Chapter Text
Swinging open the mahogany oak door, Bobby Heyward stepped heavily inside his house in the late afternoon and peeled away his sweaty apron. Promoting his seafood market was an exhausting task, but he loved the business it brought. Still, there was nothing better than being home after a long day of hard work.
Heyward’s wife, Gloria, wasn’t home yet. She was committed to working several late-shifts as a nurse’s aide, which unfortunately ran opposite of Heyward’s early schedule. In fact, their schedules were so different it was a miracle the two of them had any time together at all. Heyward always joked with his best bud Donny that work was the reason Pope was an only child. Too busy to get busy.
Heyward’s t-shirt smelled of oysters, shrimp and crabs, and he knew he would need to toss it (like so many others) because no matter how many times he washed it in the broken-down washing machine, the smell of seafood would linger like smoke after a fire.
He shuffled in his house, past his favorite leather brown one-seated sofa, and into the laundry room. A bunch of dirty socks and jeans with holes in them were disheveled in a basket next to the dryer. Heyward sighed inwardly. He would need to buy new jeans for his son, Pope, soon. The boy was growing like a weed, outgrowing every set of clothes he owned.
Money was tight, especially for the folks who lived on the cut, but Heyward was a firm believer that hard work and dedication could get a man out of any bind. He was the prime example of that. He spent years and years breaking his back in his business, but it paid off in the form of being able to give his boy a warm childhood full of toys, food, and comfort. By no means was his son wearing the latest fashion trends, nor was his stuff considered new and cool like the rich kids over on figure eight. But the items Heyward was able to afford for his son were always fun. And most importantly Pope had a heap of food to eat on his plate every night.
Call him old school, but Heyward believed it was a parent’s responsibility to make sure their child was fed, and he’d take it as a personal failure if his kid was ever hungry.
Heyward checked the clock, and then heard what sounded like a cabinet door slam from the kitchen followed by Pope’s rambling. What he was saying was a little too muffled for Heyward to fully understand, but he was certain Pope was talking to someone else - most likely one of his three friends who were always hanging around. The three little urchins.
As thrilled as Heyward was for his son to have friends, he couldn't help but feel like Pope slacked off on his chores the more he hung out with them. Not to mention, those little urchins destroy everything they touch!
John B, this sun-kissed little kid with curly brown hair, and hazel eyes, and a smile the size of a yacht would visit Heyward’s house and trash the place. He didn’t mean to do it on purpose, after all, he was a good boy. He was the son of Big John Routledge - a well respected town local who had a little too much imagination for Heyward’s liking, but he treated his boy like the sun revolved around him and that was an admirable quality. John B was a well mannered little boy.
So when John B made a mess of his house, Heyward knew it was only because the boy was young and didn’t know any better. But it was a pain in the ass cleaning up after him. Heyward spent his evenings scrubbing syrup off the wooden floors, and vacuuming chips off the rug.
But worse than John B was Pope’s other friend, JJ Maybank. At first Heyward thought Pope was only hanging around this kid because John B was, and while that might have been true at first, it certainly changed quickly. Pope starting inviting JJ over alone, and Heyward would be lying if he said it didn’t make him a tad bit uncomfortable.
It wasn’t like Heyward had anything against JJ, after all he was just a kid, albeit an energetic, reckless, spawn of the devil type kid, he was still - at the end of the day - a kid.
It was JJ’s father that Heyward couldn’t stand. The man was a drug smuggler, alcoholic, low-life who got what he wanted by scaring the shit out of people and using force. He was like that when he was in high school, and he’s been like that ever since.
But JJ was not his father, and it wasn’t his fault he had to live with the man. Heyward knew this and he tried so hard not to recoil every time he saw JJ in his house. But it was hard sometimes, especially when JJ displayed certain qualities of his father such as his hot-temper followed by his fluent cursing and his all around recklessness that nearly got him killed once. Not to mention his recklessness around Pope!
But he also was one of the most thoughtful kids on planet earth. Honestly, Bobby had no idea how such a considerate kid could come from the Maybank clan. But there was a day when Heyward came home from an terrible day of work craving a quiet moment at the kitchen all to himself. All he wanted was to do was think and catch his breath over a nice cup of coffee. He’d be so lost in his own thoughts of bills and debt and mean customers from figure eight that he wouldn’t even notice that somehow JJ was just there, in his home hanging out. And he would reach out tentatively, put his hand on Heyward’s shoulder and looked him right in the eye. “It’ll be okay, sir.” He looked looked like the world’s tiniest funeral director as he said it, but the sincerity was there.
It was like he knew what a shitty day Heyward was having just by the look on his face.
But as much a Heyward was impressed, he still didn’t want the kid in his house because every time JJ was at his house, something was getting destroyed. His TV: shattered with a baseball. His IRS papers: burned with matches. His favorite Christmas ornament: shredded by the ceiling fan. Heyward could go on for months. Broken lamps, windows, drawers. Things he really couldn’t afford were destroyed and so Heyward made it a rule that Pope was to stop inviting his friends over and start going over to their houses more.
He found it completely reasonable, but Pope had a small problem with that rule.
“JJ’s house is… disgusting. I mean there’s mold growing out of the bathroom sink. And when I tried to tell JJ about it he got mad.”
“Wait. Did you say his Dad got mad at you?” Heyward’s blood went cold. If some other mother fucker yelled at his boy -
“No, JJ did. He doesn’t understand why I think it’s gross. I tried telling him to maybe clean up around the place. You know, like do some chores, and he pushed me across the bed and told me to get out!”
Heyward secretly liked it better knowing that Pope wouldn’t be going back to that place. He didn’t need his boy around Luke Maybank. He was a dangerous son of a gun.
“Then you and JJ can hang out after school and on the docks. I’ll even let you take my boat for a spin.”
Unable to understand why Heyward wouldn’t just let JJ come over, Pope grumbled and resisted until finally he reluctantly agreed to those terms.
But Heyward knew the second he walked into his bathroom that Pope was rambling to JJ. He knew because A. Pope liked to break this rule often and B. the bathroom looked like a frickin’ murder scene.
Heyward winced as he turned on the bathroom light and saw the disaster area up close.
“Son of a bitch.”
Gauze was on the countertop, band-aids scattered haphazardly. For some reason there was a bloody towel dipping out of the bathtub and onto the floor where more blood was smeared in a small puddle. There was a thermometer pulled out of one of the opened drawers and some torn and bloody clothes were hanging from the railing. Christ Almighty.
Heyward’s heart was in his throat.
“Pope!” It tore out of his lungs unexpectedly, and he tried not to panic as he barreled up the hall towards his son’s bedroom. “POPE!”
He lunged into his room, past the barricade of books Pope had stacked in front of his door and tried not to panic, but it was hard when he knew there was a 50/50 percent chance his kid was bleeding puddles.
As soon as the door swung open with a bang, Heyward caught sight of both JJ and Pope jumping three feet in the air.
“Dad!”
Heyward realized after a beat that the barricade of books were meant to keep him out. Heyward was going to kill them.
But first, he ran to Pope, crouched down on the floor and cupped his face in both hands and skimmed his shoulders for injuries. The red on his face was blood, but it wasn’t Pope’s blood. He had no injuries. No cuts. No chemical burns. Heyward deflated with a heavy sigh of relief. Thank God he wasn’t hurt.
Once he was sure Pope was okay, he turned his eyes on JJ who quickly scooted away upon the heavy gaze. The boy squeaked when Heyward grabbed his arm, and he flinched violently, kicking as Heyward checked him for injuries as well.
“Would you settle down.” It was like trying to wrestle a lion’s cub. “I’m just looking.” Heyward grimaced as a heavy Timberland boot nearly kicked him in the face.
The blood was indeed coming from JJ, but the kid wouldn’t hold still long enough for Heyward to get a good look. From what he could tell, the boy’s upper arm had some type of a gash where he was leaking.
“Ow, Ow, Ow!” JJ squealed as Heyward brushed aside the collar of his shirt to expose the skin of his right shoulder.
“If you’d hold still and tell me where it hurts then this wouldn’t be so bad now, would it?”
“His shoulder,” Pope interjected, and JJ shot him a look of betrayal.
Heyward checked his left shoulder, and sure enough he found where half the bandaids and gauze went. They were taped with duck tape to the back of JJ’s shoulder blade, vainly trying to stem the blood flow.
Heyward gaped at the wound, jaw working up and down like he wanted to ask a million questions at once.
Though it was twitchy and weak, JJ raised an eyebrow, lips twisting up into something half pained and half amused grin.
“Having trouble there, Heyward?”
Heyward’s mind finally settled on something to say. “What in the bloody hell happened to you?”
“Stuff.” JJ hissed.
“Hell Nah. That is not an answer. Not when your bleeding all over my damn house.” He turned toward Pope and gestured at the door. “Get me the first aid kit.”
“I already used the first aid kit on him.”
Heyward fixed Pope with a glare, like ‘boy, don’t you give me no lip.’ And Pope was quick to change his mind.
“I’ll get it.” He spluttered, rushing out of the room.
A long, heavy sigh drifted past Heyward’s lips as he kissed his relaxing evening goodbye and took another look at the messy carpet before eyeing the urchin that once again destroying his house.
“Do you know how bad blood stains?”
JJ gave him a flat look, face half-hidden behind his shirt. Heyward thought maybe he was trying to take it off. Taking off the shirt wasn’t such a bad idea. He was going to need to get a better look anyway.
“You know. I still didn’t get an answer from you.” Heyward muttered as he grabbed JJ’s shirt collar and carefully began to ease it over the blond’s head much to JJ protests of ‘I can do it myself.’
“What happened?” He rolled the shirt into a ball and pressed it against the wound in an attempt to slow the bleeding and get some of the smeared blood away so he could see the damage. Damn, the cut was deep. The kid was going to need stitches. Maybe a hospital. But Luke Maybank wasn’t going to be able to afford no hospital bill so Heyward would need to get creative.
JJ didn’t get the chance to answer. His breath hitched when the t-shirt was pressed against his wound, and he inhaled sharply, face tightening with obvious agony. Heyward winced in sympathy. “Sorry kid.”
JJ grunted something in acknowledgment but kept his eyes squeezed shut.
A moment later, Pope returned with the first aid kit in hand. Confidently, he placed it on his father’s lap and then sat back down on the floor.
“Thank you,” He said, keeping his concentrated gaze on JJ’s wound. “He’s gonna need stitches.”
Pope’s pupils were blown wide open as they locked on his Dad’s. “Seriously?”
“No!” JJ pushed away from him, trying to stand, but finding it difficult to gather the strength to get up off the floor. “It’s not as bad as it looks.”
“JJ. Sit still.” Heyward said, voice surprisingly steady. JJ froze, but Heyward wasn’t sure if it was from the command or from the pain. He pressed him back onto the ground. “You’ll be fine.”
“You’re gonna butcher me.” The kid was getting worked up, voice on the edge of tears.
“I’m not going to butcher you, calm down.” Heyward shook his head at JJ’s dramatic choice of words.
“Yes you are! You are!”
“Shh,” Heyward’s hand carded through the boy’s hair. He pulled out a flask from his shirt pocket and handed it to JJ.
“Here. Drink,” he commanded. JJ’s hands clenched around the flask and without much hesitation he gulped it down. Heyward could see by his reaction that he’d tried whiskey before because he wasn’t coughing or spluttering. After the kid inhaled about a quarter of the bottle Heyward pulled it away.
“It’s to take the edge off. Not to get drunk.” He muttered, wagging a finger in JJ’s face before placing the flask back in his pocket.
“Are you going to use thread to sew his skin together?” Pope asked, a little too excited about this.
“Why don’t you wait in the hall.” Heyward suggested.
“No Dad, please. I want to watch. If I’m going to be a doctor someday, I need to see how this works.”
Heyward grabbed the needle and thread into his hand and then licked his lips in concentration as he sterilized the needle.
“Alright.” He sighed. Even if Pope never became a doctor, it would be a handy skill for him to learn. “Watch carefully and be quiet.”
JJ watched with growing trepidation as the needle was threaded. Pope was staring in fascination.
“Is this what doctors do?”
“Sometimes,” Heyward nodded.
“Cool.”
“Not cool.” JJ cried, kicking at Pope’s hand with his boot. “What’s wrong with you?”
Pope ignored JJ, batting away his leg as if he were shooing a pesky misquote. “Are you putting rubbing alcohol on the needle cause of germs.”
Heyward nodded. Once the needle was threaded and sterile, Heyward was ready to start stitching.
“Alright kid. This is going to hurt. No sugar coating it. But I’m going to be real gentle. I want you to bite down on this.”
JJ looked at the folded t-shirt and then Heyward and shook his head. “I don’t need stitches, Mr. Heyward.”
“It’s a deep wound. What’d you do? Get bit by a shark?”
“No.” JJ pushed away the t-shirt. “I fell and I don’t need stitches.”
Heyward raised an unamused eyebrow. “Fell on what? A knife?”
JJ scowled. He was shaking. Too much adrenaline coursing though his veins. That or he lost too much blood.
“I don’t need stitches.” He repeated, voice quivering.
“I think you’re getting the words need and want confused, kid. You don’t want stitches. But you need ‘em. Or else you’re gonna lose too much blood and this baby is gonna get badly infected. Is that what the thermometer in the bathroom was for? Are you already feeling feverish?”
JJ met Heyward’s eyes again and there was some type of unexplained trust sparked between them. “Yes sir.”
Pope rubbed JJ’s back encouragingly.
“How long have you had this wound?”
“Since this morning.”
“Dammit, JJ.” Bobby scolded.
“Is that bad” Pope asked, but Heyward ignored him in lieu of grabbing the t-shirt.
“Open your mouth right now.”
JJ opened his mouth and Heyward slipped in the t-shirt.
“Atta boy,” he praised softly. “Bite down.”
JJ did, and Heyward let go of the shirt. He turned his attention back to the shoulder blade. “Ready?”
JJ nodded hesitantly. His breath hitched as Heyward positioned the needle. He trusted him to be careful here. Heyward’s heart swelled at the kid’s blind faith in him. If only he knew Heyward was just as terrified. He had stitched Pope before when the boy busted his knee on the sidewalk so he knew he could do it. But there was something more nerve-wracking about stitching someone else’s kid.
Instead of prolonging this, Heyward silently slid the needle into JJ’s skin. JJ jerked from the initial entry point his entire body going ridged beneath Heyward’s steady hands, and then, he was whimpering around the washcloth.
“Ew gross,” Pope said, never tearing his eyes away from the needle as it re-entered the atmosphere before dipping back into JJ’s shoulder. “That’s disturbing.”
The strangled little noises coming from JJ’s throat were stifled into the t-shirt. But the low hum of pain still got through to Heyward’s ears. He didn’t wait for JJ to get used to the feeling. He knew from experience that slow stitches only prolonged the pain. So he slipped the needle through the other side and pulled the skin tightly together. He tried to focus on the task at hand and not the way JJ’s lower lip was wobbling.
“Shh, I know. I know. Just hold on.”
JJ moaned around the t-shirt as Heyward stuck him again.
“You’re doing great, kid. Almost done.”
Heyward stopped looking at the kid’s face because it was hurting him. He pulled another stitch through and then another.
JJ cried out around the t-shirt. His hand grabbed Heyward’s shoulder, squeezing it tightly.
“So close to being done. Hang on, kid.”
After the fourth, he finished, snipped the thread and tied it closed.
“There. All done.” Heyward took the t-shirt out of JJ’s mouth and pet the boy’s hair back. “You did good.” JJ leaned into the touch, sniffling.
“You’re going to have one hell of a scar there, kid.”
JJ twisted his head, tried to look at the wound that was now stitched.
Pope gently brushed his fingers against the red and irritated skin feeling up the bumps and thread.
Heyward sat there in silence, sweeping over the boys with his gaze. He huffed a tiny laugh at Pope’s immense curiosity in the human body. Maybe he would become a fancy ass doctor one day. That would be something. Then he could stitch up his friends without making a frickin mess of Heyward’s house.
And if Pope did ever become a doctor, Heyward would tell him this story over and over again, about how he did such a piss poor job of using duck tape and gauze to help heal a deep wound… which by the way Heyward was still unsure of what caused said wound.
He could ask again. But that didn’t seem to be getting him anywhere. So instead he took a different approach.
“You want a bowl of ice cream, JJ?”
Bribery - never underestimate some good old fashioned bribery.
The boy nodded his head eagerly along with Pope and shifted closer to Heyward on the floor.
“I’ll make you a big bowl, with whipped cream and sprinkles but first you have to tell me what happened to your shoulder.”
“I fell, really.”
Heyward frowned. “I don’t want lies JJ.”
“m’telling the truth. There was a glass bottle laying on the floor in my house. I landed on it, and some glass got stuck in my shoulder.”
“Then how come I didn’t pull any glass out of your shoulder?”
“My Dad took it out. I think he felt bad since he kinda pushed me.”
Heyward stared straight at the wall behind him, trying not to let the anger he felt in his old bones show on his face. “He pushed you?”
JJ shrugged, half-heartedly. “Nothing that hasn’t happened before.”
This comment only served to concern Heyward worse. He knitted his eyebrows together. But JJ was already moving on to the next thing.
“Can we make milkshakes?”