3 people asked for more Buck Never Leaves AU within 2 months (which is a lot when you consider this series came out 6 years ago) (FUCK) (I'm 30 tomorrow isn't that wild?) so I whipped up a little somethin' somethin'.
tbh a lot of my creative thought production for this world is going towards The Pros and the unwritten but 80% complete in my head sequel, so I hadn't thought about BNLAU (which is what i'm gonna call it so i dont have to keep writing it) in a while, even tho when I first put it out I remember being like "there's so much more I could write for this!" well, i guess I shoulda written it down, because I don't remember.
ANYWAY... enjoy. And thanks for still giving a shit about my work. :)
~~
Fletcher may have introduced Buck to the new trainees as someone who “works for” them. They may have told the new trainees not to hurt him - not to lay a hand on him - unless Fletcher tells them to do so. And they reassured Buck that they would only ever tell them to do so for a lesson. If any discipline was required, Fletcher would only handle it themself. And they trusted Buck was wise enough about his situation that they wouldn’t need to call on anyone else to help “wrangle” him.
But the relationship was clear. The power dynamic was glaring. The way Fletcher ordered Buck around, the way Buck labored without argument. The way Fletcher volunteered him for lessons, the way he cowed in their presence. The scars. The tracking bracelet.
The trainees were not bold enough or dumb enough to hurt Buck outside of the lessons. But that didn’t mean they didn’t bully him.
One in particular, Williams, thought he was hot shit when he could flex some power over Buck. Making threats and taunts, “accidentally” shoulder-checking him in the hall or bumping into him while he had his hands full.
One day he pulled his gun. Waved it around as he gave Buck some speech that was supposed to intimidate him, but he wasn’t listening. His eyes tracked the movement of the weapon. Out of fear, Williams thought. But they were wrong.
Williams kept his finger off the trigger, Buck noticed. At least if he was going to ignore every other safety rule, Buck didn’t have to worry about him accidentally squeezing off a shot.
Buck had been paying attention to the lessons. Maybe more than Williams. Certainly, he was able to disarm him with ease.
“Fletcher.” Buck’s voice was stern.
“Wha…” Fletcher looked up from the pile of carrots they were peeling, and trailed off.
It was the most surprised Buck had ever seen them, second only to when he had killed Petrova. Ironically enough, more so than when he had pointed a gun at them, considering he now had a gun pointed at one of their students.
Buck held Williams in front of him, one hand holding tight to the collar of his shirt. The other hand held the gun, pressed to Williams’s temple.
“Give me the key to your truck,” Buck demanded.
Fletcher’s eyes traveled to Williams.
“This is going to look bad on your report card,” they said. “You could be looking at summer school.”
Williams made an annoyed noise.
“Whatever, it’s not like he’s actually gonna do it.
“Oh, he’ll do it,” Fletcher assured them easily. “He’s done it before.”
Williams paled. “What? He killed someone before and you kept him?”
“First time the gun wasn’t loaded, second time it was actually in my best interest.”
“Twice?”
“First one was an attempt on me, not a student,” Fletcher clarified.
“Fletcher,” Buck interrupted. “Your keys.”
Fletcher stood from the kitchen table slowly, and even slower reached toward their belt.
“Keys are by the holster,” they said. “I’m gonna go slow.”
Buck nodded. Fletcher carefully unclipped their key ring from their belt loop and held them aloft.
“How we gonna do this?” Fletcher asked.
“Toss me the keys. When I get to the truck, I’ll let Williams go,” Buck instructed.
“Normally I would insist on an at the same time thing, but I guess you have no reason to kill Williams if you get your way.” Fletcher reasoned. They looked at their keys for a moment. “If you take my truck, I’ll be stranded.”
“I know you have the four wheeler,” Buck shot back.
Fletcher shrugged, caught. “Where’s my truck gonna be?”
“What?”
“Tell me where you’re going to leave the truck so I can retrieve it.”
“I’m keeping the truck,” Buck insisted. “I don’t have anything; I’m going to need…”
He trailed off.
“Yeah, what is your plan?” Fletcher asked. “Sleep in the truck? Be homeless? You have nowhere to go, you have no money, you don’t have anyone to turn to.”
“I know where you keep your cash in the truck,” Buck said.
Fletcher scowled, then returned to a neutral look.
“Fine, that’ll get you started. And then, what, get a job? You know how long it will take you to save up enough money to get an apartment? Did you pack a bag? You’ve got one change of clothes and no shower, so good luck at interviews. Applications are all online now, anyway. And you’re going to need to save that money for food, so-”
“Goddammit, Fletcher!” Buck snapped, rattling Williams who let out an involuntary gasp. “Anything’s better than staying here!”
Fletcher’s laugh started off small, then crescendoed.
“That’s not true.”
Buck flexed his fingers on the grip of the gun.
“You gonna come after me?” he asked.
Fletcher thought for a moment, then shrugged.
“Undecided. Probably not now that I’m in the middle of a training season. So that’ll give you a good head start. Might not be worth the effort to try to pick up your trail… as long as you’re smart about it. You know not to go to the cops, right? It’s a death sentence.”
“Yeah, whatever,” Buck said, exasperated. “Give me the keys.”
“We need to come to an agreement about the truck.”
“The agreement is that you give me the keys or I blow your student’s fucking brains out!” Buck roared.
Fletcher let out a small chuckle, eyebrows slightly raised, like they were more amused than intimidated.
One moment, Buck was staring Fletcher down with their trainee at gunpoint. The next moment was all pain, sharp and overwhelming in the back of his skull. The next moment was on the ground. Both his hands were bracing against the floor, which meant that the gun…
By the time his eyes caught sight of it, having fallen from his grasp and slid a few feet away, a hand was already reaching down and picking it up. He tracked the movement, leading his gaze up to Fletcher.
Buck tried to push himself up, but collapsed back down as the pain doubled. He pressed one hand to the back of his head, expecting to feel blood, expecting to feel his skull caved in. A new pain slammed into his ribs now, in the form of a steel toed boot.
“Alright, Caldera, you got him, thank you,” Fletcher said. “I’ll take it from here.”
Williams held out his hand for his gun, but Fletcher tucked it into their belt.
“Oh, you’ve lost gun privileges."
“What?” he protested.
“For now. We’re going to talk about how this happened, and how we can prevent it from happening in the future,” Fletcher said, voice dripping with condescension.
They crouched down in front of Buck, who managed to look up enough to meet their gaze.
“That was a good attempt,” they said, then sighed. “I hate to lock you up again; I thought we were past that. But really, more than anything, I need to keep you under observation.”
They took Buck’s chin and tilted his head up as he grimaced, studying his eyes.
“When you’ve recovered a bit, then we can discuss how things are going to be from now on.”
~~
I'm never sure if I should add the taglist for bonus stuff (or how many of those urls are still accurate, or how many ppl asked to be tagged after I had finished the series and I thought I was Done Forever so I didn't make a note of it) but uhh here we go
