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Buck buttoned up his uniform shirt, still thinking about the Vietnamese place he and Tommy had gone to after his last shift – seriously, that had been some of the best pho he’d ever had in his life, not to mention the dumplings and that fish dish. Yeah, he and Tommy were definitely going to have to fit that place into their regular date-night rotation. He was just tucking his shirt into his pants when Hen appeared, seemingly out of nowhere.
“I was promised a story about bears and glitter beards,” she said, arms crossed, and eyebrow raised. “Now spill.”
Buck smiled, doing up his belt. “Oh, yeah, that was a crazy night,” he said.
“Story time is going to have to wait,” Chim said. “Cap wants you on inventory, Buck.” He hesitated before handing Buck a clipboard. “I can’t believe I’m giving this to you. Remember, clipboards are a privilege not a right. Don’t let it go to your head.”
Buck rolled his eyes at his brother-in-law.
“Oh, come on, Chim,” Hen protested. “Don’t you want to know all about the types of shenanigans the childless folks get up to on their days off.”
“Not if it involves nudity,” Chim said, giving Buck a warning look.
Which hey, that was probably fair, Buck knew he could be an over-sharer when it came to certain less-than-socially-acceptable subjects. “Um, we were at a gay bar,” he began.
“Inventory!” Chim tapped the clipboard.
“But Chim, there was a glitter beard involved,” said Hen giving Chim big pleading eyes.
Buck chuckled, heading to the supply closet while Hen and Chim bickered about whether or not they wanted him to go into detail about the bear with the glitter beard at the gay bar.
#
Buck meant to tell Hen about their run in with glitter beard Gary once he finished inventorying the supply closet, but the tones sounded almost as soon as he deposited his list of supplies to reorder on Bobby’s desk.
“Okay, people. We’ve got a car that’s crushed under a down utility pole,” Bobby explained once they were all in the cab. “DWP is working to shut power off to that part of the grid so we should be able to access the vehicle by the time we arrive on scene.”
“Do we know anything about the condition of the driver?” Hen asked.
“Negative,” Bobby said. “Caller wasn’t able to get close enough to the car to check. Buck, I’m going to need you and Ravi to get into that car as quickly as possible.” Eddie was off that shift, chaperoning a school trip for Christopher’s class.
“Roger that, Cap,” said Buck.
By the time they arrived on scene, the power had been shut off, so Buck and Ravi raced straight to the car with saws and jaws. Buck peered through the window to try to get a look at their patient while Ravi worked the jaws.
“Anything?” Hen asked, hovering off to one side with her med kit ready to go while Chimney trailed behind her with a back board.
“Male, forties, possibly Latino,” Buck said. “Bleeding, possibly from hitting his nose on the airbag.” The guy looked vaguely familiar, but it was hard to say through the tinted glass and the blood coating his face. “Can’t tell if he’s breathing.”
Ravi popped the door open, and Buck made quick work of cutting through the hinges and lifting it away so that Hen could work. She snapped ammonia salts under the patient’s nose while Buck got the C-collar ready for her.
The patient startled awake and that was when Buck got a look at the guy’s eyes, he remembered where he knew him from. “That’s Gary,” he said.
“Who’s Gary?” Chim asked, taking the C-collar from Buck while Hen ran through a concussion check.
“The guy from the club with the glitter beard,” Buck said. “He was really nice. He gonna be okay?”
Hen squinted at Gary as though trying to picture this neatly dressed, accountant looking dude out partying at a queer club with a glitter beard. “He’s got a mild concussion,” she said. “Gary, can you tell me how the accident happened?”
Gary groaned and then clutched his chest as though in pain.
“Could be having a heart attack,” Hen said. “Let’s get him hooked up to the life pack.”
Buck got out of Chimney’s way as he brought the life pack over and then helped shift Gary onto a backboard, followed by a gurney.
“Wanna ride with us, Buck?” Hen asked as Chimney climbed in the driver’s side of the ambulance. “Since you know him?”
“You sure?” Buck asked.
Hen nodded. “Might be good for him to see a familiar face if he wakes up.”
Buck didn’t need to be told twice. He hopped into the back of the bus and followed Hen’s directions as she monitored Gary’s vitals. “So, how’d you meet Gary?” She asked.
“Is now the time for that?” Buck asked, watching Gary’s heartrate on the readout. So far, so good.
“Oh, come on,” Hen weaseled. “Why the secrecy?”
Buck shrugged with a sigh. “It’s just not that much of a story,” he said. But if Hen was going to make a big deal about it, Buck could try to make it a better story he supposed. He was just putting his thoughts together when the life pack’s alarm went off.
“Crap, he’s coding,” Hen flipped from gossip mode to medic mode. “Starting compressions. Buck, get a manual breather on him.”
Buck grabbed the manual breather while Hen positioned herself to start administering chest compressions. “Come on Gary,” he murmured. Sure, he was used to situations like this. Lives in his hands and all that. It was part of the job. But it wasn’t often that Buck had to work on someone he knew.
Someone he’d met when he was with Tommy.
Hen kept working the code, elbows locked as she straddled Gary on the gurney, timing her compressions perfectly. In any other situation, Buck would have stopped to admire Hen’s technique, but it was his job to administer oxygen and monitor Gary’s read out. They weren’t out of the woods yet.
“Chim, how much longer ‘til we reach the hospital?” Buck called through to the front.
“Two minutes,” Chim said.
Okay. Two minutes. They could manage that.
They weren’t the longest two minutes of Buck’s life but they came close. Just as they were pulling into the ambulance bay at the hospital, Gary’s rhythm evened out and Hen was able to stop compressions.
They handed Gary over to the hospital staff and Hen went inside to complete the paperwork, leaving Buck and Chim waiting at the ambulance.
Buck whipped out his phone to text Tommy. Okay, sure, he technically shouldn’t tell Tommy about a patient. That was against the rules, but Gary was a friend and he was polyamorous and somehow, Buck doubted that that was going to show up on his emergency contact’s information. Sure, LA was pretty open about queerness, but you never knew if you were going to end up with some asshole homophobe trying to impose their beliefs on patients and their families. Buck wanted to make sure everyone who needed to know about Gary’s condition found out and even if Tommy didn’t know Gary’s boyfriends personally, he probably knew someone who did.
You remember Gary? Buck texted.
Tommy wasn’t on shift, so he responded almost right away. Yeah???
Do you have his boyfriends’ number? Buck texted. He’d only met Gary the once, but he knew Tommy knew him from around the club scene.
Which one? Tommy asked.
Both Buck said.
What hospital? Tommy asked and why was it hot that Tommy was able to guess exactly why Buck needed to know Gary’s boyfriends’ contact details without Buck needing to outright tell him?
First Presbyterian. It took Buck a moment to correctly type “Presbyterian.” Why did it have a “y” in the middle? Buck shrugged to himself before sending off another text. He was stable when we dropped him off but I don’t know if he’ll need surgery.
I’ll let Jeremy and Krish know. Tommy texted.
Thanks. Love you. Buck tucked his phone back into his pocket and tuned back into the story Chim was telling one of the orderlies from Jee’s recent birthday. Ordinarily, that would be the kind of thing that Buck would jump into, correcting Chim where he left things out, but at the moment, Buck didn’t really feel like talking.
He’d have to check in on Gary once his shift was over. And yeah, he knew that was against protocol, but he wanted to be there for a member of his community. And then he got to thinking about the night he met Gary. Had there been any signs of an imminent heart attack? Had Buck missed something obvious? Had Gary said anything about pain?
Buck couldn’t remember anything, but then again, they’d been drinking, and he hadn’t exactly been in work mode at the time. They’d just been out to have a good time, not secretly monitor new friends for the early signs of a heart attack.
“You okay?” Hen asked when she returned from inside the hospital.
Buck shrugged. They all hopped in the bus to head back to the station. “It’s just weird, you know,” he said. “Last time I saw him, we were all dancing, having a good time.”
“Yeah,” Hen said. “You never know when something like this is going to happen.” She narrowed her eyes. “So don’t go beating yourself up for not being able to see the future. There was nothing you could have done to stop this.”
Buck sighed. Hen was right. He knew that. Still didn’t stop him from feeling bad about it. “You want to know how I met Gary?” he asked.
Hen did a little half shrug. “Only if you’re up for sharing. Sorry if I came on too strong before.”
“It’s fine,” Buck said. “I don’t mind. It’s just not really much of a story.” He pushed his worry about Gary to the back burner. “So, after we went mountain biking and had that run in with the bear, I was feeling pretty pumped.” The adrenaline rush had been insane actually and Buck had needed to channel that energy into something. Same with Tommy. Honestly, Buck was kind of surprised that neither of them thought to just start mauling the other right there in the middle of the trail. “So, we decided to go out, hit up some clubs since it’s been a while.”
“Oh, to be childless,” Chimney lamented from the driver’s seat.
Hen chuckled. “At least yours aren’t getting ready to start driving,” she said. “So, you met Gary at a club?”
“Uh, yeah,” Buck said. “Not sure how, but we accidently ended up at Bear Night and Gary was there with his boyfriends. And I was pretty buzzed cuz it was like the third place we hit up and I just couldn’t stop staring at Gary’s beard. It was just so cool with all the glitter and I kept thinking about how I’d want to try having a glitter beard if we were allowed to have beards at work. Also, how hot would Tommy look with a glitter beard?”
“You are asking the wrong folks, there Buck,” Hen said.
Which was fair considering that Buck was the only person on the team openly attracted to men.
“I mean, objectively speaking, Tommy is a beautiful man,” Chimney said.
Buck narrowed his eyes, pushing down an illogical rush of jealousy. Not for the first time, he wondered if Chimney had a bit of a crush on Tommy. Like, Buck knew Chim was absolutely head-over-heels for Maddie but sometimes he said things to make Buck wonder if maybe Chimney wasn’t completely straight after all. Though Buck hardly blamed Chimney for thinking Tommy was hot.
It was true after all.
Tommy was hot enough to blow the hinges off the door to the closet Buck hadn’t even known he was in.
Hen side eyed Chim before turning back to Buck. “You know, glitter gets everywhere, right?” she asked.
“Yeah,” Buck said. He pointed to the manual breather. The silicone mouthpiece had flakes of green glitter stuck to it. “But it’d look so cool, right.”
Hen sighs. “Yeah, you’re probably right. So what happened when Gary and his boyfriends noticed you staring?”
Buck blushed. Maybe this wasn’t the best conversation for work after all, but he’d already started, so might he might as well finish. “They, uh asked if Tommy and I wanted to join them,” Buck said. “Something about a Goldilocks and the Three Bears themed role play. I’m not sure who Tommy was supposed to be in that scenario.”
“The woodsman?” Hen asked.
“Isn’t that Little Red Riding Hood?” Buck asked.
“And I’m out,” Chimney said. Luckily they’d just arrived at the station before the paramedic turned off the ambulance and bailed out them.
“Nothing happened!” Buck called after his brother-in-law. “We just danced.”
“I already know too much, Buck,” Chimney called over his shoulder.
Buck laughed and turned back to Hen. “Anyway, we just hung out and had a good time. Tommy kinda knew them already. It was chill. Gary was really nice to me, walked me through the steps of how to do a glitter beard right if I ever do one.” Buck shrugged. “I don’t know. Sometimes, being bi, I feel a bit on the outside of the community. I’m not straight enough and I’m not gay enough, but that night, I actually felt like I belonged.”
“It can be hard, not fitting in,” Hen said. “But I’m glad Gary was nice to you.”
Buck nodded. “Me too,” he said. “I just hope that he’s going to be okay.”
“He’s in good hands,” Hen said. “And hey, maybe you and Tommy can stop by the hospital when you get done with your shift.”
“Yeah,” Buck brightened. “That’s a good idea. I’m going to text Tommy.” He hopped out of the ambulance, pulling out his phone to make plans with his boyfriend.
#
Tommy ubered over to the station, meeting Buck at the end of his shift and then together they drove to the hospital to visit Gary.
When they got there, Gary was awake and sitting upright. He had some cuts and bruising on his face from the accident but seemed otherwise unharmed. “We gotta stop meeting like this,” Gary said.
Buck smiled, waving hello to Gary’s boyfriends who he was relieved to see had both been allowed to visit. “How you feeling?” Buck asked.
“Like I got kicked in the chest by a horse,” Gary said. “But the doctors don’t think I’ll need surgery. Just blood pressure medication to start.”
“That’s great!” Buck said.
“Thanks for calling us to let us know what happened,” Jeremy said, his hand resting on Gary’s shoulder. He was a thick chested black man with a salt and pepper beard and a shaved head.
For a moment, Buck worried he was going to say that the hospital staff had given them a hard time trying to visit Gary but then Krish piped up from his chair by the window. “This idiot still had his ex-wife listed as his emergency contract.” He shakes his head, long dark hair catching the morning light.
“Hey, at least she also called you,” Gary said. “Don’t make her out to be some sort of big bad witch.”
“You’re right, she’s a very nice witch,” Jeremy said. “But looking after her gay ex husband is going to be her villain origin story at this point.”
Buck laughed at that. “She sounds awesome.”
“She’s the best,” Gary sighed.
“She really is,” Krish nodded his agreement. He’d dyed his beard blue since the last time they’d seen him.
In a weird way, it reminded Buck of Michael, Bobby, and Athena’s dynamic before Michael and David moved to Florida. It was nice. Comfortable. Honest.
“Thank you, for taking care of him,” Jeremy said to Buck.
“Well, Hen did all the hard work,” Buck said, deflecting. “I just did the heavy lifting.”
“Still, thanks,” said Krish. “We’ll have to take you out to dinner once this lunk gets a clean bill of health.” He smiled fondly at Gary.
“Sounds good,” Buck said. “Mind if I invite Hen and Karen along?”
“The more the merrier,” said Jeremy.
“Speaking of,” Gary waggled his eyebrows in a comical suggestion of flirtation. “Any further thoughts on that invitation?”
“Gary, don’t push they already said no,” Jeremy scolded.
Tommy laughed. “I think I’m probably a bit too jealous to share Evan with anyone,” he admitted.
“We’re happy just the two of us,” Buck said. In an abstract way, he wouldn’t mind opening the relationship, but it would have to be the right person and for the right reasons. It couldn’t be something casual or impulsive. “But it’d be great to hang out with you guys some more.”
They chatted with the polycule for a bit longer before Buck’s exhaustion from his twenty-four-hour shift caught up to him and Tommy made the executive decision that it was time for them to go home.
Buck got ready for bed and Tommy tucked him in which was something they only did on days when one of them was getting off shift in the morning and the other had the day off. “You’ve got glitter in your hair,” Tommy said before giving Buck a kiss on the cheek.
Buck laughed.