Here's this chapter. Things are slow going now, but I haven't given up! On the up-side, it doesn't look like I'm going to go completely blind. On the down-side, reading is beyond me. The Ease of Access Center helps, but I still need actual people help to get writing done these days. Also, the screen reader is weird with pronunciation sometimes.

(49)
Planned

Kaito wasn't bored. Not really. He was a little frustrated—just most of his time in the past day or three had been eaten up with heist-planning and he also had to do at least some studying for the scholastic tests he had coming up within the next week—mostly because he hadn't had much time for Shinichi.

He felt a bit bad about that, and worse that Shinichi was looking pretty tired when he managed to scrounge himself enough time to stop in for a visit. He wasn't sure whether the parents of the Kudo family were still around or not, but he definitely remembered Science-san's introductory comments on Shinichi's lack of sleeping habits, and Shinichi's own admission that he found it easier to sleep when Kaito was in the house.

Shinichi wasn't getting anything close to tanuki-eyes, or even vague shadows, but he moved like he was tired. "Shin-shin?"

"Hey," Shinichi offered a smile over his shoulder even as he opened another cupboard, and Kaito couldn't quite figure out what he was after as he swiped three different boxes of imported chocolates off one of the upper shelves—probably his mother's, considering Shinichi's usual opinion of sweets—and flipped the lids of two of them open in quick succession before blinking, picking out a truffle wrapped in a brown-gold foil with an oddly purple sheen and a trident-looking symbol, then examined it for a moment before nodding to himself.

"...dare I ask?" he hazarded.

"Ah, that string of robberies Nakamori-keibu's been working on. There've been these wrappers at all of them, and I knew I'd seen them somewhere in this house. So, now we probably have a brand—I'll have to drop this off with Second's lab for a comparison, but it should at least help us narrow things down."

Case. Of course. But if it was one of Nakamori-keibu's, at least Shinichi was avoiding dead people. Thinking of, Kaito hadn't been there to bully him about health. "Have you been taking your meds?" he asked, moving in to swipe up the two unnecessary boxes and return them to their shelf.

Shinichi blinked, frowned, and tilted his head. "Probably not as regularly as I should."

Kaito didn't sigh. He knew how bad Shinichi was at taking care of himself—it wasn't even the kind of lack of care caused by depression, he just got so caught up in things he forgot. Shinichi knew he was bad about it too, and he did try, but knowing you were bad at something and reliably remembering to address the fault were two very different things. "I'll send you texts when I can't pester in person, then," he decided out loud.

Shinichi made an interesting sort of face—half wince, half grateful smile. "You staying the night, or do you have to head back to Ekoda?"

"Staying," Kaito told him. Because after seeing the not-great state his boyfriend was in, he was insuring a decent night of sleep and a good breakfast in the morning. "How've you been holding up?"

"Not terrible," Shinichi assured. "Just—it's been a bit wearing. There were three murders and a suicide yesterday, and another murder this morning. Then I went and hid with the Taskforce for a while."

"Oh? Did that work?" Kaito dodged further into the kitchen and put the kettle on.

"For now," Shinichi paused for a moment, then sighed, "I have a bad feeling about that string of robberies, though. And the general pattern... there will probably be another one soon. They've been escalating: getting more frequent and more violent both."

Kaito frowned, "And Nakamori-keibu is splitting his attention with the heist next week, isn't he?"

"The higher-ups are more on his case for not splitting his attention with your heist, but Nakamori-keibu has priorities. He chases Kid, but—people have been getting hurt in these robberies lately, and he straight up said 'at least that idiot doesn't hurt people' in reference to Kid while complaining about the grief they've been giving him for not spending any time on the heist note."

"Solve it for him?" Kaito asked. "Or would you rather I just explained it, if you're busy with the robberies? Or should I cancel or postpone or something?"

"... no, you should probably hold it. Without an explanation, that might cause trouble from the other direction—I know we have Snake, but there are still a few more stragglers out there. A sudden shift in habits could focus attention in unpleasant ways, and I haven't actually even seen the riddle yet. I suppose you could give me a copy, but it might be better for me to snag it off one of the Taskforce in the morning. It's still a few days off, right?"

"Mm," Kaito agreed, tapping his fingers lightly against the side of the kettle testingly, then decided it was about the right temperature and mixed one of Haibara's packets into a mug of warm-but-not-hot water. "I sent out the note earlier than usual."

Shinichi huffed at him and accepted the mug of not-quite-blood, exasperatedly amused and grateful. "Thanks. Hakuba may have already solved it for all I know. I didn't ask."

"Point," the Brit was obsessed, if less so than he used to be. "Well, let me know if anything changes. Otherwise, I'll keep with the current plan."

Shinichi nodded, and Kaito frowned to himself at the generally subdued reactions. "Right. Have you eaten?"

Shinichi shook his head, taking a quick swallow from his mug—and the things you could get used to, because seeing Shinichi drinking what amounted to fake blood was now normal—and tipping his head in the direction of the rice-cooker on the counter. "Rice should be finished soon. There's leftover curry in the fridge; I was just going to heat that up—there's more than enough for both of us, if you're hungry."

"I had dinner a while ago. Anyway, eat—then sleep. You look like you need it."

"Argh," Shinichi told him in a very articulate manner before chugging the last of his drink and going to check on the rice.

(Shinichi woke up at two in the morning. Kaito considered this a bad sign, because Shinichi didn't usually wake up with him around, and he decided he wasn't going to double-schedule a week with a heist and tests at the same time ever again as he herded Shinichi back to bed with a mug of tea.)

xxxx

"Whoa!" Sensui skipped back a half-step, almost overbalancing, and the cause of his startlement caught his elbow in one hand and his opposite hand in the other, both steadying him and keeping him from upending hot coffee all over himself.

"Sorry," Kudo Shinichi gave an apologetic smile as he let go and stepped back. "Didn't mean to startle you."

"It's fine," Sensui put his unoccupied hand to his chest, the brief shot of adrenaline easing away as his heart-rate dropped back to normal. "It's fine... although if you could make noise while you're walking, that'd be nice."

"I'm not that quiet, am I?" Kudo asked, blinking in what looked like actual surprise.

Sensui waved at him to tag along and turned back towards the bullpen, assuming that's where Kudo was headed, and when the young detective followed without protest, he took a few seconds to actually listen.

"Well, you're not loud. Or average. How do you walk that quietly?" Kudo was not a ninja.

Kudo shrugged, hesitating, "I don't know?" he offered, fangs catching the glare from the overhead florescents.

Right. Not a ninja, but still a vampire. "Well, whatever. It's not like it's a bad thing for a detective," he conceded. "On that note—why are you here, Kudo? I know Kuroba's not, and I haven't heard of anything along your usual lines...?"

"That string of robberies," Kudo explained. "I've got a bad feeling about them."

Oh. That was... not good, because there were rumors about Kudo's 'bad feelings' and those rumors all agreed that when Kudo had a bad feeling, things were going to get messy. And, with unfortunate frequency, fatal.

"I'll spread the word," he decided. "Everyone will be more careful if they hear that."

Kudo blinked, paused, and then seemed to come to a decision. "At least it's good for something," he muttered, then sighed. "Anyway, I have a partial answer for Nakamori-keibu that may or may not actually help, but - well, it's worth trying."

If Kudo had a bad feeling, just about anything within the bounds of the law would be worth trying, and probably a few without. Sensui didn't say that out loud though; he was a police officer. "Right, well," familiar muffled bellowing made its way faintly out the cracked door of the bullpen, "He's in his office. If you want to brave the decibel, go right on in."

Kudo made a face and preceded Sensui into the Division Two bullpen at his teasing bow and gesture, and made his way straight to Nakamori's (closed, as expected) office door, rapping his knuckles against it loudly before walking in, either not waiting for an invitation or able to catch one that didn't carry to where Sensui was heading to his desk of the far wall.

He allowed himself to think 'Good luck,' in Kudo's direction, because if Kudo thought something bad was going to happen, they'd all need it.

xxxx

The chocolate helped, Nakamori had to admit as following the trail of wrappers led them to a nervous young man who probably spent half his paycheck on the things he popped the way chain-smokers went through tobacco. And yet somehow he wasn't really showing it. He was no athlete, but he wasn't obese - just a bit overweight, and maybe a bit pale.

That young man saw the badge at his door and folded instantly, babbling about how they had to do it and that 'he' had made them do it, but it wasn't being enough anymore and his friends couldn't keep doing it, because none of them wanted to and 'he' was scary and Nakamori had legitimately lost track of the rush of words.

He exchanged glances with his backup - Sensui and Daisuke, at the moment - and wished he'd asked Kudo to come. Then, instead of cuffing their compliant criminal, he led him out to the unmarked car they'd taken and drove him back to the station, dropping him in an interrogation room for someone who knew how to handle that kind of babble to deal with.

They got the next target, that the thug-group had started out as a group of pre-school-cum-college friends who'd stuck together the whole time and been in the right place at the wrong time and had an actual criminal snag one of them who was being used as collateral against their cooperation.

Their actual criminal wanted money, and kept asking for more and more. The first store they'd robbed had been one that the hostage had used to frequent, so all of them were at least passingly familiar with the layout and the people. Once the six effective minions' jobs could really no longer keep up with demand, they'd gone in for robbing more and more often.

They weren't criminals, except that they were, and two had been getting more and more agitated, the stress eating away at restraint and tempers, and sooner or later someone was going to end up dead.

Unless they could snag them all and get the hostage out while also subduing someone who knew what he was doing well enough that it had taken this long to find a group of unwilling amateur robbers. And they'd needed Kudo Shinichi, who fixed in on the weirdest little things, and those things somehow always ended up being what gave them answers.

He called Kudo, whose phone number Kaito had cheerfully provided upon texted request.

"Nakamori-keibu?" Kudo sounded puzzled as he answered his phone.

Well, that saved him having to declare his name, "What draws your attention at a crime scene?" he asked.

There was a brief silence, "... things that stand out?"

That didn't help at all! Then again, it was Kudo. Kudo'd been a freak of nature since well before he'd sprouted fangs - he was just the kind of freak of nature that the police were usually glad to have around. Although it was a little... humbling, if he was being polite, to have a fourteen-year-old prove that he was smarter than the entirety of the Tokyo PD. It was slightly less so for a twenty-year-old and the fact that he wasn't exactly normal helped a bit on that front, too. "Well, whatever," he decided aloud. "Your candy wrappers got us a lead."

"Great," Kudo sounded genuinely pleased. "Don't tell me over the phone, though - there have been issues with tapped lines on my end, and when the Organization was intact, on the police's, too. Better to be careful."

Well, that was comforting. Note the sarcasm. "Fine. If you want to know, I'll be sorting out logistics in my office for the next few hours."

(It turned out that Kudo did want to know, because he showed up not half an hour later for the report. Which - how had Kudo, not even a member of the police force, become such a part of the system that several inspectors would report to him if he asked? And the Superintendent-General never protested! Also, he was disturbingly good at planning traps. Nakamori took advantage of that, complaining all the while.

Kudo only smiled at him and took the complaints in stride. Brat.)

xxxx