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Tommy stalked into the hospital, teeth set. He’d always kind of scoffed at the people he and his coworkers dated, the ones who liked the scars but couldn’t handle the danger that caused them, but right now he would apologize to any of them he ran into.
He loved Evan, and he loved the job they shared. But fucking hell if getting a call that your boyfriend was hurt wasn’t the worst feeling in the world.
“Evan Buckley?” he asked at the front desk, just as Bobby appeared.
“Over here, Tommy,” he said, gesturing to where Hen and Howie were sitting.
Tommy nodded at the receptionist and followed Bobby over.
“He’s going to be fine,” Bobby said immediately, and Tommy unclenched a little.
“Good,” he said. “What happened?”
“Buck’s going to Buck,” Hen said, and Tommy looked over at Bobby for a translation.
“Buck rescued a woman and her cat from a house fire, but the cat jumped out of the woman’s arms and ran back inside,” Bobby said. “So did Buck.”
“Well, naturally,” Tommy said, sighing deeply. “Did the cat survive, at least?”
“Yes, she did,” Bobby said. “No injuries. Buck, however, took off his helmet to crawl under a table to get her, and got smacked with some falling beams. Concussion, some second degree burns, strained his neck and shoulders.”
“But thank God the cat’s fine,” Tommy said.
“Her name was Morgan Le Fay,” Howie said. “It was probably destined that she’d live anyway.”
Eddie appeared from the back, holding the door open. “Thanks for texting me, Hen.” He looked at Tommy. “He and Maddie are in room 3. Don’t yell at him now, he’s still feeling pretty self-righteous. Wait until tomorrow when he’s had some time for a little regret to set in.”
“I bow to your expertise,” Tommy said, clapping him on the shoulder as he went back. Of course they had a routine for yelling at Evan post-injury.
He knocked on the wall outside room three and stepped behind the curtain. “I hear that Buck did some Bucking today.”
Maddie looked exhausted on the chair next to Evan’s bed. “Yep,” she said, but Evan frowned.
“It sounds weird when you call me that,” he said. “I’m not your Buck.”
“No, you’re my Evan,” Tommy said, and dropped into the other chair. Evan was bruised and his top half was covered in ice packs, but he was very much alive and in one piece and he could have cried with relief. “But Evan’s going to Evan doesn’t have quite the same ring to it.” He lifted his boyfriend's hand and pressed a kiss to it. “Hi.”
“Hi,” Evan said, his frown turning into a beaming smile. “I’m glad you’re here. Are you taking me home? I’m really ready to go home.”
“What’s the story on that?” Tommy asked Maddie.
“They might want to keep him overnight for observation,” she said, raising her voice to talk over Evan’s protests. “We’re waiting to see the doctor again. It could be minutes, it could be hours.”
“The ER has its own time pocket,” Tommy agreed. “So yes,” he told Evan, “I will take you home, whenever the doctor says it’s okay.”
Evan pouted at him.
“You can try that on the doctor if you think it’ll work,” Tommy said. “But I’m not breaking you out. Your sister would come after me, and she’s scarier than you are.” He rubbed his thumb across Evan’s hand.
Maddie laughed. “Listen to your boyfriend, he’s smarter than you are,” she said to Evan, who just pouted harder.
“Are you able to stay tonight?” Maddie asked him.
“Absolutely,” Tommy said. “I’m off tomorrow, and Lucy offered to trade shifts with me so I can be off a few days after that, too. Do you and Howie need to head out?”
“I’d love to be able to keep Jee on her nighttime routine,” Maddie admitted and Tommy nodded.
“Here are my notes from earlier,” she said, handing him a notebook and pen. “And a few questions I had, too.”
“I’ll take some, too, get this back to you later,” he said, skimming over the last few pages.
“Thanks, Tommy,” she said, standing up and stretching. She squeezed Evan’s hand. “I’ll call you in the morning, okay?”
“Okay,” Evan agreed. “Love you, Maddie.”
“Love you, Buck,” she said. She hugged Tommy. “Take care of our boy.”
“Always,” he said, surprised but hugging her back. She’d never hugged him before, but it made sense that the first time would be next to her wonderful, beautiful idiot brother’s hospital bedside.
She blew Evan a kiss as she left, which he returned.
“So a cat, huh?” Tommy said.
“Yeah, she was really pretty,” Evan said. “And really good at hiding. I really don’t want to keep laying here. We’re going to be able to go home, aren’t we?”
“Absolutely we are,” Tommy said, and Evan brightened. “No one will make you live in the hospital forever, I promise.” Evan’s face fell and Tommy laughed. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. I hope we can go home tonight, too. But even if you don’t, I’ll stay with you tonight, okay?”
“All right,” Evan said, but he didn’t sound super excited.
“Hey, my hold came in for the Hollywood murder book,” Tommy said. “Want me to start reading it to you?”
“William Desmond Taylor?” Evan asked, perking up again. Tommy was starting to get whiplash from the mood swings. “Did I tell you I ordered the movie he made with Mary…Miles Minter? Mary Minter Miles? The photo girl. There’s this tiny museum in Canada that made a reproduction. I had to Venmo money to Maddie so she’d write a check to them.” He sounded a little bewildered by the idea.
Tommy laughed. “That will make an excellent post-concussion return to screen time,” he said.
Evan started to nod and then froze, clearly in regret.
Tommy smoothed his hand over Evan’s head, gently running his fingers through his lightly curling hair. The stark lights brought out some of the red tones, which he always loved, and Evan rested his head against Tommy’s hand. God he was glad Evan was okay.
He opened up his Kindle app and started to read.
They got through two long chapters before the doctor came in.
“All right, Mr. Buckley, we’re going to let you go home tonight,” she said, and Tommy wasn’t sure which one of them was more grateful to hear it. It would have been a long night with a very unhappy Evan otherwise.
Tommy took notes, asked his and Maddie’s questions, and scribbled down the care instructions. Why, he wasn’t sure, because he knew them all as well as he knew his name, and Maddie would too, but it still felt necessary. He texted Maddie and Eddie with the update, knowing they’d spread the word.
Evan was unhappy about mandated leave and light duty, so Tommy distracted him with a few kisses and another chapter until they had all of the prescriptions and discharge paperwork ready and Evan was being wheeled down the hall.
Tommy was surprised to see Eddie and Chris waiting for them, but Evan wasn’t.
“Hey, my man,” he said, offering Chris his hand for a low five.
“Hey, Buck,” Chris said, tapping it. “Dad said you were stupid again.”
“Hey,” Eddie protested. “That was between us!”
Chris just shrugged.
“I was brave and heroic,” Evan said, glaring at Eddie.
“He was being stupid,” Tommy mouthed to Christopher, who cracked a smile.
“Chris wanted to see how Buck was, and I thought we could divide and conquer,” Eddie said. “I can get his prescriptions filled so you can get him home, and meet you there.”
“That sounds great,” Tommy said. “Chris, you want to ride with us, make sure Evan doesn’t do something brave and heroic in the car?”
“I am wounded,” Evan said, lifting his hand to his heart but not quite getting there before he flinched. “Physically and now emotionally.”
“Sure,” Chris said.
Tommy left Evan with the Diazes to pull the car around, and Eddie left after helping Tommy transfer Evan into Tommy’s backseat. Chris climbed in after, dropping his crutches at their feet.
Tommy pulled out of the parking lot, half listening to Chris and Evan talk about some video game. He got to the main street and into the left turning lane.
“You should turn right here,” Chris said, interrupting himself. “Our house is that way.”
Tommy glanced back at him in the rearview mirror. “I was going to bring him to my house,” he said carefully. “Does Evan usually go to yours after he’s been hurt?”
“Most of the time,” Chris said. “We know how to take care of him. We do it a lot.”
“I bet you do,” Tommy said, tapping the wheel. “Evan is a magnet for-–” he caught his boyfriend’s pout--”bravery and heroics.”
“Damn straight,” Evan said happily.
“I was thinking that Evan has pajamas and a lot of his favorite things already at my house,” Tommy said, grateful for the slow light. “The book he’s reading is there, too.”
“Oh,” Chris said, considering. “He doesn’t have much besides pajamas at our place anymore. But you’ve never taken care of him before, and he got hurt three different ways this time.”
“That’s true,” Tommy said. Chris was frowning down at his lap now, and he wondered how he should handle this. Evan was watching them, interested, but not giving any opinions. Of course he’d be quiet now.
“Okay. Well, you are clearly an Evan expert,” he said slowly, and Chris looked up. “So, I have a guest bedroom. Do you think you and your dad would like to spend the night, teach me a little about how to take care of him, too?”
“That would work,” Chris said and Tommy nodded.
“Great,” he said, as the cars finally started to move. “Sound good, Evan?”
“All my boys together sounds great,” he said. “Aw, but we can’t do more Madden tournament.”
“You can help with my homework,” Chris said, and Tommy could not wait to see how that would turn out. “I’ll text my dad and let him know.”
By the time Eddie showed up with a rattling bag of medicine, Evan had half a dozen ice packs saran wrapped around his shoulders and neck, and had spent almost as much time complaining about having to sleep on his back as he had helping Chris with homework. Well. “Helping.”
“Two more hours until he can sleep,” Tommy said as he helped Eddie organize everything in the kitchen. He’d also bought some of Evan’s favorite snacks, including a few he said Evan only wanted when he was injured and grumpy about it.
“We should probably distract them from homework,” Eddie said. “I think Chris might need to unlearn some of the things Buck is so confident about right now.”
“I think that’s a very smart idea,” Tommy agreed, writing down a meds schedule for the next 48 hours.
“Thanks for letting Chris and I stay overnight, too,” Eddie said. “I didn’t even think that he’d want to bring Buck to ours, but I guess it really is kind of routine by this point. He likes to know we’re all right.”
“I’m glad Evan has always had a place to go,” Tommy said. He knew too well how it felt when you didn’t. “I’m also glad Chris was willing to share his Buck. I was a little nervous there for a minute. He looked pretty judgmental when I was getting him settled in.”
Eddie cocked his head. “Yeah, that’s Christopher. But Buck’s right, it’s too weird to hear you call him Buck,” he said.
Tommy laughed. “Then convince your son to call him Evan and he can be Chris’s Evan.”
“Nope, also too weird,” Eddie said, making a face.
Tommy tossed an orange at him, which Eddie caught neatly. “Let’s go rescue Chris,” he said.
They settled into the dim living room, convincing Chris to pack up his homework. His English class was reading Ms Marvel, so Tommy and Eddie teamed up to divide the characters and read it aloud, pausing periodically for Chris and Evan to answer and ask questions. It was enough to keep Evan awake and as focused as he could be, and honestly, it was a great graphic novel. If school had had him reading interesting and modern books, let alone comics, Tommy probably would have been a lot more interested in class.
But by the end of the two hours, they were all ready for sleep. There was no way Evan was up for a shower, so Tommy gave him a wipe down and helped him change into sweats. He was about to collapse next to him when Chris knocked on their bedroom door.
“Sweet dreams, Buck,” he said, coming in to give Evan a gentle hug.
“You too, buddy,” Evan said, blinking his eyes to stay awake. “Thanks for taking care of me, like always.”
Tommy was surprised when Chris turned to him and flung his arms around his waist in a tight hug. “I watched and you did a good job taking care of him,” he said softly, just for Tommy's ears. “Thank you.”
“Couldn’t have done it without you,” Tommy said just as softly, squeezing back. “I’m glad you and your dad are here with us.”
Eddie showed up at the door to collect his son, closing the door behind them. Tommy finally crawled in bed next to Evan and draped an arm gently across his waist.
The weight of the past several hours hit him hard, like his brain recognized that if his body could relax then it was safe to fall apart. He let out a little breath that was almost a sob and tried to breathe deeply.
“I love you,” Evan mumbled, already half asleep.
“Love you, too, sweetheart,” he said, pressing a slightly damp kiss to Evan’s temple. He let himself focus on the feel of Evan’s hair, his chest rising and falling, the hard muscle under Tommy’s arm.
That call was terrifying to get, but neither of them had had to do any of it alone. Turns out that having a ready-made house family was just as great as he’d always imagined. And this brave, heroic idiot was worth everything.