FAKE Ficlet: Anywhere With You
Jul. 10th, 2025 06:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
badly_knittedTitle: Anywhere With You
Fandom: FAKE
Author:
badly_knittedCharacters: Ryo, Dee.
Rating: PG
Word Count: 773
Setting: After Like Like Love.
Summary: Ryo has been offered a position on a new task force, but there’s a serious downside.
Written For:
sarajayechan’s prompt ‘any, any pairing, anywhere I would have followed you’ at ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
threesentenceficathon.Disclaimer: I don’t own FAKE, or the characters. They belong to the wonderful Sanami Matoh.
Job offers like this one came along once in a blue moon, and even then, only if you were lucky enough, and good enough, to catch the attention of the right people, at the right time. Ryo was obviously both, and it would be a great career move for him. He’d been offered the chance to join a new multi-national anti-terrorist task force; it was the kind of promotion no young police detective would pass up if he any ambition whatsoever, and Dee knew his partner would be great in the role. Ryo had the organisational skills, not to mention the dedication and the work ethic, to go all the way to the top, given the right opportunities, and this definitely counted as the kind of opportunity not to be missed.
The downside was that the new unit was to be based in Geneva, of all places, not just a different city but a different country, on another continent half the world away from New York, and while Ryo was being headhunted, Dee wasn’t. That didn’t surprise Dee; he’d always considered his lover a way better cop than he himself would ever be, and this just proved he’d been right all along, despite all the times Ryo had denied it.
Dee wanted his lover to do what was best for himself and his career, even if it meant moving to the other side of the world, and he’d told Ryo that whatever he decided, he’d have his full support, they’d make it work somehow. That was why he was so surprised when Ryo told him he’d turned the job down.
“Why’d you do that, doofus? It could’a made your career!”
“I know that, but as good as it sounded on paper, the price was too high. I’ve just gotten my life how I want it. I don’t want to live in Geneva; I wouldn’t know anyone, I’d be lonely, and I’d have to learn a new language, get used to new rules and regulations, pay for things in euros instead of dollars…” Ryo shook his head. “It would be too much to deal with, on top of the stress of a new job and new colleagues, and anyway, my home is here, with you, where I’m happy. No matter how good the job might be, I’m not giving up what I have here, not for anything.”
“Sure, it might be tough to start with, but you could’a handled it, you learn fast. You shouldn’t just toss somethin’ like that away for me, you gotta know I would’a gone with, if you’d taken the job.”
“I do know that, and I appreciate it, but I know you, and you would’ve been miserable; New York is too much a part of you, and you’d hate being so far away from Mother. There’ll be other opportunities, closer to home, and even if there aren’t, I still have what’s most important to me, and that’s you.”
“Ryo…”
“No, Dee, you listen to me. I made my decision, and I’m not doing this for you, I’m doing it for me. The job might have been good for my career, it would probably even have been interesting, but it I’ve learned one thing from you, it’s not to put my job ahead of what’s best for me. Work shouldn’t be everything. Yes, my career is important to me, but it’s not like I’m giving up my career by choosing not to be uprooted from my home and my life. If I was single, and if I’d never adopted Bikky, then maybe it would have been different, but that’s not the case. I have you, and my son, and the two of you are worth more to me than any job. I’m not going to make both of us miserable just to advance my career.”
“I just don’t want you to wind up regrettin’ passin’ up the chance of a lifetime, ‘cause that’s what you’re doin’.”
“I won’t regret it. I’ve though over all the pros and cons, and I’ve made an informed decision. The job isn’t for me, and that’s final. I’m where I want to be at this stage in my life and in my career.”
“And if you never get another offer like this one?”
“Then it wasn’t meant to be, and this offer was nothing but a fluke. If I really am good enough to be considered for a position like that one, then there will be other offers, and maybe one that suits me better. Until then, I’ll keep doing the best job I can, right here in New York, with the man I love.”
The End
The downside was that the new unit was to be based in Geneva, of all places, not just a different city but a different country, on another continent half the world away from New York, and while Ryo was being headhunted, Dee wasn’t. That didn’t surprise Dee; he’d always considered his lover a way better cop than he himself would ever be, and this just proved he’d been right all along, despite all the times Ryo had denied it.
Dee wanted his lover to do what was best for himself and his career, even if it meant moving to the other side of the world, and he’d told Ryo that whatever he decided, he’d have his full support, they’d make it work somehow. That was why he was so surprised when Ryo told him he’d turned the job down.
“Why’d you do that, doofus? It could’a made your career!”
“I know that, but as good as it sounded on paper, the price was too high. I’ve just gotten my life how I want it. I don’t want to live in Geneva; I wouldn’t know anyone, I’d be lonely, and I’d have to learn a new language, get used to new rules and regulations, pay for things in euros instead of dollars…” Ryo shook his head. “It would be too much to deal with, on top of the stress of a new job and new colleagues, and anyway, my home is here, with you, where I’m happy. No matter how good the job might be, I’m not giving up what I have here, not for anything.”
“Sure, it might be tough to start with, but you could’a handled it, you learn fast. You shouldn’t just toss somethin’ like that away for me, you gotta know I would’a gone with, if you’d taken the job.”
“I do know that, and I appreciate it, but I know you, and you would’ve been miserable; New York is too much a part of you, and you’d hate being so far away from Mother. There’ll be other opportunities, closer to home, and even if there aren’t, I still have what’s most important to me, and that’s you.”
“Ryo…”
“No, Dee, you listen to me. I made my decision, and I’m not doing this for you, I’m doing it for me. The job might have been good for my career, it would probably even have been interesting, but it I’ve learned one thing from you, it’s not to put my job ahead of what’s best for me. Work shouldn’t be everything. Yes, my career is important to me, but it’s not like I’m giving up my career by choosing not to be uprooted from my home and my life. If I was single, and if I’d never adopted Bikky, then maybe it would have been different, but that’s not the case. I have you, and my son, and the two of you are worth more to me than any job. I’m not going to make both of us miserable just to advance my career.”
“I just don’t want you to wind up regrettin’ passin’ up the chance of a lifetime, ‘cause that’s what you’re doin’.”
“I won’t regret it. I’ve though over all the pros and cons, and I’ve made an informed decision. The job isn’t for me, and that’s final. I’m where I want to be at this stage in my life and in my career.”
“And if you never get another offer like this one?”
“Then it wasn’t meant to be, and this offer was nothing but a fluke. If I really am good enough to be considered for a position like that one, then there will be other offers, and maybe one that suits me better. Until then, I’ll keep doing the best job I can, right here in New York, with the man I love.”
The End
(no subject)
Date: 2025-07-10 07:10 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2025-07-10 07:37 pm (UTC)Ryo has a good head on his shoulders.
Thank you!
(no subject)
Date: 2025-07-13 10:29 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2025-07-13 10:51 am (UTC)