a/n: aaaand we're back for the second installment of 'let's see how many twilight references i can make in as many words'! warnings, since i know the first chapter wasn't all that gay-this second bit gets significantly more gay. it's still pre-slash, but it gets more gay. if you aint about that life, then... yeah. you can really still read this as a bromance though, if you want.

Heiji burst out laughing when he saw Kudo milling by the police station the next morning. "I completely forgot about that!" he said.

Kudo glared at him from under his blindingly white umbrella. Despite the bright sunshine, he took care to cover himself entirely, and what he couldn't cover without looking strange, he hid in the shadows of his umbrella.

"Oh my god, and you can't sleep—I've completely forgotten." Shaking with suppressed sympathetic laughter, Heiji pat Kudo's shoulder. "You gonna be okay?"

"It's fine." Kudo shook himself free. "I can live in the daytime. You gonna introduce me to your chief or what? We're burning daylight here."

"I love irony," Heiji said, opening the door. "After you."

~0~

The police chief was amenable to Kudo consulting—apparently Kudo had called in a few tips before—and the two set off to crack the case.

"What if it was a vampire squirrel?" Heiji said. "Wouldn't that be funny?"

A vein in Kudo's face ticked. "It's not a vampire squirrel. There's no such thing as vampire squirrels."

"Doesn't the sound of denial sound familiar to you? It sure sounds familiar to me. Veins in your face shouldn't pump blood, but look, there one is." Heiji poked at it.

"You are incredibly annoying," Kudo said, swatting at Heiji's hand.

"I'm brilliant," Heiji said.

"That's even worse."

~0~

It was a vampire squirrel.

They had tracked the thing to some warehouse down by the docks because Kudo was convinced it was the vampire mafia, but when they had opened the doors they found a small nest, placed dead center in the middle of the warehouse.

Heiji punched the air and whooped before telling Kudo to bite his dust, even as Kudo pushed him out of the way of the murderous vampire squirrel that had leapt for his head, simultaneously drawing Heiji's shinai from its case and inflating the soccer ball he carried around with him.

"That is one fat squirrel," Heiji observed as Kudo struggled to detach the squirrel from his arm.

"It fed too often," Kudo said between grit teeth. "It's bloated. It doesn't even need that much human blood but it doesn't know to be sated."

Heiji whistled in wonderment. "I wonder how it came to be."

"Someone must have drained the squirrel dry," Kudo grunted, in between swinging at the squirrel with Heiji's shinai and dodging fearsome squirrel attacks. "That's the only way—"

"Oh, that kind of makes sense, too," Heiji reflected, spinning Kudo's inflatable soccer ball on his finger. "It explains the myths of why you guys are so hungry after you've woken up, and it explains the death." Heiji shrugged. "Still, there's a lot of research to be done. Say, it wouldn't be that you guys have regenerative telomeres in your blood, would it? Passed down from vamp to vamp."

"Less sciencing, more aiming!" Kudo growled.

Heiji tilted his head to the side. "Aren't you guys supposed to have super strength or something?"

"Stop reading harlequin romance novels!"

"I don't read them!" Heiji protested, dropping the soccer ball to the floor. "Kazuha reads them and tells me all about them!"

"Just kick!"

Heiji did as told, aiming the soccer ball as hard as he could at Kudo. He trusted Kudo would know what to do with the projectile.

What he didn't count on was the squirrel latching onto Kudo's face, so what would have been Kudo heading the ball turned into Kudo taking one to the face, squishing the squirrel between his face and the ball. Heiji heard the squirrel's spine crack. Or possibly that was Kudo's nose.

"You're under arrest!" Heiji announced, scooping the squirrel up from the ground where it lay twitching and snapping tiny squirrel handcuffs on the squirrel's four paws.

Kudo stared as he pinched his nose back into shape. "Are you joking? You can't arrest a squirrel!"

"Vampire," Heiji reminded.

Kudo sputtered. "Yes, but that's not—you can't—did you make those? Did you know it was gonna be a vampire squirrel?"

Heiji grinned. "I made a series of educated guesses, same as you."

"I absolutely hate you," Kudo said, stomping out of the warehouse.

"Aww, Kudo, don't be mad just 'cause I'm the better man! Being a sore vampire isn't good for your health, you know," Heiji needled, trotting on Kudo's heels.

"Being around you isn't good for my health," Kudo muttered, shouldering his umbrella. "So?" he said, turning to face Heiji entirely. "How are you gonna tell the police about… that?" He jerked his chin distastefully at the squirrel.

Heiji hummed thoughtfully. "I guess I can't," he said, swinging the angrily chittering squirrel about in front of his eyes. "I think I might not have a job anymore if I did that."

After a few moments of thinking, Kudo finally said, "I'll tell them I did it."

"What? No! No!" Heiji grabbed Kudo by the arm and dragged him into the shade where he could shout at him in peace. "You moron, how could you tell them that? Don't you know what happens in the movies?"

"That didn't seem to stop you," Kudo said sourly. "You're not supposed to become friends with vampires."

"Who's been reading the harlequin romance novels now? Are you going to commandeer a plane to fly to Italy so you can angst among ancient Western civilization? Take a narrow road to the north while reciting poetry?"

"Shut up!"

Heiji rolled his eyes. "Look, I'm a detective. I find truth, not justice. You can't go around making up facts as you please."

"Then what do you propose we do?" Kudo snapped. "You can't tell them the truth."

"You're not thinking clearly. All I have to say is that we apprehended the criminal, but he killed himself as he jumped into the river. They can dredge it, but they won't find him. They'll put him on a watchlist, but they'll never find him, and another killing will never happen. Our job is technically finished. It's just a matter of details."

"That's…" Kudo seemed to deflate. "That makes sense. Are you sure you're okay with it though? You've never left a case open before. I could very easily escape from jail and disappear; it wouldn't matter."

"Why, Kudo, are you worried about me?" Heiji laughed. "I'll be fine. It's more important to me that I know what happened than that everyone else does."

"That sounds almost mature," Kudo said dryly.

Heiji beamed. "Thank you."

Kudo grimaced, like Heiji's happiness had personally offended him. Who knows, it might actually; he seemed to think Heiji was an idiot even though he single-handedly solved this case. Kudo gestured for the squirrel. "Now give the thing to me."

"Oh, that's right," Heiji said, passing it over. "We have to…" He paused. "Can we arrest a squirrel?"

"Didn't you proclaim the squirrel under arrest when you slapped tiny handcuffs on it?" Kudo said, studying the squirrel's eyes.

"Don't be ridiculous, Kudo," Heiji scoffed. "We can't actually arrest a squirrel."

Kudo sighed.

"Oi, Kudo…" Heiji realized something. "We won't have to… what do you do with a vampire squirrel? We can't keep it. Don't you have some kind of vampire master or whatever that could use a familiar?"

"Vampires don't have familiars, not even in lore," Kudo said automatically, but despite the banter, his eyes were grim. "We have to get rid of it."

Heiji frowned. "That…"

"I know. I'll do it."

Heiji narrowed his eyes at Kudo, who tried to stare back seriously. "Does it count as murder if it's already dead?" Heiji asked instead. "I don't believe in murdering criminals. Someone very smart once told me that driving a murderer to suicide is the same thing as being a murderer yourself."

Kudo looked away. "Oh, really? That person sounds very important to you," he murmured.

"He is," Heiji said. "Is it murder, d'ya think?"

"No," Kudo said softly. "There's no soul in its eyes. It's just a body, a slave to its thirst for blood. It's no longer alive."

Heiji frowned. "Can you actually tell, or did you just make that up? It's a squirrel."

"Real squirrels can react to outside stimuli," Kudo snapped. "If you come near it, it will run away. Remain still long enough, and it will approach. This… thing," he said, shaking out the fat squirrel with distaste, "has done nothing but try to bite me, even though it must be absolutely bloated. It's just a body with a need to feed."

Heiji pursed his lips. "So disposal it is." He paused. "How, exactly, do you dispose of vampires?"

Kudo shifted uncomfortably. "It's… complicated."

Heiji raised an eyebrow to convey exactly what he thought of that misdirection.

Kudo held his stare for a moment longer before he broke. With a sigh, he said, "Generally ripping off its head works. There's other ways, of course, but if you want foolproof, that's the way to go."

"Will it bleed?" Heiji asked curiously. "Actually, does blood even flow in your veins? How does it work, really, anyway?"

"Why, are you planning on dissecting me?" Kudo asked defensively.

Heiji held his hands up. "Dude, calm down. I just figured that if there was a specimen right here… might as well find out, right? We did cuff the thing, so it won't be able to escape."

Kudo wrinkled his nose distastefully, like he wanted to forget the memory entirely. "Somehow," he said. "But forgive me if I don't really want to see… the innards of something that resembles myself."

Heiji blinked. Oh, that's right, asking to see the vampire squirrel's innards could probably be construed as offensive, right, since they were both vampires, it was probably like asking to dissect Kudo's cousin.

"Don't misunderstand me; I don't have any affection towards the, uh, vampire-squirrel," Kudo said, guessing where Heiji's thoughts had gone. "Look, I'll tell you what I know about vampire physiology later, I just don't…"

"Oh my god," Heiji said, coming upon a marvelous realization. "You're squeamish."

"I am not!" Kudo said, but he had crossed his arms defensively, betraying how he totally was.

"I can rip its head off," Heiji offered. "It's just a squirrel; I bet I could do it. Or, we're at the docks, so there's bound to be something heavy around here we can squish it with."

If Kudo could throw up, he looked as if he were about to.

Heiji took pity on the poor soul. If vampires had souls. He'd have to ask later. "Here, give it back to me, and I'll take care of it somewhere you can't see, okay? I won't even tell you how I did it."

Kudo opened his mouth to argue, but Heiji cut him off by raising both his eyebrows and motioning for the squirrel again. Kudo gave up, and tossed the thing over.

"I feel kind of bad," Heiji said thoughtfully, raising the squirrel to his eyes. It did indeed seem to have gone completely mad, tiny fangs snapping at thin air, with none of the clear intelligence that squirrels typically seemed to exude. "I still don't like murder. But I guess starving it to death would be worse, huh?"

"Immensely," Kudo agreed.

"You know," Heiji said after a few more minutes of silence. "I'm not certain I really want to do this. There's really no good way to spin it, ya know? Murder's murder."

"Then what do you propose we do? You can't keep it as a pet." Kudo tugged at Heiji's elbow. "C'mon, give it to me. I've…. My hands are already bloody. I'll do it."

Heiji turned to Kudo with a sigh of relief, eyes lighter than they had been just a moment before. "Oh, okay. Then let's do it together."

"What?" Kudo said. "How did you even reach that conclusion—"

"I'll put it on the ground, and we can stomp on a count of three, okay? One, two—"

"Oh my god," Kudo said, although as he did as he was told. There was an awful crunch as the squirrel's neck shattered under their feet, and Heiji could feel it give one last twitch before falling limp. Kudo checked the vampire squirrel's pulse and nodded once. It was dead. For a second time.

"What was that about?" Kudo demanded, even as Heiji began walking away.

"Let's go talk to the chief," Heiji said instead. He shoved his hands in his pockets. He didn't want Kudo to see his hands shaking.

Kudo, detective as he was, noticed anyway. To his credit, he didn't say anything until they passed by a conveniently located coffee shop a few blocks away from the police station. "Hey, let's get something to drink," he said, tugging at Heiji's elbow to drag him inside.

"I'm fine," Heiji insisted.

Kudo rolled his eyes. "We've been up all night. You need caffeine before facing the chief," he said.

"Point," Heiji acquiesced.

"I'll pay," Kudo said, shoving Heiji out of line.

"How do you even have money?"

Kudo smiled for the first time that day, a small, wicked little glimmer, a flash of fang. "I have my ways."

"Oh god," Heiji realized.

"Do you like sweet things?" Kudo said, approaching the counter.

"Milk, no sugar."

Kudo returned shortly thereafter with two cups of coffee. He handed one over to Heiji, who immediately took a large gup, much to Kudo's horror. He raised his own cup to his lips and took a small sip, as if in protest. "What's the point of even adding milk? Do you even taste things? Do you have taste buds?"

"Pot, kettle," Heiji reminded.

Kudo scowled. "I can taste food," he said. "I just don't digest it. It passes through my body."

"That's one mystery solved," Heiji quipped.

They sat in silence for a little while, until Kudo apparently couldn't stand it any longer. "Why did you do it?" he said.

"What?" Heiji said, playing dumb.

Kudo wasn't having any of that. "The squirrel," Kudo said sharply. "I could have done it. If you hadn't insisted on playing the hero—"

"I was not!" Heiji snapped. His fingers danced nervously on the edge of the table, and he reached back with his other hand to pull the brim of his cap forward. "I just…. I didn't want you to do it alone. That's not fair."

Kudo paused in his righteous anger, mouth snapping shut. He let out a deep breath, and closed his eyes. When he opened them again, the blue of his irises had lost their metal edge. "Sorry," he said, voice much softer than it had been.

Then, very slowly, with intentioned, deliberate movements, he reached out with his hand and brushed his fingertips against the back of Heiji's hand. Mesmerized, as if he were stroking the softest of rabbit ears, Heiji turned his trembling hand over and curled his hand up to meet Kudo's, who laced their fingers together with a smile, thumb stroking over Heiji's pulse.

They sat together for a while as Kudo sipped at his coffee and Heiji stared at their interwoven fingers from under the brim of his hat.

Heiji spoke up as Kudo finished the last drops of his black coffee. "Well, that's how I know you're a vampire," he said, nodding slightly at Kudo's coffee cup. "Only corpses can choke down coffee black."

Kudo had to laugh. "Let's go," he said, pulling Heiji to his feet, still without releasing Heiji's hand. "Don't you have a police chief to put at ease?"

Heiji grinned brightly and resettled his cap backwards, letting go of Kudo's hand to sling an arm over his shoulder. "Yeah. Let's make some shit up."

~0~

The chief, after some wheedling, seemed to accept their haphazardly constructed story, although Kudo had to fill in the spaces where Heiji's explanation fell short of logic.

"Wait, wait, wait. You just said he used a sewing needle to kill his victims—where'd the gun come from?"

"Uh, yes," Heiji stammered. "Y-you see…"

Kudo sighed. "The needle is what he used to drain the blood. It was probably coated in poison, subduing the victims. After they fell unconscious, drained their blood through the holes he made with the needles. He caught onto us following him, so he probably began to carry the gun around."

"But part of what stumped Hattori-kun was that absolutely no traces of any drugs were found in any of the victims," the chief said suspiciously.

"It was a new compound that the perpetrator had invented," Kudo lied. "He had a vial on him."

The chief nodded. "I see."

He clearly didn't, but he also didn't press, and Kudo would take whatever blessings he could get.

"Yeah, yeah," Heiji said, latching onto Kudo's proffered proverbial hand. "And when we corned him, he turned tail and ran and jumped into the river, which is when we heard a gunshot."

Kudo rolled his eyes as the chief's eyebrows furrowed, slightly confused (what kind of perp has two teenaged boys at gunpoint and then decides the situation is so hopeless he has no choice but to commit suicide?), but ultimately accepted their story. "Alright then, if that's it. You boys can take off for the afternoon. Hattori-kun, I'll book you a train for tomorrow morning back to Osaka."

"Right, thanks," Heiji said, sighing as he thinks of the long and boring train-ride back where he'll doubtless be assaulted by another case that the police should be able to solve by themselves.

The chief turned to Kudo. "Kudo-kun, you comin' in tomorrow morning? We could use a bright boy like you, full-time. Won't even make you take the training for it. Waddaya say?"

Heiji turned to Kudo with a frown. Yeah, what would Kudo do? He obviously likes solving cases, or he wouldn't have asked to join on, and he's brilliant so he'd be good at it. And he's already proven he can live amongst humans.

Kudo smiled slightly. "No can do. I've got to get home."

What?

The chief slapped Kudo on the back. "Well, if you ever change your mind, you got my number. Take a well-deserved nap, boys."

"Thanks," they said, before walking out into the sunlight together.

Kudo popped his umbrella. "Are you sure you're a detective?" he ribbed absentmindedly as he adjusted his sleeves and umbrella for optimal coverage. "Can't you even keep a simple cover story straight?"

"Normally my stories are based on facts that actually exist!" Heiji protested.

"Sure," Kudo said. He walked off without waiting for Heiji.

"Oi, oi, oi!" Heiji ran to catch up. "Wait, are you seriously going to go back? What do you gotta do that's so urgent; twiddle your thumbs in your Bat-cave?"

"That's offensive," Kudo objected. "I have way more common sense than Batman. I would at the very least invest in a voice-changer."

"That's only in the movies. We don't know if he didn't have one in the comics, which is entirely different. And don't deflect!"

Kudo whirled around to roll his eyes at Heiji. "What did you expect? I only came down because I thought it looked like another vampire's work so I could help stop it—and as it turns out, it was a vampire squirrel's work, and now that that's settled, there's no more reason for me to stay."

Kudo could jab at Heiji for the plot-holes in his story all he wanted, but Kudo's story made about just as much sense. Firstly, Kudo understood pop culture references like Batman, and had somehow heard of the human deaths happening in the city near his all-but-confirmed Bat-cave, meaning that he had connections, or just paid an awful lot of attention to humans. For a guy like Kudo, that could really only mean one of two things: he really cared about humans, or he was really bored. Heiji was willing to bet that both were true.

And secondly, Heiji could see that Kudo actually liked solving cases. The way his eyes lit up when he had (erroneously) deduced it was the vampire mafia, and the way his eyes had slid sideways for just a moment before declining the chief's offer, and most damning, the fact that he apparently had called in hot tips before, because, seriously? With eternity to live, who does that?

Putting his hands on his hips, Heiji shot his best glare at Kudo. "You should know better than to lie to a detective," he said.

Kudo scoffed. "I'm not—"

In one smooth motion, Heiji ducked under Kudo's umbrella and slung an arm over his shoulder.

"What the hell!" Kudo said, trying to jostle Heiji's arm off, but couldn't do so without exposing himself to the sun.

"Why don'tcha just come with me, then?" Heiji said cheerfully, ignoring his struggling partner.

"What? I will not be your little supernatural pet—"

"Now, now, calling yourself little isn't very nice. You'd be more like a live-in roommate. Get it? Live-in? Since you'd only come out at night?"

Kudo whirled around, eyes flashing. The motion caused Heiji to stumble out from under the umbrella, jostling its position and exposing Kudo's bare hand to the right rays. Kudo hissed in pain and snatched his hand up, but not before the skin at the surface began to fizzle and peel.

Heiji grabbed for Kudo's hand and carefully studied it under the shadows of Kudo's umbrella. "This looks like a bad third-degree burn already. You're not healing fast—I guess that's one thing about vampires, huh? Are you okay? Will you be okay?" Heiji knocked his forehead into Kudo's. "Oi, Kudo! Are you—"

"Yes!" Kudo shouted into Heiji's face, before withdrawing slightly. "Yes, I'm fine. Thank you. Just… don't, okay? This isn't supposed to happen."

"Harlequin novels," Heiji reminded.

"You can't pretend there wouldn't be problems," Kudo argued. "I could forge the proper papers to become your roommate, but then what? How would you even explain me? How could I go on any cases? You saw how difficult this one was. I can't even go anywhere without a fucking umbrella, and that's only because the Tokyo PD knows me."

Heiji rolled his eyes. "You're overthinking it. I'll get you gloves and hat, okay? There's tons of human diseases where the patient can't go out into the sun without getting severely sunburnt; that's the easiest thing to explain. Plus, eating would be easy! I'm young, and I can consider this the community service Kazuha is constantly bitching about."

"Do you even know what you're offering?" Kudo said desperately. "This is your blood. That's your life force, you can't just—"

Heiji shook his head and sighed like he was particularly disappointed in a child who had gotten into the gifts on Christmas Eve. "Maybe this is a cultural difference. Giving a little blood these days is no big deal. We do have regular blood drives now, which I refuse to believe you don't know, since you all but admitted to stealing blood-bags. It's fine. My bone marrow is strong."

Kudo opened his mouth to argue again, but Heiji cut him off. "Dude, you're overthinking it. Did you have long talks with Anne Rice; is that what this is about?"

"W-Wha—we have met, but I don't see—"

"Harlequin."

Kudo shut his eyes, as if it would make Heiji and his migraine go away. "Why?"

Heiji turned Kudo's hand over and laced their fingers together. Holding up their intertwined hands, he said, "Dude, I like you, and I want to solve crime with you. Is that good enough?"

Kudo's expression twisted into one of an old soul suffering from abject back pain and knee problems. "I hate you."

Heiji grinned. "I'll take that as a yes."

aaand that's all! drop me a line, if you'd like!