Work Text:
Edgar Allan Poe was awoken from his nap by two very loud caws accompanied by a buzz.
He frantically blinked away the remaining bits of sleep and took in his surroundings. He found himself sat a table in his living room, an unfinished manuscript laying in front of him, the last sentence being broken off into an incomprehensible scribble mid-word. Ah. He must’ve dozed off while writing. Again.
A third caw resounded through the room, reminding Poe why he was awake in the first place, and he stared at the source of the sound, being his phone, lying haphazardly on the counter.
That’s strange. Poe’s mind filled up with questions, pondering who or why would ever text him, let alone now when he isn’t exactly associated with the organization that employed him, as he still sat frozen in his place, boring a hole through the device with his glare.
The fourth and final caw startled him out of his daze, and, quickly composing himself, he approached his phone.
A bright, glowing 11:48 PM and four messages from the same number greeted him.
Edogawa Ranpo 11:44
hey
Edogawa Ranpo 11:44
i’m lost
Edogawa Ranpo 11:45
[Image Attachment]
Edogawa Ranpo 11:48
please come get me
Poe blinked at the perplexing messages on his screen. He remembered getting Ranpo’s number – one time, as he was leaving the agency, Ranpo quickly shoved a piece of paper into his hands, promptly ushering him out of the door afterwards. Upon inspection, the scrap contained a messily scribbled sequence of numbers, with a smiley face whose wonkiness made it ambiguous as to whether it was winking or not. Poe saved the number as a contact in his phone and pretended to think nothing of it.
How Ranpo got Poe’s number, however, he had no idea.
He reread the messages once again. Ranpo was lost? At this time? Why would he ask for Poe’s help, of all people?
Poe glanced out the window onto the uninviting, moist night. He pursed his lips into a thin line.
Edgar Allan Poe 11:50
But, Ranpo-kun, it’s raining.
The stupidity of what he typed out only hit him after he pressed send, and he clutched his hair, wanting to melt into a puddle of shame and disappear.
Edogawa Ranpo 11:50
i am aware
The reply only added to his humiliation, and he began writing a myriad of ‘sorry’s, only to delete them all, deciding that he should just go get Ranpo and apologize in person instead of wasting time on texting.
Glancing at the image Ranpo sent, he quickly recognized the surroundings, sighing with relief as it was only a few minutes away from his house. Poe grabbed an umbrella, shoved his phone in his pocket, and hurriedly left out the front door.
Ranpo Edogawa sat on the wet grass with a look that conveyed boredom more so than anything else, seemingly unbothered by the rain soaking his clothes.
“Ranpo-kun!” Poe quickly stumbled over, coming close enough to have his umbrella over his rival. Ranpo slowly turned his head up, staring with the same, neutral-slightly-bored expression, and it struck Poe that the umbrella wouldn’t do much to an already wet man sitting on wet ground. He cringed at himself involuntarily. “Sorry I took so long.”
“It’s been five minutes,” Ranpo responded, bluntly. “That’s average.”
Poe was about to apologize again, for his hyperbole this time, but the detective promptly stood up, and Poe realized just how close they were standing. His cheeks flushed with an unbelievable fire as Ranpo stood a few centimeters from him, seemingly unbothered by the lack of personal space, yet not making eye contact.
“It’s late,” he commented, with the same neutrality displayed thus far. Poe couldn’t tell if he was upset, or just tired.
“Do you want to stay the night at my place?” Poe suggested, only to promptly realize that maybe it was too direct, maybe it would’ve been way more polite to ask an open ended question than put Ranpo on the spot, maybe he just wants to go back to the agency or to his own home. Poe opened his mouth to retract his impoliteness, but was shut up by Ranpo snapping his head to stare at Poe.
“Sure!” he said, with a beaming smile, giving Poe all the reassurance he needed that he said the right thing.
He nodded with a shy smile, and led the detective back to his house.
Edgar Allan Poe does not like pop tarts. They’re overly sweet, a bit too dry, and their mass appeal id completely incomprehensible to him. He only bought them because, seeing them in the store overrode him with surprise and nostalgia, as he rarely sees the familiar American products in Japan, so he grabbed them exclusively out of a strange sense of homesickness, which didn’t even get him far enough as to actually consume the pastries.
But now, staring into his cabinet and the bright box staring back at him, acutely aware of Ranpo sitting on his couch looking bored out of his mind, Poe thanks his past self for buying them.
He takes out two and takes them out of their packaging, the ruffling of plastic alerting Ranpo like a blood sniffing shark.
“What’s that?” he asks, his nonchalant voice carrying notes of curiosity.
“An American snack,” Poe plops the two pastries into the toaster. “It’s kind of like a cookie, but it has filling.”
Ranpo’s gaze lingers on the toaster. He then turns back to the heater in front of him. He looks back and forth, stuck between a comforting need and bait set out specifically for him.
He forfeits the choice by looking down at the change of clothes laid out on the couch.
It’s an old shirt and some pajama pants Poe pulled out from the back of his closet. A warm blanket is neatly folded near them.
“I need to change my bra.”
Poe turns to Ranpo a bit too quickly, but the statement, seemingly, was not an invitation to conversation, as Ranpo grabs the clothes and excuses himself to the bathroom.
Poe shouldn’t be surprised, by all accounts. It’s completely like Ranpo to just mention that type of information in passing, letting the others flounder in the implications. And it is just like Ranpo to not care about mentioning that type of information in passing, letting the implications do the talking.
But Poe is still surprised regardless, because when he looks down at his own chest, he wishes it was that easy for him, as even if in the best of times his scars are his pride and muse, at the worst of times they are just more aspects of him that require explanation, explanation that he is not eloquent enough to convey in the moment, not when the subject at stake is his existence as it is.
The pop of the toaster brings him out of his thoughts and he’s quick to place the two freshly heated pastries on a plate, bringing them to the coffee table near the couch where Ranpo chose to lounge. Poe stares at the various puddles of wetness pooled at its base, and he cannot bring himself to feel any distaste for his usually stagnant environment being disturbed. I can clean it up later, he thinks, without much weight to the words at all.
Ranpo reemerges from the bathroom with the blanket wrapped around him firmly. His hair is a damp nest atop his head, and the shirt, predictably, is too big on him, covering a portion of his thighs, even as he tucked half of it into the pants, the ends of which are folded a couple times in order to prevent Ranpo from tripping on the washed out dark blue fabric.
Poe catches his gaze lingering on his rival for a second too long, immediately averting his eyes to the pop tarts to drive home that he is not staring, but he can’t help glancing over as Ranpo plops down on the couch and curiously pokes the plate.
Ranpo examines the sweets with more diligence than he would give to a dead body. He takes his time, rotating, weighing and scrutinizing the pop tart in his hands, practically devouring it with his eyes, before carefully taking a bite.
His expression turns thoughtful as he chews, before swallowing and finally giving a verdict.
The second bite is much messier and hastier, as Ranpo hums with content.
“It’s good,” he mumbles with his mouth full, the words ending up borderline incomprehensible, but Poe still understands, somehow, nodding.
They fall into a comfortable silence, as Ranpo consumes the treat. He grabs the second pop tart, bringing it to his lips, but hesitates before putting it in his mouth.
“You were surprised,” he finally says, not looking at Poe.
Poe freezes, immediately understanding what the new conversation is about, but unsure how to respond. It wasn’t posed as a question, but the urge to respond ‘No’ bubbles at his chest, to argue semantics and intent and motivations. He wants to explain himself, because he knows that whichever way Ranpo took it was wrong, but his cursed, ineloquent tongue is no match for Ranpo’s blunt, cold reasoning.
“No, I—” his words come out in a stutter. “Ranpo-kun, it’s not—”
“It’s fine,” Ranpo interrupts, taking a bite of the pastry in a mellow movement. “I get it, it’s weird.”
The last word stings, bringing back Poe’s long shelved memories of his own childhood, of adolescence and of faces he erased from his biography a long time ago. He feels a distinguished pain at Ranpo using it to describe himself, the saddened and slightly bitter expression burning into Poe’s mind as the detective looks away.
“Ranpo-kun,” it takes all of his willpower to not stumble through his words as he says a phrase he struggled to state to another person for so long. “I’m trans, too.”
Ranpo freezes.
The pop tart in his hand falls onto the table unceremoniously.
“I-it’s a bit surprising you didn’t know,” Poe diverts his eyes, smiling awkwardly and fiddling his thumbs. “I figured with your super-deduction—”
“I would never try to deduce something like that!” Ranpo retorts, clearly offended at even the suggestion. “It’s personal, and I wouldn’t feel good if other people made guesses like that about me. I may be the greatest detective but I’m no snooper.”
Poe looks back at the man on his couch, whose pout quickly melts into a huge grin.
Edgar thinks he would say something, but instead Ranpo crawls over to him, flabbergasting him for the second time this night with his flippancy towards personal space, as the two men end up face to face, a bit of blush creeping up onto both of their bodies, flushed from the hot air of the home against their bones, frosted by the rain.
“Can I—” Ranpo breathes out, quietly, still unable to stop smiling. “Can I do something I just suddenly felt like doing?”
His fingers slowly snake up Poe’s clothed shoulders, and the writer can’t help but relax, responding by holding up Ranpo’s body over himself.
“Yeah,” he whispers in turn. “Go ahead.”
Ranpo kisses him. On the mouth. His lips push into Poe’s persistently, pressing his eyes shut. He tastes sweet. Poe reciprocates best he can, but it’s difficult to keep up with Ranpo’s sudden enthusiasm, who climbs more and more onto Poe, making him hold his head back more and more until—
Ranpo collapses onto Edgar with a yelp, mushing into his chest, and Poe can’t help but laugh. Ranpo joins in with him shortly, not even thinking of getting up.
“Did me coming out to you make you want to kiss me?” Poe giggles, ruffling the detective’s damp hair.
“Yeah,” Ranpo laughs in response, propping himself up on his hands. “You being trans just made you like. Ten percent more attractive.”
They both laugh again, yet this wave washes out quicker, as the smile fades from Ranpo’s lips and he stares as if through Poe’s chest.
“This is a weird question—” he leads in, diverting his gaze. “But, uh, do you— do you bind or—”
“I got top surgery when I was in my early twenties,” Poe supplies, calmly. “Shortly after I first joined the Guild. The salary was quite luxurious.”
Ranpo hums in response, staring at Poe in awe. He sits back, folding his legs under himself on the couch.
“I never got top surgery. First I was too young, then I couldn’t afford it, then I was—” he interrupts himself, as if being unable to say the word. He continues a different thought. “I tried binding for a while, but it didn’t work out. It gets too hot and uncomfortable. The texture is rough.”
Poe opens his mouth, not really knowing what to say, how to comfort, but it seems there is no need.
“It’s okay though,” Ranpo smiles again, and it blinds Poe in a way it didn’t before. “I don’t care that much about my chest anymore. It’s been years, I’ve gotten over it. There are bad days, but it’s nothing the greatest detective couldn’t handle!”
He strikes a triumphant pose before falling back onto the couch. Still staring at the ceiling, he reaches for another poptart and stuffs it into his mouth. They let the soft rapping of the rain outside envelop them for a while, letting a comfortable quiet settle in the house, until Ranpo pipes up again.
“I was too scared,” he continues a thought he previously severed, leaving Poe confused for a bit. “I was too scared to get top surgery. Yosano offered it, for free. She’s the one who helped me with my T-gel, too. We’ve always been close, and she assured me she’d help me with anything with my transition, and I was happy, but—”
He gulps.
“I chickened out. I don’t like hospital stuff,” he puts both his hands over his face, and this time Poe’s body moves on its own, pulling Ranpo into his lap, wrapping his arms around him. “I dunno, it freaks me out. It’s weird. It’s a sensory hell.”
Ranpo lets his head hit Poe’s chest.
“That’s okay,” Poe assures, to the best of his ability. “If you don’t want to get top surgery, you don’t have to. And you don’t have to bind, either.”
Ranpo nods, with a tired smile. He lets out a wide yawn, which Poe can’t help but find simply cute.
“Can we go to bed? I’m tired.”
Edgar can’t help but agree, and drags Ranpo off to his bedroom.
His anxieties about bed sharing can’t even manifest before Ranpo destroys them all by collapsing onto Poe’s bed, crawling under the blanket and lifting it up beside himself, invitingly.
Poe wriggles in, not bothering to differentiate between home clothes and pajamas today, and the two men snuggle against each other, closing their eyes and letting the rain outside lull them to sleep.
A few minutes after closing his eyes, Ranpo peeks one of them open.
“Edgar?”
“Yes?” Poe’s heart jumps at the first name basis.
“How long is your t-dick?”
“W-what?!”
Poe turns as red as a ripened tomato as loud laughter fills the home, a pillow swiftly gets tossed at Ranpo’s face, and Edgar turns over, away from the bastard squirming in hysteria, covering his face in both his hands to hide his embarrassment.
He cannot help but smile shyly.