bae

🐾 bae | 18 | she/her | british

all my work is fiction, and for 18+ only. MINORS DNI. dead dove do not eat. a little gross n perverted.

i write for mainly characters of shawn, but will occasionally write for other characters. my requests n asks are always open so please do send me anything !

masterlist:

solace ; pope cody (finished)

you’d been working day shift for as long as you’ve been working in ‘the pitt’. during your first rotations, everybody swore that night shift was when the real emergencies happened. that if you truly wanted to learn, you would work whilst the rest of the city slept. you tried it and hated it. no amount of coffee or very cheap protein bars were able to keep you awake all night. it absolutely had nothing to do with the fact that all of your best friends also worked the day shift, obviously. 

okay, maybe it did.

it makes your job easier if you work with your friends, people you actually get along with. it takes the ease off a particularly difficult case if you have your best friends across the hall. somewhere between intern year and now, the five of you began renting out a small home not too far from the hospital. it worked out cheaper for all of you to share a place together as oppose to all renting an apartment each that was way out of budget. there’s never enough mugs, somebody's always missing a charger and the fridge was rammed to the top with takeout containers.

between working together and living together, you practically all lived in the skins of one another. 

not that any of you minded. 

you just wished whitaker would stop eating the yoghurt you specifically bought for yourself.

the emergency department had a way of reminding you constantly how fragile life is. people come through the doors on the worst day of their lives, and you’re expected to carry their burden for them. having your people beside you made this job a whole lot easier. 

which is exactly why dr.robby’s email had felt like a punch in the gut. it landed in your inbox with a painfuly innocent subject line: ‘shift schedule update’. there weren’t enough physicians or nurses working the night shift. patient numbers were climbing and people had to be moved. you attempted to fight your case at first, politely when you saw him next shift. you tried to get him to see that working the day shift was easier for you, your patients were in the top care when you weren’t falling asleep at their bedside. he did listen to you, he let you fight your corner before he looked at you in your eyes, and smiled in that maddeningly patient way of his and left with a simple, “you’ll survive.” 

“hey, sweet girl!” dana’s the first to welcome you into the ED, pulling you into an awkward side hug due to the backpack hanging off your shoulder and your half-empty starbucks cup in your hand. “how you doin’?” 

“been better,” you admitted with a tired smile, shrugging your shoulders at her. “latest victim to the nightmare shift.” 

a laugh escapes from dana’s lips as she looks at you with a sympathy only she can muster. over the years, she’d become almost like a mother figure to you. she understood how hard it was for you at the beginning to move across the country and start working in a totally new place. she took you under her wing without ever expecting anything back. 

she never complained about a cigarette here and there, though. 

“robby got you, huh?” she shakes her head. 

“very much against my will,” you sigh, taking a sip from the cup. “how’s it looking today? i texted vic and trinity, but they were spectacularly unhelpful.” 

dana sighs, looking out at the full emergency department. “you know this place.” 

the pitt wasn’t ever a quiet place. there hasn’t been a quiet day in this building since the day it opened it’s doors. monitors constantly beeped from every direction, stretchers piled up the hallways with people waiting for impatient beds that simply didn’t exist. the waiting room was constantly overfilling, from people that needed critical care to those that could simply fix their issue with some medication from the cvs down the road. 

if pittsburgh had a heartbeat, it’s somewhere in the walls of this hospital. 

“what’re saying about me?” trinity appears behind you, her voice as dry as it usually was. you turn to find her looking exactly as you found yourself looking most days after a 12 hour shift. the concealer under her eyes had long stopped working for the heavy, dark bags. 

“you look beautiful as always,” you smiled sarcastically at one of your best friends, throwing her a wink. “i was telling dana how much i love you and how i’m going to miss you whilst i’m stuck in this place all night.”

“liar.” 

“the biggest,” you grin before looking back at dana who had shifted herself to behind the nurses desk, busying herself with something on the computer. “see you later, love ya!” 

you and trinity found your way to the breakroom, weaving yourself in and out of medcarts placed sporadically in the hallway, sending glances of understanding at all of the nurses and doctors who shared the same exhausted expressions on their faces. 

trinity drops onto one of the plastic chairs with a groan. 

“finally signed everyone out,” she stretches her arms above her head and lets the palms of her hands rests against her hair. “just hadto finish my charting and i can escape this hellhole.”

you unpack your bag, sliding your lunchbox with your dinner inside onto the middle shelf before sticking a bright yellow post-it note on top. 

MINE. TOUCH AND I WILL KNOW :) 

“robby’s gotta be doing it on purpose, y’know?” she mutters. she’d spent every resting moment of the day texting you about this case she’d been put on with langdon. a 6-year-old kid had come in with a head wound and, apparently, robby thought it would be perfect to put two utter nemesis’ together on it.

“what?” you glance over your shoulder at her.

“putting me on cases with langdon.”

“you think robby’s putting you on cases with langdon because he knows you hate him? that doesn’t make sense,” you question her, a frown on your face. you know of the extensive history between trin and langdon, and how despite his attempts of rekindling things with her, she didn’t believe a word he says. 

“it makes total sense.” 

“no…it really doesn’t.”

“because he’s also an ass. you of all people should know that.”

“who’s an ass?” dennis questions as he walks in the break room, peeling off the blue gloves before throwing them into the trash can. “i am so tired,” he sighs as he throws himself in the seat next to trinity. 

“trin’s convinced that robby’s putting her on cases with langdon on purpose,” you shrug at the boy before joining them at the table.

“i mean…” dennis shrugs, looking between the two girls.

“do not encourage her,” giving him a deadpan look before slurping the remenants of your drink.

“i’m just saying it’s not impossible.” 

 “i think you’re forgetting that i must be the one he hates the most because i’m the one he’s banished to night shift, not any of you,” you shake your head, like you’re angry with the whole situation all over again. 

“oh please,” trinity scoffs as she rips open one of the granola bars you brought for the group. “you’ve survived worse.” 

“name one thing.” 

“the tinder incident,” dennis didn’t hesitate to remind you of. you drop your head to the table with a groan, embarrassment over the incident finding you all over again. 

“we agreed to never mention that again.” 

“we definitely did not,” trinity laughs, as if this situation was the funniest thing to ever happen to any of them. maybe to her it is but to you, it is mortifying. 

a couple days before your first shift at the pitt, you’d been mindlessly swiping through tinder in bed one night and matched with a very, almost scarily, attractive trauma attending named jack. 

okay, you didn’t match. you only liked him. it made you feel better about the situation if you make it seem like it was a joint thing between you and him and not just you.

then, you’d shown up to work to discover that tinder jack was, in fact, dr. jack abbot who you have to now work with until further notice. he never acknowledged it, at least not to you he didn’t. you still pray that he’s forgotten about it. 

trinity only knows because you drunkenly admitted it a few weeks later, when the four of you had way too many tequila shots. mel only found out after very directly, and very loudly, asked why you became a social awkward disaster anytime dr. abbot was in eye sight.  

“he sent me a text this afternoon,” you announce to the pair, pulling your phone out of the scrub pocket and turning your phone around and showing them both the screen. freshly out of the shower, still humming the words to an old one direction song when the text comes through your phone fits the criteria for a cardiac arrest.

“...that’s it?” dennis looks at you and the phone, as if he was expecting something else. something better to fill in with the tinder incident. 

“literally what did you expect?”

“i don’t know,” he shrugged. “can’t wait to see you tonight, gorgeous?”

“i hate you,” you laugh as you throw a crumpled up napkin off the table directly at him. “it’s so awkward,” you sigh, “everything with him is so awkward.” 

“you make it awkward,” trinity states matter of factly as she stands up from the chair, smoothing her scrub pants down. “you literally have no idea how to flirt.” 

“you can’t talk when the tension becomes impossible to breath through when you and garcia are in the same room,” you shoot back at her, a smirk riddled on your face. 

“she’s not wrong,” dennis pipes up, resting his head in the palm of his hands. he looks as if he is only a mere seconds away from falling asleep on the wooden table. 

“you better shut the fuck up, huckleberry, if you want a ride home,” trinity shouts over her shoulder as she leaves the breakroom. 

“i’m sorry! i didn’t mean it!” he’s quick to his feet, chasing after santos with his figurative tail in between his legs. 

“don’t watch love island without me!”

the day shift was beginning to thin out, mel and victoria the last to say goodbye to you before making their way home. the exhausted doctors are slowly replaced with happier looking, brighter doctors ready to tackle whatever the night shift was planning to bring in. 

you lingered at the nurses station, straightening your ID badge for the fifth time in the small amount of time you’ve been sat here. 

“relax,” your head shoots up as you hear dr. shen’s voice appear from in front of the desk. his image mirrors yours identically when you entered the department; backpack hanging off his shoulder and an ice coffee in his hand, given his is from dunkin as he refused to go anywhere else. “you look like we’re about to put you on the frontline.” 

“i feel like you are,” you sigh, slouching in the spinning chair. 

“did not miss your dramatics,” he shakes his head at you as he takes a sip from his straw. “it’ll be fine, you’ll love it.” 

you send him a wide smile full of sarcasm, before he walks away and leaves you alone. with just minutes to the official start of night shift, not that you’re counting, you can hear dana’s rusty accent from across the room. 

“evening, abbot,” she smiles at the older man. he walks in with a stainless steel travel mug in one hand and a very worn, military backpack on his shoulders. the greying hair on his head had clearly lost a battle with the pittsburgh wind on his way from the parking lot. you watch as they talk amongst each other. jack listens way more than he speaks, taking in every word dana says like it comes straight from the bible. he rests a hand gently on her shoulder before heading deeper into the department, his eyes already scanning the patient board above the nurses’ station. 

there has always been something about jack that attracted you to him. well, there had to be for you to send him a like on tinder, right? he held himself so manly, so dominantly. the way he ordered the night shift around, or when he’d come in with a job from his SWAT volunteering job that he does and suddenly owned the whole emergency department. 

something about him has always put a fire in the bottom of your belly. 

“well,” his voice is thick with the smug smirk on his face as he approaches you. he looks unfairly put together for somebody ready to face a 12 hour emergency shift. “you made it.” 

“oh yeah, unfortunately,” you have to consciously force your mouth to form words as he looks down on you. he shuffles his body weight from one leg onto the other, resting against the desk. “robby finally got his way, got me off his day shift.” 

“he mentioned it,” he rubs the bottom of his face, the slight stubble rough against his skin. 

“so, you guys have all been conspiring against me?” you joke with him, raising your eyebrows which earns a chuckle that hits you straight in your core. 

“can neither confirm nor deny that one,” he shrugs. “i think you’ll like it over here,” his face sterns as he looks down at you. all previous humour had left the conversation. 

“you’re supposed to say that.” 

“i just so happen to believe it, though.” 

it’s 1:30 before you get a chance to sit down again once the ED starts busying up again. you’d seen patient after patient after patient, not having the chance to take a breather since you started. your feet throbbed with every step and the muscles in your back cried out in pain for you to stop bending over stretchers and transferring countless patients from stretchers to beds. your dinner in the fridge has long gone forgotten, probably disappeared to the stomach of one of the doctors if they’re anything like the day shift. 

you’ve barely had time to breathe. 

chest pain. 

teenager with a broken wrist after falling off a skateboard in the middle of the night. 

elderly woman with sepsis. 

a college kid that thought he’d be able to backflip after a dozen tequila shots. 

with a heavy sigh, you throw yourself onto the spinning chair in the nurses station. the same one you had adopted before your shift. rolling your neck against the head of the chair until it gave a satisfying crack and a wave of relief swims through your body. 

“doing good?” jack abbot’s voice creeps up from behind. you glance sideways at him, a tired smile on both of your faces. 

“well,” you sigh, bringing your hands up to rub the sharp pain that had been forming behind your eyebrow for the past hour. “i’m alive.” 

“i’ll take alive,” he sits himself down on the chair next to yours, with much more grace than you did. he bends the knee of his prosthetic leg a couple of times, his eyebrows furrowing together as if he was in pain. you don’t press him about it, knowing you weren’t on the level with him where you need to be speaking about his disability. “you eaten?” 

“was going to until i got called into that GSW in trauma two,” your body recoils at the remembrance of that particular case from just a couple hours ago, and the blood that still stains your scrubs. “that’s if someone hasn’t already claimed it as their own.” 

“go eat,” his voice is so full of order that it makes something in you want to follow his orders. like his word is law. “it’ll help that headache,” he looks at you as if he can read your mind. but to a doctor, especially of his caliber, it’s very obvious that the constant look of hurt on your face and the repeated rubbing on your temples was probably a diagnosis in itself. 

before you can answer the older man, or find the words to say to him, a hurried nurse runs past the two of you with a clipboard under her arm and a tube of blood in her hand. “dr. abbot, can you sign off on these cultures?” 

“i’ll be there in a second,” he nods at the nurse before she returns to the patient room she came from. with a breath of either pain, or exhaustion, he halls himself off of the chair and adjusts his scrubs. he takes a moment to look down at where you’re sitting with your body slumped in the chair, probably giving every chiropractor in the country a panic attack. he pulls a granola bar out of his scrub pocket, pushing it towards you with a raise of his eyebrow. “eat.” 

you frown at him, shooting a look between him and the granola bar. 

“part of my emergency stash,” he shrugs at you, flashing another one out of the same pocket. 

“you keep an emergency stash of granola bars in your scrub pocket?” you let out a giggle, picking the bar up off the desk. peanut butter. your favourite. 

“i’ve been doing this longer than you’ve been alive.” 

“DR. ABBOT TO TRAUMA ONE. DR ABBOT, TRAUMA ONE.” 

“dinner,” he points at you with his index finger, a stern look on his face is undercut by the amusement in his eyes. you send him a mock salute. 

“yes, sir.”

he shook his head at you, muttering something that sounds like “smartass” as he makes his way to the trauma room.

you watch his back from where you’re sitting, able to see the way he orders the whole room about. peeling the wrapper of the granola bar back, listening to the distant rhythm of his trauma, the reversing of an ambulance outside, voices calling out medicine orders and for the first time all night, your pager remained blissfully silent and nobody calls your name. 

you take a bite. 

it wasn’t much, just a snack from your older attending’s scrub pocket. that’s all it is. no need to read any more into it.

006. chapter six

“what the fuck happened?” is the first thing that comes out of andrew’s mouth as he flies through the doors of the drop, eyes immediately falling on your bloodied face. his face wrinkles with concern, his calloused hands cupping your cheeks whilst his eyes examine the damage done to your face. there’s nothing you can say to him that deran hadn’t already told him over the phone. he knows what happened, and he knows who did this to you. 

and he knows he’s currently on a ticking timebomb. you’re going to find out what he did, and he’s not sure what that means for the relationship. 

the ice had long started melting in the napkins, and the front of your shirt is stained with blood. your bottom lip split, a purple bruise already forming underneath your left eye. andrew has seen a lot in his life, a lot of it caused by him and not much affected him anymore.

but his stomach drops as he assesses the damage done to your face. 

and his heart sinks when he knows he caused it. 

“i’m okay,” you mutter, your voice barely audible to andrew. “it’s okay.” the splitting pain from your bottom lip makes tears jerk from your eyes. andrew drags the back of his hand over the purpling skin around your eye, watching as the skin underneath it twitches. he holds his mouth together so tightly, whether out of anger or shame for what he indirectly caused, that you can see his jaw muscles tense beneath his skin. 

“it’s not okay,” he shakes his head as he watches over. “look at you, look at what they did to you.”

“she, uh, she should be fine…”deran refuses to look at andrew. “nose isn’t broken.” he coughs from behind the bar, wrapping some more ice in a towel and handing it over to you. “you wanna take something? your head’ll start hurting soon,” he questions, watching over your face with eyes full of something.

pity?

shame?

regret?

“no, no i think i’ll be okay,” you hiss as you press the fresh ice to the side of your head. “i just want to go home,” andrew nods at you, the wrinkles on his forehead more prominent than ever. 

“i’ll take you home,” his voice is so gruff, so full of something that you can’t pinpoint. he helps you off the bar stool, linking his arm under yours as you hopped off. the bar around you spinning as you step on the floor, steadying your breaths as best as you can with the ringing pain in your head. 

as usual, andrew’s truck was parked where it always was. as close to the door so you wouldn’t have to across the whole parking lot. his argument being that “you simply don’t know who’s out here late at night.’ you didn’t want to fight him on that, and his argument worked perfectly in your favour when your feet feel like they’re on fire after a long shift. 

he’s careful with you as he helps you into the truck, reaching over you gently to fasten the seatbelt. he knows he’s running on burrowed time, that before long, you’re going to find out he’s responsible for this. so he doesn’t hesitate to brush his lips on yours, letting his hands come up to hold the sides of your face. he’s violent in the way he fights for your mouth, to fight for whatever you’ll him. 

“wait here, yeah? need to speak to deran before we go home,” andrew says, his face still inches away from yours. his breath hot against your skin, you nod. with one last peck to your lips, he closes the truck door on you and walks back towards the bar. 

“the fuck were you thinking?” deran was the first one to say anything, resting his hands on his head and his eyes open wide as he watches andrew pace up and down the bar floor. “she got her face caved in because of this bullshit.”

“you think i don’t know that?” he spits at his brother, kicking the nearest chair that he could reach. he had done a lot in his life. robbed, hurt, killed. none of that affected him like this did, like watching you hunched over a bar stool with a blood stained shirt clinging to your body. “they weren’t supposed to touch her.”

“you thought they were just gonna forget about a million dollars we stole from them? figure out that we don’t have it and let it go?” he questions his older brother, leaning up against the bar. “she asked me why they were questioning her about the money, pope.” 

“i know, i had no other choice. j was up my ass about hiding it,” andrew explains as if deran wasn’t there when the feud mid-job happened, running his hands through his hair. “and i don’t want to go back to prison.” 

“you’d rather that shit continues happening to her? they’ll end up killing her if they find the money in her house, which by the way, they have constant eyes on and are probably searching right now,” deran states matter of factly, making his way over to where his older brother had hunched himself over on one of the tables. he can see how troubled andrew looked, he can see how hard he’s taking the incident. 

“i can’t go back to folsom,” andrew’s bottom lip quivered as he tucked his face into the fabric of his denim jacket. deran wasn’t berating him to make him feel bad, for once. he knows what this means for your relationship with andrew, how much this will affect it. 

“i know but, you’ve made a bigger issue for yourself. the one thing you’ve spent years fighting against, you’ve let it happen. you’ll be lucky if she forgives you for this,” he sighs, patting andrew’s back as he walks past. “take her to your apartment if she’ll let you. leave her keys and one of us will move the money tonight,” deran admitted defeat. there’s not anymore argument for him to fight, there’s nothing else to tell andrew that he doesn’t already know. 

he messed up. 

they all messed up and you’re paying the price for it. 

you’re sitting with your head resting against the cold window of the truck when andrew comes out. his face is still all screwed up with worry and frustration, his hair stuck up from where he’d been running his fingers through it until it hurt. despite his run down look, it brings you some kind of comfort to see him trudging over to his truck. 

the fireworks continued somewhere on the beach. colours of red, white and blue fill the dark sky and illuminate off the window. every celebrating what seemed to be the worst day of your life. the ice from the towel has melted completely, dripping down your arm and making a wet patch on your jeans. andrew doesn’t say a word as he makes himself situated in the drivers seat, emptying his pockets into the center console as he usually does. 

“you know, i’m not going to let them touch you again,” he states as he starts the truck up, wrapping his arm around the back of your seat whilst he reverses out of the spot. you believe him, of course you do. 

“i know,” you whisper, every word that comes out your mouth makes your lip throb in an unwelcome pain. andrew has spent the best part of his whole life protecting you. “i just…” you wince, “i don’t want you to feel bad about tonight. i know what you’re like, andy.” 

he has every reason to feel bad, to feel awful for what they did to her. he has every reason to beat himself up over it. 

you reach your hand over the console to meet his, squeezing it underneath yours. it doesn’t take long to realise he wasn’t driving you home, he’s completely passed ditmar and is driving further down the coast of oceanside. 

“where are we going?” you question him, keeping his hand in yours. andrew doesn’t object to the constant touching. he almost savours it, memorises how every centremetre of your skin feels against his. 

“my apartment, can’t take you home,” his words come out choppy, quick. a firework pops in the night sky, lighting up andrew’s face briefly. all his features are set in stone like a statue, only the rise and fall of his chest show any kind of movement. “they’ll be all over your house.” 

you take no time in ridding yourself of your blood soaked clothes once you walk into andrew’s apartment. you’d only been here a couple times, the lack of furniture and character made the place seem very uncanny valley. you figured it was more of a place for smurf to filter her money through than for anyone to actually live in. 

the mirror in andrew’s empty bathroom reflects an image you aren’t too sure you were ready to see. sure, you can feel the swelling underneath your eye and the blood drying against your chin but it’s a different feeling then seeing it first hand. trying your best to miss your injuries, you wash the blood from your face with nothing but warm water. the barely lived-in apartment doesn’t have the luxuries of your usual face wash. 

“got some clothes out for you on the bed,” you hear andrew call from outside the bathroom door. he doesn’t open it like he usually would, or walk straight in without any warning. you watch as his footsteps disappear from the crack at the bottom of the door. 

he left you his shirt he had just rid himself of and a pair of old sweatpants, ones you haven’t seen since the pair of you were in your early 20s. stretching the headhole of the shirt as much as you can, in an attempt to miss your face, you pull it on and wrap yourself in the scent that is andrew. cigarettes and the same cologne he wears everyday. 

“andy,” you call out the kitchen where you can see him leaning against the countertop with his head in his hands. the only thing covering his body is his pair of plaid boxers hanging off of his hips. he jolts at the sound of your voice, turning around to face you. “can you come to bed, please,” you can feel the lump forming in your throat as you stand in the doorway of his bedroom. he nods at you, keeping silent as he walks over to you. 

both of you climb into the fresh sheets and you waste no time in getting as close as you can to him, resting your head on his chest. the second he wraps his arms around your shoulder, you let the waterworks flow. 

“you’re okay,” he whispers against your head, letting his chin rest on top of yours. 

“i love you, andrew.” 

you can feel him swallow, before he mutters a quiet, “i love you too.” 

the apartment is silent. not the comforting, safe silence that you and andrew have often found yourself in over the years. it’s an eerie, deafening silence. the kind that felt as if it’s clawing up your throat and is about to start choking you. 

andrew didn’t see a blink of sleep at all. somewhere around three, he’d closed his eyes and counted his breaths like the prison counselor had told him years ago. he tried concentrating on your weight curled up at his side. nothing succeeded in getting him to sleep. he watched as dawn spilled in through the blinds and listened as the birds sang their morning tune. 

his eyes stayed glued to you for the majority of the night. your hand stayed wrapped around his waist, like even unconscious you’re terrified he’d leave you. the purple swelling of your eye has spread across your temple, littering a violet hue across your skin. his fingers hover over your skin. he knows he doesn’t deserve to touch you. his fingers curl into a fist and drop to his side once again.

the mattress shifts beneath him, and your eyelashes flutter before slowly opening. without thinking, you push yourself up way too quickly and the room around you spins. 

“take it easy,” andrew’s quick to steady you, his hands resting on your shoulder as if a simple movement will break you. 

“it’s so much worse today,” you groan, rubbing the spot on your temple thats particularly painful.

“it will,” he nods. his eyes rack over your injuries once again, making sure nothing had worsened over night like he hadn’t been staring at you all night anyway. “leave it alone,” he grabs a hold of your wrist before you can start messing with the bruise, “you’ll make it worse. i’ll get you some ice.” 

he’s gone before you can answer him, protest that you’re fine even though your head feels as if somebody’s beating your brain with a baseball bat. you listen as his feet tread against the hardwood floor, his body disappearing as he rounds the corner of the kitchen. the freezer door scrapes open, something clangs against the counter and the tap begins running. moments later, andrew comes back with fresh ice in one hand and a glass of water in the other hand. a slip of painkillers sits sandwiched between his arm and side. 

“here,” he holds the ice against your eye as he sets the water down on the nightstand, handing you the medication. “take two of these, it’ll help.”

“i don’t even think one of craig’s oxys will help this.” 

andrew’s truck rolls into the driveway of the familiar home just after nine. it wasn’t his ideal situation to bring you back here, to put you in more danger than he already has. he couldn’t exactly leave you alone, for them to find you again. the thought of what the might do to you now if they get their hands on you plagues his thoughts. 

craig’s bike was on it’s side outside the garage and deran’s car sat parked next to it. andrew kills the engine of his truck once he parked alongside deran but neither of you made any effort to move. 

the cody house has always been loud and familiar, a place you’ve wandered through every hall and every room since you were a kid. somewhere between own home and andrew’s bedroom, it had become your house too. 

today it felt heavy. it put an unwanted pressure against your chest. 

you’re sure craig and j already knows about what happened at the bar. news often travelled faster than a wildfire through this family, and something as bad as you getting assaulted by a gang won’t have stayed a secret for very long.

“i look awful, andrew,” you sighed as you look back at your reflection in the mirror. theres only so much makeup can cover up. 

“you look beautiful,” he looks at you with eyes that are full of truth that it looks like it’s painful for him. and it is. it’s painful for him to look at you, to come face-to-face with the marks of his actions on your skin. shaking his head, as if to rid himself of the consequences of his own actions, he jumped out of the truck and rounded the front to open the passenger side door. 

he keeps his palm on the small of your back as you walk through the door of the family home. the familiar scent of weed, coffee and a terrible mix of cologne usually brought a sense of comfort, a sense of home, to you but something felt off. 

craig sits with his back to the front door, perched on the counter with a beer bottle in his hand. deran and j stand opposite him. all of them look as if they haven’t slept a blink all night. the conversation drops as soon as deran notices the pair of you walking in, his hand tightening over the ceramic mug in his hand. 

“oh shit,” craig blurted as he turned around, his eyes immediately landing on your bruised eye. he jumps off the counter so fast he nearly drops the glass bottle. 

“it’s not as bad as it looks,” you attempt to laugh, hoping to ease the thick tension that was coating the room. nobody laughed. 

“looks pretty fuckin’ bad to me,” he stops a few feet away from you, suddenly unsure what to do with himself. they’d all seen broken bones, gunshot wounds and bodies seconds away from death but there’s something about seeing you sporting a split lip and a swollen eye. “got you real good,” he shakes his head in disgust, smacking his lips together as he walks away again and returns to the kitchen. 

andrew pulls one of the stools out from under the bar, keeping his hand steady on the small of your back as you lift yourself onto it. he moves his hand only when you’re fully comfortable, even then he just rests it on the back rail of the stool. 

“you want some food?” his voice is quiet against you as he asks. you shake your head, not remembering when you last did eat something but the idea of stomaching food makes your stomach heave on itself. 

a silence fills the air quickly, nobody seems to know what the right thing to say is. deran and j haven’t muttered a word to you or andrew since you walked in, both keeping their eyes locked on the floor. 

a ringing breaks the silence and you silently thank god for whoever it is. craig was quick to bring his phone to his ear, rolling his eyes as he nurses the beer bottle. the conversation ended as quickly as it started, and it left a sour face on the younger man. 

“gotta head out,” he sighs, throwing the glass into the trash can. “renn needs help with some shit. here, before i forget,” his movements slow in your brain as you watch him fish out a key from his back pocket and throw it to deran. 

your key. 

the other guys, minus craig who was now half way out of the door, all stare at each other. 

you could hear a pin drop in the heavy silence. 

“fuckin’ asshole,” deran curses under his breath as he shoves the key into his pocket. 

“why’d he have my key?” you shoot your eyes between deran, andrew and j. subconsciously, you moved your body away from the back of the chair. away from andrew. none of the guys said a word, not bringing their eyes up from the floor. “hello? earth to any of you,” you wave your hands around as if maybe, just maybe, they were so lost in their own thoughts they hadn’t heard you. “andrew?” 

his eyes meet yours and theres something you’ve never seen in his eyes before. regret. apology. 

“somebody explain? those are the ones i lost,” still, nobody speaks. “deran?”

“don’t,” is the only word that comes from his mouth. he doesn’t lift his head to look at you, instead, he shifts on his feet. 

“don’t what?”

“ask me,” his voice is quiet, almost sad. “not my place to tell you.” 

it’s like something in your head clicks into place, suddenly. putting the pieces together like a puzzle in your very painful brain. 

the guys pull a job. a simple but big job according to them. you go to bed without andrew that night, a rare occurrence as of recently and the next morning your keys were gone. nobody offered to help find them. that night you get beaten up by some gang. 

“we hid the money,” j started, staring at you with eyes that were full of no emotion. “we hid their money in your house, thats why they came after you,” he confessed as if it was nothing before walking completely off in the direction of his room. 

your heart drops as you hear him mutter the words, and your whole world slows as andrew and deran finally make some kind of eye contact with you. it’s like you can’t breathe, the walls of the house slowly closing in on you. 

“are you serious?” you look between both deran and andrew. their silence is enough of a confession to you. “you hid stolen money in my house?” you beg andrew with your eyes, beg him to say something, to admit what he did and this wasn’t just some cruel joke j decided to play. 

“we can explain,” was all he says as he inches closer to your body. he reaches out for you but you’re quick to hop off the stool you were seated on, forgetting about the dizzying pain in your head. for the first time in two decades, you don’t want andrew to touch you. you don’t want any of them near you. 

“after everything i’ve done for you? for all of you?” tears begin to brim your vision but you fight against them, you don’t want them to see you weak like this. 

but it hurts. 

betrayal kills. 

“we didn’t think they’d touch you,” deran pipes up, resting his body on the kitchen island. “we thought they’d just watch your house for a couple days, didn’t think they’d go this far.” 

“you didn’t think a gang would go as far as to beat someone up for their stolen money? do you hear how stupid you sound?” you’re voice comes out sharper than you’d ever spoken to any of the cody’s before. “you..” you switch your attention to andrew who stood cowering like a little puppy who’d been thrown out in the rain. 

andrew wanted to say something, to protest all of this. he wanted to explain how sorry he was and how much he regrets doing what he did, for following j’s orders like a sheep. for putting her life in jeopardy because he doesn’t want to go back to folsom. 

“you did this for what? was it something i did? did i do something to make you do this to me?” you begged andrew, letting the tears stream down your cheeks. if you had enough will power, you would grab onto him and shake him for answer. grip onto him and demand an explanation from him. your world feels as if it’s falling apart more and more by the second. “i love you, andrew. i give you everything you could want from a friend, from whatever we are, whatever the fuck this is!” 

“i do love you,” andrew finally speaks up, his throat bobbing as he swallows the lump that had formed. “i love you,” he repeats, whether to you or to himself. “you didn’t do anything wrong.” 

“then tell me why you hid it in my house and lied to me about it.”

“we needed to hide it somewhere, j thought it would be perfect to hide it in your house because we all thought they’d leave you out of it,” deran explains from the other side of the kitchen, running his hands through his hair as he always does when he’s stressed. “he fought against it,” he nods towards his older brother who stood still, watching you intently. “he’s never wanted you involved in all this, you know that. if he didn’t do it, j was going to do it. we moved the money last night.” 

“i told him no,” andrew speaks. “i told j that we needed to find somewhere else for the money. i didn’t want you involved, ever.”

you know deran’s right, and you do believe andrew.. he's always fought against getting you involved in jobs for as long as he’s known you. you’ve heard him countless times, watched as he left smurf dumbfounded after yelling at her for the first time. it hurts to admit that he is correct, but he betrayed you. they’ve all betrayed you. 

“i’ve done so much for you,” you look at andrew with nothing but sadness. the anger has dissipated into nothing but hurt. “for all of you. i cook for you, i clean for you, i sit and wait for you. i have bandaged all of you up countless times. i have cleaned a dead mans blood out of your hair,” you stare at andrew. your tears collect together on the grey fabric of your shirt. you aren’t screaming and crying at them to make them feel bad for what they’ve done, not exactly at least. you want them to realise that they have royally fucked up, completely and utterly. for you, there is no coming back from this. 

letting you get beaten by a gang and then lying about everything was enough for you to back away. you’ve prided yourself in the past for being able to leave a situation when you feel disrespected, all of the cody’s have praised you for it before so it really makes no sense in your mind why they would do this. 

you have no more words for any of them. the room falls into a thick, deafening silence with the only sound being your breathing. you make your way to the front door, not looking back behind you when andrew grabs onto your forearm. his hold on you is tight, similar to when he would hold you at night in fear of you slipping away from him. 

“don’t go,” he begs you. his tears gloss over in ways you’ve only ever seen a handful of times, enough to count on one hand. for a moment, you want to give in, to let him get away with it. to console him like he’s the one that’s been hurt in all of this.

but you can’t. 

and you won’t. 

“i’m going home,” you pull your arm out of his grip and walk out of the front door, letting it slam shut before you can go back on your word. 

“it’s not safe!” you can hear him open the door, practically chasing you down the driveway. “they might still be around.” 

“you lost the chance to worry for me when you hid their money in my house, andrew” 

it’s been hours since you walked away from andrew and the rest of the cody’s. hours since the past two decades of your life all came crashing down before your very own eyes. each of the boys, minus j, had spent their time blowing up your phone. 

calls. 

texts. 

snapchats. 

hell, andrew even emailed you. 

you ignore ignore all their attempts to apologise. you need peace, time to think about everything that’s happened in the past 24 hours. time to evaluate and gather your options. options which you know you only have two to choose from. 

you can forgive and forget. text andrew and tell him that you forgive him for betraying you and go back to normal life. 

or you can leave. you can block all of their numbers and let them wallow in their own actions. move away somewhere else so you don’t have to see them again, remind yourself of the heartbreak it’ll cause to never speak to andrew again. there’s a couple places you’ve always dreamed of going, maybe this is your chance. 

the night had quickly settled over oceanside, and the only sounds outside are those of the waves crashing against the cliffside. usually, you and andrew would be doing something together. watching a movie, late-night ice-cream runs or something more, dirty. but you’re not with andrew. you’re wrapped up in your bed, music softly playing through your speakers and a fresh towel of ice against your face in a pitch-black room. 

you would be lying if you said it wasn’t killing you to not go over there and replace these blankets with andrew’s body. 

but you can’t. 

the pain behind your eye throbs as your room is engulfed in three flashes of white light. 

a lump forms in your throat, but you make no effort to move in the way you would’ve when you were ten years old. you sit and watch as he does it again, and again, and again before he seemingly gives up. 

in the house just metres away from yours, andrew sits at his bedroom window with his old flashlight still in hand. he hoped that this would make you come over, make you realise that he really was sorry and he really does need you. 

but his plan fails. 

you don’t come running like you did when smurf often went missing. 

when julia left. 

there’s no sign of you, not even a look from your window. 

and for the first time since he was locked away in folsom, andrew cody cries.

summary : you’ve spent enough time in hospitals that you start believing that everything can be fixed. bones heal, stitches dissolve and scars fade. no doctor tells you what to do, or what to take, when the thing that's breaking you is the person you were supposed to stay away from.

jack abbot was always meant to be an escape. someone to kiss after a rough 12 hour shift.

you should've known better.

005. chapter five

you’d fallen asleep on the couch somewhere around eleven, cuddled up in one of andrew’s blankets and the tv still playing the movie you’d long forgotten about. the sound of the front door unlocking pulls you awake. andrew strolled down the steps, meeting you on the couch. 

“where’d you go?” you ask him, your voice still raspy from your sleep. he sits beside you, lifting your legs so they’re resting over his and begins circling the pad of his fingers around your skin. 

“something to do with the job, got it done,” he sighs, resting his head on the back of the couch, shutting his eyes. you believe him, having no reason to not believe him. you hum against his shoulder, breathing in his scent. 

“you smell like cigarettes,” you hum in contentment as you cuddle closer to him as you could get. sometimes you often think that if you could live inside his skin, you would. your love for him remains as deep as the day you met. 

“so do you.”

“i stole one of craig’s blunts earlier,” you look up at him with a smirk, your usual pale face now a pink blush. 

“can smell it,” he smirks back down at you. your faces just a mere inch apart from each other. he watched as your body sinks into his, your eyes closing against your shoulder. he wishes he could just leave you here, you look so comfortable but he needed to do something before he could rest. “tired?” 

“mhm, i’m going to bed,” you yawn, pulling the blanket off of yourself. you expect andrew to follow behind you like a lost puppy by the time you’ve reached the kitchen, as he usually does but he doesn’t. he stays on the couch, looking at the tv. “you not coming?” 

he shakes his head, keeping his face fixed on the screen playing random commercials for local businesses. you choose not to press him, if he wanted to talk, he would. 

“don’t stay up too late,” you smile at him, lingering at the doorway. he nods once, acknowledging you. “night, andy.”

“night,” his voice is low, full of something you couldn’t make out in your tired state. without saying another word, you walk down the hallway to andrew’s room, falling straight asleep as soon as your head hits the pillow and you’re once again engulfed in his scent. 

andrew listened carefully until he hears the door click shut, until you were out of earshot. 

“fuck,” he closed his eyes, resting his head in his hands. 

andrew knew what what he was about to do was wrong, that what all the guys planned on was wrong in every meaning of the word. it went against every moral and rule he had set for himself since the day he met his best friend. 

from the time he started pulling jobs for smurf, and eventually getting joined by his brothers, he insisted that he would not include you in his jobs. sure, smurf persisted time and time again that you’d act as a good distraction, a look out of some sort but andrew always argued against her. it was the only time he would raise his voice at his mom. he didn’t want you in danger, at risk of being hurt or locked away like he was. 

so when j brought up the idea of hiding a duffel bag full of stolen money at your house, it was natural that andrew argued against it.

“if it’s not her house, it’s ours and we’re a bigger target than she is. they know us, they don’t know her,” j was quick to rationalise. craig and deran long decided to stay out of the argument, knowing they’d lose and although they’d never say it, they agree with andrew wholeheartedly for the first time in their life. 

“‘i’m not hiding the money in her fucking house, end of,” andrew got close to the younger boy, spit flying out his mouth as he spoke. “find another solution.” 

“they’ll tear our house apart first, they find the money and we’re fucked. we’re either dead or in jail. its ours or her house, pick one”

he knows that people would soon come looking for this money, people that he does not want crossing paths with you. these people are dangerous, very dangerous. they wouldn’t hesitate to hurt you if it means they get their money back. 

andrew also knows that j will do it whether he argues him or not. either way, his worst fear is about to become true. 

he was including you in his crimes. 

your purse sits on the kitchen bar unsuspectingly, exactly where you had left it earlier that morning. andrew made sure to make note of this before he joined you on the couch, feeling as though the purse was burning a hole in the back of his head the whole time. 

he waits. 

it’s been 10 minutes since you left him, and he was 100% sure you were long asleep now. it’s like an internal battle with himself as he grabs the purse you’ve been using for the best part of a decade now, a birthday present from smurf one year. he fights with putting it back, abandoning the plan and hiding the money here instead. that way, he would be the one in danger and not you. 

but he can’t go to prison again. 

he grabs the purse of the counter, quickly as if betraying you as fast as he could made it any better. every muscle in his body fights with him as he unzips the purse, rummaging through the collection of things you’ve accumulated over the years until he finds what he’s looking for. 

old gum wrappers. 

crumpled receipts.

the turtle keychain you made him buy on the pier in 9th grade. 

then he finds them, the keys. without taking another thought, because if he did he knew he would throw the keys back in the purse and forget about the plan, he pockets them and returns the bag back to where he found it. the duffel bag sat by the front door, feeling like it was a bomb about to go off. with the sliding door still slightly open from your afternoon tanning, he makes a quick exit and crosses the yard to where the two spaces conjoin. he knows for certain that both your parents are away on a vacation together, a cruise across the mediterranean so it was an easy entrance to your place.

andrew unlocked the front door with the key he had borrowed thousands of times, just the time he had stolen it. the metal clinks beneath his hands, the door opening slightly. he doesn’t move for some time, just standing in the doorway. his boots planted to the floor. he’s walked through this house a thousand times, yet this time it feels foreign. 

christmas dinners.

your eighteenth birthday. 

helping your parents repaint the living room. 

all these memories told him to leave, to betray j’s plan. 

the air lingers with a smell of vanilla and the lavender laundry detergent that you’ve been using your whole life. all your shoes sat neatly by the front door, your cardigan draped over the back of one of the dining chairs where you had left it a couple days ago. everything so natural to him now made him feel like an outsider.

his chest tightens with every step he takes towards your bedroom. the duffel bag weighs heavy against his shoulder. he knows he shouldn’t be in here. he should leave, keep you out of this. 

but he doesn’t. 

he doesn’t bother to turn on any of the lights as he enters your bedroom, the moonlight shining through the lace curtains enough for him to see. not that he needed to. he knows this house as well as his own. years of birthday parties, movie nights, fixing the kitchen cabinets for your dad and helping your mom carry in the groceries. 

this was his home away from the world smurf created for him. 

a polaroid taped on the side of your vanity mirror of you and andrew at a party when you were 17, a jar full of seashells from the times you’d gone to the beach together and one of andrew’s old shirts folded up on your pillow that you’d forgotten to given back all reminds him of why he should not be doing this. 

he has to force himself to move from the spot he’s cemented himself to, walking straight to your closet. he was quick to find the loose floorboard, he was the one to fix it. you’d been complaining to him for a couple days that you kept tripping over it and you were sure you’d broken your toe on it at least three times in one day. he fixed it whilst you were visiting your grandparents one day. 

andrew took no time in packing the wads of cash beneath your floor, making sure they were tight enough in there that they all could fit and he wouldn’t have to pry open another board. it takes him no time to empty the duffel bag into your floor before he’s finished and closing the closet door behind him. 

a picture of all of the cody’s catches his eye on your beside table. it was during your birthday dinner, the summer before andrew was sent to folsom. 

he checks the room over once more before leaving the house, making sure he left everything where he found it. everything was untouched, except now you were hiding the best part of a million dollars beneath your floorboards. 

“that’s weird,” you mutter as you fish through your bag in search of your keys. deran had woken you up hours before, needing you to cover a shift tonight because he needs more bartenders for the fourth of july weekend. he was already down two bartenders and the place was already filling up.

“lost something?” craig asks from the couch, squeezing his nose tight to keep the remnants of his cocaine from falling down his face. 

“keys,” you were certain that you’d left them in your bag yesterday. there’s nowhere else you would’ve left them. “i need to head to the bar, but i can’t if i don’t have my keys.” 

you turn the purse upside down, letting the insides fall over the table. 

loose change.

half used lip balm.

no keys.

“i’ll drive you,” andrew’s voice appeared in the doorway behind you, still toweling his damp hair. water trickled down his back, soaking his shirt. you look over you shoulder at him, eyeing him up and down. 

“are you sure?” 

he doesn’t say another word, just nods at you as he throws his towel down by the door with the pile of laundry. the key in the pocket of his jeans burns a hole in his thigh. 

“i’ve never lost them before. i always put them in my bag,” you sigh as you pack your purse back up, throwing everything in the main compartment. andrew’s hand gripped tightly around the ceramic mug, he doesn’t look in your direction. 

he hadn’t slept a blink last night, constantly tossing and turning as best as he could with you getting as close to him as physically possible. 

“text me if you see them around, please,” you call out to craig as you take your bag and walk towards the front door, andrew falling in behind you. craig shouts a brief ‘okay’ before both you and andrew walk out the door, slamming it behind you both. 

the both of you are silent as you jump into his truck. your phone automatically connects to his bluetooth, belting the chorus of ‘haunted’ by taylor swift. he doesn’t turn it off, and neither do you. 

the streets of oceanside are already awake and alive, celebrating the holiday weekend. every house held the american flag high from every window, and children run through their sprinklers despite it not even being noon yet. red, white and blue bunting hangs from every store. you watch it all pass through the window, remembering how you and andrew used to spend every weekend drinking until the sight of alcohol made you both want to throw up. 

or the weekend you had to spend the day in the ER because craig had smashed his head off the side of the pool. andrew was furious with him, but you managed to find humour in the situation. 

“i just don’t get it,” you sigh, returning your attention to the purse that laid beneath your feet. andrew hummed in reply, keeping his eyes on the road. “my keys. when have i ever lost them?” 

“never,” his voice comes out quiet, like he’s in need to clear his throat. “you’ll find them.”

“my other set of keys are with my mom…in the middle of the mediterranean ocean.”

“they enjoying themselves?” you look over at him, surprised that he asked. 

“i think so,” you reply, tucking your legs under yourself in the seat. andrew hated when you’d sit like this, complain about how you’d end up paralysed if he were to crash. you have enough confidence in him that that wasn’t going to happen. “she’s sent me like a hundred pictures, and keeps complaining about the food.”

“sounds like her,” he slightly chuckles, barely audible over the hum of his engine and the music playing. 

“dad got sunburnt on the first day, apparently.”

“thought that would be a given,” he mutters, pulling into the drop and parking in the usual spot.

 you don’t rush to get out of his truck, and neither does he. the engine still hums beneath you two, the music now stopped. andrew rests his head against the headrest of his seat, closing his eyes. 

“you okay?” you turn yourself so you can see him properly, resting your arm on the console between you. he hadn’t been able to make eye contact, or even look at you, all morning and it was starting to bug you.

“yeah,” he replies, opening one eye to look at you. he looked exhausted, more than usual. you don’t question it. it wasn’t rare for andrew to not sleep following a job, it’s when his anxiety reached its peak. ”just thinking.” 

“work?” 

he nods in reply, letting his hand fall on top of yours. his skin warm against yours, as it always is. you let him rest there for a second, watching as his chests rises and falls with every breath. if you didn’t know him as well as you do, you’d think he was sleeping but you know he’s as wide awake as he could be. 

“talking of,” you sigh, taking your hand back and grabbing your purse from the footwell. “i should head in before deran starts pulling his hair out, don’t want him to harm those luscious locks. go home and sleep, please,” you practically begged him with your eyes, letting your lips fall into a pout that andrew’s never said no to. that’s if he even looked at you. “i’ll be fine here today, deran’s going to be here all night,” you try to reassure him but you can see him weighing up everything in his head. his brows furrowed, like he was fighting something you couldn’t see. “i’ll see you tonight, yeah?” 

“yeah, tonight.”

“promise?”

“pinky,” he holds out his finger for you to interlink and a small smile appears on his face when you do so. giving him a quick kiss on his cheek before opening the door, you jump out his truck and make your way to the back entrance of the bar. 

andrew didn’t immediately drive away, he watches to see when you make it fully in the building and then some after that. 

the neon open sign flickered twice before you shut it off, watching as the last of your customers stumbled down the street in search for another bar to continue their weekend festivities at. seconds later, deran cuts the music and silence fills the bar. it’s a silence that you only encounter here after closing, when the sticky floors cement your shoes to the floor and empty glasses littered the place. fireworks have already started, and lit up the whole of oceanside as they did every year. 

you sighed, stretching your aching shoulders. 

“told you it’d be busy,” deran muttered as he counted the register. 

“i hate holidays, and all the tourists that aren’t even american celebrating,” you sigh, collecting as many glasses as you possibly could in both hands. 

“they pay your wages,” deran reminded you, a smug grin on his face. 

“also asked me six times if we serve gluten free pizza,” you return the smile, sarcastically. a laugh escaped both of you. 

“you’ll survive,” he shook his head. you gather the last of the empty bottles and swipe them all into the garbage bag. the sound of glass echoing around the building. “i’m gonna head to the back, put all this away,” he holds up all the cash, walking towards the back office. you shoot him a small nod and throw the garbage bag out the back door. you’d take it to the trash on your way out. 

turning back around, your heart jumps at the sight of three men. all big, built like they could squash you with one slap. none of them looked like any of the bars regulars. older, and way more expensive. one of them locked the door behind them. 

“oh, we’re closed,” you paint a polite smile on your face, despite the pounding of your heart inside. 

“we’re not here for a drink,” one of them starts, looking around the place as if it caused actual harm to him. “we’re here for you,” he brings his attention to you, a sinister smile on his face. there was something beneath his smile, something that terrified you. his eyes glistened with something you’d only ever seen before in pope, back at the party. 

threat. 

“me? i think you’ve got the wrong person,” you attempt to laugh, but no noise comes out and you silently pray for deran to hurry up and walk back out. to save you. 

“no, no, i’m pretty sure we’ve got the right person,” another of the guys speaks, getting closer and closer to you until you’re back up against a table. he doesn’t touch you, his face inches away from yours. “you got something that belongs to us.” 

“i…i can assure you that i don’t. i don’t even know who you are,” your voice comes out quieter than you need it to, painting you the perfect victim as a vulnerable woman. he studies your face for a long while, watching all of your features as if he was trying to decide if you’re lying to him. 

“house on ditmar?” they speak from behind, pulling up a picture on his phone of what looks like your house in the dark. 

your heart skips a beat. 

“you live there?” 

you nod at him, tears beginning to form and you pray that they don’t fall. they know you’re weak, thats why they’re targeting you. you don’t need to emphasize the point by crying in front of them either. deran still hasn’t come out yet, you can hear his footsteps in the back office. 

“had any visitors lately?”

“i haven’t even been there…” you mutter, making eye contact with the floor. “i’m staying with my boyfriend,” you don’t even think about the words coming out your mouth until they’ve already made their way out. you haven’t ever referred to andrew as your boyfriend, because he isn’t. 

he is just your friend. 

“what the fuck’s going on here?” finally, you let out a breath of relief as you hear deran’s voice fill the silence. a guy at the back stops deran from getting any closer with a hand to his chest, pushing him back against the bar. 

“we’re looking for money,” he explains, looking between you and deran. “she has it,” his voice becomes thick, smirking over at you as a single tear falls down your cheek. 

“i seriously don’t know what you’re talking about,” you shift your eyes between everyone. “i don’t have their money, deran, tell them,” you beg him, more tears falling as you speak. something flashes over deran’s face, like he knows something that you don’t. 

“she doesn’t have shit, leave her alone,” he attempts to push back against them but fails when a gun is flashed at him. 

“you’ve got thirty seconds,” the one in front warns, getting as close as he possibly can to you. the gold shine from the grills in his mouth reflect against the light. “we know your dear friend, boyfriend, pope doesn’t have it. we already spoke to him, been to his house. tell us where the money is, and we’ll be on our way.”

“i really don’t know what you’re talking about, i promise,” you plead with them, resting your arms against the table behind you in fear you’ll topple over if you don’t. 

“so, you’ll be okay if we searched your house?” another one pipes up, walking closer to you two. “we won’t find anything if we do?”

“no, i promise you i don’t have your money.” 

“its a shame,” he sighs, bringing the back of his hand to your cheek, caressing it. you don’t move an inch. he’s a venomous snake and he will bite if you move. “such a pretty girl,” he tuts, tapping your face hard enough for you to take it as a warning. he searched your face for something, some kind of misunderstanding. instead, he nods towards one of the guys in the back and grabs your wrist as tight as he could. 

“hey! get off of her!” deran yells, pushing and hitting at the guy holding him back. 

“one last chance, angel,” you cringe at the pet name, sending a shiver up your spine. his grip on your wrist tightens, pushing you harder against the table. a blow to the side of your face makes you stumble to the right. blood trickled down the side of your nose. 

“i don’t know anything!” he releases a slow breath before letting you go, letting you tumble against the table. your breath hitches in your throat, dry heaving like you’d been choked out. metaphorically, you have been. 

“tell us,” he says once more, another punch to the side of your face.

“i don’t have anything, please,” you sob, clutching the side of your head. you let the blood drool from your mouth onto the bar floor. deran locks eyes with you, a frown on his face. something about him was different to the deran that walking into the office moments before these people showed up. 

“yeah, we’ll search the house tonight,” you can hear the back two muttering with each other. you hadn’t any idea where their suspect for you came from. you had never even taken 50 cents from the bar if you needed it, let alone millions of dollars from some gang.

“tell andrew cody that we are done playing nice,” the meaner looking one in the back spits on the floor, turning around to unlock the door. seconds later, all the men had left and the silence in the bar felt thicker than anything you’d ever felt before. 

both your hands shaking and unable to move from the spot, deran makes his way over to you and grabs both your arms with his. he pulls you in, squeezing you against his body. his muscles twitch beneath you, and you can hear his heart beating out of his chest. 

“it’s alright,” he mutters, whether to himself or to you was unknown to you. he walks the both of you over to the bar, leaving you on one of the stools whilst he takes some ice into a napkin. “here, hold this,” he whispers, holding the ice your nose. 

“why are they saying i have the money?” you let the tears fall, holding eye contact with deran. he doesn’t say anything, just runs his hand through his hair. 

004. chapter four

it’s been days since the party and andrew hadn’t left your side once. he’s dropped you off at the bar everyday, and stayed until your shift was over. in all the years you and andrew had been best friends, this was the closest you’d ever been. you hadn’t left the cody house, not seeing the inside of your own home since before the party happened. you weren’t too sure what had switched in either of you, neither of you being able to leave the other alone. he had become part of your routine more than he ever had before. 

“what’s up with him?” deran asks as he passes you behind the bar, throwing a towel over his shoulder. you hum in response, busy with serving the group of young girls that had just come stumbling in. “pope, he’s been here everyday,” deran points over to andrew, sat at one of the tables alone. he’d gone through two beers and a sandwich you’d made him since your shift started that afternoon.

“drops me off and takes me home,” you shrug. your eyes meet with andrew’s then, a soft heat settling across your face before looking away. “think he’s worried after what happened at the party,” you rest against the bar, facing deran now. 

“what’s going on with you two?” he looks like he’s really asking, not poking fun. you think about it for a second, before deciding that you have no idea what to say to him. you know deran would never tell anybody what you said, all your secrets were safe with him. 

“i don’t really know,” you take a deep breath, turning your head to look at andrew. he held his phone in both hands, their size making it look smaller than it is. “has he said anything to you?” 

“nope,” he shakes his head. “he won’t leave you alone long enough to talk to me.” 

you give him an awkward laugh, messing with one of the bottles on the bar. 

“he’s just worried,” you speak, looking back at deran. he looks worried, concerned maybe. he shakes his head, chuckling as he grabs an empty glass from the bar.

“pope’s real good at pretending things are something they’re not.”

“what does that mean?”

“nothing,” before you can argue with him, you hear your name getting called from the other side of the bar. deran gives you a look before you walk away, attempting to shake off what he said. you hate that he is correct, something has changed. you were both guilty of it. 

the party did change something. 

what happened did change something.

your shift runs later than you expected it to. the last of the drunks were stumbling out the bar when you walk around back for your jacket. your feet feel as though they’re on fire and you could swear you’ve never felt tiredness like it in your life. you’d grabbed your jacket and a bottle of water from the fridge before walking out to the main bar. there’s a strange comfort in knowing andrew was already here for you, and he could take you home. 

most people would’ve left hours ago, or gotten bored.

he never did. 

“you ready?” he asks, eyeing you up and down. his eyes scan your face as you nod, fighting the yawn that threatened to escape. you send deran a wave over your shoulder as you follow andrew out the front door, his truck parked perfectly in front. jumping into the passenger side, you watch as he gets in and straps his seatbelt over his chest. 

“you didn’t have to wait for me,” you look over at him, his eyes focused on the road. 

“i know,” his response takes you off guard, expecting his usual arguing. “hungry?” his eyes meet yours now, one hand on the steering wheel. 

“i could eat,” you smile slightly. he diverted the drive to one of the nearest drive-thru’s, conventionally the only one open at this time of night. he paid for your food without any hesitation, despite your arguing and telling him you’re capable of buying your own food. the pair of you sat on the beachfront as you ate in his car, you spent the time telling him about some work drama you’d heard from deran and one of the other bartenders. andrew listened, and pretended like he was interested. 

the drive to his house was quiet again. the type of quiet you enjoyed with him. his hand rested on the gear shift between the two of you, his other hand firmly on the steering wheel. he knows the streets of oceanside like the back of his hand, often not even having to think whilst he was getting from point a to point b. 

you don’t even realise you’ve reached for his hand until you’ve done it. his rough skin against your soft skin was always a contradiction you’re willing to welcome. neither of you say a word about the sudden contact, one that seems so intimate. instead, he flips his hand over so your fingers are able to fit in his. his fingers brush over the top of your knuckles. it wasn’t long until he pulled into his driveway, but he doesn’t rush to get out of his truck. you two just sit in the quiet of the car, his slow movement against your hand most likely giving himself more comfort than it is you. 

“are you staying tonight?” he questions, already knowing the answer. 

“do you want me to?” you look back at him, twisting yourself in the seat so you’re able to look at him better. 

“yeah,” he nodded, his voice quiet. “i do.” you shoot him a smile, a pink blush painting the fair skin on your cheeks. 

you liked cooking, it was a passing hobby you’d picked up as your parents got older and were unable to constantly cook for themselves. something you did occasionally for two elderly people who didn’t eat as much as you’re now having to cook for. four grown men, who ate a lot. they’d become used to food always having been cooked and ready for them by smurf, especially when they were planning a job or had just finished one. when she died, they had to fend for themselves and mostly relied on cereal or bologna and cheese sandwiches. it took you a matter of a week before you began feeling bad for them and were quickly filling the shoes that smurf had left. 

“what you cooking?” craig pulled you into a small hug as he entered the kitchen, eyeing all the plates on the kitchen island. 

“a little bit of everything, you guys need to go grocery shopping,” you sigh, pulling a rack of ribs out of the oven. “don’t even think about it!” you swat his hand out of the way of the bread rolls you had baked for them. 

j had called everyone over for a meeting to discuss the job they were planning. andrew was very quiet all morning, waking up much earlier than you had and spent his morning cleaning the already spotless house. his brows furrowed together and the wrinkles on his forehead were more prominent as his face scowled. you know jobs stress him out, especially having to plan them with craig, deran and j. he had expressed to you many times that he would rather just get on with the job, all alone without having to worry about the others. you tried to sympathise with him, giving him as much advice as you possibly could but you didn’t know this world. this side of andrew you know very briefly, you didn’t get involved and he didn’t like getting you involved. 

“what would we do without you?” deran smiled as you place the last of the plates on the wooden table outside where they had their laptops out. 

“starve, probably,” you shrug at him, walking back to the sliding door. “i’m gonna go shower,” you look over to andrew who sends you a quick nod before plating himself some of the food. you quietly close the door behind you before making your way to andrew’s bedroom. having done a quick run to your house earlier, you had a bunch of more clothes to put away. it was almost like you had unofficially moved into his house. 

andrew has a very limited wardrobe, a number of block colour t-shirts and a couple pairs of black jeans. it was something you had berated him about when you were teenagers, you spent hours with him at the local mall in the hundreds of clothing stores for him to find something he liked that wasn’t so basic. it was unsuccessful, he returned home with more of the same stuff he already had at home. 

theres a strong contrast in his closet where his clothes ended and yours started. your brighter shirts reflected against his sad shirts. your shorts looked tiny next to his jeans. he welcomed your belongings into his room without any complaints. he lets you keep your makeup on his dresser, and your shampoo and conditioner in his shower. he often replenishes your toiletries before you even notice they need repurchasing. 

you’d long finished your shower when you walked back out the main living space and the men were still outside, all huddled around j’s laptop. you move around them as you start collecting the dirty dishes from the table, bringing them through to the kitchen and laying them in the sink. pressing play on your music, you begin cleaning the dishes in the soapy water. in a world of your own, you feel eyes from behind you. you don’t take much notice to them, knowing it’s definitely andrews and continue to sway your hips to the beat of the music playing from your phone. 

“putting on a show, hm?” he startles you from behind. you hadn’t even heard him come in. he stands by the fridge, a full bottle of beer in his hand. 

“its a good song,” you shoot over your shoulder, not paying attention to the smirk on his face or the growing bulge of his jeans. in his defense, you are wearing very short shorts and one of his oversized shirts. “you guys finished?”

“no but,” he stands closer to you, his face now up against your ear. “they can do it without me.”

“don’t complain to me if they fuck it up then, andrew,” you shrug, remembering the many of times he’d vented for hours to you over craig or deran fucking up a job. it was mostly craig. he clearly doesn’t care that his brothers are just a clean glass door away from seeing you guys when he brings his cold hands against your waist, just above the waistband of your shorts. 

“hard to focus on that when you’re in here, ass on display for us all to see,” he whispers in your ear as he brings one of his hands to the front of your shorts, just over your pussy. the thin layer of your panties being the only thing covering his skin from yours. instantly, heat rises up your body at the same time a chill runs down your spine. “they were all looking at you.” 

“were they?” your voice came out more like a breath as your head falls back, resting against his chest. his fingers dip between your legs, they immediately spread for him before you even put any thought to it. you hear him hum against you as he teases your clit through your panties. “i didn’t…it wasn’t for them…”

“who you wearing these pretty littles shorts for?” he questions you, a smug tone to his voice like he already knows the answer. of course he knows the answer. “me?” you nod, not able to find your voice through the pleasure of his fingers against your sensitive clit. your hands still sit in the soapy water, gripping the side of the sink. 

“not here,” you finally muster up as you feel his fingers begin to pull the fabric away from your skin. you know andrew would never let his brothers see you like this, this was for him only but the idea of being out in the open like this, it wasn’t going to work for you. his hand slowly pulled away from you, a faint moan coming from your mouth at the loss of contact. andrew stepped back from you, checking his brothers outside who hadn’t even looked up from the computer. 

you were quick to crash your lips onto andrew’s once you’re in the privacy of his bedroom, where no wandering eyes can see you. you slid your hands up the fabric of his shirt, your hands feeling natural against the hard muscle he had spent years attributing to. gently pushing him down onto his bed, sitting on the edge of the freshly washed sheets. the carpet felt scratchy against your knees as your fingers fidgeted with the buckle of his belt. with not as much grace as you wished there was, you freed the buckle from the belt and begin unzipping his jeans. he watches you intently, his tongue wiping the remnants of your mouth off his bottom lip as he witnesses your needily movements. you waste no time in pulling the denim down his legs, his hips lifting up briefly to help you. in your quick efforts to free him of his jeans, you hadn’t noticed how hard andrew really was until it bounced against his stomach. his tip was already glistening with precum before you had even touched it. 

“look at what you do to me,” his voice comes out quiet, and rough. your hands naturally wrap around his cock, your thumb wiping over the slit to collect the precum on the pad of your finger. you didn’t even take a second thought to it when you brought the thumb to your tongue, letting the salty taste linger on your tongue. his eyes stay locked on yours, a smirk painted permanently on his face. 

“you’ve been so stressed,” you sigh, your hand finding its way back to his cock and sliding up and down. you don’t miss the way a few quiet moans escape from his open mouth. he nods his head ever so slightly, like if you blinked you would’ve missed it. you shuffle closer to him, as close as you can possibly get without being on him. “relax,” you bring your free hand up on his thigh, scratching ever so gently with your nails. soon enough, you bring your lips to his now throbbing dick. peppering light kisses over his shaft, bringing both your hands together at the base of it. 

“fuck,” he exasperated, looking down at you. there weren’t many times you had given him head over the years, you know he feels best when he’s making you feel good. looking up at him through your lashes, before placing your lips around the tip. 

you’re not clean with it, the way you have been before. you’re not shy to show him how much you truly need him, how desperate for him you are. somewhere along the like, andrew had moved his hand into your hair, letting it tangle between his fingers. he wasn’t exactly gentle with you, as he pushed your head down on his cock and fighting against your gag reflex. 

“you’re so good for me,” he moans, his hips bucking up against your mouth. “take me so fuckin’ well.” 

your fingers hold the side of his thighs. you could feel him twitch against your throat, his hips lifting quicker now. “so close,” he mutters, pushing your head that ever bit harsher as his orgasm begins rolling into your mouth. he steadies you down on his cock, letting it choke you just a little as he finishes in your mouth. “so messy,” he chuckles as he watches you open your mouth for him, letting him see the mess he’s made of you. “swallow,” he taps your chin as his other hand comes to rest on your chin, rubbing smoothing circles with his thumb. you listen to him like his word his gospel, swallowing his cum before getting up off your knees. 

andrew was quick to clean you up, wiping a damp rag around your face to clean the dried mixture of spit and cum from your chin. his touch is so gentle, it almost scares you that the same hands he uses to clean you up, he also uses to kill a guy with no fight against it. 

“was that good?” you ask, his arms wrapped tightly against you as you lay against his chest.

“always the best,” he mutters, stroking the top of your hair. “treat me so good.” 

“you deserve it, andy.” 

“don’t say that,” he whispers as his fingers thread through your now very tangled hair. you hum in confusion, looking up at him. “i don’t deserve you.”

you’re about to reply to his comment when craig bursts through the door, a joint hanging out of his mouth. andrew’s quick to pull the cover on top of you, hiding your naked body from his eyes. 

“we’re about to leave, put some clothes on,” craig smirks at andrew, throwing the pair of jeans andrew had previously discarded across the room at him. before walking out, craig sends a wink your way earning himself a middle finger from you. 

“duty calls,” you sigh, pulling yourself up on the bed so you’re resting against the headboard. andrew took no rush in getting ready for the job, they would wait on him he was certain. he made sure to fold your clothes up and leave them on the edge of the bed for whenever you decided to leave the bed. 

“i won’t be gone long, it’s a simple job,” he sighs, stuffing his keys in his back pocket. he makes his way over to you in the bed and kissing your forehead. “see you later, yeah?” 

“of course,” you smile, running your arm over his bicep that was looking way too prominent in the maroon polo he’s wearing. “be safe!” you call out at him as he walks out the bedroom door, sending you a wave before he completely disappears. 

the house always felt eerie once all the guys had left to complete a job. years ago, when smurf was still alive, you would sit by the pool with her and drank way too many cocktails. despite how much you disliked her way of parenting, you couldn’t deny that she knew how to make a good drink. or when nicky and j were still dating, you two were able to gossip about the boys together. now though, it was just you alone in the house. 

you walk around the place barefoot, wearing just a pair of denim shorts and a bikini top. craig had left a blunt on the kitchen island. taking it as compensation for cutting your time with andrew short, you light it up and take it outside. the sun was beginning to set over the hills of oceanside and the breeze had started to pick up, but the heat still blistered off your skin. times like these made you realise how quiet and boring your life would be without the cody’s constantly finding their way into every aspect of it. 

the dishwasher hummed throughout the kitchen, the countertops were wiped down and the laundry was halfway through a cycle of j’s clothes when your phone buzzed from the couch. andrew never texted throughout the job, never giving you any updates until he was leaving the site. any other updates he had for you, he waits until he’s home to deliver. 

home in twenty. 

relief washes over you as you heart the text, sending him a quick okay, i’ll make dinner back to him. 

you watched as the truck rolled in the driveway twenty three minutes after he sent the text on the security camera. not that you were counting the minutes. before he could turn the engine off, you were at the door. craig and deran came rushing into the house together, complaining that their stomachs were about to eat itself if they don’t get anything in them as soon as possible. 

then andrew came walking in, his whole body tense as it usually was. you wrap your arms around his body, the smell of sweat and tobacco ruminating off of him. you carefully examined every inch of his skin you could see. no marks. your shoulders are finally able to rest and without noticing, you had let out a sigh of relief. 

“you okay?” you ask him, your eyes meeting his. he nodded, a smirk appearing on his face. 

“i’m fine, job was easy,” he shrugs, making his way to the kitchen where craig, deran and j have already started digging into the pasta you finished just before they arrived. you watch his back as he turns the corner to the kitchen, noticing the smear of blood stained on his shirt. 

“this yours?” you ask as you tug on the fabric, rubbing the stain over. he shakes his head, looking at the stain. a silence falls between you two, nothing uncomfortable. he hated bringing the jobs home, to you. 

“is delicious, thank you,” j nodded to you as he took a plate of food through to his room. you sent him a smile back before turning your attention back to andrew. without another thought, he wraps his arms around you in the same certainty he always had, his chin resting against the top of your head.