for an anon prompt on tumblr: "Hospital au. You choose the characters. The catch: none of them work there.", with shoutout to swingingrobin for helping me figure this one out!
"Didn't I tell you that running after criminals was going to get you in trouble someday?"
The hospital is abuzz with activity as always, nurses and doctors making their morning rounds, but Shiho ignores the clamour and crosses her arms, glaring down at her patient.
Well, not her patient, technically – that honour (or curse, as the case may be) falls upon whoever's been assigned this case, and Shiho doesn't envy that doctor their job.
At any rate, Kudo Shinichi stares back mulishly, the expression looking quite ludicrous in combination with his hospital gown, and doesn't even bother glancing at the controls as he adjusts the bed into a more-or-less sitting position. "Ran's already been over all this already, I don't need to hear it again from you of all people."
One of the nurses walks over to check on Shinichi's IV drip as he talks, but they both ignore her. The hospital staff knows better than to stop Shiho even when she comes outside of visiting hours, and it's not like Shinichi's ever bothered with such things to start with anyway.
Then Shinichi coughs several times, hard, and raises a hand to rub at his chest – the left side, Shiho notes with worry, directly over his heart.
She keeps the concern out of her voice, though, as she pours a glass of water from the jug on the bedside table and hands it to the detective. "Well, at least I don't go around getting poisoned by poorly-dressed figures in amusement parks. So I'm doing rather better than you on that front, thank you."
Shinichi narrows his eyes at her over the rim of the glass, but Shiho ignores it this time and goes to retrieve his patient file from the nurse's station. She skims through the pages quickly, only pausing at the preliminary toxicology results.
"So, how does it look, doctor?" he asks with his usual sarcasm as she closes the file, but even from a glance at his expression it's clear he knows that the situation is more serious than the last few times he's gotten hospitalised over cases.
She isn't sure if he realises the full magnitude of the situation, though. An unknown poison, and one that appears to be targeting the immune system, at that… "It's too early to say, I'll need to take a closer look at the bloodwork, probably draw a few more samples."
"Figures. I swear you're secretly a vampire sometimes, Miyano." Shinichi sets the glass back down on the table with a grimace, but if he's trying to earn sympathy he'd be much better off making that face at a wall. "Is Hakuba here yet?"
"If you mean Saguru-kun, he should be here anytime now." She doesn't even bother correcting him anymore – her name has officially been Hakuba Shiho since the legal adoption several years ago, but Shinichi has known her since she was left on Agasa's doorstep that rainy night more than a decade ago now, and he's stubborn in more ways than she can even count. "You asked him to bring you case files, I heard?"
"Yeah, or I'll die of boredom instead of poison," Shinichi mutters, not even bothering to deny it. He's always been a terrible patient, and being poisoned instead of ill (or shot, which was an experience that Shiho definitely has no desire to repeat) hasn't improved matters any. "It's not like I can ask Hattori to come over from Osaka overnight, after all."
"My apologies for being an inferior substitute to Hattori-kun, then," says an acerbic voice from the doorway before Shiho can reply, and she turns around to see her adoptive brother walking briskly over, already taking out a small stack of manila folders from his satchel. "Good morning, Shiho-san. Did you leave the house early this morning, or…"
"No, I stayed over at the professor's last night," she says, answering the implied question, and Saguru nods as she hands him the file in turn.
He doesn't read through it quite as fast as she did, but that's only to be expected – his extent of medical knowledge somewhere between Shinichi's and her own, since the original intent had been for him to take over the family's biochemistry research labs before he'd gone into detective work. It's part of the reason that the Hakuba family had been more than willing to adopt Shiho, especially after they'd gotten to know her through the search for her biological parents in England.
(It's something of an odd arrangement, admittedly – Shiho attends Teitan High instead of Ekoda like Saguru, and splits her time between the Hakuba estate and Agasa's house. But the professor is family in all but name, and the latter only because he'd steadfastly refused to adopt her, on account of the fact that it'd leave her without relatives again if he passed.
The possibility is one that Shiho doesn't particularly like to consider, but she's always been a pragmatic person, and becoming part of the Hakuba family is undeniably the reason why she's able to pursue her research despite still being in high school herself.)
She dismisses those thoughts as Saguru closes the file and glances at her with a vaguely abstracted expression. "Interesting. I haven't heard of any poison capable of all this."
"Neither have I," Shiho confirms. "Though it seems strange that anyone would develop a single drug with such a wide set of effects, I can't imagine what its objective might be. Assuming this isn't a combination of drugs, of course, but Kudo-kun seems to think otherwise."
"Oi, oi," Shinichi grumbles, already halfway through the first of the case files. "Don't talk about me like I'm not here."
They both turn withering glances on him, though Shiho is the one to speak, tone drier than dessicant. "You're just lucky that one of those effects wasn't death, Kudo-kun. I wouldn't have been surprised if it were."
Beside her, Saguru lets out a faint huff of agreement. "I'm almost inclined to keep you here indefinitely instead of developing a cure, Kudo-kun, but with Hakuba Labs being the main stakeholder of this hospital that'd just reflect badly on us."
Shiho pretends to consider that for a moment, tapping her chin with a finger. "I don't know, actually, having Ran-san's eternal gratitude for keeping him out of trouble might be worth it."
Saguru's eyes glint with amusement as he checks his pocketwatch with a snick of metal, still holding Shinichi's file. "I'll leave you to consider that, since I have a Task Force meeting at ten. And Kudo-kun, I'd advise you to stay on my sister's good side unless you want to be poisoned again."
"I still can't believe the two of you are siblings now, it's just weird," Shinichi mutters under his breath as Saguru turns to leave.
And Shiho is fairly certain that Saguru catches it, because he calls over to them while he's returning the file to the nurse station. "Baaya said she's baking those biscuits you like today, Shiho-san, so remember to drop by this afternoon!"
"I will!" she calls back, before dropping her volume down to a more reasonable level. "Besides, would you really rather that I became your sister instead?"
Shinichi blanches, shaking his head sharply, and Shiho can't help but agree with the sentiment.
It's nice to have family, definitely, but she's met the Kudo parents, and Shiho is sure she hasn't done anything to deserve that.
END
the true otp: shiho and happiness, that is all. who do I have to bribe to make this happen. who is it. w h o