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The first thing he hears when he comes to is a strange two-toned voice, each syllable half a second off from its twin. "Rapid response all clear," it says. He opens his eyes and watches someone in blue scrubs speaking into a little black phone, repeating the message, and it echoes overhead on the loudspeaker. He wonders who the rapid response was called for, and why; then he opens his eyes wider and notices that he's on the ground, laid out on his left side, and several more people in scrubs are gathered around him.
"So it's best practice to put the patient in the recovery position," one of the scrubs says, gesturing at him.
"What the fuck," Tommy mutters.
"Hello, sir," that one says. "You had a syncope episode. Do you know where you are?"
"Hospital," he says. That much is clear. As he casts his eyes around the room it all mostly comes back to him: the tiny phlebotomist leading him into this room, the uncomfortable chair, the sterile smell, the tubes on the tray along with the needle they'd unpackaged but hadn't even uncapped before his eyes had rolled back and he'd tipped, presumably, onto the floor. By the sticky feeling against his mouth and the rotten scent in his nose he can tell he's thrown up as well. Great.
"And can you tell us your name?"
"Kinard, Thomas, eleven-ten-eighty one," he rattles off.
The door opens behind him. "Thank you for coming so quickly," someone says, and a new and very familiar voice answers with "Well, I was already in the building."
A pair of LAFD-issue boots step into Tommy's line of sight, and then Evan crouches down.
"Hey, Tommy," Evan says, so careful and gentle.
"Just fucking kill me now," Tommy mutters to the floor.
"I don't think we can legally do that," the tiny phlebotomist says.
"Vitals are okay," the one who called off the rapid response says. She stands up from where she was crouched on the floor. "What do you think, Mr. Kinard? Feel okay?"
"No," Tommy says.
"Let me amend that—feel okay enough that the nursing staff can leave and we can release you to your emergency contact?"
He wants to say no, wants them to escort Evan out of there as well. Why didn't he change the emergency contact on his paperwork? Why did he ever write Evan's name there in the first place? That one's easy: two years ago he'd gone to get his annual bloodwork and STI panel done and, in a fit of cheerful pique, scribbled Evan's name and number down. Last year he skipped his physical, knowing he wasn't ready to hop back into anything with anyone. He has no excuse this year. He's just an idiot.
He says, "Yes." A nurse and Evan get their hands under his armpits and haul him upright. The floor of the lab room is cold under his ass. Then they move him back into the chair. They give him one more chance to faint and he doesn't take it, and the nurses all file out, one by one. Only Evan and the tiny phlebotomist remain.
"I'm just going to fill out the Adverse Reaction spreadsheet," the tiny phlebotomist says. "You guys can chill as long as you want. We have juice in the fridge."
"Oh, good deal," Evan says, reaching across to the minifridge on the countertop and surveying the juice options. "They've got cranberry, apple, and orange."
"I'm fine," Tommy says.
Evan grabs an apple juice and pulls off the lid. "Here."
"I said I'm fine," Tommy says, but he takes the juice and drinks it. It does make him feel a hell of a lot better. "You can go, if you need to."
"I don't need to go."
"Aren't you on shift?"
"We were dropping off a patient. I told them I'd get a ride back. I don't think anyone cared, to be honest."
"Of course they all care, it's the 118." The green monster inside Tommy flares up hot and bright as he thinks about the way everyone in that engine must be sitting around wondering who Buck's mystery emergency contact is, taking bets on what kind of person they are, texting him wondering when he'll come home. The apple juice turns in his stomach.
Evan's face twists, more bitter than sour. "Sure," he says.
"What?" Tommy asks.
"It's nothing," Evan says. He fiddles with the lid of the apple juice that he's still holding. "Why am I your emergency contact?"
"My mistake. Forgot to change it when I went in for my physical."
"But that means you put me down as your emergency contact in the first place." Evan looks up, directly at Tommy, and he doesn't try to hide the hurt on his face. "You dumped me for asking to move in together but you made me your emergency contact."
"Oof," the phlebotomist says. Tommy and Evan both turn to look at them and they shrug. "Sorry. Ignore me."
"I'm sorry, Evan. It was a stupid thing to do and I recognize that. I'll take you off the paperwork as soon as I'm out of this room."
"That's not—" Evan makes a pained noise, crumpling the apple juice lid in his hand, and he rolls his eyes. "I wanted to be your emergency contact. I wanted to be with you! I wanted to spend all my time with you, you dick, that's why I asked you to move in."
Tommy's stomach hurts. "I wanted that too, but—"
"But what? Wanting things only ever ends in you getting hurt? I'm going to break your heart? You did that yourself, Tommy."
Tommy can feel himself curling inward, stopped only by the rigid vinyl-covered arms of the phlebotomy chair. He really is too big for it. "You only ever call me when you need something," he throws out.
"And you never call me at all," Evan throws back.
And fuck if that isn't true. Tommy remembers all of the times he's hovered his thumb over Evan's contact info, all of the times he's started typing and then erased it all, all of the times he's driven past places Evan used to live and then never pulled over, never stopped the car.
Tommy drops his head into his hands.
"Do you need another juice?" Evan asks.
Tommy shakes his head but Evan presses a cold plastic container against his temple anyway. "Thanks," he mumbles.
"No problem," Evan says, which can't be true. This whole day has been a problem.
"You're right," Tommy eventually says, and Evan frowns in confusion. "That wanting things hurts. That I did all that to myself."
"I mean, I don't think I helped at all. I said some mean things to you. None of them were true, by the way."
"Maybe we're no good for each other," Tommy says.
Evan grabs his hands and shakes them a little. Tommy lets himself be flopped around and manipulated and he misses the way his heart felt when Evan would fiddle with him, back in the day. "Or maybe we just need to get good. Can't get better at things we don't practice, you know?"
Tommy stares up at him. "You think we can?"
"I think all we can do is try."
The printer on the counter next to the minifridge chugs to life, startling them both. "Sorry," the phlebotomist says. "I'm printing out a copy of the incident report for my competencies."
"What bloodwork were you getting done, anyway?" Evan asks.
Tommy points at the crumpled paper on the tray next to the chair. "Uh, cholesterol, blood count, and an STI panel."
"Oh, good call," Evan says. "Hey, can I get an STI panel done while we're here?"
The phlebotomist shakes their head. "I can't draw you without a doctor's orders," they say. "But I can do his labs, and then you can go see a doctor, and you can come back any time."
Tommy feels the room lurch again. "I don't know."
"I'll hold your hand, Tommy," Evan says, not a hint of condescension or derision in his voice.
"Okay," Tommy says. "Fuck, whatever."
"Great!" The phlebotomist moves back into position. "Here, you can hold the phone. If you need all the nurses to come back just hit the button on the top."
It's over quickly, so quickly he can't believe he'd passed out the first time. But that's just Tommy's luck. Evan squeezes his hand as the needle goes in and squeezes his hand while the needle comes out and plants a kiss on Tommy's forehead as his elbow's bandaged up and patiently waits for Tommy's vision to stop swimming before helping him stand up. They walk out to where Tommy's parked, and they stand together, backs against the tailgate, and stare out at the downtown LA traffic.
"You sure you want to stick around for all of this?" Tommy eventually asks.
Evan looks him up and down. "I like all of this," he says.
"Even when I'm being a coward?"
"Hey, everyone's afraid of something. Fear of needles is extremely common, Tommy, I'm talking top five phobias by far. You know how many people pass out during blood draws every day?"
"That's not what I meant," Tommy says.
"I know," Evan says. "Fear of getting hurt is probably in the top five phobias, too."
"So you're saying I'm just a normal, average person."
Evan laughs, clear-voiced and musical. "Absolutely not," he says, "but I love you anyway."
"Fuck." Tommy rubs his hand along his face. His stubble is already coming in and it's sharp on the soft skin between his fingers. "Just like that?"
"I meant to say it a year and a half ago," Evan confesses. "But everything got away from me."
"I think I did, too." Tommy sits with that. A car honks. A garbage truck belches. Evan winds his fingers between Tommy's. "You want to try again?"
"Always," Evan says.