23-Jul-2000
Title: Inferno's Touch ~ Chapter 7
Author: Ravynfyre
Archive: GW Addiction, Darkflame
Category: Action, Angst
Pairings: 3+4
Standard Disclaimer: Not mine. Theirs. Too bad, but otherwise, I guess I'd never get anything done >nice hentai thought<. Anyway, not makin' any money offa this so dun sue me. You'd only get some college debt, a few dogs, and a pair of fuzzy bunny slippers anyway.
Rating: PG-13
Warning: None
Spoiler: None
Notes: Terminology at the end.
Feedback: Yes, please. All comments welcome (although flames may be fed to my dogs, who, since they have notoriously gassy intestinal tracts, will be spending the night with the flamer afterwards)
He stood back and eyed his handiwork with an appraising eye. He'd broken his cardinal rule on this job, but, if it went off the way he'd carefully planned it to, it would be well worth the trouble.
Pesky firemen. They were simply too good at their job, particularly in this area of town. They were too swift at murdering his beautiful beast. Well, not this time. This time should be...
Educational.
It hadn't been easy finding the quantity of the raw materials he'd needed to set this job up. Thank god for auto junkyards. Although, the man in charge of the last place he'd been to had been a little surprised and curious about the volume of old Volkswagen parts he'd bought.
Too curious. He'd have to be dealt with.
Treize wasn't about to mar his spotless career because of some snooping, curious old man.
Old men who suffer from heart attacks so easily.
Treize shook his head suddenly. Where were these dark thoughts coming from?
As he peered about himself restlessly, his eyes fell upon the book of matches sitting on a crate not too far away.
Oh yes. His Beast. His beautiful, magnificent Creature. His seductive Siren.
A heart attack would do quite nicely. Une could see to it.
He slipped over to the crates where he'd left his matches and retrieved them.
How amazingly simple a device was a match. Just a bit of wood, a little bit of sulfur and other chemicals. And nothing more.
And yet, contained within its elegant simplicity, coiled the power to change the world.
He studied the match he withdrew from the small box, and smiled. He felt the nether regions of his body tighten as he twisted the thin bit of wood this way and that, fascinated by the pure phallic imagery of it.
"The power to change the world... " he murmured, striking the match across the box clutched in his other hand.
As the head of the match flared to life, he swallowed hard against the wash of purest pleasure overtaking him. His eyes closed tight, teeth clenched, and body quivering until the sensation passed.
Perhaps Une should have need of being jealous of his beautiful Creature.
The edge of the flame kissed his fingertips, sputtered, and died in his grasp.
His eyes snapped open, staring down at the wrinkled, charred sliver of wood held fast between two calloused fingertips. He blinked owlishly, still coming down off of his high.
As the scent of the sulfur and wisp of smoke finally drifted away, he became aware of the scent of his own semen, and the slick sensation of his jeans clinging to his skin uncomfortably.
He dropped the spent match on the floor and set the box down where he stood. Crossing over to a backpack, he withdrew a fresh set of clothing.
He was a professional after all. Even if he'd given his Creature the power to seduce him.
A few quick minutes later, he was cleaned up, and dressed in a new set of non-incriminating pants.
He returned to his abandoned matches, withdrew a fresh one, and lit it without incident. Carefully reaching in, he lit the candle in the paper sac sitting on the floor.
Between the candle's burn time, the streamers of wax paper, and the sluggishness of the thermite igniter, he should have a good two hours before the magnesium in those auto parts caught fire.
Plenty of time to grab himself an alibi.
As the candle burned it's way merrily down towards its destiny, Treize packed up the last of his unused and soiled supplies, and slipped off to find his own.
Duo perched on top of Engine 8, lounging comfortably along the hose bed, watching Heero tie an endless array of knots into the rope he was fussing over.
Being on the Rope Rescue Team himself, Duo nodded with appreciation at the beautiful Figure Eight On A Follow Through that Heero had just tied.
"What did you do that for?" he asked, confused as Heero suddenly began ripping the knot out of the rope with a scowl.
Heero simply growled in response, and started tying it again.
"Man... If you don't learn to relax, you're going to give yourself an aneurysm one of these days," Duo said, sitting up and leaning forward to watch Heero more intently.
"It wasn't right," Heero replied defensively.
"The hell it wasn't. It was great. You even dressed it right,[1]" Duo replied, grabbing up his can of soda and taking a loud slurp of it.
"Hn."
"Fine. Don't believe me. Rip out every knot from here to Timbuktu. See if I care. Which I don't," he said, throwing his hands up in the air in exasperation.
"Hn."
"Give yourself a fucking ulcer. See if I care about that," he muttered, "Which I don't!"
"Hey... You wanna shut-up up there?" Heero said, glaring up at the driver, "I'm trying to work here."
"Fine. See if I care. Just trying to help. Ya know, Heero... if there's one thing I know about, with all this hair of mine... It's knots. But if you don't want any help... "
Heero turned and fixed Duo with an even deadlier glare.
"Feh!"
Duo hopped down off of the top of the rig and stalked away, his soda can clutched so tightly in his hand that he crushed it.
As Duo vanished through the door into the kitchen, Heero shook his head and sighed.
"Baka."
Duo emptied the last bit of his abused soda can into the sink, and washed his hands. After tossing the can into the aluminum recycling can, he threw himself down into one of the recliners with a muffled crash, and flipped on the TV.
Quatre and Trowa glanced up at the driver from their sprawl on the couch, taking in the surly expression.
"Problem, Duo?"
"No."
"Really?" Quatre persisted, concern and amusement warring with each other over the too-quickly-given response.
"I'm fine," Duo answered through clenched teeth.
"Hn," Trowa replied, fighting to keep the faintest of smirks off of his face.
Duo's gaze snapped over to spear the two paramedics where they sat curled with each other on the couch. Trowa returned the intense look with a faintly bored one of his own, his arms tightening in a protective manner around the blonde snuggled against him. Well acquainted with Trowa's language of silence, Duo read that unspoken warning.
He also read the deep devotion they shared with each other.
Before he realized what it was he was doing, he surged to his feet with a strangled growl and stalked off for the rig bay.
"Gonna go shoot some hoops," he declared sullenly.
The door slammed shut behind him.
"Well. That was certainly... something."
"Hn."
He was just reaching for the basketball when the tones went off, echoing through the bay.
"This is a General Alarm. All units are 10-8. We have a report of a structure fire, section 8A. The corner of Lawrence and Kenyion, reported flames seen from an abandoned warehouse."
"Well, shit! How cliché is that?" Duo scoffed, dashing past Heero to the front of the rig and hopping into his bunker pants while Heero geared up.
Zechs darted into the bay and started shrugging into his gear quickly. Within half a minute, Engine 8 was rolling out the door with lights flashing and sirens starting their eerie wail into the warm afternoon.
Trowa and Quatre entered the bay from the kitchen, watching as Engine 8 vanished down the street at a breakneck pace. The speaker in the bay popped again, signaling another incoming call.[2]
"That's us," Trowa said, unconsciously staring up at the speaker on the wall.
Quatre nodded just as the tones went off.
"Medic 6, respond to the General Alarm at the corner of Lawrence and Kenyion for medical stand-by."
The two paramedics nodded to each other, dashed to their own rig, hopped in, and were racing down the street in Engine 8's wake less than a minute after 8 cleared the door.
As Engine 8 reached the scene, they could all see the flames shooting out the roof of the warehouse. Great black clouds of smoke billowed out from the eaves and broken windows, tinged here and there by plumes of yellow and white.
Duo slid the rig to a halt close enough to get hose to the fire, but hopefully far enough away that the building's radiant heat wouldn't burn out the engine, before shifting the rig into Pump Gear[3].
By that time, Zechs and Heero already had the 250-foot section of 1 ¾ inch hose pulled off and were flaking it out.[4] Duo watched as Heero caught back up with Zechs near the large front doors to the warehouse. The two firefighters clicked their regulators into place on their masks, and then Zechs gave Duo the hand signal to charge the line.[5] Duo fast idled the engine, and yanked open the right valves, watching as the hose jumped and twisted, bucked and writhed on the ground as it flushed full of water.
As Medic 6 arrived, Zechs and Heero hauled on the hose, and slipped into the gloom.
Heero firmed his grip on the hose in his arms, hauling on it hard to keep up with Zechs ahead of him. He took slow, measured breaths, pausing between each one to listen carefully for the telltale crackle of the flames, or the creaking of the rafters over their heads. He felt the hose buck in his arms a little as Zechs hosed down a small patch of wall, flaming nearby. His captain shut the hose down just as quickly as he'd opened it; they would be running on the 750 gallons in their tank until another engine arrived, so they had to make their water count.
Ahead of him, Zechs pushed further into the thick smoke, crawling forward and feeling his way along. Behind him, he could feel Duo, feeding the hose through the doorway.
He tried to keep a careful calculation on how far they'd crawled, counting each shuffling shift forward, and estimating them at about 170 feet in. With the fifty foot of hose they'd laid to get to the warehouse, they should only have another twenty feet or so of slack left.
His radio squawked, rumbling against his chest as newly arrived rigs reported in and assigned each other duties.
He heard Engine 9 grab the hydrant, laying hose down to Engine 8. Duo had it hooked up in no time at all, since he was immediately calling to have that feeder line charged to give Zechs and Heero all the water they could need.
Truck 2 had arrived, and was setting up their aerial ladder for a roof attack. The Battalion chief arrived, taking charge of the scene and calling for more rigs even as he surveyed the fire scene. Engine 12 arrived, and headed for the back of the warehouse to stage there, yanking off their own hose for an exterior defensive stand. Engine 7 arrived and joined 12 on the side street, trying desperately to keep the nearby buildings from bursting into flame because of the immense heat the burning warehouse was throwing off.
Over his radio, Heero could hear Duo ordering someone to pull the booster off of 8 and spray the rig with it to keep the heat from damaging the engine. On the tails of that order, Duo's voice broke over the radio, asking Zechs if he was needed inside with them.
Zechs paused for a second in his forward crawl to consult his SCBA gauges. He turned and grabbed Heero, pulling him close in the haze to yell a question at him.
"How's your air?"
Heero quickly checked his gauge, pleased with his conservation.
"Over half a tank."
Zechs cursed loud enough that Heero heard him over the rumble of the fire and the hiss of their SCBA.
"I'm running low... I'm calling Duo to replace me," Zechs yelled again, shifting so that Heero could crawl around him and take the nozzle.
He listened as Zechs ordered Engine 8's driver to join them, and then ordered Heero to stay put while they waited for Duo to arrive.
Before the driver got there, Zechs' tank buzzer started to go off.
Cursing, the captain reinforced his order to stay put, and began crawling back along the hose to the outside. In the roaring darkness, Heero concentrated on tracking the fire down.
The heat seemed to come at him in waves from his left... Above and to the left. He turned that way, listening to the roar and crackle of the fire ahead, and the pounding rush of water hitting the tin roof. It was there. He could feel it.
The fire loomed above him in the darkness, coiled like a snake about to strike, flaring fangs out and tail snapping its war cry.
He knelt, alone in the smoke, crouched in the acrid curtain, and felt his silence overtake him. The heat and the rage of the fire faded away, melting into a dim reality, set aside from the cool clarity of his mind. And as the fury of the flames drifted apart in his consciousness, he could almost see the smoke parting before him, laying the beast of the fire bare in his sight.
There. The demon cowered in fear beneath his frigid blue glare of contempt.
He shifted, intending to turn the hose upon the flames and kill them, to slay the beast in its own lair, when the muffled curse, and the violent thump against his back heralded Duo's arrival.
The moment was gone, and the world was once more swallowed up into the choking curtain of smoke.
The fire chortled with glee.
"C'mon! Let's go!" Duo shouted, taking the hose from Heero and shuffling ahead of him.
Heero growled low in his throat, both at having lost the nozzle, and at having lost his insight into the fire. Shaking his head, he grabbed the hose and crawled after Duo towards the fire's throat. The cherry glare ghosted out of the darkness as they neared the seat of the conflagration. Heero had to turn his head a little to the side to ward off the intense heat rolling off of the blaze and pounding at his face through the mask.
It was too hot where they were. They were too far in, too close to the fire. If they didn't cool the room off fast, or retreat, they would get burned. Heero, himself didn't care overmuch, but he wondered at Duo's ability to stand the heat.
Duo settled back on his haunches, pressing back against Heero for support as he opened the nozzle wide. A thick solid stream of water burst out, raging against the fire and exploding into heavy gouts of steam. Heero could feel the heat pressing in on him like a ten-ton hand, sitting on his chest. He shrugged it off and pushed forward more, shoving closer to Duo.
Before them, the fire fought against their control, flaring and snapping with each wave of water that struck it. They could both see how the crimson glare would sputter and die, and then suddenly flash up again as Duo played the stream over it. Vaguely, in the back of his mind, Heero registered that as something wrong. Gravely wrong.
But Duo was pressing forward again, struggling with the hose and clearing a path for them. The throat of the fire, the seat where it burned the hottest and most violent, loomed up before them, claws spread wide in all of its violent glory.
Heero could hear Duo giggling maniacally in front of him as the braided man opened the nozzle again. As the blast of water dove into the heart of that hellish conflagration before them, the gates of Hades burst wide open and the maw of hell tried to swallow them whole.
The glow abated for all of a second, before a curious pop-snapping erupted from the seat of the fire. A blossom of new fire, sun-bright, and almost as hot, exploded from the dimness, silhouetting Duo against the glow. Steam erupted from the blaze like a geyser, boiling forth in a vicious cloud.
They realized their danger in the same instant.
Duo screamed a curse as he simply dropped the hose and both of them leapt to their feet. As they turned to run, either back along the hose to safety, or simply away from where they found themselves now, the fire incandesced behind them.
The roof gave an ominous rumble as the throat of the fire exploded.
Heero's last thought as he threw himself atop Duo to protect him from the cascading roof trusses was that at least one of them had to survive this.
And then, as something struck him from behind, the whole world went dark.
~TBC~
Notes
[1] Dressing a knot – When you tie any knot, particularly complicated ones, you finish it by "dressing" it. That basically means you go back over the knot, making sure that the rope isn't twisted anywhere in the knot, and that the rope crosses itself a minimum number of times. That makes the knot both structurally stronger and safer, as well as just plain look better. A Figure Eight On A Follow Through should look like... . Well... . Two number "8"s nestled one inside the other. One end of the "8" should have the two ends of the rope coming out of it, and the other end of the "8" should have a loop of rope coming out. These knots are typically used to anchor the top end of a rappelling line. Back
[2] Speaker pop – In Station 8, the speaker gives off a staticky little "pop" about five to ten seconds before they announce a call. I'm not sure if it's intentional, or just a quirk of the electronics, but it's really nice. For one thing, it's a lot better on firemen's hearts than just getting a blaring beep out of the blue (when you hear the pop, you're expecting the emergency tones), plus it's a great way to freak out rookies who haven't noticed the pop yet. (Like when the senior firefighter hears the pop and says to the rookie "Call coming in" and then the rookie's eyes bug out when, sure enough, a few seconds later, a call comes in... . good for tons of laughs) Back
[3] Pump Gear – The same engine that drives the rig, drives the rig's pumps. You just have to hit the right switch inside the cab to switch the engine's power from the wheels over to the pump. Back
[4] Flaking out the hose – all that hose is stacked and folded on top of the fire trucks. When you are about to use some of it, you have to pull the whole section off of the rig and lay it out as straight as you can, taking all the folds, bends, and kinks out of it, otherwise... the hose don't work. Usually, one person (the Captain) takes the nob, or nozzle end of the hose and heads towards the fire. Then the second person (the rookie) grabs the midpoint of the hose (that's why it's folded the way it is... so we can find the midpoint easy) and runs off in the opposite direction. This lays it all out in the quickest way. Back
[5] Charge the line – turn on the water. Back
~RavynFyre~