Chapter Text
“Excuse me?”
Buck barely registered the woman’s voice, but he noticed how Tommy’s gaze turned to her for a moment, a barely visible frown on his face. Buck continues to complain about Bobby’s behavior the previous day during their shift, “And then, as soon as we were back from that call, Bobby tried to get the recipe for that cream cheese out of me again. Without even once apologizing that he mixed up the boxes and practically stole my breakfast. I didn’t tell him that it was yours and you haven’t even told me the recipe yet! You’re not allowed to tell him!”
Tommy chuckled. “Noted.”
Buck had tried to get the recipe out of Tommy with rising desperation, but Tommy had stayed silent about it. The only thing Tommy ever said about it was that Buck would just need to keep preparing his sandwiches at Tommy’s place if he was so obsessed with the cream cheese. It made Buck contemplate possibilities that were probably too early to bring up six months into their relationship.
“Excuse me?”
This time, the woman also tapped Buck’s shoulder which made him turn with a frown. He had been sure she wasn’t even talking to him the first time but to someone on the table behind him.
Before Buck could snap out anything about the rude interruption, she held her phone out to him. “My friends and I are here and—”
“No,” Buck said.
She blinked. “What?”
“No is a complete sentence.” Buck turned his head just for long enough to find the friends she had been talking about, three other women gathered around a table watching him and laughing quietly with each other. He knew that kind of laughing and looking. Spotting it had often helped him in the past to figure out who in a bar or any other place would be open for a hookup or even a whole night of fun. He was a little bit taken aback to be confronted with it right in this moment, though.
“You didn’t even listen to—”
“Because I don’t want to,” Buck said calmly. “You got your answer. I’d like to return to my conversation now.”
“I’m just asking for a picture of me and my friends!” she snapped.
“And I said no.” Buck flexed his jaw. “There are other customers here you could harass and interrupt their evening. Or you could ask a waiter instead.”
“How can you be so rude?”
Buck sighed. He was already seeing her make a huge scene, but he also couldn’t keep his mouth shut. “How can you be so blind? I know how I look at my boyfriend because our friends keep complaining about it and constantly tease me about it. But even if you missed that when you and your friends passed by our table earlier when you arrived, you’ve had a perfect spot to watch how he is looking at me. And I know exactly how he looks at me. I’m spending a lot of my time enjoying those looks.”
The woman’s face turned red.
“You had to know you were interrupting a date,” Buck continued. “So, the only rude person in this situation is you.”
“I was just asking for a picture!” she hissed, and Buck concluded that the color of her face wasn’t indicating shame but anger. This was clearly a woman who wasn’t used to being told no.
“And I said no. That could have been the end of the story. Instead, you’re starting to make a scene.” Buck waved his hand between Tommy and himself. “That was not how I had imagined our anniversary date to go.” He turned to Tommy with a frown and was met with an amused gaze. At least someone seemed to be enjoying the moment. “You know, as perfect as the food here is, maybe this is just not the best place for us to have dates! They just keep getting interrupted!”
“Is there a problem here?” the waiter who had attended Buck and Tommy’s table so far asked.
“No,” the woman said at the same time as Buck said, “Yes!”
The waiter turned to Buck with his eyebrows raised in a silent question.
“I’m sure you’ll be able to take that picture of her group she wants to be taken so my boyfriend and I can go back to our date,” Buck said. “It seems to be so very important for her!”
She huffed and the waiter nodded. “Of course. If you would show me your table, ma’am?”
Buck sighed when she finally let go of the argument and turned on her heels, stalking off. Buck turned back to Tommy and rolled his eyes. “What the hell?”
Tommy shrugged, watching Buck with a heat in his gaze Buck knew very well at this point. “She and her friends saw us as a challenge. They’ll probably complain about having lost that challenge for a couple of weeks.”
Buck leaned forward and asked aghast, “Challenge?”
Tommy nodded. “Two men they find attractive, or where they find at least one of them attractive, ignoring them just can’t stand unchallenged.”
Buck made a face in disgust. “Wow. That’s…”
“Not the first time it happened to me,” Tommy said. “You handled it very well,” he added with a little grin, eyeing Buck from head to toe.
“And I thought just some men were that stupid,” Buck muttered with a frown, barely holding himself back from turning around and glaring at the women. “I’ve heard Hen complain about some guys offering her and Karen to ‘show them what they were missing’. I didn’t think that was something we had to expect, too.”
Tommy shrugged. “I think it’s a mindset some straight people share, no matter if they’re men or women. Women tend to be less aggressive about it. Or maybe aggressive in a different way.”
Buck nodded thoughtfully. It was a mindset he didn’t want to understand, and he also didn’t want to waste any more time thinking about it. “Anyway, let’s forget her!”
Tommy smiled. “Yes. You might be right about not coming back here for another date, though. Maybe we should spend the next couple of months looking for another place for any following anniversary dates.”
“I’ll have a list ready by tomorrow!” Buck promised eagerly. He very much liked the thought of following anniversaries, and it made something in his chest bubble in excitement just as much as Tommy’s comment about having to prepare his breakfast at his house more often did.
Tommy laughed and then he put the small box on the table Buck had very well seen him carry earlier even though Tommy had tried to hide it. “I’ve got something for you.”
Buck reached out for the box giddily. “You’ll get a delivery tomorrow. The shipping didn’t quite work out as I had planned, but I couldn’t have brought it here anyway.”
“Sounds intriguing,” Tommy said.
“You’ll just have to wait and let yourself be surprised,” Buck said with a wide grin. He planned to spend the whole next day with Tommy just to be there when the delivery arrived even though he knew he’d probably be ignored for a little while afterward. He was fine with that because it would mean getting to watch Tommy working on his car.
Buck opened the box Tommy had put on the table and laughed — maybe a little too loudly — when he saw what was inside. “Lakers tickets, really?”
“You don’t even have to take me,” Tommy said, teasingly. “Take Eddie if you want.”
Buck grinned and bit his lip. There was no chance he’d take Eddie.
“And die,” Tommy added dryly after a moment.
“Yeah, I thought so,” Buck chuckled. “I’m looking forward to sharing this experience with you. That’s the game you’ve been looking forward to so much, right?”
Tommy shrugged and lowered his gaze with a blush. They’d had a whole playful argument a couple of weeks back after Tommy had raved about the atmosphere in the stadium at Lakers games. But Tommy had some strange thing about not ever treating himself to tickets and Buck still didn’t understand why Tommy was so reluctant to go to an event he clearly enjoyed. The argument had ended with Buck telling Tommy that he deserved to treat himself to things he enjoyed, which had soon turned into a couple of hours of enjoying each other. Buck thought it was a win if Tommy had come to the compromise to get the tickets for them both to share.
Buck nodded at the tickets. “Who knows, maybe this can become a tradition for us. I’ve become surprisingly fond of the game over the past six months.”
“Is that about watching the game or watching the players, though?”
Buck grinned and winked at him. “Definitely about watching one specific player during your pick-up games.”
The thing was that Tommy’s excitement for the game was pretty contagious for Buck. The first couple of times when there had been a game that Tommy hadn’t wanted to miss, Buck had been prepared to spend his time doing something else while he waited for the game to be over, and that would have been absolutely fine. But he had been very much distracted from any of those plans by watching Tommy, and eventually, he had just started to watch the games with Tommy together and was slowly familiarizing himself with the rules, the history, and all the statistics. Buck was confident no one at this Lakers game they’d go to would even notice that it was the first time watching a game live for Buck.
For a while, their conversation went through several light topics while they ate. Buck noticed how Tommy relaxed ever so slightly when the woman from earlier and her friends left, but he didn’t bring it up. It was something to maybe think about later again.
When their dessert arrived, Buck said, “There is a conversation I had a couple of years ago that I was reminded of recently.”
Tommy hummed and pushed the plate with his spumoni to the center of the table so Buck wouldn’t have to reach so far. Buck did the same with his own panna cotta. He couldn’t even remember when they’d ever not shared their desserts in this way.
“Honestly, I often think about it this time of the year.” Buck sighed and stared at the table. “A couple of years ago, we had that call to a car accident. A man had been trapped between his car and the gate. I sat with the husband while Chim and Hen did their best to save our victim. But there wasn’t anything they could do anymore. And I think we all knew that, including the husband.”
“Though call,” Tommy said softly.
“Yeah,” Buck agreed. “The husband told me a little bit about their life. And I wasn’t in a great place at the time. My girlfriend had ghosted me by leaving me in her apartment and going on a trip to Europe and it had taken me a really long time to understand she wasn’t coming back. So I told him I could only hope to find that kind of love someday. And he told me that I wouldn’t find it, I could only make it.”
Tommy nudged his foot under the table and when Buck looked up, he was met with a warm, soft smile.
Buck cleared his throat and then he hurriedly blurted out, “I tried to remember that advice, but I always felt disconnected from it. But recently I’ve started thinking that maybe I’d just not met the kind of person I wanted to create that kind of love and life with. And maybe I’ve now!”
Buck held his breath, suddenly feeling insecure and as if he had said too much. They’d both shied away from discussing any kind of plans for a future so far. Buck was honestly dreading that kind of conversation a little because he feared it would burst the bubble he had lived in with Tommy over the past six months. But that didn’t mean he hadn’t thought about it.
Tommy swallowed, his eyes sparkling with an emotion that took Buck’s breath away for very different reasons.
“Maybe we have,” Tommy agreed softly.
“I’m going by their grave the day after tomorrow,” Buck murmured and ducked his head. He’d never before told anyone that it was something he did because he knew the rest of his crew would either ridicule him or tell him he was getting too invested. “I always do that somewhere around this time of year.”
“The husband died, too?” Tommy asked with a worried frown.
Buck nodded slowly. “He went to say goodbye after Hen and Chim declared his husband dead. And then he died right there beside our victim, holding his hand. It was heartbreaking, but also…” Buck shrugged. He still had no words to explain his emotions about that whole moment even all those years later.
“Would you like to have company for your trip to the cemetery?”
Buck smiled shakily. “I’d love that, yeah.”
Tommy only nodded. “Sometimes we have these calls that stay with us for the rest of our lives. Usually, that’s not a bad thing, you know?”
“Except if you let it overtake your life,” Buck said. He had seen that happen, and he knew why everyone always cautioned him to keep his distance.
“Sure.” Tommy shrugged. “But I think being careful about that is all we can do. We’re all human, and sometimes humans form strange connections at a moment’s notice. We can’t just stop doing that. I’d be much more worried about people who that doesn’t happen to, honestly. I think being a first responder isn’t the right job for that kind of person.”
Buck frowned. “Yeah? Sounds like a story.”
Tommy sighed. “The kind of story that doesn’t fit into this kind of evening.”
Buck nodded. “Fair. So, what positive call stands out for you that you couldn’t let go of?”
Tommy chuckled. “There have been a couple, honestly. I think maybe … So, this happened while I was off duty. Which might not quite fit your criteria.”
“No, it will fit.” Buck laughed. “Sometimes it feels like we’re never off duty, right?”
“That’s so very true,” Tommy agreed drily. “I’d just bought my house and moved into it. You know how it looks now, you can probably imagine what it looked like then.”
Buck nodded. He knew Tommy had been slowly working on practically rebuilding the house one room at a time. That and restoring old cars were Tommy’s go-to methods to decompress from their job but also from life in general. Buck had started to help with some work on the house recently, but he’d never ever willingly touch the cars. He’d done enough of that for the rest of his life in his years traveling the country when he hadn’t had money to bring his Jeep into a garage and had taught himself how to do anything needed to keep it running smoothly.
“The house had been abandoned for a couple of years before I bought it,” Tommy explained. “And no one had cared about what happened on the property, so naturally it had become some kind of adventure playground for the kids in the neighborhood.”
Buck made a face. On the one hand, he understood why the children might be drawn to an abandoned house. He remembered exploring a couple of those places himself when he had been a teenager and Maddie had been gone, so no one really had cared anymore where or how he spent his days. But as a firefighter, he also knew how stupidly dangerous that was.
“And they didn’t get the notice someone had moved into the house?” Buck asked.
Tommy suddenly laughed. “They told me later that half the kids in the neighborhood had started telling stories about a ghost in the house because the first couple of weeks I was juggling moving and a couple of extra shifts and I really didn’t spend much time there. And most of the time I was there was during school hours, so they saw things changed around the house but never anyone there.”
Buck laughed. “So, you became the ghost of your neighborhood!”
“For all of three weeks, yes. And then I suddenly was there, and the two kids who had been dared to catch the ghost didn’t expect to actually find their ghost. So, seeing me spooked them and they ran the wrong way, where I had just moved some debris. The boy jumped over it, but he pushed it in a way that it all crumbled down and right on top of the girl.”
Buck made a face.
“She got some scratches and bruises, nothing bad. But she was trapped beneath it, and still thought I was a ghost. So you can imagine her reaction when I started digging her out.” Tommy grinned and that made Buck laugh despite his slight worry about where the story was heading. “She wouldn’t stop screaming, no matter what I said to calm her down. And then her friend came back, ready to protect her whatever it took.”
“Good friend,” Buck said.
“Very good friend. They’re engaged now, actually. Both are off to college for the moment, but they made me promise to keep the summer after their graduation free because they don’t have a date set for the wedding yet.”
“I take it, they eventually recognized that you weren’t a vengeful ghost. Or even just a vengeful new owner of the house,” Buck said, grinning.
“We figured the whole situation out between us eventually.” Tommy nodded. “Raúl helped me dig Carol out and they let me treat her scratches, though they told me later they thought at the time I was full of bullshit when I told them I was a firefighter. They thought no firefighter would ever buy a house that was practically falling apart.”
Buck cleared his throat so he wouldn’t start laughing again. “I mean, not many people in general would do that.”
“Do you have any complaints about my house?” Tommy asked with a raised brow and dangerously low voice.
“None!” Buck reassured hurriedly. “It’s a great house. At least now, for the most part. Ten years ago? I honestly don’t even want to imagine it!”
Tommy huffed.
“Raúl and Carol stuck around?” Buck asked. “I mean, if you’re invited to their wedding, they clearly kept in contact despite the fright you had caused them.”
“Carol’s parents brought her back and made her apologize. Proceeded to blame Raúl for anything wrong in Carol’s life while talking to me, and practically forced me to accept Carol’s help with some of the work at the house as a punishment for her. Then they promptly forgot again about having a daughter they might need to invest some time in. They only remember if Carol does something that doesn’t fit into their plan for her future.”
Buck made a face. “Ouch.”
Buck wondered how much Tommy had seen himself in the girl. Late some night a couple of months ago, Tommy had quietly told Buck about spending his teenage years in his father’s house who had only taken Tommy in after his mother’s death to not lose face with the neighbors. He had never been part of the family his father had built in that house, though.
Tommy nodded. “Raúl’s parents are great. They had practically already adopted Carol at the time. I’ve become good friends with them, and Carol and Raúl were pretty happy to help me with any kind of work in the house. Carol insisted on helping with my cars, too. I’m pretty sure her parents don’t know yet that her major is engineering and that she is working in a car shop, planning to one day build the cars of the future. They’ll blame me for Carol ruining her life once they learn about it.”
“Lovely parents. But good for Carol that she’d someone who supported her interests. Though, that’s pretty much the opposite of not getting attached to the people you help,” Buck summarized.
“But also a little different than an actual call. Though, there are a couple of people I’m still in contact with because they came around later to thank us for the help, and from there things developed.” Tommy took a sip of his beer. “Doesn’t happen often.”
“So, are there any other kids you practically adopted?” Buck asked with a mischievous grin.
“Asks the guy who is as near to a co-parent for his best friend’s son as he can get without involving legal paperwork?”
Buck laughed and shrugged. “At least you knew upfront about Chris! It’s the first time I hear about Raúl and Carol.”
“Because they pretend to be adults and are off to college without bothering to come home very often.” Tommy shook his head. “I’m sure you’ll meet them at some point during the holidays. To answer your question, no there aren’t any other kids who adopted me as their uncle. Because they kept coming around, I didn’t invite them. I just accepted my fate at one point.”
Buck wet his lip and watched Tommy, suddenly feeling much too nervous. “Are you thinking about children of your own?”
Tommy froze for a moment, then he exhaled slowly. “Not in a very long time. What about you?”
“I’d love to have a couple of kids of my own,” Buck said. “But it’s not something that I need so much that it would be a dealbreaker.”
Tommy swallowed visibly and lowered his gaze.
“Why’d you stop thinking about children of your own?” Buck asked softly.
Tommy rubbed his fingers over the edge of the table. “I think I’m a little old now to still start a family.”
Buck bit his tongue to keep his protest about that back. He suddenly wished he hadn’t dropped that question, even if it had seemed to be a good opportunity. Buck knew about the mountain of insecurities and self-doubt that Tommy was so good at hiding. Maybe he should have expected to walk right into that mountain with a question about children.
“And you know what kind of man I grew up with. I heard a lot of things about people like me … that were hard to let go of. Are still hard to let go of sometimes.”
Buck nodded and reached over the table to take Tommy’s hand. They slowly kept sharing things about their childhoods, but there was still a lot more to share as it was a difficult topic for both of them. It very much felt as if that dream was still there for Tommy but that he didn’t dare to even acknowledge it.
“You aren’t too old, Tommy. That’s really not true.”
Tommy just sighed.
Buck smiled hesitantly. “Maybe not a good topic for today. But it’s something we should talk about later again, right?”
“Yeah.”
Tommy’s smile was tight and didn’t reach his eyes, but he didn’t pull back, and Buck took that as a win. He was sure they would be able to figure it out one way or another, and Buck would stand by what he had said: no children weren’t a deal breaker. He just thought they should sort this topic out so it wouldn’t linger as some kind of shadow between them.
The moment of silence was interrupted by the waiter appearing, inquiring if there was anything they needed. They asked for the bill and Buck tucked at Tommy’s hand while pointing a finger at Tommy with his other hand. “Don’t even think about getting your wallet out. It’s my turn to pay!”
Tommy raised his brows, his shoulders relaxing a little at the banter. “I thought we weren’t keeping track of that.”
“We aren’t. It’s still my turn!”
***
Tommy didn’t quite know what had woken him up right away. So, he turned on his side and wrapped his arm around Evan, who lay sprawled against him with an arm and a leg thrown over him. They always ended up like this when they spent the night together. In the beginning, it had taken a little time for Tommy to get used to it, but now he missed Evan holding onto him all night when they didn’t spend the night together.
There was the soft sound of bells ringing in the air and after a moment Tommy recognized that it wasn’t some strange imagination lingering from the dream he couldn’t even remember. The sound filled him with peace and an anticipation he couldn’t place.
Tommy shook Evan softly and whispered his name.
“Uh?” Evan turned his head. “Time is it?”
“Don’t know,” Tommy whispered. It wasn’t completely dark outside anymore, so it was at least already morning if earlier than their usual time to get up on a free day. “But do you hear this?”
Evan huffed but then he opened his eyes and stared at Tommy. “What’s that?”
“Some kind of bells ringing?”
Evan blinked. “Oh.” He bit his lip and shook his head. “Okay, let’s find out what this is.” Evan rolled to the side and out of the bed. Before Tommy could protest, Evan threw a pair of sweatpants at him and grabbed his own. “We probably shouldn’t face that situation naked, so get dressed.”
“Do you recognize the tone?” Tommy asked softly. It wasn’t a sound he thought would come from some burglars, and somehow despite the strange noise he felt surprisingly calm.
“I might have an idea,” Evan said hesitantly. “Come on, let’s find out if we have to discuss one of these topics we put off last night.”
Tommy frowned. “I don’t understand.” But he suddenly felt he should recognize the noise.
Evan chuckled. “Okay.” He grabbed Tommy’s hand and pulled him out of the bedroom and in the direction of the living room. “What stories do you know about some … things being announced by the ringing of bells in the air?”
“I don’t know!” Tommy said. The nearer they came to the living room, the louder the ringing got. “The only thing I can think of is … Wait!” He stopped and tugged on Evan’s hands just before they reached the living room. “The only thing I can think of is the arrival of wish babies!”
Evan stepped right into Tommy’s space, though here in the hall it was too dark to see his face. “Yeah, exactly.”
Tommy inhaled sharply and he felt the bottom of his stomach drop out. This was not possible. Suddenly, Tommy felt utterly afraid.
He had been relieved when Evan had dropped the topic of children the previous evening. Tommy’s thoughts and emotions about that topic were complicated, and he knew most of it came from having no choice but to listen to bigoted and hateful assholes spouting their opinion. He had put a lot of work in to heal from those experiences, but somehow, he had never even dared to touch this specific topic in therapy.
With Evan, it was the third time that the topic of children had come up for Tommy with a partner. The first time the guy had repeated all the things Tommy knew to be bullshit that he had also heard from his father about queer people raising children. Tommy had ended that relationship right there. The second time it had been clear that children weren’t part of any future plans and Tommy had been okay with it. Or at least pretended to be okay with it. Because even though he knew none if it was true, he couldn’t quieten his father’s voice in his head whenever he thought about becoming a father.
“You ever thought about Wishing for a baby?” Evan asked quietly.
Tommy swallowed. He couldn’t exactly say no. Wish babies weren’t rare and part of many fairy tales. Every child learned through those fairy tales how wishing for a child worked. And in weak moments, when Tommy had been a much younger man dreaming of a world where he didn’t have to hide such a huge part of himself, he had allowed himself to dream about other things, too.
“I did more than think about it,” Tommy admitted quietly. “It was stupid, because I was single and hadn’t figured out yet what to do after my discharge from the Army. But … there were moments when I sat there and Wished. That was years ago, though.”
Eventually, Tommy had found safe places where he had been able to be himself and where he had found people like Hen and Karen who had supported him and helped him to realize the first part of his dreams. But the other part of those dreams had always stuck around in Tommy’s brain to be impossible, and that had been reinforced every time he had oh so carefully tried to poke at it.
Evan chuckled and kissed him, short and sweet. “Yeah, I know that feeling of stupidly Wishing for a baby when the circumstances really couldn’t be more unfitting.”
“Evan…” Tommy whispered, feeling lost.
“Just one way to find out,” Evan said. “And no matter what we find in the living room, we will have the option to say no.”
Evan’s voice trembled slightly, and some of the fear in Tommy’s chest broke under the onslaught of determination he suddenly felt. “No, that’s not going to happen. If that is … I couldn’t say no.”
Evan sighed. “That’s good. Because I don’t know if I’d been able to do that either.”
Tommy swallowed. Then he took Evan’s hand and when they stepped into the living room it was Tommy who pulled Evan along. He still thought they had to be mistaken or that something else was going on, but there was no point in delaying the inevitable.
The room was filled with soft, warm light, centered around the area where the couches stood in front of the fireplace. The ringing of the bells ended as soon as Tommy’s gaze landed on the table by the couch and his breath hitched. There were two baskets on the table, a sleeping baby in each of them. They looked so peaceful and were without question the most beautiful sight Tommy had ever been confronted with.
Evan gasped for air and squeezed Tommy’s hand painfully.
“Took you long enough!” a grumpy voice said.
It took Tommy a moment to see the fae sitting between the two baskets. They were an ugly, little thing, just as all the stories had always said. A thin body with legs and arms that looked too long, an angular face with a mouth full of sharp teeth, and nearly transparent wings that were barely visible in the greenish light filling the room. When they stood, their head barely reached over the baskets.
“It’s pretty early,” Evan said. “And we both made our Wishes a long time ago, before we even knew each other. Excuse us for not exactly expecting your visit!”
The fae huffed. “No, I won’t excuse you.”
Tommy couldn’t help but laugh.
The fae glared at him. “I can’t wait to retire from this job so I don’t have to deal with your strange reactions anymore. Humans are…” They muttered something Tommy didn’t understand. Then they waved at the baskets. “You need to make a decision. I’m sure you know the whole spiel. These two only come together, though, or not at all.”
“This is the first time we are receiving a wish baby,” Evan said and Tommy honestly didn’t know how he could be so calm and collected about it all. “So, we might not know all of what’s going on.”
The fae gave a long-suffering sigh. “See, if you lot weren’t all so stupid my job would be a lot easier. I asked to be assigned soulmates for a reason, you know? Just because y’all decided to ignore that soulmates exist doesn’t mean the magic won’t still work. Will just need longer because you ain’t working with it! You’d already remember accepting these two in a previous life if you just were doing the work to recognize each other!”
Tommy glanced at Evan who shrugged and shook his head slightly. So, Tommy wasn’t the only one who didn’t know what the fae was talking about. With their attitude, they probably wouldn’t be up to answer any questions.
“Okay, so what do we need to do?” Tommy asked. “I mean, how do we accept the gift of the wish babies you’re offering?”
The fae crossed their arms over their chest. “Are you ready to take them now? As you so clearly stated, you weren’t expecting them at this moment.”
“Yes!” Tommy and Evan said at once.
“Great. Would’ve hated to make this trip a second time.” The fae took a step towards them. “There is paperwork in the baskets. Fill out their names and the magic will do the rest. You can make copies, but the originals will always appear back at the place the children live after a couple of hours, even when they’re adults. The originals can also not be destroyed or altered once you’ve decided on a name.” They paused. “Except if you fuck up and the kids decide to take on a different name later.”
“That’s all?” Tommy asked, just to make sure.
The fae rolled their eyes. “Yes. There is a stone somewhere in one of the baskets. Close your hands around it and Wish for me if you need me. But please don’t need me! The only time I want to see you again is when you’re ready for the other two. Those will come one at a time each, though. Grab the stone and Wish. And do me a favor and be prepared for the next one’s arrival this time around.”
Tommy swallowed.
The fae eyed them skeptically. “They’ve all four been adamant to be your kids for a couple of lives now. Not sure I understand their attachment, but in the end they’re humans, too, right?”
“I guess,” Evan said, breathlessly. “Two more, really?”
“Are you deaf? I do know ASL if you need it.”
“We’re just a little overwhelmed,” Tommy said, still feeling more amused than put out by the fae’s behavior.
The fae huffed. “Humans! Do you have more inane questions?”
“We’ll figure out the rest for ourselves,” Evan promised, sounding just as amused as Tommy felt.
“Good,” the fae said. “I’ve already wasted enough time waiting for you. I have a life of my own, too, you know? Have fun.”
With that, the fae vanished and with them, the light went, too. Tommy stared at the shadow where he knew their children were sleeping in their baskets. Part of him wondered if he was dreaming now that he couldn’t see them anymore.
“There are two of them,” Evan whispered and Tommy felt him press against his side.
Tommy nodded. “You know, that was not what I was expecting when you said your anniversary gift would be delivered to my house today. Might get hard to beat this at any future anniversary.”
There was a beat of silence, then Evan laughed. “Yeah, alright. My gift will still be delivered later on. Between 10 am and noon, at least that’s what I was told.”
Tommy turned and cupped Evan’s cheek with his hand before he kissed him. “All of this feels a little crazy, right?”
“Good crazy,” Evan whispered. “I know we cut this topic short last night, but … I can’t say the thought of raising children with you hasn’t crossed my mind several times over the past six months.”
“Yeah.” Tommy wet his lip and pressed their foreheads together. There were too many thoughts circling through his head, and he forced himself to concentrate on the most important one. And that was to finally meet the children he still couldn’t believe were truly Evan and his children. “Okay, let’s deal with this.”
Tommy reached for the light switch without letting go of Evan’s hand and then they approached the coffee table slowly.
The children were still sleeping peacefully, and Tommy knew they would remain like that for a couple of hours or until they lifted them out of the baskets. Each baby was wrapped in a blanket, and on top of the blanket was lying an envelope.
Tommy took one of them and only reluctantly let go of Evan’s hand to open it. His hands shook slightly as he pulled out two pieces of paper, as expected. One was the birth certificate, with the name of the child still missing but the names of the parents had already been filled out. Tommy’s breath hitched, seeing their names there. As impossible as this felt, it somehow made the whole thing suddenly very real.
The other sheet of paper was a short note, and from every story Tommy had ever heard, only Evan and he would be able to read it.
Thomas Kinard and Evan Buckley
have been chosen
by the Fae Court
and
this boy for the sixth time
as his parents and his family in this life and beyond.
Tommy swallowed. He had to clear his throat twice, before he could say, “We have a little boy.”
“And a girl,” Evan whispered, his voice full of awe. “Chosen by her for the sixth time. I don’t understand that. But the fae said something like that, too. And something about soulmates.”
“I don’t know.” Tommy shrugged. He didn’t feel he could deal with that mystery right now. Looking at the two babies — their children! — was already overwhelming enough. “We are parents, Evan.”
Evan giggled. “Yeah. And we need to come up with names. I want to hold them!”
Tommy swallowed again, his mouth dry and his hands damp. But he nodded. He was yearning to hold their children, too, and maybe that would finally make the whole situation feel less like a dream.
After a moment of silence, Evan moved to the baskets and lifted their little girl out of hers. She moved and smacked her lips, but she didn’t wake up. The next moment, Tommy was holding her in his arms. She felt much too light and Tommy carefully wrapped both arms around her, sitting down on the couch.
Evan sat down beside him, cradling their son in his arms while pressing their sides together. The baby was awake, and watched them, babbling away and then pushing his whole fist in his mouth.
“You said you Wished after you were discharged,” Evan murmured, staring at the baby in his arms.
“Honestly, I had completely forgotten about it until earlier,” Tommy admitted. “Even then I didn’t think anything would come of it. It was a silly little dream.”
“I’ve Wished a lot of times since I left my parent’s home,” Evan said. “I couldn’t even tell you how often. People always tell me I get along with children because I’m still one myself.”
Tommy huffed. “They’re idiots!”
Evan laughed. “Maybe. I just listen to them, take them seriously, you know? Because I remember how much it hurt that no one ever did that for me when I was a child.”
Tommy swallowed and pressed his shoulder a little more heavily against Evan. “Did you ever think about names, too?”
“All the time!” Evan chuckled. “Never settled on a name, though. I’d hear one that sounded really great and would go ‘that’s what I want to call my own kid’. But then I heard the next one and thought the same. You?”
“If my mom would’ve ever had a girl, she’d have called her Amelia,” Tommy said, tears burning in his eyes over the memory of his mother.
“That’s a beautiful name,” Evan said. He reached out with one hand and carefully took their daughter’s hand. “She seems pretty uninterested in being part of this decision.”
Tommy laughed. “You heard the fae. If we screw up and they want to change their names later on, it will be changed on the birth certificate.”
Evan made a face. “Let’s not screw up. Amelia is a beautiful name and I think your mom would be happy to have her granddaughter wear that name after she was denied a daughter of her own.”
“I’d love that,” Tommy said hoarsely.
There had been a time when Tommy had been very young when his mother had told him about his future siblings, how he would one day be the best big brother of the world. Looking back at those memories, Tommy often wondered how she had been able to keep so much hope while she had been forced to care for him herself because his father had abandoned them before he had even been born.
Tommy hadn’t even known his father until he had been nine and the man’s new wife had insisted he couldn’t just abandon his own child. She had kept telling Tommy how much she regretted that choice after they had taken Tommy in when his mother had died two years later. Tommy had only told her once, just before leaving that house for the last time, that it was hardly his fault she had succumbed to the social pressure of the neighbors that had not even been there instead of letting him vanish into the system. He had told her point blank that he’d have preferred to grow up in foster care over what she and her husband had provided for him. Tommy hadn’t spoken to her since.
“What do you think about Leo?” Evan asked.
The boy in his arms laughed and Tommy smiled warmly as he watched Evan coo at their baby. Tommy wondered if the question had even been for him or if it had been directed at their son.
“Leo and Amelia,” Tommy said slowly. “I think that fits.”
“Yeah, you like that, huh?” Evan whispered, completely focused on their son. The baby held onto one of Evan’s fingers, babbling happily. “Little Leo.”
“What are we going to do about last names?” Tommy asked.
“Kinard,” Evan said without hesitance. “It’s your mom’s name, who is between all four of our parents the only decent one we can show of.”
Tommy inhaled deeply. Evan was one of the very few people he had ever talked with about his childhood at all. Not many people knew that fact about his name. Sometimes it was overwhelming when Evan proved how much he had listened through Tommy’s late-night ramblings in the dark.
“You took that name back as soon as you could,” Evan whispered. “I think it’s only right for our children to have the name, too.”
“Amelia and Leo Kinard,” Tommy said slowly. “I like it.”
“Then let’s fill out these birth certificates,” Evan said eagerly.
Before Tommy could say or do anything, he found himself holding both babies, one in each arm, and Evan jumped up from the couch, going right for the bookshelf. Because Evan had spent enough time in Tommy’s house to know exactly where to find pretty much anything he was looking for at this point.
The birth certificates glowed in a soft green light as Evan carefully and slowly wrote the names out. And Tommy noticed how the notes lying open beside them changed as soon as Evan was done filling out the names and the words “this boy” and “this girl” were replaced by the names they had chosen.
Evan turned, his whole face lit up by his grin which was replaced by a soft, besotted smile as he watched Tommy with their children. “Oh my god, this is really real.”
Tommy laughed, careful not to startle the babies. “Very much.”
“And we aren’t prepared for anything!” Evan said, wide-eyed. “We don’t have a single thing we need to take care of one baby, let alone two! Do we even know what all we need?”
“We’ll figure it out,” Tommy said. “We’ve twelve weeks of paternity leave, that’s a lot of time to figure things out.”
“Right, we need to … But we don’t even have car seats! How are we going to clear that up with HR when we can’t get there because we can’t take Amelia and Leo!”
Tommy watched Evan with a lopsided grin. It was a strange kind of relief to see a little bit of panic rising in him now after he had seemed so calm and giddy so far. Or maybe Tommy just hadn’t noticed how nervous Evan had been before because he was too caught up in his own overwhelming emotions.
“Don’t laugh about me!” Evan complained with a whine and slapped Tommy’s shin. “Why aren’t you panicking?”
“Because I hold the precious cargo right now,” Tommy said. And he really had no interest in letting them go any time soon. “What’s in the baskets? If I remember correctly from what Karen and Hen shared, there should at least be some formula in there and a bottle in each basket.
Evan frowned. “Why would Hen and Karen … Oh right, Denny’s a wish baby. I totally forgot!” He turned to the table and pulled out the pillows the babies had been lying on. Then he placed several things on the table very orderly. “Enough formula for at least two days, I guess. That’s a start. The stone our little grumpy friend talked about. A bottle each. And a couple of diapers.”
“Let’s call them exactly that when they deliver the next one,” Tommy said, amused. He figured the fae was a pretty good fit for them, though Tommy also wondered a little how many new parents they had horribly offended with their behavior in the past.
“Maybe they had just a bad day and will be less grumpy next time,” Evan pointed out. “And I can’t believe there will be a next time! Like, two next times, even!”
Only if they decided to go through with it, which would be entirely their choice. Though, he couldn’t see them not Wishing again; not while knowing there were two other children waiting. Tommy wasn’t sure they should even know about the possibility of two more children, he couldn’t remember any stories talking about that. And there had been a time when he had eaten up any single story he could find, right after Karen and Hen had gotten Denny.
Somehow, seeing his friends receive a wish baby had brought up Tommy’s longing again. He hadn’t thought there would ever be any chance for him to be in their place, so he had foolishly tried to overcome that longing by reading about other people’s experiences. It hadn’t worked at all.
Kneeling before him, Evan carefully cupped their children’s heads each with one hand. His eyes were shining with so much love when he whispered, “We are parents, Tommy!”