with every single hour the world feels less like yesterday
3.7k || ao3
Two sons, two fathers, two phone calls. Life really is a fragile thing.
Shockingly, I finished something! Many, many thanks to @justaswampdemon and @moviegeek03 for listening to me whine and rant about this but not letting me abandon it. I could go on for quite a while about the process of writing this and how we got where we are, but let’s just cut to the chase. This fic is pretty much entirely just feelings. Enjoy!
———
TK had never felt so powerless.
He had dedicated his life to being the person who saved people and did his best to make sure that somebody’s bad day didn’t become their last. It wasn’t that he wasn’t used to having the people he cared about in danger — he had faced that more times than he had ever wanted to — but even then there was always something to do. He had been able to go door to door while Carlos was missing, he had spent the eternity immediately after the building collapse clawing at the rubble until his fingertips bled. Even when Marjan had gone missing a hundred miles away he had been able to call hospitals, just to make sure.
But this time was different.
This time he was sitting on his couch, surrounded by his friends, powerless to do anything but listen. His father’s last words to him echoing in his head: then tell them to get ready for two victims.
He shouldn’t be surprised, and maybe he wasn’t. It was hard to parse apart all the feelings and thoughts racing through his mind. But surprise shouldn’t be one of them; this was his dad they were talking about. Owen Strand, legendary FDNY Fire Captain. The man had spent his life putting other people’s safety before his own, those words should not have come as a shock.
TK could only hope they wouldn’t be his last.
