Chapter Text
Why was it after someone recovered from an injury or got a clean bill of health or walked away from a near-death experience, they’re told they have a new lease on life? Did the last one expire? How long was the new lease supposed to last? A month? Two? Twelve? Fifteen? At what point were they able to renegotiate and ask for better terms? Maybe they could get a good deal if they renewed on a three-month basis.
Granted, no one wants to live their life counting down the days they have left. That is, not unless that’s their only option. But when other options present themselves, what else are they supposed to do instead of count time? They were used to it. Habits die hard. It wasn’t theirs anyway, the new amount of time dropped on their laps. It was borrowed so it was best not to get too comfortable with it.
I didn’t.
No matter how many times he rifled through his bag, checking and rechecking and rechecking the contents packed and in their proper places, Ravi Panikkar couldn’t shake the feeling he was forgetting something.
Blowing out a breath, lips vibrating at the effort, Ravi dug a hang through his thick, dark hair, staring down at the stack of books, notepads, extra clothes, toiletries, and towel. His eyes raked over every nook and cranny of the bag, shifting through the checklist popping up in his mind. But he always came up short at the end, a big blank spot pulsing at him, taunting the less-than-stellar results of his mental faculties.
Not that he needed the reminder; the scar on his chest did a good job of that.
“Okay, one more time,” Ravi muttered. Removing the items, he placed them on the bed in reverse order. Maybe seeing it all in front of him again would jog his memory. It may not exactly be a muscle, but it needed to be stretched and warmed up too. He needed to be wide awake and on full alert.
Slapping his face with his palms, Ravi shook out his hands and blew out another breath. “First, towels. Then the pants, shirts, books, notebooks…” As he spoke, he picked up each item and replaced them in the bag, mentally adding a little checkmark in his mind as he went. Underwear, check. Socks, check. Pens, check. Gloves, charger, toiletries, sunscreen, bug spray, watch, utility knife, power bars, flashlight, chapstick, bug spray, and wet wipes. Everything was back in its proper place, stacked large to small, bottom to top, and he even had a little space leftover. And yet the little neon sign in his head flickered and pulsed, pointing to the empty spot on his list.
What was he missing?
Turning on his heel, he left his room and made a beeline for the living room, snapping his twitching fingers along the way. The living room welcomed him in with remnants of his late-night cramming session: flashcards lay scattered around the floor like fallen autumn leaves, workbooks left open and discarded on the couch, tangled up with the gray bed sheet spread across the cushions, uncapped highlighters and dried out pens scattered across the coffee table. A pristine snapshot of the day before his life changed.
He still had time to back out, to change his mind, to respond to the email that’d been sitting unread on his computer the past couple of months. He could get back on track and this little derailment would be a little blip in his life plan. He could put all this in the rear-view mirror and never think of it again. That way everyone would win and he didn’t disappoint anyone else. Except maybe himself…
Sucking in a deep breath, Ravi placed his hands on his hips and began to pace. Every few steps he’d let out the breath he held only to suck it back in a moment later. His heart pounded against his chest and tingles popped at his fingertips. “You’re okay, you’re okay. You’re good! This is a good thing you’re doing. You want to do something good and that’s what you’re doing.” His voice was small or was the ticking of the clock on the wall drowning him out? With each ratchet of the second hand, the ticking got louder and louder, becoming a series of slamming doors, sealing his fate.
No turning back.
“Ravi?”
The scuffle by the door stopped him in his tracks, his hands flying up to cup the back of his neck, still breathing hard. Something metal scraped against the other side of the door and, a second later it swung open due to the kick of a booted foot. Ravi watched as a mass of plastic grocery bags rustled and shimmied and swung their way in through the open door, hanging off light brown arms, one lifted neon orange Doc Marten, and between the clenched teeth of his roommate, Betsy Payne.
Betsy managed to hop into the room, turn, and close the door with her extended foot. A muffled laugh of triumph sounded around the bag handles between her teeth, her lips curling up in the corners, brown eyes shinning. Her long braids swung with the movements, the gold rings and cuffs adorning the ropes clinking together and brushing against the plastic bags digging into her arms, puckering her skin, leaving deep indents behind.
“Why didn’t you take two trips?”
Her answer became muffled around the bag, but he knew what she said anyway. She said it all the time. Two trips are for chumps! It was a spectacle at this point, seeing all the ways she could come up with not having to go back and forth to her jeep. Her stubborn streak was a mile wide and equally as deep.
The smile slipped from her face and the lights in her eyes dimmed with flooding concern. Her head tilted to the side and his breath caught for a second beneath her curious gaze. It left a trail as it swept across his face, then ran from head to toe and back again. Her shoulders sagged and she spoke again, the words still coming out a mumbled mess. Are you freaking out?
“Little bit,” Ravi replied, nodding. His head jostled like a bobblehead, coming very close to the way his leg bounced before he forced himself to get up and get ready for his shift. The packing helped his jumpy limbs until he forgot something. …What was it?
“Aww.” Her compassion was short lived, being replaced with a cry of shock when the bag slipped out of her mouth and smacked against the ground. The resulting crack made both their eyes widen and drop their chins to look at the floor, where oozing yellow goop spilled onto the shiny hardwood. “Oh man! Those were the eggs!”
“Here, let me.” Ravi took the bags from her, untangling her limbs, collecting them in his hands with ease. Once set on the kitchen table, he rifled through the bags for the perishables, putting them away. Next came the frozen food and sweet treats, then the dry food, the cans, bread, junk food, and finally produce. Everything in order and everything in its rightful place, checklist complete. He didn’t miss anything.
“Ah, see, you’re already putting those firefighter skills to good use. Bet all those hoses are heavier than those bags though.” Betsy slipped past him, hand dragging against his back, juggling a paper towel roll and the cloth-pad mop beneath an arm.
“They weigh about the same with all the ice cream you buy.”
Betsy shot him a look. “It’s for emergencies.”
A smile cracked at Ravi’s mouth as he shoved his hands in his pockets. Leaning against the entryway wall, he crossed his feet at the ankles and watched her grimace while scooping up the yolk in the paper towels. “I don’t think watching Riverdale counts as an emergency.”
Betsy snorted. “You’ve clearly never seen Riverdale if you don’t think stuffing my face with ice cream to numb the pain isn’t an emergency.”
“So why do you watch it?”
“I don’t. Not regularly. That’s the point.” Betsy balled up the paper towels and dragged dry patches against her fingers, scraping off excess yolk. “It’s my last choice if there’s absolutely nothing on.”
“You can’t even settle for a Lifetime movie?”
“You know I can’t watch those without you. I can’t make running commentary on the characters’ stupidity alone.” She tossed the wadded ball at him and he ducked out of the way. It landed with a wet smack against the kitchen floor. Ravi gripped the front of his jacket and looked for any wayward stretch of yolk or egg white. It was still a perfect navy blue, the red and white lettering on the lapel as bright as when he first received it the day prior. He hadn’t gotten his uniform yet. That was for tonight. “You’re not freaking out.” Betsy speaking again grabbed Ravi’s attention. She looked at him through the parting curtain of her swinging braids with every push and pull of the mop. It gave a mechanical whir as she pressed the button on the handle, shooting cleaning mixture on the floor.
“I still am.”
“Why?”
“Because. What if…I was wrong? What if I’m not cut out for this? What if I’m making a mistake?”
“Ravi, I did not let you carry me over your shoulder up and down six flights of stairs every day for fourteen weeks for it to be a mistake.“ She paused in her mopping, leaning her weight against the handle. "You were one of the best in your class. I don’t know anyone else with a brain like yours. There’s no one else more cut out for this than you. You’re even made of the right material: big heart, patience, and a trusting face that’ll make a Disney prince envious.” He cracked a smile at that. “It’s a winning combination, if I do say so myself. Besides, people need to see you. Maybe there’ll be other little brown boys and girls that’ll grow up thinking they can be firefighters too.”
“You think?” He couldn’t keep the hope from leaking into the skepticism attached to his words.
She nodded. “I know. There’s not enough of people like you out there. Someone needs to save people, why not you? Besides, you’ll be fulfilling a lot of people’s dreams of being rescued by a handsome fireman. We can’t let that go to waste.”
“Do people really dream of that?” He asked with a laugh.
“Do people really dream of being saved from their worst nightmare or that worst fear, cradled up against the strong chest of their savior, carried to safety, held like a baby in their big, strong arms? Yes, yes they do.” Throwing a wink his way, she added with a large grin, “And I’m one of them.”
His cheeks burned and he crossed his arms, giving her a look. “As long as you don’t intentionally go looking for trouble.”
“Moi?” Her eyes widened and she let out a little gasp. “I would never! I can’t believe you’d suggest such a thing!” Then, waving her hand, she continued, “Besides, I don’t need to create emergencies for you to come to my rescue. You do that often enough.” She resumed mopping. “That’s how I know you’ll be okay, by the way. But you won’t know unless you try.” He hummed. She wasn’t wrong. “Isn’t your shift soon?”
Soon. He hated that word. How many times had it been used whenever he asked when he was leaving the hospital? “Yeah, I was about to…um, I was getting ready.”
“Why don’t you get the rest of your stuff? And I’ll get you your dinner.”
“You made me dinner?”
“Of course. I figured you’d be spinning yourself into a circle by now.” She peeled the dirtied mop pad off the green mop and tossed it in the nearby trash. “Feeding yourself is the last thing you should be worrying about.”
Reaching out, he placed a hand on her arm, stopping her from moving past him. “Thank you.” It was very sweet of her to be looking out for him. Especially after the last few weeks with the firehouse training schedule keeping him away and, when he was home, keeping him up at all hours. It couldn’t have been easy dealing with him when she was on her own late-night bartending schedule.
“My pleasure. I gotta find a way to repay you somehow.”
He sighed. This again. “Bets, you know you don’t have to—”
Her waving hand blocked his protests. “I was going to make jambalaya, but I didn’t want to make everyone else in the fire house jealous and have a reason to dislike you.” Or more of a reason. “So I went with a breakfast sandwich. On a croissant.”
“Fancy.”
“I figure by the time your shift ends it’ll be morning and this way you don’t haveta make a pit stop before coming back here to crash.”
“Good call.”
She made the waving gesture again, this time shooing him away. Ravi followed her direction, going back to his room to grab his bag. After one more check—a quick one—he zipped up his bag and hefted it onto his shoulder, nearly folding to his side at the dropping weight. Hmm, maybe he packed too much. But it was better to be safe than sorry, right? “What were you going to do the rest of the night?” he asked once he was back in the living room.
She stepped on the heels of her Doc Martens, leaning against the wall for support as her shoulders lifted and dropped along with her sigh. “Well, I have some pictures I need to edit and get to Izzy tomorrow and I told Ms. Johnson I’d take Bear out on his walk. And the Goldsteins asked me to have dinner with them.” Her head tilted to the side and heat crawled up his neck at the look she pinned him with. It was very reminiscent of the look his mother would give him as a child. “Which I assume you had something to do with.”
Ravi rubbed the back of his neck. “…I might have asked them to invite you.”
Her head thudded against the wall when she tilted it backwards to groan. “Ra-vi!”
“I just…didn’t feel right with you being here alone,” he said.
“I’ve been here alone before. I’ll be fine.”
“Yeah, but last time—”
“I told you, I just had a bad night at work.” Her words were as stiff as the cross to her arms. “They happen.”
“I know you know this but if you want to talk about it—”
“Nothing to talk about.“ Her hand sliced the air, arm extended, blocking his words. "Except how you’re gonna be the bestest firefighter ever!”
He rolled his eyes. She was great at changing the subject. He’d let her off the hook, for now. “That’s not a word.”
“Because there’s not enough words in the English language that can describe how awesome you’re gonna be!” Her energy was as limitless as her smiles.
He grabbed his abandoned bag and slung it over his shoulder. The plastic on the strap creaked and groaned under the weight of the bag hanging off him. He ran through the checklist in his mind again. Check, check, check. Everything was in its place. Besides, he had a feeling if he stopped to look again Betsy would shove him into the bag and drag him to the firehouse herself.
Sucking in a breath and letting it out slow, Ravi took the steps towards the door and his future. He had one foot over the threshold when Betsy spoke: “Ravi, wait.”
“What?“ God, he hoped she didn’t have some sort of cheer waiting for him. Or a pinata she insisted he bust open or a mariachi band stashed somewhere. He appreciated her support but sometimes she didn’t know where to draw the line. "I’m gonna be late, Bets.”
“Okay but I don’t think you’ll make a good first impression showing up at your first shift without shoes.”
Huh? Ravi dropped his chin and wiggled his toes. His bare toes. The cool grip of the hardwood into his feet made a chill crawl up his spine.
Oh.
So that’s what he forgot.