JMDC Challenge 163 - Drowning in work

[m_findlow]

Title: Drowning in work
Fandom: FAKE
Characters: Dee, Ryo, Bikky, Carol, Ted, Drake, JJ, The Chief
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 1,733 words
Content notes: Any canon or character flaws are mine. A one-off fandom favour returned.
Author notes: Written for enchanted_jae's JMDC Challenge 163 - Storm.
Summary: New York's storm of the decade is causing problems down at the station.

Dee huffed loudly as he threw himself up and out of the chair, beginning to pace around the small room. 'We were meant to be getting nice new digs, not this crappy, hand me down, arse end of the earth, dump of a place,' he complained.

Ryo set his own down and considered his partner. 'You complained about the old 27th precinct, then you complained about having to share offices in the Bronx, and now you're whinging about our new office.'

'Ryo, this ain't new. It's just another way the mayor's office avoids spending any money on the police department. Don't they understand how hard we work to protect this city from criminal lowlifes?'

'It's still an improvement on what we had.'

Dee kicked the wall with the point of his shoe, watching as another fleck of paint fell off. He snorted. 'If you say so.'

Ryo leaned an elbow on the desk and gazed out the window. 'Would you just take a look at those storm clouds out there, Dee. Looks like the predictions for a decent downpour might actually be sooner than we thought. Lucky we have plenty of paperwork here to catch up on.'  

Dee squinted his eyes as he pulled down the dusty venetian blind with a finger to get a better look. 'Storm schmorm. The weatherman never gets it right. And who thinks there's anything good about paperwork, huh? Give me a case pounding the pavements any day. Even being a beat cop would be better than this.'

'It can be arranged, Laytner, you sorry excuse for a Detective!'

Dee spun at the gravelly voice. 'Chief! Hi!' He gave a little wave. 'I was just offering to help Ryo with his little backlog of reports.'

'Uh huh,' the Chief replied deadpan, all the while thinking "sure you were, you lazy piece of shit. And I'm the goddamn tooth fairy". 'I'm sure MacLean will really appreciate you helping out.'

'Heh heh,' Dee laughed nervously, gripping the back of his neck. 'He sure will,' Dee replied, watching the Chief turn and leave, slamming the door behind him. 'Slave driver.'

'That was nice of you to offer to help me,' Ryo quipped, smirking at his partner.

Dee sank back into the battered leather swivel chair, setting his feet up on the desk and sighed. 'Har har.' He leaned his head back so it was almost horizontal, watching Ryo flipping through files and making notes. He could watch Ryo all day long, even if what he was doing was boring. Things could be worse, he supposed.

The door flew open. 'Quit staring at him like that you pervert!'

Dee's chair went out from under him, leaving him suddenly sprawled on the floor, bruised and slightly stunned. 'Argh! Bikky! You stinking little ape!'

Bikky sat on top of him, grabbing his leg and pulling it backwards. 'Better an ape that a sleaze bag like you! I saw the way you were looking at Ryo.'

'Hi, Ryo!' Carol said, waving and beaming at him whilst the pair of them continued their fight on the floor. She set her backpack down next to his desk and hopped up to sit on the edge of it.

'Hey, Carol,' Ryo replied. 'Did you guys have a good day at school?'

'You little scum!' Dee cried, grabbing a fistful of Bikky's hair and yanking it hard. 'Get off me. Argh! What are you even doing here?'

'Ryo told us to stop by the station on our way back from school if it looked like the storm was gonna hit early. Didn't wanna walk all the way home in the rain. We can get a lift with Ryo in his car when you guys finish your shift.'

'It really looks like it's gonna come down any minute out there,' Carol added. 'We'd have been soaked.'

Dee finally threw Bikky off, giving him a death glare. 'How generous of you to offer, Ryo,' he seethed. If he'd been thinking they might grab some dinner after their shift, it was now looking far less likely. 'So, we're stuck with you brats all afternoon now, huh?'

Bikky grinned, helping himself to Dee's chair, setting his feet up on the desk much like Dee had been just a few moments ago. 'Someone has to keep an eye on you to make sure you behave.'

Dee balled his hand up into a fist. 'We have work to do. This isn't a creche, or maybe a zoo in your case.'

'Bite me, Dee.'

'No thanks. I wouldn't wanna catch rabies.'

Carol perched herself forward on Ryo desk, folding one long leg over the other. 'Any interesting cases you're working on, Ryo?'

'Just tidying up loose ends at the moment. But we did just wrap up an interesting case of counterfeit money printing last week.'

'Ooh! Did you catch the guys doing the counterfeiting? Were they absolutely loaded with fake money?'

He smiled at her. 'You bet we did.'

Carole beamed and leaned closer. 'You're my hero, Ryo.'

Bikky's face fell, trying to suppress his jealousy at Carol's overtures. Dee smirked. 'Yeah, he is a hero, isn't he? Not just some wannabe,' he added, ruffling Bikky's hair and receiving a low warning growl.

A loud crack of thunder rumbled outside and the lights flickered for a moment as the lightning followed it. Then the rain came down thick and hard, slapping against the windows and gurgling through the overflow pipes in the walls.

'Lucky you guys dropped by when you did,' Ryo said. 'Just listen to all that rain.'

'Yeah,' Dee grumbled. 'Lucky,' he said, thinking about how the sooner Ryo could get his files in order, the sooner they might have had some time up their sleeve for something else.

'Guys! Guys!' Ted gripped the door and looked like he'd run a mile, totally out of breath. 'We've got water leaking in everywhere up on the fourth floor.'

Drake was standing behind him. 'Must be some rusted holes in the roof. All that rain coming down so hard has managed to find a way in. Missed me by inches but I think it fried my computer. It all just kinda snapped and fizzled when the water hit it and now the screen is blank.'

'It was blank to start with because you hadn't actually done any work,' Ted replied.

'You shoulda seen it, guys,' JJ added. 'It was just a little trickle at first, and then it was like somebody turned on the water works.'

Dee snorted. 'See, didn't I tell you this place was a dump?'

'A dumpy place for dumpy cops like you, Dee!' Bikky jibed.

'Shut your mouth while the adults are talking, you little ape.'

'We were using our mugs to catch the dripping water, but now we're gonna need more than that,' Ted told them.

Ryo set his hands on his hips, thinking over their dilemma. 'There's probably not much we can do to stop it coming in. All we can do is try and contain it.'

'There's probably a mop and bucket in the storage closet down the hall,' Dee suggested. 'I've seen the janitor wandering around in the middle of third shift when no one's around, cleaning the place. He stores all his stuff in there.'

'Oh, let me get that for you, Dee!' JJ insisted. 'We can't have those lovely hands of yours getting all calloused. I'll mop for you!'

Dee rolled his eyes. 'Knock yourself out, JJ.' Literally. For once he didn't mind JJ making a fuss over him. If it meant he didn't have to bust his arse cleaning up this place so much the better. He didn't even mop his own apartment.

'We should go on strike or something,' Ted suggested, 'until they get us a proper place to work out of.'

'Yeah, that's a great idea,' Drake agreed. 'Maybe then they'll take us seriously. No more solving cases until we get proper office spaces! It even rhymes!'

The office door crashed open before anyone could agree on whether Drake's chant would catch on with everyone else at the 27th precinct. 'What are you lazy shits all doing standing around here?' the Chief wailed. 'Don't you know the place is goddamn flooding up there? Get your sorry arses up there and fix it!'

They all gave him sheepish looks, thankful he hadn't overheard their threats to strike.

'Sure thing, Chief!'

'No problem, Chief!'

'Whatever you say, Chief!'

'Hmph,' he muttered, wandering off.

'What was that you guys were saying about a strike?' Ryo asked. As if that would ever work, he thought.

Dee scowled. 'You know something, Ryo? There are times when I start to think you're not one of us,' he complained. Ryo never whinged about the place when the rest of them got together, even when they were out at the bar having beers. It also meant he was always the only one who didn't get smacked around the head by the Chief, simply for saying what everybody knew already. All that goodie two shoe crap could get on a guy's nevrves. Lucky for him Ryo had many other redeeming qualities.

Ryo rested a hand on his shoulder. 'I've always got your back, Dee. How how about I make it up to you and help coordinate our efforts upstairs to stop the place from being inundated by the storm of the decade. Bikky, Carol? Think you can go raid the kitchen for me? Anything you can find that will hold water: mugs, bowls, buckets, if you can find them, and any bins under people's desks. There should be loads of those. JJ, you go see if you can find that mop. Ted, Drake, Dee and I will try and move whatever we can out of the fourth floor, all the files and stuff, so that they don't get water damaged. We can store them down here. I don't think the place is so bad that the leaks will make it another floor further down.'

As the rest of them dispersed, fulfilling their alloted duties, Dee wandered back over to the window and sighed, watching the rain as it came down in thick sheets outside. So much for his afternoon off and potentially spending the evening with Ryo. At this rate they'd be mopping and emptying buckets of water for hours. 'Now I know what they mean by the expression, drowning in work.'

Comments

[bk_forever]

Awesome!

Poor Dee, plans foiled again, first by the kids an then by the storm. I bet Ryo will invite him over for dinner though, espcially if Dee didn't come to work by car this morning. Well, if they don't end up spending all night mopping ;)

[m-findlow.livejournal.com]

Aw, you're very sweet. I don't think I could attempt this again. I just wanted to return the favour to enchanted_jae for writing me a Torchwood fic which was totally outside of her fandom strike zone.

[bk_forever]

I think you did a great job with the guys =D

I saw Jae's Torchwood fic, it's sweet of you to return the favour.

[enchanted-jae.livejournal.com]

Hah! That's adorable! And, everyone's voice is spot-on, especially the old Badger. And dang, look at you, cranking out a long fic. I managed a measly drabble for TW.

:D

Thanks for the entry!

[m-findlow.livejournal.com]

You're very welcome! I'm glad you liked it. :)