Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Shinichi was sitting in the library, reading through some of the cold cases on his father’s desk, when he heard an excited scream from outside the room and nearly jumped out of his skin. He instinctively moved to hide the papers before his mind caught up with him and he paused. His parents didn’t really care if he looked at cold cases so long as he didn’t write directly on the papers themselves, and that was more his mom’s rules than his dad’s.

For a moment he stared at the door, contemplating going to the source of the noise (his mother) and remaining in the library until one of them came to get him to share in his mother’s excitement before shrugging and going back to the papers. They’ll call if they need him.

Sure enough, he had only taken a few notes of a locked room murder before he heard, “Shin-chan, come here! Your parents need to talk to you!”

He filed away the notes he’d been making and stood, trying to brush the wrinkles he’s accumulated on his clothes away as he walked to the sitting room. As he went he stewed over the cases he’d been reading, humming (off-tune, he noted) to himself as he idly mapped the evidence to various points within his self-made notes to try and form the full picture.

As he walked into the sitting room he looked up and opened his mouth to greet them only to be nearly bowled over by his excited mother. He let out an indignant squawk as she smushed his face against hers and squeezed the life out of him. “Oh Shin-chan! Guess what we just found out?”

Barely able to see his dad from this angle to help him try and guess, Shinichi narrowed his eyes. “You won an award for one of the movies you starred in,” he said, not bothering to inject any confidence or enthusiasm into his very random guess.

“Nope!” She sounded giddy that he’d gotten it wrong and the nine year old rolled his eyes and wondered, not for the first time, how he was the most responsible one in the room somedays. Finally his mom let him go, and Shinichi got a chance to see his father, standing next to his mom with a proud bearing and holding her hand in his. He cocked his head to the side; he wasn’t familiar with this type of body language, they’ve never displayed this odd mix of excitement and nervousness around him before. “You’re going to have a baby brother or sister soon!”

And then suddenly it felt like someone had stuffed cotton in his ears in his surprise. He stared at them, eyes wide, and tried to process that information. He didn’t know much about how children were made yet, but it was clearly some kind of collaborative effort based on the fact that he looked like a mixture of both of his parents, and as he understood it if a person didn’t want to have a baby there were preventative measures. So it was safe to assume that his parents wanted to have another child.

From there came two new questions: why such a large age gap? Maybe it just occurred to them that they wanted another child, maybe they had determined that Shinichi was fixed on becoming a detective and so were having another child to follow in his mom’s footsteps, Shinichi wasn’t sure.

And finally: how did he feel about having a new sibling? The first thing he’d felt was surprise, followed quickly by a low level sense of excitement and fascination. It would be interesting to see how his younger sibling grew up differently from him, either through how their parents would raise them or simply different interests and personalities.

So he channeled that particular emotion, and smiled widely at his watching parents. “That sounds awesome!” He told them, not bothering to hide the sincerity in his voice, and his parents seemed to relax as they took in the interest they could see developing. “When will they arrive?”

His mom beamed at him as his dad released a breath Shinichi hadn’t noticed he was holding. “Sometime in May! Their birthday will be really close to yours!”

Shinichi couldn’t help but look forward to seeing his little brother and, after he’d gotten permission from his parents, ran off to tell Ran the news.

The months leading up to his later-revealed-to-be-brother’s birth didn’t drag on like Shinichi had been afraid that they would.

After the announcement and talking to his friend (and Sonoko) about it, the budding detective had dove into researching children, starting with their conception (to his later-realized horror) to the development they went through until they began displaying identifiable personalities and forming social bonds.

It had certainly been an interesting read from a psychological standpoint, and he’d made personal notes of things he wanted to monitor and what to keep watch for that could affect development.

Mix that research in with the trips his dad would take him on to look at crime scenes, the trips his mom took with him when she just wanted to get out, the cold cases he was allowed to look at, hanging out with Ran and Sonoko, and school, and it felt like barely any time had passed before he looked up from reading on the couch one day to see his mom standing in place with a peculiar look on her face that slowly twisted to discomfort. “Shinichi,” she called out, not yet noticing that he was only a few feet away, “we have to go to the hospital. The baby’s ready to arrive.”

Shinichi got up and immediately ran to her, book tucked under his arms, and tried to hide his trepidation. It was a bit early for his mom to be going into labor from what he looked up, but only by a week or two, so it should be fine. However, his dad was away for the day consulting on a crime in the city, and he had a bad habit of forgetting to charge his phone or take it off silent when he was in the middle of a case. “Do you want me to call dad as we go to the hospital?” He asked, and his mom nodded without a moment’s hesitation.

Nodding back he retrieved the wireless phone in the house and started dialing as they stepped out of the house. They were in the car by the time the call went to voice mail and the soon-to-be older brother made a frustrated, nervous sound before he could stop himself. His mom seemed to know immediately what the problem was and puffed out her cheeks. “That blasted man is so bad with his phone! Avoiding his editors has been giving him awful habits!”

Shinichi nodded absently in agreement and left a message, telling his dad to get to the general hospital as soon as possible, before snapping the phone shut. “I’m sure the hospital can tell him what room you’ll be in,” he soothed, but flinched at the look his mom gave him.

“We’ll be in,” she corrected, and Shinichi felt an uncomfortable sinking in his stomach.

“We?” He repeated back.

“Yes, Shin-chan, we. I’m not going through this birth alone, and if your father can’t bother to keep track of his phone when I’m in my third trimester, that means someone else will have to be there for me,” she finished loftily, and Shinichi stared at her in disbelief for a moment before groaning and resting his face in his hands.

He wished he was more surprised than he felt.

A few minutes later his mom was making herself comfortable on a bed, leaving angry messages in his dad’s voice mail with the phone she’d snatched from him, and Shinichi was sitting next to her bed and reading the book he’d brought with him. The doctor walked in to introduce himself before pausing and shooting his mother a wide eyed look and glancing at Shinichi in confusion. The child shrugged back.

The doctor cleared his throat and turned back to Shinichi’s mom, who’d just closed the phone with a fearsome scowl. “Kudo-san, we’re just about ready for you. How are you feeling?”

“I feel like I’m going to kill my husband,” she tells him cheerfully, and Shinichi couldn’t help but snort at the face the doctor made at that – some strange mixture of worry and reluctant amusement.

“Well, that’s…good?” He sounded uncertain and quickly shifted the subject. “Do you have anyone else you want us to contact?”

“Nope,” she chirped out, and the smile she was sporting only grew more unsettling. “The people who want to be here are here.”

Shinichi winced and hid himself more firmly behind his book. His dad was in so much trouble when he got there. Judging by the doctor’s grimace, he was of a similar mindset. “Yes…well,” the man said awkwardly, and looked down at the clipboard in his hands. “Let’s continue getting you comfortable, shall we?”

A few hours later would find his mom screaming bloody murder, swearing vengeance against his dad with a death grip around Shinichi’s (probably broken) hand. It didn’t last long – something Shinichi had read was common after the first birth – and soon the piercing cry of a child filled the room and Shinichi glanced away from his mom’s exhausted face to take in his new brother.

He was tiny, wrinkly, and covered in amniotic fluid, and Shinichi couldn’t see any kind of resemblance in the smushed red face but knew that that was simply how children were for the first few months.

As he watched the baby was taken away to be wiped off and he finally turned his attention back to his mom, whose gaze remained locked on her newest child. “Well, guess that’s over with,” he said, half-joking, and winced as she tightened her grip on his hand pointedly.

“Thank you, Shin-chan,” she said, and the affection in her voice made his face heat up self-consciously. “You’re already being a great big brother.”

He looked away and tried to tug his hand out of hers and, when that proved ineffective, mumbled a quiet, “thanks.”

Luckily for Shinichi he didn’t have to listen to his mom cooing at him for long before the nurse reappeared with a bundle in her arms, handling the swaddled newborn to his beaming mother and giving Shinichi an out to snatch his hand away from her before examining the baby again.

He looked much more human without the fluid on him, but still had that uncanny valley kind of face with his eyes scrunched shut as low whimpers began to rise. His mom shushed him and stared at her newest child with love clear in her eyes. “Look Shin-chan, he’s so adorable,” she whispered, and he gave a vague hum back. He supposed from some angle “adorable” was an applicable term, but Shinichi had a feeling he’d agree once his features were more defined.

The two of them remained silent for a moment, Shinichi watching the nurses and doctors while his mom appeared to be lost in thought. When she finally spoke, there was this choke in her voice that immediately got her oldest’s attention. “Shin-chan, I don’t know what to do,” she confessed, pulling the still unnamed baby closer to herself.

Shinichi frowned and turned to her. “Don’t know what to do about what?” he asked, confused. She’d had a kid before, so he didn’t think it was about that, but he couldn’t be sure.

“Do you remember Kuroba Toichi, Shin-chan?” His mom inquired, and Shinichi’s brow furrowed at the question.

“Yes,” he answered back, hooking his thumbs into the pockets of his jeans out of habit. How could he not know that name? “I remember dad cursing him sometimes while working on his books and you talking about him. I think he also…did a magic show for me once? He called me his older brother.”

He also had clear memories of the funeral they’d attended for him, the way his dad and mom held onto each other as they fell apart in their own ways, the woman who at some point entered their hug, the boy his age who’d clung to Shinichi and sobbed into his shoulder when he expressed his condolences, the nightmares that followed him home as the man’s resemblance to his father haunted him.

It’d be some years yet before he’d be able to forget about something like that.

His mom nodded to herself in confirmation. “We were thinking about naming him,” she held up the newborn, “after Toichi-sensei, but…I can’t,” she admitted, her face torn between heartache and grim knowing. “I wouldn’t be able to say his name for years. And Toichi-sensei would be so irritated if he becomes as mystery-obsessed as you and Yu-chan.”

Shinichi made an indignant sound more out of habit than actual disagreement, the affection in his mom’s voice removing any sting from the words. “No one expects you to name him after Kuroba-san,” he told her. “They would understand.”

“I guess,” his mom said back, and he watched as she warmed up to the idea. “Though it will be sad to not see Yu-chan twitch every time someone calls the baby by name.” She hummed a little to herself as Shinichi slowly relaxed, the minefield safely navigated. “What should we name him, then?” she asked herself. “I was so confident I could do this, but…” she wavered for a moment, but remained firm. “But he deserves to be his own person.”

Shinichi shrugged. “I agree, but I don’t know any good names.”

He watched as she began to perk up, slowly bouncing back and warming to the subject. “Come now, Shin-chan, you’ve read so many books, you’re bound to have seen a few names you liked!” She pouted at him and he rolled his eyes back at her.

“Yes, but I don’t think you want to name him Hercule, Sherlock, Ellery or Arthur, so I don’t see how I’ll be useful,” he shot back, unimpressed. “The only names that left an impact on me enough to like are not Japanese, Mom.” He paused for a moment. “Maybe Conan or Rampo.”

His mom let out a sigh that he suspected was the culmination of her exhaustion and resignation to his fixation with mystery novels before staring into the middle distance in contemplation. As she thought over whatever was on her mind Shinichi leaned over and gently placed a finger on his little brother’s hand. He immediately curled his tiny hand around it in response and Shinichi felt a smile tug on his face before he could control it.

Okay, so maybe his brother was already a little cute.

“I like Conan,” his mom said out of the blue, startling Shinichi into jumping back a bit and making the baby whimper at the loss of Shinichi’s finger.

“What?” He blinked at her, still surprised by the outburst.

“Conan,” she repeated teasingly, “I like Conan, it would be a cute name.”

“Really?” Shinichi asked without thinking, before smiling at his mom. “Great! I’m glad you like it, Mom.”

She smiled back before tilting her head against the headboard to rest her eyes. Shinichi let her doze and took the nearby chair, pulling out his book to continue as he waited for either his dad to arrive or his mom to wake up later.

His wait ended when his dad tore through the room like a hurricane, the doctor a few seconds behind him and requesting that he not run in the hospital. Shinichi watched his dad scan the room and lock onto his wife and youngest child and make his way over to them. He gently shook the shoulder opposite of where Conan was resting. “Yukiko?” he whispered, and Shinichi continued to watch as she immediately began to stir at her husband’s voice, eyes flickering behind her eyelids. “Sorry I’m late, honey. My phone…” he trailed off, embarrassed, but Shinichi’s mom immediately waved her hand even as she opened her eyes, yawning.

“It’s fine, Yu-chan,” she forgave him easily but, before he could relax too much, shot him a smile a few steps away from unsettling. “You’ll just have to make it up to me later.”

“Of course,” his dad agreed, clearly knowing when to pick his battles, before glancing down at Conan. “So did you really name him Toichi?”

“I couldn’t,” she answered honestly, snuggling closer to him as he half-sat on the bed and threw his arm comfortingly around her. “It would have hurt us all too much in the long run.” When he didn’t respond to her confession, she examined him for a second before her eyes narrowed and she freed a hand to smack him. “You knew I wouldn’t go through with it!”

“I suspected,” he corrected, before knocking his head gently into hers when she started to puff her cheeks out in irritation. “But it was your decision, dear. I wasn’t going to make it for you.”

Shinichi could only look away in disgust as his mom’s eyes started to sparkle and she leaned more into his dad’s arms. “Yu-chan…”

The two stayed like that for a while before parting a little and looking down at Conan. “His name is Conan,” Shinichi’s mom told her husband, and he smiled at both his youngest and his eldest who was trying to hide in plain sight.

“A good name,” his dad confirmed, and the blush on Shinichi’s ears spread and he stubbornly remained turned away from them in the face of both of their approval.

Shinichi had been taken home by his dad and was settling into bed when he realized that it was his birthday that day. He’d turned ten the day his brother was born. Shinichi hummed at the thought as he fell asleep.

That was pretty neat.

Chapter Text

Four Months Later

Shinichi resettled himself into the oversized armchair, his smile widening as he read “The Sign of Four” again. Nearby his dad was sitting at his desk and working on his book, the clicking of the keys almost hypnotic in the soothing quiet of the room.

And then his mother burst in, Conan in her arms letting out distressed whimpers. She let out a gusty sigh as she strode across the room and deposited her youngest into Shinichi’s startled arms, the ten year old instinctively dropping his book to better support the baby. “Mou,” she whined out, moving to drape herself over her husband’s shoulders. “I can’t remember Shin-chan being this needy!”

“Now, now, Yukiko,” his dad consoled, not looking up from the laptop but clearly amused. “He’s a newborn, of course he’s going to be needy! Besides, I can quite imagine Shinichi needing just as much attention, we just weren’t so restless when he was born.”

Shinichi listened to them with half an ear as he cradled his little brother. Conan had quieted the moment he’d been handed off to Shinichi, and was now resting with his ear over the older boy’s heart, which Shinichi felt melt a little at the sight, so he stayed quiet as his mom continued to gripe and his dad soothed her ruffled feathers. After a moment of watching Conan’s face to ensure he wasn’t distressed Shinichi got the book into a comfortable reading position and blocked his parents out to continue where he’d left off.

He managed two more chapters before he heard the familiar shutter-click of his mom’s camera and flinched before looking up to cast his grinning mother a glare.

“Shin-chan is so cute with his little brother!” she cooed, and he rolled his eyes and did his best to ignore her. But alas, it wasn’t meant to be. “Shin-chan, do you think you could do your mom and dad a big favor?”

“What?” he asked, apprehensive of the devious glint in her eye.

“Could you watch over Conan-chan tonight? Your dad and I want to go out for a little bit, just the two of us.” The pleading look she gave him was only half-joking, and Shinichi barely stopped the frown from appearing on his face.

“What if he gets hungry?” He asked, politely oblivious to the glance his parents shared as they worked out what they wanted to say to him. For some reason his parents thought he didn’t know that children traditionally consumed breastmilk for at least a year before being weaned from it. However, upon learning that he would be getting a younger sibling nine months ago, Shinichi had dived deeply into books about pregnancy and child development so that he wouldn’t in some manner hurt the new baby.

“There will be some bottles in the fridge,” she settled on telling him, and he nodded back.

“I can watch over him, then,” he told them, and his parents shot him wide smiles before they took each other’s hands and left to dress up.

After they’d left he sighed and rubbed a hand over his face. He hadn’t expected his parents to ask him to look after Conan so quickly; he didn’t feel he’d done nearly enough reading to know how to properly look after him. But it should be fine, he reassured himself, if he just follows common sense he should be able to figure everything with relative ease.

His parents showed up one more time before leaving, both of them dressed to the nines and already looking excited for the night ahead of them. “We’ll see you later, Shinichi,” his dad said as he adjusted his tie, and Shinichi nodded in understanding.

“Have fun, you two.”

“Of course,” his mom said with a small wink before grabbing his dad and dragging him to the front door. The sound of the door closing behind them shouldn’t have been as unsettling as it was, but Shinichi ignored it to settle back into his chair, making a small list of things he’d have to look up once Conan was awake and in his bassinet.

That list was kept even as his plans disintegrated to dust not an hour later, when his brother woke up and starting screaming inconsolably and Shinichi proceeded to panic. He tried shifting Conan to a more comfortable position only to wince as he started to sob even harder, his entire body shaking with the force of his cries.

Okay.

So.

Don’t let Conan think he’s trying to separate them.

Good to know.

Shinichi moved his legs until the book in his lap shifted to be pinned between his body and an arm of the chair and stood, readjusting Conan to the change in position. The cries didn’t get worse, so Shinichi took that as the closest thing to a good sign that he could and walked them to the kitchen. He awkwardly shifted Conan again to be held up by one arm – which was rapidly beginning to hate that position – to open the fridge and grab one of the bottles clearly labelled ‘For Conan’ (he suspected his dad of doing this out of precaution) and place it on the table to take Conan back into both arms.

It was an awkward dance after that, trying to perform small tasks with a crying child in his arms that became more hysterical whenever he tried to put him down. Eventually he got the bottle to a respectable temperature (his mom had left a note with the temperature range optimal for the milk, to his relief) and Conan went blessedly silent as Shinichi settled back into his favorite armchair and started to feed him, and the older sibling letting out a sigh as the ringing in his ears began to die down, the quiet good for his soul.

He kept an eye on Conan the entire time, checking that the bottle was positioned correctly and he wouldn’t be swallowing any air bubbles. When Conan stopped drinking he pulled the bottle away and placed it on the table next to them. He thought back to what his mom would do after feeding Conan and fetched a towel to place over his shoulder and try to burp him.

After that Conan remained awake, looking around and taking everything in with wide eyes. He would watch Shinichi as well, and would occasionally reach out to touch his nose or eyes while gurgling quietly to himself. Shinichi couldn’t help but laugh a little at the action and move closer to make the exploration easier for his little brother. He didn’t wince as a tiny hand tugged at his ear but did hiss when his hair was abruptly yanked in the child’s curiosity. He gently grabbed the hand and detangled it from his hair before offering his finger. It was accepted as consolation and Conan began gum on it, making Shinichi wrinkle his nose.

Right.

Children.

Still kind of gross.

This point was proven two hours later when an honestly vile smell started emanating from the baby and Shinichi felt a wave of dread (and disgust) wash over him. He’d of course seen his mother change Conan’s diapers before, but always from a distance, and he’d never done it himself. Shinichi made a groan of despair as he stood up and went to find a changing table. First time for everything he supposed.

It was awful, and that was all Shinichi thought on the matter.

Sometime later Shinichi was reading out loud to Conan – in English, because he needed to practice and Conan was too young for it to hurt his Japanese, so who cared – when it occurred to him to wonder where his parents were. It had already been…he stole a glance at the library clock – three and a half hours since they’d left, and they hadn’t given him any hint regarding when they’d planned to be home.

They had leftovers in the house, fortunately, so Shinichi wasn’t going to starve or anything, but it was…disconcerting, to be alone in the house with a baby for so long.

His worry must have been apparent on his face as Conan tapped him on the chin, and he smiled at his brother before dismissing it from his mind and focusing back on the book.

His parents came home around two in the morning, and Shinichi had – ironically – never felt more like a disappointed parent than he did in that instant.

The sound of his bedroom door opening had startled him immediately awake, bloodshot eyes snapping open as he sat up and instinctively stretched an arm out to try and cover Conan from view. He glared at the door and his sour expression only worsened at the pitiful look his mom was shooting him. “What the hell?” he whisper-hissed at them as his dad joined her in the doorway. He glanced at the clock by his bed and hissed harder, voice forced low to not wake up the baby he’d only just soothed back down. “What the hell!?”

“We’re sorry Shin-chan,” his mom apologized as she got closer, smiling at the sight of their youngest curled in the spot next to where Shinichi had been lying. “We met up with a few friends of ours and they invited us back to their place to catch up. We lost track of time, sorry honey.”

He rubbed a hand over his face with a barely audible groan. “Sure, okay,” he wasn’t quite sure what he was agreeing to – it wasn’t like they had asked a question – but he attributed the answer to sleepiness and left it at that. “Were you here to collect Conan?”

His parents moved more into the room and his mom cooed at the sight of her newest child gripping at Shinichi’s night shirt. “Got it in one, my little detective.” She booped him on the nose, making his eyes cross briefly before letting out a breath he felt like he’d been holding since they’d left that evening.

“Okay. Night.” He laid back down and felt as his mom leaned over to gently pluck Conan out of the bed.

There was this moment of silence as Shinichi closed his eyes and his parents retreated to go back to their room with the family’s youngest in tow, what felt like a strange pause between one moment and the next.

And then Conan woke up from the movement and screamed bloody murder.

Shinichi’s attempt to roll out of the bed to see to his upset brother was ruined by the bed itself, and the knee jerk awareness became full-fledged wakefulness when he ended up falling out of the bed instead. Fortunately his parents were too busy being startled at the sudden noise to laugh at him, and Shinichi couldn’t help but be grateful for that fact even as he struggled to his feet to see what had happened.

It looked like Conan was simply upset with being moved, he decided after taking a look at the baby that was already losing the battle to go back to sleep and his cries slowly softened. The ten year old let out a sigh in relief and went back to the bed, flopping face first back onto it and barely hearing his parents wish him a good night as they left for their room.

The next day was a school day and Shinichi nearly had to be dragged there by Ran and Sonoko when they showed up to walk with him. “Why’d you stay up so late?” Ran complained as she steered him away from the light pole he had been walking straight toward. Sonoko snickered from her spot on the other side of Ran. “You knew you wouldn’t be able to skip class today.”

“Conan woke up erratically through the night,” he told them, yawning and rubbing at the irritation in his eyes. “And would take at least half an hour to fall back asleep. If I was lucky.”

They winced at the thought. “Your parents couldn’t put him back to sleep quickly?” Ran guessed, and Shinichi snorted a little.

“They were reasonably good at it once they got home. Got more sleep afterward.”

Sonoko frowned at that. “What do you mean? Were they out getting stuff and left you in charge of taking care of him? Poor Conan-chan.”

Shinichi scratched at the back of his head as he thought about how he wanted to word it, not bother to acknowledge the tail end of Sonoko’s words outside of a small glare at her. “They needed a bit of time away from the kids, so yeah they left me to take care of Conan for a while. They kind of forgot it was a school night.”

The rest of the walk was filled with Sonoko and Ran talking to each other as Shinichi walked with them, only paying enough attention to not die on the way there. When he got in his seat at school he was out like a light for most of the first two classes.

Chapter Text

Three Months Later

“Shin-chan!” His mom called out. “Can you watch over Conan-chan today?”

It was a Saturday and Shinichi had made certain he wouldn’t have definite plans with Ran in case this came up, so he called out a loud, “Sure!” and stopped juggling the soccer ball his dad had gotten him recently for helping so much with Conan.

It wasn’t like he’d done much in his opinion. He just helped feed him and kept an eye on him in one room so that his parents could get work done or take a nap. It helped that Conan appeared to respond positively to him, unafraid to crawl to him or tap on his face curiously whenever Shinichi held him. His parents thought it was adorable, and would tease that he’s trying to figure out how much he’ll look like Shinichi when he’s older.

As the ten year old entered the house he could distantly hear crying and grimaced a little. Conan had been fussy the past few days and none of them really knew why. He refused to nurse sometimes or would cry while nursing (from what his parents told him in their perpetually awkward manner), and couldn’t sleep for more than two hours without getting upset. His parents seemed to think it was natural, so Shinichi took their word for it and simply adjusted how he held Conan to what appeared to bring him the least amount of discomfort.

He walked into the library to see his dad with an upset Conan in his arms and looking more stressed than Shinichi had seen him in…well, hours honestly.

What could he say, children were stressful.

“Hey Dad,” he greeted, and watched as his dad snapped his head around to look at him and his shoulders slumped a little in relief. Conan also took note of him and started hold his arms out to Shinichi, leaning away from their dad and making grabby hands at him. Their dad was only too happy to pass the baby over to his eldest child before sitting in his preferred chair (which Conan seemed to inexplicably dislike) with a sigh.

“Thank you, Shinichi,” his dad said, taking off his glasses to rub at his eyes. Shinichi didn’t have to look hard to spot the bags slowly forming beneath his eyes so didn’t say anything and just shifted Conan until he was upright and the baby’s chin was resting on his shoulder. He heard a tiny sigh in that ear and glanced at his brother to see his eyes closed. “We’ll try to be back around nine this time.”

He glanced at the clock – Six o’clock – and mentally put it to be five hours as the estimate for when they’d be back. They didn’t intend for such a habit to form, but Shinichi knew they’d be late by about two hours based on when they’d come home before. “That’s fine,” he told him, patting Conan on the back absentmindedly. “Is there any set time you want me to feed him? And are there leftovers in the fridge for me to eat?”

“Whatever time you’ve been feeding him is still fine, and there should be,” his dad answered back quickly, putting his glasses back on and whirling out of the room. Shinichi stared after his father’s departing back before looking at the sleeping child in his arms and starting to pace as he thought over some of the moves he’d been practicing during his self-imposed soccer break.

After a while he started thinking about what Ran or Sonoko could be doing, and felt a pang of loneliness. He could have been out with his friend (and Sonoko), even if it only meant walking around with them and being used as a bag carrier as they went shopping. It had only been a day since he’d seen them but it felt like weeks since he’d been around them in a non-school related manner. He was even beginning to miss Sonoko’s ranting!

But he sighed and shook it off. His parents just needed a bit of time every so often to get out of the house and not have to worry about Conan. Once he was older they could bring him along, or maybe leave him with Agasa instead of Shinichi.

With this thought to buoy his spirits he started browsing through the shelves in the library, trying to find something new to read up on while his parents spent the night out and Conan rested. He settled on one of the development books his mom had bought in her frenzy to prepare for the new baby and settled in his preferred chair, lying across it to let Conan remain resting on his shoulder. He only received a mild protest before the baby settled again.

Shinichi frowned for a moment at the sound. ‘Hmm, he seemed distressed in the shift to a more horizontal position. A headache maybe?’ He didn’t know much that would cause distress in such a manner. Maybe he just woke up for a second.

He dismissed it and went back to his reading, only looking up when his mom popped in with an “I’m going out and don’t want to be recognized” outfit on and blinked at the kiss she blew at him before his dad appeared and the two vanished and returning to his book upon their departure.

About an hour in he heard Conan stir and closed the book, shifting them into a more upright position as the baby started pushing against his shoulder to look around. When he registered the face in front of him Conan squealed a little and patted him on the face, his general response whenever he realized Shinichi was carrying him. “Hey there kiddo,” Shinichi greeted with a grin, laughing a little as a tiny hand rested on his mouth to register how he was forming words. “Mom and Dad left me in charge again, so is there anything you want in particular?” The baby dropped his hand as Shinichi stopped talking and blinked at him before squirming in his hold and reaching for the ground. Shinichi laughed and carefully lowered him to the carpet, watching on in amusement as Conan immediately started crawling to the toys strewn about.

Since the library was baby-proofed Shinichi only had to keep half an eye on Conan as he played, and relocated himself near his brother as he occasionally read a few more snippets of the development book. “I think you’re on track,” he told Conan out loud, knowing the baby probably didn’t understand him nor care, but remembering his parent’s words on talking around Conan to help him learn to speak on his own.

“Actually…” he trailed off at one of the lines and flipped back to a page he’d read earlier. “It looks like you may be developing faster than the book predicted.” He shouldn’t be able to crawl yet, Shinichi realized, that should still be two months out. Humming to himself he stood and returned the book, skimming the rows for books on advanced children. He tucked his chin into a hand in thought. ‘We don’t have any books like that. Do those exist? I’ll ask mom and dad later.’ So he just picked up a book on newborn illnesses to read instead and settled back onto the floor.

He barely got a page in before he felt something bumped into his leg. He glanced up to see a bright red ball next to him and looked at Conan, the baby now making grabby hands at the ball but making no effort to move closer. Shinichi gently rolled the ball back to him and smiled at the delighted noises Conan made as he grabbed at the ball. The two continued to play the little game for a few minutes before Conan lost interest and started messing with some other toys instead. Shinichi watched for another moment before going back to his book.

With each new chapter Shinichi felt a frown growing in concern. He wasn’t sure if Conan’s quick development could lead to more illnesses from his taxed body but he wouldn’t be surprised by such a thing. But some of these illnesses were…distressing to think about, especially the ones that were more serious but presented like a lesser illness. So he made sure to take note of as many of the symptoms of various illnesses as possible, and ways to cure or prevent them.

Lost as he was in the book and his thoughts, it took a loud wail from Conan to break him from his thoughts, and his head snapped up to see his little brother still among his toys but crying and trying to crawl over to him.

Shinichi immediately felt his heart break a little as he stood up and made his way over to his brother. “What’s wrong, Conan?”

The baby let out more whimpers that slowly died back down and flailed a little, and Shinichi winced a little in apology. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to stop paying attention to you.” When he tried to put Conan more into a cradling position he struggled so Shinichi just let out a sigh and kept him upright before wandering out of the library and heading to his parent’s bedroom. “Where’d Mom leave that chest sling,” he murmured to himself as he riffled through a chest labeled as baby items, Conan fussing a little as Shinichi leaned over to look more clearly into the chest.

He finally found the item and pulled it out of the chest with a triumphant noise. He then proceeded to put Conan on his parents’ bed and strap the sling into place, wincing as Conan immediately began to express his displeasure at being put down. “Sorry, sorry,” Shinichi murmured as the sling was finally in the right place and he picked Conan up to put him in the sling for safety. “I need my hands if I want to prepare our food.” The baby grumbled but settled back down, his ear over Shinichi’s heart.

After that it was much easier to warm the bottle Conan would need and heat up the leftovers from the night before. The rest of the night was quiet, with the baby only fussing whenever he had to lay down and Shinichi getting some more recreational reading done. Conan ended up falling asleep propped up on Shinichi’s chest while he was reading out loud to him, and Shinichi sighed in relief and finished the rest of the night in silence only broken by the casual turning of pages.

Sure enough, his parents showed up around eleven o’clock, and his mom could only smile sheepishly at the unimpressed look he shot them both before collecting Conan and disappearing upstairs with a departing kiss on his forehead.

“Okay night?” his dad asked, settling in his own armchair. He sounded distracted and his eyes kept drifting over to his computer, so Shinichi didn’t take offense when the laptop was slowly opened and pulled closer to his father.

“It was alright,” Shinichi confirmed with a yawn as he slumped against the chair. “He fussed whenever he was laid flat but otherwise was good throughout the night.” He went ponderously quiet for a moment but his dad waited, typing on his laptop as Shinichi got his thoughts together. “I think Conan is developing faster than is standard.” He finally settled on saying, and his dad looked up with a raised eyebrow.

“How so?” he asked, and Shinichi elaborated.

“While he still struggles with it, I saw Conan crawl across the library to get to his toys and he pushed a ball to me that he trapped with his arms when I rolled it back.” Shinichi shrugged a little and fiddled with the book in his hands. “It’s not much yet, but I thought you should know.”

His dad hummed to himself and the tapping on the laptop became more reminiscent of thinking than of serious writing. “I see. Thank you for telling me, Shinichi. It didn’t occur to me that his progress was considered advanced; you had a very similar development pattern around this age.”

Huh. “Did I?” Shinichi asked, somewhat surprised. He hadn’t known that Conan was developing at the same pace he had been.

His dad hummed in agreement, and his typing resumed. “He should begin to add context to his sounds soon, figuring out what words are used for what situations. Then the real challenge begins.” His dad grinned at him as Shinichi groaned and slumped more into his chair at the thought.

“Don’t say that,” he complained. “I already feel like this is a huge challenge, I don’t need to know it’ll get worse.”

His dad continued to laugh as he worked on his book and Shinichi grumbled to himself, and they remained mostly quiet for half an hour before his dad closed his laptop with a content sigh and looked over at him. “You know we appreciate everything you’re doing to help us with Conan, right Shinichi?” He asked. “You’ve been a huge help.”

Shinichi felt his face redden at the praise and looked at one of the shelves nowhere near his dad. “I know,” he admitted, and jumped a little as a hand rested on his head. He looked up at his dad and quirked a tiny smile back. “I’m glad to help.”

His dad nodded in gratitude and the two left the library so they could sleep through the remainder of the night.

It was around two in the morning, as Shinichi slept and his mind worked to file away everything that’d happened that day as “useless, dump it” or “important, archive it” that his little brother’s cries woke him up, groaning as he picked himself up at the genuine distress he registered in Conan’s voice. He made his way to his parents’ bedroom and found his mom sitting in the chair by the crib and trying to sooth Conan, but the baby wasn’t having it.

His mom sighed and looked up to see him at the doorway with his eyes barely open. She smiled a little and beckoned him in. “Sorry, Shin-chan, did he wake you?” Conan screamed louder as she rocked him and she winced.

Shinichi hummed a vague sound to indicate “yes, but it’s fine” before looking at his miserable little brother and holding his arms out. His mom looked grateful as she passed Conan over and went to the bathroom to get water and wake herself up. Shinichi took the chair she’d just vacated, yawned wide enough that his jaw cracked and closed his eyes as he adjusted Conan so that he was sitting up leaning against Shinichi’s chest. Immediately the cries began to quiet, still present but softer as whatever was upsetting Conan went away. The baby hiccupped miserably and flailed his head a little, hitting Shinichi in the chest but not enough to hurt.

Their mom came back then, bathrobe thrown over her sleeping gown to protect her from the cold and rubbing tiredly underneath her eye. She looked surprised as she took them in. “He’s done crying?”

“I guess,” Shinichi mumbled, barely awake.

“Shin-chan,” his mom started, and he cracked an eye open to see her watching him closely. “Did you know he’d stop crying if he was upright?”

“Sort of?” He answered. He hadn’t really thought about it, but he’d still sat him up when he was upset. “When I took him from Dad before you guys went out to eat he was upset but was better when he rested his head on my shoulder, and he got upset whenever he laid flat, so I just thought…” It was just pattern recognition, Shinichi had figured, but his mom looked contemplative and worried. She went to the bed and nudged his dad.

Who promptly groaned and rolled over.

Shinichi and his mom locked eyes before rolling them in unison and looking at his dad again. “Yu-chan,” his mom called, but his dad just groaned louder and tried to shove his head under his pillow. She looked unimpressed. “Yu-chan!”

Shinichi’s dad finally sat up, groaning into his fist as he cracked open his bleary eyes to look at her. Whatever he saw was enough to wake him up because his eyes fully snapped open and he gave her his full attention. “What is it Yukiko?”

“I think Conan has an ear infection,” she told him, and in the armchair Shinichi froze, suddenly wide awake as his arms tightened around his brother for a second.

The chapter he’d read on ear infections came back to him then, and the older child chastised himself as he realized that some of the symptoms he’d read were definitely noticeable if you strung all of the times Conan was upset when lying down together. All of the instances played in front of his eyes like a movie Shinichi never wanted to see again.

His shoulders hunched forward.

“I see,” was all his dad said at first, looking at the clock on the bedside table and sighing at what he saw. “It’s too late to take him in, and it doesn’t warrant an emergency,” he said after rubbing his hand over his face, and for a second Shinichi wanted to yell at his dad. Of course this was an emergency! If it went untreated too long – he took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He’d had this infection for a little under two weeks, he rationalized. It shouldn’t do permanent damage in a matter of hours. “We’ll take him in first thing in the morning,” his dad continued, and Shinichi made himself nod, the baby in his arms oblivious to the motion as he’d fallen asleep leaning against Shinichi’s chest.

Shinichi hated the ice he felt growing there.

Chapter Text

Shinichi wasn’t leaving the library.

Yuusaku leaned against the doorframe, watching his eldest flip through one of the child development books with a forced calm. Conan was asleep in his crib despite his ear infection making him fussy, the doctor’s visit taking a lot out of him. Yukiko was also sleeping in the bedroom, trying to make up the hours of sleep she lost the night before in worry.

Which was what Shinichi should have been doing at the moment, Yuusaku considered – from the shadows under his eyes Yuusaku doubted his son had slept more than three hours last night. So he pushed away from the doorjamb and walked into the library. Shinichi didn’t even twitch, which brought a reluctant smile to the author’s face. Even as tired as he was Shinichi wasn’t going to miss his dad lurking in the doorway for fifteen minutes. “Shinichi.”

A page turned. “Dad.”

His son sounded…hollow, and Yuusaku sighed and knelt down to Shinichi’s level. “What’s wrong?” He asked; there was no point in beating around the bush, and Yuusaku knew Shinichi didn’t care for such tactics anyway.

His son’s head dropped a little, as if trying to hide his eyes before he realized Yuusaku’s position made that near impossible and lifted it again to stare over his shoulder. “I…” his brows furrowed as he tried to put his distress into words, mouth forming shapes that Yuusaku couldn’t decipher beyond “thinking”. “I should have noticed,” he settled on saying, and his shoulders hunched up around his ears while Yuusaku’s eyebrows flew up.

“Why should you have noticed?” He asked. This sounded like it needed more than just a blanket “it’s not your fault” for Shinichi to take it with even a small amount of sincerity.

His son’s eyes shut like he was in pain. “I noticed he was upset whenever he was horizontal and wasn’t clear enough when telling you. I was reading about illnesses earlier that day. I should’ve put the pieces together.” He curled up into himself even more, and the book in his lap was closed as it fell out of Shinichi’s lap. “How can I watch over him if I can’t tell when he’s sick?”

Yuusaku let out a breath and rested a hand on his son’s shoulder. “Shinichi, look at me,” he said, and repeated it when Shinichi just let out a negative sound and didn’t move. After a minute of hesitation the child finally uncurled enough that a blue eye appeared and locked onto him as he’d asked. He gave him a little smile. “Shinichi, you had read about ear infections that day; it didn’t occur to you to line up symptoms you’d been observing for several days to a condition you’d only just found out about. And that’s perfectly reasonable.”

Shinichi made a noise of denial but Yuusaku spoke over it. “You were quite clear when you told me Conan was upset whenever he laid flat and, like you, I assumed that he was simply upset as all babies can get without a clear reason.” He gripped his son’s shoulder as he tried to drive his point home. “This is not your fault, Shinichi. You trusted us to spot when something was wrong and told us anything you thought was of note and it took us a while, but we did spot that he had an infection. And now you’ll be more aware the next time something like this comes up.”

“I guess.” Shinichi looked a little better with his father’s reassurances, so Yuusaku smiled and tugged him out of his chair.

“Good. Let’s get you to bed then. You barely slept at all last night, don’t bother denying it.” Shinichi had been about to protest and snapped his mouth shut sullenly before allowing himself to be led through the house.

When they walked past Shinichi’s room he heard his son hum a little before grumbling, “I’m not a little kid anymore,” but he didn’t fight him as they came to a stop in front of his and Yukiko’s room.

“You are not,” Yuusaku confirmed, “but I thought you would want to be near Conan right now.” And act as Yukiko’s teddy bear while she was stressed out, he didn’t add as his son eyed him skeptically but agreed with his logic.

And so they entered, Shinichi quickly making his way to Conan’s crib to see how he was doing while Yuusaku checked that his wife was still sleeping. He breathed out a soft sigh of relief that she was indeed asleep and not just pretending to make him feel better, before looking at Shinichi.

He looked more at peace now, watching Conan with a tiny smile on his face. Yuusaku watched as his son wedged a hand through the crib bars and touched his youngest’s hands, which quickly latched onto the appendage and tried to bring it closer to himself. He smiled and got from the bed to herd Shinichi closer to it, and touched his shoulder to tell him as much.

Turning to look at him, Shinichi nodded in understanding and withdrew from the crib, shushing Conan as he started to fuss at the loss of Shinichi’s finger. He was out the moment his head hit the pillow, and Yuusaku watched Yukiko murmur and shift to cling to her eldest son. Her eyes cracked open for a moment and the two shared a smile before she too fell back asleep.

Shinichi yawned and leaned on Ran as she tugged him away from yet another telephone pole. “Are you…are you aiming at them?” She asked, bemused. Every time Shinichi was exhausted it looked like he was trying to walk into the poles on purpose. It confused Ran, honestly.

Sonoko laughed on her other side. “Wouldn’t be the weirdest thing about Shinichi-kun,” she joked, and he grunted back in vague, annoyed acknowledgement to her words.

For some reason that seemed to bring the other two short, and Shinichi continued on for a few more meters in a daze before pausing and turning to look at them, only to find them staring back at him. He cocked his head to the side. “What?”

“You…you agreed with Sonoko,” Ran told him, and Shinichi hummed and thought about the last few minutes.

“Running into telephone poles when I’m tired wouldn’t be the weirdest thing about me,” he confirmed after a moment. “Last I checked with either of you that was my ability to find dead bodies when I’m by myself.” Not that they liked thinking about that, Shinichi admitted. His friend (and Sonoko) had been quite upset when they’d found out his dad had started taking him to crime scenes a few years ago, and so didn’t bring it up unless to tease him about his newfound habit of wandering into crime scenes on accident.

Ran made a face at him while Sonoko continued to simply stare, looking…concerned? Before she went back to rolling her eyes at him. “And like usual, he ruins the mood.” She grabbed Ran’s arm and tugged her back into walking. When they caught up with him Sonoko pulled him to walk in between them. “There; now we won’t let you run into any poles,” she said, and Shinichi couldn’t help the small bit of affection he felt at those words.

“Thanks,” he mumbled back, and his head listed a little onto Ran’s shoulder once more. The rest of the walk was spent with Sonoko and Ran talking quietly around Shinichi.

Three Months Later

“You’re sure your parents won’t mind us coming over to work on our homework?” Ran asked skeptically. She, Sonoko, and Shinichi had decided to get together to work and, when they were trying to figure out whose house to go to, Shinichi made a strange face and said they could use his place.

It was out of character of Shinichi to invite them to his home; usually his mother had to twist his arm or invite them directly there to get him to not scowl at the mere thought of them in his house, for some strange reason. Ran had her suspicions, and they mostly boiled down to the echoing emptiness whenever his parents weren’t home and the manila folders he hid from sight whenever they went into the library that were normally scattered around the room from the look of things.

“It should be fine,” Shinichi said with a shrug. “Besides, they wanted me to keep an eye on Conan for a bit, and wanted me to get home as soon as possible. This is just…that English phrase…two birds with one stone.”

Ran perked up at that, and some of her hesitation evaporated. “We can see Conan-chan? What are we waiting for then?!” She grabbed Shinichi’s arm and started running to his house, Sonoko next to her while Shinichi yelped and demanded they let him go, he could run just fine without their help.

Ran hadn’t seen Conan in weeks, not since she and her mom went over to pick up Shinichi’s mom to go clothes shopping, and even then she’d only had a moment to say hi to the confused baby in the equally confused Shinichi’s arms. She was looking forward to seeing the little one again.

When they came to a stop outside of Shinichi’s house Sonoko leaned over and starting panting for air, and even Ran was feeling a bit out of breath from the constant speed they’d maintained. Shinichi just looked annoyed, and Ran stared at him as he opened the gate in confusion before remembering that Shinichi was actually used to running for a long stretch of time due to his soccer training.

They made it to the mansion once Ran and Sonoko got their breath back, and Shinichi had barely opened the door before a tiny form stumbled into his leg and latched on. “Shi!”

Ran couldn’t help the startled laugh the appellation caused, but stopped to coo as Shinichi bent down and scooped his little brother up into his arms, hoisting him into the air with a small smile. “Hey Conan,” he greeted, and Conan shrieked in joy and wiggled in his grasp before cuddling closer when Shinichi lowered him into a hug. Then the older of the two boys looked over at them and gestured with his head that they should all move deeper into the house.

As they moved Shinichi adjusted Conan so that he was propped on his hip, and called out, “I’m home!” into the house.

They had just made it to the library when they heard Shinichi’s mom call out a “Welcome home!” followed by a pause, then an embarrassed, “Have you seen Conan-chan?”

“He found me, Mom!” Shinichi confirmed as he opened the door to the library and started gesturing them in, and Ran laughed a little when she heard the sound of feet running towards them, ignoring the uneasy feeling their conversation inspired in her.

Shinichi’s mom swept into the library a minute later, looking as gorgeous as ever and smiling at all of them bright enough to light up the entire room. “Oh! Hello girls,” she beamed at Ran and Sonoko, and Ran couldn’t help but smile brightly back. “Are you guys here to work on homework?”

“Yup!” Sonoko grinned at her, before pointing at Shinichi off-handed manner that immediately had him scowling back. “This detective geek said we should work at his place because you need someone to watch Conan-chan. Though why you trust him with a baby is beyond me,” she laughed good-naturedly, but Ran saw the way Shinichi sighed and adjusted Conan to be more comfortable, not trying to argue.

Shinichi’s mom smiled at them, unbothered by the teasing her eldest was receiving. “Shin-chan’s actually great with Conan-chan. We once had Agasa-hakase try to watch over him and Hakase called us back not even an hour later, saying Conan-chan was completely inconsolable and hadn’t stopped crying for half an hour! He’s never near that fussy with Shin-chan.”

“Really?” Sonoko voiced her and Ran’s collective surprise at that, and Shinichi’s mom winked back.

“Really. If he keeps this way with children I just know my Shin-chan will make a great father for my future grandchildren.”

Ran blushed a little at that, as she normally did whenever Shinichi’s mom brought such matters up but, when she peeked over at Shinichi himself, he just rolled his eyes at his mom and ignored her to walk over to one of the nearby shelves, where Conan looked at them with a surprising intensity before tapping one of the books on the spine. Shinichi plucked the selected book off the shelf and carried it and Conan back over to the group. “If you’re done,” he started, and didn’t bother batting an eye at the exaggerated pout his mom sent back, “I have Conan and Dad will likely be home any second now. What time do you think you’ll be home?”

Shinichi’s mom hummed to herself as she thought, and Ran tugged Sonoko more into the library so that they could start to set up their working space. “We’re just going to see a friend in Ekoda, so we’ll probably be home around eight or so,” Shinichi’s mom told him, and Shinichi gave another small sigh.

Ran paused from where she’d been withdrawing her homework, and looked over at her only male friend. He looked…unimpressed, she decided, but he didn’t say anything on the matter. “Leftovers in the fridge?” he asked, and his mom looked surprised, and then immediately regretful.

“I’m sorry, Shin-chan, I don’t think we do actually! We haven’t been eating at home for so long–”

“It’s fine,” he cut her off, not sounding particularly bothered. “I can order takeout. There’s a place nearby with our card on file, right?”

Ran relaxed as their conversation went back to its normal rhythm, his mom trying to rile him up and Shinichi remaining staunchly unmoved, and went back to helping Sonoko with an apologetic look to her confused glance. “Sorry,” she mouthed. “Was listening to them,” she tilted her head to the mother and son, and Sonoko sent her an understanding nod back.

When they finished setting up their homework the two girls looked up to see Shinichi giving his mom a hug and his mom waving at them. “I’ll see you girls another day! Don’t stay too long!”

“We won’t!” Sonoko and Ran called out as one, and Shinichi’s mom gave them a smile and headed out.

“Bye-bye!” Conan called, waving one of his tiny arms awkwardly at her departing back, and Ran blinked a little in surprise.

When Shinichi settled down next to them, carefully putting Conan on the ground first, Ran pounced before he could get his homework out. “Conan-chan already knows words?” She asked, and Shinichi gave her a startled look.

“Some,” he admitted. “At this point he knows bye-bye, no, and fragments of sounds. He’ll start refining them as he gets older.”

“Should he be able to do even that already? I thought most children had to be older than one before they started understanding context of sounds,” Sonoko asked, and Ran took in the low-level confusion Shinichi was sporting with some confusion of her own.

“Actually at this age most children know fragments and intonation, but I think he might be a bit ahead in regards to context.” He rested his chin on a hand for a moment before looking up again. “Dad did tell me he’d start understanding context earlier than usual, though. While Conan might be developing faster than most children, Dad said I was similar at his age.” He shrugged. “So long as they know how to handle Conan’s development, I’m not too bothered.”

Before Ran or Sonoko could continue to ask him about it Conan chimed in with a “Shi!” and holding up the book he’d been given when Shinichi looked at him.

“One chapter,” Shinichi told him, and Ran watched as Shinichi took the book and started reading from it, Conan making himself comfortable in Shinichi’s lap and looking at the words and following Shinichi’s finger as he dragged it across the words he was reading.

The scene was oddly…cozy. Ran would admit that, as a ten year old and single child, none of them really thought about things like reading to younger children and entertaining them while also teaching them, the way Shinichi was doing now. She suddenly understood what Shinichi’s mom was talking about when she said Shinichi would make a good father if he was already this relaxed with Conan.

It was a strange thought.

When Shinichi came to the end of the chapter he put in a bookmark and closed it, and Conan protested with a petulant, “No,” but wandered over to some toys when Shinichi just looked at him, said “Yes”, and put the book on the ground next to him. Then Shinichi looked back at them, nervous. “Sorry about that,” he said, but Sonoko scoffed and waved him off.

“You have a brother now, it’s fine. Just don’t talk our ears off about Holmes or murder and I don’t care.” She lifted her workbook and pointed at a problem. “Is this the answer you got?”

Ran woke up from her stupor and got her own booklet, flipping to the page Sonoko was on and furrowing her brow. “I didn’t. Did you follow the order of operations correctly?”

And so the three worked on their homework, Shinichi only ever pausing to check on Conan, who would wander around but never made moves to leave the library altogether.

When they finally finished their homework they spent some time talking, Ran and Sonoko doing most of the work while Conan immediately demanded Shinichi’s attention and fussed if he tried to leave Conan with any of his toys. “It’s so weird to see the detective geek be anything but his normal nerdy self,” Sonoko said after a lull in the conversation, and Ran abruptly realized they’d both started watching the two brothers play.

“How do you mean?” Ran asked, and Sonoko gestured a little with her hands, as if presenting something.

“Look at them! Before today I wouldn’t have trusted Shinichi-kun with a grocery list in a store and expected him to have gotten everything that was written down. But he’s so responsible with Conan-chan, it’s crazy!” She grew silent for a moment, clearly thinking about something, and her hand rose up to cup her chin. Ran had to stifle a laugh at the motion; Sonoko and Shinichi hated whenever someone pointed out they were picking up and using one another’s gestures. “Do you think that’s why he’s so irresponsible around us? Because he has to be so mature around Conan-chan?” The blonde asked, and Ran startled a little at the thought.

“Maybe,” she answered back, and bit her lip in thought. It had never occurred to her that Shinichi’s gradual shift from constantly serious to something more teasing and good humored might have been because he has to be the responsible big brother whenever he went home. “It would make a lot of sense,” she agreed, and Sonoko looked triumphant.

Whatever else they might have said was interrupted by the clock, chiming to announce that it was now six o’clock. Shinichi stood, Conan propped on his hip, and gave a quick stretch. “I probably need to send you guys out now,” he told them, and his eyes flickered down for a moment. “And think about what I’m ordering for dinner,” he added.

“No problem,” Sonoko said, and together the two girls started heading to the front, Shinichi following behind. “Invite us over more often, I want your mom to take us on a shopping trip.”

“She’ll be happy to hear it,” Shinichi told her, voice dry, and on his hip Conan giggled at his brother’s tone.

Then they were at the door, and before Ran forgot, she quickly said, “Shinichi,” and stopped him from closing the door.

The boy looked curious. “What is it, Ran?”

“If…if you need to learn how to cook, I’d be happy to teach you some stuff,” she told him and, at the rare surprise on his face, elaborated. “I’ve started teaching myself since Dad and I have only been eating take out and store bento since Mom left, and if you think it’ll help when your parents get too busy…” she trailed off, not sure what else she could say, but Shinichi was smiling in understanding.

“That would be really useful, thank you Ran,” he said. “Let me know when we can start, I’ll bring the extra ingredients.”

She gave back a strangled, “sure,” before abruptly turning and walking off, Sonoko’s arm hooked in hers to pull the giggling blonde with her. “Don’t think you’re getting away with laughing at me,” she told her friend. “You’ll be joining us.”

That sobered Sonoko quickly. “What.”

Chapter Text

Two Months Later

When Yukiko woke that morning, she had a feeling that it was going to be a good day. And not just because it was both of her sons’ birthdays!

At the thought she curled her arms more securely around her youngest, hearing him babble softly at the movement, and smiled into the pillow as he skootched closer to her in response.

Her movement also caused the arms wrapped around her to tighten as well, and she giggled a little as Yuusaku sleepily kissed her on the neck. “Good morning,” she told him, and he made a groggy sound back.

“Is it?” he asked, burying his face into her hair.

She giggled again and loosened one arm from around Conan to elbow Yuusaku gently in the ribs. “It is,” she confirmed. “Now come on, it’s a Saturday and a rather important one at that.”

Yukiko relished the way her husband froze at those words, clearly thinking about any important dates from the oldest to the most recent, before sighing and relaxing again. “Right, Shinichi and Conan’s birthdays,” he mumbled, and Yukiko laughed both at the relief in his voice at figuring out the occasion and the way his fingers curled vindictively into her sides.

“Sorry, sorry, I couldn’t resist,” she said, barely able to catch her breath as he continued to tickle her. “Yu-chan, stop!” She protested, and he hummed like he was contemplating it, fingers poised like claws over her stomach.

“I’m thinking…no.” And the assault to her sides continued, her desperately muffling her laughter and him chuckling as she tried to get away without jostling Conan.

After a few minutes she was gasping for air on Yuusaku’s chest and he still laughing quietly, the vibration shaking Yukiko. She’d just gotten her breath back when Conan made a small noise, not loud enough to be upset but an indicator that he was awake, and they both shared a small smile before getting up and starting the day.

As Yukiko finished brushing out her hair and throwing it into a low ponytail Conan made another noise, this time more distinguishable. “Shi!” He called out, and as she peeked through the doorway to her youngest, he started trying to look around the room. “Shi!”

“We’ll go get Shin-chan in a second, Conan-chan,” she assured him, and he looked at her, gaze surprisingly sharp for a now-one year old, before beginning to sit up. He didn’t say anything else, and Yukiko went back to her routine while Yuusaku moved around her, two parts of a clock in perfect harmony. They finished in minutes and she swooped down to pluck her youngest into her arms, smiling as he prodded at her top in fascination. “Let’s go wake Shin-chan, ne?” She stage-whispered to Conan, and smiled when he squealed back in excitement while Yuusaku rolled his eyes next to her.

It was fun to sneak over to Shinichi’s room, doing her best to keep quiet as she opened the door and take in the peaceful expression he so rarely wore when he wasn’t sleeping. Her son was always thinking, Yukiko knew, but that left him with little to be peaceful about, to her regret. He was so adorable when he was relaxed; she just wished more people knew that.

She also took joy in utterly demolishing that peaceful look as she passed Conan to Yuusaku and pounced on her eldest, cuddling him as he woke up with a confused sound and tried to free himself from her grasp. “Mom, why,” he groaned as he attempted to bury his head under his pillow and Yukiko pulled him back.

“Happy birthday Shin-chan!” She chirped.

“Is it?” he asked, and at the doorway Yuusaku laughed at hearing his own words that morning echoed by his son.

“It is,” he said this time, and walked up to the bed to ruffle Shinichi’s hair and deposit Conan on top of him.

“Shi!” The baby cried, tiny arms trying to wrap around his big brother. “Morn!”

As close as they were standing, Yukiko knew she wasn’t the only one to see how Shinichi’s eyes opened immediately and locked onto Conan at the sound of his voice, nor did she miss the tiny grin that formed at the incomplete greeting. “Morning, Conan,” Shinichi said back, syllables slowed and slightly separate for Conan to better pick apart, before pulling him into his arms for a quick hug. “Happy birthday, kiddo.”

After that it was far easier to get Shinichi out of the bed and dressed – and she thanked small mercies for that, because if they’d walked out of that room without Shinichi, Yukiko suspected that Conan would have protest loudly – and soon they were all down in the kitchen, eating breakfast and talking about what they wanted to do for the two boys’ birthdays. “Well, we have to do the Hatsu Tanjo and Erabitori, right?” Shinichi asked, not looking up from his book as Conan waved his arms around with one of Shinichi’s chopsticks in a clenched fist and babbled at his older brother.

Yukiko pouted at Shinichi and snatched the book out of his hand, putting it between her and Yuusaku for safe keeping as Shinichi shot her an unimpressed look. “We can do the Hatsu Tanjo at any time,” she told him with a wave of her hand. “In fact we were planning to do it after breakfast. Then we can jump right in to the Erabitori, and then a Western style party.” She grinned at Shinichi, who rolled his eyes at her but had a quiet, content smile on his face.

Then his eyes crinkled like hers did whenever she saw something funny and had to be polite about how amused she looked and Yukiko turned to see that Yuusaku had picked up the book she’d put between them and had begun reading it himself, and felt her eyebrow twitch as she gently lowered her hand on top of his free one and twined their fingers together. She immediately had his full attention. “Yu-chan,” she started, voice sugar-sweet. “Put the book away, okay?”

Yuusaku sighed but closed the book and pushed it aside, bringing the hand she’d put in his up to kiss gently on the knuckles in apology, and just like that she fell in love with this man all over again. She turned back to see Shinichi looking disgusted and gently plucking his chopstick out of Conan’s hand to continue eating. The baby didn’t notice, too busy staring at the book Yuusaku put down and trying to grab at it. She let out a tiny huff, amusement and exasperation warring in her.

Honestly, like father like sons.

After breakfast it was easy to set up for the Hatsu Tanjo and soon Conan was walking with the rice cake in a bag on his back, grunting a little but not struggling to walk much, which made sense. He’d been running around for a month and a half already.

So Yukiko shoved a camera into Shinichi’s arms and joined Yuusaku in gently pushing Conan so that he could adjust and adapt to stumbling. The one year old grumbled but shifted his weight and continued walking with little issue. She cheered for Conan when they finished and Yuusaku smiled and ruffled Conan’s hair before they went on directly to the Erabitori.

Conan looked rather bored as he stared at the items he could choose from before looking at an amused Shinichi. He started walking over to the older boy but Yukiko giggled and turned him back toward the items on the ground. “You can’t go to Shin-chan until you choose your future, Conan-chan,” she teased, and the baby picked up enough of what she was saying to give a dissatisfied huff before examining the items more intently. He looked at all of them carefully, becoming fascinated with the small soccer ball but never touching it, and eventually put a tentative hand on the dictionary and attempted to open it.

Yukiko groaned while, next to her, her husband laughed a little and rubbed her shoulder in consolation. Shinichi snorted at them and took Conan into his arms when the baby ran over after shooting their parents a quick look to see if they’d stop him. “Look on the bright side, dear,” Yuusaku said, “at least he wasn’t as picky as Shinichi had been.”

Yukiko pouted and crossed her arms. “I guess,” she conceded. Though, honestly, it had been rather adorable to see Shinichi look at all of the items, frown, and go pick up a magnifying glass that had fallen off of Yuusaku’s desk when they weren’t paying attention. Both of them admitted later that night that neither of them had seen that coming. She then clapped her hands together to get the two boys’ attention and break herself out of her thoughts.

“Alright, I’ll let you go relax for an hour,” she told Shinichi, whose face twisted between relief and apprehension. “Then we’ll be having a Western style party. A few people will be showing up – Ran-chan and her parents, Agasa-hakase, and Sonoko-chan to name a few – and we’ll have activities to celebrate both of your birthdays.”

Her eldest child’s face twitched again, but this time the apprehension was clearer. “You know I don’t like birthday parties, Mom.”

She grinned at his resignation. “Yes, but the party is for Conan-chan, Shin-chan. Your friends were quite excited to pop by and wish him a happy birthday.” She reveled in the sheer disbelief in Shinichi’s expression before he closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and put Conan back down so that he could prepare himself for an influx of people in the house.

“No, stay,” their youngest said, tugging on Shinichi’s pants with a frown.

Shinichi looked down and gave Conan a tiny smile but gently untangled the one year old’s hand from his jeans and crouched down to better address him. “I’m just going to my chair and reading my book,” he said, gesturing a little. “Mom and Dad might want to make sure you look your best for your birthday.”

Conan seemed to understand a surprising amount of that, Yukiko noted, as he nodded a little. “Follow?”

Shinichi shook his head. “I’ll stay here, and you can join me when you come back.”

Conan hesitated for a moment before scrunching up his face a bit and giving another nod, which Yukiko took as her chance to sweep him into her arms. The baby immediately squealed at that and smiled at her, and she smiled back and carried him upstairs to change him into less formal attire.

When she came back down Shinichi had indeed curled up in the armchair nearest one of the windows with the book he’d been reading that morning in his hands. Conan began to struggle in her arms and she put him down to watch him bolt over to his older brother, who smiled and picked him up to set in his lap and started reading the book aloud for him.

She left them to their bonding to get the first year cake they’d hidden out and put some streamers up, Yuusaku stabilizing her as she got on the table to reach higher places. When she finished she heard the doorbell ring through the house and hopped off the counter, Yuusaku easily supporting her weight and gently lowering her to the ground.

As he did she snaked her arms out around his neck and giggled at the smile he shot her. Their heads bumped together and, for a moment, the world went still around Yukiko as she relaxed in her husband’s arms.

Then the doorbell rang again.

Yukiko groaned a little, irritated at having the moment ruined, but Yuusaku just laughed and stepped to her side, keeping one arm wrapped loosely around her waist. “Shin-chan, you could have gotten the door!” She yelled toward the library, only to get a confused sound in response. When they walked out to the hallway between the kitchen and the library Shinichi poked out, looking puzzled with the book in one arm and Conan in the other, Conan looking just as confused.

“Reading,” the baby told them, and Yukiko sighed in fond exasperation at her sons.

“So how did your parents convince you to celebrate your birthday?” Ran asked him after taking a bite of the cake, Sonoko looking up in curiosity beside her.

Shinichi snorted and stabbed at his own slice with far more force than was necessary. “Didn’t you hear? This party is for Conan. You guys were apparently thrilled to wish him a happy birthday today.” He looked around as he spoke his brother’s name and saw him in his mom’s arms, looking nervously at Ran’s mother.

His friends laughed at the reveal of his mom’s “great plan” and Shinichi took a bite of the cake to avoid having to talk, grimacing a little at the overly sweet taste.

Chapter Text

Three Months Later

Shinichi had just been heading to the library when his mom poked her head out of the kitchen and pouted at him. “Shin-channnnn,” she whined, and Shinichi hoped she didn’t notice the way he’d twitched at her abrupt appearance. “Come eat breakfast with us.”

“I’m not hungry,” he told her, and was about to take a step closer to the library when he saw her eyes narrowed and abruptly froze, his (dwindling, Ran would say) survival instincts telling him to stop moving.

“Then come say hello to Conan-chan and your dad,” she said faux-sweetly, and Shinichi nodded slowly without taking his eyes off of her. The dark expression lurking behind her smile cleared and she beamed at him before disappearing back into the kitchen.

When he walked in his mom had already settled back into her chair and was feeding Conan some baby food, which he ate with a tiny frown directed at her.

As he walked into the room Conan glanced at him and lit up, clapping his hands. “Shi!” He called out, and on the other side of the table his dad snorted.

Shinichi shot his dad a mild glare before affecting a look of surprise on his face and walking over to pluck a book out of his dad’s hands. “You know we can’t read while at the table. You have to be a good role model.” He shook his head in mock-disappointment at him and his dad rolled his eyes back but took the theft with good grace and went back to eating breakfast.

The eleven year old grinned before walking over to Conan and gently patting him on the head. “Morning, kiddo.”

“Morni,” Conan tried to parrot back, and Shinichi hopped onto the counter near the fridge as his mom started correcting Conan’s pronunciation and cracked open the book he’d just confiscated from his dad.

“Shin-chan…” His mom trailed off in warning, and Shinichi contemplated looking up before shrugging and continuing to read the book.

“I said hello to Conan and Dad and I’m not at the table,” he pointed out. He turned the page as she made an irritated sound at him before shooting her a wide-eyed look that he knew she didn’t believe for a second. “I’m following the rules,” he said, and she puffed out her cheeks but allowed it.

“Will you be free today, Shin-chan?” His mom instead asked, distracted again as Conan grabbed at the food and stuck his hand in the container. She deftly removed his hand but didn’t try to clean it as Conan’s face scrunched up and he shot her a petulant look.

“I should be,” he answered back absently, free hand rising up to follow the lines he was reading in case he needed to look up suddenly. He’d been planning to hang out with Ran and Sonoko, and likely dragged into shopping with them, but they hadn’t hammered out anything concrete. “Why?”

“We need someone to watch Conan-chan; Yu-chan and I have reservations.”

Well there went his day. He started planning out the email he’d be sending Ran even as he nodded to his mom’s implied request. “Sure, I can keep an eye on him.” Shinichi felt a tug of curiosity and was about to ask about the occasion before he paused. He glanced over at his dad, who didn’t look up from his food, then over at his mom. He felt his neutral face melt into a tiny smile, and looked back down at his book. “Have fun at your anniversary dinner,” he told them, and used the book to hide how his face reddened as they both made pleased sounds at him, though for entirely different reasons.

“What gave it away?” His dad asked, looking up and leaning forward on the table.

“You guys always do some big gesture for your anniversary,” Shinichi reminded them. “Two years ago you went on a week-long cruise in the Caimans,” and left him home alone with Agasa as his go-to adult for that week. He learned a surprising amount about engineering while working as Agasa’s gopher. “The year before that you guys told me you owned a house in Hawaii and took me there.” And then left him to his own devices while they were doing who knew what. He ended up cataloging all of the different creatures that lived in the nearby tide pools and snorkeling for most of it. “Last year you made a soundproofed secret room in the library and kept it off the blueprints for when you want to relax.” And needed a quick get away from Dad’s editors.

“What’s the plan this time?” He asked, breaking himself out of his own thoughts, and his mom squealed and immediately jumped to tell him everything like she’d been waiting for him to figure it out.

“We’re going to go see a play!” she cheered, clapping her hands in delight and cooing briefly as Conan did the same out of curiosity. “Yu-chan won’t tell me which one, but he says we haven’t seen it before. I’m so excited! After that we’re going to dinner and then we’ll be back home!”

Shinichi blinked and looked up in surprise at his parents, propping his chin up on one hand. “Wow. All of that and the room you got remodeled?” Sounds like them, if Shinichi were to be honest. The year before had genuinely been tame in comparison to most of their Grand Gestures of Affection.

“Yep! And you should look at the new room when you can, Shin-chan; we’re thinking of using it as the new playroom for Conan-chan so that your dad doesn’t have to hide things in the library when Conan-chan reaches shelf-height.”

“I’ll take a look while you guys are at the theater,” he promised half-heartedly, his interest slowly being lost to the book in his possession. The next few minutes were spent in silence, which probably should have been the warning he needed. Alas, it had not been and so he gave a strangled sound and nearly jumped off the counter in surprise when Conan was dropped unceremoniously in his lap and the book was snatched out of his hands.

“Shi!” His brother cheered and, before Shinichi could do anything to stop him, patted Shinichi’s face. With his baby food-covered hand.

Shinichi made another sound, this one much more despairing, and gently moved Conan’s hand away from his face. “Let’s clean your hands before you do that again, okay?”

“Okay,” Conan parroted back, before gripping Shinichi’s shirt instead, and Shinichi grimaced a bit before looking up and shooting his amused mother a glare. Which then turned into a look of horror as he registered the camera in her hands.

“Smile~” His mom drew out, before snapping a few pictures at them. If Shinichi had to guess one of them might have him smiling, the others were likely pictures of his horror, surprise, or indignation. His mother found too much joy in messing with him to not have done that.

After he shot a glance at his dad – and yep, there was the book that had disappeared from his hands – he made a few irritated sounds in his mom’s direction and tried to hand Conan back, only for his mom to dance away from his hands.

“Sorry, Shin-chan, but I have to go get ready for the play,” she chirped out, giving him a smile before leaving the room to head to her changing room. Before she got too far – and Shinichi could hand Conan off to his dad – she also called out, “Yu-chan, I need your opinion on what dress I should wear!”

His dad got up with an amused smile and tucked the book under his arm, patting Shinichi and Conan on the head before heading out of the room himself and leaving Shinichi sitting on a counter with Conan in his arms.

He groaned and looked at the baby smiling at him and covered in mush. “Let’s get you clean,” he told his little brother and slid off the counter, trying to hide his apprehension.

Conan hated the bath at times, from what his parents had told him. While he didn’t seem to mind whenever Shinichi washed him – likely because he was too tired and Shinichi had only done it a few times – he had definitely heard him screaming loud enough to bring the house down on occasion when his parents would wash him.

When he got to the bathroom Conan tensed in his arms and stared at him warily. “Bath?” he asked, and Shinichi winced.

“You need a bath,” Shinichi agreed, and Conan squirmed a little but wasn’t upset enough to begin a full struggle for freedom.

“Why?” Conan asked, settling slightly but trying – and failing – to cross his arms over his chest.

“Because you’re covered in food and I won’t want to touch you if you keep being covered in food,” Shinichi tried to explain, and the blink his brother sent him let him know Conan was contemplating the answer he’d been given.

“No hugs?” He asked in clarification.

“No bath, no hugs,” Shinichi confirmed, and Conan huffed at him but gave a disgruntled agreement.

After that it was fairly easy for him to get the bath running and ease Conan in, using some of the water to throw on his face and wash off the food that had been smeared there. When he looked up after wiping at his eyes he took one look at the sudden fascination on Conan’s face and felt immediate apprehension. “No – Conan – don’t –”

It was too late.

Conan shoved at the water and started splashing it at Shinichi, squealing in delight at the waves and Shinichi’s squawks every time water hit him. By the time Conan stopped it was because he was giggling too hard to coordinate his movements and half the water in the bath was gone. Shinichi sighed in fond exasperation and took off his soaked shirt, resolving to switch into new pants when had a free moment.

After that it was easy to wash Conan, now that he was in a better mood, and soon enough he was out of the bath and swaddled in a large, fluffy towel as Shinichi walked them to their parents’ room.

“Shin-chan!” His mom beamed at him as she appeared out of her walk-in closet, currently in a floor-length grey dress that shimmered in the light. She looked him over and her smile gained an amused edge as she took in his soaked pants and the towel-clad baby in his arms. “Gave Conan-chan a bath?”

“I figured I’d do it now and deal with it later if he gets messy again.” He looked around for a moment – taking in his dad lounging on the bed and reading, looking up occasionally to see if his opinion was needed before returning to his book – before his gaze landed on a drawer. “You still keep Conan’s clothes there, right?”

“Yep!” She watched him make his way over to the drawer for a moment. “By the way, Shin-chan.” When he turned to look at her she winked and gave a twirl, the hem flaring slightly at the movement. “What do you think of this one?”

He looked over the outfit and tried to dredge up some of the lessons she gave him whenever she dragged him out for new clothes. “It looks good,” he started with the obvious. The look she shot him was suitably unimpressed. “It brings more attention to your eyes and hair.” He studied the shade of the dress for a moment. “I think black accessories would look better for it than pearls. Maybe dark blue.” He gave a tiny shrug and went back to finding some clothes for Conan.

He pulled out some pants, a diaper and a shirt with a sound of victory and showed them to Conan, who puffed out his cheeks in a move alarmingly like their mother’s but gave a nod. When he turned back around his mom was humming and looking in the mirror. He snorted when his dad shot him a relieved look and started dressing Conan, who went along with it with only a mild grumble and a tightened grip on his towel.

Once Conan had been dressed Shinichi went to his own room and changed out of the soaking clothes he still had on, slipping into a pair of sweatpants since he wasn’t going to be heading out anymore. After that he looked down at Conan – who had picked up another of his shirts and was now awkwardly trying to put it on. “Want to check out that new room, kiddo?”

Conan looked up at him, Shinichi’s shirt barely hanging on him. “Yeah!” He chirped but, before they left the room, ran to the small bookcase Shinichi had in his room and pulled out one of the books there before rejoining his brother. Shinichi quirked an eyebrow but let Conan hold onto it for the time being.

They stopped by the library long enough for the eleven year old to send off an email to Ran so that she and Sonoko would know he wouldn’t be able to go out that day and he promised to make it up to them later. Anything else he was going to say was lost as Conan made an irritated sound at him and tugged on his pant leg. “Room!” He demanded, and Shinichi smiled and gestured to the doorway.

“Lead the way.”

When he walked into the new room Shinichi couldn’t help but pause and look around, actually flatfooted for the first time in a while. Next to him Conan also came to a stop, tiny hand curling around the leg of Shinichi’s pants to help keep himself stable. He looked around with wide eyes before tugging on the fabric to get Shinichi’s attention. “Pretty,” he said when Shinichi had turned to face him.

“It is very pretty,” he agreed, looking around. It appeared to be some kind of play room, the carpet plush under his bare feet and bean bags strewn around the room in place of chairs. The windows were stained glass, so all of the light filtering in was a medley of colors and shapes, and a sturdy looking chest was tucked away in the corner.

The real oddity to the room, however, was the grand piano situated in another corner near the windows. “I think Mom was torn between a real play room for you and the music room she’d always wanted, so they just…did both?” He ended the sentence as a question and scratched the back of his head. Sometimes his parents baffled even him with their logic, but he could admit that the room was very nice looking.

“Shi.” Losing interest quickly, Conan tugged on his pants again and pointed at one of the bean bags. “Read?”

“Sure,” Shinichi capitulated easily, making his way over to the bean bag in question and settling in with a small grunt as Conan immediately crawled into his lap and shoved the book he’d been clutching into Shinichi’s hands.

Shinichi took a glance at the book and grinned, ruffling Conan’s hair gently. “The Sign of Four? Good choice.”

“Pretty,” Conan said, patting the cover and then Shinichi. The eleven year old, having figured out a while ago that “pretty” meant “I like it” to Conan, guessed that he was trying to say that he either liked it because Shinichi liked it, or because he liked Shinichi reading it. Shinichi wondered which was better as he cracked the book open and started reading it to his little brother, giving all of the characters different voices like he’d seen his mom do and he’d started doing recently.

He only stopped once to wave at his parents when they poked their heads in to tell him they were leaving, his mom wearing the grey dress she’d asked his thoughts on, and then picked back up immediately once they’d left.

Conan stayed awake for a good deal of the book before his eyes started growing heavy and he curled up more in his spot. He was asleep in another three pages and Shinichi quietly bookmarked where they’d stopped and read ahead a few more chapters as his brother napped on him.

The rest of the night continued in relative peace.

Chapter Text

Seven Months Later

“Shinichi!” Ran called out, finger pressed to the intercom at the gate to his house. Next to her Sonoko tapped her finger against her elbow in impatience. “Shinichi! Are you awake?”

There was a pause, before the intercom crackled. “Ran? Yeah, I’m awake. Come on in.”

Ran sighed and opened the gate, Sonoko behind her as she began to head to the front door. “Honestly, he would sleep through the apocalypse if people would let him.”

“That or he’ll stay up so late reading mystery novels he’ll be the first one to see the apocalypse start,” Sonoko pointed out with derision, and Ran couldn’t argue with that.

When they finally got to the front door Ran barely had to knock before the door opened and Shinichi peeked his head out, opening it more once he saw it was them. He looked…surprisingly put together, Ran noticed, for someone who sounded like he’d only just woken up when talking on the intercom. His clothes were wrinkled and hair a bit messy but not much else looked out of place. In his arms was a beaming Conan. Ran beamed back. “Good morning, Shinichi, Conan-kun.”

“Good morning!” Conan chirped back, detangling one of hands from Shinichi’s shirt to wave at them, to Ran’s delight. Conan then returned his hand to Shinichi’s shirt and tugged on it to get his brother’s attention. “Breakfast now?” he asked, and Shinichi smiled.

“Breakfast now,” the older boy confirmed. He then turned to them, his smile growing to the small grin he tended to get around them, and jerked his head. “Come on in, I’ll make you guys something if you’d like.”

“Oh, no, I already ate, I should be fine,” Ran told him, waving her hand dismissively as she came in and took off her shoes for the house slippers.

Sonoko on the other hand, switched into the slippers and started shoving Shinichi to the kitchen. “Some food and hot chocolate sounds great!”

“Oi oi, no need to push. And who said anything about hot chocolate?” he grumbled back, shooting her an annoyed glance but not bothering to struggle away from the manhandling. Ran followed behind with a hand over her mouth to try and hide the amused smile there.

Eating with the brothers was, like it usually tended to be, a cozy affair. Shinichi cooked a simple breakfast for himself and Sonoko and retrieved a cup of yogurt for Conan to eat while Ran and Sonoko entertained the one year old at the table. After he put down the food items, he went to retrieve two mugs of hot chocolate and put one down in front of Sonoko and the other in front of Ran with a quiet clink.

“Are your parents just sleeping in today?” Ran asked after giving him a small smile in thanks. They liked to do that on the weekends, she’d noticed, though that may be due to the lack of sleep they accumulated during the rest of the week from Conan waking them up early.

“They already left for the day,” Shinichi told them, setting a plate down in front of Sonoko – who gave him her normal dismissive hand flick which he rolled his eyes at – and then sitting with his own plate in hand. He took a bite of his food before giving a tiny amused smile as Conan made grabby hands at his toast. He tore off a piece and handed it over while the two girls watched idly. “Something about going on a sweets tour? They said they’d be home for dinner.”

Ran was taking a sip of the hot chocolate and winced a little at both the burn and his words. “So you can’t come out with us?” She asked, and Sonoko groaned and dropped her head.

“Again?” She complained at him, and he took a bite of food to avoid answering, staring back in the face of her aggravation. She propped her chin on a hand and glanced at the yellow roses sitting in the table vase as she grumbled a little. “If you didn’t actually have a good eye for color I would have stopped inviting you to these years ago.”

“No you wouldn’t have,” he countered with a smirk, leaning back a little in his chair as he threw a piece of bread into his own mouth. “I’d still be a decent pack mule.”

“At least you’d know why you were there,” she agreed, giving him the point and taking a bite of her own food as Ran giggled. “But seriously, you can’t make it today?”

“Actually Mom and Dad said it was fine if I took Conan out with us.” He grinned as he took in their stunned faces. “What? Mom takes him out a ton, and we’ve gone out before as a family. I guess they decided Conan was finally old – and coordinated – enough to allow out with a bunch of adolescents.”

“Awesome!” Sonoko said, drinking the rest of the hot chocolate she had left and standing up. “Hurry up, detective geek! We already lost daylight waiting for you!”

“Yeah, yeah,” Shinichi mumbled around the food in his mouth. He flapped his hand at her and ignored the huff she gave back. Once he had finished he stood up and started collecting the plates before Ran stood and tugged them gently out of his hands.

“I’ll put these in the sink. You need to get Conan’s shoes and jacket, right?”

Shinichi started like he’d completely forgotten. “Yeah, thanks for reminding me. I’ll be right back.”

A few minutes later they were out the door and walking to the mall, Conan perched on Shinichi’s shoulders and looking around curiously. As they walked Ran kept up conversation with Sonoko with Shinichi looking around and jumping in every so often with his own thoughts. At one point they passed a tree and Conan tugged gently on Shinichi hair. “Brother!”

“Eh? What’s up Conan?” Shinichi gently maneuvered him so that the toddler was propped on Shinichi’s hip as Ran and Sonoko looked at the baby only to see him pointing up at the tree.

“What’s that?” He asked, and Ran turned to follow his finger.

“A bird?”

“No…” The baby’s hand moved to rest over his mouth and Ran had to cough to avoid laughing at just how Shinichi the action was. Then again, Shinichi picked it up from his mom, so. “On bird.”

“On bird?” Sonoko asked, and she and Ran exchanged confused looks.

“The feathers?” Shinichi suggested, and Conan whipped around to stare at him.

“Say word again,” he demanded, and Shinichi grinned.

“Feathers,” he repeated slowly.

“Faers,” Conan said back.

“Feathers.”

“Feathers.”

Shinichi nodded once and ruffled his hair. “Yup! You got it.”

Conan grinned back at him and Ran stared, surprised. She hadn’t really noticed before, but with them side by side…that grin was also a very Shinichi expression; it was strange to see Conan picking up so much of his brother’s habits. “Why b – birds? – birds have feathers?” Conan asked.

“It helps them fly,” Shinichi started, before his mouth snapped and he shot a look at them. “I’ll explain it later when we get home,” he finally decided after a moment of walking silently, and Conan’s head cocked to the side.

“Resear?”

Shinichi laughed. “Yeah, we’ll research stuff too.”

“Does Conan-kun actually understand everything you tell him?” Ran asked, curious at how naturally Conan had asked.

Shinichi shrugged. “I don’t know, really. I kind of doubt it. At the very least he’s learning new words and trying to figure out the context for them, so I thought it wouldn’t hurt to just…teach him things.”

“It also doesn’t hurt that you never shut up if you get the chance to show someone just how smart you are,” Sonoko said, unimpressed, and soon the two were embroiled in a small argument, Conan watching them throw insults at each other in fascination.

Ran smiled at the three. She wasn’t surprised Shinichi was doing his best to answer any question Conan asked him; he was obsessed with mysteries and would look up information in his free time. It made sense he’d encourage Conan’s curiosity.

The rest of the day was spent with Sonoko and Shinichi quipping and throwing clothing at each other and Ran to try on while Conan laughed in delight whenever a shirt would land on his head.

Four Months Later

Shinichi was on babysitting duty again that evening, and had just gotten a few foods together to take to the music room when he heard his brother. “Shi-niichan!” Conan called out, likely trying to figure out when he was coming back.

“I’m coming,” he said back, projecting so that Conan would easily be able to hear him as he picked up the bowls of food.

The moment he walked into the room the bowls fell out of his hands and hit the plush carpet, but Shinichi couldn’t be bothered with that – too busy staring at his brother as he stood on the grand piano and waved at him. Genuine fear took over as his eyes swept over the instrument with his brother balanced precariously on the edge of it, the top of the piano propped open like it normally was and leaving Conan with no other place to balance but underneath the lid.

“Conan,” he started, forcing the words through his adrenaline-numbed lips. “How did you get up there?”

Conan pointed to the piano bench, which Shinichi then noticed had been pushed into a position perfect for a toddler to climb from it. “I wanted to be tall like you,” the toddler said. “But you had to get food, so I climbed.”

Shinichi swallowed, and regretted every decision he made after leaving the room. “That…that was really clever, Conan. Can you…get down?” He asked, and started walking more into the room, eyes trained on Conan as he got closer.

“Un!” Beaming at him Conan started to clamber down from the piano, using the piece that propped the lid up as a kind of anchor. However, the extra momentum from getting off of the piano to relying on the prop made Conan swing, and that swing moved the prop from its place, still acting as an anchor for Conan but now not holding up the lid of the piano.

Shinichi could see what was about to happen, could imagine the lid slamming his brother’s head between it and the rest of the piano, and the shock of cold the thought brought him was enough to jolt him into action. The twelve year old sprinted at Conan and swept him up with that same speed, Conan immediately losing his grip on the prop.

What would have been a smooth, if horribly rushed, move was ruined as Shinichi’s foot caught around one of the legs of the piano bench and sent him to the ground, the bench falling on top of his curled up form.

Shinichi made cut off groaning sound as the bench’s weight impacted his leg but just curled up tighter, waiting for the thunderous sound of the piano’s lid slamming shut to fade away. When it finally did Shinichi cracked his eyes open and slowly uncurled, checking on the silent child in his arms. “Conan,” he said softly, trying to gently break the silence that had covered the room. “Are you okay?”

Teary blue eyes blinked up at him before Conan started to hiccup, tiny hands reaching out to curl into his shirt. “Arm hurts,” he whimpered a little, hiding his face in Shinichi’s chest.

Shinichi sighed and pulled him in closer, more a hug than his protective covering from before. “I’m sorry, kiddo. Come on, let’s take a look and try and make it better.” He struggled for a moment before slowly rolling underneath the bench, freeing one foot to leverage it off of himself. As he stood up Conan moved to hide his face in Shinichi’s shoulder and Shinichi started rubbing his back.

The walk to the fully stocked medicine cabinet was silent, neither one of them bothering to fill the void with their thoughts. When they got to the medicine cabinet Shinichi moved Conan to be held up by one arm and rifled through the contents, finding the bandages and cream for inflammation with relative ease and setting Conan down on the countertop so he could see to the carpet burn on his brother’s arm.

Outside of hissing at the sting from the antiseptic Conan didn’t say anything for several moments as Shinichi treated the burn and wrapped it. Finally, he asked in a tiny voice, “Are you mad?”

Shinichi looked up at the break in the silence before looking back at Conan’s arm as he thought about the question. He did feel angry, Shinichi realized, the horrible feeling in his stomach making it turn a little as he contemplated it. “A little,” he admitted after tucking the bandage into place. He tightened his grip on the uninjured part of Conan’s arm in surprise when the toddler flinched and gave a little whimper. He looked up to see Conan’s eyes filling with tears again and felt panic start to creep up his spine. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m sorry.” The words were barely recognizable. “Don’t be mad at me.”

Shinichi registered the words and let a sigh that seemed to deflate his whole body, his shoulders dropping into a small slump. “Conan,” he started, but Conan didn’t look up. “Conan, look at me.” His brother shook his head and his hitching breaths got louder. Shinichi tried to think about what his mom or dad would do if they saw him upset and kneeled down so that he could look up at Conan’s face and Conan was looking at him. “I’m not mad at you,” he said with emphasis.

Conan’s head jerked side to side in denial. “Are,” he said stubbornly.

“I’m not mad at you,” he repeated. “I’m mad at myself.”

The toddler’s eyes snapped to his and blinked, confused. “Why?”

“I shouldn’t have left you alone in the playroom,” Shinichi said, brutally honest. “I forgot about the piano bench and since mom and Ran like playing on it so much I kept forgetting to close the lid whenever they aren’t around. I should have been paying more attention to you and how safe the room was.” The image of his brother dangling from the piano as the lid started to slam shut flashed in his mind again, and Shinichi shut his eyes to try and get rid of it. He opened them again a moment later. “Why would I be mad at you?”

“Climbing piano,” was Conan’s shy admission, and a tiny hand tightened on Shinichi’s, over-sharp nails digging into the older boy’s skin.

“Idiot,” Shinichi admonished fondly, free hand coming up to tap Conan softly on the nose. “Climbing is a good thing to practice, and you wouldn’t know the piano was a bad place to climb. Of course I’m not mad at you. You just…scared me really badly.”

Conan tried to drop his head, before scrunching his nose as he realized that it wouldn’t hide his face from Shinichi. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay, but…next time you want to climb something make sure I’m there, okay?”

“Okay,” the two year old agreed easily, before hesitatingly opening his arms. “Hug?”

Shinichi stood up to do just that, picking Conan up off of the counter and swinging him gently. “Let’s get some dinner. I’ll clean up what I spilled after we eat.”

Chapter Text

Four Months Later

“You are sad?” Conan asked him, and Shinichi looked up in surprise from the sheet music he’d been reading. The violin dug more into his shoulder at the movement and he flinched as he readjusted it.

“I don’t think I am,” he told Conan before running the bow along the strings, going over a line he was still struggling with. The notes rang out, clear and concise but ultimately meaningless to him, and Conan wrinkled his nose. “Just thinking about some stuff. Why do you ask?”

“Music sounds sad,” the toddler told him, hugging the plush soccer ball Sonoko had initially given Shinichi as a joke that had ended up in the younger brother’s possession. “Play different?”

“Play a different song or play in a different way?” Shinichi asked for clarification, and Conan frowned at the word.

“Way?” He asked, confused, and Shinichi settled back into position and played the line he was on again, but held the high notes longer and put more force into the staccato notes. He grinned at how the toddler’s eyes widened in understanding and delight. “Way,” he said, in confirmation rather than curiosity over what the word meant. So Shinichi continued to play with this new style in mind, and the need to keep the new technique in mind settled his rushing thoughts a little. It was peaceful for a few minutes.

Until Conan suddenly looked back up and stared at him. Shinichi paused and waited, bow still poised over the strings. “What is it?” He asked, and Conan’s eyes narrowed a little (a look everyone accused Shinichi of teaching him).

“Different way,” was all he said, and Shinichi blinked at him before mentally resetting how he was playing and starting from the beginning, this time with small trills on any note that was long enough for it to fit. Conan settled again as he took in the change and stared at the bow in fasciation. Shinichi took his brother’s distraction to contemplate why he’d so abruptly wanted to hear the song differently. It didn’t mean much to Shinichi himself, the song more akin to a sprawling equation that he added to and shifted but would, ultimately, result in the same answer as it did before. But Conan and his parents seemed like it. Did they hear the notes differently somehow?

That would…make sense, he realized.

It would certainly explain why people were always so excited to go to orchestra showings and band performances; they found some level of pleasure in hearing the music that he didn’t and sought it out.

To test his new theory he fixed his eyes on his younger brother and, very deliberately, played a prolonged double stop of conflicting notes. Conan hands rose up to cover his ears immediately and Shinichi stopped, letting the sound fade away. His little brother fixed him with a disgruntled look. “Bad noise,” he told Shinichi.

“Sorry, Conan,” Shinichi said, playing some softer notes as Conan eyed the violin with a new wariness but dropped his hands all the same. “I had a theory I wanted to test.”

The two year old perked up a little at that. “What theory?”

“It looks like I hear music differently. Like that didn’t hurt my ears; it was just two notes I played.” He floundered a little after that, and felt some embarrassment creep up, heat going up his neck. “I don’t know how else to describe it. I think it’s why I can’t sing; as long as it’s in tune nothing sounds wrong.”

Conan hummed loudly – something Shinichi himself did when he was trying to block out other things to focus on his thoughts – before shaking his head. “That’s okay,” Conan said. “Brother doesn’t need to sing to be amazing.”

Shinichi suddenly found the stained glass windows interesting and gazed at them intently, hoping the colored light filtering in would hide how much that meant to him. “Thanks Conan,” he said, still looking away. “I think you’re pretty cool too.”

A sudden tug on his leg made Shinichi’s gaze drop down to meet his brother’s. Conan had walked across the room and was now in front of him, arms held up demandingly. Shinichi smiled and put his violin down before scooping Conan up into his arms for a hug, swinging his brother with the action so that he was reduced to excited shrieks.

After Conan had regained his breath from laughing and shrieking he looked up at him. “Don’t be sad anymore,” he commanded, and Shinichi cracked a smile at the imperious tone.

“I won’t,” he promised, and tucked away the memories of the police detectives growing restless whenever he poked around and the way Megure had been growing a bit fed up with him interjecting observations. “Let’s go look at that puzzle Dad bought you recently,” he offered, and smiled as Conan started struggling out of his arms to go get it.

He’d think on all of that later.

Two Months Later

Yuusaku had been dreading the conversation he was about to have for weeks.

Not something he would usually say when talking about his son, but in this case he would rather face the wrath of his wife ten times over then have to tell Shinichi that he couldn’t go to crime scenes anymore.

Heaving a sigh Yuusaku looked up from his laptop to see Yukiko curled up in the chair next to his, reading one of the romance novels she’d been sneaking onto the library shelves. She read a few more lines before marking her place with her finger and look up at him with a smile. It faded as she took in his apprehension. “Yu-chan? What is it?”

“Do you know where Shinichi is?” He asked, his hand coming up to rub at his temple.

She frowned slightly but didn’t comment on the stress he wasn’t bothering to hide. “Probably in the playroom with Conan. They seem really taken with it.”

Yuusaku hummed in absent agreement as he stood from his desk and started heading that way. It makes sense, he thought, given they had made the room so that anyone could watch Conan without fear of him hurting himself or knocking over anything important. Well, that had been its original purpose; Yuusaku was still fuzzy on where and why Yukiko got a piano for it and didn’t just put the piano in another room.

When he got to the open door to the playroom he hesitated for a moment and looked in. Conan was working on a puzzle, frowning in concentration at the connected edges and pieces scattered around it, and Shinichi was curled up in a bean bag next to him, skimming over a case file Yuusaku had let him grab with almost the exact same frown. After taking in the scene Yuusaku knocked on the doorframe, and Shinichi’s head shot up. His son gave him a small smile. “Hi, Dad.”

Conan blinked and looked at Shinichi before following his gaze to Yuusaku at giving him a bright grin. “Dad!”

“Hey kids,” Yuusaku greeted, smiling at them both as he walked into the room and took a seat next to Conan and his puzzle. “Having fun?”

“Yeah!” Conan chirped, looking away from the puzzle again to smile at him. “Shi-niichan’s been helping me and practicing…” he trailed off and looked at Shinichi like he was trying to remember the words. “Dedutions?” he guessed.

“Making deductions,” Shinichi corrected and Conan nodded, the two repeating the phrase for a moment until Conan could say it correctly.

Yuusaku watched their interaction with fond amusement. It was good to see Shinichi come out of his shell willingly to help Conan learn more about the world. Unlike with his friends and parents, Shinichi didn’t lose his patience often with Conan; it made sense to him that Conan wouldn’t be able to keep up with him mentally without some help, since he was so young.

“Anyway,” he heard Shinichi say, and Yuusaku came back mentally to see both of his sons looking at him. “Was there something you needed, Dad?”

“Yes,” he sighed, and raised a hand to rub at an eye under his glasses. “I got an email from Megure-keibu.”

Shinichi’s head tilted to the side, confused. “About a case? It’s unlike him to email you and not just call.”

“Not about a case. He…” Yuusaku sighed again. This was far too difficult. “He wants me to discourage you from coming with me to crime scenes.”

Watching the medley of emotions that passed over Shinichi’s face as he processed that information was painful. It started as confusion, then went rapidly through consideration, realization, and a kind of startled, hurt confusion. The case he’d been looking at fell to the floor with a soft fwip as he scrambled to his feet. “What? Why?” He demanded. “Was I doing something wrong? Putting the evidence together incorrectly?” His breathing picked up a little at the thought. “Was I accusing innocent people?”

“No – sort of – you were not putting the evidence together wrong,” Yuusaku said firmly, moving closer to put his hand on his son’s shoulder for emphasis. It was easy to meet Shinichi’s eyes, his son’s gaze locked onto his face to try and read his thoughts. “Megure-keibu told me he was afraid you’d start talking about the scenes you’ve attended to other people, and that you’d start remembering more about the cases and it would affect you negatively.” As if his son had forgotten any of the cases before today, he thought with a mental scoff.

Shinichi stewed over his words for a moment, and his eyebrows went down as something occurred to him. “You said ‘Megure-keibu told you,’ that means there’s another reason, right?” he asked, and Yuusaku smiled at him and ruffled his hair a little, mostly to provoke the indignant sound Shinichi made whenever someone jostled him too much.

“I suspect you’re starting to make a few people…upset, as your deductions get more refined and you figure out the culprit before the trained officers do. Some officers might be complaining about you interfering at crime scenes,” he told him, and Shinichi’s head dropped a little at that.

“I just wanted to help,” he mumbled.

“And you can,” Yuusaku assured him. “You just can’t help in murder investigations anymore, okay?”

“…Okay,” Shinichi said, voice small, and Yuusaku hugged him and didn’t say anything about how tightly Shinichi clung to him for the few seconds he allowed the contact. Then he detangled himself and picked up the folder that’d fallen to the ground, holding it out to him. “I guess you need this back,” he said, and Yuusaku only needed a moment to think about it before he came to a decision and gently pushed it back toward his son.

“I don’t think you’ll be embarrassing any police officers by working on cold cases,” he said in faux-speculation and winked when Shinichi looked up at him in startled hope. “And if you don’t tell Megure-keibu you’re working on them then I won’t.”

“I – thank you, Dad,” Shinichi said, stumbling a little over his words as he pulled the folder closer to his chest. He sank back into his bean bag and Conan scrambled over to him and crawled into his arms.

Yuusaku began to head back to the library when he heard Conan ask, “You are sad?”

“A little,” Shinichi said. “But Dad made it a bit better.”

When he made it back to the library Yukiko looked up from her book. “How did it go?” she asked, and Yuusaku didn’t have to look at his computer to know she’d read the email that Inspector Megure had sent him.

“Good,” he assured her. “I told him he didn’t need to stop making deductions, he just can’t go to murder scenes anymore. I think he’ll find other ways to hone his skills if he’s serious about wanting to be a detective when he gets older.”

She cocked an eyebrow at him, clearly picking up the loopholes he’d given their son, but didn’t say anything and went back to her book. “You’re lucky I like you so much,” she said, only half-teasing, and flipped a page, “telling me about your illegal activities like that.”

Yuusaku walked up to her, leaning so that his shadow covered her book and, when she looked up again to complain, gave her a soft kiss. “The luckiest,” he agreed.

Chapter Text

Two Months Later

Shinichi fiddled with the camera his parents had given him, toggling through the features again in curiosity. Next to him Sonoko peered over with ice cream in hand. “So why’d they give you that?” she asked, leaning her head on his shoulder when he gave distracted grunt back. “I didn’t know you were even interested in photography.”

“I imagine they’re trying to fill the space in my life that’s gone now that Dad isn’t taking me to crime scenes anymore,” he told her, ever the realist to his parents’ “we just want to give you something nice Shin-chan~” moods. “And while I’ve never really practiced it photography can be useful in detective work.”

On his other Ran sighed and licked her own ice cream. “I’m glad they decided to stop taking you,” she said, and met his eyes when he tried to give her a pathetic look in response. “It wasn’t healthy, Shinichi. I think you’ve seen more cases than any other non-police or detective in the country.”

“Well yeah,” he scoffed as he aimed the camera at a tree to snap a picture. “It makes sense. I want to be a detective, so I have to practice.”

“Shinichi, children shouldn’t be at crime scenes of their own free will,” she told him, unsympathetic. “It took your parents almost six years to figure that out, but I’m glad they did.”

Shinichi took a picture of the tree in lieu of answering, trying to not be hurt by her words. She didn’t mean anything by it, he knew Ran was just concerned that all of the death and petty reasons for murder he was encountering weekly were going to mess him up or something. He appreciated her concern.

But still…

He made a note to not tell her it wasn’t his parents’ idea and that he could still look at cold cases all he wanted, shook away the thoughts and observed the photo he’d snapped.

It looked good, he decided. The light was filtering through the gaps in the leaves, and the light that didn’t gave the leaves a green glow that was interesting to look at. Through the gaps in the branches Shinichi caught sight of a bird in flight, its figure standing out starkly against the cloud drifting behind it.

It was the third picture he’d taken with the thing, his first being his parents and brother – per his mom’s request – and the second being of the yellow roses on the kitchen table. He was rather pleased the pictures had turned out so well.

“Not bad, detective geek,” Sonoko commented from his shoulder and, on a whim, Shinichi tugged Ran closer and turned the camera to be facing the three of them. He lined the camera up mentally and snapped a picture before either of them could try to stop him.

Once the Sonoko had wrestled the camera out of his grip – he’d been laughing too hard at her and Ran’s splutters to protest – and taken a look at the picture she gained a considering light to her eyes.

“Shinichi-kun,” she started, and he turned to see her grinning at him, holding his camera up like a hostage, “I think you just got a new job on our shopping trips.”

Shinichi already regretted showing off his camera.

“This is not my fault.”

Ran glared at Shinichi even as she clenched her fist around his jacket. She refused to look at the body lying a few feet from them. “I’m not blaming you,” she told him, and the face he shot her was skeptical.

Instead of arguing more with her about how Shinichi may or may not have been drawn to the store because a murder was about to occur, he just rolled his eyes and gently detangled her hand from his jacket, not complaining when she tightened her grip on his hand instead. “Did you call the police?” he asked, and Ran nodded.

“They’re on their way,” she told him, and Shinichi’s face began to go blank as he nudged her to the other person clinging to them.

“Then calm down Sonoko if you can, okay?” he asked gently, and held up his camera when she started to protest. “I’m just gonna take some pictures of the crime scene. No detective work at all.”

“…Fine,” she conceded, before gathering Sonoko into her arms as Shinichi separated from them and approached the body, commanding people to remain in the area and step away from the corpse.

It was always unnerving to watch Shinichi around a dead body, Ran thought. Since he’d been around them since he was a child Shinichi knew all of the procedures and guidelines surrounding bodies found at a crime scene and was comfortable walking around corpses to the point it unnerved bystanders. Soon enough people were standing a respectful distance from the scene but watching nervously as a twelve year old walked around, taking pictures of the corpse and anyone that so much as twitched toward the exit.

When the police arrived Inspector Megure looked frustrated, and the conversation with Shinichi – while Ran couldn’t hear it – was short and had the boy flinching away. He gave one of the officers his camera film and walked over to them. “He doesn’t need us to stay,” he said, and Ran was quick to herd them out of the store, Sonoko tucked between her and Shinichi as she was still shaking from seeing the body. “Where do you guys want to go now?” He asked.

“Not home,” Sonoko said immediately. “If I go home, I’ll just think about it…”

Ran a noise of agreement, but didn’t know where they could go instead.

Shinichi hummed for a second before stretching his arm out to encompass her and Sonoko and herding them to a different part of the mall. “I know a place you guys should like,” he said.

Sonoko scoffed. “No bookstore, nerd.”

“It’s not a bookstore,” Shinichi assured, oddly soft, and Ran looked over to see him keeping a hand on Sonoko’s shoulder like she’d seen him do to Conan sometimes.

Well, she considered, if having a brother has done anything for Shinichi, it’s made him a bit more aware of other people’s emotions.

He led them to a nail salon where the employees greeted him by name and asked about his mother. He answered their questions and asked his own, and after a few minutes Ran and Sonoko were being guided further into the store.

Shinichi joined them fifteen minutes later, taking a seat within their line of sight as they got their nails done. “Where’d you go?” Ran asked.

“I bought some more film for the camera, and some disposable cameras I can use instead if I run into more scenes another day. Wouldn’t want them to confiscate my primary camera.”

Sonoko made a derisive noise at him, but Ran saw the way she relaxed more into her chair. “Over-achiever,” she accused, saying the word like an insult.

Shinichi winked back. “You know it,” he agreed, before raising his camera and taking a picture of them.

Three Months Later

“Why do I have to go with you to the dinner party?” Shinichi whined to his mom, reluctantly knotting the tie she had chucked at him. Now coming up just past his knee, Conan stood next to him and watched him via the mirror – likely taking note of the reversal effect if Shinichi had to guess.

His mom waved her hand and sent an unsubtle glare to his dad, who was lounging in a chair with his laptop. “Someone is behind on his book and if he doesn’t finish it soon his editors will harass us during our anniversary plans.” She turned and beamed at her oldest, who remained nonplussed. “So Shin-chan will be my date~”

Shinichi blinked at her and shot a confused glance at his dad. When he didn’t move to meet his eyes Shinichi became distinctly unimpressed and shared a look with Conan – whose face was a mirror of his own. Sometimes Shinichi read his dad’s manuscripts to Conan when he demanded a new book for story time, and last he checked his dad was only about four chapters away from wrapping up the latest installation to his series. And Shinichi has seen him write more in less time.

“Sure thing, Mom,” he said, capitulating anyway. He’d give his dad a break this once, he decided, not saying anything as his mom cheered and his dad almost unnoticeably relaxed further into the chair. “Can I…?” He trailed off and held up his camera, and if anything his mom brightened further.

“Of course, Shin-chan! They’ll let you know if they’re against it, but cameras should be allowed!”

He nodded at that and slipped the camera strap over his head before checking his cuffs and that his jacket was lying flat over his shirt. “Then I should be ready to go,” he told her, and the next few minutes were spent saying goodbye to his dad and Conan and telling either of them any last minute thing they’d need to know.

(“Don’t climb,” he reminded Conan. “Dad sometimes stops paying attention when he’s writing.”

“Okay,” Conan said, before raising his hands for another hug, which Shinichi complied with easily. “Don’t be gone long.”)

Soon enough they were heading to the event, Shinichi to his mom for dear life as she took a turn far too quickly. “Why are we using the motorcycle?” He shouted, feeling the wind slicing through his jacket like it wasn’t there.

“Because Yu-chan never lets me use it when he’s with me,” she said back, the wind making it near impossible to hear what she said beyond “Yu-chan”. Which, honestly, was enough for Shinichi anyway.

When they finally arrived at the manor Shinichi’s attempt to hug the ground was foiled as his mom immediately began straightening their outfits, not giving him a chance to break free before she started manhandling him and fixing the shoulders of his jacket. Her eyes narrowed a little and she ran her hand through his hair a few times before she smiled and stepped back. “There you go; good as new!”

He glowered at her sullenly as she started fixing her own outfit. He suspected that if he so much as made a move toward the ground to tell it how much more he appreciated it than his mother she would just leave him there and find a way to deny him entry to the manor, so he just huffed and checked over his camera.

The rest of the night was a blur of talking, listening, dancing, eating, and Shinichi escaping to take a few pictures. He got a good one of the chandelier, the light reflecting around and behind it like a glittering kaleidoscope, and a few of his mother dancing with the other guests. He thinks at one point he agreed to email the host a copy of the pictures – probably to show off to others when talking about his parties – but the only thing that really stood out to Shinichi was the way the other people wandering around with cameras seemed to look over him whenever they scanned the room. They would look at him, see his camera, and suddenly continuing their perusal of the other guests.

He made note of this as he was pulled into yet another dance with his mom, who laughed at his clumsy attempts to follow her moves. He silently vowed to work on his dancing so that he wouldn’t feel like a complete idiot the next time she inevitably dragged him to another party.

By the time the night had come to a close he’d taken nearly a hundred pictures and danced several times, mostly with his mom. He’d also found time to sneak off and talk to the band playing for the night, which ended up being a lot more enjoyable than he’d predicted it would be.

He was in the middle of discussing composition for multiple parts with the amused cellist when his mom materialized to his right, her look of annoyance abating when she saw him. “Having fun, Shin-chan?” she teased, and he smiled back at her.

“I am!” he agreed a bit more enthusiastically than he intended, and cleared his throat to try and rein himself back in. “Seidou-san was telling me about changing keys with multiple people without it sounding sudden or wrong.” He turned back to see the cellist looking at them with something like surprised recognition. “If you have the time, I’d love to email you and ask for your thoughts on pieces I come across.”

After the man agreed and gave him his email Shinichi let his mom spirit him away for another dance before calling it a night.

“Did you enjoy yourself, Shin-chan?” his mom asked as she drove them home. Again, all he could really hear was “enjoy…Shin-chan?” but he could make a few guesses on what she was trying to say from there.

“Yeah, it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be,” he said-shouted back to her, mind still buzzing from all of the things Seidou and his fellow musicians had said to him.

“Wonderful!” His mom cheered. She then said something else, but the wind tore the words away before they could reach Shinichi’s ears, leaving him with a vague feeling of dread.

They got home in good time and Shinichi didn’t pause to hop off of the motorcycle and run into the house, taking off his tie and jacket as he did. “We’re home!” he called out, his mom echoing the sentiment from a few steps behind him.

“Welcome home!” His dad called back, before Shinichi heard footsteps getting closer. His dad appeared in the doorway to the library, to Shinichi’s utter lack of surprise, but his attention was soon diverted by the small shadow he saw there after his dad approached to hug his mom.

“Hey there, Conan,” Shinichi greeted, walking closer and kneeling to better see him. “What are you doing up so late?”

Conan made a face, something Shinichi hadn’t seen before, and the older of the brothers tilted his head to the side to try and decipher it. Some mix of realization and frustration. He eventually ended up shrugging and holding his arms up to be hugged. Shinichi obeyed the silent command and puzzled over his brother’s response. “Do you want to head to bed?”

Conan tightened his hug and shook his head. “Okay. Um…do you want to stay with Mom and Dad?”

A more frantic headshake. Shinichi was at a bit of a loss. “Well, I need to head to bed. So…” he trailed off, hoping his brother would make a decision based on that new information.

Conan just tightened his hug even further. “Do you want to sleep with me?” Shinichi finally asked, and his brother nodded softly. “Alright. I’ll tell Mom and Dad.”

They were settling into Shinichi’s bed minutes later, Shinichi curling up in exhaustion and Conan gripping the back of Shinichi’s sleep shirt. A few tugs on said shirt had him rolling over to let Conan squirm into his arms and soon his younger brother was sleeping soundly, Shinichi following him with a passing thought on what could have caused his brother to stop speaking in a matter of hours.

Chapter Text

Two Months Later

Conan was flipping through a book on plants and staring at the pictures when he heard an “I’m home!” echo through the house and perked up. He scrambled to his feet and ran to the front door, hands already flying. Shi-niichan!

Shinichi grinned at him and picked him up for a hug before shifting him to one arm so that Conan could follow his free hand as he signed while speaking. “Hey there, kiddo, have a lot of fun with Mom today?”

Read a lot, he signed back. Mom played piano today.

“Did you learn new things for the piano?” Shinichi asked, and ruffled his hair when Conan nodded before returning his hand to where Conan could see it. “Very nice! We’ll be playing duets in no time!”

Conan blinked at the word and repeated the motion. Duet?

Shinichi started walking them to the play room. “Duet,” he enunciated and signed carefully. “It means to have two people play music together, usually on two different instruments.”

Ah. Conan clapped his hands in understanding and Shinichi gave him another smile as he entered the play room and gently dropped Conan to the ground. “Hey mom,” Shinichi greeted, and Conan watched their mom immediately turn to him in surprise.

“Shin-chan! I wasn’t expecting you home already.” She looked at the clock on the wall before turning to him with a smile. “Must have lost track of time. Anyway, how are Ran-chan and Sonoko-chan?”

As Shinichi and their mom talked Conan entertained himself by going over some of the new signs Shinichi had used to talk to him. Duet. Instrument. Together. They were all in finger-spelling so he would have to ask Shinichi if they had unique signs when their mom left.

Conan loved his big brother. Even though he didn’t know what was going on, Shinichi didn’t mind learning and teaching Conan sign language so that Conan wouldn’t have to point and pantomime everything he wanted when they were alone, like he had to do with their parents. And he didn’t ask too many questions after asking why Conan was not talking and Conan made a few gestures – neither of them knowing sign language yet at the time – and manage to get across one of the words Shinichi liked.

Theory.

So Shinichi had just nodded and told him he was welcome to come to Shinichi if he needed help before changing the subject to tell Conan about the soccer team he’d joined recently. Conan was further delighted the day his brother came home with a new book and started teaching him what he later learned was sign language, so that he could still talk to Shinichi if he wanted to.

Now he was just learning new words and refining moving from one sign to another as he watched his parents and wondered when they’d finally ask why he hadn’t spoken in a month. He tuned back into his brother and mom’s conversation as Shinichi leaned slightly on the piano and his voice took on the lilt it did when he was asking questions he found important. “So what are you two going to do for your anniversary this year?” He asked, and from where he was Conan saw his mom smile brightly.

“We’re thinking of going to Italy!” She chirped, and Conan focused on the way Shinichi’s eyebrows flew up in surprise.

“It’ll be the first time you’ve gone abroad since Conan was born,” he pointed out. “You’ll be taking him with you, I guess?”

Their mom nodded. “Yu-chan and I are still discussing it, but that looks like the current plan. Or maybe we could leave him with Eri-chan or Kogoro-kun…” she said, thoughtful, and Shinichi made a sound like he wasn’t happy.

“I can’t imagine Kisaki-san would appreciate that; she tends to be busy these days.” he said.

“Ran-chan keeping you up to date?” Their mom teased, and Shinichi rolled his eyes.

“She’ll get them together one day if it kills both of them, I imagine,” he said, and their mom laughed at that.

“What about Kogoro-kun?” she asked. “He’s not very busy these days…” she trailed off and made a face as she said that, and Conan cocked his head to the side to try and figure out what that meant while Shinichi snorted.

“Don’t say that to his face, though I don’t think he’ll be as physical with you as he was with me. Anyway, I think that would also be a horrible idea. He hasn’t been the most…responsible lately.” Shinichi scowled and shifted his weight like he did when he didn’t like what he was thinking about; Conan was trying to learn that, but he kept falling over. “I visit Ran’s place to practice cooking sometimes; there are empty beer cans everywhere.”

Their mom focused on one of the things Shinichi said and sounded surprised. “You’re learning how to cook Shin-chan?” Before she sounded – Conan wasn’t sure what the word was, but it was the way Conan sounded when he had to do things he didn’t want. “I thought you were going on dates with Ran-chan.”

Shinichi made an annoyed sound. “Ran and I aren’t dating, Mom. And even if I wanted to…” his voice stopped, and he made more attempts to speak again before he let out a sigh and waved his hand in the air. “She’s teaching me and Sonoko how to cook.”

“You’re not even learning one-on-one?” She whined. “Shin-chan.”

“Wow, hey, look, I have to go work on my homework,” Shinichi cut her off before she could continue and started heading to the door, and Conan scrambled to follow him, trotting to be a little in front of Shinichi to get his attention.

What word was that?

Shinichi cocked his head to the side. “When? What were the words around it?”

Doing stuff with Ran-neechan? He signed back. Not…cooking, he struggled out the new word Shinichi had taught him a few days ago. Other.

“Oh. Dating.” He said and finger-spelled the new word carefully and Conan repeated it back until Shinichi nodded at him.

What’s “dating”? He asked and Shinichi looked like he wasn’t sure what to say for a second. His hands went into his pockets and Conan frowned a little at the motion.

“It’s hard to explain,” he started, then winced in embarrassment, withdrew his hands and repeated the phrase with signing when Conan pointed at him for using a new word. “We might have to look it up, because my understanding focuses on the emotions you feel. Basically you spend a lot of time with one or more specific people.”

Why spe-ci-fic? Conan asked as they started walking again.

“Because you feel emotions around them that you don’t around other people, and that makes you want to spend time with them?” He made it sound like a question – and Conan watched his hands to see if the movements would convey his tone as well – and shrugged near the end. They finally arrived at the library and Shinichi settled in his armchair while Conan got into his lap to watch him work on his schoolwork.

Conan wanted to ask more questions – why didn’t he want to date Ran? What did he mean when he said you could want to date multiple people? What emotions did you feel? – but subsided for the time being.

Shinichi was staring at their parents, his face firm like when their mom tried to drag him places but he had homework to do, and Conan was silently grateful for it because if Shinichi looked at him too long Conan might burst into tears. “At least one of you needs to keep track of Conan while you’re gallivanting across Italy,” he reminded them, his arms folded tightly across his stomach.

“It’ll be fine, Shin-chan,” their mom said. “Our last trip to Europe went off without a hitch.”

“If you exclude me stumbling across a Mafia headquarters, and later being held hostage by Dad’s editors.” Shinichi was utterly unamused, and Conan couldn’t help but shift a little nervously at that. What did hostage mean? And Mafia?

Their mom waved Shinichi’s words away with a laugh, but their dad said, “We’ll be careful,” so Shinichi took a breath and looked down at him, and Conan immediately had to stop himself from demanding to stay with Shinichi while they went away.

Shinichi knelt down so that Conan could hug him again, which he did with haste. “Remember,” he said, forehead pressed against Conan’s, “be good. No climbing,” he added with a wink, and Conan made a tiny noise – something between a whimper and a laugh. He tapped Shinichi’s chest over his heart and his brother gave him a smile as he tapped him back. “You too, kiddo.”

Conan went through the airport and the flight without signing a single thing, only nodding and shaking his head whenever his parents asked him anything. It wasn’t like it would matter; part of his theory hinged on the fact his parents didn’t know he could sign.

Conan hugged his knees to his chest as he looked out the airplane window. He wished their parents had brought Shinichi with them. Shinichi knew about his theory, and had taught him sign language so that he could test as long as he needed to. Shinichi would read to him and explain words and never got frustrated like Mom did occasionally when she tried to read easier books to him and he asked questions when what the people – characters, he reminded himself – were doing didn’t make sense. Shinichi would hold his hand and walk around a bookstore with him when their parents would get distracted by fans that recognized them.

His morose thoughts followed him through the flight, and Conan saw his mom and dad look at him a few times but never ask what was wrong.

When they finally got to the hotel his mom got out a phone and called someone while his dad unpacked some of their luggage. It didn’t go through but his mom brightened all the same. “We made it to the hotel, Shin-chan!” She said, and Conan stared at her with wide eyes as she talked about the flight briefly. As she was wrapping up she glanced over at Conan and beamed. “Conan-chan, would you like to say hi in the voicemail?”

Voicemail. He wouldn’t hear Shinichi’s voice, and Shinichi would only be able to hear the recording later. He shook his head mutely and watched her close the phone.

It was only as he was falling asleep between his parents that he realized that, even if Shinichi was on the other side of the phone, with the theory he’s testing he wouldn’t be able to talk to him. And he’d lasted so long, he couldn’t just give up on his test.

This trip was going to be awful, he decided miserably.

Three Days Later

Yukiko liked to consider herself an easygoing parent. Easygoing person, really. You had to be with a husband like Yuusaku, she thought with fond amusement. (Neither of them talked about it, but they both knew exactly what happened when Yukiko heard a series of rattles and a very familiar yelp one night and, months later, the next Night Baron novel said in exacting detail how he managed to stay perched on a slanted roof.)

With this in mind, when Shinichi had gone through a number of phases she had adjusted to all of them with relative ease.

When he was five and throwing things from the top floor to get an understanding of trajectory and gravity, she made sure to section off a part of the house so that he could continue experimenting and she and Yuusaku wouldn’t have to be in constant fear of a concussion.

When he’d started setting things on fire to see how different materials burned when he was eight, she’d had him do the experiments with Yuusaku so that he wouldn’t get too hurt or burn the house down. (The fact that she’d failed even then, that Shinichi would have a patch of skin shinier than anywhere else on his arm for years, still woke her up at night sometimes.)

When he was eleven and locking all of the doors in the house to see if there were any tricks to locking and unlocking doors from the other side, Conan often perched on his shoulders as he did so, she got a copy of the master key that Yuusaku kept on himself and gave Shinichi the book on lock picking that Toichi had given her years ago as a joke.

The only time she’d felt genuine concern was when he was nine and went with them to a movie premiere Yukiko had been invited to. When she returned from the restroom she’d found Yuusaku staring contemplatively at a cardboard cutout advertisement as if calculating how easy it would be to hide a body there, and Shinichi a few feet away talking to a friendly-looking man. She’d not been prepared when she’d walked over and asked Shinichi what he was doing for her son to say, “Asking him what it’s like to work in the Yakuza.”

It was why, when Conan had gone silent a few weeks ago, neither she nor Yuusaku had said anything. He must be trying something like what Shinichi had been, they’d discussed. Seeing how others speak when they forget he’s in the room, perhaps? Maybe he’d decided he didn’t want to talk until he fully understood sentence structure. They honestly didn’t know the reasoning, but it had been fun to theorize back and forth whenever they went out and Shinichi watched Conan.

It wasn’t as fun anymore, she thought, as Conan looked miserably at the phone while Yuusaku talked to Shinichi. She thought she heard something about a cold case and had to restrain herself from rolling her eyes. Honestly, those two were so murder-obsessed. But she focused again on her youngest and knelt down next to him, waiting for him to drag his eyes over to her. “Are you okay, Conan-chan?” She asked, and he nodded unconvincingly at her. She hummed a little in response. “Do you want to talk to Shin-chan?”

The head shake he offered her was so unrealistic she wondered if she should give her kids a crash course in acting. “He’s been asking about you,” she prompted, and while Conan didn’t look surprised by this his eyes locked onto her desperately. “He asks if you’re having fun and learning anything interesting.”

Conan’s hands twitched at that before he forcefully grabbed the bottom of his shirt and stared at the ground. Yukiko watched all of this with growing concern before she finally sighed and gently herded him closer. “Conan-chan, why aren’t you talking? It’s clear you want to.”

His head shot up and he looked at her in surprise. He made a few sounds, but they were more like he was testing his throat than an attempt to speak. “I wa-was testing so-omething,” he said, voice raspy from disuse, and hearing her baby speak again brought such strong relief to Yukiko that she felt tears prickle in her eyes. She handed him a bottle of water from the bedside table and he drank it gratefully. “Can I talk to Shi-niichan?” His pitch and inflection were cracking horribly, but she would do anything to keep him talking.

Yukiko got up and snatched the phone out of her husband’s hand mid-sentence, and he made a noise of offence until she handed it to Conan who then gave a wobbly, “Shi-niichan?” into the device.

Yukiko didn’t know what Shinichi said but it caused a smile to break out on Conan’s face as he said, “Yes,” waited a moment, then said, “Okay, I will.”

She left her children to talk on the phone and wrapped her arms around Yuusaku, who reciprocated easily and rested his face gently in her hair. “What do think caused him to talk again?” he asked, and she shook her head against his shoulder.

“I’m not sure, but I’m not going to question it,” she said into his collarbone, and he hummed in agreement.

Chapter Text

Sonoko laughed at Shinichi as he flinched away from Ran. “Sorry,” he muttered, but Sonoko didn’t bother to listen to Ran forgiving him again.

“Why are you so bad at this, Shinichi-kun?” she asked mockingly, and he huffed a sigh at her as he started to turn and move Ran to the music again.

“Maybe because I’ve only been trying to learn for the past week?” He shot back sarcastically, and carefully hid a wince as Ran accidentally stepped on his foot that time. She shot him an apologetic look but he just squeezed her hand reassuringly and didn’t say anything, to her poorly concealed relief.

“But you’re so perfect at everything, Shinichi-kun~” she drew out and he glared at her over Ran’s shoulder.

“Not without practice,” he snapped back. Everything he learned – cooking, soccer, violin, even deduction – took a lot of time to become skilled at. Even if clues came together for him more naturally than others, he was still constantly improving and refining it with the cold cases and books he read. “You guys just don’t see that part.”

“Sure,” Sonoko said, clearly not believing him, “now try to not break Ran’s feet would you? She needs them for karate.”

He rolled his eyes and quickly shifted his foot when he saw that both of them were about to misstep into each other again. “If you’re so worried, why don’t you be my dance partner? Also, wouldn’t that help with the whole leading me through the steps thing?” He would’ve been worried about upsetting Ran were it not for the frantic hope he saw in her eyes at the suggestion. At the rate they were going they would stop dancing out of sheer guilt in a few minutes he predicted.

“But I like my feet being the right shape,” she said before, at his incensed glare, rolling her eyes and turning off the music. “Fine, fine, but you owe me.”

She switched with Ran easily, who started the music back up again on her signal, and they danced with her making corrections whenever Shinichi placed his weight incorrectly. When it came to an end she eyed him, critical, and slapped him on the shoulder. “You’re getting less awful,” she told him, and he rolled his eyes and lifted an arm with all of the sarcasm he could hold in one motion.

“Thanks, coach, just what I’ve always wanted to hear.”

She rolled her eyes back at him and pushed him towards the door. “Great, now get out. Your lesson’s done for the day and Ran is sleeping over.”

He left with a small wave goodbye and walked out of the gated mansion, heading for home.

Shinichi was looking forward to his family coming home in a few days. He felt like he was going insane without Conan around for him to keep an eye on. While he felt like he could trust his parents to some extent with Conan’s well being, the two of them weren’t the most responsible. They tended to leave their children to their own devices, and with Shinichi that was fine; he was thirteen now and used to his parents’ lack of attention and could function well on his own.

But Conan was three; he couldn’t keep himself out of trouble or figure a way out of trouble yet. Shinichi was having nightmares of his parents calling him to say that Conan had been kidnapped or worse.

So he was throwing himself into anything that could keep him distracted. Only a week had passed and he’d finished the cold cases his dad had left for him, practiced dancing under Sonoko’s disparaging eye, taken enough pictures of Agasa’s equipment to fill both of their portfolios, and practiced violin for half the time he should have spent sleeping.

Unfortunately, he doesn’t think his soccer team is taking his recent disquiet well, but it was thankfully more “concern over him” rather than irritation at his unusual intensity as he tried to distract himself.

He’d also cooked enough to last him the remaining week already, and Shinichi felt a measure of uncertainty at what he was going to do for the rest of the day. Maybe he could practice violin early, he considered; he was trying to find a separation of notes that would sound unsettling, but not bad. He tried to ignore the way his fingers stung from his obsessive playing.

His musings were interrupted by the screeching of tires. His head shot up and he took in the car that was tearing its way down the road. Shinichi immediately scanned the surroundings, freezing for a second as he spotted a child nearby before he tore off down the street towards them. Fortunately he was far closer to the child than the car and managed to pull them off the street just in time to avoid the car speeding past. He pulled out a disposable camera even as he memorized the plate number and took a picture for good measure.

But then his attention was dragged away as the child he’d grabbed started to cry and he kneeled down. “Are you alright?” he asked, and the little girl nodded, sniffling and rubbing her eyes. Before abruptly changing her mind on how she felt and wrapping her arms around him in a tight hug, which he reciprocated first out of surprise and then understanding. “I know it was scary, it’s alright,” he murmured, and she nodded but tightened her grip on him. “Come on, let’s look for your parents.”

He stood up, letting the girl bury her face into his shoulder as she continued to calm down. “Can you point me where you last saw your parents?” he asked, and the girl shook her head.

“Not here.” But she still lifted her arm and pointed to a scattering of stores, so Shinichi hummed and followed the direction she gave him.

As close as he still was to Sonoko’s house, the stores around him were all higher end, so Shinichi was fairly certain she was the daughter of one of the area elites, especially given her attire and how she didn’t look too bothered about her parents not being around or telling him about it. Her minder must be nearby, he guessed.

Sure enough, a moment later a man burst out of a store, looking around frantically with bags hanging off of his arms. “Akiko-sama!” he called out, clearly distressed. “Akiko-sama, where are you?!”

“Asou,” he heard the girl - Akiko from the looks of things - mumble, but still seemed too upset to call out louder.

So Shinichi cleared his throat and did it for her. “Asou-san?” The man spun around and Shinichi shifted Akiko to insure she was visible. “I found Akiko-san down the street.”

The man immediately ran over, the bags rustling from their places on his arms. “Young Miss, I was so worried! Are you alright?”

“I’m okay, Asou,” she said, still clinging to Shinichi. “This nice nii-chan kept me safe.”

Asou turned to Shinichi and bowed deeply, missing how the action made the teen shifted uncomfortably. “Thank you so much, young man. I don’t know what I would do if the young miss was ever injured.” He placed a hand on his chest. “Please, let me make it up to you somehow. I’m sure my master would like to thank you himself.”

Shinichi tried to wave him off, insisting he was fine, but the man wouldn’t hear it and Shinichi soon found himself playing ball with Akiko and a Great Dane puppy as Asou called a “Tani-sama”. This was certainly a change in pace, Shinichi thought dazedly as Akiko furrowed her brow in concentration only to laugh in surprise as Jumbo barked and jumped at her.

“Shi-niichan!” Conan called out as he tumbled out of his parents’ car when they came to a stop in front of their house, running to the door impatiently as his parents got out much more slowly. “I’m home!”

There was a muffled thump before Conan heard the sound of footsteps running to the door, and seeing his brother when he yanked the door open was like how he thought he’d feel the moment he got back into the house. He raised his arms impatiently and Shinichi didn’t hesitate to scoop him up into an embrace, hugging him close with a shaky sigh. “Welcome home, kiddo,” his big brother said, and Conan felt tears sting his eyes. “I missed you.”

“I missed you too,” he said, hiccuping a little as he tightened his hold on his brother’s neck. “I don’t want to leave again. Not without you.”

“We’ll talk to Mom and Dad about it later,” Shinichi promised, sounding like he felt the same. “After you and I talk about whatever your theory was you were testing.”

Conan sniffled at the reminder, remembering the way he couldn’t communicate with anyone while his brother was gone in horrible, vivid detail. “Okay,” he agreed, and heard Shinichi sigh before he was lowered to the ground. He struggled at the motion and clung to his brother’s neck, startling them both with his half-shouted, “No!”

Shinichi stood back up with Conan in his arms. “Alright, I won’t put you down,” he agreed, and Conan relaxed his grip a little when he heard that.

“You promise?” he asked, and Shinichi nodded.

“I’ll have to put you down in a few hours, but I can hold you for now.”

Conan made an upset noise at the thought of still being let go but didn’t say anything about it and instead curled up so that his head was resting on Shinichi’s shoulder.

He watched from his perch as his brother greeted their parents and started lightly interrogating them about their trip, their mom happy to tell him anything that came to mind as he helped their dad with what luggage he could handle with one arm.

They came into the house to hear their mom exclaim in delight, “Oh Shin-chan! Did you clean the house while we were gone? How thoughtful!”

He hummed a little as he put down the luggage tucked under his arm. “Yup; I was having trouble sleeping and cleaning made me tired.”

From where Conan was perched he could see their dad turn and give Shinichi a look, as if trying to figure out something the words weren’t telling him, and he tightened his hold on his brother. What was giving Shinichi trouble sleeping? Why did it make their dad look like he was hiding something? Conan would ask him that night, he decided.

Whatever else their parents might have said while talking to Shinichi was lost to Conan as he felt exhaustion hit him and he dozed on his brother’s shoulder, shifting and voicing sleepy complaints if he felt like he was about to be moved. Eventually everything went quiet and Conan found himself being moved again. He tightened his grip on Shinichi’s shirt and heard him laugh a little. “It’s alright, Conan,” he said, and Conan pressed his face against Shinichi’s chest in disagreement. “I’m just trying to let you get more comfortable.”

“I am,” he argued, too tired to ask about that word and how to sign it. “Don’t leave. Everything’s scarier.”

Shinichi hummed, and he sounded kind of sad from what Conan could make of the sound. “I thought everything was scarier too. I kept thinking I was going to get a call from Mom and Dad saying that you’d been kidnapped or something.”

Conan made another upset sound. He hadn’t meant to make his brother worry. “I’m sorry, Nii-chan,” he whispered, but Shinichi just shushed him. His footsteps changed and Conan peeked out to see that they were in the library now.

“It wasn’t your fault, Conan,” his brother said gently. “You would definitely not be the one at fault if you’d been kidnapped in Italy.”

Conan hummed, acknowledging what his brother was saying but not sure how much he believed him. When he looked around his parents were gone. “Where did Mom and Dad go?” Conan asked.

Shinichi ran a hand down Conan’s back. “They went to sleep off their jetlag, and you probably need to too.”

“Not tired,” Conan complained, failing to fight back a yawn. “What’s jetlag?”

Conan fell asleep as Shinichi began to explain it. When he woke up, he found his brother had moved them to the library and dozed off again, his brother’s heartbeat lulling him back to sleep.

Chapter Text

Ran took one look at Shinichi the next day and smiled, relieved. “Did your family come back?”

Shinichi sighed, one part tired and two parts relieved, and ran a hand over his face. “Yeah, they got back yesterday. Conan didn’t want to leave my side the entire day; he looked ready to throw a tantrum when he saw I had to go to school today.”

Both of the girls looked surprised. “Conan? Throw a tantrum? That doesn’t sound like him at all.”

Shinichi shrugged and shifted his bag a little further up his shoulder, his hands curling tighter around the strap. “I think they might have stayed longer abroad than Conan was comfortable. He was really clingy.” He’d have to read up on separation anxiety again; certainly he’d felt that way, but he hadn’t considered how it would affect Conan.

Sonoko clicked her tongue and looked thoughtful. “Yeah, they were gone for over a week, right? When I was little my parents would take me on some trips but it was only for a day or two and I usually had my sister or one of their aides that I knew with me. They probably should have warmed him up to it first, taken you with them or something.”

“Probably,” Shinichi agreed. “But I think they went all out like that because they have a bit of cabin fever.” And he wasn’t too surprised by it, they’ve been homebound completely with the exception of the occasional party for over three years now. He knew they were bound to get a little stir-crazy.

“Well hopefully that got it out of their system,” Ran consoled, but Shinichi just hummed back, not wanting to really go into how that’s never really been how his parents operate. If it weren’t for the police being the ones enforcing it he was sure his dad would have called him in sick today to drag him along to a crime scene.

The school day went by both quickly and slowly in an agonizing way, and when it finally ended he didn’t even wait for Sonoko and Ran before changing shoes and booking it to his house.

When he made it to the gate in front of his house he found Conan waiting for him, anxiously looking around through the bars. His brother lit up at the sight of him and was clumsily trying to open the gate but Shinichi beat him to it. With the gate open Conan clung to his legs and buried his face there. “You were gone too long!” Conan complained, and Shinichi knelt down to properly hug him.

“I got back as soon as I could.” He tried to soothe, but Conan just moved to cling to his neck and didn’t respond. So Shinichi picked him up and went into the house.

He found his parents in the library, his mom focused on a new romance novel she’d picked up in Italy and his dad staring at an email that was probably from Inspector Megure. He smiled and made his way to his own chair, curling up in it and grabbing the book he’d put beside it earlier. He started reading out loud and Conan still refused to budge, but there was this tired slumping that Shinichi knew was him finally relaxing.

Shinichi felt the same, the tension he’d been holding in all day at school dissolving as he sunk into the feeling of his family, home and back together with him. His eyes threatened to fall shut as the sun warmed him and the quiet sounds of pages turning and keystrokes nearly put him to sleep before he rallied again to keep reading, trying to reach through Conan’s dreams to reassure him that Shinichi was there.

They all were.

Seven Months Later

Conan watched his parents talk quietly to each other, looking stressed as they spoke, before losing interest and returning to the item finding book his brother had gotten for him. He peeled a sticker off of the sheet Shinichi had left with him, frowning as it tried to stick to his fingers, before carefully placing it over the now located object. When Shinichi had shown him this he looked like he had some kind of method but Conan couldn’t tell what it was, so he just used whatever color he thought looked good.

He thinks that his brother should be home soon - maybe that was why his parents looked stressed? But that didn’t make sense, they’ve been looking stressed for a few days now. If it was about Shinichi then they would have talked to him.

Conan didn’t realize that he had become lost in thought about this until he heard the sound of the door closing and his brother calling out, “I’m home!”

Conan scrambled to his feet and ran to the entryway. “Shi-niichan! Welcome home!” He chirped, and Shinichi smiled at him. He grinned back and tugged on his brother’s hand to take him to the playroom. “Come see!”

“Did you work on the book I got you?” He asked, and Conan nodded.

“Couldn’t find them all,” he admitted sulkily and his brother laughed and ruffled his hair.

“That’s alright, I didn’t think you would. It’s just to start practicing.” Shinichi said, and some of his nervousness vanished.

As they came into the playroom their parents went quiet but Conan was focused on retrieving the book and pointing to the stickers he’d placed down and what items he couldn’t find on the page, and Shinichi showed him how the items were hidden or camouflaged and why he had trouble finding them. As Conan nodded and meticulously covered those items, their mom cleared her throat. “Welcome home, Shin-chan!” She said, and Shinichi smiled at them.

“Why were you two so distracted?” His brother asked, and Conan listened in out of curiosity.

“We were thinking of going to Hawaii for a week or two!” Their mother said excitedly, and Conan couldn’t help but feel that they were trying to distract his brother. He looked up and saw that Shinichi had his eyebrows raised.

“You guys with Conan again?” Shinichi sounded surprised, but Conan thinks it’s only because this was the first time either of them had heard about this.

“No, no, of course not! We want Shin-chan to come too!” Their mom said, and Conan felt the tightening in his lungs ease up a little when he heard that.

He saw Shinichi let out a sigh and wondered if he’d also felt his lungs hurt at the thought. “Will it be during the school break then?” He asked, and Conan looked up to watch them talk now, abandoning marking the items in the book for the time being. His mom and dad looked at each other again and his dad nodded.

“And,” His dad added on, folding his arms across his chest, “we’ll be enrolling Conan in the kindergarten near your high school once we come back.”

Conan perked up at hearing his own name before turning to Shinichi, who was nodding thoughtfully. “Is that early?” His brother asked, looking curious more than worried, and Conan turned back to see his mother shrug.

“This is around the right time,” she comforted. “I think we enrolled you around now as well.”

“Okay.” Shinichi said to himself before looking down at Conan and grinning. “That means I’ll probably be dropping you off and picking you up once school starts. Does that sound good to you, Conan?”

“Yeah!” He agreed, grinning back at his brother. It sounded like he wouldn’t be stuck at home anymore all of the time, and it sounded scary and interesting. Maybe he could find their library and look for new books!

“Alright, I’ll go tell Asou-san that we won’t be available for playdates on those days.” His dad said, standing up while their mom went to answer the ringing doorbell, exclaiming about the roses her friend probably sent, and Conan waved at them as he brought the book over to Shinichi to move on to the next page.

Three Weeks Later

Ran waved to Shinichi as she and Sonoko finally caught sight of him as Sonoko rolled her eyes. “Took you long enough, detective fre…?” Her words trailed off and Ran felt the same confusion that Sonoko surely had right then.

Shinichi was walking up to them but clinging to his side was Conan, with his own small backpack and bento, looking excited and nervous. He perked up when he saw them and ran forward a little, waving. “Ran-neechan! Sonoko-neechan! Hi!”

Ran smiled at him and knelt down a little so he’d have an easier time seeing her. “Hi, Conan-kun. I haven’t seen you in a while. Are you walking Shinichi to school?” She heard Sonoko laugh a little behind her but Conan shook his head, looking determined.

“I’m going to school too!” He declared, and Ran and Sonoko exchanged a look before turning to Shinichi just as he caught up to them.

He nodded slightly. “He’s eligible to enter the kindergarten program, so we’ll have to make a quick detour for me to drop him off.”

They both shrugged at him, unbothered, and started walking to Beika Pre-school. “I didn’t even realize he’d gotten so old,” Ran said, feeling a little wistful. She felt like it was only last month that Conan was allowed out with Shinichi for the first time.

Shinichi cocked his head to the side, as if confused. “He’s not even four yet.” He pointed out, and Sonoko rolled her eyes at him.

“It’s not that.” She said. “Ran just means he barely knew words like a month ago.” Conan made a face at that and Ran smiled as Shinichi picked him up as Conan tugged on his pants to be carried.

“I did not.” The child argued, trying to frown severely and failing. “I knew words!”

Sonoko’s expression softened but she didn’t let up. “Weren’t you basically not talking last year?”

Conan’s cheeks puffed out. “It was for research!” He defended, putting a hand on Shinichi’s shoulders as if asking for corroboration.

While Sonoko continued arguing with a three year old Ran glanced at Shinichi, who nodded a little back at her. Huh, so it actually had been intentional. She knew Shinichi did a bunch of experiments as a kid too (from what his mom had told her) so it wasn’t too odd, she supposed.

When they got to Beika Pre-school it was cute to watch Conan hesitate to go in, his hand gripping Shinichi’s pants tightly. He looked up at Shinichi, and Ran smiled a little when he gestured for Shinichi to come closer, which the older boy did immediately. She couldn’t hear what was said though she saw both of them moving their hands as they talked but after a while Shinichi said, “I promise.” and stood back up while Conan took a deep breath and walked in.

“I’m sure he’ll be alright.” Ran said to Shinichi after he didn’t move his gaze away from the entrance for a long time, and he seemed to shake himself out of whatever reverie he was in and turned back to her and Sonoko.

“Right.” He said back, clearly trying to convince himself. “I think so too. I just...worry, I guess. The only friend he really has is Akiko so this will probably be good for him.”

“I still can’t believe you managed to become a family friend of the Tani Family.” Sonoko griped, jostling him a little as they walked now that Conan wasn’t going to be tripped along with Shinichi. “My dad’s been trying to get in contact with them for years before then and suddenly he was getting responses the moment Tani-san learned you were friends with me.”

Shinichi smiled back innocently. “If you want to help your dad out more or something, just save more children from being hit by cars, Sonoko. I’m sure you’ll find some somewhere.” He laughed as she shoved his shoulder and rocked with the motion, returning to their side a moment later.

They were changing out their shoes when Shinichi froze before letting out a groan and gently knocking his head into the lockers. Ran looked at him immediately. “What’s wrong?”

“I forgot to take a picture of Conan going to school for the first time.” He confessed, showing her his opened bag and the camera lying inside. “Mom’s gonna kill me.” He sighed and ignored Sonoko’s amused grin next to them. “I guess I’ll just take it when I go to pick him up.” He decided and Ran blinked a little in surprise.

“You’re going to pick him up after school instead of your parents?” She asked, and he nodded and closed his bag as the bell rang a warning for them to go to class.

“I promised him I would,” he said, as if that was all that mattered.