#ffau prequel

It was Gregory Keaton’s first Christmas with the 10-19 and he hated his captain and he hated this town and he hated his house. He hated himself for feeling so inconvenienced by saving people’s lives most of the time. There was no other work for him, and no other town, and no other house. He knew that. Of course he knew that. But the black hole in his chest just wouldn’t fill up, no matter what he did.

“Rodrigez, I want those rims sparkling! Put your back into it!” Greg barked, shouting louder than he needed to right next to the poor probie’s ear. This newest crop of recruits was less than promising. Or maybe, along with back pain and regular, splitting headaches, this job had given him a new sense of hopelessness. The gift that keeps on giving. 

“I’ve scrubbed them three times!” Rodrigez barked back. She had bite, and a fuck ton of it. It didn’t make up for her lack of discipline, but Greg could see it working to her advantage. If she could combine it with her intelligence, he could see her going much further. He told himself that he pushed her so hard to help her move past the instinct for anger over reason. He wasn’t entirely sure that was true. 

“And you’ll keep scrubbing until they shine.” Greg replied. “Shaw!” He didn’t even have to look away from Rodrigez’s subpar job on the rims to know that his least favorite probationary firefighter was fucking up… something. He heard boots scrape against the concrete engine bay floors. A nervous laugh, an excuse already being stuttered through. 

Gabriel Shaw was more than a disappointing recruit. He was lazy. He cut corners. He was fixated on the idea of being a hero, the sort of ideas that got guys killed. But he also fessed up every time he made a mistake. He had this disgustingly bashful smile that stretched across his face so smoothly that he just looked weird when it slipped away. When Greg called him out, Shaw always stopped, always let himself get caught red handed. 

“Let me see your hoses.” Greg said, arms crossed. Rolling hoses was not an incredibly difficult task. There were a handful of different methods, all of which, if done right, could work for most firefighters. 

Gabriel Shaw was not most firefighters. 

Shaw walked him to the hose storage of Engine 2 and pulled out one roll. All in all, it wasn’t terrible work. As straight rolls went, it was… fine. 

“Is this in service or out of service?” Greg asked. Shaw stalled, his body swaying back and forth rhythmically. He was always moving in some way, shifting his weight from side to side, twisting his fingers, eternally tapping some off-beat song onto his knees. 

“Um…” Shaw looked back at the hoses. “Well… if it’s in the engine, I’m guessing it’s in service.” 

“Shaw,” Greg sighed, plopping the hose back in Shaw’s hands, “you are the one who rolled it. There should be no guessing involved.” 

“Look, see?” Shaw turned the hose to Greg, smiling triumphantly. “The male coupling is on the outside. In service!”

“Do it again.” Greg snapped. “Donut rolls. Precise. Perfect. Come and show me once it’s done.” 

“Come on, Greg…” Shaw sighed, his shoulders drooping.

“I wouldn’t tell you to do it again if you’d done it right in the first place.” Greg seethed. “Do. It. Again.” 

Just as Shaw’s mouth opened to say something properly stupid (Greg seemed to be the only person alive who could push Gabriel Shaw to actual, actionable anger), the tones blared in their ears. Greg sighed. 

“Dahlia 911 to 10-19 Fire 1, Fire 2. MVC on Maclum and Shady Grove.” 

“Fuck me!” Greg huffed. “Come on, Shaw.” 

“Do I still redo the hose?” Shaw called over the tones as Greg pulled himself into his turnout pants. 

“Obviously not!” Greg shouted. “Are you stupid?”

“I don’t think so!” 

It was Christmas and five vehicles had piled up in one of the busiest intersections in Dahlia, and Greg was still gathering details as they pulled up to the scene. He wasn’t IC, that particular honor went to the lovely Captain Campbell. Campbell should have retired years ago. Hell, Lieutenant Sanders should have retired years ago too. Greg had his opinions on their out of date protocol and insistence on adhering to the traditions that had been proven by data to be ineffective. He made those opinions known, but it hardly ever mattered. He hadn’t taken the Lieutenant’s exam. He didn’t want the job himself. He just knew when something wasn’t working. 

“Let’s clear the cars and establish triage.” Campbell shouted to the gathered firefighters and paramedics, hiking his turn outs over his gut. “C-collars across the board. I want a clean scene. Sanders, Keaton, Langley, Shaw, you’re extracting and examining. Rodrigez, Smith, Pratchett,  you’re running triage. I want three zones just off the road. Go!” 

“Captain,” Greg sidled himself up next to Campbell. He had opinions and he often made them known, but never in the earshot of probies, where they could be misinterpreted as insubordination. “Wouldn’t it be safer to move the triage area back a few yards from the road?” 

“The ambulances will need easy access to the vics when they arrive.” Campbell grunted. “Listen, Keaton, I’ve been a firefighter for thirty years,” Christ, here he goes, Greg could recite this speech by heart, “I was saving lives at scenes like this while you were in diapers. Now get with Shaw and start clearing vehicles. Go!” 

Greg swallowed his curses as he turned to the bouncing, puppy-eyed idiot standing a few feet off, absolutely eavesdropping on Greg getting his ass verbally handed to him. 

“Come on,” Greg snagged a handful of C-collars from Engine 2 and shoved them into Shaw’s arms. “We collar, assess, extract, got it?” 

“Yep,” Shaw trilled, “I’ve worked a few MVC’s before. I got it, don’t worry about me!” 

Greg didn’t dignify that with a response. 

It took the better part of half an hour to empty the vehicles. It was a three car pile-up, the middle vehicle- a tiny, silver sedan- was crushed between a work truck and a minivan. While Campbell and Sanders worked on the sedan (driver was DOA, the passenger wasn’t far behind him), Greg suffered through the minivan with Shaw. 

Who the hell had their five kids crammed into a minivan at 10:30pm on Christmas fucking day? Eleven, seven, four, three, and fourteen months. Mom was exhausted, Dad wasn’t much better off, and both of them properly fucked by their airbags. The biggest headache of the night was teaching Shaw how to stabilize an infant without a C-collar small enough to fit her. Bumbling, overexcited idiot who teared up the second he saw the baby wailing in her carseat. 

With the cars cleared and triage set up, Greg helped load the children into the back of the first ambulance on scene- the fucking arrival times in this goddam city, Greg could strangle every dispatcher in Dahlia- he heard one kid sniffle. 

There had been little actual crying save the infant, the kids mostly in shock as they were assessed and pulled out of the mangled minivan. Greg looked up as the four-year-old- minimal bruising around the collar and sternum from her car seat, a small abrasion on the left temple from broken glass- began to cry. 

“What’s wrong?” He said softly. Greg was shit with kids, especially little ones he couldn’t really hold a conversation with. “Does something hurt?” Obviously things hurt, Keaton, she was hit by a car! 

“Andy’s not moving.” She pointed across the lit up triage area. Greg turned, his head snapping to the red zone where all of the kids had been funneled immediately. Shaw was knelt, his back turned to Greg, over the nine-year-old. 

“Stay here.” Greg grumbled, depositing the girl into a paramedic’s arms as he marched towards Shaw. 

“Come on, buddy,” Shaw was muttering, “open your eyes for me.” Greg rounded him quickly. Shaw was performing an infant sternum rub, pressing two extended fingers and gently rubbing Andy’s chest. The kid was laid out and pale, his eyes fluttering. His chest was stuttering, barely moving. 

“Idiot,” Greg groaned, shoving Shaw out of the way. “He’s nine, you can put your back into it!” He replaced Shaw’s two fingers with his own fist, clenched, and roughly rubbed it back and forth across the kid’s sternum. “Come on, bud, come on…” 

“I was- he just stopped!”  Shaw sniffled. “We were talking! We were talking about baseball and he just passed out!” 

“Come on, kid, take a breath.” Greg pressed down on his chest once, twice. The kid was properly out of it. Shock? It was cold out here and he had no blanket. “Get a paramedic!” He snapped at Shaw. “Christ, how long has he been down? How stupid are you?”

“He just- I don’t know! A minute? Maybe two?” Shaw turned towards the ambulance before he stilled, face slack.

“What are you still doing here?” Greg turned to shout at Shaw. “Go!” 

When Shaw first moved, Greg was fairly certain he was going in for a punch. Greg had certainly earned it over the course of Shaw’s probationary period so far, but this hardly seemed the time. When Shaw did hit him, it was full body contact. Greg was shoved ass over tea-kettle, not having time to brace himself against the hit. He flailed, thrown a few fet back, and settled against the ground. 

The air was knocked out of him, but Greg still forced himself to sit up, sucking in a sharp breath to begin shouting. As he looked up, Shaw’s name and every curse he could remember at the moment fast on his lips, he was met with a face full of kid. Shaw tossed Andy into Greg, knocking him back down again. The air he had barely regained was knocked right back out of him. 

Greg didn’t even see it. He didn’t hear it, not until he heard Shaw cry out. But the car was there, giant and roaring and headlights flashing. 

He had told Campbell. He had warned the old fucking idiot. Triage was too close to the road. Somebody could get hurt. 

Shaw was screaming. His left leg was pinned under the front, passenger side tire. The SUV that had ignored the flashing lights and emergency vehicles and had plowed through their trauma scene was idling, and the driver was slumped behind the wheel. Medical event? Drunk driver? Later, Keaton. He needed to focus on the problems in front of him in order. The kid first, then Shaw, then the driver. 

Greg turned over his shoulder and shouted sharply for assistance. Every first responder on the scene was turned towards them, momentarily in shock, standing still. With Greg’s strangled voice, they jolted into action again. Two paramedics rushed to Greg and Andy. 

“Breathing,” Greg panted, “he’s breathing. Got a pulse just- he’s unresponsive. Figure it out. Check his spine!” After being thrown like that, Greg could feel his own back protesting. He couldn’t imagine having just been hit by a fucking car and then this. Bad fucking luck. 

With Andy taken care of, Greg slid to his knees next to Shaw. He was curled up in the fetal position on his left side, hands scrambling against his thigh with his left calf crushed under the wheel. He was screaming, wordless and panicked, trying to pull himself out. 

“Stop!” Greg ordered, one hand stabilizing Shaw’s knee and the other scruffing the back of his neck like he would a stray cat. “Stop it, Shaw, I’ve got you. Stop moving. Talk to me, can you feel your foot?” 

“Fuck!” Shaw managed. He clapped a hand on Greg's wrist, nails scratching hard enough to draw blood. “Fuck, the kid- Greg- the kid!”

Crushed under a car and still worried about somebody else. Idiotic hero complex. 

“He’s fine.” Greg replied, feeling for a pulse in Shaw’s thigh. Strong and fast. That was good. “You saved him. You’re an idiot.” 

Campball huffed as he knelt next to Shaw, reaching around the tire. Greg knew exactly what he was doing even without seeing. Two fingers, pressed into the junction of Shaw’s ankle. Campbell’s face was grim when his beady eyes met Greg’s. 

“I told you!” Greg found himself shouting. “I told you! And you didn’t listen! And this is what happens!” 

“Enough, Keaton.” Campbell snapped. “Go check on the driver, I’ll handle this.” 

“I’m not leaving him. This idiot just saved my life! And that kid! You check on the driver!” Greg was being insubordinate. He knew that, if he kept pushing, he was risking his job. The only job he could have. The only thing he was capable of doing. 

But Gabriel Shaw was a pain in his ass. A hopeful, optimistic idiot who believed in heroes and saving lives. And Greg had forgotten that that kind of person existed. And that he used to be one of them. And that hopeful, optimistic idiot was pinned under a car and screaming himself hoarse and if Greg didn’t do this right, Shaw could become as bitter and disillusioned as him. And he didn’t think he could handle that. 

“Careful, Keaton.” Campbell warned. “He’s got no pulse in his lower leg and he’s bleeding buckets. I’d like this scene to be handled nice and clean. But that’s all up to you.” 

“This was your fuck up,” Greg replied, cold and calm, “and I’m ready to make that very well known. So I suggest that you don’t push me. Sir.” 

Campbell held Greg’s gaze for another tense moment before breaking. He stood and made his way to the driver’s side door. 

“Rodrigez, Talbot!” Greg shouted. He didn’t trust Sanders as far as he could throw him, and if that left him with probies and paramedics he didn’t know to handle this, then that was that. Greg cracked his neck as his people surrounded him, hands on Shaw, trying to hold him still on instinct. The panic and pain and guilt that was building up in him like bubbling stomach acid began to settle. He had his problems with leadership, but the grounding force of knowledge to be shared and people to be taught put him right back into his body. Steady, Keaton. Focus. “We’ve got to keep him steady and get this car off of him at the same time. The biggest factor is going to be his pain. His body is gonna fight. Talbot, I need you to stabilize his leg on both sides. The more he moves, the more damage he can cause to himself. Got it?” 

“Yeah,” Talbot nodded sharply and put his hands where Greg instructed him. Out of all of his fuck up, terrible, no good probies, Greg liked Talbot the best. An Irish immigrant with ten years on most new recruits and a pregnant wife at home, Talbot was as steady and sure as Shaw was fleeting and self-conscious. He still knew next to nothing about emergency response, but Greg would take his steady hands and calm demeanor over just about anything else right now. Especially when he felt like his guts were going to shake out of his body any second now. 

“Rodriguez,” Greg said, “I need your belt and something hard and straight.” 

“Keaton,” Sanders’ head poked up from the driver’s side door, “you are not authorized to employ a tourniquet in the field! The statistics on limb damage are-”

“Completely outdated.” Greg snapped as Rodriguez fulfilled his orders without question. “Tourniquets have been standard issue in the military for four years.” Greg slipped the fabric belt under Shaw’s thigh, shushing softly when it elicited a few frankly pathetic sounds of protest that zinged right down Greg’s spine. “He could lose his foot, yeah, but he could keep his life. I’ll take the chance.”

A paramedic slipped him a pair of trauma sheers and Greg secured them between the two ends of the belt. “Okay, Shaw,” he said softly, “this is gonna hurt. I don’t know if you’re really with me, but I need you to stay still.” 

He began to twist the make-shift tourniquet without any further warning. Shaw screamed. He jerked, twisted. Talbot held his leg still. 

Greg’s mind went away from him for a little while. Screaming and clawing and bleeding and dying were not new to him. They were not foreign, far away details out of a story in the news. His father had been a soldier. So had his brother. So had his sister. So had he. Greg, at least, had the good sense to be a medic, and to get out fast. It was a betrayal that his father had never forgotten. 

The Army didn’t give him very much of value. He already had the discipline only Military brats could claim. He already had an appreciation for how fleeting and delicate things like life and peace were. He already had a general distaste for the American government. 

What the Army did give him was the ability to disappear inside of himself when shit got too heavy. When Shaw screamed and cried for his father, Greg was able to stop hearing it. When Shaw grabbed him, dug his nails in, begged him to stop, he was able to turn off the pain and focus. When Shaw went still and glassy with shock, he was able to push down his panic and focus on securing the tourniquet. His whole world narrowed down, focused in on a single, pin point moment. Nothing besides securing those sheers against that belt mattered. Shaw could cry and scream and drift away all he liked. Greg wouldn’t see or hear it until it appeared somewhere in his dreams. 

He knew the next few hours only in the facts that would appear in his incident report. He secured the tourniquet. He oversaw the car being lifted off of Shaw. He checked for bleeding. He helped load Shaw into the ambulance. He rode with him, fingers pressed into his wrist to confirm his heart rate. The ride was an agonizing five minutes. They arrived to Dahlia General and a handsome resident took over. 

Greg was left alone, covered in Shaw’s blood. 

He washed his hands. The skin around his fingernails stayed pink. 

The clock turned over. It wasn’t Christmas anymore. Greg was sitting in a stiff hospital recliner next to a sleeping Gabriel Shaw. He hadn’t lost his leg. He hadn’t lost his life. Greg looked down at his hands at the thought of that, at the idea of Shaw dying tonight while saving him. Christ, he would probably have had to pack it all up and call it quits after that. 

“Is the kid okay?” Shaw’s voice was rough and lacked any of its usual mischief. At the sound of it, Greg wasn’t a soldier anymore. He settled back into himself, exhaled. 

“Yeah.” He replied. “He was in shock. They got him back on the scene and he’s doing fine.” 

Shaw relaxed back into his bed. His entire leg was engulfed in a cast and elevated. He looked a little funny, sprawled out on the bed like that. Greg couldn’t find it in himself to laugh. 

“Good. Good.” Shaw breathed. “Man, I really fucked up, huh?” He chuckled, catching his side as pain rippled through him at the movement. 

“You saved my life.” Greg grumbled. “Me and the kid.” 

“You gonna be nice to me now?” 

“Not a chance.” 

They lapsed into silence. Shaw shifted around, taking stock of his body. He glanced at the clock and sighed. 

“It’s not Christmas anymore.” He mumbled. 

“Not for a few hours.” 

“You don’t have to stay.” Shaw glanced up at Greg through his full, dark lashes. Greg could drown in those brown eyes. 

“I just wanted to see that you’re okay.” Greg said. It was true. At least, that was what he told himself was the truth. That he had only lingered in the hospital because he wanted to know that Shaw was alright. What he really wanted was to avoid his empty one room apartment. It was dismal and got no natural light and had no Christmas decorations. At least the nurses had made an effort to hang little paper snowflakes and set up miniature trees in each room. 

“I’m okay.” Gabe replied. 

“You could have died.” 

“So could you.” 

Greg didn’t let that thought linger. If he let himself think about how often he flirted with death in his career, he would freeze. He had to keep moving. If he kept moving, he knew that everything else would work out. 

“You would have done the same thing for me.” Shaw said. Greg met his eyes steadily. 

“Yeah.” He replied. “You just shouldn’t have had to.” 

“You don’t have to stay.” Shaw said again. His voice took on a wet, emotional quality that reminded Greg of a child asking to sleep in his parents’ room after a nightmare. Desperation. The fear of being rejected. Of facing the darkness of his room alone. Greg scowled. 

“What if I want to?” He replied. Shaw stared at him for a moment, his expression unreadable. 

“I’d guess you were high or dying or something. I don’t know.” Shaw’s laugh was high and ticked across Greg’s nerves like a massage. 

“Go back to sleep, Shaw.” Greg ordered. 

“You’ll stay?”