Author's note – Well, it finally begins. For those that don't know, this fic is a sequel to 'Crash and Burn', the story that I lived and breathed for several months of 2003. Elements of 'Crash' will be found in this little tale, so I suggest reading that first.

The story kicks off immediately after Dee and Ryo's wedding, with the McLain family about to embark on their new life together. I make no apologies about ripping up the original timeline and for spellings of names etc – I started life as a FAKE author long before the manga was translated and I'm not about to change things now. Sorry for the rant, but I'm fed up of having things pointed out to me by people new to the fandom.

Thanks as usual go to Peacewish, whose sharp eye and even sharper brain will keep me making sense and hopefully, telling a good tale. Reviews as always are hugely appreciated – they keep the computer switched on and the fingers typing and I can't stress enough how grateful I am for them. All that's left for me to say is, enjoy! -Swordy

Warnings – Yaoi goodness, language badness! Oh, and some angst I guess…

Somewhere in Between

Prologue

"Dee?"

"What?"

"Where's all the stuff you just bought?"

"Kitchen counter."

There was silence for a moment, other than the sound of booted feet moving from the living room into the kitchen, followed by the rustle of paper.

"Dee?"

"What?"

"Where are the herbal teabags?"

"Shit," Dee muttered quietly, standing quickly and banging his head on the shelf inside their wardrobe. He swore again as he rubbed the spot ruefully, before realising Ryo was still waiting for an answer. "I uh… I guess I forgot them."

He winced as he pictured Ryo's expression. It wasn't the first time he'd forgotten to pick up his lover's herbal teabags; indeed, he'd gone to the shop specifically to purchase them, along with the other items he'd forgotten to buy when Ryo had sent him out the day before.

"Sorry, baby," Dee called from the bedroom, pushing the many CDs that he'd scattered over the floor into a heap before snatching up his car keys. "I'll go and get them for you."

As he exited the bedroom, Ryo was already at the front door. "It's okay, I'll get them," the blond said with a smile as he rolled his eyes. "You'll probably come back with another bagful of things you never knew you wanted until you got there."

Dee grinned sheepishly, pushing his tangled black hair off his face. "Am I really that bad?"

"The worst," Ryo replied with a firm nod, before he pulled Dee in for a quick kiss. They both came away smiling. "You finish getting your stuff together then we should be ready to leave by the time I'm back."

"Sure thing, partner," Dee replied, giving a mock salute.

"That's husband to you."

"Fine, now go before I invoke my rights as your husband and insist that we have sexual intercourse, right now."

Ryo arched one fine blond eyebrow. "I don't remember that in the vows."

"Sure it was," Dee replied with a dismissive wave of the hand as he headed back towards the bedroom to finish selecting which CDs he wanted to take on their honeymoon. "Right between the parts about the um, you know, riches and sickness and stuff."

He smiled at the sound of his lover laughing out loud as he let himself out of the apartment. It was a wonderful sound; a smooth velvety melody that lifted the heart and cheered the soul. The next week would hopefully yield many more laughs.

Their honeymoon was a week of compromise taking place in the state of Nevada; three nights in Las Vegas at Dee's insistence followed by three days of relaxation at Lake Tahoe; Ryo's choice of course. It was sure to be the perfect sequel to their wedding that had taken place two days previously, and as Dee continued to throw things into his holdall on the bed, he couldn't help but grin at the thought of a whole week of quality 'Dee and Ryo time'.

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Laura Burns logged off her computer and shoved several files back into her in-tray. They could wait until tomorrow. The pay was criminal and she wasn't about to give the company any more of her time than necessary by staying back to finish them. She retrieved her bag from her employee locker and pulled on her coat before heading to the door. Nobody said goodbye to her. There were at least four other employees huddled around the doorway, indulging in a snatched cigarette break as she passed but none made eye contact or even acknowledged her departure. Not that she particularly cared. They were all stupid, brainless college students who made vacuous conversation about their equally vacuous lives; all the while pretending that they were cultured and intelligent because they had stayed in education beyond high school. She could do without friends like that.

Sometimes, in moments of weakness, she wondered if she was too picky about her choice of friends. She knew her standards were high; so high in fact that she was utterly devoid of friendship, and had been for most of her life. For the most part however, she was content to be alone, determined not to let the inane and shallow members of her peer group drag her down.

She wasn't unattractive by any means. Twenty years old with an enviable figure and a face that although wasn't classically beautiful, certainly merited more than a fleeting glance. Most with such features would try to make the best of them but not Laura. Her large almond shaped eyes, a bluish grey in colour, were hidden behind unfashionable glasses that aged her youthful good looks. Her hair was a warm and sandy blonde but always scraped back into a severe bun that sharpened her features, making her look sullen and unapproachable. It wasn't that she was ignorant to fashion and self grooming; she simply chose to look that way.

As she joined the main street, she thought bitterly of the shift she had just finished. Kelly Capland, that Australian bitch with her long blonde hair and flawless complexion. Damn, she hated working a shift with her. Kelly had this way of looking at her that seemed to laugh and say 'I'm prettier and more popular than you and everyone knows it.' All the male employees fancied her and the customers, both male and female, seemed to like her stupid, perfect toothed grin; ensuring that she was always chosen to work the front desk, rather than being stuck in the background on the telephone. She went on and on about how she was always being hassled for dates and how their boss had told her she showed 'great promise'; obviously enjoying rubbing Laura's nose in it as often as she could.

Laura knew Kelly would be promoted before her, despite having only joined the company three months ago. Laura herself had worked there since leaving school, but no one had singled her out for great things. 'Try to smile more', Kelly had said helpfully one day. Laura knew it wasn't about smiling. She never got promoted because she wasn't prepared to open her legs to the ones with power. That was her theory anyway. At least she held the moral high ground.

She was so busy being bitter about her colleague that she didn't have time to react when someone barged into her and latched firmly onto the canvas bag she used as a handbag. They succeeded in wrenching it from her grip, but not before she had tumbled to the floor, letting out a cry of surprise. Her glasses skittered away down the street as she watched her bag disappearing into the distance, tucked under the arm of an unidentified assailant. Nobody offered to help her up and she had to make a grab for her glasses before someone stood on them. Cursing the loss of her belongings, she stood and began to wipe the dirt from her pants.

"Excuse me, ma'am, is this yours?"

She looked up to see her canvas bag dangling in front of her, one of the straps broken. She then looked past the bag to the person holding it, ready to say her thanks, but the words caught in her throat. In front of her stood the most beautiful man she had seen in her life, bar none.

"I'm really sorry it got broken," the man said apologetically, handing over the bag before he swept a hand through his dark blond hair. "I think everything's still inside though."

She barely heard what he said as he looked at her in concern; his eyes were so dark she'd have sworn they were black. "Are you okay though?"

Finally, she found her voice. "Yes… thank you." Seeing she was okay he looked as if he was about to leave. In one arm he carried a bag of groceries and he was obviously on his way home. Laura panicked, not wanting him to go.

"Can I buy you a drink?" she said quickly, flushing at how forward she sounded. "To say thank you, I mean."

"That's very kind but I'm afraid I'm in a hurry. I'm glad you're okay though."

Before she could think of any other way to stall him, he had gone, weaving through the crowds and disappearing from view.

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Despite their meeting lasting a mere matter of minutes, Laura quickly became infatuated with the image of the man that had saved her that day. Her blond hero. At work and out and about, she constantly kept her eye open for him, hoping that if she had seen him once in this neck of the woods, then she would be fortunate enough to see him again, hopefully long enough to catch his name this time. As the days passed, her hopes started to fade. She wouldn't be lucky to see an angel like that twice.

She wasn't to know the man in question was on vacation; honeymoon in fact with the man he loved more deeply than life itself. As she lay in her bed replaying their chance encounter, she wasn't to know that at that exact same moment, her hero was making love to his new husband, slowly and passionately in their hotel room.

And if she'd known for a minute, as she daydreamed at work about what their second meeting would be like, that her blond beauty was being fucked senseless up against the wall, moaning his lover's name over and over as the man in question drove into him repeatedly, she would have been horrified. But she didn't; and so her memory of him remained untarnished.

She had been 'interested' in people before; celebrities mainly. Still, she detested the way that others her age pored over gossip magazines, shrieking about revelations that were almost always spurious. She was different. She liked to find out the genuine stuff; where they shopped, what they ate, not whom they were reportedly sleeping with. Despite everything she learned about her fixations, they were always out of reach; loving and being loved by goddess-like women that were celebrities in their own right. But this was different. She could make this man hers.

Almost a week later, she received something of a shock. Making a rare trip into the employee lounge to get some water from the cooler during her eight hour shift, she was pretending to be interested in a discarded copy of the New York Enquirer so she didn't have to talk to anyone when something caught her eye. A photo of a man… her man, adorning the third page, which had been folded over so it looked as if it was on the front page instead. It was fate, she thought excitedly; if it had been folded properly then she probably wouldn't have seen it. When no one was looking, she snatched up the paper and hurried back to her desk with it, her heart racing as she located the article attached to the photograph.

Gay Cops at Centre of Goldsmith Kidnapping Case Wed.

Two detectives at the heart of the scandal surrounding celebrity millionaire Henry Goldsmith were 'married' at a church service attended by their friends and families on the 14th of September. Detective Randy McLain, 30, pictured here, wed his partner Detective Dee Latener, 29, following the successful outcome of the well-publicised trial. During the investigation leading up to the arrest of Henry Goldsmith, Detective Latener was abducted and held prisoner for almost a week by a suspect involved in the scandal. He survived life-threatening injuries and returned to work two months later.

Neither of the 'grooms' were available for comment but a well-wisher said: 'it's wonderful to see them both so happy after everything they've been through.' When asked for their opinion on the controversial issue of gay marriages, the same well-wisher replied, 'Do you think I'd be here if I had a problem with it? If two people want to be together then what does it matter if they're gay or straight?'

Laura looked up from the newspaper in her hand, her blue-grey eyes narrowed in anger. "Gay?" was all she muttered as she balled the news sheet in her hands.

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"Have you seen this?" Dee asked, rolling over in bed to where Ryo was reading his book. The blond man looked up to see the newspaper thrust under his nose, more specifically the article Dee was pointing at. Without focusing on the words, he recognised the photograph; it showed both of them leaving the courthouse on the day the Goldsmith guilty verdict had been announced. The headline above it read 'New York: Goldsmith Gay Detectives take advantage of Church Blessings for Homosexual Couples.'

Ryo scanned the article as Dee rolled back over to his cigarettes and lit one contentedly. He knew they'd find out; after all, one of the legal conditions of Dee changing his name was that the change had to be published in a specific paper, namely the New York Post. It figured that every newspaper throughout the country would soon find out and be interested to some extent because of the connections to Henry Goldsmith. Interest in the case in general had been rekindled recently because the millionaire's wife was starring in a new film that had wowed the critics and was doing brilliantly at the box office.

"What d'you think?" Dee asked eventually.

"I think, that I didn't realise you'd already turned thirty," Ryo replied, looking across at him and smiling as he pointed to the appropriate text.

"What?" Dee was over like a shot, cigarette dangling between his lips. "Bastards… they could have at least got my age right. Twenty nine, okay? Twenty nine."

"Aw, what's the matter, baby?" Ryo teased, "Don't wanna be thirty?"

"No," Dee pouted. "Thirty is old."

"Old? Well, excuse me. Maybe you should go and find yourself some bright young thing…"

"And pass up age and experience? No thanks."

Ryo raised his eyebrow. 'Experienced' wasn't a term he'd use to describe himself, at least not until he'd met Dee. "Dee McLain, are you poking fun at me?"

Dee's look of innocent indignation made him laugh. "Would I?" Dee asked, before his expression changed to a low down dirty grin. "Or maybe you're saying you'd like a few more lessons? There's nothing like a little 'hands-on' experience, you know."

Ryo took off his reading glasses, knowing that argument was futile when Dee was in hunting mode. Still, it was fun to make him think that he might not succeed. It made for some nice attention and the blond viewed it as a huge ego boost that his lover was prepared to try so hard to turn him on, not that he needed help getting into any sort of state of arousal when Dee was around…

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"Thank you, you've been most helpful."

Laura put the phone down and smiled, gazing at the address written on her pad. She tapped the pen thoughtfully a couple of times before underlining the neat cursive script. Since she'd discovered her obsession's name in the newspaper article, she'd managed to find out a whole load more information about him, including where he worked, and just then, where he lived. Apparently he had an adopted son. That was inconvenient, since she had only ever planned a future around the two of them, but she wouldn't worry about that just yet. First she would make Randy hers, then she would figure out what to do about the brat. Her first priority however, was removing Randy from his current relationship. She'd gotten over the shock of finding out he was gay by consoling herself with the knowledge that plenty of people went through gay 'phases'. She was now convinced.

This man, this Latener character was obviously just a phase. Sure, she could see the attraction as she studied the colour photograph of him that she had gotten from the periodicals section at the library; he was extremely handsome in a roguish kind of way but Randy, her blond angel, was way out of his league. Randy had a wholesome look; a cleanness about him that was diminishing every day that he lived this lie. He wasn't really attracted to men and she would prove it to him. He needed a woman and Laura had convinced herself that she would be that woman.

All she needed was a way in.

TBC…