Monthly Archives: October 2014

by

Bloody Moriarty

thelotusflowerfiles:

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“No need. I’ve already paid for the both of us and the cab has been taken care of as well.” He stated and finished off his water. Collecting his bag and the food he glanced outside and watched the cab pull up.

“Jon’s early.” He murmured and glanced down at his watch. Looking down to Twig then back up the Hakuba he asked them both. “Ready to go?”

By the time the attention had returned to him, Hakuba managed to get himself into some sort of presentable condition. He didn’t want to lean on his cane any more than necessary, even with the tension in his back. Yes, Kudou knew that he’d been injured, and it was obvious to anyone with any sort of basic observational skills, but that didn’t mean that he wanted to go out of his way to appear weak. 

He spared a glance down at Twig, who wagged her tail, looking right back, then gave a nod. “Yes, I believe so.” Despite saying thus, Hakuba reached back into the booth to retrieve his bag, which he shouldered as a sort of counter-balance to the cane, and started toward the door. 

The limp wasn’t so bad, really, now that he’d had a chance to rest, but his gait was stiff, anyway. Still, determined to be as brave as he could muster, he bore that smile again and walked, anyway. “Thank you for the tea, Kudou-san… it was just what I needed." 

by

A Little Assistance || littledetective

littledetective:

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   It was far easier to play the adorable, helpful child around those he hadn’t spent a lot of time around, or those that didn’t know his true identity. While Hakuba seemed capable on his own, he hoped that he wouldn’t become another that figured his secret.

   ”What’s the dog’s name, and how’d it get out?” Conan wanted to asked what it was the owner wanted from the canine’s collar, but would wiggle his way into that question later.

“Her name is Mikki, and the current theory is that she somehow got out of my client’s car while it was parked at an office building, just two miles from here…”  Hakuba glanced in the direction of the building – north east – then back down to Conan with a sort of helpless frown.

“They think she just got out through the window, but I wonder if, perhaps, someone broke in to let her out. There were little scratches on the door next to the window, and it’s so terribly easy to break into those older cars. Here, I’ll show you a photo." 

The taller detective pulled out his phone to scroll through the evidence that he’d captured earlier that morning, and held it out to him. Sure enough, the black car had tiny scratches in the paint, indicative of a metal object and several false starts to get between the door and the pane of glass. 

"I have to admit that I’m more than a little upset at my client for leaving their dog in their parked car, but I suppose that can’t be helped now…" 

by

Terminal Affirmation

smokebombsandmirrors:

Kaito softened while watching him slip the necklace on. “I’m glad you like it.” 

He felt like a stupid giddy schoolgirl. Absolutely pleased with his handy work. It took him only three hour search for the right stone, a simple unannounced heist for the aquamarine disk, and six hours to link the chain together and three more to fit the topaz pieces around the disk.

“I’m only sorry that I don’t really have anything to give you in return,” Hakuba returned with a wince, voicing the thoughts he’d meant to keep to himself. Following the trend, he continued while adjusting his collar. “Dare I ask where it came from?" 

At least he managed a playful little smile along with it, tilting his head as he looked back at the young man that he knew, without a doubt, was a thief. That fact did nothing to deter from the sweet expression he gave, though, brown eyes warm and full of feeling as he looked at him with an almost embarrassing amount of vulnerability. 

”…or is it better left a mystery?“ 

by

City Jaunt!

harajukuharuspex:

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Everything hurt.

She came to with a start, with a gasp, with a near-silent cry of pain and an even quieter mental cry-

      [Emi.]

Her world spun. The walls, were they white or black or somewhere in between. Was someone there? She felt – or she thought she felt – a warmth, a heartbeat of someone close by, her left side in fact, and what was jammed down her throat? Akira choked on the breathing tube and heard the erratic beeping of the heart monitor as she struggled. The person beside her stirred, and Akira recoiled at the garish white and black smeared into grey and the black pits for eyes, a red slash for a mouth.

Akira screamed.

All of the time spent waiting, hyper-focused on every factor of his friend’s vital statistics, had lulled the detective into a false sense of the passage of time. Even the cases that Hakuba brought with him did little to hold his attention for any particular length of time, most of his presence dedicated to counting between each heartbeat, each revolution of the machinery in the room. It had become a sort of comforting despair. 

The scream, of course, disrupted that ever so thoroughly. 

Hakuba fell off of the chair that he’d been sitting in, papers scattering to the floor in a flurry of white and manilla, then scrambled to pick himself up. Any residual pain from his injuries was nothing to the pounding of his heart or the panic that flared up like scalding steam.

“A-AH! Akira-kun!” he cried, eyes wide. “Ah- ah, j-just hold on, hold on, let me… let me get the…”  The detective threw himself to the call button, hitting it a bit harder than necessary, and turned back to the girl in the bed. “Th-they’re coming! They’re coming! It’ll be all right!" 

He didn’t want her to choke, but strictly speaking, he wasn’t really permitted to remove the breathing apparatus on his own. Still, could he stand there and do nothing? Hesitantly, he edged closer to try to put a hand on her shoulder, frantic. 

by

Autumn Afternoons

koizumiakako:

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She had learned awhile back that many people found it easier to communicate if they were performing some distracting task with their hands. It was sort of a comforting gesture in a way. She thought it was cute that Hakuba would resort to such a quirk in his nervous state. His anxiety was almost tangible, in fact, thick and heavy in the air as if drawing the breath out of him and making him silent.

When he finally found the words to speak they were hurried and messy as if he had choked on them on the way out. What kind of question was that anyway? She raised an eyebrow at him and continued scribbling away at her work.

“Just fine. Thank you so much for asking. I have found that simply getting it over with is the best method for completing school work.” If he was going to ask such shallow questions then she was determined to provide him with equally shallow responses.

Eventually one of them would grow tired of it.

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“That’s a fair strategy, yes… it seems to work quite well." 

Would things ever stop being so awkward between them? Or between himself and, really, any number of people? Hakuba glanced over to her, feeling a sort of twinge in pain at the degrees of separation that they now had.  He pursed his lips, considering.

"Koizumi-sa… Koizumi,” he sighed, turning his head away in defeat. He was tired of it, and as much as he longed to cling to his resolve, it was far too difficult to keep up the pretense of indifference with someone he still had feelings for. Not that he could admit that to anyone but himself, but he knew it at his core. It was pointless to try to say otherwise. 

“What are we going to do?” He left the question open, vague, hoping that she could supply the meaning that he was attempting, and failing, to convey. 

by

desmondyokori:

“Oi-stop!” A young man about 17 called out, he was chasing after Hakuba waving his arm side to side trying to get his attention.

“Ah…” The detective glanced up and over, recognition flickering in his eyes. He didn’t know if the approaching person had anything to do with the package or the test in general, but it didn’t sit well with him. Even so, clutching the mysterious danger to his chest, he made his way through traffic with a quicker step to meet the other teen with an expression of panic.

“Yes, and who, exactly, are you?” he asked once they were safely on the sidewalk again.  

by

Split Decisions

blackorgkaito:

Finger on the trigger— not. His eyes might as well have been the Looking Glass, such tips tops turvy the reality he gazed at was; tremors in his hands were rejections of the gun in he was holding and I can’t do this, he wanted to say. It’s a life with a family and a past and maybe they’re someone’s father and—

He’s becoming exactly who he vowed that he wouldn’t be, couldn’t be; he’s becoming his father’s killer, he is a killer, and he can’t, he can’t—

A familiar voice.  

He could literally feel the blood draining out of his face. There was a sharp askance in his ear that he barely comprehended— What was that? What’s happening? You’d better answer me, KID, or your friends and family’s gone by next morning.

His breaths came sharp, quick, and damn it he was hyperventilating; a hand slammed to his mouth to cut off oxygen as thoughts of Aoko and Nakamori and his mother dead flashed by— house blown to bits? Maybe it would seem like a simple car accident— or if they were feeling particularly sadistic, it would be arson and memories of a burning stage and screams for his dad to come back echoed in his mind. 

If— if he could ask Hakuba to help— no, he can’t get the detective wound up in this mess. But if he could, if he could, if Hakuba could stop him from doing this, please, please— if he died in action, would his family live at least? He wouldn’t have to kill, and this nightmare would be over, but he couldn’t ask Hakuba to do that.

Not to mention they had thought of everything, he couldn’t ask anyway, the furiously whispering voice in his ear served as a reminder that he was live on air— 

Why hadn’t he checked to see if he was being tailed? Stupid stupid stupid stupid!

“It’s nothing. I’ll take care of it.”

Was his answer to the buzzing voice on the other end, his own forced through a twisting stomach and a constricted throat. A cautious shift in position to slowly rise, head swimming as he did so— placing the gun down (thank you) and raising his hands cautiously to show that he was unarmed. And he wanted to say that he was— No uncomfortable pistol hidden in the small of his back or a knife strapped down to his ankle because he was better than that, right?

But he wasn’t. 

The hidden hand gun that sat all too comfortably at his waist made him sick.

“Well then, you know what to do.”

The tone that came through the ear phones were anticipatory and taunting, a cat playing with it’s prey. He grit his teeth— Hakuba’s not the annoying classmate you know anymore, Kuroba, Kaito tried to tell himself even as his breath made an attempt to quicken again. Lets see, lets see, there was a camera somewhere that was monitoring him— Earphone guy wasn’t looking at it but Headquarters were.

Hakuba was just too noticeable of a person to pass by as a random intruder— what to do—  stupid British teenage detectives who messed everything up.

He can’t fake this, can’t pretend to shoot and cover the other’s mouth, can’t get a silent message across to him and even then he wouldn’t understand. Hakuba was just too good for that, despite his fallacies and annoyances. The stupid idiot would try to save the other and somehow save the day— because that’s what detectives did. 

Save lives.

Unlike him. 

So unlike him.

But that wasn’t the problem here he had to —

He can’t try any stupid moves. He licked his lips— one toe out of line and bang bang boom. He wouldn’t be surprised if the Syndicate would take it one step further and blow up his whole school.  

He would have to play along, then, at this game. If he knew the other as well as he did — the detective wasn’t going to flee anytime soon—or would he? The other was never one to run from danger if what he saw at his heists were any indication but then that was different. Either way, Kaito wanted him here— as soon as the detective got out of sight, the syndicate was going to hunt him down. Trap set. Game over.

He had to checkmate him— them— here. 

But how? 

All of these thoughts ran by in split seconds, mind working overdrive— he had to get the detective out of this alive. 

There was a final decision made at that moment— so many paths pointing to so many directions and he wasn’t sure if he had stepped foot in the right one. Not when all sense of moral “correctness” had gone down the drain. 

Right and wrong didn’t apply anymore.

No looking back.

“I’m afraid that doesn’t apply when the person in question isn’t quite thieving at the moment." 

Kaito said, slipping into his persona altogether too easily — Hakuba’d approached him as KID, and he’d reciprocate— stick with what’s familiar. He’s not in a rush to get to that sniper anytime soon, the conference would last for a while anyway, all he had to do was—

To do was—

He licked his dry lips again; body language Kaito, stop that, you’ve already given away enough.

The game changed all at once, and Hakuba’s expression hardened a degree in both confusion and concern, gaze trained on his classmate, his thief, flicking only briefly toward the gun set on the concrete of the rooftop, then back again. It wasn’t the card gun; that much was clear, and there was so much wrong with the scene before him that he’d have had to be a fool not to recognize it for what it was, at least in part. 

He couldn’t act without more data, though, and a clearer picture on where Kuroba stood in all of it. Theories leapt to his mind in a raging torrent, offering explanation, justification, and warnings, but settling on any would be dangerous to proceed on at the present juncture. 

At least there was the string of usual banner. It was safe– the only neutral territory in the face of potential upheaval. 

"Not quite?” Hakuba asked, forcing a smirk on his lips. “Honestly, you’d think that you could pick a better place and time to case a heist location than during a busy conference, Kaitou-san.”

The words, so familiar, gave him a chance to breathe, to sort through what he did know. KID wasn’t exactly a pacifist, he knew that, and he had dangerous people on his tail. It wouldn’t be unreasonable to assume that he had access to weapons beside his typical KID gear, especially after everything with Nightmare. But it wasn’t like KID to display so much hesitation, minute and discrete as it was. The fear, the bit of chatter… 

Was it Nightmare all over again? Were they being watched? Was Kuroba being controlled? 

Typical of his character, the detective shifted his gaze without turning his head to try to get a better feel for their surroundings, scanning for potential exit strategies. It would be such a simple matter to call for backup. He licked the back of his teeth, contemplating. He had cuffs on him. Perhaps he could take KID in– though, no, no, that wouldn’t work. KID couldn’t be caught for a multitude of reasons, and he still needed more information. 

“Don’t tell me that you’re losing your touch? Or is it just the thrill that you’re looking for?" 

by

thenightmarebyyourside:

…So serious all of the sudden. Hmm… Not what he’d been expecting the other to say, but it did make him pause the taunts.

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“…I’m not one much for guessing motivations. That’s more up your alley, detective.”

He raised a hand to his face, leaning his head on a couple of fingers, slight frown forming. Not that he didn’t get curious from time to time, the assassin just didn’t particularly care, since knowing them didn’t change much.

"So, pray tell, if you really do believe you have enough to successfully arrest, haven’t you?”

Not that he was really expecting an answer. If the detective was trying to get him to guess, it was more likely he wouldn’t anyway.

"It’s really quite simple, Mr. Goldberg…” The detective regarded him with an even expression, though the glint in his eyes was challenging if nothing else. “When given the choice, I won’t turn my quarry over until I’ve learned the whole truth. Without understanding your modus operandi, it is impossible for me to feel truly satisfied with the case.”

Hakuba touched a hand to his lips before tapping his chin, gaze darkening the longer he watched him. “But I don’t suppose you’d favor me in telling such a thrilling secret, would you? Those motivations are what I’m after, more than anything.”

by

Bloody Moriarty

thelotusflowerfiles:

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“Yes, yes, Thank you. Five minutes.” He sighed, hung up, and pinched the bridge of his nose where the headaches liked to gather. Glancing back inside he looked at the detective sitting there.

There was a lot of pain there, some of which he knew only too well. Inhaling the exhaling deeply he opened the door again and ventured back to the other detective. Azuza stopped him briefly to handed him back his card and a bag.

“Its curry. I thought you might want something to eat when you get home.” She said and gave him a shy smile.

He blinked at before taking it showing off an appreciative smile. “Thank you Azuza-san.” 

He sat back down and shuffled the flies back into his bag. “Five minutes.”

Hakuba put on a bravely optimistic face when Shinichi returned, nodding to the timeline. “I’ve just now finished, so the timing is ideal.” He hated assuming that his costs had been taken care of, but he’d watched the transaction between Shinichi and Azuza, and thought it better than presuming otherwise. 

Taking his time to slide out of the booth, bracing himself against the table until he could get a grip on his cane, he opted for a more careful approach. 

“I just need to settle my tab…" 

Twig, meanwhile, gathered up her leash and trotted out from underneath the table, rearing up to make sure that the end of it brushed against Hakuba’s hand before he straightened up completely. 

by

daughterofthesleuth:

Waiting on Shinichi to return at times had put a strain on Ran. She was unsure of his feelings more often than not and absence often would cause a heart to wander. It was perfectly normal, was it not? However, she still felt a little odd acting more like Sonoko than herself. But, in all honesty, she couldn’t help it. She was her own woman, able to make her own choices and she was caught up in the moment.

That didn’t stop the slight quaver in her voice as she searched his eyes for some sort of answer. She liked the way seemed to sparkle with a bit of understanding. “Y-yes… I mean a kiss.”

She stood a little straighter, conveying her thoughts in posture. She was sure he knew she could hold her own. It wasn’t everyday she was met with such a situation, however. She cleared her throat and took a step closer to the man. “I wouldn’t have said it if I didn’t mean it.”

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Ah, the confidence even in the face of uncertainty was so thoroughly seductive that the detective couldn’t have denied her request then even if he might have before. Hakuba stroked her cheek with his hand again as he observed her, fingertips trailing to her hair again, just above her ear.

“Fair enough,” he said, conceding the point like the melting touch of warm caramel, folding over cool vanilla cream. They were already close; it was a very simple matter to let his fingertip draw down to her chin to tilt her head up toward him again and lean in to complete her request. This kiss, though, wasn’t as simple as the previous.

Not that it was crude or heated beyond what was appropriate, but it was certainly the potential start of something. Eyes sliding half-closed, he touched his lips to hers and began a steady cascade of caresses, silently counting to three before tilting his head to give another three at a different angle. Slow and gentle with just enough of a part of his lips to impart the feeling of moisture between them. He pressed deeper, closer to her, then began to pull back, watching her reactions closely.