Work Text:
the bedroom was dimly lit, with the only source of light coming from a small, yellow lamp on the bedside table. the bed itself was vast, enough to comfortably fit at least four people, and yet both men sat leaning against each other in the center. ranpo, a small, slender man of (surprisingly) twenty-six years, sat with his knees up to his chest, paper and candy strewed in front of him on the blanket.
beside him was poe, a tall and similarly slender man of twenty-eight years, whose shoulder he sleepily rested his head. poe had drafted up a new detective novel, so they were spending the evening reviewing what he had written so far—after a couple of hours, though, poe had begun reading the pages out loud to his friend, who insisted on continuing to help (and against poe’s many protests for him to just sleep), as long as he could keep his eyes closed.
so, there they sat, ranpo leaning against poe’s side with his head against his shoulder, eyes closed sleepily as poe read out his drafts. a lollipop dangled lazily from his mouth, long forgotten in his ever growing tiredness, but it wasn’t long before poe noticed the loosely dangling stick. “you want me to throw that lollipop away?” he asked, stopping his stream of what was practically a bedtime story, and ranpo was jolted from nearly falling asleep.
“mm,” he groaned sleepily, and poe took that as an affirmative answer. he gently gripped the stick with two fingers and pulled it from ranpo’s mouth, then wrapped the trash with some unused wrapper he had found in the mess of candy on the bed. he smiled as ranpo huffed against him, apparently frustrated from the repeated movement. “ranpo-kun, it really is time for bed,” he started gently, and ranpo finally gave in with a defeated groan. “let me clean everything up, then we can sleep. okay?”
poe detached himself from his friend, eliciting a disappointed sound from the latter as the warm, bodily touch was replaced with the cold of the headboard against his head. “i’ll only be a couple of minutes,” poe reassured him soothingly, bringing a large hand to stroke away the bangs that had fallen into ranpo’s eye. he smiled briefly at the sight of his friend before picking up all of the candy and dumping it onto the bedside table (extracting the waste from the uneaten ones); then he collected all of the papers of his draft and placed them in a neat pile beside them.
once everything was taken care of, poe let out a deep sigh and got back into bed—ranpo had already laid down under the covers, his legs free to do so without the pages and candy obstructing his path. he leaned over to turn off the lamp before adjusting himself comfortably under the blankets, feeling almost immediately the warmth of a small body pressing against his own. he smiled at ranpo’s impatience to cuddle—he had been quite tired all evening, after all, and had only been holding himself back for the sake of reviewing poe’s draft.
poe wrapped a long, warm hand around the small of ranpo’s back and pushed him closer into his chest, feeling his warm breath against the small of his shoulder. ranpo hummed sleepily in approval, moving one of his hands to place it gently against poe’s cheek, stroking it lazily and eliciting a smile from the other—they often slept like this, held together in a warm embrace, with ranpo’s hands caressing poe’s warm skin; the latter never questioned why, but suspected it was a source of comfort for his friend.
“goodnight, ranpo-kun,” he whispered gently against ranpo’s tangled mess of hair, placing a soft, brief kiss in the same spot and rubbing his hand in gentle circles along ranpo’s back. “g’nigh’…” came ranpo’s sleepy response, just coherent enough for poe to understand what he had said. he smiled and his heart filled with emotion—happiness, love, and pretty much every positive adjective he could think of.
they both slept peacefully throughout the night, and woke up with their limbs entangled, bodies sweaty from the continued contact beneath such heavy blankets—so they took a pleasant little shower together and, afterwards, ate a small breakfast of chocolate pancakes and milk (which was completely ranpo’s choosing).