Perk | Late Monday Morning

[firehousehimbo]

Whelp, Buck knew he wasn't the most graceful on ice after the time with the figure skaters and the finger chopping. He was well aware of it. And yet he went out anyway because he didn't own a coffee maker and he needed caffeine.

So it wasn't too surprising when he completely ate shit outside of the Perk.

He'd be taking his latte with a side of an ice pack today.

[Open]

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[doctorgingerspice]

Did Will have a radar for these sorts of things?

Maybe.

Anyway, he didn’t even get to the lineup at the counter before he spotted Buck, and was then changing course to go frown in concern at him.

“What happened?” He had a guess, but around here you never knew.

[firehousehimbo]

"Kind of slippery outside." And he was an idiot.

[doctorgingerspice]

“I’ve noticed. Mind if I take a look?” Buck didn’t appear to be bleeding so far as Will could tell, so it was probably fine, but, listen, he hadn’t had much chance to put his doctor skills to use lately (not dirty). If it was just going to be a parade of scrapes and sprains for the next couple months, he’d take it.

[firehousehimbo]

Buck at been around EMTs long enough to not put up a fight when they wanted to look at something. He lowered the bag of ice to show a blossoming goose egg. "Nothing for you to stitch, I'm afraid."

[doctorgingerspice]

“I’m barely reigning in my disappointment,” Will told him drily. “Maybe next time. Headache?”

[firehousehimbo]

"Kinda," he admitted. "But I don't know if that's from the fall or the lack of caffeine before the fall. No dizziness or LOC though."

Even if he hadn't been in the field, he would have known the questions for a fall regardless due to how many times he ended up in the ER growing up.

[doctorgingerspice]

“Good signs,” Will nodded. Hopefully Buck wasn’t the sort to downplay an injury because manliness or whatever.

(That Will himself had ignored a growing ulcer until he’d been coughing up blood was not the point, here.)

“Well,” he said finally, “if that headache persists, you’ll swing by the clinic?”

[firehousehimbo]

"Yeah, man, of course," Buck said. "I've been hit on the head a couple times, I know the drill."

That should surprise absolutely no one.

[doctorgingerspice]

“You know, usually when people say that, it’s not meant to sound reassuring,” Will teased.

[firehousehimbo]

"But you're reassured, aren't you?" he joked.

[doctorgingerspice]

“Oddly enough? Yes.”

[firehousehimbo]

"Then I've done my job correctly," he said with a grin. "Can I buy your coffee? Since you did free doctoring for me."

[doctorgingerspice]

Not that the bump on the head had required much doctoring, but Will was rarely one to turn down free coffee.

“That’d be great, actually. Thanks, man,” Will beamed at him.

[amitragic]

Ulysses was just here for a giant thing of coffee. That was it.

... But because he was Ulysses, well, the cute guy (vaguely familiar? maybe from one of the parties?) would've caught his attention even without the ice pack.

"That an... island thing?" he asked, with a vague gesture at his own face.

Don't ask why he thought it might be, okay, this island had earned his distrust over the years.

[firehousehimbo]

"Winter thing," Buck replied. "Unless the ice on this island is supernaturally slippery."

[amitragic]

"I mean..."

Ulysses cast a wary glance out the window, with an 'eesh' sort of little grimace.

"Probably best not to give this place ideas."

[firehousehimbo]

"...yeah, that's a good point," Buck admitted. "Though, obviously, the ice doesn't need to be super slippery for me to fall on my ass. Or face."

[amitragic]

Ulysses glanced down at his decidedly non-winter appropriate shoes. "Oh, well, I came here from LA, so... Same, sorta."

He was originally from somewhere with a proper winter, he just refused to remember how to dress for the weather.

[firehousehimbo]

"Hey, me too," Buck said with a grin. "Last time I had to deal with ice I was picking up someone's chopped off fingers off a rink."

There was a short pause.

"I'm a firefighter, not a serial killer."

[amitragic]

That clarification was a welcome addition, because Uly's face had already gone on a journey from a 'wait, really?' to a '... wait, really?'

"Uh, okay, good," he said. "'Cause that's way --" Hotter. "-- better than, you know. Basically any other explanation that could have."

[firehousehimbo]

"I could have said they were my fingers," Buck said. "Then I'd look like a cool guy who got all of his fingers reattached."

Did that make someone cool?

[amitragic]

"I... think that would just make you eligible for some kind of compensation from somewhere," Ulysses hazarded.

Because it didn't really make you cool, no. Not Uly's narrow view, anyway.

"Anyway, hi," he said, after a beat. "I'm Ulysses."

[firehousehimbo]

"Buck," he said, giving him a wave with the hand that wasn't currently holding an ice bag. "I think I've seen you somewhere before."

One of the parties, maybe? He did make a point to show up to whatever party he was invited to.

[amitragic]

"Yeah, you too," Ulysses said. "But like, it's a small town, so that's kind of... really inevitable, huh?"

Nooot so much when you were as prone to laying around your apartment all day every day as Ulysses was, but, that didn't seem like the kind of thing to lead with.

Not that what he ended up with was much better:

"It'd probably be weird to say it's too bad I haven't had like, a fire at my apartment or... Or gotten any fingers sliced off, right?"

[firehousehimbo]

"Not too weird," Buck said with a grin. "This place could use more emergencies. I kind of just sit around the firehouse all day."