Chapter Text
Pope
His mother was dead.
His brother was dead, too. But he died quietly, folded in himself like a rag doll, laid down covered in blood in the middle of the sidewalk. He passed away alone, abandoned by the woman he had thought he loved, and his only witnesses were sterilized hands, prodding at him through cold gloves, leaving him bare and alone on a hard, cool surface. His mother, however, went out with a bang. Smurf wouldn’t have done it in any other way. She died as she lived: loudly, unapologetically, and a prisoner to her need to control everything around her, even the moment of her death itself.
Andrew kept living as he wished he would die soon: quietly, with anger clawing at his chest like a wolf ripping its cage open, with his teeth bared but dull. He had no wish to keep biting. After all, there was no master’s finger to point him toward his next prey. There was no leash around his neck. There was no stick to blow his back black and blue, or gentle hands to calm him down.
But his neck felt too bare. Too empty. Too light.
His chest felt too bare. Too empty. Too light.
And not even the children he had helped raise –no longer three, but two now– could fill that void. He could still see Smurf in them, like a shadow that would never go away, no matter how hard he tried. He could see her golden hair on Deran’s head, lighter when the rays of the sun brushed him. He could see her clear eyes on Craig’s face, watching him from the corner of his eye, careful of his explosive moods. He could see the fierce way she loved in Deran when his hand slipped into Adrian’s, even if it lacked her obsession. He could see the carefree freedom she lived in Craig, enjoying life as if everyday would be his last. He could even see her in J, in his calculating gaze, in his quick mind.
He had witnessed Smurf dying. He had heard the gunshot and her brain exploding out of her head. He had heard the thud of her body against the ground and had seen how still, pale and cold she had gotten, even in his arms as he picked her up.
But she was still alive. In her children. In her house. In his mind.
So, he took off. He went back to being a little, cowardly boy who couldn’t stop his mother’s hands from reaching and touching him and ran away. He left the boys he had helped deliver and raise, and didn’t look back. He left his home, his belongings and his spot in the family and just… drove. Drove, drove, and drove, traversing familiar routes, traversing unknown routes, until the ocean was left behind, along with its salty scent, and was replaced by trees, so many that the sun could easily hide behind.
His thoughts, just like the feelings he had been burying inside deep into his heart from the moment he could speak –after he was a baby no more, after he understood that no matter how much he cried, his mother wouldn’t indulge him, not until he was proven useful to her–, were a mess. His mind hadn’t been functioning as normal for a long time. Forgetting what he was doing, standing in the kitchen and not knowing why he had come out from his room to stare at the stove. Forgetting where he was going, wandering the streets and knocking on random doors like a maniac. Even forgetting what reality was actually like, and what past he had left behind. In both, Smurf was there to torment him.
He wasn’t sure there was a place on Earth where she couldn’t.
The place had arrived to offered him a possibility. It wasn’t like anywhere he had ever visited. He was born in a farm, in the middle of nowhere under the watchful eyes of a violent man and a scared wife and grew up in many others. Random hotel rooms. The small interior of Smurf’s car. A trailer in a sleepy town whose peace was interrupted by his mother’s insatiable greed. But none of them smelled of wilderness or embraced such deep silence as that one.
A perfect place to put an end to something that shouldn’t have ever started.
The engine died as he twisted the key around. It rumbled for a moment longer, while his eyes lost themselves in nothing, trailing to the river that curled around the road. It was nothing like the ocean that swayed him and his brothers’ tables whenever they spent time together, decompressing from their mother’s presence. It was small, its water murky and filled with leaves and grass, but deep enough. Rocks piled along its edge, thick layers of moss covering their rugged tips. His gaze dropped on them, his hands clenching and unclenching over his knees, and when the engine finally quieted, he stayed in his seat. He didn’t move for a long time.
It wasn’t until the sun finally dipped below the horizon that his body twitched. His skin, covered by a thin layer of sweat and warmth, glistened under the dawn’s rays. His clothes tightened over his limbs like a straitjacket, as if trying to make him stay. But his mind was set. He had lived surrounded by ghosts for the last few years, and he didn’t need more clawing at his back, darkening his nightmares and filling his ears with whispers.
He just hoped Julia’s stayed with him in his last moments. They were born together. They wouldn’t die together. He would still think of her to make up for it.
His feet dragged and the dust rose in the air, covering his steps as he approached the river. The cold was already seeping into his bones, biting at his toes and fingers, clamping down on his shoulders, but he could barely feel it. He hadn’t even noticed his breath had gone ragged, his chest rising and falling. His body never listened when his mind became obsessed with something. It did as it was told, snatching stones on his way, stuffing them deep inside his pockets, slipping inside his jeans. His legs became heavier. His hands grew dirty.
He stepped on the edge of the river. He peered down, staring at his own reflection. If he stared long enough, ignoring the night air brushing the tips of his ears and the songs of the crickets, he would be able to catch a glimpse of his family. Of Smurf’s obsession. Of Baz’s coldness. Of Craig’s adrenaline. Of Deran’s wariness. Of Julia’s sensitivity. Even J’s ambition, in a way –he reminded him so much of his mother that it scared him, reminding him of what he hadn’t done and of what he regretted–.
Memories flashed through his mind as his pockets weighed, his hands itching and closing over his thighs. Him and Julia sharing a lollipop while they waited for Smurf to finish a job. Jake ruffling his hair as he walked by. Billy locking him inside a closet. Smurf shooting Max in the trailer. Craig fighting him for the TV remote. Deran being born inside a gas station’s bathroom. Him, Julia and Baz stealing computers at high school. Catherine smiling at him. Lena giggling. Toddler J. Smurf dying.
In his forties, he didn’t live much. Only worked, and worked, and worked, until his body didn’t know what else to do. He had robbed people. He had killed people, even loved ones.
It should be easy to do the same to himself.
His feet lifted. His body leaned forward. The air stilled as he let himself fall. The water splashed around his ears, pulling him deeper into its depth. His body thrashed at first, struggling to stay under, fighting for air, but the stones pulled him down.
Down, down, down. Until his lungs filled with water. Until his eyes burned. Until his thought vanished, and he was no more.
And he was brought up as fast by thin, calloused hands.
His body was limp as he was dragged back to the surface, dropped on the edge of the river. He didn’t react when those same hands patted his cheeks, trying to rouse him. Knuckles pushed down in the middle of his chest and kept going until the water crawled up back through his throat. Coughs rattled through his chest while those hands pushed him to the side, and water, vomit and who-knows-what-else spilled out from his lips, moistening the soil.
He was barely conscious, but his ears caught muttering over his head.
“Oh my God. Oh my God, sir, are you okay?” A soft, shaky voice said, their hands cold against his wet shirt. “Shit. You were under for too long. Your lungs– an infection–”
Andrew slowly blinked. His eyelids grew heavy, and his lungs burned with relief at inhaling air instead of water.
The last thing he heard was a panicked breath.
Those hands never left him.