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Hell was the journey but it brought me heaven - A.C

☆ Andrew "Pope" Cody x f!Reader ☆ (previous part) (next part) summary: After a life shaped by violence, Andrew finds something he was never meant to have: love. That is, if he can protect it from his world. word count: 42.2k c.w: graphic violence, blood, religious imagery, kidnapping, torture, trauma/ptsd, implied past child abuse, murder, smut (piv, unprotected sex). a/n: me to my wife "It's gonna be 20k at best". as you can see, it was a lie. thank you so much to her for proofreading it. dealing with the 1000 blocks rule was a nightmare, so please forgive how it looks.

‪‪❤︎‬ Thank you so much for reading!

Andrew wakes up, gently pulled upward from the dark.

At first, he doesn’t know why his body feels so different: no jolt, no sharp inhale like he’s surfacing from underwater, and more importantly, no agonizing screams from the ghosts in his head. No echo of Smurf’s voice into his ear, telling him that he only matters when he is useful, no Julia, no Cath, no Baz…just him and the undeniable feeling of warmth and gentleness enveloping his body.

For a disorienting second, he doesn’t move, doesn’t open his eyes. He lies perfectly still, too anxious that the absence of dread might be the sign of another delirium. After all, his mind has built kinder lies than this in the past: mornings where he woke up believing he was out of harm’s way, that somebody was alongside him, that he would at last be spared, only to open his eyes and discover nothing there but air. Andrew implores.

(Please. Not like the other times. Let this be real. May mercy, for once, choose him. He would take every punishment. Trade all he possesses. His remaining years. His blood. His soul. Live an eternity in the noise of his ghosts if he could just keep this single second of bliss untouched.)

Something shifts below him, and only then does he truly register it: the warmth is not a trick of his mind, not another tender cruelty meant to vanish the second he trusts it. It’s…you. You and your body, receiving him like he has always belonged there. His cheek is pressed just above your breast, his ear resting over your heart, each inhale from your chest lifting his head in small motions. He feels the rhythm: the pulse under his skin, the expansion of your ribs, the heat radiating from you into him.

(One. Two. Three. Four. Your heart answers his, beating leisurely. Bare skin against bare skin, he feels like a man who is wandering into a cathedral with mud on his boots.)

The longer he lies there, the more details surface: your thigh draped loosely over his hip, one of your hands tangled lazily in his curls, probably falling asleep holding onto them and never loosening your grip. He wants to etch every detail of your body someplace within him where nothing can distort it. He inhales deeply. You don’t smell your usual shampoo and soap, no, that version of you belongs to the sunlight and the outside world. This morning, Andrew gets to know the one that is bare in his sheets. You feel musky, like the earth after a rainstorm when the air turns heavy and thick. It takes him a few more moments to grasp that it’s the scent of sex.

He slowly opens his eyes, bracing for the possibility that the illusion would fracture, leaving him alone once more, but nothing moves. You remain where you are: lashes resting against your cheeks, lips slightly parted in sleep and your hair spilled messily across the pillow. His hand, which had clutched your waist and – he notices with guilt – left a bruise from holding on too tightly in the bliss of last night, shifts now to brush the thin gold chain at your collarbone, thumb sliding along the heart-shaped pendant. He doesn’t understand how he ended up here. How a man like him gets to wake up like this, to touch you like this.

(Profane hands that have broken things. People. Fingers that know how to stitch wounds closed and how to open them. He feels like he should apologize. Wash and scrub himself raw before touching you again. Impious hands on consecrated skin.)

And yet here they are, resting on you as though designed for this all along. Moving upward by a few inches, pressing his palm into the mattress to lift his weight enough so he doesn’t disturb you, Andrew hovers above your body to study the shape of your face in the morning light that slips in through the blinds. How it paints your features in golden lines like sky itself marvels at his own creation.

He lowers himself until his nose finds the curve of your neck, breathing you in once more, slower. He can distinguish the salt that lingers in the faint traces of sweat and saliva where his tongue had traveled last night along your collarbone and throat. He recalls how, spent and trembling, you had pulled him down, guided him to your breasts and how, overwhelmed by the sentiment of being the one held, he had kissed every inch of skin he could reach. He lets his lips trace a path of unhurried kisses along the delicate line of your bones: where your jaw meets your neck, the smooth curve of the shoulder and the sensitive hollow beneath it, before going downward to your sternum.

(He wants to know you through every sense he has. To map this morning with his lungs and mouth. To memorize the striae of your skin, the birthmark under your left breast that he had found last night. To learn the language of your body. The world can have the composed version of you. He gets this one in his bed.)

He tries not to disturb you, to keep his caresses light, but your body responds anyway with a drowsy protest, brows knitted and fingers tightening unconsciously in his hair. “Mm…Andrew,” you mumble, voice hoarse with sleep, burying your face against his shoulder. “it’s too early.”

He goes perfectly still at the base of your neck, lifting his head just enough to have a look: your eyes are shut, yet there’s a smile threatening at the corners of your mouth. “Sorry,” he whispers.

You crack one eye open, unimpressed. “Liar.”

He huffs a quick breath, no longer attempting to suppress his smirk. “Maybe.”

Squinting up at him, your hand slides from his curls to his chin, thumb stroking sluggishly along his cheek. “Mornin’,” you murmur.

“Morning.” You tug him down by the back of his neck to kiss him, lips already parted in expectation. He stays dumbfounded for a beat, then two. He gets to have this. To experience kisses in the morning with a woman who reaches for him. To have someone in his life who really wants him for the man, not the weapon. To be just like his brothers in this simple, ordinary way. To be loved and to love back. He melts into the embrace, one hand braced against the mattress to keep on crushing you with his weight, the other settling on your ribcage.

Your mouth moves against his lazily, before travelling along his jaw and back to his lips, grinning. “We barely slept,” you breathe in-between, voice low and satisfied, “and I entirely blame you for it.” He feels heat climbing up his neck. “You’re blushing,” you observe, elated, pulling back just enough to see it for yourself. Before he can protest or deny, you shift beneath him and, with a push at his shoulder, roll him onto his back. He lands there, momentarily dazed, curls falling across his forehead as he blinks up at you.

(He could stop you. Reflexes honed by years of training and jobs. He knows how to pin someone. How to reverse leverage. However, the woman he loves is naked. And he is not good at refusing her anything.)

You climb and straddle him, knees on either side of his hips and hands shifting up his chest as you lean, hair spilling around your faces like a curtain, kissing him again. He tilts his head, meeting you, afraid to respond too avidly as his fingers wander along your body, avoiding the breasts. “Andrew…” you murmur against his lips, “you know you can touch me, right?” He nods once quietly, but his hands refuse to budge. “Hey, hey,” you smiled gently, palms coming up to cradle his cheeks, “it’s okay. Just because we made love yesterday doesn’t mean we have to do anything more today.”

(Made love. Not a transaction. Not something timed and watched by Smurf through the half-open door. Made love. Not fuck. The phrase is beautiful. Better than anything he has associated with sex. How you say it easily. Love.)

“There’s no need to rush,” you continue gently. “We can just stay like this.”

He clears his throat, the sound rough. “It’s not that I don’t want it. I just…” He exhales, frustrated with himself, with his body. “I don’t always…it doesn’t always…cooperate.” He braces himself for the awkwardness, the disappointment. Instead, there is only your smile.

“Oh, Andrew,” you say quietly, leaning down to press a peck to his mouth. “Last night was amazing but we kinda strained ourselves. And if we add up that you barely sleep on a regular week…I think your body is allowed to rest.”

“You’re not disappointed?” he asks quietly, still searching your face for pity.

“Disappointed? Andrew. Honey. I’m naked on top of the man I love. I’m pretty I won at the lottery of life.”

His throat works to respond but you plant another kiss on his lips. Pulling back, your gaze gravitates to his jaw. “Oh,” you giggle.

“What?”

You reach up and swipe your finger just below his ear, near the hinge of his jaw, shimmers on the pad of your thumb. “Sorry but you’ve got a little souvenir,” you tease.

He frowns. “From what?”

“Me. I kissed you there.” He touches the spot automatically, trying to feel it. “Do you want me to…?”

“No,” he replies quickly before shrugging, eyes lowering for an instant. “I can keep it. It’s fine.”

“Andrew,” you say half amused, half incredulous, “you’ve got my lip-gloss all over you.”

“I don’t mind.” (It’s not about the gloss. It’s about the mark. The mark you left on him. Other people will think and proclaim that you are his. Pope’s girl. The title will shield you from harm and men. The truth they won’t understand is he is yours. Blessed by the simple fact that you chose him.)

“Fine,” you whisper, dragging your thumb gently across his lips to smooth some of the shimmer down so it’s less obvious without erasing it entirely. A faint sheen still catches the light whenever he turns his head. Satisfied, you shift, sliding off his hips and curling into his side instead, tucking yourself against him as his arms close around you. Head resting over his chest, leg draped across his thigh, your fingers trace idle, absent shapes along his skin while you hum contentedly. “You’re very quiet,” you comment, nails scraping lightly over his sternum as you tilt your face up to look at him.

He studies the ceiling for a moment before answering. “I’m always quiet.”

“Not like this.” (He doesn’t ask what you mean. He knows. There is the silence he wears as an armor. Carved from years of swallowing words so they could not be used against him. The one that makes him efficient. And there is this one. The silence when he is full. When he isn’t waiting for something to go wrong.)

He lowers his gaze back to you and your cheek resting on his heartbeat, looking content, serene. He doesn’t know how to explain aloud the way it is brand-new for him. That right now, in this bedroom, he feels like standing in the aftermath of a storm, realizing that the sky has no intention of collapsing. That Smurf won’t ever be able to ruin this. Before he can try, the quietude is interrupted by a small, unmistakable growl that makes you freeze, blood rushing all along your neck and face. “Pretend that you heard nothing.”

“You’re hungry.”

You peek up at him, an embarrassed smile on your face. “Maybe.” (Hungry. You made him happy. Held him. Let him sleep. Fed a part of him he didn’t know how to name. Called it ‘make love’. Now you’re hungry. The equation feels simple. You fed his soul. He will feed your body.)

“I’ll make breakfast,” he responds, already moving deftly beneath you and mentally inventorying what’s in the kitchen.

“Andrew, it’s okay. I’m not going to faint if we wait a bit longer.”

“You’re hungry,” he repeats.

Your body slides off his with a reluctant noise, the air cool against his bare skin. He stands up too, taken aback when you cup his jaw and press your mouth to his softly, lingering for a beat. “Morning,” you murmur once more.

His hand goes instinctively to your waist. “Morning.” Pulling away slowly, his fingers trail down before he turns toward the dresser and opens the top drawer, retrieving a pair of black boxers. He steps into them without ceremony in the same quiet ritual he performs every morning.

You, however, ignore your own clothes on the chair entirely. Instead, you reach past him, your bare arm brushing his back in the process, and grab one of his shirts, softened from years of wear and faded in places. You slip it over your head, the fabric falling down your frame and settling just past your hips. Then you bend, unbothered by his staring, and fish out another pair of his boxers, stepping into those as well. He goes very still. You smooth the shirt down over your hips and look up at him innocently. “What?”

“That’s mine.”

You step closer, barefoot against the floor. “Well,” you whisper, hooking one finger into his waistband, tugging him closer by an inch. “Guess we’re sharing now.”

“You can keep it,” he manages to say. (You can have them. His clothes. His truck. His house. His name. His heart. Lay claim to all of it and he would not protest. Let this be the altar he chooses willingly. Take what is his and make it holy.) “Come on,” he adds quietly.

You narrow your eyes playfully. “You gonna cook?” “Yes.” “Eggs?” “Yes.” “Sunny side up and not letting the bacon touch it?” “Yes.” You beam. “God, I love you.” ────────── Andrew was fourteen. Smurf called him into her bedroom, not raising her voice. She never needed to, each summon traveling through the walls to his spine. “Baby,” she said when he stepped inside, her smile already in place all bright and practiced. She was sitting at her vanity, brushing out her blond hair, gold bracelets chiming at her wrist while her room smelled like a heavy perfume and cigarette smoke. “Close the door.”

He did. He stood straight, hands at his sides, shoulder squared in the way she liked, waiting. There was a man in town who has been “messing the business,” she told him. A supplier who thought he could shave a percentage off the top and not get noticed. A man who forgot who was running this coast. She said it lightly, like it was gossip, like other mothers might mention a neighbor who borrowed sugar and never returned it.

Andrew listened. “I need you to remind him,” she said, meeting his eyes in the mirror, “that we don’t tolerate disrespect.” She turned on her stool, crossing one leg over the other, studying him like she was appraising a weapon she kept polished and hidden under the bed. “You’re my good boy, right?” she asked gently, tilting her head. He nods. “That’s what I thought.”

They drove together in silence, just the two of them. She didn’t explain much more. She didn’t have to. He knew what ‘remind him’ meant. The man was waiting behind a storage unit near the marina, pacing, already defensive when he saw Smurf step out of her car with her oversized sunglasses. “Janine,” he started. “We can talk about this.”

She didn’t even look at him, just at Andrew, her Pope. A slight tilt of her chin and that’s all it took before he stepped forward. The first hit was almost anticlimactic, just a fist to the gut that folded the man in half with a startled wheeze. The second was harder. The third started to make him bleed. There was shouting: from the man, from the seagulls overhead, from somewhere far away. But not from Pope. He knew where to hit to make it hurt, to keep someone conscious long enough to understand what was happening to them. Knew how to stop just short of permanent damage because that was what Smurf preferred: a pain that lasted, a reminder to not fuck with the Cody family. The man went down and Andrew followed. Another strike. And another.

His whole world narrowed down to the impacts and the dull satisfaction of the noise inside his head finally going quiet. When he stopped, the man was bleeding from the mouth, one eye swelling shut, curled on his side in the dust. Andrew stepped back automatically, looking at the ground, waiting.

Smurf approached slowly, heels crunching over the gravel, sunglasses still in place. She crouched beside the man and removed them, folding them neatly before tucking them into her neckline. “You see,” she said conversationally, smoothing a strand of hair behind her ear. “I hate when people mistake my generosity for weakness.” The man tried to speak but it came out wet. She leaned closer, voice lowering. “If I have to do this again, I will.” Her hand brushed along the man’s lips, wiping away a smear of blood with her thumb before deliberately smudging it across his cheek. “And next time,” she added, almost fondly, “my boy won’t stop where he did.” She looked up at Andrew with a radiant smile. “My guard dog is very loyal. Aren’t you baby?”

“Yes.”

Smurf stood, brushing dust from her clothes. “Let’s go,” she said lightly. On the drive home, she hummed along to a cheerful tune on the radio, reaching over to squeeze Andrew’s thigh. “You did good,” she told him. The words felt like a reward, not yet understanding that his mother was building him brick by brick.

Back at the house, Julia was on the couch, Craig perched on her lap and trying to read his first book. She looked up when they entered. Her eyes flicked briefly to Andrew’s knuckles, already reddening, then to Smurf. She didn’t ask questions. She never did. Andrew washed his hands in the kitchen sink, the water running pink for a few seconds before clearing. He scrubbed harder than necessary, until the skin stung. He didn’t comprehend why he felt like he needed to erase his bones.

That night, Smurf kissed his mouth before bed. “My protector,” she whispered.

He lay awake long after the house went quiet, staring at the ceiling, replaying the afternoon and the man’s face. The sound of the bone cracking under his skin. The way the noise in his head had gone silence when he was hitting. Smurf’s hand on his thigh in the car, how she had called him good.

He wondered if that was what love felt like. ────────── You follow him into the kitchen clothed in nothing but his shirt and your smug smile. The fabric hangs loosely around your waist, collar falling just enough to expose the dim constellation of marks he left along your neckline that you make no attempt to conceal.(no, you’re too pleased of them. that’s why you picked this precise shirt. if he can walk around with your lip-gloss smeared on his mouth and chest, you can fucking parade. fair is fair.)

Andrew moves through the kitchen, already absorbed on his task. He opens the refrigerator, takes out the bacon and the carton of eggs, lining four of them up on the counter in a straight row before he even grabs the pan. You lean against the doorway and simply observe. There’s something nearly ritualistic about the way he acts, hitting each egg on the exact unchanged spot on the post. Same slant, same pressure. Crack. Crack. Crack. Crack.

The shells go neatly into the trash, before he rapidly rinses his fingers under the faucet and dries them thoroughly. The pan gets on the stove, the flame adjusted with precision and lowered right before he adds oil, bottle back into the cabinet the instant he’s done with it. (the more you spend time with him, the more you realize this isn’t just preference. it’s what makes him feel balanced, structured. he likes knowing where things are. that they go back where they belong. that the fridge door closes all the way. that the seal gets checked with an extra push. lining up objects seems to line up his mind.)

You step near him silently, acknowledging the invisible bubble he’s created around the stove. You grab plates and forks from the cupboard, adding paper towels to the pile because you already know he’ll want them and arranging everything on the table. He doesn’t speak while he cooks. But you can distinguish that silence now and how it’s not dismissal or detachment, he is simply…in it. Entirely absorbed in the task: spacing the bacon strips evenly on the separated pan so they don’t overlap, adapting the heat, glancing back at the eggs to make sure the whites set properly.

You place your hip against the counter, tilting your head to watch him. (he looks outrageously domestic like that. barefoot, making breakfast without being asked. how andrew cody went from ex-convict and criminal to husband of the year is still beyond you. but you know better than to complain.) (also: you’re still a bit glad he hasn’t brought up the wedding dress comment from last night. not that you’re scared. fuck no, you’d marry him yesterday if you could. but this little bubble you’re in right now? you love it.)

And the worst part about the whole breakfast-making thing? He is doing it in nothing but his boxers. Back broad, shoulders eased, curls still mussed from sleep. You don’t hesitate. You step closer and wrap your arms around his waist from behind, pressing your cheek between his shoulder blades, your hands flattening on his stomach. He stiffens for half a second at the contact before relaxing. You start drawing kisses along his spine and going upward, until your mouth discovers the spot just behind his ear, making him inhale sharply. “You’re distracting,” he murmurs.

“Oh, am I?” you hum against his skin, utterly unapologetic, fingertips stroking the edge of his boxers.

“Careful,” he stammers, glancing down at the stove. “Hot pan.”

“Mm.” You press another kiss on the same spot watching, delighted, goosebumps ripple across his shoulders. “Seems under control to me.”

The bacon pops abruptly in the pan. Before you even register it, his hand drops to your hip, determined and instinctive, nudging you a few inches to the other side of his body without disrupting the movement of his other hand flipping the bacon. You blink. (oh. okay. that’s actually…hot. you don’t know which 101 boyfriend class he took but it’s definitely not the same one the rest of the male population attended.)

You settle again, undeterred, resting your chin on his shoulder so you can observe what he’s doing. His forearms make most of the work, flexing with each maneuver of the spatula under his freckled skin, making it particularly tough to concentrate on anything remotely close to breakfast. (you might be drooling a little.)

“You know I’m a grown woman, right?” you whisper after a moment.

“Oil pops,” he answers simply, the bacon snapping again to illustrate his point. “Wouldn’t want you to get burn.”

“And…you can’t?”

He shrugs. “I don’t mind it.”

Your fingers, which had been resting loosely at his waistline, start tracing patterns along his stomach with the lightest drag of your pads, refusing to utter another word to this sentence. (you don’t ever want to know why he wouldn’t mind getting burnt. you’ve seen enough of the scars scattered across him to understand that pain is an aspect of his life he learned to accept long before you ever met him.)

He lifts the eggs cautiously with the spatula, sliding them onto the plates with precision so the yolks remain perfectly intact. Same with the bacon, arranged neatly beside them. You step away, retreating to the table so he can have the space to finish his ritual: the stove knob turned off and checked twice, the pan moved to the sink, the quick wipe of the stovetop. Only then does he turn toward you, plates in hand. And suddenly, you grasp that this whole breakfast is him trying. You can see it in the small frown carved between his eyebrows and the tremor in his hands as he sets the plates down on the table like he’s afraid of ruining the moment.

He loves you. Truly. Yes, he told you so last night but that was mid-sex. This, is different. Just him, you and the certainty landing heavy in your chest: Andrew Cody would burn the entire world, including himself if it meant protecting you. (probably not the right moment to tell him you’d do the same. ready to burn and destroy whoever attempts to rip Andrew away from you. which is insane considering you’ve never punched anyone in your life. you’ve seen the guns the Cody brothers keep hidden in the house. never dared touch them. wouldn’t even know where the safety is. still. you would figure something out.)

“Eat,” he orders gently.

“Aye aye, sir,” you reply enthusiastically, your fork going straight into his plate to rob a piece of bacon.

He pauses halfway through sitting down beside you, brows furrowing like he’s struggling to understand the reasoning behind this. “You…you have bacon.”

“I know,” you say brightly, biting into it anyway and chewing with exaggerated satisfaction while keeping your eyes on his face. “Yours tastes way better.”

He studies you for a second longer, still frowning in pure confusion. Then, instead of protesting, he quietly pushes his plate a few inches to the side towards you. The gesture is tentative and careful, like offering without fully knowing if he’s doing it right. You open your mouth to tell him it’s not necessary, that it was just teasing, that he doesn’t have to surrender his breakfast for this but before the words come out, he picks up his fork and reaches over, stealing one of your own pieces.

You lean back in your chair, observing him with growing amusement as he attempts to act casual about it. Trying very, very hard. You can practically see the gears turning in his head, probably comparing this moment with the way his brothers are around the people they see. But Craig wouldn’t even be here right now. No, he would send the girl home before breakfast while Deran would act like this whole thing was effortless without the intent of calling back. Andrew looks like he’s carefully following instructions from a manual he doesn’t quite understand. And that’s infinitely better. “Good?” you ask.

He swallows. “Yeah.”

“Better from my plate?” A pause. He nods once, more confidently this time. “Wow, look at you.”

“What?”

“Sharing the germs and all,” you tease.

He looks down at the food, then back you. “I don’t mind your germs.”

You try to hide your grin, but it still creeps across your face as you sneak another bite of his bacon, which he retaliates with a mouthful of yours. You gasp, pointing your fork at him in mock outrage. “Now careful mister, if it’s war you want, war you’ll have.”

“You started it.” His voice is calm, but there’s laughter in his eyes. The stiffness in his shoulders loosens, the crease between his brows fades, his movements stop being so cautious. You can see it happening in real time. He’s relaxing. And you realize, seeing him like this, that he’s learning. Learning how to be Andrew.

Your foot nudges his under the table. “I think we’re good at this.”

“At what?”

You gesture between the two of you with your fork. “This.” He follows the motion with his eyes: the table, the plates, your leg brushing his under the table. Something softer settles in his expression, a small grin forming just enough for the dimples to appear.

“Yeah.”

And the thing is…the smile doesn’t fade. Not when the plates slowly empty. Not when you both linger at the table afterward, your legs tangled beneath it while you ramble about work, Andrew listening like every word matters. He barely interrupts, just the occasional quiet “yeah,” or a small nod, his hands resting on his thighs while his eyes drift between your face and your hands as they move when you talk. And every time you catch that smile still there, your brain goes stupid. (seriously, it should be illegal for a man like him to smile like that while you monologue about someone trying to pay in Canadian dollars.)

The smile stays. And it’s still there when you take his hand and tug him toward the bathroom, still there when it fills with steam, still there when the two of you step beneath the spray of the shower, warm water trickling over your shoulders as your bodies naturally find their way into each other’s space. You reach for the bottle of soap resting on the shelf and squeeze some in your palm. “Turn around,” you murmur.

He does without hesitation, your request apparently carrying more weight than you thought. Your hands move slowly, working the lather over his warm skin, a small sound escaping Andrew’s lips as your palms glide down the length of his arms and over the muscles that flex instinctively beneath your touch. He leans into the contact without realizing it, another whimper coming out when your thumbs press tenderly into the knots near his shoulder blades. You shift around his sides now, soap trailing paths across his ribs and stomach. He watches your face the entire time. Like he still can’t quite believe you’re here.

He lets you wash him completely without protest. And when you reach for the shampoo bottle next, he tilts his head forward automatically, the gesture so instinctive it almost makes you kiss him against the glass wall. Instead, you pour a little of the content into your hand and work it into his curls, massaging his scalp. Andrew’s shoulders drop immediately. “You have really nice hair,” you murmur.

He opens one eye halfway. “…Yeah?”

“Mhm.” Your thumbs circle slowly near the base of his skull. “Very nice curls.” Another hum escapes him. “And you’re being very good right now.” His breath stutters faintly at that. You conceal a smile, rinsing the shampoo out and guiding the water through his hair until the foam disappears fully. “You’re doing great,” you add softly.

His eyes stay shut. Like he’s storing the words somewhere deep inside himself. Once you’re done, he reaches for the soap. “Come here.” His movements are slower than yours, but there’s a tenderness to them that makes your chest sting a little. His palms travel across your back, down your arms, over your sides. Every touch deliberate, every inch of skin treated like worth remembering. “You smell good,” he whispers.

“That’s your soap. Are you complimenting yourself right now?” you laugh.

His mouth twitches. “Maybe.” The kiss that follows is clumsy with water and bubbles, but you wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world. Eventually, you both step out, wrapping yourselves in clean towels as the steam continues to fog the mirror and moving around the bathroom in the awkward dance of two people sharing this type of space for the first time. Andrew opens the cabinet, pulling out a toothbrush from a sealed pack and holding out to you without a word.

“Mine?” He nods once. All done, the brushes go into the same cup, side by side, his red against your green. You stare at them for a second. “How about we watch something?” you suddenly ask.

“What?”

You shrug, nudging your hip against his. “Heard there was some new documentary on Nat Geo, sounds good to you?” For a second he just looks at you. The dimples follow quickly after.

“Sounds good.” ────────── A week after meeting his brothers, Craig had texted you to ‘come by’, which in his language apparently meant ‘there will be fifty people there and we will all end up hopping in the pool fully clothed or fully naked’. You showed up with a six-pack you could barely afford on a barista wage and the vague understanding that this was purely how friendship with Craig worked: loud, chaotic and a little intense.

Someone had dragged speakers into the backyard, shitty music blasting from them while people you didn’t know were everywhere: on the patio, inside the house, perched along the edge of the pool with their feet in the water. Craig spotted you instantly. “Yo, there she is!” he shouted from a lounge chair, jumping up and crossing the yard in three long strides, wrapping his arms around you and lifting you straight off the ground.

You almost dropped the six-pack. “Craig!” you yelped, laughing as your feet dangled helplessly before he set you back down.

“You made it!” he smiled, already thieving a beer from you. “Can’t believe you got out of your cave, doll. How does it feel to be human again?”

“Hey, hey,” you whispered to Craig, curling your finger to beckon him closer. “How about you shut it, doll. Some of us have real jobs.”

“Oh, she’s feisty tonight!” he exclaimed, completely unaffected, taking a long swing of the liquor. “I like this version of you.”

“You like every version of me as long as they bring alcohol,” you shot back.

“True.” He slung an arm over your shoulders and dragged you through the backyard crowd to the side of the house where a ladder was placed against the wall. “Gonna jump from up there,” he announced proudly, already planting one foot on the first rung. “Good luck kiss?”

“In your dreams, Craig,” you snorted, shaking your head.

He threw his hair back dramatically. “Cold. Absolutely fucking cold. If I die, you’ll have it on your conscience, doll.”

“And I’ll be so sad,” you replied, wiping fake tears. “Now get climbing, Craigo.”

He didn’t demand further encouragement. Within seconds he was up the ladder, beer bottle somehow still in hand, several people in the yard beginning to notice what was happening. “Craig’s on the roof!” someone shouted, a cheer rising instantly while you stepped back near the edge of the pool, folding your arms. (these men are idiots. nice and funny, yes. but also idiots.no doubt who the middle child was.)

He downed the rest of the drink and tossed it away, launching himself off the roof with absolutely no hesitation. He hit the water hard, drenching everyone standing nearby, including you, who jumped back with a startled sound as cold water sprayed over your legs. Craig resurfaced in the middle of the pool, triumphant.

And that was when you sensed it. That strange pull of attention where your neck felt warm before you knew why. You turned your head to see Andrew, standing near the back door of the house. He wasn’t laughing, wasn’t cheering or drinking. His arms hung slackly at his sides, shoulders still and his posture rigid compared to everyone else around him. He felt like a rock in the middle of the current. And his eyes…they were on you. Not the pool or Craig. You. The moment your eyes met his, there was a shift in his expression, like he realized you had caught him staring. For a split second, you expected him to look away. He didn’t. You broke eye contact first. (don’t look back, don’t look back. be cleverer than that.)

A few seconds passed before Craig returned alongside you, dripping water and grabbing another bottle from a cooler. “Hey,” you said quietly enough for only him to hear.

“Sup?”

“Your…brother. He’s been looking at me.”

Craig peered at his brother, still at the same place, still watching. He shrugged. “Yeah, that’s just Pope.”

You frowned. “He’s not partying.”

“Doesn’t really do that.”

“No drinking either?”

Craig took a sip from his bottle. “Nah.”

You studied Andrew once more, how he hadn’t shifted an inch even as several people squeezed past him, smoking weed and laugh-tripping. “Is he always like that?” you asked.

“Pretty much.” Then, almost as an afterthought, he added, “Got a little worse after prison though.”

You blinked. “Prison?” Craig nodded. “For what?”

Craig waved his hand vaguely. “Some…thing. Look, my bro’s weird, ‘kay? Always has been, always will. You’ll get used to it.”

Later that night, you got home a little buzzed. The quiet of your apartment felt disturbing after the anarchy of the Cody’s house. You stumbled into bed, tossing onto one side, then the other, incapable of erasing Andrew’s eyes from your mind. You ended up looking at the ceiling. (this was so stupid.)

After a few minutes, you sat up abruptly. Your laptop sat on the small desk across the room. You hesitated for maybe three seconds before swinging your legs out of bed and padding across the floor. The screen glowed in the darkness when you opened it. You sat down slowly, fingers hovering above the keyboard.

(you are absolutely not doing this.) A pause. (okay, you are absolutely doing this.)

You typed before you could talk yourself out of it. Andrew Cody. The results appeared instantly, but most of them were boring: property records, a few local mentions about a skatepark in town. You clicked one, nothing useful. Another, still nothing. Then, a small article from 2013 popped halfway down the page. The headline was short. Local Man Sentenced in Robbery Case

Your stomach tightened as you read the whole thing: Andrew D. Cody, 36, had been sentenced to six years in Folsom State Prison following a robbery involving multiple suspects. Authorities confirmed that no weapons were used during the incident. Three accomplices have not yet been identified, if you have informa-

You shut your laptop before finishing the sentence, leaning back in your chair and staring at nothing. Folsom. Robbery. Six years. (you had heard of Folsom. even people who had never been near a prison knew that name. one of the worst prisons in the state. maybe the country. you had read enough over the years to know that prisoners there were packed like animals and treated like even less. that men coming in were getting out…as someone else.)

Your brain tried to reconcile the information with the image of the quiet man in the doorway watching you like the rest of the room didn’t exist. Six years. (he probably got out before. that happened, right? good behavior, reduced sentences…not that you would ask him. god, no. ‘hey andrew, quick question, I googled you and saw you went to prison, care to elaborate?’. yeah, great opener.)

You pushed yourself up from the chair and walked back toward the bed. The apartment felt so much smaller and quieter suddenly. You slid under the covers, staring up at the ceiling again. Folsom. Six years. Robbery. Three accomplices. (you were sure you could guess two of them.)

The article lingered somewhere at the edge of your mind, but it wasn’t what kept you awake. No, it was the image that kept returning vividly of Andrew Cody, standing there, and looking at you like he had been doing it for much longer than just this evening. And the strange realization that the thought didn’t scare you nearly as much as it probably should have. ────────── “Andrew! Look!”Your voice cuts through the noise of the skatepark like sunlight breaking through clouds, all bright and excited and utterly impossible for a weak man like Andrew to ignore. Not that you need to call for his attention. He is always watching. His vision is beginning to blur at the edges, the lack of blinking drying his eyes, but he refuses to look away.

(He doesn’t care. He can’t. He has been attempting to blink as little as possible the past one thousand six hundred and twenty seconds. He counts your pushes on the board. One. Two. Three. He doesn’t like three. Odd numbers feel unfinished and crooked. But he refrains from asking to do just one more for his peace of mind.)

You turn near the edge of the bowl, wheeling along the lip instead of dropping in. (Not yet. But he knows you. Knows the obstinate woman you are. Soon enough you’ll want to try it.)

You roll back to him, your face catching the light, his attention moving to the line above your eyebrow. The stitches he removed a few days ago left only a pale mark, hardly noticeable unless someone knew where to look. He knows and tracks it instinctively. He remembers standing in your bathroom with tweezers, his heart pounding harder than it ever had throughout the jobs, delicately snipping the thread and pulling each stitch free. You had sat on the edge of the sink, observing him patiently, a warmness blooming inside his chest the entire time. You hadn’t been worried, not even a little. Just calm and trustful that he would not mess it up, that he would take care of your fragile skin.

(He still recalls each stitch. The way the skin had opened when you tumbled. The blood. The sound. He still hears it sometimes. Replays it when he wants to punish himself. To remember that you will carry that scar on your face forever because he was too slow. Too far away. Too…)

“I think I’m getting better! What do you think?” Your voice pulls him back. You’ve rolled to a stop in front of him, one foot to the ground, the other still resting on the board, face a shade deeper from the effort and the sun.

“You’re good,” he replies, remembering Craig’s advice ‘You gotta speak, man. Chicks don’t like dating a brick wall’ and how he had patted his back after saying it. Andrew had taken notes. “Very good. I’m…proud, sweetheart.”

(Did he say it right? Too much? Too little? His brothers had told him a lot of things. Craig had insisted women liked compliments. Deran had just said to bring condoms. Neither of them explained what to do with his hands.)

His palms hover ineptly on the side of his jeans as he studies your face closely. (Signs of failure. That he is not a good boyfriend. That he said the wrong thing. That his solace will be taken away from him.)

But your grin only broadens, your fingers lifting to your necklace, thumb rubbing along the little heart pendant. Andrew feels his brain short-circuiting a brief instant. The woman he loves, the one he gets to date, the one who chose him, is in front of him, coy, because of what he said. You glance down a moment, a smile tugging at the corner of your lips, before looking back up at him through your lashes. “Proud?”

“Yes,” he answers quietly. “You did well.”

“And?”

Andrew blinks. “And…?”

You tilt your head, eyes glinting in amusement. “That’s it?”

“You’re good at…” he clears his throat, suddenly very aware of the heat rising along the back of his neck, “…many things. You’re balanced on the board,” (You understand him wordlessly.) “You’re very…determined.” (Stubborn. Annoyingly so. Especially when you refuse to sleep until he puts his head on your chest.) “And your foot placement is better now.”

Your mouth twitches. “Okay,” you whisper, leaning a little closer. “But if I want a less…skateboarding coach-compliment and more a boyfriend-compliment?” (He thinks of what Craig would say. Immediately discards the idea. Craig’s compliments often involve the words ‘hot’ and ‘bangable’. You deserve more than that. To hear that you are his sun. Warm enough to make him forget the cold places in his head.)

“You look happy,” he replies quietly, studying your face again.

“Well,” you say, almost shy now, “it’s because I am, mister Cody.”

“I…I like seeing you happy.”

Your fingers tighten around the pendant, thumb brushing the little heart again. Andrew is enraptured by the movement. He thinks of that night during the job, when he saw it on the velvet cushion, how small it had looked compared to the diamonds around it. How he had wanted you to have something from him, even if you were not his. (Back when he thought it would just be that. A gift. A thing you might wear occasionally. A thing that would make him feel…closer. Like he left a small mark somewhere in your life without disturbing it too much.)

You continue rocking the board back and forth under your foot, observing him patiently, probably expecting him to continue. Andrew’s mouth opens. Closes again. (There are other things he wants to say. The things he can’t say aloud. How every time he buries himself deep into you, the noise stops. Everything: the ghosts, the shouting, the old memories scratching the inside of his skull, they go silent. And there’s just you. So, he stays there for hours. Until the room grows dark and the only thing he can feel is the rhythm of your fingers running through his hair. How you never complain, never push him away. You even whisper that he’s doing good.)

He clears his throat, trying to come up with words safer to say. But before he can continue, you unexpectedly lean forward and press a quick kiss to his cheek. “Maybe…maybe I should go back to skating now,” you whisper.

Andrew nods. “Okay,” and when you start to wheel away, he adds automatically. “I’m watching.”

You turn your head back to him, chuckling. “That, I have no doubt honey.” Then you push off again. (One. Two. Three. Odd. He tries to let it go.)

You ride along the edge of the bowl first, testing your balance before going downward and climbing back up, a little more confident with each pass. He inspects everything: the shift of your weight, the bend of your knees, the corrections you make with your hips when the board wobbles. The rest of the skatepark fades to the edges of his awareness. All he sees is you. (He guards his sun. That’s what it feels like every morning when he wakes up. That the world handed him something impossibly bright and said, ‘don’t let anything happen to it’.)

You slow down after a few more back and forth, coming back to him, sneakers scraping the concrete as the board stops, your eyes sparkling with stubborn pride. “Did you see that! That was good, right?” you ask, breathless. “No longer looking like a total rookie?”

“It was good.”

You lean closer. “Say it again.”

“It was…good?”

Your nose wrinkles with your grin. “No. The other thing.”

Andrew pauses, before it occurs back to him. “I’m proud of you.” Your entire face lights up, and before he can process what’s occurring, you grab the front of his shirt and pull him down into a kiss, right there, in the middle of the skatepark. He still isn’t entirely sure how he ended up in a life where a woman like you embraces him proudly in public, but his freezing state lasts one heartbeat before his palms move to your waist and neck.

Someone whistles nearby, probably one of the teenagers who come up every weekend. Andrew barely hears them, all he registers is you. Your mouth, your breath, the softness of your tongue against his. The way the kiss lingers just a little longer than would be considered appropriate, even in Craig’s standard. When you finally pull back, your foreheads almost touch, your breath mingling with his. “Can we go?”

“Go?” (He is confused. You told him this morning before work that you really wanted to try skating again today. That you needed it after the accident. That you had been thinking about it for days. You’ve barely been here an hour. You don’t want to stay?)

Your fingers slide onto his shirt. “Yeah.” Your voice drops in a low murmur. “Somewhere quieter.”

“You don’t want to skate anymore?” he asks carefully.

You shake your head. “We can go back tomorrow. Let’s drive somewhere.”

“Where do you want to go?” he asks, instantly taking your hand in his and the board in the other.

You lean up, brushing another quick kiss against the corner of his mouth. “Your place, my place…whichever you prefer.”

“The house is closer.” (Seven minutes if traffic is clear. Nine if the light on Mission Avenue is red. Five if he sends laws to hell.)

Your smile curves at that, like you can hear the calculation happening inside his head. “Then the house it is.” Your fingers tighten around his hand, tugging him toward the parking lot, walking faster than before. Fast enough that he has to lengthen his stride to keep up, the skateboard now tucked under his arm. When you reach the car, he opens the passenger door automatically, the movement practiced after the number of times he drives you around. To work, to the grocery store, to the beach, wherever you want him to take you. You climb in, tossing your bag on the floorboard while he walks around and slides the skateboard into the trunk. He takes a second longer than necessary before closing it, just to keep his impatience down. “Hey,” you say after he settles in. “I’m proud of you too, Andy.”

Andy. Andy. Andy. He doesn’t hesitate. His hand moves to the back of your neck and he leans across the space between the seats, not caring about the painful twist of his body it requires from him. Your mouth meets his immediately, like you were waiting for it.

(He is your Andrew. Your honey. Your Andy.) He counts the sounds he draws out from your lips. (One. Two. Three. Four. Even number. Better.) ────────── Moving Craig’s furniture had been a terrible idea. Not because you didn’t want the things. There was a never-used television, a bunch of recent game consoles, speakers that were undoubtedly costing four digits. Those were worth it. When you lived on a barista’s salary, ‘free’ had a kind of beauty that couldn’t be argued with. No, the terrible part had been the lifting.

“Okay,” he had exclaimed thirty minutes earlier while dragging a leather chair down the hallway. “One more trip.” It had not been one more trip. Now, your shirt clung damply to your back, sports shorts sticking unpleasantly to your thighs, and sweat rolling down your temples, which had very likely reached an impressive deeper shade. You didn’t even want to question your current state of odor. Craig looked worse. His shirt had been discarded halfway through transporting the television in his car (which, considering the man, was not that surprising. always a good occasion to remove clothing.), leaving him barefoot in the kitchen, bare-chested and sweaty, his long dark hair tied up roughly. “Man,” he huffed opening the refrigerator and leaning halfway inside it, “want something to eat?”

You wiped the back of your hand across your forehead, realizing just how soaked you truly were. “Yeah, that would be cool.”

He emerged holding food wrapped in plastic. “Here.” You accepted it without question. (you were too hungry and exhausted to be suspicious.)

But the instant you took the first bite, regret struck with immediate and undisputable force: the texture was wrong, the taste even worse. Your brain tried desperately to identify the flavor and fell somewhere between ‘rotten eggs’ and ‘it had once been turkey’. Craig was watching you expectantly. “Great!” you managed with a smile, mouth still full. But your eyes intuitively drifted across the kitchen to land on Andrew, who was at the counter, assembling a sandwich silently, fully absorbed on his task: bread laid out side by side, mayonnaise spread in four slow strokes to cover each slice, cheese trimmed to fit the edges, two slices of ham placed with a vigilant symmetry. (patterns. you realized he liked patterns. or at least that he seemed serene when things followed one.)

Over the past two months you had started noticing things like that: the way he sometimes counted under his breath, the way he lined up objects when he set them down, adjusting them until they felt correct, the way every text he sent ended with ‘Andrew.’ as if you might forget who you were speaking to if he didn’t sign it properly. The way he observed everything around him without ever seeming to move much himself. You had known him just long enough now to stop being intimidated by the silence, to realize it wasn’t emptiness.

Andrew Cody looked still most of the time, but everything was in his eyes. You had seen amusement there, concern, confusion, a gentleness that seemed almost embarrassed to exist. And right now… Right now, he was glancing up at you. Just a second. Enough for his gaze to flick to the food in your hand, then back to your face, reading the desperate plea you mouthed silently, “Help.” The corner of his mouth twitched. It was quick, almost invisible, but unmistakable. And that was all it took. A laugh bubbled up your throat so suddenly you had to bite down on it before it escaped, turning it into something halfway between a cough and a choke.

“You good man?” Craig asked, patting your back. Andrew’s stare traveled to Craig’s hand on your back, watching the gesture before returning his attention to the counter. (you briefly wondered how the hell you got there. how you went from ‘doll’ and ‘sugar’ accompanied by a suggestive smirk and the occasional half-serious invitation to stay the night to…’man’ and ‘bro’ and a thump between the shoulders like you’re part of his crew. the flirting had stopped almost overnight. you thought it might have been the day he saw you and Andrew sitting side by side at the beach, quietly talking and staring out the ocean.)

You nodded quickly, giving Craig a thumbs-up while still trying not to swallow the first bite. “Yeah,” you managed through the mouthful. “Good. Great. Amazing.” (awful. you hate it. you’re fairly certain that death tastes sweeter than this.)

Craig grinned, satisfied. “Knew it.” His phone buzzed loudly on the counter and, glancing at the screen, he muttered. “It’s Renn. Fuck.” He answered as he walked toward the sliding glass door. “Yeah yeah, hold on a sec.” Before stepping outside, he peeked a look at the two of you: you against the counter, Andrew pretending to focus on his sandwich. You could feel the slow smirk spreading across his face when he added, “Don’t eat it all. I want some when I get back.”

“Yeah,” you said immediately, “no problem.” You waited precisely three seconds after the door shut, lunging for the trash. You spat the bite out and rinsed your mouth under the tap before stepping up to the counter, right next to Andrew and his still amused expression. “Andrew. Your brother just tried to kill me.”

“You trusted Craig with food,” he corrected, like that explained the whole thing. (which…sure.)

“Okay, fine,” you conceded with a laugh. “It was suicide.” His expression didn’t change much when his eyes dropped to the sandwich in front of him, staring at it with a frown before reaching for the knife. Slowly, carefully, like everything he seemed to do in life, he cut the sandwich diagonally in half, sliding the plate toward you. “…You serious?” He nodded once, the faint crease between his eyebrows deepening at the idea you might doubt him. “You’re giving me half your sandwich?”

“You…” he took a small breath. “You can have it all if you want.”

(eating the entire sandwich he had just spent twenty minutes assembling? you were sure people could go to hell for less than that.) You shook your head quickly. “No way. Half is perfect.” The first bite made you close your eyes in pure delight, a tiny sound of pleasure escaping your lips treacherously. (okay, hey. would it be really unreasonable to walk up to Craig and say ‘I’m kidnapping your brother to marry him and live off his orgasm-worthy sandwiches forever. Don’t mind?’)

“This is really good,” you said, still chewing. “You just saved my poor empty stomach from starvation and food poisoning.” He didn’t respond, though his shoulders had relaxed. You both ate silently your half of the sandwich, watching each other. (maybe he was doing it out of habit. or maybe that was what made him, him. and you were nothing but a fierce competitor in this silent staring contest. maybe even a little of a cheater.)

You leaned forward and pressed a quick kiss to his cheek, his eyes immediately flicking to the empty plate on the counter. “Thank you,” you murmured. You pulled back with a grin. “It will be our little secret.”

Eyes traveling briefly between you and the glass door where Craig was still talking on the phone outside, Andrew’s voice came lower and rougher than before. “Our little secret.” ────────── “Isn’t your boyfriend’s name Andrew?”

You’re reasonably confident your head has never snapped up so rapidly in your entire life. You’re still halfway bent over, one arm buried inside a cardboard box of syrup bottles on the floor of the back room, the abrupt motion making you feel dizzy. “Um. Yeah…why?” you reply carefully.

Behind you, Deon and Maira exchange the sort of look people get when they know something you don’t. Which, from experience, is never a good sign. You hastily straighten up, discarding the inventory sheet and dusting your hands on your apron while trying to read their faces. Maira is leaning against the doorway, the sleeves of her hoodie pushed up to the elbows, her smile suspiciously wide. Deon, next to her, his apron no longer tied to his waist, has one elbow casually perched up on her shoulder. “Oh my god,” Maira laughs, nudging him. “It is him!”

“Who is ‘him’?” you ask, attempting your absolute best to keep your voice natural. (no need to panic. or get too excited. this could be nothing. maybe it’s a random customer named Andrew. Andrew is a very common name. there are millions of Andrews. millions. statistically speaking, at least three of them probably exist withing a five-mile radius.)

Deon jerks his chin toward the front of the shop. “There’s guy out there asking for you.”

At those words, your stomach performs an impressive acrobatic trick. “What guy?”

Maira raises an eyebrow. “The postman. He wants to know if you’re free for dinner,” she replies dryly. “Are you listening! The guy you’ve been yapping about for the past, what? Two months? Three?”

Deon interjects. “Think it’s closer to four.”

“…What?”

“Scary,” he responds, counting on his fingers. “Curly hair. Built like a sex god. Very quiet.”

Maira nods enthusiastically. “Yes! And he said your name!”

“Is he…” you clear your throat. “Is he at the counter?” Both of them nod enthusiastically in perfect synchronization. (okay. stay calm, stay calm, stay calm. there’s no need to panic. it’s just…a perfectly normal situation. just a guy whose name is Andrew, who sounds like Andrew and who probably is Andrew.) “How do I look?” you ask, panicked and hands flying to your hair.

“Great,” Deon reassures you, stepping forward to help you rearrange the apron strings that twisted themselves behind your back. “You are gorgeous, you are confident, you have a great ass. All is well!”

“Thanks Dee.”

“You’re welcome, Sponge Cake.” He pats your shoulder. “Now come on May, tell her she’s super hot to impress her man.” Maira snorts but plays along, placing a hand over her heart. “You’re super hot,” she declares flatly. “And he’s gonna fall on his knees when he sees you. Probably gonna ask you to marry him on the spot because of your wonderful brewing technique.”

“That was the least convincing pep talk I’ve heard. And that comprises the day I told my dad I was dropping out of college and he said, ‘as long as you’re happy’.”

“I’m a nursing student!” she exclaims. “My encouragement style is mostly ‘please don’t die’.”

Deon claps his hands. “Okay, now go!” You hesitate a brief instant, aware of your heart pounding intensely once again.

(why are you so nervous? it’s Andrew. your Andrew. you’ve literally seen him naked every day for the past thirty-two days. not that you’re counting. but since you’ve started dating and he realized you were taking the bus, he has so far: picked you up from work. dropped you off at work. waited in the truck outside work.)

Yet Andrew has never crossed the threshold. Which means this is the first time he’s visiting you in your little universe. Your café. Your register. Your apron (that will forever smell like vanilla syrup after you poured half a bottle on it eight months ago).

“Okay,” you mutter to yourself. “You are gorgeous. You are confident. You’re not gonna fall. It’s gonna be fine.” You push through the swinging door, and there he is. Andrew stands at the counter, hands flat on the wood as he studies the menu board above the expresso machine, eyes proceeding with the lines of drinks and options. And you know, you know, from the stiffness in his shoulders and the tremor in his forearms, that he is struggling not to feel overwhelmed. (eighteen drinks. four milk options. twelve syrups. three sizes. anyone would be.)

“Hi,” you say softly as you step behind the counter.

The moment he hears your voice, his whole face and posture seems to unlock, the tension along his spine easing like a knot untied. “Hi,” he breathes.

“You okay?”

He nods. “Yeah.” His eyes flick between the menu and you. “You have…a lot of options.”

Extending your hand across the counter, the tips of your fingers brush the back of his hand. “It’s okay,” you reassure him. “I don’t know what half of those are.”

That earns the tiniest twitch at the corner of his mouth. His voice drops lower, careful. “Can you make something like what we drink at home?”

The word ‘home’ lands deep in your chest. “Yeah,” you murmur. “Of course. What size?”

Andrew hesitates. It’s subtle, but you recognize the signs instantly: the dim flare of his nose, the way his jaw clenches when he feels like he’s taking too long to respond. “…Normal?”

“Okay. Normal it is,” you smile, grabbing the medium cup and walking up to the machine, letting the familiar routine settle your hand. (you’re fine. totally fine. your boyfriend just casually used ‘we’ and ‘home’ in the same sentence. no need to cry right now.)

Behind the swinging door that separates the back room from the counter, you can feel Deon and Maira trying to eavesdrop. You hear the sound of their shoes squeak against the tile and their whispers. You ignore them and grab the black marker near the register. Technically, you’re supposed to write the customer’s name. Just the name and nothing else. Your hand hesitates a brief instant above the cup. The first letter is the toughest to write, heart thumping so loudly you’re convinced Andrew can hear it. You continue nonetheless. Honey The word sits there in your handwriting: the real one, not the usual rushed barista scrawl. And before you can talk yourself out of it, you add a small heart next to it. One beat. It’s how long you stare at it before sliding the cup under the machine.

Behind you, Andrew clears his throat. “Oh my god, yes. Sorry,” you stammer, turning back to him. “I swear I’m not usually this...”

“Am I bothering you?” he asks suddenly. Your head snaps up. His hands have clenched at his sides, shoulders stiff. “I can go if you want.”

“No!” you exclaim, startling him. You clear your throat, trying to regain some composure. “No, I’m very happy to see you here. I’m just surprised. The good kind, I promise.”

The small exhale coming out of him is endearing, like he expected your reply to be yes, to reject him from this side of your life. Like he doesn’t know that every part of it has been making space for him since the moment he walked into it. He shifts his weight, gesturing toward the pastry display. “Can I also…get one of those?”

Your eyes follow his finger to the glass. “Yeah, of course!”

“That one, please,” he whispers.

You lean back to see that he’s pointing at the cinnamon roll. “Okay, perfect. And…do you want that for here or to go?” you ask, punching the order into the register.

He glances around the shop, taking in the small tables, the windows looking out onto the street, the student typing. “For here. Please.”

Before you can move, the swinging door bursts open, Deon sliding behind the counter like he hasn’t been listening to the entire conversation. “Got it,” he intervenes, grabbing the metal tongs and placing the roll on a small plate. “Deon,” he adds, offering a hand across the counter. “I work with this one.”

Andrew hesitates, the gears in his head turning and certainly going: germs – counter - stranger. He shakes it anyway. “Andrew.”

“Oh, I know,” Deon laughs, shaking his head. “Trust me I know.” (how about poisoning your coworker’s coffee?)

The tray gets filled with his drink and plate, Andrew’s gaze dropping to the cup, fingers turning it until the word you wrote rotates into view. Honey. For a moment he doesn’t budge. His eyes stay there, on the letters, undoubtedly checking twice their existence. The corner of his mouth twitches. He picks it up guardedly, like it contains something fragile. It’s the only thing he takes from the tray. Checking briefly on Deon, who is suddenly incredibly invested in reorganizing a stack of napkins, Andrew clears his throat. “It’s…” he murmurs, sliding the tray containing the plate back to you.

“What?”

“It’s for you.”

You stare at the plate, then at him. “For me?”

“You didn’t eat a lot at lunch.”

“So…you bought me food?” The faint frown in between his eyebrows returns. You recognize it now: how his brain is probing the moment for mistakes. How it must loop the same questions. Did he misinterpret something? Was that incorrect? Did he embarrass you? Before the worry has time to grow roots, you add, “Thank you.”

The change is immediate, the words fully settling in: his shoulders loosening, his whole expression softening and his breathing quieting. He nods once, picking up the cup and stepping away from the counter like someone trying not to disrupt a carefully balanced structure and chooses the table by the window. Not because it’s comfortable. Because it faces the door. You know that instinct, he told you about it once, late at night, when you asked him about his scars. He doesn’t pull out his phone to scroll or check the time, no, just sits there, looking out at the street, where nothing interesting ever happens: just a bookstore, a florist and a bank. Deon bumps your shoulder. “Go talk to him.”

“I’m working.”

“So what? The guy came here to see you! And don’t tell me it’s just to drink cause who in their right mind pays four dollars for a black coffee?”

Maira pushes the door open with her hip and grabs you by the shoulders. “Put on your big girl pants,” she says warningly. “We got the counter.”

You look at the two of them then back at Andrew. Who hasn’t moved. Still watching the street and holding the cup and waiting. You grab the roll and walk toward the table, where Andrew looks up at you when you slide into the chair next to him. Not startled. More like…a man who sensed you getting closer. He is still holding the cup, his thumb brushing the edge of the little heart. “Hey,” you say softly, tearing off a piece of the roll. “What are you looking at?”

“The street.” Your smile creeps back. “Why?” He takes a slow sip of coffee before replying. “I’m waiting.” “For what?” “You.” “But…” you’re pretty sure your brain stutters, “I finish in an hour.” “I know.” “You’re gonna sit here an hour?” He nods calmly. “Yes.” (I love you, I love you, I love you.) “That’s ridiculous,” you whisper, resting your hand on his thigh under the table. That earns you a tilt of his head. “Why?” “Because you could go home.”

Andrew considers the idea for a split second. You can witness the thought across his face before he shakes his head. “I like being here.”

You gesture vaguely around the café. “This place is boring.”

But Andrew is not looking at it, just you, one hand still around the coffee, the other traveling to yours on his thigh and lacing them together. “No,” he says quietly. “It isn’t.” ────────── Andrew was eight. Sitting cross-legged on the living room carpet with a plastic bowl of marbles spread out in front of him, Andrew was not playing with them, no, he was sorting them.

(Green in one row. Blue in another. Then yellow. Clear ones last. One. Two. Three. Four.)

He arranged them cautiously along the dark lines of the carpet pattern, making sure each marble touched the next but did not roll away. That was the best thing he had discovered so far, through trial and error, to ease the pressure in his rib cage without breaking anything. Across the room, the television aired a movie Smurf had left running before walking out with a man. On the screen, someone screamed while another man bled on the floor, gunshots cracking every few seconds in the empty house. Smurf said it was important to see how things worked. Julia sat beside him with her knees pulled to her chest, chin resting on them. But she wasn’t watching the movie. Her focus was set on him.

“Andy,” she said quietly. He didn’t answer, too busy adjusting a marble that had rolled too far from the others. “Andy.” He glanced up. His twin sister’s hair was knotted, falling into her eyes. In moments like this, she appeared older than eight, an old soul that had seen too much of the world and how rotten it might be for kids like them. “Remember the pool?” Of course he remembered. How Smurf had laughed when the boy called him weird, how she leaned down and purred in his ear to show him what happened to people who said things like that. The water had been cold and the boy’s hair slippery in Andrew’s hands. He could still hear the screams when the head went under: the kid’s voice bubbling into the water, Julia shouting behind him, Smurf laughing somewhere above it all. How he hadn’t felt anything but the sense that he was doing what he had been told. “That was bad,” Julia whispered.

Andrew studied the row of green marbles. “Smurf said it was fine.”

“Smurf says lots of things.” From down the hallway came the cry of a baby, small enough that the sound was weak and uneven, the sound of a being that had not yet understood that his mother would never answer. Julia shook her head, anger flashing across her small face. “She didn’t even check on him.”

Andrew stood, feet carrying him to the nursery room and the baby’s noise growing louder with every step. Craig lay in the crib with his tiny face scrunched and red, fists waving helplessly through the air. His cries calmed the moment Andrew leaned over the rail, climbing onto the lower run to lift him carefully. He tried to hold him the way he had witnessed people do in the hospital when Smurf brought the baby home: one arm under the body and the other supporting the back of his head. Craig quieted almost immediately, the howling breaking into small hiccups as he pressed his cheek against Andrew’s shirt.

(One. Two. Three. Four. Andrew swayed him. He wasn’t sure if he did the right thing. All he knew was that Craig cried. Crying meant sadness. He didn’t want his baby brother to be sad.)

“He loves you,” Julia murmured from the doorway, watching them. Andrew looked down at the baby. Craig’s tiny fingers clung to the fabric of his shirt, innocent eyes fixed on him with the absolute trust only babies possessed: a love that came easily and without question, unaware of the faults in the person it chose.

(Andrew loved him too. If someone hurt his brother, he would hurt them back. He already knew how to punch. How to break. How to make someone bleed. For the people he loved, he could learn how to do worse.)

“We should leave,” she said suddenly.

Andrew looked up. “Leave where?”

“Anywhere! Somewhere that isn’t here.”

He stared at his brother once again, at the small hand gripping his shirt. “Smurf would be mad.”

“She’s already mad all the time!” Julia stepped further into the room, her voice dropping to a whisper like the house itself might be listening. “She makes you do things. Bad things.”

(The pool. The boy under the water. Smurf laughing. Smurf laughing. One. Two. Three. Four. He counted Craig’s hiccups.)

“I saw the bus station when she drove past it last week,” she continued softly. “People leave there. They go to different towns.” Andrew attempted to picture it: a bus, a road, a place where Smurf wasn’t. Where nobody praised and applauded when someone drowned. His brother had fallen asleep, warm and heavy in his arms. Andrew contemplated taking him. “He can’t come,” Julia spoke quietly, as if she had overheard the thought. “He’s too small.” Andrew couldn’t answer.

Later, Julia discovered a backpack in the hallway closet and stuffed it with the things that seemed important: crackers from the kitchen, two apples, a flashlight from the kitchen drawer and a twenty-dollar bill she had hidden weeks ago under her bed. Andrew folded Craig’s baby blanket and slipped it inside. His twin sister didn’t ask why. They departed after midnight. The house was silent then, the television finally dark and Smurf still gone someplace with a man whose name Andrew did not know. Outside, the night air was chilly and Andrew instantly held onto Julia’s hand to walk down the street.

(One. Two. Three. Four. He counted the cracks in the pavement.)

Julia kept whispering about plans animatedly. “Maybe we can stay near the ocean! Or somewhere with trees. Or a big city. Andrew listened but kept counting. The bus station waited under a buzzing yellow light, making them both halt when they reached it “We did it.”

(His sister sounded happy. But the world felt too large here. Too open. One. Two. Three. Four.)

And then, abruptly, the way most vile things in Andrew’s life occurred, he heard a resounding noise inside his head: Craig crying, alone in the crib. Andrew felt frozen on the spot. Julia turned toward him. “What?” Andrew stared back down the street they had come from.

(Craig was still there. Craig couldn’t climb out of the crib. Couldn’t open doors. Couldn’t stop crying if nobody came. Sad. Sad. Sad.)

“He’s alone,” he managed to reply.

Julia’s face crumpled. “We’ll come back for him later.” Andrew imagined that.

(Craig waiting. The crying. The empty house. Smurf leaving him there. Sad. Sad. Sad.)

He shook his head, his voice quiet but unmovable. “No. He’s our brother.”

Julia shut her eyes, seeming very small all of the sudden. “Okay.”

The walk back was silent, but Andrew counted every step of it. The house waited at the end of the street, looking exactly the same as when they had left it. But something had changed. Because now, Andrew understood what he hadn’t before.

The house was not a house. It was a mouth. And they were walking back into the place that would swallow them both whole. ────────── Two weeks after he came to the café, you understand.

Why Andrew chose the table by the window. Why he sat facing the street instead of the wall. Why his eyes kept drifting to the street. At the time you supposed it was just one of his habits, one more quirk among the many you had started noticing and loving: the way he aligned every product in the bathroom until the labels faced the same direction, the way he checked door locks twice before bed. It could have been caution, or anxiety, or something he learned in prison.

Now you know. The television hums in the living room, Friends playing to an audience of exactly one person: you. The house is dim except for the light of the screen, your feet tucked beneath you on the couch, an empty mug resting on the coffee table and your hands hiding inside the pocket of Andrew’s hoodie. (he said they’d be back before midnight. it is way past midnight.)

The issue with loving a man like Andrew Cody is feigning ignorance. Because you know. Not everything, never everything, but enough. “The less you know, the safer you are from the cops.” They have repeated that sentence to you so many times it has practically become a household rule, a silent pact that exists between the four of you like an invisible line across the floor: you don’t cross into their world and they try, as much as they can, to keep it from touching yours.

You respect that. Mostly. But knowing something in theory is not the same as sitting alone in a quiet house while the clock moves closer and closer to one in the morning. Not when the man you love is out there in the city doing a dangerous job. You hide your hands into the sleeves of the hoodie you borrowed weeks ago and never gave back. You will, you keep telling yourself. When it won’t smell like him anymore. When it will just be you left on it. (he swore he’d come back.)

And the way he said it had been so quiet, so certain, that you believed him. Because Andrew rarely promises things. You had been standing in the kitchen, making your coffee and pretending to be much calmer than you really were when he stepped closer, his hands finding your waist. “Hey,” he murmured.

You recall smiling a little. “Were you staring at me again?”

His thumbs brushed lightly against your sides. “I like looking at you.”

You reached up and adjusted the collar of the fake security uniform he had pulled on for the night. “Just come back to me.”

And when he pressed a kiss to your forehead, and whispered back, “I will,” you trusted him. (he promised.)

The television audience bursts into laughter the moment you catch it: the metallic click of a key turning in the front door. Your head snaps toward the sound. For a brief second, your brain refuses to process what your ears are telling you, the moment stretching oddly long as the laugh track from the show continues behind you, bright and oblivious to the sudden rush of panic in your chest. But the handle really turns and your body moves before your mind catches up, feet dropping from the couch to the floor as you stand quickly, relieved.

It’s sharp and immediate, your lungs remembering how to breathe because they’re back. Andrew came back. Craig comes in first, loud as always, carrying two heavy black duffel bags slung over his shoulders. Deran follows close behind him, halfway through dismantling one of their guns, hands still gloved. “Jesus Christ, that was close man, I can’t…” Craig stops mid-sentence when he notices you in the middle of the living room, the expression crossing his face quick but unmistakable: guilt. It sits on him awkwardly, like he tried to wipe it off before walking in but didn’t quite manage. “Hey.” (you don’t like that face. you don’t want to know why there’s guilt there. you only want one thing.)

“Hey,” you reply, but your eyes move past them, searching for the last brother entering the house. Andrew closes the door cautiously behind him, one hand remaining against the wood for a beat. And another. Something about that slight pause, the way he stays there, shoulders hunched and breathing heavy, sends a thread of unease to crawl down your spine. He looks…wrong. Your brain begins detecting details faster now: the arm close to his side, the way he moves slower than his brothers, the curls damp and sticky to his forehead. The unnatural paleness of his face. (don’t panic. if you panic he’ll shut down.)

Craig and Deran are already proceeding through the house, vanishing down the hallway to stash the bags and weapons in places the cops, or even you, will never find. But Andrew doesn’t follow. He takes two steps into the living room, passing by you without registering your presence. Then three. His hand reaches out, gripping the arm of the couch like he abruptly needs something solid to hold onto. Your heart is pounding so hard you can feel it in your throat. “Honey?”

He lifts his head when he hears your voice, turning back to you. For a moment, his eyes don’t quite focus. His breathing remains wrong, too shallow and uneven. But he forces a soft expression onto his face anyway. “Hey,” he murmurs.

You step closer, freezing when you distinguish it: the dark stain spreading across the side of his shirt. You always knew it would happen one day. But it’s always ‘one day’ until it becomes ‘today’. The blood is darker than you anticipated, almost black under the dim light, soaking slowly through the cotton of his uniform. Andrew notices where your eyes went, hand travelling instinctively to press against his side, attempting to cover it. Your throat tightens. “What happened?”

“Nothing.” (of course.)

He lowers himself onto the couch with careful control. Except you are watching closely enough to see the truth: his jaw clenching when he sits, his breath catching halfway through. Your feet move before you can stop them, kneeling in front of him. “Let me see.”

“I’m fine.”

“Andrew,” you reply, calm and firm, leaving no room for discussion. “Move your hand.”

He hesitates. You see the instinct fighting inside him: endure it, downplay it, pretend it isn’t happening. You lean closer, lowering your voice. “Move your hand. Or I will move it for you.” His eyes search your face for several seconds before he exhales through his nose and lets his hand drop from his side. The cotton of the uniform is soaked along his ribs. Your stomach flips again, but you swallow it down as you reach for the hem of his shirt again. “Okay. Good. You’re doing good. Now, lift your arms.” It isn’t loud, but it’s unmistakably an order. You feel guilty for doing this, but you know that Andrew Cody has spent most of his life obeying commands and that he will follow yours too. He lifts his arms just enough for you to peel the shirt up and see the wound beneath: how the blood glistens along the cut, still seeping. You straighten abruptly. “Okay, stay here.”

“Wasn’t planning on leaving,” he mutters faintly.

You rush to the kitchen before he can see your hands shaking, pulling open every drawer until you find what you need. Scissors. Towel. Alcohol. When you return, Andrew has shifted and you didn’t hear it. He’s no longer sitting upright, no, he’s stretched out across the couch, one arm hanging over the edge, eyes half-closed like the effort became too much. Your pulse spikes. “Andrew.”

“Yeah,” he mumbles.

You kneel beside the couch and slide the scissors under the edge of the uniform. “Don’t move.”

“No worries.”

You cut the shirt open delicately, exposing the wound. “You’re late,” you say suddenly.

“What?”

“You promised we’d finish the season tonight.”

He frowns. “Season?”

“Friends,” you reply, reaching for the towel and pressing it against his ribs, your shaking getting worse. “We had four episodes left. Phoebe was going to give birth.”

Andrew exhales slowly, eyes drifting toward the television still on. “Right.”

“You said we’d watch it after,” you continue lightly, casual. Almost like you’re bothered and not beyond frightened.

“Sorry.”

You keep talking while your hands work, pressing the wound and forcing a teasing tone into your voice. “Oh, you should be. Do you know how long I waited? I had to rewatch those of last night and almost started the next episode without you.”

Andrew’s eyelids droop. “I’ll make it up to you.”

“You better.”

You glance up at him. His eyes are drifting again. “Andrew.” He hums and your hand moves to his shoulder, shaking him. “Hey. No sleeping.”

He blinks slowly. “Tired.”

“No, you’re not. You don’t fall asleep okay?” His head tips to the side. “Andrew.” He doesn’t respond, his eyes rolling back. “Hey, hey, hey. No, no. Look at me. Come on,” you shake him harder, realizing that his breathing slows, “Andrew, baby, look at me.” Your voice cracks. “Andrew?” No response. You grab his shoulder. “Andrew, wake up, please.” The head rolls with the gesture, heavy and unresisting. Still nothing. “Pope, wake up! It’s an order!” You scream desperately, the word tearing out of your throat.

The hoodie is warm with his blood now, soaked through where your hands press against the wound, but you don’t let go. You press harder instead, like force alone could keep the life inside him from slipping away. “Craig! Deran! Help!” Your voice cracks again as it echoes through the house. “Craig!” You turn your head toward the hallway, toward the garage, toward anywhere they might still be. “Deran!”

You pray they’re still here. That they haven’t left yet and that they’re close enough to hear you. Because a part of your brain is already trying to rewrite the last ten minutes, trying desperately to replace this moment with something else, something normal. You should be on the couch right now, half-asleep against Andrew’s shoulder while the two of you finish the last episodes of Friends. Or he could be resting his head over your lap, staring at you instead of the television like he always does. You should be tugging him in bed to kiss him until your lips were numb. Should be making love until the only thing he utters is your name. Andrew should be alive and warm beside you instead of lying motionless under your hands. But no one wakes you up.

“You promised,” you sob, your forehead pressing against his chest who slowly rises, your fingers gripping his shirt to hold him here. “You promised you’d come back.” Only silence replies to you. “Please don’t do this.” Your voice breaks completely now. “Please.” Behind you, the television audience erupts into another burst of laughter. And in the middle of that cheerful noise, with your hands covered in his blood and your heart breaking open in your ribs, you understand a thing that makes the terror swallow you whole. Andrew Cody isn’t answering you anymore. ────────── “I hope you’re taking off the shirt for me.”

He paused halfway through pulling the shirt over his head, one arm still caught in the sleeve as he turned toward the sliding doorway that opened to the backyard. You leaned against the doorframe, observing him with the sort of easy smile that constantly made his heart squeezing in his chest. Andrew finished removing the shirt and tossed it onto one of the lounge chairs beside the pool without looking. “You’re gonna have to focus,” he replied.

Your eyebrows lifted. “Oh, I am,” you grinned, stepping outside and letting the screen door slide shut behind you, “I just didn’t realize that the focusing came with…such nice scenery.”

He didn’t smile but felt the warmth creeping up the back of his neck anyway as he turned to the punching bag hanging from the metal frame Craig once used for pull-ups, steadying it with one hand. He wished this moment were something else, simpler, ordinary. Just a boyfriend showing off. What belonged in the kind of life where teasing led to laughter instead of preparation for violence. But that wasn’t the existence he had.

He loathed that it had come to this, the cold logic sitting in the back of his mind and reminding him of the things he knew all too well: that he had enemies, men who knew his name, his brothers, men who would not hesitate to aim for whatever hurt the most if they sought to reach him. And the thing that hurt the most was standing shoeless in his backyard, smiling at him.

(And if that day came and he had not prepared you…Stop. Bad thought. One. Two. Three. Four.)

He forced the spiral down the way he had learned to do as a kid, breathing slowly through his nose until the numbers lined up in his head and the tautness in his chest loosened enough that he could turn back toward you without allowing any of it to display on his face. “You ready?” he asked.

You tilted your head. “Define ready.”

Andrew gestured toward him. “Come here.”

You strode forward without hesitation or apprehension, just the faith that had constantly been when it came to him. He reached for your wrist, closing his hand around it firmly enough to demonstrate but not enough to hurt. “Someone grabs you,” he coached. “First, don’t panic. Second, don’t try to pull straight back.”

“Why?”

“Because they’re stronger than you.”

Your eyes narrowed. “Hey! Keep the mean talk and tonight you sleep on the couch.”

Andrew ignored that part and transferred his grip on your wrist, directing your arm so you could observe the angle. “You rotate here,” he explained, guiding the motion toward the base of his thumb. “That’s the weak spot. ‘kay?” You twisted your wrist the way he indicated you, hand slipping free. “Again.” He seized your wrist once more. You repeated the action, faster this time, the angle a touch incorrect at first before you corrected it halfway through and slipped free. He nodded. “Again.”

You did it three more times, movements gaining confidence with each attempt, the hesitation giving way to instinct. The fourth, you twisted free so quickly he barely felt it, looking almost pleased with yourself. Andrew let go and stepped back to the punching bag. “Next thing.”

Your eyes followed him, a small sigh escaping you as you walked over. “You know, when you said, ‘training session’, I have to admit it wasn’t quite what I pictured. Especially when you took off your shirt.”

He grabbed the bag to steady it and gestured toward it. “Just punch.”

The first hit landed with a thud that barely made the bag sway. Then the next. And another. You weren’t graceful about it. Your stance shifted too much, your shoulder rolling forward awkwardly, but you kept trying anyway, stubborn in the way you were about everything that mattered to you. “Okay,” he acquiesced after a moment. “That’s enough.”

You stretched your fingers, wincing. “Good. Cause I absolutely hate that.”

“It’s not over,” Andrew interjected, stepping in front of you. “Punch me.”

You stiffened. “No.”

“You won’t hurt me.”

“I refuse,” you protested, arms crossed. Andrew didn’t budge, holding your bewildered stare with the same persistence he used when waiting for Craig to finish one of his ridiculous arguments. “Andrew.”

“Do it.”

“Fuck,” you muttered, lifting your fist and punching his chest.

He grabbed your wrist instantly. “You’re hesitating.”

“Well yes!” you huffed, exasperated. “Because I love you!” (The words still felt unreal every time he heard them.)

“Don’t hesitate.”

Your jaw tensed at that, pulling your hand free to hit once more. This time, the impact landed properly against his chest with a solid sound. “Fuck, did that hurt?”

Andrew shook his head. “No, I told you.”

Fingers lingering against the spot you had hit before leaning forward, you pressed a quick kiss where your fist had gone. “Don’t ever make me do that again,” you murmured.

(He wants to vow that you won’t. But the world he lived in didn’t spare saints. And if the day ever came when he wasn’t there to stand between you and the men who might want to hurt him…)

Andrew raised his gaze to the open sky above the backyard.

(Please. Let this knowledge never be necessary. Please never let the world touch you the way it has touched him. Let him always be there first.)

Because if the day ever came when you had to use what he was teaching you, Andrew wasn’t sure there would be enough left of him to forgive the sky for it. ────────── Everything is a blur.

Moving like fog inside his skull, swallowing time and moments whole so that Andrew can never tell where one hour ends and another begins, whether he has been here minutes or days. Only that he drifts up and down through layers of pain and noise and darkness like he’s sinking beneath the water and occasionally brushing the surface long enough to gulp air before the current drags him under again.

There are voices. They come and go, distant waves crashing beyond the edge of his consciousness, too far to make out, then closer, then gone again. Deran’s voice is the easiest to recognize despite the muddle, loud and furious even when he is trying to whisper. “It’s all your fucking fault!”

Another voice answers him, fearful and shaky. Craig. Andrew attempts to open his eyes then, to comfort him, to tell him it was not his fault, but the effort collapses before it truly arises, his body heavy and unresponsive, limbs weighed down by the feeling of sand being poured into his bones.

Pain exists too. It pulses somewhere along his side, blooming through his ribs every time he breathes, but even that sensation feels distant, dulled, as if it belongs to someone else. Everything is bizarre there, moments sliding into each other without edges, the world flickering in and out like a weak signal struggling to stay connected.

He descends again in the shadows. - The next thing he registers is a voice. Your voice. It arrives differently from the others, softer but sharper all the same, cutting through the fog. “Andrew…” Your voice breaks, and he craves nothing more than to hold you, to comfort you, to tell you he is here. “Please, stay with me.” He attempts to respond but his mouth doesn’t budge. Warmth presses against his skin, a compression against his ribs that sends a ripple of flames through his body despite the haze, and he realizes vaguely that hands are holding him down or holding him together.

(Your hands. He knows them by heart now.)

There are more voices. A stranger. He wants to tell him to go away, to leave his family alone. That he desires to die in peace with the voice of his angel close to him. But the stranger keeps speaking. “Hold him.” “He’s losing a lot.” “Keep pressure there.”

Hands run over him. Bandages. Cloth. It tenses around his ribs and the pain slices abruptly enough to drag him halfway toward the surface before the darkness swallows him once more. But despite it all…your voice remains.

Even when everything else fades. - Time dissolves. He floats. At some point, he becomes aware of the smell: wrong, metallic and thick. Blood fills the air, intense and unmistakable, mixing with something sharper he gradually recognizes as alcohol and antiseptic. The scent coats the inside of his lungs every time he inhales, yanking him closer to consciousness whether he wants it or not.

He perceives voices again. His brothers. They are arguing beyond the edge of his vision, the words warped by distance and the cloud inside his head. “You should’ve done more!”

“I know! But I didn’t ask him to do this!”

“You know that’s what he does! And that almost killed him!”

His body refuses to stir, the stinging in his ribs throbbing harder now and tugging a rope of fire through his chest. He sinks. But a gentleness interrupts all this chaos. The voice of his angel. “Stop it, boys.” The room goes quiet, your voice trembling, but the authority in it lands that even Deran doesn’t contest it. “Please, stop. You’re not helping.”

Silence stretches for a moment.

(He wants them to keep fighting. To keep shouting. To break things if they have to. Anything to prove him that the world still exists outside his skull because the silence inside feels too much like being buried alive.)

But a hand brushes tenderly through his hair, pushing the curls away from his forehead with a care so familiar that his body recognizes it before his mind can follow. “Andrew,” you whisper, the word reaching him like a line thrown into the deep water. He senses the soft pressure of your lips on his forehead, “you’re okay, now.” He desires nothing more than to have faith in your words. - Time folds in on itself.

Sometimes he drifts so far that nothing exists at all, the world melting into a blank and merciful quiet where even the pain can’t track him, and other times the edge of things returns in scattered pieces: your voice nearby, the gentle stroke of your hands, the rhythm of your breathing rising and falling beside him.

At one point, he feels the bed shift beneath his weight, the mattress dipping as someone moves beside him, warm water touching his skin. A cloth follows it, sliding slowly across his chest, and it takes several seconds for the disjointed fragments of sensation to have a meaning.

You are cleaning him. The fabric travels over the dried blood along his stomach and ribs that ache even through the haze. He hears himself make a sound, small and weak and unfamiliar that barely resembles a voice. Your hand pauses instantly. “I know,” you murmur, fingers smoothing over his hair before returning to their work. “I know, honey.”

You move slowly, patiently, like every inch of him matters while Andrew floats there, half aware, half gone, your hands traveling across his skin. A peculiar discomfort curls in his chest. Not pain, no. Shame. Because you witness him like this: fragile, damaged, helpless. The same hands that have choked men, held knives and guns, broken bones without remorse now lie useless at his sides while you wash blood from them.

He doesn’t deserve the way you handle him, and yet your hands never dither to cleanse the blood from his shoulders, chest and the long smear of it throughout his stomach. When the cloth leaves his body, the absence registers instantly and he starts counting the seconds until your return.

(One. Two. Three. Fou-)

Your breath strokes his temple as you lean close to wash his hair, warm water trickling within his curs while your fingers comb gently as you wipe away the last traces of blood from his scalp. Water runs down the side of his face, but you are already there to steady his head. His whole world now narrows to the sensation of you.

(His angel is kneeling in the dirt. Lowering herself to touch what is ruined. Washing the sins from a body that has no right to ask for forgiveness.)

Your voice breaks the thought. “There you go.” Andrew feels a palm cup the side of his face, lips finding the tip of his nose. “All handsome again.” The words are meant to be light, teasing even, but your voice trembles, betraying the exhaustion and terror underneath. He can’t open his eyes to tell you he hears you and that the sound of your voice is the only thing pulling him out of the shadows.

That his angel is still beside him, and as long as she refuses to let go, even death must await. - When Andrew finally wakes for real, the confusion is gone. Pain remains, of course. It rests deep along his ribs like a smoldering coal, flaring brighter each time he breathes too deeply or shifts even minimally against the mattress, but it’s a clean pain now, contained, no longer the distant echo of something happening to someone else.

No, this time it’s a clear and undeniable signal from his own body. Which means he is here. Alive.

The ceiling above him comes slowly into focus: the familiar crack running across the plaster, the discoloration where the paint never quite dried evenly after the last repair, the afternoon light filtering through the curtains across the room.

He’s in the house.

Andrew lies still for a long moment, hollow and drained. Memory sluggishly returns the same way everything else has since he was shot: in fragments that find their places. The couch. The smell of blood. Your voice screaming his name. Your palms against his side. The room spinning while you begged him not to close his eyes.

Andrew swallows, turning his head to try to forget. You are there. The chair alongside the bed has been pulled close enough that your knees touch the mattress, folded into it like your body simply stopped wherever exhaustion caught you, hand still wrapped around his and your thumb on the inside of his wrist, checking his pulse. Your head rests on the edge of the mattress, face wan. The skin around your eyes is swollen and in a deep shade of purple, hinting at him how you must have shed tears long after your body had nothing left to give.

He keeps studying the lines of your features the way he has done a thousand times before when you were laughing, or reading, or concentrating on a simple task of your daily life. But this is different. This is the face of someone who has witnessed horrors and survived them.

He recalls the sound of your voice breaking when you shouted his name, your fingers refusing to stop the pressure against the wound even when the blood soaked through your sleeves. Andrew stares at the ceiling once again. The room is quiet now. The whole house is quiet. Even the world outside the windows seems to be holding its breath.

The existence he has lived, the one that had been crafted by Smurf, the jobs, the violence, the endless cycle of danger and escape had constantly been his only to carry. Not anymore. Now there’s you. And loving you means something different than what he has known his whole life. More than shielding you and promising to come back. It means making sure you never have to go through another night like that.

Andrew turns his hand slowly in yours, the gesture small but sufficient for your eyes to flutter open. For a second you look confused, disoriented. Then your gaze finds his, relief and disbelief spreading across your face. “Andrew,” you whisper, the name cracking. You sit up too quickly, your free hand reaching for his face and brushing his cheek as your eyes fill up. “You’re awake.”

Andrew manages to nod, still observing intently your face and the fear and exhaustion lingering behind your relief, the way your fingers tremble even while you smile at him. This is what nearly breaking you looks like. He can’t live with that, not ever again. He squeezes your hand, making you inhale sharply like the smallest proof of life still feels impossible. One last look at you is enough to realize there was never a choice to make.

Because if loving you means saving you from the life he lives…then he will burn that life down with his own hands. ────────── He exhaled loud enough for you to hear on what must have been the fifth time. “You’re gonna hurt your back.”

You grinned without turning around, chin resting on your bent knees. “I’m comfy.” A small pause ensued, the kind that suggested he was contemplating whether it was worth arguing again. (it was not. he should know it by now.)

“You could sit up here.”

“I like the floor.”

Another sigh. “You’re stubborn.”

You tipped your head back just enough to glance at him upside down. “Oh, so you’ve noticed?”

Andrew was sitting on the edge of the couch, one leg tucked under him and the other planted firmly on the floor beside you. The remote rested forgotten beside his thigh. His attention had been pulled away from the episode the instant you had walked into the room with the brush.

Which came in contact with your hair after you felt him hover tentatively above your head for a while. “Hold still,” he murmured.

The first slow pass of the brush slid through your hair. He didn’t tug or rush, halting when he found a knot, fingers replacing it to untangle the strands before continuing, the back of his hand stroking your neck every now and then. Each movement was methodical, thoughtful, like he was solving a problem one piece at a time.

The television audience burst into laughter, neither of you reacting. You simply…sat there, paying attention to the noiseless rhythm of the brush traveling on your head. You leaned into it without thinking. “You’re good at that,” you complimented after a moment. He hummed, not quite answering. “No, seriously,” you insisted, smiling to yourself. “You’ve done this before.”

His hands paused for half a second before starting to divide the hair into three even sections. “Yeah.”

You pivoted just enough to throw him a quick look over your shoulder, but his eyes remained focused on the braid forming between his fingers. “Who?” you asked.

“Julia.” The name landed quietly in the room. You knew it already. The basics, at least. That she had been his twin, that she was gone now, that her absence resided inside him. The wound that would never be allowed to heal properly. Andrew’s fingers proceeded steadily, crossing the strands over each other. “She liked braids,” he added after a moment. “Two of them.”

“Like pigtails?”

“Yeah,” he pulled one section tighter before crossing it once again. “Said they stayed out of her face better.”

You grinned. “Smart girl.” Andrew didn’t respond, but you could sense the corner of his mouth lifting behind you. “How old were you when you used to do that?”

The weaving came to a standstill. “Kids.”

“That’s pretty young to learn how to braid.”

“She showed me. Our mother wouldn’t help.” (yeah. from what you’ve gathered about that woman, that tracked.)

You waited, giving him the space to continue if he wanted to. About Julia. About his mother. About anything from his past that gave him those nightmares. He didn’t. The plait resumed instead, his fingers moving a little slower, like he was savoring the feeling long buried in his memory. “She liked it tight,” he added quietly. “Said it lasted longer that way.”

You nodded, even though he couldn’t see you. “What was she like?”

Andrew’s hands stilled again, long enough for you to notice. “She was…” he cut himself short, searching for a word and abandoning it almost immediately. “Julia.”

The braid was almost finished now, the strands neatly woven together down your back, and the gentle tug you felt each time he crossed another section “Hey,” you said quietly, “you don’t have to talk about her if you don’t want to.”

Andrew tied off the end of the braid with the elastic he had slid around his wrist earlier. “I know.”

You reached back and pulled it over your shoulder before resting against him. He didn’t protest this time, no, his arms moved, sliding under yours and around your waist, dragging you altogether onto the couch for your back to rest against his chest. His chin came to rest on your shoulder. (fine, maybe it was better than the floor.)

You played absently with the end of the plait. “I think we could have been friends.” He didn’t answer right away. His nose brushed the side of your neck when he shifted, his breath warm against your skin. One of his hands found yours, fingers lacing together. The question slipped out before you could stop yourself. “You think she would have liked me?” The room went quiet again except for the television that you both didn’t pay attention to. The answer came like it was never a question in his mind, his other hand settling over your stomach as he pulled you closer to kiss behind your ear.

“She would have loved you.” ────────── “Hold still.” Your hands slide guardedly around his arms before he can protest further, steadying him as you step closer, careful not to press where the bandage sits beneath the fabric of his shirt.

“Okay, honey,” you murmur. “Slow.”

Andrew allows the help. It’s not something that comes effortlessly to him. For most of his life, assistance has been another word for weakness, something Smurf had trained out of him the same way she had trained hesitation out of him, to take pain silently and keep running. But this is different. Because whenever he peers down at your hands holding onto him, helping him walk, he sees the tremble of your fingers and how you keep glancing up at his face, checking his pulse in the middle of the night to assure yourself that he is still there. Alive.

“Ready?” you ask. He acquiesces once. The first step into the hallway is slow. The second even slower, his arm draped around your shoulders while your own remains wrapped around his waist, guiding him through the house as the floorboards creak beneath your combined weight. “Better today, right?” you question, the hand that isn’t around him lifting to brush the back of it across his forehead. “No fever? How’s the pain?”

Andrew tilts his head toward the touch, letting you examine him like that, the cool sweep of your skin against his skin before your hand drops again.

(It’s the sixth time today. Not that he minds. His angel counting his pulse like beads on a rosary, making sure that death hasn’t come back to finish its work. Hell will take him eventually. It won’t matter. He has already tasted heaven.)

“I’m fine,” he answers.

Your eyes narrow in warning. “That was not the question.”

“It’s better,” he corrects.

You seem to accept it, or at least decide that pushing further right now would only make him retreat into silence, a quiet, “Okay. Better is good,” escaping your lips. He moves carefully. Not because he can’t walk, he can, but because the wound along his ribs reminds him with every breath that bodies have their limits, even his, and ignoring them now would mean disappointing the woman currently holding half his weight. “Slower, please,” you remind him (or his body) gently.

“I am.”

“No, not that.”

Andrew glances at you, frowning. “Walking?”

“Breathing.”

(One. Two. Three. Four. He counts your lashes to dull the pain. Good thought. It works. A distant heat is better than a blade.)

“See?” you whisper happily. “Much better.”

He doesn’t point out that the improvement has very little to do with the mechanics of breathing and everything to do with the fact that you are still here, beside him, in the house that nearly became his grave. The hallway opens toward the living room and its long windows that overlook the trees, Andrew’s eyes drifting there automatically, cataloguing every detail the way he always does: doors closed, locks intact, nothing disturbed. The result of the training Smurf carved into him before he was old enough to grasp what it represented.

But something else draws his attention next: the couch. Or rather…what remains of it.

The large red sectional sits in its traditional place near the glass table, but the cushions along one side are absent, stripped away to expose the interior frame underneath them and the material that once covered the spot where he collapsed seven days ago has been removed entirely, leaving raw foam where the blood had sodden too deep to clean. The cushions are now stacked unevenly against the far wall while a blanket has been thrown over the exposed section in a hurried attempt to hide it.

Andrew stops walking, his gaze lingering on the couch. “What’s wrong?” you demand, tightening your grip around his waist.

(There had been so much blood. And your voice shattering somewhere above him. Screaming for his brothers. Screaming at them. To help him. To rescue him. This is the part that remains with him at night. The terror. The pleading. Thinking that he would die there and that you would witness it. He doesn’t know if that will ever leave him or be another ghost along the way.)

His arm shifts around your shoulders. “You didn’t clean it.”

Your eyes flick toward the furniture and then away again so hastily it would have escaped anyone else’s notice. But not his. “I…I tried,” you reply quietly. “But the blood soaked through the cushions and I…I didn’t want to throw the whole thing away. I mean…Craig and Deran said that I could get rid of it, but I didn’t know about you since it belonged to…” you swallow, cutting before the cursed name can come out, “So I just took the worst part off.”

Despite the silence, Andrew hears the word anyway. (Smurf. The house is full of things that belonged to her. Furnishings. Walls. Memories that crawl through the floorboards like insects.)

He recalls Smurf sitting there, one leg crossed over the other, bracelets chiming while she observed the room like it was a chessboard, her sons scattered across it like obedient pieces. Pawns and knights and whatever she needed them to be. Each of them pretending they had chosen the square she had already decided they would die on.

He had stood exactly where he stands now, younger and quieter, waiting for her next move. Waiting to learn whose blood would prove he was still useful. “We’re getting rid of it.”

You blink, clearly not expecting that answer. “Really?”

“Yes.”

“But…” your eyes go back toward it uncertainly, “I thought maybe it meant something to you since it was…”

“I never liked it.” The sentence comes out calm and certain. “Always been uncomfortable.”

(Not the real reason. It sits deeper. Tangled in the memories of Smurf’s voice. Smurf’s orders. Smurf’s kisses. Bad thoughts. One. Two. Three. Four. He counts his breaths before focusing back on you.)

“Good,” you exhale with a smile. “I hated it so fucking much. I didn’t know how to tell you it was the most horrendous couch I’ve ever seen.” The corner of his mouth twitches. It’s small, brief enough that you almost miss it, but your face brightens anyway like you had been waiting days for that tiny gesture. “See,” you murmur triumphantly. “There’s my smile. Now come on Andy, a few more steps and we’re in the kitchen.”

Andrew lets you guide him forward again, the two of you advancing past the living room while the furniture remains behind, a discarded relic of something rotten by time and love. He doesn’t look at it.

(And plans on never doing so ever again. Soon he will drag it outside and burn it until there’s nothing left but ash. Exorcise the altar of his old religion.)

“Okay,” you pull one of the stools out before he can argue, hands close enough to catch him even though he hasn’t stumbled once since leaving the bedroom. “Sit.” Andrew lowers himself carefully, one hand braced against the counter while the muscles along his side flare around the wound. “You okay?” you ask.

“Yes.”

“Sure?”

“Yes.”

“No, because…I’m still scared you’re about to pass out.”

“I won’t.”

You squint at him, a few seconds stretching between you before you sigh dramatically and plant both hands on the kitchen island. “You’re so bad at this, you know?”

“At what?”

“Being taken care of. You’re a very…very bad patient,” you reply, a smile making its way on your face. “And honestly, I don’t know how nurses do it.” Reaching out, your fingers brush lightly along his jaw before you lean forward and press a kiss against his mouth, half for affection, half for reassurance. Andrew can almost taste it.

“I thought you liked playing nurse,” he murmurs against your lips.

“Oh, I do.” You peck another kiss on his lips. “But that was funnier in bed.”

(It was. How you had stuttered the first time you suggested it. How, on top and breathless, you had proposed his fireman outfit next time. And how there hasn’t been a next time.)

The memory turns sour. He despises the wound. Not just because it slows him down…but it has also placed a distance between the two of you he cannot seem to be able to close.

He had tried. Three days ago, when the worst of the fever had faded and you were lying beside him in the bed, careful not to be too close, Andrew had murmured the suggestion on the pillow. But your hand had come up, two fingers pressing against his lips.

“No,” you had whispered. “We’ll wait.”

Andrew didn’t mention it again. Even right now. Instead, he watches you as you pull back from the kiss, your fingers still resting against his jaw while the playful expression slowly fades into thoughtfulness.

“But seriously,” you add after a moment, “if you need something…you ask me, okay? Anything.”

“I will.”

You study him, probably searching for signs of lies, before finally seeming satisfied enough to step away. “Good.” You glance toward the refrigerator. “I was thinking about going to the store. We’re running out of milk.”

(He knows what it is. It’s subtle, but he recognizes it. You want him to ask for help so you can aid. Not because he needs it. Because it makes the fear in your chest settle a little. Helping means he’s alive. His angel keeping vigil.)

Andrew tries to think. “We need eggs.”

He hasn’t seen your face brighten like that since the day. “Okay. Eggs. Perfect.”

“And coffee.”

“But we already have coffee here.”

“More coffee, please.”

(He would go willingly bankrupt on coffee if it meant seeing you light up like that.)

You grab his truck’s keys from the counter, running back to him and pressing a quick kiss against his temple. “Don’t move, okay? I’ll be back in twenty minutes,” you say, walking to the front door.

(One. Two. Three. Four. He counts the seconds until the car disappears behind the gate.)

Andrew remains seated, listening to the fading sound of the engine long after it has gone, the house settling back into its usual quietness around him. Then, he exhales through his nose and reaches into his pocket, pulling out his phone. The screen lights up, the page he had been staring at the night before is still open where he had left it when you stepped out of the shower, wrapped in steam and one of his shirts, pretending to scroll through something meaningless. Houses for sale. Rows of them scroll beneath his thumb: white siding, narrow driveways…He keeps moving.

(Not Oceanside. Too close. Too many men who know his name. Too many memories that could follow him in the dead of the night.)

He adjusts the search radius to two hours. Three at most. Far enough that the old life would have to work harder to find him, but not so far that Craig and Deran would become strangers. He won’t disappear, no. But he will throw the board in the fire and start a new game. One where he is no longer a pawn waiting to die for someone else’s victory.

The results refresh with new houses appearing. He studies each image: front yard, windows, distance from the road, blind spots…He moves past them. A white house near a freeway. No. A narrow bungalow with cracked siding. No. He scrolls again. There is no budget filter selected: Craig and Deran had handed him a cut of the job big enough that he hasn’t decided what to do with most of it. They stated it was because he took the worst of the risk that night, but he knows better. His brothers gave it to him because they were scared. Scared of seeing him bleeding out on Smurf’s couch.

Somewhere in the haze of that night, between the pain, the blood and your voice, he remembers a single clear thought. If he didn’t make it, at least Craig and Deran would take care of you. They would make sure you never had to worry about rent or food or the thousands of small things that made your life…yours. They would show up when things broke, fix what needed fixing, keep the world from being too hard on you.

The knowledge had been strangely comforting in those final drifting minutes before the darkness. But he didn’t die. And now the money sits there waiting, untouched. Until now. He keeps scrolling until the fourth house appears on the screen and Andrew’s thumb pauses.

The photo shows a house tucked into the edge of a quiet valley, oak trees stretching wide above the roof. The siding is painted a deep green, nearly the same color as the leaves surrounding it, the kind of place that looks like it belongs exactly where it stands instead of fighting the land for space. Ojai. He taps the listing. More photos appear: a kitchen filled with light and windows open toward the trees, a living room without heavy furniture choking the space but sunlight stretching across the wooden floors. The backyard appears next: wide and flat behind the house, bordered by oaks. No steep slopes. No crowded neighbors. Just open ground beneath the branches. Large enough for a ramp. And…three bedrooms.

Andrew goes still.

(Three. Three. Three. Odd number. But good number.)

He doesn’t know when the thought first started appearing in his mind, but sometimes, in the quiet instances between sleep and waking, he sees it. A small figure running through a house like this. Curly hair that refuses stubbornly to be tamed no matter how many times he tries and a laugh that sounds like yours. He never sees the face clearly, doesn’t know if it’s a boy or a girl.

Just that they have his curls and your smile. The idea sits in his chest, all fragile and impossible at once, and if that day ever comes, if a sinner like him is allowed that kind of grace, Andrew finds himself hoping they inherit everything from you. Your kindness, your softness, your light. Everything that makes you…you. Let them have his hair if they must. But the rest of him: the violence, the darkness that follows his blood like a curse. He hopes that part stops with him.

His eyes move back to the house. Ojai. Population 7,527. Close enough to the ocean that he could still drive there if he needed the sound of the waves and far enough for Smurf’s ghost to lose the trail. Because the truth is…He cannot let this house swallow you the way it swallowed Julia. He will not watch these walls poison you the way they poisoned her.

His thumb presses the save icon, the small star beside the listing turning gold. Andrew leans back on the chair, the phone still resting in his hand, observing the images of the house.

(Three bedrooms. Three. Three. Three.)

You brought heaven into his life the moment you walked through the door. The least he can do now is build a haven strong enough to keep it. ────────── “No one is ever gonna have a kid with you. Ever.”

The words landed before Andrew even recognized that Baz had spoken them. Maybe they had been shouted. Maybe they hadn’t. He couldn’t recollect the volume of them, only the certainty. The way Baz said it like a fact. Something obvious. Something that didn’t require explanation because everyone already knew it was true.

For a moment he didn’t move, hands staying exactly where they were, resting against the edge of the table. (No one is ever gonna have a kid with you.) He tried to blink, to shake the sentence loose from his head. (Ever.) The word seemed to echo louder than the rest. (Ever.) He inhaled slowly through his nose. (One. Two. Three. Four.)

The argument about Lena had already started evaporating around the edges of the moment, the details slipping away almost instantly. It could have been about Baz’s new girlfriend. Or about food. Maybe about him interfering too much. About him acting like she was his. He couldn’t recall the exact words anymore, and it didn’t matter now. What mattered was the sentence.

(No one is ever gonna have a kid with you. Ever.)

He had spent most of his life trying not to ponder about that possibility. Not for lack of wanting it. But desiring had always been treacherous in this house, Smurf having a way of seizing those wants and twisting them until they became something ugly and humiliating. That she could hold between her fingers and turn until it broke.

So, Andrew learned early not to voice those thoughts out loud but still, they emerged sometimes. A small kid running through a room, someone small enough that he could pick them up with one arm. The image had never lasted long, pushed away before it could take shape.

(One. Two. Three. Four.)

But now Baz had said it. Out loud. And Baz wasn’t just anyone. Not some stranger on the street throwing words around without knowing what they meant. Baz grew up with him. In the same house, the same rooms, with the same suffocating rules. Saw him when he lost control. When he hit things too hard. When the anger came too fast and too sudden. Saw him being Pope. The part of him that never seemed to come back clean.

But Baz also knew what Andrew was like when the world went quiet. And if Baz believed it…then maybe it had always been true.

(No one is ever gonna have a kid with you. Ever.) Andrew swallowed, throat dry. He focused on the counter once more: on the scratches carved into the wood, on a water ring left by someone’s glass. (One. Two. Three. Four.) Counting usually worked, it pushed things away. But the sentence kept slipping back between the numbers. (One. Two. Three. Four. No one is ever gonna have a kid with you. Ever. One. Two. Three. Four.) He attempted again but the words followed the rhythm of the counting. (No one. One. Is ever. Two. Gonna have. Three. A kid with you. Four. Ever.)

Andrew shut his eyes briefly, the vision of Lena appearing instantly, uninvited. Her small hand gripping his when they crossed the street, the sound she made when she laughed, all sudden and loud. He had spent more nights taking care of her than Baz had. More mornings making her breakfast. More afternoons picking her up from school. But now Baz’s voice slid into the space where those memories resided.

(No one is ever gonna have a kid with you. Ever.)

He didn’t argue. Didn’t ask Baz what he meant because somewhere deep inside him, beneath the counting and the silence, a thought had already taken root.

Who would want that life? Want a child with a man like him? Maybe it had never been a possibility in the first place.

And hours later, back in Smurf’s house, when the lights were off, and the rooms had gone silent, the words still followed him into the dark. The kind that sounded less like an insult and more like a curse.

No one is ever gonna have a kid with you. Ever. ────────── The alarm rang ten minutes ago but you have not yet swallowed it.

The phone lies face-down on the nightstand where it had vibrated against the wood earlier, the familiar tone meant to remind you of what you have done every morning for years: a small ritual as ordinary as brushing your teeth or tying your hair up before work, yet your hand remains motionless instead of stretching toward the blister pack, waiting patiently beside the glass of water.

Andrew is awake. You sense it in the fluctuations of his breathing, the subtle tension that travels through him when consciousness returns. But he stays exactly where he is, curled against you with his back along your chest, legs tangled together beneath the sheets, one of your arms draped around his waist while the other has your fingers running through the thick curls at the base of his neck.

You’ve discovered quite early in your relationship that Andrew sleeps best like this. Not holding you. Being held.

It had surprised you the first time he drifted into it without thinking, turning until he rested against you, his head tilting so your pads could slip into his hair, and the second you began scratching down his scalp, his entire body had relaxed so instantaneously and helplessly you almost giggled. Now it is routine. Every night, he feigns to just settle for a moment. It’s never just a moment. Your thumb traces slowly behind his ear, nails scraping gently along it as his breathing deepens, savoring the sensation while your gaze drift to the nightstand once more and to the packet of pills that remains there.

Andrew shifts a little against you, one hazel eye opening to glance toward the bedside table before flicking back to you. “You didn’t take it?” he asks, voice still rough with sleep.

You hum tenderly, digits combing through his curls as he angles himself a little further in them while you watch the morning light creep along the ceiling. “No…Not yet.”

He goes still for a moment in that silent, cogitating state you’ve learned signifies he’s noticing everything and speaking nothing. “You always take it when you wake up.”

“I know.”

His fingers glide absently along your forearm where it crosses his chest, tracing small idle patterns on your skin. “You forgot?”

“No.”

He turns his head so he can completely look at you now, not blinking much, not moving much…just that steady, intent gaze that makes it feel like every word you say is being placed carefully somewhere in his mind where none gets lost.

Your pads continue their movement because if you halt, he’ll notice, and if he notices he’ll start thinking too hard, and if he starts thinking too hard the quietness of this morning will evaporate under the weight of all the things Andrew Cody has learned to fear wanting. “You didn’t forget…?” he questions after a moment.

You shake your head against the pillow. “No.”

Silence sinks between you while his thumb keeps dancing along your forearm, back and forth, back and forth, his favorite thing to do every day to ground himself in the fact that you’re there. He peeps once more toward the nightstand and the tablet before going back to you. And this time you perceive it: the uncertainty, the carefulness when his chest rises before he speaks.

“You think about stopping them?” he murmurs.

“Maybe...I mean…” you exhale, the words seized someplace amid your chest and throat. Your fingers remain exploring his curls, half because you know he adores that and half because it gives your hands work while your thoughts stumble over themselves. (why is this suddenly so tough to say. it’s not like you hadn’t envisioned this conversation a dozen times in your mind over the past week. weeks if you were honest with yourself. envisioned it playful. casual. blurted out during breakfast or after sex.)

But now that you’re actually here, with Andrew warm and quiet in your arms, the words feel enormous. Andrew notices. (of course he does.) His thumb pauses mid-pattern. “You…don’t want to take it today?” he rasps.

You swallow. “Maybe, yeah.”

The words fall into the room, fragile and that could collapse if either of you gets too loud and for a long minute Andrew doesn’t speak, doesn’t budge in your limbs, doesn’t even breathe. They seem to travel through him, lodging in the cautious machinery of his mind where every possibility must be examined before it is trusted. He stares at the ceiling before his eyes return to you. “You didn’t forget,” he repeats.

“No.”

Adam’s apple bobbing, his hand resumes its repetitive path. “But if you don’t take it,” he says slowly, the sentence forming piece by piece, “then that means…” he stops.

The term stalls inside him, and you sense it: that hesitation that belongs only to Andrew, that instinct not to assume anything good too quickly. You tighten your arm around him, pressing a small kiss to the back of his shoulder. “It means we’d see what happens,” you murmur.

His eyes close momentarily. “And what happens,” he breathes, “could be a baby.”

Your heart stutters a little hearing him voice the word. “Yeah.”

The expression on his face is so unguarded it makes your chest ache. There’s hope there, fragile and almost fearful to exist. “You want that?” he asks.

You nod. “I think I do.”

“With me.” It comes quieter this time, like stepping onto a rope he isn’t certain will hold the weight of his emotion.

You smile gently, sliding your palm down from his curls to the side of his shoulder so you can guide him onto his back, the two of you untangling a split second before you follow him, straddling his hips without breaking the warmth between your two bare bodies. “Yes.”

“You want that…with me?” His eyes flick away, ashamed by how much the answer matters.

The vulnerability in the question cracks something wide open inside your chest. Andrew Cody is many things: careful, observant, frighteningly composed every time the world goes wrong. But he is not a man who asks for reassurance unless the answer truly matters to him.

(And right now, it so clearly does.)

You see it in the way his eyes shine, the faint wetness gathering along his lower lashes, trying very hard not to let it spill over. In the manner his mouth closes afterward like he already regrets questioning because good things, in Andrew’s existence, have continuously had a habit of vanishing the moment he reached for them.

“Oh, honey.” Your voice softens as you bend down before he can retreat in his self-hatred, pressing your lips to the corner of his mouth, then his cheek, his temple…little kisses scattered across his skin while you cradle the nape of his neck. “Of course.” Another kiss. “Yes.” Another. “Yes.”

His breath shudders out of him, something long trapped inside his lungs that found a way, free. His hands come up slowly along your back, afraid of holding you too tightly, that the pressure might somehow break the fragile miracle of you lying there above him and speaking those words. “You’re sure?” he rasps.

“So fucking sure.” Your mouth travels down the line of his jaw and lingers there, warm touches alongside him while your fingers slip back into his hair and gently tug, the motion making his eyes flutter closed.

“I want you to be the father of my kids,” you mutter against his throat, the words knocking the air out of him. “I want little versions of you running around.” Another kiss. “With your curls.” Your lips brush the faint freckles dotting his shoulder. “And your cute freckles.”

His hands clench on your waist. “You don’t know…what you’re signing up for,” he says softly, but the protest is weak, almost wonder-struck.

You chuckle on his chest. “Oh, I do.” You lift your head enough to observe him all over again while your hand slides deliberately by his torso, tracing the lines of him. “And if you want five kids,” you confess, “I’ll give you five.” His eyes widen but you continue. “If you want seven,” you press a kiss at the center of his chest, “I’ll give you seven.” You move lower, your mouth brushing above the month-old scar where the bullet injured him. “And if you want ten,” Your lips skim his stomach. “I’ll give you ten.”

The laugh that evades him then is quiet and breathless and so full of disbelief that it makes your chest ache. You don’t reckon hearing him laugh like that before. “You’d be pregnant for a decade,” he hums.

“Hm. Pretty sure it would be worth it.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” You push back up on his body, your hands trailing the same path your mouth just traced, your nose rubbing his. “But seriously, all I know is that I want them with you. No one else.”

His gaze searches your face like he’s still trying to find the trick in it, still attempting to locate the moment where you’ll laugh and say you’re joking, but all he finds is you looking back at him like the future you’re describing is the most obvious thing in the world. “You would…do that?” he whispers.

“A whole baseball team of kids? For you?” you smile softly, a kiss ending on his lips. “In a heartbeat.” The second kiss loiters, deep and unhurried, your bodies fitting together naturally as his arms pull you closer. You use this moment to tug at his tousled hair, earning a whimper from his mouth while yours progresses down his jaw, your voice dropping to a low sound. “So…”

“So?” he grunts.

“What if,” you ask against his ear, “we tried now.”

His breath hitches. “Right now?”

Your fingers guide his head deeper into the pillow while you hover above him, biting his jaw. “Why not?”

Andrew looks up at you as if he’s still struggling to comprehend how this morning became real, how the conversation that had started with an alarm and a pill you hadn’t taken has somehow veered into this. “Okay.”

“Okay?” You echo, rolling your hips on him, a soft breath that sounds like relief leaving him. Your hand slides down his chest, palm flattening beside his healing scar. “We’re gonna have to be careful,” you remind him.

His gaze drops on it, then back to your face, nodding. “I…I trust you.”

And with each caress that worships his body, he makes small sounds in the back of his throat. “Look at you…” you coo softly, “so sensitive this morning.”

Andrew closes his eyes briefly, breathless and helpless. “Don’t stop please.”

(and who are you if not someone who refuses to starve him any longer) (yes, maybe it’s a little reckless after only a few months to be entertaining this. Most people would call it too soon.) (a baby after, what? three months? but this man under you is not most people. and the way he looks at you right now makes the entire concept of caution fucking laughable.) (he can burn and destroy for the ones he loves. that doesn’t frighten you.) (if anything, it makes you ache for him. no one ever taught him the other side of it. no one ever showed him what it feels like to be loved like that in return.)

“Let’s make our baby.” Your whispered command ghost over his lips, your chest pressed together as your eyes locked on his, pupils blown wide with want.

“Yes,” he begs like a prayer. “Anything you want, please.” He pushes himself upright beneath you, bringing you with him until you’re sitting securely in his lap, and your hands rise to his shoulders, nails pressing into the firm muscle there as you steady yourself.

A sharp gasp leaves you when his mouth latches on your breast. Andrew makes a small sound in return, almost awed, his hands tightening at your waist while his forehead rests on your chest, the heat of his mouth causing you to arch into him. One of his hands goes from your hip to run his knuckles against your heated core, his other splaying gently over your ass in an attempt to not grip you too hard. He is pure tension beneath you, energy wound tight in every line of his body and waiting to be freed. And as you look at him, really look, you comprehend deep into your bones that this man, with all his shadows and all his gentleness, is someone you would follow anywhere life chose to twist and bend.

Because Andrew handles you like time has not yet promise you forever. Like he is attempting to carve this moment inside his brain. His palms travel reverently across your skin, like you are not solely a woman in his arms, but the entire sky he has finally been allowed to reach. “Andrew.” His name comes out strangled. You’re on fire, body tipping dangerously close to the edge while he licks you slowly, savoring you and ignoring his name.

And you sense it a few seconds later: Andrew reacting to your body betraying how close you are with a tremble that runs through him, absorbing every small change in you as if it were occurring inside his own skin. He peers up at you, the sound of your name departing him, the syllables stumbling from his mouth like they belong there. (because they do.)

Even when his breath grows uneven and the muscles in his shoulders tense beneath your fingers, his eyes stay on you with that same unblinking intensity you have come to recognize as uniquely his. Andrew likes seeing you. No…he needs to.

Your nails press deeper into his shoulders as your body tilts forward, Andrew releasing your nipple from between his lips while your inhales stammer closer as his knuckle keep circling and pressing your clit. You huff a soft snort that is half laughter, half protest. “Andrew.”

“Hm?”

“That’s not how we’re gonna have a baby.”

The corner of his glistening mouth lifts against your skin. “I know,” he replies, pushing the tip of his finger into your heat, “Just want you to feel good first.”

“Honey,” you moan, tugging on his curls so he has to look at you properly, “That’s so fucking sweet. But right now,” the second finger makes you shut your eyes in pleasure as your entire body shook, your core nearly dripping with desire to be filled by him, “Right now, I really, really need you, ‘kay?”

Andrew’s darken hazel eyes find your face the second you ask, wide and attentive, already watching the way your lashes fall closed and the way your mouth parts on the words. He nods without hesitation, the swollen head of his cock replacing his fingers in, his gaze focused utterly on you, your pleasure being the only thing anchoring him in the moment. “Okay,” he breathes, all thick solid muscles taut as he lays back in bed, letting you take control. His panting gets labored as you rock your hips back and up, taking him fully. His hand is at your hip, holding you down to allow you to grind your hips freely. “I love you,” he whispers, keeping his hooded gaze on you. “I’ll take care of you both. I promise.”

His soft words cause your cunt to clench around him, lights prickling at the edge of your vision. “I know you will,” you reply, increasing the pace of your hips. “Gonna spoil us rotten.”

“Yeah,” he says, a ragged breath escaping as he thrusts up, making you moan out his name. “I’ll give you everything…everything I have. You and our baby.”

“Ours…they will be just ours,” you reply in wonder. “I love you, please don’t stop.” Words fall from your lips in fragments you barely recognize as language anymore, because all you can see is him: the man underneath you, the man whose gaze holds yours with such fierce, unguarded intensity that the rest of the world feels like it has simply fallen away. There is only Andrew.

His hands clinging onto your skin like he craves the proof of you, like he is mooring himself to something physical while the universe tilts dangerously on its axis around the two of you, your bodies moving with urgency. His words keep reaching you through the storm of sensation, low murmurs against your skin, your name leaving him again and again like a vow he cannot stop repeating. The space of the bed becomes its own small universe where nothing exists except the pull of him, the steady heat of his hands, the way his eyes refuse to leave yours even when his breath falls short.

You are sparks colliding in the dark. Galaxies brushing against each other. You are a kaleidoscope of collapsing stars, breaking apart and reforming in endless patterns that only the two of you can see. Wave after wave crashes through you, dragging you somewhere deep and bright and terrifyingly alive, and Andrew’s name spills from your mouth in a long, trembling sound that feels less like speech and more like surrender. You feel every line of him. Every breath. Every ounce of the strength he uses so carefully when he holds you.

For one suspended moment you feel like nothing at all, like your edges have dissolved completely. And in the same breath you feel like everything.

──────────

The first thing Andrew noticed was the man’s eyes.

Not the voice, not the laugh among the cluster of guys at the far end of the bar, not the beer bottle turning between his fingers under the light hanging above the counter, but the eyes: narrow, calculating, fixed across the room with a patience that Andrew recognized instantly because he had seen it before in men who believed they had time.

That the thing they were surveying would eventually wander close enough to take.

Andrew had been standing against the wall near the pool table, a beer untouched in his hand. At first the room had been just that: noise, movement. Just an ordinary night in his brother’s bar…until his gaze snagged on the wrong detail. The man was looking at you. You were with Craig at the pool table, courtesy of Deran who had recently brought it after he ‘purchased’ (stole) it from another bar.

One hand braced on the felt, you leaned forward to line up your shot, the hem of your dress high on your thigh when you bent while Craig gave you instructions that you were clearly ignoring judging by the way you laughed and nudged him out of the way with your hip before striking the cue ball. Craig cheered and the room kept moving. But the man didn’t.

(One. Two. Three. Four.)

You straightened with a grin, raising the cue stick happily, and Andrew felt the familiar, unwelcome awareness rise in him of cataloguing like he had learned as a kid: tracking the way people watched you when you laughed, when you bent over the table, when you pushed your hair behind your ear.

(Too graceful for a place like this.)

That thought irritated him. You were just Craig’s friend. Craig’s sweet, beautiful, kindhearted friend who kept showing up beside him without making a big deal out of it: at the skatepark asking for another lesson, at parties finding him in the crowded room to stay against the wall so he wouldn’t be lonely. Who treated him like he was simply Andrew instead of the strange, broken thing most people eventually decided he was.

Andrew shifted his weight while his eyes drifted once more toward the corner of the bar where the man stood now half-shadowed, and the longer Andrew observed, the more certain he became that the man’s attention had not wandered once away from you. Not to Craig’s loud voice, not to the cluster of drunk girls laughing at a table, not even to Deran who handed him another drink. Just you.

The man’s stare stayed fixed in that heavy manner Andrew identified clearly, the kind that stripped a person down piece by piece and kept going with a lazy tilt of his head when you moved forward to line up another shot.

His jaw clenched. Not because of the dress or the way the fabric rode up. None of the Codys cared about that. Craig didn’t, he had already clocked Andrew’s interest and promised that he wasn’t stupid enough to get in the middle of it. And Deran…Deran had never looked twice at a woman in his life. But the man cared. Andrew could see it in the way his fingers stopped turning the neck of his beer bottle when you spun with joy, the way his mouth pulled into a slow, private smile like he had already chosen something.

(One. Two. Three. Four.)

The man thought he was watching prey, that the world belonged to him. Probably the type who hid in dark corners and took his time, anticipating for the moment a girl would drink too much or wander outside alone. Scanning over the room, Andrew logged distances.

(Door to the alley. Six steps. Seven if someone stepped into his path.)

The bar was loud enough to swallow any possible noise. Andrew imagined crossing the room calmly, just another man walking through the bar, pausing beside where the stranger sat and telling him it was time to leave. And if the man refused…The alley behind Deran’s bar was narrow and dark without cameras. His brother had refused to put them, something about how the things that happened back there didn’t belong on a tape.

He envisioned the man’s confusion when the door shut behind them, the instant when realization hit that the predator had drifted too close to a creature larger than him. Andrew’s hands closing around his throat, pushing more and more until the struggling stopped and the body went slack. Until the space inside Andrew’s chest that had started squeezing the moment those eyes settled on you finally went silent again.

(It would take six minutes. Maybe less.)

Afterward would be plain and simple: Craig would help, Deran too. They always did. They would wrap the body, load it into the truck, drive far enough out of the city for the lights to disappear behind them with only the desert, and the man who thought he had spotted something soft and easy across a pool table would vanish into a hole in the ground so deep and nameless that nobody would ever remember him. His gaze didn’t leave the man who smiled when you laughed. If the man didn’t stop observing…if those eyes didn’t travel away from you…he might take them himself.

Warmth touched his arm, the contact so unexpected that his body jerked a little before he even grasped what had happened. You. Your hand rested against his forearm, eyes a little glassy with the soft buzz of alcohol. “Andrew?” He blinked. The bar rushed back into focus around him. “You okay?” you asked, thumb brushing the sleeve of his shirt. Andrew glanced past you to the man who was still here, still watching, still… “Andrew,” you repeated gently.

His attention snapped back to your face. “Yes.”

You tilted your head. “I asked if you could drive me home?” The words came out a little sheepish, probably because of the hour and that you were drunker than you had intended to be. “Craig is staying,” you added. “And Deran obviously isn’t leaving, so…”

“Yes.”

You smiled. “Thank you.”

The walk to the truck felt longer than it actually was. Andrew remained a step behind you the entire way, his instinct reminding him to look at the parking lot, at the possible shadows between the cars. The man never came out. But still, he kept monitoring.

(One. Two. Three. Four.)

Sliding into the passenger seat with a quiet sigh, you leaned your head back against the seat while he started the engine. For a moment, neither of you spoke, you watched the passing streetlights across the windshield while Andrew drove, occasionally looking in the rearview mirror, searching the empty road behind them for headlights that never appeared.

“You’re very quiet tonight,” you murmured eventually.

Andrew shook his head, dragging his attention back to the present. “You had fun?”

You nodded sleepily. “Craig cheats at pool, you know that?”

“It’s Craig.”

“True,” you chuckled, your eyes closing for a moment before reopening. “Next time we play against him together, ‘kay?”

Andrew glanced at you then, just for a second, watching the way your head tipped against the window and the faint smile lingering at the corner of your mouth, the easy warmth of a person who had spent the evening with friends and drinking a little too much, trusting the world to remain harmless.

(Too trusting.)

But he only nodded. “Okay.”

Back at your place, you unbuckled slowly, fumbling with the latch before laughing quietly at yourself. “Okay,” you said, turning toward him. “I can make it from here.”

“You sure?”

“No worries, I’m a grown woman, I can still walk.” Andrew was going to protest to at least walk you to your door when you inclined across the seat. The kiss settled between his cheek and the corner of his mouth, soft and messy while your hair brushed his jaw. “Thank you, Andrew,” you murmured. Then you were out of the truck, your steps a little unsteady but determined as you walked toward the entrance. He kept counting until you were inside, safe.

(One. Two. Three. Four.)

He could leave. He should. But he didn’t. Because the man at the bar had stared at you like you were a prey to catch and ravage. And men like that didn’t always give up when the night ended. Andrew shifted in the driver seat, his gaze fixed on the front door of your building. Minutes passed. Then more. No one came. But still, Andrew stayed. Eventually the sky began to pale at the edge of the horizon and only then did he start the truck.

But the next night he came back. And the night after that. And the night after that.

He didn’t tell you. His angel didn’t need to know someone was out there keeping the wolves away. ────────── “Wait, wait…you’re doing what?”

Craig’s voice bounces off the kitchen walls in that familiar half-laughing, half-confused tone he constantly has when his older brother says something important too calmly like it’s nothing more than a grocery list. Andrew doesn’t answer right away. It’s easier to stare at them than to repeat himself and the words he had been rehearsing in his head for a week.

(One. Two. Three. Four. He has to do this.)

“I’m leaving,” Andrew declares.

Silence follows. Not the empty one, that doesn’t exist with the three of them, but the dense thoughtful kind that falls between brothers who have spent their entire lives in the same house and recognize when a sentence is about to change their routine. Craig leans back against the marble counter, eyebrows raised with a grin spreading across his face, probably waiting for the punchline that will never come while Deran, who seems way more serious and focused, stands with his arms folded across his chest.

“Leaving the house?” Craig asks.

Andrew shakes his head. “The jobs.”

Craig squints. “You mean, like…taking a break from them?”

“No,” his voice stays level. “I’m done.”

Craig straightens slowly, the grin fading from his face as the words land properly this time, his gaze flicking briefly toward Deran like maybe the younger brother will say something first but nothing comes out. Deran studies Andrew with an air that shows he has been expecting this conversation for a while. Andrew’s eyes drift out the glass door to the backyard and the patch of darkened dirt where the couch had burned. Or what used to be a couch.

He can still see it clearly in his head: you, near the pool with a hammer in your hands while the three of them dragged it outside, swearing under their breath about how heavy the thing was. It had always been heavy. Heavy with years. Heavy with every job planned there, every lie told there, every order Smurf had given from the center cushion. Andrew had transported that couch before, when he was younger. Back when Smurf redecorated every few years and the boys were expected to move the furniture obediently. Even then it had felt like lifting a thing larger than a couch, perhaps the center of the house itself.

And you, all fierce and shaky with joy, were waiting to swing the hammer down into the wooden frame. Crack. The sound echoed through the backyard. Again. The frame splintered. And again. Wood split open like a bone.

“Fuck her!” you had shouted, breathless with laughter as you raised the hammer once more. The three brothers had heard people curse their mother before: neighbors, enemies, the occasional drunk who didn’t know better…but never like that.

Craig had choked on a guffaw and cheered, Deran had stepped forward next, grabbing the hammer from your hand before bringing it down hard on the armrest. And Andrew had observed the dismantlement of the last throne Smurf ever sat on.

Then Craig dragged the broken pieces into a pile, Deran poured lighter fluid over the wood and you…you lit the match. The flames climbed rapidly, the couch cracking as the wood inside it gave away under the heat, collapsing on itself while sparks ascended into the darkening sky. You were standing there in the glow with a wild, triumphant grin on your face when you grasped Andrew’s hand to yank him closer and kiss him like the victory belonged to both of you.

(His angel defeating the curse. Freeing the three boys they used to be. The ones who had once believed this house was theirs before it became Smurf’s kingdom and they grew to be the weapons she stored indoors.)

The memory lingers for a second longer before focusing back on the kitchen and his brothers still staring at him. “I got shot and-”

Craig snorts. “Yeah, man, thanks but we noticed.”

Andrew doesn’t smile. “And I could have died.” He keeps his eyes on the countertop, on the scratch running through the marble where Baz once dropped a knife a lifetime ago. Another ghost carried by the house. “I know we say that all the time. That danger comes with the jobs.”

(One. Two. Three. Four.)

Andrew exhales slowly through the nose. “When I was laying there…” his fingers rest flat against the furniture, “…all I could think about was her. And how I wouldn’t get to know.”

Craig tilts his head. “Know what?”

(One. Two. Three. Four. He has to focus on the counter. The scratch.)

“What it feels like,” he says slowly, “to live a life with someone who loves me.”

Deran studies his oldest brother’s face, shaking his head with a slight smile. “Sounds like you’re announcing more than just leaving.”

(Breathe in. Breathe out. One. Two. Three. Four. Breathe in. Breathe out.)

“I found a house,” Andrew confesses.

Craig lets out a laugh, dragging a hand down his face. “Of course you fucking did.”

“It’s in Ojai,” he adds.

“Okay that’s…wow. That’s not exactly down the street.”

Andrew nods. “It’s quiet.”

(That’s crucial for him. Quiet means no sirens at three in the morning. No strangers showing up at the door. No jobs planned over the same kitchen where they’re standing now.)

He hesitates for a moment before adding, his voice a little rougher than before. “That doesn’t mean I’m…gone.” Craig looks up. Andrew shifts his weight. “I’m not disappearing,” he continues. “You can come over. I’ll come here. We’re not…” He gestures vaguely around the kitchen. “…not that.”

Deran’s mouth twitches while Craig observes him, shaking his head with an amused expression. “Pope,” he replies, softer now. “You’re our brother.”

Deran acquiesces. “Not exactly something you can move out of.”

Craig bumps his shoulder against Andrew’s, the warmth of it grounding in a way he hadn’t realized he needed. “Yeah, you could move to the moon and it wouldn’t change that.”

For a brief moment the three of them are simply there. Brothers. Then he clears his throat abruptly, remembering he is Craig and honesty can only last so long. “Anyway,” he says, pushing off the counter, “you already bought it?”

“Yes.”

Craig shakes his head. “Jesus, Pope.”

(One. Two. Three. Four. Breathe in. Breathe out. He can’t react to the name.)

Deran watches him cautiously. “You told her?”

“No, not yet.”

Craig’s eyebrows shoot up. “You bought a house,” he repeats slowly, “and she doesn’t know about it?”

Andrew finally looks up from the marble. “I’m going to tell her.”

Craig stares for another second, then lets out a snort under his breath. “Man,” he mutters, pushing his hand through his hair, “please call me when you do, so I can see that.”

(His brother doesn’t understand. But that’s alright. To Andrew it’s simple. He loves you. You love him. You want children. This house cannot be the place those children grow up in. The rest follows logically.)

“There’s more.”

There’s a collective exhausted groan to these words. “Oh fuck,” Craig mumbles. “Of course there is.”

Reaching into the pocket of his pants where the small red box feels heavier than it should and that had sat there the entire conversation, Andrew places it on the counter, opening the box. The diamond catches the sunlight, a brief sharp flash of light across the marble to which his brothers whistle with variations of “holy shit”, leaning over the counter to examine it.

Andrew attempts to close the box with two fingers but Craig immediately slaps his hand. “No, no, leave it open.” Andrew pauses, allowing his brother to stare at it once again. “Fucking Jesus Christ.”

Deran tilts his head. “How many carats is that?”

He shrugs. “Don’t know.”

“What do you mean you don’t know?” Craig questions, straightening up.

“I didn’t ask.”

His brother stares like he has personally offended him. “You didn’t ask.”

“No.”

Craig turns to Deran in disbelief. “He didn’t ask.”

Deran is still studying the ring, turning the box slightly so the diamond catches the light again. “That thing is not small.”

“Must be at least two carats,” Craig ponders, bending closer.

“More,” Deran replies without looking away.

“Three?”

“Looks like three.”

Craig looks at Andrew. “How much did it cost?”

“I didn’t check.”

Craig nearly chokes. “What? You didn’t check?”

“It was for her.”

Even Deran starts laughing. “So, what? You walked into a jewelry store, pointed at the most expensive ring, and said ‘that one’?”

“Yes.”

(He doesn’t add the rest. Doesn’t mention that the ring had been bought seven days after you got together. That he walked past three other jewelry stores before finding one that felt quiet enough to think. That the woman behind the counter tried to show him a dozen different rings and he ignored every single one until he saw that one sitting under the glass.) (Doesn’t tell them that he didn’t need to guess your size. That he had just measured silently one of the rings in the small dish beside his sink while you slept.)

Deran is still peering at the ring box when he states it with a smile. “Smurf would have hated her.”

Craig snorts. “Oh yeah,” he replies, pulling out beers from the fridge and tossing one to Deran before setting a third in front of Andrew. “Would have fucking despised her.”

The youngest leans back against the counter, taking a sip. “She would’ve tried to tear her apart in about five minutes.”

“Five minutes is very generous, bro.”

Andrew shakes his head, certain. “She wouldn’t have succeeded.”

Craig glances at him and grins. “No,” he admits. “She wouldn’t have.”

For a moment the three of them stay there in the kitchen, the afternoon light pouring through the glass door before Craig looks at the ring box again. Then at Andrew and Deran. He lets out a slow breath through his nose before raising his bottle. “Well,” he declares thoughtfully, “If Pope can pull this off…” He gestures vaguely toward the ring. “…there might actually be hope for the rest of us.”

Deran laughs. “Don’t get ahead of yourself.”

Craig bumps his shoulder lightly. “I’m serious, man. Look at him.”

Andrew raises an eyebrow.

Craig tilts his beer toward him. “Our big brother,” he says. “Retiring from crime. Buying houses. Proposing.”

Deran lifts his bottle too. “Well…to Pope getting married.”

“Andrew.”

Craig clinks his bottle against Deran’s. “Fine,” and taps it against his. “To Andrew.” ────────── The bell above the entrance rang quietly when Andrew stepped in. He paused just inside the doorway, letting the door close behind him while his eyes adjusted to the dim lights of the place.

(One. Two. Three. Four.)

He had already walked past three jewelry stores that afternoon: the first had been too noisy, the second too crowded (Too many voices. Too many strangers brushing past each other.), and the third had windows too exposed to the street. Andrew hadn’t liked the idea of standing under bright lights where anyone could observe him from the street. This one felt better. Like a place where he could think. A woman behind the counter looked up with a polite smile when she noticed him. She was older, silver hair pinned back and glasses sliding down her nose.

“Can I help you?” she asked.

Andrew nodded, walking toward the counter. “I’m looking for a ring.”

Her expression softened the way people’s faces probably did when they heard that sentence. “An…engagement ring?”

“Yes.”

The word sat in the air between them.

(Engagement. Ring. Engagement. Ring.)

The woman smiled warmly. “Well, that’s wonderful. Do you know what kind she might like?”

He shook his head, quietly replying. “No.”

“Well, that’s alright! We can look together!”

She unlocked the glass case and began pulling out velvet trays one by one, placing them on the counter delicately. Rows of diamonds under the lights: round, square, clusters, thin bands, thick ones…She began explaining the settings, the cut, the metals, but Andrew barely heard the words.

(Not that he needed to. Courtesy of his profession.)

He examined each ring and imagined your hands, wrapped around a coffee mug when you were half awake in the mornings. Sometimes sticky with sugar from the pastries you stole from the café. Other times tangled in his hair.

(He pictured one of the rings sitting there on your finger. While you are standing in the kitchen barefoot and opening the fridge. Brushing your teeth at the sink. Tucking your hair behind your ear while you read. Reaching across the table to steal the last piece of toast from his plate.)

“This one is a classic solitaire,” she said gently. Andrew nodded politely but didn’t touch it. Another tray immediately came. “This one had side stones.” Another. “This setting is very popular right now.” He continued to listen but his eyes kept drifting across the case, searching.

(It had to be the best one. Anything less wouldn’t make sense. Something bright enough to keep up with you.)

The woman slid another velvet tray onto the counter. “This one is very elegant…”

Andrew’s gaze moved past it. And then it halted. The ring wasn’t on the tray she had just placed down. It sat apart under the glass in the display case beside them, resting alone on a small velvet stand like it had been waiting patiently the entire time. Three stones. The center diamond larger, oval and clear with two smaller ones flanking it. Andrew stepped closer to it and watched the light above the counter strike the stone and scatter back in return. The realization didn’t arrive like excitement but like an answer. (Like the universe had placed it there for him to find.)

The woman followed his gaze. “Oh,” she said softly, opening the case and lifting the ring carefully with a small pair of tweezers before setting it on the velvet pad between them. Up close the diamonds looked almost alive under the lights. Three stones. The first one was you, bright and warm. Impossible not to notice when someone entered a room. The second was him, standing beside you, keeping watch. The third…Andrew’s breath paused.

(The third could be the future. The future with small fingers wrapped around yours. A little voice in the kitchen while you made coffee and Andrew made pancakes in the mornings. Someone learning to skate.) (Too soon. You hadn’t talked about that. He hadn’t asked. He didn’t even know if he was allowed to hope for it.) (Three stones.) (Of course it would be this one. The answer had simply been waiting there for him to see it.)

“Yes,” Andrew said quietly.

The woman looked up. “Sorry?”

Andrew pointed once. “That’s the one.” ────────── You know Andrew will be a fantastic father. You recognize it in the way he handles the little boy who fell on the other side of the skatepark.

There’s the sound before anything else: the sharp smack of small knees hitting the ground, followed by the wavering inhale children make when they’re hesitating between laughing and crying. Andrew turns instantly. Jogging across the park, he is already crouching before the boy has even shed a tear, his voice low and calm in a tone he reserves for children and frightened animals.

You observe him from where you stand, near the edge of the ramp, one foot remaining on the brand-new skateboard Andrew gave you yesterday after you came back from a shitty day at work. Andrew crouches in front of the boy, checking the kid’s elbow, the other brushing off his knees while he murmurs something that makes the boy sniff and nod bravely. You smile without meaning to. (of course he’ll be good at this.)

It’s no longer just a thought, it’s a certainty deeply anchored to your chest. You’ve seen the way Andrew watched children at the park when they skate past him, too fast and fearless, his eyes tracking them with that attention he gives to the ones he wants to protect. This sentiment is in all he does. In the way he always shifts you to the inside of the sidewalk when cars pass, his hand resting at the small of your back. In crowded places where strangers press too close, his fingers finding yours inevitably. In the quiet patience he has when you ramble about meaningless stuff, listening with attention. (you think you’ll do it tonight.)

The idea slips into your minds, probably waiting there all along. (you imagine Andrew’s face when requesting him to drive to the store. his confused frown. his eyes widening when he realizes what you’re asking him to buy. the two of you waiting together in the bathroom afterward, hand in hand while the minutes pass. Andrew counting under his breath.)

Your chest warms at the thought. Across the skatepark, the little boy is giggling now, wobbling back onto his board while Andrew steadies him cautiously with both hands, making sure the wheels are balanced before letting go. (yeah. he’s going to be fantastic.)

Your fingers brush absentmindedly over your stomach, just a split second of anticipation, a smile on your face.

The movement is so sudden your brain doesn’t grasp it at first. One moment, the sun is warm on your face, the sound of wheels mixing with children’s laughter, Andrew’s voice across the park.

The next, something closes around you from behind. Hard. A pair of arms wrap around your waist with a crushing force, lifting you straight off the ground before you even have time to turn your head. The world tilts. Your skateboard rolls away from your foot.

“What-” The word barely leaves your mouth, a hand slamming over it, large, rough. Your scream dies against the palm on your lips. Your brain scrambles to catch up with what your body already knows. Someone is holding you. Your feet kick wildly in empty air, your elbows jerking backward to hit the solid muscles behind you, but the man doesn’t loosen his grip. If anything, he tightens it, dragging you backward across the concrete so quickly your shoes barely graze the ground. Another set of hands grabs your legs.

(no. no, no, no. please, no.) Your entire body lurches sideways, disregarding the violent rhythm of your heart against your ribs. You twist violently, nails clawing for anything you can reach, but the men move with efficiency: one arm pins your torso against a chest that smells like sweat and motor oil while the other man lifts your legs like you are nothing but a ragdoll. (Andrew. he’s right there. just across the park. you only have to scream. now.)

A fabric presses against your face, the smell hitting you instantly. Strong. Chemical. Your lungs pull it in before you even gather what’s happening. When you do, your face instantly attempts to pull away but the hand only constricts more your mouth, forcing the cloth harder against your nose.

The world spins. Body jerking in their grip, panic floods your veins as your brain tries desperately to stay awake but the skatepark blurs more and more in shades of purple and green. The open door of a truck. Dark inside. Andrew. You try to shout his name, but your tongue feels heavy. Your arms suddenly won’t listen to you. Your vision tunnels. The sunlight disappears.

One more breath of the bitter chemical smell. And the world goes black. - Consciousness returns all at once. The first thing you notice is that everything is wrong. Your body feels wrong. Your arms ache, a deep burning pain that stretches from the shoulders down to your wrists, legs cramped and stiff beneath you, folded in an impossible position that, when the truck jolts over a bump in the road, sends a bolt of pain straight through your spine. Your head throbs. The air smells stale. A mix of gasoline, dust and sweat.

You attempt to open your eyes but nothing changes, just complete darkness. You recognize with the sensation on your face that you have a thick and suffocating bag on, each inhale rebounding against the inside of the cloth. Heart stuttering, you try to move your wrists, but only pain answers. A thing bites into your skin. Plastic. Your hands are pulled behind your back, wrists crossed and locked together so firmly that when you twist them, the band only cuts deeper, digging into the skin like a knife.

Zip ties.

Legs shift next, desperate for balance, but they don’t move freely either, something tight around your ankles so that when the vehicle makes a sharp turn, your entire body slides helplessly across the metal floor until it slams against the wall.

Voices wander ahead of you. Men. At least three. Talking. You can’t understand what they’re saying. (think.) Andrew’s voice appears in your mind, calm and steady the way it always is when he is explaining a rule. “Don’t panic.” For a moment, you focus on breathing the way he trained you. (in. out. slow. in. out. slow.) The pulse is still rapid but your thoughts begin scrambling for something solid to hold onto. For the things Andrew taught you in the backyard. (how to twist your wrist when someone grabbed you. how to strike the nose. the throat. the knee. how to shoot if you ever needed to.)

You try to recall, to force your body to follow the movements you practiced. Your wrists twist against the plastic restraint. Nothing happens. You try again. Push one hand outward. Pull the other inward. But the zip tie only gets even more restrictive. (okay. think.)

Your fingers press against the plastic band, searching for any gap, any weakness, anything you might be able to slip through if you turned your hands the right way. There isn’t one and your shoulders only burn from the strain of the position. Andrew never showed you how to escape this. He instructed you how to fight, to run, to hit, but this…Hands tied. Legs bound. Bag over your head. There’s nothing you can do without vision, nothing you can do if you can’t stand. Fear starts creeping through you in slow, icy waves.

(what if they ki...no. don’t think that. Andrew would want you to fight.) The certainty arrives with surprising strength. (he would want you to stay calm. to wait. to watch. to look for the moment when they make a mistake.)

You can hear the men laughing in the front of the vehicle, relaxed, like this is nothing to them. You force your breathing to slow once again. (you will fight. the first chance you get. Andrew taught you that much.)

You might not know where they are taking you, not know how far you’ve gone. But one thought, quiet and unshakable, settles inside your mind. Andrew will notice you’re gone. That something is wrong. And wherever these men think they’re taking you…Andrew will find you. - He knows how lucky he has been. How the dices of his existence have stayed on the same face long enough for him to forget what it feels like when they turn. (Lucky. That’s what he has been. Not in the way people would get the word. No, Andrew has never confused luck with comfort. Luck to him has always meant survival. Luck meant a job that went wrong but not wrong enough. Luck meant walking away when someone else didn’t.)

But the kind of luck he has been living in lately is entirely different, quieter and more fragile and infinitely more dangerous to lose. Because for the past few months, Andrew Cody has been waking up next to you, breathing the warmth of your skin and the rhythm of your heartbeat beneath his cheek, feeling your fingers slipping into his hair. Every morning since the first day has felt like someone rolled the dice for him and somehow they landed in his favor every single time. And today, the dice rolled again. Only this time…they came up wrong. (One. Two. Three. Four.)

The road stretches empty ahead of the truck, long bands of asphalt cutting through the industrial outskirts of Oceanside while the sun slowly sets, but Andrew barely sees any of it, his attention fixed on the screen mounted beside the steering wheel where you location pulses with a blue dot. Moving. Still. His eyes keep flicking toward it, measuring the direction, the speed, the road, the signal that crawls along in slow, merciless increments, eyes never lingering long, conscious that staring at the screen will not bring you back any faster.

(He has work to do. One. Two. Three. Four. Andrew forces his gaze back to the road. He must not recall the rest. The truck door. The arms around you. The cloth. How he sprinted. How the distance was already too great. How the truck disappeared. One. Two. Three. Four.) (And the faces he recognized. Not the names. Just the faces. Pete’s crew.)

The blood running down his face two years ago when Andrew took the man’s eye with pliers slow enough that Pete had time to understand exactly what was happening before the world went dark on one side forever had been a lesson. A simple one. A warning carved directly into his flesh, left alive so he could remember it. Apparently, he didn’t learn enough. Andrew exhales slowly through his nose, his expression unchanged as the blue dot continues to move across the map. (That’s alright. Some lessons require repetition.)

The road narrows as the truck turns off the highway, gravel beneath the tires while the industrial outskirts of the city begin to unfold in rusted silhouettes of metal buildings and silent loading docks. Andrew observes the blue dot slow, then pause entirely, the signal settling over a structure. A warehouse. (Of course. Men like Pete have faith that empty places mean safety.)

Andrew turns the headlights off before the truck even reaches the path leading toward it, the vehicle rolling forward under its own momentum, engine idling low while he guides it behind a row of rusted shipping containers where the structure disappears from the view of the highway. Andrew sits there for a moment, hands resting lightly on the wheel while the last vibration of the motor fades beneath the hood. (One. Two. Three. Four.)

Gravel crunches beneath his boots as he steps out, the smell of rust hanging around the building while the wind pushes loose sheets of metal along the roof with a rattling sound that echoes across the empty lot. The trunk opens quietly. Beneath the spare tire and tool kit, his fingers slide to the lining and lift the panel that hides the compartment built into the frame of the vehicle, a small false floor designed for the exact moments when his world stops pretending to be civilized. The gun comes first, fitting into his palm like an old friend from another life. (Checks the chamber. Loads it. The magazine locking into place.)

The bottle and lighter sits beside it: clear liquid inside, thick and volatile, the smell alone enough to remind any soul who has worked with it what fire can do when it’s given something to eat. (Twists the cap once. Confirms it’s sealed.)

The warehouse stands fifty yards ahead of him, dark, but not silent. Andrew pauses long enough to listen to the voices through the half-open metal door. (Men. Three. Maybe four. The sound of boots on the floor. None from you.)

A sudden, violent crack interrupts him. A man howls. “Fuck!”

Another voice (Yours. He would recognize it anywhere. Even if the world split in half and you stood on the other side. Even if heaven locked its gates and hell opened its mouth beneath his feet. He would cross it for all eternity to reach you.) bursts into laughter, cut off by the sound of a slap. The sound rings through the hollow space of the warehouse and travels through the thin door, the echo of skin against skin sharp enough that Andrew feels it deep beneath his ribs where the cold control in his chest sits.

Inside, one of the men laughs. “Still got some bite, huh?”

Another voice interrupts, irritated and nasal. “Stupid bitch broke my nose!” (Good. If you fractured it, then you had enough strength left to do it. They have not shattered you. And for the hand who just hit you…)

Andrew envisions it calmly, the bones inside it, the tendons running through the fingers, the way the skin stretches across the knuckles when a fist closes, and he wonders briefly whether it would be cleaner to cut it at the wrist or the elbow and whether the blade would slide easier between the joints if the arm were bent backward first.

Another wet sound interrupts the men’s conversation. “Did she just spit again?”

“Fucking little psycho.”

“Yeah,” another voice mutters. “Like her man.”

Andrew slowly unscrews the cap of the bottle in his hand, the chemical smell rising.

“You know what your problem is?” the broken-nose man continues, his voice thick with blood and humiliation. “Nobody ever taught you manners.”

“Maybe the belt wasn’t enough of a lesson earlier, huh?” one of them laughs with the unmistakable sound of a knife running on metal. “Think Pope is still gonna like what’s left of your face when we’re done?”

Andrew closes his eyes for half a second. When he opens them, the man standing outside the door is no longer Andrew Cody. Andrew is the man who buys groceries. Andrew is the man who listens when you talk about your day. Andrew is the man who kisses your forehead when you fall asleep on the couch. The man outside the warehouse now is something else entirely. In the ancient scriptures, angels of death walked through burning cities, the destroyers sent in the night to mark the doors of the guilty and pass judgement upon those who believed themselves untouchable.

The man entering is no longer Andrew Cody. It is Pope, and wrath walks with him.

The door swings open with a long metallic groan, the men standing only a few feet away from the entrance, their bodies half turned toward the noise but not yet fully comprehending what they are seeing, the mind always necessitating a moment to accept the shape of its own ending. Andrew doesn’t look at you. Not yet. Looking would slow him down.

(Rapidity is the key. Every second that passes gives them a chance to think. To react. To harm you again. The only law that matters here is the one written in the oldest instincts of the human body. Move first. Finish fast. Leave nothing behind that can still hurt the one he came for.)

The bottle in his hand swings as he crosses the distance between himself and the first man, the one closest to the door who has just enough time to widen his eyes before Andrew’s arm snakes around his neck and locks there with brutality, the man’s back slammed against his chest while Andrew’s other hand tilts the bottle upward and empties its contents over the man’s head and shoulders in one motion, the liquid soaking instantly into his shirt.

The man smells it before he understands. “Wait!” Andrew strikes the lighter, the flame reflecting in the man’s eyes before Andrew touches it to the gasoline, the fire blooming. The man’s scream tears through the warehouse, ripped straight out of hell itself as the flames leap up his chest and face, devouring the fabric of his clothes in seconds before he even manages to stumble away, his body thrashing wildly as he crashes in the walls and runs blindly toward the open door behind Andrew, the smell of burning cloth and skin spreading through the air while his screams fade outside into the gravel lot beyond. (If there had been more time, he would have rolled the man in the pebbles with his melted skin. Not today.)

One of the other men reacts, in pure primal fear, bolting after the fire and sprinting toward the exit with his hands half raised. Andrew lets him go. Because the last man there is close to you, a knife in his hand that glints under the flickering light of the burning man. He grabs you by the shoulder and jerks your head back roughly, the blade lifting toward your throat in a trembling hand.

“Don’t move!” he shouts. Andrew doesn’t slow, striding to him. The man drags the knife closer to your neck, the metal hovering dangerously near the skin just beneath your jaw where your pulses beats. “I said don’t-” He never gets the chance to finish his sentence. Andrew’s hand closes around the man’s wrist before the knife has a chance to cut your skin, the grip precise and brutally controlled as he twists the joint outward with a sharp motion that sends the blade clattering across the floor. The sound of the man’s wrist breaking follows immediately after, like a branch beneath sudden weight. Driving him backward into the ground with his full weight, the two of them hit the floor hard enough to knock the breath out of the man’s lungs while Andrew’s knee pins his chest and his hand traps the broken arm. Andrew calmly picks up the knife that lies inches away from them.

“Please, man. No…” the man sobs.

Andrew tilts his head slightly, studying the face in front of him. “Were you the one who slapped her?”

The man freezes, eyes flicking briefly toward you before going back to Andrew. “Yes.”

Andrew nods once, almost politely. “And the belt?”

The man’s lips tremble. “Yes.” The word barely forms before Andrew strikes, the blade flashing once through the air. The man’s scream is immediate and piercing, but Andrew doesn’t look away while the hand separates from the wrist.

He simply picks it up and places it carefully in the man’s remaining hand who is crying, shaking violently on the floor while the blood spreads rapidly across the concrete beneath him. Andrew leans down close enough that the man can hear him clearly through the ringing in his ears. “Take that back to Pete.” His voice is quiet, almost conversational. “Tell him that the next time he touches my family…I’ll take off his eyelid so he can watch me carve open his chest.” Andrew stands, the man clutching the severed hand to his chest and fleeing the place.

The chair you lie on is to its side now, where the struggle knocked it over earlier, the zip ties rigid around your wrists and ankles, dark marks already rising along your cheek and throat where the men had tried to teach you their version of obedience.

You are not fighting anymore. Your head has fallen forward, body still. Andrew crosses the room rapidly, dropping the knife as he kneels beside you and slides his hand carefully beneath your jaw to lift your face toward the light. Your pulse is there, fast and strong. He cuts the zip ties with the knife in practiced movements before pulling you against his chest, one hand pressing against the back of your head while the other steadies your shoulders. Your eyes flutter open, unfocused. Then they find him, fingers curling against his shirt, your voice barely more than a whisper. “I knew you’d come.”

Andrew exhales slowly through his nose, moving his hand through your hair with careful fingers before pressing a kiss at the top of your head. “Always.” ────────── You didn’t ask. Just perceived it the moment he walked through the door: the tightness in the way Andrew carried himself, not outwardly visible to anyone who didn’t know him. But you did now, enough to distinguish the difference between his usual quietude and the one that pressed inward, coiled beneath his skin, waiting for a place to go. His shoulders were a little too rigid, the eyes lingering too long on nothing. His jaw held a tension that didn’t belong to the room, to you, to anything here.

So, you didn’t ask. Aware that Andrew didn’t untangle himself through questions. That whatever storm traveled through him had to run its course before he could even begin to name it.

The door shut behind him with a soft click that seemed louder than it should have been, and for a moment he just stood there, like he needed a minute to adapt to the silence, to the absence of whatever had been outside. Your apartment held its usual warmth despite your recent absence in it: the scent of your burnt candle mingling with the apple pie you baked after work, something gentle and lived-in, but he didn’t step into it right away. Not fully. You watched him from the couch, your legs tucked beneath you, fingers playing with the edge of a blanket you had draped over your lap. (he seemed exhausted. not the kind that sleep resolved. even if he was improving at that, this was the other kind. the one that sat deep inside.)

You reached for the remote without saying anything and turned the television on, scrolling briefly before selecting a documentary you had seen before but knew he hadn’t and the ocean filled the screen. Blue. Endless. Lulling. A narrator’s voice began to speak about the migration patterns of the whales and how they communicated across vast distances, voices traveling miles beneath the surface where no one could see them. (reaching each other even in the dark.)

You didn’t peek at him when you did it, it was just about letting the sound fill the room. Gradually, like he was remembering how to exist in a place that didn’t demand anything from him, he crossed the room and lowered himself onto the couch beside you, the cushion dipping under his weight. You kept your eyes on the screen, allowing the silence to stretch in that comfortable way that didn’t feel empty, just…open. A few seconds ensued before you sensed him leaning against you, shoulders brushing. Your legs unfolded from beneath you, body turning as your hand came up to the back of his neck, fingers stroking the curls in an instinctive motion. “Come here,” you murmured.

He dithered. (he constantly did, just for a second. like he was testing if he was permitted to do so.)

Andrew sank until his head rested against your lap, his body stretching along the length of the couch while one of your hands remained at the base of his neck, steadying him there until you adjusted your hand so your fingers could slip into his hair, brushing along his scalp, the pads tracing circles the way you had learned he adored. He went completely still. Like an animal that had decided not to run to find shelter. The documentary played on: whales swimming through the ocean, their massive bodies gliding effortlessly through a world that seemed untouched by everything above it. Your fingers maintained their path, repeating the same gesture over and over, never rushing, never resting.

It didn’t take long. It never did when Andrew was so pliable. His head angled involuntarily into the contact of your nails grazing the skin, stating more than whatever he could have expressed out loud. You kept going. Same pace, same gesture. Over and over. His hand, which had been resting against his chest, went on your thigh to caress it before going still again. You glanced down at him. His eyes were shut and his face, usually so controlled, so carefully composed, felt unguarded. You observed how his lashes rested on his cheek, the faint furrow between his brows smoothing out as the last remnants of tension left his body. He didn’t fight it, didn’t try to stay awake. He let go.

You leaned back against the couch, one hand still buried in his curls, the other resting on his shoulder, refusing to budge. Not when your arm began to ache from the position, not when the documentary ended and rolled quietly into the next, not even when the night superseded the day. You stayed, because a part in you understood, without requiring languages for it but the one his body spoke, that this was how he rested. Not alone. Not guarded. But here: with his head in your lap, your hand in his hair, the world quiet enough that, for a little while, nothing could reach him.

And you would remain like this for as long as he needed. ────────── You are cold.

Not the kind of cold that comes from the wind or the night air, not the kind that disappears when someone wraps a blanket around your shoulders, no, the deeper kind that sits inside your bones like something has been emptied out of you and the space it left behind has filled with ice. You look down slowly. Andrew’s hand. You don’t recall when you seized it. You only know that you can’t let go of it.

The truck moves beneath you, tires humming against the asphalt while the sky outside the windshield slowly darkens, but the world feels distant, like you are watching it through glass, body sitting in the passenger seat while your mind floats a few inches above it. Your hand tightens, the gesture making him glance at you from the driver’s seat, one hand still on the wheel while the other remains locked inside your grasp, like he has been waiting for you to wake up. “I’m here, sweetheart,” he murmurs. His voice is steady. Always steady. You try to answer him, to voice simple words like ‘I know’ or ‘I’m okay’ or even just ‘Andrew’, but they get lost, stuck in your throat, forgetting how to exist.

(why can’t you speak? it’s just words. you know them. you can hear them in your head. so why won’t they come out? are you…still in there?) Your throat works, but nothing comes out. You blink slowly to ease the sting of your eyes, trying to focus on anything in front of you, but your vision keeps traveling toward the dark stains on Andrew’s clothes where blood dried in streaks. (not his blood. you’re sure of that. you should tell him you tried. that you listened. that you remembered. that you didn’t just freeze.)

The road stretches long and dark ahead of you, the headlights cutting through the night while the ocean wind creeps through the open crack of the window Andrew lowered earlier when you started shaking so violently that the seatbelt rattled against the side of the door.

You hadn’t understood why you were shaking. You still don’t.

But the cold inside remains. Andrew’s thumb moves leisurely over the back of your hand, the movement repetitive and grounding, like the counting he executes when he assumes you’re not noticing. (one. two. three. four. you identify the rhythm. he’s soothing himself. or maybe you. it’s hard to tell where one ends and the other begins.)

He doesn’t seek to free his hand, you know he never would. He just adjusts his fingers so your palm fits more comfortably against his, letting you hold on as tightly as you need.

The truck slows abruptly, pulling onto the shoulder of the empty road while Andrew shifts the gear into park, turning toward you completely, his face softer now that he’s no longer watching the road. It takes a few seconds to realize that he did this because your breathing has altered again. Your chest moves too fast, pulling air in short shallow bursts that don’t seem to reach you. Andrew leans slowly, careful. “Hey,” he murmurs. Your breath keeps stuttering, lungs not quite opening all the way. “Hey,” he repeats, closer this time.

His hand lifts from your joined grip, but only for a second, lingering near your face and asking silent permission, waiting to see if you will pull away, if your body will flinch once more like it did earlier when the ordeal was still too loud and too close and too much. You don’t shift. You don’t believe you can.

“Look at me, sweetheart.” Your eyes drag themselves up to his face, heavily, like everything else inside you, and when they finally meet his, he is already observing you with an unwavering focus, a steadiness. The only thing solid in a world that has suddenly lost all its edges. “Breathe with me,” he says quietly, inhaling slowly so you can follow. The air shakes on the way in, but you force it further despite the ache in your chest with the effort. “That’s it,” he whispers, “you’re doing real good.” (you don’t think you are. but he says it like you are. and right now he’s the only one you trust. in. out. in. out.)

“One…two…three…four…” he counts under his breath. And that’s the easiest thing to do: listening to his quiet cadence, creating a sense of order in your body. The air ultimately reaches your lungs, shoulders dropping and the sharp edge of panic dulling just enough to let something else settle in its place. Not calm. Not really. Just…space. Enough for another sentiment to rise. Your eyes remain on his, too absorbed and aware, like if you look away you might lose him. (he’s here. he’s real. i’m here. i’m… i’m real.)

Before you can think about it, before you can understand it, before you can even form the intention into coherence…you move.

Your other hand comes up, fingers catching the fabric of his shirt, pulling him toward you with a sudden, desperate force that surprises even you, your mouth finding his in a kiss that is too hard, too urgent, too unsteady to be anything but need. After all…if you can feel him enough, you might be able to regain your way back into yourself. Your eyes stay open. His do too. For a few seconds, Andrew stills and you can witness it, the moment where he comprehends. (that you crave something. that it’s him. it has to be him.)

His hand comes up to your face, steadying you, thumb resting just beneath your cheekbone, grounding your relentlessness without interrupting it. He doesn’t pull away, doesn’t deepen it either. He just…meets you there. Solid. Present. Real. Breath catching against his mouth, uneven and trembling, you kiss him again, and again, chasing what you can’t name, what persists in slipping just out of reach. (feel. please. prove you’re still here. prove you’re still inside your own body.)

“Please,” you murmur against his lips, the word barely there, fragile and breaking as it leaves you. “Please…”

He exhales softly against your mouth. “I’m here,” he replies. “Easy… I’ve got you.” But you don’t want easy. You kiss him again, harder this time, your grip tensing in his shirt, tugging him closer, frightened he might vanish if you don’t hold him there. Nothing matters except his warmth and the fact that he is alive and here and touching you. Hand shifting, he cups your jaw more fully now, guiding the pace just enough so you don’t evade yourself utterly in it, his thumb stroking faintly along your skin in slow motions.

“Hey…” he whispers softly between your breaths. “Stay with me.” (you’re trying. it’s just… arduous when all keeps luring you under.)

You don’t notice it instantly, the moment of fracture. You keep kissing him, your movements losing their urgency, grip slackening as something else begins to take over…blurriness in your vision. It takes you a second to grasp that there are tears on your face. They slide down your cheeks, unnoticed at first until one of them reaches the corner of your mouth and mixes with the taste of him. And when he perceives the stumble of your breath, this time it’s different: it’s not panic, no, not quite. Just…too much. Your forehead presses weakly against his, lips barely brushing his as the tears keep coming, silent at first, then heavier, your chest squeezing in a way that has nothing to do with air anymore. (why are you crying?)

Body folding on itself, the tension snaps all at once, your hand falling from his shirt as a broken sound escapes you, small and raw and completely unlike the silence you had been trapped in before. Andrew moves instantly. His hand leaves your face to tug you toward him, awkward in the confined space of the truck, your body half climbing over the console without either of you thinking about it, your shoulder knocking against the gear shift as he wraps his arms around you as best as he can from the driver’s seat.

“I’ve got you,” he breathes, one hand cradling the back of your head, pressing you gently into his shoulder. “It’s okay. You’re okay.”

You shake your head weakly against him, fingers coming up to clutch at his shirt once again but without the earlier urgency, without the desperation, just…holding. Craving. “I-” your voice breaks, incapable of forming the word. “I-” The sentence dissolves before it can exist but Andrew doesn’t ask you to finish it. He just embraces you.

His hand moves slowly through your hair, over and over, the same motion, the same rhythm, his other arm tight around your back to keep you steady as your body trembles in release. The sobs come quietly at first, then stronger, your breath catching between them, your face buried against his neck where his skin is warm and real and alive. “I know,” he mutters, even though you haven’t uttered anything. “I know, sweetheart.” (you don’t know what he gets. you don’t understand what’s occurring inside you. you can just tell it hurts.)

Time stretches. Or maybe it doesn’t. It’s difficult to keep track of it.

The world narrows to the space between his arms, to the steady rise and fall of his chest beneath your cheek, to the quiet sound of his voice when he speaks again and again in low, anchoring murmurs that you don’t fully hear but perceive on a greater level. Your body slowly calms and the crying fades. Not because it’s done, no. You just don’t have the strength to continue, eyelids growing heavier with every passing second.

Andrew doesn’t budge: not when your weight settles more fully against him, not even when your head slips on his shoulder. He just accommodates his hold, one hand sliding cautiously to support your neck, making sure you’re comfortable even in the awkward angle between the seats. “I’m right here,” he murmurs again. (you know. you’re holding onto that.)

The last thing you register is wetness falling onto your hair where his face is the closest. - You don’t sense the moment he shifts. Only the absence. The slow, gentle manner Andrew untangles himself from you without ever truly letting go, one arm remaining around your shoulders while the other guides your body back across the console, repositioning you in the passenger seat. Your cheek brushes the fabric of his shirt one last time before the distance and cold returns. Not all at once. Just enough to perceive. Your head tips weakly against the seat, eyes closed. (don’t open them. if you open them, it all comes back.)

The engine starts again beneath you, the vibration traveling through the frame of the truck and into your bones, comforting, enough to keep you suspended in that fragile space between alert and catatonic. Andrew’s hand finds yours while the world only subsists in fragments: the inaudible hum of the road, the dry evening air slipping through the open window, the rhythm of Andrew’s breathing beside you, the sporadic shift of his thumb against your skin like he is still counting, still making sure you are here. (one. two. three. four. you can overhear him.)

Time passes. Minutes. Hours. You don’t know.

In your drifting at the seam of consciousness, there’s a thought. A thing you were supposed to do, that you had planned. It floats up slowly, rising from deep water, blurred and shapeless. It was after the skatepark. The thought slips the instant you attempt to hold it, gone, too distant to reach. You don’t understand why it matters. Don’t identify why it feels crucial.

The truck decelerates. There’s a change in motion, a transition from smooth asphalt to something rougher, the tires crunching as the vehicle rolls to a stop, engine cutting soon after. For a moment, nothing happens.

“Love, hey… Can you open your eyes for me?” his voice is close, gentle.

Your lashes flutter at the sound of it. (love. when was the last time he called you that? yesterday? last month? ever? time feels too blurred to know the difference.)

The world comes back in pieces yet again, light first, then shape, then meaning, your gaze unfocused a little too long before it finally lands on him, on the familiar lines of his face that appear sharper now, more defined under the dim light. Leaning toward you from the driver’s seat, one of his hands is still hovering close, not touching yet, waiting.

You blink to the structure emerging behind him through the windshield. The house is small and wooden, set back from the road, almost seeking not to be uncovered, the land stretching quiet and dark around it, the trees around moving in the night wind, a silence so complete it almost feels like the world has halted just for this place.

Andrew examines your face cautiously, tracking the way your eyes move, the way your breathing settles, the slight delay in every response of your body, catching up to somewhere your mind hasn’t fully returned from. “We have arrived,” he murmurs. His hand finally comes to rest against your cheek, the touch light, thumb brushing once beneath your eye where the skin is still damp. You don’t flinch. Not this time. “I need to step out for a minute,” he continues quietly. “Get the keys.”

(don’t go. please don’t go. you don’t know how to stay here without him.) It presses against your chest, small but urgent, but when your mouth opens, nothing comes out, the feeling dissolving into that same frustrating emptiness where language should be.

Andrew notices. “I’m coming right back, okay?” he adds with a tentative smile. “You won’t even have time to miss me.”

That almost makes it pull at your mouth. You try. You really try. Your lips part, the words take effort, way more than it should. “You wish,” you manage, barely above a whisper. It’s very little. Fragile. But it’s there.

He stills for just a fraction of a second, exhaling a breath you don’t think he realized he had been holding, the sound almost imperceptible, but you feel it in the way his shoulders slacken, in the way his hand pauses on your face before easing. “There she is,” he replies, like he’s speaking to something that had almost slipped out of reach and has now, somehow, found its way back, “That’s my girl.”

The phrase settles inside you, warm in a place that had been untouched since the cold entered, and for a moment, just a moment, the void amid your body and your mind shortens, stitching themselves back together one thread at a time. You don’t smile yet. You’re not sure you can. But you seek all you have in your features to convey how much right here, right now, yes, his girl is gradually rising back.

His hand lingers a moment longer before he forces himself to pull away, counting under his breath the distance in cycles of four. “I’ll be right back,” he reassuringly says.

The space he leaves behind doesn’t feel as hollow. Your eyes follow him again through the windshield, watching the way he strides across the gravel toward the house. Another man stands near the porch, older, keys glinting in his hand, and the two of them speak in low voices that don’t quite reach you, fragments stumbling through without forming anything whole.

“…papers are all signed…” “…place is yours now…” The words drift past you, half-heard, half-understood, your mind too far to hold onto them properly while the man presses the keys into Andrew’s palm. “…quiet out here… good for that…” A pause. “…you and your wife will like it.”

It’s gentler than the rest, but heavier somehow, deeper than the others. It doesn’t jar you. Doesn’t seem wrong. And in your mind, the word keeps running. (wife, wife, wife.) You don’t feel like a wife. But honestly right now, you don’t consider yourself much of anything. (but the idea…the idea of being his wi-)

That’s a warm term, one that goes beyond the cold within your bones, one that is untouched by all that occurred tonight, that can’t harm you. The night air trails Andrew as your door opens, sealing the distance between you and him, nothing else subsisting elsewhere out of his hazel eyes. “Hey,” he murmurs, crouching so his face is level with yours, gaze searching yours with the same focus that has been holding you together since the world slipped. “We’re gonna go inside, alright?”

You don’t answer right away. Not because you don’t desire to, no, but because everything still feels sluggish. (stay there. don’t lose him. underwater is not a place to remain in.) You nod. Andrew’s expression softens, something easing behind his eyes before he stands and moves carefully, one arm sliding around your back, the other guiding your hand, never pulling, never rushing. “I’ve got you.”

The ground appears uneven when your feet touch it, legs uncertain beneath you but not truly discerning it, not when you have him to hold onto, not when his arm stays around you, anticipating every movement you don’t have the strength to control and keeping you upright without making it feel like you’re falling apart. You don’t examine the house. Just a brief flickering look toward it: the shape, the soft light behind the windows, the outline of a place that might be welcoming. But it doesn’t carry you. Nothing does.

Except him.

The steps to the porch blur beneath your feet and you cross the threshold without really feeling it. Inside. Somewhere. It doesn’t matter. Your hand hasn’t left his, the only thing that you deem real enough. It takes a full minute for your voice to come, quiet and rough from disuse, barely more than a breath. “Where are we…?”

The question feels distant, belonging to someone else. Andrew doesn’t hesitate. “Home,” he answers.

You don’t question it, you don’t look around to confirm it. You don’t need to. The term doesn’t reach the walls, doesn’t reach the house. It stops at him. (you already know you’re home.)

Andrew is here. ────────── “And this one?”

Your voice arose tenderly, already halfway through the ritual you had created weeks ago, fingertip resting against the ridge of an old scar along his shoulder blade, tracing its uneven edge like it was a delicate relic instead of skin that had once been torn open. Andrew didn’t answer straight away. He lay with his back pressed to your chest, curled so your arm could drape over his waist while the other danced across his skin, mapping him the way no one ever had, with hands that sought to understand rather than assess or judge, touching instead of taking, reverence instead of inventory. (One. Two. Three. Four. The body of the sinner, and no voice rising to call it that but his own.)

Your nail followed the line once more, lighter this time. “Andrew?” you murmured.

He exhaled. “Knife.”

Your hum vibrated against his back, the sound warm, thoughtful, like you were receiving the word instead of reacting to it, holding it somewhere gentle instead of letting it fall heavy between you. “How old?”

“Sixteen.”

Your finger lingered, tracing it again, slower this time, committing it the way you always did: like nothing about him was allowed to be forgotten once you had uncovered it. Your lips followed in a soft kiss, placed exactly where your fingertip had been, loving and deliberate and…reverent. Andrew’s breath faltered. (It always did. Because it didn’t feel like affection. No, it was something else entirely. A sentiment he did not have a name for. Close to absolution.)

Your hand moved again, drifting across his back with quiet intention, pausing at another mark, smaller, almost faded. “And this one?”

He swallowed. “A job.”

“Mm.” Your thumb brushed over it, smoothing it as if the years hadn’t already tried and failed, as if your touch could succeed where time had not. “It’s a very small one.” A kiss followed. Then another. (His angel making something holy out of what had only ever been used.)

“And this one?”

“Prison.” The word left him flat, as always, but your hand didn’t falter, your touch didn’t recoil. You only traced it again. (Once. Twice. Three. Four. Even number. You knew now. That he needed it like that. He had told you once. Hesitant. Apologetic. How four made things silent inside. And you hadn’t turned it into something to laugh at.)

You leaned down, pressing your lips to it with the same tenderness as the others, no reluctance, no differentiation, no hierarchy in the way you touched the wounds that had shaped him. (No categories of deserved or undeserved. No measurement of them. You did not question which ones he earned. You kissed them all the same.)

The starving part of him, buried so profoundly it had forgotten its own name and fed on scraps and silence, stirred at being called back in the home of your embrace.

At the scar he got when he was young, your lips lingered longer, as if that one demanded more, as if the child he had been was still attached to his skin and needed to be acknowledged separately from the man he had become. Andrew’s eyes slipped closed, not a single muscle held in readiness, not a single instinct braced for impact. (He did not do this anywhere else. Because nowhere else did it feel like this. Being unmade. Not brutally. Not forcefully. Piece by piece. Each of his scars a verse. Each of your kisses the response. His angel undoing a life tainted by violence. Rewriting it in mercy.)

And in the quiet that followed, with your arm still wrapped around him and your fingers slipping once more into his hair, Andrew felt the overwhelming need to anchor himself before it could fall away, holding onto the sheet. Because if this: this warmth, this softness, this impossible, undeserved gentleness…if this was what it meant to have every mark acknowledged and not condemned, to be touched without expectation of pain…then maybe this was what people implied when they spoke of being forgiven.

And if this was what being cleansed felt like, he understood why people believed in God. ────────── He found it the day you asked him to leave for a while.

The request had not been cruel, nor abrupt, nor even unexpected, yet it had still sat inside his chest with a weight he didn’t know how to carry, your voice gentle but firm when you told him you needed some time, even just an hour, to process alone all that had happened without his eyes on you, without his hands reaching to help you when you were screaming in the middle of the night. He had nodded because you had asked it and loving you had already taught him that care didn’t always mean staying, that sometimes it meant stepping away even when every instinct inside him recoiled at the idea of leaving you unguarded.

He had driven without direction at first, counting. (One. Two. Three. Four. The trees. The houses. Distance from you measured in numbers instead of steps. Time instead of touch.)

The road had stretched ahead, quiet, the hills folding into one another beneath the afternoon light, and his hands had remained tight on the wheel, gaze scanning reflexively for threats that didn’t exist there, for movement that never came. His body still held in that rigid state since the warehouse, every nerve tuned to the possibility of harm.

And then he had spotted it. Small. Set back from the road. A chapel that didn’t announce itself, that didn’t demand attention, its wooden white frame worn by time, the door ajar, probably left open for anyone who might necessitate it and had not yet decided how to ask. He had parked without thinking. And inside, it had been silent. The kind that didn’t feel abandoned, but contained, preserved from the noise of the world outside, the light filtering across the benches and floorboards, dust flying in the air, undisturbed.

Andrew had not known what to do in a place like that. He had stood near the entrance longer than necessary, boots quiet against the floor, his gaze moving across the room, cataloguing details without purpose: the shape of the altar, the faint scent of old wood and candle wax, the way the space seemed to exist outside of time. (One. Two. Three. Four.)

He had not prayed. He didn’t exactly know how, no matter the number of times he had attempted. Him. Pope who couldn’t pray. But still, he had remained there for a while. Long enough for his breathing to slow. Long enough for the thought to settle. (This is where he will bring you. Where the world cannot touch what it doesn’t deserve.) - And two weeks later, he does. The door opens with a soft creak under his hand, the sound echoing inside the small chapel as he steps aside to let you enter first, his gaze moving to you rather than the room, tracking the way you cross the threshold, the slight hesitation in your step, the way your fingers curl loosely around the sleeve of his shirt before letting go. (One. Two. Three. Four. You’re steady. Still here. Still breathing. Still his to guard.)

You pause just inside and your eyes travel slowly across the space, taking in the light and the absence of anything that demands attention. “It’s…” you begin, your voice smaller than it used to be, not fragile, not broken, but tempered by everything your body has learned in the past weeks, “…nice.”

Andrew nods once, closing the door behind you with care. “It’s quiet,” he replies. (Quiet is safe. Quiet means no one is coming. A place set apart. Removed. Preserved. His angel does not belong to the world outside. Not to men like them. Not to what raised him. Not to the kind of life that stains everything it touches.)

You move further in, your steps unhurried, hand brushing along the back of one of the wooden benches, fingers tracing the grain absentmindedly, grounding yourself in the texture, in the reality of it while Andrew stays close. (Not touching. But near enough. A distance small enough to cross in less than a second. Close enough to intervene. Close enough to reach before harm does.)

You sit after a moment, choosing a bench near the center rather than the back, your body turning toward him when he lowers himself beside you, leaving just enough space between you that you can close it if you want. For a while, neither of you speaks. Your hands rest in your lap, fingers intertwined, your thumbs moving against each other in a slow, absent rhythm. “I like it here,” you murmur.

Andrew nods again. “I thought you might.”

You glance at him then, a faint curve at the corner of your mouth, not quite the full smile he knows, but closer than before. “You were right.” (He wants to keep being right if it keeps you like this. Breathing. Here. Untouched.)

Silence settles again, softer this time. You draw in a slow breath. “I…wanted to say thank you.” The words come carefully, each one placed with intention, your gaze dropping briefly to your hands before lifting again. Andrew’s body stills. (Thank you. For what? For doing what should have been done before they even reached you? For failing to stop it sooner?)

“You stayed,” you continue, your voice steady despite the tightening in your throat. “These past two weeks. You didn’t…leave me alone with it.”

Andrew’s jaw tightens, just a little. (There was no version where he would have left.) “I wasn’t going to,” he says quietly.

You nod, your fingers tightening together. “I know.” A small exhale. “I just…wanted to say it.” He watches you closely, noting the way your shoulders hold, the way your eyes avoid his for a second before returning. “And I’m sorry,” you add.

That makes him frown. “For what.”

You huff a small, breathless laugh that breaks halfway through. “For being…like this.” You gesture vaguely to yourself, your body, the invisible weight you’ve been carrying. “For being ‘sick’. For not…” You stop.

Andrew doesn’t. “For not what?” he asks, his voice still even but lower now.

Your gaze drops again. “For not being…normal,” you finish quietly. “For not…touching you. For not wanting to have sex righ-”

“No.” The word cuts through the air immediately, firm, leaving no space for you to continue that line of thought. You blink, looking up at him. “That doesn’t matter,” he says. (You being alive matters. You breathing matters. Nothing else comes close. The rest is irrelevant.)

You swallow, your lips parting slightly. “But it’s been weeks,” you murmur. “And I know that’s not-”

“It doesn’t matter,” he repeats, softer this time but no less certain, his hand finally moving, resting over yours where they sit in your lap.

“You don’t owe me that,” he adds. (You don’t owe him anything. Not your body. Not your healing. Not your pace. He owes you everything. All that remains of him. That still knows how to be used for something other than destruction.)

Your breath stutters, your eyes searching his face, looking for doubt, for hesitation, for anything that might contradict the certainty in his voice. There is none. “You’re not…annoyed?” you ask, the word small, almost tentative.

Andrew’s expression shifts, not quite a smile, but something warmer. “No.” A beat. “Not once.”

Your lips tremble, a sound escaping you that is halfway between a laugh and a sob, your shoulders lifting slightly before dropping again, the tension breaking in small increments. “That’s insane,” you whisper, shaking your head.

Andrew tilts his head. “Why?”

“Because most people would be!” you reply, a soft, disbelieving breath leaving you. “Most people would have left by now or…” you cut yourself off, pressing your lips together.

“I’m not most people,” he says, voicing the thought simply. “And weren’t you the one who told me that it didn’t matter if I couldn’t be…intimate? That together was all you needed?”

That makes you laugh again, a real one this time, even if it’s threaded with tears, your head tipping forward slightly. “Yeah,” you admit. “That’s…true.” The sound lingers in the chapel, light, fragile, but real and Andrew can’t help but to watch you, committing it to memory. (This. This is what he protects. Not the absence of fear. The return of this. His light.)

Your hand turns beneath his, your fingers curling around his palm now, holding him rather than being held, your grip gentle but intentional. “I’m getting better,” you say after a moment.

He nods. “I know.”

You glance at him, a hint of curiosity there. “How?”

“You’re laughing.”

A small smile returns to your mouth at that. “Good point.” You inhale slowly, your gaze drifting toward the front of the chapel, toward the altar, the quiet space beyond it, your expression thoughtful. “I know I’m not…all the way there yet.”

“I don’t need you to be,” he replies.

You look back at him. “I know,” you say softly. “But I want to be.” A tear slips down your cheek then, unexpected, and you laugh again through it, wiping it away quickly with the back of your hand. “Fuck, I’m a mess,” you mutter.

Andrew shakes his head. “No.”

You huff. “Oh yes, look at me. Cursing in a church.”

He doesn’t argue further and reaches up, the pad of his thumb brushing beneath your eye, catching the remaining dampness there, his touch careful. (He has seen blood on this skin. Bruises rising. Hands where they should not have been. This, this he can handle.)

You lean into the contact without thinking, your eyes closing briefly, your breath evening out again under the motion. For a moment, the two of you remain like that. Quiet. Held in a place that doesn’t ask anything of you except to exist. Then you pull back slightly, a small, almost mischievous spark returning to your gaze, faint but present. “Hey,” you say.

Andrew raises an eyebrow. “Yes.”

“Do you think,” you begin slowly, “you could drive me to the grocery store after this?”

He blinks once. “The grocery store.”

You nod, a soft smile forming. “I want to try a new recipe.” (A recipe. Ingredients. Steps. Future.)

Andrew exhales slowly through his nose. (One. Two. Three. Four. You are here. You are choosing to stay. To build. To continue. He will buy you the whole store if he needs to.)

“Yes,” he answers.

Your smile widens, just a little. “Good,” you say, squeezing his hand once.

And in the quiet of the chapel, Andrew understands with a clarity that does not require words, does not require prayer, does not require anything beyond the rhythm of your breathing beside him that whatever this place was meant for, whatever it once represented to those who built it, to those who came here seeking answers… he has already found his.

It sits beside him. ────────── At twenty-one, Andrew did not ask questions.

He learned early that questions did not change outcomes, that answers were rarely given without cost, and that the only thing that mattered in the end was whether he had done what was expected of him, whether he had moved when told, stopped when told, hurt when told, because in that house usefulness had always been the closest thing to love that any of them were allowed to touch.

Smurf was sitting in the living room when she called him, not raising her voice. She never needed to. “Andrew.”

He was already turning before she finished saying his name, stepping into the room with that attentive posture that had been carved into him over years, his eyes finding her immediately, reading the angle of her body, the tilt of her head, the small details that told him what she wanted before she said it. She was smiling. The one she used when she had already determined someone’s fate. “Come here, baby.” He did. Of course he did. (One. Two. Three. Four. Called. Answered. That was how it worked.)

She was sitting with one leg crossed over the other, bracelets shimming when she shifted, her hand reaching for him the moment he stepped close enough, fingers sliding along his thigh in a slow, absent stroke. (He wondered if this meant comfort in other houses. Affection in other families.)

“You’re my strong boy,” she smirked, her gaze lingering on his face with a warmth that never lasted long enough to hold onto. “My protector.” Andrew stood still beneath her hand. (Protector. That’s what he was. That’s what he was for.)

“There’s a man,” she continued, “who forgot how things work around here.” Her fingers pressed against his leg. “Can you remind him?”

Andrew nodded. “Yes, Smurf.”

She smiled wider. “I knew I could count on you.” Her palm lingered a second longer before withdrawing, the absence of it immediate, noticeable, leaving behind that quiet, familiar emptiness that always followed once the task had been given. (He had to do it well. To come back. To be useful. Be worth it.)

The man was not important though, that Andrew grasped the moment he saw him. He was not a target because of what he had done, Andrew actually didn’t know what it was about, but because Smurf had declared he had forgotten, and forgetting, in their world, was sufficient.

“Please…” the man started as Andrew approached slowly. Not out of uncertainty, out of precision. The man kept talking, words spilling over each other, apologies, explanations, promises, the kind of desperate language people used when they believed there was still a possibility of being heard. Andrew didn’t listen. Listening would imply that the outcome could change. But here, now, it couldn’t. He reached for the man’s jaw first. “Wait, I have a family,” the man choked out, his voice cracking under the pressure. “Please, I have ki-”

The first hit cut the sentence in half. Andrew observed the impact: the way the man’s head snapped to the side, how the sound echoed in the room, the way silence pursued for a moment before the man tried again, his words slurring. (One. Two. Three. Four.)

Andrew adjusted his stance before continuing. Each movement controlled, measured in the similar rhythm he employed for everything else, the same manner he counted steps, breaths, distances, because this too was a task, and tasks required precision. The man’s voice deteriorated rapidly. Words turning into sounds. Sounds turning into broken attempts at forming something coherent. (One. Two. Three. Four. The mouth was no longer functional. This man was sentenced to months of silence, jaw rendered useless. Children without their father’s voice. Bad thought. One. Two. Three. Four. He counted his fist striking.)

He couldn’t halt, not out of rage or cruelty, but out of completion. Because stopping before the job was done meant coming back, which meant therefore failing the first time. The man ceased to speak long before Andrew stopped. And silence, in this case, meant success.

When he returned home, the house was empty, the lights were off. No music. No voices. No Smurf. No brothers. Andrew stood just inside the doorway for a moment, his hand still on the handle, the quiet pressing in around him, unfamiliar after the structured noise of the task, the man’s voice and the impact of bone and skin and breath.

The living room looked exactly the same: the couch, the table… Everything in its place. Except there was no one there to tell him he had done well. No hand reaching for him. No voice calling him baby. No warmth. Just the absence of it. Andrew sat on the couch, in the same spot where Smurf had been earlier. His hands rested on his thighs, still, his gaze fixed on nothing in particular, his body waiting without realizing it was waiting, as though the next instruction might come at any moment.

It didn’t. Minutes passed. Then more.

(What now?) There was no need for the question to form fully, because there was no answer. Just the quiet. And him inside it. - At twenty-one, you were not supposed to end up alone. Not with the way people gravitated toward you, the way your laughter filled spaces without effort, the way professors remembered your name and classmates sought you out not because they required something from you but because being near you felt easy, light, uncomplicated.

You studied psychology out of appreciation to understanding people. You enjoyed the way patterns formed, the way behavior made sense when you looked at it closely enough, the way even the most confusing reactions had roots if you were patient enough to find them. Your mother used to say you were good at seeing the best in others and of course, since she was your mother, you used to believe her. At twenty-one, your life had been full: classes, friends, late nights spent talking about nothing and everything at once, a future that stretched out in front of you in clear, manageable steps…

And then it wasn’t.

The hospital room had been too white, quiet, final. But your mother’s absence didn’t arrive all at once, no, it unfolded gradually in the empty chair at the table, in the silence where her voice used to be, in the way the house felt different even though nothing had moved.

You tried to go back to your classes, go back to your routines and the version of yourself that existed before, but everything felt heavier, louder. Too much. The words blurred on the pages, the voices felt distant and time stretched in ways that didn’t make sense. Until one day, sitting across from your father at the kitchen table, you said it. “I don’t think I can do this anymore.”

He looked at you for a long moment. Not disappointed. Not angry. Just…seeing you. Your sorrow, mirrored in his own eyes. “All I want,” he said quietly, “is for you to be happy.” And it shattered something open inside your chest, because you didn’t know how to tell your father you couldn’t recall how to be that anymore.

So you moved. From Los Angeles to Oceanside. You told yourself it would help: a nice change of air, a reset, a chance to find a life that felt manageable again. The apartment was perhaps modest, but clean. Boxes still half unpacked in the corners, you sat on the floor the first night, back against the wall, phone in hand with no one to call. You drew your knees to your chest, your chin resting on them, your eyes moving slowly across the unfamiliar space, trying to make it feel like yours.

(What now?) But you knew there was no answer to this question, just the silence. And you inside it. ────────── The notification is simple, clear. Just one sentence. You haven’t logged your period in 7 weeks. It sits there on your screen longer than it should, and for a minute, you don’t budge, you just look at it, your thumb hovering above the glass without touching it, without dismissing it, without opening anything else, suspended in that small space where nothing has changed yet but still, everything has. (seven weeks. seven. seven.)

The number doesn’t feel real at first, it feels misplaced, as though it belongs to someone else’s life, to a version of you that exists somewhere adjacent but not quite here, not quite now, not in this bed, not with him sleeping beside you.

Andrew breathes deeply against your back, one arm draped over your waist, heavy and warm, his palm resting flat on your stomach where it had settled sometime during the night without either of you noticing. His grip is loose in sleep but present enough that you can sense it, the weight of it securing you to the mattress, to the moment, to him. Your eyes drift down to his hand. (seven weeks.)

The skatepark returns in fragments, not as a full memory but as scattered impressions: sunlight, the sound of wheels, Andrew crouched in front of the little boy, your fingers brushing absentmindedly over your stomach while the idea had slipped into your mind. you think you’ll do it tonight. You never did. Everything after that moment had fractured, rearranged itself into something darker and harder to hold. The plan had dissolved somewhere between the truck, the warehouse, the three weeks that followed where time moved in uneven stretches and your body forgot how to feel like yours.

That’s what bodies do, you remind yourself, they shift without asking permission, break rhythm, lose track of time when stress settles too deeply into them, when fear rewrites the way they function. Your eyes remain fixed on the screen a moment longer. (you could just be late.) The thought arrives quietly, offering itself as something solid to stand on, something rational, something that makes sense in a way the other possibility does not. (you haven’t been sleeping properly. you haven’t been eating right. your body is still catching up. it would make sense.)

Your stomach is flat beneath Andrew’s hand, unchanged, unremarkable, offering no sign, no confirmation, no disruption of what has always been there. (no nausea. no difference. nothing.) But… (seven weeks. what if it is? worse, what if it isn’t? even worse, what if you let yourself believe it and it disappears?)

Your throat constricts around that one, the air catching for just a second before you force it down again, refusing to follow that path any further. Behind you, Andrew shifts at the change in your breathing, his fingers tightening against your stomach in reflex before loosening again, his body settling back into its quiet rhythm as though nothing has happened. Your hand lifts, hesitating only for a moment before resting over his, your fingers brushing against his knuckles. (you can’t tell him.)

The realization does not arrive all at once, it builds slowly, piece by piece, until it settles into something firm and unmovable. (not like this. not with uncertainty. not with a number on a screen and nothing else to hold onto. you won’t put that in his hands unless it’s real.) You know what his face would look like. You know the way he would still, the way everything in him would narrow down to that single piece of information, how carefully he would compartment it, how seriously he would take it, how completely he would believe it. (you won’t take that away from him.) Your eyes close, breath moving in and out with effort. (relax. he told you to count. one. two. three. four.)

The thought of the chapel returns then, threading itself through the moment, a reminder of the plan you both made the night before when he had asked you in that careful way of his, probably unsure whether you were ready to step outside after weeks spent mostly within the walls of the house. “There’s a place I want to show you.” You had said yes. And this, whatever this is, will have to wait a few more hours.

Lying there longer than necessary, you open your eyes now, fixed on nothing in particular while you listen to the rhythm of his breathing behind you, your own falling into it, counting without meaning to, matching the cadence you have learned from him, the one he uses when he thinks you cannot hear. (one. two. three. four.) - (one. two. three. four.) You don’t stop counting when the automatic doors slide open in front of you, the brightness of the store almost too sharp after the muted quiet of the chapel, the sound of carts rolling and distant voices folding into each other, almost unreal. The rhythm stays with you, something to hold onto while everything else threatens to shift too quickly beneath your feet.

Your only plan had been that. The chapel. Sitting beside him on the wooden bench, your shoulder brushing his, your hands folded in your lap while you spoke more than you had in weeks, words coming back slowly at first and then easier, thanking him, apologizing for things he refused to let you apologize for, laughing through tears until your chest felt lighter. (but you still had felt the need to know)

The thought had stayed quiet, waiting until you stepped outside, until the air changed, until he looked at you with that steady patience and you realized you couldn’t carry it any longer without moving. “Do you think you could drive me to the grocery store after this?” (you need to know. before you say anything. before you look at him and change everything.)

And now you’re here. The cart moves in front of you, your hands resting on the handle, your fingers tightening and relaxing without rhythm except for the one repeating in your head. Andrew walks beside you, close enough that your arm brushes his every few steps, his gaze drifting occasionally past you, past the aisles, scanning the entrances, the exits, the people moving in and out of his field of vision with that quiet vigilance he never quite turns off. You reach for the first thing you see. “Pasta.” It drops into the cart. “Tomatoes.”

He picks them before you do, placing them carefully inside. Olive oil. Garlic. You continue. Bread. Cheese. Something sweet you don’t need. Herbs you won’t use. You keep moving, your hands busy, your mind split between the list you’re building on the spot and the aisle you are deliberately not looking toward yet. (in, out, in, out.) You speak more than usual, not enough to draw attention, just enough to fill the space, to make this feel like an ordinary trip, an ordinary afternoon, something that does not carry the weight pressing quietly beneath your ribs. He answers simply, briefly, following your lead without question.

Your chest feels tight, your breathing just slightly off, enough that you notice it, enough that you slow for a second before forcing your body forward again. Effort quickly interrupted by the aisle you were looking for. Pharmacy. The cart stays still beneath your hands, your fingers pressing into the plastic while you keep your eyes on the shelves ahead, not moving toward them, not quite ready to close the distance.

You swallow. “Can you…” your voice is calm, almost, “…grab me a book?”

He looks at you. “A book.”

“There’s a section near the front,” you add. “I just…want something to read.”

He studies you, not questioning, not suspicious, just observing the small changes, the ones you cannot hide from him even when you try. “Okay.”

You wait until he disappears before you move. Fast. Your hand reaches for the box without hesitation, pulling it from the shelf in one motion before your thoughts can catch up, before doubt can slow you down. Digital. You don’t read the label. You don’t check the price. For a second, it rests in your hand, heavier than it should be, your eyes fixed on it without truly seeing it. (seven weeks. seven. seven.)

Quickly, you drop it into the cart, covering it with whatever is closest, pasta, tomatoes, anything, layering it beneath the groceries until it disappears completely from view, hidden. By the time Andrew returns, you are still, composed, your hands back on the cart. He hands you the book. You take it, your fingers brushing his for a brief second, leaning in just slightly to press a soft kiss to his cheek. “Thank you,” you murmur, your voice low, warm, real, “I’m sure I’m gonna love it.”

Andrew stills for half a heartbeat before nodding. “You’re welcome.”

You pull back, the book resting against your chest now, your fingers curling around its spine and not looking at the cover. You don’t need to. Together, you move toward the checkout and, thankfully, the line is short, quite the opposite from every grocery you’ve been in Oceanside, the number of people in there often overwhelming Andrew. The cashier begins scanning without much attention, items passing one by one over the machine, the soft beeping steady, repetitive, almost syncing with the rhythm in your head. (in, out, in, out.)

You keep your eyes on the counter, on your hands, on anything that is not…the box. It appears in the pile. Time stretches as the cashier picks it up, your gaze lifting to meet hers, and in that brief moment there is understanding there, immediate, quiet, unspoken. Don’t. The word never leaves your mouth. It sits behind your teeth, behind your throat, in the way your fingers press harder against the edge of the counter, in the way your shoulders hold just a little too still. Don’t say anything. Please. Andrew stands beside you, but not here, not fully, his attention angled outward, his gaze moving past the glass doors, scanning the parking lot, the cars, the people, every exit, every movement, the same way he always does.

The scanner beeps, the sound feeling louder than with any other product. Or maybe everything else has gone quiet. You don’t breathe. Not properly. Just enough to stay upright. The box is placed aside, not with the rest, not immediately swallowed into the routine of scanned items and rustling bags, but held for just a fraction longer than necessary, the cashier’s fingers resting against it as her gaze flicks up to yours once more, quick, knowing, the smallest shift in her expression that doesn’t draw attention and yet carries comprehension all the same.

The cashier doesn’t speak. She doesn’t need to. Her hand moves instead, deliberate but casual, folding the rest of the items into the bag before her fingers close around the box, separating it from the others, keeping it out of sight from the counter, from the open space between you and Andrew.

Then, as she passes the bag toward you, she slips it in. Not inside the bag. Not with the groceries. Into your hand. The gesture is small, hidden in the natural motion of handing things over, her fingers brushing yours for the briefest second as the box transfers between you, her eyes lifting once more, just long enough for a faint, almost imperceptible wink to follow. It’s quick, gone immediately, as though it never happened. Your hand closes around the box instinctively, your body moving before your mind can catch up, slipping it into your handbag in one smooth motion, the fabric shifting softly as it disappears inside, concealed, secured, yours again. Hidden.

Stepping away from the counter so Andrew can pay, your heartbeat is louder than it should be, your fingers brushing once against your bag as if to confirm it’s still there, still real, still within reach. All that remains is to find out which life you are about to step into. - “I’m just gonna…go change in pajamas, okay?” Your voice sounds almost normal when you say it, the words slipping into the space between you without weight, without urgency, like it’s the most natural thing in the world after coming back from the store and setting the bags down.

Andrew looks up from where he stands near the counter, one of the grocery bags already open, his hands moving through it efficiently, placing things aside in groupings before putting them away, his attention shifting to you as soon as you speak. “Okay.” No question. No hesitation.

You nod once, holding onto the strap of your bag before you turn away, your steps carrying you down the short hallway toward the bathroom while the sound of him behind you fades. The door closes, and just like that…the whole world narrows. The light in the bathroom is too bright, too sharp against your eyes, the mirror catching your reflection before you look down, hand already moving to unzip your bag with fingers that do not feel completely like yours.

The box is still there, but it feels different. Real.

Your breath comes shallow as you pull it out, the cardboard cool beneath your pads, the printed words blurring for a second before you blink them back into place. You glance at the instructions, barely. Words pass your eyes without quite settling. (it’s simple. it has to be simple. plenty of people do that every day.)

You follow the steps mechanically, your movements precise without being conscious, muscle memory forming where there was none before, guided only by instinct, by the need to finish, to know, to end this suspended state where everything exists and nothing is confirmed.

The test rests in your hand and for a second, you just look at it before reaching for your phone. Ninety seconds. The timer begins. Suddenly, there’s nothing else. The bathroom fades, the light dulls, the edges of the room slipping away until all that remains is the small device in your hand and the quiet, relentless ticking of time you can’t even hear but feel in your chest. Your body feels distant. Like you are watching yourself from a removed place, aware of your hands, of your posture, of the way you lean back against the sink. (this could be nothing. this could be everything. don’t hope. don’t ho-)

The timer rings. The sound cuts through the room. For a moment, you don’t move. Just stare at the test in your hand, your vision focusing, blurring, then settling again as you bring it closer, as the word comes into view, clear, unmistakable. Pregnant. It sits there and doesn’t change. There is a delay, a quiet gap between seeing and understanding, between reading and knowing. (pregnant.)

Your hand squeezes around the plastic. Your other hand lifts your shirt without thinking, the fabric bunching beneath your fingers as you look down at your stomach, turning on one side, then the other, as though something might have changed in the last few seconds, as though there should be a sign, a mark, anything to match what the test is telling you.

There is nothing and everything all at once. A tear slips down your cheek before you even register it, your hand lowering slowly, your fingers brushing once over your skin. (there is something inside you. a tiny part of him and you.)

It takes one second. Two. Three. Four, before you are moving, the hallway feeling shorter than before, the house coming back into focus as you walk toward the kitchen. Andrew is at the fridge, one hand braced against the door while the other places the food inside, his posture relaxed, unaware, steady in the way he always is when he thinks everything is as it should be. You stop behind him, hand lifting to rest on his arm as you lean in, lips brushing his shoulder blade and your breath catching against his skin. “Andrew…” Your voice is barely there. You press your forehead against him before the words find their way out, quiet, fragile, real as a tear falls. “I’m pregnant.”

The movement of his hand stops mid-motion, the fridge door still open, everything in him going quiet in a way that feels immediate, absolute. He turns slowly towards you, eyes finding yours, searching. Disbelieving, but not in doubt, just when something too important takes a second longer to settle. “Really?” he whispers.

You nod, your lips trembling and voice breaking. “Yes…Andrew…” Another breath. “We’re gonna have a baby.” Your hand lifts, resting over your stomach. “Our baby.”

Something in his face shifts and you have barely the time to register the movement before his knees meet the floor, his palms coming to rest gently at your waist, careful and reverent. For a second, he just looks. At you. At the place beneath your hand.

His fingers brush your skin lightly, almost hesitant, as he leans forward, pressing his lips to your stomach. Your fingers slide into his curls, holding him there, your other hand still resting over where his lips touch you, breath uneven now that your body finally catches up to the weight of this whole moment. A soft, broken sound escapes you. In between a laugh and a sob. And you don’t pull him away, don’t move. You just stay there, your hand in his hair, your body steadying around the place where his mouth rests.

Together. The three of you.

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