Um... yeah, this is pretty much just straightforward fluff and failed attempts at humor. The usual. Warnings include shounen-ai, grammar mistakes / errors, etc. Pairings include established!Hakuba x Aoko and pre!Shinichi x Kaito.

Enjoy! - Luna

Brotherly Duties

Kaito had known Aoko for nearly his entire life. They had been inseparable as gradeschoolers, even throughout Aoko's "I want to marry Tuxedo Mask" phase and Kaito's two-year mourning period of his father's death, and even junior high hadn't done much to keep them apart, despite that they had been in different classes and most of Aoko's other friends thought Kaito was weird.

By the time they had entered high school, they were pretty much best friends for life. Aoko usually claimed it was because Kaito knew too many of her secrets and could therefore turn her in to the police for her illegal streaming of American dramas (Kaito really didn't understand her obsession with Lee Pace, but to each her own, he supposed), but Kaito knew. She cared, she really did, about him, and he cared about her, too. Their friendship was a constant in both of their lives, and Kaito doubted it would ever change.

So it was his job as Nakamori Aoko's surrogate brother to formally interrogate Hakuba Saguru, her latest boyfriend (and, coincidentally, the most annoying person Kaito had ever had the misfortune of knowing), within an inch of his life.

This usually required some kind of bladed instrument and a very seriously stated "If you hurt her, I will dump you in a tank of electric eels, castrate you with a rusty spoon, peel off your fingernails one by one, etc., etc." speech, but Kaito being Kaito, decided that the better idea would be to drag an unwitting Hakuba out to a bar, get him completely and utterly drunk, and then interrogate him while he was too smashed to lie. Let it be said that Kuroba Kaito always went the extra mile for his best friend.

Unfortunately, Kaito had not recalled the fact that Hakuba was a complete lightweight, and after approximately three-quarters of his Long Island iced tea, had been reduced to singing. Pop songs. In English.

"Oh my God," Kaito murmured despairingly, fighting the urge to bury his face in his hands and cry as Hakuba belted out the chorus of "Steal My Girl" loudly and with much enthusiasm. Thankfully, the bar was half-empty at this hour, although the bartender looked rather put out.

Rubbing his eyes, Kaito stealthily (although he didn't know why he was bothering with stealth; at this point, a raging rhinoceros could charge through the door and Hakuba would probably name it Sherlock and beg to keep it as a pet) snapped his sixteenth picture of Hakuba trying to propose to his glass (while still singing, of course). He captioned it "Couple billion in the whole wide world, find another because why would you subject yourself to this" before sending it to Aoko.

She didn't reply. She hadn't replied to the last fifteen, either. Kaito had a feeling she didn't know what to say.

When Hakuba moved on to "Habits," singing the bit about the sex clubs rather excitedly, Kaito finally pried Hakuba's glass from his grip, ignoring Hakuba's wide-eyed expression of complete horror as he did. "Come on, Hakuba," he muttered, dropping several thousand yen on the table as he stood. "Let's get you back to your place before you pass out here."

"Kuroba-kun is evil," Hakuba scowled deeply, wounded as he folded his arms across the front of his cardigan. (Who even wore cardigans?) "Kuroba-kun sucks the good out of everything." He paused, appearing to think, before he abbreviated his comment to, "He sucks."

Kaito waited. When Hakuba did nothing other than glare morosely at him, he sighed, straightening his jacket. "Okay, okay. Right. I suck. Let's go back to your place."

Hakuba frowned, crossing his arms over his chest in a way Kaito recognized as meaning "make me."

Kaito groaned, running a hand through his hair. "Fine, Hakuba. You want me to call Aoko and get her to take you back to your apartment?"

It was almost amusing to see Hakuba's eyes visibly widen at the threat. Because it was a threat, no mistaking it. Aoko had recently procured a newer, sturdier mop, somehow (Kaito had no idea what depraved soul had sold the damn thing to her), and both Hakuba and Kaito had been tiptoeing around her for fear of being the person she used to break it in. "You wouldn't," Hakuba breathed, terrified.

"Oh, but I would." For good measure, Kaito flipped open his phone menacingly. "Here we go. I'm scrolling down… Aoko's number is thirty-second on my contact list… I'm almost there…" Which was kind of a lie – she was number one on his speed-dial – but Hakuba didn't need to know.

Unsurprisingly, Hakuba was at the door before Kaito had even scrolled past four contacts. He had left a trail of out-of-place tables and overturned chairs in his wake, as well as one confused customer. Kaito wondered just how drunk the bastard was as he nudged his way through the tables and pulled the door open, letting in a burst of icy night air and making the bell above the door give a merry jingle.

"Let's go, Hakuba," Kaito grunted, stalking past the crookedly-standing detective with barely disguised annoyance. Hakuba blinked before trotting unhappily and unsteadily after him.

They made it down two and a half streets before Hakuba began to scowl down at the sidewalk, teetering dangerously. "Kuroba-kun suuuucks," he bleated, petulantly, and Kaito was hit by the urge to curl up in a ball and sob. How was this his life, dragging his best friend's drunk boyfriend back home after a grand total of two drinks on a Friday night? When he could be doing stuff with his…

Okay, so maybe Kaito didn't have anyone to go home to, but. Not the point.

"I'm not too fond of you right now, either," he grumbled, poking Hakuba in the shoulder as they finally reached the brick building Kaito recognized as Hakuba's apartment building. Hakuba was leaning heavily on him at this point, and Kaito unceremoniously dragged him up the front steps.

Ignoring the concerned stare that the receptionist was sending them, Kaito yanked a protesting Hakuba to the elevator and hit the call button. "What floor?" he demanded, halfway resigned and halfway lamenting, and Hakuba mumbled something about the second floor and bumblebees. Kaito really didn't want to know.

Once they had reached the second floor relatively successfully, although not without a litany of irate swearing (Kaito) and a passionate rendition of "Blank Space" (Hakuba), Kaito proceeded to jostle Hakuba down the hallway until Hakuba shouted, "It's 221! Room 221!" and collapsed. On the floor. Dead asleep.

Kaito hated his life. So much.

Mumbling various combinations of damn and bastard and the things I do for Aoko, Kaito dug through Hakuba's pants pocket until he located his keys. He jammed them into the door and unlocked it – it took several tries, but he managed – before grabbing the back of Hakuba's sweater and forcibly pulling him through the doorway.

He contemplated leaving Hakuba snoring facedown in the entry area, but even Kaito felt a little bit bad for Hakuba when the blond grabbed at his head and made a sad kitten sound. Growling under his breath, Kaito grabbed Hakuba under the arms, hoisted him up as much as he could, and lugged him blindly through the apartment.

Considering that he'd never actually been inside Hakuba's apartment and that the lights were still off, Kaito had no idea what he was doing or where he was going. He almost gave Hakuba a concussion on the doorknob as he tugged Hakuba through the doorway into the room he assumed was Hakuba's. The place was plastered with an oddly disturbing combination of Sherlock Holmes posters and pictures of Aoko, and the bedspread was similar to one Aoko had described buying for Hakuba as a birthday gift, so Kaito figured his guess was right.

With a yank that made Kaito's arms cheerfully remind him that he needed to do way more bicep curls, Kaito shoved Hakuba onto the bed. There, that was done, and now Kaito could go –

At the last moment, Kaito lost his balance as Hakuba's arm shot out. Flailing a little, he toppled face-first into Hakuba's pillow. And if that wasn't disgusting enough, Hakuba chose that moment to roll over and pin Kaito underneath him, sleepily murmuring something that sounded like "Aoko-kun is so preeeetty" directly into Kaito's ear.

Much to Kaito's horror, Hakuba was actually larger and heavier than him and apparently turned into a dead rock after he fell asleep and trapped innocent magicians under his weight. No matter how much Kaito pushed at him, the blond didn't still stir, making soft, whistling sounds in his sleep.

As a last resort, Kaito tried to reach for his phone to attempt to text Aoko, but his arm had been pinned under Hakuba's shoulder, and he couldn't move it without a jolt of pain shooting up his arm. Which was just great.

Considering his options, Kaito found he had exactly three.

First, try to elbow Hakuba in the stomach and/or break Hakuba's nose with the back of his head. Somehow, he couldn't see Aoko being too pleased with him for that.

Second, shout as loudly as he could and hope to rouse Hakuba from whatever dream he was having. Regrettably, last Kaito had checked, it had been about one in the morning, which implied that Hakuba's neighbors would not be pleased by Kaito's shrieking, and there was also the fact that Hakuba slept like a drugged boulder.

And third… try not to crush his own trachea and fall asleep. Underneath Hakuba. In Hakuba's bed.

Mentally sobbing, Kaito resolved to decapitate Hakuba when morning came and tried to get comfortable underneath all one hundred and forty-three pounds of annoying blond detective.

Groaning, Kaito was awoken by the sound of low hissing, distressingly close to his left ear. He unglued his eyelids just in time to feel Hakuba roll off of him and run for the bathroom, his face a delicate shade of light green.

Had it been earlier than nine in the morning, Kaito probably would've found the sight extremely amusing, but as it was, he sort of just felt a slight heightening in his usual murderous intent towards Hakuba. It was too early for this shit.

Unluckily for Kaito (things were just not going his way, were they?), it was also too bright. Hakuba, being the incredibly annoying person that he was, had left his blinds open for God knows why, and sunlight was streaming through the window, blaring like the visual equivalent of a bugle straight into Kaito's shut eyes.

Wondering if it was possible to strangle the sun (he was going to say it probably wasn't, but he was damn well doing to try), Kaito forced himself to open his eyes and get off the bed. His clothes were wrinkled beyond repair, even if he somehow managed to find an iron within the next hour, and he didn't need to find a mirror to know that his hair was an equally unsalvageable mess. He probably looked like someone who had been hit by a semi and then mugged on his way to the hospital.

Yawning loudly, Kaito wandered out of Hakuba's bedroom into the tiny living-slash-kitchen area. Well, he doubted Hakuba looked any better than he did, and there was nobody but Hakuba around to see him, anyway, so –

Kaito opened his eyes to see possibly the most attractive man he'd ever seen in person standing in the middle of Hakuba's kitchen, blinking at him owlishly.

For a full four seconds, Kaito's brain stalled, only managing a weak Oh my God. The man continued to stare at him with huge azure eyes, clad in a sinfully thin white t-shirt and sinfully thin plaid pajama pants, hair the most adorable mess Kaito had ever witnessed, soccer ball-printed coffee mug clutched in one delicate hand.

When the rush of surprise-shock-sexonlegs had passed, Kaito made a slight squeaking sound. Which, of all the things he could've done, was probably the least attractive.

He was considering chalking this whole thing up to some kind of hallucination, returning to Hakuba's bed, and possibly crying himself back to sleep (why was his luck so terrible) when the other man coughed awkwardly, running his free hand through his hair.

"Uh… I hate to ask this, but who are you?"

And God the man had a nice voice, studious and smooth and soothing, almost like that of an extraordinarily young and good-looking professor. Ugh.

It took Kaito a moment to realize that he'd been asked a question, and once he had, he made another unattractive squeaking sound (damn it, vocal chords) and attempted to straighten his frankly un-straighten-able shirt. "Well, good morning to you, too."

This elicited a faint, vague frown from the man, who leaned against the kitchen counter and continued to observe Kaito as he set his mug down beside him. Kaito had the mildly disturbing feeling that he was being either sized up or checked out. He prayed fervently that it was the latter. "It's not every morning I wake up to find strange men in my living room, so I'm not entirely sure if it's a good morning or not."

"Oh?" Kaito hummed, and was about to launch into his brilliant flirting techniques (for example, pick-up lines and magic tricks) when Hakuba made a reappearance, marginally less green than before and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, a few choice curses thrown in here and there. He stopped short, though, when he witnessed the man standing in the kitchen and Kaito hovering in the corner of the living room.

"Shit, did I forget to tell you about Kudou?" he stammered, and Kaito nodded very slowly.

"You didn't mention you had a –" gorgeous sleepy-eyed pretty beautiful angel "– roommate."

"Oh." Hakuba paused. "Well, I have a roommate. He's Kudou Shinichi."

Kaito cranked up the heat in his glare. "Thank you ever so much."

Frowning, because apparently his sarcasm detector was malfunctioning this morning, Hakuba opened his mouth and began to say, "Kuroba-kun, why are you –" but he was interrupted when the man (Kudou, Kaito supposed his name was) hurried out of the kitchen, grabbed him by the bicep, and pulled him into the kitchen.

In a tone he presumably thought Kaito couldn't hear, Kudou half-whispered, "Hakuba, I thought you had a girlfriend. Nakamori-san, right?"

"Huh?" Hakuba blinked with the intelligence of a particularly dense coconut. "What? Yes, Aoko-kun is my girlfriend, you've met her before –"

"So then," Kudou continued, positively hissing at this point (and Kaito would be lying if he said he didn't think that was the cutest thing he'd ever heard), "why, pray tell, did an intensely attractive man just walk out of your bedroom, which I know has only one bed and which I'm about ninety-eight percent sure you were in last night, considering I heard the commotion you two made when you got back?"

Most of that sentence should've sent Kaito running for brain bleach (seriously what was Kudou even implying - that he'd slept with Hakuba?), but the only part that stuck was the "intensely attractive" bit.

"You think I'm intensely attractive?" he called, smiling moonily, and Kudou spared him a short (but appreciative; Kaito could see the appreciation in his eyes) glance over Hakuba's shoulder before returning to his attempt to burn holes through Hakuba's face.

He thinks I'm intensely attractive, isn't that just the most adorable way of phrasing it, could he get any cuter, Kaito thought dreamily to himself before he managed to regain control of his brain and redirect it in directions that were less twelve-year-old-girl-with-a-crush and more twenty-four-year-old-in-the-presence-of-a-really-hot-guy.

Meanwhile, Hakuba was sputtering with a mixture of revulsion and speechlessness, slowly losing what little color he'd regained. "You – I'm – sharing a – you think that I'd – but he's – with Kuroba-kun?" he finished, lamely, and Kudou raised his eyebrows, kind of like Yes, that's what I think, care to refute me?

"Shit, no, that's just so – wrong," Hakuba choked, making a strangled sound and shaking his head violently as if trying to displace the very thought. "Kuroba-kun is gross."

"Rude," Kaito interjected.

Kudou lifted an eyebrow, unimpressed.

"I would rather bisect myself than have sex with Kuroba-kun," Hakuba gritted out, and Kudou blinked, momentarily startled.

Throwing his arms out wide and narrowly missing Kudou's coffee cup, Hakuba melodramatically proclaimed, "Kuroba-kun is Aoko-kun's best friend. He somehow decided it would be a good idea to get me drunk, like the irresponsible bastard he is, and then we crashed together once we had reached the apartment. I was far too inebriated for any kind of sexual contact to occur between us."

Kaito wrinkled his nose. "You talk like a seventy-year-old history professor. A seventy-year-old virgin history professor," he added, spitefully.

"I would never even consider doing anything vaguely intimate with Kuroba-kun," Hakuba steamrolled on, pointedly ignoring him. He paused for theatric effect. "I would prefer to have nothing to do with Kuroba-kun, but that is a sad impossibility considering that he is Aoko-kun's best friend. I don't want him in any way." Finally lowering his arms, he shrugged. "In fact, you can have him."

"Oh?" Kudou's expression went from irritated to interested so fast Kaito nearly got whiplash trying to follow it. He caught Kaito's gaze, the most mischievous smile Kaito had ever seen crossing his face. "So he's not taken, then?"

"No, no, not taken at all," Kaito immediately agreed, and Kudou's smirk only widened.

"Is that so?"

This, Kaito decided as Kudou carefully stepped around Hakuba, somehow looking predatory in his thin pajamas, was probably the start of something very, very beautiful. He could feel his own mouth starting to curve upwards. Maybe he'd be able to spend his Friday nights doing something other than dealing with a drunk Hakuba.

From where he was standing forgotten, Hakuba shuddered. He had a terrible feeling that he was responsible for something very unfortunate, and he was going to hate himself sometime in the future –

Kaito actually smiled, not one of his stupid, infuriating "I'm so much better than you" grins but an actual honest-to-God smile, and made a rose appear out of nowhere. He handed it to Kudou, who was beaming full-out at this point, and picked up Kudou's free hand to place a light kiss on his knuckles.

Hakuba wanted to cry. He was already regretting it.

Consider how utterly exhausted I am right now, I'm going to cut the notes short and go sleep for a while. Hope you enjoyed (if you did, please consider dropping me a review!) and I'll see you guys soon! :D - Luna