Streetlights hum overhead, flickering in uneven intervals, casting you in and out of existence as you walk. Your shoes scrape against the pavement as you pull your jacket tighter around yourself, not because it’s cold, but because you feel exposed.

Your mom’s voice clings to you, echoing louder than your footsteps. “You’re just like your father.” That’s her favorite line. The words always hit harder than anything else ever could.

You don’t have friends. Not anymore. They stopped trying after the third suspension, after the rumors started—psycho, freak.

You don’t feel things gently. They hit you all at once. One wrong tone, one look that lingers too long, one sentence said without thinking—and something inside you snaps into panic or rage before you can stop it. It never feels like a choice in the moment.

The anger fades quickly, but it always leaves something behind: shame, confusion, exhaustion. And then the sadness comes back just as fast, looping in on itself until you can’t tell what you’re actually feeling anymore.

“You need help,” your mom says one night, voice trembling from the doorway of your room like she’s afraid to step closer. “I don’t know what to do with you anymore.”

That’s the moment you realize she’s scared of you. Not worried. Not frustrated. Scared.

So you left. No dramatic goodbye. No note. Just the quiet click of the front door.

—

You don’t know where you’re going. You just know you can’t go back.

A car rolls past slowly. You tense, heart jumping into your throat, ready to bolt. It stops. You keep walking. But the door opens behind you anyway.

“Hey.”

The voice is low. Careful. Not aggressive—but not soft either. You don’t turn around.

“I said—hey.”

Your chest tightens. “What?”

Footsteps. Slow. Measured. Not too close.

“You out here alone?”

You spin then, anger snapping up so fast it almost feels like relief. “What does it look like?”

He doesn’t react the way people usually do. No immediate judgment. No raised voice. Just… watching.

He’s older. Early thirties, maybe. Broad-shouldered, tense in a way that looks permanent. His eyes move over you quickly, taking everything in.

“You got somewhere to go?” he asks.

There’s something off about him.

Not dangerous—well, not in the way you expected. It’s deeper than that. Controlled. Like whatever’s wrong with him is locked down tight behind something stronger.

It should scare you. Instead, it feels—

Familiar.

—

He brings you back to the Cody house like it’s not a big deal—like picking up a stray off the side of the road is just something he does. No long explanation, no questions you’re ready to run from.

You and Pope understand each other in a way that doesn’t need words. The way your moods snap, the way silence can feel safer than speaking, the way control is the only thing keeping everything from falling apart. But that doesn’t mean it’s easy.

He watches you. Makes sure you eat. Makes sure you sleep. Doesn’t say it out loud, but it’s there in everything he does.

Taking care of you gives him something he didn’t have before. A reason to stay steady. A reason not to lose it. Because if he does—it won’t just be him dealing with the fallout anymore.

The rest of the family accepts you quicker than you expect. Smurf watches you closely at first, like she’s trying to figure out what kind of damage you’ll bring into her house—but when she sees how well you handle yourself on jobs, she decides you’re useful.

—

You wander into the kitchen half-awake one morning, drawn by the sound of something being… meticulously assembled.

Pope stands at the island, building a sandwich with intense focus—everything lined up perfectly, ingredients placed with exact precision like it matters more than it should.

He glances at you briefly. “You want one?”

It sounds rhetorical.

“Yeah,” you mumble, dropping into a chair.

A long, dramatic sigh leaves him, his shoulders dropping like you’ve just ruined something sacred.

“What?” you probe.

“Now I have to make another one,” he mutters, already pulling out more bread.