Fake Fan Fiction ❯ Dee ❯ Chapter 3

~AN~ This story is set not long after volume 7 of the manga. More details of the precise setting will be revealed in later chapters. Enjoy!

 

~ Disclaimer ~ I do not own FAKE, or any of it's characters - they belong to Sanami Matoh. I would not object to them being donated to me though. I also do not have a beta - these chaps are all me. You see a mistake, you NOTIFY me! Please!

 

 

 

 

 

“Please tell me this is a joke.”

 

A man with newly blond-dyed hair stood outside a relatively busy corner market, a small card in his hand. He was wearing faded jeans and a black tee, stolen from the love of his life's closet.

 

In fact, half of the clothes he grabbed came from his lover's stash. They wouldn't be missed for a while… at least not until laundry day. Everything was currently stored in the small apartment he was to stay in.

 

Small, cramped, and filthy. He swore to clean up when he received the chance.

 

But currently, he was facing another dilemma. An underpaid, unqualified dilemma.

 

He stared dumbfounded for three more minutes before he approached the `manager' label a man sprouted from his chest. The man seemed to glare at him from under a bushel of hair that must have eaten a few combs in its life.

 

“What?”

 

He grimaced at the foul fog of breath that drifted his way before he held the card out to the man.

 

“My name is Alex Raven. I applied for work here last week. They told me to come in today.”

 

The man seemed to look him once over, then released a guffaw of laughter that showed off his yellowing teeth. He roughly swatted the blond on the back, his eyes widening slightly when the frail-looking man didn't flinch.

 

“Ya dun't look like da type ta be wurkin here. Yu're looks'll draw dem ladies, but ai know trouble when ai see it. Naw, yu wanna go ask Lenny at Da Talisman upin fourth for wurk. Tell'im Tylar sent yu. His boy pegged dis weekend, an he's ben stuck fora while now.” The burly man just smiled as the incredulous look on the younger man's face melted away. They exchanged a quick thanks, and then he was on his way.

 

Inwardly Ryo was glad the hippopotamus of a man had shown him away. He was sure that he was going to seriously maim Rose for the line of work he organized for him.

 

`Cashier at a corner market? I'm supposed to be looking for a drug syndicate and he wants me to strike up conversation with the last decent people in the area? What the hell is he thinking?'

 

It was almost painfully obvious that their esteemed commissioner was trying to wriggle his detective out of the obscurity of the case. The department wanted an officer out on the field, so he gave them one. The fact that said detective was located in the safest part of the danger zone and that his current circumstances almost guaranteed that he would have no success on this case whatsoever, didn't bother him.

 

But it bothered Ryo.

 

He was an accomplished detective, and being continually treated like spun sugar, wasn't his thing.

 

~$~

 

“FUCK OFF JJ! What in god's name did I do to fucking deserve this shit?”

 

Drake shook his head as the voice echoed down the corridor. No one even looked up anymore, but there was a new edge to Dee's voice that told of trouble.

 

He randomly grabbed a file in front of him and stretched his legs. Time to rescue JJ.

 

~$~

 

Ryo desperately tried to take his surroundings in without gawking. He was standing in quite a rundown bar with menial bullets embedded into what was once high quality wood. The glass panels behind the bar were chipped in various places, but not broken.

 

Bulletproof.

 

The Talisman was indeed odd, and he could see how barmen could become scarce. It was also the perfect place for him base his intelligence. He might not know much about drinks, but he had never been so eager to learn.

 

“What did you say your name was?”

 

Ryo turned towards a tall muscled man with a tattoo of a hawk covering one eye. “Alex.”

 

“Uh huh. Look Alex, I don't have the time to train anyone, but I'm pretty screwed here. I really need a new barman, and even though I'd prefer an experienced person, you're just going to have to train on the job. Mary is here somewhere, ask her to write up the popular drinks and whatnot. I'm gonna be in the back, I have business to attend to.” He turned to leave, but caught himself. “Oh, there ain't no such thing as free drinks this side of the cosmos. You don't fucking offer those to anyone. If you dig a chick, you buy her one, and you make sure she understands where the money came from. Got that?”

 

Ryo nodded with a raised eyebrow.

 

Mary turned out to be a skinny brat barely over the age of fourteen with way too much makeup plastered on her face. She had a sweet but sarcastic disposition, and scribbled the information required on a napkin in horrible writing.

 

“Here,” she handed him the square. She studied the face of the man before her intently for a few seconds, and then dropped the bomb that made Ryo realize just how far out of his comfort zone he was.

 

“Are you gay?”

 

~$~

 

Soft sobs disappeared into the record room where a small man with silver-purple hair clutched a file in front of his chest. He was crouched on the same spot on the floor where he realized that the file his partner sent him down to retrieve was the same file he asked him to put away. In his rush to leave the room he hadn't seen the label, and he correctly concluded the purpose of the exercise.

 

After Dee had verbally climbed into him more than usual, he had desperately needed an excuse to leave the presence of the man that was both the bane and the reason of his existence. Drake had provided that excuse in a form that kept his reputation in tact, but it was becoming glaringly obvious that his partner was smarter than he appeared to be.

 

If only…

 

~$~

 

That was the problem with undercover work. At some point in time you were bound to start over-analyzing yourself.

 

That's when you shot yourself in the foot.

 

Ryo sighed as he closed the laptop. His brain was pounding with information, and all he wanted to do was sleep. He lazily scanned the state the room was in and moaned as he pulled himself up.

 

He said he was going to clean this dump. And this looked like an ample chance. He discarded his jacket on a chair and pulled out a towel from a shabby drawer.

 

This afternoon had taught him a valuable lesson, one he was bound not to forget soon. Thankfully his mind had caught up with him and he had avoided a situation that could have potentially been dangerous. He managed to brush off his discomfort with a high-spirited, “that's the most direct way anyone's EVER asked me!” They had laughed together, and he was sure she was about to raise the issue again when they were interrupted.

 

Almost an hour of his afternoon had been dedicated to his mild crisis. The case may have called for someone with his intelligence, but it was Dee's attitude they needed.

 

He was ready now.

 

~$~

 

Dee felt crummy. Nothing helped. Not yelling at JJ, not smoking three cigarettes consecutively, not even the picture of Rose he had taped to his target while at the shooting range.

 

Nothing.

 

He had an idea that it might have something to do with the picture of Ryo he kept in his top drawer. A picture he had stared at more that often today as the reality of Ryo's absence made itself known to the subconscious regions of his mind.

 

It clicked in his head that he had no idea where Ryo was. He wondered for a while if it was because he didn't pay enough attention when Ryo shared the news, or if Ryo had told them at all. He wasn't sure.

 

Then there was the guilt. It had been eating at him all day, to the point where he had phoned Bikky's school to talk to the brat. They had made arrangements they were both semi-comfortable with, but the guilt didn't go away.

 

And lastly there was the knowledge that he had missed out on a night of hot sex with the sexiest man on the planet because of a silly argument. And he wouldn't be getting any for an undetermined time.

 

He clutched his head in his hands as his fellow detectives stared at him in sympathy.

 

Life wasn't fair.

 

~$~

 

 

 

 

 

~AN~ More action next chapter! These three chapters were meant to set the stage. (For those who haven't figured it out yet, this story is centered around Ryo. You can blame Kita and Subu for the DrakexJJ moments that slip in! They made me do it! Ahem…) I spent the day doing nothing at home, which explains the rapid update. Oh, another issue I wanna raise: I'm totally disregarding Like, Like, Love. According to me there are a few facts in there that point towards a longer waiting period before Ryo and Dee finally did the bunny thing. And two years sounds a lot better than eight, so I'm leaving it there.

 

~Me~