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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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.

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."

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.

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.

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.

"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.

Grateful that she seemed to be getting more sense out of him, Ran opened the next door only to find the room she was looking for. Thank goodness...

She stepped inside and made a beeline for the cabinet that held the gauze and bandages, still carrying Conan. "I don't think he can be here unless he's in all of our worlds," she said carefully, glancing at the boy in her arms.

Whoever 'he' is.

"Everyone here is a version of somebody we know. There's a lot of us." She paused again. "I think you're the fifth Conan-kun I've met here."

Conan let out a bitter laugh. "Just great. It's the one that decided to go for more than the occasional alternate. Either it's the same one or another god that's more sadistic..."

His tone was dark. Angry, almost. And he didn't dare look at anywhere besides the ground.

Ran noted that tone and didn't like it in the least. Not any more than she liked that bitter laugh.

"Conan-kun, what are you talking about?" she asked cautiously, balancing him on her hip as she got out everything she'd need to bandage his arm. Her hand hesitated over a sterile stitching kit, and then took that as well.

Rather than sit him down on the bench so she could dress his wounds, Ran sat down herself and kept Conan in her lap, quickly ripping open a package of gauze and pressing it firmly to the still-bleeding gash. She didn't want to have to stitch him up -- she was no doctor after all, and while she could sew clothes, it was hardly the same thing -- but if the blood didn't stop soon she was going to have to.

"You're going to have to stitch it. It's too deep otherwise. Even just a hair in and I might have had the bullet lodged in my arm," Conan said, the tone sounding quite bitter.

Another laugh. "What am I talking about? The world where it all went wrong. Where it didn't matter if you knew 'Conan-kun,'" he pratically spat the name, "was never needed to be used."

Ran reluctantly pulled the stitching kit close and opened it with one hand, using her other to keep the gauze in place for the time being as she puzzled over Conan's words. She had been confused by plenty since coming to the mansion, but Conan was practically speaking Greek to her right now. Didn't matter if she knew? Never needed to be used?

"Didn't matter if I knew what?" she said slowly. For some reason she had the feeling like she was standing at the very edge of a deep chasm, and was about to fall in at any moment.

The last time she'd had that feeling was right before she'd found out that the ghost Shinichi was dead.

It wasn't very reassuring.

And there was still the wound -- bullet wound; just what kind of criminal had he been chasing? Seeing Conan nearly die from a shot even once had been enough, even if she'd suspected he was Shinichi at the time -- to take care of, whatever other questions she might have. Ran thinned her lips and offered Conan her free hand once she had the needle threaded.

"Here," she said. "Squeeze if you have to. This is going to hurt."

"That will likely make things worse. Better to have both hands free if you're stitching me this way," Conan said. He wasn't going to touch her. If he did, that meant accepting she was there and accepting she was there when he needed to stay still was not going to be a good idea. Which is why he didn't explain what he meant yet.

"And I'm used to it. Just do it," he added, his hands gripping his jeans.

I'm used to it.

Funny how one sentence could make her feel so sick to her stomach.

Taking a deep breath, Ran knotted the long end of the surgical thread and did her best to pinch the edges of the wound together. She'd had stitches once, a long time ago, when she was little and she'd gashed her leg on a rock while playing. Now she desperately cast her mind back to that instance, trying to remember what the doctors had done and which way the stitches had gone.

It hadn't been all one stitch; she remembered that the doctor had had to cut each of them individually when he'd taken them out. They hadn't been very tight, either. And the edges of the wound had come up just a little bit to meet in the middle...

Ran bit her lip hard and forced her hands to steady before beginning to stitch Conan up as best she could.

"You're doing fine. That's how they go in," Conan said through gritted teeth. It hurt, but he could feel how tense she was. And he'd rather her not mess up from nerves, so he provided encouragement.

Though only at the start because it wasn't easy to keep from sounding hurt while she worked.

Note to self: Always carry surgical super glue and medical tape on person in the future.

Still, Ran appreciated the encouragement, and the effort that she knew he must be making to give it in the first place. That he would do something like that despite the amount of pain he was in... she never ceased to be amazed by Conan's bravery.

She went as quickly as she could and still keep the stitches neat and even. It was incredibly nervewracking work, and she could feel beads of sweat trickling down her face before she was done, but she didn't dare pause to wipe them away. She just kept working, stopping only to clean away Conan's blood when it made it too difficult for her to keep her grip on the needle.

Finally, after what felt like hours, it was finished.

Ran let out a shaky breath and examined her handiwork. It was hardly perfect -- it looked quite messy and painful, really -- but the important thing was that the bleeding had almost completely stopped.

She did a light and quick cleaning of the wound with the same antiseptic that she'd used to sterilize the needle and her fingers, and then carefully pressed gauze to it, leaning over slightly to see Conan's face. She wanted to make sure he was all right before she bandaged it. "Are you okay, Conan-kun?"

"Fine. Better than doing it myself," Conan said, still not looking up, still tense as he waited for the pain to fade.

He had been thinking he would have to do it himself. He wasn't sure if this counted for 'lucking out' though.

Ran sighed quietly and gently took Conan's arm, holding it still as she bandaged it to keep the gauze in place.

"Are you hurt anywhere else?" she asked. She could see a lot of cuts and bruises, but it was difficult to tell how bad they were underneath his clothes and the dirt.

"Nothing else is serious. He only got one shot before I vanished. The rest is from debris, but I just need bandaids," Conan said.

"...you can put me down. I'm probably heavier than you're used too."

"It's fine," Ran said firmly, but she carefully removed Conan from her lap anyway, sitting him on the bench beside her so she could get up. "Wait right here, I'm going to get you some pain killers."

"I won't be taking them right away," Conan said, still staring at the floor.

Pain killers plus blood loss meant lowering his guard. He was already throan as is. He couldn't afford to lose anymore control.

"Why not?!" Ran demanded, turning around with a pill bottle in hand and looking incredulous. "You need to take some, Conan-kun!"

"Because if I do, I'm going to lose it," Conan said, tone deadly serious, his body rigid. "I'm barely keeping control now, R-" He choked on the word. Damn, he couldn't even risk saying her name.

He just couldn't accept her. Not now. Not like this.

"A lot has happened...far too much..."

Ran stared.

Then she slowly put the bottle back, picking out another one. "Would a weaker one be okay?" she asked quietly. "There's children's pain killers in here."

Conan shook his head. "I'll be fine. I've been worse than this before without pain killers," Conan said. It'd bee true. Eventually he got them, but it always took time to get somewhere for them.