Atlas

Chapter 5: Perseverance

Shizuo couldn't think what to do.
How to stop him.
He was just a protozoan after all.

But part 1 of any idea he could think of remained the same. He needed to stop Izaya killing himself before he could work out a way to change his mind.
To do that, he needed to put the flea under 24 hour watch.
He needed to get inside that apartment.

He wasn't Orihara Izaya. He knew he couldn't trick his way in with words. But there were less elegant ways.
But... most of those wouldn't help him earn Izaya's actual attention, and none his trust or forgiveness.
So the balance between the two it was.

He packed food for a week, water for a week, a blanket, a few toiletries and the book that had been sat on his bedside table making him feel guilty for the last few months.

It was time for a good old fashioned stake out.

-----

Izaya discovered his arrival, five hours after he'd settled in outside the apartment.

He'd opened the door to a client, took one glance at the blond before pulling the terrified man before him inside and closing the door.

For a few days, Izaya ignored him completely. When Shizuo went to sleep, he lay across the door to prevent Izaya exiting past him, though his hearing was too sharp not to pick up the ravenette even if he didn't go that far.

When Izaya left during the day, Shizuo would tail him.
Though Izaya was an expert at losing normal tails, this didn't work on ones that literally followed his scent.

———

On the third day, Shizuo met Naomi. She looked him up and down.

"You should go back to Ikeburo."

"I've a flea to kill."

He had to keep up appearances.

"If anyone's killing him here it's me." She said cheerfully. "I poison all his meals, sadly he barely if ever eats them."

Shizuo felt sick as he watched her stride past him into the flat, with a wave of dismissal.

———

It took two more days for Izaya acknowledge him, Shizuo having scared off another of the informants more flighty clients.

Izaya stood watching the middle aged man race back down the corridor then turned to his new guard dog.

"Don't you have a job?"

"I've taken a holiday."

Izaya made a growling sound in his frustration and turned, slamming the door.

The clients stopped coming. Seemed Izaya took a holiday too.

———

"You know I can end my life just as easily inside the apartment?"

"Not your style."

"You don't know me."

"I know the alias you intend on dying as."

"..."

The door shut once again.

———

The week finished and the next continued.

Shizuo ran out of food.

Shizuo ran out of water.

Shizuo had drastically underestimated the stubbornness of fleas.

He passed out.

———

He blinked back into consciousness to find traces of water in his mouth and black shoes in front of his vision.

"Aren't you a little over dramatic?" Came a cold voice, familiar and yet terribly different.

Shizuo slowly rolled onto his back, and looked up at the informant, he didn't have the energy to get up.

"You're the one planning on killing yourself."

Izaya rolled his eyes, and emptied the last of the water onto Shizuo's face, making him splutter.

"And here you are starving yourself because you can't bear the responsibility of being part of the reason someone else ends their life."

That hurt. Though it didn't quite feel true.

"This isn't about me. I don't want you to die."

Izaya snorted, "gonna miss your punching bag more like."

"I.."

Shizuo knew that wasn't it, but couldn't explain it. Izaya looked faintly disappointed and that hurt too.

"Come in anyway." Izaya sighed, he sounded tired. "You won't make it home without some food."