Chapter Text
Isaiah 9:2
The people who walked in darkness
have seen a great light;
those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness,
on them has light shone.
Dust and blood filled Pope’s nostrils as he fell to the ground of the barn’s makeshift fighting ring. Individual shoots of straw dug into the raw cuts marring his cheeks and, somehow, it was the most pain he’d been in that night, bruised and battered as he was.
For a split second, he wondered what would happen if he stayed like that instead of fighting to get up. If the world might discard him, maimed, and finally leave him be, to melt into the straw and become one with the grimy wooden flooring of the pen. Then, he could lay unbothered and still, for the first time and for the rest of time. Then, his body could join his soul, alone.
His body was abuzz with not the adrenaline of the crowd surrounding the ring- their rapturous screaming echoing off the rafters, the stomping from the hayloft- but with the familiar, singing hot aura of an incoming blow. Though he’d allowed his mind to drift- temporarily, blissfully- his instinct had not. Every molecule of Pope gathered to lift him from the floor with a speed that shocked the audience and sent new waves of whooping and cheering his way. In one second he’d angled his body as it flew upwards towards his opponent and simultaneously, brought his fist to the man’s face.
The blow was borderline deadly- even his own knuckles cracked in a way that, through all his years of fighting (and there had been many) he knew to be unnatural. The man fell to the floor with an undignified thud and scandalized shouts from those who had been stupid enough to bet against Pope.
With no desire to muster up fake interest for the condition of the man he’d beaten to a pulp, Pope ducked out of the ring. The scowl on his face kept any spectators from approaching him. At least they were wise enough to catch onto that. He didn’t bother to pull a shirt on (he despised washing blood out of anything he didn’t absolutely need to) as he stormed out of the barn.
Pope tried and failed to flex his hand. If he hadn’t gotten distracted; if he hadn’t dreamt. He would’ve landed a proper punch, not whatever bullshit left his hand feeling the way it was. Hadn’t that been why he came out here? To disappear without warning, finally get away from his family and prove to himself that he wasn’t a total fuck up? That he didn’t need them watching him like he was an at-risk teen, or a toddler? Now, three months in, he seemed to have truly, properly hurt himself, and thoughts of his mother sneering ‘I told you so’ rose from the depths of his mind to torture him.
Nebraska was hot. Whoever’d made him think otherwise ought to get socked in the jaw, because there was no reason on Earth for a random day in August to be hotter in Nebraska, than back home in California. It would be perfect surfing weather, were he not landlocked by cornfield after bullshit cornfield.
Cornfields like the one he trudged through now. His arms reached out before him to smack the stalks out of his way, sweating from the effort. After three minutes of this, Pope wasn’t even sure this was the direction the makeshift car-park had been. You wanted to keep your distance from the ring, he learned. They liked to get revenge out here, and especially liked to slash tires as part of this revenge. Pope didn’t like having to change tires, and he really didn’t like washing the blood off the tire jack after he dealt with the imbeciles who’d been so intent on revenge for a fair fight lost.
The corn began to give way to a clearing. From the clearing there was a hushed argument taking place and Pope, ears tuned to trouble, stopped dead in his tracks and crouched until he could spot most of the scene between the rows of crop.
“-illegal, not to mention-”
“Jesus, Dennis! What’re you gonna do, report us? You know how much money we’re making?”
“That’s- that’s worse, you shouldn’t- mom and dad are-” A hand came to slap against a chest, the immediate loss of air audible from the scrawny boy that came into view.
“Do you know how broke mom and dad are? You know how bad the farm’s doing?! They don’t need to know where the money’s coming from, and you sure as hell aren’t gonna tell them, or it’s your ass.”
Chills ran up Pope’s spine. Brothers. Go fucking figure.
A third voice piped up. “You wanna lose everything? Weren’t you the one crying back when grandpa and grandma sold the farmhouse?”
In the moonlight the wide, dark-circled eyes of the boy glittered like the stars above them. Several seconds went by with no response. The two brothers, both Pope recalled as being present in the barn all night, shared a heavy look with each other.
“How much does that oath you took mean to you?”
The boy scoffed. “Oath?”
“Hipaa oath, y’know, whatever!”
The oldest looking of the three, certainly the broadest, took a hit of neon-blue vape and grumbled out, “Hippocratic Oath, dipshit, even I know that.”
“I could lose my license over this. They’ve been doing fine-”
“Dennis, this guy, this new guy- first off, scary as hell.”
“Just a real fucking freak,” His brother attested.
“And, a hell of a fighter. We play our cards right, including you giving him a stitch or two on fight night? Den, it’s good money. Not hundreds of thousands or anythin’ like that, not like we’re drug dealers, but it’s the kind of money that would mean mom and dad don’t have to keep deciding which acres of the farm they’ll have to give up to keep going next year.”
Pope’s heart hammered relentlessly against his chest. No doubt they were speaking of him. And the idea of this kid, who they talked to as though he were some sort of doctor, tending to him? This kid, pale to the point of glowing in the hazy blue of the night sky above them, shrunk into his own shoulders like he was apologizing to his own body for existing within it, all for him?
His family liked to say he was obsessive. That something in him was just a bit ‘off’. Looking at the boy, that ‘something’, having been minimized and contained to the best of his ability since fleeing California, began to crack at the confines of the box it’d been stuffed into. Like ink in water, the swirl and spread of the ‘something’ was immediate.
It would be wise to continue watching from his distance. But Pope wasn’t wise. He despised formalities and expectations, and, adding insult to injury, he’d gotten thoroughly sliced by rogue corn husks while making his way to stumble upon this little scene. So Pope did what he was best at and left his hiding spot before he could think any better of it.
All three heads snapped up to watch as he emerged from the rows, glowering and cut up on every visible inch of skin. “You talkin’ bout me?” Pope grunted. Low. Dangerous.
The air was thick with tension. The older two shared another look. The youngest focused on the ground. Pope wanted to grab him by the chin and shove him into his brothers, to force him to take what was his. Force him to take up space.
A hand was outstretched to Pope. “Isaiah. Pope, right?”
He didn’t bother responding, nor did he entertain the handshake offered to him. Isaiah hesitated to drop his hand, but did so, giving one nod to his left. “This is Ben. We help organize some of the fights- that barn’s on our property-”
“Who’re you?” Pope cut him off. His gaze was fixed on runt who, upon noticing, could not seem to be unhappier with that fact. Under his watchful eye the boy squirmed, and something flared in Pope’s chest, dark and all-consuming.
“I’m- uh,” He stammered, straightening up. Remembering his manners. A good ol’ farmboy. “I’m Dennis. These’re my brothers.”
He smirked, his intrigue rapidly making way for obsession. “You playin’ doctor?” And none of them judging the silence that followed, had an answer to that. Pope’s smirk fell as he looked them over, receiving no response. “Well?” He snarled. If they were under the impression that he was in the business of waiting for answers, they were sorely mistaken.
Surprisingly, it was Dennis who took action. While his brothers shared another uneasy look- they’d held more eye contact with each other in the last five minutes than Pope had with all of his brothers combined over the course of his entire life- the mousy boy took a step towards him, staring with concern at his right hand.
“How’s that feel? Your hand,” Dennis kept his distance as though Pope were a wild animal. As if he wasn’t the one who’d just taken the bait. “Can you flex it?”
Though it was an incredibly foreign feeling, Pope fought the urge to insist he was fine, willed himself to stand there instead of run off, curl up, and lick his wounds all by himself. He lifted his arm at the elbow, hand barely twitching. Dennis took note of the most minute movements, from his trembling fingers, to the thread of his brow once he registered the pain.
Dennis drew back, turning to face his brothers.
“So?” Ben said, tentative. In the moments that followed, Dennis’ shoulders shrank again and he seemed to, by Pope’s judgement, give up his fight. Isaiah clapped his hands together, though the passion with which he’d been arguing his case earlier seemed to have lessened when faced with the gritty reality of the man he’d been campaigning for.
“Get him in the 4 by 4.” He said. With Ben, he led the way to the farm vehicle and they all packed inside.
The farm was, by some standards, beautiful. It wasn’t the beach, with shining, rippling waters from horizon to horizon. It was its own sort of pretty. Peaceful, with a symphony of chirping insects and gentle moos to ease the mind. It would be incredibly easy to feel small in a place as big as this, with nobody else in sight.
The house was huge, and the multiple barns still put it to shame. Gravel crunched beneath the tires as they pulled up to the three-storied farmhouse with porch lights aglow.
“Our parents live here, so does Dennis. They’re not here tonight. When they’re back, we’ll do this in the barn- you think, Den?”
“Won’t be a regular thing.” Pope cut in before Dennis had to respond. After all, he still had an image to maintain. Couldn’t have the boy thinking he was weak, constantly needing to be checked in on and sewn up like a kid.
Pope trailed behind the three brothers until the screen door thwacked shut behind him. A series of lights illuminated the house in a yellow glow, like something from an old-timey Christmas card. The foyer was decorated in photos that revealed a fourth brother- the genes ran strong in this family, and he wondered if he had any such similarities with his half siblings- and an array of babies. Unable to drop the need his criminal work had given him in regards to casing an environment, he noticed the two women that made special appearances in the most recent of the pictures, figuring them to be in laws.
From the kitchen, someone cleared their throat. Pope turned- not in a rush, never in a rush- and sauntered over to a large dining table, seating himself next to Dennis as the boy rummaged through bags and kits.
“This,” He began speaking to Pope with clear frustration, though he met his brother’s eyes with more than just a splash of fear, “Is not proper wound care. And you should go-”
Pope’s lip curled. “No hospitals.” He boomed, clear enough for everyone to get that point. The last thing he needed was for his mother to pay the right person and have his blood sample show up with him being in Broken Bow, Nebraska. He’d bleed out ‘til he was dead before that happened.
The way Dennis flinched at his voice had Pope’s innards twisting; a wonderful, pinpoint nausea in his abdomen. He trembled as he pulled on black gloves- the type for handling raw meat, not an injured human being. It felt right enough. He felt more like the former than the latter, in any case.
“Can you flex your hand again?” God, Pope could eat his meekness for lunch. What he still could not do, upon lifting his arm for all to see, was flex his hand. It probably wasn't a great sign that Dennis cringed at the sight of it, but, hell, it was cute.
Cute. Pope shook that word from his mind. For his part, Dennis looked him over with a critical eye and a bright red blush, as though he’d never seen a bloody dude without a shirt before.
“I’m not gonna be able to do anything until he washes himself off.” He told his brothers, standing from the chair and gesturing for Pope to follow suit. For all of his timidity, there was an absolute authoritativeness in his tone; now that medicine was involved, this was his domain.
Unsure if there was any point in arguing, and eager just to get himself cleaned up anyhow, Pope stood with a hardly-suppressed grunt. When he turned to survey their reactions, Isaiah and Ben were angled away, mumbling to each other like this was the final straw- like, for the first time, they had been given reason to be unsure of their course of action tonight.
Dennis apparently followed his train of thought. “You guys got us into this.” He said. His words were rife with annoyance, and, Pope realized, the pure stubbornness only youngest-children were capable of: the brats of the family. “Only way out is through, right?”
This had a bite to it, one that caused Ben and Isaiah to react instantly. While Dennis tossed the unused gloves into the trash, he stared at his brothers, daring them to stop looking at the hardwood floors beneath their socked feet and up at him. Neither one took him up on the silent challenge. Something personal- something ancient, a secret amongst brothers- kept them from it.
“Why don’t you guys just go home? Don’t you have kids?”
Ben stiffened at the implication of ignoring his children. Though there was clear anger, he still sounded uneasy as he stepped towards the youngest. “Hey, Dennis-”
“What?!” Silence followed. From where he stood stock-still beside the dining table, staring at the trio, Pope wondered if they couldn’t have waited until he was in the shower to do all this.
A look Pope’s way revealed the obvious hangup. He knew the look in their eyes, Ben and Isaiah’s. It was the look of someone who’d interacted with Pope and invited him into their life in any small way, and was now realizing they were playing with fire.
There’d been a time where he had wondered if (and, maybe, stupidly, even convinced himself that) the Cody name had been why people looked at him that way. That he wasn’t crazy, that he could stop scaring people, stop falling into the role he’d learned to assume after a lifetime of walking into a room and knowing everyone inside of it was terrified of him. The wretched, psycho, evil Pope Cody. Didn’t deserve a chance; didn’t even deserve his own name.
Looking between the three men and their argument as it was held in total silence, Pope was wrong, again. How stupid he had been to think otherwise. Even these strangers saw him for what he was outside of the boxing ring; saw him as everything he’d ever been told he was. Maybe he hadn’t become those things after all. They had, to his dismay, always been there, and that meant he could never be rid of them. He’d always been this way and he could not change.
Pope opened his mouth to speak, to snarl that he’d fuck off and they wouldn’t have to argue about his sorry ass (that they’d invited in) any more, that he would never ruin their home or hurt them without reason. But he couldn’t do any of that, because Dennis chose a split second before him to lay into his brothers instead.
“If you thought he was dangerous, why’d you invite him in?!”
“Dennis, shut-” Ben and Isaiah began to yell over each other. It went on for twenty odd seconds before Dennis delivered a mysteriously venomous blow.
“What, r’you scared he’s gonna kill me?!”
If somebody dropped a clothespin a mile away, Pope would’ve sworn he could hear it in that moment’s quiet. Not even the cows dared to moo, not the crickets, chirp. The only person who did anything at all was Dennis, marching towards the front door and kicking it open.
No words were exchanged between any combination of the brothers as they shuffled out. Letting the door shut itself behind them, he spun on his heel and gestured upstairs.
“End of the hall,” He choked out. For all his analyzation skills, Pope was far from a master of emotions. Even so, he knew the red splotches blossoming on the boy’s face were the result of more than just petty anger, and recognized the glaze of his eye’s waterline. It was Dennis that now trailed Pope, up the stairs and past several propped-open doors, giving him no option but to proceed onwards. When he reached the bathroom’s open door he stilled at where hardwood met tile, turning from his spot under the doorframe to face Dennis.
From this angle, three things became noticeable. Number one; he’d been right to think of Dennis as a runt. Short and scrawny compared to his brothers and most grown men, just like he’d initially read even without the added benefit of towering over him. Number two; there was no point pretending the tears in his eyes were anything but. Number three; when he looked down like this, it made it real fucking apparently that something was wrong with his neck.
“You know,” Pope, a man of few words (if any at all), began. “I ain’t gonna do anything, ‘m not like that. Know it looks like it,” He gestured with his less-messed-up arm to his torso in an up-down sweeping motion, like Dennis hadn’t taken notice of the marred, broad torso he was nearly eye level with. “But I don’t like hurtin’ people. Would… would appreciate a shower, though.”
The tension in Dennis’ shoulders was noticeably eased, an effect Pope wasn’t used to having on people. He watched as Dennis debated with himself, eyes flickering between each of Pope’s wounds, the bathroom behind him, the floor, and, finally, Pope.
“‘Scuse me.” Dennis muttered. He stepped past, shoulder brushing Pope’s aching bicep. “Toss your clothes in that hamper. I’ll set some new ones outside the door- they might be my brother’s from, like, ten years ago, but they should fit you.” A shower curtain with a school of fish stitched onto the bottom was thrown open, and the sound of rushing water against the tub filled the room.
“These towels should be fresh. And, hey, no body wash. If you wash your hair, make it quick. I just want the blood off you so I know what I’m working with- figure you’d prefer it to me sponging you down.” Dennis was back at the bathroom’s entrance as he said this jokingly, awkwardly, seeming to register immediately that maybe he should have just kept his mouth shut. When Pope said nothing, he gave a tight, thin-lipped smile and closed the door.
It was not an image Pope needed in his head. But, he decided, dumping his clothes into the hamper and stepping into the shower: if there was any time tonight that Dennis was going to give him a hard on? This was probably the best case scenario.
The water running off of him turned pink with blood, swirling to become one on the tub flooring. While he waited for the water to run clear he took his dick in hand, imagined himself licking salty tears off of Dennis’ rosy cheeks, and began to pump.