Wax

Three

A/N: I'm here! So, so sorry it's late but I did my best to stay up last night but I couldn't keep my eyes from closing any longer so I slept instead and woke up early to finish it. I've been super excited about this chapter because I've prepped it for the longest time. It's pretty long too but that's what we like. hehe. I'm not sure about the update for the next Sunday because I'll be having another busy week but I'll keep you guys updated on Instagram (hisangelchip) hehe. Enjoy!

[Leroy]

His hands were cold. I felt them through the back of my shirt. I still feel them now.

They would freeze out in the open; even in the summer, the sun was cold and the skies, they felt like they were constantly left behind. The kind of grey that didn't show up on paintings or pictures because no palette was ever willing to have that kind of color near the pretty red or bright, blinding yellow; no camera ever raised to a slate that cast everything else in the same shade of down.

I like London that way.

The streets are cool. I know them pretty well. The motorcycle helped, but it started from riding around in the engine all day, in the back, where the rookies sat. And then gradually moving up front to where I am now—the captain's seat, beside the engineer. They drive. I'm on the lookout most of the time.

Everything beats the kind of view you have in the kitchen. Which is none, by the way. There are no windows. The only ones we have belong on the double doors to the vestibule leading to the dining area. You look at the guests; the guests look at you. That's the kind of view you get in the kitchen.

Siegfried likes it. He liked the attention; that he was the one being looked at, and not the one looking. I get it now. Kind of. I get that it's hard looking at backs and having to keep looking at them and waiting for them to turn so that you could see their face or at least the ripples in their eyes but that they seemed kind of far anyway. It's hard being the one. The one left behind.

It's good, though—sometimes. I left him behind too, the one who used to believe that things would work out and that food could bring people together, close distances, fill hearts like they fill stomachs, that being the person others wanted me to be was something I could put up with. Live the rest of my life for.

Siegfried left that guy behind. Instructors left that guy behind. People who respected that guy left him behind. I left him behind.

"Here again on your day off? What a loser."

I'd headed for the firehouse, station twelve, right after dropping him off at his office. Emil's the guard on duty. He got the gates to open, letting my bike pass. I gave him the finger. He laughed and did the same. "They're messing up lunch inside so you might wanna give them a hand. Oh yeah, and there's the new guy."

I rode further in, parked, and headed for the back door past the engine bay. I do the usual—leave my gear in the bay, drop by our BC's office, knock once, nod, leave the chief to do his reports, then continue down the hallway to the kitchen. At the turn, I ran into Zales. Longest-serving engineer at station twelve.

"Don't you have anything better to do?" She opened with a hand slamming into my back. "Stop coming back. Get some sleep for god's sake."

I gave her the same old response, casually brushing it off. Sleep is for the weak. "The rookie?"

"You know how they're like. Probably listening to Jaeger's stories in the commons while the rest of the crew make lunch." She downed her coffee, black, in one go before letting me off and continuing in the direction she was heading. "Oh, and he brought donuts, so. Sucks for you."