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Poe can remember the time of day it was. He could remember the grin on Ranpos face as soon as he’d muttered it. And it started when they were just about to leave the armed detective agency.
Poe was sitting opposite Ranpo, who was sitting at his work desk… not working. Completely the opposite. He had almost completed a game that had come out that afternoon. Poe sighed and left him to his grumbling about some ‘stupid fireflower’ and continued to work on his story. Karl nuzzled into Poe's lap. The sun was fading around the agency, and there were only a few members still in the office. Kunikida, who was walking over to them, was one of them.
“Ranpo-san have you even started your reports?” He motioned towards the stack of paper sitting on the farthest corner of Ranpos desk.
“Get Dazai to do it.” Ranpo replied half-heartedly, eyes focused on beating the mini-boss. "He’s even worse than you! And they’re your reports!” Kunikida fumed.
“Yeah but he’ll just get Atsushi to do them and then they’re done.” Ranpo waved his hand towards Atsushi's desk.
“That’s not how this works!”
Poe sighed at Kunikdas fruitless efforts. “Ranpo-kun,” he cut in. Ranpo made a noise of acknowledgement but didn’t look up from his game. “-if you finish off those reports we can stop by the new candy store that opened near my apartment.” With that, Ranpo glanced up from his game, his eyes widening at the mention of sweets.
“Ugh, but poe-kun!”
“Ranpo-kun.” Poe smiled. Ranpo tilted his head to the side, lost in thought.
“If you give me free reign of the card-“
“You only get twenty dollars.”
“Fifty!”
“Twenty-five.”
Ranpo leapt up and stuck out his hand for Poe to shake. “Deal!”
Poe took it and looked to Kunikida. Kunikida stared at him, baffled, before Poe shrugged and got back to his writing.
-
The sun had now completely disappeared and Poe's hands felt weak. Ranpo had finished the reports and the new game a while ago and had started playing rounds of Mario kart. That’s when he knew they should make their way over to his apartment. With his brain full of story writing mush and the fact that he hadn’t slept in a while,
Poe made a fatal mistake.
“You ready to go, babe?”
Ranpo slowly looked up at poe. His mouth slightly ajar. The game was forgotten in an instant. If Poe could stuff the words back into his mouth he would.
Oh god he would.
Ranpos expression soon twisted into a grin, waiting for Poe to… he didn't know what Ranpos expression read. Poe shot out of his seat and gulped. Karl gave a squeak of annoyance at the sudden movement. He began thinking of any reason, any reason at all why he just called his best friend a pet name.
“I’ve uh, started writing a book where one of the characters calls the other one… that.” Poe can already tell there’s red on his cheeks. “And well, the character reminded me of you, so I must've…”
Ranpo got up as well, shoving his game console into his bag, Shit-eating grin still plastered on his face. “It's fine…
-babe.”
At first Poe thought it was mockery, but when he turned to see Ranpo packing up with red complementing his pretty green eyes, Poe realised that Ranpo…
Oh.
Okay.
-
They get to Poe's apartment when the sky was almost pitch black because of a (sort of) quick stop at the candy store. (“But Poe, there’s just so many to choose from!” in which Poe responded, “You don’t need all of these!”)
Poe turned on the lights and Karl and Ranpo both sprint to get the good seat. (“All the seats are fine Ranpo-kun.” “-This one is better!”)
Karl makes it there first. If racoons could have readable expressions Poe was 100% sure he’d be wearing a smug grin right now. Ranpos expression turned sour and he flopped onto the couch.
“We’re home now! Can I have the bag yet?” He had turned around in his seat to watch Poe put away his things and hang up his coat. Poe made Ranpo save some for when they got to his apartment so he didn’t throw up immediately after walking out of the store. Poe sighed and reached into his coat pocket. He tossed it to Ranpo, who fumbled with the catch and it fell on the floor. He groaned and picked it up with haste.
Really, anyone would believe that this would be the last time he ever got to eat candy.
“Save some for after dinner! You ate through the stash you brought here last time and I don’t want to hear you groan about it for the rest of the night.” Poe headed over to the kitchen, thoughts preoccupied with what he could make with whatever was in his fridge.
“Ugh, babe why can’t I just eat it all in one go?”
“Because when you did, you-“
Hold on.
Ranpo was facing away from Poe, chewing his way through the bag. (There was no way Poe could’ve stopped him eating the entire thing.) Poe paused. His feet were now completely motionless, caught in mid-step.
His throat felt itchy. The warmth rising from his cheeks felt uncomfortable.
Ranpo just…
Alright. That’s a thing now.
He managed to make it to his fridge, letting the cool air try to get rid of his blush. It was working. For the most part.
“Baby,”
Fuck.
Poe whipped around, and watched Ranpo pick up Karl (he was not happy about it.) and swing him around. He was laughing and calling him ’shnuckums’ and ‘cutie-pie.’ Ah. That makes sense. Karl is sort of like a toddler.
What wouldn’t have made sense was if Ranpo called him that. He must’ve made a mistake earlier. But a voice arose in the back of his mind.
The great detective Ranpo Edogawa never makes mistakes.
-
It was definitely not a mistake. If so then he wouldn’t have called poe ‘babe’ 32 times in the past week. (Not that he was counting)
Hell, Poe wasn’t even sure if his real name came out of Ranpos mouth once during that week. And every time he called him a pet name, Poe would go bright (and he means bright) red. Ranpo would just grin and pretend like nothing happened.
The worst time was when they were at the agency.
-
Ranpo had called earlier about wanting to read one of Poe's new stories, so Poe walked over to the detective agency for them to talk it over. As much as letting Ranpo read and solve his stories in a couple minutes broke his ego, he loved when Ranpo got caught up on a specific part and grumpily asked Poe what the characters intentions were.
(“If I told you that I’d give it away!” Poe sighed. Ranpo stretched his arms out and flopped over. “You’re so mean.”)
He was not mean, since Ranpo normally figured it out in the next couple of chapters. This particular time, Ranpo was lounging on the shared couch. Poe wandered over to him and Ranpo sat up.
“Did you bring it?” Ranpos legs swung, mirroring the anticipation written on his face. “Not even a hello?” Poe laughed. Ranpo rolled his eyes.
“Hello, sweetheart.”
The office went quiet. As much as typing and paper ruffling counted as quiet. Though, the voices stopped and Poe didn’t need to look to know that everyone had heard. Ranpo teased people but Poe could guess he never took the flirting route. (Did this count as flirting?) The blush caught up to him before he could do anything about it.
“U-uhm…” was the only response he could muster. Ranpo grinned yet again and patted the seat next to him. Poe tentatively sat down. Karl found a place on his head. “Are you going to give me the story?” Ranpo asked, mouth full of chocolate pocky.
“I- uh yes.” Poe reached into his bag and pulled out a wad of paper. Ranpos' eyes gleamed as he saw it and began to flick through the pages. Poe fiddled with his hands, willing his face to go back to its normal colour. He saw the glances the members were giving them through the shoji blinds, but he didn’t pay that any mind because Ranpo just called him sweetheart.
Poe knows he shouldn’t look into it but the textbook definition was…
He really shouldn’t look into it.
And to make matters worse... “Baaaabe, are you listening?” More glances. “Uh yeah sorry. what did you say?”
“I said, the gardener couldn’t have done it because the glove had no traces of his DNA, so its illogical for the detective to think so! you really need to write better detectives.” Ranpo smiled. Poe had gotten about… half of that. His mind was still analysing their earlier interaction. He quickly snapped out of it. “But you’re the best detective so no-one could even begin to compare…”
Ranpo smirked. “Then write one about me!”
What?
“Haven’t I already-” Poe muttered. Ranpo leant back into the couch, petting Karl who was still atop Poe's head. “Ones that try to kill me don’t count!”
“Oh.” Right.
“Sorry.”
“What? baby don’t apologise I told you it's fine.”
“But I-“ his throat choked up. No words came out. It took a minute for his brain to register what Ranpo called him. Ranpo said it differently than when he called Karl that. Which, arguably made sense but that time was definitely teasing.
This one… sounded…
He looked at Ranpo, green eyes and a smile stared back at him. His gut twisted under that scrutinising gaze. He was about to worry that he was coming down with an illness but it wasn’t painful or uncomfortable, just - warm. He always felt safe around Ranpo, not because of his non-combat ability providing zero to no threat but the fact that there was never a time he willingly tried to hurt poe or his feelings.
He had hurt his own feelings when they first met. It was never Ranpos fault. He told himself he wasn’t good enough, that he could’ve done better.
Ranpo didn’t say a single thing that could’ve caused him pain. And even now, Ranpo assured him that it was all in his head, that he hadn’t done anything wrong.
He wondered if Ranpo felt warm too.
-
Poe needed to get Ranpo back. Like really.
It was one thing to tease him, but to do it constantly? And by calling him things like honey, sweetie and the worst of them all... Love ( He curled up into a ball on the street when Ranpo said it for the first time. (“Babe?” Poe squeezed his eyes shut. “Just… give me a minute Ranpo-kun.”))
He was going to give Ranpo a taste of his own teasing medicine.
-
Ranpo wasn’t needed for work on the weekends but he still had to be on call. (Not like he’d go unless it was really an emergency, and if it was he’d put it off for as long as he could.) Poe became accustomed to Ranpo barging his way into his house on weekends, so it wasn’t unusual when a knock appeared on his door at midday.
“Who is it?” Poe walked over to the entrance. “You know very well who it is.” a muffled response came back.
Poe smiled as he opened the door. “Good trip here?”
Ranpo walked past Poe and headed towards his pantry, scouring the place for hidden snacks in case of emergencies. (Poe had tried to hide some just in case Ranpo got really out of hand one day, but Ranpo found them immediately.)
He groaned. “Got lost a couple times and some old lady thought I was her grandson.” He turned around to smile at poe. “Yknow, the usual.”
Poe rolled his eyes and folded his arms. “If you want I could come pick you up?” Ranpo started opening all the cabinets. “Then it won’t be a surprise!”
“Darling, you come here every weekend.” The words left his mouth before he could second guess it. A smile found its way onto his face, seeing Ranpo visibly pause his search. Ranpo got up and slowly turned around towards Poe.
“Uh...”
He cleared his throat. “Have you stolen the snacks?”
“These snacks?” Poe reached into his jacket and pulled out a variety of chips and candy.
“I knew it.”
“Sure you did.”
Point one to poe.
(Maybe point two - he did technically start this.)
-
“Baby, I'm bored.”
Poe's breath hitched and he turned to look at Ranpo, his green eyes fixated on him. Ranpo had slunk down even further onto the couch, propping his legs on Poes. His cap had fallen off the side and onto Karl, (who again, was not very happy.) and his brown hair was messily sprawled over the plush fabric.
Poe's stomach began to feel warm again. That started happening a lot more now.
It used to just be whenever Ranpo teased him, but now its whenever Ranpo knows he doesn’t like crowds so they go to the more secluded area of the store, or when Ranpo leads Poe over to the 90% dark chocolate section of the candy shop - knowing it's his favourite, (or the only kind of chocolate he can tolerate.) Or when he’s sitting on Poes couch, lounging with him with that pretty look on his face.
Poe knows Ranpo is pretty.
But he’s never really… mentioned it before. In his head or otherwise. He gulps and turns away from staring at Ranpo. It was probably beginning to seem weird.
“Baaabe, sweetie, handsome-“ That’s a new one.
“My beautiful, beloved Ranpo, what is it?” Poe smiles. Ranpo huffs and sits up, leaning against the arm of the couch. He opens his mouth and shuts it. Poe looks at him quizzically.
“Its not normal to call your best friend babe.”
“It's… not?” Poe guessed that from the beginning, but they had a special friendship… Surely that counts for something? “Not really.” Ranpo exhales.
“But chuuya and dazai-“
“Are in a relationship.” Ranpo cuts in.
“Oh.” Poe murmurs. Ranpo looks at a loss for words. “Well I'm fine with it.” Poe starts. Ranpo straightens. Poe gulps and fiddles with his hair.
“I mean, it's you! And you’re special and I-“ Ranpo inches closer to Poe and for once, he doesn’t flinch away.
“Babe,”
Poe's heart hammers in his chest.
“Friends don’t blush like that either.“
“W-well you’re also blush… “
The words trail off his lips and Ranpo leans in to kiss them off of it.
The kiss is everything Poe expected one to be and more. He didn’t account for the way his heart felt like it was going to rip out of his chest at every touch of their lips, or the way that his breath matched with Ranpos.
He didn’t account for the fact that Ranpo would sit in his lap.
He didn’t think about if he was doing it correctly because his mind was… somewhere else.
Heaven, he thinks.
Ranpo hooked his arms around Poe's neck, and pulled him closer. Poe could taste sweetness and the familiar scent of Ranpo, it was endearing, and he wanted more.
“Love…” Ranpo muttered in between kisses, and Poe placed two hands on his hips and brought him closer. His body felt electrified with every small touch and sigh that Ranpo gave him. Poe gave a contented hum.
Ranpo paused for a split second, before running his hands through Poe's hair. It sent a shiver down Poes spine. They’ve become a tangled mess of panting and kisses. Poe has never felt so warm before.
With one final peck, Ranpo leant back. Poe's head followed the motion but Ranpo had removed one of his hands from Poe's disheveled hair and placed it on his chest.
“-And, uh, friends definitely don’t do that.” Ranpo smiled.
Poe smiled back.
“I'm fine with that as well.”
Fin.