Chapter Text
Every day that David Wymack was on patrol instead of at his desk was a day that Andrew Minyard found himself irritable and restless. His wife always said that he was fine, that he knew what he was doing, that Palmetto was a safe town. And yet, he wore a bulletproof vest underneath his uniform every day.
Andrew had no reason to trust a cop, let alone live underneath the roof of one. Wymack was grumpy and carried a gun and Andrew had already been arrested once There was a reason that Aaron hadn’t told him whose house he was really living in during those six months, why he lied and said that Wymack had “some government job” that he didn’t understand enough to explain. Andrew was stupid enough to believe him, though, if only because Aaron always came unscathed and seemingly untouched each time he visited.
Two Years Ago
August
“No,” Andrew said, stopping in the doorway to the facility he’d just gotten the luxury of being released from. Aaron stood twenty feet away in front of a cop car parked on the curb. He wasn’t shackled or wearing cuffs, but the scene was all too familiar to Andrew. Getting dropped off in front, being escorted by a rough arm through metal detectors and strip searched against their will. It was the same process for each and every person who had an orange jumpsuit thrown at them. It had been enough to rattle Andrew.
Andrew was moving before he comprehended it, dropping his bag and taking Aaron by the collar. “What did you do?” he growled through gritted teeth.
Aaron grabbed Andrew’s wrists. He did nothing to pull them away. “Nothing!” he screeched.
Andrew snarled, “You can’t-”
“I’m not, Andrew! We’re picking you up! No one’s in trouble!”
The slam of a car door veered Andrew’s attention off enough to track the man getting out of the driver's seat. He was in uniform from the waist down by the looks of the heavy belt at his hips, but a hoodie covered the telltale black button up and name tag Andrew knew was underneath. He stepped back instinctively from the cop, pushing Aaron behind him and balling his fists. “You’re out of your jurisdiction, Palmetto.”
The man glanced at the text along the side of the patrol car and nodded once. “Good thing I’m off duty,” he said. “Piece of shit truck is in the shop, so I’m stuck with this thing.”
“Andrew,” Aaron said, stepping around him. “This is David.” His smile came through half there and dripping with guilt. It only lasted a fraction of a second as he leveled Andrew’s suddenly piercing stare with his own.
There was only one David that either of them knew, and Andrew hadn’t met him yet. The one he knew of worked a desk job and was, as Aaron claimed, harmless and kind. In person, his brother's description wasn’t adding up. No, in person Aaron’s assessment was painting a terrible picture that was infuriating to grasp at.
Unfortunately for David, it was ruining Andrew’s first impression of him.
Pity.
“Government job, huh, Aaron?” Andrew kept his voice steady and still, not taking his eyes off of the officer. The clenching of his jaw was the only thing that succeeded in ensuring just how angry he was.
“I didn’t lie.”
“You didn’t tell the truth, either.”
David Wymack flicked a glance between the two twins and stared at Andrew like he could see through his mask. “Aaron says you don’t trust cops. I never did, either.”
Andrew tried not to glare. “If you can’t beat ‘em join ‘em?”
“I’ve seen a lot of the same things you have. Figured I’d rather help keep kids from getting to that point,” David said.
“You do not pick and choose who you do and don’t arrest.”
David shrugged. He crossed his arms loosely over his chest. “Maybe not, but I’ve been known to give second chances. More people deserve them than you think.”
Aaron shifted beside Andrew and spoke in a hushed voice. “You can trust him, Andrew.” He was nodding like he wanted Andrew to join in. “He’s good. Safe… He’s the one who kept you set up with money and got you into the athletic program here.”
“I did not need it.”
Aaron scoffed. “Better than rotting in there, right?”
Andrew finally turned towards his brother for a bored inspection. Nothing appeared out of order. A few more healthy pounds on Aaron’s thin frame, maybe. “Your love of soccer will not make me tolerate it any more.” He slid his eyes back to David standing at a distance. The man was relaxed and leaning against the car like the whole interaction was normal. Perhaps it was, to him. It still didn’t explain why they were living with a cop.
“It’s the foster system, Andrew,” Aaron sneered at him when he asked. “Someone was willing to take in two teenage boys. You really think they gave a shit who it was?”
Aaron was right, as much as Andrew hated to admit. They were fifteen, three years from aging out of the system without anywhere permanent to land. Nicky, who had only found them a year and a half ago, had no real shot of being allowed to take them in without being financially stable -no matter how much hope he had. But Andrew wouldn’t let them go back to where they were before. The group home that they were in six months ago was an overcrowded madhouse that never had enough food to go around. One kid was giving Aaron adderall and alcohol that he didn’t need, another liked to overstep Andrew’s boundaries, and Aaron would have been close to failing half of his classes had Andrew not been swapping places with him whenever he had tests.
Pointing a finger to Aaron’s chest, Andrew said through gritted teeth, “No more lying.”
Aaron frowned hard, and before he could even shoot something back Andrew already knew what was coming his way. “Fine, then no more fucking secrets.” It was similar to something he’d said before. Andrew was surprised he didn’t follow it up with the same remark he’d used months ago the first time that he’d sat across from Andrew in an orange jumpsuit.
Maybe that way I’ll know you’re planning on getting yourself sent to juvie next time.
He didn’t reply. That alone was the answer Aaron wanted.
Andrew knew perseverance. He knew survival and enduring and using what he had to his advantage with the knowledge that he would never have anything more. He and Aaron were born and raised of the same crop, but Aaron had always been trusting and gullible and dependent on his brother. He needed someone else stable enough to hold him up and push him through when Andrew was gone. If that couldn’t always be Andrew… then he had to test that Aaron’s judgment on David Wymack wouldn’t let him down.
Abby Winfield was wearing scrubs and a messy ponytail when she shouldered her way through the door two hours after Andrew locked himself in his new room. Andrew could hear her voice filter through the house and let the curtain to his window fall closed when the visual he had on her slipped inside.
His toes curled into the carpet underneath his feet as he observed the room again. It wasn’t anything lavish, just an empty dresser and closet, and a bed just a hair bigger than a twin. The walls were bare and he had nothing but a duffel bag of clothes that he’d taken from house to house for the last fifteen years. But there was an inside lock on the door and a window that opened up to a ledge when that distance wasn’t enough.
Aaron knocked on his door, the telltale pattern that they’d conjured up after learning morse code when they were thirteen. It wasn’t often that they were kept in separate rooms in other foster and group homes, but when Aaron started having panic attacks and Andrew started locking himself away in bathrooms for long periods of time, they needed something to discern a stranger from their other half.
Andrew opened the door and came face to face with Aaron. He held out heavy black bands, looking Andrew in the eyes as he handed them over. He stepped further into Andrew’s room when he turned away from the door and didn’t watch his brother slide the fabric over his arms. “I’ve been getting some things for you while you’ve been gone, shit for your room, or whatever. Abby took me shopping basically the second she got a hold of me.” He bent down next to the bed and gingerly pulled out a plastic bin from underneath. “She wanted to get you things, too, to have when you got out, but I told her how picky you are. Look, got the new Star Wars movie, ‘cause you’ve got to catch up and- oh, we went to some stupid tiny museum for school, but they had these.” He barely turned to hold up a tiny wooden figurine of a guy squatting to take a shit. Accompanying it, was Aaron’s own shit eating grin. “It was more funny at 8am when we were low on fumes, but still.”
Andrew peered into the box, a few posters of bands that he found himself listening to once in a while. A clean and crisp copy of Where The Crawdads Sing with “A.M.” written on the spine, his old lock picking kit, unopened video games. “They have a gaming console?”
Aaron perked up and reached for one of the discs. “PlayStation. There’s this new post-apocalyptic game everyone’s been raging about, it’s supposed to be awesome.” At Andrew’s blank face, his smile faltered. “I-I thought I’d wait and we could, uh, play together. If you want.”
His brother’s enthusiasm was draining and overwhelming, even if it was nothing compared to Nicholas Hemmick.
At the name popping into his head, Andrew glanced at his phone on top of the bed. He still hadn’t plugged it in. He only had four contacts in it. Aaron Minyard, Nicholas Hemmick, their social worker that he predictably ignored, and most recently his probation officer. The only thing waiting on it would likely be spam messages from his cousin.
“Nicky,” he said.
“He gets back next week. He was devastated that he couldn’t come visit you, but I told him he wouldn’t have been able to visit from Germany whether you got arrested or not.” Aaron shrugged. “He’s apparently got himself a boyfriend. Says he’s gonna marry him, or something.”
Andrew looked away from his brother’s rolling eyes at a soft knock on the doorframe. Guard building back up, Andrew crossed his arms and turned towards the soft faced woman. “Hi Andrew, I’m Abby. It’s wonderful to finally meet you.”
“What do you want?”
Aaron made a pained sound inside his throat. “ Andrew ,” he hissed.
Abby’s smile didn’t fade in the slightest. “It’s alright, Aaron.” She met Andrew’s eyes. “I want to give you a general check up, if you’ll let me.”
“This is not the doctor’s office.”
“No,” she agreed. “But I’ve heard stories, and I don’t trust a single person in that facility to have kept you healthy and unharmed.” Her lips twitched in a clear effort to keep malice out of her voice. “If you’d rather, I can have you come into my office this week and do it there.”
She was hopeful, and as much as Andrew hated that little spark he could see in her, he knew that he probably should get looked at. If not for the toe he’s pretty sure he broke four months ago that might not have healed right, then definitely for the fact that his jeans felt three sizes too big. He needed to get his weight back up, get back to a gym ( any gym) and he may need an STD test (just in case), though he would never tell his brother what he got up to on his shitty six month vacation.
He held back a scowl and pursed his lips. “Not here.”
“My office?” He nodded once. Visibly brightened, Abby nodded with stars in her eyes and babbled about getting him scheduled while David cooked dinner, adding that I told David you could choose dinner tonight but he’d already bought steaks and maybe we could get ice cream later if you have enough social battery left to keep dealing with us all by then and and and-
Andrew had to reel in the harsh urge to smack his brother upside the head. “Does she have no restraint?” Except Aaron was holding back his own smile behind one hand with the other tucked behind his back. Andrew flexed his fingers. “Spit it out.”
Aaron shook his head. “M’just glad you’re back. You’re gonna like it here, Drew. I promise.”
This time Andrew did scowl, and shoved Aaron’s shoulder to push him out of the room.
His brother’s shiny eyed hope was going to get him killed one day.
Now
Andrew wasn’t sure when his outward dislike for Wymack turned to general apathy and ultimately leaned into a deep trust that he would never admit to, but he found himself stupidly waiting out on the roof of his window, cigarette unlit and sitting behind his ear, and his phone hanging from his fingertips.
He was supposed to be home thirty minutes ago. Abby was at the movies with work friends, and Aaron was out drooling over the cheerleaders at the football game with Matthew Boyd. It was embarrassing, but that wasn’t what Andrew was concerned with. The only thing that mattered was that no one had answered their phones, and David Wymack was definitely supposed to be inside grumbling about work by now.
Andrew only made it fifteen more minutes until he gave in and pressed Call. The tone rang three times, and on the fourth one Andrew gripped his phone when Wymack’s stupid voice came over the speaker. “Save me the grief, I’ll be home for a late dinner tonight.”
“Abby will not be happy that you are overworking,” Andrew said instead of ‘where the hell are you?’ or even ‘i’m getting fucking hungry and we were supposed to rot in Sweeties for dinner’.
Wymack grunted. “I’m trying to practice that thing called giving second chances.” He spoke up again in favor of letting Andrew answer. “Hey, why don’t I call in takeout from Sweeties and we can eat it in the office? I have a sixteen year old boy in the back of the patrol car right now that I’m running to the station.”
Andrew scoffed quietly to himself and set the phone on speaker to light his cigarette. Muffled, he said, “He better be eye candy if I’m coming to that dump.”
Andrew inhaled deep and closed his eyes for a moment before blowing the smoke out through his teeth. On the other end of the phone, just as he was bringing the cigarette back for another drag, he heard Wymack say, “Hey, my son wants to know if you’re cute.”
Andrew coughed up his lung at that surprise, but he didn’t miss the way that a distant voice piped up with “I want to say yes, sir.”
Wymack’s grunted laugh was irritating and infuriating enough that Andrew stabbed his finger at the red button and ended the call.
Palmetto’s police station was small, but the lounge was bigger than probably any room in the building. A thanks for making the rookies work in the middle of the night, perhaps. Andrew didn’t care, and he would never ask.
The man that sat at the front never hesitated to let Andrew or Aaron back once he had found out who they belonged to, but he never did so without trying to strike up friendly conversation.
“Hey, Andrew!” Roland piped up from paperwork that looked like something able to bore a man to death, propping himself up on his elbows. “Late night run? I keep telling your dad he’s gotta give himself a break but-”
“Don’t talk to me,” Andrew said and kept walking back back back to Wymack’s desk. He dropped the takeout bag on his desk, sank into his seat, and spun around to face the kid sitting in the plastic chair beside it. The boy whipped his head up from where he was holding it in his hands, eyes wide and sending himself back a foot in the chair.
Andrew raised an eyebrow.
Skittish.
“Who the hell are you?” If the hair a shade too copper to be called brown wasn’t enough to catch his attention, the icy blues of the boy's eyes certainly were. There was no denying that he was eye candy like Andrew had requested, but there was something fiery and biting in his eyes that made him look reckless.
“Not your concern.”
The boy stared at him for a few moments, eyes narrowing, before his stare caught on Andrew’s arm bands. “No. I’ve seen you before. You’re Andrew Minyard.”
“And you’re sitting prisoner in a police station. Boring.”
Those eyes, cold and hard to look away from, settled a little. “If that’s what you think is boring you might need to reevaluate your interests.” He twirled his finger around at the surrounding area as if to indicate we’re in the same place, genius.
Andrew blinked lazily. “It is boring to someone who has already been caged. You are lucky that you’re not in one.” He slid his gaze over to the holding cell on the opposite side of the room. “If you get even more lucky, the pigs may not even call your parents.”
The boy tapped his thumb against the armrest of his chair. “For someone who doesn’t sound like he likes cops, you seem awfully comfortable here.”
Andrew hummed in interest. Not reckless. Careful. Calculated. “Curious.”
“What?”
“You.”
Heavy footsteps sounded around the corner, and before the boy could answer, Wymack stole any and all of his attention away from Andrew. He tensed immediately, and gripped his knee when Wymack pulled a chair in front of him. “Alright,” he said. “Here’s the deal. There were no witnesses, no cameras pointed back there, and nothing damaged. The only proof that exists is footage on my body cam that I do not intend on extracting. Are you understanding what I’m telling you?”
The boy nodded. “Yes, sir.”
“Just for clarification in case you don’t, and I mean that to say I better not hear of you doing it again, I am going to drop you off at home without repercussions and hope that you decide to not be an idiot again. Got it?”
“Yes, sir.”
Wymack studied him for a few seconds, but eventually nodded and stood abruptly to switch to the desk chair beside Andrew. The boy flinched just slight enough that Andrew wouldn’t have caught it if not for how intensely he was watching him. “First, I’m gonna eat my dinner. Karma for making me work past my shift.”
Andrew tilted his head towards the lounge. At Wymack’s head shake and beckoning motion, Andrew ripped the paper bag open and wordlessly handed over his takeout box. Sweeties wasn’t known for their burgers, and Abby had been getting on him for the last year about his red meat intake, but Wymack still got one each and every time. Andrew opted for chocolate chip waffles without fail, and whenever Nicky was on shift he always supplied him with more dipping packets of syrup than needed. The only reason Wymack didn’t scold him on it was for the same reason Andrew didn’t tell Abby about his hamburger dedication.
Andrew had only just opened the lid to his box and started fastidiously ripping both waffles into bite sized pieces when the boy spoke up once more. Unlike the way he spoke to Andrew, fearless and a bit rabid, his voice sounded diluted and cautious. “You’re not gonna call my father?”
Wymack froze, albeit only for a subtle pause, and wiped his mouth on a napkin. “Not unless you want me to, no.” His voice was steady and unsuspecting, but Andrew had lived and surveyed him enough in the last two years to know better.
“No, I don’t. Thank you.”
Andrew held his truths like secrets, and he held on tight enough to know that this boy was gripping his own with white knuckles.
Two Years Ago
August
“I just don’t understand how they’ve neglected to keep you updated on your vaccinations.” Abby had been on a tangent for the last four minutes about the medical failings of foster children in the U.S., all which Andrew had been dutifully ignoring.
He drew in a steady breath and held still as she opened up a sanitizing wipe. “And I know you’ll say the same thing that Aaron did when he got his back in March. It’s the foster care system, what do you expect? But you’d think they’d want to lessen the chance of things spreading when it’s a bunch of kids all living together- god, especially in detention centers. David- May I?” She had her hands paused above his skin, and when he nodded she gently wiped his bicep. “David’s always the same thing, even when we were friends in high school. It’s pretty sad that it’s barely changed since he was in a group home, either, but-”
Andrew cut her off. “Wymack was a foster kid.” It wasn’t a question, but he looked at her with an inquisitive eye.
Abby tossed the wipe and readied the two needles. Her face went sad and vulnerable. “He hasn’t mentioned it?” Andrew shook his head. “I mean, you’ve only been here for a few days, but…” she sighed. “That’s how we became friends, him and I. I was adopted when I was four. Just something to kind of have in common during class, I guess,” she frowned as she took up position at Andrew’s side again. “Just a slight pinch.” Needles weren’t a bother to Andrew, but he still kept his head facing the opposite direction.
“You should ask him about it, Andrew,” Abby said.
Andrew grimaced at the slight burn of the second needle. “I do not need to hear his sob story.”
Soft- smiled Abby (was she always so soft?) shrugged one shoulder. “No, but I think it’s clear you don’t trust cops. You have a reason, probably the same as he always did, but he has a good one for being one as well.”
Andrew refrained from scoffing by a thread. Knowing himself and Aaron, they wouldn’t be with the Wymack’s for more than a year, if that. He didn’t need to get attached and sympathetic just because some adult living a stable life survived the foster system.
Despite not asking, Andrew found himself listening to Wymack’s sob story after all. He was picking the lock to the back door of the house so that the front porch camera wouldn’t catch him, humid September air sticking to his neck and a breath away from getting it open, when he heard a snap of a branch behind him.
Andrew prided himself on having fast reactions and good instincts, so he was frustrated that he hadn’t heard footsteps behind him until he turned and pressed a knife to the man’s stomach in a range much closer than he would have preferred.
He glared daggers up at Wymack’s face. “Don’t you know better than to sneak up on a man with knives?”
“Don’t you know better than to break into your own house?”
Andrew scowled. “Do not be delusional. This is not my house.”
Wymack took a step back from the knife and dropped his cigarette to the ground. “Abby seems to think so. She wants to keep you here whether or not you do.” He kept going when Andrew didn’t answer right away. “I went to juvie for stealing a car when I was sixteen.”
Andrew raised an eyebrow. “Congratulations.”
Rolling his eyes, Wymack disregarded the door at Andrew’s back and led the way to the sliding door around the back deck. “That door’s broken. It wouldn’t open even if you managed to pick the lock.” He flipped the lock on the sliding door once inside, and sunk into a chair at the kitchen table. Andrew stood just inside the door, his skin cool where he leaned against the glass. “What can I do to make you feel comfortable here?”
Andrew looked away. He tried not to ball his fists where they were crossed across his chest, but it was a move as familiar to him as breathing was. He took a slow breath, deep and probably harder than it should have been due to all the cigarettes resting in his lungs and the constant fear clogging his throat.
“Pigs don’t have boundaries,” he finally said.
Wymack’s face stilled. “I will respect yours.” His lips dipped into a frown. “Andrew, if something happened to you in-”
“No.” Andrew raised his voice. He let his fingernails dig half moons into his biceps. He steeled Wymack with razor sharp eyes and an expression like stone. “I am not weak,” he said.
“I never thought you were,” Wymack said.
Andrew ground his teeth. “Good. Then you know that I do not need your help, much less your protection.”
“I’ll still give it.” Andrew opened his mouth to shoot back a witty reply, but Wymack stood and cut him off on his way to the fridge. “What were you doing sneaking back in at midnight?”
“One typically comes back in after going out.”
“Smartass.”
“Ask a better question.”
Wymack hummed. He gave Andrew a quick unmoving full body inspection and then said, “Why did you sneak out?”
Andrew shrugged and toyed at the cigarette box half out of his pocket. He wouldn’t tell Wymack that tonight he couldn’t close his eyes long enough not to check that his door was closed and locked, or that his heart rate kept jumping in bed because the overhead fan’s breeze kept brushing against his exposed skin the same way that sneaky fingers did. That he liked testing himself by sitting on the ledge outside his window, but that it wasn’t enough of an escape when nightmares tempted to sit neck and neck with his fear of heights.
The only thing that was slightly better was riding his bike around until it tired him out enough to be annoyed at his own choice of relief, and then sucking down two cigarettes on the side of the house where he knew the cameras didn’t catch.
Wymack zeroed in on his cigarettes and grunted. “Killing yourself a bit young, don’t ya think?”
“There are worse things.”
Andrew contemplated Wymack, leaning casually and vulnerable against the counter. His grip on his glass of water was loose and lazy, and when he finally glanced back up at his face Andrew found that he was looking to the side out into the backyard. “Abby built a porch swing out there. I sit in it when I can’t sleep. Which is often.” He shuffled his weight to his left side, straightening his right knee out before bending it slack again. “Result of a bullet.” He shrugged. “Got shot in the knee a few years back. Gets hard to sleep sometimes.”
Andrew knew all about not being able to sleep. He’d known ever since his concept of boundaries was shred to pieces. “Chronic insomnia,” Andrew said. He mocked Wymack’s words back to him. “Result of depression.”
The man didn’t show any reaction to the words the way that Aaron once had, insisting that Andrew couldn’t have depression when they were fourteen, that you’re no different than me, Andrew, it doesn’t make sense. He’d been stupid, then. Andrew had made sure to tell him as much.
Wymack didn’t do that. He didn’t do anything, actually, other than take a key off of his jumbled mess of a lanyard and toss it onto the kitchen table. “In case you lost yours already,” he said. “No more picking locks. Come and go through the front door like a normal person. I know you know the code to the alarm system.”
“Hard to forget,” Andrew retorted. It was stupidly simple for a cop to think it will protect strangers from guessing it.
“Andrew.” He turned his head. Met Wymack’s eyes. “I want you safe. I fucking hated cops, but I was emancipated at seventeen and couldn’t afford college. I realized joining up was probably the only shot I had at being able to help people the way I never got without needing a degree.” He set his glass in the sink. When he turned back, he somehow looked older. Andrew knew it was his brain playing tricks on him, that he was probably ( finally ) tired enough to force himself to go to sleep, but there was a tiredness in the creases of Wymack’s eyes that made itself more present than it had in the last four weeks. “I don’t care if you never trust me, or hate me until you die because I’m a cop, but I will keep you and your brother safe, and I will never overstep past where you are comfortable with.”
Andrew stood in silence. He had no more words for the man for the night, not only because of his impending exhaustion, but because his comfort was slowly slipping the more they talked. He didn’t owe him anything, Andrew told himself. He had no truths or trust that he was willing to let go of. No, Wymack would have to work harder for them than a late night chat about pigs and shitty childhoods.
He slid down the hall wordlessly and pulled himself up the stairs.