The Flames of Medicine

1

The alarm blared from the phone waking up all of the men asleep on the sofa. 

"... shit -- sorry" Luke mumbled as he reached for his phone.

"Luuuke" Ashton mumbled as he stretched, accidentally hitting Calum who had his head on Ashtons feet. 

"sorry -- sorry" Luke whispered stretching his legs.

"Mate stop kicking --" Calum said, gripping his pillow and covering his head. 

"How about everyone shuts up?" Michael said as he turned over and hugged a pillow.

Luke stood up and turned off the TV. 

Ashton sat up and rubbed his face. and yawning "what time is it anyways?"

"It's 3:30 a.m., go back to sleep. I have shift at 5" 

"I'm taking your spot. Have a good shift. Be safe." Ashton said as he stretched out where Luke had been sleeping not so long ago. 

"thanks, I'll see you tomorrow. Have a good shift as well." Luke mentioned as he retreated from the living room heading up stairs to get ready for work. 

Calum, Ashton, Luke and Michael were all born in Australia. They have been friends since they can remember in primary school and they all went on together through prep school and graduated from college. After deciding their careers, they all moved to Los Angeles together and finished their graduate degrees. 

Calum is a Cardiothoracic Surgeon with added training in Trauma and is Head of Cardio department. Ashton is a Neuro-Surgeon and is also Head of Neuro with training in Trauma. Michael is a General Surgeon with specializations in Trauma. Luke is a Psychologist with a medical background in Trauma, but was accepted into the Los Angeles Fire Department Academy after graduation and became a firefighter. He graduated top of his class and became a Lieutenant for Firehouse 81. 

They all live together and are always there for each other when cases get too severe or they get sick. They look out for each other and always try to leave work at work but sometimes they've brought some of it home and let it affect their personal lives. The demons they face in their careers leaves them in dark places but they remind each other why they chose what they chose as a living when times of need calls for interventions. There has been instances where Michael gets attached to kids he's had to work on due to child abuse and he can't do much but discharge them back to their abusive families. Those nights, he cries himself to sleep feeling like a criminal for not protecting the kids, something he vowed to do with his job. Calum has had patient cases go to court more times than he'd like but he does it because once they finish, his patients are free from being victimized. Those days are the longest for him when he has to make his patient relive a traumatic experience just so the victim is safe from harm. Ashton has had kids with brain cancer die on his table as well parents who begged to stay alive for their kids high school graduation or their prom or they're simply the only parent the kid has. Luke has had victims have to be left inside and found dead after his team puts out a fire, or he has victims die while he's trying to get them out of their crushed cars or whatever predicaments they are in. His biggest battle was when a good friend of his died during a call together. They were in a warehouse fire when they switched places to continue doing CPR on the patient. When the warehouse fire exploded, it collapsed half of the top floor and a beam came falling down on his best friend hitting him on the head causing him to die on impact. Luke cried himself to sleep every night for 6 weeks until the boys had enough of seeing Luke not sleep or eat or go to work using all of his vacation time up. They beat him up verbally about the situation one night until Luke yelled at them what had happened and how it was his order that got his friend killed leaving a widow and 2 kids. He felt guilty and it took a lot of convincing from his fire chief and the guys for Luke to realize that it was never his fault. It was protocol to switch for one of them to examine for spinal injuries while the other provided with chest compressions to keep the heart pumping. 

 They all deal with their demons separately. But they're always there for each other. 

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Hey all! Sorry this is short, just wanted to drop something quickly to get the ball rolling. Leave a vote, or comment what you think or message me for any requests!