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Deran is giving a half-assed attempt at reading a shitty paperback when his phone pings.
Hey can I call?
Sure
Dean's phone gets through half a ring before he answers.
"Hey, you ok?"
"Yeah, just bored."
"You fuckin look it."
Adrian is lying on an unmade bed in an untidy room, and definitely looks and sounds bored. So bored that the boredom is now it's own state of being, sucking the life and interest out of his environment.
"Anything interesting happening there?"
Deran looks out across the backyard of the Cody family home in time to see Baby Nick stagger too close to the edge of the pool and fall in. Renn, who has been following her son about while scrolling through her phone, calmly kneels, grabs one chubby ankle and pulls the slightly stunned toddler out of the water. He blinks at her for a few seconds before squealing in delight.
"Nah, not really." Deran weighs the pros and cons of smoking while Pope is busy in the garage, but his ribs hurt enough to put him off for now. Even the slightest chance of Pope catching him wasn't worth it.
"How is everyone? You're with your family, right?"
"Yeah, we're all here. Craig got into a huge fight with his new neighbours, but really I think they just want some help with the baby." To underline this point Nick falls in the pool again with a splash and a shriek.
"Why are you there?"
"Uh, Pope hasn't been doing so well with everything."
"What, the quarantine?"
"Yeah, but also just. He gets weird about shit like this, like disasters. Kept talking bible shit again. Apocalypse. No one wants him getting put away right now."
"Sounds rough."
"Not so bad. He’s being a fuckin health and safety freak though.”
“Yeah?” Adrian leans over the side of his bed and starts rummaging around.
“Yeah, he just follows us around with hospital grade disinfectant bitching about risk factors. Eat better. Don’t drink too much. No drugs. Won’t let me smoke.” Deran is old enough to admit how sulky he sounds.
Adrian’s head pops back up into frame, unlit cigarette in his smirking mouth.
“When did you start smoking?”
“When Pope forced you to quit apparently.”
Deran stares with naked envy. Why the fuck is he here and not at his nice, quiet house by the sea, chain smoking and trying to charm his way into video sex with Adrian?
“I fucking hate you.” Adrian just smiles at the compliment and leans back out of frame, presumably looking for a lighter.
As Deran waits for Adrian to return, J stalks out of the house with the twisted, pissy expression on his face that has preceded every fight for the last month.
“Are you even watching him?” J demands Renn, almost visibly twitching. Deran slumps more into the sun lounger, and turns down the volume on his phone, the survival instincts that served him through thousands of Cody fights kicking in.
Renn for her part just tilts one eyebrow over her $800 sunglasses she stole off the beach last summer. And because baiting J is becoming her new favourite pastime, she pointedly looks back at her phone as she catches Baby Nick from smashing his face into the pavers.
Adrian pops back on the screen, face red and hair more messy than before. “Can’t find a light, hang on” and disappears again.
J’s gone when Deran looks up. He almost feels bad for the kid. They can’t easily scout jobs and even if they found something they would have to do it behind Pope’s back. The books are fucked. The new shark lawyer is charging outrageous amounts to help them restructure so the lockdown doesn’t leave the whole business exposed. Situation is fucked.
But goddamn does J make it fucking hard to care.
Adrian returns with a working lighter at the exact moment there’s a huge crash from the garage and Craig starts yelling.
“What the fuck was that?”
Deran doesn’t flinch, distracted by the smoke curling from Adrian’s mouth.
“Craig and Pope have some kind of DIY project going. I don’t know, I’m keeping out of it.” The side door to the garage slams open, a filthy Craig storms out and into the house, still yelling. Deran doesn’t look up. Craig’s tantrums stopped being interesting when they were kids.
“Fair. How’s the bar?”
“Closed.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah.”
Deran watches Adrian for a long, silent moment as Adrian watches him back. He seems less bored now, the listlessness replaced by the same unholy, trouble seeking light that drew Deran in as a fuck up kid.
“I- “ but the sound of Angela’s car pulling up in the drive cuts him off.
“Yeah?”
“Nothing.”
“No, what is it?”
“I’ll call you later.”
Adrian smirkes, pulls at his shirt, slips a hand under the hem to scratch at his belly. “Ok. Whenever suits you, I’m not going anywhere. Got nothing better to do than just hang out.”
Deran hangs up, lurches up to his feet, both get away from the hazy feeling of want and to intercept Pope before he can harass Angela too much.
She got a job at a supermarket just before everything went crazy, and it was proving useful, even if it was making Pope that much worse. She could scout jobs and bring home groceries. The risks and some of the customers were shitty, but Deran thought she always looked relieved to escape the house for her shift.
Angela goes straight from her car to the washer, strips to nothing, dumping everything in the machine with disinfectant and powder, turning on a hot wash before making her way to the outdoor shower. Deran dumps a towel on a nearby chair for her, and follows Pope, watches as he sprays down her car door handle and steering wheel before turning to his mental routine with the groceries on the backseat.
This is why Deran is here. Because he saw the will. He knows he could never leave Pope to the monsters in his head, even when he starts reciting Revelations as he scrubs the fruit. Even when he beat the shit out of Deran for smoking by the pool.
Craig has a son to worry about now. J doesn’t get it. Angela tries but barely holds herself together. Smurf and Baz and Cath and Julia are gone. And so is Adrian. And so is the Drop. So Deran rotates the non perishable groceries in their own little quarantine in the garage with those in the car, grabs some dish clothes and starts drying off bananas and oranges. He reminds Pope about meds, bullies him into eating and sleeping. He runs interference with an antsy J and an increasingly destructive Craig.
Because it’s always been the Codys against the world. Just because the world has changed doesn’t mean they have.
At midnight Deran is drinking alone by the pool, enjoying the silence and having another go at reading his book. Angela joins him, hands him the precious two packs of smokes and cheap lighter she smuggled in past Pope. She had quit, but in the grand scheme of stress and harm this is a fair trade.
“I talked to J earlier. Nothing looked good on that new route you guys suggested. Maybe I don’t know what I’m looking for. Want to come with me next time? Drop me at work?”
“Yeah, ok.”
Angela respects the silence for a while longer, but finally breaks it with something Deran knows has been coming for a year.
“I know why Julia left, Deran. Just thought you should know that. And that you can talk to me if you like.”
Deran feels his glare is enough to make his point, and she bows out, dropping her cigarette butt in the empty beer bottle they’d been using as an ashtray.
Angela pauses by the door, turns back. “I mean it, you know.”
Deran doesn't move. If he moves he doesn’t know what might happen next. But after a moment he nods his head once. It seems to be enough, and she’s gone.
It’s some time before he can breath again, or feel his hands enough to pull up his phone and call Adrian. Just audio this time, and that seems to be enough of a cue that Adrian answers in his still water way that always made Deran feel immediately calmer, more free.
“Hey.”
“Hey.”
“What did you want to tell me?”
“Uh, just that Craig is trying to build Nick a motorbike from scratch.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah, here, I’ll send you a photo.”