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"Please tell me we're getting a different floater this week. I'll quit right now if I so much as have to look at fucking Beaker again."
"Hello and good morning to you too Ant." Ellie replied, shoving her feet into her boots and collapsing back onto the locker room bench. Shift didn't start for another nine minutes, and she planned on using that time to catch up on the sleep that having a toddler deprived her of.
"That doesn't answer my question dick for brains."
Or not. She was apparently spending her nine minutes of peace listening to Ant complain about the poor manners of a man who looked older than electricity. Ellie was pretty sure Beaker had been one of the firefighters working during the Birmingham campaign (the man truly never shut up about Alabama).
"Beaker is suspended because the lady he yelled at on the high rise call last week is loaded." Rimo said, leaning back against his locker.
"And it's not because you paid her to complain?" Ellie asked, only half joking.
Rimo shrugged.
"God does exist!" Ant cried, hands held above their head in prayer and only one leg in their uniform pants.
"Uh, hi?" A voice asked from the door. The man it belonged to was tall and built like a shipping container. He was already dressed in his uniform, the name plate on his shirt reading Buckley. The strap of his bag was twisted, wrung between his nervous hands. There was something about his face that Ellie found oddly familiar.
"You must be the new floater." Rimo said, taking pity on him once the silence had stretched too long. "Cap's just upstairs if you want to check in with him first."
"I'm not a-" Buckley cut himself off, scraped a hand through his short curls and offered Rimo a surprisingly sincere smile. "Yeah, thanks man."
The door was barely even shut behind him before Ant was letting out a low whistle. "Damn I don't even care if this guy tries to pray the gay outta me, he's hot."
He did kind of look the bigoted sort. Even though he was young, Ellie wouldn't have been all that surprised if he was the 'good old days' type, reminiscing on how much better firefighting was when everyone was a straight white man who hated his wife. She hoped he was at least better than Beaker. Rimo would never admit it, but Ellie had known him long enough to see how Beaker's comments were grating on him.
"He could snap you in half." Ellie said, instead of any of what she was thinking. She shoved Ant's head away and pushed herself back to standing. If she wasn't getting a pre-shift nap she was at least getting the coffee while it was still hot.
"-Alright, and this is Evan Buckley. We're borrowing from the 118 this week. Please make him feel welcome." Captain O'Malley finished, directing the last part in Ellie's direction. It could have been at Rimo. She was pretty sure it was. He was mean.
Buckley followed Cap's eyeline, tilting his head as he glanced between the two of them.
"Like an overgrown puppy." Rimo whispered in her ear.
"Va'atu! You got something to share with the rest of us?"
Ellie watched Buckley's eyes flick back to Cap, expression hardening. It only made Ellie agree further with Rimo's dog comparison.
"Just complimenting your eyebrows Sir." Rimo replied, grinning.
Cap raised one heavily singed eyebrow, only barely keeping the smile off his face. "Given that the state of them is your fault, maybe keep further opinions to yourself. Dismissed."
Ant grabbed hold of one of Ellie and Rimo's arms each, dragging them both along to where Buckley was still standing, his hands nervously tapping up and down his thighs.
"Antoni Rayne, Ant. They/them." They introduced, dropping Rimo's arm to wave at him.
"Buck." He replied. "He/him."
Ant elbowed her.
"Elodie Hawkins, she/her. Paramedic."
"Rimo Va'atu. He/him. I'm your partner this shift."
"Nice to meet y'all."
"Y'all." Ant echoed. "You Texan?"
"Nah. Pennsylvania. My partner is- he grew up in Texas though. I- I've probably picked it up from him and our kid."
Our kid? Ellie shared a glance with Rimo. Buckley seemed kind of young to have a kid.
"Els!" Jenkins called, leaning against the ambulance doors, "Come help me check stock?"
She nodded, ducked out of the conversation without a goodbye.
"I've completely changed my mind. I want Beaker back." Ant declared, shutting themself into the ambulance Ellie and Jenkins were using to gossip.
"Why'd you introduce us to him then?"
"It's good manners?"
"I can ask Mattie if she'll beat him up for you?" Rimo asked, shutting the door behind him as he settled into the front seat.
"Her arm is still shattered?" Ellie reminded him. "She shouldn't be beating anyone up, especially not the human fridge."
Ant rolled their eyes. "No. Did none of you hear Cap? Evan Buckley? Firehouse 118?"
"Yeah, the 118's all good firefighters. Good people too."
"Is that from your girlfriend?" Jenkins teased, leaning into Ellie's side.
"Lena isn't my girlfriend."
"None of that's important. 118? Buckley's from Station 118?"
"Is that supposed to mean something?"
"Five years ago, you remember that string of bombings? The final one blew a ladder truck on top of a firefighter. Year before that, a guy gets a length of rebar stuck straight through his head. Taylor Kelly's shitty firefighter book? Written based off her experiences with a real firehouse. Those Texas wildfires two years ago? LA paramedic goes down in a helicopter and gets stuck in an abandoned mineshaft full of explosives. An entire LAFD team gets accused of bank robbery, and the three years after that, an entirely unrelated murder. Two years ago, a sniper shot and almost killed a firefighter in the middle of the street. Just before that one got trapped in a collapsed well that'd been struck by lightning! Year after that, a paramedic kidnaps his two co-workers and tries to stop their hearts. Three months ago, a firefighter gets struck by lightning!" Ant took a breath then, one that Ellie was worried was his first since he'd started talking. "What do they all have in common?"
"Terrible luck?" Jenkins offered.
"They're all firefighters?" Rimo tried.
Ant shook their head. "Yes, but not what I'm looking for."
All three of them turned their gaze to Ellie. "I'm not guessing. You're going to tell us either way."
Ant, disappointingly, did not seem deterred by her unenthusiasm. "Those things, all of them, have happened to members of the 118. They're the most cursed station ever!"
"Cursed." Jenkins echoed flatly.
"That many near death and actual death experiences do not happen naturally."
"Then some of them probably aren't true." Ellie muttered, just loud enough that she knew Ant would hear.
"They are!"
"I'll tell Mattie you're talking curses again." Rimo threatened.
"You can't just call my wife on me! That's not how this works."
"Shouldn't have married my work partner then!" Rimo shouted back.
"Seals are fucking terrifying." Ant declared; headset only just settled on their head.
The call details so far were vague. A man woken up by a crashing from his living room, and somehow, a very large very irate leopard seal was involved. The worst part, the part that changed the call from weird to bizarre, was that the man lived halfway up the Hollywood hills, nowhere near any beaches. Or aquariums. Or any kind of place that would house a seal. So, a completely normal start to the day.
"I reckon I could beat one in a fight." Rimo mused. Ellie was pretty sure it was just to rile Ant up.
"You absolutely couldn't man. No offense." The reply didn't come from Ant though. No, it was Buckley who said it. He'd been relatively quiet thus far (for the forty minutes he'd been at the station, Ellie reminded herself), listening carefully as Cap had walked him through a tour of the station. Apparently Rimo and Ant's stupid 'I could fight that' debates were what got him talking. "They weigh 500 pounds at the small end and leopard seals are the most dangerous kind. Their only predator is killer whales."
"They're like two foot off the ground though."
"The little ones are at least eight feet long." Ant went on, picking up Buckley's trail of facts with ease.
"They kill elephant seals for fun, you wouldn't stand a chance."
"Their primary food source is penguins, who they beat to death on the surface of the water, but they've tried the same thing on humans."
"And then it breaks you into pieces by shaking your corpse around and eats you."
"Like a fluffy crocodile." Ant finished. "You would lose that fight."
"Jesus." Cap muttered. "Ok Tweedledum, Tweedledee? Please share none of that with the caller?"
Buckley grinned, not looking even remotely chastised. He seemed much more settled, like sharing homicidal seals facts made the whole job easier.
"Alright crew, conservationists are just clearing out now. We're here to assist them if needed and check the homeowner over once they've sorted out the sea lion."
"Seal." Ant and Buckley corrected, in sync.
"What's the difference?" Jenkins asked.
Ellie stood hard on her foot; from Jenkin's other side she saw Rimo do the same. They both dropped their heads back against the engine with twin dull thunks.
"Sea lions walk around-"
"-And they have ear flaps." Buckley cut in.
"Yes!" Ant exclaimed, pointing at him. "Sea lions have visible ear flaps, and their front flippers are strong enough that they can walk around. Seals have small flippers and basically move like a slug."
"So..." Rimo began, a teasing lilt to his voice. "What you're saying is that seals are slow, and I could beat one?"
"Not- not in the ocean you couldn't. They can get up to 25 miles an hour."
"I'll just fight one on land then."
"How?"
Rimo shrugged. "That's for me and the seal to find out."
"Idiot." Ellie muttered.
"Why do you even know so much about them? Are the two of you secret seal scientists?"
That had even Cap rolling his eyes.
"They're called marine biologists dumbass." Ant said, shoving at Rimo.
"Chris chose them for his report on Antarctic animals."
"Chris is?" Cap questioned.
"You've got a kid?" Jenkins asked, probably only interested in the conversation so she could share some of the countless photos she had of her army of children and grandchildren. "How old?"
"He's twelve. He- Chris isn't-"
Ellie didn't get to hear what Chris wasn't, not before the cop assigned to the scene sauntered over and threw an arm around Buckley's shoulders. "Hey Evan." He began. unaware or ignorant of his interruption. Ellie didn't miss Buck's wince at the use of his first name. "How's Athena? Retirement treating her well?"
Buck ducked out from under the officer's arm, putting as much space between the two of them as he could without bumping anyone else. "She's- she's doing good." He replied flatly.
Officer Benson, as his nametag read, continued on unperturbed. "Why did she retire again? The department were asking for it?"
"She couldn't morally justify working under such a corrupt system any longer."
That, at least, knocked the wind out of Benson's sails. He paused for a moment, and Ellie sent up a prayer to the God of seals or firefighting or stupid idiot police officers (she didn't know shit about religion) that the conservationists would finish or at the very least the seal would take a bite out of someone. Her prayers went unanswered.
Officer Benson turned to the rest of the crew, squeezing himself next to Jenkin's to lean against the engine and asked, 'This happen often?"
"Seals?" Rimo replied dryly.
"Yeah."
"Well," Ant began, "Seals are often very curious about humans but there aren't really any seal species in L.A, and definitely not halfway up the hills. There's a lot of harbour seals at La Jolla beach." Ant turned to where Buck had been standing, like they were expecting him to finish their thought, but Buckley was nowhere to be found. "Uh well... Leopard seals, the one in there, are only found in the Antarctic circle, and sometimes New Zealand when they get lost."
"Uh..." Officer Benson blinked. "That's interesting." He didn't sound like he meant it, didn't sound like Jenkins or Ellie herself did when they were teasing Ant. If the way Buck closed up at the sight of him and the dismissive way he spoke about Athena, whoever she was, wasn't enough to put him firmly in Ellie's bad books, this was. She shared a glance with Cap, but he shrugged, gesturing at the conservationists' empty truck and the red brick house that somehow still had a seal in it.
"Benson!" The other officer called, sticking her head out the front window of the house. "We need you in here."
"Don't they have radios?" Rimo muttered as Benson jogged off.
"I hope the seal eats him." Ellie replied, just soft enough for Cap to have plausible deniability.
"A seal broke into a house in New Zealand once." Buck said, appearing out of nowhere as if he'd never left at all. "It was a fur seal though, which are small. And cute. And actually belong in New Zealand."
"This is probably a trafficking thing, if they're sending in backup officers."
"The dog from Paw Patrol could do a better job of police work than Benson."
Ellie snorted involuntary, partly from the comment, but mostly for the dry way Buck said it, and the vehement distaste in his voice, directed at a cartoon German Shephard.
"What- What is the nature of your relationship with him?" Jenkins asked.
"He arrested me once a couple of years ago." Buck said with a shrug. "For no reason too! My- well she's kind of my mum? She's married to my Captain and he's basically my dad- Anyway I called her to bail me out because everyone else was on shift but her and Chimney- he's my brother in law, he's engaged to my big sister but he'd have been an asshole about it even though he got caught dumpster diving trying to find the engagement ring he'd bought for my sister- Anyway, sorry none of that is relevant- Athena didn't actually end up bailing me out of jail because she was too busy reading Benson for absolute filth and threatening to sue him. Somehow, he interpreted that as us being friendly? He's on almost every call the 118 responds to." Buck finally paused for a breath. "Oh, and my- Eddie, Eddie hit him with a car once."
"My Eddie." Ant mouthed at her.
"So, he's a dick." Jenkins said, never one to pull punches with her words.
"Pretty much." Buck replied, just as someone in the house started screaming.
"I hope eating Benson doesn't make the seal sick." Ant said, their first words to Ellie since she'd gotten back from dropping an almost hysterical Officer Benson at First Presbyterian, a decent chink missing out of his right arm. She'd never wish harm on anyone (it would kind of go against the whole paramedic thing) but if she was to, Benson would be pretty high up that list. He had only paused is wailing in the ambulance long enough to start hitting on her, and, once she'd told him she did not at all swing his way, Jenkins instead.
"As long as I don't have to see either of their faces again, I don't care what happens."
"I'll-" The alarm rang, somehow louder than normal, cutting Ant off midsentence.
"Great."
As Ellie settled into her spot in the rig for what felt like the millionth time all shift, she tried to content herself with the knowledge that she only had two hours left before she could drive home and sleep for sixteen hours (or at the least, the five hours between shift end and her dad dropping her daughter back after preschool).
Ant settled into their seat with a thud, turning a poisonous glare across the rest of the truck's inhabitants. They'd long since given up interrogating B-shift (and everyone off C-shift by text) to find out who they could accuse of saying the Q-word. Ever since the seal had been nonstop calls. Stupid ones too. A man who got stuck up his own chimney trying to get a squirrel nest out, a kid up a power pole painted like a tree, a pair of old ladies at a knitting convention turned brawl who had the same knitting needle stuck through both of their hands, a pileup of food trucks who'd all been racing for the best spot, and now this, the new space centre's roof had given out, crashing into the top floor, that was luckily all offices. And yet there were still countless reports of injuries and an entire class of pre-schoolers stuck in the interactive auditorium.
When Buck heard that, he'd let out a frankly impressive string of curses and reached immediately for his phone. It had barely rung once before the call picked up, and Ellie could hear a woman's voice frantically repeating "I'm ok. Jee's ok. We're ok." down the line.
"Chim?"
This reply was more muffled, lost between the crackly phone line and the droning of the ladder truck's engine, but Ellie thought it was "Howie's at home complaining about his migraine via nonsense voice notes."
"Thank God." Buck said, the panic finally seeping out of his voice. "I'm pretty sure it's his turn for a near death experience."
The next reply was entirely indecipherable to Ellie.
"Oh, fuck it is Eddie! Wait- Is it me after that or Bobby? Who has the photo of the roster?"
Ellie didn't want to know what a 'Near Death Experience Roster' was, or how much of the department's money went to Therapists for the 118. She was pretty sure 'Chim' was just a nickname for Chimney, the not-quite-brother-in-law Buck had mentioned earlier, making it Maddie on the other end of the phone. Maddie who was no longer on the phone, if Buck's frantic redialling was any sign.
"You got people in there Buckley?" Cap asked, turning around in his seat.
"My sister and my niece. They're in the auditorium."
"Station 12 is already on the scene. I'll pass through their names." Cap said, thumbing the button on his radio.
"Maddie and Jee-Yun Buckley-Han."
Cap turned back to the front, repeated Buck's words into the radio. Ellie could see Buck actually holding his breath as he waited for a response.
"All of the kids have been taken outside, worst injury is a boy with a scraped knee. Sounds like your sister is refusing to leave though."
"Of course she is."
“buck?” a woman yelled, almost the moment buckley jumped down from the engine. she looked distraught, hair and clothes covered in dust. “buck!” she yelled again, stumbling towards him, two similarly dust covered children at her heels.
“karen?” he called back, rushing to meet her halfway, wrapping his arms around her only pulling back after a long moment to immediately crouch down and pull both the kids into a hug. his gaze flickered from the woman, karen, to the tilting, crumbling concretet building in front of them. “is- hen stayed in there didn’t she?” he said, words coming out in a rush. he turned his head back to where the rest of the team was still standing next to the engine, eyes wide and frantic.
ellie was beggining to think the only reason buckley had listened so closely to caps rules was because he was planning on breaking all of them.
the pair stumbled out, the woman, hen, looking like she was holding buckley up as much as he was her.
“seal in a house in the hills, man stuck inside a wall, women impaled on the stag she was trying to kill? do you see this?”
“the people of la being stupid? as usual?”
“no!” exasperated in the way ellie knew they would be. “we’ve got the curse.”
“the curse.” ellie repeated blandly.
“from buck! the 118 curse!”
“yeah. sure. we’re cursed. we’re going to keep getting weird calls, and then, just before shift ends a fairy with slide up the firepole and turn us all into seals with antlers.”
“a curse isn’t something to joke about!” ant hissed.
“a curse?” buck asked. appearing around a corner (he moved scarily quietly, like a ghost. ooh she should tell ant she though buck was a ghost). “my station got cursed once. well a couple times. and my brother in law got stalked by a crow once, thought he was being cursed but the crow was just trying to give his nameplate back. long story crows remember faces y’know? and they hold grudges if your mean to them.”
“great, another secretly evil animal.”
“they’re not evil! it’s survival skills!”
“wait you’ve been cursed?”
“yeah.” buck shrugged as he said it, started counting off on his fingers. “there was the first q-word incident, it got me stuck in the fire suppression system, a call on a fullmoon where three ladies started giving birth at the same time, the time the probie said the q-word, a power pole fell on the engine that time- oh and then it got stolen! there was also a cursed bracelet and a lady had a cement mixer empty over her car. and the crows, obviously. we had a ghost call 9-1-1 once too but eddie says that doesn’t count.”
“what the fuck.”
“you back with us next shift?”
“no sorry, you’re getting my brother in law, chimney- well, howard technically.”
“the crow guy?”
‘yeah. don’t tell him i know about it though, my sister wasn’t meant to tell me.
“i’m asking my nana to make me a cleansing spell. anyone else want one?”