Title: The New Stuff
Author: foxxcub
Artist: adelaide_rain
Team: ROMANCE!
Prompt: strength
Word count: 3600
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Arthur is a paramedic stationed at a Chicago firestation. Eames is the reckless firefighter he tries to resist.
Author's Notes: All my firefighter and paramedic knowledge comes from Wikipedia and my BFF, who is a paramedic in Boston. The rest is all make-believe.






Smoke billows in an avalanche of soot and heat, flames roaring out of the windows two floors up. The fire has been raging for over twenty minutes, and the entire top floor is in serious danger of collapsing.

In the back of the ambulance, Arthur gives oxygen to the two oldest children who managed to make it out with their mother. The third child, a little girl, stands by the open doors and watches them with silent, wide eyes.

Arthur feels a hand tug at his pant leg.

“Mister Ambulance Guy?”

Arthur leans down. The little girl’s face is smudged with soot and her hair is a mess, but she’s otherwise okay. “What’s wrong?” he asks gently.

“Our kitty’s still inside,” she says, lip trembling.

He’s seen this before, and it never gets any easier. “Sweetheart, the fire is too strong right now, we can’t risk--”

Suddenly the girl’s older sister shrieks and races out of the back of the ambulance. She heads straight to the front of the apartment, her little sister immediately at her heels.

Emerging from the smoke--with one sooty orange tabby tucked under his arm--is Eames.

The girls scream and cry, clinging to their cat as Eames flips the mask of his helmet up and winks at Arthur. His skin is so blackened, it makes his teeth look startlingly white.

A second later, the entire top floor of the building collapses.

Eames blows out a breath, laughing as he calls out, “Well, that was a bloody close one!” He holds his arm at an awkward angle as he limps toward the ambulance. “May have broken something, though, but I’m sure it’s nothing you can’t fix.”

Arthur reaches for the arm splint that essentially has Eames’ name on it, gritting his teeth.

Not for the first time, he seriously questions his career choices.


~


The idea to become a paramedic popped into Arthur’s head a couple of years after he’d graduated from college with a business degree. Jobs were hard to come by, and he’d honestly felt like something was missing from his life. It’s a cliche’ to say he wanted adventure, but that’s exactly what it was.

So he’d quit his worthless gig as a sales rep for a giant corporation and started paramedic school at the local community college. Two years later, he’d packed up his stuff and moved to Chicago, where a job at an ambulance house out in the suburbs waited for him.

Arthur was a good paramedic. His partners loved him, EMTs in training looked up to him, and his bosses begged him to work seventy-two hour weeks.

Then, after almost five years on the job, someone asked Arthur, “Have you ever thought about being stationed in a firehouse?”

After that, Arthur became a man obsessed. It only took him four months to pass all the firefighter training, and by the spring he was hired on to Engine 23, a stationhouse in lower downtown Chicago.

Arthur would be the sole paramedic for the entire house. He’d walked into his first day on the job thrilled and more terrified than he’d ever been in his life. At his old house, people adored him; firefighters were another story entirely.

“We haven’t had a medic in here for almost four years, but the district says we need one,” Stan had told him. He was pushing sixty and had been the captain of Engine 23 for over twenty years. Like every other old school firefighter Arthur knew, Stan didn’t like paramedics.

He’d shown Arthur around almost reluctantly, and when they’d walked into the kitchen, a dozen guys stopped in the middle of their morning breakfast and stared at Arthur.

“Guys, this is Arthur,” Stan had sighed. “He’s our new medic.”

No one said a word. Eventually, after several extremely uncomfortable seconds went by, everyone went back to their breakfasts.

Arthur had expected this, after all; during paramedic school, he’d had a handful of firefighter teachers who’d all but called him a waste of their time. But this was the challenge Arthur had always wanted.

Suddenly, the kitchen door flew open, smacking loudly against the wall, and a boisterous voice with an obvious British accent called, “Oi, Sanders, is that the last of the mango juice, you fucking bastard?”

He’d barrelled straight into Arthur, who, much to his chagrin, went slightly pink when he’d realized the guy looked like every firefighter pin-up calendar in the flesh.

“Um,” Arthur had said articulately, and the guy’s eyes flared in curiosity.

“Hello, what do we have here?” he’d asked, head tilted to one side. “You’re not one of the new probees, are you? Thought they weren’t coming until next week.”

“I’m the new medic. For here. For your house.” Arthur bit the inside of his lip and tried not to stare at the obscene amount of ink trailing out from under the guy’s shirtsleeves.

But unlike the rest of the crew, he’d actually smiled at Arthur and held out his hand. “Eames,” he’d said, like he was genuinely happy to meet Arthur. “Have you had breakfast yet? With the exception of Sanders the mango juice stealer, we all make a smashing omelet.”

Arthur had blinked, speechless, and eventually nodded before following Eames to the table.

Twenty minutes later, the alarm went off.

An hour later, Arthur was treating Eames for a gash on his hand after he’d tried to wrench open a door on a burning car that tore through his gloves.

“You’re lucky it’s not broken,” Arthur had said.

Eames just grinned. “Luck’s got nothing to do with it.”

It took Arthur another month to figure out that Eames was right, it wasn’t luck.

Eames was just fucking crazy.


~


Everyone at Engine 23 has a nickname. On Arthur’s second day on the job, he learned Eames’ name was Bond.

“That’s...not very creative,” Arthur had said before he could censor himself.

“And what would you suggest, Florence?” Eames had asked, and the rest of the guys laughed. But his smirk wasn’t malicious at all; Arthur had almost considered it fond.

The nickname, unfortunately, stuck.

Arthur doesn’t ever call Eames by his nickname. It feels embarrassingly intimate, even though Stan and the rest of the crew say it a billion times a day. In all honesty, Arthur just hates the way he can feel his cheeks turn pink whenever he even thinks of saying the name out loud.

The morning after the apartment fire, however, is different story.

Arthur’s so exhausted, he feels drunk. It’s just past nine am, over two hours since his shift was due to end. He hasn’t slept in almost twenty-four hours, and his skin still smells like smoke and ash.

He’s in the middle of stuffing his uniform into his locker--he’ll wash it on Wednesday, he’s got a spare at home--when he hears Eames say, “Let me buy you a drink.”

Arthur sighs and turns around. “It’s barely nine-thirty, and I will kill anyone who stands between me and my bed,” he says, words dying off on a yawn.

He’s also trying very hard not to pay attention to the fact that Eames is shirtless and wearing nothing but CFD issued sweats and his wrist brace, his skin still black and smudged from the neck up. Arthur is fairly certain Eames has a few cracked ribs as well, but Eames has had worse and managed without a hospital visit. Arthur can list every one of those times in his head. In alphabetical order.





Eames ducks his head, lower lip pouting. “Coffee, then?”

“Bed,” Arthur says in another garbled yawn.

“Florence, you really are quite adorable when you--”

“Fucking hell, Bond, I will punch you in the face.” He doesn’t mean to let the name slip, but it’s there before Arthur can take it back.

Eames blinks a few times. A gentle, shy smile spreads over his face. “My, you are exhausted,” he says softly.

Arthur scrubs the back of his hand over his eyes. “Are we done here?” He sounds like a grumpy, petulant kid, but he doesn’t care.

He’s not prepared at all for Eames to step closer, cup Arthur’s chin gently, and whisper, “Let me at least make you breakfast? You must be starving. God knows I am.”

“Nearly getting trapped in a burning fucking building will do that to you,” Arthur mumbles, refusing to lean into the touch, not matter how warm Eames’ hand feels.

“Ah, Florence, you should have more faith in me by now.”

From across the locker room, Henderson, a younger crew member, yells, “Jesus, Bond, just take Flo home and fuck him already.”

Arthur actually grins, because he’s too tired to get pissed off. He likes Henderson, anyway. “I’m not that fucking easy,” Arthur yells back, and Henderson laughs. It’s taken six months to earn this camaraderie, tentative as it may be, and Arthur secretly feels a glowing validation every time one of the guys accepts him.

Eames, meanwhile, just raises an eyebrow at Arthur. “Are you saying you’ll make me work for it?”

“There’s nothing to work for,” Arthur says, and now he has no idea where this conversation is going. He desperately needs a shower and a bed and yes, food.

Eames’ thumb slips over Arthur’s chin. “Just breakfast,” he whispers. “And then I’ll leave you be. Promise.”

Arthur knows the jokes the rest of the crew makes when they think Arthur’s not around (and sometimes when they know he is); he’s never let himself take Eames’ flirting as the real deal, because everything Eames does is tinged with recklessness, and a bit of entertainment. “Bond and Flo” is just a house joke, a catchy phrase, nothing more.

But right now, he’s too exhausted to care. He defenses are shit when his body can’t function properly.

Ignoring the snort from Henderson across the room, Arthur closes his eyes and nods. “All right,” he whispers back. “Just breakfast.”


~


There was one moment, during a retirement party for one of the district chiefs, when Arthur almost let himself believe Eames wanted him. It happened after one too many Irish Car Bombs and a series of unnamed shots; eventually Arthur found himself tucked away at the end of the bar with Eames, their knees pressed together as they say side by side on rickety wooden bar stools.

Arthur had been with Engine 23 three months, and had touched Eames countless times. But this was the first time he’d touched him outside of work, without latex gloves on. His fingers bumped against Eames’ bare elbow as he talked, tapping out a weird rhythm on a knot of bone.






“Tell me something,” Arthur had said, very seriously.

Eames’ mouth quirked into a smile. “Anything,” he replied.

“Why don’t you hate me?”

“That’s a ridiculous question.”

“Not, it’s not. You’re a goddamn firefighter, you’re supposed to hate medics. It’s like--like cats and fucking dogs, y’know?” His words had started to slur together, and his cheeks felt too flushed.

Eames’ smile had faded a little. He looked down at Arthur’s fingers rubbing absently at his skin. “My mum was a nurse for years in an A&E back in London,” he’d said, voice nearly lost in the loud chaos of the bar. “When I was a kid, I always thought I’d be a nurse, too.”

Arthur’s mouth had fallen open. “You wanted to be a nurse?”

“I’ve respected the hell out of them for as long as I can remember,” Eames said, sounding irritated at Arthur’s shocked tone. “But my science marks weren’t exactly top notch, so I went into the fire brigade instead. Can’t say my mum was all that proud, but my father was ecstatic.”

“But...you’re in Chicago.”

Eames had laughed and knocked his knee into Arthur’s. “Brilliant observation.”

“Why, though?”

He’d shrugged. “Would you believe me if I said I came here for love?”

Arthur’s stomach had clenched at that. “Must’ve been pretty serious.” The room was getting a bit fuzzy at the edges, and he really wanted to tuck into Eames and bury his face in that stupidly thick neck.

“It was. But he eventually went back home to Pembrokeshire. I, on the other hand, stayed here. And I’ve never looked back.”

Arthur wanted to say I’m sorry, but he didn’t. Not really. Whatever moron left Eames behind had done the world a service. He wouldn’t have Eames in his life were it not for idiot ex-boyfriends.

He also wouldn’t have Eames nearly killing himself every damn day of his life, but Arthur didn’t want to think about work right now. He wanted to think about kissing Eames and asking him more about his nurse mother and what it was like to be a firefighter in London. He’d wanted Eames, more than he’d wanted anyone in a long, long time.

And Eames had been looking at Arthur with a hazy, soft expression, not quite smiling at him. He’d leaned close and whispered, breath hot against Arthur’s ear, “I wish you’d trust me more.”

Arthur shivered, opened his mouth to say something like, I do, or I will, but he’d never gotten the chance. A couple of guys from their house suddenly pulled Eames away, demanding he give a speech in the chief’s honor because, “Bond gives the best fucking speeches!”

So Arthur had sat back on his bar stool, drunk and half hard and a little in love, watching Eames entertain an enthralled room.

At one point, he’d winked in Arthur’s direction.

Arthur had held his breath and waited.

Nothing really happened. He’d gone home that night alone. The next day, he’d put three stitches in Eames’ eyebrow, and the following week he’d listened to him scream as he’d shoved Eames’ dislocated shoulder back into its socket. He tended Eames’ sprains and bloody noses and broken fingers.

It was all business as usual.


~


Eames follows Arthur into his small apartment and heads straight for the kitchen, even though this is his first time inside Arthur’s home.

“You have eggs?” he calls as Arthur trudges down the hall to his bedroom.

“Yeah, should be in the fridge. There’s milk, too.” He groans, stripping slowly out of his t-shirt. His shoulders ache like they do when he’s low on sleep. Arthur sheds his clothes with the bedroom door still open; Eames has seen him naked plenty of times. It’s not a mystery.

Arthur nearly falls asleep in the shower, but the smell of bacon wakes him up. He shakes the water out of his hair--he’d shaved his head right after he’d gotten his paramedic’s license, and he’s considered doing it again, for convenience’s sake. It’s still fairly short, but it clings to his forehead when he sweats. Besides, Arthur thinks he looks older with a buzz cut.

He wonders what Eames would think of him with--

Arthur sighs heavily. God, he really is fucking exhausted.

It might explain why he wanders back into the kitchen in nothing but his CFD sweats.

Eames glances over from the shove, eyebrows raising as he gives Arthur a once over. “Obviously you’re less modest at home.”

“Just because I don’t walk around the station half naked like some other people in this room doesn’t mean I’m some kind of prude,” Arthur replies, pouring himself onto a bar stool and folding his arms on the counter top. “Also, I can’t decide if I want to eat a horse or just sleep for a billion years.”

“Well, I don’t have horse ready for you, but bacon will do. Then you can commence your billion year slumber.”

Arthur grins into his arms. “You always get all...British with me, you know that?” he says, words slightly muffled. “I never hear you talk like that to the other guys.”

There’s a long pause, and when Arthur finally glances up, Eames is busy scraping omelets onto the plates, his grip on the pan slightly awkward due to his wrist brace. His cheeks are pink. “I guess I never really noticed,” Eames replies, setting the pan aside and arranging the bacon just so. He hands Arthur a giant glass of orange juice, then his plate, and okay, Arthur doesn’t regret letting Eames come over.

“Good?” Eames asks with a smirk when Arthur groans after the first bite.

“Yeah,” Arthur replies, “although you forgot the coffee.” He doesn’t want coffee, not when he’s been awake for twenty-four hours, but he has to give Eames shit for something.

“My apologies. Does his royal highness require anything else?”

If Arthur could eat this in bed, he’d be perfect. “No, this is awesome, seriously,” he says earnestly, and smiles at Eames, a real smile, one he doesn’t give often because he feels horribly obvious and lame when he does.

Also, whenever he smiles at Eames like this, Eames gets weirdly pensive, like he doesn’t know what to do with Arthur inadvertently wearing his heart on his sleeve.

“You were really great with those kids,” Eames says, eyes fixed the neat, precise way he cuts his omelet into bits with his knife and fork.

Arthur shrugs. “They were all fine, just a little smoke inhalation.”

“But you always keep them so calm.”

“You never saw me my first month as an EMT. It was right after Christmas, and this bus full of second graders hit a patch of ice and flipped. I had twenty eight-year-olds in various conditions screaming at me for hours. I nearly strangled a couple of them.”

He glances up from his plate and finds Eames grinning crookedly at him before he replies softly, “How old were you?”

“Twenty-three, I think. My training partner, Stella, was this single mom in her late forties. She told me she’d given birth to five kids, three of them without drugs; nothing phased her. I would be a fucking mess, and she’d just pat my arm and go, ‘You can do this. It’s your job.’ She was just this calming force; I once saw her talk to girl who’d gotten impaled through the stomach on her steering wheel. Stella just held her hand while they cut away the car.”

“Ah, now I see where you get it.”

“Yeah, I wish. Stella was like that from day one. It took me five years to get to that point.”

They eat in silence for a while, until Eames says, “I know you don’t believe it, but...the guys in the house, they do respect you. You are a calming force.”

It’s the first time Eames has ever said anything like this to him. Arthur doesn’t know what to do with the sudden compliment. “I’m the guy that patches you up and keeps people from losing their shit,” he replies with an awkward laugh. “Of course I’m a calming force, I have all the drugs.”

“I’m serious,” Eames says, leaning across the counter as his voice goes soft. “The crew might give you shit, but trust me, we would not be the same house without you.”

Arthur goes still and doesn’t glance up from what’s left of his eggs and bacon. It feels like the night in the bar all over again, only this time he’s half-drunk on sleep deprivation instead of cheap alcohol. “Thank you,” is all he says, scraping his fork across his plate, afraid to say anything more.

He doesn’t expect to feel a hand slide over his cheek, fingertips gentle against his skin, or Eames whispering, “Do you believe me?”

“Do I have a choice?” Arthur replies, laughing weakly before he gives in completely and leans just a little bit into Eames’ touch.

When he finally glances up, Eames looks genuinely hurt. “Before you came, I didn’t take as many chances, you know. I second guessed myself, never risked much, because I was afraid of what might happen. But with you there, I know...I know I can push myself, because you’ll patch me up in the end. You’ll--” He stops and looks away, letting his hand drop.

Arthur reaches out and grabs it, his thumb pressed into the warm center of Eames’ palm. “I’ll what?”

Eames shakes his head. “It’s ridiculous, really, but...I know you’ll catch me. So to speak.”

He can’t say anything to that at all. At least, nothing that won’t sound horribly sappy and sentimental and possibly end in I might be in love with you.

Instead, Arthur gets up from his bar stool, sets his fork down carefully, and rounds the counter until he’s facing Eames, who’s watching Arthur with a wary glint in his eyes, like he’s sure any minute now Arthur’s going to punch him.

Arthur doesn’t punch him. But he does take Eames’ face in both hands and kiss him gently on the mouth, chapped lips and all.

Eames makes a soft sound of surprise and kisses him back, tilting his head just enough so their mouths part.

He’s not sure how long they stay like that in the kitchen, dirty plates on the counter and half-empty glasses of orange juice left forgotten. All Arthur knows is eventually, Eames whispers against his cheek, “Let me catch you for once. Please?”

Arthur sighs, “Yeah, okay,” like it’s the easiest thing in the world. He’s so utterly exhausted, yet so contented he could curl up in this moment and be happy.

He lets Eames tug him into the living room, and the instant Arthur melts onto the couch, his eyes flutter closed. “The kitchen’s a mess,” he mumbles into the cushions.

“It’ll keep for now,” Eames replies. Suddenly there’s a solid warmth against Arthur’s bare back, and a quilt is pulled over them both, Eames’ arm snug around Arthur’s waist. He nuzzles the back of Arthur’s neck with the tip of his nose, and Arthur thinks as he sinks into sleep that maybe he had it all wrong. He doesn’t regret his career choices one bit.

He’s exactly where he needs to be.