A/N: Did anyone realise what I did to the headlines of each chapter. Haha.. ha.. I have no life...

Warnings:
Strange English, OOCness

Uploaded: 2012-11-02
Revised: 2014-09-24
Chapter rating: T
Words: 4,100

Chap. 3
Everyday Family

Shinichi stopped running after a few days and spent a couple of peaceful days on the beach in Italy, unaware that the thief was tracking the path of his passport from a library computer in Paris and growing annoyed as he wondered what the detective was doing flying in a zigzag pattern over Europe. He'd called Ran when he was in Venice and received an angry scolding for running off again, even though it technically was his first time. His friend had also told him to call Hattori, since the Osakan detective was making a ruckus over the fact that he was missing. After those days in Italy, Shinichi felt a lot better and even considered flying back to Japan, but when he got to the airport he waited for an hour before he walked aboard an American Airline headed for Chicago.

As soon as he got there he bought a used motorcycle and then withdrew a large sum of money before he headed out on a road trip for Las Vegas via Route 66. He took his time, no longer thinking or hoping that the thief was following him, while his phone had run out of batteries a long time ago. He stopped along the way and looked at the tourist spots so that it in the end it took him ten days to get to the city that never sleeps.

Shinichi smiled as he parked the bike outside a large mansion and picked up a key from his wallet before he made his way to the door, intending to surprise his parents, knowing that it was highly unlikely that they were home during the evening. Nothing but emptiness and silence greeted him when he walked through the door and into a fashionable hallway, where he took off his jacket and shoes, leaving the motorcycle bags with his clothes by the door.

A rustling could suddenly be heard from the living room and a couple of low talking voices followed. Shinichi sneaked closer and then smirked when he saw who it was.
"Did he run away again?" Shinichi asked and the people that were sitting around the living room table stared at him in shock.
"Young Kudou!" a publisher grinned and stood up, "yes, we lost your father and he could be halfway around the world by now, but maybe you can find him for us! His book should be finished in two days so that we can read it and then send it to the printing office, please help us."
"Sure, why not. Is mom around?" he asked and the man shook his head, "why was the door locked?"
"In case Mr. Kudou comes home so that we can ambush him." The detective laughed at their plan, knowing that his father would never fall for something that simple.
"I'll just place my things in my room..." Shinichi trailed off as he left the publishers and went back to the hallway.

Instead of carrying the motorcycle bags to his room he brought them to the laundry room and deposited all of his clothes in a washing machine before he turned it on. Then he made his way to his room and opened the wardrobe, seeing that it was just as full as it always was. He scowled at the clothes when he realised that all of them were some kind of fashion designer-things. He picked out the ones he considered most normal, not wanting to draw too much attention to himself and then went to the shower.

Shinichi smirked as he walked inside the large casino; neon lights lit everything, giving him a clear view of his surroundings while the sound of the slot machines filled the air. He wore some of the more interesting, or maybe strange, clothes that inhabited his wardrobe while he hid his eyes behind a pair of sunglasses that he'd found in his room and he found that he liked the outfit; he looked dangerous, yet not in a bad way. He'd been posing in front of the mirror enjoying that he looked like a completely different person, and without being vain he had classed himself as handsome.

For a while he walked around the casino and then spotted a target by a poker table. He quickly bought poker chips and then joined the people playing.
The man looked up and his eyes widened at the sight of his own son, dressed up so much that he barely recognised him.
"Shinichi?" he asked and the teenager smirked at him, "what are you doing here?"
"Hi, dad," Shinichi said with a small grin as he picked up his cards, "is mom around?"
"I think she's over by the bar getting us drinks and talking to the waitresses," Yuusaku stated and threw an amused glance at his son while the game started, "what are you doing in America? If you were here to visit you would've called, but you must've tracked me down."
"Yes, I did track you," the teenager stated and raised the pot, "it took me three days to find you and mom. I quite like the fact that instead of flying around the world you decided to hide in your own backyard."
"I'm not hiding," his father smiled, "I'm having fun, and I live in this city, unlike you."
"What?" Shinichi smiled, "I can't come and visit you?"
"What happened?" his father asked and Shinichi shrugged.
"Love troubles," he muttered and threw his cards.
"Oh? But you usually don't fly around the world for just something that small," Yuusaku confronted
and won the pot.
"It was big love troubles," Shinichi muttered and blushed, knowing that his father would find out sooner or later about it anyway, "I don't feel like knowing the answer to my confession."
"You need to deal with your problems,"
"Just like you don't run away from your publishers when your dead-line is closing in?" Shinichi brought his fist to his mouth and coughed as he continued, "yesterday." To his delight an embarrassed blush appeared on his father's cheeks.
"Did I say; 'what are you doing here?' I meant; 'it's great to have you'," Yuusaku smirked and Shinichi grinned as it was his time to take the pot.
"That's what I thought that I heard," he chuckled, knowing that his father wasn't going to question him further of who he'd confessed to. A loud squeal was heard and Shinichi was suddenly hugged tightly.

"Shin-chan!" his mother giggled as he fidgeted, "you're in America!"
"Mom, please let go," he begged, forcing his father to restrain a chuckle, "you're embarrassing me."
"Aw, you're mommy's boy, and you came to visit," she continued and ignored him.

They played until it was only he and his father by the table, no longer talking and seemingly to be able to read each other's minds, both winning and losing. The detective smirked confidently, wondering if his father was losing on purpose since he was completely unreadable or if Shinichi just had insane luck for the moment. He was bluffing, and he went all in, not caring if he lost, given that it was his father's money anyway. Yuusaku hesitated, knowing that his son was a bluffing, but he didn't have good cards so the question was if he should call and hope that Shinichi's cards were even worse. The author smirked and called since it was to him only a small sum of money and he still had to go to the publishers. They turned their cards, seeing two kings and then Yuusaku sighed as he realised that his son had won with an eight to his seven.

Shinichi laughed and started to place the winnings in his poker chip racks.
"Don't worry, dad, I'll give it back," he grinned but his father only shook his head with a smile as he got up.
"That was my gaming money; I assumed from the start that I would lose them, so you can continue to use them. I have to go out and face reality again," his father stated with a small sigh.
"Tell Charles that I said 'I told you so' when you see him," Shinichi said and decided that he should at least win back a bit of the money he spent flying around Europe and buying the motorcycle.
"Okay, if your mother's still around here somewhere, tell her that I went home to dig up the finished script from her rose garden,"
"See you later," Shinichi smirked and watched his father leave. He turned to the dealer, "this is my first time inside a casino; what's fun around here?"

Shinichi mostly ended up playing poker since it was easier to read people than to guess what card would be next in Blackjack. There always seemed to be a gold digger around the table, cheering on whoever won, and Shinichi mostly ignored them whenever one showed up by his side. Sometimes a woman would nestle her arm around his and make irritation flow through his veins, but he would only free himself without a word. The casino held no visible clock so when even drinking coffee stopped having an effect he realised that he must've been up for quite some time; he didn't even know if his watch showed night or day.

He was ready to faint when he locked the door to a rented room in the casino's hotel and he stumbled towards the bed, pulling off his clothes and let them drop in a trail all the way from the door. Shinichi fell asleep as soon as he got the cover over him and turned on his side, surrendering to blissful sleep, happy that he'd won more than he'd lost. He'd earned back half of the money, but in the end it had gone bad since his sleep deprived brain slowed its own work speed.

The thief glared up at the large mansion where he knew that Shinichi's parents currently lived. He'd heard the famous author get yelled at for running away and then defended himself with the fact that he'd left clues for them to find his book, all the while Kaito searched the house for evidence of the teenager. He'd found the motorcycle Shinichi had bought and confirmed that the detective was there somewhere and then made his way to his room. After searching thoroughly and waiting for a couple of days he'd found a file of a missing person, or that was what he thought until he saw the name of the missing person; Shinichi's own father.

A noise was heard and the door slammed opened.
"Shinichi! You're home!" Yukiko called out, "how was the-," The woman stopped in the entrance and frowned as she let the gaze wander around the empty room, "casino?"
"That's so strange," she mumbled and Kaito swallowed, hoping that she wouldn't look up into the ceiling above her, "I was so certain..." Yukiko left with a pout and Kaito waited a while before he dropped down, happy for his quick reflexes, and then smirked; now he knew that the detective was at a casino. He looked down into the file, locating the name of a casino and licked his lips in nervousness. Chasing, finding, obtaining; that was things he was good at and could do easily, but how would he respond to the confession? He knew how Kaitou KID would do it, but he didn't want to be the thief when he responded. He wanted to be Kuroba Kaito, even though that made him nervous. But what bothered him was the fact that Shinichi had run away; did it mean that the detective didn't want to see him or that he didn't want an answer, or had he even changed his mind?

Kaito entered the casino, knowing how easily he could miss the detective in the crowds, and approached the service desk hoping that he'd been staying at the casino for the past days.
"Excuse me," he asked the man in charge of renting rooms, "I was wondering if Kudou Shinichi was staying here?"
"I'm sorry, I can't give you any information," the man only replied and the thief sighed.
"I have a message for him," Kaito stated with irritation in his voice, "and it needs to be delivered."
"I'm sorry, but we provide full secrecy; no one except the police can come in here and ask for any information. We have everyone from rock stars and politicians to actors and unknowns, all of them appreciative of our policy." Kaito clicked his tongue in annoyance and left the desk after memorising the man's face, intending to come back later.

By the evening Kaito watched the man by the desk, fully equipped with a perfect disguise, and the moment the man left Kaito made his way to one of the restrooms and changed his appearance. No one even sent him a glance as he walked up to the desk and checked the computer. With a grin he then left, and no one was the wiser. Kaito made his way up to the detective's room after removing his disguise and broke in, but found it disappointingly empty even though the bed was unmade and the floor in the shower still wet. He then left and searched the casino, trying to find a game that a detective might like and found him by a poker table.

Kaito kept his distance, moving from game to game while observing him and making sure that he didn't lose his money in the process. Kaito ended up in a dice game, absentmindedly winning every time he took the dice until a guard placed a heavy hand on his shoulder while another exchanged the dice. The magician was then given the cubes and felt that they were wrong. He rolled them in his hand before he smirked at the guard; did they really think that some fake dice could stop the great Kaitou KID? He threw them and watched with glee how they ended up leaning against each other, giving him his seven.

"Sir, we'll have to port you for cheating if you continue," the guard stated and Kaito frowned, already holding the attention of everyone around the table.
"So you're going to port me for being good at throwing dice?"
"You're not good, you're cheating,"
"Hah!" he grinned, "didn't I prove to you that I'm good when you gave me the other dice? The fake dice which you're not actually supposed to be able to get seven with?" The guard scowled at him, "you can't throw me out for being good at something, it's not like I'm counting cards or exchanging them in poker! You know, actual cheating."

"Sir," the guard growled threateningly, and Kaito sighed.
"Fine, fine. If you don't want me to play dice I guess I won't," he muttered as he saw how Shinichi moved away from the poker table and pass them, "I'll just hang after that guy and do whatever he does." The thief nodded towards his target with a smile before he continued. "And just so you know; Lady Luck loves me, so I might even try that roulette-thingy, and if I continue to win on it you just have to shut up." Kaito childishly stuck out his tongue and took his chips before he followed Shinichi to the table.

"Good evening," he said in English and grinned at the detective as he sat down.
"Hello," Shinichi answered with a smirk, "so it's evening? What day is it?"
"You don't even know what day it is?" Kaito asked stunned while they were given their cards.
"Nope, and it doesn't actually matter," he answered with a small chuckle, "I'm free, free as a bird." The thief raised an eyebrow at the detective's weird statement; Meitantei usually didn't enjoy his 'free time' if he didn't get to sit with his nose in a book.
"Wow, were you in prison or something?" Kaito asked and watched the detective tense so he quickly added, "not that I care."
"No, I worked for the police, but that isn't why I'm here,"

"So love-troubles then?" Shinichi sent him a weird glance at the question so Kaito elaborated, "there are only three things that makes a man hide; A. You did something wrong. You're not drunk enough to have accidently shot someone, and you don't look like the kind to enjoy killing. B. Money-troubles," Kaito sent a glance to his chips and continued, "which it obviously is not. And C. Love-troubles."

"Maybe I just enjoy gambling," Shinichi shot in with a grin.
"No, you're hiding. If you enjoyed gambling you'd know exactly where you were going inside this casino, but you looked around, uncertain which table to take; a gambler has his own ways of determining which seat by which table to take, and that is eroded into their brain. If you didn't like gambling you wouldn't have stayed here for so long that you lost time." Kaito smiled smugly, not really concentrating on the game.

"So you watched me before?" Shinichi asked with a stern look at his cards.
"No," Kaito lied and mentally frowned, wondering when he began to sound a bit intoxicated; not 'I'm going to throw up and collapse'-drunk, but enough drunk to make his tongue loosen a little, or a lot, "but I was nearly thrown out for being too good at throwing dice, so I told the guard; 'I'm going to follow that guy to a table and gamble there, as long as it isn't dice!' That's what I told him, so here I am!" Shinichi hummed and then studied him with sharp eyes, absentmindedly winning the pot.

"What are you working with?"
"I'm just a police trainee!" the thief grinned, "but one day I'll be working for the FBI. One day. One glorious day."
"Oh, that's great," the detective commented with a smile as he relaxed and concentrated on the game, "you're going to become one hell of an agent if you train that deduction-ability of yours."

"Hah! So I was right!" Kaito grinned, "that's great! What do you do for the police?"
"I'm a homicide detective," Shinichi answered, "freelancing, so they call me whenever there's a crime they can't solve."
"Ooh, so you're good then?"
"The best," Shinichi grinned confidently.

"You know, I usually go to casinos to try to profile people, like by the poker table, but all poker players try to profile each other. I want to work with the BAU, The Behavioural Analysis Unit, so I come here to train. Sure, I'm not that good, but I'm learning to ask the right questions!" Kaito smiled as he observed the detective who seemed to enjoy the conversation. "I try to do it like Sherlock Holmes, but I'm far from that good."

"Oh? You're a fellow Sherlockian?"
"Yes, in every way," Kaito grinned and held out his hand to Shinichi, "Kuroba Kaito, nice to meet you."
"Kudou Shinichi," the detective answered with a smirk, "your name is Japanese, isn't it?"
"Yes, my parents moved to Winchester when I was ten, so I speak fluent Japanese, but I grew up here. So, your accent, you're a tourist? Or you ran away from home?"
"Both," Shinichi grinned and shook his head, quietly wondering why he trusted the young man to his left, "my parents live here, so I came to visit, but I did run away from my home in Japan because of love-troubles, and why am I telling you this?"

"Oh, I don't know," Kaito smirked, "people say that I have such an adorable face that they just can't help not to spill everything!"
"Adorable," Shinichi couldn't help but to chuckle and took a look at the man's face, realising that he looked an awful lot like himself, "a cute thing to say, but I would rather describe it as trustworthy."
"Well, you're adorable too!" Kaito grinned at the detective gave him a raised eyebrow.
"You're drunk," he stated, strangely amused by the man's behaviour.
"How extraordinary observant of you," Kaito said in a faux British accent and looked slightly offended, but soon let his face break into a smile and continued the conversation.

It wasn't long before both Shinichi and Kaito had moved to the large restaurant at the other end of the casino, right beside the hotel, and the thief found himself talking rather freely with his would-be-boyfriend. He found out that he really loved Shinichi's laugh; not that smug chuckle that he could let out as Conan once in a while on a heist after he figured everything out, but a real laugh, one that he only had whenever he relaxed and actually had fun. Kaito also managed to coax out that Shinichi had no idea why he was running away, since it wasn't actually a damaging problem, and that he was about to return once he'd mustered up the courage to deal with it.

Despite the better of his judgement Shinichi found himself enjoying the company of the eccentric magician that jumped between topics like a crazy cricket. And then later, much to his confusion, actually ended up talking in his room while drinking a cup of tea.

The thief was trying to get to a good point in the conversation so that he could tell the detective that he was Kaitou KID, but when the moment came, he let it pass; and so it went for a while, until Shinichi yawned and said that he should go to bed. Kaito smiled and nodded as he stood up. As he followed Shinichi to the door he spun the detective around and kissed him, but Shinichi only gasped and pulled away.

"What are you doing?" he asked in an irritated voice, with his back pressed against the door and Kaito grinned; every inch of his body came to life when he touched his Meitantei, and he liked it.
"Kissing you?" he answered and the detective growled lowly.
"I'm not gay," he stated with such conviction that Kaito almost believed him, but since the thief knew better he stalked forward until he had the detective trapped between his arms as he leaned on the door.

"Really? But what was your confession then about, Tantei-kun?" Kaito asked and watched in amusement how Shinichi stared at him in shock as his face grew red in embarrassment, "it was so annoying to track you all over the world, you know."
"K-K-KID," Shinichi forced out and Kaito smiled.
"Yes, and I might not be a police trainee from Winchester heading for the FBI, but my name really is Kuroba Kaito, so call me Kaito," Kaito grinned and allowed his voice to grow a bit darker, "or do you want me to beg?"

"You-you're Kaitou KID. You're Kaito. Aah, damn," Shinichi looked away, "sorry about running away; I panicked." Kaito moved his hands from the wall and cupped the detective's chin, forcing him to look back into his eyes. With a smile he bent forward and captured Shinichi's lips again, but didn't meet any kind of resistance this time and just like last time his entire being craved for more, a simple kiss wasn't enough. He let a tongue travel over the detective's lips and felt them part willingly, so he invaded the mouth and explored the warm cavern, feeling Shinichi moan and pull him close as he too came to life. Electricity shot through his body and coiled in his stomach. Every place their bodies touched became a source of lightning and heat, sending pleasure into them both.

"You kissed me," Shinichi mumbled stunned when Kaito broke for air and panted.
"Yes, of course," he smirked and enjoyed how their bodies were pushing up against each other, even though it really wreaked havoc with his ability to think, "would I chase you around the world just to turn you down?"
"Probably not," Shinichi smirked happily and pulled him into an even fiercer kiss that made Kaito moan and sneak his hands underneath the detective's shirt, enjoying the feeling of his soft skin. The thief gasped as he fell backwards, but hit the soft bed with Shinichi on top, smirking at the fact that he hadn't realised that the detective had been pushing him to it.

"You know," Kaito mused loudly with a playful smile, "I haven't gotten a place to sleep yet."
"Don't be stupid, you stupid thief," Shinichi smiled lovingly, "you can stay in my room. It's not like there isn't enough room in the bed." The thief pulled him to his lips again and they took up where they left off.

A/N: I know nothing of casinos. XD

Answer to guest review: Vacant Balcony
Thank you! I try to keep them in character as much as I can, but sometimes things go haywire XD
I'm glad you enjoyed it!