Hi!! I think I managed to keep the major spoiler out of this little snippet, though if you go sniffing you might find it. So uh, warning? Yeah, warning. If you want even MORE spoilery -- I have a bit more of this written, but it contains explicit spoilers. LMK and I'll share that too. I just ... love this lil scene I'm creating but also ... I can't share it in context for A WHILE.
They enter the building with a cautious sense of urgency. They need to locate, triage, and remove survivors, but they also need to not get themselves injured. It is a balancing act that John knows well.
The four of them — John, Bradi, Mike, and Kaden — move quickly into the building, following Big Mike’s instructions. They know going in that the number of dead is going to be high, and that many of the dead are teens. The report also stated that there had been at least two FBI agents within the building when it collapsed.
John had never been more grateful to know that wherever Ian was today, he was safe.
“Left, ten o’clock, two males,” Bradi barks into her headset. “One down, one administering CPR. John, Kaden, take the mobile, we’ve got the down.”
“On it,” Kaden replies.
John tunes out the chaos around him — other EMS and firefighters moving throughout the building, screams of wounded, shouts of those in charge. He focuses in on the two men off to the left. Quick calculations tell him that these might be the two FBI — both are well dressed, and he can make a out a holster on the man doing CPR. He winces. In this environment, the CPR is unlikely to be successful. But, if anyone can save the man on the ground, John would put his trust in Bradi and Mike.
Bradi reaches the pair first. John hears her over the comms asking the other man to step away. There’s a muffled help him, please that filters over the static in the air. Bradi nods, and then Mike and Kaden arrive. Kaden pulls the man up and off of the supine form of his friend, spinning him in John’s direction. The man staggers to the side, his black-clad legs unfolding unsteadily and his tan vest and dark button down becoming visible. His chestnut waves of hair are covered in dust.
John’s world narrows to the man’s ashen face as he turns around.
Everything shatters as those pain-filled, golden-hazel eyes that he knows and loves so much find his.
No. No, please, no. He can’t be here. He can’t be limping towards John, his chest heaving with the effort of breathing — but he is.
“Ian?” John gasps.
Ian jerks his head up. “J-john?”
