He thought it was his alarm clock. Four hours sleep and his fucking alarm clock was ringing! Shinra's shitty voice was twittering down his ear (annoying annoying ANNOYING),and...too late - he'd already cracked a floorboard or two and sent his sunglasses skittering by the time he realized where he was: sprawled on his back, limbs twisted baby-deer style, on Shinra's too-small sofa.
"Good morning, Shiki-no-danna - how can I be of service?" Shinra's voice was markedly cheerless in contrast to how he usually received phone calls, and he rejected the space that Shizuo made for him to sit down in favour of pacing outside the surgical room like an anxious guard dog. He raised a hand in warning, signifying that Shizuo should be quiet, before switching the phone to loudspeaker.
"You sound weary, Kishitani-sensei. A busy night, I presume?"
Shinra came to a stop, leaning against the doorframe with his arms folded defensively.
"Yes, something like that."
"It really is regrettable that Orihara-san should cause you such trouble. I would apologize for his behaviour, but I'm unsure as to the exact nature of last night's occurrences...would you care to enlighten me, Kishitani-sensei?"
"I'm, sorry, but I'm not quite sure what you're referring to, Shiki-no-danna."
"Myself and Akabayashi-san saw you, Heiwajima Shizuo, Celty-san and Sonohara Anri leaving the Akiyama Factory warehouse in Ikebukuro with our Informant. Orihara-san was unconscious. Now, we've attempted to contact him multiple times, but as we've received no response, our only assumption is that he is still in your care. Can you confirm this?"
Shinra swallowed thickly and glanced at the closed door of the surgery room.
"Yes. Orihara-kun is here."
"Akabayashi-san is intrigued that Sonohara Anri was present at the scene. I'm sure you understand why it's necessary for us to question Orihara-san as soon as possible. The
Awakusu-kai does not endorse the involvement of young girls in unsavoury affairs."
"Yes, that's understandable. However, I'm afraid that Orihara-kun is still undergoing treatment. He's going to be out of commission until the day after tomorrow at least, and as his doctor, I can't allow his treatment to be affected adversely; nor can I disclose any other information regarding Orihara-kun's condition due to patient confidentiality."
There was a slight pause, and Shinra gripped the phone hard, closing his eyes.
"Sonohara Anri is safe and well, Shiki-no-danna."
"I'll be in touch."
The call ended, and Shinra sighed in relief, visibly deflating as he buried the phone in the depths of his pocket. Shizuo stared in disbelief.
"Why didn't you tell him that the Flea didn't do anything to Anri?!"
"Because, I don't know for sure that he didn't, Shizuo-kun."
"But she told us he didn't! She said that that guy drugged her, and they wanted her for some prostitution thing! The Flea's a fucking low bastard, but even he's not that low!"
"Anri-chan may say that, but Izaya is heavily involved with Nakura-kun. We know that Nakura-kun is somehow in charge of the scheme, so we can't entirely refute Orihara-kun's involvement. Do you understand what I'm saying?"
"This is getting fucking ridiculous. How long before he wakes up?" Shizuo gritted his teeth around an unlit cigarette, watching impatiently as Shinra pulled back his sleeve and looked at his watch apathetically.
"He should be awake at around 12, so in approximately another two hours. Shizuo-kun, I know this is a lot to ask, but we all really need to try and stay calm. We need to take this time to be sensible and figure out what to do next. There's no use getting angry about it and charging in after Nakura-kun when we don't know what's going on properly. I know that we're all very tired, so it's going to be difficult, but it's something we all need to do, okay?"
Shizuo flinched, feeling guilty that he was causing Shinra additional stress after getting so much more sleep than him. Although they had taken turns to watch over Izaya, Shinra had to check on him regularly to ensure that the breathing tube wasn't getting (in his words) 'clogged up.'
The sound of the guest room door opening disturbed them, and Anri entered, looking a peculiar mixture of shy and determined.
"Good morning Heiwajima-san, Kishitani-sensei. Um, Kishitani-sensei, I know that you're very busy but I needed to...say something." Anri looked up meekly, concerned that she was disturbing their conversation.
Shinra sighed. There was a blurriness in his vision that wouldn't go away no matter how many times he cleaned his glasses, as well as a nagging feeling that he shouldn't be leaving Izaya unattended.
"Right, why don't we all sit down and have a cup of tea? I could certainly use one. I'll go and get my darling to watch Orihara-kun, and then we'll have a chat, okay?"
The chatroom was surprisingly empty for this time in the morning, but then, Izaya and Anri weren't online, and Celty knew for sure that Izaya used multiple handles in the same chat.
[San has joined the chat]
San: Hellooooo~
San: Where is everybody? I'm so lonely without my best friends! ಥ_ಥ
[Kyo has joined the chat]
Kyo: Here
[Tanako Taro has joined the chat]
Tanaka Taro: Good morning :)
[Pure Water 100% has joined the chat]
[Bakyura has joined the chat]
Bakyura: Never fear, your knight in shining armour's here!
[Setton has joined the chat]
Tanaka Taro: Has anybody heard anything about kidnappings around Ikebukuro?
Pure Water 100%: Hmm, that's a strange question. Why do you ask that?
San: Sca~ry! You're not going to kidnap anyone, are you?
Tanaka Taro: Of course not! I only thought that if we knew more, we could protect ourselves better.
Pure Water 100%: Has it happened to someone you know or something?
Tanaka Taro: Yes.
Pure Water 100%: ...
Setton: She's safe.
San: Even scarier! Does that mean you have her, Setton?
Bakyura: I heard it's only girls getting taken…
Setton: No, San.
Bakyura: I bet Orihara Izaya is behind it.
Kyo: He would never kidnap anybody.
San: Unless it was Heiwajima Shizuo hehe :D
Bakyura: He would. You don't know half the stuff that slimy bastard gets up to…
Setton: I have to go.
San: Ahh, Setton, you only just got here!
[Setton has left the chat room.]
Celty bent her neck forwards. She was tired, but not physically. She felt heavy, but was made of shadow. All of these things going on around her, all of this knowable unknowable, was thoroughly exhausting. Dullahans didn't strictly need sleep, but even without her head, Celty knew that living in Ikebukuro was more exhausting than anything else she had ever experienced. A hand on her shoulder pulled her from her thoughts, and she turned to see Shinra standing behind her, his face lined with worry.
"Are you tired, my love?" Celty simply wrapped her shadows around Shinra, dragging him closer into a silent embrace.
His voice was muffled in her shoulder.
"I don't know what I'd do without you, Celty."
Shinra reappeared, holding Celty's hand tightly. Cetly's shadows were dancing in a way that could only be described as the embarrassed sort of happy, whirling like a carousel as Shinra squeezed her hand lightly before reluctantly letting go. Celty began to make the tea, and Shinra waited until she had passed the cups around before sitting down heavily, fiddling with his glasses again.
"What was it that you wanted to say, Anri-chan?"
"It's about last night. I'm worried. The people who took me are keeping other girls, and - I - I think we need to help them before it's too late. I can use Saika to find Earthworm, and then she can lead us to the girls. I just think that we need to do it before it's too late." She concluded, her face reddening. She stared into her teacup, eyes flitting to Shinra nervously.
"Others, huh? Then why don't we just ring the police?" Shizuo asked suddenly, swirling his tea around carelessly. "It's bad and everything, but it's not really our business, right? So why can't the police take care of it?"
"Listen, I don't want to repeat myself again." Shinra snapped, exasperatedly. "For all we know, the yakuza could be conducting this human trafficking. We do notwant their wrath, and ringing the police could have the same result. It's too dangerous. We need to wait until Orihara-kun is awake to find out a little more, then we can decide whether to call the police or tell Shiki-no-danna, okay? Now, despite me telling Shiki-no-danna that he can't see Orihara-kun, there's still a chance that he might come here. So, I'm going to go and check on Orihara-kun now, and if his vitals look okay, I'm going to start tapering off the anaesthetic. It's been ten hours, so that should have given him some time to recuperate. Shizuo-kun, I'm going to need you. The drugs will still be wearing off, so he won't be too much of a threat, but I'd like you to stand by just in case anything happens. Understood? I'll call you in when I'm ready."
Shiki hung up the phone and tossed it onto his desk, turning his attention back to the jacket that he was preparing to iron. Akabayashi entered with two cups of coffee, placing one on the desk. Outside, the sky loomed with ominous clouds not yet ready to shed their rain.
"Any news on the Informant?"
"He's currently 'out of commission'. Perhaps we'll have to do some information gathering of our own. I'd very much like to know how our top Informant failed so spectacularly in infiltrating an amateur group. It makes his reliability...questionable; although, admittedly, this is the first time that something like this has happened. The first time that he's involved innocents in his schemes though, no. First Awakusu Akane-chan, and now Sonohara Anri? It has to stop. I warned him after Awakusu Akane-chan, but he thinks he can get away with this stuff right under my nose? He has to be punished. We must arrange a meeting with him immediately after he has been discharged from Kishitani-sensei's."
"What if he doesn't show up?"
Steely eyes met Akabayashi's.
"He'll be left with no other choice."
It hurt. Before he was even capable of opening his eyes, a thousand shades of agony hit him all at once, harder than any vending machine ever could. Every muscle in his body ached, his wrists and ankles stung, his ribs throbbed, his stomach and thighs were agonizingly tender, but, above anything, he felt as though his throat was being ripped apart.
Panicking, he realized that there was something in his mouth, in his throat,and he immediately raised a hand to remove it, eyes flying open to be greeted by white. Just as his fingers skimmed the obtrusion, a hand closed around his wrist and tugged it away harshly.
"Oi, don't touch that, Flea." A voice growled irritably. He was having trouble piecing the words into coherent sentences. Nothing was making sense, and this terrified him even more. He pulled against the hand sluggishly, and the grip on his bandaged wrist tightened.
"I said leave it alone. You'll end up hurting yourself if you do that - let Shinra sort it out."
A blur of blonde, and all of his senses told him he needed to get away. He attempted to push himself away from the source of the voice, but his muscles weren't obeying him, and he involuntarily jerked forwards instead. The hand slid down to his forearm, keeping a tight grip and pressing on where the needle lay in the crook of his elbow.
"For fuck's sake, Flea, I'm not going to hurt you. Just stay still. Shinra! Shinra, he's awake!"
Shinra entered the room with his forgotten equipment, and Izaya struggled weakly, using his free arm to aim a punch at Shizuo. Shizuo easily caught his hand and grasped his wrist, feeling Izaya's heartbeat pounding beneath his fingertips. He briefly wondered whether holding Izaya's hand would placate him, but quickly brushed the thought away, his face flushing slightly as he did so. It'd probably confuse the shit out of the already heavily confused fleabag.
"Hmm, I gathered that he'd be combative - especially when he heard your voice. Be nice to him, Shizuo-kun. You're not helping him calm down by shouting at him. Izaya-kun, I'm going to take the tube out now, so you need to lie still, please." Shinra upped Izaya's painkillers, realizing that the dose wasn't high enough now that Izaya was awake, and lowered the function of the ventilator. Izaya seemed to be faring fine without as much respiratory support, but he was clearly in a state of panic, preventing Shinra from proceeding.
Izaya continued to fight against Shizuo's grasp, ignoring his protesting muscles and the scratch of the needle in his vein. His brain was telling him that he needed to get away, and even if he felt as though it had been fried and fried again, he was going to obey it. Shizuo breathed in deeply, ordering himself to be calm.
"Flea, it hurts doesn't it - the tube in your throat? You need to stop moving around if you want Shinra to take it out."
Still, Izaya paid no heed. The tube was unbearable, and he started to cough violently, his face turning a dusty shade of red.
Shinra…if he was at Shinra's, something must have happened - but he didn't remember anything, and that was enough to make the anxiety roil afresh. It was getting harder to breathe...
"He's bucking and clamping down on it. If he doesn't calm down right now I'm going to have to sedate him again."
Shizuo put his hands on either side of Izaya's face, holding his head still and forcing eye contact. "Izaya, you're okay. Shinra's...we'retrying to help you. Stop biting the tube." Izaya hadn't even realized that he had been biting it. The coughs stopped, and Shizuo nodded in approval when he relaxed his jaw. "Right, now stop moving around so Shinra can take it out." Shizuo waited a few seconds until he was lying completely still, then released his face, allowing Shinra to take over.
Removing the tape, Shinra upped the oxygenation to 100, telling Izaya to breathe in as he pulled it out.
"There we go, that's better, isn't it?" Izaya would, without a doubt, throw a knife at him if he heard Shinra talking to him like that, but as it was, he was still pretty out of it. Gulping in lungfuls of air, he barely noticed when Shinra pressed a mask over his face, checking for condensation before removing it.
Izaya groaned. His throat was felt as though it had been compacted with the Earth's most arid sand, and his mouth tasted disgusting.
"Do you want some water, Izaya-kun?"
Shinra didn't wait for an answer and handed him a glass. It was difficult to hold it with his hands shaking so much, and he could barely move to sit up, but Shizuo closed his hand over Izaya's around the glass, steadying it, before slipping an arm under Izaya's shoulders and tilting him forwards just enough so that he could drink it. He took a couple of sips before Shizuo took the glass and handed it back to Shinra, helping Izaya to lie back down against the pillows. Shinra began unsticking the tabs on Izaya's chest, having turned the ECG monitor off after seeing that he was breathing normally.
"Okay, Izaya-kun, I'm just going to do a few quick tests so I can see that everything is working as it should before I explain what happened. Can you keep your head still and follow my finger with your eyes?"
Izaya complied, the whole experience dizzying. Shinra shone a torch in his eyes next, then began to ask him some basic personal questions: What middle school did you go to? What are your sisters called? What's 7 x 3?before deeming his cognition functional.
"Now, can you tell me what you remember about last night?"
Izaya stared at him blearily, trying his best to wake his mind up enough to remember.
"Russia Sushi." He croaked eventually, his memories coming up blank after last night's otoro and tipple of whisky.
"Yes, Simon told us that you had dinner at Russia Sushi last night. What do you remember after that?"
"Blank." He mumbled.
"Okay. Do you remember meeting with Nakura-kun last night?"
Izaya frowned. "Didn't come…"
"So you went to Russia Sushi to meet with Nakura-kun, but he didn't show up?"
Izaya nodded slowly, an image of Nakura and a woman in a purple dress leaning over him.
"Why were you meeting him?" Shizuo asked, taking a seat besides Izaya's bed. Izaya closed his eyes and slowly rolled his head towards Shizuo. Despite the painkillers, he was starting to develop a headache. Thinking hurt.
"He was trying to trick me."
"Why?"
"I wanted Earthworm...he rang me - said to meet him to get 'what I want'. Wasn't Nakura on the phone, was someone else. He got someone else involved. I told him to meet me, alone. Didn't come."
"Okay, well that's helpful. I know this must be hard for you to think of now, Orihara-kun, and your head is probably going to feel a bit scrambled for a day or so, but it's important that we get the facts straight so I know if I need to throw you out on the streets." Shinra laughed genuinely, his mood monumentally brightened by the fact that his most hated friend was okay.
"I'm going to tell you what happened now, Orihara-kun. After you left Russia Sushi you passed out. Earthworm and Nakura-kun took you to the Akiyama Factory, and you had a seizure. You had four seizures in total without waking up in between, so you're incredibly lucky that you've not acquired any neurological damage. The whisky that you drank in Russia Sushi was spiked. It was mainly GHB, but we took a blood test, and it shows that it was cut with other less chemically stable compounds, not to mention the fact that the amount in your body was at overdose level, which is probably why you reacted so badly. Namie also told me that you haven't been sleeping or eating properly, and that you haven't been drinking enough. Everyone has a certain threshold that can affect how susceptible a person is to a seizure. And if you're very stressed too, that can contribute. Anyway, this is probably going over your head a bit. What else do I need to tell you?"
"Told you wasn't sleepin'." Izaya muttered, barely audible. Shinra and Shizuo continued as though they hadn't heard him, although Shinra felt a mild guilt prickle through him.
"Shiki's pissed at you." Shizuo added bluntly.
"Yes - Shiki-no-danna wants to know why Sonohara Anri was at the warehouse."
His recognition was slower than usual, but Izaya's eyes widened when he heard the words.
"Anri-chan was there?"
"Yes. Anri-chan says that she was abducted, the intent of which was to force her into sex slavery. Shiki-no-danna suspects that you are involved."
Izaya smirked lightly and laughed a little, shifting sleepily.
"Shiki-san's a fool sometimes."
"Well, is he wrong?" Shizuo demanded, swearing that he would kill the Flea then and there if it was true.
"Got sisters not much younger. Wouldn't do that." Izaya sighed shifting again. "Shiki-san asked me to investigate Amphisbaena. I told Nakura to bring me Earthworm, then I had that phone call. Never had the chance to see him. Must've told Earthworm, then they drugged me together. Their plan 's backfired now though. Nakura must have wanted revenge." He grinned properly now. Although in his current state he was incapable of comprehending the realization in all its glory, it was amusing how interestingandunpredictablehumans could be.
"Well, your plan backfired too, Orihara-kun, if you used Nakura-kun to get at Earthworm when he already had complicated ties with her. Challenging loyalties like that is so dangerous, Orihara-kun - and you intended to bring down a full trafficking group in person, singlehandedly?"
" 'm not that stupid. Just Earthworm. The others wouldn't last without her."
"Right. That still doesn't answer why Anri-chan was there though."
"Visibility. Anri-chan is usually with Kida-kun and Mikado-kun...gang leaders, so it was easy for them to spot and target her…" Izaya's eyelids were slipping closed, his words slurring slightly. It was so hard to think when he was this exhausted. His thoughts were incredibly fragmentary, and forcing them into comprehensible sentences was like attempting to do a picture puzzle with no eyesight. He forced his eyes open again, blinking at Shizuo.
"Why is Shizu-chan here?" He asked, as though he had only just realized Shizuo's presence.
"I helped save your worthless ass."
"Why would Shizu-chan do that?"
"Because I wanted to know if you told them to take Anri or not."
"Don't believe you."
"Fine, because you're so slutty you'd enjoy having sex all the time if they decided to keep you, and you enjoying yourself would be unfair after all the shit you've put me through over the years."
"So Shizu-chan... would be sad that... I was enjoying myself...because he couldn't join in? Shizu-chan really is desperate..."
"Fucking hell, that's not what I meant, Flea."
"Don't believe you…" Izaya's smile slowly faded from his lips as he fell asleep, and Shizuo turned to Shinra, only to find him with a hand clamped over his mouth, desperately trying to contain his laughter.
"Well, at least he seems to be back to normal, though nowhere near as eloquent as usual. You know, they say that people who've just woken up from anaesthetic come out with all sorts of things, like they do when they're drunk, and you know how it is with drunk people telling the tru-"
"Shinra, shut the fuck up."