Chapter Text
Hakuba's internal clock was hardly as accurate as his watch, but close enough to inform him that it was approximately 3:17 in the morning the first night he woke alone in Kaito's mind.
He extracted himself from the... "puppypile"... of immaterial, discrete persona-colors, avoiding the ticklishly lupine nature of the green and being careful of the piercing brilliance of the blue. Kudo slept all too lightly these days, the hormonal effects of Kaito's own risky, acrobatic double-life mixing with the confused habits of an early-rising child who had his own additional late-night life to disturb the boy's rest.
A sleep-deprived Kudo was most unpleasant to share a mind with. Hakuba had best find a quiet activity to avoid his fellow detectives.
Attempting to move the body would probably not qualify as an activity that would allow the other three to remain asleep. Browsing the database of Kaito's memories was an unconscionable breach of privacy -- Kudo might have no compunctions about doing such, albeit while Kaito was awake to protest, but Hakuba had no reason to treat Kaito as a suspect. He'd already had his suspicions confirmed; what more did he need?
Perhaps he could negotiate for limited access to the memories, to the factual set rather than the personal, for just such occasions as this. Waking Kaito wouldn't do, of course, but perhaps he could elicit a lucid dream state... if Kaito was in REM sleep. Which, as the body's eyes were flickering under their lids, he was.
Hakuba pressed inquisitively at the surroundings of Kaito's mind, cool silk slipping smooth under his query. Knock knock, he thought, almost in jest.
The fabric of Kaito's mind enveloped him.
A full moon hung, twenty times its size, in a field of stars, strewn throughout the ether and snaking in glittering ribbons off into murky blue-black depths in every direction. Of Kaito, there was no sign.
Hakuba's dress shoes dangled over empty air, a flutter of instinctive panic ghosting through his stomach before a foreign sense of serenity quelled it. This strange calm was probably what prevented Hakuba from labeling the sensation on his back 'disquieting'. Something lightweight ran along each side of his spine, heavier at the shoulders than below, and seemed to be attached to and through his fine jacket. Tawny color blocked his peripheral vision; a glance over his shoulder revealed the downy underside and pinions of a red-tailed hawk's wings, unmistakable in shape and the band of color along the leading edge.
A moment's intention, the pull of muscles that shouldn't exist, and Hakuba managed to twist to look in the opposite direction. And there was Kid, some tens of meters away, sailing under a slightly distorted hangglider...
No. Hakuba had wings in here, therefore it followed that Kid's "glider" was his own set of wings, and that Hakuba's appearance was modeled off Kid's own. Not that Kid would be emulating an angel -- Japanese-interpreted or otherwise. The Kid was too proud of his impish ways to consider himself angelic. The white wings were most likely those of a magician's dove, just as Hakuba's were those of his falcon.
He flapped twice, clumsily, before falling into a glide to the Kid's side. Now, how best to go about initiating a lucid dream state in Kid...?
"May I join you?" he asked, as an opening gambit. Kid spun easily, a not-quite-startled look on his face, and Hakuba recieved his first real surprise of the night.
The clothing was all Kid, but the bared face, well-lit by a star glowing silver in cupped hands, was all Kaito... though not an expression Hakuba had ever seen. This one held no glee, manic or otherwise; it wasn't calculated to infuriate anyone, nor did the eyes contain that menacing gleam that Kaito had faced in the mirror upon discovering his tenants.
"You're not a bird," Kaito informed Hakuba placidly.
To be accurate, neither was Kaito. But Hakuba could interpret that easily enough -- if Kid was a 'bird', then it followed that Hakuba was 'not'.
"The wings would indicate otherwise, would they not?" Hakuba asked.
Kaito let the star fall back into place. "Okay." And the starfield spun around them, stopping with a new star in easy reach. The star lit up a warm shade of gold when Kid plucked it from the sky.
Odd effect. Maybe Hakuba could use it... or maybe he could just keep asking questions to delay while he puzzled out how to safely wake Kaito without waking him. "What are you doing?"
"Searching for the double star."
"You can't identify it just by looking?" Hakuba asked, peering closely at another nearby. It was a single spark, but a double...
"It has to glow red."
Ah. Not so simple to locate, then. "And what will you do when you locate it?"
Something cold flickered across Kaito's face. "Destroy it."
That was odd. "Whatever for?"
"So they can't hurt me again."
Hurt him?! "Kaito..." Hakuba began, reaching to catch Kaito by the shoulder. The words died in his throat. Suddenly, the dream made entirely too much sense.
The star in Kaito's hands was an amethyst.
-0-0-0-
The next day, Hakuba lurked in the back of Kaito's mind, observing his host throughout the school day. Nothing seemed amiss -- Kaito likely didn't remember the dream -- as Kudo and Hattori heckled him, as Nakamori-chan chased him around the classroom with a mop, as he jotted notes from the lecture between feats of acrobatics, as he kept a wary shred of attention on the redhead holding court in the back of the classroom...
Nothing was amiss.
One point Hakuba had neglected to consider, in those few minutes within Kaito's dream, was that many psychologists used dream metaphors to help uncover what was truly disturbing their clients. There was no question that Kaito was completely, barking mad in some manner -- no normal, well-adjusted teenager moonlighted as a burglar of any stripe, and Kid himself was his own brand of madness as well as thief. Therefore, Hakuba found it quite likely that Kaito had recurrent dreams addressing the subject of Kid.
Last night's was no doubt just another in a long string of similar or related metaphors, all of which would carry the same thread of raw honesty that had laced Kaito's answers to Hakuba's ill-considered questions.
But there was yet the matter of that last sentence. Not a single theory on Kid's psychology suggested abuse or coercion. Antisocial personality disorder -- sociopathy, albeit with nonviolence as another irrational rule to his game -- highly unlikely, but possible. Abuse, no. The very idea was ludicrous, uncompatible with the thief's psychology. So what had Kaito meant?
He waited until Kaito returned home, his key turning the lock and mail loosely clutched with his schoolbag, before speaking.
Kaito-kun?
"Morning, sleepyhead," Kaito replied, entering the house and toeing his shoes off.
He hasn't been asleep, Kudo told him.
"Been pretty quiet, then," Kaito said easily. "What's up?"
There was really no point in prevaricating. I've been wondering...
"Mmhm?" Kaito strolled into the kitchen, tossing his schoolbag on the table and grabbing an apple.
Why do you steal?
Kaito paused, mouth open to take a bite. Then a slow smile stretched over his face. "Why, tantei-san," he purred, "I thought I'd said. That's for me to know and you to deduce."
Had Hakuba still had hands, he would've laced his fingers together and peered over them with a knowing air. As it was... Very well. I've deduced that you are searching for a particular gem, one which is somehow doubled. The mental temperature in Kaito's -- Kid's -- mind dropped, Kudo and Hattori giving off an impression of gaping. Hakuba pressed ahead. You will recognize it by the color of its glow, and you intend to destroy it once you have found it, because you have been hurt due to this gem.
Kid's smirk was nearly painful, that damnable Poker Face. "Interesting deduction, Tantei-san. I would have expected such wild ideas from Tantei-han, but you? We must be a terrible influence."
Kaito. Hakuba was not letting Kid gloss over this, not if he had to harp on the matter until the day the detectives were freed from Kaito's mind. Who hurt you?
"Nobody," Kid said cheerfully. "Though not for lack of trying -- you do remember the European fellow with the gun? Or Nakamori-keibu's mysterious psychotic break? Then there was this family with a mad swordsman... and of course Kudo blew up the Suzuki uncle's bike with me on it..."
If Hakuba's idea was bullshit, Hattori snapped, you'd have denied it by now.
Deflecting the question is as good as admitting he's right, Kudo added. Especially since we'd probably recognize a lie from in here. But since you said 'nobody', YOU weren't the one hurt...
Pause.
Where's your father, Kid-kun? Kudo asked softly.
Hakuba could answer that one. Dead. Eight years ago, when the Kid first vanished.
Damn. The answer had been staring him in the face, ever since he'd first discovered that Kuroba matched the Kid's profile.
Kaito's apple plunked back in the basket. "I am going to work," he declared coldly, a long silk scarf appearing in his hand. He secured it around his head, at an angle to block the translucent eyepatch. "I don't want to hear another word from any of you for the rest of the night."