Disclaimer: If I owned CC/DC or MK the series probably would have ended by now.
Unwarranted Fever Dreams
"Oh thank god!" Conan shouted in relief, jolting his companions from their slumber.
In an instant, Ran was hugging him close. The boy was trembling, not from fear of a nightmare as his 'Nee-chan' most assuredly guessed, but as a result of the mortification that came along with being suffocated in his not-quite-girlfriend's bosom.
"Conan-kun what's the matter, did you have a bad dream?" she asked in a soothing tone, stroking his hair.
Across the row, Heiji stretched lethargically. Train seats always gave him muscle cramps he groused and yawned groggily. His mood brightened at the sight of Kudo paralyzed against 'Ran-neechan', and he snickered, knowing his friend was no doubt embarrassed beyond all comprehension.
"Oi, Ku- Conan-kun, what's got you all worked up?" he asked humorously, immediately regretting his words. Kazuha and Ran glared daggers at him, no doubt for being 'insensitive'. He paled and grinned awkwardly, self-preservation instincts kicking in. "Ah, that is, if ya want to talk about it. Ya really don't hafta..." he desperately forced sincerity into his voice, praying it was convincing.
Conan, after delicately extracting himself from Ran while her attention turned elsewhere, eyed the now sweating teenager sadistically. A silent pleading look or two later, Conan deemed Heiji to be punished enough, and plopped himself on another seat enthusiastically. "It's ok Heiji-niisan, it wasn't a nightmare at all! My dream was just a little bit... disconcerting." He attempted to beam innocently, failing miserably.
"Disconcerting?" Ran and Kazuha echoed. Heiji frowned blandly at Kudo who immediately realized his mistake and went on the defensive.
"It's um- Shinichi-niisan told me that word! He said it'd make me sound smarter," he rubbed the back of his neck nervously,
"Awful 'disconcerting' if ya freaked out like that. So, feel like sharing?" Heiji asked with faux politeness in his tone, wondering how the whole world hadn't figured out Kudo's identity yet.
"Well," the mini detective turned slightly red and fidgeted. "It's um..."
"It's ok, Conan-kun," Ran smiled in support and placed a hand on his small shoulder. "You don't have to tell us if you don't want to. I used to have a lot of bad dreams when I was little too."
"When I was small," Kazuha piped up, "I used to call up Heiji and tell him about my nightmares. Talking to him always made me feel better. Except," she smirked deviously, "after I hung up, he'd stay up all night, terrified by my stories!"
"Wha- I did not!" Heiji hissed, red faced in protest, arms flailing in while he spluttered in denial at the laughing girl beside him.
Conan shook his head in disbelief, frowning as he noticed Ran. She had a strange smile on her face, and seemed to be watching an event only he could see. Worried, he reached over and tugged on her hand, "Ran-neechan?"
"I used to to the same thing with Shinichi," she murmured wistfully, "he told me I was silly to be afraid of things that didn't exist. I remember he rolled his eyes and started listing reasons why dreams couldn't hurt you."
"And that worked?" Kazuha asked in disbelief.
Happy to let the other subject drop, Heiji snorted under his breath. Apparently Kudo had always been a creepy little kid. No wonder his 'Conan' persona was so flawed. At least he knew why Ran didn't notice the freakiness now. The girl wasn't mentally impaired as he'd previously suspected, her mind had created an Automatic Weirdness Filter in order to battle the effects of prolonged exposure to the mini-detective...
"No," Ran continued, hands gripping the fabric of her skirt. "But then he said it didn't matter anyway, because it was impossible for there to be any monsters scarier than me. He meant it as a compliment to my karate, but back then I thought it was an insult. I got so mad I didn't speak to him for a whole week..." She trailed off, hair obscuring her face as she gazed downwards.
Heiji winced and Kazuha shifted awkwardly.
Guilt-ridden and panicked, Conan searched desperately for a way to break to sullen mood that had fallen across the room. Going with the first idea that popped into his head, he practically yelled in an inappropriate sing-song voice, "Hey! Wanna hear about my dream now?"
Instantly falling into character, Heiji 'happily' ruffled the boys hair, for once not trying to irritate his friend. "Sure thing, kiddo!" Anything to get Ran's mind off of you and out of this depressing atmosphere, he thought ruefully.
"Well," the small detective pretended to hum in concentration, "I was all grown up and working as a detective! The police were after a serial killer, and they asked me to catch him! Then, when we were examining the scene of his latest victim, I found enough evidence to prove who he was!" he chirped happily, ignoring the fact that death and crime scenes were not to be spoken of lightly by children. He continued obliviously, "I was just about to tell everyone who did it when one of the inspectors reviled himself to be Kaitou Kid!"
"Kaitou Kid? That doesn't sound too bad," Kazuha mumbled in a shaky voice, visibly disturbed by Conan's morbid fantasies. It wasn't the killing that seemed to bother him... What a messed up kid...
"He wasn't on a heist though, he wanted to sell me life insurance..." Conan continued, grumbling.
"Kaitou Kid wanted to sell you life insurance?" Heiji coughed. He was fascinated if not mildly horrified by his friend's mind. Of course, Kudo would find the 'stupid thief' would be immensely more distressing than a psycho killer, a voice in the back of his head proclaimed sarcastically.
"Yeah... anyway, I told him no, but he kept bugging and the murderer escaped!" Conan turned red in what was either anger or embarrassment. Ran patted his hand in assurance.
"I kept after the guy, but every time I got close, Kid would show up! He was everywhere and always in a new disguise so I couldn't avoid him!" He paused, huffing.
"Then, once he cornered me, he'd pull out this ugly brown briefcase and start flipping through papers, all the while telling me about how 'expensive funerals were these days', or I 'should feel positive that my loved ones can take care of me in the unfortunate event of my passing'. Over and over, he kept appearing out of nowhere, and the killer kept getting to escape while I couldn't!" the detective growled bitterly, hands tightening into fists.
"After a while, I finally agreed to buy his life insurance, just so he'd go away! He took me his office, which was inside a gum-ball machine, and made me go through hours of pointless paperwork! The worst part was how irrelevant questions were... 'How many packets of jell-o do you regularly go through on Sunday while mowing the lawn?' 'If you had the choice would you rather kiss a penguin or do the polka at a U.S.O. show?' 'In a fight between the Pillsburry Doughboy and Domo-kun during which the two of them are trapped on a water planet with only scuba-gear, seventeen green squeegees, and a copy of The Communist Manifesto, who would win and why?' Who comes up with that kind of crap?"
His companions wisely refrained from commenting.
"At least after I bought the insurance, he left... Or so I thought! When I finally managed to catch the killer, there was an eruption of pink smoke, and I had a handcuffed Kid! The the deranged maniac grinned at me like a hyena and asked if I needed a new vacuum cleaner!" Acting his visual age, he whimpered in frustration and frantically ripped at his hair.
Kazuha gaped openly. Ran continued to pat Conan's hand, imparting the proper maternal response: ambiguous murmurs of assent without a hint of cognizance.
Heiji's right eye twitched.
Yup. Automatic Weirdness Filter...
A/N: Wow. I wrote this forever ago and it's... just as horrible and OCC as the stuff I write now. Huh. But Seriously, Kaito would make a most terrifying salesmen ever! He'd pop out of trash cans, from behind doors, be in the next stall over in the bathroom, and never ever give up or stop smiling cheerfully. Creepy.
