FAKE Ficlet: Shelter From The Storm

[badly_knitted]

 

Title: Shelter From The Storm

Fandom: FAKE

Author: badly_knitted 

Characters: Dee, Ryo.

Rating: PG-13

Setting: During the later volumes of the manga.

Summary: Visiting a murder scene is never peasant, but sometimes the weather makes things so much worse.

Word Count: 396

Written For: My own prompt ‘FAKE, Dee/Ryo, "I know the forecast said high winds, but this is insane!",’ at fic_promptly.

Disclaimer: I don’t own FAKE, or the characters. They belong to the wonderful Sanami Matoh.

“I know the forecast was for high winds, but this is ridiculous!” Dee shouted over the gale, hoping Ryo could hear him.

They were struggling to keep their balance, buffeted by powerful gusts, as they tried to make their way across the open area of wasteland beside the East River to where a body had been dumped.

Ryo kept trying to pull his coat tighter around him, but it wasn’t doing him any good. The bitter wind seemed to cut right through to his bones and it was all he could do to keep his teeth from chattering as he replied.

“I don’t envy the crime scene people; the wind’s going to make collecting evidence next to impossible, everything that matters has probably already been blown away, except for whatever the body might be lying on.”

They were walking side-by-side, but because of the howling gale whipping their words from their mouths, they could barely hear each other. It was hard enough to stay on their feet because of the uneven ground, so they had to keep their eyes down and watch where they stepped, but then a particularly strong gust suddenly caught Ryo mid-step, knocking him off balance and against Dee, who stumbled even as he grabbed hold of his partner, only just managing to keep them both upright.

“You okay?”

“Yeah, thanks for that.”

“Better keep well away from the river’s edge or we might find ourselves taking a swim.”

Ryo nodded, grimacing. “Not a pleasant thought in these temperatures.”

A few more minutes of battling the elements and they reached the site of the body dump. The vic looked like a street kid, late teens; a drug user judging by the track marks on his arms. But it wasn’t the drugs that had killed him; he’d been beaten to a pulp.

“No one deserves to wind up like that,” Dee said soberly as he and Ryo joined the uniforms in trying to keep the wind off the coroner, who was examining the body.

“He’s not much older than Bikky,” Ryo agreed quietly, his words coming through clearly in a momentary lull.

“Didn’t have someone like you to look out for him,” Dee replied.

“Sometimes I wish I could do more than just investigate their deaths after the fact and inform their families.”

“I know, but at least if we can find the killers we can give the families a degree of closure.”

It wasn’t much of a consolation, but that was how it usually went with murder cases. As the wind whipped itself into a frenzy once more and an icy rain started to fall, the detectives stood firm against the battering they were taking, providing some small amount of shelter in the lee of which the forensics people and the medical examiner could do their jobs. Later they’d get down to the business of finding the murderer, but for now, it was the best they could do.

The End