A/N: Focusing back in on the boys this week. Please see the end-note for warnings!

Chapter 27

The filing room was surprisingly well-lit for a room that was pretty much all filing cabinets, but there was something ominous about it, nonetheless. It wasn't the peeling paint, or the bare light bulb on the ceiling...it just...was.

"Why don't you shut the door behind you, Eisuke-kun," Hashimoto said almost sweetly, in very passable, if accented Japanese. "And then someone can explain why Conan-kun is threatening not to call Hattori-kun in when a serial killer shows up."

And that explains the ominous feeling, Eisuke thought, swallowing. He shut the door, but not quite the whole way, so it would still muffle sound, but any locking mechanisms wouldn't have a chance to work.

"His old man's a PI," Hattori said. "Conan knows I like interesting cases, so sometimes he'll tell me when there is one."

"Sleeping Kogoro, wasn't it?" Hashimoto said, quite casually.

Heiji eyed him. "If ya knew who his guardian was, why didn't ya do somethin' about it sooner?" he asked. "I woulda expected ya ta have Mouri-han on the phone before we ever got here."

"I didn't know that when we found him," Hashimoto said, sounding genuinely insulted. "But after you mentioned Saguru, I texted my uncle."

Eisuke swore mentally.

"Good of you, to check up," Kaito praised cheerily, undaunted.

"None of you have permission to be on this investigation," Hashimoto replied flatly. "You're supposed to be visiting relatives."

"Conan's a relative?" Kaito tried.

"Then why is he living with Kogoro instead of with you and your mother?" Hashimoto asked. "He's not really your brother, is he?"

"Well-" Kaito started.

Eisuke cut him off. "His parents aren't here, and neither are his guardians, and I don't think it's really feasible to get either of them here soon. But we weren't sure you were going to give him back to teenage friends he wasn't even related to, either. It was meant to be a white lie."

"Do you normally lie to police officers?" Hashimoto asked, raising an eyebrow.

"I help Aoko lie to Inspector Nakamori about whether she used low-sodium soy sauce in dinner pretty much constantly," Kaito said blithely. "Does that count?"

Hashimoto just sighed. "And you-your father is apparently livid," he told Heiji.

"That's why I didn't tell 'im in person," Heiji said.

"But now, not only has the son of one superintendent-general run away, the son of the other has run away to find him," Hashimoto said. "You see how this could seem like the situation worsening, rather than an improvement."

"Well, if you insist on lookin' at it like that," Heiji huffed.

"We had good cause to come to London," Eisuke said. "We've told you that we have reason to believe Saguru's in danger."

"Please tell me you didn't tell the superintendent-general that," Kaito said. "He's worried enough as it is. And Saguru can probably take care of himself, if it comes down to it…"

"Either he's in real danger, or he isn't, you have to pick one," Hashimoto said.

"He's in danger, but he knows it, and he's probably ready for it," Eisuke said. "It's just the probably part that's got us worried, you understand."

"And that Superintendent-General Hakuba doesn't need to know about," Kaito insisted. "This has to be hard on him; he looked like h*** last time I saw him."

"Funny, he said the same thing about you," Hashimoto said. "He seemed surprised that you were up to a plane trip."

"Wasn't really, but not for the reasons yer thinkin'," Heiji muttered. "He takes 'anxious flier' ta a whole new level."

"I'm not that bad!" Kaito protested. "And it's been two months; I'm pretty much recovered now."

Eisuke could see Hashimoto scanning his posture for something that belied the statement; he wasn't going to find it, though. A month ago, maybe, Kaito had been in enough pain to let things slip, especially around extremely talented detectives he was reluctantly coming to trust. Now, talking to a relatively unknown quantity? No chance.

That said, Eisuke had absolutely no doubt that Kaito was lying like a rug about how he was feeling, but he was getting disturbingly used to that sort of thing.

"Well then," Hashimoto said. "If you insist. Let's move to my biggest concern. One of you admitted that you weren't friends with Saguru, and his father's told me that another of you has a pretty public rivalry with him as well."

"I never made a secret o' not likin' him; doesn't mean I wanna see 'im hurt," Heiji said.

"Not wanting to see someone hurt and all but running away from home to attempt to find them are very different things," Hashimoto snapped. He glared at Eisuke. "I'd also like to know exactly why Uncle Tsuyoshi doesn't seem to mind that he knows nothing about you."

Eisuke blinked. Next to him, Kaito's eyes narrowed slightly, and Eisuke couldn't help wondering what Kaito was understanding that he wasn't.

"You're all suspicious and I'm really not sure I should be giving you information," Hashimoto said.

"You want Saguru found, don't you?" Eisuke said.

"You should be leaving that to the police," Hashimoto replied.

"They're not exactly doin' so great so far," Heiji pointed out. "Only reason they know he left Japan is that I told 'em."

"You trusted Saguru for how long, apparently without even asking for basic information, and now you're being suspicious?" Kaito asked. "I still can't believe that. He could have been anyone. You need to at least check that sort of thing."

"...We all thought someone else had," Hashimoto said.

"That's ridiculous," Heiji said. "You need a better bureaucracy around here. My dad could teach ya a lot, I bet."

"Your father is nicknamed the Demon of Osaka, I think perhaps they might pass, if given a choice," Kaito chirped.

There was a little glint of steel to Kaito's smile that said, And boy does this kid take after his Dad, so you might wanna cooperate.

Well, if that was how they were going to do things….

"What, exactly, do we need to do, to prove ourselves trustworthy?" Eisuke asked plainly, taking a step forward.

"Explain why you're so interested in this case," Hashimoto said. "None of you have a compelling reason to want to help Saguru-"

"And now we need motives for solving crimes, as well as committing them?" Eisuke asked, frowning. He's got a point, but this has gotten out of hand. We can't give him all the information he wants.

"You have to admit, it's a little suspicious," Hashimoto said.

"If you can't accept 'we're doing it because it's the right thing to do' as a motive, that's your problem, not ours," Eisuke said flatly. "But all we're asking for is some addresses. Ones that might not even be useful in the end. If you still think that's too dangerous to give us, you're moving toward an alarming level of paranoia."

"I don't know that I trust you," Hashimoto said.

"Which, ironically, makes me trust you a lot more," Kaito put in. "I like the suspicious streak. That's a good thing to have right now. But we won't be able to stay in London forever, and if we want to get anything done, we need those addresses."

"Yeah, an' I'd like ta get Ku-Conan back ta the hotel room sooner rather 'n later," Heiji added. "He needs ta drink water 'n rest."

Hashimoto scowled. "Uncle Tsuyoshi barely knows any of you, so you probably don't know, but that kid means the world to him. If you do anything to him, it will be the entire Tokyo Metropolitan Police Force after you. I'll just be an afterthought."

"We're well aware," Eisuke said, grinning like his mother faced with a rude guest. "But thanks for watching out for him, even if it did take you a while."

Hashimoto's scowl just deepened. "The addresses will take a few minutes. You can wait here, or with the kid."

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::;

Heiji looked around the hotel room and sighed. Some rescue party they'd turned out to be.

Kudou was a half-conscious ball of misery on the foldout couch, with a bag of peas they'd picked up at a convenience store near the police station resting on his bruised hip and a small blanket Heiji thought was supposed to be for decoration layered over that. He'd gotten dressed in Conan's clothing again at the police station, and hadn't changed out of anything but the glasses and sneakers when he laid down. Kaito had flopped onto the bed nearest the door the moment they'd all gotten into the room and was still sprawled across it like some sort of giant starfish. It had been a half hour and the most he'd moved was shifting his face a little so his nose wasn't pressing down into the mattress directly. Eisuke was sitting on the other bed, the one nearer the couch, spine ramrod-straight. He was making at least a token effort to read through the addresses and files they'd accumulated throughout the day-but he kept glancing from Kudou to Kaito and back again and every inch of his posture screamed "worry."

That left Heiji to force Kudou into drinking until his body actually recovered from the number he'd done on it. So there he was, walking back and forth from the bathroom to the couch with a cup so he could wake Kudou up enough to make him drink.

Forget protecting Hakuba from the Black Org. Like this, they'd probably have trouble protecting him from a single unarmed pickpocket.

Though, given what they now knew, it was more likely that Hakuba would be the pickpocket.

Stop this ride, I want off, Heiji thought, wishing he could lie down, too.

Unfortunately, someone had to take care of the rest of them, and he wasn't trusting a single one of them to do it themselves.

He sidled up to the couch, glass in hand, and lightly shook Kudou's shoulder.

"Go 'way," Kudou murmured. "Sleeping."

"No, you're drinking water," Heiji said patiently. He raised his voice. "And then the rest of us are getting some food."

Kaito made a groaning sound. "I'll pass."

"On dinner?" Eisuke asked, skeptical.

"If it involves moving, yes," Kaito said.

"Ya know, you could try not doin' stupid acrobatics while healin' up," Heiji said grumpily.

"This place does have a restaurant downstairs, and there are menus on the desk," Eisuke said. "I think they have fish and chips. I've always wanted to try that."

The bedsprings creaked. Heiji looked over in time to catch Kaito at the end of a full-body shudder.

"You okay over there?" he asked.

"Nope," Kaito said, with an air of forced cheer. "That hurt. Whoops."

"I think it was more why you flinched that much when we mentioned getting food," Eisuke ventured. "Are you feeling sick?"

"I-yeah-no," Kaito said. "That was a really nice out you just gave me, but no."

Heiji had no idea what he was on about, and opened his mouth to say as much. Eisuke reached out a toe and kicked him, very gently, in the calf.

Heiji gave him a betrayed look. Kudou's contagious, he thought.

"I, um…" Kaito broke off, and with some effort sat up, hair messier than usual and clothes disheveled. "There's a thing. About that." He paused.

"That's real specific," Heiji muttered.

"Shut up; this is hard and you aren't helping," Kaito snapped.

Okay, so it was like that. Heiji knew he had a reputation as a loudmouth, but there were times...when there was too much going on at once, when he was just a little too stressed, when something was complicated and he had no idea how to boil it down into words...sometimes, he just couldn't get things out.

"Okay, just take a deep breath, and try again," Heiji said, not quite gently.

Kaito smiled back- it was a little sickly, but it wasn't KID at all, not even at the edges, and that felt like a win.

His expression turned serious again, and he started messing with the hem of his shirt, just sort of rolling it back and forth. "It wasn't the food it was...uh, well," his voice turned strained, "fish. It's the stupidest phobia, I would laugh if it was anyone else, really, but it's not, and I can't be around them, not even dead ones, I start panicking, I would rather go back to the police station and tell them I'm KID."

By the looks of it, he wasn't even okay around hypothetical fish. His skin was paling rapidly and there was sweat shining on his forehead; also, he looked like only his dignity was keeping him from pulling his knees up to his chest. To be fair, some of it was probably nervousness about admitting to the fear, but still...

"Breathe, Kuroba-han, s***," Heiji said. "Jus'-count if ya have ta, but breathe."

Kaito did, the kind of slow, even breaths Heiji expected from Kudou. His hands were shaking, just a bit.

"Tell me you weren't serious about that last part," Eisuke said.

"No?" Kaito said, sounding unsure. "Maybe? Probably? I don't really know. I wouldn't rather die in jail than be around, um, certain ocean creatures, but I think I could probably escape from that place before one of Them showed up to kill me, so…"

Eisuke made a faint despairing sort of noise. Heiji agreed with the sentiment.

"That's why, about the sushi," Kudou muttered sleepily.

That faintly rang a bell for Heiji, so he spent a few seconds trying to recall it. Oh yeah, that night after the heist. I pretty much forgot about that bit of weird what with everything else that happened.

"Yeah, that's why," Kaito said, still looking edgy.

"No harassing KID 'til you're up to staying awake for a half-hour at a stretch," Heiji said. "It'll be your prize."

"Hattori-san!" Eisuke scolded.

"I gotta motivate him somehow!" Hattori protested. "And this way Kuroba-han has time ta prepare. Besides, ya don't really think any o' us could actually tell Kudou Shinichi ta let somethin' go an' have it work, now do ya?"

Kaito actually giggled. "If I prank him enough, he might let it go."

"Oh no, we all have to sleep in this hotel room, an' I'm the one on the floor!" Heiji protested. "If ya get glitter everywhere, it's me who's gonna suffer!"

"You underestimate my ability to target pranks," Kaito said.

"I don't underestimate your ability to make your injuries worse if you do that," Eisuke snapped. "Honestly."

"I won't do that," Kudou said softly. "I wouldn't...poke at your fears like that. Not just for my own curiosity. If I start, just tell me to stop, and I will."

Kaito blinked, wide-eyed. "Um, okay. I mean, I will."

"No one is judgin' ya here," Heiji said. "Well, not fer this. I reserve the right ta judge yer sense o' humor an' yer secret-keepin' as often as I want."

"Fair," Kaito said, nodding.

"It's a tourist pub, so there's gonna be f-" Eisuke started.

Kaito flinched.

"Okay, you aren't feeling good anyway, so why don't you and Kudou-san tell us what you want, and Hattori-san and I will go and get it?"

Kaito nodded.

Heiji glanced at the couch. Kudou had nodded off again.

Eventually, he and Eisuke managed to get orders out of both a drowsy Shinichi and an uncharacteristically jumpy Kaito. At least getting the food didn't take that long-they seemed to have caught an off time for buying dinner.

When they finally made it back to the room, Kaito was actually on his feet, and apparently trying to make Kudou drink by staring at him. To Kaito's credit, it was working-Kudou was sitting up, with a mostly-drained glass of water in his hands.

"He's more awake now," Kaito said, grinning.

"'Cause you won't shut up," Kudou all but growled.

"Ah, but it's for a good cause," Kaito said lightly.

"Look, here's the food," Eisuke said. "Heiji got you some extra fruit, Kudou-san, I hope you don't mind."

"Don't tell 'im!" Heiji scolded.

"What, you were going to just hand them to him and hope he ate them?" Kaito asked.

"He said it worked before," Heiji said, shrugging.

"The circumstances were different," Kudou said, yawning a little.

"That's gotta be a story," Kaito said.

Kudou made a sort of huffing noise. "My first serial murder case," he said. "I was pretty tired by the second all-nighter. Can we not talk about it, though? 'M already kinda nauseous."

Kaito shut his mouth, three shades paler than he was a second ago, while Eisuke winced, just slightly, in the middle of dragging a side table over to the couch so they could properly sit around it.

Heiji just shook his head. In this, even Kaitou KID was a bit of a civilian.

After the table was moved, Heiji started passing out the food-water, soup and citrus fruit for Kudou, and a mix of sodas, various grilled meats, and potatoes for the rest of them. Heiji was almost positive this was tourist food, but he was equally sure that getting non-tourist-food would involve more effort than the group of them could muster. They could get something authentic after they slept. Maybe even after they actually found Hakuba.

That was a real nice thought. Increasingly unrealistic, but nice.

Heiji sat on the couch next to Kudou, Kaito sat down on the edge of the bed across from him, and Eisuke pulled a chair up to the side of the makeshift table.

Kudou, apparently still awake enough to realize it was time to eat, straightened, blinked down at his soup, and then wrinkled his nose. Heiji was about to be offended when he reached for his glasses, still folded up and balanced a bit precariously on top of his shoes.

Oh, that's it, Heiji thought. He just forgot-wait, what's he even puttin' those on fer? He ain't feelin' good an' there ain't anyone here to hide from.

Eisuke got to them first, grabbing them out of Kudou's reach. Kudou stared up at him, uncomprehending.

"Kaito's been showing up without a mask for a while," Eisuke said softly. "Isn't it time you do the same?"

"But-" Kudou started. "It's not...it's how I keep things separate. Being Conan, and being myself."

The bedsprings squeaked, and Heiji caught just a half-second of Kaito wincing, like Kazuha on the sidelines at a tournament seeing someone get an injury she'd had before.

Oh. The friggin' Kaitou KID would know about this sort of thing, wouldn't he? Heiji thought, chagrined.

"And when you're with us, which are you?" Eisuke asked, a bit more firmly, as Heiji's attention was pulled back to the matter at hand.

"I'm myself," Kudou half-whispered.

"So be yourself," Eisuke said. "We're the only ones here to see, and we already know. You don't have any reason to hide here." He paused, tensed, then said, "Let yourself have this, okay?"

Thank heaven for Hondou Eisuke, Heiji thought, as Kudou's eyes fell back to the soup.

He looked more like Kudou, without them, but also younger. Or maybe that was just how tired he looked right now. Hard to tell, really.

"On the subject of masks, though, Kuroba-kun, how sure are you that you can't tell us any of what you haven't told us about Hakuba?" Eisuke said, putting the glasses down on the table.

"Pretty sure," Kaito said, smile brilliant and all KID.

"It's startin' ta seem incredibly relevant, is th' thing," Heiji said.

"He'll run again," Kaito said. "If he thinks you know, he'll absolutely run again. I'm aware it's a horrid way to treat you, I know it's not fair to you at all, but telling you would be at least as unfair to him."

"Can't you give us anything?" Kudou tried.

"You're too good, and it's all clues," Kaito said. "You can't figure out this mystery, Tantei-kun, not without collateral damage. If you find him faster, only for him to run away again, it's not worth it."

"He's put you between a rock and a hard place," Eisuke observed.

"Yeah, I'm starting to remember why I used to want to punch him all the time," Kaito said.

"Well, since we can't turn Kuroba upside down an' shake him 'til answers come out, we're gonna need another plan," Heiji said, to a scattering of snickers from Eisuke and Kudou and an exaggerated, wide-eyed look from Kaito. "Probably shouldn't work on it tonight, but if Kudou drinks and Kuroba-san rests, we should all be up to it bright an' early tomorrow."

"I'm fine," Kaito protested.

Eisuke raised an eyebrow. Kuroba wilted.

"It was easier when people actually believed my lies," Kaito muttered.

"You are incredibly disturbing, you know that?" Kudou asked.

"Says the guy who casually brings up his first serial murder case," Kaito countered.

"At least they're feeling a bit better," Eisuke said with a shrug.

Heiji couldn't argue with that.

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A/N: Warnings for: Continued character injury, canon-typical levels of casually mentioning murder, an intense little discussion of phobias including a description of a character having a phobia reaction, and Kaito and Shinichi's issues regarding their constantly false public presentation.

Thanks for reading, and leave me a review if you have the time, please!