“H-Hello?” Daniel swore his paranoia even now was going to be the death of him. Who was following him? Those eyes he hated feeling eyes on him. He was trying to get back home, but a murder happened and even if he had cleared his conscious the guilt crept up and he hurriedly ran away from there.
Now he was in a dead end and his eyes turned to glance finally at the one following him.
“I’m innocent.” He says finally.
“I’m quite sure…” Hakuba said, though he wasn’t – he never was in this part of town. Murder happened everywhere, and innocent bystanders often fled in panic. Incidentally, so did criminals. All the same, they needed to be interrogated; it was part of policy. “Not to fret; I’m Detective Hakuba, and I’m just going to ask you some questions before you run off.”
The thief gave a single, slow shake of his head, but even that seemed to be too much and he hissed, blue eyes hazy with pain clenching shut at the electric stab shooting through his skull. He’d had worse, though. He could deal. He just…needed to get back up. Before he passed out completely. Come on, body.
Move.
“N-no,” he breathed, planting a hand on the cool bathroom floor to attempt to at least push himself back up into a seated position and even that took too much time and energy – that he didn’t even have – but at least leaning against the wall was better than staying sprawled on the floor. “Think I lost ‘em. Should be fine. Sorry—”
Another breath, a hand pressing weakly against his side, head tilting ever so slightly to throw the blond a faint grin.
“—‘bout your carpet. ‘M happy t’ pay for th’ cleaning.”
“Let’s not worry about that now… If you’ve gotten blood on the Persian, it wouldn’t be the first time, and I’ll just take care of it later… let’s focus, now, on you.”
The detective set the supplies down, then crossed over to the sink while rolling his sleeves up to his elbow. Hot water running, he washed his hands with soap, dried them off, then returned to the scene to kneel down in front of him. “Do you have an assessment of your injuries? What’s the most critical? I’ve sutures here for minor things, but if it’s worse…”
He sighed, already feeling the irritation creeping in. “But I suppose I couldn’t persuade you to go to a hospital even if you needed it, right?”
Hakuba wasn’t one to participate in police retreats except on special occasion – usually the promise of not being carded for alcohol and opportunities to get away to investigate on his own – but this time, his father had insisted, and for once, the young detective was grateful.
Kudou-kun was there, and despite what he’d heard, she’d been amicable toward him. That was probably due, in large part, to the ongoing, in-depth discussion of Sherlock Holmes, but even then, he hadn’t expected her to hold his hand during the hike. Nor had he anticipated her to calmly walk over in a towel and sit at the edge of the men’s side at the onsen, just so they could continue talking.
It had been wonderful to catch up with each other on all of their cases, theories, motivations, and of course Sherlock… so much so that they’d stayed together long after the others had passed out from drunkeness, leaning against the pillar on the broad porch, close for warmth. He wasn’t sure if he fell asleep first or not, but it didn’t really seem to matter…
…the other officers had a fantastic time giggling about it either way.
“It doesn’t look too bad…” Hakuba said, looking over the graze on the young woman’s arm. “But it may need stitches. Come here, sit down, I think I can handle this.” He reached in his field bag and took out gauze and a bottle of water to start cleaning out the injury. “You really didn’t want to let that criminal go, did you~?”
The hours went by as slowly as they possibly could, drawn out by empty stretches of night sky through the tiny, useless window on the plane. Hakuba sat straight and still with pillow support behind his back, attempting to read and ignore the fact that he was in pain. And bored. But that only worked for so long before he’d begun to doze off.
It was the third or fourth time that it happened that Hakuba finally looked over to his companion, one Hattori Heiji, noted amateur explorer, who had fallen asleep likely quite some time ago. Hakuba blinked tiredly at him, then shook his head, turning back to his book.
…only to give up about three minutes later, slumping against the window.
