Work Text:
First, it was the cough that he couldn’t shake.
From there, it was the sore throat that seemed to keep bothering him no matter how many lozenges he sucked on.
But when his voice finally faded into nothingness three days after the first cough, Buck had to admit the truth - he was sick.
It was a well known fact that Evan Buckley was a terrible patient. He didn’t want to just hang around the loft, stuck in bed, especially while his team was working. He didn’t particularly like to take a lot of medications for a variety of reasons. Being sick meant being bored, and a bored Evan Buckley was asking for trouble.
But with no voice, he couldn’t safely work, so stuck at home he was. To keep from completely being disconnected, Buck spent much of the first day sending random facts to his entire team, one an hour, just enough to remind them that he was still alive, but also that he wanted to come back to work, please. (The responses he got ranged from a string of random emoji to being firmly told to take a nap.)
The second day voiceless left him pacing around the loft. The third day had him finally able to make a sound that sounded like a drowning animal - “No, Buck, you’re not coming back until you can talk in full sentences again.”
All told, it took five very annoying days and three missed shifts before he was finally allowed to return to work. His voice was still a bit scratchy, but he was allowed to at least handle his favorite type of rescues - kids stuck in claw machines.
At least he had his voice again - until a month later when he ended up with strep throat and lost his voice again.