Work Text:
It was late.
Haibara rolled onto her side. With a grimace, she cracked an eye open to meet the sharp red of her digital clock display, on which she sleepily interpreted the blurred lines of 02:03.
Her mouth tight around the edges, she sat up and bunched the blankets over her knees, rubbing her eyes as they accustomed to the dark. She caught a glimpse of Hakase's vacant bunk, black skies being reflected off the equally voidlike screen of the bedroom TV just above, and audibly exhaled through her nose. Except for the gentle sounds of her own mortality, the house was silent. She was alone.
Alone… and restless. She kicked off her blankets and wandered downstairs, stubbornly refusing to turn on the lights as she felt her way down the first flight of steps. When the fog cleared, silhouettes blurred into more focused shapes, and she found her way in the ambient light alone.
She made a quick stop in the kitchen to make some tea. As she put on the kettle, something beckoned a careful eye towards the front door. Her skin prickled with foreboding and against her better judgment, felt compelled to investigate.
Cautiously, she approached the front door. It was locked, but it wasn't the door she was worried about—underfoot, the carpet squelched beneath her slippered feet, soiled with mud and rainwater.
And there were tracks. Fresh. They beelined from the front door to the second flight of steps and down… down into the lab.
Haibara sucked in a breath, and became acutely aware of her elevated pulse. It drummed in her ears like a muffled siren. Had she left these behind? No, too new . She crouched to her knees and waved a hand over one. The tracks were small, obviously child-sized, and revealed the clear imprint of the horizontal lines of a sneaker sole. Could it be…?
She was pulled from her thoughts by a crash from down below. Instinctively, she jumped and grabbed for the nearest blunt object that could pass for a weapon. Still navigating through the dark, she crept towards the mouth of the stairs and listened, trying not to coax too much noise from the ruined carpet.
There weren't any voices, but there was another clang–louder, this time–which nearly provoked a compromising yip out of her. Someone was in the lab, rifling through drawers, haphazardly shoving equipment to the floor as they turned the place inside-out looking for… something.
Haibara swallowed, curling her fingers tightly around the marble head of Hakase's latest accolade. Her fingernails ground against its shoulders as she deliberated her next course of action. It briefly crossed her mind that she was, perhaps, simply being hysterical—overthinking things, as she tended to do. It was just Kudo-kun… right? Right.
Except… it wasn't. She knew, with grim resolve, that it wasn't.
Common sense whiplashed her back to reality as her fingers brushed across the shape of her phone in her pocket.
Edogawa-kun's in tge house, she tapped hurriedly, her fingers shaking over the keys. I don'y knoe what he wants. Come quivkly.
Send.
Send.
Send.
Sent.
Well, at least now she was guaranteed not to die alone if things went south.
For her own sake, she kicked off her slippers, steeled her nerves in silent grit, and finally began to descend the cold steps to the basement, expertly stealthing on the balls of her feet to meet the thing she had known, for some time, was not what it seemed.
She felt as if she were approaching something immense.
Every step she took had weight to it, each more taxing than the last. And it was more than just a physical sensation, each step prompted her to reconsider her… frankly uncharacteristic doggedness until it was too late to take it back and she landed at the bottom.
Here—especially at two in the morning—was the coldest, darkest room in the house, somewhat menacing even in the daylight hours, and she had willingly chosen to traipse into its maw like easy prey. Here, she could just barely make out the shapes littered across the gloom, impressively disordered and visual noise to her tired eyes. She quietly wondered what it would take to get her to square off like this with her typical inclinations to discretion again.
Aware of her heart rate elevating for a second time, she squinted into the dark. Beyond the worst of the mess, near her workstation, was the hunched silhouette of Edogawa-kun pillaging a tool chest.
"Oh, Haibara," he acknowledged her coolly, not once turning to meet her. "Didn't mean to wake you."
Her fingers clenched around the marble accolade, sweat forming on her brow.
"Kudo-kun…" she breathed, trying to mask her shock, "...this couldn't wait until morning?" Her voice was thin on the night air, cautious as she surveyed the damage he had done to the lab thus far.
"No," came the reply. "No, I'm on a time constraint."
"What for?"
"It doesn't matter."
"It does when you break into Hakase's house in the middle of the night to ravage my lab," she dared.
Conan glowered over his shoulder at her. "It doesn't matter," he repeated.
He sounded tense. Haibara didn't push it further. She thought it was a reasonable line of questioning, but clearly he didn't think so. As he moved on to an untouched box, she drank in what she could see of him and noticed he seemed… unkempt. It was hard to fully tell in the dark, but his appearance seemed to match his attitude, for once—a fact that was strange enough in itself that it prompted her to speak again.
"What exactly are you looking for?" she pried.
"Don't tell me you plan on lending a helping hand?"
Once again, she took in the state of the lab.
"...Maybe."
Conan lifted his head from his latest four-sided victim. This time, when he looked at her, there were no glints of light to catch his glasses and instead she saw the pinpricks of red in his eyes beyond them. She was briefly reminded of her digital clock display upstairs and swallowed as he came near.
"You surprise me," he mused, with a buttery cadence which made her skin crawl. "You're right, though, the quickest solution here is to simply ask for your help. So, Haibara…" he crooned, "where's the antidote?"
The antidote…?
"Don't play coy with me," he frowned. "Cough it up. I know you finished it."
Who told him that.
She knew where it was, yes, but the request felt less like the idiotic wheedling he often tried to get info out of her and more like an overt demand. The aggression was already rather unlike him, and there was an unnerving promise of violence in his voice that she didn't like.
"Kudo-kun…" she exhaled, still clinging to composure, "we've been over this. You know you can't just take the antidote whenever you want."
He seemed not to hear her, and instead held out his hand. "Where is it?"
She tried to usher it away. "Kudo-kun, I'm serious."
"Where—"
"Safe," she cut him off. "Whatever it is that's so urgent that you chose to trespass for it can—"
"The antidote, Haibara ."
It alarmed her that he was pressing this hard for it. His behavior reminded her of the addicts the organization sometimes put in front of her for human testing. She sighed and, after moving some emotional mountains, summoned the monumental effort to will herself not to scramble back up the steps and put as much distance between them as possible. "No."
He seemed to hear her this time and tilted his head at her like a deer in the headlights. Haibara almost laughed. Had he really expected her to simply smile and nod and hand it over?
"You heard me," she reiterated, for emphasis. "No."
With noticeable restraint, Conan slowly withdrew his hand and raised both over his head in apparent surrender. "Okay, okay," he relented, his aggressive sense of urgency apparently having evaporated on a dime. "Sorry. I know better, I know. You don't have to tell me."
Apparently not. She relaxed her shoulders a little. "Then what came over you, Kudo-kun," she frowned. "This isn't like you."
His gaze drifted with a suggestion of guilt. The unnatural, red color still disturbed her. "No," he conceded. "It isn't."
She didn't have time to process what happened next. Before she could blink, his hand constricted around her throat and she slammed into the wall with the force of a car, the statuette she'd nabbed for self-defense clattering to the floor. The world blurred by in muddy greens and blues, the haze broken only by those grotesque eyes of his, lighting the high points of his face in a dim, grisly red glow.
"Wh—"
"Shhhh."
"K-Kudo-kun—!"
"Shhhh, shh…"
She cried out, pawing uselessly at his wrist as he calmly adjusted his fingers around her neck. On top of everything else, she felt points digging into her skin and didn't know what to make of it. Even worse, the floor pulled out from under her and just as suddenly as this had started, she was suspended in the air.
"Haibara…" he scoffed, "do you really think that, after months of inaction, you are in any place to stop me now?"
"Wh…what are…" she rasped.
"Did you really think I hadn't noticed you were onto me?" he laughed, lifting her higher so she wriggled harder. "Did you think you were being clever by pretending it didn't bother you?"
In the back of her mind, where she still had the freedom for defiance, she quietly wished he would shut up.
"What are you."
He paused for a moment, appearing surprised—if not contemplative—then pushed a little further into her throat, relishing the strangled gasp which was forced out of her as a result. She caught the evil shine of a fanged smile as she struggled to catch her breath.
"Well," he leered, rolling his shoulders, "that has yet to be seen, doesn't it? Tell you what—if you give me the antidote, we can answer that question right here and now."
"You… You're not getting the antidote," she choked, kicking wildly in an attempt to find a moment's leverage. She never found it, and suddenly became hyper-aware that her final moments were creeping up fast if she didn't change course soon. Instinctively, her gaze landed on her workstation, visible over his shoulder and so far undisturbed.
His face twisted. She thought he might tighten the squeeze around her throat again, but to her surprise he erupted into a hideous cackle instead.
"I expected as much," he laughed. "Your resolve has never been stronger than when dealing with your perverse little formula. I imagine you won't give it up even if it costs you your life."
She whined in his clutches, shuddering as she swore she felt something slither beneath his skin. She finally noticed the claws decorating his other hand as he inspected them under the glow of his own eyes.
"They say imagination is more important than knowledge," he chuckled, "and whether—" he saw the want to protest tremble on her lips and squeezed harder to snuff it out— "whether that's true or not, what is true is that human imagination is limitless—and indeed, where would I be if there were limits to the fantastical mind of Kudo Shinichi?"
In her state of peril, her surroundings seemed to flicker like the light from a bad bulb. Conan cycled through distortions before her eyes like a dancing flame - completely normal one moment, then something unrecognizable the next. Too big. Too tall. Too… monstrous. She didn't know what to believe.
Eventually her bewilderment found a voice.
"So… as I thought… you're… you're not…"
"Correct," he giggled, cricking his clawed fingers at her. "If you want someone to blame, you can blame Kudo-kun . But… let's not forget you had a hand in this too, no…?"
She twitched, and that familiar knot of guilt she had tried so hard to placate since arriving at Hakase's weighed heavy in her bosom again.
"Yes, of course you did," the Kudo-thing sneered. "Consider yourself lucky, mad scientist. Consider yourself lucky you have my thanks rather than my ire."
He wagged a forked tongue at her in mock gaiety.
"Truth is the penultimate achievement for a scientist, no?" he chuckled. "In that case, be at peace. You can die a martyr for your contribution to it." He reached up and flicked the collar of her pajama top, dusting away whatever shook loose from the fabric. "Be grateful," he snickered. "Be grateful that you have the option of choice. Ayumi didn't."
For better or worse, Haibara didn't hear him. Instead, she once again found herself wishing he would just shut up.
"Now," he continued, fixing his attention back on her suffering. "The antidote."
"What have I told you?" she rasped almost immediately, her eyes flitting across the room. "You c-can't have it."
He smirked back. "Doesn't matter anymore," he shrugged, shifting slightly until her desktop came into view. "For all your efforts to dissuade me, you're not very good at suppressing hints. You keep looking at your workstation. Could it be… you've hidden them there…?"
He caught the flicker of panic in her eyes and grinned.
"If you won't tell me outright, fine. I'll play your games."
To her shock, the vice grip around her throat released and she tumbled to the floor, landing gracelessly on her elbows in the throes of an equally graceless coughing fit. The gulps of air burned on the way back in. Through teary, half-lidded eyes, she spotted him rummaging through her desk and felt a lump rising in her throat.
She'd hidden it better than that, but with enough time…
The pit in her stomach knotted into more than just regret. Arguably one of her biggest fears during her time at the organization was the inevitable misuse of her research when it had reached its apex. But at least she knew who would be abusing it; never had she thought she'd have to fight to keep it out of Kudo's hands.
A new wave of helplessness washed over her as he came alarmingly close to the false panel where she kept the stash.
She thought of Ayumi.
'I don't want to run away., Ai-Chan. I don't want to run away.'
Her muscles aching, starved of oxygen, she clambered back onto her own two feet and lunged. Instinct clumsily slapped her hands around his face, buried his shoulders under her arms, and dug her knees into his spine as she wrangled him back, back, back and away from her desk.
Predictably, he retaliated. He caught himself on her equipment before she managed to tug him out of arms' reach, but not before he got his claws under the false panel. He stumbled, unsteady but still standing, shouting when he could get a word out, and thrashed in all directions trying to shake her off.
Haibara wanted him on the ground. Her fingers snagged a corner of his mouth and when she wrapped her arm around his ear for more leverage she hooked his nose, too, a move that was met with a frustrated, wolf-like growl.
It startled her, but encouraged her to squeeze harder in equal fervor. Again, she thought of Ayumi and tried to control her labored breathing as she imagined the poor girl in her place on the eve of her disappearance.
'If I keep on running away, I'll never win! And neither will you!'
When her elbow slipped beneath his jaw and caught his throat, he really began fighting back. All at once she felt knives on her skin, ten individual daggers tearing at anything and everything within reach, shredding her clothes to get to the vulnerable patches beneath and pulling her hair in an attempt to level the playing field. Now she shouted, too, screwing her eyes shut for her own protection as she continued to wrestle him blindly.
But he simply refused to go down quietly. In their tussle, his hands came near the false panel again, this time knocking it from its perch to reveal a tiny space just large enough for the blister pack of small, white pills behind it.
The sight of these suddenly prompted her to invoke the strength of gods, and she threw her weight backwards as if she meant to tear his head from his shoulders.
The effort seemed to pay off. The animal noises strangled in sputters and, finally, after seconds which had ticked for far too long, Conan at last faltered. He swayed unsteadily and, with arms falling lazily at his sides, toppled to the floor with a mighty crash.
As the dust settled, only a grim silence hung over them.
But she didn't let go.
The silence rang loud in her ears—the screaming of a deep gash in her temple, she knew—but she didn't care. All that mattered was that, past the sound of her own, rattled breathing, Edogawa-kun was still. Maybe he hit something on the way down, too, she hoped. Maybe hard enough to… to…
She gulped. Maybe not. And what of the promise of violence she'd detected in his voice?
Trembling, she continued to squeeze against his windpipe and traced desperate prayers into the ceiling with damp eyes.
She didn't know how long they sat there. One minute, five minutes, ten. It was long enough for time to become a tangible concept. Seconds melted over her like butter, warm on her skin but cool in her lungs—a mystifying sensation no doubt propagated by her wounds—but at least her breathing had calmed.
She glanced down at Conan again without moving her head. He seemed unconscious, but she didn't risk making any sudden moves that might wake him.
As slowly as she dared, she unraveled her arm from around his throat and tried to wriggle out from under him unnoticed. Inch by inch, she scooted on her hip, gradually maneuvering her legs free, all the while never blinking once, terrified that the moment she even considered looking away, he'd spring to life and seize her in his clutches again.
Eventually there was enough distance between them for her to safely roll onto all fours. As she crawled away, her gaze drifted towards his hands, landing on the inch-long talons he had used to assault her.
Only then did it fully dawn on her that she had no idea what she was dealing with. Where did she even start? The Kudo-thing had claws and on top of everything else, she suddenly found herself utterly unequipped to process the absurdity of her situation.
Her blood ran cold. His eerie, red eyes pierced the dark fog in her mind like spotlights.
What in the hell had she created.
Thankfully, it didn't wake to answer her even by the time she had reached the desk. Her gaze flicked upwards and, with considerable effort, she carefully pulled herself up onto her knees, her vision vignetting to the rhythm of her pulse as she peered into the drawer.
There was only one thing on her mind now, and that was to take the antidote and run. But was it even still there? Had it survived the scuffle?
The relief which crashed into her was so intense it hinged on pleasure. The blister pack was right where she expected it to be, nested in the space behind the false panel. Haibara exhaled, releasing a breath held too long, and took it safely in her grasp, pausing to make sure none of them had come loose. Thank god.
She suddenly became aware that the silence had shifted.
"...Haibara…you…"
Conan's cold, clammy hand locked around her ankle from the abyss. All she could do to resist him was defiantly cling to the edge of her desk and scream. There was a particularly loud, plastic creak as she grabbed at some cables for leverage and inadvertently dragged her monitor and computer chassis from its cradle.
"You bitch," it hissed, climbing up her leg when she wouldn't fall back. She couldn't suppress her horror as its claws dug into her like a trowel in the dirt, wailing as they raked across fresh wounds. "I'll kill you."
She dared not look. Its hands felt slimy on her bare skin and the sheer venom in its hideous voice gave her a mental image worth snapshotting for a visit to the confessional.
But Conan wouldn't give her that choice. When it had come far enough up her legs, it hooked into her back as if she were an obstacle to be scaled, and her strength stole away in a dizzying haze of pain and renewed terror. She dropped from the edge of the desk and crumpled to the floor, pulling the workstation another few inches.
Immediately, it seized its bloodied hands on her face, grabbing for her mouth and nose.
It leered hungrily at her from a face slicked in red, wild eyes bulging behind wet bangs—a Kudo-thing from nightmares she would never admit she'd had, but properly feared regardless. And maybe it knew her secret, too, for the noise it made when she shrieked sounded a bit too much like a laugh to her.
With its elbows in her ribs and the brunt of its weight on her torso, her thrashing didn't amount to much. If anything, it seemed amused, snarling with the conceit of a predator that had cornered its prey. Its disguise had been lost in the tussle and now there was nothing to distract her from looking into the devil's eyes.
Something slithered in the pit of her stomach and tickled her insides if she stared for too long.
"I'll kill you," it repeated, baring its fangs at her sustained resistance. It was close now, close enough for her to feel its breath on her cheeks, close enough to feel its tongue near her eyes. Its breathing was a steady, rumbling growl in its throat, eerily composed in spite of itself, and each time she grabbed at its wrists or flailed in her binds, she seemed outmatched. With each attempt to free herself, exhaustion crept just that much closer to her horizon.
Still, her flame hadn't burnt out yet. Pawing at the ground for something useful, her fingers found the head of Hakase's statuette.
She tried to get its attention.
"Ed—Edogawa-kun…!" she pushed out.
It seemed not to hear her.
" You c— You— Edogawa-kun! The antidote!!"
That seemed to work. It let up a little—long enough for her to repeat herself.
"Th… the anti… The antidote…" she wheezed.
It snorted like it was pleased. Greedy eyes shining with malice, it followed her vague sprawl up towards the blister pack which had fallen under the desk and started towards it as soon as it noticed.
To her incredible relief, its hands left her face. The gulp of air which followed was so rich she saw spots.
But she didn't get comfortable. The second it allowed her an inch, she took the mile.
The statuette connected with Edogawa's temple with all the strength she had left in her. It squealed like no animal she had ever heard as marble corners collided with hair and softened bone.
Her weapon clattered to the floor for the second time that night. In one clumsy, but unbroken movement, she hooked him around the neck again and swung him to the floor, pinning him to the ground with the combined force of her knee and both hands around his throat.
Now what?
It sputtered frantically in her chokehold, writhing as it clawed up her arms in search of freedom. Each new scratch in her skin cycled her through another crisis of conscience. She was at her wit's end. The pretender's likeness to Kudo rattled her to the core and there was a part of her which kept begging to stop because of it. But she knew he'd make good on his promises if she didn't… if she didn't…… well, if she listened.
The strangled cry that filled the room wasn't his, but hers. She didn't know what to do. She didn't know what to do.
Briefly, she contemplated the very real possibility that she'd have to… to…
She whined.
The statuette was right there.
Ultimately, however, the choice was made for her. The next thing she knew, she had a full view of the floor again. A tremendous something weighed her down by her back, creeping at the edges of her periphery.
Now it was Conan's turn to slip away. Unlike her, he risked nothing by hitting her where it hurt and delivered a nasty kick into her stomach. She screamed.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him twist, reach, and snatch up the pills she had only intended to use as bait. As he gathered himself to rise to his feet, she saw him turning them in his hands. Shit.
What the hell had hit her, anyway? Her ears rang and there was fresh moisture pooling under her jaw. Oddly, she felt inclined to take a nap. She groaned and tried in vain to shift onto her side, but was met instead with the alarming, plastic creak of her computer contending with the scraps of strength left in her shoulders.
Oh.
Then, the Kudo-thing turned its gaze back onto her. Evidently, he had regained enough of his composure to resume pretending he wasn't the hissing, sharp-toothed demon from her nightmares, but they both knew the civility was merely performative. His temper flared and she whined in anticipation from beneath the chassis.
He wiped one of his hands across his face. If he'd meant to clear away some of the blood, it only had the effect of smearing it. Tauntingly, he wagged the antidote at her. "Are you happy now, Haibara?" he growled through clenched teeth. "Look at what your insolence has cost you. This could have aaalllll been avoided if you had just given this up when I asked nicely ."
Something slammed down on her fingers and it was impossible for her not to howl in agony. At this point, more than just her fingers broke under his sneakers, and to add insult to injury, an additional force yanked on her scalp, sending new cricks down her spine as he grabbed a fistful of hair for a clear shot at her mangled face.
She blanched when she felt his claws on her throat again. Sweat beaded on her forehead and her lungs refused to take in any more air.
A sob hitched in her chest. He responded by pressing harder into her skin, still not enough to draw blood but more than enough to summon tears. She knew it wouldn't take much effort at all for him to slice her to ribbons... he only needed to pull and it would all be over.
But he let go. Apparently, he let the threat hang only until he was satisfied with her compliance. She became reacquainted with the floor and this time, there was nothing to deny her the freedom to weep, the last vestiges of dignity stolen away from her.
He checked his watch. "I think you'll remember I said I was on a time constraint," he hissed, snatching up his glasses nearby. "Idiot girl. Count your blessings that I don't have time to finish this."
There was no relief when he finally stepped off her fingers. The pain didn't go away. But she heard his footfalls marching through the debris, the cold slap of rubber soles on the tile steps as he ascended back to ground level and, somewhere in the distance, clouded by the fog, the sound of the front door slamming.
There was no relief when she lost her grip on the world and took that nap she'd been thinking about, either.
At least she was alone again.
It was late, after all.