Title: The Chase
Fandom: FAKE
Author:
badly_knittedCharacters: Dee, Ryo, OCs.
Rating: PG
Setting: After Vol. 7.
Summary: When the man they’re trying to arrest makes a break for it, Dee gives chase.
Word Count: 1103
Content Notes: None necessary.
Written For: Challenge 40: Launch at
beattheblackdog.
Disclaimer: I don’t own FAKE, or the characters. They belong to the wonderful Sanami Matoh.
Pounding along the bank of the East River, heading towards the Brooklyn Bridge, Dee was still maybe ten or twelve metres behind the guy he was chasing, a lowlife drug dealer responsible for the deaths of almost a dozen college students at a rave. Focussed on his target, he’d lost track of where his partner was. Ryo hadn’t been far behind him when they’d reached the river, but Dee didn’t dare look back to see where he was for fear of stumbling. The ground was uneven and one wrong step could lose him precious time, if not the whole race. It was a risk he couldn’t afford to take.
The dealer was starting to tire, and although Dee was breathing hard and feeling the burn himself, he was by far the fitter of the two and was gradually gaining ground. Hunter and prey; Dee was bound and determined to get this bastard if it was the last thing he did. By the time they hit the main span of the bridge he’d halved the distance between them. Rudy Sisco, the man he was after, must have practically been able to feel him breathing down his neck.
‘Got you now!’ Dee thought to himself, baring his teeth in a savage grin. Just a few more strides and he could slap the cuffs on the would-be fugitive. Victory was so close he could taste it.
Capturing the bastard should have been a foregone conclusion, but Dee couldn’t have anticipated what happened next. Veering suddenly to the right, his quarry clambered over the bridge’s guard railing and launched himself off the edge into the water below.
“No no no!” Dee yelled out in frustration, skidding to a halt and leaning over. He saw the splash as Sisco hit the water, and cursed. It couldn’t end like this! He couldn’t lose him, not when he’d so nearly been within reach! Without stopping to think about what he was doing, Dee followed suit, vaulting the railing and pushing off from the narrow ledge that ran along the far side of it. The knowledge that Ryo would probably kill him for this briefly crossed his mind, but he quickly set it aside in light of more immediate concerns, like the blue-grey water that appeared from his perspective to be rapidly rising to meet him.
While Sisco had jumped, hitting the water more or less feet and ass first, which had to have hurt like a sonofabitch, Dee dove into the river, cutting it like a knife, going deep and kicking back for the surface. It wasn’t the first time he’d dived from one of the bridges, he’d taken a dare as a teenager, but it sure as hell wasn’t for the fainthearted. He was a strong swimmer though, and as his head broke through into the air again he was already looking around for the drug dealer. ‘Resisting arrest, are ya? We’ll see about that.’
At about the time he zeroed in on the fugitive, who was floundering weakly in the water a few metres away, a boat came into sight, rapidly bearing down on them, but then slowing as it came alongside him, much to his relief. Dee looked up and was startled to see Ryo leaning over the side of a police launch. Oh, so that was where he’d gone. Smart guy! Ryo reached out a hand to him, which Dee grasped gratefully. After his death-defying plunge, a helping hand was more than welcome.
“What on earth were you thinking?” Ryo asked as he hauled Dee’s bedraggled, waterlogged, and aching bod onboard, where he slumped in a sodden heap on the deck, catching his breath.
“That I’d already chased him for more than three miles and there was no way in Hell I was letting him get away when I was so close,” Dee spluttered, wiping water from his face and pushing his dripping hair back out of his eyes. “Man, I’m gettin’ too old for stunts like that.”
On the other side of the launch, the river police were hauling the dealer in as if he was a fish they’d just caught. Dee pushed away from Ryo and lurched across the rocking deck to them, digging out his cuffs on the way. “Rudy Sisco, you’re under arrest,” he stated before cuffing his prisoner and reading him his rights. Rudy just sat there and shivered as a blanket was draped around his shoulders; all the fight seemed to have gone out of him, probably knocked out when he hit the water. Dee gestured to the blanket as he turned to the nearest cop. “Can I get one of those?” he asked, before trying to wring river water out of his shirt. “That water’s colder than it looks.”
“Sure thing. Y’know, you’re one crazy bastard,” the cop grinned at him. “I couldn’t believe you followed that dickhead off the bridge!”
“It was my collar; I didn’t work that hard just to see him get away. ‘Course, if I’d known my partner had got himself a boat I would’ve left the fishin’ to him,” he added, accepting the blanket he was offered and wrapping it around himself to block out the chilly wind gusting along the river.
“Nice dive though, gotta hand it to ya,” another cop added, offering his hand to Dee to shake. “I’d give it an eight, maybe eight and a half.”
“Thanks. How ‘bout my competition over there?” Dee joked.
“He gets a minus five, and he only rates that high because he managed not to drown. If we’d had to send divers in after him, it would’a been lower.”
Chuckling, Dee sat down in the stern of the launch as it turned upriver towards its mooring, one of its crew radioing ahead for transport to the hospital to get both Dee and his prisoner checked out for damage from their swim. Ryo settled beside him, their shoulders bumping.
“So, you gonna chew me out for pullin’ that crazy stunt?” Dee asked.
“I thought about it, but there doesn’t seem much point now. I’m just glad you’re okay. But please don’t do anything like that again; you about scared the life out of me.”
“Did a pretty good job of scarin’ myself too,” Dee admitted. “Looks even higher from up there. I think it’s safe to say from now on, the only divin’ I’ll be doin’ will be in the pool, where the water’s cleaner, warmer, and I can see the bottom. It’s just a whole lot safer.”
Ryo nodded. “Good. I’ll hold you to that.”
Dee grinned. He didn’t doubt it for a minute.
The End