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It’s been a long day for station 126, and it’s about to get even longer. They’ve been on call after call, and it doesn’t seem to be slowing down at all. Mateo suspects one of them threw around the “Q” word, but he hadn’t been listening, so he has no idea who did it, if anyone. He just suspects.
They’re all doing their own thing at the moment. They just got off a call that took a while despite being pretty simple, and now they’re just waiting for the next call while trying to catch their breath. Judd is cleaning some equipment. Paul and Marjan are chatting about something he can’t hear. Owen is in his office doing paperwork.
Mateo is in the kitchen, trying to figure out what to eat. Truthfully, he’d forgotten to eat dinner last night, and he hasn’t eaten at all today. That may not sound like a lot of time, but it is when you don’t eat much to begin with. He already feels weak and dizzy, so he knows he has to eat something before the next call. He just… doesn’t even feel like it. He’s not hungry.
He rummages through the cabinets for anything that seems appetizing, but he finds nothing despite them being well-stocked. He really hasn’t had an appetite in months, and it’s been causing him to eat less and less. He barely eats twice a day anymore. He knows it’s bad, especially since he’s a firefighter, but he can’t help it. Nothing tastes good. Every time he eats it’s a reminder of just how depressed he is - it’s so bad that everything just doesn’t taste the same. He doesn’t even want food.
But he’s trying so hard anyways. He finds a bowl and decides to just have some cereal. It’s not a lot - that’s, what, 300 calories, rounding up? But it’s something, and something is better than nothing.
Unfortunately, as soon as he grabs the box, the klaxon goes off. It’s loud, and it makes him sigh with annoyance. He hears his fellow firefighters grumbling about it, too.
He sets the box down and abandons the bowl to go grab his equipment and gear up.
By the time they get to the location of the call, he’s feeling much worse than earlier. He’s so hungry and the heavy equipment is really hard to walk with since he feels so weak already. But he doesn’t let it show - he doesn’t want to have to sit this out and worry everyone. He’s fine; he’ll just get through this call, and then he’ll eat, and it’ll be fine.
He says that, but then there’s three more calls back-to-back, and he doesn’t get another chance to eat until three hours later. Though as soon as he tries, there’s another call, and at this point it’s like the world doesn’t want him to eat.
Judd is watching him - he can feel it. He’s watching him, carefully, like he suspects something. But Mateo isn’t doing anything wrong. He’s just not eating. It’s not like he hasn’t been trying to.
He sighs on the way to the call, blinking slowly, trying to get rid of the fatigue that’s seeping in. By the time they get to the building that’s on fire, he’s yawned a few times, and he feels even more tired and weak. It’s getting hard to keep it to himself, but Owen looks stressed out, and he doesn’t want to get snapped at, so he steps out of the rig and makes his way into the building anyways.
It’s hot - it’s hot as fuck, despite his equipment. It’s just making the room spin even more. He’s alone, he knows it, so he lets his shoulders droop, and he slumps over a little. When he does this, the room spins faster, sweeping under his feet, and he has to stumble to get to the wall and lean on it heavily while black dots invade his vision and cloud up everything until he can barely see.
He’s breathing a little heavily. He’s never passed out before, but he suspects this is how it feels right before you do.
He hears voices, but they’re muffled. He can barely make out what’s going on. His vision is still blurred and he can’t breathe properly. He doesn’t think he’s having a panic attack, though. It just feels like everything is too much effort for his exhausted body.
Suddenly there’s a hand on his shoulder, and he jolts. He whirls around and stumbles back into the wall as the world spins faster around him, leaning heavily against it. Judd locks eyes with him - of course it’s Judd, the man’s been watching him all day, making sure something doesn’t happen. He must’ve noticed Mateo looked worse than usual. Of course he did, he’s observant… he should’ve expected that.
“Are you okay?” he asks, helping Mateo off the wall. “Come on, we’re going outside.”
“But–”
“Don’t,” he says, shaking his head. “We’re going outside,” he repeats, more firmly this time.
Mateo just sighs and follows him out of the building. He takes off his helmet when they’re far enough away and takes a deep breath. They head over to one of the rigs that isn’t in use at the moment, and Mateo leans against it heavily, still panting softly, his eyes slipping shut as he tries to stop the dizziness.
“What the hell happened?” Judd asks after a moment, looking him up and down, trying to assess what’s wrong with him. He has his suspicions, surely, but he won’t voice them yet.
“Haven’t eaten all day,” Mateo replies, not seeing a point in lying about it after all this. He glances over at his friend tiredly.
Judd looks a little surprised at the admission - firstly at how easily he admitted it, but secondly at what he said. “Uh… why?”
“Cause– I forgot to eat dinner last night, and I usually skip breakfast… after that, we’ve been so busy all day that I haven’t had a chance…” he explains quietly, taking off more of his gear to run a hand through his hair. It’s shaking, and that’s when he realizes he’s trembling hard from head to toe.
“You look like shit.”
“I feel like shit,” he replies instantly, smiling at him a little despite how bad he feels because he always enjoys throwing quips at Judd. Judd smiles back, faintly, but he looks more worried than anything else.
“You gotta eat,” he says, narrowing his eyes a little. “You sure it’s only because we’ve been so busy?” he asks, and it’s like he knows Mateo’s been having issues with eating. But did he really pick up on that? Maybe he did, considering he’s pretty observant. How long has he known?
“I mean, maybe I don’t eat as much as I should,” Mateo admits with a sigh. “I’m working on it,” he adds at Judd’s look.
“Right,” Judd says, a bit skeptically.
“I am! I just… it’s just hard.”
“Well, look, if you need any help, you can come to me. You know that, right?” he asks, running a hand through his own hair and sighing. “You worry me, kid.”
Mateo nods, “Yeah, I know. It’s not that serious. I just gotta eat when we get back.”
“All right. But I’m making you eat. We can be a bit later to the next call if there’s no time. I’ll take the heat for it.”
Mateo looks over at him, a genuine smile forming on his face. “Thanks, man,” he says softly, quietly. Judd just nods and waves it off.
When the situation is cleared and everyone files out of the building, clearly looking exhausted, their captain eyes the two of them, but he doesn’t say anything thankfully. They make it back to the station pretty quickly and Judd watches Mateo eat just to make sure he does it, despite Mateo protesting about it.
He does eat - not a lot, but some. Judd encourages him to eat a bit more, so he does, and it’s actually kind of nice someone cares enough to try to get him to eat more like that. He thanks him again and Judd just gets him to drink some water too.
It’s nice knowing someone is looking out for him, even if he feels a little guilty about it. But Judd makes sure to keep telling him he doesn’t mind it, and it seems like he’s telling the truth.
The rest of the day goes by fine, and Judd keeps an eye on him from then on– not too much, but just enough that a similar situation doesn’t happen again. He’s happy to see that Mateo starts eating more, regularly, and he gains back the weight he lost - slowly. He’s clearly improving, which is good for all of them.
Mateo is grateful, but Judd always brushes it off like it’s nothing, which just makes him smile more, because that’s just like Judd. Even if he won’t say it outright, he clearly cares a lot, and it makes him happy.
So even though he’s struggling, he decides he’ll reach out next time.
That’s got to make a difference, right?