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"Dancing With Fire"Written By: iniq Disclaimer: Gundam Wing and its characters are
copyright to Sunrise, Bandai, Sotsu Agency, and associated parties.
I make no money with this fic. Rating: R Warnings: AU, language, for Sharon's challenge: Water Is Wonderful Pairings: 1x2 Summary: A look at Heero's fears as Duo is off
fighting fires. "Dancing With Fire"
When a fire gets out of control and blows up, and you can't get to the safety zone fast enough, your only chance to survive a burnover is to bury under a fire shelter. When you've scrambled under there, you know it's only getting worse.
You might have seen countless training videos, where people talk about surviving, but chances are pretty high that the convection winds blow your tarp away and you get charred beyond recognition. When the fire rolls over you, it's like lying on an air field when the jets take off. The ear shattering noise, the hot, stuffed air, the need to get out overcoming you, knowing that all you can do is wait until the nightmare is over.
Lying in that ditch of a shelter, face buried in your arms, you'll pray to your God to make it rain, no matter how often you've denied His presence in the past.
It's never happened to me, I'm a state police trooper, not a firefighter.
But Duo – he's seen it all. He's seen the firewalls in front of him, closing in around him, threatening to swallow him in their ferocious, insatiable appetite for more fuel. He got counseling for the burnover like everyone does, and he came out fine. Duo went back after a few weeks, saying the crew needed him. Like it would matter if there was one less. He came with the argument that he needed the money. Which I countered with our balanced bank account and my own income. He just shrugged and continued packing. He had to be there, that was all.
Duo didn't have to sit by a crackling radio station with one of his colleagues, waiting for some sign of life. A sign that never came because the radio on the other side had melted. A few hours later, a helicopter came down on the front yard, bringing him and two of his crew home.
Throwing my arms around him had never felt better. It didn't matter that his Nomex suit was smudged with soot and mud, or that he was sweating and reeking after two days of spiking out. He was alive, well, and my uniform was a small price I eagerly paid to have him in my arms like that.
Now I'm waiting again. Duo's somewhere out there at the fire line they dug this morning. On the mountain range somewhere east from here. I don't know details, I never do. Duo usually calls me from the base whenever he gets a break to keep me from worrying too much, but he has no idea how much the phone ringing scares me.
A year ago, the hospital called, informing me that my partner was there. A log had rolled down the hill his crew had been digging a handline on. They calmed me, telling me it wasn't bad. I hung up before they could tell me more. My lover had been hit by burning wood tumbling down a mountain. I didn't want to hear anything from a nurse. I wanted to hear how bad it was from Duo himself. Wanted to know if maybe this time he was scared enough to call it a season and come home. He has a degree, he could do anything.
But Duo didn't get scared away that easily. He greeted me with a pained smile - his arm, shoulder, and head were bandaged, short brown hair sticking in all directions. His colleague who'd been walking two feet behind him had died half an hour earlier in surgery. I threw up in the bathroom.
Shortly after getting back to the fire, Duo developed this 'calling routine', and I never had the heart to tell him that it only made me dread picking up the phone. He was trying to comfort me, I should have been grateful. But I would have been much more grateful if he'd gotten scared.
Today is just another day, I tell myself. I look around at the crews coming back from two days of spiking out, exhausted to the bone. I'm waiting, useless because my own shift ended hours ago, with half an ear on the firefighter at the radio inside. The Palmer Drought Index reached –5.2 today. We were having another dry lightning storm a couple of miles west last night. Don't ask me what the fuel moisture content is, but I guess around two percent. This season is dryer than a nun's cunt, as Duo would say in his lazy drawl. And I would nod and not frown at his crude language, because he was talking nice and toned down, compared to the rest of his crew.
It's almost dark and you can see the fire on the ridge in the distance. This morning the fire hadn't reached the canyon yet, but the chinook winds swept down and in the end the hotshots couldn't hold the ridge. If the jet stream winds continue to blow, the sparks will look like fireworks in an hour, and tomorrow it will have reached the evacuated ranches a few miles our way. Days like this make me wish I knew how to dance for rain. Praying doesn't seem to help out here.
Someone returning from a run to the Weather Bureau said the clouds look promising, that we would probably get rain soon. We could need a break.
I look down at the ground and fumble with my ring finger. Yeah, I could need the break. Looking up, I check the incoming crews again for a face I know.
An hour later, just when I'm close to falling asleep in this awkward position, I finally hear the familiar slouch coming closer. I don't look up from my spot on the porch, but rather squeeze my eyes shut, hiding my relieved smile in my sweatshirt. I wait for him to drop next to me, and by the heavy sigh, I know it's been bad again. Exhausting and tiring, and together they probably dug twenty chains of fire line today, and he would have probably coyoteyed out there, if it hadn't been for me waiting. He leans against me, his head pillowed on my shoulder. He drops a wet, sweaty kiss to my neck and I twist toward him and reach out to pull him closer.
For tonight, everything's okay.
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