Ran holds Shinichi tighter to her chest as he lets out a guttural cry. His eyelids are fluttering; his eyes have rolled into the back of his head. He starts convulsing, one hand clutching so tightly to his heart it's breaking skin. She loosens her own grip; she's well-aware restraining someone seizing can lead to injury on both their parts. There's nothing around his neck, small favors, but that doesn't lessen the fact that something is deadly wrong with him.
Her mind runs through the symptoms of poisoning; the food? No, thinking back, the onset happened before they reached the restaurant; she'd dismissed it as fatigue, or the heat of the day—he was sweating even then, and short of breath.
She can't do anything but watch him as he spasms, body jerking as if channelling electric shock. She'd ring 119 but they took her phone, and anything else she tried would probably hurt him more than help.
Ran wrings her hands, tears coming unbidden to her face. She bites her lip hard, trying to keep them back, but it's no use. They stream down her face as Shinichi seizes again and again, body contorting. His movement tears the wound on his shoulder open, blood drips down to her thighs, coating her shorts and legs and smearing with her movements. She immediately puts pressure on the wound with the palms of her hands; she's got nothing else to use. A tear falls down her face, splashing against Shinichi's cheek.
He stills, shuddering still.
The pressure of her hands must jolt Shinichi to awareness as his eyes fly open. "Ran…" he forces out, voice hoarse.
"Shinichi!" she says, keeping her hands in place to staunch the blood flow. "Shinichi! Stay with me!"
"Ran," he says again, voice weaker. "You're... here." He sounds almost surprised. And a little disoriented, like he's unsure where here is. He's still shaking, aftermath sending tremors through his body, still clutching at his heart, his other hand blindly grabbing at her and holding her wrist.
"Of course I am, silly," Ran says, her hands covered in his blood. She leans down and wipes her nose on her arm, sniffing, keeping steady pressure on his wound. "Where else would I be?"
"Ran, I—Ah," he begins, but screams in pain. He stiffens, his body white-hot, turns on his side and out of her lap, body curling in on itself. She kneels beside him, keeping pressure on his wound as he shakes.
Then, a curious thing. He twitches; suddenly, his body is shrinking. She stares, and blinks, and blinks again, rubs at her eyes with the knuckles of one bloody hand. The vision in front of her doesn't change. His screams of pain echo through the empty room. Her hands—she feels the movement, feels the loss of mass underneath her fingertips, and then there's a bleeding child laying beside her curled in on himself, howling in pain before going deathly still, swimming in bandages and too-large jeans.
Conan. That's Conan. She was—she was kidding. She thought, but she never thought—Ran can't breathe, her heart thudding in her chest as a wave of memories washes over her. The hospital. The phones. The gunshot. Their blood type. It's crazy, but the proof is right in front of her eyes.
She knows Conan looks exactly like Shinichi did as a child. Mannerisms, love of detective work and Holmes. She's suspected, but...things don't work like that out in the real world. Her heart leaps in her throat, as she thinks back to the night Conan showed up.
Tropical Land, where Shinichi disappeared. Two men on the roller coaster, too suspicious, though they weren't the murderers. Both in black, one with silver hair and cold eyes and one in sunglasses with a square chin. A flash of silver hair by the docks; Conan next to a dead woman. Conan putting gum on the train on the way to the wedding, her scolding him as two men in black return to their seats, and his desperate need to tell her something, bomb discovered only later. So many scenes flashing in front of eyes it makes her dizzy.
People don't just shrink. People don't deage. But Shinichi just did, which means they do. Ran can't breathe, arms tingling, body going numb. The dim cell flickers in and out before her eyes; she feels faint.
She doesn't know how long she sits there in a daze before a soft cry from below brings her back to herself. She glances down.
Conan's—no, Shinichi's—wound has come unpacked from the shifting of his skin, and with his seizure earlier and his smaller frame, blood is pouring from his shoulder. Without the bandages to keep it compressed and his smaller body, Shinichi could very well bleed to death. That's not counting whatever the transformation has done to his body.
And she's sitting in a daze just letting it happen. Like hell. She takes a deep breath, centering herself, and moves Shinichi, maneuvering around so she can repack his wound and rewrap the bandages. She would prefer it if they were clean but needs must. Though they said they needed them both alive, she can't depend on their goodwill.
Her mind races. It's not too late. She has to get Shinichi to a doctor. She has to find a way out of here.
When she finishes rewrapping them, she pulls Shinichi into her lap, doing the best she can to preserve his modesty. He's so small like this. He can't weigh more than thirty kilograms, and even that is a generous estimate considering how feather-boned he is. The more she thinks about it, the more it makes sense. Shinichi has always been fearless, and Conan is no different. She shakes her head. Conan is Shinichi.
Her arms cradle him easily enough, and she tucks him against her chest, as safe as she can make him. Her eyes flicker from wall to wall of the white cinderblock cell. Four cameras just outside the cell, two trained on the door, covering the other.
The architecture looks old, and she's broken many a cinderblock in her karate training. If they haven't packed the holes with mortar—
"Well, well, well. What have we here?"