Disclaimer: Detective Conan is not mine. The series belongs to its creator, Gosho Aoyama, and I'm just borrowing the characters and scenery to create these short tales.

Premise: I'm not sure where to put this. Canon, or slight AU. Probably slight AU.

Drabble 17: Alcohol

*Pop*

~ Fweee! ~

He slowly walked around the small crowd, taking care to stay at the edge of the action to avoid being drawn into it. Despite the kiddylike atmosphere and his reluctance to be involved in the activity, the sheer energy of his surroundings was enough to put a smile on his face. It looked like Ayumi's birthday party was a success.

He turned his head to look at a well-lit corner of the room. The one standing there was smiling, but Conan could see that it was painfully fake. Very much so. Even the other children would notice if they had been looking. Strange, Haibara was usually a better actor than this.

She must have noticed him looking in her direction, because the smile suddenly seemed to brighten to the point that even he would have a hard time telling that it was fake.

"Fun party, huh?" he asked as he walked over.

"Yes, very," she cheerily replied to him. And that was the end of that.

The two stood there silently for some time before something occurred to him. Could that be why Ai was so distant this time?

"When's your birthday?" he asked, skirting around the real issue.

He noticed her seize up for a moment before she slowly lifted her head and stared blankly at him. And then, just when he started to feel uncomfortable under her dead look, she slowly shook her head no before she seemed to brighten up.

"What's that supposed to mean?" he found himself asking.

Her enigmatic smirk appeared on her face, indicating that she had something to hide. "My my, unobservant are we today, Detective-kun?"

"Eh?"

But she had turned and walked off, their conversation was over. He quickly ran after her and demanded an explanation, but she ignored him for the rest of the party.

After Ayumi came from nowhere and grabbed him around the neck with both arms, he halted his attempts to chase after her in the near future.

He couldn't remember why he had asked Haibara for her birthday. But, it wasn't important anymore. He was more concerned about when it could be.

*Spppffffttt!*

"What the?! Water?!"

Conan stopped working on his homework and looked up. Here it comes.

"Brat! What did you do to my Sake!" the Incompetent Detective roared before slamming both hands on the coffee table.

Conan immediately knew that his life was in danger. He tried to get up and run.

* Bonk! *

"Ack!" he felt himself fall over. Sitting up, he quickly nursed the newly growing bump as he glared defiantly up at the older detective.

"Return...my...sake."

Conan gasped as a bottle with water crashed into him.

He had no other choice. Firmly holding onto the bottle that had forcefully been given to him, Conan stood up and let out a halfhearted grunt of agreement before heading to the kitchen.

"Conan?" he heard Ran ask when he pulled the half-full bottle of Sake out from under the table with his free hand.

He quickly turned to her. "Ran-neechan! Good afternoon!"

"What's that?" he heard her coldly ask.

Chills ran down his spine. "Nothing!"

"Is that a bottle of sake?"

"No! No, of course not."

"Conan-kun..."

He quickly tried a different route. "Your father lost track of it earlier, I was finding it for him."

"Oh, really?" he heard her ask in a skeptical tone of voice.

Instead of replying, he dashed out of the kitchen.

Only to discover that the old man had been guarding the doorway to the kitchen when he felt the real bottle plucked from his grip. He never saw the incoming fist.

Stars filled his vision and the bottle half-filled with water fell from his grasp as he took another blow to the back of his head.

As he kneeled in his spot and recovered, Conan heard Ran approach. He quickly fought down a smug grin.

"Dad! This is the second time already! You're being a bad influence on Conan-kun!"

"Now now, Ran."

Snickering slightly, Conan quickly picked up the bottle of water before disappearing from the scene, stopping only for a brief moment to pick up his backpack. He paused in front of a linen closet.

Looking suspiciously up and down the hall, he was happy to hear Ran was still in the middle of chewing out her father, who was desperately trying to calm his daughter down with repeated apologies. With a sigh, he opened the closet before digging under a stack of bedsheets and towels. He pulled out another sake bottle and tried to shove it into his backpack, only to realize that the bottle was a bit too big.

"What are you doing Conan-kun?" he heard Ran ask him from behind.

He turned around in terror.

Conan struggled to lift the backpack.

"Are you sure that you don't need help?" Ran worriedly asked.

"It's fine," he reassured her, putting on a carefree grin even as his knees shook. "I'll be back in two hours."

Once he was out the door, he breathed a sigh of relief.

It was lucky that he still had that sake bottle full of water on him. Ran hadn't thought to check the second bottle after confirming that there really was water in the one that he had shown her.

So, with the excuse that he was bringing the bottles to Ai so that they could work on their project for school, he left with Ran's blessing.

He was pretty certain that she still suspected something though, especially because his explanation of the project was evasive at best, but the evidence would be gone by the time he returned.

The front door opened a crack, allowing the one behind the door to peek out and interact with whoever was outside.

"Edogawa."

"Haibara," he replied.

"Professor Hakase isn't in right now, I think he went to visit a friend down the street," she calmly told him before she shut the door.

He started ringing the doorbell again.

There was an irritated expression on her face when she opened the door again.

"I wasn't looking for the professor this time. Can I come in?" he quickly explained.

Haibara finally pulled the door open and moved aside.

"..."

"Sake," he explained. "I thought you would like some."

The two of them were sitting at the kitchen counter.

She looked at him, and Conan knew that she was asking him where it came from. "The old man."

"How?"

He knew that she wouldn't normally ask that question, but Ran's dad was infamously protective of his pleasures.

With a proud look on his face, he set out to explain. "I half-filled one of his empty sake bottles with water before I switched it with a bottle filled with sake. Because the bottle isn't clear glass, the water looked just like sake. He wouldn't realize that one of his bottles had gone missing unless he tried to drink it. And even if he did, there are so many empty bottles lying around that I have a convenient alibi."

She nodded. "Clever."

"Then I took a little bit of Sake and put it into a third bottle. Don't worry, this was one of the bottles where he didn't put his lips to," he added as an afterthought.

Haibara continued to stare strangely at him.

"He doesn't put his lips to the bottle unless he's celebrating," he explained.

"..." he saw her think about it for a moment before she casually waved at him to continue.

"As you've probably realized, I couldn't empty the bottle that I had exchanged; I had to make sure that he didn't notice that some of the sake was missing when I returned the bottle. I had perform the substitution trick three times, slowly adding to the sake in this bottle. This is a product of my hard work, I thought you would like to forget for a bit, so umm...let's enjoy!"

She raised an eyebrow. "Ho?" she commented before she stood up and walked behind the counter. She returned a few moments with a pair of large drink glasses in her hand.

It didn't take them long to empty the bottle of sake into both cups.

And then, before Conan had a chance to settle down, he watched in surprise as Ai picked up her glass and started to drain it.

Ai hiccupped halfway through.

Conan was a bit surprised, faster than he had expected.

"It's poisoned, isn't it?" she slurred. "That's why you're not drinking any, right?"

Conan quickly took a sip before he started to cough and gag. Too strong.

He thought he heard Haibara snicker into her cup as she she drained another large portion of her cup, but he couldn't be sure.

And then she just stopped and sat there, staring suspiciously at the cup.

He waited for a moment to give the alcohol some time to settle...

"Whose house did you visit yesterday?" he suddenly asked.

She gave him a funny look. "You know this already..." she mumbled.

"Humor me..." he placatingly said.

"Ayumi's..."

"Oh, right."

They sat there for a few minutes, neither saying a word. Neither taking a sip from their cup.

"Haibara?"

"Hmm?"

"Do you like me?" he asked, gagging in his mind at his boldness.

"Yes," she lazily hissed out.

That surprised him. But he quickly recovered his wits. It was just the alcohol talking after all. "Really? How old are you?"

"22," she slurred out. "Are you going anywhere with this?"

"Of course not."

The two sat in silence a little longer.

"When's your birthday?"

And then he watched in surprise as the bleary look immediately evaporated. "So that's your plan."

"Huh?!"

"There isn't enough alcohol in here, Mr. Detective," she said as she held up her cup with a look. A look that seemed to tell him that he had forgotten something very important about her.

He immediately slapped a mental hand over his forehead. He had forgotten that a former member of the Black Organization sat before him. If the cocktail codenames weren't enough of a hint...

He dejectedly watched as she shrugged and took another sip from her cup. And then he felt a chill run down his spine she paused with a thoughtful look on her face.

"Hey!" he shouted as the alcohol dripped off of his hair and face.

He had had no time to react when she threw the sake at him.

Haibara set her empty glass down on the counter. "This Sake is horrible. Next time you wish to drug me, don't raid the incompetent detective's private stores."

Ran opened the door.

"Conan-kun, welcome back! You're just in time for dinner!"

Conan walked in with a happy smile.

*Slam*

The unbelieveably loud sound of the door slamming shut made him whirl around in surprise before he took a step back. "Why are you so mad Ran-neechan?" he timidly asked as he subtly looked for an escape route.

"Have you been drinking."

"N-No! Of course not!"

"Then why do I smell sake on you?"

A/N:

Conan with his crazy schemes.

The Idea comes from :
Planning session between Ran-dezvous and I.