i dreamed that the world was crumbling down.
It had been a night full of false alarms, wasted time and energy, and as he walked back to the car after yet another lecture on how 911 wasn't a toy for bored college students David found himself wondering how much longer he could keep himself from punching someone. Maybe two more calls. Maybe just one. Maybe he would hang ten feet back and let Marisol handle the next one, just to be on the safe side. Maybe, if they were extremely lucky, the next call they got sent out on would be a legitimate emergency instead of a bunch of drunk idiot kids tying up the phone lines and wasting the city's resources. Beside him, Marisol reached over to sock him in the shoulder, a dry smirk on her face. "I know what you're thinking, Carson, and don't even. Don't fucking tempt fate like that." He was about to laugh and tell her that he wouldn't dream of it, even if that was a bold-faced lie, when a sound like thunder shook the air around them and suddenly the conversation was a hell of a lot less amusing. They didn't have time to turn back toward the dormitory before the shock wave from the explosion knocked them off their feet.

"Jesus fucking Christ." David was back on his feet before he'd had time to catch his breath again, stumbling as his sense of equilibrium reset itself. The front section of the building they'd just left was a smoking ruin, every window shattered from the force of the explosion, fire alarms shrieking from the wings that were still standing. Between the shrill sound of the alarms and the ringing in his ears that hadn't faded yet, he couldn't hear if there were people inside calling for help, but he didn't really need to. It was half past one in the morning at a college dorm, of course there were people inside. At least the damage was contained, the bomb apparently having gone off in the front entryway; being grateful for anything related to where a bomb had been placed in a college dorm felt wrong, but at least it hadn't been in someone's room or on a higher floor, at least there seemed to be a pretty decent chance nobody had been killed. He would settle for that right now, if that was the best they could get. And there wasn't time to waste thinking about it anyway, he had to get moving. Marisol, still sitting on the pavement beside him, was already on her radio calling for firefighters and paramedics - but for now, the two of them were all these kids had.

As he headed toward the building at a run, broken glass crunching under his feet, introspection was the last thing on David's mind. Later, when the crisis was over and he had time to think, maybe he'd think about how fucking glad he was to have that brute therianthrope strength on his side as he started to dig through the wreckage of concrete and metal. For now, he had more important things to concentrate on.

(narrative)