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On Tuesday morning, Ranpo was halfway through reading a pile of case reports when he felt a familiar flush crawl up his neck. That syrupy warmth in his belly that made every inhale heavy and molten. He pulled at the knot of his necktie, loosened his top shirt button, and thought, Oh, thank fuck.
With a glance at the calendar on Kunikida's desk, he mentally counted back the days. Five weeks. Six weeks. Had his last heat really been that long ago?
Thank fuck.
Preheats were, in Ranpo's limited experience, only good for the reassurance they brought. They were biology's periodic reminder that, no, you were not currently perpetuating the human race, and if you played your cards right, you wouldn't be doing it next month, either.
For about a week now, some deep, gnawing part of his brain had really, really needed that confirmation.
He could feel his pulse racing when he clapped a hand against his nape and wiped away phantom sweat from his dry collar. The scent blocking patch was still there, still doing its job. No one else in the office was giving his moment of catharsis a second glance. (Not that it mattered much when Atsushi was usually getting his omega pheromones all over the place.)
If only Ranpo's heat cycle could be as reliable as his scent blockers.
He let his other hand slide over the small paunch of his stomach beneath his clothes. The place below his bellybutton that hadn't been worth considering until six months ago.
Despite presenting as an omega in his early years, he'd spent most of his life suppressing biology's influence thanks to the monthly shots Fukuzawa helped him access. The only time it ever came up was during his annual health screenings. No one in the agency other than Yosano and the president knew his status, although he wouldn't be surprised if Dazai had suspicions. It wasn't a secret. It just wasn't important enough for Ranpo for mention. Anyone who paid enough attention to his periodic days off — which had developed an irregular pattern in the last six months — could put two and two together.
Things like heats and ruts were annoying distractions. They were for people whose livelihoods didn't rely on having a clear head at every moment.
At least, that was what he used to believe.
But a lot of Ranpo's life had changed the moment the Guild's master architect walked back into it.
Once Naomi and Haruno left for lunch, he piled the report folders into a stack and went to poke his head in Fukuzawa's office. "I'm probably gonna be out the next few days."
The older man paused, cup to his lips, and nodded as he set his tea aside. Though he made no mention of the scent, his flared nostrils were a dead giveaway that the preheat was intensifying. Fukuzawa's mouth drew tight, brows narrowed over the dark green eyes of an alpha's gaze.
It was a stark reminder that they were edging closer to the line between professionalism and parental concern with every new cycle. Neither of them had prepared for a life where the world's greatest detective went off his heat suppressants. And yet here they were, fumbling their way through the adjustment. Ranpo always tried to be casual about these conversations in hopes that Fukuzawa could avoid walking the awkward knife's edge between the How will this affect your performance? question and the When is he coming to dinner? question.
"Otsukaresama desu," he said instead. Which was Fukuzawa-speak for, Please do not remind me about that knotting dildo I had to buy you when you were fifteen.
"OK." Ranpo grinned and set the stack onto the desk tray. "I've already solved the rest of the week's cases, so don't text me unless the building is on fire."
He shut the door behind him and dug his phone out of his pocket, messaging Poe a LINE sticker of Hatsune Miku in a parfait glass. There was still time before his partner arrived to head down to the corner store and hunt for another package of Pokémon bread to add to his collection.
The next morning, Ranpo woke up and felt fine.
Which was not, in fact, fine.
Consciousness found him wrapped in the cool black sheets of Poe's bedroom. Not drenched in a pool of sweat or stinking of lust, but placid and only slightly sore from last night's experiment with riding Poe reverse cowgirl. (Too much work on the thighs. Too painful to keep his grip around the wrought iron knobs on Poe's four-poster bed.) A scant few pillows littered the bed, but only a single, thin blanket lay spread across. Nothing at all like his normal nests.
Karl was asleep between his feet. The smell of coffee drifted up from the kitchen downstairs. Heat didn't smell like coffee. Heat smelled like bergamot and vanilla. It was the only time Ranpo could ever perceive his own scent.
Not that Poe, being a beta, would know either way.
"Fuck!" he whined, flopping onto his stomach and letting the cool air hit his naked ass as he rolled out of the sheets. Karl yelped and scrambled underneath the bed until nothing but a ringed tail remained visible.
The noise was loud enough to alert his partner, who bounded up the stairs and slid into the bedroom, clad in a pair of fuzzy black socks, black satin boxers, and the raven-patterned apron he'd been wearing while cooking. His face was white with apprehension beneath his brown mop of hair.
"Sweetheart, are you OK?"
"No," Ranpo moaned into the pillow.
"Has it started already?" The mattress dipped with Poe's weight as he sat on the edge of the bed, soft palm pressing into the small of Ranpo's back. "I thought I'd have time to cook us food, but—"
"It hasn't. The preheat is gone. Now there's nothing."
The hand moved in calming sweeps up and down Ranpo's spine. Poe, like most betas, had no scent beyond the natural musk of his skin, but his pillow carried traces of his rosemary shampoo that Ranpo loved burying his face into during heats. The detective ground his nose deeper into the fabric in a desperate effort to trigger a change just out of reach.
"Nothing," Poe repeated. Not a question, but a reflection — the kind of thoughtful rumination that came when the wheels in his head were turning.
Ranpo's wheels were turning the same way.
After a quiet moment, Poe pressed his lips to Ranpo's shoulder and asked, "Do you...want to take a test?"
No! He didn't want to take a fucking test! He wanted to crawl under the grey blanket and turn his brain off, which was an excruciating feeling for a master detective to grapple with. He ran toward conclusions, not away from them.
Heat sex with Poe was so good, potent and tender and carnal, but he would never have agreed to go off his suppressants if he'd known it would make him feel like this!
"I'm on birth control," Ranpo said, as though that mattered. As though there weren't plenty of humans in the world who were a result of failed contraception. But in the six months since their relationship had blossomed into physicality, he had never missed a dose. It was the compromise between total heat suppression and total recklessness that allowed the couple to explore the bounds of intimacy without fear of...
Fuck, he couldn't even think the word. He had avoided letting it breach the periphery of his thoughts over the past week, for all that it had tried. Repeatedly. Incessantly.
Beta-omega couples, at their most fertile, only had a 40% chance of conception. At the time Yosano had given him those statistics, they had seemed so easy to manage. But now the wax wings of his confidence were melting, and he was plunging straight into a 40% chasm that was not so narrow after all.
He couldn't be...
"I know, dear," Poe said, wedging himself onto the bed to lie on his side facing the detective. His hand stroked Ranpo's tangled black hair. "But you've been on suppressants since you were a child. Your doctor said it could take up to a year for your body to rebalance itself."
He knows what Yosano fucking told him. Your cycles will be irregular at first. Use two methods of protection. Top as often as you can. Or else I'll be seeing you in the office with a belly full of Ranpo juniors.
Finally relenting, the detective rolled onto his side to face Poe's soft, coaxing smile. "I don't want to go to the store."
"It's OK. There are some in the bathroom cabinet."
"What?" Ranpo shot upright, sitting back on his heels to glare at Poe. "Why do you have pregnancy tests lying around your house?"
Fuck, he said the word. He said it. All this anxiety, and Poe just yanked it out of him like Ranpo was a manuscript to be rewritten.
"They came with the ice cream bars I bought you last night."
"Not funny!"
Poe chucked and made a mollifying gesture. "Sorry, you're right." He ran a hand through his fringe, baring his bemused expression. "But I do have a partner with an erratic heat cycle. I keep a lot of things on hand for you, my dearest one. Condoms. Lubricant. Spermicidal—"
"OK, shut up," Ranpo said, burying his face in his hands. "You bought out the whole family planning aisle, I get it."
Poe rose so they were both kneeling on the bed and peeled Ranpo's hands away to hold them with a gentleness approaching reverence. "Take the test. I'll be with you regardless of the result."
How absurd would the Ranpo of a year ago think himself now if he'd known how deeply the dark, warm gaze of another man could drag him under? A man in fuzzy socks and a bird apron that Ranpo had bought for him at Daiso on a whim. This silly American who worshipped at Ranpo's altar, whose words of praise could unwind him, make him desire the uses of his body he could never previously have fathomed. Heat. Procreation.
Swallowing the knot of pain in his throat, Ranpo nodded and burrowed himself into the blanket, dragging it off the bed and toward the en suite. Three packs of pregnancy tests hid in the back cabinet behind an open pack of condoms and a bottle of watermelon-flavoured lube, the boxes an annoying assortment of pinks and blues. What, were they gendering zygotes now?
Ranpo grabbed one, ripped the package, and pulled out a foil-wrapped test. TV and novels never mentioned how hard it was to tear open these things or how annoying it was not to piss on your hand while using them. Once he'd finished, he capped the stick, threw it on the counter, and washed his hands. The grey blanket was a cloud of gloom billowing about as he dove back onto the bed, huddling in a lump next to his partner.
It was the worst three-minute wait of his life.
Ranpo couldn't have kids. Kids were like fucking aliens. So ugly and fragile at first, until they turned cute and co-dependent. They didn't know how anything worked. They made annoying noises. They were always sticky and wet. You had to force them to eat healthy food. You had to teach them how to be polite and kiss ass. They had to learn to use public transit. Half that shit Ranpo didn't even like doing.
Kids liked all the same things Ranpo enjoyed, though. He could probably hang out all day at an aquarium or an amusement park. He could spend hours snacking or reading or playing video games. Kids were cool to be around when they were full of ideas, and they weren't afraid to ask questions for fear of looking stupid, like adults were. He could probably teach a kid to appreciate a good logic puzzle or a murder mystery.
And Poe... he supposed when the author wasn't buried in his writing or hyperfixating on his morbid interests, Poe was full of love and devotion and all the good things kids needed. Poe would be good at tying shoes and filling out cram school applications and making sure their diet had protein and fiber in it. And if the kid ended up excelling at collecting wild animals instead of managing money...that was fine, right?
Morticia and Gomez figured it out.
Between the two of them, maybe Poe and Ranpo could cobble together enough maturity to measure up to one decent parent. That was more than some kids got.
The timer on Poe's phone crowed — quite literally — causing Ranpo to sink deeper into his cocoon.
"Want me to check?" Poe squeezed his hand.
The nest of black hair peeking through the blanket ruffled as Ranpo shook his head. "I'll do it."
He heaved himself from the bed again, this time padding naked into the bathroom with his lip between his teeth. Worse threats had challenged him and failed. Kidnapping plots. Police conspiracies. A gravity manipulating mafioso. A stupid pregnancy test was not going to defeat the world's greatest detective.
The stick still lay discarded on the counter. Ranpo turned it.
One line.
Negative.
Oh, thank fuck.
Squinting, he held the stick up to the bathroom light, turning it this way and that, trying to scrutinise the indicator window for any hint of blue in the test area. But there was none. Only the control line.
Negative.
His success streak remained undefeated.
The grin stretched his face wide as he brought the stick back to the bedroom for his partner to inspect. "Ed! Holy shit!"
Poe was waiting on the edge of the bed, Karl a furry dust lump curled against the apron's folds. Rarely could the man ever be described as beaming, but the open anticipation he wore now made him as bright as sunlight in snow. "Positive?"
Ranpo froze. "What? No!" He snorted. "Are you kidding me? We just dodged a bullet. Neither of us should be procreating."
The test plopped into Poe's outstretched hand, and his shoulders seemed to wilt as he inspected the result. "Oh." His mouth slipped closed in perplexed unease. "I see."
"You'd better use a condom if you fuck me from now on," Ranpo told him.
"Of course," Poe said quietly.
Eyes narrowed, Ranpo studied the author's face, the silent question on his lips, the fingers that turned the test around and around as though the result were a fleeting mirage that might evaporate the next time he blinked.
Was Poe...disappointed?
On Thursday, Ranpo woke with an erection, a cramping twist in his belly, and an irrepressible urge to collect every pillow and blanket Poe kept in his house.
Irregular heats were garbage. But better late than never, he supposed.
The bedroom was still quiet, save for the rumble of the aircon fluttering the white linen curtains that his partner so loved — part of his obsession with Western gothic decor. Poe was breathing softly in sleep on the other side of the bed, meaning Ranpo had a moment alone with the clarity that would slowly bleed away into lust as the heat progressed. Heats weren't meant to be spent alone, biologically speaking, but he wouldn't have bothered going off his suppressants if they left his brain with no periods of autonomy.
He let a hand drift down his chest, past the dip of his bellybutton, to rest on the soft skin of his pelvis where the hair trailed up sparsely. The core of his estrus. Already it had grown warm with an ache that lessened when he pressed his fingers inward, feeling for the womb beneath layers of fat and muscle. He couldn't sense anything, but it was there, if the way his cock pulsed was any indication.
Logically, Ranpo knew omegas were built to have babies. That was what his mom and dad told him when he presented as a child. And it wasn't like he hadn't done his research. Heat was a means to produce an omega's primary evolutionary function. It felt good. And for some people, the idea of reproduction — not just sex — lit up the emotional and pleasure centers of the brain.
Maybe Poe was one of those people.
Did Poe want a baby?
If he did, it would be an abundantly stupid move on Ranpo's part to indulge him. Ranpo's work as a detective was not suited for child rearing. As someone who had lost his own parents early in life, he couldn't fathom bringing a kid into a world where their parent was constantly at risk of injury or harm. A child would be a liability to any member of the Armed Detective Agency, but especially to Ranpo, the agency's objective strategist.
And Poe, though he'd left the Guild, still courted danger in his own work. Not to mention his residence in Japan was not permanent. Eventually his obligations would call him back to America, and there were few scenarios where Ranpo could envision himself overseas, mated or otherwise. There were even fewer scenarios where Ranpo envisioned himself handling single parenthood well.
Surely Poe wouldn't leave him alone with a child, would he?
This was all speculation, of course. Poe had not mentioned anything about children, and Ranpo hadn't asked. Once the pregnancy test went in the trash, the conversation had been over.
But now it lingered.
What would it be like to give into his body's instincts? His eyes drifted to the pack of pills lying on the nightstand. Thursday's dose was still there. He should really take it before the heat fog started affecting his memory.
But what if he didn't? Missing one dose probably wouldn't, statistically speaking, result in a pregnancy so soon, especially with a beta partner. The thought made his face warm and his nipples pebble, and he circled a finger over one before pinching hard enough for the pain to snap him back to his senses.
Don't be stupid. Don't be fucking stupid.
If he got pregnant, he'd start puking all the time. He'd have to change his diet. Fukuzawa wouldn't let him go anywhere. His terrible desk chair would start killing his back. Eventually he wouldn't be able to hide his middle beneath his shirt and vest, and he'd have to get new clothes. He'd get slow and tired all the time. His legs would get puffy and swollen. His belly would start hurting his hips.
Fuck, Poe was so tall, and Ranpo barely stood past his shoulder. If the baby got Poe's genes, Ranpo's belly would get huge.
A trickle of slick rolled down his backside. His hand gripped his cock, sliding the foreskin up and then down, just enough to gather the blurt of precome and spread it along the head with his thumb. Between his legs, his hole spasmed and ached. There was just enough slick for him to reach down and run two fingers through it, dragging a trail along his perenium and over his balls.
In a few more hours, he'd be wet enough to be fucked without needing extra lubricant. He could climb on Poe's cock and ride until it was so deep that it nudged the mouth of his womb. So that when Poe came, it would have nowhere to go but inside, where it would bloat Ranpo's belly in imitation of the future creation he might carry.
He'd told Poe to wear a condom, but...
He gripped his cock and stroked, squeezing with pressure that carried an edge of hurt. Enough to keep him on this side of reality. Straying too far into these thoughts before the heat even fully hit was dangerous territory.
Ranpo's slick fingers grazed his entrance before pushing inside. The angle wasn't right for him to get very far, but just the feel of his insides constricting, fluttering as he curved his fingers upward, set his nerves alight. He stretched and spread them until he could fit a third inside, and then he curled in on himself, trying to push deeper. Could he reach that tender spot that brought him pleasure, or perhaps some place beyond?
Pressure was building in his lower parts, but it wasn't enough to take him over the edge. His hand shot out to the nightstand, temporarily abandoning his cock to fumble the drawer open and reach for the knotted dildo and the bottle of lube he kept for these occasions. As he struggled to grasp them, his hand accidentally knocked the table, sending the pack of pills over the edge and onto the floor.
Ranpo watched them fall out of reach, out of sight, and thought, Ah. Well.
It was impossible like this to use the bottle one-handed, so he flipped the cap with a thumb and withdrew his fingers to coat his palm with the artificially sweet smelling liquid. Then he tossed it aside and coated the cotton candy-coloured toy until it shone and slipped in his grip.
After a glance to ensure he hadn't disturbed his partner, he breached his entrance with the tip slowly, waiting for that first flash of pain to pass before sliding the rest gently inside. The flared knot at the base made it a little too unwieldy for his tastes — though he knew some omegas preferred them — but it fit with enough gentle easing and then sat snugly at his entrance. Every slight movement caused the toy to brush against his most sensitive areas.
Full. Ranpo was so full. Scents of vanilla and bergamot permeated the room as he smeared the precome across his cock, imagining it was Poe filling him. Making him heavy. He pictured the way he would unfurl himself in bed every morning while hefting a belly full of some living thing. The way he'd stroke it secretly beneath his clothes at work and talk through cases with it.
Behind his eyelids, Ranpo saw himself curled up in Poe's lap, mystery novel in hand, while the author cradled the place where their union grew. A binding that held their pages together permanently, keeping Ranpo's most faithful collaborator and supporter always at his beckoning. He'd stay here with Ranpo always, writing a thousand murder mysteries for the world's greatest detective to solve, and then a thousand more for a dark-haired, dark-eyed future Detective Edogawa-Poe.
Release spurted over his fingers and across his abdomen. He tugged himself through the aftershocks, gasping and staring sightless at the ceiling while his backside clenched around the toy inside him.
"Shit," he breathed. "Oh, shit."
He pulled the nearest pillow over his face and inhaled Poe's rosemary shampoo smell, which made his chest shudder and his cock sputter a final stream of release.
Suddenly all Ranpo wanted was a nest of this feeling, these overwhelming desires that swept him up like a blanket. But he had to force himself out of bed before he passed out with come all over him and the dildo still inside him.
He pulled it free and took it to the bathroom to rinse and dry after wiping down his lower regions.
As he was peering through the cabinet for the soap, his eyes landed on the open box of condoms. A variety pack of tropical flavours, because it was nice when Poe's dick tasted like pineapple. There were still eight left inside.
You'd better use a condom if you fuck me from now on.
Those words had come out of his own mouth not 24 hours ago.
But who would blame Poe for not heeding them if he couldn't find the condoms in the midst of his partner's heat-addled pleas.
Ranpo plucked the box from the shelf, opened the bathroom window, and tossed them outside.
After raiding Poe's linen cabinet for his black lace pillows and cobweb print blankets — seriously, move into a castle already — Ranpo piled them onto the bed and arranged them in a haphazard nest, which he proceeded to scent by rolling around in them while he sucked on a butterscotch candy. The familiar cramping heat was starting to drain him dry til his mouth and his head felt like cotton.
Karl's round, black eyes were judging him as the raccoon sat on the edge of the wrought iron bed frame. Ranpo was too heat drunk to care about being perceived by an animal while naked, so long as he stayed off the bed while Ranpo's ass was in the air.
I am not cleaning up the evidence, Karl seemed to say.
"Hope you like babysitting," Ranpo told him.
Impatience made his skin itch. Unable to wait any longer for Poe to wake, he crawled up the author's legs and yanked the covers away, baring pale skin to the cool bedroom air. Ranpo kissed Poe's inner thigh and smiled as he watched gooseflesh form and disappear beneath the hem of black satin boxers. The trail of kisses continued upward until his nose grazed the tip of Poe's half-hard cock inside the fabric.
Though his experiences with sex were limited to the six months he'd been intimate with Poe, one of the things he was learning to appreciate was the feel of a soft cock stiffening against his tongue. Poe was circumcised, which Ranpo thought was a strange custom, but that made it easier to wrap his lips around the head and suck the shaft into full hardness through the satin. Muscles jerked against his cheek, and fingers gently tangled into his hair as a moan floated down from above.
"Ranpo-kun," Poe murmured. His face was soft and open, voice languid from sleep. As he attempted to sit up, Ranpo sucked him in again, laving his tongue from tip to base until the entire front of the boxers was a lengthy, molten dark patch. And Poe had quite the length for a beta. Not that Ranpo had any basis of comparison.
Poe fell back into the pillow and turned his head to the side. "Darling—oh." He jerked again when Ranpo blew gently over the damp spot. "You're so good at that."
Ranpo smacked the side of Poe's thigh. "Mmkay. Pants off now."
Dazed eyes widened when Poe pushed himself upright far enough to survey the organised chaos of linens and cushions. "It's started?" The long tail of his messy hair curled down his neck and over his shoulder, making him look like a capricious ikemen instead of the polished trust fund baby he was. He smiled down, intense with adoration as he touched Ranpo's cheek and ran a thumb across the lower lip. "Look at you. Flushed like a maiden. Though you are far from innocent."
"Will you please get naked before you start the sonnets?"
"But you are a feast for the eyes. I want to taste you."
Ranpo blew the fringe out of his face in frustration. "You can eat my ass after I hop on your dick."
"All right, fine." Poe laughed and slid his boxers down until the heavy cock bobbed out of the waistband. "Let me get a condom, OK?
"Edddd," the omega whined.
Poe's lopsided smirk seemed to say, "you asked for this," and he tossed the black satin to the floor as he headed for the bathroom. The expression gradually shifted to bewilderment when he peered into the cabinet. "Oh. Um."
Ranpo was kneeling on the bed with his thighs parted and his erection in hand like the pinnacle of decadence. He peered at Poe with hooded eyes.
"Darling, did you move the condoms yesterday?"
"No." Ranpo shook his head. It wasn't technically a lie.
Poe chewed his bottom lip. "I don't remember moving them, though."
With a frustrated groan, Ranpo plopped onto his back in the middle of his nest and began to palm himself slowly. He pulled the foreskin back to circle the tip with his thumb while his finger pads brushed along the vein on the underside, teasing himself with careful strokes until the clear fluid dribbled over his fingers. "Come onnnn."
"But you said—"
Sweet hell, could this man stop respecting him so much when he was trying to get disrespectfully bred? "Edgar, I know what the fuck I said, and I'm telling you to get over here and fuck me now!"
Poe's throat bobbed with a nod. He slammed the cabinet shut and walked back to the edge of the bed, where Ranpo immediately shot up to pull him closer. They tumbled together, lips meeting as Poe's fingers slid past Ranpo's ears to grip his hair. Tilting his head to broaden the seam of their mouths, he pushed his tongue inside until he was grazing Ranpo's teeth.
Ranpo moaned and pulled himself closer, trying to crawl inside his partner's chest. The tip of his cock dragged against Poe's belly, desperate for contact, and left wet trails of precome as he began to rut against the skin.
One of Poe's hands drifted down Ranpo's backside, along the curve of plump bottom, to drag fingers through the slick coating his entrance and his inner thighs.
"My beautiful darling, you are so wet for me," he murmured between their mouths.
Part of Ranpo wanted to press back into those fingers in search of any fulfillment for the place that was achingly empty. Instead, when they parted, Ranpo gripped him by the shoulders and shoved him into the nest of pillows and blankets, finding it easy to manouver a partner who, despite their height difference, went willingly where the detective led. The change in positions made it easier to control the friction, the pleasure he sought against Poe's stomach — this time with the added bonus of Poe's cock wedged between his cheeks, sliding so very close to his entrance.
Ranpo leaned forward until their mouths were a hair's breadth apart. "Tell me what you want." He could feel Poe's heart rabbiting beneath the palm laid on his chest.
"Ranpo, I—"
"It's ok. You can say it."
Poe's fingers dug into the sheets. "It's not— I don't think I can." The mess of fringe hid his flaming face.
"I'm a detective." Ranpo ground his rear harder against Poe's length and let the brash smile spread across his lips. "You can't hide from me."
Poe wouldn't meet his eyes. The pale torso trembled between his thighs as Ranpo continued to rut, to smear fluid and heat over the author's lower parts. After a moment, Poe swallowed and, with a nervous inhale, summoned the courage to reach for Ranpo's hand.
"Don't be mad. I'm sorry about the condoms."
Ranpo chuckled. "That's not your fault."
"It is, though. Don't lie." Poe squeezed his eyes shut. "You threw them out because I tampered with them."
Tampered?
The movement slowed as Ranpo sat back, blinking slowly and tilting his head to process the admission. Tampered. He had looked into the box before he disposed of it, but he was certain the remaining condoms inside had still been wrapped. And in any case, his only concern had been ensuring they were nowhere to be found in the midst of his heat.
He parted his lips as it dawned on him.
"Holy shit." He grinned. "Did you put pinholes in them?"
The stricken look of guilt morphed into confusion as Poe braved a glance at Ranpo's expression. Though his mouth moved, no words seemed to come forth. All he could muster was a tiny nod.
Ranpo shifted his hips up again to tease his entrance against the head of Poe's erection before allowing it to slide along his backside. The giddy, excited part of his brain wanted to tear through the house and run outside to find the discarded condoms just so he could examine the evidence.
Poe had tampered with them. On purpose. Just as Ranpo, not even knowing they were damaged, disposed of them. On purpose.
Pleasure spiked through Ranpo's body, causing his cock to jump. Not even the high of solving a case or outsmarting a criminal mastermind compared to the knowledge that he could suss out the deepest desires of his intellectual partner — all because those desires bore the same shape as his own, lived in the same visceral shadow of his heart. They reflected one another, light and dark in equal parts, and that thought had him rutting hard against Poe's belly.
"Do you wanna knock me up?"
Poe dug his teeth into his lip and nodded again.
"Holy shit. Holy fuck, that's so hot," Ranpo moaned.
Of all the mysteries he had slueuthed throughout the years — reality-altering ability users, international serial killers, decades-long conspiracies — he hadn't expected a discovery so incredibly fucked up to make him this aroused. The thrill left him breathless.
Poe wanted...
He wanted to...
Whatever reaction the author had been anticipating, it wasn't this. He stared openmouthed, gobsmacked — a look Ranpo hadn't seen on his face since they day they met again after six years, when the detective had unravelled his magnum opus and handed him a second defeat in a battle of deduction.
Ranpo drew his tongue along his lower lip and squeezed Poe's hand. "You want it that bad, Ed?"
The accusation made Poe slump into the nest of cushions and turn his burning face away in shame. "I do."
"You want me pregnant?"
The head of messy curls nodded.
He took Poe's hand and pressed it to his middle. "You want your baby? Right here, inside me?"
The author locked eyes with his beloved. "More than anything," he whispered. "I've wanted to fill you up since the moment I found out you were an omega, darling."
The groan that tore out of Ranpo's chest when he finally sank down onto Poe's cock made his toes curl. A hot, wet bubble of pure pleasure broke over him. His head fell back, hands gripping Poe's over his middle, legs trembling as another gush of slick rolled down his inner thighs.
The length inside him seemed to surge as Poe thrust up in time to meet his movements. It went deep, and Ranpo's body yielded, feeling that tight core of pressure grow slack as his omega biology took full control of his instincts. Did his limbic system even understand the significance of that missing latex barrier between the two of them, or the missed dose of contraceptive that would throw his hormones further into chaos?
"I didn't take my pill today," Ranpo said. Just admitting it aloud was like riding a motorcycle with no brakes, the careening force of danger that pulled him like a rip current. Is this what criminals felt like?
Poe shuddered between the wet thrusts, the squelch of skin on skin. "God," he said in English, followed by a litany of swear words that were probably some sort of religious blasphemy.
"Should I take it?"
Poe shook his head. "Throw them out."
"Oh, but then I'll definitely get knocked up." Ranpo wrinkled his nose as he pouted. "I'll get all big and round and slow, and I won't even be able to ride on your back because my belly will be in the way."
Fingers slid into the omega's hair and yanked him down for a desperate kiss, mouths wet and misaligned and fumbling. Poe pressed their foreheads together with a hot breath. "Everyone would know you're mine. I wish I could scent you. You would smell divine with child. Like London Fog."
Earl grey tea with milk and vanilla and bergamot. Poe's favourite drink. Though he'd never been able to perceive Ranpo's scent himself, he often used tea as his means to replicate it once he'd heard it described.
Ranpo brushed the man's brown fringe aside so their eyes could meet. "Would you be mine? Would you stay here with me?"
Like talk of children, this, too, had been a conversation they'd avoided. Because unlike traditional alpha-omega couples, they couldn't bond or mate. Thus it was never worth discussing, in Ranpo's opinion. His parents had been happily married betas, and when he'd presented, they'd been clear that he didn't have to do anything simply because of his gender. After they passed, he filled his life with people who enrinched him — Fukuzawa, Yosano, the agency — but he had always assumed he would never find an intellectual challenger who could provide intimacy and companionship.
Until Ranpo realised such a person did exist. And maybe, in his subconscious, his omega realised it, too, and wanted to hold on permanently.
Poe's eyes were blown wide with desire. "I am yours like the Earth is the Sun's. When I am bled dry, they will only find you in my veins. You are the most perfect creation to ever come from the chaos of the void. I love you so much, my Ranpo."
Oh, why did Ranpo have to give his heart to a writer? At least it was easy to blame the heat for the way his face flushed and his eyes began to sting. But the praise left him floating, his insides liquid and sticky, and Poe was pushing into him so good. In every part of Ranpo that Poe breached, he left an indelible mark.
He wanted to grow heavy and full with the next one.
Their push and pull, the repeated slide of the length inside him, became hypnotic. When he arched his back and drew himself up, Poe slipped free to the tip, dragging out another trail of slick that trickled down Ranpo's legs. His insides clenched with the need to pull the thick cock back in. Eventually his tired legs gave out, and he tipped forward into the circle of Poe's embrace and the mess of slick and precome between them.
"Let me," Poe said. Arms locked around Ranpo's shoulders, he nudged upward against the tender spot that had the omega seeing stars.
In a few months, would they still be able to lay like this? Or would his body already be stretching around a new secret?
A handful of thrusts was all it took for Ranpo to unspool with a cry, cock spurtung between their bodies. Poe coaxed him through it, hand along his back and nose against the scent gland that always throbbed when the heat was at its worst.
"So good. You're so good." Poe's murmur was barely audible over the slap of skin against skin that filled the bedroom and the pounding heartbeat in Ranpo's ears. "Sweetheart, please let me come inside."
"If you pull out, I will trash every book in your house."
Poe made a noise halfway between a laugh and a moan, but whatever retort he planned fell away when he seized up, hips locked tight against his partner's, and buried his face in Ranpo's sweaty black strands. The cockhead was flush against the mouth of the womb, which welcomed the warmth spilling inside. It was so much. So much fluid ecstasy, and all of it meant for Ranpo to hold. Even without a knot, even with the omega on top and spread so wide for him, the swollen length plugged full and twitched upward with each jerk of pleasure.
Ranpo lay with his face in Poe's sweaty neck, strands of rosemary-scented hair in his mouth that might have been his or his partner's, for all that they were temporarily melded into one being. He could feel the pulse of their hearts between them and the sticky mess below that still created delightful friction when he shifted his hips. If Poe had a knot, they'd be locked together for a period of time that ensured peak fertility. Ranpo was fine mimicking that, mostly because he'd come all his bones out and probably couldn't move more than an arm's length anyway.
A hand pet his hair softly, pulling him close for kisses that Poe pressed into his temple and down his cheek.
Ranpo closed his eyes and let the gentle rhythm in his partner's chest soothe the static in his mind.
Poe brought a warm, wet cloth from the bathroom and ran it along the soft plane of Ranpo's come-bloated belly. They were both covered in spunk and slick, tacky and flaky now that it had dried, and Poe left kisses in the wake of the residue he wiped clean. His nose pressed into Ranpo's belly button until the omega was squirming with laughter in his nest.
"Stop, my bladder is right there, dork." The breeding kink was enough. He did not need to discover that his partner had a piss kink, too.
"Did you really not take your pill today?" Poe's question was more earnest than accusatory.
"Nope." Ranpo drew the word out with a musical lilt. "I still can, but..." He shrugged. "You don't seem mad about it."
Poe shook his head. "Of course not. And you didn't know about the condoms before you threw them out?"
"Nope."
The cloth wound itself tight between the author's fingers. "And you're not...mad at me?"
"I mean, I'm pissed it didn't occur to me to check!" Ranpo muttered in annoyance. He plucked a lollipop from the heat stash he kept in the nightstand drawer, next to the lube and the sex toys, and popped it into his mouth. "But that doesn't count as you stumping me. If anything, I'm still ahead because you didn't know I skipped my meds."
Poe seemed to work his mouth around several responses before he finally tamed his baffled expression. "Aren't you mad at me for deceiving you in the first place?"
Ranpo scoffed around the lollipop as he met the author's dark eyes. "Ed, I once blackmailed a man with the manuscript of his own friend he murdered, just to get Kunikida out of jail.”
"But, the pregnancy test. You said to wear condoms. You said we shouldn't procreate."
And Ranpo had been correct, as he always was. "We shouldn't. We definitely, definitely shouldn't." But that didn't mean Ranpo placed less value in the coulds over the shoulds, now that he had examined his desires more closely. "The fertility stats aren't exactly in our favour, anyway. But this morning I got to thinking... I'd be cute with a little belly, wouldn't I?"
A thread of heat was spooling in his pelvis again. How did any omega endure this when the periods of clarity were so annoyingly short?
Poe crawled over and curled around Ranpo's middle with a bright smile. "The cutest." He pressed his lips to the detective's skin between his hips. "And our baby would be the most beautiful."
Fuck. They were so fucked. How could he deny the sweet picture that Poe was authoring in Ranpo's heat-addled brain? A child with Ranpo's hair and Poe's eyes, whose tiny hands fit inside each of theirs.
Ranpo rolled out of his nest to search for the pack of pills that had fallen off the edge of the nightstand. If he didn't take his birth control now, he never would.
The foil pack was wedged between the table and the wall. He pinched it free with two fingers and went to push the Thursday dose out. Except the strange colour of the front label tripped his detective's senses. The brand logo and the directions printed on the front didn't look any different, but the pack itself carried a slightly pinkish tinge instead of its usual stock white. Was it a trick of the light?
The round yellow pills didn't look any different. This was the same pack he'd brought to Poe's house when he'd come over to stay for the week. Wasn't it? He'd already taken five other doses out of it.
A frisson of excitement tingled in his belly.
"Ed." Ranpo smirked. "Are these fake?"
He dragged his gaze to the bed where Poe sat terrified, awestruck, and utterly silent, pinned under the incisive green gaze of the detective he could never truly deceive.
"Yes," Poe whispered.
The implication made Ranpo's cock thicken. Slick gushed down his leg from the quavering entrance at his backside.
"Holy fuck, that's so hot."
Fucked up, but hot.
Six weeks later, Ranpo's heat was late again.
Yosano found him as he was exiting the bathroom around mid-morning. Neatly manicured fingers drew the curtain in the infirmary back just as he was making a beeline for the sink to spit out his bubblegum mouthwash. The curve of her lips had upturned in something that could've been exasperation or amusement or both.
"You both deserve each other," she said and tossed a bottle of pills at him before disappearing back to her desk.
Ranpo unwrapped a lollipop, held it between his tongue and teeth, and rolled the bottle in his palm. The pills rattled as he scrutinised the label.
Prenatal vitamins.
moraneuclid Sun 07 Sep 2025 12:54AM UTC
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lolani Sun 07 Sep 2025 02:25AM UTC
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rystoish Sun 07 Sep 2025 05:16PM UTC
Last Edited Sun 07 Sep 2025 05:22PM UTC
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lolani Sun 07 Sep 2025 06:52PM UTC
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