All hell broke loose as the ringing echoed in a piercing thrum throughout the building. Screams of surprise filtered through the thin walls to Lovino and Antonio, who were spluttering and heaving themselves upright. Antonio's hand was wrapped around Lovino's wrist as he helped him scramble to his feet, and he could feel the frantic fluttering of Lovino's pulse under his fingertips, which both scared him half to death and made him, in some small way, feel very lucky. He was the one close enough to Lovino to be able to feel his heartbeat, he was the person to get under his skin and he had the chance to see past Lovino's wall of brash reactions to the soft, emotional boy beneath.
"Come on," murmured Lovino, pushing a lock of damp hair out of his eyes. "We need to get to the fire escape. Where is it?"
Antonio opened the door, hand still clenched around Lovino's wrist. His knuckles were turning white from the pressure of his grip, but Lovino hadn't complained, so he let it stay there.
"This way." He pointed down the corridor to a set of double doors, through which students were lugging armfuls of papers and laptops. Most were talking loudly to their friends and were hurrying down the stairs, taking two steps at a time. They joined the crowd, but neither spoke. Instead, they both took comfort from being close to the other, pressing their shoulders together as they had been before the alarm sounded.
Lovino certainly wasn't the only one in the crowd minus a shirt, but he still garnered more than a few backwards glances. A group of blonde girls, all holding pink folders over their heads and squeaking when they had to run under a sprinkler, were blatantly staring. One pointed at him, giggling and batting her eyelashes. Lovino heard her laughter and flushed, the same deep pink that had spread across his cheeks when Antonio had kissed him first. A flare of jealousy burnt through Antonio's chest and he shifted his hand down to grab Lovino's hand instead of his wrist. He could still feel his boyfriend's pulse and the way it faltered in surprise when he caressed the skin on the inside of Lovino's thumb. The flare doused itself when Lovino pecked his cheek and whispered, "I was just embarrassed, you idiot, calm down. No need to get jealous." in his ear.
They had nearly reached the bottom of the staircase before they hit the smoke and the fire.
At first it was only a smell. The sharp, chemical scent of burning paint and the cloying tang of plastic melting, which Antonio couldn't quite place even as smoke. All around him noses began to wrinkle and people started to complain about the acrid smell permeating the air.
But next came the smoke itself. The grey wafts curled in from the lowest level floor doors, growing thicker and darker as they hurried quickly towards the doors. It crept up on them, tiny swirls of grey ash dissipated quickly, only to be replaced by a larger vortex which took a little longer than the previous to vanish. The smell intensified as well and became distinctive as smoke. People all around them began to scream and cry much louder than they had been before, and prayers in shaky, terror-filled voices filled the air, thicker and almost more frightening than the smoke which signalled the fire itself. It brought a dangerous reality to the situation, and for the first time, Antonio felt a pit of fear settle deep in his stomach as he imagined being trapped by roaring flames, unable to escape the building.
The dorms were old, almost the oldest buildings in the college, and were severely lacking in the health and safety department. The fire escape amounted to little more than the stairwell they were currently swarming down, which led to a thickly walled walkway about 50 meters long, which was not quite part of the structure of the dorms. It was protected from the elements by a layer of plastic roofing, so as to allow students to access the dorms from the main courtyard without being drenched in the rain. The left wall was actually the wall of the building itself and beams and waterproofed boards created the rest of the structure.
The crowd surrounding Antonio and Lovino had swelled in size, and was moving like a tidal wave towards the doors leading to the walkway. The heat was growing at a rate which matched the speed of the fear eating through Antonio's mind, and was he imagining things in paranoia or could he hear the crackling and roaring of flames clawing their way up brick and plaster walls?
His question was answered as soon as he and Lovino shoved themselves through the doors.
The flames hadn't quite reached the walkway yet, but they were trying. Black smudges were beginning to show in the roof and the heat was suffocating, oppressive beyond anything Antonio had ever experienced. The wooden beams supporting the walkway were catching alight, and due to their age and the rot set deep inside them, flames were taking root in the wood at a dangerous pace. The ground floor was thick with smoke and Antonio could see the glow of the fire from behind the relative safety of the windows in the walkway.
He squeezed Lovino's fingers, where they were still intertwined with his own and hurried down the walkway, feeling fear and frustration bubbling in his chest. They weren't moving quickly enough as part of the crowd; too many people were attempting to rush through much too small a space for there to be any speed, and the fire was steadily making its way through the boards and beams.
The smoke had infiltrated the walkway through the double doors, thick and choking. It floated in lazy streams through the air, poisoning the oxygen supply with its deadly fumes. Antonio couldn't help but breathe it in, and as it settled heavy in his lungs and seared his sinuses, the nagging fear he'd felt accumulating flared into fully blown panic. He coughed as much of the smoke out of his system as he could, trying to ignore the rattling breaths and hitched crying of all of the other students around him. He focused on the feel of Lovino's smaller fingers wrapped tightly in his, on the memory of the faint taste of coffee on Lovino's tongue, on Lovino's laugh as he'd assured him that he did want to be his partner – anything other than the growing panic of his peers which he could feel feeding his own into a wildfire of a different sort.
The plastic roofing was blackening and curling under the fire's assault, surrendering to the heat of the flames. Antonio was so close to the doors signalling the end of the walkway and their escape from the fire that he could taste the clean air on his tongue. He smiled, a strained not-quite-a-grin of relief, then pulled on Lovino's wrist in a silent request to hurry.
They fell out of the doors together, heaving and coughing in a futile attempt to rid their lungs of smoke, hands still clasped. Lovino licked his lips with a dry tongue, relief and excess adrenaline leaking into his breathless laughter. His laughter was infectious and Antonio found himself chuckling alongside him, looking without watching as his home burnt before him.
AN - I was on holiday, so this is late. Don't hurt me please!
Aaaaaalso, wow fuck a duck sideways, over 2500 views? *faints dead* Oh. My. God. Thank you everybody!