Disclaimer – not mine.

Summary- because it was 4am and I was bored.

The Candy Con

By: The Silversage

"I'm starving. How long are they gonna take?" Heiji muttered in pathetic boredom. He and Conan stared dull-ly across the road at the fifth shoe store Ran and Kazuha had dragged them to from their spot on a concrete ledge under a smog-strangled joke of a tree in the middle of Shibuya.

Conan shrugged apathetically next to him and changed which arm he was leaning on over his skateboard to give the deep red impression on his arm time to disappear. It was the third time he had needed to switch arms or risk his hands falling asleep.

He watched the next throng of people coming towards them after the light at the far end of the block changed. Heiji's eyes raised in apprehension watching a slow smirk creep across his diminutive friend's face. "Fine, leave it to me," Conan smiled with all the helpful willingness of a shark on the hunt.

Heiji watched him with intent interest as his friend dropped the skateboard and kicked off towards the crowd heading their way. Whatever the small detective had planned, it was probably the most interesting thing that had happened in the last two hours. He watched Conan race headlong for the crowd when he suddenly lost control of the motorized terror, the only thing Heiji could think of a device that could keep up with cars and wasn't a motorcycle, and took a most spectacular wipeout in the face of the oncoming crowd that took two and half full summersault-rolls before he stopped amid high-pitched childish wails of pain. He was on his feet instantly and about to run over when his view of the boy was blocked by a mass of motherly type women who instantly rushed over and surrounded the wide-eyed hair-mussed child who was now sniffling and nursing a scraped knee.

And his mouth fell open in shock and his legs dropped him back on the ledge when he watched the group of women coo and fawn over the 'adorable' child who was wiping tears of pain from his eyes with the back of his hands and biting his lower lip in 'such a brave' attempt to not cry. And was his lower lip trembling? Yes, the brat's lip was trembling and he was breathing in sharp hitches apparently winding himself up for some long hard wails. A sign any caretaker of small children could spot a mile away. The women nearly fell over themselves in their attempts to head off the coming tantrum before their collective ears were assailed with the screams the child in front of them about the size of a four or five-year-old could surely make. Sanitized wet-wipes and band-aids were produced from purses and candy bars and ziplock bags of home-made cookies were pressed on the boy to console him into 'drying his tears' and 'wasn't he lucky he wasn't hurt too badly.' Heiji's eyebrows kept climbing while his friend's injuries were patched up and he was set upright and on his way with his arms loaded down with goodies. One lady was even kind enough to make sure he could walk okay before returning to her own shopping business.

Once the crowd was well on their way, Conan's cherubic expression returned to its former droll boredom with a sigh and he rolled back to their oversized twig of a tree at a lazy pace. He dumped the load of sweets in Heiji's lap and purposely ignored his friend's suspicious glare and calmly set about cleaning his glasses with the bottom edge of his shirt occasionally checking the flat glass for scratches.

"…What the hell was that?" Heiji demanded in righteous indignation at the blatantly dishonest fraud committed right in front of him…but not so righteous as to delay any time in tearing open a chocolate bar.

"You said you were hungry. You're welcome by the way," Conan sniffed nonchalantly using his shirtsleeve to wipe away the last of his crocodile tears. "You can have all of those. I hate sweets."

"How gracious of you," Heiji muttered sarcastically. His supposed anger at his friend's stunt was ruined by the look of sheer bliss that crossed his face when he bit into a still warm, obviously made from scratch, piece of heaven commonly referred to as a chocolate chip cookie. "W'er'… di' yoo yearn…'ow oo do dat?" he asked around his mouthful of cookies. "O wow! Dis is da perfek 'ookie."

Conan rolled his eyes at Heiji's manners. "When I was six the first time around. My mom has a horrible sweet tooth."

Heiji caught Conan's glare and obediently swallowed before answering. "Your mother taught you to swindle people?!" he asked incredulously. He frowned thinking back to the time he had met Kudo's mother before the Monster Ball. "She seemed so nice."

Conan shuddered slightly next to him and gave him a look that clearly said 'you-have-no-idea.' "I had to do that every time she wanted snack," he muttered and bitterly kicked the ledge under them viciously with his heel. "And she never let me keep any of the candy…said it was bad for my teeth."

"She made you trick people for candy and then took it away from you," Heiji mused over a Snickers Bar. "That's rough." They sat in silence watching the crowd pass by while Heiji worked at plowing through his ill-gotten mountain of junk food. Through the store window, they finally saw Ran and Kazuha dump their mountain of boxes at the cashier's counter. "You know, I never knew you could cry on demand, Kudo," Heiji smiled piping up. "Ever use that trick on 'Neechan? I'm sure you could get away with setting her room on fire with that act," he teased. "Think I'll ask her how often 'Conan-kun' gets hurt and needs to be bandaged by her."

"She will never know about this." Conan spoke quietly and far too calmly giving him a sharp sidelong look that actually made Heiji worry somewhat. "And if you say one word about this, I'll tell Kazuha I got these scrapes because you tripped me."

fin

AN: is dull-ly a word? It is in my world. I know, because I invented it. Also, if I could pull off Conan's wide-eyed adorable look, I would scam people every day.