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Under normal circumstances, Ranpo wouldn’t be out his front door before it was absolutely necessary- but here he was, at 7:30am, cursing the sun for being so bright and the wind for being so cold, making his way to the pharmacy. He had barely gotten properly dressed in his haste to leave the house. He was practically in his pajamas as it was. (At least he had actually put shoes on.)
The reason Ranpo was forced to leave his beloved apartment so early in the morning was his boyfriend, deathly ill with some sort of horrible cold, who had clearly taken to his new place of work like a housecat to water. According to him, one of the receptionists had brought the cold to the building he worked at while he was staying in Japan, and it had already wiped out most of the people in the office. Ranpo supposed it had only been a matter of time before Edgar also caught it.
Edgar wasn’t sickly, per se- actually, quite the opposite, and Ranpo fell ill quite often in comparison- but he had a certain aura about him, an air of ‘sickly little Victorian boy’ that he carried with him in his posture and the manner in which he chose to dress. (Heels and corsets were torture devices, as far as Ranpo was concerned, but Edgar managed to make them look effortlessly easy to wear… somehow.)
It just so happened that now, he actually was sick. Since it had been so long since he’d last caught anything, it seemed his immune system didn’t know what the hell to do about his affliction but have him languish in bed, miserable. Therefore, Ranpo was on his way to the pharmacy.
Waltzing into the pharmacy like this, walking up to the counter and confidently asking for cold medicine- it felt unfamiliar yet mind-numbingly predictable, just like every other new step he took in life. He sidestepped the man stumbling home (still drunk) at 7:30am when he veered a bit too close for comfort on the sidewalk on his way back home. He waited at the crosswalk for a moment before getting bored and weaving through fully stopped traffic, ducked into a convenience store, and grabbed a couple of things he’d need for taking care of his darling Edgar. (Instant noodles, those croissants he loved so much, the weekly Jump. Hot tea.)
(While Edgar hadn’t outright told him, Ranpo already knew his homelife had been rough at best. Letting Edgar be a kid for a bit was the least he could do, especially now- so he’d give him the weekly Jump.)
And with that he went back home.
Upon reentering his apartment, he was met with silence- and Edgar, sprawled on the sofa with a blanket, watching something Ranpo didn’t recognize.
“What’s this?” he asked, in lieu of a greeting, and Edgar hummed brokenly. His voice was truly in terrible condition.
“Power Rangers,” Edgar responded, voice strained and cracking with the natural highs and lows of his tone. “The Samurai one.” Ranpo raised an eyebrow.
“Sounds… fun,” Ranpo mused, dropped groceries off in the kitchenette, then found a space for himself on the couch near Edgar’s feet. “It’s muted. Is it any good?”
“No,” Edgar said simply. “The dialogue is stiff at best and everything vaguely Japanese is directly translated.”
“Then why watch it?” Ranpo asked, stretched and feeling the pop in his back.
“I dunno. I needed something mindless and stupid because my brain feels like it’s wont to melt out of my ears. Stupid headache,” he complained, stretching as well. “What’d you get? You left a note.”
Ranpo hummed. “Soup ‘n stuff. And drugs. And tea for your throat.” As if to punctuate his sentence for him, Edgar coughed roughly a few times. Afterward, he grimaced and swallowed hard.
“Bleugh. Phlegm,” he said with a look of distaste.
“Gross,” Ranpo replied, getting up to dig through the bags and find the tea and pills he’d gotten for Edgar. “Have you eaten yet?”
“Don’t you have work?” Edgar asked, and Ranpo snorted. Changing the topic meant no.
He opened the bottle of green tea and set it on a coaster on the coffee table, then placed two Eve A tablets beside it- followed by the small paper bag with the croissant inside. “I knew you hadn’t eaten. I got you a croissant from the convenience store. Still warm.”
“Work,” Edgar insisted, forcing himself to a seated position, and Ranpo waved him off.
“I’ll call out,” he said with a shrug.
“I can’t ask you to-”
“Nope, shut up, you’re sick, I’m gonna take care of you,” Ranpo cut him off. “And I don’t even want to go anyway.” The blanket shifted downwards when Edgar sat up, and Ranpo tsk -ed when he saw what was underneath.
Edgar was fully dressed- corset and all- as if he could possibly go anywhere but a doctor in his current condition.
“C’mon, man, what the fuck are you wearing,” he muttered, furtively moving to tug at the bow in the ribbon that held that stupid torture contraption tight around his beloved boyfriend’s ribs.
“I like it,” Edgar defended, yet he shamelessly leaned against the couch for support once the damned thing was loosened enough that he could once again breathe… sort of. (He was sick, Ranpo supposed. He would have trouble breathing whether he wore it or not.) “My head hurts.”
“I know, hon, I got you some drugs. Eat your croissant and do some drugs, you’ll feel better,” Ranpo said, gesturing vaguely towards the paper bag on the coffee table. Edgar finally reached inside and pulled out the croissant, and Ranpo swore he inhaled it, Kirby-style.
Edgar downed the tablets- four- with the tea on the table, settled back into a lying position, and trained his eyes back on the muted television, lazily following the action with sleep-deprived eyes.
“You should take a real hot shower at some point today, it’ll help,” Ranpo hummed, coming around the back of the couch and holding a gashapon he had gotten just outside the convenience store down in front of Edgar’s eyeline. Edgar tentatively grabbed the thing.
“I can’t get up, I can’t move. I’m dying,” he said as he struggled to pick at the mechanism that kept the pod shut. It popped open with a click. “What’s this?”
“Blind-draw. There were animals on the front. Maybe there’s a raccoon,” Ranpo said, eyes quickly scanning the apartment as he recalled that he co-parented one of those now. “Speaking of, where’s-” His eyes locked onto Karl, atop the fridge, absolutely decimating a jar of peanut butter, and he cursed under his breath.
“Where’s what?” Edgar asked, struggling more with the plastic wrapper inside the gashapon. “Can you grab scissors while you’re in there?”
“Karl,” Ranpo scolded, standing on the tips of his toes. “Fuck’s sake- Eddie, he got into the peanut butter.” Edgar hummed, a bit groggily, before Ranpo watched him perk up out of the corner of his eye.
“Oh, that’s- that’s bad,” Edgar said, abandoning the small plastic bag on the couch as he rose to his feet. (Evidently, he immediately regretted it, given the way he held a hand to his head less than a moment later.) “Agh- you handle that,” he relented, simply sitting back down.
Ranpo was already doing that, actually, trying to wrestle the jar from Karl’s hands. Once he had succeeded, he closed the jar (tighter than it had been closed before) and ran the tap so Karl could wash himself up. “He’s like a rambunctious toddler,” he complained as he fished through one of the drawers, looking for the kitchen scissors. “God, it’s exhausting.”
“He’s barely two years old, of course he acts like a toddler,” Edgar defended, and Ranpo dismissed him with a wave. Karl acted like a toddler because Edgar treated him like one- but Edgar wasn’t ready for that conversation.
“Hey,” Ranpo said to grab Edgar’s attention before he presented the scissors. “Here.”
“Thank you, darling,” Edgar said in response. He reached for them, but Ranpo quickly withdrew them. Confusion flashed across his face momentarily- which melted into playful exasperation as he realized what was happening. “C’mon.”
“Kiss tax,” Ranpo said with a smile.
“I am sick,” Edgar reminded him.
“And?” he asked. “This is the one tax you can’t evade, boy.”
“Excuse you, I always do my taxes,” Edgar said, batting at Ranpo gently- but he twisted nonetheless and pressed a kiss to Ranpo’s cheek.
“Uh, you’re an American millionaire, sorry if I don’t believe that,” Ranpo teased. Edgar batted at him again before finally grabbing the scissors.
“You’re so mean to me,” Edgar whined, before fumbling for the plastic bag from the gashapon pod and finally cutting it open to reveal a small statue of a cat reading a book. “Aw, wait, this is cute.”
“You’re welcome,” Ranpo hummed, pressing a gentle kiss to the back of his head, then standing back up and heading for the kitchen. “What time is it?” Even as he asked, he slid his phone out of his pocket to check for himself. It was only about 8am by now, so he had a couple of hours to do… nothing, really, but call out of work. (He didn’t even have to call, not really, so he just sent a text message with a photo of Edgar on the couch, looking as sick as he probably felt, and Fukuzawa sent back an emoji of a smiling cat and an affirmation he could take the day off.)
“Stop taking pictures of me when I’m sick,” Edgar said, and Ranpo smiled.
“Nuh-uh,” Ranpo giggled, even as he deleted the photo. He had only taken one for a text message as it was. “Blackmail.” Edgar groaned in exasperation, laying back against the arm of the couch, propped on his elbows.
“You suck,” he said, voice only growing rougher with each passing moment. He fell into a coughing fit.
“You swallow,” Ranpo responded easily, then gestured towards the tea on the table. Edgar gave him an unamused look. “Hey, drink that. It’ll help your throat. And quit talking so much. Just watch your bad, muted Power Rangers.”
Edgar hummed in acknowledgement, rolling onto his side to reach the coffee table. His eyes caught on the television, and he snickered. “I remember this part,” he mused. “Possibly the singular most homoerotic character introduction in Power Rangers history.”
“Isn’t there a gay character in Power Rangers, though?” Ranpo asked, taking his seat once more and fishing the scissors out of the blanket, then placing them on the coffee table.
Edgar nodded, laughing again. “Yup. Not even close, though. This guy, Antonio? He was everything for me when I was younger. I mean, when I was growing up, my parents- y’know.”
Ranpo hummed, shifting to get more comfortable. “Oh, yeah- no, your parents sucked, hon.” Boston was a progressive enough place, but even so- homophobia was impossible to ever fully escape, especially during the time when Ranpo and Edgar were growing up. “You don’t have to justify yourself to me. Especially not right now, you’re my sickly Victorian lad.”
“Don’t call me that,” Edgar said, before dedicating himself to downing about half of the tea in one go. “I’m not a sickly Victorian lad, I’m a whole grown man.”
“Well, I hope you’re a whole one. I don’t want only half a boyfriend,” Ranpo teased. He rested one hand on Edgar’s knee, then resigned himself to watching television with Edgar, even though he didn’t know any of the characters. “Oh my god, you were right, this show sucks.”
“Right?” Edgar asked, loud enough that his voice was clearly straining. “Genuinely atrocious writing.”
“If you ever write something this bad I will not hesitate to rip into you for it,” Ranpo said. “Sick or not.”
“I don’t think I could write something this bad if I tried.”
The two fell into silence for… a while. Longer than Ranpo had ever expected to go without hearing anything from Edgar, honestly. (He was always going on about something. Most of it was predictable, but sometimes Edgar could surprise him.) After about twenty minutes, Ranpo realized that Edgar had fallen asleep, and he paused the show for Edgar and moved to attend to his own matters.
Not that he really had his own matters. Outside of making sure Karl didn’t get into anything he shouldn’t and taking him out when he scratched at the door, that was. Oh, and breakfast for himself, he had neglected having anything in his doting on Edgar- he could stop at a convenience store and get a rice ball or something.
(Actually, he forgot and ate an entire sleeve of crackers by himself, but he considered something halfway decent. It was the thought that counted.)
Roughly three hours later, Edgar finally rose again, rejoining the land of the living.
He stretched and groaned, then let out a couple rattling coughs before his eyes looked to find Ranpo- or to at least reacquaint himself with his surroundings.
“Feel better?” Ranpo asked, and Edgar’s eyes snapped up to find him sitting cross-legged on the kitchen table with his DS. Actually, it was Edgar’s DS, but it wasn’t like he was using it, seeing as he was asleep, and Ranpo had Nintendogs to feed and walk, goddammit.
“Eh. A bit. Not really,” Edgar admitted, and Ranpo quickly saved his game and shut the console off. “What time is it?”
“About lunch time. You want soup?” he asked, and Edgar nodded with a hum, then moved to stand. Ranpo slid off the counter wordlessly and strode over to the couch in a few strides. “Eddie, no, you go sit back down.”
“I can cook my own lunch, I assure you, my dear,” Edgar said, laughing to cover a wince as his head likely flooded with pain. He pulled Ranpo closer by his hips and pressed a kiss to his forehead instead of doing the logical thing of sitting back down. “I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not, you’re sick,” Ranpo said, tilting his head back to meet Edgar’s gaze. “You are sick, and you are going to sit down and let me take care of you.”
Edgar gave a half-smile and held his hands up in surrender. “Are you at least gonna let me watch to make sure you don’t mess it up?” he asked. Ranpo gasped in exaggerated, faux offense.
“I’m not going to mess it up,” he said. “I’m gonna crush it, because it’s instant noodles, and all I have to do is pour in hot water and pre-portioned seasoning packets.” Edgar rolled his eyes, smile widening- now genuine rather than teasing.
“Ladies and gentleman, behold the man I love,” he said, voice rough and low as he pulled Ranpo closer again- this time with two hands on either side of his face. “Tremble in awe at his nigh-supernatural ability to follow instructions printed on a cup.”
Ranpo rolled his eyes, returning the smile. “I know you’re making fun of me, and that you’re super sick, but I need you to know that that voice you’re doing? Really getting me going,” he said. Edgar clicked his tongue, smacking his shoulder gently.
“Weirdo,” Edgar teased, finally relenting and returning to his seat on the couch. Ranpo stuck his tongue out as if Edgar was even looking, then turned the kettle on. “You paused my show for me,” he commented softly, almost as if he was surprised Ranpo would do such a thing.
Ranpo hummed. “Yeah, ‘course I did, sweetheart,” he mused. Once the kettle beeped, he poured the water into the cup, set a 3-minute timer, and pressed the cover back down. “You wanted to watch it, and you fell asleep.”
“Thank you, darling,” he said before falling into a coughing fit. “Eugh, my ribs hurt.”
“Well, you’ve been coughing. And your corset isn’t helping with that, hon,” Ranpo said. “You napped in that thing. I should’ve taken it off of you while you were sleeping.”
“No, I like how it makes me look,” Edgar complained as Ranpo strode over to take matters into his own hands. “It’s fine, Ranpo, dearest-”
“Nope,” Ranpo cut him off, practiced hands loosening Edgar’s corset further. “Not fine. You’re sick, don’t make it worse.” His hands deftly moved to undo the busque at the front, and he pressed a chaste kiss to Edgar’s jaw.
Edgar tsked and raised his hands in surrender, relaxing significantly when Ranpo pulled the corset away and draped it over the back of the couch.
“There. Better, yeah?” he asked.
“I suppose,” Edgar said, clearly a bit bitter that he had to give up his image for the sake of something so trivial to him as his health. “I should really start on my work for the day after lunch.”
Ranpo hummed and pressed another kiss to his jaw. “Stubborn,” he teased, speaking into the flesh he found there.
“That is rich coming from you, love,” Edgar said, though his words had no true bite to them, and he carded his fingers through Ranpo’s hair with a warm tenderness that was familiar by now.
“You’re rich and you cum from me all the time,” Ranpo pointed out. Edgar batted at him for what felt like the hundredth time today.
“You are unbelievable, Ranpo, my dear,” he said, shaking his head- but let the record show that he laughed all the same. (Before falling into another coughing fit, that is.)
At that moment, Ranpo’s timer went off, and he slid away from his boyfriend to go attend to it, already missing the warmth that Edgar brought. He poured and stirred in the dry ingredients from the packets, then placed the cup wordlessly on the coffee table before Edgar and returned to the kitchen to try and scrounge up something edible and substantial enough for a meal.
“Thank you,” he heard Edgar manage. His voice only seemed to be getting rougher as the day went on, Ranpo acknowledged internally with a twinge of something that, while not quite sadness and not quite care, was somehow both yet neither.
“Hey, take it easy on your throat,” Ranpo said, digging through the fridge to see if there was something that piqued his interest squirreled away somewhere. “It sounds like it’s getting worse. You want me to run down to a vending machine and get you some water?”
Edgar hummed- the sound thick and muffled (of course, he was probably congested to hell and back)- a negative sound, actually. “It gets worse before it gets better,” he said. Ranpo just responded with a hum of his own.
He was going to get the water anyway when he forced Edgar to shower after lunch, but Edgar would make it a whole thing if Ranpo went to get it now.
“You sound terrible,” Ranpo said, finally giving up and grabbing a second sleeve of crackers. He slid into the seat beside Edgar on the couch and made himself comfortable.
“Thanks,” Edgar said sarcastically, shooting a glance toward Ranpo’s lunch. “That’s not healthy.”
“Uh, you’re not healthy, therefore your opinion is obsolete,” Ranpo responded with a shrug. Edgar tsk -ed and returned to his noodles, eyes flicking back up to the television. “How do your noodles taste?”
Edgar shrugged. “It isn’t like I can taste it,” he said, then took another bite. “Being sick and all. Everything’s bland- oh, this has a bit of kick to it,” he noted, tilting the cup slightly to inspect it.
Ranpo laughed. “No, it doesn’t, it’s the plain pork flavor.” Edgar sighed. “God, you’re so white, hon,” he teased, which Edgar clearly did not appreciate.
“I’m sick, give me a break!” he whined, voice cracking in a way that Ranpo could only describe as endearing, somehow, before he was coughing again. “You’re so mean to me.”
“I know, I’m the worst,” Ranpo teased, feeling a swell of pride in his chest knowing that Edgar didn’t mean a word of that. “How dare I buy and make instant noodles for you, and take care of you, and-”
“God, shut up,” Edgar laughed, with a small smile.
A heavy silence settled over the two of them for a moment, with Ranpo watching the screen and feeling Edgar’s eyes on him.
“I’m in love with you, by the way,” Edgar spoke suddenly, and Ranpo blinked in surprise, glancing over.
“Oh. Thank you,” Ranpo said, a bit confused. “What- Why are you saying this now…?”
Edgar shrugged. “I don’t know. Just figured it was worth mentioning,” he said. “You’re taking care of me, y’know? Nobody’s really ever done that before. Lord knows my parents didn’t.”
Ranpo laughed. “God, I feel you there,” he said, casually resting a hand on Edgar’s thigh and retraining his gaze on the television. “Before Dad picked me up, I didn’t really have anyone to do that stuff for me. And even then, he doesn’t really do it well.” Edgar replied with a laugh of his own. “But I have you now.”
“Gay,” Edgar teased, pulling Ranpo closer, until he could rest his legs over Edgar’s. “You do have me. You’ll have trouble getting rid of me, actually, because I’m rather fond of you.”
“Good, because I’m sort of in love with you, too, so I’d hate to lose you,” Ranpo said. “Now shut up, you’re sick, your throat is fragile right now.”
“I’m not made of spun sugar, dearest,” Edgar assured him. He coughed a few times- rattling, productive- before he winced, then leaned forward to finish his noodles. “Eugh, sore ribs.”
Ranpo hummed, returning to his lunch of crackers. “You should probably shower after lunch,” he said. “The steam will do you good.”
Edgar groaned around a mouthful of noodles before swallowing. “It’s fine, I’ll shower before bed.”
“C’mon, it can’t hurt,” Ranpo mused. “Even if you feel tired after, you can crash and not move for the next twelve hours. You’ve got nowhere to be.”
“I have work to do while I’m at home-”
“Nope,” Ranpo said, stretching his legs where they were extended over Edgar’s lap. “You focus on recovering, okay? You can work when you’re not so sick you could hardly move, like this morning.”
“I can move now,” Edgar insisted, shifting as if to prove his point, but all it did was pin him more firmly in place beneath Ranpo’s legs. “I’m fine.”
“Nah,” Ranpo insisted, sprawling further across Edgar’s lap. “You’ll work yourself to death, hon, and I’m here to make sure you don’t.”
Edgar clicked his tongue and raised his hands in surrender. “Fine. You win.” A twinge of pride bloomed in Ranpo’s chest.
“Great! Now finish your food,” he insisted. “And stop talking, your throat is getting worse. Save your voice.” Edgar hummed noncommittally, returning to his noodles.
As if sensing the energy threatening to shift, Karl climbed up on the arm of the couch, then further up, where he came to rest on Edgar’s shoulder, gnawing at the ends of Edgar’s hair. He tried to bite at his face, but Edgar yelped and grabbed him, holding Karl out and away from himself.
“Air jail,” Ranpo mused before handing Karl a cracker, which he accepted and immediately shoved in his mouth. “When do you think you’re gonna shower? I was gonna run the dishwasher later.”
Edgar hummed again. “Not sure. Here, hold this while I eat,” he said, offloading Karl into Ranpo’s lap. Karl took it in stride, sniffing at Ranpo’s crackers inquisitively before trying to scale Ranpo like a tree.
“Hold this, he says, handing me our son,” Ranpo teased, and Edgar ignored him in favor of watching what was on the television. Mediocre fight choreography, special effects that were iffy at best- the height of children’s television at the time, apparently.
Ranpo watched for a bit, more preoccupied with Karl than he would’ve wanted to actually pay proper attention, but after several minutes Edgar drew his attention by standing and heading for the bathroom. “I’m going to go shower.”
“Have fun,” Ranpo joked, pausing the show. He could feel his phone beginning to vibrate in his pocket. No doubt Kunikida on his lunch break, begging for help on a case or something.
Once the door to the bathroom was shut behind Edgar, Ranpo felt himself relax a bit. Even though he hadn’t really done much yet, taking care of a sick person was a lot of work.
(Maybe Edgar would fall asleep again, and Ranpo could get a nap in with him.)