So, yeah. I'm unable to do much but write, lately, but I don't suppose anyone actually has complaints about that. Anyway, have a chapter that involves Hakuba, Nakamori-keibu, and Aoko.

(26)
Sustain

Hakuba felt a little disconnected as he made his way home and started fixing himself tea. He rather thought he'd need a whole pot, for this.

He'd already been fairly sure Kuroba was in love with Kudo. That Kudo had some sort of reciprocation going on was unexpected, but… Kudo was ordinarily quite reserved.

Seeing his entire focus zero in on Kuroba (faint red on lips from a bleeding tongue) with that kind of predatory intensity had been a little alarming, and the way he'd glanced at Hakuba in a moment of clear indecision before his nostrils had flared slightly and he'd ended up pulling Kuroba into a short but very dominating kiss…

Legend, myth, and fiction spoke of fewer inhibitions and a pretty terrifying level of bloodlust, in all possible interpretations of the word.

The fact that Kudo had also verbally admitted that the kiss had been inspired by the blood was more than a little unnerving. (Kuroba's exasperated pointing out that Kudo hadn't bitten hadn't helped much.)

Hakuba let out a sharp breath, trying to still the disjointed flow of his own thoughts as he took the kettle off the stove, pouring boiling water over the loose-leaf Earl Grey in his teapot before setting the kettle on a cool burner, double checking that he'd turned off the one he'd been using.

He hadn't. His fingers were shaking, a little, when he reached out to turn the dial until the stove clicked off, and how had something so simple shaken him so badly? It had been a kiss. Granted, it had involved one of the largest banes of his existence and a detective he actually respected (and grudgingly and silently admitted whose skills were better than his), but it was just a kiss.

Except that it had been prompted by blood and been a sharp and heavy reminder that Kudo wasn't… human, anymore. He'd seen the effects of Koizumi's spells, felt them (rather humiliatingly) in one case, or what he hoped was only one case, but that had been—was—Koizumi. She'd always felt wrong.

Kudo… he'd seen him shot with his own eyes, seen him bleeding out with a hole in his lung, coughing up blood (too much for it to be faked, far too much), helped dig the bullet (bloodied, but of course it was a barely visible film as it had torn through Kudo's chest so quickly) out of the wall and bleach the evidence. That had been terrifying, horrible, and if Kudo's desire to keep his blood out of a doctor's hands meant anything, it was that he feared it could be used somehow.

Whether it was infectious or not, there was some merit to that worry.

The very next day, Kuroba had been suffering from fairly obvious hypovolemia, a bandage on his shoulder and Kudo showing concern in his odd, matter-of-fact way. (Kudo hadn't had visible fangs, then, and the bandage had hidden the wound. Had it been a cut? Even Kuroba had admitted that he'd forced the issue. After such an injury, Kudo—according to legend, any… vampire—would have been starving, desperate to feed in order to heal. The scent or taste of blood not his own would likely have sent him into some kind of haze or frenzy, and the sudden intensity he'd shown even while well-fed when Kuroba had barely pricked himself was pretty telling.)

He checked the tea, then poured himself a cup with mostly steady hands, having gotten out one of the ones his family had brought from London. It was a small comfort, one he rarely bothered with, and he added milk and sugar as he thought.

How many of the legends were true, and how many weren't? And how the hell had Kudo become one? If the legends were right on the making of a vampire (granted, they varied, but the common factor was being turned), how many others were there? If even half the legends were vaguely approaching the truth, most of them would be far less careful about the frailty of human life, and many—if not most—would actively enjoy snuffing it out.

That was… a thought he'd been trying to avoid. He hadn't seen anything about vampire-themed serial killings, but… they could just be very, very good at hiding it. Missing persons lists weren't long, in Tokyo. For some reason, Kudo always found the dead, and before he'd gotten back, Edogawa Conan had.

He stopped, cup halfway to his lips. Looked at that thought very, very carefully, prodding it from other angles.

The cup lowered as he swallowed dryly. What if… what if the legends had gotten that wrong? What if it wasn't that they were made into what they were? What if it was some kind of-of born curse, that they were haunted by death until it took them, and then simply not allowed peace? Kudo had been missing for two days, after all, genuinely missing, and had come back shaking and suffering from traumatic amnesia.

Add that to a flashback on seeing a murderer…

He set his cup on the counter in front of him and leaned against it, feeling suddenly lightheaded.

Kudo Shinichi had been murdered, and no one knew, no one would ever know, because he was still here, still walking among them, still stumbling over death and violence and staring down criminals with unflinching eyes.

And… what would happen to Conan?

(Those two had the same eyes, for all that Conan's had been obscured by glass. The same helpless, frustrated, grieving anger on seeing the dead, the same sharp satisfaction when the clues came together and the killer became clear. They had been the same, and suddenly he feared that one day, they'd be the same again. Conan had nearly died so many times, close calls and injuries nearing weekly. FBI protection was all well and good, but it really only highlighted how much danger he was in.)

He wasn't sure whether he wanted to be right or not. On the one hand, it would mean there were no bloodthirsty monsters roaming around. On the other…

Kudo was his own age, and had a set of morals that were unbelievable in their strength and purity. A monster catching and changing him would have been bad enough, but to think he'd been killed, left somewhere in hopes that he'd never be found, and then been refused whatever peace was supposed to be waiting beyond death…

Hakuba sank to the floor, sickened. That was…

He took a shuddering breath, trying to calm himself. Kudo somehow wasn't a monster, and he had to believe that would remain as it was. Kudo also wasn't… He was taking it remarkably well, overall. As much as the concept was horrifying, the result didn't seem to be, really.

Aside from the whole… blood-drinking thing. Which… there was a culture he'd read about that drank blood instead of eating meat*, mixing it with milk or just as it was. They didn't butcher their animals; they bled them, careful not to take too much. It had been an interesting article, and made the concept of blood-drinking a lot less horrifying when he thought about it in their terms.

They gained sustenance without killing, and that was rather the point. Kudo clearly intended to do the same, and if he hadn't killed Kuroba yet, it was unlikely that he was going to. He rubbed a hand over his eyes and stood back up, still a little shaky but far calmer with that realization.

It was something, at any rate. And if Kudo and Kuroba could handle this, so could he.

Although he was going to ask. He had to ask; he couldn't keep wondering how Kudo had become what he was.

(Not today, though. He didn't think he could face Kudo again so soon, not even with Kuroba there.)

xxxx

Nakamori's first impulse on hearing Kaito bouncing towards his office (no one else 'bounced' in the precinct) was to pray for patience, but the unnerving silence that echoed from the bullpen aside from those too-cheery footsteps had him suddenly concerned.

His men could handle Kaitou KID, after all. Kuroba Kaito had never been more than an amusing irritant. The slightly muffled declaration of "Come on, Shin-shin won't bite!" had his prayer for patience swap to one for courage.

Kudo was here. He hadn't seen Kudo more than once since the last heist, and that only to fill out paperwork and leave. And while he knew that Kudo wasn't hostile, that he would never intentionally cause serious harm, he couldn't help the chill at the thought that Kudo was something that shouldn't exist.

Kaito tapped on his door, actually having the decency to wait for a response before opening it, and waved cheerfully.

Well, at least Kaito was in good health and high spirits, which was more than could be said for the last time he'd seen Kaito and Kudo at the same time, and… there was Kudo, giving Kaito a fondly exasperated look as he started fidgeting his way though card tricks.

"Kaito, Kudo-san," Nakamori nodded a greeting, doing his level best to hide his unease.

Kudo nodded and returned the greeting and Kaito flashed a nervous smile, the cards poofing into glittery smoke before being abruptly replaced by three juggling balls. (Nakamori never had managed to figure out how Kaito could carry all those things without it showing.)

Kudo reached out, catching the balls and stilling Kaito's hands. "Relax, Kaito. It's Nakamori-keibu. You know him."

Nakamori blinked as Kaito's tension suddenly eased, his expression loosening to something more real. "Shinichi," he half-complained, not looking at all like he meant it, "Why do you always have to be right?"

Nakamori opened his mouth, hesitated, and finally settled on asking "What do you two want?" in a somewhat aggrieved manner.

"So, uh," Kaito cast a help-me look in Kudo's direction, and Kudo gave him something between an encouraging smile and an amused smirk. "I asked Shinichi to go out with me?"

"Why is that a question?" Kudo asked while Nakamori was still trying to comprehend the sentence.

Kaito was dating a horror-story creature that also happened to be the best detective in Japan.

Okay, then. He'd thought the boy couldn't get any crazier, but apparently he'd been wrong.

"Nakamori-keibu," Kudo began, eying him with something vaguely approaching sympathy, "You don't need to worry about the…" he hesitated, then sighed and waved vaguely, baring his—shit—fangs. "My… doctor," something about the way he said that was worrying, "has developed a stable synthetic that I can use in place of blood. I keep some on hand, and so does Kaito. I think most of Division One has begun to as well, just in case of further incidents."

Kudo hadn't had fangs last time Nakamori had seen him, but then it had been over a month, and Kudo hadn't been a vampire long, then. And, damn it, that should not be a sentence he could think seriously.

He sighed, tamping down his misgivings in the face of Kaito's clear nervousness. "You hardly need my blessing, Kaito," he pointed out, going for dry and ending up with gruffly fond. "But… you could do worse than Kudo, vampire or not."

The sudden happy relief breaking over the boy's face had him scowling to cover the urge to smile, and he turned a glare on Kudo, "You, on the other hand. If you hurt Kaito—in any sense of the word—I will find a way to put you down."

Kudo met his gaze levelly, "I'm going to do my best to see him safe and happy. I don't promise everything will be perfect, but… I will try."

Well. More honest than most, anyway. "See that you do," he paused, hesitant, but he had to ask. "Have you got any idea what's kept Kid quiet so long? It's not like him."

Kudo shook his head, "He was uninjured when he left the last heist. Horrified, but uninjured—he saw me shot, after all. It's quite possible that he's been redoing some of his equipment to deal with snipers that are no longer being careful."

Right. That would take a while. And it was a good point; Kid tried to protect them whenever something unexpected happened, having to be protected would probably have stung his pride under normal circumstances, but having someone get hurt in front of him would likely have him planning contingencies and upgrading equipment. (Especially since anyone but Kudo getting hit like that would have died.)

That thought really shouldn't have been comforting.

(It was.)

xxxx

"Aoko!"

Aoko yelped, backpedaling in shock as a shaggy-dark head of hair appeared directly in front of her in a 'poof' of smoke, dropping her book-bag and nearly crashing into Keiko, who'd shared her last class of the day. (That had been a relief when they'd found out; neither of them had expected to know anyone else at first.)

Keiko yelped, too, jumping back and raising her book bag defensively.

Aoko twitched as the culprit registered, raising her head with a dark glower, "Kaito!"

His eyes widened comically, hands coming up in a vaguely warding gesture even as he beamed uncontrollably. "Sorry, sorry!"

"'Sorry' won't get you out of punishment!" she growled, snatching up her bag and giving a wild swing.

Something interposed itself between her and Kaito, the bag hitting with a strange 'thump-kek' sort of sound. The something turned out to be a someone, and the someone grunted sharply before making a sound very much like a growl.

Kaito yelped, dragging the someone back as Aoko realized she'd just whacked a stranger with a bag of college textbooks.

She dropped her bag again, flushing, "Oh my goodness, Aoko's so sorry! Aoko didn't see you! Are you all right?" Kaito would have dodged, but she hadn't taken a swing at him with her college bag ever before, it had always been her lighter high-school bag, and even then she usually went for the mop.

Kaito was also looking over the other person, eyes wide. "Shinichi?"

'Shinichi' waved dismissively, "You weren't moving fast enough, you moron. I remember what you told me about riling up your friend; that's a much heavier bag than you should be standing still in front of. You could have ended up with cracked ribs."

There was something just a little breathless in the fondly annoyed admonition, and Kaito frowned, eying the person (who looked a little like Kaito—a relative?) in something that wasn't worry, exactly, but was concern all the same. "I think you just did."

Another dismissive gesture, "It's fine, Kaito. Now, are you going to introduce me or not?"

Aoko felt her guilty worry build, "Are you all right? Should we take you to the nurse's office?"

"Hm?" the other young man glanced at her, then turned an expectant gaze on Kaito, who flushed, but was already going back to 'beaming'.

"Right! Shinichi, this is Nakamori Aoko, my best friend! Aoko, this is Kudo Shinichi, my boyfriend!"

A little off to the side, Keiko choked.

Kaito paused to blink at her like he'd forgotten her presence while Aoko tried to wrap her head around the declaration, feeling rather dazed. Kudo Shinichi was a famous detective their own age, after all, even if he somehow managed to keep his private life largely out of the media.

Kudo gave a polite bow, "Nice to meet you, Nakamori-san. Also, Kaito, I know you know the other—just because you didn't plan to introduce me to her is no reason to be rude."

Kaito blinked again, then grinned, "Oops, sorry, Keiko-chan. Shin-shin, this is Momoi Keiko; she was in my high school class, too."

Kudo offered another polite "Yoroshiku" and Keiko went starry-eyed.

Which Aoko felt like doing, herself. Her dad had complained about Kudo in a halfhearted sort of manner, but it wasn't genuinely resentful. "Nice to meet you, too, Kudo-kun," she managed, trying to wrap her head around the fact that not only was Kaito dating a guy—and, okay, he'd never really shown interest either way past his usual flirting, but in that usual flirting he wasn't exactly picky—but a minor celebrity who happened to be a detective who had occasionally stepped in to make Kid's life difficult.

Somehow this didn't add up to anything comprehensible. She'd known Kaito knew Kudo Shinichi—that time where Beika had called him over to their precinct to help with something bad that had happened to Kudo-kun had earned her a stuttering explanation from her father and Hakuba-kun—but… dating?

Still, it was a good thing, if it made Kaito smile so genuinely. "When did this happen? Why is Aoko only hearing about it now?" she demanded, picking up her bag and moving closer, Keiko at her side and brimming with silent enthusiasm.

"I didn't get up the nerve to actually ask him until yesterday," Kaito admitted sheepishly.

"Apparently," Kudo sounded vastly amused, "He's been crushing on me for almost four years."

Kaito flushed, shoving Kudo gently, "I couldn't ask you out when you were in hiding!"

Kudo winced, sucking in a sharp breath, and Kaito stilled.

"Shinichi? Oh, shit—that's worse than I thought, isn't it? Are you okay?"

Aoko froze, realizing that wince was for Kaito pressing against where she'd thumped Kudo-kun with her bag.

Kudo, once again, dismissed the concern, "It's fine. I could stand a boost, but you know as well as I do that it's not going to kill me."

Kaito bit his lip, eying Aoko uncertainly for a moment before nodding sharply and producing a thermos from nowhere, removing the lid before offering it to Kudo-kun.

Whatever was in it was a deep, rich crimson, and looked creepily like blood. It couldn't be, though, because Kaito would never like someone with that kind of personality.

Kudo-kun drank a good half of it before handing it back, and Kaito eyed him suspiciously, "Is that enough?"

Kudo-kun rolled his eyes, "Kaito. Cracked ribs are not gunshot wounds."

"Ano…" Keiko blinked, "What?"

Quite suddenly, the thing that had been bugging her about Kudo-kun clicked. "Kudo-kun has fangs!"

She had not meant to blurt that out.

Kaito grinned brightly, but there was a bit of wariness in his gaze as he watched her, and he cast a quick, worried glance towards Kudo-kun.

"It's fine, Kaito. They'll find out eventually, if they're your friends. Her dad will probably explain tonight even if we don't."

Kaito bit his lip, cast a faintly panicked look in Aoko's own direction, and nodded. "Can you guys not spread it all over campus, though?" Kaito asked seriously. "It's bad enough that the police know, even if it was necessary."

That sounded… "Right," Aoko agreed, echoed by a curious Keiko.

"Shinichi's, um… not entirely human, anymore."

Anymore?

Kudo-kun sighed sharply, "What he means," Kudo cast Kaito a slightly sour look and received a helpless little shrug in reply, "is that I recently became something we have no better description for than 'vampire'."

Aoko blanched and Keiko squawked, "You mean that's blood?" she demanded, gesturing at the thermos Kaito still held.

Kaito shook his head, "No, no. Shinichi's terrifying chemist-friend spent about a week developing a working synthetic he could use instead."

"She's my doctor, although I won't dispute the 'terrifying'."

Okay. Okay. And he obviously was more than a little protective of Kaito, considering he'd stepped in the way of her haphazardly-swung bag of books. Then the thought popped up, "Did Aoko really break your ribs?"

Somewhat to her surprise, Kudo-kun rolled his shoulders back and took a deep breath before prodding at his own side and nodding, "I think you did, yes. They're still a little tender, and they wouldn't be if it had just been bruising."

"Uh…" Keiko managed.

Kaito shrugged, "Hey, he got shot through the right lung at the last Kid heist by one of those snipers the police haven't caught yet. He was fine by the next day."

A hand reached out to swat Kaito in gentle reproof. "Ask Nakamori-keibu or Hakuba-san," Kudo instructed, his sleeve shifting to show a glint of silver at his wrist. "In all honestly, I'm starting to get a headache—Kaito, do you mind…?"

Kaito blinked, then winced, glancing upwards. "Right, sorry. Let's get you out of the sun."

Aoko found herself trailing along after them, Keiko trotting at her side as Kaito herded his boyfriend—vampire boyfriend, apparently, although she wouldn't put it past Kaito to be messing with them—towards the campus library.

(She and Keiko did go talk to her father, later. The fact that Kaito hadn't been messing with them was a little scary.)

xxxx

*National Geographic article I read years ago. I recall the cattle being kind of scrawny-looking in the pictures, and the children eating congealed milk-and-blood off a mixing stick as a treat. Which, um. Really messed with my sense of 'ick', actually. I tried to reconcile the idea of 'congealed bloody milk' with 'treat' and my brain did a sad little 'does not compute' fizzle and shut that train of thought down.