Title: Screwed
Fandom: FAKE
Author: badly_knitted
Characters: Dee, Ryo.
Rating: PG
Setting: During the manga.
Summary: Dee’s carelessness with the office furniture comes back to bite him.
Word Count: 400
Content Notes: None needed.
Written For: Challenge 344: Screw.
Disclaimer: I don’t own FAKE, or the characters. They belong to the wonderful Sanami Matoh.



Dee had never been particularly gentle with the office furniture. He figured, it wasn’t his, so he wasn’t responsible for fixing it in the event of damage, and anyway, in theory at least, it was supposed to be robust enough to withstand everyday wear and tear.

Take his desk chair, for instance. Lately it had been getting a bit creaky, protesting when he sat down, or more usually, dropped heavily into it. Police work was both tiring and frustrating, so collapsing into the chair after several hours pounding the sidewalks, or throwing himself into it when he was annoyed, wasn’t unusual. Still, he knew maintenance would either fix or replace it if it became enough of a problem to be worth mentioning. For now, with all the frustrations and annoyances he’d been dealing with, he was getting a warped kind of satisfaction from making it squeak. Better than taking his bad mood out on a living person.

Today it had been one thing after another, from some idiot scratching his car while he was parked, to the only suspect in a high-profile homicide case having an airtight alibi, and the dry-cleaners already being closed for the day when he went to pick up his suit, even though he got there half-an-hour before its scheduled closing time. When he got back to the squad room, he stomped across the floor, yanked his desk chair back with a force that made the wheels screech, and flung himself into the seat.

It didn’t just creak this time. Instead, there was a loud crack almost like a gunshot, something pinged against the filing cabinets, rebounding to skitter across the linoleum tiles, and Dee found himself in a heap on the floor amid the wreckage.

“What the fuck!”

Ryo, who’d been following his partner, bent to retrieve something small and shiny that had come to a halt beside the trash bin. Picking it up, he turned it over in his fingers and smirked at his partner.

“I always suspected you had a screw loose somewhere; I guess this proves it.”

Extricating himself from the wreckage of his chair, Dee scrambled to his feet and dusted himself off.

“Gimme that!”

Solemnly, Ryo handed him the screw. “I think it’s going to take more than that to fix your chair.”

Dee looked at the screw, then at the broken chair, and started to laugh.

“Guess I’m screwed.”


The End