Work Text:
“Hey, Hen?” Howie breaks the silence unprompted, chewing on a doughnut as they sit in the ambulance. It’s a full moon and everyone has split up to answer to as many calls. Hen is glad to be stuck with Howie instead of someone else even if it’s probably because Gerrard still hates them.
“Yeah?” she replies curiously, since this is a slow moment and on a chaotic night like this – though it has been pretty slow the whole time all things considered – and Howie’s random thoughts can be very entertaining.
“Do you think that if we invoked the q-word curse, would it cancel out the full moon or make it worse?” he asks.
“Huh,” Hen says as she thinks about it for a moment. Then she decides: “I don’t think it works like that.”
“I mean, how do you know that. We won’t really know until we try, right?” Howie argues. “I would like to have a way to have better full moon shifts, don’t you?”
“No! Nu-uh, you’re not involving me in this, don’t you know what karma is? No. I’m not risking my life like that,” Hen protests immediately. She know she is a little superstitious, but it’s better to be safe than sorry in her opinion.
Howie considers it for a moment as he chews on his last bite of his doughnut. He smartly swallows it, before saying: “Well, then I say, me specifically, that it’s been quiet for a full moon.”
Hen actually gasps when he says that and the both hold their breath.
For a moment, nothing happens. Cautiously they unclench all their muscles and Howie grins: “Hey, guess it did work! A jinx cancels out a jinx!” which naturally means that their radio goes the second he says that.
“You were saying?” Hen tells him judgmentally as she starts the ambulance up and turns on the sirens as she peels out of the parking lot.
“Oh come on, it was worth a try,” Howie complains.
“I wasn’t supposed to get involved in your dumbass idea. I had nothing to do with this,” Hen immediately argues back.
“How was I supposed to know it would hit you too! I specifically said it was about me,” Howie exclaims.
“Still,” Hen pouts. She did not ask for a jinxed shift, especially not a full moon jinxed shift. She just wanted to have an as easy shift as possible and go home to her wife and son, not run around town like a chicken without a head!
Sadly, the universe does not listen to requests like that and her and Howie spend all night scrambling from one emergency to the next. The only silver lining is that most of them are ridiculous not very intense or requiring a lot of manpower, so it’s mostly her and her best friend having one of the weirdest nights of their lives to date.
Despite the hectic-ness of it all, Hen is actually having a lot of fun. Howie has that effect on her. It’s not that she’s too serious, but she has always had to be professional to be respected. With Howie she can be silly and he won’t question how competent she is. It’s nice.
Howie has always just accepted her, whether it was as a firefighter, a paramedic, or a giant lesbian. He never cared, just acknowledged that that was what she was and moved on.
So, yeah, running around, because of his stupidity, isn’t the worst. It’s just a tiring shift, not a rough or unpleasant shift for them. In a way, the jinx could have been a lot worse.
That is until one of the calls closer to the end of their shift.
They arrive at the house first, the others already on their way from another part of town with the ladder truck. It’s a normal, unassuming house in the suburb… were it not for the crying woman that meets them outside.
Howie takes lead for now, since he is the senior worker between them and Gerrard would take less offense with that. So he speaks to the woman first: “Ma’am, we got a call there was a child stuck somewhere?”
“Yeah, my son, Mica,” the woman cries. “I don’t know what he was thinking. I went to check on him after I went to pee and he was gone, then I heard his muffled voice in the wall.”
At the words, Howie shares a look with Hen, that’s not something you hear every day. Howie asks: “Can you show us?”
“Of course,” the woman says, leading them inside. She shows them in, babbling about how her husband is away on a business trip and that Mica is six years old, but an adventurous little rascal, and shouldn’t there be more people?
Hen ensures her that more people are on their way, just as she opens the door to a room that definitely belongs to a six year old. Though, interestingly, the window is open. She asks the woman: “Was the window open when you went to check on Mica?”
“Yes. Oh god, you don’t think he’s been taken, do you?” the woman asks horrified.
“No, no,” Hen quickly assures her. The woman heard him, more likely that he is still stuck. The question just is where and this opens up more routes to how they got there.
“Mica is still here,” Howie says, his ear against a part of the wall. “I can hear him.”
Hen looks to where Howie is listening, then leans out the window, her gut feeling telling her she should look there. As she looks out over the roof, she says: “And I think I know how he got there and what he’s stuck in.”
Howie joins her at the windowsill, spotting the same chimney she had. From the open window it would be easy to get up there, especially for a kid. She asks: “What are we going to do now? Wait for the others to show up? I mean, we need equipment for that.”
“Yeah, kind of,” Howie says, glancing to the woman before lowering his voice, “but Mica’s breathing sounds weird and I want his vitals as quick as possible.”
“Well, then we go up to him,” Hen instantly says, because she will back his play and trust his expertise just like he would with her.
They tell the woman to go outside and wait for the firetruck to direct towards the room again. The two of them probably should wait for harnesses, but there is a six year old child in danger, they don’t have time for waiting. So, together they climb up to the chimney to look down and check.
Mica’s feet are sticking up, but are way down . How he’d gotten in so far, they don’t know, not to mention why. They call out to him, telling him they’re there to help, before trying to reach out and check on his pulse. Both their arms are too short to reach him. As he is hanging in the chimney, Howie curses: “How did he get in so deep?”
“I don’t know, but I don’t like how his voice sounded,” Hen replies. “I want him out of there, make sure his vitals aren’t dropping with the way he’s out of breath. His lungs could be constricted in there.”
“You’re right, I’m going in,” Howie says.
“You’re going in?” Hen repeats incredulously.
“Yeah, I’m going in. I think I can fit some part of the way down, enough to reach him. Maybe we can even get him back up like that, or I could get a stethoscope up his back or something to check,” Howie explains.
Hen seems skeptical, but she also wants Mica to be okay and if Howie wants to go down there, she isn’t stopping him. So she just says: “Alright, what do you want me to do?”
“Just be on stand by and maybe pull me back out,” Howie grins.
“Will do,” Hen promises.
Soon, Howie has wormed himself halfway into the chimney, legs still sticking out, almost as if he’s bending down into it. He has managed to reach Mica’s ankle, finding stable enough vitals, even though his breathing definitely can use help and he should be right side up as soon as possible. The poor kid had apparently just wanted to know what it was like to be Santa, which is an awkward conversation for his mom to have with him.
By that point, Gerrard and the others have arrived. Hen goes to catch them up to speed, while Howie goes to investigate how Mica is stuck.
Gerrard is very much not pleased with them and Hen is sure they will hear all about how horrible they are later, but for now she takes some schadenfreude in how they apparently have had as busy a shift as her and Howie.
Tommy wants to bash in the wall to get Mica out, but Howie comes over the radio that the construction of the chimney will allow him got get Mica out without them having to bash in a wall and potentially ax a child in the stomach. Someone just get him the lube.
So, up Tommy goes with copious amounts of lube, while Sal and Hen wait at the hearth to receive Mica, which is a bit too similar to helping people give birth for Hen’s taste, but whatever. If it works, it works.
She doesn’t know how much lube Tommy ends up carrying up there (though she does know the homophobic jokes Sal can make about it), however, when Mica finally comes sliding down the chimney for them to catch.
The woman is beside herself with joy as Hen checks Mic a over to see if he’s okay. He is lightheaded and he has some bruising, but nothing is cracked or broken and his breathing returns back to normal the second he is right side up and out of the tight space.
At that point, Tommy comes down. Alone.
“Where’s Han?” Gerrard barks.
Tommy looks unsure for a second, then says: “Uh, stuck, sir.”
“Stuck?”
“Yeah, in the chimney. I can’t get him out.”
Sal comments: “But he’s covered in lube!”
Hen doesn’t waste time talking about it. Howie needs her and she is going to be there to get him out of this trap of his own making. Indeed Howie is stuck in the chimney, wiggling to no avail. “Howie?” she asks, putting a hand on his back to calm him, he could scrape himself up if he goes on like that.
“Uh, hi, Hen,” Howie replies, sounding out of breath. “I guess going in the chimney wasn’t my best idea, huh?”
“Maybe not,” Hen laughs. “But we’re going to get you out. Can you move?”
“No, not really,” Howie calls back, while at that point Tommy and Sal also join her up there.
The three of them tug and pull on Howie for what feels like forever as more and more lube gets poured over him in an attempt to get him out. They cut off a lot of his gear, hoping to slim down his bulk, but it seems like Howie isn’t going anywhere.
In the end, they have to break the chimney to get him out, bring up some crow bars and saws to cut him out of there. Hen is pretty sure that this is the last time Howie will every even dare to play with any jinxes, because he definitely called this down on himself.
When he is finally out of there, they all take a deep breath of relief. Howie is heaving deep breaths, covered in lube and soot as well as in torn up clothes. Hen puts down her saw and lightly kicks him in the side, saying: “Let’s get you to a shower, Mr. Chimney.”