warnings/tags: age-gap (reader is in 20’s, pope is in his 30’s), not really canon – I fear, hurt, comfort, established relationship
Summary: a fight with andrew spirals into him getting injured on a job.
loosely inspired by robbers by the 1975. I’ve always adored the music video and the song's ending, and wanted to incorporate it into a lil something, a less toxic relationship, and a lil more sweet.
“I can’t stand by and watch you kill yourself!” You yelled as your argument finally reached its peak.
“I’m not asking you to do that,” Pope said, trying not to snap, and instead trying to calm the situation.
“You are! Every time you choose Smurf, every time you choose a new job, you’re choosing a path that I can’t watch you go down,” you said a bit lower this time, still furious that you were even having this conversation again.
“You knew what I do, what my family does. I never lied to you about that,” Andrew pointed an accusatory finger at you.
You shook your head. “I guess I was stupid for thinking that it wouldn’t go this far. That you would risk going back to prison, or worse,” you say, exasperated.
You both stood staring at each other, chests heaving, as both of your breathing was ragged after the argument you just had, neither of you knowing what to say.
“If you can’t accept me and what I have to do, where does that leave us?” Pope questioned you, his big brown eyes looking into yours.
“I can’t get through to you,” you said, shaking your head. “I don’t know why I can’t be enough of a reason for you to stop rushing to Smurf’s beck and call.”
“She’s my mom, they’re my family,” he said quietly.
“And I'm your girlfriend!” You said breathlessly, tears leaking over your waterline, you huffed. “Let’s agree to disagree. I have to get to work.” You wiped your cheeks with the back of your hands to remove any evidence of your crying.
Grabbing your bag, you shrugged a jacket on and slammed the door, leaving Andrew alone in your apartment. Once outside, under the safety of your overhang, you sighed and looked out at the busy road. Cars rushed past your building complex as you noticed it was pouring. You pulled your hood up and ran down the stairs. Your fight with Andrew had already put you ten minutes behind schedule, and you needed to get to work as soon as possible.
You walked out of the apartment complex’s courtyard in anger, pretty much stomping your way down the pavement. Your feet were hitting the pavement so hard, you felt the vibrations ricochet up your bones, and felt like your knees might shatter. You crossed your arms over your chest, not sure whether you were freezing or just bitterly irate. As you turned a corner, you couldn’t help but notice the loud, egregious sound of a truck tailing you. You guessed you should have expected this. You knew he would follow you, no matter how upset either of you was with the other – he would always make sure you were safe.
Keeping up your pace, you refused to look back or meet the driver's eyes. Instead, you kept your arms wrapped tightly around yourself and your head down. Reaching the front door of The Drop, you looked over your shoulder and saw Andrew bring his hand up slowly to wave. You flipped him off and went inside, slamming the door behind you, and putting some much-needed distance between you and Pope.
You huffed as you entered the semi-dead bar, ignoring the stares of the regulars as you made your way to the bartop.
“You’re late,” Deran muttered at you as you placed your stuff under the counter.
“And your brother’s an asshole, I guess we’re even,” you deadpanned as you grabbed a waist apron and tied it on.
“I warned you,” he muttered.
You tightened your waist apron tight in anger, “You didn’t warn me about shit, fuck off, Deran.”
Raising his hands in defence, Deran sighed. “Listen, is it about the job? I promise it will be fine,” he started.
Your glare shot up to his face. “Don’t talk about this shit with me, I don’t want to hear it.”
“Okay, well, I’m leaving you to close tonight, just a heads up,” he muttered as he walked to the back room.
You bit your lip and shook your head, holding back tears as you stared up at the shitty lights in the bar, putting on your fakest smile before checking on the occupied tables.
You had been working at The Drop since its opening two years earlier. You were one of the first hires Deran made — he took a chance on a twenty-something runaway with no bartending experience. You grew close to the man, one of your few friends in Oceanside, and he became like a brother to you. For the longest time, he had tried to keep you away from his family, not wanting Smurf to sink her talons into you and rip you to pieces. That all changed a couple of months into your employment. One night when you were closing up, all of the Cody boys had stopped by for a drink after closing. While they all laughed and shot the shit, you noticed Andrew had been watching you clean up for the last hour, even offering to help, which you declined sweetly and encouraged him to have fun with the other men.
“Not likely,” he mumbled as he turned back to the table his brothers and J occupied.
You continued tidying everything up until Deran came up to your side at the bar counter to grab another round for everyone. “So what’s his deal?” You nodded your head toward Andrew.
“Pope? Oh, Jesus, fuck off,” Deran said as he noticed the smile on your face and the blush starting to taint your cheeks.
“What?!” You stared at him wide-eyed. “He’s cute!” You said
“He doesn’t have a deal, he’s just Pope,” Deran said, looking between the two of you, shaking his head.
“I don’t know, there’s something about him, he seems pretty sweet.” You looked over at the table and noticed Pope’s eyes already on you. You quickly looked back at your shaggy-haired friend.
“Sweet and Pope do not even remotely belong in the same sentence,” Deran laughed at you, shaking his head.
Furrowing your brows, you ignored his rude comment as you helped him bring the next round of beers to the table. As you walked past the table, Baz decided to “playfully” slap your ass. You gasped, genuinely frightened by the act, and immediately slapped his hand.
“Dude, what the fuck?” You yelled at him.
“Oh, come on, I was saying thank you,” Baz defended.
You could barely start yelling at him before Pope stepped in between you two. Blocking Baz from your view, Pope lightly touched your shoulders. “Go grab your things,” he ordered you gruffly.
“No, I want to ask your brother why he thinks it’s okay to touch me,” you said as you shoved past him.
Baz stood up, standing his ground. “I’m drunk, lay off,” he played it off.
Pope’s arm wrapped around your waist as he put you behind him again. “Let’s go,” he growled. Normally, when someone spoke to you this way, you would either cry or snap back at them, but not this time. This time, you knew that he didn’t mean it towards you, that he was protecting you.
Wide-eyed and frazzled, you looked away from Baz and into Pope’s eyes, feeling grounded for the first time in a long time. “I still have to sort the register,” you mumbled to him.
“Deran can do it, I’m driving you home,” he said, softer this time, turning away from you and back to Baz to glare daggers at him. You looked over his shoulder to glare at Baz one more time and went to grab your bag from underneath the bar.
Pope opened the door to the bar for you and let you leave first, shielding you from Baz’s view, and ignoring the stares of his brothers.
He led you to his truck and offered his hand, which you gratefully took as he hoisted you up into the seat. You thanked him before he walked around to the driver’s side of the truck and got in.
He turned the truck on and immediately started driving, peeling out of the parking lot. As you sped down the road, you looked down at your fingers in your lap.
“You’re being quiet,” Pope noted.
“Just embarrassed,” you answered.
“Why should you be embarrassed? You didn’t do anything wrong,” he said.
You nodded, still not looking up from your lap. “Thank you for getting him away from me,” you said quietly.
You felt his eyeline waver from the road ahead and over to you. “You don’t have to thank me. He shouldn’t have touched you,” he almost growled.
You directed Pope to your apartment complex, which was only a few blocks away from the bar.
“Thanks again, you really didn’t have to do all this,” you smiled over at him.
“I wanted to,” he replied.
“You protected me,” you stated.
Pope nodded and clenched his fists. You lightly placed your hand on top of them.
“Thank you again, Pope,” you said, opening the door to his truck.
“Andrew,” you heard him say as you jumped down from the seat.
“You can call me Andrew,” he said with a shy look on his face.
“Thank you, Andrew,” you said, nodding and smiling up at him.
You were wiping down the counter when the front door flew open. “We’re closed, asshole-“ you stopped when you realized it was Andrew, being held up by Baz and Craig. “What the fuck?” you asked as you rushed towards the men, helping them bring Pope to the bar counter.
“Why the fuck did you bring him here instead of helping him?” you yelled at the men as Deran came up behind you to help lift Pope.
“He didn’t want help – he wanted to see you,” Deran said softly, trying to calm you down, placing his hand on your arm to steady you.
You looked down at Andrew, stroking his cheeks as you assessed the damage. He was bleeding profusely from his side. Cutting his shirt, you saw the bullet wound was a deep tear and not a through-and-through.
“You’re an idiot,” you buried your face into Andrew’s shoulder.
“It looks worse than it is,” Andrew started, grimacing as you pulled his shirt away from his chest.
“It’s okay. I just wanna look at it,” you hushed him as you stroked his curls. “Can you make yourselves useful and get the first-aid kit?” You looked up at the other brothers pleading. After a moment of silence from them, you couldn’t take it any longer. “Now,” you gritted through your teeth.
You had taken the opportunity to stock up the bar’s first-aid kit after witnessing your first barfight. Your dad was some doomsday prepper growing up, and you guessed some of it had rubbed off on you. Not wanting anyone to get hurt in a bar brawl and not have any immediate supplies, you used half of three paychecks to get tourniquets, gauze, ointments, and heavy-duty band-aids.
Derran slammed the kit next to you, and Pope tried sitting up, and you pushed him back down as soon as you saw the grimace register on his face.
“You need to lie down,” you said bitterly, your face betraying you and showing your worry, trying your hardest not to cry. You hated seeing him like this, beaten, bruised and covered in blood.
You spent the next hour working on his wound, finally getting the bleeding to stop, cleaning and packing it, and wrapping his side in gauze. Finally taking a moment to yourself to breathe, you placed your head down on the bar counter, your forehead cooled by the stained wood.
“Pretty girl,” Pope mumbled, smiling as he stared down at you. “I’m feeling like a loser for choosing this over you.”
“No, no, listen to me, you look so cool - you look so cool,” you said as you grabbed his hand and pressed it to your lips, seeing his eyelids flutter shut. Even if you didn’t mean it, you just needed him to know you loved him.
Andrew woke up in his bed, aching on one side and smelling bacon. Hissing as he sat up, he looked around, seeing that the other side of the bed was empty, and looking for you.
Just as he was about to attempt to get out of bed, his bedroom door creaked open.
“Mornin’ sleepyhead,” you said as you brought in a plate of pancakes and bacon.
“How’d I get here?” He groggily asked.
“You passed out from the pain – you were out all night. It took all four of us, and J, to get you back here, in bed. I made sure to change your clothes and bandage, and then I just watched over you,” you explained.
“You didn’t sleep?” Pope asked.
You shook your head. “Couldn’t. Not after seeing you like that,” you placed his breakfast plate next to the bed and sat on his lap, careful not to disturb his wound. “You can’t ever do that to me again, do you understand?”
He started to shake his head, but you interrupted. “No, you cannot put me through that again. I thought you were going to bleed out in that stupid bar. No more getting hurt. No more jobs. Just you and me.” You looked up at him with tear-filled eyes.
“Just you and me,” he whispered back at you.
pls be kind, i am so very nervous about this <3
