A Fallen HomeKin

Meet the Brave Bud | Tim POV | 🎉 4K Celebration 🎉

Tim's POV of his first meeting of Fralith.
Thank you all for reading and support, either silent or loud!

If there was something more exciting to Tim than releasing patients from the hospital, it was meeting new ones. New patients meant new faces, new kiddo quirks, new chances to learn how best to coax out a grin, new lives to learn about and nurture as best as he could. The prospect always brought a smile to his face and lit his chest with warm sunlight. What made them laugh? What was their favorite thing to do? What silly song did they like to sing? He loved to find out, especially with this new placement.

This one wasn't just new. He was Brave Bud, the mysterious boy the news was raving about—and yes, he'd already given him a nickname and they hadn't even met—because he successfully stopped a kidnapping with a knife against a gun on his own. Brave Bud was already a special cookie, and, from the reports of his reactions to the other nurses, a spooked one. Hopefully, he could ease Brave Bud's skittishness—and get to know him in the process.

Smiling a little, Tim double checked the room number and wheeled his cart inside, nodding to the police officer by the door.

On the bed, the boy jerked at his arrival and scuttled back until he was pressed into the wall, holding his injured arm close to his body. Poor brave buddy was a bundle of skin and bones, cheekbones hollow and black hair falling around his face in a matted sheet. What was more startling were his vibrant magenta eyes flashing between the strands, almost like a stray cat in the beam of your phone's flashlight as it huddled under your car, ready to flee at a moment's notice.

Tim repressed the urge to raise his eyebrows. When the reports said 'unusual eye color', I wasn't expecting a completely undocumented eye color. Is it natural or a condition? I have to get a closer look. Wheeling his cart to the bedside, he waved his hand to the food on the cart, making sure to keep his movements slow enough to predict so as not to startle the little guy. "Hey there, bud. Hungry?"

Brave Bud blinked owlishly and pulled his lips back from his teeth. It wasn't a smile or a frown but something in between a grimace, a lot like a dog baring his teeth. This time he raised his eyebrows, a twinge of surprise vibrating down his spine. Unusual struck again. Just what kind of place did he come from to bare his teeth like that?

"Ferocious one, are you?" Tim said. Brave Bud just stared, wound up like a rubber band, so he pulled out a reassuring chuckle from his deep reserve and stepped closer. "Well, we better get some food into you before you eat someone."

Brave Bud leaned away from him, sharp eyes glinting through his strands of dark hair, gaze searching him as if he was a scanner and Tim was a barcode. His nose twitched and his gaze slid to the cart, his stomach audibly rumbling.

Aha. There it was: food, the best door to most kids' hearts. "Alright, alright. I'll speed up. And we can get to introductions after." If Brave Bud wanted to talk. If he didn't, befriending him would be a little harder. But hard never stopped him before. Sidling over to the controls, he reached down and pressed the up button on the bed, thoughts spinning along ways to break through to him.

As soon as the bed began to rise, Brave Bud's eyes flew wide and he yelped, scrambling to the foot of the bed with the speed of a spooked squirrel.

Tim's heart jerked with the oxygen tubes in Brave Bud's nose and he snatched his finger back. "Woah! Woah, bud. It's okay; it's just the bed. Look, see?" Please, please don't pull those tubes out! "This makes the bed rise up so you can sit." He pointed at the button and demonstrated it a few times, schooling his face and voice to not reflect the tension in his muscles. "See? It's not too bad. I promise you it can't hurt you." But the tubes can and will if you move any further away.