Before Kris could get enough wits about himself, his mouth was off again.

“Sweet baby Jesus, what are y’all doing here?” he blurted at Remi through the oxygen mask. Wow, that air felt good. His words still sounded a little slurred to his ear but he was starting to feel a lot less light-headed. Then he shook his head at the stupidity of his question. “You’re a firefighter, duh.”

“Uh, yeah,” Remi said, his ash-streaked face breaking into a big goofy smile. Fuck, he hadn’t changed a bit. No, that wasn’t true. Even under that big awkward suit, Kris could still tell Remi had bulked up even more since Kris had last seen him.

Remington D. Washington. Shit. Had there ever been a time when he hadn’t taken Kris’s breath away? For as long as he could remember knowing he was gay, he also knew he thought his older brother’s best friend was the man of his dreams. Painfully straight, of course. For fuck’s sake, the dude was a goddamned firefighter. It didn’t get much manlier than that.

Feeling self-conscious, Kris used the hand that wasn’t clutching Tay Tay’s box to try and pull more of the blanket over his bare chest. Fuck. He was glad he’d at least put a pair of jeans on. Had Remi carried him out of his apartment like this?

Oh lord, his apartment. For a second, he was able to forget he was half-naked and look up where the rest of the firefighters were still aiming a couple of different hoses at Bottom’s Up, gradually getting the blaze under control.

“Is it all gone?” he asked Remi and the other firefighter sitting next to him. The guy was taking his blood pressure, so Kris guessed he was an EMT as well.

Remi looked back toward the charred remnants of both Kris’s job and home. “Uh, no,” he said, not sounding convinced. “I mean, there’s probably going to be a lot of damage, and the stairs won’t be safe to walk up anytime soon. But there might be some things you can salvage.”

Kris bit his lip and tried really hard not to cry as the other guy took the blood pressure cuff off. It wasn’t like Kris had loads of stuff. The only thing that really mattered was Tay Tay, and she was safe.

But how was he going to be able to buy a new tank for her? She could only survive in a bowl for a couple of days, maximum. All his clothes were gone. His shoes. His laptop.

Before he could completely lose his head, he gritted his teeth and took a deep breath of the glorious oxygen that soothed his raw throat. He had all his music and photos uploaded into the cloud. He had money in the bank. Not a lot, but his mom had pressed the importance of saving for a rainy day on him the second he started earning his own wage. He had a few hundred bucks, at least.

And he had his phone and his makeup. Realistically, he could take on the world with just those things.

Still, he wasn’t exactly thrilled with his situation.

“Fuck me sideways on Sunday,” he said angrily. Remi’s eyebrows shot up. “Do y’all know how it started?”

“Um, err,” Remi said. He ran a hand through his short, dark hair. “No, we won’t know until we’ve gotten the scene under control and fire investigation can take a look.”

“How are you feeling?” the other guy asked. Kris realized he had a name badge sewn onto his suit that read ‘Holby.’

Kris pulled the air mask away from his face. It felt good, but he didn’t really need it as much now and it was awkward talking through it. “Like my whole life just went up in smoke,” he said glumly, shaking his head. “But I feel fine, I guess. My chest hurts a bit.”

“That’s normal,” Holby assured him. He got Kris to look into a small flashlight he shone into each of his eyes. “Do you have somewhere you can go tonight? Maybe someone who can come get you?”

He nodded. His mom would have her cell phone off overnight. She still had this idea the thing would microwave her brain while she slept. But his brother, Leon, or Leon’s girlfriend, Ava, would have a phone on vibrate between them. They were more likely to hear their landline, too.

It was only a temporary solution, though. Neither his mom or his brother had anything more than a couch to offer Kris. None of them were well off, and Ava was heavily pregnant.

Where he was going to live was a problem for another day, though. Right then, Kris placed Tay Tay carefully down beside him in the back of the firetruck and fished out his cell from the tote bag. Holby clapped him on the back and stood up to head over toward the other firefighters. But Remi stepped closer, that same goofy smile on his face as he pointed at the phone in Kris’s hand.

“You know, we’re really not supposed to rescue anything except the people,” he said with a nervous laugh. For such a big handsome guy, he always was kind of dorky.

It was the main thing that made Kris’s heart ache for him. He was just a big ol’ teddy bear, sweet and fluffy under all those muscles. His light-brown skin and dark eyes were as beautiful as ever, despite the fact he was covered in soot.

Fucking hell. Of all the firefighters that could have pulled Kris out of the fire, it had to be Remi Washington. Kris’s dumb crush had faded into the background over the past couple of years. It was true what they said. Out of sight, out of mind. But now it was back in full force, making butterflies dance around his heart, which had quite frankly been through enough already tonight.

Kris gave him what he hoped was a grateful smile and tried not to gush. “The phone is nice,” he said. “Really, it helps me out so much. But thank you for rescuing my fish. I know it’s silly, but she’s my little buddy. It would have broken my heart to leave her behind.”

He meant it. He got a lump in his throat just thinking about it. Tay Tay was the first living being, pet, human or otherwise, he’d been truly responsible for. He was sure he felt as strongly about her as other people did their cats and dogs.

“Hey,” said Remi. He reached out, seemed to second-guess himself, then patted Kris once on the shoulder. “No sweat. It’s my job, dude. I’m sorry this happened to you. But believe me, you can recover from anything so long as you’re still alive to do so. You’ll get yourself sorted again in no time.”

He was sounding forcefully cheerful, but Kris appreciated it. After all, Remi must have pulled hundreds of people from fires and other accidents, right? He’d seen firsthand how people put their lives back together afterward.

“Thanks,” Kris said quietly.

He did his best to smile. It only felt like a twitch, but Remi smiled back at him again in response. It made Kris’s heart flip. Damnit, what he wouldn’t give to have that smile directed his way every day.

He was being ridiculous. There were actual problems he needed to tend to right now, pretty damn big ones.

He held up his phone. “I better call Leon,” he said apologetically. Ideally, he would have kept Remi talking to him all night if he could. But Remi had a job to do, and Kris needed to be picked up so he could get out of the fire crew’s hair.

“Oh, yeah, sure,” Remi said, nodding and stepping backward. His mask slipped off the side of the truck and dropped toward the ground, yanking Remi’s upper body down with it and causing him to stagger as he fumbled to catch it. He laughed sheepishly. “So, uh, see you around?”

He gave that dorky wave again and jogged off back to his coworkers. The fire was pretty much out now. Just the embers were smoldering beneath the blackened remains of the bar. Kris sighed and bit his lip. Considering how fucked he was, he didn’t feel too guilty about taking a little bit of joy from seeing Remi again.

Luck was on his side, which made a change for that night. Leon picked up after a few rings. “Kris?” he grunted sleepily. “What’s going on? What time is it? Are you all right?”

Kris huffed and patted the lid of Tay Tay’s box. “About three thirty. And no, not really.”

He gave his brother the basics. But by the time he got to the whole ‘rescued from a fire’ part, he could hear Leon was already running for the door, grabbing his car keys and yelling to Ava that he would be back soon.

Kris smiled to himself, feeling incredibly grateful that he at least had family he could rely on. “Thank you so much, dude. I owe you.”

“No, you don’t, you jerk,” Leon said fondly. “Just hang tight. I’ll be there soon.”

Kris hiccuped back a sob. “Thanks,” he said thickly. “Bye.”

Knowing his big brother was coming to the rescue threatened to make him cry again. Despite their differences, Leon always had his baby bro’s back. He’d never once cared that Kris was gay, or twinky, or lacked life ambition. He just loved him, unconditionally.

Kris wished he could say the same thing about the rest of his family, but he definitely wasn’t thinking about that tonight.

Lucky for him – or not, as the case may be – he was soon offered a distraction.

“What the fucking fuck is this fuckery!”

Kris leaned around the firetruck to see PJ step out of his car onto the sidewalk and slam the door so hard the whole vehicle shook. He shoved his hands into his brown hair and looked over his glasses in despair at what was left of the bar.

To be fair, a lot of the building itself was still intact. Kris was no expert, so couldn’t judge if it was salvageable. But he wasn’t feeling completely hopeless about their prospects of refurbishing and reopening. This was the town’s only gay bar, after all. There would be a demand for them to open their doors again.

“Hey,” Kris said. He offered PJ a wave that felt kind of pathetic. But he didn’t have the energy for anything else.

PJ’s expression changed from horror to concern in a flash. He darted over to the end of the firetruck and crouched in front of Kris. “Jesus, fuck, man. Are you okay? Were you in there?”

Kris shrugged and sighed. He was feeling sleepy again now the adrenaline was wearing off. “Yeah, but I’m cool. Me and my fish are in one piece, so the rest can be replaced, you know?”

PJ stood, nodding and biting his lip as he turned his attention back to what was left of his business. He was probably already thinking about what the hell he was going to do. Kris didn’t know anything about insurance claims or how long it would take them to get back on their feet. Would insurance cover his pay or would he need to look for another job? There was about a dozen of them on staff. How would PJ afford their wages when there was no revenue coming in?

Once again, Kris found himself wondering what on earth could have caused such a blaze. An electrical fault? Even though it was illegal to smoke inside the bar, had someone dropped a cigarette and not put it out properly? How did fires just randomly start in the middle of the night?

He guessed he’d find out soon enough. In the meantime, he had to work out how he was going to manage with nothing but his beloved fish, a pair of jeans, a phone, its charger and his makeup to his name.

One way or another, he’d manage. He always had.

It just wasn’t the most cheerful prospect. He huddled under his blanket, hugged his fish’s box tightly, and waited for his brother to come rescue him.

The rest they could figure out in the morning.