pushing himself up from the sofa where he had been slouched, heading over to a desk in the corner of the room. Izaya guessed he had a handful of first aid things in there. When you lived in the way Shiki did, it was necessary; Izaya had seen that for himself. There was a silence that hung in the air after Shiki spoke, that brief defiance in Izaya before he complied with the direction of the older man, ha, just like the old days.

"Oh, how courteous of you, but if you were so eager to see me naked again all you had to do was pick up the phone," Izaya replied with a laugh that almost sounded true, waving his hand in the air as if it was no matter, as if it didn't matter either which way that he was here. He shrugged off the cardigan that he had pulled on earlier, thankful that it had at least escaped the flow of blood, dropping it onto the arm of the sofa for later. His shirt however was not as lucky, and had stained with the deep colouring of his blood, clinging to the cut itself. He curled his fingers around the bottom of the fabric, reaching up to pull it over his head, ignoring the stinging that came when he pulled it away from his body where it had clung like a second skin to the gash on his side. That was tossed to the arm of the chair too, he'd have to wear it home after all, but it would be thrown out as soon as he got there. A shame, he'd always liked that shirt, really he had. The cut looked worse than Izaya had thought it was now that it was out in the open air. It was longer, stretching from the front of his stomach and down his side to his back. It was shallow, and he supposed that was a good thing, but it stung, stung, stung on the open air, and from the look of things, it hadn't stopped bleeding just yet.

Shiki had arrived back by now, scarred face as serious as ever. Izaya was used to that, he was. Izaya had fallen for that, he had. There had been something enigmatic in that stoic exterior, something that had appealed to the twisted man within him, even when he had been young. Ha, ha, that really got him far, didn't it?

"You look thin," the older man commented as he sat back down onto the sofa, dropping bandages and what looked like disinfectant spray onto the cushion next to him. His fingers closed around one of Izaya's wrists, tugging him down onto his lap, despite Izaya's brief struggle. Those cool fingers probed at his stomach, his chest, briefly, and then they were gone. "I can feel your ribs. Have you even been eating?"

Izaya batted a hand, swatting at air where Shiki's hand had been just a few moments before. It was like some whirlwind of the past that had been dug up, and he hated it. Visiting Shiki had never been like this before, it had never been this fucking emotional, and Izaya knew that Shinozuka and his stupid, fucking, questions were to blame. He had dragged up Izaya's past, and Izaya – no, no Nakura – like the fool he was, had let him dig it up; hell, no, he'd not just let him, he'd even handed him the shovel and offered a hand to dig it up too. He was stupid, he was— This game was getting old. It was going in ways that it wasn't supposed to be, including leading Izaya to remember just how he felt about Shiki, and his past.

"I didn't come here for a lecture," The informant snapped, and a scowl crinkled at his brow. Gone was the cheery nature he tried to exude normally. Gone were the smirk and the quirky little mannerisms. Gone, and replaced with the truth of his emotions, that raw human inside that had someone oozed its way out. Izaya let it, he would let it out for tonight, but then tomorrow it would be gone, and he would be back to himself. He would, and then Shinozuka was going down. He wasn't in love, it wasn't love, it wasn't. "I came here because I needed bandaging up. So are you gonna do it or do I have to do it myself?"

"Hn," Shiki hummed in reply, grabbing at the cloth he had grabbed earlier, and moving to dab at the gash on Izaya's side. He hissed in response, though whether at the pain that shot up his torso or at Shiki's very existence he neither knew nor particularly cared.

"We both know you were never any good at that," Shiki piped up again after a pause. By now he had cleaned the blood away from the cut, sprayed it with disinfectant that had made Izaya wriggle in an attempt to get the hell away from his touch, and was setting about wrapping the bandages around his middle. "You haven't changed that much. I can tell you're still no good at it,"

The task didn't take long, and soon Shiki's hands had left Izaya's middle and the cool air was no longer stinging at his cut. This time, when Izaya struggled his way away from Shiki's hold and lap, the man let him. Izaya said nothing. It was better that way. He said nothing because he knew that in this irritated, pathetic state he couldn't predict what he was going to say. He had to watch his mouth, not for Shiki's sake, but his own. Who knew what sort of lies his mouth would try and spout out in reply to these past memories and emotions beating down on him. This was all Shinozuka's fault. Izaya had been fine until he had come along. Idiot, bastard, monster—

"I'll get you another shirt, too,"

Izaya looked up at that, still scowling, still like a tom cat, threatened and cornered. Shiki had gotten up again, when Izaya had been busy staring at some point in the room and contemplating just what the hell was going on. He didn't know. He didn't. It was Shinozuka's fault, and yet— why did he feel so dirty with Shiki's hands on him? Why did it feel so wrong when years ago it had felt nothing but right? The older man was holding a shirt in one hand, and though it was crumpled in his grip, Izaya could recognise the deep red of the button up shirt straight away.

"I'm not wearing that," He said, simply, biting out the words and grabbing at his old shirt, the one now stained with the scarlet colour of his dried blood. Shiki paused where he was stood, an eyebrow cocked at the younger man as he pulled the dirty shirt on as quickly as his injury would allow. Izaya turned to fix the other man with a gaze that promised death, and yet— "And Akabayashi wouldn't want me wearing it either, Shiki,"

"You really haven't changed, Izaya," Shiki commented with another smirk, and a laugh, which did nothing more than send Izaya's temper bubbling. This was all Shinozuka's fault, all this anger and all this hate and all this hurt, it was his fault, it was his. Izaya was going to make sure that Shinozuka knew what this felt like. "It's been eight years and you're still just as stubborn as ever. Akabayashi is—"

"Of course you would leap to defend him. How human of you, how deliciously human!" Izaya scoffed, Izaya laughed, and the sound was so pathetic that even he heard it, even he wanted to mock himself for it. "You never defended me like that, did you?"

"Izaya—" There was a warning in Shiki's tone, a hint of concern and lingering emotion, as if he still cared for Izaya in some way, even after all this time. Izaya chose to ignore it. He didn't care, because he didn't feel anything for Shiki, no, no, he didn't, he hated the man, hated him. He had just come here because he needed to be fixed up, that was all, and he was the closest, that was all, that was all.

"No, no. Of course you never did," Izaya continued, as if Shiki hadn't spoken, as if the other man hadn't taken steps towards him again, still holding the red shirt in his fist. "Because I was always screwing up, I wasn't perfect like Akabayashi. Because I was just some little street kid with dirty clothes,"

"Izaya," There was that voice again, Shiki's, in its hard tone that Izaya knew so well. He'd heard it before, he'd heard it when he had been young and he had been a wreck and had broken down on Shiki's shoulder, crying about how fucked up his life was, how much he had screwed up. That had been the first time that Izaya had slept with Shiki, that night, still crying and still so fucked up, and the older man had just—

What was this? This word vomit. Izaya didn't like it. He didn't. This was worse than when he spoke to Shinozuka. It was. Shinozuka was to blame. Izaya didn't love him. He didn't, and yet— and yet he knew speaking to the other man, flirting with him, he knew that would make it go away. Fuck Shinozuka, fuck him. Izaya hated him, he hated everything about him. What a horrible idea meeting had been, what bastard had suggested that?

"You know how you feel about him? I used to think that way about you, did you know that?" Izaya questioned, whirling around with his arms outstretched, laughing as if this was the best joke he'd ever heard. His head was throbbing. It was throbbing, throbbing, throbbing.

"I used to worship the ground you walked on, and then— fuck, I told you that, didn't I? Yeah, yeah, I think I did. And do you remember what you did?" He was laughing again, and Shiki was saying nothing. He had dropped the red shirt, and it remained on the floor, crumpled and creased. "You told me you weren't allowed a lover, because they might get hurt. And I got that, I did, until you and Akabayashi decided that you were going to break that rule. Do you know how fucked up it is to walk in on the man you love fucking his subordinate?"

"Izaya, that's not what—" Shiki broke in, frowning now, one hand outstretched as if he was going to grab at Izaya's shirt, to shake some sense into the raving informant. "That was a long time ago,"

Izaya laughed again, he did, and this time it radiated from the very depths of his stomach. He didn't love this man, he didn't, no, no, he never did. This was Shinozuka's fault. He was dead, so dead, dead, dead, dead. The raven haired man turned on his heel, snatching up the cardigan, intent on leaving this shithole while he could, before Shiki decided he wanted to keep Izaya here until he had gotten his point across. He didn't care. He didn't. He was halfway to the door when—

"What's his name?"

What the fuck was he on about? What the—

"Come on, Izaya," Shiki chided, chuckling again. He had stuffed his hands into his pockets, smiling at Izaya in such a way that meant so much more than it let on. "You've let the real you come out of hiding. Someone must be the cause of it. What's his name?"

Izaya didn't answer. Shiki laughed again, and though Izaya turned his head away, he could hear the other man head back across the room towards the sofa, and settle himself down. He could feel the throbbing of the gash in his side as he stood. He wanted out of here now, he wanted to be in the cool air, amid his humans, on the way home to his loft and his work and fuck how he wanted to get back to work right now and forget these fucking feelings and his past and all of this bullshit. Shiki seemed to accept that Izaya wasn't going to tell him that, because he paused, stretching his arms across the back of the sofa, watching the boy he had loved stand in the doorway between the past and the present, hovering. Izaya was afraid to let go of his past, Shiki knew that, he had always known that. If there was someone out there that had prompted such a change in the informant, then Shiki was all for pushing him forward in that direction. Then it would make the guilt in his own soul vanish from all those years ago.

"Do you love him?"

Izaya didn't answer that either, but as he opened the door and stormed out of the building, his mind supplied the answer for him.

Yes.

Yes he did.

But it didn't mean he was going to admit to it.