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Being behind on laundry and half awake was not a good look on Buck. He let the peeks of sunlight coming through his curtains guide him to the half empty dresser drawers that morning in search of something clean not about to get written up for showing up to work in a dirty shirt, almost cheering in success when his hands caught on something navy. He didn’t bother investigating further just throwing it over his head, throwing on pants before going out in search of coffee. He was not getting wine drunk with Maddie on work nights anymore.
He slid into the jeep without a minute to spare and thank god LA traffic was on his side for once because he was rolling into the station just shy of being late. He headed straight for the locker room where Chim and Eddie were and smiled brightly, only for his face to fall when Chim laughed as he approached.
“What?” He asked immediately on the defense. He looked down to see if maybe his fly was down or something but didn’t see anything wrong.
“Nothing Buckroo, we’re just a long way from Chicago don’t you think?” He teased and Buck looked down again to see the CFD logo blazing bright where there should have been an LAFD one. He sighed, he really did need to do his laundry tonight.
“Oh shit, I didn’t even realize I kept these in my dresser. I thought they were all still packed up in a box. Explains why it felt so tight going on.” He prayed it was tight because he was kind of skinny when he was in Chicago and not because it was someone else's. There was no recovering from that.
“You know I always forget you used to live in Chicago.” Chim went on, and Buck nodded, turning into his locker, praying there was a clean uniform shirt in there. Chim then snickered again. “Think I figured out why your shirt was tight. Pretty sure that belongs to a woman.” He joked and Buck froze.
He tried to look behind himself before realizing he’d never see the name on the back of the shirt, so he settled for looking at the mirror in his locker and sure enough the name SEVERIDE was staring back at him in big bold letters.
He hated how much it soothed him. How familiar the weight of Kelly’s last name still was even after all these years, but that last name didn’t belong to him. He made sure of that when he left. So he found himself ripping off the shirt as fast as he could, maybe he could shed the memories with it.
“Ex girlfriend?” Eddie guessed, and Buck shrugged.
“Something like that. Do you have a shirt I could borrow?” He asked, finally giving up after not seeing one in his own locker. “I really need to do laundry and I figure Cap would rather me be a Diaz for a day than a member of the CFD again.”
“Of course man, but do your fucking laundry.” Eddie chided, throwing a shirt at him.
They got dressed in silence before heading up to the loft when Chim decided to bring it up again. “You know man I gotta say I never pictured you going after another firefighter.”
Hen perked up at this. “Does our boy have a crush on someone?” She asked and Buck tensed. He did not want to explain this at all but it seemed that was where they were heading.
“No.”
“Buckaroo here came to work wearing an old CFD shirt of his. The kicker is it wasn’t his.” Hen’s face lit up at the knowledge and Buck debated throwing himself off the ledge of the loft. Would it kill him? No. Injure him enough to get out of this conversation? Hopefully.
“The tea. Was this an in house love affair? Who was she?” Hen asked, and Buck winced.
“Wait and Buck actually fit into this shirt?” Bobby chimed in, and both Hen and Chim paused.
“I mean it was a little tight.” Chim confirmed but he looked contemplative. “Cap is right, your type is normally skinny with boobs.”
Buck laughed dryly. “Well I can assure you Kelly didn’t have boobs.” He joked, taking in their puzzled expressions. When no one said anything he continued. “Because he was a man.”
It was Hen who broke first. “I didn’t know you swung that way.”
“I haven’t for a while.” Not since he took the engagement ring and pressed it into Kelly’s palm telling him to call when he figured it out. Not when being with another man felt like cheating in a way that being with a woman never did. Not when he looked for Kelly in everyone he laid with.
“But you are- uh-” Chim froze.
“Queer. You can say it Chim I won’t be offended. Yeah, have been for a really long time. My whole life.” He joked and some of the tension lessened.
“Well yeah, that. Listen man if I had known I wouldn’t have made a big deal about the shirt. It’s-”
“Why? I mean it’s not like it’s a big deal unless you make it one. Is this a problem?” He challenged and dear god let them say no. Please don’t let this be a problem.
Chim physically recoiled at the question. “What no of course not. You know we love you no matter what.”
The fist tightening around Buck’s heart released. “Okay well then there's no problem. You did what you always do and you just found out something new. Not a big deal man.”
“You’re right. Sorry.” He said, and Buck knew it was a losing battle to tell him not to apologize because it was making it feel weird.
“Can I ask why you never said anything?” Hen asked, and Buck shrugged aiming for calm but feeling anything but.
“If I ever went back to men I probably would have. But honestly I wasn’t even planning on talking about Kelly. There’s just a lot of hurt there that I’ve just been avoiding unpacking for a long time.” Talking about it meant processing it. Meant telling other people that he walked away from his engagement hoping his fiance would follow him and he didn’t.
“It sounds like it was pretty serious.” She said softly, and Buck sighed.
“It was, it uh. It really fucking was.” He should have shut up then, but something in his chest was loosening at the thought of just finally talking about the man he still dreamed about most nights so he found his mouth opening again. “We were together most of the time I was in Chicago. We were even-” and here was the fucking kicker right. “E-engaged before I left. So I guess you could say it was the most serious relationship of my life.”
“Oh Buck honey. What happened?” She asked, and Buck slumped down onto the couch next to her. It was easy to pretend it was just another morning of just them talking when the rest of the house was asleep, but he knew the others were listening in so he chose his words wisely.
“A friend of ours died,” and as always his name tightened around the name. “Brian. And when he did Kelly relapsed.” He looked to see Hen’s intense stare and figured he needed to be quicker to explain if he was going to be airing out the man's dirty secrets. “Alcohol - nothing bad. And it was never bad enough that he ever stopped drinking completely anyways, but he started hitting the bottle pretty hard again. Staying out all night at the bar instead of coming home. And it's stupid because now I know that was his way of grieving. I know I needed to get him help but back then it felt like he was leaving me to drown in my grief all alone.”
Otis had been one of Buck's best friends and he knew Kelly saw him like a brother. They both took his death hard in different ways. However it still fucking hurt.
“Oh honey. You can't blame your-” she started but Buck cut her off.
“I mean I got him help. I'm not saying I just abandoned him completely. But I did make a promise to marry a man and then jumped ship when shit got hard so can we just save the platitudes?” He asked and she sighed but nodded.
“Sure thing Buckaroo.”
“Thank you.”
He could tell everyone was burning with more questions but he was saved from them by the bell going off.
+++
It was the end of Buck’s shift, and he was dragging his feet at the idea of going home alone. It didn’t typically bug him that everyone had someone to go home to except him- but after the fiasco that was explaining his relationship with Kelly to people who didn’t know the man, well he didn’t want to face his empty apartment after that.
He went to his locker, opening it up, slipping off the shirt he borrowed from Eddie, passing it back without a word. Luckily Eddie seemed to understand he wasn’t in the mood to chat so he just nodded in thanks and turned back to do his own packing up. Buck slid his CFD, or well Kelly’s CFD shirt back on, dropping whatever he needed in his bag and slipped out before Bobby caught wind of his bad mood and tried to invite him over for breakfast or something.
In the car he sighed, slipping his phone into the cupholder, before pulling it back out to check the time. It was late enough that 51 probably wasn’t on shift anymore. As long as they didn’t run over he was safe to call Sylvie and bitch about his day.
He turned the car on and hooked his audio up to the speakers before pressing her name to call. She picked up after a ring, and he breathed a sigh of relief. “Hey sunshine, did I catch you at an alright time?” He asked.
“Sure did, we just got to Molly’s but I can chat for a few.” She said, and Buck nodded to himself, pulling out of the parking lot.
“I only need a few, just wanted to bitch about the world for a minute.”
“Ooo I love a good bitch session. Who did what? I know you just got off shift.”
Buck laughed at that, because in reality no one did anything except for him. “It’s less of what they did and more of what I did.” He said, sighing.
“Oh honey I’m sure it wasn’t that bad.” She offered, which normally he’d appreciate. But it felt a lot like Hen earlier. He didn’t want platitudes for this. He wanted to be there joking over a beer about how he and Kelly had closets so intertwined that they kept accidentally doing this. Wanted his Severide-Buckley shirts back that Casey bought them as a joke. Wanted to not feel so goddamn alone surrounded by people.
“I wore Kelly’s shirt to work today, and then had to not only explain why I came to LA in the first place but also come out of the closet because I never had before.” He laughed, but they could tell he was breaking apart at the seams.
“Wait a minute, you never-”
“Nope. Because as much as I’ve told you I’m over it I don’t think I ever will be. Which is pathetic because it’s been what- almost three years now? And I’m the guy pining after the man he left. How was I supposed to explain that to them?” Part of him wished she’d have an answer for that but he knew she wouldn’t. No one would, they’d keep telling him things like this took time.
“Oh Ev, listen honey. It’s okay to not be over it. He was the love of your life, and you ran. I think we all half expected you to come back, but you didn’t. And you’ve made something for yourself. Not being over him doesn’t make you a bad person, but I’m positive talking about it will help.”
“You know that quote, if I loved you less I might be able to talk about it more?” He asked, and she took a breath.
“Buck, are you telling me you’re still in love with Severide?” She asked, like she needed to clarify exactly what he was saying.
“He’s what?” Buck heard a voice in the background say and his blood ran cold before he flushed all over. Because he knew that voice, even after all these years it was like coming home, and Buck had the desire to slam his head off the steering wheel for talking about this when he knew Sylvie was still in public.
“Oh hi Kelly!” Shay yelled like she didn’t know Buck could hear him on the other end of the line. “Ev, I gotta go, we’re all walking into the bar. But I will call you tonight.” She promised and Buck nodded before stupidly remembering she couldn’t see him.
“Wait, Sylv let me talk to him.” Kelly said in the background. And god did that hurt, the desperation in Kelly’s voice.
“Tonight Buckley.” She said, and the three telltale beeps rang over his speaker before it started autoplaying the playlist he left off on.
Yeah he was not looking forward to that.
+++
Sooner than he would have thought his phone was ringing, Sylvie’s contact lighting up his phone. He’d only been home for a couple of hours at most, he would have thought she’d still be out but he supposed she wanted to make sure he wasn’t going off the deep end.
He slid to answer, putting it on speaker before walking back to the stove. He was making a stir fry and while he didn’t have to baby it, he wanted something to do for this conversation. “Hey Sylv.”
“Evan, don’t hang up.” A voice that definitely wasn’t Sylvie’s said across the line. Buck dropped the spatula in shock.
“Did you steal her phone?” Buck asked, as if that wasn’t obvious.
“Yes, she wouldn’t give me your number. And I didn’t think it was fair to go around asking the guys when I would have to explain why.” Buck was half relieved Sylvie didn’t betray his trust, but he wished he had the warning that it was Kelly before he spoke.
“What do you want?” He asked, unsure of what this call was about.
“I want you to come home.” Kelly said, like it was simple. Like Buck didn’t uproot his life three years ago and leave him high and dry. Like somehow despite everything Kelly still loved him too.
“Kel-”
“No listen. I know I was messed up when you left. And I’ve never blamed you for leaving. I always promised you that I wouldn’t get that bad again and then I did. You were right to leave. But if what Sylvie said was true, then come home. Because Ev I can’t keep doing this without you.” He was saying everything Buck had wanted to hear for so long, but god was it throwing him for a loop.
“It’s been years Kel, why now?” He asked, but he knew why. Because Buck left, and as much as Kelly always chased after him, breaking off their engagement was different than running because he got scared. It was a hell of a lot more permanent.
“Because until now I thought you were over me. I thought you were living this great life in LA, and I was trying to respect that. Trying to respect that you left and despite everyone telling me you’d come back you didn’t. So I thought maybe that was a sign that I should let you go. But god I can’t let you go when I know that you feel this way.” Kelly sounded so goddamn sincere that Buck felt like he couldn’t breathe.
“It’s not as simple as just coming home. I’ll have to put in a transfer request, who knows if there’s even a spot at 51, and you know I won’t go if there isn’t.” He paused when he realized he was talking about it like it was a done deal.
“I’ll talk to Boden tonight.” Kelly assured.
“We’d have to start over.” Buck said, reaching down to stir the mix of vegetables and beef. “Or well not quite start over, but go back a few steps. I can’t jump into being your fiance again after years.”
“That’s fine, live in boyfriends sounds good to me.” Kelly said, like Buck couldn’t see what he was doing.
“Who said I’d be moving back in with you?” Buck asked, but god that sounded like the best thing he’d heard all day.
“I did.” He said indignantly. “You’re telling me you don’t want to save on rent?” He questioned a bit softer, like he was afraid of coming on too strong and having Buck cut and run- again.
“Kelly, did you steal my phone?” Buck heard Sylvie shriek across the line. “Oh my god you did.” She huffed, and Buck could just picture her reaching a hand out for it, hip cocked.
“I did, but Ev agreed to come home so we’ll call it even?” He asked, and Sylvie screamed.
There was some rustling and then her voice in his ear. “Tell me Severide isn’t screwing with me. You’re coming home?” She asked, or more like yelled.
“Yeah, I think it’s time.” He said, a small smile gracing his lips for the first time all day.
He could almost taste the Chicago air, feel the way Kelly would wrap his arms around him after picking him up at the airport, feel that sense of belonging he never quite got in LA.
“When?” She demanded, and Buck laughed.
“As soon as I sort out the transfer paperwork and pack.” He assured, and she squealed. “Could you give Kel my number? I figure he’ll probably need it now.” He joked, and could sense Sylvie beaming over the line.
“Of course. I’ll see you before you know it.” She said, and then the line clicked.
A moment later his phone was ringing again, and Buck felt giddy at the prospect of answering it. Felt like his life was slotting back into place. He clicked to accept.