Chapter Text
Edgar knows that Ranpo is beautiful.
The most important distinction, in his observations of his lover, is that of the fact that he does not THINK Ranpo is beautiful, but that he KNOWS it to be true. While he is hardly accustomed to writing any sort of romance into his own novels, he’s read enough stories, and seen enough movies, to have heard the phrase before: ‘I think you’re beautiful’, a conventionally attractive man with dark hair and brown eyes will say, to a conventionally attractive woman with blonde hair and blue eyes, and she will swoon for him, and they will kiss, because there is a compliment to be had in the idea that someone ‘thinks’ you are beautiful, according to the law of love. Edgar, however, doesn’t understand it.
To think someone is beautiful sounds far too insincere, as though you are uncertain, as though beauty is something subjective, or measurable by a preference. What Edgar DOES understand is the difference between objectivity, and opinionated thought, because an author cannot tell an effective story, no matter an effective mystery, without distinguishing the two as separate facets of the established world. An author builds a story based on its mathematical components, and his audience interprets the meaning in accordance with their own position. Truth and execution. And if he really thinks about it hard enough, he supposes that he never finds any of the supposedly pretty women in Ranpo’s collection of corny foreign films special enough to be ‘beautiful’, even if they are, in their own ways, nice to look at. So, perhaps, he can acknowledge that there is some merit to ‘thinking’ someone is beautiful to the same effect that he can ‘think’ they are not.
It’s just that, when Edgar looks at Ranpo, he finds that the sentiment of ‘thinking’ simply doesn’t apply. There is nothing to dispute; Ranpo is beautiful, and Edgar knows this. It’s a fact. And that makes it terribly hard to believe that beauty can have any subjective meaning when the most gorgeous man ever put to the Earth is staring into Edgar’s shared bathroom mirror with furrowed brows and a slight pout and tousled hair and Edgar’s stomach is full of violent butterflies that promise to bunch up in his throat and choke him with the sheer force of how badly he wants to spin his boyfriend around and kiss him.
The bathroom - attached to their master bedroom, on the second floor of (formerly) Poe’s manor, situated furthest from the front door of the house just to be safe, and linked inextricably to the back hallway by a door that is always locked for the same reason - is dimly lit. Edgar keeps the lights over the vanity mirror above the sink low so as not to bounce too harshly off of the white cabinets or the bleached porcelain of the bathtub. A stream of moonlight filters through the small window above the toilet, illuminating Ranpo’s cheeks, pale with a natural sort of pink.
Ranpo is situated in front of the sink, with his hands braced against the countertop. One of Edgar’s plain white tee-shirts that are far too big for him is draped around his shoulders, hanging off his collarbone (although Ranpo often refuses to talk about how small he really is in comparison, the top of Edgar’s own head is visible just above Ranpo’s in the mirror, even from a distance). It’s almost like a dress where it engulfs the waist of his pajama pants, a dark blue pair with orange kitten faces printed into a pattern across his legs. His hair is a disaster, tossed about with the remnants of towel static after his shower, like a bird’s nest that’s been pushed off of its branch and mangled by squirrels scavenging for leftovers. All the while he scowls at himself in the mirror, bright green eyes narrowed into slits, knuckles clenched over the rim of the sink, having a staring contest with his reflection.
It’s his thinking face. Ranpo is thinking very hard about something.
And God, does Edgar love that face.
Edgar is poised in the doorframe, arms crossed loosely over his chest. It’s chilly, outside of his comforter, in only a ratty old top from the University of Virginia and his boxers, but he’s always run too warm to sleep in long pants the way that Ranpo likes to. His bangs are pinned back out of his face for bed, small purple clips (Ranpo’s careful handiwork) tucked above either of his ears. It makes him feel rather light, when his eyes are unobstructed by his hair, and Ranpo is in full view within the comfort of their own home, only for him to see, both half-dressed and droopy.
He feels lighter still when a smile tugs at his lips, taking in Ranpo’s everything from behind.
“Ranpo dear,” Edgar murmurs, his voice thick with the exhaustion of a long day catching up to him. “I could practically hear the gears turning in your head from my study.” He had only been gone for a moment, in between getting ready for bed and leaving Ranpo to have his turn with the bathroom, but he always knows, he can always FEEL it, whenever Ranpo is ‘thinking’ beyond what’s typical of him. “A penny for your thoughts?”
Ranpo’s eyes flicker upwards in the mirror to meet the top of Edgar’s shadow.
“What’s a penny?” he asks, near incredulous, rather than acknowledging anything else that Poe had asked him. The crease in his forehead grows deeper.
Edgar doesn’t try to stifle a soft laugh bubbling in his throat as he pushes himself away from the doorframe by his elbow, leaning towards Ranpo. “American currency, dearest. A small coin,” he replies, pinching two fingers close together in the reflection of the mirror to demonstrate, to Ranpo, its approximate size (though it’s been quite some time since Edgar has last seen a penny). “But it’s not worth much, these days. Pennies are only valued at one American cent.”
Ranpo tilts his head, turning his chin ever so slightly to glance over his shoulder. His face is hidden by his hair, this way, but Edgar imagines the scowl is still quite persistent. “How come I should give you my thoughts for it if it’s barely even worth anything? Big government guys pay thousands just to ask me whether or not their wives know they have mistresses!”
“It’s an old expression,” Edgar huffs, if only to offer Ranpo a more suitable explanation. “But I don’t suppose you’d know what to do with a penny, if I actually had one to give you, would you?” he teases, pressing the pads of his pinched fingers together in a taunt.
He does not miss the way that Ranpo bristles a little at the idea of a challenge. His head quirks to one side, like it always does when he’s not the one doing the teasing, and it plainly serves to further ruffle his hair. It’s the cutest thing Edgar has ever seen.
“Of course I would!” Ranpo insists, one green eye flashing in the low overhead light, glittering with a determination to win that seems to paint his every effort. “But old coins are lame! And I don’t like lame stuff, anyway!”
It’s an excuse, and the both of them know that very well. Edgar is quite certain that, were he to hand Ranpo a penny right now, he would NOT, in fact, have the slightest idea what to do with it. And while that’s neither here nor there, because Edgar has no penny (he is living full time in Japan, and has been stockpiling his cash as credit for a decade), and Ranpo does not want a penny (it is, as he clearly stated, too old and ‘lame’ to be of any real interest), the meaning of the phrase having been lost in all of Ranpo’s literality is nothing short of endearing. The eternal fondness that lives inside his chest belonging to Ranpo and only Ranpo swells with the mundanity of it. Something so simple, so natural, and so undeniably him, that it is nothing short of Edgar’s favorite thing in the entire world.
And that is just one of the many ways that Edgar can prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Ranpo is beautiful.
In the spirit of a fair game, and Ranpo’s sense of pride, Edgar abandons the hypothetical penny in favor of closing the rest of the small gap in between his boyfriend and himself. He takes careful, deliberate steps across the bathroom tile, bare feet sticking minutely to the polish of the floor. Ranpo’s narrowed eye, chin still over his shoulder, watches him with a certain impatience that Edgar has quickly come to recognize as longing. It’s the very same longing that he is sure must be sewn into his own gaze during private moments such as these; a longing for Ranpo, for Edgar, and for the careful intimacy that is being left alone to love one another. It makes the four feet - three steps exactly, for Poe’s long legs, he’s counted them every day since Ranpo first moved in - between the door and the sink feel like miles have been stretched out before them.
Edgar wraps his arms gently around Ranpo’s shoulders, draping them just loosely enough at first so that he could pull away if the touch was too much (because he’s so sweet, so sensitive sometimes, in private, and Edgar would sooner die than demand anything of him, whether by accident or otherwise), but it’s quite clear that Ranpo is having none of the same reservations. He leans back into Edgar’s chest the moment that he’s within reach, tugging at his arms to hold them as securely to himself as possible, and that’s all the permission that Edgar needs. He chuckles while he props his chin up on the top of Ranpo’s hair. He breathes in the scent of his shampoo, vanilla and lavender and something sterile. He sighs wistfully, adjusting his hands in time with Ranpo’s eagerness to tuck his boyfriend properly into his chest and rub his thumbs over his shoulders in slow, loving circles.
Now it’s BOTH of their reflections in the mirror. Edgar’s tall frame outlines Ranpo’s slouch towards the counter, his curtain of bangs obscuring the flushed sides of his face from the view of the mirror. Ranpo’s eyes reflect the still-steady stream of moonlight. His face falls out of a scowl into something much more relaxed, smoothing the dimples around his lips.
“What IS on your mind, darling?” Edgar asks him a second time, humming thoughtfully. Ranpo shudders under the vibrations of Edgar’s throat against the back of his head. He feels rather pleased with himself for stirring up any sort of reaction like that. “Is something bothering you?”
“Not really,” Ranpo shrugs into Edgar’s arms. “I was just thinking about how cool it’s gonna be when I marry you.”
Edgar chokes on the oxygen in his throat. He sputters out something close to a cough, and tightens his hold on Ranpo in the process, elbows digging into his boyfriend’s soft stomach on a reflex.
“Hey!” Ranpo whines in a noncommittal protest, but makes no moves to adjust them again.
His mind is moving at a mile a minute, suddenly. Marry him? Marry Edgar? Ranpo marry Edgar? Marriage? Is that really what he meant? ‘When I marry you’, he says, so uninhibited and unbothered, as if it isn’t one of the biggest things any one person can ever do in their entire life, because Ranpo is not attuned to the formalities of the greatest proportional milestones of one’s significant accomplishment. And so matter-of-fact at that, as if there isn’t any question about 'will you’s' and 'I do’s'! ‘When I marry you’, as if it’s going to happen tomorrow, as if he’s already made up his mind about it, even though neither of them have ever brought it up out loud before right now, regardless of the fact that Edgar has - admittedly - dreamed about the idea of a lavish wedding catered to Ranpo’s every desire because he yearns for nothing more than to hold him close for the rest of his natural life and - in the event of the existence of ghosts, something that he has yet to prove, but WILL - well beyond, if only to make his dearest Ranpo the happiest man on Earth (and in Heaven, one-hundred years from now)!
Because his Ranpo mentions marriage with the same blunt casualty as though it were their usual Friday dinners out. Ranpo stares in the mirror at a quarter until midnight with a concentration so deep that Edgar only ever sees when he’s solving cases that he actually gives a damn about, contemplating not the potential, but the outcome of this supposedly very obvious ‘when’; the guarantee of marrying Edgar - Edgar Allan Poe - as if the knot has already been tied in complete essence. And when Edgar pulls him in close, Ranpo curls in closer every time, all while watching Edgar join him in the mirror and, apparently, thinking so long and hard about this marriage that Edgar didn’t know he’d already been proposed to about with such a confidence in himself - a confidence synonymous with Ranpo’s adoring genius - that it’s clear he wasn’t expecting anything less than for Edgar to agree.
Nevermind the fact that Edgar spares lingering glances towards emerald-encrusted rings in jewelry store windows, nor that his tailored suits have been pulled forward in his closet for the last year waiting to be dusted off.
Edgar wants to marry Ranpo. This, he had long since decided.
More importantly, however, RANPO wants to marry EDGAR, and this intention, he has decided to share.
Ranpo pokes Edgar’s side with two fingers, and Edgar yelps, flinching against the pressure without ever once letting him go. “What’d you do, short circuit?” he asks, tilting his chin up to glance at Edgar from beneath long lashes and frizzy bangs. Despite the habitual teasing, there’s a less familiar hesitance thread into his voice that Edgar doesn’t miss, and he pauses the rotations of his thumbs against his boyfriend’s shoulders almost unconsciously. “You DO wanna get married, right? I mean, that’s what people do when they love each other forever and I love you forever so I’m pretty sure we’ve got it all figured out.”
It’s only now that Edgar realizes, in his reflection, that he’s made himself look rather foolish. His bangs pinned away from his eyes make it impossible to hide the fact that they’ve blown open wide like bubbles. His jaw is slack against Ranpo’s head, and without the added support, he’s sure his mouth would be rudely hanging open. To his credit, he wasn’t expecting a marriage proposal in his master bathroom, so he would like to think that, given his naturally inclined anxiety, and the fact that he is madly and achingly in love with his now-sort-of fiancé, he’s being very calm about this.
But he doesn’t like that Ranpo is asking for reassurance, because Ranpo doesn’t ask for reassurance. Ranpo knows everything, just as surely as Edgar knows that Ranpo is beautiful. And it’s probably the fault of his stupid face that Ranpo is asking at all.
Edgar runs his hands slowly down Ranpo’s arms, the pads of his fingers gliding against the bare skin, until they brush over his palms. As if on cue, Ranpo intertwines Edgar’s fingers with his own as soon as he can reach them, and they slot together like jigsaw puzzle pieces. Ranpo is receptive to affection, Edgar has learned, and so he whimpers desperately, quietly when Edgar purses his lips and presses them into the top of Ranpo’s hair. It’s gentle, a ghost of a kiss, an excuse to further breathe in the sweetness of his soap and the sugar lingering on his breath, but Edgar leans every bit of love he has for Ranpo into it all the same. Ranpo squeezes his hands, watching Edgar in the mirror, and Edgar grins into the kiss.
“My beloved Ranpo,” Edgar whispers, picking his chin up off of his head.
Ranpo’s bright green eyes sparkle with a perfect kind of hope that Poe has long since committed to his memory.
And then Edgar loosens the hug around Ranpo’s chest, backing away while he pushes Ranpo forward until his stomach is brushing against the edge of the sink.
“Ed!” If Ranpo was whining before, he’d outright pouting now, pushing out his lower lip and GLARING into their reflection, tightening the grip he has on both of his hands. Edgar chuckles under his breath, and Ranpo’s frown deepens into outright displeasure. “What are you doing?” he demands, doubling down on PROVING that he misses the warmth in the way that he tries to tug Edgar - who is taller, and heavier, and all around BIGGER - back into him.
The thing about Ranpo is, for all that he is blunt, and flirty, and marching along on a mission to embarrass Edgar with his loud and persistent doting at every turn (something that Edgar loves, no matter the fact that he will always flush petal-pink whenever Ranpo boasts about him aloud), he is completely and totally malleable as soon as Edgar has him underneath his touch. He leans into the contact like he’s been starved of it for his entire life. He chases Edgar’s hands until they’re tied together under lock and key. He complains when Edgar moves too far away to hold, he huffs and puffs when they have to take a breath between kisses. And when they’re coiled together under the sheets, Edgar’s lips pressed softly into the underside of his jaw, Edgar is left permissibly in charge whilst Ranpo becomes a mess of WANTING and NEEDING; he is pliable, and he’s candid, holding on for dear life if only to ensure that Edgar isn’t going to disappear the moment that he lets go.
Maybe it’s because his parents died when he was young. Maybe it’s because he spent a year living alone on the streets. Maybe it’s because Fukuzawa was all he had for a very long time after. Or maybe, it’s just because he’s a tactile person by nature; maybe it’s a product of his brutal honesty, and the fact that he has no problem with letting anyone know - especially Edgar - exactly what he does or does not want. One way or the other, Ranpo has never addressed it, and Edgar would never dare ask him first, but he is utterly taken by how tangible it all is. To him, it is another kind of beautiful, that he is allowed to hold his hand and hug him close and kiss him head to toe because Ranpo WANTS it just as badly as Edgar does.
So Edgar is neither taking advantage, nor teasing, nor letting go. Not even a little bit; not when Ranpo was created to be cherished.
Carefully, - so as not to dislocate his elbow or some other, because that would be EXCEEDINGLY embarrassing right now - Edgar uncrosses his arms, twirling Ranpo around in between them like ballroom dancers do. His boyfriend’s feet stumble over the bathroom tile without a warning, but Edgar keeps him upright, holding onto his hands to pull him all the way around until they’re facing one another. Ranpo’s back is to the sink, and Edgar gets a proper look at his face, burning a deep red, brimming with an onslaught of expectation, scrutinizing Edgar’s movements like the urge to deduce what comes next is tugging at his subconscious because clearly, Edgar is taking too long; in a word, impatient.
Perhaps, a little intrigued. But mostly, definitely, impatient.
Which means he REALLY doesn’t like it when Edgar untangles their fingers and all of the contact is momentarily LOST.
“Edgar! If the answer is no you don’t have to be so mean about it!”
“Oh no, it seems the world’s greatest detective has it all wrong.”
Ranpo gawks all at once, gasping and flailing his arms around aimlessly. Edgar laughs wholehearted, from deep, deep in his stomach. Maybe it IS mean to tease. It isn’t really his fault that Ranpo is just so CUTE when he’s flustered.
“Me?! Wrong?!” Ranpo yelps. “I’m never wrong, Edgar Allan Poe! You-“
Edgar brings his hands up abruptly to cup Ranpo’s face between his palms, effectively shutting Ranpo up at the same time. Despite the urgency that he cannot contain, Edgar is excessively gentle when he takes Ranpo’s cheeks into his hands and pinches lightly at the edges of his lips to draw his full attention back. His mouth snaps closed, and the crease in Ranpo’s brow vanishes, because - true to Edgar’s every expectation - he melts into the touch immediately. Edgar drops the act and smiles softly as Ranpo tilts his head to one side to nuzzle into his fingers and brush his lips against the ball of his hand, letting his eyes droop more naturally into the usual slits through which he watches the world; from the comfort of his intellect trained to react to danger just as well as it’s been taught to curb in the recognition of something safe. Edgar likes knowing that he feels safe, beneath his touch.
Ranpo lets out a breath he must have been holding. “Oh,” he mumbles.
“Has the world’s greatest detective figured it out?” Edgar asks him, voice low and dripping with an undefined affection.
“Of course I have,” Ranpo replies, just as quiet. He opens one eye a little wider. It sparkles. Edgar imagines that such a vibrant green would look incredible on an engagement band. “But you still have to tell me so I know that YOU got it right, world’s second-best detective.”
Gladly, he thinks, perfectly accustomed to his title, wearing it like the badge of honor that it is, as he takes a step forward so that they are practically chest-to-chest. There is not enough room for the moonlight to slip in between them.
“Ranpo Edogawa,” Edgar murmurs, leaning down with chapped lips pushed near, parted just slightly in the middle, and all of his attention, to press a chaste kiss to his forehead. Ranpo hums contentedly and buries his nose all the way into Edgar’s palm. “There is-“ A kiss to the space between his eyebrows. “-nothing-“ A kiss to the tip of his nose, dark with an untamed blush. “-that I want more-“ A kiss to his left cheek, right underneath his open eye. “-in the-“ A kiss to his right cheek, pressed entirely into Edgar’s hand. “-whole world-“ A kiss against his jaw, that makes Ranpo tilt his chin up almost imperceptibly. “-than to make you my husband.” He leans all the way down to kiss Ranpo where they fit together best, right into his own lips.
Because of Edgar’s height, and the whole head that he has over Ranpo, their noses always bump together in the process, but Ranpo is hungry, greedy, and he makes even quicker work of this obstacle than Edgar can. He pushes himself up on the balls of his feet, meeting Edgar’s mouth with his so hard their teeth clash for a moment, and Edgar can taste the eagerness. Ranpo always tastes sweet, in likeness to the candy that he loves so much, but there’s an undertone of salt leftover from their dinner - spicy ramen and chicken cutlet, one of Edgar’s favorites - that he catches once their lips slot together properly. He lets his eyes slip closed to savor the warmth. Ranpo runs his hands over Edgar’s chest to fist his tee-shirt and Edgar groans, kneading his thumbs into Ranpo’s cheeks in return.
It’s a give - Edgar’s everything - and take - Ranpo’s tender admiration. It’s touch - hands on one another - and go - lips pressed taut to wholly close the gap. The only way Edgar - a poet, a writer, full of big words and even bigger ideas - could describe it is ‘perfect’. He opens his mouth ever so slightly as an invitation, and Ranpo doesn’t need to be told twice to deepen the kiss. It’s beautiful. Ranpo is so, so beautiful, and Edgar can hardly believe that he was just asked - or told, really, and that is so beautifully Ranpo, too - to MARRY him.
The need to breathe air is something of a curse. He hates the idea of having to pull away. He’s short of breath and he’s drowning, blessedly, in the kiss, but he wants to live to see the world beside his husband, so he makes the executive decision to part first (Ranpo never will if Edgar doesn’t, he knows this from experience), languid and slow and reluctant to surrender the bliss; he sucks in a breath of air and it still tastes distinctly like Ranpo.
Ranpo is panting through swollen lips when Edgar opens his eyes to take him in again.
He sighs, falling forward to lean his forehead against Edgar’s chest, still clutching at his shirt. Edgar’s hands slip away from Ranpo’s face; he replaces them on the back of Ranpo’s head, cupping the nape of his neck, holding him steady while he catches his breath and burrows into Edgar’s collarbone. He runs his fingers through Ranpo’s thick mess of hair, laying his cheek down on the top, plucking at the loosely knotted strands around his ears. Ranpo curls impossibly closer, and Edgar chuckles softly. Malleable.
“I never got to tell you why it’ll be so cool to marry you,” Ranpo says, muffled by the fabric of Edgar’s shirt. “Isn’t that what you wanted to give me a penny for?”
Penny for his thoughts, right. Edgar huffs in amusement. “I don’t have a penny to give, I’m afraid. But I do hope you’ll tell me anyway, darling.”
Ranpo hums thoughtfully, then dissolves into little giggles that bounce off of Edgar’s chest and reverberate against his heart beating persistently inside of his ribcage. “Okay, but only because it’s you and you’re cute and you’re such a good kisser!” he declares.
Edgar blushes deeper.
“Well then, I won’t take it for granted,” he promises. He could NEVER.
Ranpo hums again, digging his nails into Edgar’s shirt. “It would be cool,” he says, matter-of-factly, “-because then I’d be able to call you my husband, which sounds awesome and important, in case you didn’t notice, and then everyone else knows that you’re mine forever whenever I talk about you, which is all the time by the way,” He tilts his chin up to nose at Edgar’s throat. “And, if we get married, then we get to wear rings, which is basically evidence that it’s forever, and evidence is how you solve cases, which is what I do for a living, and it’s how I met you, which means it’s also important. Not as important as you actually are,” and Edgar can feel him smiling into his neck. “But almost as important.”
Forever is a very big word with even bigger implications. A younger Edgar would have been intimidated by something so permanent, when he was a young author new to the pen and still out for making some manner of a name for himself in the gore of petty revenge. With Ranpo, forever is enticing. Forever is sharing kisses. Forever is holding hands. Forever is this, marriage proposals nearing midnight in the low light of the bathroom that they share, adjacent to a bedroom done up with plush blankets and disastrous sheets that neither of them ever bother to make in the morning, simply because Ranpo was thinking about ‘when I marry Edgar’ and often feels like sharing every little thought with Edgar just because Edgar has long since endeared himself to humoring Ranpo’s tangents.
Edgar wants forever. Edgar wants Ranpo. Edgar wants to MARRY Ranpo. And Edgar’s heart swells like a helium balloon too big for his chest when Ranpo says ‘forever’ and ‘important’ and ‘love’ and ‘Edgar’ in the same breath whilst his taste still lingers on Edgar’s puckered lips.
It dawns on him all at once that this is the forever that Ranpo sees, too. ‘When I marry you’, because Ranpo, the world’s greatest detective, is never wrong. Ranpo knows.
Just as Edgar knows-
“You are beautiful, my dear,” Edgar murmurs against the top of his head, pausing his ministrations in Ranpo’s hair to trail one hand down his spine until he’s holding Ranpo’s waist, and squeezes lightly. “And I am so honored to be yours. You enchant me, every part of you. Do you know that?”
“Mmm, yeah, I’m pretty proud,” Ranpo’s growing smile is audible when he brags. “But I think I got luckier. I mean, you’re literally my other half, and that’s a one-in-a-million chance for a master detective. You are THE gold standard,” he’s practically cooing, unfurling his fist nearest to Edgar’s heart to press his palm into his chest. “I love you, Ed.”
His heart is sitting in his throat instantaneously. There is nobody in the world who knows how to charm him the way that Ranpo does.
It’s become a part of his every day.
Yet each ‘I love you’ feels like the first, and an inarticulate affinity for LIFE is left blooming inside of his chest.
Edgar dips down to press another kiss to Ranpo’s upturned cheek, catching his gaze from the corner of his eye and holding it steady. “I love you, Ranpo dear,” he whispers flush against the curve of his jaw, pressing a dopey smile into the kiss. “I cannot wait to marry you, to have forever with you.”
The moonlight catches the sparkle in Ranpo’s eye, and it glitters with a soft, perfect adoration that Edgar is confident is mirrored in his own.
And Edgar knows that it is beautiful.