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“A wise man once told me, "Family don't end in blood." But it doesn't start there, either. Family cares about you, not what you can do for them. Family's there through the good, the bad-all of it. They got your back, even when it hurts. That's family.” – Dean Winchester
Evan Pruitt Buckley was fairly certain that for the first 17 years of his life, not a single person in the world had ever loved him.
Now, he wasn’t trying to be dramatic when he said that, but it was just a simple fact of his life. While most babies spent their first hours in the world being cradled by their loving parents, Evan had spent his shivering on the steps of a church in the middle of nowhere, Pennsylvania. Over the years, his case workers had tried to assure him that his parents had probably just given him up for a better life, but he knew it was a lie; no one would ever abandon a fragile infant on a freezing night in November if they loved it. He was lucky to have survived, lucky the old priest living in the church had heard his tiny cries. The old man had found the tiny baby all alone, with nothing but a blanket and a note saying his name was Evan. He called the police, who attempted to search for Evan’s parents, but no one ever came forward to claim the baby. So, the police had handed him over to social services, who dropped Evan off with foster parents after a brief checkup at the hospital.
His first case worker had very little patience to do paperwork in the middle of the night and simply scribbled down the priest’s last name as the baby’s own. A nurse at the hospital selected the middle name for the baby, Pruitt. French for brave little one. So, the mysterious infant named Evan became Evan Pruitt Buckley and his birthday was assumed to be the 11th of November, 1996. One would think that a sweet little baby boy with no parents to be seen would be snatched up for adoption, but of course Evan Buckley was destined to have the worst luck of anyone in the world. He was sent around from foster home to foster home, his longest stay never being more than eight months, and by the age of eight, he’d accepted his fate; he was never going to be adopted. Still, he tried his best to stay in his placements for as long as possible. At that age, he’d still been naive enough to think foster homes were better than group homes. By the time he was ten and had been sent to the ER on three separate occasions by his foster father, he knew better. Group homes were the best place for him, there was safety in numbers.
Constantly being surrounded by older kids in group homes had made him think about his future. Some kids were terrified of aging out, while others couldn’t wait to have freedom. It wasn’t until he was 16 that Evan had a plan for his life. He’d gotten into a fight trying to protect some of the younger boys in the home while at school and the police had been called. An older cop had been the one to escort him to the ER and unlike most cops he’d met, was actually pretty nice.
“Hey kid,” the man said as Evan waited on a bed in the ER to get his broken wrist set. “You’re what, 16? 17?”
“I’m 16,” Evan replied.
“What are you planning on doing when the state sets you free?” the cop asked.
Evan shrugged, not wanting to tell the man he had no clue. He knew most kids that aged out of the system ended up homeless or in jail, and as much as he didn’t want to be one of those people, he knew he probably would be. He could get a job, but that was hard to do when you had nowhere to live. If he wanted to go to school, he could apply for a scholarship, but with constantly moving around, his grades weren’t the best.
“Try and get a scholarship for college, I guess,” Evan told him as he shrugged.
The cop reached into his pocket and pulled out his wallet. He rifled through it for a moment before finding a small, white business card and handing it to Evan.
“Ever consider the Navy?” he asked.
The card was for a Navy recruiter, with a name, phone number, and email on it. Honestly, Evan hadn’t ever put a lot of thought into his future, too focused on trying to survive the present.
“Can’t say I have,” Evan said.
“You might be good at it, considering how much you like protecting the little guy,” the guy told him as he nodded towards his broken wrist. They both knew it wasn’t the first time he’d gotten himself into trouble trying to defend the younger kids.
“That card is for an old buddy of mine, feel free to give him a call if it ever interests you.”
Evan had never been able to shake the man’s advice from his mind, so when he turned 17 a year later, he managed to get himself emancipated and signed up to join the Navy SEALs as soon as he could.
Training had been brutal but in many ways, his time in foster care had prepared him for it. He was used to following orders, used to keeping his mouth shut instead of talking back, used to locking his true personality away to appease foster families. He excelled in boot camp and BUD/S training and was eventually placed on SEAL Team 6. It was highly unusual having a seal be so young and so successful, but Evan knew it was because he had no other choice. If he didn’t make it into the SEALs, he’d be thrown back onto the streets and end up homeless or in prison like most foster kids who aged out. After he was assigned to SEAL Team 6, he was given a unit and found the one thing he’d been looking for his entire life; a family. There were three other men in his unit, all of whom took the teenager under their wing.
“Petty Officer Clark,” the sergeant called as he led Evan into a barrack.
“Sir,” a man greeted them as he hopped off of an upper bunk.
“This here is Evan Buckley, he’ll be the new sharpshooter for your unit,” the sergeant informed the man before quickly turning on his heel and leaving.
“Danny, how come they always stick the pups with us?” a man with a heavy southern accent asked from another top bunk as he looked over the brim of a book at Evan.
“Give him a chance, Mattie. How old are you, lad?” an Irish man asked from where he was sitting on the floor, doodling in a notebook.
“I’m 17,” Evan responded and he saw the Irishman frown slightly before returning to his drawing.
Turning back to the man the sergeant had addressed, Petty Officer Clark apparently, Evan noticed the man biting his lip slightly, concern evident in his eyes.
“I’m sure you’ll fit in just fine,” he assured Evan.
“We should’ve just gotten a golden retriever to play with Koda,” the southern man grumbled.
They had all been a little wary at first, not exactly thrilled at the thought of having a kid on the battlefield with them, but they’d quickly accepted him. He fit in seamlessly with the group, which had been looking for a fourth member for four months before Evan showed up.
Daniel Clark was the leader of the unit, as well as the oldest of them all. He was 28 when Evan first met him and had already been a seal for six years. The man had dark brown wavy hair and sharp green eyes. Danny had been the glue that held the unit together, the kind and funny personality they all needed to get them through war. It was his age and experience, combined with his intelligence and decisiveness, that had made him the perfect candidate to be unit leader. While the man was as gentle as a puppy dog despite being a seal, he was fiercely protective of his unit, which had earned him the nickname Lion.
Henry McNeil was the medic of the unit and had been described as having Evan’s personality but on steroids. At 25, he was the second oldest. Calling him a golden retriever didn't even begin to describe the man. He saw horrors every day, saw good men and women dying, but Henry never lost his cheery personality. He’d grown up in Ireland and, unsurprisingly, had flaming red hair and blue eyes. Henry was a stereotypical Irish Catholic with a family of seven siblings to boot. The cross he wore around his neck along with his dog tags had resulted in the nickname Deacon.
Matthew LaMontagne was the fourth and final member of the unit and was by far the quietest member. At only 22 years old, he’d been the second youngest in the unit next to Evan but ended up being the shortest in height. Lion was almost 6’4, towering over everyone else, while Deacon measured at 6’2. Matt was only 5’11, something that was a sore point of his. The man hadn’t complained much about it at first but Evan had a late growth spurt, going from 5’10 to 6’2 by the end of their time together. Unlike Deacon, who was always cracking jokes, Matt spent most of his down time reading or quietly playing cards with some other seals. He’d been the main translator for the team since he could speak nearly eight languages fluently. Matt also had the best aim out of anyone on the team until Evan came along, which had caused everyone to start calling him Remi, a nod to Remington Arms.
The three men soon became his older brothers. He’d been slightly withdrawn during their first few months together, not used to trusting others, but he quickly came around when he saw how selfless and protective the others were. A couple of months into their tour, he’d spilled the true details of his childhood while they sat around the fire one night. He knew they’d been wondering; after all, no one joins the SEALs at 17 unless they have a reason. It was then that he confessed he hated the name Evan. Names were supposed to be something special, a gift given to a child by their parents. It was supposed to be a name from someone you love. His name was just a reminder of what he didn’t have. A few days later, Lion called him Pru for the first time. Evan had simply raised an eyebrow at the man, but Lion thought it was perfect. Evan had never bothered questioning the meaning of Pruitt before, but Lion had taken it upon himself to look it up. His older brother had insisted that the meaning of brave little one was fitting and the nickname suited Evan and despite Evan’s protests, Henry and Matt began to call him Pru as well. Evan eventually began to like it as well, seeing as how it was the first time he’d had a name given to him by someone who loved him.
Evan spent the best three years of his life with the other three men. They fought beside one another for months at a time, and although it was gruesome, he relished the feeling of having a family. When they weren’t deployed, the four men shared an apartment together in Virginia, only splitting up to spend the holidays with family. Even then, Evan always went home with one of the others for Christmas or Thanksgiving if they weren’t on tour. He could take a flight from Virginia with Deacon and spend days in rainy Galway surrounded by the man’s large family of redheads with soft Irish accents. Another option was driving all the way up to Boston with Lion, whose mom always had dinner ready for them when they arrived and whose dad would spend hours educating Evan on Boston sports. If he wanted to escape the frigid temperatures of Galway and Ireland, then he’d hop a flight with Remi and go down to New Orleans where the blonde had grown up. Remi had three sisters that would spend half of Christmas day making gumbo while all the kids ran around, their loud southern voices filling the house with joy.
Everything was perfect. For the first time in his life, he’d had someone to depend on. Someone who could be there for him when times got tough. Someone who checked in on him, who worried about him. Someone who knew his favorite foods, who wasn’t bothered by his rambling, who actually liked spending time with him. They were there for him when he still had nightmares from some of the more gruesome foster homes he’d been in, reassuring him that he was safe, that he wasn’t alone anymore. They were there after every single injury (and Evan being Evan, got injured quite a bit), never complaining, just supporting him. For the first time in his life, he had a family. Everything was perfect.
Whoever said it was better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all... is a fuckin' idiot.
“There are people in every time and every land who want to stop history in its tracks. They fear the future, mistrust the present, and invoke the security of a comfortable past which, in fact, never existed.” – Robert Francis Kennedy