Southern California is where Buck has spent the most time since leaving Pennsylvania. Of all the places he’s lived and worked over the last few years, this place is where he decided to stay. It’s why he picked LAFD: to put down some roots. It’s warm, has the ocean, and it’s the opposite coast of his parents. So if he’s going to be here for a while, he thinks he’ll need to make an effort to let people in. * The fic about Buck letting people at the 118 know him, knowing himself and also me fixing canon as I go along.
Even the best laid plans go awry, and Buck will be the first to admit this wasn’t his greatest plan. After getting fired and rehired on the same day, he realizes he might have taken things a little too far. Buck knew he was getting a little desperate for some attention, but he didn’t know that would lead to a Tinder hookup convincing him to take a ladder engine out for a joyride in the middle of a shift. He’s honestly not sure how his actions helping Sergeant Grant were enough to get him his job back. What he does know is everything he currently needs, (encouragement, support, a little grace, maybe a quick hug if he’s totally honest) he could possibly already have from his coworkers if not for his plan.
At 26, Buck knows by now that he’s a lot to be around.
Physically, he’s taller than average, and even though he slimmed down from all the swimming during his time at SEAL training, he’s still pretty broad in the shoulders. But more than that, he knows if he doesn’t rein himself in, he can get a little loud, a little too intense to those around him. He knows it’s at least partly because he grew up feeling invisible in his own house, and he overcompensated for that by being impossible to ignore everywhere else once he finally left his parents behind.
So the plan to keep this job and make it a career, to finally do something that matters, (to finally be someone that matters, a nasty voice whispers) was to rein it all in.
Don’t be too loud; don’t overshare; don’t dominate conversation; don’t be needy.
But as he had packed up his locker, finding out everyone on his shift agreed that he deserved to be fired, he realized he’d perhaps hidden too much. He’d hidden so much that no one knew him enough to even do him the kindness of lying, to even pretend to be on his side of things.
He doesn’t know where his strategy went wrong - it worked all through SEAL training and at the fire academy. The more he thinks on it though, he recognizes that none of the people from those two experiences are people he could call on for help except maybe one or two. He hadn’t made anything beyond surface friendships with those people at the time. So although it worked to keep people from being annoyed with him, it meant he didn’t make any lasting connections with anyone.
Southern California is where Buck has spent the most time since leaving Pennsylvania. Of all the places he’s lived and worked over the last few years, this place is where he decided to stay. It’s why he picked LAFD: to put down some roots. It’s warm, has the ocean, and it’s the opposite coast of his parents. So if he’s going to be here for a while, he thinks he’ll need to make an effort to let people in.
