Buried in Sin
Part 2:
Summary: Pope comes home, and Ruby has to face him for the first time since he broke a piece of her she thinks she will never get back.
Andrew pope Cody x female!OC
Craig Cody x female!OC
Part one here
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Ruby hears the squeal before she sees Lena. “AUNTIE RUE!!”
Lena crashes into Ruby’s side, hugging her waist with as much force as her little body could handle.
“There is my Lena Loo!” Ruby giggled. She looks up to see Catherine and Baz walking outside to join the party. Craig, dripping with water slides next to Ruby and sticks his tongue out at Lena and ruffles her hair before turning to Ruby.
“Hey babe, we need you to get more beer.” the way he says it makes Ruby narrow her eye at him. She bends down to Lena’s level and tells her to get her bathing suit on and she’ll join her in a bit.
She stands back up, fists clenching at her sides. She was pretty sure she could feel the beat of her pulse in her neck.
“Do you even give a shit about me?”
Baz and Catherine both hear the venom in Rubys voice and awkwardly start to make their way towards the pool chairs. There is more splashing and a few more strangers that Craig probably invited come barging in from the back gate. Daren suddenly shouts that the speakers hooked up and the sounds of Rhythm is a Dancer cascades through the backyard. Someone shouts and then dives into the deep end, chlorinated water splashing lightly onto Ruby and Craig. The two let the water hit them without a care, too focused on the stare down.
“God Rubes, I asked for beer not a fucking monumental breakdown. Forget I asked.” Craig watches Ruby’s anger fade into something more concerning. She looked sad.
“You didnt answer my fucking question…Do you even give a SHIT about me?”
Craig let his shoulders drop. A girl in a bikini shouts out to him from the other side of the pool. Craig quickly looks at whoever called out to him, and then back at Ruby who was now walking towards the house.
“God damnit.” He isn’t letting this conversation die just yet.
The music is softer now that they’re both inside the house. He follows her down the hallway into the shared bedroom they use when they stay at Smurfs.
Ruby is about to slam the door in Craig’s face when he stops it with his hand. His face is twisted in both confusion and red hot frustration.
“What the fuck are you on?” He shouts. “First it’s your fucking attitude at the studio, then you don’t come home all night and now you’re up my ass for no reason.”
“No reason?” Ruby forces a laugh. “Craig, I swear you think I’m some kind of idiot don’t you?” He huffs and rushes through the bedroom door, taking the handle from you and slamming it loudly.
“No you’re not an idiot. You’re a bitch.”
The words land hard. The bass of The Hives song vibrates the walls around them.
Ruby stands there in silence wondering how they got here. Maybe it’s because she’s older now, and masking her feelings with sex wasn’t helping anymore.
“I’m not your property Craig.” Ruby lets her hands fall from their place crossed at her chest. “ and Im not sure why we keep trying to rebuild a house that no longer has a good foundation.”
The way his eyebrow twitched before they came together told Ruby that she had struck a cord.
“C’mon Rubes, why are we even fighting?”
The tears that stung her eyes threatened to fall as she felt her gut twisting with that familiar feeling of uncertainty.
“I’m just sick of us being the net we fall back on.”
Craig took a step towards her, his hands hold her jaw and moves her in for a forceful kiss. She melted into his embrace for a moment, the taste of beer invading her senses. Craig moaned against her lips and his hands traveled down to her pants, using his thumbs to push the material down over her ass. He grabs at her skin, and he flicks her thong strap teasingly.
“Fuckkkk, I need you right now.” His voice comes out barely a whisper and when she looks deeply into his eyes she sees something familiar, but it wasn’t the safety and comfort she wanted. It was the same routine they always dance to. Fight Sex makeup fight again.
“I can’t do this.”
Pushing Craig back and pulling up her pants, she finally feels a tear roll down her cheek.
“We done? Is that what you’re fucking getting at?” Craig’s voice rises an octave. Ruby’s arms wrap around herself and she watches Craig pace the room with his hands through his still damp hair. “God is this about the stupid fucking juicer?”
Ruby feels the fire inside her start to burn. She wonders if the wealth of her knowledge should be hidden or if she should let it be uncaged. She remains silent for now as she watches Craig begin to spiral.
He knocks over the lamp on the bedside table, it crashes to the ground with force.
“You act like I don’t fucking care about you.” He states, anger seething through each word. “Like I haven’t spent half my god damn life trying to make you happy.”
There is a bottle of Jack sitting on the dresser and he stalks over and takes a long swing. “I’m never going to be who you want me to be, am I? He slams the bottle back onto the dresser and little speckles of brown liquid slosh out onto his arm.
That broke the dam. Frustration boiling like a kettle, now squealing in need of someone to take it away from the heat.
“I know about Renn.”
Craig’s body went rigid. He glances up and makes eye contact with Ruby.
“What?”
“And not just that you fucked her, but that you promised me no more drugs and come to find out you’ve been buying off her for months now.”
Craig lets his tongue slide over his teeth. He does this when he’s annoyed that he’s being called out- disciplined and served.
“It wasn’t all mine-“
Ruby wipes at a stray tear rolling down her cheek and threatening to drop down off her jaw. “I’m a bitch, you’re right about that. But I promise you, I’m not an idiot.”
She grabs her bikini hanging from the back of the door and leaves the room, refusing to look back at Craig. Not while the tears were now overflowing her eyes. This wasn’t the first time Craig fucked someone else or lied to her. This was just the first time the weight of the situation hit differently, for reasons she can’t and won’t cope with right now.
She uses her shirt sleeve to dry the rest of her tears and she makes her way into the hall bathroom. She cleans herself up, slings on her black bikini and looks into the mirror. The top fit more snug than it had a week ago. She stared at her reflection. Bloodshoot eyes, lips raw, cheeks and nose pink. She closes her eyes, counts to ten and feels her heart rate slow down. She breaths in sharply and exhales slow and steadily.
She grabs a towel and exits the bathroom steadily and turns the corner only to feel her body come to a complete stop. The air feels like it’s knocked out of her when she sees him standing only a few feet in front of her.
He’s really there, body rugged like a statue. His hands at his sides in slight fists like they always are. His eye’s are glued on her. His entire face softens, and she already knows he can tell that she had been crying. His head tilts lightly, jaw still clenched. He takes a step towards her, but Ruby can’t bare to look at him any longer. She turns quickly and walks back out towards the pool.
Pope stays in the hallways, wanting to follow her but knowing the rules and the turmoil she still must be feeling towards him. He curses quietly under his breath. He didn’t realize how hard it was going to be to see her. To feel her presence near him but out of his reach. He clearly underestimated the way his heart would beat out of its chest the second his eyes found hers. He could always tell when she’d been crying, and the flames in his chest burned for who caused you pain-most likely his brother.
He makes his way towards his bedroom. He needs to sit down and rethink if showing back up at Smurf’s was even a good idea. He could go to the studio, but his mother had the keys. He could just leave and never come back, but he was a criminal, a convicted one at that. How was he going to survive any other way than with the family business?
Ruby finally returns to the pool. She catches Cathy’s stare who mouths ‘are you okay’ from across the water. Ruby nodded lightly, pushing a stand of hair behind her ear.
The party had doubled in size since she had first been outside. She walks to a pool chair near the deep end .
Her heart is still beating loudly, and she doesn’t know if her mind was playing tricks on her or not- because Pope usually only showed up in her dreams.
She felt the heat creep up her neck, knowing what having him home means to her. To Smurf. To his brothers.
She pulls out her phone, looking for something to do with her hands.
One text:
Craig: I know I fucked up. I love you so much Rubes.
She doesn’t even know what to respond with, because whatever they had going on didn’t feel like love, and it hadn’t for a long time. It felt more like convenience. Their relationship felt like those worn out pair of slippers you know you should get rid of. Ones that hurt your feet but they’d been with you for so long it felt wrong to toss them aside.
Ruby looks out at the party. Baz diving off the diving board, and Catherine shooting him concerned glances.
On the top of Smurf’s roof was J. He looked down at the pool below like it was a giant slab of cement. Daren, the little asshole he was, lit the BBQ grill on fire below where J was standing, now having to clear a full on fire to get into the pool.
“Here we go,” she mumbles as Craig appears next to J. The crowd around her chants, and she slides back on the chair and slips her sunglasses on. Watching the scene respectfully from a distance.
Craig grabs J and they both fall from the roof into the water below. Craig resurfaces first, then J pops up a few moments after- Craig shouting in success.
He looks around and spots Ruby. Making his way from the pool he holds out his hand. She slowly discards her glasses and gives him a look of warning before placing her hand in his.
Craig must have taken that as an official apology acceptance and lifts her into his arms and cannon balls into the deep end of the water.
Craig still has a tight grip on her hips as they surface. He’s got a gentle smile, and Ruby is feeling the familiar tug of her heart strings to just let things heal. It would be easier. Especially if her suspicions were true.
“I’m fucking sorry,” he says in that soft tone that reminds Ruby that Craig isn’t all guns and smoke.
She doesn’t respond, just wraps her legs around him, trying to make the image of pope’s soft face leave her head. The two of them share a passionate kiss, and he pushes one of his large hands into the bottom of one the breast of Ruby’s bikini.
“Let’s go back to the bedroom,” he is now gripping a hand around her ass cheek.
No-“
Before you finished what you were saying, Smurf’s voice cuts through the music and chaos.
“Look who I found in the house! My baby’s home!”
Ruby and Craig both look up to see Smurf with Pope’s arm around her shoulder. A look of distaste on his face seeing the way Ruby’s body was wrapped around his brother.
“Shit, welcome home Pope!” Craig doesn’t move, but Ruby’s body involuntarily pushes away from him lightly. He notices and reaches for her again.
“Thanks man,” Pope responds dryly. His eyes don’t leave Ruby. “Good to see you both.”
Ruby still doesn’t say a word. She’s just focusing on not barfing in the water. She realized the last time she had looked at his face was when he promised her he wasn’t going to go through with the bank robbery.
Then he fucked Everything up. And now, everything in her life was going completely sideways just in time for him to pop back up again.
“Ruby, could you be a doll and grab some more beer at the store? We’re about to be drinking mocktails here in a minute!” Smurf pats Pope’s chest.
Ruby slowly swims to the ladder, conveniently in front of where Pope and Smurf were standing.
“Sure thing,” she replies as if she had just been summoned to jury duty.
Pope watches her carefully as she climbs out of the pool, leaving Craig swimming in the blue water, annoyed that once again their connection is broken.
Ruby now stands in front of them, the water clung to her skin like it was reluctant to let go. Beads gathered along the curve of her collarbone, swelling until gravity tugged them into motion. They slipped downward, one after another, tracing the soft rise of her breasts before breaking apart and falling in thin silver streams across her stomach.
She fixes her sights on Pope, eyes piercing and jaw tight. Her words come out more like they were poison she couldn’t swallow.
“Welcome Home, Pope.”
He corners her in the garage when she returns from grabbing beer. She can feel his intense stare burning into the back of her head as she shoves Modelos into the fridge.
“You’re avoiding me.”
Ruby doesn’t turn around, continues the deed of keeping the beer fridge stocked.
“Not trying to.”
“You’re lying”
A modelo falls from her hand and lands on the concrete floor with a hiss. Beer sprays in every direction.
“Shit!” Ruby pinches the can, stands quickly and throws it over to the trash.
She finally looks over at him as he leans up against the old work table. Hands crossed firmly against his chest.
“Don’t look at me like that.”
He takes a step towards her, invading the invisible bubble she’s learned to put around herself when he’s in the room. “Like what?”
“Like you didn’t make a promise and then break it. Like you didn’t walk away and burn everything to the ground.”
He flinched, but he didn’t move back. If anything, he leaned closer, voice rougher. “You think I did this on purpose? That I wanted to fuck things up between us this badly?”
Ruby scoffed “I’m not sure you want me to answer that.”
Pope’s jaw worked, breath thick, but his eyes—his eyes softened like he was still carrying the version of her from that night they spent at the beach. Hair plastered to her cheek from the wind, and whispering that they could just go- That he could have good things because he deserved them.
Finally he said it, quiet, dangerous: “I never stopped wanting to leave with you.”
Ruby swallowed hard, throat tight. “Well, congratulations. You’re home now. And we’re still trapped in the same goddamn place.” The words shared a double meaning only the two of them could understand.
For a moment, neither moved. The only sound was the hum of the fridge and distant laughs and conversations over splashing water. Pope’s hand twitched like he wanted to touch her, but Ruby stepped back first.
“Rue-“
“Don’t corner me again,” she whispered, even as her pulse betrayed her.
And with that, she left him in the heat of the garage, staring at the spot where the beer exploded when it had been dropped. Just an accident that broke everything open all at once ending in a giant mess and emptiness.
How Symbolic.