My Stepbrother the Firefighter and Our Dog [mxm]

Dec 1st - Cedric - The Puppy Rescued From Fire

It had been one of those days for Cedric.

Rafique, that good looking... jerk... had told him - in a text message - he wasn't going to come back from Paris because he got engaged.

Five weeks ago!

Cedric had to read this while waiting for his connecting flight from Hong Kong to London, a flight he was promised to board soon for fourteen hours now.

Tired and feeling grimy and grumpy he had to endure sitting in the middle of a three seat row instead of in business class when at last the plane left the ground.

Naturally the probably ninety year old hag beside him had a problem with winds.

The book he was reading took a turn he hated, bis power bank was empty in stead of full so his electronics gave up way earlier than he anticipated and he got a severe headache from the dry air on board.

At least the last flight from London to Manchester hadn't been a problem.

Muttering to himself and watching the pavement because the street had a problem with some serious potholes, he inwardly damned the neighbor that was burning something horribly stinking in their fireplace again.

To make the day perfect, a guy came running up from behind and shoved Cedric, suitcase, sling bag and all, into the nearest car.

"Oh, for Pete's sake," Cedric more sighed than shouted, rubbing one knee with his hand where it had made rather violent contact with Mr. Stevenson's Corolla.

Pushing his horn-rimmed glasses up his too small nose, he righted himself and looked over the car top.

His sling bag hit the pavement.

The guy in running gear that had shoved him, just ran into a house.

A house that had gray smoke billowing from it's door.

Cedric's house.

His phone fell to the ground twice before he got it from his bag into his hands safely.

Trying to dial 999 with shaking, ice cold fingers proofed to be more difficult than it looked like in the movies, where gorgeous men had an operator on the line in the blink of an eye.

"I think my house is burning," he told the nice lady on the other end a bit sheepishly. "And someone just ran in."

It took everything in him to give all the necessary information with the right words in the right order, so a fire crew could be dispatched to his rescue.

Obviously his sister had done exactly what he had politely asked her not to do: made a mess of everything. And as it seemed, she even got the mess on fire, timely for his return after three months on a business trip to China, a land where people ate living insects from little wooden sticks in public.

He shuddered at that memory.

Suddenly, worry for the stranger in the lime green running shorts cursed through him. Wasn't he risking a smoke intoxication of something similar horrible?

Still looking over the car top of Mr. Stevensen's car, he decided to be brave and follow the stranger, at least to the threshold of his house.

The man very clearly needed someone to look after him. Wearing short running cloths in December was a clear indication, at least in Cedric's mind.

"Hello?" he called into the smoke, standing on the bottom step, one hand clinging to the little railing.

Cedric's eyes started to burn instantly and hard coughs shook his lanky frame.

When he cautiously took another step up, shielding his nose and mouth with his Aran wool shawl, the stranger burst into clean air, startling Cedric nearly to death.

In his arms, he cradled a little dog Cedric had never seen before.

Coughing like dying of lung cancer, the stranger sank to his knees when the siren's wail reached its peak and firetrucks pulled up on the street.