#foster parent

Under the bedroom light that Tommy turned on when he barged in seconds before, Buck can see Noah’s face turning red from his screaming and his heart breaks, and if the look on Tommy’s face is any indication, so does his husband’s.

“Does he need changing?” asks Buck.

Tommy pulls the boy up a little as he lowers his head, trying to get a sense of the situation in Noah’s pajamas with his nose.

“I don’t think he needs to, but we can try that. Can you make him a bottle?” Tommy asks, looking briefly at Buck before walking toward the changing table and working on unbuttoning the frankly too complicated onesie they put on Noah before bed. Damn Tommy’s rich friends who sent them a batch of luxury onesies that are too cute not to put on their boy, but which have always too many buttons and too much fabric.

He walks toward the table and kisses the little foot that moves around while Noah keeps screaming and squirming under Tommy’s hands.

“Gonna get you some food, okay baby?” he whispers before leaving the room and speed walking toward the kitchen where he takes a bottle from the sanitizer where they keep them and starts working on a bottle for Noah.

Tommy appears in the kitchen with a whimpering Noah in his arms, in a new and simpler onesie.

“His diaper was empty, so it wasn’t that. I checked his temperature, and he was at 100.8 but I’m not sure if it’s a fever or just because he was warm in his bed. I’ll check again in a few minutes.”

Buck grimaces a little. It would have been too simple if it were just because Noah felt uncomfortable and nods at the information about the temperature. It would be a mild fever if it’s indeed Noah’s temperature, but he knows how warm the boy feels when he sleeps for hours, like a warm croissant slowly baking in his crib.

He puts some water to heat and drops his baking thermometer in it while Tommy walks around the kitchen, bouncing Noah on his hip as the boy whimpers and grumbles.

It takes a two minutes for the thermometer to beep once the water reach the temperature he wanted, and with quick movements he gets the formula in the water and start shaking it to mix it before placing it under some cold water to cool it, doing a few temperature check on the inside of his arm before giving the bottle to Tommy once he’s satisfied with it.

They all stand together as Tommy tries to feed the bottle to Noah, who at first accepts the nipple of the bottle in his mouth and takes a few sips before spitting it all out on Tommy’s chest with new tears welling up in his eyes.

“You should check his temperature again,” he says to Tommy, who nods before walking back toward Noah’s room, Buck following them like a duckling.

It only takes a few seconds this time for Tommy to undress him this time and a few more before the thermometer beeps.

“101.00,” says Tommy, frowning at the thermometer in his hand, his other hand still rubbing Noah’s stomach trying to comfort and soothe.

“Shit,” says Buck before grimacing when he remembers that they’re supposed to watch what they say around Noah.

“Should we call Hen?”

Buck nods before going back to their room to pick up his phone, trying to call Hen while Tommy whispers in Noah’s ear, too low for Buck to catch.

The call goes directly to voicemail, so does the second.

“Baby tylenol? It should lower the temperature,” he says to Tommy, who nods and goes toward the bathroom, the boy still whimpering in his arms.

He’s tapping on Hen’s contact again we finally realize the time, 3:07am. Hen would be asleep, of course.