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It was always a trial to visit Shinichi. That didn’t stop him of course, but it did make it so that visits had to be carefully planned and few and far in between. Haibara and the professor would come with him too sometimes. Other times it would only be him, or him and Haibara. The professor went slightly more often, while he and Haibara were at school. Different disguises were used for different combinations.
Today he and Haibara were Takashi and Junko Kobayashi, twins who shared features but were overall unremarkable. Their eyes were no longer an obvious blue, but black, with hair to match. The disguises morphed their features just enough that no one would connect them to their current identities. The nurses, long used to seeing them, simply smile and exchange greetings with the ‘twins’ as they head to the private room.
The room was positioned specifically to be less accessible, chosen to be both unremarkable and difficult to turn against its patients. Kudo Yusaku would never allow his son to be placed in danger if he could help it.
As he and Haibara enter, both occupants turn to face the door. Shiho-neechan gives a nod, while Shinichi smiles at them. Both were sitting up, alert and not seeming to be in pain. It must have been a good day. On bad days they would be in awful pain, pumped with painkillers and hazy as a result. On great days they could do some walking and moving around, even dawning some basic disguises and spending time in the hospital gardens. On awful days they would be undergoing treatments because of the negative effects of the poison on their bodies. Most of their days seemed to be somewhere in between bad and good.
“Ah, it’s good to see you two. How have things been?” Shinichi asks. Conan and Haibara split, him going to Shinichi’s bedside, and her to Shiho-neechan’s.
“Good! I’ve solved four cases since I called,” Conan tells him. Shinichi was always happy to talk about cases with Conan. Conan couldn’t blame him–he had to be going absolutely mad stuck in a hospital room most of the time–and cases were easy common ground between them.
“Nearly got shot twice while he was at it,” Haibara adds, because she is a shit-stirrer at heart. Shiho-neechan snorts at that, but keeps her full opinion to herself.
“I did not,” Conan rolls his eyes at her, “being shot at is not the same as being nearly shot. That guy had no idea how to aim, and even if he did, it was a gun filled with rubber bullets. I would have been fine.” He turns back to Shinichi and addresses his look of concern. “He was not the brightest man.”
“I’m sure,” Shinichi says, “but I hope you’re being careful anyway?”
“I am,” he reassures. Haibara makes a noise behind him but he ignores it. He was much more careful than he had been originally. Shinichi sighs, but doesn’t otherwise comment.
“Come up here,” he says, patting the bed. Conan obediently clambers up onto the bed, where he is pulled into the other’s side. Shinichi runs a hand through Conan’s hair, scratching in just the right places to make Conan trip right into boneless. But of course, of all people, Shinichi would know how to make Conan relax. They cuddle that way for a little while, to the murmuring voices of Haibara and Shiho-neechan. While detective talk was where Shinichi and Conan were comfortable, science was what Haibara and Shiho-neechan were most at ease discussing. Usually it was all antidote and treatment talk, but they would sometimes delve into other areas of science.
“Shinichi?” Conan asks, before he can stop himself. The question he’s had on his mind for a while is rearing its head, especially since this seems like a good enough day that asking won’t hurt Shinichi even more.
Shinichi gives a hum to show he’s listening, not bothering to stop the hair petting. Conan takes a deep breath, but even so his question comes out as barely a whisper. “Do you resent me for being…” he tries to say it, but the word won’t come out, his mouth puffing around it like it’s something hot burning on his tongue.
“A clone?” Shinich asks, equally quiet. His hand stops moving now, resting on Conan’s head. Conan nods, then looks up so he can see Shinichi’s face. It’s carefully blank now. “You have my memories,” Shinichi reminds him, “Which means a lot of your base feelings and reactions are the same as mine.”
Shinichi isn’t wrong. Conan feels like Kudo Shinichi most of the time. He reacts like Kudo Shinichi, he thinks like Kudo Shinichi, if he isn’t careful he absolutely answers to Kudo Shinichi. Looking at Shinichi’s face is always a bit of an uncanny valley feeling, because something is telling him that the face he’s seeing belongs to him. Which isn’t right, but isn’t wrong either.
“So how would you feel?”
Violated. Scared. Debased. Those are the first thoughts that come to mind when he thinks of it. He almost says as much to Shinichi, but then pauses because… “Well the thing is…I am the clone…”
“So you can’t make a clear judgement.” Shinichi responds. He’s silent for a moment, then he sighs. “Answer me this first, then. How do you feel about being a clone?”
“Disgusting,” Conan says, the word coming out so fast he doesn’t have time to think it through. It’s true though. It’s one thing to be violated; it’s another thing entirely to be the violation. Conan actively avoids thinking about what he is for a reason.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Shinichi says. Shinichi pulls him up onto his lap fully, turning him so that Conan is looking right at him. “I won’t lie to either of us. Neither of us would get away with that,” he adds wryly, and that startles a little laugh out of Conan. Shinichi waits for it to pass with a small smile before he settles into a more serious expression. Conan squirms, looking down at Shinichi’s chest instead of his face.
“I definitely don’t feel good about having a clone. It feels violating and terrifying in equal measure. Miyano once likened it to having a child by rape, and I think that is unfortunately a very accurate comparison.” An involuntary shudder runs through him at Shinichi’s blunt, painful words. Shinichi doesn’t stop though.“But however I feel about how you came to be, my feelings about having a clone are not my feelings about you.” The emphasis startles Conan into looking up at Shinichi again, blinking in surprise.
“I am capable of separating my feelings on being cloned from that of a clone’s existence in and of itself. You are not disgusting. No more than any child of rape is disgusting. It’s upsetting that you are representative of a trauma, but that trauma is not your fault. No one is at fault for how they were born, no matter how they came to be. You are a gift,” Shinichi puts a hand under his chin to keep Conan from looking away again as a flush creeps up. “You know that having a sibling is something I would have loved growing up. I’m happy to have you in my life, Conan. I won’t deny there are times it’s painful, but that’s the situation as a whole, not you.” Shinichi smiles at him, and Conan knows he’s blushing furiously. Shinichi lets him pull from his hold to bury his face in Shinichi’s chest.
“You know, just knowing that you’re out there, having fun with your friends cheers me up some days? Knowing that you’re there for Ran when I can’t be, that you’re helping her and even her old man? That you and Haibara-chan are keeping an eye on the Professor? It’s such a relief. Knowing both that you’re taken care of and that you’re helping people I care for. None of this is ideal, but that doesn’t make it bad. I’m glad you’re here, Conan, no matter how you got here.”
Conan can’t say anything. He lets Shinichi hug him closer, taking in both the warmth and the sheer relief.
He hadn’t realized how much he needed to hear it before Shinichi had said it.
He had a greater understanding of how he came to be than any child should, and with that came the horror of what his own existence meant. With the memories of Kudo Shinichi providing all the ethical issues of his existence, and the conflicting ones on the sanctity of life, he’d had no idea how his original would feel about him. He tried to figure it out, of course he did, but that didn’t change the fact that he was the clone. His perspective was too skewed and biased to be accurate. He’d been scared that Shinichi would hate him, would want him locked up because his creation was a crime. He could acknowledge the thoughts weren’t rational, but that hadn't changed how he’d felt about it. It was nice to finally be able to let that fear go.
They stay cuddled together for a while, listening to Haibara and Shiho-neechan talk about some obscure science finding. There was no way they hadn’t heard at least part of the conversation, but they weren’t the type to draw attention to it. Conan feels more emotionally stable, so he pulls away from Shinichi’s chest. Shinichi doesn’t mention the watery eyes or the fervent blush he knows he has.
“So, tell me about what you’ve done since you last called. I want to hear everything.”
Conan grins, blinking back the rest of the wateriness before launching into a retelling of how Genta-kun’s wish for a limited time snack had landed them in the middle of an ongoing robbery.