Crash and Burn
Chapter 25 – Fighting the Shadows
Monday morning quickly rolled around and Dee found himself standing in front of the mirror, tying his tie while Ryo was out in the kitchen making breakfast. It felt strange knowing that within the hour he'd be back behind the desk he hadn't seen for over a month and the thought left him both excited and nervous. Ryo was fussing madly; wanting to make sure that he had eaten sufficiently before they reached the precinct. He'd tried over the course of the weekend to persuade Dee to work half days until he was back into the swing of things but his lover was dead set on things getting back to normal as quickly as possible.
"Dee?" Ryo called from the other room. "Breakfast's ready."
Having finished dressing, Dee took up his crutches and hobbled out of the bedroom and into the kitchen. Bicky was just about to leave as Dee entered, his schoolbag slung over his shoulder and a piece of toast jammed between his lips.
"Good luck, doofus," he managed to say, speaking around his breakfast to Dee as he sat down at the table.
"Thanks, squirt," Dee replied, watching as the boy got out his CD player and stuck the headphones in his ears. He waved at both men as he switched the player on, music immediately filling the room before he turned and left, closing the door with a bang.
"Isn't the point of those things so you can listen to music without having to inflict it on other people?" Dee asked, shaking his head as Ryo set down a bowl of cereal in front of him.
"I've told him he'll be deaf by the time he's thirty," Ryo said, returning to the counter to fetch his own breakfast.
"You told him what?" Dee asked innocently.
"I told him he'd be deaf…" Ryo paused as he realised he'd fallen for one of Dee's favourite jokes yet again. "Ha ha," he said, making a face at the other man. "Very funny, Latener."
Dee grinned as he drowned his cereal in milk. "The old ones are the best!" he chuckled.
Eventually Ryo laughed too, glad that Dee seemed quite relaxed about what lay ahead. He still seemed fairly buoyant as they drove to the precinct; Dee casually smoking a cigarette as Ryo carried out the familiar stop-start motion that came with sitting in bumper to bumper traffic. Three quarters of the way there, Ryo recalled something and smiled.
"Hey Dee," he said, turning to glance at his handsome lover, "You know that one way street that really annoys you?"
"Yeah," Dee replied, wondering exactly where this conversation was leading.
"I drove the wrong way up it."
Dee's eyes widened. "You did? When?"
"When they called me at the station and told me to get straight here because they'd got a lead on your location."
Despite it harking back to a time he'd rather not think about, Dee managed a smile. "Awww, you broke the law for me, baby? I'm really honoured!"
He leaned across and kissed his blond partner, ignoring the wide eyed stare of the young girl in the car in front.
They reached the precinct eventually, pulling into a parking space next to Drake's Celica. As Ryo turned off the ignition, he looked across at Dee who was staring out of the window as if he was somewhere totally alien.
"This is really weird," he muttered, more so to himself than Ryo who was already climbing out of the car to go around the other side to let him out.
"Yeah, I bet it feels strange being back here."
For the first time that morning, Dee's smile had a touch of nervousness to it. "Yeah… it is a bit."
Together, they slowly made their way inside. The main reception area was empty, other than Janet, the usual desk clerk who looked up from her paperwork as she heard the door open.
"Dee!" she cried, rushing around the desk and throwing her arms around his neck. "Oh my God, it's so great to see you!"
Dee smiled, finding it difficult to return the embrace with his crutches dangling from his wrists. "You too Janet, how's things?"
"Oh you know," the female officer replied, winking as she grinned at him. "Overworked, underpaid, the usual."
Dee laughed as he pushed his dark mane away from his eyes. "Well, I'll keep you in mind if I win the lottery."
"You do that," she said, patting his arm affectionately before she returned to her desk. "It's really good to see you back. See you later, guys."
The two men then took the stairs to their fourth floor office since the elevator was out of order yet again. "This is weird," Dee said, looking up at the paint-peeling stairway and shaking his head. When he didn't get a response, he glanced left to see Ryo smiling at him, his dark eyes twinkling with amusement.
"What?"
"You said that already," the blond man laughed.
Dee made a face as he reached their destination, his hand resting on the handle for a moment before he pushed the door open.
"Welcome back!" came the chorus of voices as the two men went to enter the room. Dee looked slightly startled by the sudden noise before he realised it wasn't a threat and relaxed, his face breaking into a wide grin as he saw all his immediate colleagues stood in the office surrounded by balloons and streamers. Pinned on the far wall was a huge banner with the words 'Welcome Back Dee!" emblazoned on it in large black letters. JJ immediately rushed forward; throwing his arms around Dee before the other man had chance to evade capture. "I'm so glad you're back, Dee! I've missed you so much!" he gushed, unabashedly pouring his heart out in front of his colleagues.
"I've er… missed you too, JJ," Dee replied, glancing at Ted and Drake for support.
"Easy JJ," Drake said, placing a hand on the younger man's shoulder, "Let Dee get inside the damn office."
"Sorry," JJ replied, looking genuinely contrite as he stepped back to allow Dee and Ryo past.
The dark haired detective then spotted something as he made his way around to his desk. The wooden surface of the desk was clear, his pot of pens and framed photo of him and Ryo still in place, but his eyes were drawn to the set of trays used to house his paperwork.
"Very funny guys," he said with a smirk as he eyed his 'In' tray, which was piled so high that the plastic was bowed under the weight and he couldn't see past the stack of files when he sat down.
The other men chuckled as Drake walked over to move some of the files. "Just kidding," he said with a wink. ""You're officially allowed to take it easy on your first day back."
"Not completely," JJ said suddenly, his expression slightly nervous. "Rose wants to see you in his office some time this morning."
Dee nodded before instinctively glancing across at Ryo for support. "I'm sure it'll be nothing," Ryo replied reassuringly.
Later on, Dee made his way over to Rose's office after finishing a couple of items of paperwork still outstanding from earlier cases. He hated report writing, and was almost glad that he could take a break from the arduous duty even if it was to spend time with the commissioner. Rose offered Dee a nod of greeting as the dark haired detective came to sit at his desk, discarding his crutches and easing himself into the chair.
"How you finding things?" Rose asked, pushing aside some papers and resting his elbows on the desk.
"Okay," Dee replied, nodding. "I've got enough paperwork to keep me busy until I retire but other than that…"
"You could always go on the desk downstairs," Rose suggested with a hint of a smirk, knowing how much most cops hated desk duties almost as much as paperwork.
Dee shot him a green eyed glare before Rose's expression sobered. "Look Dee, I'm sure you already know that I've been allowed to keep my job and I wanted to make sure you were okay with that."
The detective raised a sceptical eyebrow. "Could I do anything about it if I wasn't?"
"Yes you could," Rose replied flatly. "I'm on a final warning and any suggestion that I've acted inappropriately would see me out of a job before I had time to say my own name. There are certain people above me that would love to see me go and would act on any accusations without bothering to find out whether there was any truth to them first." He stopped there; letting the words hang in the air so Dee could see the power he suddenly wielded over the man he had spent a large percentage of his time disliking.
"Well I'm not like that," Dee said, his stare unwavering. "I'll admit, I'm still angry over everything that happened but it's time to move on. For my sake," he added, wanting Rose to know that he was doing it to protect his own interests.
Rose nodded, feeling once again that his attraction to Ryo might have caused him to underestimate the man he saw as his rival first, and a decent human being second. As if Dee sensed the commissioner's thoughts, he spoke as he collected up his crutches and stood from the chair.
"If you want to do anything for me, Commissioner," he said, heading for the door before he paused and turned back round. "You can stay away from Ryo and stop deluding yourself that he'll be yours one day." He didn't wait for Rose's reaction before he exited the room, pulling the glass-panelled door shut behind him.
After lunch, Dee was left alone in the office as Ryo went out to interview a witness in a shooting case with Ted. Ted's partner Marty was away on vacation so it made sense for the blond to pair up with the other man while Dee was confined to desk duties. Ryo hadn't particularly wanted to leave his lover on his first day back but Dee had assured him he would be okay, despite being fairly quiet over lunch.
His reticence, Ryo suspected, had something to do with his experience earlier on when he'd tried to find somewhere quiet to give himself his insulin. He'd ended up locked in one of the cubicles in the men's bathroom, his equipment laid out on the toilet seat as the fluorescent lights flickered overhead. As he'd left, someone had jokingly asked him if he was doing drugs in there, he'd been in so long. Dee had provided a humorous reply but the off the cuff comment seemed to have affected him more than he'd admit, Ryo had thought to himself when Dee had told him what had happened.
Tiring of paperwork, and with no one in the office to talk to, Dee decided to go and find some old case files that Rose had asked him to look up. The record stores were in the basement and Dee was relieved to find that someone had been out to mend the elevator over the course of the morning, as the thought of negotiating five flights of stairs on crutches filled him with dread. He rode the newly fixed elevator, chatting amicably with a couple of uniformed cops before they exited on the ground floor, leaving him to carry on to the basement alone.
Being nothing more than a storage area for old case files, the basement was not the most hospitable of places and despite the warm weather outside, there was something of a chill in the air as Dee left the elevator and headed towards the room housing banks of shelves and filing cabinets on the far wall. An unshaded bulb dangled overhead, the thick coating of dust causing the light to give off very little glow as Dee squinted at his list, reacquainting himself with what he was down there to find.
Afterwards, he couldn't pinpoint what it was that had started it. It might have been the unexpected noise as the old wooden door banged shut, or just the generally oppressive atmosphere that suddenly enveloped him as his mind involuntarily brought forth memories of the last time he'd been alone in a cold, dark place. His breathing escalated at an alarming rate and he found himself staggering against the cabinets as the room started to spin before him.
"Help… Ryo…" he gasped before he slumped to the floor, his chest constricting until he felt he couldn't breathe at all.
He couldn't have been out for long; mere minutes he predicted, as none of his colleagues had come looking for him. His breathing calmed although his heart continued to pound in his chest as a heavy sheen of sweat began to chill on his skin. He stayed on the floor for several minutes, reluctant to head back up and let anyone see the state he was in.
"I can cope," he said through gritted teeth, surprising himself that he had put voice to his thoughts. Who was he justifying his actions to, other than a load of dusty filing cabinets? "Get a grip, Latener," he grumbled as he hauled himself into a standing position using his crutches for support and brushed his clothes down. He spied a pile of paper towels by the door, which he made his way over to and scooped up with one hand, using them to wipe the perspiration from his face.
Over the remaining part of the day, Dee successfully hid what had happened from his colleagues, Ryo included, although the perceptive blond continued to worry that he was quieter than usual as they travelled home together. By evening, Ryo had written Dee's reticence off to fatigue, since the other man suggested that they retire earlier than usual. Even though Dee didn't speak to confirm it, Ryo felt better with a potential reason for his lover's behaviour, but his anxiety flared again sometime in the early hours when he awoke to a shout from beside him.
Gripped by the horrors of a nightmare, Dee threw himself into Ryo's sheltering embrace and stayed there until his breathing calmed and the images started to fade.
"Ssshhhhhhh," Ryo whispered, stroking the ebony head. "It's okay, love. It was just a dream."
"God…" Dee said; his eyes wide. "I've not had a dream like that for ages." He pulled away and looked up at Ryo worriedly. "Shit, I thought all that was in the past."
"It is," the blond said reassuringly, "It's probably because you're worn out after your first day back at work."
Dee seemed to mull this over before settling for his lover's explanation. "I guess…"
He allowed Ryo to pull him back down so his head rested on the blond's pale chest, their steady breathing the only sound as they lay together in the dark.
In the morning, Dee was feeling a little more optimistic. His nightmare had long since faded and if anything, he felt slightly embarrassed that he had allowed himself to get so worked up over a dream as Ryo watched him anxiously across the breakfast table.
"Maybe you should stay home," the blond said, lowering his teacup and studying Dee's handsome face. "You look tired."
"I'm fine," Dee replied, toying with his insulin before he put it in his bag and zipped it up. "Really. Don't make such a big deal."
Ryo looked wounded and held back any further comments, sensing an impending argument. "Yeah well, just take it easy," he said, standing quickly and taking his cup over to the sink so if Dee was glaring at him then he wouldn't know about it.
Dee's second day back started well enough. In the morning, most of his colleagues stayed around the office and they passed the time exchanging smart comments as they waded through the piles of paperwork that their job generated. At lunch, as Dee was returning from the men's room after checking his blood sugar levels and injecting himself with his insulin, Ted suggested that they all go out to get something to eat; a kind of celebration since Dee was back and it was rare they were all in the office together.
The group of men headed down in the elevator, laughing and jokingly arguing about where they were going to eat. As the carriage drew to a stop at the ground floor, they were instantly greeted by the sound of raised voices and a loud bang as something hit the wall beside the elevator. The men exchanged glances as the doors started to slide open, thrusting them, unprepared into the fray.
At the front desk, a large group of men were arguing with Janet and another uniformed officer who had obviously appeared to offer her some support. It was obvious that some of the men were drunk and several of them were starting to become physically aggressive as they advanced on the outnumbered desk officers. The chair, lying broken by the elevator told the detectives what the crash had been and they knew that things were getting out of hand very quickly.
"Dee," Drake said quickly as Ted, Ryo and JJ hurried past him, "Go up to first floor and get help."
Dee nodded, knowing there was little he could physically do while he was on crutches. As Drake exited, immediately squaring up to a staggering shaven headed man, Dee limped forward and pushed the button to send the elevator up to the first floor, cursing at how slowly the machinery reacted. The doors were almost closed when a hand shot through the gap and began to prise the barriers apart.
"Oh no you don't, cop," a voice growled, a full arm now through the opening. "You're not getting away; you deserve this shit!"
You deserve this shit.
Dee froze. He'd heard those words uttered with the same level of hatred by the man that had abducted him and for a split second, he was back in that tortured existence, pleading and praying for his survival against lengthening odds. The panic attack that followed was inevitable.
"Get the fuck away from me!" Dee roared before his voice deteriorated into a series of harsh, rasping breaths. Using his crutch as a weapon he swung it blindly as he collapsed against the back wall of the carriage, waiting for pain to breakthrough the barrier of dizziness and nausea as the attacker advanced on him. In his panicked state, it took several moments for the voice speaking to him to register as a non-threat.
"Dee? Dee!"
He felt hands on his face, stroking back his hair in soothing motions as he fought to regain control over his breathing. The cacophony of noise had ceased and slowly, his eyes and mind focussed, realising that the threat had now gone and in its place were his colleagues, looking down at him in concern. Crouched next to him was Ryo; dark eyes fearfully displaying his worry.
"What happened, love?" he asked, once he was certain Dee had calmed.
"I don't know," he replied, rubbing his eyes vigorously, his panic quickly replaced by a sense of awkwardness. "Guess I fell over or something."
Ryo opened his mouth to say something but stopped and nodded instead. After a while he said simply, "Maybe I should take you home."
Dee looked up suddenly; green eyes hard and defiant. "I'm fine. Besides, you're the one bleeding, not me."
Seeing the direction of his lover's gaze, Ryo reached up and touched his cheek; his fingers finding the thin trickle of blood from a scratch to the left of his eye.
"It's nothing," he said quickly, too preoccupied with Dee to worry about himself.
"Maybe you should both go home," Ted suggested, barely finishing the sentence before he was met by an irritated look from Dee.
"Guys, I'm fine. I don't need to go home. Let's go and get some lunch, okay?"
Not wanting to start an argument, the other detectives nodded, letting Dee have his way but not happy about it.
Throughout lunch and the rest of the day, Dee could feel his colleagues watching him closely and he was quiet and short-tempered as a result, growing tired of insisting that he was okay. By the following day he had convinced himself that both Ryo and his co-workers were dubious about his ability to do his job and so he threw himself into his work, barely indulging in any idle chit-chat as he wrote, processed and filed reports with uncharacteristic efficiency. When Ryo and Drake announced that they were going out to make an arrest, Dee acknowledged their departure with a wave of the hand as he faxed a pile of reports to the forensics lab. Ryo cast Drake a fretful glance as they closed the door and headed for the stairs.
"Don't worry," Drake said, placing a reassuring hand on Ryo's shoulder. "JJ's staying around the office; he'll keep an eye on him."
Ryo nodded, knowing that he needed to concentrate on work if he was to be any use to Drake as they went to make the arrest.
Several hours later, the two detectives entered the precinct, both feeling as if they'd done a week's work in a matter of hours. They'd gone to arrest the subject, who as they'd predicted, had no intention of coming quietly. He'd slipped past them, forcing Ryo and Drake to set off in pursuit, until they cornered him in an alleyway and successfully made the arrest. Muscles still burning from the chase, climbing the stairs up to their office seemed an almost insurmountable task and by the time they'd reached the fourth floor, they were both laughing at how out of breath they were.
"Shit, we're like a couple of old men!" Drake chuckled between gasps. They both paused in disbelief as the elevator doors suddenly opened and some people stepped out. Drake pointed at the now working machinery.
"Did you know…?" he started to say before they set off giggling again at the fact that they'd climbed the stairs when the elevator was working.
They were still laughing as Rose appeared out of his office, his expression one of annoyance. "Detective McLain," he snapped, glaring at the two men, "If your partner wasn't up to coming back to work then you should have tried harder to talk him out of it." He ended the conversation, giving Ryo no chance to respond before he disappeared into his own office, slamming the door behind him. Ryo turned to Drake, who looked equally confused as they headed to their own office, determined to find Dee and understand what Rose was so annoyed about.
They entered their office to find JJ sitting alone at Drake's desk, filling in some paperwork. He looked up and smiled at the two men, glad that he was no longer alone. "Hey guys, where've you been? You've been gone for hours!"
Drake rolled his eyes, not needing a reminder of how long they'd been running around. Ryo on the other hand, obviously had other concerns. "Uh, JJ? We've just seen Rose and he seems a bit mad with Dee about something. Has something happened while we were out?"
Ryo was surprised when JJ grinned and shook his head. "Rose is just pissed that Dee went on his coffee break over four hours ago and hasn't come back yet!"
The blond detective frowned. "Not come back? Where is he?"
"In the common room. He lay across some of the chairs and went to sleep. He looked so sweet; I didn't have the heart to wake him. Rose said he tried to but Dee was dead to the world."
Ryo glanced worriedly at Drake, recalling how lightly Dee had been sleeping since his abduction. Something wasn't quite adding up. A thought occurred to him and he moved around to Dee's desk, flinging open one of the drawers and pulling out the contents. When he had the small leather case in his hand, he glanced back at JJ. "In the common room, right?" he said as he headed to the door. Drake seemed to sense what Ryo's concerns were as he grabbed the blond's arm before he could leave. "D'you want me to come with you?" he asked gently.
Ryo nodded grimly as they rushed from the room, leaving JJ to stare at their retreating forms in confusion. After a moment, he stood up and followed after them.
Ryo entered the common room and found Dee exactly as JJ had described him. He was laid on his back across four of the easy chairs, his tie hanging loose around his neck as his chest rose and fell in shallow motions. His skin was pallid and an almost imperceptible sheen of sweat coated his face. After a quick glance to confirm that Drake had noticed it too, Ryo dropped to his knees in front of his lover.
"Dee?" he said sharply, shaking the other's shoulders as he'd been taught to do. "Dee, can you hear me?"
When he received no response, he grabbed Dee's diabetes kit and opened it, his fingers fumbling with the zip in his rush to find the piece of equipment he needed. There was silence although Ryo could feel several sets of eyes on him as people entered the room behind Drake. He pulled out the pen-like device and, taking up one of Dee's slack hands, used it to prick the end of his forefinger. As the droplet of blood formed at the end of the digit, Ryo manoeuvred Dee's hand so the appropriate finger rested on the blood glucose monitor held in his other hand. Depositing the droplet on the test strip he waited a couple of seconds before the monitor beeped and displayed the result.
"He's low," Ryo said anxiously, turning to look at Drake as he confirmed what they'd both suspected. "Very low."
He placed the monitor back on the floor and ran his hands through his hair as he tried to recall what he had been instructed to do in this kind of situation. "He needs sugar," he said, thinking out loud as he went back into the leather case where he knew there were some glucose tablets. His hands were shaking as he began to fumble with the packet of high energy sweets.
"No," Drake said, coming to kneel beside him. "If he's unconscious then he'll choke on them. He needs an injection of Glucagon."
Ryo turned to look at the other man; a horrified expression frozen on his handsome features. "Oh God, Drake you're right… how could I get that wrong?"
"It's okay," Drake said reassuringly as he took the equipment bag from Ryo and began to hunt around for the required medication. "You've never done this before. It's hard to remember what to do."
When he couldn't find any Glucagon, he stood and headed to the wall-mounted phone, ignoring the anxious looks from JJ and the several uniformed officers stood in the doorway. "We'll have to call for an ambulance," he said to Ryo who remained on the floor, clearly in a state of shock. "We can't do anything because he needs Glucagon. Don't worry; he'll be okay, Ryo."
Ryo watched numbly as Drake gave his name and their location to the operator before he was asked to explain what the problem was. "We have an unconscious adult male who suffers from type one diabetes. He's hypoglycaemic and we have no means to treat him. pause On its way? Thanks, that's great."
He put down the receiver and made his way back over to Ryo, inwardly cringing at the curious mutterings in the doorway. 'Did you know Latener had diabetes?' he heard someone say as he knelt beside Ryo and put his arm around his shoulders. "The ambulance should be with us in five minutes," he explained.
"Oh God, Drake," Ryo cried suddenly, covering his face with his hands. "What the hell have we done to deserve this?"
Sensing this was the straw about to break the proverbial camel's back, Drake turned to the men at the doorway. "JJ? Can you go to the front desk so you can direct the paramedics up here?"
He watched as his colleague, still wide eyed and slightly confused about what was happening, nodded before he turned around and disappeared from view, leaving several other faces still peering in curiously. "Come on guys, can you give us a little space?" Drake said, prompting them to go, closing the door behind them.
"It's okay Ryo," he said, rubbing the other man's back in soothing motions as the blond began to sob into his hands. "Dee'll be okay. Sometimes things like this just happen."
"Yeah, but they keep happening to us, don't they?"
Drake's response was delayed, keenly aware of why Ryo felt their luck was worse than most at the moment. "Hey, come on," he said, allowing the other man to cry openly on his shoulder, sensing this was the first real opportunity Ryo had had to unburden his feelings about everything that had happened.
His sobs had subsided by the time the door opened again and JJ entered, bringing with him a paramedic. Letting Ryo go from the embrace, Drake pulled the blond man with him so the emergency worker could get to Dee.
"This is Dee Latener. He's been here at least four hours but nobody realised that there was anything wrong because he hasn't told anyone about his diabetes," Drake explained, saving Ryo the job since he didn't look up to talking. "He doesn't seem to have any Glucagon so we haven't been able to do anything."
"Okay," the paramedic said, opening his equipment bag. "D'you know what his blood sugar level is?"
"Forty," Ryo said, from behind Drake, looking a little more composed despite his red eyes.
The paramedic glanced at the Ryo and nodded as he prepared the vital injection. He then unbuttoned Dee's shirt and administered the drug into the unconscious man's stomach. "Help me get him on his side," he said to Drake who was nearest. "Glucagon sometimes causes vomiting."
When they had Dee comfortable, the emergency worker turned to the two men. "Has this happened before?" he asked, keeping them occupied while they waited for the drug to take effect.
"No," Ryo replied, shaking his head. "He's only just been diagnosed."
"Okay," the medic said, seeing the other man was clearly distressed about what had happened. "I think maybe we'll take him to the hospital, just to be on the safe side since this is the first time he's gone hypo. I'll just go and get a stretcher."
He stood up and left, passing a blank looking JJ in the doorway. "Ryo? Drake?" the younger man asked quietly when they were alone. "Is Dee going to be okay?"
Leaving Ryo who was gently stroking the hair away from Dee's face, Drake straightened up and walked over to his anxious colleague. "Yeah, he's gonna be fine," he reassured. "You've heard of diabetes, right?"
JJ nodded. "But I don't really know what it is."
Drake contemplated the best way to explain. "It's a condition where your body doesn't make insulin which you need to break down the sugar in food. Dee has to give himself injections of insulin to lower his blood sugar level."
"So why's he unconscious?"
Drake shrugged. "I dunno. Maybe he miscalculated his dose and gave himself too much. Sometimes it just happens."
JJ looked haunted as his eyes brimmed with tears. "I thought he was sleeping…"
"Hey, now stop that," Drake said gently but firmly, "Dee decided not to tell anyone about his condition. You weren't to know."
The conversation ended as the paramedic returned and unfolded the stretcher. Ryo helped him get Dee on it, ensuring that his lover remained on his side in case the Glucagon caused him to be sick.
"I need to come with you," Ryo said, gripping the rail of the stretcher firmly as he gazed down at the unconscious man. "He's had a traumatic time lately and I don't want him coming round and finding me not there."
The paramedic looked at him and debated whether to argue or not, eventually conceding from the look of determination on the blond's face that it wasn't worth the effort. "Okay," he said, "We'll say it's police protection." He gave Ryo a wry smile, knowing the men's real relationship, courtesy of the recent media attention.
As they reached the front of the building, Rose appeared having heard the commotion of an ambulance arriving. "What's going on?" he said, not sure who best to address.
"Dee's ill," Drake said, allowing Ryo to pass with the paramedic before he gave into the temptation of making Rose feel bad. "He wasn't sleeping; he was in a diabetic coma. Did you not realise something was wrong when he wouldn't wake up?"
Rose looked shocked and then angry. "No, I didn't but maybe I would have if I'd known one of my detectives had a serious medical condition that could cause him to pass out."
His gaze fell upon Ryo accusingly, the expression on his face indicating that he was not at all pleased. "Go to the hospital and see he's okay," he said to him sharply. "When you get back, report to my office immediately."
Ryo nodded meekly; the fight in him all gone as he turned and headed after the stretcher.
"That was unfair," Drake said angrily, glaring at Rose once Ryo had gone. "Couldn't you see he was upset?"
"I should have been told," Rose repeated before he turned and stalked back up the stairs.
TBC…