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He’d been really tired. That was his excuse.
A week of away games, one after the other, had left him sore and worn to the bone. All he’d wanted and wished for the entire drive home had been for a quiet evening of relaxation and some delicious pasta.
Nicolas didn’t exactly consider himself some master chef, but he was confident in his cooking abilities enough to leave the pasta and sauce to cook while he lounged on the couch in the living-room. It wasn’t a big deal. He’d done it plenty times before without burning his house to the ground.
Before was the key word here.
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The shrill of his alarm slowly stirred him out of his slumber. He vaguely recalled having slumped into his couch in front of the TV where he passed out for a minute, but aside from that he didn’t remember ever setting an alarm clock or moving to bed.
He groaned against the intruding noise and opted instead for ignoring it as he turned towards the back of the couch and smacked his lips, attempting to shoo away the shrilly, repetitive noise.
Still, despite his best efforts, the noise wouldn’t go away, and he felt himself slowly but surely regaining consciousness.
He opened his eyes and blearily checked his surroundings. He was lying on his couch, exactly where he remembers knocking out, and the TV was still on, but what hit him as odd was that his vision had blurred significantly. Moreover, the whole room had a grey tint to it.
He sniffed the air and listened for the shrilly noise coming from inside the apartment and he rubbed the sleep out of his eyes, hoping it would rid him of the bleariness. When he removed his hands, the room was still grey, and his fire alarm was still ringing at full volume…
Fire alarm!?
If half the speed at which he flung himself out of his couch could have been used on the court, he was fairly certain he’d be the world’s greatest volleyball player. Alas, all that speed was deprecatingly lost to leaping out of his skin and dashing towards his very much burning kitchen.
There goes his pasta, he thought, and didn’t get further than that when loud bangs sounded through the apartment.
“Fire brigade! Open the door!” shouted a deep, muffled voice from the other side of the door.
A heaving, dry cough crawled its way up his throat. He staggered towards the door and tapped the door handle to check its temperature. Luckily for him, it’d remained lukewarm.
All breath left his lungs as he pushed the door open, suddenly a lot heavier than he remembered it being, and was greeted on the other side by a firefighter in full gear. He couldn’t see his face from behind the mask, nor could he see any other refining features. All he saw was a tall, broad figure reaching for him with a filtering mask in hand.
He shoved it over Nicola’s head, bent down and hoisted him up over his shoulder and that was when, for the second time that evening, that he decked out.
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When he came to for the second time, he was laying outside of his apartment complex. The only reason he knew that from the get-go was because he could see his window from where he lay, swallowed in flames and thick, black smoke.
He wouldn’t be returning home for a good while, was his first thought. His second thought was whether he’d put someone else in danger.
The ambulance worker who’d been tending to him saw the distress in his eyes.
“No one is dead. You are OK. We are taking care of you. You’re out of danger,” she recited, trained and precise and with big, gentle eyes.
“Fifhtr…”
He coughed and groaned when his voice came out raspy and entirely unintelligible.
“Calm down. No need to speak right now, your vocal cords need rest and healing. You inhaled quite a lot of smoke back there, you know?” the kind nurse berated him as she worked with her colleague on patching him up.
A glance around them told Nicolas that other people from his complex, too, were getting medical attention. None, from what he could see, were as beat up as him at least.
Thoughts of tall and strong came to mind. He knew firefighters put themselves at risk, too, every time they rescued someone, and he caught himself wondering about the one who’d saved him. Was he OK? Was he still in there, saving people?
He wanted to thank him, properly, for saving his ass and for dealing with Nicola’s general idiocy.
God, how did he manage to screw up so royally?
As if summoned, from behind the nurse tending to him, Nicolas caught sight of a familiar figure. Well, all firefighters looked much the same in their gear perhaps, but Nicolas recognized that height and that width and…
He was standing, talking to a colleague, with his jacket unbuttoned and all protective gear off. He recognized that dirty helmet he was holding. He recognized him.
Well, he didn’t recognize the lines of cut-and-carved abs, or the slim waist, or that impeccable v-line, or that delicious happy-trail, or those sweaty, sweaty pecs…
He was getting closer, and when Nicolas looked up to see his face he stopped breathing for reasons beyond the fire.
The man was a sight for sore eyes. Tall and dark and with eyes so brightly blue he could see the reflection of the fire in them even this far away, which wasn’t very far any longer.
“Are you alright?” he asked once he was close enough, and Nicolas had to physically regroup so as not to audibly moan in the man’s face.
He seemed younger. A lot younger. In his twenties, maybe, which worried Nicolas because he doubted someone so young would even consider dating him, but then he was also a professional athlete and quite handsome if he may say so himself.
But this one, this one was a whole ‘nother story. Perfect skin, the sharpest jaw Nicolas had ever seen on a man. High, high cheekbones atop of which a set of gorgeous eyes, framed with the longest lashes he’d ever seen. Lips to die for. Coal black hair that fell softly over his face; curled only slightly from sweat.
Nicolas realized far too late that he hadn’t answered the man, or for the record even given any indication that he was alive and well. Even the nurse was side eyeing him.
“He’s recovering his vocal cords from the excessive smoke inhalation. I’m afraid he can’t answer, but I can assure you that you did your job spectacularly well. Mr. Romero will be perfectly fine after a short rehabilitation and some cough medicine.”
She smiled warmly at Nicolas and then up at the firefighter, who was staring at him with a blank look on his face.
Nicolas waved shakily up at him and tried for something he hoped was a smile.
To his surprise, the firefighter huffed out a soft laugh and squatted down next to him.
“You’re the world’s biggest dumbass, you know?” he said, which should have pissed him off, but rather than piss him off all it did was make him crash headfirst into whatever was growing in the cavity of his torso.
He gave the firefighter a thumbs up, then pointed to him, and waved his hand as if to say, “Your name, what”.
For a second, he feared he wouldn’t be understood, and would have to watch this gorgeous man go (not that he doubted the sight wouldn’t be so bad) without ever knowing his name, but to his astonishment the firefighter got the memo.
“My name?” he asked and pointed to himself. Nicolas nodded eagerly, which worsened his headache and got the nurse to scold him.
The firefighter chuckled. “My name is Kageyama Tobio,” he said, and Nicolas distantly noted that it was probably Japanese.
He could tell Tobio’s English wasn’t his mother’s tongue, but it didn’t matter. He spoke it really well. And, besides, he could be cackling like a chicken for all he cared; the guy was hot. Hot guys got off easily in the language department.
“You’re Nicolas Romero, right?” he asked and smirked when he saw Nicola’s expression morph into surprise.
He knew him? Nicolas was pretty sure the apartment plate didn’t include his full name.
He nodded, dumbly.
“I’ve seen you play,” Tobio explained. “You’re really good. I play too. Setter,” he said, and Nicolas thought it was strangely endearing how this man, who’d hoisted him over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes and carried him out of a burning building, sat crouched before him blushing like a kid on Christmas eve with eyes so big and bright he could light up an entire city.
Nicolas rose his hand and made a gesture of typing on a phone before pointing to Tobio’s pants, hoping he had his phone on him.
He seemed confused for a moment but fished out his phone regardless and handed it to Nicolas. He opened up contacts and typed in his number, and as a way of talking to Tobio also sent himself a text message.
Tobio took his phone back and stared wide-eyed at the new contact and the message underneath.
“’I’d love to know you better. Wanna go out for dinner once I’m no longer dying?’” Tobio read aloud.
It made Nicolas blush, and the nurse by his side squint and grin knowingly at him, but none of it mattered much when he saw a bright smile spread those perfect lips thin.
“I’d love to,” he said.
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And if he retold that story a little differently at the wedding, years later, no one but Tobio could judge him for it.