Chapter Text
Tommy was woken up from his post shift nap to a knocking on the door to his apartment. He lifted his head and looked to the side of the bed, not seeing Evan there.
The knocking continued.
Tommy shook his head as he got up out of the bed. He didn’t know where Evan was, but the witch obviously wasn’t there or he would have answered the door by now. As Tommy walked, in no rush, across his place he got a whiff of a scent going through the door. It smelt vaguely like Evan, but slightly different. He swore, if the witch locked himself out again…
Opening the door up, he came face to face with a woman, a witch, that he had never met before. Long brown hair, about a foot shorter than him, and probably around the same age as him as well.
“Oh,” she said as she took a step back, obviously not expecting to see Tommy answer the door. “I- I wasn’t expecting you.”
“Yeah,” Tommy said, somewhat dazed. “Me either.” His eyes looked the woman up and down, she looked about his age, long brown hair, and had a small duffel bag by her side. “Can I help you?” Tommy asked.
“Oh, um…” the woman began, twisting her fingers in a strand of her hair. “I was looking for Evan,” she said.
Looking for Evan? Don’t tell Tommy that Evan invited her here? Surely he wouldn’t right? At least not without giving Tommy some sort of heads up.
“Oh, please tell me I have the right address,” the woman continued, speaking lightly. “I talked to the guys at his last address, they gave this one,” she looked down at a post-it note in her hand. “Yeah, apartment 207.”
Were Evan’s old roommates just giving his current address out to whoever asked for it? Tommy had only met them once when he went to help Evan pack up his room, but why did that scenario not surprise him in the slightest?
“Who are you?” Tommy then asked, before he told her whether he knew Evan or not.
“Oh,” the woman said, looking back up at him. “I’m sorry, I should have introduced myself first, I guess. I’m Maddie Buckley, Evan’s sister.”
Evan’s sister.
He had mentioned a sister once or twice, never giving Tommy too many details. But Tommy could tell it was some type of touchy subject.
“He’s out right now,” Tommy said, deciding to go out on a limb and believe her.
“Oh… but he lives here?” she asked.
“Yeah,” Tommy said, and then they fell into an awkward silence, standing across from each other for an uncomfortable amount of time.
“Could- Could I come in and wait for him? I really need to talk to him,” Maddie asked.
“Um-” Tommy hesitated. It was one thing letting Evan into his place, but he really wasn’t too keen on letting another witch into his place, even if they were supposedly Evan’s sister. But then again. From the look in her eyes, she looked desperate, like she had nowhere else to go.
It went against nearly all his instincts, but he opened his door wider, motioning for her to come inside. “Sure,” he said.
Maddie took a step inside the apartment and looked around. “This is a… nice place,” she said as she walked into the living room area and took a seat on the couch. Tommy walked over to the counter and grabbed his phone, pulling up Buck’s contact page. “So,” Maddie started. “I never got your name. And how do you know Evan?”
Oh right, if it had apparently been years since she and Buck have spoken to each other, she most likely knows nothing about Tommy. “I’m Tommy, I… we met at work.”
Maddie nodded. “Oh,” Maddie said. “So you’re like roommates?”
Tommy hesitated. “We’re a bit… more than roommates.”
Ever since that fire where Tommy dragged Buck out by his jaws, there was sionething… unnamed… going on between Buck and Tommy.
Buck had moved into Tommy’s place after a long rant about his annoying roommates and Chimney innocently mentioning that Tommy had an extra bedroom in his apartment (although Tommy knew from the look in Chimney’s eyes that it was anything but innocent), and while there was never a repeat that could rival that meeting in the storage closet, they had certainly tried on more than one occasion.
Still though, none of it was out in the open, and no one else besides Buck or Tommy knew they were anything other than roommates.
“You’re dating?” Maddie asked. “Nothing in Evan’s postcards mentioned being into guys, but that wouldn’t surprise me about him.”
Tommy didn’t know how to respond to that, but he was thankfully saved by the sounds of Buck banging the door open.
“Tommy! You’ll never guess what I found at-” Buck stopped speaking when he noticed that Tommy wasn’t alone in the apartment. “Who’s-” Buck trailed off as he looked at who was sitting on Tommy’s couch. Buck blinked his eyes, wanting to believe that was his sister there, but at the same time not being able to.
Maddie then stood up and walked over, bringing Buck into a big hug. “Hey, little brother,” she murmured into Buck’s neck. “I missed you.”
🐺 🐺 🐺 🐺 🐺
Later that week, while Tommy was scheduled to work and Buck was off, Buck took Maddie out to one of his favorite breakfast spots.
Maddie had wanted to get out of the two bedroom apartment that was quickly growing cramped with three people inside and wanted to see more of the city, Tommy was scheduled to work another shift to make up for missing the one two weeks ago over the full moon, and Buck just wanted to spend every second possible with his sister.
His sister…
God, he didn’t know how many times he imagined Maddie would randomly show up on his (or Tommy’s) doorstep one day. And for it to have actually happened…
As the waiter dropped their meals off at their table, Maddie leveled Buck with a look. One that Buck still remembered from when they were kids. Maddie had questions… one she was going to get answers for…
“Buck, I need to ask you something,” Maddie started, her tone and expression looking oddly serious for the current setting.
“What is it?” Buck asked, as he mixed up his oatmeal.
“Your roommate or…. whatever he is… Tommy…” Maddie started, perking up Buck’s attention. “Do you know that he’s a werewolf?”
Buck nearly choked, would have if there was any food in his mouth. “Um… what makes you say that?” he asked a second after he recovered. Even though almost everyone on A-shift knew Tommy was a werewolf, outside of them, barely anyone that Buck knew of knew. And everyone at the station worked hard to keep it that way. So how did Maddie know?
Maddie lifted an eyebrow. “That reaction might be part of it,” Maddie said as she took a small sip of her coffee. “But if you want to know, my interests were first piqued when I saw half the freezer filled with frozen meat, and then I might have overheard you speaking to Tommy about him ‘needing to make up a shift because of the full moon.’ It wasn’t that hard to make a connection.”
Buck leant over the table and whispered to her, just loud enough for only her to hear. “You have to promise that you won’t tell anyone Maddie, please,” he said as he held up his pinky.
Maddie humored him and wrapped her pinky around his. “I promise I won’t tell anyone,” she said before letting go. “I have to ask though, what made you think this was a good idea?”
“What do you mean?” Buck asked, confused.
Maddie gave him a look of slight disbelief. “You do know the history of our two groups, right?” she asked.
Buck rolled his eyes. “I know the important parts,” he said. “But well… I guess you could say we had a rocky start. And it’s not like we had an instant friendship. That didn’t really happen until I got knocked out and he needed to pull me out of a burning building.”
“You really don’t need to tell me these stories,” Maddie said. “I already worry about you enough without knowing the dangers of your job.”
“Anyway,” Buck said. “We were both… kind of alone and I guess we were just… pulled together, you know?”
Maddie had a soft look on her face then. “You really like him, don’t you?” she asked.
Buck ducked his head as he felt his face heat up. It was probably due to the heat from the oatmeal, he shouldn’t have gotten it when it was already in the mid 80’s outside.
“Yeah,” he said as a soft smile stretched across his face. “I really do love him.”