Crossover thing.

[glassesbrat]

Help! I have a head injury and I'm locked in a freezer at Haido City Hotel.

The text came at close to three in the morning just as Sherlock Holmes was finally settling down and getting ready to sleep a few hours. For a moment he thought his vision might have blurred because the message was entirely in Japanese. Not that he couldn't read it-he just hadn't expected it, was all. Next he considered that it might have been a prank-there wasn't any hotel by that name in London but if it's real the person on the other side has a head injury and he might have just accidentally dialed the wrong country. It was a bit far-fetched but head injuries were nothing to fool around with.

He shot off a rapid-fire text back asking for a bit more information. What he was given had him leave the apartment, hail a cab and slip soundlessly into the flat of one John Watson. Who, like a normal person, was sleeping at three in the morning. Sherlock shamelessly used the spare key John had not-so-cleverly hidden on the top of the doorframe and made for his sleeping blogger's room.

"John." He said excitedly, "Wake up. Get your clothes, we have a case."

John only grunted his response and pulled his pillow down a little more, causing Sherlock to prod him experimentally, repeating the man's name. Finally, he peek an extremely annoyed eye at his his best friend.

"Go away." He grumbled. Sherlock ignored him.

"Come on, get dressed, I don't think we have any time to waste." He was like an over excited kid at christmas wanting to open all his fun new presents, except in this case that present was probably a murder of some kind or something John Watson really didn't want to deal with at three in the morning.

"Go by yourself then, you can fill me in on it later. When the sun's up." He rolled over on his side so that his back was to the consulting detective.

"I may need your skills."

"Whasis?" Came the sleepy voice of John's very pregnant wife, Mary Watson.

"Sherlock wants me to go on a case." The husband mumbled, clearly falling quickly back asleep.

"Good Morning, Sherlock." Mary managed to somehow sound extremely tired and casual all at once.

"Good morning, Mary." Sherlock was kind of enough to greet her. "Would you mind telling your husband to get out of bed? We've work to do."

"Go with him John." Mary snuggled her full-body pillow a bit closer. John grunted a response at first but then woke up a bit farther, clearly not happy his wife was siding with Sherlock-but before he could say anything on the matter she spoke up again. "He won't leave until you do." She had a good point and begrudgingly John pulled the covers off and got to his feet, glaring sleepy eye daggers at his best friend.

"You'd better have a good reason for waking me up at three in the morning." He headed to the closet to pick out some clothes.

"I do, there's a seven year old with a head injury and by this point, probably hypothermia." Sherlock stated with a shrug, storing his pocket in his coat. John had been in the middle of getting his jeans on but stopped suddenly at that description.

"Why didn't you just say that from the beginning?" He demanded a little louder than he'd intended. Mary made a noise at them them to be quieter. John finished getting dressed and both men left the bedroom and headed out the door so John could grab a coffee and Sherlock could get him caught up on everything.

----

The text had not actually come from a seven year old. It had come from a seventeen year old that looked remarkably like a seven year old and happened to be trying to pass himself off as one. He had to because if he didn't bad things would happen to him and everyone he loved. He didn't know anything about the person he'd texted just that their initials happened to be 'SH' and that their's was the only number he could get to go through on his phone.

He explained his desperate situation, he was tied up and locked in a walk-in-freezer with a head injury, in as little words as possible and listed his location, only for the recipient to state that he was in London and probably couldn't do anything about calling an ambulance or police for him, but if he could snap a few shots of his surroundings he might be able to think of an escape plan. He took the pictures as best he could and sent them.

It took awhile for the person to text back but all it had said was 'Wait there. SH' As if he could do anything else. He huffed angrily and looked at the ground a good eight feet down. At first he'd contemplated the idea of trying to get the tape off himself and just dropping to the ground, but with a possible concussion it didn't seem like a good idea, plus he couldn't quite get his hands close enough to rip the tape off his mouth and bite at the tape on his wrist. He was stuck until someone rescued him or found his dead body. Rescue looked bleak. It was only luck that he still had a phone and that he was even able to get to it. It wasn't so lucky that the phone he'd been left with happened to be one he couldn't afford being linked to him. As far as everyone else was concerned, that phone belonged to the famous high school detective, Kudou Shinichi. (Who he was. But no one else could know that.) And it was certainly come up that he had two phones if he pointed a finger at the man responsible for locking him in here-if he could remember his face clearly. His head hurt and it was making it difficult.

Having nothing else he could do, the small boy waited. He tried to be patient about it but that was much harder with his head in so much pain and his fingers and toes going numb. Was it the Head injury or the cold? He couldn't be sure. After a few minutes his fingers numbed up completely and he dropped his phone. If that person texted back with a solution then he wouldn't get it. To pass the time and check his cognitive ability he tried to deduce how his attacker had managed to get him all the way up here, dangling off a support beam he'd been taped too. Too simple.

He stacked the large boxes currently against a wall up and carried him up. Afterwards, he moved the boxes back and went back to work covering up his murder. Way too simple. He moved on to the mysterious letters 'SH'

The first name to come to mind was, of course, Sherlock Holmes. But seeing as he thought that to be impossible he chucked the idea immediately out of his head. 'Saguru Hakuba' was a possibility. If Hakuba had been back in London for long enough then he'd no doubt have gotten into the habit of listing his given name before his surname. But the chances of a coincidence like that happening were near astronomical. He sank farther into his own thoughts and couldn't stop himself from starting to drift off to sleep. He knew he shouldn't but suddenly it wasn't as cold as it had been and he hadn't slept very well the night before. He was almost fully asleep when the door to the freezer finally opened.

Energy shot back in him and and struggled against the tape, making as much noise as he could with a piece of duct tape over his mouth. He could hear people arguing-but it wasn't Japanese they were speaking it was English-British English on top of it. He tried again to struggle against the tape, weak noises of protest coming from his throat but they were still arguing.

"I don't know what you expect to find Mr. Holmes, but I assure you there's nothing in my freezer that would interest you." Immediately, the stopped struggling as the name 'Mr. Holmes' hit his ears. Holmes? But that-That was impossible.

"Look. This box here, clearly has your hotel's address on it. As does the one beside it. Whoever sent this to me, must be inside your freezer. Unless you have another darkened place you keep ice cream cakes." He couldn't see but he assumed it was the picture he'd sent earlier. He made another sound against the tape and tried to bang his feet against the pillar. It didn't matter at the moment if the man was Sherlock Holmes or Ellery Queen, he needed someone to find him.

"Well, yeah. I suppose that would make the Hyde suspicious but the employees would have said something if they found someone tied up in here, wouldn't they?"

"Not if they're the ones responsible." 'Holmes' countered. The other man must have been about to say something because Holmes suddenly shushed him. "-Do you hear that?"

"Hear--?" The boy didn't wait for him to finish the question and kicked the beam again, struggling and trying to make as much noise as possible. "…What is that?" The man sounded spooked.

"Call the paramedics." He heard 'Holmes' tell the other. "John, with me." So there were three of them down there. The lights clicked on and he sighed in relief. It'd be much easier to find him this way. Hopefully they wouldn't just miss him as the closing employees must have done. He could hear footsteps moving closer and closer and closed his eyes just hoping that he'd be found.

"Sherlock." He heard, what must have been John just barely hiss. Sherlock. Holmes. Sherlock Holmes. SH had indeed stood for Sherlock Holmes. Was this a very un-amusing joke? But that couldn't be, he had no idea who he was dialing when he sent the original text message. It couldn't be a joke.

"There you are." The boy was ripped very suddenly out of his own thoughts and squints his eyes down at the tall man in the dark coat with blue scarf and his shorter friend in a black jacket and tannish shoes. "Still alive then?" All he could do to respond was sigh in relief.

'Sherlock' pulled a box away from the wall so he could better reach the kid, instructing John to climb up on a box and hold him in place.

"Hello." the shorter of the two greeted him, trying his best to remove the piece of tape over his mouth. "Sherlock's going to cut you down and then we'll get you to a hospital, okay?" The tape came off and the child had to take in an enormous gulp of air. He could breathe just fine through his nose, but it was relief to be able to breathe through his mouth again. "I'm John Watson, what's your name?"

"C-Conan. E-Edogawa Conan." Conan would have been annoyed at how much like a child this man was treating him but he was too busy being distracted by both their names. Sherlock Holmes and John Watson. Maybe he was actually dead and hadn't realized it yet.

"Okay Conan, I' need you to answer a few questions so I can check how bad that knock on the head was, can you do that for me?" At his small nod, John started. "How old are you?"

"Seven." Even exhausted he managed the lie. Or was it a lie? He can't tell anymore.

"Good, do you know what one plus one is?"

"T-two." He could hear 'Sherlock' peeling tape away on the other side.

"Where do you go to school?"

"Teitan Elementary." The puzzled look on John's face had him doubting his own answer but he realized fairly quickly what the problem was. "-It's in Japan."

"Oh, okay, do you know your mother's name?" John asked next. It seemed innocent enough but it was probably also an attempt to gain any kind of personal information about him as possible. They'd need it to track down that mother. Unfortunately, she didn't actually exist.

"Edogawa F-Fumiyo." Mother's name he could do, he just hoped he could escape-

"And your Father's?" He was afraid of that. He clammed up and tried to think of a fitting name. Would it be Obvious if he said Akechi?

"No need to keep asking questions, his brain's, thankfully, still in working order." 'Sherlock' stated. "If it's working well enough to realize you didn't know where his school is, he's in good shape considering."

"I have a hard head." Conan managed to aim in the direction of the man currently cutting him free.

"Clearly. How many layers of tape did this person think they needed?" He muttered to himself, peeling at the tape again. At about that time a man in a pristine suit came in and Conan assumed he was the manager of the Hotel and decidedly not Japanese.

"H-how did he get up there?" He stammered in shock, looking over at 'Sherlock.'

"Taped." The man answered casually, still working at the binds.

"P-Paramedics are on their way." the manager stated, trying to get over the idea there had been a small child taped to a support beam in his walk in freezer.

"Go ahead and peel the tape off his arms-I've still got the waist to go." Sherlock instructed. John nodded to his partner and gently peeled the tape binding the child's arms off. Once it was completely off Conan felt much less restricted. He would have made a face when John held his hands out for him but he was either too exhausted or appreciated the fact he was going to need to be caught when-he felt the last of the tape get cut away and found himself suddenly being cradled like a toddler. John carefully stepped off the box and tried to put Conan back on his feet.

Suspension trauma must have gotten to him because upon being placed on his feet he immediately fell to the floor. "私の足がしびれている (M-My legs are numb!)"

John faltered for a minute, unsure of what the boy had had just said but leans down to help him just the same.

"He says his legs are numb." 'Sherlock' quickly translates before rounding on the manager again. "Call the police, this was an attempted murder and culprit is probably one of your employees."

"It couldn't be-the man that attacked me was-he was Japanese. It was in Japan." Conan quickly speaks up. "I don't think you'll find him." 'Sherlock' stared down at him, not quite sure what to make of that statement.

"Sherlock, he could be missing a gap of memory." John pointed out after the odd declaration. He pulled off his jacket and wrapped it around the child's shoulders. "His parents might be guests here though, maybe find out if someone's reported a missing child.

"No one's said anything to my front desk." The manager mentioned.

"They aren't in London-or in Japan. My parents live in America." Conan told them, trying to rub feeling back into his leg. 'Sherlock' closed his eyes, obviously debating what he should do.

"Don't call the police just yet." He finally decided, opening his eyes. "John and I will go with him to the hospital-don't mention to anyone he was in here until I know bit more about what's going on. Hopefully an MRI and x-ray will show us his head is just fine aside from the bump."

"We're just gonna leave the crime scene? Just like that?" John asked incredulously, standing up from where he'd been kneeling next to Conan.

"We don't have a choice," Sherlock pulled him closer to whisper hurriedly in his ear. "I can't seen any signs of cognitive damage, there are a few things that aren't adding up and we can't prove that anyone in the hotel was responsible-especially since Conan insists that his attacker is Japanese. He texted me the first time in Japanese so he must have thought he was in Japan. How he got here, and a few things he's told us don't add up. I'll text Lestrade at the hospital. If I do it any sooner then he'll want both of us in for questioning and I don't want to leave him alone, he was attacked."

"Exactly." John hissed back. "He was attacked, Lestrade will want to know immediately."

"Think about it John, if we call Lestrade he'll want to question him and Conan's statement doesn't make sense-he's in no shape to be questioned by the police. And if it comes out that we only found this boy then the hospital will call child protective services."

"Oh god." John sighed. "You want to sign him in under your name, don't you?"

"He says he was attacked in Japan. Why would the culprit then cart him off to London only to tie him up in a freezer of all places and leave him to die? Wouldn't it be easier to kill him in Japan? They've got freezers. And for that matter how could he sneak a child past customs?"

"My ears are pretty good, you know." Conan stated, gaining a look from both the two men and the manager. He had to admit that 'Sherlock' had a point. If he was attacked in Japan why would his attacker drag him all the way to London. It would be over twenty hours by flight, and much longer by boat which is the only conceivable way he could have gotten there. As 'Sherlock' was right again, there should have been customs to get through. Why take that kind of risk just to leave him to die in another country? Again, he wondered briefly if he was actually dead or in a coma but a noise outside announced the arrival of the paramedics and he shoved the thought aside.