Firehouse Oasis 118

20. Chimney

"Pssst, hey, Chim." A voice called, dragging him back from the bliss of sleep, "Wake up!"

"Mmmmmghhhghhhh" he mumbled nonsensically, turning over to face the disturbance and cracking an eye open.

There was a blurry figure standing over him, immediately putting him on high alert. Chim, shot up in bed, eyes flying wide, the figure taking a startled step back. Chim noticed that he'd raised his arm, ready to attack the figure with his powers, yet when his vision became less blurry he realized that the figure was just Eddie, who also had his arm raised, ready to defend himself.

"Christ Eddie!" He hissed at the other boy through the dark room, "Don't do that!"

"I'm sorry, but something's wrong!" The other boy hissed back. "Get Hen up and I'll wake Bobby. Try not to wake the kids."

Then Chim watched as the other boy spun on his heel and snuck out of the bunk room quickly. Chim took a second to rub the remaining sleep out of his eyes before using his powers to levitate a shoe over to Hen's bunk and tap her lightly with it. She was a light sleeper so she sat up immediately, looking over to him with a question written all over her face. He put a finger to his lips to signify that they needed to be quiet before waving to her in a 'follow me' motion. Then he climbed off his bunk and headed for the door.

They both were barefoot, which meant they were able to be quieter than normal, so they had no trouble sneaking out of the room and closing the door behind them without waking Chris and Denny. They headed to the loft to find Eddie and Bobby making their way up the stairs to meet them.

"What's going on?" Chim asked, as soon as they met by the couches.

"Where's Buck and Athena?" Bobby added, looking around like he expected the two to join them any second now.

"That's the problem." Eddie said, "I don't know."

Immediately, the conversation devolved into an indistinguishable mess of all of them whispering over each other.

"Hey!" Hen hissed slightly louder than the others, snapping her fingers to get their attention, "Everyone shut up."

Everyone's mouths snapped closed at that, all of them turning to look at her and wait for their next instruction. Hen nodded to herself once she'd seen everyone had obeyed her.

"Ok, now, Eddie explain." She ordered and the rest of them turned to face him and wait for an explanation.

"So I woke up, like, twenty minutes ago to pee, and when I was coming back in to go back to bed I realized Buck's bunk was empty. I went back out to look for him, you know, make sure he hadn't fallen asleep on the couch again, but I couldn't find him anywhere." Eddie explained, projecting a sense of calm that Chim could tell was masking worry, "So then I went to go get you guys up, except when I went to wake Athena I realized that she wasn't there, instead it was just a couple pillows under her blanket to make it look like she was."

"Did you check the roof?" Chim asked, he wasn't sure about Athena but he knew Buck liked spending time up there.

"Of course I did." Eddie snapped, the stress bleeding through a bit.

"Ok ok." Bobby tried placating them all, "It was a good guess, but have we checked to see if the car is still there?"

"I-" Eddie started, clearly about to snap at Bobby too before he processed the older boy's words and deflated a bit. "No, actually I didn't."

"Alright, then. Let's go do that." Bobby instructed, firmly taking the situation in hand and leading them down the stairs and out the cardboard window.