Because I've been having a hard time finding good fics with lots of Heiji and Conan interaction. And because Movie 13.

Detective Conan belongs to Aoyama Gosho.

# # # After the Nightmare # # #

He drowned.

The black surrounded him on all sides. He couldn't save himself because there was no safe place to go; he couldn't call for help because it wouldn't be heard.

Worse: despite the black, he somehow knew that they were there, watching. Gloating. Look at the little boy, trying to play detective. Look at him, getting in over his head when he doesn't even know how to swim. But he did know how to swim. But somehow, he still drowned.

Worst of all: his friends and family were there, too, drowning along with him. Tied to him by unbreakable chains. (Yet even if he called out to them, tried to reassure them, his voice would not reach even if the words he knew were lies didn't catch in his throat.) He knew, even if he couldn't quite put a finger on how he knew, that once he fell – which was really only a matter of time, no matter how much he liked to tell himself otherwise (look at the little detective, does he really think he can survive?) – he'd drag them all down with him.

He'd kept himself afloat so far – he thought, though in this crushing blackness, he couldn't tell for sure what 'afloat' even meant. But he hadn't fallen yet. (Or had he?) He could feel the weight dragging against him, but he'd managed to hold strong for this long. He could last a little longer.

Just a little longer.

(But oh, his arms were getting so very tired …)

He faltered.

(Just a little longer …)

He fell.

Bolted upright, hands coming to his face, covering his still-closed eyes as he gulped desperate breaths and fought back the need to scream (because no one can hear you anyway), even though he knew that it was over, that it had been just a dream, because even with his eyes closed and his hands covering them, the black he saw was still not as dark as that had been …

A large, warm hand on his shoulder. "Naa,"

Turn and cling, like a drowning man (because he was still drowning, but not a man, not anymore, and why did it still hurt, surely he was over this by now) or a frightened child (and he would deny with all his might that he was either frightened or a child, but he knew he was lying – there is only one truth, after all), still in that hazy half-awake state that slowed down even his own formidable thought processes, that narrowed the world to – friend. Stability.

Not alone.

Both hands (so small, but he'd almost gotten used to them, started thinking of them as his 'real' hands, and sometimes that frightened him more than anything else) fisted in the smooth cloth (cotton, fairly high quality from its texture) as he pressed his face against the flat planes of a well-muscled chest (well, between the kendo and all the running around he does, it's really no surprise), hard enough to leave a child-face-shaped dent. As the hand on his shoulder hesitated (he'd say visibly, except he clearly couldn't see it from his current position, even if the combination of closed eyes and pressure still wasn't as black as his dream), then slowly – carefully – stretched further down his back, and tightened just the slightest bit, into a strange sort of half-hug that had no right to be anywhere near as comforting as it actually was.

Then his brain came back online and he stiffened, instinctively pulling away as he realized (another falsehood – he'd known all along, he could hardly have not, but as it suddenly mattered) just who he was clinging so desperately to.

The hand had moved along with his instinctive jerk backwards, not trying to forcefully keep him in his original position – but not lifting entirely either. "Naa, Kudo." He was still close enough to feel the voice almost as much as he heard it. "You alright?"

"Fine." He replied stiffly, trying to make himself let go, make himself push away completely. (But it was warm here, and the black had been so cold.)

"Right." Skepticism dripped. "Sorry, I should have asked – 'what's wrong?'."

"Nothing. Just a nightmare." He forced himself to unclench his fists, to push away further – once again, the hand followed instead of disappearing – and though his hands (so small) were now flat against the other's chest, he couldn't quite make himself pull them away entirely. A sudden thought had him fisting them again, though this time they didn't grip any cloth. "And I swear, Hattori, if you breathe one word …"

"I wouldn't do that." He sounded sincerely hurt. "Not like I can blame you for having nightmares; I do, and you've certainly got a hell of a lot better reasons." A pause. "Hell, I suck at this, but – I hear sometimes it helps to talk them out."

He snorted. "Spare me. I know what the dreams mean. I just need to make sure no one drowns." (And why had he said that?) He could feel the despair creeping in again (silly little detective) and it seemed the harder he pushed it away, the quicker it leaked back in through the gaps. And his hands on Hattori's chest (why had he not moved them yet?) and Hattori's arm across his back (and why was it still there?) felt like they were the only two spots of stability in the world (and why did he still feel like he was drowning now that he was awake, that didn't even make any sense!)

"Well, I can't speak for anyone else, but I'm a pretty fair swimmer." Hattori replied after a brief pause.

And suddenly he was laughing – quietly, as the rest of their conversation had been – and bordering on hysterically. His arms fell away to wrap around his stomach; released from the force pushing him away, his head fell forward, impacting the other boy's chest with enough force that he huffed softly. "That – that doesn't even make any sense. You say the weirdest things sometimes, Hattori."

Through his forehead, he could feel the shift of muscles that he suspected was the Osakan detective shrugging. "Worked, though, didn't it?"

He huffed again, unable to remain properly irritated. (And the despair, too, seemed to have retreated for now, though he couldn't quite put his finger on why.) "I suppose so."

Another, longer pause. He considered pushing himself away again, maybe actually detaching himself fully this time – but it hardly seemed worth the effort. Even this odd posture was strangely … comfortable.

"… If there was anything big going down, you'd let me know, right? Hell if I'll just sit on the sidelines if there's something I can do to help."

That's part of the problem. He shook his head, knowing Hattori could read the gesture as easily as he'd read the other boy's shrug. "Nothing worse than usual." He wasn't sure what prompted him to add, "I'm just … tired." Maybe he could blame the darkness, the way it seemed to cloak things in anonymity (though that was silly, since it wasn't like the two of them didn't know exactly who they were talking to and what they were talking about). Or maybe it was just that, practically curled up against the older boy, still enveloped in that damned (weirdly comforting) half-embrace, it wasn't like he had any more face left to lose.

A barked laugh – also quiet. "I'm surprised you haven't gone around the bend long before now, that double life you lead. I don't think I'd have lasted a day without flipping out."

He snorted. "You'd have done well to last an hour."

"Oi, give me at least a little credit. I can keep a secret if I have to."

"Then why do you go around calling me Kudo all the time?" He asked, an old frustration (as old as their friendship, really) finding its voice. "It's like you're asking for someone to find out."

Silence, with a sort of chagrined feel to it; Hattori's shoulders slumped. "Yeah, I guess I am pretty bad about that. … Sorry. It's just – you're Kudo. You're so obviously Kudo, I don't understand why the others don't get it. So – I forget."

He pushed himself upright at that, staring upward at the other boy – though between the cloud cover, the lack of nearby streetlights, and the size of this room's window (small), he was doing well to even see a vague outline of Hattori's head – with an incredulous look on his face. "I've lost ten years, I'm less than half my normal height, apparently weigh about as much as a rag doll given how much people like swinging me around like one, my voice is at least an octave higher, and I wear glasses. How is that obvious?"

"You still look like a miniature version of yourself, glasses can be faked – as you well know, since you need them about as much as I do – and most importantly, your deductions are identical. Sure, it took a bit of a mental leap for me to consider magic shrinking –"

"Science."

"'Any sufficiently advanced …'"

Sigh. "Point. Just don't let Haibara catch you calling it magic."

"Haha, yeah … she'd probably dissect me for one of her experiments."

"Hmm, no, she'd just find some mental trauma to inflict sufficient for you to start wondering if volunteering for dissection wasn't such a bad idea after all."

"Heh. Cute kid, but scary. Er. Don't tell her I said that." Hattori cleared his throat. "Anyway, as your beloved Holmes is so fond of saying, 'Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth'."

"… How is me not being Kudo Shinichi impossible?" He asked, skeptical. "… Aside from the fact that you actually were right. Surely there were plenty of more probable scenarios."

The arm against his back shifted slightly as he thought he saw the vague outline of another shrug. "OK, so maybe not impossible – but certainly the theoretical existence of some 'highly scientific' de-aging potion –"

"Pill."

"– whatever, totally not my point – the existence of something like that, or I dunno, successful brain transplants, or something that could explain you being Kudo in a seven-year-old body was far less improbable than the possibility that you might not be Kudo."

"… I despair of ever understanding how your brain works, Hattori."

"Hah, you're just jealous that I figured you out faster than you would have."

"That's not true!" He heard his voice going shrill and winced, reminding himself to keep it down. Just because they weren't asleep wasn't a reason to deny the others of their well-earned rest. Then, still indignantly eyeing that smug form, he shivered as a thought occurred to him. "And don't you dare try to test that theory."

Hattori snorted. "It worries me that it even occurred to you to think I would do something with a very high chance of being equivalent to committing suicide just to prove you wrong." He huffed a quiet laugh. "Can you imagine, though? With the two of us pint-sized, the criminals would never know what hit them!" A considering silence. "I wonder if I'd be able to get Agasa-hakase to make me any cool toys. Force-enhanced bokken, maybe …?"

Hattori trailed off, apparently finally noticing how rigid his smaller friend's body had become. The hand at his back lifted to tousle his hair. "Joking, Kudo. I'm not crazy enough to do something like that, even for one of my best friends."

He huffed, though he was not so naïve that he believed Hattori hadn't seen through that to the unconscious release of tension, especially as the hand resting on his head hesitated, then returned to his back. (What was it with Hattori and physical contact tonight? And why was he letting him?) "I would certainly hope not, given that the odds that it would do anything other than kill you are so astronomically low that I didn't even bother to listen when Haibara told me what they were." A grim smile, though he suspected its meaning was lost to the darkness. "I suspect your parents wouldn't be nearly as willing to let things go as mine were, either. And with your dad being the police chief, he could raise quite a stink before …"

The words stuck in his throat, though Hattori knew the score well enough to have known what he was about to say, what floated unspoken in the air between them. Before they came and killed everyone who might possibly have been involved.

Hattori shuddered, his arm convulsively tightening; the Detective of the East squeaked as he found himself drawn off balance, toppled halfway across the other boy's lap with his head once again against Hattori's chest, but in the end couldn't quite summon the motivation necessary to pull away again.

Moments later, he went from 'still' to 'more still' as he felt Hattori's – forehead? – come to rest against the top of his own head. Their entire conversation had taken place in low tones, but this was so thin a thread of whisper as to be almost completely inaudible. "How do you do it, Kudo? How can you be so strong? I'm barely even involved, and I'm – terrified. Constantly."

He sighed, a small (larger than he was comfortable admitting) part of himself wanting to bury his face in Hattori's nightshirt again, surround himself by living darkness so the other wasn't quite so frightening. But that would disrupt Hattori's head's position, and for some reason (another he preferred not to examine too closely, because really, wasn't he too old for this?) he found himself even more reluctant to do that. "I'm not strong. Hell, you just saw me. I worry about it constantly, I get nightmares more often than I care to admit. I'm ridiculously paranoid about everything –" he huffed a laugh "—though I must admit, in terms of paranoia Haibara definitely has me beat."

He paused. "I just … try to take it a day at a time, mostly, I guess." A snort. "In that way, as much as I hate to admit it, I suppose this whole ridiculous charade is actually helpful. If I distract myself enough with trying to keep people from figuring out my secret or, or trying to figure out how to get something off the top shelf of the cabinet without breaking either it or myself –" a chuckle rumbled through Hattori's chest "– Oi, it's harder than it sounds, being this small. And don't even get me started on having to re-take elementary school. That right there is sufficient to distract me from the whole 'being pursued by an international evil organization' problem."

"Really?" Hattori asked, skeptical. "Maybe it's changed in the last ten years, but I don't remember elementary school being all that enthralling."

"It's not." He confirmed, fervently. "But it's so incredibly boring that my brain turns off in self-defense."

He relaxed slightly as his comment drew the desired laugh out of the Osakan.

"… Do you regret knowing?" He wondered, sometimes – he'd certainly felt cornered by Hattori at the time, but surely there were other ways he could have thrown the older-looking boy off his scent if he'd really tried. Though honestly, Hattori was a lot sharper than he sometimes acted; he'd probably have figured it out eventually regardless. But I could have made it a lot harder for him. And maybe he wouldn't have figured it out yet. Wouldn't have to deal with this fear.

He chose to ignore the part of himself that felt a gaping loneliness at the idea of no longer being able to be himself around Hattori. Even if he does keep almost breaking my cover by calling me Kudo all the time.

"Not at all." Hattori responded near-instantaneously. "I regret this whole crazy situation, yeah – I'd much rather have met you as a proper-sized high school detective and gotten involved in more normal hijinks."

"… Which would probably still involve a statistically extremely improbable number of dead bodies, you realize." A pause. "A statistically even more improbable percentage of which appear to enjoy falling from a significant height in order to bring themselves to our attention."

He couldn't see it, but the grin was clear in Hattori's voice. "Like I said, normal. But anyway – given the crazy-ass situation you've landed yourself in, I absolutely want to know what's going on. You're not the only one searching for the 'one truth', you know."

He smiled wryly, a bit chagrined. "Yeah, I know." A pause. "… Thanks, Hattori. Really."

Hattori's head shot up, leaving the top of his head feeling oddly empty. "Oi, don't go starting that again. You'd almost convinced me there wasn't anything crazy going on."

He leaned back, trusting his friend's still-steady hand against his back, tilting his head back as he stared up at a ceiling it was too dark to actually see. "Nothing crazy is going on, Hattori. Truly. Just – normal life."

"Oh, because that's reassuring …"

He snorted. "I suppose it wouldn't be, would it?" Then a giant yawn caught him by surprise.

It had been quiet, but he knew it hadn't been quiet enough when Hattori's second arm joined the first, picking him up and depositing him in the center of his bedroll. I should kick him for that … note to self: do it tomorrow, when I can actually see where I'm aiming. "Sounds like it's well past time for little detectives to be going back to sleep." Yep. Definitely going to kick him.

Outside the still-dark window, a very confused bird chirped once.

"You should go back to bed too, Heiji-niichan." He replied, in his best innocent-child voice – fully aware that it irritated Hattori nearly as much as the Osakan's gleeful tendency towards over-the-top condescension annoyed him. "After all, you really need your beauty sleep."

"Brat." Hattori said fondly, putting a hand on his head as an aid to the standing process, and tousling his hair again before removing it. "Would you like me to –" his comment was broken by what sounded like an impressive yawn of his own "—tuck you in?"

"That will not be necessary." He responded hastily. As falsely solicitous as the comment had sounded, and as jokingly as Hattori had (probably) meant it, he wouldn't put it past the Osakan to decide it was a fine idea after all. And he calls me a brat.

He burrowed back under his covers, feeling … a bit more stable, somehow. Though certainly he'd never admit it. Maybe that'll be it for the nightmares tonight. "… Good night, Hattori."

"'Night, Kudo."

# # # # #

"Good morning, Conan-kun." Ran greeted him with a smile, passing a bowl of freshly-dished out rice across the table as he reached it and sat down.

"'Morning, Ran-neechan." He did his best to stifle the yawn, but suspected he was not terribly successful. I really miss being allowed to drink coffee. Belatedly – and he prided himself on being observant; some great detective he was – he noticed the girl sitting beside her. "'Morning, Kazuha-neechan."

"Good morning, Conan-kun." The other girl replied, before looking towards the door. "Where is that ahou, anyway?"

"Still asleep, I think." He hadn't seen Hattori up and about as he'd been performing his morning ablutions, and the lump of covers on the other detective's bed had been suspiciously thick. "Why, did you come over here looking for him for something?"

"Oh, no, not really." The girl waved a hand in front of her face in negation. "Heiji just mentioned that he had a few other places he wanted to take you two to see before you have to head back this evening, so I figured I'd invite myself along." She frowned. "Though if he sleeps too much longer, we may not have time to do any of it."

He eyed the windows, and considered pointing out that although it was well past dawn, it was still not precisely late in the day; they should have plenty of time for a bit more sight-seeing. Well, assuming it didn't turn out like that one trip to that okonomiyaki place …

Still, eying the irritated cast to Toyama's features, he decided that perhaps maintaining his silence would be the better course, and took a bite of his fish instead.

He'd about half finished when the young man in question came shambling in. Pretending concentration on his food, he tracked Hattori through the corner of his eye, calculating probable trajectories and potential application of force. It would have to appear to be an accident, of course, with Ran and Toyama watching …

"It's about time." The Osakan girl said, fondly exasperated. "Were you trying to sleep the whole day away?"

"Huh?" From the sincere puzzlement in his tone, it was clear that Hattori was very much not awake yet.

He relaxed imperceptibly, giving up for the moment. He'd get back at Hattori at some other opportune time, when he was awake enough to appreciate it. He'd probably avoid it somehow – the dark-skinned detective had an irritating habit of doing that, too – but, well … that was part of the fun, too, he supposed.

A broad hand dropped to his head briefly as Hattori walked past to reach his seat, and he gritted his teeth. Don't make me regret my benevolence. Which was probably asking too much, given that sometimes he wondered if one of his friend's goals in life was annoying him. Though he'd probably say it was to save me from taking life too seriously.

As if I don't have all sorts of reasons to take life seriously. It's not like he was fed an experimental drug and forced to go into hiding lest an immense international crime organization come kill him and everyone he knows and loves.

A spark of memory – kendo-strong arms clutching him like a lifeline and a near-silent whisper – and his irritation melted away. Grudgingly. Hattori was good at that too. He doesn't have my problems, no. But he does have problems of his own.

Absently, he shifted the other boy's tea to within reach of his blindly-grasping fingers. He really is out of it today. I guess last night bothered him more than he was letting on. Though he was somehow still managing to respond to Toyama's quips handily enough – proof if there ever was any that their spats were so familiar that they could probably both have made the exchange in their sleep.

The cup found its way to Hattori's mouth and, after a long sip, he sighed, looking down and to the side, looking somehow tired beyond the fact that he wasn't entirely awake yet. "Thanks, K-Conan-kun."

He met Hattori's eyes for a long moment, suppressing his surprise at the other's far quicker than usual recovery. Hattori's face was far too serious, and he knew that the other boy was probably also thinking back to last night's conversation, and the worries that had triggered it in the first place.

Heh. Maybe he's a little bit right sometimes, too. "Na, Heiji-niichan, Occhan and I found a neat ramen place a while back. Next time you and Kazuha-neechan come to Tokyo, you should come visit!" He plastered on his best Conan grin, shrugging on the persona like an old sweater that maybe didn't fit quite right in a couple places, but was relatively comfortable nonetheless. If somewhat itchy. And a horrid color. And I think I've stretched that metaphor far enough, thanks. "It's called 'Ramen so dangerous you could really die'!"

Something of the darkness in Hattori's eyes lifted, and when he threw his head back to laugh it didn't sound forced. "Yeah, that sounds like a place I gotta see, all right!" He raised an eyebrow. "And let me guess, someone did …"

Paranoia made him glance away in time to catch Ran's eagle-eyed stare; belated memory reminded him that she hadn't been along on that particular outing and that neither he nor her father had ever quite gotten around to sharing the details. "Ehehe, about that …"

When he'd first been changed, it had taken considerable effort simply not to give in to despair. Taking things a day at a time, the only thing keeping him going being his burning determination to find the Black Organization and make them pay.

"Look on the bright side, 'Neechan." Hattori was saying, laughing again. "If there's already been a murder there, maybe the next time we go we'll actually be able to enjoy an uninterrupted meal."

It said something about their lives that Ran actually appeared to be taking Hattori's point under serious consideration.

The more time passed, the easier the Conan role sat on him – and yeah, that frightened him, on a level that for once had nothing to do with mysterious men in black wanting to kill him and everyone he cared for. He still absolutely wanted to reclaim his old life – to be Kudo Shinichi again, to stop having to hide and lie all the time. And he still wanted to make the Black Organization pay, to shut them down for good, for a whole host of reasons that only started with his being shrunk.

He'd never even thought, though, as he concentrated his energy on just taking that one next step, just making it through that one next day, that eventually he'd reach a balance.

"Ahou!" Toyama shouted, half-standing. "Now you've jinxed it! Just wait, if we ever go there, there'll probably be two murders. Maybe even three!"

Maybe from the outside looking in, only someone insane would call his current life 'normal'. But it was his normal. And for the time being – until he caught the Black Organization, until he could finally reclaim himself – well, maybe he was OK with that.

"Hmm, two would be better." Hattori mused, laughter sparkling as he swept him up into a headlock, placing him in the perfect position for a noogie – a posture he honestly wished he could say he wasn't as familiar with as he was. "That way there'll be one for each of us, ne, K-Conan-kun?"

… Mostly.

16 December 2012