Fake Fan Fiction ❯ Verge of Something Wonderful ❯ Rainy Memories ( Chapter 10 )

It started to rain. Dee thought to his self that it seemed completely appropriate that it should. When it picked up, drumming sideways on the hotel window, the wind gusting hard enough to make it rattle, Dee thought it was all the more appropriate still. Let it rain. Let it come down in torrents and sheets, he was unhappy, the whole world could be unhappy with him. Dee kept his backed to Ryo facing the window, for once he wanted very little to do with Ryo and sort of wished he wasn't in the room with him. He did not feel the familiar ache and want for his pigheaded, obstinate, aggravating, partner instead it was replaced with emotions Ryo was best off not knowing about.

Dee was hurt and fuming, the fuming starting to take the lead, he was sick of this he realized. Absolutely to his gut sick of Ryo and his deliberate stupidity. He was trying here, at least the idiot could give him some credit, but noooooooooo, that was just not how Ryo rolled, now was it? To make it worse he knew, just knew, that Ryo was writing off Dee's reaction as him sulking. Fine. So he was sulking. So fucking be it, he deserved to didn't he? He'd sulk all damn night, he was sure he'd be awake to enjoy every blistering minute of it.

But Dee couldn't really stay angry at Ryo, not for long, and after awhile the cadence of rain on the glass seemed to have a more soothing effect than matching his previous anger. And he was tired, it had been a long, emotional, fucked up kinda day, and his tummy was full, overly full actually, but it was comforting to Dee to be over fed than under fed. Penguin did all she could with all she had at the orphanage and he had never exactly gone hungry but he had gone without enough and even as an adult the sensation of still being hungry when there was no way to end said hunger clung to him.

They had both been abusing the air conditioner unit in their room, turning it to the coldest setting and basking in not feeling hot or sticky. Now, in the night, with the outside temperature cooled by the rain the room seemed more cold than cool and being tucked down in the warm, thick blankets and sheets Dee found himself unwinding despite it all. It wasn't that he didn't understand, he did, he understood Ryo's fear and uncertainty all too well and maybe that was part of the problem he thought to his self.

Dee had gone through this period of his life when he was younger and it had been a relief to him to finally give into who he actually was instead of constantly worrying about it anymore. He wanted that Ryo; he wanted Ryo on the other side of the doubt and internal discord. Maybe he wanted it so much that he forgot how personal the struggle actually was and how different Ryo was from him. No matter how it panned out Ryo didn't have his personality to hide under and he didn't have a Penguin on the end that not only accepted but didn't care much in the first place.

It was the not caring part that had been important he remembered. Dee rolled over onto his back and let the memories surface. He had been scared to tell her but not so scared that he hadn't. He had believed in Mother enough to know she would still love him. His fear had been that the love would be strained, that she would love him despite his confession and that it would no longer be `Dee that she loved' but `Dee that she loved despite his sexual tendencies'. Considering the way some of his so called friends had reacted he hadn't really realized how much he had to lose at the time, his faith in Penguin still loving him had been unshakable and she had not failed him, unlike some friends that were better left forgotten.

Dee sometimes forgot that others were not so lucky to have a Penguin that loved so openly and fully. He sometimes forgot that others had more to lose than he did and that Ryo might be one of those people. He had been so much younger too, it had mattered, and it had made it easier in its own way to forge himself into the adult he had become. Dee puffed out air in the general direction of the dark ceiling over his head and felt the familiar nag of guilt creeping up on him.

Ryo had to stop his entire adult life mid track to make this change, that's why it made it easier for him not to, easier to be in denial than to have re-orientate his entire take on life and who he was. It couldn't be easy on him Dee thought but how much harder would it be to keep living his life as a lie? Could he really keep going that way his entire life? Dee didn't think he could but he wouldn't doubt that Ryo damn sure would try and waste his life away while he was at it. Mine too if I let him Dee thought ruefully to himself, pulling a face in the darkness.

Dee thought back to his first time being under someone, the first time things had gone past grasping and groping, to actual penetration. It had been with an older man, looking back on it Dee knew he had just been a fresh piece of ass for the man but he held no real regrets. He had learned a lot in that relationship and he hadn't really been under too many illusions himself at the time. It had not been love, most of Dee's relationships had been so far removed from love that it would be laughable to try and paint them in that hue just to make his memories prettier.

Dee had fallen in love a few times in his life, or what he thought was love, and it had left him feeling vulnerable. He didn't like that so he hadn't pursued that. It had been that simple, people at the precinct could talk about his rep all they wanted, he had never, ever, led anyone to his bed under the guise of love, not even as a hot, hormone riddled teenager. He got laid because he was good looking and knew he was and because people responded to his looks and his confidence. If they needed to be in love to get in the sack than they had been better off looking elsewhere, he didn't mind metaphorical notches on his bed post at all, broken hearts were another matter. Penguin had taught him better than that and he had never let her down, which was why he had not bedded JJ no matter how much the smaller man tried to get his attention. Dee had his own sense of honor and his honor would not let him take like that when he knew what it would mean to JJ.

Just like his honor had kept him from taking advantage of Ryo the night he had stumbled into Dee's arms willing to let him do whatever he wanted just to shut up the noise in his own head. Dee didn't want Ryo that way, he wanted him willingly and he wanted him to love him. Dee needed Ryo to love him because there was no way Ryo was ever going to be just a notch on his bedpost. Ryo owned Dee's heart and soul and it was Dee that would be crushed if Ryo couldn't figure this out. Dee breathed out in frustration. Ryo left him in a place where he couldn't go back and he couldn't go forward. He did not want to be JJ or Rose chasing after what they could never have and should never have. He really didn't want to believe he could be as blind as either one of them. He really didn't think he was either, Ryo had his issues to sort out but you don't let someone get away with all he had if they weren't something you wanted too.

Dee took it apart again in his mind, all of Ryo's confusing signals and abrupt stops and right turns. Beyond the issue of his age and his fear of having to come out and admit he was gay there were still other issues. Ryo had been with women. It had never worked out and that was all Ryo had ever said on the matter. Ryo's aunt had shed some light on the matter when she had taken the two of them out to eat a few months ago. Bikky had had some sort of mishap in the kitchen so Ryo had excused himself from the table to take the call outside of the restaurant they were at not wanting to disturb others with what was sure to be a long phone call. Sitting there idly waiting for him to come back Ryo's aunt had turned the conversation to her concern that Ryo was going to wind up alone in life. She had rambled on, gentle and her voice low, about the girls Ryo had been with and how many of them had left him for other men. Ryo had always been a gentleman and always well mannered with each of them, too well mannered it would seem because quite a few of them had talked to his aunt either before or after the break up, apologizing and feeling badly, wanting reassurance Ryo would be okay. Ryo had a tendency to come off as a big brother to them rather than as a potential lover or husband. His aunt had never told him any of this and swore Dee to secrecy as well. Dee had readily agreed of course, keeping an eye out for Ryo's return. He knew why the woman was telling him this, so suddenly, so out of place over plates of pasta and wine. The woman knew. She probably knew before Ryo even began to suspect which way her nephew would fall on the spectrum. She knew and she was worried he was getting in his own way (which Dee firmly knew he was.)

She had lifted bright eyes to Dee, he could still clearly see the tilt of her head and the look she had pinned him with. He remembered it because it was the look of a mother who would gut him like a fish if he hurt her baby. The last thing she had said before Ryo made it all the way back to their table, winding through the close together tables and chairs, was a fierce whisper to Dee. “Do you know the worst of it is Dee? He actually seemed relieved each time it happened. Relieved to be dumped, don't you think that's sad Dee?” And then she had gone silent. By the time Ryo reached them it was like the conversation had never been as she turned a blinding smile up to Ryo as he apologized for taking so long and resettled himself at the table, kissing her cheek before sitting down.

Turning back into his memories Dee remembered how very little time he had actually spent bottoming, it wasn't the end all and be all of gay sex anyways, but sometimes it galled him how much the world made of the act, making it more important than the sum of the people involved. It didn't matter that hearts and souls, feelings and lives, were just as much a part of being a gay man (bi his mind immediately corrected for himself) as they were being straight. No, that got kicked off to some dusty old corner of mass neglect so people could narrow it down to one man putting his penis inside another. Like if that was all it was gay men couldn't have found a way around it at their local sex shop. It was one of the more blanket gay issues he did get angry about, not out loud, not where others could hear, but in his chest it caused a tight pinched feeling that he recognized as his temper being held in check. It wasn't gay men that needed to get around it, it was straight people and the pseudo ones that couldn't man up to what they really wanted that made it that way and turned an act of either pleasure or love into a twisted fetish.

There were two types of men that tried to be straight and failed that bothered Dee, one he hated because he arrested enough of those fuckers when they finally snapped and shoved their dick into some other male that hadn't really wanted to play the bitch in their heated fantasies. Logically he knew that while they were completely to blame for their actions but part of him still wanted society to take some sort of the burden because it was society that helped to create these bastards who couldn't get around the fact that they wanted to fuck another man so even as they were slapping cuffs on them and getting the other guy into an ambulance they would still be screaming how the other guy made them do it. Just like it was demons that made some of them press dirty cash into the hands of male hookers to get their rocks off and it was never ever their fault for those dirty, dirty, things they really wanted to do. Absolutely beyond any of them that the acts aren't dirty, the people are.

Dee draped an arm over his head, the other was his poor Ryo, his poor confused, struggling Ryo. Ryo was a damn good cop but would he have been a cop had his parents not died? The answer was no. He would have been a good person, doing good deeds in another way, while living in a world that might not have reinforced quite so hard the stereotype of a masculine man. It might have made a difference for him. Dee did not like being on bottom, either figuratively or literally. Oh sure if Ryo suddenly lost his mind and felt the need to jump his bones Dee would not complain, hell he'd even bend over for Ryo if he thought it would help Ryo along, but the truth was he liked being dominant which was one of the reasons he had spent very little of his youth with men who wanted to be on top.

Ryo's problem was he was not dominant in that way and never would be. It didn't make him less of a man or a person but Dee wasn't the one who needed to be convinced, Ryo was and Ryo had grown up in a world where being a non dominant male was a big damn no, no. Dee saw the irony in that only because of the women in his life, he did not know what women thought or how they got through all the crap life threw at them, but Dee knew for sure that things were not near as cut and dried as men tried to make it. Ryo did not realize that he had his own way of being dominant and though neither of them would admit it out loud where Ryo could hear them both him and Bikky knew damn well who ruled the roost in their strange little family. Ryo did. Just like Penguin did and just like Ryo's Aunt did and there in was the problem, Ryo was hung up on what a man was suppose to be instead of just being the person he was suppose to be and Dee was pretty sure it would not help to point out that Ryo's strength was most similar to the two women closest to them in their life.

Dee laughed as soon as he thought of it because if he put it that way to Ryo right after being massively offended Ryo would be falling all over himself to find a way to say that didn't mean he thought less of women or that women couldn't be strong, just that he didn't want to be seen as a woman. And that's where it ground out, Ryo didn't want to be the `woman' in the relationship, the weaker partner or the receiving partner, the uke to Dee's seme, even though Dee didn't see him as either a woman or weak. It was kind of a shame really that Ryo and JJ weren't closer. They weren't the same personality wise but JJ was far more comfortable with himself than Ryo was and it wouldn't have hurt Ryo to have someone to talk to that knew even a little bit of what he felt. It was kinda funny if he thought about it because if Ryo thought he had it rough he should have seen what JJ had had to go through to be who he was. Unlike Ryo where people would sometimes wonder if he was or wasn't nobody ever seriously wondered about JJ. JJ couldn't blend in and Dee could remember how hard JJ had tried to blend and how hard it had been for him.

The amazing thing about the whole gay being a choice bullshit was that no one ever gave JJ a choice, no matter what he did his effeminate features and the inbuilt personality he couldn't quite cover stamped it on his forehead for the entire world to see. Those people carried their signs and their hate and demanded that people like JJ change from their wicked ways all the while the same sort of people pronounced his homosexuality on sight, often before he opened his mouth, and Dee knew they wouldn't have bought a damn word JJ might have said otherwise. That's because it wasn't a damn choice and any idiot that actually used all of his brain instead of donating half of it to spewing stupid shit about other people would know that if you can tell someone is gay just by looking at them, even if they were wearing your clothes and their hair just like yours, than it meant you knew it from something about them physically that they could not change. And if they couldn't change it then how could they have chosen? Morons. Dee had been there when JJ had had enough of trying to be what they demanded of him while denying it to him at the same time. It had been a wild time for the smaller man and Dee didn't blame him in the least for refusing to be less than who he was now.

JJ had had to fight to be who he was and he was damned if he was going to be ashamed of it now. Ryo could learn a little something from the little guy. Dee couldn't hold back the grin spreading across his face at the next evil thought that crossed his brain. He couldn't help it because one of the things Ryo could learn is that not everything is always as it seems. Dee knew what the guys at the precinct said about JJ behind his back. He knew they all assumed that JJ was a guaranteed bottom. Hell he even knew a few of them had been brave enough to admit that you know they wouldn't mind tapping that, if he had been a girl and all, even though to Dee that just translated to they really would like to tap that but were to chicken shit to try because he wasn't a girl. However, like most gay men Dee knew, JJ had a strong preference but nothing written in stone. In fact JJ had a nasty habit of leading men into bed, especially if they were bigger than him and made a big deal out of it, just so he could top them and he had no compunction about using things like alcohol to get what he wanted. Oh hell yeah Ryo could learn a thing or two from JJ, just not too much. Dee laughed quietly at some of the things only he and few others knew JJ had been up to.

“Dee?” Ryo's voice came over to him from the other bed. “You awake?” Dee slid eyes over into the darkness where Ryo was, he hadn't realized the other man was awake to.

“Yeah. I'm awake.” He answered wondering if he had woken Ryo up. There was the sound of Ryo moving around on his bed, probably pulling himself up on his elbows, Ryo had a tendency to sleep on his stomach.

“I'm sorry.” Ryo said quietly. Dee felt an eyebrow lift on his forehead. Sorry? He hadn't expected that from Ryo.

“I guess I'm sorry to.” And he really was Dee realized. He knew Ryo was going to take it bad that he knew about him being in trouble at work.

“Don't be. “ Dee rolled over towards Ryo's voice able to faintly see the outline of him on the bed. What was this all about he wondered.

“Don't be? You okay over there Ryo? “Instead of responding Ryo pushed his self upright and off the bed and came over to his bedside looming over Dee. Ryo lowered himself carefully to the bed and reaching out a hand to touch the side of Dee's face.

“Ryo? Are you okay?” Dee reached up to the hand on his face and took it in his own. This was definitely strange behavior for Ryo, maybe this case and that stupid haunted house were really getting to him. “Ryo?” He asked again concern coloring his voice.

“I'm okay. Sorry. Just got a lot on my mind is all and I can't sleep. Dee, can I ask a favor?” Ryo's voice drifted out the dark sounding lost and unsure.

“Sure, anything you want babe, you know that.” Dee responded immediately. Ryo's fingers curled in his.

“Can I sleep with you tonight, you know, just sleep?” Ryo asked quietly, almost pleadingly. Dee blinked; Ryo could sleep with him every night as far as he was concerned. Dee slid over in the bed making room and opening up the covers for Ryo. Ryo climbed in and pressed against him immediately.

“Ryo are you sure you are okay? You're acting awfully strange. You're not sick are you?” Dee pressed more than a little alarmed at Ryo's behavior. Ryo shook his head no against Dee's chest.

“I'm fine Dee. I've just been thinking.” He replied, his arm reaching out to wrap around Dee and keep him close.

“Oh, you worried about the case?” Dee asked, maybe he'd been up unable to sleep because he was still freaked out from earlier. Dee knew he was.

“Huh?” Ryo asked before his brain apparently made sense of the question. “Oh, no. Nothing like that Dee.”

“What was it then?” Dee asked him quietly, sliding one arm around Ryo so that they were holding each other, his legs rubbing against and hooking over Ryo's.

“Us.” Ryo said snuggling closer. Dee held his breath afraid to say anything else. Ryo could be cryptic at the worst damn times and that reply could be either good or bad when it came to Ryo. Before Dee could work up the nerve to say something either way Ryo continued on, his tone thoughtful and far away. “I think I've been driving myself crazy and trying to blame you for it. I don't want to talk about it right now, can't you just hold me?”

Dee held him tighter, that he could certainly do, yes sir. He dropped a very chaste kiss on top of Ryo's head. Whatever was in the man's head could be pried out later. The rain continued to pummel against the room, the room continued to be too cold, which was just right for snuggling under warm blankets and even better for snuggling with a warm body against his own, so that's just what Dee did.