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The fire was growing, smoke pouring out and rising high into the sky in grey plumes. Tommy could only watch. A row of windows shattered, exploding out and more flames licked out. Ash was falling from the sky right onto all the bystanders watching. Sirens were blaring, mixing in with the sound of the additional firetrucks that had just arrived. Reinforcements.
The firefighters were all around the building up on their ladders, hoses pointed at the flames. Others were on the ground with more hoses. They ran all over the street connected to the trucks and to the hydrants. Tommy had never before seen so many firefighters in one place. He’d never seen a fire so big either.
In another life, Tommy thought that he could have been a firefighter. He’d always admired them and not just because firefighters tended to be hot. Strong. Muscular. Well meaning. Tommy knew that better than anyone. A quick glance around told him that the 118 wasn’t on scene. Maybe they’d gotten called out somewhere else. Tommy didn’t know if that was better of worse.
“They’re not going to let us back into the building tonight,” a familiar voice said somewhere to his left.
“Why not,” a different voice said.
Tommy glanced over. It was the argumentative couple from the floor below his. There was not one thing they didn’t argue about and everyone in the building knew it. Tommy looked away from them and tried to ignore their bickering.
“Danger of the fire jumping. Buildings are too close together,” a third voice said.
That one Tommy recognized. Allan lived on Tommy’s floor. Their entire relationship consisted of polite nods if they happened to see each other coming and going.
An hour earlier they’d been evacuated, given a half hour to grab the important things and go. Tommy had figured it meant they weren’t going to be allowed back in until the fire in the building next door was taken care of. At the time, even though the alarms had been going, flames hadn’t been visible. It had felt silly to think that a small fire in a different building could affect theirs and yet by the time that Tommy had made it outside the smoke had gotten bigger and then they’d begun to see flames.
Tommy had grabbed a few things. Important paperwork, his laptop, and a few clothes. Made sure his wallet, phone, and keys were on him, and walked down and out onto the street. He’d felt his hair move with the wind and that was when he started to get worried.
The fire had grown fast. They’d all been bystanders ever since.
Tommy’s phone began to ring. He dropped his duffle on the ground in front of him and grabbed fished it out of his pocket.
“Dr. Kinard.”
“Hey, Tommy,” Lucy’s voice came through. “Any chance the Shark can come out to swim again tonight?”
Tommy groaned. “Seriously?”
“Torres is in surgery for another two hours — actually, make that three. Who the fuck knows where Jones is, and neither of us wants Atterman dealing with this.”
“Dealing with what?”
Lucy gave him a quick rundown and Tommy knew even before she’d finished explaining, that he was headed back to the hospital and maybe even back into the OR.
“Yes. Sure. I was gonna end up heading there anyway. Might as well work.”
Lucy’s sigh was filled with relief.
“Hmm, and you better remember that next time I need a favor.”
She laughed. “Wait, why were you going to be here anyway?”
“Apartment building next to mine’s on fire,” Tommy said and he shouldered his duffle as he started heading away from the crowd. “Wind’s blowing west so they’re concerned fire might jump over.”
“Shit,” Lucy said.
“They made us evacuate so I figured my best bet for any sleep was in an on-call room.”
Well, there was another option, but things were still a little too new.
“How bad is it?” Lucy asked.
“Looks pretty bad. I’m sure it’s all over the news.”
“Probably is. Not like I’ve had a chance to sit down long enough to find out. It’s a mad house here. I’ll let them know you’re coming. Play the Jaws theme or something.”
“Screw you, Donato.”
Lucy was probably his favorite coworker. They’d met their intern year and bonded fairly quickly as it settled on them how medical school could prepare them only so much. They’d spent so much time ranting at each other about the way the attendings talked to them, the misery that was a night shift that never seemed to want to end, and the idiot patients that most of the time had landed themselves in the hospital for preventable reasons. They were the only two left of their class and while Lucy had landed in general surgery, Tommy had found his calling in orthopedic surgery. He might not be head of his department, but everyone knew he was the best.
They had both grown to understand exactly why their attendings had treated them the way they had when they were baby doctors. All interns and about half the residents were idiots with no common sense and arrogance that came from having an MD and thinking that alone made them better than anyone. Tommy could admit that he’d been one of them once, and he’d made his fair share of mistakes because of it, but he’d learned and he’d grown and he was better off for all he’d been put through.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
Tommy stopped, grin already growing at the familiar voice. He turned slowly and took a moment to appreciate the man before him. Full turn outs. Helmet held under his arm. His curls were just lightly tussled. His eyes were bright and blue. God, he looked absolutely delicious.
“Hi,” Tommy said.
Evan’s lips turned up into a lazy smile. It took Tommy’s breath away. Then again, that was probably true for anything Evan did, he couldn’t help it. Tommy usually didn’t let anything or anyone distract him when he was working, but the first time he saw Evan, it had been difficult not to let himself be distracted.
“Did you get evacuated?” Evan asked.
“Whole building did,” Tommy confirmed. “The wind.”
Evan nodded and frowned. “Where are you going to go?”
“Back to the hospital,” Tommy said.
Evan frowned at him some more. “You just got off shift.”
Tommy felt a thrill at knowing that Evan knew his schedule.
“There’s a patient Lucy wants my help with,” Tommy explained.
It didn’t change that he was exhausted. On top of two scheduled surgeries, Tommy had also done a third one on a patient brought in through the ED. He’d been pulled into a couple of consults too right before he could finally leave for the night. He’d been planning a quiet night with a movie and whatever he could put together out of what he had in the fridge. All he’d managed to do was take a shower before someone was knocking on his door and he was told the fire department needed everyone to evacuate in the next thirty minutes.
“Ah,” Evan said, smiling again. “They need their ortho god.”
Tommy shook his head and Evan grinned at him, he looked back over his shoulder. “I should go.”
“Don’t let my apartment burn down,” Tommy said, voice teasing.
Evan opened his turn outs and reached into a pocket of his uniform and detached a key off the ring.
“Here,” Evan said. “Once you’re done with your patient, there’s a real bed you can lay your head on.”
The key was dropped into the palm of his hand and Tommy closed his hand around it. Evan gave him a warm smile. He looked back over his shoulder.
“Thank you,” Tommy managed to get out. “Be safe, Evan.”
“You too. See you later?”
“Yeah,” Tommy said.
He watched Evan jog after his team, smiled to himself when he saw ‘Buckley’ on the back of his turnout coat. When he got to his car, he added the key to the ring his own keys were on. For safe keeping.
After going down to the ED for a consult and taking Lucy’s patient into an OR, Tommy left work for the second time. This time, he didn’t head home, but to Evan’s instead. He couldn’t deny that it felt a little strange to be there while Evan wasn’t, but at the same time it was comforting to be around Evan’s things if not the man himself.
He took his shoes off at the door and pushed them under the bench before he continued to the rest of the house, making his way first to the kitchen to get some water, and then to Evan’s room, wondering when Evan might get to make it home.
It was a new thing for Tommy, to date someone that didn’t have a normal nine to five. Someone that didn’t get annoyed when Tommy’s surgeries ran late or when he had to rush back to the hospital at the drop of a hat. The script had been switched a little in a way, but Tommy didn’t mind waiting on Evan, not when it meant that Evan was out there doing his best to help people.
It was too late and Tommy was too tired to wait for Evan to get home, so he changed into pajamas and got into Evan’s bed. Surrounded by the scent of Evan’s laundry detergent on his clean sheets and the lingering scent of Evan himself on the pillows, Tommy drifted off into sleep.
-
When Buck wiped his face, black soot came off. He dumped his dirty turn-outs into a hamper and followed Ravi right to the showers. Eddie and Chim were stumbling in after them. The water felt amazing and it ran a cloudy grey down the drain. It’d been a while since they’d had a fire so big.
Buck was exhausted. They should have been off shift some hours back, but that apartment fire had only been fueled by the high winds. He and Eddie had been on that ladder for what felt like hours before the order came to come back down. At least the fire hadn’t jumped to the adjoining buildings. Tommy’s building.
Buck couldn’t even explain the fear that had shot through him when they were headed out to the call. How his hands had been shaking too much for him to reach for his phone and call Tommy. It wasn’t until he saw him out on the street with a duffle bag that Buck breathed properly again. Tommy’s building was fine. More importantly, Tommy was not up there trapped by a fire. He was on the street. Safe.
Giving Tommy the key to his house had felt a little impulsive, but at the same time as he was literally running towards a fire, knowing Tommy had a place to go for the night — other than the hospital he worked at — made him feel better. The thought that once he got off shift he might go home to Tommy…well, that definitely gave him other things to consider.
They’d only been dating for a month, but it felt like so much longer. It had also been the best month of Buck’s life.
In the shower he thought about getting home to his bed where he’d hopefully find that gorgeous surgeon boyfriend of his. Buck was still a little in awe of having a boyfriend at all. For a large part of his life, Buck had never considered it a possibility, but then he met Tommy and there was so much that had become clear to him.
They met, as most people would expect, at the hospital.
For once, Buck was not there as a patient, so he’d gotten to sit on the visitor’s chair in the hospital room while his sister grumbled about the time it was taking for a doctor to see to her leg. Also about how Chim wasn’t there, nevermind that he had a good reason. Buck had tried his best to distract her, but Maddie was in at least some pain and she was grumpy and she probably made a worse patient than Buck ever had.
“I just want to go home,” Maddie said.
“You’ll probably need a cast before that can happen,” Buck pointed out. Maybe even surgery if the bones couldn’t just be set.
Buck wasn’t Hen or Chim, but even he could tell that the swelling at her ankle and the bruising up her leg was more than a simple sprain.
Eventually, a team of doctors walked in. The ones that had initially looked at Maddie and taken her for imaging, and an additional doctor. Unlike the others, who tried their best to smile or be reassuring, this doctor was stoic and he seemed to only want to know the facts of the injury. He shot a glare at the two other doctors when they were speaking to each other, shutting them up.
Buck had felt his hackles rise at how rude he came off. Most doctors Buck knew introduced themselves to the patient and family first. They tried to be friendly and make the situation a little better. This guy spoke only to the other doctors without seeming to care for their response and he was more than a little short. Not an ounce of patience given.
When he went to stand at the computer, Buck got a moment to really take him in. He was tall, built in a way that told Buck he had to spend a good amount of time at the gym. His ass filled out his scrubs perfectly and Buck wanted to know just how many squats he did to achieve that. His eyes were glued to the screen and the scans of Maddie’s leg and he was muttering to himself.
Maddie caught his eyes and Buck shrugged his shoulders. There had never been a quieter hospital room.
The door opened again while the guy was still at the screen and it seemed to Buck like the room just got quieter.
“Shark, we’re going to need you to stop by next door when you’re done here,” the woman that popped her head in said.
The doctor shot a glare at her. “You get ten minutes, Donato.”
Finally the doctor was done looking at the scans. He pulled up a stool and sat down on Maddie’s other side, across from Buck. His eyes flitted up to him, lingering for a second too long, before they turned to Maddie.
“I’m Dr. Kinard,” he said. “It appears you’ve fractured your leg and ankle in three places.”
He was so matter of fact as he went over Maddie’s injuries and his recommendations and options. When he realized that Maddie had been an ER nurse, his language changed knowing she could understand medical terms.
Buck was struck, then, by his competency and by how clear and direct he was, like he wanted his patients to know exactly what was going on and why. When one of the other doctors dared to say anything, his look was enough to stop them in their tracks.
Buck had dealt with a lot of doctors over the years. Too many, in fact. Some good, great even, and others that had been less than that. He could tell that Maddie had relaxed some the longer they spoke. She liked him. Buck thought that maybe he liked him too. He was definitely impressed by him at least.
Then, when Dr. Kinard stood, he gave Maddie a smile.
“Alright. I’ll see you in surgery soon, Maddie.”
His eyes lingered on Dr. Kinard as he walked out of the room as the other doctors started talking to each other. Buck wanted to know everything about him.
“That’s Shark,” one of the doctors said.
He and Maddie shared another look. Shark?
Maddie was in the hospital for two days after surgery. On the second day, Chim and the kids were in the room with Buck when Dr. Kinard stopped by to check on Maddie and sign her discharge papers. He played peek-a-boo with Nash and made faces at Jee-Yun. Buck didn’t know why he was more than a little obsessed with Dr. Kinard, but as soon as he left the room, he snuck out and followed and almost ran right into him.
“Sorry,” Buck said. “I just—”
“Yes?”
“I wanted to thank you,” Buck said.
“No thanks needed, I was just doing my job,” Dr. Kinard said.
He could see him start to turn away and so he grabbed his arm to keep him there. Dr. Kinard looked at Buck’s hand and then back at him, eyebrows shooting up into his forehead. Buck got a little lost in his eyes until Dr. Kinard coughed.
“Maybe I could buy you a drink,” Buck said and he knew he sounded a little desperate.
“Uh, I don’t—”
His hand was still on the doctor’s arm and he couldn’t help but feel the muscle there. He was strong, maybe even stronger than Buck was.
“What do you dead lift?”
“Excuse me?”
“Just, you look pretty strong,” Buck said and then let him go. “Sorry.”
Dr. Kinard laughed. Shook his head and then fished his phone out of his white coat’s pocket.
“Give me your number.”
Buck rattled it off.
“I can’t exactly put your contact as Maddie’s brother,” Dr. Kinard said.
“Evan. Buckley.”
“Evan,” Dr. Kinard said, his lips forming his name as if he was savoring it and then he smiled. “I’ll let you know when I’m free for dinner and we can talk all about my lifting technique. You’re not too shabby to really need pointers, but I’ll give them to you. My name’s Tommy, by the way.”
Buck was left there in that hallway, struck a little dumb, until Chim found him to let him know Maddie was ready to go.
Four days later, when he and Tommy found a night that worked for them to get together, Buck opened his door to Tommy holding flowers for him. The way that Buck hadn’t been able to stop thinking about him began to make a lot more sense when Tommy pressed a kiss to his cheek that sent tingles down his entire body.
“That fire was insane,” Ravi said, breaking Buck out of his thoughts, putting his bag down on the bench to finish packing up.
“Worst one we’ve had in a while,” Eddie agreed.
Buck zipped up his own bag. “Could have been so much worse if it got onto the other buildings too.”
He couldn’t help but think about Tommy’s apartment building and how one hose team had been put on keeping the closest wall wet just in case. Buck would always have sympathy for anyone that lost their belongings to a fire, but he’d never come so close to being directly affected by it and it wasn’t even his place or his things.
They walked out of the station together. B-shift had taken over replenishing the trucks and getting the hoses cleaned and rolled back up and they gave them nods as they walked out.
Buck gave Ravi and Eddie a wave before getting into his Jeep. He sank into the seat and started the car. The single thing to like about leaving the station in the early morning hours, long after he was supposed to, was that there was no traffic at all. So instead of a half hour drive, he was home in half the time. He couldn’t help but smile when he saw that Tommy’s truck was already parked in front of his house and his footsteps felt lighter as he walked to his front door.
Buck hadn’t realized that there had been a part of him that feared Tommy hadn’t taken him up on the offer.
Tommy’s shoes were under the bench right inside the house. His keys were in the bowl on the table across from the door. Warmth filled him up from seeing those little things, the signs that Tommy was there. Buck dropped his duffle right in the hall to deal with later and stepped out of his shoes before he continued into the house. Only the light in the hall was on, everything else turned off. He was quiet as he made his way through to the bathroom to get ready for bed.
Tommy was a lump on the left side of Buck’s bed and Buck couldn’t help but admire him just with the moonlight that fell in through the slightly open curtain. He could just make out the floof of Tommy’s hair and he could hear his steady breathing. They’d only shared a bed a handful of times, but there was a comfort in knowing he wasn’t fully alone. More to the point, that it was Tommy that was there.
Tommy didn’t wake through Buck getting undressed or getting into bed next to him and as soon as Buck’s head hit his pillow he drifted off.
The next morning, Buck berated himself for not closing the curtain better before getting into bed because he felt the light right on his face. He turned away. His pillow felt a lot harder than usual and it groaned too which made Buck force his eyes open and when he looked up, he found a pair of gorgeous blue eyes looking back at him, the skin around them crinkled.
“Good morning,” Tommy said.
“Hi,” Buck said and couldn’t help but smile back. “This is nice.”
“What is?”
“Waking up to you.”
Tommy chuckled and he leaned down, placing a peck on Buck’s lips. “It’s great,” he said. “Could do it more often.”
“Hmm. Yes. So many other things we could do in this bed too,” Buck said.
He loved the way that Tommy looked at him, like Buck was exactly what he was craving and he was right there for the taking. But Tommy didn’t lean in to give Buck a proper kiss. Instead, he sat up.
“Breakfast first,” he announced.
Buck tried to grab him and bring him back down to his pillows, but Tommy moved faster.
“Evan, I promise after we get some food, neither of us is leaving your bed unless we really need to.”
Buck reached his hand out, pinky out and Tommy laughed, but he connected their pinkies and then he leaned his face down and kissed the inside of Buck’s wrist before letting go. Buck allowed himself to lay in his bed a little longer basking in the moment before the scent of coffee got him moving, following the sounds of Tommy moving around his kitchen.