Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Shinichi knew something was wrong from the moment Akai knocked on his bedroom door.

Akai didn’t usually knock—not on the door, anyway. Usually on the frame, already pushing the door open while he leaned long against the wall, peering in with a half smile to see what Shinichi was working on.

Today, he knocked. And waited for Shinichi to turn the handle.

“Hey, kid. Can we talk?” He seemed stiff in the shoulders, his eyes dark and serious. Shinichi didn’t miss his glance back at the empty hallway

“Sure,” Shinichi said. He closed his laptop, open to a corporate web page—the Kresger Corporation—as Akai took a seat on his unmade bed, his long legs bent around the desk chair.

“It’s about Rei,” he said.

Shinichi could have guessed as much. Rei was the only thing that ever put that look on Akai’s face.

Akai let out a long breath. “He could probably use a little space tomorrow. It’s…an anniversary.”

Shinichi knew that. He’d seen the date marked in UV pen on the calendar, the letters so tight they were almost illegible. The anniversary of a death—Morofushi Hiromitsu, a.k.a. Scotch. The friend Rei had been undercover with. The one whose death he’d laid at Akai’s feet.

Though they’d been living together for almost a year, Shinichi still didn’t know much about Scotch. Rei never talked about him, or any of his old friends from the academy. That whole part of his life seemed cordoned off behind barbed wire. All Shinichi honestly knew was that his death was a wound, one that had never really healed.

That little mark on the calendar was the reason Rei had practically gouged Akai’s eye out with the paring knife two days ago, when he brought home clementines instead of kumquats. And the reason he’d made the coffee three times yesterday, staring at the dark liquid as he poured it down the drain. And probably the reason for the ashen look on his face this morning, when he’d found Shinichi tucked up at the breakfast bar, paging through a PSB file.

Shinichi hadn’t thought anything of opening the manila folder on the counter. Rei left out files all the time. Usually, anything that was out was fair game, and sometimes Rei even asked for his insight. Shinichi liked those mornings—when they took the case file apart and spread it all over the kitchen table, negotiating around two forks and one plate of coffee cake, debating which route the criminals had taken smuggling the stolen refrigerated truck out of the docks until Rei popped a forkful of coffee cake in Shinichi’s mouth and won by default.

Shinichi always got caught up in it, always realized at some point that he’d clambered up onto the table, his socked feet swinging while he scoured a map of the sewer byways in the warehouse district. Always looked up to find Rei watching him with the same little smile on his face, exasperated and fond and something else that Shinichi couldn’t quite read.

But this morning was different. This morning, Rei’s face went gray the second he saw the file in Shinichi’s hand.

Don’t touch that, Rei said, his voice sharp as he snatched it away. Then seemed to catch himself, forcing a tight smile as he added, This one’s still classified, I’m afraid.

Right. Sorry, Shinichi said. And then pushed his bowl of cornflakes away, not really hungry anymore.

They traded classified intel all the time. Like last week, when Rei had interrupted their chess game to peg Akai in the chest with a flash drive, giving the FBI agent a flat look.

MPD’s traffic cam surveillance of the check-cashing joint you're watching. If anyone asks, you stole that. I picked up a quart of brake fluid for the Mustang. And here’s a new firing pin for your Glock—take that bobby pin out before it explodes and takes your hand with it? he suggested, setting it next to Shinichi’s mocha before he headed back for the kitchen.

Marry me? Akai called after him—joking, maybe.

Already made that mistake, Rei threw over his shoulder. But from the glimpse Shinichi caught of him in the mantelpiece mirror, he swore Rei was fighting a smile.

That was five days ago. And except for the fact that Shinichi had been inside the blast radius of them flirting, everything had been fine. But then the calendar flipped to the new month, the one with Hiro’s name in tight letters—and the whole house got tense and quiet.

Shinichi dropped onto the bed to sit next to Akai. Usually, he avoided things that made him feel like a little kid. But today he didn’t mind when Akai ruffled his hair in a way that accidentally-on-purpose pulled Shinichi in against him.

He hadn’t told Akai about the file this morning. He didn’t want to make a big deal out of it.

Shinichi bit his lip. “Are you sure he wants space?”

Akai hesitated. “Well…I’m sure he doesn’t want anything to do with me.”

Shinichi wondered how that was supposed to work, when as far as he knew, Rei was still sneaking into Akai’s room every night to sleep next to him. But he didn’t ask. Akai probably didn’t know the answer to that either.

As Akai got up to leave, Shinichi’s eyes fell on the laptop. “Do you know anything about the Kresger Corporation?” he asked. Akai paused with his hand on the doorknob, eyebrow quirked. Shinichi licked his lips. “I kind of stumbled on…something that happened at their headquarters a few years ago. Maybe having to do with the Organization?”

Akai shook his head. “It doesn’t mean anything to me. But that might have been about the time my cover was blown. You should ask Rei.”

Shinichi wasn’t doing that. But he just nodded, listened absently to the click of the door closing as Akai slipped out into the hall. Then he opened the laptop again, scrolling down the page.

Kresger Corporation. It was the only name he’d really absorbed from the file, before Rei grabbed it from him. Their website described them as a private security corporation. Which could be exactly what it sounded like. Or it could be worse than that: black-bag ops or paramilitary for hire. If they were in a PSB file, Shinichi was guessing the latter. He hadn’t found any incident reports about Kresger Corp., nothing in the newspaper—but with a private security corporation, that didn’t necessarily mean anything.

Rei wouldn’t want him investigating. But Shinichi couldn’t help wondering what was in that file…what Rei didn’t want him to see.

Still thinking, he wandered out of his bedroom and perched on the stairs just below the landing, where he could watch Rei moving around the kitchen. Or, listen to him, really—the bang of pots being shoved too hard into a cabinet, the snap of the drawer shutting, the squelch of the knife going through something. Hopefully not Akai’s ribs. When he did catch a glimpse of Rei through the doorway, he looked about the same as the last time Shinichi saw him: tired, wound tight, so tense Shinichi could feel it from twenty feet away. Shinichi braced his chin on his knees.

Reading suspects came so easily to him. He always knew what to say to make them confess—what implication would make them touch the pocket where they’d hidden the bloody piano wire—what lie to tell about the message of their sister’s book, to make them put the gun down. But he didn’t know what to say to Rei. Maybe because he’d just—never lost anyone like that.

Shinichi knew how much it still weighed on him. Not from anything Rei’d said. Only from what he’d observed. That there was a guitar in Rei’s bedroom that he never played, but it never had a speck of dust on it, either. That when Akai told stories about his time as an FBI cadet, showering in the firing range’s bathroom sink because he’d spent all night practicing and living off mac and cheese out of the microwave, sometimes Rei mocked him for the fact that his culinary skills hadn’t improved in ten years. But he never told any stories of his own.

Shinichi rested his cheek against the banister. Rei did so much for him. And he couldn’t usually do much in return. Sometimes, on the bad days, it was hard to know if he was helping Rei at all—if he even could. Rei wouldn’t tell him what was going on, not really. So Shinichi never knew what would fix it. He was just taking shots in the dark.

Watching Detective Samonji reruns, taste-testing tiramisu recipes and wrestling Shinichi’s rainboot away from the overly friendly Labradoodle in the park—how could those things solve any of Rei’s actual problems?

Akai’s words circled in his head. He could probably use a little space tomorrow.

Usually he trusted Akai to know what Rei needed. But Shinichi was pretty sure he was wrong this time. Because things never got better when Rei was stuck in his head. Shinichi would just have to hope he could help a little—and hope Akai came up with a better answer.

Chapter Text

Akai leaned into the concrete railing looking out over the Teimuzu River, his cigarette slowly going to ash in his fingers.

He had left the house early this morning—early enough that Rei was still asleep, resting uneasily in his arms. Akai didn’t have the nerve to wait for him to wake up. Instead he’d slipped out of the house and spent an hour driving aimlessly through the city, watching the sun come up through the skyscrapers. Mentally tracking the distance to an anonymous eight-story high-rise on the outer edge of Beika, with acid-dark bricks and rusted fire stairs. Completely forgettable, except that he never could.

Without meaning to, he’d found himself here: parked near Teimuzu Bridge, staring out at the dark water breathing in diesel and cigarette smoke. Exactly where he’d been standing when he got a call from Shinichi, more than a year ago—a heads up that he’d decided to tell Rei what he’d deduced about Scotch’s death.

Akai still didn’t know how the kid had figured it out. But he was a damn good detective—he’d never needed much. Stumbled across Scotch’s name in a file, maybe; got a few incautious details out of Kazami, caught a glimpse of a phone with a bullet hole through it. Akai had always known there were pieces of his official story that didn’t track, things Rei’s hatred had blinded him to. And worse, Shinichi knew him. And he knew Rei. And that was probably the final nail in the coffin.

Akai had tried to stop it. But standing here that night, listening to Shinichi’s deduction over the phone as he watched the city lights come on across the water, he knew it was already too late.

“There are some details I’m missing. But I’m sure of one thing.” Shinichi paused, and Akai could just imagine the solemn look in those blue eyes. “You didn’t kill Scotch, Akai. And it’s not fair that I know that and Rei doesn’t.”

“You can’t tell him.” The words got away from him, came out too sharp. Akai paced along the river, shoving his windblown hair back, feeling everything he’d tried to hold onto coming down around him like a house of cards. “What happened, it’s done. He doesn’t need that in his head. If he has to hate someone, better that it’s me.”

“It’s not better,” Shinichi insisted. “And it’s not what he’d want. Scotch was a friend, right? You know he’d want the truth.”

“Leave it, Shinichi,” Akai had said—a little steel in it, the way he almost never talked to the kid. But Shinichi was sure he was right. And nothing could ever shake him from that.

“Maybe you can’t see it. But his obsession with you, that hatred, it’s tearing him apart.” Shinichi’s voice was soft, too wise as he finished, “I’m telling him what I know. He deserves that.”

Akai sagged into the concrete rail and pressed a hand over his eyes. “No,” he said, thinking of all the heartache coming at them. “No, he doesn’t deserve any of this.”

Akai knew what would happen next. He didn’t have to wait long. The next night, he came home late and paused in the living room, ears pricked to the crackle of a floorboard—then Rei was on him, a dark shape lunging out of the doorway and snapping his head back with a right hook.

Pain thudded through his skull. Akai stumbled into the wall and Rei came with him, smashed right into him. So drunk Akai could smell it on him. He lost Subaru’s glasses as Rei hauled him up, fists knuckle-deep in his coat.

“Fight back, you bastard,” he hissed. Then came at him wild and reckless, and they went down in the ruins of the splintered coffee table, Akai’s ears ringing with the crash.

Even drunk, Rei was brutally efficient, every punch landing right on the zygomatic bone. Akai caught his wrists before he did any real damage. The agony on Rei’s face knocked his breath out. He’d come here to pick a fight, Akai realized—to get his ass kicked, because he needed a new kind of pain, one that was surface level. One he could take. The skin of his knuckles was red and roughed up. Akai didn’t think he was the first thing Rei’d tried to put his fists through tonight.

Rei was saying something. It took him a minute to work it out.

“How could you? How could you…not tell me?” The question ripped him open. Akai’s grip stuttered, and Rei jerked his hands free, yanked him up by his collar. “Tell me he’s lying,” he choked out. But he already knew Akai couldn’t.

Akai swallowed against his tight throat. “It’s my fault as much as yours. I shouldn’t have let go of the gun.”

“Shut up. Just shut up.” Still half on top of him, sharp knees digging into his hips, Rei crumpled—put his forehead down against his crossed wrists and gasped for breath, every inhale ragged and weak like he was fighting not to drown.

Akai didn’t know how long they lay there, in the wreckage of it. He barely recognized the man on top of him, all his fire burnt down to a guttering spark. This wasn’t Bourbon, sweet and sharp as cyanide, or Amuro Tohru with his impeccable smile. This was the man underneath that. The one Akai barely knew—the one he’d been trying to spare.

He looked up into those slit, tortured eyes and had no idea what Rei would do. Hit him again. Slam his head against the floor. Draw his gun and press the cold muzzle to Akai’s forehead. Or to his own.

Finally he couldn’t take it—clicked off his choker and lifted one hand, fingers soft against Rei’s shoulder.

“Rei…” he started. But Rei lurched back as if burned.

“Don’t. Don’t touch me.” He swiped a hand across his wet, dark eyes. “You took everything from me. And you couldn’t even leave me this.” He braced a hand on the couch to stagger to his feet. “Go to hell, Akai. Keep your fucked-up life and all your reasons and your ghosts, and just stay away from me. I’m done. We’re done.”

The finality of that word terrified him. Akai hauled himself up, caught Rei’s arm as he stumbled toward the front door.

“He killed himself to save you. If you kill yourself to atone for it, his sacrifice is worthless,” he said, his voice low and urgent.

Rei threw him off, mouth twisted. “I’m not going to kill myself. There’s too much work left to do.”

Akai knew he shouldn’t be outside with his glasses off, his collar torn open to reveal the choker at his throat. But he couldn’t stop himself from trailing Rei to the door, watching him limp away cradling his bruised knuckles.

“Can you get home?” he asked.

Rei laughed. A ragged sliver of a sound. “That isn’t a place that’s existed for me for a long time.”

Akai honestly thought he’d never see Rei again, after that night. But a few days later, he caught a flash of blond hair through Poirot’s plate-glass windows, a familiar figure bending over Shinichi’s table with a platter of sandwiches. Eventually, he got a text, just a time and the name of a bar downtown. Walked in to find Rei waiting for him in the darkest corner, sliding him a glass of ninety-proof scotch with such force he barely caught it.

He didn’t say anything until halfway through the next round. Akai raised his finger to signal for another double and Rei put his glass down too hard, his body tense enough to snap.

“The other night…” he started, then stopped, shifting his body to shield Akai’s face as someone lurched past their stools. Rei scraped his hair back. “I shouldn’t have done that. If I wanted to kick the shit out of you, that’d be fine. But getting sloppy drunk all over someone, that’s not polite.”

“I think we’re way past polite,” Akai said, throwing back another swallow.

Rei scowled. “Shut up and drink. You used to be a silent, moody bastard. What happened to that?”

Akai wondered if that was what he needed. Just another body—someone to get shitfaced with, to say a few words to that he didn’t have to fake. However much Rei hated him, it was worse to be alone. Through the haze of secondhand smoke, Akai stared into his glass of scotch and wondered if Rei was remembering the same thing he was: those nights undercover, tucked up in some Organization bolt hole pouring slugs from a whiskey bottle crusted over at the rim. Convenience store crushed ice in three red plastic cups.

They were a few more in before Rei braced his elbows on the bar, choked out a hollow laugh.

“Here’s the part I can’t get out of my head. All the lying…the things you let me believe…that kid says you did it to protect me. I can think of a dozen other reasons. But he’s right so often. So just…tell me it wasn’t that.” Rei found Akai’s eyes through the green-glass bottles lined up against the mirror. “Tell me you did it to advance in the Organization. Or protect your cover. Or anything. Just not that.” And then, when Akai said nothing: “You really are a bastard. Leave me something to hate, will you?”

He couldn’t shake the memory of Rei’s face then, his agonizing smile as he dropped his head into his hands. Or of the last thing Rei said to him that night. Right at the edge of his limit, he’d looked up at Akai through bleary, tortured eyes and said, “You’re supposed to be so good. Why couldn’t you save him?”

All these years later, Akai was still asking himself that question.

Chapter Text

Rei inched his sunglasses down his nose and glanced at Shinichi in the passenger seat. The summer breeze whipped through the open windows, ruffling the boy’s hair as they headed for the Beika shopping district.

Shinichi didn’t usually have much interest in cooking. But that afternoon, he’d come to find Rei in the library with one of the baking cookbooks pressed to his red Polo shirt, asking if they could make a get-well cake for an old classmate.

“I don’t think I’ve heard Tooya’s name before,” Rei said, setting his files aside. “Is he a friend of yours?”

“He was the captain of my middle school soccer team,” Shinichi said, which Rei interpreted as halfway between a yes and a no. “We kind of lost touch in high school. But he’s really good—so good he’s already had some interest from the J-League scouts. Anyway, I just found out he’s been out of summer training camp for two weeks because of a strained ankle. I know I’ll have to do it as Conan, a friend of a friend thing, but…could we give him something? From Shinichi?”

Even knowing what he was doing, Rei had to admire his skill. Shinichi lied so effortlessly. He probably wasn’t even lying about the soccer player—just lying about his intent. Pretending this was for him, instead of for Rei.

He really was impossibly perceptive, this kid—especially about the things Rei was trying to keep from him.

He didn’t miss the way Shinichi’s eyes flicked to the PSB files on the library table. But he didn’t touch them. Hadn’t touched any of Rei’s files since yesterday morning. Rei wanted to tell him that the one he’d snatched at breakfast was the exception, not the rule. But he didn’t know how to do that without talking about it.

He took the coward’s way out—smiled his easy Poirot smile as he said, “Sure. What kind of cake were you thinking?”

They had settled on one of Shinichi’s favorites, a chocolate cake with cinnamon frosting. But the kitchen was a wreck—Rei had been cooking strangely for days, so he was out of cocoa powder and powdered sugar, down to his last quarter cup of flour. Shinichi didn’t seem to mind piling into the Mazda for a trip to the grocery store. And he perked right up when Rei pulled into the drive-through coffee shop and let him order an iced hazelnut latte with an extra shot, which was a pathetic apology and he knew it.

The sunlight winking off the cars was too bright. Rei pushed his sunglasses back up his nose. He wasn’t hungover or anything. Just a little light sensitive—probably from the three shots of vodka he’d had to put down before his inhibitions dropped enough to crawl into Akai’s bed last night. He’d tossed and turned for hours, wondering how much it would wreck him to wake up staring into that face—the face he still dreamed about spattered with Hiro’s blood.

In the end, he didn’t have to find out. Akai was gone by the time he got up. And Rei felt…he didn’t know what he felt. Relieved, because he could barely stand to look at Akai right now. And pissed off, because of all the emotional reckonings Akai had dragged him through lately, this was the one he left Rei to handle alone.

Well. Not alone. He glanced at Shinichi again, leaned back in the passenger seat, slurping his iced coffee and staring out the window like it was any other day. He had a good poker face. But Rei was a trained intelligence agent, and he caught the nervous fidget in Shinichi’s fingers, the little looks the kid threw him when he thought he wasn’t looking.

Shinichi was worried about him. And Rei had to love him for that. Even if it made him feel ten times worse for snatching that file away.

The thing in that file was an Organization mission—a bad one, on the first anniversary of Hiro’s death. The only time he’d worked solo with Irish, who’d lived up to his reputation for being brutally efficient and ruthless. Usually, Rei researched every detail of his infiltrations, searching for the significance of the intel they were after, for any tiny wisp of a thread that might lead back to the Organization. Instead he’d spent the day drowning himself in half a bottle of scotch—showed up to the mission sober enough to shoot straight but not sober enough to care, content to slump against the door of the white box van while Irish walked him through a digital schematic of Kresger Corporation’s floor plan, the surveillance feed showing tiny dots moving through the halls. One for every member of the security team in their way.

All he wanted was this day to be over. All he wanted was to put a bullet in Akai Shuichi’s head. And maybe that was why he hadn’t said anything when Irish said, I’ll clear a path to the server room. That was usually where Rei jumped in with one of his better plans, clever and precise, all the reasons it was just smarter, easier not to get a lot of blood on their hands, but…

But that night, all he’d said was Sure.

Rei tried not to think about it much. But when he did, that was what he remembered. The surprised little sneer on Irish’s mouth, the one that said he hadn’t expected sharp, disdainful Bourbon to be so accommodating. And the heat of the water on his shoulders when he stood fully clothed in his shower three hours later, washing dried blood out of the treads of his shoes.

The official report listed eight civilian fatalities. Rei had looked them all up, but only after.

He’d gotten lucky, if that was the right word. There had been no down-on-his-luck father of four. No desperate young man paying his sister’s medical bills. They were just hired goons for a shady private security company, ugly people. The same way Rei was ugly, stepping over their bodies in that concrete hallway and just not caring.

That was why he’d grabbed the file. Not because he didn’t think Shinichi could take it. But because Rei couldn’t take it, Shinichi knowing one more ugly thing about him.

Rei leaned back against the seat. He tried to sink into the hum of the throttle, the familiar vibration of the Mazda’s engine in his feet. But all day, he’d just had this ache in his chest. Like a break that had healed wrong, little shards and sharp edges cutting him open on every breath in.

He never meant to be sharp with Shinichi. He’d just never really figured out how to take this anniversary. And it was worse this year, because it had caught him by surprise. He hadn’t been counting down the weeks, progressively drinking a little more and sleeping a little less. He’d just been flipping the calendar forward, listening to Ms. Kobayashi babble on the phone, trying to figure out where he was going to shove a mandatory parent volunteer session in between Akai’s stakeouts and his café shifts. And then his thumb caught the little crinkle in the paper, the smear of invisible ink, and the memory hit him like a hand grenade.

Forgetting it…wasn’t that like killing Hiro all over again?

The truth was, he didn’t think about Hiro every day anymore. And when he did, often it wasn’t the end he was remembering. It was the first song Hiro ever taught him on the guitar, the one he hummed whenever he was waiting for the bechamel sauce to thicken, because the bridge was exactly forty-eight seconds and that was just the right timing between cups of flour.

Or the way he paused folding one of Akai’s old sweatshirts, because it reminded him of the one Hiro wore all through the Academy, ripped and threadbare around the cuffs—a souvenir from a concert they’d snuck into at sixteen, the first time they got completely wasted, the first time Rei kissed some stranger under the exit sign and Hiro serenaded him about the guy’s mullet all the way home.

Or when he found himself thinking about how much hell Hiro would have given him for all this, teasing him within an inch of his life for the family tangerine picking trip. And then the way his big, dorky smile would have gone soft, seeing Rei with Shinichi, like he’d known that this was what Rei needed all along.

Hiro deserved grief. And anger. And revenge. But these days, Rei mostly just missed him. And he couldn’t help thinking he owed Hiro so much better than that.

“Rei?” He jumped at the little voice from the passenger seat. Shinichi blinked up at him. “The light’s green,” he said.

Rei shook himself. “Right. My bad.” But he couldn’t really get it out of his head. As they slid through the intersection, he cleared his throat. “Hey. Shinichi. How would you want to be remembered?”

He knew immediately it was too serious a question. He could see the kid’s wheels churning, trying to give him the right answer instead of an honest one. Rei dropped a gentle hand on Shinichi’s head, smiling.

“Never mind. Don’t overthink it,” he said.

“No! I…” Shinichi bit his lip, fiddling with his straw. “It’s just…I spent a long time wondering if anyone would remember Shinichi at all. I disappeared, and…except for some people who wanted me dead, nobody really came looking.”

Rei’s heart guttered at the look on his face. “Shinichi…that’s…”

Shinichi shrugged, leaned his head against the door. “It’s fine. It’s no one’s fault. They just have their own lives. But I guess the answer is…I wouldn’t care what somebody remembered, as long as it made them happy.”

Rei swallowed too hard. Suddenly he was remembering another drive with Shinichi—the roar of the throttle, the bittersweet smile on the boy in the passenger seat as he begged Rei not to bury him as Conan. The last thing he wanted in his head today.

Rei breathed out. Then he swung the wheel hard, crossing three lanes of traffic and wrenching the Mazda into a U-turn. Shinichi yelped, grabbing his seatbelt strap as they rounded the median and shot back the other way.

“Where are we going?” he asked.

Rei gave Shinichi a vigorous hair mussing. “You are entirely too fatalistic for somebody too short to hit the elevator buttons,” he growled playfully. “Forget chocolate cake. We’re going to the specialty high-end grocery store that could clear out even your parents’ bank account, and then we’re going to make Tooya a Michelin-worthy, three-layer strawberry truffle cake stacked with so much whipped cream and chocolate-covered strawberries the entire soccer team could disappear in there.” He leaned far enough to pull Shinichi close as he added, “And he is never going to forget you.”

“I didn’t mean it like that,” Shinichi protested, spluttering a little. “We don’t really have to—”

“Too late,” Rei said, flicking his sunglasses up and gunning it.

None of this was Shinichi’s fault. And none of it should be his problem. There was only one person who deserved to walk through this hell with him—and Rei would get that through his thick skull tonight if he had to use a crowbar.

Chapter Text

It was midnight when Akai slipped in from the garage and closed the door soundlessly behind him. He paused in the front hallway, listening to the creaks of the silent house, the tick of the dishwasher winding down. Was just shrugging off his coat when a voice spoke out of the dark.

“I wondered when you’d come slinking in.”

Akai turned. Rei was perched on the stairs about halfway up—his body loose, elbows braced on his knees. Something glittered in his hand. Akai’s money was on a lowball glass, to go with the bottle of twelve-year-old single-malt scotch at his feet.

Akai slid his coat onto the rack, watched Rei closely as he moved to the base of the stairs. “Where’s Shinichi?” he asked.

Rei snorted. “I’m supposed to sit here and drink with a seventeen-year-old?” Then he relented, jerked his chin toward the living room. “He fell asleep on the loveseat.”

Akai glanced over his shoulder. He could just make out the little lump of blankets tucked against the armrest; the cups of iced tea precariously pushed up against the chess set; the plates of triangle sandwiches and half-eaten chocolate cake.

Rei lifted his glass, spun the ball of ice with a slow swirl. “He wore himself out trying to keep my head on straight. Which, last time I checked, was your job.” Akai looked up to find Rei staring right at him, his eyes dark and brooding. “Is this what you’re going to do every year? Disappear on me?”

Every year. It caught at him, the implication. But this wasn’t the moment to ask. Akai took another step, onto the stairs. “I thought that’s what you’d want,” he said.

Rei’s laugh was bitter. “You have no idea what I want. As usual.”

Akai couldn’t deny that. Rei looked calmer than he’d expected; more centered in himself. More dangerous. In that moment, he seemed capable of anything. But he just uncapped the whiskey bottle and poured it into a second glass, the ice ball a little melted. Akai wondered how long Rei had been sitting there, waiting for him.

Rei scraped the hair out of his face and held out the glass. “You’re the only person left in my life who knew him. So, if you actually feel as guilty as you look right now…find a better way to get me through it.”

Akai nodded slowly. Then he closed the last few feet and dropped down on the stair next to Rei, wrapping his hand around the glass.

“So? What are we drinking to?”

“You, not giving me so many good reasons to put an ice pick through your ear canal,” Rei muttered. But there wasn’t much bite in it. Not when he was sitting so close they were almost shoulder to shoulder.

For a long time, Akai had wondered if the bruising force of that moment on the roof was the only thing that bound them together. And maybe it had been, for a while. But they had something better than that now. Something tucked up fast asleep on the loveseat, his little feet sticking out of the blankets in llama socks.

Rei must be thinking along the same lines.

“Sometimes I don’t know what I’m doing here. Living this life.” His voice was soft, his head bowed over the cut glass. “My best friend is dead because of you…” His breath hitched. “…and me. And I’m…”

“Not suffering enough?” Akai guessed.

Rei threw him a glare. But Akai had done all this, for someone else at the bottom of a different bottle. He knew exactly where it led.

He pressed his knee into Rei’s, bending to catch his eyes. “You deserve to be happy, Rei. More than anyone I’ve known.”

But Rei just turned away. “I think you and I are solid proof no one gets what they deserve.”

Akai thumbed the facets of the glass. He could hear what Rei was really asking, under all the hurt. How could you ever be happy when so many people were dead. Irreplaceable people. Akai didn’t really have an answer to that—except maybe that sometimes you couldn’t help it. It just happened, whether you deserved it or not.

Rei gave a hollow chuckle. “You know, Hiro…” He tapped his glass twice with a fingernail, the last amber drops clinging to the ice. Scotch. “He was the worst drunk. Total lightweight. And as soon as he was buzzed, he’d pluck away on his guitar all night making up inane songs about whatever was in his head.”

Akai swirled what was left in his glass, weighing his options.

“I know,” he said at last. “He hit the whiskey too hard after a mission in Nagano once and spent three hours serenading me about obscure Norwegian punk bands. And you.”

Rei wrenched around. Akai looked up to find his eyes wide, his expression torn open. Ah. So he didn’t know this story.

He recognized that look on Rei’s face—a look that said he wanted every scrap Akai could give him and was terrified to get what he wanted. Akai took pity on him, answered the question before he could ask.

“I didn’t get one useful piece of intel about Bourbon all night,” he said carefully, holding Rei’s eyes. “Nothing classified. Just…your celery plants. Your bad taste in music. And some cake you made that he couldn’t get over. Chocolate—”

“Chocolate stout walnut cake with coffee glaze.” Rei tried to laugh and choked on it. “I figured out how to make that in the academy microwave. The guys never left me alone after that.”

He was breathing a little hard, each quick in and out sticking in his throat. His hand around his whiskey glass gnarled into a fist. Rei pressed his fingers into his eyes, sank into the railing like it was the only thing holding him up.

“Sounds like Hiro,” he murmured. “When he loved something, he couldn’t shut up about it. Always wore his heart on his sleeve.”

They both knew how dangerous that was, Akai thought. Then he stopped thinking, reached out and brushed his thumb over Rei’s, smoothed his knuckles down against the cold glass.

“He loved you,” Akai said. “Never doubt that.”

Rei’s smile cut into him like shrapnel. “He wasn’t the kind of friend who let you doubt.” He took a shaky breath. “For a long time, he was the only person who gave a shit about me. The one person who just got me—knew everything about me without having to ask. Have you ever known anyone like that?”

You, Akai thought. But he didn’t say it. This wasn’t about him. And he wasn’t trying to cheapen what Rei’d lost by shoving himself in the middle of it. All he said was, “If I did, I’m sure I’d treasure them as much as you do.”

Rei closed his eyes. Akai traced his thumb down the grooves of Rei’s knuckles, following a cluster of little white scars. The kind you got slamming your fists against a brick wall. He nudged his chin toward the living room, the boy just out of sight.

“Seems like you might have found someone like that again.”

Rei huffed out a soft breath. “Yeah. But…sometimes it scares the hell out of me. You know?” He shook Akai off to lift his glass. “Nights like this, I wonder what the hell I’m doing. Letting somebody get to me like that again.”

Akai shook his head. “It’s worth it. Anything that makes you feel alive. Like he does for you.” Like you do for me. Akai dropped his hand on Rei’s knee, squeezed softly. “You can’t protect yourself, Rei. You have to just…take the time you get.”

Rei looked at his hand for a long time. But he didn’t pull away.

Akai wasn’t sure how long they sat there, staring across the dark hall at the boy on the couch. He thought he understood it, the rawness on Rei’s face. Shinichi was the sun, the only shaft of light breaking through the darkness Rei had lived in so long. But it was hard to be in a place that bright all the time. So Akai could be in the darkness with him, when he needed it, until he learned to leave it behind, and walk in the sun where he belonged.

He almost dropped his glass when Rei tilted toward him, let his head fall onto Akai’s shoulder. Akai swallowed. Though Rei was utterly still, his breath even, Akai could tell his body was wound like a spring, the weight of his head whisper-soft against his T-shirt. In a second, he could disappear.

Rei never leaned into him like this, not if he could help it. He had the sense, somehow, that Rei was testing something. So he just stayed where he was—worked the last drops of scotch out of his glass and let Rei sink into the seam of his shoulder, and thought about how good it felt to hold him up.

Eventually, Akai dragged him down to the couch—worked off his socks, and then Rei’s, lay down on his side and pulled Rei back against his chest, so that he was looking across the room at Shinichi. He’d have to slip out early, while they were both asleep—knew Rei wouldn’t tolerate this when he was sober, or where Shinichi could see them. But maybe for tonight he could just be a body, anonymous in the dark.

Rei shifted against him—closer, maybe. Akai closed his eyes and breathed in whiskey and lavender laundry detergent, the traces of vanilla and cocoa powder clinging to his hair. He knew he was just a waystation, something Rei would eventually leave behind. But he’d take it. With Rei, he’d take anything he could get.

Still he couldn’t stop himself from asking one selfish thing, turning his head to breathe against Rei’s ear.

“Don’t burn out on me. It’d be a much darker world without you.”

Rei didn’t say yes. But he didn’t say no, either.

Chapter Text

Rei woke up the next morning feeling like he’d been on the wrong end of a hit-and-run. His mouth was sour with whiskey fumes, and the sunlight through the gaps in the living room curtains was sharp as toothpicks in his retina. He remembered Akai trying to get a glass of water into him before he fell asleep—probably the reason his head was just throbbing like a snare drum instead of a nine-foot bass.

He sat up at the sound of the door to the garage creaking open, low voices moving toward him. Shinichi poked his head into the living room.

“We’re back,” he said, clutching an oversize coffee cup and a paper sack almost as big as he was. “We went to get donuts.”

Rei recognized the logo on the pastry bag. Not the unremarkable coffee shop near Poirot that sold crullers as big as his fist. They’d gone all the way to Maison Boulange—Rei’s favorite. He was willing to bet that bag was stuffed with blackberry donuts and almond croissants and cinnamon twists.

Akai followed him in. Rei wasn’t sure what to say to him, after their confessional on the stairs. But Akai didn’t seem to be waiting for anything—just set a cup of strong coffee next to Rei’s phone on the table, tipping his head to check Rei’s eyes. Rei wondered what he found that made him smile.

“How’s the head?” he asked.

“Fine,” Rei insisted. Though the first sip of coffee felt as good as Excedrin. “You must have left pretty early, if you’re already back.” He tried to gauge from Shinichi’s face whether he’d woken up early enough to catch Rei and Akai…okay, they weren’t cuddling, but camped out on the couch anyway, sort of wrapped up together. It was the kind of thing a kid might misinterpret. Shinichi seemed totally unfazed, though—and he wouldn’t be, right, if he saw them like that?

Shinichi scrambled up onto the couch, digging into the bag with a crinkle. “We needed coffee, and Akai didn’t want to wake you.” He caught Rei’s pointed look at the jumbo cup in his hand. “This is my first one today,” he insisted.

Rei propped his chin on his hand. “Yeah? And how many regular coffees could fit inside that monstrosity?” he teased. But he took the cinnamon twist Shinichi handed him without protest, content to lean back into the couch and let Shinichi tell him about one of his old cases, where a world-class baker bludgeoned someone to death and hid the murder weapon inside a Swiss roll cake. Rei wondered if there was one restaurant in Tokyo Shinichi hadn’t solved a murder in.

He couldn’t remember the last time he got wasted like that without beating his knuckles bloody. Or the last time he’d said Hiro’s name out loud that many times. He felt achy and raw, like someone had spent all night digging around in his chest cavity with a chisel. Still, it was the easiest that anniversary had ever gone down.

It felt strange not to spend the rest of the week in a bottle. But the next day he was a little steadier, and again the next. Before he realized it, things were back to normal.

Or almost normal.

At first Rei hoped he was overthinking it. But Shinichi hadn’t come within ten feet of a PSB case since Rei yanked that one file away from him. He even walked right out of the room when Rei tried to show him the shipping logs for his new cartel case—apparently running late for something all of a sudden, even though he’d only come home ten minutes ago.

Rei should have predicted that. Shinichi had always been slow to trust, and even slower to give that trust back, after it was broken. But Rei didn’t want anything in his life Shinichi was afraid to touch.

He planned it carefully—picked an afternoon when Shinichi had been at the police station and spread his files out all over the living room like bait, a few photos from a particular crime scene leading back to where Rei sat cross-legged with a plate of lemon poppyseed drizzle cookies. He’d chosen just the right file: something the organized crime division had sent over, a cipher using the Cyrillic alphabet written in red paint on an antique mirror. Ciphers were catnip for Shinichi. Rei sat with his back to the door, positioned for Shinichi to be able to peer over his shoulder from the doorway.

Akai walked in while he was halfway through. But he didn’t mock, as Rei might have expected—just gave him a knowing smile and a murmured, “Good luck.” Rei didn’t appreciate being that transparent. But he could use the vote of confidence.

His ears pricked at the sound of the front door closing, the pad of little feet. He felt Shinichi freeze in the doorway behind him, his little eyes riveted to the photos.

“Shinichi. There you are.” Rei gave him an easy smile, holding out the folder. “Take a look at this one for me? I could use your insight.”

Rei saw Shinichi’s eyes swivel to the file. But he didn’t bite. “That’s okay. I don’t want to get into your stuff.” He turned away. “I have to go—I said I’d call Takagi about a case.”

Rei folded his arms. “You just got back from a case.”

“And I have some more things to tell him,” Shinichi said, backpedaling toward the door. But Rei caught him by the back of his little jacket, pulled him around so they were face to face.

“You are ridiculously stubborn,” Rei told him fondly. “Look. That file I took from you…it was the first anniversary of Hiro’s death.” Just saying it made his chest creak, like his bones were a ballast struggling to hold. “I did some things I’m not proud of. But I will get it out for you right now if that’s what it’s going to take.”

Shinichi’s expression said he knew more than Rei wanted him to. He glanced at the file and then away, teeth sunk in his bottom lip.

“Still. If I’m not supposed to look at the PSB files—”

Rei rolled his eyes. “Oh, get over here,” he growled, tugging Shinichi’s sweatshirt straps. “You can stick that little nose into every single PSB file and embarrass the investigators just like you do the MPD. Honestly, they’d be lucky to have you.”

Shinichi laughed—flopped down on his stomach next to Rei and snagged one of the lemon poppyseed cookies. “Okay. But this is a lot of cases,” he said, prodding his socked toes into the folder escaping under the coffee table. “We might need an extra pot of coffee.”

Little scamp. Still, it was the least Rei owed him. “Just coffee?” he asked.

Shinichi’s eyes were bright. “Iced hazelnut lattes?”

Rei hummed in his throat. “We should just send Akai out for Frappuccinos. I’m sure he’s not doing anything important.” And he had a feeling Akai would give him anything he wanted for the next few days. Or years.

Shinichi’s mouth stretched into a grin. “Well…if we really want to make some progress on these, shouldn’t we invite Akai to join us? Crime-solving, you know—as a family.”

Rei should have hated the thought of Akai in his files. But he didn’t, exactly. Not that he’d be admitting that in this lifetime.

“Fine. But one little crack about how the FBI could handle this better, and he’s out.”

Shinichi smirked. “He’s not suicidal. I’ll go get him.” He scrambled up, then paused in the hallway, hands clasped behind his back as he peeked back in. “Hey, Rei? I’m glad you’re feeling better.”

Rei swallowed. “Yeah.”

It still felt a little like a betrayal, laying some new sutures over the old scars. He’d lived for so long on the anger and the hurt. But maybe it was time to live for other things. Things that were right here in front of him.