Fake Fan Fiction ❯ Fall to Grace ❯ Left Alone ( Chapter 1 )

Fall to Grace

(1/?): Left Alone

Summary: Can a love consummated in moonlight survive the harsh light of day? A series of events may force Dee and Ryo to find out.

Warnings: character deaths, violence, dark themes, language, sexual content

A/N: Set after the seventh manga. Kind of an experiment, feedback would be greatly appreciated.

You see me hanging round
starting to swear about this black hole of a dark field
and silently within hands touching skin sharp
breaks my disease and I can breathe

and all of your ways
all you dream falls on me
it falls on me
and your beautiful sky
the light you breathe
falls on me
it falls on me

-Fuel, Falls on Me

* * *

Until he was fifteen, Eel Sanchez could watch rival gang members pump slugs into one another from the window of his mother's apartment in Queens. But that was not what drove Eel to murder four men in cold blood in New York City one cold February night. No, when Ryo Maclane first looked into his blue grey eyes he knew he was an evil man. Dee Laytner knew even before then.

* * *

It was early. Too damn early for his door to be ringing. Dee Laytner hadn't woken up in his own bed in over a month, preferring the clean sheets and the warm body of his partner pressed up against him. But Ryo was in California with Bikky, checking out colleges on the West Coast and wasn't due back till Friday. Dee insisted that he stay at his old place until they returned, telling Ryo he'd just make a mess of his apartment in his absence. In truth, Dee could not sleep in the warm bed that smelled of the blonde and awaken to the stark truth that he just wasn't there.

"Godbedamned, who the hell is it?"

He threw on some sweats before getting the door, remembering Ryo's complaint that he had scared poor old Mrs. Johansen the last time he got the door in his underoos. The person that stood behind the now open door, however, was not Ryo's landlady, but a young man in his early twenties who was not, Dee concluded after a few more seconds of careful inspection, that bad looking.

"Detective Laytner?"

Dee squinted at the badge in the younger man's hands and ran a hand through his cork screw hair.

"Yeesh, I thought you were going to sell me cookies or something. You look twelve."

"Agent Marsden, CIA" the young man replied, looking very much, Dee thought, as if he were sizing him up for a coffin. "I apologize for the hour, but I have a few questions for you, may I come in?"

Dee shrugged, pushing some clutter away with his heel and gesturing for the man to enter. Ryo spent the weekend before he left cleaning up Dee's apartment, much to other man's chagrin, Dee would have preferred they spend that time in his bed.

"Ya' have to come back as soon as ya' can, a'ight?," Deetold him in an almost pleading tone, drawing the smaller body towards him. "Leave the brat in San Francisco if ya' have to." Bikky, of course, drove his booted foot through his at the statement, but Ryo merely smiled benignly and promised to call when they arrived at SFO.

Sometimes Ryo's aloof personality irritated Dee. Ryo, for the most part, acted too much as if he would get along just fine without him. Dee, on the other hand, found himself obsessing over Ryo's whereabouts whenever the man was not within ear shot of him.

Dee shook his head as if to clear it, the brown haired young man in his apartment, Marsden, eyed him strangely.

"Detective Laytner? Did you hear what I just said?"

"No, no I didn't," Dee admitted, massaging his temples with his fingertips. "Sorry, it's just...it's too damn early." In actuality, it was thirty minutes passed the time Ryo usually allowed Dee to sleep till, but Dee was not above feigning tiredness if it would get the other gentlemen out of his apartment faster.

The younger man smiled patiently, adjusting his position on the couch so that he was directly eye level with Dee.

"We have reason to believe an old associate of yours, a Mr. Sanchez, may be hiding somewhere here in New York City."

"Mr. Sanchez...I don't know a Sanchez," Dee answered, searching his memory for confirmation.

"Oh, I think you do," Marsden explained, pulling out a manila folder from his briefcase. Dee balked at the photograph inside.

"Eel..."

On the street, you tell nobody your full name, if you can even still remember what it is. Dee knew that and those that didn't, well they usually didn't last very long. Eel was a skinny kid a bit younger than Dee was who did odd jobs for the bosses on the street: selling drugs, pimping, nothing was below him. Dee had to admit that he admired the boy, he would survive if nothing else.

It wasn't until years after Penguin took him in did he begin to see what the street really turned you into and made the decision that it wasn't what he wanted. There was no one in his mind who demonstrated that quite like Eel.

"So you do recognize him?"

Dee nodded, volunteering no information. He wasn't asked any.

"We had several agents go undercover to try and infiltrate his gang and gain intel on a series of high profile assassination attempts we believe he's masterminding. Two of our agents were never heard from again and most recently the body of one was found in an alleyway in New York City with his throat slit."

There were pictures. A whole lot of them, many graphic enough to make even Dee's lead lined stomach churn.

"The Eel I knew was a lapdog. Lifting his leg and pissing in turf he knew didn't belong to him. A dog he is. A murderer, thief and grand scum of the earth definitely, but he ain't no criminal mastermind."

"He's come a long way from his roots as a street rat. He may still be a bat boy, but he's doing it in the big leagues now."

"So your boys at the agency have failed and you want me to give it go?" Dee asked, disbelief written on his face. "Invite him over for coffee, chat about old times?"

Agent Marsden again gave his most irritatingly patient smile. "No, Detective Laytner, we have something more creative in mind for you. Are you interested?"

The sound of a gunshot and a child's scream still ringing in his ears, Dee agreed readily enough. "It has to be cleared with my boss first, the precinct and such."

"All taken care of."

"So now what?"

* * *

"Moshi moshi. Maclanespeaking."

Dee found it incredibly sexy and cute the way Ryo answered the phone.

"Hey, love."

"Are you calling from a pay phone or something? I don't recognize the number."

"Uh, yeah, about that," Dee squeaked. One tended to forget how observant Ryo really was until these kinds of situations. "I'm calling from D.C."

A pause that Dee took to mean that Ryo knew he didn't mean the dining commons at the precinct.

"What are you doing there?" Ryo asked his voice full of unconcealed concern. Not that Ryo could ever real conceal anything from anyone, lest of all Dee. It was one of the things Dee loved about the man. Growing up on the street and then becoming a cop, Dee knew just how rare and beautiful sincerity really was.

"I kind of got assigned to a new case. I needed to chat with someone in Washington so I flew in yesterday."

There was an expected silence that Dee knew meant Ryo was knitting his brows, deep in thought. "Rose put you on a case with a paper trail in D.C.?"

"Uh...it's not really a NYPD case."

"Then what kind of case is it," Ryo asked calmly, stubbornly holding on to his patience.

"Apparently, someone from my hood back in the days has hit it big time. He may be up to something, you know, as in 'threat to national security' level of things."

"Dee..."

"Look, I can't really say more than that. I called because well, I love you and I miss you." And I'm about to lie to you now and I know you won't understand why, but I hope you'll forgive me anyway, Dee added silently.

* * *

"Ryo? Are you okay?" Bikky asked putting down the CSU mug he was holding in his hands to stare into the dark eyes of his guardian. Ryo, Bikky noted, had been unusually quite and reserved since his short phone conservation with Dee. If the other man had offended Ryo in anyway, Bikky fumed, unconsciously balling his hands into fists.

"I'm worried about him, Bikky," Ryo admitted freely. "He sounded distant on the phone, like he was doing an about-face and shutting me out."

"Well then, call the bastard back and I'll make him talk to you," Bikky retorted.

"I can't."

"I'll be in D.C. for at least a week, so I won't be able to pick you up at the airport like I said. Sorry, babe. You also will probably have difficulty getting in touch with me. That can't be helped. Don't call me, I'll call you."

Ryo picked up the mug Bikky put down and brought it over to the register to pay for it, idly staring at the void until his vision began to cloud over.

"Damn it," Bikky cursed. "I'll kill the pervert."