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“Hey Meis, when we fought, did you remember me at all?”
“Huh?” Galo’s question catches Meis off-guard - it was the first time the brash firefighter had tried to start up a conversation without Lio around. Though Meis and Gueira had agreed to give Galo a fresh start (mostly at Lio’s request, though also in part due to the lengths they themselves had witnessed him go to in order to save their beloved Boss), it wasn’t as though they were best buddies just yet. “Remember you from when?”
“I guess that answers my question,” Galo says with a chuckle, “How about you Gueira? Seeing me didn’t ring any bells back then?” He asks as Gueira ascends the stairs up from the garage to join them in the recreation area of Burning Rescue.
“Why should it have?” Gueira asks back with a shrug, sitting down beside Meis on the couch.
“That’s fine, I don’t blame you,” Galo says, waving his hands as though dispersing apologies that hadn’t actually been offered. “I didn’t have my Matoi Tech then, or my presentation. I didn’t even properly introduce myself! Though to be fair, you guys didn’t really give me the chance…”
“What are you goin’ on about, Thymos?” Meis interrupts him.
“My first rescue mission! We were up against you guys, but I guess I didn’t really leave an impression, because our meeting was so short.”
“When was this?”
“Um, a few weeks before we captured you, I think?”
“Hey, you mean a few weeks before we let you capture us!” Gueira corrects him.
“Yeah yeah, sure,” Galo concedes, trying to keep the conversation on track, “A few weeks before that, maybe a month. Mad Burnish attacked, and a girl got trapped and I saved her, but then after getting her to safety she turned Burnish, and you two scooped her up and left.”
“Y’know, come to think of it…” Gueira begins, and Galo perks up, “...nah. Can’t say I remember seein’ no spiky blue morons, sorry,” he finishes with a mean-spirited grin, that turns into a wince when Meis elbows him in the side.
“Whatever, I get it,” Galo says, though he seems to deflate just a little bit, “I mean, obviously you had more serious things to worry about… though I’m pretty sure I saw one of you do a donut as you rode off,” (Gueira elbows Meis back, and he laughs) “and like I said, I didn’t have a mech or a speech prepared. It was just me, my homemade matoi, and my burning soul!”
“Never thought I’d be sayin’ this, but do you think that soul of yours could burn a little less bright?” Meis asked, shrinking back from Galo’s boisterous finish.
“I thought I asked you guys to behave,” says a new voice, and Meis almost gets his wish because suddenly Galo’s intensity is shifted away from him and Gueira and focused entirely on Lio, coming up the steps with a look of amusement.
“Lio!” Galo exclaims, rushing over to give him a kiss that is happily returned.
“They’re not giving you too hard a time, right?” Lio asks, half-jokingly, taking Galo’s hand in one of his and raising the other to caress his cheek.
“Nope!” Galo answers with a grin, “we were just talking about how they were there at my first rescue mission, but they don’t remember me.”
“Come to think of it, that was actually the same day we met you, Boss,” Meis muses, and instantly regrets it.
“So you do remember seeing me!” Galo lights up again, and Gueira elbows Meis yet again.
“Yeah, whatever. I remember thinkin’ how easy it would be to kick your ass if we weren’t in a hurry to get outta there,” Meis says, looking away with a smirk, and Gueira snickers.
“Come on now, play nice,” Lio chides, and Gueira and Meis both roll their eyes.
“Hey, are you ready to go?” Galo asks, turning back to Lio.
“Almost, I just gotta get something out of my locker, then we can head out.” Lio tells him, holding on to Galo’s hand as long as he can before letting go as he heads in the direction of the lockers.
“You know, I never did get the name of that woman though!” Galo says, looking back at Gueira and Meis. “Do you remember what it was? I’d like to be able to meet her again, make sure she’s doing alright and all that.”
“Oh…” Gueira’s mischievous demeanor suddenly grows somber, as does Meis. “You don’t remember seeing Thyma…?” he trails off.
“Thyma…” Galo repeats the name, racking his brain. It does sound familiar, but he can’t quite remember where he’d heard it before.
“Lio told us you were there when it happened,” Meis adds quietly.
And suddenly Galo remembers where he had heard Thyma’s name.
“You mean, in the cave… she…”
An uncomfortable silence descends over the three men.
Until Lio returns.
“Is something wrong?” he asks them, sounding fully concerned this time. Galo’s shoulders that had been drooping suddenly rise again, and he turns to Lio with a smile.
“It’s all good! Don’t worry so much, firefly,” he reassures Lio, their hands finding each other effortlessly as Galo gives him a peck on the cheek.
“Guys?” Lio glances at Gueira and Meis, looking for confirmation. They simply shrug.
“C’mon, let’s get going! I’m cooking tonight!” Galo urges, throwing an arm around Lio’s shoulders and pulling him close. Lio seems to accept this, shaking off his concern and returning the gesture by reaching around to hold Galo’s waist.
“I’m gonna stay over at Galo’s apartment tonight, so don’t wait up for me,” Lio tells Gueira and Meis as they start down the stairs.
“Oho, have fun you two!” Gueira calls after them, and Lio shoots him a dirty look, face reddening, and Gueira laughs.
But as they watch Galo and Lio depart, Galo talking animatedly about who knows what and Lio indulgently listening, Gueira and Meis exchange a look of concern.
When they get back to the apartment, Lio immediately heads towards the bathroom to shower, leaving a trail of clothing in his path. Galo smiles as he gathers them up and deposits them in the bedroom before going into the kitchen to begin prepping dinner. He didn’t have anything particularly fancy planned, just spaghetti and store-bought kosher meatballs in Varys’ top secret pasta sauce recipe. (Galo wasn’t privy to the recipe - Varys sometimes gave out jars of the stuff as gifts on holidays. But Galo was sure he’d crack eventually!)
But even if it wasn’t a hugely complicated meal or made entirely from scratch, it felt special just to make dinner for his boyfriend himself instead of just ordering take-out yet again (which, admittedly, they both defaulted to more often than not). Galo puts on a little music to sing-slash-dance to before putting the water on to boil and preheating the oven to reheat the meatballs. But even despite his upbeat choice of music - a playlist made up entirely of high-energy anime openings - Galo can’t help but think back to his earlier conversation with Gueira and Meis. As he lays the meatballs out on the tray, he begins to feel distant - going through the motions of dinner preparation, but his mind a million miles away.
“Thyma…” he whispers to himself as he adds the spaghetti to the now-boiling water and gets out a pan to warm up the sauce.
Thyma… that was her name. The first person he’d ever rescued. And now…
As he absentmindedly stirs the sauce in the pan, he tries to remember what she had looked `like, what her voice had sounded like. But all that comes to him is the image burned into his mind of her on the floor of that cave, covered in bandages. That last, tired smile she gave to Lio before…
The kitchen timer goes off, reminding Galo to take the meatballs out of the oven. On impulse, he opens the oven door and reaches for the tray and-
“FUCK! ”
Galo looks down at his hand, stinging and throbbing and angry, angry red where his skin had touched the hot tray, and it’s as though something deep in his chest shatters.
He crumples onto the floor, warm tears beginning to run down his cheeks.
The bathroom door slams open.
“Galo!” Lio shouts, though Galo can’t see him for the kitchen counter in the way; not that he looked up at the sound of his name called anyway.
“Are you alright? I heard-” Lio rushes into the kitchen to find Galo on the floor, quietly sniffling, his burned hand facing palm-up in his lap. “Oh my god, Galo, what’s wrong?”
“Burned my hand.” Galo replies quietly.
“Yes, I can see that…” Lio says apprehensively. Noticing both the oven and the stovetop are both still on, he quickly switches them off before grabbing hold of Galo’s bicep and trying to pull him to his feet. “C’mon, get up, we need to run that under cool water, right?”
Numbly, Galo stands and allows himself to be led to the kitchen sink, still crying softly. Lio turns on the faucet, testing it to make sure it’s not too hot or cold, then takes Galo’s burned hand in both his own and holds it under the water.
“Twenty minutes, right?” Lio says, and Galo replies with an affirmative grunt and a sniffle. “It seems superficial… I think… so that’s good at least.”
The two men stand together in silence, save for the sound of the running water and the occasional hiccup or snot-sucking sniff from Galo as he continues to cry.
“Can you tell me what’s wrong?” Lio asks gently.
“Forgot to put a mitt on before taking the meatballs out.” Galo mumbles.
“You know what I meant.” Lio chides.
“It’s stupid.”
“No it’s not.”
“It’s… selfish.”
“There’s nothing wrong with that,” Lio tells him, “Being too selfless, you’ll only end up hurting yourself. Giving too much of yourself away. And that doesn’t help anyone. Believe me, I know.”
Galo remains silent.
“Galo, please. Talk to me. I care about you. Let me help.”
It’s at that moment that Galo becomes aware that Lio is naked, save a towel wrapped hastily around his hips that’s threatening to slip right off, and his hair is still dripping wet from the shower. He looks a bit like a cat dunked in water - except for his face, which, instead of pitiful or pissed as one might expect of a drenched feline, is staring back at him with concern, and determination, and…
“In the cave… that girl,” Galo begins, looking away again. “Thyma. She… she was the first person that I ever rescued. On my very first day.”
Lio says nothing as he readjusts his hold on Galo’s hand.
“I didn’t even realize it until today, I didn’t… didn’t even recognize her.” He blinks, the tears which had slowed beginning to flow again. “It’s just that… that the reason I always wanted to become a firefighter was because of…” Galo can’t even say the name, but Lio knows exactly who he means and silently nods, carefully rubbing Galo’s hand with a thumb as reassurance. “And after, I thought that… even if my inspiration turned out to be… a fake, at least I’m still doing something good with it, right? I’m still helping people…”
“But Thyma… I helped her, and she still… because of him. My first rescue, and he killed her!” he sobs. “And I know it’s selfish of me, she was a whole person of her own with family and friends and a life, and… I didn’t even know her, but… I just feel like, can I really save anyone, if I couldn’t even help her? I mean, look at me, I can’t even keep myself from getting burned anymore.” he laughs bitterly. “Maybe I’m just as much of a fake.”
“You are not a fake, Galo Thymos.” Lio tells him softly. “...Does your hand still hurt?”
“Huh? Oh, uh, no.” Galo answers through more sniffles, wiping a cheek with his free hand.
“Good.” Lio turns off the water and removes his hand from the sink, carefully dabbing it dry with a paper towel. With a hand on Galo’s elbow, Lio leads him over to the couch and sits him down. “Wait right there, okay?”
After a moment, Lio returns with the first aid kit Galo keeps under the sink in the bathroom.
“Okay, some burn ointment and then gauze, right?” He looks to Galo for confirmation, and Galo nods mutely. Lio kneels down in front of Galo, gently taking his hand again and squirting a little of the cooling gel into his palm before carefully spreading it over the area of the burn.
“…I think about Thyma a lot, you know,” Lio says quietly. “I didn’t really know her either… But I can’t help feeling responsible for her death.”
“You did everything you could for her, Lio, I was there, I saw-” Galo’s reassurances are interrupted when Lio begins softly laughing.
“Even now, you’re working to help me feel better… You truly are something else, Galo Thymos.”
Lio takes a roll of gauze out of the kit and begins wrapping it loosely around Galo’s hand.
“See, the truth is… I can’t help but wonder if things might’ve turned out differently if I had accepted your offer to help.”
“Me?” Galo asks, confused. “What could I have done?”
“More than you realize.” Lio answers. “When you saved me… I’d never seen anything like that before. As Burnish, we could save our fellows from the edge of death, but there was nothing we could do once part of the body started to turn to ash. But somehow you , a non-Burnish with a borrowed flame, were able to restore me when I was practically already gone…” Lio cuts the gauze and secures it with a bandage clip. He takes both of Galo’s hands now, holding them palms up.
“It’s because of you, Galo. Who you are. That’s why I needed your help on that day. You have this… innate ability, to protect, and to heal, and to care. Your hands are meant to help people. No matter where you ended up in life, or how you got there, that would always have been true.”
With all the love in the world, Lio tenderly presses a kiss to the center of Galo’s bandaged palm.
“You’re the real deal, Galo Thymos. You are a firefighter with a burning soul, and if you ever forget that, I’ll be there to make damn sure you remember it.”
Lio smiles up at Galo, raising a hand to his cheek to wipe away a tear, and Galo’s bottom lip begins to quiver.
And suddenly Galo has him in his arms, holding Lio tight as his body is racked with sobs, his face buried in Lio’s shoulder. Lio rubs his back in slow circles, whispering reassurances as he runs a hand through Galo’s hair. Galo has been Lio’s shoulder to cry on time and again, and Lio is more than happy to return the favor and be a comfort to his boyfriend when he needs it most.
And after a while, the tears begin to abate, and Galo’s hold loosens enough for Lio to carefully get up off his knees and settle in Galo’s lap instead, though Galo still doesn’t let him go entirely and Lio is fine with that.
“…Hey, Lio, you treated my burn.” Galo eventually says, voice hoarse from crying. He sounds incredulous, as though he’s only just now processed that Lio has accomplished such a stupendous feat. “Where’d you learn how to do that?”
Carefully, Lio pulls away from him, just enough to press a kiss to Galo’s forehead.
“Where do you think? I learned from the best, of course.”