AN: Written for the prompt: any, any, making the best of a bad situation (500). Angst!
"Conan-kun, can you help me in the kitchen?"
He moves on muscle memory. It's a new house, but it might as well be the apartment above Mouri's detective agency. Ran balances on the chair and he hands her dish after dish to fill the cupboards; nice dishes at the top for when company comes. The ring on her finger flashes each time she flips a plate over, right hand to left, and slots it on top of its counterparts.
"I know it will be different," Ran says, "but think of Hideki as a new brother." She smiles. "I know you'd rather live with Tou-san, but if I left you with him, you'd starve. We're glad to have you with us, though. I know it's not the same as being with your parents, but…" Her smile falters a bit, something in her eyes going cold. "But I would like to think we've become your family as well."
He doesn't say anything. He knows she will think his silence is because he feels abandoned by parents that left him with strangers half a decade ago. Better she assumes that than sees the truth. The night of her engagement he dropped Shinichi's phone down a sewer grate. He hasn't replaced it.
"What do you think I should make for dinner?" Ran asks, putting the last of the nice plates her mother in law gave her as a wedding gift away. "Once we finish unpacking the kitchen, I'll make whatever you want."
"Tempura?" he says, thinking wistfully of the last time he had it, the day before she announced her engagement.
She steps down from the chair. "Sure." Ran grins and hugs him. He hugs her back because he needs to. "Now help me put the rest of this stuff away."
He lets go because he has to.
Hideki isn't a bad man, he just married Ran. Shin—Conan tells himself this over and over every time they share a kiss or hold hands or act like a couple. He tells himself this as they talk about their days over his head and when they retire together for the night. He tells himself this as Ran pats his head and Hideki tries to ask him about school and when guests come over and they eye him sideways as the intruder to the newlyweds.
He tells himself this like he tells himself other things, little words that don't actually help in the long run. At least Ran is alive. At least he is still with her. At least he is alive. At least he will know if something goes wrong. At least she no longer cries over Shinichi.
If he tells himself it enough, he might believe it.
Ran holds him and pours out her heart to him the first time she and Hideki fight. She hugs him three days later when they make up. She whispers things to Conan she has never told Hideki and she never would have told Shinichi. It is enough.