Fake Fan Fiction ❯ Dead Men Tell No Tales ❯ Empty ( Chapter 9 )

Okay, guys, this is just a short look at what everyone is thinking in the aftermath of Ryo's death, before we get on to the rest of the story. Everyone is very out of character, but….c'mon, their very good friend just died!

 

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Chapter 9—Empty

 

The apartment was dark and silent, the curtains drawn against the cheerful sunlight outside. The place's occupant felt as though the sun had no right no shine now.

 

A small group was gathered in the living room, which was just as dark and gloomy as the rest of the apartment. The two men had no reason to go to work—the case had been closed.

 

As it turned out, Russell Jarvis really had been nothing more than a victim of a bigger plot. He had been telling the truth when he'd said that he stayed in the mental hospital because he was afraid of what he might do. He'd had no idea that his older brother, Richard Jarvis, had been depriving him of his medication, replacing it with placebos.

 

After Ryo's death, Drake had been at the computer for two full days, doing his best to finish wrapping up the case with Rose's help, and the two had stumbled upon the missing piece of the puzzle.

Ryo, as it turned out, had put away a very dear friend of Richard's on charges of drug smuggling, rape, and one count of attempted murder. Richard had been most displeased, and soon after, the answer to his trouble with the officers came in the form of his younger brother. Playing on the young man's trust in him, Richard convinced Russell that Jason Stockwell had come back to kill him and his brothers, and Russell bought the lie hook, line, and sinker.

 

Meanwhile, Robert Jarvis had been pulled into the plot out of family loyalty, and nothing else. He had been the one who bombed JJ's car and had been acting as Richard's eyes and ears for the outside world while Richard kept tabs on the goings-on inside the hospital, and Russell had simply followed the orders of what his older brother made him believe were “the voices in his head.”

David Marks, it had been discovered, had also had a hand in all of this. He had been the one to tell Russell that Ryo was “alive again” and had been the first to come up with the plan to get Ryo gone. It had been his brother that Ryo had sent to jail, which explained his eagerness to get in on Ryo's untimely demise. So he had come up with the plan to kill Ryo, while carefully working it out so that Russell would get off on another insanity plea and Richard and Robert would not be suspected of anything. Marks himself would have likewise remained free of suspicion, had it not been for his unfortunate arrest for arson, drug trafficking, and aggravated assault.

 

Now Richard, Robert, and Marks were rotting in jail together, and Russell was under twenty-four-hour watch by Richard's replacement, a kindly old man who really wanted nothing more than to help put back together the fragmented pieces of Russell's sanity.

 

But none of the people in the room were thinking about any of that at the moment.

 

JJ was stretched out on the couch with his head in Drake's lap and his eyes on the door to the bedroom, the intense pain he had been in lately eased by the massive amounts of painkillers he had been taking. He had not checked back into the hospital, but had consented to receive care from a house-calling member of the hospital staff. He and Drake, who had also been given paid leave so that he could stay with JJ, had not left Dee's house, as JJ felt he needed to be there in case something happened. It wasn't a situation that happened often, but JJ could be very….convincing, when he needed to be. He was a lot more like Dee sometimes than anyone else would ever have expected, and with a combination of threats, tears, and pleading, he had kept himself out of the hospital and Drake out of the precinct, and now here they were, waiting anxiously for some sort of reprieve from the current situation.

 

Sister Maria Lane sat in the armchair by the window, staring thoughtfully into space and fingering the silver crucifix around her neck. She had come over the minute JJ called her and had not left since, except to go on a shopping trip. It had been she who had cooked, kept the apartment clean, and unsuccessfully tried to force food down Dee's throat. Her quiet presence comforted even the most faithless people in the room—Sister Maria had that effect on people.

 

Carol lay curled in Bikky's arms on the floor, and having cried herself out completely, she was simply staring at nothing, moving as close to Bikky as she could for comfort. Bikky, however, had not shed a single tear—he would not allow himself to break. Not now.

 

“Do you….think he's going to come out?” JJ asked quietly, his eyes not moving from their position on Dee's closed bedroom door.

 

Drake shook his head sadly. “I don't know, JJ…. I just don't know.”

 

---

 

Berkeley Rose sat at his desk, staring at the stack of papers in front of him without really seeing it. The precinct was far too quiet without JJ's usual hyperactivity, without Ryo making his constant reports on the current state of his cases, without Dee's frequent curses and irritated yells. The heart and soul of the 27th had died along with Ryo.

 

A quiet knock came at the door, and then it opened without Rose's permission.

 

“….Berkeley?” The voice was unusually quiet and subdued.

 

“This isn't a good time, Diana,” Rose replied, not looking up.

 

“I know,” FBI agent Diana Spacey replied, shutting the door softly behind her and coming into the room. “But….there's still work to do, Berkeley. It can't all come to a halt because….” She trailed off, just as incapable as the rest of them of putting any of her emotions into words. Sighing softly, she placed a file on the corner of Rose's desk. “We've got a new case….state police wanted it handed over to you guys. We've got a lead on an underground prostitution ring, and—”

 

“I'll get to it later,” Berkeley replied, finally meeting her eyes. “Please, Dee Dee….for once in my life….can't I just act like the man who's lost one of his friends? Do I always have to be the strong one?”

 

Diana shrugged wordlessly.

 

“….All right…. I'll finish this paperwork, and then look at the file. Now….please….let me be alone?”

 

“Okay, Berkeley,” Diana replied, nodding helplessly. “I'll….see you at home?”

 

“Yes….see you at home….” The commissioner sounded like his mind wasn't really on the current conversation, however.

 

Diana left, and after several long moments, Rose did what he had always been taught to do—what the police academy had taught him to do. He had lost a comrade, and he had given himself three days to grieve and dwell on it. Now it was time to get back to work.

 

And Ryo had left so very much work behind….

 

---

 

Back at the apartment, Dee lay in his bed, his eyes firmly pinned to the ceiling. It might as well not have been there, however, for all the notice he really took of it. At that moment, the roof could have caved in and a missile with an atomic warhead attached could have slammed into his pillow, and he probably wouldn't have blinked.

 

He felt nothing….saw nothing….thought nothing. There was only pain. His head swarmed with images of the one thing that would make it all better….the one thing he didn't have, and would never have again. He could suddenly remember every single moment he had ever shared with Ryo—the first time they'd met, the first time Ryo had smiled at him, the first time they'd touched, the first time they'd kissed….and every touch, kiss, and smile that had come after that. Everything came into his head with complete clarity, and he couldn't make it go away. He couldn't even cry over it. He was just….dead inside.

 

There was a soft knock on the door, and then it opened slightly. “Dee?” Bikky's voice asked quietly.

 

Dee didn't move, or indicate that he even remembered Bikky's existence.

“Dee….there's food out here….if you want some….”

 

No reply.

 

With a quiet sight, Bikky backed out of the room and closed the door silently.

 

After the boy left, Dee hauled himself off the mattress for the first time in the three days since Ryo's death. He walked slowly over to the closet and pulled it open, staring at its contents before pulling out the only clean dress shirt that was there.

 

Going back to the bed, he stretched back out, but his eyes did not return to the ceiling. His fingers stroked the smooth fabric of Ryo's shirt as the whirlwind of pictures in his head began to swirl and change. Now he saw Ryo being shot, the light going out of his eyes, a red stain spreading through his shirt….and then he saw the blond dying alone. So completely, totally alone.

 

Now Dee was the one who was alone. And he knew, to the very core of his soul, that he always would be. No one would ever be to him what Ryo had….and he didn't want them to be.

 

The tears finally came as he turned over on his side, curled up, and held the shirt to his face. No matter how many times they were washed, the blonde's clothes always carried his scent. That scent filled his senses now, seeping into his mind and his heart and pulling forth the emotions that he had kept buried for what felt like so long. He cried silently—there were no sobs or blubbering or whimpers. There were only tears….a flood of salty, warm, empty tears that did nothing to soothe his turbulent soul.

 

Another knock came at the door, but it did not register in Dee's brain any more than it had in the times before. The door opened. It was Sister Maria this time. “Dee, dear, you really should—” she began, and then stopped when she saw Dee's back trembling with pent-up emotion. He sniffled, and a distressed, concerned look took over Sister Maria's face. Slowly, she went over to him, climbed onto the bed, and stretched out on her side next to him. Stroking his hair gently, she placed a light kiss on his shoulder (as his cheek was out of reach) and rested her head next to Dee's on the pillow. Then she changed her position slightly, and after that, did nothing else. She simply lay there, stroking his arm with her chin on his shoulder, and simply let him cry.

 

Bikky followed soon after, stopping in the doorway to take in the scene. Then, in a very un-Bikky-like gesture, he came over to the other side of the bed and curled up with his back against Dee's chest. Taking Dee's hand, he put it around himself and moved as close as he possibly could to the man that was the only father he had left. Dee buried his face in the boy's hair and closed his eyes.

 

JJ came next in his wheelchair, with Drake following him. The silver-haired man wheeled himself over to the bed and stood up from the wheelchair, waving his lover away as Drake tried to rush forward and helped him. Then he climbed into the bed next to Bikky, facing Dee, and gently took the hand that was around Bikky, giving it a light squeeze, which was returned gratefully. Drake sat in the chair next to the bed, stroking JJ's hair lightly, and watched as Carol came in, curled up in a tight ball in the space between Dee's and Sister Maria's legs, and placed her head on Dee's knee and her arm right next to it.

 

The group fell asleep in that position, each offering Dee what silent comfort they could give. Ryo was gone, but Dee was still there.

 

It was up to his friends to take care of him now.