i want to see you a little brighter now - niall/zayn, liam/louis - pg-13
Title: i want to see you a little brighter now
Pairing(s): Niall Horan/Zayn Malik, Liam Payne/Louis Tomlinson
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 2,575
Warning(s): Unbeta'ed.
Summary:Niall would just like to do his job. Now, if the new firehouse candidate could just stop staring at him, he wouldn't be so distracted.
Disclaimer I do not own them. If I did, they would always be wearing firefighting gear. ;)
Shamelessly stole all the vehicle numbers and procedures and such from Chicago Fire.
I like italics.
Also, I've been watching too much Hawaii Five-0, and they all say babe, ALL THE TIME. I'M GOING TO START CALLING PEOPLE THAT BY ACCIDENT.
“Heyo! New candidate in the house!”
Niall looks up when Louis’ voice pierces the, up until then, relative peace and quiet of the firehouse. Liam is at the counter trying to convince Leigh-Anne why Batman is actually the best, while Leigh-Anne seems to be trying to decide whether waiting for the coffee is worth it. He shakes his head at the one-sided argument and then he sees the extremely fucking attractive, tattooed, and quaffed guy standing next to Louis.
He abandons the remains of his lunch and ambles up to Louis and the new guy.
“This is Niall Horan, my fellow paramedic and official firehouse cook. Niall, this is Zayn Malik, house fifty-one’s new candidate.”
Niall smiles and offers his hand to the guy. The guy takes it and shakes it firmly, and Niall wonders how he manages to keep his hands so soft, being a fire fighter and all.
“Nice to meet you.” They exchange smiles and then Niall drops his hand, turning to Louis. “Harry must be thrilled.”
“Oh he is. I didn’t think he could smile any bigger than he did when he found out this morning.” Louis laughs, “He even tried to cook me breakfast this morning.”
Niall shakes his head, “I don’t even want to know.” Louis just raises an eyebrow and waits him out. “Okay, what was it this time?”
“Nutmeg.”
Niall mimes gagging. “Nope. Not in eggs. I’ll catch you guys later.”
He claps Louis on the shoulder, nods at Zayn, and makes his way to his ambulance. He still has a few things to check up on before they get sent out again.
He doesn’t think he can stand there any longer with Zayn’s gaze burning into the side of his face.
*
Niall’s just put the finishing touches on his bacon and egg sandwich the next morning when the sirens go off for the first time that day.
”Engine fifty-one, truck eighty-one, ambulance sixty-one, squad three. Multiple vehicle accident, corner of main and tenth.”
He stares sadly at his sandwich for a moment before snapping to attention and rushing to his ambulance. Louis swings up into the driver’s seat and starts it quickly.
“Have a good breakfast, Nialler?”
“Not as good as you apparently.”
Louis grins at him with kiss bitten lips and winks.
Liam and Louis are the worst kept secret at the fire station. Actually, they’re not even a secret. They’re disgustingly happy and everyone is jealous. And they can’t even hate them because they’re so damn adorable about it.
Niall shakes his head and then they’re off. As soon as they leave the station both of the men quiet and prepare themselves for the task ahead.
When they arrive at the scene, Niall groans quietly to himself. Not only are there multiple cars crushed together, some of them are smoking.
Niall drops down from the ambulance, kit in hand, and immediately zeroes in on a screaming girl about a hundred feet from him.
“My daddy! Someone help my daddy!” Niall runs over to her and sees where she’s pointing, and his heart drops.
“Sweetheart, I’m going to help your daddy, but I need you to go wait with my friend over there, okay?” She nods at him and he brushes a curl out of her face as he get’s Zayn’s attention and beckons him over. “Bring her to Harry, they won’t need ladders today, and then come help me.” He glances over at the injured man, “And bring a backboard.”
Zayn nods and leads the girl away while Niall rushes to his patient’s side. The man is in bad shape, bleeding heavily from a gash in his abdomen and slumped against a fence.
Niall rips open his kit and opens a packet of gauze, covering the man’s wound and applying pressure, “Sir, can you hear me?”
“Seatbelt…should’ve been wear-” He breaks off with a wet cough and Niall frowns.
“Don’t try to talk sir, but try and stay awake for me.”
He hears someone approach from behind him and looks up to see Zayn.
“I need help with this guy.”
“Anything.”
“Keep pressure on this while I get a collar on him.” Niall grabs Zayn’s hand and places it on the gauze over the man’s wound. He settles the collar around the man’s neck and then moves to his head.
“On three we’re going to lift him.” Zayn nods and gets a grip on the man’s legs, nodding at Niall again when he’s secure. “One, two, three.”
They settle the man on the board and Zayn straps him in while Niall swings his kit onto his back.
“Let’s get him into the ambo.”
It’s only eight in the morning and Niall feels like this is going to be a very long day.
*
It’s their third call of the day, and Niall could swear he’s being harassed by the new candidate.
He’s not too upset about it though.
“You’re a fire fighter and you smoke? Seems like punch line to a really horrific joke.”
“I’m not moronic enough to start a fire with my cigarettes.”
Niall shrugs and continues to pack up his supplies, secretly glad that Zayn decided to take his smoke break where he could talk to Niall, rather than any of the other fire fighters hanging around. “Yeah, well, when you get admitted for lung cancer, don’t come crying to me.”
“Maybe you’ll end up saving me.” Zayn smirks and blows out a stream of smoke before dropping his butt on the ground and grinding it out.
“Hardy har. Ass.”
“See you back at the station, Niall.” Zayn grins at Niall and swings back up into his truck, already starting a conversation with Harry.
“If you’re lucky.” Niall straightens and picks up his bag, turning his face away from the truck so no one will see the grin that’s stretching across his face.
*
Niall was right, and this time he really doesn’t like it.
He stumbles into the locker room at five that night and slumps onto the bench in front of his locker and sighs in relief. There’d been seven calls that day, one of which was a false alarm, and then a flat tire on the way back to the station.
Niall doesn’t look up when he hears someone else enter the locker room, just digs his fingers harder into his eyes hoping he can push his impending headache away.
“Hey, mate. You alright?” Niall can’t help but smile a little at the sound of Zayn’s voice and blinks up at him.
“Yeah, just...a long day.” He rests his head on his hand again and closes his eyes. It wouldn’t be hard to fall asleep right here. In fact…
Niall jerks awake but it’s too late. He’s already falling backwards.
“Whoa!” Zayn’s arms come up to catch Niall under the arms and settle him back on the bench. He sits next to Niall and Niall slumps against his warm shoulder, reveling in the warm skin exposed by the tank top Zayn had stripped down to.
“’m more tired than I thought.” Niall murmurs, struggling and failing to keep his eyes open.
“How’re you getting home?” Zayn asks quietly, reaching down with one hand to pack his bag. Niall yawns and winces at his jaw cracking before replying.
“I’m driving, of course.”
“Of course.” Niall hears Zayn scoff. “Actually, I’ll take you. Paramedic dying in an accident? Seems like the punch line of a horrific joke to me.”
Niall doesn’t have the energy, or the words, to argue right now. He just lets himself be manhandled into his jacket and steered out into the cold parking lot. The fucking arctic temperature of January slaps Niall in the face, and he frowns as his eyes start to water involuntarily.
After he gives Zayn his address, he starts to nod off again in the car, lulled to sleep by the heat on full blast and the low tones of Zayn humming along to the radio. He somehow made pop music soothing.
He stumbles out of the car when they reach his apartment complex and ducks back down to smiles brightly at Zayn.
“You are quite literally a life saver.”
“I know.” The light from the streetlamps throw shadows on Zayn’s face, and Niall stares a few seconds too long when he tries to see what color Zayn’s eyes are.
He snaps out of it when he realizes Zayn is staring back at him with an odd look on his face.
“What?”
“Nothing.” Zayn just smiles at him and Niall squints back.
“Thanks for the ride.”
“Anytime.”
Zayn watches Niall make his way to the building and doesn’t drive away until Niall is inside.
*
Niall doesn’t remember he doesn’t have a way to get to work until he gets to the parking lot and realizes his car isn’t in his parking spot.
“Shit.”
He takes out his phone and calls Louis, but he’s out of luck because he and Harry have already left for the day. Liam lives way too far out of the way for Niall to even think of asking him. He scrolls through his contacts hoping for a miracle and when he gets to the end he just stares at the phone disbelievingly.
Because there, at the bottom, is a name that definitely wasn’t there yesterday morning.
Zayn :)
“When in the fuck?” Niall stares at the six little characters for far too long before he gives in and calls.
“Hello?” Niall kicks at a piece of gravel and glares at it when he misses.
“Zayn? It’s Niall.”
“Niall! How are you?” And Niall doesn’t think anyone has been so happy to talk to him in a long time.
“Not awake enough for your decibel. Since you so kindly gave me a ride last night, I’m now without one this morning. You ass.”
Zayn laughs and promises to be there in ten minutes, throwing in a “Bye, babe.” that has Niall shaking his head in disbelief.
He can feel another long day coming on.
*
Niall spends the car ride super aware of everything his face is doing, where he places his hands, and how he can’t seem to stop talking.
He can’t not be self conscious when Zayn doesn’t stop staring at him. It’s actually not very safe with the amount of staring Zayn is doing instead of keeping his eyes on the road.
They’re called out as soon as they arrive at the fire house and Niall jumps into the ambulance. Louis takes one look at his face and says, “Well shit. What happened to you?”
“What’s wrong with my face?”
“Mate, you’re like, glowing.”
“Zayn won’t stop staring at me and I don’t know what I did-“
Niall swats ineffectively at him when Louis laughs so hard he starts to cry.
“Look at you getting all flustered because a pretty boy likes you!”
“You fucking suck.”
*
“Can I talk to you for a minute?” Niall looks up from the spaghetti sauce he’s stirring for the house’s lunch.
“What’s up?” Niall looks up at Zayn is smiling at him and Niall can’t help but smile back, though he wonders what he ever did.
“So I don’t have the excuse of driving you home tonight, but I was wondering-“
“NIALL!”
Zayn and Niall turn to see Louis sliding into the common area, screeching at the top of his lungs, being chased by a determined, and very pissed off, Perrie.
Perrie has a habit of falling asleep in the bunks after her shift instead of going home, and Louis has a habit of pulling pranks on her.
Niall, who is now being used as a human shield, looks over to see Zayn looking frustrated, but their conversation can’t continue because the siren is sounding.
He sighs, turns off the burner, and grabs Louis’ wrist to yank him towards the ambulance.
*
Niall has really had enough.
All he wants is to eat a hot meal, maybe I don’t know, once a week, sleep at least a fraction of the time he works, and not be in peril every second of his life.
He’s a paramedic. Not a cop, or a fire fighter, or fucking Batman.
He’s a paramedic, yet he’s hanging on for dear life to the ledge of a building. Some ass-backward fucking shit for brains fucking asshole had resisted the medical attention Niall was so kindly giving him, and shoved Niall off a fucking roof.
“Niall!”
“This is motherfucking bullshit!” He yells at Harry. He looks up at Zayn’s panicked face, just out of reach on the roof above him, and hopes to god Harry is on a ladder closer than he sounds because he’s not sure how much longer he can hold on. “I didn’t sign up for this!”
Niall still can’t get a glimpse of Harry, but he sighs in relief when he can hear the ladder hit the side of the building beneath him. He waits until Harry’s hands are steadying him, and his feet are settled on the rungs, before slowly letting go of the ledge.
His knees give out, and he slumps forward on the ladder, and it’s okay, because Harry’s got him.
He looks up and gives Zayn a thumbs up, who grins back with a soot smudged face, and Niall doesn’t think he’s seen anything more beautiful.
And then he’s throwing up over the side of the ladder.
*
“Jesus, I’m fine. If you poke me one more goddamn time Louis I will break your finger.”
“Whatever man, you scared the hell outta me.” Louis pokes Niall one more time just to spite him and packs up his kit. He’s sporting his own nasty looking bruise from the same asshole that had pushed Niall over the edge.
Niall gestures towards it, “It’s only fair that you let me take a look at that then.”
Louis scoffs, “It’s nothing. I’m a manly man.”
“Sure about that?” Liam’s approached the two of them from around the side of the ambulance and Louis’ face brightens, and Niall has to look away because damn, it’s like staring into the sun.
“Lee-yum!”
“What happened to your face?! Babe, you have to be more careful!”
Niall grins and gets away from them before Liam’s worrying turns into his usual “Kisses make it better” scenario.
He bumps into someone as he rounds the bumper of the ambulance and is glad for the steadying hands on his elbows, because wow. He’s more lightheaded than he thought from losing his breakfast all over eighth street.
Yeah. He was getting lots of shit for that later.
One second he’s being steadied, and the next he’s being hugged tighter than he’s ever been hugged before.
“I was so worried.” Niall relaxes in Zayn’s arms when he realizes it’s him. He instantly feels less lightheaded and the urge to throw up again has left him. Hugs. Who knew?
“Zayn, I’m fine, really. I-“
“Would you like to go to dinner with me?”
“Um,” Niall is speechless for a second too long, and Zayn’s face starts to fall. “Yeah. Yes! Yes, of course I would like to go to dinner with you.”
And wow, Niall didn’t think anyone could grin brighter than Louis, but Zayn right now could compete with him.
Zayn leans in and kisses Niall on the cheek, and Niall is not blushing like a teenage girl. He’s not.
This day could stand to last a little longer.