Chosen One

Chapter Twelve:Save Me

A story by Kelly

Kelly says: I'm sure that everyone is aware of the fact that my pen-name has been changed from Kelly to Shiozaki. I'm still me. I just felt compelled to do it because with the new priority system ff.net implemented recently, my pen-name was changed from Kelly to kelly8. How stupid is that? Hence, the change. But you can still call me Kelly. XD

Ah. . . . .about the excessive delay for this chapter. . . . . .I'm sorry?

Really, really sorry?

I really am! The major story I'm working on now, End of the Worlds, is reaching its ultimate climax so I've been focusing largely on that. . . .and the fact that I. . . .accidentally. . . .started three other stories. . . . . .But this won't happen again! I'm more than ashamed that I've been neglecting one of my most well-received stories! Over 140 reviews for only a few chapters! *Sob!* Thank you!

Review replies:

Quatorze, Missa6, lady_malynn, Xenocide, Shuichi-san, Duette, Jexia, crystal, Talon no Hentai, Nikki, Amethyst, Kiiro, tdei, Cole's lover: I am so sorry that I didn't acknowledge your reviews the last time (I was in a rush!) so here ya go! Thank you all, for your kind comments and suggestions!

Natascha: Why, thank you for your praise dear one. ^^

XZanayu: I'm afraid that just by being at home won't get dear Dee to open up. . .you will find out though, how he finally breaks down. . .poor Dee. . .how can I be so. . . .evil?

Duette: Well? Have you read my other YnM fics? *sniff*  You better. . .Hey, I think wherever there's a bishounen, it's heaven already, right? ^^

Jexia: "I enjoyed the moodiness of it all." ---what a lovely thing to say. . .*sniff* I'm touched. I like being moody. ^^

Ashura Akuma: May I say thank you for not carrying out your threat? And here I am, so many weeks late! Agh! Don't kill me!

Dee, Shuichi-san, K.firefly, crystal child, ians koibito, E-san: Hello! So many reviewers! So happy! Dance dance dance!

C-Chan: This is the first FAKE fic you actually enjoyed? . . . . .wow. . . .THANK YOU!!!

Sissy & Kody (+gang): Wow, multiple reviewers! Or is it multiple personalities? *giggle* yes, this is kinda AU. But hope you'll love it anyway. And. . . .*fidgets nervously* Have you read my YnM fics yet? Do you like it????

Kizuna, Ravensilver, starfishsama: Yosh! New reviewers! Keep your reviews coming!

A note to everyone: You know, I don't really know which one is Ted in the manga. . . .so yeah, I'm winging it here. XD

                                                          

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                                                                       I tried to kill the pain

                                                                      But only brought more

                                                                  I lay dying and I'm pouring

                                                                   crimson regret & betrayal

                                                                               I'm dying

                                                                             I'm praying

                                                                            I'm bleeding

                                                                           I'm screaming

                                                                  Am I too lost to be saved?

                                                                           Am I too lost?

                                                                    My god, my tourniquet

                                                                    Return to me salvation

                                                            ~Evanescence "My Tourniquet"~

                                                                   *********************

He didn't want Ryo to leave him alone. Being alone meant that the voices from his past would rise in an unrelenting roar, drowning out everything but the screams of the little ones, the quiet sobbing of the sisters, the anguished cries reverberating to the heavens to fall upon deaf ears. In hindsight, it became clear suddenly, why all this time, though he believed, he did not have faith.

The words were at the tip of his tongue yet his mouth stayed clamped shut.

Don't leave me alone.

Please.

I'm scared.

"Rose called a meeting for today," Ryo said quietly. "We haven't told the Mayor anything but there seemed to be a leak in the station. He says he knows we're keeping something from him. He's threatening to suspend the Commissioner, put one of his own on the case." A pause.

His long brown fingers, trembling from suppressed pleadings, refused to give up their desperate hold on the buttoned sleeve. A hand paler than his, the creamy overtones a mark of Asian descent, covered his callused fingers and squeezed gently.

"We can't afford that. If the Mayor goes through with his threat, he'll see that the All Saints case gets thrown wide open."

Refuse to stare into amber-brown eyes dulled with worry. Can't say the words he wanted. Mustn't break down.

"I have to leave the minute Bikky gets here but I'll be back as soon as possible, alright Dee?"

Unlatch the fingers. Don't look into his eyes. Mustn't break down. Mustn't. Can't afford to. If he breaks down now, he won't. . .he can't stop. He would have to tell everything.

The humiliation.

The despair.

The shame.

The grief.

He would go insane.

Long minutes spent in terse silence. He could sense the deep frustration that Ryo tried to hold back for his sake. Questions, demands burned behind the calm façade Ryo puts up but it gets past anyway. Each one unanswered stabs him for he could sense as well, that Ryo was beginning to doubt whether he was trusted enough. Whether he was worthy to be told of the horrors that plagued his every step and gnawed at his shadow.

It's not you Ryo. It's me. If I tell you what happened, you'll hate me. I hate myself already. I can't let you hate me either.

A key scraped in the lock and the door swings open. (Jake? Nononononot Jake) Bikky was back, Carol at his side and for once, the two of them didn't dash in with their usual high humour. The children were subdued despite coming back from an anticipated match. Hands laced together in shared nervousness, the hint of moisture in Carol's overly bright eyes, a muscle clenching and unclenching in Bikky's jaw, they looked older than their age and at the same time, pathetically fragile.

My fault. My fault. Everything's my fault.

A warm hand cupped his frozen cheek and a gentle thumb brushed softly across his numb lips.

"I'll be back soon, okay?"

Ryo didn't try to kiss him and for that, Dee was ashamedly glad.

Ted was by no means a romantic man. Oh, when seducing a pretty woman, he'd do the whole roses and candlelit dinners bit. When it's a good-looking guy, he can say sweet nothings with the best of them. So he wasn't a romantic man by nature. He just did what he had to in order to get the guy/girl that he wanted.

So it was a pretty bemused Ted that found himself all weak in the knees and his heart all aflutter like some lovesick heroine in a cheap, paperback Mills & Boon. All because of one kiss.

Well. . . .it's a damn good kiss, that distant corner of his brain, which miraculously retained function despite the serious tongue acrobatics going on, noted helpfully. Ted would like to remark on what a brilliant observation that was but he was hampered by the fact that the Commissioner had somehow turned him around and he was leaning against the heavy wooden desk, slowly, but surely, edging across the cluttered tabletop.

. . . . . . . .went that little voice. Berkley had positioned himself right in between his legs and his body was imagining all sorts of pleasant situations that could arise from their present predicament.

Situation A: Berkley could move his right hand, which was currently roaming all over his back, on to his thigh and run it up and down there instead. Berkley may move on to wherever he feels comfortable after that.

Situation B: Berkley could quit with all that caressing and start doing some serious unbuttoning action here.

Situation C: Berkley could stop French kissing him on the mouth and French kiss other parts of his anatomy.

Situation D: To hell with all the other situations. Berkley could just make love to him right on the desk in the goddamn precinct and he'd be happy as a clam.

There was definitely a little sigh from him when the possibility of situation D came up. His slacks were starting to feel a bit too tight and he was panting as heavily as though he had run a 5-mile trek. Who cares anyway about the fact that they were currently in Berkley's office with only thin walls and a flimsy door separating them from the rest of the station? Who cares about the fact that the door wasn't locked and that anyone could walk in on them? Who cares-

"Oh, shit!" Ted gasped and hurriedly pushed Berkley away. The Commissioner was looking more than a bit dazed and rumpled but the bewilderment was quickly turning into irritation. Apparently he didn't like being interrupted in the middle of making out. Ted was too panicky to soothe his injured pride though. He could see someone's silhouette against the frosted glass of the door.

"Someone's coming!" he hissed and tried to put his clothes in order. Berkley's eyes widened in appropriate shock and quickly made sure he was presentable as well. It was a mark of both men's experience that it took them less than 10 seconds to do that. With a last peck on the still-bruised and swollen lips of his detective, Berkley pushed Ted into the chair opposite his desk and sat down on his own leather seat.

They weren't a moment too soon as a bare second later, a diffident knock sounded on his door.

"Come-" Berkley stopped; his voice was a bit too hoarse, cleared his throat and tried again. "Come in," he called out.

The door swung open slowly to reveal a wan and pale looking Ryo. Berkley lurched forward in his seat, hands gripping the edge of his desk so tight, the knuckles were straining white against the skin.

"What happened? Is Laytner alright?" He rapped out in rapid-fire speech. He was about to go off on another tirade when Ryo held up a weary hand.

"He's fine sir," Ryo replied softly and closed the door quietly behind him. He came forward, snagging an empty chair and it was only then that he realized Ted's presence.

"Ted!" he exclaimed. "I didn't see you there. Sorry," he added.

Ted waved aside the apology and instead, concentrated on the circles beneath Ryo's eyes.

"You look like hell," he said by way of a greeting. He was rewarded with a thin smile.

"I feel like it," was the answer.

At Ryo's first assurance that everything was alright, Berkley had released his death grip on the desk, subsiding gratefully into his seat. Fingers drumming a restless, soft staccato on the polished surface of the desk which had nearly turned into a bed earlier, he shot Ted a look under hooded sea-green eyes.

"So how is Laytner?" Berkley asked, the tone a shade concerned.

Ryo sighed, running a hand through sandy blond hair which, Ted realized with a start, was slightly disheveled. Not like the man to be so.

"He's not saying anything!" Ryo burst out suddenly and slammed a closed fist on the desktop. "I know the doctor said that he probably needs therapy to ever say anything about what happened but!" he slammed his fist again, scattering some papers, "I'm his partner, goddamnit! Doesn't he trust me?! He should know that I would never hurt him or do anything that he doesn't want to and-"

Ted didn't need the prompting of another hooded glance from Berkley before he was up and pulling Ryo into a rough embrace. The tirade stopped as suddenly as it began, Ryo grasping tight onto the comforting arms as breath after shuddery breath forced its way out. Berkley thoughtfully got up, moving to a more distant corner and giving Ryo the time he needed to pull himself together. He stared blankly at some indistinct plaque hung burnished on the wall. He could hear Ted murmuring quietly, over and over to Ryo and nothing from the man himself.

At times like this, how Berkley hated being the Commissioner. How he hated being 'the one in charge'. Comfort and assurance could not be freely given even to someone as distraught as Ryo was. Not when they had that past between them as well as his title. Now, his neck burned faintly as he recalled the near-dogged persistence he had shown in trying to get Ryo into bed with him. Sometimes, he wondered whether it was actually his brain that did the thinking for him.

"Sir?" he sounded tired now, instead of desperate. Taking it as a good sign, Berkley turned, giving Ryo a small smile.

"What do you have to report Detective?" he asked briskly and was rewarded with a grateful look from Ryo. He found the note of command assuring, a constant in his world.

"Nothing much sir," he winced. "As I've mentioned before, Detective Laytner refuses to say a word." Bare hands were held before him helplessly. "I think-"

Again, he stopped, but instead of another breakdown, he was stopped by the frantic pounding on the door which itself crashed open not a second later.

"Sir!" JJ burst in, gasping. "Out front sir! The tv! News! More murder!"

The three of them practically vaulted over the still gasping JJ and rushed into the front. All of the other detectives, including the chief were clustered in a horrified knot around the battered tv set kept in the station. Pushing his detectives aside roughly, Berkley made his way to the front, Ryo and Ted following doggedly in his wake.

The flickering scene on the fuzzy tv screen brought him up short and the two crashed into him, mumbling hasty apologies. Which were cut off mid-breath.

An attractive brunette was standing in what appeared to be an abandoned building, as shown by the broken concrete slabs, with weeds pushing up through the cracks and other unidentifiable junk and debris cluttering the ground. The background was dark and fuzzy, little light filtering in through the cavernous lot from the holed roof.

"I'm inside in what used to be the All Saints Church, abandoned since the last 80's," she was saying in a brisk, no-nonsense voice. But one couldn't help but note the fine trembling of her hand which held her microphone or the faint lines of stress marring the corners of her eyes. "In the latest spree of what is now known as the Anti-Christ killings, more victims have been uncovered in this desecrated holy ground.

This scene was discovered just a little while ago and our station was tipped off. Anxious to give you, the viewers, news as it breaks, I rushed over and. . . ." she faltered, eyes blinking rapidly. Her professional mask slipped, showing her human side as her grip tightened on her microphone. "I think," she rasped out, "I think that the scene speaks for itself."

A brief nod and the camera panned away from her, focusing to the back. The bright spotlight affixed on the camera brightened the previously fuzzy scene with the fluorescent glare of artificial lighting.

As one, they gasped.

None moved or spoke as the camera panned around the scene slowly, lingering over each still body, over congealing pools of blood, over the jagged words that were screaming in 10-feet high proclamations of 'Not the Chosen One!'.

It was Ryo who finally broke the stillness.

"All Saints Church. . ." he said faintly. "Oh my god, Dee!"

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                                                                           to be continued

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A/N: Well? Hmm? Am I forgiven? Do you people still love me? You do, don't you? *whimpers* Oh, yes, if you'd like email updates for this story, please leave your email address in your reviews, ne?