A/N: Here’s your gift for the @dcmkkaishinexchange @icarusdg! I tried to do some angst so I hope it turned out okay. After seeing the trailer for the new movie 23, I felt like Kaito was due for a banging up :P
With twelve hours left, Shinichi’s head is throbbing. The puzzle and intrigue of it is maddening and every thought that finds a clue or a track to go down inevitably ends up derailed. Twenty-four hours ago, when it all started with a simple calling card embossed with a black logo it had been a chance, a trail for them to follow at the very least and if he had anything to say about it he’d have given anything to be further along it than he was now. The seconds tick by, drumming against his mind, a reminder of how he’s getting nowhere. He wants it all to be over, the mystery solved and the one responsible in custody somewhere far away from him. Most of all, he wants Kaito back.
~*~
At eleven hours left, an officer steps into the precinct’s chaotic mess of a reception area and Shinichi immediately sees the way her eyes shift across the room to Inspector Nakamori. He tails the woman as she heads into the foray of bustling task force agents and perpetually ringing phones. The scowl on Nakamori’s face twitches up a notch when he sees Shinichi standing at his shoulder again, but the brief moment before he’s ordered back to the mandatory rest area affords him a look at what the officer brought. Another calling card, this time with a note scrawled in neat letters across the back: It’s time to pay the pipers.
~*~
Shinichi’s halfway across town when melodious bells chime throughout the city, leaving him with ten scant hours before the deed is to be done. He doesn’t bear thinking about the other deed, the one that might already be done, and whether he’ll be too late even if he beats time in the end. How much time has he wasted trying to think through the details of the case without knowing the full picture?
For now, he’ll have to settle for simply doing something. The streets are washed with neon lights half a block away from his destination while the entrance is flooded with flashing signs and the glitter of jewels on the visitors’ every limb. Shinichi adjusts his bowtie, sidestepping the attendant at the front with a haughty wave, and enters the Leaping Lord’s Casino.
It aches to see a place where Kaito would have loved to come. Certainly not for a traditional visit, losing at the tables or flushing money down the cards, but rather to put his tricks to use, put on a performance in the most dazzling place for a mile just to see what he could pull out of his sleeves. Instead, Shinichi sees his absence in every dealer’s flick of the wrist.
~*~
It’s a few minutes into the ninth hour when he manages to slip past the guards outside a gilded pair of double doors. Closing his watchface, he doesn’t flinch at the blade pressed to his neck by a slim girl of fifteen. The only reason he’s still alive is because the Lady is sitting forward in her mink fur coat and regarding him with shrewd jade green eyes while the smoke from her Sobranie drifts between her lips.
“What do you want, boy?”
“Information. On where the Pipers have their base.”
“And why would I ever bother to give you that?” The Lady leans back in her chair, face set in a manner of one who likes to watch the faces of those who gamble their lives.
“I will leave without saying a word of what you do.” Shinichi’s heart doesn’t hammer any faster knowing of the threat that sits in the Lady’s gaze, it’s already heavy with the absence of what he’s trying to find.
“Very well.” She knows he’s put his chips on a losing number anyway. Anything she’ll try to do to him later is an afterthought, all that matters to him is how much closer he is to finding Kaito now.
~*~
He checks his watch for the fiftieth time and watches as the precious minutes of his eighth hour dwindle away. Taking a taxi had been the fastest way here, but it had still been far too long a ride for his taste. The cold bricks of the Milkmaid warehouse scrape his arms as he climbs the side to peek in through the shattered pane of a window. Tarry blackness stares back.
The door creaks with his entrance, but there’s no one to hear it in between the rows of stacked crates and rubbish piles building in the corners.
~*~
Just as the first seconds of his seventh hour beat a cruel, relentless march, he finds it under a pile of rubble, the corner peaking out still as white as a swan’s wing. Marred by streaks of ugly dark brown bleeding along the hem, the rest of the cape is torn and dirty, but none of it matters when his fingers poke through ragged holes around its center.
It was the illusion, as it always was with Kaito, that ended up blinding him to what was going on behind the trick and the glamour. The heists had been for some purpose, he’d figured that out early on, but the real reason —the real threat— that drove Kaito to keep pulling everyone’s gaze with his dazzling white was only made known when he’d seen the flash of a muzzle and the familiar shadowy shapes that he knew dogged his own footsteps.
Death and blood didn’t fit onto Kaito’s stage and with it pushed to the wings, that was where it struck from instead.
~*~
His sixth hour feels like a fruitless wild goose chase. Calling in the police was the right move, he knows it though it’s hard to believe when watching the squads of officers filling the warehouse with bright lights and incoherent shouting. He thinks of the cape buried in the dumpster a few blocks away, heavy with secrets and blood.
He leaves, avoiding Nakamori’s haggard figure at the epicenter of the bustling. The thought of what he’s missing, what fragment he lacks that makes the puzzle whole, drives him to keep moving, keeping still only makes him sink down. He’s solved so many cases before with a clear head and a sharp mind, but this one brings with it a cloudy haste that blankets his every action and idea.
~*~
The fifth hour rings out unexpectedly as he crosses the street, the tolling reverberating down from above him. He doesn’t know how or why he ended up here, but the rush of memories is a bittersweet tide as he tilts his head back to look at the clocktower. It had been a lot of firsts, the first time he’d seen KID, challenged him, crossed him, and, he knows it began then, admired him. It was the start of coming to see what Kaito did, really did, and why, because as much frustration and awe as he produced in everyone watching, because you couldn’t watch without being pulled into the energy of it all, there was always more to see behind every trick and smile.
Shinichi stands frozen on the sidewalk in the dead streets in the ethereal hour before dawn, considering the past, both distant and recent. All the events of the last day run through his mind again in disjointed fragments held together with barely a thread. He’d started spiraling as soon as he discovered Kaito gone and it has been pulling him apart ever since.
If he wants to find him, he needs to do his job.
Setting a faint hunch as his destination, Shinichi steps off the curb and starts to think. There had been small explosions set off in the subway stations of the outskirts of the city for the past few weeks. They had all been classified as the work of pipe bombs; each site was littered with small charred pieces of confetti: the remains of wrapping paper.
There were plenty of places to set the bomb that the Pipers had heralded as the finale the night before, but how would they decide where to put it?
Hit by a thought, Shinichi starts to run.
~*~
At the last minute of his fourth hour, he looks up to see the black shapes of the morning’s first birds circling in the sky above. The streets start to fill, commuters appearing from every apartment building and side alley in a growing rush towards the station entrance ahead.
~*~
The third hour’s first minute sees him come close to tripping down the steps of the colloquially known ‘French Hen’ Station, so named for the comically puffed up bird statue that sits atop the gate leading down. It’s a struggle to reach the platform without bowling anyone over, but as soon as he climbs down into the tunnel he shuts out any shouts of warning and delves into the dark.
A train speeds by after ten minutes, shrieking over the rails in dizzying flashes of light too close for comfort. It becomes a pattern, searching the enclosing darkness for any signs and waiting for the cold wind that blows as warning. It’s not long before the blackness reaching in on every side starts to swim before his eyes, playing with the shapes of things and creeping behind him. He doesn’t notice as he looks over his shoulder for the fifth time, but he rubs the bridge of his nose to ease the headache spreading behind his temples. He spent the entire time running from place to place, thinking he’d thought of something that would bring Kaito back but what he’s gained for his efforts is simply desperation and a sleepless night.
~*~
He walks into yet another sharp wire, feels the prick of it against his ankle, and moves to step over it without glancing down.
It pricks him again, this time on the other ankle, and lets out a soft coo. The meager beam of his watchlight falls on two pairs of beady black eyes, watching him with heads tilted and feathers fluffed.
Seeing his stillness, the two doves take flight in a rustle of wings and dive into a dark alcove set back from the track. Shinichi stumbles after them heedless of the gravel sliding under his feet as long as he can keep the birds in sight.
It’s soft cursing he hears first. The huddled shape that materializes out of the darkness is what finally makes Shinichi’s knees give out, dropping to Kaito’s side with hands already pulling him forward. Something hard shifts between them, poking into his shoulder.
“Shinichi, I’m great at many things but diffusing a bomb is not one of them.” Kaito buries his nose in Shinichi’s hair, letting out a ragged breath. “Not to mention two of them.”
“I know some people who can help,” Shinichi admits, not letting go until he’s run his hand along Kaito’s back. “You weren’t shot?” The thought alleviates a worry.
“They did their best, but only scored with more… short-range options.”
Shinichi finally pulls back, looking at Kaito’s haggard, if smiling face, and takes in the bruise blooming along his temple underneath the fringe of his hair. The vest he’s wearing is flashing red, the silent countdown inching lower and lower.
Shinichi doesn’t let go of Kaito until they’re safely above ground, policemen thronging the scene for the third time that day. Kaito’s doves nest on their shoulders, slumbering in the blanket covering them both. Their last hour never came, leaving them with all the time in the world instead.
author: Icarusdg
artist:Vion
rating: T
warnings: None
summary: Once upon a time– “I thought you said this was serious?” “It is serious.” “Fine.” *** A.K.A. KID finds what he’s looking for, regrets it, then really finds what he’s looking for.
author: @icarusdg
artist: @zeechan04
beta: not provided
rating: T
warnings: none
word count: not provided
summary: Getting caught by Gin didn't sound like good luck for Conan and getting shot sounded even worse for KID but some how it all worked out for the best.
stilinski1701 said: Hi, someone who has a cat who can only have the flea drops here. Do you know if your cat licked at where your dad applied the drops? My cat got at where hers was at, and she was a little wonky, and puked a little.
spanglesandsass said: All my cats get flea drops, they’re pissy over it but otherwise fine. What brand did you use?
icarusdg answered: I tried the flea drops on my cat once and the chemicals were too harsh, I’ve stuck to flea collars since. If its bad try giving it a bath?
Hi! And thank you for answering! ♥ =D
Mega-combo answer for all because I am on my phone and using tumblr is a bit of a quest!!!
The brand we used is Front Line Combo. When I saw Dickie last night he had a huge wet patch on his sude that he had obviously licked, and Dad told me that was were he had put the drops. HOWEVER when I asked him for confirmation this morning, he told me that was not the spot where he had put the medicine...so I can not be sure whether Dick has licked it or not. He seems better this morning but he wobbles still, and I worry lots because this kitty is one venerable elder. (By our estimations he is no less than 21, the baby! )
