Fire & Ice (Extended Edition)

Chapter 7

“ Sir, yes!” Tripp can’t help but cry out as Leander thrusts into him from behind, pushing his bare belly up against the railing of the balcony where the edge digs mercilessly into soft flesh. Between that and the cutting cold of the air whipping around them up here on the twentieth floor, Tripp’s already lasted a lot longer than he might have bet. Thankfully, the sliding glass doors to Leander’s apartment are thrown open behind them, a wide swath of warm air wafting out and offering some semblance of relief, a slight buffer against the early morning freeze.

“If you can’t— ugh— keep that pretty mouth shut, I will shut it for you, and I will take away your hand,” Leander admonishes, his pace slowing to something deep and frustrating as he wraps himself around Tripp’s back. That’s enough of a warning for Tripp to bite his lip, to tuck his chin down against his chest, and concentrate on finishing. With his eyes closed, it’s much easier to forget the cold and the fact that he’s completely naked, being fucked in plain sight of anyone who cares to look.

The view from Leander’s apartment looks out over the city and is fairly high-set, which means that from the street below, one would really have to be straining to catch sight of the two of them. Nonetheless, the balcony faces several other apartment buildings and corporate offices across the way, and even in the pre-dawn, five a.m. stillness, there are plenty of lights illuminating various windows to make the risk substantially real.

The thought of being watched, whether purposeful or accidental, is something Tripp hasn’t been able to stop thinking about since his brother’s bachelor party and Suzy. It’s led to several interesting discussions and offers from Leander, including a possible trip to some kink club he knows about downtown, which sounds intimidating as hell. This—this brutal fuck on Lee's balcony—seemed like a pretty harmless way of testing the waters.

So far, Tripp loves it. Maybe not the cold—that’s less than thrilling, and not doing much for his ability to keep it up, either. Also, the fact that Lee is in sweatpants and an unzipped hoodie behind him is just so Lee, Tripp wouldn’t even know where to start, but being exposed and violated in public is fucking hot . In his mind, Tripp imagines the people across the way looking out their windows, watching him getting railed, or maybe Lee's nextdoor neighbors hearing his badly-bitten-off moans and just knowing what’s happening to him.

Between that and Lee's torso pressed warm and inviting up against his back, his own hand jerking his cock, and Lee's dick nailing his prostate, the whole situation escalates towards a peak fairly quickly.

“Stunning,” Leander praises when Tripp manages to finish, despite his shivering. The thrusting slows for a second, and at first, Tripp thinks he’s going to get to go inside. But then Lee reaches underneath his armpits to cup his shoulders for leverage and sets about fucking him harder, rougher than he was before. Despite the prickling chill and the icy metal of the railing against his skin, Tripp can’t help the way his eyes roll back in his head, or the noises that are punched out of his throat at the overstimulation.

It’s just on the right side of too much, and a tear— fine, two —escapes from one eye, trickling wetly down his cheek as Leander groans and finishes achingly hot and even more so for the cold, inside of him.

Before Tripp can even straighten up fully, Lee's hoodie is already around his shoulders and he’s being helped back inside, a strong arm wrapped steadyingly around his waist. The balcony doors slide closed and then Lee is leading him to the kitchen for orange juice and a warm cloth. Same as it ever was, whether they’re heading back to bed or not.

They’re not, unfortunately—not today, and as Tripp watches Leander rinse the used rag off in the sink, he regrets that fact more than usual. The lighting is low inside Lee's space, just a single lamp in the living area casting a dim glow out into the apartment as a whole. It’s quiet as they move around each other instinctively, in routines that have now become second nature. This feels domestic, what they’re doing, and every time Tripp has to leave or break one of these moments in particular, he worries that it won’t happen again.

Sure, it’s a little sad, a bit desperate, but that’s what Tripp’s life has come to these days. Clinging to every scrap he can steal with Lee, holding on for dear life to any glimpse of what might lie beyond this power dynamic relationship they have—if they could ever get there.

Tripp sighs and leans back against the countertop, still naked save for Lee's hoodie, and scrubs a hand over his tired eyes.

“What?” Leander asks softly, wringing out the rag and dropping it into the basin to sit until he throws a load of laundry in later. The sheets from the playroom and yesterday’s uniform, probably. He’s predictable that way— Tripp can predict his movements, because he’s in Lee's space so often now, he just knows. Tripp hates how much he loves that he just knows.

“Nothing,” he replies off-handedly, forcing a yawn, the fa?ade of which Leander’s all-seeing eyes undoubtedly pierce through directly, though he doesn’t call Tripp out. “Just tired. Thinking about how friggin’ long this day is going to be.”

With a low hum of acknowledgement, Leander nudges Tripp’s arm away from his side so that he can step in and press up against him, hugging him around the waist before dragging a gentle hand down over his cheek. The result is Tripp’s face turning into his, their lips meeting softly, affectionately. Leander kisses him long and slow, not too deep but plenty intentional, and Tripp can’t say that he doesn’t enjoy it as much as falling asleep in Lee's arms. It’s a good close second, anyway.

Lee takes a long time to pull back, probably longer than Tripp has to spare, considering the hour. He should be the one to cut it off, Tripp knows damn well he should, but it’s hard to say no when Lee is like this. While his logical side is certain that his friend is just being careful—yes, Tripp is fully aware that’s all that’s happening here—since he has to leave so soon after a scene, his goofy brain insists on floating the suggestion that Lee is seeking comfort and affection, too.

Really, in theory, he supposes it could be both. Who the hell knows? These days, Tripp finds himself increasingly unsure of what’s right or real anymore at all. He’s finding it harder and harder to parse out what the truth is, at least where Lee's feelings for him are concerned. It’s not easy to distinguish between what’s true tenderness and what is ultimately a fantasy that his own hormone-addled body dreamt up just to torture him.

“I gotta go, sw—Sir,” Tripp tells Lee, barely managing to stop himself from calling Leander ‘sweetheart,’ and spitting out the appropriate moniker. “Duty calls,” he adds apologetically, extricating himself from Leander’s grasp before unbuckling his collar and making his way to the hallway leading to the front door.

Luckily, he thought ahead last night, leaving his folded uniform out there in preparation for this very moment. Tripp knew that he’d want to spend every second up to this point with Lee and belonging to Lee, so why not make it easy on himself? Briefly, he wonders if he should shower again but then decides, fuck it . Plans on the docket are to spend the entire day packed up and training in the County’s burn building, so he’s going to smell like absolute ass by the end of it, anyway.

While Tripp dresses in the relative darkness of the hallway, Leander leans one shoulder on the edge of the doorway to the kitchen and watches. He looks stupidly inviting with his wild bedhead and his soft gray sweatpants, bare chest radiating warmth the way Tripp knows it does, strong arms just begging for him to crawl back into them.

It’s tempting. He could call off sick…

No. Tripp dismisses that idea outright, or at least before it can grow roots and take hold, because damn, does he want to do that. But he can’t bail on his crew today: trainings are important—they’re the difference between a newbie panicking and bailing during a live burn, or taking a deep breath and moving forward to save someone’s life. They’re the line between an interior attack crew going in prepared and competent, and someone’s home burning to the ground.

As a Lieutenant, it’s Tripp’s job to hand the collective knowledge he stores in his head (a lot of it learned the hard way) down to the next generation, the firefighters who might very likely someday be the difference between his own life or death.

No calling off allowed, seductive as the reasoning may be. Anyway, he’ll see Leander tonight. All night, and it’s gonna be a big one.

“Take my sweatshirt with you. Wear it under your coat,” Leander instructs, and Tripp can recognize from his tone that it’s not a request. He complies, but also shoots his friend a rueful look.

“I’m fine,” Tripp assures him, though after zipping up the maroon hoodie, he has to admit that feeling and smelling Leander all around him is not a bad thing. Not at all. Truth be told, Tripp’s glad he has an excuse to accept the offer so readily. “I promise, I’ll text you if I’m feeling off. Swear,” he says, holding up three fingers like a Boy Scout.

Eyes narrowed, Leander stands in the middle of the hallway and chews his thumbnail, concerned and skeptical, as usual. After what happened early on in their relationship, Lee hates for either of them to leave quickly after a scene and without extended aftercare. While it doesn’t happen often—and the few times it has, they’ve kept in close contact and everything has been fine—Leander still worries, and he makes no secret about it.

“Promise me,” he says eventually.

Tripp laughs, but it does feel good that Leander cares so much. On his way out of the apartment, Tripp winks as he tosses his keys and catches them in his hand before waving. “Cross my heart, sunshine,” he quips, skating swiftly out the door and letting it slam shut behind him before Leander can say anything about “ inappropriate nicknames, Tripp” .

During the ride down in the elevator, Tripp finds himself whistling, and (despite the lingering twinge in his ass), really feeling great. Before he even reaches his car in the garage, Tripp’s phone is buzzing in his pocket, and he smiles when he sees Lee's message lighting up the screen.

Before starting up the vehicle, Tripp fires one back, assuring Leander that he’s doing just fine and promising to contact him immediately if anything changes. His fingers stumble over the sign-off, wanting to say something more, some message of affection or similar to show Lee how much he appreciates him, but at the last second, Tripp reels himself in.

He winds up sending a cocky, “ Laters, Baby,” which Leander will either be totally appalled by or not understand at all. Considering the nearly-nonexistent pop-culture database the man has to draw on, Tripp is betting on the latter, though who knows. In addition to being oblivious to most major media produced in the last fifty years, Lee is also wildly protective of the BDSM community’s integrity, so 50 Shades feels like something he should definitely know and hate.

By the time he arrives at Station Fifteen, Tripp has already put his and Lee's exchange out of his mind, focusing fully on the work he has ahead of him. Their station is going out of service for most of Tripp’s twelve-hour shift today, the entire crew heading out for a scheduled training at the County fireground. While they’re off-status with the dispatch center, Station Eleven will cover any calls that come in.

Shifting his car into park, Tripp steps out and stretches, waving good morning to Theo, who salutes casually as he rounds the side of the building and enters through the open bay doors. Max and Lisha are only a few steps behind him, bickering about something Tripp can’t discern from the distance and doesn’t try.

Sibling bullshit, he deduces, as Max catches Tripp’s gaze and rolls his eyes before he and his sister disappear inside. Tripp’s all too familiar with that . Probably for the best that Beau didn’t wind up a firefighter—one of them would have undoubtedly ended up secured to a backboard and tied to the top of the ladder truck by now. Heck, weekly.

It’s cold out this morning, though thankfully not as bitter as the week prior, when they had that all-nighter three-alarm blaze. Even still, Tripp can see his breath in the crisp pre-dawn air, but maybe after the sun comes up it won’t be so biting . He’s going to be spending the majority of the day inside a controlled burning building, so at the very least, the low temperature will be relieving when he comes back out.

“Hey, Gunnar.” Tripp nods to greet his Captain when he strolls into the bay, glancing around to survey the scene. The rest of his crew are already shuffling around, packing up the trucks and getting ready to move out.

“‘Sup, brotha?” Gunnar tips his chin in Tripp’s direction as he slings a bag of gear into the front passenger seat of Engine Fifteen’s cab. “You’re awfully cheery for this early in the mornin’. What’s gotten into you?”

Tripp grins widely as he reaches the gear racks and kicks off his duty boots in favor of stepping into his fire-rated ones, stomping them on before pulling up his bunker pants. He collects his jacket and helmet and throws them into the back of the engine’s cab, behind Gunnar’s seat before answering. “Who says I’m not the one getting into someone else?”

The laugh that explodes heartily from Gunnar’s chest should probably be insulting, but Tripp’s unbothered, lets it roll right off his back. He got laid this morning, who cares what the fuck anyone else thinks about it? “They say if you can dream it, you can achieve it, sugar,” Gunnar declares with another guffaw and a rough slap to Tripp’s shoulder. “It’s downright adorable you think any of us believes you’re a top.”

“Shut up,” Tripp grunts, shoving Gunnar as hard as he can manage and barely budging him. Fuck Gunnar and his stupid-huge muscles. It’s not as if Tripp’s small, but Gunnar’s a brick shithouse. He chuckles as he shrugs Tripp off, turning away to walk towards the middle of the bay, where he can address everyone more effectively.

“Alrigh’, let’s get a move on, slackers,” Gunnar yells, clapping his hands together. “Fire ain’t gonna start itself.”

The ride to the training grounds is relaxing for Tripp, as much as being at work can be when he’d rather be at home, buried under the covers with Lee. The city flies by outside his window, turning first into sprawling industrial complexes and factories before becoming increasingly rural as they reach the outskirts. The slowly-rising sun in the winter sky is reflected off of towering windows and still-sleeping cars, pink and lazy in its journey to wake up.

Around him, Tripp’s fellow crew members shoot the shit and laugh, but Tripp’s content to sit quietly, running through drills in his head and thinking about everything he has to do, both today and tonight. He feels oddly comfortable, secure, even. Looking forward to seeing Lee later and spending the night with both him and his brother at Beau and Bri's rehearsal dinner, but not desperate for it or needy.

Just… happy. Content with the way things are. His life is damn good right now. Tripp can’t even imagine returning to the way things used to be before he and Lee jumped into this whole thing they have going together, wouldn’t know what to do if he suddenly had to try.

In the pocket of his pants, Tripp’s phone vibrates, but it’s too much of a pain to reach under his bunker gear and dig it out when he’ll just have to put it back. Leaving any device in an outer layer would be a great way to end up with a melted hunk of plastic and be out a few hundred dollars for a new phone, so…no. It’s probably just Lee checking in on him, anyway. He’s such a mother hen after they scene. That thought makes Tripp smile, makes him grateful. He turns his nose into the hood of Lee's sweatshirt that he’s still wearing, closing his eyes and inhaling the scent deeply.

Damn, Tripp thinks approvingly. Why doesn’t he steal Lee's shit more often?

The County’s fireground is available for any company in the local area to use for live burn training, City fire services included. It only has to be reserved ahead of time, and whatever potential scenarios approved by the County Commissioners. Not that those talking heads know anything about fire safety, and Tripp snorts when he thinks about them “approving” anything. As a Lieutenant, his own worries are mostly operational and practical, he steers clear of anything that would require wheeling and dealing with upper, upper management in that way.

That’s Chief shit, so Mickey and Walter's gig, or maybe Gunnar’s, if he’s extra-unlucky that week.

When Theo pulls the engine to a stop about a hundred feet from the main burn building, Tripp glances out the window and spots Chief Mickey right away. He’s wearing his white helmet and leaning against the Sup vehicle impatiently. On the ground next to him are several huge stacks of wood pallets, bushels of hay, and some assorted other “Class A” materials they’ll use to stoke up a rager. All of the fire-fodder has to be brought inside the buildings, and no way is Mickey carting that stuff up multiple flights of stairs himself.

As Tripp listens to Gunnar taking them off-status with dispatch, Station Fifteen’s ladder and rescue trucks both pull to a stop behind the engine. Crews from the platoons scheduled opposite Tripp’s and an entire truckload of academy-fresh trainees soon to be turned loose on the department as a whole are packing them full, and they spill out like ants fleeing a smoking hill.

Ironic.

Every single person is here to participate in the planned drills—more specifically, they’re all here to learn from Tripp.

Damn, is he glad Lee let him blow off the lion’s share— ha— of his nervous energy before facing this shit.

Hopping down out of the truck—and noting disappointedly that the risen sun hasn’t remotely burned the chill from the air—Tripp waves hello to Mickey and then rounds on the burn building to assess his canvas, internally reviewing his plan of attack.

“Coffee’s on the picnic table,” Mickey grunts in his direction, before leaning sideways to holler around him at a gaggle of trainees socializing and dawdling awkwardly in front of the ladder truck. “Hey, you rookies just planning on watching while a real house burns to the ground, or what? Stop actin’ like spoiled princesses and haul this junk up to the second floor.”

From over at the picnic table—one of several placed beneath a pavilion structure meant to shelter onlookers from rain, water, falling debris, and sun—Tripp stifles a laugh. He turns away so that the newbies don’t see him smirking as he pours himself a coffee from one of the many Boxes of Joe littering the aged wood. There’s a giant stack of donuts there, too, and Tripp wastes no time in shoving more than a mouthful’s worth of powdered deliciousness into his face.

No question, this is the best part of any training—free food. With any luck, they’ll get hoagies for lunch, hopefully from that place he loves down the street. Fuck, yeah. Once his belly is full and there’s caffeine enroute to his veins, Tripp turns his attention back to the fireground.

The “burn building” they’re working out of today is actually two adjacent concrete structures, built specifically to train firefighters and rescue personnel using simulations that mimic real life as closely as possible. The wing closest to Tripp’s engine was constructed to resemble a three-story rowhome, a residential dwelling, hundreds of which are found all over the city. Alternatively, the complex to the right of the house mimics a four-story commercial or industrial structure. Both are important to master, and each requires an entirely different approach to do so.

For Tripp, the teaching struggle lies in where to start and what to focus on as the major touchstones. On deciding what is most important, what the priorities are to drive home, especially when handling a bunch of wet-behind-the-ear probies. There are a million things they could do during a live burn today, hours worth of exercises and training using either structure, and Mickey’s left it completely up to Tripp to pare their maneuvers down to the essentials.

He takes a deep breath and lets it out. Alright, he thinks, Let’s do this.

“Not gonna make us run sprinkler drills on the industrial side, are you?” Aydin appears at Tripp’s side, helping himself to a cup of coffee. “Fuckin’ cold out.”

Tripp scoffs. “In this weather? What, you think I want my balls to fall off after I unpack? Don’t ask stupid questions. We’ll do those in the spring. Bus here yet?”

“Yep,” Aydin replies with a nod, gesturing off towards an area of the parking lot Tripp can’t see, thanks to all the fire trucks taking up space. “Medic-1 just pulled in. Your boy on today?”

“My—” Tripp startles, accidentally cuts himself off as he nearly spills his coffee, and then glares. “What did I say about stupid questions?” Leaving Aydin looking confused and sort of pitiful with his hands still raised, trying to pacify Tripp’s attitude, he stomps off.

Your boy.

Tripp wishes.

Focus. “Probies to the second floor,” Tripp hollers, swirling his hand over his head like he’s rounding them up, cowboy-style. “Time to see what you’re made of.”

Having collectively graduated from the academy and received conditional employment offers from the city, none of the newbies Tripp’s dealing with today are brand new to either fire ops or training evolutions. But everything they know is controlled—and nothing about fire in the real world is nearly so cut and dry. This is where these kids will start learning how to apply what they’ve memorized from books and in class: how to think on their feet, how to translate the theoretical to the practical, how to react when everything goes wrong and nothing that exists is how you expect it to be.

For starters, Tripp gathers them all inside the second floor of the residential side, packed like sardines into the bonfire room as Mickey lights the flame and then immediately bails. He’ll run command via radio from outside the building, just like during the real deal. Everyone that’s left inside is fully-masked and packed up at this point, except for Mac, who is stoking the fire completely unbothered by the increasing heat and smoke. He’s hanging out by the door to the fire escape, so Tripp isn’t overly worried, but he expects Mac to be forced from the room within the next few minutes.

Fire doesn’t care how tough you think you are.

Elsewhere in the two buildings, Gunnar is putting the seasoned crews from Fifteen through their paces, sending them floor-to-floor on last checks for anything out of place or unsafe. Specifically, they’re looking for crumbling walls or large cracks permeating the cement structure. It’s good practice for firefighters to spend time existing in SCBA gear with no actual risk present, but the checks are also important for safety purposes. The buildings were walked through last night and they’re regularly maintained by the company who built them, but even concrete has its limits when it comes to fire and heat.

Everything does, and the last thing any of the officers want is to douse a training fire and have the resulting steam put pressure on an already-stressed crack, resulting in half the building coming down on top of their heads.

It could happen. Nothing is truly safe or risk-free when it comes to live fire—that’s just the nature of the beast.

Tripp reminds his trainees of that fact like a broken record, using the room they’re all currently huddled in to make his point. “Stay low,” he reminds them, when a firefighter or two try to lean on the sills of closed windows to make themselves more comfortable. Hardly any of them have radios, so Tripp has to raise his voice to be heard through his apparatus and over the crackling of the fire, which means that the resulting grumble of complaints he gets in return are almost completely stifled.

“Fine, stand if you want. Your brains will roast inside your skulls, but clearly, you’re not using them for anything, anyway. This is Firefighting 101,” Tripp yells from his crouch on the other side of the blaze.

“Two hundred degrees near the floor means up to two thousand near the ceiling. You think that difference doesn’t matter when it comes to how long you’ll last inside a real burning building? Be my guest, try it out. All the faster I can weed your asses off my crew. Trust and believe, you do not want someone who doesn’t respect the danger that fire presents holding your life in their hands. Not when they’re at your back, and not when you’re trapped under burning rubble. Don’t be that person, got it?”

Clipped to his shoulder, Tripp’s radio mic crackles to life and Gunnar’s voice can be heard saying, “We’re in place, brotha. Whenever you’re ready.”

“Alright,” Tripp announces, clapping his hands together once as Mac hauls another pallet in through the doorway and throws it on top of the bonfire. The blast of oxygen from outside fuels the flames and makes them surge like a wave, licking up the closest wall and onto the ceiling. “Search and rescue drill—hand to foot chain, clear the second floor. There are at least two victims. Talk to each other. Go!”

As the trainees crawl awkwardly through the only door leading out of the room-turned-oven, Tripp watches them move with a critical eye. Each has one gloved hand on the gear-covered ankle of the firefighter in front of them, and the other alternately used for balance and to clear the ground around them.

“Echo,” he snaps, and the EMT-turned-potential-firefighter visibly jumps, even under all of her gear and down on all-fours. “You’re not clearing the space as you go! You could have easily missed a downed victim moving the way that you are. Don’t cut corners, don’t think of this as ‘practice.’ You want victims brought to you, go back to the ambulance and stay there. Rescues are on your head now, so here’s your first lesson—” Tripp pauses dramatically as Mac punctuates his sentence by tossing another broken pallet onto the blaze. “It’s always real.”

The day is exhausting. They wind up doing five full evolutions, which is an aggressive effort. The trainees participate in the first four, and then the experienced firefighters do a coordinated, advanced interior attack to combat a progressed fire on the industrial side of the burn building.

When he’s not stoking the flames, Mac is filling air bottles, one after another after another, so the training can continue uninterrupted. Slowly but surely, the newbies learn to manage their oxygen better, learn to calm down, to breathe through the stress, to relax enough to use critical thinking instead of just their automatic fight or flight reflexes and whatever passed for competency during “Essentials” class.

Under Tripp and Gunnar’s direction, they run hose line, hook up hydrants, throw ladders, learn to break into windows several stories up, rescue their fellow firefighters, and practice extinguishing blazes from both inside the structure and out. Every one of them improves, enough that by mid-afternoon, Tripp’s no longer adding to the short-list in his head of the recruits Mickey needs to fire immediately.

In fact, some of them turn it around so hard, Tripp actually feels honored to be leading them. He hopes that Mickey feels the same way about the job he’s done organizing this thing.

Echo is the real surprise. The pride Tripp feels in his chest when he sees the timid EMT leaning halfway out of a third floor window, successfully carrying a firefighter heavier than she is over her shoulder, threatens to rip his heart in two. From down on the ground, he can see Echo start to struggle, so Tripp quickly begins clapping and whipping Cody, Max, and several of the other trainees standing and watching below into a mad frenzy. They root loudly for her as she holds her own trying to get the “unconscious person” out the window and safety into the Aerial’s raised bucket.

As Echo finally succeeds in passing the boneless firefighter on her shoulder over to the two crew members waiting in the bucket with absolutely zero help from inside, the noise around Tripp is deafening. Everyone is screaming and jumping around, cheering Echo on. As soon as he’s in, the ‘downed’ firefighter stands up and pulls off his— oops, no, that’s definitely Chloe, her— helmet, and Echo yanks off her SCBA mask to reveal a face-cracking smile.

Tripp can’t even bring himself to reprimand them when Chloe leans across the space between the bucket and the window to drag Echo into a very approving kiss.

“Fuck yeah, Echo!” Tripp yells up at her, pointing his finger and nodding with approval. “That’s how we do it! Alright, you talented sons o’bitches—gender neutral, obviously—we’re changing it up. Trainees, tear down the residential structure setups, unpack, and then head to the hill where you can watch the rest of us rock out a commercial demonstration. Chloe, stop pretending to be a probie and get down here.”

Up in the bucket, Chloe kisses Echo one last time before smashing their hands together in an energetic, congratulatory, gloved high-five. The affectionate, adoring looks they continue to exchange as the bucket comes down and Echo rests her elbows on the windowsill suddenly have Tripp’s chest aching for a whole different reason, and God, is he excited to see Leander tonight. He only wishes he had a minute to strip his gear down and find his phone, to check in, but as it is, his crews are waiting for instructions on the big demo they’re facing.

Mickey sits this one out completely, allowing Gunnar and Tripp to run the entire advanced drill by themselves. It’s definitely an evaluation, for sure, but it’s also a show of trust, and one that Tripp appreciates. This final evolution includes a monster fire and a not-small amount of real danger, but under Gunnar and his leadership, the whole thing goes professionally smooth. All told, the crews put on an exhibition that Tripp feels immensely proud to have the newbies witnessing.

Sprawled out on the grass nearby, the exhausted trainees sit sweaty and red-faced with their air packs and jackets piled around them, the cold breeze a welcome reprieve after everything they’ve been through today. Tripp’s pretty sure he even sees some of them taking notes.

Once the last fire is out and the complex is cleared, the remainder of Station Fifteen’s crews file out of the damp, smoking building. They’re pulling off helmets and hoods, masks and jackets, checking in and ensuring that every person is accounted for before so much as sitting down. Everyone is visibly tired, but it’s the good kind—this was a productive, successful day for all involved. The new recruits are learning, one step closer to being considered reliable and dependable in the field. The existing crews, likewise, had a chance to brush up on their skills and reaffirm trust between co-workers, which goes a long way for both practical proficiency and morale.

The burn building will take almost a full day to cool down before it can be checked for new damage. Normally, that task would fall to Mickey—and by extension in this particular case, Tripp—but both of them are otherwise occupied tomorrow night, so Walter has volunteered to take care of it. Tripp supposes he’ll have to thank Bozo for getting him out of that one, however unintentionally.

Speaking of which, as they’re finishing packing up their gear and readying the trucks to return to the station, Tripp glances at his watch for the first time in hours. Four-thirty. Only an hour and a half until his shift is over and Lee will be meeting him at the station to head to the rehearsal. As Tripp pulls himself up and into the engine’s cab, he realizes that he should dig out his phone and find out whether Lee is going to take the bus or leave his car at Fifteen overnight.

Either way is fine, but they’re both meant to head back to his and Beau's place with the other groomsmen after dinner, and Tripp isn’t keen on him and Lee splitting up while Christian is around. Plus, one car instead of two means one less designated driver necessary, and Tripp isn’t trying to be sober for this.

Lee will probably take the bus anyway, he thinks. Lee’s always ten steps ahead of him, not that Tripp is complaining.

Just as he’s about to shove his hand down under his bunker pants and go fishing for his phone to make sure, Tripp hears Gunnar put the entire station back on ready status with the 911 Center. That’s standard procedure, since they’re now capable of responding to calls if needed. It’s neither responsible nor considerate to the covering company to keep them tied up longer than necessary—after all, they have their own territories to worry about.

They’ve also been lucky (or rather, Eleven’s been lucky, depending on your point of view), since the radio-designated fire bands have been quiet all day. As far as Tripp knows, the only things Eleven responded to in their stead were a minor accident with fluids down on the roadway (not serious and no injuries), a report of a fuel odor in a residential neighborhood (unfounded), and an automatic fire alarm at the local Walmart (accidental activation, i.e., some asshole teenager pulled it).

Really, Tripp and his crews didn’t miss out on a thing.

Of course, now that he could use some quiet—or at least some easy-to-deal-with bullshit—things go haywire. Tripp barely has his fingers wrapped around his phone in his pocket when Fifteen’s tones drop over the radio, and their activation comes alongside the station that houses the city’s high-angle rescue truck.

A ladder truck is a ladder truck and a heavy rescue is a heavy rescue, but the city is lucky enough ($$$) to have a special, well-equipped technical rescue unit that’s built specifically for certain extreme situations. It’s not tapped for action very often, and usually only by officer request, so the dispatch itself has Tripp sitting up ramrod-straight and listening intently to what comes over his headset.

“...for a rescue, caller states the victim fell approximately twenty feet over the cliff side and has a visible broken leg. Victim is conscious, unable to move, EMS has been dispatched.”

Tripp exchanges an excited glance with Max—this is definitely the real deal. As their lights and sirens activate, he mentally switches gears, putting the rehearsal completely out of his mind. Instead of evening plans, Tripp’s immediately running through various protocols for high-angle rescue, adjusted for the need to backboard or for the victim’s inability to assist due to major injury.

Since he’s trained as an EMT and has high-angle certification, it’s a near-certainty that Tripp will be one of likely two responders that will be rappelling down to rescue this person. The other will probably be from Station Ten, where the technical rescue is housed and coming from.

Just like that, all thoughts of Lee and checking his phone are shoved unceremoniously to the backburner. He’s not worried—Lee will understand, Tripp knows because their positions have been reversed more than once.

The engine carrying Gunnar, Tripp, and the rest of his crew comes to a stop on the shoulder of the highway that borders the southern side of the city. Just ahead, the roadway passes over a river that’s bordered by steep rock face on both shores. On the brush side of the shoulder’s guardrail, there’s a wide dirt strip and a path of trampled-down weeds that leads off into the woods. From experience, Tripp knows that beyond the treeline, the path runs directly adjacent and over fifty feet above the river.

In the summertime, the cops are constantly chasing kids away from this place. There’s an overlook further down that’s hidden from view of the highway, a place where teenagers like to gather and hang out, to do whatever it is kids do when no one’s watching. Drink, get high, have sex, whatever. That part isn’t so troublesome and problematic—hey, Tripp was young once, too—it’s what they tend to do with the river itself that’s worrying.

At the edge of that favored clearing sits an outcropping of rock that juts out over the river, and it’s become somewhat of a magnetic draw for daredevils to treat like a diving board. If Tripp had a nickel for every water rescue he’s been forced into because someone jumped into that river in the wrong spot and got fucked, he could pay for Bozo’s wedding. So many things can go wrong: getting sucked into the current at the bottom, breaking a leg by jumping onto a submerged rock, even hitting your head on the water and getting knocked unconscious—surface tension is hard as concrete from that height.

Hell, he’s even seen his fair share of idiots who didn’t realize they’d have to swim once they jumped in. Always interesting.

What anyone’s doing out here on a day like today, though, is beyond Tripp. Jumping would be suicidal—the water’s fast-moving so it doesn’t ice, but it’s dangerously cold, colder than the air. Anyone feeling froggy enough to jump would be paralyzed as soon as they plunged in—like a thousand knives stabbing you all over, the shock alone might take someone out. Tripp’s been in the river at this time of year exactly once before—in a drysuit , of course—out of necessity, and he wouldn’t wish the experience on his worst enemy.

Well, maybe Christian.

As their crew gathers equipment and makes their way down to the scene, the situation becomes clear pretty quickly. Tripp hikes his way down the dirt path as fast as his boots will carry him, emerging from some brush out into the clearing to find a sobbing teenage girl, still clutching her cell phone to her ear.

“Yes, they’re here now. Thank you. Thank you,” the girl cries, presumably to the 911 dispatcher doing their best to keep her calm.

“What happened?” Tripp asks, though when he looks around, it’s obvious.

“It broke!” The girl replies tearfully, right before dissolving into full-fledged sobs again, anything said after that indiscernible to Tripp’s ear. He pats her on the shoulder and moves closer to the cliff’s edge. Sometime between last summer and now, the city must have tried installing a railing, thinking it would curb the jumping. It’s a good thought and Tripp approves, except whoever installed it didn’t do the greatest job. From where Tripp’s standing, it kind of looks like the thing gave way under the slightest pressure. Poor kid probably leaned against it and went right over, never stood a chance.

Yikes. No fuckin’ way this isn’t gonna end up in court, Tripp thinks, dropping to his hands and knees before peering over the edge.

About twenty feet below, a teenage boy lays moaning and terrified, sprawled on his back across a perilously small outcropping of rock. Below him, at least twenty additional feet down, the river rushes mercilessly, white-capped and threatening. It even looks cold, gray and sharp as it is, cutting around the rocks that crop up in its way. Despite himself, Tripp shivers.

Evaluate the scene, he reminds himself, forcing his mind back onto the task at hand.

The boy is wearing a bright orange puffy vest and jeans that are splattered with blood, ripped straight through just below the knee by a bone that’s no longer inside his lower leg where it belongs. Cringing, Tripp suppresses his instinctual repulsion by putting himself in the kid’s shoes— don’t make this about you, asshole.

“Hey!” he calls out. “Hey, buddy! Can you hear me?” In response, the kid just moans and nods. “Can you tell me your name, bud?” There’s no reply—the kid just squeezes his eyes shut and cries out in pain, lolling his head against the rock face, which is concerning. Tripp can’t be sure that he didn’t smack his dome, that he isn’t altered and out of it. On the positive side, the break in his leg could be in a worse location. The kid definitely got lucky there, but this rescue needs to get a move on.

“Okay,” he calls out again. “That’s okay, you’re okay. Just stay still, stay real still. I’m coming to get you.”

Tripp confers quickly with Gunnar, but they’re already on the same page. The technical rescue is pulling off of the road and onto the site, firefighters cutting down brush with chainsaws to make way for it to pull as closely as possible to the edge. That’s great, but Tripp can’t imagine they’re going to be able to work it close enough to use for leverage. He pulls a hand over his mouth, relieved to see Jesse Martinez hopping down from the passenger’s side of the cab while the truck is still moving, nodding at Tripp and making a beeline in his direction.

As soon as he’s close enough, Jesse grabs Tripp’s hand and yanks him into a back-clapping hug. “Was hoping it’d be you,” he says gratefully. “We doin’ this?”

“Harness up,” Tripp says in agreement, filling Jesse in on the scene that awaits them while Jesse grabs his harness from the truck and fits it around his own waist. Without asking (and while multitasking, nodding along to Tripp’s words), he steps in to check the fit of the one Tripp’s donned, and he’s grateful for it. Tripp may have his certification, but Jesse is the expert, and he’s happy to defer. No dick-measuring contests on scenes like this, especially not when someone is literally about to throw themselves over a cliff.

Practiced and proficient, Jesse’s team works together flawlessly, anchoring ropes to trees and to each other before clipping first Tripp and then Jesse himself into the knots using carabiners. The plan is for the two of them to rappel down, splint the kid’s leg, address any other life-threatening issues that can’t be seen from twenty feet up, then roll him carefully onto a backboard. Once he’s secure, they’ll clip the backboard itself to even more ropes, and then it’ll be a coordinated effort between Tripp, Jesse, and the crews above to raise the board, followed by the two of them. Climbing will most definitely be involved.

Just before they drop over the edge, Jesse reaches out with his fist, Tripp bumping it with a lot more confidence than he feels. As he arranges his ropes, Tripp looks up to find Chloe hovering near the treeline, watching intently.

“Don’t you dare tell your uncle what I’m doing,” he calls out to her, even as he’s bracing his feet against the crumbling edge and leaning back into open air. The rushing water is loud below.

Chloe’s eyes widen comically. “Like hell I want to deal with that,” she yells back. “But he’s probably listening to this cluster over the radio. Echo said he was at the station when the ladder got back.” Something about Chloe’s tone pricks at Tripp’s spidey senses, but he simply doesn’t have the bandwidth to sort it out at the moment, being halfway over a cliff and all.

“Great,” Tripp mutters to himself. Lee hates when he puts himself in ‘unnecessary’ danger, and most definitely will have something to say about Tripp volunteering for this particular gig. Somehow he doubts, “Comes with the territory, Lee,” will be an adequate response. That’s a problem for future Tripp, though. Present Tripp is busy not careening to his death in the wild and freezing river forty feet due south.

Despite his dramatic thoughts, the rescue goes smoothly. The kid definitely did knock his head, but he’s the type of confused that just wants to go to sleep, not the kind that gets combative and punchy when you try to help them. No miracle too small, and all that.

Tripp and Jesse work well together, communicating via radio with their crews above and stabilizing the patient efficiently in what feels like an impossibly small space to work within. There’s no room for both firefighters to fit on the ledge with the injured kid lying there, so Tripp spends as much time hanging over the river with his toes on the rock as he does standing on solid ground.

Oh, yeah. Lee would hate this.

They get the boy spinal-immobilized using a cervical collar and the backboard that’s carefully lowered down, his lower leg splinted to a shortboard (with minimal screaming) and then to the backboard itself. It’s times like these Tripp wishes he was a paramedic—this kid deserves pain management, but there’s nothing that he, as an EMT-Basic, is authorized to give. All Tripp can do is handle him gently and get his ass topside as quickly as possible. There, the medic is waiting, ready to administer a nasal atomizer full of fentanyl just as soon as the patient is within reach.

By the time the crews above them are yelling to each other and hoisting the board up and over his and Jesse’s heads, Tripp is sweating profusely, despite the cold. He’s also experiencing the kind of exhaustion he suspects might be what marathon runners feel around mile twenty. He’s sore, burned-out, already come so far but with miles to go before he sleeps. Miles that suddenly feel a lot longer than they actually are.

While they wait for the go-ahead to start climbing, Tripp slumps against the blood-stained rock by Jesse’s side as they congratulate each other on a job well done. For a few minutes, they sit in silence, just looking out over the river, and then Jesse pipes up with something completely out of left field.

“Hey,” he says, elbowing Tripp in the ribs good-naturedly. “Congrats on Lee, man. Heard through the grapevine you two finally got your heads out of your asses. Always knew you would be good together.”

Whether it’s the exhaustion he feels settling into his bones, the daunting thought of both the climb ahead and the entire night still looming in front of him, or something else completely, Tripp’s standard slew of protests die on his tongue. “Thanks,” he replies weakly. “I—yeah. Lee is great.” He’s saved from having to say anything further by their radios activating, letting them know that the team is poised and in position, ready to bring them home.

The climb is worse than Tripp imagined, but hand over foot—and a lot of help from whoever’s reeling him in up top—he makes it. Lungs wheezing and arms burning, Tripp pulls himself over the ledge with some crucial help from Gunnar and Max. Both of them rush forward to grab and drag him over the finish line, an arm under each of his, even as his toes scrabble and lose grip against the loose rock and dirt.

As soon as he’s vertical, there’s a bottle of water being pressed into his hand and a bunch of people clapping him on the back, offering praise and congratulations. Jesse’s close behind and receives the same treatment, applause all around.

All Tripp wants is to sit down. And not on a ledge carved into the side of a cliff.

Naturally, the ambulance is long gone, and Tripp can’t wait to be a fuckin’ memory here, too. He says a blurry and worn-out goodbye to Jesse, somehow finding himself agreeing to poker night with Lee sometime in the near future, because Tripp can’t be trusted with his own best interests when he needs a nap. Despite that fact, he’s belted to his seat in the engine’s cab before anything else dramatic can happen (and before he does something really dumb, like imply to more casual acquaintances that Lee loves him back).

On the way to the station, Tripp falls fast asleep, drool on his shoulder and everything. Having shucked his bunker jacket, he curls up in Lee's hoodie, which unfortunately now smells a lot more like smoke mixed with his own sweat and a lot less like Lee . Hoodie aside, the nap is a knockout, dead-to-the-world sort of thing, and Tripp only wakes because the backup alarm blasts discourteously in his ear as the engine finds its place in the fire bay.

As he blinks sleepily and wipes wetness away from the corner of his mouth, Tripp hears Gunnar’s familiar “Ho!” yelled to Theo as he spots the engineer’s parking job from behind the truck. He feels the air brakes engage before the engine finally stops and goes silent, and they’re home.

What a relief.

Tripp’s still yawning as he stumbles out of the cab, kicking away his fire-rated boots and stepping sleepily out of his bunker pants. There’s maybe twenty minutes left in his shift. The oncoming crew should already be in the building, and no doubt, if a call comes in, he won’t be expected to take it.

Maybe, if he’s lucky, he can sack out on the couch for thirty minutes or so before Lee shows up and forces him to get presentable. Beau's rehearsal doesn’t start until seven-thirty, buffered specifically for Tripp’s work schedule, since being on duty today means having the rest of the weekend off. That’s plenty of time for a nap and a quick shower.

First, though—all of the gear worn inside the burn buildings today needs to be laundered, which is a chore. Tripp’s thankful that a few of the other city stations volunteered to take some of the newbies’ stuff, or Fifteen’s crews would be cycling shit straight through until Tripp returns again on Monday. Officer gear takes priority, anyway, so Tripp doesn’t bother checking in with Gunnar before emptying his pockets and dumping his pants, hood, and jacket straight into the open industrial washing machine at the side of the bay.

His gear tops off the load, so he closes the lid, checks the settings and detergent level, and sets it to work, patting the top when he’s done. Out of the corner of his eye, Tripp sees Gunnar chatting with someone, maybe one of the guys from the oncoming crew, which isn’t unusual. What is unusual are the covert glances they’re both shooting in his direction, and the subsequent way Gunnar saunters over— way too casually, at that—while Tripp is still trying to put the unwashable parts of his gear back on the rack.

“Dude,” Tripp says with a heavy sigh, scrubbing a hand through his sweaty hair as he turns to face Gunnar. He motions with his hand for his Captain to just give it to him. “Out with it, come on. I’m too fuckin’ tired to play games right now.”

Gunnar lifts an eyebrow as he leans casually against the rescue truck, arms folded across his chest. Around them, their co-workers continue about their business, laying hose line across the floor to drain and dry, checking tools—generally putting the vehicles, the station, and themselves back in order.

“Lee is here,” he says simply, face giving nothing away.

“Okay?” Tripp replies, somewhat confused. So Lee is early, big deal. Or maybe he’s just visiting—they all do that, all of the time, medics and firefighters alike. When your friends are also your co-workers and downtime is baked into the job, it kinda follows that work sometimes becomes a place to play.

Hell, Tripp’s passed out here and at Station Eleven more times than he can count. It’s fun to end the night shooting the shit with friends, plus it’s safer than trying to drive home tipsy, or worse—staying the night with a bar hookup. Gunnar acting weird over Lee being in the building is much stranger than the fact that Lee is here.

“He’s upstairs in the bathroom of the men’s bunkroom, folding laundry.”

Alright, so that’s a little bit odd, but Tripp’s not one to judge. Maybe Lee got bored waiting for him and was just being considerate. There’s a regular washer and dryer in that bathroom, there for the crews to wash bed linens or uniforms. The laundry basket was probably overflowing and Lee is—first and foremost—a team player, a good guy.

There’s a nudge at the back of Tripp’s mind that tells him he’s working pretty hard to paint this scenario as perfectly normal, but is there really a reason not to do that?

“So?”

“Sugar, he’s washed and sorted every piece of linen we have in this entire building. Maybe the whole city, I dunno. Towels, bedsheets, dishrags—you name it, Healing Hands up there has folded it. Twice. Something’s going on with your boy. Better go find and fix it before he figures out he can’t fold his way back to sanity and has a full-on breakdown in my bunkroom.”

“Right,” Tripp replies distractedly, pulling a hand over his mouth. Before Gunnar can finish talking, he’s already backing towards the stairs that lead up to the second floor, where the crew and bunkrooms are located.

Gunnar clears his throat. “Tripp,” he says pointedly, following Tripp across the room with a worried look on his face.

“Yeah?” Tripp blinks and does his best to focus on his Captain. He is still on the clock, after all, but he’s unprepared for Gunnar to reach out and grasp the edge of his t-shirt sleeve, tugging it up to reveal most of Lee's scarred handprint on his bicep. The weather’s been cold since Lee put it there, so Tripp’s made a habit of wearing long-sleeve shirts, generally not needing to worry about accidentally showing off his scabs when they were healing. These days, though, the handprint is fairly inconspicuous and mostly white, but still obvious if you’re looking either for it or directly at his arm.

“Fuck off,” he snaps reflexively, jerking away from Gunnar’s touch. Tripp glares defensively, but Gunnar doesn’t react, just hesitates for a moment before shaking his head and waving him off. Thank God, because Tripp does not have time to cope with this bullshit right now.

“Be careful,” is all Gunnar says, and Tripp nods automatically before turning on his heel and heading up the steps. He’ll deal with Gunnar later.

Halfway there, Tripp remembers his phone, pulling it out to find an astronomical number of missed calls and messages. There’s exactly one text from Beau—he was the trauma surgeon on duty at Central’s E.R. today, and he got to hear about Tripp’s heroics first-hand from the rescued kid with the broken leg. His message is lighthearted, something about Tripp not needing to throw himself off a cliff to get out of having dinner with Christian and Brett, and any other time, Tripp would have found it hilarious.

Unfortunately, his mind is focused on the twenty-or-so-odd other messages, all from one person.

Lee: I know you’re busy, just checking in.

Lee: Please let me know that you’re doing well when you have a free moment.

Lee: Apologies for the messages, you know how I worry.

Lee: Hope your day is going well. Text me when you have the chance, it would be nice to know that you’re feeling okay.

Lee: My day could be better. If you have a moment, could you call? Two minutes, no more, I promise.

Lee: I know you’re busy. I’m so sorry.

Lee: Tripp, I hate to be a bother, but I really need to speak to you. It’s urgent.

There are a few more, all similar, and Tripp’s stomach drops. It’s not difficult to figure out what’s happening here, unusual as it may be for Lee. The last unread message causes a wave of fear and nausea to roll through his body, and goosebumps to rise on his arms. If he wasn’t already aware that Lee happens to be safe and sound less than fifty feet away, he might actually panic.

Lee: If you

That’s it.

“ If you”, and nothing else . Tripp can’t remember the last time he received a text from Lee with so much as a typo, never mind a thought that wasn’t even finished. It’s one of those weird, nerdy little quirks he loves about the guy—who the hell bothers to punctuate their texts before sending, or refuses to shorten words on principle?

It all amounts to one thing, and that’s the unavoidable fact that Lee is dropping. Lee is dropping and likely has been since they were together early this morning. Which means that Tripp ignored him for almost twelve hours. Jesus Christ, he’s an asshole.

Despite the way that his eyes ache and his muscles still burn from the day’s activities, begging him to sit the fuck down already, Tripp puts it all aside for Lee. It’s damn near torture to sprint up the remaining stairs two at a time, but he does it, bursting through the door at the top and patently ignoring the chorus of greetings that erupts from his various coworkers scattered around the crew room.

With a grunt and a half-hearted wave in their direction, Tripp doesn’t so much as pause, never mind stop. He bolts directly into the hallway that leads past the charting room and the offices, practically sprinting down to the bunkrooms.

There’s a light on in the windowless bathroom ensuite to the men’s bunk, and Tripp beelines straight for it. As he rounds the corner from the hall, he stumbles, having to grab onto the frame of the door for balance because he’s moving too fast, nearly sending himself tumbling headfirst over the twin bed closest to the door. Once he’s steady, Tripp takes exactly two seconds to ease off and drag exactly one deep breath fully into his lungs.

Calm, he reminds himself. He has to be calm for Lee because Lee needs him.

All day, every damn day, Lee worries about Tripp and puts his needs first. He’s there for him, in ways that no one in his life has ever bothered to be. It’s devastating to Tripp that this is how he’s repaid the best person he knows—by completely missing the boat the one time Lee needed him to do the same.

If he wasn’t so busy cursing himself out for his mistakes, Tripp might be more concerned about what, exactly, he’s going to do when he finally gets to Lee’s side, but as it is, he doesn’t give himself the chance to dwell. He’ll figure it the fuck out.

The muted yellow glow of cheap incandescent lighting spills out around the partially-closed door to the bathroom, and Tripp reaches to push it open without hesitation. Despite Gunnar’s warning and his own internal self-flagellation, he’s fairly unprepared for the sight that meets his eyes.

Lee's back is to him, dressed simply in dark jeans and a blue-gray button down. He looks…okay, at least from behind. Like he’s showered and reasonably well-put together, which Tripp can’t say that he expected. When he was dropping, he barely had it in him to swipe some deodorant on.

Still, there’s a tenseness in the buff line of Lee's shoulders, a stilted awkwardness to how he’s folding the flat sheet in front of him. As Tripp stands there and watches, still unnoticed, Lee finishes with the sheet and places it gently atop the pile closest to him. Gunnar wasn’t exaggerating about the linen, that’s for sure—there are multiple stacks of towels and bed clothes lined up across the washer that all go the better part of the way towards the ceiling.

Heck, Tripp can even recognize a bunch of the oil-rag junk towels they keep down in the bay for spills and maintenance—Lee would have had to sniff those out and drag the bin of scraps all the way up here just to wash and fold them. What the fuck? As he stares, Leander pauses in his motions, and Tripp thinks that maybe he’s finished. His eyes are drawn to Lee's hand as it brushes over the exterior of the pants pocket at his hip, fingers tracing the outline of his phone before clenching into a fist at his side.

Oh, Lee.

Before Tripp can react, Lee reaches out and uses one finger to mechanically tip a stack of towels onto its side, undoing all of his (pointless) hard work. Swallowing the intense urge to call Leander ‘sweetheart,’ Tripp steps forward and places a gentle hand on his friend’s shoulder.

“Lee,” he says softly.

Once again, Tripp’s unprepared. The look on Leander’s face when he whirls around is sad and desperate, his eyes red- rimmed and dark underneath. As soon as he sees Tripp, the puppet strings snap, and Lee loses whatever tenuous grip on his composure he was clinging to.

“Tripp,” he mutters, voice filled with obvious relief as he flings himself into Tripp’s chest, and Tripp takes back his initial assessment—there’s nothing put-together about this.

“Hey,” he soothes, letting Leander octopus around him and returning the gesture by wrapping one arm tightly around his back, the other hand cupping his head. “Hey, shh. It’s alright. I’m here, Lee. I’m here. Lee, I’m so sorry,” he murmurs into Leander’s ear, feeling the way his friend’s body shakes beneath his hands. “I’m so, so sorry. I should’ve checked my phone. There’s no excuse, I didn’t even think—”

“It’s not your fault,” Leander says quietly, pulling back just barely enough to look Tripp in the eyes. There’s more to his expression than what should be obvious, and Tripp abruptly realizes that there’s something going on here other than hormones. That’s as far as he can get on his own, though—he’s got no fucking clue what Lee might be feeling, and beyond that— comforting a Dom? Where to even start?

Tripp’s way, way out of his depth. The only thing he can do— and he can do this for Lee— is use his goddamn words like an adult.

“Lee, talk to me,” Tripp says sharply, grabbing Leander by his biceps and steering him over to the toilet. Using his foot, Tripp kicks the lid down and sits Leander on top. It’s unnerving how easily Lee lets himself be maneuvered, how little resistance he puts up. If Tripp didn’t know any better, he’d think that his cocky Dom who hates demands and loves being obeyed had been body-snatched.

Crouching down in front of the toilet, Tripp rests his hands on Leander’s thighs. “You have to talk to me,” he says. “Listen, sweetheart, I want to help you. I’m not going to leave you, or judge you, or whatever the hell else you’re worried about happening, but—buddy, I’m treading water here. Understand? Tell me what you need and it’s yours, but I need something…” He trails off, tapped out on that analogy.

“To hold onto,” Leander finishes weakly, nodding before sighing with apparent exhaustion. For a second, he looks like he’s going to launch into some long-winded explanation, but then he just stops and thrusts his hand out, looping a finger through Tripp’s belt hole.

“Can you…”

This, Tripp doesn’t need to be told twice, and even though it’s awkward and there would be a thousand better places to do this than the seat of a toilet in the men’s sleeping quarters of a firehouse, that’s what they have to work with. So he goes—because this isn’t something he needs explained—straddling Leander easily and drawing him in to his chest.

“Got you, Lee,” Tripp murmurs, stroking nails down his back, and finally, Leander relaxes. It’s minute, and he can tell that they still have a long way to go, but Tripp can feel Lee melting incrementally into the warmth of his body, pressed tightly between him and the porcelain water tank. God, Tripp hopes that someday they can look back on this and laugh.

“You smell like fire,” Leander observes quietly, mumbling into the fabric of Tripp’s shirt, and he sounds a lot more like himself, which makes Tripp smile but also tear up, just a little. Not that Leander can see—he’s busy doing his best to make a permanent imprint of his face on Tripp’s neck.

“I smell like ass,” Tripp retorts, working his roaming fingers against Leander’s scalp and hoping that what he’s doing is helping, that it’s working, that he’s being what Lee needs right now. “Showering was pretty high on my list of things to do before you showed up. Is this…?”

“It’s good,” Leander replies quickly, arms tightening around Tripp’s waist. “Tripp, I am so—” The way Lee is plastered against him, Tripp can see how he shakes, can feel the sob that catches in his throat and rattles his chest.

“I’m sorry,” Lee manages to blurt out, after a minute that Tripp spends horrified and frozen, unsure of what to do. Still hiding his face, he continues, sounding completely broken, defeated, and miserable. “I’m sorry that I neglected our aftercare, and I’m sorry I pestered and didn’t trust you to know your own feelings and limits. I’m sorry for showing up here and bothering you now.”

“Lee,” Tripp starts, but falters. Fortunately, Leander doesn’t seem to notice, busy clinging and running hands up and down Tripp’s back as he is.

“I am sorry, but also, I’m so very relieved you’re safe.”

“I was fine,” Tripp protests. “I wouldn’t have left your place if I wasn’t. And I wouldn’t have hid that from you, if something came on later. Lee, why are you talking like you did something wrong, here?” When Leander just shrugs and sniffles, Tripp abruptly decides that he’s had enough. He wraps both hands around Lee's shoulders and gently pushes him back so they can look each other in the eyes.

Damn, he looks sad. Tripp wants so badly to kiss him, to tell him how much he’s wanted and loved. If ever there was a time…

But he doesn’t give in. Reluctantly, Tripp settles for circling his arms over Leander’s shoulders and scratching soothingly into the hairs at the nape of his neck.

“Dude,” he says gently. “If anyone fucked up here, it’s me. I should have checked in with you at least once. I should have made sure you knew that I was fine. Next time, I will, I promise. I’m glad you came here.”

Leander’s face flushes with obvious shame. “I shouldn’t have had to. I know better than this, I—” He breaks off with a frustrated, rough exhale and shakes his head. “I understand that you felt fine today, but I still believe I dropped the ball by not allowing for proper aftercare. It’s part of why I spiraled. And then I—oh, Tripp, I’ve been such a mess.” The tears well up in Leander’s eyes again, and Tripp dries them swiftly with some toilet paper ripped off of the roll to their right.

“Spiral seems like the right word,” Tripp offers, trying to be open and neutral so that Leander keeps talking and gives him some sort of clue about where to go with this.

As he watches intently, Lee closes his eyes briefly and nods. “It’s very apt. Please believe me Tripp, I trust you to know yourself. I trust you to communicate with me.” He motions to his head. “It’s…hard to control, as you know, once you’re in it. I kept telling myself that I needed to wait, to believe that you were fine and would come to me if you weren’t, but I worried. And I started thinking about worst case scenarios, how if you did drop and perhaps even injured yourself at work because of it—how that would be all my fault. How I would have failed you, how I don’t deserve—”

The barely-choked-off sobs threatening to overtake Leander’s already questionable composure finally get their way, and he breaks down, shoulders slumping and chin dropping to his chest. He doesn’t lean forward to seek comfort from Tripp, and Tripp understands why—Lee is still deep in this spiral, still berating and blaming himself. Logic isn’t going to cut it, won’t work to pull him out.

“I should never have pushed to do that scene this morning,” he cries as Tripp yanks him close and holds him tight, rocking them gently. “I don’t deserve you, Tripp,” he continues, barely audible, into Tripp’s shirt.

“Whoa, hey, first of all,” Tripp interjects, because that’s bullshit, all of it. “I wanted to scene this morning. I asked for it and you gave me what we both thought I needed. Lee, this isn’t new territory for us. We tried something, it didn’t work. We won’t do it again. This ain’t any different then any other time that’s happened. Buddy, I can’t even count the times you stopped a scene or changed the vibe because it wasn’t working for one of us. I don’t agree that you made a mistake, but if you feel that way, you know, I’m not gonna tell you not to feel your fuckin’ feelings. They’re yours to be wrong about.”

In his arms, Lee actually chuckles a little, and Tripp smiles against his hair, pleased that he’s not, at least, blatantly making things worse. “I—” love you, love you so fuckin’ much, you idiot. Let me love you, love me back. You deserve love, asshole. “— need you, Lee. So don’t be trying to get rid of me with this, ‘don’t deserve you’ crap, it pisses me off.”

“You trusted me,” Leander mutters, turning his head so that his ear is against the top of Tripp’s chest, but at least what he’s saying can be understood now. “You trusted me, and I did…this. I hear you, Tripp, but I still feel…” He trails off, a hand coming up to cover his face. “This drop is telling me that I don’t deserve you, that I shouldn’t be a Dom at all. When I think about what I put you through when we got together, and now… ” Leander shrugs sadly, but doesn’t resume crying. He just sags listlessly against Tripp’s chest and clings.

“Alright,” Tripp says slowly, thinking through his next move carefully. “Listen, I could tell you how dumb that is until your ears bleed, promise that you won’t feel this way forever, but I know what it’s like to be all up in your own head. How about this, you trust me?”

When Leander nods, his hair brushes against Tripp’s jaw, tickling it.

“‘Kay, give me a minute.”

Without getting up, Tripp extracts his phone from his pocket and fires off a text message. Less than five minutes later, there’s a knock on the bunkroom door, and Leander jolts upright, alarmed. “Don’t worry,” Tripp soothes. “It’s just Gunnar dropping off my bag. I’m going to get up and grab it, and then I’ll be back, okay? It’s six o’clock, I’m off duty. I’m not gonna leave you, Lee, you hear me?”

In a role reversal that has even him spinning, Tripp grabs Leander’s chin and forces him to look up. “Sir,” he adds softly, and Lee's eyes well up again almost immediately, but he nods.

As quickly as he can move, Tripp grabs the duffle bag from where it’s been dropped outside the door, not bothering to glance down the hallway and see if anyone’s gawking or trying to snoop on them. It’s a firehouse, so Tripp’s sure there’s someone, but fuck ‘em. When he steps back inside the bathroom, Leander’s still sitting on the toilet, blowing his nose and generally looking like he’s working really damn hard to keep his shit together.

Closing the door behind him, Tripp drops his bag, turns on the shower, and then strips before dropping into a crouch and removing Lee's shoes and socks. He doesn’t ask permission before taking Leander by the hand and hauling him to his feet, finally following the instincts that tell him to lean in and kiss him softly.

It’s meant to be nothing more than reassuring, and Leander seems to take it that way, making a sad little noise in the back of his throat when their lips meet. Wordlessly, Tripp relieves him of the rest of his clothing, folding each piece neatly and leaving them in a pile at the edge of the sink.

By the time they’re stepping into the shower—Tripp leading and Leander following him so trustingly—the usually confident Dom is looking slightly less devastated. It’s enough of the old Lee peeking through that Tripp feels comfortable in deviating a smidge from the panicked comfortcomfortcomfort mode he’s shoehorned himself into, out of necessity.

Under the hot spray, he drags Leander close and rests one hand at the small of his back, grabbing Lee’s wrist with the other before lacing their fingers together.

“Are we…dancing?” Leander asks, a small smile gracing his handsome, if still mournful, face. Tripp just grins down at him and shuffles them around the small space as best he can until Leander gives in and laughs, wrapping an arm around Tripp’s neck in tacit approval. The silly dancing evolves into holding each other close, turns into Leander soaping Tripp up, to Tripp kissing Leander against the shower wall, and doing so without even particularly worrying about what it is he’s doing.

It’s only after, when the water’s turned off and Leander is visibly feeling better, when they’re dry and buttoned-up into their nice clothing for Beau's rehearsal, that it even occurs to Tripp that what they did in the shower was not necessarily within the parameters of their negotiated contract. It definitely wasn’t platonic friend behavior, either, so what does he do with that? Where does that leave him?

Where does it leave them?

Maybe he’s thinking too much. Lee needed him, Tripp gave him what he needed. He supposes it’s as simple as that. Speaking of which—

“C’mon,” Tripp says, looping an arm through Leander’s. “You’ve been in here folding shit for hours, you’ve gotta be starving. We’ll get you a burger on the way to the church, alright?”

Instead of replying, Leander stops him at the bunkroom door, right before Tripp can pull it open. “Thank you,” he says simply, letting his arm drop so that he can slip a hand into Tripp’s and squeeze. “Not just for—” he motions towards the bathroom. “That. But for trusting me. For believing in us.”

Surprised, Tripp squeezes back readily. “I told you,” he says. “I need you.”

“Yes,” Leander replies, holding Tripp’s eye contact this time, all on his own, and Tripp finds himself feeling not only relieved, but proud. “I need you, too.”

“Then let’s go, sunshine.”