Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

"Sherlock. There is a child on our couch."

Well. That wasn't the strangest thing he'd ever woken up to hear.

He decided it probably wasn't enough to pay attention to and snuggled deeper into the cushion.

"Sherlock! Did you hear me?"

A grumble from roughly the same direction as the voice.

"No, he's not doing anything - "

More grumbles, getting closer now.

"No - I want to know where he came from!"

Grumble grumble. Footsteps.

Shinichi sighed, considering giving up on sleep. No, he ended up deciding. He was a teenaged boy who had just spent the last three days on a case. He deserved a little more sleep.

Something was wrong with that thought, though he couldn't quite put his finger on it through the hazy fog of sleep. It would still be there tomorrow, whatever it was. Sleep, however, probably wouldn't be. Besides, the couch was comfy, even though there was something digging into the bridge of his nose.

He suddenly became aware of a person standing over him, blocking out the sunlight (sunlight? Just how long had he slept?). The person seemed to be studying him, or perhaps that was just his paranoia talking. It was probably just Ran. Well, if she were here, it was time to get up before a karate chop to the head gave him no other option.

He blinked his eyes open blearily, mildly disoriented as he tried to sit up. Shouldn't his feet be touching the ground? Oh, wait, this wasn't his couch. That would explain it. Then whose was it?

He rubbed one of his eyes with the back of his hand - or at least tried to before he was met with an obstruction.

Oh. Right.

Glasses.

He was still Conan.

Conan carefully lowered his arm back to his side and looked at the people in front of him. One was in front of him, verging on invading his personal space and studying him like Conan would study a dead body. Speaking of which, there hadn't been one for a while. Not since he solved the three-day case. Judging by the angle of the sunlight coming through the window, it had been nearly eighteen hours. He was due for one soon, then.

The other man stood at the door, tensed with all the self-preservation the other lacked. The fact that he was wearing a jumper did nothing to diminish the intimidating aura that surrounded him. It kind of reminded him of the aura Black Organization members had, but not quite as cold. Actually, it was closer to Haibara when he'd done something particularly stupid.

That guy, he didn't recognize. The other, however... Hm. This could be bad. Conan smiled brightly, pitched his voice into the annoying childish octave he used around Ran and new police officers, and said, "Hi. Who are you?" He made his eyes as big as possible and tried to radiate Look at me! I'm so cute! I can't possibly be a threat!

The man at the door relaxed minutely, though something caused him to shift unconsciously into a military parade rest. Interesting, thought Conan. He still sees me as a threat.

...It was somewhat gratifying, actually. He was so used to being immediately discounted because of his size and apparent age that it was a nice change of pace to be automatically considered dangerous.

Well, time to put his mother's acting lessons to good use.

He blinked adorably, clearly waiting for an answer.

"I'm John Watson," the man by the door said finally. "And that berk's Sherlock Holmes," he added when it became obvious that Sherlock wasn't going to introduce himself, still stuck in his world of deductions.

Huh. So Sherlock had finally found his Watson. Good for him. What were the odds of someone named after a character in a book finding someone with the same name as their in-book partner, though? Well, considering it was Sherlock… Not too unexpected, really.

Judging by the decor of their flat, it was a relatively new development. The last time Conan had been there, the chair had been directly across from the couch instead of angled towards the television. The sink hadn't been full of dirty dishes - not to say that it was now, but there definitely hadn't been any soap on the counter then. Sherlock's experiments had been...not subdued, exactly, but localized, from the sticky note on the teapot saying 'OFF LIMITS!'

The most interesting piece of information, however, was that Sherlock was actually respecting the boundaries set by his roommate.

"I'm Edogawa Conan!" Conan said brightly, radiating sunshine and sparkles. Then he bit his lip and looked down at the ground contritely. "Um, I mean Conan Edogawa." The smile made a reappearance and he directed it shamelessly towards John because it definitely wouldn't work on Sherlock before adding, "But you can call me Conan!"

Sherlock snorted derisively and muttered something under his breath. John levelled a glare at him, seeming to wordlessly communicate that that was, quote, 'a bit not good.' His eyes were amazingly expressive.

Conan filed the observation away and then took a moment to study John Watson. He had short, dusky brown hair (military cut, though it had been grown out, he noted) and held himself somewhat warily, as if he were waiting for something to attack. There seemed to be a slight stiffness in one of his shoulders, Conan found as John shifted slightly to his good leg, as well as a limp - probably psychosomatic, if the barely-used cane by the door was any indication. So, recent war veteran returned from service due to injuries.

But...steady hands, comfortable using both just about equally, and the way John had scanned Conan when he sat up meant Doctor John Watson, so he must have been a medic, but close enough to the battle to be...hm, shot, probably, judging by where the tension in his muscles was. An army doctor, then. Interesting. The only thing that he was missing (and it was more to satisfy his curiosity than anything) was...

"Afghanistan or Iraq?" he blurted before he could stop himself.

Both John and Sherlock turned abruptly to stare at him. Conan tried to keep his oblivious façade, but he could feel his smile growing steadily more strained. The silence stretched for ages.

"What?" asked John finally.

Conan winced internally, but with Sherlock's penetrating gaze locked on him, he couldn't exactly brush it off. Instead, he tried to radiate 'cute' again, instead of ohcrapIjustmessedupBIGTIME.

"Huh?" was a far better response than repeating what he had actually said, though it didn't appear that they were buying it. Sherlock's gaze drilled into him intensely, and if Conan knew anything about him, it was that being studied by him was not good for secrets. And since he had secrets to keep...

"Oh, I asked if you served in Afghanistan or Iraq," he said with the most innocent voice he could muster - the one he used when Ran had tried to use his phone to nearly disassemble his carefully refined new identity. This was starting to become a survival mechanism, acting cute. That might have some repercussions when - when, not if - he had his body back. Conan nearly winced at the thought of one of Ran's karate kicks. No! This was not the time to be distracted, especially not with HIM of all people in the room.

"Afghanistan..." the doctor said slowly. "How did you - "

"How did I know that you were in the army?" Conan interrupted. That was a good question. What would a reasonable explanation be? One that they would both believe? Or maybe deflection was a better tactic. "Ran-neechan says I'm really smart, Hattori-niichan, too!"

...And he'd just given away his nationality. Great. It would be too much to ask for Sherlock to ignore those honorifics. Though, to be fair, Sherlock could probably deduce his nationality from his clothing. And his accent. But his English wasn't that terrible, so maybe not?

Oh, but there was also the name order thing earlier.

Yeah, Sherlock probably knew.

Ugh. He needed coffee.

John stared at him for a moment, then decided that this wasn't the weirdest thing that had ever happened in 221B. He shook his head, sighed, and walked purposefully to the kitchen. Conan perked up when he heard boiling water, but nearly visibly deflated when he heard the doctor call, "Sherlock, do you want any tea?" Tea, not coffee. Damn.

Though, really, he shouldn't have bothered to get his hopes up - it was evident from their carpet, John's teeth, and Sherlock's arms that neither of them drank coffee with any regularity.

"No," Sherlock replied curtly, still studying Conan. John ducked out of the kitchen briefly to ask, "Conan, would you like anything?"

Conan opened his mouth the respond, but before he could say anything -

"He'll have coffee," said Sherlock abruptly, turning to pin John with his sharp gaze.

John, for his part, blinked slowly before saying, "Sherlock. He's five years old."

"Wrong."

"I'm seven!" Conan agreed, holding up six fingers.

Sherlock snorted. Conan looked at his fingers, counted them, then put up another. "It was my birthday last week," he added, smiling brightly.

"Wrong," Sherlock muttered under his breath, then looked thoughtful. "Hm. Half wrong."

John looked at him for a moment, bewildered. "How can someone be half wrong?"

"Just look at his shoes!"

John obliged. To him, they looked like regular red Converse - maybe a tad old-fashioned, but that was making a comeback, wasn't it? He sighed and gave up. "I don't know what you want me to see, Sherlock. Conan, would you like some coffee?"

"Yes, please." Hey, if he was offering...

As soon as John left, Conan snapped his attention towards the man crouching on the floor less than a meter away. He shifted slightly, swinging his feet childishly. "Hey, hey, Holmes-san, how'd you know I like coffee? Ran-neechan doesn't like to let me have any." Much to his displeasure. He let his expression fall into a pout, which he didn't even really have to fake.

Sherlock snorted again. "Your reaction when you heard the boiling water, obviously."

Conan gritted his teeth silently. Yes, it was obvious to a detective, but children asked obvious questions, and he was trying to stay in character.

John's voice wafted into the living room along with the smell of Conan's first true love. "Sherlock, remember what we talked about?"

"Not good?" "

Conan is seven. He won't know all the things you do. Though be probably knows more in other areas."

Conan's interest was piqued. What could he possibly know more about than Sherlock bloody Holmes did?

Sherlock groaned and flopped dramatically into the chair behind him, limbs sprawling. "You're never going to let that go, are you?"

"What?" John asked as he returned with a great bearing two cups of tea and one - smaller - cup of coffee. "That you still don't know that the Earth goes around the sun?"

Sherlock grumbled something under his breath and Conan barely restrained himself from rolling his eyes, pasting a bewildered expression on his face. So Sherlock was still deleting things he found unimportant. Even though they were common knowledge - well, he supposed that was John's purpose, or one of them at least.

"What was that?"

"I said, obviously I won't delete it again!"

Oh, now that was interesting. John had only been living at 221B for less than half a year, if one were to judge by the condition of the chairs and floor, simultaneously taking into account the amount of dust under the furniture. And yet, Sherlock was paying attention to his opinions, even if he buried under layers of snark.

“So I know more about planets than Holmes-san?” he asked, immediately regretting it when it caused both of them to focus on him. This was what sleep deprivation did to him. It made him make stupid life choices. Seriously.

“I was talking about common knowledge, actually.” John was studying him now, too - but not in a 'what the hell is going on with this kid's brain’ way like Sherlock. His expression was more like 'what the hell is this kid doing here?’ or 'where the hell did this kid come from?’ - which, to be honest, Conan would also like to know because last he was aware, he was at home in Japan.

“Oh. Really? Because Ayumi, Genta, and Mitsuhiko are always making fun of me for not knowing stuff about Kamen Yaiba or being bad at video games.” The less said about Haibara, the better.

Sherlock snorted. Conan thought it was rather obnoxious. John seemed to agree, because he leveled a glare at Sherlock.

Sherlock was unaffected.

“Video games are not common knowledge.”

John rolled his eyes so hard that he probably strained something before turning to Conan and explaining what common knowledge actually was, finishing with, “It isn't just something all your friends know - it's something that everyone over the age of five knows.”

Conan nodded in all the right places and plastered an interested expression to his face.

Sherlock snorted again. “I don't know why you're bothering, John. He clearly isn't listening.”

“What are you talking about, Holmes-san? Watson-sensei is very interesting and I like learning things. Mouri-jiisan never explains anything!” Not that he ever needed to, but they didn't need to know that.

Wait. Shit. He'd done it again.

He really needed coffee. Coffee saved him from terrible decisions.

“What does 'sensei’ mean?” John asked in Sherlock general direction. “Should I be offended?”

Sherlock didn't answer because he was too busy studying Conan's socks. Honestly, Conan didn't know why John even bothered asking - though, he supposed it could be ingrained at this point to look to Sherlock for answers.

John sighed, handing Conan the small cup of coffee and placing one if the cups of tea near Sherlock.

“What does it mean?” he asked again, this time speaking to the person who was actually a native speaker.

Conan breathed in the smell of the coffee, closing his eyes to take it in. Coffee was his friend. It didn't need to question him or study him or try to uncover his identity. He belatedly realized that John had asked him a question. “Oh, it means doctor,” he replied distractedly before downing about half his cup.

As soon as the taste hit his tongue, he realized that answering had been a terrible idea. Because now John was staring at him, too. And he could just about pass off knowing too much as just being smart once but the second time John would probably realize he was being deflected.

Conan cringed internally. This was why coffee was integral to his continuing existence.

John squinted at him and opened his mouth - probably to ask a question that Conan would have to think up an answer to pretty quickly - when Sherlock cut him off abruptly with, “Mouri, you said?”

Shit. Yeah, he was all set to be relieved about Sherlock distracting John, but then he remembered that oh, yeah, this is Sherlock bloody Holmes.

Seriously. Where was his head.

Maybe it was back in Japan, where he was supposed to be.

John frowned, seemingly wracking his brains. “Mouri. Why do I recognize that name? Hm…”

Shit. Now there were two of them.

He opened his mouth to start bullshitting his way through his answers, then paused, actually thinking instead of reacting.

He knew Sherlock Holmes.

Granted, he'd only spoken with him a few times and that had been ages ago, but he'd kept up with him by reading the news.

(Ran had called it 'mildly stalking.’ He'd disagreed. She’d ripped a stop sign from the street. The topic had been dropped.)

But the point was that he didn't really have to hide from Sherlock. Well, yes, he had to hide his true identity, but he didn't have to hide his nationality or general information about himself.

(It wasn't as if he could, really.)

It would be easier to just focus on hiding his being Shinichi (because he actually had a slight chance of that happening) than hiding connections to his life in Japan. Giving away tidbits of information about being Conan could distract Sherlock from considering his real identity.

Well, hopefully.

Maybe.

It was a fifty-fifty chance, really.

If that.

Perhaps closer to ten percent.

Or less.

Besides, he trusted Sherlock Holmes almost as much as Hattori. Why was he letting his paranoia get the best of him?

John snapped his fingers triumphantly. “Kogorou Mori! That's it.”

Conan winced internally at his accent. Just. Ugh.

“Yup! That's Mouri-jiisan. Takagi-keiji calls him Nemuri no Kogoro.”

“Right! Sleeping Kogoro. The weird detective who solves crimes in his sleep. I've read about him on the internet.”

Sherlock huffed, almost silently.

John seemed to miss it, more interested in Conan's response.

Hm. Conan found that intriguing. He catalogued the information before replying. “Yup, that's Occhan! He's the best detective in Tokyo.”

Cue internal cringing, because honestly. No. Just. No. Ugh, saying it left a bad taste in his mouth.

He took another sip of coffee to hopefully wash it away.

Sherlock rolled his eyes. “Wrong.”

John shot him A Look. “I'm sure I don't know what you mean, Sherlock.”

Sherlock sniffed, crossing his arms and refusing to elaborate.

Conan smiled brightly. “It's okay, Watson-sensei. I meant that Mouri-no-occhan is the best at solving murders in Tokyo. Nakamori-keibu’s probably better at catching thieves.” And trying to catch Kaitou KID. But he wasn't going to mention that because it might bring up his “KID Killer” moniker, which he was more than happy to let fade into obscurity. “Takagi-keiji’s good at legwork.” Conan realized belatedly that he was starting to sound more like his actual age, because what kind of primary schooler from Japan knew the Japanese word for 'legwork,’ much less the English one. “Satou-keiji’s kinda scary, but she drives really fast.” Yes, that was better. “And Megure-keibu does a lotta paperwork and background things and stuff.”

Conan paused to take a sip of coffee, savoring it. As soon as he swallowed, it occurred to him that most grade schoolers didn't know that many police officers.

Well.

Hm.

Conan gave up trying to hide his coffee addiction and downed the last of his mug in one gulp before holding it out to John, who absently refilled it. A coffee addiction in a kid was strange, sure, but not as strange as the numerous other things he was trying to hide from Sherlock bloody Holmes.

(Honestly, what made him think this was a good idea?)

(Well, it wasn't as if he really had a choice before he scoped out Sherlock's colleagues - because he didn't really do friends, did he - because while Sherlock could probably be trusted, and John by extension, he wasn't so sure about the rest of them; he recalled seeing the name “Lestrade” a fair few times in the papers, among others. And although Sherlock probably would have figured out if they had connections to the criminal underworld, he did have a tendency to get caught up in The Case and ignore everything else...)

Who in their right mind would choose to visit Sherlock Holmes, of all people, when they were in hiding?

Not Conan. Which reminded him - how on earth did he end up here? Because, again. Beika and London weren't exactly next door neighbors.

Honestly, if he hadn't personally met the guy, he would say that this sounded like something KID would try to pull. But given that KID had some modicum of an idea that he had a secret identity, he wouldn't purposely try to ruin it.

(Hopefully.)

John looked mostly lost, and a little puzzled, while Sherlock's eyes narrowed. John shook his head slightly, likely trying to process Conan's brief rant on which Japanese police officers were best at what (oh, it really was a mistake to start talking without coffee). “Sorry, Conan - I think I got most of that, but what are 'kay-jees’ and ‘kay-boos’?”

Conan blinked to buy himself some time before nonchalantly downing most of the coffee in his mug. Should he answer truthfully? Or… “They're the people Occhan works with. The people who solve crimes. You know, like, um… Like at Scotland Yard? Um. I forgot the word in English. Sorry.”

One of John's eyebrows began climbing towards his hairline. “You mean, the police? They're police officers?”

“Yeah! That's what a keiji is. But a keibu is more like, um… What's the one above that?” This was becoming extremely tedious. “Like, not a police officer but his boss. But not the big boss. Um. A mini boss?” Come on, come on. Ugh.

“John, don't patronize the boy. It's obvious he means 'inspector.’” This was accompanied by a shrewd look - at his glasses, probably, but conceivably also his hair or eyes. Conan, unfortunately, didn't have the best perspective to figure it out.

John rolled his eyes. “Right, yes, excuse me for not immediately understanding a foreign language.”

“Please. It was obvious.” In this case, Conan had to agree with Sherlock. It really had been fairly obvious, especially given the clues he had tried to blatantly push towards John. Then again, it was possible that John had also forgotten the word briefly, as people tended to do when put on the spot to come up with a word. And Sherlock had always had a talent for picking up languages. His spoken Japanese had been passable by the end of their first weeklong visit ages ago, in any case, though it was possible that it had atrophied from lack of use.

“Yes, that's the word!” Conan smiled brightly, diffusing the potential row before it could begin and stupidly drawing more attention to himself. Why hadn't he learnt his lesson? Oh, well. May as well continue and give himself some reason for his vocabulary. “Is that how you pronounce it? I saw it in those books with my name on it and I wondered. They were really hard to read. I think I maybe should have started with the Japanese version.”

Wait, was retrospective thinking rare in seven-year-olds?

Probably. Shit.

John opened his mouth, brow furrowed in confusion, but someone's phone beeped before he could figure out what to say. Though it could conceivably be a pager, Conan mused, given that Watson was clearly actively practicing his profession (the lingering smell of antibiotics, a quick up-and-down scan of Conan when he stood up, how his weight was distributed in his shoes), though likely not full-time - probably mostly clinic work (wear-patterns on his shoes and the elbows of the white coat hanging by the door, and more obviously Sherlock, who tended to demand attention), which wasn't really something that would require a pager. Though, of course, he wasn't particularly familiar with the medical system in England.

John brought his fingers to the bridge of his nose and began to massage it in a clearly practiced motion. “Sherlock, are you going to answer that?”

Sherlock ignored him, as he was wont to do, focusing instead on Conan, who realized belatedly that he was probably being turned into a Case.

Which. Wasn't necessarily good.

John sighed, apparently used to this type of response, and routed around in Sherlock's bathrobe pockets until he managed to find his phone.

...Which appeared to be a Nokia.

Conan almost choked trying to turn his laugh into a coughing fit. He wondered whether it had been that John had finally had it with Sherlock breaking or experimenting on his phone and decided to find him something significantly more durable, or Sherlock himself who'd realized it. He waved away the concerned look John shot his way and instead refilled his coffee mug.

John glanced down at the phone again. “It's Lestrade. Looks like he has a case.”

He handed the phone back to Sherlock, who gave the message a rapid once-over before springing to his feet and heading for his big, dramatic coat. Some things never changed.

Wow, the police actually come to you with the cases? They don't just turn up wherever you go? What a luxury.

At least coffee allowed him enough of a filter that he didn't say his thoughts out loud. Conan wondered if actively seeking out a dead body would in any way mitigate his 'corpse magnet’ powers.

He shrugged mentally. May as well give it a shot. When was the next time he'd have an opportunity like this, where he went to the bodies and they didn't come to him? And anyway, it would be a good way to scope out some of the people around Sherlock.

“I wanna go!” This saccharine voice was hell on the vocal cords.

John immediately vetoed that request. “No. A million times, 'no.’”

Sherlock looked intrigued, which John seemed to catch out of the corner of his eye. “Sherlock, you are not taking a seven-year-old to a crime scene. That's a terrible idea.”

Sherlock somehow managed to roll his eyes audibly. “Obviously, as this “Sleeping Kogoro’s” ward, he's been present at at least one of the apparently many crime scenes, likely more. It's not like an English murder is going to be different enough to permanently scar him. Really, what are you so worked up about, John? This case is hardly a five.”

“I thought you didn't leave the flat for anything less than an eight.”

“Lestrade’s case is a five. Mine is a nine, possibly even edging on a ten.”

“Oh, and what case is that?”

“The Case of the Mysteriously Appearing Primary Schooler. That should be a good enough title for your blog.” And with that, he swept out of the room and down the stairs, coat flapping dramatically behind him.

Conan smothered a snicker before it could escape. Honestly, some things never changed.

John sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “When did I sign up for this?” he muttered to himself. Then, a little louder: “Right. Conan, you stay here while I take care of that overdramatic sod. Mrs. Hudson is downstairs if you need anything. Telly remote’s on the table.”

Then, he followed Sherlock down the stairs, forgetting his cane by the door.

Conan waited for about five whole seconds before scampering down the stairs after them, just slipping into the taxi before John shut the door.

Chapter Text

John didn't even notice Conan was sitting next to him (basically the only advantage of being so short - he was out of almost every adult's direct line of sight) until approximately halfway through their trip, and by then it was clearly far too late to turn back, according to Sherlock. Especially since Conan probably would find his way to the scene anyway…

...Or another body would drop nearby. But John didn't know that, and neither did Sherlock - even if he had figured out who Conan really was, which wasn't exactly likely especially at this point, the last time he'd been around Sherlock, he'd come across maybe a body a week and perhaps two at worst - and Conan wasn't too keen to let him in on the secret. Well, perhaps not a secret. A curse, perhaps, if he were feeling whimsical. But there really was no scientific reason he could think of that would explain a steadily increasing frequency of coming across murders.

His mother had told him about the first time he'd come across a corpse, when he could hardly walk, and how he'd somehow managed to help his father capture the culprit. It was one of her favorite party stories, at least while he was present. Her next anecdote took place a couple of years later, once he was actually able to talk in complete sentences, which he knew was embellished because he could remember that one. It was pretty hard to forget saving your future best friend from being kidnapped. And, of course, the strange encounter with his “younger brother” who had been a good ten years older than him, at the very least, but that one didn't really count as a case, per se, since no one was hurt, psychologically or otherwise. Then, a few years later, a family friend had been burned alive while they were in the audience - which was the first case he could remember vividly, in all its details, because the police had been so utterly stupid in insisting that it had been an accident - something about not checking the safety measures ahead of time - when it was obvious that he had been murdered -

Conan took a minute to focus on his breathing (in for four, hold for seven, out for eight, repeat) because something about that case just got to him every time it crossed his mind. It was the only case he could remember that he had never definitively solved - mostly because his father had turned as white as a sheet and hadn't let him out of his sight until they'd left, which had been as quickly as possible. For some reason, only his mother had gone to the funeral, and then they'd never seen the family ever again. Not even a New Year's card - which was strange, because he vaguely remembered there being a kid about his age, and parents were usually fairly enthusiastic about sharing milestones with other parents…

In for four. Hold for seven. Out for eight. Repeat.

He had a copy of the police report on his phone - both of them - which was pretty stupid of him, especially since he practically had the file memorized and, honestly, it wasn't like there was much information in there to begin with. It was almost as if the officers in charge of the crime scene had deliberately been as vague as possible and then done the bare minimum to not be seen as shirking their duty. It was just - why? Even that idiot Yamamura over in Gunma did his utmost to find the person responsible, despite his general tendency to believe supernatural spirits were at work. So why had those officers been so - so - so - lazy!

In for four. Hold for seven. Out for eight. Repeat.

After that incident, he'd begun running into crimes with an alarming frequency - once every couple of months, then every other month, then every month… The last time he'd met up with Sherlock in person was about three years ago, a little over one before he'd been turned into Conan. By then, he was up to about once a week.

(Maybe he was there to make sure the detective named after his idol was worthy of the name. Maybe he wasn't.)

(There were times when he absolutely cringed while remembering his younger self.)

His corpse-finding frequency stayed about steady over that year, until he became Conan. Then, suddenly, he was coming across a mystery almost every other day.

It was exhausting, true. But he couldn't deny that his observation skills had skyrocketed in sensitivity.

But, again, he'd never tried actively seeking out a body once the suspects had fled the crime scene. He wondered absently if it would have any effect on his corpse-magnet tendencies.

“Conan, are you alright?”

Oh. John had noticed him. Possibly his breathing pattern. It was fairly common for staving off anxiety or fear - and thus recognizable to a doctor - even if Conan usually used it to cool his anger.

“Yeah, Watson-sensei!” he replied brightly. “I'm just tired. My coffee hasn't kicked in yet.”

Since that breathing pattern was also indicative of sleep, it wasn't too far a stretch. The rhythm forced the lungs to mimic the parasympathetic nervous system, which calmed the body, and was akin to one's breathing while asleep.

...Conan really needed to stop getting distracted, especially with Sherlock Holmes nearby. John Watson was no slouch, either.

Well, at least now he was better at acting. Two years of constant practice did wonders, and now he had an opportunity to fix some of his mistakes from when he first started developing ‘Conan.’

He'd already given away his nationality and his ability to speak English almost as well as a native. He'd automatically given his (fake) name, so he was stuck with that terrible decision again. At least he was sure to respond to it after over a year of living with it. They knew about his coffee addiction, and at least some of his intellect. They knew he had read the Sherlock Holmes books, and that he had some skill at deduction. He could probably pass that off as something he had learnt from Mouri, even if it made him cringe internally. He could also go with Hattori, but he'd never let him live it down.

...Assuming he ever talked to him again, of course. Did he even have his phone?

A slight shift of his weight confirmed that he did indeed have two phones in his pockets. Good. He should probably call Haibara and make sure she wasn't freaking out at some point today. And, you know. Figure out if she had something to do with him somehow appearing on Sherlock Holmes’ couch.

Well. On the bright side, he could definitely turn down the obnoxiously childlike attitude a bit.

But he probably shouldn't let on that he played violin or had perfect pitch, because not only was the latter rather rare, Sherlock knew Shinichi had it and used it to do the former (because his relative pitch sucked).

Soccer, on the other hand, he could probably pass off as being childish. It was common enough, especially in England, and it was fairly typical of a child to want to run around outside.

The problem he’d had with trying to hide his identity from Ran was that he'd acted almost exactly the same as he had the first time around, mixed with a bit of his true age. He wasn't particularly worried about that here, mostly because he hadn't been around Sherlock for very long last time - about three days, probably, which wasn't really long enough to form the kind of instinct Ran had about him. And he was pretty sure that neither Sherlock nor John spent very much time around children, so they probably didn't really have all that much of an idea of how a child should be acting anyway. Also, Sherlock had never seen him this young, unless he'd gone digging…

He wasn't too worried about his appearance giving him away at this point. He'd been working on differentiating himself enough from his former self to look more like a relative, albeit freakishly similar-looking. He'd begun gradually dying his hair lighter shades, in small enough increments that it appeared natural enough. Now, his hair was maybe a few shades lighter than Kazuha’s, though not quite as light as Sonoko's. His glasses were a little more useful now that he'd actually got prescription lenses, which he had probably needed for a while and hadn't admitted to himself. The lenses made his eyes look bigger, which in turn made his nose appear smaller.

It was enough to make him not look like a copy of mini-Shinichi.

(He wasn't completely oblivious. It was dangerous to look like a carbon copy of his younger self, and anyway it helped Ran separate the two versions of him - not that she knew, of course, or would ever know if he could help it.)

(Maybe he had learnt about how to disguise himself by watching KID, maybe not. There was no way he would be telling the thief one way or the other.)

But the biggest change was his former attention-seeking behavior and casual arrogance. Granted, he still couldn't resist a deduction show, but now he used other people to show off his deductions and tried to stay as far from the spotlight as possible.

(Or as much as Jirokichi-ojisan allowed him to, in cases of KID.)

So that, at least, wasn't going to be an issue. But he should probably come up with something to differentiate himself decisively from Shinichi. And also a more rounded child persona wouldn't go amiss. He honestly had no idea why none of his teachers had noticed anything off about him. Haibara was generally better in that respect, albeit because she tried to disappear into the background. Most of the time, she came across as a shy little girl to strangers, and perhaps a little too mature to people who spent a lot of time around her. But that could potentially be explained by relatively mundane things, so it wasn't very noteworthy.

Which was, you know, a lot better than his Conan persona, which was inconsistent at best and unconvincing almost any other time.

Which was exactly why he was trying to fix that, right this very second, before he had to get out of the car and resume the act -

Oh.

They were already there.

Well. There went that idea.

This was what he got for getting distracted so easily.

Sleep deprivation sucked. He wished he had thought to bring a thermos or something so he could drink some more coffee - John's brew wasn't half-bad.

He decided as he got out of the car that he was going to try to tone down the obnoxiousness and intelligence, maybe up the curiosity, and take a leaf out of Haibara’s book - try melting into the background.

...well, as much as a child could at a murder scene. Which was actually surprisingly well, at least in Japan. Then again, Division One had become sort of…acclimated to his presence, what with the sheer volume of murder cases he was involved in.

He had a feeling it wouldn't be so easy to do the same with Scotland Yard.

Not, of course, that the Japanese police were in any way gullible, for the most part. It was just that they either allowed him to prove his worth or had some sort of superstition that he somehow got wrapped up in.

...He was pretty sure a good number of them thought he was either being followed by a shinigami or actually was one himself. And, hey, if that meant it was easier to get them to let him investigate, without drawing too much attention to the fact that a primary school student was investigating the scene of a murder…

Well. It was helpful. And, honestly, possibly true, considering all the cases he somehow became involved in just by walking down the street.

Conan tagged along behind Sherlock and his billowing coat, trying to be as inconspicuous as possible. It was pretty obvious which house was the crime scene. The whole street was blocked off by patrol cars and caution tape - granted, it was a short street, with only a few houses on it - but it was the middle house that was also thoroughly taped, thus making it rather obvious.

Conan studied the houses. It looked like they were in a somewhat upscale neighborhood, though not particularly upper class. He was pretty sure he'd heard the style referred to as “upper middle class” on some BBC show, but he wasn't really sure how accurate that information was. The street itself was a little worse for wear, cracking a little in places, and there appeared to be a small pothole a dozen or so yards away.

The house, on the other hand, looked well kept. Almost immaculate, actually, which was slightly disconcerting. It was painted an odd shade of yellow, about the same color as a cooked egg yolk, while the rest of the houses on the block were various shade of white. The house smothered in crime scene tape seemed to be the only one to have had a fresh coat of paint in years. Conan noticed as he got closer to the scene that it was actually only the front that had been painted - all the houses on the block were pressed together like books on a very full shelf, the kind where it takes a couple of minutes to wiggle one book out from between all the others - so it wasn't incredibly obvious, but the areas where the houses weren't quite level were chipped and peeling. The front of the house had apparently previously been a light blue color - almost a periwinkle. The windows were scrubbed within an inch of their lives - Conan could actually see the patterns of where they were wiped in the fluctuating thickness of the glass - and the curtains were drawn on the inside (likely bought used, given their lightly threadbare nature.)

Conan was stopped somewhat abruptly at the tape - or, rather, Sherlock and John stopped at the tape, and Conan (who was more used to running under the tape and pretending it didn't exist) had to stumble to an abrupt halt behind them in order to prevent himself from bumping into them. Why had they - ah. Sherlock's coat had blocked his view of the man who had been standing slightly behind a police car. He had silvery hair and looked like he could probably do with a nap. Maybe two.

“Lestrade.” Sherlock inclined his head briefly before ducking under the tape and making his way towards the house. John made a cross between an apologetic and exasperated expression at Lestrade - presumably the same who had messaged Sherlock about the case - before bending slightly to fit under the tape Lestrade lifted for him. Conan followed behind him, doing his best to stay out of Lestrade's line of sight. Which was surprisingly easy, especially since John Watson was not exactly someone you would call 'tall’ or 'broad,’ and therefore not exactly ideal for hiding behind. Conan honestly wasn't expecting to make it past the tape, but Lestrade just turned and led them towards the house. Apparently he was too distracted to look below his eye level.

Conan was somewhat surprised by that, once Lestrade started explaining the case to John, unaware of him listening in. Then again, Lestrade did seem to be the kind of person who looked directly into someone's eyes when talking to them. It was a decent tactic for witness statements and interrogation - Takagi-keiji used it, as did Conan himself on occasion - but Lestrade seemed to have made a habit of it.

...Or, he was looking to figure out what John knew about what was happening? No, that didn't quite fit…

“Honestly, we aren't sure what happened. All we know for certain is that Hubert and Jane Reynolds threw a dinner party yesterday to celebrate their daughter winning something or other, and now their daughter is dead.”

John paused, giving Lestrade A Look. “Is that really all the information you have?”

Lestrade shook his head. “No, but here's where it gets weird: the parents sent the girl to bed at around ten, right. The guests didn't leave until about two in the morning. The parents go up to their room and see a ransom note on the bed. They check their daughters room and she's not there. So they call the police, who turn up by 6am. The police search the house just in case the kid is hiding somewhere. At about nine, they find the stairs that lead to the basement - “

“Sorry, it took them three hours to search a two-story cottage?”

Lestrade shrugged as they entered the house. “Look at it.”

They did.

“Ah,” said John, more an exhalation of disbelief than a reply.

Just in the entryway, there were nearly half a dozen cupboards and cabinets that Conan could probably fit in without too much trouble and a couple he could probably stand up in and still have a good-sized space above him. They were all engraved or painted and radiated the impression that they were expensive, though Conan had the sneaking suspicion that they were probably bought from garage sales, given the sheer number of them and the fact that some of the scratches on the lower portions were consistent with pets, which the Reynolds most assuredly did not have since fur wasn't mixed in with the dust that had accumulated in the corners of the hallway. The name 'Maria’ was carved in childish handwriting, usually with a backwards 'r,’ on at least half of the cabinets near the floor, as if a child had been lying on her stomach while practicing writing her name. The scratches were a few years old, though, so either the parents had noticed or she had grown out of it.

“The rest of the house is like this, then?”

Lestrade looked like he was trying ignore a thousand air horns blaring in his brain. “Yes. Exactly like this. Honestly, I'm not even sure this place has walls. Maybe it's just made of cabinets.”

Conan looked around and silently agreed. It was entirely possible.

“I'm surprised that it only took three hours.”

“Yeah, well. I think they were maybe 75% done when they went to check the basement. And that's where they found the girl, wrists and ankles tied together and duct tape over her mouth and neck. Preliminary examination says she was beaten to death, probably with a bat. Time of death was between midnight and about four in the morning. We'll know more after the autopsy, but I figured we may as well let you take a crack at it since the parents expressly requested Sherlock. They're our main suspects for now, but that's mostly because we couldn't find a motive for anyone else at the party. I mean, none of them are exactly hurting for money…” Lestrade trailed off. “It isn't really weird, per se, as much as not being able to find any motives.”

“Please. Have you even looked at the body, Lestrade?”

And, yup. There was Sherlock, who apparently lived for jumpscares, arms crossed and standing in front of what was presumably the basement door, tapping his fingers against his arm impatiently. He didn't wait for Lestrade to respond, instead throwing a “hurry up, John” over his shoulder as he swept down the staircase into the depths of the basement.

Lestrade sighed and followed him, John close behind and Conan bringing up the rear in an attempt to be inconspicuous. It didn't really work, because as soon as he saw the corpse his mind froze.

Ayumi?

(In for four, hold for seven, out for eight.)

(In for four hold for seven out for eight.)

(Inforfourholdforsevenoutforeight)

(fourseveneight - )

Suddenly he was next to the body, hands shaking slightly as he checked her pulse, hoping against hope that his luck would maybe give him this one.

Nothing.

(In for four, hold for seven, out for eight.)

But…

Ah.

Her wrist was the wrong size. Too small, too weak. This girl didn't even play soccer, much less do the kind of detective work Ayumi did.

Okay.

Okay.

(In for four, hold for seven, out for eight.)

Ayumi was probably back in Japan (like he should be), and anyway, the girl didn't really look like her much except for some superficial similarities. Short brown hair, pink pyjamas, headband, approximately eight to ten years old...

(She's FINE. She's not even here. Stop worrying about her.)

Lestrade had turned to talk to John, so he just missed the blue child-sized blur that had invaded his crime scene, but Conan wasn't so fortunate with the other member of Scotland Yard in the room.

“What the hell is a kid doing, messing up my crime scene?”

Please. Conan nearly snorted derisively, but stopped himself because, one, he was supposed to be a child and two, he was working on depleting his arrogance levels. Besides, it was obvious to anyone with a pair of eyes that he had avoided stepping anywhere but where the footprints of the other officers (presumably those who found the corpse) were.

He knew how to preserve a crime scene, damn it.

... Probably as well as a good chunk of the police force. Possibly even better, due to the sheer amount of practice he'd had.

(How many murders in the past year? At least a hundred and fifty, and it was only May.)

(Serial killers were the worst.)

The man who had spoken was unremarkable, but not in the way that John Watson was unremarkable - he looked like he was trying hard to be something special but just sort of slipped back into mediocrity. He had short, medium brown hair, styled carefully at one point but ruined by the London wind. His nose was long, and he had squinty eyes, which gave the impression that he was either perpetually irritated or in desperate need of glasses.

(Conan would know.)

His white button down was neatly pressed, peeking out from underneath his standard-issue pale blue, papery-plastic Tyvek suit (which was somewhat novel to Conan, since he generally was there before the investigators arrived and was therefore part of the crime scene - there wasn't really much point in wearing something to prevent contamination). No tie, though, so he was attempting to cultivate an air of indifference to his appearance.

That, or he was emulating Sherlock.

Both indicated an intrinsic regard for what people thought of him as well as a deep need to be perceived as not caring what people thought of the way he looked. He was the sort of person who, if he were so inclined, would take a carefully staged picture and title it “just woke up.”

His watch, on the other hand, said “my wife picked this out for me and I hate it but I can't let her know so I'll just wear it and hope it breaks.”

In short, he seemed like a bit of a twat.

(Also, anyone who referred to a crime scene as 'theirs’ usually had an ego approximately as large as - well, sixteen year old Shinichi’s.)

“Who is that? And where’d he come from?” Lestrade looked like he didn't actually want to know the answer.

Conan ignored him and began examining the body in front of him.

John sighed. “His name is Conan and he appeared on our couch this morning.”

“That's not actually what I meant, but I guess that's good to know. Why is he here? And what on earth possessed you to bring him with you to a murder investigation?!”

Hm. Interesting. The duct tape around her neck and mouth were tied abnormally (it was a little depressing that he actually knew what 'normal’ was for restraining via duct tape) - a bit slapdash, especially around the neck. And - what was that?

John did a strange combination of a wince and a shrug, looking fed up with his life. “I know it sounds terrible, but he snuck into the cab with us and I didn't notice until it was too late to turn back.”

“You - didn't notice ?”

Conan fished a handkerchief from the Ziploc bag in his pocket and used it to cover his hand as he carefully peeled back the duct tape wrapped around her neck and the support beam behind her, which was keeping her body mostly upright.

“In my defense, I did ask him to stay in the flat.”

“Why is no one worried about the child contaminating the crime scene?” Ah. The fake posh git.

The other posh git (the real one who just didn't see the point in abiding by the way society worked) spoke up from where he was studying Conan, standing carefully in the corner to maximize his field of vision. “He isn't, though, is he.”

Conan hid a smirk with his shoulder as he took a pair of tweezers from a different Ziploc bag and carefully picked a thread off of the sticky side of the tape. So Sherlock had noticed - which, to be fair, wasn't all that surprising. It was actually more astonishing that the police hadn't noticed.

...He could see why they relied on Sherlock Holmes.

“Did you even watch him running towards the corpse?” Sherlock continued, hardly pausing for breath. “He only stepped where the footprints of the forensics and officers are - obvious, really, standard issue shoes or one of the two top-selling types for the Yard - and avoided anything that could potentially be evidence. He only touched her wrist with his bare hand, despite his clearly emotional state, and then used a handkerchief for the rest. Not something that's very typical here, but perfectly practical for someone of his nationality - “

“Which is?”

“He’s Japanese, obviously, Anderson. Don't be dull. It's evident from his hands and accent - “

“His accent is American, Sherlock. And they haven't heard him speak yet.”

“John. I'm disappointed in you. Can't you hear the slightest tinge of a Japanese accent? Even without that, I would have expected you to at least pick up on the suffixes - “

Lestrade opened his mouth, but Sherlock cut him off.

“If you would let me finish, detective inspector. I presume you are about to berate us for bringing him on a case. Your concern for the child's mental state is indeed admirable, but misplaced on this occasion. Have you never bothered to read a newspaper from outside the country?”

Lestrade sighed, fed up. “Generally, I don't bother with the newspaper at all. I prefer the internet - why do you - “

“I have to keep up with my Japanese somehow, and they report remarkably frequently on the extraordinary amount of exceptionally inventive murders.”

“Figures,” the forensics guy, presumably Anderson, muttered under his breath.

Sherlock pretended he didn't exist, and Conan understood why. He had a very punchable face. Presumably, he was good at his job, though it was a bit strange to hear him snarking at the consultant they had requested the presence of personally. England was weird.

(The few times he'd actually been called in to figure out a murder in Japan, as opposed to just being in the right place at the wrong time, he'd been treated with respect - if also annoyance because he had been an arrogant teenager.)

(He didn't remember exactly how much of that had been an act, because at least a little bit had been overcompensating when he wasn't quite a hundred percent sure, and a small part of him seemed to recall thinking something about avoiding too many crazy fans? But, honestly, he didn't even know how his old self had thought anymore.)

(It felt longer than a few years.)

“Had you bothered to glance at just about any reputable Japanese newspaper - even a translated one,” Sherlock continued, for all the world as if Anderson didn't exist. “You would notice that approximately eighty percent of the murders in Tokyo, and a reasonable percentage elsewhere, involve one Mouri Kogoro, usually accompanied by this child. The police try to keep him from the media spotlight, but a few rather enterprising photographers have placed him at numerous crime scenes - “

“I thought you didn't know who Sleeping Kogoro is?” John interrupted.

Sherlock sent him a scathing glance. “Please, John. Have you ever known me not to have researched interesting murder occurrences?”

John conceded wordlessly, doing a strange sort of nod combined with half a shrug.

“Regardless, it's clear he has some idea of Japanese forensic procedure - “ Sherlock continued, but Conan stopped paying attention because huh.

He'd put the thread into an empty evidence bag he'd snatched from Anderson's kit while everyone was distracted by Sherlock (who was a decent replacement smokescreen) and had been examining it closely. It was thick and dark green, which was odd considering that the girl was wearing mostly white and pink (like Ayumi).

Something else caught his eye as he glanced back at the body. Something about the tape…

Oh.

He carefully peeled the tape back further (cut with scissors, not ripped - why?), until it was about halfway unwrapped from the victim's neck.

Underneath the tape, there were strangulation marks. They were oddly shaped - thin, irregular, at an atypical angle. Not a rope, but maybe a necklace? No Yoshikawa lines, so the vic hadn't been struggling. She either knew the perpetrator or had been drugged - or was so out of it from the premortem beating that she couldn't react to save her life.

Wait.

The bruising.

He  replaced the tape before examining the victim's face carefully, having mostly avoided it other than a few quick glances up until that point (because she and Ayumi could be siblings - )

Interesting.

There were some obviously postmortem bruises, likely from a baseball bat, but underneath that there appeared to be some premortem ones. They were shaped differently, though - fist-shaped, on the small side. Likely a personal grudge, then. And -

Something else was off about her face. Hm.

Ah - her teeth.

They were too perfect - pearly white, perfectly straight, none missing. Abnormal for a ten-year-old. Her eyebrows, too, were carefully plucked. And - he checked her nails to confirm - yup.

This girl had been a beauty queen.

Suddenly there were a whole lot more suspects.

Sherlock sounded like his rant was winding down (well, not so much a rant as a rapidfire delivery of clear, logical observations with a side helping of derision and condescension), so Conan took his turn to interrupt. “Hey, hey, Sherlock-niichan!”

(The first time they'd met, back when he was Shinichi, he'd called him 'Holmes-san,’ and as he was trying to distance himself from that version of him…)

(It might be too late at this point, since he'd already called him 'Holmes-san' earlier, but hey. No harm in trying. Probably.)

Sherlock made a noncommittal noise that could potentially have been an acknowledgement of his existence, so Conan held up the evidence bag. “Isn't this strange?”

Sherlock glanced at the bag, then snatched it from Conan's hands and brought it closer to his face. His mouth split into a wide grin (that was, frankly, a little creepy). “Intriguing. This case may actually be a seven.”

“Why? What is it?” Lestrade asked as John stepped forward to have a closer look.

“A dark green string,” he reported, turning back to Lestrade.

Lestrade's eyebrows pinched together as he brought his fingers to the bridge of his nose to massage it. It was the look of a man who needed a cup of coffee approximately the size of a kiddie-pool.

Conan sympathized.

“Where did he find it?” Lestrade asked, possibly contemplating an IV drip for caffeine.

“More importantly, are you sure it didn't come off of him? You know, when he contaminated the crime scene ?” The fake posh git again. Conan would have thought that Sherlock had already covered the fact that he clearly knew how to preserve a crime scene.

This time it was John's turn to snort unattractively. When everyone turned to look at him, his only response was: “Really? Even I can see that Conan's not wearing anything remotely close to green, or had anything like that on his clothes. And, also, I'm pretty sure that we established he knows what he's doing at a crime scene. So.”

“And Anderson, of course, is an idiot who doesn't bother observing,” Sherlock chimed in, eyes still glinting gleefully, though he seemed to have gotten his grin under control.

Anderson looked about ready to strangle Sherlock (a feeling that was not unfamiliar to Conan), but since Conan kind of needed Sherlock alive to take up the spotlight so that he could stay in the shadows, he decided magnanimously to answer Lestrade's question. “Didn't you see the tape?”

Well, kind of answer. First, the fake posh git needed some schooling in corpse examination, apparently.

Lestrade gave Anderson A Look when he tried to pretend not to have heard. “Yes, I did. We dusted it for prints and everything.”

Conan stared at him. Did he really - ugh. Nope.

(Originally, he was going to try and draw it out a little, make Anderson come to the right conclusion by nudging him in the right direction, but - nope. He was so done with that. And here, it had just occurred to him, he wasn't expected to pull anyone around by their noses. A fresh start.)

(He could pull off ‘small-child-who-thinks-everyone-is-as-experienced-with-murder-as-he-is,’ especially since his grasp of the English language wasn't quite as good as his Japanese. He was fluent, no doubt, but at about middle school level at his best.)

Conan sighed internally. “Didn't you pull up the tape?”

“No. We can't get fingerprints off the sticky side.”

Uggggghhhhhh. “But isn't that one of the first things you do when you're investigating a victim who was strangled to death?”

Oh. Wait, no. Don't tell him -

They didn't know that?

Shocked faces told him nope, they hadn't realized it yet.

Anderson stepped forward, an ugly flush rising up his neck. “I think I would have noticed that, boy . The duct tape isn't nearly tight enough to have strangled her, and besides - just look at the body!” He gestured grandly in the body's direction.

Conan rolled his eyes internally.

“Yes, how do you know she was strangled?” Lestrade asked far more calmly.

Now, see, Conan could explain how he figured it out (because, honestly, it wasn't that hard to peel back a piece of tape) but he was supposed to, you know, distance himself from Shinichi.

And also he hadn't had enough coffee to deal with a forensic investigator who couldn't be bothered to examine a piece of tape for more than just fingerprints.

(And, honestly, he was just so done with leading people around by their noses until they maybe tripped over something close to what he wanted them to notice. Especially when they got it wrong. That was why he liked Takagi-keiji. He'd built up a rapport with him, so much so that Takagi-keiji trusted him enough to take him at his word despite his age. He barely ever had to deal with the whole “Mouri-ojisan said to do this” or “Mouri-ojisan asked me to ask you if you found this” anymore.

And, also, Takagi-keiji was actually observant, unlike Mouri, and barely needed to be prodded to figure out what Conan wanted him to see.

But here, he didn't have anyone and he was trying to keep a low profile.

Well, as low a profile as someone who was probably cursed with people dropping dead around him every few days.)

So instead of actually explaining anything, he decided to mess with them a little.

“Because she told me,” he said, pointing to the corpse. It wasn't untrue. And it sounded like something a seven year old would say. So, win-win.

“...Sorry, I don't think I caught that?” Lestrade sort-of-asked.

Conan refrained from snickering. Their faces .

“I said she told me.” What was the name - ah, right, the cabinets. “You know, Maria?” He gave them his best wide-eyed kid look, as if he couldn't imagine anyone not understanding what he was saying.

Keeping his eyes on Conan, John leant over and asked out of the corner of his mouth, “Did you tell him her name? Because I don't think you mentioned it to me.”

Lestrade shook his head numbly. “Nope.”

“Anderson?”

“I didn't even know it until just now.”

“Sherlock?” Lestrade asked, after a beat or two of silence, probably just remembering that Sherlock had had some amount of contact with Conan.

Sherlock snorted wordlessly.

Lestrade rolled his eyes. “Right, don't know what I was thinking. If you ever knew it, you've probably deleted it by now.”

Conan realllllllly wanted to face-palm, but refrained. They really needed to look below eye-level more often.

“Huh.” John rebalanced himself, unconsciously slipping into parade rest. Which - wasn't great, because that meant he was probably a little wary of Conan, and wary people scrutinize the object of their wariness.

"Also," Conan added, almost as an afterthought, turning to Anderson. "She says you're a 'fake posh git.' What does that mean?"

Anderson was stunned into silence.

It was a good look on him.

Chapter Text

Conan was honestly a bit disappointed in Scotland Yard. Lestrade seemed to have arrived at the scene only approximately twenty minutes before they had, judging by the state of his shoes, so Conan refrained from judging him too harshly just yet. But Anderson…ugh.

Anderson had clearly been one of the first to be called to the scene, and thus had had nearly two hours to examine the body. And he hadn't bothered to pull back the tape around the victim's neck. Conan had been inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt - maybe he'd been up late last night (the bags under his eyes made it at least plausible), maybe something had happened in his personal life (marital problems were the most likely, according to his watch) - but then he'd been so arrogant , as if it was impossible that he could have missed anything.

And now Conan was inclined to think him incompetent of his position.

John seemed alright, though. At least he wasn't completely dismissing Conan's ideas. Or, you know. His existence.

(He also seemed to be fairly adept at acting, should it be required. As long as he wasn't a plant from the Black Organization, Conan could see him potentially knowing about his...situation sometime in the future.)

(An edited version, of course. Should the occasion arise.)

(Honestly, who would actually believe him if he told them the whole story? He barely believed it, and it was his life.)

Sherlock, on the other hand, was getting a bit annoying, but there was nothing Conan could do about his constant scrutiny without arousing suspicion.

So he went back to doing what he does best.

Catching murderers, solving cases - his everyday life.

He scampered back to the body, pointedly still stepping in the footprints of the adults who'd been there previously, and crouched next to the victim.

He heard Lestrade sigh behind him as John patted him on the back in commiseration, Anderson silently fuming off to the side.

He had a feeling they'd have to get used to it.

...Wait. What was that other noise?

Bzzzzzzzz.

It was -

Ah.

“Hey, hey, Sherlock-niichan. What's this bug?” Conan pointed to one of the few flies that was hovering around the body.

Specific types of bugs could be used to further narrow down the time of death, Conan knew. Forensic entomology was pretty cool, but he didn't have much in the way of experience with it since most of the murders he came across happened right in front of him or had a fairly small window of time in which the murderer could have potentially acted. Sherlock, on the other hand, had at least three full-length academic articles on his website devoted to it.

Best leave this to the professional bug enthusiast.

(Not to mention the fact that it would hopefully draw attention away from him.)

Sherlock's eyes lit up. “How intriguing,” he muttered before turning to call over his shoulder, “Lestrade. What does Anderson think the time of death is?”

Anderson bristled. “What do I think -”

Lestrade cut him off, rubbing at his temples. “We haven't narrowed it down much. I was told we had a time frame from around ten last night until six this morning.”

Sherlock huffed. “ Wrong . Honestly, Anderson. Do your job.”

Conan nodded absently, eyes following the path of the fly rather than looking at Anderson.

It landed on a small object about halfway across the room, which Conan had neglected to examine thoroughly - understandable, really, since he had been more focused on Ayumi the victim.

(First rule of detective work: Make sure the victim is actually dead before focusing on figuring out who murdered them.)

The basement was reasonably spacious, and its dimensions did actually match those of the house, which meant that there was a 99% chance that this wasn't some sort of Kichiemon-style dungeon.

Also, like the rest of the house, it was extremely cluttered. Unlike the rest of the house, it wasn't filled with an excess of bureaus, cupboards, and wardrobes. Instead, it seemed to have been used as a dump site for a toy store or something similar.

(It matched what he imagined Dudley Dursley’s second bedroom would look like, except much bigger.)

(Conan had read books other than Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's, thank you very much.)

Used toys. Everywhere. Usually not in fantastic condition, although there were a few that hadn't even been taken out of the box.

They were fairly generic girl's toys - dolls, model horses, etc - as well as ones that were marketed towards all genders, like Legos and electronics. There was what appeared to be a half built model of Camelot in the back corner, probably about twice as tall as Conan at its zenith, with about a year's worth of dust blanketing it. The most-used - or perhaps ‘least disused’ would be more accurate - toy in the room was a costume chest near the door. It was overfull, fabric spilling over the edges and pooling on the floor. Conan spotted several ball gowns, some leotards, a cowgirl costume, and - were those child-sized army fatigues?

Conan did not understand beauty queens.

Pageant winners and detectives usually ran in very different circles, after all. There usually wasn't much overlap, except for unfortunate cases like this one.

And that one time when Haibara had been mistaken for a child model/actress. But that was a bit of an outlier.

(She'd tried to laugh it off afterwards - well, the Haibara version of laughing something off, which was more like hurling dry sarcasm at anyone who looked the least bit concerned until they went away, along with the situation - but she'd been spooked. She didn't like being recognizable - even in a case of mistaken identity - because it was hard enough to hide from the Black Org without also having to worry about random people on the street trying to kidnap her for looking somewhat similar to a child star.)

Conan had refrained from needling her about looking like someone famous, in a rare show of actually recognizing boundaries.

(Sometimes he kind of forgot that not everyone was so accustomed to the dark side of humanity.)

(It wasn't really his fault, though. Being exposed to a murder or a kidnapping or a suicide every other day changed a person. You either developed a sense of morbid humor, or you sank into The Pit Of Despair.)

(Conan had at first fallen prey to the latter...but he couldn't help people while he was submerged in its depths, couldn't bring murderers to justice, and he didn't really have a choice in stumbling across crime scenes on his way home from school. So he went to a KID heist to try and get a break for a few hours - because for some reason, murder cases rarely seemed to happen around KID. Conan theorized that the criminals could sense a larger predator soaring overhead on a white glider and refrained from committing crimes out of fear of either the massive presence of the police or what KID would do if he caught them. Unfortunately, that didn't seem to deter the Black Org or the people taking potshots at KID.)

(Conan was working on that. It was the least he could do for any human being, but especially for KID after he'd helped him to pull himself out of The Pit Of Despair.)

(Conan had left the heist with the ghost of a smile on his face, and Ran had nearly collapsed from relief when she saw it. He hadn't realized how much the way he'd been acting was weighing down the atmosphere around him. He'd grimaced internally and made a promise to himself, that he would try and be more wary of that in the future.)

(Ran had still made him go to a trauma psychologist afterwards, which was honestly too late to make much of a difference. The kids' parents had dragged them to therapy after the first or second case, but Ran had waited until he actually started to act differently to make an appointment - which had had to be postponed when, surprise surprise, they'd run into another case on the way there. And, anyway, it wasn't as if he could say much to the psychologist. 'Oh, I'm actually ten years older than I look and there's a massive criminal organization trying to kill me, not to mention all the people with grudges against me because I put them in jail. And, you know, as if that wasn't enough, I appear to have been cursed to find and solve murders with increasing frequency. I come across one every couple days, now. Oh yeah, and you know Sleeping Kogoro? And Deduction Queen Suzuki Sonoko? Yeah, both of them are actually me.' He'd be thrown in an asylum faster than KID could steal a jewel.

And then the incident had occurred...

Yeah, it had been...an experience, for both him and the psychologist.

Long story short, he had a clean bill of mental health. Even though he probably shouldn’t.)

Conan shook his head, a slight twitch to try and clear it, then went back to casing the room. Other than the dust-covered toys strewn across the floor of the basement, there really wasn't much. A small hot water heater took up the far corner, along with a small shelf packed with tools and other miscellaneous bits and bobs.

He absently wondered what was in the cupboards upstairs if all of this stuff was filling up the basement.

Honestly, they could probably hide a body anywhere in the house and the police would find it MAYBE within a year - because of the smell, though, not because they actually came across it in their search.

Conan tuned back into the conversation just in time for Sherlock to finish up his rant with, "...and that is why Anderson is an incompetent buffoon. Though, really, you shouldn't need my explanation to understand that."

Lestrade sighed. "Thanks for that, Sherlock. What was that about the time of death?" He held up a hand to stave off Anderson's protests before they could start.

(His face looked redder than Conan's sneakers - which was saying something, because he'd just got a brand new pair from Agasa-hakase last week.)

(Assuming he hadn't lost any time in the intervening period between when he'd fallen asleep in Japan and when he'd woken up on Sherlock Holmes' couch.)

Sherlock sniffed. "The time of death can be further narrowed to somewhere between midnight and two in the morning if Anderson actually knew anything - "

John cleared his throat quietly, but pointedly.

Sherlock rolled his eyes but with hardly a pause continued with, " - about forensic entomology."

John rolled his eyes, but nodded slightly. Apparently this was acceptable.

...Or he knew how to choose his battles.

Conan covered his desire to laugh - because this was hysterical - by covering his mouth with his fist and coughing quietly. Unfortunately, that had Sherlock's head swiveling around like an owl so he could set his laser-sights on Conan. Fun, fun. He really needed to work on his impulse control. Some self preservation skills likely wouldn’t go amiss, either.

"Sorry, I breathed in some dust." This seemed to satisfy everyone except, predictably, Sherlock.

Actually, Lestrade seemed to be watching him out of the corner of his eye, too. Conan couldn't really tell if it was because he was a kid at a murder scene and Lestrade was trying to make sure that he didn't traumatize himself (been there, done that, got the bow tie) or if it was because he was actually suspicious of him.

Well. He'd find that out eventually. Probably sooner rather than later, going by his track record.

His first gut-reaction was to do the most childish thing he could think of, which was to start chasing the flies buzzing around the room. But he realized that that was actually the action of a kid younger than he was pretending to be. And, anyway, it would look strange for a kid chasing a fly to categorically avoid stepping anywhere but where an officer had already.

(The psychologist had actually been quite helpful after the incident in her office. Understandably freaked out, granted, but she had given him some useful advice.)

Also, he was in a new location. The people around him didn't know much about his personality other than what he'd shown them and what had been in the newspaper - which, honestly, hadn't been much. Laws about publicizing information about children were very helpful in his situation. According to Haibara, who had mostly managed to avoid the media, the only information about Conan available to the public was his photo, his name, a rough approximation of his age, that he was somehow connected to Mouri Kogoro, that he was smart, that he sometimes chased KID, sometimes helped solve crimes with the Detective Boys, and that he liked soccer.

So, as long as he stuck to those character-defining traits (which, honestly, wouldn't be that difficult), he could stop doing the thing where immediately after he did something atypical of a seven-year-old he did something more typical of a four- or five-year-old.

(The psychologist had told him what that signaled to an adult, and he wanted to avoid the increased scrutiny that would bring down upon him as much as possible.)

Instead, he wandered over to the least dusty object in the room, the costume chest, to examine it more closely. Something was pinging what KID had once called his 'murder sense,' which was presumably a play on 'spider sense.' The Detective Boys preferred 'cluedar.'

(KID, of course, couldn't make it easy on him. He'd said the phrase in a foreign language that wasn't English, so all Conan'd had to go on was the phonetic sound of the words. He'd later figured out that it was French, after trying at least a dozen other languages. Then he'd had to figure out an approximate spelling, because French spellings were absurd and mostly about aesthetics without regard for pronunciation. 'Ton sens d'homicide volontaire picote, jeune détective' had sounds that weren't found in either of the two languages he was reasonably familiar with. And, as if that weren't enough, it was pronounced completely counterintuitively.)

(By the time Conan had figured out what KID had said, he was semi-fluent and had a love-hate relationship with the language.)

(Which wasn't unlike his relationship with KID himself.)

(He needed a whole bucketful of coffee before he was even touching that with a ten-foot pole.)

There was nothing immediately suspicious about the chest at first glance. It had likely come from a yard sale, much like the cupboards upstairs. It was gigantic and ornate - as in, Conan and the rest of the Detective Boys could probably fit in it and still have room to spare. This girl had clearly been doing pageants for a while.

The chest had been opened recently, and seemed to be used on a somewhat regular basis. Probably just for dress-up or rehearsals, though, because just about the only thing Conan knew about pageants was that wearing the same dress or costume for more than one event just wasn’t done.

(Haibara sometimes watched them when she was alone and needed a break from science. She got scary when she was invested. One time, Conan had walked into Agasa-hakase's to find a child-sized shoe lodged firmly into the shattered screen of the television. When asked about it, Haibara had taken a sip of tea and then said calmly, "They shouldn't have eliminated Tsu-chan.”

Conan had backed away slowly, valuing his life.)

The dresses in the chest probably weren’t the only ones in the house. In fact, Conan would put money on - if Mouri hadn’t thoroughly dissuaded him from it - at least three of the larger closets upstairs being stuffed with more impractical garments, probably newer than the ones in the chest. Still, there was something about the chest that was niggling at him...

He checked the top of the chest for footprints and dust disturbances. Finding nothing obviously out of the ordinary, he carefully climbed on top of it -

Ah.

That’s what it was.

There was a small window a few feet above him. Conan could probably fit through it with no trouble if he could actually reach it.

He hopped down to the floor, turning to look at the chest in consideration.

Someone a few feet taller than him wouldn’t have any problem at all standing on top of it and reaching the window.

However…

They would have to have similar dimensions otherwise. So unless the culprit was thinner than Sherlock (which was highly unlikely), there wasn’t any way that they had escaped out the window.

(But combined with the thread - hm.)

It was far more likely that they had just hidden in the maze of cabinets upstairs until the police went into the basement or started searching a different room or something and then slipped out the front door…

Wait.

London had CCTV cameras, didn’t it?

Conan would normally assume that the police had already checked the tapes, but then he’d met Anderson. So.

“Lestrade-keibu,” he assumed, given the way that Anderson deferred to him - wait, not an assumption; Sherlock had called him ‘Detective Inspector.’ Where was his coffee when he needed it, ugh. “Was there anything on the cameras outside?” He wasn’t even going to try and pronounce ‘CCTV’ in English. It was death for anyone with even a slight Japanese accent; no one would understand him if he asked about the ‘shi shi chi bui’ cameras.

Lestrade jumped slightly at being addressed by a small child about a murder investigation (understandable), but rallied quickly. “Right, yeah, we checked it, but there wasn’t anything on it. We could only see the front door, but no one other than the party guests left through it. There isn’t a back door, and none of the ground floor windows open. And that window,” he nodded to the one above Conan’s head, “is too small for any of the party guests to get through.”

Good. There was still hope for him yet.

“So the party guests were all adults?” Conan asked.

Lestrade shrugged, frowning. “There wasn’t exactly a guest list, but that’s what Mr. and Mrs. Reynolds said. There were only about ten people in attendance, so they probably would have noticed a kid running around.”

Well.

Conan wouldn’t count on that.

He cleared his throat. “Um, did you already question them? And where are Mr. and Mrs. Reynolds?”

Ugh. That name was also hard to pronounce.

Especially compared to ‘Maria.’

Oh, wait, duh. Not reinorudozu , but reinorudzu . Much easier. Why hadn’t he thought of that sooner.

Coffee, wherefore art thou not in hand?

“They’re all down at the station right now, along with the immediate neighbors, giving their statements. The Reynolds will be back in...hm, probably about an hour. Did you have something you wanted to ask?” Lestrade questioned, reaching subconsciously towards the pocket of his jacket - presumably where his smart phone was.

Wow, Lestrade was actually making an effort to look him straight in the eyes instead of in the nebulous space above his head like most adults did. Points for that. And he was already going along with what a seven-year-old was saying, albeit a seven-year-old who clearly had some experience in his department.

Excellent.

It seemed he was tending more towards being like the FBI than like the Japanese Police Force.

(Well. Most of them, anyway. The FBI apparently didn’t care what he looked like as long as he was effective and most of them took orders really well, despite them coming from a six-year-old. The TMPD, on the other hand, didn’t want anyone who wasn’t already involved in the case on the scene. It didn’t matter how effective you were; they didn’t want you there until they asked for you or you had proven yourself. Which was fair, the first few times, but after the hundredth or so case that he had clearly helped solve, it got a bit tiresome because they should be able to see by now that it was clear he knew what he was doing - )

(In for four, hold for seven, out for eight - )

(Damn it, he didn’t have time for this, not with a murderer to catch.)

Conan beamed brightly in Lestrade’s general direction. “I wanna meet them! They sound nice!”

Well. What he really wanted to do was see how they reacted to him, and he couldn’t exactly observe their body language or micro-expressions over a phone line. Unless Lestrade was offering to video call one of his employees at the station, but that was pretty unlikely. He’d only just met Conan twenty minutes ago, and despite having a surprisingly open mind, Conan still looked about six. What kind of responsible adult would consciously allow a tiny child to chat face-to-face with a potential murder?

(The Japanese Police Department, apparently. And the FBI. Huh, maybe common sense wasn’t as common as he thought.)

(That was a little depressing.)  

“You’re seriously considering letting a child meet the suspects? The potential murderers ?” Ah, the fake posh git had finally found his voice again. And this time he seemed to be the only one with a modicum of sense. Huh. Maybe Conan had been letting some of his bitterness color his opinion of him.

Nah. Anderson was still a fake posh git. Just having some sense of child endangerment laws didn’t automatically mean that he wasn’t generally incompetent.

(It seemed that everyone else was too used to Sherlock to notice what an oddity Conan was.)

(Which was good for him, at least. It would probably make things easier in the long run.)

(He didn’t have Mouri to hide behind this time, and he would be a fool to think that Sherlock wouldn’t see right through him if he tried that here.)

(He had considered using John the way he had used Mouri for a whole half second before realizing that that was potentially even more stupid than trying to use Sherlock as a smoke screen. And, besides, given the fact that he ate in Sherlock’s presence, he was probably immune or at least resistant to Conan’s sleeping darts. And possibly most poisons.)

(Really, he should probably refrain from using deduction conduits as mush as possible, at least in front of Sherlock.)

Lestrade blinked, visibly reconsidering what he’d been about to do. His eyes widened slightly as he realized, yes, he had just been thinking about aiding a seven-year-old in making contact with people who were suspected of possibly killing a girl only a few years older than him.

Sherlock waved a hand dismissively, drawing most of the attention of the people in the room to him. Anderson looked vaguely terrified that he’d lost track of him for a few minutes. “Resist the urge to have a conniption, if you would, Detective Inspector. They tend to be dreadfully boring, especially in situations where they serve no purpose.”

“Sherlock,” John said quietly.

Which was something of a mistake, as it turned out, since it caused Sherlock to whirl around, eyes flashing. “What , John,” he practically spat out. “It’s not my fault that the police force is entirely comprised of idiots who can’t believe that someone younger than them could possibly have a halfway decent idea!”

Wow, that was a big compliment coming from Sherlock Holmes.

Conan was touched.

Really.

“And, in any case,” Sherlock continued, “I’ve already explained this. And you know how much I hate repeating myself. This boy - ” He gestured grandly in Conan’s general direction, who flinched slightly as everyone in the room scrutinized him briefly and intensely. “ - has likely seen more murders than everyone in this room combined, and spoken to far more suspects than you could possibly imagine, even collectively. In fact, he has interacted with more murderers than you ever will, even if one only takes into account the cases in which his presence is recorded. Extrapolating from solely those that were publicized, and assuming that Mouri Kogoro doesn’t leave him alone at home because he isn’t completely incompetent at taking care of a child, the boy has been implicated in the capture of over a hundred criminals in the past year, approximately eighty-seven percent of which were murders - "

Conan found it amusing that Sherlock was refusing to call him ‘Sleeping Kogoro.’ It could potentially be an issue later, since it seemed to imply that he didn’t believe in a narcoleptic deduction savant.

(Fair, honestly. He had a feeling the police only put up with the logical inconsistencies and just went with it only because he was usually right. And, you know. Mouri used to be a police officer, so there was that bond of camaraderie.

But there was still a lot of handwave-y stuff going on, which Conan mostly pretended didn’t exist because it helped his cover. Don’t bite the hand that feeds you, and all that.)

(Committing identity fraud was a fun time all around, really.)

Conan blocked out Sherlock and instead scanned the room. He was still missing something …

He had a feeling it was going to be something important.

He glanced around the chest one more time, this time taking the time to actually look around inside. Nothing particularly interesting, although none of the clothes in there (and, really, how many princess-y ball gowns did one pageant girl need?) seemed to match the thread he’d removed from the body.

Speaking of which…

He moved quickly back over to the corpse, doing his best to escape notice - which must have been actually pretty okay, since the other four were still focused on Sherlock.

Conan considered the area around the body. The only footprints were from the police force, or were covered up by them - they’d probably done exactly what he’d done when he’d first seen the body, checking to see if she was actually dead.

Well. They probably thought more along the lines of ‘is she still alive and should we call an ambulance?’, but Conan was pretty jaded. He was blaming that on the lack of coffee in his system.

(His blood should be at least half caffeine at all times.)

(Yes, he was aware that blood didn’t work that way - shut up, Hattori.)

Anyway. Nothing noteworthy in the immediate vicinity of the body. He’d already been through there, so it wasn’t too much of a surprise.

On the body itself, maybe?

The angle of the tape was strange, but that was to cover up the strangulation marks. Though…the marks themselves were a bit odd. He’d already noted their shape earlier - thin, likely a necklace or something similar since there was a faint pattern in the bruising that didn’t look like fishing line or piano wire - as well as their angle - tilting upward, which implicated an adult. However, most, if not all, of the suspects Scotland Yard was questioning were adults, which meant that that particular observation was moot.

He knew all of that, so what was pinging his murder senses?

Nothing under the body’s nails, nothing caught in her hair, nothing strange about the creases in her clothing, no atypical marks around her...

What was it?

He glanced up to check on the adults, who were still listening somewhat reluctantly to Sherlock’s rant. John seemed resigned at this point, just sort of waiting him to run out of steam. That wasn’t to say that he wasn’t listening, but Sherlock did have a tendency to be a bit long-winded on subjects he was passionate about (which apparently included Conan and children at crime scenes). Lestrade was actually paying attention, eyes narrowed in thought. Either he had figured out that Sherlock was projecting a bit, or he was actually interested in what he was saying - which might be an issue, but Conan was going to wait and see which it was. Anderson’s attention was somewhat surprisingly firmly fixed on Sherlock, glaring at him with the rage of a man whose ego had just been irreparably damaged. Sherlock didn’t notice. Or, if he did, he didn’t care enough to show it.

In any case, they were all sufficiently distracted. He was free to investigate as much as he pleased, and he was probably okay to use some of his more innovative techniques. Although…those were actually a pretty easy way to identify him, so he decided to refrain.

He surveyed the room, fists unconsciously clenching in his pockets. He was still missing something , but it just wasn’t coming to him the way it usually did. Though, to be fair, he was usually nearby while the crime was happening, so the crime scene was hardly disturbed when he arrived. The suspects were also usually in the same vicinity, so he could question and observe them.

It was novel, being called in for a murder that had already happened.

Conan tipped his head back to look at the ceiling, because that was just about the only place he hadn’t scoured for clues. Minor water damage, and some mold they should probably get checked out, but nothing else…

He sighed, glancing towards the door. Nope, still nothing...

But - in the corner, there.

That’s what he was missing.

Before he realized it, he was on the other side of the room, crouched on the ground and peering down at a toy. Which normally wouldn’t be particularly remarkable, given the rest of the decor, if it weren’t for the wear pattern.

Conan picked up the small toy knight from the floor, covering his hand with his handkerchief. It wasn’t completely out of place, what with the half-finished castle close by, but this was what had been bothering him.

The knight was small and worn, but well-cared for. It was like… If the rest of the toys in the room belonged to Genta, this one belonged to Mitsuhiko. Genta was somewhat careless with his possessions, but he did at least try to care of them when he remembered. Mitsuhiko was the opposite; he tended to take care of his possessions as well as he could, but despite his meticulous nature would occasionally be careless. There wasn’t a whole lot of difference between the states of their toys, but Conan had been around them long enough (and been forced into enough games with Kamen Yaiba action figures) to have catalogued the contrast out of sheer boredom.

Well. This was interesting.

He placed the knight carefully in an evidence bag and set it by Anderson’s kit. Hopefully he’d notice it and put it with the rest of them, although Conan wouldn’t count on it… There was a better chance of it getting catalogued if Anderson thought it had been forgotten by one of the officers or something, rather than Conan.

He turned back towards the adults, making sure that their attention was still sucked into the black hole that was Sherlock Holmes. Yup.

He checked his watch, looking at the time. Hm. Another twenty minutes until Lestrade had said the Reynolds would be back. A sudden shift in the room’s mood made him glance back up suddenly.

...Why were they all staring at him like that? (Well, minus Sherlock, of course. He was still apparently...either making a case for young children to be able to speak with murder suspects or reciting Conan’s appearances in the news. It was a little hard to tell.)

They must have interpreted his thousand yard stare as confusion somehow, because Lestrade repeated what had presumably provoked their scrutiny. “He just said you chased a thief on a blimp that was later hijacked by bio-terrorists. He’s exaggerating, right?”

There was dead silence for a beat, even Sherlock pausing to hear his response.

“That was so weird. Who fakes bio-terrorism?” Conan scoffed, forgetting himself for a minute.

Lestrade looked like someone had cracked an egg over his head. “Sorry, they faked bio-terrorism ?”

Conan shrugged. “Yeah. They used the blimp to evacuate Nara and then they tried to steal some Buddhas from the temples while no one was there to stop them. KID, Heiji-niichan, and I figured it out while occhan was stuck on the airship.”

“Kid? There was another kid on board?” John asked, evidently worried. Conan wondered why. It wasn’t as if they had known the ship was going to be hijacked. For all they had known, it would have been a perfectly safe heist.

Lestrade and Sherlock looked at him, both eager to know the answer but clearly for different reasons. Sherlock’s expression was full of barely restrained curiosity, while Lestrade crossed his arms and tilted forward slightly, brow creased. Anderson watched with a morbid interest.

Conan made a complicated face. “Those are two different questions. Yes, there were three other kids my age on board, but I was talking about KID, the thief. You know, Kaitou - sorry, Phantom Thief - 1412? That’s what Interpol calls him.”

...Evidently that was not the answer they were looking for.

“Interpol?!” Anderson - well, ‘yelped’ was really the only word for it.

John closed his eyes, tipping his head back towards the ceiling.

Lestrade just blinked tiredly. “An internationally wanted thief helped you stop a bio-terrorism attack. And you trusted him enough to work with him.”

It barely sounded like a question, but Conan shrugged anyway. “Fake bio-terrorism, but yeah. He’s non-violent - as in, he will actively try to make sure that people don't get hurt at his heists, except for that one time with the Van Gogh paintings and the bombs, but that wasn't actually him - and he always returns everything he steals. Besides, he’d just saved me from falling to my death after the fake bio-terrorists threw me out of the blimp, so.”

There was stunned silence from everyone in the room.

Hm.

Apparently that hadn’t been in whatever article Sherlock had read about the case.

Chapter Text

Kaito had already been having a bad day, what with having to go to school after an all-night planning session in addition to Tantei-kun’s somewhat alarming behavior at the last heist, and then his phone had blipped.

He tensed, the teacher’s voice fading away as the sound of blood rushing through his ears grew loud enough to drown her out.

His phone making any sound was slightly worrying, given that he had it on silent for anything other than emergencies while he was in class, but that sound in particular - five short notes (C#3, C#4, C4, B3, C4 - he didn’t have perfect pitch, but he’d memorized that sequence), then a longer F sharp above middle C…

It sounded terrible, but so did most musical codes.

The F# was the sound for his tracker notifications - he was in the process of testing a new version, designed by him and Jii-chan, that would hopefully last longer and be more accurate than the commercial ones he was currently using for heists. They’d come up with the idea and the blueprints, and then Jii-chan had spirited them away to his friend, who apparently was better than him at actually building things. He’d muttered something under his breath that had sounded suspiciously like ‘well, as long as they don’t explode’ as he was leaving, but Kaito had elected to ignore that. After all, what was a good experiment without an explosion or two?

(Regardless of the fact that there wasn’t any conceivable way for any of the components of the tracker to become anything close to remotely explosive, combined or otherwise. Jii-chan had sounded pretty resigned, though, so…

Maybe that guy was as much a prodigy at making things explode as Tantei-kun was at finding corpses.

Wow, wasn’t that a morbid thought.)

The shorter notes were specifiers, denoting which of his test subjects the notification was about. Currently, he had six…’formal’ participants - three had the old trackers, and three had the new prototypes. Four of his subjects were doves (his own, obviously, who were trained to fly in specific patterns once every few hours, among other things). The other two, on the other hand, were humans - Nakamori-keibu and Hakuba. They had fairly consistent schedules, but would occasionally be interrupted by some crime or another that would send them to a different part of town.

His seventh, unofficial participant was Tantei-kun, because during his last heist he’d been...strange. He’d gone through the motions, sure, chasing after KID, avoiding traps, figuring out his disguise, but he’d seemed - resigned. Distant. Depressed, almost.

(Kaito might have improvised slightly a couple of times that night, in order to spark the glint that was usually present in Tantei-kun’s eyes, but aside from a flash of it every once in a while, it refused to light.

He was concerned , okay? It wasn’t like Tantei-kun at all to be completely uninspired by the thrill of the chase.)

Kaito had had the first prototype for the new tracker with him at the time, just in case he could get close enough to Snake to safely attach it to his hat or something, but there had been no sign of any guns that night, other than his (which only shot cards, anyway, and wasn’t really enough to be lethal unless he actively aimed to kill, and that was just - no. ). It was fortuitous, and honestly a bit of a relief, because that meant that he’d had plenty of time to confront Tantei-kun about his...mood, while the Task Force had been trapped downstairs in a massive glitter-super-glue concoction of his own recipe that would require a mixture of shampoo, vinegar, and egg whites to dissolve completely. They would likely be there for a while before someone found the note he’d left in place of the gem explaining how to remove themselves.

He wasn’t cruel enough to make them figure it out on their own, no matter what Hakuba said otherwise . Besides, it wasn’t as if he couldn’t change the composition for the next heist enough to make that particular counter-recipe completely useless.

(Tantei-kun was more important.)

So, once he’d made it to the roof, he had scanned the surrounding buildings for snipers (because this was his life now, apparently). Finding nothing - because, lucky him, Jirokichi had decided on a building that was simultaneously the tallest building in the area and separated enough from the surrounding ones that it would be practically impossible for snipers to do their jobs - he had cocked his head and listened for the sound of helicopter blades. Nothing, not even police choppers.

(It was a distinct possibility that he had prayed to Lady Luck on the way up.)

(On his way back home that night, he had stopped at a temple and left her a BIG offering, because not only had she allowed him to escape without having to dodge bullets, she had also allowed him enough time to talk Tantei-kun down. If he hadn’t…

...Well, he didn’t want to dwell on that to deeply.)

So he’d settled himself on wall at the edge of the roof, which was presumably there to keep people from tumbling to their deaths (ha, he laughed at the concept of gravity), with his back to the moon as much as was possible while still facing the door.

He was dramatic. So sue him.

He didn’t have long to wait before Tantei-kun had opened the entrance to the roof - not bursting through like he usually did, instead doing it rather sedately despite having apparently run up the stairs. The only sign of the utter carnage downstairs had been a slight shimmer of glitter on his left sleeve.

(KID had been impressed despite himself, because he had definitely aimed directly at Tantei-kun at least twice. He had known Tantei-kun was good, but he hadn't known he was that good.)

“Tantei-kun,” he had greeted.

“Oh. KID.” Tantei-kun had sounded faintly surprised, as if he hadn’t quite expected him to still be there. He hadn’t reached for his watch, though, even though KID had known for a fact that he hadn’t used his sleeping dart that day.

Even if he hadn’t noticed his subdued behavior beforehand, that would have clued him in.

Something was really wrong with Conan.

Conan had surveyed the roof and surrounding area quickly but carefully (not unlike KID had just done, which was fairly concerning) before he had taken a few steps towards him. He had stopped about halfway across the narrow roof, shoulders tensed minutely now that he didn’t have anything to his back (which was also worrying.). “...why are you still here?” he had asked frankly, cautiously.

KID had lifted one shoulder languidly. “My...more enthusiastic fans have neglected to make an appearance tonight. I’m heartbroken, really,” he had added, leaning forward slightly so that his monocle glinted in the moonlight. “...but that does allow me to make time for a certain detective who seems uncharacteristically un enthusiastic.”

Conan had sighed, taken a few more steps forward, then had apparently decided that walking two more steps would be too much effort and allowed his legs to collapse underneath him.

KID had, naturally, leapt off the wall and before Conan could blink had caught him and set him gently on the floor. (He could have sprained an ankle or something, okay. Nobody gets hurt .) He had sat down next to him, facing where he had been perched only moments before.

Conan had smirked wordlessly - only slightly, but it was something - as if something had gone according to plan.

(Kaito had later realized that Conan had wanted to get him off of the ledge and out of sight of anything and anyone not at the same height or immediately above them, which was a good survival technique if you were being sniped at occasionally. Really, how paranoid was this kid? And how much of it was actually justified, since it was clear from what he had been privately calling ‘the private eyes’ requiem’ that at least some of it was?)

The silence had stretched on for a time, companionable but as if it had been holding its breath, waiting for a knife teetering on the edge to drop.

It had been clear that Conan wasn’t going to say anything unless he was prodded, so KID had said lightly, “I have all night, Conan-kun.”

He hadn’t, really, but Conan had seemed to appreciate the sentiment even as his mouth had twitched ever-so-slightly downwards - at the sound of his name? If Kaito hadn’t been watching Conan carefully, he would have missed it.

Conan had let out a breath, shoulders slumping as he had pulled his knees up to his chest and rested his head on his arms on top of them. “Could you please not call me that?” he had muttered under his breath, barely making a sound and muffling what managed to struggle out of his mouth with his sleeves.

Kaito probably hadn’t been supposed to hear it, but he had nodded slightly. He’d thought...well. It hadn’t mattered then, and it didn’t matter now. “What would you prefer? Tantei-kun?” A thought occurred to him. “Tantei-chan?”

Conan had shaken his head, almost violently.

That was a no, then.

“Meitantei-kun?” Honestly, Kaito had been thinking about updating his title for a while. The kid was scary-good at deducting...anything, really. It was probably pure luck that he hadn’t figured out who KID really was yet.

Conan had shrugged, still mostly displeased, but had seemed to accept the appellation. “I can’t tell you what I’d like to be called, so I suppose that will have to do. Just. Please not Conan. For a while.”

That had been...extremely concerning, to be frank.

“Meitantei, then,” Kaito had decided, producing a rose with a small flourish and setting it next to Conan’s shoe. He hadn’t missed that Conan had relaxed a little more at the sound of his new title.

Don’t treat him like a child. Treat him as an equal. Got it.

(Even though he mostly did that already.)

“In that case, I still have all night, Meitantei.”

Conan had scoffed slightly. “You have nowhere else to be?” he had asked, tired but with a hint of what might have at some point been amusement.

Kaito had shrugged languidly, keeping his eyes on Conan. “Nowhere important.”

This had been what had caused Conan to make eye contact, lifting his head slightly out of the cradle of his arms. He had looked almost surprised.

It had taken a moment, but, “...why?” Conan had finally replied.

Kaito hadn’t needed any time to consider his response: “You’re one of my detectives,” he had said simply. “And this is my heist. No one gets hurt . No one leaves hurting if I can help it, regardless of their state upon entrance. In your case, Meitantei, I believe I might be of some help.”

Conan had stared at him. “...That’s simplistic,” he had said after a few beats of silence. “And not practically feasible. Just because I’m at a heist, that means you have to fix me?”

Kaito had thought that’d been an interesting choice of words. Fix me, huh?

“No,” he had replied frankly. “It’s not because you’re present at my heist. It’s because you’re one of my detectives. I’m a tad possessive of you all, you know.”

“Of people, rather than gems?”

“What can I say? People are more interesting than a chunk of rock whose molecules have managed to arrange themselves in an aesthetically-pleasing way.”

Conan had blinked, expression faintly nonplussed. “That’s an interesting way for a thief to look at an emerald.”

Kaito had shrugged, tossing said emerald in the air a few times - it would have been tacky to not acknowledge such a blunt statement - so that he could check the moonlight reflecting through it. Not Pandora, then. Shame. “I don’t usually keep my prizes, though.”

He had flipped the gem in Conan’s direction, absurdly pleased when he had managed to make it land on Conan’s folded arms.

Ah. There was the shrewd glint in his eyes.

Conan had studied the jewel for a long moment, then flicked his piercing gaze back to Kaito. “...You’re looking for something, aren’t you. Something you won’t give back.”

Kaito had shrugged easily. “ If I find what I’m looking for, it'll be better off destroyed.”

Apparently, it was still possible for a criminal to surprise Conan, since that seemed to have thrown him for a loop. “...destroyed? So the snipers...they’re after it, too.”

Somehow, Kaito hadn’t even been surprised to realize that Conan had noticed the snipers. The task force hadn’t, yet, but honestly Conan was better - due to an unfortunate amount of practice, most likely. “They’re after me,” he had corrected, seeing no point in lying. He...trusted Conan, which was novel. And besides, who would believe a six-year-old if he did tell anyone, anyway? “They think that I already have it and I’ve hidden it somewhere.”

A sharp intake of breath had meant that Conan had recognized the offering of trust. “...why are they shooting at you if they think you’re the only one who knows where it’s hidden?”

A fair question. Kaito hadn’t really expected the conversation to go in this direction, but. Well. In for a penny. “They seem to think it makes me immortal,” he replied lightly.

He had seen Conan’s nose scrunch up in confusion, and had absently commended his self-dye job. It really did look natural, although he wasn’t quite sure why Conan was dyeing his hair this young - though, if ‘Conan’ wasn’t his name, it was entirely possible he was in witness protection or something similar. “...then why would you continue to steal, if they think you have the - whatever it is.”

“I’m not entirely sure what it is, either, other than a big jewel - a doublet, more specifically. And I think they think that I’m trying to make them think that I don’t have it.”

“Ah.”

“Yes, well. Better them shooting at me than at someone who isn’t highly skilled at the art of evasion.”

Conan had inclined his head slightly, agreeing reluctantly. It wasn’t as if he could argue that point, given that the majority of his ‘plans’ (the ones Kaito had been privy to, anyway) involved insurmountable risk to Conan’s person, often by painting a giant target on his back.

The silence had stretched on, almost immeasurable, before Conan broke it with an abrupt, “I’ve seen a little over a hundred murders this year.”

Kaito had blinked, nonplussed. “...It’s barely even March.”

Conan had groaned, curling into himself slightly. “ I know .”

“...Are you cursed?”

“Right?! This doesn’t happen to anyone else I know - not even the other high school detectives.” Kaito had carefully schooled his expression into a Poker Face, because he wasn’t entirely sure how to process that slip, but Conan had continued as if he hadn’t noticed. “I’m just...everywhere I go, someone dies, I - um, I help Occhan solve the case, then we go somewhere else and, whoops, someone else is dead! The only place that doesn’t happen is at heists, and you only send a notice once or twice a month, so it isn’t very practical to rely on this - “ he had gestured vaguely to all of Kaito and a good chunk of the building, “ - for a break.”

“Not that I don’t appreciate the compliment, but...that’s a lot of murder, Meitantei.” Kaito had said carefully.

Conan had deflated abruptly. “I know. It’s preternatural. And most of them are disguised as something else - you know how murders are usually made to look like an accident or suicide?” Kaito had not, because he hadn’t ever really contemplated the mechanics of getting away with murder; he knew his father’s had been badly covered up, but didn’t think that was normal , though he guessed it kind of made sense if you didn’t want to get caught. “Well, I’ve had to sol - had to help Occhan solve a case where the victim had committed suicide but made it look like a murder to get revenge. My parents have kidnapped me a few times. And I’ve had bodies literally fall out of the sky whenever I’m around Hattori. There’ve been a couple of times when they tried to make it look like a spirit or demon or curse or something was at fault. Oh, and there was that one case where the culprit used someone else’s CORPSE to fake being a vampire - “

Well. And here he had thought that having a class witch was unusual.

Seriously, he had meant it as a joke before, but he was actually going to have to ask Akako if ‘being cursed to have an interesting life involving murders’ was an veritable thing because wow.

“I suppose...better someone who can uncover the truth than someone who can’t. It is a heavy burden to put on one person, though. Does staying at home prevent it at all?”

Conan had snorted. “No. One of the Detective Boys usually calls with a case, whether they realize it or not. Or Occhan will drag me somewhere and, poof, someone’s dead.”

“And here I thought my life was crazy,” Kaito had muttered under his breath.

That had drawn a soft laugh from Conan. Mission accomplished. “If you’re the one saying it…”

Kaito had shrugged philosophically. “I think you’ve seen so much bad in the world that you’ve forgotten that good people do exist, even if you personally don’t run into them very often. Nakamori-keibu, for example. He’s a good man - single father, tries to spend as much time as he can with his daughter, even chaperones school field trips when he can get the time off. Tantei-san - Hakuba, that is - has a tendency to jump to conclusions sometimes, but he’s generally nice enough, if a tad arrogant. Ask him for help, and he will move mountains if he trusts you. Your Takagi-keiji, Chiba-keiji, Satou-keiji, Megure-keibu, Mouri-neechan...they’re all good people. I think you might have stopped thinking about that since it seems that every new person you meet almost immediately becomes a murder suspect.”

Conan had seemed to ponder that for a long moment, resting his chin on his knees so he could stare at the moon through the emerald, brow furrowed in thought. “...you may be right,” he conceded.

Then he had laughed again, self-deprecating but a little louder than the first time. “What has my life come to? I’m taking advice from a criminal I just chased to the rooftop instead of arresting him.”

“Excuse you,” Kaito had said, mock-affronted. “Outside of my night job, I am perfectly law-abiding. Some people even call me a model citizen.”

“Somehow, I doubt that.” But the corner of his mouth had twitched up into a smirk, so Kaito had counted that as a win. Then Conan’s eyes had narrowed as he cocked his head towards the stairs behind them. “Someone’s coming.”

Kaito had hummed noncommittally, leaning back on his hands but decidedly not standing up. “Hakuba, I think, judging by how angry the footsteps sound.”

Conan had rolled his eyes, one side of his mouth still quirked up. “Go on.” He had waved one hand lazily towards the edge of the roof, catching the emerald deftly with his other hand as it fell. “Only one of us will be jumping off that roof anytime soon, and it’ll be the one with the hang glider.”

That...had also been worrying. Kaito had taken a moment to process that statement.

Conan had snorted again. “Go on, stupid cat. Don’t get arrested on my account.”

KID had nodded lightly. “I do so enjoy avoiding jail.”

Hakuba had chosen that moment to rip open the door, and KID had jumped off the building and glided away, chancing a few glances behind him just to make sure everything was...well, obviously it wasn’t going to be okay , but - manageable, maybe. Meitantei had got to his feet at some point and walked over to a glitter-covered Hakuba (who was positively shaking with restrained anger), holding up the emerald.

KID had smiled, returning his focus to flying. The situation was out of his hands, but it seemed he had helped Meitantei’s mental state at least a little.

...And maybe he had slipped the tracker inside Conan’s phone case before he left. Someone had to keep an eye on the kid, after all.

Plausible deniability aside, that was why his blood ran cold two weeks later at the sound of those notes.

C#3, C#4, C4, B3, C4.

C, O, N, A, N.

That - wasn’t good.

Ignoring his teacher, he reached into his backpack and pulled out his phone, not bothering to disguise his movements as anything but what they were.

“Kuroba-san - !”

“Emergency,” he said abruptly, unlocking his phone with his fingerprint then flipping through the screens until he got to the tracking app’s icon. He tapped it twice, quickly, then waited with baited breath.

Signal lost.

Okay, that might not be too bad - it could have fallen off, maybe, or something, since it had been two weeks and the tracker was only a prototype. Luckily, he’d had a safety net for that kind of event. He scrolled through a list of options, tapping the one that connected his phone to the camera the dove following Conan around was wearing.

...What was it doing at the airport?

Kaito rewound the footage an hour, then played it at triple speed.

A car drove up to the Mouris’ place. Nothing identifiable about it, and its plates were half-covered in mud. A woman (tall, light hair, definitely not what the picture of Conan’s mother he had on file looked like) got out of the passenger seat, leaving the car idling on the curb. She went into the building, then approximately ten minutes later returned carrying Conan. He appeared to be asleep.

They got in the car, the woman carefully making sure not to hit Conan’s head against anything, then drove off.

His dove managed to perch on the car, stealing a ride instead of trying to keep up. (That deserved a treat, later).

Thirty minutes later, they arrived at the airport. The woman got out of the car, still carrying an asleep Conan, and paid the driver before removing a small, flowery suitcase from the trunk. The car drove away, leaving them on the curb for a moment before the woman walked inside the airport.

Kaito’s dove followed them through security - nobody stopped them there, despite the fact that he was certain that Conan didn’t actually have a passport even though he’d apparently spent most of his life living in the U.S. - and into the waiting area.

Fifteen minutes later, the woman carrying Conan boarded a flight bound for the Heathrow airport.

Five minutes after that, the tracker’s signal was lost, presumably because its range was currently only all of Japan. He hadn’t thought he’d need more than that, but evidently he had been wrong.

He set his phone face down on his desk and tried to even out his breathing.

“ - ba-san. Kuroba-san!”

Kaito blinked, startled, before training his eyes on the teacher.

She had her hands on her hips, clearly impatient. She’d probably been calling his name for some time. Once she saw that she had his attention, she asked somewhat accusatorily, “Is there anything you would like to share with the class?”

“...My mother is in the hospital,” Kaito croaked, substituting ‘mother’ for detective’ and ‘in the hospital’ for ‘has been kidnapped.’

The teacher’s hands flew to her mouth. She obviously hadn’t been expecting that answer. “Oh. Which one?”

“One of the ones in France,” he said as drily as he could, given that he was hyperventilating slightly. “I need to book a flight.”

“Well.” The teacher gesticulated wildly for a moment, clearly flustered, before settling on, “You’re excused, Kuroba-san. Give your mother our best wishes.”

Kaito nodded absently, loading his stuff into his backpack and then jumping out the window, ignoring the door entirely. His classmates were somewhat immune to his antics by now, and it wasn’t as if that particular trick was noteworthy at this point, so there was no outcry as he landed on the pavement outside and dashed towards the station.

He called his mother on the way, cutting off her greeting with a terse one in French, so she would know how serious the situation was, before requesting she pretend to be in the hospital if anyone should ask. She agreed somewhat hesitantly, but she knew that he didn’t like speaking French on the phone if he could help it, preferring video calls so that his gesticulations came across as well. Which meant that he needed to not be overheard by anyone.

Which meant that this was probably KID-related.

She acquiesced, and Kaito thanked her distractedly while he texted Jii-chan that, surprise, their next heist was actually going to be in London next week instead of Osaka in two.

As soon as she hung up, Kaito booked a plane ticket to Paris. From there, he could take the Eurostar to England and it wouldn’t show up on his passport. The earliest flight he could get was in two days, on Sunday, which was good timing.

KID closed the door to his house, cracking his knuckles. He had some preparations to make and a Meitantei to find.

Chapter Text

After being questioned about the fake bio-terrorists for a long while (honestly, what was making them sound so incredulous? Once you got past the blimp and faking bio-terrorism part, it was mostly a normal KID heist. Kind of. ...Okay, maybe they had a point.), Conan more or less gave up on explaining himself.

Apparently , his life was weird even by police standards.

Hell, even Sherlock's standards, judging by the slight widening of his eyes and the way they darted over to John briefly.

Somehow, they'd moved on from the fake bio-terrorists to some of his more...interesting cases. He'd thought they weren't quite as strange as some of Sherlock's, but evidently he had been wrong, so after glossing over some of the more dangerous parts of the Sunset Mansion case - basically, what he would have ended up telling Ran if she hadn't actually been there - he managed to steer the conversation back to KID.

Hopefully it would be - less suspicious, maybe, for a seven-year-old to be interested in a flashy showman rather than murder, even though the latter wasn't exactly by choice. It was easier to downplay his contributions, too. Or, rather, it was easier to remember to downplay his murder IQ.

Mostly because there was usually a distinct lack of murder at KID heists.

It was a nice change of pace.

But, well. On the bright side, no corpses had fallen out of the sky yet. That was definitely a plus.

On the less bright side, the police ended up borderline interrogating him for nearly an hour, Sherlock watching the proceedings intensely from the sidelines.

(“So you’re saying that he made a plane explode - “

“No, he stopped a Van Gogh painting from being incinerated while the pilot landed safely.”

“Wait, I thought he was flying the plane - “

“No, no, that was the time the pilot got poisoned and he flew off on his hang glider while the plane was crashing to use the police cars to light up the bridge we were using as a makeshift landing strip.”

“Then who was flying the plane if the pilot had been poisoned?”

“I, um, helped the copilot find a place to land.”

“Where did you learn how to land a plane ?”

Instinctively, “Hawaii.”

“ What?!” Wait, shit.

“In Microsoft Flight Simulator.” More plausible. “And I was only helping the copilot land.” Lie, but whatever.

“...I have so many questions.”)

Honestly, he was having too much fun messing with them. He could kind of see why KID enjoyed trolling the police force so much. It was an entertaining distraction, keeping him from dwelling on the fact that he still had no idea how he’d ended up 9553 kilometres from where he’d fallen asleep.

Seriously, that was not normal .

(But then again, what in his life was at this point?)

Conan shook his head slightly, returning his focus to Lestrade (and the case that required his immediate attention). “Hey, hey, Lestrade-keibu, can I go see the neighbors?”

Lestrade blinked, vaguely startled at being addressed. “...I - I suppose. They'll probably be back from the station by now, assuming they weren't questioned in their homes. Why?”

“I'm hungry and I want to meet them. Maybe they'll have juice.”

Or coffee. Ugh, he could use some coffee right now. Juice was less suspicious for a seven-year-old, though, so. That was what he went with.

He was definitely nailing this “I'm-only-seven” thing.

(Take that, Haibara.)

Lestrade gave him a weird look, but sighed and went with it. It seemed that he was about as done with the conversation as Conan was, though likely for different reasons.

(Conan didn't want to give too much away and it seemed he had no decent baseline for the “normal” amount of heists or murder cases a person usually would run into, much less what a “normal” murder case looked like. It was possible that Japanese murders were just generally more convoluted than English ones, as a rule.)

(Lestrade, on the other hand, just wanted his brain to stop breaking. He kept imagining his kids in Conan's place, and just - no. Poor kid. He'd be terrified if any of the things that Conan had been involved in had happened to them, and the nonchalant way Conan spoke about chasing an internationally wanted criminal seemed to imply that he thought it was normal, or at least better than the alternative.

And, no, he hadn't missed that Conan was doing his best to avoid mentioning how many murder cases he'd been involved in.

...Lestrade was understandably a rather…strange mixture of suspicious, cautious, and worried, but he was going to do his best to prevent that from coming across to the kid until he could figure him out.)

Lestrade shrugged again, then began walking up the stairs. Conan darted after him, hardly believing his luck. Especially when Anderson and John went back to examining the body while Sherlock seemed to be frozen, staring off into space while his brain worked in overtime - he was probably in his mind palace. “Yeah, all right. But I'm going to be right there behind you the entire time, and there are going to be some rules - “

Lestrade interrupted himself, pausing abruptly as he almost ran into someone in the hallway and had to stop suddenly. He automatically reached a hand behind him to prevent Conan from running into him, just catching his shoulder.

Conan flinched slightly, taking a step backwards to avoid the hand coming at him. He ignored the way that Lestrade's brow furrowed slightly when he caught the movement, instead peering past him and up at the person who they'd nearly run over.

Or, rather, people, since there were two of them - a man and a woman.

The man looked vaguely Asian - likely Japanese, actually, though his light brown hair said at least two generations removed if Conan wasn't mistaken - and was fairly unremarkable otherwise. He had wire-rimmed glasses that had far thicker lenses than Conan's and looked like bifocals. They were definitely necessary to get through everyday life. Around his eyes, there were faint laughter lines. He seemed to be in his late thirties or early forties - it was a little hard to tell, since he had one of those faces that didn't seem to age at all. When he spoke, it was with a purely British accent (Conan wasn't fantastic at distinguishing between them yet, but he was pretty sure it was somewhere in Yorkshire): “Hello, Mister…?”

Lestrade shook his briefly, blinking, before turning to him and offering a hand. “Detective Inspector Greg Lestrade, Mr. Reynolds. I'm in charge of your daughter's case. My condolences for your loss, but we're doing absolutely everything we can to bring her killer to justice.”

The woman sniffed a little, dabbing at her eyes with a tissue. She, on the other hand, was anything but unremarkable. Every part of her appearance seemed to be chosen carefully to catch eyes and give the impression of wealth. The result was a woman with bleached blonde hair that was probably supposed to look natural but didn't quite find the mark ( - slightly darker roots, highlights in unnatural places and where the light wasn’t hitting, a tinge of orange and stiffness around the ends, and he’d been forced into enough ‘Girl’s Nights’ with Sonoko and Ran that he shuddered internally at the state of this woman’s hair - ), well-done makeup that was color coordinated with her outfit but was clearly caked on rather heavily ( - ‘caked’ was an understatement, smell of baby powder and overpowering flowery something or other Haibara would be able to identify in moments - ), and clothing that displayed brand names Conan was pretty sure were the “fancy” brands Haibara ogled in store windows and magazines when she had the chance - except that if he looked closely enough, it was easy enough to tell that she’d bought them either secondhand or heavily discounted ( - stains that had been rigorously washed until they were faded enough not to be immediately noticeable, slightly scuffed heels - obviously well-cared for but worn regardless, almost threadbare in some places - ), as well as vaguely reminding Conan of the fake posh git somehow.

She clearly cared about appearing wealthier and younger than she actually was (early to mid-thirties at a guess, since the amount of makeup she was wearing actually aged her instead of making her look more youthful), though her husband didn’t seem to share the same obsession. She wasn’t particularly successful, at least to Conan’s eyes. But who knew what people who didn’t have to actively analyze murderer’s - or victim’s - clothes for potential clues thought.

Mrs. Reynolds looked like the kind of woman who would demand to speak to a manager if a sales worker said her coupon was expired.

She would get the discount eventually, too, no matter whether it was actually out-of-date or not.

(If Sonoko and Ran managed to have a kid together, it would be Mrs. Reynolds.)

(Conan shuddered internally. He was not looking forward to interacting with her.)

There was a bit of an awkward silence while Mr. Reynolds nodded distantly, staring off into space and Mrs. Reynolds dabbed at her eyes, somehow managing to avoid smudging her makeup.

Conan sighed internally and broke the silence deliberately, drawing their attention to himself with the cutest sneeze he could muster. Ugh. He sounded like Ayanokouji-keibu's chipmunk.

It did work, though, so he guess he couldn't complain too much.

“Oh, who’s this? Is he your son, Inspector?” Mrs. Reynolds asked. This accent, Conan was more familiar with - it sounded like she was going for an upper-class Surrey, but even he could tell that she was falling a tad short. She ended up with a strange mix of Surrey and - was that Welsh, maybe?

Lestrade, to his credit, only blinked before answering. “Ah, no, not quite. This is Conan, one of our consultant’s…” He trailed off, intentionally implying that Conan’s parents were indeed present.

“He’s not been down to the basement, has he?” Mr. Reynolds asked sharply, breaking out of his absent stare at the walls to fix his stare on Lestrade.

“No, no, of course not!” Ha, so Lestrade was halfway decent at acting. That was a little surprising, for an otherwise fairly straightforward man. “That would be completely irresponsible of us! The consultants couldn’t find a ‘sitter, so - since we did call them in a bit unexpectedly - we have plenty of officers around - “

Conan jumped in with, “I still wanna see the basement!” to give Lestrade’s story a little more credibility since he seemed to be struggling a little. “Mr. Watson and Sherlock are down there, right? So why can’t I?” He added a little bit of a whine at the end and forced his face into a pout.

Oh, ugh. ‘Mr. Watson’ and ‘Sherlock’ sounded so wrong after having read the books dozens of times. Well, English was confusing enough regardless of the way they had you addressing adults. For some reason, though, addressing people had never really clicked for him. Especially not for people whose names were almost common in his Japanese vocabulary.

(...Maybe, when he had been younger the first time around, he had fant - thought about being sucked into the books and becoming Holmes’ apprentice, but that was neither here nor there.)

“No!” Mr. and Mrs. Reynolds snapped instantly, Mrs. Reynolds’ voice breaking slightly as she lifted her tissue to her eyes again. “That - it’s no place for a child,” Mr. Reynolds added, making eye contact with Conan and softening his voice before wrapping an arm around his wife’s shoulders and pulling her close.

“ Why noooooottttttttt? ”Conan whined, emulating a young Sonoko-ojousama when she didn’t get her way.

Come on, fall for it… Lestrade, don’t ruin the set up… (Lestrade was silent, but watched him with a quizzical expression.)

Mr. Reynolds took a deep breath, quite obviously steeling himself. “I’m afraid we found our Maria there this morning.”

Conan brightened. “Maria? Is she my age? Can I play with her?”

Lestrade was looking at him incredulously, which was kind of understandable since Conan had , in fact, seen the crime scene and therefore knew that Maria was deceased.

Conan barely refrained from rolling his eyes in response. It was like Lestrade hadn’t even heard of subterfuge before.

Mr. Reynolds blinked, squeezing his wife closer to him as she started openly crying, wiping her eyes without regard for her makeup. “N-no, boy, she’s - no, she was - that is, she’s - “ He swallowed with considerable effort. “She passed away this morning, son.”

It was weird, being called ‘son.’ He hadn’t really thought it would ever happen to him, but here he was. “Oh. So I guess she can’t come and play.”

Mr. Reynolds shook his head, managing a small, trembling smile for Conan.

Conan ignored the clear cues that Mr. Reynolds would rather comfort his sobbing wife than talk to a child about the same age as his recently deceased daughter. “ - though I guess she probably wouldn’t like playing the games I like to play if she’s, um, what’s it called? A, um, a...pretty girl contest participating person? I’m pretty sure that’s what it translates to, but that doesn’t sound right. Um…”

Mr. Reynolds and Lestrade both blinked. Lestrade leaned forward slightly, eyebrows raised. “...Do you mean a pageant girl? A young girl who wins beauty contests?”

Conan nodded. “Yes, that. Sorry, I've been in Japan since I started school. My English is a little rusty." Implying that he was born elsewhere - America, given his accent - and also excusing some of the slip-ups he would definitely be making in the future. His grammar was generally pretty solid, but his vocabulary was...less so. He hadn't felt the need to know the English word for 'beauty pageant,' and yet, here he was needing to know it. So. Best to have a safety net.

“No, it’s no problem, son.” There it was again, that word. It felt really weird to be referred to as someone’s son when it was clear he wasn’t related to them. He guessed it was kind of equivalent to calling someone you’d hardly met ‘onee-san’ or ‘onii-san,’ so he maybe it wasn’t that weird. Cultural differences, he supposed. “Yes, our Maria does like participating in pageants. She’s even won a few; her trophies should be on a shelf somewhere in her room. She likes - " Mr. Reynolds choked slightly, blinking rapidly. " - liked, she liked looking at them before she fell asleep every night…”

“That sounds fun!” Conan said brightly, completely ignoring the general ambiance in the hallway. “I don’t think we really have those for kids in Japan. Sonoko-oneesan probably would like that though… Who else usually competes?”

Mr. Reynolds looked near the end of his rope, but kept his chin up and carried on. “Ah, well, the Peters’ daughter usually comes in second, and the other contestants are normally the children of the guests from the party last night - it was supposed to be a celebration.” His voice broke slightly on the last word, so he cleared his throat with some difficulty before saying, “Sorry, Inspector, could Jane and I be excused… We need to make some calls…”

Lestrade glanced at Conan, who had apparently suddenly gained the ability to read the atmosphere in the last ten seconds and now looked contrite. “Yes, of course, my apologies. You will, of course, need to keep out of the basement and your daughter’s room until the investigation - “

“Yes, of course. Excuse us.” Lestrade nodded and Conan waved as the Reynolds moved up the stairs, acknowledging the officer placed there, then presumably going to their bedroom.

Soon after they had left eyesight, Lestrade absently began moving towards the front door, thoughts clearly on something else. Conan followed behind him quietly, trying not to break his train of thought.

Just inside the doorway, in what Conan was pretty sure was called the mudroom in England but was where he was used to the genkan being, Lestrade stopped abruptly, training his eyes on Conan. “How did you know?”

“Know what?”

“That she was a pageant girl.”

Conan had thought it was pretty obvious, taking into account the teeth, the skin, the meticulous nails, and the sheer number of barely-worn costumes. So he gave the most annoying, seven-year-old-ish answer he could: “Because.”

Lestrade stared at him for a moment then shook his head, staring off into the distance. “How on earth… Who are you?” he asked the ceiling contemplatively.

(In for four, hold for seven, out for eight - )

Conan was so done.

He looked Lestrade straight in the eyes (well, as much as he could from his height), and said as sarcastically as he could while still keeping a straight face, “ Edogawa Conan, reinousha sa.”

Actually...that was an almost perfect disguise, really, especially added to losing approximately ten years. No one would believe that Kudou Shinichi would allow anyone to call him anything remotely approaching something from the realm of the supernatural, much less psychic .

Lestrade’s face went blank, then his brow furrowed quizzically. “Sorry, Conan, I don't… I took Latin in school, not Japanese.”

Whoops. Apparently he'd forgotten what language he was supposed to be speaking.

That was actually a good thing, though, since apparently his sarcasm hadn’t come across - or, well, Lestrade hadn’t been able to detect it.

Well, he was committed now…

Wait.

Did he know the word for ‘psychic?’ Because he hadn’t exactly made a habit of looking up supernatural English words.

(Possibly he had avoided them out of spite.)

Well, whatever.

“Well, in Beika, Takagi-keiji said that I was probably possessed by a shinigami, or that one was following me around… And Yamamura-keibu said something about me being, um. Eigo de, ano... It's like 'magic’ but related to thoughts? And sort of the heart and mind.”

Shit, he actually didn't know the right word. What was reinousha in English? Saikikku was written in katakana, so it was definitely foreign...Maybe that would help? “Um, in Japanese it's reinousha or saikikku ? It's like...uh...”

Wait, what was that one line from that movie - “ I see dead people .”

You know what. Close enough.

Hardly even a lie, really.

Oh, and just for a little fun: “I told you before. It's not my fault that you didn't believe me.”

Ha, he could see Lestrade flashing back to earlier that day. It was written all over his face.

Clearly he was regretting not actually asking Conan how he’d known Maria’s name. You know, the one person who would actually know the answer, as opposed to the adults who had just met him.

...After about five minutes, though, Conan had grown bored of watching Lestrade stare at him, mouth flapping wordlessly.

This was why he didn’t usually do pranks.

People broke afterwards.

(Maybe KID could handle them, though. Hm. That was an idea.)

In any case, it was clear that Conan would be standing in the front room for ages unless he did something to move the investigation along. Luckily, he had just the thing.

“Lestrade-keibu, you said I could go visit the neighbors. Remember, you said I could ask for some juice?” Well, coffee, but Lestrade didn’t need to know that.

(Hattori would say that Shinichi had an unhealthy dependency on coffee, but Hattori was a hypocrite.)

(Besides, neither of them drank anything close to what Haibara did.)

(Combined, they were only kind of close to the ballpark she was in.)

Lestrade looked like his entire worldview was being rearranged, but nodded distantly and opened the door before leading him outside.

The house on the left had two newspapers on the doorstep and the lights were on in the front two rooms, curtains drawn, despite the fact that the time was now approaching noon. They were gone away for the weekend, then. Possibly longer, but unlikely given that it was March and there were toy dump trucks and soldiers lined up on the windowsills. Kids needed to go to school, after all.

(...)

(...Well.)

(...Normal ones did, in any case.)

So, no one home for at least two days meant no witnesses and little to no opportunity - just to be sure, though - “Lestrade-keibu, where’d those people go?”

Lestrade glanced over to the house he was pointing at, then replied with, “Somewhere in Cornwall, I think, about five hours away from here. They’ve been there since Friday night. We've checked, and they do have an alibi - theater, I think, then some sort of dinner party at a fancy restaurant.”

Conan nodded absently, thoughts confirmed.

Their vacation had evidently allowed for an empty parking spot on the street, into which a patrol car had just pulled up. A tall man with black hair and the beginnings of a salt-and-pepper look in his early- to mid-forties stepped out, ducking slightly to keep himself from hitting his head on the door. He straightened, waved at the patrol car, then headed towards the house to the right of the Reynolds’.

Conan took one solid look at him, shuddered, and said, “Arrest him.”

Lestrade looked down at him out of the corner of his eye, apparently having had learnt that Conan usually had good reason to make what appeared to be rash assumptions to anyone outside his head. “Bradley Greene? On what charges? He was just in for questioning - apparently he was out with friends on the other side of town last night and all three of them vouched for him.” He kept his voice low, which meant that he was automatically giving weight to Conan’s opinion (wow, that was fast - maybe he should pretend to be psychic more often), and, in deference to it, was doing his best not to alert the neighbor to their conversation. “Sergeant Donovan just sent me an overview,” he added, explaining himself unnecessarily, in Conan’s opinion. But that was a new name, so, maybe not entirely redundant.

“At least one count of stalking, multiple counts of possession of child pornography - likely more than a dozen, I think - and statistically three or more counts of child molestation,” Conan replied bluntly.

Lestrade blinked at him, evidently lost for words but attempting to keep his face mostly neutral. “I see.”

Conan rolled his eyes. He wanted to say something like ‘you don’t, actually,’ but refrained because his coffee was finally kicking in and he now had some semblance of a brain-to-mouth filter now.

Lestrade crouched down so that he was on Conan’s level (which he did not appreciate, but reluctantly understood his reasoning when Lestrade whispered inches away, almost directly into his ear). “How can you tell?” he asked softly.

Conan shrugged slightly. “I’ve had a lot of practice.”  Sleeve of a porn addict, indeed. Noting the look creeping onto Lestrade’s face despite his attempt to stay neutral, he added, “I kinda run into a lot of crimes.” Oddly, that didn’t do much to make him relax. Abruptly, Conan switched back to the more important topic. “Try and get invited in for questioning or something and take a look around his flat. He’s probably got a pair of binoculars and a box of tissues at the back window, and keeps his ecchi magazines out on the coffee table or otherwise in plain sight. He might try to hide them, but they’ll be hidden badly. I doubt you’d even need a search warrant.”

Lestrade looked at him askance, but made to stand up.

Conan added absently, “He isn't the guy who killed Maria Reynolds, though.”

Lestrade paused, halfway out of his crouch (trying not to get his suit dirty - interesting). “And how would you know that?”

Conan rolled his eyes internally. Shouldn't it be obvious? At least, to a person who'd achieved the rank of Detective Inspector?

Her corpse had been covered in bruises, especially facially, which wasn't something someone obsessed with her appearance would do. Also, more pertinently, her clothes had been intact and there had been nothing - that he could see or smell, in any case, or that had been in the preliminary report Anderson had written and Conan had sneaked a glimpse of - that would indicate that she had been taken advantage of sexually.

Which a pedophile who had stalked Maria Reynolds, even moving across London to get closer to her (he could see boxes through the window, an entire bookcase full of pageant tapes, unopened forwarded mail on a table nearby), would have done before killing her.

You know what. He was feeling spiteful today. They could figure it out all on their own.

“Because she told me so,” he replied, rather impatiently.

Lestrade didn't exactly look convinced, but he didn't not look convinced, so Conan grabbed his sleeve and tugged at it, moving in the neighbor's direction. “Come on, I - “

“Nope.” Lestrade, suddenly remembering that he was supposed to be a responsible adult, stated flatly before guiding Conan towards the woman who'd just stepped out of the patrol car driver's seat - an officer, not quite as high in rank as Lestrade. “Sergeant Donovan, would you mind watching him for a few minutes while I...take care of something quickly?”

Conan huffed, playing up the bratty part of his persona. “I already told you that he's a pedophile. You don't need to censor yourself.”

This earned him a wide-eyed stare from the woman - Donovan, apparently.

She was a woman with dark skin and a proud air - which was fair, honestly, since she looked rather young for a sergeant. Late twenties to early thirties was his guess. The way she stood said confident, while her muscle distribution suggested that she was well-versed in self-defense and likely hand-to-hand combat. Calluses on her hands said she was at ease with a gun - at least proficient, likely much better. Professional attire, almost pristine in presentation though it had seen better days, minimal makeup - she cared about her appearance, even after having been called in early in the morning. She probably had to, if she wanted to be promoted.

She kind of reminded him of Satou-keiji. Frighteningly competent, take-no-shit attitude, probably had to fight sexism to climb the ranks. Conan thought that they'd probably get along quite well if they ever met.

And - oh, that was interesting. No ring, scuffed knees, the same scent enshrouding Anderson (generic cedar and sandalwood with just a touch of mint, of all things, to make it ‘unique’ - uniquely unpleasant, in Conan's opinion) faintly present around the hem of her skirt and at her wrists (likely behind her ears, too, but Conan wasn't actually tall enough to tell.)

But she did have a bracelet - inconspicuous, silver, engraved on the inside, hidden by her sleeve unless you were looking up it - ah, now that was interesting.

Conan's eyebrows shot up. “Oh. Wow.”

Donovan frowned. “What.”

“Sorry, it's just - I’ve never seen that before…”

Donovan’s scowl deepened. “What, a female police officer?”

“No, no, a relationship with more than two people - I don’t know what you call it in English - “

From Lestrade, “Polyamorous?”

“ - sure, that sound right. I haven’t seen a polyamorous relationship that hasn’t ended in murder. Not that I didn’t know that they existed! But I usually get the bad end of the stick and Occhan has to figure out who the murderer is and it’s usually one of the people in the relationship.” He was pretty proud of himself for remembering that one. Idioms were hard. Wait, was it 'bad end' or 'short end'? Or something else entirely? Ugh.

Donovan slowly turned to Lestrade, eyebrow cocked. “Where did you find this one, then? Not even the freak got that bit right.”

Conan stood corrected. Satou-keiji probably wouldn't like Donovan if she spoke like that.

Lestrade sighed. “Apparently, he, quote-unquote, 'just turned up on Sherlock's couch this morning and they have no idea how he got there.’ He says he's psychic. And I need to go check on Mr. Greene and possibly arrest him - “

“ Definitely arrest him,” Conan broke in. “Remember? One, maybe two counts of stalking, more than a dozen counts of possession of child pornography, and approximately three counts of child molestation. Although the criteria may be different in England, I guess. I even told you where you can find the proof, too.”

Donovan’s eyebrow crept higher on her face, rising with Conan’s every word until it matched the other one, her gaze still boring into Lestrade.

Lestrade shrugged in response. “His story has some merit to it. He knew the girl’s name before any of us knew it, much less told him, and that she was a pageant girl. And that she was strangled to death, despite the fact that Anderson and everyone else who looked at the body - except Sherlock, I suppose - thought it was clear that she’d been beaten to death. And about your relationship with Anderson and his wife, something that not even Sherlock was able to figure out. In this case, since he was so specific about the charges and the evidence, I guess I may as well look into it.”

Conan rolled his eyes but accepted that. It probably wouldn’t say anything good about the police force if he could have an Inspector's complete trust within - had it really only been a bit more than two hours?

Donovan nodded slightly, acquiescing to looking after Conan (not that he really needed looking after but she didn’t know that yet) and Lestrade left them alone to amble towards Mr. Greene’s house, determinedly casual.

Donovan watched him go until he had knocked on the door, then dropped her gaze to Conan. He flinched, unprepared for such a calculating stare, before squaring his shoulders and focusing on breathing normally (in for four, hold for seven, out for eight...in for four, hold for seven, out for eight - ). The silence was eventually broken with one question: “Well? Aren't you going to deduct me, or read me or whatever it is you’re calling it?”

Conan blinked. “Not unless you want me to. Isn’t it rude?” To do it out loud, at least. And also it gave away what you were thinking and the potential evidence, which was bad when you were trying to figure out how to corner a murderer into confessing.

Donovan huffed out a laugh, then somehow managed to ruffle his hair despite his attempts to duck out of reach. “I think we’ll get along just fine, kid.”

Conan shrugged and went with it, since it seemed that that was all she had to say since she was now curiously watching the house Lestrade had disappeared into.

His attention was drawn away by Shinichi's phone buzzing insistently in his pocket. Conan took it out and typed in his pass code - apparently, he had four voicemails, all from Hattori, and one text message from an unknown number.

He opened the text first and had just enough time to read You're going on vacation - before his phone made a desolate beeping noise and the screen turned blacker than the way Conan liked his coffee.

God damn it .

-----

(Shinichi’s Phone)

4 New Voicemails

The Worse Detective of the West (7:38 PM)

“Kudou, Kudou, um, Kazuha jus’ kissed me. An’ I don’t know whatta'm gonna do. What’s goin’ on - I thought she didn’t actually like me like that? Like, I know I was goin’ ta confess ta her at some point, but I was goin’ ta hedge ma bets by doin’ it in the mos’ romantic place I could think of - betta than London, obviously - ta increase the possibility tha' she might try it out but she jus’...kissed me? She jus’ kissed me. Kudou, I’m freakin’ out. Why aren’cha answerin’ yer phone. Help me. Seriously, I think I’m hyperventilatin’ - ”

The Worse Detective of the West (9:00 PM)

“Okay, so I called ya an hour ago on your other phone and ya haven’t responded yet so either yer in the middle ova case or you’ve been kidnapped again. Or yer ignorin’ me. Why wouldja ignore me in ma time of need, Kudou. Some friend YOU are. Cases don’t normally take ya this long unless there are serial killin’s, which’d be on the news AND THERE ARE NO SERIAL KILLIN’S IN THE NEWS, KUDOU, ANSWER ME.”

The Worse Detective of the West (10:59 PM)

“Seriously, did Kaitou KID kidnap ya or somethin’ ‘cause ya NEVER go this long without at least LOOKIN’ at yer phone. Tha’ guy really is the embodiment of ‘he protec but he also attac.’ Jus’. Lemme know yer only chasin’ murderers and not BEIN’ murdered, okay?

The Worse Detective of the West (11:43 PM)

“Kudou. Answer yer damn phone. I’m startin’ to get worried.”

…

End of final message.

(Conan’s Phone)

3 New Voicemails

Heiji-niichan (8:03 PM)

“Hey, Ku-onan, didja get ma other message? Somethin’ happened, so call me.”

Ran-neechan (7:15 AM)

“Conan-kun, remember that Dad and I are going to be away this weekend with Mom since I won that resort vacation in that raffle. I know you mentioned something about Agasa-hakase and camping, but I just wanted to remind you that we won’t be back until Monday night since it’s a holiday. Be good for the hakase, okay? And have fun!”

Unknown Number (10:03 AM)

“Meitantei, ça fait longtemps qu'on a pas parlé. Ça baigne? Je suis un peu étonné que ton numéro de téléphone soit le même que pour celui du Train Mystère. Heureusement que je ne l'ai jamais utilisé pour un canular téléphonique... Tout va bien, Meitantei? En ton honneur, je vais changer d'endroit… C'était un peu soudain, n'est-ce pas? Tu savais que tu partais? C’est très impoli! Mon prochain cambriolage sera à Londres. Les détails devraient être dans le journal du coin. À bientôt!”

…

End of final message.

Chapter Text

Conan stared blankly at his phone for a solid minute and a half before sighing. He'd have to find a charger now, and since his phone had some rather... special modifications, it wasn't going to be easy.

Although - he'd had a backpack, back in Sherlock's flat, hadn't he? He’d forgotten about it after the word ‘case.’ If he were lucky (rare though it was), his chargers might be in there. They rarely left his side, after all, since those same modifications had a tendency to make the battery drain faster than an iPhone’s. He'd have to find a way to charge both his phones without drawing suspicion, though… The method he used at the Mouri's place probably wasn’t going to work here.

Well, there wasn't anything he could do about it now.

...It took him an embarrassing amount of time to realize that it was possible his Conan phone still had some charge left.

As soon as the thought occurred to him, he slipped his Shinichi phone into the same pocket as his Conan phone and rummaged around for a moment, pretending to look for something. Except what he was actually doing was cataloguing what he had with him - which, to be honest, wasn't a lot. A couple rubber bands, his phones, the usual Ziploc bags full of his “oh-look-someone’s-dead-what-a-surprise” kit, and a handkerchief or two was what was revealed to be the contents of his pockets, both from his pants and his jacket. He sighed frustratedly, pretending to give up on searching for something - headphones, if Donovan asked - and pulling out his phone again. This time, thanks to a quick sleight-of-hand, it was Conan's.

(KID was an... influence. He wasn't sure whether he could be classified as a good one or a bad one, though, since Conan had technically been doing illegal things before they’d met face-to-face.)

(Identity fraud was a necessary evil, unfortunately.)

(But hey. The important part was that Donovan hadn't noticed him switching out his phones.)

He tried turning it on, but it stayed deader than a lot of the murder victims Conan ran into.

Donovan glanced over at him. “What’s that you’ve got there, then?”

“It’s my phone!” Conan turned it around to show her, smiling brightly. Then his face fell.

“I was gonna check my messages, but it dead,” he said, lip trembling. He was quoting something he vaguely recalled Hattori saying, which had presumably been a quote from some sort of meme. Kids spoke in memes, right?

Conan shuddered internally. He wasn’t going to be trying that again. It actually physically pained him to make a mistake like that on purpose after he’d spent so much time studying English grammar rules.

Donovan frowned. “Didn’t you charge it overnight?”

Conan stared at her blankly. It actually hurt, trying to keep himself from rolling his eyes. “I was on a plane overnight. A European plane. The plugs aren’t the same.”

Presumably, that was. The bit about the plane. Unless whoever had sent him here had somehow managed time travel or teleportation, which he doubted.

(Unless it had been KID, because then there was a distinct possibility - )

(No, he was pretty sure that KID knew he was in a dangerous position - if not that he was hiding behind a false identity, because KID was smart - and he’d been pretty clear about people not getting hurt .

...Sometimes, Conan really couldn’t understand his insistence. People were always going to do stupid things; how was he going to protect everyone at his heists, even from themselves, while simultaneously (evidently) keeping track of his detectives’ mental states?)

(Oh, wow, he’d just referred to himself as one of KID’s detectives - as in, a detective who belonged to KID.)

(Apparently English coffee wasn’t strong enough to allow him impulse control. Or, possibly, John had made it weak, since an apparent child was going to drink it. Or…

Conan’s eyes flashed dangerously. That wanker had given him decaf . And he’d been too tired to notice.)

(It was a good thing he was in the middle of a case - otherwise he’d be using a lot of his brain power to come up with a few ways to get back at John.)

(As it was, he might have deduced the recipe of the super glue/glitter mess from KID’s last heist and he might have seen most of the ingredients in the kitchen of 221B Baker Street…)

“I might have a charger in the car somewhere, if you want me to have a look - “

Conan shook his head, cutting her off. “Thank you, Donovan-keiji, but my phone is weird. Its cord is special.”

Oh, wow, that came out awkwardly. Words were hard when he was jet lagged and had had no real coffee, damn it, John Watson -

Luckily, both his mental rant and the awkward silence between him and Donovan was broken by Lestrade’s reappearance from the house with a handcuffed Bradley Greene.

Lestrade silently showed a magazine in an evidence bag to Donovan, whose face twisted in disgust before she cast a scathing look at Greene. He was ‘helped’ into the patrol car with maximum prejudice, though not enough that anyone could call the two police officers on it. He was shaking so badly that if he hadn’t seen the hardness in their eyes, Conan might have thought it had been an accident.

There was silence until the doors were locked. Then, Lestrade leaned back against the side of the car and sighed, staring off into the distance. “You know, Conan was exactly right. It was a good thing I’d asked to turn on my recorder, because he confessed to everything after I pointed out the magazines and binoculars - which were right where he’d said they’d be, by the way - and then inquired politely about why he’d chosen to move so suddenly. He was a complete wreck, almost immediately.”

Conan shrugged. He could have told them as much beforehand, but had decided that getting the pedophile arrested was more important than Greene’s mostly hidden skittishness. Besides, if it had resulted in a confession that proved him right beyond a shadow of a doubt...

Well.

It wasn’t as if he’d planned it or anything.

“ - and if I’m counting correctly, the final count of his confessions was two counts of stalking, eighteen counts of possession, and two counts of molestation. We could probably get him on a couple more in attempted, but that’s probably enough to put him away for a decent chunk of time.”

Donovan shifted to face Conan, her gaze piercing into him. “He was...completely right. Completely. Within thirty seconds of seeing the man, he gave you an accurate count of the crimes we could arrest him for, as well as where to find the evidence?”

Lestrade nodded silently.

Donovan coughed. “I suppose that’s a point in favor of his being psychic, then.”

Another nod. Then a sigh. “We’d better take Greene back to the station so we can process him - any chance we could get another patrol car?”

Donovan shook her head. “Not with the sting going on uptown. They’ve been waiting years to bust that gang. They’ve commandeered all the equipment that wasn’t nailed down.”

Lestrade frowned, rubbing his hand against his temples. “And, of course, we still have to get the body to Molly Hooper - she’s the one on duty today, isn’t she?”

Conan frowned. Another name. It was getting a little tedious, trying to keep track of all of his observations about these people. New country, and all that.

(And he hadn’t had the chance to sit down and figure out how or why he had ended up in England .)

“Yeah, I think so. Better her than Johnson, in any case. He can’t stand being in the same room as the freak for more than a few minutes.”

Conan’s frown deepened. Had Sherlock really been dealing with this since he had started working with the police? And here he’d been prepared to like Donovan... “You shouldn’t say things like that,” he said abruptly, imitating Mitsuhiko and pointing accusingly at Donovan. “Ran-neechan would wash your mouth out with soap if she heard you.”

(She wouldn’t, really. Probably.

She might go for a concrete-breaking karate chop, however, which was probably worse.)

Donovan blinked, taken aback. “Sorry, what?”

“What you’re calling Sherlock-niichan is mean.” No, that wouldn’t be enough to make it stop. What if - yes, probably, that would work. “It’s not his fault he can see … ” Long pause, make them think about what he might say. “... things other people can’t.”

He stared up at her with wide eyes, looking towards the sun behind her to make them water, before abruptly looking down at his sneakers.

A sharp intake of breath from Lestrade said that he understood what Conan was trying to imply. Some semi-frantic gesticulations he could only just glimpse from the corner of his eyes almost made him smile, so instead he bit his lip, letting the pain make his eyes water even more.

‘Come on, Sally (possibly Zalli or Sari but... probably Sally? Lip-reading was hard enough without the words being in his second language) , can’t you see that this kid’s probably been called a freak a couple hundred times? You can’t tell me he hasn’t been bullied - especially if he’s actually psychic!’ or something like that.

Donovan coughed. “Right. I’m sorry, Conan. I didn’t realize - “

Before she could dig herself into a hole, Lestrade jumped in. “Your, er, Ran-nay-chan would wash your mouth out with soap, you said? I thought that was only a British thing.”

Conan shrugged, allowing himself to be distracted. Washing mouths out with soap was the closest equivalent he could come up with that didn’t sound too much like child endangerment. “Well, I mean, if I say things like that a couple of times we’d probably talk about it first. Sometimes people are mean and they tell me one word means something else so I don’t know it’s wrong. And I’m from America so I had problems with addressing people and they’d get angry. So Ran-neechan and I had a loooong discussion when I first got to Japan about what I'm allowed to call people and she's scary and I don't like being wrong so that's why you're Lestrade-keibu and she’s Donovan-keiji and Watson-sensei is Watson-sensei.”

Conan paused to breathe, subtly gauging their reactions because that whole situation wasn’t entirely untrue and clearly he had different standards for what was ‘normal.’

(Maybe he'd slipped and called her 'Ran’ a time too many. Maybe that had resulted in an hour long lecture on proper forms of address in Japan. He'd known it all, of course - having been, you know, born and raised there - but that was one aspect of his hastily concocted backstory that was actually helpful in covering up his mistakes.)

(Except when he had briefly reverted to his real age and had called her ‘Ran-neechan.’ )

“Why am I a ‘kay-jee’ if John Watson is a ‘sen-say’?” Donovan asked, apparently glad to forget that she’d been contributing to a hostile work environment for Sherlock.

(So maybe Conan was a little protective of his - colleague…)

“You’re a keiji ‘cause Lestrade-keibu called you Sergeant, right?” Conan replied, intentionally amping up the childishness of his speech. “So that means you’re a junsa-buchou like Takagi-keiji. And Sherlock-niichan called Lestrade-keibu an Inspector, so that means that he’s like Megure-keibu. And then Watson-sensei is a doctor, so he’s like Araide-sensei.”

“Then why is Sherlock a ‘knee-chan’?”

“ ‘Cause he doesn't do anything special, right? He’s young and he’s not a doctor and he’s not police so he doesn’t have a rank,” Conan said bluntly. Then he reconsidered. “Well, I guess I could call him Holmes-tantei… But that would be weird.” Wait, no, he meant specialized , not special, damn it. Curse John Watson and his decaf.

For some reason they both found that hilarious, trying to stifle snickers behind their hands. Conan didn’t get it, but, well, what else was new. English people were weird.

He didn't really have time to ponder it, though, because at that moment Sherlock and John emerged from the taped-off house, followed by two officers carrying what was presumably Maria's body on a stretcher. The posh git appeared to be berating - or possibly arguing with? It was hard to tell from a distance - the fake posh git.

John looked like he was regretting his life choices.

Conan identified with that quite a bit.

(But then again, he hadn't chosen to live with Sherlock Holmes, of all people. He'd brought that on himself.

Compared to that, getting shrunk was a picnic.)

Lestrade sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. Too bad Conan didn't have any aspirin to offer him. His pockets only held so much.

Donovan rolled her eyes then stared up towards the sky, probably begging for patience as the posh git himself caught sight of them and stormed over, ridiculous coat flapping behind him.

(Honestly. And Conan thought KID had a flair for the dramatic.)

(...Neither of them had anything on his mother, though.)

He shuddered, unprepared for the onslaught of images that brought to mind. Honestly, if he ever developed PTSD, it was going to be because of her, not because of any of the many, many murders he came across or anything the Black Organization ever did.

(The whole ‘pretending to be Conan’s mother who was actually a member of the Black Org but was really his actual mother the entire time’ came to mind specifically. Also the times that she put him in a bullet-proof vest and taught him how to dodge by shooting at him with rubber bullets.)

(And also literally any time she drove him anywhere.)

...He must have blacked out for a bit because the next thing he knew, he was in a taxi going... somewhere, probably? Apparently he'd been too busy reliving some of his mother's more terrifying undertakings to realize that he'd automatically followed John and Sherlock into a taxi and they were now headed...likely towards the station? They were following the patrol car from earlier - he recognized the license plate - so that was probably a reasonable assumption. Although...they could be headed for the morgue? Either was likely at this point.

...He could just ask though.

Conan tugged gently on John's sleeve. “Hey, hey, Watson-sensei? Where are we going?”

John flinched slightly - it would have been a jump in any non-military-trained person - and looked at Conan with slightly widened eyes. “C-conan! What are you doing here?!”

Conan bestowed upon him an unimpressed, gimlet-eyed stare. “I didn't want to ride with the pedophile I just arrested and you can't exactly just leave me at a crime scene.”

John blinked. “Well, no, I - !” He frowned, seeming a bit flustered. “ I was going to ask one of the officers to - “

Sherlock cut him off by leaning forwards suddenly, eyes fixing abruptly on Conan. “That you arrested?” he asked, without much in the way of inflection.

(Conan supposed it was too much to ask for Sherlock to be too absorbed in the pageant queen case to remember that he had proclaimed that Conan was A Case.)

Conan shrugged then deliberately ignored him because he could do that when he looked seven and it wasn't even odd because kids did that, ha. Well, as long as he didn’t make it too obvious. He couldn't believe he was only just realizing this now.  It was one of the only upsides to this situation.

(Another was the fact that he could crawl around on the floor at KID heists looking for traps without it looking too out of the ordinary. That had come in handy a time or two.)

(And then there was the whole pouting thing and the crying thing and the sparkly eyes thing - all of which he was able to do on command, thanks to his actress of a mother and the fact that crying children were offered the kind of sweets she was fond of at the drop of a hat - which were useful for abrupt subject changes and diverting suspicion, even though it kind of made him die on the inside to have to resort to it most of the time.)

Conan kicked his legs back and forth aimlessly, letting his lower lip jut forward and resolutely ignoring Sherlock’s intent gaze. “I wanna know where we're going. I know it’s either the morgue or the police station, so you should tell me which it is ‘cause I don’t know my way around London yet.” He added just a hint of a whine, folding his arms tightly across his chest.

John sighed, apparently accepting that now he was dealing with both Sherlock and a pint-sized version of him. “We’re going to - “

Sherlock interrupted him again, with a (frankly unnecessary, in Conan’s opinion), “Weren’t you listening ?”

Conan shrugged petulantly. “Not to you ,” he inserted quickly in the moment of silence as Sherlock inhaled deeply in what was probably preparation for a rant.

John choked on a laugh while Sherlock blinked wordlessly, mouth hanging open slightly - as if he couldn’t imagine anyone ever not listening to him and taking his word as gospel - his rant evidently derailed.

“You should close your mouth before you catch flies,” Conan added knowledgeably. “That’s what Mom always says.”

(Yukiko had never said that even once in her life.)

(Neither had Ran or even Kisaki-sensei.)

(He just liked screwing with Sherlock Holmes, okay. It was payback for the last time they’d met.)

(Not that Sherlock knew that, but whatever.)

John’s muffled laughter subsided, at least enough for him to answer Conan’s question. “We’re going to the morgue, Conan.”

Conan bobbed his head up and down. “ ‘Mkay. Hooper-kenshikan sounds nice.” Or perhaps ‘patient’ was more accurate, given that she was apparently able to consistently work with Sherlock.

That focused Sherlock’s attention squarely back upon him. “‘Kenshikan’ - that’s Japanese for coroner.” Because of course he would know that. “Why do you know who Molly Hooper is?”

Conan shrugged and deliberately turned to face out the window. “Oh, wow! Is that Big Ben?” he asked, pointing out the window and blatantly changing the subject.

(It was, as a matter of fact. And, oh look, there was the bridge with the drain where he found that clue for that one case with the bombs. He was still kind of wondering why all the people involved in that case were named after Greek gods, because that had been pretty strange.

Well. Not as strange as the few cases he’d had where the victim had committed suicide and then framed someone else for their suicide by making it look like murder. Those were usually pretty odd.)

He ended up ignoring Sherlock’s existence for the rest of the relatively short car ride, mostly to get back at John for the decaf earlier. Since Sherlock was unaccustomed to being ignored, it worked quite well.

(Conan was about eighty percent sure that he was still going to do the glitter glue thing later because one does not give a caffeine addict decaf and expect to come out of it smelling of roses.

If John had done that to Haibara, Conan doubted anyone would have ever found the body. Even him, the corpse magnet.

Conan had no problem admitting that Haibara Ai was scary. Not the same way that Ran was scary, though, because Ran was the ‘I will crush your head with my fist’ to Haibara’s ‘I will crush your head with my mind and make it look like an accident.’ )

A chill ran down his spine at the thought and he repressed a shiver. He really needed to contact Haibara, since he’d probably missed their first-thing-in-the-morning, make-sure-you-haven’t-been-kidnapped-or-murdered-in-the-middle-of-the-night check-in, and she always got tetchy when he did that. Which was understandable, really, considering that they were both targets of an international criminal organization. He’d be the same way if she ever missed the check-in, but so far she hadn’t, even once. He, on the other hand, very rarely missed check-in, and if he did it was either because he was in the middle of a case or had gotten back to the Mouris’ so late that he’d forgotten to plug in his phone or ended up sleeping through his alarm.

Haibara had hardly spoken to him for the rest of the day, which was fair since she seemed to be doing her utmost to stave off intermittent panic attacks. The kids hadn’t really noticed, since she was very good at keeping them hidden and he’d tried to help cover for her, since they were his fault in the first place. Kobayashi-sensei usually looked at them both strangely on those days, and he couldn’t quite figure out her expression, since he was generally paying more attention to the kids and Haibara.

He’d ended up asking his parents to send him a bag of the most expensive coffee beans they could find so he could make a suitable apology, because he really hadn’t meant to worry her but that was just his luck. Or, rather, lack thereof.

(Now, if he didn’t reply within five minutes, she tried calling him. That usually woke him up, if his phone was near enough and not completely dead. If he still wasn’t answering, she tried the Agency landline next, which had an awful, awful ringtone - on its own, that was bad enough, but somehow someone - and he knew exactly who it was, but Conan was playing the long game so he couldn’t confront them about it - had “accidentally” turned the volume up all the way and there wasn’t any way to turn it back down, unfortunately. That did the trick.

...He really needed to find his charger soon.)

He blinked, shaking himself from his thoughts as the taxi jerked to a stop outside a hospital - St. Bartholomew's Hospital, in fact, according to the sign. Well, at least a kid wouldn’t be too out of the ordinary here. Except they were headed for the morgue, so…

He ended up mostly hiding behind Sherlock’s Dramatic Coat and presence, since he was the kind of person who attracted attention merely by existing, though he did actively do a fair bit to augment that.

So thanks to Sherlock and his ego, Conan managed to make it down to the morgue without anyone noticing he was there - excepting John, who kind of sighed and just let it happen. They met up with Lestrade and Donovan, who were waiting just outside the door, apparently having dropped off Greene at the station - probably during the time John had insisted be spent on getting a brief drive-around of London from the taxi driver so that Conan could be more familiar with the landscape.

Conan gave them a little wave, making Donovan crack a small smile and Lestrade roll his eyes - probably because he thought that kids didn’t really belong at crime scenes, much less the morgue. Which was fair, mostly. But Conan wasn’t exactly a typical kid, now, was he.

Lestrade sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose and breathing deeply before knocking on the door.

A light, feminine voice called, “Come in.”

As soon as Lestrade opened the door, Conan froze, a wave of intense emotion striking him like an icicle straight through the lungs. Because while he didn’t exactly have Haibara’s sensitivity to the Black Organization members, he could usually still tell when one of the higher-ups was in his vicinity, and there definitely was.

He glanced around the room as Sherlock swept in with John following close behind, eyes darting around quickly before they settled on the only person in the room who was still alive. She was nondescript, a little on the mousy side, and had a small smile on her face. She looked a little nervous, shifting her weight from side to side and chewing on her bottom lip, and her gaze seemed focused on Sherlock even though she couldn’t seem to look at him for more than ten seconds without flushing slightly and glancing away.

She didn’t look like part of an international crime organization...

She wasn’t wearing all black - or any at all, really; in fact, she was wearing a white lab coat, a faded maroon jumper over a cream button-up, and reddish skirt - but, well...neither did Bourbon. Vermouth, as well, and Mizunashi Rena generally didn’t stick to just the one shade either. Undercover agents evidently didn’t need to follow the dress code. In fact, he wasn’t exactly sure that there was one in the first place; it might just be coincidence that the majority of the members he’d come into contact with wore black constantly. Maybe they thought it made them look edgy...

In any case, he couldn’t ignore the feeling. Since she was the only living person in the morgue (and he highly doubted he would get that feeling from a corpse), he resolved to spend as little time in her presence as possible.

(Hey, look at that. That must be that ‘self preservation’ thing Haibara had been trying to beat into his head for the past year and a half.)

Conan tugged at Lestrade’s sleeve to get his attention, staying just out of sight behind the door. When Lestrade turned to look down at him, he said, “I don’t wanna go in there.”

Lestrade gave him a weird look, like he was trying to frown and raise his eyebrows at the same time. It didn’t work very well. “You don’t? Why not?”

Which Conan supposed was a fair question, given that he had spent most of his day (life) hanging around a crime scene trying to solve a mystery. Luckily, it only took about two seconds to come up with an excuse - or, rather, fall back on his new default excuse: “I see dead people.”

(He really needed to figure out the English word for ‘psychic.’ This was getting ridiculous.)

To his credit, Lestrade managed to connect the fairly vague dots Conan was supplying him with almost immediately. “Right, morgue - lots of dead bodies probably means lots of ghosts, doesn’t it?”

Conan nodded, eyes big and shiny with the tears he was prepared to start unleashing at a moment’s notice. “The people who were murdered are really angry. Not Maria, though, ‘cause she doesn’t really understand what’s happened yet.”

There was a moment of strained silence before Lestrade broke it with a hesitant, “Does - ” He paused, as if he couldn’t quite believe what he was considering saying, but he soldiered on. “Does Maria know how she...passed away?”

Conan snorted and folded his arms petulantly, as if Lestrade had said something particularly stupid. “No, it doesn’t work like that. And you can say ‘died,’ Lestrade-keibu, I’m not four.”

“How does it work, then?” Lestrade asked, looking both morbidly curious and like he was dying a little on the inside. Conan was impressed by his emotional range.

He had to think about his answer for a moment, though, so he forced a thoughtful expression onto his face and bought time with, “It’s kinda hard to explain...especially since I haven’t really spoken much English in the past couple years...um…”

It was mostly hard to explain because he hadn’t exactly thought that bit through just yet. If he was going to pretend to be psychic, then he probably should have looked up some information about it since he’d spent the previous fourteen or so years of his life actively avoiding anything remotely concerning the supernatural - aside from what Ran had forced on him and information he’d needed for cases. And heist notices, as well, he supposed.

Actually…

A few heists ago, if he remembered correctly (which he did), the target had been ‘The Spirit’s Cry’ or something like that and the hints in the notice had gone completely over his head until he’d accidentally left it out on the table (because apparently he got his own personal notices now) and Ran had seen it. Apparently it was mostly common knowledge, so Conan, dying a little on the inside, had listened to her ramble about ghosts and spirits for a solid ten minutes before he figured out the answer.

So, if he hadn’t completely repressed the memory, it was probably still in his head somewhere.

“Um, so… Not all dead people get ghosts, right? If they die mostly content or without any big thing that’s holding them back, they just kinda disappear. But even with the ones who die really violently can’t actually remember the first few minutes before or after their deaths. Ran-neechan said something about trauma, I think? I dunno. Some of them don’t remember anything at all, ‘cause they’ve got amnesia.” Which was a word he knew, ha. He knew his terrible English detective dramas would come in handy one day. “That’s usually the ones that are really, really bad. And then, when they’re kids, they usually don’t understand that they’re dead? And that means that they don’t understand what I’m talking about when I start asking questions. So that’s annoying - ”

Conan was confident in his detective skills, sure. But he wasn’t an idiot . He knew that he wouldn’t be able to pull off ‘psychic’ in front of people who were used to Sherlock unless he could come up with some reasonable restrictions to what he could ‘find out’ from the ‘ghosts.’ He might get some leeway for being a kid, and for being supposedly unused in English, though, so that would be helpful.

“And sometimes I get flashes of things from alive people, too,” was how he ended his explanation. “I can usually find proof, too, so don’t worry about that. Does that answer your question? ‘Cause I’m hungry and I don’t wanna be here too long.”

Lestrade sighed, giving in - not that he was trying too hard to resist, since Conan did look like he was about five and five-year-olds shouldn’t really be hanging around near a morgue if it could be helped. “Okay, let me just - ” He ducked his head around the door and into the room to tell Donovan that he was going to get some food and did anyone want anything.

She asked for a cup of coffee, two sugars and a splash of cream, and a bagel. John requested a bacon butty and added a cup of coffee, black, after looking at Sherlock, almost as an afterthought. The woman - presumably the coroner, Molly Hooper - gestured to a mug of probably-tea on her desk and said she didn’t need anything.

Conan grinned maniacally behind Lestrade’s back as he closed the door and began walking back the way they’d come. This was his chance to hit three birds with one stone -  he could get back at Sherlock for the last time they’d met by stealing his drink, get back at John for the decaf by stealing the drink he’d ordered for Sherlock which would force him to deal with a whiny detective, and - most importantly - he could get a decent cup of caffeinated coffee into his system.

Hell, at this point he’d even take the stuff at the police station that was so thick he had to chew it.

He bounced off after Lestrade, feeling that things might possibly be looking up for the first time since he’d found himself on Sherlock and John’s couch that morning.

Chapter Text

Conan was just taking his first sip of real coffee that morning from what was meant to be Sherlock's cup but instead had been sacrificed on the altar of supreme pettiness when he heard the scream. He allowed himself a small sigh before he chugged down the rest of his sludge-like coffee and ran directly towards the noise.

“Wh- Conan?! Where are you - ”

“My murder senses are tingling!” he shot over his shoulder, not bothering to wait until Lestrade processed the statement before darting around the corner back into the cafeteria.

Ha. He’d been waiting to use that one.

The source of the commotion was evidently a small table on the left side of the room. It sat four people, though one of them had apparently fallen out of his chair onto the floor and was clutching at his throat. The woman who had been sitting next to him had jumped to her feet with her hands over her mouth, pushing her chair into the middle of the aisle and just barely missing the man who had been walking behind her but was now frozen, taking in the scene. The other two people at the table were leaning forward in their seats, trying to figure out what was going on.

What was going on was that the man was choking to death - asphyxiation, likely from anaphylactic shock, if he wasn’t much mistaken, given the fact that the victim was choking on air as well as his tongue and sweat was rapidly beading on his forehead even in the heavily air-conditioned hospital. A quick glance at the victim's lips showed rapid swelling.

Conan ran forward, breaking them out of their shock with a quick, “Is anyone here a doctor?” because, seriously, literally all of them were wearing scrubs and name tags that ended with 'M.D.' and yet none of them were doing anything to save the poor guy.

The woman shook her head briefly to clear it, then rummaged around in the asphyxiating guy’s pocket for an EpiPen. The other three - the two still seated at the table and the guy who’d nearly been knocked over - took a little longer to get into action, but started yelling codes and things that Conan didn’t pay all that much attention to since it would use up too much of his newly-caffeinated brain power to try and translate numbers heard in English to numbers he recognized to Japanese hospital codes, especially when English codes were probably entirely different. Honestly, since he was already in a hospital that would presumably provide better first aid than he could, he should probably just start taking a look at the crime scene (because, yeah, it was definitely a crime scene, otherwise his murder senses wouldn’t have been tingling.)

(And also because no one other than lactose-intolerant people deliberately consumed something they knew they were allergic to, and Britain was generally pretty good about labeling those sorts of things, especially in hospitals.)

(It could’ve been an accident or something, Conan supposed, but he hadn’t had a body drop in his vicinity for a couple of days now, so…)

Quick look into the victim’s coffee cup, swish it around a little (carefully!) - yup, small plastic capsule, not completely dissolved just yet, plus some suspicious-looking liquid mostly mixed into the drink, only a slightly different color - had the guy been poisoned, maybe? There were a lot of poisons that mimicked the effects of anaphylactic shock… But it could also have been that someone had intentionally caused an allergic reaction in hopes of it being fatal, despite the vast number of doctors around given the fact that this was a hospital…

But, then again, it had taken a seven-year-old to shock the four doctors into doing something about the asphyxiating man they were standing next to.

Hm.

Either they were woefully incompetent, in shock, or interns.

Anyway.

A sniff revealed something very odd, for a case like this. A faint whiff of something chemical - which wasn't all that strange - plus a hint of…

Licorice, maybe? It was a little hard to place, what with the overwhelming smell of coffee enveloping it, even though it was fairly pungent. Perhaps something more fruity?

Whatever the scent was, it didn’t belong in black coffee, so it probably was related to the partially-dissolved capsule.

Conan ignored the victim being rushed away on a gurney, trying to focus instead on identifying the smell because it was definitely important. The other parts of the case were actually pretty typical - in his experience, at least - so as soon as he talked to the suspects it would probably be clear who the culprit was. But, as always, he’d need proof, which was usually the tricky bit. Instinct and intuition weren’t enough. Which was fair, granted, since he hadn’t come across anyone who could match him in terms of intuition yet (since at this point it was basically an extremely sensitive compass that pointed to either the victim or the culprit, depending on the situation) and it would be dangerous to just let any run-of-the-mill police officer arrest people on gut feelings. The burden of proof always fell on the accuser, which was fair and easy enough in most cases, but some always managed to be spectacularly tedious...

Ugh. What was that scent and why was it so familiar?

(And why was it bringing to mind images of an empty house and KID, of all people?)

Conan started, situational awareness abruptly taking over the forefront of his mind as the woman who had found the victim’s EpiPen (and probably saved his life) tried to follow the gurney.

Nope, not happening.

Conan stretched an arm like he was clothes-lining someone, trying to stop her in her tracks. It worked, in that she nearly tripped over him and had to flail wildly to regain her balance, which prevented her from going after the victim’s gurney. Once she straightened herself up, she placed her hands rather decisively on her hips and glared down at him, opening her mouth for what was no doubt going to be a positively scathing rebuke, but Conan cut her off before she could even utter the first syllable. “Doctor-san, you’re going to need to stay here.”

The scowl disappeared from her face for a moment, her expression cycling through bemusement, indignation, and irritation before it returned. “And why on earth would I do what a six-year-old tells me to do?! That’s my fiancé on that gurney! He nearly died!” She visibly bit back something that would probably have been along the lines of “Do you even know what death is, kid?”

(Conan probably knew better than she did, even though she had doubtless seen a fair number of patients pass over since this was her third - no, fourth month of her internship, judging by her shoes, ankles, and the fact that the bags under her eyes hadn't yet reached maximum capacity.)

...He was used to people at a crime scene doing whatever he said automatically, as long as he said whatever he needed to in a suitably commanding tone, so that she was arguing with him was a bit of an unwelcome surprise - though, he supposed, not entirely unexpected. He had yet to build up any credibility in this country, after all, much less the city, so why on earth would anyone listen to him?  Apparently he’d trained Ran and the police force to give his observations some credit when murder was potentially involved, enough that civilians didn’t bother to question him after they saw them deferring to him anymore - completely unintentionally, of course. Or maybe it was just that people in shock tended to take orders better? No, that didn’t sound right...

Regardless, he obviously didn’t have that kind of credibility in London just yet. (Yet?)

(Actually, he was pretty sure that whenever someone called 110 to report a body, at this point one of the standard questions was whether or not there was a little kid running around the scene with glasses and an obsessively neat hairstyle.)

(Clearly, this wasn't the case in the country where he'd only been involved in one serial bombing case as Conan...and he was pretty sure that he'd managed to keep his involvement hidden, for the most part, probably. Well, he hadn't had to give a witness statement, so there wasn't any physical record of his name or anything. It was possible that one of the officers had mentioned him in their report or something, but it was...fairly unlikely.)

(Come to think of it, the 110 call fielders probably had a great amount to do with the abrupt decrease in civilians questioning his presence at crime scenes that had started a couple of months ago...)

Conan didn’t really have an answer to her question that didn’t involve some form of ‘I’m a detective,’ which she wasn't going to believe - and who would, really? Who would rationally believe that an elementary schooler would have seen (and solved) more murders than probably half of Scotland Yard put together? No one sane, that’s who. And presumably these interns - because, yes, he’d figured they were interns in part thanks to the bags under their eyes, the scuff marks on their shoes, the color of their scrubs, and their impractical hairstyles - had been studying medicine and logic for the better part of the last decade, which wouldn’t exactly predispose them to gullibility.

(Even if it was the truth.)

But, well, it wasn’t like he had a better answer so -

“Because I’m a detective and you’re a suspect right now, Doctor-san.”

She snorted and stepped around him. “Sorry, kid, I don’t have time to play this game with you - ”

...And she walked right into Lestrade’s badge, which he was holding at about her eye level. She stared at it, having to cross her eyes to focus on it properly. “Apologies, ma’am, but he’s right. I’m Detective Inspector Greg Lestrade, and I’m going to need you and your friends to stay here, if you don’t mind.”

Conan felt a weight lift from his shoulders, allowing some of the tension to dissipate even as Lestrade stared at him with a carefully blank face past the woman’s arm. His eyes quite clearly said, “I’m trusting you and if this is all a false alarm I will be very cross,” or something to that effect.

Well, the capsule and foreign liquid in the victim’s coffee cup quite clearly proved that something intentional was happening there. Whether it was poison or an allergen, he had yet to determine, so he wasn’t positive on the classification front - it could be attempted murder, assault, or something else entirely. But it certainly hadn't been an accident.

So Conan gave him a thumbs up from behind the woman's back.

It...probably hadn't been her, given that once she realized what was happening she had immediately lunged for his EpiPen - but, then again, that could have just been to cover up her crime so he couldn't rule her out entirely. After all, it was entirely possible that her “freezing” had been calculated - even if she hadn’t had any tells or anything that suggested that she had planned an attempt on her fiance’s life, it was still possible that she - Dr. Garcia, according to her ID badge, probably about twenty-seven - was just a really good liar...

(Improbable. If he considered the state of her engagement ring - for one, she was actually wearing it on her finger in the hospital despite it likely being against policy and safety regulations. She had an empty chain around her neck that seemed to be the same silver as the ring, so that was probably where she put it when she wasn't on break. His initial point still stood, though. The ring was well cared for, and she was evidently wearing it on her finger any time she could, even if it was impractical. Rings, especially wedding or engagement rings, had a tendency to reflect the state of a marriage - therefore, it was unlikely that she was the culprit.

...Unless her potential motive was something that she had just found out about, like cheating or false identities or what-have-you. Then all bets were off.)

(Wow, he was really getting cynical, wasn’t he.)

(But, still. It was important to consider every option, especially the unlikely ones.)

(As Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes had said, “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”)

(Although...going from sixteen to six was generally pretty improbable - almost impossible, even, especially since the extra mass had to go somewhere, didn’t it? But there was nothing...left over...from his initial transformation, and he hadn’t needed any supplementary... materials ...to return to his original body - which basically broke physics. The law of conservation of mass, specifically.

He’d heard KID talk about magic before - not the stage variety he had a penchant for using at heists, but mentions of a “real” witch, and honestly? He was starting to think that he’d maybe been a little narrow-minded where the supernatural was concerned, because how else did the apotoxin work? Sure, an exothermic reaction kind of vaguely explained the shrinking, but when he returned to his original body…)

Conan blinked hard, jostling himself out of the spiraling tunnel vision that often happened if he stumbled into an investigation sometime between when he had drunk his ( caffeinated ) coffee and when it actually kicked in completely.

(Wow, he really was a mess today.)

(This was why he left the borderline magical science-y stuff to Haibara. He was perfectly content with his high-school-level chemistry skills, plus his much-higher-level knowledge of chemistry needed to solve cases. Anything more than that went straight to Haibara, unless it was some sort of concoction from a KID heist because for some reason those were almost...intuitive, for him.

Which implied that he and KID had similar thought patterns.

...He should probably be more concerned about that than he actually was.)

Conan directed his attention to the two men who had been seated opposite the victim, trying to keep his brain on track (which was gearing up to be quite an undertaking, but apparently his mind just completely derailed whenever KID was even tangentially involved, so. He should probably do something about that, really, but since Sherlock was still in the morgue Conan figured he probably didn’t have to worry about it just yet - especially since he was in the middle of figuring out how to psychically solve a probable attempted murder when he wasn’t actually psychic so he should probably focus on that instead of the damn cat that was Kaitou KID).

They were pretty unremarkable, honestly. Nothing was really jumping out at him, but he gave them a quick once-over just in case he’d missed anything - which, while unlikely, wasn’t impossible.

Besides, the table was too wide for either of them to have been able to drop the capsule into the victim’s drink unnoticed, and there hadn’t been anything attached to the capsule or strange marks on the table or surrounding area that would mark a trick of some kind.

Conan blinked deliberately, focusing himself. Right, the suspects.

One was blonde with spiky hair and high cheekbones, probably of Scandinavian heritage, about twenty-eight. He liked fishing, apparently, from his tan line and the grooves in his fingers that Conan could only see because he and the other intern had come around to his side of the table in an effort to somehow help their asphyxiating friend.

(It also allowed Conan to catch a glimpse of his name tag, which read “Dr. Beck, M.D.” - excellent, because calling suspects by their names was probably better than calling them Suspect #1 or #2 or whatever in his head. It also made it easier to differentiate between suspects, which of course was good for obvious reasons.)

Conan kind of wondered where Beck had found a place to fish in London, but pushed that from his mind because irrelevant. His sleeves were slightly stained; Conan identified the substances to be peanut butter and jelly after a quick look at his abandoned sandwich, plus a bit of ranch dressing which he had apparently been using as dipping sauce for his carrots for some reason. He wore glasses with thin wire frames, and the only lines on his face seemed to be those made by laughter - which made the worried frown jarring on his face, as if he wasn’t used to making his face work like that. His hands were trembling slightly at his sides.

The other man from the opposite side of the table - Dr. Sett, apparently, probably around twenty-four - was likely South Asian - possibly from Bangladesh or India, from what Conan vaguely remembered of his accent (he still wasn’t great at identifying accents with English) during the incident earlier when he'd been calling out some sort of hospital code. He seemed pretty well put-together and clearly cared about his appearance. His beard was neatly trimmed, and even though his hair was about the same length as Genta’s, he had taken the time to style it using some sort of product (not gel, though, because since Conan himself used that daily and would’ve recognized it - he was kind of surprised that his gel had held this long, actually, but he was glad of it because otherwise he’d have looked eerily like his mother’s teacher’s kid. They’d only met the one time, but that one time had been enough of an...event to cement that kid in his memory) and Conan was pretty sure that he tweezed his eyebrows regularly but couldn’t be certain from his vantage point.

He had a pair of sunglasses hanging from the collar of his scrubs, which was a bit odd until Conan spotted the slight redness of his eyes and the hardly noticeable bags under his eyes that were almost professionally obscured beneath a layer of concealer (probably? It could be foundation, but Conan still didn’t really know what the difference was. The extent of his beauty product knowledge was the meager amount he’d absorbed by osmosis from the times he’d been dragged into Ran and Sonoko’s Girls Nights. Regardless, the exact product didn’t matter as much as the fact that the suspect was hiding a hangover with enough skill that it seemed to be a somewhat regular occurrence - or he just cared that much about his appearance, or some mixture of the two).

He also smelled good, but that was irrelevant and Conan didn’t actually know why he’d noticed that. His facilities still weren’t completely online yet, he supposed - wait.

Oh, right. He was still mulling over the suspicious scent from the victim’s cup in the back of his mind, waiting on some sort of insight.

Conan sighed, turning to the last remaining suspect, the one who had been passing behind the woman’s chair.

He...looked a bit like John, actually, though his name tag identified him as Dr. Miller. Well, maybe they didn’t look exactly the same. Miller was about ten years younger than John (definitely on the old side for an intern), but he had the same color hair and eyes, same hairstyle, and the same general face shape - that was the extent of their similarities, but Conan wasn’t exactly used to telling white people apart outside of his English detective dramas, and even then it was sometimes a bit touch-and-go.

Both Dr. Miller and John also carried some sort of weapon on their person - John had an as-of-yet undetermined type of handgun (as Conan hadn’t got a good enough look at it to be able to identify the make and model, since John kept it underneath a lumpy jumper), and Miller had some kind of utility knife (which, admittedly, wasn’t as blatantly a weapon as John’s gun, and - going by the calluses on his hands and the polished areas of metal - Miller very rarely, if ever, used the knife part for self-defense. He’d used it to cut something recently, though, judging by the nick on one of his index fingers).

Unlike John, who wasn’t actually part of the situation at this specific point in time and therefore had no emotions pertaining to the situation, Miller’s face had been stuck in a genuinely perplexed expression since the victim had been carted off. He also looked almost deathly pale, to the point that Conan was considering asking one of the others to take a look at him. He coughed violently a couple times, eyes watering, and pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket with an almost violently shaking hand and - oh.

Cherry.

That’s what that smell was.

Not just any cherry, though. Blatantly artificial cherry.

(Ah, so that's what happened…)

He had been right earlier - figuring out what the smell was had been the key to blowing this case wide open. Interestingly enough, this wasn’t actually an attempted murder.

It was...hm, could he call it an accident? Well, not really.

Anyway, now he had to figure out how to tell Lestrade in a way that would make him seem psychic. Which. Probably wouldn’t be all that hard, actually. As long as he could avoid cringing with embarrassment.

Conan steeled himself, closing his eyes briefly and letting out a huff of air that was somewhere between a scoff and a sigh. He was really doing this, wasn’t he.

He cocked his head slightly, as if he were listening to someone on his right - where there quite clearly wasn’t anyone within earshot. Once he felt Lestrade’s eyes zero in on him (almost immediately, like he’d been waiting for something to happen - well, in that case, how could Conan disappoint him?), he nodded a couple times, pretending he was acknowledging something someone was saying. He allowed that to continue for a few moments before abruptly spinning on his heel and locking his eyes with Lestrade’s watchful gaze. He lifted his eyebrows, making them shoot up to his hairline, and let his mouth drop open a little, feigning surprise, before quickly schooling his face into what he thought would be a good approximation of a reasonably good child’s poker face. (Not Poker Face, damn it, KID. The capital letters made them two completely different things.)

He grinned brightly, pretending that he thought it was reaching his eyes and didn’t look blatantly fake, and darted over to stand next to Lestrade, tugging at his sleeve until he crouched down so Conan could put a hand up to block his mouth as he stage-whispered into his ear, “I know who did it, Lestrade-keibu!”

Lestrade sighed. “Of course you do. Why not. It’s only been a minute and a half.”

Had it? It felt longer than that…

(A quick look at his watch revealed that Lestrade had actually been almost...uncannily accurate. One minute, thirty-seven seconds since Lestrade had entered the scene.)

Conan nodded enthusiastically. “Uh-huh!”

“I’m sorry, did what , exactly?” the victim’s fiancée demanded, narrowing her eyes.

“Do you have proof?” Lestrade asked, because apparently they were ignoring the fiancée for now.

Conan rolled his eyes, affronted. “Of course I do.”

Lestrade sighed heavily, looking like he was dearly wishing that he had never crawled out of bed that morning. “Okay, go off, I guess. At least you’ll probably be more polite about it than Sherlock,” he muttered, as if raising his voice was too much effort.

“Excuse me - ”

Lestrade turned to Garcia, apparently have forgotten her existence in the face of a psychic seven-year-old.

Which. Fair.

“Dr. Garcia, we - I have reason to believe that the incident involving your fiancé a few minutes ago was, in fact, intentional and premeditated.”

That wasn’t entirely accurate, but given the fact that Conan had only told him that he’d figured out who did it, it was understandable.

“What?!” blurted Beck, closely followed by Sett with a “How on earth - ?”

Lestrade looked like he wanted to shrug and direct questions to Conan but he clung to his professionalism. “I’m probably risking my job for this, so you’d better be sure about it,” he said under his breath so that only Conan could hear.

Conan, for his part, grinned back at him and whispered (actually whispered this time), “Check the victim’s cup. Also, you should probably turn on your voice recorder.”

Lestrade gave him a Look but acquiesced, turning on his recorder. Good. “Go on, then.” He left Conan to face the four suspects and their barrage of questions, possibly in some sort of misdirected attempt to get back at Sherlock for all the times he’d done something similar, which Conan could appreciate but also wouldn’t work, mostly because of what he was about to do.

“The criminal is...you!” Conan declared, pointing directly at Miller, to the shock of his colleagues - and also him. Lestrade almost tripped over thin air at the abruptness of the proclamation.

(Conan frowned to himself. That sounded kind of weird in English.)

Miller spluttered. “What the hell, kid? I wouldn’t try to kill Alex! He’s my person! Like, if I killed someone, he’d be the one I call to move the body. So if I killed him, he wouldn’t be able to help me move his body because he’d be dead!”

Beck rolled his eyes. “You stole that straight from Grey’s Anatomy!”

“It’s called a reference , Michael, and besides, Grey’s Anatomy is just about the only reason I’m becoming a surgeon, so…” Miller shook his head, gesticulating wordlessly. “We’ve been over this!”

“No one on Grey’s Anatomy ever tried to kill one of their fellow interns, though,” put in Sett, narrowing his eyes at his colleague.

“But I didn’t mean to - !”

Got him.

“Hey, hey, Garcia-sensei, is your fiancé allergic to anything?”

She blinked. “I don’t see what that has to do with anything, but he’s allergic to peanuts and acetaminophen.”

Somehow, Miller’s pale complexion paled even further. It seemed practically impossible, but somehow he managed it. “W-what? I didn’t…”

Conan made sure his smile was still in place before he continued. “Hey, Miller-sensei...my throat is feeling kind of sore - do you have any cold medicine?”

Acetaminophen was one of the active ingredients in a fair number of cold medicines and pain relievers. The gel capsules Miller had in his pocket were no exception. Normally, that kind of capsule would take over an hour enveloped by stomach acid to dissolve enough to let the medicine enter the system, but not if someone deliberately carved out a hole in the casing, like Miller had with his utility knife - then, the medicine would be absorbed much faster.

Stomach acid’s pH was usually between 1.5 and 3.5, while coffee’s was around 4.5 to 5, so the gel capsule that had once contained the medicine wouldn’t have finished dissolving yet - they could probably still get fingerprints off it if necessary.

And, three, two, one -

“I didn’t know he was allergic to it!” Miller blurted, collapsing to the cafeteria floor as his legs refused to hold his weight any longer. “You have to believe me - I thought it would just make him tired!”

Zero.

Sett inhaled sharply, eyes wide. “You mean - the kid was right?”

Miller buried his face in his hands, shoulders shaking. “I - I didn’t know! I just wanted to take his ego down a few notches - so since I had some NyQuil on me today, I thought - I thought I could just put some in his drink and he’d - but I didn’t know he was allergic! I wasn’t trying to kill him!”

Garcia leveled a frigid look at him, fists clenched at her sides. He must have felt it even without looking at her, because he quailed beneath her gaze. “Not only did you almost kill Alex,” she began, sounding deceptively calm. “But even if your plan had worked, you would have put all of Alex’s patients at risk. That’s unforgivable. In my opinion, you don’t deserve to be a doctor.”

Miller crumpled into himself even further, openly sobbing now.

How dramatic.

Conan sidled over to where Lestrade was photographing the capsule, since the culprit clearly wasn’t going anywhere any time soon. “Do you think that’s enough evidence?” he inquired politely.

Lestrade rolled his eyes. “I’d say so.” He carefully plucked the remnants of the capsule out of the cup and placed it in an evidence bag and labeled it before pulling out his phone, presumably to text his partner and tell her he’d made another arrest. He took a moment to press his lips together tightly, likely restraining another exasperated sigh, then moved to cuff Miller, which broke the other three doctors out of their stupor.

“...How did you know all that, kid?” Garcia asked. Lestrade sighed and massaged the bridge of his nose, preparing himself for Conan’s answer.

“Oh, that’s easy!” Conan decided on the spot to take a page from Ayumi’s book, because the Detective Boys were the closest thing he had to examples of normal seven-year-olds. “The yuurei-san told me!”

“...Yoo Ray Sahn?”

“Yeah, the ghost that follows Garcia-sensei’s future husband around. They saw the whole thing happen, so they told me ‘cause I’m the only one here who can hear them.” Conan pretended to misinterpret Garcia’s disbelieving gaze as concerned. “Oh, don’t worry, they’re a nice spirit! They’re only following him around because they want to thank him. Actually, they want me to ask you to take a message to him, if you wouldn’t mind?” A bemused nod from Sett. “Thanks! They say that they know that he did everything that he could to save them, and it wasn’t his fault that they died. They want to say ‘thank you for trying to save me and I’m glad I could help you in return.’”

It was a fair assumption, since they were all a few months into their internships. It was extremely unlikely that they hadn’t lost a patient. It was even more unlikely that they didn’t regret it happening. So he got to supply more ‘evidence’ for his ‘psychic abilities’ and simultaneously provide a bit of comfort to the interns. Two birds, one stone, and all that.

Donovan chose that moment to make an appearance, which was good because Conan wasn’t actually great at coming up with things that sounded like something a ghost would say. He was much better at paraphrasing.

She paused at the entrance, blinked twice at the scene in front of her, then continued forward until she was level with Lestrade and Conan. “Hey, boss. That’s the second arrest today. You’d better watch out, or he’ll put you out of a job,” she greeted them, with a pointed nod at Conan.

Lestrade groaned quietly. “I can see the headlines now. ‘Police Use Psychic Child to Solve Case.’ ”

“No way, that’s too many characters for a headline. It’ll have to be something with more panache, like ‘Police’s New Consultant: Psychic Kid?’ ”

Conan groaned internally. If that ended up being in the papers, KID would definitely be focusing on him during the next heist. He’d probably end up in a miniature KID costume and holding a crystal ball or something.

Assuming, of course, that he ever ended up going to another heist. That was a sobering thought.

Nah, he was almost certain that KID would most certainly Find A Way if he felt one of his detectives could be embarrassed. He wasn’t called an international thief for nothing.

...Conan was really hoping that he wasn't going to be in the newspaper at all, but his luck probably wasn't that good.

Chapter Text

Things moved rather quickly after Conan’s second arrest of the day. Donovon kept giving him little sideways glances, which was frankly a bit irritating, but, well. He was presenting himself as a psychic. He’d be more concerned if no one thought it was strange.

There wasn’t much he could do to stop her, anyway, except behave as consistently as possible.

...Which might be a problem, considering that he was actually not that great at acting like Conan , who was basically a mix of himself and what he assumed a six-year-old acted like, much less pretending to be psychic, which he knew basically nothing about.

But, well, that could be a problem that future!him could figure out easily enough once he had access to Google again.

Probably.

No use worrying about it now, but he could probably stand to turn up the childishness a bit to throw her off track. But not too much - or, rather, not as much as he had done frequently back in Japan - because that was actually even more suspicious, according to the therapist he’d seen maybe half a dozen times before the incident had occurred and proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that his paranoia, among other things, was actually justifiable.

...Honestly, in that respect, he was more concerned about Donovan and Lestrade than he was about Sherlock, because Sherlock had no idea how children acted in the first place, so a few discrepancies here and there probably wouldn’t make too much of a difference.

Probably.

But, then again, he was Sherlock Holmes, so one could never be too careful.

Conan didn’t have to worry about it right that second, luckily enough, because Sherlock had apparently dragged John off into a taxi sometime between the doctor’s arrest and subsequent escort to the police car - which presented the officers with a conundrum. Because they couldn’t in good conscience leave a seven-year-old unsupervised, but they also obviously couldn’t let him ride in the back with the guy who had just been arrested for attempted manslaughter for liability reasons…

Which was how he ended up sitting in DI Lestrade’s lap as Sergeant Donovan drove them all to the station.

No one was particularly happy with the situation, but Lestrade took it with good humor - he had daughters about Conan’s age, so he was likely somewhat used to it  - while Donovan took a picture and sent it to John, entitling it ‘forget something?’

There was no immediate reply, so they assumed he was off managing Sherlock - a job that required nearly all of his concentration at the best of times, which now was...not. Because, of course, he was on a case.

...Conan dearly hoped he was not that bad when he caught the scent of a mystery, but he had a sneaking suspicion that Haibara would say differently.

Hm. He should...probably work on that, huh.

But -

Mysteries.

Mysteries he had to solve, because the police force didn’t see the obvious when it was right in front of their noses, much less give the victim’s family any sort of closure or stop a murderer from killing again -

Well, maybe that wasn’t quite fair. The cases he managed to get involved in generally had a tendency to get pretty weird pretty quickly, so he had to think outside the box if he wanted to uncover the truth. Which, of course, wasn’t how police officers were trained - they were trained by the book , which meant they had a script to follow, a procedure to go through, etc - which would be fine in any normal case…

(He always got the weird ones...)

High school detectives, though - they didn’t have ‘the best way’ to survey a crime scene hammered into their heads, which meant they had the chance to be more... flexible in their thinking, which made them better for strange cases. Which was probably the only reason the police allowed them anywhere near crime scenes.

Anyway.

The ride to the police station passed relatively uneventfully (in that no corpses abruptly fell from the sky), minus the quiet sobs coming from Miller in the back seat, as Lestrade pointed out interesting landmarks (which Conan honestly wasn’t all that interested in, too busy trying to make his own mental map of the city) - then, once he realized Conan was only pretending to pay attention, he started talking about the places where some of his cases had been (which was marginally more interesting), Donovan chiming in every now and then. Eventually, they passed a house that made them both sigh simultaneously before Donovan took the lead and started expounding the details of a case with Sherlock. Loudly. And aggressively. It seemed to be cathartic for her.

...It was a good thing that the station wasn’t much further, because although Conan acquiesced that it was a decent opportunity to figure out if Sherlock’s methods were mostly the same or not, he was also intimately aware of how annoying Sherlock Holmes could be. He was best in small doses, really.

As if summoned by Donovan’s ire, John and Sherlock appeared almost as soon as Donovan and Lestrade had dropped Miller off for processing, Conan hanging around awkwardly beside them and people-watching for lack of anything better to do. One of the beat cops was getting married, apparently. Good for her. He hoped she and her future wife would be happy together and that a corpse would not land on their wedding cake (which would definitely happen if it were him and Hattori, which was why Conan refused to marry him under any circumstances, even if it became legal in Japan).

Sherlock, of course, swept in with his coat flapping dramatically (somehow more dramatic than KID, which he hadn’t even thought was possible, but since Sherlock was somehow being unconsciously That Dramatic, he just barely managed to edge KID out). John followed behind him in an odd juxtaposition, what with his intentionally mild presence and far less pretentious outfit of jeans and a jumper.

Conan had vaguely positive feelings towards them finally showing up (honestly, who had put them in charge of a child? It was a good thing that he was actually seventeen because otherwise this would probably have gone a whole lot worse) because that meant that things were probably going to start getting interesting again. There were only so many times he could play ‘guess-the-type-of-crime’ before he got truly, dreadfully bored. Most of the people here were from some sort of gang, and Conan had needed to awkwardly tug on the hem of Donovan’s pencil skirt (because that was all he could reach, okay - he hated being short and the British were way too tall) and let her know about a couple of hidden knives before things got nasty. At least that had given him some entertainment in terms of her reaming out some new recruits. One of them made the grave mistake of derisively asking who the hell she thought she was to be talking to him like that. The ensuing lecture lasted for a good five minutes, and it had been thoroughly enjoyable to watch as the new recruit slowly lost the will to live, clearly regretting his words - especially when she frisked the gang member and came up with three knives (including a nasty-looking switchblade) that the new recruit had somehow missed.

(Conan had actually missed one of the ones she'd found, too. Donovan was just that impressive.)

But other than that it had been pretty boring, and also now he knew way too much about the officers and their interpersonal relationships. And their sex lives. He really could have lived out his entire life without knowing any of that.

Hey, maybe now that Sherlock had shown up they’d even get to see the police’s list of suspects before another body dropped. That would be nice. It would get his mind off the two officers who thought that it wasn’t obvious they’d just snuck off to have sex in the public toilet. Ugh, he was going to try and avoid that one if he could. Gross. Why was that even allowed.

(...it probably wasn’t, but clearly people still did it anyway.)

John and Sherlock’s entrance was the harbinger to the end of a short but brutal reaming from Lestrade ( “ - if you’re going to insist on bringing a child to a crime scene, please, for the love of God, keep an eye on him - ”) that Sherlock had clearly hardly paid any attention to, too busy staring at Donovan with a slight frown that deepened in direct proportion to the number of weapons she confiscated off the gang members headed towards processing. John, on the other hand, was wearing an expression that looked faintly apologetic - but not too much because he’d left Conan with Lestrade, and “honestly, you probably have a better idea of how to take care of a child, even a weird mini-Sherlock, than we do.”

Lestrade sighed with the weight of a thousand cases, the way only a father of two or more children could sigh. Because John was, unfortunately, probably right. “...You could’ve at least mentioned something about the whole ‘psychic’ thing.”

John blinked twice, rapidly. “The...what, sorry? I - ”

And that was when one of the criminals slipped the hold of a rookie officer (most likely, since not only had they been holding him incorrectly, but they had also somehow missed the gun the mobster was now holding) and lunged for Conan. Conan, who had assumed that the officers knew what they were doing for the most part and had therefore split the majority of his attention between Lestrade’s conversation with John and the way Sherlock had moved on to observing him carefully, was caught off guard but still tried to dodge out of the way.

He didn’t quite react fast enough.

The criminal barely managed to grab his arm, but after that it was easy enough for him to twist Conan into a headlock with one arm (which, annoyingly, was large enough to not only restrict Conan’s breathing but also cover his shoulders and prevent him from moving his arms) and hold a gun to Conan’s head with the other.

“Let me go or the brat gets it!” he spat, eyes skittering to the door (which was currently blocked by no less than six armored officers, who reluctantly stepped back at the threat to a small child).

Conan was...kind of bored, honestly. Being held at gunpoint wasn’t exactly an unusual situation for him, though usually culprits tended to go for Ayumi or Haibara because they were girls and therefore either ‘cuter’ (which meant the police would try harder to meet their demands - it looked worse for the police if they lost a more sympathy-inducing figure) and/or ‘weaker’ (because they’d clearly never met...any of the women in Conan’s life).

...Hm. If he ever managed to make it back to Beika, he should really suggest to Ran that the rest of the Detective Boys could use some self defense lessons. She’d be more than happy to teach them, and it would have the added benefit of easing her worry a little. Hell, he could probably do with a few more lessons, too. Maybe it would help instill in him that 'sense of self-preservation' thing Haibara was always nagging him about.

But, speaking of self-preservation instincts and his personal lack thereof, for now he should probably focus on the guy pointing a gun at his head.

“Aaaaah, help me, this guy has a gun,” he said in the most monotonous tone he could (because this was, what, the tenth time this exact situation had happened and he really couldn’t be arsed to bother pretending to be scared), before sharply kicking his heel back and nailing his captor in the balls (because he was finally tall enough), which...wasn't the smartest thing he'd ever done in his life, but he was a little past caring at this point. Besides, none of the officers had a clear shot since Conan's entire body was just about the perfect size to be a shield for his torso. And anyway, the criminal's finger wasn't even on the trigger - from the corner of his eye, Conan could see that it was just hovering over the guard, so, like, it wasn’t as if he was in actual danger.

Usually, a hard kick to that specific area would be enough to loosen the guy’s hold enough that Conan could wriggle out, but although he let out a pained half-squeal-half-screech and crumpled a little bit he didn’t loosen the arm holding Conan in a headlock.

Conan shrugged internally, unfazed, and followed the kick to the balls with a hard elbow to the solar plexus.

His captor wheezed, one hand going to cover the newly-forming bruise, causing him to loosen his grip just enough that Conan could free a hand to jab a knife-bladed hand into his neck. His trouble breathing gave Conan just enough leeway to jump away, twist mid-air, and deliver another kick to the underside of the guy’s chin. His head snapped backwards and Conan took the opportunity to shoot one of the two needles from his watch (he was glad he - or whoever had stuck him on a plane to London - had apparently thought to bring the prototype watch that shot three darts instead of one, even though it was a tad too unwieldy for day-to-day use) directly into his carotid artery, action hidden from the police officers behind him by his shoulders.

(He was thankful for the training Ran had drilled into him approximately three months into his stay at her house - after the third or so time he’d been held hostage or been shot at, probably? They all kind of blurred together after a while, honestly. She had taken him upstairs one evening after Kogorou had dozed off in front of his office’s TV with a beer in his hand and taught him some basic self-defense, because “apparently you can’t stop wandering into dangerous situations, Conan-kun! And I know it isn’t your fault, most of the time - otherwise I would ask you to stop - but you really should know how to protect yourself!”

...It was less ‘wandering’ into situations than an inability to leave the situations he found himself in or near alone. But Ran didn’t need to know that. It was better for her mental health that she think Conan just sort of got drawn into those situations.

...Conan wasn’t exactly sure he could explain himself, anyway.

In any case, the short version was that, thanks to Ran, he now knew some semblance of self defense. Also, she was right - it had come in handy.)

He waited the whole ten seconds it took for the needle to dissolve, making all traces of its existence disappear (minus a faint red mark that looked more like a bug bite than anything else), then used his foot to nudge his former assailant in the ribs a couple times, much to the horror of the police officers around him. Who he had kind of forgotten about, honestly, since there usually weren’t any around whenever he managed to get himself used in a hostage situation. Whoops.

“It’s fine,” he called over his shoulder, leaning down to carefully peel back an eyelid just to make absolutely certain. “He’s asleep. Unconscious,” he amended, because that would make more sense to them, considering they didn't actually know about his watch (and he would very much like to keep it that way for as long as he could, thank you very much) and also he hadn’t spoken very loudly at first.

He turned around to find every officer in the police station armed and ready with their weapons pointed directly at the man behind him - which was touching, actually, but he could take care of himself.

(He could.

No matter what KID had to say about it.

Or Haibara.

Or Ran.

Or -

...He wasn't helping his case, was he.

Hey, his record wasn't that bad, considering. Sure, people seemed to like shooting at him, but he'd only actually been hit, like, five times. He wasn't the one who used karate to deflect bullets, Ran. 

...That was discounting the times his mother had shot at him with rubber bullets when he'd been seven the first time around, of course...)

Conan sighed, crossing his arms. "I'm fine - and since he's only going to be unconscious for approximately ten minutes, can someone just handcuff him or something." He wasn't asking as much as stating, completely done with this entire situation. He checked his mental inventory of the things in the miscellaneous 'encountering-crimes' kits in his pockets quickly, just to make sure there wasn't anything he could use to just do it himself and - yeah, nope.

"I'd do it myself, but I'm about 95% sure I'm out of zip ties right now," he added under his breath, probably not quite quietly enough. The three-day quadruple-homicide-and-attempted-suicide case that had happened right before he'd woken up in London had wiped out his supply. There had ended up being three separate culprits, one of whom was well-versed in stage magic, so he'd had to use up more than he'd been expecting.

His comment (which evidently hadn't been quiet enough for the police officers nearby to dismiss) earned him a few strange glances from everybody but Lestrade (who sighed and reached for his handcuffs), Donovan (who just raised an eyebrow), John (whose expression was deliberately faintly puzzled, but his eyes were - maybe not calculating, per se, but definitely watchful which was going to be dangerous until Conan decided to trust him; he really needed to work on his brain-to-mouth filter), and Sherlock (who looked like his birthday had come early, had he actually cared about birthdays and not immediately deleted them upon learning them. At least Conan didn't forget his own birthday intentionally and he had reminders on his phone for the rest of them...which he realized said a lot about him as a person, but, well. Normal people didn't have corpses literally falling on top of them whenever their friends visited, so. He thought he should be allowed a pass on a few social niceties. Ran disagreed. He wasn't allowed a pass on social niceties).

Lestrade cuffed the guy who'd somehow managed to smuggle a gun into a police station - or, wait. Was that a police-issue pistol?

A more thorough glance than the once-over Conan had given it - enough to get gun, loaded, safety off, ten-maybe-eleven bullets, pointed at me, shit - revealed it to be a Glock 26, which was indeed the preferred weapon bestowed upon London plain clothes officers. So, either someone had been idiotic enough to let someone they'd just arrested steal their gun (which was, of course, entirely possible) or...

...someone had let the person they'd just arrested steal their gun, implying that they could potentially be associated with whatever gang they'd just busted. Which was not good. And also significantly more likely than the officer just being sloppy, shit. Was this gang related the Black Organization? Because, if it was, this could have potentially even been an attempt on his life, which meant that he had put the entire police station in danger just by existing because those bastards didn’t give a damn about collateral damage -

(In for four. Hold for seven. Out for eight.)

(In for four, hold for seven, out for eight.)

(In for four hold for seven out for eight.)

(Inforfourholdforsevenoutforeight.)

(fourseveneight - )

No. Stop. Think about it rationally.

Think.

How likely was it that this gang was actually connected to the Black Organization?

Not very, since they had been caught by the police. (But ‘not very’ didn’t mean zero because it was entirely possible that they just weren’t as well-organized here as they were in Japan or America, hadn’t encroached the top levels of the police force just yet, so… Or maybe these guys were the fall guys and they’d allowed themselves to be taken in so one of their number could assassinate someone - )

That wasn’t helping. Next.

(In for four. Hold for seven. Out for eight.)

Was the Black Organization even active in England?

Probably. Almost certainly, for that matter, but it was impossible to know for certain unless he could ask Haibara, so that was a moot point, especially with the aura he’d sensed earlier. (Because, with his luck, of course that aura was going to be related to the Black Organization - there was a miniscule, infinitesimal chance that something else was causing it or that he was wrong, because his Org-dar wasn’t as quite as accurate as Haibara’s.) And, anyway, if they were active anywhere in Great Britain, it would have to be London -

Keep thinking. Next.

(In for four, hold for seven, out for eight.)

Did any of the gang members act...strange before the attempted kidnapping-slash-jailbreak?

Nothing besides the dull acceptance of their fate momentarily lightened by the possibility of breaking free. Though, of course, it could always be possible that only the guy who’d attacked him had known the plan - no way to know for sure until he woke up, so -

Also not helpful. Next.

(In for four hold for seven out for eight.)

His brain started moving faster than he could keep up; it was all he could do to pluck isolated words and a couple phrases from the chaotic mire, much less actually piece together what they meant.

(Inforfourholdforsevenoutforeight - )

It was like trying to grasp for shredded bits of paper while the wind was actively blowing them away from him.

( - Organization -

why...here -

Vermouth could have -

maybe...dead...fire -

78% chance -

gun -

man -

umbrella? -

cameras saw -

what was -

remember -

and -

eleven -

what about -

could have been -

shit -

not good, not good -

what if -

help if -

gun -

Org -

knife...blood and -

remember -

kill -

black -

maybe -

dead if -

gone -

important that -

and so...house with -

WHY CAN’T YOU REMEMBER -

…

…

…

handkerchief over nose….mouth -

don’t...in don’t breathe -

DON’T BREATHE IN - )

“ - Conan?”

Conan blinked, sluggishly identifying the sound of his name then turning his head to look at Lestrade, who was now crouching next to him (when had that happened?) and had evidently been trying to get his attention. “ Sumimasen. Doushita?”

“...Are you okay?”

Ha. No. His brain was whirring away so quickly that all he was getting was static. But there was no reason to let Lestrade know that.

(Besides, he was never fine - hadn’t been since a poison that was supposed to kill him made him shrink instead.)

“ Heiki da yo, tabun,” he muttered, staring at the middle distance in Lestrade’s general vicinity. I’m fine, probably. Which was true enough.

“Conan...I can’t understand you right now, so it would be helpful if you could speak English again? There isn’t anyone here who can speak Japanese - “

Conan, never one not to correct people if he had the chance (and it was safe) , automatically raised his arm to point at Sherlock. “Kare ga shaberaremasu.” He considered the other nearby police officers absently, ignoring Lestrade’s belated of course he does under his breath, zeroing in on one officer who seemed more interested in their conversation than the unconscious criminal and was trying to edge into hearing distance. “Kanojo wa sukoshi dake wakarimasu.” She understands a little.

Which, for some reason, didn’t ease the furrow in Lestrade’s brow - in fact, it became deeper, which was a bit odd. He should be less concerned, not more. That was weird. Conan considered this vaguely, mind still mostly spitting white noise and static so he couldn’t think.

Then, suddenly, Sherlock was there, crouching next to him with icy eyes that were trying to peer into his soul, expression unreadable.

“Conan-kun, ima nihongo o hanashimasu.”

Conan tried to suppress his laughter, because that accent was absolutely horrible and honestly he had kind of expected better from Sherlock. He managed to keep everything but a violent twitch of his lips hidden, but it was an effort. Which was enough for Sherlock to figure out his reaction, probably. Well, good. That could encourage him to improve, because his accent was truly heinous, an affront to Japanese speakers everywhere.

Conan was pondering whether this was the way Hattori felt about how Conan spoke Osaka-ben when the meaning of the words Sherlock had spoken actually hit him.

Conan, you’re speaking Japanese right now.

Oh. It...probably wasn’t good that he hadn’t noticed that.

Hm.

Compartmentalizing, compartmentalizing, not going to think about it until the case is over -

Right. How to spin this?

Conan thought about it for two whole seconds, then could’ve smacked himself for taking so long because the pieces to a perfect explanation were right there in front of his nose.

(Not one that actually explained anything, of course, because even he had no idea what was going on there. Which was going to be an issue later, probably, huh. Well, no time to think about it now, not while a case was happening. Denial was his best friend until then - sorry, Hattori, you've been replaced.)

(He did, in fact, realize that mostly-kind-of-postponing a panic attack by shoving all the relevant emotions into a tiny box in the back of his head until he had a chance to deal with them wasn’t exactly the healthiest way to go through life, thanks to that therapist he’d seen for about a month, but, well. That was what he was going to do.)

Conan had to make a concerted effort to speak in English, which probably wasn’t a positive indicator of his mental state. “Oh, sorry, Lestrade-keibu! That... happens sometimes when I...do the...um, thing. Thanks, Sherlock-niichan.”

Right, be vague, pretend everyone knows what you know.

“The...thing?” Lestrade asked, right on queue.

Conan rolled his eyes, noting that his brain-body reaction time was still a little slower than he’d like - something he’d probably need to account for later, if his absolutely abysmal luck held. “Yes, you know, the thing. The...um, the ‘I just did’ thing.” Shit, why was he forgetting grammar rules now?

“...You mean, defending yourself against a criminal? Is that what you mean? It’s okay - ”

Conan heaved a sigh that sounded like it weighed more than Sherlock’s ego and waved a hand dismissively (though it was more of a flop than a wave, which was...not great). “No, no, by now, that, I am... used to. It. I'm used to it.” He ignored Lestrade’s strangled what and continued. “No, the...head thing is what I mean.”  

(His words weren’t coming as easily as they should be, either. He had to actively translate the words he wanted to say from Japanese to English, which he hadn’t had to do for years. That also wasn’t fantastic, but it sure was a thing that was happening. Great. It wasn’t an immediate threat to his cover story or anything.)

(Wait. What was he thinking? Why would - )

Conan was ripped from trying to puzzle his way through the static that was located solidly between him and his long term planning by Lestrade asking, “What do you mean by ‘the head thing’?”

Which was a fair question. What did he mean by ‘the head thing’? He’d had it just a minute ago - ah. Right, the psychic thing.

Why was he pretending to be psy - oh, right Sherlock. Who was crouched next to him, at a good height to read the nuances of his expressions, staring at him intently and wow, how had Conan missed that .

He cleared his throat, begging his brain to work properly again, but to no avail. “The criminal, I made him sleep. Sometimes...my head, that... messes with it.”

Lestrade blinked, but seemed to consider accepting that as a logical explanation after a moment. But not before asking a few more questions, because he was a police officer, and he probably hadn’t become Detective Inspector by taking everything at face value. “You... made him sleep? How?”

Conan appreciated Lestrade’s concerted effort to use basic vocabulary and simple grammar structures because apparently it was clear he was having issues with English right at that moment in time. He didn’t really have the mental capacity to deal with longer words currently. He’d really like it if that could just stop, please. He took a moment to get a portion of his thoughts together before he answered. “Um...in my head, colors. There are colors. And they are...feelings? So I, um, at him... threw them. I threw them at him. Lots of feelings. So he fell to sleep.”

Sherlock’s eyes narrowed as he observed the conversation, following the words with his eyes as if he could see them.

Lestrade nodded slowly, eyes half-closed as he puzzled through Conan’s admittedly lackluster explanation. “So, you used your psychic powers to make him sleep. And making people sleep can mess up your head.”

“Right! That’s what I meaned. Meant. Sorry.” Ugh, English was stupid .

...Also, know what was weird? That Sherlock , of all people, had flinched subconsciously at the word ‘psychic’ and then his eyes had immediately darted towards John, seemingly just to give him a quick once-over, before realizing what he’d done and forcing his body language back to ‘neutral but interested.’

...What the hell had that been about?

Conan filed it away to think about later, because if he was having trouble speaking English he clearly wasn’t in any shape mentally to be worrying about somewhat insignificant details, even if they did involve Sherlock Holmes.

“Wait, you mentioned that before -” Conan jumped, because he had not heard John coming up behind him and that could not be good for his nerves, already on the brink of snapping as they were. “Something about ‘psychic powers,’ you said?”

Lestrade sighed, placing one hand on his hip and looking like he could use a long nap. “Yeah, you could have mentioned that before running off after Sherlock - would’ve been useful to know.”

John blinked, bewildered. “But - we - ” He shot a glance at Sherlock, who didn’t do anything except blink at him like a rather large cat, but apparently that was enough for John to roll his eyes and retcon what he’d just said. “ - sorry, I had no idea about anything... psychic. What made you think that, by the way?” He was clearly trying not to sound judgemental, but it really wasn’t working. Like, at all.

“Well, how else would you explain - ” And then Conan didn’t hear anything else because something in his brain clicked and he stopped processing what was happening outside his head for a minute because wait.

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

That guy...couldn’t have been part of the Black Organization. One of their operatives...would have been prepared. Even if he’d only been a hired grunt. Especially if it had been a hit.

The guy holding a gun to his head - he would have dodged the sleeping dart (or maybe it wouldn’t have had an effect on him at all, like Gin) if he had been in any way remotely related to the Black Organization.

Because the Black Org was actually competent.

Huh.

That was the first time he’d ever been glad about that.

Conan sighed, shoulders loosening abruptly. He hadn’t even realized they’d drawn up to his ears, more taut than the muscles in Ran’s arms when she was about ready to hit Kogorou over the head for drinking too much.

The panicky static that had been obscuring the better half of his brain receded.

And then he heard -

“Oh, that’s where I recognized him from!” exclaimed the female officer Conan had identified earlier as knowing a minimal amount of Japanese, because the universe had decided that he clearly needed something else to stress about right that very second, right after he’d finally got his head on mostly straight again. “He’s - oh, what did he call himself, um..right! Doyle’s apprentice! Something like that.”

“...sorry, who?” asked John, after exchanging a brief, unreadable glance with Sherlock, who was still crouched next to Conan and watching his every micro-expression. If he hadn’t modeled his ‘too absorbed in my head to pay attention to things around me’ mask after KID’s Poker Face (because, well, who else?), he might have been worried.

The female officer looked a tad embarrassed - Officer Kim, her name tag read. "Remember the kid who interrupted Minerva Glass’s last match at the Wimbledon finals and said he’d help her? We all thought he was just being a silly kid, but then it turned out that Minerva’s mother was holding a bomb, I think it was, and we’d also been getting complaints about some kid wearing a bow tie and glasses using a rocket-powered skateboard to get around London finding clues of something. There was some author who took all the credit for figuring out about the bombing, though, and then the kid disappeared off the face of the earth afterwards."

"What, really? I thought you'd made him up, but I think I remember seeing him at some point..."

Lestrade sighed. "Normally, I'd say that was complete bull, but he's had me make two arrests today, each in under a minute - sorry, three now, I guess. And there was that whole thing about the fake bio-terrorism. And the International Criminal wanted by Interpol. The whole ‘might have stopped a bombing’ thing isn't even much of a surprise at this point...Was that you?" he asked, directing the question at Conan.

Had he been more aware of what was going on, he would’ve done something other than laugh nervously. But the female officer had been talking too fast for him to process right at that moment, even with his newly regained brain space, and her accent certainly wasn’t helping - Geordie, maybe? So he’d kind of...tuned out of the conversation (clearly not the best idea he’d ever had) and thus had no idea what Lestrade was asking. So. Nervous laughter it was, while he rewound the conversation in his head so he could play it through more slowly.

...Wimbledon? Oh, right, the strangely Greek-themed bombing with the Sherlockian clues. Apollo and Minerva Glass. Hades Sabara. Right.

“Um...kinda?” was his extremely intelligent answer.

Lestrade sighed deeply. “I don’t know why I thought I’d be surprised.”

Chapter Text

Either Sherlock hadn’t known about the bombing/murder attempt or he’d deleted it, because his face went curiously blank for a split second before he wordlessly unearthed his phone from one of his inside pockets and typed something in rapidly. John shifted a step or two closer so he could watch over Sherlock’s shoulder. His eyebrows twitched and gradually crept higher as Sherlock continued scrolling.

(There was still a thread of panic coursing through his veins just underneath his skin, but it wasn’t anything he couldn’t handle.

...For the lowest threshold of ‘handle,’ that was.

Mainly he was just trying to ignore the fact that he’d maybe-possibly-kinda been on the verge of an anxiety attack ten minutes ago.

Denial, denial, denial, that had always been his strategy for dealing with his mental health.

It had been working pretty well so far.

The therapist he’d seen for approximately a whole five sessions would probably disagree, though.)

Lestrade sighed. “Of course you don’t remember one of the biggest news stories in years. I shouldn’t have expected anything different from either of you.”

John had apparently taken a quick look at the dates, because he said, mild as could be, “I think I was still in Afghanistan then.”

Lestrade winced apologetically but didn’t say anything, because, well, what could you say to that that wouldn’t have you coming across as a complete tosser?

(Heh. British slang was fantastic.)

...Speaking of which, Conan was almost completely sure that John had tucked his service revolver back underneath the hem of his jumper before coming to stand beside Sherlock, and he was equally certain that he was not supposed to have kept it after he’d been invalidated home (presumably, of course, from the whole shoulder wound thing and the fact that field doctors were always in high demand unless they were physically unfit for duty).

But, well. If no one else was mentioning it and John had kept it so well-hidden that he’d managed to nearly fool Conan, then he wasn’t going to say anything about it. Besides, anyone who was usually within two meters of Sherlock needed some sort of an edge on their adversaries (because of course they would have adversaries) and a gun in the hands of a man who knew how to use it was as good as anything...

Especially since detectives like them had a tendency to get themselves into...sticky situations, no matter their intelligence or apparent age. It really was for the best that anyone who spent any substantial amount of time around them had an advantage - like Ran had her karate and Haibara constantly wore a ring that (he was pretty sure) functioned as a taser.

(Not that she’d ever broadcasted it - half for the element of surprise, half because if the rest of the Detective Boys knew she had a gadget like that, they would demand they also get one each. And, to be honest, not he nor Haibara nor Agasa-hakase trusted them with enough electricity to stun an adult. Maybe, maybe enough to stun a child, so if they accidentally used it on each other they would be most likely be just fine, but then it would be practically useless in terms of its originally intended function. They’d basically just be one of those buzzer ring things Genta had got from some gachapon - he’d then tricked Ayumi into shaking his hand, she’d been shocked, and then there was screaming and the silent treatment, and his point was that giving the kids taser rings was a terrible idea, okay. Because it would be a toss up as to whether Agasa-hakase actually remembered to tinker with the rings’ voltage before giving them to the kids and that was an accident just waiting to happen.

...He was so glad KID had adjusted his taser at the kirin heist to be on the low side, even for a kid - Conan had a feeling he was thinking ‘better safe with an unaffected tantei-kun than sorry with a seizing tantei-kun’ - because otherwise he might have started having heart palpitations or even, well, dying. As it was, he’d blacked out for a split second, because being hit from that close even with a low-grade blast was bad.

Haibara had held it together until the kids had left, but then he’d been frantically forced into an extremely thorough medical examination because apparently changing back and forth between his child form and his true age had left him with a strained heart - which made sense, considering the amount of pain he was in when he changed, especially in the chest area  - and a possibly compromised immune system, both of which made him more susceptible to...complications.

Which, you know, probably would have been good to know before he got tased.

But, in any case, if Haibara didn’t trust Kaitou ‘I will actively make sure no one gets hurt at my heists even if it might prevent me from escaping with my prize’ KID with less than half the charge needed to stun an adult, she certainly wouldn’t trust three actual kids with it, especially when there was a chance they might accidentally use it on each other - or worse, Conan.)

(...He should probably let KID know about Haibara’s grudge the next time they saw each other.)

(...and maybe about his potential heart condition.)

Anyway. John had a gun, which, while probably not precisely legal, was good for someone who was consistently near a detective with little to no self preservation.

“...Interesting.” Sherlock glanced up from his phone to meet Conan’s for a split second before his gaze flitted over to John briefly, then fixed onto the woman who’d spoken earlier - Officer Kim. “You said he interrupted the Wimbledon finals?”

“Yeah, Demeter Bauer versus Minerva Glass. I’m a big fan of Demeter, so I took the day off when I managed to get tickets to see the match in person! It was a super cool match-up; Demeter’s got this incredibly fast serve, over 120 mph, I think, and Minerva does this strange super high toss on her serve which makes it difficult to figure out where it’s headed. Her serves for that match were kind of weird, though…” She trailed off, seemingly wracking her brain for what would've made her think so, but shrugged it off when she couldn’t come up with an answer immediately. “Anyway, this little kid in a suit and bow tie interrupted the match and shouted “I’ll help you!” and then something about being Arthur Conan Doyle’s apprentice. He got scolded for interrupting, then the match continued as usual, but Minerva was suddenly playing much better and she ended up winning. There were rumors about an assassination attempt on her mother, though, and something about some author stopping a bombing. I thought they might have been connected to the complaints we’d been getting about the ‘well-dressed foreign boy zooming around the city, somehow breaking Mach 1 on a skateboard,’ is all.” She shrugged.

Sherlock nodded slightly, as if confirming something. Which was weird, because Kim hadn’t really said any new information.

...Sherlock was being...oddly quiet today, wasn’t he?

That was probably not good. It meant he was gearing up for something big - probably to do with Conan, not the case, with his luck.

Or -

He was looking a little strange, though...

His cheekbones were more pronounced - which was saying something because they were usually sharp enough to cut glass - and he was...paler, gaunter. Under his jacket, he was almost stick-thin, like he hadn't been eating much, if at all - which, to be fair, was normal for Sherlock, but even so…

(No, he did not just think that maybe someone had replaced Sherlock bloody Holmes with a doppleganger - his paranoia really needed to shut the hell up.

…He would know if it was Vermouth or his mother, or even KID, right? He'd be able to tell - )

Before he could work himself up into a panic again (because he was this close), he was being ushered away into Lestrade’s office because someone probably realized, hey, maybe we shouldn’t have the kid who just somehow knocked out his attacker right next to the place where he was possibly dissociating, that sounds like a good idea.

Which, well.

They weren’t exactly wrong.

Lestrade shut the door behind Sherlock and John, Donovan having apparently volunteered to escort the guy who’d tried to hold Conan hostage to holding.

(...Conan had a feeling that the guy would probably have a few more ‘accidental’ bruises by the time they arrived.)

He picked up a stack of files from his remarkably well-organized desk and flipped through them quickly before facing Conan and the others. John and Sherlock were still standing, John at parade rest because he was still on edge and Sherlock doing some sort of over dramatic trench coat pose that Conan had no idea how to describe in Japanese, much less in English. Conan, on the other hand, had helped himself to one of the seats in front of Lestrade’s desk, because maybe he was a little unsure of how much longer his legs could hold him up. He kicked them back and forth idly to obscure their minute shaking.

“Right, so. Three arrests by a six-year-old later - ”

“I’m seven!” Conan cut in, petulant expression pasted on his face, because apparently he had to keep reminding people (and focusing on his cover and whatever Lestrade was about to say - probably something to do with Maria’s case, given the way his posture and tone of voice had changed just slightly - was a good way to stop his brain from spiraling into a panic. Because he was somewhat understandably still on a hair-trigger, just a couple wrong words away from shutting down completely, and he probably would be that way for the foreseeable future since he was stuck in London, alone, with no way to contact anyone - shit, the case, he needed to focus on the case...).

“ - right, sorry, seven-year old.” Lestrade paused and made a weird face, like he wasn’t sure what to think of that as he muttered “Seven!” under his breath before shaking his head and raising his voice to address the rest of the group. “Anyway, I have the guest list from the Reynolds’ party as well as their statements, alibis - not that any of them really have any, other than the CCTV cameras since they were all driving to their homes or to pick up their kids - and a bit of background on each of them and their families. We’ve already ruled out the neighbor, Bradley Greene, thanks to Conan and his apparent psychic abilities - ”

“Sorry, what. ” From John. Who said it quietly enough that it could be easily ignored, which was a mistake, because it was.

“ - so other than the parents, who Conan’s Psychic Powers - ” Lestrade’s eyes glinted mischievously as he slightly emphasized the words, almost certainly to aggravate John and Sherlock, the latter of whom had been oddly quiet. Even though John’s reaction probably wasn’t as much about the whole ‘psychic’ thing, since he was pretty sure they’d been over that already, as it was the ‘ruled out thanks to the child’ thing. “ - tell him probably didn’t kill their daughter, these eight are our suspects.”

He very happily ignored the strangled noise coming from John’s direction, glancing down at the stack of files he was holding.

“Okay, first we have the file of Lucy Collins, 35, lawyer, single, no ex-spouse or ex-anything, apparently. She had her daughter, Delilah, via in vitro with an anonymous donor. She was very specific about that, for some reason. They participate in pageants with the Reynolds.”

Conan glanced through the file Lestrade had absently handed him, memorizing it quickly before handing it off to Sherlock, who did the same before passing it to John.

There wasn’t really anything too interesting in the file, sparse as it was - which made sense, since she was a lawyer and they didn’t tend to talk to the police if they could help it - except that she’d once defended the Reynolds pro bono in court. That could be important.

“Then there’s Larry and Carla Stevens, forty-year-old mechanic and forty-two-year-old graduate student respectively. They have three kids - Antonio, Angela, and Alena; the two girls are both in pageants, but apparently the Reynolds ‘politely requested’ that Angela not come anywhere near Maria because there was some sort of altercation a week or so ago. They declined to give more details, so we’ll have to work on that.”

Their file was at least three times as thick as Lucy Collins’, given that there were two witnesses and five family members. Angela and Alena were twins, both ten, while their brother was five. Larry had been arrested twice for assault, but had only made it to holding before being let out. And, from what he remembered, that wasn’t as big a deal here as it was in the U.S… Carla, on the other hand, had a spotless record - not even a parking ticket. The kids had been at their grandmother’s the night before to give the parents a chance to go socialize with the other pageant parents. The couple had left the party early to pick up their kids - because as much as the grandmother enjoyed spending time with them, they were very energetic and she was recovering from a recent knee surgery...which Larry and Carla had also paid for.

...Larry must be an incredibly good mechanic if they were able to afford a surgery and two pageant girls as well as graduate school on a single person’s income. Hm. A look into their financials might be in order...who knows, maybe someone had ordered a hit on Maria.

(Extremely unlikely, given the amateurish nature of the scene (and also who ordered hits on pre-pubescent beauty queens? ), as well as the fact that whoever had killed her had left behind a number of clues. It was almost as if -

Oh.

This was probably the first crime they'd ever committed.

That was...a distinct possibility that should probably be looked into.

Hm. Later. When he wasn’t in the middle of a run down of the suspects.)

“Next are Callum and Anisha Peters, a thirty-seven-year-old investment banker and thirty-five-year-old shopkeeper, with two kids named Neil and Emma. Emma is a little older than Maria but they still compete in the same category. Neil is a few years older than her. None of the parents had any complaints about them, except that Neil spends too much time on his phone - but, then again, he is a teenager… Mr. and Mrs. Peters stayed after the party to help clean up the house, so the Reynolds were able to confirm their alibi. The four of them were in the same room the majority of the time, and no one left for longer than ten minutes.”

What Lestrade had failed to mention was that Callum had been convicted twice for assault and battery about fifteen years ago. He’d completed the required anger management classes, though, and seemed to have mellowed out since then.

The shop Anisha was working at had been robbed at gunpoint a few weeks ago while she was on shift, and the owner’s interview in the file sort of implied that perhaps she had let it happen. Her position at the shop had been tenuous since then.

(The interview also implied that the owner was a xenophobic dick, even though Anisha had been born in the UK, so Conan wasn’t going to take that testimony at face value.)

Neil was sixteen, just old enough to have a provisional driving license. He appeared to own some sort of motorbike, which had been pulled over once for - speeding, probably? The officer’s handwriting wasn’t great and English wasn’t Conan's first language.

Emma was usually the runner up in pageants, right behind Maria.

“After that, we have Wendy and Siobhan Armstrong, a thirty-five-year-old police officer from a few districts over and a thirty-three-year-old nurse respectively, with one daughter named Jade. Siobhan’s an immigrant, but her papers are all in order. They’re getting married in a few weeks, and they’ve invited everyone from the party last night to the reception. They’re very excited about it and are purportedly ‘pulling out all the stops.’ I think they mentioned something about a bouncy castle for the kids...”

So they seemed to be on good terms with everyone at the party, including the Reynolds - though it would probably be best to double check that. The officer who’d interviewed them probably wouldn’t have missed any animosity, but, then again, it wasn’t as if he wasn’t used to them not being able to see clues that were right under their noses.

(Police officer meant probably not the culprit, but corrupt cops were a thing, as evidenced by the debacle ten minutes ago, so…

Best not rule out anything yet.)

Then, of course, there was the whole ‘wedding-and-reception’ thing, which had to be expensive if they were ‘pulling out all the stops.’ A nurse and a police officer weren’t exactly the highest-paying jobs out there...

“And, lastly, we have Harry Shumaker, an American stay-home single dad, thirty-three. He’s the heir to some big oil company in Texas, but after he inherited it he turned the company into the forerunner of the U.S. green energy industry...then moved here, for some reason, possibly to do with our paparazzi laws. His papers all seem in order, including the adoption papers for his son Dave. Who saw a beauty pageant on the telly and decided he, quote, ‘needed to win that.’ His father apparently registered him the next day, since there technically aren't any rules against boys competing. They’re both purportedly well-liked in the pageant circle, despite some mild animosity initially. It probably helps that they’re insanely wealthy and willing to foot the bill for the post-pageant feast - ”

Conan was having vivid flashbacks to when his mother had tried to force him to enter a pageant. Luckily (...for the smallest value of the word), they’d run into three separate, unrelated corpses on the way to pick up whatever costume she’d been going to make him put on. Apparently, that had convinced his mother that the universe didn’t want him to become a pageant queen (king?). Thus, his career as a potential pageant winner lasted approximately seven hours and not even one costume (unless he counted the hazmat suit he’d been forced into for the second case), much less a contest.

He barely managed to suppress a shudder. He had no idea why anyone would subject themselves to competing in pageants voluntarily - just listening to his mother (rant) list all the things they would’ve had to do to get him ready for a competition was enough to give him nightmares for years.

...but if that kid actually wanted to do pageants, then...more power to him, Conan supposed.

But - right, the files.

They were...sparse. Which he guessed was understandable, considering how few of them had any sort of police record.

(Though - it had been six hours since the body had initially been found. He’d have thought that Scotland Yard would have had an intern or a beat cop scrolling through their social medias or something - oh, right, the gang raid would’ve picked up any idle hands, wouldn’t it.)

Fine. But that meant that he needed to do some more investigating - specifically into the suspects’ finances, but also into the relationships within the group because there was quite clearly something going on there that wasn’t in the files and he wasn’t going to get an answer without personally observing -

“...I wanna go see them,” Conan announced abruptly, cutting off the conversation going on over his head that he probably should’ve been listening to. And here he’d thought the coffee had finally kicked in. Was British coffee weaker than his preferred brand? Hm, well - to be fair, he did get it from a hospital cafeteria. It probably wasn’t very good, especially if the doctors had their own coffee pot in the break room or something - oh. No wonder it had tasted so shitty; it had probably been instant coffee, ugh, and that meant it would probably be wearing off soon. That was unfortunate - he’d need to find some other way to get some good coffee soon. Y’know, before his ‘elaborate disguise’ completely failed him.

“What? Why do you need to see them?”

Why do you think, Detective? And here I thought you were halfway decent at your job…

Well, maybe that wasn’t fair. He was dealing with a purportedly psychic kid who was also a crime magnet and had solved three cases in the whole four or so hours Lestrade had known he’d existed (...possibly 'solved' wasn't the best way to put it, since one 'case' had been resolved by kicking a criminal in the face and another hadn’t technically been a case so much as Conan not wanting to let a pedophile exist without being arrested…).

“ ‘Cause I wanna know if they killed Maria-chan.” Conan gave him a Look (modeled after Sherlock’s, complete with rolled eyes) that said Obviously.

“If you’re truly psychic, shouldn’t you be able to tell from the pictures?” That was Sherlock, thinking he sensed weakness in Conan’s claims, but the joke was on him because Conan had already come up with an excuse.

Conan projected as much petulance as possible, basing his expression on Genta’s when he learned there wasn’t any unajuu on the menu at a restaurant and throwing in a hint of Ayumi when she thought Conan was purposely hiding a case from them. “It doesn’t work that way. I gotta see them in person because people feel different than their photos. You can’t get feelings from a photo. And sometimes it’s places that are important, not people, and that’s even harder to tell from pictures - !”

Lestrade sighed heavily, because clearly he did not get paid enough to deal with all this. He deserved a raise as much as Megure did and was about as equally likely to get it. “Yes, of course, I don’t know what we were thinking. Why not. Let’s all go talk to some potential murderers with the psychic six-year-old - ”

“I’m seven,” Conan reminded him, as if that were the only important part of what Lestrade was saying. He knew he was short for his (apparent) age, but this was really getting ridiculous.

“Right, because that year makes so much difference,” John muttered under his breath.

“It does too!” Conan stomped his foot on the ground and crossed his arms, feeling a tiny piece of his soul disintegrate, as was normal when he had to act childishly.

(He wondered morbidly just how much of his soul he had left at this point.)

“Yeah? How much, then?” John asked, smiling bemusedly like he was humoring Conan.

Well. If he was going to be like that...

“About four hundred murders, probably!”

John choked on his spit, because Conan had timed his announcement to be exactly when John was about to swallow out of pure vindictiveness - because he had picked up a few things about being petty from the reigning queen of pettiness, Haibara. John coughed violently for a whole five seconds, then croaked, “...what.”

Conan shrugged, pretending not to know it was strange that he ran into approximately four cases per week if he were lucky, most of which were murders. He was, in fact, acutely aware that it was neither normal nor fair, and didn’t usually happen to the other teenage detectives - well, maybe there was that rumour about Hakuba being drawn into jewel thefts, but, one, that was theft and not murder and thus usually less traumatizing, and, two, it only happened once every few months, just enough to be remarked upon, instead of every damn day.

(In for four, hold for seven, out for eight.)

Anyway. For Hakuba, it seemed more like bad luck or wrong-place-wrong-time - or would it be right-place-right-time, since he was a detective and usually managed to arrest the thief? - than Conan’s strange proclivity for attracting dead bodies to his immediate vicinity.

(Wow, he’d never wished he was Hakuba before. That was...a strange sensation.

...He was never mentioning this to Hattori.)

Conan blinked back to the present before opening his eyes wide and projecting all the innocence he could muster (which was mostly stolen from Ayumi’s expressions, if he was being honest with himself, and maybe a little of what he could remember of Ran’s from when they were kids) before elaborating. “Well, four hundred cases, I guess. Not all of them are murders, but most of them are. Um. Were. I guess. Whatever. That’s how many cases I - helped solve last year. Besides, I already talked to Maria’s parents back when you thought they were suspects and that was fine so I don’t understand why - ”

“You let him do what?! ”

“You no longer think the Reynolds are the primary suspects?” And there was Sherlock’s attention focused completely on him again, instead of only mostly. Great. Why was he doing this to himself again?

“I did not let him do anything,” Lestrade stated, ignoring Sherlock for John’s rather more reasonable reaction. Sherlock didn’t seem to mind, for once content to not have someone’s attention on him - probably because he was also interested in Lestrade’s answer. “He sprinted up the stairs and almost ran right into them as they were coming back from the police station, which was...suspiciously good timing, now that I think about it. You..." He raised his eyebrows abruptly as a thought occurred to him, gaze drifting to land fixedly on Conan. "...you knew they were there, didn’t you.”

It wasn’t a question, but Conan beamed like he was ecstatic someone was taking his (bullshit) psychic story seriously instead of dying a little on the inside. He’d brought this on himself, so there was no one to blame but him.

“...mmmmmaybe,” he responded, possibly a bit belatedly.

“You do realize how dangerous that was.” Lestrade wasn’t asking, but he also didn’t seem to be expecting any sort of (reasonable) reply, so Conan just blinked up at him, keeping his eyes wide. Lestrade sighed deeply, rubbing the bridge of his nose like he was trying desperately to stave off a headache. Poor guy. Conan sometimes gave himself a headache just by virtue of existing, so he could imagine the pain. He’d felt it enough times.

Conan shrugged a moment later when it was clear Lestrade was going to continue wallowing in despair until someone started making sense, mindful of Sherlock’s gaze resting on him deliberately and resisting the urge to squirm because that wouldn’t make things any better. “Maria-chan said she’s pretty sure that her parents didn’t kill her, but I had to make sure, you know?”

“No, I don’t know - what, why?”

“ ‘Cause sometimes people lie.” He hadn’t meant to sound as profound as it had, but, well, that was what had happened. “Sometimes it’s for a good reason, because they want to protect someone, because they don’t understand what’s happened, because they don’t understand why someone would do something like that, because they don’t remember what happened but they’re absolutely positive no one in their life would ever do something like that - ”

He paused, taking a deep breath before he could get himself too worked up.

( In for four, hold for seven, out for eight. )

“...Sometimes people lie.”

Chapter Text

See, Conan’s real problem with being shrunk, with maintaining the facade of being six-now-seven, was that, well, he’d never really learnt how to be a kid the first time around, when he was actually the age he was now pretending to be.

He’d been a precocious, arrogant brat the first time around, sure. He’d also been a precocious, arrogant brat when he was sixteen. Therefore, acting like that around people he’d known pretty much his entire life was a sure-fire way to blow his cover.

So, for having had about five seconds to come up with a convincing little kid act, despite not really knowing how kids acted and not being able to fall back on two of his main personality traits? Not bad.

Not good, obviously. But not bad . Not as bad as it could have been, at least.

(In a worst case scenario, everyone was dead already.)

(It was a good thing that some of his mother’s acting lessons had stuck.)

(He’d never complain about them again.)

The problem was that he...didn’t really remember how six-year-olds acted. And he was too short to conceivably be ten or eleven, which would have been far easier to construct a persona for, since he actually remembered a fair amount from that period of his life. And any out-of-character maturity could be more easily written off as from ‘hanging out with Shinichi-niichan,’ since he, as Shinichi, would’ve minded hanging out around (slash babysitting) an older kid less than a literal baby.

(As opposed to a figurative baby?)

(Whatever.)

But since he was depressingly short and also he’d decided to act overly childish when he’d first seen Ran, he was stuck being the weird six-year-old who gave people emotional whiplash if they were standing too close when a murder case appeared. Because, well, cases deserved his full attention, as much as was possible, so he didn’t have enough energy left over to hide his out-of-place maturity.

Like, for Haibara? Maturity worked, mostly because she wasn’t a complete mess pretending not to be, because she was actually competent and could take care of herself. Which wasn’t necessarily to say that he wasn’t competent, but, well.

Yeah, no, that was about right actually.

(It also worked because of gender roles and expectations, but if he mentioned that to Haibara he would get a blistering rant that was already giving him a headache.)

For anything other than solving mysteries and accruing knowledge that might help him solve mysteries (and maybe soccer and playing the violin, he supposed, though those weren’t exactly important to everyday life - hm, well, neither were mysteries for most people, but they were in the messed up thing called his life, so...), Conan could admit that his skill set was...inadequate, at best.

(And that was definitely progress, that he could admit that.)

He knew enough to survive for a few days if he suddenly found himself inexplicably lost in the middle of a forest or on a deserted island, should the occasion occur, sure. He and his father had learnt a pretty diverse selection of survival skills during their family vacations (which probably deserved quotation marks, because they sure as hell weren’t restful) to Hawaii, because it was unfortunately probably going to happen to one of them sooner or later.

(They both had pretended it was research for one of his father’s books, for the sake of sanity.)

But, yeah, his domestic skills? His real-people skills? They...left something to be desired.

To put it kindly.

Before moving in with Ran, he’d been incapable of cooking even though he’d been effectively living on his own for nearly a decade. He couldn’t even make omurice. That was just sad.

...He’d been invited over to Ran’s for dinner quite a bit while his parents had been out of the country for work, back when her parents were still together, so he’d eaten a reasonable amount of home-cooked food, but the rest of the time he’d mostly subsisted off of take-out and convenience store bentos. Which, in hindsight, was not the smartest thing he’d ever done. But it wasn’t like his parents couldn’t afford it, and they had definitely never taught him how to cook or anything, so he hadn’t exactly had much in the way of options.

And then Ran’s parents had separated and they’d had enough to worry about without a second kid in the mix, so he’d started ducking out by pretending he was having dinner with Agasa-hakase. Which, yeah, was something he’d actually done occasionally, but that man barely managed to remember to feed himself, much less an elementary schooler. Honestly, Conan would have been worried about child neglect had it been anyone other than Haibara, who was probably better at adulting than the actual adult in the house.

In short? Before he’d been turned six again, the extent of his cooking skills had been ordering take-out and being capable of turning on the rice cooker without killing himself. And he hadn’t even done that often, since the rice had always somehow ended up tasting burnt, no matter what he’d done. Conan, on the other hand, had been learning under Ran’s tutelage (not by choice, at first), and he had been getting better…

(Not that that said much. It was a very, very low bar.)

And, as for other domestic skills? His parents had hired a maid service to come by once a week while he had been in primary school, so he hadn’t really had to worry about that, either. He still to this day hadn’t actually met them, either over at Ran’s or caught up in murders - or, if he was really lucky, the library.

Anyway, Conan’s brand of maturity came more from traumatizing murder scenes than actual life experience, which didn’t exactly translate to a normal child’s version of maturity very well.

It did, however, work reasonably well for a child psychic who had previously been established as a murder magnet, or at least a crime magnet. Especially if said child psychic kept the company of older ghosts.

Speaking of which. It would probably be best to introduce one, in order to deflect the spotlight he’d put on himself. He should really stop doing that. But, well, habits were hard to break.

(Also, given his parents, his showboating tendencies were probably at least partially genetic, and/or learnt behaviours.)

(...It was possibly also partially KID rubbing off on him, but he was going to pretend that the thought had never occurred to him.)

“At least, that’s what Toichi-ojisan said when I asked him why people lie,” Conan said with a shrug once the silence after pause had stretched long enough that it was almost awkward.

Kuroba Toichi. Family friend. Taught his mother (and Vermouth) how to disguise herself as anyone in under ten minutes. Burnt to death during a magic show under suspicious circumstances. Case still unsolved, even though Conan kept copies of the admittedly sparse and shoddily-filled-out police file on both of his cell phones and worked on it occasionally, as much as he could when he had next to no information on the scene of the crime, much less interviews of any suspects. Personal connection to the victim, suspicious, violent, unsolved death - probably the perfect circumstances for a...spirit guide or guardian ghost or whatever.

...Even though technically Conan didn’t really have a personal connection to Toichi himself, but, well. He could make one up if someone asked.

(He was very carefully keeping what he knew about Toichi-ojisan deliberately separate from what he knew about Kaitou KID because plausible deniability was helpful in this situation.)

("Hey, dad? Why are you sending a copy of your newest Night Baron book to Toichi-ojisan with a sticky note with an exclamation mark on the front?”

“...You’ll understand when you’re older, Shinichi.”

“I’m five , dad! I’m old enough to know!”

“Not quite yet, Shinichi. I think you’ll need to wait for his successor...”

“Huh? What’s that mean?”

“...Nothing, Shinichi. Would you like to look at some of the crime scene photos Megure-keiji sent over?”

“Even though Mom says you shouldn’t let me do that anymore?”

“It’ll be our secret.”

“ ‘Kay!”)

(PLAUSIBLE. DENIABILITY.

Though why he even bothered at this point was a mystery - one he wasn’t exactly keen on solving, for a change. The less he thought about it, the less he could deduct that could be used in a court of law.

...Even if he actually thought it through to its conclusion, it wouldn’t be the first secret he’d kept from law enforcement. Also not even the first slightly illegal thing he’d done in the name of protecting someone.

Because of course he wouldn’t turn in KID after that story. Couldn’t.

...He probably wouldn’t have before anyway, regardless of whether or not he’d known why KID broke the law. It was selfish of him, he knew, to want to keep literally the only place he could go where corpses weren’t likely to turn up in his immediate vicinity. But, well, he’d never claimed not to be selfish…

Besides, arresting someone who was trying to protect people, even if they were going about it in a somewhat illegal way...well, that would make him a hypocrite. And Conan was many things, but he tried his best not to be a hypocrite.

Most of the time, it even worked.)

“...Who’s Toichi?” Lestrade asked, apparently having mostly figured out the whole suffix thing. He looked like he was regretting speaking as soon as he opened his mouth.

Conan didn’t blame him. Especially when his response was, “Toichi-ojisan helps me out sometimes when grown-ups are being weird. He’s a magician. The cool kind of magician, though, not the mean kind.”

He really didn’t have any control over what was coming out of his mouth anymore, huh. The real question was, was he channeling his mother or KID? He didn’t even know anymore. He also wasn’t going to think about it too hard.

“We’re - ” Lestrade sighed, raising his fingers to rub at the bridge of his nose. He was going to get bruises there if he didn’t stop. “Okay, we’re not going to touch that. So - ”

“Is this ‘Toichi’ fellow alive or dead?” John broke in, looking morbidly curious.

“Oh, um,” Conan blinked. “He died when I was - ” shit, he can’t say eight, damn, um, “ - little.”

Sure. Close enough.

He really needed to get out of his head.

It was a dangerous place in there.

Especially with Sherlock-bloody-Holmes analyzing his every move.

“ - probably,” he added belatedly to cover his ass, just in case any of them got it into their heads to actually check obituaries or something. “I dunno, he's kinda always been around.”

John accepted this wordlessly, though not without a strange look on his face, and Lestrade looked like he was regretting every single decision he’d ever made to lead him to this point.

Sherlock was intrigued, so Conan should probably steer clear or doing anything else potentially interesting for another - five minutes, at least.

Which, yeah, probably wasn’t going to be happening since he’d just dropped the whole ‘ghost mentor’ bomb, but he could dream about having a sense of self-preservation, couldn’t he?

(Wow, Haibara was actually going to kill him. And then figure out a way to resurrect him so that she could bring him back and kill him all over again. He wouldn’t even blame her - it was a pretty understandable reaction.)

“So, anyway, I need to go to the houses and talk to the people if I want to be able to tell you stuff,” Conan said before Sherlock could start asking questions about how being psychic worked, because he didn’t even know yet and wouldn’t until he got his hands on something secure with internet access. Which probably meant his phone. Which he wouldn’t be able to charge until he got back to Sherlock and John’s flat, if at all. So.

Since it was becoming increasingly clear that the Adults wouldn’t let him go question witnesses without a long, arduous argument, Conan formulated the simplest and most fool-proof plan he could, mostly because he was definitely starting to feel the jet lag again and he didn’t trust himself with anything too complicated while he was so out of it.

Besides, every minute he stood there doing nothing was another minute that Maria’s killer was walking free, and he’d prefer to minimize that number if at all possible.

The simplest plan he could come up with, one with less than a ten percent chance of failure, was to look up how to get to one of the suspects’ addresses on a phone, then take the London Underground.

(Normally, he’d be worried about cameras, but, well, he was in London and they had CCTV everywhere so it was kind of a moot point.)

So, the real question was…

How was he going to get a phone?

(More accurately: Whose phone should he... borrow ?)

Of the three people in the room with presumably working phones, John's was the most likely to actually be charged, which was definitely desirable.

...On the other hand, though, he was also the most likely to accidentally snap someone's wrist on reflex if he sensed them going for his ribs. So.

Not the best idea.

Lestrade, the next likely to have an almost fully-charged phone, was sitting down on the opposite side of the desk, suit jacket unbuttoned. It would be easy enough to slip his phone out of his pocket if Conan could get to the other side of his desk.

Therein laid the problem, however.

Because managing to actually get close enough to pickpocket Lestrade inconspicuously and NOT draw attention to himself wouldn't exactly be easy.

...Hm. That was assuming that he needed to refrain from drawing attention to himself.

(A plan started forming in his head, not entirely consciously, just in case the occasion should occur. KID did so enjoy expounding the virtues of misdirection, after all, and that was something they could agree upon…)

There was also the slight catch that he had no idea what kind of training, exactly, Detective Inspector Lestrade had undergone before applying to the Police Academy...assuming they even had that in England, of course, because for some reason his brain was deciding to throw doubts about his memory at him. Why not. It had already been an incredibly shitty day, so why wouldn’t the universe decide that, no, being a corpse magnet isn’t enough, this guy also needs to be as inconvenienced as possible, including random relocations with no explanation, multiple cases, little to no technology, and a bad brain day on top of all that!

(...it was possible that Conan was, perhaps, a bit stressed.)

...But, then again, Sherlock's phone was the most conveniently located. And, if he could get him distracted enough, probably wouldn't even notice it missing until much, much later.

Possibly.

Because Sherlock’s situational awareness, at least involving what he had decided to term his ‘transport’ like the proper posh git he was, had never been particularly spectacular. And, also as a proper posh git, he came from money - old money. Conan wouldn’t be surprised if he found an Earl or Duchess or something in the Holmes family tree - more than one, most likely - and he was almost entirely certain that Sherlock himself didn’t bother with any type of bills, instead leaving the family to take care of it - an older sibling, perhaps, or his parents?

Anyway, Sherlock had no particularly good reason to have learnt how to prevent pick-pocketing. Someone stealing his wallet or a few bills would be pretty much a nonissue for him. Conan had no doubts, of course, that Sherlock had managed to teach himself how to pickpocket, sure, but measures against someone else? That was something he would have almost certainly neglected, unless something rather significant had changed in the last few years.

Still.

A wavering ‘no’ was much better than a certain ‘yes, this man will definitely break my wrist if I stick my hand in his pocket.’

So. That was that, then. Sherlock’s phone was probably the safest (and easiest) to...borrow.

There was, of course, a slight negative to his plan, since he had no idea whether or not Sherlock had his phone charged…

But, no, he realized with a jolt. That was wrong, wasn’t it?

Because although it would be completely in character for a bored Sherlock to neglect to charge his phone, in reality it would be completely implausible. His phone was the way the police contacted him with cases - it would be far more likely that he would keep it fully charged at all times. He probably even carried a power bank around in his pockets.

Also, there was the whole ‘unlimited data plan’ that Sherlock almost assuredly had, while the other phones within reach most likely did not.

And, added to the fact that John had almost certainly put some sort of tracker on the phone at this point, probably actually his best option. He was going to need a badge of some sort to get into the houses - or at least adult supervision - and he wasn’t actually ignorant enough to think that Lestrade, at least, would let him go off and investigate on his own, so he probably would need some sort of...chaperone, as irritating as it was.

Because, honestly, who was going to let a stranger into their house without good reason, especially if they’re a child who’s quite clearly not from England and they’re saying they’re part of a murder investigation?

(Because, try as he might, Conan had never quite managed to rid himself of the vestiges of a Japanese accent.)

He was still jealous of Hattori for somehow having a flawless British accent when he spoke English.

...He was pretty sure it was because of his relentless mocking of Hakuba.

Speaking of whom, was it possible he was in England? And if he were…

Avoid or make contact?

...Avoid, if at all possible; Conan knew Hakuba's father was high up in the police force, and he’d overheard some of Nakamori-keibu's underlings discussing in hushed tones the fact that someone high up in the police force was denying their requests to search the surrounding buildings of some of KID's heists - the ones with what he was wont to call “the more enthusiastic fans.”

Conan had a sneaking suspicion that those “fans” were connected to the organization that had nearly killed him.

...Better safe than sorry.)

And, well. Conan could admit to himself that being capable of stealing Sherlock Holmes’ phone had a certain appeal to it. The bragging rights, in particular, would be astronomical. It would be a great way to poke a (small, granted) hole in Sherlock’s massive ego.

So, that settled it, Conan supposed.

He discarded the half-thought-out plan to get Lestrade’s phone (which involved drawing more attention to himself than he was comfortable with and slipping back into the habit of acting like he was four when he needed to deflect, which would be fairly out of character for the version of him that he had constructed here, the ‘psychic’ version - basically, the plan had been to dance around childishly, asking inane questions until he’d caused a big enough distraction that he could slip Lestrade’s phone from his pocket; it had been his go-to plan back in Japan, and the sad part was that it worked ), instead concocting a strategy for picking Sherlock’s pocket.

It took a total of approximately five whole seconds to come up with something.

Strategy might have been a strong word for it, though.

Step 1: Distraction

The conversation had obviously moved on while he’d been determining which phone was best to...liberate briefly (wow, he was even starting to think like KID; he should probably stop spending so much time with the damn cat burglar - except, no, he wasn’t going to do that because, one, heists were the only place he could go where a body probably wouldn’t fall on top of him by virtue of KID sucking up all of the surrounding crazy in the area, and two, he was starved for companionship a non-murderous challenge or something, apparently).

(Step 1.5: Stop Thinking About Kaitou KID, Damn It!)

The great thing about looking like a little kid, however, was the fact that he didn’t actually have to pay attention to where the conversation was going and could just jump in with whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted, and it would be completely normal for a seven-year-old.

Thus.

“I still think I should be able to go to the suspects’ houses,” Conan pouted. “It’s not fair that I can go to the murder scene but not question the suspects! Besides, Toichi-ojisan will be with me!”

Which sparked something in Sherlock’s eyes, leading him to champion the cause - probably on the behalf of his younger self, who almost certainly had only been allowed access to cold case files, if any at all.

Which led to John and Lestrade arguing that crime scenes were not actually places where children should be, even if they’re psychic. John was a little less emphatic, probably because his trousers and shoes said that he didn’t have any kids - oh, and also the fact that he was living with Sherlock and his myriad of experiments (read: death traps for anyone under ten).

Distraction achieved.

Step 2: Wait.

It didn’t take too long for the argument to hit its peak, with all three men shouting at each other.

Conan... might have helped it along, a little, fueling the flames whenever it seemed like it was starting to wind down into ‘conversation’ territory by interjecting things that the Japanese police allowed him to do. Especially the stuff that happened unsupervised (defusing a bomb or two, as a random example). And then some stuff about Toichi, when that got old. He refrained from mentioning anything too specific, though, just in case he needed to pull some kind of bullshit explanation out of a hat at a later date.

All in all, maybe five minutes was the time it took for him to get bored enough to mentally declare that it was time for step three.

(Haibara would’ve given it longer and called him an ‘impatient little shit’ but what she didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her.)

Step Three: Pickpocket.

It was disappointingly easy to wait until John and Lestrade started deviating from their main argument into separate factions, thanks to a few points from Sherlock and a ‘helpful’ comments from Conan. He struck when John was facing Lestrade, speaking (shouting at, really) to him - something about the minimum age of a person who could be admitted to a crime scene, probably? And maybe also something about whether or not ghosts that might or might not actually exist were adequate chaperones, but Conan wasn’t actually listening all that closely, to be completely honest - which drew the attention of both Lestrade and Sherlock to him, and, more importantly, away from Conan.

From there, it was fairly simple to slip his hand into Sherlock’s outside pocket and quickly but carefully remove his phone, avoiding brushing against the coat itself as much as possible.

...He wasn’t careful enough, unfortunately, probably because the scant amount of caffeine in his shitty instant coffee from the hospital cafeteria had been funneled towards escaping the guy who had tried holding him at gunpoint and then the ensuing emotional turmoil, which was what he was calling that whole... thing .

Sherlock’s shoulder twitched slightly when he felt his coat shift, giving Conan just enough of a warning to hide the phone behind his back and smile beatifically up at him when he turned to determine the source of the sensation.

He gave Conan an unreadable look, like the synapses in his head were firing but he couldn’t quite make the connection. His eyes darted from Conan’s hands, clasped together behind his back and hiding the phone that he’d palmed (that he could hide it simply by holding it behind his back and covering it with both his hands was an advantage of being short, Conan supposed, though he’d never been particularly happy about it and probably never would be), and the hem of his coat, attempting to piece together the relevance and possible connections between the two.

Sherlock’s eyes gained a curious glint only moments before he got it, subtly patting his pocket twice to confirm that it was empty - of the phone, at least.

Conan froze, his ‘innocent’ smile twitching downwards as he prepared himself for an outburst, or at least some type of angry acknowledgement.

Which.

...Wasn’t happening?

For some reason.

Huh.

Instead of what Conan had expected - or even just quietly taking back the phone - Sherlock just sort of...slid his eyes away back to the conversation with a knowing (smug) smile.

The smirk was annoying, yes, but then he did something even stranger than allowing Conan to get away with stealing his phone.

Sherlock used the hand resting against his pocket to make a circle with his fingers and thumb, almost a fist, then tapped against his coat nine times, then another circle, then another tap.

Zero, nine, zero, one.

Four digits.

...also John Watson’s birthday in the books by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

(It couldn’t possibly be this John’s birthday, could it? The odds of that had to be astronomical.)

Wait.

Was.

Was that his passcode?

(No way.)

Incredulously, Conan entered the numbers into the lock screen, and, sure enough…

It opened to the home screen - a stock photo, grey gradient, nothing particularly remarkable. The only apps that seemed to get much use, judging by their placement, were the messaging app, the standard web browsing app, the maps app, and, oddly, Candy Crush.

Huh. Sherlock probably only played it when there were no cases (something Conan had yet to experience) or projects to work on, to get his brain to quiet down a little. That, or John had installed it on his phone for a laugh. A quick tap of the icon revealed it to be more likely the former, as whoever played the game had made it to the two hundred and first episode. That took some real dedication.

Conan shook his head and exited the app, instead pulling up Google Maps and searching for the fastest way to the first address that he could remember - Lucy Collins. It was probably about twenty minutes away if he took the Tube. The little blue line that highlighted the best path to the nearest station was very helpful. The only problem with that was…

He didn’t have a ticket.

Actually, wait, that didn’t matter. Since he was (read: appeared to be) younger than eleven, he could take the Tube for free. He’d need to find a group of tourists or something - preferably a family with a couple young children - to tag along behind, to pretend he was with them, just in case.

Hm.

So.

He’d best be off, then.

It was incredibly easy to just...slip out the door to Lestrade’s office and grin at the one person who saw him exit innocently, like he was just going to find some food or something (which, actually wouldn’t be a bad idea - he was pretty sure that he hadn’t eaten anything in...almost twenty hours? That probably wasn’t good. Haibara would be angry if she ever found out, and that would mean, well, nothing he really wanted to think about too closely). Nothing to see here, officer. Just a minor scampering off to the toilet or something.

(He could feel Sherlock’s eyes following him as he left, which was pretty disconcerting, but also kind of familiar, almost? It was weird, the way that it reminded him of KID - though it was usually Conan on the other side, the side that was watching. Except for that one time with the music box and the moonstone. Which was what this particular gaze reminded him of, minus the strange almost-telepathy thing - obviously it couldn’t actually be telepathy, since telepathy didn’t actually exist outside of Mitsuhiko’s science fiction books and that one episode of Kamen Yaiba - that had...occurred. It was weird. And he was kind of trying to pretend that whole incident had never actually happened, because denial was clearly his favorite - possibly only - coping mechanism.)

(The therapist from that one time that Ran had decided he was probably traumatized had had opinions about that.

Currently. he was ignoring her advice, which probably wasn’t the best idea he’d ever had, but, well. He’d never claimed that he made the best decisions when it came to his health.

He was totally fine. Clearly.)

No one stopped him as he slipped out of Scotland Yard, primarily because he was too short to be in most officer’s line of sight. The two who had actually noticed him (of the thirty or so he’d passed as he sedately walked through the bullpen and then the surrounding halls) got big, beaming smiles. One had asked if he was lost - he was pretty sure it was the same officer from earlier, Kim or Kia or something, but he hadn’t been able to see her name tag from where he’d been standing - and he’d shaken his head and said something about the toilet because apparently that was his go-to excuse for leaving situations quickly. She’d given him directions and then let him be on his way.

Conan resisted the urge to whistle innocently as he made his way towards the nearest entrance to the Underground. It was a near thing, but the fact that he couldn’t actually whistle any sort of tune tipped the balance. Shame. Charing Cross Station was only two minutes away on foot (three and a bit since his legs were so short), though, so he wouldn’t have had the time to come up with a halfway decent tune anyway.

There was a large influx of people going into the station, even though it was only a little more than a quarter to five, so Conan just insinuated himself into a large touristy-looking group and sort of trailed along beside them. He was close enough that he looked like he was part of the group to a passer-by, but far enough away that the group itself didn’t notice anything amiss. He followed them through the station to the ticket gates - the crowd parted to allow the tourists to mostly stay together, which was nice of them, so it was fairly untraumatizing.

(Although his scale for ‘traumatizing’ included various stages of decomposition of human remains, getting thrown out an airship by fake terrorists, getting shot at by various people, being force fed poison, feeling like his bones were shrinking and organs bursting, and so on and so forth…

...His was probably not the best metric to use in terms of trauma.)

But, like, it was a Tube station and no one died. So, all in all, it was pretty low on his list of things that could be potentially trauma-inducing.

Anyway.

After noticing a few posters on the walls advertising a public transit app (he was riding an escalator and he didn’t have anything better to do than read the ads running past), he idly checked Sherlock’s phone to see if he had it installed.

Conan hadn’t really been expecting anything, since he knew that Sherlock mostly took taxis (partially due to previous interactions with him but also because of the folds and cleanliness of his clothes), so he was surprised to find that he did, in fact, have the app installed - just not on his home screen.

Which meant that Conan didn’t have to do anything dishonest to get onto the train - or, well, more dishonest, since pick-pocketing wasn’t exactly the most honest thing in the world.

So, with that (minimal) weight lifted from his shoulders, he tagged along at the end of the train of tourists as the went through the gate, smiling at them brightly whenever someone made eye contact.

(It occurred to him that he could probably pull off the weird American grimace thing, but he didn’t want to push his luck. Did kids even do the grimace thing? He should look in to that.)

He split off from the tourists pretty much as soon as he was through, since they were going in different directions and his train was leaving in approximately thirty seconds. In an uncharacteristic moment of luck, Conan managed to slip through the doors as they were closing and scoot over to a seat by the window where he could hold on to something without dislocating and/or amputating his arm.

From there, he could see Lestrade and John fighting their way through the crowd, because apparently someone had noticed he was missing in the last seven-and-a-half minutes and decided to chase after him.

Conan smirked mischievously and waved at them as the subway train sped up because, well.

Why not?

After all, he’d been under no illusions that they’d actually let him go to a potential murderer’s house without adult supervision, even if it definitely would make things a conservative ten times easier. This way, though, they wouldn’t have any way to refuse him, since they’d already be at the suspects’ house and he could just...sneak away whenever they turned their backs on him for more than a second and knock on the front door.

...He had no idea how Ran hadn’t caved and bought a child leash or something yet.

Chapter Text

Conan was just about to pull out Sherlock's phone and Google "psychics" - because he really should know more about what he was pretending to be if he was actually doing this - when he glanced across the subway car and his eyes landed on a young girl. She was maybe five or six, with pretty green eyes like Hattori's and black hair. The part that caught Conan's attention, though, was the nervous way she kept glancing at the woman with a hand on her shoulder keeping her in place, and the way that the girl was leaning away from her supposed guardian.

Conan sighed internally. It appeared that being summoned to a dead body, instead of just coming across one, meant the rest of the day was going to be filled with an absurd number of non-lethal cases.

Because that girl pretty clearly seemed to be in the process of being kidnapped.

This was his life now, he guessed.

He never got a break - except for maybe KID heist, if they even counted since they were technically still crimes that he was trying to stop.

But, well. 

Someone had to do it, and it may as well be him, since he at least solved the case correctly .

(Unlike ‘Sleeping Kogoro’ before he “fell asleep.” How on earth had he ever become a detective, again?)

(...No, he was being uncharitable. Kogoro was a half-decent detective when he actively tried, but he’d become so used to Conan jumping in and saving him whenever he started leaning in the wrong direction that he’d become...complacent.)

(That, and he could probably use a therapist. He had almost textbook signs of depression, and he’d probably get more use out of a psychologist than Conan had.)

(It hadn’t been her fault, of course. How do you treat a seventeen-year-old crime magnet who currently looked seven and whose paranoia was actually rational?)

(It’s not paranoia when they’re really out to get you.)

In for four. Hold for six. Out for seven.

Conan sidled over to the kidnapper, eyes wide and prepared to go into puppy-dog mode at a moment’s notice. He tugged at her skirt, blinking his eyes rapidly and looking directly into the fluorescent light above her head to make them water. “Oba-san?”

The woman looked down at him, and he met her full-force with teary eyes and a quivering lip. She was forty-something, maybe, with unremarkable tea-blonde hair, brown eyes, and knees that said she probably scrubbed floors for a living.

She sighed faintly, just barely loud enough for Conan to hear if he strained his ears, but quietly enough that no one nearby noticed. “What is it, luv?” she asked, shifting her feet slightly as if preparing to crouch down but deciding against it at the last minute.

(Conan was...not mad about that.)

“I’m - I’m lost! ” he sniffled, pitching his voice even higher than the annoyingly grating tone he used for his ‘Shinichi-niichan told me!’ saves. He really needed to come up with better excuses than that and ‘I saw it on TV.’ He was basically alternating between them whenever someone looked suspicious of his highly specialized knowledge, and if he didn’t add a fresh one in there somewhere soon someone was going to catch on.

(Honestly? Takagi-keiji probably already had. But that was a problem for another day.)

(...Actually, could he count ‘I’m psychic!’ as an excuse?)

(...Best not get too used to it. That probably wouldn’t fly back in Beika.)

(... probably. )

(...perhaps he should do more research on this whole psychic thing. Haibara, at least, would get a good laugh out of it, and she sure as hell needed one every now and then, especially after this whole debacle.)

“Oh, it’s alright, luv,” the kidnapper said, leaning towards him slightly. “Where are your parents?” 

This, Conan decided, was the wrong question to ask. “They’re - they’re - ” He deliberately made his voice break. “ - they’re g-gone and I d-don’t know where they are and I can’t r-read these signs and - ”

The woman made the mistake of moving the hand pinning the girl in place (because her other hand was rather firmly attached to one of the straps hanging from the ceiling) to pat Conan comfortingly on the shoulder. “There, there, luv. Let’s see if we can’t figure out where they went…”

Conan made eye contact with the girl over her shoulder and jerked his chin towards the doors. He could feel the subway car slowing down as they neared the station, and this was her best chance to escape.

She didn’t appear to understand that, though, cocking her head at him in confusion even as her limbs trembled minutely. 

(It was times like these that he missed the Detective Boys, who would’ve understood him almost immediately.)

Conan smothered his desire to roll his eyes exaggeratedly and allowed the kidnapper to appear to soothe him for a few seconds, then ramping up the waterworks and flailing his arms as a distraction while he stared at the girl pointedly, then at the door that was just now sliding open as the train slowed to a stop.

She blinked slowly, then realized that he was giving her an out. She turned on her heel and sprinted through the doors, tiny backpack bobbing behind her.

Conan breathed a silent sigh of relief, then went back to babbling at (read: distracting) the kidnapper.

(Sure, he was within grabbing distance of a kidnapper, but at least the kid was safe.)

He probably should have planned further ahead than ‘get the kid away from the kidnapper’ but alas, he was low on coffee yet again. And it wasn’t like the jet lag was helping.

(Neither were the remnants of whatever sedative the person who’d brought him to London had used to keep him from escaping.)

(He still hadn’t figured out who that was, which was...slightly worrying.)

(But apparently they knew him well enough to use one of the only types of sedatives that he wasn’t mildly allergic to - unless it’d been luck, of course. Or the symptoms had disappeared before he’d woken up on the couch in 221B Baker Street.)

“There, there,” the woman tried to soothe him, so Conan ramped up the waterworks instead. Being able to cry on command had never been so useful.

(Maybe he should try it during the next KID heist. What better way to throw a phantom thief off balance than to start crying on him?)

“Um, Miss? Miss!” one of the other passengers said urgently, trying to get the woman’s attention.

The train doors closed and Conan breathed a silent sigh of relief, letting the waterworks start to fade into sniffles as they pulled away from the Tube station

The kidnapper turned her head just enough to make aggravated eye contact with the man who had dared to interrupt her, then jerked her head towards Conan. Look, I’m trying to comfort this crying child, so could you maybe not distract me? was what that probably meant in Adult.

“Miss,” the man continued, unfazed. “Miss, your child got off the Tube at the last station.”

Conan watched a series of micro-expressions flit across the woman’s face. Surprise, shock, concern, anger, acceptance, resignation, anger again, then fury, then she finally settled on worry. It was probably convincing to everyone else in the car, but Conan could see that it was a pasted-on worry that was peeling at the edges, crinkly and tearing at the seams, revealing a roiling mass of fury beneath. 

If Conan hadn’t been sure about getting the kid away from this woman before, that would have clinched it.

He burst into tears again, drawing her attention back to him. “I - I’m sorry ,” he hiccuped. “It’s - it’s my fault - ”

“No, no, luv,” she said, reaching out to pat his head. Conan restrained a flinch. He didn’t particularly want her hands on his person. “This is all on Rebecca.”

Conan allowed his bawling to fade into loud sniffles. “A-are you sure? Because - because - !”

“Yes, well - ” the kidnapper hesitated for a moment, eyes darting around the car to gauge the reactions of the people watching the spectacle...which is basically everyone, even if they were pretending to mind their own business. 

No.

Wait.

Actually, she was evaluating how much attention people were paying to her, and her mouth twitched before she said, a little louder than strictly necessary, “Well, really, it’s her parents’ fault.”

Conan blinked. He couldn’t have asked for a better opening. “You’re not her mommy?” he asked innocently, like he couldn’t tell from their hair.

Ugh. He did not like the way that word sounded in his mouth. It was...icky. 

The kidnapper ruffled Conan’s hair, and he had to steel his spine in order to not flinch away. “No, luv, I’m not. Her parents are very bad people, so I’m taking her to one of her relatives’ houses while Child Services confronts them.”

Conan blinked up at her, eyes wide. “What’s ‘Child Services?’” he asked, because she’d said it like he should recognize the organization, but he was seven and looked even younger. He wouldn’t know what Child Services was unless he’d had personal experience with them.

Obviously, she’d mentioned it more for the people watching them more than for his edification.

Actually, come to think of it, was that even what they called the agency for children’s welfare in England? That could be indicative of time spent abroad - hell, her Yorkshire accent was so thick that Conan was struggling to understand everything she was saying; he didn’t have a chance in the world of pinpointing the subtleties of an amalgamated accent. It wasn’t like he had too much experience with them in Japanese , let alone in English.

(There was Hakuba, he supposed, but his Japanese was impeccable and almost completely devoid of a British accent - at least, that was what Conan had observed from the whole two times they’d interacted.)

(Unless - did the time with the amusement park and wrist bombs count, even though it was KID impersonating Hakuba?)

(No, probably not.)

Well, in this case, it probably didn’t matter too much.

(He made a note of it anyway, just in case.)

(You never knew when seemingly innocuous details might become the key to cracking open a case.)

…Conan probably should have been listening to her explanation, huh. He wasn’t exactly familiar with anything to do with child protection. But.

In his defense.

Jet lag.

“...Does that make sense, luv?” 

Conan nodded automatically, even though he hadn’t really heard a word of her explanation. Whatever. Too late to worry about it now. He could look it up later, if necessary. But, for the time being… “Why are her parents bad?”

One of the ladies listening in winced noticeably, and two other people averted their eyes.

The kidnapper blinked rapidly, surprise flashing over her face briefly, anger on its tail, before she stifled her reaction with a mask of apprehension. She made eye contact with the woman who’d winced, pleading wordlessly for help. The other woman shrugged apologetically, then turned decisively to look out the window at the drab grey concrete rushing past.

Clearly, she was not going to be coming to the kidnapper’s rescue.

(Ha.)

Not that the kidnapper had actually intended her to - it felt more like she was playing the part that was expected of her as a stressed woman losing a child she’d been taking away from a bad situation and was now stuck baby-sitting a different child until the next stop. 

It was in the way she held herself, the way she brushed back her hair, and especially the way her eyes seemed...flat.

The same way Chianti’s felt flat.

Conan suppressed the third violent shiver in five minutes. Maybe he should just pretend to have a cold and be done with it.

The kidnapper crouched down so that she was at Conan’s eye level, and Conan disliked her that much more for reminding him just how short he currently was.

She took a deep breath, tilting her head down so that her eyes were shadowed by the short brim of her hat. 

(It struck Conan as strange, how different it was from when KID did the same movement. It was part of his generic repertoire and Conan had seen him do it dozens of times, maybe even hundreds, but it had never seemed as...ominous, perhaps, was the word.)

Her teeth glinted in the fluorescent lights, and Conan noted absently that they were well taken care of, though not as white as an American movie star’s. They contrasted with her lips, painted a dull brown color that made her skin look more sallow than it was, giving her an almost sickly appearance.

She opened her mouth to speak, and Conan was vaguely disgusted to find that she had several pieces of lettuce stuck in her teeth and somehow hadn’t noticed. “Sometimes parents are bad. Sometimes they don’t mean to be, but sometimes they do, and their children pay the price. Sometimes that means forgetting to feed them, sometimes it means locking them in their room for days on end, sometimes it means…”

Conan tuned her out, nodding every now and then to make it look like he was paying attention. He didn’t need the life lesson, especially when he knew viscerally what it was like. Not all from personal experience, of course, but he’d solved enough cases where escaping such situations was a motive to understand the concept. When she was done, he pasted an exaggeratedly confused expression on his face and looked at her quizzically. 

“Oh - do you still not understand, luv?” she asked, the epitome of patience.

“No, I understand,” he said, shaking his head. “It’s just - oba-san, why are you lying?”

And suddenly everyone’s attention was squarely back upon them. The tension in the air was almost tangible, a physical weight pressing down on their shoulders. The woman’s shoulders tensed noticeably - she could feel it, too. 

Conan caught a flash of light against metal from the corner of his eye and chanced a quick glance at it - someone had pulled out their phone to film the encounter, like it was some sort of stage show and not Conan preventing this woman from kidnapping a little girl. 

Damn.

Well.

If he was being filmed, he’d better not stray too far from the ‘psychic’ story he’d cooked up, because he had no doubt that Sherlock would manage to find the video as soon as it was online.

So.

He might as well have some fun with it.

The kidnapper laughed, clearly fake and not quite covering the thread of nervousness in the sound. “What do you mean, luv?” 

Conan gave her a sharp, Haibara-esque smirk, and she stumbled backwards a step at the sight, catching herself with one of her hands before she fell to the floor. “I said ,” he repeated, taking a casual step forward, “oba-san, why are you lying ? ”

“I - I’m not - ” she stuttered, trying to discredit him, most likely.

He interrupted her before she could form a cohesive thought: “Your grandmother is so disappointed in you.”

Because that was something a psychic would say. At least, that’s what they did in Ran’s bad horror movies.

The woman went pale, like something had sucked all the color from her skin, and her hands shook once, violently, before she got her reaction under control. “H-how did you know - ?”

It was an easy enough deduction - the Detective Boys could have managed it. Would have, in fact, after spending a year near his crime-attracting body. The kidnapper was in her late forties, most likely, so it was possible that her parents were still alive. However, her grandparents more than likely weren’t. And, as a woman in a Western society, she was more likely to have formed a close attachment to the female members of her family. It was self-explanatory from there.

“She’s wagging her finger at you,” Conan continued and watched, satisfied, as the kidnapper’s joints buckled beneath her, sending her collapsing towards the ground. Her purse fell open with the movement, and Conan caught a glimpse of the name tag sewn inside. 

He didn’t bother suppressing his smirk, instead letting it widen into something that was borderline unsettling. “Hey, Linda Michaels-san, why were you kidnapping that girl?”

As if he had planned in, the train jolted to a stop.

(He had, in fact, planned it.)

The woman - Linda Michaels, according to her purse tag - started hyperventilating, tears threatening at the corners of her eyes.

As soon as the doors opened, she scrambled for her purse and stumbled off the train, too fast for any of the other passengers to do anything about it, as stunned still as they were. The teenager from before was still filming the encounter, too shocked to do anything else. So it was up to him, Conan supposed, to make sure that the woman didn’t escape.

He grimaced, then sprinted off after her in a flash, because unfortunately using an inflatable soccer ball in an enclosed space like that was a bad idea at the best of times. Besides, he didn’t know how many he had left, much less when he would be able to get back to Agasa-hakase for a refill.

The sprinting part could only last long enough to get him off the train, though, because there was of course a bunch of people trying to get on the train, who had no idea that because of their eagerness to get wherever it was they were trying to go, they would be unintentionally letting a kidnapper escape the hands of the law.

(As regrettably tiny as they were.)

Conan had to shove people’s legs aside as he struggled to move through the crowd, barely catching glimpses of the woman’s relatively distinctive hat as she bobbed in and out of view. The only advantage to the situation was that she also had to wade through the crowd, and she didn’t have the advantage of appearing young enough that she could get away with being impolite. Conan, on the other hand, could judiciously apply his sharp elbows to the fleshy parts of the adults nearby, and they barely paid him any mind.

Still, though. Her legs were longer, and she was more visible than him since she was at most people’s eye level. Therefore, she was able to break free of the crowd of people trying to squeeze onto the train far more easily than Conan could, unremarkable as she passed through them like a ghost - 

Oh.

There’s an idea.

Conan managed to spot a hole in the crowd of lower limbs that looked like it led to the edge of the crowd and dove for it, rolling to his feet and simultaneously taking out his bow tie in the process. He moved the dial to something that resembled what he remembered of Toichi-ojisan’s voice - even though Conan had really only met him a couple of times, he still sometimes watched the videos online. They were a good way to figure out sleight-of-hand, which was remarkably useful for a detective. Especially one who had a tendency to run into Kaitou KID.

Conan had never really heard Toichi-ojisan speak English before, though, so the dial settings were only a rough guess. He wasn’t even sure Toichi-ojisan could speak English, apart from Ladies and Gentleman, welcome, and one, two, three . That didn’t stop him from shouting through the bow tie, “Hey! Stop her! She’s a kidnapper!”

(He wasn’t prepared for the twinge of pain Toichi-ojisan’s voice caused, and wasn’t quite sure why he’d felt it in the first place. It wasn’t as if he’d interacted with him all that much. Not really, anyway.)

The stragglers abruptly parted for him, looking around to see who had spoken, who could possibly be a kidnapper, but Conan paid them no mind as he zeroed in on the woman. She turned around, a terrified expression flitting across her face, then she spotted him running directly towards her and let out a short, high-pitched scream. She spun on her heel and ran, as much as she could in her heels (a reasonable height for anything except running, Sonoko would say), towards the exit. Conan was mildly impressed by her speed.

Her speed didn’t matter much, though, when she ran directly into Detective Inspector Lestrade and his entourage. 

“O-Oh dear, I’m so sorry - ” she said, flustered, patting at Lestrade’s jacket, where she’d accidentally rammed into him. 

“It’s fine, miss,” Lestrade replied, dusting off his jacket - which caused it to fall open, revealing his police badge.

Linda turned paler than KID’s suit.

Conan took that opportunity to exclaim, grinning so widely that he could hardly see, “Hey, hey, Linda Michaels-san, you never answered my question!” 

Linda Michaels broke, almost immediately. Conan was a little pleased with himself, really, because she’d taken one look at the badge in Lestrade’s coat and then glanced back at him, then decided that confessing to the police that she’d been kidnapping a minor was preferable to getting anywhere near him.

That was, like, Haibara levels of intimidation, which was something he’d always aspired to reach.

Cool.

Conan dragged his attention from the kidnapper, who was giving a very thorough confession right into Lestrade’s tape recorder, and immediately saw something almost as gratifying.

Sherlock had a child clinging to him, and he did not look particularly happy about that fact. Conan wondered how that had happened. Of the four, Sherlock didn’t really appear to be the most...welcoming. Or, well, most non-threatening? His face - from Conan’s angle, at least - kind of looked like he’d sniffed something particularly unpleasant and had turned his nose down at it. Which wasn’t usually a face young children looked at and thought, ah, yes, that’s the one, that’s the face of someone who will help me.

Conan was more interested in snapping a picture, however, because who knew when such a sight would be available again. Unfortunately, both his phones were, of course, still out of battery, but - oh, wait. 

He still had Sherlock’s phone, didn’t he. 

Conan almost smacked himself on the head, but refrained, instead taking out Sherlock’s phone and keying in John Watson’s birthday - he also wanted to know if that was just a coincidence or something, because really - before snapping a picture and sending it to his Conan phone. He then erased the number from Sherlock’s history, the picture from his photos album, and the message itself from the sent box.

Actually, since he already had a phone out…

Conan keyed in the number for one of Haibara’s burner phones. She kept a couple around Agasa-hakase’s house as a back-up plan, just in case, and Conan had of course memorized all the numbers. Texting her personal phone number on an unknown phone was just asking her to bring her wrath down upon him, so obviously he chose a burner phone number. 

He had some self-preservation.

Even messaging a burner phone was risky, because who knew what Sherlock’s usual message pattern looked like and if one to Japan looked out of place, but Conan was going to take that risk.

In code, of course, because he wasn’t stupid.

He used a cipher that he and Haibara had come up with for emergencies, because they were both borderline paranoid something would happen and they’d need to be able to contact each other subtly, from a range longer than the Detective Boy badges could manage, or about something that they didn’t want the kids listening in on. It ended up being an odd mixture of Japanese, English, and French, and then a lot of numerical finagling. It took them a month to create, then six months or so to actually learn well enough that they could decode a message reasonably quickly, but it was practically unhackable. 

(His father had tried and admitted defeat after a week.)

He ends up with:

7 1 41 -- 

476. 40 1. 30 13. 29 13 376 35 38 26. 30 13 22 18. 22 24 13. 3 1.

32 1 14. 33 40 45 10 1.

4-6. 12. 35 307 13. 177. 7. 386 40. 20 36 176 7.

14-29 13. 30 406. 386 30 456.

-- 22 20 13 11 28

...which was an extensively complicated way to say that he’s in England, doesn’t know how he got there or why, that his phone is dead but he’s mostly safe, and that she shouldn’t respond to this number.

Conan cleared the number and message from Sherlock’s history, then slipped it back into his pocket just in time to see Lestrade handing off Linda Michaels to a beat cop to take to the station, rubbing his fingers against the bridge of his nose and looking like he wished he were anywhere but there - which was fair, honestly. Who wanted to be even marginally responsible for a small child who ran into more crimes in one day than most people did in their entire lives and was apparently psychic.

Conan also wished he wasn’t a crime magnet, but that ship had pretty clearly sailed by now.

Lestrade sighed deeply and turned to Conan. “Do I want to know?” he asked wearily.

Conan shrugged. “Do I need to give a police report?” he responded blithely. “There’s probably a video of it online by now - try searching something like ‘psychic child on the tube’ for today and it’ll probably come up!”

John snickered under his breath, then pretended he was helping Sherlock figure out how to deal with the tiny human latched onto his coat when Lestrade shot a half-hearted glare his way.  

Lestrade looked like he was regretting any choice he’d ever made that led him to that moment. Conan was sympathetic. “I - you know what? The recording of her confession is probably enough to get her convicted. We don’t need to bother with your testimony, Conan.” He looked like he was trying to convince himself, and was almost succeeding.

Then Conan grinned beatifically. “Are you sure, Lestrade-keibu? ‘Cause if your mic is still on, I can just say what happened that way!”

Sherlock broke in: “Yes, Lestrade, have him give his testimony,” he said imperiously, although the effect was ruined by the way he was shaking the leg the girl - Rebecca - had managed to latch onto, much like a koala bear. 

John had given up on getting Sherlock to understand that this was not, in fact, the way to treat a child and started filming. Rebecca seemed to be having the time of her life, so it was probably fine. 

Lestrade stared at them for a long moment, then rolled his eyes towards the sky, as if begging for patience, then turned back to Conan. “Do you want to give testimony, Conan?” he asked wearily.

That gave Conan pause because - did he? He’d offered mostly as a joke (and maybe to irritate Lestrade just a little bit), but they’d probably need a witness testimony to get the kidnapper convicted - and more than just Rebecca’s. Would his add all that much evidence? Especially since he also looked like a child.

(And did he really want his voice on record somewhere?)

Conan shrugged. Both options had pros and cons, but only one of one those options resulted in a kidnapper going free.

Guess which option he chose.

“I don’t mind, Lestrade-keibu!” Conan chirped, mind whirring away as he tried to come up with a way to make ‘I’m psychic’ make logical sense in a police report - preferably in a way that made it seem like he was used to such a conundrum. 

Conan was pretty sure he was the only one present fluent in Japanese Sign Language, unless Sherlock had picked it up for some godforsaken reason, and anyway Conan didn’t actually know any of the requisite vocabulary for ‘ghosts’ or ‘psychics’ or whatever. So that was out.

...Oh.

Of course.

Lestrade just went with it - because, at that point, that was really all he could do. “Okay, Conan,” he said, rubbing at the bridge of his nose again, trying to stave off a headache. “Just - tell me what happened, and the recorder will pick it up.”

Conan rolled his eyes expressively. “I know how to do a police report, Lestrade-keiji!” he said, mimicking the way Mitsuhiko said things he thought should be obvious to adults, even though there was really no reason for them to know.

Lestrade closed his eyes for a long moment. Sherlock stopped trying to shake the tiny child off of his leg for long enough to look intrigued.

Conan took that as an acknowledgement of his prowess and continued: “Conan Edogawa, age 7, of Beika-shi - uh, City, in Japan. I saw this lady - Linda Michaels-san - on the train and she was holding onto Rebecca-san’s shoulder super tightly, and the people around them were kind of whispering like something weird was going on - ” Conan paused for a moment to mouth ‘ ghosts’ exaggeratedly. Lestrade very carefully did not react, even though it looked like he really, really wanted to. “So I went over to Rebecca-san and she said that she was in trouble!” Conan paused long enough to mouth, again, ‘her ghosts said so!’ John shook his head in bewilderment at the sight, probably because of how over-the-top Conan was being with his mouthing. He was probably used to reading less exaggerated lip movements.

“And so I distracted Michaels-san while Rebecca-san got off the train, and then Michaels-san got angry because she lost Rebecca-san, so I kept distracting her so she didn’t start getting, uh - violet? Is that the word? I dunno, punching people and stuff. And then she started talking about why she had Rebecca-san with her on the subway, but she was pretty clearly lying - ” He made eye contact with Lestrade and mouthed, Toichi-ojisan told me. He could make whatever he wanted of that. “ - so I asked her why she was lying and she started acting really weird . So I told her that her grandma would be disappointed in her, 'cuz what kind of grandma wouldn't be, and then the train stopped and she ran away! And I chased her, ‘cuz that’s what detectives do! And also I didn’t want her to get away, ‘cuz she’s a kidnapper, duh.” Conan shrugged. “And then she ran into you and started confessing. And you were there for that part, so.”

He was a little proud of that story, actually. Most of it wasn’t even a lie. Even the bit about Toichi-ojisan telling him about the woman lying, since, technically , Toichi-ojisan had taught him some of the tells people had when they were lying or bluffing, and then had taught his mom the rest, and Conan had learnt them from her. So it was even true enough to be admissible in a court of law, probably.

Lestrade cleared his throat, then turned off the recorder. “Thanks, Conan,” he said, resigned to his fate. At least he didn’t have to explain the whole ‘psychic kid’ thing to his department head, though - Conan would’ve thought he’d be at least mildly pleased about that.

So he went ahead and said it.

“See, it’s true! And this way you don’t have to explain me to your boss!”

Lestrade looked like he needed a nap.

Fair.

And then Sherlock jumped in: “You’ve done that before, haven’t you.” It wasn’t a question.

Conan felt himself freeze for a split second involuntarily, even though he’d tried to prepare himself for Sherlock’s scrutinizing ice-blue gaze. Clearly it hadn’t worked.

So instead of what he’d initially planned to say - a confirmation, of sorts - he made his eyes skitter away from Sherlock, deliberately avoiding eye contact with him. “I - I don’t know what you’re talking about, Sherlock-niisan!” he said, making it painfully obvious that he did, in fact, know what Sherlock was talking about.

Sherlock snorted. “ Please. Refrain from your pathetic attempts - ”

Before he could finish, though, John gave him a Look, and Sherlock faltered . Wow. John Watson was really something. 

“That’s not how you talk to children, Sherlock,” John said blandly. And Sherlock rolled his eyes in response, sure, but he listened.

Wow. What sort of witchcraft was this?  

(And where could Conan get some?)

“ Fine.” Sherlock looked irate, but, well, that was to be expected. “Conan, you shouldn’t lie to adults,” he rephrased, talking in a sing-songy voice Conan had never heard before that made him think Sherlock was imitating someone, and that it was not a particularly flattering impersonation.

Conan let his lower lip tremble. “B-but...if I d-don’t lie, then no one b-believes me,” he mumbled, blinking too hard a couple times to make sure his eyes shone with unshed tears.

It was a carefully calculated action, designed to guilt-trip Lestrade (who had at least two children, and was therefore conditioned to act at the sight of tears), make a shield of John (a doctor - used to tears, of course, but not enough to cancel out his instincts to comfort and protect the small child), and intrigue and evoke sympathy in Sherlock (who’d spent years trying to get people to believe him about cases).

And it worked beautifully.

Lestrade sighed and patted Conan on the head - which he bore with minimal grace and a barely hidden grimace - then said, “We believe you, Conan. I promise.”

“...Can we go to Lucy Collins-san’s house now?” Conan asked pitifully, gazing up at Lestrade with watery eyes and making himself seem as small as possible. “Please? I just want to - to help. ”

And really, how could Lestrade refuse?

Chapter Text

In the past, Conan had seen some shit, okay, but this was a whole new level of bullshit. 

“...Can you repeat that,” he asked flatly, desperately wanting to rub at the bridge of his nose to stave off his inevitable headache, but contenting himself with pushing up his glasses instead because that was something that could, perhaps, conceivably be childlike.

He was in a car now - Lestrade’s police car, more specifically, which Lestrade himself was driving - having successfully managed to persuade (read: guilt-trip) the “responsible adults” to take him along while they questioned the first of the suspects in Maria’s death. Conan should, perhaps, feel slightly guilty about his manipulations, but, honestly? He was too tired to care at this point. 

Just. Ugh. 

He hated jetlag. 

“The girl latched onto Sherlock because she’s seen him on TV,” John repeated, casting an amused look at him from the passenger seat. “Apparently her mother told her that if she was ever in any trouble, she should find Sherlock Holmes.”

Conan just stared at him blankly. 

“Granted, this is just what Rebecca said, so it should best be taken with a grain of salt - "

"It's more than likely her mother told her to look for a police officer," Sherlock interrupted his sulking long enough to interject. And, of course, he couldn't just leave it at that, adding: "Regardless of their incompetence in anything remotely related to their jobs."

Lestrade sighed, resigned. "I am still in the car, you know," he said. "I'm driving, even."

Sherlock waved a hand dismissively. "Yes, yes, I'm sure you could've managed to find the girl's parents eventually, but clearly it's much faster to involve someone with a far superior skill set."

A backhanded compliment if ever there was one.

Conan decided Sherlock had inflated his own ego enough and jumped in with, "Sherlock-niisan, can you drive?"

Unless something had changed in the past couple years, Conan was very much aware that Sherlock could not.

And, true to form, Sherlock sniffed indignantly and turned to look out the window, not deigning to answer.

(He was still observing Conan, though, using the faint reflection in the window to keep tabs on him. Conan immediately resolved to do everything the opposite way around when Sherlock was looking at his reflection, because that was creepy. )

(A+ on situational awareness and utilization, though.)

John was the one who answered Conan's question, with only a token attempt to stifle his snicker: "No. No, he cannot."

"Not legally, anyway," Lestrade added, because he probably had a whole file on Sherlock.

(Conan knew for a fact that Megure-keibu had one on him. Shinichi him, that was, though he probably did have one on Conan too, now that he thought about it. Takagi-keiji too, probably, except that was more likely less a file and more a couple of notes jotted down in shorthand in the back of his notebook. Also it was probably mostly a list of “why the hell does a seven-year-old know all of these things?” than anything actually resembling a file.)

(Takagi-keiji was possibly the only person who actually questioned Conan’s expertise anymore. It was half annoying, because that meant Conan had to watch himself, and half reassuring, because at least one person on the police force could identify things that were out of place.)

(Like, for instance, a child who knew how to defuse bombs.) 

(Just as a random example.)

(...In hindsight, Conan had absolutely no idea how he’d managed to stay hidden as long as he had.)

“Not il legally either,” John put in, glancing back at Sherlock, who was still staring out - or, rather, at - the window with an expression that Conan would’ve called a pout on anyone else.

“Oh?” Lestrade raised his eyebrows in a way that was politely disbelieving but somehow managed to convey that he was ready to be proven wrong. It was a complicated expression.

John shrugged. “Not stick shift, anyway - ”

And apparently that was the last straw for Sherlock because he was all of a sudden a flurry of movement that had Conan instinctively flinching away from him (which the shrewd glint in Sherlock’s eyes said that he definitely noticed), even as Sherlock started on a rant about how it wasn’t necessary to know how to drive if one knew the mechanics of the engine, or something.

(Conan disagreed. Knowing how to drive - especially manual - was extraordinarily helpful, assuming your feet could reach the pedals easily. Which, unfortunately, his currently could not. Sherlock, though, did not have that excuse.)

(He had driven manual before, though - well, even, by his mother’s standards - so he supposed he was one-up on Sherlock in that respect.)

(That one “vacation” in Hawaii had been a time and a half.)

And then Sherlock said something patently wrong about the Series 2 Jaguar E-Type and Conan was immediately interjecting because how could Sherlock Holmes be that wrong? Sure, the Series 2 didn’t have glass headlight covers, but that had changed for the E-Type! Everyone knew that!

...Apparently not Lestrade and John, though, from the looks they were giving him. Lestrade was staring at him in the rear view mirror, and John had actually twisted around in his seat to look at him blankly.

“...You should probably keep your eyes on the road, Lestrade-keibu,” Conan commented, a little warily. They may not have been going fast, but it seemed like everyone and their mothers had decided that it was the time to drive around London. A quick glance at his watch told him it was almost a quarter to six, so the sudden influx of traffic was probably everyone getting off work.

Speaking of work.

(And also topic changes as a form of deflection.)

“Hey, hey, Sherlock-niisan, what did the morticia lady say?”

Sherlock blinked once, the only indication that he’d been broken from a deduction stupor - ugh, Conan really needed to watch himself better - and replied with: “The mortician, you mean? Nothing we didn’t already know.”

Conan rolled his eyes exaggeratedly. “Yeah, but I wasn’t there. I wanna know what she said!”

Sherlock’s eyes narrowed. “Yes, and why weren’t you there, I wonder,” he murmured, and that was a dangerous voice to anyone trying to keep a secret from Sherlock Holmes, so clearly Conan needed to do some damage control.

He shuddered exaggeratedly. “ ‘Cuz there’s dead bodies in there!”

Sherlock blinked, eyebrows rising minutely. “...I was under the impression that young boys generally enjoy looking at corpses.” He glanced towards John, looking for confirmation, which.

Wow.

That was…

Surprising, to say the least.

Conan didn’t allow him the chance to confirm anything, instead jumping in with, “Well, yeah, but most ‘young boys’ - ” (He did his best to mimic Sherlock’s posh git accent and failed miserably, watching with a kind of manic glee as Sherlock winced visibly at his attempt.) “ - don’t have to deal with a bunch of ghosts every time they go to a morgue!”

The car was silent for a long moment, and Conan could practically see the gears turning in Sherlock's head as he stared blankly at the small child who was claiming that he could see ghosts.

Conan yawned involuntarily, then decided to just keep going, because why not. "I mean, usually it's not so bad when there are just body parts or something, but since a lotta people there died badly, they're really confused and angry, so they're kinda uncomfortable to be around sometimes."

John nodded like that made perfect sense, and while his expression probably would've fooled an actual seven-year-old, Conan could see the way the slight plastic edge to his smile and the distant look in his eyes. He was doing better at faking acceptance than Sherlock was, though that wouldn't be particularly hard.

Lestrade, who'd been given this explanation almost four hours ago now, had had the time to process it, and thus wasn't surprised.

...Conan couldn't just let that be.

"And also," Conan added, leaning into the whole probably-traumatized-little-kid thing, "the morticia-san is scary." He gave an exaggerated shiver, folding his arms and rubbing his hands up and down them like he was trying to warm himself up.

Lestrade spluttered wordlessly, accidentally jerking the steering wheel violently to one side. Luckily, they were at a stop light, or else someone might've been hurt. With Conan's luck, it would've been him, and it wasn't like Conan had time to be laid up in the hospital. 

Not if he wanted to solve both of the cases currently on his plate, at any rate.

John's strained, incredulous, "Wh - Molly Hooper?!" nearly managed to drown out Sherlock's absent correction of Conan's pronunciation.

(Conan figured it was close enough, and that it also had the potential to become irritating for Sherlock if he flat-out ignored the correction, so he was going with it.)

(Never let it be said that Conan was not petty.)

Conan nodded, shrinking into himself and making himself seem smaller and more vulnerable. It looked subconscious, and it probably managed to fool everyone except maybe Sherlock, but Conan had pretty much given up on ever fooling him.

That didn't mean he wasn't going to at least try , of course.

"I don't like her," Conan said, making his voice a little louder and brasher than it really needed to be and forcing a slight waver in the middle to make it sound like bravado. Because, if he played his cards right…

Lestrade sighed heavily. "I also did not hear the coroner's report," he pointed out after a long moment.

(Which, now that Conan thought about it, did seem like kind of an oversight.)

"I'm sure she's sent it to my email," he continued, and yeah, that made more sense. " - but I can't exactly check that while I'm driving, so would you mind filling me in to save time?"

And then when Sherlock opened his mouth to respond, Lestrade pointedly added, "John."

Sherlock's mouth snapped shut abruptly. He eyed Lestrade petulantly for a moment, but otherwise did nothing except shift his unnerving gaze towards John, like he was actually interested in how he responded.

What on Earth had happened to him?

(Because the Sherlock that Conan knew, the one that he’d met three years ago, had had enough trouble not being the center of attention, let alone being purposely passed over for someone else, regardless of whether or not that person had more formal experience with the topic at hand or not.)

(Was this really all John’s influence? Or had something else happened since he’d last visited?)

(It was something to consider. Preferably when Conan had more coffee in his system.)

John blinked twice, rapidly, but that was the only indication of his surprise. "Oh, right, sure. Uh, she managed to narrow down the time of death to somewhere between two and three in the morning using the contents of her stomach - "

Which meant that the Reynolds, as well as Callum and Anisha Peters, had alibis, given that the Peters had stayed behind to help the Reynolds clear up after the party. Unless they'd conspired to kill Maria together, for some reason, which seemed unlikely…

(It was probably about as likely as Larry Stevens hiring an assassin to take her out, but unfortunately he couldn't discard even the wildest theories his brain decided to throw at him without some kind of proof to the contrary.)

"She also confirmed that Maria's cause of death was strangulation," John continued. "Most of the bruises were premortem, from closed fists - Molly wasn't able to narrow it down much from the size, since they were firmly in the middle of the range. They could've been made by anyone from a man with relatively small hands to a woman with slightly larger hands, or anyone in between - maybe even a teenager, if they hit their growth spurt early enough."

Conan yawned involuntarily. He'd known that already, of course, but he hadn't intended to seem so disinterested. He really was tired, huh.

"The majority of the postmortem bruises were caused by a cylindrical object, most likely a baseball bat. From the angles of impact and force patterns, Maria was most likely lying on the floor when it happened. Also, she had an infected ear piercing, but I'm not sure how that could possibly be relevant."

It probably wasn’t, but Conan appreciated that John had taken the time to mention the detail anyway. It almost managed to make up for the whole “decaf” thing earlier.

Conan had to lock his jaw to prevent himself from yawning again, and retracted his previous statement. It did not make up for the decaf thing. Possibly nothing would.

This required retaliation.

KID-style retaliation, even.

Conan was broken from his daydreams of borderline physically impossible pranks (because clearly KID’s glitter/super-glue recipe was insufficient vengeance - Conan needed to up his game) by something brushing against his sleeve. He flinched away automatically before cursing himself internally because he really needed to stop getting lost in thought around Sherlock Holmes, damn it.  

Belatedly, Conan processed the slight chill creeping up his arm and glanced down at the intrusion on his personal space. He blinked, because what?

It was.

A can?

Conan blinked again, biting back yet another yawn.

More specifically, it was a brightly-colored can of something that was calling itself "Red Bull," and holding it was the mostly unscarred hand of one Sherlock Holmes.

Conan stared at the drink for a long moment, then his gaze travelled slowly up Sherlock's sleeve, fixing on his blank face. He was pretending not to notice Conan's existence, which would seem blatantly out-of-character to anyone who'd spent more than a few moments in his presence.

Conan glanced back at the can. Red Bull sounded familiar…

He wracked his brain, trying to come up with some sort of information about it, but in order to make that happen, he needed caffeine -

Oh.

Caffeine.

Red Bull was an energy drink, wasn't it?

Conan glanced up at Sherlock’s expression again, but it gave nothing away. He’d moved on to arguing with Lestrade about...something, probably, though for some reason his brain was just refusing to process the words. 

That was...probably bad, but whatever. There wasn’t exactly much he could do about it.

Sherlock’s gaze didn’t waver from Lestrade’s, but he nudged the can against Conan’s sleeve in a minute movement that somehow managed to be both insistent and unremarkable. Conan’s eyes automatically dropped back to it and he stared for a long moment.

(It really was odd that Sherlock was intruding on his space so much, though. The last time they’d met, Sherlock’s personal bubble had been about a meter in radius, unless it was advantageous to a case that it wasn’t. And now he was actively initiating closeness? Astounding.)

(Conan chalked it up to John Watson’s influence. At least until he had a chance to contemplate it with a clear head. Ugh, he needed caffeine.)

(Was he actually desperate enough to take consumable substances from Sherlock Holmes, a man who had a documented history of experimenting on people by bestowing poison in the form of baked goods upon them?)

The can was unopened, which was what eventually tipped the balance in its favor. 

Because even though Conan was sure that Sherlock could think of a way to tamper with the can and still leave it looking pristine - hell, Conan could think of at least five different ways off the top of his head - he couldn’t come up with any logical explanation for him to do so. 

(Mostly because truth serum didn’t exist yet, no matter what the Detective Boys’ favorite spy movies liked to believe. And besides, even if Sherlock had come up with something like that, it would ruin the fun of solving The Case of the Mysteriously Appearing Primary Schooler.)

And also, like.

It might as well just happen, at this point.

Conan took the can and popped the tab open quietly, using the noise Sherlock was making as cover - which had obligingly increased in volume as soon as the can had left his hand - then chugged half of it in less than three seconds.

It tasted…

Well, it tasted like how he imagined radioactivity tasted.

Immediately, he wondered if he’d made a mistake. He could almost feel Haibara leveling a disapproving glare at him.

...Well, it was too late to do anything about it now. And, anyway, what Haibara didn’t know couldn’t hurt her.

(Conan was steadfastedly ignoring all the times that he had withheld information from her and that had come to bite him in the ass.)

(There were many, but he was ignoring them regardless.)

(Conan had never claimed to have a well-developed sense of self-preservation.)

He was rudely jolted from his thoughts when John raised his voice and broke through the argument between Lestrade and Sherlock with a robust, “We’re here!”

Conan really should pay more attention to the things happening right in front of his face, huh.

He carefully flopped the open can into his pocket, rearranging its contents so that the can stood upright, propped up against a couple parts of his whoops just walked in on a murder kit. 

Honestly, it was kind of amazing that it fit at all.

He immediately ruined his work by taking the can out of his pocket and taking another sip, feeling the odd not-quite-sour taste coat the inside of his mouth before he swallowed. It wasn’t radioactivity, he realized, bemusedly, wondering why he’d thought that in the first place - probably the color.

No, it tasted like licking a battery.

(He’d done some questionable things in his lifetime, okay.)

Well. At least he knew his brain was actually working again.

Not at full capacity, obviously, but it was functional.

Conan blinked, shaking his head slightly and forcing himself to focus on the case in front of him. Or, rather - the house of the suspect he was currently investigating for the case of the murdered beauty queen.

(As opposed to any of the five other cases he’d had today.)

(Damn, apparently getting murder cases brought to him just escalated the number of crimes he ran into per day. That was unfortunate. He’d been looking forward to maybe, just maybe, catching a break.)

(But of course the universe hated him too much for that.)

(Guess he’d have to stick to KID heists as a reprieve, since those generally didn’t involve murder, attempted or otherwise.)

(...Well. Other than people attempting to murder him, but that didn’t really count, did it?)

Conan stared up at the house in front of him - plain brick, rustic but expensive and in the ‘nice’ part of town; the kind of place where his parents would’ve bought a house if they stuck around in London often enough to justify it - and tried to remember what he knew about Lucy Collins and her daughter. It wasn’t much.

“...Lucy Collins, 35, lawyer, single, no ex-spouse or ex-anything, apparently. She had her daughter, Delilah, via in vitro with an anonymous donor. They participate in pageants with the Reynolds...”

That was basically everything that had been in the file Lestrade had absentmindedly allowed him to see back at the police station, other than the fact that she’d once defended the Reynolds pro bono in court. 

Conan remembered not being surprised at the sparsity of the police files because, well. Lawyer. They knew better than to provide unnecessary information.

It was interesting that she’d specified she’d had her daughter through IVF, though after a moment of thought Conan could kind of see where she was coming from - IVF with and anonymous donor, combined with the “no ex-anything” comment meant that she likely wasn’t interested in romance and probably didn’t have any violent exes hell-bent on making sure her child won a beauty competition -

“Conan? Where’d you - oh.”

Conan blinked, returning to the present to see that he’d fallen behind the rest of the group, who were already ringing the doorbell. John had apparently remembered that they’d brought a child with them and then realized that said child was nowhere in the vicinity, because apparently Conan’s feet had stopped moving when he’d started thinking.

Ugh. That was a pain.

Conan smiled brightly, scampering up the front steps to stand next to John. “I’m here, Watson-sensei! Sorry, I got distracted - it’s a really cool house!”

John gave him a reproving look. “Well, try to stay close to me - you’re just a kid and this is potentially a murderer’s house.”

Conan barely refrained from rolling his eyes, and could see Sherlock doing the same in his peripheral vision. Instead, he said, “Right, ‘cuz of your military training.” 

(Because clearly that made him the best option to protect Conan - Sherlock had some martial arts training, but he was self-taught and more liable to drag Conan towards danger, rather than protect him from it, and Lestrade had basic police training and maybe a couple lessons on the side but no formal combat experience -  not that Conan really needed protecting.)

Conan laughed at the thought, and Lestrade gave him a weird look and opened his mouth like he was about to say something but then the door opened and he lost his chance.

The woman who opened the door was wearing a smart pantsuit with a white blouse and sensible heels, her hair in an impeccable platinum blonde bob that somehow looked simultaneously natural but also like she could be in the middle of a hurricane and not a strand of hair would be out of place.

Conan kind of wanted to ask for tips. Maybe he could finally figure out how to get his annoying cowlick to stay down.

The woman took a moment to survey the people on her doorstep, frowning slightly when she caught sight of Conan, then fixed her gaze on Lestrade, obviously clocking him as the only actual police officer in the group.

“Lucy Collins,” she said briskly, holding her hand out to Lestrade, who shook it. “I presume that you’re from Scotland Yard?”

Lestrade nodded. “Yes. I’m Detective Inspector Lestrade, and this is Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson. We just have a few follow-up questions to ask you, if you have a moment.”

Lucy Collins’ eyes strayed down to Conan again, and she didn’t move to let them inside. “And who is this?”

“I’m Edo - uh, Conan Edogawa!” Conan piped up, his mouth practically moving on its own, like it couldn’t wait for anyone to introduce him. “I’m here with Sherlock-niisan and Watson-sensei, ‘nd they’re detectives the Reynolds hired ‘cuz they wanna finish the case as fastly as possible!”

(Wait. Quickly, not fastly. Ugh.)

Conan took another sip of the energy drink, hoping to wake up his language skills a little more as Sherlock corrected him with a pompous, “ Consulting detective, and the police - ”

“I know that,” Conan interrupted, blinking up at him guilelessly. “I just didn’t know what it was called in English.”

Sherlock’s eyes narrowed, but before he could say anything, Lucy Collins was asking, deceptively mildly, “And why, exactly, did you acquiesce to bringing a child along on your murder investigation?” The gaze she fixed upon Lestrade was chilling, like the kind that Ran used on Occhan when he drank too much in the middle of the day - probably because she was under the misconception that he was the one in charge.

(Ha. That was funny. )

Lestrade looked like he wanted to go back to the car and take a nap, because maybe everything would be back to normal when he woke up.

(It wouldn’t be, unfortunately. Not while Conan was still in the vicinity.)

(Conan sympathized with Lestrade, he really did.)

“ ‘Cuz I wanted to play with Delilah!” Conan answered before anyone else could. Collins relaxed her impeccable posture just slightly as she smiled slightly down at him. That smile froze when Conan’s mouth decided to continue with, “And also the last time they tried to keep me from coming with them, I accidentally ran into a kidnapping.”

There was a long moment of silence, until Lucy broke it with a soft, “...I’m sorry?”

Conan shrugged, resisting the odd urge to laugh at her expression. “It was fine - I wasn’t the one being kidnapped, and Toichi-ojisan stopped it anyway, so everything turned out okay.”

Lucy Collins stared at him for a long moment, expression fixed in a slightly strained smile. “I - ”

Lestrade cleared his throat. “...Might we come inside, Miss Collins?”

The wild flutter of her eyelashes as she blinked rapidly was the only indication that Lucy might have, perhaps, been slightly flustered, but she replied quickly enough: “Yes, I suppose. Conan, I have some apple juice in the fridge - would you like some?”

Apple juice actually sounded really good right now. “Yes, please!” Conan said, following her into the house, trying to block out the almost physical sensation of Sherlock Holmes’ gaze fixed firmly upon him, trying to figure out Conan like he was some sort of puzzle - or a case, really. What had he dubbed it? “The Case of the Mysteriously Appearing Primary Schooler,” or something?

(Conan would also like to know the solution to that particular case. It was, perhaps, pertinent to his interests.)

In contrast to the frankly ridiculous number of cabinets in the Reynolds’ house, Lucy Collins’ house was neat and uncluttered. The floors were bare wood, aside from the entry mat, and almost austere in decor. The rooms were small and the hallways relatively narrow, as old houses in London tended to be, so any cupboards or decorative tables would have made them nearly impossible to navigate. There was a coat rack by the door, with about half a dozen coats - three professional and three child-sized - and a borderline threadbare green scarf that seemed out-of-place, but that was the only thing in the hall.

Conan followed Collins back to the kitchen, glancing around the house as he did so - it was a mostly open floor plan, so it was easy enough to see into the other rooms on the first floor, but either the Collins’ had a maid who’d just come ‘round or they themselves were just fastidiously clean, because there was hardly anything on the floor - oh.

...Or, Conan realized as he stepped into the kitchen and caught sight of Delilah, it could be because they needed the space for a wheelchair.

Delilah had dark, curly hair and her mother’s striking grey eyes, though hers were red-rimmed and there were tear tracks drying on her cheeks. She wore white pyjamas and seemed to be on her way to bed, judging by the glass of milk in her hand and the open microwave - placed on the countertop, rather than on a shelf, so that she could reach it from her wheelchair. She stared blankly at the procession of strangers entering her kitchen, clearly too drained to react.

“Oh, Delilah, dear - I didn’t think you’d still be downstairs,” Collins said, taking a glass from a low shelf and opening the refrigerator. “These men are investigating Maria’s - ” Her throat worked visibly for a moment. “They’re investigating Maria.”

“And I’m Conan!” Conan added, waving, trying to brighten the mood a little.

Delilah nodded silently. “I’ll be in my room, then, if you don’t mind,” she said quietly, though the words were clear and precise.

Yeah, Conan didn’t blame her. Delilah’s world was probably crumbling around her.

Eight-year-olds didn’t expect anyone their age to die at all, let alone be murdered.

Well.

Other than Conan, that was.

(He’d accepted that anyone close to him was statistically more likely to be murdered at a very young age, and maybe he’d encouraged Ran and Sonoko to take up self defense lessons. Ran was the only one who’d stuck with it, though Sonoko knew enough to defend herself if necessary.)

Conan watched as Delilah wheeled herself away from the table and navigated her way through the hallway with the quiet ease of someone who’d had a lot of practice.

“Here you go, Conan. Sorry, I don’t think Delilah wants to play today,” Collins said gently, handing him a glass of juice.

Conan nodded distractedly. “I understand,” he muttered, staring into the middle distance. He saw Lestrade shoot a concerned look in his direction from the corner of his eye, but didn’t react other than to take a sip of his juice.

(He kind of wished it was the energy drink, honestly.)

“...Collins-sensei,” he said abruptly. “What happened last night?”

His heart was pounding in his chest.

Collins inhaled sharply, eyes darting over to meet Lestrade’s, who shrugged in response, like, yeah, sorry, we do need you to answer that. 

Collins sighed, taking a deep breath before starting, off-balance already. “I left the house a little after seven because Delilah’s babysitter arrived later than expected. Before that, I worked until six and got home around half seven. Oh - I’ve already given you the babysitter’s contact information, of course. I arrived at the Reynolds’ around a quarter to eight. It was a normal dinner party, at least by the Reynolds’ standards, and I left at about one in the morning to make sure that I was able to return in time to relieve the babysitter at quarter to two. Maria went to bed - oh, it must have been a little after half ten. That’s the same time as Delilah’s bedtime, you see.” She paused for a moment, glancing at Conan before looking back to Lestrade. “Does that answer your question, Detective Inspector?”

She was telling the truth, of course - she had no reason to lie, although there was something bugging Conan about her testimony…

His heart pounded against his chest, almost insistently; he had to be missing something…

Right.

She was a lawyer - she would have to be adept at lying-without-lying, or... bending the truth. And with Conan this off his game, he probably wouldn’t be able to tell…

Conan blinked rapidly, head starting to spin. He rubbed at his eyes with his hands, willing them to focus again.

John eyed Conan contemplatively. “Say, Greg...what are your kids’ bedtimes?”

Lestrade blinked, not understanding the relevance to the investigation and glancing over at him. “You realize my kids are ten and thirteen, right? What works for them probably won’t - ”

John gave him a Look.

Lestrade coughed. “...eight pm and ten pm, respectively.”

Collins carefully avoided bristling, clearly thinking that someone was about to critique her parenting techniques. Conan had a sneaking suspicion that that wasn’t quite what was about to happen, though.

John nodded resolutely, like that had just confirmed something. 

...Conan had a feeling he wasn’t going to like what John was about to say.

“Okay, Conan. It’s time for bed.”

He was correct.

Conan gave him the kind of look that Haibara gave delivery men who asked her if she wasn’t a bit young to be signing for packages. “You’re not my real dad. You can’t tell me what to do.”

John rolled his eyes, and, honestly, Conan couldn’t blame him. John Watson could make Sherlock Holmes take a nap, or at least somehow managed to make him feel less of a need to be awake constantly, judging by the diminished severity of the bags beneath Sherlock’s eyes. 

...Or maybe John was sticking sleeping pills in Sherlock’s food.

(It said a lot about Sherlock that that was more likely than him deciding his body needed sleep.)

In any case, John Watson probably could put Conan to bed.

Conan was not a fan of that. His heart wasn’t either - it was beating quickly, and he could almost feel it thumping against his ribs.

He tilted the can, buying himself some time to figure out a way to persuade John to let him go to the next house, and tried to pour the last dregs of the energy drink into his mouth.

“Wait - Conan, what’s that?”

“Red Bull,” Conan said distantly, his heart thumping even harder in his chest. His ears were filled with the rush of blood, until that was all that he could hear, even John’s raised voice muffled.

Huh.

The world was tilting on its axis.

Something wasn’t right.

His last thought before he blacked out and fell to the floor was that Haibara might have been right about needing to monitor his caffeine intake. 

Chapter Text

Kaito sighed, stretching his arms over his head. He wasn’t particularly fond of traveling by plane, but it was convenient at times. Getting his magic supplies through security was a nightmare, though. Well, the alternative was traveling by boat and that was just...not going to happen. Ever. For obvious reasons. Assuming he could help it, of course, but he’d had a decent enough track record thus far.

He lived in hope.

He drew a few confused and wary gazes when he picked up his checked bags from the conveyor belt, likely mostly because he had three of them and they were all brightly patterned, vibrant and chaotic enough that they all clashed with each other. He probably made for quite a sight. But no one stared for longer than an extra moment or two, because he wasn’t that interesting compared to some of the more notorious fashion designers who tended to hang around France, not to mention the more boisterous tourists - especially the Americans.

He absolutely loved Paris.

And not just for how easy it was to fade into the crowd, even when he was doing something on the slightly less legal side of things.

A dramatic snap and a puff of smoke later, all his suitcases had combined into one massive roller bag, somehow a sedate plaid instead of some mixture of the other patterns, and easy enough to start pulling behind him as he left the airport.

Kaito loved magic. Even more than he loved Paris.

For one, it was practical. He no longer had to figure out a feasible way to drag three relatively large suitcases, plus a backpack and a shoulder bag, around the uneven sidewalks of Paris (assuming, of course, that the roads even had sidewalks) until he got to the small apartment where his mother lived while she was there. Instead, he only had one (admittedly sizeable) suitcase with wheels, which was far less unwieldy.

For another, people’s faces when they saw him do the seemingly impossible were...satisfying, he supposed was a good enough word. Children had the best reactions, because they stared with wide, sparkling eyes and open mouths, tugging on their parents’ sleeves and pointing wildly - except, of course, Meitantei, who very rarely acted his age, but Kaito supposed that's what he got for being a detective.

And, you know, running into all those murders probably didn't help.

(Seriously. Meitantei had to be cursed or something.)

Adults, on the other hand, tried their best to look unimpressed, because they were under the dreadfully mistaken impression that being an ‘adult’ meant cutting themselves off from anything remotely fun or entertaining since it didn’t fit with their aesthetic - Kaito could go on a rant about it for hours, almost as long as his rants on detectives or Arsène Lupin, so it was best not to let himself get started - but Kaito, well-versed in reading people, could usually spot the glimmer of excitement or interest they had tried to stifle. It was one of his favorite things to do, fanning that spark.

Detectives, on the other hand - the third hand, he conceded, but that wasn’t much of an issue for any magician worth their deck of cards - they got their own category, because he couldn’t possibly mix them in with the rest of the populace. Adult detectives were...mostly the same as civilian adults, in his experience, though more disillusioned and on the skeptical side. Except for that one guy in Gunma. He was a little out there. Well, the exception proved the rule, and all that.

Teenage detectives, however, as annoying as they were (and no, Kaito had not forgotten Meitantei’s slip-up the last time they’d met face-to-face, but he was still working on processing what it could potentially mean), were also more intriguing by far than any other category. High school detectives got this glint in their eyes, like they had a compulsion to unravel every last thread of whatever trick he’d thrown at them that had been physics-defying enough to pique their interest. Like they had to deduce everything, and they couldn’t stop themselves from picking a trick apart, even if they wanted to pause to enjoy the awe washing over them.

Kaito kind of felt bad for them. They physically couldn’t enjoy the majesty and wonder of magic, too busy trying to tear through the mystery.

Meitantei, though…

Of course Meitantei didn’t fit neatly into any category.

Of course not. That would mean that he made sense .

Nothing about him made anything remotely approaching sense.

( - like his ‘high school detectives’ slip, the fact that murder nipped at his heels like a stray dog, how he seemed uncomfortable in large crowded spaces even though he hid it well, how he immediately knew Kudou Shinichi was KID whenever he disguised himself as him, how he oscillated from “...and that’s how the murderer did it - that must’ve been an incredibly gruesome way to go” to “that’s what Shinichi-niichan told me!” within half a second, from serious and solemn to flustered and childish quicker than a sleight-of-hand - )

(There was something he was missing; there had to be. It was on the tip of his tongue…

But it wasn’t like he was a detective, so it was probably going to remain elusive, flitting about just out of reach, for a while longer.)

Meitantei got the glint of “must-figure-out-the-trick” just like all the other detectives did, but for some reason once he figured it out, he was content keeping the answer to himself.

He had the drive, the unceasing urge to know things, but he didn’t feel the need to broadcast what he’d learnt unless it was absolutely necessary to someone’s immediate survival. Kaito had read his witness statements from after every heist (the locks on the filing cabinets in Nakamori’s office were remarkably easy to pick) and in each and every one of them (bar the first, for some reason, which was as frighteningly detailed as his murder witness statements - Kaito had maybe picked the locks of more than one filing cabinet, but he’d been curious, sue him), Meitantei had been incredibly vague about the actual mechanics of the magic, even though he’d explained them directly to KID himself not even an ten minutes before. And not just the heists where they’d worked - if not necessarily together , then in tandem. All of the ones after the first - which was eerily accurate - and maybe a couple immediately afterwards - which were a strange mix of textbook and overly simplistic with a few dashes of blatant misdirection, like Meitantei was trying to get the hang of giving away just enough to excuse his actions and no more - were masterful obfusticating and didn’t really actually say anything of import. Probably the only reason he’d gotten away with it was because he was a child, even though most of the police force almost certainly knew he was smarter than a kid his age should be. Or at least Division One did.

(The lack of that drive to figure things out during the last heist had been so unsettling that it’d been the deciding factor in his loitering on the roof afterwards. It was disconcerting enough that he probably would have hung around even if the snipers had shown up, which was...something he didn’t have time to unpack just now.)

(...yeah, so he liked the brat, what of it.)

In any case, magic was great and Meitantei’s reactions to it blatantly refused to fit into any category, which was both intriguing and vaguely annoying...which was also a pretty good description of him in general, actually. Interesting, but in a faintly exasperating way.

Kaito traveled the streets, not purposely attracting attention - so it didn’t look like he was trying to make himself seen (and therefore an obvious timestamp) - but also not redirecting it, making it seem like he was sneaking around. People would remember him, maybe, but only his absent one-handed card tricks and massive plaid suitcase, not his face. It was a delicate balance, sure, but it was also something he had perfected years ago.

It didn’t take long to find his mother’s apartment, but that was only the case because he’d been there before and had been shown the path by his mother - once a Phantom Thief, always a Phantom Thief. He was actually almost certain that the reasonably-sized flat was left over from her days as the Phantom Lady, since he’d never actually seen the other tenants despite it being a three-storey building. Then again, he’d only been there a total of four or five times, and at least one of those times was so long ago that he hadn’t yet trained his mind to study all the people he met. So, something like six years old. He was pretty sure there was a photograph from that time hanging somewhere in the apartment with the date written on the back, so he could check there later if he remembered.

Also, there was the whole only-possible-to-see-the-entrance-from-one-very-specific-angle thing, plus the fact that he could access the roof from no less than six points, the non-descript appearance of the building itself, how it was hidden away in a tiny offshoot of one of the twistiest roads in the city, and then there was the hidden panel in the back of the closet that led to some strange crawlspace-like area between his mom’s apartment and the one next door where he knew there was a relatively large cache of night-job-related things - which was pretty incriminating, actually. He didn’t know why he even bothered hedging.

Oh, wait. It was because he knew too many detectives.

He couldn’t really do anything about that at this point, though.

(Besides, detectives were fun to play with.)

The inside of the apartment was a little dusty, he discovered, after successfully - though not effortlessly - having made his way up to the third floor (his mother’s sense of humor was even more twisted than his was, and she’d apparently thought that she needed to test his reflexes - and people wondered why he was terrified of fish when it came flying at him at the speed of a car on the Autobahn from around nearly every corner; it was case of which came first, the fear of fish or the petrifying experience of his mother attempting exposure therapy by lobbing fish directly towards his face? Who knew? Not Kaito). A note lay neatly on the table, in direct contrast to the handwriting that sprawled across the paper.

He skimmed it quickly, having had the practice of deciphering his own handwriting (because genetics were obviously responsible for his slapdash script; that was his story and he was sticking to it), grin widening with every word.

Apparently, his mother had faked having a heart attack at a cafe nearby as soon as he’d called her, so that she would actually be admitted to a hospital the same day as he had supposedly gotten the message.

Kaito really loved his mom sometimes.

She’d even used her real name on the admission form, she’d been sure to add, so if he had time she was looking forward to seeing him. (Which really meant, make time . Fair, since he’d been the one to call her up out of the blue to say, hey, can you pretend to be in the hospital for a week or so without anything remotely approaching an explanation because he was rather more focused on keeping his breathing steady - four, seven, eight - so he didn’t start spiraling. She was entitled to a face-to-face debriefing, at the very least.)

Kaito rolled his suitcase into the guest room of his mother’s apartment, letting it fall to the floor before squatting next to it and preparing to take inventory. A snap separated the roller bag back into his initial three suitcases, all of which he’d packed both meticulously and hurriedly, and thus were a bit on the messy side (and the plane ride itself hadn’t done his barely-existent organization any good). He’d kind of thrown anything he could possibly need for a heist that might suddenly turn into a rescue mission and could probably get through airport security, which was actually a surprising amount. The neon green suitcase with eye-searing pink flowers held his clothes - including as many costumes as he could manage to fit in, but not the KID suit because that would be a bit of a give away if anyone searched through his bag; besides, his dad had a few spare in one of his storage units in Switzerland, so all he needed to do was pop down to pick it up - while the safety-vest orange and electric blue checkered one held most of his disguise tools (which were enough like makeup that he hadn’t been particularly worried about security) and the psychedelic tie-dye one was full of his magician’s tools.

...In retrospect, he probably should have been a bit more subtle. In both the patterns and the contents of the bags.

But, well.

What could he do. He’d spent about an hour chucking anything he could feasibly need onto his bed and then another two hours trying to make everything fit. He hadn’t slept before leaving for the airport, which wasn’t exactly the brightest idea he’d ever had but his sleep schedule was pretty messed up anyway so it wasn’t much of a hardship. He probably would’ve ended up staring at the ceiling if he had stopped pacing and tried sleeping, vibrating with concern as his brain started conjuring increasingly unlikely scenarios that, with Meitantei’s luck, were actually almost probable, so honestly it was probably for the best that he hadn’t even tried...

In any case. He’d had to figure out how this heist was going to happen, anyway, since he was an idiot with no self-preservation and had only given himself a couple days to plan how to break into the goddamn Tower of London, so he’d focused on that instead.

Now he was kind of regretting not having been more discerning in what he’d packed, because at least two of his foundations were expired and a third was empty, while in his clothing bag there was one loafer and one stiletto heel that didn’t have matches, plus a pair of truly hideous burnt chartreuse shoes that he didn’t recognize and seemed to be the love child of a winter boot, a galosh, and a tennis shoe. He had no idea where they’d come from and even less of an idea as to why he’d decided they needed a place in his bag.

He was... maybe a little more concerned about Meitantei than he’d initially thought if it was throwing him this much off his game.

Kaito shook his head, forcing his main train of thought back to laying out his vast assortment of supplies. Despite being half out of his mind at the time, it seemed that he’d been present enough to at least pack all of the essentials, plus a few more-specialized products he rarely used but could conceivably be of use in the near future. There were also a few things he’d had no idea he’d even had , much less why he’d packed them - the boot-galosh-tennis-shoe things came to mind - but he was...just going to pretend that they didn’t exist for now. It was good for his (dwindling amounts of) sanity.

Now, the next step was figuring out how to disguise himself when he went to drop off his heist notice at the police station. Kaito wanted to give them a fighting chance, since there hadn’t been a KID heist in England for twelve-plus years - to the best of his knowledge - which meant that they’d likely forgotten about him. Which, clearly, couldn’t be allowed to stand.

Besides, he wanted a spectacle for his debut in Europe, even though it was going to be a little less...planned than he had expected it would be once he finally got around to it. Because, of course, KID was an international thief, so traveling had always been in the cards.

Kaito surveyed his materials again, running through the potential combinations in his head (why had he brought a rainbow wig, again? It wasn’t even a clown wig - it would’ve been a standard ponytail had it not been dyed in streaks all the colors of a rainbow) to see what he had to work with.

It would have to be someone who had some sort of credibility with the police - a reporter, maybe? - but who wouldn’t have a reason to be at the office every single day - preferably someone who had a relatively established routine he could observe or...someone he knew...

Hm.

Hakuba was in England, wasn’t he?

Disguising himself as Hakuba was probably his best option, actually, which didn’t mean it was great. On the plus side, Kaito knew him well enough that he could manage to fool anyone who knew him for an hour or two, and he knew for a fact that Hakuba was actually in Britain, so it wouldn’t be too out of the ordinary for him to make an appearance at a police station. Kaito also actually knew what Hakuba was like when he interacted with Meitantei, if he were somehow lucky enough to run into him immediately after setting foot in London, thanks to the whole Sunset Mansion ordeal. In short, his Hakuba disguise was pretty great, he had all the materials, and he knew for a fact that it fooled even Hakuba’s own father once Kaito committed to the role.

On the negative side, there was the whole personality/presentation code-switching thing that happened when someone bilingual/bicultural was put into different cultural contexts - Kaito, for example, used his hands to gesticulate way more in French than in Japanese or English, because it was more culturally acceptable - expected, even. In any case, Kaito hadn’t observed how Hakuba behaved in England before, and it was possible that he acted differently, in accordance with the differing cultural values, which could put a wrench in his plan - but, given he had observed and catalogued Hakuba for the better part of two years, he could probably manage a decent enough prediction of his behavior. So, really, it was likely less of an issue than he was making it out to be.

Also on the negative side was the fact that his spoken English was...not great. He could copy Hakuba’s voice and accent well enough, but Kaito’s vocabulary was probably about middle-school-level, if he were really being honest with himself - which could potentially prove to be a problem.

...It still wasn’t the worst idea he’d ever had, despite all the drawbacks.

(Super-gluing his mask to his face came to mind. But, like. It had turned out okay. Eventually.)

Well, whatever. The consequences of choosing Hakuba as a disguise would have to be a problem for future!Kaito because that was pretty much his only option if he wanted a face Meitantei could recognize - other than Kudou Shinichi, but that would be kicking an entirely different anthill, which he didn’t particularly want to deal with. Besides. Kudou Shinichi didn’t have a reason to be in London when he rarely left Japan, supposedly, and he probably didn’t have any credibility with Scotland Yard. But, then again, he had managed to evade the media’s eyes for over a year now, somehow, so who knew what had happened since then. It was almost like he’d disappeared off the face of the planet - except that apparently he called Meitantei and Mouri Ran semi-regularly.

Well, whatever. That was a mystery for another day.

Anyway, Hakuba was still his best option, so he started the arduous task of rifling through his stacks of clothing in an attempt to come up with something Hakuba would conceivably wear that didn’t dramatically offend Kaito’s sense of style.

Kaito categorically refused to wear a deerstalker.

Just. No.

A brown suit and a white button-down, paired with brown loafers and a briefcase (because Hakuba was boring ) was the end result. It didn’t take too long to adjust his frame with a little strategically-placed padding to make sure the suit hung properly when he put it on and tug on a pair of skin-colored rubber gloves (courtesy of Jii’s mystery friend) that were pretty much undetectable and had the added bonus of preventing him leaving his fingerprints on anything he touched. He’d packed his Hakuba wig, too, so he didn’t have to worry about that (good thinking, past!Kaito), but the make-up took a little longer since this disguise was going to need to survive two train rides, the subway, and Scotland Yard. Crafting his features into Hakuba’s was almost second nature at this point, but that didn’t mean it wouldn’t take time, especially if it needed to stand up to a certain amount of scrutiny. And, aside from that, even only vaguely Caucasian features were always irritating to work towards.

Still, it didn’t take too terribly long, and soon enough he was on the Eurostar heading to England, composing the heist note in his head on the way there because, again, he was an idiot with no self-preservation and hadn’t actually made it up yet. Sure, he’d decided on what he was stealing - the crown jewels, as if he could settle for anything less during his European debut - and a flashy method that would probably work, depending on what additional security measures the police put in place, but somehow the heist note had slipped his mind entirely until he’d actually sat down on the train to go deliver the nonexistent notice.

Plus, he also wanted it to somehow be a coded message for Meitantei, assuming he even had access to a newspaper, because he was worried , damn it.

It took the better part of two hours to come up with a feasible idea (because the first fifteen or so were Not Good), so he had barely twenty minutes to refine it before he was herded off the train and into London. It didn’t take long to find a public library after searching the map on one of his burner phones, and from there it was easy enough to copy-paste the excerpt he’d had in mind and tweak it to his satisfaction.

He ended up with something the police probably wouldn’t understand unless they had paid extremely close attention to his exploits - and even then, that might not be enough. It would be easy enough for Meitantei, though. Hakuba maybe had a shot (but, in all probability, likely not).

2B or not 2B — thats da ❓
If its 🛡️ 4 ba 💭 2 🎤
Da 👜 + 🏹 of 😤💎👑,
Or 2 ⚔️ against a c of 🕵️,
+ by ⚽️, ⚰️ dem? 2 🎲, 2 😴—
🚫 more + by a 😴 2 say we ⚰️
Da 💔 + da 🦆 🌲🌲 ⚡️
Dat 💪 is 👸 2 — its a 👨❤️👨
✝️ 2 b  🙏! 2 🎲, 2 😴.
2 😴, mb 2 💤💭—ya theres da 👏,
4 in dat 😴 of ☠️ what 💤💭 ♉️ cum
⏳ weve 🔀 off dis 💀🔄,
Must ️🎁 us ⏸️. Theres da 🔎🔎
Dat makes 🛬🚓of so ⛓️👪.

That was the final product, the initial lines taken of course from the famous Shakespeare play they’d had to study during English at school, because the teacher was American and said something along the lines of, “If I had to suffer through this in highschool, so do you!”

It had been traumatic, but apparently he still remembered the lines he’d had to memorize for the end-of-unit project:

To be, or not to be? That is the question—
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And, by opposing, end them? To die, to sleep—
No more—and by a sleep to say we end
The heartache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to—’tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished! To die, to sleep.
To sleep, perchance to dream—ay, there’s the rub,
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause. There’s the respect
That makes calamity of so long life.

Which was a lot to unpack, but it was easy enough to Google a translation to plain English - or even to Japanese, if necessary. From there, the emojis were references to certain aspects and events…

It was a tad complex, sure, and needed some particular inside knowledge, but if it made sense to Kaito he was sure Meitantei would be able to figure it out eventually.

Kaito stretched his arms over his head, rolling his shoulders to relax them after pausing his rapid-speed typing for the first time since he’d sat down. He’d always worked best on a deadline.

A quick trip to the printer that turned into an extended one due to the vast number of students printing their final papers or exam study guides - and, on top of that, the printer was an old model that inked at a snail’s pace at its fastest, and printing in color took even longer than that. It was a shame that color was pretty essential to his heist note, otherwise he would’ve said ‘screw it’ and printed it in black and white, especially since he needed five copies.

It was both tedious and mildly terrifying, because Hakuba and Nakamori had nothing on sleep-deprived students running on only coffee and hope.

Kaito absconded out of there the moment it was remotely feasible, stopping only to scrub all traces of his presence from the computer he’d been using in a dark corner of the reference section, away from most of the security cameras and also in a blind spot because he was lucky that way. He blinked as the strident sunlight hit his face, taking a deep breath of city air - which didn’t smell all that great, honestly, but it was a damn sight better than the stench of hopelessness and despair that had permeated the library.

He opened his briefcase and carefully placed the papers inside, exchanging them for his burner phone before shutting it. Now to Google the location of Scotland Yard…

To his surprise, it wasn’t more than a couple of blocks away, and it was astoundingly easy to sneak back into the bullpen. All he’d had to do was give a congenial nod to the receptionist and he’d waved him right through, busy talking to someone who appeared to be the particularly annoying-slash-entitled sort. Kaito kind of pitied them, especially since the receptionist was wearing eyeliner sharp enough to kill a man and he looked just about out of patience.

“But that car was daddy’s and I need it back before he finds out - ”

“Linda, this is the THIRD TIME THIS WEEK. I’ve told you that there’s nothing I can do. Either learn to drive properly or deal with the consequences - !”

Kaito stifled a snicker before pulling on Hakuba’s personality like a pair of thread-worn pyjamas - familiar, but not necessarily comfortable.

He tilted his head back slightly, shoulders set rigidly, raising his nose into the air and striding forward confidently.

“KID sent a heist notice,” he announced flatly, focusing on carefully forming his words properly so that his English sounded passable. He brandished one of the copies at face-level, hand twitching slightly to match the vein pulsing in his forehead because that’s what Hakuba did when KID sent him a personalized heist notice in Japan. Instead of a bunch of ‘we know’s echoing throughout the office, here he was only given a few quizzical looks.

He sighed. “Phantom Thief 1412, better known by his alias ‘Kaitou KID.’ Wanted by Interpol. Presumably male. First recorded activity eighteen years, twelve days ago. Mysterious ten-year break before his sudden return one year and forty-four days ago. Mostly active in Japan, but has been known to branch out into other countries. Gives advance notice of the date, time, place, and object of his focus in the form of a riddle, and yet had evaded capture over ninety-three times,” he said, as if reading through a list of bullet points from a file he’d long-since memorized. “Always returns his ‘prize,’ but incredibly infuriating and prone to pranks,” he added as an afterthought, because Hakuba would.

...It occurred to him that he could've just sent Hakuba the heist note and bypassed all of this but...hindsight was a bitch, apparently. This should not have been news to him.

And yet.

Kaito handed over the note to one of the officers, a group of whom had started congregating around him. He was going to need to stick around for a little while, both to make sure they took him seriously and to give them a few hints, because he’d probably made this puzzle a tad too difficult. Since he’d been on a time crunch, he hadn’t had the time to make sure there weren’t too many red herrings...

A flurry of movement in the corner of his vision caught his attention, and he turned slightly to get a better image, continuing his light involvement in the conversation and adding a few hints absently. Six people had just entered the bullpen - a silver-haired officer (probably), a sandy-haired former military man (almost certainly), a curly-haired prat (definitely - this guy was giving off stronger Hakuba vibes than Hakuba did, somehow), a clearly kick-ass female officer (the Aoko vibes were overwhelming) keeping an eye on a doctor in handcuffs (he didn’t seem like a mad scientist, but Kaito had a very limited sample size and was maybe a little fond of TV tropes), and, finally, to his utter surprise, Meitantei.

He looked...different.

It wasn't something he could properly describe in words, exactly, or even justify as a logical leap, but the kid looked...uncomfortable, maybe? Kaito wasn't in any way a detective (and he most assuredly didn’t want to be, because then he’d have to worship Holmes when Lupin was clearly superior), but his night job had given him an intrinsic understanding of how people worked and acted based on their circumstances or emotions. It was how he was able to impersonate almost anyone in a pinch, after only a few moments of observation. If he wanted the disguise to hold up for a more substantial amount of time, he would of course have to study his target in more depth, but regardless. Meitantei, for example, he could likely impersonate easily enough for a day or so if he somehow managed to shrink ten years. Well - hm, that wasn't quite accurate, now, was it? Kaito would be able to manage that easily enough if only the kid were consistent , which was also rather worrisome -

In any case. At least he was alive, if...rattled.

Kaito knew people, okay, and he especially knew the majority of Meitantei's paranoid ‘I’m-being-watched” tics.

(Because, granted, at heists, there usually was someone watching him nearby, even though it was only the friendly neighborhood jewel thief.

Most of the time, anyway...)

And even though he was in the middle of Scotland Yard - arguably the safest place in London for him (though Kaito had to suppress the shiver that ran down his spine every now and then because thieves were not meant to be in police stations for any extended amount of time , but for heist setup and apparently Meitantei he was willing to make exceptions) - Meitantei's eyes darted around, cataloguing the windows as escape routes, his little shoulders tenser than stage wire. He held the rest of himself deceptively loosely, which an amateur might assume to mean that he was relaxed, but in reality it was more like he felt he needed to be ready to move in any direction at a moment's notice. He was fiddling with the watch on his wrist - which appeared to be the one equipped with a spring-loaded tranquilizer dart because apparently he didn't only wear it on heists ( worrying ) - with one hand while the other reached up every so often to absently tug at his bow tie (which had to be some kind of gadget because no one wore bow ties if they could help it, much less a grade schooler), as if making sure it was still there. There were dark bags under his eyes that practically had their own block number, and he looked paler than usual, which probably wasn’t noticeable to the people around him at that moment, but, like. Somebody get that boy a banana or something because he looked about thirty seconds from his body revoking control and forcing him to pass out long enough to regain function.

Damn. And Kaito thought he had problems remembering to sleep. Meitantei looked like he hadn’t got some shuteye for more than twelve hours in the past week.

(Kaito’s personal record was four days without sleeping, and he’d been a bit loopy by the end of it. Why had he thought the camels would be a good idea, why . Camels were mean. )

In any case, it looked like Meitantei didn’t have any more idea what was going on than Kaito did - maybe even less.

He decided right then and there that he was going to find a chance to share information with Meitantei some time soon even if it got him arrested. The heist was going to happen soon enough, there was definitely a learning curve so the police likely weren’t going to be much of an issue even if they did listen to the suggestions Hakuba was bound to make, and Kaito hadn’t known that he was going to Europe so it was unlikely that his tag-alongs had made the journey with him. If, for some reason, they didn’t manage to find a moment, he could also use the time for info-gathering and figure out where Meitantei was staying or something.

But, for the time being…

Meitantei should probably know that he wasn’t alone. Or, at least, that he had someone familiar around…

But that would mean -

Kaito measured his breathing. In for four, hold for seven, out for eight.

That would mean breaking the number one rule of disguise.

He’d done it once before (also for Meitantei, actually, now that he’d thought of it), once , when lives were at stake and Conan had just been tossed out of a moving airship thousands of feet off the ground.

(Don’t break character unless someone has already figured you out or you’ve achieved your goal and it’s an appropriately dramatic moment.)

But -

Another glance at Conan showed a tightness around his eyes and him trying to be aware of everything that was happening in the room at once despite an older silver-haired man with an open manila folder in his hand probably going over a case and - yeah, okay, fine.

If Meitantei , of all his detectives, was really not focusing his entire being on the case in front of him, something was really wrong.

He was -

He was really going to do it, wasn't he. He was going to break one of the first laws of disguise.

(His dad would be so disappointed in him - )

Kaito shook his head, displacing the thought, and out of the corner of his eye he caught Conan’s first reaction to his presence ( incredibly delayed, shit ) which was to freeze and turn whiter than one of his doves, then slowly shift sideways until the tall curly-haired man’s coat blocked him from sight. Honestly, he was a bit hurt. Here he was, ready to break - or at least bend - one of the most important rules of disguise, and Conan had the nerve to look - frightened? Of him? Of - ?

Oh. Of Hakuba. For some reason.

He was pretty sure that they'd only met, like, twice, though? Once at the Sunset Mansion (which honestly still gave him nightmares), and he'd been there for that, and then there was the - hm, what did Hakuba call it? The Detective Koushien, or something equally pretentious…

Nothing that would explain that reaction unless - ah.

See, this was why he wasn't a detective. Apart from their depressing lack of taste, of course.

To Conan, at this point Hakuba was an unknown variable.

So...the question was...do something completely out of character and purposely give himself away (he suppressed a violent cringe at the mere thought , but it was still on the table) or ignore him completely as long as it was an option, for Conan’s peace of mind?

Hm. Decisions, decisions.

Chapter Text

Shinichi opens his eyes, momentarily disoriented by the bright stage lights, compounded with the flickering fluorescents that have yet to be turned off. The show hasn’t started yet, and the stage lights are put out after only a moment, so they must have just been testing them. Good - it always pays to be careful.

Something taps his shoulder, and Shinichi abruptly realizes that he’s currently a lot shorter than he should be - but also, simultaneously, exactly the height he remembers being.

“Oi, Shinichi. Oiiiiii.”

Shinichi blinks and twists to look over his shoulder at the oddly masculine voice coming from behind him. Somehow, he isn’t surprised when he sees a young boy, not older than ten, with dark, messy hair instead of Ran, or when Shinichi’s mouth forms the words, “What is it, Kaito?” without him consciously deciding to say anything.

Kaito snorts, folding his arms petulantly. His body language screams pay attention to me, idiot! right up until a wide, enthusiastic smile breaks his composure. “I said, what did you think of the dress rehearsal? Super cool, right?” He says ‘super cool’ in English, Shinichi thinks, but he says the words with a weird accent, with a kind of growl on the ‘r’ for some reason.

Oh, wait. Was it...French? Huh.

Shinichi sniffs haughtily in response, pointing his nose in the air. “I figured out all the tricks!” he boasts, blatantly lying because he’d only been able to figure out the card tricks, which amounted to approximately ten percent of the dress rehearsal.

Kaito’s face falls into a pout, and this time it’s probably at least half-real and not theatrical at all.

Shinichi relents almost instantly, ducking his head to hide the faint flush he can feel dusting his cheeks. “Yeah, it’s pretty ‘super cool,’ ” he admits, trying to copy Kaito’s pronunciation and failing miserably.

A split second of...something flashes in Kaito’s eyes - Surprise, maybe? Wonder? Shinichi‘s having trouble pinpointing the expression, nothing sharp the way that he was used to; instead, everything is oddly foggy at the edges, like he’s looking but not seeing - before a wide, genuine smile overtakes Kaito’s face. 

“That’s right!” he says, pumping his fist and hopping in place a little. Shinichi can’t help the answering grin tugging at his own lips. “My dad’s the best magician in the whole entire world!”

“He’s the best magician I’ve ever seen,” Shinichi agrees, neglecting to mention the fact that he’d never actually seen another magician’s show before.

Kaito gives him a Look, like he isn’t sure whether or not he should be glaring, but before he can figure it out, a warm, heavy hand lands on Shinichi’s shoulder. 

Shinichi looks up, craning his neck to see who it was. He’s pretty sure whoever it is isn’t malicious or anything, and also they feel kind of familiar, but that just makes him more curious.

“Shinichi, we should head to our seats,” his father says, squeezing his shoulder, and Shinichi just stares at him for a long moment. He’s...a lot taller than Shinichi remembered. 

(...Or maybe not?)

Shinichi nods, and his father starts towards where their seats are, presumably. Shinichi waves at Kaito, then turns to follow.

“Wait! Shinichi!”

Shinichi pauses, looking back over his shoulder and raising an eyebrow. He practiced that in a mirror for ages before finally figuring out how it worked, so now he uses it every opportunity he can get, and a few more besides.

Kaito looks conflicted for a short moment, then says, “Watch the grand finale, okay? And then find me after, ‘cuz you definitely won’t figure it out!”

Shinichi feels a smirk spreading across his face and doesn’t bother stopping it. “I will too!”

Kaito sticks out his tongue. “Nuh-uh!”

Shinichi returns the gesture before running back to his father, who’s waiting for him at the stairs, amused.

“Why would you be trusted with a child if their parents weren’t absolutely sure that you could take care of them, no matter what? An energy, drink, really - !”

“Sherlock, what the - bloody buggering hell, why would you give a child an energy drink?! ”

“ Please. He’s not actually a child.”

“Mr. Holmes, if he were your child, I would call the police on your arse so quickly that Usain Bolt would be ashamed - !”

“Who?”

“Miss Collins, I assure you that Sherlock will be penalized - ”

The stage is on fire. It’s not really a stage, since it’s a rollercoaster, but anywhere a magician performs is a stage and technically all the world’s a stage -

But the stage isn’t meant to be on fire.

Not yet, at least, because the trick during rehearsal had some pyrotechnics at the end for the wow factor but -

But now there’s burning and screaming and that’s Kaito’s voice, not Toichi-ojisan’s, and they’d both checked the stage before the show started so whatever went wrong must have happened between then and now -

“Shinichi.” There’s a hand on his shoulder, gripping so tightly that it’s on the verge of painful but not as painful as being burned alive and it’s his father’s. His voice is controlled but there’s a taut thread of panic woven through it when he says, “Shinichi, we have to go. Now. ”

His father drags him along but he can’t help but look back over his shoulder at the blazing inferno except it’s not an inferno now because it’s a basement but it's still burning and all the world’s a stage and all the men and women merely players -

Help me, Maria mouths, scratching at the thin chain around her neck and then the faint strains of Moonlight Sonata play as flames overtake her.

Shinichi blinked, and when he opened his eyes again he was Conan.

...Why did his chest hurt?

Conan glanced around blearily, compartmentalizing that - dream? - because he could tell that there was something important in there somewhere, but he was equally sure that he couldn’t handle dealing with it right at that moment, what with the two ongoing cases that had fallen into his lap.

Or perhaps he’d fallen into their laps?

He took in the inherent blandness of what was more than likely a hospital room, because apparently he’d done something that had caused him to end up in desperate need of medical attention. Bright, mid-morning light filtered through the uncovered window to his left, which was also mildly concerning, given that last he remembered, it had been fading to dusk - which meant that, more than likely, he’d passed out.

Which was, of course, less than ideal.

“...I hope I didn’t get shot again,” Conan voiced absently, staring at the heart monitors near his head. They weren’t doing anything alarming, so he was probably fine.

(It was kind of...soothing, actually, watching the blips of his heartbeat flow across the screen. Maybe he should make it his new laptop screensaver. Or maybe Haibara’s would be better - link it to his heartbeat in real time and kill two birds with one stone. The image would be both relaxing and a connection to his vital statistics so she didn’t have to call him every time she was concerned about his well being.)

(Not that he minded it, usually. He’d be a hypocrite if he did.)

“Pardon me?” A high, frosty voice came from the opposite direction, and Conan carefully restrained a twitch.

(He wasn’t especially fond of having unknown entities at his back - and especially not in unfamiliar places.)

(His therapist said it was completely understandable, and then something else that Conan couldn’t remember because he might have fallen asleep with his eyes open because it had been a long week. A serial killer targeting safe collectors, of all things, and she’d managed to kill five people before Conan had accidentally stumbled across one of the crime scenes and made the connection.)

Conan rolled over slowly to face the person behind him, who was apparently a young girl with dark ringlets and piercing grey eyes. Even though she was wearing what Conan assumed were probably her pyjamas - a long flowing night dress in a pale shade of blue, to be more precise - she looked dignified, like her wheelchair was a throne and her hairband a crown.

Huh. 

“You’re, ah...Delilah-san, right?” Conan’s mouth tripped over the words, forming them clumsily and heavily accented so that her name sounded closer to da-rai-raa.

Conan winced internally, dissatisfied with his less-than-stellar pronunciation (he’d spent a long time trying to get his ‘L’ sounds perfect and apparently all that practice just flew out the window whenever he ran out of caffeine, which sucked ). 

(The whole ‘not-being-able-to-remember-going-to-the-hospital’ thing also perhaps might have had something to do with it. Possibly.)

Delilah inclined her head demurely in response, all sharp angles. “Yes, I’m Delilah Collins. You were visiting my house when you...became indisposed.”

Her voice was low for a young girl’s and each word was chosen deliberately, formed so perfectly that Conan had to tamp down on a small, irrational flare of jealousy.

“Yes, um, what - what happened, exactly? ‘Cuz I don’t...really remember…”

Which was both true and slightly alarming. He hadn’t had memory issues like this even when he’d been shot.

Delilah seemed unsurprised by this turn of events. “Mother said that you fainted.”

Conan blinked, eyebrows shooting towards his hairline. “I - what?” he asked, suddenly much more awake.

“Your heart almost stopped beating,” Delilah said, face blank, and for the first time, Conan noticed the tension in her arms, leading down to where her hands were clasped together in her lap so tightly that her knuckles had turned white. “Mother had to give you CPR until the ambulance arrived. She wouldn’t allow anyone else to touch you until the paramedics came, because she wasn’t sure who had given you Red Bull.”

Ah.

That had probably been traumatizing for her, huh.

Especially after one of her friends had just been murdered.

(It was a little sad just how used Conan was to murder and death and emergencies and all that. It was like he didn’t even register the effect they had on people who weren’t being stalked by death anymore.)

(He should probably try to work on that.)

“Guess my doctor was right about watching my caffeine intake,” Conan said absently, scratching the back of his head sheepishly. “How much is in an energy drink anyway…?”

Delilah’s lip trembled, and Conan got the distinct impression that she was glaring at him despite nothing in her appearance physically changing. It was terrifying. “You drank an unknown substance, knowing that you could potentially have an adverse reaction?” she inquired, bone-chillingly polite.

Conan winced, because, well, when she put it like that it sounded bad.

Her dark eyebrows furrowed slightly. “And how long have you known these people?” she asked mildly, not sounding the least bit accusatory.

Somehow, Conan thought, repressing a shiver, it would have been better if she had. “Uh...What day is it today?” he hedged, not looking at her. He was getting distinct Haibara vibes from her, and it was just a little bit disconcerting.

Delilah managed to look faintly disapproving, despite not moving a single muscle. How.

Conan sighed, resigning himself to coming up with some sort of vaguely plausible explanation. “They’re...my mom’s friends,” he invented, which was only slightly untrue. “I haven’t met them before, though.” Also mostly true, since he hadn’t met either John or Lestrade before - yesterday? Apparently?

Also supposedly I’m seven and therefore not the most reliable person to keep track of a medical condition, he refrained from saying, because of the obvious.

Delilah’s disapproving aura only grew. “That doesn’t seem particularly responsible of her,” she said mildly.

Conan couldn’t stifle the sharp bark of laughter that erupted out of him, but he managed to clamp down on the hysterical tinge it would have had otherwise. So. That was something, at least. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen her be responsible in her life,” he replied honestly.

Delilah’s eyebrows pinched together delicately, and she looked like she was about to say something about that whole... situation, so Conan derailed that with a question that could potentially help him solve the case that he was still working on. Maria’s case, that was, not The Case of the Mysteriously Appearing Primary Schooler.

(He hated that that name was starting to catch on, even if it was only in his head.)

Conan cleared his throat. “Who would your mom put you with if she had to go out of town and you couldn’t go with her?”

Delilah’s mouth dropped open slightly, apparently thrown by the slight topic change, forming a perfect little ‘o.’ “Ah, well. Usually, she would hire a ‘sitter, since she has a tendency to be slightly overprotective. I think that she would allow me to stay over with some of my pageant friends - at the Armstrong’s or the Peters’ houses, most likely. She hasn’t known Mr. Shumaker long enough to trust him with me; Angela had a bit of a tiff with one of the other girls a few weeks ago, so that’s the Stevens-Ruiz household out for the time being; and the Reynolds’ hallways are too narrow for me to get inside.” 

She tapped the hubcaps on her wheelchair absently in explanation. They didn’t look particularly necessary to the chair’s functionality, but they were a soft purple with white patterns sporadically scattered across them. There was a white pen attached to the underside of the wheelchair’s arm, so it looked like Delilah had drawn them herself.

She was a good artist, Conan thought absently, before continuing his line of questioning. “A fight?” he parrotted. “What was it about?”

“Oh, the usual, I suppose,” Delilah replied absently, though her eyes were sharp and focused, directed explicitly at Conan’s face. Which was just great. “Angela said their themes were similar, Maria accused her of stealing her theme, Angela denied it and said she’d thought of it first, Maria knew that was true so she resorted to insults, Angela ignored her until Maria moved on to catty remarks about how her dress looked poorly made, and that’s when Angela took off her shoe and threw it at her.”

Conan blinked. That seemed like a bit of an overreaction.

Delilah noticed his confusion and added, “Mrs. Ruiz García handmakes all of her daughters’ dresses.”

Ah. Yes, that would do it.

“They’re very well done, actually, even though I believe that she buys the material in bulk,” she continued. “Mother and I are thinking about asking her if she takes commissions.”

Huh.

“So Maria-chan insulted Angela-san’s mother’s handiwork and Angela-san threw a shoe at her?” Conan summarized. 

Delilah nodded. “It was a stiletto heel, so it might’ve taken Maria’s eye out if she hadn’t moved.”

Conan did not know what a stiletto heel was, but given what he knew about stiletto knives and the context clues, he was pretty sure he could come up with a decent mental image. They seemed like something Vermouth would wear.

“Alena would have done worse, if she’d been in the room at the time,” Delilah added almost absently, though her eyes were still unerringly fixed on Conan. “Mrs. Ruiz García made Angela apologize afterwards, and then Mr. and Mrs. Reynolds made Maria apologize, but it was clear that she didn’t really mean it, so their parents decided it would be best to keep their children as far apart as possible for the time being.”

Yeah, sure. That made sense.

“Also, what is ‘san’? You keep saying it.” The inquiry was faultlessly polite, but there was a definite undertone of sharpened steel. It was similar to the way Haibara would ask after exactly how much coffee he’d had that morning, to which Conan would usually respond with a cagey less than you.

Conan blinked rapidly, forcing his brain back to the conversation rather than down that train of thought. It was probably for the best, anyway. “It’s - huh? Oh, they’re honorifics. My neechan - sorry, my older sister... ish , we’re not actually related - makes me use them, ‘cuz I used to live in America and we don’t use them at all, so when I moved to Japan I didn’t understand how they worked so I didn’t bother with them, but then Ran-neechan got mad at sat me down and explained them and said I’d better use them, or else. So now any time I don’t an image of her disappointed stare pops up and - “ Conan shivered abruptly.

“Ran-neechan’s scary when she’s angry,” he stage-whispered to Delilah, who just blinked, face blank.

Wow. He’d wrenched himself away from one trainwreck and straight into another. 

“...I think we should call a nurse in,” Delilah said delicately, not commenting on the five-car-pile-up he’d made of that explanation. Had it made any sense at all? Probably not.

But hey - on the bright side, it’d sounded exactly like something an actual seven-year-old would come up with.

(Which did not bode well for the current functionality of his brain.)

Conan watched as Delilah wheeled herself close enough to press his call button. “Probably for the best,” he agreed.

Apparently, calling the nurse also called the adults who’d been waiting-slash-arguing outside, because the door slammed open as soon as Delilah hit the button.

Lucy Collins was the first into the room, striding purposefully to Delilah’s side - and, consequently, Conan’s. Her glare could’ve frozen over the Lut Desert had it not been focused solely on Sherlock, who looked only vaguely uncomfortable.

Sherlock was bracketed by Lestrade on one side and John on the other, although it seemed less for his benefit and more to prevent him from doing anything stupid, like hand Conan another Red Bull.

Which was unfortunate, because Conan kind of wanted one. Even though he still hadn’t quite been able to identify what they tasted like, other than weird.

(Mitsuhiko might be right about his bloodstream being half caffeine, if he had cravings for a drink that looked radioactive just because it had inadvisable amounts of caffeine in it.)

(Where had his self preservation disappeared to?)

(Oh, that was right. He’d never had any in the first place.)

Lucy Collins set her hand on her daughter’s shoulder, thumb rubbing small circles against her arm, and Delilah leaned into the touch minutely. “Conan, dear, how are you feeling?” she asked, still glaring pointedly at Sherlock.

Conan shrugged. “I’ve had worse.”

Which was apparently definitely not the right thing to say, because Ms. Collins’ stare somehow managed to become more frosty and murderous, which Conan hadn’t thought possible.

She managed a small smile when she forced herself away from trying to murder Sherlock Holmes with her mind (good) and focused her gaze on Conan (less good). Her eyes softened demonstrably and there was a spark of concern that warmed them from a flinty grey to a welcoming silver. “What do you mean by that, Conan?” she asked gently.

Now, this was probably where he should not mention the time he’d been thrown out of a blimp by fake bioterrorists again.

“When he woke up, his first words were ‘I hope I didn’t get shot again,’” Delilah said dryly.

Ah.

Whoops.

The blimp thing probably would’ve gone over better than getting shot, at least.

...Probably.

(Conan knew himself well enough to be aware of the fact that his danger meter was heavily skewed. An average seven-year-old’s everyday scale was more like ‘the worst thing that could plausibly happen to me today ranges between getting a paper cut and breaking a leg skateboarding’ while Conan’s was more between getting threatened by a criminal with a knife/bomb/gun and someone throwing him off the Bell Tree Tower. Anything less than that, and he didn’t really bother registering it.)

(In hindsight, that might be why Haibara insisted on weekly check-ups, even though she wasn’t technically that kind of doctor.)

“Yeah, that kinda hurt,” Conan said, like that was at all convincing.

Lucy Collins gave him a Look.

It was a very expressive Look.

Somehow it managed to convey concern, disappointment, and disbelief all at the same time, and the moment Conan realized it was a Mom Look that was being directed at him, that was the moment he was done for.

“Okay, yeah, it hurt a lot and I passed out in the cave before I could get to the hospital, but I was out of the hospital, like, a week later, and, anyway, I’m fine now, really!” Conan was just digging himself further into the hole, wasn’t he.

(Unfortunately, Conan was pretty sure he was unable to do anything other than tell the truth when faced with the Mom Look. Not that his mother had managed it very often - but, then again, when he’d been a kid the first time around, he hadn’t had much to hide.)

“I’m sorry, did you just say ‘the cave ’ - ”

Luckily, before Ms. Collins could make him answer (and he’s sure she could’ve found a way - she reminded him far too much of Ran’s mother), the nurse appeared. 

He was unassuming and a little on the short side, with dark hair and the kind of musculature that said he probably played soccer in the park on his days off.

All in all, there wasn’t anything particularly noteworthy about him, except perhaps the fact that he was male in a predominantly female field.

What was interesting, however, was the way that John’s eyes flashed when he came into the room, before he said, “Tom, s’that you?”

It sounded weird, even to Conan’s ears - it differed from John’s usual cadence and was pitched slightly - but the strangest part was the way that it sounded almost... natural, for him.

(The same way that KID’s fake voices sounded natural.)

Nurse Harris - according to his nametag, at least, started, whirling around. “Al - “ he cut himself off before he could finish the name and switched tracks to recover admirably with, “I - I haven’t seen you since - graduation, must've been?”

John laughed, sounding more like himself. “Yeah, I turned up late, didn’t I? Covered in bruises, of course - my sister will’ve torn up all the pictures by now, I’m sure. Surprised any medical school took me after that, but I managed to make myself a doctor before I got shipped off, though - Doctor John Watson, at your service.” He gave Nurse Harris a bow and added a dorky little flourish, like he wasn’t using it as an excuse to bring his name up in conversation, presumably so his friend wouldn’t call him the wrong one again.

(Because there was definitely something suspicious about John Watson - Conan had half-expected him to be a robot Sherlock had built for some discernible reason. But, apparently, he was a real human being with a real past and too many secrets for Conan to be able to trust him as far as he could throw him. And with Conan’s puny little seven-year-old arms, he couldn’t throw John very far.)

“Nurse Tom Harris, at yours.” Nurse Harris returned the corny gesture, then started actually checking on Conan before Ms. Collins whacked him upside the head.

(With words, probably. She didn’t seem like the type of person who resorted to physical violence when a well-placed sharp word would do.)

“Never figured you for a nurse, though, Tom,” John commented absently, ignoring the way that Sherlock was eyeing him unsubtly. Conan liked to think that he was being more stealthy about his observations, but that was probably a lie. It was almost impossible for him to be stealthy when half the room’s eyes were watching him closely for the slightest sign of pain. “I thought you were trying for a teacher?”

“I thought so too, but then I gave it some more thought and decided that making sure children are allowed to heal properly before being sent back out into the cold and unforgiving world was a better fit for me. I’m sure you can guess why.” Nurse Harris shrugged with one shoulder, studiously avoiding eye contact and keeping his other hand steady as he...did a medical thing, presumably (?). 

(Conan could figure out the thousands of ways people used fishing line to kill each other, but only a little more than the bare minimum of first aid, and didn’t that just say it all.)

John seemed to need a moment to process that, so he changed the topic. “Makes sense, yeah - didn’t know you were in London, though, otherwise we’d’ve met up sooner.”

Tom shot him a wry look. “ I didn’t know you were in London until five minutes ago - figured you were off in Iraq or something.”

The corner of John’s mouth inched upwards and for a moment he looked like an entirely different person. “Or something,” he agreed mildly. “We’ll have to grab a beer sometime.”

Conan exchanged a Look with Sherlock before he could stop himself. It was not a Mom Look, but a Detective Look, and not one that he should be exchanging with anyone other than Hattori or perhaps his father because it was distinctly not the kind of Look a seven-year-old should be well-versed in.

Nurse Harris snorted. “ ‘Grab a beer,’ “ he mimicked, in a terrible accent that was probably supposed to be American, possibly. “You’ve been spending too much time with your Americans. But, yeah, there’s a footie game in the park round the corner on Saturdays - show up when you’re free and we’ll have that pint.”

Lucy Collins cleared her throat pointedly, and Conan nearly got whiplash as Nurse Harris pasted a bright smile on over his previously wry one.

“Okay, Conan! You’ll probably have to stay the night just to be sure, but everything looks alright! Just remember not to drink any more energy drinks, yeah?”

Conan stared at him in blank horror. Was this what it was like when he did his impression of a seven-year-old?

He really, really hoped not.

"Oh!” Nurse Harris clapped his hands together, thetn dug around in his pocket for a long moment. “I know what you’re waiting for! Here, this will make your ouchies all better!" He placed a band-aid over a tiny scratch on Conan’s forearm. "There, see?"

Conan stared blankly at the band-aid covering his skin. It was superhero-themed.  "...I don't need a bandaid, though. If anything, I need a concussion test."

He didn't understand why Nurse Harris looked so shocked at his reply.

“...Sorry, how old are you again, Conan?” John asked, his eyes narrowing as they fixed purposefully on Conan’s face. It kind of looked like he was trying to give a CT scan with his mind. Which was an interesting conundrum, actually. He’d have to mention it to Haibara.

Conan pasted a blithely clueless expression onto his face. “I’m seven, Watson-sensei! I’m pretty sure we’ve been through this.”

John eyed Conan with a strange expression on his face, brow furrowing slightly and his shoulders set seemingly unconsciously in a way that Conan automatically marked as ‘dangerous.’ 

This exchange was, unfortunately, not missed by Sherlock, who had a thoughtful expression creeping over his face.

“Anyway!” Conan said, taking advantage of the fact that he looked like a small child who couldn’t hold onto a train of thought for more than ten minutes to abruptly change the topic. “I had a question for Collins-sensei!”

Lucy Collins blinked. “What is it, Conan?” she asked gamely.

Conan pretended to think about it for a long moment, making his eyes dart around the room like he was purposely not looking at one specific spot, which of course was the spot that Sherlock’s eyes were immediately drawn to. Not that there was anything there, of course - at least, not that  Conan could see. “Um, there’s a green scarf in your front hallway,” he said slowly, like he was trying not to repeat what someone else was telling him. “And there’s a story behind it, right?”

Ms. Collins raised an eyebrow. “There is…”

Conan grinned up at her, trying to look simultaneously as pitiful and guileless as possible, just to hedge his bets. It was pretty clear that she had a soft spot a kilometer wide for kids. “Can you tell me the story?”

She breathed out slowly, not quite deeply enough to be called a sigh, then sat in the chair on the other side of Delilah’s wheelchair. “It’s not a very interesting story, I’m afraid,” she warned, before settling into the chair more comfortably. Somehow she managed to make it seem like she was sitting in a neatly stuffed armchair, rather than an old and rickety plastic folding chair.

(It was almost like the Collins family had magical powers that allowed them to manipulate reality at will, but that was impossible.)

(...Right?)

Lucy Collins’ story began:

“When I was in secondary school, I realized that I was different from everyone else in my year. I’d never been particularly interested in romance or gossip or anything like that - mostly because the majority of the gossip had to do with romance - so I had no warning before one of my close friends asked if I’d like to go on a date with him. We were young, so he probably meant something like paying for my lunch at the cafeteria, but even the thought of it made me faintly queasy, so I managed to choke out a ‘No thanks’ before I did my best to avoid him for the rest of the month. He was a good sport about it, though, and we went back to being friends without too much hassle, though our other friends couldn’t understand it.

“I told my parents about it afterwards, because I was young and thought they knew the answers to everything. But instead their response was the typical, ‘Oh, that’s fine, honey, you’ll find the right man someday!’ to which I responded that I didn’t think I liked men, actually, thanks. And, to their credit, my parents barely hesitated before saying, “Well, then I’m sure you’ll find a nice woman someday!’ But of course I said I didn’t like women that way either, so that put a bit of a damper on things.

“We didn’t speak for most of Sixth Form, until my graduation day. I count myself lucky, really, since they didn’t insist that I leave. We still lived in the same house and ate together at meal times, but we rarely spoke to each other unless absolutely necessary. It was...tense, yes, but it was mostly simply...awkward. But on my graduation day, just before we left for the party my friend was throwing to celebrate making it through A-Levels - Hubert Reynolds, actually, you must know him if they’ve allowed you to tag along on this... case....

“That day, they sat me down at the kitchen table and told me that they were so proud of me, and they apologized for the way that they’d been acting. My mother handed me a package wrapped in fancy paper with a bow on top and said, ‘I know we haven’t always been the best parents, but you deserve parents who will at least try to understand you.’ 

“Inside the box was the scarf that you saw on the hook. It used to be striped - black, white, grey, and green - but I wore it so many times when I was younger that the colours bled in the wash and now it’s held together by hopes and dreams. My mother researched and my father made it by hand, and it’s one of the only things I have left from him - he died in a car accident a few years later. So it never leaves that hook in the hallway, because I’m afraid that if I move it, it might disintegrate.”

Well.

It had been the wrong shade of green to match the thread at the crime scene anyway.

“I think you were selling yourself short, Collins-sensei,” Conan said honestly. “It was a good story. I liked it.”

There was a lot of information to unpack from that story, most of it not particularly pertinent to the case, but plenty relevant to - well, he needed to compartmentalize it for now, before - 

The intercom crackled to life and eerie, maniacal, slightly tinny laughter filled the room. “I’ve taken this entire hospital hostage!” the slightly squeaky voice proclaimed. “And if the police do not move to fulfill my demands, one of you will die every hour, on the hour!”

- he came across another case. That was, what, seven in barely two days? This was getting absurd.

Conan eyed the window. Only two storeys - he could jump through it easily enough. If he landed wrong, he might sprain an ankle, but that would be the worst injury to come of it. 

(His therapist probably wouldn’t like those thoughts.)

He could avoid this situation so easily - just ignore everything and jump out the window, go back to solving Maria’s death. Or, and here was an idea, he could try to figure out how he ended up on Sherlock Holmes’ couch in the first place.

But of course he wasn’t going to do that.

“You can call me Doctor Cerebellum!” 

What, was Doctor Cerebrum taken?

Conan sighed deeply. Why did he always get the crazy ones?

This kind of bullshit never happened to Hattori.

Chapter Text

Conan wished that he could - perhaps, maybe, possibly - go two whole hours without running into another case. 

But apparently that wasn't in the cards.

(Two waking hours, he should perhaps specify. He'd been in various stages of unconsciousness for at least ten hours, judging by the tension in Lucy Collins's posture, but he was pretty sure that didn't actually count as this mythical thing that people called ‘a break.’)

(Apparently getting summoned to a case, rather than stumbling across it, meant a full twenty-four hours of constant crises. Or maybe that was just in England? Haibara would require more data points before committing to a definite conclusion, and that was probably a good rule of thumb.)

(The cases had all been non-lethal so far, though, so that was a nice change of pace.) 

(In terms of ‘breaks from murder,’ he still preferred KID's heists.)

The guy using the PA system was still yapping on, even though Conan hadn't bothered to process anything he'd been saying for the past however-many minutes.

(He could probably recite it verbatim if necessary, though. Just because he wasn't consciously processing what was going on, it didn't mean that he wasn't paying attention. )

And then “Doctor Cerebellum” (and Conan hated that he didn’t have anything else to call him, because that name was so dumb. Genta could have come up with something more creative, seriously) said, “ - no one leave their rooms, no one contact the police, or I will blow up this hospital!” and Conan was tuning in at a speed that exacerbated his mild headache.

(Did his accent sound vaguely American? Weird.)

Not five minutes ago, “Doctor Cerebellum” (ugh) had said he’d be killing one patient every hour until his demands were met, not that he’d actually, you know, told his hostages what the demands were - hopefully that was because he’d been communicating them directly to the police, though Conan honestly wasn’t too optimistic about it, given that he was calling himself Doctor Cerebellum.

(Doctor.

Cerebellum.

Like, what was he going to do, straighten everyone’s posture? Impede their motor function?

What on earth had made him think he needed a supervillain name, let alone one as idiotic and unintimidating as the one he’d chosen?)

Anyway, the point was:

“Doctor Cerebellum” had exponentially escalated his threats, from one person every hour to the entire hospital.

In five minutes.

What the hell.

Either “Doctor Cerebellum” ( so dumb) had no idea how to hold a building hostage, or he was getting frantic.

Which was not what one might call ideal .

(Conan hadn’t expected to find himself in the position of thinking that he might actually appreciate people who’d clearly done their research on how to commit crimes - not only was their browser history great evidence for the court case, but their plans were also formulaic and logical, which made it far easier for Conan and all his practice to counter.)

Anyway, regardless of which it was, it would be better to wrap things up quickly.

On the bright side, Conan had a plan.

On the less bright side, it was a pretty dumb plan.

On the extremely idiotic side, he was going to do it anyway, even though it was definitely not medically advisable.

Conan eyed the vent beside his hospital bed contemplatively. It looked like it was probably big enough.

The adults in the room were talking - arguing, really, would be more factual - and yet again Conan let their words wash over him without actively processing them. Nurse Harris appeared to be worried about patients getting their medications on time and kept darting pleading looks at John, seemingly involuntarily. The set of John’s shoulder was tense, though not as tense as one would expect for someone who had more than likely never been held hostage by a madman who was threatening to blow up the entire building if anyone set one foot out of line.

...Actually, on second thought, that was definitely the kind of thing that happened to you if you were in the vicinity of Sherlock Holmes. John probably wasn’t a first timer at all, huh.

Well, that’d probably sucked for him.

(Not that being trapped inside buildings people were threatening to blow up ever really stopped sucking.)

"Could you pass me my jacket?" Conan asked Delilah, whose wheelchair was conveniently situated adjacent to the small table that appeared to be holding his clothes.

She looked at him suspiciously. “...You’re not going to drink more Monster, are you?” she asked, hand hovering over his jacket. “Because I won’t give you your clothes if you’re just going to give yourself another heart attack.”

Conan blinked, momentarily derailed. “What, they didn’t confiscate it?” That seemed...irresponsible of them. 

(He ignored the fact that a seven-year-old probably shouldn’t know the word ‘confiscate,’ let alone be able to use it properly in a sentence.)

Also, hadn’t it been an open container? He’d honestly be more surprised if it hadn’t fallen out of his pocket and spilled all over the ambulance floor or something. Probably just as they were trying to restart his heart, or an equally dramatic moment. That seemed to be pretty in line with his luck.

(Haha, he was just going to shove the fact that he’d kind of died again a couple hours ago into a box in the back of his mind and ignore it for a while...)

Delilah narrowed her eyes and her hand twitched, like she was about to move it away, so Conan forced his train of thought back onto the tracks. Unfortunately, it immediately derailed as soon as he managed to get it pointed in what was at least vaguely the right direction. “No, I don’t want more...did you say it was called Monster? What even…” Why would anyone name an energy drink after the villains in story books?

Damn, he was tired.

He shook his head, wistfully remembering the time in his life when he had a chance to take a nap before facing a possible hospital bombing.

Oh, wait.

He’d never had that.

Ha.

Haha.

Ha.

Delilah watched him patiently as Conan tried (and failed) to focus on the situation at hand. “I’m not going to intentionally drink something that will kill me,” he said finally. “I’m just cold.”

This was not, technically speaking, a lie.

(However, he was not capable of preventing himself from drinking coffee, as his body was so used to it that it was practically part of his DNA at this point. The day he was able to stop drinking coffee for a week was the day he died.)

The open back of Conan’s hospital gown definitely was a little too... airy for his taste, in any case, and while he was a little chilled, he wasn't about to freeze to death. He was still wearing his socks and shorts, for some reason, which probably helped.

“Besides,” Conan added, perhaps a little belatedly, scrunching up his nose at her, “how would I know you didn’t wipe your girl cooties all over it?”

Thanks for that one, Genta.

Delilah’s expression changed to something faintly exasperated and she handed over his jacket. “And how do you know I didn’t ‘wipe my cooties’ on your jacket?”

Conan glanced up at her from where he was struggling to put his arms through his jacket sleeves. “Because you’re nice,” he said matter-of-factly, deciding to just let his mouth run without any conscious thought because that was what kids did and he was too worn out to care at this point. “And you’d only use your cooties for heroic purposes, like protecting people from themselves.”

He nodded once, as if he was satisfied with his reasoning. Which, sure, why not. “But you’re still a girl, so don’t get too close,” he added, scooching away from her and, coincidentally, towards the vent.

Clearly this was not part of a larger plan at all.

Delilah rolled her eyes, and Conan used the opportunity to palm the hair clip he’d clipped to the inside of his jacket lining, relieved that it hadn’t somehow detached itself.

Normally, Conan wouldn’t care too much about a hair clip, of all things, but he’d been waiting for a chance to use this particular hair clip for ages . He’d clipped to the inner lining of his jacket the moment he’d gotten it out of its packaging a month ago after waiting impatiently for the postal service to do its job. It was a hair clip, sure, which meant that none of the Detective Boys had been very interested in it after they had succeeded in annoying him into revealing what he’d been so eagerly awaiting. But what none of them had realized - somehow - was that it was actually also a multitool. It had a small ruler, an 8mm wrench, a small knife, and the circular part at the top could function as a coin if you needed one for one of those weird carts at supermarkets that were chained together until you put a coin in (not that he’d ever really had the chance to try that out).

The most pertinent part at this specific moment, however, was that the ends functioned as both a large and small flat head screwdriver (which could also function as a Phillips head in a pinch), depending on which end he used.

Conan absently continued the conversation with Delilah, though he didn’t devote too much brain power to it. Instead, he reached into his pocket and withdrew Sherlock’s phone, which apparently he hadn’t bothered to take back yet.

(Well, he could just use “John’s” phone for anything he needed, Conan thought uncharitably. This phone was Conan’s now, at least until he could charge his own. Sherlock could have it back afterwards, once Conan had wiped off his fingerprints and any traces of DNA.)

He pretended to pull up one of those brainless, time-wasting game apps that were so popular, and he only got away with it because Delilah probably thought that this was his phone and not one that he’d pickpocketed from Sherlock Holmes.

Anyone who’d interacted with Sherlock for more than two seconds would not believe that he had any games on his phone. They would likely continue to believe that for the rest of their lives, right up until Conan physically showed them that, in fact, the app that saw the most usage on Sherlock’s phone was Candy Crush.

Candy Crush.

Conan still couldn’t really believe it, and he was staring at the app usage data.

This had “John Watson” written all over it.

(Even if that wasn’t his real name.)

Anyway, Conan timed his taps so that he looked like he was playing a game, when in actuality he was looking up the blueprints to the hospital using Sherlock’s backdoor into the City Hall records database. 

Because of course he had one.

Conan’s other hand, however, was using his hair clip multitool to quickly unscrew the bolts attaching the vent to the wall. Well, ‘quickly’ was perhaps a bit generous.

Eventually Delilah lost interest in Conan’s halfhearted responses and rolled herself over to where her mother was standing, which just so happened to be at exactly the right angle to block the sightline of the adults in the room so they couldn’t see him tuck what amounted to about a third of his hospital gown into his pants. It wasn’t the most comfortable thing in the world, but it meant that he wouldn’t be stepping on the hem if he had to start running and/or crawling.

Perhaps more pertinently, Delilah’s new position meant that they also didn’t notice Conan undoing the last screw attaching the grate to the vents.

Not that they were paying much attention to him in the first place, really, which was slightly concerning considering the fact that he was the only actual patient in the room.

But hey, it seemed like luck was smiling on him today!

For literally the first time in his life!

Wasn’t that fantastic!

(It was not. Conan was almost pathetically grateful for this tiny dash of luck, but he knew that it’d end up rebounding on him somehow. That’s what generally happened, anyway.

Well, except at heists. KID’s unnatural penchant for luck seemed to permeate the entire heist site and Conan usually managed to soak up an infinitesimal amount whenever he was in the area. This mainly meant that the next time people started shooting at him, Conan was miraculously able to avoid any injuries to himself or the people he was protecting.

And, honestly? He was not complaining.

Getting shot sucked. )

Conan carefully removed the grate from the wall and gently set it down on the floor, painstakingly trying to minimize the sound as much as possible so as to avoid attention. 

He examined the vent’s dimensions one more time, then checked the building schematics one more time to make sure that he had the route to the announcement room memorized. 

(Yes, he was aware that he was just stalling at this point, and what of it?)

It’d be a tight fit, which was, well, less than ideal, but it was good enough.

(Conan resolutely ignored the fact that the last time he’d been in a space that small, he’d ended up hyperventilating so much that he’d used up all his oxygen and passed out for a couple hours. Clearly that would have absolutely zero impact on what he was about to do.)

It was -

...It’d be fine.

(In for four, hold for seven, out for eight - ) 

He didn’t have the time to waste dawdling, anyway.

So Conan took a deep breath, resolutely ignoring the voice in the back of his head that was screaming that he wasn’t an absolute moron, so why was he acting like one , and climbed into the vent.

(The voice sounded oddly like Haibara’s, which Conan tried not to think about too hard.)

“Wait, Conan? What are you - “

“God damn it, Alex - “

“Hey, what the bloody hell do you think you’re - “

...It would be too much to ask that no one would notice him leaving, huh.

Yeah, he was just going to pretend that he was too far into the vent to hear them. That seemed like a good course of action. He could just...ignore the rising cacophony of exasperated and incredulous voices (and they were also possibly worried? It was hard to tell, what with the echoes and all).

(He was perhaps a little proud that he’d managed to get Lucy Collins to swear. She really didn’t seem like the type to swear, and especially not in a child’s hospital room. And she’d managed to refrain from cursing out Sherlock and John while she was berating them about their child-rearing-slash-babysitting skills earlier, which clearly had taken a vast amount of effort. So the fact that Conan had managed to get her to break just by existing - and, well, conforming to his fate, he supposed - was maybe a little impressive.

He was also fairly certain that he’d heard Delilah say quietly, “Hey, what the fuck.” So. Double points, there.

Maybe half points for Nurse Harris, then? His reaction had seemed to be more exasperated than anything else, like perhaps he was used to children climbing through vents in an attempt to prevent buildings from being blown up. But, on the other hand, 'Alex' seemed to be a logical extension of the 'Al-' from earlier, so now Conan at least had a name for John's alternate identity. It wasn't much to go on, of course, but at least he had something for Haibara to research and possibly mitigate a small portion of her wrath. As soon as he managed to charge his phone, that was.

So.

Half points.)

(...Look, he had to get his kicks where he could find them at this point, okay. There were only so many crimes you could witness and/or solve before your worldview started shifting and you possibly started becoming desensitized.

...It was the small things that made it bearable, really. Like occasionally pranking “Sleeping Kogoro,” or trolling Hattori, or even just showing up at KID’s heists.

Besides, the points thing was all in his head, and he had semi-decent excuses for the rest of it. Failing that, he had his glittering puppy dog eyes and a childish pout to fall back on as a last resort.

It wasn't like mind readers were a thing that existed and could read his thoughts and tattle to Ran, so he was probably fine.)

Fortunately, none of the adults had shoulders narrow enough to fit through the vent - it was the whole reason he was the one taking the vents in the first place, after all - which meant that no one would be coming after him.

Well, except maybe Sherlock could fit, but he was too much of a posh git to bother getting his coat dirty when it wasn’t strictly necessary and/or case-related.

Unfortunately, Conan had forgotten about the so-called “Case of the Mysteriously Appearing Primary Schooler.”

He was forcibly reminded of said case when he heard a scrabbling sound behind him, like nails scratching at the sides of the vent and heard John add an exasperated “Sherlock!” to the disquieted muttering or possibly shouting (the acoustics in the air vent were weird, and he couldn’t quite tell) that was happening back in Conan’s hospital room.

Conan resolutely did not look backwards.

Not that he was afraid of what he would see, of course.

But, well.

He wasn’t not afraid of looking behind him and seeing Sherlock’s spindly white fingers grasping for him.

Haibara had made him watch enough horror movies. He could picture it, thanks.

(Even though they’d mostly spent their time complaining about automatically rhyming translations, questionable science, inaccurate blood splatters, and even more inaccurate attempts at first aid, rather than being actually scared, there were still some scenes that stayed with him.

Many of those scenes involved small, dark places, and reaching hands.

...This was fine. 

It’d be fine.  

Obviously.)

Ice cold fingers wrapped around Conan’s ankle, and he had to stifle a scream. A quick glance behind him confirmed that it was Sherlock, at least, so that was...something. Good, even…? 

On the bright side, it could have been so much worse.

(Zombies didn’t exist, and Conan thanked his lucky star every day that they didn’t, because otherwise his job would be so much harder. )

Conan struggled futilely in Sherlock’s grasp until he finally managed to land a kick on his wrist, forcing him to let go involuntarily. He scrambled away, blunt nails scrabbling against the metal beneath him, and turned a corner as quickly as physically possible.

He heard Sherlock let out a quiet curse when he realized that the ventilation shaft wasn’t deep enough to let him turn and continue following Conan.

Well, that was one point in favor of being child-sized. 

Conan laughed breathlessly, possibly mildly hysterically, and continued crawling away, not even allowing himself a moment to catch his breath. He checked his mental image of the hospital schematics as he went to make sure that he was still on track, which he was, so that was something at least.

Sherlock’s peeved muttering faded as Conan increased the distance between them, and eventually there was no sound other than his own breathing permeating the space. It was loud - too loud. So loud that he couldn’t tell whether anyone was following him.

Instinctively, he held his breath.

And then there was silence.

Immediately, the suspicion that he might have overestimated his capacity to withstand small, dark spaces began to creep through the back of Conan’s mind. It was a cold, pervading sensation, one that made goosebumps rise up on his arms and sent an involuntary shudder down his spine.

It was fine.

This was fine .

He was fine.

...

... It was fine.

( - in for four, hold for seven, out for eight, repeat - ) 

Nothing wrong here.

Clearly.

Conan’s breath stuttered, speeding up as he tried to convince his brain that, no, the shadows were not reaching for him, grabbing at his legs and dragging him backwards, because that would be illogical. Shadows were intangible, and as such, could not affect his progress forward.

( But with your luck? a snide voice in the depths of his mind insinuated, and Conan had to shove that one back in the box in the back of his mind that he tried not to touch, ever.)

It didn’t work quite as well as he’d hoped it would.

(Don’t you attract impossible things? the voice asked sweetly, the tinny echo now surrounding it doing absolutely nothing to diminish its eeriness. Was the box warping, splintering at the corners?

...That probably wasn’t good.)

Conan shook his head, trying to expel the thought from his own mind, and kept moving. He was careful to regulate his breaths, matching them to each step he crawled forward on his hands and knees - because that was both the optimal position for the practical purpose of moving quickly and a way to minimize brushing against the sides of the vent, which were definitely not closing in on him.

Probably.

(Are you certain? the voice asked, all barely concealed venom and faux concern. What if they are? What if it starts to shrink while you’re still inside?)

Which was dumb -

(What if Gin and Vodka are waiting for you? the voice sing-songed.)

Which was dumb, and stupid, because Gin and Vodka were still back in Japan the last time he checked and rarely left -

(But what if they are?)

What would they even be doing in a hospital? That was just -

(But what if they are?)

Conan realized distantly that his breaths were coming faster now - too fast, really - and that he’d stopped moving forward, joints locking together as a frosty panic swept over him. Rationalization and logic didn’t help much when it was his brain that he was fighting against.

Conan forced himself to take a deep breath, and wished desperately that he had a lemon or onion or something to bite down on and shock his system back to his normal baseline of low level functioning panic slash paranoia.

( - in for four, hold for seven, out for eight - ) 

But, because the universe hated him, he of course didn't have anything to distract himself from the way that his pulse was pounding loud and echoing in his ears, or the chill that was creeping its way into his chest and wrapping around his rib cage.

( - in for four, hold for seven, out for eight - ) 

Unfortunately, he did not, and it wasn’t like there was produce just rolling around in hospital air vents.

And, speaking of air, Conan thought a little hysterically, there didn't seem to be enough of it.

Which was absurd, really, but tell that to the way that his breaths came in sharp, desperate pants, frost nipping at the edges of his lungs, his throat, his heart -

( - in for four, hold for seven, out for eight - )

Of course there was enough air, Conan berated his traitorous lungs. He was in an air vent. If there wasn’t enough air in an air vent, of all places, then there were more serious problems afoot.

( - in for four, hold for seven, out for eight - )

A light.

There was a light ahead, and Conan almost choked on his sigh of relief because light meant that he could get out. He didn’t even care if it was the right room or not, at this point, because he was useless if his stupid lungs refused to work and his brain was -

( - in for four, hold for seven, out for eight - )

Black dots encroached on the edges of Conan’s vision, which paradoxically made it easier to focus on using the hair clip to unscrew the bolts attaching the grate to the ventilation system. 

That, however, did not mean that his fingers acquiesced to cooperate.

Instead, they trembled and shook enough that Conan missed the notch in the second screw three times before he managed to lock it in.

He was fine.

It. Was. Fine.

(Maybe if he repeated it enough, he’d believe it.)

The second screw loosened, and Conan felt gravity abruptly take hold as the grate he was sitting on bent under his weight.

And then he was tumbling through the open air vent.

Luckily, though, he managed to land on something soft.

Conan gazed upwards for a long moment before really processing that, huh, the vent was on the ceiling and not in the wall like in his hospital room. Which was why he’d been able to fall through it, even though there were still two screws holding the grate in place.

Huh.

Go, gravity.

Oh, and speaking of which.

Soft?

Conan glanced down to see a swathe of white, which was a pleasant diversion from the icy shades of grey of metal ensconced in shadows. There was probably some symbolism there, but he didn’t have enough spare brain power to properly contemplate it. 

He blinked rapidly, trying to banish the black spots from his vision, but his eyelids felt like they were moving in slow motion, and the movement didn’t help nearly as well as he’d hoped it would.

Or at all, really.

Which was just. 

Fantastic.

Anyway.

There was no red, which meant that no one was bleeding, probably. So that was a good sign, at least.

Conan absently rubbed a section of the white fabric between his fingers, fiddling with the seam. The fabric’s weave was tight and slightly stiff, still holding a crease - a cotton-polyester blend, perhaps recently removed from its packaging? Or maybe someone went a little overboard on ironing?

...He could just. Look around.

Perhaps actually look at what he was sitting on.

That would probably help.

Conan tore his eyes away from where the weave of the white fabric had sucked him in and let his eyes wander slightly.

Oh.

Hair.

He had landed on a person, apparently.

The person had dark hair and was currently laying face down on the floor, nose at an odd angle. Conan was still a little out of it, and couldn’t quite tell if that particular condition had preceded or followed his drop from the air vents.

The person was also wearing a doctor’s coat, which was what the white fabric was. Conan...probably should have guessed that. He was, after all, in a hospital. It was folded in weird places, though. In boxes, like it had just come out of a vacuum-sealed bag or straight off the shelves of a department store. 

Weird.

...There was also an incessant staticky rumbling noise coming from somewhere nearby, which drew Conan’s eyes to a phone dangling from a nearby table. He was honestly a little astounded that the hospital still used landlines in this day and age. This did not, however, stop his hand from reflexively picking up the phone and saying, “Hello?”

There was a moment of silence on the other end of the line, and then a hesitant, “...Conan? Is that you?”

“Oh.” The gears in Conan’s brain sluggishly turned for a few seconds before he managed to recognize the voice. “Hi, Donovan-keiji.”

“...Hey, kid. Do you know what happened to the man I was just talking to?”

Conan blinked slowly. “The - the who?”

“...The man who was just threatening to bomb the hospital?”

Conan took a moment to process that. “Oh, right.” He glanced down at the man he had landed on, who was currently knocked out cold. “Him.”

He’d probably managed to get into one of the supply closets - not incredibly hard, since they usually weren’t even locked - and put on one of the spare coats, then just...planted bombs wherever he’d decided to, and then made his way to the announcement room, because who was going to stop a doctor in a hospital?

...Conan, apparently.

Though not entirely intentionally.

“Yes, him,” Donovan replied, somewhat dryly. “What’s the situation in there, Conan?”

Conan was pleased to find that, while he was still out of zip ties, there were plenty of materials in the room that he could use to bind the man’s wrists and ankles together without using up too much mental bandwidth. His fingers were trembling slightly, which was a bit annoying since he was trying to knot some bandages together tightly enough that the culprit wouldn't be able to slip out of them if he woke up before the police arrived, and unsteady hands were a pain for detail work like that. 

He realized Donovan had asked him a question. 

“Oh, everything’s fine,” he replied, rather belatedly. “Everything’s...under control. We’re all good now. Can you - can you come in and arrest this guy now? Thanks.”

“Can I - wait, sorry, what?”

Conan took a moment to rewind what he’d just said, and didn’t really see where she might have misunderstood him? So he just rephrased himself, elaborating with a little more detail. “Yeah, um, I kind of knocked him out. His nose might be broken? He’s zip tied now. Also, I don’t think he - ”

He glanced around the area immediately surrounding the man’s prone body and checked his pockets just to be sure, but lo and behold, he’d been right. 

“Yeah, he doesn’t have a detonator or anything. No guns, no knives. He doesn’t even have a laser pointer.”

There was silence on the other end of the line. Then, Donovan sighed and said resignedly: “...And you, of course, have experience with these types of things.”

Conan barked a laugh that probably sounded a tad too bitter for a seven-year-old. “ So much experience,” he agreed.

Donovan sighed again. “Do you know if he has any accomplices?”

Conan shrugged, then realized that Donovan could not, in fact, see him. “Dunno. I don’t think so. There’s no one in the halls, so.”

The announcement room also happened to be the security room. This was convenient for both Conan and the man he was currently sitting on. Although Conan wasn’t too sure what the guy had planned on doing if someone had decided to test their luck and leave their hospital rooms, if he didn’t have a detonator. More empty threats, maybe?

“I have a team of officers heading your way.” She hesitated for a moment. “...Stay on the line, okay?”

“Okay,” Conan acquiesced easily, staring at the man beneath him, who he was only just now connecting to the man on the loudspeaker calling himself ‘Doctor Cerebellum.’

The unconscious man, thankfully, did not look back.

That would have been incredibly unsettling.

Conan checked his pupils on autopilot with the flashlight on Sherlock’s phone, and they appeared to be reacting normally, which was good. Probably no concussion there, which made approximately one of them, since Conan could not actually perform a concussion test on himself.

Conan was just glad Doctor Cerebellum’s head had apparently hit the cushy swivel chair on his way to the floor, because he might’ve accidentally shattered the guy’s skull if it’d hit the floor directly.

(Still a stupid name.)

But, on the bright side, now that the threat had been neutralized and he was no longer slowly slowly asphyxiating in an air vent whose walls may or may not have been closing in on him, he could take a moment to get his breathing back in order and maybe, perhaps, possibly stop his brain from spiraling into a panic. 

Wouldn’t that be nice.

( - in for four, hold for seven, out for eight - )

By the time the police squad arrived in the announcement-slash-security room, Conan was breathing normally again, and he was totally, completely fine.

He was fine.

Yeah.

Fine.

...He was fine enough to give a cohesive police statement to Donovan, which was all that mattered in the end, really.

Doctor Cerebellum (and no, Conan was never going to get over that supremely stupid name) still hadn’t woken up by the time the police showed up, which was good for Conan because he honestly didn’t know what he might have done if he had awoken. But, on the other hand, it wasn’t that great because that meant the guy’s brain had probably taken a pretty nasty bruising.

On the bright side, they were in a hospital, and it was easy enough to get that checked out.

Conan did his best to fade into the background, which was easy enough if he buttoned up his jacket to hide as much of the hospital-issue gown as possible, and trailed along behind Donovan after giving a quick, mostly accurate summary of what had happened prior to Doctor Cerebellum’s plan’s demise. 

It went like this:

“Well, he was threatening to blow up the hospital, right? So I asked an adult - ” Here, he mouthed ‘a ghost,’ and Donovan had just stared at him, eyes full of resignation. “ - where he’d be if he was using the loud speaker system, and they said that it would probably be in the announcement room, so I asked where that was and they gave me directions. The vent was too small for anyone other than me to fit, so I crawled through them and then Sherlock-niichan came after me and he looked like a zombie so I got scared and kicked him, and then I accidentally fell through the air vent and landed on the guy holding us all hostage.”

He neatly skipped over the part where he may or may not have been hyperventilating for an extended period of time. It wasn’t important to the investigation.

Not that there was too much of an investigation necessary, since “Doctor Cerebellum” had been in the middle of making a list of demands to the police when he’d been abruptly fallen unconscious.

It was a pretty cut and dry case, really.

Conan managed to make it to the front entrance of the hospital without anyone waylaying him for a check up or medication or anything, which he personally counted as a win. It was still slightly concerning, though - or, well, it would have been concerning if he were an actual child, which he was not.

But it was still a bit worrying that a small child could be so easily overlooked immediately after taking down the criminal who’d been holding the hospital hostage.

Not that many children did things like that, obviously.

And, to be fair, Conan was actively trying to avoid nurses and doctors - anyone who was associating with any type of medical equipment, really. He did this by hiding behind Donovan’s legs anytime someone got close. 

It didn’t work quite as well as it did with Sherlock’s dramatic, billowy cloak, but it got the job done.

...Right up until he reached the main entrance and John caught sight of Donovan, and Donovan dragged Conan over to them by his collar to deposit him in front of them.

“I am a police officer,” she greeted them faux-pleasantly. “I did not sign up to be a babysitter. Keep track of the child, would you?”

“It’d be much easier if he stopped crawling through vents,” John muttered under his breath, reaching out to relieve Donovan of her hold on Conan’s collar and replacing it with his own.

Child leashes. That was what was coming next. Conan was sure of it.

Nurse Harris, who was waiting nearby and examining the bruise on Sherlock’s wrist that Conan was not at all sorry about, actually, scoffed derisively and rolled his eyes. The corner of John’s lip lifted in a dry smile as response. 

It was the kind of expression worn by former children who had definitely crawled through an air vent or two in their time, and probably also stopped their fair share of bombings.

Conan was intrigued.

And so, apparently, was Sherlock, judging by his expression. His eyes were bright as they darted between Conan and John, like he couldn’t quite figure out who he wanted to focus on more.

He looked like Christmas had come early, and, in a sense, Conan supposed, it had. Not that anyone other than Sherlock Holmes would consider the revelation that one of their closest friends was not, in fact, who they said they were or the random appearance of a child on their couch with no clue as to how he had got there a particularly good present.

...Did Sherlock have any siblings? Because this was probably the best present anyone could have ever given him.

Donovan sighed, deep and aggrieved. “...What are you doing at the hospital, anyway?” she asked reluctantly.

Lucy Collins was the one who answered that question, and proceeded to throw John and Sherlock under the bus in a way that made Donovan fight back a grin.

If she hadn’t been a defense lawyer, Conan expected that Donovan would have asked her to drinks or something. 

That being said, apparently there was a ‘talking shit about Sherlock Holmes’ group chat that Donovan was a part of, and Lucy Collins had been added to it by the end of their conversation. Conan wondered if it was anything like the group chat he had with Hattori and Sera that was devoted purely to talking shit about KID.

(He wondered if the police officers at the TMPD had one about him. 

...Probably.

KID almost certainly did, assuming he had friends he could rant about detectives to. Other phantom thieves, maybe?)

Donovan herded the culprit into her patrol car - he had woken up about halfway through her conversation with Lucy Collins and had absolutely no idea how he’d been captured - and John and Sherlock followed her. Lucy Collins departed with Delilah after confirming that Conan had been handed over to Nurse Harris, under the impression that he was probably more trustworthy a human being than the two borderline disasters that were John Watson and Sherlock Holmes, and that Conan would be safer in a hospital than at a crime scene.

Which wasn’t exactly inaccurate.

However.

Nurse Harris had neglected to actually take hold of Conan’s jacket, or any part of him at all, which made it insanely easy to slip into the back seat of the patrol car the moment Nurse Harris took his eyes off of him. Not even the criminal, staring despondently into his folded hands, noticed him.

This was, perhaps, not Conan’s smartest idea. It was, in fact, a terrible, terrible idea, but Conan had terrible ideas quite often and this particular one didn’t even crack the top fifty most terrible ideas he’d ever had, so. 

Comparatively, this was actually a great idea.

Conan held his breath and froze in place as the car pulled away from the curb, hoping fervently that no one would notice him if he didn’t move a muscle.

Somehow, miraculously, it worked.

He had more than likely managed it purely because Sherlock, the other occupant of the back seat, had his eyes fixed on the back of “John’s” head like he could see through whatever parts of his persona were crafted and straight into his soul if he stared for long enough.

Which was a fantastic distraction, actually.

Conan was slightly worried about Donovan or John turning around in their seats and spotting him, right up until ‘Doctor Cerebellum’ decided to start talking. 

And confessing.

To holding the hospital hostage.

...Conan supposed it wouldn’t make much difference. The evidence was pretty condemning even without the confession.

But here he was.

Confessing.

...This guy really hadn’t ever been arrested before, huh.

“...I just wanted to pay for my wife’s surgery,” ‘Doctor Cerebellum’ said, dropping his forehead to rest on his folded hands. 

A jolt ran down Conan’s spine as he froze, worried that John or Donovan would glance backwards and notice him in the backseat. He was relieved to see their eyes flicking to the rear-view mirror instead, which was unlikely to be angled so he was visible. It was perfectly positioned to keep an eye on the criminal, though, and had the added bonus of not spooking him.

“...We came to England a couple of weeks ago, and a few days ago she started to feel a bit off, so we stopped by the hospital. She...her appendix was ruptured, and they had to operate immediately… And, well, there’s no way that we could afford thirty-five thousand dollars, even if it’s a life-saving treatment, so I decided… We… Instead of living in debt for the next thirty years, I decided it would be better to try — I mean, if my options are finding a loan shark and getting taken out by the mafia when I can’t pay them back or spending a few years in jail, the choice seems obvious… Besides, it’s not like I posed an actual threat or anything, so… It’s not like my sentence would be very long…” He trailed off.

“...Mr. Roberts, you do realize that the operation would have cost slightly over three thousand pounds in England, correct.” Sherlock’s ‘question’ was more of a statement, and not a particularly delicate one.

“Not all countries have health systems like America, Jack,” John added, a bit more compassionate.

(It was interesting that he referred to the USA as ‘America,’ though...)

The newly named Mr. Roberts (which was far superior to ‘Doctor Cerebellum’) looked like someone had ripped his entire life to shreds in front of him, and then that person had turned around and revealed that they had been him all along, which was almost exactly what had actually happened.

“...Way to confess without a lawyer,” Conan muttered absently, staring out the window and forgetting himself for a moment. ‘Doctor Cerebellum,’ aka Jack Roberts, apparently, flinched violently and practically jumped in his seat as he turned to stare at Conan because apparently he had less situational awareness than a teacup.

The car also jolted slightly before Donovan corrected it, and John and Sherlock both blinked rapidly, so maybe it wasn’t only Jack Roberts who had the situational awareness of a teacup.

...Had no one noticed him at all? Really?

He’d honestly thought they were just pretending, humoring him.

Wow.

“Conan?” John asked, a bit strained.

Conan rolled his eyes. Like they knew any other crime-solving seven-year-olds. “Yup, that’s me,” he said dryly.

“When did you get here?” was what Donovan followed up with. She stubbornly kept her eyes on the road, though it seemed she was severely tempted to look back and confirm that there was, in fact, a seven-year-old sitting right next to the man she’d just arrested.

Conan shrugged. “Before we left the hospital. It’s not like I can teleport or anything.” Haha, he knew those dumb sci-fi shows he watched with Haibara would have a use at some point. That use was, apparently, English vocab words. 

He pretended to consider for a moment before adding, “But it would be super cool if I could!”

(Did he perhaps accidentally pronounce super cool the French way? Maybe, but that was beside the point.)

A faint “Wouldn’t it just,” from John was the only reply that he got, apart from suddenly becoming the recipient of Sherlock’s unnerving gaze, which was just great.

Whatever.

He was going with it.

“How much longer until we get to the police station?” he asked, for lack of anything better to say.

Donovan sighed deeply. “Quite a lot longer than originally anticipated, since we have to circle back and drop you off at the hospital.”

“And come up with a way to help Tom prevent you from vanishing again,” John muttered under his breath. Conan probably hadn’t been meant to overhear it, which was pretty much the story of his life.

“Well, it’s not like you can stop me from re-hiding in your car,” Conan pointed out in what he thought was a very reasonable tone. “At least not without physically tying me down or something. Which seems like it would create a bad image.”

“We really should take you back to the hospital,” John replied distantly, purely performatively now that he’d resigned himself to Conan’s reality-bending stubbornness. “You did just have a heart attack, after all.”

“You sure can try taking me back!” Conan said brightly, ignoring the latter half of the statement even as Donovan spluttered at the revelation and spotting a familiar building through the window. “But we’re already at the police station, and are you so sure that you’d be able to keep me there at the hospital without unreasonable amounts of manpower?”

(He was just copying lines from movies at this point.)

John’s expression froze as he appeared to consider it. It did seem pretty unlikely, given Conan’s previously exhibited escape skills. 

“Besides,” Conan continued mercilessly, “technically you’re supposed to be responsible for me, right?” He paused a moment for effect. “Do you really want to let me out of your sight? ‘Cuz if you do, there’s no guarantee I’ll actually stay in the hospital, and also if I leave then it’s probably better to have a doctor like Watson-sensei accompanying me, right?”

Oddly, John’s posture relaxed at his response. He chuckled and muttered, “Was I really this precocious?” under his breath.

Conan made a mental note to look up what “pre-koe-shuss” meant. And how to spell it, because English had an overly complicated orthography. 

John sighed and shook his head, mouth twitching up at the edges. “Come along, Conan. We still need to give our statements.”

“Okay!” Conan jumped to his feet and bounced twice impatiently before Donovan opened his door for him - stupid childproof locks - before following the group into the police station.

This time, however, Conan was unable to obscure himself with Sherlock’s coat by virtue of Sherlock’s eyes following both his and John’s every movement.

...This was what he got for crawling through air vents and stopping bomb threats, apparently.

Good karma? What was that? There was only the type of deduction-focused attention that Conan would really have preferred to have absolutely nowhere near him, thanks, but apparently that wasn’t in the cards.

And speaking of his luck being absolute shit -

That was Hakuba over there, wasn’t it. 

The universe just refused to let Conan catch one singular break this week, huh.

Chapter Text

Decisions, decisions.

Should he go against every principle instilled in him and break character to give himself away to Conan? Or should he ignore Conan and leave the police station, which was quite frankly starting to give him hives anyway?

Kaito took a closer look at Conan, channeling the stare that Hakuba always levelled at him after he pulled a particularly KID-like prank in the classroom. It wasn’t necessarily a hostile look, because somehow or another he and Hakuba had managed to become...ugh, acquaintances, purely for Aoko’s sake. However, it was a suspicious one, because Hakuba still believed he was KID despite all the evidence to the contrary.

But, well, to be fair, he wasn’t wrong.

Kaito took his character immersion one step further and allowed his mind to shift and reorganize itself into a detective’s mindset. Ugh, the things he did for Meitantei.

He blinked once, and then he was looking at Conan with new eyes, which revealed some even more highly concerning things about the kid.

Because not only did he seem to have a low-grade terror simmering in the back of his minds at all times, even in the middle of a police station, not only did he look like he hadn’t slept in years, not only was he not devoting his entire being to the case file in the probably-detective’s hand…

The way that he was holding his left arm, the way that he tried to hide a flinch when he moved it the wrong way, the dimensions of the slight bump underneath the sleeve covering his upper arm -- that all pointed to Conan having had an IV line stuck in his arm until extremely recently, and when combined with the fact that he seemed to be wearing a hospital gown tucked into his shorts, with his jacket buttoned tightly over it as if to hide it from notice...

It was incredibly worrying.

But the worst thing, the worst thing was the dazed look in Conan’s eyes, the way that they seemed to be a slight delay between when he turned to look at something - for exits, most likely; Kaito would know that carefully crafted non-expression anywhere - and when his eyes actually reached their destination.

Meitantei was unfocused.

And that?

That terrified Kaito.

He closed his eyes for a moment and took a deep breath, steeling himself.

He was really going to do this, wasn’t he.

Kaito sighed. Why did Meitantei have to be so difficult?

Well, to be fair, he supposed with false levity as he made his way towards Conan and his odd bunch of companions, that it was less Meitantei (who was remarkably easy to get along with, actually, which was a thought he would be examining in more depth at a later point, because he really didn’t have the time) and more the circumstances surrounding Meitantei that were difficult.

Really, who else would get forcibly taken to another country then immediately go right back to solving mysteries?

(Kaito ignored the fact that he’d had plans to do the same, except his burgeoning plan had involved stuffing Conan into a suitcase. Perhaps that hadn’t been his best idea. He’d have to rework it.)

He realized, as he came to a halt in front of Conan’s group, that while he had a plan for the middle of the conversation he was about to have, and three or four separate contingencies for wherever the end of the conversation ended up, he did not actually have an idea of how to start it, let alone how to make sure they actually ended up at his planned ‘middle.’

Kaito shrugged internally. He guessed he was winging it, then.

“Saguru Hakuba,” he introduced himself, trying to buy some time and definitely not wincing at the way that sounded with Hakuba’s given name first. “Son of the Superintendent General of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department. My mother is Lady Amelia White - perhaps you’ve heard of her?”

The grey-haired probably-policeman gulped, which was gratifying. Kaito wasn’t the only person (rightfully) intimidated by Hakuba’s mother. “Detective Inspector Lestrade. I was, uh, just taking this man to processing. Right. Threatened to blow up a hospital, you know how it is.” He took the man in the lab coat from the female detective and got out of there quickly before Lady White’s name managed to summon her into being. 

Fair enough. Kaito had only heard of her once, when his class had needed to do a presentation on their families and Hakuba had shared a few stories from his childhood, which had somehow been more terrifying than Kaito’s own.

The curly-haired prat, however, apparently either had zero self-preservation skills or friends in high places, because he just sniffed derisively and appeared to decide that Hakuba wasn’t worth his time. Instead, he turned his beady eyes back on Conan and proceeded to stare at him like he had the answers to everything in the universe.

(To be fair, Kaito wasn’t completely sure that Conan didn’t, but there was really no need to stare at the kid like a creeper.)

The prat’s companion sighed deeply, rubbing the bridge of his nose, and looked about ready to swat the other man on the top of his head, though Kaito wasn’t entirely sure that he would feel it through all that hair. “Doctor John Watson. This tosser is Sherlock Holmes.”

Kaito raised an eyebrow slightly. “I’m a tremendous fan of your work, Mr. Holmes,” he said, because Hakuba was, and would also probably try to play it cool in front of his life-long idol.

The remaining police officer rolled her eyes, and Kaito agreed internally, but since he was currently playing Hakuba, he bristled. “Is there anything wrong with admiring Mr. Holmes’ treatise on the composition of the ashes of various cigarette brands?” he asked archly. “That particular paper has been useful in several of my investigations, Detective…?”

“Sergeant Donovan,” she answered, though she seemed minorly pleased that he hadn’t defaulted to calling her ‘Miss.’ “And just how many cases have you solved, kid? It can’t have been many.”

Kaito stared at her incredulously for a long moment, then looked pointedly down at Conan, who was quite specifically not looking at him in that moment, since he’d been trying to fade into the background ever since he’d noticed Hakuba-Kaito.

“Quite a few,” Kaito replied dryly.

Kaito let his eyes settle more steadfastly on Conan, who was staring up at him with a faintly puzzled expression, eyebrows furrowed slightly, though he was very distinctly avoiding eye contact. The kid looked even worse up close, though how that was possible Kaito didn’t know. 

“...I can’t say I was expecting to see you here, Meitantei,” was what he finally decided to say. He debated whether or not to add the ‘-kun’ on the end, but the negative reaction from last time caused him to make the split second decision to omit it. He was speaking English, anyway; it wasn’t that weird. “What are you doing so far from home?”

“I wish I knew,” Conan muttered under his breath, but he visibly relaxed the slightest bit, so Kaito was going to count that as a win, even though it was incredibly jarring to realize that he probably had more information on Conan’s appearance in London than the boy himself did.

“You know Conan, then?” Doctor Watson asked curiously, and Kaito had the unique displeasure of suddenly finding himself caught in the blinding searchlight that was Sherlock Holmes on a mission to gather information.

“I have met him a time or two,” Kaito agreed mildly, because both he and Hakuba had, in fact, met Conan a time or two. “It was quite memorable.”

Memorable was, perhaps, something of an understatement.

Even if Conan never got himself thrown out of another airship, or trapped in a collapsing building, or attached to a bomb, it would be too soon.

Conan just...existing, in general, managed to shave decades off of Kaito’s lifespan.

Something in whatever he’d just said, though, caused Conan’s eyes to skitter up towards his face. It still wasn’t direct eye contact, but Kaito would take it. However, it also had the less desirable effect of Sherlock Holmes fixating on him even more. Kaito had thought he’d managed to build up a bit of immunity towards Detective Gazes™ but apparently he’d just been lying to himself about that.

That, or immunity to Hakuba’s Detective Glare™ didn’t carry over to other detectives, which was frankly a bit disappointing.

“The last time we met… It must have been for the Detective’s Koushien, wasn’t it?” Kaito continued blithely, because he categorically refused to be intimidated by a detective. Even if that detective was Sherlock Holmes himself.

“Actually,” Conan said, rubbing his chin and looking up at Kaito with big, guileless eyes, and Kaito just knew that whatever was about to come out of his mouth was going to be born from complete and utter pettiness. “I think the last time I saw you was when you were absconding from Makoto-niichan!”

Yup. There it was.

Kaito didn’t actually know what ‘ab-skon-ded’ meant in Japanese, but he felt that he could probably infer from context clues.

(The context clues were that Conan was a little brat.)

Well, at least he had confirmation that Conan knew who he was. 

(He still wasn’t sure if that was a good thing, though.)

Kaito faked a laugh, but he faked it well enough that no one noticed, probably. Except maybe Conan. But Hakuba’s prissy pompous laugh sounded borderline fake anyway, so. There wasn’t really anything he could do about it anyway. 

“I suppose you’re right,” he replied nonchalantly, like it wouldn’t absolutely kill Hakuba to be wrong about time in the first place, and much less in front of Sherlock Holmes himself. “More importantly, however, I thought you might be interested in this.”

Kaito slipped one of the copies of his heist notice from his pocket and handed it to Conan, suppressing the urge to add a bit of flourish, because while Hakuba was sometimes showy, he was decidedly not the same type of showy that Kaito was. “Perhaps you’ll be able to catch him this time, Mr. KID Killer,” he added, a bit tongue-in-cheek.

Sherlock Holmes wordlessly held out his hand towards Kaito, though he refused to let his piercing gaze shift from him for even a moment. Kaito wasn’t even sure that he was blinking.

Kaito handed him another copy of the heist note, and had never been more relieved that he’d coated his fingertips in a few layers of glue before leaving his mother’s house. There wouldn’t be any fingerprints for Mr. Holmes to find on the folded sheet of paper, regardless of the method he used.

Or, at least, that’s what Kaito was hoping anyway.

In any case, this was Kaito’s tried-and-true Detective Distracting Technique: if you don’t want a detective looking too closely at something, give them another mystery to solve instead.

It was working for Conan so far, so Kaito hoped that the effects were universal.

Kaito glanced over his shoulder - or, more accurately, over the top of Conan’s head - to reread and admire the work of artistry that was this particular heist notice:

2B or not 2B — thats da ❓

If its 🛡️ 4 ba 💭 2 🎤

Da 👜 + 🏹 of 😤💎👑,

Or 2 ⚔️ against a c of 🕵️,

+ by ⚽️, ⚰️ dem? 2 🎲, 2 😴—

🚫 more + by a 😴 2 say we ⚰️

Da 💔 + da 🦆 🌲🌲 ⚡️

Dat 💪 is 👸 2 — its a 👨❤️👨

✝️ 2 b  🙏! 2 🎲, 2 😴.

2 😴, mb 2 💤💭—ya theres da 👏,

4 in dat 😴 of ☠️ what 💤💭 ♉️ cum

⏳ weve 🔀 off dis 💀🔄,

Must ️🎁 us ⏸️. Theres da 🔎🔎

Dat makes 🛬🚓of so ⛓️👪.

Kaito shifted slightly so that he could watch Conan’s expression shift as he tried to figure out what on earth the heist note actually meant.

This meant that he could pinpoint the exact moment when the resolution of one of its facets dawned on Conan.

“This - This is literally just Hamlet in emojis! ” he sputtered, and Kaito very carefully did not laugh at him.

Kaito-as-Hakuba cleared his throat. “Yes, I had come to the same conclusion,” he agreed easily. 

“To be or not to be,” Sherlock Holmes quoted under his breath, gaze most assuredly fixed on the heist note rather than Kaito, which Kaito was really quite pleased about. “That is the question—

Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,

And, by opposing, end them? To die, to sleep—

No more—and by a sleep to say we end

The heartache and the thousand natural shocks

That flesh is heir to—’tis a consummation

Devoutly to be wished! To die, to sleep.

To sleep, perchance to dream—ay, there’s the rub,

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come

When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,

Must give us pause. There’s the respect

That makes calamity of so long life.”

Because apparently he was well-versed in Shakespearian literature, which Kaito could not say he’d been expecting. Wasn’t this the guy who supported a geocentric model of the solar system rather than condescend to learn the slightest bit of astronomy?

He wasn’t the only one surprised, either; Dr. Watson and Sgt. Donovan had also turned to stare at Mr. Holmes, as if he were a circus animal who’d done an unexpected trick, which made Kaito feel slightly better about his surprise.

“Since when do you know anything about English literature?” Sgt. Donovan asked, crossing her arms - actually, no, demanded was probably more accurate. Dr. Watson shifted his weight to the foot closer to her and inclined his head slightly in agreement.

“Since I discovered ,” Sherlock snapped in return, “that a man calling himself the one and only Consulting Criminal exists - on whom, by the way, Scotland Yard seems to have absolutely no leads or even potentially useful information - seems to take a great deal of joy in forcing me to play the little games he devises, which are often based around useless data that I would ordinarily delete.

“I had thought,” he added, voice dropping slightly, “that you, of all people, John, would prefer I be better prepared for the next time he feels inclined to reappear in our lives with another one of his games. But, then again, I suppose that since you’ve never seen fit to tell me your real name, I shouldn’t be surprised that you don’t know me as well as you think you do.”

Kaito could read the words that he wasn’t saying, as clear as day: I shouldn’t be surprised that I don’t know you as well as I thought I did.

But of course Sherlock Holmes would never admit to being unable to deduce something about the person closest to him.

Mr. Holmes straightened abruptly, and it was only then that Kaito realized that he’d been hunched in on himself, shoulders pulled in tight to his body. “I’m going for a smoke,” he said, and then vanished with a flick of his coat that Kaito was, quite frankly, slightly envious of.

“Not without his cigarettes, he’s not,” Conan muttered under his breath and tucked a small container into his overstuffed pockets. Kaito had a hard time resisting the instinct to pat Conan on the head, because he hadn’t even seen Conan lift the cigarette box off of Mr. Holmes and that was really quite impressive. Also anyone patting Conan on the head who wasn’t Mouri Ran would probably get said hand bitten off, so that was an incentive not to do that. Kaito needed his hands for magic tricks and poking Aoko and grand larceny, all of which were approximately equally important to him priority-wise.

“ ‘Your real name’?” Sgt. Donovan asked pointedly, turning to Dr. Watson, who looked like he wanted to go after Mr. Holmes, which would probably make the situation worse. Not that Kaito was opposed to more drama, of course, but poor Conan looked like any more conflicts might cause him to just keel over, and Kaito would rather that not happen if at all possible. The kid had been through enough over the past few days, what with the kidnapping and murders and apparently a hospital visit. 

Dr. Watson grimaced. “Legally, I can’t say anything about it,” he told her.

“Witness protection?” she asked knowingly.

“Something like that,” he said noncommittally, then not very subtly changed the subject. “I really should go after him, though - he’s been trying to quit - ”

“I have his cigarettes!” Conan piped up, brandishing them like they were a light stick and he was at a live concert. “And also his patches!”

Dr. Watson stared at him for a long moment. “Do I want to know how you got them?” he asked lightly.

Conan fake-pondered it for a moment, then shrugged, which Dr. Watson took as a ‘no.’ He sighed deeply, shoulders drooping. “Please tell me no ghosts were involved,” which was kind of a weird thing to say, but, then again, he was British.

Conan hesitated for long enough that it was clear whatever he was about to say was a lie. “...There were no ghosts involved.”

Oh, okay then.

...Wait.

Hey, uh. 

What.

The implication there was that Conan sometimes was involved with ghosts. Which was. A little bit terrifying.

It checked out, though, because Conan was also a little bit terrifying. Also, it was a reasonable explanation for why a seven year old could go toe-to-toe with Kaitou KID and almost catch him without any (apparent) help, which Kaito had kind of low-key been wondering about.

Kaito didn’t really remember a lot about being six, but he did remember that he hadn’t been smart enough - or at least not had enough life experience - to be able to solve any of KID’s heist notices. The ones that were riddles, that was. 

…Which the entirety of the KID Taskforce also usually weren’t able to solve.

…And that was completely disregarding all the murders Conan was apparently solving like it was his day job .

In hindsight, Conan being able to see dead people really shouldn’t have been too much of a shock.

Kaito thought that it was kind of a shame though, because if Conan had ghosts ratting him out whenever he was in disguise, that meant that they weren’t really on a level playing field, which made all those times Conan had figured out who he was in the middle of a heist a lot less impressive.

A six-year-old figuring out who he’d disguised as in less than an hour? Impressive. Interesting.

A six-year-old being told who he’d disguised as by a ghost? Interesting, sure. Unusual, definitely. But not that impressive. 

…Although, it did explain a lot about the statistical improbability of Conan managing to stumble across 93.5% of the murders in Tokyo, not to mention the various crimes in other districts, and how he’d been able to solve them all, even the stupidly complex ones.

The one where someone had preserved their own corpse so that someone else could use it as a prop in a series of vampire-themed murders came to mind.

Also many of the ones that involved fishing line.

(Okay, so maybe Kaito had snuck a peek at Conan’s file the last time he was at the police station. He liked knowing about his detectives’ deduction styles and Conan’s especially were entertaining reading as long as he didn’t look at the crime scene photos. So sue him. Though any lawyers would probably have enough trouble finding Kaitou KID to sue him that no one would bother with the case.)

“Anyway,” Conan said, and Kaito had to stop reminiscing about breaking into the police station and pay attention. “I think I’ve solved the heist notice! Mostly. It’s a mean one.”

Mean? Kaito hadn’t intended it to be mean.

Mean???

“What are you saying?” Dr. Watson asked, and Kaito was glad because that meant he didn’t have to do it himself.

“I mean that it was mean!” Conan stomped his foot on the ground in frustration, then spun around so he was facing Kaito directly and pouted at him like he was supposed to side with him when Kaito had no idea what Conan was talking about. 

“Da~ka~ra~,” Conan said pointedly, “ijiwaru tte, ‘mean’ janai?” He stared up at Kaito like he was looking straight into his soul, which really wasn’t helping Kaito understand what he was talking about any better.

Kaito still had no idea what he meant by ‘mean’ so he just answered blankly, “No, you have the right word, but we’re still not quite sure what you mean by the heist note being ‘mean’.”

Conan’s pout intensified...somehow. 

“I’m right and you know it,” he hissed, barely audible, like Kaito was faking being oblivious or something - which, although it did sound like something he was prone to doing, was not, in fact, what he was doing in this particular instance.

Kaito tried to project ????? in Conan’s direction, just in case he had telepathy in addition to clairvoyance, because he really had no idea what Conan was getting at.

Conan seemed to realize that eventually - either by somehow managing to read Kaito’s expression through his Hakuba mask, or because he actually did have telepathy - and his pout shifted towards a petulant glare. “I’m not telling ‘til Sherlock-niichan gets back!” he announced.

Little brat.

Now Kaito was curious.

And he couldn’t even do anything about it, since he was the one who wrote the stupid thing and therefore should be the most knowledgeable about its contents and whether or not it was ‘mean.’ 

Conan allowed Dr. Watson and Sergeant Donovan to question him for a while but didn’t bother answering, pretending to lock his mouth shut and throw away the key, which was absolutely infuriating.

He apparently got bored of that pretty quickly though, because he abruptly turned back towards Kaito, ignoring the other two and their attempts to make him answer a simple question, and opened his mouth.

A shiver ran down Kaito’s spine.

“Nē, Hakuba-niichan,” Conan said, sounding like a creepy little kid from a horror movie, and Kaito knew he was right to be scared if Conan was using that voice. “ Kőhī kattekurenai?'' The look in his eyes said if you don’t get me coffee in the next fifteen seconds I WILL scream your identity at the top of my lungs.

“...Certainly, we can go to the vending machine and get you a snack,” Kaito said, because he might’ve had a faulty sense of self-preservation but he was pretty sure that Dr. Watson might actually murder him if he gave Conan caffeine, and Kaito would prefer not to die today.

Or any time soon, preferably, though his ‘more enthusiastic fans’ would probably have something to say about that, so he’d need to continue doing his best to avoid them as much as possible.

Conan gave him an irritated Look that rivalled Aoko’s in potency, but scampered along behind him when Kaito started to make his way over to the vending machines.

“I am not giving you coffee, Meitantei,” Kaito said to him under his breath, switching to Japanese for convenience and relative privacy, but still using Hakuba’s voice so as not to arouse suspicion from any passers-by. “I’d hesitate to buy you any normally, given your…” Kaito vaguely gestured at Conan’s disgruntled everything. “But I definitely won’t buy you any after you’ve apparently just left the hospital, probably against medical advice.”

Conan shrugged like that’s fair, but I’m not happy about it.  

Kaito sighed. “And I suppose you won’t be telling me what landed you in the hospital this time?”

“Nothing important,” Conan replied, infuriatingly vague. Then, horrifyingly, he apparently felt the need to add: “It’s not like I got shot again or anything.”

Got shot???

No, wait, more importantly…

Again???

Kaito despaired for the health of detectives everywhere, but especially Conan’s.

“...Setting that aside for a moment,” Kaito said, because he was sure Conan would refuse to elaborate with any potentially meaningful information, “although that is a truly horrifying statement - ”

“It’s part of the job,” Conan said, infuriatingly unruffled by the concept of being shot at. Probably more than once. 

Kaito realized that that probably made him a hypocrite, but at least when he made himself a target for bullets, it was planned. He had a bullet proof vest and everything. Somehow he doubted Conan had access to that kind of protective equipment.

“You’re six,” Kaito said, instead of any of that. “You don't need a job.”

Conan glared up at him. “First of all, I’m seven, so fuck you. Second, it’s less a ‘job’ and more ‘corpses manifesting in my general vicinity wherever I go’. What am I supposed to do, just keep walking?”

“You could leave it to the police,” Kaito suggested, because he was nominally still pretending to be Hakuba.

Conan gave him such a disgusted look that Kaito felt for a split second like he regretted everything he'd ever done in his life. “And let a murderer walk free?”

Kaito shook his head, buying a moment for himself to recover from...whatever that had been.  “No, of course not. Are there really that many cases that would remain unsolved without you there to resolve them?”

“Almost all of them would end up with the wrong person arrested,” Conan said flatly. “For reference, I’ve solved more than a hundred cases so far this year. Me an’ occhan, I mean,” he added, voice pitching half-heartedly up half an octave.

Kaito remembered him mentioning that during their last little rooftop chat, though he wasn’t sure if Conan thought he hadn’t remembered, or if Conan just didn’t remember telling him.

“...What do you want to drink?” Kaito asked, since he had no response to that and they’d made it to the vending machines. “No coffee, though.”

Conan sighed mournfully, staring up at him with guileless puppy dog eyes that were second only to Kaito’s own and probably about equal with Aoko’s. Luckily, Kaito was partially immune to that type of expression due to having grown up with Aoko, and combined with the threat of potential child endangerment, he managed to resist giving in.

“No coffee,” Kaito reiterated, staring at Conan resolutely.

Conan pouted, but his shoulders dropped slightly in acceptance of his fate. “Orange juice, then,” he said sullenly.

“One orange juice it is.” Kaito fed the vending machine some bills and thanked Lady Luck that he’d remembered to withdraw some English money at the train station, then pressed the corresponding button. He didn’t bother getting anything for himself; it would’ve been too much of a hassle to remove any DNA traces before throwing it away, and too suspicious to carry around an empty bottle.

“...Should probably give my immune system a boost anyway,” Conan muttered absently. “Since I probably got here by plane, which usually means airports…”

…He really didn’t know, then?

“You did,” Kaito said, handing the still-sealed bottle to Conan. He’d considered opening it for him, but decided that not only would that probably come across as condescending to Conan, but that he was probably already on edge from the surprise trip to England, plus whatever had landed him in the hospital. An unsealed bottle from a magician known to be adept at sleight of hand wouldn’t be particularly helpful at assuaging his nerves. “I appear to have more knowledge about the events surrounding your displacement than you do, Meitantei,” Kaito said lightly.

Conan’s eyes zeroed in on him, piercing and abrupt. “Tell me,” he demanded.

Kaito half-raised his hands in surrender on instinct. “I was planning on it, don’t worry. Drink your juice.”

Conan’s hackles dropped slightly, and he obediently opened his drink and took a sip.

“I don’t know much,” Kaito admitted. “But you knew that one of KID’s doves was following you around after the last heist, correct?”

Conan nodded. “Yeah. I think I might’ve worried him during the last heist.”

Might’ve??? Kaito despaired internally.

…At least Meitantei was deigning to play along with the I’m definitely not KID act.

“Indeed,” Kaito said dryly. “So much so that that dove was equipped with a camera - one that just so happened to capture something of your...rather abrupt departure.”

“And?” Conan demanded, growing visibly more impatient by the moment.

Kaito just looked at him until Conan got with the program and took another begrudging sip of his juice. Someone had to get the kid to take care of himself, and clearly that wasn’t going to be his current baby-sitters.

“I happen to have access to the data,” Kaito said carefully. “It shows a woman with light hair going into the Mouri Detective Agency, then reappearing ten minutes later carrying you, who seemed to be either asleep or unconscious. She then proceeded to take a taxi to the airport, and somehow managed to get you through security before boarding a flight bound for Heathrow.” 

“What color hair, exactly?” Conan asked - borderline demanded, really, eyes flashing like he was trying to keep his cool and not succeeding exceptionally well.

“I couldn’t tell; the footage was in black and white, and the resolution on a camera that small can only be so high,” Kaito said apologetically.

“Show me the footage, then.”

Kaito wordlessly showed Conan his burner phone, which was all he’d brought with him that day and didn’t really support the showing of videos. It barely even had a GPS, and definitely didn’t have enough memory to store over an hour of video. 

Conan deflated. “...I don’t even have a passport,” he muttered after a long moment. “How did…?”

Yeah, Kaito knew. Hakuba didn’t, of course, so he asked politely, “Then how did you come to Japan in the first place, let alone make it to England?”

Conan gave him a Look but played along half-heartedly, not bothering with his pitch raising. “I dunno, my parents took care of that.”

“...If you were to tell me the address of where you’re currently staying, I may know someone who might be able to do something about that,” Kaito said carefully.

Conan gave him a sideways look, then pretended he didn’t and was instead staring fixedly at the vending machine like it was the most interesting thing in the world. “Currently, 221B Baker Street.”

“...You’re kidding, right?”

“Not the one with the Sherlock Holmes museum,” Conan clarified belatedly. “The one on the other side of London.”

Kaito just stared at him for a long moment. “...They’re really living out the books, aren’t they.”

“Honestly, it’s kind of creepy,” Conan said, then winced like he’d insulted his own idol, which he...kind of had.

Kaito agreed fervently, but Hakuba probably wouldn’t, so he pretended he hadn’t heard anything. “...In any case, I need to make a few calls, so why don’t you go back ahead of me?”

Conan gave him a look that said his detective senses were tingling, and Kaito gave him Hakuba’s best bland smile in response.

“...Fine,” Conan said reluctantly, turning to head back to Sergeant Donovan and the others. He paused before he could make it more than a few steps, then glanced over his shoulder. “...You’d better come back.”

That was another red flag for Conan’s mental health. How many were they up to now? Five? Ten?

“Under ten minutes,” Kaito promised. “If I’m not back by then, feel free to scream ‘Kaitou KID is here’ at the top of your lungs.”

“I will.”

With that, Conan scampered off, presumably to rejoin the others, and Kaito dialed his mother’s most recent burner phone number, because even though she was in the hospital she was sure to have it on her somewhere.

“Moshi moshi, okaa-san?” Kaito asked, still in Hakuba’s voice.

There was a short pause, then his mother said, “No, dearie, I think you have the wrong number!” and hung up.

Kaito scowled, but rolled his eyes in resignation. Curse his mother’s ‘only talk to me in your real voice if you’re not going to show me your disguise (so I can critique it to pieces)’ rule.

He called her back, this time saying, ”Maman,” exasperatedly, in the closest approximation to Hakuba’s voice speaking French that he could come up with, because Hakuba was just so dreadfully British that he avoided French and French loan words like the plague, so Kaito didn’t have adequate voice sampling.

“Ara? Who could this be?” Kaito’s mother asked vaguely. “I’m sure it couldn’t be my son. I have only one of those, you see, and you don’t sound like him at all.”

If Kaito hadn’t known any better, he would’ve thought that she was being intentionally obtuse due to the presence of any of the various law enforcement agencies after either Kaitou Kid or the Phantom Lady. As it was, she hadn’t used any of their codewords to indicate that, so she was probably just annoyed that he hadn’t been to visit her yet.

He’d better play along, then, or risk a world of mental anguish later.

Kaito cleared his throat, then continued in Japanese: “Apologies, Madame, but Kaito-kun - ” He used his first name, since it was less identifiable and easier to mistake for ‘Kaitou’ than his last name. “ - asked me to address you as such to assure that you would not think me a telemarketer or something of the like. I am a classmate of his - perhaps he has mentioned to you a Hakuba Saguru?”

His mother laughed her you’ll have to do better than that laugh. “Oh my, you’re so polite, Hakuba Saguru-kun, so well spoken! I wonder if you will ever rub off on my son… ”

Ew.

Kaito coughed. “...That seems unlikely, Madame,” he said with barely veiled disdain. “In any case, he is unable to use his phone at present, and has asked me to pass along a message on his behalf…”

“Oh?” his mother said, sounding only mildly curious. “And what would that be?”

Kaito took a deep breath. “...First, he expressed his regret that he has yet to visit you in the hospital, although I’m sure his name will appear on the guest list” he began with, to perhaps appease her slightly.

“Hm.” She did not sound very appeased.

“...Then, he requested…” Kaito winced preemptively, because he realized that he was asking a lot and not providing much information. “...that you ‘begin the preparations,’ so to speak, as he has run into an, ahem, a little problem regarding a young detective. He was certain you’d know what that meant.”

Kaito’s mother sighed, then gave up the pretense she’d been insisting upon. “ Please tell me this whole charade isn’t because of the Kudou’s boy. I don’t think I could stand it if history started repeating itself.”

“...What do you mean?”

“Oh, haven’t I told you? Your father had a rival, too, though his was admittedly closer in age than you and KID Killer-kun. They used to send riddles back and forth to each other - I never bothered trying to understand them, but the most common was a question mark from one, followed by an exclamation mark from the other. It was an odd friendship, considering Yuusaku-kun was usually on the side of the police, but Touichi would drop everything for him and vice versa - I remember once that he put a heist on hold halfway through when he heard that Yukiko-chan was in labor.”

“Yukiko-chan, like Yukiko-neechan?”

“Oh, I’d forgotten that’s what you call her. She’s not that terrifying, dear.”

Kaito begged to differ. “I was six and she scarred me for life.”

“Hm. In any case, I didn’t understand their relationship, but then again I never had any detectives or crime novelists following me around on my heists because I, unlike the two of you , preferred anonymity and actually getting the job done to putting on a show.”

Kaito rolled his eyes, which his mother graciously pretended not to notice.

“So, is it the Kudou boy? He’s about your age, I think.”

“No, Maman, not unless he has a younger brother you’ve neglected to tell me about and who has a different last name.” Although… If Kudou Shinichi looked almost exactly like Kaito with his hair gelled, it was a bit strange that Conan looked almost exactly like him when he was six. He and Kudou were almost carbon copies of each other, minus the glasses, especially before Conan started dying his hair and strengthened his prescription…

His mother looked thoughtful. “Mm, I don’t think so. And Yukiko and Yuusaku are both only children, so I don’t believe he has any cousins.”

…Huh. Then...was Conan somehow related to... Kaito?  

Because that would explain a lot.

But, wait, no. Both his parents were also only children, and so were his grandparents. So probably not. That was a relief.

…Then why did Conan look like an exact copy of him as a child, if Kaito had dressed like a color-blind college professor at age six?

That, combined with some of the statements Conan had made at the last heist…

“...Merci, Maman. I think you just gave me an existential crisis.”

“It’s what I do best,” she replied blithely. There was a long pause before she sighed and said, “If you send me a text with what you had in mind, I’ll deal with what I can from my hospital bed, but I’ll expect a proper explanation later.”

She hung up, before Kaito could even say ‘thank you,’  leaving him to deal with his existential crisis on his own time.

…Which was not now, because he had about two minutes to get back to Conan before his disguise was revealed.

Kaito sighed. Such was the life of a Phantom Thief.

Chapter Text

It had only been three minutes and fifteen seconds since he’d left KID to his phone calls, and Conan hadn’t felt this on edge since the first time his parents had pretended to kidnap him while dressed as members of the Black Organization.

Conan didn’t understand why he was so tense, though.

True, he’d relaxed slightly when he’d realized that Hakuba was not, in fact, Hakuba but actually Kaitou KID. And while the presence of an internationally-wanted thief probably shouldn’t put him at ease, they’d been thrown together by circumstances so many times that it was practically second nature for Conan to see KID outside of a heist and think, ah, yes, an ally.

This was perhaps not the most beneficial of mindsets, but it did at least have previously existing events to back it up, which was more than he could say for some of the other aspects of his worldview.

And, well.

KID hadn’t tried to take advantage of that tenuous trust - yet, a traitorous voice in the back of his mind hissed, but Conan ignored it with the ease of many months of practice - and had in fact only taken actions to strengthen it. Actions like ditching his disguise and jumping out the window of a moving airship to make sure Conan didn’t plummet to his death. 

Just as a random example.

And besides, KID had never tried to hurt him - well, aside from the thing with the stun gun at the Kirin Heist, but it wasn’t like KID knew that Conan’s heart wasn’t in the best shape, and it wasn’t as if heart problems were particularly common in six-year-olds.

...Were the heart problems in Conan’s medical file? He’d have to check, because that seemed like something that would be fairly important for medics to know whenever he got shot again, if nothing else.

(And that unfortunately really was a when, not an if, with his luck.)

So, really, Conan was entirely justified with gravitating towards KID over any of his other potential allies. Better the devil he knew than the ones he was still trying to figure out, and all that.

But that still didn’t explain why Conan felt so off-balance that he was trying not to be too obvious about the way that his eyes were glued to his watch, watching the hands tick and counting the seconds until KID reappeared.

It was absurd. Conan had survived the past day and a half without any help, hadn’t he?

(He chose to ignore the fact that during that time period he’d been successfully kidnapped once, almost kidnapped once more, and had ended up spending the night in a hospital bed. Clearly that was irrelevant.)

“...So,” Donovan said, six minutes and twenty-three seconds since Conan had left KID by the vending machines. She was looking at him with a strange expression, and Conan belatedly realized that he hadn’t said anything to her or anyone else since he’d come back - nor, in fact, done anything but stare at his watch like it had personally offended him. “Where’s your friend gone, Conan?”

“Phone call,” Conan bit out tersely, not bothering to look up from his watch. He probably should’ve made an effort to be, like, vaguely childish and/or not seeming like he was on his last rope, but he just didn’t have the mental bandwidth at that particular moment.

Donovan and John exchanged a glance over his head, and Conan pretended not to notice.

Seven minutes, thirteen seconds.

Two minutes, forty-seven seconds to go.

He could do this.

And then Sherlock swanned back into view and Conan had to viciously bite back a sigh. He shouldn’t have tempted fate. 

“You’re back early,” John commented, keeping his tone deliberately light, as if Sherlock hadn’t just exploded at him and outed the fact that John had dared to have secrets from Sherlock Holmes.

Sherlock scoffed. “Yes, well, someone - ” Here, he leveled a pointed look at John, and Conan did not envy him for having to stare back into those piercing grey eyes, though John didn’t seem particularly bothered by it. “ - seems to have stolen my cigarettes. Bit hard to have a smoke if you don’t have any, as I’m sure you realize.” 

Conan painstakingly rearranged his features into the closest approximation of “innocent” that he could manage, which probably wasn’t very convincing, but luckily Sherlock seemed to have tunnel vision when it came to John and/or mysteries, and even more so when it came to mysteries about John. 

John only raised his eyebrows slightly, unimpressed by the accusation. He kept his expression politely neutral, if mildly surprised, and replied, “I don’t know why you think I had anything to do with it.”

(KID would’ve been laughing his head off if he’d been around to take in the situation.)

(Eight minutes, thirty-two seconds.)

Sherlock eyed John closely for a moment longer, perhaps deducing whether or not John was being facetious, then swivelled abruptly to face Conan, who took an automatic shuddering step backwards at the sight of a person in a long dark coat towering over him.

Sherlock’s eyes narrowed, and Conan most emphatically did not want to deal with this. 

Luckily, before Sherlock could spew out a series of deductions extrapolated from that reaction alone (and Conan had no doubt that he would ), KID reappeared from around the corner, still impersonating Hakuba.

With no little effort, Conan very carefully did not let out a sigh of relief. “Hakuba-niichan, you’re back!” he greeted, doing his best not to sound too comforted at the thought. He wasn’t sure he succeeded, but no one looked at him too strangely, so he took that as a win.

KID nodded, snapping shut the pocket watch he was holding. “Indeed. And with a minute to spare,” he said lightly.

One minute, seventeen seconds, to be precise, but Conan wasn’t going to mention that. Partially because Conan didn’t want to admit to anyone, much less KID himself, how on edge he’d been without KID around, partially because they hadn’t set an exact start time for the ten minutes, and partially because Hakuba was known for his...overzealous adherence to precision when it came to time and pointing out that KID was not was a great way to get him chased out of the station, which would be rather counterproductive to getting him to stick around.

“Mister Holmes,” KID-as-Hakuba said, and Conan for some reason got the impression that, had KID been slightly less professional, he’d have been glaring at Sherlock. “Am I given to understand that you have deduced something of the heist notice?”

He turned towards Sherlock, as if to give him his full attention, and stepped slightly in front of Conan, who thought that it was a pretty stupid move since it had the result of putting Sherlock’s undivided attention on KID.

Although, Conan realized belatedly as fingertips brushed lightly against the inside of his collar, that might have been KID’s intention. His small step forwards had masked the movement of his hand, which meant that Sherlock and John, at least, likely hadn’t noticed, positioned as they were. A master of misdirection, Kaitou KID was.

Conan didn’t move, even as he itched to get a closer look at whatever KID had done to his collar, because that would draw attention to it, which would rather defeat the whole point of the secrecy in the first place.

Instead, he focused his awareness on the collar of his hospital gown, searching for irregularities even as he continued to stare straight ahead at Sherlock, partially blocked though he was by one of KID’s legs.

Ah.

There it was.

Near his right collarbone, there was a small lump beneath the fabric, not much larger or denser than a one yen coin and not noticeable unless you were actively looking for it. Conan shifted his weight to one foot, using the motion to cover the way that he shrugged his shoulders slightly to adjust the fall of his blazer lapel so that it covered the slight lump.

What was it, though? 

Conan pondered it for a moment. The most likely gadget for this particular situation was most probably a tracker, though it could also potentially be a microphone or speaker of some sort, though Conan was unsure exactly what purpose either of the latter would serve, since KID was already inside the police station and could listen to any of the potential strategies the police came up with to defend his target for himself.

...Unless he was planning on leaving. Maybe to finish setting up for the heist? It had been pretty short notice, after all…

Conan quashed the thought deliberately. KID wasn’t going anywhere, probably, and there was about an eighty percent chance the device was a tracker, and it was more than likely only there as a safety net in case Conan got kidnapped again.

(Conan very carefully ignored the possibility that KID had placed a tracker on him because he needed to leave to do whatever it was he needed to do. At least it meant that he was planning on reappearing at some point. But, well, Conan was sure that KID wouldn’t do that to him.)

(... pretty sure, anyway.)

Conan tuned back in just in time to hear the tail-end of Sherlock’s deduction, which was all he really needed since he knew the way Sherlock’s mind worked well enough to extrapolate backwards: “ - which clearly means that the thief intends to steal from 221 B Baker Street tomorrow, though he is frustratingly unclear as to which 221 B, and the same as to what, exactly, he will be stealing when the crown jewels are nowhere near either location.”

Yes, that bit had been simple enough to figure out - honestly, Conan was surprised that Scotland Yard hadn’t yet. The fact that the note was entirely in English - and, more pertinently, the fact that KID was demonstratively in England - pointed towards the heist also taking place in England.

Conan glanced at the heist note once more, confirming his deductions.

Not that he’d needed to, really, since this particular note was far more transparent than he was used to coming from KID, though the emojis did serve as a decent smokescreen.

2B or not 2B — thats da ❓
If its 🛡️ 4 ba 💭 2 🎤
Da 👜 + 🏹 of 😤💎👑,
Or 2 ⚔️ against a c of 🕵️,
+ by ⚽️, ⚰️ dem? 2 🎲, 2 😴—
🚫 more + by a 😴 2 say we ⚰️
Da 💔 + da 🦆 🌲🌲 ⚡️
Dat 💪 is 👸 2 — its a 👨❤️👨
✝️ to b  🙏! 2 🎲, 2 😴.
2 😴, mb 2 💤💭—ya theres da 👏,
4 in dat 😴 of ☠️ what 💤💭 ♉️ cum
⏳ weve 🔀 off dis 💀🔄,
Must ️🎁 us ⏸️. Theres da 🔎🔎
Dat makes 🛬🚓of so ⛓️👪.

The two “2B”s from the first line - as opposed to the “to b” in later lines - plus the extraneous “b” in the second line, where “the” had been written as “ba” rather than the “da,” as in all the other lines, made 2 2Bs plus 1b, which became 221B. And, of course, the detective emoji in the fourth line pointed towards the most well-known detective in England, who just so happened to live at 221B Baker Street.

(It was also likely intended to tweak the noses of the detectives who chased after KID, Conan included. He wasn’t entirely sure if he was flattered or pissed that KID apparently considered him one of his ‘troubles.’ The magnifying glasses used in place of ‘respect’ made him more inclined to the former, though.)

The crown jewels bit was also relatively clear for a KID heist notice - the diamond and the crown used in place of “outrageous fortune” (which was fair enough, Conan supposed) and the woman with the tiara for “heir” were meant to represent the Queen of England and the crown jewels that were her inheritance. 

(Conan wasn't sure if KID had intended that to be an intentional slight to the new King, or if KID just didn't consider him the King until he'd gone through with the coronation. Possibly KID wasn't aware that Queen Elizabeth had passed at all. Who knew, with him.)

However, although the collection was termed “the crown jewels,” the title referred to more than just the literal jewels in the crown. In addition to the crown, it also contained scepters and other ceremonial objects used for the coronation of England’s royalty. Presumably, KID was going to direct his focus towards the actual jewels - like the Black Prince’s Ruby or the Stuart Sapphire in the Imperial State Crown, or the Cullinan I diamond in the Sovereign's Scepter with Cross, said to be the world’s largest top quality white cut diamond - rather than the solid gold Sovereign's Orb, the armills, and so on. Although there were jewels on the other artifacts, they weren’t big enough to be worth KID’s time, based on Conan’s previous experience.

...That being said, it would be entirely in character for KID to steal the entire collection, just to have a complete set, though they would of course be eventually returned.

So that was the what and the where pinned down, though they didn’t exactly seem related (not that that meant anything when it came to KID, because just about anything was possible with him). But why wasn’t Sherlock moving on to the when ?

Ah.

Right, it was Conan’s turn now.

“Yeah, that’s why I said it was mean!” he piped up, shuffling forward a little so that he could peek out from behind KID’s leg. This also had the added benefit of giving Conan the opportunity to tap out messages on his leg in a simple code out of Sherlock’s field of vision.

For example:

Coffins, seriously?

KID did not react.

Understandable, really. 

“…Could you maybe expand on that, kid?” Donovan sighed, rubbing the bridge of her nose like Conan’s mere existence was giving her a headache.

(Same, Conan thought.)

He took a deep breath, preparing himself to launch into his probably overly childish explanation, complete with wild arm movements that were likely only about half as effective when he was still mostly hidden behind KID’s legs.

(He’d been so much better at this a few hours ago. Why - ?)

“Why is the heist note ‘mean,’ Conan-kun?” KID prompted, filling Hakuba’s eyes with (faux-)sincere curiosity.

Right. Like he , of all people, needed it explained to him.

Conan forced his train of thought back onto the correct railway, hoping he could keep it there for longer than a couple of minutes. 

“ ‘Cuz it’s basically impossible for anyone but me to figure it out!” he said brightly.

He was met with stunned silence from everyone - including KID, which was unexpected.

“…I think we’re going to need a little more than that, Conan,” John said, speaking for them all, except maybe Sherlock, who had gone still the way a panther did just before it pounced.

Conan blinked guilelessly before responding. “ ‘Cuz, ‘cuz, you know how KID ‘nd I’ve hung out a lot?”

Hung out, KID mouthed incredulously, luckily out of the sight line of everyone other than Conan’s, who had to resist the urge to roll his eyes.

“I do,” John said cautiously.

“Well, there’re a buncha references to me in there! KID must've known I was here!”

"And how would he have known that?" Sherlock’s voice cut through the ambient din of the police station, quiet and chill and pointed, and Conan's heart almost stopped out of sheer self-preservation. 

He tried not to let it show on his face or in his body language, though the way Sherlock’s eyes narrowed ever so slightly meant that he likely hadn't missed Conan's reaction. 

Conan blinked rapidly a couple times,  as if he were surprised by the question, buying himself time to think of an explanation. The time didn't help, though, because he still wasn't completely sure how KID had managed it in the first place. He was, in fact, very carefully not thinking about it, because otherwise he'd probably have to try to arrest KID for invasion of privacy, and Conan just...didn't have the spoons for that.

"...I dunno!" Conan answered brightly, a couple seconds too late.

A minute, nearly unnoticeable spasm ran through KID'S leg, and Conan was certain that he was desperately restraining himself from facepalming.

("Seriously, Meitantei, who taught you to lie?" KID had once asked him.

"No one," Conan had answered.

"Yeah, I can tell.")

"KID has been known to keep tabs on those he dubs 'his' detectives," KID-as-Hakuba added blandly, and though his expression didn't change Conan could tell KID was regretting ever meeting him. 

“And yet,” said Sherlock, voice like sharpened knives shrouded in silk, “this so-called Kaitou KID has yet to follow you halfway across the world.”

“We dunno that for sure! Maybe he did and the police just didn't notice!” Conan interjected, privately delighted by the sudden looks of horror flashing over Donovan’s and John’s faces. Sherlock, of course, kept his expression stony, with only the slight furrow in his brow to hint that he was thinking a little harder than Conan would’ve preferred. So before Sherlock could act on his thoughts, Conan continued, “And besides, Hakuba-niisan comes over here all the time, but I don’t, so this is basically a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to challenge two of his detectives on foreign soil!”

“…Haven’t you already been to London at least once before?” John asked.

Conan blinked up at him guilelessly. “Yeah, so?”

John stared at him for a long moment, then shook his head. “…Nevermind, forget it.”

Good. If it continued like this, Conan might just be able to make John give up on ever getting a straight answer from him.

(It was a long shot, Conan knew, but it was worth a try. Also, it was kind of fun, and there was precious little fun to be had these days.) 

Conan eyed him dubiously, in the way that only young children can. "...'kay."

There was a long moment of silence, during which everyone stared at Conan, and Conan tried not to seem too visibly uncomfortable with the attention, before Donovan said,  , "Wait, what did you mean by 'references to you,' Conan?" 

Conan blinked rapidly, vision spinning from the change in subject. 

...or, more probably, the concussion. 

He should really do something about that sometime soon.

For the time being, however, he resolved to make everyone else feel as dizzy as he was.

“‘Cuz, see," Conan began, making sure his voice was exactly the right pitch to be nails-on-a-chalkboard irritating, just to make KID wince because Conan definitely did not want to try explaining this, "there’s a bunch of times he talks about his opponents, like the police or the skeptics or the teen detectives, with the detective emojis and stuff, but there are also a few about me specifically - like the microphone for ‘suffering,’ (because apparently I’ve got bad relative pitch or something) or the soccer ball for ‘opposition,’ - and some of them represent specific events or - well, heists, I guess, mostly - and, um - ”

“Breathe, kid," said Donovan, sounding slightly concerned.

Conan acquiesced, taking a breath to center himself. “…Okay, so, I mean, whenever KID mentions a specific event that I was there for, he always uses two emojis, and that happens two times, right? And he also makes non-event-related references to me twice, and that, combined with the emphasis on twos throughout the verse leads me to believe that KID’s heist will be either two hours before or after midnight.”

It was so blatant that the heist note was almost slapping him in the face, actually, and Conan did not appreciate the lack of faith KID apparently had in his intellect.

Wait.

He mentally ran his last couple sentences back, and, oops. Maybe KID might have a point about his mental faculties, especially when he was this…compromised, was probably the right word for it. That last bit he’d said aloud had probably been a little too…not-childish enough.

Luckily, no one seemed to notice and/or care too much, more concerned with the international criminal, which Conan supposed was somewhat understandable even if it was only KID. There was a calculating gleam in Sherlock’s eyes that Conan didn’t trust, though, which meant that this whole exchange was probably going to come back and bite him later.

“…Why midnight?” Donovan prompted, and Conan abruptly realized that he’d stopped talking before he got around to explaining that part.

Whoops.

He desperately wanted to respond with, because he’s an over dramatic idiot, but managed to restrain himself, if only because KID was currently the only thing standing between him and the Full Attention of the second coming of Sherlock Holmes.

Instead, he went with: “…Because KID only ever steals stuff when the moon is out? Unless there’s an emergency.”

“…An emergency?”

“What? Oh, right, I guess you wouldn’t know.” Ugh, Conan kept forgetting he was dealing with amateurs. Japanese police officers and their affiliates didn’t need this explained to them. “Like, if whatever he’s planning on stealing or the people guarding it are in danger somehow, that’s an emergency.”

“What do you mean, in danger?” John asked, stance shifting like he was about to jump into motion. Sherlock’s gaze skittered towards him, and Conan took a moment to just breathe without Sherlock cataloguing his every movement.

It helped more than he thought it would. Enough that he was able to think up an example for an emergency that didn’t involve anyone almost dying.

“Uhh, like one time he jumped out of a plane in broad daylight to save a Van Gogh from being incinerated? And then left it on a rooftop for us to pick up. It was a whole thing.” Conan paused. He was pretty sure he’d already mentioned that at some point. “I’m pretty sure I mentioned that already.”

John sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. “No. No, you did not. You did, however, tell us about the time someone threw you out of a blimp and KID rescued you. I suppose that that being an exaggeration would be too much to ask?”

Conan didn’t blink. “Yup. But, like I said, those times were kind of emergencies, and anyway he didn’t actually end up stealing the painting until later, and even then only sort of. But, yeah, usually he doesn’t steal in the daytime ‘cuz it isn’t dramatic enough.”

“How do you only sort of steal a painting?” Donovan muttered, but she said it quietly enough that Conan could pretend not to hear it. He also pretended not to see KID rolling his eyes at the ‘not dramatic enough’ bit, because then he wouldn’t have to look back up at him pointedly like ‘shut up, I’m giving you a reason to have your heists at night that isn’t the moon thing.’

“But why midnight, specifically?” KID-as-Hakuba persisted, because apparently he lived to make Conan’s life difficult. Ugh, so ungrateful.

“Because if you count up all the twos in the note,” Conan said slowly and clearly, like KID was an idiot and not the person who’d written the stupid heist note in thefirst place, “then you get twelve. And, before you say it could be noon,” he added, when John frowned and looked like he was about to say something, “I’ll just point you to the aforementioned ‘only steals in daylight if it’s an emergency’ thing, and also the fact that if you add all the twos together, you get twenty-four, and 24:00 is the same as 00:00, aka midnight.”

‘Hakuba’ grinned an utterly KID grin and patted him on the head as if he couldn’t stop himself. “You’re such a smart kid, Conan-kun.”

Conan glared up at him through his saccharine reply. “But I’m nowhere near as smart as Hakuba-niisan!” he said, baring his teeth in an almost-kind-of smile.

KID shuddered minutely. As he should, since Conan intended to get revenge for this whole sequence of events as soon as he got back to Japan.

(With KID in his immediate vicinity, the ‘getting back to Japan’ seemed much more like a when than an if, which was more of a relief than Conan had thought it would be.)

No one seemed to notice Conan’s expression, luckily, because Detective Inspector Lestrade decided to make a reappearance just then. “The culprit has been processed,” was all he said to announce his return. He faltered slightly when he saw that Hakuba was still present, but when a quick glance around didn’t reveal his mother lurking in some corner somewhere, he relaxed.

Wow. Conan kind of wanted to meet Lady White, if she scared Lestrade that much. 

“Hello, Inspector,” KID greeted him, slipping back into his Hakuba skin suit seamlessly. “We believe we have deciphered something of KID’s heist notice in your absence.”

Conan ruthlessly suppressed a shiver. Letting KID know how creepy he found that transition was an absolutely terrible idea.

(He’d had worse, though, obviously, as evidenced by the fact that he was currently about a decade younger than he was supposed to be.)

“Great!” said Lestrade. “We - the station, that is - we’re having a bit of trouble with it. Well, to be honest, we were having trouble convincing the higher-ups that it was necessary to devote any manpower to it, but then I mentioned your name, and - well, that was that, really. It’s an official investigation, now. Anything you’ve found that could give us a hint would be just - fantastic, really.”

He sounded almost relieved, and Conan supposed that was fair for someone going head-to-head with KID for the first time. KID was, most assuredly, a challenging opponent.

(Conan - Shinichi, he had to remind himself - had faced off against KID the first time and nearly beat him with little to no preparation. He hadn’t even known about the heist note until Megure-keibu had mentioned it.

Though, of course, not everyone was as good as Shinichi had been. 

Was. He was still alive, even if he felt like Conan was a never-ending nightmare sometimes.

Maybe most of the time.)

“I deduced - ” Sherlock butted in, drawing Conan out of his spiralling thoughts. Apparently he’d decided that he couldn’t stand having the spotlight off him for one more moment, and Conan thought somewhat uncharitably that he was welcome to it. “ - that this so-called heist will take place at one of the two 221B Baker Streets, and that the target will be the Crown Jewels. Conan over here - ” Oh, look, there was the spotlight Conan had been trying to avoid. “ - deduced that it will take place at some point between the hours of ten in the evening and two in the morning, though appears to be unable to narrow the timeframe down.”

Conan ducked his head and scuffed his shoes against the carpet, not at all embarrassed that he’d been unable to narrow it down but pretending to be anyway. “It’s ‘cuz of the ‘coil’ part,” he muttered. “It goes counterclockwise, so I thought it might be two hours before midnight, but then the shuffle emoji makes me think that it might be flipped to clockwise, so that would be two hours after midnight, but then I thought that maybe I was second-guessing myself, so…”

Lestrade eyed him for a long moment, then sighed. “I suppose your ghosts told you all this?” he asked, defeated.

Conan’s head shot up. “Nu-uh!” he exclaimed, glaring up at Lestrade, though he was aware that it probably looked more like a pout. Ah, the trials and tribulations of looking like he was seven. “I figured it out allllll by myself!”

Lestrade looked faintly skeptical, like he couldn't believe that a seven-year-old could’ve figured out the heist note of an international thief. And while he wasn’t wrong, in as far as a normal, not shrunken seven-year-old probably couldn’t, Conan couldn’t stop himself from feeling a bit peeved. 

Sherlock, on the other hand, seemed like he did believe that Conan had come up with the deduction on his own, and was eyeing him like, if he stared hard enough, Conan would fall to his knees and let every single one of his secrets flow out of him. This was, of course, something that he would rather avoid having happen, personally.

Conan wasn’t entirely sure which reaction he preferred. 

“…So, one of the two 221Bs tomorrow, somewhere between 10:00PM and 2:00AM?” Lestrade summed up. “And he’s going to steal something to do with the Crown Jewels, though we don’t know what, exactly?”

Sherlock nodded, looking somewhat perturbed that he hadn’t been able to figure out the exact target, but Conan had an answer for that.

“Or maybe he’s going to fly in from one of the 221Bs!” he piped up. “Like, towards the Tower of London, I mean!”

Donovan crouched down so that she was level with him and looked at him pityingly. “Conan, you know that people can’t fly, right? Not even international thieves.”

Conan stared at her for a long moment. Of course KID could fly. How did she think he’d saved him from falling to his death?

Hakuba coughed. “Sergeant Donovan, I feel I should mention that one of Kaitou KID’s modus operandi is to fly away from the locations of his heists using a hang glider. He has also been known to charter helicopters and other methods of transportation.”

Now it was Donovan’s turn to stare at him. “…You’re joking, right?”

Hakuba shook his head. “Unfortunately, I am not. KID has also been known to create decoys of himself and occasionally makes them fly away from his heists in hang gliders.”

“Well.” Donovan got to her feet. “I’m sorry for doubting you, Conan.”

John cleared his throat. “Anything else we should know about this - Kaitou KID?”

Conan thought it was interesting that he was including himself and Sherlock in that statement, like it was a given that they’d be there for the heist. Maybe it was. Maybe Kaitou KID was a strange enough case to hold Sherlock’s attention for more than two minutes.

Conan glanced up at Hakuba - KID, really, behind his Hakuba mask. How much should he say? It seemed a bit gauche to pay KID back for following him all the way to England by telling the police there everything he’d ever discovered about the thief and his methods of operation.

“…Toichi-jisan says I shouldn’t tell you!” he improvised. “You have to figure it out yourself! He says it’s an ‘eks-peer-ee-yence’.” He said the word like he was sounding out one that an adult had said to him once. That was something kids did, he was sure.

He also shot an apologetic look KID’s way because he looked like he’d seen - well, a ghost. Which was fair, because Kuroba Toichi was either dead or had faked his death extremely well, and KID probably hadn’t expected to hear his name any time soon.

KID met his eyes and seemed to - somehow - go even paler.

Oh, right. Conan probably hadn’t mentioned that he probably-maybe-kinda knew KID’s identity - not that he had any proof, of course, and he was definitely going to keep it that way!

But still. That probably hadn’t been the greatest decision Conan had ever made, but it would’ve been weird to bring up another friendly ghost that had somehow managed to follow him all the way from Japan.

Ugh. Where was that Monster when he needed it?

He didn’t care that it would probably send him straight back to the hospital. He was going to need some caffeine if he was expected to get through the day without completely and irreparably blowing his cover and/or mentally scarring anyone.

Unfortunately, any of that actually happening seemed incredibly unlikely.

Ugh.

Chapter Text

Haibara stared at her phone, hands wedged beneath her thighs so she could resist the urge to bite her nails.

It was just past eight in the morning.

Kudou was three minutes late for his check-in.

Haibara tried not to panic. He was probably fine. Just a little delayed. It didn’t mean that anything had happened to him. 

And, besides, he was often late for his check-in! He liked sleeping in, especially after a long case! It’s why they had contingencies!

Haibara’s eyes flicked to the clock again. Four minutes past eight, and she hadn’t received any new messages. Not even the small bubble with three dots that meant he was typing. Not even a Read 8:04 AM.

That was fine. He was probably still asleep. It was the weekend. Mouri Ran would let him sleep as long as he liked since he didn’t need to go to school, so maybe he just wasn’t awake yet.

(Haibara couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong.)

At 8:05 AM, she sent a second text message. Are you awake?

She waited another thirty seconds before pressing the ‘call’ button.

It wasn’t like this was the first time Conan had missed her first text message. It wasn’t exactly a regular occurrence, but it happened often enough that they had come up with a system that would simultaneously help keep Haibara’s anxiety at bay and help Conan actually remember to let her know that he was, in fact, alive and un-kidnapped.

(Haibara never missed a single check-in.)

First, Haibara would send a short text message at 8:00 AM, on the dot. She usually woke at half past seven to start preparing breakfast, anyway, which meant that eight was approximately the time that she started worrying about the people in her life being hunted down by the Black Organization. Agasa was just upstairs, so she could just walk past his door on the way to the bathroom to brush her teeth and hear him snoring. Conan was a few blocks away, so it was a good thing that they lived in the time of cell phones.

If Conan didn’t respond to the first text message, Haibara would call him at precisely 8:05 AM. Approximately fifty-two percent of the time, the repeated vibration of his ring tone was enough to wake him up enough to respond. That was assuming, of course, that he had remembered to plug his phone in the previous night. 

Haibara heard a soft click, and the ringing stopped. She breathed in shakily. 

“Hi,” Conan said on the other end of the line, and Haibara exhaled slowly. Her relief only lasted for a moment.

“You’ve reached Edogawa Conan,” he continued, heedless of the way that his words caused Haibara’s breath to catch in her throat, her heart to sink in her chest. 

“I’m not able to answer the phone right now, so please leave a message and I’ll get back to you as soon as possible. Thanks!”

The answering machine. Not Conan at all.

Which meant…

Haibara hung up, not bothering to leave a message, and took a deep breath to center herself.

No, Conan was fine. He had to be fine. His phone was just…out of battery, or something.

They had a contingency plan for that.

Occasionally, Conan would not answer his cell phone - whether because it was out of battery, or because he’d left it in the pocket of his jacket and that jacket was in another room, or because he’d simply slept through its buzzing - and Haibara would have to escalate.

The Mouri Detective Agency had one of the loudest, most obnoxious ringtones that Haibara had ever heard. It sounded as if the emergency alarm at a nuclear power plant had been impregnated by the sirens on a police car and given birth to a horrific, bass-boosted amalgamation of them both.

It was, as Haibara had discovered, impossible for Conan to sleep through, and even less possible for anyone in the house to ignore.

Haibara glanced at the clock again. It was nine past eight.

At exactly 8:10 AM, she called the Agency’s phone number.

(Haibara was extraordinarily pleased that she, at least, did not have to listen to the horrific cacophony that was the landline’s ringtone. Conan, though? He deserved it.)

It rang. 

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

No one picked up.

Shit.

Haibara hit redial. Still, no one picked up.

Okay. Okay, this was - it was not ideal, she could admit that much. But - but there had to be another explanation, something that was out of the ordinary. Maybe there was no one in the Agency to pick up the phone? A case, perhaps? Conan (and, to a lesser extent, the Mouris) were always being called away on cases, so that wouldn’t be out of the question.

Haibara exited her texting app and opened her scheduling one instead. She and Conan had a shared calendar, and he was usually extremely good about blocking out the times that he would be out of contact. If Mouri Ran and her friends were taking him to a movie, for example, or if he were going to be travelling for an extended period of time, or if he were going to be in a place with no service - that sort of thing.

An event marked in purple told her that the Mouris were currently out of town on vacation. Conan, Haibara knew, was not accompanying them, partially because it was yet another attempt by Mouri Ran to get her parents back together and he found those uncomfortable and/or boring (if there were no murders to solve), and partially because he’d already promised the Detective Boys he was going camping with them.

If the Mouris had already left, then Conan was more than likely not at the Agency. If only because he was supposed to be seven and seven-year-olds weren’t meant to be left alone for very long. 

Haibara called the Agency one more time, just in case. 

More often than not, Conan would tell the Mouris not to worry about leaving him alone overnight because he would just go to Agasa-hakase’s, and then he would just stay at the Agency where there were no murders to accidentally run into. He called it a vacation. 

There was a soft click on the other end of the line as, this time, someone picked up the phone.

“Hello?” The voice that answered sent chills down Haibara’s spine, though it was perfectly pleasant and meticulously polite. “Are you calling for the Mouri Detective Agency? They’re out of town right now, but I heard the phone ringing from the cafe next door. I’m the apprentice of Sleeping Kogorou, Amuro Tooru. Perhaps I could assist you?”

If Haibara had been calling on a landline, she would’ve slammed the phone down on the receiver. 

“Hello?”

As it was, she forced her shaking finger to tap the ‘end call’ button. 

“Is there someone there?”

It took a couple of tries to get the touch screen to register her, but she finally managed to hang up.

Haibara very deliberately set her cell phone on the table in front of her, then tucked her hands beneath her thighs again and tried to breathe normally. 

That…wasn’t a good sign.

Right.

Okay.

Sometimes, if Conan found the Detective Agency too much or too quiet or too empty or he just wanted to stop pretending to be seven for a few hours, he would head over to the Kudou house and hole up in the library.

(Or, if it were a really bad day, his old room.)

He’d stopped after the suspicious grad student had moved in because, contrary to popular belief, Conan did have some semblance of the concept of other people’s privacy buried in the back of his brain somewhere.

However, once it became clear that Okiya Subaru didn’t mind the intrusion of ‘a distant relative of his landlord’ every now and again — that he was, in fact, happy for the distraction from the struggle of writing his thesis — Conan had started letting himself into the house again, and his mental health had improved drastically.

So it was possible — not incredibly likely, but possible — that Conan had spent the night at the Kudou house rather than the Agency.

Haibara took a deep breath, steeling herself, then had to take another before she could dial the number for the house next door.

Okiya Subaru picked up almost before the first ring had ended. “Hello, you’ve reached the Kudou household, Okiya Subaru speaking.” 

“Okiya-san,” Haibara said, her voice coming out meeker than she’d wanted.

“Ah, Haibara-san.” He sounded faintly surprised, which she supposed was fair, given that she generally avoided him as if he carried the plague. “Is something the matter?”

Yes. Yes, it was.

“Have you seen Edogawa-kun?” she inquired politely, as evenly as she could when her entire body was trembling like a leaf.

There was a long moment of silence before Okiya Subaru replied: “…No, I can’t say that I have. Not recently, in any case.”

Haibara exhaled shakily - quietly, so he wouldn’t be able to hear it. “Would you mind checking the library?”

“Of course, Haibara-san.” There was an undertone of concern in his voice now, so perhaps she wasn’t concealing her anxiety as well as she’d hoped she was. “One moment, please.”

There was a long silence, as he set down the landline and presumably went to check the library for the presence of a tiny not-child who’d snuck in at some point without him noticing, even though such a person having managed that seemed unlikely at best. 

Haibara stared blankly at the clock on the wall, counting the seconds as they passed.

It was precisely ninety-three seconds before there was a faint clatter announcing Okiya Subaru’s return. 

“I’m afraid I was unable to find him, Haibara-san,” he said, in that strangely grave tone of his. “He wasn’t in Kudou-kun’s room, either.”

Haibara did her best to stifle the half-sob that caught in her throat. Shit.

Apparently not well enough, though, because after a slight pause, Subaru asked, “May I ask why you’re looking for him?” 

Haibara cleared her throat, forcing her voice level. “I messaged him this morning about a camping trip and he didn’t respond,” she said, keeping the timing of said trip vague and obscuring the fact that she and Conan had daily ‘hey I’m alive’ check-ins. Conan might trust this man enough to let him live in his old house — Haibara couldn’t even imagine what had been going through his head when he’d made that decision — but she wouldn’t trust him farther than she could throw him. Given that she was currently seven, that wasn’t very far at all.

Subaru hummed, considering. “Perhaps he’s asleep? It’s a bit early, and it is the weekend…”

Something in Haibara snapped. She wasn’t scared anymore; she was pissed. Did he really think she hadn’t thought of that? Did he think that she was so stupid, so childish, that she’d not taken that into consideration? “I called him when he didn’t respond,” she said, and this time her voice came out dangerously even. “And when he didn’t pick up, I called the landline for the Mouri Detective Agency. Even Kojima-kun finds it impossible to sleep through that.”

“And I don’t suppose he answered?” Subaru said, like he didn’t really need the confirmation.

“He did not,” Haibara said flatly. “But do you know who did?”

She didn’t wait for his answer.

“Amuro Tooru-san, from the cafe next door.”

There was no sharp intake of breath, because Okiya Subaru had too much control over every iota of his body language for that, but there was a small pause that spoke volumes before he said, “…That man? How peculiar.”

Haibara nodded shortly, not that he could see her. 

He didn’t need to though, apparently, because he continued: “Did he mention anything about Conan-kun?”

“Nothing. Only that the Mouris are currently out of town, which I knew already.”

Subaru hummed in understanding. “Which is why you called me, I suppose? Since Conan-kun occasionally stays with me when they’re away… He hasn’t shown up at the professor’s, by any chance?”

“It’s not my house that he often visits without warning, Subaru-san,” Haibara said dryly. Also, she had security that would make governments cry — Kudou couldn’t have gotten in without triggering some sort of alarm. She’d know if he’d turned up early.

And he definitely hadn’t.

“Hm. That’s…troubling.”

That was an understatement.

There was a clatter from the doorway, and Ai jumped, twisting towards the sound only to sigh in relief when she realized it was just the professor coming downstairs.

“Ai-kun?” He yawned, apparently having just woken up. “Why are you on the phone? Is everything okay?”

“No,” said Haibara decidedly. “I’m not feeling good. I think I’m sick.”

Agasa blinked, then looked her up and down. Haibara knew that she likely looked a little paler than usual, but other than that she didn’t look ill at all.

She coughed pointedly twice, not even bothering to make it sound genuine. “In fact, I think I have the same thing as Edogawa-kun.”

Agasa frowned. “Oh? I hadn’t realized he was sick,” he said carefully.

“It’s a recent development,” Haibara said, very aware of the phone that she had yet to hang up. She didn’t think the Black Organization had tapped it, but it was better to be safe than sorry. “Unfortunately we won’t be able to go camping with you this weekend.”

“I see,” Agasa replied slowly, blinking rapidly. “Should we postpone the trip, then?”

“No,” Haibara said firmly. “No, I think you should go, and you should take the rest of the Detective Boys with you.”

Agasa started. “Wouldn’t it be…dangerous to leave you alone, if you’re so sick?”

“I won’t be alone,” she said. “Subaru-san from next door has volunteered to drive me over to Edogawa-kun’s.”

A chuckle came over the line. “Have I, now?” 

“You have,” Haibara informed him. She might not trust him more than she would trust Genta to refrain from eating unajuu, but he did have a vehicle he was able to drive without getting pulled over and asked where his parents were. She certainly wasn’t about to walk over to the Agency, not when the only person in the world like her was missing. It was too exposed, too easy for someone to scoop her into the trunk of a car and drive off with no one the wiser.

Unfortunately, that meant that she had to recruit Subaru if she wanted the Detective Boys safe and sound (and out from underfoot).

“All right, then. I’ll get my keys. Five minutes.” He hung up abruptly.

Haibara placed her phone on the counter, then crossed the room to stand next to the professor. “Kudou-kun is missing,” she told him, and his eyes widened. “He didn’t check in this morning.”

“So you want the Detective Boys somewhere safe and out of the way,” he said, and she nodded. She was always pleasantly surprised when he managed to follow her train of thought, even though it was rare that he couldn’t.

“And you, too,” she confirmed, then hesitated. “…If it is the Black Org…”

“Which is unlikely,” he put in, because he also recognized when her thoughts were spiraling and twisting down to the worst possible outcome.

“But if it is — ”

The professor sighed. “You know I’ll protect them,” he said, and she — she trusted that he would. She did. It was just…

She didn’t know.

She didn’t know.

A car horn beeped outside, and she jumped.

“Go on,” the professor said, patting her on the shoulder. “We’ll have a great time camping, and we’ll tell you and Conan-kun all about it when we get back.”

Haibara nodded gratefully. She hesitated for a moment, then threw her arms around the professor and squeezed tight, just for a second, then picked up her phone and bag and rushed out the door to where Okiya Subaru was waiting.

Normally she wouldn't even consider getting into a car alone with Okiya Subaru, but she hated public transportation more than she was scared of him, for the time being.

(She preferred not to take the subway whenever possible — there were too many cameras for her taste.)

And besides, they had a common goal.

She didn't have to trust him to be able to use him.

Haibara opened the passenger door to Subaru’s bright red Subaru 360 (which she personally thought was a bit on the nose) and slid in.

“Drive,” she commanded, clicking her seatbelt into place.

Subaru shot her an amused look but did as he was told.

As he pulled away from the curb, Haibara took the opportunity to check the location of Conan’s Detective Boys badge with the extra pair of tracking glasses. She probably should have checked earlier, but, in her defense, she’d been busy trying to stop herself from panicking too much to be useful.

She held her breath as the glasses powered up, unsure exactly what she was hoping for. Conan’s tracker lighting up somewhere across town? One of the tracking dots attached to — something?

But there was nothing.

Haibara took the glasses off and shook them before putting them back on, like that would change the images on the screen. 

It didn’t.

That wasn’t necessarily a bad sign. Conan generally left his badge’s location tracker off when he was at the Mouris’ to save battery life. Even the professor hadn’t been good enough to create a battery that didn’t need to be charged, and in order to make the badges small enough to be, well, badges, the batteries were tucked away in a way that made it extremely difficult to change without specialty equipment.

So his tracker not showing up could mean that he was still in the Agency and somehow managed to sleep through the phone ringing off the hook and Amuro Tooru sneaking in to answer it. Not incredibly likely, but a possibility.

Alternatively, he was on his way to the professor’s because he needed to get the battery in his badge changed. And…his phone charger was broken, perhaps…? So he’d thought he’d assuage Haibara’s fears by just…showing up in person…? 

Another possibility.

(And, of course, there were the less desirable possibilities — that Conan had been kidnapped without having the chance to take his badge, that he wasn’t currently physically capable of turning it on, that he had turned it on but that he was out of range…)

(Haibara truly hoped that it was none of those options.)

The drive itself was relatively uneventful. No murders, no accidents, no screaming children.

(The latter, she missed, though she didn’t like to admit it.)

Subaru had a talent for driving quickly and methodically, doing the most insane maneuvers with the blankest look on his face. Traffic either parted for him or he zigzagged through it like the other cars didn't exist.

(Haibara would've been jealous of him if she weren't too busy trying to stop herself from vibrating out of her own skin.)

Generally, a trip from the professor's house to the agency took about ten minutes when the professor was driving. 

Subaru made it in five.

Haibara wasn’t complaining.

Subaru managed to find a parking spot within walking distance of the Mouri Detective Agency, which was something of a minor miracle. Haibara leapt out of the car, barely waiting for it to come to a halt, and Subaru himself wasn’t far behind her.

Unfortunately, before they could make their way up to the Mouri Detective Agency, they were waylaid by a certain bleach blond waiter sweeping the doorstep of Poirot next door.

“Are you looking for the Mouris?” he asked, tone impeccably polite. There was something about his eyes, though, that Haibara didn’t like, that made his every word sound fake. “I’m afraid they’re not in at the moment.”

“Ah, no, we’re here to pick up Conan-kun,” Subaru replied, turning to face Amuro Tooru and coincidentally putting himself between Haibara and the cafe. She was grateful, because her first reaction to Bourbon’s voice had been to freeze in place, unable to move a muscle aside from a minute trembling in all her limbs. “I’m sorry, I don’t think we’ve met…?”

“Amuro Tooru,” Bourbon introduced himself genially. “I’m Mouri-sensei’s apprentice.”

Haibara couldn’t breathe.

“Okiya Subaru — I’m currently staying next door to Agasa-hakase, who asked me to come fetch Conan-kun.”

“Oh my, is everything alright?” Bourbon paused his sweeping for a moment, propping one arm up on the handle of his broom as he eyed Subaru intently.

“Yes, yes, it’s fine. Conan-kun is just a bit late, and the professor was worried he’d caught the same thing as the other kids,” Subaru replied lightly.

“Nothing serious, I hope?”

“Just a cold.”

“Well,” said Bourbon, leaning down to get a closer look at Haibara, who was increasingly grateful that she’d remembered to pull the hood of her jacket over her head before she got out of the car, “I hope you feel better, ojou-chan.”

His eyes glinted in the early morning light, and Haibara ruthlessly suppressed a shudder.

“I’ll be fine,” she said quietly, because she didn’t think she’d be able to leave without responding. And she meant it, anyway. It wasn’t like she was the one who’d vanished off the face of the planet. 

“Conan-kun, though…” Subaru added, drawing Bourbon’s attention away from her and back to him. “You know how he is. Always…missing his meds.”

Haibara tugged urgently on the hem of Subaru’s jacket. Why the hell was he giving information to the enemy?

Bourbon’s eyes widened fractionally, though his placid smile remained unchanged. “Is that not…unusual for Conan-kun?”

“It happens more often than you’d think,” Subaru replied wryly, then politely excused himself from the conversation and herded Haibara upstairs. She was grateful for it, if only because she didn’t think she’d have managed to move otherwise.

Conan, of course, was not in the Agency proper — not that Haibara had really expected him to be, because otherwise he would’ve picked up the damn phone. 

She and Subaru gave the room a cursory once-over anyway, just in case there was anything that might tell them what had happened, and why Conan had gone completely off the grid. There was no sign of a struggle — no sign of anything out of the ordinary. 

There wasn’t even a speck of mud or an unusually colored thread on the ground.

Haibara and Subaru exchanged a look. It was clear that they weren’t going to find anything in the Agency, either because there was nothing to be found or because they were dealing with professionals.

Haibara wasn’t sure which she preferred.

They moved carefully to the floor above, where the Mouris actually lived and didn’t take their clients. There wasn’t anything on the stairs on the way up — Haibara kept a close eye out for any footprints or scuff marks, but everything looked the way she remembered it looking the last time she’d been there.

Subaru motioned her to halt once they reached the door, and Haibara did, only able to resist rolling her eyes internally because she was too busy worrying about what she imagined they might find inside. 

He paused, pressing his ear to the door and listening for a long moment. Haibara did the same, closing her eyes and focusing on trying to hear something — anything — inside the apartment.

Nothing.

No faint rustle of cloth, no snores, no clatter of utensils as someone finished up their breakfast.

(No screaming, no gunshots, no demand that Conan stop doing whatever he was doing.)

Subaru set his hand on the doorknob and twisted it slowly, almost silently. He glanced at Haibara, and she nodded, bracing herself, before he shoved the door open with his shoulder and burst into the room.

Nothing.

The main area was completely devoid of anyone — no Conan, no one holding him at knifepoint, no bomb squad, no one — and Haibara’s heart sank. 

She hadn’t realized how much she’d been counting on Conan having fallen asleep on the couch or something, blinking blearily as they burst in and asking what all the fuss was about.

Unless…

She stalked over to Conan’s room, the one he shared with Mouri Kogorou, and slammed the door open, hoping against hope that he’d be curled up on his futon and only figuratively dead to the world.

Mouri’s bed was empty — she hadn’t expected anything else — and the floor was covered in magazines and empty beer cans — also expected — but Conan’s futon was empty, too, and the blankets were crumpled up on top of it like he hadn’t bothered to make his bed that morning.

…Or he’d been yanked out of it and the blankets were a sign of a struggle.

She didn’t know. Haibara certainly wasn’t a slouch, but figuring out what had happened to a potential missing person (who hadn’t been recently poisoned by a drug she’d invented) wasn’t exactly her wheelhouse. She was a biochemist, not a detective.

…She wasn’t a detective.

Haibara stepped back into the living area. Though she loathed to admit it, Okiya Subaru was better versed in this sort of thing — according to Conan, at least.

Unfortunately, that meant that she needed his help. It wasn’t like she had another option.

Subaru hadn’t followed her into Conan’s room; instead, he seemed to be examining the coffee table, bent over it so that he could look at it closely without touching it. Haibara couldn’t read his expression, and she didn’t know whether that was good or bad.

She sighed. Best get this over with quickly.

“KUDOU!” Hattori bellowed, slamming open the door to the apartment, “WHY TH’ HELL AREN’TCHA ANSWERIN’ YER PHONE!?”

Ah. Another option.

“Hattori-san,” Haibara greeted him coolly. “We were wondering the same thing.”

Hattori stopped in his tracks abruptly, then slowly turned his head to face her like he was hoping Conan had decided to practice his impersonations.

“Ah,” he said, voice cracking slightly. “It’s the little nee-chan.”

Haibara stared at him expressionlessly.

“Haibara-san,” he corrected himself hastily, then his eyes caught on Subaru. “And - uh. Who?”

“Okiya Subaru,” Subaru introduced himself pleasantly. “I’m currently living next door to the professor. He asked us to pick up Conan-kun; unfortunately, we can’t seem to find him.”

Hattori blanched. “That’s…not good.”

“Not good,” Haibara repeated flatly. Her eyes bored into him, urging him to realize the inanity of his statement.

Hattori rubbed the back of his neck self-consciously, using his other hand to turn his baseball cap so that the brim faced towards the front. “I came up to Tokyo ‘cuz Ku-onan wasn’t answerin’ his messages. I called him, like, five times yesterday, and he didn’t pick up once.”

“Do you remember what time that was?” Haibara demanded, because that was probably going to be their best lead at this point.

Hattori nodded, turning to face her again. “First was a li’l after 7:30, last was ‘bout a quarter ta midnight. I tried both his phones, too.”

“Both?” asked Subaru mildly. 

Hattori gulped audibly. “Y-yeah!” he said, waving his arms around wildly. “He - uh, he plays - um - games on the…other one?”

Haibara seriously hoped he was never planning on going into acting. Or playing poker.

Luckily, Subaru just said, “Ah, I see,” then resumed examining the table.

Haibara took a step closer, wondering what was so interesting about an ordinary — if somewhat stained — coffee table, and Hattori almost ran into her as he did the same.

“Whatcha lookin’ at?” he asked, peering down at the surface. Then he blinked rapidly, craning his neck to take a closer look. “Is that…”

“Indeed,” said Subaru, getting to his feet.

Haibara had no idea what they were talking about, so she glared down at the table, scouring it for any changes or inconsistencies. It was wooden, varnished to a light yellow-brown, and Mouri Kogorou’s carelessness over the years had ensured that it was covered in faded ring-shaped stains from various half-empty cans of beer. If she touched it, she was sure that it would be slightly sticky in the same way that booths in many chain restaurants were. Even Mouri Ran couldn’t work miracles.

She blinked hard, shaking her head slightly. She let her vision go blurry for a moment, the way she did if she’d been looking at an equation for so long that it’d started to look like gibberish, then forced her eyes to focus again. They landed on two condensation rings on the table, one on each side like they were made by people sitting across from each other. They were slightly larger than Mouri’s beer cans and more recent, too.

Which meant that someone had been here after the Mouris had left for their vacation. Someone that Conan knew, or at least someone who seemed harmless enough that he would offer them a drink.

Sadly, she didn’t know if that eliminated members of the Black Organization or not. Conan’s sense of self-preservation had never been very strong, and seemed to actively diminish whenever there was a chance to get information on the group that Haibara had once belonged to.

Haibara glanced around for anything else out of place. Hattori and Subaru had gravitated to opposite sides of the room, inspecting the door frame and the window respectively, so she headed for the kitchen.

It was small — just some counter space, a sink, a fridge, and a stove, all as sparkling clean as Mouri had left them before her trip.

Haibara opened all the cupboards first, just in case Conan had managed to wiggle himself in there and get stuck. It wouldn’t have been the first time.

Alas, he had not.

Then she checked the fridge, and was relieved to find that there were no cut-up dead bodies stuck in there, including Conan’s.

(Yes, that had been a concern.)

In fact, there was nothing out of place but a couple of mugs in the sink that Conan hadn’t quite got to washing yet. He had a tendency to procrastinate just about anything involving cleaning until the very last moment, so that wasn’t necessarily unusual. 

He was generally good about cleaning up before he left the house, though. Especially when the Mouris might return while he was out — either because they ended up cutting their trip short, or because he’d run into a murder or two and was later getting back than he’d planned.

Haibara took a ziploc bag from one of the drawers anyway and used her handkerchief to pick up the cups before dropping them inside. She could test them for — something. Poison, sleeping pills, anything that might help her figure out what, exactly, had happened to Conan.

“Door wasn’t forced open,” Hattori announced. “He let ‘em in, whoever it was. Or they had a key.”

“As with the windows,” Subaru added, moving back towards the center of the room. “No sign of forced entry, and no bullet holes or unusual scratches, either.”

Hattori shot him a surprised look, but kept his mouth shut when Haibara didn’t seem surprised by the observation.

Haibara brandished her ziploc bag. “There were dirty cups in the sink.”

Hattori took a step closer to examine them. Haibara allowed this, mostly because he didn’t reach out to take the bag from her. “There’s a smudge of lipstick on one,” he observed. “Barely there, like someone tried ta wipe it off, but it’s there.”

“Neither of the Mouris wear lipstick,” said Subaru mildly, and Haibara had to work to push the image of Mouri Kogorou wearing lipstick out of her head.

“If we take them back to the professor’s house,” she said, “we might be able to find out if they were laced with something.”

Hattori fingered the brim of his baseball cap. “Well, ta the professor’s house we go, then.”

The drive back to the professor’s house was silent and tense. 

Somehow, it only took two minutes, even though Haibara was half sure that wasn’t physically possible.

“I’m going next door to…make curry,” Subaru said, not at all suspiciously, before leaving Haibara and Hattori to their own devices.

Luckily, the professor and the Detective Boys had already left to go camping, so Haibara was able to usher Hattori into the house without subjecting herself to excited screaming children. Normally, she wouldn’t have minded, mostly because it was more annoying for Conan than it was for her.

However, Conan wasn’t there, which was the whole reason Hattori was. 

Haibara locked the door behind them and armed the security system, then gestured towards the kitchen absentmindedly. “The cups are in the cupboard next to the fridge, and the silverware is in the drawer underneath. Help yourself to anything you like.”

She didn’t look back to see if Hattori was doing as he was told, instead making her way as quickly as possible down to her computers in the laboratory.

Haibara wasn’t really a tech person, not really. She knew enough to do data entry and she could wrangle Linux into submission, but other than that her coding skills were fairly limited.

Conan, however, seemed to sprout a new skill whenever she turned her back, so of course he was a capable hacker.

Which meant that while she herself could not hack into the police’s facial recognition software or the traffic cameras surrounding the Mouri Detective Agency, she did have a program that could do it for her.

(It had appeared one day after a too-close call, after a few nights Haibara had spent tossing and turning, unable to fall asleep for fear that Conan would be kidnapped or shot again and then the only person who’d speak to her like the adult she was would be the professor, and even he slipped sometimes.

She’d eventually fallen asleep in class and almost stabbed Kobayashi-sensei with a pair of safety scissors when she’d tried to wake her up. Conan had invited himself over to the professor’s that afternoon and Haibara had been able to catch a quick nap while she knew where he was. When she’d woken up, there had been a new application on her desktop — one that hacked into all the traffic cameras in Tokyo and could run facial recognition scans at the touch of a button. She could even doctor footage if necessary, though her options were somewhat limited.

Haibara had never mentioned it, but the next time he’d wanted one of the temporary cure pills she’d given it to him with only minimal argument.)

Hattori came down the stairs, carrying two cups of water. He took a sip from one and then set the other down on the table next to her. It was a nice thought, but Haibara as a rule did not accept any drinks that weren’t sealed or that she hadn’t poured herself.

She nodded absently towards him, then vacated the chair in front of the computer so he could sit down. He gave her a quizzical glance, but sat down anyway, turning to look at the computer.

“Search the traffic cams around the Agency,” she commanded. Conan’s program was pretty intuitive, so Hattori shouldn’t have any problems figuring it out.

Hattori’s expression hardened with resolve. “Anything I’m lookin’ for in particular?”

Haibara shrugged unhelpfully. “Anything to do with Conan’s disappearance. Anything…unusual. Anyone wearing black.”

Hattori nodded resolutely, gaze fixing itself on the computer screen. “Yer gonna analyze the cups, right? Lemme know if ya find anythin’.” 

Haibara resisted the urge to roll her eyes because obviously. That was the whole point of allowing Hattori into the lab in the first place.

She left him to his search, striding across the room to her personal lab table. It was on the opposite side of the basement from the professor’s, to minimize the chance of semi-volatile chemicals accidentally getting caught up in an explosion.

She delicately opened the plastic bag containing the cups from the Mouris’ sink and swabbed the interior of each one.

It didn’t take long to confirm that one of them — probably Conan’s — had recently contained sleeping pills.

Shit.

“Got somethin’,” Hattori announced from across the room just as she opened her mouth to relay her results. “A woman in a dark coat an’ wide-brimmed hat entered the Agency at ‘round quarter ta three yesterday, then comes out twenny minutes later. Her hat mostly blocks the camera but I saw one of Ku- uh, Conan’s sneakers before she got inta the car an’ drove off. I’ve got ‘em goin’ as far ‘s the airport - after that, no cameras.” He paused for a beat. “He wasn’t fightin’ her, though. Think he knew her?”

“He was drugged,” Haibara explained crisply. “Sleeping pills.”

Hattori winced. 

Suddenly, the doorbell rang, and they both jumped.

“Excuse me,” Haibara said before hurrying up the stairs. It…probably wasn’t Conan, but if it were…

The door opened to reveal Okiya Subaru carrying a steaming pot and wearing a cordial smile on his face. 

“Haibara-san,” he greeted her. “I’ve made some curry, if you’re hungry.”

It was probably instant curry. There was no way he’d had the chance to make anything fancy, unless he could somehow time travel.

“Thank you,” she said politely, though she was absolutely sure she wouldn’t be able to stomach a bite just then. “You can put it down on the stove, if you like.”

Subaru inclined his head in thanks, stepping over the threshold. As soon as Haibara had closed the door behind him, he asked, “Any news on Conan-kun?”

“He was drugged and taken to an airport,” Haibara said shortly.

There was a short beat.

“That’s not ideal,” he said mildly, and Haibara bit back a snort.

Yeah, no shit, Sherlock.

She allowed Subaru to set his curry down before ushering him down into the lab. Ordinarily, she would’ve been apprehensive — frightened, even — of letting a relative unknown into her private space, especially not the lab where she was attempting to reverse-engineer an exceedingly rare pill used by an international criminal organization, even if Conan trusted him.

Today, however, she was out of fucks to give.

If Subaru managed to help her find Conan even a second sooner, he’d be welcome in her lab for the rest of his life.

Hattori didn’t look up when they entered the basement, absorbed in the computer screen. “He took a plane outta Tokyo, but I can’t tell ya which,” he informed them. “They didn’t exit through the subway or take another taxi, though.”

“Which terminal?” Subaru asked, and Hattori jumped, whirling around in his seat to face him while simultaneously trying to cover anything incriminating on the screen with his arms (and failing miserably). He glanced at Haibara, wide-eyed, and she shrugged. 

Hattori seemed to take that as her vouching for Subaru and immediately relaxed his guard. “It’s hard ta tell,” he admitted readily. “Don’t have access to the cameras inside the airport. But I’m pretty sure it’s terminal three. Y’know, the international one.”

Subaru’s brow creased slightly. “I see.”

Hattori grimaced. “Yeah. I googled the flights leavin’ Haneda ‘round four but there were five that left in the next half hour alone, and we dunno how long they waited. Long story short, he’s outta the country.”

Shit.

Haibara took a few deep breaths, because she categorically refused to break down in front of these two.

In for four. Hold for four. Out for four.

The number four, unlucky for everything except warding off panic attacks, Haibara thought, not at all hysterically.

What was she supposed to do now?

Haibara glanced around her laboratory, staring at her equipment a bit helplessly. She was at a loss.

There wasn’t really anything she could do.

It wasn’t like she had contacts in law enforcement agencies all over the world who owed her favors. She couldn’t track him overseas.

(Subaru might, though. She watched him out of the corner of her eye as he slipped a battered-looking only flip phone from his pocket and began texting someone, a serious look on his face.)

All she could do now was wait for Conan to contact her.

Haibara grimly set her burner phones on the table next to her computers, in a line from smallest to largest. 

After a moment, she rearranged them based on the first digit of their phone numbers. 

Then again, this time by color.

She admitted that this wasn’t helping anything — was, in fact, making Hattori even more antsy, which she hadn’t thought possible — and sat back in her chair, wedging her hands under her thighs and staring at the phones unblinkingly.

Fifteen minutes passed before she reached out to rearrange them again, this time from thickest to thinnest.

She sighed. This was going to be a long day.

—

It was precisely 2:37 AM before one of her burner phones finally lit up — the third from the left, not that it meant much considering how many times she’d rearranged them.

Haibara leapt to her feet, legs half-asleep and almost sending her toppling to the floor, but she managed to steady herself and scramble across the room to check her messages.

If this ended up being another spam message, she was going to start committing murder again, except this time it would be purposeful and not the byproduct of one of her experiments.

Luckily for the population of Beika, when she opened the new message she instantly recognized the code that she and Conan had constructed for exactly this type of situation.

The message read:

7 1 41 -- 

476. 40 1. 30 13. 29 13 376 35 38 26. 30 13 22 18. 22 24 13. 3 1.

32 1 14. 33 40 45 10 1.

4-6. 12. 35 307 13. 177. 156. 386 40. 20 36 176 7.

14-29 13. 30 406. 386 30 456.

-- 22 20 13 11 28

It took her a moment to translate it into something readable. In the first level of their code, each number corresponded to a katakana character arranged in iroha order rather than a-i-u-e-o. If there was a third digit, that meant that there was either a diacritical mark or a contraction. A six marked a daku-ten, making the syllable vocalized, so ka (11) would become ga (116). A seven marked a handaku-ten, a half-voiced syllable, so he (41) would become pe (417). A five marked a contraction, so ka (11) would become kya (115). A hyphen marked either that there was no number between the first and the third digit (for example, 4 was tsu but they couldn’t use 46 for du because 46 was already ma, so du had to be 4-6), or that the two numbers were connected. Each word was separated by periods.

She ended up with:

a i he --

ji sui en ongureteru enkonu komo n wai

seifu mosutorii

du ne repon pa za desu namubaa

fon ezu deedo

-- ko na n ka ra

The second level of the code meant that she had to struggle through Conan’s…creative katakana conversions of both English and French words — the text opened and ended in Japanese, so that part was easy, but it was everything in between that was tricky. At least she knew which parts were meant to be in English versus French — they switched based on the Lucas sequence, so the first two words were in French, then the next one in English, the three after that in French, and so on.

The result:

Ai he --

je suis in angleterre, inconnu comment why

safe mostly

do ne répond pas à this number 

phone is dead

-- Conan kara

Which when translated fully into Japanese, read:

To Ai --

I am in England, don’t know how or why

safe, mostly

don’t respond to this number

phone is dead

-- From Conan

Haibara sighed, then passed the piece of scrap paper she’d used to translate the text into something actually understandable over to Hattori.

Well, at least they knew he was alive.

But what the fuck was he doing in England?

Chapter Text

Okiya [1:30 PM]

hey j does oracle still owe you that favor

Jason [1:31 PM]

Maybe

Maybe not

Why?

Okiya [1:32 PM]

remember that kid i told you about?

Jason [1:33 PM]

You talking about the kid who got his ask shrunk 

The kid who didn't get disinterested by some Freak of nature

Okiya [1:34 PM]

…what's wrong with you

are you possessed again

Jason [1:36 PM]

What

No

Okiya [1:37 PM]

then why aren't you texting with proper 

punctuation like normal you nerd

look at all those typos

Jason [1:38 PM]

Hold on a sec

Okiya [1:38 PM]

hate to tell you but its been more than a second 

Okiya [1:40 PM]

you seriously expect me to believe youre 

NOT possessed and then you go and pull

this shit

Jason [1:45 PM]

Okay, first of all, fuck you.

Okiya [1:46 PM]

oh hey you sound like you again 

Jason [1:47 PM]

Second, you're texting me at half past 

midnight. It's prime crime-fighting hours. 

I was in the middle of a firefight. You're 

lucky I answered at all.

Okiya [1:47 PM]

text to speech?

wait it took you a whole fifteen minutes to end a firefight 

Jason [1:47 PM]

Yeah, no shit, Sherlock.

Also, shut up, I just took out an entire branch of the Maronis.

Okiya [1:48 PM]

sure you did 

Jason [1:48 PM]

Anyway, what's up with the kid?

We ARE talking about the shrinking kid, right?

Okiya [1:50 PM]

yeah the shrinking kid

hes missing

Jason [1:51 PM]

Well, shit.

Okiya [1:51 PM]

yeah

Jason [1:52 PM]

Okay, give me the low down.

Okiya [1:55 PM]

seven year old, brown-black hair, blue 

eyes, mixed, oversize glasses

last seen in person 2pm jst yesterday

abducted by unknown woman, black hat, 

tracked via traffic cam to international 

terminal of haneda, flight unknown

Jason [1:56 PM]

You said he's seven physically but 

seventeen psychologically, right?

Okiya [1:57 PM]

yeah but that doesn't stop him from doing 

stupid shit

Jason [2:00 PM]

Oh, yeah, no, I know that. 

One of my brothers has been seventeen 

for, like, ten years or something? And he

still does the stupidest shit imaginable.

So, yeah, I get it.

Okiya [2:01 PM]

what

Jason [2:03 PM]

Yeah, it's a whole thing. Your kid knows 

not to go off with strangers, right?

Okiya [2:04 PM]

yes he is in fact aware of that

Jason [2:05 PM]

Yeah, but does he KNOW, know? One of 

my brothers is one of the most wary 

people in the world and he still got into a 

spaceship driven by some kid dressed as 

the guy who murdered me the first time.

Okiya [2:09 PM]

...yeah I'm just gonna ignore that

Jason [2:11 PM]

I try to, too. Well, after I beat a sense of

caution back into him. His mother 

would've killed me again if he turned up 

dead.

Okiya [2:12 PM]

your family is so messed up

Jason [2:13 PM]

Part of the reason you broke up with me, 

yeah? Which was fair enough, honestly.

Anyway, what do you need me to do?

Okiya [2:15 PM]

i have access to facial recognition in Japan

but the flight was international

could be to the us but i dont know for sure 

and i can't access us databases when I'm 

supposed to be dead

Jason [2:16 PM]

Yeah, being legally dead kind of sucks 

sometimes.

Okiya [2:17 PM]

got that right 

Jason [2:18 PM]

O's on it. I'll let you know what she finds.

Okiya [2:20 PM]

thanks

Jason [2:22 PM]

She says you can just ask her directly next

time, by the way.

Okiya [2:25 PM]

we didn't exactly end on the best of terms

and also shes terrifying 

Oracle [2:26 PM]

Aw. You always say the sweetest things.

Okiya [2:27 PM]

see? terrifying 

---

Okiya [1:31 PM]

yasha

Yassen [1:31 PM]

do not call me that.

winning one competition ten years ago does

not mean I will allow you to use diminutives.

Okiya [1:33 PM]

Those were the terms of the wager.

Are you not honoring my victory?

Yassen [1:36 PM]

I have glasses now.

I require a rematch.

once you are no longer dead, of course.

Okiya [1:38 PM]

same goes for you yasha

Yassen [1:40 PM]

very well.

I know you did not contact me just for a rematch.

Okiya [1:42 PM]

correct

theres a missing kid

seven year old, brown-black hair, blue 

eyes, mixed, oversize glasses

last seen in person 2pm jst yesterday

abducted by unknown woman, black hat, 

tracked via traffic cam to international 

terminal of haneda, flight unknown

Yassen [1:45 PM]

this had better not be another alex situation.

Okiya [1:46 PM]

no I know better than to call you for something like that

keep an eye out for him would you

Yassen [1:48 PM]

fine.

do not contact me again unless it is because

you are no longer dead and wish to arrange a

rematch.

Okiya [1:52 PM]

thanks yasha

Yassen [1:53 PM]

you are welcome, shuu.

Okiya [1:55 PM]

i hate that

Yassen [1:57 PM]

exactly.

---

Okiya [1:31 PM]

hey s

Mrs. S [1:31 PM]

The customer you are trying to text is 

permanently out of service.

Okiya [1:33 PM]

figures

---

Okiya [1:30 PM]

oneill

Jack [1:35 PM]

Finally taking me up on that job offer?

Wait aren't you dead?

Okiya [1:37 PM]

no and no

missing kid

Jack [1:40 PM]

Since when do you care about missing kids?

Okiya [1:43 PM]

also an asset

Jack [1:45 PM]

Say what you will about my unit but at 

least we don't use kids.

Okiya [1:47 PM]

extenuating circumstances and also its 

classified

Jack [1:50 PM]

It's against the Geneva Convention to use 

children as spies. You know that right?

Okiya [1:52 PM]

he's not a spy

Jack [1:53 PM]

And yet you're looking for him and think 

he somehow stumbled through a Stargate?

Okiya [1:55 PM]

i know it's unlikely but I wouldn't put it past him honestly

Jack [1:57 PM]

I'll keep an eye out, but no promises. 

I still think you shouldn't be using toddlers

to do your dirty work.

Okiya [2:00 PM]

your objection is noted

also I would pay to see you say that to his face 

Jack [2:02 PM]

Oh, so he's a mini you.

Okiya [2:03 PM]

yeah yeah laugh it up

---

Okiya [1:31 PM]

nice job on the thing in dc

Eliot [1:35 PM]

no comment

sides I thought I told ya I ain't talking to ya

Okiya [1:36 PM]

don't worry this is personal not another 

recruitment pitch

Eliot [1:37 PM]

fine

ten minutes

Okiya [1:37 PM]

although i maintain that you would be 

excellent in the agency

Eliot [1:38 PM]

I'm done working for the government 

now ya only have two minutes

Okiya [1:39 PM]

okay thats fair

ive got a missing kid, possibly kidnapped, 

definitely taken out of the country

might need to call in that favor you owe 

me from hong kong

Eliot [1:40 PM]

I don't owe ya anything jackass

what's the kid look like?

Okiya [1:43 PM]

seven year old, brown-black hair, blue 

eyes, mixed, oversize glasses

last seen in person 2pm jst yesterday

abducted by unknown woman, black hat, 

tracked via traffic cam to international 

terminal of haneda, flight unknown

Eliot [1:45 PM]

okay I KNOW ya could do this yourself

why use a favor (that I definitely do not 

owe you) on this?

Okiya [1:46 PM]

currently im supposed to be dead

can't leave the country without raising a 

hundred red flags

and the kid is a trouble magnet el 

like runs across at least one murder a day 

kind of trouble

also it's complicated but he's in a form of

witness protection 

Eliot [1:50 PM]

so ya need a retrieval specialist who can 

keep their trap shut

that don't answer my question though

Okiya [1:52 PM]

no i need the best and thats you

ive reached out to some of my other 

contacts but theyre like me

Eliot [1:55 PM]

like you how exactly

Okiya [1:56 PM]

stuck

Eliot [1:58 PM]

ah

Okiya [2:00 PM]

yeah

Eliot [2:10 PM]

fine

I'll pick him up but I'm in the middle of 

something so you're on your own for

finding him

Okiya [2:15 PM]

thanks el 

and thank your partners for me bc i know 

you wouldnt have agreed if they hadnt 

talked you into it

Eliot [2:17 PM]

shut up man yknow how I am about kids

mess with vance next time you're stateside

and I'll call us even

Okiya [2:19 PM]

done

---

Okiya [1:53 PM]

hey reborn

Reborn [1:53 PM]

Cazzo vuoi

Okiya [1:55 PM]

where are you right now?

Reborn [1:55 PM]

Non ho capito un cazzo, parla italiano o vai a fare in culo

Okiya [1:58 PM]

Io cercare bambino, no trovare

aiuto?

Reborn [1:58 PM]

No, non sono cazzi miei, fanculo e fammi dormire 

Okiya [2:01 PM]

yeah this was a long shot anyway

---

Okiya [1:31 PM]

a

Alex [6:12 AM]

this bttr be urgent m8

Okiya [6:15 AM]

and yet it took you 17 hours to respond 

Alex [6:16 AM]

yeah u try hidin a burner frm sherlock 

bldy holmes 

Okiya [6:16 AM]

ugh i forgot how you text

this is why i broke up with you 

Alex [6:20 AM]

look wht do u want im kinda in th midl ova 

situation 

Okiya [6:22 AM]

wouldn't by any chance happen to have 

anything to do with a precocious seven 

year old would it

Alex [6:23 AM]

how th bldy hell did u kno tht

Okiya [6:25 AM]

wait seriously

Alex [6:26 AM]

why wld i joke abt tht

Okiya [6:27 AM]

i dunno you have a weird sense of humor

Alex [6:27 AM] 

15yrs of involntry gov wrk ll do tht 2 u

Okiya [6:28 AM] 

no im pretty sure you were always like this

anyway describe the kid i want to know if 

it's the same one

Alex [6:30 AM]

drk hair huge glasses bowtie psychic

sez hes 7 bt lks 5

Okiya [6:31 AM]

…psychic?

Alex [6:32 AM]

ye

Okiya [6:33 AM]

yeah okay that explains some things

you've got him?

Alex [6:35 AM]

ye s wont let hm gt awy 

Okiya [6:36 AM]

…try to keep him in one piece for me will you

Alex [6:40 AM]

no prmises

kids a crime mgnt

Okiya [6:41 AM]

yeah that's fair

Chapter Text

Conan knocked on the door of the Shumaker's house, staunchly ignoring the way that Hakuba-slash-KID’s gaze was boring into him like Conan was a top-of-the-line safe door and there was a 1412-karat jewel KID was trying to steal on the other side. Conan wasn't sure how well that metaphor held up, considering that KID always returned his spoils, but he'd committed to it just like he had committed to this stupid psychic kid schtick, and it was too late to take it back now.

…Conan had some regrets. 

One of which was choosing Kuroba Toichi as his mystical ghostly spirit guide, if only because of the way KID was now looking at him. 

Like he'd seen a ghost, ironically. 

Conan didn't know how to fix it, to go back to the way they had been before.  He'd liked their dynamic - KID running, him following, a satisfyingly complicated riddle followed by a relatively low-stakes chase scene where Conan could stretch his brain and (generally) not worry about someone getting murdered, all undercut by the tenuous undercurrent of mutual trust based on nothing more than their vague senses of each other and an unwritten, unspoken, ill-defined truce.

And all of it had vanished instantly in the face of one bad decision. 

…In Conan's defense, he’d had no way of knowing KID would follow him all the way to England.

That didn't mean that it wasn't his responsibility to fix it, though. 

...Unfortunately, that would need to be put on the backburner for the time being, Conan acknowledged, because there was a shadow blocking the light shining through the gap between the Shumakers' door and the floorboard beneath it, which meant that he needed to get his head in the game and finally solve this goddamn mystery.

(He was starting to think that maybe the trade off for going to a murder scene instead of waiting for one to come to him was not worth it, because this was getting kind of ridiculous. It'd been a day and a half and he hadn't even had the chance to meet all the suspects yet. Usually he'd have a mystery like this solved in less than half a day, if not within the hour, and he'd be back home in time for dinner.)

The door creaked open eerily, which was distinctly at odds with the rest of the bright and modern exterior of the house. It had to have been made to creak intentionally, because the rest of the house had been remodeled and polished meticulously, to the point that it kind of hurt to look at it directly. There was no way that someone who paid that much attention to detail would forget to oil the door hinges.

It took nearly twenty seconds for the door to open enough to reveal the person behind it. Not a long time, in the grand scheme of things, but enough that it was starting to get a bit awkward, since it was obvious that they were doing it on purpose and apparently had overestimated how long it would take to make the act of opening a door sufficiently creepy.

They were trying their best, Conan supposed, but the suspense that had permeated the area at the sound of the incongruous creaking of the door had kind of fizzled.

Then the door actually opened enough for Conan to see the person behind it, and suddenly he had a whole new set of problems.

Conan was a bit surprised to discover that he didn't actually need to crane his neck to see the person who had opened the door. 

That wasn't the problem. In fact, it was kind of nice to give his neck a break.

No, the problem was that he was face-to-face with a kid or possibly a very short adult wearing a World War II era gas mask. 

"Are you my mummy?" the kid asked - and the timbre of his voice revealed that he was definitely a kid - staring straight at him with blank, soulless eyes.

Conan stared back at him for a long moment — probably too long, if he was being honest with himself.

But, hey, he wasn't dead yet.

(Emphasis on the yet. )

He was maybe hallucinating, though. It was entirely possible, even likely, given his body’s general condition and the significant lack of REM sleep he’d had in the last couple days.

So that wasn't great.

Belatedly, he processed Lestrade and, interestingly, Sherlock jumping slightly, although John’s only reaction was to frown, slightly puzzled. His hand didn't even twitch towards the gun he totally wasn't carrying.

So somehow he clocked Conan as a threat, but not the creepy kid in the gas mask?

(Unless the kid wasn't there, which, if true, would not bode well for the whole not hallucinating thing.)

Conan glanced surreptitiously to his other side, where KID/Hakuba was just staring blankly.

Possibly he hadn’t understood what the kid had said.

Possibly he hadn’t seen Doctor Who.

Possibly the kid was something Conan's imagination had cooked up and wasn't there at all.

Possibly KID was just fucking with everyone.

Who knew, with him.

On the bright side, KID was looking in the general direction of the child, and his face had smoothed over into something that was now completely blank, rather than the polite veiled expression that only mostly hid the shock-grief-confusion-fear that had flitted across his face the moment Conan had said Kuroba Toichi’s name.

So Conan probably wasn't hallucinating the kid in the gas mask.

Just to be sure, though, he mentally prepared himself to be turned into a gas mask-wearing zombie held together by alien nanobots, and reached out to poke the kid’s shoulder.

Lestrade made an aborted movement behind him, reaching out like he was going to try to herd Conan behind him, but then Conan actually touched the kid and Lestrade retreated just as quickly.

KID didn't do anything so gauche as actually trying to stop Conan from making poor life choices, but Conan did clock his shoulder twitching minutely like he wanted to.

Ha. KID cared about him. 

How embarrassing. 

Luckily for everyone involved, Conan did not get turned into a gas mask-wearing zombie held together by alien nanobots.

He did, however, almost get kicked in the shin.

(Luckily, the kid had shit aim and missed, because Conan didn't think he could make his limbs move quickly enough to dodge right now.)

The kid folded his arms and his shoulders slumped exaggerated, seemingly put out by Conan ruining the scene. In fact, Conan could almost see the pout the kid was undoubtedly directing his way, despite the very opaque gas mask blocking his view.

"Dayy? Hoozzat neyah?" came a voice from somewhere in the depths of the house, and Conan was so blindsided by the accent that he had to take a moment to blink rapidly, trying to parse what had just been said. It sounded - it certainly sounded like English, probably, but he couldn't place the accent, which meant that the words just sounded like noise. Which wasn’t exactly helpful.

Conan glanced towards KID, wondering if he'd caught any of that, only to find KID glancing right back at him questioningly.

Ha. 

Haha.

Great .

The sound of heavy footsteps in the hallway and a faint jingling sound prefaced the sudden appearance of the palest man Conan had ever seen. Like, he had seen milk with more pigmentation. His hair was pale, too - Conan would call it blond, but he wasn't sure there was enough color in it to count. Platinum blond, maybe? Haibara would probably know what to call it, but he didn't exactly have a way to surreptitiously contact her at the moment.

The man was also wearing sunglasses, even though he'd been indoors. Conan thought that was strange right up until the man turned to squint exasperatedly down at the kid in the gas mask, allowing Conan to catch a glimpse of his irises. They were a bright reddish hue, which, combined with the shades and the lack of pigmentation in the man's skin and hair, made Conan about 95% sure he was albino.

The man sighed deeply and set one hand firmly on the kid's shoulder and said, "Ah am sow sorrey foh his beehayvyuh."

Conan had absolutely no clue what that meant. 

He was…pretty sure the man was speaking English? But it was so heavily accented that his brain skipped right over the words, unable to process the sounds as anything recognizable.

"Uhpawluhjaahz, Dayy," the man said firmly, no yield in his tone. "Aend take theyatt meyask awff raaht neyah."

The kid was halfway through unbuckling his gas mask before he seemed to realize he was doing it, fingers jerking slightly as he paused in the middle of undoing the straps. Ultimately he followed through on the motion, lowering the gas mask to reveal a pouting face with dark curly hair and warm brown eyes.

"Sorry, I guess," the kid said sullenly. 

Conan could understand that much, at least, although the kid's accent had slipped out of Freaky-WWII-Era-Lost-British-Child and into something with more of a…twang, maybe? It was difficult to describe.

Maybe if he listened long enough to the kid's fainter version he would be able to actually identify the accent, and maybe he could even figure out what the man - the kid's dad, probably? - was saying.

(Given Conan's luck, it was going to be some obscure Japanese dialect he'd never heard out loud before and he would be so embarrassed not to have recognized it.)

(That wasn't going to stop him from searching for the answer, though.)

The only words Conan had recognized the second time he'd spoken were 'am,' 'so,' and 'his' and maybe the first word had been 'I'? ‘I am so (something something) his (something)’?

…It wasn't a lot to go on.

Time to consult the calvary.

Conan glanced in KID's direction. He was generally pretty good at copying people's accents, so maybe he was having better luck at figuring out what the man was saying?

But, unfortunately, if he was having better luck, it wasn't written on his face. In fact, his brow was furrowed the same way that Hakuba's did when he had a particularly intriguing puzzle to solve.

So no help coming from that corner, probably. Or at least nothing immediate, in any case.

It was only afterwards that Conan had the bright idea of looking towards the actual native English speakers for answers. 

The ones who were standing literally right behind him. 

It must have been a cold day in hell because Conan was starting to think that maybe not even a bucket full of coffee was going to be able to salvage the day.

He needed to just go pass out for, like, twelve hours minimum. Not, like, actually pass out for reasons beyond his control, though, because he'd already established that even that wouldn't rejuvenate him. No, apparently he needed actual sleep.

Except, of course, it was highly unlikely he'd be able to get any, not when he was in what was essentially enemy territory.

(Enemy territory was, perhaps, a bit of a stretch, but Conan challenged anyone to even attempt sleeping with Sherlock Holmes watching your every bloody move.)

…Speaking of Sherlock, he didn't seem to be having any problems understanding the man.

(Conan told himself he was not jealous, but he was probably lying to himself.)

Ugh.

Solve the mystery, Conan, Conan chided himself. Who cares about Sherlock Boothroyd Holmes and his weird ability to be good at everything you aren't without even trying that hard?

The answer to that question was, unfortunately, Conan.

(Yes, he knew Sherlock's middle name probably wasn't Boothroyd. He was just bored of saying Sherlock bloody Holmes every time Sherlock did something annoying, which was always. It was time to shake things up a bit. Add a bit of variety.)

(Conan could worship the ground that the Sherlock Holmes from the books by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle walked on and still find the real life version incredibly irritating. He was allowed to have nuanced opinions about things. Especially when 'things' were so bloody concerned about deducing the living daylights out of him.)

As if to prove Conan's point about being very possibly the most irritating human being alive (and Conan knew Kaitou KID ), Sherlock opened his mouth and said something in the same drawled accent as the man in front of them. It sounded something like, "Eht's nouu puhrahblem. Mistuh Shuumahkkah, ah prayzuum?"

Conan very narrowly resisted the urge to groan out loud. 

Great. Now there were two of them.

He glanced at the other two supposed adults, vainly hoping that one of them would be kind enough to put a stop to this annoyance. 

Really, he shouldn't have even bothered. John's only reaction was a split second of surprise flitting across his face, followed almost immediately by a wry acceptance.

Of course. Conan really shouldn't have expected anything more from someone so indulgent towards Sherlock Holmes.

Lestrade just looked nonplussed, which, Conan thought a bit uncharitably, made him look like there was barely a thought in his head. He didn't say anything, though - possibly because he trusted Sherlock to have a good reason for affecting an accent, or possibly because his surprise had stolen the words from his mouth. Conan didn't know him well enough to be sure.

Right. So no one was going to say anything about this, apparently. Fantastic.

Conan screwed his eyes shut and sped through a round of calming breathing exercises. Getting mad at Sherlock for being annoying wasn't going to help solve this case, especially if Sherlock was probably doing it specifically to solve the case and had no idea that what he was doing was annoying.

When he no longer felt like he was going to attempt to glare Sherlock Basilwether Holmes to death, Conan allowed himself to open his eyes again.

He was just in time to see the man say, eyebrows raised, "Ahh eym. Eynd who maaht you bayee?"

‘I am,’ maybe? Although that didn’t really help much when he had no idea what Sherlock had said, or what the man in the doorway had said afterwards. Knowing some of the words wasn’t very helpful when Conan didn’t have the context.

Luckily, before Sherlock could answer, John cut in with something (thankfully) understandable: "We're with the police, Mr. Shumaker. D'you mind if we come in?" 

He nodded in the direction of the door.

The man - now confirmed to be Harry Shumaker, thanks to John and an accent that Conan could actually understand - flushed slightly, the color vivid on his pale cheeks. He moved back from the entryway, gesturing them in with one arm. "Uhv kuhohhs, mah uhpawlijeez."

Sherlock blew past Conan and into the house, coat flapping dramatically behind him, before Conan could react. John was right on his heels, because of course he was, and Conan was about to follow them when KID suddenly snapped his fingers.

Conan froze, conditioned by months of heist attendance, and quickly glanced around for any sign of stage magic. He ignored the concerned (and slightly bewildered) look Lestrade was aiming towards him, too focused on whatever KID was about to do to…the house, probably. It was boring and minimalistic enough that Conan could see it offending him, maybe. And things that offended Kaitou KID usually ended up covered in paint and/or glitter.

…Except KID was currently disguised as Hakuba, who, to the best of Conan's knowledge, didn't know any stage magic, so all that happened was that KID hissed gleefully, "Gone With The Wind," like it was an accomplishment. 

Conan twisted around to stare up at him, certain his irritated disbelief was plain for KID to see.

Had KID finally lost it? What on earth did Gone with the Wind have to do with anything? Conan remembered reading the book when he was younger, bored and making his way through all the books in his parents' library, but for all that it was purportedly 'a great American literary masterpiece,' he could barely remember any of it, and what he did remember didn't seem particularly relevant here —

Wait.

The movie.

Ran and Sonoko had dragged him along to see it when it had been playing in the theater by Ran's place. Shinichi had grumbled about it the whole time, partially because he hadn't wanted to see yet another romance film with them , but mostly because even with his mostly fluent English, he'd needed to read the Japanese subtitles at the bottom of the screen because the actor's accents were so strong.

…Where did Gone with the Wind take place, again? Somewhere in one of the Americas, obviously, since it was a Great American Classic, according to the text on the screen that had played before the movie. North America, probably, since it had been in English and not Spanish or Portuguese. And if he remembered correctly, it'd had been about one of their big, important pre-World War I wars…

To be honest, Conan didn't really remember much about the movie. He'd been too busy mocking the characters to take in much of the plot. In his head, of course, because Ran and Sonoko had seemed invested and he hadn't been that much of a jerk, even when he'd been Shinichi the first time around; he could wait until the end of the movie to complain about the dumb and unnecessary romance drama that seemed to make up 90% of the plot. Besides, he’d known exactly how they were going to respond: “ You just don’t understand romance, Shinichi!”

And, anyway, it hadn't been as immensely dumb as some of the other romances Ran and Sonoko had made him watch, so it hadn't been burnt into his memory against his will.

(Conan could go on a whole rant about It Happened One Night and its "romance." He probably shouldn’t, as Conan, because there was no reason he would've seen that movie. But he could. )

Lestrade's concerned gaze shifted into bemusement as he turned to KID. "What on earth does a movie about the American Civil War have to do with anything?" he asked, eyebrows furrowed, bewildered.

Ah, that was it. The Civil War, not the Revolutionary one. And since they'd been on the losing side, that made it…

"USA, deep South," Conan muttered to himself, finally getting all the pieces to click.

Unusual for England. Not exactly a common accent in Conan’s detective shows, which was why it had been so hard for him to recognize.

If KID had been himself, he probably would have said "Bingo!" with a smarmy, annoying grin. As he was currently disguised as Hakuba, he just nodded smugly and said, "Yes, I rather believe so."

Somehow, that was even more annoying.

Or maybe Conan was just cranky because needed a nap. It was hard to say.

He brushed past KID on his way into the house and tapped thanks in Morse code against his leg, because not being able to place the accent would have plagued him for hours. He resisted the urge to add I guess, because that would have been too long a message to pass unnoticed by Lestrade. Also it would’ve been ungrateful,  he supposed.

(Conan would have figured it out eventually.)

(Although as much as not being the first to come up with the answer annoyed him, it was kind of nice not to have to.)

KID-as-Hakuba chuckled at his reaction before falling into step beside him. Lestrade threw his hands up into the air and muttered something about never understanding child detectives - or, in Sherlock's case, childish - before following them inside.

Harry Shumaker shut the door behind them, and Conan had to squint and blink rapidly to get his eyes to adjust to the bright white walls and harsh fluorescent lighting of the hallway. He could see why Shumaker was wearing shades indoors, even if his eyes weren't sensitive. Conan kind of wanted some, too. Or maybe even transition lenses, despite how much he loathed them. The hallway was just that bright.

Perhaps noticing Conan's discomfort, Shumaker ushered them into the next room, which was overwhelming in a whole new way.

The walls were still so brightly white that they almost hurt to look at, but the lights in the ceiling must have been on a slider or something because they weren't as bright as the one in the hallway. The floor was hardwood, but more than half of it was covered by a white shag carpet. It wasn't quite as bright as the walls, so Conan let his gaze drop there to give his eyes a break for a moment before scanning the rest of the room. 

There was a black bookshelf running along one side of the room, though it only covered the bottom half of the wall. Most of the books had black or white spines, and upon closer glance they appeared to be American comic books, although Conan didn't recognize most of the titles. A strip of cloth ran down the length of the top of the book case (white, of course), on top of which sat the ugliest lamp Conan had ever seen. The stand was painted white and was a strange geometric shape, while the shade was square and black, which meant that it would absorb most of the light it emitted and kind of defeated the purpose of a lamp. On the opposite wall, there was a flat screen TV bigger than Conan was tall and a medium-sized freestanding cupboard beneath it, also black.

The couch, the cushioned chairs, and the bench seat by the window were all white, though the knee-high table and a couple decorative throw pillows were black. Whoever had decorated the room had apparently hated colors.

In fact, the room would have been a black and white minimalistic hellscape if it weren't for the colorful blankets strewn everywhere, making it look actually lived in. There were at least five different ones, and Conan spotted a dark green one draped over the chair farthest from him. He sidled closer to examine it properly. It was made of a thick wool and one of the tassels on the edge was frayed and falling apart. It alone was plain, while the other blankets all had some sort of pattern.

Interesting. 

The kid, who Conan was pretty sure was named Dave, had evidently got bored of the gas mask the moment he'd taken it off and thrown it in the corner and was now running around the room with one of the aforementioned blankets tied around his neck, billowing behind him like a cape 

The kid laughed joyously the moment his father came into the room. "Look at me, dad! I'm Grant Gordon!"

Conan blinked, trying to force his brain to process the emotional whiplash. Hadn't Dave been annoyed at his dad a minute ago?

Shumaker closed his eyes and looked to the ceiling, pushing his sunglasses up the bridge of his nose with his thumb and pointer finger. "Dayy, siddown."

Unfortunately, identifying the accent didn't make it all that much easier to actually understand what the man was saying. It did make it easier to puzzle out the words, though. 

Like, for example, Conan knew that the kid's name was Dave, so that was more than likely what Dayy meant.

And, judging by the way Dave immediately leaped over the back of the sofa to take a seat, knee jiggling as he started to bounce it up and down, Conan felt comfortable enough assuming the second half had been sit down.

"Ah eym (I? am?) sowrey (???) about all this," Shumaker said. "Cleahlee we've bin (been?) wohtchen (watching??) too much Dahktah Who latelay."

(Dahktah, dahktah who… Doctor Who!)

Conan berated himself for not making the connection sooner. It was so obvious, especially when paired with the iconic -child-wearing-gas-mask-asking-’are-you-my-mummy?’ that had given him nightmares as a kid.  The first time around, that was.

(Now his nightmares were more along the lines of what the Black Org would do to him if they ever found out he’d survived the apotoxin.)

Okay, so they were fans of Doctor Who, or at least Dave was. So was half of England. 

Was it relevant to the case? Probably not, but Conan filed it away in the back of his mind just in case it turned out that it was actually the key to unraveling the entire thing.

With his luck, it probably would be.

Shumaker turned to the adults and asked, “Can I getcha anythin’ tuh drink, jeynlmin? I’ve got tea, cawfee, arnjjuice, ehypple juice, and wodduh.”

Conan didn’t recognize half the options (or whatever ‘jeynlmin’ meant), and the ones that he did recognize were things that he…probably shouldn’t be drinking, considering the last time he’d had caffeine he’d passed out and woken up in a hospital after a near brush with death.

(He’d need to remember to bring his punch card next time. Ten near-death experiences and he got a prize! Although since the prize was a whack on the head and a lecture from Haibara, maybe it was for the best that he hadn’t.)

“Well, I wouldn’t say no to a cup of tea,” said Lestrade.

John nodded in agreement. “Just so. I think we’ll all have a cuppa if you’ve got the kettle on - Earl Grey, if you have it.”

Sherlock didn’t seem to notice the offer, too busy inspecting the room. KID-as-Hakuba’s mouth twitched downward minutely, barely visible, even as he indicated his approval. 

Conan filed that reaction away in the slim folder where he kept all five things he knew for sure about KID: his approximate height and weight, that he trained birds, that he was searching for a specific jewel that glowed red in the moonlight, and that he didn’t like tea.

(And, apparently, that he cared enough about Conan to fly all the way to London after seeing him kidnapped. But that went in the mental folder of things that Conan knew about KID but refused to acknowledge out loud, just in case it led someone else to deduce his identity. Not that Conan knew KID’s identity for certain, of course.)

(…He had a certain amount of plausible deniability, in any case.)

Shumaker took their responses as assent and asked Dave to go to the kitchen and boil some water (at least, Conan was pretty sure that was what he’d asked for).  Dave leapt to his feet, evidently eager to get away from the boring adult pleasantries, and ran out of the room so that his blanket-cape billowed behind him.

Shumaker laughed under his breath. “That kid…” he said fondly. “He’s really sum’n’.”

(Conan was proud of himself for being able to understand the entire sentence.)

John coughed, drawing Shumaker’s attention. “Yes, I heard that he participates in pageants as well as being a part-time superhero?”

Shumaker shrugs easily, but there's something guarded in the line of his shoulders when he replies, "Yeah, Dave loves his Tay Vay (TV?). We wawchid (watched?) Miss Kuhnjeyneeahlitay (???) a few months ago, and thayt was thayt. He just loves Sandra Bullock movayz (movies?)."

Conan had no idea who Sandra Bullock was - she must not be in any mystery movies - and even less idea what Kuhnjeyneeahlitay meant, but he was pretty sure he got the gist.

Dave liked emulating movies and TV shows he enjoyed. He'd watched one about pageants and decided he wanted to do that. His dad had said sure, why not? And the rest was history.

(Conan felt a little jealous. Why couldn't he have parents who listened when he wanted to do something? Or, perhaps more accurately, when he said he didn't want to do something. Like become a child actor, for example. He'd had to sabotage his debut the best way his five-year-old brain could think of, which meant that he'd done his best to get to the audition late, and then, when that hadn't worked thanks to his mother and her superior upper body strength, upchucked all over the director. That had got him out of it.)

Dave's dad, on the other hand, seemed to give Dave whatever he wanted, as long as it was within his means to give.

Lucky kid.

"Which is whah (why?) you moved to Englaynd, I'm shoah," said Sherlock, cutting in confidently.

Shumaker's eyebrows flew up, and Lestrade's and John's did the same. Even Conan had to smother his confusion. Where had that leap come from?

"Why, yes, yoah raht (right?)," admitted Shumaker. "There are some…rather uhnpleasant lohws (laws?) in Texas. Might I aysk how you knew…?"

"I trah (try?) ta keep abreast uhv these sorta things," Sherlock said loftily, presumably talking about the laws in Texas. Conan didn't know how he had the time to read up on the laws of individual American states. Conan certainly didn't, and his sleep schedule was already more wishful thinking than anything. Although Sherlock probably didn't run across as many cases as Conan did, since he generally seemed to be called to them instead, so maybe that was where he found the spare time?

Not that that was particularly relevant at the moment.

Dave re-entered the room, carefully carrying a tray with four cups of boiling water, a plate each of tea bags and chocolate biscuits, a small sugar bowl, and a pitcher of either milk or cream - Conan couldn't see into it without climbing onto a chair.

"Thanks, Dave. You can set it down heeyah (here?)," Shumaker said, gesturing to the table.

Dave very carefully made his way across the room, eyes focused resolutely on the cups, as if he'd maybe filled them a little too much and they were on the verge of spilling. When he'd made it to the table, he set the tray down with visible relief. 

“Can I go play with my bugs now?” he asked, evidently uninterested in the proceedings of the adults in his sitting room.

Shumaker glanced over to Lestrade and Sherlock, the former of whom shrugged and the latter of whom gave a crisp nod in response, then said, “Sure, Dave. Be kwaht (quiet?) neyah.”

Conan refused to let a chance to see the other rooms of the house slip away, so he piped up in his shrill, high-pitched notice me tone: “I wanna see the bugs, too!”

He shot KID a look that said you better tell me what they say while I’m out of the room and was gratified when KID inclined his head slightly, which was a very Hakuba response.

Shumaker blinked, nonplussed and possibly wondering why Conan was tagging along in the first place. “I suppose, if ya (your?) gajian (???) doesn’t mahnd (mind?)?”

…His what?

KID smirked slightly, so he must have understood the word that Conan hadn’t. Rude.

Conan watched shrewdly as Lestrade suddenly looked a bit awkward then turned towards Sherlock and John, as if deferring to them. Sherlock ignored the blatant prompting, instead focusing all his attention on Conan (not that he would get anything other than confusion from Conan’s expression, since he didn’t actually understand the question).

John took one look at Sherlock’s intent expression and allowed himself a single second to roll his eyes up to the sky and ask himself why he’d lashed his horse to Sherlock’s proverbial cart, then responded for them both: “Go on, Conan. Have fun.”

Conan wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth (even if he didn’t really get why John had needed to respond at all, because it wasn’t like John was in charge of him or anything), so he turned to Dave and gave him a big, toothy smile.

Dave looked a little uncomfortable, but said, “Well, come on, then.”

He turned and left through the door that Conan assumed led to the kitchen, gesturing for Conan to follow him.

The house wasn't quite as big as Conan had initially thought (which made sense, since even though the Shumakers were rich, this was the heart of London and housing prices had to be sky-high) so the door actually led to a short hallway. To the right, there was a half bathroom and what looked like the entrance to the kitchen. Directly in front of them was a staircase leading to the second floor, which Dave began to climb. Conan followed close behind him, almost tripping a couple of times - they were much steeper than he was used to.

Embarrassingly, Dave noticed and slowed his pace enough that Conan didn't have to rush to keep up. 

"Yeah, I hate the stairs, too," he said in commiseration once they reached the top.

Conan ignored him, cheeks burning with embarrassment. He’d been this size long enough that he should have had reasonable control of his limbs by this point.

Dave shrugged, graciously letting it go.

There were only two rooms at the top of the stairs.

The door on the left was slightly ajar, open just wide enough for Conan to peer in curiously (and maybe a tad nosily). Unfortunately, there wasn’t anything much to see. The room was clean — almost Spartan — with what Conan estimated to be a king size bed covered in a candy red bedspread, headboard pressed up against the wall. There was a comparatively small drawerless nightstand next to it with only a lamp, a passport, and a glasses case on top, and on the far wall there was an open closet, the clothing inside hanging in neat lines.

The door across the hall was shut, but it was pretty obvious it was Dave’s.

“Come on in,” Dave said over his shoulder before opening the door with the pink crown-shaped name plate with 'DAVE' handwritten on it in blue marker.

Dave's room was, to put it politely, a mess.

Any surface that could potentially hold something did - the chair held a pile of clothes that could be dirty or clean (Conan couldn't tell without looking closer, and he wasn't sure he wanted to); the bookcase displayed various completed Lego kits, including a Death Star and a Batmobile, as well as at least one half completed kit, the loose pieces strewn across the top shelf; the books and graphic novels that had probably at one point been on the bookcase were now scattered across the foot of the bed and in at least three separate piles on the floor nearby; and the floor was a disaster area, covered in every toy Conan had ever seen the Detective Boys with and/or gaze at longingly in the shop windows, as well as a few he didn't recognize. They weren't particularly well-taken-care-of, as evidenced by the fact that they were scattered like discarded tissues, like Dave had thrown them over his shoulder whenever he was done with them and decided that was where they lived now. It was especially obvious in comparison to the Lego figures on his shelves, which were meticulously clean and even dusted.

The desk held a tank of bugs - presumably the ones Dave had ducked out of the conversation downstairs to play with - and Dave beelined directly for them.

Conan did the same thing, even though he wasn't particularly interested in the bugs. At least, he wasn't, right up until he noticed that they looked like the same type that had found at the crime scene, at which point he started paying a lot more attention.

Dave noticed Conan's intent stare and his eyebrows quirked upright involuntarily, mildly surprised. He was more than happy to talk about his bugs, though. 

"They're a pretty rare breed of fly. I'm not gonna tell you what they're called because you're a baby and you'll just forget," he informed Conan, a little pompously. 

Conan resisted the urge to make a face, mostly because Dave would probably only see that as confirmation.

"They like old meat," he continued, almost like he was regurgitating a Wikipedia article he'd read a few months ago and kind of forgotten, "so they're often found on fresh corpses. They don't eat them, though; they just lay their eggs in them."

He pointed to one of the two dozen  or so bugs in the container. "That one's Lady Macbug. You probably haven't seen Macbeth but that's okay. All you really need to know is that Lady Macbeth is, like, the coolest person in the whole movie."

Conan had not seen Macbeth, but he did at least know that it was a play. Presumably the movie had been based off of it, although he didn't know how faithful it had been to the original.

Sonoko, perhaps unsurprisingly, had seen a live performance at the Takarazuka. Reportedly, the person playing Macbeth had been the hottest, but the one playing Lady Macbeth had been the most badass. Sonoko generally had a pretty good sense of that kind of thing, so Conan was inclined to believe her, and thus Dave by virtue of association.

"That's Princess Larvae," Dave continued, oblivious to Conan's internal tangents, "because Princess Leia was the best character in Star Wars and dad said the pun was too good to pass up just 'cause she's not a larva anymore. Dad named her," he added, somewhat unnecessarily, as if Conan hadn’t already figured that out.

Some of the other high points included Rose Flyler, Flyderman, Bugster Gold, Buggytopia, and Sailor Fly.

Also Steve.

"…Steve?" Conan asked.

"Yeah."

"…Just Steve?" Not Steve (insert bug pun here)? That seemed to be the theme.

"Yeah…?" Dave stared at him like he was thick.

Conan stared right back at him. “Why?”

“ ‘Cuz he looks like a Steve, duh.”

Conan looked at the bug in question.

It didn’t really look like a Steve.

It just looked like a bug.

Dave must be seeing something he wasn’t.

…Come to think of it, Conan wasn't sure how Dave could tell them apart so easily, and he was kind of afraid to ask. But he did anyway, because he liked knowing things.

"What do you mean, you can't tell them apart?" Dave asked, visibly offended.

"We don't have this kind of bug in Japan," Conan replied, possibly even truthfully. He wasn't particularly knowledgeable about the types of bugs found near or on corpses in England — he'd never had the need to be, until now.

(And it wasn’t as if British mystery dramas were particularly known for accuracy surrounding this kind of thing.)

Conan took a step forward, trying to get a closer look at the bugs. Dave had been so sure about the minute differences between each of them that Conan wanted to see if he was able to discern which was which as well. 

For some reason, Dave took offense to that. 

"Stop!" he yelled, throwing out one arm to prevent Conan from taking even one step closer, because apparently that wasn't allowed. "You're going to step on the cult summoning! That took me ages to set up!"

…The what now. 

Conan slowly let his eyes fall to the floor, only dreading what he would find a little bit because at this point he was mostly numb to weird stuff like that.

On the floor, there was, in fact, a demon summoning circle - a pentacle, or whatever they were called in English - except instead of being made out of blood like Conan had been half-expecting, it was made out of green yarn.

(Oh, good. His deduction skills hadn't deserted him yet.)

Around the outside of the pentacle lay a dozen or so Barbies in a rough circle. They were all dressed in hot pink hooded cloaks with chain closures, although they all were wearing different outfits beneath, some a little incongruous - as well as doctors and construction workers, Conan spotted an astronaut, a cowboy (cowgirl?), and a mermaid, neither of which seemed to mesh with the rest of the scene very well.

In the center of the pentacle, there was a Batman action figure that had been stuffed into the clothing of what Conan had to assume was Jailhouse Barbie. He had also been beheaded.

Not just unmasked.

Completely beheaded.

Conan glanced around the scene, trying to figure out where it had gone, only to discover it lying on the stomach of the only Ken doll in attendance.

The Ken doll was wearing a leash around his neck, which was attached to the wrist of a Barbie wearing a tiara over her hooded cloak and holding a thick book. Conan surmised that she was the leader of the cult. 

Cult Leader Barbie. 

He hadn't realized there was a market for those.

"What happened here?" he asked out of morbid curiosity. 

Dave perked up. "Okay, so," he started, and that was how Conan knew he was going to be in for a wild ride. Ayumi's most convoluted games of pretend usually started out like that.

Apparently Cult Leader Barbie was named Jennifer and she'd recently lost her wife, Anita. 

"...Wait, then what's Ken there for?" Conan asked. Didn't they usually come as a set or something? Ayumi always seemed to do everything short of tie them together, excepting that time that she'd wrapped rubber bands around their chests and threw them off the school roof. They were going hang gliding like KID, she'd claimed, except they didn't have a hang glider, so she and Conan and the rest of the Detective Boys'd had spent two hours scouring the bushes for them.

(Excepting Haibara, of course. She always seemed to have a good excuse to avoid things like that.)

Dave rolled his eyes. "Ken's part of her outfit, dummy."

Oh, sure . Why not. Clearly Conan should've been able to guess that. 

Dave frowned slightly, muttering to himself that Ken "wasn't even one of the cool accessories" (then why was he using him as one???), then launched back into the story.

Devastated, Jennifer had gathered all of her friends willing to delve into the dark arts (and blackmailed a few of her neighbors, because apparently she was also the president of the HOA and had risen to that position by virtue of knowing anything and everything) in order to summon a God to bring her beloved wife back to life.

Or possibly a demon. Dave wasn't particularly clear about which it was and seemed to use the words interchangeably. 

Her best friend was the mermaid Barbie, who apparently worked at Seaworld and was completely human although she could also talk to fish for some reason. Dave did not elaborate on why that was an important plot point but apparently it was important enough for him to make a point of mentioning it.

The doctor Barbie apparently specialized in Kens (???) and was a secret necromancy fanatic  obsessed with proving that people could be brought back from the dead, so she was pretty gung-ho about everything. She was the one constructing the ritual, and she was working closely with cowgirl Barbie, who was apparently secretly an alien and had extensive knowledge about summoning circles. Because that was a thing they did on their planet, presumably.

The construction worker was apparently an undercover FBI agent who was trying to stop the ritual from happening, only she had fallen in love with the mermaid Barbie and decided maybe she could just sabotage the ritual enough that it wouldn’t work instead of blowing everyone up or something.

(...Why did that sound oddly familiar?)

The astronaut was apparently Robin, there to rescue Batman, except he clearly hadn’t got there in time because Batman was lying there beheaded. For some reason.

"...And Batman?" Conan asked, morbidly curious. 

"They needed a Virginia sacrifice, duh,” said Dave, rolling his eyes.  “Batman's from New Jersey, technically, but that's, like, close enough, probably."

…Did he mean virgin sacrifice?

Conan desperately tried to keep a straight face while his brain automatically began considering the implications of that. Was Batman a virgin — ?

"Superman's gonna be maaaad when he gets here," Dave said, drawing out 'mad' so that it sounded like three syllables instead of the normal singular one.

"...Why?" asked Conan, morbidly curious, and maybe a little desperate to cut off his spiraling thoughts.

Dave looked at Conan like he was the dumbest person alive, which Conan resented for obvious reasons. "Because they're in love with each other, obviously."

Oh, sure, obviously .

Conan wasn't particularly familiar with American superhero comic characters; there was no way he could've deduced that from one headless action figure.

…Well.

Maybe if Batman had been wearing a Superman ring (or maybe a belt, given that his fingers were fused together) or something, he might have. But kids were incomprehensible sometimes, and a Batman doll wearing a Superman belt could just as easily have been a fusion of the two or, like, their kid or something.

(Conan was not taking it as a personal failing that he'd been unable to identify that a beheaded action figure with frozen a plastic expression and extremely limited articulation was in a relationship with another action figure who was currently (presumably) lost in the swamp of toys that was Dave's floor.)

(He wasn't. )

(...He was maybe going to speed read all of the Batman/Superman comics in existence whenever he had a second to breathe though.)

(Conan hated not knowing things.)

“And also this is a trap for him,” Dave continued, oblivious to Conan’s internal self-recriminations. “So he's gonna be mad that Batman died, and he’s also gonna be mad and guilty about Batman dying in a trap that was meant for him. Oh, yeah," he added, waving his hand at the green string pentacle, "this whole thing is happening because Jenny wants to lure Superman into the trap and kill him with the Kryptonite, which is why she's helping with the summoning ritual. So she can manipulate it into being a summoning for Superman instead of a god or demon or whatever."

“Jenny being the alien cowgirl?” Conan asked, just to confirm.

Deve nodded enthusiastically, clearly having given this plotline significant thought. “Yeah! She’s from a planet that hates Kryptonians, which doesn’t really narrow it down much because that’s, like, a quarter of the galaxy or something, so she wants to kill Superman and take his head back to her planet as a trophy.”

Well. That was kind of morbid.

(Conan was getting conversational whiplash. Was this what people felt like whenever he started talking about his cases? If so, he thought he could understand their reactions a little better now.)

"...Okay," Conan said, because he wasn't really sure what else there was to say, except maybe… "You should write comics someday."

Dave's plot sounded exactly like the kind of convoluted storyline that comics readers would eat up with a spoon, from what Conan understood of the genre.

Dave lit up like Conan had given him the best compliment in the world (even though Conan wasn't sure that it had actually been a compliment). Then he cleared his throat and tried to pretend he wasn't blushing. "Come on, I think I left my Superman downstairs. He was on a mission to Tamaran to defeat the broccoli monster."

Conan had no choice but to follow him down the stairs, doing his best to sneakily peek into any rooms they passed, not that there were very many, or that there was anything remotely interesting within them. Every room aside from Dave's and the TV room was neatly tidied up with nothing more than a stray lone sock out of place. All the furniture was brand new, and Conan got the feeling that either it had come furnished or Shumaker had hireled someone to do it for him (and that that someone's had a grudge against color and possibly ten-year-olds).

"Dad," Dave hollered, bursting through the doorway to the TV room abruptly, Conan not too far behind. "Dad, where's my Superman?"

Shumaker looked up, startled by the sudden interruption. "In the cupboard, I expect," he replied gamely nevertheless. 

Dave barely acknowledged the answer, zeroing in on the cupboard in the corner and striding towards it like not even half a dozen enemy mechs could prevent him from his goal. He threw open the doors, sending them banging back against the dark wood, to reveal three stacks of plastic containers. They had to be at least twenty of them, all different colors and stacked in rainbow order.

Dave reached immediately for one of the lighter blue ones near the bottom of the middle stack. He pulled open the drawer and rummaged around in it for a second before finding what he'd been looking for and lifting it triumphantly above his head.

The Superman doll was a little battered and his cape had definitely seen better days, but the blue of his suit perfectly matched the blue of the drawer that he had been in, which made Conan think that maybe the toys were sorted by color, rather than size or type.

That wasn't the organizational method Conan personally would have chosen, but, then again, this wasn't his house. His preferences were largely irrelevant.

Dave beamed. "Thanks, Dad!" 

"You know the rules," Harry reminded him affectionately. 

"Yeah, yeah." Dave rolled his eyes before parroting something he'd clearly heard a number of times before: "If I leave my toys lying around outside my room, they go in the drawers."

Shumaker nodded, satisfied.  "Thayt's right."

"I haven't done that in, like, a month though," Dave objected regardless.

Shumaker snorted. "Moah like two weeks,” he confided in a stage whisper to John, who was sitting closest to him.

Dave folded his arms and pouted mutinously.

"Well!" Lestrade said, rising to his feet. "Thank you for the tea, Mr. Shumaker. I think we've everything we need from you for now."

Mr. Shumaker started, then jumped to his feet as well, giving some kind of polite response that Conan's brain was too fried to compute, so instead he glanced towards KID.

Did I miss anything important? he asked with a twitch of his eyebrows, angling his face slightly so that Sherlock wouldn't see the change in his expression despite the way that Sherlock's gaze had locked onto him the moment he stepped into the room.

KID stared back at him, eyes hollow. Kill me now, they said, like that was even an option. Literally nothing important happened. Please tell me you found something because I can't take much more of this. I hate detective work so much. How do you stand it?

Except he was currently Hakuba, so his eyes didn't actually say any of that. Conan had extrapolated, but he was pretty confident in his findings.

(He had always found it strange that KID had never seemed particularly fond of detective work when he used it all the time to figure out the important things about his marks - the jewels he stole as well as the people he impersonated.)

Conan frowned back at him. You're telling me later anyway.

KID rolled his eyes, and for a moment it was as if the whole Toichi thing had never happened.

Conan glanced away before KID could remember his fuck up again, and this time his gaze caught on something on the floor. It was under the table, near one of the chair legs, and would have been almost invisible to anyone taller than three feet (which Conan was not).

It was a small plastic soldier, battered and worn but well taken care of.

Conan furrowed his brow, then snapped a quick picture of the toy's location using Sherlock's phone (he should probably give that back at some point) before carefully scooping it up with one of the evidence bags he carried around in his pockets.

Interesting, Conan thought, following John and KID out the door and pretending Sherlock's gaze wasn't boring into the back of his head like an ice pick. 

He hadn't been expecting that.

How curious.

Chapter Text

It was more or less common knowledge that Sherlock Holmes (both Doyle's and the real life iteration) tended to eschew eating when he was in the middle of a case. Conan even kind of agreed with him on that. Why bother wasting time on eating when there was a mystery to be solved?

Conan didn't purposely avoid eating, though he did have a tendency to get so caught up in his cases that he sort of... forgot food existed. In his defense, though, his cases usually only took a few hours to wrap up, not days. It couldn’t be healthy for Sherlock to go days or even a week without eating anything because he felt it slowed him down.

On an unrelated note, Conan did not remember the last time he'd consumed anything other than orange juice.

John also could not remember the last time Conan had eaten actual food, which was why he'd made the executive decision to herd him towards the nearest café for a late lunch.

No one had argued – not even Sherlock, although that had probably been because he hadn't noticed the change in locale, too busy doing something on a phone to realize that John had dragged him into the café by the sleeve. Conan should probably be somewhat concerned about that since, if KID had been right about nothing interesting happening during the interview at the Shumakers, Sherlock was probably following a hunch about KID or, more likely, Conan. If he were really lucky, Sherlock was too busy obsessing over John Watson's false identity to investigate either of them.

(Conan thought he was owed a little luck, after the absolute fiasco that had been the last few days, though he didn't have high hopes.)

He had more important things to worry about, anyway. Like lamenting the fact that he was in England and had the opportunity to order something from a real English café, and yet nothing on the café menu sounded appetizing. 

Ugh. Stupid concussion. 

“Bacon bap for me, cheers,” John said to the woman behind the counter, who nodded with the disinterested acknowledgement of service workers everywhere. “Sherlock, are you having anything?”

Sherlock sniffed derisively. “I'm in the middle of a case. I don't need food. ” 

“Seven-year-olds do, which is why we’re here,” John replied, expression placid and body language immovable. “What will you have, Conan?”

Conan, the supposed seven-year-old in question, said reluctantly, “...just orange juice, please.”

Sherlock's gaze drilled into him for a split second, scouring over him from head to toe. He flicked his eyes back to John a moment later, leaving Conan feeling like he’d just had a sponge bath that used terrified porcupines instead of sponges.

(Was this what people felt like when he looked at them? He hoped not.) 

“See, John? He doesn’t need to eat,” Sherlock said smugly, with a particular emphasis on John's name that said clearly that he was calling him John reluctantly, and solely because he didn't know the right name to call him by yet.

John ignored him, instead turning to Conan and leaning down to ensure Conan could see the steel in his expression when he said firmly, “You haven't had anything to eat today. You're getting something.”

…He really didn't talk to kids much, did he? Or if he did, he must usually be sitting down or something, because Conan didn't think that any actual child would take well to being spoken to like that by a virtual stranger looming over them. He knew the Detective Boys wouldn't. And, honestly, Conan wasn’t really a fan, either. 

“Actually, I'm going to the toilet,” Conan informed him, then darted out of reach before Lestrade could grab his jacket.

John eyed the queue starting to form behind them and then looked back at Conan, who met him with all the stubbornness of an actual seven-year-old. He sighed. “Fine, just – take someone with you, okay? I'll get you something.”

Conan didn’t bother to hide the way he rolled his eyes before he grabbed KID’s sleeve, designating him his chosen chaperone and dragging him a whole twenty kid-sized steps around the corner to the nearest restroom. Luckily, the shop was big enough that they were a decent size, so he could haul KID into the vacant men’s room and lock the door behind them without it being too awkward.

He took a second to close his eyes and breathe, and something in his spine relaxed now that he was away from the heavy weight of Sherlock Holmes’ attention crushing down on him. He'd been uncharacteristically reticent with his observations after that first deluge in his flat yesterday morning, and the lack of pointed deductions spat like bullets was starting to wear on Conan's nerves. If Sherlock decided he was going to out Conan, he'd really rather Sherlock get it over with so he could deal with the fallout.

He opened his eyes to find that, although he'd managed to escape Sherlock's piercing gaze for the moment, he'd exchanged it for KID's instead.

(Somehow, Conan didn't think he minded. KID understood the concept of secrets and, more importantly, not blurting them out the moment he figured them out to prove to everyone in a three meter radius that he was the smartest person in the room.)

KID's eyes were watchful and observant behind his contacts, even as he said, with bone dry humor, “If you weren’t so decidedly against murder, I’d ask you if you were going to kill me.”

Conan didn’t bother dignifying that with a response, instead electing to cut straight to the reason he'd dragged KID in here with him: “Tell me what happened at the Shumakers while I was out of the room.”

”Even though I said it wasn’t important…” KID sighed theatrically, then acquiesced without further persuasion. He proceeded to reenact the entire conversation at double speed, including a range of impressively accurate impersonations. It was clear that he didn’t quite understand every single word that had been said — especially not with Shumaker’s heavy Texan accent — but he managed to approximate the sound of the words well enough that Conan could figure out what the original phrases were.

(Ha. His English was better than KID’s. Suck it.)

Lestrade had asked the typical questions police officers tended towards. Do you remember anyone leaving the party briefly? When did you leave the party? What time did you get back? Where were you at the time of the murder? Can anyone verify your statements? 

(The answers were, incidentally, “Not that I remember,” “After one, I think,” “I dunno — pretty late, I guess,” “Asleep, probably; hold on, let me check my REM tracking app,” and “Other than the CCTV camera outside and Dave? Probably not.”)

Sherlock, on the other hand, had taken a more varied approach, asking questions with no apparent regard for the thread of the conversation: 

Who had looked after Dave while Shumaker was at the party? (A nanny, hired through a reputable agency.) 

Where do you get your pageant costumes? (Shumaker commissioned them from a couple of different shops online and he and Dave often needed to make trips out of London to attend fittings.) 

When was the last time you bought Dave a new toy? (About a week ago, though the nanny may have bought some more recently.) 

How many sugars do you take in your tea? (None – Shumaker preferred honey and a squeeze of lemon.) 

Do you own an automobile? (Yes, but Shumaker didn't drive it himself; he had a chauffeur service on call.)

An eclectic group of questions, to be sure, but Conan was pretty sure he could follow Sherlock's thought process.

Unfortunately, KID was right. No one had said anything immediately useful for solving the case, though Conan didn’t regret taking the time to interrogate KID about it. It was always the seemingly insignificant details that were the key to figuring out who the culprit was.

In exchange for his information, Conan told him the highlights of what he’d seen in Dave’s room. He paid particular attention to the Barbie saga, since that seemed like the kind of thing KID might be interested in.

KID seemed to approve of Dave’s meandering plotline. “I did the same thing when I was a kid,” he admitted, grinning smugly at his own pun. “Except I used Featherman action figures instead of Superman and Batman. Black Condor and Red Hawk had a similar thing going on, though, so I see his vision.”

He paused pointedly, letting the silence hang heavily between them for a long moment, then said, “Are we going to talk about the ghost thing?”

…Conan really didn’t want to admit that he was pretending to be psychic so the police would take him seriously. KID, of all people, deserved to know that he couldn’t actually interact with Kuroba Toichi, but…

It was just so embarrassing. He should — he should be better than this. He shouldn’t have to resort to cheap parlor tricks to get people to listen to him. He had the professor’s designer parlor tricks for that.

(To be completely honest, Conan was kind of unraveling at the seams. He wasn’t a great actor on the best of days, and this most certainly was not one of his best days. There was just so much going on and so many secrets he had to try to keep, and he got the feeling that he wasn’t really doing a great job at it. 

If he had to admit that he was faking being psychic — even if he only told KID — he had a feeling that he’d be removing a lodestone and all his secrets would come tumbling out without his permission. He’d already accidentally let slip that he didn’t know how he’d arrived in London, and he’d already been halfway to telling KID his identity at the last heist. If he confided in KID any further, it would change the way they acted with each other, and that wasn’t something he could afford with Sherlock Holmes breathing down his neck.

And that wasn’t even mentioning the embarrassment of having to admit he was pretending to be psychic for the same reasons as a con artist.

…Maybe he should just lie down on the floor and let sleep take him. Then he wouldn’t have to deal with any of this.

He wasn’t going to do that, though, if only because he had no idea when it had last been cleaned.)

“We’ve been gone for too long already…” Conan hedged, glancing over his shoulder at the door. No one had rattled on the handle yet, but it was only a matter of time.

An emotion flickered behind KID’s eyes, there and gone too quickly for Conan to identify it. He was pretty sure it was negative, though.

That was fair.

KID sighed again, and this time it sounded real. “Can you at least tell me why my f—”

“If you finish that sentence, I will scream,” Conan cut in, deadly serious, before KID could let any damning evidence slip. If Conan didn’t have confirmation that Kuroba Kaito was Kaitou KID, then there was nothing he could accidentally let slip to the police. 

KID set his jaw, looking down at Conan. His expression didn’t look like it belonged on Hakuba’s face, which made it difficult to read.

Conan liked to think that he knew KID pretty well by now, but he was starting to realize that KID’s poker face might be hiding more than he’d initially thought.

(Unfortunately, that only made him more interesting to Conan. He was a sucker for a good puzzle.)

“Look, can you give me a day or two?” Conan relented. KID really did deserve to know, even if Conan couldn’t bring himself to admit it just yet. He was holding himself together with a single straining thread, and the embarrassment of having to admit he’d pretended to be the kind of person he hated might just make it snap.  “It’s not like we have time for a proper interrogation right now, and I know you'll want to ask questions.”

KID studied him for a second, and Conan had the uncomfortable feeling that he was seeing much more than Conan wanted him to. He should be used to that by now; he had been hanging around Sherlock Holmes for the past twenty-four hours. But, for some reason, it seemed different when it was KID. Like absorbing the contents of a book by reading it instead of eating it.

“Fine,” KID acquiesced, his expression still unreadable. “After the heist.”

Conan nodded in agreement, probably a little too quickly. “Hopefully we’ll have this case wrapped up by then…” he muttered in an effort to compensate.

”Indeed,” KID said, pulling out his pocket watch and shifting from the strange KID-Hakuba hybrid he slipped into when it was just the two of them back into pure Hakuba. “We’d best head back, then, if you’d like to solve it in a timely manner.”

Conan unlocked the door and held it open for Hakuba — it was the least he could do, really — then shut it quietly behind them.

John spotted them the moment they left the bathroom and waved them over to the table he'd commandeered by the front window. Somehow, he'd managed to wedge Sherlock into the corner of the booth, pinning him between himself and the window so he couldn't escape without a lot of strategic and undignified wiggling. Sherlock looked about ready to start vibrating in place, but the way he was staring unblinkingly at John made it obvious that it wasn't because he wanted to leave and get back to Maria's case.

Conan wondered if he could pretend that he hadn't seen them.

He must have let his reluctance show on his face, because Hakuba chuckled lightly and nudged him forwards.

Ugh. Fine.

“You were in there for a while – is everything all right?” John asked as soon as they came into earshot.

He'd told KID they'd been gone for too long! It was a good thing that Conan had prepared an excuse for this eventuality.

Conan summoned his most pathetic expression and said, lower lip trembling, “I frew up.”

“You're still feeling sick?” John's eyes narrowed, and he reached towards his neck for a stethoscope that wasn't there. He blinked when his fingers touched the cloth of his jumper instead of the metal he'd obviously been expecting, then shook his head slightly to clear it. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a Swiss army knife instead, flicking a section open to reveal a flashlight.

That was definitely not standard issue.

…Conan kind of wanted one.

He couldn't make out what each of the sections of the knife were, not while John insisted on shining the flashlight in his eyes until he was blinking like a deer in the headlights, but he could definitely tell that it was thicker than most Swiss army knives were. Imagine all the pocket space he could save if he had one tool that could do what ten of his gadgets could…

(He was sure that the flashlight batteries would be a pain in the ass to replace, though.)

Lestrade was pointedly staring out the window and sipping his tea serenely, pretending not to notice the knife, but Sherlock and KID most certainly had. They both looked as if their birthdays had come early, though it was probably for different reasons.

(Conan had a feeling that John's Swiss army knife might go mysteriously missing in the near future. It was just a matter of who got there first.)

“Well, there's no concussion, at least,” John muttered, leaning back against the booth and handing Conan his orange juice – wait, what?

Conan didn't have a concussion?

Did that mean that his stupid decisions were just the result of – of jet lag?

Ugh. He really needed to get around to that nap one of these days.

“I'm fine now!” Conan insisted. “It was the orange juice, probably.  I shouldn't have had it on an empty stomach. It's too…” He pretended to search for the word. It wasn't sweet, sour, or bitter, it was – ah, he'd lost it. “...spicy in my tummy.”

John pressed his lips together firmly and managed to keep himself from smirking, which was a good thing for him because Conan would've kicked him in the shin if he hadn’t.

“Yes,” KID-as-Hakuba said, “I believe I remember your guardian saying something similar in passing, last I saw her.”

Sherlock's eyes flitted over to lock onto KID, stare boring into him. “I was under the impression that the Sleeping Kogoro was Conan's guardian,” he said blandly, and Conan had to hold his breath so he didn’t snort orange juice all over the table. “Have you had much opportunity to meet the family?”

KID's eyes narrowed slightly, sensing the conversational trap ahead of him. “I was referring to his daughter, Miss Ran Mouri, who generally takes the role of Conan's primary caregiver,” he replied, just as blandly. “And, no, I can't say I've had the pleasure.”

“You should sit down, Conan,” John interjected before Sherlock and KID could manage to spark a passive-aggressive war between them. “Here, I got you a cheese toastie. Are you feeling up to eating it?”

To be honest, Conan wasn't feeling up to eating anything, much less anything as greasy as a cheese toastie, but he took it anyway. The cheese squished disconcertingly in the parchment paper packaging beneath his fingers.

“Thanks,” he muttered, holding it gingerly. He was hungry, sure, but for some reason his orange juice had tasted like sharp chalk in his mouth, and he had a sneaking suspicion that the toastie would as well. Conan would rather not discover what greasy, gooey chalk felt like in his mouth, thanks.

John nodded, satisfied that Conan had at least been receptive to obtaining food, even if he hadn't actually started eating it yet. Then, almost as an afterthought, he turned to KID and handed him another small package. “Sherlock said you probably wanted a chocolate croissant, so we went ahead and got you one – hope that's all right.”

“Yes,” said Hakuba, after a moment longer scrutinizing Sherlock Holmes, likely wondering how Sherlock had come to that conclusion, “that should do quite nicely.” He took the croissant and bit into it neatly, using the wrapping to catch any flakes of pastry, then took a moment to close his eyes to appreciate the taste. 

“That does rather hit the spot. As expected of Mr. Holmes.” Hakuba's voice was light and his eyes were bright with a barely restrained enthusiasm. It seemed very in character for a Holmes fan, which was why Conan had a feeling that KID was dying on the inside. He was pretty sure KID enjoyed pretending to like a detective even less than he enjoyed pretending to be one.

Something nudged Conan's shoulder, and he had to strangle the urge to jump. Instead, he tightened his grip on his toastie and slowly turned to face Lestrade, who was looking down at him with (what he probably thought was) a subtly concerned expression.

“You should eat that before it gets cold,” he said, nodding towards the toastie in Conan's hands. John nodded in agreement from the other side of the table.

It was pretty obvious that they weren't going to be going anywhere until Conan had at least made a token attempt to consume something with food value, and Conan had to agree that a cheese toastie sounded even less appetizing with cold and congealed cheese. He resigned himself to discovering what greasy cardboard tasted like and lifted his toast to his mouth.

Before he could take a bite, however, a loud jingling sound came from behind him and he swiveled towards it before he could stop himself.

Luckily, everyone else at the table had done the exact same thing, so at least he wasn't the only one. It probably hadn't been that noticeable. 

(To everyone except Sherlock Holmes, obviously, but that was kind of a lost cause at this point.)

The noise had come from the bell attached to the shop's door, which had rung when a new customer had walked through it. The man was as nondescript as it was possible to be in this part of London. He had muddy brown hair and a light complexion, with a bit of scruff lining his jaw like he'd neglected to shave that morning. His clothing was just as unremarkable – a plain gray t-shirt, jeans, and comfortable-looking sneakers. The brim of his cap was pulled down low against the rain that had started to fall outside, and his hands were shoved in the pockets of his unzipped jacket.