justonetruth | (no subject)

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Yet another Conan has come to the Dressing Room. One who was actually a bit taller than the usual Conan. He looks more like he's eleven. Maybe even twelve.

Brought in kind of at a bad time too.

Which should be obvious to anyone who happens upon him as he stumbled through the hallway as he's clutching at his arm. Which is bleeding. Quite heavily. And that's not accounting for all the smaller cuts, torn clothing, and bruises covering the rest of his body.

"Damn it," he muttered, leaning against a wall. "Hello! Heiji! Kaito! Anyone!" Damn, damn, damn, where was he?! One minute he's running from Snake after escaping narrowly from the 'little surprise' left for Kid in his landing spot, and now he's in some hotel. At least it felt like his arm was only grazed, but he'd need stitches and he really couldn't afford going to a hospital.

If he could find a phone in...wherever here was.

He didn't even recognize this place!

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Kaito watched him and couldn't help but comment. "Mind reading mistletoe?" He repeated, sounding amused.

"Not as funny as you think when it's trying to tell people you're not really seven," Conan said flatly.

Ran stopped dead with her hand still outstretched, shocked and surprised by Conan's reaction. "Wh-what...?"

He looked so scared. Of her. Ran had met her share of alternate Conans in this world, but she hadn't ever met one so terrified just to see her.

What had she done in his world to warrant that kind of reaction?

"Conan-kun," she said again, more softly, attempting to reach out for his wound again. Slowly, he's already scared... "I'm not going to hurt you. Please, just let me see. You're bleeding really bad..."

"That's kind of obvious!" Conan said, hysterics entering his tone. "Clearly I'm hallucinating from blood loss! If I let you treat it, I'll bleed to death. This can only be in my head." Logic. He was trying to apply logic with what didn't fit with how he saw things.

Ran was gone.

That wasn't going to change.

And he didn't dare to try to believe otherwise.

"Right." Yeah he could understand that. The mental image was still kinda funny, but he'd keep that to himself.

"And kept propositioning Aoko for you."

"Propositioning Aoko-chan?" He repeated. It's not like he didn't know what he meant or anything, but Aoko? Really? He knew that everyone else in their class liked to tease them about how close they were, and he sometimes suspected she liked him as more than a friend, but he didn't think of her that way.

There was a notable pause at Kaito's response. "...I guess there had to be a world where you weren't childhood friends?"

"You aren't hallucinating," Ran said sharply, perhaps a bit moreso than she'd intended. She didn't like seeing Conan like this. It was frightening.

This time she grabbed his arm more firmly, though she was careful to keep her movements slow and deliberate. She could feel the blood trickling warm and slick under her fingers, and tightened her grip enough to bruise, hoping to stem the flow. Before anything else, she had to stop the bleeding.

"This isn't your home, Conan-kun," Ran said as calmly as she could, keeping eye contact with the boy and doing her best to sound reassuring. "I know it seems really strange, but you have to trust me, okay?"

Conan jerked back, trying to get away. "I know it's not! There shouldn't be a building...and you...you should KNOW, but you still..." It was clear that he was starting to panic. He was terrified and confused, looking around wildly like he was trying to escape.

"No, we've only known each other for about three and a half years." He said, frowning. They were childhood friends in his world? So did that mean that this other Kaito was never Dove? Yet he was still Kaito and still the Kid. Hmm...

"I guess that means we didn't first meet for the clock tower case," Conan muttered thoughtfully.

He looked a little bemused. "Actually I think we did."

He looked mildly surprised. Even if that dullness had returned to his face. "Really? You had saved it because it was where you met Aoko as kids in my world."

She didn't have a choice. He was so desperate that Ran was half-tempted to let him go, but there wasn't anyone else around to help him treat his wounds. She hung on tight as Conan tried to yank away, and then used the resulting momentum to pull him close and into her arms in one smooth movement.

That was when she first really noticed that Conan was bigger than he should be -- and heavier, nearly causing her to fall over when she tried to stand with him, expecting a much lighter child. She half-staggered, regained her footing, and quickly pushed the thought to the back of her mind. That could come later.

"You're right, there shouldn't be a building," she said firmly, already turning towards the infirmary. She never thought that explaining what the mansion was might actually reassure someone, but Conan was so frightened about being here that she didn't know what else to do. "And I'm not... I'm not the Ran-neechan you know. This isn't your world, Conan-kun."

"Really? That's where we met the first time in my world too." What a crazy coincidence. If his luck wasn't so weird he wouldn't believe it either.

Surprisingly, those words caused Conan to freeze. "Not my...world?" He said softly.

And then he went limp in her arms. "No...no...that DAMN tree! That GODDAMN TREE!" He growled angrily, but there was a...resignation in his voice as well.

"Really? Interesting," Conan muttered. "...I guess some circumstances are always constant."

Now Ran was thoroughly confused, and possibly even more worried than before. "What tree?" she asked, struggling to carry him and keep her grip on his arm at the same time. She was managing so far -- if barely -- and if she remembered correctly, the infirmary wasn't too far away. Luckily Conan wasn't showing any signs of going into shock.

And there was something about the way Conan had said that... just how old was he?

"It didn't do enough...made me miss...now it made..I can actually BELIEVE this and it would be involved...sadistic bastard of a god..." Conan muttered darkly. He would put pressure on his wound instead, but that meant touching Ran's hand.

And he couldn't get himself to do it.

"I guess so." He agreed, scratching his head. Though now he couldn't help but feel just a little jealous of this other version of him. He'd been able to live a normal life from the start. Lucky guy.

"I wonder why it took so long," Conan said thoughtfully. "It was a chance meeting, but still, with your luck..."

God?

Just what was going on here?

"Conan-kun, it's all right. There isn't anything like that here." She hoped. She really really hoped. But considering the strangeness of this place... having a god involved didn't seem too impossible.

Worry about that later! Ran told herself, firmly, just as she managed to hurry into the corridor leading to the main floor's lobby. The infirmary should be one of those doors... she started opening and closing each one as she went, looking for a telltale flash of white walls and sterile counters.

Yeah, with his luck he really would end up collapsing behind the house of his supposedly dead real parents. "Well... I wasn't living Ekoda until about that time." Not really a lie.

"Keh, of course he is. Or else I wouldn't be here..." Conan muttered, a hand moving over the wound on his arm when she moved her hand away to open doors.

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