Chapter Text
The thing about breakups, Buck realised, is that everyone's got an opinion on them. Everyone in his life had something to say when he and Tommy split, and most of them were well meaning, if a little conflicting.
As the months ticked by Buck recovered, shifts blurring into one, he went about his life with a Tommy shaped hole in it and the sometimes unwelcome opinions eventually petered out. Life moved on, fires burned hot, the summer even hotter, and things slowly turned into a new normal.
But thoughts of Tommy still plagued him, conversations over dinners re-run over and over in his head like a scratched CD. He found himself pining in the middle of the night, feet cold in a way they never were when Tommy was around, hands a little rougher after Tommy’s bedside hand cream ran out and he couldn’t find a store that stocked it.
He long ago stopped trying to talk to anyone about it, fear of being needy or boring stopping him every time the older man’s name crossed someone’s lips. And given that it was his ex-boyfriend, he was a little irritable about how many mentions that name got from his co-workers. Eventually the name drops stopped too, petering out until it felt like he was never really in their lives at all.
He’d done the baking thing, the arts and crafts thing, the new hobbies thing and eventually settled on a combination of all three to fill the gap in his life. He couldn’t say he wasn’t happy either, breakup aside, things hadn't been this good for a long time. He had a house he loved - even if it was rented - a thriving social life and the cutest niece and nephew in the whole world.
After the incident in the lab, and almost losing Bobby and Chim, he’d made a vow to himself that he would start filling his life with things that actually brought him joy, and decided giving back to the community was a good place to start. So he’d joined the local rec centre, and by extension the local indoor volleyball team. Originally he’d only been in it to help with the youth clubs, something to do on his days off that got him out of his own head. But then he’d met Jenny, and she’d looked him up and down, eyes rimmed in charcoal and hair backcombed to within an inch of its life, and her five foot nothing frame had yanked him in front of the net. The rest, as they say, was history.
So here he was, sweating like a pig while he dove around the court as Jenny screamed at him from the sidelines. He was the only man on the team, and also the youngest by about 30 years. The team, made up of Doris, Janet, Selina, Pippa, Mellie and him, was one of the best parts of his week. The women fussed over him, tutting at whatever new injury he’d managed to gain at work and plying him with baked goods that far surpassed anything he could make.
“Buckley! Are you listening to me?” Jenny yelled from the side lines. Buck swung his head round with a grin as he popped it towards Janet, cheering as she bounced it and it hit the floor on the other side of the net.
“You let him be Jenny MacNamara!” Doris yelled back, throwing him a wink as she bumped the other team's serve back over the net. The other team grumbled amongst themselves as it hit the floor again and the whistle blew.
He caught the bottle of Gatorade tossed his way as Jenny slid across the bench towards him. “If you keep this up we’ll win the whole league! You are my greatest project yet.” She said as she patted his curls. He smiled indulgently, grinning as he swept the now flattened curls back out of his face, and emptied the bottle. “I think my older sister would have something to say about you taking credit for all this” He said jokingly.
“Don’t start with me Buckley, Maddie agrees that I've turned you into a volleyball prodigy.”
“Aren’t I a little old to be considered a prodigy?”
“Evan Buckley, you’re in your prime, come back in thirty years and then talk to us about old. Now help me with these trainers will you? My hip’s playing up again.” Janet chimed in as she settled down next to him, a warm hand patting his arm as he kneeled on the floor to tie her laces.
By the time everything is packed up and put away, Buck is about ready to collapse, he's reached his limit for people and as much as he loves Jenny, he loves the idea of collapsing into bed more, which is why when she invites him to quiz night he declines with a promise to be at the next one.
It's the following weekend at the rec center that he takes a hit to centre mass. He's filling cups of Gatorade, table in front of him laden with orange slices and paper cups for the gaggles of children currently running through assault courses he'd spent all of the previous day putting together. Their joy was infectious, he couldn't deny it, little squeals of laughter as they hurtled through hopscotch squares and ring tosses, cheeks rosy and smiles wide as they crossed the finish line.
He was on hydration duty with a woman called Heather, who he'd quickly warmed to as she pointed out her own two children enjoying the sports day. They'd made idle chitchat as kids came and went, polite promises to cover for each other when the other needed a bathroom break or a sit down, kids were fun, but they were a lot.
"Buckley, you're needed for the trampoline set up, Mike can't figure out which way the springs go" Jenny says as she shuffles him out from behind the table and gives him a shove in the direction of a slightly frazzled looking middle aged man.
Buck takes it in his stride, smiling as he makes his way over to Mike. "Please tell me you've got some idea of how these things go together? I'm at a complete loss here and they're supposed to be ready by the time the ping pong tables have been packed away." Mike's eyes dart towards the other end of the hall, ping pong tables half way to being gone.
So he got to work, making adjustments where he needed to and yanking springs into place as Mike pulled the mat out and hooked up the final pieces of the legs. By the time they were done Buck was sweating a little, but pleased as the first kids started to line up and some other adults took over. "I think we've earned a drink, non-alcoholic of course, but I've got juice boxes if you want?" Buck laughs but nods and settles against the wall as Mike goes to fetch them.
They get to talking, exchanging stories about their jobs and lifestyles, Mike points out his two nephews in line for the newly constructed trampolines, Buck is endeared to find out they've got quite a lot in common. The other man is in the middle of recounting a story about his sister when the blow comes.
"Anyway, so she's at the kids sports day right, she's with her other mom friends watching the parent-child three legged race, except the woman Gina, well her little girl was injured doing the sack race, so her husbands best friend subs in for the kid right? Anyway there's absolute uproar because apparently even though it's a kids sports day, they take the rules very seriously, even more seriously when the sub-in is a six-foot-six helicopter pilot." Buck can hear his heart beat in his ears, he can taste the denial in his mouth as he tries to justify — if only to himself — that there's statistically more than likely another six-foot-six helicopter pilot in the LA area who's best friends with someone who's wife's name is Gina.
Mike is non the wiser as to the internal turmoil going on as he continues. "Anyway, so eventually the whole family gets disqualified and the sports day was ruined. I love my nephews, but God am I glad I don't have to deal with that shit on a daily basis."
Buck comes back to himself in time to make the appropriate noises of agreement, even though he doesn't really mean them, and then makes polite exit to go and gather himself together.
It's not like he didn't think about Tommy. He did. He does. But there's been a moretoreum on Tommy talk at the firehouse, and he didn't know anyone else who knew him until now, even if not by name. He pulled himself together in the hallway, repeating his mantra over and over again until he could think clearly. Tommy had made his choice. Tommy had made his choice and Buck was respecting that choice. Tommy had made his choice and Buck was respecting that choice even if he disagreed with it.
He mulls over it on his way home, silently repeating the mantra a few more times as the rain races down his windshield. It shouldn't be this hard right? It's been months, hearing about Tommy shouldn't still have this effect on him, he hadn't even said the man's name for God sake.
He lets it go by the time he gets home, making his way up the front steps of his new place, glancing at the slightly dry looking plants on his kitchen windowsill and deciding they'd do better on the six feet of front porch that had sold him on the house at first glance.
Plants outside and front door locked, he makes his way into a scalding hot shower and pyjama bottoms before finally collapsing into bed, and if he dreams that night of Tommy ruining sports day for their kids? Well that's no one's business but his own.