i have says to word at you

"i wouldn't say there were too many crows feet," buck says, and then slaps a hand over his mouth. whoops.

"which way did he go?"

buck hesitates and then points in the right direction, never looking away from her. she clocks his hesitation and frowns at him, shaking her head. "he always gets the pretty faces," she sighs, spinning on her heels and heading the wrong way. "kinard! get back here! it's just a tetanus booster! don't be a baby!"

kinard pops out from the opposite door and grins sheepishly at buck. "i have a thing about needles," he says, conspiratorially. "tommy."

"evan buckley," buck says. it's a reflex; all the doctors have been calling him evan the entire time he's been in the hospital. he's about to correct tommy when tommy says "nice to meet you, evan," and the sound curls around buck's shoulders and settles on them like the warmest blanket he's ever had.

"how did you know to do that? give lucy the wrong directions?" tommy continues.

"i have a sister who never trusted me," buck tells him, laughing. "what did lucy mean about the pretty faces?"

"that you have one. probably," kinard says, and throws him another wink before ducking out the door and down the hall.

weird. buck's still baffled when his surgeon comes in to see him. he gets the all clear to go home, and then buck asks about the lafd blood drive poster on the wall. "mr. buckley — sorry, buck — i spent a great deal of time trying to keep your blood inside your body. let's hold off on donating until the cast comes off and you're done your rehab, okay?"

ali's waiting to take him home. he's expecting the wheelchair to leave, but he's not expecting how awkward it is to get into the Jeep. he has to crank the passenger seat all the way back to get his leg in, and the crutches are. well. he's glad he spent two of the six weeks the cast has to be on in the hospital.

getting from the car through the parking garage to the elevator and down the hall into his loft is better left unsaid. he's not sure that it would be much easier in abby's apartment — but he already knows how to rearrange that apartment to accommodate medical equipment.

ali gets him settled on the couch and sits down beside him and — yep, there's the other shoe. he's been tatiana'ed. (not that he would ever say that to chim's face. but it sucks to be broken up with because you're injured.)

he can't exactly blame her. he remembers what it felt like to be trapped there and he kind of wants to divorce his own body. he waves her off and tells her to let him know that she landed in new york okay; at least she was never supposed to stay long today, and because she was going back to the east coast he has a little time to figure out how to tell maddie and the others.

buck eyes the loft longingly. he just wants to lie down. and he has to get used to the crutches and the stairs! now's as good a time as any to try it out.

he gets three steps up, almost overbalances, and sits down on the stairs. shit. is he going to have to sleep on the couch for a few months?

"yo, buck! you get settled all right? maddie's coming over after her shift, remember? hey, it's buck! come say hi!" the sounds of the firehouse filter in as chim puts buck on speaker and he smiles, leaning against the bannister. god, he misses them.

"hey chim, yeah, i remember. all settled. i was actually calling for some of that rosetta stone knowledge of yours. you got a number for a firefighter named kinard?"

"tommy, yeah, he helped out at doheny — why?"

"ran into him at the hospital."

"he wasn't hurt, was he?"

"no, no, just visiting."

"ah, blood drive," hen cuts in, laughing.

"tetanus, actually," buck interrupts, and he can hear the wince. they've all needed a booster because of the job before.

"sure, i can text it to you. …wait, why'd you call it the rosetta stone, buck?"

"cause you're the oldest firefighter i know, chim, i figure you gotta translate it from the hieroglyphs you wrote it in," buck says, after his phone has chimed with a message. "gotta go, bye!"

"buckley!"

buck debates what he's about to do for about thirty seconds before he taps on the contact number chim had texted him.

"go for kinard."

"did lucy catch you?"

"who — oh, evan? how did you get this number?"

"lafd phone tree," buck says, grinning. "you didn't look like you were on shift earlier."

"funny, i don't remember signing up for that… anyway, what can i do for you?"

"remember how you owe me a favour?"

"lucy did catch me, so i'm not sure how much of a favour you actually did me…" tommy teases.

"hey, don't blame me for the fact that you didn't run fast enough. i'm gonna send you an address, i need you and any other big strong firefighters you know to come over asap and pay up on that favour."

"if this is a bachelorette party, i have to let you know that we actually do need to be paid for that."

buck bursts out laughing and shakes his head even though tommy can't see him. "careful, or i'm telling the phone tree you're moonlighting and they're all going to book you."

"okay, hmm. give me a few minutes to round everyone up and we'll be there in about half an hour."

"wait, for real?"

"yeah, unless you're just yanking my chain."

"no, i — no, i really appreciate it. text when you get here, i'll walk you through the keypad."

tommy's time keeping is accurate. he knocks on buck's door twenty seven minutes later (not that buck has been keeping track) and buck hobbles from his card table to the front door and balances on one crutch as he opens the door. "thanks for coming," he says, hopping backwards to let tommy in. the other firefighter from the hospital (who must be lucy) follows him in and gives buck a seriously judgmental eyebrow, and then another guy a few inches shorter than tommy but with shoulders that wouldn't look out of place on a linebacker trails in after. "who got robbed?" the second guy asks, looking around. "should have called the cops, not the fire department."

lucy swats him upside the head and rolls her eyes. "shut up, sal. what are we doing here, tommy?"

"i don't know, you'd have to ask evan." tommy grins faintly.

"asking the consummate liar, good idea," lucy volleys back.

"i told you where he was, it's not my fault you didn't listen," buck argues. "i need help getting my bed from up there—" he points to the loft "—to down here."

"no wonder you called the fire department," sal snorts, bounding up the stairs. "you signed on this place after you wrecked your leg? did you hit your head too?"

"i signed the lease three weeks before the cast, actually," buck snips back.

lucy and tommy wince, and lucy heads up after sal. "tommy, move the couch out further so we can dump this mattress over the edge," lucy calls, peering over the railing. "not much here for having lived here almost a month, kid."

buck shrugs. "i was at work."

tommy grins at him as he muscles the couch out from the alcove, eyeing the entertainment system. "give me a sec to move the tv," he calls up, and buck hobbles forward. "i can help."

"absolutely not," all three of them interject, and tommy points back to the table. "sit down, evan. we've got this."

"so how did you—" sal leans over the railing and nods towards buck's leg.

"shark attack," buck jokes, and sal grins at him.

"yeah, that was rude. working on it."

tommy, lucy and sal have obviously been friends for awhile; they have their own shorthand and while buck winces a little when they flip his mattress over the railing, the couch does muffle the sound and there's no yelling from his downstairs neighbour. sal and tommy move the couch into the kitchen beside his table, and then lucy skips down the stairs with his pillows and blanket and one of the side table lamps and claims a seat beside him as tommy and sal muscle the frame down the stairs. sal swears a lot, but buck has a feeling that he's still holding back. he's a little distracted by the way tommy's shirt shifts against the top of his jeans.

"so who gave you tommy's number?"

"chimney."

"chim - who?"

"howie," tommy calls from the living room. "sal, lift the corner, jesus."

"i throw my back out, i'm sending gina after you," sal grumbles as they resettle the mattress.

"to what, sue me?"

"for lost earnings and emotional distress," sal agrees. "donato! bedding!"

"you're not my real captain," lucy calls back, leaving the lamp with buck as she takes the rest over. "and we gotta get that couch upstairs."

"you don't have to do that."

"sure, if you're not getting a real table in here," lucy argues, looking at the kitchen.

"there's going to be an island," buck tells her, bristling a little.

she laughs at him and nods. "so we'll get it out of the way," she promises, ruffling sal and tommy's hair as she passes them. "and you can order some food."

"please, i have a date," sal disagrees. "i'll take a favour to be named later."

"not a sports game, sal," tommy shakes his head, smiling in buck's direction.

"oh, me too," lucy decides, pretending to lift the couch and then shaking her head, leaving it to the boys. "give me a ride home, sal?"

"i'll drop you in the middle of downtown and you'll like it," sal calls from the loft, laughing. the doorbell rings and lucy gets up, retrieving the pizza boxes and bag of drinks before buck can even put a crutch under his arm.

"don't worry, tommy will eat your pizza," she promises, leering playfully at buck.

"oh geez, luce, be nice," tommy says, throwing lucy a glare. "thanks, you two. i owe you. now get outta here."

"you both owe us, shark boy, and i aim to collect," lucy says, pointing at buck. "thanks for the adventure, tommy. see you at work friday."

"adventure, sure," sal snorts, nodding towards buck. "call us when you get that off and need everything back the way it was."

tommy folds himself into one of the chairs and takes a slice of pizza, looking over at buck. "so how do you know howie?"

"he's sort of dating my sister," buck says, because eventually the bombing is going to come out but none of them have looked at him like he's broken today and he likes that. the 118 keeps looking at him like they should have done something to make sure he never got hurt in the first place, and it's not like it was their fault in the first place. plus it has the added benefit of being true, when tommy does find out the truth later. hard to be mad about that.

"handy," tommy laughs, offering him one of the coke bottles. "this was fun."

"really? didn't look fun," buck says, laughing too. "at least not for sal, he sure swore a lot for having fun."

"wait until you watch hockey with the guy," tommy grins.

"lucy seems… like she was teasing us?" buck continues. he hasn't done a lot today, but he's suddenly starving and already reaching for a second slice. tommy nudges the box closer to him.

"she's terminally sarcastic," tommy offers. "you probably picked up on that."

"probably," buck agrees. "so. what do you normally do on your days off when you're not moving around furniture for a guy you hardly know?"

buck finds out that tommy flies, and he starts asking as many questions as he can in between bites of food. he's always thought that there was something romantic about flying (hence the hot air balloon), and the way that tommy talks about it, he's pretty sure he's right. he loses track of time and it's a shock when the front door opens and maddie sticks her head in.

"hey, buck, sorry i'm late — oh! hi. maddie buckley."

"tommy kinard," tommy says, wiping his hand off before offering it to her. "sorry for intruding."

"any friend of buck's is a friend of mine," maddie says. tommy looks over at buck and mouths 'buck?' when maddie's back is turned and buck shrugs. he probably should have clarified by now. "buck, your place got a makeover."

"yeah, turns out trying to do the stairs on a broken leg isn't all that advisable," buck shrugs, preening when it makes both of them laugh. "i called some friends."

"and we'll come back when everything needs to be put back where it belongs," tommy promises, carefully standing up. buck keeps his eyes politely focused on the corner of tommy's chin. definitely not his stomach. or his thighs. "i should get going before i overstay my welcome."

no chance of that happening, buck thinks but doesn't say out loud. "thanks again for your help, tommy."

"yeah, any time." tommy salutes them both, smiling faintly. "give me a call after that gets off, and i'll take you up if you want to go for a spin."

buck waves, ignoring maddie's look when she claims the empty seat and takes a slice of pizza. "take you up?" she questions, once the door is closed behind tommy.

"he's a pilot. firefighter pilot," buck clarifies.

"impressive." maddie's eyes sparkle as she grins at him, but she doesn't tease him any more. yet. "glad your first day back went okay."