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**SI Trigger Warning**
Sometimes I forget how much I hate myself. Life goes along fine for a time. There are no bumps, no jerks, no cataclysmic events – everything just flows.
And then there is a pebble in the way. And the flow of life is perturbed, jolted, jarred, disrupted in the smallest part. Which is enough, more than enough.
And the urges begin, devilishly small at first. Just twinges. I grind them down, turn them into dust and scatter them across the sea. But they return, gathering strength like a tropical storm, taking form, sketching in the details, exploding in my mind.
And I want to look inside, to see what makes me this way, to know the source of this madness.
And I reach for a knife, slide the flat of the blade across my arm, my stomach, my leg in anticipation, toying with myself, trying to surprise myself.
'Do it,' I say to myself. 'Do it, do it, do it!"
And then I twist the blade, and cut into the problem….
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"Hey, Kelly, what's with the bandage?" Captain Hank Stanley asked his lineman at roll call.
"Uh, I cut myself while cooking yesterday, nothing to it. I just wanted to keep the dirt out," Chet Kelly replied, explaining the gauze wrapped around his left hand.
"If it gives you problems, have John or Roy check it out, okay, pally?"
"Sure thing, Cap."
"Okay, let's get to it, men," he said, dismissing them to morning assignments. Hank started back to his office then turned, catching the eye of his junior paramedic who'd not yet moved toward the dorms he'd been assigned to clean. John Gage stepped over obediently. "John, why don't you switch with Chet so he can keep that hand dry?" he said quietly.
"No problem, Cap," Gage replied with a bit of a grin since he'd planned to do just that. Chester B. might be annoying at times, but he was still a friend. And, he'd been a little down since he'd learned the results of this year's engineer's exam. Sixty-first was better than seventy-fourth but it wasn't likely to result in a promotion this year.
"Thanks, pal," Hank replied, clapping him on the shoulder. Johnny headed to the latrines, calling out for Chet to 'hang on a minute, you're not going to believe this.' The captain chuckled at his shenanigans, knowing Johnny was quite likely spinning some tale to explain why he now had to clean the latrines while Chet got the dorms, all without revealing Cap's request or his own concern. Twits, he thought and turned to the morning paperwork.
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The tones called the station out to a structure fire later that afternoon. After they'd done a quick sweep for victims, Roy and Johnny manned hoses alongside Marco and Chet until the fire had been extinguished. It hadn't been a particularly bad fire, but it had been hot and smoky for a while, leaving all of them tired and dirty when they finally left the scene.
At the station, Roy was first in the showers because he was in charge of fixing dinner, followed by Johnny so that the squad would be ready to go if they got toned out. As John dressed, he kept an eye on Chet who was waiting for Marco to finish his shower. The other man sat on the bench, slowly sipping another flask of water. His dark curly hair – sweaty and sticking up wildly after its confinement under a helmet – and the smudges of soot on his mustachioed face gave him an almost comical appearance. Except for his expression.
He looks tired, Johnny thought, wondering if it was more than just the fire. After Marco hopped out, Chet pulled himself upright and walked over to the shower, leaving the half-empty water bottle and a dirty bandage on the bench. Dressed, Johnny stepped out into the bay, giving Mike Stoker the high sign for the showers as he did.
Chet emerged a few minutes later, one towel wrapped around his waist and another draped across his shoulders as usual, and plopped down on the bench in front of his locker with a sigh. Supplies in hand, Johnny was sitting in his own locker, waiting for him.
Chet was looking at his palm but Johnny wasn't sure he was seeing it. "Chet?" he asked quietly, after Mike had stepped into the shower. "Do you want me to bandage that hand now or after you get dressed?"
"Hmm?"
"Your hand, Chester B. Now or later?"
"What? Oh, the hand. Now's fine," Kelly said, holding it out to the paramedic. Johnny angled the hand to get a good long look at the slash across Chet's palm. It wasn't bad but it had probably smarted at the time. After cleaning the cut gently and applying some salve, Johnny deftly wrapped Chet's hand back up.
"There you go, pally, good as new," John said with a smile as he finished.
"Thanks, babe," came Kelly's reply as he flexed his hand to check the stability of the bandage. Satisfied, he pulled the towel from his shoulder and used it to rub at his hair.
"Whoa!" John exclaimed as he caught sight of Chet's shoulder. A long-healed scar ran for about eight inches diagonally across Kelly's left scapula. "Where'd you get that?" he asked, then blushed at his tactlessness. "Sorry," he muttered.
Chet gave a little chuckle at John's reactions. "No big deal, man. I got it when I was just a kid. A shed caught fire and I tried to put it out. Ended up getting hit by a burning wood beam and that," he said, indicating the scar with a shrug, "was the result. My mom was none too pleased, but she did get my dad to start teaching me the basics of firefighting then, if only to keep me from getting killed by sheer stupidity – like, I dunno, running into unstable burning buildings instead of using a garden hose – before I was a teenager."
"How old were you?"
"Eleven."
"You amaze me, Chester B., you really do," Johnny said, shaking his head and laughing.