Summary: There's nothing like hard plastic and leather restraints to wake someone up.
Upon waking with his arms awkwardly splayed above his head and his legs rigidly stretched out beneath him, Izaya decides judiciously not to open his eyes. This is not one of those times where he fears a headache, or work, or something similar, no, he decides to feign sleep because he's fairly convinced he's not going to like what happens when he wakes up.
It has something to do with the rough surface of the re-purposed folding table, and the creeping knowledge that he doesn't know where he is.
You might have been surprised how often Izaya ends up in these situations.
The Raven is not.
Before he even bothers to look around, he's testing his restraints. Smart enough to bind my legs as well, how unfortunate… As he shifts minutely, not enough to alert someone if he's not alone, Izaya notes several other things about his surroundings. His coat and shirt are missing, the straps on his arms are cracking leather, there's not even the slightest stir of air over his skin, the belt over his stomach is just tight enough that it makes him queasy, and his shoes are gone.
All of this registers in the first few seconds, though not in that order.
A normal person would have panicked, thankfully, the informant is not normal, not in the slightest. That aside, a creeping dread is attempting to eat away at his rationality, and it's a little distracting.
Twitching and tensing several muscles discreetly, the Raven decides his bonds are indeed too tight to simply wiggle out of. There's no give to them, not even enough for him to fully make a fist. Disconcerting though this realization is, Izaya simply files the information away for later and continues looking for more information.
The obvious question is where am I, but Izaya isn't actually concerned about that particular subject. Because the answer is obvious. Wherever it is, it's not somewhere he decided to be. Anything else becomes details.
Which leaves the next most pertinent question. How did he end up here? This is slightly easier to answer, despite the weird memory gap that he hasn't fully tackled yet. I'll get to that later. Perhaps after he's out of his current predicament…
But, he needed to focus. Quickly, the Raven gives his body a mental once-over, checking for any obvious pain. His wrists hurt, but he suspects that has to do with the tightness of his bindings. Curiously, my ankles don't hurt… A twitch of his foot confirms they are indeed slightly looser than the straps around his wrists.
Deciding to revisit this later, Izaya continues his checkup. His head is fine, there isn't any glaring pain in his back when he arches it slightly, and when he breathes in deeply, his ribs are fine. So it wasn't blunt force trauma… What then?
Swallowing carefully, Izaya notes the aftertaste filling his mouth and parse it out with analytical acuity. There's nothing noteworthy there, so he has to assume he wasn't poisoned. Of course, depending on how long he's been here, tied to this table, it could have already passed through him…
But no, that seems unnecessarily farfetched.
It isn't until he tenses the muscles of his left arm once more that he notes the strangely acute bruise on the inside of his upper arm. Instantly, he puts two and two together. Injection then…
For multiple reasons, this is an unpleasant thought. The first thing that occurs to him is that he clearly didn't put up enough of a fight if they were able to inject him so cleanly. The second thing is the knowledge that he has no clue what's running through his system right now or how dangerous it is.
And he's most definitely in no position to ask.
So he doesn't think on it, instead, he keeps his mind moving, determined not to stew in the fear building in the tips of his fingers and the nape of his neck. He wants a blade in his hand, that or his shirt. Last time he was in a similar position, things had gone a very particular way.
He'd killed the man, and the people who had sent him, and every single person who'd helped catch him. And he'd gotten quite a bit of valuable assets and information from the event. Still, he doesn't need a repeat occurrence. If at all possible, he wants out of here quickly.
But as it doesn't seem to be that simple, he puts his mind to other uses.
Why am I here?
Now that's a question he sorely wants answers to. Sadly, it's also the most broad. Oh well, one out of three is better than nothing.
"Orihara-san, do stop pretending to sleep."
"Perhaps I am simply enjoying the quiet Kidnapper-san." Finding his voice is rather clear, despite his stint of unconsciousness, Izaya allows a superior smile to cross his face. It's the little things. "Don't feel obligated to make conversation."
Sarcasm is a good way to keep himself grounded. There's likely about to be quite a lot going on, Izaya doesn't need his mind straying off in untoward directions. Now that he has a voice to listen to, the Raven instantly begins to run it through his mental list of voices he recognizes. It's no one he's heard recently, that's for sure. There's something familiar about the way it threads its way through his ears, but it's nothing striking enough to catch.
Frustrated, the man's eyes flicker open.
The room around him is dim, the only light seems to be coming from the open door somewhere off to his right at his feet. As the air stirs, sending shivers over his bare flesh, Izaya attempts to get a look at who he's dealing with. All he sees is a thin silhouette that gives nothing away.
"Oh don't worry, you'll have plenty of time to sleep later," the voice assures him as footsteps lightly pad into the room. "Though after how much you just got, I can't imagine why you'd need more."
There's a laugh behind those words, one that rankles. Ignoring it as best as he can, Izaya uses the excuse of stretching to test his bonds in earnest. His legs are as he suspected. The ankles are loose, but not loose enough he can slip out of them. If he finds something sharp… Well, slicing through them won't be difficult.
His right arm is bound just above the elbow and at the wrist. The elbow restraint is only to keep him in place, not actually bind him, the one by his hand however, it cuts into his ivory skin, tight enough that if he struggles too much, he might draw blood.
The straps are made of old, cracking leather, no one has taken care of them ever, if Izaya's any judge. For all of them, someone had cut through the plastic table to loop the restraints through. If he moves too much, he can feel the sharp, jagged edges of those holes in the table.
All of this information would have been relatively unimportant separately, but put together, it means that when he pulls on the strap around his left wrist, the cracked leather, which is already tearing and fraying with mistreatment, slides just so against a particularly sharp bit of plastic.
He feels it begin to split open and it takes all the willpower he has not to completely pull it free.
It's a good thing too, because a second later, the light flips on and the Raven finds himself entirely blinded as the incandescent bulb above him glares harshly into his unprepared eyes.
As he twists his head to the side, trying to avoid staring directly into the light, Izaya mumbles out, "You know, it's hardly sleep when you have to be drugged to get it, ne?"
"Someone as busy as you shouldn't be picky about where you get your rest." Squinting past the glow, Izaya focuses on the face of the man stepping through the door.
Now he does recognize who it is, though not by name. It's a man who used to work with Shiki, back many years previously. Izaya vaguely remembers that he was disgraced and quietly excused from further service. I wonder why we didn't just kill him… There must have been an understandable reason, but in light of current events, the Raven elects to believe the reason wasn't a very good one.
He can't think of a name, but he can remember being part of the reason the man was thrown out of the Yakuza.
Motive, but I doubt it extends to whoever is behind him. Which means its nothing but another dead end.
With slightly shuffling steps, the man moves up beside him, and Izaya hears the sound of metal scraping against concrete. "Do you know why you're here?"
"I was hoping you would be so kind as to answer that question," Izaya admits, nibbling at the inside of his lip as he notes the door was never locked behind the man.
There's a snort as several somethings clank against the metal table beside the Raven's head. "I must have mismeasured the chemicals in that shot, your brain isn't usually this scrambled."
It's an insult, Izaya doesn't rise to it, there's no point. He does however open his mouth as an instantaneous retort comes to his lips. "It's not every day I am kidnapped off of the street without warning, Kidnapper-san." As soon as he says it, Izaya knows it to be true, because the memories are coming back now.
Ah yes. I was enjoying myself with Shizu-chan…
One of the only things he could enjoy, anymore.
Distantly, as though it's from another lifetime, Izaya recalls tearing through the streets with his favorite blond monster, wreaking havoc, chasing a spark of excitement in an otherwise dull existence. Yes, he had a meeting with Namie scheduled for later, and dinner with Shiki after that, but for the time being, he'd had a moment to simply exist.
Then the van pulls into his line of sight, and people swarm him. In an instant, Izaya's day had gone from normal, to inconvenient.
It all goes dark shortly after as something is pulled over his eyes. Not before he got one last look at Shizuo however.
The monster had been looking at him in horror. Almost like he had been-
No, preposterous. Shizu-chan was probably enjoying watching me be brought low. There would be revenge for that later.
As if to back up this decision, Izaya carefully begins slicing through the restraint on his left wrist with the edge of the table, all the while keeping an eye on the man beside him.
Right now, he's laying out a terrible array of implements. They're fairly standard torture fare, if he thinks about them for too long, he's liable to distracted.. Izaya's eyes pick out a sharp blade and several syringes among them. The blade is his target.
"That monster who was chasing you… he caused quite a bit of trouble for us," the torturer mutters, picking up something sharp and unpleasant before looking over Izaya's torso with a critical eye.
Ah, probably best to keep him talking for now, the Raven decides, making it a point not to flinch away from the glinting metal.
This isn't the first time this has happened, whatever pain he's subjected to, he's probably had worse. It's just inconvenient is all.
That's what he tells himself anyway, as he takes deep, deliberate breaths.
In. Out.
For now, he's fine.
Pulling a teasing smile onto his lips that doesn't reach his eyes, Izaya purrs, "Oh do tell, Kidnapper-san~ I always love hearing about all the mindless destruction my Shizu-chan causes."
"He put half a dozen people in the hospital, and probably killed about that many more," the man mutters, looking irritated. The Raven simply keeps wearing down the strap on his wrist, keeping his movements so minute, they were unnoticeable. "Apparently, he didn't like us taking you away."
"I assure you, Shizu-chan is just grumpy you stole his prey," Izaya assures the man, knowing deep down that the beast's rage was likely nothing but a coincidence. How kind of him, I shall have to commend him later, it certainly means there are fewer for me to clean up later.
"I intend to make you suffer for that, you know," the man says conversationally, lowering the implement to Izaya's skin. "After all, you've caused me quite a bit of trouble."
Sucking in his stomach a little, the reaction instinctive, Izaya quickly says, in an attempt to distract this man for just a little while longer, "Ah, but I doubt it's you I've caused trouble for at all. Someone sent you, didn't they?"
"My employer is none of your business," the man says instantly, his eyes flicking to Izaya's face. Well, at least he has his attention. The only downside is that he has to stop what he's doing with his left hand.
Going still, Izaya blinks slowly and lightly suggests, "Ne, I think it's the very definition of my business."
Letting out an ugly sound from the back of his throat, the man suddenly moves away from Izaya, striding towards the mirror the Raven has only just noticed is planted into one of the walls. "You always did ask too many questions, Orihara-san. It's quite inconvenient."
"Perhaps for you it was," Izaya agrees, renewing his efforts to free himself in earnest now. "But it's hardly my fault you were stealing from Shiki-san. I only revealed the truth." The leather keeps giving way, parting under the sharp edge of plastic. It's lucky no one has taken care of these straps, otherwise, he really might have been at the mercy of this man for however long he chose.
There's something erratic about the way he's pacing in front of the window that tells the Raven that staying here is definitely not something he wants to do.
It's just as the man turns back to the Raven that the strap breaks through, freeing his wrist. Thankfully, it doesn't fall away just yet. Which is good, because he still needs a few more seconds, and maybe another moment without scrutiny.
"You have a lot of enemies, Orihara-san." A hideous smile comes over the man's face now, one that is only accentuated by the shadows the single light casts over the room. "Some of them are alone and have no way to get revenge. But there are some of us who found each other."
Striding forward till he leans over Izaya, his leering face darkening as the light is obscured from view, the kidnapper hisses, "I won't be the one to kill you, but I intend to take my revenge out of your hide, and others will follow. Mark my words, your days on this earth are numbered, Izaya Orihara."
With as much sweetness as he can muster, the Raven smiles and says, "If they're all as sweet as you, Kidnapper-san, then I look forward to it."
Letting out a disgusted sound, the man straightens and turns sharply towards his table of instruments. Grabbing something off of it, he turns away and mutters, "Say that now Orihara-san, I hope it lets you sleep a little better than the drugs did."
It's then that Izaya decides he's heard enough.
Slipping his left hand down and free from the broken wrist strap and straight through the elbow strap, the Raven swiftly unbuckles the leather around his chest before lurching to the side, as quick as a snake.
Before the kidnapper has time to turn around, Izaya has the blade in his hand. The rest of his straps fall away rather quickly after that as he slices through them, moving with the quick, practiced movements of someone who's had to do this many times before. Slipping to his feet, backing up away from the man as he does so, Izaya bows slightly and smiles widely.
It almost looks like real happiness.
"While I've enjoyed your riveting tale, I really must be going," the Raven croons, keeping the knife between himself and the man, who strangely hasn't even attempted to move. "I've things to do after all, and I really don't have time for getting tortured. I am quite sorry."
Hand finding the door knob behind him, Izaya twists and pulls, tipping his head slightly as he does so. "Perhaps next time~"
Right now, he had to find Namie and make up some outlandish excuse for missing their meeting. That and cancel his plans with Shiki. This is most definitely enough excitement for one day.
And as he opens the door and starts to back away, the Raven feels the sharp prick of a needle entering the flesh of his neck.
It happens so suddenly, he doesn't have time to back away from it before it sinks in deep and deposits whatever was in it into his flesh. Still, he jerks forward and slashes out, catching the one who had injected him with his blade, putting him on the ground in a pool of their own blood.
Unfortunately, a few seconds later, the knife is falling from his hand as his fingers forget how to hold it.
As his body slumps against the wall, limbs too heavy to lift, let alone propel his body forward, Izaya weakly turns his head in the direction of the footsteps that are slowly padding towards him.
There's the faint sound of someone's tongue clicking with disapproval. "Now now, Orihara-san, that's hardly polite. Look at the mess you made."
Someone grips his hair painfully, but it's all coming from the end of a very long tunnel, so it hardly registers at all. "I don't believe I said you could leave."
The world fades from view, but not before Izaya catches one last glimpse of the maniacally grinning face hovering above him. Then everything is lost to darkness, plunging the Raven deep into a chemically-induced sleep fraught with demonic faces, all of whom leer at him with empty, sightless eyes.
With a jolt, Izaya jerks upright in bed.
As his sore, tired muscles protest his sudden actions, the Raven quickly lifts a hand to his neck, feeling for the mark of the needle.
But it's only a memory. Yet one more bad one in a sea of horror he keeps locked up in the back of his head where it won't bother him.
Slowly gaining some semblance of consciousness, Izaya glances around, belatedly realizing he's naked and covered in various bites and scratches. Eyes flickering to the sleeping form beside him, the man relaxes somewhat as the memory of that concrete room fades from his mind.
He's not on a plastic table, he's on a bed. There hasn't been any torture, in fact, if he's remembering correctly, the only thing he'd done the night before was get thoroughly fucked by the blond man lying asleep beside him. All of those sharp implements and gleaming needles from his dream are just that, a dream, nothing that he needs to worry about now.
I'm fine. For once, I'm okay.
"Izaya?"
Glancing down at Shizuo, the Raven finds golden eyes fixed on him, tiredness dulling their usual intensity somewhat. "Is everything alright?" The words are laden with sleep, but Izaya hears the concern. The worry.
Silly Shizu-chan, always asking such difficult questions…
"I'm fine, beast," Izaya chides the man softly, a bitter yet real smile touching his face. His eyes soften with it, and his chest tightens at the realization that even half asleep, the man beside him cares enough to ask if he's okay. "Go back to sleep."
"Mmm, not without you," Shizuo decides. Before Izaya has a chance to protest, he's being pulled back down by an arm around his chest. "It's too early for any bullshit, go back to sleep."
Curling up against Shizuo, letting the warmth of the man's skin finally settle the rest of the residual unrest from his nightmare, Izaya stills and closes his eyes.
For now, he's safe.
As long as Shizuo is here, Izaya suspects that'll stay true.
