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Izaya never felt freer than when he was being chased by Shizuo. Every jump, every dodge gave him a thrill, and feeling the wind rush in his ears while running on incredibly tight ledges made him feel like he could do anything. Hearing Shizuo yell insults at him from behind was just icing on the cake.
“Come back here, flea!”
Izaya let out a small laugh and vaulted over a wall, landing on another roof. Just as he stepped forward, a STOP sign imbedded itself in the floor right where he was a second ago. Grinning, Izaya turned back to see Shizuo standing high on another building, fists clenched and face red.
They were far apart, and Izaya had definitively won this round.
“See you next time, Shizu-chan!” he yelled. He would have winked too but the distance was too big for Shizuo to be able to see it.
Without waiting for an answer, Izaya whirled around and jumped off the roof, using the fire escape to slow down his descent until he was two floors above the ground. The alleyway below was closed off on both ends by chain link fences, one of which had barbed wire on top. Izaya headed for the other, but just as he was about to jump from the fire escape onto the other side, Shizuo appeared at the end of the path with a smug look on his face.
Izaya cursed internally, impressed with his rival’s rapidity. Having no choice, he turned the other way around and took a running start on the fire escape to jump over the other fence. He launched himself into the air and for a moment, it seemed like he had made it to the other side, but his hoodie caught onto the barbed wire and he was forcefully yanked back.
The breath was punched out of him when his back collided with the fence, but fortunately his jacket was thick enough to protect him from the barbed wire. Cursing internally, he realised that he was stuck, hanging from the top of the fence by his hoodie. He tried to move a bit, but the fabric was too sturdy to rip from the movement. He didn’t manage to take it off either, so in the end he took a deep breath and pushed backward, letting gravity tip him over the fence and down the other side. Hopefully, the momentum would tear his hoodie and set him free.
Midway through the movement, however, Izaya remembered that Shizuo was very likely on that side of the fence, which was why he had jumped over it in the first place. He had a moment of panic, and tried to hold back on to the fence, which was probably the stupidest thing he could have ever done, because he grabbed the barbed wire instead.
The sharp, razor-like edges dug into his skin, but he didn’t cry out. The pain was unwelcome, but not unfamiliar, so Izaya didn’t give himself time to dwell on it. He had been in the middle of trying to get his hoodie unstuck, and the good news was that it worked, the fabric tearing with the added momentum as his weight pulled him down towards the ground. The bad news was that despite letting go of the wire as soon as he had grabbed it, his hand had become entangled in it, and instead of landing on the ground like he had hoped, he found himself stopped mid-fall.
This time, he did cry out. The barbs dug in deeper and pain radiated from his hand down his arm, a sensation that was made all the more vivid by the blood that slid down his skin in tiny spurts. It took him a few seconds of pained breaths to realise that if he kept putting all of his weight on his hand, the barbs were going to dig deeper into his flesh and possibly cause permanent damage.
Quickly, he took hold of the fence with his other hand and tried to fit his feet in between the chain links to rest his weight on them instead. It relieved the pressure on his hand a bit, but it didn’t change the fact that the barbed wire had cut deeply and Izaya had no idea how to free himself.
At least the pain was bearable so far. He’d had worse
“What the fuck are you doing?” Shizuo’s voice came from behind him.
Izaya stilled at the reminder that he wasn’t alone. He took a shaky breath and forced out a laugh.
“What does it look like, Shizu-chan? I’m obviously having a lot of fun here.”
A growl was the only answer, and Izaya resisted the urge to turn his head to look down at Shizuo. He would only hurt himself, and it was less humiliating not to face his rival while being hung there like an animal at the slaughterhouse ready to be butchered. Still, when he heard Shizuo shift closer, a spike of adrenaline ran through him (as if he didn’t already have enough from the chase and his injury) and he felt very aware of how vulnerable he was.
“Are you stuck?” Shizuo asked. His voice was a bit subdued, lacking anger.
Izaya grimaced and looked up at his hand. To free it, he would at least need his other hand, but it was currently clutching the fence to hold his weight against it. Experimentally, he tried moving his injured limb around, but he only managed to hurt himself further and he had to supress a pained gasp. There were at least three rounds of barbed wire wrapped around his fingers and palm, and unwinding it seemed like a lost cause with how deeply the barbs were embedded. The only good point he could think of was that his wrist was untouched, because otherwise he would be losing blood much more rapidly.
Shizuo shifted again behind him and Izaya hurried to find something to say to distract him. “How did you get down here so fast anyway?”
“I jumped and I ran,” Shizuo answered stiffly. His voice was closer. “Get down, flea.”
Izaya frowned, and was about to retort that he obviously couldn’t when he felt a hand close around one of his ankles. Fear shot through him as he realised what Shizuo was about to do: if he pulled him down, with his strength, his hand would be free, but also totally ripped to shreds. And while Izaya was always prepared for lasting injuries while battling Shizuo, this was a stupid accident, not a fight to death during which he could go out with a bang.
“Don’t –” he began to say, but before he could continue Shizuo lifted Izaya’s foot and put it on his shoulder. Izaya looked down with a frown. “What are you doing?”
Without answering, Shizuo took his other foot, and put it on his other shoulder. Reflexively, Izaya leaned back a bit and unclenched his good hand from where it had been clutching at the fence, finding himself perfectly stable and balanced.
“That works, right?” came Shizuo’s gruff voice from below.
“It works,” Izaya answered, a bit bewildered. “Why –”
“Stop talking and get to work already,” Shizuo interrupted. Both his hands were holding Izaya’s knees, making sure he wouldn’t fall.
Izaya took a few seconds to shake his surprise, and then he got to the problem at hand – pun intended. He started unwinding the wire with his free hand, as delicately as he could, but it was still an excruciating process. The barbs dragged against the open wounds as he took them out one by one, and the bleeding, that had stopped momentarily, began anew once the cuts were exposed.
His fingers didn’t look as bad as he had feared, but he had to stop when he got to the palm. The barbs there had dug in very deeply, and Izaya was pretty sure he could feel them grind against bone. He couldn’t exactly pinpoint the damage because the only thing he could feel from his hand was hot, searing pain, but from the look of it he needed to be extra careful.
“You wouldn’t happen to have some bandages?” he asked Shizuo uncertainly.
Now that he thought of it, his hoodie was already ripped at the back, and one sleeve was drenched in blood, so it’s not like it mattered if he ruined it further. It wouldn’t be practical however, especially since he was still wearing it.
“Here.”
Shizuo handed him a plain white piece of cloth, and Izaya wondered if it was part of his bartender uniform. He will definitively get a kick out of dirtying it with his blood, but he didn’t mention it to Shizuo. His rival was currently helping him, after all, so Izaya was feeling merciful. Also he might get dropped if he angered Shizuo, and mentioning his beloved attire, gifted by his beloved brother, was a sure-fire way to do that.
Taking a deep breath, he began to work on the barbed wire once more. The pain had shifted into an all-encompassing white noise at the back of his head and he felt strangely light-headed. Frowning, he tried to focus. There was a lot of blood, he noticed then. His wrist and arm were covered in rivulets, and small drops had fallen on the ground below. On Shizuo, too.
Izaya finally got his palm free, and without glancing at it, tied the white cloth around it. Tightening it didn’t feel that painful, compared to what he was already experiencing, so he made sure to staunch the blood as much as possible. Would he need to go to the hospital?
He was missing something. He couldn’t pinpoint exactly why, but it had to do with his blood… staining white?
Suddenly, his vision went dark around the edges and everything faded a bit. Before he knew it, Shizuo was screaming in his ears.
“Don’t fucking faint on me, flea, come on!”
Izaya blinked, seeing Shizuo’s face hovering above him. Wasn’t he standing on his shoulders?
“I think I need to go home,” he said, clutching his hand to his chest. Was he sitting? Standing?
“No shit.”
“We’ll… resume another day, yeah?” Izaya asked, worried about it even though he couldn’t quite figure out why.
Shizuo snorted. “No way. You stay out of Ikebukuro.”
Izaya felt disappointed by that answer, but he grinned nonetheless. “We’ll see about that.”