summary; your best friend ask you if you’ll spend your summer break keeping fit with him so he’s ready for track returns in the fall, but he’s pretty distracting.
notes; this is based on an ask that I got, inspiring it, and it was just too good to pass up, so I hope you like it!
warnings; smut, unprotected sex, public sex, reference to injury, very brief reference to drink spiking (past tense).
You were just beginning to surface, enjoying the summer break you were getting for college, and happy to spend the summer in your own place. It was quiet, your roommate getting ready to go home, and you would have the apartment to yourself for weeks. Squeezing the pillow in your arms tighter to you, you froze, the bedding beneath you rising as it took a breath, and you jumped back.
Sitting up in your bed enough to rub your eyes, you growled a little as you recognised the chuckle that sounded, opening your eyes to find your best friend staring at you, his phone in hand as he slumped across your bed.
“Mornin’ angel.”
“What the fuck are you doing in my bed? You scare the life out of me, and it’s-” You twisted, picking up your alarm clock, one that had been promptly turned off seeing as it was summer break, to check the time, “-eight in the morning? Really, Tommy?”
“Did you know that you cuddle in your sleep?” He ignored your question entirely, and you sat up in the pillows beside him, the bedding still covering the lower half of your body as you covered a yawn, realising that you weren’t going back to sleep any time soon. “It was cute. Like, the second I got myself all comfy here, you put your head on my stomach, and a leg over mine, holding on for dear life.”
“Thomas-”
“Also, continuing with the cute cuddling thing, if I play with your hair while you sleep, you get this sleepy little smile, a-”
“Thomas!” His jaw snapped shut, turning to look at you, honey brown eyes catching flecks of the sunlight pouring in through the now open curtains, and it was no wonder you’d woken so early of your natural self, his lips pursed as he stared at you curiously. “Tell me what you’re doing here so early in the morning, right now.”
“Only if you tell me whether or not you knew that you cuddle in your sleep, first.”
“No, I didn’t know that. I’m not really a sleep-cuddler, I’m very picky about positions.” His jaw dropped, a cheeky look flashing over his features, and you held up a finger, shaking your head and shutting down the innuendo he was about to release. “Sleeping positions.”
“Just me, then? That’s adorable.” He tapped the tip of your nose, before swinging his legs over the edge of the bed, standing up and stretching a little, the edge of his shirt lifting to reveal a sliver of his stomach, your eyes diverting. “You have a very comfortable mattress, is that memory foam? Anyway, the reason I’m here.”
“Finally.”
He shot you a mock glare, rolling his eyes at you. “You have to get up, because I want to go for a run.”
“And I want to go back to sleep, so that's gonna’ be a hard pass on the physical exertion. Thanks for the offer, but I’m going to keep being lazy.” He frowned, and you grinned, rolling over onto your other side and turning your back on him, and he scoffed a little. A second later, the covers that you had wrapped yourself up in were being tugged back and out of the way, a groan on your lips. “No, Tommy, let me sleep! If you’re really my best friend, you’d let me sleep.”
“No, if I was really your best friend, I’d carry you all the way back from the club on a Friday night after you called with your head in a toilet bowl because you got spiked, and stay by your side all weekend until I was sure you were okay.” He tapped his chin for a second, your stomach twisting just at the memories. “Oh, wait, I already did that.”
“That was low.”
“If you were really my best friend, you’d come on a run with me so I have company while keeping in shape for my track return in the fall.” He grabbed onto your ankles, pulling you down the bed toward him, and you yelped at the action, half of your bed hanging off of the mattress as you stared up at him in shock, his hands on his hips as he smirked. “C’mon, please? Minho is out of town, and I hate running alone.”
“Fine, but only if you buy me a smoothie fro-”
“From Annie’s Café? Blueberry, yoghurt and a dash of lime?” He reached over to the nightstand, a paper cup you’d failed to notice, and you sat up, reaching for it as your body moved closer to his, and he handed it to you. Peeling back the lid, you found it was perfect, the scent of the mixed fruits being a perfect combination. “I already got it on the way over here.”
“Okay, fine.” He cheered loudly, watching as you took a sip of the drink you had, humming happily at the taste that was exploding over your tastebuds. “Go get me some clothes.”
“You’re the best.” He held your face, peppering your cheeks with
You waved a hand in the vague directions of your drawers, knowing that he was familiar with where your things were, having helped you pack and unpack over the last few years, much like you had him, your final year of college bringing around a friendship that had lasted since the first day, and you crossed your legs on the bed, waking up a little more as you sipped your drink.
He dug through the drawers, chucking a pair of leggings in your direction, a sports bra following it, and some socks, and he stared at you inquisitively for a second, eyes scanning down along your body, licking over his lower lip. “Do you wear panties to bed?”
“Thomas!” You threw the empty smoothie cup at his head, and he ducked, laughing loudly as he avoided the assault.
“It’s a practical question! So, I know what to pass you!” You rolled your eyes, scooping up the clothes and looking over the bundle.
“Where’s my top?”
“I passed you one!” He paced back over, picking up the pink and grey undergarment, and waving it before your face. “See?”
“That's a sports bra! I need a top!”
He raised a brow, and you didn’t realise your poor choice in wording, his playful mood taking over. He moved back over to you, hands finding the edge of the bed, and he crawled up toward you as you edged back toward the pillows, placing a foot on his chest to keep him away as a smirk took over. “I could be your top.”
“Quit it, you perv!”
“Oh, so you wanna’ be on top?” He rolled onto his side, head propped up on his hand, wiggling his brows, and you scoffed, standing up with the bundle of clothing, and moving to the bathroom to get changed, his laughs echoing behind you as you went.
Shutting the door, you rolled your eyes at the muffled sounds of him moving around your bedroom on the other side of the wood, your face splitting in an uncontrollably wide grin, cheeks warm to the touch with a blush.
Brushing your hair and pulling it back into a style enough to run with, you turned on the taps, toothbrush first as you scrubbed at your teeth to clean them, drifting into your thoughts. Thomas had been your friend for a long time, the two of you having met on your first day in a freshman biology lecture, and even when you’d switched your major a few months later, he still stuck by your side. He’d been someone you could rely on and depend on since your very first day of real independence and adulthood, and so he had embedded himself permanently in your life.
You cleaned your face too, feeling refreshed as you went, before swapping out your clothes, folding your pyjamas up neatly, and unlocking the door again. Thomas had pulled the sheets on the bed neatly done, sitting on the edge, and smiling at you as you emerged.
“Ready to go, pretty lady?”
“Ready as I’ll ever be for exercise at the crack of dawn.” He looked like he was going to correct you, but your mock-glare made his lips zip back up again, standings and brushed himself down. Grabbing your keys, and locking up the apartment as you went, you let him take the small piece of metal, tucking that into his pocket too, and placing a hand on your lower back to guide you through the halls. “Just so you know, I haven’t done exercise in years. I’m going to make it, like, a mile. That’s it.”
He turned to look at you, nothing judgemental, just a fond smile as he held open the main door of the building for you to pass through first, the busy streets of the early morning crowding around you suddenly. “How about, we just go and jog around the park over there, huh? It has those nice trails through the woods, too.”
You glanced out, a hand shielding your eyes from the summer sun, a park you’d rarely had time to venture into, once on a picnic with Thomas and his friends last summer, but that was about it, and so it would be nice to explore it a little more.
Tightening your hair as you approached the edge of the grass, choosing one of the trails from the sign at the entrance of the park, quickly settling on a short one with plenty of scenery through the trees. The pace started slowly, and Thomas was happy to fill the silence with chatter as you went along, breaking out in a sweat long before he did, the sun beating down and your heart pending in your chest, throat growing dry, but you were willing to just push through it.
It truly was beautiful, the early morning sun was something you rarely go to experience, either locked up in class or the library, or catching up on much-needed sleep, and Thomas had always been the opposite of you in that respect, He was good with the mornings, the athlete in him woke him up when the sun rose, sometimes even beforehand, while you preferred late nights and the dark hours of the day.
Sunlight filtering through the trees, dogs playing in the grass of the main park before you got too far away, the rustle of leaves underfoot and the gentle breeze, the smell of flowers in the air. It was a memory you’d forgotten even having before getting caught up in college and stress, shutting yourself off as you buckled down for your education and career.
The first half-hour or so was a breeze, despite the sweat you broke out in and the pounding of the blood in your veins, you became accustomed to it, listening to Thomas talk. You held up your conversation, the two of you making plans for the summer before you returned to classes for your final college year, and you planned to make the most of it since you’d both have such unlimited time together.
In the second half an hour, the pace picked up, Thomas going quiet, occasional smiles that he gave you, before his skin began to shine from the exertion too, and you were swallowed thickly. Hair matted to his forehead, tanned skin only enhanced with veins that crawled along his forearms, blood pounding much like your own, and he was working at a faster pace than you as you became tired, only just having passed halfway around your set, jogging before you.
You tried to control yourself, but his shirt was stretched across his shoulders, the muscles in his back standing out, shifting under the thin cotton that was damp with patches of sweat, every movement of his arms making it clear, and you had to try and focus, almost swerving off of the path and tripping a couple of times as you failed to pay attention to the forest floor under your feet.
In the final third, everything went to sit. The tree covering thinned slightly, moving toward the centre of the day as the sun shone in the sky, almost directly overhead, and the temperatures were shooting up. Thomas had slowed to meet you again, growing slightly tired himself as you felt like you were dragging dead limbs along, sure you’d be achy and unable to move tomorrow, and at some point, as you’d dipped your head, you’d noticed the bounce.
It wasn’t your fault, your eyes were just drawn to the movement, almost choking on your own spit as you realised just what was bouncing under the thin basketball shorts, your eyes squeezing shut for a second and trying to clear the image from your mind, your brain going hazy and the rubbing friction between your thighs suddenly becoming prominent to you as you ran, wanting to squeeze them together.
You kept going, swallowing the lump in your throat and shaking your head clear. But then his arms were flexing, reaching behind his neck to tug his shirt away from his body, and your mind went blank. Shining abs, the smattering of dark hair between toned pecs and down to his happy trail making your mouth water, sweating skin glistening in the sun as he moved, muscles bouncing, like some kind of Baywatch audition, and you couldn't be held responsible.
Your feet got caught, a loud popping sounding before searing hot pain radiated up your leg, a cry leaving your lips as you hit the ground, rolling to as top, before splaying out in the dirt, a little dazed and confused. Thomas popped into view, concern written all over his features as he talked a mile a minute, so fast you could barely understand what he was saying as his hands found yours and he pulled you up, your eyes sweeping over him. Oh, right half-naked secret crush. That’s right.
“What the hell just happened?”
“I fell.” He let out a weak laugh, worry still holding his brows furrowed, though, and you reached out to him, smoothing your thumb over his forehead to rub away the creases in a way you’d done so many times before, particularly before exams. His features softened as you did, and he let out a little sigh, standing himself and pulling you to your feet. As you put pressure on your ankle, it gave way, and you wanted to scream, possibly even die a little, as you tumbled forward into his chest, his arms wrapping around you. “Nope, no. Ankle says no thanks, no today.”
He grinned, scooping you up under your legs, and carrying you over the grass at the edge of the pathway, luscious and thick green as he set you down, finding shade under a large tree, hidden by some bushes to shield your eyes, before he was kneeling before you. His fingers skimmed along your calf, your leg twitching as he did, before he was pulling up the edge of your leggings to get a look at it.
He hissed a little, fingers running over the patch, registering where the skin was already going hard, and the way you cried out and jerked at the touch, pain coursing through you, and he apologised each time, a sigh on his lips. “I don’t think it’s broken, just a bad strain. It’ll take a while to heal, though.”
“So much for our summer plans.” You whispered, his eyes finding yours, and you swallowed thickly, embarrassment creeping in. “I’m sorry, Tommy.”
“What the hell are you sorry for? It’s my fault you’re hurt.” it was your turn to be confused, his head dropping and eyes hidden from yours. “You could still be tucked up safely in your bed, totally not injured, but I made you come for a run.”
“Thomas, look at me.” He didn’t, still adjusting your leggings back over your ankles as he undid and retied your laces, tighter to keep pressure on the injury for now, and you hooked a finger under his chin, forcing him to look up. “Tommy, I know I complained, but I was having a good time. I always do when we hang out, even if we are running ourselves to death.”
His lips flicked up at the joke, but he still looked guilty. “I know, but I should have just worked out alone.”
“But you don’t like that, so I was happy to come with you. Stop beating yourself up.” He sighed, trying to let the tension go, and nodding his head. “Besides, I don’t get all gross and sweaty like this for just anyone, so cheer up, that’s how you know I wanted to be here.”
“You’re pretty no matter what. Sweaty, all dolled up, glitter in your hair at a club or all breathless and sweaty on a run, you’re breathtaking.” His hand came up to sit on your cheek, a thumb smoothing over your skin. “When I wanted you to fall for me, this isn’t quite what I meant, though.”
You stared at him for a second, eyes narrowing, and his usual cheeky grin flashed up, but there was something deeper in his gaze that you’d never taken long enough to notice before. “Did you just flirt with me?”
He looked taken aback for a second, wide eyes and parted lips, before a disbelieving sound left him, and he shook his head lightly “I’ve been flirting with you since the day I met you, but thanks for finally noticing.”
“You have?”
“Uh, yeah.” He deadpanned, your head emptying once again, and you watched as he twisted his body, sitting down on the grass with his legs spread out before himself.
“You took your shirt off.” He paused, looking down at himself, and his cheeks were tinged pink when he looked back up, confused. “You took your shirt off, and my mind just sorta’ went blank, and the next thing I know, I’m on the floor in pain. I’ve been into you since, like, last year. The whole system just short-circuited as you did.”
You waved a hand up and down yourself, and he frowned, not exactly the reaction you were expecting, the fear of rejection racing through you. “So, it was my fault you got hurt?” He looked totally distraught, lips in a pout as he stared at you, and you couldn't take it anymore. “I’m really, really so-”
Pushing forwards, your lips met his, his back finding the grass as your body crashed into him, a groan spilling from him as his brain caught up. One hand sought your waist as you lay atop him, the other lacing messily into your hair and tangling the strands as he kissed you back deeply and passionately, lips gliding with yours. You held yourself up over him, the pain in your ankle disappearing as he kissed you just as eagerly, an exchange that was long overdue.
It was frantic, and needy, his mouth working against yours until the breath was stolen from your lungs and your lips were stinging, desperate for breath but never wanting to part from him, a whine leaving you as he pulled back, gasping for breath much like you were. He pulled away, staring up at you as his head fell to the grass, a finger smoothing over your face as the tomb of the other rubbed circles into your hip, tucking under the edge of your shirt to find bare skin. “We should have done that a long time ago.”
“Yeah, definitely.” You rolled your lips together, licking the taste of him from them as you stared down at his flushed face, whiskey eyes twinkling as he stared up at you. “Wanna’ do it again?”
“Fuck, yeah, I do.” He leaned up halfway to meet you, neck craned and he hummed happily, this kiss a little slower and calmer, testing the waters as the initial shock and desperation died down, and he rolled you over, your back meeting the ground as he settled above you, your back coming down to rest in the soft grass. “Been dreamin’ ‘bout kissing you for years.”
He mumbled the words into your lips, one hand finding your shoulder, sliding down a little lower over your arm, pausing a little as he found your ribs, thumb brushing just under your tits through your clothing, your breathing hitching in your throat. His kisses shifted, trailing along your jaw lightly and your hips bucked up, a groan on his lips as you brushed over him, shy heat flushing your face once again as he paused.
“I meant it, y’know. I realised not long after we met that you weren’t going to return my flirting, but I liked you so much but then, and so I decided I’d rather have you in my life as a friend than not at all.”
His teeth continued to tease your skin lightly, and you shivered under him, his hips dropping down to press against you more firmly, and your eyes slipped closed.
“Pure torture, though. All your pretty dresses, movie nights where we’d cuddle, and you’d wear my jumpers when you came over, looking so cute that all I wanted to do was kiss you until your mind was empty, and wake up to you on lazy Sundays. I want you to kiss before exams and whisper good luck in my ear, before we get to celebrate late at night. God, I’m so fucking in love with you.”
“You are?” It was a startling realisation, your body jerking a little in shock, and he grunted as your core shifted against him, his lips bucking up to you in return this time.
“You don’t have to say it back, but it’s true.”
Your hands came up to find his face, bringing him close enough that your noses bumped and breath was shared. “I love you too, Thomas.”
He whined a little under his breath, nose playing with your own, and you tugged him in closer, until his body was pressed up to yours. The temperature was rising between you, making you feel suffocated as the gaze you were being fixed with by the man set you on fire from the inside out, and you pushed him back, breath caught as you looked at him.
Your hands moved to the hem of your shirt, skin itching to be rid of it as you felt like every nerve within you was speaking with electricity, tugging at it as it was trapped between your bodies, and he moved to help. Peeling your shirt up and over your head, it was a flurried collection of movements, sports bra revealed to him once again, and you sighed a little as your back met the crisp and cooler strands of grass again, his body covering yours as he followed you back to the ground.
One solid hand came up to your thigh, hitching it up onto his hip so that he could settle between your thighs, and as the hardening cock in the thin shorts he wore pressed up to your core, you both let out soft sounds of pure bliss at the friction. Dragging a hand down along his chest, your nail scraped over bare skin, sweat and slick from all his exertion, the dips between pecs and toned muscles twitching and clenching under your fingertips, and he let out a breath sigh into your mouth as his lips found yours once again.
Wet and passionate, his tongue teasing over your lip until you parted them for him once again, and he moaned as your tongue dared to come out and play with his own. You dared your hand lower, fingers brushing across the trail of dark hairs below his navel, until a single finger was tracing over his cock, and he whimpered needfully at the feeling, his bucking up into your touch as your hand was crushing between your bodies, the noises he made making your head spin.
Cupping him fully, you squeezed tightly, and his arms over you buckled a little as you did, his lips leaving yours so that his forehead could press to your own, hot washes of quickly panted breaths coming over your face. “Sweetheart, if you keep that up, I’ll fuck you right here in the park.”
“Sounds naughty. Sounds fun.” You mumbled, a slightly tighter grip as you rolled your hand over him, and he groaned a little under his breath, dipping down for a desperate kiss. Supporting all of his weight on one hand, the other coming down to peel your touch away from him, and pinning your wrist to the warm grass over your head, shaded by the tree the two of you were partially hidden behind, a growl on his lips.
“I’m not kidding.”
“Neither am I.” He pulled back, eyes finding your own as he evaluated your words, finding no joke in your eyes and a dark look crossed over his features, rolling his lips before they twisted up into a smirk.
“You know, I always pictured something romantic for our first time together.” Your breath hitched in your throat, the tip of his nose nudging at your jaw as his lips brushed over the sensitive skin of your neck, tongue brushing as he licked at his lips, and you keened up into him. I” figured it would be after a couple of dates, when I finally manned up enough to tell you how I felt.” He pressed a delicate kiss to your skin, and again, nothing rough about it, not at all what you’d expected, and you lifted a hand to lace into his hair. “I’d take you home, strip you down slowly, kiss every inch of your body until you were breathless, and then I’d make love to you for the whole night.”
“Big promises, think you can last that long?”
“Probably not, you drive me crazy with everything you do, but I’d give it my best go.” He laughed gently into your skin, teeth grazing over the spot where your neck met your shoulders, and he gifted one hand again, to land on your jaw to turn your face to the side, his teeth biting own roughly on that spot, and a loud moan left you as you felt him do so, not enough to break the skin, but enough that there’d be a mark, and your eyes rolled back a little.
His lips sealed over that spot, sucking harshly, and you whimpered a little under his touch, swipes of his tongue thrown into the mix, slow and torturous over your sin, and there would be a large bruise you’d be unable to hide for days to come. “Tommy..”
“I know, sweetheart,” He dipped down a little further, lips working over your skin until he was kissing down toward the edge of your sports bra, the tip of his nose dragging over a perky nipple beneath the elasticated material, and he chuckled into your skin at the needy noise you made. Hot and wet kisses, placed along your stomach, until he had reached the hem of your pants, humming under his breath, his fingers latching into the sides. “Are you sure about this?”
“The sex, or the sex in public?”
He lifted his head, a laugh flailing from his lips, cheeks flushed with warm pink as he stared up at you, an adoring look in his eyes that shone right through his amusement. “Both, I suppose.”
You collapsed back into the grass, feeling his finger twitch where they waited in your waistband, before nodding your head. “I’m pretty damn sure, Tommy.”
He didn’t waste any time, pulling your pants down just far enough to fall under the rise of your ass, bunched around your upper thighs, before your hips were falling down once again, a loud giggling falling from your lips as you did, squirming a little against the floor, and his fingers paused in their motions along the bare skin of your thighs that had been revealed as his brows rose. “What’s so funny, angel?”
“The grass is tickling my ass.” You mumbled, and he paused, your head lifting to look at him in the silence, and his face was split in a wide grin, trying to choke back his laugh as he stared at you, shaking his head.
“You totally just ruined the moment.”
“I did not!” You grinned, giggling as you spoke, before sitting up and moving to your knees, spreading your legs as far as you could with the stretchy material still around your thighs to kneel before him. Taking his hand in yours, you pulled it down, watching as he swallowed thickly, eyes still locked together, and his breath hitched as the back of his palm brushed over your yoga pants. The tips of his fingers traced over your sodden folds, your teeth caught prisoner between your teeth as his jaw dropped, and he took control then. “See? Totally not ruined.”
“You will be,” He mumbled, a threat that had your head spinning, and he was firmer in his movements now, a single digit swirling through your wetness and dragging up until he was bumping against your clit, a sudden cry leaving you as he did, and your fingers dug into the skin of his wrist. “So wet, sweetheart. That all for me?”
You nodded, eyes fluttering shut as he began to trace slow circles onto the small bud, and he hummed under his breath.
“Thought about this so much, the way you’d look when I touched you, how you’d sound moaning my name, the way you’d feel as you came around my cock. You’ve been all that’s on my mind for so long.”
“Tommy..” You sighed his name out, pushing him a little further, and a dark chuckle left him as you tried to get more, feeling that sam wet pad brush over your entrance. “Please?”
“Use your words, I want to hear you say it.” His other hand came up, cupping your jaw, and you could feel his eyes burning into you, voice becoming raspy as he spoke low and quiet, words for only you to hear as the two of you tried not to draw too much attention to yourselves. His thumb brushed over your chin, dragging your lower from where it was held to press on them, stinging slightly from the scrape of your teeth, before you were parting them, allowing his thumb to press to your tongue. “I want to hear everything that this dirty little mouth has to say, go ahead and drive me wild, angel.”
You hummed around the finger in your mouth, hips bucking up into him as he circled your hole, never dipping inside but make sure to rub across you just enough to catch, making you absolutely desperate, feeling your juices flooding down onto his hand and smeared between your thighs as he kept this up. Sucking tightly on the finger in his mouth, he let out a broken moan, pushing his finger in further to keep you quiet, before one long finger was dipping into you, as far as he could reach.
The teasing, the build-up, everything had been overwhelming, all too much for you, and your whole body trembled at the simple addition, feeling him still as you acclimated to the invasion, before he was curling his finger to press at your walls lightly. “Nothing to say, so soon? I was hoping I’d at least get my cock in you before you were fucked senseless.”
He pulled that wet finger back, smearing over your china s your gasped for breath, and you opened your eyes to look at him. “You really want to know what I think about?”
“I really do.” He pulled back, beginning to set a slow rhythm with his finger, pumping in and out of you slowly, and you needed more. “You ever thought of me while touching yourself like this? I’ve thought of you, when my hand was wrapped around my cock, thinking about how much better it’d feel if it was you. Your hands, your mouth, this sweet little cunt, always you, though.”
Your hands ran up his shoulders, coming up to sit over his neck lightly, feeling the erratic throbbing of his pulse under your hand. “I think about your mouth, all the fucking time.”
Pink lips formed a smirk, his finger being joined by another and beginning to stretch you out picking up pace, and you could feel the knot within you beginning to wind up tight, pulling and twisting as you felt butterflies begin to explode for action inside. “Yeah?”
“Yeah, you don’t know how much you mess with it. You’re always licking your lips, and making these little smirks, and your cute little smiles, You rub at your jaw, and oh God, don’t even get me started on your hands.” You let out a gasp as the tips of his fingers found your sweet spot, exploring within you as he learned what made you tick, what made you moan.
“Right there?”
“Right there!” You confirmed, breathy exclamation of the words, and he focused his attentions on that, your mind going blank as pleasure raced through every vein in your body. You’d wanted this for so long, this kind of intimacy with your best friend.
You were close, close enough that he had a key to your apartment and stated over frequently, close enough that he’d seen you in your underwear before and close enough that you’d shared a bed, cuddling on nights when you were stressed before exams, showing up at his place in sweatpants with tearstained cheeks, and he’d bring you inside without a word.
This was what you wanted though, you wanted his lips on your own, kissing away every sound you made as it became more frantic, a wet sound filling the air, smacksmatchinging of your lips and the atrociously dirty sound his finger s made as they thrust in and out of your wet channel, a peak like no other beginning to take you over, even from the simple foreplay, purely because it was him. “I’m close..”
Your words were mumbled against his lips, and he only groaned under his breath, the palm of his hand brushing over your clit with every movement, the sparks of electricity it created were running along every nerve you had, and you rolled your hips down into his hand, searching for more of that friction as you chased your high right towards the edge. “I can feel you, baby, squeezing my fingers so good. Can only imagine how good you’ll feel milking my cock.”
“Thomas!” He recessed down roughly on your g-spot, nails brushing over your walls lightly each time he pulled back, a combination of filthy sensations that made tears line your eyes as it all became too good. “Tommy!”
“C’mon, baby, come for me. Make a mess on my fingers, like I know you want to.”
His words threw you over the edge, deep voice and dark tone, your face pressing into his neck as you cried out his name, muffling your sounds in his skin as you came, juices washing over his digits as he pumped you through it, shushing you lightly, a mixture with praises, telling yo how goo you were dong, and it made heat crawl along our skin to your cheeks as you realised how much you liked it.
You’d always been independent, relying only on yourself, and then Thomas had stepped into your life and forced you to depend on him just as much, and as he coaxed you through your climax, mumbling sweet whispers about how good you were for him, you crumbled to nothing under his touch. “Feel better, honey?”
“So good.” You whispered, walls fluttering as his hand pulled back, and you retracted yourself from his body long enough to watch him stick his fingers into his mouth, one eye dropping in a lazy wink as he licked the clean. Your hands slid from his shoulders to his chest, letting out a contented sigh as you looked at him. “God, you’re so fucking hot.”
His chest puffed up a little under your touch and at the compliment, your finger moving in feather-light patterns over his chest, making him shake a little as you moved. He moved you, back, laying you down in the grass, slow and intimate, his body covering yours, kneeling between your thighs and moving to peel one leg free of your leggings, your shoe dropping off at your foot and skin raising with goosebumps at the summer breeze washing over flushed skin cooling you down immensely. His hands were supporting him on either side of your head another question about whether you were sure, but this one was unspoken, a look in his eyes said it all.
Dragging your hands along the bare skin of his back, you found the shorts he wore, basketball style, thin and silky under your hands, and you pulled on them, inching them down and far enough over his ass for his cock to spring free, wet and dripping with precum, bumping against you sodden folds, and you took a sharp intake of breath at the feeling.
His hips thrust up, instinctually as he twitched, the swollen head of his cock pumping to your clit, and the both of you let out soft whines at the feeling. Reaching between your bodied, your fingers wrapped around him, his lips parting and eyes sliding shut as you gripped onto his shaft, a few test strokes as he fucked up into your fist, before you were nudging his cock down, lining him up perfectly.
Sinking into you, his hands gave way at the bitten-off cry of your name that he made, dropping from his hands to his elbows, bodies pressed flush together as your hips sat snugly together, his throbbing length encased within your walls.
“I feel like I just went to heaven.”
You giggled, the movements making you tighten around him and he groaned at the feeling. When you were both ready, you circled your hips against him, rocking up into him slowly, and he reached down to latch a thigh up onto his waist again, no obstruction as your bare leg came up to his body, wrapping and holding him tighter.
“I promise, next time, it’ll be after a date. Something fun and romantic, and when we get home, we’ll be all alone, and I’ll take you apart piece by piece until you're crying my name, but not right now.” His lips brushed over yours, his head tipping to the side a little, before you could fee his cheeks twitch in a smirk. “But right now, I just want to fuck senseless.”
“So do it.”
“I intend to.” He pulled back, almost all of the way out of you, before he was slamming back into you, no warm-up or time to adjust, you back arching up from the grass as you met him, and you barely covered a loud moan with your hand before he was repeating the motion, a grunt on his lips as he did.
Your nails raked over his back, tearing welts into the skin as he picked up to an earth-shattering kind of pace, and just as promised, you were left speechless, absolutely fucked senseless. It was pleasure like none you’d ever felt before, stretched out around his length, long and thick and your breath was punched form your lungs as you gasped for breath with every thrust that he delivered to you. Leaning up, you caught his lips with you own, a kiss that he was eager to return as he let out a soft sound at the connection, lips puckering immediately to return the love, and you smiled against him.
Shifting your hips up to meet him, skin was clapping against skin, drowned out by the sounds of fresh water and birds chirping around you, distant chatter from the other sides of the bushes and trees that you were hidden behind. It was scandalous, the thrill that anybody could simply walk around this side and catch you, half-naked with your loved ball-deep inside of you, hand over your mouth as you tried to quiet your screams, you weren’t sure what you’d do.
Slipping your other hand between your bodies, you found your clit, rubbing patterns on it to match his thrusts, the high within you building up to reach cosmic peaks. Locking your legs around his waist, you flipped him over, a grin on his face as he found his back pressed into grass, your centre sliding along his length as you sank back down, seated across his thighs.
“Oh, so I take it that you’re feeling better.”
“I’ll probably regret it later,” You whispered, a jolt of pain sparking along your body as you caught your ankle at an odd angle, face screwing up lightly, and Thomas sat up to meet you. Wrapping your legs around his waist at a more comfortable angle, you let out a little sigh, his hands on your hips helping you to move. “That’s better.”
“Mhm, I’m glad.” He whispered, and you whimpered, hands coming up to wrap around his neck as you leaned in, close enough that your lips brushed, heads pressing together softly, and he circled your hips slowly. It was special, breath shared, and while it may be risky and erotic because of where you were, heated circumstances throwing your hormones into overdrive, you knew it wasn’t a mistake, it was the first step through the doorway you’d both been lingering outside of without realising the other was there. “I’m close, sweetheart.”
“I know, me too.” You whispered, picking up your motions and rocking yourself down into his body, every pulse of his cock making stars flash behind your eyes. Slipping a finger between your lips, he brushed the pad over your tongue, waiting for you to soak the digit before he was pulling it away, his mouth closing over your own, hand slipping between your bodies. He tweaked at a nipple through your sports bra, chuckling in the kiss as you whimpered his name, before he was finding the swollen bud between your legs. “Fuck, Tommy!
Rubbing lightly, he had barely begun, before you were tumbling into orgasmic bliss in his arms, locking up around him, body going rigid and your heart feeling like it stopped in your chest as you came undone. He held you tightly, your bodies pressed together, fingers laced into his hair, mouths sliding together in sloppy kisses as you tried to keep yourself somewhat quiet.
Only moments after you came, he was chasing right after you into your peak, his eyes rolling back in his head, tone raising just a little as he moaned your name, cracking slightly and you felt like you’d broken just hearing him say your name in such a way. Ribbons of hot cum filled you, making you shudder as you felt chilled from the outside as he pumped you full, and you felt tears line your eyes. “Oh, fuck.” You whispered, words dragged out as you felt your heart race in your chest, beginning to come down from your high. “That was incredible.”
“That’s an understatement.” He mumbled, lips moving along your jaw in sweet kisses, pressing gently as you waited to catch your breath, sweaty skin now even slicker, the run having had nothing on this kind of activity, as you came down, he flipped you over pressing you back into the grass so that your legs could unwrap from his waist, letting him pull away from you and collapse down onto the sun-warmed ground beside you. Tugging his shorts back up, you stared down at your one bare leg, your shoe metres away, and you groaned, trying to sit up.
A cringe was on your lips as you felt arousal still leaking from your core, and he chuckled, lifting a hand to brush lightly over your skin, watching as you tried to readjust yourself without putting too much pressure on the ankle that was still injured.
“Do you want to get a pizza?”
“What?” You turned to stare at him incredulously, snickering slightly as you reached for your shoe, and bringing back the shirt he’d dropped long ago as you did. Lacing up your shoe once again, you turned to face him, finding him still staring at you.
“Movie night. Me and you. A date. Pizza or Chinese food?”
You grinned, plucking your shirt from the bush-branch it had landed on after being flung away, trying to turn it the right way out once again. “Pizza works for me.” Your words were whispered out, a light sigh as you realised it was officially, and Thomas sat up upon hearing the crack in your voice. Settling a hand over your cheek, he pulled you down to his lips, a smile pressed between you as he gave you a simple kiss.
“I meant it, y’know. Everything I said, about how much I care for you, and how into you I am. I honestly do want us be a couple, have for a while.”
“I’d like that, too.” You mumbled, accepting the hands he was holding out to you, pulling you to your feet before letting go to tug his shirt back on over his head, a wisecrack on his lips about not wanting to cause any more injuries, and hide the marks you’d made on his back. As you stood up and balanced with weight on your ankle, you tested a first step, sighing a little. “Still hurts.”
“When we get back, I’ll get an icepack for you, and let you put your feet in my lap while we watch movies.” You huffed, his arm wrapping around your waist to help you go, and you twisted to look up at him a little.
“I’d rather be in your lap myself.”
“Yeah?” He grinned, turning to press a kiss to your temple. “That works too.”
“I should hope so. Your lap belongs to me now, girlfriend rules.”
“Alright, well that means that cute little butt belongs to me. Boyfriend rules.” His hand slipped down, pinching at your ass lightly, and you jumped, swatting at his hand as you steadied yourself and rebalanced on your feet, wincing at the pain on your swollen ankle.
“You are going to injure me even more.”
“It is not my fault that you can’t keep your eyes to yourself.” You gaped, shoving him with your elbow as he snickered. You continued on you walk, moving in slow and cautious steps as you began to make your way back to your apartment, hoping your roommate wouldn't be home to witness the messy state you were in, grass stains on your pants and Thomas’s knees, because she’d put it all together in seconds. The hand on your waist squeezed lightly, pulling you out of your thoughts and back to the moment. “I’m joking, you have o idea how many times you’ve distracted me.”
“Now you can do something about it.”
“Yes, I can.” He beamed, dipping down to press a soft kiss to your lips, and you returned it, heading home for the first date for the man you’d adored for so long. Maybe exercise was good for something.
this is mainly a dylan o’brien writing blog, but hopefully i’ll start writing for a few more fandoms soon! i just started writing for another fandom, so i’m updating my masterlist!
also if you’re looking to make a request for any of these people/characters, i have a tab dedicated for you to do so!
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↱ masterlist for DYLAN O’BRIEN + CHARACTERS
characters include: stiles stilinski, void!stiles, stuart twombly, dave hodgman, thomas, mitch rapp, and sam taylor.
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↱ masterlist for TOM HOLLAND + CHARACTERS
characters include: peter parker.
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extra information
i don’t think i will be writing peter parker smut, that idea might change if there’s something i can imagine, but i highly doubt it.
the fics that contain smut have been labeled in their summaries, and a further description of what the story has in it is listed in the warnings :)
hopefully this master list grows longer as i begin to venture off into other fandoms! i actually want to start writing for mgg and all of his characters in the near future.
Oc breakdown so far: Lise, Subject B-13, Birth name: Layla
This is Thomas x Oc (reader perspective)
You looked at the boy on the screen, Subject A-2, Thomas. He was talking to his fellow Gladers getting ready to take on the Grievers, he was going to see the scene Ava Paige set up for him and the others soon. You saw Teresa, she had been like a sister to you for years, she had sided with Wicked claiming it was good just a few days before entering the Glade. You had told Thomas how you didn't trust Wicked, especially Janson, he always gave you the chills. Thomas had taken what you told him and trusted your gut feelings, he gave the Right Arm information, you didn't know exactly what he gave them but it was enough defiance to be sent to the Glade A Maze.
Just as you were about to be sent to Glade B. You followed up with the Right Arm, you told them what had been changed since Thomas had been dropped in the Glade. Wicked caught you red handed, but now they thought you had stolen Thomas' credentials, just as you had stolen a guards before contacting the Right Arm for the first time. Thomas when he shows up to Janson's compound will be thought to have been a loyal member of Wicked, unless he just throws caution to the wind as soon as he arrives. You covered all the tapes of him saying anything remotely anti Wicked with random how do we leave this place type of words.
You knew you were no hero, but you could always have the ones you love backs. And you had been in love with Thomas for years, always trying to help him, doing whatever you could. You knew it would never be reciprocated, you were shy, sweet, smart Lise. You were just a friend, not even one of his best. You always had Aris, Gally and Teresa though, to help you when you felt down.
You could never talk about your crush on Thomas to Teresa though, you knew she had a crush on him and it looks to you like he feels the same about her. You just told Teresa the boy you were in love with loved someone else, but Gally and Aris knew. Gally just tried to protect you and patted your head when you were down, that was before he has sent to the Maze. Your sort of brother had been dropped in the maze for three years, you missed him. You missed Aris too, he was your best friend and your confidant. You hadn't seen him for a while, he had been busy with work, and you knew you would see him soon but you wouldn't remember him. He was put in the Glade B maze a few days ago, Wicked decided to put you in Glade B for added confusion and your subject number.
B-13, you were supposed to be put in the maze a few months ago but then you had gotten sick (for the millionth time), and then the labs needed to do a million tests and had you watched for any signs of well anything. They knew you were immune to the flare, but you were also constantly sick and riddled with headaches, and they had no clue what was wrong with you. Your arrival had been postponed and was switched with next month's greenie. You and Thomas had moved Wicked's schedule for the Maze trials up a month by giving the Right Arm information, Wicked will be rushing finish everything for the Scorch Trials while the Right Arm frees hundreds of kids from Wicked custody.
Thanks for read what I got so far, it's no where close to a full chapter or one shot yet though. Hope you like what I have so far and the final product once it's out.
My so far forever tag list (please tell me if you want to be taken off or added, I have I bunch of things I'm working on and I don't want anyone to miss anything) : @dylinski, @bluetree76, @samslave, @bisexualmage
summary; deep into your relationship, and still happy, there’s a bigger step on the horizon.
notes; please note that this is based two years after the events of the main series!
warnings; reference to arson, reference to injury.
“Tommy, where the hell are we? Why does it smell like burned wood?” You grinned, your vision blocked by the tie Thomas had used to cover your eyes, holding onto one of his hands tightly as he guided you up the pathway beneath your feet. “Seriously, I thought we were having a date night. You said we were going out!”
“We are out, technically.” He pressed a kiss to your cheek, your skin tingling a little where his lips had pressed, before he was slowing you down, bringing you to a stop, and his hand left yours. The sunlight that had been pocking through the tie was blocked, shadowed as Thomas came to stand in front of you. “It’s just not what you think. But we are on a date, and we can order some food out here later.”
“Where exactly is ‘out here’? Because we were driving for, like, an hour.”
“Okay, well, it wouldn't normally be that long. I got a little lost because I couldn’t use the SatNav.” He huffed, fingers smoothing over the knot on the back of your head and trying not to pull on your hair as he undid it carefully. You were buzzing with excitement, wondering where exactly it was that he’d brought you, and you blinked a little at the light burned ta your eyes, finally able to see again. Thomas had blindfolded you upon leaving the station after your shift, not wanting you to have any idea about where you were going, and it took you a moment to readjust. “You ready?”
“Totally ready.” You beamed, and Thomas nodded, dipping down to press a quick peck to your lips, before he was stepping out of your way. Staring up at the building for a second, your blinked once, and then twice, before your lips were pursing, head tipping to the side. You stared for another moment, before turning to look at Thomas. “We’re at a burned-up house from a call last month?”
“Yeah!”
“Yeah! Cool!” You faked his enthusiasm for a second, trying to understand where it was coming from. “Huh. Why?”
He rolled his eyes fondly, tucking the tie into his back pocket before taking your hand and tugging you up the steps. The doorframe was burned, the door pulled closed but unable to lock as it hung unevenly on its hinges, and Thomas pushed it open again carefully. “I thought you might want to look around? Can I show you around?”
You didn’t understand much, but you smiled, sensing his excitement in it, and nodding your head. “Yeah, Tommy, of course.”
You stepped in a little more, eyes flicking over it all. There was peeling wallpaper that was scarred with ash and black stains, burned away right down to the foundations in some places, and the ceilings were covered in soot. The floors creaked under your feet as you stepped in glass smashed and the shards stained, and it was unusual to see the remnants of a building like this without all the smoke and fire that usually came with it when you were on the job.
The first room looked like it was supposed to have wide doors, an entrance that would take double doors but they’d fallen down, ripped laces along the frame where they’d torn of, but the debris had been moved from inside of the house. The living room was beautiful, you couldn't deny it. There was a large fireplace against one wall, real log-burning with a chimney up to the roof and if you hadn't actually worked on the case, you’d have immediately put the large accessory down to the cause of the fire.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t. The reason this beautiful large house had burned down was stupid kids messing around with fireworks in the back garden of a house for sale, which was now completely destroyed. What would once have sold for over a million was barely worth a couple hundred thousand anymore, despite the beautiful neighbourhood it was in.
“This room is huge.” You mumbled, stepping a little further inside, and Thomas nodded. There was a file on one side, a place that was covered in old and destroyed bookshelves, a large windowsill beside it, and you could already picture it extended to make a little reading nook.
“Do you wanna’ see how it looked before? There were pictures on the real estate website, it was beautiful.”
You nodded, tuning to your boyfriend as he pulled out his phone, pulling up the pictures and swiping through them, Standing by his side, you looped an arm around his waist, leaning in slightly, and his arm went over your shoulders. Finally finding the right one, he positioned you both to be facing in the right direction, a set of large bay windows on one side that went out towards a decking that had been burned away.
In the photograph, the window had curtain rails and soft white curtains made of a thin kind of mesh, letting in the natural light as they hung over large glass doors. The walls were done up with a pale grey and white wallpaper, leaving it simply for the furnishings, but everything seemed to be in pale shades that made it all feel modern and elegant. Turning you both, he showed off the fireplace, decorated with old cobblestones and shale around the base that decorated it beautifully, before fading away into what had once been smooth oak wood flooring.
There were pictures on the wall at one end, and it reminded you of the wall Thomas had in his apartment, the one you had moved into almost a year ago, but his one was bigger, and looked like it could hold at least three times the quantity. There were couches laid out, surrounding a large television, and it was a huge area, a coffee table that looked like it was almost the size of a dining table.
Moving through to the kitchen together, you were even more taken aback by it. To one side was what was once a dining room, connected fully and open space, enough to seat a whole extended family, and you could only imagine the thanksgivings or the Christmas’, and you would be able to fit the whole squad into that room without trouble, without sitting in different rooms or connecting tables, all squeezing around the kitchen counters at Newt’s place or sitting in the tables, couches and floor like at Minho’s last Christmas.
There was space in the kitchen for an island in the centre, stools in front of it, and built-in ovens and fridges like at the station. There was also a set of large doors here, the glass broken, and you assumed this was where the fireworks had burst right though because there was a hole in the centre of the ceiling up into one of the rooms above.
“I saw this kitchen and I was immediately thinking about the size of it. Y’know, like, imagine the parties or the holidays, with a dining room like that and a kitchen like this I remember thinking it when we were putting out the flames, too.” He scratched at the back of his neck, looking around for a second, and you guided his face back to your own, leaning up to press a kiss to his lips. “Weird thing to think about when putting out a fire, I know.”
“I was thinking the same thing. Big kitchen and dining room, you’d actually be able to fit a family our size into it without trouble. It’s kinda’ wild to think about.”
He chuckled, nodding his head, and his hands lifted to cup your cheeks pulling you back in closer to him. His nose bumped against your own, dragging together for a second in sweet Eskimo kisses, before his lips were meeting your own. Pressing in softly, he was still smiling into the connection for the first few seconds, before his head was twisting to the side, one hand dropping from your face to your waist, smoothing around your lower back and pulling you in even closer.
Pressing up into him, your arms circled his neck, pulling him down to your level as his tongue soothed over your lower lip, and you parted them for him. He sighed, a breathy and delicate sound, before his fingertips were digging into your flesh, holding you tightly as he pulled you impossibly closer. Scratching lightly at the hairs along the base of his neck, he rumbled happily, chest vibrating under your own with the noise and your fingers tangled a little more, and you pulled back. He whined, chasing after you for a few seconds, before letting you go, his forehead resting against yours instead.
“Your hairs getting kinda’ long.”
“You don’t like it?” He teased, and you shook your head, slightly kiss-swollen lips puckering for a second to press to his own again, a series of short pecks, before you pulled back.
“I like it, but you always complain about how sweaty your head gets in your helmets when your hair is too long.” He sighed, knowing you were right, and shrugging it off with a ‘hmph’.
“You know, talking of parties, there’s this amazing outdoor area. It's huge, there’s the decking from the living room and a patio outside here, there’s a big tree at the end of the garden and this amazing barbecuing area.” You nodded along, eyes narrowing on him again as he got excited over it, walking you a little closer to the broken doors so that you could see out.
He was right, there was a tall oak tree at the end of a huge garden, a fire pit made in the middle surrounded by beer cans and wrapped from where you assumed the teens who’d started the fire had been messing around, but with a little love and care, it would be all fixed up. The patio would seat big outdoor furniture, and you could picture a smaller firepit in the centre for later summer nights, as well as the proud barbecuing area Thomas had mentioned, built into the stonework with different levels and multiple grills.
“What do you think?”
“What do I think of this house?” You echoed, and he nodded slowly, almost hesitantly, before you took a deep breath, staring back out to the garden.
“I think it’s beautiful. Or, it was. Has a lot of potential to be incredible again.” You didn’t know much, you’d barely seen half of the lower floor and none of the upper ones. “I haven’t seen much of it, but what I have seen is nice.”
“Well, y’know, there’s big bedrooms. The master bedroom is amazing, it has an en-suite with a shower and a bathtub, a big closet and huge windows for natural light with a little miniature balcony outside of it. There’s a study down here which would make a really nice snug or cosy room, it didn’t get touched as much by the fire so you can get a better image of it when I show you. There are so many bedrooms, seriously, like, six bedrooms. There’s an attic, and a basement, and-
“Tommy, why are we here?” There was something hidden under his voice, his words trailing off after you’d interrupted him and his hand sank back to his sides from where he’d been making gestures with them, his shoulders slumping a little.
“It’s a cool house, I thought you might want to see inside of it! Especially since you and Newt didn’t get to do much when we were here, there wasn’t anybody injured, so you were just left waiting around, and I wanted to share it with you.”
“There’s more to it than that, I know I’m not great at picking up on signals, Tommy, but I’d like to think I got pretty good at reading you over this last year or so.” You studied him for a second, and he shrunk a little more under your gaze, before huffing out a laugh.
“Almost two years, now.” You placed a hand on his shoulder, squeezing to reassure him, before sliding up to sit on his neck, letting your thumb brush over his pulse point and calm him. His hand landed on your wrist, following as he trailed it up your arm to find your hand, pulling it away from his body and linking your fingers together instead. He kissed along your knuckles, remaining in silence, but you felt like you were drowning in the nervous tension he was letting off.
“Talk to me, Tommy.”
“Okay.” He let out a shaky breath, nodding his head before looking back up to you. “Well, you and Newt were talking after the case, right? He said Derek lived in a neighbourhood like this when he was younger, and that you had always wanted to live in an area like this. Well, when I was in here, I kept thinking about how beautiful this place was, and how big it was. The whole squad could fit in, and it would be so comfortable. This is the sort of place you spend the rest of your life in, right? I was looking through it all and doing a sweep and because I knew it was empty my mind was wandering. I just thought about how I would never normally be able to afford a place like this, and how the value would go down so much because of the fire, and..”
“Oh, wow, are you thinking of buying this house?” You couldn't hide the shock in your voice no matter how much you tried, and Thomas chuckled as he watched you look around, with a little more interest now as you took it all in with more attention to detail.
“Well, yeah. Kind of. It’s only a thirty-minute drive from the house so it’s pretty much the same commute as right now, and-” He huffed, nostrils flaring a little as he thought, and you raised your brows at the way he suddenly went quiet, the gears in his head visibly turning as his brows furrowed a little. “Look, I’m struggling here, I’m nervous, okay?”
“Thomas, you’re getting all panicky.” You whispered, pulling him in a little, and leaning up. He was eagerly awaiting the kiss you gave him, body relaxing a little as you balanced yourself with one hand, thumb playing with his own where the other was still held by one of his, and he didn’t let you go when he pulled back. Instead, his head dipped lower, pulling you in and wrapping an arm around your waist, needy kisses that left you breathless as he held onto you, tension melting away and becoming a little hazy instead as he clung to you.
“I’m just,” His teeth nibbled a little on your lower lip, panting slightly as he pulled back for breath, and you were stealing more kisses through gasping laughs as you tried to get enough air, smiling and teasing as you did. “I’m just trying to ask you,” He was cut off again, your mouth meeting his and he laughed against your lips, his hand leaving your own to hold onto you more, fingers tickling over your sides lightly as you laughed into the kiss. “Cut it out, I’m calm now, but I have to say this while I have the courage.”
His cheeks were flushed when you pulled back, hair a little messy and lips a darker shade than usual, and he licked over them as he stared down at you, undoubtedly staring at an equal messy composure. “You have my undivided attention. Go right ahead.”
“I remember that a while ago, we were lying in bed and talking about things we wanted that we never thought would happen, and you said you’d always wanted to rebuild a house. Renovate it, was the word you used. You wanted to make it your own, but you never thought you’d afford it. And, on a paramedic and a firefighters wage, we’d never be able to afford a place like this, normally.”
“We?” You echoed, a soft smile on his lips as your heart thudded in his chest. You knew what it meant, it was a heavy commitment to buy a house with someone, living together was one thing but buying a house was basically a step away from a proposal, it was an investment in a long term future together, and you felt like you could barely breathe. Your chest felt tight, shock and adrenaline racing through you and you stiffened slightly, fear lacing itself into Thomas’ features once again. “You, uh, you want us to buy a house together?”
“Maybe..” He sighed, a little timid again now. “It was just a thought, because it’s such a beautiful house, and as soon as I saw it I was thinking about things you’d said, and it just seemed perfect for us, but if you don’t like it then that’s fine, just don’t shut down on me, okay?” He rested a hand over your cheek, thumb brushing softly, and his lips pressed a soft kiss toy our forehead. “Just tell me you hate the idea, but don’t go silent, alright?”
You nodded, letting him kiss your temple too, before pulling back to look at you. “I, um..”
“Hate it?”
“Love it, actually.” You choked on the words slightly, feeling a little breathless as they were wheezed out, and Thomas paused. He looked sceptical, shaking his head slightly, and you tried your best to smile. “No, I do. I really do. I’m just terrified, okay? I’m not good at long-term commitment, I’m scared, but I want it. With you.”
“Really? Because I know it’s a big step, and I know what it means, I’m not blind. It’s buying a house together, so if you wanna’ freak out or you don’t want it, that's okay, just tell me, alright? Because I’m in this with you for the long haul and you’ve got to know that by now, it’s not a secret, so I can wait until you’re ready.” The words sped from him, a little too fast, and you shook your head, leaning up to press your forehead to his.
“I’m really, totally sure. I just hadn't thought about it, okay? I was caught off guard, I’m not much one to think about the future, it doesn’t come naturally to me. But when I do think about my future, you’re always there.”
“Always?” He teased, twisting his head to brush his lips with your own.
“Every single time.” You gave him a quick kiss, a happy hum to accompany it and he relaxed once he let you sink back. “So, why don’t we order some pizza to be delivered here, and you can show me around some more. You said there were lots of bedrooms, which is good, because you know Newt will want his own.”
“So, we’re buying a house?” He looked a little unsteady, eyes glossing over, and he sniffed lightly. You matched him, nodding your head and beaming as the emotions overwhelmed you.
summary; after a dangerous call, neither of you can handle the waiting around anymore, and everything finally bubbles over.
notes; you’re welcome.
warnings; descriptive injury, reference to death, reference to arson, minor character injury.
“Holy fucking shit, I know they prepared us for this stuff with all those drills and what have you, but I never expected this.”
You smacked at Newt’s arm roughly, covering your face as you stared up at the building, smoke curling up from the top of the building, and scared students were all gathering on the grasses and the tennis courts, filtering out of the buildings and lining up, and it was eerily quiet. The usual fires you attended were loud, screaming and shouting of worried relatives as chatter went up, and big ones like this had news cameras and reporters gathering around, hounding victims for interviews and information.
This time, it was unsettlingly calm.
The kids had all followed routine, lined up with their teachers, each of whom were going along with attendance records, checking off the kids that had arrived and making sure they were where they were supposed to be, while tickling names off. Only the gentle voices of teachers talking in low tones to their classes could be heard instead of the usual clamouring, and you could still hear the alarms of the school’s fire alarms from inside as they rang.
Glowing flames licked up into the sky, windows shattering as glass got too hot and the smoke was black as possessions burned. Kids were crying, and at the gates were camera flashes and news team, all of whom held back out of earshot as they weren’t allowed to film the children, kept back from school property, and it was a blessing you were thankful for, because they would have been overwhelmed. You let out a slow breath, three other ambulances all pulling up, and you swallowed thickly while staring at the burning remnants of a once productive high school.
Even if they weren’t injured, you’d be required to check every kid here, and you were grateful for the assistance of other paramedics. They were already beginning to shift their equipment, setting up with tables and chairs that staff were carrying out from a sports hall storage room that wasn’t connected to the main building, safe from the flames and creating a makeshift triage bay.
Even just as you looked around, there were hundreds of kids that you and Newt would have to sort through alone. The firemen were buzzing around behind you, undoing rolls of hoses and taking them to the nearest hydrants, trying to come up with some kind of game plan, and you stared up at the building, nothing but pure confusion and empathy for the terror these students must be feeling.
“There’s gotta’ be, like, two thousand kids here.” You mumbled, cupping a hand over your eyes to look up at the glare, and your body sank a little.
“Yep, and you get to pick a piece of paper, choose your year group.” You jumped slightly, an unfamiliar voice, and your eyes found a similar uniform to your own, stretched over broad shoulders of a man who was a lot taller than you were, hair pulled back neatly behind his head in a ponytail, tattoos peeking out from under the collar of his shirt, and a beard neatly tucked away underneath his chin. “I’m Arthur, firehouse ‘46, and I’m apparently the one in charge of dividing up all the classes.”
“Is it too much to hope we get the freshmen?” You chuckled, taking a piece of the folded paper from his hands as he tried to keep it fair, and a deep chuckle vibrated through him as he nodded.
“Unfortunately, it would be, because my partner already picked that one out for us. No favouritism, I swear, just luck.”
“I’d challenge you on that, but your fist looks like it’s about the size of my head, so you’d probably win that fight.” He let out a louder laugh at that, raising a brow as you opened the piece of paper, his messy handwriting illegible for a second, and you studied it, before he was letting out a low whistle. “Juniors. Tough break.”
Newt let out a groan, what was arguably going to be the rowdiest and loudest group, protesting the most and kicking up a fuss, and you shrugged, accepting his final pitiful smile before he moved on. Newt watched him go, eyes scanning along him slowly for a second, before you clicked your fingers at him. “Hey, you just fixed things with your boyfriend! You gave me shit for being friendly with other firefighters, stop checking out other paramedics!”
“I wasn’t checking him out!” Newt gasped, cheeks tinting pink. “I was just looking, I guess. He’s not my type, I don’t want them too tall, it makes me feel tiny. I hate that. I want to be pushed up against the wall, not thrown around like a rag-doll. Too much muscle.” You glanced at him again, noting what he meant, because the man did look like he spent every free minute he had at the gym, and you shrugged.
Your eyes wandered then, you couldn't help it, flickering over the others around you before finding your team. The Truck team were all reporting to Thomas, no step-in lieutenant having arrived in Gally’s place yet, and didn’t like the idea of being a firefighter down on your team. He seemed to be coping through, giving out orders to a team twice the size, each breaking away in the usual pairs he made as they divided off to complete tasks.
Around the entrance to your ambulance, two tables had been set up, one on each side and a third one across them, forms being laid out in stacks with pens, each to be filled out by a student and held with them to take home, ones you’d have to sign every time to show you dismissed them, and you flexed your fingers, already anticipating the ache that would come.
The lines were beginning to shift again, teaching staff arriving with their lines of students, waiting to be told what to do, and you shared a look with Newt, before diving right into it. Splitting off the classes, you sat down behind one table, kids slowly filling out each form and coming to sit with you, letting you do initial checks across their eyes, their pulse and their reaction times, before signing each form.
Some were a little more injured, with small cuts and grazes, jostling in the halls knocking them around or to the floor, and you had quite a few bumped heads. Some had worse smoke inhalation, and some had been closer to the initial blast. Those were the worst ones, the ones with head injuries that were filling up the chairs laid out to wait for parents, and you had to not only sign your name on their forms but fill out medical information cards for them, ready to be sent to the hospital, and only an hour in, you felt like your hand was going to drop off. You’d scarcely made it to the other side off half of the kids, watching them all slowly being collected by crying and fearful parents, let in at the gates to find their kids, when you found out what had happened.
The gas taps in the science labs had exploded, a leaky seal that hadn't closed off and a bunsen burner that was too close to the leak. The science experiment gone wrong had sent flames bursting through all the labs along the floor, and you had to choke back bile when the kids who’d been sitting closer to the flames had come in.
They were shaking, sobbing tears and blood from burned skin that still smelled of gas. Melted plastic on smart uniform ties and burned clothing that still looks smokey. Ash was beginning to fall from the sky, blowing in your direction from the wind, some still glowing until it reached the ground, and they were all trembling from the trauma just at the remnants of it. You didn’t blame them.
The kid coming forwards next was shaky, an empty form clutched carefully in his hands as he handed it over, and you scribbled your name on it, looking up at him with a raised brow. “You know you gotta’ fill this out, right? I can’t let you leave until you have.”
“I know.” He whispered, the hands that were clenched under the table being lifted after a moment's hesitation, and he held his palms out, open hand facing you, backs pressed to the table. “I would but it hurt, I tried.”
You could see the etched strains of dotted ink at the top, your eyes wide as you took in the damage to his hands. He seemed alright everywhere else; a little red along parts of his skin where he’d gotten too close to some flames, but other than that, nothing too bad, but the damage to his palms was extensive. Blackened skin was charred and burned, bleeding and red flesh exposed underneath and raw to the cold air and you imagined it would be agony, the injuries travelling all the way to his wrists. “What the hell happened to you?”
“I, um, my hands got burned when I was trying to get out.”
I can see that, kid, but how?” You were filling in the form yourself, scribbling down the notes you could do yourself, and letting him substitute his name, date of birth and class number as you reached those sections, pen moving quickly over the paper as you waited for a reason. “I can't let you go until you tell me.”
“A door got stuck. I had to push it open.”
“How stuck was this door, because these aren’t the kind of burns that happen with quick movements, this took prolonged exposure.” He squirmed in his seat, avoiding your eye, and you gave in. Beside you, scattered around on your table and in the ambulance were the contents of your medkit, and the drawers, all running low on supplies as you’d tended to many injured kids, and you shook your head at his reluctance to speak. “Alright, fine, we’ll wait it out. Any allergies?”
He shook his head, chin wobbling a bit, and you handed his form back over to him, a neat crease down the middle where it was folded in half, and he held his hands out for you upon request. His face screwed up at the sting of the antiseptic spray, soft warnings on murmured apologies on your lips as you sterilised the wounds, before beginning to wrap them with aloe and cream soaked bandages. He shed several tears during the process, twisting to wipe his face on his shoulder as you patched up the first hand.
“Ready to talk, yet?”
He looked up at you again, shaking his head slowly after a second, and you let out a disappointed sigh that you hoped might make him cave, but he held strong. You worked on the other hand, wrapping the medicinal bandages slowly and carefully over his skin, weaving between his fingers and around his thumb, making sure to cover all of the exposed flesh right down to his thumb, before tucking it in carefully and sealing them with tape.
“You can go and wait over on those chairs until you’re ready to fess up, and you’re gonna’ have to go to the hospital for real treatment.” You nodded to one of the teachers as he went, head hung low and sulking as he walked away, before you turned to the next kid.
This one was worse, the same burns but these ones travelled halfway up his forearms, another empty sheet placed down in front of you, before he too was glancing at the last kid with burned hands, and your eyes narrowed on the two. “What the hell happened to you?”
“I got stuck, behind a-”
“A closed door? Is that what you're about to say?” A guilty look flashed over the second boy’s features, wide-eyed as he swallowed the lump formed in his throat, and he nodded. “That’s total bullshit. I don’t know what the two of you have been up to, but you don’t think I know what causes burns when I see them? I work in a firehouse, my firemen get burned up all the time, and this isn’t what happens when you push open a burning door. This is what happens when you hold onto something hot for a long time.”
He didn’t say anything, he just held out his hands, hissing in pain but managing to blink away his tears, unlike his friend, when you began to treat his wounds. The more severe they were, the more supplies you required, and you opted to dab the aloe gel and burn cream mix up to his elbows on each hand with a cotton pad, gentle not to let the tips of your fingers drag on open flesh as dry rubber from your gloves irritated the wounds.
“You need to tell me what happened, because I can’t let you go when you’ve got burns like this. You know it’s criminal evidence, right? If you don’t fess up and tell me the truth, you’ll have to tell it to the police. Why didn’t your teachers bring you forwards first if you had these kinds of injuries?”
“Because we weren’t in class.” He eventually whispered, and now the tears flowed, something inside of him seeming to crack wide open as hot tears flowed, the kid breaking down before you in a sob. You were wrapping his second arm carefully by the time he managed to catch his breath, his reaction shocking you a little, you didn’t want to make the kid cry with your threat of talking to the police, you just wanted to know what would happen. “We didn’t do this, I swear! We weren’t involved!”
“I know that, this was a freak accident, we already know that much, but you can tell me what happened.” Once you were finished, you took a seat before him, taking off blood and ointment stained gloves and throwing them in the bin bag you and Newt were rapidly filling up. As you did, you noticed Newt treating a kid with much the same injuries, your eyes narrowing a little on them for a second, before you sat down, picking up your pen and beginning to fill in the empty form. “We were skipping class.”
“All kids do that.” You chuckled, taking his name and date of birth as he worried his lower lip between his teeth, and just like that, all of a sudden, he was twisting to the side in his seat, retching violently onto the floor, as more tears began to flow. You abandoned the forms, rounding the edge of the table and the area around you where parents had been collecting their kids and teachers had been dismissing them suddenly fell silent, everybody turning to look over, and you rubbed his back gently, the contents of his stomach emptying.
When he was finished, he sat back up, trying to wipe at his mouth and wincing when he rubbed his mouth against his bandages by mistake, before lowering his hand. He slumped, seemingly drained of energy, eyes hooded a little, and you checked his pupils and his reactions again but they came out perfectly fine, and so this reaction wasn’t related to any injuries. “There were four of us.”
“Four of you?”
“Yeah, four of us skipped class.” You glanced around, noting only three with burned hands as Newt dismissed his kid to join your first, and a chilling feeling settled like a pit in your stomach. “We were in the theatre rooms, they’re below the science floors. We were messing around, and Ian went to the toilets in the corridors. When the explosion went off, the floor started to collapse, and a beam went over the door.”
You hated that you already knew where it was going, and your eyes impossibly wide as you glanced around, trying to find the yellow stripes of any fireman you knew to be free from your house, or any house, but they were all busy and out of view.
“The beam caught fire, and we tried so hard to move it, we tried but it hurt so much, and there was so much smoke and it got so hot, and we couldn't do it anymore. We had to go, we tried so hard but we had to go!” He was borderline hysterical, stuttering over his words as he cried, before he was gagging again, and you stepped out of the way, just avoiding his upchuck as he emptied his stomach again, guilt and anxiety taking a physical reaction on him. You processed his words, before the heavy truth settled over you again.
“Oh my God, Newt, there’s a kid still trapped in there.”
“What?” Your partner whipped around in his seat, eyes wide, before looking to the kid still heaving, and the other two with matching injuries. “Go find someone on the team, I'll finish up here!”
You nodded, pausing for a second to look around, before catching sight of a few metallic strips glinting in the light not far from the Squad truck. You stumbled over your feet, your heart pounding in your chest as you tried to get there. Rounding the edge of the red van, you found Winston sitting on the edge of the truck, door open, one foot on the floor by his helmet as the other was pulled up, his back pressed to the wall, and he was panting for breath, sweating as his mask lay beside him.
He cracked an eye open as he looked up at you, confusion taking over his face for a second, before concern was replacing it. “What’s up? Aren’t you dismissing kids?”
“There’s still a kiss trapped in there?”
“We did a sweep, everyone did, they checked every room and every floor, all the rooms.” You shook your head, hands shaking a little with your fear, and you felt the tremors spread over your body.
“No, no, there is someone.” You took a deep breath to steady yourself, and he sat up a little further. “There’s three kids, burns all over their hands and up their arms, because they were skipping class. They were right under the explosions, a kid was in one of the bathrooms and a beam fell over the door, they tried to move it but they couldn't, he’s trapped inside.”
“He’s been in there since this fucking happened? That was hours ago!” Despite his shock and disbelief, he was on his feet again, grabbing for his mask and his helmet, being the first one to finish his set of tasks clearly not coming much in handy, because he was going to be going back inside. “Where was he?”
“Uh, they said they were near the drama and theatre halls.” He nodded his head, hooking his mask back up to his oxygen tank as he pulled it up and adjusted the straps on his shoulders. “Winston, I gotta’ go with you.”
“No way, it’s falling apart in there.”
“I know, but you said it yourself, it’s been hours. That kid is gonna’ need immediate first aid, and how much first aid do you know?” He looked conflicted, tapping his foot a little and glancing around, watching as a few more members of your team, as well as others, all began to emerge from different exits. There was only so much of the fire they could risk putting out, when the building was igniting faster than they could contain it, it would have to simply burn itself out. “C’mon, Winston. Just grab me gear and let's go.”
“Fine, but stick by my fucking side and don’t take a step away, okay?”
“I promise!” You nodded, and he opened up one of the spare lockers. You knew the drill, kicking off your shoes and grabbing the heatproof gear that was labelled in a silver tin with your name across the front in permanent marker. Tugging the pants up your legs as fast as you could, you sealed them at the waist, tying them tightly and grabbing your jacket. You buttoned it up, fingers shaking as you did, before kicking off your shoes, uncaring of where they landed.
Pulling on your boots, you knelt down to tie them, your med bag landing beside you as Winston had retrieved it, and he looked more than anxious as he stared at you, letting you tuck the laces into the edge of the shoes to hide them once they were tight. “You’re gonna’ have to carry your bag, because you need to wear a tank and mask.”
He shook the other objects in his hands, and you stood, turning around and guiding your arms through the straps as he held it out, your breath forced from your lungs as the heavy weight settled onto your back. Following it, he rested the mask over your face, the glass fogging up for a second as you took heavy breaths, clearing a second later when cool oxygen was twisted on and began to come through. He fixed his own mask, gloves and helmet following as you copied him, checking it was all sealed up tight around your skin, before grabbing your bag.
You always felt like an astronaut in this gear, big and puffy and baggy, like you were walking with added gravity following behind him in wide and shuffling steps as quickly as you could, nerves and fear riding more and more as you headed towards burning entrances. It was something you’d never get used to, the idea of walking straight into flames, of walking into a burning building, and you patted deftly across the front of your helmet to find your torch, turning it on as Winston did the same, and then, you were plunging into thick black smoke.
It was like something from a horror movie, you could see other firemen wandering around, their shadows as they tried to at least secure as much as they could as the fire ripped through the building, burning through whatever fuel it could, and none of them paid you any mind. Clutching your bag up to your chest, you kept your eyes fixed on Winston, not daring to take your eyes off of him in case you lost him, and he was following signs as he went, trying to find the downstairs floors of the drama and theatre.
Your steps left footprints in the ash that was lining the floor, each footstep padded to silence by the thick grey layer, like a breadcrumb trail as you went, and it was a guiding light that was brushed away seconds later with the air currents created by flames.
You knew it when you finally arrived, large amphitheatres and halls, Winston pausing as he tried to identify which way the toilets would be, and his head twisted as he looked from one end to the other.
“You check that side, I’ll check this one. Do not go out of yelling range or sight.”
You gave him a mock-salute, peeling off to the left when he went to the right, and you scanned along the walls for the doorways.
There was nothing, just places where posters had been on the walls, the smashed glass of photos or peel offs to more corridors, but no toilets or burned beams. Just as you reached the end of the hall, only one direction coming off of it in a short pathway, you noticed something. It was crumbled now, black and crumbled but it could definitely have once been a solid beam, and as you squinted through the smoke, you could just about make out a doorway.
“Winston! I think I got it!” You yelled as loud as you could, turning around to find him spinning to look at you, and you held an arm out in a point down a connected corridor. He took off in a jog, as fast as he could move in the heat and the layers of clothes, and while it took him only seconds to reach you, it felt like it dragged on and on, the emergency making everything seem too slow as you worried for the trapped kid’s well-being.
He stepped ahead first, pacing towards it, and you followed after him, a slightly relieved breath leaving you when you were close enough for your head torches to reflect on signs signalling for the toilets. Winston placed a hand on the beam as the two of you approached it, pressing down on it as best he could, and the beam groaned at the pressure, but despite the force he applied, it didn’t crack.
He held out an arm, pushing you back slightly as his hand went to the toolkit around his waist, and unhooking a small hand axe. He held it up, adjusting it carefully in his grip, before swinging it up high and bringing it back down. It dug in, getting stuck for a second, and a large splintering sound filled the air, but it didn’t break.
He tried again, and again, and your anxiety was almost ready to burst when it finally cracked, hitting the floor with a loud thud, and you jumped, wincing slightly at the sound. The half still attached to the ceiling fell down, bringing a little more of the ceiling down, and it all became unstable again. Pieces of the roof were crumbling away, crashing down in bundles of flames to the floor, but at least one problem was solved.
Putting away the axe, Winston kicked open the door, waiting to see if any fire would come out. There was fire crawling along the roof, but the tiled floors were clean, the room smoky and filled with ash but reasonably safe, and the two of you entered.
As promised, there he was, the fourth student was unconscious on the floor beside one of the sinks. You glanced around, noting the jacket he must have been wearing was soaked with water, lay over his face as he’d tried to breathe through it to stop too much smoke inhalation, and Winston glanced at you as you sunk to your knees.
“Smart kid, that move probably saved his life.” You peed it back, checking for any signs of breathing, and you found his vets to be rising and falling very slowly and weakly, barely taking in any oxygen at all. Lifting up the torch from your keyring, you raised an eyelid, bloodshot eyes encasing pupils that were hardly responsive, reactions that took over a second to come into focus, and barely moving.
Scanning along his arms, you noted the raw burns that were forming along his flesh, tugging your bag open quickly and grabbing for the aloe inside. If he was to be carried back through the building, you wanted to minimise any risk of his wounds getting any worse. You didn’t try to be delicate or gentle, you were rushing, knowing you had to put speed over gentleness now, and that you could treat them properly once you were back outside.
Twisting on down on the taps, not much water came through, dripping through the pipes, and you used your teeth to pull off one glove, daring to touch the water. It wasn’t exactly cold, the pipes underground being heated by the fires above, but it was cool enough, and you dropped piles of bandages down into the sink to begin to soak. Taking open the gel, you squeezed out thick rows of it onto his arms, using your bare hand to rub it in, trying to be fast as the skin on the back of your hand began to hurt. Once it was rubbed in, you began to pick up dripping bandages, not even bothering to ring them out, before sealing the cool wrapping around his arms as best you could to keep them secured.
As soon as they were on, you were pulling your glove back on, and rubbing at the back of your hand through the material to soothe the pain there.
“He needs oxygen, with reaction times like this, I’m surprised he’s still breathing.”
“I can give him my mask.”
Winston reached for his mask, and you shook your head. He was covered in burns, he was out cold, and there was no way he’d wake up anytime between now and the hospital, it at all. Despite being alive, you had no idea what the long-term effects would be on him, and you hoped for the best, but you knew there wasn’t much Winston could do without his mask. “You can’t, you’re gonna’ have to carry him out of here. He takes my mask.”
No way, I’m trained for this, you aren’t. You’ll choke up in here before getting back to the main corridors.”
“Yeah, well, I can’t exactly carry this kid. So, if we want to get him out of here alive, we’re just going to have to risk it.” You didn’t wait for his response, ignoring his protests as you took off your helmet, reaching behind your head for the elastics of the mask, and pulling them off. The second it was gone, your skin flared up at the rush of heat, and you took a gasping breath. Your lungs were searching for oxygen, the flames burning most of it away, and you were getting so little now that your pure source was gone.
Hooking the mask over the kid’s face, you took off your tank, holding it on your arms as Winston glared at you from behind the glass, crouching down to pick the boy up from the floor, and you placed the tank onto him too, waiting for Winston to adjust his grip before letting go of the pair. Putting your helmet back on, you tucked your hair under the collar of your jacket, protecting the back of your neck.
Zipping your bag back up and draping the damp hoodie over his head for added protection against the flames, you hid your face in your elbow, coughing against the smoke and trying to breathe lightly so as not to suck too much of it into your lungs.
“Follow me, keep up, okay? Don’t fall behind.”
There were worry and concern in his voice, friendly and desperate as he pleased with you, and you nodded your head. He turned, moving as quickly as he could as he left the bathrooms again, backing or of the door and back into the hallway. If you’d thought the bathroom had been bad, this was far worse, your eyes watering and lungs burning as soon as you stepped out. You kept one arm raised, simply to protect your face, your bag clenched under the other arm.
Winston was moving faster than you were, the lack of oxygen making you fall behind, but you could still seem him ahead, and you could see the large and fresh imprints of his bots in the ash before they were fading in the swirling storm of burning debris, following them once the smoke was too much for you to keep your eyes raised for too long. They were stinging, watering continuously to blink free dust that got in them, and your tears were almost absorbed right off of your face.
When you looked back up, daring to stare into the hallway, it was void of movement, all the firemen having cleared out as the smoke got thicker, burning through the insulation in the walls now. The corridors forked, and you paused, trying to remember which way you’d come. There was no daylight to guide you, no windows you could see through, just thick smoke lit up by orange flames, and you swallowed down on a sore throat coughing again as you grew more and more scared.
You had to move, you knew you did, and so you chose one option, knowing that moving in either way was better than simply standing still. Following it along, the further you went, the more and more unfamiliar it became, the minutes melting away as you stumbling along all the while knowing you’d chosen the wrong way. You found the wall, hand sitting on it lightly to help guide your way, and your fingers bumped against a raised section.
Pausing, you brushed the dust away, squinting to read what it said. There were several classroom guidances, and then something that made you want to cry with relief, even if it was the wrong direction. The gardens. You hadn't seen any gardens upon coming into the school grounds, and so you assumed you were on the other side of the building now, having stumbled along for so long you’d moved all that way, but as long as you got out, you’d be fine.
Following that guidance, you paused each time you found a sign, before finally, doors that had burned right off their hinges and had fallen off allowed a little sunlight to poke through the smoke.
Your feet scraped on the ground as you finally made it out, soft ash falling away to be replaced with concrete, and you wanted to fall to the ground, knees weak with bliss at escaping the building, but you forced yourself to keep going. You were gasping, throat raw as you took deep breaths, finally able to do so once again and you felt a little dizzy as your head spun at the sudden rush of fresh air.
You grabbed at the front of your jacket, sweltering in the thick material as you tugged on it until it came loose, flapping at the front and letting in cold air and you felt a little less restrained.
You stayed away from the building as you tried to walk around it, following the flashing lights on the ambulances until the place where you’d been stationed started to come into sight once again. It was clearer, only a few kids left milling around, the fire teams having retreated back to their vans, equipment being stripped off and water bottles handed out, and you searched for your own team.
You found them, all gathered around and starting at the entrance, even Winston and Newt, and you noticed that one of the ambulances was gone, presumably having rushed your reduced child to the hospital. They were waiting for you to emerge from the entrance you’d entered, all looking nervous, and Newt was the first to notice you coming around the other side.
As soon as he had, the group were turning to you, your body slumping a little more under your weight, and you staggered towards them. Newt found you first, taking your bag from your hands as you held it out to him, and offering him a tired smile as he shook his head fondly.
“You gave me a fucking heart attack.”
“I’m perfectly fine, Newt, I swear.” He frowned for only a second longer, before his lips were breaking in a smile, and Brenda was up next. She took you into a tight hug, arms underneath the edge of your jacket, which Minho was peeling down your arms for you and taking away the added weight, and you thanked him silently with a nod as you wrapped your arms back around her. “Bren, I’m okay.”
“You think you’re a damn firefighter, I swear it!”
You laughed at that, throat a little raspy as it trailed off into a caught, and Newt chuckled. “Let’s get you some water, okay?”
“That sounds awesome.” You followed them over to the trucks, Newt jogging ahead to get you a bottle, and as soon as you arrived, you took it. You cracked the lid open taking a large gulp, and looking around for a second, before the person you were unintentionally searching for was found. He looked angry, a face like thunder as he stormed over, shoulders squared and tense with furrowed brows.
His steps had purpose, and the closer he got, the more you could take him in. Slightly dirty skin, sweaty and stained with soot and ash had tracks under his eyes cut into them from tears, the edges of his scowl wobbling as he looked still on the edges of jagged emotions, and you were filled with guilt. You met him halfway, mouth dropping to talk to him but he beat you to it, a sharp inhale before he is grabbing your arm, and dragging you between the two parked fire trucks as the rest of the firemen all seemed to clear away in fear of his anger.
“Are you fucking insane?” There was a crack to his voice that you didn’t comment on, giving away that his anger was actually fear, no rage at all but simply worry that you had caused, and you hated that you’d done it, but you wouldn't take your action back, not when you’d saved a life once again. You wouldn't be able to live with yourself if you’d let that boy die in there. “Do you have any idea how fucking worried I was? I come out after hours in that burning building to find you and check you’re okay just to find out you’ve gone into the fucking wreckage? To find out you took off your goddamn mask and got lost?”
His frown melted away, fresh tears filling his eyes, and he sniffed lightly, his face crumpling again as his tears came free. Two large droplets leaked along his cheeks, leaving wet marks, and your stomach twisted with guilt. You took off your gloves, dropping them down to the floor without a care to be able to cup his cheeks and wipe them away from his flushed skin as he stared at you. “I got stuck, Tommy. That’s it, I’m sorry, okay? I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I knew that kid was in there and I let him die to save my own life.”
You sank down, every muscle in your body aching as you sat on the edge of the van, finally giving in to your exhaustion, and he let out a shaky and weak sob again. He followed, sinking to his knees in front of you, his entire body collapsing under the weight of his worry, but his eyes never left your own.
He lifted a bare hand, cupping your cheek the way you had for him a second ago, and his eyes moved as he swept his sights over your face, trying to take a more deep and calming breath. The simple skin to skin touch grounded him.
“Don’t make me lose you, too.” He whispered, a silent beg in his words not to leave him, and your heart cracked a little in your chest. “I know you’re mad at me right now, okay? You say you’re not but I know you are because I spent enough time with you mad when we first met to know what that looks like on you.”
You chuckled, his lips flicking up at the edges as you did.
“I can handle you being mad, though, okay? I can handle that, because I love you, but I can’t handle you dying. I can’t take that. Don’t do that to me, I need y-” Your hands smoothed over his chest, finding the edges of the jacket he had yet to shed and pulling him forwards. You bowed your head down to his level, cutting off his words by placing your lips on his, and he shuddered under your touch, groaning into your mouth as his mind caught up with what was happening.
He panted slightly, twisting his head to the side to get a better angle, and this was nothing like last night. He wasn’t shy or worried, he just poured out everything he felt, his lips working slowly but surely with your own, a desperation and need hidden underneath in the kiss that made you tremble, because it was nothing like you’d ever felt before. You didn’t feel the metal you were sitting on or the truck behind you, the voices of everyone still around seemed to face away, your entire focus shifting to only him.
He pressed up, kissing you just as firmly and gripping your jaw with a little more force. After a moment longer, lungs demanding air, he pulled back, long enough for a gasping breath and to lick over his lips. He forced himself to stand up on shaky legs, one hand on your waist pulling you with him, before he was pressing you back into the edge of the truck for support. The cold metal against your back was nothing with the way his chest pressed to you, drawing in his head as he held you so close, that hand sliding around your waist to pull you flush up against him.
“I’m sorry,” You whispered, your nose bumping his as he stole several more pecks from your lips as the two of you caught your breath, and you puckered your lips for him each time, stuttering as his fingertips pressed into your skin through your shirt. “I know this isn’t how you wanted our real first kiss to go.”
“I so don’t care anymore. Just shut up and kiss me again, sweetheart.” He closed the gap himself, and you hummed happily as his tongue dragged over your lower lip, tempting you to part them, and you moaned weakly when his tongue dared to dip out and brush with your own. It was a connection you both needed, long overdue and frantic.
A messy kiss, clashes of teeth with need and raspy breaths between kisses, bumping foreheads when you moved but you'd have time to perfect it, but right now, you just needed to make the promises to each other that you were okay, and you were still here. When he finally pulled back, it was reluctantly, dragging slightly kiss swollen lips away from your own to stare at you, darkened eyes going soft the longer he looked, and he pulled away long enough to run the back of a finger over your cheek, a look that could only be described as adoration taking over. “I love you, and you don’t have to say it back, not until you really mean it, but I mean it and I want you to know. I want everyone to know, you’re always gonna’ be my first and only choice, angel.”
You grinned, a giggle that you muted by pressing your lips to his own in a chaste kiss, and when you pulled back, he followed your lips for a second, only furthering your intimate amusement.
“I’m never going to get tired of being able to kiss you now.”
“I should hope not.” He beamed, brushing the tip of his nose with your own, before stepping back fully, and bringing his hand to yours, weaving your fingers together. “Go sort out your team, lieutenant, they’ll be needing you to help pack away.”
“I’m sure they can wait a few more minutes, I’ve waited months to get here with you.”
“Yeah, well, you can have me all to yourself later. You still owe me pizza.” His joy only brightened more at the offer, his brows raising, and he was nodding enthusiastically. “I’ll stay over, and you can kiss me as much as you want.”
“I’d love that.” He pecked your lips one more time, a pink blush taking over his features as he realised he could now, before he was stepping back. “I’ll meet you back at the firehouse?”
“Yeah, yeah, of course.” You whispered, and he turned away, giving you a second of privacy, lifting your fingers to brush over your lips, your mind still reeling as you attempted to process what had happened. A throat cleared a second later, and Newt was standing with his hands on his hips, head tilted toward the ambulance.
“I’m not putting all that shit away myself so you can daydream about kissing Tommy.” He scoffed, teasing you a little as he made his way over, and you couldn't help the smirk your lips were forming. “So, did he finally man up and kiss you? He's only been talking about it for months.”
“I kissed him, actually.” Newt’s jaw dropped, his hands shooting up in the air with a loud cheer to follow.
“I fucking knew it! I fucking knew it! Gally owes me twenty damn bucks, and I will collect.” He slung an arm over your shoulders, guiding you towards the ambulance that he needed help with beginning to pack away, and you shrugged, reaching up your hand to hold onto Newt’s as it hung over your shoulder.
“I can’t believe you were betting on us.”
“I was betting on you, I knew he would psych himself out, all my money was on you, love.” He offered a cheesy grin, pinching at your cheek, and you raised your brows.
“Well then, shouldn't I get half of the winnings? Since I helped you to victory, and all..” Newt let you go when you reached the van, the tables being folded away by the staff, but there were medical supplies piled high in the entrance to the ambulance, and you had to pack them all away correctly, and double-check over the doses of medicines, in such a high-risk area for theft.
“Tell you what, I’ll buy you a cocktail with half the winnings, if you come on a double date with me and Derek?” You chuckled, unsure whether or not he was serious, and an odd look passed over newt’s face, the blond scratching at his jaw and avoiding your eye.
“A double date, really?”
“Look, you already know Derek, you and he are friends. Good friends. Tommy has been my best mate since I was just a lad and always will be, and you’re my best friend too. I really like Derek, okay? I really like him, and I want him and Tommy to get along too, because they’re both so important to me, and I figure a double date makes it casual.” He shrugged, looking back up to you, curious for your opinion as his cheeks grew warm. “Is it stupid? I just felt like going out to dinner or something made for less tension than a baseball game and a pizza.”
“It’s not stupid, Newt. I’m totally down for it, sounds fun, but you’re gonna’ have to convince Thomas.” You teased, and your partner rolled his eyes.
“Oh, please, I don’t gotta’ do shit if you’re on board. You have him wrapped around your little finger. You don’t even have to pucker up or bat your eyelashes, he’s already all soft on you.” Newt pouted, mocking you playfully with the words, and your guts twisted in a nervous excitement.
“I’ll talk to him about it, tomorrow morning.”
“Breakfast date?” He climbed up into the back of the van, beginning to scoop up the materials like bandages and plasters to put them away, and you started sorting through the bottles of medicine and pills that would need counting.
“Dinner date, actually.” Newt gasped falsely, holding a hand over his heart.
“Scandalous, staying over already.”
“You’re just jealous.” You shot back, his face dropping in a mock glare.
“Low blow.” He threw a roll of bandages at you, ones that bounced off of your head as you laughed at him, and rolled away to the concrete, and he pointed at them. “Go get them, and leave your attitude out there when you come back.”
You flipped him off, standing up to follow after the sealed bandages packet, and you scooped them up, glancing around the scene as two ambulances had already left, their house firetrucks following, and the third house was finishing their packing up. Brenda was packing away the coats into the van, hanging them up on the hooks inside the compartment to be washed and cleaned for later, and Minho was rolling the fire hoses back up with Jeff and Clint.
Thomas was rubbing a hand over his forehead, staring up at the building for a second, before turning, glancing around, and his eyes found yours. He paused for a second, one eye dropping in a lazy wink a moment later when he let Thomas crack through his lieutenant persona for a second, and he licked over his lips, stretching to a wide smile. He nodded his head for a second, a simple gesture but it felt like more than just that, and your lips pressed together to hold your smile, nodding your head in return, and letting your stare linger for a second longer, before going back to work.
Newt was waiting, still packing away and whistling a tune to himself as he worked, taking the bandages from you when you approached, and you hummed along in time with the tune once you recognised it enough, his eyes glinting when you did. It was an unspoken thing, a delicate symbol of friendship as the two of you worked in quiet harmony, humming along to the same song as you worked, settling in to a well worn and familiar routine that you hoped would never break.
summary; you and newt are called to another unusual call.
notes; this is the first half (technically) of a mini sub-plot. the end comes in the next part.
warnings; violence, gun use, description of injury, slight gore, intentional harm, attempted murder, reference to drowning.
“I feel disgusting.” You mumbled, water still dripping from your arms as you stood, shaking yourself odd a little and groaning at the chill that was beginning to sweep in. The lights on the firetruck were flashing, equipment still being loaded back up, and Newt was standing on the other side of the ambulance, a water bottle Minho had given him sitting in his hand as he took another large sip, gargling the water loudly and frothing it around his mouth before spitting it out onto the concrete and grimacing.
“I think I swallowed, like, half the lake.”
You felt bad for him, you really did, and you tried to peel the wet material of the shirt away from yourself. Unbuttoning it slowly, you frowned, wet hair plastered to the back of your neck in the ponytail you wore, and Newt choked on his drink, laughing loudly and spitting up water again. He patted at his chest, turning away from you, his cheeks going red as he tries to hack up water that had gone down the wrong pipe, and you patted his back, startled at his sudden reaction.
His eyes were watering when he recovered, wiping the back of his hand across his mouth. “You know, if I was straight, I’d be very flattered.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Your nipples.” He beamed, and your brows furrowed, before you glanced down, noting the hardened peaks from the cold, showing clearly through your tank that had gone clear enough in its pale grey colour to show off the plain design of your bra, and you scoffed. “Truly, it’s an honour, but it’s doing nothing for me.”
“Oh, no, whatever will I do now?” You mused, voice flat of any emotions, and he only laughed again, peeling off his shirt, and ringing it out, goosebumps rising along pale skin as the chill of the air washed over his skin. The lake was clear now, a group of kids who had stupidly enough decided it would be a good idea to jump off the edge of the dock before realising the wall was too tall and slippery with algae to get out, beginnings of hypothermia and ingestions of dirty water before anybody had wandered past close enough to hear them calling for help.
Sometimes, you really hated teenagers.
“Think if we’re fast enough, we can get back to the house before the firefighters? First dibs on the showers with the best water pressure, and guaranteed hot water.”
His eyes twinkled a little as he lifted a still damp but no longer sodden shirt back onto his shoulders, grimy and covered in green and brown stains from the water, no bothering to button it back up. “I take that as a challenge, and I accept.”
You climbed in through the back of the van, pulling open the bottom drawer and finding the plastic seat coverings, chucking one of the sheet packages to Newt for his own chair, before he slammed the doors with you in the back, and rounded to the driver’s side. Smoothing the plastic over your chair to make sure it was covered, your shoes squelched a little as you collapsed down into it. Newt did the same, and the second the keys were twisted into the lock once he was shuffling uncomfortably on the plastic, you were flicking the heating on to the highest temperature you could get it.
The downside of working in a van filled with drugs and medicine? The heat didn’t get very high in order to keep what needed to be refrigerated at the temperature is was required to be at. His eyes checked the mirrors as he reversed, noting the firetruck that was beginning to back out, the Squad truck leaving first, Gally and Fry still milling around to talk to the cops, and so you and Squad had a head start.
It would seem that they had the same idea, because Minho had a positively dangerous look in her eyes as she pulled up towards the entrance alongside you both, and Newt smirked, hand on the gearstick as he switched gears and pressed his foot down on the pedal. He surged forwards, the van moving faster than the trucks due to their added weight, a delay in its start-up, and the pair of you shot across the uneven gravelly path towards the main highway.
The red truck wasn’t far behind, and yet you were laughing a little at the determined look on your partners face, what had been a modest challenge was now becoming a battle between yourselves and the Squad team. You had the edge, being a lightweight vehicle, easy navigation and more speed, but they had the edge, the big red truck was more noticeable to other driver’s and they tended to move out of the way more for firetrucks than they did for ambulances.
As you met the junction for the highway, Newt flicked on the indicators and swerved onto the highway in a gap between cars that was too small to be considered safe. The move left you pressed into the side door of the ambo’, turning to look at him as his eyes stayed fixed on the road, a smirk on his face as the red truck was left in the dust, having to wait much longer to be able to pull out.
“Alright, Vin Diesel, settle down.”
“You want a hot shower to get clean? Or do you want lukewarm water with weak pressure that takes hours to get you clean?” You considered it, knowing that the more the showers were used, the weaker the water pressure got and the colder they ran as the hot water was distributed out, and you weighed out the pros and cons. You gave in with a reluctant sigh, watching Newt weave between cars, and he let out a triumphant noise. “Exactly. So, be a good co-driver, and play something exciting.”
“This is an ambulance, Newt. We have the classical jazz station, the news station, the emergency radio, or static and silence.”
“Sing something.” He offered, and you laughed loudly. “Maybe just yell exciting things at the top of your voice like it’s a James Bond movie. You can be my Bond woman.”
“Exciting things? You mean like ‘Quick, Newt, watch out for the rock slide’ or ‘Oh my God, Newt, he’s shooting at us’?” He hummed, rolling his lips together a little, and looking into the mirror where the red van wasn’t all that far behind anymore. “Oh, okay, I got it. How about ‘Quick! Newt! The bomb that will destroy world peace and the alien trade federation is about to go off, hurry so you can disarm it and save the galaxy!”
“That’s the one!” He shouted back, laughter taking up the cabin between you both as he picked up a little more speed, growling under his breath as distant wailing took place. “Did they just turn the fucking sirens on?”
“That’s illegal! A crime! Disqualified!”
Only a moment later, the truck was passing you by, Thomas lounging in the front seat with a smirk on his face, not even bothering to look at the two of you as he held up his middle finger, feet popped up on the dashboard, before they were pulling ahead, and you gaped at it.
“He flipped us off!”
“He did what?” Newt sounded like he had been told that Thomas had run over his dog, before his face was growing stormy, and he peeled off towards one of the exits, and you sat up a little more in your seat.
“Newt, this isn’t our exit, why are we slowing down? This is war now!”
“We’re taking a shortcut! I think.”
You pouted, watching as he pulled off onto the quieter roads, already resigning yourself to the loss. The van moved slower, not by much and certainly still considered fast for these roads, and you didn’t recognise the area you were driving through until you were almost at the house, coming at it from a completely different angle. It was a side that the trucks would be unaware of, the roads on this side of the house too narrow for the trucks to navigate on, but an ambulance could definitely weave and dodge along them.
You were expecting the grey garage to already be stained with bright and shiny flashes of colour, but as you approached it, the bay was still empty, and you gasped.
Unclipping your seatbelt before the vehicle had even rolled to a halt, and as soon as it was in park, haphazardly and slightly wonky within the designated space but still inside the lines, and Newt was ripping the keys from the ignition. You didn’t even bother peeling away the plastic overs, both hopping down from the van, doors slamming, uncomfortable runs in wet shoes from the vehicle to the changing rooms, the door practically bounding from the wall with the urgency that you forced it open.
Your fingers were trembling with both the cold and the adrenaline as you opened your locker, grabbing for the towel and washbag that sat on the middle shelf, slamming the metal canister shut a second behind Newt, and on the other side of the room, you heard a shower curtain swipe open, before the water spray was coming on.
Kicking off your shoes onto the white tile, your socks were ridden with water, and you stopped into the basin, flimsy curtain closing behind you. Switching on the water, you didn’t care about clothes getting wet as they were all drenched regardless. The water was hot and strong, pouring down over you as you let out a breath in relief, sighing out at the feeling, and stripping the partially unbuttons shirt the rest of the way down.
Dropping it to the floor outside, your vest followed, bra dropping by your feet for modesty, not all too thrilled about the idea of the entire team seeing your underwear. One fireman was plenty enough. Your trousers came next, panties following your bra, and socks lastly, before you were freeing your hair from its bobble and scrubbing dirt from the tendrils. The water was murky as it pooled around your feet, and you grinned through the suds as you heard the locker room door open up.
“Nice of you guys to finally join us!”
Newt laughed at your words, and you scowled at the taste of shampoo that got in your mouth, eyes squeezed closed tightly, but you couldn't hold back your laughter at the several complaints that burst out.
The shower next to yours clicked into gear, a slight dip in the flow of water as it adjusted, and it was steadily growing weaker as the firemen all changed and climbed into a shower, but you had already shampooed, only some soap and conditioner to go.
“How the fuck did you guys beat us here?”
“We played by the rules, Bren! Flicking on sirens, that was cheating.” You tutted, the girl scoffing from the cubicle beside you.
“Uh, playing it smart isn’t cheating!” She retaliated, and you scrubbed a bar of exfoliating soap over your skin, the extra shrub helping to rid you of the feeling of grunge from the lake away from your flesh. “But seriously, how the hell did you beat us here with so much time?”
“Newt knew a short cut, apparently.” She made a vague sound of agreement, the boys all chatting loudly from the other side of the room, and the build-up of steam was beginning to give you a headache. Running some conditioner through your hair and combing the knots out quickly, you finished up, switching off the water and finding your towel, hand fumbling outside of the stall for the material, before you were finding it, and wrapping it around your body. Wringing out your hair, you pushed back the shower curtain and stepped free.
Newt was at the lockers, pulling a shirt over his head, almost fully dressed, the plastic washing basket from the corner was sitting outside him, water pooling through the cracks to the floor as his clothes dripped, and you scooped up your own, dropping them in with his and flashing him a grateful smile as he all but nodded in a promise to load them into the washer.
His fluffy hair was almost dry already, messy and sticking up from his towel, and you envied how quickly he could get ready again. How quickly all men could get dressed, really.
Taking your kit over to the sink, you fastened your towel a little tighter around yourself again to make sure it would stay tight, before wiping a patch in the steamed-up glass to see your reflection. Running a collection of moisturisers and serums over your cheeks, keeping it at it’s best despite the smoky and dirty conundrums you found yourself in on a day to day basis, you rehydrated and cleansed your skin, before moving on to your hair.
Heading to your locker to get a new set of clothes, you lifted the catch open, the door swinging as you gathered belongings, checking you had everything for a new uniform in your back-up bag, before placing it down on the bench. As you closed it, you jumped, a body leaning on the metal on the other side, and a mumbled curse fell from your lips at the shock. Reaching up to clutch at the edge of your towel and ensure it didn’t fall, you glared at the laughing attacker.
“You fucking suck. Why are you scaring me when I’m in a towel? Dumbass.”
“Oh, ouch. Cranky today, huh?” Thomas teased, reaching out a finger to poke at your stomach through the towel, and you jumped, slapping his hand away as he chuckled more.
“I’m cranky when I’m in a towel, and risking flashing the entire team because you wanna’ startle me!” He smirked, eyes scanning over your body particularly slowly, as if to make a point, and you rolled your eyes, despite the heat forming on your face. Adjusting your towel again, he watched your fingers move, and you kicked at his shin, watching him hop around in his towel at the aggression.
“Ow! What was that for?”
“You know what that was for!” You held your fingers up, pointing them from your chest to your eyes, and he got a wicked grin once again as he clocked onto what you were saying. “Go away so I can get dressed in peace!”
“So now you don’t want me around? That’s not how you felt a couple of weeks ago.” You glared at him again, crossing your arms and stomping your foot a little, knowing what he was referring to, and he hadn't been any less affectionate since. At the action, though, he gave in, hands held up in a surrender and his laughter following him all the way around to his locker on the other side, leaving you alone.
Members of the team were still wandering around, and so you tried to be as quick but as discreet as you possibly could, tugging your panties and trousers up under your towel. Your spare shoes were uncomfortable and tight, barely worn in as opposed to your regular ones, and you were cold as you put on the clothes that had been chilling in the metal canister, bag ready to be taken home to refill.
Rubbing your towel across your hair to dry it out better, you left it as it was, towel folding in the bag to be taken home, and you placed it all back inside. Adjusting your fresh uniform to sit a little more comfortably on your body, your fingers smoothed along the collar and flattened it down, before sweeping still damp locks away from your clothes.
The men were all filtering from the room, a faster turn around as they dried, all carrying dirty and sodden uniforms to the laundry room to try and get them sorted, hoping to find themselves with one less task to do when they go home, and not wanting to stink up their cars with the foul smell that came with the water from the dock by trailing the wet garments home.
The dull buzzing of the only hairdryer the fire station had was already in use by Brenda, shorter hair looking a little crazy as she only had her fingers to come through instead of her usual styling brush, and she was scowling at her reflection in the mirror as her hair curved up in the wrong directions at the edges, bangs looking untamed. She glared at your snickering as you approached, finger flipping over the switch to turn it off, clearly deeming the effort good enough, and she stuck her tongue out at you and handed it over, letting you start it up to reduce some of the water trapped in your own hair as she tried desperately to do something to control it a little better.
“Why don’t you just comb it all back?”
“And look like a starring member from ‘Grease’? Want me to start singing ‘Go Grease Lightning’ on the top of one of the fire trucks, huh?” She was so over-dramatic, and yet you loved that about her, shaking your head and smirking a little as she continued to struggle. You weren’t all that bothered about getting it completely dry, just enough that you wouldn’t catch a chill from it. You didn’t really feel like facing the next few weeks with a sore throat and a blocked nose.
“Would it make you feel better if I told you that I’m pretty sure I have a curled brush in my bag?”
She paused her work, arms crossing over her chest, hip leaning on the porcelain of the sink, and you could feel her burning glare on you as you continued to keep your one hair tame just with the use of the machine and your fingers. “You’ve had a blow-dry brush this whole time and you let me suffer?”
“Uh, first off, it’s not a blow-dry brush. It’s just a round brush. Make do. Secondly, you make it sound like I had food and you’ve not eaten for three days.”
“Same thing.” She hissed, playfully through it all, and she didn’t wait for permission, before she was meandering to your locker over hers and letting herself in, beginning to dig through the items in there to find the brush. She let out a triumphant little noise, and as she all but skipped back across the room, you decided you were close enough to dry, shaking your head to tame fly-aways and handing her the dryer back. You turned, walking away from her, and she let out a sound of complaint. “You’re just gonna’ leave me in here, alone?”
“It’s the changing rooms, not a back-alley at a nightclub at 3am.”
“What if I get lonely?” She pouted, turning the heat up and power down, the whirring going quieter so neither of you had to shout quite as loudly to one another, and you shrugged, backing away from her a little more, and smirking.
“Talk to your reflection. I’m going to make a snack.”
She huffed, but smiled, turning back to her plans, and you were the only one to what your soft chuckle as you left, the chill out in the corridor being shocking as you stepped from the steam-filled room to the breeze-filled hall to the main bay, shuddering as goosebumps rose over your arms, and you crossed them across your chest to keep your heat in.
Thomas was standing at the entrance of the laundry room, a basket full of wet clothes, nose turned up a little as Newt and Jeff loaded the machines, and you didn’t envy them at all. The doors to the common room were sealed shut tightly, presumably to keep in the warmth, because Fry had turned on both of the space heaters, and the room was already warming up to being hot. The smell of garlic bread was filling the room, some kind of cheesy pasta following it, and Fry was already singing loudly to the song playing over the radio, almost drawing out the television as Gally watched a movie that was so old it was in black and white, but he wasn’t paying attention, rather, he was texting on his phone and enjoying the background noise.
Minho was sitting beside him much the same, fingers moving swiftly over the screen, and Clint was chewing on a pen at the table as he filled out the puzzles in one of the newspapers from last week's stack.
“What’cha making, Fry?”
“Chicken and mushroom pasta, you want some?” Your face screwed up, shaking your head, and he laughed. “Let me guess, you don’t like mushrooms?”
“They’re gross and slimy. No offence to your pasta.”
“They’re delicious, and healthy.” He corrected, and you grunted, opening the fridge, and pulling out a loaf of bread, shuffling through the contents of the fridge to find a topping you wanted. As you searched, a soft bumping at your ankle caught your attention, a sharp and chipper bark to follow it, and you glanced down, finding a wagging tail and a ball of golden fur staring up at you expectantly. “That dog is a bottomless pit of food!”
“He’s a growing boy!” You waved the cook off, taking a packet of ham out and peeling a slice off from the inside of the pack, holding it up at about waist height, and watching as the dog shuffled backwards, staring up at it and preparing himself. “C’mon, Scoot, jump!”
The dog did so, a happy yip sounding from him as he did, snatching half of the slice as it tore in your hands, and chewing down on it happily, pieces falling from its mouth and onto the floor, and he was quick to lick those up too. “He’s never going to learn any tricks if you pamper him like that.”
You looked up, Thomas having come through the doorway, Newt following behind him, your partner raising his shirt to his nose and sniffing at it, trying to determine whether the stench had transferred to his uniform just from doing the laundry, before collapsing down in the armchair. “He just did a trick! He jumped!” Scooter did it again, snatching the rest of the ham from your fingers, and you gasped as teeth brushed over your fingers, your hand snatching back, and Thomas chuckled, coming to a stop before you and taking the ham from your fingers.
“He did not jump on command, he just jumped for food.”
“Fine! You try!” You raised a brow, and Thomas took the challenge, a smirk forming.
“Scooter!” The dog’s head snapped to face him, from where he’d been occupying himself with pawing at one of your undone laces, now focused on Thomas. “Scooter, sit.” The dog remained still for a second, your lips pursing as he continued to pant and wag happily, stood on all four paws.
“What was it you were saying?”
Thomas’ eyes flicked up to you, narrowing for a second, before he was trying again. “Scooter, sit.” Your jaw was slack as the dog did exactly as told, sitting neatly and letting his tail brush over the flooring patterns, hearing the fridge behind you opening and closing, jars and tins rattling as Fry continued to cook. “Good boy, Scoot! No, lay down.” Thomas clicked his fingers, pointing at the floor, and the dog flattened out, staring up at Thomas expectantly, and you huffed. “Good boy. You want a treat?”
A bark signalled that, and Thomas rolled up a piece of the honey-glazed delicacy that Fry was snatching back a second later with mumbles about it being wasted, and Scooter stood up to snatch it, running away across the room in a pitter-patter of movements, scurrying away to his bed in the corner.
“See?”
“How the hell did you do that?” You demanded, washing your hands under the tap and drying them off, before going back to the sandwich you’d been preparing, and Thomas seated himself on one of the island stools with a shrug.
“I’ve been practising. Wanted to surprise you.”
“Well, consider me surprised.” You offered, grabbing a knife from one of the drawers, and Fry groaned beside you, shooting you both a dirty look as you began to spread the butter.
“Consider me revolted.” He gagged, and you rolled your eyes, swinging your foot out to kick at his shin, Thomas flipping him off despite the heat that was building on his cheek, and the chef wasn’t deterred from mimicking your conversation. “Seriously, get a room.”
“We have a room. It’s this kitchen. Two out of three, we win, majority rules.”
“Nice.” Thomas grinned, holding his hand out, and you slammed your palm against his in a satisfying high five, before pressing the knife down and cleaning it off, sealing the butter back up and putting it in the fridge, before grabbing your fillings. Layering them on carefully, you started slowly, constructing your sandwich carefully, and building it on your plate, before slicing it evenly down the middle, starting at your lunch proudly.
You only had a second to appreciate it, before a large hand was picking up a piece of it, taking it away and biting the corner off or it happily. “Hey! Who the hell said you could eat my sandwich?”
“Sharing is caring, sweetheart.” He winked, taking another large bite and speaking through his food, hopping down from the stool, and your face screwed up. You took your now half a sandwich, walking towards the empty couch and hearing Thomas trail after you, the couch the wrong way to the screen, but you weren’t all that bothered about what was happening in this movie anyway, and so you faced away from it, spreading out along the couch. “Move your legs.”
“Give me my sandwich back!”
“It’s half gone now!” He held it up, showing you the evidence of the half-eaten piece, and you shrugged. As if to prove a point, he pushed the rest of it all into his mouth at once, cheeks feeling with food and lips barely able to close, before he was brushing crumbs from his shirt, and picking your legs up at the ankles, lifting them up to be able to sit down.
“You’re disgusting.”
“Yep.” His words were muffled, your feet being laid back down across his lap, and you took a more polite bite of the remaining half. His fingers moved to your shoes, finding the undone laces and wrapping them around his fingers, before pulling them tightly and looping them into neat knots. He repeated the same on the other foot, before slumping back into the couch a little, still trying to chew the whole mouthful, and you wiggled a little as you got more comfortable, sliding further down until it was your calves in his lap instead of your feet, and your shoulders could rest on the armrest.
His hand rested on your knee, thumb smoothing over you lightly as his other hand produced his phone from his pocket, beginning to swipe at it absentmindedly.
“You two are honestly sickening. I have toothache.”
“Oh, cut the crap, Newt. You spent a half-hour on the phone to me two days ago talking about Derek.” Newt looked shocked for a second, pale cheeks flushing with warm colour, before he was shrugging it off.
“Yeah, well, at least me and Derek have never cuddled in a waiting room at his job.”
“We aren’t cuddling right now!” You scoffed, taking another bite of your sandwich, and chewing it as you process what to say next. “Besides, it would be unprofessional to cuddle in a waiting room where patients could see. This is totally different because we’re inside the house, an-”
Your words went flat as you heard the siren overhead go off, even Thomas’ thumb on your knee pausing its motions, everybody going silent, only the sounds of sizzling oil and the muted television static to go as the alarm went off. You deflated, only yourself and Newt being called for, and you heaved yourself to a sitting position, Newt already beginning to peel his body back up out of the comfy chair he’d seated himself in.
“At least it’s only a local call, we’ll be back before the shift even ends.”
Your partner’s words did little to comfort you, and he chuckled as you continued to glare, before forcing yourself into action.
Swinging your legs down to sit up, you looked mournfully at your only half-eaten meal, before handing the plate to Thomas, who beamed at the offering, your fingers tousling his hair before you were wandering away, and attempting to pull your hair back into something that resembled a pony-tail using on the bobble on your wrist and your fingers.
Newt grabbed the keys, ready to set off, and you followed after him as the doors remained yet to even start swinging shut in his haste. Reaching the van, you hesitated as you neared climbing in, stripping away the plastic over your seat and dropping it down into the footwell of the van, watching Newt do the same. Starting up the ambulance and fastening your seatbelt, Newt flicked on the SatNav, the machine taking a second to load up, before it was programming in your given destination and beginning to guide you.
“So, that’s something pretty new.”
“What is?” Your eyes flickered over yourself, the same uniform you always wore clad on your body, and a pair of sneakers, your brow raising as you turned to your friend, the silence saying everything, and he scoffed. Switching gears as he pulled out onto the faster roads, he spared you a look, dubious and unbelieving of your confusion.
“You know what.”
“I assure you, I don’t.” You shuffled a little, the radio crackling, but none of the chatter directed toward the two of you was coming through yet, and you waited.
He sighed, flicking on the indicators and pulling out onto the highway. “You and Tommy. That’s what I’m talking about. What’s up with you two?”
Heat flushed over your face, and you sank back a little further into your seat, but your lips wanted to form a smile, and you had to bite down on the inside of your cheek just to contain it. “I’m not totally sure.”
“You’re not sure?”
“Well, I kinda’ know. It’s all so new. It’s scary, but exhilarating.” Newt only smiled, eyes flicking to the mirror to check over everything he was looking at, before taking another turn following the SatNav, a side road to leave the highway, and you were still waiting on call details to come through on the radio. “I mean, I know it’s something. He knows that, too. We’ve talked about it, but we’re just, sort of, waiting.”
“Waiting for what, exactly?”
“The right time, I guess.” You sighed, realising how odd it all sounded out loud, to be talking like a teenager to your friend about a guy you liked, but it also felt natural and right. “Everything has just been crazy lately. I don’t think we would be like we were without the craziness, and it’s kinda’ weird to think that this job has changed my life so much, that this house has changed my life so much, when none of the others did before. I think we’re just waiting to see if it’s real, or just an in-the-moment emotional deal.”
“Seems pretty real to me.”
You smiled, knowing that Newt’s words were intended to be soothing, but instead, they made your heart race a little more.
Everything made your heart race nowadays, like you were in overdrive all the time, you were constantly on the edge, and not in an anxious way. You’d spent so much of your life feeling closed off and locked down that you weren’t used to how it felt to be on the opposite end of the scale. You had anxiety, and fear, and loneliness, that was your normal status, but since settling into Firehouse ‘21, everything had been turned upside down.
Your heart would race with thrill and excitement, and the heat flushing over you wasn’t so much from rage - after you’d sorted your problems with Thomas, anyway - but from flustered shyness. On the days when you felt lonely, when the urge to be around someone else was stronger, your phone was there, lighting up with notifications from a group chat and you knew you had friends you could call, someone who would spend time with you, when they weren’t on duty.
It was all still new, and a little scary, and still thrilling.
Then, there was Thomas. You weren’t sure what it was with Thomas, because you had nothing to compare it to. Your previous relationships had been quick and spinning. A fling that ended just as fast as it started, almost always ending after a first date with tumbling into bed and shutting down when the first signs of intimacy began to rear their heads. You moved around and you never stayed put long enough to invest in something, but you had no plans of leaving Firehouse ‘21 any time soon, and so you’d allowed yourself to let Thomas in before you’d even realised it was happening.
Intimate and emotional, a connection that wasn’t physical yet, you didn’t even know what it felt like to kiss him, and yet it still made you feel a little breathless and lightheaded to imagine it because there was a weight and meaning hanging to it now. There was something deeper than you’d ever had, a relationship that wasn’t pinned on sex and quick connections to chase away the cold sheets when you felt truly alone, but instead, left you feeling warm and loved even when no one was around.
“So, what about you and Derek?”
It was Newt’s turn to be embarrassed, the gravel and shale under the tires crunching loudly as the two of you began to trail up abandoned dirt roads, the rickety and deafening sounds of the trains of the metal bridges overhead shooting past were like the banging of metal against metal, hitting a spoon against a pan or steel-tipped work boots on metal platforms.
Pale skin turned dark pink, and he flashed a cheesy grin, eyes sparkling a little, and you already knew how excited he was. “That good, huh?”
“Things with Derek are awesome.”
“I take full responsibility for that awesomeness.” You teased, and he chuckled, the van coming to a halt, and your brows furrowed, amusement disappearing and confusion over as you stared out at the empty scene. The SatNav on the dashboard clicked green and shut down as you reached your destination, clearly telling you both that this was the correct location, and yet there was nothing, and nobody to be seen. “Put a pin in that conversation.”
He only mumbled his response, equally as confused, and the two of you stepped out of the car, a chill sweeping over you as it became eerily similar to the last case you’d received with nobody present, still so recent that the police investigation into it was still open, the court case over Chuck’s death was yet to be closed and the arson investigators hadn't even completed their analysis. “Check the radio. Is it turned on?”
You moved back in, knowing that it was because the static had been playing lowly in your ears all the way through, but there was nothing else. Normally, at a call on the edge of a town like this, the two of you would be greeted by someone, a frantic pedestrian, friend or family member, the person who had made the call would arrive to lead you to the person, and even as you listened, you couldn't hear anything.
No loud groaning or yells of pain, no mangled screams for help or even a blood trail to guide you. There was absolutely nothing to suggest why the two of you would be here, and it all became more and more suspicious as each second ticked by. Newt tucked his hands into his pockets, and you picked up the receiver, sitting sideways on your seat and turning the dial, before pressing the button down on the side.
“House ‘21 ambulance, calling in. We haven't had any more details, can we get an update?”
You waited for a second, eyes narrowing as the machine clicked you through to an operator, and there were muffled voices in the background of the call centre, before a clearer voice rang through. “‘21 ambulance, can you confirm your location, registration number and ID for me.”
Newt smirked at the frown on your face, knowing that every so often a caller came who actually required you to cite the information. While you couldn't deny that it was protocol, and they should be doing it every time, most of them took it simply at your word of being the paramedics, because they knew that most robbers wouldn't be bothering to call in on the radio of they were stealing from an ambulance, they’d just clear out all the medicines and run.
Listing off the information she requested, you listened and waited, the sound of long nails typing quickly at a keyboard sounded out, and you turned up the volume, holding the device out from you a little, so Newt could hear more clearly, even as he wandered a few feet away, looking around some more. “Still there, ‘21?”
“Yep.” You paused, hearing a few more clicks, before the woman was sighing.
“My files don’t have much. The caller didn’t leave a name or an identification, the only notes here are the address, and that you’re looking for a stab wound victim.” Newt's brows raised as he heard the words, and you only felt more confused. If someone had been stabbed, there should be a trail of blood or someone calling for help, you should be able to see them, they couldn't have gotten far without leaving a pathway of where they were, and yet, there was nothing here except the trains on the bridge overhead. “That all?”
“That's all.”
She hung up not long after, and you grabbed for your go-bag, chucking Newt his bag too, and he only just managed to catch it as the breath was knocked from his lungs, sticking his tongue out at you childishly as you grinned, before slamming your door back shut, and letting Newt lock it up, the van chirping and flashing as it sealed.
Swinging your bag onto your shoulder, your partner mimicked you. Wandering away together, you paced a few minutes from the van, staring out across the empty area, and crossing your arms. “I gave up my lunch for this shit.”
“You go left, I’ll go right, we’ll sweep around, and in ten minutes we meet at the van?” You only nodded, kicking at a particularly large pebble under your foot, and turning to face the direction you were told to go in. You heard Newt stepping away, pebbles shifting underfoot, and you followed suit, glancing back at the blond over your shoulder for a second. “Yell if you find something.”
“Will do.” You saluted, a grin thrown over his shoulder to you, before fixing your gaze ahead of you once again.
There were a few old houses, run-down and abandoned, nobody having lived in them for at least a decade. Broken windows were boarded up and front doors were hanging on their hinges, spray paint that was old and faded, drips and chips on the wood that was stained with years of abandonment, and wire fences with chains on that had been long since cut away. The grass was dead, yellowed and brown and overrun with weeds, and spoke spots ere charred blank with ash, where you suspected kids had come to light fires and get away from parents when they were bored; empty bottles of booze and cans of pop littered the ground, among wrappers and boxes for things too old to see the labels on.
You checked every garden, standing in the gate and calling out to offer help, but nothing except for silence came back. The rusty metal creaked as you stepped out from the last row, three random houses in an area of town that had clearly been skipped in the surrounding gentrification, left to fall into disrepair, and you didn’t blame it. The constant source of trains of the tracks overhead was already beginning to give you a headache, there were no real roads built to this area, and it was miles to the closest bus stop or shopping centre.
Turning back around, you didn’t walk straight back to him, but you walked a little to the side, taking an angle back towards the van just to be sure you were covering the maximum space that you could, checking over it all thoroughly, and just as you’d been giving up, your eyes caught the flicker of movement in your peripherals. When you focused on it, it took you a second to find it again, the trembling of metal stilts holding the bridge up forty feet above you disguising it, but then there was a twitch again.
In the shadows, easily missed, but then there they were. Sitting, leaned up against one of the bars from the other side, hand-pressed weakly over their stomach, head lolled to the side. You weren’t even sure if they had moved, or if they’d simply slumped forward because of the vibrations of the rickety bridge legs, and you felt a jolt of adrenaline race through you as you tried to jump into action.
“Shit!” You muttered, a slight rise on the hill before you as you tried to climb up it, the dust forming clouds behind you as the stones slipped at the sudden and uncoordinated movements, before you were stumbling closer to the person. “Newt!”
Another train shot overhead, drowning out the sounds of your shouts, and you hoped Newt had actually heard it, because you’d walked so far that he was more like a blur away from you, and you certainly couldn't hear his yells as he offered help anymore, they’d faded away a few minutes ago, but you couldn't be occupied with it now. The second the train had passed, you tried yelling again, out of breath and panting as you dropped to your knees before the person.
Their head was lying forward, chin pressed to their chest, fresh red blood seeping out between their fingers in weak bursts, and at least you knew they were still alive. Cupping their face, you pushed their head back, skin sickly pale and flushed with sweat, a very quiet groan leaving his lips, and hooded eyes cracked open barely at all to look at you. “Did you make that call?”
“Call?” He echoed, seemingly confused about what was even happening, but with the amount of blood that was staining the pebbles around you and clumping in the dust and dirt as it turned dark, you weren’t all that surprised.
“Alright, buddy, we’ll get you all sorted out, okay?” You circled a hand around behind his neck, the other on his side, and you needed to lay him down just to be able to get to the wound, because you couldn't see anything with him slumped over like this, daylight partially blocked out from the bridge overhead and shadows forming over the man. “I need to get you laying down, think you can handle that?”
He didn’t even nod, simply made a broken hum under his breath that you decided to take as an acknowledgement, before pulling him forwards. He let out a louder cry this time, the pain taking him over, and you heard the rapid-fire crunches of Newt running towards you, slightly uneven footsteps on his hurt leg, but you didn’t pay any attention to it, grateful that he’d heard you, but focusing on your patient.
His hands had fallen away from his wounds, and you fumbled for your torch, the light designed to check eyes did little to light up the wound but blood was staining the pale shirt he wore, leaving wet red patches as far up as his ribs. Newt skidded to a stop behind you, a hand running through the longer fringe in his face as he pushed it back, eyes wide.
“Well, shit, I’ll be damned.”
“Knife wound, pretty deep, can you hold the torch for me?” He nodded, stains of red smeared across it from where you’d already got blood on your fingers, and you pushed up the edge of his shirt, getting a look at the wound. He sank to his knees, holding the light over it more clearly, and you hoped he could sense your silent appreciation. It helped you to see, but didn’t clarify much, because blood was smeared over his skin and gave illusions about where his injuries started and ended, bubbling blood still leaving the gash. Dropping your bag down to your side, you opened it up, fumbling through for a pair of rubber gloves, and a tissue to be able to wipe away the blood with.
Snapping the latex onto your wrists and taking the folded clump of paper, dragging it delicately but firmly over the spot to try and get a better look. A second, maybe two, was all you got of clear skin before blood was beginning to fill the space once again, the man’s shallow pants and groans getting lighter and weaker, and you knew you had to hurry, lost time in having to search for him taking its toll now, but it was long enough to get a good look.
“We’re going to need some stuff from the van, probably the stretcher, but I don’t know how well we can wheel him across that gravel.”
“I can just pull up the van?” He offered, clicking off the torch to hand it back to you as you put the correct pressure down on the wound to stop the bleeding, pinching around the edges and holding tight to seal the wound, and you nodded.
“Yeah, yeah. That’s good. Pull up the van!”
He nodded, brushing dust from his knees as he stood, and you used your other hand to begin searching through your bag for the disinfectant spray you needed to start cleaning up his wound so you could put a provisionary seal on it.
You found the canister, shaking it carefully and trying to squeeze the lid with two fingers to get it off, a ‘pop’ sounding before the fading footsteps Newt was making came to a sudden halt.
“Woah, woah, woah..” You looked up, eyes widening and blood running cold at the sight. Newt had his hand held up, a man who’d ace you couldn't quite see behind the baseball cap and the hood he had pulled up to obscure his features, sleeves reaching gloved hands, and a gun in one hand, finger pressed over the trigger as Newt took a few steps back toward you both and stumbling slightly, his leg going weak as he stood unevenly on a rock, and you couldn't help the gasp in fear that left you. “Look, man, we don’t want any trouble. We just got a call, for that guy.”
He reached out one hand, pointing to where you were kneeling still, and you leaned forwards, moving very slowly as you tried to press down gently on the top of the canister, spraying gently on the wound, but as the man let out a sudden and pained noise, the gun moved to you, and you froze, jumping back from the actions and dropping the can.
“I know, because I made the call.”
“You made the call?” You repeated, the face of the shadowed man becoming a little clearer, a large tattoo taking up one side of his face, and you shifted, the uncomfortable stones digging into your knees making you wince as you tried to hold still, an ache in your muscles as your heart raced with fear once again. “If you made the call, why can’t we help him.”
“You’re not here to help him, his wound is just to get you here.”
“You stabbed a man to get ahold of a paramedic?” The gun clicked, the safety catch off, and you swallowed thickly, internally berating yourself for asking such a question when the moment was so tense. “Look, we’ll come with you, we’re more than happy to, but just let me help him and then we’ll go wherever y-”
“Lady, if you don’t stop talking, I will blow your fucking brains all over these stones.” Your jaw snapped shut, heart freezing in your chest entirely, and you nodded dumbly. “Great, now get the fuck up, grab your bag, and walk over here real slow.”
You hesitated, only for a second, before lifting your hand from the man’s wound, hearing him groan out a little, and you ducked your head, knocking your bag over and the contents falling out across the gravel. “I don’t know if you’re even sentient enough to hear me right now,”
Your words were as low as you could get them, hoping then standing a few metres away wouldn't pick them up as he focused back on Newt, and you packed away slowly,
“If you can, I’m leaving the antiseptic and some gauze here. You need to pinch the sides of your wound, lay still, take deep breaths, and hold as much pressure as you can. In about forty minutes, we’d be due to make a call in, we’re supposed to every hour we’re out; when we don’t report in, they’ll send another ambulance. Just hold on, alright?”
You nudged the items a little further into the shadows, hoping the man had caught your words and had the strength to hold on, before you were peeling off your gloves, tucking them into your bag, and zipping it up to sit on your shoulder. Holding your hands up to show they were empty, you stepped beside Newt, the look on his face silently questioning if you were alright, and you gave him a subtle nod, raising a brow in return, and he ducked his head once in reply.
He stood behind you both, pushing the edge of the gun against Newt’s head to urge you both forward, and you matched his steps, the three of you walking slowly as you allowed yourself to be guided. There was a sleek black car pulled up, one you’d missed when arriving, and you suspected he’d driven away and waited somewhere for the ambulance to go past before pulling up again, because it wasn’t exactly hidden.
“Look, we’re going willingly, alright? No fight here, I’ll help. Our ambulance is right there,” You pointed to it, hands still raised up, arms beginning to ache and tire, and Newt folded his, resting his hands behind his head, and turning to look at you as you spoke, “Just let me call in for someone else to come help the other guy, they won’t even get here until after we’ve gone anyway, it’ll t-”
Your ears were ringing, the sound of the bang going off, the rush of air, and the way it felt like an explosion had gone off inside of your own head. You stumbled, falling to your knees at the impact as your entire body went weak, and your vision went black for a second as you tried to process it. You couldn't focus, everything seeming a little blurry, and you could feel Newt’s hands on your shoulders, shaking you, a very muffled shout of your name, before it was all torn backwards once again, and you felt nauseous as the shock swept through your body.
The man crouched down, pulling his hood back and directing an angry gaze straight at you as you blinked to clear your vision, barely able to hear a thing. “That was a fucking warning shot, speak again, and the next bullet won’t miss.”
You had to read his lips for half of the words he said, barely processing them, the bullet that had flown past your ear was making everything fade around the edges, and you were hauled roughly to your feet by a hand under your arm, leaning you against Newt as you staggered the final few feet to the car that was your destination. You could barely clear your head, shaking it a little bit finding even that action was too painful.
Blood was rushing, your headache felt like it was about to split your skull in half, and your shoulder ached as you were tossed down roughly into the open boot, unable to catch yourself in time. Newt followed, the lid slamming shut, darkness surrounding instead. You could feel Newt’s hands on you, the flash of light from his keyring over your irises making you wince, his fingers pressing along your jaw and around your ears, checking for any signs of a ruptured eardrum or any bleeding, but as the car rumbled to life, peeling out of abandoned area everything felt like it was slipping.
Your fingers scratched at the flooring of the car, nails digging into the felt, grains and dirt stuck under your fingernails, and then the car jolted, dipping into a pothole on the road, your head hitting against the floor of the car, and everything you were still clinging to was lost as well as you blacked out.
summary; in the aftermath of an unusual rescue, some big revelations come to pass.
notes; y’all are gonna hate me but love me.
warnings; descriptive gore, gun use, reference to death, violence, gang activity, reference to drug use, reference to arson, reference to house fires, main character injury.
It was a known fact that it took three whole seconds in the morning before you could process where you were, and remember anything other than your own name.
That first second was spent in a quickly disseminated state of serenity. Your head wasn’t yet hurting, and you eased back into consciousness with a slow start, the darkness surrounding you oddly reminiscent, but the chilling cold and the damp was less so.
The second was when panic rushed through your system. Your throat felt blocked as you came back to consciousness, the pain in your head came crashing back over you like a crushing tidal wave, the blood rushing on your head as coughs racked your body, trying to take a deeper breath, and panic filled you.
The third second made you roll onto your side, spluttering a little as pain throbbed behind your eyes and your head was spinning, making you feel like you were falling for just a second, before your nails were scraping at the material underneath you as you tried to sit up, everything along your body screaming out in agony and almost giving out with your weakness. It wasn’t soft cotton like your sheets, it was gritty like stone, tearing at your nails.
And then, you remembered.
You remembered exactly where you were, and what had happened, and why you were here. Well, that part was still a little fuzzy, you’d never really been given a reason. The pain in your body made sense, the dull throbbing in one eardrum more than the other and the shock of residual adrenaline left in your sore body that was beginning to make a resurgence in your fear, and you forced yourself to take a deep breath.
The familiar burn of tears in your throat as a lump formed and the stinging of salt in your eyes as they threatened to fall, and then you found the strength to sit up, to blink and clear dust-filled eyes a little more, before wiping a hand over your face to get rid of it all. There wasn’t much light where you were, but there was a clear spot of musty-yellow lighting in the centre of the room, your body curled in the corner, dumped in uncomfortable positions that made your legs ache, and there was a figure you recognised leaning over the table.
Covered in blood, frantic, brown eyes fixed on you that glittered under the low light, you swallowed thickly.
“Nice of you to join us, sleeping beauty. Think ya’ can come give me a hand over here?” Your brows furrowed, still trying to piece the puzzle together, but then there was a clicking that made you jump unnecessarily violently in fear, the memory of the last time you’d heard it flashing behind your eyes like a scene from a movie. Newt was panicked, but clearly trying to stay calm, his eyes widening just a fraction in a messaged for only you to hear, and despite the pain you felt, you forced yourself to your feet.
Your bag was weighing you down, medical supplies rattling, and you stumbled on feet that you could barely feel until your hands were braced on the edge of the table, and you could see what was going on a little better.
A gunshot victim, at least four bullet wounds, two packed with gauze that was rapidly soaking through as Newt had pressure on two others; swapping between them frantically if the pile of blood-sodden gauze on the floor was anything to go by. You assumed from the recognisable tattoo on the other half of this mans face too that he was a part of whatever gang this was, and clearly, an important member if they were willing to commit these kinds of crimes to save his life.
“You got more gauze, ‘cus I’m running out, and I could use your help getting him fixed up before we both end up looking like him.”
His words were low and whispered, and you gaped as you stared at the man. “This guy needs a hospital, and a team of professional medical surgeons. Like, Derek! Or, Dr Lahey! We aren’t trained for this!”
“Yeah, well, we’re all he's got.” Newt huffed, a spit of blood leaving the unnamed man’s body between Newt’s gloved fingers as he tried to shift his weight, a whispered curse from his lips as he tried to stop the flow again.
You nodded, swallowing thickly and squeezing your eyes shut in a desperate attempt to quell the pain bouncing around the inside of your skull. You assessment the scene, noting the Newt really hadn't been able to do much, and thankfully, if the change in the daylight outside was anything to go by then you had only been out for an hour or so, maybe a little longer, light still coming in between the cracks in the boarded-up windows.
The man in the corner was slumped in his chair, gun sitting beside him on the table, and your heart was racing so fast that the headache you sported was only getting worse. Your voice felt raw and hoarse as you tried to speak on it, squeaking and cracking the first time you tried to speak in anything above a whisper.
“We’re gonna’ need some water over here, boiled if you can to stop an infection, but even just bottled water would do at this point.” The man sitting on the chair stopped his rocking, the groaning of the seat against the concrete pausing, and you jumped as the front two legs slammed back down onto the floor. He stared at you for a moment, analysing you, before giving in, wandering over to the door and undoing a heavy deadbolt to open it up, never turning his back to the two of you and keeping his gaze locked with yours before throwing a demand for bottled water over his shoulder.
There was scuffling, various sounds of movement on the other side and you assumed there would be multiple people, before the door was closing once again, and the grating sound of metal was making itself knowing again in such a piercing scream along the lock that you shivered, wincing at the chill it gave you, stomach twisting.
“All right, this is a fucking mess.”
“You don’t say, love.” Newt grunted, a soft laugh falling from him as you opened up your bag, hands shaking as you tore it roughly, the zip ricocheting along its tracks to expose the contents to you. A fresh pair of gloves, and two of the strongest painkillers you could find that you forced yourself to choke down dry, and then you were attempting to focus.
Your scissors came first, chopping around Newt’s hands as best you could to remove the sodden clothing that covered his body to expose blood-smeared and frayed skin, torn from bullet wounds and bruised from the bleeding under the skin. Pushing the fabric aside, Newt pressed down a piece of gauze that was turning redder from pink by the moment, no white left on it, and the colour of his skin was beginning to turn sickly pale.
Grabbing for your flashlight, you noticed it was gone, left nowhere on your bag and missing from your person, patting down every pocket, before your partner simply huffed. “I wanted to do a trauma exam, except my torch is on my keys, too, and they took those a while ago because they have things that could be used as a weapon on them.”
“What, like my star-shaped plushie keyring?”
“Apparently.” You rolled your eyes, reaching a hand up to the lamp overhead, and tapping your fingers against the metal, hissing at the heat building up along the cover of the lamp, but deciding it would have to do. It wasn’t ideal, and it wouldn't give results all that accurate, but if there wasn’t any functioning or reaction at all, then there was no point in doing this at all, because the bleeding in his torso wouldn’t be the bleeding that would kill him.
Grabbing onto the stem instead, you covered his eyes with one hand, adjusting the lamp to sit a little differently, holding it over his head. Moving your hand back quickly, you lifted his eyelid, his pupil sluggish in his movements, but there was definitely a reaction, and you let out a little breath of relief. One more thing you could deal with. Checking the other eye, just to be certain, you got much the same reaction, not a speed you were overall happy with, but certainly better than nothing. This guy really had seen the worst of it, there was swelling along his jaw, cut and battered, a blackish bruise forming above his cheekbone and burst blood vessels in the same eye, and that was just his face.
He was coated in blood, and you couldn't tell whether it was his or someone else’s, some dried and other patches still oozing, body marred with bruises and cuts, both old and fresh, most of which were unrelated to the gunshot wounds he had. A fist came banging on the door, just in time, water bottles being handed through when it was cracked open a fraction, and there was only six of them by your count, eyes flittering over the sealed packets of water that hadn't even been opened, and you’d have to stretch it to make it last.
“How’s your leg?”
“Better than this guy, he has a bullet in his thigh.” The joke was to brush off his own pain, but for the past couple of minutes, he’d been shuffling his weight from one foot to another, and you glanced around, noting the box that was sitting only a few feet away. The unidentified man set to guard the two of you was coming over, the door sealed up tight once again and the packet of water in his hands.
“Can you put them down on the box? We could use the extra surface?”
He paused, glancing at it, considering the request, before agreeing. Silently, albeit, he accepted your request, dropping the bottles down onto it and kicking the crate across the floor to you, wooden container scraping over the stonework and bumping against your leg roughly, and you tried not to glare at him as your leg buckled.
A coppery taste filled your mouth as you licked over your bottom lip, wincing at the slight pain of the cut, swollen and sore, but not as much as the pain along your forehead, a cut you assumed you gained on the drive here. “So, first up, we need to try and stitch up those holes.”
“If I let go of these cuts, he’ll lose a lot of blood.”
“I know. We can work fast, but I need you to do the stitching, because I’m not sure I’m up to it right now.” You held your hands up, the uncontrollable trembling taking you over was far too violent to be able to do sutures, but you could definitely hold down pressure. Newt nodded, your hands closing over his, the squeeze of cold blood between your fingers from the gauze making you gag slightly, choking down that feeling of nausea.
His hands slipped out from underneath your own, and you pressed down the second they were gone, the man underneath you groaning under his breath as he constantly walked the border between conscious and unconscious. As you held down, Newt reached across his body, snatching up the first of the water bottles. Unscrewing the lid and placing it down, he left the cap beside it, before he was shuffling through his bag.
Pulling out the kit with needles and thread in, your emergency stitches kit that you’d ever actually to use in the field, and you were having flashbacks and pinpricks of pain along the tips of your fingers as you remembered practising the stitches in the academy, constantly poking your fingers with the metal thread.
The strongest antiseptic followed, dark brown liquid in a half-empty container sloshing against the sides, and it dripped across the edges, spilling a little in his haste, before he was diluting it in the first bottle. Lid back on, shaking it to mix, the once drinkable water turned a murky brown colour, and your eyes were stinging a little front he still open bottle letting strong fumes out into the air.
“I’m thinking chest, stomach, stomach, thigh.”
“Should probably elevate his legs if you wanna’ go thigh last, it’s pretty close to his femoral.” Newt nodded, glancing around, before realising there wasn’t much for the two of you to work with.
“Alright, chest, thigh, stomach?”
“I guess.” You mumbled, none of the odds being in either of your favours, and you watched as your partner pressed his fingers down against the pulse in the man’s neck, frowning at what he found and holding the position down for longer than what was good, the results silently given to you simply by the actions. “Do you need me to push the cut shut so you can stitch?”
“I do, but if you let go of those other ones, he’ll bleed out.”
You gnawed a little on your lower lip, fear and panic building once again, because every slip this man made closer to death, he was dragging both you and Newt with him. The words hadn't been specifically spoken, nothing was clear, but you could read between the lines, and if this man didn’t survive the day, then neither would you and Newt.
You didn’t know what had happened to him, you didn’t want to. Whatever kind of illegal activities, gang territory fight or simply men wreaking havoc upon one another had caused this, you wanted no more part of it than keeping him alive long enough to hope that you and your friend might get out of this situation. The hand under your heart thudded a little more violently as he surfaced back into total consciousness once again, a gasping breath followed by sputtering, fresh red bubbling in his spit as he tried to clear the blood that was pooling in his throat, before an agonising sound was leaving him.
“What the hell are you doing to him?”
You jumped at the loud voice, yelling from across the room and the gun clicked again, the sound a threat that made your entire body stiffen painfully, nails digging into the mains chest as your hands tried to ball themselves into fists.
“We’re trying to save his bloody life!” Newt yelled back, and you gasped, eyes widening a little, because if the two of you had already learned anything from talking back to these people it was the risk of a ruptured eardrum and a killer headache. Clearly, this wasn’t the same man who’d taken you hostage, the rasp in his voice a little different and this man simply grunted at the pair of you disdainfully, rolling his eyes and shuffling in his seat beside the door.
“Alright, what if we use the bags for weight? It’s not ideal, but if we work quickly, I can hold one shut while the bags put some pressure on the other two, and I can hold it shut.”
The blond before you flicked his eyes over everything, fiddling with the tools as he toyed with the tweezers he had retrieved, wiping them down as best he could with some tissue dipped in the antiseptic water. “This guy is so gonna’ fucking die.” He whispered, and you couldn't help the chuckle that left you, swaying on your feet a little as you did, the rush of a chemical other than adrenaline being overwhelming.
“Well, we’re all he’s got.” You repeated his words back to him, a cheeky flash of white teeth in a smile that was gone as fast as it came, before you were shaking your head and refocusing on the task at hand, chasing away anything else you might be feeling in the moment. Daring to free one hand from his thigh, you watched the rapid spurts of blood that came free, trickling over his trousers to the table below, before you were putting your bag down on top. You couldn't see much, whether or not it was even working, but it was the best chance the two of you had.
Newt copied your action, placing his bag down over the wounds on his stomach, much like you had done, giving the two of you the chance to focus on the wound on his chest.
Taking the disinfectant from his hand and pressing down a cotton pad over the end, you soaked the small white ball in the liquid, packing it into the wound as Newt tried to clear the area to see what he was doing, but really, it was only smearing the blood around further. You could clean him up and do a better job of it later, but the first thing you needed to do was get the blood flow under control and wash off the antiseptic once it was clean.
You pinched the hole shut, temporarily stopping the floor, beads of red pooling at the corners, and Newt spilt water over the tops of your fingers, the cold feeling making you shiver, because despite the freezing temperatures in whatever kind of warehouse you are trapped inside of, the layer of clammy sweat coating your skin was hiding you from the chill. Once you could see what you were doing, Newt sighed, taking the tweezers in one hand, and nodding his head.
“Push up around the edges to stop the bullet slipping, I should be able to get it pretty quick. I was good at this part.”
“You scare me a little, why the fuck were you a bullet removal prodigy?” He shrugged, winking a little and holding the metal tongs over the wound, before nodding his head once. Slipping your fingers out of the way, you pressed down around the edges, blood spurting up again but you pressed down, stopping the bullets from shifting as Newt pushed into the man's chest through the hole already made. There was a scarcely audible sound, one deaf to the untrained ear but like sirens to a paramedic, the cling of the tips of the needle against the tip of the bullet, and newt shifted his fingers a little.
Letting the metal open back up from where he’d squeezed them closed like a bullet, the edges of the hole stretched around the expanding metal, and an intense look of concentration took over Newt’s face, not even looking at the wound but staring at the wall behind you, looking right through it as he operated purely on instinct and the touch as he felt his way through it. He let out a victorious little noise, pulling back, and as he did, he brought out the shell of a bullet, one that looked to be homemade, though that didn’t exactly surprise you, and it let out a much louder clanging as he dropped it back down onto a metal tray beside the victim’s head.
You moved instantly, the second that it was pulled back you were pushing your thumb and forefinger back up against the edges of the cut to contain the bleeding. Holding it tightly, Newt picked up the next set of his equipment, an atraumatic needle, one of ten and you hoped he was as good as he boasted being because you only had ten between you both, and you’d need two per wound with the length of these wires to seal them up tight enough.
You watched, carefully, as Newt threaded the first of the holes through the wound, pulling it out of the other side with the tweezers, and beginning to tie a series of surgical knots to keep them closed. He gave it a test tug, the skin pulling as he did, but it didn’t rip or tear, neither the wire nor the flesh, a solid base with which he could work. Beginning to sow him up further, Newt moved in steady motions, each gap only two millimetres apart at the maximum, pulling them tightly enough to stop the blood flow and allow tissue repair to began, but not enough that it would tear at the inevitable strain it would undergo when it was done up.
As soon as she was halfway through, attaching a new thread to continue with, and the wound was getting closer to being shut, allowing you to move your fingers out of his way, a slight breath escaping you as your breathing hitched each time the needle or thread came too close to you, because the last thing you needed right now was to get an infection from someone else’s blood and a dingy warehouse, or to lose time on this man’s life by having to start disinfecting everything all over again.
As he sealed it up, he pulled all of the threads a little tighter, working his way along to make sure the thread was evenly distributed, before fastening up the thread. He pulled back, the both of you waiting with bated breath to see whether blood would come free or whether they would bust open once your fingers moved, and while they pulled tautly, they never broke or tore.
You flooded with relief, Newt letting out a mix between a chuckle and a sigh, relief overlaying it all, and you took just a second of reprieve to know that you were just one step closer to this all being over. Opening your mouth, you weren’t sure what was coming, words of gratitude and accomplishment sitting on your tongue, aimed at any kind of higher power that might be watching over the two of you right now, but your partner beat you to it.;
“Let’s check the bag wounds.”
You nodded your head, swallowing back whatever you were going to say, beginning to feel a little dizzy as your head spun, and you squeezed your eyes shut for a second, containing the way you were feeling. Lifting away the bag that was sitting over his thigh, you were both surprised and impressed that the bag method had held reasonably well. There was more blood than there would be if you’d held it yourself, but you could work with what you had, and as your eyes flicked to where Newt was checking his stomach, you found similar results. Your gut was twisting again, bile rising in your throat at the sight of the blood in various places, an unusual phenomenon as blood had never bothered you before, and you turned away, gagging as vomit threatened to make itself known, and you tried not to clap a blood-soaked hand over your mouth, the thought only sickening you further.
“Woah, you alright?” You gagged, dry heaving a few more times as you tried to keep back the vomit that was on the verge of making itself known, tears lining your eyes and heat flooding over your cheeks as everything within you threatened to let go, but you managed to keep a lid on it. “The fuck was that?”
“I don’t know. I’m fine. Just aftershock, I think. Hunger, too, maybe, been a long time since I had anything real to eat, I think my body is just all fucked up right now.” His eyes narrowed on you, but he nodded, accepting the answer because the two of you needed to focus on things that were more important.
Once you had suppressed your nausea, you were picking the scissors back up, Newt resetting and disinfecting the equipment once again as you cut away at a patch of the ruined jeans the man was wearing. The denim was stiff while wet, and you struggled to cut it, your fingers aching as the metal of the handles pressed into the edges of your fingers, and you released a breath as you were holding as it was finished. Wiping down the area and packing the hole with disinfectant to make sure it was clean.
The procedure between the two of you started up again, only a second later you were pinching the wound shut, waiting for Newt to extract the bullet before moving to knot the thread and begin to fasten the stitches. It felt like time was coming to a stop while also speeding along, your fingers moving to the pulse point on his neck to monitor how it was going, counting the beats you could feel and trying to remember how light it felt so each period check would reveal whether it grew stronger or weaker.
You felt like the clock was ticking by too fast, every time you glanced up to the musty glass barrier hanging over the door seemed like it was spinning by at double speed, the hand constantly moving in starling jumps around the clock, the shadows in the room growing more pronounced and sharp as the sun moved across the sky, the light becoming duller as the one hanging over you both seemed to become brighter, and you watched Newt work.
As a team, you stitched him up, making sure that each wound was sealed up tightly and that they wouldn't burst, the pair of you physically exhausted. You could see the ache in Newt’s leg, he’d given up on even trying to hide it a while ago, as the two of you had moved onto the third bullet hole, all of his weight sitting on his good leg as he balanced barely anything on the bad one. Four bullets were sitting in a row, lined up neatly beside his head, and you let out a sigh, scrubbing over his skin carefully to wipe up the traces of blood.
Once he’d been stable enough, you checked his vision again, his reaction times having increased by a fraction of a second, but it was enough to mark an improvement, and his pulse was picking up with both strength and speed. You could see the bruises and cuts along his skin more clearly once you’d wiped him down of excess blood, littered with marks that would fade, only the bullet holes to turn pinkish-purple with scar tissue eventually, to join all of the other battle wounds along his flesh. Various tattoos to match the symbols on his face were across his body, and you made sure to treat every single cut, not wanting to leave anything up to chance, your body screaming out in protest as your adrenaline died down, and exhaustion was crawling in.
You were overwhelmed, tears building in your eyes, and Newt mentioned nothing as a few fell free, because you were sure that at some point - perhaps before you’d surfaced back to consciousness all that time ago - that he would have done the same. The situation was terrifying and you were struggling to process it all, every thought you had was like a swirling hurricane, melded with every other thought and emotion you were feeling, leaving you hopeless to process your thoughts but just lay rampant to them.
Anxiety was spiking through your system, choking it down by focusing on the methodical cleaning of the man, but eventually, there was nothing left to do. Fresh gauze and bandages were stark in comparison to his sickly-coloured skin, wrapped neatly and tightly and finally staying crisp and clean as you had everything under control, and your legs were threatening to buckle. You packed away slowly, stepping back from the table, and removing your gloves to join the scattered piles of medical waste that covered the floor and the edges of the workspace.
Newt didn’t even bother to put things back properly, to look after the equipment, he simply dropped it all inside, doing the zip up enough to hold it shut, before it was dangling from his fingers by the straps, and you followed suit.
Noting the movements, the man in the chair stood, his movements slightly wobbly from how long he’d been sat down, and you realised how long must have passed. As he approached, he kicked one of the empty bottles aside, all six used to the last drop for cleaning and disinfecting, and he pulled the gun from his waistband, making sure his finger was over the trigger in case either you or Newt made an attempt to pull something.
Not that you had any chance, there was a pile of everything that could possibly be used as a weapon over on the table beside where he had been guarding.
“He’ll live?”
You raised your hands, folding them behind your head in a symbol of your cooperation as he turned to you, and you tried not to sway too much in your weakness, simply nodding your head to him, and swallowing thickly. “He’ll need to keep those wounds clean, you can take the stitches out in about a month, or longer, wait until they start to form flesh for a scar but take them out before the skin gets too puffy.”
He nodded his head before lifting the gun up a little higher, motioning to the bag you held, and you trembled, his finger flexing a little on the trigger. “Whatever we’re going to need to keep it clean. Get it out. Put it on the table here, and then walk over to the wall until your back is pressed to it.”
You lifted the bag slowly, the dragging of the zip over the metal was all that field the room, tense silence taking over before you were reaching inside, daring to take your eyes off of the man and quell your fear to be able to reach inside. Pulling out both the diluted and undiluted bottles, you hoped he didn’t notice the lack of canister spray you’d left at the scene, your mind suddenly becoming aware of the life you’d left hanging in the balance, and wondering whether he’d survived.
By now, the shift at the firehouse would have been over, and you did not doubt that a missing persons case would have been filed for you and Newt, the abandoned ambulance after over an hour of no check-in would lead them to know something had happened, but you didn’t know how long it would take to find you, or if they even could.
Placing the bottles, spare bandages and wraps, as well as some painkillers down on the table, you stepped back, fastening your bag up.
“He’ll be in a fair amount of pain for a while, they should last two weeks, he can’t take any more than two a day, or else he’ll OD.”
The man nodded, motioning backwards toward the shadowed walls, and you stepped back slowly, Newt following when his command was given, and his hands were held up into the air too, both of you proceeding with caution.
While one danger had dissipated, another was making itself known, the purpose of being brought here was over, you and Newt had served your purpose, and if the man asking for supplies and advice was anything to go on, it meant that either they planned to let you go or planned to kill you, because you clearly wouldn't be sticking around to follow through on a treatment plan.
Once your back hit the wall, you stilled, Newt coming to stand beside you. The door was unlocked, several more men coming in, and the four of them all lifted their comrade carefully, carrying him out, and the door slammed shut behind them, leaving you both in cold silence. This area of the room seemed even colder than that of your impromptu operating theatre had, the shadows creating a drop in temperature, but you were simply too tired to care anymore.
Your head was still throbbing, your eyes felt heavy each time you tried to hold them open, the adrenaline and fear in the situation had been all that had helped to even keep you awake, and you rolled your head from side to side, trying to ease the pain in your neck.
Newt followed beside you, your legs pulled up before you as his stretched out, your bags abandoned together between your bodies, and your head came to rest on his shoulder, a heavy sigh let out.
“I think you have a concussion.”
You chuckled, but it was dry and humourless, simply a sound made to fill the silence and bush him off, but he wasn’t accepting that answer. His hand closed over yours, lacing your fingers together comfortingly and squeezing tightly, and you did your best to squeeze him back just as firmly. “I don’t have a concussion, I just have a headache.”
“Yeah.” He hummed, and you thought for a second, you may actually have won an argument with him. “But you also have nausea, you passed out, you’re a little confused, you’re weak on your feet and you can barely stand up straight.”
“It’s a-”
“You say aftershock and I’ll slap you.” He teased, a genuine laugh leaving you this time, and your shoulders rose and fell with a shrug. “When we get out of here, w-”
“If.”
“When we get out of here,” His voice was a little firmer, commanding you to have as much faith as he did, “Will you please just get it checked out? Just to make me feel better.”
You sighed, rolling your eyes behind closed lids, and groaning when he jostled his shoulder to wake you back up to the fullest alertness you could muster. “Fine! Fine, when we get out of here, I’ll get it checked out.”
Silence encased you both, darkness taking over, and the man who’d been tasked with guarding you both returned, taking his seat again and setting up to play on his phone from the second that he was comfortable, and you waited. He said nothing, not noticing the stare both you and Newt had fixed on him, your heart sinking as he remained quiet. The longer his lack of information dragged on, the more you felt doom beginning to sweep over.
The fact that he had nothing to say to you both screamed volumes into the void. There were no threats to keep your mouths shut, or looming promises of what would happen if you exposed the group’s location, or even any information on when you’d be leaving, and it seemed that they had no intention to let you go at all.
As you wiggled a little against the concrete, butt becoming numb from the stone underneath you, your legs stretched out to match your partners, and your eyes closed. You were fading away again, drifting towards sleep as it called out to you, the spinning of the room, the dizziness that was bordering on vertigo and the nausea with the headache, it all seemed to lessen as you slipped from consciousness.
Newt was talking to you, forcing you to stay just enough awake that you didn’t drift completely, but you weren’t processing what he was saying, the words just becoming background noise that disturbed you from being able to slumber, but you suspected that was the whole point. He wasn’t talking about anything important, he was telling you his mother’s recipes and the time he once went to buy new work shoes but almost walked out of the store while wearing an un-purchased pair because he was so tired from a double shift.
You missed the banging in the other rooms, you missed the actions taking place, barely roused by the sudden shaking your body felt, and you only snapped back to consciousness when you felt hands on your body. You kicked roughly, Newt barely avoiding the blow as all the pain you’d felt came flooding back over you in shockwaves, making you shudder violently at the surge of pain and nausea, before you were blinking at the dull lighting in the room.
“Stick with me, love. Tommy would kill me if we had to take you to the hospital after the final hurdle because I couldn’t keep you awake.”
“Oh, shut up.” Your words were slurred, and you shook your head, eyes squeezing closed at the throbbing taking place behind them. “You’d love that, I’m surprised you haven’t sacrificed me for a trip to the ER yet, anything to see Dr Derek in his lab coat, right?”
Pink flushed his cheeks, his eyes flickering over to the door, and he leaned in a little, hugging you tightly and shaking you enough to jolt energy through your body, a groan on your lips as he did. “Something is going on outside, and I never pass up a chance for an I-told-you-so!”
“A what?” You questioned, confusion still washing over you, but you never got a chance for an answer. The sound of a bullet pinging against metal was so sharp that it left another ringing in your ears as you cupped your hands over the sides of your head just a second too late. Newt did the same, falling away from shock with a grunt, and the man beside the door was in a little more agony at his close proximity to the sound.
You blinked blurry vision clear, watching smoke curl up from the lock, before the heavy metal door was falling open. It was a uniform you recognised, one of the police members you’d already seen much of over the last few cases, your brows raising a little as you watched them enter. You kept your hands over your ears, at least two more shots reverberating through the air and you felt them more than you heard them, body feeling the impact and breath feeling knocked from your lungs at the vibrations over the airwaves.
It was all like a dream, detached from reality as you were pulled to your feet by an officer, Newt’s hand dropping away from yours and you stumbled, feelings as though your movements weren’t your own. As you were guided through the halls, you tried to remember some of it, any of it, but everything you saw and heard seemed to be going in one ear and out the other.
Flashing blue lights outside with wailing sirens signalled the police cars, and several men around you were all being arrested, pinned down face first and snarling as they were cuffed, but you didn’t have enough energy to feel intimidated right now.
The fresh air was a shock, like plunging into water below the freezing point, and you took a sudden and gasping inhale, coming to a full stop, and everything out of focus suddenly went into overdrive. As you stepped out of the building the haze seemed to drop away, and you took another lungful of the air, panting breaths as you tried to fill your lungs with the source of oxygen, a panic attack building as you finally let everything cup back through, and gentle hands were guiding you to an ambulance.
You recognised the paramedics waiting inside, they were friendly as they greeted you by name and you recognised them from another case, perhaps the one on the bridge or at the chemical plant, you weren’t too sure, but it didn’t matter. An oxygen mask was placed over your face, fresh breaths of air racing through your lungs on a steady distribution that forced your breathing to even out, and you were grateful for it, not wanting to break down until you were curled up in your own bed tonight.
You winced at the flashlight that flickered over your eyes, stars in your eyes flashing for a second as you blinked to clear them, and while the paramedic around you shuffled within their own devices, you shifted yourself slightly on the stretcher, turning to stare out at the collections of cars instead, trying to see more than just the inside of the ambulance.
You searched for Newt, unable to find his blond hair for a good few minutes, before finally, you spotted him. Messy mop head in a far corner, beside a collection of cars that didn't belong to the public services, but instead to the members of the public services.
He was wrapped up tightly in his best friend's arms, Thomas patting his back comfortingly, as Minho all but bounced with excitement at his side. Brenda was leaning on her car, and Gally was standing beside them, hands tucked into the pocket of his hoodie. They were all in casual clothing, clearly having changed since the end of their shift had rocked around so long ago, the night sky closing in overhead as the day was being chased away, and you took another deep breath through the mask, smiling again.
Just the sight of your team was reassuring, to know they’d found you, they’d come to collect you, to make sure you were okay, and your heart thumped steadily and surely in confirmation that you needed their comfort right now. They were talking, Newt using a lot of hand gestures and while you couldn't tell much about their features, you knew they’d all be flickering from amusement to confusion to horror. Newt was quite the storyteller, at any time, no matter the trauma.
They turned, Newt pointing over to the ambulance you were within, and you raised a hand to wave to your friend as you watched all of their attentions move to you, before the paramedic before you was summoning your attention once again. You turned to her, the call of your name snapping you to the moment, and as much as you didn't want to look away from them all, you knew you’d be reunited with them soon enough.
“Well, you definitely have a concussion.” She confirmed, and you pouted, taking a final deep breath from the oxygen mask, and then taking it off.
“Newt is going to live for the ‘I-told-you-so’.” You scowled, and she seemed to come into more focus within your memory now. You remembered her, she had been there at the chemical plant, she’d been new at the time, a trainee, fresh out of the academy and on one of her first cases, and you’d tried to comfort her about the card system, making sure to navigate as many red cards away from her as you could to make a hard day just a little easier.
She grinned, handing you a plastic cup with some tablets inside, and a bottle of water, with the lid already unscrewed. “I’ll spare you the medical analysis, I’m sure you know what to do.” You only nodded, taking both from her gratefully and tipping the pills onto your tongue, before following them with a gulp of water, and taking them down eagerly. “Two painkillers to keep the headaches and muscle soreness at bay, as well as the nausea.”
“As much as I’d love to chat, I’m going to have to rain-check. Am I good to go? I’m desperate to just get home.”
She chuckled, nodding, and you stood up, still feeling a little unsteady and lightheaded, but it was beginning to get easier. Giving her a final thanks, and climbing down from the van, you closed the doors up for her, banging on the back when they were sealed up, and she gave a thumbs up from inside of the window, before sorting everything out and preparing for their journey back.
Turning around, there was a body directly behind you, and you cursed loudly while jumping, eyes trailing up from a familiar chest to his face and raising a brow as warm honey-coloured eyes stared at you. “Fuck, Tommy, hasn’t anyone ever told you not to sneak up on someone who’d been freshly rescued after an abduction? We tend to be jumpy.”
He grinned, shaking his head a little at your words, before your own smile was following. His hands came up, cupping your cheeks, and you leaned into the warmth that his palms brought over the cold skin of your face, sagging a little at his touch. “I have a lot of questions, but the main one is; are you okay? I just need to know you’re alright, and everything else can wait.”
“I’m okay, Tommy, I promise. A little battered and bruised, but hey, what’s new?” He rolled his eyes softly, a yawn following on your lips as you covered it, not missing the fond look he held as he continued to stare, eyes sweeping over your features. You waited for a second longer, before nudging one of your feet forward to bump your toes against his, your brows raising a little. “What’s wrong?”
“I was just really fucking worried about you.” He whispered, eyes dropping down a little, fixing on your lips, and licked over his own. His hands fell further down, sitting over your jaw and he dragged a thumb across your lips a little, your mouth pouting instinctually as he did, and his lips flicked up at the edges, never taking his gaze from where his finger was resting. “Chasing after you is like being on a damn rollercoaster.”
“How’s that?” You mumbled, breath clouding in the cold air slightly but the words were whispered, and his lashes tickled against your cheek as he shifted to bump his nose against yours, dragging them together slowly, his lips pressing to his own finger on the other side.
“Exciting, addictive, a total rush, but a little scary right at the big drop.”
You brought a hand up, sitting over his cheek, his head tipping into your hand, and his thumb slipped away, leaving nothing between you to stop you from being able to taste the overly sweetened coffee on his breath that he drank whenever he got worried. “Don’t kiss me yet.”
“Why not? It’s me and you, and now I know you’re okay, and I just really want to.” He teased you, pushing in enough to trace his lips very gently against your own, sparks of electricity shooting along you at the fleeting brush that you could still feel but wasn’t enough to be a kiss, but already left you wanting more. “If you don’t give me a reason soon, I’m gonna’ kiss you breathless, and they’ll need to put you back on that oxygen mask.”
You let out a soft breath, an airy laugh, before finding the strength to pull back by a fraction. “I have a concussion.”
He snapped back, eyes wide and brows furrowing so tightly you thought he'd get permanent perry lines, his jaw dropping in disbelief. “You said you were fine! You little liar!”
“I am fine!” You took his hands, pulling them away from your face and weaving your fingers with his on both sides, before rocking up on your tiptoes, and pressing your lips to his lower cheek, hearing him whine a little at the near-miss kiss. “I’m just a little woozy, and tired, and shaken up.”
“You promise that’s all?”
“I swear.” You offered, and he smiled, leaning in to press a kiss to your own cheek in return as he respected your boundaries. “If you can set rules for our first kiss, then so can I. I want to be at my peak when we do, I don’t want anything to spoil it, I want to remember it perfectly, and not have such a killer headache, preferably.”
“I can live with that. We’ll wait. For now.” You nodded your head, foreheads resting together once again, and your eyes closed, simply soaking in how it felt to be surrounded by him, before a loud and exaggerated clearing of the throat was breaking you apart, and Brenda stood with her hands on her hips, a wicked smirk on her face as she stared at you both.
“Do we get any greetings, or do we not matter anymore? Because I was kinda’ worried about you too.”
You grinned, the woman who you were proud to call your best friend was holding her arms out for you, and you dropped Thomas’ hands, feeling him let you go and step back just as quickly now that everyone else had come over, and you wrapped her up in your arms as she squeezed you tightly, rocking you from side to side. Another pair of arms wrapped around you, and you grinned as the familiar smell of your partner’s aftershave overwhelmed your senses, the man clinging to you from the back as he wrapped his arms around the both of you.
Minho followed, a wicked grin on his face as he draped himself across Brenda’s back, squeezing all of you even tighter, and Thomas followed beside Newt, Gally and Fry coming next, until you couldn’t see out past the mass of bodies that had joined, feeling as though you were in the middle of a rugby scrummage and you could barely breathe, the laughter you were letting out doing nothing to help.
Eventually, Brenda was elbowing the men back, letting you slip free when they all backed away, and you missed all of their body heats, wrapping your arms a little tighter around yourself to keep warm All you had was the thin material of your uniform shirt, soaked in blood and clammy sweat, as well as various medicines and chemicals, with a vest underneath. It was doing little against the cold of the night closing in, twilight well past as stars started to make themselves known.
You shivered, rubbing your hands up and down your arms, wondering how Newt wasn’t feeling the cold, but he was excitedly retelling the tale already of the surgery the two of you had been forced to perform, a story that would last him for ages, no doubt, but it was his way of processing the trauma; to turn it into something he was proud to remember instead of something he was scared to think about, something that made him feel bold instead of terrified, and you wanted to support that, so you kept your mouth shut.
Stepping back over to Thomas, his gaze left his best friend, flicking down to you, his hands tucked into the front pocket of his hoodie, and raising a brow when you tugged his arm out of his pocket. He let you, his arm limp in your hold as he let you guide him, a soft pink flushing his cheeks as you tucked yourself under his arm, your cheek moving to rest on his shoulder, your hands tucking into his pocket and one set of fingers weaving with the fingers of his that were still inside. He leaned down, pressing a kiss to the top of your head, before turning to look up at him as his arm squeezed around you a little more tightly.
There was a grin on his face, one with a hidden meaning as he bit at the inside of his cheek to contain it. “You know, Newt is gonna’ give us shit for cuddling.” His fingers were moving over your back in slow patterns, large palm rubbing slowly and transferring warmth back to you where you were chilled to the bone.
“I don’t care. I’m fucking cold, and you’re nice and warm.” You moved, face pressing into him a little further, the rest of your words becoming muffled, and he chuckled.
“Well, in that case,” He simply rested his chin on the top of your head, freeing up his other arm to hold you more securely, and letting out a slow breath that became a slight yelp as you pressed cold hands under the edge of his hoodie to sit on warm skin, grinning cheekily at the scowl that formed as you did. “Is any of the story Newt is telling actually true?”
“Surprisingly, most of it.”
“Well, which p-” He was cut off, the gruff clearing of a throat making him fall silent, and you pulled back, slightly embarrassed as heat made itself known along your cheeks when you found the police officer to be looking for you, the rest of the squad falling silent too and all turning to look at you, following the officer’s gaze, and you untangled yourself from Thomas.
“Sorry to interrupt you all. I just need your statement, ma’am, it’ll only take a moment.”
“You haven’t given your statement yet?” Newt quizzed, clicking his tongue in a tutting fashion, and you stuck your tongue out a little bit at him.
“You still haven’t been checked out by a paramedic yet?” You mocked, his amused face falling as he mock-glared at you, Minho pinching his arm as he tried to insist he was perfectly fine, his friend telling him otherwise.
“I’ll meet you over by that car in a moment, it’ll only take a few minutes to get your statement.” You nodded, the policeman giving you a polite smile, before tapping his pen against the pad in his hand and wandering away to the vehicle.
“Do you want me to go with you?” Lips brushed against your ear, making you jump a little, and you turned back to face the man behind you, your lieutenant standing back up to his full height as you did, and raising his brows.
“No, I want you to take Newt over to an ambulance and force him to get a check-up. He’s more than happy to diagnose me, but he won’t do a self-diagnosis.” Thomas laughed, a hearty and full sound, and you assumed there were memories flashing behind his eyes of a childhood full of similar circumstances. “I’ll come and meet you over by the cars afterwards. I’m going to need a lift home, y’know..”
His hand came up, tucking away stray hairs behind your ear, and nodding his head. “I was already planning on that, don’t worry.” You smiled, head ducking a little, and you tensed up a little at the clenching in your gut again, fearing it was another bout of nausea rising, but instead, your stomach rumbled, loudly. There was a snicker, hidden in your hairline, and your lips pursed, a shy feeling growing within you once again. “I’ll take you to get some food, too.”
“Shut up.” You mumbled, a finger hooking under your chin, pulling your face up, and there was a smirk there that only made you flush further. “Stop looking at me like that.”
“Like you’re adorable? Because, you are.” You scowled, blush only growing stronger, and he smoothed a thumb over your cheek as did, glancing away over your shoulder for a second. “Go give your statement, I’ll wrestle Newt into an ambulance.”
“Mhm, ‘kay.” You twisted your head, nuzzling a little into his palm for a second, before pulling it away from your face and squeezing his hand. “I want McNuggets. McDonald’s drive-thru.”
“Whatever you want, angel.”
You raised a brow, hand smoothing down over his chest to sit just above his stomach, and his eyes dropped, following your hand, a slightly more vulnerable look on his face when he turned back to you; wide eyes, swallowing thickly. “Whatever I want?”
“Anything.”
You tugged on the front of his clothing. “Can I wear your hoodie?”
He froze for a second, before a rush of a breath was leaving him like a punch, and he smiled, reaching behind his head with one hand and tugging it up, stripping the garment off and shucking it down his arm, the long-sleeved shirt underneath rising up a bit as he did, and you forced your eyes away from the happy trail revealed or the flex of his biceps, taking the warm garment from him. He held it out, soft green material looking warm and inviting, flooded with his body heat and the smell of him, your fingers twitching to take it.
Undoing the buttons on the front of your shirt, you cursed under your breath at the cold while taking it off, just a tank top left underneath, before taking the hoodie. It caught on your ponytail, Thomas helping you to adjust it over your head before taking the ruining uniform from you and draping it over his arm like a waiter’s towel, nodding his hair and lifting your hair free from the collar.
He leaned in, lips pressing to your forehead, a soft kiss given to you, before he was pushing you backwards. “Go. Go give your statement, the sooner it’s over, the sooner we get you those nuggets. I’ll meet you at the cars.” Tucking your hands into warm pockets, you wandered away, bumping your hip against Brenda’s as you did and she stumbled a little from where she’d been balancing mid-yawn, flipping you off as you laughed while walking away, and making your way over to the officer.
He stood up straighter from where he’d been leaning against his car as you approached, offering you his hand and introducing himself politely, and you freed up a hand to shake, giving him your name for the record, before your hands were once again clenched with the oversized hoodie’s pockets.
It was a simple case, there wasn’t much to tell. In all honestly, you didn’t know much. You wouldn't be much help, you’d been unconscious for the first half of the journey and in the midst of your concussion symptoms the second time, and you’d never seen the man pull up. You did tell him what you could, about the unusual call, you and Newt splitting up to check the area, before finding the man under the bridge. You tried your best to patch him up, before the two of you had been taken at gunpoint, and you’d lost consciousness when you’d been put in the car.
You asked about the fate of the man under the bridge, your heart sinking a little at the answer you got. He hadn't made it, he’d tried to use the equipment you’d left him but had passed away before the hour mark had passed, and you gripped onto yourself tightly to contain how you felt. He attempted to comfort you about it, to tell you that it was the gang activity you and Newt had speculated it to be, and that the man who’d been stabbed was a criminal, but it did little to ease your suffering.
You were a big believer in second chances; if you didn’t you wouldn't be in the place you were now, with the family you’d found.
Once he had you sign off on the confidentiality forms and disclosures, your name signed next to Newt’s chicken scratch signature, you were free to go, more than ready to just go home. Everything ached, you were still sore and covered with pain, your muscles all tensed up and torn from the strain of the day, your hunger making you feel like you were being eaten from the inside out by your own stomach and the headache that came with it wasn’t a highlight of your day, and your bed was calling out for you.
As promised, the teams were over by the cars, music playing on the radio from within Brenda’s as the door was open, letting her lean against it, and Newt was sucking happily on one of the lollipops reserved for little children that some of the ambulances carried, his tongue turning purple from the false-grape flavour of it.
He saw you coming, a little bounce in his step as you approached, before he was coming to stand before you, a smacking sound making itself known as he pulled the sweet treat away from his mouth. “You okay? Did he tell you about the guy?”
“Yeah.” You sighed, and he frowned, shrugging a little, but holding his arms open.
“He was a bad guy, you can’t save everyone, but you tried, okay? You gave it your best.” His words were true and you knew they were, you didn’t want to wallow in self-pity, you’d done everything you could without losing your one life, in which he would have died too, and you were trying not to risk your own life as much these days. “You’re okay, right?”
“Yeah.” You huffed, and he squeezed you a little tighter, clearly not accepting that answer, and waiting for me. “God, I hate this job sometimes, but I love it too. We save more lives than we lose, we change more lives for the good than bad, but every job has its bad sides.” It felt like you’d been having an awful lot of the bad side lately, but that only meant there was a lot of good to come to balance out the scales. “Have you texted Derek, yet, I bet he’s pretty worried.”
Newt let out a breathy sound at the mention of his crush, sagging in your arms a little before pulling back, and pale cheeks were flushed with warmth, the men avoiding your gaze and scratching at the back of his neck. “Not yet. Bren had my bag in the car, I got a lot of missed texts and a missed call, but I don’t really know what to say. It’s late, he finishes shift soon, I figure I’ll just wait until I get home.”
“Maybe you should go and see him.” You teased, poking at his shoulder, and your friend’s flush only deepened, shaking his head a little.
“I want to take a hot bath, and watch embarrassing rom-coms and eat an ungodly amount of food in a very unattractive way, and I don’t think me and Derek are quite at that stage. Yet.” He added the last word on, smirking as that cheeky attitude came flooding back, and you felt a presence coming to stand behind you. You knew who it was without having to turn, feeling it instinctively as a slight thrill raced through you, before a kiss was being pressed to the back of your head, an arm slipping around your waist, and a chin hooking over your shoulder.
Newt smirked, eyes moving over the pair of you slowly, and you ignored the look as he busied himself by moving to the backseat of Brenda’s car to retrieve your bag as well, and rifling through his own for his phone.
“Is this okay?”
“Why wouldn't it be?” You relaxed a little further into his hold, his fingers toying with the stitching underneath the pocket of the jumper idly as you sagged into him, feeling the movement of the muscles in his chest as he shrugged.
“Whole teams here, and you’re kinda’ the centre of attention right now. You and Newt. I didn’t really wanna’ push my boundaries, but I’m kinda’ afraid that if I let you go again, you’re going to get into some more stupid shit and get me all riled up again, and I’m still all full of adrenaline form these last few hours worrying about you.”
You moved to the side a little, twisting your head to be able to look up at him, eyes scanning over his face as you analysed his words, nothing but honesty and vulnerability shown to you. “Hey, I didn’t get myself into this one, it just happened. For once, I have no blame! I was cooperative with the criminal, kept my mouth shut, for the most part, you would have been proud of me.” His lips twitched with a soft form of amusement at your joke. “Besides, they all know how I feel about you, anyway. I’m not exactly subtle about it, and neither are you. I don’t think whatever this is, is exactly a state secret.”
He beamed at that, you weren’t sure why, but his face lit up with pure joy, and he nodded his head sucking down to peck the tip of your nose with a sweet kiss, one that made you feel ticklish, your face screwing up slightly. Turning back to your friends, you watched Newt stare at his phone for a second, considering accepting a call as his finger hovered over the accept button, the vibrating device with Derek’s name flashing along the top going off after a second, and you frowned.
“You sure you don’t want company tonight, Newt?”
“Yeah, I don’t really think either of you should be alone. Especially not with your concussion.” She pointed at you, but her attention quickly moved back to Newt, and the lanky blond shrugged. “How about a girl’s night? You can join in, Newt, because you can talk guys, so you’re acceptable.”
“Wow, thanks, Bren.” His tone was sarcastic but his face lit up a little, and he chuckled. Brenda turned back to you, raising her brows.
“Girl’s night?”
“How about a girls day tomorrow?” She pouted, and you grinned. “You’re right, I really shouldn’t be alone for forty-eight hours with severe concussion symptoms, but I think I can monitor them myself by tomorrow night.”
“Exactly, tomorrow night! Who’s gonna’ look after you tonight, huh? Girls. Night.” She punctuated her words with emphasis, and you tried to hide your giggling at her confusion behind your hand as even Minho groaned, both Fry and Gally snickered. “What?”
“Brenda..” Minho sighed, nodding his head towards you, where Thomas was squeezing you a little tighter, pressing a series of kisses along your hairline, and she studied you both for a second, before scoffing.
“Really? You’re taking Thomas home instead of me? Boo, you whore.”
You gaped, not sure whether to be offended or amused, and Thomas made the decision for you, protesting in offence on both of your behalves as he questioned why he was deemed as a ‘bad’ choice. “He’s bigger. He gives good cuddles. He promised me McNuggets. He smells good. Those are compelling arguments.”
Thomas’ chest puffed out a little against you and the compliments. “Uh, I smell excellent, I give great cuddles, I’d buy you a share box of nuggets that you wouldn't have to share, and I could put on tall boots.” She raised her hands, her voice teasing now, and your head tipped to the side as you stared at your best friend. “But, fine, girl’s day tomorrow it is.”
“I’ll come to that!” Newt chirped, sticking his hand up, and you nodded your head, Brenda taking the opportunity to high-five him.
“If Newt gets to go, then I’m staying.” You huffed, Thomas squeezing you a little tighter, and you lowered a hand to rest over his, soothing as his intense affections were based on the need for his comfort as well as your own.
“Uh, no.” Brenda deadpanned, her bluntness making you laugh. “You’re one of the main topics we’re going to be talking about. Newt gets to come because he can talk boys, and he tells me about hot doctors.”
“So I can’t come?” Minho chipped in, pouting a little for effect as he stared at Brenda, and her words went silent, no arguments to offer as her eyes narrowed on him, a silent argument between two colleagues that only you knew to be between two lovers, and you chuckled to yourself. He knew he’d won that battle, a smirk taking up on his face, and she huffed.
“If Min gets to go, can I come then?” Gally took a more polite approach, and you nodded your head.
“Sure you can.”
“You’re gonna’ fit all these people into your living room? On your two-seater couch?” Thomas teased, a couple of smirks being thrown in his direction at his reference to knowing your apartment so intimately, and you hadn't even realised that you’d been so freely inviting people to your home until now. You felt a little winded by the realisation, by the idea that it would be so simple to accept someone into the place that was so private to you, the place you’d retreat to after a long day to get away from work, but now, work was your family, and you wanted to share it with them.
“Well, Tommy-boy here can drive himself and you over to my place instead?”
“Team day at Minho’s!” Newt cheered, throwing his hands up in the air, and you laughed, the sound fading into a yawn as you covered your mouth.
“Okay, but late afternoon, because I’m exhausted, and I want a lot of sleep.”
“Late afternoon.” Brenda teased, rolling her eyes. “Midday. You better be there.” She barely gave Newt the chance to get the bags from the backseat before she was slamming the door closed, Gally twirling his keys on his finger and Fry already leaning against the car, half-asleep as his head was popped up on his hand.
You took your bag from Newt, who was catching a ride with Gally, the member of the firehouse who lived the closest to him. Brenda’s car was leaving first, spinning dangerously on mud-tracks as she left, and you were impressed with how recklessly she dared to drive surrounded by cops, but that was probably playing it safe for her. The rest of the team slowly followed, Thomas’ arm still wrapped loosely around your waist as he guided you over to his car, fresh mud spattered up along the polished paintwork, and your bag was placed on the backseat.
He was holding open the passenger door for you when you were ready, and you sank into the seat, offering him just a smile in acknowledgement, before he was rounding the vehicle to get in too, car starting up smoothly, and his hand on the back of your seat as he reversed out of the spot.
Switching gears, he inched forward slowly, pulling up the track carefully, and glancing back in the mirrors, before both hands were sitting on the wheel, and he was flicking on the indicator for the highway.
“You still want to go to the drive-thru?”
You considered it for a second, watching the road as he pulled out, before giving in to your craving. “Yes.”
“Okay.” He hummed, a hand reaching down to find one of your own where it was sitting in your lap, linking his fingers together loosely with your own. The radio was playing softly, the cars were flying past you on the highway as you weaved between lanes, an area you didn’t recognise, and clearly, Thomas wasn’t all that familiar with it either because he didn’t talk much, instead, focusing on the signage along the road for a long time.
It was a longer journey than you’d expected it to be, almost thirty minutes passing before you were entering an area of town that you began to recognise, the very edges of your territory as far as you’d expanded so far, and you squeezed Thomas’ hand a little tighter, letting him go every so often when he needed it to change gears or to drive, but his hand always seemed to find it’s way back to being pressed up delicately with your own.
Your mind slipped a little bit, wondering just how it was that you found yourself here.
It had been a long time since you’d allowed yourself to trust anyone, to really let anyone in, and now you found yourself surrounded. Your entire team had shown up to collect you tonight, all of them wanting to make sure you were okay; honest and true with nothing to gain from it themselves except for knowing that you were safe, and the man beside you had let himself dig in a little closer.
Instead of just holding your heart, he’d managed to let himself inside, residing there and making it his own with everything he did. The moment you’d laid your eyes on him, you’d hated him, hearing him already hate you felt like a bittersweet mouthful, making it easier not to get attached but hard as it always made you one step further from home. You’d spent so much of your life forcing people away while dreaming about one day finding your home that you’d never stopped to watch the time slipping away around you as the chances seemed to get further and further away, until Newt had forced you to.
You had your own history that made you the way you were, but you’d never stopped to give Thomas the benefit of the doubt that he did, too, and you’d taken out your anger on him when it was unwarranted. He’d clearly forgiven you for it and moved on, but you’d never really apologised.
“I’m sorry, Tommy.”
He frowned, the neutral expression he’d held switching to a frown as he began to slow the car down, navigating through the car park as a surprising number of cars still milled around, shopping at the mall in the stores with later hours into the night and various fast-food joints, the illuminated letter ‘M’ calling out to you, and Thomas joined the queue of cars.
“I never said sorry for the way I treated you. I had stuff going on, I had a lot of issues, but I didn’t stop to think that maybe you had stuff going on too, and I’m sorry.”
He seemed stuck for a second, like a deer caught in the headlights, before he sank into his seat a little bit. “That’s okay, I forgive you. You didn’t know I had stuff going on at the time, I shouldn't have been mad at you, either. I took it out on you, but really, I had issues with someone else.”
The name was on the tip of your tongue, but before you could speak your next words, the static of the intercom requesting your order made the both of you jump, and Thomas rolled down the window. It took a moment, deciding as quickly as you could and putting in an order for what it was that you were craving as your stomach rumbled again, that typical greasy smell of fast-food drifting through the open window.
You stayed quiet for the rest of the transaction, reaching out to turn the music up a little bit as you switched over to a classical station, finding the latest chart-toppers to be a little overwhelming in the moment, but late-hour classical piano and violin notes were much more comfortable. The bags were hot in your lap as Thomas handed them over clutching his McFluffy in your hand carefully and staring down longingly at the chunks of chocolate candy and caramel sauce through the lid, somewhat regretting your decision not to get one when he’d offered you one.
Parking up at the back, a little bit away from where everyone else was, and you unclipped your seatbelt, watching him do the same, before he was pushing his chair a little further back and getting comfortable. You handed him over his cheeseburger, and the fries that followed, stealing one from his portion and watching as he grinned, sitting them on his lap and unwrapping the burger, while you opened up a box of nuggets, offering one to him.
You sprinkled some salt over the box, shaking the nuggets after he’d taken one to mix the seasoning, but you couldn't eat one, couldn't focus, not when a certain question was still hanging on the tip of your tongue.
“What’s up? They make it wrong? It’s pretty hard to mess up chicken nuggets.” He teased, leaning over to inspect them and winking cheekily as he plucked another from the large box, popping it into his mouth and chewing happily, a sound made as if to confirm to you that they were okay, but the food wasn’t what was bothering you.
“Can I ask you a question, and you promise you’ll answer honestly?” his brows furrowed, but he nodded, taking another large bite of his burger. You hesitated, picking at the edges of the bag, ripping the brown paper slowly, and you sighed. “That woman in the bar, that was Teresa, wasn’t it?”
He stiffened at the mention of her name, his face falling, and he was stiff as his head turned away from you to stare out of the dashboard, and your lips pursed, anxiety coursing through you at the time that it took him to reply. He chewed slowly, eventually swallowing his mouthful, and you took a cautious bite out of a chicken nugget as you waited. “Yes.”
You nodded, keeping it to yourself and looking through the bag for a packet of ketchup, opening up the small tub and dunking the savoury treat inside, swirling it around, and eating the other half. You licked salt from your lips as you finished, and turned back to look at him, where he was staring down at his food, a confused look on his features. “Why didn’t you just tell me?”
He took a breath, seeming to have an answer ready to go, as though he’d anticipated your words, before his jaw snapped shut, and he put his burger down, sighing a little and nibbling on his lower lip, before giving in. “I didn’t want you to know.” You raised your brows, not the answer you were expecting, and he turned to look at you, taking in your expression, and shrugging a little. “You said you wanted honesty.”
“But why?”
“Why didn’t I want you to know that was her?” You nodded, and he took a bite of his food, prolonging the suspense as he procrastinated on his answer. “I guess,” He spoke through his food, grimacing a little upon realising, and you couldn't help your smile, eating another one of your chicken nuggets. “Because you’re nothing like her, and what we have isn’t the same, and I didn’t want you to have to cross with her.”
“Did you love her?”
“Yes.” He didn’t pause this time, stiff once again as he gave you the truth without even considering lying, and you felt conflicted. You weren’t sure whether you wanted to reach out and comfort him, or comfort yourself and put your walls back up; in the end, the person best at comforting you was Thomas, and so you needed to be that for him. Reaching a hand out, you placed it on his arm, and he jumped at the contact, seeming shocked by it. He turned to look at you, eyes dropping to where your hand was sitting on his arm. “Are you mad at me?”
“I don’t have anything to be mad at you for, Tommy. I’m just sorry you got hurt.” You whispered, and he let out a shaky breath, his hand coming up to sit on your cheek, his face dropping to bump his nose with your own, sharing a breath and nudging into you.
“Just so you know, this is one of those moments that I would kiss you, if we’d already had our first kiss.”
“I’ll remember that.” You grinned, bumping back against him, before pulling away, and eating a chicken nugget as he whined slightly at the loss of intimacy.
“She, uh, she was a paramedic. You reminded me of her, at first.” You turned, realising that in the interest of honesty, he was going to tell you it all; the information that other members of the team skirted around and answered vaguely, a mystery that had been locked up tight to keep you out of, all of them having gotten hurt in some way. “She had the same attitude you did, she didn’t really let people in; a lot of walls. We were.. something. She didn’t want to put a label on it, she wanted me behind closed doors but never wanted me near her in front of the rest of the team. She had boundaries, she wanted me to come over late but never wanted me to stay the night, she wanted to have dinner and drinks but never in public. It felt exciting, but wrong. But I couldn't stop.”
“Thomas, you don’t have to tell me this.” He sniffed a little, eating his fries quietly and shaking his head a little as he relived the memories.
“I want you to know.” You felt touched that he wanted to share one of his deepest pains with you, but it was scary, because it meant you had to do the same. “I should have seen the signs, she always wanted more, and she never wanted to settle down, kind of like you.” His words cut a little, stinging, despite knowing them to be true. “She said she was leaving one day, out of the blue, and I blamed myself for it. We got into an argument, she didn’t even tell me she was moving house until she asked me to sign her transfer papers. We yelled a lot, and I was upset, so I signed them and told her to just leave. She did.”
“Is, uh, is that the day that-”
“Newt got hurt? Yeah.” His voice cracked slightly as he spoke. “She left, and I was upset, and about an hour later, we got a call. I’d been too busy pacing my office and seething over it that I didn’t call in for a substitute. Newt told me it was okay, he’d been comforting me. He went alone on that call, got stuck under material that had fallen on his leg. Minho found him and carried him out after he passed out.”
He crushed the empty cardboard carton in his hand, the sudden sound making you twitch at the shock, and he whispered an apology upon sensing the environment he’d created.
“Newt’s been my best friend since I was a kid, and because of my feelings, he got hurt. I shouldn't have taken it out on you, but there were just so many similarities, it was overwhelming. I didn't want you to meet her, because you're nothing like her.”
“I’m not? Kinda’ sounds like we’re the same.” You finished your food, packing the wrapped back into the bag, and facing him more confidently as you turned in your chair, and he chuckled.
“You’re nothing like her. She may have been what I loved once, but you’re something entirely different.” He picked up his ice-cream, peeling back the lid on it and poking at the contents with a smile on his face now as he mixed the toppings in. “You’re sweet, you get along with everyone and you want to be with us, I can tell, even if you were going to leave at first. You.. you want me, you don’t hide it. I like that. You’ve spared my best friend a lot of pain instead of causing it, and you make Brenda feel like a woman again when she’s surrounded by men, and you cook with Fry. You’re a real part of our family, I don’t think she ever was.”
Once he deemed it thoroughly mixed, he took a large spoonful of it, holding it up and poking it against your smile lightly.
“Take a bite, I know you want some. You can share mine.”
You did as told, accepting the ice-cream he was offering to you, and relishing in the sweet flavour. He took his own bite, and despite how happy you were, there was still a pang of lingering guilt as you kept back your secrets from him after he’d told you his. “You’re not the first firemen I’ve been involved with.”
“I figured as much.” You were a little surprised, pausing in your words as he looked at you like it was no big deal, and he shrugged, offering you another spoonful. “I mean, I figured you had to have some kind of history in a firehouse, with your transfer record, more switches than a lightbulb sees.”
You rolled your eyes, grinning at his joke a little. “Well, you were right. In my first house, I was straight out of the academy and young, and there was a fireman. He was charming, and very attractive, and he had this way that made my heart race.” You reached up, wiping a stray piece of ice-cream for the edge of Thomas’ lip. “Like you do.”
“I make your heart race?” He was smirking, liking knowing he had such an effect on you, and you redirected your attention to the dessert, turning the spoon he was bringing to his mouth and stealing the spoonful, the chill helping to calm your flushing features.
“You know you do.” You swallowed the treat, licking the sugary taste from your lips. “He had a previous injury, and a drug problem. I was young and naïve, and he wanted the ambulance stock for the pain so he could avoid surgery. When the truth came out, I took the fall and lost my job, while he got off with a reprimand and being put on probation. I had to move to a whole new state to escape it and find a new firehouse. When someone tried to get close to me there, I panicked and thought they would use me again. I moved, and I moved, and I moved. Whenever someone got close, I panicked. I got confused. I wanted family, and I was so set on finding that perfect family that I never stopped to let anyone in, until I came to ‘21, and encountered a moody lieutenant.”
Thomas grinned, cold lips pressing to your cheek as he ducked down, and you squirmed at the slightly sticky feeling of melted ice-cream, the cardboard cup empty as it had been shared between you both.
“My real family, there’s not much to say about them. I don’t have much, my mother hasn’t spoken to me in a while, she sends a birthday card every year, and that's about all there is for me. Until I found all of you.”
“It was just me and my mom when I was a kid, and there was a house fire. She’s never been quite right since, I grew up looking after her, and Newt was the kid across the road who brought me trays of food his mom made for us, and who brought me the homework sheets when I had to leave school early. He’s my family, too. This whole squad is.”
You felt like a weight had been lifted off of your chest from the confessions, from finally trusting someone enough to tell them your story, feeling the burn of tears in the back of your throat, but you were too tired to cry, having no tears left to give. “Tommy?”
“Yeah, angel?”
“Can we go home now?” He nodded, starting the car back up, and you leaned over the centre console a little to rest your head on his shoulder, feeling him turn to press a kiss to the top of your head. “When we get there, I want to go to bed, and I want you to stay the night, and then I want to spend the whole day with you tomorrow, in front of our family, without hiding anything.”
He took a second to reply, letting out an unsteady laugh, before starting up the car and nodding for you as you pulled back. “I would fucking love that.”
summary; a suspicious call has disastrous consequences.
notes; it’s time. the death, and you aren’t ready for it. grab your tissues.
warnings; major character death, panic attacks, breakdowns, arson, gore, blood triggers, explosions, significant descriptions of injury, vomiting.
“You sure the call was here?”
You twisted to look at Minho, and he scowled at you for the insinuation. “I followed the directions!”
“Well, I don’t see a fire.”
“Oh, well, thank you, Captain Obvious!” He scoffed, and a few chuckles ran out over the group as you beamed at him. “How come nobody ever gets at Fry for his driving?”
“Because he knows how to drive.” You snipped back, and an arm slung over your shoulders, a new medkit pressed into your arms by your partner, and you scowled down at the bag.
It wasn’t that there was anything wrong with it, per se.
In fact, it was a pretty nice bag, all things considered. A nice shade of navy blue to match the smart uniforms the firefighters wore on formal occasions, with padded straps to ease the stress on your shoulders and no loose threads or faded patches. It was brand new, and it was even personalised with a nice stitching of white numbers to form ‘21 to show off the house you were proudly a part of, but it felt wrong.
It just wasn’t your lucky charm.
“Oh, stop pouting over the bag, will ya’?” Newt sighed, and you only huffed, swinging it up onto your shoulder, and tucking your hand into the fleeced pocket of the coat you’d bought. Since deciding you wanted to remain at this house indefinitely, you had treated yourself to a further wardrobe of firehouse ‘21 kit. Two more embroidered shirts, your new bag, this warm fleece jacket and even one of the firemen’s tees, the largest size you could get for comfort in wearing at home. “It’s not that bad.”
“It’s not my bag!”
“Yeah, well, your bag is probably halfway to Australia or being picked apart by crabs, by now.” Your bottom lip stuck out a little at the idea, despite how entertaining the mental image of crabs playing doctor was. It made your lips flicker up in a brief smile, at least.
The rest of the firefighters were still standing around, staring up at the building with confusion, and you couldn't deny that you were in much the same state. There had been an emergency call, bringing you all out to the industrial estate on the edge of the city where you found yourselves now, and yet there was no emergency to be seen. Something about it felt wrong, something wasn’t right, you had a slightly nauseous feeling creeping in your gut but you didn’t know what was causing it, as nothing dangerous was looming over you all.
“The siren definitely said ‘emergency’, right?”
“Yep.” Thomas hummed, coming to stand beside his best friend, hands tucked into the pockets of his coat against the cool weather too, and his eyes found your own, lips forming a smile to greet you with.
“You know, maybe it’s like the call with Aaron?” A few of the other’s turned to face you at your suggestion, and you played with a pebble under the toe of your shoes. “This seems like the dumb place kids play at to rebel. Abandoned factories are great places for no good. Maybe there’s someone inside?”
Silence hung over it all for a second, and Gally was the first to break it, a groan falling from his lips. “I bet it’s a prank call.”
“We’re required to check it out anyway.” Brenda was ready to go, she’d been full of energy since the very beginning of the day, and you had a feeling that it had something to do with the suspiciously close arrival times between her and Minho. If you had counted right, it had been exactly five minutes apart, and the thought of Brenda telling Minho he had to wait five minutes before following her made you laugh. Neither had noticed you taking early stock on the ambulance this morning as they all but skipped into the station. You planned to confront her about it later. “Let’s get going!”
“Alright, eager. Something got you all hyped up?”
She turned to look at you, eyes narrowing for a second, and Newt gasped a little beside you as he realised there was some kind of gossip he had yet to be let in on, but didn’t bring it up, simply squeezing you a little tighter. “Alright, well, I don’t trust it. I want everyone in full gear, just in case.”
“Oh, God, I hate those damn helmets. So clunky and clumsy, I hate it.” Newt was complaining once again, his arm dropping away from around you to wander away towards a firetruck to gain a jacket and a helmet to match the rest as he followed the directions given by his friends, and he team around you all pulled on their helmets, masks hooked onto their hips in case they were needed.
“C’mon, let's get you all geared up. Think you can manage to keep it all on, for once?”
“What do you mean ‘for once’, Thomas? One time I took off a rope, one time!” He only beamed at your attitude, opening up the back of the Squad truck to begin getting out the spare equipment for both you and Newt. He simply shrugged, and Newt made a show of dropping down to sit on the concrete as he kicked off his sneakers, taking a pair of slightly scuffed boots, his own pair that was stored in the firetruck, and your own were much shinier, still waiting to be broken in like his were.
Dropping your bag down onto the lip of the van, you were more than happy to abandon the piece of material, despising it already, as the feeling in your stomach continued to make you dread everything about this unusual case. You took off your shoes to copy, and took the pair of oversized and heat-proof pants from Thomas, tugging them up over your uniform to cover your legs, and fastening them tightly around your waist.
“I already feel like I’m overheating.”
Newt only hummed from his seat on the floor, and Thomas dropped a jacket down beside his friend, the garment left abandoned. “Well, y’know, could take off your pants.”
Your eyes narrowed on Thomas as you pushed each foot into a boot, toes wiggling as you navigated your feet into the shoes, a hand braced on the side of the firetruck or balance, and he smirked at you as he held onto your jacket and waited. “Yeah, I bet you’d just love that.”
“He’s still waiting for his turn to see the cute panties.” Newt chimed in, and you leaned down, flicking him against his ear as you crouched to do up your laces, and he let out a loud shout of complaint and he wiggled a little on the floor to pull his fireproof pants up over his hips in a less than graceful manner.
“Yeah, well, he’s going to be waiting a while.”
“Don’t go breakin’ my heart like that, sweetheart.” He hummed, pouting a little as you moved to tie the other laces, glaring up at him as he continued to smirk, and Newt gagged dramatically at the interactions. You glared at him, too, your cheeks flushing with warmth, and you turned your back on the two of them, arms lifting to push backwards into the jacket Thomas was holding for you, before swiping up your bag and swinging it over your shoulder.
“I hope there’s a hole in that building, and I hope you both fall in it.”
“Oh, don’t worry, Tommy here is already falling f- you dick! What in the hell was that for?” Newt’s words were cut off, a red-faced Lieutenant glaring at his best friend, your partner rubbing the back of his friend and glaring right back, and you didn’t pay either of them any attention, instead choosing to wander away.
As you walked, you fastened up the front of your jacket, making sure that it was sealed up tightly to lock out the chill, and Gally was taking the first team in. The Truck team were lined up at the main entrance, a pair of bolt cutters in hand as the chains were snapped on the front entrance, all pausing. The sound of breaking glass followed, the whole team ducking down securely as they waited for a reaction to come from the broken glass. An explosion, a wisp of smoke, a smell of gas or a sudden backdraft, but nothing came.
It was all far too unusual.
“Do you smell that?” Winston voiced, face screwing up a little as he stood, leaning towards the window, and you raised a hand to cover your eyes against the glaring winter sun, despite the chill in the air, the rays were still bright enough to burn your retinas. “Smells kinda’ like a gas station.”
“You think there’s petrol in there?”
“Could be. I’m not seeing any smoke, but it's dark, and the smell is faint. These buildings normally have basements.” He shrugged, and you tucked your hands into your pockets.
“These kinda’ buildings normally become makeshift homeless shelters. They burn fuel for heat, maybe it’s just a smell that's lingering. It’s been pretty cold out, lately, we might just have some squatters being called in by a landowner.” A helmet was placed onto your head, falling down into your eyes from the impact, and when you lifted it up, Thomas was walking away from you, adjusting his helmet and preparing to take command of his crew.
“Well, no matter what it is, we can get in and get out after doing a quick check.”
He took a place beside Gally, the two sharing a glance, before the taller one was taking control, kicking roughly at the large double doors until they creaked under the pressure, swinging open roughly and echoing around the inside of the first room, the sound bouncing from stone and metalwork until it finally died out. Various torches flickered on around you as each member of the team activated the device on their shoulder, and Newt stood before you, a frown on his lips.
“This feels weird to you, right?”
“Really weird.” You mumbled back, keeping your voice low as not to disturb the members of the team who were each pairing off to enter, Thomas and Gally directing them at the doorways as they disappeared into the darkened old factory leaving you and Newt to follow slowly. You knew that neither of you was supposed to wander off too far, you would be told to stay in the main room, near the doorway, and to simply wait until you were needed. Teams spread out, pairs disappearing through the corridors, some up the stairs to the next level, and some lower to the basement, tracing the building for any source of evidence to support why you’d been called here.
There was a pause for a while, a long gap of silence, and you could hear the team shuffling about, before Newt was nudging you with his elbow, keeping his gaze forward and biting back a grin as he tried to keep a ‘professional’ expression on, but he leaned towards you to whisper his request; “You wanna’ have a thumb war while we wait?”
“Absolutely I do.” You grinned, turning to face him as he gasped excitedly, his one body facing your own. The radio on your shoulder crackled, Gally’s voice coming through it as he reminded the teams to update on what they had found, and so far, a collection of ‘nothings’ were coming back. Holding your hand out, Newt’s fingers wrapped around your own in the opposite direction, locking the two of you together, and you folded your other hand behind your back as he followed suit. Your thumb tapped against your hand and his, ducking together as you counted down in a small chant together, before the battle was commencing.
He grinned as his digit moved, wrapping around yours and trying to pin it down, but you were quick to retract it, and the smile was just as quick to fall from his face. Simple huffs in angry exhales and quiet laughter was shared between you both as you waited for any updates, the longer the time making it seem more and more like you were in the clear, as no signs of danger showed up.
“Upstairs is totally clear.” Thomas sighed through his radio, and you cheered loudly as you captured Newt's thumb, pressing it down while he cursed, and beginning to count to three. He didn’t let you get that far, however, before he was snatching his thumb back at the final moment, and you booed him, his lips flicking up cheekily.
“Told you, it’s a prank call!” Gally mumbled, Chuck radioing in to confirm his room was clear, as did Minho, who was checking carefully over all of the power outlets, but while seeming a little battered and busted up, some loose fires and broken sockets, nothing seemed at risk.
“We’ve got something down here.. I think..”
“What do you mean you think, Winston?” You paused, the two of you agreeing to call it a tie as a lead was beginning to rise up, and you focused your attention on your radio, trying to make out the words through the interference.
“I mean, it’s damn dark down here, and the smoke torches don’t give us much. I’ll need a whole flashlight, but from what I can make out, there’s a fair load of petrol canisters down here. Some tipped over, spilt oil, but no fire.” You could hear him clattering about, the metal sound of a boot kicking lightly against the side of one metal container ringing through clearly.
“Can you count how many?”
“Not without the flashlights.” He replied, and various chatter about it began coming over the speakers as the two lurked on the edge of the barrels, Fry adding that the two couldn't even see the end of the room.
“I think I can get power up and running. These circuits aren’t too busted up, I just need to flip a few breakers, hold on..” There was a grunt, chatter between Minho and Zart as they moved around the room. It took a few minutes, that same anxious period of waiting looming over you all once again, and you let out a low breath, the twisting feeling in your gut was still there, and you hated it. Resting a hand over your stomach, you took a deep breath, trying to ease the racing of your heart. “Alright, everyone get out from under any lights, the power surge might smash some of the bulbs, don’t stand under where glass may spray.”
You and Newt both looked up, a row of lighting above your heads, and your steps were almost synchronised as you took a few steps backwards from the centre of the room, making sure you were covered from a blast of glass if one came. You shared a nod with your partner, before lifting a hand to the radio you wore, and clicking the button on. “Alright, we’re all good.”
“Everyone on top is clear.”
“Me and Chuck are good.”
“Nothing over our heads, you’re good to go, Minho.”
The collection of affirmations was answered by the flickering of lights overhead. The bulbs were yellow and musty, and you jumped a little at the shattering of glass across the room, shards raining down to create a tinkling noise as it bounced across the concrete, and the bulbs all slowly flickered.
“Oh, shit, Minho! Turn it off!” Your stomach dropped, a slightly patchy transmission through the radio, and your breathing hitched in your throat. “We’ve got broken wires down here, sparks coming through th-”
It all happened within the blink of an eye. One moment you’d been staring ahead at the staircase and waiting for news, before everything had been a blur. Your feet on the floor, your body flying through the air before you were slamming roughly into the concrete factor walls, and it felt like everything in your body became bruised at once. Your shoulder was crushed underneath you painfully as you hit the floor, a throbbing on the back of your head now matched by the side as you collide with the wall, the helmet on your head being the only thing that had stopped your skull from cracking at the impact, and it fell free, rolling away across the floor as you gasped for breath.
For a moment, there was nothing, you felt numb while you tried to focus on what just happened, eyes squeezed shut as your head spun and you choked back bile, and then there was the pain. A screaming kind of agony racing through every nerve in your body, and you couldn't hear your own groan in pain as your ears rang loudly. Like a siren but inside of your head, and the throbbing behind your eyes only seemed to increase as you pried them open.
Clouds of dust waiting to settle that you could barely see through, but the darkness that had once resided was replaced with a bright orange glow, half of the flooring from the centre of the room having crumbled entirely from the blast below you, flames and smoke licking up into the air and beginning to fill the room. You struggled, to even push yourself up to sitting, and you stretched your jaw, shaking your head clear to try and combat the ringing within your ears, before fumbling for the torch on your shoulder, and turning it on.
It didn’t do much, it didn’t help you see through the dust, but you blinked, clearing your vision enough to watch another dulled torch flicker on a few metres away from you, and you arched your back, your bag still there but your bones and muscles aching from being slammed into it against the concrete, feeling the imprint of the equipment under your skin. The walkie-talkie on your shoulder was going but you couldn't focus on that now, stumbling to your feet and tripping on nothing as you tried to step forwards, once hand pressed to cool concrete as you steadied yourself, and tried to make your way toward Newt.
He met you halfway, the sweat on his face matted with grey ash and dust, his eyes wide, a little frantic, and he licked over dry lips, which seemed to do nothing, as they were in much the same state only a second later as the once cold room was rapidly beginning to heat.
“Are you okay?” You had to shout just to hear yourself speak, and he squinted at you, seeming to struggle to hear himself, making you repeat the words, reading your words. He nodded, hand coming up to sit on your shoulders as his gaze scanned over you, and you did the same to him, silently checking one another for injuries.
The ringing was dying down a little bit, you could hear the flames now, and the sound of sliding and grating stone and metalwork as the unstable floor continued to break away in some places. “We should split up.”
“I’ll take upstairs if you take this floor?”
You glanced at the stairs, looking around the room, and assessing the gaps of concrete that looked as though they were still stable. “Yeah. Yeah, okay.”
“You good?” He slipped a hand back up to your cheek, turning your gaze back to him, and making sure you were picking up the determination in his voice.
“I’m good, I swear.” He shook himself off a little, flexing his leg at the knee while holding onto you, all the way down until he was rotating his ankle a little, but you didn’t get a chance to question whether he was truly okay, before he was disappearing from your sights and brushing past you, a final squeeze of your shoulder in confirmation, before the smoke was swallowing up his figure and he was simply a disappearing flashlight that faded with every step.
There was a good amount of concrete left around the left side of the building, furthest away from where the basement with Fry and Winston must have been, and you paced back the way you came, making sure to scoop up your helmet as you went, and place it onto the top of your head, adjusting it carefully to keep your protection against the situation.
Everything felt like it was moving in slow motion, the crunch of broken pieces of stone and dust under your feet, navigating your way through the smoke with a hand pressed to the all, avoiding the flames that were growing higher and higher in the centre of the room, just to find the corridors you’d watched your friends disappear down less than a half-hour before.
Finding your way, you were grateful to see that the passageway was intact, dark and filling with a layer of crawling black clouds along the ceiling but no damage that would impede your way, and there were several doors open. You took off in a jog, scanning the insides of each room, and coming to a skidding halt as you caught sight of the first of your team members behind a third door.
Minho was lay out across the floor, and Zart was kneeling by his side, the look passing over his face could only be described as the kind of relief that gives you epic highs as the stress died down, and you took a place on the other side of him, kneeling to check on the unconscious one of the pair.
There were darkened veins along his arm, and the skin under his glove was a little raw as you peeled it back to check over, the burns travelling all the way up to his wrist, The smell of burning flesh made your nose wrinkle, and you dropped your bag from your shoulders. Tucking your bag underneath his feet to elevate them, you pressed down over the artery in his neck, monitoring the speed at which his heart was still pumping. It was slower than you would’ve liked, but strong, and you could at least let out a little sigh of relief at that.
The muscles under his skin were twitching and spasms, the aftershocks of the current still tingling over his nerves no doubt, and you lifted one eyelid at a time to check him. There were no burst veins in his eyes, and his pupil reaction time suggested that he hadn't gained any permanent brain damage from it. There was a cut across the back of his head from colliding with the concrete after losing his helmet, but it wasn't too deep of a gash, and it was something that could be focused on after he woke up, because the dust was currently helping to clot the wound.
The radio on your shoulder clicked into life, and Newt was on the other end of it; “How you doin’ down there?”
Pulling back, you spared one hand to press the button to allow your reply, as the other tucked your torch away carefully. “Uh, I got Minho here. He’s out cold, got a gash on the back of his skull but nothing permanent, he’ll just have a bad headache and some aches when he wakes up, some burns on his hand to take care of. Might need a new glove, this one is a little charred.” You picked it up, examining the half-melted plastic fingertips, undoubtedly a power surge racing back through the system as it sparked against the petrol in his rush to shut it down. “How’s everyone up there?”
“Tommy and Brenda are okay. Gonna’ be a little sore, some minor injuries, a few cuts and scrapes, nothing terrible.”
“Tell that to the pain in my ribs.” Brenda coffee through the radio, a few slow chuckles following it, and the doorway beside you was filled as a shocked and ash-stained Chuck and Jeff filled the doorway.
“She’s fine, just dramatic.” You could practically hear Newt’s eyes rolling over the waves, and you motioned them a little further inside. Zart seemed okay, he was checked over, you flashed the torch over his eyes and asked him where his pain was, but much like you and newt, he’d had the luck of being stood away from anything else, just a headache from the blast and a sore through from the smoke, but he was quickly hooking up his mask to replace the ashy air with pure oxygen, and he assisted you in doing the same for Minho.
“I got Gally and Clint here, too. Gal’s okay, just complaining like Brenda, but Clint’s got a pretty bad cut on his face, I’m going to clean this one up now.”
“Okay, I’ve got Chuck and Jeff too, but the smoke is getting pretty thick down here already, so I’m going to head straight to Fry and Winston downstairs.” As if to punctuate your words, you heaved a loud cough, the burning dryness in the air scorching the inside of your throat, and you swallowed thickly to try and choke it away.
“No, don’t go downstairs. You don’t have a mask. How are Chuck and Jeff? Send them down.”
“We’re totally fine!” Your candidate all but chirped the words, and you glanced up at him, eyes narrowing a little as he spoke up, as though to convince you to convince Thomas to send them down to find their friends.
“No, I should be the one to go, I don’t know what state they're going to be in.”
“We’re okay. Well, we’re not, but we can make it to you.” A raspy voice came through, broken with a little more interference as the signal cut through snow and rock from the lower floors, and your heart skipped a beat in your chest as Fry’s voice came over the speakers. Everyone seemed equally as excited and relieved to hear from him, the tall man chuckling as his friends all hollered in response to his voice. “Winston is out, he’s got some bad burns, I put him out but he was standing in front of me, he pretty much took the whole hit. I can get him up to you, but I’ll need help.”
You finished up with Jeff, your hands leaving his body as you finished pressing over his torso for any cracked ribs or tensed muscles, any signs you could pick up now of anything that might be wrong. “Jeff, go help him. Zart too.”
The men nodded, and Chuck was all but bouncing in his boots before you as he stared. “I’m fine, I swear.”
“Bullshit. Chuck got thrown into a piece of machinery, looked pretty bad from where I was standing, his feet weren’t even on the floor for the blast.” You frowned at your friend, the official firefighter shrugging as he adjusted his mask before setting off, and the young trainee in front of you sighed. “Really, I’m fine. Sure, a bit sore, but isn’t everyone? Let me go help my friends, I’m all good.”
“Let me check you first, alright? I’ll be quick.” He sighed, but nodded his head, and you motioned to the front of his jacket, letting him unzip it for you. You started at his head, gingers smoothing through brunette curls as you felt over his skull for bumps and grazes, your fingers coming up dry over smooth skin, before you were moving down. You scanned his eyes, watching reaction times, and grinning a little as he winced and cursed under his breath for staring right into it and trying to follow the light, blinking rapidly to clear the retina burn. “Can you say ‘the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog’ ten times fast?”
“Really?”
“Yep.” You popped the ‘p’, his face screwing up as he pouted, but he continued to list off the words to you, repeating them perfectly, stuttering over the words occasionally when he went too fast and got tongue-tied, but it was enough to signal to you that he was certainly understanding what he was saying, and aware of the words, never having a problem with processing them in his mind. “Tell me your birthday, your mother’s maiden name, and the street you grew up on as a kid?”
“You sound like a scammer trying to hack into my Facebook account. Those are my security questions. Do you want the name of my first elementary teacher or my favourite musician from when I was fifteen too?”
“Nah, not the musician. That was only a few months ago, too easy to test amnesia against.”
“Screw you, I’m twenty-two.” He growled, and you chuckled, listening to him give you the answers you had requested, as your hands moved over his ribs. There was no swelling, and you studied his reactions, the occasional wince or twitch, but nothing to indicate any serious pain. He’d have some bruising, but so would everybody in here, and there was no hard or tensed flesh under his skin to suggest any kind of internal problems that would flare up.
“Any pain you should be honest about?”
“None but this conversation.” He mumbled, and you pinched at his side roughly, the kid yelping and shoving at your shoulder, making you laugh as he stepped back, fastening his jacket up in protection against the heat, despite the flames now quite having made it to this room yet. “Alright, but you’re not going downstairs.”
“I’m not?”
“No, I need you to go and get the stretcher. Winston is in a bad way, and so is Minho. Both need to go to the hospital. We’re going to be down team members, and we can’t handle this on our own. We also need another ambo’. I need you to go and call it in, get another team and another paramedic here.”
“I can do that.”
“What out for the fire, it’s the big orange thing that glows, it’s hot too, an-”
“I hate you!” He yelled, flipping you off as he exited the doorway, and you turned back to face Minho. You crouched beside him, fingers pressing to his neck again as you took new measurements for him, and you could hear the team hustling around you, the sound of the trucks starting up outside as hoses were unravelled and water was beginning o be sprayed, but it did little to ease your worries, because the flames above you didn’t concern you, it was the occasional popping sound of another canister going up in flames that did, followed by the shakes and crumbling of the building around you.
Clicking on your radio, you tapped your fingers nervously on your knee while waiting. “Zart, Jeff, where are you guys?”
“Right here.” You almost fell in shock at the voices in the doorway, fogged-up glass and oil marks on their uniforms, and you twisted to find the group stumbling through the doorway. With an arm over each shoulder, Jeff and Zart were dragging Winston in, his head lulling at an uncomfortable angle, and Frypan was staggering behind them, clearly having understated the severity of his own injuries. “Where do you want him?”
“Fuck, uh, right next to Minho.” You stood up, bushing down your knees, and pointing to the spot on the concrete as you moved away. “Here; put him here.”
You pushed the entirety of your hand out from under the oversized sleeve, leaning down to pick up your bag, but placing your hand flat to the floor, lips pursing as you felt the warmth. It wasn’t burning, certainly nothing you couldn't handle and it would do no harm to the men laying on it, but it meant that the flames underneath were right up and curling along the ceiling, burning through everything below and threatening to break onto your floor.
It was overwhelming, Fry slumping down to the floor as he became unsteady, and you regretted that he’d even had to climb the stairs at all, but there was no way you would have been able to drag him up them, and with the speed at which the flames were expanding, you were just glad you’d been able to spare Zart and Jeff to help him.
“Fry, I’ll get to you in a minute, okay?”
“Take your time, at least I’m conscious.” He wheezed, a hand resting over his chest as he took slow and steady breaths, and your mind was spinning as you took your bag out from under Minho’s legs, and tried to decide where to start with Winston. There was oil all over the front of his shirt, spotted with burned patches of material where Fry had put out the flames, and it covered your hands as you tried to undo his jacket.
The tips of your fingers burned as you touched the still hot material, the boiling oil against your skin making you bit down on your lip to content he pain, but once it was open, you were wiping your hand across your pants and coat, smearing the black liquid in stains over your clothes, fingertips tainted by the substance. You couldn't see what you were doing, a mixture of blood, dust, ash and oil covering his skin in layers, but any injuries underneath would have to wait.
Lifting his head and removing the helmet, your fingers ran through raven-black and matted hair. There were several swollen and solid bumps forming, but nothing too serious. His pupils were delayed in response time and his pulse was slow and faint, all signs that made you panic, but there was nothing that you could do yet.
“I’m here! What can I do?”
You could have cried in relief at the voice of your partner, and you hadn't even heard him arriving, nor did you hear the other pairs of boots scuffing, Brenda arriving in the doorway ad looking so thoroughly panicked and distressed over the unconscious man on the floor she had a bond with, but she couldn't reach out. Thomas was behind her, and Gally filled the corridor with Jeff and Zart, of whom you had never even noticed leaving, but they were helping to carry the house, and the spray of water reached your ears now as you focused on it.
“Fry. I think he has a concussion, possible internal injuries, I haven’t had a chance to check him yet.” Newt nodded, spinning in the doorway to face his friend, and you turned back to the colleague before you on the floor. “Bren, I need you too.” You glanced back, her eyes snapping up from Minho to look at you, and she swallowed thickly, before nodding. “I need you to watch Minho for me, think you can do that?”
“Yes! Of course, uh, how? What do you need me to do?”
Her words were hurried and rushed, and Thomas was barking orders into the radio on his shoulder that were silent in your ears as you tuned him out for the time being. “Gross, I know, but take his hand. Hold tight, and monitor the pulse in his wrist. Just make sure it stays strong and steady.”
She caught onto what you were offering, the chance to be with the man she cared for without anyone knowing the real meaning behind it, and she let out a relieved breath, a silent look of appreciation and passing over her face as she did as told, turning to care for Minho as you helped her disguise the affections, knowing that she wasn’t ready to be open about it yet.
“Thomas?”
“Yeah?” He mumbled, the radio almost drowning him out at the shouts that came through and you couldn't make heads or tails of any of it, mangled voices all clashing together, and you admired that he seemingly could.
“Can you check where Chuck is with that stretcher?”
“Says he’s on his way down, house ‘35 is sending their Squad and Truck over with an ambo’ should be here in minutes, he’s trying to guide the stretcher around the rubble and broken flooring.” You nodded, licking over dry lips that threatened to crack, feeling his eyes sweep over you as he assessed you for harm, but you had other priorities to focus on, like saving the life of your friend. “Can I do anything?”
“You can come and get ready to lift Winston onto a board, and then get him up top with Chuck. I think we should get him ready to go as soon as they get here.”
His form towered over you as he waited, and you pressed along his chest, wishing that he was awake to give you reactions, but there was still information you could gain from it right now, even if he wasn’t conscious. There were patches of blood pooling under his shirt from where you suspected the worse burns to be, the places where the fire had burned right through his jacket when the chemicals had landed on him, but you couldn't risk treating them now and exposing his skin to the heat that was building in the room, despite the team trying to combat it.
“I’m here! I got the stretcher!” The wheels rattled and squeaked as Chuck entered the room, his body colliding with the side of the door frame as he spun around the corner.
He parked up beside you, the contraception coming to a halt, and you leaned over Winston, reaching up to find the handle underneath the device, and pressing it upwards. The locks holding the stretcher up high gave out, the bed sinking down to a lower level, until the entire thing was almost on the floor, folding like an ironing board, and you began to undo the harnesses. Thomas and chuck helped, getting it all undone, and soon, they were all hanging loose, the cushioned base waiting for a body.
“What now?”
“Now, Thomas gets his feet, Chuck on his hips, I got his shoulders and his head, and we lift him quickly and carefully. We need to move as a unit, I don’t want to risk any nerve damage by lifting out of order, alright?” You tried to remain professional, absolutely terrified at the prospect of losing a team member, and the two men got into position.
On your count, you lifted, supporting his head on your forearms and your hands hooked under his shoulders, grease covering your hand again, and your nails scraped against his jacket just to keep a hold on his slippery figure, but he was rested against the trolley only a moment later, and you hurried to fasten up the straps.
Loose enough not to irritate burned flesh but tight enough to hold him steady for the ride up, Chuck and Thomas didn’t hesitate, before they were setting off and out to meet the next team. You could hear the sirens of the other team now, loud and clear as they pulled up, and between the flickers of rising orange flames, you caught sight of blue, reflecting on the smashed glass of the windows were ash layers didn’t dull the gleam, and the adrenaline in your body depleted just a little as help arrived.
You were down three team members, and you weren’t so sure you fully believed how well everyone else was doing. Clint was down for the count in your books, the head injury and the shock alone taking him off the board, Thomas looked a little dazed as he moved despite trying to keep it together, Brenda was completely and utterly distracted, and you didn’t like the wheeze you were hearing every time Gally spoke over the radio, despite being cleared by Newt. He was probably lying about his condition, you weren’t entirely surprised if he was, they were all far too brave for their own good.
That left only five you were sure of; yourself and Newt who were paramedics, not firefighters, and Jeff and Zart, as well as Chuck, but he was only a candidate. Of twelve team members, you only had five left who were operational, and you weren’t sure that was even the truth.
Your feet were unstable underneath you as you made your way over to Newt, shoving the contents of your bag back inside - not that you’d been able to use much, the injuries gained here weren’t exactly infield patch up tasks - and checked with Brenda as you passed by, who was counting the heartbeats Minho let out each minute as she timed them on her watch, and you would have aww-ed internally at her devotion to him had it not been for the situation.
“How are we doing over here?”
Newt glanced up, worry written over his features. “Definite concussion, some serious bruising, cuts I’m not too happy about but I got it clean. I’m out of paper stitches, used them all on Clint, you got any?”
“Yeah, I got some.” You felt grimy as you slid your bag down your arms, grease smeared across your skin, staining your hands and face as you wiped away sweat, stray hairs and layers of dirt, crouching down and rooting through your bag to find the paper stitches. As you located them, the men returned, the stained and battered stretcher belonging to your ambulance was back with your two coworkers. “Winston?”
“On his way to Chicago Med with the paramedics from ‘35; he’s all good.”
“We need to get Minho on that next stretcher.” Newt was rubbing a hand absentmindedly over his thigh, and you worried your lower lip for only a second, before you had decided on your plan. “Newt, take Minho to the hospital. He’s stable, get him hooked up to a monitor and he’ll be fine. I’ll take care of Fry.”
“You sure?”
“One hundred percent.” You promised, Brenda and Chuck helping to get him all strapped up, before they were losing too, and you turned back to your friend, using a finger to tip his head up to look at you. “Keepin’ awake for me there, Fry?”
“Barely.”
“Just focus on me, alright? Why don’t you tell me about your latest cookery experiment.” He chuckled a little, and you peeled the first of the paper seals form the plastic packet, squeezing shut the cut across his shoulder in the fabric that newt had cut away to revel, blood oozing up over your fingers a little as you did, and he groaned at the feeling, before you were placing the first seal down.
“I’ve never made mac and cheese from scratch before, can you believe that?”
“Never?” You teased, and Thomas knelt beside you both, silent but patting his friend's good shoulder, and you peeled up another stitch, placing the sticky seals down carefully along his skin.
“Never. I’ve been practising different recipes, and I would love to make it for you all.”
“That sounds amazing. I love mac and cheese, so you stay awake for me and hold on, and I’ll help you cook it just as soon as you’re back on your feet.” As you placed the last one that was necessary, you tucked the plastic packet away, searching for your spray bottle of antiseptic, and cupping a hand over the wound to stop the residue flying into his face or eyes, before shaking it thoroughly.
“Oh, you gonna’ be my sous-chef?”
You took the chance while he was distracted, laughing lightly, and spraying over the wound, his groan of pain not missed by your ears as the other house began to storm through the building, their whole team uninjured and functional as they tackled this tragedy. “You bet I am. Think you can stand for me?”
He nodded, but was clinging onto Thomas for help, and you zipped up your bag quickly. “House ‘35 is going to take care of it all, everyone else is waiting outside. Brenda will drive the van, and you can check over everyone else.”
Thomas threw the words over his shoulder to you as you navigated through the building, the pathways you’d used to descend to them all were far thinner than they had been, the floor caving in more and more, and you stuck close to the wall for support as you passed them by, the shine of daylight getting stronger and stranger as you neared the door, and you were sure that you’d never quite get used to the cool feeling of a breeze every time you excited a burning building.
You were covered in soot, oil, and sweat, and you couldn't wait to just get back to the house and wash off. The rest of your team were standings around, the ones who hadn't been shipped off to the hospital, anyway, and you let out a heavy sigh as you glanced over them. You’d all looked better; everyone having taken a defeat today, slumped shoulders and worn-out bodies as you passed your sight over each one.
“I just want to check over one van before we leave, and I’ll check over the rest on the way there.”
“Who’s doing the best?” Thomas questioned, a chuckle rising from everyone at the irony of it, and your lips flicked up as he took your helmet from you, throwing it uselessly into the back of the Squad truck and not even bothering to put it away.
“Well, I already checked out Chuck and Fry, they’re all good. I want to get another glance at Gally, but Jeff and Clint are good to go. I’ll ride back with Squad and Truck can go up ahead.” Thomas only nodded, grimacing as he stretched while moving away, loading your shoes into the van too, and Brenda flopped into her seat within the truck from the second she’d climbed into the driver’s seat.
“Newt already said I was alright.” Gally offered, handling his helmet in front of his body as he came to stand before you, and you raised a brow at him.
“So, you don’t have any chest pains I should know about?” His mouth opened, denials spilling from his lips, and you lifted a hand, placing it flat on his chest and pushing down with a minimal amount of force, but even at the light contact, his words were cut off as his breathing hitched, face screwing up in pain. “You sure?”
“It was no big deal, really. I got thrown, I landed on some material, chest first. It’s just sore.”
“Does it hurt when you breathe?” You raised a brow, smoothing your fingers over his chest lightly and pressing down against the muscle in certain spots as you tried to get a reading of where the injuries were, without actually having him strip his shirt off in the middle of the area.
“A little.” The winces on his face continued on until you were halfway around his sides, and down to the base of his lungs from the tops of his shoulders, purple bruising beginning to flash up along pale flesh when you pulled the neckline of his shirt aside to take a look. “Okay, maybe a lot.”
“You’re not gonna’ like it, but when Newt gets back with the ambo’, I think you should go and get some scans.”
“Do I really have to go to hospital?” He mumbled, groaning in discontent towards the end of his words, and you shrugged, a slight smile forming on your face.
“You really do.” He frowned, and you shrugged, pulling your jacket a little tighter around yourself. “Clint needs stitches and so does Fry, so I need to take all three of you, anyway.”
“Oh, so it’s a club thing, then?” He grinned, tucking his helmet under his arm as he wandered back toward the trucks alongside you, and Thomas was holding open the backdoor of the Squad vehicle, Zart already sitting inside, head tipped back to rest on the seats and eyes closed, exhaustion taking over.
Jeff was behind the wheel of the Truck van, with Fry, Clint and Chuck in the back, a space left for Gally. It was much the same with Squad, Brenda sitting up front and a space left for Thomas, neither truck having their usual driver and they felt unsettling empty with half of the team missing, but you forced yourself to swallow down the anxious feeling, the worst seeming to be over, exhaustion being all that was left. The Truck engine started up, hissing as it took off of its brakes slowly, and Brenda composed the motions, twisting the keys to start it up as you came to stand before Thomas.
He stood slightly taller than you, and as your eyes swept over soot-stained skin, you caught sight of the red on the underside of his jaw. Settling a hand on his cheek, he gave no resistance as you tipped his head back a little, his pulse thrumming under your thumb, and you let out a soft breath. “Not too bad, just a little cut. I’ll clean it up for you.”
“Didn’t know it was even there.”
“Oh, manly man, doesn’t know he’s hurt.” You teased, a breathy laugh leaving him as you let him go, and his hand found the small of your back through layers of material as he helped you climb up and into the van, the door slamming shut behind you.
It took him only a second to round the vehicle and get himself in, before Brenda was following quickly on the tail of the other truck onto the road, sirens unneeded as you slowly made your way back to the firehouse, the day seeming like a real blow, a rare day when there was no victory for your team, no lives saved that you could pat yourselves on the backs for, and some of your team already rushed away to the hospital.
As the van moved, the ache in your body seemed to loosen a little, and you set your bag down on the seat beside where you were, kneeling against the cushioned chairs to lean over the backs towards the front compartment. There were so very light burns along the edge of Brenda’s face, nothing any more severe than a sunburn, but the skin still looked inflamed with red and a little sensitive, and you shuffle through one of the inside pockets that Newt had arranged for you, seeking out a cooling aloe wipe, and tearing the top from the foil packet.
The piece of fabric was damp and cool under against touch, and you leaned over the seat carefully, making sure to be gentle as you wiped along the edges of her jaw, her attention fixed on the roads ahead of her, but she smiled a little at the relief of the cooling gel infusion against her skin. As soon as you’d finished caring for the delicate wounds, you used the wipe to clean the tips of your fingers, the rest of your skin still stained with the remnants of everything you’d encountered during your failed expedition, but the flesh of your fingers were clean, a dollop of burn relief cream coating the tips of two fingers.
A patch along her jaw was shiny and a little greasy from the residue of the cream, waiting to soak in and soothe the wound, but it was no longer bothering her and that was enough. Thomas tipped his head back a little, his body deflating under the weight of the coat over his chest, sagging in his tiredness, and his head rolled to the side to peer up at you.
“Me next?”
“Thought it didn’t hurt?” You grinned, a scowl taking place on his lips but the edges trembled as he threatened to smile, and he let out a little huff.
“Fine, I’ll just let it get infected, probably get some kind of blood infection, then I’ll die.” You couldn't hold back the laugh you let out at his dramatics, his eyes glimmering a little in the reflection of the mirror into the back as he caught your gaze.
“You are so melodramatic.”
“It’s a possibility!” He defended, Brenda and Zart adding small laughs to the mix, and your fingers brushed along his jaw, tipping his head to the side and ankling it upwards to catch the light on the cut as you examined it. Taking out a cotton pad and adding a douse of antiseptic to the centre, he held his head in that position.
“It’s a very low possibility. This is barely a cut.”
“Yeah, well, even if it- stings like a bitch, holy fuck!” That made Brenda laugh loudly, the van swerving a little in her shock, and he flinched away from you. “What the fuck, I thought it was ‘barely a cut’?”
“That could not possibly have hurt that much! Stop whining!” He growled a little under his breath, heat flushing over his cheeks as he complained about the skin being sensitive and the cut being deeper than you must think, and his head came back up to the correct angle as soon as you’d rubbed a little healing gel onto it. “Oh, you’ll be fine. It’ll be totally gone within a week.”
“Maybe you should kiss it better.”
Your head twisted to look at Zart, his eyes weren’t even open as his hands sat folded across his stomach, resting his eyes, and you were almost back at the station, your own cheeks flushing with embarrassed warmth now, and you packed your things away as you tried to get a hold of yourself.
“You know, just for that, you get to do reps next shift.”
“I did nothing wrong!” The foremen complained, his lieutenant sitting up front with a smirk on his face as he abused his power, and you grinned to yourself as Brenda all but howled in amusement. You almost missed the crackling of the radio on the dashboard over the amusement, and the shout that came through it, but the static was cleared by the second call, and the laughs faded away into silence.
The mood within the cabin changed in all of two seconds, laughs and gentle teasing with warm cheeks became blood running cold and a chilling shudder running along your body. The firetrucks ahead of you swerved onto the side of the road, their desperate calls for you to stop and join their vehicle made your legs feel weak, and you scrambled for the door handle before the truck had even finished rolling fully to a halt.
Their doors were already open, the body on the floor made you almost rip over your own feet as your mind short-circuited.
Hunched over on the floor of the van was Chuck, his body jerking unevenly in seizures as his hands hung by his sides, and as you knelt by his sides, a sudden cough shook his body, heaving for breath as he struggled to suck in any breath at all. You didn’t have the ambulance, or any of the equipment you needed, and you were left with only what you had in your bag and your bare hands.
“What the hell happened?”
Gally looked lost for words as you demanded an explanation from him, and you rolled Chuck onto his side, trying to position the larger man into the recovery position as he coughed. “I don’t know! One minute he was fine, said he felt a little dizzy, and that his vision was blurry around the edges but we all just assumed it was because he was tired, like us, or had a headache or something. But then he was talking, and his words didn’t make any sense! We called you, and as we were pulling over, he just fell out of his chair like this!”]
“Do something!”
“What’s happening?”
“Is he having a seizure?”
There were too many voices, you had no idea what was wrong, you’d done your initial examination of the boy and nothing had shown up. He was talking, smiling and chatting. He was steady on his feet with no signs of injury other than some bumping and bruising, no internal bleeding or cuts, and yet, he was having a seizure under your hands that you couldn't stop.
Your fingers pressed to his neck as you tried to find the strength or speed of his pulse; slow, unsteady and weak being your answer. “I need my bag! Someone go and get it!”
Multiple pairs of booted feet moved, and you solved a hand into the oversized pocket of the fireman's jacket you wore to find a torch you’d discarded long ago. Lifting one eyelid and flashing the beam of light over it, there was no longer a reaction, his pupil never moving, and your own heart felt like it stopped beating in your chest. Your bag landed next to you, the firemen gathered around you, but it felt like the world was slipping away, crumbling to ash and dust with everything you touched.
The whole day had felt oddly like it was moving in a mixture of slow motion, and too fast for words. Like you were walking through tar, but placed on fast forward, but this was different. This was the moment that made it seem like everything came to a stop, while minutes turned to seconds. It was too fast for you to handle, but flashing before your eyes like a video being played scene by scene. Like an out of body experience, a lucid dream, your hands being your own but the motions feeling detached, as your mind began to shut down on itself in shock and horror.
Voices ringing in your ears; screaming and shouting at you, begging you to do something, and yet you were doing all that you could, but nothing was helping. His seizing didn't stop, neither did the blood he was coughing up, splattering across your cheek in trails of wet droplets, spraying down your neck as he convulsed, across your chest as you leaned over to try and tip his head back to help him breathe.
“We need to get to the hospital, why is nobody driving this damn truck?”
Your hands were on his chest, trying to pump when you felt his body go still, when his heart stopped beating under your palm. It wasn’t the first time you’d lost a patient, it wasn't the first time you’d felt life slip away, your fist closing as you grasped to hold on but their life slipping away under your palms, but this was the first time you felt the life of a friend ebbing away and you were helpless to stop it. Your body was thrown from side to side, violently as you were threatened to be tipped from your kneeled position, sirens overhead and traffic swerving out of your way as the firetrucks raced.
Gally’s voice was clear in the ruckus, muffled but able to be picked out, calling into the hospital across the radio to meet you all outside, doing his best run down of the situation as he called for help, and there was a headache born of stress forming behind your eyes that threatened to split your skull right open.
This was Chuck; your first friend in the firehouse, the sweet kid who always had flushed cheeks and bouncy brown curls who was the first to really make you feel less alone, like maybe you’d found a home, the first person to truly let you in. The first person to talk to you on your first day, the first person to share a joke with you, the kid who made you tea when you were tired and watched romcoms, and had his squad training already all lined up because he just knew he was going to pass his exams. He had a locker only two doors down from your own, and his peppermint body wash always made your eyes sting a little but you'd miss it if it didn't, and you weren’t ready to let him go.
There was crying, wailing and screaming of his name, and it came with a flash of pain in your throat as the voice sounded suddenly hoarse and strained that you realised it was you. The wet heat on your cheek was no longer blood but salty tears, and there was a messy mixture on your face that smeared over your skin as you tried to wipe your tears away, stinging at your eyes, skin feeling raw as the rough material of your sleeve caught against sensitive flesh.
The doors of the firetruck opened; your arms, from your wrists all the way to your shoulders and your back, ached as you continued to pump at his chest, and two doctors you didn’t know had to pull you back and off of him to be able to lift his body onto the stretcher. He was rushed from sight, carried away from you quickly, your team surrounding the doorway as they all held the same look of abject horror, staring after the candidate they loved so deeply as he was taken away.
And then there was Newt, appearing from double doors to stare out at the scene before him, wondering what in the hell had happened, just like the rest of you were, the weight of the mystery looming over you all like a crushing weight, concrete sinking you to the ocean floor. You couldn't take it, not the whispered questions of confusion or the worried glances or even the hands that reached out to rub at your shoulders as they tried to bring you back from the brink, you couldn't take it.
It was Allison standing beside you, the nurse you’d met a couple of times, and your throat felt about as dry as sandpaper as you turned to face her, one clean and delicate hand reaching up for you, but you swerved away from it, the idea of another person’s touch right now making you feel more nauseous than you already did.
“Gally. He needs scans.” Her brows furrowed, and your voice didn’t even sound like your own, forcing you to choke back emotions and swallow down on a raw throat as you tried to think. “Chest injury, he needs some tests done. Clint needs stitches, so does Fry.”
“I can get that sorted, but don’t you think you ne-”
“I need to go. I need to go now.” You nodded to yourself, licking over cracking lips as you looked back to the doors that Chuck had disappeared through. “I need to go and be with Chuck.”
You didn’t pause, not when she spoke, calling out after you, or when Brenda reached out. Not when Thomas called your name, followed by an endearing pet name that was falling on deaf ears, or even when Newt reached out to snatch your wrist, fingers skimming your skin as you shouldered through the door, stumbling in placement after him. You heard him follow, though. The familiar pattern of footsteps that you knew to be your partners as his shoes squeaked across the floor.
You didn’t make it far, thumb jamming into the elevator door button and leaving a greasy mark across the shining silver button; oil, dust, blood, sweat, chemical. You didn’t bother to clean it off as the doors opened, and your blond friend slipped in alongside you once they closed again. He hit the right button this time, and he didn’t say anything, but he did take your hand, squeezing tightly and not letting go, even when you pulled away, when the pull to close in felt too strong, when the offer of comfort felt unwelcome and undeserved, he forced you to take it anyway, and in the silence of the elevator, the first real sob broke free.
They didn’t stop after that.
Not when you stepped out of the elevator, following along to the waiting room you’d become familiar with over almost a year of being around this hospital, of making friends. Your friend was dying, you finally allowed yourself to settle, to believe you were able to have something good, and it was being torn out from under your feet slowly, piece by piece. The thumb rubbing over your skin, and the tickling of the clock on the wall that showed minutes melting away until over an hour had passed was all that kept your panic attack at bay, the rhythmic sounds and motions keeping you in control, even if everything felt like it was spinning out.
At some point, you’d claimed enough to sit down, you didn’t know when, you didn’t really recall the decision, but now that you were sitting down in the chair, every muscle felt like it was too weak to ever stand again. You were exhausted, there was nothing left within you, and you were choking down the urge to vomit with every breath you took. Nervous reactions, the ticks in your muscles, the occasional spasms in the aftershock of such an adrenaline rush, and you were struggling to even breathe at this point.
Newt whispered words to you occasionally, statements that seemed to go in one ear and out of the other, but you’d retained a few key pieces. Clint and Fry were all stitched up, and had been taken back to the station with the rest of the firefighter’s when they had left. Minho was dismissed and to go straight home, and to follow the medical advice given to him by his house paramedics, if your head was ever going to be back in the game again, and Gally was much the same. He had internal bruising but no cracked ribs, he would just be achy and sore for a couple of days maybe even a week or two. Winston was due out of surgery any minute now, burns peeled of fabric and skin cleared of chemicals, but he wouldn't wake up until the morning, and he’d be in the hospital for a few days yet.
Then, came Chuck.
What seemed like hours later, and you were sure it was, if the change in the lighting outside as the evening began to creep in had anything to suggest, and you didn’t need to hear the news. It was obvious, as your friend stepped through the door, the mournful look on Derek’s face even when you knew that he hadn't been the one to perform the surgery, and what left you had seemed to fall away.
You had nothing left to give, no tears left to cry or screams left to let bounce from the walls. It was numb; cold and dark and lonely. You didn’t want touch, you didn’t want comfort or words of calming endearment, or anything else. You wanted your feet to move underneath you, and to carry you out to the van to go back to the station. You couldn't even speak, you couldn't thank Derek for coming to give you the news himself, to be the one to break your heart and deliver the blow a little softer than a stranger would have, but it was like he read your mind, because he dipped down, pressing what felt like a brotherly kiss to the top of your head, before Newt was wrapping an arm over your shoulders.
They traded a few words, things you missed, unable to cling to even a single syllable, before you were being guided along, white shiny halls like a blur around you, until you were sitting in the cold seat on the passenger side of the ambulance, clipping yourself in like you were on autopilot, and resting your head on cool glass, your eyes sliding closed.
You didn’t register the journey, none of the speed-bumps or dips in the road, and the silence in the cabin felt utterly stifling, your skin crawling as Newt drove beside you, slow and steady as he guided the van along, and your fingers were digging to tightly into your palms that you worried your nails would tear right through the skin and shred your palms. Your eyes were burning, holding back tears, and everything in your body felt like it centred on a weight, hanging on a pit in your stomach as your guts twisted into knots, bile rising in your throat as you choked it back, and your body jerked forwards a little in the seat as the van came to a stop.
Newt whispered an apology for the abrupt halt, his parking a little wonky when you cracked sore eyes open and blinked into the light, skin stiff from salt and stained with the horror of the day, and you didn’t bother to reply. As soon as you stepped out of the van, the team were there, all freshly showered and clean, changed into their own clothes and staring at you expectantly, and it felt like you were holding the entire world upon your shoulders.
“There was nothing that could be done.” He let out a sigh, heartbroken gaze flickering over everybody standing and waiting for news in the bay. “He had a-”
“Subdural haematoma.” Your voice cracked as you spoke, cutting Newt off, and their attention moved back to you as you cut Newt off. “He had a subdural haematoma. That, uh, that means he had a brain bleed, a tear in a blood vessel on the left side. He would have been fine if he’d made it to the hospital, if I’d noticed it, but it clotted rapidly. That gave him a pulmonary embolism.”
“The clots to stop the bleeding in his brain stopped blood from being able to get to his lungs.” Newt clarified, and you wondered if the way you were feeling on the inside was reflected on your face. “They tried to operate, but there wasn’t anything they could d-”
“I should have noticed sooner.” You mumbled, and Newt twisted to look at you, but then the feeling in your guys became all too much, and you cupped a hand over your mouth, pushing through the team as you stumbled in the closest you could get to a run. Pain radiated along your arm as you pushed through the main door to the locker room with your shoulder, knees hitting the hard tiling of the bathroom floor and making a cry leave your lips as you fell. The stall door slammed against the wall, a loud and echoing sound that made you wince as it rattled your skull.
Hands found the edges of cold porcelain, tears blurring your vision as you emptied your guts into the bowl. You heaved, bile and vomit burning your throat, and you couldn’t breathe, a flash of panic racing through your mind at the feeling as your body continued to wretch, before a further sickeningly thought crossed your mind as the fleeting thought about Chuck feeling the same way passed your mind. He couldn't breathe either, he had suffocated on his own blood as he bled out, all because you hadn't found the signs of his bleeding, because you hadn't helped him hold on a little longer, because you hadn't been able to save him.
A hand was on your back, and you arched away from the undeserved comfort, before fingers were wrapping in your hair, holding the loose strands that had fallen stray out of your face, before the hand was taking place again, rubbing soft circles against your back through the layers of material. There was no more bile, there were only tears, wracking sobs that broke you down as you cried, everything feeling weak, and you could barely hold yourself up.
That same hand moved, pulling you backwards until you were slumped out across the floor. You were trembling, shaking so violently you could barely reach a dirty hand up to wipe across the back of your mouth, and you managed to blink tear-filled eyes clear to look up at the person before you.
“Get out, Thomas.”
“Why?” He whispered, and you couldn't hold back the humourless laugh, shaking your head before you were breaking down into sobs again, and he shushed you quietly.
“Get out, Thomas! Get out, leave me alone, go away! Just get out!” You thrashed, his arms wrapping around you tighter as you pushed back against him, cursing and screaming. “Why won’t you leave me alone, just let me sit here, just let me be!” Walls were going back up inside of you, to protect yourself as the reality of the situation began to really settle in your mind, and you couldn't put them back up while Thomas was standing in your way, every ounce of pain leaking in. “I don’t want you here, get off me! Get out!”
“I’m not going anywhere.” He pulled you a little closer, the angle awkward, your hands pushing at his chest until there was no strength left in your body, and he held you tight. Your fingers gripped at his shirt, pushing weakly as your words became gabled and muffled, and you couldn't take it anymore.
You gave in.
You only had so much fight to give.
“He’s dead, Thomas..” Your words were like the final piece to truly accepting it, and you sniffed, sure that your skin was wet from a disgusting mixture of tears, vomit and snot but he never let you go, a hand rubbing up and down your back as his fingers slipped free from your hair, the ends damp against your skin where your upchuck had caught them in the crossfires, and yet, you couldn't even bring yourself to care about hygiene or impressions as you came to accept that you’d lost a friend. “He died, I could have stopped it. I should have done more, I should have checked again, I should ha-”
“There was nothing you could have done. Newt told us about it. He explained it. There’s nothing you could have done.” He pushed hair back out of your face, uncaring for the situation you were in, and wiping his fingers over your cheeks gently. “It wasn’t your fault.”
“Yes, it was. It’s my job to look after you all, and I failed at that.”
“That’s such crap.” He mumbled, your eyes snapping up to find his, and brows furrowing. “How were you supposed to know what was going on inside of his skull? Huh?”
“Thomas, I’m not in the mood fo-”
“The truth?” He snipped, cutting you off, and his hands hooked under your armpits as he pulled you up to your feet, your legs giving way and weight falling onto him as he supported you, one hand on your neck as an arm held up around your waist, thumb brushing under your jaw. “Look at me.”
You dragged your sights up, honey-brown eyes filled with concern staring down at you. “It wasn’t your fault, and nobody but you thinks it was. If Chuck were here right now, he’d call you out for blaming yourself.”
It was true, you knew it was, and it made your lips curl into the briefest smile you’d ever had.
“Let’s get you cleaned up, alright?” You could only nod, his hands now both on your waist as he guided you in slow steps towards the shower. There was grime covering your skin, bodily fluids, grit and dust, all the way to grease and oil, and you hate the feeling of another caked-on layer against your skin. The water tap creaked a little as Thomas twisted it, water bursting through, and you were still gasping for breaths through your sobs as you stepped underneath it.
It was freezing, at first, the cold water was like a shock to your system as you closed your eyes and tipped up into the flow to let the harsh droplets wash over your skin. It began to warm up, and your lips parted, letting you breathe as you tried not to break down again. There was a rattle in the distance, the sound of someone moving through a locker, and your legs buckled once again. The weight of the world on your shoulders, the weight of everything that had happened, crushing you down into the ground, and your back smacked against the edge of the stall, and you sank down, until water was swilling around you as you curled your legs to your chest under the flow.
“Oh, sweetheart..”
Your chest ached a little at the tone of his voice, whispered words that hardly carried over the thrashing sound of the water, and his hand reached out to place your washkit on the small ledge out of the spray radius. His toes locked behind one heel, taking off his boots, before his sock followed, and he repeated the actions on the other foot. Bare feet met watery tiles as he stepped inside the stall, water beginning to mark over the edge of his t-shirt as he stepped close to the spray. “You’re going to get wet.”
“I don’t care.” His hands stuck out, expectantly waiting for your own as he stepped before you, water soaking over his back and clothes, hair growing wet once again, droplets shifting over his skin and dripping from the end of a sweetly upturned nose, and you slipped your hands into his. As he pulled you up, water bounced from his body across your face, and your bottom lip trembled. Tears were gathering in his own eyes, like he was only just getting a grasp on the situation, and his hands left your own, to smooth up over your arms.
A single tear escaped his eyes, lost in the droplets along his cheeks, and he cried silently while the sounds of your wailing filled the space. His fingers slipped under the edges of the jacket you wore, the heavy coat sodden with water, and he slipped it down your arms slowly, until it was hanging from your arms, and he took it from you, reaching outside of the cubicle to drop it to the tiled floors, and it felt a little easier to breathe now that it was gone.
“There are so many people who care about you. Right outside of those doors, all worried about you, all wanting you to be okay, too.” He pushed back wet strands of hair, delicate touch easing the bobble from your hair, letting the damp bundle fall around your shoulders to be washed too. His fingers moved to the buttons along the front of your paramedics uniform, the crisp white spattered with black and red, tarnished with grey, and as his nimble fingers undid each button, he leaned in, lips brushing over your skin, slow and tentative, until he was pressing a wet kiss to your cheek, water dripping over his lips, but he pressed in carefully, hands barely moving between your bodies.
He shifted, only a centimetre or so higher, across your cheekbone, a kiss pressed there, too, as he peeled the wet fabric of your shirt down your arms, discarded with your jacket, until just a wet vest covered your torso, white material going see-through under the fall. He pressed a kiss to your jaw, and your neck, and then your shoulder, before he was sinking lower and lower to the floor, kneeling before you and moving his hands to your boots, tugging at the laces until they came undone.
Your hands balanced on his shoulders as you lifted each foot, letting him tug away boots and socks, your toes aching from the strain you’d put on them, flexing a little against the tile when your feet were lowered again. Large hands smoothed up the backs of your legs, circling over the front of your thighs to tug the string of the firefighters pants loose, and he eased them down your legs, revealing the smart dress-pants of your uniform from underneath, and the pile building outside of the stall was leaking water across the floor into a large puddle, but neither of you cared.
You weren’t sure when you’d stopped crying, but you had, sniffling and a sore throat but the tears no longer came, and Thomas shuffled before you. He leaned back a little, clothes clinging to his skin much like your own were, and you raised a hand from his shoulders to push the wet hair plastered to his forehead back and away from his eyes, his head twisting to press a kiss or his palm. You weren’t sure whether it was for your comfort or his, but it soothed you a little anyway.
His hand found your waistband, tugging lightly on the material as a finger slipped underneath, his eyes locked on your own with a silent question hidden inside, and when you gave him no resistance, his other hand joined. He popped the button delicately, tugging the zipper down, before inching those trousers further down your legs. Each movement he made revealed a new patch of skin, and he peppered occasional kisses over the fronts of your thighs as he moved, nose nudging against your skin, until you were stepping out of the trousers, a hand under his chin to pull him back up to his full height, and the rest of his body followed.
His skin felt hot against yours as your palms inched underneath his shirt, locking onto the bottom of his tee, before pulling it upwards. His hands raised over his head, allowing you to strip the material away from his body, ruined and sodden, joining your clothing on the floor. His hands were on your cheeks as soon as they dropped back down, pulling you forwards until he could let his lips meet your forehead. He pressed a kiss to every spot on your face, and every time he did, it was like he was pulling another piece of your fears and worries away from you, relieving you of the pain.
He gave you no hesitation when your hands found his belt, undoing it swiftly and tugging the leather from its loops, before his trousers were following, kicked away and discarded to the ground outside, tugging your vest out of his way so bare hands could smooth down over your sides, pulling you forward until he was holding you so close that the body heat rolling off of him flooded over your skin and gave you goosebumps.
His forehead rested to yours, and yet he never moved it further than that, sharing breath, lips brushing ever so slightly, a tingle felt right to your fingertips, but he didn’t kiss you.
It wasn’t the right time, and both of you knew it. It was a development that was inevitably coming, every snowball of affection added to the avalanche, dragging you both down with it, but it wasn’t time yet. This was a time of hurt and comfort, of seeking a moment of respite in one another’s embrace, and your hands wrapped around his body.
“Just hold me, Tommy,” it wasn’t a crashing realisation, nothing abrupt or sudden, but more of a peaceful revelation as his arms squeezed a little tighter around you, that Thomas had made himself a place in your life that you’d never be able to replace, “and don’t let me go.”
“I don’t plan to.” He whispered, lips pressed to the top of your head as comforting kisses were left there in the wake of his words. Tense muscles in his back relaxed under your touch before your hands were hooking onto his shoulders and your chest was pressing to his, hearts racing in matching beats, as he dragged you in closer.
His head dipped, face pressing into your neck the same way yours was in his, and his fingers spread out across your back.
You didn’t know how long you stood like that, minutes or hours seeming to slip by, the rhythmic fall of the water letting you slow your heart down, your chest rising and falling in synchronicity with Thomas’, his fingertips digging into your flesh as you clung to one another.
At some point, he moved, one hand leaving your body to reach out to the shelf, and find some soap. The later shifted between both of your bodies, his fingers moving through your hair with shampoo and conditioner to follow, and the dirt of the day sliding from your skin made everything feel a little easier to handle, less of a burden and more of a weight, shared with the man before you as he helped you to hold it up.
There was more, a whole team, willing to step in and help you bear the pressure if you’d just let them, and you wanted to do so. You were so scared to lose them but it was out of your control, and you couldn't do it alone, not any more.
When you finally felt like you had the power to give in, and to step back, the water was turned off, water dripping along your body and from the ends of your hair, before Thomas was reaching for a towel. He wrapped one around his waist, a blush rolling over your face and a subtle smirk on his lips as he did, the material sitting low against his hips, water still dripping along his body, and you tried not to follow any of the droplets as he stepped closer to you.
“Y’know, I didn’t think I’d get the honour of getting you undressed quite so soon.” Holding out another towel, he sealed it around your body, letting you tuck it tightly over your chest to hide the underwear you’d been left in, as you suddenly became overly aware of your near-nudity. Your jaw dropped a little, eyes going wide, and he chuckled at your panicked state, shaking his head and letting his fingers smooth down your arm until one of his hands was pressed loosely to yours. “Don’t worry, angel. I’m not looking. One day, you’re gonna’ ask me to, and I want that moment to be the special one.”
“Thank you, Tommy.” Your fingers laced with his, tugging him closer, and he dipped down, smiling softly as the tip of his nose dragged along your hairline. The door opened, Brenda coming to stare at you both, red-rimmed eyes and a soft smile, before she shrugged lightly.
“You want me to brush your hair for you?”
Something told you that the gesture would be just as comforting for her as it was for you; she was heartbroken, and undoubtedly chafing at the bit to get off shift and see Minho, but your heart soared at the idea that she might find comfort with you like you did with her, just like Thomas did, or anyone else. They were your family, and they needed you as much as you needed them.
You took a seat on the bench before her, and so opened up her locker, producing an assortment of bottles from inside. Her fingers ran over your scalp, separating the hair out as she sprayed something that smelled like watermelon over your scalp, working it through your hair, before following it with a plastic comb. Thomas had disappeared to get changed, and your fingers were gripping tightly to the edge of the towel, pulling at loose threads. It was a material you didn’t recognise, not yours, and you figured that the worn fabric must belong to Thomas, because his had been matching.
When he came back around the edges of the locker, you lifted your he'd, watching as Thomas inched yet another fresh t-shirt down over his body, shaking his head a little as damp stands got stuck, and you winced a little at a knot that tugged on the strands, Brenda whispering her apology.
“I’ll go and wait outside, alright?”
You nodded, your hand reaching up to grasp Thomas’ before he left, and he paused, waiting a moment and squeezing back, before smiling. He leaned down, lips brushing over the crown of your head, before he was walking past, and you could practically already hear the words she wanted to say. While you didn’t know what they were you could feel them hanging over your head as she brushed quietly, and the second the door fell shut to leave the two of you alone, she was letting them go;
“You’d be cute, y’know.”
You knew what she meant, but feigned confusion, despite it. “Who?”
“Oh, don’t play dumb.” She teased, poking you in the back of the head slightly with the comb, before she was bringing another chunk down to begin brushing through it. “I’ve known Thomas for a while, but I’ve never seen him like this. He really cares about you.”
“I care about him too.” You mumbled, and while you didn’t see it, you knew the smile that was on her face and could picture it in your mind. “I care about you, as well, Bren. I care about all of you.”
“We care about you too.” She finished her brushing, pulling the strands back out of your face, before she was picking up the next bottle. Some foam, you weren’t sure what for, but she added a few pumps of it onto her hands as she rubbed her palms together, before weaving it through your hair, and you relished in the simple touch of being cared for so gently. “We don’t blame you. Please don’t shut us out. You might not need us right now, maybe you’re used to doing things alone, but we need you.”
Tears pulled at your eyes again, and you turned to face her, finding her in much the same way as she blinked them back, her hands falling away to her sides. “I need you, Bren. I need you because you’re my best friend, the only best girl friend I’ve ever had, and the only person who takes me out for a wine evening, which I think I’m going to need, because I’ll need some girl advice at some point.”
She grinned, a watery and shaky smile, chin wobbling a little as she put her things away, before taking a seat on the bench before you, sniffling lightly. “I don’t think you’ll need the advice, have you seen the way he looks at you? I might be the one needing advice.”
You wiped at your cheeks, laughing lightly to avoid your shyness. “I noticed that you stayed the night at Minho’s last night, on a work night, no less.”
“How the hell would you know that?”
“I’m observant.” You teased, and her head ducked, giving her a moment to think over her words, you stood, opening your locker, and searching for a change of clothes. You weren’t shaking as much, and while you were technically still on duty for another hour, you were praying no more calls came in, because you were changing straight into your comfy clothes, a hoodie and some leggings, ignoring everything else, and switching out your underwear behind the door of your locker.
“Thank you for letting me be with him today.”
“You were helping me do my job, I should be thanking you!” You offered, clipping a fresh bra behind your back, before pausing, and staring into the locker at the t-shirt you had available. It was your house ‘21 emblem shirt, comfy cotton, and it felt soft under your touch, lifting it up to bring it over your head, and once you had, your hoodie was following.
“I know that you didn’t need my help, but you were trying to help me. That’s real friendship, thank you.” You just shrugged, pulling on a second pair of socks for comfort, and closing your locker, with your toothbrush and toothpaste in hand, the bitter taste of bile still in your mouth, and heading over to the sink. Switching on the tap and running your brush underneath, you added a dollop of the paste to the bristles, and began to scrub at your teeth.
It was relieving, to wash away the final elements of the breakdown that you’d had, and Brenda was kind enough to scoop up the still dripping articles of clothing on the floor as you did, and load them into a plastic basket. She offered to take them to the laundry room for you, but you had her leave them, saying you’d do it yourself, and then, you were left alone once again, promising you’d be out in a minute to find the team.
The reality was that you needed a moment to yourself, to process that for the first time ever, you had a team to turn to, people you could truly let your walls down around.
Balancing the basket on your hip as you left the room, you took it with you, drips of water left like a breadcrumb trail as you padded socked-feet across the bay, towards the laundry room. You weren’t sure how it should all be done, officially, whether there was a set temperature or cycle to set off the heatproof materials on, but you just dumped it all into a washer too tired to care, and taking a moment to clear your mind.
A scoop of some kind of European washing powder that Gally swore by, and the scent of florals filled the room as you added it. A splash of fabric softener, a few buttons beeping upon being pressed and the lid closing, and then the machine rattled to life as the sound of water rushing through the pipes bounced through the room. You left the basket propped up against the wall.
Newt was the first by your side upon entering the room, eyes wide as he wrapped you up into a hug, talking a mile and minute about how worried he was before cutting himself off with a hiccup, and you clung to him just as tightly, feeling him sag into your touch a little. “There was nothing that could be done.”
You were the only intended audience for the words, whispered into your ear as he hugged you, a hand petting your damp hair gently as it dried in the warm air, the heaters all turned up high for warmth, and the group were dotted around the room. “I know. I’m sorry for running off.”
“Are you okay?” He pulled back, eyes glossy like everyone else's, and you frowned, wiping his cheek to clear away a tear that fell.
“Are you?”
He shrugged, neither of you really knowing the answer to that question right now, but you did know that you would be. With the companionship of your team, your friends, your family, you would be just fine, as long as you allowed them to help you. You shook yourself off, Newt collapsing back down into his armchair, and everyone else seemed to have a place in the room. Brenda was sharing a couch with Jeff and Clint, Fry was sitting on the end of the couch beside Thomas and scrolling through the channels, a space left empty for you.
You glanced up, familiar eyes meeting yours, and he tipped his head lightly to the side in offering. You stared a moment longer, your feet carrying you more directly towards him, and he watched as you found yourself before the space, lifting his arms up as you collapsed down into it. You weren’t shy this time, or unsure about what it meant. You knew exactly what you wanted, and what it meant.
You wanted the safety of being in Thomas’ arms, the temporary relief from the emotional turmoil you had when he held you, to sync the beta of your heart up to his as it thudded under your cheek when you laid your head on his chest. Tipping your head up to see him, you didn’t care about anyone else right now, you didn’t care about anything else, because you were surrounded by the people who meant the most to you.
You saw the cut on his jaw again, running a finger over it, and you tried to push your mind back to before everything had happened, to before the pain. You were in the truck laughing with Brenda and Thomas and Zart, cheeks flush from the warmth of a joke made about your blossoming relationship with the lieutenant, and comment about a sweet gesture to be made. Leaning up, your lips followed your finger, pressing a soft kiss to the spot, and a breathy sound left Thomas as you did, before he was bringing his other hand up to thread into your hair and brush at the strands lightly.
“What was that for?”
“I was kissing it better.” You mumbled, his heart beating rapidly under your head, your fingers brushing and the cotton of his shirt, and Fry finally settled on a movie. He leaned down, a prolonged press of his lips to your temple, before he was nosing gently at the spot. It was far from the first kiss he’d given you today, but this one was different, because it was without anything else hanging over it. No tears, no desperation for comfort, simply a kiss, given in the company of all of your friends as though he had no care about who witnessed it. “What was that for?”
