(no subject)
The study was locked.
Haibara eyed the door impassively. No doubt any of the Living who tried it would take it as a hint. A time like this when teenagers thought only of their petty crushes, jealousies and hopes for the future, the Dead must naturally want to be alone?
Haibara saw it as an opportunity.
The charm placed above the door was not intended to keep her in, but she took it down anyway, dropping it into a snaplock bag carefully before opening the door. She'd have to thank Shinichi for that idea later.
Now, she had work to do.
At first glance, the study was deserted, no sign of a presence Living or Dead. Haibara placed the charm on the desk and waited. The shadows that habitually waited on her coiled around her and held still.
For a few minutes nothing happened. Then without any discernable difference, the air crackled with awareness -- Shinichi was there.
They didn't need to use words, not when they were formless, and Haibara read more in the chilly silence than Shinichi wanted her to. She smiled, deliberately, resting one clawed hand on her hip. "Your Valentine turned you down?" Nothing cut quite like words.
"It wasn't like that. She misunderstood."
Resentment, hurt, not a little anger -- all good. Haibara waited and was not disappointed.
"Of course I know we can't -- we're not -- we're dead. But when she looked so sad, how could I not want to help? And then she said I was hurting her--"
"The Living don't understand. How can they? They'll never really understand what it means to come back."
Shinichi's laugh was short, humourless. "You were right about that."
Haibara smiled slightly. "Naturally. I understand after all." Glancing at the shrine in the corner -- gathering dust? No wonder Shinichi was in such a mood -- she said, "Perhaps a reminder?"
Shinichi stirred, interest pricking the air around her? "A reminder?"
Haibara smiled. She reached into her pockets, pulled out a card gun taken from an unwary Kaito. "Let's dance."
---
The Conan's would have been easiest, but subjecting his brother to that -- even if he knew it wasn't his brother, was him -- just felt wrong. Besides, they couldn't make it too easy. When they did this for real, they'd have to be able to direct a consciousness. Shinichi studied a sleeping Conan a moment, pulling the blanket up over the small, sleeping form before moving on.
He flickered through the mansion searching, a cold chill that didn't stay anywhere long enough to be felt. The Ran's got a huge berth, the other girls avoided too -- once had been more than enough of that. Kaito's natural resistance made him too much of a risk.
It was a Hakuba, in the end, sleeping unguardedly. It was a matter of simplicity to by pass unguarded defences, take possession of a sleeping mind. Shinichi directed him to the ballroom, revelling despite everything in the feeling of carpet beneath bare feet. The wooden ballroom floor was cold and Shinichi walked out into the middle of the floor, his fingers closed around the card-gun in Hakuba's dressing gown pocket, waiting for Haibara.
"Right on cue."
Shinichi turned, his greeting dying unsaid. The face that greeted him, the body -- was his own. "Haibara--"
It was chilling seeing Haibara's smile playing across a mouth that should have been his. "You understand, detective?"
Where had she even found a Shinichi so close to his age? Perhaps a bit younger, clothes he remembered from that night-- "Did it have to be me?"
The eyes that looked back at him were relentless, flat. "Kudou Shinichi is dead," she said. "You know that as well as I do. You can't let him come between us and what we're here for."
"Ah," Shinichi said, forcing himself to consider his body dispassionately. "So you want me to kill myself."
Haibara smirked. "It's only a little fun. And if we're going to do this properly -- we can't pity anyone."
"Not even ourselves?" Shinichi sighed, and Hakuba drew the gun from his pocket. "Let's do this."
---
They'd talked about the plan, gone through together in minute detail then memorised it but it was another thing entirely to live it. Dancing wasn't that far off -- it had a rhythm, a poetry, a life all of its own. Muscle bent pliantly to their will, bodies played as easily as puppets, not Shinichi and Hakuba anymore but Gin and Vodka, the ballroom growing stale with the scent of cigarette smoke and gunpowder, their feet not touching smooth wood but rooftops littered with snow; back stairwells and alleys. A game of cat and mouse pressing to one inevitable ending, so practiced as to feel natural, their presence undetected in the minds they occupied.
And all too quickly it was over.
The cold steel of the card gun bit into Vodka-Haibara's stomach, reflexively she brought up her own gun, pressing the nozzle to Gin-Shinichi's forehead. For a few long seconds they remained that way, breathing fast, hearts speeding with adrenalin -- and then something shifted and the ballroom was bare again and they were simply Haibara and Kudou, coming down from the most intense experience of their afterlife.
Haibara reached out to touch Kudou's jaw, noting as unfamiliar the raspy beginnings of stubble and wondered idly if he'd been killed before he'd ever needed to shave. "That was--"
"Perfect," Shinichi finished for her and they didn't need to speak. Their awareness was mingled, bound up in the dance they'd just shared, their mutual fate. Neither needed to speak to know the other felt the exultation they did, gloried in the rightness of it, the rush that had followed as each piece of the puzzle felt into place.
Shinichi's breath caught suddenly and Haibara realised that while she'd been list in the feeling of it all, her hand had shifted to Shinichi's cheek, inclining his mouth towards hers. His hand rested on her hip, the weight of the gun almost comforting. "Haibara, what--"
"Don't," she said. "Those words the Living use can't say what's between us. It doesn't need to be said. We have a dance, Kudou. That's all that matters."
He was quiet a long moment, beyond her reach, and she wondered whether it was her or his own face he saw, watching from so far away. "Ah. And the dance is all that's left to us."
Hakuba slumped slowly to the floor as Shinichi left him, Haibara following suit. The shadows stretched around her on alert and still, perfectly controlled. Haibara felt tired, even drained by the effort of forcing her will on another, but the grim satisfaction of accomplishing their task had given her renewed determination and control, a stronger sense of who she was and she was more than equal to the challenge of maintaining herself.
"It won't be long now," Shinichi said and glancing up, Haibara realised he had a very good reason for not appearing earlier in the study. His decay was starting to show. Shadows twisted around him, his own personal darkness. No turning back.
"Not long. You've got it all?"
"Nearly. A few loose ends. And Toyama--"
"Forget the girl. We'll do it ourselves if we have to come back a second time."
Shinichi laughed, his shadows rippling with him. "I think you just don't like to share, Haibara. All right then. We'll do it ourselves and we'll do it soon."
Haibara smiled in cool satisfaction, glancing down at the two unconscious detectives, pale on the ballroom floor. "Shall we return them?"
"Mm?" Shinichi glanced down at Hakuba and his counterpart as though surprised by their presence. "Too risky. They've left deep sleep, we'd only wake them. Better to leave them. They won't remember this."
Haibara nodded, fading into her shadows without another word. Shinichi melted after her and it wasn't until fifteen minutes later that Hakuba Saguru, cold, tired and aching from exerise he didn't remember taking, woke up Kudou Shinichi, fast asleep, to demand an explanation for why they were both sprawled out asleep in a ballroom.