FAKE Ficlet: Out In The Cold
Title: Out In The Cold
Fandom: FAKE
Characters: Dee, Ryo, OMC.
Setting: During the manga.
Summary: New York is in the grip of bitterly cold winter weather, but instead of being indoors in the warm, the two detectives are out meeting with an informant.
Written Using: The dw100 prompt 'Frozen'
Disclaimer: I don't own FAKE, or the characters. They belong to the wonderful Sanami Matoh.
"Damn, it's seriously cold out!" Dee flapped his arms and stamped his feet. "I'm about freezin' my ass off here!" Winter in New York was always cold, but the wind slicing through the city at present felt like it had come straight down from the arctic. It seemed to cut right through to their bones.
"Mm." Ryo shivered, hunching his shoulders and tucking his chin down into the folds of his scarf, gloved hands tucked into his armpits. He was trying to think warm thoughts of sunny beaches, hot soup, steaming showers, piles of cosy blankets, but nothing was helping. Even as bundled up against the winter weather as he was, he felt half frozen. If their informant didn't show soon, he was heading back to the car where at least he'd be out of the biting wind.
"Here he comes," Dee said, nudging his partner, and Ryo lifted his head to see Jerry struggling through the wind and snow; the small man looked even colder than Ryo felt, and a pang of guilt went through him. What right did he have to complain about the cold when Jerry didn't even have adequate clothing to protect him from the weather?
"Come on; let's get somewhere warmer," he suggested as the informant reached them, hustling Jerry along the sidewalk to a small café. Going inside, the warmth of the interior wrapped around them like a blanket, and they made a beeline for a table close to one of the radiators where they could soak up the heat and hopefully thaw out a bit before having to venture out into the cold again. Ryo ordered coffee all round, and a hot meal for Jerry.
"Thanks, guys!" Jerry grinned across the tattered Formica at the two cops; they were okay people as far as he was concerned, always willing to spring for a bite to eat on top of giving him a few bucks for information.
This time he had something really good for them; he'd heard through the grapevine that a certain low-life had been overheard boasting about knocking off several convenience stores in the area. So far during the spate of robberies one shop-owner had been killed and two others were seriously injured in hospital, so the cops wanted to catch the guy responsible before he could strike again.
"Worth a little something to ya?" Jerry asked hopefully.
"More than a little," Ryo said firmly. "There's a goodwill store down the block; how about we get you some warmer clothes for starters?"
Jerry nodded. "I'd appreciate that; times are tough right now, odd jobs are hard to come by in this weather and hand-outs have more or less dried up. Nobody wants to be outside any longer than they have to. I don't blame 'em; never known it to be this cold."
A while later, kitted out in warm, clean, second-hand clothes, and with money in his pocket for food, Jerry trudged off down the sidewalk, heading back to his crummy little room in a rundown residential hotel.
"I wish there was more we could do for him," Ryo said, climbing gratefully into their car and starting it up, relishing the warm air that came blasting from the heater vents.
"He's still better off than a lot of people. Least Jerry has a roof over his head," Dee reminded him.
"Yeah." Ryo pulled away from the kerb, thinking.
New York was home to some of the wealthiest people in the country, but not everyone was so lucky. There were far too many unfortunate souls forgotten about and left to fend for themselves out in the cold. Not all of them would survive the winter. The rich got richer while the poor got poorer. Would there ever come a day when nobody had to go hungry and cold, homeless and trying to scrape a living on the streets?
As unlikely as it seemed, he had to hope that someday things would change for the better. In the meantime, he'd do his best to help whenever he could.
Tags: dee laytner, fake, fake fic, fic, fic: one-shot, fic: pg, ficlet, other character/s, ryo maclean