A/N: Thank you for the comments and follows already! I hope to deliver the chaos you expect! :D
They were having fun, but now they're not.
Izaya didn't think in terms of right and wrong, especially not when it came to events. Him and Shinra were standing outside the massive front doors to the huge asylum, the large wooden nameplate full of black holes and missing characters. The doors were locked, dark in colour and threatening. But Izaya wouldn't consider this wrong, like a bad omen screaming at him to turn back the way he had come. Izaya didn't think there was anything wrong with the situation at all. There was nothing wrong in the way the lawn was so overgrown that it reached up past his waist. There was nothing wrong in the fact that the full moon was slowly disappearing behind ugly grey clouds. There was nothing wrong with the fact that he was getting chills, his excitement becoming apparent even to him. He couldn't deny that the asylum's grounds were spooky. The front doors wouldn't budge, and unfortunately, Fuzen hadn't provided Izaya with a key. This wasn't something in his plan that had gone wrong either; this was simply a new obstacle that he would easily over come.
Shinra was standing with his back to the door, the wind angrily snapping at his long white lab coat – Izaya was decked out in his long fur trimmed jacket, so he couldn't really tease him for being uncreative – with a hand hand shielding his eyes from the intensive moonlight, staring out into the distance. "Namie moved the car." He noted, watching as she backed up in between two trees, the SUV disappearing from sight and blending in like it belonged there the second she turned the vehicle off. "Let's hope she doesn't drive away and leave us! That would be terrible, right? Right? Izaya? What are you doing?" Shinra whirled, lab coat suddenly billowing in the wind and hair blowing back.
Izaya was standing just below a missing window, the grass stalks reaching up past his waist, with his arms crossed and a calculating look on his face. It was almost eight feet in the air, the glass cleanly removed from the frame. They wouldn't cut their hands if one of them where to pull themselves up and slip in. It was doable.
"What's the plan?" Shinra unnecessarily ran the few steps over to Izaya, copying his posture and glancing up. They both tilted their heads to the left, contemplating the window, their combined height and strength, and the easiest possible way to get in and through. He glanced back to Izaya, understanding what the informant wanted to do, but froze when two rusty eyes intensely stared him down. Izaya was still thinking, going over scenarios in his head, and his stare was more aggravated then it needed to be. Shinra cleared his throat, Izaya's unseeing eyes flickering slightly to focus on his face. "I'm taller, and you're lighter than me. But I don't know if I can hold you up!"
Izaya smirked, dropping his arms and turning back to the window."But if I hold you up, will you be able to pull yourself through the window, or will poor chubby Shinra just fall? It's a long way down."
Shinra scoffed, leaning over closer to Izaya's face. "Shut up. I'll just hold you up then!" He didn't want to argue too long – no, there was too much potential waiting for him on the other side of these walls. He wanted to see it, and he wanted to see it now. He could only imagine what was on the other side of that door – but of course, he couldn't get too excited. What if there was nothing?
"Okay, so I'll go in and open the front door." Izaya said cheerily, glancing back up at the tall window. He placed his hands on his lips, that easy expression returning to his face. Shinra sighed when Izaya gestured towards the window. "Help me out, friend."
It took them a whole eight minutes; eight minutes of struggling on both their parts, but soon enough Izaya's dexterous fingers were clamped on the window sill and no longer needed Shinra's assistance. He pulled himself easily, twisting his body and just slipping in through the narrow window.
Shinra watched with a sigh as the informant completely disappeared. He waded through the tall grass back towards the front door, glancing over his shoulder towards Namie in the process. He couldn't see her because she was hidden well in the trees, but he knew whereabouts she was. Will she be okay, out here by herself? He briefly wondered if she was laughing at their struggle just to get inside. She was a strange woman, but he was sure she would find humor in Izaya's struggles. He stopped by the door, a gentle but cold breeze ruffling his hair. I wonder what she really think of Izaya. The grass rustled with his movements, and – it must have just been his imagination – but he thought he heard a low, sad moan in the wind.
Shinra flinched when the front door suddenly squealed open, Izaya using most, if not all, of his strength and will power to shove the old wooden door open. A small crack formed with nothing but darkness spilling out of it, and Izaya slipped out panting. "Unless you can get it further open, this is as good as it's getting from me." He said in a rush, placing his hands on his hips while the fur on his jacket swayed irritably against his face. "Let's go. It's so spooky~ inside~"
"Heh~" Shinra grinned, thoughts about Namie completely forgotten, glasses glinting as he took a step closer. "Then let's go in! After you!"
They slipped past the crack in the door – Izaya was still annoyed that the old beast had been so hard to push open – and immediately flicked their flashlights on, the light eerily bouncing off the shiny but dark linoleum floor. The room was pitch black aside from the light sneaking in through the crack of the solid front door, their footsteps echoing in the large, empty foyer. There was the usual furniture you would find in the waiting room to an asylum. Nice leather chairs that still looked fairly new, a desk and computer system placed off to the side for a secretary or two. There was a long faded black carpet stretching from the massive front door straight to a set of just as intimidating swinging doors, reminding Shinra of the inside to a church, with the carpet and all. He snickered at the imagery as they approached. The double doors were made of the same oak as the front door, massive and looming over the two of them as they came near. Welcome was written on the nameplates that adorned both sides, and Izaya split a grin, almost laughing at how casual the words seemed given their setting. "We're being welcomed to Hell," he said with a light chuckle, Shinra snickering with him. "I wonder how many of these patients felt welcome here." His face suddenly lit up with the thought, no doubt going over all the possible reactions of his humans who were faced with this condemnation.
Shinra pushed at the massive doors gently, to test whether or not they were as solid as the front door had been. They surprisingly gave way a lot more easily, moving with the slightest touch of his hands. The hinges squeaked as they swung open, the flashlight bouncing off more linoleum flooring in the depths of the darkness. "So, once again, really quick, what's our plan?" Shinra asked, glancing over just a little too excitedly.
Izaya chuckled, leaning more on his right hip as he swung the flashlight along the walls, trying to see as far as he could. His heart was pounding in his chest, but without a doubt, he would get used to the eerie setting, and this would become somewhat normal. He almost snickered. Even he! A God! Was subject to the conditioning of the world! It was exciting! The stale air dried out his mouth as he began to laugh, eyes closed and hand wrapping around his abdomen. He was suddenly glad he had taken the job. Shinra was unnecessarily excited, and that too thrilled him! The doctor was an abnormality, and Izaya was starting to learn – not in his old age of course, for he was forever twenty-one – that perhaps the abnormal humans were his favorite. Why else would he keep in touch with a man so off his rocker as to marry and love a headless woman? He now had the perfect opportunity to see Shinra completely in his element, to watch his favorite human makes the faces and spontaneously react to an environment that even set Izaya's heart beating faster.
Shinra shook his head. What was he laughing about now? "Izaya!? The plan!?" Shinra smacked Izaya across the cheek, the informant breaking out of his ludicrous hysterics.
Izaya blinked, filching away and his laughter ceased almost immediately. He cleared his throat as if to excuse his ridiculous moment, before he began to giggle again. "You know Shinra, half the population of Tokyo believes that I belong in a place like this." He snickered again before regaining his composure, the light of the flashlight been eaten by the depths of the hallway.
Shinra regarded him carefully, trying to understand what Izaya was referring to, before he cracked a large grin himself. "So you belong in the regular asylum, and I belong in the scientific part of it. So what happens now, that we are in the haunted version together?" Izaya snorted, edging closer towards the door almost timidly, shining his flashlight deeper into the depths.
"Alright, plan A: the Control Room should be the last door in this hallway, on the left. We will go in there and turn on the generator, and then I leave the button pressing to you. The Containment Room is on the third basement floor, and I have the map to get down there." Izaya grinned, turning to Shinra and placing a hand on his shoulder. "You will be left by yourself for approximately ten minutes. Will you be able to handle that, my dear friend?"
Shinra's smile became ecstatic. "Oh my, this does sound really nerve racking Izaya, I'm not sure you should leave me on my own!"
"Just whatever you do, when I call you and tell you to open the door, make sure you open the damn door." Izaya all but hissed, knowing that his friend would easily get distracted. The job should take at most twenty minutes – from this point, anyway. Twenty minutes, and then Shinra could do all the exploring he wanted. Until Namie called, bitching that they were taking to long. Ah, that woman.
He sighed, deciding that if they wanted to explore then they had to get the job done quickly. He moved into the hallway without any hesitation. The doors swung shut the moment they stepped through, trapping them in eternal darkness. Shinra followed at his heels like a puppy, little squeaks of excitement leaving him every few steps while he felt the need to just touch everything. There were end tables along the way with random trinkets on them. Most of them had pots full of dirt, the plants and flowers long since dead. Several of them were on the floor, spilling out among the shattered glass. Some of the pictures had fallen from the walls, but that was to be expected. The building was really old, after all. It didn't come a surprise that walls were giving out, the floor even creaking in some spots from their combined weight.
It took them only a full minute to reach the end of the hall, both flashlights bouncing off the end wall, and just as expected, the Control Room was to their left. "Here we are!" Izaya said in a sing song voice which echoed back down the way they had come. Shinra giggle before doing the honors of grabbing the handle and twisting. The door opened easily, swinging open with a gentle creak that sounded ten times louder than it should have. If this had been Namie and Celty, they both would have gasped, probably.
Izaya giggled again.
"Can you stop that?" Shinra asked, using his shoe to nudge the door open before aggressively shining his flashlight into the room, lighting up every corner, every nook and cranny to make sure there were no surprises. He even ran inside, whipping the flashlight around to scare off any potential attackers.
Izaya placed a hand to his mouth, snickering like his little sister used to when she came home with dirty magazines. "Why?" He managed to muffle out from under his hand, finding the display his friend was making absolutely hilarious. "I thought you were into this spooky stuff?"
"This is not the time to be laughing, Izaya. We are in a spooky old asylum and everything is going exactly according to plan! Shouldn't the door have been locked? This was too easy! This is the part where the protagonist, or in our case, protagonists find themselves facing a danger they never expected! Like vampires or zombies or even werewolf guard dogs! Or maybe they made Dullahan hybrids who have the capability of transforming into aliens! Oh! Aliens!" Shinra, despite the words, was getting louder as he went on, his excitement getting the better of him.
Izaya burst out laughing. He went into the room with Shinra, shining his flashlight around to get acquainted with the layout. There was a huge desk pushed to the end of the wall with a keyboard on it and more than enough speakers to hear every whisper within the facility. Izaya counted twenty-two computer screens, all of them in rows of five starting from the desk and progressively climbing higher on the wall, the two extra screens sitting across from each other on the side walls, just along the middle row. Two tall lockers stood by the back wall, along with a cabinet full of drawers and another flowerless pot sitting on top. There was a light switch by the door, but Izaya doubted that it would work.
"Is that the generator?" Shinra asked, flashlight sitting on a large metal object sticking out from the side of the room, opposite the hallway. It was mounted onto the wall, and it was a lot bigger than Izaya had expected.
Izaya squinted at it, taking a step closer before nodding. He ran his fingers over it, cool metal against his warm hands, the tips coming back black. "This would be her~" He all but purred, smiling at it and almost laughing again. The job was going so smoothly he wanted to puke. "Do you have any idea how to turn her on?"
Shinra sputtered. "This generator? No. Now Celty-"
Izaya abruptly waved a hand in Shinra's face, almost hitting him, before shining his flashlight over the black surface. It was a generator so... was there a switch?
"Don't you just pull the cord?" Shinra asked, receiving a genuinely stunned expression from Izaya.
"Cord?"
"Yeah, you know, the pull cord." Shinra said, making a gesture with his hand that suggested a lot more than just pulling a cord. "The pull cord, Izaya, the pull cord. You have to pull the cord."
"What cord?" Izaya asked, standing up straight and shining the flashlight over the entirety of the surface. "If you see a cord, please feel free to point it out to me." He said, voice getting a little snappy as he tried to identify this cord Shinra was talking about. He didn't see anything. He didn't see anything that looked like a cord or even a switch. There were just metal protrusions and lumps and – the thing was so dirty, he'd have to clean it all off just to find a label!
"Do you not know how to turn a generator on?" Shinra asked in exasperation, throwing his hands into the air like it was the simplest thing on the face of the planet, and that now they were both going to die because Izaya actually didn't know something.
"Do you?" Izaya asked, narrowing his eyes. "You know, normal people hook their generators up to the... control panel. In the basement." He said dramatically, like Shinra was completely stupid. Shinra could already tell that Izaya was fumbling for strings to pull here. "And you just flip a switch in the panel, with none of this cord pulling business."
"Does it look like we're in a house, Izaya? This is probably the back up generator to the back up generator, so I doubt they used the traditional means of hooking this machine up." He said, arms still gestured in the air like Izaya was in fact the stupid one there.
"Well then if you are so knowledgeable about this piece of machinery, Shinra, how about you go ahead and turn it on?" Izaya all but snapped before spinning away to try and hide his irritation. "I'll just sit over here, alright?" He said, laughing condescendingly before plopping himself down on the desk and pulling out his cellphone. "And this whole job was going so well! Well here you have it Shinra, here's your hiccup in the plan!" He threw his hands up before crossing a leg and sourly turning on his phone.
Shinra stared at him, face twisted into a frown, before he started laughing. He laughed so hard that he keeled over at the waist, hands dropping to his knees. He laughed for a good twenty seconds before righting himself, pulling his glasses off and wiping at his eyes. "Ah~ Who would have thought? The best informant in most of Tokyo doesn't know about the pull cord on generators."
Izaya hummed irritably from where he sat in response, eyes glued to his phone screen.
Shinra took a look at the generator, tilting his head before shining his flashlight over it. There was a cord... right? He just had to find it. He had seen enough movies to understand at least that, right?
He dropped down to his haunches, and after three minutes of searching, Izaya jumped from the table. "Move," he said, sounding more irritated than ever before, and he dropped down beside Shinra, shining his flashlight to a little protrusion. He stuck his hand under it, grabbing a knob, and twisted.
The generator roared to life, the computers at the desk suddenly humming and the emergency exit sign over the door suddenly flickered on. Izaya stood up, brushing is hands off on his jeans, and shooting Shinra a dirty look.
"You had to look that up, didn't you?" Shinra asked, standing up as well and mirroring Izaya's actions, dirty hands being brushed against his pant legs. At least he had the common sense not to wear his dress pants on an adventure like this. Izaya shot Shinra a smug smirk before turning back to the security system. The screens were flickering on slowly, the light bright enough for them to turn off their flashlights and conserve some of the battery. It took a couple of minutes for the computers to load, the security tapes immediately loading up the second the system was ready to go.
Izaya and Shinra stared for a moment before cheering, a high five slapping through the air because they fucking did it, bickering aside, and Izaya pulled out his phone again to search up the rest of the details Shinra would need in order for this to work.
"Okay, screen eighteen," Izaya said, both of them glancing up to it just to see a single door on the screen with an unreadable nameplate. Unlike the rest of them, this camera didn't loop. It was fixed on the door in question, and nothing was going to distract it. Everything had an eerie white glow to it, everything looking slightly surreal when the cameras shifted to the night recording. "Okay, that looks right,"
"Right?" Shinra asked, but his eyes were elsewhere. "Look, look right there!" Shinra was pointing to one of the top screens, but it was already looping again. Izaya sighed but looked anyway. A couple of seconds later and the hallway to a lab lit up, glass encasing both sides and there were medical tables strewn about the floor. It even looked like there were bodies. But it could have just been the camera's. They were fuzzy, after all. "I want to go there!"
Izaya snickered, elbowing Shinra to get him to pay attention. "After. There should be a panel full of buttons... right here, okay, the one labeled... K28, press it! Press it Shinra, do us the honors!"
The panel was laid out on the left side of the desk, right beside the keyboard. There were several buttons, all of different shapes and different sizes with multiple labels on them. Shinra snorted, pressing the button. They both glanced up, the door on screen eighteen automatically swinging open. Shinra squeaked in excitement, Izaya grinning because he was proud of his capabilities, as usual. The door remained open for a solid thirty seconds before swinging heavily closed.
"It's so tiring being a successful man all the time," Izaya said with a small smile, like he was trying to be modest and not conceited. He pulled out his earphones from his pocket, plugging them into his phone. "Shinra, would you be a dear and open the door for me when I get down there? Please don't get distracted. If you seen any mice, they're not mutants, I can assure you." He asked, sticking only one ear bud in and then calling Shinra's phone.
"But what if they are mutant?" Shinra pulled his own cell from his pocket, dropping it onto the table and answering it on speaker. "But of course, dearest, have fun down in the pits of Hell where you belong." He replied with a wave even though he walked Izaya to the door. The informant shoved the phone into his pocket, zipping it up just in case. "So you're going to be about ten minutes?" He asked, the smile on his face reveling in the idea that he gets to be alone in such a spooky place.
"Something like that," Izaya agreed, skipping from the door and down the darkened hallway without his flashlight just for the effect. "Watch out for the creatures lurking in the shadows! I'll be back for you~!" He disappeared into the shadows with a wave for a few seconds... until he turned the flashlight on a little further down. The stairs were right by the swinging doors, and Shinra couldn't help but laugh as Izaya fumbled with the device for a moment.
"Scared of the dark are we!?" Shinra yelled, making out the general form of Izaya flipping him off before disappearing into the stair well.
Shinra snickered, returning back into the control room and closing the door behind him. He moved to hover over his phone, leaning against the desk and glancing up to the screens. He could see Izaya emerging onto the first basement floor, looking just as cheerful as when he had left. "Nothing scary down there, I assume?" Shinra said loud enough for the phone to pick up.
"Nothing yet~ Are you that concerned about me well being?" Izaya asked, though the microphone embedded into the cord right by his mouth picked up more of his breathing than anything else.
"Of course not," Shinra said, glancing back up to the screens. There was a camera loop of the yard. He smiled, not being able to see Namie from where she had parked. Smart. "Hey, was it okay to just leave your secretary out there like that?" Shinra asked, the camera looping to what must have been the courtyard at one point. Now it was over grown with tall, swaying grass and shrubs.
"She'll be fine." Izaya said, breathing still even. He found the stairs down to the second floor, and Shinra could hear the echo of his squeaky footsteps in the stairwell. "She has a gun. In the glove compartment. Just in case." He was starting to run out of breath, so Shinra just hummed in approval.
They continued the job in silence. Izaya was already on the third floor, and Shinra was staring at the camera loops, several of them catching his interest. There was definitely a lab, and several medical rooms, from what he could see in the shots of the hallways. There were a few rooms with cameras in them, and he could only imagine why. But the one that caught him off guard was on the lowest floor, the only other camera that did not loop. It was just a shot of a thick, metal door. Locked in place probably. But the camera didn't loop, and it was in the screen at the top right.
"Hey Shinra." Izaya called.
Shinra glanced down to his phone, before glancing up to the screen and seeing that Izaya was standing in front of the Containment Room. His breathing was a little bit quick, seeing how he had made it all the way down there in just over five minutes. "Am I opening the door?" Shinra asked, glancing at the screen and seeing Izaya look up, eyes narrowed. He was really white in the footage, his black hair so dark that it looked like a black paper cut out.
"Yes, you're opening the door." Izaya said, a little impatiently.
Shinra snickered, finger hovering over the K28 button. "What's magic word~?" Shinra sang, trying his best not to laugh when Izaya placed his hands on his hips and glared like a small child being patronized.
"Shinra open the door before I cut you at your knees."
Shinra laughed, pressing the button. "I should make you say please, but I value my knees. Ohh~ That rhymed!"
"You're welcome." Was Izaya's retort, and the second the automated door swung open, Izaya was slipping in. He disappeared on the screen, and Shinra hummed approvingly. So far, so good. There was a whistle from the phone. "Shit. There's bookshelves upon bookshelves in here. This might take a while."
"Well hurry up, because I'm getting bored." Shinra said, eyes flickering back up to that mysterious door. There was probably some classified secret back there. What other explanation could there be for a mysterious locked door with a solid security camera facing it? If the Containment Room was important enough to not be on loop, then that door had to be just as important too. He grinned, glancing back to the open doorway to the Containment Room. He could feel himself starting to vibrate with unexpressed excitement. Was the door to keep people out? Or were they trying to keep something in there? I wonder how far down Izaya will be willing to go...
Shinra's eyes suddenly narrowed at the screen. The sound of Izaya shuffling through stacks of files suddenly became unbearably loud against the silence of the room. The hairs on the back of his neck began to rise and his mouth suddenly went dry. "Um, hey, Izaya?" He said, his voice quieter than he had intended.
Down in the Containment Room, Izaya blanched. The manila files were old and stiff and dusty and dirty beneath his finger tips. There was already dirt caked under his nails, and the feeling was generally disgusting. Luckily, all of the files had been properly labeled and stored in a neat and orderly fashion, and so finding the proper section had been a breeze. Section K was a little bit down the right side of the massive room, and after wedging himself between some metal book shelves – thank Valhalla he was super skinny – he found a shelf sporting the numbers and letters close to what he was looking for.
He was thumbing through the files labels when he thought he heard Shinra say something. "Mmm? Shinra?" K28! He pulled the file out of the stack, a huge smile spreading across his lips. It was a lot thinner than he had expected, given that it was supposed to be this guys 'life work'. But hey. He was a psychologist with a stutter. What did he really expect? "Hey Shinra, I found it!" He exclaimed loudly, his voice echoing despite the fact that the room was packed full. This deserved another high five. The immediate hiss of Shinra's voice sent him silent. He glanced up, glancing around him in the dark for a moment. He ducked to peek under a shelf, pointing his flashlight, but nothing had changed. The door was still open, the room was still dark aside from the red emergency exit flickering, and he had the file he needed in his hands.
What was Shinra's problem? "Hey, what's-"
"Izaya, shut the fuck up and hide somewhere!" There was a bunch of rustling on Shinra's end of the line, but the doctor's voice had been hushed.
Izaya froze – Shinra swearing was just a rare as his- but then he snorted, ignoring it, and flipping open the thin file, his flashlight illuminating the contents. He felt his stomach drop, eyes narrowing. He glanced down to the floor, just in case the contents had fallen. There was no way... it couldn't be...
The file was completely empty.
"Shinra, there's nothing in here! The file is empty!" He said, heart suddenly pounding in either frustration or anger. He stared at it a little harder, eyes narrowed like the papers were just invisible.
"I don't care – Izaya turn your flashlight off he saw it and he went in!" Shinra snapped, his voice still hushed.
"He?" Izaya flicked the flashlight off, darkness swallowing him whole. He could hear his own heart beat in his ears and the sound of Shinra breathing. His face was hot. He rubbed at his forehead in confusion, both because of the file and because of what Shinra was saying. At this rate, they would make a bad burglary duo. What could have possibly happened to the file? He turned where he stood, creeping down to the end of the aisle where he had come in. "Who is he!?" Izaya whispered, peeking around the corner. Was there a security guard? Izaya suddenly remembered Fuzen saying how much trouble they would get in if they were caught. Maybe he should have finished the lengthy email. Was there a patrol?
Shinra didn't answer, and Izaya moved back down the aisle, creeping towards the end by the wall. He hadn't heard anyone. No footsteps. No breathing. Is Shinra just trying to scare me? Wait.
The door hadn't closed, and he had been in there longer than thirty seconds. It had buzzed when it had opened, and the buzz had never come again.
"Shinra?" He quietly hissed, eyes glaring at the file still tightly clenched in his hand. He wanted to flick on his flashlight, but thought better of it. "Is it a security guard or are you just screwing with me?"
"Well if he's a security guard," Shinra said, voice laced with sudden irritation, "he forgot his uniform at home. Izaya just shut up and don't move. He went in there when you flashed the flashlight. He was gonna leave, but you caught his attention."
Shit! Izaya grit his teeth, peeking out between the shelves. "Any details you wish to spare that could help me out?"
Shinra sighed loudly, and Izaya had the feeling he was no longer on speaker phone. "Besides the fact that he's huge, maybe seven feet tall and built like Simon on steroids?" He suddenly hushed into a whisper, "Some naked guy just went in there. I didn't see him until he was standing in front of the door. Please shut up. I am holding the button so the door won't close. You need to get out. He might be dangerous?"
Izaya froze, not quite understanding the information that he was given.
He glanced out from between the shelves again. There was no one in there...
There was a deafening crash as one of the bookshelves was suddenly knocked over on the opposite side of the room, files and boxes crashing to the ground in the twisted metal form of the bookshelf. Izaya squeaked in surprise, slapping a hand over his mouth and glaring out.
The door buzzed, indicating that the thirty seconds since someone else had triggered the motion sensors had passed by, and the door began to swing closed. Izaya almost yelled at Shinra – he said he was holding the button! - when the door suddenly stopped, metal gyrating against metal, and with a vicious roar, the door was ripped from it's hinges. It was thrown back into the room, careening against several shelves and knocking them all down with a crash loud enough to have Izaya covering his ears. Something moved by the door, a heavy, rumbling growl emitting in the room, and Izaya suddenly found himself shaking.
His heavy breathing was echoing in Shinra's ears. "Izaya I'm coming down." Shinra said, his voice dead quiet.
"No, stay there," Izaya hissed, confident that he could sneak out and get back upstairs before he was caught. He didn't want Shinra getting dragged down when he could still get out. One person would find it easier to sneak off the floor than two. He got to his knees, carelessly folding and shoving the file into his jacket. He quietly got up to his feet, crouching as he slipped back down the aisle and to the end. He knelt down, not quite ready to glance around. It wasn't like he could see, anyway. He just prayed that years of running and hiding from Shizu-chan would now save his life – if it was in danger.
There was a footstep in his direction, the pressure against the carpet almost silent, and a gentle growl filling the room rose the hairs on the back of Izaya's neck.
"Hel-loooo..."