FAKE Fic: Not Like Other Guys
Title: Not Like Other Guys
Fandom: FAKE
Author: badly_knitted
Characters: Ryo, Dee, OCs.
Rating: PG-13
Setting: Before, during, and after the manga.
Summary: Ryo spent a lot of time growing up wondering if there was something wrong with him.
Word Count: 1161
Content Notes: Nada.
Written For: Challenge 61: Tina Turner Song Titles at ficlet_zone, using ‘Typical Male’.
Disclaimer: I don’t own FAKE, or the characters. They belong to the wonderful Sanami Matoh.
Growing up, there were times Ryo was forced to wonder if there was something wrong with him. After a certain age, all his friends started to find girls endlessly fascinating, hanging out with them, staring at them, talking amongst themselves about who they fancied and why, not to mention bragging about how far they’d gone with this girl or that one.
Ryo did his best to show similar interest, played along, even started dating around the same time as his friends did, but all the time he was pretending an attraction he didn’t feel. Was it the same with his friends? Were they all just making everything up to fit in, or were they truly feeling something that he wasn’t?
He told himself that maybe he was just developing more slowly, or perhaps he was being pickier and hadn’t yet figured out what he found attractive in a girl. He looked at the pictures of naked women that some of his friends had managed to get hold of from older brothers, but they didn’t have the same effect on him as they did on his friends, although he pretended otherwise.
When one of his girlfriends asked why he wasn’t trying to touch her breasts, or put his hand up her skirt, like her last boyfriend had, he just smiled and said he wasn’t that kind of boy and didn’t want to push her into something she wasn’t ready for.
“I don’t want to get my face slapped like Jeff did last week. Cindy dumped him on the spot; seems to me a five-second feel wasn’t worth the consequences.”
Amy had laughed and said it was nice that there were still some real gentlemen around, that she was glad he was willing to wait until she was ready, and Ryo had simply shrugged.
“My mom raised me to respect women.” Which was true enough, but he still wondered why the typical male behaviour displayed by his peers seemed so unnatural to him.
Even when he did, eventually, have sex with a girl, it wasn’t the mind-blowing experience his friends talked about. It was awkward, uncomfortable, and he didn’t manage to finish, although that might have been because her mom had come home unexpectedly while they were doing the deed, and they’d had to stop and quickly put their clothes to rights. Good thing they hadn’t undressed completely!
The second attempt had gone better, but still hadn’t excited him the way it was supposed to. At least his girlfriend hadn’t seemed to notice anything, but she’d been as inexperienced as he was, so she’d had nothing to compare it to either.
Ryo had still felt that he was somehow missing out on something, but over time he’d come to the conclusion that he wasn’t a typical guy and simply had a lower sex drive than most, or perhaps lower than average testosterone levels. He fooled around with a few other girls, but while he found female company quite enjoyable, the physical aspect of his relationships continued to prove less than enthralling.
Then he’d met Dee, and for the first time, just being kissed was enough to set his heart to pounding wildly in his chest. It scared him; he wasn’t used to having such an overwhelming physical reaction just to being near someone, and he didn’t know what to do about it. His automatic response was to pull away, cover his panic with anger, and yet every time Dee kissed or touched him, part of Ryo, something buried deep down inside him, made him want more. He did his best to ignore it, but it was no use.
There was only one conclusion he could come to: Obviously, he wasn’t a typical guy, or at least not a typical straight guy, which was… disconcerting. Okay, so he’d known on some level that he found certain guys attractive, but growing up, if he’d thought about it at all he’d assumed that all guys felt that way and by some unspoken rule, it simply wasn’t talked about. Now that he was older, he realised that wasn’t the case, that the reason he hadn’t experienced what his friends had was that he just wasn’t turned on by the female body, and that could only mean one thing. He was…
Gay.
Perhaps that revelation should have solved all his problems, but it didn’t. He was too used to not being particularly interested in sex. He’d conditioned himself to manage just fine without it, indulging in an occasional solitary hand job, just to keep everything working properly, but not actively looking for a relationship. Being an NYPD detective and a single father took up all his time and attention. He didn’t need anything else, and anyway, sex just complicated everything.
But Dee was always there, at work, and as often as not, at home too. Ryo liked having his partner around, they were friends as well as colleagues, but then Diana had pointed out that by keeping Dee hanging the way he was he risked losing everything they had, their friendship as well as their working relationship. He needed to make up his mind whether he wanted them to remain nothing more than friends or take a chance on them becoming something more.
His first night with Dee was nothing short of an epiphany. No wonder other guys were so obsessed with sex! He’d never imagined anything could feel so amazing, and now he finally knew what he’d been missing out on his entire adult life, but he’d needed time afterwards to regroup and adjust to the discovery. Sensation overload had left him feeling curiously off-balance; he wasn’t sure he could handle another night like that and still be able to function normally, at least not right away.
A few weeks later, there was a second night with Dee that had left him physically wrecked but floating on a tide of euphoria, and after that… Ryo thought he could maybe just about handle once every two or three weeks, but Dee wanted more than that, which made Ryo wonder if they were compatible enough for their relationship to work.
It wasn’t that Ryo didn’t enjoy sex with Dee, quite the opposite; once they got started it was as mind-blowing as it had been the first couple of times, and even better in some ways. Which was sort of the problem, because Ryo liked to be in control of himself, and when Dee touched him like that, his self-control flew right out the window. Still, that was his problem to deal with, not Dee’s. It wasn’t fair of him to withhold sex just because it felt too good.
Maybe, Ryo decided, he wasn’t quite as atypical as he’d always thought. Sex was amazing, as long as you did it with the right person. Perhaps if they kept doing it, his sex drive would eventually match Dee’s and they could both be happy. Until then… Well, they’d figure something out.
The End
Fandom: FAKE
Author: badly_knitted
Characters: Ryo, Dee, OCs.
Rating: PG-13
Setting: Before, during, and after the manga.
Summary: Ryo spent a lot of time growing up wondering if there was something wrong with him.
Word Count: 1161
Content Notes: Nada.
Written For: Challenge 61: Tina Turner Song Titles at ficlet_zone, using ‘Typical Male’.
Disclaimer: I don’t own FAKE, or the characters. They belong to the wonderful Sanami Matoh.
Growing up, there were times Ryo was forced to wonder if there was something wrong with him. After a certain age, all his friends started to find girls endlessly fascinating, hanging out with them, staring at them, talking amongst themselves about who they fancied and why, not to mention bragging about how far they’d gone with this girl or that one.
Ryo did his best to show similar interest, played along, even started dating around the same time as his friends did, but all the time he was pretending an attraction he didn’t feel. Was it the same with his friends? Were they all just making everything up to fit in, or were they truly feeling something that he wasn’t?
He told himself that maybe he was just developing more slowly, or perhaps he was being pickier and hadn’t yet figured out what he found attractive in a girl. He looked at the pictures of naked women that some of his friends had managed to get hold of from older brothers, but they didn’t have the same effect on him as they did on his friends, although he pretended otherwise.
When one of his girlfriends asked why he wasn’t trying to touch her breasts, or put his hand up her skirt, like her last boyfriend had, he just smiled and said he wasn’t that kind of boy and didn’t want to push her into something she wasn’t ready for.
“I don’t want to get my face slapped like Jeff did last week. Cindy dumped him on the spot; seems to me a five-second feel wasn’t worth the consequences.”
Amy had laughed and said it was nice that there were still some real gentlemen around, that she was glad he was willing to wait until she was ready, and Ryo had simply shrugged.
“My mom raised me to respect women.” Which was true enough, but he still wondered why the typical male behaviour displayed by his peers seemed so unnatural to him.
Even when he did, eventually, have sex with a girl, it wasn’t the mind-blowing experience his friends talked about. It was awkward, uncomfortable, and he didn’t manage to finish, although that might have been because her mom had come home unexpectedly while they were doing the deed, and they’d had to stop and quickly put their clothes to rights. Good thing they hadn’t undressed completely!
The second attempt had gone better, but still hadn’t excited him the way it was supposed to. At least his girlfriend hadn’t seemed to notice anything, but she’d been as inexperienced as he was, so she’d had nothing to compare it to either.
Ryo had still felt that he was somehow missing out on something, but over time he’d come to the conclusion that he wasn’t a typical guy and simply had a lower sex drive than most, or perhaps lower than average testosterone levels. He fooled around with a few other girls, but while he found female company quite enjoyable, the physical aspect of his relationships continued to prove less than enthralling.
Then he’d met Dee, and for the first time, just being kissed was enough to set his heart to pounding wildly in his chest. It scared him; he wasn’t used to having such an overwhelming physical reaction just to being near someone, and he didn’t know what to do about it. His automatic response was to pull away, cover his panic with anger, and yet every time Dee kissed or touched him, part of Ryo, something buried deep down inside him, made him want more. He did his best to ignore it, but it was no use.
There was only one conclusion he could come to: Obviously, he wasn’t a typical guy, or at least not a typical straight guy, which was… disconcerting. Okay, so he’d known on some level that he found certain guys attractive, but growing up, if he’d thought about it at all he’d assumed that all guys felt that way and by some unspoken rule, it simply wasn’t talked about. Now that he was older, he realised that wasn’t the case, that the reason he hadn’t experienced what his friends had was that he just wasn’t turned on by the female body, and that could only mean one thing. He was…
Gay.
Perhaps that revelation should have solved all his problems, but it didn’t. He was too used to not being particularly interested in sex. He’d conditioned himself to manage just fine without it, indulging in an occasional solitary hand job, just to keep everything working properly, but not actively looking for a relationship. Being an NYPD detective and a single father took up all his time and attention. He didn’t need anything else, and anyway, sex just complicated everything.
But Dee was always there, at work, and as often as not, at home too. Ryo liked having his partner around, they were friends as well as colleagues, but then Diana had pointed out that by keeping Dee hanging the way he was he risked losing everything they had, their friendship as well as their working relationship. He needed to make up his mind whether he wanted them to remain nothing more than friends or take a chance on them becoming something more.
His first night with Dee was nothing short of an epiphany. No wonder other guys were so obsessed with sex! He’d never imagined anything could feel so amazing, and now he finally knew what he’d been missing out on his entire adult life, but he’d needed time afterwards to regroup and adjust to the discovery. Sensation overload had left him feeling curiously off-balance; he wasn’t sure he could handle another night like that and still be able to function normally, at least not right away.
A few weeks later, there was a second night with Dee that had left him physically wrecked but floating on a tide of euphoria, and after that… Ryo thought he could maybe just about handle once every two or three weeks, but Dee wanted more than that, which made Ryo wonder if they were compatible enough for their relationship to work.
It wasn’t that Ryo didn’t enjoy sex with Dee, quite the opposite; once they got started it was as mind-blowing as it had been the first couple of times, and even better in some ways. Which was sort of the problem, because Ryo liked to be in control of himself, and when Dee touched him like that, his self-control flew right out the window. Still, that was his problem to deal with, not Dee’s. It wasn’t fair of him to withhold sex just because it felt too good.
Maybe, Ryo decided, he wasn’t quite as atypical as he’d always thought. Sex was amazing, as long as you did it with the right person. Perhaps if they kept doing it, his sex drive would eventually match Dee’s and they could both be happy. Until then… Well, they’d figure something out.
The End