Author's Note: OH GOD. FUUUUUCK. I need to stop failing. I need to start writing and updating better. I need to not be a dick. |:

I apologize, dear readers, if any of you are still here. I started reposting this in an effort to actually pick it up better and I keep leaving it again.

Regardless of his height, he seemed so much smaller than the big, stalwart brute I was used to dealing with. Only, as I let my eyes travel from his shoes to the top of his head, I reminded myself that the two of us had met in all of two fights since the end of spring. Maybe he really was shrinking… This city of ours was just strange enough that it did not seem so farfetched in my mind.

"I… I don't know what else to do…" he muttered, bringing his hands to his head; burying his fingers in his messy hair.

"I don't care what you do," I sarcastically chuckled. "Just get the hell away from my apartment."

"Why?"

"Why?" I echoed, "Shizu-chan, I think it's pretty obvi-"

"Why won't you… kill me?" he demanded an answer, making no effort to cover the crack in his voice.

"I've already explained it to you."

He shook his head, denying my reply. "No. You told me not to be stupid. You didn't tell me why."

Frustrated, I let out a sigh. I was in the middle of a well-paying job when he decided to show up at my front door like a lost puppy looking for shelter from a storm. Sorry. My building doesn't allow pets. "Damn. You caught me."

"Izaya…" he tried to growl. Tried to be angry. Threatening.

He wanted to be anything. Anything at all that could either sway me into digging my steel blade into his throat, or make him forget who he was; to unscrew his little plastic backing and press the "reset" button on his life.

"Even if I could kill you, I wouldn't do it while you're like this," I admitted, ignoring a reaction that was somewhere between a scoff and a laugh from Namie, who had been sorting files (read: "eavesdropping") for the last twenty or so minutes. "Because this -" I made a flippant gesture toward him, "- isn't Shizu-chan. This isn't Heiwajima Shizuo – my enemy."

Shizuo hung his head, desperately trying to piece together some sense in his shattered life. "Then what is it…?"

"Human."

"Iz-Izaya?" he raised his eyes back to mine - unafraid to show me just how teary and wide they could be.

Taking a step toward me, I took one back, immediately reaching into my back pocket for my switchblade. Flicking it open, I cautiously awaited his next move, ready to jam it through his flesh the moment he decided to turn back into a monster and lash out. He didn't react.

I meant what I said.

Seeing him so weak - so powerless - to change his stars, to find some normality in his already hectic way of life, that unreasonable strength seemingly gone - absorbed by desolation - I could not see the monster who hunted me out on the streets of Ikebukuro. I saw a man. A human being. Albeit, I still despised that idiot, but simply the idea of taking a human life? Now I know I've been called out on my cruelty before, but murder is not a realm I would dive into so simply. And I've never been the type to get human blood on my own hands. And that's why…

That's why, after all of his begging, I put a large portion of my hate aside to say no. I couldn't kill a human. I couldn't kill what I prided myself in loving. I could destroy a life, but I could never allow myself to believe I would take one. I could talk a pretty girl into walking off a building, but I could never shove her off with my own two hands.

The monster that inhabited that body… I didn't know where he had gone, but I knew why he was hiding.

Shizuo was not himself in any way, shape, or form. He was a shell of who he should have been. A remaining image of the center of my loathing. A ghost, so transparent; unable to hide his torment as he stalked the earth for release.

Wondering if he would ever come back to himself…now that - if nothing else - terrified me.

His half-lidded gaze made a poor attempt to keep focused on mine. Catching me mildly off-guard, he reached forward, grabbing me by the wrist. I clung defensively to the steel in my grip, ready to cut him away from me if I had to, until he pulled me into him with what little strength he had left. I could feel him withering. "Please…" he whispered, sending chills down my spine, "Y-you want to. I fucking know you do."

Using one arm around my waist to keep me from slipping away, he rested his head on my shoulder and brought my weapon-wielding hand to press the blade against his throat.

It would have been so fucking easy…

Feeling his tears absorb into my shirt, I turned a desperate gaze to Namie. By now, she had stopped pretending she wasn't listening, keeping her full attention on the two of us. Slinking over to the door, she received a warning look that if she left me, I might end up killing her when I was done with Shizuo. And by killing her, she full-well knew I meant cutting her pay. Instead, she silently shook her head and closed the door before my neighbors walked past to see this less-than-appealing display of confusion slowly becoming violent.

Shizuo's breathing was unsteady, like each breath was a struggle to take another. An imaginary rope was tightening around his neck, cutting off his air supply. I did not need to kill him. He was slowly, painfully, killing himself.

"No, Shizu-chan," I continued to deny his request, moving on to say something I never thought I'd tell him. "I think… I think you need help."

"Help me by killing me."

"That isn't what I mean."

Dropping my switchblade, I cringed, hearing it drag across his neck before it hit the floor with a small clink. Shizuo let out a small gasp, but did not move, keeping me trapped against him.

"Heiwajima-san…?" Namie made a dangerous move, placing herself behind him.

She set her hand on his back as if to say she cared, but I knew the truth behind those dead brown eyes. She was taking a new approach to getting him out by putting on her "doctor" face. Still, he did not let me go, even when her caress made him cringe. His animalistic instincts could sense her dishonesty.

"I think what Izaya is trying to say, is that you need to see a doctor," she explained, "And I know quite a few who can help you. Including myse-"

"N-no…" he mumbled, trying to bury himself further in my shoulder. "No more doctors. I just wanna die…"

"Shizu-chan, let's be realistic here," I said, feeling crowded and uncomfortable. I never thought I would find myself in that discomfited position with him. "If you die, there's no guarantee of what will happen. It doesn't mean you'll get what you're after…"

"What do you care, louse?" he hissed, "It's better than being alive… alive w-without -"

"You have to move on. You have to get over it."

"The hell I do…"

"Tch. Listen to yourself, would you?" I smirked without a sense of resonating cheer. If I wasn't scared enough as it was, I was nervous as all hell, struggling to hide it. The difference between Shizuo and other people is that I could never sweet-talk my way out of trouble with him. He just wouldn't fall for it. "You've completely lost it, Shizu-chan."

"I don't care."

Namie looked at me, blatantly done pretending. She always was impatient, and the mental case stapled to my living room floor, with his arms wound tightly around me, was no exception to her self-written rules. "If you want I can call -"

"It's fine," I cut her off, knowing where she was going with her suggestion. She could call her subordinates, who waited around, ready to be used in any way they could. Kind of disgusting, really. I know humans are easy to manipulate, but she really had no method. Her style was tacky. "We'll take care of it."

"We?"

Namie backed away slowly, not wanting to get caught in the middle of this if she couldn't do things her way.

"Don't worry," I widened my vindictive smile.

Trembling, the blond drew my attention back to him. He was shaking more and more by the second, struggling to keep himself standing. Frowning, I grazed my fingers across the fresh line in his neck.

"Shizu-chan… you're bleeding."

"Who cares…"

"Well, if you're trying to bleed to death on my floor, it's not going to work. It's not a lethal cut. And… come now. Do you really want to ruin the clothes your brother gave you…?"

At the mention of the younger Heiwajima, Shizuo completely froze. His breath hitched, and he slackened the vice grip he had on my wrist. Taking this as my opportunity, I slipped his hands off of me. Cursing under my breath, I let his head stay on my shoulder, feeling that if I moved he'd topple over in such a way that I would never get him back up.

It shouldn't have bothered me. I shouldn't have been standing there like that, wondering if I cared when I could not answer to my own curiosity.

"D-don't…" he growled painfully, clinging to me for unwarranted support, "Don't talk about… him."

I struck a nerve that I knew I would hit, but I could not relent. "Shizu-chan, what would he think… seeing you like this?"

"Stop it."

"You have to be strong for him, don't you?"

"Be quiet."

"That's how you two work. You carry each other. He carries you."

"Shut up."

"You have to show him that you can protect him, too. Remember?"

"I said shut up."

"You can't do that if -"

"God damn it, Flea. I said fucking stop… Don't…"

"Why?" I took another very dangerous step into the softest spot I could get to.

Shizuo used this moment as his opportunity to break, radiating his remorse as his emotional pain tore through him like a knife. Pulling away from me, he collapsed to his knees again, curling into his misery. That day… it was the first time in all of our years as enemies that I had seen the blond brute cry. I always saw his untamable rage filter out his sadness. No matter what, he refused to let me see him in such heart-stopping agony. Until now.

"B-because… because it's my fault. Because I killed him… I killed Kasuka…"