[FIC] you could be my blue ribbon winner (2/2)
Title: you could be my blue ribbon winner
Fandom, pairing: DCMK, Heiji/Kazuha
Rating: T
Notes: Birthday fic for illeistic!
"I want grandchildren," Shizuka tells Heiji without preamble, appearing noiselessly in his doorway and glaring with a ferocity that has felled stronger men.
"But not just any grandchildren," Shizuka continues relentlessly, "I want grandchildren from you and Kazuha. Together."
Heiji turns red. "Mom!"
"When you were in high school it was adorable in a way," Shizuka says, "as kids who bickered endlessly and were oblivious to the truth, but see, now Kazuha's not oblivious anymore, and I think she's had it figured out for quite a while now, so it's just you, Heiji, my darling son, and I always thought you were so intelligent."
She's using that tone, Heiji reflects sourly, the one that so aptly conveys her disappointment and has always made him want to crawl beneath the nearest rock and/or grovel for her forgiveness.
"I just-" Heiji feels the stirrings of a headache. "I don't. I can't. I don't know.” How else to convey his confusion, this newfound sensation, this overwhelming desire and-and-
"I know you don't," Shizuka soothes, and shifts into a sharper tone. "That's why I'm telling you to figure it out."
Heiji actually smiles wryly at that. "Yeah. I'm working on it."
Shizuka returns the smile. It's something he inherited from her, after all. "Good. And clean your room. It's disgusting in here."
"Maybe it's a lost cause," Kazuha murmurs into the phone. "I mean, maybe it's not meant to be. We just don't have what you and Shinichi have. And that's okay, you know? I guess I've just liked him for so long that I don’t-don't know how to not like him anymore. But. I'll learn, won't I? And I'll find someone else and everything will be great. Absolutely great."
Ran is silent. Then, "You don't actually believe a word you're saying, do you?"
"No." Kazuha sighs. "And it sucks."
Ran clucks sympathetically into the phone. “We could vandalize his motorbike,” she suggests.
Kazuha laughs, and it’s not entirely forced. “Don’t tempt me.”
Heiji decides to listen to his mother and cleans his room.
It really is a bit of a pigsty, he admits to himself, eyeing his closet, where stacks of clothes have tumbled and tangled with one another on the floor. With a sigh, Heiji lifts the haphazard pile and dumps it all on his bed, planning to fold them later.
He empties out all of his drawers, methodically, and pauses when he comes to the bottom of the last one.
There is an envelope.
Heiji, curious, picks it up. It's faded and yellow, a testament to its age. The words To Future Heiji are written in a childish scrawl on the front.
Ah. This thing, then, an old, silly assignment from the third grade, something about writing to your future self and saving it and opening it years later to see how far you've come. He regards the envelope thoughtfully and then shrugs, tossing it on his bed along with the rest of his clothes.
Over an hour later his closet is impeccably arranged, his floors vacuumed, his books shelved, and his bed made.
The envelope is still on his bed.
Well. Well, why not? He rips it open and unfolds the letter, eyes roving over the lines he'd written as a child.
Future Heiji:
Well, clearly you're going to be a detective. A great detective. You'll be awesome and famous and everyone will know your name and you'll make lots of money and stuff. Oh, and you'll have a bike. A really, really cool motorbike.
Uh, I guess you could have a girlfriend. Or be married. If you want. Girls are pretty gross, but-oh, hey! Kazuha's not bad! She's a bit slow sometimes but she tries really hard and even if she's really annoying she's still my best friend. Our best friend. Right?
So, to sum up: Awesome detective, awesome bike, and Kazuha. Who's not always so awesome, but she'll do.
From: Heiji, 9 years old
Heiji lets the letter fall out of his grasp and onto his newly made bed. He processes the information in his head, thoughts whirring, brain reeling.
Nine year old Heiji had known.
Nine year old Heiji had known.
Nine year old Heiji had known and had been okay with it.
Which really does make current Heiji something of an idiot.
He drops the letter and runs out the door.
"So close to reaching that famous happy end..."
"Ugh," Kazuha mutters, abruptly turning the music off with a click of her mouse. She's not quite in the mood for a love song, so she opts for something to watch instead. She searches through her folder of illegally downloaded television, ignoring the Heiji-voice in her head that tells her downloading such things online is wrong, wrong, wrong.
The latest episode of Doctor Who seems promising, so Kazuha sits back and watches, enjoying herself thoroughly and forgetting, almost forgetting-
"You stole me. And I stole you."
Oh, for crying out loud-
Kazuha huffs and closes the window, glaring at her computer screen. That traitor. Doctor Who is supposed to be about traveling through time and space and endless mindfuckery, not stupid (beautiful) lines that remind her of the state of her nonexistent love life. She ought to write a letter of complaint.
Fuming, she chooses an episode of Sherlock next, half-listening as the theme song begins to play. Yes, she thinks, more than a little viciously, she'll spend the next hour and a half watching Benedict and his cheekbones and she'll forget all about stupid, stupid Heiji.
Except she doesn't. How can she, with Sherlock and John being so utterly Sherlock and John, John calling Sherlock "brilliant" and "extraordinary", Sherlock giving John those long, thoughtful looks-
Someone is pounding on the front door. Kazuha pauses the video and jogs slowly towards the door. She opens it.
It's Heiji.
Kazuha's seen this movie before, but it's different. Heiji's not standing in the pouring rain, dripping wet, with a bouquet of flowers or a boombox over his head; Kazuha's not crying with joy or looking at him with undisguised adoration. In fact, she's looking at him with barely hidden disgust.
"You've ruined me," she accuses him, not letting him in the house, blocking the doorway.
"You sure you weren't already broken before I came along?" Heiji retorts.
This, at least, Kazuha knows how to deal with. With a quirk of her lips she says, "I was damn perfect before you came along. Now I can't even watch TV or listen to music without you ruining it for me." she shakes her head at him. "Bastard."
But Heiji doesn't rise to the bait. Instead, he simply looks at her, and it's something old and entirely new at the same time.
"You were either watching something on your laptop or reading manga," he states without question, without hesitation. "If you were watching, it was Merlin, or maybe Sherlock. If you weren’t watching, you were reading that manga of yours, the one with the Italian title and stupid bishounen and classical music. You haven't been out all day, not since this morning. You've been in those pajamas since then; I can tell from the wrinkles in the fabric. You feel like crap. Your hair's a mess, you're wearing glasses instead of contacts."
"Is there a point to this?" Kazuha asks, inexplicably startled.
"The point is, I know you. Better than anyone."
Kazuha knows this is true. There's no point in denying it, so she nods without a word.
Heiji crams his hands in his pockets, uncharacteristically fidgety. "And it's just-oh will you just let me in!" he bursts out, shoving past her and storming into the living room.
Kazuha blinks, startled, and shuts the door. By the time she gets to him, he's staring at her laptop with an oddly transfixed expression on his face. She glances at the screen: a paused scene of Sherlock and John, racing through the streets of London, blurred and strange.
"Holmes doesn't need Watson, not really," says Heiji abruptly. Kazuha tilts her head confusedly. "I mean. He got along perfectly well before he came along, and, well. He doesn't need him, see?"
Kazuha eyes him curiously. "What are you trying to say?"
"I'm saying-he doesn't need him. Nobody really does, do they? Need another person, I mean, a real, desperate sort of need. Well, no, that’s not entirely true. There are plenty of times a person actually needs another, like if you need a kidney or a liver or maybe a bone marrow transplant, or-no, that's not the point-" He shakes his head violently. "What I mean is... He's better with him. Than without. That's all." He stares at her imploringly, willing, needing her to understand.
What an awful confession that was, Kazuha thinks, rather hating herself as she feels warmth spread through her chest, her stomach, her toes. Still, she'd known what she was getting herself into the moment she fell for him. "Yeah," she murmurs, slowly, "I get that," and can't help but break into a wide, uninhibited smile.
Heiji's answering smile beats Benedict Cumberbatch's cheekbones any day.
When Shinichi finds out, he smirks, and congratulates him on working a Holmes reference in his otherwise pathetic confession. (Although, he adds, he’d never have pegged him as a Holmes/Watson fanboy.)
When Kaito finds out, he congratulates him heartily and assures him that the offer still stands, should he find himself pursuing a career in thievery. He's always wanted a sidekick, he says.
Heiji calls them bastards, but can't quite keep the smile off his face.
Once upon a time, Heiji steals a bright orange trumpet from a local pizza parlor.
It is, he thinks to himself as he watches his mother coo over her newborn grandchild, the smartest thing he's ever done.
Fin
So. This was written for illeistic's birthday and the idea was to sneak in as many of her favorite things as possible. I don’t really know if I succeeded, but it sure was fun to write! :D
1. Title comes from Schuyler Fisk’s “Blue Ribbon Winner”
2. References to the following: How I Met Your Mother, Jon McLaughlin’s “So Close” from the movie Enchanted, Doctor Who, Sherlock, Merlin, and La Corda d’Oro. Can you spot them all? :D
Also, LJ was being a pain while uploading this, so sorry if the formatting is kind of... wonky. T_T
but, most importantly: happy birthday, love! ♥