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Mike seemed surprised when Doug dropped in on him, a few weeks after the fire. Just long enough for Doug to get discharged from the hospital after all the smoke inhalation, and to begin working with the fire marshall’s investigation into the fire. A few days of climbing through the twisted, torched wreckage had him bitter and remorseful, but still nursing a tiny scrap of hope.
“You offered to tell me how to design a building. Well, I’m listening.”
That humorless face recovered quickly, shifting back into the tired annoyance Doug recognized so well. “Can’t teach you fire prevention in one afternoon, Architect.”
His blue eyes twinkled with the ghost of a smile at the less-than-affectionate nickname. “Didn’t expect you to, with the way you talk about it.” The ghost vanished. “I’ve been seeing that wreckage all day, and I’m never going to stop seeing it every night. That fire is going to haunt everything I ever do, or don’t do, for the rest of my life. So I’m asking again- how would you design a building?”
Doug doesn’t have an ego anymore. It burned up in the fire.
Mike seemed to sense it. He looked Doug up and down, noting the sincerity, the humbled way he walked now. The Glass Tower fire hadn’t just knocked the architect down a peg, it took him down 135 storeys.
“Better start taking notes,” he grumbled.
Doug pulled a pencil out of his shirt pocket and held it up. “Go ahead.”
He was waved into the firehall, to Mike’s office at the back, dingy and dusty and shared with four other fire chiefs, who all took turns covering different shifts. Doug noted a few family pictures, but none of the personal items seemed to belong to Mike.
Mike sat down at the desk. “Where to begin?”
Doug hung onto every word. Some of it was obvious, some of it he was well aware of from his years of schooling, of learning how to design and construct buildings. But he wrote it all down regardless.
When the fire bell rang nearly an hour later, Mike almost looked apologetic at having to go. “That’s it for today, Architect.”
“Can I come back tomorrow?”
Mike shook his head. “I’m off tomorrow. But you can look me up if you’re not done being lectured.” He scribbled an address at the top of Doug’s notes, then took off down the hall. The whole exchange lasted maybe eight seconds after the ringing started, and as Doug got up to leave, he knew Mike would hold the eight seconds against him tomorrow if Mike didn’t get there in time.
He took his notes and carefully folded them up. He tore off the address, and pocketed the scrap.
The next morning, he stopped at a store and bought half a dozen notebooks on his way over to Mike’s apartment. Better to be prepared, and it showed that he wasn’t going to overlook anything ever again.
Mike opened the door, again briefly surprised, and Doug thought he maybe saw a flash of respect before that inscrutable look returned.
“Got a problem with my place?”
Doug took it all in- small, lived-in, cozy. It wasn’t winning any design awards, but it also wasn’t a smouldering disaster zone in the heart of the city. Another point in Mike’s favor.
They started on his couch, then moved to the kitchen table when it became obvious that they weren’t going to finish before lunchtime. Or dinnertime. Dirty dishes surrounded notepaper, every square inch of Mike’s table full, Doug’s hand cramping from scribbling so much.
“I’m working tomorrow,” Mike said with a yawn.
“I’ll come over around dinner time?”
“If you want, Architect.”
Doug didn’t want to. He needed to. So he did.
He brought blueprint paper, and started sketching while Mike lectured. He filled three notebooks just from transcribing Mike’s thoughts on fire rescue and the limitations of evacuating high rise buildings. He stayed for dinner so often that he knew every cupboard in Mike’s apartment. It was only on the third floor, but Doug didn’t miss the view.
He’d been getting a few calls from colleagues- old firms, former coworkers, that kind of thing. They reached out after the fire, making sure Doug was ok, offering help, or maybe a new project to work on when he was ready to come back to work.
Doug ignored them all.
___
One night they had a few drinks as they worked. Liquor loosened Mike’s tongue a little, but he still seemed to have a one-track, well-focused mind. He topped up his bourbon while continuing his now twenty minute long monologue on the limitations of ladders in ensuring safe rescues.
“So I was scaling the outside of the building, trying to get up. It was the highest I’d ever been untethered- at least, until the Tower. Still not fully sure how I made it down that night.”
“Couple of times I thought I was gonna die up there,” Doug admitted. Even though everything they were working on now was the direct result of the fire, they rarely spoke about the actual event.
“Couple of times I wished I did,” Mike said, in that matter-of-fact way of his. He had this thousand yard type stare on his face, looking right through Doug. “‘Specially right before they sent me back up to blow the water tanks.”
He described the way he was slumped on the floor next to other men, the exhausted firefighters piled not too far from the burned and injured ones. He had less than a minute to sit after climbing the neighboring building, helicoptering down and getting the trapped elevator victims to safety, before being sent back atop the Glass Tower on a near suicide mission.
Doug watched him tell his story, the horror gnawing at him with every word. It didn’t matter that the tallest building in the world had become a flaming death trap, it only mattered that the death trap was his responsibility- both of theirs; Mike’s that night, until the fire was out, and Doug’s for eternity.
He figured it wasn't his place to talk about his experience in the fire. Mike had seen it all and worse himself, and likely wouldn’t want to hear about how the architect of the building had to survive a gas line bursting, and then help a woman and a pair of children through climbing down a warped, mangled staircase railing dangling in the air.
Doug still woke up in the middle of the night, heart caught in his chest, pounding at the thought of it.
He hadn’t spoken with anyone from Duncan Enterprises since that night. He figured there would be time eventually, at the inquests, or the eventual lawsuits. Doug didn’t really care what Jim Duncan, or any of his surviving staff had to say. He only bothered to look up who survived so he knew whose deaths he was personally responsible for.
He spoke to Susan a couple of times. First, she was writing nonstop for the first few days- setting the record straight, detailing the panic and horror from the 135th floor, and the derailed scenic elevator. It wasn’t until this conversation that Doug learned about Lisolette Mueller’s fate, or her first name for that matter, and if he hadn't been in a hospital bed at the time, he would have done something that would’ve sent him to the emergency room.
Once the obituaries started to hit the papers, and Senator Parker and Mayor Ramsey’s heroics and sacrifices were detailed in full on the front page, Susan took that managing editor job. Doug sent flowers to her office, and called her exactly once to offer his congratulations. But once he’d been discharged from the hospital, his whole life was combing through Glass Tower wreckage by day, and picking Mike O’Hallorhan’s brain by night.
Someone got the sign- Doug Roberts, Architect- from his office. The little placard that hung just outside the elevator was one of the few things that survived from the 79th floor, but it was far from pristine. The corners were burnt, the whole thing smudged with soot. It was the last thing salvaged before the controlled demolition began. Doug watched from a vantage point down the street as his vision came crashing down again, this time for good.
Building down, he kept up. He woke up thinking about fire safety, ate lunch while sketching fan ducts on the back of napkins, and went to bed calculating sprinkler spray coverage.
Eventually the designs got more complex, and the conduits and ventilation shafts connected to actual rooms. Mike didn’t have much of an eye for architecture. His valid concerns were addressed and worked out, but he didn’t have any sense of aesthetics or artistry.
“What’s this for?”
“It’s an arch for the entryway. It brightens up the room, letting more sunlight in.”
Mike frowned. “Is it necessary?”
Doug could see the gears turning in his head, knowing that Mike would suggest a solid fire door that would help to contain a potential blaze. “Adds some stability in case of an earthquake,” he said, in the tone of voice that hid exactly how much he enjoyed getting to point out something above code to Mike.
The fire chief took it in stride. “You’ll want more overhead sprinklers then.”
Doug’s hand moved as soon as Mike spoke, adding sprinklers and pipes onto the ceiling, only stopping when he got a satisfied nod in return.
Mike only raised an eyebrow at the bedroom directly connected to the office.
“You of all people know when work cuts into your personal life.”
“What personal life?”
Mike had a point. Their arrangement had been going on for nearly six weeks, and Doug had yet to hear about or see anyone connected with Mike outside of his work. He never mentioned family, or friends, or hobbies.
On the other hand, Doug hadn’t either. His plans of a quiet life outside of the city had gone up in flames, and he was determined to spend every minute he had atoning.
It didn’t matter that his original designs had been sound, and that Duncan and his idiot son-in-law Simmons cut the corners- the Glass Tower was his building, his baby, and its birth had taken 200 lives.
A ringing phone cut into his spiraling thoughts.
“O’Hallorhan.” Mike sounded angry when he said his name, and only got angrier from there. They’d both been fending off calls from reporters for weeks, and the sheer exasperation in their voices apparently wasn’t enough of a deterrent.
“Maybe you didn’t hear me so good, I said towering inferno!”
Doug couldn’t hide his smile when Mike slammed the phone down. It was refreshing to see that annoyance and impatience directed elsewhere for a change.
“Haven’t they finished asking the same goddamn questions yet,” he grumbled.
“It’s the story of the decade.” Doug had dated Susan long enough to know that a reporter mined a story until the nagging feeling in their gut was gone. And the Glass Tower was enough to give anyone an ulcer until the end of the decade.
The brief reminder of Susan made him frown- nearly two months since the fire and he hadn’t been on a date, or seen friends, or done anything remotely sociable.
Mike crumpled a napkin and threw it at his face to get his attention.
“Come on, Architect, food’s getting cold.”
___
No one could tell him how to stop smelling the scent of burning flesh when he stepped out of the shower, or that it wasn’t a good idea to go a mile out of his way just to avoid passing by the barbecue joint at the end of the block. He hadn’t slept a full night in weeks, and his manic guilt could only propel him so far.
He found himself in worse shape than he thought when he woke up at Mike’s place. It was a Saturday afternoon, and the sun was already setting when he blinked himself awake on the couch. He shrugged off the blanket that had been draped on him at some point during his nap.
“You grind your teeth in your sleep.” Mike was over by the window, playing a game of chess against himself at a small side table.
Their plans still covered the coffee table, although Doug may have nudged some of the blueprints with his feet in his sleep.
“Funny, I was going to say that was my best sleep in weeks.”
Mike watched him curiously, reading into what was left unsaid. “You can stay the night then. If it’s good for your health.”
He slept on Mike’s couch for the next two weeks. Then, when Mike had a week of overnight shifts, Doug took his bed. And when Mike switched back to mornings, they both shared the bed.
Doug took one trip back to pick up a few things from his crappy studio apartment, which he’d rented in haste after he left the hospital. Most of his furniture and belongings were still in storage in Tahoe, waiting for the country house that would never come. He’d lost a few items when his combined office/pied à terre went up in flames, but for the most part he was unencumbered in the city, and as settled in as possible at Mike’s apartment.
Mike didn’t say two words about their new arrangement. He started making an extra cup of coffee in the morning, and made a point to call Doug any time he thought he might be late coming home, but otherwise he was silent.
Soon it was going on three months since the fire. Susan called one morning, conveying surprise at the amount of phone tag she had to play in order to track him down, and at O’Hallorhan’s place no less.
Finally she got to the point. “Attorney general filed charges this morning. Jim Duncan and Duncan Enterprises are the defendants. Doug Roberts isn’t mentioned at all in the filing.”
The line stayed quiet for too long. “Are you expecting a comment?”
“Jesus, Doug. No. This isn’t about work.” Her voice softened. “I want to make sure you’re ok.”
She had loved him, and he had loved her, and maybe that didn’t matter anymore, but he didn’t hold it against her.
“I’m fine.”
When Mike came home that night, he took one look and sized Doug up. “Like hell you are.”
He’d heard the news, he knew why Doug was more on edge that night than usual. But Mike would have to be blind to have ignored how withdrawn Doug had become over the weeks. Not that he knew Doug before the fire, but Mike was astute, a quick study. He learned all he needed to know about Doug that first night.
“I’m fine,” Doug repeated, hoping to grow more convincing the more he said it. He wasn’t.
“When are you going to stop blaming yourself?” Mike didn’t look up from the stove. He had a knack for being blunt, but somehow avoiding messy, emotional scenes. Not that Mike was unfeeling- he wouldn’t have taken Doug in like a lost little puppy if he didn’t care at all.
But Doug was starting to drown in his own weightlessness. A couple of his old architectural firms reached out again with offers, and Susan called about once a week to check in- he gave short answers, and never made concrete plans. The only time he felt tethered was when he was working with Mike.
Doug didn’t think the plans would ever come to fruition, but he was grateful for the busywork, for something to keep what was left of his mind active. And he had to stay sharp, to keep up with Mike. Mike, who had started by keeping him on his toes and shooting down his more fanciful ideas, now surprised him when he pointed out when the designs became too simplistic, too plain.
“Thought you wanted a safe building.”
He snorted. “Hell of a difference between safe and boring.”
Doug knew what Mike looked like at 7 in the morning when he was just waking up, or 7 in the morning just coming off a long night struggling to get a fire under control. He knew how Mike took his coffee, liked his steak, and ate whenever possible, because he never knew when he’d get the chance to sit down and have his next meal. He knew that Mike looked the same whether he was going in for a scheduled shift, or being called in at 2 am for an emergency call.
But he was having a hell of a time trying to tell when Mike was winding him up or not.
One day, Mike came home with a stack of books from the library- textbooks on design and engineering. Doug recognized one title from a class he took on structural integrity back in the day.
“Research,” Mike said by way of terse explanation.
He didn’t say what the research was for, and when he came home the next day to find Doug flipping through one of the books, his brief satisfied smirk gave the answer.
“Come on, Architect. We’re going for a walk.”
Mike led him around the block, pointing out the new discotheque being built down the street. Mike pointed out the inadequate fire escape in the back, and Doug agreed, while also countering how the shape of the building wasn’t conducive to large windows.
“It starts from the ground up,” he murmured to himself, tugging a pencil from his shirt pocket and beginning to sketch something on the back of a receipt.
Mike nodded his approval, watching in stoic admiration while Doug kept his eyes glued on the scrap of paper in his hand. Slowly but surely, the lines started taking shape, connections forming and strengthening under his watchful hand.
The next day was a Saturday, exactly 15 weeks since the fire. Mike had the day off, and spent it hanging around the apartment. He came out of the shower barefooted and barechested.
Doug noted the new step in informality, but kept up sketching. He sat on the couch, hunched over the coffee table, double checking his figures and re-sketching his schematics until his shoulders grew sore. Next to him, Mike would occasionally point to something and ask the reasoning why.
In the light of day, out of uniform and able to rest a little, Mike looked very human. The shape of his body looked slighter, and years of scars and burns shone on his skin. He looked tired.
But there was a lightness to his spirit, a smile on his face and a slight warmth to his eyes. For all he endured, he still lived, and wanted to live, even if his body was still vulnerable, still fallible.
He couldn’t save everyone, and some days he couldn't save anyone, but he always had to try.
So Doug decided to try.
He finished his sketch around sunset.
Mike walked over, pajama pants slung low around his hips. He bent over, nodding his approval at the designs. Doug knew it was mostly for show- Mike was smart, but he didn’t have a background in engineering like Doug did. Most of the math on the page went way over the fire chief’s head.
“I think you’re starting to get it.”
Doug reached out, wrapping an arm around Mike and pulling him into his lap. “I think so too.”
___
The nightmares never fully went away, but they became less frequent. Every now and then Doug woke himself up in the middle of the night, struggling to breathe, choking on phantom smoke.
A hand reached for his, the grasp firm and comforting, blunt fingers threading through his own. “You ok there, Architect?”
“Yeah, yeah,” he said. He took a deep breath. “All clear, Fireman.”
Mike grunted, tugging Doug back down to the bed. “Not getting second thoughts about showing off your blueprints in the morning?”
“Nah,” he murmured. “Don’t need to second guess myself anymore. That’s what I keep you around for.”
Doug felt the smirk, as Mike kissed his temple, and they both drifted back to sleep. “Damn right it’s my job.”