Hattori Heiji is born at home, not at a hospital or a clinic, and there are no licensed medical professionals for blocks in any direction.

Instead, his mother's third cousin twice removed (or something like that - his mother hadn't quite remembered the exact relation when she'd told him the story) is the one who acts as a midwife and brings him into the world despite having no formal training - not that anyone in the family really needed it by the time they were ten, of course.

He is submerged almost immediately, before he can even take his first breath, in a tub full of blood - partially from the woman acting as midwife, partially from his mother, mostly from a freshly-killed wild boar (which had been quite difficult to find anywhere in Osaka, his mother had said).

The midwife returns her attention to his mother, ready for his sister to emerge.

(But mom, I don't have a sister!)

(Shush, Hei-chan, let your mother finish her story.)

Except she doesn't.

They wait for hours, but nothing happens and they become impatient. His mother is vaguely bored; she begins repainting her nails black, even though they look perfectly manicured. The midwife frowns before she cuts open his mother's uterus just to be certain (no anesthesia, of course, because why waste it when none of them need it), and - ah, just there.

His mother doesn't flinch as she watches the blade cut her womb open and the midwife reach inside her to lift out her daughter, but she frowns slightly, vaguely worried that her daughter hadn't made an entrance into the world on her own. She's tiny, too - the midwife is surprised the son hadn't absorbed her in the womb.

Before she can deposit her into the tub filled with blood, the tiny child takes a deep breath and screams at the top of her lungs.

The midwife doesn't flinch, but it's a near thing. She looks at the girl's mother, unsure what to do next. It's tradition to submerge every family member before they can breathe.

The girl's mother hesitates a moment, before nodding. The girl is carefully set into tub just long enough for the midwife to seal up the mother again, then both she and her brother are removed and given to the mother to hold not two minutes later.

Even after being submerged in the blood for hours, Heiji hasn't drowned.

Heiji's twin sister dies before she's one year old - a fever, from some sort of blood infection or something. He doesn't remember it, not really, until he asks his mother why she looks at him like he's two people sometimes. She tells him the story of his birth, brushing death off with an absent, that's what I get for marrying someone normal.

Then, vacantly: I suppose that's just genetics for you.

This is the first time Heiji learns about normal people.

He won't understand until much, much later.

It takes Heiji a couple of years before he figured out that normal people don't sprinkle belladonna onto their onigiri for an extra kick - but, to be fair, he hadn't really interacted with anyone normal before first grade.

He's six when his mother tells him that normal people don't dissect their arms when they're bored to examine the inner workings.

Schooling becomes very boring after that discussion. He thinks she was probably right to home-school him for kindergarten.

He's nearly eight when he realizes normal people die when they eat food sprinkled with arsenic, so they don't use it as a spice unless they really, really hate that person and want them gone forever - which is a foreign concept for him, because even his Aunt D who isn't actually genetically related to him but is somehow tangentially related to his mother's cousin's grandmother managed to hang around as a ghost after being somewhat 'finally' killed.

Death is weird.

No one else seems to realize this, especially not his classmates - are they all that dumb?

He's never allowed to ask, though, because apparently he has to act normal while he's in public, or around his father, because almost everyone in the world except him and his mother and some distant family in the US is normal .

...He's not really very good at acting, too intrigued by the crime scenes he walks past sometimes. He likes figuring out the differences between him and normal people. His mother knows some things - enough to pass, at least, but she isn't much interested beyond that. He doesn't really understand why she isn't. Normal people are interesting, and he's always been curious.

The first time someone steals his lunch, they have to get their stomach pumped.

His mother passes it off as him making his own lunch for the first time and using some of the pretty flowers he'd found on the way home as decoration.

He gets a lecture when he gets home about what she calls 'reasonable precautions,' which mostly boil down to "don't get caught" or having a reasonable excuse if he does, especially if it's his dad who starts asking him questions. It's a long lecture, and he nods in all the right places, which means that she lets him play with the kitchen knives afterwards. He chops off one of his hands at the wrist and tries to figure out how to move it around once his arm was no longer connected to it. It takes about ten minutes, but it makes his mother smile when he finally gets it right.

The second time someone steals his food is a year later, and it's some kid who wasn't in his class the year previous. He also needs to get his stomach pumped, but Heiji apologizes with big eyes to his teacher, saying that he had accidentally dropped his lunch on the way to school that morning and his food had fallen out a bit so that's where the sprinkling of arsenic must have come from. He asks, forcing himself to tear up a little, if the kid is going to be okay, because that's what Kazuha asked him and she's usually a pretty good indicator of what's normal and what isn't. The teacher gives him a strained smile and pats him on the head, telling him his friend will be fine. He almost objects to the kid being called his friend, because friends don't steal each other's food without tactic permission, but he bites his tongue so hard he almost bites clean through it and doesn't say anything.

His mother lets him eviscerate her as a reward, and he spends the next three or so hours before his father gets home sifting through her insides, organs glistening in the bright kitchen lights.

The kid who stole his food comes back to school for just a day, a few weeks later. He flinches every time he catches a glimpse of Heiji out of the corner of his eye and looks like he's about to piss himself when they sit in their assigned seats in class. Heiji's seat is behind him and he maybe accidentally zones out, as he has a tendency to do during math because math is boring, ending up staring into the middle distance right behind the kid's head.

The kid's parents transfer him to another school the next day.

No one steals his food again after that.

Heiji takes up kendo after his father tells him for the thirteenth time that he is not allowed to touch the sword in the display case in his office.

He complains to his mother.

She says that since it's in his father's office, they have to follow his father's rules.

So, kendo. It's the easiest way to learn how to use a sword (and swords are cool).

His father seems weirdly happy about him taking it up though, for some reason.

His mother absently says something about him being glad Heiji's 'following in his footsteps' or something, but Heiji doesn't understand that. Why would he walk directly behind his father so he can try and step in the same footprints? No one else does that, not even 'normal' people, so that's weird.

(Also probably boring. His father doesn't do anything fun - mostly just paperwork - unlike his mother who sometimes lets him mix-and-match the limbs from the animals that walk through their backyard. They always remember to give them food when they're done because of something his mother calls morals.)

His mother laughs softly, but doesn't say anything else.

Heiji goes to his first kendo lesson with a confused frown on his face, still trying to puzzle it out. He's never been good with metaphors.

He exits with a gleeful smile, because it's so much fun and he gets to hit things and maybe even people without getting yelled at and he can definitely see how movements with a fake sword can translate into movements with a real sword.

Besides, it's not like he strains his muscles if he doesn't want to, or even bruises.

Heiji first comes across a human corpse maybe a month later. He's ten.

He doesn't think much of it - other than to look curiously at its insides, which are now on its outsides and a different color than he's used to - and continues on his way home.

Heiji mentions it to his parents (it was pretty cool, although he doesn't understand why the guy doesn't just put his insides back where they belong and go on with his life - maybe the fact that his organs were a weird color had something to do with it?) over dinner. His mother smiles at him briefly, but his father goes very quiet.

He asks where he saw the corpse - except Heiji doesn't know it's a corpse yet because he still doesn't really understand death - and Heiji describes his walk back from school in detail, happy his father is showing interest.

Once Heiji finishes, his father stands up abruptly and mutter that he has to make a few calls. He's barely touched his dinner and he looks kind of funny - pale and green at the same time.

Heiji points out that his father hadn't finished eating his dinner yet, miffed. He has to finish everything on his plate before he gets to leave the table, and he doesn't even get wolfsbane sprinkled on top of the yucky vegetables when his father is home.

His mother sighs and tells him to finish his dinner. They're going to have a Talk afterwards.

...Apparently, normal people don't poke a dead body's organs and then go on with their lives. Apparently, normal people panic or call the police or both. Apparently, normal people can't just put their organs back where they came from and keep living.

Heiji thinks it must suck to be normal.

Normal people can't drink drain cleaner straight out of the bottle or even drizzle it over their rice without having to go to the hospital.

When Heiji first meets Kudou Shinichi, he thinks he's found another person like him and his mother's side of the family. Except he doesn't know how he went from being sixteen to six so quickly, because usually people like him choose to just stay six if that's what they want to be (he tried staying five for an extra year or so, and then he'd met Kazuha and decided to grow up with her - besides, being five was pretty boring anyway), or why Mouri Ran doesn't seem to realize that Kudou's still Kudou. It's not like he's hiding very well, and it's pretty obvious if you're looking.

...Apparently not to normal people, though, since Kudou looks unreasonably shocked when Heiji confronts him about it. Admittedly, he was possibly a little overjoyed because it had taken longer than it really should have to figure out that Conan and Kudou were the same person.

...In retrospect, Heiji really should have processed by now - because he does know, abstractly - that almost everyone in the world other than his family is normal and not like him, but he'd been so excited about the concept of someone like him who was also a detective that maybe he'd conveniently forgotten that fact.

Kudou explains about the poison that made him the way he is. Apotoxin 4869, he calls it.

Shi-hachi-roku-kuu? Heiji asks. Shi-ha-ro-ku?

Kudou gives him a bitter smile. Yes, Sherlock almost killed me.

It's ironic, but not in the funny way that these things often are.

(Well, no, it is funny, but Heiji respects Kudou enough that he won't laugh about it. To his face, at least.)

...He's pretty sure that poison isn't supposed to work that way, though. And by pretty sure he means absolutely, completely positive unless something has changed in the five years since his mother had given him a set of the rarest poisons in the world to test out on himself for his birthday as his 'special gift' that he has to keep secret from his father because his father is normal and he'd get angry about the whole 'giving-his-son-poison-for-his-birthday' thing, even if though they're really tasty and Heiji would've totally offered to share.

None of the poisons are available for purchase legally, and most aren't even obtainable on the surface level of the black market. He's pretty sure she'd had to ask his Great-Aunt Morticia for some of them, since she grows her own poisonous plants herself and also regulations are more lax in America. His favorite had been some experimental Russian government project thing that was absolutely delicious sprinkled over yakisoba.

But, anyway, he had a point.

Most people, even most poison makers, aren't aware that most of the poisons he got in that kit existed.

So, a poison whose name he doesn't recognize?

Unlikely.

A poison he doesn't even recognize the symptoms of?

Almost impossible.

He brings it up with his mom, because if he doesn't know about a poison then it's unlikely his mom also doesn't.

Except she's never heard of anything like it either.

Her eyes flash and she says that she's going to make a few calls.

Heiji sees these weird shadowy creatures sometimes, kind of like the soot balls from that one Miyazaki movie except not at all like that.

He pretends he doesn't, though, because when he pointed them out to Kazuha once when he was seven she didn't know what he was talking about, so it stands to reason that normal people probably don't see them.

Except.

Kudou.

Kudou seems like he might be able to see them, because he follows their trail towards the next place someone's about to be murdered.

(Sometimes they cluster around Kudou's tiny body so densely that Heiji can't see him unless he does the thing with his eyes because otherwise he just looks like a writhing blob of inky-blackness.)

But, no, he can't be able to see them, because he doesn't always follow the trail, even when they're pulling on his clothes, trying to guide him in a specific direction, and he complains that everywhere he goes someone dies.

Once, Heiji promises a murder-free day and Kudou just looks at him skeptically, like he can't actually imagine not accidentally running into a case when Heiji's in town.

The thing is, though, that Heiji mostly just tags along after him as he follows the clusters of black spindly-shadow things. Something interesting usually happens, so it's always worth it.

So, it stands to reason that if they try to avoid them, then they'll be able to have a case-free day.

There are a few close calls, where he whirls around halfway to a pre-decided destination because there are more and more of the inky shadow creatures clustering in front of them, agitated in a way that means there's been a violent death somewhere nearby. Kudou rolls his eyes and follows, seeming to just be humoring him.

Heiji actually manages to give him a break for a whole day, though not without a lot of effort and a bit of reluctance because he kind of wants to see what's got the creature-things so worked up.

Kudou watches him closely as he waves before boarding the bullet train back to Osaka, eyes narrowed - but also grateful.

Heiji actually does get shot that one time, but since he isn't letting himself bleed he lets Kazuha think that her omamori protected him, not that he really needs protection. He sees Kudou give him an incredulous glance because, yeah, even with the handcuff shard in there the charm wouldn't actually deflect a bullet 99% of the time - Heiji knows this intimately, from ample experience involving his fun cousins. He shrugs in response, already looking forward to when he's alone in his room and he can dig the bullet resting in his sternum. It's a comforting weight, sure, but it would be hard to explain if he always walked around with an injury that would immediately kill normal people.

He doesn't let the paramedics check him over. It would be useless, especially with his biology and the normal people all around who can't stop their injuries from bleeding with a thought.

Besides, it's not like he can actually feel pain.

Pain is more of an...abstract concept, for his mother's side of the family.

Also, there's the whole 'you've-been-shot-why-aren't-you-bleeding-you-say-you're-not-in-pain-what-the-hell-it's-a-medical-miracle' thing that would lead to him being locked up in some government facility being experimented on, and that sounds boring. Not that he couldn't escape easily enough, of course, but it seems like a lot more trouble than it's worth.

Kudou looks at him askance when Heiji waves the paramedics off, declining to mention the whole 'being shot' thing. Kudou's eyes zero in on the small, bullet-sized hole in his shirt. There's not even a drop of blood, so it just kind of makes his shirt look moth-eaten, but Kudou's a detective, even in his tiny, unnatural body. He would have noticed anything abnormal, even if it was just a hole in a shirt, when he'd first laid eyes on Heiji earlier that day.

Kudou scowls the way he does when things don't make sense.

Heiji deliberately makes eye contact with him, then brings his index finger to his lips and winks, grinning.

Kudou scowls harder.

When Heiji gets home, he slips his scalpel case out from where it's hidden behind his bookcase, where his father won't find them. He twirls them in his fingers, being unnecessarily picky about which one he's going to use because it's been a while and he wants to savor this.

Eventually, he goes into his bathroom, locking the door behind him, and stands in front of the mirror so he can actually see what he's doing.

It takes less time than he'd prefer to make the incision and dig out the bullet lodged in his chest. He might need to look into getting shot more often.

Heiji pinches the incisions back together, watches as they disappear as if nothing had happened, then drops the bullet into the omamori so that it clinks against the shard of handcuff.

He grins at the sound.

Never let it be said that he doesn't have a sense of humor.

One day, Kudou calls him up and tells him about Vermouth - well, rants is more accurate, because apparently he'd had a run-in with her earlier that day and needs to let off some steam - and when he describes her...she kind of sounds...familiar, somehow? She's basically ageless, according to Kudou, like Heiji if he wants to be, and she seems to have a talent for getting out of situations that should leave her six feet under but somehow don't.

(Heiji likes to sleep six feet underground sometimes, though. The weight on his chest is relaxing, and the soil above him blocks out the sun pretty much completely, which is nice. Bugs and other creepy-crawlies usually stay away from him because he feels wrong, but the few that are brave enough to come close tickle him with their little legs. It's cute.

It's like being in a sensory deprivation chamber except not like that at all and better.

He's not allowed to sleep underground on school nights, though, because his mother doesn't like having to dig him up when he inevitably sleeps through his alarm.)

...He thinks it's entirely possible that Vermouth is somehow related to him, on his mother's side.

Heiji isn't really sure how to feel about that, but something about the idea seems...wrong. Like when he skips a step in a math problem and end up with a positive where there should be a negative. Close, but not quite right.

Huh.

Heiji, at age sixteen and having been called a child detective for almost three years, still doesn't really... understand death.

Like, he gets the whole "no longer on this plane of existence" thing, but he doesn't know what it feels like or why anyone would just let it happen to them.

He's pretty sure one of his uncles decided to let himself die at some point. The whole entire family went to his funeral. Everyone kept expecting him to pop out of the ground and shout that it was a surprise, that he was just joking, but he didn't.

They buried him with a little bell by his headstone anyway, just in case he got bored and decided enough was enough.

Or, well, who knew. Maybe he'd become a ghost instead, like Aunt D. It's not been unknown to happen.

He's heard people talking about gender being something called a "social construct" and he's pretty sure death is the same thing. At least to his mother's family.

He's pretty sure he's heard Great-Aunt Morticia say those exact words before, too: Death is a social construct, darling.

It doesn't apply to them, not if they don't feel like it.

It takes him another year before it finally sinks in that normal people don't have that choice.

Then suddenly Kudou somehow ends up working with Kaitou KID - the thief, of all people - and Heiji doesn't really understand how that happens but he's rolling with it because KID seems like an interesting guy, even if he is normal. He could probably fake being an Addams well enough if put on the spot, which is pretty neat because it's basically impossible to fake being an Addams.

Then they mention something about Pandora and oh.

Heiji feels all his blood leave his face as he pales, so much that his skin almost looks like Kudou's.

Suddenly certain things about that poison start making a lot more sense.

Because.

Centuries ago, Great-Aunt Morticia used to have a younger sister.

Her name had been Pandora.

Pandora tried to murder - actually murder, like, permanently and everything - Great-Aunt Morticia in her sleep because she wanted to be head of the family.

Usually, that would be taken in stride.

She'd done it a couple times before, after all, and no one had been seriously hurt - so it was fine.

Except.

Except that time Pandora knew that Great-Uncle Gomez would be sleeping next to Great-Aunt Morticia and that he was still normal.

He almost died, forever, and not even Great-Aunt Morticia, not even her grandmother could have brought him back.

Great-Aunt Morticia was incandescent with rage.

Pandora was excommunicated from the family.

She was sentenced to being normal for the rest of her existence, which was ensured to be the same as a normal human lifespan.

They'd drawn all the Addams blood from her body and replaced it with that of a normal person, and they'd done it thirteen times in one day to ensure that the normality took.

And it did.

Great-Aunt Morticia herself had chopped off one of Pandora's arms and it had bled and she couldn't move it around anymore.

Pandora had screamed and screamed.

So it had worked.

...Unless.

...Unless she had found another way.

Not of being an Addams, of course, because that was impossible.

But...longevity, on the other hand...

Heiji does not like where his train of thought is headed.

...He tells KID and Kudou to stop right there, because he needs to ask his mother for his Great-Aunt's phone number.

They start to protest frantically, but they halt when Heiji looks at them, because he's not normal , has never claimed to be, and he thinks that maybe Kudou's only just starting to figure that out.

KID gets a pass, because this is the first time he's actually met Heiji as himself and not through the lens of someone else.

But, honestly? He expected better from Kudou, especially after the whole shrinking thing. Being an Addams isn't that different from immortality anyway and he's the one who's met Vermouth -

...Huh.

His mother gives him Great-Aunt Morticia's phone number easily enough, vaguely pleased with him for wanting to get into contact with the rest of her family. She doesn't ask any questions about the two people trailing behind him, but she does remind him that the phone might not be in service if Wednesday has thrown it in the pond again.

He leads Kudou and KID (now dressed in the same school uniform as Heiji, though he's also got a baseball cap shoved down on his head, covering his face and hair) to the shed behind the kendo dojo, because even if someone somehow managed to bug and/or install enough cameras to cover the rest of his house, they probably wouldn't have bothered with a shed that hasn't been used in nearly five years.

Also, it's just about the last place his father would be, so the odds of him accidentally stumbling into their impromptu criminal organization dismantlement meeting are significantly diminished.

Heiji closes the door, then, before Kudou or KID can start asking questions, lops off his hand at the wrist with the knife he's stolen from the kitchen.

(Hattori, what the - !)

(Tantei-han - !)

Their expressions are hilarious, but Heiji's had enough after a few minutes of their frantic babbling. He rolls his eyes and points out that his wrist isn't bleeding and also he isn't writhing on the floor in pain, which makes them pause long enough for him to make his hand spider-crawl up his pants to balance on his shoulder.

Kudou glances at KID, eyes wide and unblinking.

(That's not...is it?)

(Real magic? I don't think so…)

Heiji scoffs. Sure, they believe in magic, why not. But he isn't magic.

He's an Addams.

His hand waves at them from where it's resting on his shoulder, which cuts off their speculation abruptly.

Kudou's eyes dart rapidly between KID and Heiji's hands - the one on his shoulder, the one still attached to his arm, then the stump at the end of his wrist - while, from what he can see of his face, KID is just staring wide-eyed at the one hand on his shoulder.

(KID, are you - ?)

(I'm...not doing anything. There's no way to do that with stage magic.)

(Then, what - ?)

You know, you could just let me explain, is what Heiji wants to say. But he doesn't. Because he kinda wants to know what conclusion they're going to come up with and how inaccurate it will be.

While they're deliberating - though they're not actually using words, which, when did KID and Kudou get to know each other well enough for that? - Heiji calls Great-Aunt Morticia.

Just for kicks, he uses his chopped-up hand to dial, making it crawl down his arm until it's in position to use the touch screen. He's capable of just using the hand holding his phone, but he figures he'll give the other two more hints.

The other line is picked up after three rings.

He explains the situation. Pandora.

Great-Aunt Morticia is pissed, in that weirdly elegant way of hers.

By the time Heiji hangs up the phone ten minutes later, it seems like Kudou and KID have come to...some kind of conclusion.

He's pretty sure that it's the wrong conclusion, but, well.

It's bound to be funny.

Surprisingly, what theories they've managed to come up with aren't all that far off. They're wrong, obviously, but not outlandishly so. He's a little disappointed.

He honestly doesn't really expect them to get it right, but when he reattaches his hand to his wrist and flexes it because it's a pain when the tendons don't reconnect properly, KID turns white.

(You're...not by any chance related to the Addams, are you?)

Heiji stares at him, wide-eyed. Because, what? How did he know about them?

KID grins a little sheepishly, like he hadn't expected that response, says something about how his mother had once dated an Addams back before she had met his father - which actually just raises more questions, but Heiji goes with it.

At least until something in Kudou's eyes sparks, like he's made an important connection.

(Addams...you don't mean the same family as Pubert Addams, do you?)

Heiji is stunned momentarily.

That is how they learn that apparently both Kudou's and KID's mothers dated his some-kind-of-Uncle Pubert at some point.

They're all a little weirded out by that thought.

Kudou and KID have apparently heard stories about the Addams Family from their mothers but assumed they were making up stories to be entertaining or cryptic. They're not wrong, but they're also perturbed by the fact that they were actual stories that had happened.

Just to make sure, though, Heiji asks them if they remember the family motto.

Since they both have nearly eidetic memories, they say yes.

Heiji holds up three fingers in a countdown - three, two, one - then they all say it in unison.

(Sic gorgiamus allos subjectatos nunc.)

(We gladly feast on those who would subdue us.)

(Kazoku wa, yorokonde watashitachi ga osaeteiru tanin o tabemasu.)

Three languages, one meaning.

Huh.

Great-Aunt Morticia comes to visit, leaving a week later with four screaming suitcases that Heiji and his mother politely do not remark upon. His father has been staying late and going in early to work all week, something about a sudden uptick in criminals turning themselves in, so he also doesn't say anything by virtue of not being present.

Apparently, Anokata, the leader of the Black Organization, had been Pandora, and Vermouth her left-hand woman.

Pandora had found the doublet gem that produced liquid ambrosia when held beneath the Volley Comet and glowed red under a full moon, then named it after herself.

She'd hoarded its treasures for hundreds of years, though at some point she had misplaced the jewel itself.

She still searched for some way to make herself an Addams again - because being immortal isn't the same as being an Addams.

At some point, she'd shared a portion of immortality with Vermouth, so that they could search together. Later, she had expanded her inner circle to include Rum and Absinthe, of whom neither Kudou nor KID had heard mention.

Vermouth had not agreed to becoming immortal, nor did she particularly want to be.

Once she had figured out who Morticia Addams was, she'd been more than happy to lead them straight to Pandora.

Great-Aunt Morticia had only had one suitcase when she arrived, and it hadn't been screaming.

KID kind of looks like Heiji would if someone told him he couldn't be an Addams anymore, now that it's over, and Kudou's standing a little closer to him than usual so that they're just barely touching at the shoulders now that Kudou is tall enough for it. Apparently, ingesting a little bit of Addams blood could easily reverse the effects of the poison - not that Kudou had known what was in the potion Great-Aunt Morticia had given him.

Heiji clears his throat, not looking at them.

(There could be more of them, still. Who believe the Pandora gem exists and is still out there.)

There probably isn't, not since Great-Aunt Morticia took care of the Organization, but it's worth it to feel Kudou's knowing gaze on the back of his head and see KID's abruptly appearing smirk.

It's unlikely that Great-Aunt Morticia didn't see the job through to the end, but.

There is a remote possibility that she left the clean up to them, because she seems the type to believe it builds character.

The more he thinks about it, the more likely it seems.

Heiji grins, exchanging glances with the other two.

(Guess we have some work to do, huh.)

So this is what I did instead of finishing the next chapter of tmq

(but that's ~4/5 done because it's exam week and i may be procrastinating so expect that somewhat soon)

Title from "Karma" (Circus-P)