It’s been a long road to get here, Dee thinks. A long and winding road, with countless twists, turns, and dead ends from that first day, when Chief Smith had assigned the two-seven’s newest rookie detective as his new partner, to where they are now.

Looking back, at times it had seemed like they’d never get here, and Dee had often wondered if he was wasting both his time and Ryo’s, but despite all the many frustrations he endured, Dee knows he wouldn’t change a thing. If he’d known then what he knows now… He wouldn’t have stressed as much, but he would have followed exactly the same course.

Every step, maybe even every misstep, was necessary in order to build the relationship he and Ryo have now. If he’d done anything differently, if he’d pushed harder, backed off, dated or slept with other people, then he wouldn’t have Ryo in his arms now, maybe not even in his life. He might have driven his skittish partner away without meaning to, or even knowing he was doing it, and that doesn’t bear thinking about.

The best things in life are worth taking time over. Mother used to tell him that when he was a kid, always rushing from one new experience to another, and later from one relationship to the next. He hadn’t understood what she’d been trying to tell him back then, but he does now.

Because relationships don’t just happen, not the ones that are worth having, the life-changing ones. You have to build them, like building a house, get a solid foundation down first before you start the main construction, if you don’t want it to collapse under its own weight and take you down with it.

He and Ryo worked on their foundation of friendship, dependability, and trust for a long time, getting to know each other inside and out before taking things further. What they have is solid as a rock, rooted deep like a mountain, so that everything they’ve built since will stand the test of time, regardless of what life throws at them. They know they can count on each other, whether on duty or at home. They know when to offer a shoulder to lean on, and when to give each other some space. They know that even when they fight, which they do on occasion, beneath the anger the love is still there, steady and unshakeable. It’s what holds them together through all the ugliness they encounter in their chosen profession.

At the start, Dee had only been looking for a casual fling, had never honestly expected to find someone who fitted with him so perfectly. It had taken time for him to realise that Ryo was everything he hadn’t know he was looking for in a lover, everything he’d never found anywhere else, and now he’s won the man who owns his heart, he’s in it for the long haul, through the bad as well as the good, through sorrow and joy, through all the ups and downs of life, and he knows Ryo feels the same way.

If fate is kind, then they still have a long road ahead of them, plenty of time to do all the things they want to do, visit all the places they’ve always wanted to see, so that when they’re old and grey, they’ll have all those memories of a life well-lived to look back on, but however long they have, Dee intends to make the most of every minute, so he’ll never have any room for regrets. With that in mind, he thinks maybe it's about time he proposed. He just needs to decide on the best way to do it.


The End