Fake Fan Fiction ❯ Portrait Without Sin ❯ Mind's Eye of Ryo ( Chapter 4 )

Disclaimer: FAKE, nor any of it's characters belong to me…* sigh *… those rights all belong to Sanami Matoh.

Warning: Not your 'nice' everyday fanfic of your favorite couple. Very strong language / Humiliation (depending on how you look at it) / Angst / Lime, Lemon / Yaoi

Summary: How would it be if the one person you trusted with your heart was found to have betrayed it? Seeing him there, with… 'him' was nearly more than he could bare. He never thought that he would do something like this. He never thought that he would be betrayed by him.

Yes, the character's might seem a little out of character, but then how would you react?

Take above Warning seriously.

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Italicized words or apostrophes ' ' = stressed emphasis

Bold Italicized within apostrophes 'like this' = thoughts

********** = skips of moments, time, views, and such

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Portrait Without Sin

By: Ryoan

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Part 4: Mind's Eye of Ryo (Part 1)

A lone figure sat in the muted darkness of the room, his lean body propped against the huge stuffed pillows on the bed. Unblinking eyes were trained toward the window at the view outside, as fingers unconsciously caressed the softness of the cardigan sweater that laid on his lap.

Ryo MacLean.

He sat alone; the apartment empty even of Bikky tonight. The sweater he stroked was the one that Dee had worn the day before he left, which still mildly had his lover's scent on it. It allowed him, for a time, to toy with a false impression that his partner was still around, even though he knew that not to be true.

Rich brown eyes gazed outside, as if staring at the city-darkness of the sky, but they weren't really seeing anything that was before him. No, his attention was captured somewhere deep within the reflections of his mind's eye. Blind to anything other than the scenes and images of the past couple of weeks swirling around his head.

************

He would never forget the expression on Dee's face the moment he walked in at Armon's and saw them. The shock. The pain. Everything in the world that was Dee Laytner…… shattered.

Ryo had wanted to put the pieces back together, but his dark haired lover refused any concession.

It wasn't until the fourth day after the incident, that he saw Dee again. His enraged, raven haired lover had seemingly vanished over the weekend without a single trace, and, come Monday, when he didn't show up for work, Ryo was nearly out of his mind with worry that something might have happened. What made it worse was not wanting to bring the other guys into the sordid problem. He wanted the chance to sort things out with Dee before 'the public' got wind of things, so he anxiously suffered alone, making excuses, when asked, that Dee wasn't feeling well as to his absence.

He had gone as far as to see 'Mother' about him, though. She had helped calm his fears, yet when he pressed about Dee's whereabouts, all she would say was that she was sorry that she could not help him. At lest it was something to know he was alright, if not where he was.

When Dee did appear the next day, the man completely ostracized him; burying himself beneath a pile of paperwork; working more diligently than he had ever seen him do before.

Several times throughout that day, Ryo had turned to glance over at Dee, only to see the dark head bent over the papers in strict concentration. The pencil in his hand scribbled at almost a furious pace, and from time to time, Ryo would hear a snap, then a rattle as Dee searched for another pencil to work with. Not once, during the moments that he watched his estranged lover, did those green eyes even attempt to glance over at him.

It had been nearly unbearable.

Three times he had made an effort to approach him, but every time he had started toward his desk, Dee would get up, displaying a pretense of needing something, from somewhere else, and would moved away. His attention would be directed upon whatever was in hand, and still, not once, did he cast it toward his advancing partner, not even to indicate that he was purposely doing so to avoid him.

Ryo's steps would falter to a halt as Dee moved away,…… twice out of the room completely.

At the end of the day, his alienating partner had promptly left, with a throw of his hand and only a 'See ya tomorrow, guys.' Ryo knew that his valediction wasn't meant for him.

Two days later, things still had not improved. In fact, it had gotten slightly worse. A heaviness started to settle about the office, as hours of the day dragged on endlessly. It was becoming obvious that the two of them were hardly speaking to each other, and when they did, it only concerned some matter of business. The camaraderie that was always there between them, had vanished.

The day took even more of a plummet when the afternoon rolled around, and Berkley Rose had shown up with a call for him and Dee to check out. Ryo had nearly knocked over his seat when he jumped up to take the paper with the information on it; thinking that at last, Dee would have to spend some time with him, and they would be able to talk about what happened. But his inward optimism was brought up short when Dee's voice responded, "Could you send someone else in my place?"

His eager movements became still as both he and Rose turned their heads to stare at him. Drake and Ted did also, giving Ryo a momentary glance before returning their gaze back to their other colleague.

"I have these reports that badly need finished. Maybe Ted…" He began with a directing toss of his head toward the man that stood next to the file cabinet. "…could go out instead."

An uncomfortable quietness fell upon the room, and Berkley Rose, of all people, wasn't lax in the pickup of something being wrong as well. He continued to stare interrogatingly at Dee.

"Tell me, why is it again that you……?"

Dee had managed to make it that far as nonchalantly as possible, but his bottled up tension was about to come uncorked. Ryo saw his brows narrow sharply and an angry glint come into his eyes. He was about to snap something back at the commissioner, in which Ryo had no doubt would wind up being more than anyone should hear at the moment.

With a solemn drop of his heart, he stepped in to cover. "He said he had reports to finish." He repeated Dee's excuse. "It's Ok. If Ted's not too busy, I can take it with him instead."

There was still a pause in the blonde superior beside him, and then his eyes slide piercingly over to Ryo, giving him the same silent cross-examination.

He sweat dropped as he gave Rose a false 'everything's fine' smile.

"Fine. I don't care. Just see that it gets done." The man left but not without marked curiosity of what was going on between the two.

Glancing back at Dee, Ryo saw that he had already returned his attention to the papers on his desk, as if dismissing him without thought or care.

There wasn't anything more he could do other than leave with a different, and puzzled, companion.

************

Ryo lifted the sweater up and buried his face in the soft material. He breathed the lingering scent in deeply as his mind continued with its thoughts.

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Gratefully, Ted had not pushed the issue of what was going on between him and Dee, but 'fate'… or whatever one may want to call it, did not think that his existence was bad enough yet. No, it needed to be twisted just a bit more.

After work, he had stopped at the little store that he frequented, to pick up supplies for dinner, and on his way out, he nearly collided with Armon. Instead of passing platitudes between them and parting ways, the wiry, dark haired man decided to accompanied him on his walk to Ryo's apartment.

Ryo had remain quiet, only half listening to what the other man was saying, when something beckoned him to turn his head.

Looking out into the street, his gaze locked, momentarily on the driver of the familiar looking vehicle before it drove past. Heated emerald eyes had fused with his own during that brief moment, then it was over. The car pulled away and continued down the street.

He came to a halt, watching as the car put distance between them; the tail lights flashed on as it slowed, then turned and disappeared around the corner.

"Dee." he murmured, inaudible to the man next to him.

This was not good. For him to see him with Armon…… again…… even though they had just been walking…… That brief moment of seeing those eyes looking at him…… It gave the phrase 'if looks could kill' a more truer meaning.

During the last day of work that week, he hadn't seen much of Dee at all. The man had taken off later that morning and had not came back until sometime after lunch, and even then he was in and out of the room itself.

By the end of the day, Dee had cleared away most all of the folders that had littered his desk in recent days, and had disappeared without note to anyone after taking an arm load back to be filed.

Ryo was thoroughly miserable when he slid the key into the lock of his apartment door and opened it.

As soon as he walked into the apartment, he noticed a strange feel in the atmosphere. There was something different, but giving a quick glance about the room, he couldn't put his finger on it at the moment.

The flashing of the answering machine caught his eye, letting him know there was a message waiting. Walking over to it, he noticed that there were actually two.

The nagging suspicion still plagued him, and he looked back over the room as he pressed a finger to the button of the machine. The furniture was all there including the stereo and the television……

The mechanical voice began to recite its announcement of how many new messages there were……

'Cable box……'

……and then started to play the first one. "Friday. 11:34 am."

'Bikky's play station……'

"Hey, Ryo." the light sounding voice of Armon came on. "You said your partner wouldn't be there so I took the chance in calling. I didn't know if you would remember, -- you were kind of out of it when I left yesterday -- but if things are good with you, I'd like to hook up Saturday and finish what we were doing before all the 'interruptions' the other day. I still need you." The was a very brief pause before he continued. "You still want this, don't you?" Another short pause. "You know if you need someone to… talk… to… you know where I'm at. Anytime. I'd love to have you……CLICK!"

Ryo glanced down at the unit, puzzled. That didn't seem like the normal cut off of the answering machine.

There was dead silence for a couple of seconds before the ending beep sounded. Shrugging it off, he raised his blondish-brown head, and waited for the next message.

'DVD/CD player….' He continued his intake of the room.

"Friday. 11:49 am."

The VCR was missing.

"Hey, it's me." Ryo's heart stopped beating as he held his breath, listening with anticipation to his lover's voice. The missing VCR forgotten. "If you haven't noticed already, I dropped by and gathered my things from there. If there is anything you notice that's gone that you believe is yours, just drop a note on my desk and I'll see it gets returned to you. I left anything that wasn't important, or I thought was more yours than mine, so whatever you want to do with it is fine by me. Umm… oh, yeah… that boyfriend of yours called and wants to hook up with you. You should give him a call and go out. I'm planning on doing that myself in just a few. Goodbye, Ryo, have a nice life."

About three seconds later the machine beeped.

"End of messages." the electronic voice sounded the completion of messages.

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To Be Continued………