Chapter Text
Rei paced in front of the couch, trying not to jostle the baby on his shoulder. It was hard to know if he pulled it off, since he just kept crying. No, not crying. Full-on screaming, clearly working through the seven-month-old’s equivalent of an existential crisis.
He’d never been good with babies. Probably because babies couldn’t be charmed like café patrons or skillfully manipulated like corrupt politicians. But this wasn’t just any baby. It was his baby. His kid—Kudou Shinichi. Even if his only resemblance to Rei’s troublemaking little detective right now was those big, heartbreaking blue eyes.
Rei had always known that two teenagers trying to back-engineer the Apotoxin antidote through trial and error was a recipe for disaster. But this…this had not been on his radar. Dr. Araide had joined Sherry’s project, now that he knew the truth about Shinichi. So it was Dr. Araide who’d called, two weeks ago, his voice so deliberately calm Rei’s heart practically stopped.
“The important thing to keep in mind is that he’s safe and healthy.” Which Rei knew you only said when whatever came after it was unimaginably bad.
Rei looked up at Akai. His eyes were sharp, his posture loose—but it was the kind of loose Rei knew meant Akai was mentally tallying the guns in his trunk. In the background, Rei could make out the sound of Miyano Shiho cooing as she placated…a cat? What was he hearing?
“Shinichi had a bit of an unexpected reaction to the latest antidote…” Dr. Araide was saying, before Rei lost his temper.
“Cut the platitudes. Just put Shinichi on the phone,” he snapped. And then froze as he heard, unmistakably, the sound of a baby gurgling.
He could feel Araide wincing. “Maybe I’d better send a photo.”
How it happened, no one had explained in terms Rei could understand. But what had happened was unmistakable. Kudou Shinichi, seventeen-year-old detective, sometime seven-year-old reluctant elementary school student, was suddenly seven months old again. And trying to fit his pudgy foot in his mouth, per the photo.
Everything after that was a blur. Rei loosely remembered shoving essentials into a duffel bag and locking the house while Akai made some surprise-family-getaway excuses to the neighbors. They cleared out the baby aisle at the local department store and picked up fast-tracked birth certificates and photo IDs from Agent Starling for their new cover identities on the way to an anonymously rented townhouse (courtesy of the Kudous). Rei was a little annoyed that the FBI could apparently fabricate flawless fake documents, with his country’s official seals, at a moment’s notice. But then Dr. Araide was at the door with this strange, squirming creature in a baby carrier—and Rei’s life turned upside down like he’d flipped his car on the freeway.
It was nothing like he’d imagined. Rei thought he’d known what it meant to be exhausted, to be utterly wrung out. But being a triple agent with an international crime syndicate had nothing on being a new parent, he’d decided. Every day was a series of little battles he inevitably lost: like, hygiene, or eating something besides Shinichi’s half-chewed Cheerios. Shinichi was cute—of course he was cute, especially in his purple panda sleepsuit, or at bottle time, or when he yawned and stuck his whole fist in his mouth. And yet he was still so stubborn. Rei didn’t know how he could be locked in a contest of wills with a kid so young he still had the Babinski foot-curl reflex.
He’d tried asking Kudou Yukiko how she got through it the first time. But all he got back was a text that said You’d have to ask the nannies <3
The baby hit that one pitch—the one Rei was convinced he’d invented, that went like an ice pick through his eardrum. He rubbed Shinichi’s back, staring in a sort of blank-eyed despair at the yellow duckies on the baby’s blue onesie.
“Come on, Shinichi. Maybe just give it a rest for five minutes?”
Shinichi fisted a hand around a clump of Rei’s hair and yanked. Which felt like a firm no.
It was just a run-of-the-mill ear infection. Another ear infection. Nothing to worry about, Dr. Araide had assured him over the phone—with a little less patience each time Rei called. “Repeat infections are common in kids his age. His immune system just isn’t that well developed yet.”
Shinichi’s immune system hadn’t been well developed as a seven-year-old. These days, it was more like ground zero for bacterial warfare. Shinichi had been a good sport about it—for a baby—the first few times. But now he was very done with it. And so was Rei. But not Shinichi’s ear canal, and it got the final vote.
Rei glared down the hall, toward where Akai was still luxuriating in the shower. (Any more than thirty seconds alone was a luxury, at this point.) Rei had shooed him off because he smelled like a whiskey distillery. Which was partly Rei’s fault, for splashing Akai’s highball glass over him. But mostly Akai’s, for pouring himself a double shot in the first place and then having the gall to tell Rei that he was just taking the edge off.
Shinichi squirmed and pressed his hot little cheek into Rei’s neck, seeking a comfort he didn’t know how to give. Rei brushed his lips against the baby’s soft puff of hair.
“I know, kiddo. Just one more night, okay? We just have to get through one more night.”
That’s what Rei kept telling himself, anyway.
One more night, and Shinichi’s fever would break. One more night, and he’d start sleeping for more than forty-five minutes at a time. One more night, and Rei would figure out how the hell he was supposed to do this.
Dr. Araide was confident Shinichi’s body would revert, given time. Three months was his best guess. They just had to survive that long. But survival was pushing them to the brink.
Rei stared unseeing at the clutter on the coffee table. The stuffed elephant. The sticky pacifier. The fuzzy ice pack shaped like a Brontosaurus. An empty bottle teetered on a pizza box Rei hoped was from yesterday, not last week. His intelligence reports were piling up unread in his inbox, and he could feel himself losing IQ points every time he jerked up to the scream Akai had nicknamed Satan’s alarm clock. The closest he’d come to cooking in two weeks was a batch of lumpy, half-raw pancakes, made one-handed while juggling baby Shinichi and whisper-flaying Kazami over the phone for calling during naptime. He barely recognized the man in the mirror, disheveled and exhausted and clinging to his last nerve.
And for all that, he was still screwing it up.
The baby wailed. Rei blinked a little heat that was definitely not tears out of his eyes, rocking Shinichi uselessly against his shoulder. His baby was in pain—inconsolable. And there was nothing Rei could do for him. He couldn’t bicker with Shinichi—couldn’t overrule him—couldn’t get a grudging little smile when he brought home coffee-flavored popsicles for the kid’s sore throat. He was terrible at this, just like Akai had said he’d be.
(Well, maybe Akai hadn’t said that—more like, “Are you sure we can handle this?” staring warily at the some-assembly-required baby crib teetering in their shopping cart. But that wasn’t a vote of confidence, so it was functionally the same thing.)
It was probably the sleep deprivation talking. But somehow, Rei was sure Shinichi would know how bad they’d been at this. And how much better he’d deserved.
Footsteps in the hall. Rei turned to find Akai watching them, working a towel through his damp hair.
“Is he feeling any better?” Akai asked.
“What do your eardrums tell you?” Rei snipped. Absurdly irritated with Akai for being clean and freshly shaven. Rei’d had a shower that afternoon…but that was before the mashed sweet potato shelling of Shinichi’s last feeding. He was pretty sure by now, he just reeked of desperation.
Shinichi turned his head sullenly away from Akai—still holding him responsible for administering his last set of eardrops, maybe. Rei didn’t know if babies had long enough memories to hold a grudge. But he wouldn’t put it past his baby to be the exception.
“Can you get…?” he started to ask. But Akai had already slipped into the kitchen to prep Shinichi’s bottle, covertly lacing it with amoxicillin, like he was poisoning a corrupt CEO instead of just dosing a seven-month-old. It had worked so far. Rei walked Shinichi to the window, so he wouldn’t witness the crime.
Of all the things Rei hadn’t thought he’d miss about Shinichi with all his mental faculties, being sick was near the top of the list. Shinichi was not an easy patient. Actually, he was an impossible patient, because most of the time he insisted he wasn’t a patient at all. Like last fall, when he’d caught a bad cold from one of the little germ assassins in Ms. Kobayashi’s class, and still tried to sneak out and join Takagi and Chiba on a jewelry heist, so stuffed up he sounded like he’d swallowed a duck whistle.
Rei had caught Shinichi in the entryway, blocked the kid’s path as he struggled to wrap a scarf around his neck without sneezing all over it.
“No one’s leaving the house with a fever over a hundred,” Rei told him, waving the thermometer.
To which that little brat had the audacity to say, “You first.” And since Rei clocked in at 101° to Shinichi’s 100.5°, he had to call in sick for his café shift, too. Which was ridiculous, because Rei was an adult, and not in danger of melting his brain with a garden-variety fever. (Though he was a public health hazard, Akai pointed out, since he worked in food service.)
Rei didn’t like letting his teenager get the best of him. But two days tucked up on the couch with Shinichi, playfighting for foot space while Akai brought them cranberry juice and tom kha soup from their favorite Thai restaurant…well, that part of it, Rei would gladly do again.
He could only remember one time his sick kid hadn’t been impossible. The last time—the time he’d been trying not to think about.
Back in his own body for a few weeks, Shinichi had gotten himself tangled up in a case: an organized crime case, chasing a serial killer who was disguising his victims in among targets for the Russian mob. It was the kind of case Rei never wanted Shinichi within a thousand feet of. But Shinichi was a detective first, and he never knew when to quit—not even after a close shave with a few mob enforcers left him bleeding out in an old warehouse, clinging to consciousness while Rei and Akai screeched through Tokyo at 120 kph, begging him over the crackly speakerphone to hang on.
For four hours, sitting in the hospital waiting room with Akai’s hand tight on his shoulder, Rei thought they were going to lose him. But in spite of literally impaling himself on a rusty chunk of rebar, Shinichi had come out of it with two arrests and mostly unscathed. Well, he’d lost his appendix. But if you had to lose an organ, you could do a lot worse.
Those first few days after they brought Shinichi home from the hospital, Rei thought everything was back to normal. But Shinichi was just off. Three weeks later, this kid who’d never let a twisted ankle get in the way of riding his skateboard down the freeway was still just curled up on the couch, picking at his favorite pesto gnocchi casserole and falling asleep to Detective Samonji.
That was worrying. Still, Rei didn’t realize he was actually in trouble until the next week, when Shinichi got an invitation to one of Hakuba’s mystery parties.
Shinichi lived for those kinds of things—especially when he was in his own body, and could go as himself. Rei had been all ready to push back on him going, while fully intending to lose that argument. But Shinichi barely looked up as he said, “Maybe send it along to Sera? See if she’s up for it?”
Rei moved his sandwich plate aside so he could perch on the couch, one hand on the boy’s back. “Shinichi? Hey. What’s going on?”
Shinichi shook his head. “Nothing. I’m just so tired,” he said, before rolling over and dozing off before the soccer game even came back from commercial.
He was recovering too slowly—the effect of his exposure to the APTX antidote, Sherry thought, his seventeen-year-old body eating up his metabolic resources. The organic chemistry was a little over Rei’s head. But he’d agreed with her plan to administer the next drug early, force a transformation back into Conan.
“Whatever you have to do.” That was what he’d told her over the phone. Forgetting how dangerous the word whatever was.
The next morning, Rei dropped his kid off at Dr. Araide’s office. And what he got back was…this.
Rei had stopped walking. Maybe that’s why the baby was screaming, his tiny lungs heaving in his chest. Rei looked down into that curdled red face and experienced a moment of total dissociation, his stomach churning like he was going to hurl. This was all that was left of his kid. And for all Rei knew, this was all that would ever be left of Shinichi. Haibara and Dr. Araide didn’t think so. But they hadn’t thought this would happen, either.
All Rei had right now were assurances, estimates, theories. No one could promise he’d get Shinichi back, just as he had been. And Rei honestly wasn’t sure he could handle that.
“Bottle’s ready.”
Akai had come up behind him. Rei breathed in sharp and pushed Shinichi into Akai’s arms, shoving past him. “Great. Can you give it to him? I just…I need a minute.” Trying to blink the prickle out of his eyes before Akai caught it. But of course he did; never had the decency to miss anything.
Akai hooked him by the elbow. “Rei—”
“Just give him the damn bottle,” Rei ground out. But Akai wouldn’t budge, his grip tightening as he tried to lock eyes.
“Rei, if you need anything—”
“I need Shinichi!”
The words were out before he could catch himself. Rei wiped a hand across his mouth. He had this horrible, sick ache in his chest, like just breathing was going to turn his stomach inside out.
Akai watched him like he was a detonator about to blow. Then he slowly held out the baby.
Rei choked. “Not like that.” He pressed his fingers into his aching eyes. “I just…I need somebody to steal my phone trying to get classified PSB files. I need someone to give me shit for the sweet potato in my hair. I need someone to ignore me for his book and beat me at gin rummy and ask me how to lace a cigarette with strychnine, so I feel like I’m in control of one goddamn thing.”
Akai’s face softened, too knowing. “We’ll get him back,” he said, trying to ease Rei into his arms.
Rei jerked back, his eyes stinging.
“You don’t know that! You can’t promise me anything. I spent so much damn time trying to keep him alive, and he’s just—gone.” And now he was shouting, which set the baby off again. Shinichi writhed in Akai’s arms, his wail throbbing in Rei’s skull. Rei pinched his temples. “Shinichi, please, just…” He stopped, not sleep-deprived enough to think he could negotiate with a baby.
“Rei—”
Rei shook his head, eyes blurring. “I can’t do this, Akai. I can’t lose him—”
Akai caught him by the back of the neck. “Rei, look at me.”
Rei didn’t want to. He let Akai tip his chin up anyway, the tip of his thumb massaging soothing circles into Rei’s clenched jaw.
“He’s right here, Rei,” Akai said softly, hefting Shinichi higher on his shoulder. “He’s safe. He’s…mgh.” Akai broke off with a grimace. “He needs a diaper change, but…”
Rei stared at him. Then he was laughing—a little choked up, sort of manic. Still the first time he’d laughed since Shinichi got his foot stuck in the applesauce jar that morning. Akai pulled him in and held him easy, his callused fingertips digging just right into his cervical spine, soothing the tension out of the base of his skull.
A tiny hand fastened in his T-shirt. Shinichi stared up at Rei, all red-faced with little tear stains on his puffy cheeks. Which was heartbreaking. Suddenly Rei remembered exactly who this was, his heart bruised for a whole different reason as he bent and pressed his forehead to Shinichi’s, nose to tiny baby nose.
“Hey,” Rei whispered, looking into those big blue eyes. “I’m sorry about that, kiddo. I’ll get it together, okay? So… don’t give up on me.”
Shinichi’s pudgy fingers touched his cheek. Probably just because he was obsessed with faces right now. But Rei was taking it as forgiveness.
Akai thumbed Rei’s hair back behind his ear. “All you had tonight were his leftovers. Let’s grab some takeout from that restaurant we found the other night—the place with the world’s best orange cauliflower.”
Rei huffed, biting down a smile. “Pretty sure that was the starvation talking.” It had taken hours for Shinichi to fall asleep that night, and Rei didn’t dare move, cradling the baby in his aching arms while Akai fed him with a pair of disposable chopsticks. It was a good memory, though. “Maybe less oil and more starch tonight,” he said. His stomach felt a little queasy, probably from three days of no sleep and too much coffee.
Rei let Akai handle the diaper change while he called in the order for pasta marinara and garlic bread from the Italian bistro up the street. Then he settled on the couch, holding up his arms for the baby and the bottle.
He might be flattering himself. But the baby seemed to be reaching for him, too.
Akai dropped onto the couch behind Rei—just right to wedge between him and the stiff cushions, to give him something to lean against. Shinichi gave a sad little whimper around the bottle. Akai grabbed the blue bear-shaped nasal aspirator off the table and pressed it to the baby’s nose, sucking up the snot he’d been wiping all over Rei’s shirt.
“I’m never going to let him forget this,” he murmured.
Rei’s laugh stuck in his throat. He let his head loll back onto Akai’s shoulder, too exhausted to fight it.
“It takes fifteen minutes for the amoxicillin to kick in. Can you just…not move for that long?”
“As long as you need,” Akai said. Which felt like the answer to a bigger question than he’d asked.
Rei closed his eyes as Akai’s thumb raked the short hairs at the nape of his neck the wrong way, a pleasant little tingle like an electric shock. It grounded him, put him back in his body. Affirming with every touch that he was strong enough to lean on.
Maybe throwing whiskey at him had been an overreaction. Not Rei’s first of the week. He was trying to block out the memory of the great egg roll meltdown of two days ago, when he’d searched through the bag of Chinese takeout twice for the missing, waxy appetizer bag and then slammed Akai with a very mature, “You do these things on purpose.”
Or last week, last ear infection, when he’d slumped on the bed next to Shinichi’s crib, refusing to shower or eat or even take a power nap because “He’s just going to be up again in ten minutes.” Which came out a little petulant. But Akai hadn’t called him on it. Just nudged his thigh against Rei’s and prodded him in the back with a pizza box, cajoled him into eating a couple of slices. And when he fell asleep that night, with Akai’s arm heavy across him and Shinichi’s tiny, petal-soft baby hand gripping his finger, Rei felt for just a second like maybe they could pull this off, piece this splintered family back together.
Rei glanced at Akai. Not as suave as usual—his hair ruffled, his green eyes tired and a distinctive banana-mush handprint on his black sweatshirt. And yet, looking at him put this tender ache in Rei’s chest.
Rei knew he wasn’t at his best right now. And neither was Shinichi. And Akai was just…still here. Fighting through it. Warm and steady against his back.
“Don’t leave,” Rei said. He felt Akai’s gaze on his face. Rei kept his eyes on Shinichi, tracing those little fingers in his shirt. “Just…don’t get sick of us and bail. Okay?”
Akai shifted. But he was just leaning in, close enough for Rei to feel the hum against his skin as he murmured, “Can’t get rid of me that easy.”
Shinichi was finally falling asleep. The baby kept blinking up at Rei—never let it be said this kid couldn’t be stubborn at any size—but those blue eyes were getting heavy, his head sinking into the crook of Rei’s shoulder. Rei set the bottle down and nudged Akai with his elbow.
“Hand me the thermometer. I want to check him again.”
“I have something better.” Akai scrounged around on the coffee table, worked open a plastic bag with the stealth befitting a sniper. Then he planted a ladybug sticker on Shinichi’s forehead, smoothing the cheerful cartoon bug down on his flushed skin. “Found this at the pharmacy today. It monitors his temperature continuously for forty-eight hours, so you can check it without waking him.” Akai rested his chin on Rei’s shoulder. “Seemed like a tactical improvement.”
“Don’t try to turn buying baby gear into a covert mission,” Rei muttered. Though he was a little charmed, in spite of himself.
Akai seemed to know it. He peeled off a green-and-coral butterfly and stuck it to Rei’s temple, smirking.
Rei rolled his eyes. “Classy.”
Akai chuckled. Then his eyebrows drew together, a wary look on his face. “Rei?”
“What?” Rei’s heart sank. He grabbed the hand mirror Shinichi had been making faces into yesterday and held it up. Green numbers glowed on the butterfly’s wing: 101.
Rei’s stomach gave an ominous rumble. Akai leaned back on his hands.
“You’re probably going to want to skip that takeout.”