This fic is… disturbingly like my last one? It's written veeery similarly, at least format-wise, and the mood and style are pretty much the same. I'm going to blame it on the fact that I've written 130 fics for these losers and it's hard to be original at this point. Yeah. That's a totally legitimate excuse.

Warnings include shounen-ai, possible grammar mistakes / errors, sappy fluff everywhere, etc.

Enjoy, hopefully...? - Luna

Mating Rituals of the Kaitou Kid

Shinichi prided himself on being observant, being able to pick out the minutest details and use them to come to a realistic conclusion, being good at deductions and rational thought and logic. He had the track record to prove it, too – he had yet to meet a mystery that he couldn't solve, and his reasoning was rarely, if ever, inaccurate. Everyone knew he was an excellent detective.

So when Shinichi left his house for the second time after reclaiming his body and found an unfamiliar postman idling beside his front gates, looking all too young and all too attractive to be an ordinary courier, he instantly knew what was going on.

"Kid," he demanded, striding towards the postman with purpose, "why are you in front of my house?"

Kid turned to beam beatifically at him. Shinichi noted that he had picked a fairly good-looking disguise, all sharp cheekbones and fluffy hair and pretty lips. Leave it to Kid to pick a top model to disguise as. His eyes were the same as always, though, wide and stunning and irritating, and oddly enough, they seemed to complement the disguise he'd chosen.

"I'm so flattered that you recognized me, tantei-kun," Kid sighed, one gloved hand pressed to his heart (or where his heart would be if he had one, Shinichi thought in a moment of childishness, and then immediately felt bad about it). "I just wanted to see how you were doing. You know, with the," he paused, gaze sweeping up and down Shinichi in a way that made Shinichi want to fidget self-consciously, "the whole… getting your body back thing."

"Well," Shinichi sniffed primly, crossing his arms over his chest as Kid's gaze continued to rove over him. He tried not to flush too obviously when Kid whistled lowly, inspection evidently finished. He didn't need Kid's approval, dammit. (Privately, he willed his cheeks to stop feeling like furnaces). "I'm clearly fine."

"You are indeed fine," agreed Kid with a smirk, and Shinichi rolled his eyes. It was either that or turn radioactive red. Kid had always been one for needlessly flirty comments, even when Shinichi had been in Conan's body, and while Shinichi may have found that the slightest bit cute, it would be ridiculous to get worked up over it.

He snuck at glance over at Kid. Kid was still grinning at him, though the smile seemed softer, somehow, than the usual, overcompensated façade he crafted for heists and banter.

Utterly ridiculous.

"I don't understand why you had to dress up like a postman just to check up on me," Shinichi muttered in an attempt at changing the subject, kicking at the pavement.

Humming, Kid shrugged noncommittally and straightened his helmet. "I didn't know how you'd react to me showing up to see you, tantei-kun," he replied, suddenly fascinated with the cuff of one sleeve. "I didn't think you'd be too thrilled."

Shinichi frowned. "I wouldn't have minded, you know. It's not as if I despise your presence."

Kid looked up a little too quickly at that. Shinichi lifted his eyebrows at the pleased surprise in his eyes. "Really?"

"Really," Shinichi affirmed, slowly. He felt as if he'd let on more than he wanted to, at least judging from the uncharacteristically genuine smile on Kid's face. "What? Is that surprising?"

Schooling his expression (only a little though; Shinichi could still see bits and pieces of his smile shining through his faux solemnity like gold dust through silt), Kid shook his head. "Nothing." He turned away, but not before he cast one last grin at Shinichi. "See you around, tantei-kun." Before Shinichi could blink, Kid was gone, disappearing out of the quiet streets without a trace because he was and always would be a deplorable show-off.

Blinking, Shinichi sort of mentally shrugged and continued on about his day. If he spent a little more time than usual daydreaming about Kid, it was no one's business but his. It wasn't as if thinking about someone who'd never take any real interest in him was going to hurt anyone.

And then there was the blind date.

Sometimes, Shinichi regretted being best friends with Ran, especially when she got all teary-eyed and began to wax theatrical over Shinichi's love life (or, more accurately, lack of a love life). He regretted it even more when she did things like set Shinichi up on blind dates and threaten to behead, castrate, and disembowel him with her bare hands if he didn't go.

(Of course, he always felt awful after thinking that kind of thing, because Ran was sweet and kind and always had the best intentions at heart, even when they involved vivisection. She was the overprotective older sister he'd never had, and he loved her to pieces.)

Rubbing his temples, Shinichi sank deeper into the upholstered chair of the overpriced, overformal French restaurant Ran had sent him off to with juxtaposed threats of murder and squeals of "oh, don't worry, she's perfect for you!" His date had yet to make an appearance, and it was ten minutes past their arranged meeting time. Maybe Shinichi could get out of the date by claiming the girl was in the wrong for making him wait?

He thought of Ran's vividly worded threats, which she had combined with colored diagrams and demonstrations on an anatomically correct doll, and shuddered. Okay, maybe he'd wait a little longer.

Shinichi was in the middle of reciting every element on the periodic table – he was up to rhodium – when someone dropped unceremoniously into the seat across from him, almost knocking over the Madagascan vanilla candle placed artistically in the middle of the table.

"Sorry I'm late," said a distinctly familiar and distinctly male voice, and Shinichi's head immediately shot up.

Kid was sitting across from him, dressed in a well-pressed suit and looking like the embodiment of everything Shinichi had ever found even vaguely attractive. He was in the same devastatingly attractive disguise as before, messy, dark hair sticking up in various places despite obvious attempts at taming it with gel and skin practically glowing in the lowlight.

It took Shinichi nearly three seconds to process this before he was gripping the tablecloth and scowling over the bone china plates at Kid. "What are you doing here?" he hissed, though even to his own ears he didn't sound particularly upset. "I'm supposed to be having a date –"

"Ah, yes, what was her name? Sunamoto Machiko? Tall, pretty, bottle blonde? Wants to be a nurse practitioner, works at the local library in her spare time? You could do better," Kid tsked, shaking his head at Shinichi. "I saw her outside and convinced her to go home. She was clearly too boring for you."

Shinichi frowned. Something about Kid's phrasing seemed odd, but he couldn't pin it down.

"I feel like that's not something you get to decide for me," he finally said without any inflection, and Kid grinned and leaned forward on his elbows. The motion made his suit jacket stretch across his shoulders, emphasizing their broadness and the defined lines of his biceps. Shinichi had to swallow dryly.

"But you don't deny that she doesn't seem all that engaging," Kid beamed, sounding far too excited for the subject matter, and Shinichi shrugged.

"To be fair, I didn't pick her. Ran did," he told Kid, who nodded in understanding.

"I was right. You have much better taste than that," he remarked, running a hand through his hair with smugness that seemed overblown even for him. Shinichi raised an eyebrow.

"I think you're saying a lot about my taste without knowing anything about it."

Kid shrugged, undeterred. His gaze flickered up to meet Shinichi's. "Maybe I'm just projecting what I want your taste to be, then."

"What do you want my taste to be, then?" Shinichi asked, narrowing his eyes with suspicion. "Let me guess, Sherlock Holmes?"

"Oh, never," Kid laughed, eyes twinkling like twin gemstones. He was about to continue when a waiter approached their table, mouth pressed in an expectant line.

"May I take your orders, sirs?" he inquired solemnly, syllables rounded with a French accent. Before Shinichi could tell him no, both he and Kid were going to leave, Kid nodded and leaned towards the waiter conspiratorially.

"Oui, bien sûr," he intoned, and Shinichi gaped at Kid as he ordered for them in fluent French, the waiter nodding along and scribbling down the order. He didn't know why the fact that Kid spoke French was surprising, considering Kid probably knew how to do everything, but he was still surprised.

Or maybe it was just the disturbingly sensual way Kid spoke French.

As the waiter trotted off, Shinichi scowled at Kid. "You didn't have to do that," he told him quietly, straightening his napkin in his lap. "I was planning on leaving."

"Please," Kid scoffed, waving a hand at him. "We might as well. And I was just telling you what I hoped your type was. How could you leave in the face of such a riveting topic?"

With a longsuffering, exasperated sigh (that was more than a little feigned, but he'd never admit it to Kid), Shinichi leaned against the back of the chair and slanted his head at Kid. "Well, go on," he mumbled when Kid blinked uncertainly. "You've just roped me into this, so you might as well."

Beaming, Kid cast a wide smile across the table at Shinichi. "I think," he drawled, lacing his fingers together pensively, "that you need someone… intelligent –"

"Oh no really," Shinichi interrupted.

"– who can provide a challenge for you," Kid continued smoothly on, as if Shinichi hadn't said anything. "Someone who knows you better than you think. Someone who's seen you at your best and your worst and still adores you regardless. Someone who cares."

There was something oddly serious about the way Kid was looking at Shinichi right then; his eyes remained steadily fixed on Shinichi's, piercing and determined, as candlelight danced across his face in alluring patterns and shadows. It was one of the strangest expressions Shinichi had ever seen on Kid's face – when Shinichi thought of Kid, he thought of those artificial smirks and joking little laughs, none of this dark-eyed earnestness.

When his skin started feeling uncomfortably tight, Shinichi cleared his throat and shrugged. "I mean, I guess that's right? Although most of those things could apply to a lot of people."

Frowning – and Shinichi abruptly felt as if he'd missed something important – Kid shook his head and sighed. He thumbed at the edge of his napkin. "Sure, tantei-kun."

"Don't sound so depressed," Shinichi felt the need to demand. He shifted in his seat as Kid cast him an unimpressed look. "After all, you're having dinner with a famous detective. One-on-one, even. It's like a date or something."

He regretted his word choice the minute it left his mouth, but Kid seemed to have no qualms as he just about glowed at Shinichi.

"Awww, tantei-kun, I didn't know you –"

"Shut up, I didn't mean it like that," Shinichi hurried to protest, shoving his face into his hands to the sound of Kid's too-amused laughter. His cheeks felt as if they were on fire.

So that was how Shinichi ended up spending an evening with the Kaitou Kid at an overpriced French restaurant with mood lighting and unpronounceable dish titles. The food itself was fine, but Kid was – well, Shinichi couldn't think of any adjective other than radiant. Maybe enthralling? Captivating?

At the end, Kid insisted on paying, claiming that "he was a gentleman and gentleman never let others pay" even though Shinichi tried to tell him Ran had given him enough money to cover the bill and that there was no need, but Kid got his way in the end.

And then Kid bothered to walk him home, citing street violence and abductions as a reason why Shinichi, who had taken down a criminal organization in the body of a six-year-old, needed protection on his way home. Which was sweet, of course, but also completely unnecessary. When Shinichi told Kid so much, Kid just hummed noncommittally and made a cryptic comment about "protecting Shinichi's virtue."

Shinichi couldn't help but think that things like this were the reason he was finding it hard to relinquish the tiny, insignificant crush he had on Kid.

But he (mainly) got over it, managing to block out Ran's incredulous squawks when he explained to her why he hadn't gone on the date with Sunamoto Machiko (or was it Michiko?) and somehow escape with his life. Things were fine, even if Shinichi kept remembering Kid's stupid, pretty, disguised face and the way he'd looked in the murky light from the streetlamps at the most inconvenient of times.

Take now, for instance. Shinichi was stuck investigating in a string of serial murders, each more grotesque and bewildering than the last, and he was on his way to the latest, which was in Tottori, of all places. He couldn't remember the last time he'd slept. How had he even gotten out here?

Yawning, Shinichi shoved his hands into his pockets to stave off the cold and, in his distraction, nearly ran over a gaggle of teenage girls. Apologizing profusely, he blinked away his drowsiness, tripped over a crack in the sidewalk, and decided that okay, maybe he needed some caffeine.

Scanning the storefronts, Shinichi spotted a small, quaint coffee shop a few meters away. He hurried towards it, pushing open the lacquered front door and almost stepping into the path of an elderly woman trying to leave the store.

Throwing frantic sorrys everywhere in a way that felt like déjà vu, Shinichi staggered up to the register. The girl behind the register was staring at him with something not dissimilar to wariness.

"Uh, hi. Sorry." He squinted blearily up at the menu. "Can I get a… quadruple espresso?"

"Er…" The girl, frowning a little, nodded. "Sure…?" She rang up the order and told him the total – Shinichi barely remembered to give her money – before she picked up a cup and lifted her eyebrows at him in anticipation.

Shinichi stared. "What?" he asked when she didn't move.

"Your name, please," she prompted him, and Shinichi nodded. Right, they did that at coffee shops. Right. Right. He knew that.

"Shinichi," Shinichi said after a long moment, and, still frowning, the girl scribbled it down on the cup. He stumbled off to collapse at one of the two-seat tables, rubbing at his temples. God he was out of it. Maybe he needed more than a quadruple espresso? What came after quadruple, again?

He barely registered the register girl saying, "Uh, sir, what are you doing?" before someone nudged gently at his chair with their foot. "Order for you, tantei-kun."

And then Shinichi let his face smack against the table, because of course. Of course Kid would show up now, just to confuse Shinichi.

"What do you want," he slurred into the tabletop. A hand descended into his line of vision, first to set a paper coffee cup down and then to force him to pick face up off the table. Shinichi scowled as Kid's face – still the same disguise; wasn't he getting tired of that one by now? – came into view.

"Tantei-kun," Kid said, and there was a note of chastisement in his voice now, "you need to talk care of yourself before you collapse from exhaustion."

"There's no time to take care of myself when there's a serial killer on the loose," Shinichi grumbled, even as he leaned into Kid's touch and nuzzled at his fingertips. Kid's palms were surprisingly smooth. They smelled a little like blueberries. Maybe he used hand cream?

"Tantei-kun," Kid reiterated, with more exasperation this time. Fond exasperation, Shinichi liked to think. "You look as if you haven't slept in a week –"

Shinichi snorted. "A week is nothing, Kid, I've got for nine days before –"

"– and you need to just put the case on hold for a little bit until you've rested enough. Please. The police can get by without you for a day or so. They did fine even when you weren't being a crime-solving genius."

"Mm." Shinichi let his head clunk down on the table again. "'m fine, Kid. Don't worry about me."

"That's all I do nowadays," Kid muttered, sounding almost petulant, and Shinichi cracked a smile at that. It was cute, imagining Kid being all sulky and pouty. Then again, Kid was always cute, in Shinichi's opinion.

Managing to lift his head off the table and settle into a fairly respectable sitting position, Shinichi angled a glance up at Kid as he grabbed at his coffee cup and then aborted the movement when the cup proved to be out of reach. "Why are you even out here, Kid? Isn't Tottori kind of far from Tokyo?"

"Yes, well." Kid raked a hand through his hair. Shinichi watched in fascination as his hair stood up in spiky clumps. "I was worried about you because I knew you'd be working day and night on this case, so I." He coughed. "May have followed you. Out. Here."

Expressionless, Shinichi blinked at him for a long time. There was a silence.

"Are you saying you stalked me all the way to Tottori because you were worried?" Shinichi finally blurted out, and Kid flushed lightly. It was a very good look on him, thought the part of Shinichi's brain that wasn't imploding in disbelief. "Wait, is that why you were outside my house that one time? And when you crashed my blind date?"

"Maybe," Kid hedged, looking guilty. "Possibly. Probably."

Shinichi looked at him askance. He was suddenly feeling much more awake. Discovering your secret crush-slash-person-you-were-in-love-with was stalking you out of concern for your wellbeing had a tendency to do that. "Oh my God, you're such a loser. Don't you have better things to do?"

"You're not…" Kid looked hesitant. "Look, I just." He exhaled slowly. "I just… you get into a lot of trouble, okay?"

"So you decided to stalk me?" Shinichi wrinkled his nose. "I feel like that doesn't make sense, for some reason." Although he wasn't – disgusted, or anything like that. He was half flattered and half incredulous, mostly. Or maybe three parts flattered and one part incredulous? Something like that.

Groaning, Kid buried his face in his hands. "Okay, okay. Let's talk about this later, when you don't look like you're about to collapse." He stood, the chair scraping against the floor. "I'll take you home, if you want."

"That's okay," Shinichi muttered, reaching out to grab his coffee cup. The coffee sat bitterly on the back of his tongue, gathering beside his tonsils like battery acid, and he sighed as he set it back down (there was no way he could drink that) and got to his feet. "I can still go to the crime scene."

Of course, that was the moment he fell over, proving that no, he could not go to the crime scene.

So that was how Shinichi ended up getting escorted all the way home by a perplexingly concerned Kid, despite how Shinichi could feel his phone going off in his back pocket as the police officers texted him increasingly frantic messages. But most of the train ride home was a blur, to be honest – a blur of faces and the warm scent of Kid's sweater against his cheek, the feeling of Kid's hands, tentatively at first, guiding Shinichi's head down into his lap and later carding absently through his hair. It was relaxing and comforting and Shinichi spent most of the time warding off sleep and nuzzling into Kid's touch.

The last thing Shinichi remembered was falling into bed, Kid murmuring a goodbye (to which Shinichi replied with, "What, you don't want to join me?" and received a stilted laugh in response) before he left.

After that, Shinichi slept for fourteen hours straight, eventually woke up bleary-eyed with the print of his pillow embossed on his cheek, found that Satou had texted him to say that the serial killings had been solved without his assistance, tried to go back to sleep, remembered Kid had admitted to stalking him, and promptly fell out of bed, because what. What. Kid, whom he was distressingly in love with, stalked him.

In any other context, Shinichi would find someone stalking him horrifying and dangerous and his first reaction would probably be to call the police, but this was Kid. Kid was a different story entirely. Shinichi had no idea what to feel when Kid was the one doing the stalking.

Sighing heavily, Shinichi pushed a handful of his mildly disgusting hair out of his face. He would've liked to go find Kid and confront him about the whole thing, but then he realized that he had no idea what Kid's real name was or what he actually looked like, and wasn't that just the saddest thing? Shinichi was in love with someone whose name he didn't even know who stalked him. His life was a bad daytime drama, he swore.

He spent another five minutes staring mopily at the ceiling, wallowing in his misery while flat on his back beside his bed, before he dragged himself up to go shower and brush his teeth and eat breakfast and all that. Being besotted with a phantom thief was no reason to be unproductive. He might as well go sift through some of the police department's cold cases.

Mentally cataloging which cases he had yet to solve – he had done a few last month, hadn't he? – Shinichi was in the process of locking his front door when he happened to glance to the side and find Kid standing two feet away from him. Unsurprisingly, he nearly choked and ended up instinctively hurling his keys at Kid's face.

Thankfully, Kid had good enough reflexes that he caught Shinichi's keys instead of losing an eyeball (and what a shame that would've been, considering how pretty those eyeballs were). He took an uncomfortable step forward, expression hesitant. He was still wearing that same supermodel disguise, Shinichi noticed. "Uh, hi, tantei-kun." He extended Shinichi's keys to him, and Shinichi snatched them out of his grasp quickly.

Shinichi was stuck between hyperventilating and throwing himself at Kid. He settled for glaring. "You are actually stalking me, aren't you?"

"Uh…" Kid considered, scratching the back of his neck with the hand. "Yes?"

"Oh my God," Shinichi huffed. "Don't just admit to it – that's so creepy, Kid –"

"Hey, tantei-kun –"

"Stalking is also illegal, you know, and even if you're doing it because you think, erroneously, that I'm constantly in danger –"

"– you haven't really been taking my hints, so I thought maybe I'd come straight out and ask you –"

"Like, you have good intentions, but I can take care of myself, thank you very much –"

"– will you go out with me?"

"I'm perfectly capable of," Shinichi was saying, but his mouth snapped shut with an audible click. He must've heard wrong, he must've – "Did you just ask me out?"

Kid was staring at him as if he was the one who could be convicted on stalking charges. "Yes, I did." He exhaled. "I mean, I've been trying to – to show that I love you, but it just. Sort of." He waved a hand, frustrated. "You don't get it. And it devolved into stalking."

"Wait, wait, wait." Shinichi was still very much hung up on his second sentence. "Did you just – did you just say you love me?"

"Um," Kid coughed. "Yes."

Shinichi felt like a balloon whose string had just been cut and a complete idiot. It was a strange combination that made him want to grab onto something for support while simultaneously bashing his head against a brick wall.

"O-Oh." He looked down at his feet. "I… you love me. Okay. Okay, I can… I can work with that."

"Really?" Kid's voice sounded like what Shinichi imagined lottery winners sounded like. "You – you…?"

"Y – I mean, it's – yes." Shinichi swallowed hard and hazarded a look up at Kid. He was smiling stupidly, mouth stretched from one side of his face to the other, as he beamed at Shinichi with the light of a thousand stars, and wow Shinichi was getting poetic, but maybe that was just what Kid inspired him to.

Before Shinichi could say anything else or even develop a better way of saying "I love you, too," Kid reached out and dragged him into his arms, hands bracketing Shinichi's face as he pulled Shinichi into a kiss. It wasn't anything particularly dramatic or passionate or desperate or anything like that, but it was sweet and warm and Shinichi rather liked it all the same.

They broke apart a moment later. Shinichi was feeling a bit light-headed. He rested his hands on Kid's shoulders for support. "I don't even know your name," he mumbled, startled at the roughness in his own voice.

"Kuroba Kaito," Kid replied, tucking his thumbs into the space behind Shinichi's ears. He still smelled like blueberries.

"Kuroba Kaito," Shinichi agreed, reaching up to cup Kid's face reverently. He was half distressed and half happily surprised to find the skin warm underneath his fingertips.

"This whole time," he commented, watching as Kid lifted an eyebrow, "I thought this was a disguise."

Kid's – Kaito's – gross, real, pretty face creased in confusion. "What, my face?"

"Mmhm," Shinichi hummed, tucking his face into the juncture between Kid's neck and collarbone. "Thought it was impossible for one person to be intelligent, provide a challenge for me, know me better than I think, see me at my best and worst and still love me, care about me, and look like a supermodel."

There was a long pause, and then Kaito cleared his throat, looping his arms more securely around Shinichi. Shinichi grinned into his neck – he could feel Kaito's pulse pattering quickly against his mouth and the heat of Kaito's blush as it worked up his chest.

"That's," Kaito said, too quickly, "that's very sweet of you."

"No problem," Shinichi grinned, and then pulled back to look at Kaito. "I'm never going to let you live it down, though."

"Live what down?"

"The stalking thing."

I'm trash. Goodbye.

If you enjoyed this even a little, please consider leaving me a review and I'll see you all later! - Luna