Page 87 of Fire & Ice

“Fine, I’ll apologize,” Tripp replies shortly, staring intently at the gold lettering on the side of the truck and not at Leander at all.

Time to bring out the big guns.

“Tripp, please,” Leander says softly, stepping forward into Tripp’s space, close enough that their chests are nearly pressed together. “You’re scaring me, this fire is not something to trifle with.” He trails a hand tentatively up Tripp’s arm and Tripp grumbles a little but dips his head, as close to Leander as he’s allowed himself to get all night long. If Leander tipped his chin up, he could kiss him. “I understand that you’re off your game, that I made a mistake earlier, that you’re angry with me—”

It’s the wrong thing to say. Tripp rips himself away like Leanderisthe fire and he’s just remembered that flames burn. “Tripp,” Leander tries, but Tripp holds out a hand:stay back.His fingers curl slowly into a fist, except for one that stays pointed somewhat menacingly in Leander’s direction.

“Not everything is about sex and submission,” he says icily.

Leander furrows his brow. “I know that.”

“Yeah,” Tripp replies, nodding tightly. “‘Course you do. You know so much about me,” he says, and Leander can’t figure out whether he sounds more angry or hurt. Neither are good signs. “Just—” Tripp ducks his head and shakes himself off. “Lemme do my damn job, Lee.” His radio crackles, and Leander sees wetness shining in Tripp’s eyes. “I gotta go.”

Before Leander can say another word, Tripp is stalking off and taking the rest of his team with him. Leandercouldpull rank, could call him back and demand that he stay, but he saw Tripp’s vitals earlier and there really wasn’t anything concerning. It would be a power move, and one that he hasnodoubt would go over like a lead brick in a pool. After he wanders back into his makeshift camp and exchanges a look of disbelief with Marley, Leander lets Tripp go.

More firefighters cycle through for checks, and Leander goes through the motions of his job but his mind is elsewhere. Heshouldhave proceeded more carefully, should have predicted that Tripp would be hyper-sensitized over a perceived rejection. Ofcourse,he perceived Leander’s reply earlier as a rejection.

You idiot,Leander admonishes himself.

The fact that Tripp won’t even give him the opportunity to make it right smarts, but Tripp’s mocking of him was fair. Leanderdoesknow Tripp that well, and he should have followed his instincts. Bereft over his shitty decisions, Leander struggles to focus on simple tasks like taking a pulse, never mind paying attention to the fire scene as a whole.

It therefore takes a moment to register with him when panic erupts over the radio. Marley rushes to his side, cranking the volume high on the portable at Leander’s hip so that theycan listen in. The ominous sounds of multiple emergency buttons activating drowns out all other noise as several radios with hot mics war for air priority, waiting for the dispatch center to make sense of the cacophony. Marley’s nails dig into his bicep, pinpricks of pain keeping him grounded amidst the crashing sounds and screams echoing over everyone’s handheld devices.

When the words hitting his ears finally begin to make sense, Leander goes numb from head to toe, unable to feel his limbs any longer as he struggles to process what’s happening.

“Structural collapse second floor… backdraft… multiple firefighters down… trapped… no visual... RIT team activation... “

Around him, firefighters are jumping into motion, swarming the building with all sorts of rescue gear and intent. Mickey is yelling, Leander can hear him without aid of the radio, and Assistant Chief Walter is standing on top of an SUV, directing squads and acting like a human repeater.

All Leander can do is stare blankly as the whole world seems to grind into slow motion. Only one thing really sticks in his mind, and that’s Ezra’s voice filtering over the wire through the chaos.

“Firefighter down! Lieut—Tripp, Tripp Truett, he fell through the floor, Mickey! He fell through the fucking floor!”

Chapter 11

There’s a strange pressure around Tripp’s face when he begins to wake. His eyes blink slowly, heavy lids sticking together in protest before he manages to get them all the way open. For a moment, he can’t for the life of him figure out where the fuck heis.Last Tripp can recall, he was at Lee's place. They were fucking and cooking and being pretty disgustingly domestic together—Tripp had been thinking that it was a good thing he needed to go to work, otherwise he might’ve developed a cavity from all thesweetnesspassing between them.

Lifting a hand to his face, Tripp realizes that he’s looking out through dirty, smudged plastic, staring at a fire-rated glove. He closes his eyes for an extended minute, and then everything comes flooding back, albeit in clips and flashes.

Searching the building for ages beforefinallystumbling upon the homeless encampment initially reported to be there. The heat of the fire, and how the floor shivered ominously before collapsing underneath his feet. The way his arm muscles strained, tossing that unconscious, presumably homeless teenager to safety in Gunnar’s arms, seconds before the fire sucked him down. Gunnar’s screaming face and outstretched hand, useless as Tripp slipped away into the burning pit.

All of that comes flooding back, yes. But so does everythingbeforeit.

Arguably, recovering the memory of Lee awkwardly dodging his question—when both of them knewfull wellwhat the hell Tripp was asking about—hurts a hell of a lot more than the fiery plunge into the depths of the burning warehouse.

Groaning, Tripp tries to rub at his face, abruptly being reminded that he’s wearing an SCBA mask, responsible forpiping in the fresh(ish) air he’s currently breathing. As if on cue, the little alarm that monitors the level in his oxygen tank begins beeping a warning in Tripp’s ear. He hits the button to silence the sound—it’s not as if there’s anything he can do about that now. Either he has enough air to survive until he’s rescued, or he doesn’t.

Above him, the hole Tripp fell through isn’t even visible anymore, the entire floor caved in directly overhead, creating a hovel of broken concrete, pipes, and ductwork. The dust hasn’t even fully settled, so he can’t have been down here that long. On the other hand, the throbbing in his head tells Tripp the helmet he’s wearing didn’t completely protect him from knocking it but good, so who the hell knows?

As he glances around and takes stock of the situation, Tripp’s budding fear begins to compound. With everything in his immediate vicinity partially collapsed, there’s no way to identify which direction is which, and if Tripp remembers correctly, he and his team weren’t even searchingina room that was bordered by an exterior wall.

He might be in some real trouble, here.

The visible flames are weak, which is a small miracle. They’re busy at the edges of the room, eating up some of the insulation and drywall packed into the rubble above Tripp’s head and piled to his left. The result is a low-level glow that at least allows him to see at all, but Tripp’s not soothed—those flames are only going to get bigger, and as he’s experienced so many times in the burn building, concrete holds heat like an oven. He’ll cook to death if he stays put, and that’s if he doesn’t run out of clean air to breathe first.

Wincing, Tripp pushes up on the assortment of debris and broken concrete that he’s landed on, fumbling around and struggling until he’s finally sitting relatively vertical. In theprocess, he cries out in surprise pain not once, but twice. The first happens when he puts pressure on his left hand—his wrist, he’s pretty sure—the second when he tries to move his left leg. Safe to say, that side of his body must have taken the brunt of his fall.

Great. That’s just great.

---