Chapter Text
One of the first things people notice about Evan “Buck” Buckley is his height. He’s a six foot three male, it makes sense. Then people notice his muscles, his birthmark on his face, and countless other ‘physical’ attributes of the man. But the people close to him learn more about him and the way he acts. He’s an odd guy. Here are five “odd quirks” of Buck.
TW: Racism mentioned.
1 ) He’s incredibly caring and kind to literally everyone.
There’s a very mean, verbally abusive patient, pissing everyone off at the end of a very busy shift that had run over (quick, act surprised). Buck stood by and kept working on the head wound, treating it with the same amount of kindness he’d show any other patient. He talked with said patient and as they were loading up to send the patient to Cedars Hospital, the patient apologized to everyone for his piss-poor behavior.
“How’d you get him to apologize?” Bobby asks on the way back to the station.
“I didn’t. I just talked with him, tried to understand why he was so mad and crass. Apparently, he lost his glasses and that’s why he leaned down and hit his head on the coffee table. Without his glasses, he can’t see worth shit and it was aggravating his already bad day. He couldn’t find his phone to call for help and then his ex-wife, the caller, came by and she just sucks. He got really into it but yeah. She really sucks. And then he couldn’t hear anyone due to the ringing in his ears that ‘have been there longer than I’ve been alive’ on top of the ringing from the concussion so all he knew was one moment, he was bleeding and stuck and then he’s being touched by strangers and there’s nothing he can do to stop it. Once I grabbed his glasses and he could see that we weren’t kidnappers, he calmed down a lot. After that, he started insulting us more. And I kept treating him. Asked him ‘why?’ a lot because if you can understand why something is happening, you can figure out how to stop it. He said I was like a toddler with how annoying I was. He eventually told me about how in Korea a bunch of rebels kidnapped him and his crew. A couple rebels were black, they were all killed. John over there is the only one who lived. He was caught in a terrible flashback and took it all out on us.
“Ok, but why did he let us treat him?” A random coworker asks.
“He knew he needed medical help, but still in the flashback, he thought Hen and Chim were the enemy. He trusted me because I’m a white man offering to help. Once everything calmed down, he felt horrible. I told him he could apologize and I could explain everything later if he wanted. He gave me permission to tell all of you that and to send his deep apologies for how he treated us.”
“That’s amazing, Buck. Great job.”
“Thanks,” he says blushing, not wanting the attention, “It’s our job though, to treat all patients. Even the accidently racist ones.”
This is one of the many examples the team could give and most of them don’t have such a happy, neat ending.
A different patient punched Buck in the face and after Buck got checked out (against his will), he asked about his assaulter. It made no sense to anyone how he was so kind. Not even Bobby. The assaulter was fine, he got arrested by Athena after a quick stop in the ED for some non-emergent stitches.
Once they were dispatched to a modern KKK meeting because one person had lit a bonfire that got out of control. The insults from the public were surprising all encompassing, from racist remarks to homophobic taunts. One even accused Buck of being an addict because he was wearing a long sleeved shirt (he was just cold that morning). He still treated every passerby with kindness, even picking up something someone dropped.
“Ok, how are you doing this?”
“Doing what?” They were back in the truck, heading back to the station,
“Being happy.”
“You guys are acting like that’s a crime.” Buck’s chuckles leaving his mouth without permission.
“Dude!” Chim exclaims, “A couple of people were threatening to kill you and you just smiled and asked how their day was.”
“Yeah, because that’s the job.” He says as if it’s obvious.
“Yeah, it’s our job to treat the patients. Nowhere in our contract does it say we have to ask “How are you?” to literally everyone.”
“Or smile at a woman who just threatened to murder you and ask if she needs a bottle of water from the truck because it’s hot.”
Buck, now visibly uncomfortable, just shrugs. “Not like I haven’t heard worse before.” and pointedly stares out the window, ending their conversation.