Title: Burn, Damn It
Disclaimer: I don’t own any of them except Grace!
Author’s Note: This was written as a birthday fic for Azar and for Medie’s Changeling AU challenge.
Summary: Fire Chief O’Neill tries to start a fire, proving once and for all that firefighters are supposed to put them out, not start them.
Burn, Damnit
by Christina A.
“Jack, what are you doing?” Grace O’Neill laughed lightly as she watched her husband stand at the trash barrel.
“Raking the lawn has to be one of the most asinine tasks ever.”
She quickly put two and two together. Jack had raked the yard and put the leaves and twigs in piles and had just put some in the trash can. No doubt, he was going to set them on fire. Where they lived, it was legal to burn leaves if the fire was contained in a trash can. She knew that because her husband, Jack O’Neill was chief of the fire department. “Don’t know why you do it, hon. No one makes you.” She didn’t wait for his retort. Instead, she went inside to wash dishes. There was a window over the sink; she could watch the festivities from there.
By the time she filled the sink with water, Jack had struck a long match, tossed it in the barrel, and was looking down inside of it. Grace contemplated getting the video camera. “Well damn,” she heard him swear. There were other grumblings as he went into his garage. When he returned, he was carrying a container. He poured the liquid on top of the leaves, set the container a safe distance away, dropped another lit match into the barrel and smiled as flames shot out of the can. “Gotcha you bastard,” she heard him say in triumph as he turned to assess the other piles of leaves awaiting their doom at the hands of the master firefighter.
Grace turned her attention back to the dishes. She washed the glasses, happily content to listen to her husband whistle while he worked. It was when she picked up his cereal bowl that she heard, “Son of a bitch!”
Looking up from her task, she couldn’t help but smile widely. The fire had gone out. There was even more grumbling colored by a few exclamatory remarks before Jack disappeared into the garage again. This time, he returned with a hoe and another container. “I put these damn things out for a living,” she heard him curse before shoving the hoe into the trash can and stirring up the contents. She then watched as another liquid was poured into the barrel. The container was then placed next to the previous one. Another match was lit, and the result when it was tossed into the can was a rather impressive fireball.
As Jack seemed pleased with the results, Grace turned back to work at the sink. She was actually humming to herself as she finished the plates. “Oh for cryin’ out loud!!” The words filled the kitchen, causing Grace’s head to pop up. “Damn it!!!!” Her reaction this time was to laugh. When she looked up, all she could see was the backside of her husband’s form as he was bent over the trashcan. Picking up the hoe, it was once again used to stir up the leaves inside. “I’ll fix your ass this time.” When he disappeared into the garage again, Grace took her hands out of the water and grabbed the phone. One could never be too cautious.
She watched as Jack doused old newspapers with one of the liquids from before and use the hoe to pull up some leaves and set the paper in the barrel. The process was repeated several times, followed by another liberal dousing of the entire contents with whatever was in the container. There was a loud snort of triumph when the container was once again set at a safe distance. This time, he struck a match, tossed it in the trashcan, and had to duck and run for cover at the resulting mushroom of fire that erupted from the can.
Grace instinctively ducked as well before erupting with uncontrollable laughter at the site of her husband. He was standing wide-eyed, staring in a mixture of awe and pride as the flames licked the side of the barrel. With a great deal of arrogance, he pointed at the can and said, “Don’t mess with a firefighter, Bud.”
Wiping his hands together, he bent down to add more leaves to the container. Grace watched as all the combination of accelerants finally took hold and a quasi-inferno started to rage. She leaned toward the window and that’s when she heard Jack say, “Whoa!” as he jumped and reached for the hose. With expert precision, he quickly tamed the fire, and Grace visibly relaxed, not realizing that her hand was clutching the phone.
It was when she left to get a pan from the stove that she heard, “Mother fu….” Looking out the window again, she barely contained a laugh as Jack was once again leaning over the trashcan. Apparently, he’d done too good a job at taming the fire. She smiled from ear-to-ear as he put containers back in the garage, as well as the hoe. He brought out another container and put dry leaves on top of the now wet ones. She watched as he struck a long match, set it in the barrel and then repeated the step several more times.
Now finished with her task, Grace dried her hands again and joined Jack outside to stand by the barely smoldering contents of the trashcan. “How’s it going?” she asked, feigning ignorance to the earlier events.
“Perfect,” he said, standing beside her and wrapping his arm around her shoulders. “No problems at all. Burnin’ good, I think.”
Grace did a very poor job of covering a snicker.
“What?”
She shook her head vigorously as weak smoke and no flame emanated from the trashcan. “N… nothing, hon. It’s just…” she was nearly in tears as she pointed at the can. “You’d think… I mean… You put them out for a living… but this…” She was laughing hard now.
“Hey!” he said, his voice echoing his frustration. “The leaves are wet.”
“Now,” she managed to say, though she could barely breath.
“Well, I don’t know what you expect,” he said, feigning offense. “I’m a fireman.”
“And you put them out, not set them,” she said with finality, gaining control before kissing his cheek. “I’m proud of you.” She went back inside the house with a smile on her face. She was proud. He put his life on the line every time he entered a burning building. He would selflessly run in where others would run out. He saved lives, homes, businesses, even pets. He did so with the knowledge that the monster he faced had no soul or conscience. All it did was consume… consumed everything until there was nothing left but ashes. It killed whoever got in its way… without mercy.
He would see a fire and his eyes would light up with respect and excitement. Grace knew that on any given day the beast could claim him, but she also knew that if it did, he’d die doing what he loved… fighting fire and saving lives.
She did, however, laugh as she heard him curse again. He was bent over the trashcan, trying to deduce what to do next. It was true… Firefighters were meant to extinguish fires and not set them. The bi-weekly show she was privileged to witness was testament to that philosophy. Because now, Jack was filling trash bags with the other piles of leaves and taking them to the curb as the barely smoldering contents of the trash can wafted in small tendrils of smoke into the air… seemingly sneering in victory.
The End
Tags: alternate universe, grace hammond, grace/jack, het, humor, jack o'neill, light, original character, rating: pg-13