Disclaimer: I do not own Detective Conan.
Oneshot Thirty-One
Whittling
Dripping water pattered loudly in the near-silence of the dank and gloomy room, accompanied only by the wheezy breaths of a small boy. He hung from one of the concrete walls, which were stained with long-reaching fingers of black mold, suspended by thick manacles clasped fast around his wrists.
The only door, a rotting slab of heavy wood, swung open on rusty hinges, permitting a weak light to sneak around the figure standing in the doorway.
The room's inhabitant lifted his head from its drooping position, the cracked and oversized glasses dangling from one of his ears threatening to fall to the floor. Though his skin was pallid and formed dark rings around his bloodshot eyes, he mustered the will to glare formidably at the intruder.
"Eh, what's this? Still being moody? You know, Conan-kun, things would be better for the both of us if you just started talking." The man entered, closing the door and locking it behind him without breaking stride. He chuckled at the sight of the spirited boy before him, though it was distinctly lacking in mirth.
"Fuck you," Conan spat, coughing after his raspy utterance. The newcomer waited for the fit to die down, observing how his captive's chest heaved from the exertion with a small frown.
"Don't be like that, especially considering that there are worse people to keep company with than me. I'm just a man doing my job," he responded with easygoing aloofness, setting down the plastic case he had carried in with him. Objects within it clattered as they moved about, metallic and some jangling as if there were a multitude of small items among them.
Conan took a single deep breath to keep his cool, only to have to force down another coughing attack as his phlegm-filled lungs protested the action, wincing as his already aching chest felt as if it was being constricted. A painful tickle developed in his throat as a result, niggling persistently at him to give way to coughing.
The man had never brought anything with him into the room yet, save for food and water that Conan had hardly touched for fear of being drugged. This foreboded nothing good, he was sure with deep unease pooling in his gut.
"You know," the man continued as the young detective took too long to respond, "if you just tell me what we want to know, we'll let you go."
"Yeah, by killing me," Conan retorted with derision. The man paused, before shaking his head and shrugging his shoulders after a fashion of 'nothing that can be done if it can't be helped.'
"You're a smart kid," he conceded, mockingly ruffling the child's hair. He then plucked the glasses from Conan's face between two large fingers, seeing that they were a bit beat up but not too bent out of shape to still fit, comically oversized though they were. The man stared at Conan's eyes for a moment, before sliding the glasses into their proper place. A tension of sorts seemed to be released from his muscles after doing so.
"You do realize that by acknowledging my point that there is no way I'll tell you now? If you hadn't, I might have folded after holding out for a while longer."
"Nah, you wouldn't have. You and I both know that you know better than that; there's no way otherwise you wouldn't have brought up your impending death in the first place."
Conan smirked grimly.
"You're too damn intelligent for your own good, that's what," the man openly scowled now, and Conan blinked in surprise.
"Excuse me?"
"People don't like true intelligence, kid. You know why?"
His audience remained silent.
"Because intelligence is a weapon. It cuts through all the defensive deceptions that people have carefully cultivated. It's unnerving."
The man continued on, a feverish light dancing in his eyes as he paced back and forth before the prisoner.
"But you know what? If you don't handle it like you would a weapon, it will be like a weapon in that case and harm its wielder."
"I don't see what this has to do with anything."
The captor wheeled at this response, eyes narrowing.
"Don't play stupid, you know very well what you've done, or you wouldn't have the FBI wrapped around your finger. You wouldn't be here if not for that."
Scoffing, he turned away from Conan and undid the clasps on his case, prying it open and shuffling through its contents before withdrawing a knife.
"I just want to carve out those eyes of yours." Conan blanched, "But I won't. Maybe at the end."
As he said this, he replaced the knife and instead removed a hammer and nail.
"I'm mostly a simple man, with a preference for cruder methods."
He looked Conan in the eyes.
"The sooner you talk, the sooner it will be over. Don't make me resort to finesse."
He took the nail and held it to a point on Conan's body, seeing the boy's pupils dilate. He pulled the arm holding the hammer back, smiling.
A/N: Yeah, I was bored and a random snippet of conversation flitted through my head, so this happened. I feel like it didn't come out well, though. :P (But hey, a oneshot that doesn't degenerate into crack.) Sorry for updates being slow, I'm focusing on original fiction and working ahead on A Familiar Situation.