Fic: Catching Fire (The Firehouse AU). Chapter 11/?: Backdraft (NC-17)
Previous chapters: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Chapter 11: Backdraft
The next shift: 0358.
Leonard was abruptly jolted from a night-shift catnap by the station’s tones.
“Engine 1, Ladder 1, Ambulance 2, Engine 4; Multiple callers reporting heavy smoke from an abandoned building, 1304 26th St. Heavy smoke from an abandoned building, 1304 26th St. 0358.”
The entire crew of the station’s B-shift poured into the apparatus bay, and all three apparatus from the station were en route within two minutes. When he and Chapel arrived at the fire, Leonard staged the ambulance away from the scene, and waited.
“Dispatch, from Engine 1. We have a one-story wood frame structure, windows boarded up, fully involved. Continue Engine 4,” Pike said into his radio.
“Defensive mode, people. This place has had it. Scotty, Spock-ladder’s master stream on the Bravo side. Kirk, Jablonski-check out the Charlie side and report in. Morescu, Chekov-master stream on the Alpha side. No, I repeat no, ventilating until we get a better look.” Pike picked his radio up again. “Engine 4, approach from Chestnut Street, and run a forward lay from the hydrant there. Protect the exposure on the Delta side.”
Leonard heaved a sigh of relief when he heard the phrase ‘defensive mode,’ which meant in this case that nobody would be sent inside. The smoke was an ugly yellowish-gray color, which he’d never seen before. There were practically no flames visible-he thought that was a good sign, but he didn’t really know. He watched as everyone worked smoothly to execute their tasks. Jim’s voice popped on the radio moments later.
“Command from Charlie side, no exposures or hazards of note. Two large windows, boarded up. This place is sealed up tight, Cap, and it looks like the fire is breathing.”
“Copy,” Pike said. “I see it too. Return via Delta side, on the double. Spock, retract a bit; you’re awfully close.”
“Breathing?” Leonard asked Christine.
She shrugged. “Beats me.”
Leonard watched the structure. He started to see what Jim meant by ‘breathing.’ The smoke billowed out, but then at times seemed to get sucked back in for a moment. Around the plywood covering the window openings, he could see smoke getting pulled in through the cracks, then puffed out again. He once again mentally thanked Pike for keeping everyone safely outside.
The building groaned as it seemed to inhale a deeper breath than before, and the first visible licks of flame appeared from the roof in the front of the house. Two indistinguishable figures in yellow turnout gear were just visible between the right side of the house and the chain-link fence when Pike’s voice suddenly came on loudspeakers and the radio at the same time.
“Back off! Everybody ba-”
All at once, with a deafening blast, huge gouts of smoke blew the plywood off the boarded up windows on the right side of the building. Leonard’s heart stopped, then raced, as both figures on the right of the house were flung like ragdolls against the chain-link fence. One of them staggered to its feet. The other didn’t. The scene was then completely obscured by thick, black smoke, and flames poured through the uncovered windows, grabbing the roof and ripping through it like it was nothing. It looked like even the smoke was burning, but Leonard hadn’t heard of such a thing.
Leonard could hear Pike shouting something over the radio, but it was drowned out by the static in his head. He didn’t realize he himself was screaming out loud, until he became aware that Christine was shaking him, and he caught himself in the middle of a yell.
“Len! Leonard!” Christine shouted, right in his face, looking at him oddly. “Hey!”
He crammed his knuckles in his mouth, and watched helplessly as one of the figures dragged the other away from the building. His heart was pounding, and he couldn’t do a thing about it. A man was down, and there wasn’t a thing he could do about it.
It could be Jim. He could be dead. Leonard had no idea, and there wasn’t a thing he could do except watch and wait.
Pike joined the pair, and quickly helped pull the motionless man to relative safety. As soon as the group was outside the collapse zone, McCoy and Chapel approached rapidly with their equipment, just as the standing man collapsed to his knees. Len still couldn’t tell who was who, and it was killing him. He could tell, at least, that the downed man was breathing, from the steady Darth Vader sounds coming from the regulator on his facepiece.
“Chris, you get him,” McCoy said, pointing to the man who was now on his hands and knees. The back of the man’s turnout coat was covered with soot, and the name was illegible. Len couldn’t even tell if the name had four letters, or nine. He was praying it was four.
Len was joined by Engine 4’s Captain, who turned off the air pack, and assisted Len in stripping the gear off the felled man. As soon as Leonard had his hands on the man’s shirt, under his coat, he nearly sobbed with relief. It wasn’t Jim-he could tell, just from the feel of him. Too large, too soft-it wasn’t Jim. He stole a glance over to where Christine was kneeling next to Jim, who had removed his own helmet, mask, and air pack, and was now sitting on the grass, looking … the only word Len could think of was ‘impatient.’
Jablonski was starting to come around, noisily and with a surfeit of F-bombs, just like he did everything else.
“Fuck-holy fuck! What the fuck happened?” Jablonski said, as he struggled to sit up.
“Easy, Carl, easy. You got knocked down by some kind of blast from the house. It looked like the plywood blew off the windows.”
“Fucking backdraft,” Jablonksi replied. “Shit. I remember-fucking fire was breathing like a motherfucking dragon.”
“It was a backdraft, all right,” Engine 4’s Captain replied. “You okay there, McCoy, or do you need another set of hands still?”
“Thanks, Cap, but I’m good. You hurt anywhere, Carl?” Leonard said, as he finished getting a set of vitals.
“Just a headache. Son of a bitch. I should’ve seen that coming. Fuck.”
“Well, you just take it easy. Even if it weren’t an SOP for guys that get knocked out, I’d recommend you go in to the hospital and get checked out, since you might have a mild concussion.” As he was talking to Jablonski, Len looked back over at Jim, who shot him a quick “okay” sign, which McCoy returned.
“I didn’t get knocked out!” Carl protested. “Just … stunned! I wasn’t really out!”
Leonard shook his head and rolled his eyes at the same time. “Sorry, pal; you were out cold.”
“Whatever. Fucking Kirk’ll be off the hook, though. Wait-no, I don’t actually know what the fuck happened. Did he drag me over, or was he knocked out-I mean stunned-too?”
“Well, Jim looked a little wobbly, but didn’t get knocked out. He pulled you away from the house. It’s a good thing, too, because as soon as he got you away from that window, the flames started shooting out of it.”
“Figures,” Carl said. “I’ll say one thing for him. He’s tough. That’s for god-damned sure.”
And what, McCoy thought, would you say if you had more than one thing to say for him?
Jablonski let out a tremendous, hacking cough, and spat a wad of phlegm into the grass.
“Delightful, Jablonski. Thanks for that work of art. Are you having some airway irritation, or was that just a normal loogie you hocked?”
“Jesus, you medics are mother hens! I’m fine.”
“All right, all right! Listen, you gear down, hop into the rig, and I’ll go check in with Christine about Jim, okay?”
“Yeah, yeah. I’m not lying on any fucking stretcher, though.”
“Fine. Sit on the bench. I don’t care.”
Leonard restrained himself from running the few paces to where Jim was now standing.
“Kirk, there’s no point in being a child about it. You sit out for fifteen, period. Captain Pike’s orders,” Christine said firmly. “No ifs, ands, or buts.”
“But-” Jim protested.
“Jim,” Leonard said.
Jim met his eyes.
Leonard didn’t have to say anything else.
“Fifteen minutes,” Jim said.
“Good,” Leonard replied. He held out a hand to help Jim up, and it was accepted. Leonard held onto the hand slightly longer than would be normal, but not long enough that anyone but Jim would notice.
“Cupcake going in for a checkup?” Jim asked.
“Kicking and screaming. Speaking of which: I’m driving you home after shift. No ifs, ands, or buts about that, either.”
Jim reflexively opened his mouth to begin a protest, but then looked at Len, and shut it. “Okay,” he said.
Christine gaped openly at Jim’s compliance.
“C’mon, Chris; let’s get Cupcake to the hospital. And you get to drive. Catch you later, Jim. Take it easy.”
Len waited next to Pike until the Captain could spare a moment of attention from the fire, which was quickly being subdued by the huge volumes of water being dumped on it from all sides. He kept an eye on Jablonski, who was sitting on the side bench in the ambulance.
“How are they?” Pike asked.
“Well, Jablonski denied he was out cold, but I quashed that idea right away. We’ll take him in, and with any luck, it’ll be busy enough that he’ll be there till shift change anyhow.”
Pike nodded. “And Kirk? Chris said he was just shaken up, but otherwise okay. I told him to take fifteen. You wanna look at him before he gets back to business?”
McCoy shook his head. “He’s all right. And he’s gonna take fifteen.”
“Good. If I don’t see you at the station, I’ll catch you for a debriefing next shift.”
“Yessir. Anything else?”
“Nope. Come on back to the scene when you’ve dropped Cupcake off. Rig 4 is coming to cover until then.”
“Got it,” Leonard said. He looked back over at the rig-Cupcake had changed his mind, and was lying stretched out on the gurney, hand folded behind his head. Len took a quick detour on his way to the rig, and stopped at the front bumper of the engine, where Jim was sitting.
“You really okay?” Leonard asked just loudly enough to be heard over the din of the fire scene.
“I’m really okay, Bones.”
“You scared the living shit out of me.”
“Me, too.”
They looked at each other for another second or two, each wanting more than eye contact, each knowing that wasn’t possible.
“See you later.”
“Yeah.”
Leonard spun on his heel, frustrated with the situation, and returned to the rig. Christine was in the driver’s seat, ready to go.
“I see you changed your mind about the stretcher,” he said to Carl.
“Yep. I figured, why not chill out?”
“Good call. The deal is, everyone needs to be belted in,” McCoy said, as he did up the straps on the stretcher, and then fastened his own seat belt.
“Whatever. I don’t care. If I get to chill on the clock while everyone else is killing their ass, I’m not gonna complain. Hey, maybe they’ll even make me take a shift off! It’s free sick time, you know, if you’re injured on the job. Can you put in a bad word for me?” Cupcake laughed at his own wit.
“We’ll leave that up to the docs,” Leonard said. This was the longest conversation he’d ever had with Jablonski, and he was starting to see what Jim meant about him being a shit.
“How’s your headache, Carl, on a scale of zero to ten, where zero is nothing and ten is the worst you can imagine?”
“Oh, I don’t know. I don’t even notice it unless I’m thinking about it. Three? But if you wanted to shoot me up with some of the fun stuff, I wouldn’t complain.”
Leonard wrote that number down on his cheat sheet, and ignored the rest of Carl’s statement.
“You said before you weren’t hurt anywhere else. That still how you feel?”
“Yup. Take your time up there, Chapel,” Carl bellowed. “We’re in no hurry back here.”
Leonard ignored Cupcake for the rest of the short trip, and started his report on the laptop bolted to a swinging arm in the patient compartment. He was tempted to quote Jablonski’s request to ‘put in a bad word for him,’ but decided that would be making more trouble than there needed to be. The docs would probably peg him as a potential malingerer as soon as he opened his mouth. So Len decided, instead, to just document what Carl had reported about the mild pain of his headache and not having any other injuries, and let the documentation paint its own picture. He did, however, quote Carl’s remark about ‘the fun stuff,’ simply because he was getting irritated by the man.
A few minutes later, the back-up beeping signaled Leonard that they were pulling into the ambulance bay at the hospital. He and Chris brought the gurney in, where they were met by the charge nurse.
“Brought us one of your own, I see?” the nurse asked.
“Yep. This is Carl Jablonski, 29. He had a loss of consciousness of approximately one minute after a blast where he was hit with a piece of plywood and knocked into a chain-link fence. No swelling evident on the head, no neck pain, no other injuries. He reports a 3 out of 10 headache. Vitals were all normal.”
“All right. We’ll take care of him from here. Thanks, Len, Chris.”
“See ya later, Steve,” Len replied.
They changed the linens on the stretcher, returned to the rig, and radioed in to dispatch that they were returning to the fire scene. Chris drove, while Len completed the last details in his brief report.
“All right, how’d you do it?” Chris said, once Len closed the laptop.
“How’d I do what?”
“Get Jim to quietly agree to taking fifteen minutes off. He was bitching and moaning until you showed up, and then all you did was say his name and he shut up. I don’t know whether to be impressed, or frightened,” Christine said.
“How about both?” Len said. “What’d they call that guy with the power over the horses-the Horse Whisperer? Maybe I’m, I don’t know, a Firefighter Whisperer.”
Chris laughed. “Yeah, I noticed you didn’t take any of Cupcake’s guff either.”
“I find him highly ignorable.”
“Well, you’re a nicer person than me, then, because I just find him highly offensive.”
“Being male probably makes it easier to take him.”
They drove in silence until they were nearly back at the scene.
“Len?” Chris asked.
“Yep.”
“You were really upset, before. When Jim and Carl got knocked down.”
“Well? I don’t like seeing my friends get hurt. And that whole thing was totally freaky. It barely looked like the place was even on fire-just that nasty yellow smoke-and then, BLAM! I think maybe Cap knew something like that was coming.”
Chris was silent again until the end of the block.
“Is it going to be a problem for you?”
“What?” Len said, scowling.
“Part of our job involves standing by at these scenes. Twice, now, you’ve been … bothered, I guess, by watching. What I’m saying is, I understand if it gets to you. And nobody would mind if you didn’t watch. That’s all.”
“Hmm. Okay. I’ll think about it.” Leonard knew, though, that the problem was more complicated than that. And he knew, too, that it was only going to get harder to see Jim in danger. He liked his job-he really did-he just didn’t like Jim’s job.
And that? Was going to be a problem.
~!~!~!~
The fire was nearly out by the time Len and Christine arrived back at the scene. The structure had mostly collapsed in on itself, and the various crews were inundating it with water from various angles. The buildings on either side escaped relatively unscathed, which was the initial goal that Pike had set, as soon as it was clear that the burning structure wasn’t going to be salvageable. After an hour or so of watching the firefighters douse, turn, lift, poke at, and otherwise disturb the rubble to be sure the fire was well and thoroughly out, Len had a new appreciation for the fact that putting out the obvious fire was just part of what the firefighters did. They had to make sure there were no remaining hot spots that could cause the remains of the structure to start burning again after they left.
The scientist in Leonard was fascinated by the thermal imaging camera. Jim had showed it to him at the station once. He had Len look at the stove. All the pilot lights for the burners were invisible to the human eye, but jumped out brightly on the thermal imaging camera. Jim had Len make a heat hand-print on the kitchen counter, and drew a smiley-face on the table with water, which cooled as it evaporated and left a black signature visible to the TIC.
But what they were doing now didn’t seem like fun at all. Chopping at and prying up parts of the collapsed structure, spraying underneath with water, and repeating. It was still almost two hours until shift change, and people were starting to get tired. It was a warm night, and the heat of the fire and the humidity from the steam were poaching the firefighters inside their gear. Pike sent Chekov over to the triage area to cool down and rehydrate when one of his hands cramped up and he couldn’t let go of the tool he was using-a sure sign of heat exhaustion. Len made him drink and rest until he peed, much to the young man’s intense embarrassment. But it was a definite sign that he’d beaten off serious dehydration. He sent Chekov back into the fray, and then frowned at a thought.
“Chris? This is probably a stupid question, but …”
“Oh boy-I can’t wait to hear what you think is a stupid question. Shoot, Len.”
“So … the guys can just whip it out and take a piss whenever they need to. How does Gaila handle that? I’m only asking because it seems like if it’s a logistical problem, she’s at high risk of dehydration.”
“I love that you’re not embarrassed to ask that,” Chris said, reaching into one of the lower cargo pockets of her pants. She handed a small cylinder to Len. “Here. All rolled up in a convenient and discreet package.”
Len inspected the package. “Go-Girl,” he read aloud. “Don’t take life sitting down.” The package depicted a hot pink funnel-like object, and it didn’t take much imagination to envision its use.
He handed the cylinder back to Christine, and she put it back in her pocket.
“You learn something new every day,” he said.
Half an hour later, Pike declared the overhaul task to be complete, and dismissed the ambulance. Len took the driver’s seat, and hit the “in service” button that automatically let dispatch know they were available.
Dispatch took them at their word, and immediately sent them to an alpha-priority call-abdominal pain in an otherwise healthy young man-in the territory of the next station over. They transported the young man to the hospital, with Chris handling the patient in the back and Len driving, and returned to the station just before shift change.
Len hit the shower at 0730 sharp, figuring he’d just wait around the station until the engine and ladder returned. He wasn’t going to let a little thing like the crushing need for sleep get in the way of fulfilling his promise-or perhaps threat-of driving Jim home after the shift. As he showered, his mind was filled with a precise, video-like instant replay of the backdraft that took Jim and Cupcake down. He couldn’t stop the movie, and it repeated over, and over, and over. Slow motion, fast-forwarded, and, worst of all, with various alternate endings.
“Turning into a fuckin’ TiVo,” Len muttered, as he toweled off.
“What was that, McCoy?”
Len jumped. He thought he had the locker room to himself, but Dave Eggert from C-shift’s engine company was doing something at his locker.
“Just doin’ a little instant replay. Two of our guys got knocked down by a backdraft. They’re okay, but it freaked the living shit outta me. Never seen anything like that before.”
“Shit! Who went down?”
“Kirk and Jablonski. They’re fine, though. Just a helluva thing.”
“That’s for sure.” Dave slammed his locker shut. “You headin’ out?”
“Stickin’ around till the ladder crew gets back. Told Jim I’d drive him home-I know, he’s fine, but like I said, it was a helluva thing.”
Eggert laughed. “You’ll get used to it. We all get knocked around every now and then. Besides, if Pike let him stay on, he’s fine to do a little thing like driving.”
“Yeah, probably, but I figure once I make a threat like that, I have to follow through so he’ll know I’m serious next time.”
“Spoken like a parent. You have kids back in Georgia?”
“Ah … no.”
“Sorry, none of my business. But Jim Kirk is kind of like a big kid, so that’s probably a pretty good strategy.”
Len snorted and cracked a small grin. “I s’pose so.”
“Anyhow-see ya, Len.”
“Take it easy, Dave. Safe shift.”
“It’ll be mighty safe if your guys never bring the apparatus back.”
“They said they’d probably be done by 0800, or they’d call in for relief. It was pretty intense.”
“I bet.”
Dave exited the locker room, and Len pulled on his civvies. The brief conversation had at least distracted him from his mental reruns of the backdraft. Leonard found he could think about the incident again without triggering an instant replay, but the sick feeling of seeing an anonymous figure in turnout gear, as limp as a ragdoll, dragged away from a living, breathing fire-that stuck around.
As he closed his locker, Len heard the sound of the apparatus bay doors opening, and the rumble of one diesel engine, then another. He entered the bay, and saw seven exhausted men and one equally exhausted woman exit their vehicles, peel their sweaty turnout gear off, and hang everything on their racks. Jim went back to the ladder truck, and brought Jablonski’s gear with him. He hung it up next to his own, while everyone else trundled off to the locker rooms.
For a moment, Leonard and Jim had the apparatus bay to themselves.
“Bones! Hey, I’ll just take a quick shower, and-”
“No. You’ll grab your stuff, and get in the van, and I’ll take you home. Now.”
“But Bones, I totally reek!”
“I don’t care how you smell.” Leonard cursed the quiver in his voice.
“C’mon, Bones; you-”
Jim stopped when Len grabbed him gently by the upper arm. They locked eyes, and Jim’s expression changed from irritated to … something else.
“All right,” Jim said. “I’m okay, Bones. Honest. I’ll just get my stuff, and we can go.”
“Okay. Thanks,” Len said gruffly. He ran a shaking hand through his hair, and waited for Jim to return from the locker room.
They didn’t speak on the way to the van.
Or once they got on the highway.
When they reached the exit that would take them to Leonard’s house, Jim raised his eyebrows as Len took the exit.
“I thought you were taking me home,” Jim said.
“I am. I’m taking you to my home. It’s closer. Which means it doesn’t take as long to get there.”
“Are we in a hurry?” Jim asked.
“Yes.”
“Are you mad?”
“No.” Len sighed. “You … I … fuck. I can’t do this while I’m driving.”
“Pull over, Bones,” Jim said. “Just-you’re killing me. If you’re dumping me, pull over and do it now, instead of-”
Leonard slammed his fist against the button on the dash that turned on the hazard lights, and abruptly pulled onto the shoulder of the road.
“I’m not dumping you, Jim. Jesus. Not that. I-”
“Then what, Bones? What?”
Leonard threw the transmission into ‘park’ and yanked the parking brake up. He unfastened his seatbelt, climbed across the console between the two front seats, and grabbed Jim by the front of his shirt, pulling him in roughly. He clamped his mouth over Jim’s, tasting sweat, soot, ash, and the metallic flavor of too much compressed air.
His other hand, in counterpoint to the one engaged in twisting Jim’s shirt, cradled the side of Jim’s face delicately. He traced over the roughness of a day’s worth of stubble, the silkiness of an earlobe, and came back across to a wet cheek.
Wet?
He pulled away to see why Jim was crying.
“Bones?”
They weren’t Jim’s tears. Leonard swiped his hand angrily across his face, and pulled in a deep, shuddering breath.
“Damn it, Jim.” Another breath. “I thought you were dead. Everything looked fine-and then … someone was as limp as a noodle.”
“Ahhhh, Bones.” Jim reached out, and wiped a teardrop away, with far gentler treatment than Len had graced himself with. “I’m okay.”
“Well I’m not!” Leonard looked at what his hand was doing to Jim’s shirt, and let go. “You weren’t even doing anything insane! You were just walking past a boarded up window, and-and then the whole place blew up, and I can’t stand there and watch that, Jim! I can’t!”
“I can’t promise you that nothing will happen, Bones. I can’t do that.”
“I know. And … I don’t know what my point is. I don’t know what I want,” Leonard admitted. “Your job is important. What you do is amazing. And I couldn’t ask you to stop.”
“What do you need, Bones? What can I do? Tell me, and I’ll do it. I swear.”
Leonard pulled in a deep breath, trying to pull himself together.
“I need … to take care of you. I need you to let me. I can’t do it while you’re working. But after? That’s what’s gonna make me be able to take it. Can you let me do that?”
Jim’s piercing blue eyes softened, as he finally began to understand. “Sure, Bones. I don’t know exactly what you want me to do, but sure. You can take care of me. I’ll let you. I won’t put up a stink. And there won’t be any whining. You tell me what you need to do, what you need me to do, and that’s what’ll happen. Okay?”
Leonard nodded slowly. “Yeah.”
“Even if it seems weird to you, Bones. I’m no stranger to weird.”
“But you have to tell me if I cross a line.”
“I’ll tell you. ‘Finish line,’ okay? That’s what I’ll say.”
Leonard closed his eyes and let out another breath. “Jesus, Jim. This isn’t about … I don’t have in mind a situation where you’d need a safeword. It’s about … I don’t know. It’s about my insecurities, all right? And I don’t want to make myself feel better at your emotional expense.”
“Then don’t think of it as a safeword. Just think of it as … an unambiguous code that a line has been crossed. Which I doubt it will be.”
“Okay.” Leonard refastened his seat belt, returned his hands to the steering wheel, and put the van in gear. He cleared his throat, and spoke up again.
“This is what I need to do. I want to get you rehydrated and fed, and then get you in the shower and help you get cleaned up. Then I wanna take you to bed, and when we’ve got that out of our systems, I wanna hold you while you sleep.”
“Okay, Bones.”
They drove in silence for the remainder of the way to Bones’s newly rented house. They exited the van silently, and went in the side door, taking them through the kitchen.
Leonard pointed to the seat that had become Jim’s at the table. Jim sat down, wordlessly, and waited to see what was next. Len put a pint glass and a pitcher of water in front of him.
“Drink until you can’t anymore,” he said. “You’re dehydrated.”
“Okay, Bones. Thanks.” Jim filled his glass and drained it, while Len looked on. A drop of water spilled from the glass, and made a trail through the soot and dirt on Jim’s neck. Len watched as the droplet rolled downwards, disappearing under the now-grubby collar of his t-shirt. His eye was caught by the pulse-point in Jim’s neck-slow and regular, slow and regular. Leonard allowed the rhythm to soothe him for a moment. Jim poured and drank another pint of water as Leonard looked on.
Len returned to the kitchen, and within three minutes, had whipped up scrambled eggs and toast, and poured orange juice. He pulled his own chair around the oval table until he was so close to Jim they were touching as they ate their breakfast.
“Let’s leave the dishes,” he said, “and get in the shower. ‘Cause you were right-you really do reek.”
There was no tub in Len’s house, but that situation was made up for by the fact that the shower enclosure was double-sized, tiled all around, and perfect for two. He led Jim into the bathroom, and started the water running.
Jim stood there, waiting, seeming to understand that he was not to undress himself. He allowed Len to strip him, and waited to enter the shower stall until they were both unclothed. Len guided Jim into the water stream, and watched as Jim closed his eyes and let the spray wash over his head, through his hair, rinsing out the stiffness of sweat and grime, and down his neck, obliterating the trail made by the stray droplet earlier.
“Keep your eyes closed, darlin’.” Len poured a dollop of shampoo into his hand, and rubbed his palms together, then through Jim’s spiky hair. When he was satisfied he’d gotten to every part of Jim’s scalp, he used his body to gently nudge him back into the spray, tipping his head back and using his hands to direct the flow of water to rinse Jim’s hair thoroughly.
Len soaped up a washcloth, and started washing Jim gently, from top to bottom. He could feel Jim getting more relaxed under his touch, and felt himself calming down as well.
“’s nice, Bones,” Jim said. “But … is it okay if I get a little turned on?”
Len finally had a chuckle to give to Jim. “Sure thing, long as I can too. But we’re waitin’ till I lay you down in my nice new bed to do anything much about that.”
Once Len was sure he’d washed away the grime, soot, sweat, ash, and yes, fear, he stood behind Jim for a little while, just holding him close against his chest. They were both half-hard, but they both understood that it wasn’t time to do anything about that yet. Len held his palm over the center of Jim’s chest, feeling the strength of his heartbeat. As they were similar heights, Len was just able to rest his chin on Jim’s shoulder. Jim leaned back into Len, letting him partially support him.
“Checking to make sure I’m still alive, there, Bones?”
“Pretty much, yeah.”
Len let the water flow over them for another minute or so. He’d been half expecting-okay, three-quarters expecting-that Jim would be full of wisecracks, overly cheerful quips, or just plain feistiness. But darned if the kid didn’t actually seem to get it.
The water started to cool, so Leonard shut if off. He pulled a big fluffy towel-another purchase from the Kirk-ordered shopping spree-from the bathroom cupboard. He rubbed Jim’s hair dry gently, and toweled the rest of him off, wrapping him in the towel when he was done. He repeated the process on himself, but hastily. He hung the towel up, and stood, naked in body and soul, and looked at Jim for a moment.
Jim was standing, arms at his sides, stiller and calmer and more patient than Len had ever seen him. His skin was flushed from the warmth of the shower, and his eyes no longer had the dull look of dehydration. He had some bumps and bruises-more than he usually did, and many were fresh-but he looked healthy, and alive, and at that moment, Leonard thought he was the most beautiful sight he’d ever seen.
“Jim,” he murmured, as he finally let himself step closer, finally allowed himself to touch in a way that wasn’t meant to soothe.
Jim’s eyes closed, and his head tipped back of its own accord, giving Leonard access to his throat and neck. Len kissed up and down the length of one carotid, and then the other, feeling Jim’s pulse quicken as he, too, realized the tone of the encounter had changed, and that they were on to a new act in the play.
Leonard kissed his way up the center of Jim’s throat, to his chin, and, with a hand on the back of Jim’s neck to gently tilt his head down again so he could reach, captured Jim’s lips, which parted to let him in. This time, instead of soot, darkness, and metal, Len tasted life, bright and shining. He pulled the towel off from around Jim’s waist, and pressed their bodies together.
They both sighed into the kiss, and one of them-Leonard couldn’t be quite sure who-moaned a little, as their skin, damp from the shower and the lingering humidity and warmth of the bathroom, connected, from knees to chest. Len pulled Jim in tightly, feeling the strong muscles of his back with one hand, and the hard-soft-roundness of his ass cheeks with the other. Jim’s hand trailed down Len’s back, almost hesitantly, as if he weren’t completely sure he was allowed to do anything yet.
They remained pressed together, hands roaming everywhere, as if they were exploring each other for the first time. Len nudged Jim’s long, lean legs apart with a knee, and rearranged their limbs so they each had a thigh pressed between the other’s. Their semi-hardness was a thing of the past, as they both rocked and gently swiveled their hips to generate the friction they desired.
The humid air picked up a chill, and at the first hint of a shiver from Jim-though he couldn’t tell if the cause was the cooling of the air, or something else entirely-Leonard pulled away.
“C’mon, sweetheart. Bedroom.”
“Yeah, I think so, Bones.”
They both shivered slightly as Len opened the door and the cooler air of the hallway hit their naked, slightly damp bodies. Len kept a hand on Jim as they crossed the hallway to the bedroom. He urged Jim onto his back on the bed-not that it took much urging-and returned their bodies to the same positions they’d been in in the bathroom, except this time with his weight pressing Jim into the bed, and ramping up the intensity of the friction between them.
Jim gasped as Len rocked his hips experimentally, and Len replied with a soft hum of pleasure. He trailed one of his hands from Jim’s shoulder, down his arm, to clasp his hand, entwining their fingers. Jim squeezed back, at the same time caressing Len lightly up and down his back with the other hand.
Len held onto Jim’s hand, and broke their kiss, just to move on to other things. He found every nick, every ding, scar, and mark, old or new, and kissed them all, spending more time on the ones he knew were fresh from today’s close encounter with the backdraft.
“Bones,” Jim whispered, “I’m okay.”
“Startin’ to believe that, darlin’. Startin’ to. Gotta run a few more tests, though, just to be sure.”
“Better safe than s-fuck, Bones!”
Len’s lips finished their first-aid routine, at a bruise on the point of Jim’s right hip, and gently but without warning closed on the head of Jim’s cock. He had to let go of Jim’s hand to do what he wanted, which was to work the bottom of the shaft with his hand while swirling and laving the head with his mouth. Jim moaned and panted as Leonard worked on him, and shouted as Len tongued the tiny slit.
Len pulled back, just for a moment, to look at Jim, spread out for him on the bed, and saw how alive he was, how vibrant, how perfectly and completely undone. He returned to his delightful task, and this time, heeded Jim’s warning that he was about to come, finishing him off with a hand, just to be able to see Jim’s face as ecstasy pulled him briefly from the world. Len watched, still, as Jim returned to himself, as he slowly opened his eyes and found Len’s.
“Did I pass?”
Len chuckled, and moved up Jim’s body to kiss him. “Yeah, you sure did. Flying colors.”
“That’s good. Because you know what you should do now, since you’re sure I’m okay?”
“What’s that?”
“I’m pretty sure you should fuck me. It’s, you know, life affirming and all.”
“If you insist,” Len said.
“I do, I really do,” Jim said. “Because Bones-look at you. Or, I could blow you, which is also fun, but I think you really need to fuck me, and frankly, I really need to get fucked.”
“So what am I waiting for, right?” Leonard said.
“My point exactly,” Jim said. He squirmed around until he was able to hook one ankle over Len’s shoulder, and double-jointedly opened a drawer under the bed, managing to grab the lube and a condom with one hand. “Tada!”
“Show off,” Len said, grinning. He appropriated the lube, squeezed some onto the palm of his hand, and rubbed his hands together to warm the substance. “Since you’re feeling so flexible, why don’t you move those pillows up there under your sweet ass, so we can get down to it.”
Jim showed off some more, bridging to shove pillows under his lower back. “And for my next trick, I’ll-”
“You’ll lie back, and you’ll get stuffed full of my cock, like you were born for it.”
“Yeah, that’s what I was gonna say, uuhhhhhn, Bones …”
Len started with one finger, pulling, gently stretching, and every so often, reaching in and stroking the spot that he knew would get the reaction he was looking for. He quickly added a second digit, scissoring, turning, spreading, until the third joined easily. His other hand fondled Jim’s balls, stroked the inside of his thigh, did whatever it felt like, and soon Jim’s cock perked up again, and got its share of attention as well. Inside another minute, Jim was panting and writhing again, and Leonard’s cock felt painfully hot and hard as he rolled the condom over it.
“Ahh, Bones, you gotta fuck me now now now, gonna come again and I want to feel you …”
Len clenched his jaw and bit his lip to hold onto what was left of his control as he added another squeeze of lube to his gloved cock, and pushed the head up against Jim’s hole.
“More more more, now, Bones, do it do it! Please!”
They groaned together as Leonard took Jim at his word, pushing in slowly but steadily, until his balls rested against Jim’s ass.
“Go go go,” Jim said, his voice practically a sob, and Len didn’t need any more begging or pleading; couldn’t have stopped anyhow. He pulled out not quite all the way, and pushed back in, faster and harder than before, and started a steady rhythm, echoed by the sounds they were both making. The pace of the thrusts and cries increased in parallel, and Len’s hand worked up and down on Jim’s cock in time with the rest of their music.
Jim came for the second time that morning, clutching the sheets and shouting, and the rhythmic shuddering and pulsing of his muscles around Len’s cock sent him right over the edge, calling Jim’s name.
“Ahhhn, Jim, mine, mine!”
Len collapsed onto Jim, their chests slippery against each other with clean sweat. Once Len was aware of anything again, he realized he was being lifted several inches each time Jim breathed, and rolled off, still staying as close as he could without crushing Jim. With the very last iota of energy he had left, he grabbed the box of tissues from the floor by the bed, removed the condom, cleaned them both up a bit, and tossed the whole mess, wadded in another tissue, onto the floor, for consideration later in the day. He pulled the sheet and a light blanket over them, and flopped back down onto the mattress.
He rested his head on Jim’s chest, and listened to his breathing, his pulse. His eyelids were heavy as he picked his head up one more time to kiss Jim on the lips, and then laid his head back down, right over Jim’s heart. Jim’s arms came up and circled around Len, and they snuggled under the light covers.
“Love you, Bones. Really love you.”
Len’s own breathing stopped, just for a moment, until he recalled how important respiration was.
“Love you too, Jim.”
Chapter 12: Extensions
A/N: When a fire is starved of oxygen-for instance, in a compartment that has few or no openings to let air in-combustion slows, but the fuel (combustible solids, and the flammable gases they let off when broken down by high heat) remain at high temperatures. If oxygen is suddenly let in-for instance, if a door is opened, a window breaks, or fire burns a hole through the structure-combustion can increase drastically and explosively, in an extremely dangerous event. A sulfurous smoke color, the appearance of the fire “sucking” air into the structure, and the appearance that a fire is “breathing” by puffing smoke and sucking air alternately through the same holes or cracks are all warnings of potential backdraft.
Chapter 11: Backdraft
The next shift: 0358.
Leonard was abruptly jolted from a night-shift catnap by the station’s tones.
“Engine 1, Ladder 1, Ambulance 2, Engine 4; Multiple callers reporting heavy smoke from an abandoned building, 1304 26th St. Heavy smoke from an abandoned building, 1304 26th St. 0358.”
The entire crew of the station’s B-shift poured into the apparatus bay, and all three apparatus from the station were en route within two minutes. When he and Chapel arrived at the fire, Leonard staged the ambulance away from the scene, and waited.
“Dispatch, from Engine 1. We have a one-story wood frame structure, windows boarded up, fully involved. Continue Engine 4,” Pike said into his radio.
“Defensive mode, people. This place has had it. Scotty, Spock-ladder’s master stream on the Bravo side. Kirk, Jablonski-check out the Charlie side and report in. Morescu, Chekov-master stream on the Alpha side. No, I repeat no, ventilating until we get a better look.” Pike picked his radio up again. “Engine 4, approach from Chestnut Street, and run a forward lay from the hydrant there. Protect the exposure on the Delta side.”
Leonard heaved a sigh of relief when he heard the phrase ‘defensive mode,’ which meant in this case that nobody would be sent inside. The smoke was an ugly yellowish-gray color, which he’d never seen before. There were practically no flames visible-he thought that was a good sign, but he didn’t really know. He watched as everyone worked smoothly to execute their tasks. Jim’s voice popped on the radio moments later.
“Command from Charlie side, no exposures or hazards of note. Two large windows, boarded up. This place is sealed up tight, Cap, and it looks like the fire is breathing.”
“Copy,” Pike said. “I see it too. Return via Delta side, on the double. Spock, retract a bit; you’re awfully close.”
“Breathing?” Leonard asked Christine.
She shrugged. “Beats me.”
Leonard watched the structure. He started to see what Jim meant by ‘breathing.’ The smoke billowed out, but then at times seemed to get sucked back in for a moment. Around the plywood covering the window openings, he could see smoke getting pulled in through the cracks, then puffed out again. He once again mentally thanked Pike for keeping everyone safely outside.
The building groaned as it seemed to inhale a deeper breath than before, and the first visible licks of flame appeared from the roof in the front of the house. Two indistinguishable figures in yellow turnout gear were just visible between the right side of the house and the chain-link fence when Pike’s voice suddenly came on loudspeakers and the radio at the same time.
“Back off! Everybody ba-”
All at once, with a deafening blast, huge gouts of smoke blew the plywood off the boarded up windows on the right side of the building. Leonard’s heart stopped, then raced, as both figures on the right of the house were flung like ragdolls against the chain-link fence. One of them staggered to its feet. The other didn’t. The scene was then completely obscured by thick, black smoke, and flames poured through the uncovered windows, grabbing the roof and ripping through it like it was nothing. It looked like even the smoke was burning, but Leonard hadn’t heard of such a thing.
Leonard could hear Pike shouting something over the radio, but it was drowned out by the static in his head. He didn’t realize he himself was screaming out loud, until he became aware that Christine was shaking him, and he caught himself in the middle of a yell.
“Len! Leonard!” Christine shouted, right in his face, looking at him oddly. “Hey!”
He crammed his knuckles in his mouth, and watched helplessly as one of the figures dragged the other away from the building. His heart was pounding, and he couldn’t do a thing about it. A man was down, and there wasn’t a thing he could do about it.
It could be Jim. He could be dead. Leonard had no idea, and there wasn’t a thing he could do except watch and wait.
Pike joined the pair, and quickly helped pull the motionless man to relative safety. As soon as the group was outside the collapse zone, McCoy and Chapel approached rapidly with their equipment, just as the standing man collapsed to his knees. Len still couldn’t tell who was who, and it was killing him. He could tell, at least, that the downed man was breathing, from the steady Darth Vader sounds coming from the regulator on his facepiece.
“Chris, you get him,” McCoy said, pointing to the man who was now on his hands and knees. The back of the man’s turnout coat was covered with soot, and the name was illegible. Len couldn’t even tell if the name had four letters, or nine. He was praying it was four.
Len was joined by Engine 4’s Captain, who turned off the air pack, and assisted Len in stripping the gear off the felled man. As soon as Leonard had his hands on the man’s shirt, under his coat, he nearly sobbed with relief. It wasn’t Jim-he could tell, just from the feel of him. Too large, too soft-it wasn’t Jim. He stole a glance over to where Christine was kneeling next to Jim, who had removed his own helmet, mask, and air pack, and was now sitting on the grass, looking … the only word Len could think of was ‘impatient.’
Jablonski was starting to come around, noisily and with a surfeit of F-bombs, just like he did everything else.
“Fuck-holy fuck! What the fuck happened?” Jablonski said, as he struggled to sit up.
“Easy, Carl, easy. You got knocked down by some kind of blast from the house. It looked like the plywood blew off the windows.”
“Fucking backdraft,” Jablonksi replied. “Shit. I remember-fucking fire was breathing like a motherfucking dragon.”
“It was a backdraft, all right,” Engine 4’s Captain replied. “You okay there, McCoy, or do you need another set of hands still?”
“Thanks, Cap, but I’m good. You hurt anywhere, Carl?” Leonard said, as he finished getting a set of vitals.
“Just a headache. Son of a bitch. I should’ve seen that coming. Fuck.”
“Well, you just take it easy. Even if it weren’t an SOP for guys that get knocked out, I’d recommend you go in to the hospital and get checked out, since you might have a mild concussion.” As he was talking to Jablonski, Len looked back over at Jim, who shot him a quick “okay” sign, which McCoy returned.
“I didn’t get knocked out!” Carl protested. “Just … stunned! I wasn’t really out!”
Leonard shook his head and rolled his eyes at the same time. “Sorry, pal; you were out cold.”
“Whatever. Fucking Kirk’ll be off the hook, though. Wait-no, I don’t actually know what the fuck happened. Did he drag me over, or was he knocked out-I mean stunned-too?”
“Well, Jim looked a little wobbly, but didn’t get knocked out. He pulled you away from the house. It’s a good thing, too, because as soon as he got you away from that window, the flames started shooting out of it.”
“Figures,” Carl said. “I’ll say one thing for him. He’s tough. That’s for god-damned sure.”
And what, McCoy thought, would you say if you had more than one thing to say for him?
Jablonski let out a tremendous, hacking cough, and spat a wad of phlegm into the grass.
“Delightful, Jablonski. Thanks for that work of art. Are you having some airway irritation, or was that just a normal loogie you hocked?”
“Jesus, you medics are mother hens! I’m fine.”
“All right, all right! Listen, you gear down, hop into the rig, and I’ll go check in with Christine about Jim, okay?”
“Yeah, yeah. I’m not lying on any fucking stretcher, though.”
“Fine. Sit on the bench. I don’t care.”
Leonard restrained himself from running the few paces to where Jim was now standing.
“Kirk, there’s no point in being a child about it. You sit out for fifteen, period. Captain Pike’s orders,” Christine said firmly. “No ifs, ands, or buts.”
“But-” Jim protested.
“Jim,” Leonard said.
Jim met his eyes.
Leonard didn’t have to say anything else.
“Fifteen minutes,” Jim said.
“Good,” Leonard replied. He held out a hand to help Jim up, and it was accepted. Leonard held onto the hand slightly longer than would be normal, but not long enough that anyone but Jim would notice.
“Cupcake going in for a checkup?” Jim asked.
“Kicking and screaming. Speaking of which: I’m driving you home after shift. No ifs, ands, or buts about that, either.”
Jim reflexively opened his mouth to begin a protest, but then looked at Len, and shut it. “Okay,” he said.
Christine gaped openly at Jim’s compliance.
“C’mon, Chris; let’s get Cupcake to the hospital. And you get to drive. Catch you later, Jim. Take it easy.”
Len waited next to Pike until the Captain could spare a moment of attention from the fire, which was quickly being subdued by the huge volumes of water being dumped on it from all sides. He kept an eye on Jablonski, who was sitting on the side bench in the ambulance.
“How are they?” Pike asked.
“Well, Jablonski denied he was out cold, but I quashed that idea right away. We’ll take him in, and with any luck, it’ll be busy enough that he’ll be there till shift change anyhow.”
Pike nodded. “And Kirk? Chris said he was just shaken up, but otherwise okay. I told him to take fifteen. You wanna look at him before he gets back to business?”
McCoy shook his head. “He’s all right. And he’s gonna take fifteen.”
“Good. If I don’t see you at the station, I’ll catch you for a debriefing next shift.”
“Yessir. Anything else?”
“Nope. Come on back to the scene when you’ve dropped Cupcake off. Rig 4 is coming to cover until then.”
“Got it,” Leonard said. He looked back over at the rig-Cupcake had changed his mind, and was lying stretched out on the gurney, hand folded behind his head. Len took a quick detour on his way to the rig, and stopped at the front bumper of the engine, where Jim was sitting.
“You really okay?” Leonard asked just loudly enough to be heard over the din of the fire scene.
“I’m really okay, Bones.”
“You scared the living shit out of me.”
“Me, too.”
They looked at each other for another second or two, each wanting more than eye contact, each knowing that wasn’t possible.
“See you later.”
“Yeah.”
Leonard spun on his heel, frustrated with the situation, and returned to the rig. Christine was in the driver’s seat, ready to go.
“I see you changed your mind about the stretcher,” he said to Carl.
“Yep. I figured, why not chill out?”
“Good call. The deal is, everyone needs to be belted in,” McCoy said, as he did up the straps on the stretcher, and then fastened his own seat belt.
“Whatever. I don’t care. If I get to chill on the clock while everyone else is killing their ass, I’m not gonna complain. Hey, maybe they’ll even make me take a shift off! It’s free sick time, you know, if you’re injured on the job. Can you put in a bad word for me?” Cupcake laughed at his own wit.
“We’ll leave that up to the docs,” Leonard said. This was the longest conversation he’d ever had with Jablonski, and he was starting to see what Jim meant about him being a shit.
“How’s your headache, Carl, on a scale of zero to ten, where zero is nothing and ten is the worst you can imagine?”
“Oh, I don’t know. I don’t even notice it unless I’m thinking about it. Three? But if you wanted to shoot me up with some of the fun stuff, I wouldn’t complain.”
Leonard wrote that number down on his cheat sheet, and ignored the rest of Carl’s statement.
“You said before you weren’t hurt anywhere else. That still how you feel?”
“Yup. Take your time up there, Chapel,” Carl bellowed. “We’re in no hurry back here.”
Leonard ignored Cupcake for the rest of the short trip, and started his report on the laptop bolted to a swinging arm in the patient compartment. He was tempted to quote Jablonski’s request to ‘put in a bad word for him,’ but decided that would be making more trouble than there needed to be. The docs would probably peg him as a potential malingerer as soon as he opened his mouth. So Len decided, instead, to just document what Carl had reported about the mild pain of his headache and not having any other injuries, and let the documentation paint its own picture. He did, however, quote Carl’s remark about ‘the fun stuff,’ simply because he was getting irritated by the man.
A few minutes later, the back-up beeping signaled Leonard that they were pulling into the ambulance bay at the hospital. He and Chris brought the gurney in, where they were met by the charge nurse.
“Brought us one of your own, I see?” the nurse asked.
“Yep. This is Carl Jablonski, 29. He had a loss of consciousness of approximately one minute after a blast where he was hit with a piece of plywood and knocked into a chain-link fence. No swelling evident on the head, no neck pain, no other injuries. He reports a 3 out of 10 headache. Vitals were all normal.”
“All right. We’ll take care of him from here. Thanks, Len, Chris.”
“See ya later, Steve,” Len replied.
They changed the linens on the stretcher, returned to the rig, and radioed in to dispatch that they were returning to the fire scene. Chris drove, while Len completed the last details in his brief report.
“All right, how’d you do it?” Chris said, once Len closed the laptop.
“How’d I do what?”
“Get Jim to quietly agree to taking fifteen minutes off. He was bitching and moaning until you showed up, and then all you did was say his name and he shut up. I don’t know whether to be impressed, or frightened,” Christine said.
“How about both?” Len said. “What’d they call that guy with the power over the horses-the Horse Whisperer? Maybe I’m, I don’t know, a Firefighter Whisperer.”
Chris laughed. “Yeah, I noticed you didn’t take any of Cupcake’s guff either.”
“I find him highly ignorable.”
“Well, you’re a nicer person than me, then, because I just find him highly offensive.”
“Being male probably makes it easier to take him.”
They drove in silence until they were nearly back at the scene.
“Len?” Chris asked.
“Yep.”
“You were really upset, before. When Jim and Carl got knocked down.”
“Well? I don’t like seeing my friends get hurt. And that whole thing was totally freaky. It barely looked like the place was even on fire-just that nasty yellow smoke-and then, BLAM! I think maybe Cap knew something like that was coming.”
Chris was silent again until the end of the block.
“Is it going to be a problem for you?”
“What?” Len said, scowling.
“Part of our job involves standing by at these scenes. Twice, now, you’ve been … bothered, I guess, by watching. What I’m saying is, I understand if it gets to you. And nobody would mind if you didn’t watch. That’s all.”
“Hmm. Okay. I’ll think about it.” Leonard knew, though, that the problem was more complicated than that. And he knew, too, that it was only going to get harder to see Jim in danger. He liked his job-he really did-he just didn’t like Jim’s job.
And that? Was going to be a problem.
~!~!~!~
The fire was nearly out by the time Len and Christine arrived back at the scene. The structure had mostly collapsed in on itself, and the various crews were inundating it with water from various angles. The buildings on either side escaped relatively unscathed, which was the initial goal that Pike had set, as soon as it was clear that the burning structure wasn’t going to be salvageable. After an hour or so of watching the firefighters douse, turn, lift, poke at, and otherwise disturb the rubble to be sure the fire was well and thoroughly out, Len had a new appreciation for the fact that putting out the obvious fire was just part of what the firefighters did. They had to make sure there were no remaining hot spots that could cause the remains of the structure to start burning again after they left.
The scientist in Leonard was fascinated by the thermal imaging camera. Jim had showed it to him at the station once. He had Len look at the stove. All the pilot lights for the burners were invisible to the human eye, but jumped out brightly on the thermal imaging camera. Jim had Len make a heat hand-print on the kitchen counter, and drew a smiley-face on the table with water, which cooled as it evaporated and left a black signature visible to the TIC.
But what they were doing now didn’t seem like fun at all. Chopping at and prying up parts of the collapsed structure, spraying underneath with water, and repeating. It was still almost two hours until shift change, and people were starting to get tired. It was a warm night, and the heat of the fire and the humidity from the steam were poaching the firefighters inside their gear. Pike sent Chekov over to the triage area to cool down and rehydrate when one of his hands cramped up and he couldn’t let go of the tool he was using-a sure sign of heat exhaustion. Len made him drink and rest until he peed, much to the young man’s intense embarrassment. But it was a definite sign that he’d beaten off serious dehydration. He sent Chekov back into the fray, and then frowned at a thought.
“Chris? This is probably a stupid question, but …”
“Oh boy-I can’t wait to hear what you think is a stupid question. Shoot, Len.”
“So … the guys can just whip it out and take a piss whenever they need to. How does Gaila handle that? I’m only asking because it seems like if it’s a logistical problem, she’s at high risk of dehydration.”
“I love that you’re not embarrassed to ask that,” Chris said, reaching into one of the lower cargo pockets of her pants. She handed a small cylinder to Len. “Here. All rolled up in a convenient and discreet package.”
Len inspected the package. “Go-Girl,” he read aloud. “Don’t take life sitting down.” The package depicted a hot pink funnel-like object, and it didn’t take much imagination to envision its use.
He handed the cylinder back to Christine, and she put it back in her pocket.
“You learn something new every day,” he said.
Half an hour later, Pike declared the overhaul task to be complete, and dismissed the ambulance. Len took the driver’s seat, and hit the “in service” button that automatically let dispatch know they were available.
Dispatch took them at their word, and immediately sent them to an alpha-priority call-abdominal pain in an otherwise healthy young man-in the territory of the next station over. They transported the young man to the hospital, with Chris handling the patient in the back and Len driving, and returned to the station just before shift change.
Len hit the shower at 0730 sharp, figuring he’d just wait around the station until the engine and ladder returned. He wasn’t going to let a little thing like the crushing need for sleep get in the way of fulfilling his promise-or perhaps threat-of driving Jim home after the shift. As he showered, his mind was filled with a precise, video-like instant replay of the backdraft that took Jim and Cupcake down. He couldn’t stop the movie, and it repeated over, and over, and over. Slow motion, fast-forwarded, and, worst of all, with various alternate endings.
“Turning into a fuckin’ TiVo,” Len muttered, as he toweled off.
“What was that, McCoy?”
Len jumped. He thought he had the locker room to himself, but Dave Eggert from C-shift’s engine company was doing something at his locker.
“Just doin’ a little instant replay. Two of our guys got knocked down by a backdraft. They’re okay, but it freaked the living shit outta me. Never seen anything like that before.”
“Shit! Who went down?”
“Kirk and Jablonski. They’re fine, though. Just a helluva thing.”
“That’s for sure.” Dave slammed his locker shut. “You headin’ out?”
“Stickin’ around till the ladder crew gets back. Told Jim I’d drive him home-I know, he’s fine, but like I said, it was a helluva thing.”
Eggert laughed. “You’ll get used to it. We all get knocked around every now and then. Besides, if Pike let him stay on, he’s fine to do a little thing like driving.”
“Yeah, probably, but I figure once I make a threat like that, I have to follow through so he’ll know I’m serious next time.”
“Spoken like a parent. You have kids back in Georgia?”
“Ah … no.”
“Sorry, none of my business. But Jim Kirk is kind of like a big kid, so that’s probably a pretty good strategy.”
Len snorted and cracked a small grin. “I s’pose so.”
“Anyhow-see ya, Len.”
“Take it easy, Dave. Safe shift.”
“It’ll be mighty safe if your guys never bring the apparatus back.”
“They said they’d probably be done by 0800, or they’d call in for relief. It was pretty intense.”
“I bet.”
Dave exited the locker room, and Len pulled on his civvies. The brief conversation had at least distracted him from his mental reruns of the backdraft. Leonard found he could think about the incident again without triggering an instant replay, but the sick feeling of seeing an anonymous figure in turnout gear, as limp as a ragdoll, dragged away from a living, breathing fire-that stuck around.
As he closed his locker, Len heard the sound of the apparatus bay doors opening, and the rumble of one diesel engine, then another. He entered the bay, and saw seven exhausted men and one equally exhausted woman exit their vehicles, peel their sweaty turnout gear off, and hang everything on their racks. Jim went back to the ladder truck, and brought Jablonski’s gear with him. He hung it up next to his own, while everyone else trundled off to the locker rooms.
For a moment, Leonard and Jim had the apparatus bay to themselves.
“Bones! Hey, I’ll just take a quick shower, and-”
“No. You’ll grab your stuff, and get in the van, and I’ll take you home. Now.”
“But Bones, I totally reek!”
“I don’t care how you smell.” Leonard cursed the quiver in his voice.
“C’mon, Bones; you-”
Jim stopped when Len grabbed him gently by the upper arm. They locked eyes, and Jim’s expression changed from irritated to … something else.
“All right,” Jim said. “I’m okay, Bones. Honest. I’ll just get my stuff, and we can go.”
“Okay. Thanks,” Len said gruffly. He ran a shaking hand through his hair, and waited for Jim to return from the locker room.
They didn’t speak on the way to the van.
Or once they got on the highway.
When they reached the exit that would take them to Leonard’s house, Jim raised his eyebrows as Len took the exit.
“I thought you were taking me home,” Jim said.
“I am. I’m taking you to my home. It’s closer. Which means it doesn’t take as long to get there.”
“Are we in a hurry?” Jim asked.
“Yes.”
“Are you mad?”
“No.” Len sighed. “You … I … fuck. I can’t do this while I’m driving.”
“Pull over, Bones,” Jim said. “Just-you’re killing me. If you’re dumping me, pull over and do it now, instead of-”
Leonard slammed his fist against the button on the dash that turned on the hazard lights, and abruptly pulled onto the shoulder of the road.
“I’m not dumping you, Jim. Jesus. Not that. I-”
“Then what, Bones? What?”
Leonard threw the transmission into ‘park’ and yanked the parking brake up. He unfastened his seatbelt, climbed across the console between the two front seats, and grabbed Jim by the front of his shirt, pulling him in roughly. He clamped his mouth over Jim’s, tasting sweat, soot, ash, and the metallic flavor of too much compressed air.
His other hand, in counterpoint to the one engaged in twisting Jim’s shirt, cradled the side of Jim’s face delicately. He traced over the roughness of a day’s worth of stubble, the silkiness of an earlobe, and came back across to a wet cheek.
Wet?
He pulled away to see why Jim was crying.
“Bones?”
They weren’t Jim’s tears. Leonard swiped his hand angrily across his face, and pulled in a deep, shuddering breath.
“Damn it, Jim.” Another breath. “I thought you were dead. Everything looked fine-and then … someone was as limp as a noodle.”
“Ahhhh, Bones.” Jim reached out, and wiped a teardrop away, with far gentler treatment than Len had graced himself with. “I’m okay.”
“Well I’m not!” Leonard looked at what his hand was doing to Jim’s shirt, and let go. “You weren’t even doing anything insane! You were just walking past a boarded up window, and-and then the whole place blew up, and I can’t stand there and watch that, Jim! I can’t!”
“I can’t promise you that nothing will happen, Bones. I can’t do that.”
“I know. And … I don’t know what my point is. I don’t know what I want,” Leonard admitted. “Your job is important. What you do is amazing. And I couldn’t ask you to stop.”
“What do you need, Bones? What can I do? Tell me, and I’ll do it. I swear.”
Leonard pulled in a deep breath, trying to pull himself together.
“I need … to take care of you. I need you to let me. I can’t do it while you’re working. But after? That’s what’s gonna make me be able to take it. Can you let me do that?”
Jim’s piercing blue eyes softened, as he finally began to understand. “Sure, Bones. I don’t know exactly what you want me to do, but sure. You can take care of me. I’ll let you. I won’t put up a stink. And there won’t be any whining. You tell me what you need to do, what you need me to do, and that’s what’ll happen. Okay?”
Leonard nodded slowly. “Yeah.”
“Even if it seems weird to you, Bones. I’m no stranger to weird.”
“But you have to tell me if I cross a line.”
“I’ll tell you. ‘Finish line,’ okay? That’s what I’ll say.”
Leonard closed his eyes and let out another breath. “Jesus, Jim. This isn’t about … I don’t have in mind a situation where you’d need a safeword. It’s about … I don’t know. It’s about my insecurities, all right? And I don’t want to make myself feel better at your emotional expense.”
“Then don’t think of it as a safeword. Just think of it as … an unambiguous code that a line has been crossed. Which I doubt it will be.”
“Okay.” Leonard refastened his seat belt, returned his hands to the steering wheel, and put the van in gear. He cleared his throat, and spoke up again.
“This is what I need to do. I want to get you rehydrated and fed, and then get you in the shower and help you get cleaned up. Then I wanna take you to bed, and when we’ve got that out of our systems, I wanna hold you while you sleep.”
“Okay, Bones.”
They drove in silence for the remainder of the way to Bones’s newly rented house. They exited the van silently, and went in the side door, taking them through the kitchen.
Leonard pointed to the seat that had become Jim’s at the table. Jim sat down, wordlessly, and waited to see what was next. Len put a pint glass and a pitcher of water in front of him.
“Drink until you can’t anymore,” he said. “You’re dehydrated.”
“Okay, Bones. Thanks.” Jim filled his glass and drained it, while Len looked on. A drop of water spilled from the glass, and made a trail through the soot and dirt on Jim’s neck. Len watched as the droplet rolled downwards, disappearing under the now-grubby collar of his t-shirt. His eye was caught by the pulse-point in Jim’s neck-slow and regular, slow and regular. Leonard allowed the rhythm to soothe him for a moment. Jim poured and drank another pint of water as Leonard looked on.
Len returned to the kitchen, and within three minutes, had whipped up scrambled eggs and toast, and poured orange juice. He pulled his own chair around the oval table until he was so close to Jim they were touching as they ate their breakfast.
“Let’s leave the dishes,” he said, “and get in the shower. ‘Cause you were right-you really do reek.”
There was no tub in Len’s house, but that situation was made up for by the fact that the shower enclosure was double-sized, tiled all around, and perfect for two. He led Jim into the bathroom, and started the water running.
Jim stood there, waiting, seeming to understand that he was not to undress himself. He allowed Len to strip him, and waited to enter the shower stall until they were both unclothed. Len guided Jim into the water stream, and watched as Jim closed his eyes and let the spray wash over his head, through his hair, rinsing out the stiffness of sweat and grime, and down his neck, obliterating the trail made by the stray droplet earlier.
“Keep your eyes closed, darlin’.” Len poured a dollop of shampoo into his hand, and rubbed his palms together, then through Jim’s spiky hair. When he was satisfied he’d gotten to every part of Jim’s scalp, he used his body to gently nudge him back into the spray, tipping his head back and using his hands to direct the flow of water to rinse Jim’s hair thoroughly.
Len soaped up a washcloth, and started washing Jim gently, from top to bottom. He could feel Jim getting more relaxed under his touch, and felt himself calming down as well.
“’s nice, Bones,” Jim said. “But … is it okay if I get a little turned on?”
Len finally had a chuckle to give to Jim. “Sure thing, long as I can too. But we’re waitin’ till I lay you down in my nice new bed to do anything much about that.”
Once Len was sure he’d washed away the grime, soot, sweat, ash, and yes, fear, he stood behind Jim for a little while, just holding him close against his chest. They were both half-hard, but they both understood that it wasn’t time to do anything about that yet. Len held his palm over the center of Jim’s chest, feeling the strength of his heartbeat. As they were similar heights, Len was just able to rest his chin on Jim’s shoulder. Jim leaned back into Len, letting him partially support him.
“Checking to make sure I’m still alive, there, Bones?”
“Pretty much, yeah.”
Len let the water flow over them for another minute or so. He’d been half expecting-okay, three-quarters expecting-that Jim would be full of wisecracks, overly cheerful quips, or just plain feistiness. But darned if the kid didn’t actually seem to get it.
The water started to cool, so Leonard shut if off. He pulled a big fluffy towel-another purchase from the Kirk-ordered shopping spree-from the bathroom cupboard. He rubbed Jim’s hair dry gently, and toweled the rest of him off, wrapping him in the towel when he was done. He repeated the process on himself, but hastily. He hung the towel up, and stood, naked in body and soul, and looked at Jim for a moment.
Jim was standing, arms at his sides, stiller and calmer and more patient than Len had ever seen him. His skin was flushed from the warmth of the shower, and his eyes no longer had the dull look of dehydration. He had some bumps and bruises-more than he usually did, and many were fresh-but he looked healthy, and alive, and at that moment, Leonard thought he was the most beautiful sight he’d ever seen.
“Jim,” he murmured, as he finally let himself step closer, finally allowed himself to touch in a way that wasn’t meant to soothe.
Jim’s eyes closed, and his head tipped back of its own accord, giving Leonard access to his throat and neck. Len kissed up and down the length of one carotid, and then the other, feeling Jim’s pulse quicken as he, too, realized the tone of the encounter had changed, and that they were on to a new act in the play.
Leonard kissed his way up the center of Jim’s throat, to his chin, and, with a hand on the back of Jim’s neck to gently tilt his head down again so he could reach, captured Jim’s lips, which parted to let him in. This time, instead of soot, darkness, and metal, Len tasted life, bright and shining. He pulled the towel off from around Jim’s waist, and pressed their bodies together.
They both sighed into the kiss, and one of them-Leonard couldn’t be quite sure who-moaned a little, as their skin, damp from the shower and the lingering humidity and warmth of the bathroom, connected, from knees to chest. Len pulled Jim in tightly, feeling the strong muscles of his back with one hand, and the hard-soft-roundness of his ass cheeks with the other. Jim’s hand trailed down Len’s back, almost hesitantly, as if he weren’t completely sure he was allowed to do anything yet.
They remained pressed together, hands roaming everywhere, as if they were exploring each other for the first time. Len nudged Jim’s long, lean legs apart with a knee, and rearranged their limbs so they each had a thigh pressed between the other’s. Their semi-hardness was a thing of the past, as they both rocked and gently swiveled their hips to generate the friction they desired.
The humid air picked up a chill, and at the first hint of a shiver from Jim-though he couldn’t tell if the cause was the cooling of the air, or something else entirely-Leonard pulled away.
“C’mon, sweetheart. Bedroom.”
“Yeah, I think so, Bones.”
They both shivered slightly as Len opened the door and the cooler air of the hallway hit their naked, slightly damp bodies. Len kept a hand on Jim as they crossed the hallway to the bedroom. He urged Jim onto his back on the bed-not that it took much urging-and returned their bodies to the same positions they’d been in in the bathroom, except this time with his weight pressing Jim into the bed, and ramping up the intensity of the friction between them.
Jim gasped as Len rocked his hips experimentally, and Len replied with a soft hum of pleasure. He trailed one of his hands from Jim’s shoulder, down his arm, to clasp his hand, entwining their fingers. Jim squeezed back, at the same time caressing Len lightly up and down his back with the other hand.
Len held onto Jim’s hand, and broke their kiss, just to move on to other things. He found every nick, every ding, scar, and mark, old or new, and kissed them all, spending more time on the ones he knew were fresh from today’s close encounter with the backdraft.
“Bones,” Jim whispered, “I’m okay.”
“Startin’ to believe that, darlin’. Startin’ to. Gotta run a few more tests, though, just to be sure.”
“Better safe than s-fuck, Bones!”
Len’s lips finished their first-aid routine, at a bruise on the point of Jim’s right hip, and gently but without warning closed on the head of Jim’s cock. He had to let go of Jim’s hand to do what he wanted, which was to work the bottom of the shaft with his hand while swirling and laving the head with his mouth. Jim moaned and panted as Leonard worked on him, and shouted as Len tongued the tiny slit.
Len pulled back, just for a moment, to look at Jim, spread out for him on the bed, and saw how alive he was, how vibrant, how perfectly and completely undone. He returned to his delightful task, and this time, heeded Jim’s warning that he was about to come, finishing him off with a hand, just to be able to see Jim’s face as ecstasy pulled him briefly from the world. Len watched, still, as Jim returned to himself, as he slowly opened his eyes and found Len’s.
“Did I pass?”
Len chuckled, and moved up Jim’s body to kiss him. “Yeah, you sure did. Flying colors.”
“That’s good. Because you know what you should do now, since you’re sure I’m okay?”
“What’s that?”
“I’m pretty sure you should fuck me. It’s, you know, life affirming and all.”
“If you insist,” Len said.
“I do, I really do,” Jim said. “Because Bones-look at you. Or, I could blow you, which is also fun, but I think you really need to fuck me, and frankly, I really need to get fucked.”
“So what am I waiting for, right?” Leonard said.
“My point exactly,” Jim said. He squirmed around until he was able to hook one ankle over Len’s shoulder, and double-jointedly opened a drawer under the bed, managing to grab the lube and a condom with one hand. “Tada!”
“Show off,” Len said, grinning. He appropriated the lube, squeezed some onto the palm of his hand, and rubbed his hands together to warm the substance. “Since you’re feeling so flexible, why don’t you move those pillows up there under your sweet ass, so we can get down to it.”
Jim showed off some more, bridging to shove pillows under his lower back. “And for my next trick, I’ll-”
“You’ll lie back, and you’ll get stuffed full of my cock, like you were born for it.”
“Yeah, that’s what I was gonna say, uuhhhhhn, Bones …”
Len started with one finger, pulling, gently stretching, and every so often, reaching in and stroking the spot that he knew would get the reaction he was looking for. He quickly added a second digit, scissoring, turning, spreading, until the third joined easily. His other hand fondled Jim’s balls, stroked the inside of his thigh, did whatever it felt like, and soon Jim’s cock perked up again, and got its share of attention as well. Inside another minute, Jim was panting and writhing again, and Leonard’s cock felt painfully hot and hard as he rolled the condom over it.
“Ahh, Bones, you gotta fuck me now now now, gonna come again and I want to feel you …”
Len clenched his jaw and bit his lip to hold onto what was left of his control as he added another squeeze of lube to his gloved cock, and pushed the head up against Jim’s hole.
“More more more, now, Bones, do it do it! Please!”
They groaned together as Leonard took Jim at his word, pushing in slowly but steadily, until his balls rested against Jim’s ass.
“Go go go,” Jim said, his voice practically a sob, and Len didn’t need any more begging or pleading; couldn’t have stopped anyhow. He pulled out not quite all the way, and pushed back in, faster and harder than before, and started a steady rhythm, echoed by the sounds they were both making. The pace of the thrusts and cries increased in parallel, and Len’s hand worked up and down on Jim’s cock in time with the rest of their music.
Jim came for the second time that morning, clutching the sheets and shouting, and the rhythmic shuddering and pulsing of his muscles around Len’s cock sent him right over the edge, calling Jim’s name.
“Ahhhn, Jim, mine, mine!”
Len collapsed onto Jim, their chests slippery against each other with clean sweat. Once Len was aware of anything again, he realized he was being lifted several inches each time Jim breathed, and rolled off, still staying as close as he could without crushing Jim. With the very last iota of energy he had left, he grabbed the box of tissues from the floor by the bed, removed the condom, cleaned them both up a bit, and tossed the whole mess, wadded in another tissue, onto the floor, for consideration later in the day. He pulled the sheet and a light blanket over them, and flopped back down onto the mattress.
He rested his head on Jim’s chest, and listened to his breathing, his pulse. His eyelids were heavy as he picked his head up one more time to kiss Jim on the lips, and then laid his head back down, right over Jim’s heart. Jim’s arms came up and circled around Len, and they snuggled under the light covers.
“Love you, Bones. Really love you.”
Len’s own breathing stopped, just for a moment, until he recalled how important respiration was.
“Love you too, Jim.”
Chapter 12: Extensions
A/N: When a fire is starved of oxygen-for instance, in a compartment that has few or no openings to let air in-combustion slows, but the fuel (combustible solids, and the flammable gases they let off when broken down by high heat) remain at high temperatures. If oxygen is suddenly let in-for instance, if a door is opened, a window breaks, or fire burns a hole through the structure-combustion can increase drastically and explosively, in an extremely dangerous event. A sulfurous smoke color, the appearance of the fire “sucking” air into the structure, and the appearance that a fire is “breathing” by puffing smoke and sucking air alternately through the same holes or cracks are all warnings of potential backdraft.