Fanfic / (Not) Supernatural

When Shinichi gets shot through the chest with a large-bore sniper rifle and walks it off, the police assume he's a vampire. Hilarity Ensues.

(Not) Supernatural by Cursed Detective is a post-Black Org takedown Slice of Life Case Closed fanfic hosted on FanFiction.Net. Owing to the author's medical problems, the story's updates have slowed dramatically, ironically leaving the story's status as active or dead in question.

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Tropes Appearing in (Not) Supernatural:

• Actually Not a Vampire: Zigzags this trope all the time, hence the fic's title. Shinichi has a Healing Factor medical condition caused by APTX 4869 and its antidote that, combined with a hilariously unfortunate word choice after being shot through the lung and getting up, leads Division 2 to conclude that Shinichi is a vampire. Shinichi decides to lean into the rumors to misdirect anyone from connecting his oddly beneficial medical condition with APTX 4869 and endanger its other notably less public survivors. Then Haibara discovers that Shinichi's Healing Factor causes him to burn through some nutrients far faster than the average human replenishes them with normal food and drink, most of which are the nutrients that chemically compose blood. This leads him to regularly have to take liquid supplements that resemble blood, with Haibara even saying that ingesting actual blood would have been the only way for someone with Shinichi's nutrient deficiencies to live and remain healthy prior to the inventions of modern medicine, arguably medically making him a genuine vampire. Shinichi's "not a real vampire" argument is not helped by his healing factor repairing all normal wear and tear to his senses, making them comparably far superior to others his age, nor the fact that the strength-enhancing shoes and wrist bands ended up densifying his bones to the point that he's negatively buoyant in water and can no longer swim, exactly like the legends.

• Adaptational Sexuality: In canon Shinichi is portrayed as sexually attracted to Ran; here, Shinichi doesn't express sexual attraction to anyone and is distinctly uncomfortable with physical intimacy; see below.

• Bad Liar: Hattori, which is why Kaito and Shinichi don't tell him the medical explanation for Shinichi's "vampirism." Also Ran. As Shinichi puts it, "she's [Hattori's] kind of honest."

• Becoming the Mask: Initially allowing others to assume he was a vampire was a convenient cover story that protected other APTX 4869 victims from any association with his condition. Ironically, over time his medical conditions end up making the alleged symptoms more or less true. Even Shinichi comes to admit he basically is a vampire in the technical sense of the word, albeit not a supernatural one.

• Beyond the Impossible: Much humor is derived from Kaito's desire to "break reality" and frequent actions in the persuit of thus; it's part of why he delights in Shinichi's vampire ruse so much.

• Burn the Undead: Discussed and invoked—all for show of course. Shinichi subtly acts avoidant of fire several times in the story when being watched by those not in-the-know about his real medical condition, and KID calls attention to this when asking Shinichi in particular to stand back from his fire wall magic trick because KID doesn't know which legends are true.

• Butt-Monkey: Hakuba. He's so pompous, awkward, stiff and easily ruffled that even Shinichi enjoys toying with him.

• Came Back Strong: As a direct inversion of the Fandom-Specific Plot of Shinichi suffering from chronic ill health for the rest of his life due to APTX 4869 and its antidotes, this Shinichi comes back with a Healing Factor that enables him to walk off being shot with little to no ill-effects by the next day.

• Cannot Cross Running Water: Played surprisingly straight. Because Shinichi's strength-increasing gadgets have slowly caused his bones to increase in density, he ends up so negatively boyant that he immediately sinks in moving water. Said strength-increasing gadgets also cease to function in moving fresh water, leaving him completely unable to swim or even float in moving fresh water and very vulnerable to drowning.

• Celibate Eccentric Genius: Downplayed and discussed regarding Shinichi, who has a love interest but also a minor anxiety attack over PDA with them and openly expresses discomfort with physical intimacy.

• Cloudcuckoolander's Minder: Oddly, Kaito and Shinichi are both this for each other. Shinichi's generally sensible and calm but has a poor sense of self-preservation and tends to forget to take care of himself without someone looking out for him. Kaito is... Kaito. Shinichi frequently has to act as the other man's impulse control.

• Cute Little Fangs: Haibara gives Shinichi these to add to the realism; Shinichi grudgingly accepts. Shinichi becomes prone to bearing one over his lip when in thought or when frowning, a facial expression which Ran thinks is adorable and internally compares to a pouting puppy. Subverted when Shinichi's trying to be intimidating and bears them for full effect.

• Daywalking Vampire: For a given value of "vampire." All sunlight does is give Shinichi headaches, likely due to his more sensitive eyes.

• Doing In the Wizard: Shinichi deliberately Invokes many of the traditional vampire tropes to obfuscate the true cause of his medical abnormalities, but the actual cause (for anyone who finds out the truth) is so far understood to be the results of multiple experimental drugs and physical therapy treatments reacting in a scientifically understandable yet previously unpredictable manner with his body.

• Fandom-Specific Plot: Inverted; the story intentionally flips and plays with the common fanfic plot of Shinichi suffering debilitating health side-effects from APTX 4869 and its antidote. There are side effects just as weird and life-changing as those of the initial poison, but, rather than harming his overall health, they make him stronger instead.

• Fang Thpeak: Deliberately averted by Haibara, who week by week slowly adds to Shinichi's canine teeth with a calcium compound so he gradually gets used to having "fangs" while maintaining perfect verbal clarity.

• Fantastic Racism: Kudo Shinichi being the face of the "revelation" that vampires are "real" means that he's occasionally faced with this, increasingly so once the story winds up in the newspaper.
  • Downplayed with Ran. After Shinichi sits down to give her the "explanation," she freaks out and drops all contact with him for three days, unsure if she wants to have a "monster" for a friend. She eventually has a Jerkass Realization that Shinichi hasn't changed as a person and she'd functionally been punishing her closest friend for something that happened to him that he couldn't control.
  • Hinted at with Aoko. When Kaito first introduces Shinichi to her, she's a bit starry-eyed to be meeting a celebrity, but still calls him with the casually respectful "-kun." After learning he's a "vampire," she switches to the much more distant and formal "-san," because finding out he was a "vampire" made it "suddenly [feel] like he was removed from her sphere of acquaintance." Even as she otherwise warms to him over the following chapters, she still refers to him by the distant "-san" for the rest of the story, as if he's still removed from her sphere of acquaintance.
  • Kazuha's self-aware about it. When she accepts Sonoko's invitation to stay at her villa, knowing Shinichi will be there, she bemoans that she'll never be able to treat him normally because the concept of vampires scare her. Sure enough, the first day of the villa trip is lonely and miserable for Shinichi because even some of his own friends are too nervous and uncertain to interact with him and those that aren't don't want to make the others uncomfortable by inviting him into their conversations.
  • After Shinichi gets "outed" as a vampire by the press, Shinichi is basically racially profiled (species-ally profiled?) by a superstitious foreign ambassador who insists that Shinichi is the prime suspect after a man turns up dead in Haido with puncture wounds on his neck. This despite the fact that Shinichi wasn't anywhere near Haido at the time the crime occurred and was only brought in for the case because said foreign ambassador insisted he was involved. In order to clear Shinichi from the suspect pool to the Ambassador's satisfaction, the police had to take a mold of his teeth, something Shinichi explicitly compares to being treated like a dog.

• Flash Forward Fic: Downplayed. It doesn't jump that far into the future, but it also isn't a Continuation fic, given it completely skips resolving the series' plot lines rather than continuing them and there is no particular canon event that it offshoots from. The story instead takes place long after the major take down of the Black Organization and a couple months after Haibara's discovery of the permanent APTX 4869 antidote. The cast is in college now, and Shinichi is a formal consultant for the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department with brand new experimental-drug-related health problems.

• Friendly Neighborhood Vampire: On the Sliding Scale of Vampire Friendliness, Shinichi leans so heavily towards friendly he's regarded as a moral paragon by the police. Initially he begins the story allowing claims that he's a vampire to go unchallenged as a pretense, but it becomes more and more true as the consequences of his original health issues and the health issues caused by the cover up come into play. He still plays this straight with his genuine vampiric qualities: he's able to live off a chemical synthetic containing all the nutrients of blood, rather than drinking the real thing.

• Go Through Me: Shinichi, at least three times so far. The first time outed his bizarre healing ability to the police, the second time outed him to the Beika Hospital ER staff because the bullet got lodged in one of his ribs and also outed him to the rest of the world because a reporter illegally got their hands on hospital records, and the third time made Kaito realize that this was becoming both an unnecessary habit and a serious problem.

• Good Thing You Can Heal: Shinichi's abnormal medical state is outed when he gets shot through the lung by a large-bore sniper rifle and literally walks it off in front of the Kaitou KID Task Force. Discussed by one of the task force officers in front of KID, who comments that anyone else hit would have died. This is deconstructed as the story goes on: Shinichi knowing he's much more durable and likely to live than others leads to him taking much larger risks with his own safety in order to spare others, without him even realizing he's doing it.

• Hemo Erotic:
  • Kaito's briefly implied to find the idea of Shinichi drinking from him kinky, but Shinichi shoots it down almost immediately.
  • Most of Kaito's "research" into common myths about vampires consisted of supernatural romance novels, which is where he gets the above idea, implying that some of them weren't exactly safe for work.

• Horror Hunger: Invoked. Shinichi hasn't actually experienced this, but part of the cover story is that Kaito "fed" Shinichi after he was shot. Shinichi does, however, experience serious health problems if he goes too long without his blood synthetic, because with how fast his system processes nutrients in order to heal, his body will quickly begin to experience serious deficiencies without it. Insufficient "synthblood" intake usually manifests in what Haibara calls "immune crashes."

• Human Shield: A downside of Shinichi's advanced healing is that he's slowly begun to repeatedly use himself as this when unable to deflect or prevent attacks. As Kaito puts it, "you've stopped being careful."

• Irony:
  • The fact that the poison APTX 4869, intended to kill Shinichi, ends up being part of what makes Shinichi so ridiculously hard to kill.
  • At the time Shinichi was shot in front of the KID task force, he decided to play into their assumption that he's a vampire as a convenient albeit ridiculous cover story. It turns out to be something of an Accidental Truth, and getting accidentally more true as the chapters go on.
  • The only murder case featured in the story that Shinichi was absolutely nowhere near is also the only case in which those involved demand he be considered a suspect.

• The Jinx: Shinichi's status as a "corpse magnet" is lampshaded to high heaven—to the point where Kaito and Shinichi incorperate Shinichi's reputation into providing credibility for his supposed curse.

• Magic From Science: This was always an element of Detective Conan given the seemingly Beyond the Impossible results of the various inventors and chemists in the series, but here Shinichi's medical condition takes it up to eleven. Shinichi's able to pass himself off as a supernatural creature because his altered bodily functions are so strange no one Locked Out of the Loop even considers the possibility that they're scientifically induced.
  • Shinichi's "vampire" status is actually a chemically-induced cellular disorder. When normal people are injured, their body heals slowly so as not to drain the body of resources critically needed elsewhere for other bodily systems or use more nutrients than the body can realistically replenish, thus keeping the body metabolically in balance. APTX 4869 was supposed to cause all cells to begin dividing and then malfunction, triggering total apoptosis (cell death); the antidote Haibara created ended up stopping the total apoptosis but keeping the rapid cell division. Somehow, in a turn of events Haibara still doesn't understand, instead of causing cancer or rapid aging, this resulted in Shinichi's healing process being exponentially sped up, causing his metabolism to go out of control as his body functionally starved itself to heal its own injuries, leading to frequent immune system crashes due to his nutritional intake being woefully inadequate for the current functions of his body. While most nutrients can be regained quickly through food, some nutrients—like iron—only naturally occur in the human diet in amounts too small for Shinichi's new dietary needs, leading to Shinichi needing a supplement for the nutrients that cannot be attained quickly enough through most foods. Because of the high iron levels he needs to ingest and Haibara choosing to make the supplement a liquid because it amused her, this supplement both physically and chemically resembles blood. Once properly nutritionally supported, the Healing Factor went on to repair the everyday wear-and-tear to Shinichi's body, improving his senses but making his eyes more sensitive to light, which is implied to be part of the reason Shinichi's now more prone to headaches—giving Shinichi the healing, superior senses, and light sensitivity characteristic of a vampire.
  • To boost the credibility of Shinichi's alleged supernatural nature, Agasa creates wrist bands to go with his strength-enhancing shoes, functionally giving Shinichi Super-Strength.
  • The constant vibrations and strain on his muscles and skeletal structure from the strength-enhancing wrist bands and shoes caused Shinichi's bones to densify in response. To prevent uneven breaks that his rapid healing would probably make worse, Haibara decides to make him undergo physical therapy to encourage the bones to densify evenly, similar to the physical therapy astronauts undergo in space to prevent losing muscle definition and bone density in zero gravity. Because of this, however, Shinichi is no longer buoyant enough to swim and ends up sinking like a stone and almost drowning the next time he's in water, giving legitimacy to yet another aspect of vampire lore.

• Metaphorically True: Played straight and then inverted. The fic's bread and butter is Shinichi and his allies provoking people into making supernatural assumptions about Shinichi, knowing there's technical truth in what they're saying but only giving enough information for everyone else to come to the wrong conclusions about the cause. This gets flipped on Shinichi and his allies when some of those assumptions end up being accidentally more accurate at describing Shinichi's medical conditions than any of his allies knew or intended, just without the actual supernatural... probably.

• Mistaken for Undead: Discussed. Shinichi's a vampire, but he's not undead, even in his cover story, something he and Kaito are careful to "casually" be overheard clarifying. Shinichi has a pulse, an average body temperature, active and working organ systems, and a need to breathe regularly. In fact, his condition is caused by the unusual behavior of his definitely living cells. Though ironically, it's hinted that he really might have died when he was first shot by Shucho Goma and dumped in the woods. Several characters, including Shinichi himself, internally consider at varying points the likelihood that Shinichi's heart stopped for a period due to the usually-fatal damage. A heart auto-resuscitating after clinical death is a real-life, if rare, phenomena called Lazarus Syndrome, and would fit with Shucho's insistence that Shinichi was dead when Shucho and his buddies buried him.

• Not So Above It All: Kaito's able to rope Shinichi into his prank war at Sonoko's villa, leading to a three-way prank battle between Kaito, Shinichi, and the rest that absolutely trashes the house. Hattori describes Shinichi as being almost as bad as Kaitou KID.

• Official Couple: Shinichi and Kaito.

• Our Vampires Are Different: The only vampire in the story so far (if the reader accepts that Shinichi actually is a genuine vampire) is actually a scientifically-created, mostly medically understood vampire. APTX 4869 and its "antidote" caused his body to have an abnormally high rate of cell regeneration, which caused the depletion of nutrients specifically found in human blood—leading to his abnormal healing abilities and the necessity for him to ingest nutrient supplements that are chemically identical to blood. The truly "vampiric" traits are his need to ingest blood or a substitute nutrient, his Healing Factor, his pristine senses (due to said healing factor), and his newfound inability to swim (caused by a change in bone density).

• Parental Neglect: Kaito's initially upset over how little Shinichi's parents provided support for him throughout his childhood and adolescence, but puts it aside because Shinichi himself isn't upset by it, as he's accepted his parents the way they are and he knows they love him regardless. Still, Kaito's highlighting of their failings stings and they begin to prioritize checking in on his wellbeing more. Deconstructed in that Shinichi's grown so self-sufficient that he finds their initial reaction to this call-out—prolonged hovering—deeply uncomfortable.

• Perp Sweating: Shinichi, Kaito, and Takagi combine this with Lying to the Perp to pull off a truly terrifying experience. Some time ago, Shucho Goma and his two buddies were out in the woods plotting to murder a woman when Shinichi just happened to encounter them. Shucho shot Shinichi four times, came to believe he was dead, and buried him in a shallow grave, before going on to commit the murder he actually planned. Two weeks later finds him in down at the police station for questioning, and in walks the assigned officer, a concerned family member... and Shinichi, the man Shucho shot and killed, who speaks in a softly echoing voice and whom no one else seems to see or hear. The apparent spectre quietly intimidates Shucho into confessing and at one point grabs the steel interrogation desk and leaves indents in the shape of his hands. After confessing, the others in the room suddenly begin to acknowledge the spectre and one passes him a drink of what looks like blood. Good luck sleeping tonight, Shucho Goma.

• Rise from Your Grave: Two weeks prior to the beginning of the story, Shucho Goma and his buddies shot Shinichi four times and dumped him into a shallow grave, utterly convinced he was dead. He woke up a day or two later half-healed and distinctly not dead, and, realizing this was yet another strange survival he probably shouldn't publicize, crawled out of the grave, dug the last bullet out himself, burned his bloody clothes, put on the spares he carried with him, and made his way to Dr. Araide and Haibara. Turns out, it's technically possible that they did kill him, at least for a little while.

• Romantic Vampire Boy: Subverted, inverted, invoked. Shinichi is earnest, sincere, and very awkward in all things romance; Kaito is the overt flirt. On the other hand, them perpetuating the vampire rumors means that Shinichi is openly considered Kaito's "supernatural boyfriend"—the romantic aspect of which Shinichi leans into because it's fun to make Hakuba uncomfortable.

• "Scooby-Doo" Hoax: What Shinichi, Kaito, Haibara, and Agasa essentially set out to pull on the police after they assume Shinichi's a vampire in order to prevent anyone from connecting his condition with APTX 4869. Ironically, Shinichi's medical conditions happens to credibly slot into place other legendary symptoms of vampirism into his lifestyle and behavior, meaning the hoax becomes more real over time.

• Slice of Life: A major point of the humor in the narrative and lampshaded by many characters. Despite the horror story symptoms, the actual story comprises of the daily events of Shinichi, Kaito, and their family and friends as they deal with the humorous, dramatic, strange implications Shinichi's effective medical vampirism has on their daily lives. The result is a cozy read focusing on the pleasant chemistry between the characters and the odd hijinx they get up to as they adjust and grow into their lives, especially on Kaito's and Shinichi's healthy and incredibly supportive (eventually) romantic partnership. Inspector Nakamori refers to the daily shenanigans he sees between them as "creepily cute."

• Stages of Monster Grief: Because they assume Shinichi's condition is supernatural and possibly monsterous, even if Shinichi himself is not, several of those not in-the-know express concern that Shinichi may, or possibly already is, go(ing) through these. Megure in particular is grateful to Kaito because he doesn't think Shinichi could have held up psychologically without him.

• Sure, Let's Go with That: Shinichi bases his cover story for how he can get shot through the chest and heal over night off of the initial shocked assumptions of the officers' around him. His implicit confirmation means they and others are less likely to go looking for another explanation.

• True Companions: While many police officers and even friends are a bit nervous around him once the rumors get around, Megure, Takagi, Satou, and Chiba never treat Shinichi as if he could ever be a threat to anyone and care for and look out for him as if he was one of their own, including carrying packages of his blood synthetic with them in case he gets injured or skips eating and doing their best to help him avoid too much exposure to bright light.

• Vampire Detective Series: Basically a comedic parody of this with a side of Scientifically Understandable Sorcery.

• Vampire Hickey: To sell the weird assumptions the KID Task Force came up with as true, Kaito slaps a bandaid and some fake blood on his neck and pretends Shinichi gave him one of these. "Subverted" when Kaito later draws attention to the fact that Shinichi didn't have fangs then, implying that Kaito cut himself and "forced the issue" while Shinichi was injured and hungry.

• Vegetarian Vampire: What Shinichi is from the perspective of the police. He ingests a chemical synthetic with the same composition as blood instead.

• Virus-Victim Symptoms: One of the reasons the KID task force jumps to thinking Shinichi's a vampire. Two weeks prior, Shinichi had truly gone missing for two days. When he returned, he was gaunt, pale, and refused all medical attention except from Dr. Araide, who reported that he was hypovolemic but otherwise fine. The next time the KID task force sees him, he accidentally breaks a granite wall with a soccer ball and tells KID it's because he's not yet used to the differences in his body, jokes that his doctor is a "vampire scientist," and literally walks off a lung shot. See Rise from Your Grave for what actually happened during Shinichi's missing days.

• Voluntary Vampire Victim: According to the rumors Kaito and Shinichi are perpetuating, Kaito coerced Shinichi into "feeding" off of him the night Shinichi got sniped at the KID heist. Kaito actually does semi-seriously suggest it, but Shinichi shuts it down due to how unsanitary and unsafe such a thing would be for Kaito's health, citing the nature of his fangs as weapons, the number of bacteria in the average mouth, and how negatively said bacteria could affect a puncture wound.

• What If?: What if the antidote to APTX 4869 has side effects that are just as bizarre and seemingly impossible as the original poison?

• Weakened by the Light: Downplayed. All sunlight does is give Shinichi mild headaches, possibly due to his more sensitive eyes.