Firefighter I (T)
People mingle in and out the large Emergency Room, painful moans and relieved sighs battling to be the loudest. Yes, some of them will have burns and scars that tell stories for the rest of their lives.
But they will live, and that’s what matters.
Her arm hurts, bleeds and her skin itches like hell, and through it all, Lexa smiles.
Years of training, of putting her job above any personal matters, prove it's worth in nights like tonight, when her skin smells like dying embers and her face is covered in sooth.
01:00 fire alert, four injured and zero deaths. The success of the call makes the stinging in her arms almost soothing, and the grateful faces of the people she rescued is more valuable than any medal. The scars painted on her skin, her batted uniform, the smiles of survivors; she owns everything with the happiness of the girl who dreamed to be a firefighter.
“You! Doc!” Anya yells next to Lexa in the ER, cutting her train of thought and making her squirm.
“Keep it down, Anya!” she complains, adjusting the thick jacket of her uniform. It clings to her skin, the faded orange covered with dark stains.
“Doc, she’s hurt!” Anya points a finger at Lexa, and before she can protest, one of the doctors is on their way.
“I'm fine!” Lexa pouts at the fussing of her sister, but honestly, it's nothing.
“Hero of the day.” The doctor, beautiful and smiling, catches Lexa’s eye and she suddenly can't remember what she was going to say, lost in a pool of waiting blue.
“Right arm, under the jacket.” Anya saves her from any further embarrassment in front of the blonde doctor, startling Lexa from her daze by poking her injured arm.
“I'm fine.” There's less conviction in her words this time, and Lexa can't look anywhere else but at the girl rising one sculpted eyebrow at her.
“Can I just check it?” The doctor's words are calm, much different from the shove Anya gives Lexa to take off her jacket. Unfazed by the alphas banter, the doctor concentrates on her job when Lexa hisses in pain as the jacket shuffles against her skin.
“We’re going to clean this and patch you up, okay?” The smile is gone, morphed into a tone of professional care and Lexa thinks it is even more endearing.
“She cut her knee under the pants too,” Anya adds before the doctor guides Lexa away, and the older alpha smirks at the glare Lexa shoots over her shoulder. Lexa follows the doctor through a maze of stretches, nurses and the lingering scent of disinfectant. She doesn’t pay attention to the chaos around them, eyes focused on the messy blond ponytail ahead of her.
The laugh at the alpha’s behavior that bubbles from the doctor’s chest calms Lexa, and she obeys like a tamed pup when instructed to sit on an available bed. She glares one last time at a smirking Anya, a pale green curtain separating the alphas.
“Are all the other patients taken care of?” Lexa asks with gritted teeth as the doctor cleans the burn on her forearm.
“You are one of the patients … officer?” Blue eyes look up to meet Lexa and it takes her a second too long to reply.
“Captain. Captain Woods.”
“Well, Captain.” There's mirth behind the title, Lexa catches it in the silky voice and sparkling eyes. She tries to smile, but whatever is on her arm burns too much for it. “Everyone is safe and sound, thanks to you. Now can I see your knee?”
Lexa nods dumbly, eyes fixed on the beauty mark above pink lips. She realizes with a blush that her uniform is too thick to fold above her knee, and the doctor promises not to peek while Lexa takes off her pants. She likes to think it's a blush on the doctor’s face once she's down to her dark gray boxers, but it turns into the same frown from before at the sight of her bloody knee.
“Were you going out without anyone checking on this?” The docs tsks, pulling a rolling chair close to the bed to stay eye level to the injury and starts to work.
“I’ve survived worse.”
“Doesn't mean I can't take care of you now.” It's her last words as she focuses on cleaning and suturing the open cut.
Lexa watches the doctor’s face closing up in concentration, lips pursed, eyebrows knotted and hands moving with precision. There’s something about her, something entrancing, pricking at Lexa’s curiosity.
It hits her hard, a lighting running down her back, and she stiffens.
The doctor is an omega. Unmated, attractive and god so close.
Adrenaline from the busy night leaves her body and the omega’s scent invades her nose. The alpha can’t help her mind wondering to dangerous places, like how that same face would look contorting in extreme bliss, complete surrendered to pleasure and—
Panic rises up Lexa’s throat in a suppressed whine when she realizes that, when the doctor finishes with her knee, she will look up at her to find the most embarrassing boner of Lexa’s life fighting against the confines of boxers right at the doctor's eye level. As if the situation isn’t bad enough without it pointing right at her face.
“There you go, you can come back in a week to take off the…” Pale face erupts in a pink blush and the doctor has the decency to look away from Lexa, eyes everywhere but the alpha. “The stitches, I mean.”
Lexa wants to die.
“Thank you,” Lexa mumbles fast and wishes her body revenge in the most terrible ways.
“Don’t forget your penis—pants! Your pants!” It's only when the doctor facepalms herself to cover a groan that Lexa let free the embarrassed grunt vibrating her throat.
“I'm deeply sorry,” she states, back to the doctor as she puts on pants that feel tighter.
“It's okay, it happens,” the kind doctor says with a wave of her hand, but the dark shade that her blush has gotten shows how unusual this situation is.
“I should go and disappear forever,” Lexa excuses herself with finality, clutching her injured arm and limping away from the bed.
It hurts like never before and tonight, the worst scar is going to be in Lexa’s pride.
Anya can't breathe. Lexa has never seen her laugh so hard in her life. She doubles down inside the firefighters headquarters locker room, tears streaming down high cheekbones.
“It wasn’t funny!” Lexa protests from the bench, her next comments muffled by her shirt as she takes off her uniform, hissing at the sting in her arm.
Anya tries to speak, but only another puff of laughter comes out.
“Don’t tell anyone,” Lexa hisses, face burning from shame and eyes cast down.
“You got a boner— ” Anya takes a deep breath, wiping her tears “—right in front of that doctor? Like, in her face?” She’s off to laugh again and Lexa stands up with a huff. “Did you get her number at least?”
“I don’t know her name. I didn’t mean to do anything! She was stitching up my knee and …” Lexa’s attempt at defending herself leads to Anya doubling over in laughter again. She wants to shove that smile down Anya’s mouth, but a clearing of a throat stops her.
“Lexa,” Indra, the chief of their headquarters, calls her from the door, blank face ignoring the banter between the siblings. “There’s someone here for you.”
The Woods sisters leave the locker room, Lexa at the front with a grinning Anya behind her.
“Maybe it’s her, you do have the Woods magic, and she got impressed—”
Lexa’s hand slaps loudly on Anya’s mouth to cover it. Anya frowns, though Lexa watches in horror as it turns into a grin.
“Hi.” The doctor, the fateful doctor, smiles in the middle of the reception, clutching a folded jacket. “You left this the other night.”
Tha jacked has Lexa’s last name and blood type on it, faded from use and dirt.
The doctor blushes, extending the folded uniform jacket.
“Hi. Hi! Yeah, sorry about that, I … hi.” Lexa’s greeting is far from eloquent, and a red flush runs up her neck. Gustus, another member of their squad who also watched the scene, shares a look with Anya, who keeps grinning, and Lexa knows she will listen to their jokes forever.
“No problem.” The doctor looks down at her feet, lip caught between pearly teeth.
Anya shoves Lexa hard on the ribs to break her silence.
“Her number,” Anya whispers, tilting her head in the blonde’s direction.
“What’s your number?” Lexa blurts, and Gustus snorts from the other side of the room.
“Don’t you want to know my name first?” Blue eyes meet hers and Lexa nods, mouth dry.
“I like her,” ignoring the tense atmosphere, Indra drops her opinion and sits at the reception desk.
“Me too,” Anya agrees with Indra as if Lexa isn’t melting in a pool of shame in front of them.
“I’m Lexa.” She extends her hand and it brings out another snort from Gustus.
“I got that from your file. Same as your workplace.”
She’s smirking; Lexa sees the humor and mockery at the eyes staring at her and she smiles brighter because yeah, she likes this girl.
“I still want to know your name.”
The doctor surrenders to a small laugh and accepts the hand in front of her.
“Griffin. Clarke Griffin.”