Hey folks, another short ficcie – I wrote it after what happens to Biks in this story happened to me:laughs: - Let me tell you, I could have done without the inspiration! Ouch :winks:

Characters/Pairings: Dee/Ryo, Bikky, Carol (mentioned)

Warnings: none really

Spoilers: Not that I am aware of...

Disclaimer: Not mine. All Sanami Matoh's. Except for the plotbunny. It's mine, my preciousssss. Hehe.

Notes: Thanks to Totally4Ryo aka Demoness and Firebreeze aka Harini for proofreading this. Thanks, ladies! All remaining mistakes are mine, hehe.

It all happened way too fast. Ryo and Dee were spending their evening lounging in the living room, cuddling on the couch and watching a movie with Ryo's twelve year old foster son Bikky. Dee and Bikky were currently in the kitchen, getting them all a snack and drinks and the both were bickering as usual. Ryo chuckled to himself, listening in on the silly profanities his two favourite people in the world were exchanging.

His amusement was short-lived though, when suddenly he heard a loud bang, followed by the sounds of bursting glass and instant screaming and Dee's slightly frantic yell "Bikky!" coming from the kitchen.

Ryo was on his feet and in the kitchen in an instant. He was shocked to find Dee violently yanking down his son's pants along with his briefs with Bikky sobbing out loud and trembling.

"What are you doing!" Ryo cried and rushed over, his instincts screaming to shove Dee away from the boy he considered his son, his trained eye barely registering the shattered glass and a big puddle of still steaming tea on the floor.

Ignoring Ryo, Dee wordlessly picked up the sobbing boy and rushed to the bathroom, Ryo following after a second long pause of being stunned to immobility in the kitchen.

Dee quickly sat down Bikky in the tub, turned on the cold water, added a very small amount of warm water so it wouldn't be too cold, and held the hand held shower over Bikky's lap and thighs. The boy gasped and whimpered, reflexively stepping back from the cold stream, but Dee leant over him from behind and had one arm firmly around the boy's torso to hold him in place.

Bikky clutched at Dee's forearm with both hands and took in a shuddering breath after breath, tears running down his face.

Ryo saw red.

"Let go of him!" Ryo demanded of Dee, tearing the hand held shower from his partner's hand.

"Ryo..." Dee tried, but Ryo's glare didn't leave any room for arguments, so Dee let go of Bikky.

The boy whimpered at the loss of the reassuring hold the dark-haired man had had on him, but calmed down when Ryo stepped up behind him so he could lean back against his foster father, while the tepid to cold water still ran over his lap and especially over the considerably large, angry red and already swollen scald mark on his right thigh.

Ryo was surprised to feel Bikky pressing back against him, seeking comfort in the physical contact like any shaken up child would. The auburn-haired man still wasn't sure what exactly had happened, but judging from Bikky's behaviour, now Ryo had to admit that Dee had been right to handle the boy like he had – no matter how rough it had looked to Ryo from his point of view.

Dee watched on helplessly for a moment and then decided that he probably should better leave Ryo and Bikky alone for the time being. He wanted to be angry at Ryo for shoving him away and treating him as if Bikky's accident was somehow his fault – but he found he couldn't be angry at his partner. Ryo was just worried and running on "protective parent"-instinct at the moment and not thinking rationally. Dee was the last person who wouldn't understand. Bikky was a tough kid, seeing and hearing him sobbing out in pain without restraint was pretty agonizing - also to Dee.

Dee went back to the kitchen, and heaving a sigh, started to clean up the mess on the floor. The apartment was now unusual quiet except for the TV still running in the living room and the sound of the shower in the bathroom. After Dee finished removing the glass shards from the floor and wiping the wooden panels dry, he detoured through the living room to switch off the TV and DVD-player. Then the tall dark-haired man proceeded to the bathroom to check in on Ryo and Bikky and to dispose of the young boy's wet jeans and briefs into the hamper.

Ryo talked softly to Bikky, who still sniffled but seemed a lot calmer now. Dee met his partner's gaze when Ryo turned his head to look at him over his shoulder. He could see that Ryo felt bad about his behaviour in the older man's dark eyes and smiled indulgently back at the man he had waited two years for. The relief Ryo felt at seeing Dee's smile was clearly visible on his face.

Dee walked up to Ryo and Bikky and with both hands on the tub's edge leant forward to take a look at the kid's injury.

"Looks not as bad as I feared", he commented softly, ruffling Bikky's unruly blonde hair, and for once Bikky didn't pull away but actually leant into the touch. "Seems most of the tea splashed on the right thigh."

"Do you think we need to drive to the hospital?" Ryo asked Dee, his voice gentle now and not without a certain trace of remorse.

"Let's wait how it looks after a few more minutes of cooling it down", Dee answered softly, letting Ryo know that he wasn't upset with him.

Dee checked his watch – about 5 minutes had past since the accident. "Keep going for another 10 minutes", he instructed calmly. "If there are no blebs I don't think we have to take him to the hospital."

"Okay." Ryo agreed, checking his own watch with a quick glance down at his left arm that was still around Bikky's chest.

"How are you holding up, sport?" Dee asked Bikky, now leaning his elbows on the tub's edge so he was on eye level with the boy.

"My foot's cold", the boy sniffed, big blue, red-trimmed eyes turning to look pleadingly at Dee. "Makes me have to pee." The twelve year old added, grudgingly, embarrassedly, but in a small, weary, voice.

Dee and Ryo chuckled.

"Just let it run, Biks." Dee replied with a wink, ruffling through the child's hair again, and laughed when Bikky pulled a disgusted face and shook his head.

After ten minutes, Dee and Ryo carefully helped Bikky drying up and after giving him a minute of privacy to finally take the leak he had wanted since the whole procedure started, assisted with getting him dressed in new underpants and settled him on the couch. Ryo tenderly applied a thick layer of aloe salve on the boy's burnt skin while Dee wrapped up a frozen cold pack in a linen towel to put on Bikky's thigh to further cool the injury. They renewed the cold pack every twenty minutes.

Both men could clearly see that Bikky was in quite some pain although the kid tried his best to hide it behind a cool attitude while bragging about his hopes to keep a cool scar from the scald, when he called Carol to tell her about his accident.

Finally Ryo got to hear the full story: Bikky had been pouring boiled water into a tea glass, when the glass suddenly burst apart and its hot contents splashed down and all over Bikky's lap. Apparently the glass must have had a fissure that neither of them had noticed before. Fortunately Dee had been right there and reacted immediately by tearing down the boy's pants that were soaked with hot tea and kept burning Bikky's legs. Thankfully Bikky's right thigh was the only part of his body that got injured badly. But the pain it caused the boy was still enough to deal with. Even though Bikky played it down when he talked to his friend Carol on the phone.

The boy's tough talk however didn't keep him from snuggling up into the thick fluffy blankets Dee retrieved for him from Ryo's bedroom to wrap one around his shoulders and drape the other over his only marginally burnt left leg and the uninjured parts of his right one. Also, Bikky seemed pretty happy to lean back into Ryo's hold and snuggle into Ryo's chest when the man sat down behind him and put an arm around the boy's torso to pull him close.

And Bikky didn't protest at all, when Dee sat down on the other side of the couch and carefully moved Bikky's legs so they rested across his own thighs, put a thick sports sock on the boy's still cold right feet and started to slowly but firmly rub the limb to warm it up.

The encasing warmth and comfortable hold the two men Bikky considered his parents since two years had on him and watching his favourite movie, plus eating half a pin of Cookie Dough Ice Cream as comfy food, soon had the boy's eyelids droop until he finally conked out in the middle of the film.

When the movie's credits rolled up the screen, Dee carefully picked Bikky up and carried him to his room. Ryo fetched the aloe salve from the fridge where he had put it to cool it, hoping it would further help healing Bikky's wound, and a thin towel from the bathroom and followed Dee after a minute.

He knew that Dee hadn't heard him coming up behind him, as he now stood in the doorframe and watched his younger partner gently tucking the sleeping 12 year old in. He couldn't help smiling tenderly at the scene before him, as Dee cautiously stroked back a bang of blonde hair from Bikky's brow and leant down to kiss the slumbering boy's forehead goodnight.

When Dee turned and caught him watching the two, Ryo walked to the other side of the bed, sat down on it and carefully but quickly applied a new thick layer of the healing salve on Bikky's thigh. He put the small towel over it so Bikky's blanket wouldn't get soiled and kissed Bikky good night in a similar fashion as Dee had done before.

Bikky didn't even stir but let out a puff of air that sounded a bit like a contented sigh.

Exchanging smiles with Ryo, Dee switched off the lamp on the nightstand and together the two men left the room quietly, pulling the door so it was slightly ajar but not closed.

Hand in hand they walked back into the living room and snuggled up on the couch.

"Are you staying the night?" Ryo asked, after a few minutes of snuggling and comfortable silence, his head half on Dee's shoulder, half on his chest.

"If you don't mind?" Dee replied softly, running his hand through Ryo's hair and rubbing his chin against Ryo's forehead before kissing it.

"'Course not. I'd mind if you went home", Ryo answered, turned his head and leant up to bestow a chaste kiss on Dee's lips.

Dee's smile was beautiful when Ryo pulled away and it made Ryo's heart do flip-flops within his chest.

"You were very good with him there, you know?" Ryo whispered, his lips still only inches away from Dee's. He kissed Dee again, his left hand running over the taller man's well-defined chest.

"Yeah? You seemed a little suspicious of my intentions there right after it happened," Dee asked calmly, when Ryo pulled back again.

"Yeah, I'm sorry for that. Guess I was just so shocked to see Bikky like that and in that moment I simply couldn't make any sense out of what you were doing and panicked because it seemed to hurt Bikky even more. I'm sorry, Dee." Ryo explained. He dropped his gaze to watch his own fingers slide into the gap between two buttons on Dee's shirt, rubbing up and down over the soft cotton of the T-shirt the man wore beneath.

"No prob. But baby... just... you need to know that despite how Bikky and I behave around each other, I really do like the rugrat, okay? Just don't tell him, alright? It'd just spoil the fun we're having teasing each other. You know I'd rather cut my arm off than willingly hurt the midget man, right?" Dee explained and gave Ryo a little squeeze.

"I know, Dee", Ryo assured and leant up for another kiss.

The kiss deepened and soon Dee found himself being pulled to Ryo's bedroom by the man he loved.

Quietly lying in the afterglow of their slow, gentle and quiet lovemaking and already drifting off to sleep, Ryo snuggled up to Dee and hugged the man close to him, as if he was a giant teddy bear.

"Dee?" The part-Japanese man whispered into the darkness of the bedroom.

"Hmn?" Came Dee's murmured reply.

"I love you - more than anything." Ryo said softly.

"Mhm, love you, too, baby." Dee mumbled back and kissed Ryo's forehead.

"Dee?" Ryo came again after a short pause.

"Hmn?"

"I want you to know that there's no one else I'd rather raise a kid with than you." Ryo stated softly and gently kissed Dee's neck.

The deep kiss Dee gave him after that was filled with so much love, no words were needed for Ryo to know that his partner in every sense of the word felt the same.

The end.