FRIENDLY FIRE: A 9-1-1 fanfiction

Part Five: Wine and Waking Thoughts

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EMMA

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"You gotta be some type of crazy to end up here," Hollis shook her head at me the second she opened her yellow front door.

"Oh, you didn't know?" I grinned at her, holding up two bottles of wine, "I'm all kinds o' crazy. Now, you gonna let me in or do I have to come in through the back window like last time?"

Hollis snorted, pushing the door open further with a jerk of her hip, "Yeah, see, last time, you didn't tell no one you was coming. I thought you was a murderer."

"A murderer who knocks on the door politely?" I threw her back a strange look as she shuffled away, her Looney Tunes pyjamas too short for her legs, making her look far less intimidating than she could be.

"You don't know what murderers be up to these days―shut the door, you're letting the heat out," Hollis huffed, her smile just as wide as mine as she disappeared into her kitchen.

I did as I was told, slipping my boots off before following after her, "Looks good in here, you redecorate?"

"Yeah, course, with all the damned child support Sean supposedly payin' me," Hollis snapped, tossing a used frying pan in the sink, "yeah, I call this water damage and aging. It's the same thing that's happenin' to my face."

I snorted, placing the wine on her countertop before sitting in one of her chairs, "Water damage?"

"Tears, Emma. I know you don't know what those are but I been struggling to get a hold of my face," Hollis studied her empty dishes before shrugging, "one doctor says it's hormonal, the other says I need Botox. Can't tell whose right."

"Have you tried burying your feelings? I've found that always works for me?" I joked, glancing over my shoulder down the corridor, "Where are my boys? I haven't seen them in too long."

"Hmm," Hollis threw me a look, placing a hand on her hip, "that's cause you only known two extremes. Never around or always around."

I shrugged, throwing her the toothiest grin I could muster, "I'm guessing I'm about to hit the other end of the extremes."

"Yeah, I'm betting on it," Hollis sighed, reaching for the two bottles of wine I'd put down, "I'll get these open. The boys are down in bed, you can go give em a kiss goodnigh'. You sleepin' here?"

I jumped off the chair, shrugging off my jacket and dumping it on the couch before tiptoeing down the hall, "Well, I ain't driving, so I must be."

"You're lucky I like you," she called after me, a popping noise sounding right after as she managed to wrench one cork off one bottle.

I stopped in Hollis's room first, Caden, her two year old, was sleeping in his cot at the end of her bed, nuzzling up to a plush bunny, his mouth open wide as he snored. I crept forward, leaning down in the crib to press my lips to his head, pulling the blanket back up over him even if I knew he'd kick it off a minute after I left.

He let out a soft gurgle as I disturbed him, shuffling onto his stomach before letting out another snore, falling back into a deep sleep.

I checked the window was bolted closed before stepping out of the room again, closing the door behind me and trying to avoid the creaky floorboard between Hollis's room and Ajay's.

Ajay was eleven and arguably the coolest kid I'd ever met. His room was covered in spaceship models, aeroplane models, lunar maps, regular maps... everything you'd find in a museum and more. He also had a steadily growing sci-fi and conspiracy theory collection, which kept us both entertained for hours.