Warnings: Conan has a panic attack/flashback to the Tsukikage Island case

(Texts from Kid are centered, Conan's are on the left.)

Conan eyed the notification on his phone in bemusement—Kid was lucky he wasn't already asleep. Admittedly, it wasn't nearly as late as the first time Kid had found him out at night, but still. The text was short, a simple request to meet on the roof. Since the place wasn't specified, Conan assumed the thief meant for them to meet at the Agency, but what time? A thought struck the detective and he sighed as he typed his response.

You're already up there, aren't you?

Yup!~ （＾ｖ＾）

Be grateful Ran-neechan is asleep.

(＾▽＾) See you soon, Tantei-kun!

Conan rolled his eyes at the thief's excitement and carefully slipped out of his room. Ran had relaxed a bit after 'Katsuki-chan' had taken him to the park without incident, but if she caught him sneaking around at night he was sure she'd be back to the oppressive hovering, and he'd probably end up grounded. Keeping an ear out for any noise from Ran or Otchan, he grabbed a pair of sandals and carried them back up to the rooftop door. Listening carefully, he waited for the noise from Otchan's TV show to increase before opening the door and stepping out onto the roof.

"Tantei-kun!" Kid greeted happily, and Conan looked up to see the thief standing nonchalantly in the middle of the roof.

"Kid," Conan replied, continuing dryly, "What are you doing here in the middle of the night?"

Kid's signature grin appeared as he declared, "I have a new riddle for you!"

Conan raised an eyebrow as the thief produced the riddle with a flourish. It wasn't the typical size of Kid's heist notices, instead appearing to be a standard-sized sheet of printer paper. Approaching and accepting the paper from the thief, Conan eyed Kid for a moment—the only thing he could read in the thief's expression was excitement, so he turned his eyes to the contents of the riddle.

Distantly, in the back of his mind, he knew the paper contained nothing more than simple sheet music—but the logical part of his mind was drowning in the sudden surge of memories of a different piece of coded music.

Sheet music. Moonlight Sonata. He could feel his vision blur as a bloody score superimposed itself over the page, the lines wavering and flickering as if he was trying to see them by firelight. His ears were ringing with haunting strains of music and crackling flames.

He was frozen, unable to move as memories flashed through his mind; of the murders, of failing to save anyone because he couldn't put the clues together quickly enough to stop them, of being too small to help, of the fire.

"-n! Hey! Tantei-kun, look at me!"

Conan's eyes jerked away from the page as he suddenly registered hands gripping his shoulders tightly, blinking as he saw Kid's alarmed expression inches from his own face and inhaling sharply as he belatedly remembered to breathe.

"S-sorry," he managed to say quietly.

The thief closed his eyes for a moment with a relieved expression before leaning forward and pulling Conan into a hug. "You don't need to apologize, Tantei-kun. I should have—"

Conan shook his head, and Kid pulled back from the hug just enough to look at him. "You couldn't have known, Kid. It happened months before we met. Even I didn't know I'd react like this, just from seeing a sheet of music."

"Tantei-kun…"Kid trailed off, guilt and worry filling his expression.

"It's not your fault." Conan said firmly. "If I can't apologize for freaking out over something stupid then you can't apologize either."

"It's not stupid—"

"I panicked from looking at a piece of paper, that sounds pretty stupid to me."

"Tantei-kun, I've seen you look at paper before, you don't act like you have papyrophobia at all."

"…Right," Conan muttered. "I don't really think there's a word for being afraid of musical codes, though."

Kid grimaced, "Tantei-kun, I know you well enough to know that probably has to do with part of a case, which means the most likely option is that you associate musical codes with murder."

"Murders plural, and the killer committed suicide by burning himself alive while playing the coded piece," Conan admitted, and cringed slightly at the look of horror that crossed the thief's face.

"That…After something like that, I wouldn't be surprised if you never wanted to listen to any music ever again!"

Conan huffed at the thief and replied, "Well, I doubt I'll ever listen to Moonlight Sonata again, but avoiding all music seems a bit extreme."

"That was the piece they coded?" at Conan's nod, Kid continued, "How disrespectful of them to ruin a perfectly good song with murder."

Conan snorted, "Stupid thief, I doubt most criminals care about being respectful when they come up with a plan to kill someone."

"Well, maybe they should," the thief teased.

"How are you supposed to kill someone respectfully? Challenge them to a duel?"

"You certainly wouldn't have trouble determining the killer that way."

Scoffing, Conan replied, "No, they'd still try to come up with a way to hide their crime. Murderers come up with some crazy ideas to try to keep themselves out of jail, the plots would just get more convoluted."

Kid sighed, "And here I was trying to think positively. Well, at least we've agreed that your reaction wasn't unwarranted."

Conan narrowed his eyes at the thief, "I never agreed to that actually."

Kid smirked at him, "It's more warranted than most fears, I know from personal experience."

Tilting his head, Conan asked, "What, do the people you steal gems from have unusual phobias or something?"

"I'm ichthyophobic."

"You, Kaitou KID, are afraid of f—?"

"Yup," Kid interrupted with a shudder. "Horrible bug-eyed scaly finny things. They're even more terrifying than your demonic soccer balls."

"Even the word for them scares you?"

"Tantei-kun, if I mention the word coffee, what do you picture?"

"A cup of—oh, that makes sense. So the mental image affects you, but not as much as seeing an real one?"

"For me? Yes. Although, I can't even stand looking at pictures of them, or anything finny shaped really."

"Living in Japan must be tough for you."

"Poker Face is a beautiful thing Tantei-kun. I can push back the fear if it's absolutely necessary, but I pretty much crash immediately afterward. Getting away from the ship after the Black Star was hellish."

Conan frowned in confusion, "I thought you took a lifeboat?"

"Nope, I had to swim for it. If I can help it I'm never holding a heist involving ships again."

"I don't blame you."

"By the way, please don't use my ridiculous weakness against me."

Conan gave the thief an indignant look, "I would never, you should know that by now ba'arou."

Kid looked at him sheepishly, "It's nice to hear someone say it."

"That's fair," Conan replied. "Then you'll be glad to hear that I don't think your fear is ridiculous."

Grinning, Kid retorted, "It's definitely weirder than yours, Tatntei-kun."

"I don't know about that," Conan said, "Sea creatures can be weirdly disturbing."

"Tantei-kun, I'm pretty sure we've talked about this: murder in general is disturbing, and I'm not afraid of weird sea creatures, just bug-eyed finny ones."

"Still not ridiculous."

"Then we're agreed, neither of us have ridiculous fears."

Conan laughed at that, "Okay, fine. By the way, what was this about?" He lifted the crumpled riddle he was still holding.

"Ah," Kid looked at Conan ruefully, "That was supposed to be your invitation to my next heist, but it seems I'll be making a new one."

"You sent one like this to the Taskforce too?"

"Well, a slightly edited version, but yes."

"Do you know if anyone on the Taskforce can actually read music?"

"No idea. I did give them almost two weeks to solve it, and if all else fails, Tantei-san will probably manage it."

"You know, I don't think I've ever seen him at one of your heists…you are talking about Hakuba-san, right?"

"That's the one. Smug, blond, and much too rule-abiding. I've never bothered to ask him how he determines which heists to attend, but you're right, he tends to stay away from Adviser Suzuki's challenges."

"Huh."

"I can see you plotting Tantei-kun."

"Who, me?" Conan smiled innocently at the thief. "I was just thinking that it would be nice to get to know another detective who likes Holmes."

Kid groaned, "No more, I've heard more about those books than I ever wanted." He stood up and made a shooing motion toward the door, "You'd best get back to bed before your neechan decides to check on you."

Conan didn't argue; he was actually feeling like he might get to sleep now, despite his unfortunate reaction to Kid's riddle. He waved a farewell to the thief and turned to go back inside, wondering if he'd have time tomorrow to look into gems that might be music related.

A/N: This is the first of... six chapters for this fic that were written during NaNoWriMo.

I have to just stare at that sentence for a minute...

Okay, I'm back. Unfortunately I realized I skipped some necessary pieces in the middle, but there are still two completed chapters after this one before I reach that point. Having a posting buffer is not something I'm used to, so the updates will still be erratic, just more frequent (＾ω＾)