Title: Winter Trek
Fandom: FAKE
Author: badly_knitted
Characters: Dee, Ryo, Chief Smith.
Rating: PG
Setting: After Like Like Love.
Summary: There’s been an abrupt change in the weather overnight, leaving Dee and Ryo with a snowy trek to work.
Word Count: 860
Content Notes: None needed.
Written For: Challenge 318: Drop.
Disclaimer: I don’t own FAKE, or the characters. They belong to the wonderful Sanami Matoh.


The temperature must have dropped sharply sometime during the night, the light rain that had been falling when they’d gone to bed turning to sleet and then snow so that the sight that greeted them when they crept reluctantly from their cosy bed to face another day at work was a white wilderness instead of another grey and dreary day.

Dee’s jaw dropped in response. “It snowed?”

“Apparently.” Standing beside his lover, pulling his robe more tightly around his body in the morning chill of their bedroom, Ryo stared down at the snowy street with its row of white mounds along the curb that had been parked cars the night before, wondering which one they needed to dig out. “I can’t tell which car is ours.”

“Huh, neither can I. Maybe we’d be better off takin’ the subway; the main roads probably got plowed and gritted but not these side streets. I’m not spendin’ half an hour diggin’ a car out only to get stuck in a drift before we reach the end of the street.”

“Good point. We’d better wrap up warm if we’re walking to the subway.”

“I was planning on it; gumboots and extra socks too, and we should take a change of clothes with us in case we get the legs of our pants wet. No tellin’ how deep that snow is and it looks like there’s more to come.”

Ryo shivered. “Hot shower first.”

“No argument from me!”

An hour later, showered and shaved, fuelled by a hot breakfast and plenty of coffee, they bundled up in winter coats, hats, scarves, fur lined gloves, and their gumboots, slung backpacks over their shoulders and ventured forth.

“Whatever you do, don’t drop that,” Ryo warned. “There’s a flask of hot coffee in it.”

“How come you put it in my pack? Not that I’m complainin’ or anything.”

“There’s one in my pack too, just in case one gets broken, although I’d prefer to reach the precinct with both intact. It’ll save having to venture out into the snow to get a decent hot drink.”

“Good thinkin’. Okay, you ready to brave the arctic conditions?”

“As I’ll ever be.”

“Yeah, I know what ya mean. I’d sooner spend the day tucked up in bed where it’s warm.”

“Don’t think about that; we have to go to work, catch bad guys.”

“If the bad guys have any sense they’re stayin’ home in bed,” Dee muttered, closing and locking the apartment door behind them.

“Amen to that, then maybe we could stay indoors for our whole shift.”

“I could live with that.”

Trudging through almost knee-deep snow, they headed for the nearest subway station, eight blocks from their apartment. The snow had started falling again and a bitter wind gusted around them.

“I feel like an Arctic explorer,” Ryo mumbled through his scarf.

“You sorta look like one too. Look on the bright side; at least with the snow this deep it’s not too slippery.”

That was one point in the weather’s favour, although it did mean they couldn’t see where the sidewalk ended. Tripping on an invisible curb, Ryo would have face-planted in the snow if Dee hadn’t grabbed him and hauled him upright again.

“Careful ya don’t drop your backpack,” he teased.

“Oh sure; I should‘ve known it’s the coffee you’re worried about, not me.”

“Can’t I be worried about both?”

“You tell me.”

The going got a bit easier when they reached the main road where whole stretches of the sidewalk had been shovelled and gritted, but it was still a relief to make their way down the steps into the subway, where it was warmer among the crowds of people, some on their way to work and others heading home. The subway cars were packed, but for once nobody seemed to mind, squeezing in together like sardines, or Emperor Penguins huddling for warmth. Dee and Ryo clutched their backpacks to them protectively, rocking with the rhythm, almost drowsing until they reached their stop and were squeezed out onto to platform.

“Now I know how toothpaste feels.”

Ryo snorted. “Come on, we’re going to be late as it is.”

“If the old badger even tries to complain I’m gonna tell him he should be grateful we bothered showin’ up at all!”

They faced another walk of several blocks from the subway to the precinct and by now the snow was coming down harder, but at least the icy wind had dropped. They forged onwards, relieved to finally see the familiar building looming ahead of them. Stamping the worst of the snow off their boots outside before pushing their way through the doors, they plodded across the foyer, leaving a trail of melting snow in their wake, and up the stairs to the fourth floor.

They were halfway down the corridor to the locker room when the Chief came out of his office.

“What the hell are you two doing here? I sent you both a text a couple hours ago telling you to stay home!”

Dee and Ryo just stared at their boss; they’d never thought to check their phones.

You could have heard a pin drop.


The End