A is for Ambulance

Normally, Ambulance 61 stayed at the firehouse when they weren't out on a call. The two of them just hung out with the crew until they were needed. Most days they were busier than the firehouse - a heart attack victim here, a moron trying to clean his gas grill while it was still on there - but every so often they had slow weeks. But they were paramedics, and they had a quota of hours to fill out in the field. Sometimes that meant just driving around until they got a call.

And it got boring real quick.

And they could only spend so much time in silence, on their phones, before the random thoughts filling their heads just couldn't be held back any more. Usually they weren't too weird - educational sometimes, random most always, occasionally disturbing.

Jimmy was usually the one who broke first.

Spring was just starting, which might have been why people weren't being too terribly stupid yet. The weather was just south of comfortable, and while a few of the more inept individuals of humanity had already braved the still chilly temps, most of nature's idiots were still hibernating from the aftermath of Saint Patrick's day. Jimmy was tapping his thumbs against the steering wheel as they sat in traffic, and Sylvie was enjoying the warmth hitting her face through the window when he finally opened his mouth.

"Okay, if you had to pick between Marceline the Vampire Queen or Princess Bubblegum to have sex with, who would it be?"

Sylvie snorted, glancing up from her phone long enough to give Jimmy a look. "What?"

He gestured at her, his eyes on the road as he spoke. "Adventure Time, Brett. I'm partial to Marceline, but I like sassy vampires. They're my thing."

The blonde stared at him for a beat, then looked back down at her phone. "You've been spending too much time with Hermann's kids."

"So you're not going to answer the question?"

"No, Jimmy," said Sylvie slowly, like she was talking to a child. "I'm not going to answer the question."

He looked sideways at her, his expression bland. "Is it 'cause they're both chicks? Your only other options are Jake and Finn -"

"You really want me to pretend like I know what you're talking about?"

"- And both options are just wrong."

"Why are you still talking?"

Jimmy's eyes narrowed of her a fraction, before he turned back to the road and started driving again. Sylvie relaxed back into her seat, still smirking at her phone. A few minutes of silence passed by, still no break from the boring with a call to get their blood flowing. It was five minutes later that Sylvie realized she hadn't done a thing with her phone, just staring at the screen in bewilderment until she couldn't help but blurt out -

"It's a kids show Jimmy! Christ…"

"It's actually pretty heavy for a kids show. You really haven't seen it?"

"Like I said," she scoffed, pinning him with a look as she rolled her head up to look at him. "You've been spending too much time with Hermann's kids."

Jimmy shrugged, not even looking embarrassed. "I love kids. And Hermann's aren't as bad as Mouch keeps sayin. I just think he's scared of 'em." He glanced at her, serious expression on his face. "They can smell weakness, you know." A smile cracked over his face just when she thought he was being serious. Ugh.

"I can't take you seriously -"

Jimmy's expression melted away before her eyes, watching him straighten in his seat to try and look through traffic. "Woah...Brett," he nodded into the sea of cars, and even as she turned her head he flipped on the siren. The tires on the jeep were still turning in the air, proof that the accident had just happened. A few cars made it out of the way for them, and Sylvie's mouth opened in shock.

"Oh please tell me all those limbs are still attached to someone," Jimmy muttered to himself as he pulled the rig to a stop. Sylvie shot him a look that said she hoped the same, climbing out to start what was turning into a long day….

"I'd totally have a robot arm."

Jimmy made a face at her, shouldering their gear as he followed her away from the nurses station. "Doctor's can reattach limbs hours after they've been severed, with little residual damage, and you'd still prefer a robot arm?"

He probably hated the Skywalker's too. "Yeah. Robots are sweet."

Jimmy made a face and shook his head, hitting the elevator button to take them down to the ambu bay. "Robots, seriously?"

"Says the guy with a thing for vampires."

His face shifted, his grin wolfish. His eyes followed her almost predatorily as he let her into the elevator first. "Yeah, vampires," he said, sounding creepy and so male. "They have that whole teeth thing -"

Sylvie made a disgusted noise in the back of her throat, looking at him out of the corner of her eyes because she didn't feel like giving him the decency of her full attention. "Teeth? Really? You're that guy?"

His grin never even faltered. "Endorphins are a powerful thing." Ew.

"You're disgusting."

"Who's disgusting?"

Jimmy tilted his head back against his chair to look at Hermann as he walked into the lounge. Sylvie was making a cup of tea, he was angled back on two legs of his chair, and Hermann was looking between the two of them curiously. Jimmy sighed, looking back at his blonde partner with a casual hand gesture. They hadn't had another call that night, so the two were just hanging out until the end of their shift.

"Brett and her bubblegum vodka."

She just rolled her eyes and sipped her tea, trying not to snort at Hermann's face as he looked at Jimmy. "She serious? That's disgusting."

Jimmy shrugged. "That's what I'm saying. They went too far with that one."

"You didn't seem to mind it too much the other night," Sylvie muttered against the rim of her mug, earning a bemused look from Jimmy and a sharp from from Hermann.

"You had Jimmy over at your place drinking?" Jimmy rolled his eyes a little and smirked.

"Yeah had a sleepover," Sylvie shot him a look, and Jimmy chuckled. "Dawson and Kidd were there too, I just brought the pizza."

"He crashed a girls night 'cause he's got no friends," said Sylvie with a mock pout in his direction, but Jimmy just grinned at her. She glanced at Hermann, taking a casual sip of her tea. "He crashed on the couch."

"Bubblegum vodka is still vodka," Jimmy muttered to himself, shaking his head as he stood and moved into the kitchen. Hermann's eyes narrowed on the two of them, trying to understand how the two of them were so comfortable together.

"You two spend too much time together." they both looked up at him, and Hermann's expression turned all-knowing. "Partner's or not, you don't have to spend every minute of every day together."

Jimmy shrugged, glancing at Sylvie as he brought down a bowl for his cereal. "It's not like we run out of things to talk about."

Hermann just continued to look at them. "Just don't take advantage of your relationship; just because you got a good thing goin' now don't mean you'll always have it."

Sylvie walked into the locker room just in time to catch Jimmy pulling his shirt over his head. She watched, her steps slowing, as he tossed it into the gym bag at his feet and pulled on a clean shirt, long fingers playing with the buttons. Her steps must have registered to him because he looked up at her as she neared, nodding at her in greeting. "Hey. Wanna grab a drink?"

She nodded, bobbing her head as his skin disappeared with each button. "Sounds good. Your place or Molly's?"

He smirked at her, and she ignored the thrill that shot through her. "Let's do Molly's. Need to stop by the ambo real quick before we leave though. Pretty sure I left my phone in there after that last call."

Sylvie rolled her eyes, grabbing her purse from her locker as he passed her, following behind quickly to catch up. "And you didn't notice? I swear you're the only person I know who's not permanently attached to their phone."

"Well like you told Hermann, you're my only friend."

"Ha ha."

He hooked his hand around her elbow, pulling her to a stop. His expression was serious, mouth firm and eyebrows lifted precariously in that way that let her know he was gonna try and have a real conversation with her. "Could always tell people about us," he said lowly, the pressure of his fingers digging gently into her arm, his thumb rubbing the skin under her sleeve. Her stomach flipped, and he kept going. "Come clean. Wouldn't have to throw a damn party just to get me into your place."

He was only half kidding, which is why Sylvie didn't feel like she needed to be all in. "You know we can't."

"It's not like we're unprofessional," he told her, taking his hand off her and stepping away with an annoyed lift of his shoulder. "Not like we make out in the rig or anything."

She snorted. "Like you wouldn't want to if we got the chance." He shrugged again, but this time he seemed less angry.

"Eh, who wouldn't?"

"You're unbelievable."

"It was unbelievable! I'd never seen so much porn in one place in my life."

Gabby slid into the seat next to Jimmy, looking across his body at Sylvie sitting next to him and then to Cruz who was looking like he was going to blow a blood vessel if he didn't stop laughing long enough to breathe. "Why are we talkin' about porn?"

"Call we took today," Jimmy explained, raising his beer to his mouth, his eyes twinkling in amusement. Gabby quirked an eyebrow as she waited for him to explain, first he gestured to Sylvie. "Some guy in a sex shop had a seizure while he was lookin' at porn; Sylvie's delicate sensibilities were offended."

"Delicate sensi -"

"You guys had a call to a porn shop?" Kinda sounded like she was jealous, but it was hard to tell. Her eyes darted onto Sylvie. "You washed your hands after, right?"

Jimmy swung his eyes to look at her, and Gabby notice his hand was resting on the back of her chair. She quirked an eyebrow at it, then looked at Sylvie. The blonde caught the look and shifted in her chair a little, dislodging Jimmy's hand for a moment before it was back. Gabby flicked her eyes to look at him, eyebrow raised.

"It wasn't as bad as she makes it sound," he told her, stubbornness making his gaze hard.

"Well you gotta be careful in places like that," Gabby started saying. "Never know who you might run into, like your boss or something." Cruz wasn't paying attention enough to get the double meaning behind their words. Jimmy held her gaze for a moment, then sighed and let his hand fall away from Sylvie's chair. Gabby pressed her lips together and raised her glass to silently toast him. "Just be careful."

"Hey so, crazy question," Jimmy started, his voice sounding off in her ears. They were headed back to the Firehouse after dropping off a gunshot victim to the hospital, Jimmy was driving, and Sylvie was getting a head start on her report. She glanced up as he started talking, warning bells going off at the tone of his voice, but ignoring them.

"Yeah?"

He didn't say, it was almost a whole minute later that he finally did say and by then she'd gone back to her report. "Does Dawson know about us?"

Her fingers still on the keyboard, her mind whizzing as she tried to think of something - anything - to say to him. He wasn't an angry guy, he was all cup half full and sometimes it was annoying; but it also meant that when he was pissed he was pissed. When he got angry he was all in, and she needed her game face if she was going to get through this.

"She's my roommate."

Sylvie looked out the corner of her eye at him, watching his expression. She saw his eyebrow lift, his head turning toward her just long enough for her to see the annoyance on his face.

"So that's a yes?"

"Damn, Jimmy, just say whatever it is you wanna say."

He exhaled through his nose hard, his hand tightening on the steering wheel for a moment, and once again they lapsed into silence. It wasn't until they were a block away from the Firehouse that he spoke again. "Chili didn't care about my feelings when we were together," he told her, and Sylvie's head snapped toward him, her eyes a little wide because he never talked about Chili. "I was some kind of toy to her. She didn't want to have conversations with me, she didn't care how our relationship affected our jobs, she just wanted sex." Sylvie shifted uncomfortably, glancing out the window as the firehouse loomed closer. "And that was okay, because it was a secret, and it didn't mean anything. We didn't mean anything."

Jimmy looked over at her as he pulled the rig into the garage, putting it in park and never taking his eyes off her. "You and me, though? We mean something. We talk, and you care, and it means something. So if Dawson knows, she should know everything."

Sylvie nodded, feeling small and...stupid. Her head thunked back against the seat after he'd climbed out of the rig, knowing he had a point. It wasn't like she'd just come out and told Gabby about him; she was her roommate, she saw him. And yeah, they had excuses lined up, but she couldn't really explain away his underwear mixed in with her laundry, or that time Gabby wasn't supposed to be home and had caught Jimmy coming out of the shower. That last time Jimmy had given her a really good excuse but Gabby already had her suspicions.

A knock on the window made her startle, and Sylvie looked down to see Jimmy frowning curiously at her. He jerked his head in silent demand for her to get out of the car, and with a sigh she unbuckled her seatbelt and climbed out. "You good?" The blonde looked up at him as her boots hit the ground, shaking her head in wonder.

"You're too good for me, you know that?"

He snorted softly, his hand sliding over her shoulder as he pulled her into him, kissing her forehead. He'd done it before, especially after bad calls, so all the guys in Severide's crew watching them didn't bat an eye. Sylvie smiled gently up at him when he pulled away, sucking in a deep breath. "Proving my point."

"Whatever, Brett," he chuckled. "Just let me know if Dawson and I need to come to any agreements when I come over."

Sylvie's mouth dropped open, and she shoved him away hard enough that he had to take a step back, laughing at her the whole time. "Jimmy Borrelli," she tsk'd at him, turning around to head into the firehouse without him. "You're an ass."

He stayed where he was, grinning after her. "You love me!"

Severide perked up as she headed closer, grinning at her. "You and Jimmy good?" She waved him off.

"Trapped all day in a metal box on wheels, we get a little stir crazy sometimes."

"Aw, so you do love him."

Sylvie stopped, just in front of Severide, looking at the teasing grin on his face. She glanced over her shoulder to see Jimmy getting the rig ready for their next call, not paying her any attention. Her gaze traced his profile as he worked, looking almost serene as he repacked one of their kits. "Yup," she said casually, still looking at Jimmy, unable to look away. "I really do love him."