Human After All

Gambling

A/N: Yes, it's true -- I'm back from the dead! I had a great summer and hope you all did as well! I will be trying to catch up what I missed out on in regards to all of the new and updated fanfic that you all have been working so hard to create. I am impressed with the number of new stories to read! Because I was gone for so long, I had a hard time getting back into writing again, and was finally granted a bit of inspiration to help me knock out this chapter. I hope you enjoy!

An extra-warm thanks goes to Joey for her priceless time.

Warning: Contains graphic material.


Initial commencement wasn't a problem, but rather staying his course as numerous people repeatedly shouted his name out more and more vehemently. His help was very much needed at the moment, but his mind and heart were elsewhere and he was in no mental state to try to aid anything apart from the relentless tugging of his intuition.

Sully's chest was heavy with fear of the unknown, legs watery from apprehension in spite of the instinctual drive that decided his path so ardently. To the naked eye, he appeared to be adept, strong-minded, and persistent. All of which were accurate, with the exception of the first two.

His hands had found themselves hiding against his roiling stomach, curled into tight fists, the divulgence of anxiety concealed by the deep pockets of his coat. The corruption of normalcy around him suggested a fictitious quality to his awareness, so he forced a singsong mantra to replay in his head for reassurance.

It's real...find Ty.... It's real...find Ty....

It was primarily guilt that propelled John Sullivan onward; passing and mentally disregarding the heart-stopping display -gory, unreasonable wastage of human life-- as though the bodies rendered lifeless were as common a sight as umbrellas on a rainy day. The heat of the nearing fire hardly impinged on him, aside from providing his hungrily seeking eyes an eerie searchlight.

His culpability and feelings of self-reproach were not unfounded, but exaggerated by adrenaline and the dread of the impending situation. Today could very well end in an reincarnation of a past event that he'd tried intensely for years to forget - unleashing the devastating blow of death on Ty's mother. Tears scalded his vision as he remembered that fateful night; the night he nearly died himself from heartache. The idea of rehashing all of his carefully repressed emotions affected him to the extent of out-and-out panic.

So he went, running to prevent his guarded self from the ultimate breakdown, running to redeem himself from the ugly past, and running to find a partner that he loved more than his own life.


"Hang in there, kid..."

To the experienced paramedic, the forced words of encouragement sounded alien and off-the-cuff, authenticating his restive and distracted state. Mechanically, he went through the motions of the job, but his manner lacked its usual vim and vigor, even though he struggled to no avail to return to a more professional and compassionate disposition.

Unnerved to a great degree, Bobby's hands shook as they positioned and collared young Colin; his mouth went dry as he held his penlight between teeth, and his intense eyes threatened to glaze over from sheer dread.

"Okay," he uttered softly, half to himself.

While he worked, the young man's gaze refused to leave Bobby's face and drilled guilt into his conscience with every spilt tear and desperate look of terror. Seeing an accurate reflection of his own vulnerability, Bobby found it harder and harder to be the unwavering stronghold of support and reassurance that he intended to be. Emotions crept up on him, quietly stealing away his stamina with every second, mercilessly breaking and picking away at barriers that he didn't know he possessed until the moment.

The silence behind him caught his attention for a moment as a sudden barrage of screams and shouts shattered it infinitely. He instantly recoiled, unintentionally exposing the grating, incommodious alarm building within him.

"Shit...," murmured one of the firefighters in back of him, and suddenly losing control never felt so feasible, so imminent. Adrenaline now pounding full-bore, his stomach lurched and threatened flippantly to betray him.

He rigidly clenched his jaw in frustration, but afforded himself only a spilt second to recompose his rapidly deteriorating concentration. His brothers' predicament weighed heavily on his heart, however how much he struggled to keep it pushed aside in his mind.

"Bobby?" Colin gasped pathetically, his mouth slackened from pain as blood tainted his teeth a violent scarlet hue. The young man was quickly fading, his condition worsening with every vital tick of time. However, the position of his body required an extensive extraction time that seemed to be out of the question at the moment. The prospect of his continued existence was down to the wire; down to the decisions that Bobby would make in the approaching seconds. "Am I...gonna die?"

Swallowing his dismay, the kindly paramedic reached up and stroked the head of the worried boy, saddened and heartbroken, just inches from the edge himself. "It's okay, kid...I'm gonna take good care of you...."

Securing an IV line lent Bobby a moment to conjure up a plan of action that he hoped would have a good outcome, though the outlook was as dim as it was troublesome.


Besides the devastating blackness, the silence disturbed Ty greatly, as he was in lieu of any other noise to focus on, save the unharmonious, mournful chant of their pathetic attempts to remain alive. Bosco seemed to have gotten his breathing regulated enough to not be alarming, but still sounded as though he were on the verge of losing it again.

Tears flowed freely from his eyes, but Ty didn't take the time to notice. The thought of lying, immobilized by force, for hours, just waiting until he finally passed away was unendurable to him, and he was grieved perilously, nearly at the end of himself with anguish. Every muscle in his broken body was quavering uncontrollably from sustaining such an unnatural position, sending shockwaves of pain with every spasm. His head pounded, pressure building with every throb, admonishing him for remaining upside-down for so long.

Left alone with his thoughts, he struggled not to dwell on his approaching death, ruminating about past events in his life, surviving vicariously through memories. He had lived a good life, though short, and had few regrets.

He would die on the job just as his father had, life cut much too short, snuffed out with no warning. Ty thought of Sully, the impromptu father figure that he admired and loved so much. His older partner would be affected the furthermost by his death. He knew that his mother would be heartbroken, but Sully would be plunged into the depths of despair. No doubt, he would seek out the bottom of every bottle, searching for answers, guilty with no cause. Ty longed to give him one last hug, to let him know how much he loved him. The thought of leaving without such closure was nearly as devastating as the thought of death.

Beside him, Bosco's miserable excuses for breaths rapidly transmuted into choking. The hand gripping Ty 's arm jarred him as fingers clutched down fiercely, conveying Bosco's pain to him with every spastic squeeze.

"Bos...easy," he repeated for the umpteenth time, hoping that somehow he was helping.

He was pretty much at a loss for words. Though he wished to comfort his dying friend, he felt that there were no words to suffice, nothing he could say to ease any of the agony. The choking continued, loud gags and wheezed respirations lent way to what sounded like hoarse sobs.

"Ty..." Bosco suddenly gasped.

"Unmm..." he grunted back, licking his lips in an effort to speak clearly again.

"You think...someone'll...find us?"

Ty tensed, not expecting the question, and then subsequently, not knowing how to answer it. For his own good as well as Bosco's, he struggled to find some reason to answer positively. The truth remained, however - with every second passing, there was less and less of a chance that they would ever be rescued.

Bits and pieces of the accident interspersed his consciousness, reminding him of the gravity of the wreck with every flashback of flying metal and shattering glass. His heart sank and he cringed unconsciously, shuddering at the cruelty of it all. Their chances were slim to none.

"I don't know."

The innocuousness of his reply flawlessly indicated the degree of his own denial - that, and his inflectionless voice.

Nausea surged from his stomach, burning his throat and mouth as acid raked up his esophagus and seared bitter bile over his tongue. Ty stiffened, but tried not to panic, knowing that if he heaved, he would most likely asphyxiate and die.

Although death seemed inescapable, he'd rather wait it out and die slowly, as opposed to suffocating on his own body fluids.

Bosco appeared to think likewise, and seemed to be hanging on by means of the Herculean capacities that most people assumed he possessed. Ty could only admire the formidable perseverance of the man beside him, as Bosco's irregular, rapid breathing and erratic groans of pain let on that Bosco was injured far worse than himself.

"I don't want..." Bosco began, though every syllable he managed was perceivably forced, "...to die."

"I know, man...I know..." Ty whispered, managing to catch another deep breath without the consequence of gagging. He sighed through the pain, and for a moment, relinquished his thoughts, choosing not to dwell on the obvious, but rather grasped at dim memories of better times.

"I can't do this...."

Though his own self-talk was equivalent with Bosco's blunt disclosure, Ty summoned up the strength to be of some encouragement, as much for himself as his dying friend. "You have...to try...."


"DK?" Jimmy screamed again, though this time raw panic spiked his voice. The metal walls of his fortuitous prison seemed to rapidly close in on him as the fire licked its way in and around the car, and the smoke --black, thick, and impenetrable-- gathered him and his precious burden in its deadly folds.

In spite of the fact that he was wearing an oxygen mask, the gasoline fumes seeped in and coated his mouth and throat with a numbing acidity, frightening him with the inevitability of it reaching his already taut lungs.

"You guys?" he tried again, lapsing into a fit of coughing the instant he opened his mouth. The smoke inhalation from earlier in the evening had stressed his body to the point that it was refusing another go-round, and consequently beginning to forsake him.

He glanced down at the tiny baby cuddled in his arms, almost entirely swallowed by the bulk of his heavy jacket. Although he knew that compromising his own safety for the sake of the child could end up killing them both, he relinquished to the parental compulsion inciting him and tore off his mask, placing the life-sustaining device over the infant's face. Instantly, his eyes watered relentlessly, and he could feel the heat of the fire singing the hair on his cheeks, forehead and nose, blistering at susceptible skin with an unequalled animosity.

Acting unflinchingly, Jimmy turned his weary body around and felt about for the void of the broken window. Space seemed to stretch on forever, yawning and remorseless, and his fingers scrambled erratically for a few breathless moments before finally settling on the metal frame.

"Hey...!" he croaked out, but was provided only the furious snarl of the conflagration and the hideous lack of human reassurance.

By now the casehardened firefighter was enveloped in a pain like no other as his body punished his actions and intentions, and his psyche nearly hemorrhaged with panic. The tears of frustration had metamorphosed into tears of agony as he realized that he was undeniably entrapped with no out.

Edging out survival, his thoughts immediately centered on his loved ones, and he begged emotively for redemption, for just one more moment with his son and ex-wife,

"Please...help me...."

As a last measure of the intrepid determination he was so well known for, Jimmy stretched out his hand, thrusting his arm through the window frame, ignoring the heat roasting him through his thick jacket. He could only pray that someone would see the soot-blackened yellow, would see that he was still alive despite the futile hopelessness of the situation.

Cuddling the baby as tightly as possible, he irrevocably conceded defeat, submitting and surrendering to his longstanding enemy. It was fire he loved and fire he hated, and fire that would ultimately take his life. All of the years of extinguishing flame, of ousting his foe, had caught up to him, and the odds dealt him his last card.

Grieved terribly, stricken with unsounded sorrow, and utterly humbled by the overwhelming spite of the vindictive, revengeful inferno, he grappled to find closure before the flames found him.

Closing his eyes, Jimmy pressed his stubbled, sweat drenched cheek against the infant's soft head as he brought his knees to his chest and quietly sobbed.


If the was a will, there was a way, and the look on Doc's face insinuated he would find it no matter what. Resolve, fervor and a hint of resentment rapidly warped the senior paramedic's features, and he strode ahead intrepidly, never flinching as he grew closer and closer to the intemperate flames.

Carlos, however strong his newfound character was, still had a difficult time plowing into what seemed to be inevitable doom. The cackling and spitting heat caused him to shrink away numerous times and he made a great effort to keep his racing heart and mind in check. But his thoughts at the moment bore more of a resemblance to a string of four-letter words than an internal pep-talk.

Presently, the fire had reached epic proportions and was now shooting ten to fifteen feet high, hovering portentously over and around the two men as they crept forward inch by precious inch. It might have just been the blind leading the blind, for neither of them could see more than a foot or so before him - the dense smoke made certain of that.

Fear quickly growing to be prevalent, inexperienced Carlos began to falter. His eyes were stinging and throbbing, his knees were yearning to give out due to his explicit alarm, and he couldn't breathe properly any longer, regardless of his effort to filter out the smoke with a portion of his shirt.

Impulse threatened to get the better of him and command his itching feet to flee. Saving himself, running away, seemed such an unproblematic alternative, and though his mindset was one of steadfastness, even his willpower could be bought for a price.

I can't do this....

Unexpectedly, a hand clamped down on his arm and Doc's voice screamed out, barely perceivable above the thunderous roaring, "Carlos?"

Startled, he took a breath before responding, blinking against irritated wateriness of his burning eyes.

I can't do this.... I have to do this....

"Yeah...." His voice was hoarse from strain and soot, and only just rose above a monotonic murmur.

"I...found someone!"


"You have to try..."

The words echoed endlessly, long after they were spoken. The overwrought agony accompanying the low command was not lost on Bosco, as his partner's voice was hoarse, weak, and inordinately uneven. He knew he had to fight, but the enormous undertaking it was just to merely stay alive was as daunting as it was horrific.

Surviving would be superhuman, he thought vainly as he strained to rasp another breath.

Still struggling to keep hyperventilation under control, he didn't dare try to speak again, lest he lapsed back into the incapacitating attack.

Breathe. Ignore the pain... Ignore it.

His legs were cramping. First one, then the other; the muscles tightening until he could

feel exactly where they were broken. Throbbing, violent pain enveloped him, gripped him. His chest pained him the worst of all, and as time slowly passed, his lungs seemed to constrict beyond their already insufferable tightness.

Biting tears burned non-stop from his swollen eyes, chafing raw, wet trails into tender skin. His fingers were shaking fiercely, long ago numbed from blood loss and the bone-chilling cold, and virtually harmonized with the hideous quaking of his torso. He squeezed his eyes shut, biting his lower lip against the pain, as though either futile measure would do him any good.

Ignore it, dammit!

Though all but insensate from cold and shock, Bosco felt his hands curl into distraught fists, fingers furiously digging into his palms as he wept his pain out tear by burning tear. The dull roaring of his rapidly pulsing blood deadened his hearing, becoming a monotonous tell of time and the fatalness of his injuries with each desperate, struggling beat.

"Bos...," Ty abruptly mumbled from beside him.

Silence ensued, as Bosco was unable to answer, but his lack of speech didn't deter his partner, who seemed to be distraughtly grappling for some form of relief.

"We're gonna...die."

The pronouncement was spoken softly, dolefully, laced with remorse and fear, but completely lucid and harshly true. Their demise was undeniably certain, yet neither man wished to entertain the thought, as though the acquiescence would break them entirely, crush the remnants of their shattered spirits. Holding on to whatever they could, the last fragile thread of hope, each breath one step closer to an unattainable fantasy, they continued on valiantly, however futile the endeavor may well be.


For the hundredth time that day, Johnson was inclined to pace about edgily, and for the hundredth time that minute, he was inclined to rake nervous fingers thorough his hair. At the rate he was going, he was liable to go bald before going entirely gray, though his crew was doing a remarkably impressive job at speeding the latter process along.

All of Hell had been unleashed, and fortuitously, he was the man in charge of fixing it all, though at present, he was having a hard time doing anything constructive, save repeatedly yelling orders that now fell on deaf ears.

"DK, Jimmy, get the hell out of there!" His tone had become so frantic that he very nearly shuddered when he heard himself speak. "Do you copy?"

His foremost problem was getting his men back into a safe situation, but their enraged opponent was brutal and most certainly took no prisoners. The grim prospect made the Lieutenant nauseous.

Jimmy, his young maverick, had once again endangered himself to the nth degree, and while his life hung in the balance, several others' lives had been jeopardized to save him.

Gambling with lives was a grisly game of odds and variables, choices and chances, and ultimately one of the impromptu players would lose life, whether it be human or infernal.

Who would be the victor of this game would be determined as the hours of darkness edged on; the cards were on the table, and Johnson wasn't happy with what he'd been dealt.

"Dammit...," he hissed softy, blinking away the snowflakes that blighted his view. Rocking back on his heels, he raked tense hands down the length of his face and squinted into the blaze, prayerful to see even the slightest fragment of hope. "C'mon, guys...give me something."


Intense, radiant light inundated every sense, but ironically, he couldn't see. He likened the eerie sensation to peering at the sun for too long, or perhaps that fragment of time before one's eyes adjusted to a bright light; his eyes just never adjusted. Hot tears and relentless stinging added to the uncomfortable, disquieting feeling, and only reinforced his alarm.

Though the fire was literally breathing down his neck, it had yet to scathe him, and though he was but a few feet from a gruesome demise, it had left him be thus far. Flames licked and chewed at three sides of him, his back still cooled slightly by the artic night air, oddly enough. Standing so close to the blaze had, at the very least, lessened the smoke inhalation a fair amount, but the heat was nearly unbearable and on the verge of blistering exposed skin.

Wiping at the sweat coursing down his face, Carlos kept his other hand decisively clamped onto Doc's arm, following blindly along. When his partner stopped unexpectedly, the young medic stumbled into him and nearly caused them both to tumble over.

It was then that his vision finally grew accustomed to the lurid brightness and refocused enough to make out dark blurs and shadows. Doc had dropped easily to the ground and was fully concentrating his attention on a doubled-up figure, sinister black in converse to the flamboyantly dancing oranges, reds and whites around it.

"Help me - it's DK!" Doc yelled over his shoulder.

A full-fledged rush of fear finally caused Carlos' to brain registered the sheer magnitude of the situation. DK's motionless form brought about raw emotion and roused feelings of sickened dread, as it appeared that his colleague, his friend, hadn't made it.

"Aw, man...," he moaned breathlessly, his body gripped in utter revulsion.


"Davis...," Bosco gasped, then took a moment to breathe, to regain his bearings, before continuing in the darkness, "I just.... I want you...to know...that...I always...liked you...."

"Bos...," Ty groaned miserably, not wishing to hear the dying declaration, as if though could delay the inevitable buy cutting Bosco's final farewell at the quick.

"No...listen...," the stubborn officer insisted around compulsory gasps. "I always...thought of you...as a friend...a brother. No matter...what an ass I was...."

Though a friend in Bosco was an unlikely friendship, Ty was strangely honored by the unexpected avowal, no matter how characteristically "Bosco-esque" it had been. He'd always thought of the man as a friend, but would have never expected Bosco to label himself as such.

"Thanks, man...," he murmured after a lengthy pause. "Me too."

"So...this's it...," Bosco stated bluntly, his voice becoming more and more slurred, quieting down to a soft, sluggish whisper. It was so matter-of-fact of him to point it out that way, but realistic in the face of their attempts at believing denial. Ty could feel his will to fight quickly diminishing, hopelessness mounting overwhelmingly as he realized that he needed, more than ever now, to come to terms with dying.

"I'm scared," he blurted out, so consumed with emotion that his tone was completely flat, raw.

"Yeah...," Bosco concurred quietly, his own voice catching.

"It wasn't s'posed to be like this."

Utter silence ensued, so quiet that the two officers could literally hear the resonation of their heartache and desolation, echoing deep and hollow in the stillness.

"I always thought...," Bosco whispered, but trailed off, leaving the two to mourn their rightful deaths.

Only the hideous grating of their attempts to remain alive broke the quiet reflection. Bosco's half-sentence had evoked a stirring of his emotions, a swell of anguish. And finally, after breaking through every last bit of composure, it hit him. It was then that it finally dawned on his distraught self, then that he realized that these words would be his last -- this conversation, his final. This was it.

This was it.

"God...," Ty started, but he lost control and began to weep softly, his body convulsing with muffled sobs. Intense pain flared violently, igniting his body white-hot with every movement, although the breathtaking agony paled in comparison to the pain of his broken heart. Every sob nearly killed him, but the release of pent-up grief gave his aching soul some reprieve. Every fiber of his being screamed for closure, but was cruelly not granted any.

He could feel Bosco lightly squeezing his arm, as though to comfort him. Bitterly, Ty could only think of the absurdity of the small gesture, a move unlike the Bosco he knew. The contrast of the person next to him only solidified the reality of the situation, forcing him to grasp and then try to resign himself to his fate. The idea of dying merely tore at every last shred of dignity that he had left, and he whispered softly into the darkness, voicing what both officers were thinking, "...I'm not ready."

"I'm not ready." His reiteration solidified his sentiments, but reality persuaded him to be guileless and reasonable with his final words. "Bos...tell my mom...I love her...and Sul."

It was then that his will and his body ceased to liaise and he was bereaved of control. He should have panicked when he felt his stomach heave, he should have been insurmountably alarmed when he could taste death seep into his mouth, and he should have been petrified when he began to convulse and vomit, but strangely enough, he had found a remnant of peace amid his devastation.

He felt his strength fading, dying, and disappearing with his ability to breathe. It took no effort at all to slip away, but sapped every last bit of energy from his beaten body.


Crawling across gnarled metal, sidestepping pools of oil and gasoline, bypassing bloodied corpses, and fighting his way into the heart of the chaos, Sully persevered boldly as though nothing could waver his intent. Internally, however, he was a mess of bewilderment, panic, and fearfulness--a potentially toxic combination of emotions that could nearly drive a person mad and frenetic.

His dark, deep-set eyes scanned and rescanned his surroundings until they ached, but much to his dismay, didn't turn up anything of consequence. He was tempted to call out his partner's name, but knew that his desperate screams would be immediately lost in the clamorous night air.

Think, Sullivan, think.... Where is he? Where is he...?

Taking a second to collect himself as best he could, he straightened to his full height, sighed, and unconsciously rubbed his chin.

You can do this.... C'mon, where is he....

His thoughts immediately reverted to a day long ago, back when he had been a fresh-faced kid at the academy. A detective had come in for the day to educate the new recruits on some simple techniques that would help them fine-tune their senses and awareness, so that if faced with an intricate crime scene, they could be of some help to investigators, rather than a clumsy hindrance.

"Take time to think," the instructor had articulated, leveling his gaze on the class. "Calm yourself down, take a deep breath, and think. Where do your eyes revert first? Disregard it. It's the small things that we catch that close our cases, not the most obvious."

Sully pondered this for a second, taking the venerable words to heart. His own eyes were inclined to focus on the major influence on light - the fire.

Disregard it.

Again, he looked about, but this time, he discerned much smaller particulars. A taillight dangling from a bumper by two red wires. A wool hat, gray, sitting a few feet from the nearest car. Pieces of a shattered hubcap embedded in a tire. Gasoline dripping lazily from a punctured gas tank into a small puddle below.

Nothing of significance, but he was getting somewhere, and somewhere was better than nowhere. His heart pulsed agitatedly in anticipation, and he took a few uncertain steps forward, squinting to narrow his field of vision.

Concentrate. Think.

And then he saw it, really saw it for the first time. It had been right in front of him all along, but had been innocuous and above his suspicious gaze -- a hint, a glimmer of shiny metal peering out from within the massive pile of dirt.

The load spilled from the massive truck's bed had rounded out under the steady rain of snow and water, compacting and compressing, groaning and grumbling its misfortune of being disturbed. Until the erosion had unearthed the small fragment it's stolen treasure, the vestige of hope remained eclipsed.

"Oh, good God...," Sully choked, frozen at the horrifying sight.


"Ty...? Ty!" Bosco hissed, terror manifesting in his voice and cracking it hideously.

Tears sifted through his clenched eyelids as he tried to block out his partner's agonized heaving and choking. But it would never do. He was forced to listen to the sickening nightmare, retch after perverted retch, convulsing and trembling, waning ever so slightly until the requiem of his partner's mortality ultimately died away.

He waited for an eternity, listening for even the smallest reassurance that Ty was alive, but the only sounds to speak of were the short, sharp rasps of his own breaths.


"Get over there and help, dammit! No standing around! "

The command, directed at a bewildered rookie, had the desired affect and seemed to snap the poor boy out of his motionless stance. While he knew he sounded harsh, impolite, and completely out of character with his barked orders and terse instructions, Lieutenant Johnson also knew that time was an issue and being courteous could be put on hold for a while.

Taking a deep breath, he sighed through his nose and observed the scrambling anthill of confusion. Though chaos appeared to have ensued, the courageous firefighters, paramedics, and police officers were where they were needed most, however dangerous and risky their efforts would prove to be. Things were as smooth as operationally possible, with exception of the dramatic, nerve-racking suicide rescue that his small band of fearless men had embarked on.

He didn't know exactly how long he'd been forced to watch the dreadful events transpire, but it seemed like a short eternity had elapsed, with no happy ending in sight. Hope was up in the air, his men were pushing their luck, and his heart and mind were stressed and strained to the nth degree.

God, please...get them out of there. Please. I'm...begging you.

He took some comfort in his artless prayers, even though they appeared to be completely ineffectual at the moment. If anything, the situation had worsened.

Don't do this to their families. Don't you do this!

Swallowing back his despair, a movement to his right caught his eye.

Sullivan.

The man, frantic to find a partner, or more accurately, a son, had momentarily stopped his driven quest and was standing completely immobile, staring at the nefarious dump truck and the small mountain spilled from it.

Johnson frowned at the peculiarity of the sight.

A moment or two of mystification later, however, he fully understood the reason for the unexpected standstill, and was instantly sickened with acute revulsion when the officer suddenly scrambled ahead and began to claw at the prominent mass of earth, little by little exhuming a portion of a white bumper.


TBC...

I'd love to hear what you all think, as I'm feeling a bit rusty!