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Despite being in and out of the hospital for most of his childhood Ravi Panikkar had never wanted to become a doctor or a nurse.
His parents, predictably, had assumed he would have gone down that path. After all, his nurses and physicians had once been the strongest pillars in his life — more consistent than members of his own family— but he had never wanted to be that to some other kid. Ravi had spent too many years being prodded and poked under fluorescent lights, listening to doctors speak in careful jargon over his bed trying to obfuscate the fact that he was dying. He didn't want to see his life reflected back to him in some frightened kid's hospital room.
Instead, Ravi had taken over his father's first apartment building when he graduated. There was some praise for joining the family business at first. Until his younger brother, Sunil, joined medical school while managing his own building. Then every family event turned into a series of similar conversations: "you're brother manages tenets and saves lives and you…? oh you're just a landlord."
He had been good enough at it. As good as one can be! He always fixed problems in a timely manner and he was never harsh on rent payments when someone was in a bind. But it wasn't saving lives! And one might like to think they're immune to the games golden children play but Ravi wasn't! It was at least half of his motivation for enrolling in the fire academy.
But even then, five years earlier, when he had the chance to train to be a paramedic, he said no.
He wouldn't have been confined to one building day and night living beside the constant hum of monitors and antiseptic air again. But it seemed … adjacent. Close enough to the nights when his vision tunneled he was so weak, when his blood pressure dipped so low he thought he might pass out. Close enough to being hauled out the back seat of his parents' minivan, doomed to spend another month in the halls of his hometown hospital. The ambulance wasn't a hospital room — but close enough to the memories he preferred to keep buried.
Ravi was mostly past it now. He had fought fires at prisons, apartment buildings, even hospitals. He saved lives daily on rescue and the ambulance and the paramedics felt more like an extension of that than anything tied to his childhood. He had seen terrible things, but he was still here — alive, cancer-free. The bad memories hadn't managed to undo that.
And in the five years since, the 118 hadn't had any open slots for paramedics. The decision had settled into something solid and practical. He liked working rescue anyway. He was good at it.
It was fine.
Until Buck and Eddie started making him reconsider.
Working on A Shift with Buck had become routine to him over the past few months. And routines are something Ravi appreciated. Even as tragedy shook the station after Bobby's death, his and Buck's partnership remained consistent. Even as Chimney was pulled off the ambulance and Eddie moved back to Los Angeles to fill his space, Ravi had been comfortable on rescue with Buck at his side. The same cannot be said for Buck. Ravi tried not take it personally — BuckandEddie were partners for almost the last eight years compared to Buck and Ravi's eight months — but he immediately noticed that Buck was shocked, no, deeply and personally affronted by the fact that Eddie wasn't back on rescue at his back.
Even if Ravi didn't have to hear about it from Buck (and he absolutely did), he could tell that Eddie had feelings about it too. Less vocal, surely, but he can feel the weight of eyes following them on calls. Once, he could have sworn he saw Eddie outright glare at him as he double checked Buck's harness before a rappel.
These men were outrageously weird about the fact that the word "partner" no longer belonged exclusively to the other anymore and they were going to drive Ravi to drink or to paramedics training so he wouldn't have to exist in the middle of their frankly disturbing dynamic.
Ravi's last straw was at the renaming ceremony. The building was officially The Bobby Nash Memorial Station, Chimney Han was officially the Captain. The new partnerships of the 118 were, apparently, set in stone. Buck and he were on rescue, and honestly Ravi felt like he'd be needing rescue from Buck pretty soon.
"I'm not saying it's a bad thing," Buck told him, gesturing at his old partner and his old partner's new one — Eddie and Hen, who were, to be fair, extremely well suited as a paramedic team. "I just think it's kind of weird, you know?"
It didn't feel nearly as concerning to Ravi as Buck was making it out to be.
"No," Ravi said — just in time for Eddie and Hen to loudly announce, "Jinx!" in perfect unison across the room, as if determined to further underline their compatibility.
Buck forged ahead, projecting his jealousy for all to see. "Usually, when you start working with new people…"
They're not new people, Ravi thought.
"It takes a while to get used to each other…"
What's to get used to after working together for eight years?
"To find a rhythm, but no, not with the dream team over there…"
Lord knows Buck and Eddie needed a whole shift to find their rhythm.
"They act like they've been working together for years."
"They have been working together for years," Ravi finally interrupted. "You've all been working together for years."
Buck turned wide, wounded eyes on him—tragic. Devastating. Weaponized.
Ravi sighed. This wasn't going to improve. He could already picture the next several months: him and Buck having this exact conversation while Eddie glared at him from across the apparatus bay.
"I'm getting shrimp, want anything?"Ravi asked, but Buck just looked longingly over at the still-laughing Hen and Eddie. "They're your friends dude. You can go talk to them."
Buck shook his head forlorn, "Can't break up the dream team."
That, at least, Ravi can sympathize with — having officially broken up a dream team himself.
He abandoned Buck to his sulking and made his way to the refreshments table. It's a bit of a pathetic spread. A year ago, when Bobby was overseeing the catering, Ravi had smuggled in Tupperware and eaten like a king for days. Now the only thing with any promise was the shrimp cocktail.
This entire situation could have been avoided if Bobby was here. Ravi would have gone to him and vaguely hinted at the trouble in paradise and he would have had it sorted out by dinner. He'd have bestowed fatherly wisdom about keeping one's mouth shut to Buck or hinted to Eddie that if he had a problem, actually talking about it was the first step to solving it. Even if he wouldn't have been their captain anymore he was the glue that held them all together. Even Ravi who spent half his time on B shift and drifted away towards the academy was pulled back by Bobby's tutelage.
And Chimney. Chim literally brought him back. His rousing speech literally led to Eddie moving back across state lines. But Ravi knew he was more likely to tease Buck about his annoying behavior than prod him back on to the appropriate path, his right as a pseudo older brother, which had the potential to make things worse instead of better.
Where Bobby was glue, Chimney was duct tape. Desperately needed but not a skillful fix.
Ravi plucked a few shrimp and took a healthy scoop of cocktail sauce, just in time to catch May Grant eying the potato salad.
"Are there raisins and apples in this?" May questioned quietly. She dug the serving spoon through the creamy piles like she was conducting a search-and-rescue operation, revealing the red of apple skin and a few swollen raisins that might still be grapes. She made a face, dropping the spoon. "Unbelievable."
"I think Chim chose the first caterer who answered his call," Ravi said with a quiet laugh. "He was more focused on getting Hen to introduce him to her cake guy."
He tipped his chin toward the far table—a meticulous buttercream replica of the station. Tiny fondant bay doors. Icing windows. A scale firefighter’s helmet perched on the roof at a jaunty angle. Across the red shield, in careful piping, it read: Capt. Nash 118.
May leaned sideways to get a better look, one hand braced on Ravi's shoulder for balance. "Cake — the most important step to becoming a leader, obviously," she laughed, but he could tell by the way her gaze lingered and her grip tightened on his arm that it meant something to her.
“Hey,” Ravi replied mildly, scooping another shrimp onto his plate. “If the new captain wants a structurally sound buttercream situation, I support that.”
"As do I," May straightened, wiping her hands on a napkin as she glanced across the room where Chimney was constantly in motion, one second clapping Daniels on the back and the next waving Hen over, corralling their respective wives towards one of the larger tables. "He has big shoes to fill but the buttercream is a good start."
Ravi saw an opportunity, dream team now organically broken up it was a matter of time before Buck and Eddie gravitated back together. Inevitable truly.
"Would you be interested in a bet?" He asked, taking a bite of his shrimp.
May's eyes narrowed instantly, she crossed her arms turning to face him directly. "Maybe."
"In under five minutes Eddie ends up at Buck's table or vice versa."
"No way," she shifted to get a clearer line of sight, rising slightly on her toes even in her heels. "Three minutes, tops. I know how they are."
"They've been extra shifty the last few weeks." Ravi gestured loosely at the physical distance between the two with a shrimp tail. Might push it to five."
"And you're willing to put money on that?"
Ravi hesitated, rocking back on his heels. Eddie stood alone and already awkward at a high-top, clutching his own shrimp cocktail like a social prop. Buck was on his phone across the makeshift aisle — he could be doing anything from scrolling through a Wikipedia article unbeknownst to his best friend's situation to literally texting Eddie to join him.
It could go either way.
"Ten bucks it's five," he finally decided.
Right then, Harry joined Eddie launching into what appears to be an urgent question or a story than involves hand gestures. Their conversation should keep Buck from noticing the dream team's break up for the extra two minutes.
May rolled her eyes, "You're lucky for the last minute buffer."
"You could back out," he mocked in a sing song tone.
But May was already pulling her phone from her tiny purse. She set up two timers on her phone with exaggerated care, one for five and another for three. Ravi couldn't help but roll his eyes but leaned in anyway as the seconds began to tick down.
They drifted toward a table with a clear vantage point, weaving through clusters of firefighters and officials. Ravi pulled out a chair for May to sit in before dropping into one of his own sliding his plate onto the table. May propped up her phone next to it the timer's clearly visible to them both even as they scoped the room.
"So," she said, nudging his elbow off the table. "How's it going anyway? The whole partners thing? "Last I heard Bobby was calling you Eddie by accident," her mouth twitched into a smile."Guess I lost my source of 118 intel."
Her gaze flicked past him, softening at the newly mounted memorial plaque in place by the open garage doors.
Ravi followed the look, then exhaled through his nose with a snort."Yeah, that was a bit of a hurdle, at first" Ravi admitted. "But it's good. Buck is a good partner, I'd trust him with my life." A beat. "I have trusted him with my life."
May studied him carefully, head tilted. "I feel like there's a but you're leaving out."
"Yeah," Ravi said, the corner of his mouth lifting. He jerked his chin towards the room. "A but we're currently betting on,"
"BuckandEddie?" she said before looking skyward. "Honestly that's on me, I could have guessed."
"There's a bit of unnamed tension with the partner shift," Ravi told her. He shifted in the chair, the metal legs screeching softly against concrete. "Neither of them are thrilled. And I can't hear the end of it from Buck." He picked at the edge of his napkin, shredding it absently." I've been considering … extraordinary measures."
May's brows shot up. "Like?"
"Getting my paramedic certifications," Ravi continued cautiously. It was the first time he'd actually said it out loud, he was kind of surprised by the lack of immediate dread pooling in his stomach.
She blinked, the timers forgotten about for a second. "Letting the dynamic duo back together on rescue?"
“Yeah, I’m just…” Ravi trailed off, eyes sliding back to the floor. “I just never saw myself going into medicine — at any level.”
May stood up directly in front of him, forcing him to look up into her in the eyes — completely blocking his view of Buck and Eddie — but he had a hard time caring. It was a comforting expression, absent of judgment. "Well, obviously you shouldn't if you don't want to — even if it's to maintain social order." She poked him lightly on the arm. "You earned your spot on A shift."
"I did, I know." He scrubbed a hand over his face. "I just don't know if I really want to do rescue over paramedics. I—" The light trills of May's three minute timer went off with no fanfare. Ravi continued, "It's just I never really considered it seriously before and I'm trying to figure out if that would… bring up issues I'm not ready to deal with."
May nodded thoughtfully, sitting back down.
At some point while they weren't paying attention, Eddie had made his way over to Buck's table. Just over 4 minutes.
Neither of them won.
"What kind of issues?" May asked, her hands clasped in front of her.
Ravi cringed, knowing what bringing up his cancer-kid past does for the tone of just about every conversation. "Medical trauma issues," he reveals, focusing on the now crumpled and shredded napkin in his hand, smoothing it out as if he wasn't responsible for its damage.
Ravi didn't elaborate.
May didn't ask him to.
"I'm not going to pretend I get it, but I don't think I could be a paramedic."May said, a perfect escape route for the dead-end he'd led the conversation down. "During the tsunami a few years ago I — I had to hold pressure on a deep cut for hours. I thought the woman died at one point. I'd like to think I'd do it again but… doing it daily for a living? I would burn out by the end of the year."
"I don't think that would be my problem," Ravi said, before counting off his paramedic pros. "I'd be in more control in the ambulance than I am on rescue, less chance of a critical injury getting me stuck in the ambulance, I'm pretty sure the pay is slightly better, Hen would be an amazing mentor… and I wouldn't have to listen to Buck whine or be glared at by Eddie."
"So, BuckandEddie might be a factor but you've clearly thought it through. Don't talk yourself into a fear you don't already have."
Ravi huffed out a quiet laugh, rubbing at the back of his neck. "I don't think I'm trying to talk myself into it," he admitted. "In fact, I think I've been talking myself out of it for years because medicine was the expectation my parents set."
May nodded, "I felt like that when I was deciding to leave dispatch for college. It was something everyone expected of me and I chose a different direction but eventually I realized that even though it was expected it was where I wanted to be."
Ravi considered that, his eyes drifting past her to where Eddie was now leaning too close to Buck, both of them pretending poorly not to enjoy being back in the other's orbit.
"Yeah…" he said slowly before reconsidering. "No. I don't know. It feels more like I knew I didn't want to go to college so I wrote off trade school, too. My parents assumed my brother and I would want to work in medicine. Sunil did and I knew I couldn't and, at the time, I associated paramedics with medicine."
May tilted her head. "So if it wasn't loaded with expectation — if Sunil hadn't gone to med school — would you have gotten your certification?"
Ravi was about to open his mouth with a resounding no, he wanted to defend the version of himself that had made the decision years before that his place was on the rig and not the bus.
But the word stalled out behind his teeth. That version of himself wasn't wrong for choosing rescue but he couldn't make sense of his reasoning today either.
He thought about the ambulance bays he'd walked through on calls, the clipped efficiency of his coworkers. He thought about the handful of times he'd ridden in the back to keep a patient calm or assist when they were short-handed, how his pulse stayed steady, how his hands hadn't shaken. This wasn't something Ravi couldn't do, it was just something he hadn't done before.
Reluctantly, he thought about being thirteen years old and the mesmerizing beeping of the cardiac monitor, fascinated that it would change with his emotions. He remembered watching it slow down and the calm that came over him, the reassurance that his heart was still beating. He remembered hearing it after coding, waking up with three broken ribs but still alive. It still scared him sometimes.
Ravi took a deep breath feeling his pulse at his wrist. "No," he admitted, having fully thought it through. "But I don't think that means I should make the same choice today — I think I was wrong about what I could do but not what I wanted to do."
May's expression softened. "And you want to be a paramedic now?"
Ravi let out a slow breath, glancing down at the shredded napkin still I'm his hands, then deliberately set it aside.
"Yeah," he said. "Maybe it's time I stop letting a hospital room from fifteen years ago make career decisions for me."
May reached out and squeezed his hand. "That's sounds like a plan."
Out of the corner of his eye he saw Buck and Eddie drifting away together, shoulders bumping as they went like they wished there could be no space between them at all. His bet had never stood a chance. The gravitational pull between them remains undefeated.
His phone started ringing right as Harry approached their table.
"I've got a shift at the cafe and my car won't start," he said his eyes locked on his sister. "Could you drive me?"
Ravi pushed back his chair, glancing down at his screen.
Sunil.
His jaw tightened on instinct.
He turned the phone so May could see the name, lifting his brows in silent solidarity. May's mouth curved in immediate understanding. Siblings. They both gave each other a small, long-suffering salute before peeling off in opposite directions.
Ravi took the stairs two at a time, boots heavy against the metal treads, the noise of the party getting more distant. By the time he reached the loft, he exhaled once, steadying himself, and answered the call.
"Hey Sunil, what's up?" He leaned his forearms on the railing looking down at the apparatus bay, at his team's celebration.
"I was thinking about your birthday and I—"
Ravi blinked. "My birthday? That's not until January." He straightened, shifting his weight, almost wary of what he'd hear next.
"Yeah but this ax throwing place is opening on Conover Ave and I got a reservation for your birthday!"
Ravi dragged a hand down his face. "Why?"
"Because you mentioned ax throwing a few weeks ago," Sunil said, and Ravi could practically hear the eye roll through the phone.
Ravi squinted at the far wall like it might supply the memory. He went over to the couches to sit as it hit him — "Are you talking about when I told you and mom about the call I went to at the Ren Faire?"
"Yeah, it sounded fun!"
Ravi sunk back into the couch. "The patient got an ax empaled in his shin?"
"We'll be better at it! You could invite your Frisbee golf friends! They have good aim."
A laugh escaped him before he could stop at the image of his friends and brother hurling axes at each other — it was too ridiculous to comprehend. He rubbed at the bridge of his nose, thumb and forefinger pressing into the familiar stress point there. "I - listen I'm in the middle of something right now."
"Oh I'm sorry, man, I checked the shift schedule you gave me and it was clear!" Sunil insisted, clearly looking for praise at doing what Ravi had asked him to do.
"Yeah,it's a ceremony thing for work though," Ravi huffed out a breath before moving back to the far end of the railing near the arcade games, too anxious to stand still.
"Oh that thing for the captain?"
"Yeah. Naming the station after the old captain and appointing a new one." His gaze drifted down to the apparatus floor where people clustered in small groups, laughing too loud, everyone avoiding the plaque near the bay doors.
"Cool, we can talk about it later when you're less prickly then."
Ravi opened his mouth to agree — then hesitated. His fingers tapped restlessly against the back of his phone.
"Wait. Hold up." He straightened. This felt different than telling May, this felt like it could change something, it felt like it would kill him if it changed nothing. "I— I wanted to tell you I'm thinking about paramedicine. Like really thinking about it."
He braced his free hand on the railing, gripping it.
"Oh cool! Why?"
Ravi blinked.
Why?
He pushed off the railing again and started pacing, boots the only sound he could hear in the mostly empty loft.
"What do you mean why? It's not like ma and dad have been subtle," He stopped himself, dragging a hand through his hair. "But that's not—"
"Subtle about what?"
Ravi frowned, he couldn't believe he was being serious. "They wanted me to be a doctor, or a nurse and—"
"They did?"
He straightened again, incredulous. "Of course they did! They wanted you to go into it too and you did."
There was a pause.
Ravi shifted his grip on the phone, pressing it closer to his ear.
"Oh, I guess I hadn't noticed," Sunil said slowly. "I just remember being in your room in the ER and wishing I could save you. And the doctors were the one who could do that." A small breath came from the other end of the line. "I always wanted to be that to some other kid."
The noise from downstairs came crashing back to him, overwhelming his senses as it blurred together.
"Oh," Ravi said, his breath short.
This whole time part of him believed they were in competition for their parents affection when Sunil wasn't playing any games at all.
"I'll let you go," Sunil added brightly, like he hadn’t just upended Ravi’s entire internal narrative. "But get back to me about the ax throwing!"
Ravi let out a shaky breath that almost turned into a laugh.
"Yeah," he said, quieter now. "Yeah, I will."
A wave of exhaustion hit Ravi and he just wanted to go home. Ravi stood in the loft a moment longer after the call ended, phone still in his hand screen dark.
He had spent years constructing this narrative where he was the one who opted out of his parents plan, the one refusing to play along.
But the whole time his brother had just… loved him.
That pressure was all in his head, his parents had never had some subtle career funnel. Ravi had, apparently, been arguing with ghosts his whole life.
He felt like a weight had been lifted, but he didn't have the emotional bandwidth to rejoin the party and pretend to be normal. He'd talk to Chimney about paramedicine tomorrow or after he figured out if he was brave enough to fill out the application.
There was a side door to the fire escape behind the kitchen and Ravi slipped out quietly. The sun was still shining, the air was clean and the birds should be the only sound he could hear.
But a pair of familiar voices drifted across the parking lot — too close together to be conversational.
Ravi went still at the top of the fire escape, turning to see —
Eddie had Buck backed against the side of his Jeep, kissing him like they’d just crawled out of a three-alarm collapse instead of a mild bout of the silent treatment. Buck’s hands were very much not in neutral territory, and Eddie had fisted a hand in Buck’s collar, dragging him down to erase the last inch of height between them.
Ravi blinked once.
Twice.
He tried to get back inside but the door was locked.
He considered dying where he stood. It would certainly be less complicated than the paperwork required to switch shifts.
But then the metal stairs shifted and Eddie jumped backwards, eyes locking onto him in a sniper's sight-line.
Ravi let out a deep sigh.
"What was I thinking — five minutes?" He muttered as he sulked down the stairs. "Should've bet one."
Then he unlocked his truck. And shuffled into the front seat. Out of his rear-view mirror he saw Buck walking back through the bay doors.
Ravi had a second to wonder where Eddie was before the man had opened his passenger side door and climbed into his car.
"I'd really appreciate if you didn't tell anyone about that," Eddie said, the words flying out of his mouth. It was a level of anxiety Ravi had never seen from the man. "I — no one but Hen knows I'm gay yet and — I haven't even really touched on that with Buck."
"Something tells me he's aware," Ravi said deadpan.
Eddie let out a breathy laugh, "You'd be surprised."
Ravi stared at him for a long second.
"Eddie," he said carefully, "I have no intention of being involved in whatever was just happening. I'd be happy to pretend it didn't happen at all."
Eddie's shoulders dropped a fraction, "Thank you."
“But,” Ravi added, because apparently he was incapable of leaving things alone tonight, “if you think Buck doesn’t know you’re gay after that performance, I’d maybe reassess your confidence in his observational skills.”
A reluctant smile tugged at Eddie’s mouth.
“You’d be surprised,” he repeated, softer this time.
Ravi studied him for a second.
"Speaking of observational skills," Ravi said lightly. "Can we talk about the death glares?"
"I swear it's not about you—"
"I got that," Ravi cut in. "But I want you to be the first to know there's going to be a spot open as Buck's partner in a few weeks."
Eddie blinked. "Did I make working A-shift that bad?"
"No," Ravi laughed. "But I've been realizing new dreams of mine. Might want to steal your spot."
"With Hen?"
“You don’t get to be territorial about both spots.”
"I'm not! I—" Eddie stopped, exhaled. "Look. Buck's always been my partner."
"I know."
“I never meant to take it out on you,” Eddie said, jaw tight. “It wasn’t about you. You’re a good firefighter, Ravi.”
“I know,” Ravi replied easily. Then, after a beat: “But I think I’ll be a great paramedic.”