A/N: Warnings: Kaito has a panic attack, references to using phobias against people

Conan hears his ring-tone go off and pulls his phone out of his pocket, startled to see that KID is calling him—the thief had teased him before about having to go home early to eat, so KID knew that Conan would probably be eating. Luckily for the thief, he's eaten enough that when he spits out an excuse, Ran doesn't drag him back to the table and he's able to shut himself in his room to answer the call.

"Hey."

"T-tantei-kun," KID chokes out a greeting. Conan feels his eyes widen—the thief sounds absolutely terrified.

"KID? What happened, are you okay?"

A choked laugh comes through the phone, "N-not okay, Tantei-kun. I—shit—I can't—" KID's grunt of frustration sounds like the thief is on the edge of hyperventilating.

"KID, it's okay, you don't have to talk, okay, just breathe for a bit," Conan tried to keep his voice calm and even, "Try to match my breathing, can you do that?"

"Y-eah,"

Conan exaggerated his breathing so that KID would be able to hear his inhales and exhales clearly through the phone, counting to keep his rhythm steady and carefully listening to the thief's breathing to make sure Kid's breath didn't start to speed up again.

After a few minutes of listening to each other's breathing, Kid had calmed down enough to try to talk again, shakily saying "Thanks, Tantei-kun."

"Any time," Conan responds, asking softly, "Kid, are you hurt? Should I come find you?"

"No, don't! Not with—you can't be here right now," Kid exclaims.

"Okay, don't worry, I'll stay away if you need me to," Conan reassures, wondering where the thief is and what happened that Kid nearly panicked again at the idea of him being there.

"Great, okay, just—just keep talking please, Tantei-kun?"

"Sure," Conan replies, "What to talk about—oh, Kid if you're hurt you better be bandaging yourself up while we're talking, you hear me? You're not allowed to die from stupidity. Especially if it would require me to be the one solving your murder." The tiniest huff of laughter from Kid reassures Conan that he's actually helping the thief instead of making it worse, so he continues, "Mmm…you probably don't want to hear about cases—oh, I probably haven't mentioned this before; the Shounen Tantei got really into this new game lately…"

As he explained the game and the Shounen Tantei's various antics, Kid hummed with amusement or interest in the appropriate places to show that he was paying attention. Conan eventually moved on from the game to recounting the group's most recent quest to find a lost pet.

"You found the rabbit in the neighbor's yard?" Kid asked, sounding amused.

"Yeah, apparently it really liked eating the neighbor's new flowers," Conan replied.

Kid snorted, "Those poor flowers."

Conan shrugged, "Eh, sometimes plants get eaten."

"Um, sorry about earlier by the way," Kid said hesitantly.

"Huh?"

"When I freaked out and told you to stay away?"

Sighing, Conan responded, "Don't worry about it, Kid, it's perfectly understandable for you to not want anyone seeing you panicking."

"Tantei-kun, if I cared about you seeing me panic, I wouldn't have called you in the first place. I didn't want you to come over because Hakuba's here; and adding him finding out you know me to this mess would have just made everything worse."

Conan frowned, "Did Hakuba-san do something to you?"

"No. Well—not directly. Yet."

"Eh?"

"I'm fairly certain that now that he knows I'm ichthyophobic he's going to try to use it to 'prove' my identity during the next heist."

"That's horrible," Conan says flatly. "Especially because causing you to panic during one of your ridiculous stunts is probably the best way to ensure you end up seriously injured."

"Eh, it's not so bad as long as I'm not surprised by seeing one, I can manage to keep myself together if it's necessary. He'll probably set something up as close as he can get to my target to try to keep me from getting it; he's annoyingly narrow-minded like that."

Conan frowns in thought, wondering how likely his impulse is to get him in trouble—but really, the worst he'll get from the Taskforce is a scolding and getting kicked out of the heist, depending on how he has to do things. The real problem would be getting to and from the heist without getting grounded by Ran again. Decision made, he asks, "…Can you arrange the next heist to be one that I can get away for? I'm seriously tempted to go just for the purpose of sabotaging anything like that that might be set up."

He hears Kid spluttering in surprise, "T-tantei-kun, can you repeat that? I could have sworn you just said you'd help me during a heist."

"You heard correctly," Conan replies.

"Whoa—just—give me a minute, I have to bask in my triumph," Kid jokes.

"Just this once, Kid," Conan warns.

The thief ignores him, declaring, "I have finally convinced you to become my minion!"

Conan counters, "I only agreed to help you counter Hakuba's cheating trap, nothing else."

Kid sighs theatrically, "Darn, I'd hoped that meant I was done dodging spheres of doom."

He snorts, "I'm still going to catch you, stupid thief. I just think it's wrong to use that against you, especially since you're barely dangerous."

"Should I be offended by that?" Kid asked in amusement.

"Why? It's not like you want to hurt people, what would you need to be dangerous for?" Conan counters, slightly confused.

"Magicians don't reveal their secrets, Tantei-kun," the thief teases.

Suspiciously, Conan asks, "So there is a reason you'd need to be dangerous?"

On the other end of the phone he hears Kid laugh dismissively. "Sorry, I've got to go, Chibi. My friends are starting to worry," the magician deflects and hangs up before Conan can demand answers.

Narrowing his eyes at his phone screen, Conan seethes, "I will figure it out, if I have to sneak around during every one of your heists."

A/N: Y'all ready for protective Conan? There will be a lot of it in the next few chapters :D

(This is now...third posted chapter of this written during NaNoWriMo.)

Next chapter should be up soon, unless I decide to combine it with the one I planned to have after it. (Because that one is not actually written yet. We'll see how it goes.)