bk_forever | FAKE Ficlet: What If...

Title: What If...
Fandom: FAKE
Author:

badly_knitted
Characters: Ryo, Dee.
Rating: PG
Setting: During and after the manga.
Summary: If Ryo had admitted his attraction towards Dee instead of hiding it, what would it have changed?
Word Count: 500
Written For: Prompt 648: Hidden Attraction at

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

Looking back, maybe Ryo should have been honest with himself right from the start. Who would it have hurt? From their first meeting there’d been no doubt in his mind that Dee Laytner was a very attractive man, good looking and charismatic, but Ryo had ruthlessly repressed the stirrings of desire he’d felt towards his new partner. Dee had still seemed aware on some level that Ryo was drawn to him, but…

“You’re delusional. I’m completely straight.”

It had been easier to deny what he was feeling; hiding his attraction to men had become such an ingrained habit with him that by the time he’d met Dee it had been automatic, a reflex action he never had to think about.

Yet throughout all his denials, the months and years they worked together as partners, the time they spent hanging out together when they weren’t working, the shared meals, and the sleepovers at each other’s apartments, the attraction had never faltered. It had only grown stronger.

If they’d remained nothing more than work partners, colleagues who got along well enough to work together effectively, maybe it would have been different, maybe the attraction could have remained hidden, unacknowledged, and largely ignored. Life was seldom that straightforward though.

He and Dee had quickly become close friends. Dee was good company, intelligent and interesting; they shared quite a few interests, and he made Ryo laugh. In their line of work a sense of humor was essential for maintaining an acceptable level of sanity. But Dee never hid the fact that he wanted more from Ryo than simple friendship. While Ryo was busy repressing his own desires, Dee did no such thing, giving him lustful looks, propositioning him, pouncing, groping, kissing, ignoring all of Ryo’s protests and objections.

It was as though Dee could see right through him, past all his defences, to the core of his being and the carefully concealed truth that lurked in the depths of his soul.

‘He’s always known me better than I know myself, always understood than I’d sealed myself in a prison of my own making, and that I’d stay trapped there forever unless he helped me break down the walls.’

Exactly why he’d always been afraid to accept the truth about himself Ryo still didn’t know for sure. Maybe he hadn’t wanted to be different, maybe he’d wanted to avoid being discriminated against. There was so much prejudice in the world, and he’d already endured enough of that, first from people who disliked that he was half-Japanese, and then, after his parents were murdered, from everyone who assumed they’d been drug-dealing criminals, and that he must be just as bad.

All those years of hiding from his own desires had been exhausting. Would things be different now if he’d admitted he found Dee attractive from the start? Probably, but would it have made anything better? He doubted it. He and Dee might’ve had an intense but short-lived fling, never developing the lasting relationship they had now.

The End