A/N: Minor warning for Graphic Violence.

At five o'clock on the dot, Edogawa Conan crept past Café Poirot's innocuously glaring "CLOSED" sign and sat in his favored spot, right in front of the barista's quarters. Planting his arms on the table, he buried his face in an attempt to shut out the scarcely flickering lights that emanated from slumbering streets. The remnants of fatigue scratched his eyes until he couldn't help but keep them closed, but the scent of freshly brewed coffee tickled his nose.

"Thanks," he mumbled, straightening up just enough to nurse the dainty teacup between his fingers. "Did you make it like I asked?"

"I did," Amuro said, carefully placing a small container of milk and a few bags of sugar next to him, "but if you had waited an extra fifteen minutes, I could have brought it up with the usual. You didn't have to come all the way down here."

"And yet you left the door open for me." Conan took a sip, and he rolled around the unfamiliar spices on his tongue before swallowing it. As always, Amuro seemed to love using him as his guinea pig. "Besides, it would be weird if you came all the way up to Kogoro-ojisan's and only bought food for me."

He smiled. "Of course I would have made for everyone else as well, but yours would have been special."

It should have been noted that doing so would have been equally as counterproductive. Conan decided to hold his tongue. Amuro already knew that, he was sure. Instead he said, "You would do all that before Azusa-san arrived?" Draining the last of his cup, he handed it back to Amuro, their fingers brushing momentarily before Conan pulled back. "That's impractical. Not to mention that unless you use leftovers, you'll be bleeding into the ingredients you need for the rest of the day. I wouldn't ever ask you to do something so selfish."

Amuro reached for the IoT brewing machine on the far right side of the tabletop, pouring out another cup of coffee, this time holding it out for Conan to take. Their fingers brushed again and Conan's eyes flickered up to his, gauging. He didn't seem like he wanted to pursue it further; Amuro was testing his limits, seeing how far he could go before Conan finally reacted. Conan wouldn't, though; it was too frequent a scenario for him to make a big deal out of a few flitting touches. That was probably just the confirmation Amuro needed.

"Which is why you're here instead. You're very considerate as always, Conan-kun." He sidled around the counter until he was right next to Conan and sat down, supporting his chin with the palm of his hand. In his other hand was three homemade ginseng energy drinks, and with a flick of his wrist, he rolled them across the table until they bumped into Conan's elbow. He pocketed them with a glance of appreciation, quickly draining off the second and final dregs of coffee Amuro made for him, but realization set in not a moment later, and he hesitated. A pang of guilt smacked his chest, and he swallowed heavily.

"You don't have to do this," Conan said, staring down at his distorted reflection at the bottom of his cup. "You're tired, right? Since you have to do your work here and for the PSB."

"But I want to," Amuro retorted, and this time, he reached across and firmly placed his hand right on top of Conan's, intertwining their pinkies. "I only get to see you occasionally. Let me do at least this much for you."

He was so earnest that Conan found that he couldn't say no, and he mutely nodded. Satisfied, Amuro unhooked his finger from his, ruffling his hair until it became a chaotic mess. He soon smoothed it back over, chuckling at Conan's feeble attempts to shoo his hand away.

"Now that that's settled, why don't you tell me more about Mouri-san?"

It was when Conan was reaching for the bag of flour on the highest shelf in the third aisle that he heard a raucous creak right above his head. He looked just in time for him to witness a limp body propelled to one of the store's overhead fans like a sack of potatoes, finely sliced until blood rained from the ceiling. Puckered clouds of filthily viscous organs and bones hovered luridly for a brief moment before voraciously plummeting to the floor with a sickening splat. Everything ceased.

And then someone screamed, triggering mass hysteria.

Conan's eyes instantly darted to Amuro, who was furiously typing a message into his phone.

"Amuro-san!"

"I'm already on it," he confirmed. "Go!"

Nodding, Conan ran to the only exit of the convenience store, blocking it off with slender hands and a steadfast gaze, temporarily preventing the horde of frenzied customers from leaving. He tried his best to hold them off with pleas and empty words of comfort, but the grimy entrails that slathered the grounds, the aisles, and them, alongside the overpoweringly putrid stench of molten iron that saturated the air was enough incentive for them to push through. Conan was all too glad that Inspector Megure and a fleet of officers arrived just in time.

It ended up being one of Conan's more difficult cases, but it was eventually solved after he and Amuro narrowed the suspects down to five people, three of which had a sound alibi. The other two didn't, but the evidence was revealed after a bit of prodding around.

As the culprit was led away in handcuffs, Amuro knelt down next to him, bringing a pale handkerchief to the side of Conan's cheek.

"Were you planning on staying like that all day?"

"The case was more important," Conan said, closing one eye as Amuro rubbed right below his forehead with an antiseptic and a napkin. "If I left, I could have missed a crucial piece to the mystery. I didn't want to risk that."

"Ever the ambitious one, aren't you." He replaced his handkerchief with another one, this time wetting it with a water bottle he brought, and carefully pulled strand by strand of Conan's hair. "I would have gladly assisted you further if you had asked me. But that's not why you wanted to stay on the crime scene. You were afraid, weren't you?"

"I've seen some horrible deaths before," Conan replied, but he looked away from Amuro. "Something like this doesn't bother me."

"Hm…Is that so." Amuro's eyes flickered down at Conan's fidgeting hands and his hunched shoulders, and then he stood to his feet. Unfolding Conan's glasses and gingerly slipping them back on his face, he said, "I think I can take off for the rest of the day, so I might as well drop you back. I'm sure Azusa-san won't mind."

"What? No, you don't need to do that. I can get home by myself."

"But you're still covered in blood. You'll attract too much attention." He pretended to think and then added, "That reminds me, neither Mouri-san nor Ran-san are available right now. If I'm going to talk to Azusa-san, I might as well keep you company for a while. That's fine, isn't it?"

"You can just call her," he said, but Amuro ignored his words with a pleasant smile, grabbed Conan's hand, and lightly hauled him towards his car. "H-hey! Alright, alright, let me go, I'll go with you. Geez…"

Conan rubbed his hands together, blowing a puff of mid-winter fog into his palms before he dug into his pocket for his house key. By habit, he firmly set one hand on the knob—surprisingly, it gave way in his hand, and it turned, ushering in a warm blast of wind right in his face. His first instinct was to jump to Ran, but she never was careless enough to leave the door open. Even in her haste, she always closed the door and locked the hatch at the very least, sometimes adding the top lock if it was late enough. This was either a deliberate move by the intruder, or it was an accident in his haste.

Nudging the door with his foot, Conan readied his wristwatch in case of an emergency, but he heard a faint melody somewhere in the kitchen, and he exhaled, his shoulders slumping. He closed the door behind him, taking care to lock it back like it should have been. He stomped his shoes near the entrance loud enough that it garnered the attention of his uninvited visitor, and as he expected, Amuro called out,

"Welcome back, Conan-kun."

"What are you doing here, Amuro-san?" He slipped off his shoes, placed them neatly to the side, and took two steps in when Amuro met him. He wore a bland apron over his usual work clothes, but his hair was lightly pinned back, a style that Conan had complimented on a while ago.

"Don't be so cold," Amuro playfully chided, stooping down to Conan's level. He could smell batter and spices on Amuro's clothing, and his gaze lowered to his hands. Like he expected, there was a little bit of flour coated underneath his trimmed fingernails. "I thought you would have been happy to see me after so long. You aren't?"

He had missed him, but that wasn't the point. "That's—that doesn't answer my question." He looked around. "And where are Ran-neechan and Kogoro-ojisan? I don't see them anywhere around."

Amuro tilted his head to the side before he straightened, retreating back into the kitchen without a word. He immediately returned with a powdered biscuit pinched between his fingers, and he drew close until he stood right where he was before. Without asking, he pressed it against Conan's mouth, and Conan licked his lips once before he parted them.

"Ran-san and I talked a few days ago, and she seemed really tired from all of her tests. Luckily, Sonoko-san was kind enough to offer her a seven-day getaway into Hokkaido, but she was worried about leaving you and Mouri-san by yourselves, so I volunteered to take care of it."

Swallowing, Conan inquired, "And Kogoro-ojisan?"

"Well, the thing is… Mouri-san was supposed to be here, but then I remembered these tickets I happened to have. It's a seven-day retreat for all hardcore Okino Yoko fans, and it expires next week. I didn't think I'd use it, so I gave it to him, and he seemed really eager to go all of a sudden. And coincidentally, he happened to leave me in charge of their residence."

"In other words, you bribed them to leave for a week," Conan surmised, unimpressed. "You shouldn't do that, Amuro-san."

Amuro laughed, beckoning him inside with a gentle pull on his wrist. "Didn't you say you wanted to come home to something like this at least once?"

At that time, he had meant Ran, Conan could have pointed out, but when Amuro sat him down in the office chair and placed a decorative plate of biscuits, cookies, and sweetened kale leaves with rosemary tea on the side, he bit it down with a particularly bittersweet heart-shaped cookie.

"You've worked hard," Conan noted, eyeing the polished desk and the spotless floor. "Weren't you at Poirot before this?"

Amuro grabbed the same type of cookie he did, biting the opposite side. "Mhm. It was a pretty easy day, all things considered."

The rest of the afternoon was spent watching the news, making idle talk—focusing mainly on mundanely trite subjects, which meant that something had happened yet again—re-reading another one of his Sherlock novels that he snagged from his old bedroom, and sleeping. It was probably the most uneventful day either of them had in a long time.

Nightfall rolled around just as lazily as Conan had, but Amuro was back on his feet, enthusiastic to recreate the flambé he first discovered on a few months back. He refused any offers of assistance until Conan's guilt overrode any reservations he had and he firmly insisted, "I can't just sit here and watch you do this, Amuro-san. Let me do something; anything will do."

Once he snatched a plate from Amuro's hands, Amuro caved in with an amused chuckle, gesturing towards Kogoro's room.

"Then would you mind setting the table?"

The two of them ate not too long after, packing away the extra two dishes as leftovers. At half past midnight, in front of the haze of the TV, Amuro pulled Conan on his lap, much to Conan's chagrin. He fidgeted restlessly, not wanting to outright stop him but not wanting to let it go either, and Amuro tilted his head down until it was right next to the shell of Conan's ear.

"Not this time?"

He sounded so restrained that Conan relented, flopping back into his chest with a sigh. He should have been used to his tactics by now. He should have been.

"It's fine."

They slept in that position, Amuro's arms wrapped around Conan's waist, his head cushioned on one of the nearby pillows. But when he woke up, Conan was alone, a single blanket draped over him. He sat up and noticed Amuro a few feet away from him. He was neatly folding clothes into a basket that, judging by their pristine condition, were probably washed, dried, and meticulously ironed.

"You're really serious about this."

"Of course I am," Amuro answered cheerfully, not missing a beat. "I take everything seriously. Breakfast is ready, by the way. If you want more, there's an extra pot of coffee in the kitchen. I made it just the way you like it."

Despite himself, Conan couldn't help but feel touched, and he crawled to the edge of the couch, reached out, and touched the back of Amuro's hand. He couldn't see Amuro's expression; embarrassment forced his eyes to the ground, but he felt when Amuro stilled.

"You really didn't have to do this," Conan mumbled. His cheeks felt hot and his tongue felt heavy, but he still managed to say, "Thanks. For everything, I mean."

"No, no, it's my pleasure. I missed you as well." Gently, he grabbed Conan's cheeks and tilted his head up until he had no choice but to look at Amuro. His eyes were warm enough to kindle a fire in Conan's chest, and he squinched his eyes shut, anxiously anticipating what he knew would come next. But just as suddenly as he held Conan's face was just as suddenly he released him, and Conan staggered for a moment before he huffed.

"…You're doing this on purpose, aren't you."

Amuro hummed and turned back to the pile of clothes in front of him, his expression pleasantly indifferent.

"Well now. I don't have any idea what you're talking about."

Conan was restlessly shifting in his sleep when he felt his phone vibrate in his pocket. Blearily, he groped around the floor for it, unpleasantly coming into contact with Kogoro's nose and a repulsively slick pool of drool, but he finally fished it from his back pocket.

The caller ID was listed as 'Unknown'. He still answered.

Holding the phone to his ear, he waited for the person on the other line to speak, but all he heard was the sound of ragged breathing. Seconds steadily creeped into minutes, and Conan wasn't very patient, not at a quarter to three in the morning. He figured that if it was a wrong number, the person on the other line should have said something, and if it wasn't, then why—

Unless…

"Amuro-san?"

There was a wet cough on the other line.

"Conan-kun." Another cough, and then he mumbled, "Can you come meet me?"

Already Conan was slipping out of his covers, checking and double checking that neither Kogoro nor Ran were awake before he grabbed his belt and his sneakers. He grabbed the bunched keys that were dangling on a nail near the entrance of the Detective Agency and after locking the door, asked, "Where are you?"

"In a phone booth. It's close by."

It didn't take long to find Amuro; he sat on the floor in a dark sweater and baggy pants, his head tucked in-between his legs, the public phone dangling in circles next to him. He stood out like an ink splotch on a pale canvas amidst the abandoned streets and the unsettlingly quiet neighborhood. It was the time of night where a crime could happen and none would be any the wiser. But things like this tended to be inconvenient. Without hesitating twice, Conan pried the rackety glass door open and closed it behind him. Almost immediately, Amuro sprung to life; his head popped from between his legs, his glazed eyes filling with an ineffable desperation.

"Conan-kun. Conan-kun." He reached out for Conan, gripping his shirt like a man grasping for air. "Let me hold you like this for a while, please."

Conan understood all too well. He didn't have to go through the same experiences Amuro had; all he needed to see were the ghosts that laid dormant in his eyes. Underneath the courteous smiles, underneath the pleasantries and the self-righteous excuses was a man who had lost everything. And when there wasn't anything left to protect, when he was left alone with his thoughts screaming in his ears at the top of its lungs, the past crept and clung onto him, dragging him down into the darkest depths of his mind. Conan would know; he had his own nightmares to face.

So he came close enough that he stood comfortably between Amuro's bent legs, allowing Amuro to rest his head on his chest. He laid a placid hand on top of his head, interlacing his fingers in Amuro's locks, blatantly ignoring how Amuro grinded his teeth together, willing himself not to fall apart. But he still sniffled, and Conan's chest still grew wet. He still chanted 'I'm so sorry' like a lost prayer, but it was less than the last time, and Conan took solace that at the very least, whatever he was doing what somewhat helpful.

And then he disappeared.

Their relationship was an awkward one; it didn't help that they were more than a decade apart even as Shinichi, but Amuro's position was a haphazard scale waiting to be disturbed. He had to juggle between three different identities and work tediously to ensure that none of them would interlope with each other, so Conan understood that they couldn't always see each other. In fact, he almost welcomed the distance. Once given the right signal, Amuro tended to be all too affectionate to more than make up the time lost, and it was overwhelming at best. But Amuro's disappearances lasted a few days. If it was an international or strenuous mission, he was away for a week at most.

Never two weeks. Never a whole month. Never two months.

After the two week mark, Conan casually asked around to see if anyone had seen him. He checked with Azusa every two days, but she gave him the same doleful eyes and the shake of her head. She only got a text from him saying that he could potentially be out due to his other job for an extended amount of time, but she still worried. It wasn't like him to leave for so long, and she wondered what kind of case he was working on. Conan knew the case he was working on, and he also knew that it shouldn't have taken so long. Amuro said that it was going to be fine; he said that it was a clean arrest for an internationally affiliated drug den. They had the warrant; suspects were interrogated and cleared, and all they had to do was arrest the culprits.

A month passed, and Conan texted him once. It wasn't a long message; he didn't like to bombard people with texts unless it was important, and there could have been any number of reasons Amuro was held up. He just wanted to know if everything was alright. He had gotten a response, but it was so curt that it rose more suspicion than it alleviated, and he speculated until he got a splitting headache that no amount of pills eased.

A month and a half passed, and Conan wondered if it wasn't just his mission—if an incident happened that triggered Amuro's infrequent attacks—and he deemed himself unsafe to come back. There were far and few between, but it happened: a moment of insanity that hugs and kisses couldn't reach, a moment where he couldn't tell the difference between friend and foe because to him, he had killed his friend and saved his foe. Conan never understood the story behind that, but they weren't at a point where he could freely ask. And because he couldn't help him, Amuro promised that he wouldn't see him if he ever lost himself. To be sure, he left another text. None ever came back.

But another half a month later, Conan was fed up. If this is what Ran felt like, he thought to himself as he jabbed Amuro's phone number in, then he was doing her a great disservice. The guilt always pricked him whenever she would woefully call his name, begging and pleading for him to return when he was standing right next to her, but it never dawned on him how it felt to be waiting himself. The anticipation, the restlessness, the boiling irritation just waiting to spill out of his mouth and into someone else's ears—

The call connected.

"Amuro-san?" There wasn't an answer, but he heard a shuffle. There was a faraway bark, and Conan's shoulders relaxed. That was probably Haro. Amuro was at home, safe at the very least. But he hadn't said anything. He didn't need to tell Conan everything, but he expected that Amuro would have at least told him that he returned.

"You're there, aren't you?"

"I am." Another shuffle, and then, "How have you been?"

Conan wanted to tell him where he could shove his greetings, but he huffed instead. They had a status quo to maintain. "Don't give me that. You've been back for a while, right? You didn't say anything."

"It's been busy."

"What's been busy? You've been temporarily discharged from the rest of your duties. Kazami-san told me, you know. And you're at home right now. That's Haro in the background, isn't it?"

Amuro laughed, but it was harsh. "Sharp as always, Conan-kun. What if I was? You wouldn't know where to find me."

"I would," Conan started, "but knowing you, you'll probably disable your geolocation. So I'll ask: can I come over?"

"…"

"Or at the very least, can we meet? Pick a place, I don't care. Just—let me see you."

Something in his voice must have given him away because Amuro held his breath and slowly agreed. It was an alleyway far from where Poirot was, far from the Detective Agency, edging closer to where Conan used to live. When he arrived, he was on the lookout for Amuro in the midst of garbage and debris, and with the help of a perfectly timed rat, he saw him. Bandaged, one eye covered by a compress, his arm completely tied, noticeably bruised underneath, suffering from a few broken ribs if the odd shape of his dark sweater was any indication, and there were small scabs on the tips of his fingers.

"Oi, what the hell happened?" Amuro gave Conan an appraising look and he quickly backtracked, realizing too late that he left himself vulnerable. "Uh—I mean, you didn't even tell me you were in trouble. I thought we were going depend on each other more." He walked close enough to reach out and touch Amuro's other arm, looking into his eyes, searching. "Aren't we?"

Amuro smiled reassuringly—whether at Conan's slip-up or at his concern, he didn't know—reached down and ran his fingers through Conan's hair, similarly to how Conan did all those nights ago. He felt a flicker of warmth spark in the pit of his stomach, and he dipped his head, fighting the urge to bat his hand away.

"Don't worry, everything went according to plan. There were just a few discrepancies, that's all."

He didn't believe that. Seeing his injuries now, Conan knew exactly what had happened. Amuro was right; the mission had been a success. But Amuro's horrible habit must have kicked in again and he, instead of telling Conan about it—afraid that he would have lost control and did something that he would have regretted later—self-destructed. This time, he might have been able to pull himself together, but there was no guarantee that would happen the next time.

"Well, whatever it is, you have to tell me." He hesitated, but finally wrapped his small arms around Amuro's waist. "Back then, you said that you wanted to depend on my true strength. Then do that. Don't just put everything on your own shoulders. Okay, Amuro-san?"

It felt all too quiet for the middle of the day, too still, and Conan's heart lurched for a second when he felt Amuro's hand clench his hair. But in seconds, the moment popped, and Amuro's hand smoothed over and cupped the back of his head.

"You're really adorable." He bent down and gave Conan a chaste kiss on the forehead, one that made Conan sputter and rub furiously at it. "I'll do that next time, I promise. I wouldn't want to make my cute lover upset."

He held out his pinky, waiting for Conan to take it. It was so childish and yet—it was strangely comforting. Conan kept his eyes trained on a ripped garbage bag when he linked his fingers with Amuro's, ushering him out of the alleyway into the sunlight. Almost an afterthought, he said,

"…don't call me that."