I feel like I should give some kind of preceding AN, just to say that -hey, I'm alive- and if you want to know anything more, Waking Dreams' last update has a more complete bit of information. And that I'll try to get to updating more regularly, but make exactly no promises.

(50)
Disrupted

"What happened?" Kaito demanded, scrambling into the Ekoda precinct's infirmary where Kudo Shinichi was bundled in a blanket, looking drawn and miserable while Nakamori toweled off his own hair and tried not to fret too visibly.

He'd let Kudo come along because Kudo was invaluable on levels that were ridiculous. If he'd known it would end the way it had, though...

Then again, no one had died, and he had the distinct feeling that wouldn't have been true without Kudo's presence. And how were they to have known Kudo would end up in the river?

Although knowing he couldn't swim would have been nice. If Nakamori'd known that, he wouldn't have wasted time waiting for the kid to come back up before going after him.

He voiced that thought, and was mildly surprised when Kaito stopped. Just for an instant, the ball of eternal energy was perfectly still, and then he turned his attention back to the miserable Kudo.

"Shinichi?"

Kudo shook his head, "We didn't think to test," he pointed out, tired and raspy. "Sorry, Keibu-san. It never even crossed my mind - I've never had trouble swimming before."

... running water. Western horror wasn't the only thing to have that as a barrier. Kudo'd been avoiding being in the sun for long, and seemed a little leery of Kaito's occasional fire tricks, but Nakamori hadn't even considered the other rumored weaknesses.

From Kaito's expression, neither had he.

"I'll drive you two home," Nakamori decided. "You should really think about sitting out on tomorrow's heist, Kudo. Take a day off." Because he looked worse than he had after being shot, and that... actually made sense if running water was a weakness where bullets were not.

"Thanks, Keibu-san," Kaito smiled at him, distracted and over-formal in his fretting over his boyfriend, and Kudo gently slapped away prodding hands.

"What he said," he agreed, bringing the number of times he'd thanked Nakamori for the impromptu rescue up to four. "I'm fine, Kaito."

"Liar," Kaito sighed back, producing a thermos from nowhere. "Drink your meds. I'll feed you properly when we get home."

No way was Nakamori getting involved in that. Nope. Not a chance.

A huff, wry and tired and reluctantly grateful, "... thanks, Kaito."

"Okay, you two are going home," Nakamori interrupted before things could get any more creepily cute, because he did not want to know. "Kudo, I'll get your report some other time. Kaito..." he didn't have an instruction for Kaito, actually, and that kind of killed his momentum.

Kudo grinned, a bit subdued but genuine. "Don't break reality?" he suggested.

Nakamori couldn't quite keep from huffing. "It's already broken," he grumped, because between Kaito's casual disregard for the laws of physics and Kudo's state as a creature from Western horror stories it really was. Not to mention mysteriously appearing soccer balls, which he wasn't going to forget about this time. "And where do you keep getting the soccer balls?"

"Hm?" Kudo blinked even as Nakamori herded both the boys towards the front entrance.

"That's the second time you've gotten a soccer ball from nowhere," Nakamori elaborated, referring to the whole reason he'd managed to fish Kudo out of the river before he'd drowned.

"Oh," Kudo blinked, looking a little bemused. "Huh. Right, Agasa-hakase makes some random toys. I think he actually designed it for Conan-kun after he kept getting into trouble, but he decided I needed one, too." He raised his shirt a few centimeters and tapped his oddly-shaped belt-buckle. "They're patterned like soccer balls, but they aren't, really. I don't know the chemical formula, but they're an elastic rubber compound that inflate with a controlled CO2 cartridge. They collapse quickly, though - they self-seal, but the seal's weak and only lasts about twenty seconds."

"You get them from your belt buckle?"

Kudo tossed him a grin, "Just be glad Kaito hasn't managed to give the Hakase any ideas."

... and that was a scary thought. Kaito broke reality quite enough on his own.

"Please no."

Kudo snickered, and Kaito cast Nakamori a brief, grateful smile. He couldn't help but smile back, because seeing Kudo so worn had worried him, too. Aside from the clear poor health, he'd seemed almost depressed, but now he was back closer to normal.

The last thing they needed was Kudo getting depressed. How the kid wasn't insane with everything he saw... if he started getting down about it, things could spiral out of control way too quickly, and Nakamori might not think much of the kid either way for the most part, but Kaito would be devastated if something bad happened to him.

Reason enough to help where he could.

xxxx

The first thing Kaito did after bundling Shinichi into his own bed (because the guest room was a mess and there was no way he was subjecting Shinichi to his mother's - or the couch, for that matter) was call Haibara-san.

"How does his breathing sound?" she demanded, a sudden shift in the sounds on the other end of the line implying she was moving.

"Not too bad," Kaito reported. "A little raspy, but mostly he just seems tired."

"The last thing we need is him actually getting ill," the mini-scientist sighed, "and he hasn't had a problem swimming before. I'll be there in forty minutes, Kuroba-kun. Keep an eye on him."

He couldn't help but feel relieved, because Haibara was much more knowledgeable about Shinichi's crazy system than he was, no matter what the police thought. "Thank you, Haibara-san," he murmured, and the pause indicated she heard the sincerity.

"No need to thank me, Kuroba-kun," she said after a moment. "He's family."

Which really said it all, didn't it?

xxxx

Shinichi was less than surprised to wake from a light doze with a wet cough and Haibara scowling at him from beside the - Kaito's - bed.

A firm hand helped him sit, and he vaguely realized Kaito and Agasa were both in the room as well, the former helping him up while the latter dragged Kaito's night-stand to a more convenient angle and set Haibara's doc-kit on it.

"What happened?" Haibara demanded, briskly worried.

Shinichi grimaced. He'd come close to drowning before, but he'd never been so helpless in the water - if not for the soccer-ball belt, he wouldn't have been able to reach the surface at all, much less for long enough for Nakamori to head in after him.

"Railing broke, and I couldn't swim. Felt like... weights," he decided, because it had. He could move fine, but the firm strokes that had before propelled him through water even with cloth dragging at him hadn't been enough. He rubbed a hand over his face, eyes feeling hot and over-dry as his chest throbbed dully.

"And you still have some fluid in your lungs, from the sound of you," Haibara dug for a stethoscope, "At least when it's your own blood we know you haven't picked up any hitchhikers. If your breathing is any worse in the morning, I'm putting you on antibiotics. For now -" she pressed the metal to his skin and he breathed in obediently, all too familiar with the general checkup routine. "For now, you don't sound too bad," she decided. "Up. I want you on a scale."

Mildly confused, Shinichi let himself be herded to his feet and then onto the scale that Kaito retrieved from his mother's room, then blinked bemusedly at the readout, not quite able to bully his tired brain into comprehending the numbers.

Kaito made a softly confused sound, but Haibara sighed. "I should have thought of this. We've gone to a lot of trouble to make sure that the increase in bone-density is even across your entire skeleton, Kudo-kun. Greater bone density means heavier bones. You essentially are wearing weights* - irremovable ones."

Which actually made sense, if he thought about it, but he was far too tired to think much about anything. "Can I go to sleep now?" he asked, somewhat plaintively.

Haibara sighed again. "I suppose that's a good idea. Kuroba, don't leave him by himself - if his breathing gets worse I want to to call me immediately."

Which would be a worrying order, if Shinichi was feeling up to worrying. But he'd had a long day, nearly drowned, and he was cold and tired and wanted to sleep. He didn't have the energy to worry.

Besides which, Kaito was clearly worrying enough for the both of them. And possibly enough to cover Haibara and the Hakase, too, even though both of them were clearly also worrying in their own rights.

He sighed. "Thanks," he murmured, encompassing the lot of them in the generalized statement. "I'm fine. Just tired."

"And you may be right on that, Kudo-kun," Haibara acknowledged, not sounding quite convinced as she let him collapse back onto Kaito's bed (Shinichi spared a vague thought for why he wasn't in the guest room, then dismissed it as unimportant) "You also may be wrong. Go to sleep. I'll check on you tomorrow."

Shinichi closed his eyes and drifted, distantly aware of Kaito escorting Haibara and a quietly concerned Agasa towards the front door. He was completely asleep by the time Kaito made it back, taking a moment to slip down to his workshop for a notebook before settling in at the desk, one ear on Shinichi's breathing as he worked through homework and heist plans.

xxxx

Kaito didn't sleep particularly well that night, even after he realized Shinichi was sounding better as opposed to worse as the night went on. The chill eased away and wasn't replaced by fever, and it looked like he'd sidestepped the possible illness - which was good, very good, but Kaito was more concerned with Shinichi's ability to swim effectively nullified.

It was fun to fake weaknesses, to encourage rumor and superstition - it was exactly the opposite of fun to find something real.

Shinichi was actually a bit stronger in his own right than someone would expect for his size and build, even without the so-called 'seals'. His muscles were also getting used to greater percentage use, and Shinichi would probably need a lot less focus to do the competitive weight-lifter style of excessive power just because of that, and his body in general seemed to be adapting fairly well to everything it was put through.

It was comforting to know that Shinichi was in a lot less danger from things like knives and bullets than he used to be, considering the ludicrous number of violent crimes he ran into. If the flip-side to that was a sudden vulnerability to deep water...

Well, Shinichi got shot at far more often than he ended up going for unexpected swims (which was ridiculous, because this was Japan, and guns weren't exactly something easily acquired in these parts and water was common).

Still. The fact that at least one of the weaknesses very much wasn't a joke...

Add that to how worn Shinichi'd seemed the past week?

Yeah. Kaito worried.

That in mind, he set about making a proper breakfast, setting a mug full of his boyfriend's meds aside and only pausing long enough to offer a smile and a "Good morning," when Shinichi made his way into the kitchen, looking significantly better than he had the night before even if not entirely awake.

Shinichi blinked at him for a moment, then crossed the kitchen and gave him a quick hug and a peck on the cheek, and Kaito stilled, not sure whether to be elated or concerned. Shinichi didn't instigate the physical affection.

Shinichi huffed at him, "I'm fine," he informed, somehow managing to sound exasperatedly long-suffering without actually changing his tone or inflection from casually affectionate.

Which was kind of impressive, and Kaito now needed to learn how to do that. Back to the point, though, "Then what brought that on?"

Shinichi shrugged one shoulder, half-blushing and bashful, and Kaito beamed at him, "Aw, thanks, Shin-shin!"

(Fortunately for everyone, that set the tone for the rest of the day. Aside from the usual post-case paperwork and the heist planned for the wee hours of the next morning, the day was surprisingly lacking in police-related events. Naturally, the heist was an entirely different story, and one that Kaito was content to see Shinichi skip out on, though of course KID had to comment on the absence.)

xxxx

*Kai-ken, a breed of hunting dog originating in Japan, have this problem. I had a friend with a Kai - a rusty brindle, gorgeous dog but the breed is notoriously hard to train. They have a higher-than-average bone density and a crazily powerful chase instinct - they will go right into water if something runs that way (or flies, as Kipper proved with a duck), and if still water is a danger, running water is almost always a death sentence if it's deeper than they are tall and they end up in it. (On that note, the water was not above Kipper's head, and he was fine. And even if it were, well - one of his people swims competitively, so I imagine he would have been hauled out either way.)