Disclaimer:I don't own them and I don't make any money of this.
Warning: Male/Male sex, violence, language, graphic.
"So.... why do you think we're still alive?" Ryo asked.
Dee, pacing the confines of the storeroom, frowned and shrugged. "Maybe it's easier to have us walk to where they're going to kill us. Saves all of that dragging corpses around."
"Hm, maybe," Ryo said thoughtfully. He sat cross legged on the floor, back against a cement wall, a strip of his own shirt tied around his bleeding forehead.
Dee stopped pacing and crossed arms over his chest tightly, huddling over his heart to try and stay warm in the numbing chill. "Well? What do you think the reason is?"
"If I knew, I wouldn't have asked you," Ryo sighed.
Dee raked a hand through his disordered dark hair and studied Ryo carefully. "Not even a theory? That's not like you."
"Dizzy," Ryo replied shortly and gingerly touched the makeshift bandage. Wincing, he let the hand drop. His honey brown hair was a soft tangle and his face was very pale, his dark eyes looking enormous. His knees were drawn up and he was wearing both of their coats draped over him. "It's hard to think," Ryo added.
Dee crouched before Ryo, his expression concerned as he checked to make sure that the head wound wasn't bleeding. It did look swollen and that worried him. "You probably have a concussion," he surmised. "You should try and stay awake."
"Not easy," Ryo replied and made himself sit up straighter.
Dee sat next to Ryo. "Well, I'll have to help you. Let's keep on talking."
Ryo frowned. "About what?" he asked, "About how I screwed up?"
Dee sighed, "You screw up, Ryo, and I'll be the first to tell you about it, okay? There is no way, short of being psychic, that you could have know those guys would be coming back early to the wharf."
"I didn't call for backup," Ryo reminded him sharply. "I saw you go down and I just ran in there like a rookie to help you. I should have slipped out and made the call. We wouldn't be about to die, if I had done that."
"You don't know that!" Dee snapped back. "They may have capped my ass right then and there if you hadn't rushed in. I was staring at the barrel of a gun and the one guy was going to use it. For some reason, they changed their minds as soon as they saw you."
Ryo thought about that. "I wonder why?"
"That's the question of the day," Dee replied. "Did you recognize any of them?"
"It was dark....," Ryo blinked and he looked in pain. His hand touched his head again. "Someone hit me... hard. I don't remember much."
"That bastard didn't have to do that!" Dee growled. He leaned into Ryo and pulled the man close. "Cold?"
"Yes," Ryo replied in a shivering voice.
"I don't think that they're going to accommodate us with some first aid," Dee grumbled as he tied to hide his worry. Ryo's eyes were dark, but Dee could see that they were glassy in the dim light of the one bare bulb hanging from the ceiling.
Dee pulled Ryo almost into his lap, ignoring the man's half hearted protests, and wrapped his body around his lover to add to the warmth of the coats.
Ryo muttered. "This won't look good if they come in here. What if they-"
"Kill us?" Dee finished bleakly and then forced a dark chuckle. "They can call us fags while they kill us. Somehow, that makes it so much worse, doesn't it?"
Ryo glared. "I didn't mean it that way! I meant, they'll know we mean something to each other. They might use that against us."
"I don't care right now," Dee breathed against Ryo's soft hair. "I don't think anything we do is going to matter. Let's just enjoy each other right now and hope that someone notices that we didn't call in."
Ryo was very quiet. Dee jogged him. "Hm?"
"Don't fall asleep," Dee growled. Keep talking."
Ryo sounded less than alert as he asked softly, "Talk about what?"
"Well..." Dee smiled. "Let's talk about when we first met."
Ryo looked uncomfortable.
"What?" Dee wondered incensed.
Ryo made a face and then confessed, "You didn't make a very good first impression."
Dee scowled and retorted, "Neither did you!"
It was Ryo's turn to look incensed. "What is that supposed to mean?"
Dee rolled his eyes. "The way you saluted and had your best suit on, the way you did everything by the book, and the way your lips were locked on the Chief's ass."
"I was showing him respect which, as I recall, you were doing anything but that day!" Ryo exclaimed. "He was chewing you out, as a matter of fact, and you were rolling your eyes then just like you're doing now. You were very obnoxious."
"And you were a tight ass!" Dee shot back.
Both angry, they looked away from each other and fell into a sullen silence.
Dee thought back those few years and remembered Ryo looking pressed, fresh faced, and eager for his first day on the job. He tried to remember his real first impression, not the cynical contempt he had felt for someone he had automatically assumed was some preppie newbie from the better part of town, some white bread moron who would probably quit within a day of seeing a real bad guy or his first corpse. Instead, Dee remembered.... awe. Looking into Ryo's dark eyes, Dee had felt an uncomfortable flash of dejavu, something deep within him that had known this man, somehow, before ever having met him. Not only that, for an instant before he had turned away and retreated into obnoxiousness, Dee had seen how truly good and kind Ryo was in the soft look and smile Ryo had given him. On the tough side of the tracks, that kind of open vulnerability could get a man killed. That, more than anything else, had triggered Dee's retreat into contempt.
Dee looked over at Ryo to apologize. He saw that Ryo's head was resting back against the freezing wall and that his eyes had all but shut. "Ryo!" Dee exclaimed in alarm. When Ryo had jerked awake again, blinking and putting a hand to his forehead in pain, Dee reached out, cupped Ryo's chin, and made his lover look at him. "You were beautiful," Dee said seriously, "Beautiful inside and out. I guess... I guess I didn't understand that in a man back then. Maybe... Maybe I was even a little jealous."
Ryo melted. He leaned into Dee and Dee put an arm around him again, holding him tight. "You looked so sure of yourself, so strong," Ryo said ruefully. "Yet you didn't follow any of the rules. It was hard for me to accept that you could be that way and still be a fine detective. When I first saw you, I was shocked, but... You were very handsome and...," Ryo stammered, blushed, and then continued, "wild. I felt like I was being pulled towards you. Your eyes... when you looked at me, I felt like you were sucking me into you somehow and, yes, I did feel like you were familiar, as if I knew you already."
They were silent and then Dee gently ran a hand through Ryo's soft hair, giving it a little tweak. When Ryo winced, he said, "Stay awake, lover. What about that stunt you pulled when me and Bicky were kidnapped? Remember that? You could be 'wild' when you wanted to be too."
Ryo looked embarrassed. "That was a fiasco. It was NOT one of my shinning moments."
"Really?" Dee wondered. "What else could you have done? Called the police? Had them storm the building just in time to collect our bodies? Those guys weren't fooling around, Ryo. They had spilled the beans to us about the drugs. They wouldn't have left us alive to talk about it to the police." Ryo was still looking doubtful. "Let's go over it point by point and you can tell me where you were out of line," Dee suggested. "Let's start with the bomb idea."
"I wanted to flush them out of the building," Ryo explained. "I thought, if they panicked, they would leave you and Bicky behind and then I could slip in and rescue you."
"With a bomb?" Dee said critically.
"I knew that a small, localized charge would blow the roof, but not the underlying structure," Ryo replied defensively. "You weren't in any danger... well, until I discovered that you and Bicky had been put into a storeroom directly under where I had planted the bomb. The chances of that happening-" Ryo put hand to his head and rubbed near the wound. His face puckered in pain..
"Baby?" Dee asked in concern.
Ryo just breathed for a few moments and then he nodded and lowered his hand. "It throbs with pain off and on. It's all right."
"Tough guy," Dee chuckled to hide his growing worry. He kissed the top of Ryo's head and said, "So, you planted a bomb and had a plan, but things didn't work out. I had a broken arm and I couldn't go back through the attic to get out. There is no way you could have foreseen that."
"That you or Bicky might have been injured?" Ryo sighed, "I did actually, but, I was planning on the evacuation of the building to allow us to slip out safely another way."
"The guard outside the store room door kept us from escaping," Dee pointed out. "Your plan might have worked otherwise. I figure it's his fault , not yours."
Ryo looked up at Dee with a frown. "I don't think the Chief saw it that way. I was chewed out for a good half hour about sloppy insubordination."
Dee smiled. "Ah, your first time getting on the Chief's bad side... I remember mine. It was pretty spectacular. I think they almost had to take the Chief to the hospital with a coronary."
Ryo tried not to laugh. He stifled it against Dee's chest. "Hurts... hurts to laugh," he complained.
"Sorry," Dee replied.
Ryo grew thoughtful. "Remember how you kissed me after we escaped?"
"I remember that you were mad," Dee said ruefully.
Ryo nodded. "Only after, because you acted like it was a joke."
"Because you were scared," Dee reminded him and could still feel the hurt of that rejection. "Before... before you panicked... I felt something... It was..."
"I felt it too," Ryo breathed. "Deep inside of me, some part of me that I never knew existed 'knew' you and 'wanted' you. I think I knew then that I was gay, that I was feeling something powerful for another man, that I wanted you. That's what frightened me. I wasn't ready to accept that then."
"I didn't know what to do after you panicked," Dee admitted. "I felt rejected, but I thought making you angry was better than seeing you scared."
Ryo was quiet and then he lamented, "It's strange that we have to be locked up, and facing death, to talk about things like this. You almost never open up to me, Dee. Why is that?"
Dee blushed and then shrugged. "It's not a guy thing."
Ryo sounded incensed. "I'm a guy!"
Dee chuckled. "I noticed." He picked his words more carefully. "You're just a sensitive kind of guy. You like to talk about 'feelings' and 'relationships'. When I first saw you, I just wanted to 'do' you real bad. I knew it was strong, stronger than I had ever experienced with a man before, but it was a hard on to me in a major way that I couldn't really explain to myself at the time. I thought, if I just got it over with, got into your pants, I'd get over it and go back to independent Dee..." He frowned, remembering, and then was more honest, "It was like I had been walking around in a sea of hamburgers, tasting one once in awhile and thinking it was good, and then having someone plop down a filet mignon in front of me and show me, not good, but the very best. Good just wasn't good enough after that. After I got to know you, it stopped being about a hard on and... I realized that it hadn't been about one in the first place." He looked down and Ryo looked up with loving, dark eyes. "Is that 'open' enough for you?"
"Yes, it is," Ryo replied softly and then looked pensive. "At least you knew who and what you were. I was so confused... I had fumbled with a few women, but I liked having them around as friends, not for, well, sex. I just thought that I wasn't one of those guys who needed it all of the time."
Dee grunted sourly. "You aren't."
Ryo gave him a sharp punch on the arm. Dee chuckled and held him tighter in apology. "Where I came from, being gay wasn't something you ran around and told everyone about," Ryo explained. "I didn't even know what it was until I went into high school and saw some boys being bullied because of it. That, and my uncle's suspicions and displeasure, were enough to make me bury any such notion about myself down deep. I ran into a few more gay people when I was in the academy and they seemed nice. It helped me when I met you. I was still nervous about it, but I didn't feel like I should refuse to be your partner over it."
"When did you realize that I was bi?" Dee wondered curiously.
Ryo snorted. "I didn't know that you were bi until you told me, but I think you made it clear early on that you were... uhm, promiscuous."
"Hey!" Dee protested. "Not 'promiscuous', just attracted to both sexes. That didn't mean that I jumped into bed with anyone who waved me over! I was pretty damned selective!"
Ryo sighed. "It took a long time for me to believe that you didn't just want sex from me. You were very confusing. Watching J.J. hang on you didn't help your case with me either and that time you came out of the hotel room with Diana..."
"It was a stake-out!" Dee exclaimed angrily. "She wanted to make Rose jealous so she kissed me." He scowled. "I didn't exactly buy that, 'We're staking out the hotel too.' business with you and Rose. "
"It was the truth!" Ryo replied angrily. He rubbed his head a moment. "Looking back though, I have to wonder if Rose had other motives for taking me there."
"You think?" Dee shot back sarcastically.
"Dee!"
"It continues to amaze me how you can be such a good detective," Dee said, "when you are so damned naive about the motives of people you work with every day."
"I try to trust them," Ryo replied stiffly. "I like to think the best of people first."
"As I recall, I told you not to trust him," Dee reminded him. "Why didn't you trust me? I'm your partner!"
Ryo went closed mouthed.
Dee stared and then demanded, "Well?"
"Your motives for telling me not to trust Rose were suspect since you had made it plain that you were interested in me," Ryo replied quietly. "I thought that you were trying to keep me for yourself."
"Makes me sound like a damned dog marking off his territory!" Dee grumbled.
Ryo winced. "I didn't mean that, but you were very... uhm... uneasy with having anyone show an interest in me, friendly or otherwise."
Dee suddenly smiled. "So were you, as I remember. That attitude that you gave me after J.J. forced himself on me and kissed me. It was pure jealousy!"
"I was NOT jealous!" Ryo protested, indignant.
"You can admit it," Dee reassured him with a smirk. "I'm a pretty handsome guy. I know you were attracted to me. I know you liked me kissing you. Why wouldn't you have been jealous of J.J.?"
Ryo went quiet, picking at the lint on his sleeve and then he sighed. "Okay, I really don't want to give your ego any more of a boost, Dee, but, yes, I was jealous."
"Knew it!" Dee said with relish.
"Don't be so smug."
"I'm not!"
"You are!" Ryo retorted. He rubbed at his head and hissed. "Let's not argue."
They were silent. There were sounds, faint and undecipherable. They listened in trepidation. When nothing happened, Dee smoothed a hand along Ryo's soft hair and wondered how much longer they had left to live. He could feel Ryo shivering. For once, Dee wished that he wasn't so lanky and that he could offer Ryo more body to keep warm with.
"Love you," Ryo whispered and his head began to dip as unconsciousness began to try to steal his life.
Dee shook at Ryo cruelly. Ryo emitted a small whimper as Dee forced him to sit up straighter. "When," Dee asked, swallowing back emotions. "When did you first know for sure that you loved me?"
Ryo blushed and almost glowed as he looked back on memories. "I knew as soon as I saw you, but I wouldn't admit it to myself. There were a few times that I felt close to knowing... It was after Penguin was caught in that explosion and she was in the hospital. You were feeling so upset and I wanted to make you feel better. When you reached out to me and it was obvious that sex was what you needed, what would comfort you... I was willing just then to give in to you. That was how much I couldn't stand seeing you in pain." Ryo smiled and cradled Dee's embracing arms against him. "You stopped. You didn't take advantage of my sympathy for you. I... I knew then that you weren't just playing a 'game', that you really cared about me. I knew I was feeling love for you."
Dee nuzzled Ryo's cheek and said in his ear, "When we were on vacation and that hotel owner tried to slice you up with a knife, I was terrified for you. Something told me, without a doubt, that if you had died, I would have curled up and died right along with you. It was scary, thinking that someone could mean that much to me, but I didn't want to change it. I didn't want to go back to bachelor Dee. I decided, then, that I would go after you and make you mine no matter how long it took."
The noises grew louder. Ryo frowned. "Any ideas?" he asked.
"No," Dee replied. Digging graves? Making coffins? Making a nice sturdy place where they could line them up an shoot them without getting bullet holes in the walls? Dee couldn't help thinking about those things and he was sure that Ryo was thinking about them too. Maybe there wasn't much time for them left.
"Dee?" Ryo exclaimed, startled, as Dee ran a hand under his shirt and brushed against Ryo's nipple.
Dee licked the edge of Ryo's ear with a hot tongue. "I'm running out of things to say," he confessed. "You're cold. You're falling asleep. They're going to kill us very soon. You know that. There isn't any way out for us."
Dee's other hand slid along Ryo's waist and touched the other nipple. As Dee breathed hot breath into Ryo's ear, he began to massage those pink nipples. "Dee!" Ryo protested again. "This is insane! What if they come in? What if they see-"
"You're about to die," Dee told him sharply. "I'm about to die. Dead people don't have to worry about getting embarrassed. I want to make love to you one last time, Ryo. Let's live before we die."
Ryo turned in Dee's lap to face him. He was very pale, his mouth tight on pain. He said reluctantly," I-I don't think I can do anything, Dee. I feel pretty bad."
"It's not about THAT," Dee whispered as he leaned and kissed Ryo's lips gently. "It's about being with you and being as close as I can to you. You don't have to do anything, Baby. I'll make you feel good. I'll bring us together one last time."
If Ryo hadn't been so tired, so disoriented by his concussion, he would have flatly refused, Dee knew, but Ryo was on the edge of slipping into unconsciousness and leaving Dee before those men ever laid a finger on him and he knew it. He gave in with the resignation of a man giving in to a relentless current, letting his body slump into Dee's arms and putting his cheek against Dee's shoulder.
Dee awkwardly unbuttoned Ryo's shirt and slid it back on the man's shoulders. He didn't want to undress him too much and leave his lover prey to the cold, but body to body, skin to skin, was the best way of taking care of any chill. He slid off his own shirt and draped it over Ryo's back as he gently made Ryo lye down. When he poured himself over the top of his lover, Ryo smiled softly and opened his legs so that Dee was lying between them.
Dee was hard, instantly, his fear and desire for Ryo giving him an adrenaline rush that made his blood pump strongly. "Love you," Dee murmured as he caressed Ryo's face and then moved so that he could claim Ryo's nipples with his talented lips.
"Suki da," Ryo sighed as his trembling hand twisted into Dee's dark hair and urged the man with a slight pressure to continue. "Zutto." Love you. Forever. Forever didn't seem like an empty word even then, Ryo thought hazily as he groaned under Dee's sucking lips. There had to be something beyond their short lives. Ryo had to believe that. The thought of dying, of not being with Dee anymore, was too much to endure.
Dee's hands were sliding along Ryo's skin. They seemed so very warm compared to Ryo's cold body. It felt wonderful and Ryo gasped helplessly and opened his legs wider as Dee unzipped and unbuckled his pants. Dee slid one of those warm hands under the waistband of Ryo's briefs and touched the awakening flesh there.
Despite his condition, Ryo felt himself having a strong erection. It made his head spin and his heart hammer, but there was nothing he could do but moan in pleasure as Dee's lips began kissing and licking downwards to where that warm hand was playing.
Ryo moaned loudly and threw back his head, both of his hands tangling into Dee's dark hair. He gripped convulsively as Dee's hot, moist mouth took in his erection in one down stroke. His hips rose involuntarily, trying to get his erection deeper into that sucking tightness. Dee took every inch expertly.
Orgasm was elusive, but Dee was patient. He stalked it, preparing the trap well, and then captured it all at once. Ryo cried out and shuddered with pure pleasure as lights exploded behind his eyes and the world grew dim.
"Stay with me, Baby!" Dee urged desperately as he sat up to look into Ryo's face. When Ryo's eyes stopped trying to roll back into his head, and he looked at Dee with some sense, panting with exhaustion, Dee kissed him and caressed his cheek, asking almost apologetically, "Can I... I want to be with you, completely. Can I do that, Ryo?"
Ryo was past caring about men barging in on him. Every nerve was singing, singing for Dee. He reached out and drew Dee down to him, the intelligent, shy, inhibited, part of him that was screaming that it was ridiculous what they were doing, drowned out by his need to have Dee bring them together and make them one a final time.
Ryo's pants slid down, just enough to give Dee access, and then Ryo felt fingers, wet and warm, in his most sensitive of places. He was relaxed completely. It was easy for Dee to prepare him and then fill him completely with his hard and needy erection. They lay together like that, resting together, Ryo's legs hooked and drawn back by Dee's strong arms, and Dee's passionate green eyes looking down into Ryo's darker eyes.
"Promise," Ryo whispered, feeling the fingers of unconsciousness trying to pull him down. "Promise you'll be with me... after."
"Not even the Devil will keep me away from you," Dee swore.
"Shhh!" Ryo put a finger to Dee's lips and it shook. "We're going to be angels, Dee."
"You already are one," Dee replied as he kissed Ryo deeply and began to move his hips, sliding his erection in and out of his lover. Dee reveled in the way that Ryo flushed and trembled with pleasure, glad that he could make Ryo feel joy and love before violence took them both into the dark.
Dee came explosively, whispering words of love and kissing Ryo all over. After he recovered, and they had dressed again, he returned to his position between Ryo's legs and lay full length with his lover, bodies and hearts melded together as they waited for death.
The door opened. They both tensed, still staring into each other's eyes, determined stay together as long as possible.
"Dee!!!"
Both Dee and Ryo snapped their heads sideways in alarm. J.J. was standing in the doorway, shocked, a note hanging from one hand and his gun ready for trouble in his other.
"What the hell are you doing?!" J.J. demanded hotly, anger warring with confusion and embarrassment.
"Keeping Ryo warm. He's injured and it's damned cold in here," Dee explained with false matter-of -factness as he sat up and surreptitiously made sure his clothes were in order.
J.J. looked from Dee's calm face to Ryo's fire engine red one. Ryo was trying to sit up, but Dee was forcing him to lie still. Seeing the prone man make a quick feel at his clothes, as if assuring himself that he still had them on, J.J. came to a horrible conclusion. "Oh, my God!" he exclaimed in a choked voice, "You- You two- you were -you were-"
"Did you find them? Are they all right?" Dreig's voice rang out in the hallway and the sound of several sets of running feet came to their ears.
J.J. thought fast. He backed up into the hallway and held up a hand to stop who ever was approaching. "Secure the area. They're alive, but Ryo needs an ambulance right now! All of you! Get moving! I'll keep watch here."
Dee ran a hand through his hair and sighed in relief, standing up as J.J. re-entered the room. The young detective looked ready to chew them both out. Dee forestalled the coming tirade by saying, "Thanks for coming to the rescue J.J., but can it , okay? We're all adults here."
"Okay!" J.J. seethed. "I won't tell you how unprofessional and stupid-"
"We thought that we were going to be killed," Ryo said softly as he rubbed at his aching forehead. He begged in growing trepidation, "Please don't tell anyone, J.J.. You can understand, can't you?"
J.J. chewed on his bottom lip viciously, showing that he did understand, but that he still didn't like it. "Okay, I'll keep quiet. If they start joking about you two, I'll be part of the joke since I'm the one that found you. I don't need that."
"How did you find us?" Dee wondered as he pulled J.J.'s jacket off of him and made a pillow for Ryo. Crouching and placing it under Ryo's head, he tried to make Ryo as comfortable as possible.
"Someone called us, actually. It was an anonymous tip," J.J. explained. He suddenly remembered the note in his hand then and held it out to Dee. "The entire place was deserted when we arrived. I found this on one of the doors. It's addressed to us and Ryo."
Dee stared down at the note and read it aloud. "Your cop friends are in the cellar; third door on the right. I owed you one, Ryo. It's signed Wakowski."
Ryo's eyes widened. "I know him! I helped him get financial help for his family after I had him arrested for drug possession."
Dee frowned. "Well, apparently your good deed didn't keep him away from crime once he got out. Seems he's back with the bad guys. It wasn't very smart of him to put his name on the note. Now we can go pick him up."
Ryo went thoughtful. "Maybe that's what he wants? It could be his way of turning himself in."
Dee looked skeptical, but J.J. was nodding as if he could understand. When Dee saw Ryo closing his eyes, he shook at him. "Just a little longer, partner, okay?"
Ryo opened his eyes again with an effort and his fingers closed around Dee's hand, squeezing hard as if to assure himself that everything was real and that they had really been saved by J.J. Dee returned that grip and put his free hand over it to caress Ryo's hand lovingly in comfort.
J.J. looked jealous for a moment and then he grumbled under his breath, "I'll be outside waiting for the ambulance." and left them alone.
Dee asked cautiously, needing to know, "No regrets?"
Ryo smiled and a tear spilled over one cheek as he brought Dee's hand up to his lips to kiss it passionately. "I will never regret loving you," he said with all of his heart. "Especially now that we get to spend more of forever on this side of life." He added after a moment, "I guess you'll have to wait for your pitchfork and horns a little while longer."
"But I thought you said that I was going to be an angel?!" Dee retorted in mock surprise.
"I was just trying to make you feel better," Ryo joked with a straight face, "Someone as obnoxious as you is definitely not getting any wings."
"Like Heaven would want someone as anal retentive as you!" Dee shot back. "I'm sure the devil could use you down below torturing sinners with your constant cleaning and insistence on doing everything 'by the book'!"
"Uh, guys? Someone injured in here?" A paramedic at the front of a stretcher looked around the doorframe at them with wide eyes.
Dee stood and pointed down at Ryo. "Right here."
As the man came into the room and another paramedic appeared holding the other end of the stretcher, Dee could see that cases of medical supplies were piled on top. The paramedics put their burden down next to Ryo and quickly went to work.
"Do you always have arguments with injured people?" The other paramedic asked as if he was questioning Dee's sanity.
"Only when they argue back," Dee snapped in reply and then exchanged a loving look with a smiling Ryo. "He's my partner, " Dee told them. "You make sure you take good care of him!"
"Or there will be hell to pay?" Ryo wondered innocently.
"When you're feeling better," Dee replied suggestively, "you'll pay for that one."
Both paramedics looked alarmed, but Ryo smiled contentedly as they began to lift him onto the stretcher. "I'll look forward to it, Dee Latener."