You learn the house before it ever learns you.

The floors creak in predictable places, the screen door sticks if it isn’t lifted just slightly, and the kitchen—always the kitchen—must be left cleaner than you found it. You figure that out quickly. Not because anyone tells you, but because of him.

Pope.

He doesn’t say much when you first arrive, trailing behind J like something soft and bright that doesn’t quite belong in a place like this. He watches instead. Always watches. From the hallway, from the back porch, from the quiet spaces people forget exist.

You notice the way his jaw tightens the first time you leave a glass in the sink.

So you don’t do it again.

By the second week, you’re rinsing dishes before you even finish eating. By the third, you’re wiping down counters that weren’t dirty to begin with. It isn’t fear that drives you—it’s consideration. Something gentler. Something that feels… right.

“You don’t have to do that,” J tells you once, leaning against the counter, arms crossed.

You shrug, offering a small smile. “I don’t mind.”

But Pope is there, just out of sight, and you feel his attention like a weight settling into your spine.

He notices everything.

The way you fold the dish towel exactly in thirds. The way you align the silverware without thinking. The way you move through the house like you’re trying to leave no trace behind. You don’t tease him. Don’t roll your eyes. Don’t make him feel like he’s too much.

One day you’re sitting at the dining table with Smurf, papers spread out in neat, deliberate rows. Numbers, accounts, names that don’t belong to anyone real. You don’t ask questions—you never do. You just fix what needs fixing.

“This doesn’t track,” you murmur, tapping a column with your pen. “If they audit this, they’ll flag it immediately.”

Smurf watches you with interest, something sharp behind her smile. “And what would you do?”

You don’t hesitate. “Shift the liability here, create a buffer account, and make it look like a clerical error. People trust mistakes more than perfection.”

There’s a pause. Then a low chuckle.

“Well, aren’t you useful.”

And that’s how you earn your keep.

You’re laughing with J later, sprawled across the couch, your legs tangled with his. It’s easy with him. Light. The kind of love that doesn’t ask for anything complicated.

“You’re staying tonight, right?” he asks, brushing his thumb over your wrist.

“Yeah,” you say softly.

Pope shouldn’t be watching.

He knows that.

Knows it the way he knows the exact time the sun hits the kitchen window, the way he knows how many steps it takes to cross the house in the dark, the way he knows right from wrong even when the line blurs.

But he watches anyway.

The way you tilt your head when you listen. The way you smile like you mean it. The way you exist in this space without breaking it.

It’s wrong. You’re J’s. That should be enough to kill whatever this is before it starts. It isn’t.

He tries not to look at you.

Tries not to notice the way your shirt rides up when you reach for something, the way your voice softens when you talk, the way you exist so easily in a life that’s always been sharp edges and survival.

He tries.

But you’re there. In the kitchen. In the living room. In every quiet corner he retreats to when the noise gets too loud.

His guilty pleasure.

He never says it out loud—of course—but it shows in the small, controlled ways he moves around you. The things you reach for are already there before you ask, fixed before you notice they were broken. He lingers in doorways a second longer when you’re in the room, always watching, always making sure nothing touches you that shouldn’t.

And the worst part? You trust him.

“Pope?” you call softly one night, finding him on the back porch. “Whatcha doin?”

He looks up at you as if you’ve just invaded his planet, but after a short few seconds of contemplation, he replies.

“…Do you…know how to work the coffee machine?”