Notes:
tw for toichi's and maria's deaths in the third italicized segment starting with "the stage is on fire" - skip to "Shinichi blinks" in normal text to avoid that; also conan is very blase about things that would probably kill him if he didn't have plot armor kudos if you can spot the accidental third fandom that managed to sneak its way in here
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Shinichi opens his eyes, momentarily disoriented by the bright stage lights, compounded with the flickering fluorescents that have yet to be turned off. The show hasn't started yet, and the stage lights are put out after only a moment, so they must have just been testing them. Good - it always pays to be careful.
Something taps his shoulder, and Shinichi abruptly realizes that he's currently a lot shorter than he should be - but also, simultaneously, exactly the height he remembers being.
"Oi, Shinichi. Oiiiiii."
Shinichi blinks and twists to look over his shoulder at the oddly masculine voice coming from behind him. Somehow, he isn't surprised when he sees a young boy, not older than ten, with dark, messy hair instead of Ran, or when Shinichi's mouth forms the words, "What is it, Kaito?" without him consciously deciding to say anything.
Kaito snorts, folding his arms petulantly. His body language screams pay attention to me, idiot! right up until a wide, enthusiastic smile breaks his composure. "I said, what did you think of the dress rehearsal? Super cool, right?" He says 'super cool' in English, Shinichi thinks, but he says the words with a weird accent, with a kind of growl on the 'r' for some reason.
Oh, wait. Was it...French? Huh.
Shinichi sniffs haughtily in response, pointing his nose in the air. "I figured out allthe tricks!" he boasts, blatantly lying because he'd only been able to figure out the card tricks, which amounted to approximately ten percent of the dress rehearsal.
Kaito's face falls into a pout, and this time it's probably at least half-real and not theatrical at all.
Shinichi relents almost instantly, ducking his head to hide the faint flush he can feel dusting his cheeks. "Yeah, it's pretty 'super cool,' " he admits, trying to copy Kaito's pronunciation and failing miserably.
A split second of...something flashes in Kaito's eyes - Surprise, maybe? Wonder? Shinichi's having trouble pinpointing the expression, nothing sharp the way that he was used to; instead, everything is oddly foggy at the edges, like he's looking but not seeing - before a wide, genuine smile overtakes Kaito's face.
"That's right!" he says, pumping his fist and hopping in place a little. Shinichi can't help the answering grin tugging at his own lips. "My dad's the best magician in the whole entire world!"
"He's the best magician I've ever seen," Shinichi agrees, neglecting to mention the fact that he'd never actually seen another magician's show before.
Kaito gives him a Look, like he isn't sure whether or not he should be glaring, but before he can figure it out, a warm, heavy hand lands on Shinichi's shoulder.
Shinichi looks up, craning his neck to see who it was. He's pretty sure whoever it is isn't malicious or anything, and also they feel kind of familiar, but that just makes him more curious.
"Shinichi, we should head to our seats," his father says, squeezing his shoulder, and Shinichi just stares at him for a long moment. He's...a lot taller than Shinichi remembered.
(...Or maybe not?)
Shinichi nods, and his father starts towards where their seats are, presumably. Shinichi waves at Kaito, then turns to follow.
"Wait! Shinichi!"
Shinichi pauses, looking back over his shoulder and raising an eyebrow. He practiced that in a mirror for ages before finally figuring out how it worked, so now he uses it every opportunity he can get, and a few more besides.
Kaito looks conflicted for a short moment, then says, "Watch the grand finale, okay? And then find me after, 'cuz you definitely won't figure it out!"
Shinichi feels a smirk spreading across his face and doesn't bother stopping it. "I will too!"
Kaito sticks out his tongue. "Nuh-uh!"
Shinichi returns the gesture before running back to his father, who's waiting for him at the stairs, amused.
"Why would you be trusted with a child if their parents weren't absolutely sure that you could take care of them, no matter what? An energy, drink, really- !"
"Sherlock, what the - bloody buggering hell, why would you give a child an energy drink?!"
" Please. He's not actually a child."
"Mr. Holmes, if he were your child, I would call the police on your arse so quickly that Usain Bolt would be ashamed - !"
"Who?"
"Miss Collins, I assure you that Sherlock will be penalized - "
The stage is on fire. It's not really a stage, since it's a roller coaster, but anywhere a magician performs is a stage and technically all the world's a stage -
But the stage isn't meant to be on fire.
Not yet, at least, because the trick during rehearsal had some pyrotechnics at the end for the wow factor but -
But now there's burning and screaming and that's Kaito's voice, not Toichi-ojisan's, and they'd both checked the stage before the show started so whatever went wrong must have happened between then and now -
"Shinichi." There's a hand on his shoulder, gripping so tightly that it's on the verge of painful but not as painful as being burned alive and it's his father's. His voice is controlled but there's a taut thread of panic woven through it when he says, "Shinichi, we have to go. Now."
His father drags him along but he can't help but look back over his shoulder at the blazing inferno except it's not an inferno now because it's a basement but it's still burning and all the world's a stage and all the men and women merely players -
Help me, Maria mouths, scratching at the thin chain around her neck and then the faint strains of Moonlight Sonata play as flames overtake her.
Shinichi blinked, and when he opened his eyes again he was Conan.
...Why did his chest hurt?
Conan glanced around blearily, compartmentalizing that - dream? - because he could tell that there was something important in there somewhere, but he was equally sure that he couldn't handle dealing with it right at that moment, what with the two ongoing cases that had fallen into his lap.
Or perhaps he'd fallen into their laps?
He took in the inherent blandness of what was more than likely a hospital room, because apparently he'd done something that had caused him to end up in desperate need of medical attention. Bright, mid-morning light filtered through the uncovered window to his left, which was also mildly concerning, given that last he remembered, it had been fading to dusk - which meant that, more than likely, he'd passed out.
Which was, of course, less than ideal.
"...I hope I didn't get shot again," Conan voiced absently, staring at the heart monitors near his head. They weren't doing anything alarming, so he was probably fine.
(It was kind of...soothing, actually, watching the blips of his heartbeat flow across the screen. Maybe he should make it his new laptop screensaver. Or maybe Haibara's would be better - link it to his heartbeat in real time and kill two birds with one stone. The image would be both relaxing and a connection to his vital statistics so she didn't have to call him every time she was concerned about his well being.)
(Not that he minded it, usually. He'd be a hypocrite if he did.)
"Pardon me?" A high, frosty voice came from the opposite direction, and Conan carefully restrained a twitch.
(He wasn't especially fond of having unknown entities at his back - and especially not in unfamiliar places.)
(His therapist said it was completely understandable, and then something else that Conan couldn't remember because he might have fallen asleep with his eyes open because it had been a long week. A serial killer targeting safe collectors, of all things, and she'd managed to kill five people before Conan had accidentally stumbled across one of the crime scenes and made the connection.)
Conan rolled over slowly to face the person behind him, who was apparently a young girl with dark ringlets and piercing grey eyes. Even though she was wearing what Conan assumed were probably her pyjamas - a long flowing night dress in a pale shade of blue, to be more precise - she looked dignified, like her wheelchair was a throne and her hairband a crown.
Huh.
"You're, ah...Delilah-san, right?" Conan's mouth tripped over the words, forming them clumsily and heavily accented so that her name sounded closer to da-rai-raa.
Conan winced internally, dissatisfied with his less-than-stellar pronunciation (he'd spent a long time trying to get his 'L' sounds perfect and apparently all that practice just flew out the window whenever he ran out of caffeine, which sucked ).
(The whole 'not-being-able-to-remember-going-to-the-hospital' thing also perhaps might have had something to do with it. Possibly.)
Delilah inclined her head demurely in response, all sharp angles. "Yes, I'm Delilah Collins. You were visiting my house when you...became indisposed."
Her voice was low for a young girl's and each word was chosen deliberately, formed so perfectly that Conan had to tamp down on a small, irrational flare of jealousy.
"Yes, um, what - what happened, exactly? 'Cuz I don't...really remember…"
Which was both true and slightly alarming. He hadn't had memory issues like this even when he'd been shot.
Delilah seemed unsurprised by this turn of events. "Mother said that you fainted."
Conan blinked, eyebrows shooting towards his hairline. "I - what?" he asked, suddenly much more awake.
"Your heart almost stopped beating," Delilah said, face blank, and for the first time, Conan noticed the tension in her arms, leading down to where her hands were clasped together in her lap so tightly that her knuckles had turned white. "Mother had to give you CPR until the ambulance arrived. She wouldn't allow anyone else to touch you until the paramedics came, because she wasn't sure who had given you Red Bull."
Ah.
That had probably been traumatizing for her, huh.
Especially after one of her friends had just been murdered.
(It was a little sad just how used Conan was to murder and death and emergencies and all that. It was like he didn't even register the effect they had on people who weren't being stalked by death anymore.)
(He should probably try to work on that.)
"Guess my doctor was right about watching my caffeine intake," Conan said absently, scratching the back of his head sheepishly. "How much is in an energy drink anyway…?"
Delilah's lip trembled, and Conan got the distinct impression that she was glaring at him despite nothing in her appearance physically changing. It was terrifying. "You drank an unknown substance, knowing that you could potentially have an adverse reaction?" she inquired, bone-chillingly polite.
Conan winced, because, well, when she put it like that it sounded bad.
Her dark eyebrows furrowed slightly. "And how long have you known these people?" she asked mildly, not sounding the least bit accusatory.
Somehow, Conan thought, repressing a shiver, it would have been better if she had. "Uh...What day is it today?" he hedged, not looking at her. He was getting distinct Haibara vibes from her, and it was just a little bit disconcerting.
Delilah managed to look faintly disapproving, despite not moving a single muscle. How.
Conan sighed, resigning himself to coming up with some sort of vaguely plausible explanation. "They're...my mom's friends," he invented, which was only slightly untrue. "I haven't met them before, though." Also mostly true, since he hadn't met either John or Lestrade before - yesterday? Apparently?
Also supposedly I'm seven and therefore not the most reliable person to keep track of a medical condition, he refrained from saying, because of the obvious.
Delilah's disapproving aura only grew. "That doesn't seem particularly responsible of her," she said mildly.
Conan couldn't stifle the sharp bark of laughter that erupted out of him, but he managed to clamp down on the hysterical tinge it would have had otherwise. So. That was something, at least. "I don't think I've ever seen her be responsible in her life," he replied honestly.
Delilah's eyebrows pinched together delicately, and she looked like she was about to say something about that whole... situation, so Conan derailed that with a question that could potentially help him solve the case that he was still working on. Maria's case, that was, not The Case of the Mysteriously Appearing Primary Schooler.
(He hated that that name was starting to catch on, even if it was only in his head.)
Conan cleared his throat. "Who would your mom put you with if she had to go out of town and you couldn't go with her?"
Delilah's mouth dropped open slightly, apparently thrown by the slight topic change, forming a perfect little 'o.' "Ah, well. Usually, she would hire a 'sitter, since she has a tendency to be slightly overprotective. I think that she would allow me to stay over with some of my pageant friends - at the Armstrong's or the Peters' houses, most likely. She hasn't known Mr. Shumaker long enough to trust him with me; Angela had a bit of a tiff with one of the other girls a few weeks ago, so that's the Stevens-Ruiz household out for the time being; and the Reynolds' hallways are too narrow for me to get inside."
She tapped the hubcaps on her wheelchair absently in explanation. They didn't look particularly necessary to the chair's functionality, but they were a soft purple with white patterns sporadically scattered across them. There was a white pen attached to the underside of the wheelchair's arm, so it looked like Delilah had drawn them herself.
She was a good artist, Conan thought absently, before continuing his line of questioning. "A fight?" he parrotted. "What was it about?"
"Oh, the usual, I suppose," Delilah replied absently, though her eyes were sharp and focused, directed explicitly at Conan's face. Which was just great. "Angela said their themes were similar, Maria accused her of stealing her theme, Angela denied it and said she'd thought of it first, Maria knew that was true so she resorted to insults, Angela ignored her until Maria moved on to catty remarks about how her dress looked poorly made, and that's when Angela took off her shoe and threw it at her."
Conan blinked. That seemed like a bit of an overreaction.
Delilah noticed his confusion and added, "Mrs. Ruiz García hand-makes all of her daughters' dresses."
Ah. Yes, that would do it.
"They're very well done, actually, even though I believe that she buys the material in bulk," she continued. "Mother and I are thinking about asking her if she takes commissions."
Huh.
"So Maria-chan insulted Angela-san's mother's handiwork and Angela-san threw a shoe at her?" Conan summarized.
Delilah nodded. "It was a stiletto heel, so it might've taken Maria's eye out if she hadn't moved."
Conan did not know what a stiletto heel was, but given what he knew about stiletto knives and the context clues, he was pretty sure he could come up with a decent mental image. They seemed like something Vermouth would wear.
"Alena would have done worse, if she'd been in the room at the time," Delilah added almost absently, though her eyes were still unerringly fixed on Conan. "Mrs. Ruiz García made Angela apologize afterwards, and then Mr. and Mrs. Reynolds made Maria apologize, but it was clear that she didn't really mean it, so their parents decided it would be best to keep their children as far apart as possible for the time being."
Yeah, sure. That made sense.
"Also, what is 'san'? You keep saying it." The inquiry was faultlessly polite, but there was a definite undertone of sharpened steel. It was similar to the way Haibara would ask after exactly how much coffee he'd had that morning, to which Conan would usually respond with a cagey less than you.
Conan blinked rapidly, forcing his brain back to the conversation rather than down that train of thought. It was probably for the best, anyway. "It's - huh? Oh, they're honorifics. My neechan - sorry, my older sister... ish, we're not actually related - makes me use them, 'cuz I used to live in America and we don't use them at all, so when I moved to Japan I didn't understand how they worked so I didn't bother with them, but then Ran-neechan got mad at sat me down and explained them and said I'd better use them, or else. So now any time I don't an image of her disappointed stare pops up and - " Conan shivered abruptly.
"Ran-neechan's scary when she's angry," he stage-whispered to Delilah, who just blinked, face blank.
Wow. He'd wrenched himself away from one train wreck and straight into another.
"...I think we should call a nurse in," Delilah said delicately, not commenting on the five-car-pile-up he'd made of that explanation. Had it made any sense at all? Probably not.
But hey - on the bright side, it'd sounded exactly like something an actual seven-year-old would come up with.
(Which did not bode well for the current functionality of his brain.)
Conan watched as Delilah wheeled herself close enough to press his call button. "Probably for the best," he agreed.
Apparently, calling the nurse also called the adults who'd been waiting-slash-arguing outside, because the door slammed open as soon as Delilah hit the button.
Lucy Collins was the first into the room, striding purposefully to Delilah's side - and, consequently, Conan's. Her glare could've frozen over the Lut Desert had it not been focused solely on Sherlock, who looked only vaguely uncomfortable.
Sherlock was bracketed by Lestrade on one side and John on the other, although it seemed less for his benefit and more to prevent him from doing anything stupid, like hand Conan another Red Bull.
Which was unfortunate, because Conan kind of wanted one. Even though he still hadn't quite been able to identify what they tasted like, other than weird.
(Mitsuhiko might be right about his bloodstream being half caffeine, if he had cravings for a drink that looked radioactive just because it had inadvisable amounts of caffeine in it.)
(Where had his self preservation disappeared to?)
(Oh, that was right. He'd never had any in the first place.)
Lucy Collins set her hand on her daughter's shoulder, thumb rubbing small circles against her arm, and Delilah leaned into the touch minutely. "Conan, dear, how are you feeling?" she asked, still glaring pointedly at Sherlock.
Conan shrugged. "I've had worse."
Which was apparently definitely not the right thing to say, because Ms. Collins' stare somehow managed to become more frosty and murderous, which Conan hadn't thought possible.
She managed a small smile when she forced herself away from trying to murder Sherlock Holmes with her mind (good) and focused her gaze on Conan (less good). Her eyes softened demonstrably and there was a spark of concern that warmed them from a flinty grey to a welcoming silver. "What do you mean by that, Conan?" she asked gently.
Now, this was probably where he should not mention the time he'd been thrown out of a blimp by fake bioterrorists again.
"When he woke up, his first words were 'I hope I didn't get shot again,'" Delilah said dryly.
Ah.
Whoops.
The blimp thing probably would've gone over better than getting shot, at least.
...Probably.
(Conan knew himself well enough to be aware of the fact that his danger meter was heavily skewed. An average seven-year-old's everyday scale was more like 'the worst thing that could plausibly happen to me today ranges between getting a paper cut and breaking a leg skateboarding' while Conan's was more between getting threatened by a criminal with a knife/bomb/gun and someone throwing him off the Bell Tree Tower. Anything less than that, and he didn't really bother registering it.)
(In hindsight, that might be why Haibara insisted on weekly check-ups, even though she wasn't technically that kind of doctor.)
"Yeah, that kinda hurt," Conan said, like that was at all convincing.
Lucy Collins gave him a Look.
It was a very expressive Look.
Somehow it managed to convey concern, disappointment, and disbelief all at the same time, and the moment Conan realized it was a Mom Look that was being directed at him, that was the moment he was done for.
"Okay, yeah, it hurt a lot and I passed out in the cave before I could get to the hospital, but I was out of the hospital, like, a week later, and, anyway, I'm fine now, really!" Conan was just digging himself further into the hole, wasn't he.
(Unfortunately, Conan was pretty sure he was unable to do anything other than tell the truth when faced with the Mom Look. Not that his mother had managed it very often - but, then again, when he'd been a kid the first time around, he hadn't had much to hide.)
"I'm sorry, did you just say 'the cave ' - "
Luckily, before Ms. Collins could make him answer (and he's sure she could've found a way - she reminded him far too much of Ran's mother), the nurse appeared.
He was unassuming and a little on the short side, with dark hair and the kind of musculature that said he probably played soccer in the park on his days off.
All in all, there wasn't anything particularly noteworthy about him, except perhaps the fact that he was male in a predominantly female field.
What was interesting, however, was the way that John's eyes flashed when he came into the room, before he said, "Tom, s'that you?"
It sounded weird, even to Conan's ears - it differed from John's usual cadence and was pitched slightly - but the strangest part was the way that it sounded almost... natural, for him.
(The same way that KID's fake voices sounded natural.)
Nurse Harris - according to his nametag, at least, started, whirling around. "Al - " he cut himself off before he could finish the name and switched tracks to recover admirably with, "I - I haven't seen you since - graduation, must've been?"
John laughed, sounding more like himself. "Yeah, I turned up late, didn't I? Covered in bruises, of course - my sister will've torn up all the pictures by now, I'm sure. Surprised any medical school took me after that, but I managed to make myself a doctor before I got shipped off, though - Doctor John Watson, at your service." He gave Nurse Harris a bow and added a dorky little flourish, like he wasn't using it as an excuse to bring his name up in conversation, presumably so his friend wouldn't call him the wrong one again.
(Because there was definitely something suspicious about John Watson - Conan had half-expected him to be a robot Sherlock had built for some discernible reason. But, apparently, he was a real human being with a real past and too many secrets for Conan to be able to trust him as far as he could throw him. And with Conan's puny little seven-year-old arms, he couldn't throw John very far.)
"Nurse Tom Harris, at yours." Nurse Harris returned the corny gesture, then started actually checking on Conan before Ms. Collins whacked him upside the head.
(With words, probably. She didn't seem like the type of person who resorted to physical violence when a well-placed sharp word would do.)
"Never figured you for a nurse, though, Tom," John commented absently, ignoring the way that Sherlock was eyeing him unsubtly. Conan liked to think that he was being more stealthy about his observations, but that was probably a lie. It was almost impossible for him to be stealthy when half the room's eyes were watching him closely for the slightest sign of pain. "I thought you were trying for a teacher?"
"I thought so too, but then I gave it some more thought and decided that making sure children are allowed to heal properly before being sent back out into the cold and unforgiving world was a better fit for me. I'm sure you can guess why." Nurse Harris shrugged with one shoulder, studiously avoiding eye contact and keeping his other hand steady as he...did a medical thing, presumably (?).
(Conan could figure out the thousands of ways people used fishing line to kill each other, but only a little more than the bare minimum of first aid, and didn't that just say it all.)
John seemed to need a moment to process that, so he changed the topic. "Makes sense, yeah - didn't know you were in London, though, otherwise we'd've met up sooner."
Tom shot him a wry look. " I didn't know you were in London until five minutes ago - figured you were off in Iraq or something."
The corner of John's mouth inched upwards and for a moment he looked like an entirely different person. "Or something," he agreed mildly. "We'll have to grab a beer sometime."
Conan exchanged a Look with Sherlock before he could stop himself. It was not a Mom Look, but a Detective Look, and not one that he should be exchanging with anyone other than Hattori or perhaps his father because it was distinctly not the kind of Look a seven-year-old should be well-versed in.
Nurse Harris snorted. " 'Grab a beer,' " he mimicked, in a terrible accent that was probably supposed to be American, possibly. "You've been spending too much time with your Americans. But, yeah, there's a footie game in the park round the corner on Saturdays - show up when you're free and we'll have that pint."
Lucy Collins cleared her throat pointedly, and Conan nearly got whiplash as Nurse Harris pasted a bright smile on over his previously wry one.
"Okay, Conan! You'll probably have to stay the night just to be sure, but everything looks alright! Just remember not to drink any more energy drinks, yeah?"
Conan stared at him in blank horror. Was this what it was like when he did his impression of a seven-year-old?
He really, really hoped not.
"Oh!" Nurse Harris clapped his hands together, thetn dug around in his pocket for a long moment. "I know what you're waiting for! Here, this will make your ouchies all better!" He placed a band-aid over a tiny scratch on Conan's forearm. "There, see?"
Conan stared blankly at the band-aid covering his skin. It was superhero-themed. "...I don't need a bandaid, though. If anything, I need a concussion test."
He didn't understand why Nurse Harris looked so shocked at his reply.
"...Sorry, how old are you again, Conan?" John asked, his eyes narrowing as they fixed purposefully on Conan's face. It kind of looked like he was trying to give a CT scan with his mind. Which was an interesting conundrum, actually. He'd have to mention it to Haibara.
Conan pasted a blithely clueless expression onto his face. "I'm seven, Watson-sensei! I'm pretty sure we've been through this."
John eyed Conan with a strange expression on his face, brow furrowing slightly and his shoulders set seemingly unconsciously in a way that Conan automatically marked as 'dangerous.'
This exchange was, unfortunately, not missed by Sherlock, who had a thoughtful expression creeping over his face.
"Anyway!" Conan said, taking advantage of the fact that he looked like a small child who couldn't hold onto a train of thought for more than ten minutes to abruptly change the topic. "I had a question for Collins-sensei!"
Lucy Collins blinked. "What is it, Conan?" she asked gamely.
Conan pretended to think about it for a long moment, making his eyes dart around the room like he was purposely not looking at one specific spot, which of course was the spot that Sherlock's eyes were immediately drawn to. Not that there was anything there, of course - at least, not that Conan could see. "Um, there's a green scarf in your front hallway," he said slowly, like he was trying not to repeat what someone else was telling him. "And there's a story behind it, right?"
Ms. Collins raised an eyebrow. "There is…"
Conan grinned up at her, trying to look simultaneously as pitiful and guileless as possible, just to hedge his bets. It was pretty clear that she had a soft spot a kilometer wide for kids. "Can you tell me the story?"
She breathed out slowly, not quite deeply enough to be called a sigh, then sat in the chair on the other side of Delilah's wheelchair. "It's not a very interesting story, I'm afraid," she warned, before settling into the chair more comfortably. Somehow she managed to make it seem like she was sitting in a neatly stuffed armchair, rather than an old and rickety plastic folding chair.
(It was almost like the Collins family had magical powers that allowed them to manipulate reality at will, but that was impossible.)
(...Right?)
Lucy Collins' story began:
"When I was in secondary school, I realized that I was different from everyone else in my year. I'd never been particularly interested in romance or gossip or anything like that - mostly because the majority of the gossip had to do with romance - so I had no warning before one of my close friends asked if I'd like to go on a date with him. We were young, so he probably meant something like paying for my lunch at the cafeteria, but even the thought of it made me faintly queasy, so I managed to choke out a 'No thanks' before I did my best to avoid him for the rest of the month. He was a good sport about it, though, and we went back to being friends without too much hassle, though our other friends couldn't understand it.
"I told my parents about it afterwards, because I was young and thought they knew the answers to everything. But instead their response was the typical, 'Oh, that's fine, honey, you'll find the right man someday!' to which I responded that I didn't think I liked men, actually, thanks. And, to their credit, my parents barely hesitated before saying, "Well, then I'm sure you'll find a nice woman someday!' But of course I said I didn't like women that way either, so that put a bit of a damper on things.
"We didn't speak for most of Sixth Form, until my graduation day. I count myself lucky, really, since they didn't insist that I leave. We still lived in the same house and ate together at meal times, but we rarely spoke to each other unless absolutely necessary. It was...tense, yes, but it was mostly simply...awkward. But on my graduation day, just before we left for the party my friend was throwing to celebrate making it through A-Levels - Hubert Reynolds, actually, you must know him if they've allowed you to tag along on this... case...
"That day, they sat me down at the kitchen table and told me that they were so proud of me, and they apologized for the way that they'd been acting. My mother handed me a package wrapped in fancy paper with a bow on top and said, 'I know we haven't always been the best parents, but you deserve parents who will at least try to understand you.'
"Inside the box was the scarf that you saw on the hook. It used to be striped - black, white, grey, and green - but I wore it so many times when I was younger that the colours bled in the wash and now it's held together by hopes and dreams. My mother researched and my father made it by hand, and it's one of the only things I have left from him - he died in a car accident a few years later. So it never leaves that hook in the hallway, because I'm afraid that if I move it, it might disintegrate."
Well.
It had been the wrong shade of green to match the thread at the crime scene anyway.
"I think you were selling yourself short, Collins-sensei," Conan said honestly. "It was a good story. I liked it."
There was a lot of information to unpack from that story, most of it not particularly pertinent to the case, but plenty relevant to - well, he needed to compartmentalize it for now, before -
The intercom crackled to life and eerie, maniacal, slightly tinny laughter filled the room. "I've taken this entire hospital hostage!" the slightly squeaky voice proclaimed. "And if the police do not move to fulfill my demands, one of you will die every hour, on the hour!"
- he came across another case. That was, what, seven in barely two days? This was getting absurd.
Conan eyed the window. Only two storeys - he could jump through it easily enough. If he landed wrong, he might sprain an ankle, but that would be the worst injury to come of it.
(His therapist probably wouldn't like those thoughts.)
He could avoid this situation so easily - just ignore everything and jump out the window, go back to solving Maria's death. Or, and here was an idea, he could try to figure out how he ended up on Sherlock Holmes' couch in the first place.
But of course he wasn't going to do that.
"You can call me Doctor Cerebellum!"
What, was Doctor Cerebrum taken?
Conan sighed deeply. Why did he always get the crazy ones?
This kind of bullshit never happened to Hattori.
.
.
.
.
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Notes:
i wrote like 90% of this today
no proofreading we yeet our chapters into the abyss like kid leaps off buildings
wow, can't believe we're coming up on two years and 70k and we've met barely any of the main suspects
let me know what you think about *gestures vaguely*
check out the "Usual Suspects" fanzine on twitter or tumblr to fulfill your dcmk content needs
my tumblr: blenderfullasarcasm
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oh, also: this fic is on ao3 and there are more chapters there