Shinichi was jarred awake by a sudden unpleasant bump and a surging pain in his shoulder. He groaned and strained to open his eyes, momentarily confused by the dim city lights around him, until he realized he was lying in the back of a moving car that must've just hit a pothole. Haibara stood by his side, squeezed into the space between the backseat and the driver's seat, to put pressure on a wad of gauze held to his shoulder.

She met his eye and frowned to show her disapproval. "Idiot," she declared.

He honestly couldn't even remember what she might be upset about, but he was sure she was overreacting. Besides, whatever supposedly idiotic thing he had done was not relevant right now.

"K… Kai—" Shinichi tried to ask, finding it surprisingly difficult with a dry and aching throat that hurt a lot for some reason.

"Kaito-kun is fine, don't worry," Yuusaku answered from the passenger seat, turning to give him a reassuring smile. "Jii's with him. They're on their way to the hospital, as are we, but they're in a proper ambulance since they don't have to worry about the timing of someone shrinking into a six-year-old."

Shinichi frowned, failing to see how that could be relevant. But he had heard the only piece of information he cared about right now — Kaito was safe.

"The police were able to secure the mansion, and I carried you out while they were occupied with the arrests," Yuusaku continued. "We'll admit you to the hospital as soon as the antidote has worn off."

"It shouldn't take too long," Haibara interjected. "That pill was a relatively small dose, and with how much your body has become resistant to it, it will likely wear off within an hour." Then she met Shinichi's eye again and smirked in an exceedingly disconcerting manner. "But now that you're awake, you'll get to experience the transformation again. Aren't you lucky? Idiot."

Shinichi groaned. What had he ever done to deserve this?

—

Conan could only recall a few moments of the following day; the time passed in a hazy blur of assorted hospital scenes that he couldn't care less about. Mostly, he just remembered being repeatedly told to rest and being too tired to disagree. His eyes had flickered open several times, only to immediately fade back to sleep again. By the time he had enough presence of mind to stay awake for a moment, it was already evening again.

Where was Kaito? The first thought that entered his mind brought enough concern to shock him awake, and he forced himself upright, wobbling a little before realizing that his left arm was in a sling. He desperately glanced around the dark room and breathed a sigh of relief when his eyes locked in on the other partially reclined bed in the room, and, more importantly, the perpetually messy hair of the bed's occupant.

Conan was, of course, very familiar with hospitals and the general rule about not impulsively jumping out of one's hospital bed the instant one wakes up. But, unfortunately for his doctors, Conan couldn't be bothered with such frivolous details when he had more important things to worry about. And right now, all he cared about was seeing for himself that his friend was safe.

Disregarding the pain in his shoulder, the hospital's rules, and manners in general, he threw his covers aside and heaved himself awkwardly over the railing of his bed, stumbling slightly in his landing, then hurried over to Kaito's bed.

Conan stood on tiptoes trying to get a good view, but in the dark at this angle he couldn't see anything. The rails on the bed and the stupid sling on his arm prevented him from climbing up easily, so he found the visitor's chair and pulled it over to the bed. He winced at the loud scraping sound from dragging the chair, but, unable to lift it, he only sped up, hoping to check on his friend before anyone heard the commotion and came to force him back to bed.

No such luck – the door flung open, letting in a temporary patch of light to illuminate a flustered nurse looking rapidly around the room. When she noticed Conan, halfway in the process of clambering onto the chair, the worry on her face immediately morphed into irritation and exasperation.

She marched over and reached out to pick him up, but Conan wasn't ready to leave. "I was just so worried about Kaito-niichan!" he hastily explained in a whisper, trying to sound as cute and childlike as possible.

"Your niichan is resting, and you should be too!" she scolded him. "You're old enough to know better than to run around like this."

"But I can rest from here!" he protested, to no avail, for she was already lifting him up. On instinct, he shot his hand out to grab the railings of the bed, and held on for dear life. It kept him at an odd angle as she was prevented from carrying him away.

"Stop that!" she chided him and tried to pry his hand off. He doubled down on his grip.

"No!" Conan cried petulantly, playing up the child act. "I want to see Kaito-niichan!"

"You can see him in the morning."

"But I already waited so long, and I'm so worried!" he whined. "I won't bother him, I promise!"

The nurse sighed in resignation, muttering, almost to herself, "You're just going to keep this up even if I put you back, aren't you?" He glanced up to see her shaking her head softly. "You must really care about your niichan."

"Yeah! I just want to sit next to him and make sure he's ok!" Conan explained with a spark of hope. "Please, obasan? Pleaaase?"

"Well, alright, but only if you promise not to move around anymore," she conceded.

"I promise!" he agreed happily, letting go of the railing so that she could place him back into the chair. Instead, to his absolute horror, she placed him in the bed with Kaito.

Oh no. They were close enough to touch — Conan's right shoulder and arm were pressed against Kaito's side. He could sense the steady rhythm of the other's breathing, a harsh contrast to his own hitched breath and frantic heartbeat. Conan's cheeks felt (and probably looked) badly sunburnt. If it weren't for that subtly very intimidating nurse currently tucking the blankets around both of them, Conan would've already left.

But the nurse was still there, now checking on the monitors by the bed and watching him out of the corner of her eye. No problem, he could handle this. She would have to leave sooner or later, and then Conan could return to his own bed and forget this happened and nobody would ever have to know.

The nurse did not leave soon. Apparently just checking a few simple readings on a few machines took absolutely forever. Conan made a valiant effort to keep his mind occupied with plans to evade detection while sneaking back to his own bed, but it was no use – all he could think about was his proximity to Kaito, the warmth he could feel along his side, the soothing pattern of the other's breathing, the comforting knowledge of his presence. He found his own breathing slowing to match, and eventually the late hour and his own sleep-deprivation caught up to him. He fell asleep waiting for the nurse to leave. Or perhaps, he would later realize, she was waiting to leave until he fell asleep.

—

Kaito would much rather stay asleep, all things considered. Everything felt heavy and dark and slow, like being underwater, and there was a vague layer of pain covering everything. But an odd feeling of urgency spurred him on, and he forced his eyes open.

He wasn't at home, couldn't be – he would never allow such hideous modern art into his home. So where was he? A hotel, maybe? Or perhaps he'd been kidnapped and forced to stare at that poor excuse of a painting as some twisted form of torture?

Kidnapped! He had been kidnapped! Adrenaline surged through him, and with it, memories of men in black tying him up in an interrogation room. Rapid beeping accompanied his fear, and his gaze shot over to land a machine mapping his heart rate. He blinked at it, then slowly looked around the room, reassuring himself that he was indeed in a hospital. He was probably safe for the moment.

His instincts screamed at him to stay awake, gather information, understand the situation, and get back in control. But now that the initial fight or flight instinct had dissipated and his heart rate had returned to normal, all he could feel now was a deep, heavy, compelling drowsiness. His eyelids were already beginning to droop again, so he decided he could figure everything else out later. For now, he settled back into his pillows and ignored the numbed pain in his chest in favor of snuggling his teddy bear closer.

Wait.

That was no ordinary teddy bear. His heartbeat jumped back to an unreasonable speed at the realization that the tickling sensation on his cheek was a cowlick of hair. He slowly angled his head down, confirming visually what he already knew, that Conan was sleeping curled up next to him, his head on Kaito's chest, and Kaito's arms wrapped around him.

Kaito let out a slow, shaky breath, hardly believing his own eyes. He gently ran his fingers through Conan's soft hair, marveling at how wonderful it felt. So it wasn't a dream after all – the detective really had come for him, even after everything Kaito had done. His Tantei-kun had rescued him from his own mess, and was now keeping watch over him. Even if Conan was only here to make sure KID didn't escape in the night, Kaito didn't care. Tantei-kun was with him, and that was more than enough. He found himself smiling a dopey smile and tightening his embrace.

No, wait, he shouldn't do that. Even through the dull haze of likely too many painkillers, Kaito suddenly realized that Conan would probably not enjoy being cuddled. So, even though it went against everything he wanted with his whole being, he forced himself to release his hold and try to move over to make room on the bed, being careful not to wake the other.

—

Conan groaned in annoyance when his pillow tried to leave him. He clenched his fist in the fabric to prevent its escape, and snuggled closer to go back to sleep. Someone had apparently stolen his cozy weighted blanket as well, so he waved a hand around behind him, attempting to find it and pull it back.

The pillow suddenly became unnaturally still, which was odd. Wasn't it normal for a pillow to be still? But no, this one had been moving before. And where was his blanket? Conan cracked an eye open to find it, looked up, blinked twice before processing the expression on the pillow's face, then jolted upright.

Shit.

Oh shit.

Oh no, no no no no no, this was not happening. Conan did not fall asleep in this guy's arms and then try to cuddle even closer when he tried to get away, oh no no no.

Conan threw himself backwards so fast that he very nearly forgot to be careful of Kaito's injured ribs. He scrambled hastily over the railings and into the visitor chair, then tried to arrange himself in a natural pose and pretend he wasn't about to die of embarrassment.

"Nice to see you too," Kaito greeted him in a low murmur, cheerful even through the obvious weariness.

"I— it's not— this isn't—" Conan stammered urgently, utterly mortified. "It was the nurse! I didn't—"

"It's fine," he interrupted smoothly, giving Conan a kind smile. "I don't blame you. I am very huggable."

"That's not—!" Conan started, his entire face now burning in embarrassment, but couldn't come up with any defense for that, so Kaito just chuckled good-naturedly.

"Besides, acting as your own personal pillow is the least I can do," he added, and Conan, still quite disoriented, frowned at him in confusion.

"I mean, I really owe you," Kaito explained uncomfortably. "For your help back there. I… thanks." His tone was more sincere than anything Conan had ever heard from KID before, and it caught him off-guard.

"Oh. Um. You're welcome," Conan answered weakly, not sure what else to say and still feeling much more humiliated than he generally preferred. He fidgeted uneasily and averted his gaze. After a minute, his mind finally caught up to the actual content of the conversion, and he cleared his throat. "And you helped too, with that thing with getting Bourbon out of there," he said awkwardly, fumbling with his words a bit through a growing headache. He must be more tired than he realized. "So, thanks. I was wondering, how did you know?"

"Ah, that," Kaito answered lightly as he leaned back, the intensity fading from his expression. "I've seen you talking to him at Poirot. You seem… pretty friendly with him."

"Yeah, I guess," Conan shrugged. "As much as one can be friendly with a double agent, anyway. So how did you get him to leave?"

"I didn't hide my face or try to follow your words, just gave him my own little message."

It soon became clear that he didn't plan to elaborate, but Conan was sure from the slightly smug expression on the thief's face that it probably included some payback from his previous encounters with Bourbon. Conan smiled in amusement.

"Well, either way, it was–" Conan began, and only barely had enough presence of mind to cut himself off before he got too excited or openly admiring with his compliments. "It worked," he amended, trying for disinterested. "So, good job."

"Glad you approve," he replied with a small smile that slowly faded. "So what happened after I fell asleep?"

"Not much. I locked the room, tied the others up, then waited for the police. I don't know what happened after that."

"And your arm?" Kaito gestured to the sling.

"Took a few hits," Conan shrugged with his good shoulder. "No big deal. How are you doing?"

"Mostly just tired," he sighed, definitely sounding it. "Which means I'm probably on a pretty high dose of painkillers. It'll catch up to me later."

Conan hummed his agreement, then they lapsed into silence for a few minutes. Eventually Kaito spoke, so softly he was nearly inaudible, "I'm sorry." He turned to catch Conan's gaze for an instant before looking away again, but his expression was so desperately apologetic that it immediately wrung Conan's heart.

"Eh?" Conan was taken aback by the change in topic and mood, and floundered trying to come up with a decent answer.

"You know, for stealing Pandora from you, knocking you out, kidnapping you, locking you up, etc.," Kaito explained with a grimace, as if disgusted by the taste of the words. "I'm so sorry, Tantei-kun."

"No, that's–" Conan, thrown off balance, took a quick breath to calm down and try to reorient himself. "First of all, you didn't steal Pandora. I bought it and gave it to you as a gift. Second, you and I both know that Jii-san knocked me out on his own accord. Third, I've been kidnapped a lot, and let me tell you, yesterday was more like a sleepover in comparison to a real kidnapping. If that's really the worst you can do, you'd better stick with jewel theft because you suck at kidnappings. But then again, since you've never actually kept a stolen jewel in your life, I'd say you kinda suck at that too."

Kaito let out a puff of air that could've been a small laugh, but he still looked painfully sad. "But I did mess up," he insisted. "I didn't have to go along with Jii-chan's idea. I could've woken you up."

Conan sighed deeply and rubbed the back of his neck self-consciously. "Well… that was partially my fault too," he admitted sullenly, fixing his gaze on the floor. "You had reason to not trust me, since I investigated everything myself and only told you last minute like that. And I should've talked to you directly instead of spying on you. I'm… sorry. I wasn't trying to keep you in the dark or anything, I just…" he tried to explain, but caught short as soon as it came to the emotional part. Was there a non-embarrassing way to tell someone you were weirdly nervous around them for no reason?

Before he could figure it out, the other interrupted with a huff of humorless laughter. "What are you even talking about? You're a detective. I'm a criminal. You have no obligation to tell me anything."

"But we're friends," Conan replied, frowning. When the silence stretched too long, and he felt his embarrassment returning, he added on an uncomfortable, "…right?"

"Of course we're friends!" Kaito instantly agreed. "But I'm still a criminal."

Conan's frown deepened, and he thought for a moment, but simply couldn't see the point his friend was trying to make. "…so?" he asked, genuinely confused.

Kaito released a deep breath, something halfway between laughter and a sigh of relief, along with the softly spoken words, "I love you so much Shinichi."

It was the emotional equivalent of being tasered. Though, as someone who had literally been tasered by this same person, Conan would have to say that he definitely preferred the actual taser.

His brain had simply short-circuited. The world suddenly felt very quiet and very still, time moving slower, while his heartbeat and the increasingly rapid beeping of the monitor had become thunderously loud to his ears. All conscious thought vacated his mind. What was this? Did words still work the same way they had a few minutes ago?

Conan's mouth was hanging open as he stared, completely dumbfounded and a little bit terrified. What was going on here? What could this possibly mean? KID was notorious as a terrible flirt, but why would Kaito do the same thing? Unless that part of KID wasn't an act? Conan hadn't actually interacted with Kaito himself before, so how could he know?

"Umm…" Conan mumbled, face burning hot, fist clenched in his lap, eyes staring up, down, sideways, and anywhere but the person in front of him. His brain, supposedly so brilliant, continued to utterly fail to provide him with a single intelligible thought. He was so used to being in control and always knowing what he should do that this extended period of being too shocked to even think was beginning to scare him.

So it almost came as a relief when Kaito cut off any possible response by suddenly bursting into laughter, a bright mischievous sound with only a slightly manic edge to it. "Heheh, relax, Meitantei, it's a joke! A joke!"

Conan stared at him, dumbfounded, then groaned in exasperation and let his head fall back against his chair, suddenly dead-tired. "Ug! Don't do that, you jerk, it's not funny!"

"But you're far too fun to tease, Meitantei! I can't believe you actually fell for that! Ohhh, you should've seen your face!" he laughed, finally relaxing back into pillows, face split into a grin that would've looked a touch too wild on anyone else. "And you totally deserve to be teased, after how much you've been flirting with me for the last few months~"

"Excuse me?!" Conan spluttered indignantly.

"All that overly friendly rooftop banter? The way you didn't want to turn me in? Basically everything about our trip to Singapore? Going to so much trouble to save my life yesterday? In fact, if you think about it, even the fact that you spied on me must mean that you love me so much that you just can't keep away from me~?"

"Wha- no! You're being ridiculous!" Conan huffed, instinctively crossing his arms and turning his still very red face away.

"Though, I have to say, it was quite a daring move to buy me jewelry before our first date." Kaito continued mercilessly teasing him. "It's going to be hard for me to top that, you know."

Conan groaned dramatically, knowing perfectly well that all of this was only meant to get a rise out of him, yet also entirely unable to hide his reactions. "You're reading way too much into it, dumb thief! I only investigated you because I like solving mysteries, that's all!"

"Hmm," Kaito hummed, mock thoughtfully. "So what I'm hearing is that you're enamored with me because I'm so mysterious?"

Conan instantly raised his hand as if to throw a punch, but ended up shaking his fist harmlessly in the air to show his displeasure without further injuring his idiot friend who was busy likely aggravating his own wounds by laughing so hard at Conan's expense.

"Don't flatter yourself!" Conan told him. "I'm a detective, I solve cases and arrest murderers all the time, it's got nothing to do with you!"

"Oh? And I'm supposed to believe that, coming from the guy who, until mere moments ago, was sleeping with me~?"

"AHK! Do NOT phrase it like that!" Conan sputtered, horrified. "I told you, the nurse put me there! I was going to move as soon as she left, but she was here for a long time, and I was really tired and… anyway, you're the one who decided to use me as a teddy bear!"

"Well it's hardly my fault that you're perfectly teddy bear sized," Kaito answered innocently. He flashed Conan a bright smile that was likely meant to show off how much he was enjoying Conan's discomfort, but Conan was just coherent enough to recognize it for the mask it was. And of course it was a mask – Conan suddenly felt incredibly stupid for getting so distracted by the teasing as to forget Kaito's physical state. The magician was dead-tired, on heavy medications, and badly injured: he absolutely should not be forcing himself to stay awake like this. With a twinge of guilt for his part in disturbing his recovery, Conan slid out of his chair and turned to leave.

"Huh? You're leaving me?" Kaito asked, and now that Conan was aware of it, the exhaustion in his overly playful tone was painfully obvious.

"I'm going back to sleep, like normal people do in the middle of the night. In my own bed, thank you very much."

"That's no fun at all," Kaito pouted. "After everything else I've been through, and now you're going to take my favorite teddy bear away from me? That's just cruel."

"Ug, can't you let that go already? I told you, it was the nurse!" Conan retorted, awkwardly trying to balance on the end table to climb back into his bed and ignoring the snickering at his uncoordinated movements.

"Was it also the nurse who made you cling to me? Because that was extra adorable~"

"Is this seriously what it's going to be like to be friends with you? I think I honestly preferred it when you were chloroforming me," Conan grumbled as he settled into his bed.

"Ooh, kinky~"

"WH– NO!" Conan squawked in panic, burying his flaming face in his hand and wanting to die, literally just die. Why oh why had he decided to befriend someone this clinically insane?!

"Now really, Tantei-kun, do you seriously intend to keep me up all night with your shameless flirting? I'm tired and injured, you know, I need to sleep."

"I hate you so much," Conan uttered breathlessly, simply numb with the shock of too much embarrassment. "So so much."

"Aww, I love you too, babe~! Good night~"

"Uggh!"

Author's Notes:

Please don't hate me? ? This is a KaiShin fic, and Kaito and Shinichi will get together by the end! There will be a real confession and they will go on a date and even kiss! Just... more angst first! ?

Next Up: The legal repercussions of Kaito's night job finally catch up with him. Fortunately, he has a good lawyer.