FAKE Ficlet: Waiting
Title: Waiting
Fandom: FAKE
Author: badly_knitted
Characters: Dee, Bikky, Ryo, OC.
Rating: PG
Setting: After the manga.
Summary: Dee wishes he could be as free with his emotions as Ryo is.
Word Count: 500
Written For: Prompt # 446: Emotion(al) at slashthedrabble.
Disclaimer: I don’t own FAKE, or the characters. They belong to the wonderful Sanami Matoh.
Ryo is so free with his emotions that Dee often finds himself envying his partner. Not that Dee’s emotionally repressed or anything, at least no more than most guys. He smiles easily, laughs readily, and if he’s angry he doesn’t hold back. Likewise if he’s horny, which he frequently is. Even at his most oblivious, Ryo can’t fail to notice when Dee wants some loving.
But when Dee’s sad or hurting, he pastes on a smile and conceals what he’s feeling, shrugging it off in the hopes that if he acts happy, pretends nothing is bothering him, ignores the pain, his mood will change to match. Sometimes it works; mostly it doesn’t, and he wonders why he feels he has to hold the hurt inside, but that’s what macho guys like him do, right?
Yet Ryo doesn’t, and there’s nothing weak or effeminate about him. He spent years repressing his sexuality, but he cries at the drop of a hat. They see plenty of things to cry about on the job; abused children, lives cut short in dreadful ways, people left disfigured or disabled by violence… Ryo cries over all that and more, though generally not in public. When they’re on the job he’s completely professional, but later it’s a different story. He cries at sad movies too, and sometimes even when he’s happy.
Dee wishes he could cry now, but instead all he can do is sit here, eyes dry, expression blank, thinking about how his lover would behave in his place. Ryo would be distraught and crying, Dee’s sure, giving vent to the fear and dread that sit like a ball of lead in Dee’s gut, weighing him down so he doubts he could move from the hard plastic chair if his life depended on it. But Ryo’s not here; he’s in surgery after being mown down by a drunk driver. He wasn’t even on duty, was just running a few errands before their shift started, and now he’s in critical condition, with broken bones and internal bleeding, and no one can say if he’ll even survive surgery.
Beside Dee, in another plastic chair, sits Bikky. The boy’s face is as blank as Dee’s own, and he’s sure the same thoughts that are racing endlessly through his head are going through Bikky’s too. He puts his arm around the house ape’s shoulders, hugging him close, hardly recognising his own voice when he speaks, it’s so strained and hoarse.
“He’ll be okay, Biks, he’s tough, and anyway, he wouldn’t leave us, right?”
Bikky doesn’t reply, just huddles closer, needing the comfort of another person as much as Dee does.
The wait seems endless. Finally the door opens. The surgeon looks tired, but he’s smiling.
“He’s not completely out of the woods yet, but the surgery went well and the damage wasn’t as bad as we first thought,” he assures them.
The wetness on Dee’s face surprises him as the knot inside him unravels and he sheds tears of relief.
The End
Fandom: FAKE
Author: badly_knitted
Characters: Dee, Bikky, Ryo, OC.
Rating: PG
Setting: After the manga.
Summary: Dee wishes he could be as free with his emotions as Ryo is.
Word Count: 500
Written For: Prompt # 446: Emotion(al) at slashthedrabble.
Disclaimer: I don’t own FAKE, or the characters. They belong to the wonderful Sanami Matoh.
Ryo is so free with his emotions that Dee often finds himself envying his partner. Not that Dee’s emotionally repressed or anything, at least no more than most guys. He smiles easily, laughs readily, and if he’s angry he doesn’t hold back. Likewise if he’s horny, which he frequently is. Even at his most oblivious, Ryo can’t fail to notice when Dee wants some loving.
But when Dee’s sad or hurting, he pastes on a smile and conceals what he’s feeling, shrugging it off in the hopes that if he acts happy, pretends nothing is bothering him, ignores the pain, his mood will change to match. Sometimes it works; mostly it doesn’t, and he wonders why he feels he has to hold the hurt inside, but that’s what macho guys like him do, right?
Yet Ryo doesn’t, and there’s nothing weak or effeminate about him. He spent years repressing his sexuality, but he cries at the drop of a hat. They see plenty of things to cry about on the job; abused children, lives cut short in dreadful ways, people left disfigured or disabled by violence… Ryo cries over all that and more, though generally not in public. When they’re on the job he’s completely professional, but later it’s a different story. He cries at sad movies too, and sometimes even when he’s happy.
Dee wishes he could cry now, but instead all he can do is sit here, eyes dry, expression blank, thinking about how his lover would behave in his place. Ryo would be distraught and crying, Dee’s sure, giving vent to the fear and dread that sit like a ball of lead in Dee’s gut, weighing him down so he doubts he could move from the hard plastic chair if his life depended on it. But Ryo’s not here; he’s in surgery after being mown down by a drunk driver. He wasn’t even on duty, was just running a few errands before their shift started, and now he’s in critical condition, with broken bones and internal bleeding, and no one can say if he’ll even survive surgery.
Beside Dee, in another plastic chair, sits Bikky. The boy’s face is as blank as Dee’s own, and he’s sure the same thoughts that are racing endlessly through his head are going through Bikky’s too. He puts his arm around the house ape’s shoulders, hugging him close, hardly recognising his own voice when he speaks, it’s so strained and hoarse.
“He’ll be okay, Biks, he’s tough, and anyway, he wouldn’t leave us, right?”
Bikky doesn’t reply, just huddles closer, needing the comfort of another person as much as Dee does.
The wait seems endless. Finally the door opens. The surgeon looks tired, but he’s smiling.
“He’s not completely out of the woods yet, but the surgery went well and the damage wasn’t as bad as we first thought,” he assures them.
The wetness on Dee’s face surprises him as the knot inside him unravels and he sheds tears of relief.
The End