Dragon fire-station (provisional title)

A/N: Hi there! The story I bring y'all today has no spice, is very heavy on other topics tho. It's the first chapter of a book I'm writing and it has a special place in my heart, so I hope y'all like it as much as I do. For a tiny bit of context, this is gonna be a story between a firefighter dragon (37M) and a human nurse (34F) in a world where humans are very rare. Enjoy! (Would be extra glad if you left me a comment telling me if you are interested in more of this or not) <3

Chapter 1

Anthony

They knew when they got the call that it was going to be a bad one.

Apartment building fires were the worst of them all, so many creatures to evacuate, so many families that lost everything in a few hours. If they were lucky. Sometimes faster than that. Because most of the time, it occurred in low income neighborhoods, with poor fire regulation, making every fire a total nightmare. Not only for the ones living it, but for them, for the ones who where trying and filing at trying to save everyone.

They didn’t know why, but that particular fire was expanding fast, almost too fast. The dispatcher who called mentioned that the police thought it was provoked. The fire wasn’t a normal fire, it was a chemical one. The dispatcher attending the call told them to wear all their equipment, provoking an annoyed groan in all his team. The perks of being a dragon and being able to resist fire completely lost in chemical fires. They were fireproof to normal fire, perfect to be firefighters, but not immune to all. Whoever set the building on fire knew what they were doing, how to make it harder for them to act. To get in and out. To save people and monsters inside.

How could somebody set a whole building on fire, with all the people inside, was a mystery to Anthony. Who would do something like that? How much damage you had to suffer to want to harm so many people? If he caught the bastard that set the fire, he could kill him. Maybe even set that scumbag on fire, too. That realization was scary in so many levels, but the rage running though his veins was burning as hot as the fire around them.

It wasn’t usual that the fire captain went in with the crew into a fire, but something felt different in that one, something inside of him made him do it, made him ran into that building and try to save as many people as he could, the aftertaste of bad memories burning the back of his throat. He pushed them away the second he pushed the door of the building. There wasn’t any time for regrets. He could make a difference. He could save as many people as possible before the building collapsed.

The whole building was suffocating in every way possible. It wasn’t all days that Anthony found his job crushing through his rib-cage with pent up energy and desperation. It was a day™. The kind of days when he hated his job because he couldn’t save everybody.

All the floors consumed by fire, flames escaping the broken windows and glasses all over the street, making every step crunch. The sounds, the smell… The first thing Anthony saw when they arrived were the dark clouds of smoke raising over the night sky, dark enough to contrast against the clear night. He remembered so many little things from that night… The little blinding lights of the neon across the street, the missing cat poster glued to the wall next to the burning fire, the reflection of the police lights in against the flames, the air turning orange around them… and the screams of some creatures in the rooftop trying to get their attention. And the heat. He would remember the heat for all eternity. There were all those tiny little details that made no sense to remember, but Anthony couldn’t get out of his mind.

It was so hot that Anthony felt like he was melting, his wings aching to be released and fly away from there. The whole building was falling down around him and it felt like hell just opened in that particular place and moment. The heat so strong that he could feel his skin burning under the whole equipment. And that fire wasn’t like anything he’d seen before. Nothing he’d felt before, and he’d been working as a firefighter for more than 17 years, he knew a thing or two.

The cracking of wood and concrete so loud that he couldn’t think, the growling of fire blaring so hard he couldn’t hear anything else around him. It was deafening. And the smell of burning fire and melted metal around him suffocating and dense, making his head dizzy, even through the mask he was wearing. It was so bad that he could taste it. The back of his mouth raw with the aftertaste of smoke and fire, a characteristic flavor that he had recorded in his brain and couldn’t get out even if he tried. It was insane.

Anthony was moving around on pure muscle memory, all of them were. He didn’t know where was up and where was down anymore, there was just blue and green fire around them. Heat all around. Burning furniture and flames licking the walls and making tunnels of fire where they passed. Every cell in his body on edge. They’d been scanning every single floor, going closer and closer to where the fire supposedly started, and it was becoming harder and harder to see, to hear, to breathe… His heart racing inside of his chest, so hard and fast that the echoes of it were mixing with the sound of fire in his ears, creating a twisted melody consuming Anthony’s brain.

They fire started somewhere around the first floor, or that’s what they thought. The investigators would figure it out later. At the moment, the first floor was completely engulfed in flames. It was the first one to burn down, apparently, so people couldn’t walk out of there on their own. They rescued most creatures from the top of the building. So many creatures. So many children. God bless the 9-1-1 operator that told them to run up instead of down. And everyone who could, listening. Anthony was sure someone from his team was flying up and down and getting as many people as he could safe and sound to the ground.

All the fire regulations were violated in that building, and every step they took trying to find more people was sentenced by how hot the flames were around them. They hadn’t found anyone locked in their house, but they all knew it was a possibility, they were all ready to call it if they found someone else. As they went down, the chances of someone alive were slimmer and slimmer, it would be a miracle to find somebody alive down there, but they had to check. It was their job, make sure every human and monster could walk away from there.

The firefighter in charge’s voice blasted through their radios. “OUT! The building is going to collapse.”

Anthony was on the second floor, or at least that’s what he thought. Everything look the same: burning hell melting the hopes and dreams of a bunch of families because a bastard, or more than one if you count the tenant, decided they weren’t worth saving. Anthony’s anger was burning higher than the flames around him.

He heard the call, maybe not loud and clear, but clear enough to know he should back down and forget about finding more people. There was no way someone survived that fire. The first floor was literally inferno. And he knew. He knew he was supposed to go away. To go out. Seek some way to exit the building… It was the smart thing to do. They got as many people as they could out. They saved a lots of families, they saved lots of children. They all were going to be okay, nobody badly hurt. Smoke inhalation, some minor burns… Nothing major. Nothing that couldn’t be treated. So he knew. He was perfectly aware that he needed to go out. But something inside of him was telling him to keep looking. Like a primal instinct inside of him that pulled him more and more into the fire, self preservation forgotten a long time ago.

But then he heard it.

Someone was still screaming through the radio, but Anthony was not listening anymore. He faintly heard Casey, another dragon from his team, screaming behind him. Telling him to back off and go out, pleading him to. They needed to go out. There was nobody else to be saved. But he head it.

He heard it.

The soft cry of a baby.

He couldn’t recognize the species, every baby screamed the same when they were in danger, and Anthony’s blood ran cold.

He turned around, facing the stairwell. “THERE’S PEOPLE STILL DOWN THERE.” He screamed at Casey. Anthony hoped he could heard him over the muffled voices on the radio and the burning floor, because he was not waiting around to see if Casey registered his words.

Deep down, Anthony thanked the universe for choosing Casey to go with him today. Lola would have never let him go alone down there, and Anthony couldn’t live with himself if Lola had to risk her life because of Anthony’s decisions. Lola was the closest thing he had to a sister, she was his best friend, and he wanted nothing more than to see her happy, even if she was a pain in his ass most of the time.

Lola’s face was his last rational thought before he kicked down the stairwell door, sending a prayer to whoever was listening so he could walk out of that fire and Lola wouldn’t need to tell his family that he was dead. His mom already buried a son and a husband, she didn’t need another one.

No rational thought left in his body. Anthony ran into the fire. Directly into it. Not expecting anybody to follow him. The flames were sparkling around him, the wood cracking sounding ear-piercing in the stairwell. But he didn’t care anymore. He was sure he heard a baby cry down there. He knew that it wasn’t possible. The objective part of his brain screamed at him to run away from the fire, even being a dragon it felt like he was going to die in there, no baby could survive a smoke so dense and fire so hot. It was no physically possible. There were a lot of species out there who could resist fire, but not for so long, not with that intensity, and definitely not a baby.

But Anthony believed in miracles. He had to working in that line of work.

If there was one tiny little opportunity that what he heard was true. If there was a baby down there… Anthony would find him or her. He would. It was his job and he could do it. He registered Lola screaming on the radio, the paramedic going crazy. And Dolly, his second in command telling him he was stupid and reckless. And Casey behind him. All his team were worried about him. But he didn’t care at that moment, he couldn’t. Anthony didn’t really understand what they were saying, not fully. They were probably cursing him and asking him not to be an idiot. But he heard voices, and he was not leaving anyone behind, even when they said there couldn’t be any survivors there. He would risk it if it meant to save someone. That’s what he was supposed to do. Save people. It was his work. And his life mission.

When he got to the first floor, the one they thought was completely empty, he thought he heard some voices, screaming for help, too faint over the screaming of fire. But still there. As he got closer, the voices started to die down, and at some point Anthony really thought they were all in his head. But then he heard it again: the baby crying. Soft and muffled by the smoke and the gear he was wearing, but there. His breathing became erratic, and his heart was rabbit fast inside his chest. He pushed through it. He was not wrong. There were people down there. At least one tiny person or monster waiting to be saved.

The door was completely burned down, just a black frame and few pieces of wood still holding up. Anthony saw two people lying down in the middle of the floor though the cracks of the door. Humans. He kicked the remnants with his boot, having the misfortune to get his gear twisted in some loose iron coming apparently out of nowhere. He felt the rip of his gear. He felt the fire burning the soft scales of his leg. He could smell it. The distinct smell of burning flesh and blood. But he didn’t care. He would heal. But the two people in the floor looked in bad shape, and he was there to help them. If he could.

Anthony felt the floor moving under him, and had to grab into what looked like a wall but could have been some kind of furniture at some point. The building was ready to go down at any second, and if he didn’t get that couple out of there, all three of them were going to die right there. Anthony got closer, not feeling any pain from his burning leg, asking for help with the radio, not really expecting anybody to answer. But he also knew that he couldn’t get the two of them out of there on it’s own. There was no way. His voice was frantic over the radio, desperate and painfully aware that there was no help coming.

If he didn’t come out of that, everyone was going to be so mad with him… And if he did come out, they were going to be even more mad. He was going to get his ass kicked after he got out of there.

They were humans. Humans were rare these days, just a few hundred thousand all over the world, almost extinct. But there they were, two humans lying on the floor, their faces were dark because of the smoke, clothes ripped at places and over all looking like they were burned down. And they were hugging. There were towels next to their heads, as if they tried to breath through them. They probably did the trick for a while, but at some point they probably dried down and the heat was too much to handle. Nobody could walk through fire and came out unscratched, he had enough scars to prove that. He would have a few more if he could get out of there.

They looked like a couple. The girl had black hair, and so did the man across from her, almost as black as the smoke raising from the floor. Or going down from the ceiling. Long and covering half of her face. Their hands were intertwined between them, and they looked so young… Probably younger than Anthony. Probably Casey’s age, not older than twenty-five. There was a little bundle of towels between the two of them, under their joined hands.

The image burned inside his brain. He would never forget their faces. He could never. They were hugging, like they surrender to their destiny. Anthony got closer to the pair, removing one of his gloves to try finding a pulse, careful not to scratch them with his claws, trying to woke them up at the same time. The dad didn’t respond, he had no pulse and he was probably beyond salvageable. One of his hands was completely burned down, he probably tried to go out of there and the door handle burned through his skin. when Anthony tried with the woman, she opened hes eyes. Some part of Anthony’s mind registered that her eyes were emerald green, almost too shiny to be real. She moved her lips, like she was trying to say something. Her lips were almost white, crusty and dry, and she tried to lick them to get some words across. Anthony urged her to stop, not to talk, but she wasn’t listening. He lowered himself to the floor, forgetting about all the codes and protocols, he threw those out the minute he walked into the stairwell from hell to rescue them.

Anthony approached his ear to her mouth, hearing her hoarse: “Take care of her.” Anthony didn’t know what she was talking about, but then he saw the tiny bundle of towels move a little. The baby crying. That’s what he heard. A baby. A baby girl. A human baby girl. “Promise. Promise you’ll take care of her.” The girl’s voice raised, desperate and frantic, sounding raw and spent, like he tried to scream for help just to find herself dying either way. Her hand came up to grab Anthony’s wrist, holding with more force than a dying woman should have. She was a desperate mom trying to save her daughter, urging Anthony to promises he couldn’t hold.

He knew he shouldn’t promise things to a dying woman. He didn’t know if he baby was going to make it, but he still said: “I… I will. I promise.” Then she was out like a light, Anthony felt her surrender, he saw it with his own two eyes. Her whole body melting against the floor and her body going limp. Anthony tried to shake her awake again, not ready to see her die. His eyes filling with tears instantly, his vision going blue for a second.

“Hey! HEY! Stay with me! You can take care of her!” His voice sounded weird to his own ears, muffled by the mask and the fire around them. But she wasn’t listening anymore. The realization that he should leave her there. That he should leave both of them there... It was no way he could save them. Too much smoke inhalation. Too much heat. They were gone before he had a chance to enter the building.

The smoke got denser, if it was even possible. It was everywhere. Anthony almost couldn’t see, his eyes teary. He fought the need to scratch them, the mask making it impossible. He felt the tears rolling down his face, evaporating against his skin as soon as they left his eyes, the heat making them disappear as soon as they were shed.

Anthony was positive that both of them were dead. And the baby looked so tiny between them. They died trying to protect the baby, wrapping her up in all the towels they could find and shielding her for the flames. He didn’t know why it hit him so hard, but his chest felt tight. It hurt. It hurt so bad. The heat around him felt suffocating, but the worst part was the stabbing pain around his heart. He was aching for them. He was aching for the baby. It felt unfair. They loved the baby so much and now they were gone... and the baby was alone.

Anthony’s therapist would say he was projecting into the baby, but he knew he couldn’t let her die, too. That baby was going to get out of there, even if it was the last thing Anthony did.

A loud crash behind him broke him out of his stupor, the baby starting to cry not two seconds later, and a loud voice screaming through the radio. He felt like an electric shock hit him, right in the solar plexus, leaving him trying to catch his breath, and the smoke had nothing to do with it. Or maybe it did, but in the moment he couldn’t process it. He grabbed the tiny bundle, feeling the baby moving around, her cries louder than anything else. He cradled her in his arms, she weighted nothing at all. Her whole body was just a bit larger than Anthony’s hand. He could old her with just one hand and she was trying so hard to fight being so little… That woke him up. It was like the world shut up and came back to life in the three seconds it took Anthony to decipher what was happening around him, like everything fit into place and the second he hold her for the first time. He was on move. The ground was shaking under them and Anthony could only hear one thing in his head “Take care of her.” Over and over again.

Instincts kicked in, and everything felt too high, too bright, too much in a second. Too intense. So intense it hurt. The world came back to Anthony like a truck hitting him, making him cough and tighten his hold on the baby between his arms. He opened his jacket without realization. His team would kick his ass for that later, but it was the only way he could think of keeping the little one safe. The smoke was so thick and so dark that he almost couldn’t see, but the baby was screaming, that was the only thing that mattered at the moment. Not the flaming pain on his leg. Not the tightness on his lungs or the rawness on his throat because of the smoke. She was crying hard, and he needed to get her out. To save her.

He didn’t know what to name the feelings inside his chest. He just knew he needed to protect the baby. Because she felt his. The baby felt his. And he had no time to figure out what that meant. But he was going to protect that tiny baby with his life.

He took his face mask and put it over her tiny, tiny face. Anthony tried to hold his breath as much as he could, taking the baby and putting her inside his jacket, trying to protect her against the flames as much as he could. He ran to the exit, one hand over his chest, keeping the baby safe. As safe as she could be in a burning building ready to collapse at any second. He ran with her on his arms, the smoke making his head dizzy. He kicked one door down, he thought that was the exit. Some kind of exit. Or what he thought it, but it was once again that hell stairwell, completely engulfed by flames at that point. He couldn’t see the floor. Or the ceiling. Just fire.

Everything felt muffled. He tried not to breath, holding in all the air he could before running again. Every breath he took felt like burning lava down his throat, in his lungs… He was suffocating, like drowning. Underwater but surrounded by fire. It was maddening. He got down, stepping onto fire and debris, skipping steps and jumping over big chunks of the building. The floor cracking under him and pieces of the building falling behind him. He felt like he was in an action movie, where the hero was running from his life and everything was falling down around him. But Anthony didn’t feel like a hero. He left two bodies in that house. Two people who could never be back. Two people who would never see their baby girl grow up.

He didn’t know how he get to the ground floor, but he was there. The door was burned and he stepped into a big hallway, where Casey and Lola where. They screamed things at him, Anthony didn’t register any of it. His head felt light and he couldn’t breathe that well. His mask. He didn’t have a mask. The reality of the situation wasn’t catching up with him, everything felt too intense but too far away at the same time. In the back of his head, he registered Casey screaming: “WE NEED TO GET OUT OF HERE,” and pulling him by his arm, Lola behind them, to the only clear place of the whole floor. A door in the far wall. They ran there, Anthony’s arm still clutched to his chest, barely registering the baby inside his jacket.

When Anthony got to the door, the first thing he did was look for the ambulance. He needed to know the baby was safe and sound. He wasn’t ready to understand those feelings, but the urge in his chest to look for him was strong enough for it not to be ignored. He turned back, locking eyes with a very angry Lola. And before he realized, Lola was running and catching him before Anthony’s legs gave out under him. His solid presence next to him grounding him to reality, making him perceive the world around him once again.

Everyone was asking him questions. He couldn’t think about everything. He couldn’t think about anything. Lola, Casey, Dolly… The baby. The baby stopped crying. Why did she stop crying? Everyone crowding his space and trying to help him. He didn’t need help. And nobody was thinking about what mattered. About the tiny bundle inside of his jacket. The baby. The baby was the priority. She needed to be fine.

“CAP! Where’s the mask? Cap you are bleeding. What happened there?” Someone was asking, frantic and panicked. Worried. Someone was worried about him. His team was worried about him.

“You could have died!” Someone else was accusing him, trying to make him look into some tiny flashlight. Right. He was probably in shock. But that didn’t matter. It didn’t. Why wasn’t nobody talking about what was really important there?

“Dolly! CAP IS BLEEDING!” That was Lola. Through all the fog in his head Anthony could always recognize her voice. Lola was screaming, looking panicked, like he wanted to touch Anthony, comfort him, but didn’t know if he was allowed too. He was. Lola would always be allowed to comfort Anthony. She was his family.

Dolly appeared out of nowhere, trying to touch Anthony, but stopping, too. Why were they stopping? But that wasn’t really important. He opened his jacket a bit, revealing the tiny bundle lying there, surrounded by towels and wearing that giant mask over her tiny face. He heard Lola gasp, and Dolly getting into action. She tried to grab the baby, but Anthony flinched back. Growling at her like she was the enemy. She couldn’t take her away. What if something happened to her? Lola was right there, shushing him, hand touching his face softly. It hurt, and Anthony wanted to scream him to stop touching, but it was so comforting… He stopped growling, some part of him recognizing the comfort of his team.

Lola was talking to him. “Cap! Cap, look at me.” Anthony did. “Give the human to Dolly. She needs to be checked out.” Lola was trying to make Anthony give the baby to somebody else. Why was Lola trying to do that? She was his. But Anthony trusted Lola. He trusted her with his life. He could trust her with the baby girl. His baby girl.

Dolly took the baby softly, dropping Anthony’s face mask, not caring about it at all and ran to the ambulance, just a few feet from them. She started to look for the baby’s vitals and all that stuff she usually did with victims, and Anthony was just there, looking at them intensely. Dolly whipped the black stains off her tiny face, and Anthony saw her face for the first time. She was such a cute baby, even she was whaling again and her tiny eyebrows were furrowed… She looked perfect. Anthony fell in love with a tiny bundle of joy right there, with the world crashing around him and his head so foggy that he couldn’t see at the edges of his vision. Just one focal point: her.

Lola was trying to get Anthony to react, he could feel her hands against his face, the pain in his leg, and in his neck. Anthony was pretty sure he could feel blood dripping from somewhere around his forehead. It was getting in his eyes, or at least he thought it was blood. He wasn’t sure about anything anymore. Anything but one thing: he needed to make sure the baby was okay.

He snapped back into reality to feel agonizing pain all over, and he cradled Lola’s jaw like his life depended on it. Anthony used all his strength (which wasn’t much at the moment) to make Lola look at him, and when he was sure Lola was paying attention, he said: “Take care of her.”

“What?” Lola asked, confused all of sudden.

He was trying to argue with Anthony about getting him to the ER. To the hospital. He needed to get everything checked out, he looked like he walked through fire. But Anthony wasn’t having any of that. Bobby and Casey were somewhere behind them, Anthony wasn’t sure what happened to them after they got out of the building.

“Lola, take care of the baby. For me.” Anthony pleaded, feeling the entire weight of the world falling over him. His head was starting to feel light, and that meant he was going to faint at any moment. The pain was too high, too hard. It was all he could feel, and he needed someone he trusted to look after the baby. His baby. He would process those feeling of possessiveness when his head wasn’t spinning anymore.

“Cap…” Lola said his title as it was a plea, trying to pull him towards the ambulance.

“Promise me!” The anguish in his tone made Lola’s heart ache for him.

“Yes. Yes. I promise. Cap? Anthony!” His name and the panic in Lola’s voice was the last thing he heard before the world turned black around him and his legs collapsed under him as the same time as the building collapsed behind him. He didn’t get to hit the ground, Lola caught him first.

But he was already out.