Chapter Text
When Buck returned from the lawsuit a month ago, after turning down the hefty settlement to come back to what he thought was his family, he never would have imagined this would be his life. Since returning he hasn’t been out on call not once, he didn’t mind being man behind though because it gave him breaks from the cold shoulders and glares, instead there is a list of daily chores buck does instead while he listens to whatever song is stuck in his head on loop. It felt repetitive some days: get to work, start chores, take a nap while the team is out on calls, prepare meals (or prep what bobby needs if he said he'd be making the meal that day), avoid the team at all cost, eat in the jeep, try not to make it obvious he was struggling, go home. It was a wash, rinse and repeat type of life for him now.
“Eddie! Good save out there today you did good” Bobby said as he left the truck with the slam of a door. Fuck. Buck thought he had more time to make lunch when they got called out, he stood frozen washing the vegetables for the stir fry he was making for his fam- teammates praying the bell would ring.
“Couldn’t have done it without you cap, thanks for having my back.” Ouch. Buck was supposed to be the one who had his back, wasn’t he?
“Ayyy… what's for lunch today, I'm absolutely starving? Bobby, did you prep one of your famous long day at work meals?” Chim says, probably a little too dramatically.
Cap laughs “I did not, I'm assuming Buck made us something with all his spare time since he doesn't seem to be cleaning the bay anymore” a pause “BUCKLEY!” Fuck. My. Life.
“oh- hey cap yeah I'm making lunch now, should be ready in uhh- like 30” he tries to seem like the old Buck, “Buckaroo the team’s golden retriever” as Hen would have jokingly said in the past.
“Ok, let me know if you need anything got it”
“Yessir” Buck says with a laugh trying so hard to act okay.
The rest of the shift seems to go by just fine, no issues, no confrontations and as usual buck slips out at the end of shift with no one bothering to say a word to him, not even one goodbye. By the time he got home he had already begun his daily spiral of trying to find a moment where he could have said or done something different. Now this was something familiar to Buck, he’d done it so much as a kid it was so easy for it to reincorporate itself back into his daily routine, even after years and years of trying so hard not to. He didn't even notice when his old Navy SEAL commander had called for their weekly check up, they started doing this after Steve found out about the ladder truck explosion from a news broadcast. Steve was so scared that something would happen and Buck wouldn’t be able to tell him he demanded to be called every week, threatening to come to LA himself if Buck missed a call. When Buck saw he missed the call in the morning and Steve didn’t respond to his call, he assumed he’d be expecting his former CO as soon as he could possibly get there, so Buck began cleaning in hopes to hide his obvious mental state that splayed itself across the cold empty loft. Anyone could tell just by looking at Buck and his loft he wasn’t doing alright but if he had a say he was going to mask the absolute shit out of this so Steve won’t worry when he gets here, although he knows it will take one look from the SEAL and he will break down and tell him everything that's been going on, Buck has never been able to hide things from Steve. Still he’s going to try and suck it up like his former partner has told him to do, he doesn’t want to exhaust anyone anymore.