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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"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.

Ran paused, then reluctantly put the pills back in the drawer and quietly closed it.

"Then you should rest," she said just as softly, coming back over to sit next to him. "Come on, we should find you a room."

Conan nodded, standing up. "How do rooms work here?"

"We just find an empty one and use it," Ran answered. She held out her hand to Conan, then let it fall when he didn't take it. "I think most of us are staying on the third floor, but there's bedrooms all over the place."

His head shifted to look at her hand, but he wouldn't take it. Couldn't take. "The third floor is fine," he said, shoving his hands in his pockets, wincing a bit as he moved his arm. But if he kpt his hands there, then it seemed less obvious he was avoiding contact with her.

The wince didn't escape her notice, however.

"Be careful with your arm, Conan-kun," Ran scolded gently, opening the infirmary door and holding it open for him. "Do you want something to eat first? There's a dining room, too."

He flinched slightly. He didn't want to hear her call him that. He had even avoided being called Conan-kun from anyone back home for months now.

That happened when he wasn't around the shonen tantei and the people who didn't know didn't really talk to him.

"I'm fi-" He was about to refuse the food when his stomach growled. Traitor.

Ran smiled faintly at him, a hint of her usual humour in its depths. Some things never changed.

"This way," she told him, counting the doors to the dining room. She could still see blood on the handles of the doors she had tried while searching for the infirmary, and she quickly looked away again.

Luckily she had remembered to wash her hands before they'd left the infirmary. Ran was certain she'd had more than enough blood for one day.

She found their second destination much more easily than the first, and held the door for Conan once again with a smile.

"You can take whatever you want," Ran explained. "It never seems to run out."

Conan walked into the room, for the first time looking up. He kind of had too. He wasn't that much taller than the tables.

"So the food just appears?" He asked, grabbing a plate and getting some food. Talk about facts. Facts were good. Facts meant knowing his situation and not thinking about stuff he didn't want to think about.

"Un." Ran wasn't very hungry herself, having just eaten a short while before, so she simply followed Conan around and retrieved food for him when he had difficulty reaching it. "No one has ever seen anyone bring it it in."

"It hasn't made people act weird, has it? Or change them into animals or the opposite gender or wrong age?" Conan asked.

...it happened a lot in the Inns.

Ran gave him a strange look. That almost sounded like the kinds of things that happened on the community. "No... Oh, but the other day all of us were leaving paint on everything we touched."

"Is that the worst thing this place has done? Aside from the kidnapping?" Conan asked, turning to find a place to sit to eat.

Ran took a moment to think about that, then nodded.

"Most of the bad stuff that happens here is because of the people who come in, not the mansion itself," she clarified, picking a small table and sitting across from Conan. Her expression darkened. "Be careful, okay? One of the Conan-kuns was attacked by someone here."

"Ah, another similarity. I wonder if when they reveal themselves, it'll be because they want us to 'save' this place?" Conan said allowed and let out a hollow laugh. "And yet they bring the villains."

"Don't worry. It's a concept I'm used too. Even Kaitou Kid found one villain a challenge and we were the ones to deal with them," he said before he started on his food.

"Conan-kun." Ran's tone was just as serious as the gaze that she fixed him with. "What happened to you?"

Conan fell silent, frozen in place. Then after a moment, he sent down his silverware.

"Please...stop calling me Conan. The one consolation I had was that wasn't the last name you called me."

Ran looked at him, long and just as silent. There was so much here that she didn't understand...

"Then what should I call you?" she asked quietly.

He shouldn't say. Wasn't his Ran. Would sell out the other. Shouldn't say, shouldn't, shouldn't.

...

Like he cared anymore. It'd work out just fine for them anyway.

"Shinichi."