Chapter Text
Christopher Diaz is seven when Buck first meets him. The kid is bright and happy despite everything that life’s thrown at him. He’s sharp as a needle and funny.
It doesn’t take long for Buck to be wrapped around his fingers.
He’d do anything for the kid. Truly would.
Christopher wants Buck to make him lunch for school? He’ll stay over for the night (which isn’t a hardship in any way) so he can do that in the morning.
Christopher wants to go to the zoo? Buck will study the zoo map and plan the best route around the place to see all the animals Chris wants to without tiring the kid out.
Maybe it’s because he doesn’t want Chris to feel like his interests don't matter like how Buck felt when he was his age. Maybe it’s because he wants to stay part of the Diaz family and is trying to prove himself to do so.
So he gets invested in everything that Christopher Diaz is interested in or wants to do
Including things that he is completely out of his depth with.
“You want to build a house out of LEGO?” Buck asks, confused. Chris has plenty of LEGO and he’s sure he’s seen the kid build a house out of them.
“I want to build our house out of LEGO,” the seven-year-old clarifies. “With normal colors.”
Normal colors…?
Christopher holds some LEGO for Buck to see. In his palm, there are grays, browns, reddish browns, etc.
Oh.
So not a colorful copy of the bungalow. That’s…
Is there a way to get more of those colors though? Because there’s not a lot in Christopher’s collection.
”I’ll see what I can find, superman,” Buck says, not exactly a promise but it placates the kid judging by the accepting nod sent his way.
Buck runs a hand through the curly mop of hair, already thinking about how to go about this mission.
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He goes on Facebook first, searching for Marketplace listings that might have what he needs but comes up short.
Or long.
There are too many bulk listings. Bins upon bins of mixed LEGO. Boxes and bags of used sets. He makes a note to return to Facebook Marketplace later to look into buying a bulk or two for Christopher before going to the next thing that might give him answers.
Instagram is slightly better. He finds pages dedicated to LEGO and leaves some messages for the admins to see if they have a solution to his problem. The only problem is that he doesn’t know if they’ll reply considering the many followers they have.
Lastly, he turns to faithful Reddit, where he does get answers. Just nothing uniform.
Bricklink. Pick-a-Brick. Break apart sets. Local stores.
Buck sighs, committing himself to exploring all four options for the rest of the night.
He's got to figure out how to build a house out of LEGO, too, in case Christopher needs his help.
But one step at a time.
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Two weeks later, Buck has (hopefully) everything they need to build a LEGO replica of the bungalow. He visited the local LEGO stores where he had gotten some stuff from their wall and some sets (mostly Minecraft which might be him opening a can of worms), then he found some second-hand LEGO stores where he spent some time picking through their bulk pile, then spent some time online on LEGO's pick-a-brick site to round everything out.
He’s ready.
“What is all of this?” Eddie asks once they get through the front door. Buck had used the key Eddie gave him to open the door as per usual but had needed to make two trips with how many bags and boxes he had, so Eddie had helped carry everything into the living room.
“Chris wanted to build something,” he tells his partner.
Eddie’s eyes widen, frantically (as much as Eddie does frantic, of course) asking, “How much did you spend on all of this?”
Probably a little too much, Buck thinks, but he can’t say that because Eddie will have an aneurysm. “Not much,” he says instead. “And I got some gifts with purchases because of it!”
And a good number of points because he signed up to be a LEGO VIP member. He figured it’d be good to have an account with them if Christopher continues his love for the franchise.
“Buck,” Eddie sighs, exasperated.
“Hey,” he protests. “It’s for Christopher.”
“I know, but-”
“But nothing. It’s not like I have a lot of things to spend money on except rent and food. And he’s worth it.”
The smile Eddie sends his way is worth it too.
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The resulting LEGO bungalow is a little disproportional, a little off-color, and looks like a mansion compared to the three minifigures of them Christopher insisted on getting, but it ends up sitting in its place of honor in the living room.
(And if Buck teared up at being included in the little family of minifigures, no one needs to know.)