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This story contains M/M romance, drama, and emotional stuff including firefighters!

Flash Fry - Chapter Three

For several days after their first romantically charged encounter, Ian and Curtis barely spent a moment of free time apart. Curtis explained to his parents where he was, though not what he was doing there, and of course they had absolutely no problem with their son spending time with the man who had single handedly saved their young daughter's life. After a few long, heady days together however Curtis did return home, parting with the rabbit for what they both assured one another would only be a brief time, and one last, lingering smooch.

From then onward, Curtis was strangely silent. He had Ian's cell phone number and e-mail address, but as one day, then two, then three passed by, the fox did not call nor text nor make any attempt to communicate. Ian didn't worry at first, assuming that Curtis was just busy living his life, but after five days had gone by without sight nor sound of the vulpine, his new lover was becoming a little concerned. He texted Curtis, and attempted to call him a couple of times over the next few days. The phone rang and rang, but no-one answered, and his text messages went un-responded to, whether received or not.

It didn't hurt Ian too badly to think that perhaps Curtis had changed his mind. Younger guys weren't always as comfortable with their sexuality as one might have hoped, and at nineteen the fox was at just the kind of age where experimentation and curiosity would crash headlong into the cultural expectation of what it was to be a grown man. More directly however the rabbit was kept rather busy by his job, for while he wasn't working any more shifts than normal the crews seemed ever more pressed for time as they darted from job to job, many of them involving small fires that appeared to be arson.

Of course, Ian didn't see any connection between the fires and Curtis' absence. Why would he have? Thus almost three weeks went by of these minor inconveniences; dumpsters being soaked in gasoline and set alight, gardens having bushes set on fire, even a small section of the city park burning, thankfully doused before it could spread. The local authorities were looking into it, but their leads were limited, and there really didn't seem to be any pattern or purpose behind the fires.

Then, practically a month after he'd first met the fox, Ian and his companions at the Fire Department received a call that chilled the bunny to his bones.

A house fire.

A house fire at an address he recognised.

The home of the family members who had taken Curtis, his sister and his parents in following the tragic burning of their own home.

"Fuck!"

Ian could have screamed as he read the report en route, but merely shouted, still drawing stunned and worried looks from his colleagues until he filled them in.

"It's the family whose kid we saved a month back. They called it in... they... they said their son, Curtis... he fucking set the house on fire with himself trapped inside. Fuck. He trusted me. I... I trusted him, and now... oh god, we have to get there."

By the time they arrived on the scene, the house was entirely ablaze; far worse than the fox's first home. It only took a glance from any of the trained firefighters present to see that there was an accelerant fuelling the flames, and once they disembarked from their rig the gathered family members, stunned, weeping, shrieking with fear and sorrow in the case of little Sadie, informed them that just a minute or so before there had been an explosion emanating from Curtis' bedroom, setting the top floor alight and going so far as to send several tiles flying from the roof, gouts of flame erupting from beneath them.

Having geared up on the ride over, the team swiftly moved into position. Hoses were set upon the front of the house, attempting to quell the harshest of the flames so that the entry teams could go in and attempt to rescue the 'victim' within. All the while Ian stood at the gate of the home's small garden, first in line and poised, ready to bolt forward the moment his Captain gave the say so. His eyes remained fixated upon the flickering flames as they roared from the front door and windows, and every second the rabbit half expected to watch a flaming, writhing figure run from the house, screaming about how he was burning just how he'd burn in hell for being some sick faggot. He knew it couldn't be his fault, not really. He hadn't given Curtis the means or the motive to do this... not rationally, but still he felt culpable. This was his mess, and he had to play some part, however small, in fixing it.

"Eight Zero Alpha, Beta, Charlie. You have a go. Follow behind internal fire team and break off only when subject is sighted and suitable for removal."

When that order came and Ian watched one of the main hose units moving slowly forward, training the water on the now dampened, less frantically burning front door of the house, half of him wanted to sob with joy as he at last began to approach the house and prepare for entry, while the other half just wanted to turn and run, never looking back at this blazing home or any fire ever again. He knew that professional detachment had to take priority in cases like this though, otherwise he risked not only his own life but that of all his companions. It was that sobering thought which allowed Ian to enter the burning building with at least a somewhat clear head, and once inside, surrounded by smoke and ash and fire, his professional instincts took over and spared his higher thought functions for the time being.

Little by little, room by room the firefighters cleared the ground floor. Living room. Kitchen. Downstairs bathroom. Dining room. Office. All clear. Ian checked the back door, hoping that perhaps Curtis had escaped through it, but it was locked with the key on the inside. The heat from the dampened but still furious fire, not to mention the accelerated inferno above their heads, made it difficult to think, and it was for that reason following the rabbit's last circuit of the kitchen he was immensely glad when one of his comrades tapped him firmly on the shoulder and directed him to look to his right.

There, on the far side of the kitchen, was another door. A door he hadn't seen. He cursed through his mask.

Slowly the three rescue firefighters, the hose unit dousing the various smouldering kitchen worktops and cabinets, approached this last un-used door, and with Ian at their head pulled it open.

There was no fire within, much to their relief, but once they saw a figure standing there, watching them wide eyed and with a sick smile twisted upon his muzzle, both Ian and his partner dived hurriedly through the door, the third member of their trio closing it tight behind them to prevent any more smoke from getting in than that which already had.

Ian pulled off his helmet, much to the consternation of his fellow firefighter, and flung himself forward, straight into the waiting, grinning figure of Curtis. He heard the fox yelp in pain as they hit the hard stone rear wall of the room, doubtlessly dividing this house from the one next door, but even as he recovered from the force of the impact that dull, forced grin still remained stretched across the fox's maw.

"You... you're here to save me. Right?"

A pair of hands grabbed Ian from behind, attempting to drag him away from the fox as Curtis spoke to him. Ian was larger and stronger though, and he held his ground.

"What the fuck have you done, Curtis? What the insane fuck have you done?!"

A look of surprise and hurt crossed the fox's face.

"Are... a-are you mad at me, Ian?"

At first the rabbit thought that Curtis was mocking him, but then he realised the horrible truth. The fox genuinely didn't see why he'd be angry right now.

"My god, Curtis. What the hell's wrong with you? Why did you set the house on fire??"

By now Ian's partner, the same ferret who had backed him up at Curtis' first home, had pulled off her own helmet and mask and stopped trying to drag her partner back. It wasn't that she wasn't still pissed at him for going way off book, but as she heard more and more of the two men exchanging dialogue she began to understand at least a little of the horrific situation that was unfolding here. She knew that Curtis was almost certainly not in his right mind, and that Ian, for whatever his relationship may have been to the fox, was trying to do something about it.

Curtis looked from left to right, glaring suspiciously at the ferret before turning his gaze more warmly, almost intimately, back towards Ian. He smiled dryly, without any trace of humour.

"When I got home from your place... my sister asked me if we'd talked about you. She said that you were her special friend, because you'd saved her life. Then my parents got started, telling me that I was welcome to bring you over any time for dinner or just to hang out. They said that Sadie would love to see you again, because you saved her life. You were so special, just like her, because it was her who got stuck in the fire... her whose life you got to save."

Now a true smile, beaming and bright, shone upon his face.

"But now you've saved me too. So... so now I'm special. You can forget all about Sadie, and... a-and she can shut the fuck up."

Ian looked like he'd been shot in the stomach. He felt sick, and not from the smoke inhalation he was probably inflicting upon himself just by standing here with his mask off for so long. The rabbit shook his head mournfully, and reached out with one hand to place it upon Curtis' right shoulder.

"Look, Curtis. I... I get that you've been through a lot lately. I don't blame you for this... no-one does..."

A lie, but one that was irrelevant at this stage regardless of how things went.

"...but I think you need to get some help. You need to come out of here with me, and we need to take you to see a doctor. Being in a fire can be a traumatic experience even if you never get touched by the flames, and this... w-whatever it is you've done here, or think you've done..."

Curtis reached up, placing one of his hands tenderly over Ian's own. The rabbit withdrew his own hand violently, a look of revulsion upon his face, and Curtis whimpered softly.

"Hey, why did you do that? You're saving my life. Don't you get it. You've saved me, s-so now we're even closer. Give it a few days, weeks at most, and I know you'll be ready to hear me say what I know I could say right now. I love you... m-my brave firefighter. I've seen you hard at work, putting out fires all over the city these past few weeks. All preparing you. Training you for this moment. You did so well. And now... now you've saved me. It's all so perfect."

Ian looked over his shoulder, towards his partner. She looked about as terrified as he felt, and shook her head as he gestured towards the door. The ferret wasn't going anywhere, not even to get help, if it meant leaving Ian alone with this... this psychopath. He sighed, and turned back to the fox with a pleading glance, maintaining eye contact for as long as he could bare to gaze into those wild, untamed and utterly disconnected hues of his.

"We need to get out of here, Curtis. Okay? We're going to take you outside, back to your family, and then we can get you some help."

The fox growled, glaring at Ian's partner.

"No. No we. Just you can save me. Only you."

Rolling her eyes and speaking at last, stepping forward into line with Ian as she did so, the ferret reached out to grab hold of Curtis by one arm.

"Don't be an idiot, now come on and let's..."

That was when all hell broke loose.

With a savage snarl, Curtis swung for the ferret and connected a sharp blow to the right side of her face. She staggered, stumbled, and fell backwards onto the laundry room's tiled floor. It wouldn't have been a problem if she'd been wearing her helmet as the regulations swore that she had to at all times, but, following Ian's lead, she wasn't. Her head hit the tile with a thud, and after a momentary widening of the eyes and an accompanying moan of pain, she slumped back on the floor, unconscious.

"No! Marianne!"

It was hard to tell who cried out the loudest, Ian or Curtis, as the rabbit broke away from the fox and scooped the ferret up in his arms. He slipped her mask and helmet back on, not to disguise their error in judgement but rather to protect her on the way out, lifted her up, and without a moment's further hesitation made for the door back into the kitchen. That was when he felt a pair of hands grab him from behind, around the waist, and begin dragging him backwards. He screamed, shameless and unabashed in terror, anger and sorrow, and kicked blindly behind him with his thick, steel capped boots. He hit something, heard Curtis yelp, and was free again.

The laundry room door burst open a moment later to reveal the third member of the rescue trio, for while the whole ruckus within the room seemed to have taken a lifetime for those concerned it had only been just over a minute, enough time to make the other firefighter curious, but not concerned. Only Ian's scream, ringing out above the roar of the hosepipe and hissing of the fire as his colleagues began to battle the blaze above them, alerted him to the urgency of the situation.

Ian ran, unthinking, focused solely upon Marianne, as his colleague took one look at Curtis, wild, wide eyed and barrelling towards the rabbit once more as though to tackle him. The third firefighter met Curtis head on, literally, and the fox crumpled to the ground as his head smashed forcefully against the protective shell of the firefighter's helmet. He wasn't unconscious, but he was hurt, and right now that was the least of his problems.

By the time Marianne had been carried outside and brought to the back of one of the ambulances which had pulled up since the fire truck's arrival, she was regaining consciousness. Thus Ian departed from her side after swearing how sorry he was, and ran back into the blazing building despite his Captain's cries to the contrary. He intended to return to the laundry room, to see and extricate Curtis at long last, but the rabbit had only made it as far as the front door when he saw his now decidedly ex-lover standing before him. Curtis was standing at the bottom of the stairwell, observing the length of hose ascending the stair and the thick, billowing smoke belching out from the top floor as a dull red glow flickered and grunted against the onslaught of water assailing it.

He looked towards Ian, then towards the other firefighter, emerging only now from the kitchen clutching his cracked oxygen mask, obviously having taken at least one blow to the face from some source related to the fox or another. With another wild, insane grin, he bolted up the stairs, and even though Ian set off in hot pursuit the rabbit knew that only his colleagues upstairs stood between Curtis and god only knew what horrific fate.

Half way up the stairs, Ian heard one of his colleagues cry out in shock.

Three quarters of the way up, he heard an anguished howl.

It was only when Ian reached the top of the stairs however, and saw his two colleagues staring in stunned dismay at the open door of the blazing bedroom at the end of the corridor, that the full horror of what Curtis was doing set in.

A moment later he heard another ear-splitting vulpine shriek, and the crashing of glass.

Moments after that, he heard voices outside, screaming even over the roar of the flames.

Screaming.

Screaming.

He felt his knees growing weak, and his head started to spin.

"No..."

His eyes closed, no longer responding to Ian's commands, and behind those blank lids the rabbit saw a life that wasn't his own flash before him.

A flash of life, swallowed up in a flash of fire. Senselessly raging, consuming, using anything and everything in its path, and leaving only ruin, pain, and destruction in its wake.

By Jeeves