what you always do

As much as we love to say Buck is Christopher’s second dad, that is just not displayed in canon, not explicitly. It’s just not. Buck is most definitely the closest adult in Christopher’s life besides Eddie, by a wide margin, but they’ve only ever put Buck in a particularly parental role a couple times. Buck himself will never put himself in that role unless Eddie or Chris explicitly says it. It’s not ‘watering down’ anything to acknowledge that this is entirely different, both from a relational standpoint and from a responsibility and life stage standpoint.

I’ve also seen people say it’s ridiculous that ‘oh just because Buck is the sperm donor Theo goes to him and not family’. You guys, I don’t think you understand just how often it happens that children have -no- other family to take them in these cases. They may have an elderly grandparent that can’t care for them, or a distant uncle who doesn’t care, or family that simply -can’t- due to financial issues, disability, etc. It’s not like Buck was an anonymous sperm donor, he was known to Theo’s parents, very well known, long before Theo was even thought of. It makes total and complete sense that Theo could go to Buck if there were no other family members that could take him. This is true whether Buck was the sperm donor or not, but you cannot argue that it’s not a positive thing that Theo is with someone he is biologically similar to and could potentially understand him better than someone else.

"You got me socks?"

"Yeah! :)"

There's this thing called kinship care. This is when a child is taken into custody by the state, and then a relative or a close non-relative takes either temporary or permanent guardianship of the child. Kinship care is not the same thing as foster care, though many aspects are the same. The biggest difference is that a person taking in a child that is known to them via kinship placement does not have to go through foster licensing. They don't have to do the months of classes or licensing requirements. In fact, a kinship placement could potentially happen within days of a child being taken into state's custody. The only things that happen are the people taking the child have to have a home visit with the state social worker to ensure it's an appropriate space, and they do a federal background check. That's it.

In this instance, all Buck would have had to do is call up Deidra and say "I would like to take custody of Theo" and she would have scheduled him for a home visit (probably within the week) and gotten his info to send off a background check. Following the background check coming back and after she does her home visit, it would be a matter of days that she would be bringing Theo to his home. What he was probably signing there with her is the placement letter, which is the document that gives Buck legal right to make decisions for Theo. The placement letter is supposed to be provided at the time the child comes to the home, but it can sometimes be after.

Anyway I am so going to write a fic about the process and what it looked like for him and alllll the appointments and resources and things that come with being a kinship home.