Disclaimer: "Detective Conan" belongs to Gosho Aoyama.
Becoming Conan
by FS
Chapter 1: Red
For months, he has been having recurring dreams of a pond or a lake (sometimes it's even a river or a sea): and there she is, on the other side of the night—a faraway figure whose silhouette is all too easily recognizable.
c.
Between them, trust has been difficult to build and hard to maintain. But once it has developed into something more personal and intimate, Shinichi can't help but compare it to the proverbial red string of fate. Invisible, invincible, inscrutable.
c.
"What have you been reading?" she asks in a half-amused, half-mocking tone. Judging by his facial expressions, he has been wading through a whole dictionary of contradicting emotions.
He looks up from the small hardcover in his hands with an expression of childish, wide-eyed wonder.
"Conan Doyle's biography—or rather a few papers on Doyle's private life and how it might have affected his writings."
"What's so disturbing and amazing about it?" Her tone sounds a little too curious for her taste. "You've been pulling grimaces for over ten minutes!"
An eternity of silence passes, punctuated only by her impatient sigh, the rustle of trees, and the clink of the spoon against the china cup.
"I've noticed certain inconsistencies in the Sherlock Holmes stories, but I didn't expect to find the answers here." She can discern a slight hesitation in his movements before he decisively closes the book and pushes it towards her. "I can give you my copy if you want to read it. I'd like to hear your opinion."
"Which inconsistencies do you mean?" She is stirring her hot chocolate for longer than she needs, but she enjoys the warmth radiating from the cup and the anticipation of the imminent pleasure almost as much as the actual act of consumption. "After all, Doyle seldom reread his own stories and inserted enough plot holes for a century of rewritings and pastiches."
He follows the circular movement of the spoon in her hand with puzzled attention.
"The mystery of Watson's wife. The timeline of Watson's marriage and widowhood doesn't really make sense, but I initially thought Doyle's memory had failed him."
"So it's not a coincidence that he messed up the timeline?" she asks, redundantly. Maybe she should measure the passing time by the clink of the spoon against the cup. It would turn time into an entity she can easily control.
"I don't know it for sure, but I'd like to interpret it as the sort of signs authors subconsciously insert into their writings. Do tell me what you think about the paper after you've read it!"
"Before or after I've finished the latest complete annotated edition of the Sherlock Holmes stories and novels you've sent me?" She is stirring her chocolate with luxurious, hypnotic languidness, relishing the serenity which only arrives when she is no longer aware of the passing time.
"Before." He flashes her a rare playful smile although she believes to see a strange glint of anxiety in his eyes. "This is urgent!"
"I'll read it tonight then."
Now that the spell is broken, time has resumed its natural course; and the chocolate, slightly cooler but also sweeter than expected, is being dealt with in an unemotional, business-like manner.
c.
Arthur Conan Doyle met his future wife Louisa ("Louise", "Mary Louise", or "Touie") Hawkins in 1885, when he treated her brother Jack, who was dying from cerebral meningitis, as a resident patient in his own home (Doyle had offered the Hawkinses to stay at his place since Jack, Louisa, and their mother were about to be evicted from their lodgings due to Jack's seizures). Even though Jack didn't survive, Louisa was so taken by the young doctor's kindness that she fell in love with him after her brother's passing. Arthur Conan Doyle, too, was impressed by Louisa Hawkins' unusual sweetness. The couple married shortly afterwards and had two children together.
Their marriage, built on tenderness that arose from grief and compassion, was remarkably happy and comfortable, and Arthur Conan Doyle's literary career took off when he created the quintessential detective in the figure of Sherlock Holmes…
Thus, in The Sign of Four, the second Sherlock Holmes novel, Watson finds love with Mary Morstan, and the marriage which follows their courtship separates Watson, who is now preoccupied with his new love, from his friend and partner Holmes.
A wondrous subtle thing is love, for here were we two who had never seen each other before that day, between whom no word or even look of affection had ever passed, and yet now in an hour of trouble our hands instinctively sought for each other. I have marveled at it since, but at the time it seemed the most natural thing that I should go out to her so, and, as she has often told me, there was in her also the instinct to turn to me for comfort and protection. So we stood hand in hand, like two children, and there was peace in our hearts for all the dark things that surrounded us. (The Sign of Four, by Arthur Conan Doyle).
c.
It's reassuring to know that she can still trust his limitless ability to disappoint, Shiho thinks after skimming the summary on the dust jacket of the hardcover Kudo-kun has given her. After burying the book at the bottom of her suitcase and pushing the suitcase back into the closet, she pauses for a moment at the large double bed. He has made no secret of the fact that The Sign of Four is his favourite Sherlock Holmes story because he adores the Watson/Morstan romance. She was a blonde young lady, small, dainty, well gloved, and dressed in the most perfect taste. […] Her face had neither regularity of feature nor beauty of complexion, but her expression was sweet and amiable, and her large blue eyes were singularly spiritual and sympathetic. Replace "blonde" with "dark" and eliminate the anachronistic "well gloved", and the passage introducing Mary Morstan might as well be describing Ran.
Last night Kudo-kun told her during an uncommonly sentimental surge of emotion that she was one of the few people he could trust with his life. He even stressed that the emotional bond between them was the most intense and intimate he had ever known. Of course she must be exaggerating and romanticizing the situation, and his "intense and intimate" was only a misleading choice of word. Eroded by time and distance—emotional and physical, real and imagined—their erstwhile dependence on each other has morphed into the sort of long-time friendship one would seldom spare a thought of but would also never question. He still occasionally messages her to ask her for her opinion on personal matters while she still needs time to figure out how to reply to his messages like a normal platonic friend would. Seven years after she left Ai and he left Conan behind, his trust in her intuition and her trust in his obtuseness remain the only two things that haven't changed with time.
c.
A/N: I'm posting this fic during the CoAi week which Momo&Co have organized on Tumblr (you can find the links and details on Momo Cicerone's profile) because the prompts for the CoAi week have inspired me to divide this story into seven short chapters. Since the plunny for this story was born long before I knew about the prompts and the prompts only appear as easter eggs in the respective chapters, however, I'm not sure whether I should post this story independently from the event or not. I'll update it on the same days nonetheless.
Other people are going to write and draw for the CoAi week as well. From the things I've seen and read by now, I'm sure it will be a treat for ConanAi fans. ;)