Wow, the chapters are just pouring out of me! lol Anyway, so here we are again in New York city with our heroes being harassed at every turn.. Don't get too hopeful people—it only gets worse from here (don't hurt me! dodges oncoming barrage of flying rotten fruits) So, on with the story, eh? nervous laughter
Again, to Nariel—you're my world, I'd never have gotten here without your encouragement (or your endless nagging XD)
Same warnings and disclaimers apply. Oh yeah, and the random OCs throughout this story are mine. They're not important, but they're there, and they're MINE!
Chapter 7: Good, Bad, and Ugly Press Coverage
Last time:
"I love you, Ryo," he heard Dee whisper hoarsely into his ear. "Never ever forget that, because that's all that matters."
"I know, and I promise I'll never forget," Ryo murmured, fatigue catching up to him. "I love you too, Dee. And don't you ever forget that either."
He felt Dee's cheek tighten into a smile against the side of his face. "I won't." Ryo smiled too.
Somewhere, there is a man with a camera who caught all of this on film, Ryo thought as sleep washed over his body. But I don't care. He could have filmed it all and could be sending it to the news right now and I wouldn't care, because I have Dee with me. As long as he's here, I'll be strong. I'm going to fight this bullshit, and nothing will stop me anymore. I'm in love, and I'll protect that until the day I die. He hugged Dee a little tighter, then drifted off to a very peaceful sleep.
Ryo awoke the next morning lying in his bed. He sat up, rubbed his eyes, and looked around the room for Dee, who was nowhere to be found. Ryo grabbed his bathrobe and walked out of his room to find his lost lover. When he entered the kitchen, he found Dee standing in front of the counter in his boxers, stirring the usual mountains of sugar into his coffee with a teaspoon. Ryo smiled as he sneaked up behind his oblivious partner and gave him a soft kiss on the back of the neck. Dee spun to face him, the fear and shock leaving his face when he realized who had kissed him.
"Good morning, beautiful," Dee whispered as he pulled Ryo into his arms. "How'd you sleep?"
"Great", Ryo answered, wrapping his arms around Dee's neck and tilting his head upward to receive a warm kiss. The two men stood together, embracing and kissing, for a few moments in the silence of Ryo's apartment, until the silence was broken by the sound of the front door easing open.
Ryo pulled away gently. "That'll be Aunt Elena," he whispered quietly. "We should let her in this time, I think." He kissed Dee quickly on the ear before releasing his neck and walking toward the door.
"Aunt Elena?" Ryo called, pulling the door open further. But instead of his Aunt's fretting face greeting him in the hallway, he was met by a series of bright flashes that blinded him and left spots before his eyes.
"What the hell!" Dee exclaimed as he rushed to Ryo's side by the door.
Ryo was covering his face with his hand, trying to block the barrage of flashes. Soon, however, something more disconcerting than flashes was assaulting him. Questions, dozens of them, flying at him from all directions.
"What do you want?" Dee shouted over their queries, grabbing Ryo firmly by the arm as if sure he might faint.
"Detective MacLane, is it true you've pushed Laytner away?"
"Who is the woman you were seen with two nights ago?"
"Detective Laytner, do you have any preexisting relationship with the host from Le Fin?"
"Time out!" Dee yelled, silencing the questions but not halting the clicking and whirring of the cameras or the flashing of the bulbs. "Now, who the fuck are you people, and how did you get here?"
"Ryo!"
The detectives turned at the sound of Elena's cry and watched her shove the reporters aside to get to them at the door. "Ryo! Dee! I'm sorry, they saw me on the street and recognized me somehow, then they followed me here! I didn't mean it, really!" Her eyes were welling with angry tears as she explained all this.
"It's okay, just get in here," Ryo said, more roughly than he'd meant to, as he pulled her into the apartment. He tightened his robe about his neck, then looked pleadingly up at Dee. "What do we do?"
"Go inside, I'll make them leave," Dee said, pushing Ryo into the apartment after Elena. He turned to face the reporters again, and called to all of them as loudly as he could. "Listen up, shitheads! None of us are answering any of your questions, so get the fuck out of here! I don't care who you are or where you're from, we're not talking to you!"
He turned on his heel and slammed the door in their faces.
They were all silent as they recovered from the shock of what had happened. Elena sat on the couch with her hands covering all of her face except her eyes, which were wide, gaunt, and staring into nothingness. Ryo was leaning on the bookshelf near the door for support and was breathing rather heavily. Dee leaned lightly against the front door and kept running his fingers through his raven hair. No one spoke for a long time, not until the chatter of the reporters outside had dissipated and their footsteps had retreated down the hall. Once all this criteria was met, Elena let her hands leave her face and began to speak.
"They followed me from here to Dee's apartment last night, then followed me back here this morning. I didn't know they were there until I reached the door of the building, when they surrounded me and started asking me questions. I didn't know where else to go, so I just continued on my way up here. Then they took the keys and opened the door when I wouldn't let them in. I'm so sorry." She buried her face in her hands again, covering her eyes this time.
"Why are we suddenly so important?" Ryo asked to the room. "Shouldn't they be accosting accused murderers and celebrities? Why are a couple of gay cops so fucking interesting?"
"They probably think you're corrupting America's youth or something retarded," Elena answered through her hands.
"What the fuck were they talking about?" Dee demanded suddenly. "What was all that shit about pushing me away and the restaurant guy?"
"Oh yeah…" Elena removed herself from her hands and reached into her purse. "They were asking me shit like that too, and when they did they shoved this at me."
Dee snatched the newspaper out of her hands before Ryo could get to it. He unfolded it and stared at their latest article, the headline of which ran:
Gay Cops Growing Apart—Is This the End?
"What the fuck…?" Dee said, as he scanned the article.
Infamous NYPD detectives Randy MacLane and Dee Laytner, who have been spotted many times over publicly displaying their "affection", may be pulling the plug on what has become the most shocking and scandalous affair in New York City history. While they were seen walking to a restaurant together (above)—
The article indicated a picture of Ryo and Dee walking down the street toward Le Fin, but Elena was mysteriously missing from the picture. Dee studied it for a moment and realized in horror that she had been poorly Photo-Shopped out.
—they were also seen leaving that same restaurant separately, MacLane with a woman by his side, Laytner with a young man by his. MacLane's mystery escort has been identified only by the first name of Elena, and her ties to the detective are unknown. It seems clear, however, that she and Detective MacLane are close, as shown by their lack of qualms about showing their affection in public (above inset, right).
Dee looked up at the indicated pictures. One showed Elena and Ryo walking out of Le Fin with Ryo's arm around Elena's shoulder and Elena's arm around his back. The other was of Elena leaning up to kiss Ryo on the cheek.
Detective Laytner's company was identified as a Jacob Bismark, who works in the restaurant in which the detectives were planning to dine. Detective Laytner was seen leaving the restaurant through a side door and into a back lot with Bismark, where we captured photos of what appears to be Laytner's betrayal of his commitment to MacLane (below left).
Dee found the photograph they meant, and the bottom fell out of his stomach. He saw himself standing before the host boy, leaning over him to kiss his forehead—only the angle was not aligned very well, so it looked like he was kissing the boy much lower than he actually was.
Sneaky fucking bastards… Dee thought angrily, crushing the edges of the newspaper in his clenched fists. But he read on.
The morning after the incident at the restaurant Le Fin, the detectives went to work at the NYPD's 27th Precinct. As seen in the below photos, one of the detectives has apparently brought up the subject of the Le Fin host, and neither detective looks happy about it.
The bottom center picture showed Dee explaining his theory about Berkeley Rose being behind their slander, although the computer screen was conveniently blocked by Dee's shoulder, and Ryo sitting at his desk staring at Dee, looking none too thrilled about what he was hearing. The other showed Ryo speaking to Dee, although as grainy as the picture was he looked like he was screaming at him, and Dee's face was contorted into some kind of sadness or anguish.
Are these men pushing each other away? Is life as gay men getting to them so much that they might call it all off? Only the detectives know for sure, but judging from the evidence, their fate seems clear—they are headed for disaster.
As Dee finished the article, he slumped more heavily against the door, letting the paper go limp in his hand. Ryo snatched it from him before anyone could prevent him seeing it, and he and Elena read the article together. Ryo was slightly paler than before, and Elena's hand-guard was back around her face, but they looked like they'd make it.
"I'm not putting up with this shit," Dee said suddenly, jerking Ryo and Elena from their trance. "They can't just write bullshit stories about us and expect us to take it lying down. I'm fighting this, and I'm fighting them with their own guns. These mother fuckers will be sorry they ever picked up a fucking pen by the time I'm done."
His eyes blazed with a fire he hadn't really known since the orphanage he'd grown up in was bombed. His lips were pursed, his eyes were narrowed, and his fists were shaking with rage. He looked at Ryo, who was trembling slightly, and said very slowly and clearly, "I'm taking these bastards down, but I'm not going near the sons-of-bitches unless I have you there to help me." He stared his lover down, waiting for a response.
Ryo stood without the support of the shelf and walked to where Dee was standing against the door. He leaned up to kiss his partner chastely on the lips, then looked him in the eye.
"You've got nothing to worry about, Dee, I'm with you one hundred per cent." His eyes gleamed with a strange combination of fury and playfulness Dee had never seen before. "I'll stand beside you all the way."
Dee grinned, so did Ryo, and Elena hugged them both in relief. They were fighting, resisting, and they knew in their hearts they could win.
After taking some time showering and doing other various things to get ready for work, Ryo and Dee both managed to get out of the apartment and arrive at work only half an hour late. The chief started ranting when they first got there, but after hearing about their morning rather loudly from Elena, he backed off and let them get to work with only a few "stupid asshole" remarks as they went out the door. Once inside their office, the detectives got to work while Elena busily searched every nook and cranny of the office for possible portals through which a slimy reporter might sneak a phony photo. She'd been hurt after being Photo-Shopped from the restaurant picture, and felt that if she wasn't going to be properly portrayed, no one would be portrayed at all.
The day passed by uneventfully, as Ryo filled out form after form of backed-up paperwork and Dee pretended top scribble notes into his handy-dandy detective notebook. Even the ancient kidnapping case had been passed on to what the state considered "more competent hands". As the clock started to inch toward lunchtime, Dee looked up from his phony labors to look his partner in the eye.
"Do you really think I'm crazy for suspecting Rose?" he asked after staring for a long moment.
Ryo stopped typing and sighed. "I don't think you're crazy, Dee, not this time. You seem to have thoroughly backed your suspicions up for once, but…" He removed his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "I don't know how to explain it, but I just can't see the commissioner getting into something like that, you know?" He looked his partner in the face, and saw from the corner of his eye that Berkeley Rose's file was open on Dee's desktop. "You just always seem to want to pit stuff on him, and I don't think it's fair."
"I don't want to pit stuff on him, that's just the way I see it!" Dee defended. "If you looked at this file in depth like I did, you'd see it too, Ryo."
"But you didn't stumble across that file while searching for perps with that MO, did you?" Ryo said tonelessly. "You went to Rose's file and looked for allegations connecting to us."
"And I found something! Shouldn't the ends justify the means? What if he is the guy, huh, what then? We sit and wait for him to run a bad enough story that we actually get fired?"
"No!" Ryo burst, slamming his fist on the table, scattering papers to the floor. Dee recoiled at the outburst, but stayed his ground. "I just think we need to go about this logically! If you bring this up as an actual accusation, all Rose has to do is mention that you have been against him from the start and your ass gets thrown out on the courthouse steps." Ryo frowned deeply, rubbed the bridge of his nose again, then picked up his pen. He was filling out paperwork again.
Dee waited for a moment to see if there was more. Then, upon discovering there wasn't any, he left his swivel chair to stand beside Ryo. When his partner looked up, Dee kneeled down and kissed him lightly. Ryo stared at him questioningly with his dark, Asian eyes.
"I've never liked him, I'll be honest about that," Dee whispered, as if someone was waiting behind the door of the office. "But I only didn't like him because I always knew that he liked you, and I was scared that someone like him would be more your type than someone like me." He rubbed the back of his head and looked down. "I was jealous, and scared shitless of losing you. And I still am scared shitless, Ryo, I'm scared everyday that you'll realize how unworthy I am of you and that you'll leave me. If that happened, I…" He wiped away a tear as it started to leave his eye, praying to God Ryo hadn't noticed.
Ryo took hold of his partner's chin and pulled it up to face him. He smiled. "Never be afraid that I'll leave you, because I won't. I love you more than anything, and nothing can ever change that." Dee leaned his head forward a little to receive Ryo's loving kiss, taking his hand in the process.
"Aw, you guys are so CUTE!" came a squeal from the doorway. The detectives looked up to see Elena standing in the open door. She was holding something in her hand, which she clicked quickly with her thumb. "This ought to show them, right?" She held up the device in her hand—it was a tape recorder.
"Aunt Elena, no!" Ryo exclaimed immediately. "What are you doing?"
"Getting you boys some decent press," she answered matter-of-factly. "If we intend to fight these bastards, we need something to fight with. You two talking all cute and uncensored like that will make every straight woman and gay man squirm—not to mention support you for life!"
The ancient clock in the front office weakly chimed the striking of the hour, and every desk and chair suddenly scraped as a flurry of people flew from their work to the sanctity of the outside world for lunch.
"Ready to go?" came a tired voice from behind Elena. When she turned, the voice's owner was revealed to be Drake.
"Oh, yeah, just a sec." She turned back to Ryo and Dee and asked, "You guys want to come to lunch with us? My treat."
"Hell yeah, let's go!" Dee screeched leaping up. He halted at the door and stared intently at Drake. "What are the whereabouts of a certain blue-haired fag?"
"He's with Ted, man," Drake swore, raising his hands in the air in submission. "I stuck him with someone else so I could go out with Elena, alone, but—"
"You found out she's married and therefore can't date anyone while she's out here?" Ryo cut in. Elena glared at him.
"Wha…" Drake said sheepishly, looking from Elena to Ryo in horror.
"What do you care, dude? Free lunch!" Dee said, and led the party down the hall and into the street.
The foursome went to some homey Mexican restaurante two blocks down from the precinct for lunch. They laughed and talked like friends do as they ate their food, Elena laughing and learning as she listened to Drake's war stories and Dee's complete dismissal of all of them. They were just finishing up and about to ask for the check when three people walked up to their table.
All three—two boys, one girl—were rather young, maybe nineteen tops. One boy was dressed conservatively in a plain white T-shirt and loose fitting jeans, while the other was obviously a total flamer, with a tie-dye tank top and super-skinny jeans. The girl was wearing a punked-out schoolgirl uniform complete with rips and safety pins. They were a mismatched group, but they were all, for some reason, very nervous. They pushed the flamer forward to talk to the detectives and Elena.
"Er, hi…" he said, much more timidly than he probably normally was. "I'm, I mean, we're…we were wondering if…"
"Spit it out kid, what do you want?" Dee asked sharply. He was only trying to mess with the boy, but it got him very flustered.
"Go on, Ken!" the girl whispered loudly.
"Yeah, um, we were wondering if we could…" He was still stuttering terribly.
Ryo spotted a digital camera attached to his wrist that he was playing with as he spoke.
"Do you want us to take your picture?" Ryo offered, trying to help the poor kid find his voice.
"Yeah!" he said brightly, gaining confidence as his point got across. "Well, sort of. We were actually wondering—" He looked at his friends for support, and they urged him on. "—if you would take a picture with us."
"You mean," Dee said, "you want us in the picture, too?"
"Exactly!" the girl squealed, although she recoiled again almost immediately.
"Why?" Ryo asked.
"You're the cops from the newspaper, right?" the conservative boy asked. Dee and Ryo nodded. "Well…you're kind of our heroes," the boy finished quietly.
Drake dropped his cigarette, Dee spit out his coffee, and Ryo and Elena went entirely still.
"Us?" Ryo asked, his voice barely audible. "We're you're heroes?"
"Why?" Dee asked, cleaning up his mess.
"Because," the flamer answered, "you've been so openly—" He looked around to see if anyone was looking, then finished quietly with, "gay. You've inspired us to be more open too!"
Now everyone was quiet. The kids started to look anxious, like they were losing their battle and didn't know how to regain control.
"What are your names?" Elena asked finally.
"I'm Kent," the flamer replied. "That's Kylie, and this is Jason." He pointed the girl and then to the boy, but his eye stayed on the boy far longer than on the girl.
"All right, then," Elena said, waving at each of them in turn. "So, who here is gay?" she asked boldly.
All their eyes widened. "Er, I am," Kent, the flamer, responded, "and Jason is, too. And Kylie over there's a lesbian."
"Ew, liar!" Kylie protested. "I am not! I'm—"
"Bisexual?" Dee finished for her.
Kylie stared at him in awe for a moment, then mustered, "How did you…?"
"I get that a lot too," Dee answered. He smiled at her widely and warmly. She smiled back timidly.
Ryo studied Kent and Jason for a minute, then ventured, "I don't mean to be rude, but are you two…together?" He waved his finger lightly between the two boys.
Kent looked to Jason, as though Jason was the one who usually had trouble saying it. Looking at the love in his eyes made Ryo suddenly see Dee and himself when they first started their relationship. Seeing that forced patience take over Kent's face and the pain in his eyes at he stared longingly at Jason made Ryo's heart ache for Dee and all the pain he must have gone through waiting for Ryo to come out. Ryo turned away from the boys for a moment to sneak a quick glance a Dee, who was staring intently at the boys. Ryo turned back to them, but sought Dee's hand and gave it a gentle squeeze under the table.
"Y-yeah," Jason stuttered, looking down at his feet then back up at Kent. "W-we are, yeah."
"Well that's great," Ryo said, squeezing Dee's hand a little tighter. "How long?"
Kent immediately recited what he must have practiced a hundred times, hoping he'd one day get to say it, "Two years, ten months, sixteen days!"
"Ken!" Jason whispered.
"Oh come on, that means we beat them to it, huh?" Kent was smiling ear to ear.
"Where do you want the picture?" Elena asked, breaking the subject.
"How about in the booth?" Dee suggested. "Elena and Drake can get out and the kids can sit with us. Elena, go pay, and Drake take the picture. It's perfect!" He hit the table with his fist and grinned like it was genius.
"Okay!" Kylie exclaimed, leaping into the booth as soon as Elena and Drake had cleared it so she could sit next to Dee. Once beside him, she cupped her hand around his ear and whispered "Most girls' favorite is Ryo, mine has always been you!"
"There are favorites?" Dee asked aloud. Kylie shushed him. Kent scooted in next to Ryo and Jason sat next to him.
Elena gave Drake the money to pay so she could take the picture herself. "All right everyone scoot together in the middle, that's it, now smile and say—"
"Gay any day!" Dee shouted over her lame call of "cheese!"
"Be queer, no veneer!" Kent called louder, clutching Jason's hand to his chest for the picture.
The camera flashed brightly, but everyone kept smiling long afterwards. The kids followed the detectives and Elena back to the precinct, everyone talking and laughing like old friends, even Drake and Jason. Once they reached the office, Elena decided to go off with the kids to shop and play while the three men went to work.
"Bye guys," Ryo called as he waved.
"Queer, no veneer!" Dee yelled.
The kids laughed and kept walking. The detectives continued into the precinct.
"Well," Drake claimed as they started down the hall, "that was by far the weirdest fucking lunch I ever had."
"Funny, it was the best for me," Ryo said calmly, looking up at Dee and smiling.
"Me too," Dee agreed, winking very conspicuously. "Come on, let's go to work."
Yay! Our heroes are heroes! And in case you were wondering (which I'm sure you weren't, but whatevah) the names Kylie and Jason came from the names Kyle and Jason from the book Rainbow Boys (YOU MUST ALL READ IT! YOUR GREAT FANFICTION MASTER ALEX STARR COMMANDS IT!). The other character, Nelson, wasn't used because I thought it would be too obvious, so I used Kent, the guy my supposedly-straight brother's "lover", Kent. Randomness, I know. Review review!