Summary: "Now we both have to survive so you can make me regret that for the rest of my life." —[ShinShi] [CoAi] collab with Momo Cicerone.
A/N: I'm so thankful to momo for helping me write, you're the best mom. This has honestly been one of my best writing experiences in a long time and I literally could not have done it without momo. It's like embarrassingly easy for me to get pulled away by silly things, I'm so lazy. As you may have noticed, I'm new to the fandom. I'm technically not even in the fandom - I've never read the manga or watched the anime, momo just sucked me into writing this by talking about dmck and i was like "how about a scene where he kisses her and says 'now we both have to make it out alive'" and this was she did like 90% of the heavy lifting
It's a cinematic scene almost ripped out of a movie, Shiho has to admit —the old creaky apartment, run by a mean spirited landlord that impressionable children will turn into ghost stories afterwards, is burning. Fire leaps through the cracked cement walls of the twelve-story building, consuming everything on its way. An explosion three stories below, the sound of shattered glass falling, and everything goes pitch dark. Thick smoke rises into the night sky, veiling the stars. Maybe she would be able to appreciate it more if she wasn't trapped on the rooftop. With Kudo Shinichi no less.
All criminals she has met on her cases with the young detective seem to share the same disinclination to take defeat with grace, but this week's charmer has turned to arson.
She focuses on how wasteful it is to burn down a building just to kill two witnesses, not to mention how troublesome since a bullet to the head would probably do just as well with less attention drawn, rather than on the long drop to the ground and how close she is to becoming barbeque, because if she thinks about it, she might start hyperventilating. Shiho doesn't consider herself a coward, but there is a difference between taking on dangerous crooks and being stuck between a fire and a fall to her potential death. Crooks can be tricked, fire and gravity not so much.
Shinichi is taking this well. He always takes these kind of things too well, exasperatingly enough. Early on in her partnership with him, she'd assumed it was because he treated case solving like a game, expecting the repercussions of a game. But later she realizes it's simply that he places his own health and safety distressingly low on his list of priorities.
"We have to jump to the next roof." He states simply.
The girl approaches the edge of the rooftop and stares down at their only possible route to escape. A yawning chasm stretches between them and the ten-story building right below, making her knees buckle at the sight.
"Are you crazy? That's at least a five meter fall, there's no way we'll make it!"
To her utter annoyance, he dismisses her concerns with a cheeky smile.
"Well, the other option is convincing the fire not to burn us alive and while you are a multi-talented woman, i don't think you've mentioned the fire charming abilities before."
"In case you've forgotten your nickname is Holmes, not Bond. You can't just go jumping off rooftops like it's second nature."
"Sherlock was in pretty good shape too!"
"Sure. Except maybe for the compulsive smoking. And the cocaine."
"Oi…" Shinichi warns, glaring at her. "Don't you dare—"
"Fine. How about we agree Sherlock was not an athlete and neither are you."
"You seem oddly confident that I'll be the one getting hurt in the fall. Worry about yourself instead!"
She's about to retort when she realizes that's the problem. She can't. It is in this moment between hell and the abyss that Shiho realizes she is more scared for his life than she is for her own.
She loves him. It's been as simple as that for the longest time. She has loved him since she was Haibara Ai, and that didn't change for Miyano Shiho. All these years… yet why hasn't she told him? Shinichi and Ran had split up years ago —between the secrets he'd kept and the lies he'd told, Ran felt she didn't know him anymore, and they couldn't work out a way to fix that broken trust. Deep down, Shiho knows why she's keeping her true feelings to herself —they are always bickering, and mutual annoyance is not a solid foundation for a relationship. Besides, she's grown accustomed to this partnership thing with him. It makes her feel safe. And comfortable. For all that they bicker, they trust each other with their lives, and to her, trust is more dependable than love. That is not pessimism, it's just fact.
So why ruin that?
Shinichi is the one to snap her out of her reverie when he invades her personal space pressing up close to her, and she reacts a second too late.
"I wouldn't have to worry about myself if you weren't trying to get us killed on every imaginable occasion. It's a miracle you've lived this long. Something must be wonky with natural selection."
"Worried about me, huh?" he teases, lips curling into a cocky grin. Not the kind that makes her blood boil with anger, but the kind that sets her heart rate at a mad pace.
"Worried?" She huffs, scowling at him incredulously, "How arrogant of you to assume that. I'm surprised you don't trip more often, given how big your ego is."
Yes, she thinks as she finds her grounding. This is normal. This is safe. She can love him like this and nothing has to change.
The crooked smile on his lips widens as he inches closer to her face, eyes shining with a mischievous glint.
"You," Shinichi breathes, voice soft and eyes half-lidded, "... Are a terrible, terrible liar."
And with that, his hands are grasping her face and he's pulling her closer to place his lips on hers. It's sudden and charged with overwhelming intensity. His lips move over her own and take her breath away with a kind of desperation that borderlines on demanding. She isn't hard to persuade —her fingers find purchase on the back of his shoulders as she throws her arms around his neck, and she's kissing him back with the same amount of hunger with which he latches onto her.
He pulls away, as abruptly as he started it, and has the gall to grin at her.
"Now we both have to survive so you can make me regret that for the rest of my life.", Shinichi says breathlessly.
Before she can retort anything back, he jumps off through the smoke, giving her no choice but to follow.
.
Momo's notes: This is the most fun I've had in a very long time, please help me convince my son to stay in this fandom by reviewing and i promise you this won't be the our last collab because hell yeah zombie apocalypse WIP.
