Title: Combustible
Fandom: FAKE
Author: badly_knitted
Characters: Ryo, Bikky, Dee.
Rating: PG
Setting: After the manga.
Summary: Ryo had thought he’d left chemistry behind when he graduated, but it’s more a part of his life now than ever.
Word Count: 400
Content Notes: None needed.
Written For: Challenge 327: Amnesty, using Challenge 114: Chemistry.
Disclaimer: I don’t own FAKE, or the characters. They belong to the wonderful Sanami Matoh.
A/N: Quadruple drabble.



Ever since high school, Ryo had considered chemistry a subject that he’d quite enjoyed at the time but never expected to have any need of in his adult life.

It was still a school subject, and one that Bikky had been close to flunking a few months ago, although he was doing better at it now despite accidentally almost setting fire to the lab on one occasion. That had been an honest mistake, according to Bikky, and the school had thankfully been willing to accept that explanation since nobody had been hurt and the boy had been so obviously shaken by the incident. Still, Ryo had offered to pay for repairs. It had been the least he could do.

He smiled slightly, remembering how contrite Bikky had been, and how worried at the thought of possibly being grounded and not getting his allowance. Although he couldn’t prove it, Ryo suspected it hadn’t been quite as much of an accident as the boy had claimed, probably a prank that had gone wrong. There’d seemed little point punishing him without proof, however, and he’d been reasonably certain his foster son had learned a valuable lesson, so he’d let it slide with a warning to be more careful in future.

When he’d graduated, Ryo had imagined he’d be leaving all things school related far behind him, but it hadn’t turned out that way. Despite his expectations, a great deal of what he’d learned in school turned out to have practical applications in the real world: math, English, and science all came in handy for a detective, and chemistry…

There was a whole lot more to that that than elements on the periodic table, and knowing which chemicals did what when combined. Not all kinds of chemistry revolved around test tubes and Bunsen burners either… There was another, physical kind, something that had to do with the way two people responded to each other, which he’d never truly understood until he’d met his partner. Dee’s very presence ignited feelings in Ryo that no one else ever had.

“You’re thinkin’ too hard again,” Dee murmured, drawing back a little to gaze down at him with smoky green eyes.

“Mm,” Ryo agreed, his smile widening. “We’ve got chemistry.”

Dee laughed out loud. “You got that right! You and me together, we set the night on fire. A combustible combination!” With that, he set about proving it.


The End