Chapter Text
Things in the Buckley house were getting kinda lonely for Evan. Maddie was off at nursing school with her boyfriend Doug, who Evan did not like one bit. He was always with Maddie and calling for her when ever they were trying to talk on the phone, all he wanted was to see his sister again.
Daniel was still around at least, but he was stressed about finals and graduation. There mum and dad were also constantly on him about collage and trying to convince him to go to the one nearby and not to become a firefighter. When Daniel wasn’t around his mum would always harshly whisper to him that it was his fault.
No one was around anymore and it was driving Evan crazy and slightly causing him to slip into isolation. The thunder storm outside was not helping either, there was no one he could cuddle up with that night to hide from the storm that rocked his bedroom from the force of the howling wind, all night long.
After a restless nights sleep the storm had passed leaving the ground wet but the sky clear and bright, making Evan at least excited to be able to go out and play with his friends to avoid the loneliness of his home.
Coming to think back on it years later climbing that tree after it had been raining all night was a stupid idea, but his ball was stuck in the tree and he really needed it so he and his friends could play with it.
He was so close to reaching it when he fell. He was balancing on the tips of his toes reaching up to the branch above, he had his fingers just inches away from his ball when his foot slipped on the wet branch sending him hurtling down the tree.
Evan screamed out in pain as he landed at the bottom hearing a loud crack as he landed on his arm.
Daniel came sprinting out the house, the worried expression that Evan had come so use to was out in fall force as he dropped to his knees beside where Evan was crying in pain while holding onto his arm. “Ev! What happen?” Daniel asked panicking looking over his younger brother.
“I fell!” Evan sobbed pointing up at the tree with the arm that he wasn’t currently clutching to his chest.
“It’s okay, let me look” Daniel comforted, taking Evan’s arm he was cradling and carefully inspecting it, “I’m going to call an ambulance, okay buddy”.
“Noo, mum and dad will get mad” Evan argued looking up at Daniel in fear.
“They won’t okay, I’ll talk to them, it’ll be okay” Daniel reassured as he rang 911 while stroking Evans head to keep him calm.
Daniel held his hand all the way to hospital and nervously paced the halls when Evan was wheeled away for x-rays. Daniel had tried calling his parents several times, they hadn’t come out when the ambulance arrived so there wasn’t really much hope in them answering, there was even less chance of them actually coming. Daniel wasn’t sure why he was even bothering to try.
He had even tried calling Maddie but she barely answered now days anyways, they were lucky if they got a phone call each month and most of the time that was pre arranged weeks in advance.
Finally Evan was brought back to the room where the doctor showed Daniel the x-ray of his arm. Somehow he managed to brake his arm in three places but was lucky that they weren’t bad enough to need surgery.
Not that Evan saw it that way. He sat grumpily on the bed as his arm was wrapped in a cast from his hand all the way up his shoulder.
Daniel hated seeing his little brother looking so miserable and sad, “it’s okay buddy, it’s only for a few weeks” Daniel tried to comfort as Evan continued to glare at the offending cast.
“I can’t do anything!” Evan huffed while poking at the cast in annoyance, “How am I meant to ride my bike with my friends?” He asked Daniel innocently.
“Well your friends are going to be so jealous. You can get them all to sign it and impress all the girls” Daniel told him enthusiastically, hoping that Evan would see that’s it’s not all bad.
“Ew, there’ll just draw hearts and unicorns on it, I don’t want that!” Evan scowled, scrunching his face up at the thought.
The prospect of his friends finding the cast cool had done it’s job of cheering Evan up. He would not stop talking about who he was going to get to sign it and was excited to show it off. Daniel felt very honoured when his 10 year old little brother asked him to be the first to sign it, he may be growing up but he was still Daniels little shadow most of the time.
Their parents toke no notice to the cast on Evan’s arm, it wasn’t something that was new but it disappointed Daniel all the same. They didn’t ask anything about it, just shouted at each other when the bill arrived, causing Evan to hide under Maddie’s bed to try drawn out their angry words about him.
Daniel liked to think that one day it would get better. It was delusional to think that, after all it had been 10 years and they still ignored Evan’s existence on a daily basis. A part of Daniel was mad that Maddie wasn’t around anymore to help out but he knew she deserved to get away and live her own life. She did the hardest part of raising baby Evan, Daniel can surely do the rest on his own.
So maybe raising their baby brother was hard and exhausting, but it was worth it. Their parents may have chosen to ignore Evan but it was there loss. They weren’t apart of his life so they didn’t get to be apart of Daniels or Maddie’s, cause there wasn’t anything in the world that they would have rather been doing than watching as there baby brother grew up and become generous young man that only ever wanted to help others.