#Get that the pogues didn't start just as a way to cause trouble

[philtatosbuck]

the sooner we (read: you people) realize kie’s parents aren’t shitty for wanting better for her the sooner we can be normal

[rafesproperty]

BLOOD PACT 🩸 Jealous!Rafe Cameron x Reader

Feel like this is something Rafe (especially S2 Rafe) would 100% pull after being jealous and high out of his mind. He’d make you swear you are his, he’d insist on connecting your blood with his to seal that promise.

Warnings: blood (duh😭), open wound, drug usage, Rafe’s possessive af

» masterlist

─── ⋅ ∙ ∘ ☽ ༓ ☾ ∘ ⋅ ⋅ ───

You were chatting with your friends, enjoying a party at Tannyhill. Parties there were never chill ones, 'cause Rafe was the one throwing them. Most of the people there were high and drugged out of their minds, so you preferred to stay out of trouble, hanging out with your girl friends and not getting wasted.

Rafe always had his eyes on you tho. He was selling coke to people and messing around with Kelce and Topper, but he always knew where you were, who you were talking to, what state you were in. Partially because he was so damn possessive, mostly because he wanted to make sure you're safe.

So it was to no surprise that he stormed over the second he saw JJ making his way over to you. "Fuck off Maybank," he shielded you with his body before JJ even got a chance to say something to you. You tried to get a hold of Rafes arm, to calm him down a bit, but he didn't budge, his eyes blown and fingers twitchy, mind foggy from all the lines he already snorted tonight.

JJ frowned when he noticed Rafes state. It genuinely baffled him, how someone like you could be with someone like him. "Does he hurt you?" JJ mumbled out, alcohol blinding his own mind, his question clearly directed at you even tho his eyes were locked with Rafes.

"Fuck did you say?" Rafe shoved him, JJ shoved him back, Rafe hit him, JJ hit him back, both landing some serious hits to each others face. The rest was a mess, JJs friends pushed Rafe off him when he was starting to get the upper hand, and you finally got a hold of him, holding his shaking arm with both your hands, praying he'll just stay with you and not beat all of them up.

"Rafe, baby, let's go, please," you pleaded and he took one look at you, blown eyes meeting your worried ones and he knew he'd do anything for you right now. He gave a quick nod, grabbed your hand and dragged you to his room, slamming the door.

"What the fuck are they even doing here?" Rafe mumbled, finally realising that JJ was at his party. "'m gonna kill them," he snarled, pacing, making his way to the door again but you jumped in front of him, holding his face, forcing him to look at you.

"Rafe, please, 'm here with you, 'kay? Stay here." You pleaded again and your touch on his face had a calming effect on him, so he rolled his eyes but gave a nod, hoping Kelce and Topper will kick the Pogues out.

"Fuck," he whispered and pulled away from you, still pacing around the room, his whole body tense and shivering, "shit, the fuck was that? I would never hurt you." He grumbled, panicking because of what JJ said. Drugs fogged his mind and images of you leaving him suddenly flooded in, images of that Pogue dragging you away fogging his judgement.

"Rafe—“ "Fuck."

"Rafe!" He froze and looked over at you through glossy eyes. You walked over to him again, grabbed his hands into your own and rubbed calming circles into his palms. "Breathe, 'kay? I don't know why JJ was there, but it doesn't—“

JJ. He hated the way his name rolled off your tongue, the rest of your words getting drowned by his thoughts again.

His mind was racing as he sat you down on his bed, running a hand through your hair. "You're mine, right? For good, right?" He asked, standing over you, panic evident in his eyes. You wished you'd see his thoughts, but you couldn't make any sense out of him. He was usually so confident in your relationship, bragging to everyone about you, showing you off, holding you close, you hated the way the drug affected his mind.

"Of course, baby," you ran your hands down his chest, trying to soothe him but he stepped away again, not registering your touches.

"Prove it," he mumbled and suddenly stood still, eyes burning through you. You frowned. He needs a proof? You felt offended, honestly. But then again he wasn't thinking straight, so you gave him a nod, hoping it would finally calm him down.

He watched you and nodded back a few times, "'kay, 'kay," he started to search through his drawer, mumbling something.

"Alright," he said and you flinched when you finally saw what he was holding in his hand now, the blade reflecting back some moonlight from his window.

"Rafe—“ "Don't worry," he whispered ever so gently and sat down next to you, "won't hurt you,” he promised, his free hand squeezing your leg in a comforting manner, and you relaxed a bit, holding eye contact with him. His pupils finally stopped shaking, his eyelids heavy now.

"I love you," he mumbled, and leaned closer to you, his breath brushing against your skin, "wanna be with you for good, baby, 'kay? You're mine," his grip on your leg became harder but you let him, and ran a hand through his hair.

"I love you too Rafey, you know that, just me and you, alright?" You were brushing his hair with your fingers gently, looking at him. His eyes landed on your lips for a few seconds before he captured them in a messy kiss.

"Yeah," he mumbled and brought the knife to his palm, "we do this, you know 'll take care of you, alright?"

You gave a nod, ready to do anything for him as he ran the blade through his skin, leaving a red cut along the way. He didn't really react in any way, numb to any pain from the intoxication.

"Here," he reached for your hand, and noticed you were shaking, "shhh," he cooed, and his thumb gently caressed your palm before he ran the blade through your skin too, but your cut was a lot smaller, not as deep, and he kissed your cheek gently when you winced.

"Atta girl," he mumbled more to himself and brought your injured hand up, holding his own to yours, eyes locked there. "Swear to be mine, to stay with me? Never leave me," he said desperately, and you nodded immediately.

"Yes. Swear to be mine, for good?" You asked and he locked eyes with you.

"Always was," he mumbled, "but yeah. I do." He connected your hands, his fingers locking with yours, drawing soothing circles with his thumb when you felt the sting of the wound rubbing against his.

It was like something switched in him, he leaned over you, pushed you back, your hands still connected as he kissed you hungrily, teeth clashing with yours and his tongue slipping into your mouth, claiming you.

You kissed him back, moaning softly, biting down on his lower lip. He pushed your hand into the pillow next to your head, still rubbing your skins together, connecting your blood into one.

He wasn't thinking when he let go of your hand and cupped your face in his hand, smearing some of both of your blood on your jaw.

─── ⋅ ∙ ∘ ☽ ༓ ☾ ∘ ⋅ ⋅ ───

My inbox is always open if you have any specific Rafe requests in mind! 💕

[inevitablysomber-dark]

Ladybug (Chapter 7)

Intensely Dark! Rafe Cameron x Acutely Aware! Reader WARNING: Non-Consent, Manipulation, Kidnapping, Stalking, forced interactions, Causing trauma, unhinged obsession. MATURE AUDIENCES ONLY. MINORS DNI Summary: After a fresh breakup with her ex, Kyle, a chance encounter leads to an entanglement between Ladybug and her friend, Sarahs, volatile brother, Rafe, who had long standing conflicts with her friends. However, what began as an accidental hookup, quickly spirals into a troubling situation as Rafe's infatuation takes a darker turn. His fixation becomes a source of distress, as his persistent harassment disrupts Ladybugs Peace.

Series Masterlist

You’re leaving the Chateau.

John B. didn't come back that night. It had been around two weeks before he brought home some random girl.

He called her Caterpillar, and she looked just as confused as you, standing there in John B.'s living room. When you asked about Sarah, he brushed you off like you hadn't even mentioned her.

Caterpillar didn't seem like a pogue at all. She looked too clean, too put together. Like she'd never had to work a day in her life.

It turned out she'd known John B. for a while, since that house party Rafe and Sarah threw. You shuddered at the memory of that night. Then it hit you—it was the same night Rafe claimed to have caught Sarah with Topper.

The irony wasn't lost on you.

Somehow they hit it off, and he started giving her surfing lessons. It was hard to believe, considering you couldn't imagine him having the patience to teach anyone, especially a kook at surfing.

Everything felt awkward, especially when he started bringing her around more often. You started keeping your distance for the sake of your sanity. But between dealing with this and keeping an eye out for Rafe, who was unusually quiet, the stress was really getting to you.

Then shit finally hit the fan.

You were lounging on the front porch, engrossed in a game on your phone, when you spotted Rafe's truck pulling up. Hastily, you jumped to your feet and dashed inside.

"Where you goin’, babe?" Rafe's voice echoed from his truck.

You locked the door, peering out the window to see both Sarah and Rafe stepping out of his truck.

Quickly, you closed the curtain and pressed against the door, footsteps pounding on the other side.

"Open up, Ladybug!" This time it was Sarah's voice.

You remained silent, trying to formulate a plan.

"Listen, Rafe told me what’s really going on. I’m not mad, I just wish you would have told me earlier," Sarah called out.

Confusion clouded your thoughts. What was she talking about?

"Come on, babe, open the door," Rafe chimed in.

Why was he calling you that?

With John B. still not home, you didn't feel comfortable opening the door while you were alone.

Your heart raced as Sarah and Rafe continued to bang on the front door, coaxing you to let them in.

Your eyes landed on the kitchen window, memories flooding back of all the times you'd opened it to let in some fresh air.

With fear gripping your heart and anxiety prickling your spine, you grabbed your phone and slipped on the closest pair of shoes before rushing toward the window.

Carefully, you pushed it open, trying not to make too much noise in your escape.

As you peer out the window to assess the potential fall, you realize it might be daunting, but escaping is worth the risk.

With determination, you climb through the window, but in your rush, you lose your footing and tumble to the ground, a sharp grunt escaping your lips.

Ignoring the pain pulsing through your body, you scramble to your feet and stealthily make your way to the dirt roads, seeking refuge in the nearest backyard you can find.

In the distance, a familiar rusty truck catches your eye, but before you can ponder who it might belong to, a pair of arms yank you from your thoughts.

A whisper grazes your ear, and you tense as Rafe's voice growls, "Hey, sweetheart."

Instantly, you struggle against his grip, but Rafe's hold is unyielding, overpowering you with his strength.

"Let me go!" you yell, your voice echoing with desperation.

"Hey!" he snaps, shaking you roughly as you squirm in his grasp. "Listen!"

But you refuse to heed his words, your struggles intensifying as dizziness creeps in from his forceful handling.

"Ladybug!" Sarah's screech pierces the air.

Rafe freezes, his arms tightening around you, pressing you against him until you feel suffocated.

"Ladybug, I need you to talk to John B.," Sarah pleads, her tone frantic. "Tell him that Rafe lied."

Confusion clouds your mind. Did she not see Rafe holding you hostage? And she was worried about patching things up with the boy whose heart she shattered?

"Rafe said if John B. gives him a chance to speak, he'll take it back," Sarah continues hurriedly, "and say that he was just trying to get to you, and th—"

You shake your head, disbelief coloring your expression, before cutting her off. "Did you do it, Sarah?"

"It doesn’t matter," she deflects, her tone defensive. "What matters is that Rafe is willing to take back what he said. As long as you cooperate."

"It sounds like you did it," you retort, the tension thick in the air.

A low chuckle rumbles from Rafe's chest behind you, and Sarah's demeanor shifts instantly.

"Then I guess it sounds like Rafe can—" Sarah's words are cut off by a loud beep.

All three of you look up to see the old rusty truck you spotted earlier pulling up.

Your father immediately hops out, shotgun in hand and pointed at Rafe. 

"How about you get your hands off her and we won’t have any problems."

Rafe scoffs. "Do you have any idea who I am?"

Your father cocks the gun and responds, "Now, boy, I need you to understand that I don’t really care. Just let her go."

There's a tense silence in the air before Rafe releases you from his grip, and you rush to your father's side.

"Get in the truck," he instructs, and you comply without hesitation.

Slowly backing away, your father uncocks the gun. "Now, I believe it would be in your best interest to leave her alone from here on out. We don’t want any trouble."

"Too late," Rafe shouts defiantly.

Your father scoffs before getting into his truck and driving away.

When you’re far enough you ask your father "What are you doing here?" breaking the tense silence.

He gives you a look, a mix of concern and determination.

"I'm not saying I don’t appreciate your timing. You showed up right when things were getting tense. I was just curious," you explain, attempting to lighten the mood.

He sighs, the weight of the situation evident in his expression.

"I wanted to get a chance to talk to you about my side of things and what happened. Now, you don’t have to listen. I just wanted a chance to explain," he says, his voice heavy with emotion. Gripping the steering wheel tightly, he continues, "Then I saw the Cameron holding you hostage and—"

"I’ll listen," you say, cutting him off. Despite the exhaustion and stress weighing you down, you're willing to hear him out. The thought of escaping the chaos at the chateau for a moment is a relief. Mrs. Featherstone had gone to the mainland to visit family and her absence has left you feeling isolated, with only your thoughts and the small garden in the back of the chateau for company.

You swallow the lump in your throat, steeling yourself for whatever he has to say.

Your father brought you to a little fish shop near the pier. You’d been there maybe once or twice as a kid, but ultimately stopped coming around when your father left. 

However, he obviously never stopped coming, indicated by how familiar he had been with the workers. 

He introduced you as his daughter to one of the waitresses, Gia, and she gave a surprised gasp before pulling herself together and shaking your hand. 

“Why you must be the little Ladybug?” she lets your hand go “It’s so lovely to finally meet you,” your father clears his throat and Gia straightens her back. “ I’ll let y’all get settled and be right back with a pitcher of water.” 

Your father clears his throat once more and after a few moments of silence, he stops looking and his menu and asks “So what did your mother tell you?” he crosses his arms, leaning back against his chair. “In terms of what happened, I mean.”

“She said, you left us when you found out that she had been unfaithful.” you were going to leave the sentence at that, but you allowed your tongue to slip “Which I thought was weird considering you had been unfaithful while she was pregnant with me, but everyone is allowed their choices right?”

He made a face, but before he could say anything else Gia came back with a pitcher of water and two glasses.

Its quiet while she pours, but the silence is disturbed when she asks you and your father for your orders. You get a plain burger, and your father gets the house special catfish. 

When Gia leaves, its quiet again, before your father breaks the silence.

"I never cheated on your mom," he insists.

You give him a skeptical look.

"And you didn't just up and leave," you shoot back, rolling your eyes and taking a sip of water.

"I'm telling you the truth," he persists.

Meeting his gaze, you see sincerity in his eyes.

He sighs, running a hand over his beard.

“She thought I had cheated on her with an old friend, and started spreading rumors about us across the town. In actuality, I was just trying to get her away from an abusive situation, and because of your mothers inability to communicate, he found her again.”

Thi was news to you.

"When I first found out about your mom's affair, you were about 8. I tried to make it work, really did. But when you turned 12, she dropped a bomb on me: I wasn't even your real dad."

It felt like a gut punch. "What?" you blurted out.

"She'd been seeing this other guy, promising to leave his family for her. She spilled the beans when she thought she had a shot with him," he explains, sadness clouding his expression. "Turns out, she'd been stepping out on me the whole marriage, and you... well, you're the product of that mess. That's why I left."

Your world feels like it's crumbling even more.

"When she realized her plan wasn't working, she tried to take it all back. But I couldn't let her keep playing games," he continues, his gaze heavy with regret. "The only thing I regret is leaving you behind."

Your heart aches. "Who was he?" you manage to ask.

He hesitates before answering. "Jeff."

Your mind races, but only one Jeff comes to mind. "Ella Mae's dad." He nods.

"Do they know?" you asked, hoping you weren't alone in the dark. "Ella Mae? Her mom? Do they know?"

"I'm sure they do."

You felt like a loser, pathetic, Juvenile. How could your mother do this? Then all the knowledge of who she was, and what she’s been hit you all at once. 

Of course this was something she would do, why the hell were you surprised.

"Now, I don't want to add any more anxiety, but after what I saw today, it's important that you know."

God, what else could there be?

"The woman I was helping get out of that abusive situation was Rafe's mother."

"Rose?" you ask.

"No, his birth mother," he clarifies, crossing his arms over the table to give you his full attention. "Ward was smitten with her for the longest time, and when he finally got his hands on her, he refused to let her go."

"You're kidding."

"Nope. She got away for a while, but he eventually caught up to her. When he came back empty-handed, I fear that maybe he had done something bad," he starts, rubbing his beard again. "When he married Rose, it only confirmed my suspicions."

"What makes you say that?" you ask.

"Well, Ward was completely obsessed with her. He refused to let go of her, then one day out of the blue, he just stops?"

You look around the empty dining area and wonder to yourself how you managed to get into this mess.

"It seems like the apple doesn't fall too far from the tree."

Tags:

@applelovesposts

[xreaderbooks]

Paradise on Earth (14)

Chapter: 14. Homecoming

Pair: JJ Maybank x Routledge! Reader

Word Count: 3.6k

Warnings: Language, Violence, Guns, Police brutality

Summary: Y/n and the pogues travel to charleston to get answers from Mrs. Limberey.

A/N: It's been a min so if you were previously tagged in this story and no longer want to be tagged just let me know or if you changed your username and would like me to update it in order for you to continue being tagged just send me a message. If you're new and want to be tagged leave a comment or send me a message :)

Available on Wattpad and AO3

Masterlist - Series Masterlist - Previous Chapter - Next Chapter

The sound of the heavy door knocker echoed from inside Mrs. Limbreys's home. Pope slams the handle down thrice more giving you all a questioning look, "Was that too much?" 

"It echoed the entire house that's for sure," JJ responds. "So they definitely heard it."

"Maybe nobody's home?" Kie says. Pope lifts the handle to the door knocker and slams it down twice more, on the second knock a man with light brown hair, dark circles around his eyes, and a scruffy beard opens the door. He surveys the group and smirks, pointing at the boy to your left. 

"You must be Pope."

Pope hesitates, then asks "Are you Mr. Limbrey?"

"Ms. Limbrey" The man corrects, "was expecting you yesterday."

"I'm sorry, my car broke down on the way up here-" Pope stutters.

"Carburetor blew up in the middle of nowheresville." JJ tells the guy, "Sorry about that."

"She was really upset when you didn't show up."

"We tried to call, but there's no number on the invitation." You piped in, "We got here as fast as we could."

"She also expected you to come alone." The man reels the attention back on Pope.

"These are my friends, they helped find the royal merchant too. I-"

"The instructions were explicit, your friends can stay outside." He forces a smile, an attempt to seem nicer than what he was demanding.

JJ tries to negotiate by telling the man that the group was a package deal but Pope shuts him down. "It's okay, I got this. I'll be good."

"Yeah, we'll be right here" Kie smiles reassuringly.

Pope whispers with his back slightly turned to Mrs. Limbreys lackey "Keep the car running." He squeezes Kiara's hand and followed the man inside. He lets the door shut behind him and you wince at the sound. The idea of Pope being alone with the unkempt-looking man and the strange woman who was apparently highly upset that he didn't show up on time, left you feeling uneasy. 

Nevertheless, you, Kiara, and JJ got comfortable inside Hayward's truck, keeping a close eye on the large yellow house.

"If Limbrey's legit then Ward gets arrested, and maybe Sarah gets the gold," Kie explains as you watch Pope get swept to the backyard of Mrs. Limbrey's house. He looks at the truck but it was hard to decipher if he was in trouble or not. 

"Does that look voluntary?" You ask the others. The man who was now following close behind a blonde woman who you can only assume would be Mrs. Limbrey, pushed Pope to look forward. 

"That would be a negative," JJ said.

"Come on," Kie was ready to go after them until JJ laid a hand on her shoulder to keep her from going. "What?"

"They're going into the alley," You notice. "So we should go around the back."

"Yeah, we'll meet them on the other side." JJ turns the key to the truck in the ignition and slowly goes around the block. You and Kie stare intently into the alleyways but there was no sign of Pope, Mrs. Limbrey, or the man. 

"Where did they go?" You questioned.

"What if they went underground?" JJ started with his unlikely theories, "In C.H.U.D. when they took people down into the sewers, it would turn the humans into humanoids 'cause of the radiation. And then all of a sudden-"

"JJ, that doesn't even make any sense." 

Kie gives the both of you a fixed look and returns to her search for Pope. Five-Ten minutes pass and no sign of him, you pull out your phone in hopes that there would be service. You open up google maps and set it to satellite mode, tracing where Limbreys house would be to any potential paths they could have taken. 

"Y/N, I know you are not playing Pokemon Go without me right now," JJ glances at your phone.

You rolled your eyes, focusing your attention back on your phone, Limbreys property was bigger than you thought it was. "JJ, go back to Limbreys, I think I found something."

"Oh like what?" JJ snorted "A Charizard?"

Kiara laughs at that one, "That has to be the dorkiest shit you have ever said."

~~~

You heard the sound of grunts coming from behind a bush. JJ and Kie followed your lead as you guided them to where you were hoping Pope would be. At the turn of a corner, you heard something like a fight and you knew Pope was in trouble. The three of you ran into the action, Pope was wrestling the man who works for Limbrey, and the man was reaching for the taser but JJ ran up just in time to kick the taser to Kie who shouted: "Come on!"

The four of you rush back to the truck, Pope gasping for breath "That was crazy as shit, let's get out of here!" 

JJ needed no encouragement, the tires made a loud screeching sound when he made a sharp turn around the narrow street where you found Pope's location. You look over your shoulder noticing a car speeding up behind you. "I think he's following us!"

"This is a one-way!" Pope shouts. "Turn left!" There were cars heading directly towards you, or you guys were headed directly towards the way of traffic. JJ follows the directions behind yelled at him and almost runs over two running pedestrians.

"That was an evasive driving technique y'all," The manic smile on JJ's face, was not at all concerning.

"Where are we going?" You ask.

"Hang on, I'm gonna lose him." Was all the warning he gave before he rotates the wheel left into a random alleyway? There was smoke similar to the smoke from earlier coming from the hood. "You said he fixed the carburetor, you said he fixed it!" JJ shouts accusatorily at Pope.

"No, no, no, no!" Kie panics. The four of you now had no way to run from the man chasing you, not to mention the way home. You'd have to ditch Heyward's truck in the alley and come back for it later. You all hustle your way out of the truck, grabbing your backpacks from the trunk, all the while JJ's making a point about never trusting mechanics. 

The man now rounded the corner and you bust into a sprint, you look back for a second and catch a glint of something black in his hand. "Guys, I think he has a gun!"

"Shit, get down!" JJ says.

"I'm cramping!" Pope pants beside you. 

Oxygen gets sharper in your chest every time you breathe, yet you don't feel like you can inhale properly, nor do you think you can actually catch a breath from all the running. You now regret never going to a gym and rethinking every unhealthy food decision you ever made. You're about to get shot and die because you decided to skip every time you had to do a mile in P.E. to vape in the abandoned school bathroom with JJ.

"This is such an uncool way to die," You wheeze out. JJ leads you all through an alley between two houses in hopes of losing the guy but he just gains onto your group. Suddenly, Kie and the others come to a halt. There in front of you alive, tanned, and busted-looking as usual was John B. Right behind him was the kook princess herself, Sarah Cameron. 

You couldn't help the breathy laugh of relief that you let out when you saw him. It was like time had slowed down and all you needed was that one second to process your brother's presence before he rushed you all to get into the seating behind his bicycle. 

"Pedal faster John B!" Sarah told him, looking back there were now two more men chasing after you. 

"God, you guys are heavy," Pope complains as he and JJ are helping John B by pushing the chair with the extra weight of you, Kiara, and Sara.

Ms. Limbreys lackey had caught up to you all now grabbing Pope and dragging him down. Pope rolled away and ran back to the bike, the man gripped the back of the chair you were sitting on and Kie and Sarah shoved his hand away. He slipped and fell onto the street allowing you all to escape. 

~~~

It felt like the end of a really fucked up story, the way you all floated off into the sunset in the stolen boat. You knew this was far from the end with all that was waiting for you, your brother, and your friends when you get back to the cut. For now, you bask in the sense of normalcy as you drift into the marshes. Stories of your separate journeys had you all laughing, crying, and howling in hysteria at how your lives even got to this point. 

Eventually, hunger became too much to ignore. John B anchored the boat at a random nearby dock. There were a few scattered houses around, homes with enough land to farm. Jackpot.

You, Kiara, and Sarah ran off as soon as you could, fleeing far away from the boys in search of anything that could sustain you. The first few places you checked out were duds but you heard one of the girls call out and you ran. 

Watermelons were not in your top three favorite fruits, after today that changed. Once you were able to crack open the Watermelon, the three of you settled on a rusty old bench with 3 feet-tall grass. After a good couple of minutes of you all satiating your hunger with handfuls of the fruit, Sarah dropped the bomb. 

"Wait, so you really got married?" Kie asked.

"It wasn't exactly legal," Sarah explained with a smile. "But yeah."

Your smile widened with hers, never in a million years would you have thought that your brother married. John B wasn't the settling type, much less at this age and Sarah Cameron was not number in your list of people that you had in mind. Granted you didn't have anyone in mind for that matter.

"Am I crazy or is there something going on with you and Pope?" Your 'sister-in-law' questions.

Kie shrugs, "Maybe."

"That's not a no," You smirk at her while sharing a knowing look with the blonde seated next to you. 

"It's not a no," Kie repeats her shrug and you all giggle in response. "Mm, Don't you have a little thing to share with us now too Y/N?"

"See that's definitely a no," You shake your head furiously at her before she has a chance to ask. 

"What is happening right now?" Sarah barks out a laugh.

"JJ and Y/N possibly." Kie's statement almost made you choke on the watermelon you were currently chewing. 

"No!" You protest, "You see this is where gossip spreads. Lies!"

Kie rolls her eyes playfully, "C'mon we all see it."

JJ definitely doesn't. This was the first time Kiara has ever mentioned anything regarding you and JJ, you shared your crush on the boy way back when but nothing to count for now. As far as she was concerned the rule of 'No pogue on pogue macking' was still on and JJ was still at the top of the list. The rule was set in for Kiara, to be honest, John B was your brother. Pope lowkey had a thing for Kie but his nerdy ass was never gonna do a thing about it. You would retract that last sentence now but it's mutual so it doesn't count.

The only one who was vocal about his feelings or supposed feelings was JJ and Kie never gave a straight answer other than "You know that rules". 

"There's nothing to see, JJ's otherwise preoccupied with his feelings," You didn't know how much of that was true. While JJ did flirt with Kie, he flirted with more than half of the female population. There was no telling who or what he was serious about. One thing for sure is that he is not interested in you. 

"He's different when he's around you." 

"He's different around you too Kie, you just don't take him seriously enough to realize it." 

Kie sighed, "That's because I'm not interested. I have my 'maybe' thing with Pope going on, I am spoken for. You, however, are not."

"How weird is it that we're that friend group now?" Sarah scrunched her nose.

"The one where every single member is paired up," Kie nodded mournfully. "Our saving grace is that we don't switch partners."

You snort, "That's cause there's six of us and two of us are related. Not to mention the combinations -if we exclude John B and me- are too weird to think about."

"You never answered the question though," Sarah redirected. You wish she hadn't.

"Short story is; I may or may not like JJ and as far as I know JJ does not like me in that way. It's been confirmed with and without the flirting involved."

"And how long ago was this confirmation?" The brown-haired girl's tone was too accusatory for your liking. "It's been years, feelings change."

"Yeah, but one thing won't- I'm John B's sister and let's say fuck the rule on macking, JJ is a lot of things but he's not gonna betray John B like that."

"You see if you look at it as a betrayal..." Sarah drags. You roll your eyes and stuff your mouth with watermelon to avoid further questioning. 

~~~

After a swift family meeting you had all agreed to 'let shit hit the fan tomorrow' as John B said, JJ and Kie went into a bodega to grab a case of beers before you made your way back to the Chateau. 

The pogues being back together felt like old times, straight vibing and floating along the marshes the warmth of the sun with the comfort of knowing the water is fresh to jump in. John B was alive and you didn't have the burden of surviving alone on your shoulders. Your thoughts drifted to the almost comatose state you were in while your brother was gone. The self-hatred and regret seared into your heart from all the memories of you and Rafe, together. 

You refused to let your mistakes of the past ruin the one night of peace you had before reality hit tomorrow. The hot tub JJ impulsively bought sat in your yard, and you and the rest of your friends sat around it listening to Pope spit rhymes you knew could come out of him with a good couple of beers. 

As the night turned darker, you in your hazed state noticed how Kie was staring intently at Pope as he and JJ wrestled. Pope strategically placed his leg behind JJs allowing him to straddle JJ, beating him. You wiggled your eyebrows at Kie who smirked as he won and gazed at him as he walked away from JJ laying on the ground with his fists up in celebration.

"I leave and this is what happens," John B shakes his head at Kie following after Pope, most likely for some privacy.

"Are you blaming me?" JJ points to himself looking jokingly offended. 

"A 'lil bit," John B stands from his beach chair shaking his beer bottle. "Your boy's out." He leaves in search of more. 

"You guys are the ones that died!" JJ exclaims in defense. 

"Literally one job, JJ," Sarah comments.

You let them continue their debate as your eyes search for John B, he just grabbed a can of beer from the cooler that was placed below the tree bark that was cut out to be in the shape of a heart. His tombstone of sorts. 

You walked up to him, the sounds of JJ and Sarah debating the rule were distant.

His voice croaked as he spoke, "Cute art project."

Tears welled in your eyes, and the memories of that day and every day since he was declared dead, haunted you. 

"Killed the tree though," John B joked. Your laughter stifled the sob that was forming in your throat. 

"I missed you John B," You stepped forward into your brother's arms that were ready to receive you. He held onto you tight as he whispered back, "I missed you too Princess."

~~~

The sound of a car door closing in the background interrupted the teasing you and JJ were calling out to Pope and Kiara who had borrowed John B's boat. JJ was about to make another joke, probably about how John B should clean it when they back or something like it. 

"What was that?" John B asked, on high alert. His panicked tone made you anxious.

"Your chicken?" JJ responded.

"I heard a car door."

"I heard it too," You confirmed. The only sounds you heard after the silence that followed your confirmation were the crickets, the music playing in the background, and JJ clucking like a chicken. John B covered his mouth to get JJ to shut up.

Panic filled your nerves at the anticipation. JJ put out the fire while John B helped you and Sarah climb up the tree before following up himself, JJ in tow. Hopefully whoever it was that was out there wouldn't see you. You try to steady your breathing when you hear Rafe's voice. 

"No, there ain't shit here man." Rafe's drug dealer, Barry, answers Rafe.

"They were obviously just here based off the smoke!" 

"Great observation boy scout."

 Rafe was standing a couple of feet away from where you and John B were having your moment. He points the gun at it and laughs maniacally, "Well shit."

"Your girl and your sister's a pogue for life huh, Rafe?" Barry adds fuel to Rafe's fire with his words. "Now who would have thought?"

Sarah's eyes meet yours for a second before you glance at JJ, you didn't realize you were breathing heavily, and he brings a finger to his lips.

"Shit!" Rafe lets out a yell full of rage, and you flinch as he shoots one, two, three times at the tree dedicated to your brother. Barry shoves Rafe, shouting at him to stop. 

"You're gonna get us caught!" He tugs Rafe along. "Let's go!"

~~~

None of you got to sleep last night, you spent the rest of the night til daybreak clutching onto Sarah, both of you distraught about how attached you were to Rafe. Sarah as his sister and you, his ex-girlfriend. There was no escaping him. JJ silently watched over you as you held your head in his hands, Sarah had John B to lean on but you- you had no one. 

Once you saw that Pope and Kie had returned from wherever they wandered off to JJ quickly informed them that you all had to go, rushing onto the boat with a cooler of drinks and what little snack you had, you all sailed off to a small part of the island that no one really came to.

Debates about what to do next stirred disagreements all around. Sarah brought up an idea that was a long shot. 

"With me back, my dad is gonna have to choose between me and Rafe." She made her point, "He's gonna choose me."

"Ward keeps lying to you, Sarah." John B tells her. Poor Sarah looks so tired, you all were, but her family is fucked up, and her idea of Ward choosing between her and Rafe was iffy.

"I-I know it sounds crazy-"

"Yeah, it does!" Kie proclaims. 

"But he's my dad and I know him. I know he loves me." She looks with pleading eyes at all of you, "I'm just asking for two hours."

You bit your lip shaking your head in defeat, there was no stopping her at this point. It was not going to go well and you could not shake this feeling since she left with the HMS Pogue, that something bad was about to happen. You didn't know if you could take any more bad news. 

You, Kie, and JJ went to gather wood, sharing your thoughts on this whole situation. The three of you with piles of wood in hand, dropping it all when you saw the HMS Pogue come into view. 

"Sarah!" You call out to her. The five of your run to meet her, and she informs you that the plan didn't work. 

"Welp, that settles it guys, you need to load up the wagon and get the hell out of dodge." JJ comes up behind them after ensuring the boat wouldn't leave the shore. 

Pope stands with hands on his hips telling them that they need to get supplies as soon as possible. There was something- boats with wailing sirens- coming in the distance. You clutch onto Kie's wrist, "Guys, I think it's too late."

"We have to find another way out," John B declares. 

As soon as one of the officers speaks on the bullhorn, giving you orders to stay on the beach with your hands in the air, you all bolt. Running into the small lake and into the trees, "Sarah you good?" You call out behind you. John B and JJ helped her into the water, her gunshot wound making it harder to escape. You swam through deeper water and found a large tree to hide behind. 

Sirens approached from everywhere, the coast guard was trekking the water with guns in their hands. You panted, out of breath and your heart ran at a million. You watched as JJ took out the gun, John B grabbing it out of his hand and shaking his head. He tossed the gun to the ground, JJ looked reluctant to let go but he did and spread the dirt on top of the gun to keep it hidden. 

"Step out into the clearing, get down. Do not move!" Shoupe's orders were contradictory but John B followed them. 

"The rest of you stay right where you are, keep your hands where we can see them!"

You and the others did what you were told until Deputy Thomas marched right up to John B and began to beat him to the ground. You were shouting with tears free falling down your cheeks, begging them to stop this. These adults were just standing by, allowing your brother to get beat by a man much older and much heftier than him for a crime he did not commit. 

After a couple more punches John B was down. 

~~~

Chapter 15

Taglist: @deanwherescas - @thtbwltts - @nerdypartytrashpsychic - @random-girl-army - @siresweeney - @simpingbutch - @obx-pogues-4-life - @mitchloveswriting - @p-prettybitch - @gwynschampagne - @slut4booksx - @ellallheart - @shay-https - @namacissi - @lyn07 - @caseysalvatore - @mysticmolina - @dangerdolns - @inkandpen22 - @beebeerockknot - @im-broliet - @princessalana - @princesspogue - @ayeitsjustmee - @instabull - @sexyfoxlady - @80strashbag - @onlyangel-444 - @a-j-stuffs - @clinelyn - @saintgwyn - @bubs-world - @sdawn03 - @boldlypessimistic - @loki-loveer - @lostinatimeline

(If your name is crossed that means Tumblr won't let me tag you.)

[appocalipse]

I haven't even watched s3 of obx bc I knew they would make Jiara a thing that killed the show for me. It's a bit like ST where everyone gets to cross date but are still bffs at the end of the day. Like Kie and Pope dating at first, Pope and JJ being best friends I just know realistically Pope would feel hurt by Jiara, but it's never going to be addressed, you know. Plus, I don't even see Kiara as heterosexual. She screams closet lesbian to me, lol. Also, what is it in shows that make found family friendships into everyone likes each other romantically, but there is no drama?

And you're right. JJ got the Steve treatment this season where his entire plot revolved around his love life and nothing else. Ugh, both my boys suffered so much, and after s4 of ST, I couldn't sit through another show where my fav was being treated that way again.

I loved s1 soo much. s2 was already a bit meh but tolerable, but s3 I just knew I wouldn't like. As soon as they started to lose focus on the characters and included ridiculous heist plots, it was over. Maybe I'll give it a chance, but idk if I'm strong enough (lmao that sounds so dramatic)

YES! Kiara absolutely screams closet lesbian to me too! Especially after the way Pope and Kiara "broke up", I honestly thought like, okay, now it's finally going to happen. And it would have felt way more realistic to me if she started to slowly realize who she really is from that moment on. It would have been a much, much better storyline too! Like, her parents, how the Pogues would react, all the things that would have been interesting to watch, much more interesting than good old "rich character A falls for poor troubled character B, who thinks they're not good enough".

I think they did us dirty. Kiara shared at least a kiss with each of the boys in the group, and that always bothered me cause now it seems like the writers were kind of just testing the waters to see which ship the fans liked best to go with that. Jiara has no chemistry in season 3, it feels like a bad fan fiction to me.

Some people say Kiara and John B was never a thing, but s1 Kiara definitely gave off the vibe she liked John B as more than friends, definitely. Even the way she was so against John B bringing Sarah into the group was written in a way that gave that impression all the time.

Season 3 is an absolute nightmare. Not only because of Jiara, but the ridiculous plots they decided to explore. Season 1 was good because yeah, they were teenagers trying to bite off way more than they could chew, so everything they did had consequences. It didn't feel so unrealistic as it does now. John B and JJ got arrested. Pope had to decide between college or helping his friends multiple times, and in the end not everything was okay because of that. I actually loved how the show kept telling them nope, you're just kids, you're not going to outsmart the police or a filthy rich grown man.

Sorry, this ended up way too long, lol. But thank you so much for this Sandra, I honestly need to get this off my chest 🫠 love u.

[lindzaylove]

Boat Ride Confessions

i wrote a best friend!JJ x fem!reader, where the reader reaches a conclusion about Pope, but things with JJ start to get blurry.

word count: 1.8k

trigger warnings: underage drinking

part one: Dancing by the Fire

gif by @popesheyward

boat rides were one of your favorite pastimes. you were with your favorite people, having a good time, and swimming in the pretty water. however, the HMS Pogue flooded your mind with what could have been. and the two people fogging your mind were talking at the front of the boat, knees gently touching one another. you looked to JJ, who was talking to John B. who was steering the boat. he winked at you, making you smile.

he really didn't have to try to make you feel better, just watching him talk with John B. was all you needed. he was happy, making you happy in return. dragging your eyes back to Sarah, you caught her looking between you and JJ.

"what?" you asked, taking a drink of your beer.

"did something actually happen between you two at the fire the other night?" Sarah was smiling, almost excited for there to be something there.

"he's my best friend, Sar. plus you know how i feel about Pope," you shook your head. but you remembered what it felt like to dance with JJ, and the photo he had of you two, and how when you woke up after sleeping in his bed you didn't move because his arm was over your waist and your head was against his chest.

"you two have always been a little closer than just best friends, don't you think?" Sarah finished her beer, getting up to go get another one. you found your eyes on Pope again, the discussion of JJ disappearing from your mind. he was talking to the boys now. Kie was no longer on the boat, and you realized the boat had been stopped for some time.

you had JJ's shirt on over your bathing suit; the shirt you'd basically stolen from him since you'd slept in it. it was soft, and when you'd put it on the first time it smelled of him. now it smelled like the water and your perfume, the scent of him still lingering.

Pope was laughing, and it made you smile. seeing him calm down enough to have a good time made your chest fill up with hope - hope that he would be okay. and as you watched him, and as he looked out to Kie in the water, maybe you didn't like Pope as much as you thought you did.

Pope was the safe option, and his dad loved you. Pope was security and safety. Pope was moving to mainland, going to school, graduating. Pope was studying for tests, getting scholarships. he was, in the way your mom had always told you, "perfect to settle down with, start a family."

you knew how your mother felt about you hanging out with the pogues, especially since she'd grown up and married one. it didn't last long, not when he was always causing trouble and starting fights. he was in jail, your dad, somewhere in Louisiana. you hadn't seen him since you were in the third grade. but she liked Pope, liked how the future would be different for you if you married him. she liked Sarah and what part of Outer Banks she was from.

JJ was everything your mother didn't want for you. she didn't like that he had a bike and you willingly rode on it when you got off work. she didn't like the way she'd found him sleeping in your room, yelling at him to get out. she didn't like the way JJ had given you your first beer, and how you'd come home late because you'd been out with them - if you came home at all. JJ was your best friend, had been for a while, and just because your mother didn't like him as much as Pope didn't mean you were going to stop being friends with him.

you were friends with John B. though, and your mom didn't mind him nearly as much as she did JJ. you thought about what Sarah had said and realized she thought the same thing as your mom: something was going on between you and JJ.

"you done thinking yet?" JJ asked, pulling you from your thoughts. he was sat where Sarah had been, but you could hear the four of them in the water.

"why aren't you swimming, J?" you asked instead of answering his question.

"the party's with you," he shrugged, leaning back. "what's the fun of swimming if you aren't in the water?"

"you just want your shirt back, don't you?" you laughed, watching him shrug again.

"i mean, seeing you in your suit would be an added bonus," he confessed, closing his eyes with a smile as he took in the sun.

"what ever happened to being a gentleman, JJ?" you leaned back too. his arm went around your shoulders and you leaned into him.

"someone has to remind you you're beautiful, so i took the job," he squeezed your arm, both of you laughing softly.

"is this like a once a day job, or once a week, or...?"

"all day, every day," JJ responded. you looked over at his face to see him looking at you. "and, i'd never lie to you."

"are you saying you have lied before you got this job?" you raised an eyebrow. "you could get fired for that sort of behavior."

"you'd never fire me," JJ scoffed. "in fact, you told me your life is better with me in it."

"you remember that?" you questioned, cringing inwardly at how cheesy it actually sounded.

"i remember everything you say," he told you, standing up and hold a hand out to you. "now, will you please come swim with us?"

"are you going to push me underwater?" you took his hand and he pulled you up.

"we have a tradition, Y/N. you can't make me not push you," he shook his head, pulling his shirt off. again, just like when you slept over at the chateau, seeing him shirtless made you feel differently. he had been shirtless when you came over, half asleep since you'd come over early to get everyone rounded up. he was, for lack of a better word, kinda hot.

"you can take a picture, if you want. should i do a pose like you girls do?" he joked, standing in a similar way to your most recent photoshoot with the girls. you smiled, taking his shirt off. he was staring this time, like really running his eyes over you.

"did you want a personal photoshoot, J? because that'll come out of your paycheck," you pushed his shoulder slightly. he smiled widely, eyes still roaming your body.

"you really are beautiful, you know," he sighed, finding your eyes.

"stop flirting with her and get in the water, dumbass!" Kie yelled, splashing water onto the boat.

"there is important weed upon this boat, young lady!" JJ argued back. you grabbed his hand and squeezed it, making him look at you.

you leaned to whisper in his ear, telling him, "you're beautiful too." you kissed his cheek before jumping in the water.

he followed you in not long after. of course, the tradition of pushing each other under water was not avoided. you were smiling and laughing as you played in the water with him, the others following suit in your antics. it wasn't long before the six of you found your way back onto the boat, exhausted.

JJ was laying with his head in your lap, surprisingly fast asleep. you were playing with his hair, nursing one of the last beers.

"so what'd you say to him, anyway?" Pope asked, making everyone look at you. hearing him address you didn't bring up past feelings, especially with your hand in JJ's hair.

"when?" you took a drink. "we were talking up here for a while before we joined you guys."

"we could hear all of that, actually," Sarah admitted. she was smiling like before, like she knew something you didn't.

"we mean what you whispered to him," Kie filled in the blank.

"he turned bright red, then followed you into the water," John B. told you.

"i told him i'd drown his weed in the water if he wasn't nicer to Kie," you decided to keep what you said yours and JJ's secret, especially since you knew the boys would torture him endlessly about it.

"see, i knew i liked you," Kie laughed, holding out her beer to you.

"anything for you Kie, and i mean anything," you flirted with her, making everyone laugh. JJ shifted, curling so that he was on his side and he was holding onto your leg.

the boat ride was mostly quiet after that, just the sound of the animals and the boat in the water, with the occasional whisper amongst the others to one another. JJ was asleep most of the ride, keeping your legs warm. he looked so young, so much like the little boy you'd run into while playing around the cut. he looked beautiful, as you'd told him earlier. by the time you reached the dock, JJ was awake and desperately in need of the bathroom.

"when you get a boyfriend, he's gonna be a mess," John B. said as you walked off the boat. JJ had run ahead, and everyone else actually needed to get home.

"what do you mean?" you glanced at John B., watching as he tied up while you grabbed things off the boat.

"come on, Y/N. are you really going to tell me there's nothing going on between you and JJ?" John B. looked up at you.

"did Sarah mention something to you?" you sighed, stepping off the boat.

"actually we witnessed your dancing and your boat conversation," John B. stood.

"he's my best friend," you two walked up to the chateau together. "and that's all JJ thinks of me."

"are you blind, or are you blind?" John B. nudged you slightly, letting out a laugh. JJ came out of the chateau, breathless.

"feel better J?" you asked. he took the stuff off of you, ignoring John B.'s passing wink in your direction as he went in.

"much better. are you staying over?" JJ looked at you. you could see the hopeful look in his eye, reading him like an open book. he really did let his emotions guide his decisions.

"can't get rid of me that easily," you teased, opening the door. "you're stuck with me, J."

"i wouldn't have it any other way, sweetheart," he teased back, letting you in first. it was the first time he'd called you sweetheart. it nearly knocked you off your feet, the way he said it coming so easily to him. he started talking about what the others had said before they left, but all you could think about was him saying sweetheart again.

[s-brant]

Pirates and Princesses (8/8)

(gif: @beccs) (PART SEVEN) (SERIES MASTERLIST)

Summary: JJ must confront his childhood trauma when returning home for the first time since his dad went to jail and prevent it from sabotaging his new relationship. Meanwhile, something sinister happens at the Chateau that brings Y/N face to face with her grief over John B’s death.

Word Count: 13.4k

Warnings: Angst, implied sexual content, strong language, parent/child abuse, mental illness, post-traumatic stress disorder, grief, and fluff.

A/N: Welcome to the final chapter of Tokens! This one has a little bit of everything in it, but it also has detailed scenes about JJ and his dad, so proceed with caution if you’re easily triggered by that topic. The love you guys show this fic warms my heart so much, so thanks to anyone who stuck with this story until this chapter. Hope you enjoy it!

Now that she has been sentenced to both punishments, one as a consequence of the fight with Kacey and the other as a consequence of the stunt she pulled with JJ to break out of ISS, Y/N can confidently say that out of school suspension is superior to in-school suspension by a long shot. Instead of sitting in a humid room with Alec for the duration of multiple school days, she's allowed to stay home, go out surfing, and do whatever she wants in lieu of doing classwork.

She promised herself not to make it a habit, promising the invisible presence of John B that she likes to pretend follows her around that she will never get herself into trouble again, but she sees no problem in enjoying her suspension while it lasts.

For the first few days of her suspension, JJ skipped school to spend it with her. Their memories of the conversation they had at three in the morning on Sunday were fuzzy, but not missing entirely. She noticed a difference in his behavior for the first few hours after they woke up under the tree together for the second time in one week. It wasn't a difference in their relationship or how he treated her, it was a difference in him.

He was quieter than usual as they cleaned up cans of beer and tossed them into the recycling, sending pictures to Kie while she was in class after she made them promise not to throw them in the trash. Rather than cracking jokes or making casual conversation with her, JJ made his way around the yard with the recycling bin in his hands and his head in the clouds. It disappeared as the day progressed, but for a little while, he wasn't completely there.

Today, he went into school instead of ditching to spend extra time with her in between shifts at work and time spent with their friends. Since they can't exceed three consecutive absences without a doctor’s note and he doesn't own a printer or laptop to forage the header from a doctor's office, he had no choice but to part from her this morning.

He bites his lip to contain his smug facial expression at the recollection of her wake up call for him. The hand holding his locker door open for him to lean on in the midst of his not-so-wholesome thoughts of her squeezes the metal hard enough to turn his knuckles white.

The curtains weren't shut all the way when they fell asleep before midnight last night, allowing a shaft of sunlight to shine in and land on his face. But that wasn't what woke him up from the dream he was having. In fact, the reality he opened his eyes to was a hell of a lot better than any dream he remembered.

Most of his memory of those moments spent suspended between consciousness and unconsciousness consisted of feeling her pressing a kiss to his shoulder, then her hands rubbing up and down his waist to slip lower and lower until they settled on the waistband of his underwear. It was then that he woke to find her looking up at him for permission from where she peppered kisses along his chest.

Their eyes met right as she kissed the edge of his nipple with this pleading, needy look that he took pride in causing without actively attempting to. She woke up on the brink of coming undone from a pleasant—to put it tamely—dream about him. With a glimpse at the time displayed on the alarm clock, it didn't take much for her to roll over to wake him up.

It ended with her beneath the sheet, finishing what she started Friday afternoon until he was clutching the pillow beneath his head in the midst of his orgasm. It happened so fast, a fault of how hot he found it to wake up to her wanting him so badly, but it felt slower than it truly was in the early morning haze of exhaustion they felt.

The memory as he relives it is as heady as it felt the first time around. He sees it in fractions; her eyes looking up at his, warm palms finding the familiar planes of his muscular body with the exploratory touch of someone who's never traveled it before, and the intense sensations he felt at the end...It's easy for him to stand here and lose himself in it. Despite the class he has to go to, he bargains with himself for one more second spent in the paradise of his memories before he has to come back to reality.

Reality, as his shitty luck would have it, comes in the form of a familiar feminine voice chirping from behind his back as he replays his morning bliss.

"It's good to see you're alive and well, Maybank."

He decides, based on who he knows he'll see when he turns around, that he might invest in a sharpie to write "Bang head here" on the inside of his locker door for instances like these where he'd rather suffer brain damage than speak to someone he can't stomach the presence of.

When he turns to see Kacey with one arm still stretched to hold his locker open, he doesn't bother concealing the genuine reaction from his face for the sake of her feelings. Any care he had for her and her feelings was thrown to the wind as soon as she decided she could steal from and put her hands on his girl last week. However, after a second of thought, a condescending smirk finds its way to his face.

He says, jerking his chin to vaguely gesture at her bruised up face, "Purple really suits your complexion. It makes your eyes pop, don't you think?"

Though the swelling of her black eye has deflated in the days since the fight that’ll soon tally up to a week, the verbal jab hits right where it intended to if the light leaving her eyes tells him anything. She bounces back after a second, though, ever the relentless pest they've come to see her as.

She offers a sickeningly sweet, yet fake smile to mirror the one gracing his striking features and spins so her back meets the locker beside his, allowing herself to invade his space further.

A collection of Y/N's stickers decorates the inside of his locker door that he briefly entertained the idea of designating as a place to bang his head against. They range from girly, glittery ones to those he willingly picked when she gave him the choice. Whenever they're at his locker together, she sticks one on the inside, and the evidence of the habit catches Kacey's wandering eyes.

Her fingertips brush against the surface of the sticker-covered metal while she ignores his protest of, "Can you not touch my stuff?" to inspect them. Since one of the Pogues in particular is famous for her endless supply of stickers, her expression sours at the thought of the girl responsible for them.

She spares him a quick glance out of the corner of her eye as she continues to analyze the sticker collection against his instructions not to, asking, "Why weren't you at the bonfire?" A failed attempt at a seductive look in his direction makes him fight not to roll his eyes. "After how last year's ended, I thought you wouldn't miss it for the world."

JJ doesn't bother to take a second to think things through before he reaches to slam the door closed with her hand still outstretched inside of it. Watching her pull it away just in time to avoid jamming it in the locker probably pleases him more than it should, but he can't help it. His hand catches on the edge of the door, halting it in place right before it closes where her hand previously rested.

She doesn't look too happy with him when he opens the door with no harm done except for the drop of her stomach when he initially pretended to swing it shut on her bruised knuckles. She didn't get many shots in on Y/N when they fought, but apparently it was enough.

He doesn't bother with the fake niceties she's giving him after the disrespect she showed him, his friends, and, most importantly, his girlfriend. The fact that she thinks she has any right to breathe in his direction, let alone flirt with him, after she stole JB's bandana is criminal. 'Cause not only did she mess with Y/N, she messed with John B on multiple levels, and his loyalty to his best friend hasn't disappeared with death. Kie and Y/N told him everything she said about their departed friend in the locker room last Thursday.

But he's smart enough to know what'll hurt her more, so he doesn't go for the general scolding he imagined giving her in his head. Since he was told everything about the encounter in the locker room, he knows she's still holding their history together near and dear to her heart.

"We stayed home," he says, casual and cool as always, with added emphasis on the first word, "You know how it is, my girl doesn't like parties. Especially not ones with kooks."

Hook, line, and sinker.

She scoffs, "Your girl?"

Looking at her now, he wonders if she was always this stupid, or if this is a new development she's had in the year since he last spent more than a minute or two at a time with her. It’s easier to trick her than it was with Kie and Y/N a few days ago, and those poor girls flew into that trap like moths to a flame.

"That's what I said, isn't it?"

The ire is visible in the way her face tenses up in places, her lips pressing together a little more firmly and her forehead creasing between the brows.

"Doesn't your, um, history bother her?" she asks, and he's gotta give her credit for being a sneaky little shit when given the chance. The girl takes every possible opening she can to strike for a potential weakness. "No offense, but you kinda get around."

He shrugs this time, deciding to drop his casual act and aim straight for the jugular.

"She likes having someone who knows how to fuck her right, actually, but I really appreciate the concern."

Much like Kie's reaction to their matching tattoos in the hot tub the other night, her jaw is unhinged to meet the unswept hallway floor they stand on. It makes him wish Y/N weren't suspended in order for her to see the gobsmacked reaction Kacey has to the harsh dismissal. Though he wouldn't want to incite an extra round of the Kacey vs Y/N WWE showdown by having her watch another girl flirt with him and essentially call him a slut upon rejection, he knows she'd get a kick out of it.

This one's for you, baby, he thinks with a quiet laugh to himself and turns his focus to the sticker collection she so lovingly crafted.

There are plenty of summer themed ones left over from the same pack he gifted her for her birthday with the surfboard sticker she used to tease him, as well as a newer genre of Valentine's Day stickers she started using the closer they grew since first getting together. They're mostly different colored candy hearts with corny phrases ranging from "U SXY THING" to the classic "BE MINE" and one printed with "ANGEL" on it—his favorite by far.

However, others are random ones from her endless stash built up over the years from birthdays and holidays deemed worthy enough by her dad to stop by Dollar Tree for a new pack, so the one he sets his attention on is likely meant for teachers or coaches to give to their students. The opportunity appears too good to be true to him when it clicks, but it isn't.

He peels the sticker off of the locker door, careful not to disturb the ones around it, and leans in closer to her to place it on the front of her tank top.

"Leave us alone or I won't stop her next time," JJ says lowly, past the point of civility, then backs away to slam his locker shut for real this time as his voice raises back to a normal volume, "And keep John B's name out of your mouth, got it?"

All she can do is look down at the sticker placed on her shirt with squinted eyes to try and read it while he walks off in the direction of his next class. It tears away from the fabric with a soft noise, and when she finally reads it, she rolls her eyes.

“Good Try!”

​​Walking out of school to see the Twinkie parked in the usual spot Y/N takes when she isn't suspended is a delightful treat he didn't know to expect after a rough day in class and his run in with Kacey. His head was hung low on his way to Kie's car to hitch a ride to his house before going home to the Chateau, since he had some things to pick up with his dad out of the picture for the near future, but then he heard her greet them.

JJ's body melts into hers upon contact, and he nearly pushes her up against the closed passenger side door of the van with how hard he hugs her. Though he doesn't want to acknowledge it, his dad has been living in his thoughts more than usual today. Ever since he texted him goodbye, he's been withdrawn inside of his head more and more, and after today's inconveniences, the rising anxiety of his plan to visit home has him two seconds from losing his mind.

Her eyes widen at his zeal, meeting Kie's concerned gaze from over the shoulder she rests her chin on. She stands with her keys swinging around her finger as she watches the couple embrace one another. In an answer to the silent question Y/N asks her in their stare, her lips mouth the words, "His dad," to her.

Deep down, Y/N had a feeling.

It began with his impromptu request to run away with her a few days ago and extended into his uncharacteristically reserved attitude the next morning that receded somewhat, but has yet to fully disappear. There is a part of her that's upset that he hasn't come to her to talk about it, to communicate the way they swore they would, yet she also knows it isn't that simple.

She has to remind herself that she knew what she was getting herself into with him. That's not to say that dating her must be a walk in the park for him, it isn't.

She knows based on the amount of times he had to hold her as she cried, or the time he curtailed her panic attack in this very parking lot, that she hasn't made it easy for him in the aftermath of John B's death. But it's because she knows how it feels that she has such patience with his communication issues.

It's not a conscious choice most times, it's an involuntary blockage preventing the words from being spoken no matter how desperately they long to be. They may have made a promise, but she won't chastise him for succumbing to the same pitfalls as her. It’d be hypocritical.

"Bad day?" she asks.

Her voice is tender with him, prodding gently for a clue as to why he pounced on her on sight. He sinks further into her arms at the sound and lets the sanctity of her touch sway him into submission. Everything about her sets him at ease, if only for a second. Her hand lifts the beat-up red hat from his head to allow the other to brush through his hair.

There's a hum of agreement that she feels vibrating through the center of his chest into hers, and her arms pull tighter around his shoulders in response. This time, when she looks up to see Kie there, she's waving a quick goodbye and setting off toward her car, clearly giving JJ the space he needs.

"We can go to the beach," she says softly, "I have a towel in the back of the van, we can just lay there and talk about it if you want."

The idea of her kind offer to him should add to the comfort he finds in her embrace. It should make him nod and whisper his gratitude to her for being the one person that knows him better than anyone, but it brings him back to the gloomy headspace he was in before seeing her.

It started as a minor distraction when he first arrived at school after carpooling with Kie. It followed him in the quieter moments, only making appearances when he wasn't distracted with more pressing matters. It began as that and built the closer the day came to ending. The sooner his inevitable visit back to his childhood home came, the more he lost himself in his fear, reverting back to a state of helplessness he now occupies with no small amount of shame.

His bottom lip trembles with the urge to cry.

"Can we stop somewhere on the way home first?"

The last place she expected him to drive the Twinkie is here.

As they made their way down each street, taking each turn necessary to bring them closer to the house he seldom let her go to over the course of their lifelong friendship, she felt her heart begin to race. And now, as the van rolls to a stop in the yard in front of his house, she has swallow back the lump in her throat at the sight of it.

She has only been here a few times.

The first time, she was seven years old.

It was a sweltering summer morning in the Outer Banks for her and John B as they set off to retrieve their friend after he missed their plans to meet up at the Chateau for a day of having fun, riding bikes, and playing on the boat. Pirates and Princesses was her favorite game to play with them because JJ would switch roles with her halfway through when she grew tired of being the damsel John B had to rescue from the most cruel and vicious Captain Jesse James Maybank.

The HMS Pogue would rock beneath his feet as he marched across the deck of the boat and took her place as the kidnapped Princess Routledge. He handed off his "sword" to her, a stick he found in the yard, and stood at the edge of the boat with his hands behind his back as though he were a tied up damsel in distress for her to hold captive. The sun setting behind them laid a picturesque backdrop that made the scene all the more vivid to their imaginative young minds.

The boat floated in the afternoon current as John B approached the pair with his best pretend face of worry for the fair Princess Maybank, who had the sharp sword of the pirate queen pressing into his throat with the threat of death should he have tried to escape.

Sometimes, she'd let John B advance on them and tie make believe rope around her wrists and ankles while he and Princess Maybank claimed their victory. Other times, they'd get backed up until the heels of her sneakers hung off the edge of the slippery deck. One move from her brother would have her yell something along the lines of not taking either of them alive, then she'd let her and JJ fall back into the marsh together with gleeful laughs infiltrating the humid air upon their return to the surface.

On the day he didn't show up, none of that happened. She and John B rode their bikes together along sidewalks until they pulled into a driveway marked with the address number he remembered from the other time he sought him out to play before.

Y/N didn't understand what they were hearing when they pushed their kickstands down and called out for their friend, but John B's little face blanched at the sound flooding out of the opened windows of the dilapidated yellow house. It was a combination of banging against the walls, glass shattering, and childlike shouts of frustration and pain. Her big brother placed himself in front of her protectively when the front door opened and smacked against the side of the house, but it wasn't his dad storming out of the house, it was JJ.

His eyes widened at the sight of the siblings standing there, and his heart dropped to his stomach at the realization that they heard it. Maybe not all of it, but based on how the girl peeking out around John B's shoulder looked at him, they heard some.

The van is parked in the exact same place their bikes once were, the exact place she and John B stood years ago when they were first confronted with the harsh reality about their best friend's home life, and he looks like he has fully backpedaled into the state of mind his childhood self inhabited. Even when he turns the key in the ignition and lets the rumbling engine sputter down in silence, he sits in the driver's seat with his lip drawn between his teeth in thought.

Yet as soon as she summons the courage to say something, he takes a deep breath and opens the door without a warning or the typical instruction for her to stay in the car. He doesn't tell her to follow him in, nor does he order her to stay out as he used to when his dad still lived inside. He gives her the choice to make on her own, and, when faced with the opportunity to support him or stay outside like the confused little girl she once was, she chooses the first option.

Her swift steps kick dirt up from the earth onto her ankles as she follows him out of the van to the front steps of the house. She tries not to make her concern for him as evident as it'd be without her intervention on her way up the porch, but it's impossible to erase every sign of it from her face.

It isn't a particularly special or scary house. It's a normal home that'd likely look more inviting if JJ were still living here to mow the lawn and tend to the household upkeep his father saddled him with since he was old enough to be put to work. But she knows better than to trust the street appeal. As he takes her hand to lead them through the threshold of the haunted structure, she is overcome with a sense of creeping trepidation that she can't shake.

"You're sure he isn't here?" she asks.

The entryway is crowded with stacks of mail his father wasn’t bothered to open, as well as empty cardboard boxes that once held cans of beer that are scattered, empty, in various places around the house. Her question is answered by the state of the rooms they breeze past in the direction of his bedroom, but she needed something to say to fill the silence. With them, they usually don’t feel uncomfortable not speaking to each other, but this feels different.

The way he stares out in front of him with his hand squeezing hers hard enough to cut off circulation unnerves her more than the tainted energy of the house itself. He isn't himself. He's a shell of the JJ they know and love, the JJ who is most comfortable tucked away in the safe walls of the Chateau with their friends, not here. If anything, how he is while he's here is the antithesis of his behavior while living with her.

Ever since John B died, he's practically moved in with her. When they're hidden away in her house without the reminders of his home life in sight, he's usually the caretaker of the relationship. It comes naturally to their dynamic, both with him being slightly older and his promise to take care of her, but everything is flipped here. It's an alternate reality for him, or, perhaps, actual reality smacking him in the face after a carefully constructed two months in utopia with her.

They come to a stop in front of his closed bedroom door.

"He's gone," he says, not even sparing a glance at her for reasons she can't decipher, "He texted me a few days ago to say goodbye."

With that, he turns the doorknob and lets the door swing open to reveal the bedroom she only saw one other time.

The second time, she was thirteen years old.

It was a Friday.

Since his dad was supposed to be at work, they stopped at his house on their way home from school exactly like they did today so he could share with their friends what he got from his cousin the night before. Being the good girl she was, she didn't even know what he was showing her when he dug it out of the backpack in the bottom of his closet.

Her brows furrowed at the ziploc bag, more specifically the contents inside of it. She was knelt down on the floor in front of the opened closet door with her shoulder pressed up against his to inspect it. The dried green cluster of a plant didn't look like anything she'd seen before, and she couldn't help but ask him what the hell it was rather than react the way he knew the others would.

"What is it? It looks like dried up moss."

JJ laughed and pulled another bag with rolling papers and a grinder stowed inside.

"It's weed. My cousin Ricky gave me a discount since—"

He halted mid-sentence abruptly enough to startle her, his head turning in the direction of where he heard a trunk pulling up to the front of the house. Her stare was still set on where he was holding the plastic bags in his hands, and she noticed, after he stopped speaking in reaction to his dad coming home, that his hands began trembling. It was so minimal, she almost didn't catch it until she saw the bag wavering under the light coming in from his window.

Before she could open her mouth to say anything more, she felt his hands on her shoulders shoving her into the closet. He followed in closely behind her and crawled in until they were both crammed into the confined space together. With the closet doors shut in front of them, he clamped a hand over her mouth, whispering in her ear for her to be quiet.

She stands with her arms crossed over herself in the center of his room, and though nothing has yet to be said or done to convince her anything is wrong, that's the exact reason why she feels so unnerved by the entire experience of coming here.

He's silent.

The closet doors are wide open as he stuffs the rest of the clothes he had yet to bring to the Chateau into the biggest bag he could find. He rips through his belongings in a fit of melancholy driven anger. His thoughts are swirling with similar memories to the ones she conjures from being here again, but his are tinged with a darkness hers don't have, even with hearing him crying in pain as a child and hiding in the closet with his hand smothering her mouth to evade his dad.

JJ visibly grimaces at the memories he's forced to relive in flashes with every glimpse he gets of the room he spent so much time hiding in. It used to be more tolerable to be here, or at least easier to suffer through. At least he was used to it before, but he got so accustomed to life somewhere else that the second he was confronted with coming back, he started to fall apart.

Whatever he can't live without, he finds space for it in the bag and prepares to leave the rest behind. But every object he touches and step he takes around the room brings him back to the person who he spent his adolescence simultaneously fleeing and wanting more from. More notably, it brings him back to the train of thought that has been nagging him ever since he texted him over the weekend.

The third and final time she came here was over the summer.

It happened right before Hurricane Agatha waged war on the island, when none of the Pogues heard from JJ for two days after he said he had to go home to help his dad with something. She didn't want to track him down to his house after they went over twenty-four hours without a single message. She didn't want to have to go back to the house that gave her chills to think about, let alone go to again after they hid in his closet when they were younger, but he gave her no other choice.

What was she supposed to do except go check on him where he last said he'd be? After all, if she lived in the hazardous environment he did, he'd do the exact same for her. If their friends were involved in her thoughts at the time, they would've gone out on a limb to say he would've gone beyond what she did to protect her if the situation were flipped. If he knew someone was hurting her, he would've come in swinging first and asked questions later, but, in her defense, he strictly told her to never come back to his house. By walking over in the first place, she was breaking one of the fundamental rules of their friendship.

Nevertheless, she found herself crouching around the side of his house to find his bedroom window and check if he was in there. Kie and Pope weren't aware of what was happening with his dad yet, but she and John B accidentally found out years ago, so she wasn't wondering why he wasn't answering them, she was wondering if he was alive.

Part of her truly thought underneath it all that Luke might've killed him. He might've been too drunk or high and went too far when beating him, too far to the point where he didn't want to risk going to jail to take him to the hospital for help. She couldn't live with herself if she didn't check, and if he got pissed at her for showing up against his wishes and didn't want to speak to her ever again, she could live with that.

She knocked on his window in a cadenced beat loud enough for it to heard through the room but not any further. After the first series of knocks, no one came to the window. It ripped her heart to pieces to wonder if she'd see him again as she continued to knock and allowed the sound to increase in volume in hopes that maybe he was asleep, but it didn't bring anyone to the window.

It wasn't until she turned back around to go to the front of the house again that she bumped right into the solid wall of his chest and was pushed back up against the house. The question of what she was doing there was on the tip of his tongue, but she said something that stopped him from asking it.

Her arms were thrown around his shoulders in a desperate bear hug.

"Oh God, JJ, you scared me half to death!" she cried into the front of his shirt, "I thought he killed you!"

He can't help but think of it as he packs his belongings away for a final time to bid his hellish childhood home goodbye: What kind of life are they going to have together if they can't get off this island? Running away may have been an idealistic drunken fantasy for him to entertain after his conversation with Pope got him to admit his true feelings for her, but they both know his consistency can't be trusted.

One moment, he's planning to tell her. The next, a day like today comes along, sweeps his legs out from beneath his body, and he's questioning whether it's worth it to force her to put up with his fickle commitment to her. It isn't fair to her, is it?

Right now is just about when he'd normally start to hyperventilate with an oncoming wave of panic, and he does, but he can't let it fully sweep into him with her here. He fights the urge to smack his head with the heel of his palm, as if that'd forcibly remove the poisonous thoughts infiltrating his mind and ruining the careful work they've done together to remedy their issues with communicating their feelings.

Just like you ruin everything, a thought whispers in the corner of his mind. What made you think this would be any different?

His actions around the room have turned somewhat aimless and distracted, which she notices as soon as he starts to disintegrate into a mess of heavy breaths and self-sabotaging thoughts. She picks up on the shift in his energy as soon as the anxiety starts to wash over him, and she'll be damned if she continues to stand here quietly to let it happen.

It's one thing if he's being silent because being here upsets him, or if he simply doesn't know what to say, but she refuses to let him tailspin into a mental breakdown without doing something to stop it. Whether he knows it or not, after what they went through with him trying to push her away last week, she knows what's occurring within his mind right now.

He flinches at the feeling of her hand grabbing his shoulder to turn him to face her at first, and when she reaches again with her other hand to try to hold his hand as he cries, he shrugs off her touch.

"JJ..." she lets the solemn sound of her own voice murmuring his name trail off, "it's just me."

His head shakes at her consoling words. Everything else inside of his mind is so earth-shatteringly loud, he can't drown it out with logic or reason to bring himself away from the memories of his dad. Those intrusive thoughts keep attacking him with doubled, then tripled force the harder he tries to resist them, and he's so exhausted from it. All of it—the memories, his dad going to jail, and his inability to accept her love to its fullest extent without convincing himself she'll abandon him—is exhausting.

This time, when she rests her hand on his shoulder, he swats it away as the frustration of today crushing him with the force of an avalanche. Not to hurt or scare her, but to get her hands off of him before he bursts out of his skin with the sickness it stirs in his stomach. So detached from himself, he anticipates pain from every touch she gives him, and he knows it hurts her.

JJ hardly recognizes his own voice as he backs away from her a step and says, "Don't."

He can tell it hurts her based on how she looks at him immediately after, but he can't handle being touched right now. How did this happen so quickly? It was overwhelming when they first parked outside, but as soon as he stepped foot inside, it was as if a switch was flipped inside of him and all of the buried feelings he kept hidden over the past two weeks exploded into this.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to—"

"You need to leave. I just-I can't breathe and"—He still refuses to look up from the ground or see her face as he paces around the room with no real intent in mind—"You can't see me like this."

That is what breaks her out of her soft spoken, timid attitude to handle the situation the way it needs to be handled. Their natural dynamic worked best for him to take charge when she had her panic attack because JJ acts first and thinks later. He saw that she was in distress and jumped in to help her before things got worse rather than allowing her to keep him at an arms length where he couldn't do anything about it.

Taking a page from his rule book, she takes action.

The room surrounding them is in a state of disarray from him searching through it for the items of clothing and objects now stashed in his duffel bag. There are multiple obstacles in her way as she steps between them like navigating a minefield to reach him after he backed away in instinctual fear, but they don't stop her from reaching him. Nothing could.

Y/N walks right up to him and reaches to grasp his face between her hands, forcing him to stop pacing around and actually look at her for the first time since they arrived her so he hears what she says. To say the least, the way he looks right now is enough to make her cry. There are tears welled up to the brims of his blue eyes, his lips are downturned with his sobs, and he's staring at her like she's about to strike him.

She says it as slowly and clearly as she needs to get it through his head, "He's not here," and before he manages to squeeze out another word of doubt between his rapid inhalations, she cuts in, "Take deep breaths."

He isn't listening to her.

The movement of his chest that hits hers from how close they stand to each other has yet to settle into the familiar pace she remembers from nights of falling asleep with the rhythm of his breaths beneath her head.

Her eyes search his face frantically, from left to right and top to bottom, for any sign of the person she's known for years, but she doesn't see him. Instead, she sees the same panicked child her and John B saw the first time they visited this house. It's uncanny how similar the expression in his face is. It feels to her as if she's been hurled back in time to the moment itself, and when she tries to think about what would've worked with him back then, she doesn't know what else to do except help him escape.

So, with the helplessness of having to watch him turn into a sobbing, incoherent mess, she decides to step into the darkness with him and do what seven year old Y/N would've done. Just like their games of make believe, of pirates and princesses, she assumes the role John B would have and rescues him from what holds him captive. It’s his own mind in this case, but, in the physical sense, it's the house.

She drops her hands from his face and takes his hand in hers to drag him out of the room. The packed bag sits on the floor in their wake as she pulls him back through the bedroom door and into the living room, not caring about what they came here to do.

It doesn't matter anymore.

The various rooms of his dad's house pass by them in a blur as she leads him down the hallway to the front door with one sole objective in mind: get him out of here. If he wants his stuff to bring back to the Chateau, she'll go back inside and get whatever he needs her to, but she isn't letting him inside of this house again. Not under her watch.

Thankfully, since he is undeniably stronger than her and she wouldn't have stood a chance, he doesn't fight it. He stumbles after her guiding hand the same way he always has, just like how he followed her back to the Chateau after she and John B saw him that day when they were kids. She led the way as he sat on the handlebars of her brother's bike, and he watched her hair flutter in the wind with the momentum of their bicycle spokes until the tears dried up.

He watches her drag him out of the home until they've reached the safety of the yard at the bottom of the porch steps, and as soon as the soles of her shoes meet the dirt, she feels his hand slipping out of hers.

"JJ?"

She turns around to see him clutching his chest, rubbing his hand along the front of his shirt over his heart as though it'll loosen up the tightened muscles preventing him from catching his breath. His body weight is leaned onto the railing of the porch steps for support. He's partially slumped on it, looking at her desperately, like she somehow knows the answer to every question screamed inside of his head, and she has never felt as useless.

"You're gonna leave," JJ says through the gasps and cries that leave his cheeks stained with tears.

When she reaches out again to help him remain upright without leaning over the railing, he doesn't shove her hands away as he did inside of his bedroom. It's a small battle won, but she takes it as a win nonetheless.

"What are you saying? I'm right here, I'm not going anywhere—"

"You're gonna leave! Everybody does! My mom, John B, my dad, and you"—his head falls to look at the ground instead of her, and she watches him work through it in his head—"I mean, look at me. You don't want this."

"Don't tell me what I want," she says.

Her voice remains as steady and calm as she can force it to be amidst the turbulent situation, but the way he said it...It takes her right back to sitting in the back of the Twinkie with him at the Cherry Bowl, except it's ten times worse. That felt like a break up, but based on what he's saying, this is one. She hasn't prepared herself for the heartache she feels in response to it.

"You don't want me, you just think you do 'cause I was there after John B died, but you don't. You're gonna go off, find some perfect guy that isn't as fucked up as me, and have a great life somewhere else, but it ain't here," JJ says, his breathing evening out with the distraction of the argument to keep him tethered tor reality, "And it won't be with me."

He can see it every time he's looked at her and debated saying those three titular words that have been floating around in his head since he first met her.

How could she want someone who can't walk into his childhood bedroom without breaking down, or someone who still has years-old scars from cigarette burns on his skin when she touches him? Her bright future contrasted with his pre-designated fate on the Cut, her personality better matched with someone more similar to her, her life continuing on whether he's there or not—it's his worst nightmare, but he's prepared to see it through.

What he doesn't expect is for her to hold her ground.

"You honestly think I'm buying into that bullshit?" she asks.

"What?"

She doesn't put it softly, she states facts with as much harshness as his cruel fantasy had, "You're trying to push me away and I won't let you."

Her typically sweet, soft features have hardened into a bitter expression he's sure he mirrors. The arms holding his waist to keep him upright move to climb up his chest and cup his face between her hands with all of the gentleness her face and voice don't have right now.

She sees right through him.

When he tries to look away again, to avert his eyes to make what he's trying to do easier on himself by not having to look at her when he does it, her grasp on his face holds firm. Her hands guide his chin back up so they're face to face, and he realizes what a mistake everyone makes in assuming her this dainty, broken girl whose only source of strength came from the brother she lost. She's a forest fire.

"You're not hearing what I'm saying—"

Y/N interjects, "I am hearing what you're saying, I'm just saying it's bullshit."

She refuses to let him off the hook, and though it frustrates him on the surface, deep down, it makes him fall in love with her all over again. Her insistence against his speech about her leaving him proves him wrong more than anything else could, 'cause he gave her the perfect chance to dip and she shot it down instantly.

The house looms behind them as a menacing presence that threatens to take control of him again, but she doesn't let it. She keeps his eyes on her no matter how many times he tries to look away and doesn't let anything get in the way of what she says next.

"You think that if you push me away and get me to leave you right now, it'll hurt less than it would if I did it later, and I don't accept that. I won't take the bait and let you torture yourself anymore, okay? I can't speak for anyone else, but I know I'll never leave you. Not willingly, anyway."

She looks into his eyes, and this time its softer, more loving, and he's never felt as understood as he does when she continues to speak.

"I'm in love with you. Whether it scares you or not, it's the truth, and I'll never stop saying it. If you think that your issues with your dad are gonna change that for me, you've officially lost your mind." Their noses brush as she leans in to ghost a kiss over his mouth and pulls away a second later to whisper, her forehead pressed to his, "I love you, JJ. Stop being so stubborn and just let me."

His next breath in trembles as he lets her words sink in, and he's stuck at a crossroads inside of himself without a clue of what to do.

The breeze blows her hair away from her face, the afternoon sunshine painting her golden, and when he sees her hair flutter in the air like it did so many years ago, he can't help but feel as calm as he did during their bike ride home. The further away he got from his dad and the house where it all happened, the calmer he grew, and it hits him at this moment that he's so taken aback by her confession to him, he forgot why he was so upset.

It's sobering. The intoxication of his panic hurtled him back in time to the frightened, childlike state of mind his dad's violent abuse often sent him to, but it was hearing her say those words he's feared for weeks that brought him back. Like the jolt of a defibrillator, he's roused back to life with more clarity than before.

She loves him, but, perhaps more importantly, she said she'd never leave him, and that is what he needed to hear more than anything. That is the statement worth more to him than the four letter word he has agonized over endlessly. No one else every attached the promise of "I love you" with the stipulation of it lasting forever. They said the empty words and contradicted it with their actions, but she hasn't done that. Her actions spoke the words long before her mouth did.

He sighs.

It's a deep, yearning sigh that sends him melting into her with the acceptance of what he's denied for too long. He savors the hands cradling his head, as well as the body pressed up against his that he has memorized down to every beauty mark and imperfection, and makes the right choice.

It isn't like it was the night at the Cherry Bowl, or the night he spoke to Pope about it. It still takes more bravery than he possesses to form the words, but there isn't a physical incapability stopping him anymore. It's just him against the trauma beckoning him into its trap again, and he won't let it lure him back into that house.

"Alright," JJ says to her through a sniffle in acceptance to her command, as if he were agreeing on afternoon surfing plans rather than something as monumental as allowing someone to love him, then continues onto with a timid tone, "I love you too."

Before he can watch for her reaction, she's surging forward through the few inches of space left between them to connect their lips in a kiss.

It's vastly different to the kiss they shared in the hallway at school last Friday. In contrast to that one, the reigning emotion within him that drives the kiss after the hesitant beginning doesn't lead them into increased intensity, it gets gentler. It doesn't explode into chaos and passion, it's a tired kiss that he never wants to retreat from. It's the physical manifestation of his feelings for her underneath the guarded exterior he uses to protect himself: gentle and yielding, yet undeniably powerful.

He feels her smiling through her tears against his mouth. In the face of everything that happened this afternoon, he doesn't feel like he should be smiling back at her, but he does. He smiles while kissing her with tears streaming down his face, still reeling from his traumatic response to coming home for the final time, and wonders how a person can feel such contradicting emotions all at once.

Y/N is the one who starts to pull away first, though it's only to check in on him. If she had it her way, she could stay here with him until the sun sets, but he did just come back from the brink of a full-blown panic attack, so she can't in good conscience ignore his well-being for the momentary bliss of their love confessions.

Her thumb brushes over his bottom lip, her smile drooping with worry as she asks, "Wanna spend the rest of the day on the boat? You always say being on the water makes you feel better. Maybe it'll make it easier to talk about it."

His Adam's apple bobs with how he swallows the lump in his throat.

"Can we maybe take baby steps for now? I don't think I can handle telling you all that shit yet."

It was already enough to allow her to follow him into the house, watch him break down into a fit of panic no one else has seen him in, and tell her he loved her, but it'd cross the line into uncharted territory to talk about everything between him and his dad so openly. Between the minor annoyance of dealing with Kacey to this hellish visit home, he thinks he's reached his quota on feeling uncomfortable today.

She nods in agreement.

"Baby steps."

Drawn back to each other by a force stronger than gravity, they collide again, but it isn't a kiss this time. It's a hug charged with all of the previously unspoken emotions they've buried inside of themselves for years, the same hug she gave him the last time she came to this house with the fear of his potential death lingering in her thoughts.

She throws herself at him with the same desperation she did that day and relishes the feeling of his muscular arms returning the embrace until their bodies are tangled together. She'd usually never refer to something as inherently affectionate as an embrace as violent, but it's the closest she can come to capturing how it feels as their bodies meet. It makes her lose her footing on the bottom step they stand on together, teetering on the edge she'd surely slip off of with the force if not for him keeping her steady.

He's about to say something, a thank you to her for calling him out on his bullshit and not letting him go that easily, when the grating sound of her ringtone blares from the back pocket of her denim shorts.

The contact popping up on the screen along with a series of frantic messages when she pulls away from him to answer shows Pope's name.

Pope You and JJ need to get back to the Chateau ASAP!!

The van doors slam shut behind Y/N and JJ as soon as it rolls to a stop in front of the Chateau.

Under the assumption that something dire happened, as in injury or death or catastrophic damage to the house itself, they bolted off of that porch faster than they knew they could move. She only turned back when she remembered the packed back of JJ's things they abandoned on his bedroom floor and, not wanting him to reenter the house, she brought it back to the Twinkie in record time.

They're preparing to trample up the porch into the house like a stampede of animals when they hear Kie calling them over to the backyard and change direction.

"No one's hurt!" she shouts, knowing that was likely where their minds went after everything they went through during the summer, "You have to see this though, I don't know who did it!"

Sticks and fallen leaves crunch beneath her feet on her way around the side of the house. Her mind races with the possibility of what could've happened that didn't hurt their friends but necessitated a series of texts and calls as frantic as the ones she received at JJ's house. She drove over here in defiance of the speed limit, something she rarely does, and prayed nothing terrible was happening.

It gave her flashbacks to when she found out John B and Sarah died in the storm. The pedal beneath her foot brought the van to an uncomfortably swift speed, then she remembered the sound of Shoupe's voice when he gave them the news. JJ warned her to slow down, then she remembered how it took multiple people to help her restrain him from attacking the new sheriff for letting his men drive their friends into their deaths.

At first, she doesn't realize what's wrong.

Kiara and Pope are standing and waiting for them across the grass near the large tree that sits as a centerpiece to their yard. Based on the body language screaming their frustration and the tears in their eyes, she can tell something bad did happen, but it's not clear what it is until she looks past them to the tree. More specifically, until she looks at what's on the tree.

"Oh my god," she whispers to herself.

Her hand is already up to cover her mouth and conceal the instantaneous frown besmirching her previously relaxed face. They both are stopped in their tracks halfway to where their friends are standing, and she can’t hear JJ's reaction over the rising volume of her hysterical thoughts.

Spray painted in red on top of their memorial for John B are the words "COP KILLER" in bold letters that conceal what they burned into the tree trunk for his gravestone. It sticks out from the beauty of the greens, browns, blues, and swathes of other earthy tones composing the scenery around the Chateau like a thorn amongst flowers, so much so that she wonders how she didn't instantly see it when they rounded the corner to come back here.

Yet that isn't the only thing amiss in the peaceful sanctuary they call home, there are random things strewn around the ground around the tree. An old t-shirt spray painted with the word "murderer" on the front, four ripped up envelopes, and a gorgeous mahogany jewelry box...broken on the grass.

The freshly turned dirt they had the contents of the box buried beneath is scattered around the trashed area as well. It clicks with her a few seconds late that whoever came here to do this must have seen the pinwheel she put in the ground to mark the "grave" and dug it up to add insult to injury.

She moves forward without consciously realizing it and stumbles until she reaches the first object of the debris field. Before this, she was doing a masterful job of holding in her cries, but as soon as she crouches down to pick up the pieces of the jewelry box, the lid snapped clean off the hinges to separate it from the bottom section, it comes rushing out of her against her will. The first unrestrained keen is the first thing to snap JJ out of his shell shocked trance.

He walks after her as fast as his legs will take him without breaking into a run, but she isn't letting him get close before she puts the box back down and shuffles forward to collect the torn letter remains. She doesn't want them to get blown away by the wind anymore than they already might have been, so she scrambles to gather the pieces until they're cupped in her hands to protect them.

"Why?" she asks and looks up at Kie and Pope with tears dripping down her face, "Why would anyone do this? Who would do this?"

Pope says, "My guess is as good as yours. We didn't see anyone leaving when we got here, so it must've happened before school ended. This is all we saw before we called you guys."

For a second or two, JJ is grasping at straws for why this happened and who did it like the rest of them are, but then something Pope said makes it click into place. It sets off a domino effect in his mind as he brings back the memory of a certain offspring of satan being absent from gym this afternoon despite being at school earlier, since his encounter with her before Physics made him, unfortunately, aware of her existence again.

His face is set in anger, jaw clenching with the tension of him grinding his teeth together, and he takes his hat off to fidget with it between his hands for a second. Their friends are too focused on her crying to see him contemplating it, but as soon as he speaks, they look up to see him setting his hat back onto his head in preparation to leave and track Kacey down.

Y/N's head snaps up from the torn letters in her hands to the sight of him storming off across the yard with his only goodbye being the words, "I'm gonna kill that bitch."

Her and Pope stare after him in shock, unable to put the pieces together about who that "bitch" is, but Kie doesn't miss a single beat. While Y/N is crumpled over on the ground in tears, she's rushing after JJ before he can approach the bike parked in front of the house. He doesn't even make it five steps before he feels her hands latching onto his wrist to stop him.

She asks, "Who the hell are you talking about? And why would they do this?"

His eyes narrow at her. His unreleased frustration for the situation in general and having to watch Y/N cry after an emotional afternoon together comes rushing out when he snaps at her.

"Kacey. She talked shit at school and I put her in her place. Now, if you don't mind, I'm gonna pay her a little visit."

He yanks his arm sharply towards himself to free it from her grip, but she's a step ahead of him. Quicker than he can think to stop her, Kie swipes the keys hanging out of his back pocket away and throws them to Pope, who, bless his heart, can't catch to save his life. The key ring jingles with its contact at the dead center of his chest, and she mouths an apology to him before turning back to face JJ.

"What the fuck, Kie?"

He makes to stomp past her and retrieve the keys from Pope only to be stopped by her hands reaching out to grab his shoulders.

"Listen to me, you can't go anywhere. Look at her," she whispers lowly enough to keep Y/N from hearing, pointing behind her to where she sits on the ground with Pope knelt beside her, "I wouldn't put it past Kacey to pull a stunt like this. I'm just as mad as you, but revenge can wait and you know it. She needs you."

The fury visible in his expression is subdued by looking past Kie's shoulder to see Y/N crying softly to Pope about the vandalized memorial.

The last time he saw her so distraught over something, it was the day they made the memorial and buried the box in the first place. She sits on her knees with her mom's broken jewelry box between them, shuddering with the sobs she has no control over, and pours the torn paper into the empty bottom half of the box. Exhausted to the core, she looks more like a sullen, kicked puppy than she does herself.

It makes his anger-fueled instincts that urge him to hunt Kacey down and do something, anything he can to make her feel the pain they do right now bubble down into sorrow. It's visible in his eyes when he looks at her.

Kie knows she's gotten under his skin when he sighs, sparing a parting glance to the bike in the driveway, and nods once at her before setting off back to where they're sitting in the grass.

Meanwhile, Y/N is stuck staring down at the disarray of her backyard with nothing but pain aching through her to the bone.

Her brother did wrong things sometimes as a consequence of being human, but never this, never something worthy of having his name dragged through the mud and being branded a murderer after his death. He stole scuba gear from Ward and broke dozens of laws in their hunt for the gold, but he never crossed that line into moral bankruptcy. Rafe did, and it kills JJ to see someone like Kacey do this to his best friend while hanging off of Rafe and his friends like a leech.

The fabric of his worn t-shirt is tarnished by the dried paint clinging to the front of it to the spell the lie written there, and her vision blurs with tears for what feels like the millionth time in the span of an hour. First, it was JJ. Now, it's John B, and she can't help but wonder if the heartache will ever end. It began to feel better over the course of the week, her grief for him slowly beginning to slip from her mind until now. Until the storm clouds converged again to batter her with another wave of it.

Through the deafening volume of her mind racing with thoughts and feelings to process what's happened, she hears Pope shuffling around to stand on his feet. Then, another person sits down in his place and scoots closer until their bodies are touching, and she knows it's him. She doesn't have to wait to hear his voice or look to see his face, she can tell based on the feeling of his touch and the smell of him she's so intimately familiar with, yet couldn't describe it aloud if she tried.

He doesn't smother her. He sits close enough to touch her and doesn't push it any further.

The background of the pale, cloudless sky frames him in the foreground like the subject of a painting—a living, breathing painting that she could study endlessly. The other trees planted in the yard's leaves flutter distantly behind him and try to draw her gaze away, but she keeps her eyes on him.

Maybe that's how it is, she thinks.

Maybe it'll get better and worse in a dance that'll only stop when they're no longer here to agonize over it. Maybe this is what moving on from John B will always be like. It'll feel like they've made strides in the right direction, then something will come along to shatter it to sharp pieces that'll reopen their stitched up wounds. If that's the case, at least the four of them have each other to lean on when it gets worse again.

JJ sits with her and lets her crawl onto his lap, resting her head on his shoulder, until the sun sinks below the horizon.

The gentle bobbing of the HMS Pogue at the surface of the water steadies her amidst her eddying thoughts. It keeps her present to the moment the way the ropes tying the boat to the dock keeps it from floating adrift into the marsh. It's a motion engrained in her from the start of her life until now from countless days spent on the water. Whether it be for fishing, swimming, or playing make believe with her boys all those years ago, it's as much a part of her as her personality or body itself.

JJ was right about one thing: being out on the water makes it easier to think.

He hasn't followed her out since she woke up before sunrise and snuck out of bed to come here. Despite her efforts not to wake him, he woke up when she disentangled her body from his, silently cursing the fact that they always cuddle so closely, and he tried to pull her back to him with a whine of displeasure in his groggy, half-asleep state. Sleep finally found them after hours of staying up together to talk about what Kacey did, unable to relax from the chaos of yesterday, so he wasn't prepared to wake up that soon.

"Go back to sleep, angel," she whispered as she hovered over him, brushing a chaste kiss to his lips that he was too tired to return.

That was the last time she saw him since this morning, and now that the sun has risen to its peak in the sky without her moving an inch from her perch atop the bow of the boat, she's begun to wonder if he's awake yet. It isn't uncommon for them to sleep in for half of the day when there isn't school or work, so it isn't surprising to her that he's just now waking up when she hears the back door to the Chateau opening and closing.

Unbeknownst to her, JJ has been awake the entire morning since she left bed.

They were so attached to each other yesterday night, he didn't have the time to put it together without her seeing and ruining the surprise, but once he heard the door to the porch close to signify her leaving, he kicked the blankets off of himself and got to work. He wasn't originally planning on starting so early, since they stayed up late into the night together, but once he woke up to the feeling of her sneaking out of his arms, he was too awake to fall back asleep.

The sound of his footsteps on the dock warns her of his approach, but she doesn't raise her head from where she rests it in her palms to stare out at the water.

"I was wondering when you'd finally wake up," she says.

There's another few steps, then the boat jostles with his weight stepping onto it.

He doesn't say anything to her in response. The only clue she gets as to what he's doing are the footsteps on the deck that lead closer to her until she feels him sitting down on the bow next to where she is. And she's about to open her mouth to ask if he's okay when he sets something down in front of her.

It's a shoe box.

Y/N turns to see him, eyes flickering over his tired face, and looks back at the box with furrowed brows.

"What is this?"

His hair is messy, exactly how it was when she left him in bed this morning, and if she weren't more focused on the mysterious box he plopped down in front of her, she'd be combing through it with her fingers. He's gotten used to those casual displays of affection from her; how she runs her hands through his hair on mornings before school when he forgets to brush it, or when she fixes a button on his flannel that he missed.

JJ's lips are tipped in a smile, and she can't help but blush with how he looks at her. She never used to see it, but he has always looked at her like this. Like he's hopelessly, utterly in love with her. Even before they lost John B, back when he'd expend all of his romantic and sexual attention on girls he hardly knew, he still looked at her this way.

He gestures at it and says, "Open it."

The lid of the box is coated in a freshly dried layer of blue paint to match the shade of the sky overhead. She knows instantly that he must have dug through the arts and crafts box she specifically labeled with a warning for him and John B to stay out. It's painted with aimlessly sloppy brushstrokes and stickers placed at every corner of the cardboard box, all of which she recognizes from the stash she kept under her bed alongside the India ink he borrowed last Friday.

As she gives him a skeptical look and reaches to lift the lid off of the shoe box, she makes a mental note to rewrite the label on the arts and crafts box without the warning for him to keep out. Since John B isn't here to steal anything from it and JJ never follows that rule anyway, it's redundant at this point.

Any skepticism is washed away from her face as soon as she flips the lid open to reveal what's inside. It leaves her speechless as she looks down at it all.

"JJ..." she murmurs in awe.

Sitting at the bottom of it is a folded up t-shirt she saw JJ wear multiple times, but never again since John B died. He refused to glance at the shirt his best friend gave him the year before they never saw him again, let alone dig it out of the corner of her closet where he keeps his things...until now.

But that's a scratch on the surface of all of the things about his gift that stuns her to silence. The next thing to catch her immediate attention is a picture she hasn't seen in years.

It's one that Big John took of the three of them together right where she and JJ are sitting. She was much younger in it, flashing a toothy grin with her arms thrown over both boys' shoulders. To her left, John B was leaning his head on her shoulder. To her right, JJ was wearing an eyepatch they crafted out of an old black shirt he stole from his dad. It was cut with the kitchen scissors and tied around the back of his head in a knot.

She brushes her thumb over John B's face, then sets the crinkled photograph back down atop the folded shirt and moves her attention to the last surprise.

Letters.

Torn up pieces of paper painstakingly taped back together sit one on top of the other, some missing pieces here or there, and it makes her mouth part in shock. Her hands shuffle the letters apart to see each one and recognize the handwriting: Kie's bubbly, swirling letters, Pope's neat cursive, hers, and JJ's chicken scratch writing that she's able to decipher from years of proofreading his essays.

She pictures him at her desk all morning while she was sitting out here, ripping tape off of the roll and arranging the puzzle pieces of the ripped letters until he was sure he got it right. It made him want to rip the hair from his scalp, but he sat there and pushed through the frustration to make it as perfect as he could for her. The missing pieces were primarily from Kie's letter, which fluttered away on a balmy breeze when Kacey tore it up and threw it to the ground, but the one he wanted her to have the most wasn't missing more than a single piece.

Y/N looks up from the letters held like a precious treasure in her hands to see him watching her with that same classic JJ smile on his face, but he doesn't let her get a word in yet.

"Go on," he says, leaning closer to pull his letter to John B out and place it on top of the pile for her to read, "I want you to read it."

"You didn't let me read it when I asked before though, are you sure you—"

He interrupts her before she can worry herself over it, "Dude, just read it. I promise I'm fine with it. I want you to."

The letters crinkle under her touch as she looks back down and smooths them out on the deck enough to read through the clear tape. With one last confirming glance to him for permission, she takes a deep breath and reads the first line.

Dear John B,

You really know how to keep a guy on his toes, don't you? You really outdid yourself on this one. I was so sure we were gonna make it, but I guess you had to go all Romeo and Juliet on us, huh? As long as you and Sarah are happy macking on each other in heaven, it's okay.

In all seriousness, I fucking miss you, bro. I miss you more than I realized a person could miss another person. Whenever I need to talk to you again, I don't know what to do. I guess that's why it's good that Y/N made me write this.

Also, I'm really sorry for—

"What does it say there? There's a whole chunk missing," she murmurs.

He scoots close enough to her that she can feel his body warmth radiating onto her through the shoulder of his flannel. Sunlight reflects on the silver rings decorating his fingers as he holds one side of the paper to tilt it enough for him to squint at.

"Macking, I think. It's supposed to say "I'm sorry for macking on your sister."

—macking on your sister. You can totally kick my ass for it, but before you come back from the grave to murder me, let me defend myself, okay? She isn't just another girl for me, John B.

I think you knew it before I did.

Last summer, you asked me straight up if we were hooking up behind your back after I kissed her in front of you on the porch. I laughed in your face, but you were right.

You saw everything before me, man. You knew I loved her since we were kids and waited for us to come to you about it, so that's gotta mean something, right? I hope it means you wouldn't be mad at me for this.

I swear I won't fuck it up with her, but you already know that. That's why you asked me to take care of her,. I didn't know why at the time but I do now. I won't let you down.

I'm keeping my promise.

- JJ

P.S. Don't miss me too much. We'll be shotgunning beers together up there before you know it.

There are tears blooming in her eyes when she lifts her gaze from the tattered paper to look at him again, but they aren't sad. For once, the tears slipping down her cheeks are happy tears, not born from grief, sadness, and pain, but bittersweet happiness.

They're caught staring at each other for a second before he asks her shyly, "It isn't too sappy or anything, is it? 'Cause I thought it—"

"C'mere," is the only thing she can get out before she's tugging him forward by the front of his shirt to kiss him.

JJ stumbles a little with the unexpected force of her pulling him to her, but he takes it in stride. He steadies himself and lets his hands shoot out to grapple for purchase on her waist, keeping her pressed up against him tightly as he kisses her back.

And it doesn't get much better than this, does it? This is it for him. He meant what he wrote to John B, he won't fuck it up with her, especially not because of his trauma with his dad getting inside his head and sabotaging his relationship with her. This is what makes everything worth it.

It brings happy tears to his eyes too.

She can taste the salt of them where their lips meet in the middle. It makes her smile, wrapping her arms around his neck and clenching the letters he mended for her in her fist to keep them from blowing away in the wind, and they both start to laugh into each other's mouths at the poignant feeling they both share but can't quite place.

They pull away from each other to catch their breath after another moment of it, and she can't help but stare. How could she not when she feels like this? It’s less like he’s her boyfriend and more like a piece of her soul has attached itself to his with no hope of letting go in the near future.

"You're the best thing that ever happened to me," she whispers to him.

Plain and simple. No room for disagreement or a bashful rejection of the compliment. She's pulled back from him enough to hold his gaze and make sure he sees her seriousness, and there isn't anything he can do to refute her statement.

He brushes his nose against hers affectionately, dipping down to kiss her again, but when he leans back to see her face, he can't help himself.

"Ditto."

The rest of the day after their moment on the boat, locked away in their own little world where none of the monsters chasing them could sneak through and ruin it, melts away peacefully. After another half hour spent looking through the box together, of her thanking him over and over again, he hops off of the HMS Pogue onto the dock and extends his hand to her in the most gentlemanly manner possible.

His lips are curved into a smirk as he kneels down on one knee as though she's a revered royal and bows his head in subservience, "Princess Routledge."

Her hand fits in his warm, calloused palm as a perfect match, and she steps off of the boat onto the dock beside him with an expression to match his.

"Captain Maybank," she says in her most regal royalty voice.

Her stellar performance breaks into a laugh they share as he stands and throws his arm around over her shoulder to walk back to the yard. The cardboard box is tucked beneath one of her arms while the other slips around his side to hold him back, and her heart feels full with both the presence of JJ and John B alongside her.

They bury it together.

Tag List: @gabiatthedisco, @fangirlvoice, @black-syren, @apparrio, @particularcth, @planetdemon, @idk-ijustworkhere, and @krisphann

Also, now that it’s over, let me know what your favorite part was in the comments or tags if you’d like to :) I’m curious.

[beverlyonvinyl]

wasteland, baby! - JJ Maybank

summary; after a jealousy-fueled fight with your Kook ex-boyfriend, Rafe Cameron, the hot-tempered JJ has a long awaited meeting with you on the dock.

warnings; swearing, underage alcohol/drug consumption, plenty of angst, fluff.

word count; 1.5k

song; wasteland, baby! by hoizer

[ gif via pinterest ]

wasteland, baby / i’m in love / i’m in love with you.

The Boneyard was crowded with all walks of life tonight. Slimy Tourons looking for a girl to hook up with before they left town, rich Kooks getting drunk off of just a few beers, and the almighty rulers of the Outer Banks, the Pogues. Party animals by nature and fighters by chance, whether a nosy Kook got in their business or a Touron took something too far, a Pogue was always up to throw punches.

One of the Pogues stuck out, a particular blond-haired boy that was consistently sporting some kind of gnarly bruise or cut. The infamous JJ Maybank was always getting into of trouble, typically for a good cause. He's a ticking time bomb, and he can't keep his hands to himself.

The sandy-haired troublemaker was currently surrounded by a small arena of people, unbeknown to his circle of close friends that were sipping on bitter alcohol on the opposite side of the moonlit beach.

"JJ has been gone for like, twenty minutes," a girl with caramel skin and the most annoyed expression on her face pointed out to her other friends. "He probably found a girl."

The boy across from her looked behind him, he was a bit more sober than his reckless buddies.

"Kie... are they screaming his name?" He asked, still gawking at the large swarm of people behind him.

Another girl chimed into the conversation. "I bet someone is—"

"Is he in a fight?" Kie set her solo cup down on the ground and stood up. "What is his deal?"

The ringleader of the Pogues, and the boy who had thrown this party in the first place, came striding over to his other three friends with a freshly filled cup in his hand.

"John B.," the other boy stuttered. "JJ is beating the shit out of someone..."

His drunk and tired features expressed enough that he was done dealing with JJ's outbursts. Honest to god, everyone was tired of it. Picking him up from police stations, icing his bruises, making sure he didn't break something, he was acting out more than he ever had previously.

"Go deal with it," John B. gestured to the girl that wasn't Kie. "He'll listen to you."

Y/N raised her eyebrows at her best friend, contemplating if what he was saying was the truth, or just bullshit to get out of meddling with JJ's antics.

"I'm not getting between him and whoever he's kicking in the ass," she took down a gulp of her beer. "He's dangerous when he's angry."

"You make him less angry," John B. countered. "Now go fix it and I'll get the rest of these assholes off our beach."

Y/N headed for the crowd of onlookers, kicking up the sand with her worn, green Vans. She could hear another voice barking back at JJ, and unfortunately she recognized it.

She pushed her way through some brainless Tourons in cheap shark tooth necklaces, shoving them to the side and ordering them to scram. This was between her, JJ, and the guy that had got beaten to a pulp.

"Fucking Rafe," she sneered, watching JJ throw another punch to her ex-boyfriend's bloody face. "What did you do this time?"

JJ turned his head, his cerulean eyes piercing into hers. Rafe took this precious moment to breathe, for JJ's very violent assault had offered him little time for that.

"Everyone out!" Y/N yelled at the last few nosy people that surrounded them. She watched Rafe catch his last breath before he took another blow to his jaw. "Stop it, J."

"What?" He pushed Rafe's limp body to the side and looked at the frustrated girl standing above him.

She disregarded JJ's questioning look and crouched down next to her quivering, former lover. He was still very much alive, lord be damned if Rafe Cameron ever lose his life to a weed-smoking, beer-slugging, couch-surfing Pogue like JJ, but he had stil been pummeled horribly.

"Tell me what you did to make him hurt you," she muttered in Rafe's ear.

Rafe chuckled at her. Once his beaming girlfriend that thrived in country clubs and sundresses, she traded her perfect Kook life for a life full of treasure hunting and disappointing her parents.

If only he hadn't started with the cocaine.

"Just told Kelce some stories of how good you were in bed," he smirked at her with dark eyes.

JJ came stomping back towards them, open lighter in his tight grip. "You're fucking disgusting..."

Y/N narrowed her eyes at him. "Wait for me on the dock."

He let out a huff of aggression, not feeling free of the anger he had towards Rafe. His heavy boots hit the frail wooden planks of the Chateau's dock, and he couldn't help but let his thoughts drift to maybe, just maybe, Y/N wanted her dickhead of an ex-boyfriend back. Maybe they were out in the Boneyard reminiscing of old times when they would go to the country club and sneak kisses when their parents weren't watching. Maybe she wanted to help Rafe get clean so they could be together again.

JJ looked out at the calm water, such a contrast to the storm he was feeling in his chest. When he felt that strike of hurt, that pain and fury within him, he took it out on the nearest thing that crossed him.

"I'm sorry about that," a small voice hummed from behind him.

He turned around to see Y/N's figure framed by the blue moonlight.

"I should be the one that's sorry," he mumbled.

She sat beside him on the splintering dock. "J, I would've cut his face up with a beer bottle if I heard what he said."

He laughed at her a little. "So what'd you say to him?"

"That I'd cut off his dick if he talked about me like that again."

JJ looked at her in pure admiration. He knew when he first met her that she was locked up in the gates of the Kook lifestyle. Rafe always made him jealous, whether he spotted them holding hands while he was busing tables or sharing a drink while he was at a party with his friends. It dampened his mood and he wasn't afraid to show it... until she became a Pogue herself.

It would be an instant crime to make a move now. Pogues don't mess with other Pogues.

"I've always liked you, Y/N," he observed the way her eyes sparkled, even though it was dark.

She backed away from him every so slightly.

"No! Wait— not like that," he put his paw-like hand on her shoulder, cold rings creating a vibrant contrast against her hot skin. "As friends."

"Oh," she glanced down at the water. Endless nothingness.

There was a string of tension between the two rebellious teens that just couldn't be cut. Every time he saw her it made him dizzy, and getting drunk or high in her presence seemed to be a risk. If he let out even a whisper of how he felt, she'd hear him.

Y/N took his chin in her delicate hand, bringing his face towards hers in a moment they had both long awaited. His golden strands of hair fell in his entranced face. The ice had melted from his doe-eyes and the curve was back in his lips, formulating the smile that she chased after.

"I've always liked you too, JJ," she ghosted her lips over his. "Not as a friend."

He tried to stutter something out, tripping over his own tongue, but he was cut off by her plush lips on his own. The pungent liquor that she had been downing in the wake of her boredom met the smokiness that laced his breath. His warm hands found her waist, wrapping her in an embrace that he didn't want her to get out of. Maybe he would wake up in a cold sweat on John B.'s couch, this whole ordeal just a result of attempted manifestation, but he just wanted to indulge in her soft skin and sweet nothings. Even if they were a figment of his imagination.

"You're so beautiful," he murmured against her mouth. "Closer."

She whined at JJ's words, propping herself in his lap and kissing him harder. He had been waiting so long for this to happen, and now that he was getting it, he couldn't believe it was real. It was better than he had imagined it late at night when his heart and body ached for her. This was a new kind of euphoria.

If the world was ending, he would have no idea.

“Why didn’t we do this ages ago?” Y/N breathed against him as she left little pecks along his jaw.

JJ melted like a burning candle into her touch, praying that the flame in her that had ignited for him would forever stay lit.

“The Pogue rules,” he answered.

She cupped the side of his flushed face with her hand. She had never seen him so malleable for as long as she’d known him.

“I’d break all the rules for you,” she hummed. “I’m in love with you, that’s it.”

[bumblesimagines]

The Oldest Pogue

Request: Yes or No

Heads up for most of these Outer Banks fic I'll probably do the mini intro lol they're fun. Btw timelines a lil weird. Takes place in ep 1 but have the party the day after they find the boat and all that. Idk Shoupe's first name so imma just call him Shoupe or dad. Idk what grade everyone is in but imma assume that the Pogues and Sarah (+ Topper) are sophomores/juniors since they're 16

~

"Then there's (Y/N) Shoupe, better known as Mama Pogue or (N/N). We got lucky with (Y/N) since he's the deputy's son. He's the definition of a mom friend, always taking care of us. We'd probably starve to death without his meals. Though we would never admit it, we all had crushes on him when we first met him."

(Y/N) entered the house, glancing at a passed out JJ. He chuckled, shaking his head as John B stepped out of his room.

"Morning, sweetie." (Y/N) greeted playfully, setting down groceries.

"Sorry I couldn't join you guys yesterday." (Y/N) started putting the things away and began making some lunch for the boys. John B shrugged.

"It's fine, you'll make it up to us with food." John B replied with a grin. (Y/N) chuckled, nodding.

"Where'd you go?" (Y/N) asked. John B sat at the table, glancing at JJ.

"Motel.. Found a sunken boat and a key in it so we went to the motel. Had to dodge your dad. He took money from a potential crime scene." John B told him. (Y/N) sighed.

"What do you want me to do? He already says half of our conversations are 'political'. He doesn't like that I'm hanging out with a bunch of idiots." (Y/N) said as Kiara and Pope entered.

"Ouch." Kiara grinned, glancing at JJ as he stirred. "Did you tell him about the gun and money?"

"Gun?"

"I was getting to that, Kie." John B sighed. "JJ took the gun."

"Jesus.. A gun? Underaged with an unregistered gun and no license?" (Y/N) stared at them. "Do you know how much trouble you'll get into?!"

"I tried to tell them, (N/N)." Pope said. (Y/N) pinched the bridge of his nose, putting the two plates of burgers before approaching the half asleep male.

"JJ, a gun? Really? Of all things?" (Y/N) stared at him. "Huh?" JJ looked at him, drool coming out the side of his mouth. A swift smack to the back of his head woke him up.

"Jesus, what the fuck?" JJ huffed, sitting up and rubbing the back of his head. "Come eat breakfast, JJ." John B called.

"What the hell am I gonna do with you four?" (Y/N) asked, sighing softly. JJ stood, chuckling.

"Love us." He replied, going to the table and sitting down.

"Please don't play with a gun." (Y/N) looked at him. JJ nodded, raising his hands. "Promise, Mama Pogue."

"Swear on Cheesecake?" (Y/N) cocked a brow.

"Cheesecake?" Kiara furrowed her brows.

"I swear.. I swear on Cheesecake that I won't play with the gun." JJ gave a nod. (Y/N) nodded, crossing his arms.

"Who's Cheescake?" Pope asked. "A fish we caught." JJ replied, mouth full.

"Gross." Kiara cringed, giggling.

"Eat with your mouth closed." (Y/N) called. JJ swallowed and nodded.

"Yes, mom." JJ replied, grinning. (Y/N) shook his head, running his hand through his hair.

"How's everyone after Agatha?" Pope asked.

"I mean.. People have been calling the department left and right. The power will probably be out for a while." (Y/N) shrugged.

"Bet those kooks will have power in no time." JJ mumbled, shaking his head.

"Can't believe the one day I don't hang out with you guys, JJ gets a fucking gun." (Y/N) sighed, shaking his head.

"Also! John B and Pope surfed the surge." Kiara said.

"You did what?!"

"Way to snitch on us, Kie." Pope mumbled. Kiara shrugged.

"It's called payback." Kiara replied with a chuckle.

"If it took down a boat, it probably could've taken you along with it." (Y/N) placed his hands on his hips. JJ mimicked him, earning another smack on the head.

"Come on, we're having a party at the boneyard." John B said.

(Y/N) laughed as he won the drinking competition. JJ laughed, high fiving him. Kiara noticed the JJ held onto (Y/N)'s hand for a little longer than needed.

"What would daddy say if he saw you drinking?" JJ asked, getting another cup. The two headed over to John B. (Y/N) laughed.

"What's he gonna do? Ground me? Lock me up for drinking?" (Y/N) questioned. JJ shrugged, grinning as he offered John B a cup but noticed Sarah Cameron and offered it to her instead.

"Sarah, can I interest you in a tasty Milawaukee beverage?" JJ asked. (Y/N) shot him a look, glancing at Topper.

"No, thanks." Sarah smiled, shaking her head.

"Come on. Is it not fancy enough for you?" JJ asked.

"No, we were just leaving-"

"You know what? I'll take it." Topper cut in. (Y/N) and John B shared a look.

"Let it go, JJ-"

"No, no, I'll have it." Topper cut (Y/N) off.

"That's nice, Topper but I didn't ask you. Now, if you said pretty please, maybe, but you didn't. So, Sarah-" Topper knocked the drink out of JJ's hands which in turn made JJ grab him by the shirt.

"JJ!" (Y/N) grabbed him as John B and Pope came in, pushing him away as well.

"Dirty Pogues!" Topper shouted. (Y/N) looked at John B.

"John B, don't you dare-" John B turned around, shoving Topper back. Sarah tried to cut in but Topper punched John B. The fight caught the attention of everyone else. Topper kicked John B while he was on the ground.

"Hey, John B, don't make me down you like your old man, alright?" Topper said.

"This dumb fucking blonde." (Y/N) whispered, pinching the bridge of his nose. A fight quickly broke out, the two fighting in the waves and sand as the crowd chanted. (Y/N) watched them, trying to get them to stop.

"Topper, stop!" Sarah shouted, trying to stop her boyfriend from drowning John B. (Y/N) quickly stepped in, grabbing him by the back of his shirt and pulling him back, punching him. John B coughed behind him, head spinning.

"You wanna go, Shoupe?" Topper asked. (Y/N) went to respond but a gun was pressed to the side of Topper's head, the safety clicking.

"JJ-"

"Your move, broski." JJ stared at Topper. Most of the teens on the beach ran while Sarah and the other Pogues tried to get JJ to put the gun away.

"We're good! We're good!" Topper repeated.

"(N/N), Kie, check your psycho friend!" Sarah watched, panicked and worried for her boyfriends life.

"Okay, everyone, listen up! Get the hell off our side of the island!" JJ shouted, shooting two rounds into the air. Pope and Kiara shouted at JJ while (Y/N) quickly rushed to John B's side as he collapsed.

"My dad's gonna kill me." (Y/N) whispered, dragging John B out of the water.

"Help me!" (Y/N) called, getting the others attention. JJ and Pope rushed over, helping (Y/N) carry John B to the van.

"Is he okay?" Kiara asked as she drove.

"Yeah, he's breathing." (Y/N) replied, staring down at the male. John B coughed but didn't open his eyes.

"He might have a killer headache tomorrow but other than that, he should be fine." (Y/N) said.

"I can't believe you were so stupid! Taking the gun out on a kook?!" Pope stared at JJ. The two got into an argument, Kiara jumping in as well.

"Enough! JJ did it to help stop Topper from hurting me and John B. Yes, he could've done it another way and handled it better but at the end of the day, he was trying to help." (Y/N) looked at them.

"You always take his side." Pope mumbled.

"It's cause he loves me." JJ grinned.

"You're my least favourite child." (Y/N) mumbled. JJ chuckled. "Admit it. I'm your favourite." JJ cooed. (Y/N) flipped him off. They got to John B's place, getting him in bed. (Y/N) got on his dirt bike and rode off, heading home.

"Can't wait to hear this lecture." (Y/N) mumbled, parking his bike and heading inside. He entered the kitchen, starting up dinner. (Y/N) made his dad's favourite, hoping it would please him. (Y/N) heard the door open and clothes, his dad entering in uniform.

"Hey, dad." (Y/N) greeted, placing the plates of food down. He sat, shooting his dad a smile.

"Got a call not long ago. Some kid had a gun." Shoupe said, sitting down. (Y/N) hummed.

"Did you find out who it was?" (Y/N) asked. Shoupe shook his head.

"No.. But from eyewitnesses, there was a fight and I heard you were involved." Shoupe said.

"Dad, you know I'm not the violent type." (Y/N) continued to eat. "But I did punch Topper for trying to drown John B." (Y/N) said quickly.

"Thank you for being honest." Shoupe said, sighing deeply. He put his fork down and looked at his son.

"(Y/N).. I don't want these kids to ruin the possibility of you going to culinary school." Shoupe said. (Y/N) sighed, looking away. "And they will if you keep running with them."

"Dad, I'm gonna be a senior next year. I have my whole life ahead. I could enter culinary school whenever I want or feel like it." (Y/N) said. Shoupe sighed and nodded.

"I know.. I just don't want you getting stuck here. I want you to have an early start." Shoupe said. "I'll be accepting of you.. No matter what." Shoupe assured.

"Thanks, dad. Anything new today?" (Y/N) asked. He thought back onto what John B told him.

"Nope." Shoupe shook his head. (Y/N) hummed, nodding. He stood, washing the plates and heading off to bed. He hoped the following days would be better.

[jjmaybanksbaby]

enamel pins, school dances and summer movie nights

or: alternatively, i hate everybody but you

pairing: kiara carrera x rafe cameron (platonic)

warning: cursing, underage drinking, some fighting, rafe cameron being sappy because that deserves a tw of its own

word count: 7.2k words

MASTERLIST

"I’m so glad that they’re still doing this. Keep calm. Carry on," Kiara said to the boys as she stuffed the change from their tickets back into her wallet.

It would have been an understatement to say that JJ and Pope hadn’t been eager to attend the outdoor movie night hosted by the Island Club. In fact, they'd spend thirty minutes listing all the things they would rather do when Kiara proposed the idea. She'd let them grumble about going for the better part of an hour since she knew there was no way the pogues would let her go to something on Figure Eight alone. Pogues always had each other's backs, always. Kiara figured the least she could do was pay their entry fee. Plus, she knew JJ and Pope didn't exactly have extra cash laying around for movie nights.

She would have dragged all three of the boys with her but John B hadn't been back to the chateau all day. Since the cell towers were still down thanks to the hurricane, she could only guess where he was.

"Welcome to the summer movie series. All proceeds go to...." The announcer's voice boomed over the loudspeakers as Kiara lead the boys to an empty space in the middle of the crowd.

"Back to OBX life. You know? Aren’t you guys glad that I made you come?" She really didn't have to ask, she was already sure of their answer.

"Ecstatic," Pope responded, his tone clearly lacking enthusiasm.

"My couch was pretty comfy, I’ll be honest," JJ echoed.

"We’re out of the green zone, man," Pope leaned over, commenting to JJ, out of earshot of Kiara. She didn't know about Topper's boat and Pope wasn't really interesting in bringing her in as another accessory to the crime.

"Dude, tranquilo, okay?" JJ whispered back.

"We're in the middle of Kooklandia. This is the last place I wanted to be."

"Shut up, Pope," JJ snapped, his wide eyes with warning. This was Kiara's thing, they weren't gonna let the Shakespearesque fued between Kooks and Pogues ruin her fun.

-

"Hey, uh…can I get two Pepsis, pleases?" Kiara asked the employee currently manning the snack bar.

"Sure," he replied.

Kiara slide the money for the sodas across the counter and took the cold drinks, watching Rafe slowly approaching from out of the corner of her eye.

"Hey, Kie," Rafe said. Kie felt her pulse spike at a nickname he'd originally given her. "Hey, what’s up? How are you?"

"I’m fine," she replied, intentionally angling her body away from him, her gaze resting anywhere but on him. For someone whose presence she uses to be able to relax in, now the sight of Rafe put her on edge.

"Good, good. Um...Tell your boy that we know what he did." Rafe held her stare and Kiara couldn't stop her lip from curling up in contempt.

"Sorry, what boy are you talking about?"

"Uh, he’ll know." Rafe smiled as if this conversation was bringing him some wicked sense of pleasure.

Rafe opened his mouth as to say something else but Kiara turned away from him. "Bye," he called to her as she walked away.

"Douche," Kiara said, loud enough that she was sure he would still hear her. She threw a glance over her shoulder, feeling Rafe's eyes still watching her.

-

Kiara handed Pope a Pepsi. "Just saw Rafe, and he said, and I quote, 'Tell your boy that we know what he did.' What is that?" She finished, handing JJ the second soda.

"Um...Where is he?" JJ asked back.

"Right there." Pope and JJ's heads turned around to look with her.

"Great the whole death squad," Pope said.

JJ grabbed the top of Pope's head, knocking his snapback off as he forced it forward. "Don’t stare, bro," JJ paused. "Just warning you, bro. If they corner me, I’m coming out swinging, okay?"

"Yeah, yeah," Pope agreed.

"Slice and dicin’. I’m on edge right now, okay? If that doesn’t work, I got this right here." JJ held up his worn backpack.

Fucking hell, Kiara thought. He brought the gun.

"Yeah, yeah. So, we just gotta stay in the group. They can’t come get us if we’re in the group," Pope remarked.

"Like a school of fish.”

"Stay in the school. Can’t leave the school. Stay in school," Pope repeated to himself.

"I’m sorry JJ…" Kiara interrupted. "Please tell me that you did not bring a gun here. JJ, there are kids."

"No Kie! I didn’t bring the gun. Everything’s fine, okay?" JJ assured, his frantic tone betraying him.

"Oh wow, thank you. That’s really convincing. I love that JJ." Kiara looked from JJ to Pope, trying to assess what kind of trouble they’d caused now. "Founding principle, you guys. No secrets amongst Pogues. What is Rafe talking about?"

Pope leaned it, bringing his face closer to Kiara's. "Kie, it might go down tonight."

"What does that mean?" Their vagueness was making Kiara extra suspicious. "'Might go down tonight.' What did y’all do?"

The boys look at each other, neither of supplying any answers to Kiara's questioning.

"Deny, deny, deny," JJ said quietly to Pope under his breath.

The opening score of The Addams Family cracked through the weathered speakers forcing an end to the conversation. A memory popped into Kiara’s head before she had time to stop it. This was Sarah Cameron’s favorite movie. Sarah used to mouth the lines along with the actors every time they watched it together.

There were a lot of glamorous parts of being best friends with the Kook-queen Sarah Cameron. When they walked down the shiny hallways of the Kook Academy literally arm-in-arm peoples' heads turned and watched them go by. All the mean girls with their once snarky remarks were suddenly complimenting Kiara's "unique style," begging her to tell them where she bought her clothes. (In truth, most of it was actaully thrifted since that was much more eco-friendly.) Plus there was the way Sarah swiped her Daddy's black card without a second thought. Kiara’s family lived on Figure Eight, they were a part of the Island Club but they would never have the kind of east coast old money the Cameron's had.

It wasn’t something Kiara usually minded. The whole money thing. Kiara never saw herself as less than because she didn’t wear a watch that cost as much as college tuition on her wrist. But it was more than that: Kiara never really saw herself as much of a Kook to begin. She didn’t want that lifestyle. She never had. It was her parents who pushed it on her. Her mom had grown up under the crystal chandeliers and ever-watchful eyes. She’d debuted into Outer Banks high society at the age of seventeen like every Kook at that age still did. An action which Kiara scoffed at. Her mom was fully prepared to be another success story of the ring-before-spring pipeline, returning to the Outer Banks after four years of college with an MRS degree and a husband who would be balding by his early forties.

But in a Hollywood-worthy meet-cute that involved one drunk sorority girl and her vodka-induced need for pancakes, Mike Carrera stumbled into Anna's life.

Mike Carrera was the opposite of Anna in every way that counted. His whole life had been hard work and grit, fighting for the things that were rightfully his and taking them when people still refused to hand them over. He had a pipe dream of owning his own restaurant, a borderline fantasy that he was dead-set on making sure came true. Anna loved him and he loved her right back. They eloped to Vegas the week after graduation even though own Anna’s mother was halfway through planning the wedding. They bought cheap rings and a second-hand dress since they were still living paycheck to paycheck. Though the bright lights of Vegas had made the impromptu wedding seem a bit more glamorous than it really was, they both knew deep down their love was the real thing. They promised each other till death do us part and meant it.

When Anna found out she was pregnant, she talked Mike into going back to the Outer Bank. Anna swore up and down the move was only so her parents could help with the baby. They'd live on the cut, work for what they deserved and be happy. Then Anna's parents bought them a house on Figure Eight as a wedding gift and Sunday dinners at the Island club became protocol. Anna slipped back into her life as a Kook and brought Mike with her. When the restaurant turned into the tourist hot spot, the zeros in their bank accounts started growing. The Carrera's got rich but their money could never compete with the trust-fond generational wealth of their fellow Kooks.

The Outer Banks only had one elementary school. All the kids on the island were thrown together at an age where no one yet realized the lines between the haves and have nots. Fifth grade was when it got messy. Every fall the class size heading to the Kildare County Middle School dropped by half when all the Kooks transferred to St. Andrews “Kook” Academy. A breeding ground for Ivy-league-bound eighteen-year-olds who lived with the cushions of their parents' bank accounts.

Kiara begged her parents not to make her go to the Kook Academy. She would have rather died than leave her best friends, Bea and Joey, who were both Pogues and staying at KDMS. She didn't realize that middle school would rip the three of them apart. By eighth grade, Kiara had her new friends. Pope Heyward, John B. and JJ Maybank, but he still went by Junior back then. Even if they were bothered by Kiara's status as half-Kook, in the same way Bea and Joey had been, they never showed it.

Mike and Anna didn't see the need to send Kiara to St. Andrews if she didn't want to go but as high school inched closed with every year, the whispers about the Kook in public school grew louder. The summer before freshman year, her parents offered her a deal - though it was hardly a fair one in Kiara's mind. She could either stay at Kildare County High School but she'd have to work in the restaurant in her free time or she could go to St. Andrews with complete freedom for a year. Kiara knew her parents wanted her to transfer so she caved and agreed to a year at St. Andrews to make them happy. Anna prayed her daughter would find her people at St. Andrews and that one year would turn into four but Kiara knew she had already found her people and was counting down the days till she could go back to them. It was only when Sarah Cameron decided the new girl might be cool that Kiara stopped marking each passing day with a big red x.

-

There was less than a week left in their Christmas break and Kiara was seated across from Sarah at the Cameron's dining room table bent over her practice problems for Mr. Harrings' freshman science. He infamously gave out the hardest pop quiz of the year the first day back after break and Kiara's grade couldn't take her failing it.

"What’s avocado’s number?” Sarah asked, looking up from her paper, her pen frozen in midair.

“What’s what?” said Kiara, thoroughly confused at Sarah’s question.

“You know,” Sarah paused, scanning Kiara’s face for any sign of understanding. “Avogadro’s number. Some kid in my class thought the dude’s name was avocado so we’ve been calling it avocado’s number since.”

“Ah, Avogadro’s number,” Kiara repeated, shifting her papers around until she found the one with all the formulas and constants written on it. “Six point zero two two one four zero seven six times ten to the twenty-second power.”

Sarah punched the numbers into her calculator. “Thanks, babes.”

“Of course.”

Rafe’s heavy footsteps carried through the Cameron’s massive house announcing his arrival home. He strolled into the room, a thick stack of papers in one hand and a garment bag draped over the opposite arm.

“Hey loser,” Sarah said, not inspired enough by her brother's presence to look up from her work.

“Hi Rafe,” Kiara echoed. "Where you been?"

"Being Ward's errand boy. I forgot the key to his office where I was supposed to drop off this contract so he's gonna kill me for that. But," Rafe paused digging into his pocket and pulling out a small velvet pouch. "Merry late Christmas," he finished, handing the bag to Kie. "I saw it and I thought you'd like it."

Kiara reached into the pouch pulling out a small enamel pin of the earth, shaped into a heart with the word "love" in silver written over it. Kie smoothed her thumb over the cold metal.

"You know since you're gonna save the planet and everything," Rafe added.

"Thank you. I love it!" Kiara jumped up from her chair, throwing her arms around his waist wrapping him a hug.

"No problem, Kie." Rafe said.

"Hey, I'm trying to save our planet too." Sarah pipped up.

"Shut up, Sarah," Rafe cracked. "I gave you your Christmas present last week."

Sarah stuck her tongue out at him, Rafe doing the same in return.

"What are you guys working on?" Rafe asked.

"Science," Kiara replied, reaching down to grab her backpack from underneath the table.

"Is that for Mr. Harrings' class?"

"Yeah. Yeah, it is," Kie said, half distracting by trying to decide which spot to put her new pin in.

"I think I might still have my old test from that class if you want them.”

Sarah's head snapped up at the offer. "No way."

"Sound any more surprised, Sarah. I was offering them to Kiara anyway, snob," Rafe shot back.

"I'll share," Kie assured her best friend.

Kiara followed Rafe up the grand staircase, flopping on Rafe's bed while he searched for his old work.

"Henry Spiegel was talking about taking you to a he formal in the locker room before we left for break," Rade relied from inside his closet.

"Isn't he the freshman who made varsity lacrosse?" Kiara asked back. She contemplated the idea of going to St. Andrews' Winter Formal with him. Henry was nice enough, plus he was pretty good-looking. She could stand going with him.

"I told him if I found out he'd asked you, I'd make sure he missed the next three games because of a black eye."

"Rafe."

"What? Do you really think I'm gonna let some dweeb with half a brain who only wants to get in your pants take my little sisters to formal?"

"Who am I supposed to take?” She shot back.

“I don’t know. Not him,” Rafe said, emerging, a small stack of papers in hand.

“You know Denny asked Sarah last week.”

“I know.”

Kiara paused, “You will you take?”

Rafe shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. Maybe Ashely M. Seniors don’t really go to the actual dance.”

Kie took the pages of old test for Rafe’s outstretched arm and riffled through them. His name was scribbled on the top of each one in his messy handwriting.

Her eyes drifted up to the Duke basketball poster in the corner of Rafe’s room.

“When do you hear from them?” Kie asked.

“March,” said Rafe, his voice void of emotion.

“I know you’ll get in.”

"My dad'll make sure of it.” Rafe sat down on the bed next to Kiara.

“You don’t know that.”

“I found a card addressed to Ward from the Dean of Student last week thanking him for 'the generous donation from such a valued alumni.'”

Kie's head dropped to rest on Rafe’s shoulder. “I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, well he’s a dick.” Rafe’s phone buzzed and he pulled it out of his pocket, reading the text on the screen. “I gotta go. I told the boys we’d go hit at the Club tonight.”

“Thanks again for these.” Kie held up the papers. “And for the pin," she added.

“Mr. Harrings always includes the names of the scientists from the unit as bonus questions. Don’t forget to look those up,” Rafe said as he stood up from the bed. "See you around, Kie." He placed a small protective kiss on her forehead before he headed back downstairs.

-

"JJ?" Pope slapped JJ's shin to get his attention.

"What?" JJ whispered back over the sounds of the movie.

"I gotta take a piss.”

"Hold it."

"I can’t hold it. I drank too much soda."

"It’s too exposed. They’ll totally see us."

"I gotta go," Pope pleaded. He peered behind him to see Rafe, Topper, and Kelce still parked in the same spots at the back of the crowd. "They’re blocking the bathrooms," Pope added.

JJ looked around, thinking up a Plan B. "Alright. Come here. I know where.”

"Hey, where y’all going?" Kiara asked, turning her attention away from the movie.

"We gotta wring it out," JJ responded deadpan.

"What? You gonna hold it for each other," Kiara questioned, disgusted at the thought.

JJ shrugged off the comment and lead Pope through the crowd, the two of them ducking behind a large oak tree.

Kiara turned back to the movie playing on the giant screen, leaving the boys to their own devices. Besides, they wouldn't dare start something with all the people around. They were idiots but they knew better than that.

"Crap," Kiara cursed under her breath when Rafe trailed by Topper and Kelce brushed by her, heading in the same direction Pope and JJ had went. She watched their figures disappear behind the screen before she jumped up from her seat.

JJ's gun, the thought flew her mind.

She picked up his backpack with no intention to use it but better safe than sorry. Especially when it came to those Kooks in particular.

"Hey, kick his ass, Top!" Kiara heard Rafe yell as she rounded the corner.

Kiara felt a full-fledged panic run through her body as she took in the sight. Kelce had pinned JJ's arm behind his back and was Rafe pounded his fist into JJ’s face. A foot away, Pope was barely holding off Topper. Whatever Pope and JJ had done had obviously crossed a line.

Kiara ran in without another thought, swinging JJ's backpack in front of her. "Let go of him, Topper! Fascist asshole!" She screamed at him.

Topper grabbed the bag from her, ripping it out of Kiara's hand and throwing it aside. Kiara jumped on Topper's back, desperate to distract him.

"Hey listen, Pope," Topper yelled over the sounds of the movie. "All you gotta do is accept a little personal responsibility."

"Screw you, kook," Pope spit back.

Kiara felt arms wrap around her waist, yanking her off of Topper. The too-familiar scents of Rafe's cologne filled her nose and his breath was hot on her cheek.

She kicked her legs struggling against him, "Let go of me, Rafe."

"Stay out of this, Kiara," he warned, tossing her onto the ground. His gaze fixed on her for a second before turning away. Kiara swore she saw a look of guilt flash across Rafe's face, wordlessly apologizing for tossing her away so harshly but she didn’t have time to think about that while her boys were still in trouble.

"Kie! You okay?" Pope yelled, struggling against Topper who had wrapped his arm around Pope's neck.

"Come on, man. Just admit it," Topper shouted. "Admit you did it, bitch!"

JJ's backpack had conveniently landed close to where Kiara lay. She rolled over, pushing herself onto her knees and crawling over to the backpack. She riffled through it, her hand landing on the cold mental of the gun.

"You don't mess with me, Pogue! You hear me?" Topper continued. Kiara looked up at Topper's face which showed no signs of mercy. Meanwhile, Rafe's fist smashed into JJ's face again and again. The situation was getting worse by the second. “I'm gonna give you one chance. One chance, Pope. One chance. Come on! One!"

Kiara dropped the gun back into the backpack pulling out JJ's lighter instead, two Js craved onto the surface. She had to go big to stop Rafe, Topper and Kelce. Kiara crawled over to the edge of the sheet the movie was being projected off. Fuck, this has to work.

"Finish him off, Top!" Rafe directed.

Kie flicked on the lighter, the wind blowing out the flame the first few times. Her hands were shaking as she grabbed the edge of the sheet and held the blue flame up to it. The fire lit up her face as it took hold, spreading faster than she had expected. The crowd yelped, scrambling away as the orange flames climbed toward the sky.

"Guys! Fire!" Rafe yelled, taking in the sight.

"Get off of him!" Kie pushed Topper away from Pope who fell to the ground gasping for air. "Kelce, let go of JJ!"

"Let's get out of here," Rafe started, fleeing the scene. The other Kooks not far behind him.

"You good?" Kiara asked Pope helping him off the ground. "We're okay." She assured. Her heart was racing, her hands still shaking.

"You're a freakin' idiot," Pope responded.

"I saved your ass. Come on." Kiara threw her arm around Pope's shoulder, leading him away.

The sounds of the film continued to echo over the speakers as the sheet burned to ash behind them.

-

Kiara sat slumped against the wall of the St. Andrews hallway that lead into the cafeteria. The frill of her $200 dress fanned out around her. The dress, in her opinion, had been a colossal waste of money but had Sarah actually squealed when Kiara walked out of the fitting room in it. Kiara had tugged at the awkward way the skirt st on her hips but Sarah wouldn’t shut up about how perfectly the blue color fit the Winter Wonderland theme so Kiara bought it. Now, the sequins itching against her collarbone were just annoying her and Kiara couldn’t help scratching at them, making the already red marks on her skin even angrier. She was so fucked. Denny had pulled out a flash during pictures and somehow it kept ending up in Kiara's hands. The whole dance thing had Kiara incredibly anxious so she kept taking sips of the flash to keep her self busy. First during pictures, then during dinner, and in the limo on the way to the school. Now the flask was lying empty on the floor next to her and her nerves were no less settled.

She longed for her pogues so much the pain of missing them made her stomach hurt. Well, that or the alcohol. At that moment, she would have given anything to be back with them. Back with Pope and his overly nervous tendencies, back with John B. and his ideas that usually lead them into trouble, back with JJ and his flirtatious banter that left her blushing a lot more than she cared to admit. They were her family, where she belonged. Not in the gated communities of Figure Eight with mansions so big they had rooms no one entered for weeks. This whole year had been a mistake. She couldn't stand the fakeness of everybody and everything that came as a side effect to bank accounts with the kind of zeros that could seriously help if the 1% gave up being so selfish. Even Sarah's save-the-sea-turtles-with-men façade was fading away revealing another rich kid who didn’t give a shit about who she hurt. 

The doors of the cafeteria swung open, the bass of the DJ's music filling the previously silent hallway. Kiara looked up to find Rafe jogging down the hall to her.

"What are you doing out here?" He asked, sliding down the way to sit next to her.

"The room kept spinning and...uh...I thought I might throw up so I went to find a bathroom," Kiara answered.

"You know the bathrooms are on the other side of the school?"

Kiara giggled which turned into a little burb which made her giggle even more.

"Jesus, Kiara. How drunk are you?" Rafe picked up the flask from the ground. He could smell the alcohol on her breath without even getting closer over. “Who's is this?"

Kiara paused for a moment, trying to remember. "Denny's."

"Sarah's date, Denny?"

Kiara nodded her head.

"Fuck," Rafe muttered. "Okay, let's get you out of here before any of the chaperons see and write you up." He stood up and held out both hands to held Kiara to her feet too.

Kiara pulled herself, leaning against Rafe for stability. The doors swung open again and Rafe's date marched into the hallway.

"Ugh, thank God. There you are. This dance is so lame. C'mon, we're all going to Joey's."

"I'm not coming. I have to take my sister home. She's totally trashed."

The girl's eyes moved over Rafe's face, landing on Kiara. "No," she corrected. "You're my date. You have to come with me."

"Did you not just hear me? I'm taking my sister home," Rafe replied.

"Are you kidding me? She's not even your real sister. She's hardly even a real Kook. I bet she's just using Sarah and you for your family's money. Just look at her dress. It's the same one every other wannabe trying-to-hard freshman has on. Pathetic."

Rafe pulled Kiara closer into him, wrapping an arm around her shoulder protectively. "You can fucking leave," Rafe spit back. "I don't wanna hear you ever talk about my family like that again."

The girl rolled her eyes. "Whatever. I was gonna hook up with Brandan tonight anyway. He's way hotter than you." She spun on her, stalking off in the same direction she had come.

Kiara looked up at Rafe, her bottom lip shaking as tears welled in her eyes. "Are you mad at me?" She asked.

Rafe laughed. "Of course not, Kie. Ashley can go fuck herself. Or she can go fuck Brandan. I don't really care." He wiped away the tear that had slide down Kiara's cheek. "Let's go find Sarah so I can take you both home."

-

Sarah was sitting on her date's lap back inside the cafeteria turned South Pole for the night, laughing loud enough at Denny’s shitty jokes that it was throughly annoying everyone around her.

"Get up Sarah," Rafe commanded.

Sarah surprised at Rafe's sudden presence scrambled off her date's lap. Rafe reached down and grabbed a fistful of Denny's shirt. He cocked his arm back and swung his fist straight into Denny's nose which gave a definitive crack on impact. Sarah let out a gasp and rushed forward.

"What the fuck?" She screamed at Rafe, shoving him off her date.

"You're date's an ass. Kie's completed wasted thanks to him" he said to Sarah. "Let's go. I'm taking you both home."

Sarah glanced at Kiara, who was standing slightly behind Rafe feeling both embarrassed at how much she had drank and grateful for Rafe's protectiveness.

"But I wanna go to the afterparty," Sarah protested. "She has you." Sarah's eyes locked with Kiara and Kiara's heart sank. She could tell her "best friend" wasn't about to give up the rest of her night just because she was nervous and had drunk too much.

Kiara shifted awkwardly on her feet. Sarah could have a least pretended to be conflicted, considered missing the party for a second. God, Kiara missed the unwavering faithfulness of her pogues.

Kiara tugged on Rafe's hand and he glanced over his shoulder at her. "It's fine," she slurred. She really needed out of this itchy disaster of dress as soon as possible.

"You're a really great friend," Rafe said to Sarah.

"Whatever," Sarah replied, her voice almost mimicking the way Rafe's date had said the same words. "Let's go find some ice for your nose, Denny."

-

They had found the gold. It was fifty feet down a well under an ax-murders house no less but they'd fucking found it. John B's crazy plan had worked and all they needed to do was get the gold out, a job which had effectively been delegated to Pope. Of course, first they had to wait for John B to get back from his fishing trip with Ward Cameron, some twisted form of pseudo father-son bonding. What was it with men and finishing? Couldn’t they pick a sport that didn’t actively destroy the environment?

Pope sat atop the kitchen counter, a pencil tucked behind his ear, his mouth moving as he made silent calculations. JJ stood in the doorway of the chateau, dripping water from the hot tub onto the floor. Kiara had thrown off the couch cushions and was rifling through the desk draws, slamming each one with frustration when they didn't hold what she was looking for. Kiara noticed this morning that a pin was missing from her backpack. It didn’t seem like a big deal but with every passing second her panic escalated.

“What are you looking for, bro? I swear this house is like one of those Where’s Waldo? books.” JJ asked Kiara.

“Did you just make a reference to a book, JJ?” Pope chimed in from across the room.

“Just because I chose not to read, doesn’t mean I can’t Pope,” JJ replied.

“Both of you are idiots. It’s a picture book anyway, you don't read it. Can you help me find my pin, please? It's the one I've always had on my backpack. The earth, shaped like a heart," Kie explained.

"Right," Pope replied, sliding off the counter where he was sitting. “Why do you care about it so much anyway?”

“It was a gift."

“From who?”

“From someone at the Kook Academy.”

“Sarah?”

“No.”

“You had other friends there?” JJ mocked.

Kie hesitated. “Fine, it was actually from Rafe as a Christmas present.”

JJ and Pope automatically stopped and looked up at each other.

“Bro, please tell me this isn’t the same Rafe who almost beat Pope’s face in last week."

“It’s not about Rafe. It’s about the pin,” Kie said.

“That’s from Rafe,” Pope finished.

“You guys weren’t there. You don’t get it. Whatever," she huffed. “Don’t help me find it then.”

“No, please Kie. Enlighten us," the sarcasm dripped off JJ's voice.

“I said you don’t have to help,” Kie repeated.

“Hey Kiara,” Pope said, grabbing her wrist. He was always the first to tell when something was off with her.

Kiara shrugged him off, wiping away her tears with her tshirt hem before the other pogues saw them.

“There was just this time,” she started, still overturning books like the pin might have been under there. “At a dance. This senior called me a fake Kook. She said my dress looked tacky like I was trying way too hard to fit but I would never fit in because I’d always be a fucking Pogue. Which of course I don’t wanna be a Kook, I was just playing dress-up for the year to please my parents and it’s like she saw straight through. Rafe was there. Like an older brother. Told her to go fuck herself. That if she ever talked about me like that again, he’d tell the whole she had an std.” Kie paused to wipe her runny nose. “He was basically my family so when Sarah dropped me like I was nothing I was sure that meant Rafe didn’t think I was worth his time anymore too. I never reached out to him again and now he just looks at me the same way he looks at every other Pogue.”

Pope cleared his throat, clearly mildly uncomfortable with Kiara’s sudden expression of emotion. It was an almost unspoken rule among the four of them that they didn’t talk about Kie’s kook year. It had sucked, bottom line. She’d shown back up the summer after ninth grade and it was the four of them again just like middle school. No one had the guts to ask about anything that had happened that year so it never got brought up.

JJ couldn't stop himself from remembering what Rafe had said at Midsummers. Tell Kiara she looks pretty hot for a Pogue. Fucking jackass. If he'd been like a brother to Kie, of course he'd know just how to hit her where it hurt.

JJ clinched his fist, wishing security hadn't pulled him away before he'd gotten a chance to swing at Rafe that night. “I still hate him,” JJ announced. “The entire Cameron family thinks they're the shit because they eat from golden spoons or something."

"The expression is born with a silver spoon in their mouth but JJ's right. All Kook’s suck," Pope added.

-

Rafe had wrestled off Kiara's heels after she almost face-planted in the school parking lot on the way to Rafe's truck thanks to them. He'd gotten up her all the back to the Cameron's house and in the front door successfully without her throwing up. Rafe tried to get Kiara to walk up the stairs but she'd sat down on the bottom declaring she would just sleep there so Rafe had delicately thrown her over his shoulder and didn't put her down until he dropped her on Sarah's bed.

Kiara closed her eye instantly and hummed softly, pleased with the comfortable spot she'd landed.

"No sleeping yet. You gotta drink some water first. Hold on."

Rafe dashed across the hall to his own room and grabbed the bottle of ibuprofen from his bathroom for Kiara in the morning. He also snatched the half-drunk water off his nightstand. It wasn't the best option but it was something.

"Okay, okay. Sit up," he said to Kiara, setting the water and medicine down on the bedside table.

Kiara grumbled but pushed herself upright until her back was against the headboard.

"I'm so happy you're my big bro," she said, reaching out her hand to tousle Rafe's hair. "It's always just been my mom and dad and me. And my turtle, Leo, before I lost him." Kiara felt tears wetting her cheeks again at the thought of her lost pet. "I just thought he might wanna play in the yard but then he ran off." The crying made Kiara hiccup which made her cry even more. "He ran off, Rafe. Turles aren't supposed to be fast.”

Rafe couldn't stop himself from laughing. "I didn't peg you as a sad drunk," he said, putting a hand on Kiara's shoulder to calm her down. "It's okay, Kie. I'm sure Leo is just fine."

Her sniffles stopped momentarily and she looked up at Rafe through her tear-soaked eyelashes. “You know no one ever called me Kie before you did. Now everyone does."

Rafe chuckled. "Alright, drink some water and you can sleep."

Kiara accepted the water bottle and pressed it to her lips, taking a swig. "You promise you're not mad at me? About Ashely and the dance?"

"I promise, Kie. I'd much rather make you sure you're okay."

"You're getting soft, Rafe," Kiara teased as she snuggled herself under the sheets.

"Never," he replied, reaching over and clicking off the lamp on the bedside table before he stood up. "Hollar if you think you're gonna throw up."

"Never," Kie repeated, giggling to herself as Rafe left the room, pulling the door closed behind him.

-

John B's face was plastered on wanted posters up and down the island. The entire county was looking for him, desperate to be the first to claim the twenty-five thousand dollar reward. The wholesome treasure hunt John B. has advertised to the Pogues at the beginning of the summer had gone way south, like equator-level south. None of them had eaten a decent meals in days, much less slept more than few hours. The whole thing was taking its toll but the stacks were too high for them to slip up now. They all knew the odds. John B's word would never stand against Ward's. They had to get him off the island.

JJ and Kiara pulled up the boatyard, the keys to the Phantom clutched so tightly in JJ's palm that they left little indentions. He'd emerged from his house, his jaw set and only held up the keys in response to Kiara asking how it went so she decided not to push him on it.

JJ shoved open the rusty metal door of the garage. "There she be. Hey, girl," he remarked. "1983 formula four-oh-two SR1." JJ pulled the sheet covering the boat off, the sunlight streaming in through the windows making the dust lingering in the air visible. "The Phantom," JJ announced proudly.

"Mmhm," Kie hummed.

"First boat to make the run to Bermuda in under sixteen hours, Kie," JJ paused. "Forty years old! Forty. And it's still the fastest thing that Kildare's ever seen."

"It's kind of a junker."

"Really?" JJ turned to her. "She's right there, Kie. She can hear you. Let's just put it this way. You would not be smokin' weed right now if she never existed, okay?"

"I just hope it runs," Kie replied.

"Oh, no, she'll run alright. She's faster than any of the cutters the boy in blue got."

The sounds of motorcycle engines roared from outside the garage.

"Pope. Finally," Kie exclaimed, jogging to meet him. Hopefully, the Outer Banks sun had burned off any weirdness still lingering from this morning, she prayed.

Rafe appeared from behind the boat and Kiara stopped suddenly, not expecting the sight of him.

"Hey, there. What's goin' on? JJ?" Rafe said and JJ also froze at the sound of the eldest Cameron's voice. "How you guys doin'?”

Barry whistled, announcing his own arrival. "Well, well...." The sounds of a gun cocking send the blood rushing to Kie's ears. JJ raised his hands in the air, backing up as Barry pushed the gun to his chest. "See, don't think I forgot about me and you on the side of the road. I'm here because I want my motheruckin' money."

Barry grabbed the side of JJ's face, shoving him to the ground. "JJ! JJ!" Kie screamed as Rafe pulled her back from the scene. "Rafe!" Kiara struggled against Rafe’s taller and stronger physique.

"That's what I'm here for, ain't it," Barry shouted lifting JJ's head up by his hair.

"It's not you we want, Kie. Alright, Where's John B?" Rafe asked.

"I don't know," she screamed back, her hand slapping Rafe's face on instinct.

"I really wish you didn't do that.”

"Look, I know what you did.” Kie’s voice wavered.

"What? What'd I do?" Rafe's face inched closer to hers.

"You murdered Peterkin."

Rafe's hand flew up to Kiara's throat, wrapping his fingers tight around it. Kiara's mouth fell open in a silent scream as she clawed at his hand. "Don't you ever say those fucking words again," Rafe warned.

"Rafe," Kiara pleaded. Eighteen months later and Kiara could tell Rafe didn’t have a single ounce of warmth left for her. The Rafe that had protected her from handsy freshman boys and made her drink water so her hangover wasn't as bad, the Rafe that had once held a deep sibling-like affection for her was gone, replaced by someone with pure blinding disdain for pogues of any kind.

"Understood? Do you understand? Where's John B? Where's John B?" Rafe asked again, his tone growing impatient

"I don't know," Kie yelled. Rafe’s hand was growing tighter around her throat with every word, forcing tears to her eyes. Fuck this. Rafe Cameron wasn’t about to be the thing that killed her. This rich, white asshole couldn’t get away with two murders.

"Where's John B? Huh?"

"I don't know! I don't know!"

Rafe's hand fell away from her throat suddenly. "Don't touch her," Kiara heard Pope screamed, his voice full of rage as he swung a metal pole into Rafe's back. The look on his face was something Kiara had never seen before from Pope. It sent a chill down her spine.

"Hey!" Barry yelled as he attempted to throw his gun to Rafe but it landed on the ground a few feet short.

"Kie! Kick it!" JJ hollered and the gun disappeared under the boat out of reach.

JJ picked up Barry slamming him into the boat. Pope's fist continued to connect with Rafe’s face. Again and again. Crap, he wasn’t stopping.

"Pope," Kie said. "Okay, Pope. Pope! Pope, that's good! Stop!"

JJ, having thrown Barry aside, moved to pull Pope off Rafe. "Hey, Pope! He's had enough, dude."

"He's good." Kie pleaded as Pope reached for a piece of plastic tubing, pulling it tight around Rafe's neck.

"Snap out of it, man. Snap out of it, dude!" JJ said.

"Pope!" Kie yelled again. "Pope, that's too much!"

"Stop, dude," JJ added. "Dude, cmon! Stop! Stop, dude!"

"Pope! Get off!" Kie desperately tried to make eye contact with him

"Let go! Come on!"

"Look at me!" Kie screamed in one final attempt to stop Pope from going to far. Rafe's face was already turning a concerning shade of red. If Pope crossed this line, Kiara feared there would be no coming back. She already had one fugitive to deal with, she didn’t want another.

Pope dropped the tubing, eyes wide with fear.

"Shit. Oh, shit." JJ said.

Rafe coughed from the floor, blood smeared down his chin.

"Okay, we gotta go. We gotta go." Kiara announced, hustling back the car. They had to get the boat ready for John B. They had to get him off the island. Her Pope-like organizational instincts kicked in protecting her from processing anything that had just happened. Letting her forget the look in Rafe’s eyes as his hand closed around her throat. Three o’clock at the dump. They had to stay on schedule. Three o’clock. Three o’clock. Three o’clock.

-

The single yellow heart Sarah had responded to Kiara's ‘Happy Birthday!’ text with stared back at her mockingly. She closed out of her messages, opening Instagram instead. Story after story showed the party she hadn't been invited to. A shaky video of everyone singing to Sarah, her face lit up by the glow of the candles. A bathroom selfie of all the girls who Kiara had through became her closest friends, their faces flushed red with joy. She clicked the side button of her iphone making the screen going black. Kiara couldn't stand to look at it all happening for another minute. She flopped backward on her bed opting to stare at the plain, white ceilings of her bedroom instead.

She should have been, standing by Sarah's side, smiling along with everyone in a tipsy haze of happiness, not watching it happen via Instagram. Kiara knew she wasn't doing anything productive by throwing herself a pity party but God, she was pissed. She wanted Sarah to know it too. She picked up her phone from where she'd dropped it next to her on the comforter.

The line rang twice before a voice answered the call.

“Kildare County Police, what’s the emergency?”

Kiara hesitated. Sarah was sure to figure out it was her who had ratted on the party and that would be social suicide enough. But Sarah really had brought this on herself. She should have invited to Kie to her fucking birthday.

“Hello? Anyone there?” The operator asked.

Kiara brought the phone back up to her ear. “Hi, I’d like to file a noise complaint, please. Two six six St. Margaret Street.”

“Yes, the Cameron’s house,” Kiara confirmed, wiping at her tear-stained cheeks and steading her voice as she relied the rest of the information to the operator.

Happy birthday to you, Sarah Cameron.

taglist! @surferkie

[sophialikesthings]

Death of me Part 20 Rafe Ending

Song: R.I.P To My Youth- The Neighborhood

"Ahaha, this is a funny joke." I tried to avoid reality.

Sarah dropped the knife and ran back to where I was.

"I know this is impossible, and I'm gonna explain--." Sarah walked back up to him and slapped him.

"I deserve that, I do, You have been though hell, and that is my fault. "

"I can promise you that I didn't have any other choice." He pleaded for forgiveness.

"I am going to go find Rafe, nice to see you ward." I exited.

===

"What are you doing out here?" I asked as I blocked the sun with my hands.

"Just it wouldn't hurt to try,"

"Nothing just enjoying the view." He grabbed my waist and kissed me deeply.

"What happened, why am I here, a-and why didn't you tell me your dad was back?" I stepped back, trying to wrap my head around the last thirty minutes.

"I wanted to tell you, I really did, but he begged me not to." Rafe tried to calm me down,

"We are supposed to be in this together, I'm technically your wife, you can't hide shit from me." I looked over his shoulder to see the guards checking the cargo.

"Come on, Rose said we had a family meeting."

===

"I used the scuba gear, on the Druthers. I had it all set up in advance, timed to the second. It was touch and go getting off, I almost didn't make it." Ward chuckled recalling his escape.

"I need you to understand more than anything, I never imagined you girls would be there. I wanted to call you immediately, Tell you that I was okay, to explain it all. It broke my heart that I couldn't. But I had to make sure Rafe got away."

"Thanks dad, at least one of us is grateful." Rafe looked at his sister, eyes filled with disappointment.

"Okay, stop. This is a lot for Sarah to take in." I calmed Rafe down.

"It is psychopathic, both of you." She finally lifted her head up.

"I promised Rafe he wouldn't get in trouble for what I caused. I had to make good on that promise." Ward tried to explain.

"Not that you care." Rafe laughed to himself, knowing his father was wasting his time."

"That is enough out of you." I raised my voice.

"Did it look like I didn't care when I thought dad died?" Sarah sat up.

"It looked liked you cared. cared about running away with that asshole!" Rafe shouted.

"All you cared about is taking control of Demi, and getting the inheritance! You don't even love her!" 

"Enough!" I yelled.

"You both cared. Okay?" 

"The important thing is that it is all behind us now, We're gonna live a new life together."

"Where are we even going?" Sarah rolled her eyes.

"It's paradise, it's off this place in Guadeloupe." 

"First thing we do is get those two married, then we can all have a fresh start." Ward Looked at Rafe and I.

"Can at least call our friends, can I at least call my boyfriend?" Sarah asked looking at me.

"Yes, you can call your friends, and John B when we get there."

"Rafe got the cross." I told her, Only she knew I was upset about this. everyone else thought I was proud that Rafe stole something that didn't belong to him.

"And I gave John B the cross."  

Rafe stopped me grabbing my wrist squeezing it so I didn't speak up.

"And he was okay with that?" 

"Yeah, I mean I just gave him a half a billion dollar artifact, so I think he's okay with it."

===

"He's lying!" I slammed the door behind Rafe and I.

"Demi, the less she knows the better." Rafe sighed sitting down.

"Why, why did I get into this mess?" I broke down. 

"I love you, I would kill anyone that tried to get in the way between you and I." Rafe grabbed my hands.

"Like who?" I became scared.

"Your father?" He started making me break down even more.

"You wouldn't." 

"Rafe." Rose interrupted us.

"We need to talk about Sarah."

===

"She's never gonna be on our side, Rose!" Rafe yelled punching a table causing me to flinch.

"Rafe." I tried again to calm him down.

"She thinks she's a pogue now, right? just... transformation is complete okay? So as long as she knows where we are, we are never gonna be safe. We need to think logically about what we need to do to contain her -- okay." He rambled.

"Attention, all passengers and crew. Report to the Tween forward hull."

"Huh?" I looked up confused.

"come on." I grabbed rafes hand.

We all walled down the hall confused.

"Give me a minute." Rafe slipped away.

"Psst, Psst Demi." I heard someone.

I looked over to see JJ and Kie hiding behind an entry way.

I managed to get over there un noticed.

"Oh my god! I thought I'd never see you again." I hugged JJ as tight as I could.

"We got to move, save your reunion." Kiara ran forward pushing a heavy vault type door shut.

"The other side!" JJ and I ran over.

"What is going on?" I asked.

Before I could finish my question JJ grabbed my face and kissed me.

"Fucking finally." I smiled as I pulled back.

"where is the cross?" Kiara interrupted us.

"Through here."

Suddenly the roof opened to show pope and another women standing there

"The time where people do shit to us and we just sit back and take it is over." He yelled causing all of us to smile.

They were able to get the cross up as I stood in amazement.

"Demi!" Rafe yelled trying to find me

"Don't. leave with us, please." JJ ran to me. 

"JJ, He told me he would kill you if I left him, he would burn the world down just so we could stay together. I can't live with myself if I know I have put you in danger." He cupped his face.

" I need to stay." I started crying

"Demi, I trust you." He got me to look at him.

"You need to go, we'll find each other again I promise." I took out my hair tie and slipped it onto his wrist.

"I love you JJ Maybank." I kissed him.

Suddenly a gunshot went off Rafe stood there holding a gun he got from the captains quarters. 

JJ jumped off the ship with Kiara. 

"Are you okay did he hurt you?" Rafe asked me as I fell down into a blubbering mess.

I just kissed him. 

"Demi, I'm gonna step up and I'm gonna give you the life you deserve. I tell you this every day but it is true. As soon as we get off this boat, we will go down to the court house and get married okay?" 

===

the next day

===

"Do you Demetria Jane Thornton take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband?"

"I do." 

"and do you Rafe Cameron take this women to be your lawfully wedded wife?"

"I do."

"By the power invested in me by the state of north Carolina, I now pronounce you. Mr. and Mrs. Cameron. You may now kiss the bride."

Rafe pulled me and kissed me. 

"we did it!" he smiled.

"Yeah, we did."

===

Weird ending but That is a wrap on part two! since season three this book will be on temporary completion! I have two endings! So please vote for your favorite ending that will determine how season 3 will start off!

Thank you all for your support!

-Sophia

[mindswriters]

˗ˏˋ Just Good Friends - jj maybank × reader ˎˊ˗ {part 2}

all the credits to the gif owner :)

SERIES MASTERLIST

Summary: you and jj have been best friends for a long time, always getting in trouble together. he has a habit of always flirting with you, and sometimes it ends up causing a different mood between you two.

Pairing: jj maybank × reader

Requested: yes, thanks again btw @maybankxcameron

Warnings: cursing, mention of beer, fighting, blood?, abuse maybe

Word count: 2.3k

A/N: lol i can't believe i'm here again! the "Deck Night" (old name) was supposed to be just some random story, but people liked more than I expected, and they also asked for part 2! so here i am, writing again :) thank you guys so so much for the feedback, I'll let some questions at the end, and it would help me a lot if someone answered, hope you enjoy it ♡

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The weeks at the Outer Banks used to be all the same, you spent your days working at your father's store, occasionally you could see your friends in the open hours, but you really yearns for the weekend, where you all could hang out together for practically 3 days. But this week was a little bit different, you couldn't stop thinking about what happened between you and JJ at the deck last Sunday. Actually, nothing happened, but it could! And it's spinning over your head, like, does JJ also have a crush on you? Is it more than a crush? Shit. You have no idea. And after a whole week lost in your thoughts, it's finally friday again. Friday can only mean one thing in Pogue's dictionary: a Huge Party. So you convinced your father to release you a few minutes earlier and went upstairs to take a shower, you leave the bathroom wearing a white crochet crop top paired with one of your jeans shorts, and on your feet your inseparable Converse. Soon you could hear the Volkswagen horn at your door, and ran to your ride, saying goodbye to your father, since you probably wouldn't be home anytime soon.

"Get in, ma'am, let's break this island!" JJ exclaimed at the back of the van, picking you up by your hand.

"Let's get the party started!" you all ruffled at van seats, when John B started driving.

You guys made your way to the Boneyard, singing and dancing on the car, and arriving there the boys took care of the Kegger. It didn't take long for the beach to get crowded, some other Pogue groups that you invited, random Tourons, and of course the party would reach the ears of the Kooks, who always insist on intruding on our things, except for Sarah, she's cool. As night fell, everyone was already half drunk, John B and Sarah were sharing plans on top of a tree, Pope trying to win over a girl by showing the trick of stacking glasses, JJ flirting with any girl he saw ahead and you followed Kie dancing in the crowd. You were mesmerized by the beat of the music when you felt someone touch your waist behind your back and approach your body.

"Excuse me, do I know you?" you said when you turned around and came face to face with the boy in polo shirts, surely a Kook.

"Actually no, but we can solve this." he grabbed your hand leaving a kiss on it "I'm Jackson, and you?"

"Hi Jackson, I'm Y/n, nice to meet you." you gave the boy a nice smile and went back to dancing.

"You know you look very beautiful dancing like that, don't you?" you felt the guy come up again and whisper in your ear, but you chose to ignore it.

"Come on, Y/n, I know you want to dance like this for me, let's get out of here..." what the hell? you guys just met and he wants you to get out with him?

"Sorry, I need to go to the bathroom." you made up any excuse to dodge the boy's advances, which made you uncomfortable.

Even from a distance, JJ didn't fail to pay attention to what was happening to his best friend. As you strode to the bathrooms, you felt a force grab your arm and tried to scream, but Jackson's finger covered your mouth.

"Shhh, it's me baby, let's get out of here." he tried to pull you but you resisted frowning.

"Excuse me?" you protested trying to get away from the boy, who held you tighter.

"Come on, I take you to my house and we finish our party there." he said and tried to kiss you, gross.

"I'm not going anywhere! Let go of me!" you screamed, trying to break free of his arms.

"Are you going to say that you don't want to repeat those movements on top of me, uh?" he pulled you close, touching his body against yours.

He held his arm tightly and it all disgusted you, when he tried to kiss you forcibly again, you didn't contain your hatred and spit in the boy's face, it's still not enough for an asshole Kook. He rubbed a hand over his face to clean up what you had done.

"You're being such a dirty Pogue, sweetheart." he brutally held your cheeks.

"Get your hands off her, you sick bastard!" someone exclaimed while pushing the guy and protecting you behind his own body. It was JJ.

"Or what? Tell me, Maybank, what are you going to do? Call your daddy? Or is he in jail right now?" the Kook teased laughing, JJ snorted wanting to punch him in the face.

"Forget it, JJ!" you held the blonde's wrists "It's not worth it, let's go." Incredibly it seems he heard you and was following you back to party.

"It wasn't my fault, man, is your friend who is too hot for a Pogue!" Obviously that guy wasn't going to give up the teasing, JJ heard what he said and immediately returned back and left the boy.

The two boys seemed to have been deaf, you screamed so they would stop but they didn't listen to you, some people who realized the confusion approached to encourage. They were screaming as if it were a real MMA fight. JJ always got into confusions, so wanting or not he was good at fights, but this time he was already a bit drunk and the other guy seemed to be stronger than him. At least it's one of those Kooks that spend all day at the gym. Just when that Jackson managed to knock down JJ on the floor, the rest of the Pogues arrived and John B took the guy from there, ordering him to leave us alone. You ran to JJ who was trying to get up with a sore body.

"Oh my God, JJ, are you okay?" you crouched next to the boy taking care of the bruises on his face.

"Of course I'm okay! I was going to break his face!" he raged by pain moans while you helped him raise.

"No, you weren't." Kie frowned when he saw JJ's dirty clothes.

"Shit man, your six-pack is bleeding." Pope pointed to JJ's belly, where there really was a stain on the shirt. He touched the area and groaned in pain again.

"Fuck, I needed one of my dad's aid kits now." you said while giving your shoulders of support to your friend.

"I'm driving, I can drop you off at your place and you take care of it before it gets worse." Sarah suggested, you and JJ looked at each other thinking that maybe it wasn't a good idea.

"It's fine guys, go with Sarah, we take care of things here" John B said, hugging his girlfriend who send us a cute smile.

You ended up agreeing, and as soon as everyone said goodbye Sarah took you to the door of her house, I said she was cool, she even waited a while at the door until JJ managed to get out of the car and go to the door, without help, he is too proud for that. You said goodbye to the girl, who said you could call if something happened, and then you followed JJ into the living room.

"Where's your dad?" he groaned as he sat on the couch.

"Out of the island. Don't move, I'll get the aid kit." you explained by closing the door and going to the bathroom in a hurry.

Luckily the kit was in the same place as always, you took it and went back to the living room, turned on the light and sat carefully next to your best friend, only then can you even notice how the wounds were.

"Damn it, JJ, why do you always have to get into trouble?" you let out a little laugh while wetting a cotton swab with serum to clean it.

"Damn it, Y/n, why do you always mess with the worst guys?" he replied frowning when the wet cotton touched his forehead.

"Excuse you?" you pretended to be mad and pressed the cotton to one of the cuts on his cheek.

"Ouch! It hurts!" you stared him raising just one of your eyebrows "I mean it, Y/n, I care about you, and the guys you go out with."

He cares, shit, not those shitty butterflies again.

"Well, you shouldn't." you disguised with a smirk.

"Obviously I should, I'm your best friend." he said confident.

"Yes, but best friends should take care of each other equally, and if I'm going to care about all the girls you mess with, I'll end up going crazy." you giggled while concentrating on taking care of his injuries.

You noticed that his cheeks flushed a little and his only answer was an embarrassed little laugh, did you just make JJ ashamed? Nice job girl! You put a little more serum on the cotton and used it to gently clean a cut on the boy's lower lip, and you felt like you were being watched. And you really were, JJ didn't take his eyes off you for a second, he took advantage of that you were focused on something else to admire all your details, and the fact that you were subtly touching his lips gave him the chills. You moved on the couch and ended up touching the bruise on JJ's abdomen, which made him come out of his trance and groan.

"Oh, I'm sorry." you apologized but couldn't help but look surprised when you saw that the blood stain was even bigger on the boy's shirt. "Shit, JJ, this is bad..."

"Don't worry, it's fine..."

"Hold on, I'll take care of it." you lifted the boy's shirt and got a bigger gauze inside the kit and soaked it with the serum "I think it might hurt..."

"C'mon, Y/n, I'm str- HOLY SHIT!" he shouted exaggeratedly when he felt you clean the wound.

"Shut up JJ! I said my dad isn't home, but you doesn't have to wake up all my neighbors!" you laughed, but with a little pity for him.

"You don't have to torture me either!" he complained and you ended up laughing together.

You finished the bandage carefully and borrowed one of your dad's T-shirts for him to wear, even though your house wasn't that far from the Chateau, it was too late for him to go alone, even more being like that, so you thought that it wouldn't be a problem for him to spend the night at your house, after all your father has known him since you were childrens.

"So, you can stay in the couch this night, if you need anything, my room is right there." you waved with a smirk and went towards your room.

As soon as you turned your back on the boy, you heard him murmur "Thank you". That's it, thank you, JJ just risk himself for you and you didn't even say thank you? What kind of person am I? What kind of best friend am I? That's what you thought when you found yourself standing at your bedroom door, knowing that you could turn the situation around by just turning around.

"Hey, JJ, are you already sleeping?" you said and went back to the room on tiptoe.

"Nobody sleeps in 2 minutes, princess." he mocked lying on the couch, you went over there and sat next to him.

"Look, JJ, I'm sorry..." you pouted and he soon got up, sitting across from you.

"Sorry? For what? You took care of me!" he laughed frowning.

"But you risked yourself, for me, and I didn't even say thank you!" you vented and the boy smiled, as if you were telling a joke "I'm serious, JJ! You had no obligation to go there and save me from that disgusting Kook, but you went anyway! And I didn't thank you for that! I'm the worst best friend in the world!" you hid your face in your hands.

"Hey," the boy approached you and lifted your chin with his hand "you don't need to thank me, and you know that even though it wasn't my obligation, I would take a thousand more beatings to defend you!"

He stroked your face with both hands and you smiled, getting lost in each other's eyes. JJ always took care of you, even when it was he who needed care, despite all the jokes, disagreements and provocations, you are each other's safe haven. And they both know it, so much so that they could stay in that moment forever. When you realized, your warm breaths were already mixed between a few inches away, you shifted your gaze to his pink and bruised lips, which were already practically leaning against yours, a little more courage and that was about to become a kiss. Wait, a kiss? Not! He's your best friend, or at least that's what you think he is.

"Uh, I- I think- I think I'm going to bed..." you stammered away from JJ.

"Ah, yes, yes, I- I'm sorry, the rule thing and... I mean, we're best friends, sorry..." JJ ran his hands through his hair trying to hide his embarrassment.

"No, it's fine," you got up and took a few steps back on your back "don't worry about it, we're cool. Good night." you smirked raising your eyebrows and waving to him.

"Night." he shrugged also smirking and lay back on the couch.

You tiptoed back to your room and slammed the door on your back, and before anything else you sighed thinking: what the fuck just happened?

***

thanks for the support, I hope you enjoyed the story!

[topsytervy]

Book Lovers ~ Pope Heyward

Blurb: You have a crush on Pope and Pope has a crush on you. Your love for books brings you together.

Word Count: 3,376

Warnings: swearing, poorly written towards the end cause I'm bad at ending writings, probably spelling/grammar errors, I think thats it.

I started writing this as a whole bond over books thing and then it kind of got away from that a bit but not really I don't think.

Also, the way i was going back and forth between writing this and something Calum Hood related cause its his birthday and I love him was insane.

~~~~~~

You sat on the beach on a towel, a book in hand as the sounds of screams and waves filled the air.

Not too far away sat Pope, staring at you as JJ, John B and Kie surfed. He watched as you brushed some hair behind your ear before turning the page, completely engrossed by whatever it was you were reading. 

"Are you serious?" Pope jumped as his head swiveled to look at the voice that spoke.

Kie stood there, surfboard under her arm with an eyebrow raised, the two other boys behind her.

"What?" Pope shrugged, acting as casual as he could.

"Really? Playing dumb Pope? Thats JJ's job." She answered, setting down her board and sitting next to him.

"I take some offense to that, Kie." JJ told her which only caused the curly-haired girl to roll her eyes.

"Just go talk to her, Pope."

Pope widened his eyes. "Are you crazy, Kie?"

"If talking to someone you like is crazy then have me committed but last time I checked it was normal." 

"What would I even talk to her about?" 

"Oh, I don't know. She's only reading a book. Gosh if only you read." Kie told him, sarcasm dripping from her voice.

Pope sighed before getting up. 

"Go get 'em, tiger." John B grinned as him and JJ took a seat next to Kie, watching as Pope made his way over.

He was about halfway to you before he turned around and walked back, shaking his head. "I can't do it. It's rude to interrupt someone's reading ya know. That and Toppers walking towards her." 

JJ scoffed. "Really, man. Toppers got nothing on you. Besides, I'm pretty sure they're just friends."

"Oh quite the opposite, JJ. He's got money and a way nicer boat." 

John B shot Pope a look. "How dare you insult the HMS Pogue like that."

"You know what I mean. He can buy her literally anything she asks for." 

"Okay. So he's got money and a nice boat. That means he's trying to compensate for something. Any guesses as to what that is?" Kie stared at Pope.

JJ grinned, deciding to answer for his best friend. "His di-"

"Personality, JJ" Kie cut off the blonde. "What he lacks in personality, he makes up for with money. Topper is boring as hell. He doesn't know the meaning of excitement and adventure. You do. I'm sure you have way more in common with her than Topper does." 

Pope took one last look at you, book open but ignored as Topper chatted with you. You just smiled and nodded before standing up and gathering your things, waving a small goodbye to Topper as you did. 

You glanced over and saw the Pogues watching you so you brought up your hand and sent them a small wave, blushing when Pope smiled and waved back at you.

The next time Pope saw you was at the library. He was getting a couple of books for a paper he had to write and you were there, scanning the shelves, trying to figure out what book you wanted to read next.

Pope had looked over and froze when he saw you just a few feet away from him, fingers ghosting over the spines of books as you read the titles. 

You had agreed to ride with Kelce to the library considering he needed a specific book to read and you needed a new book to read. You chewed on your lip, focusing on each one before pulling one out that caught your eye, reading the blurb before ultimately deciding that you didn’t want to read that one now. 

Pope took a deep breath before scanning the titles himself, attempting to find one that he had already read that he thought you would enjoy. He finally found one and grabbed it, walking over to you.

"Having troubles?" He asked.

You jumped slightly before looking at him. "Little bit. It's hard to find which one to read next, ya know."

Pope nodded before handing you the book. "You might like this one. I read it and could hardly put it down. It's definitely on my list of books to own." 

You took it with a smile. "Thanks."

 "It's no biggie." Pope shrugged. 

You smiled again before walking backwards towards the checkout counter. "I'll see you around, Pope." 

Pope grinned at the fact that you knew his name. "I hope so, Y/N."

You blushed slightly before turning around, meeting up with Kelce who immediately noticed your reddened cheeks.

"What's going on over here, Y/N/N?" He asked, pointing to his own cheeks.

"Nothing." You mumbled, placing your book and library card on the counter. 

Kelce looked around, trying to spot who was making his best friend blush before shrugging.

Later that night, you and Kelce were sitting on his living room floor with Rafe and Topper, a board game set out in front of the boys as you read your book and listened to their conversation. 

"Topper, St.Louis is not the capital of Illinois." Rafe said for what felt like the hundredth time. 

"What are you talking about? Yes it is!" 

Kelce took a deep breath before looking at Topper. "Top, sweetie, if you think St.Louis is the capital of Illinois, then what's the capital of Missouri?"

"Boise?"

You peered over your book with a blank look on your face, Kelce and Rafe having the same look on theirs.

"Come on guys, you know I'm bad at geography." Topper whined.

"I think," Rafe started, looking at Kelce, "We need to bust out that Sequence state capital game from second grade."

"I think I lost a brain cell during this conversation," Kelce rubbed his temples.

"Good thing you're not playing fucking jeopardy or you'd really be screwed, Top." You said.

Topper turned his attention to you. "Not all of us are book smart, Y/L/N." Topper leaned over to look at the page before squinting. "Whatcha reading that's better than playing a game with us, anyway?" 

You held up the book enough so they could read the title and Rafe raised an eyebrow. "Where'd ya find that one?"

"Someone recommended it to me." You blushed a little at the interaction with Pope earlier that day.

"Oh ho ho. That is the same blush you had at the library. You like this person." Kelce pointed.

"Shut up, Kelc."

"Wait. She was blushing? Oh snap."

"Spill the name, Y/N."

You rolled your eyes at your friends before replying. "I don't have to tell you three anything."

"Come on. If you're not gonna tell us then how will we tease you?" Rafe whined.

"That's exactly why I'm not gonna tell you. You'll just tease me and then whenever he's around, you'll act all juvenile."

Topper looked at the two boys before turning towards you. "If we promise that we will keep the teasing to a minimum when he's not around and that we act mature about this, will you tell us?"

You bit your lip before hesitantly nodding. Rafe, Topper and Kelce's eyes widened, eager to hear the name about to come out of your mouth.

You sighed, bookmarking your page. "His name is Marcel. He wears glasses and wears a sweater vest. A bit on the awkward side but very sweet."

Kelce and Topper shot each other confused glances, never having heard that name before. Rafe, on the other hand, cocked his head to the side with an unamused look and a 'really'.

"You know this Marcel, Cameron?" Topper asked.

"Yeah. If you watch the Best Song Ever music video, you'll meet him. I do have two sisters, remember." He answered.

You shrugged. "Worth a shot."

"Come on, Y/L/N. Just give us the name." 

You held up your hands in surrender. "Okay, okay." Your three friends leaned forward, staying quiet with raised eyebrows. "Pope Heyward." 

"Oh my God," Topper breathed.

"Can we not do the usual 'traitor' bullshit please? I feel like my mom is already going to have a fit."

"What makes you think we'd do that?" 

You shot each of them a look before standing up. "I gotta get going. You guys have fun and Topper," you looked at the blonde, "learn your damn capitals."

And then you were out the door.

****

Pope walked into The Wreck a few days later and spotted you in the corner, book in hand while you ate your food. Pope was so focused on you that he didn't even notice Kie appear next to him with a water pitcher in her hand.

"You gonna stand there all day or you gonna sit down with her and start up a conversation."

Pope whipped his head to look at his friend before shrugging. "I guess I could but sh-"

"She's reading and its rude to interrupt someone whos reading. I know." Kie rolled her eyes before walking over to your table.

He saw you smile at Kie and greet her before nodding. You looked past Kie and saw Pope. You grinned and waved him over which Pope happily did, taking a seat across from you.

"Want anything Pope?" Kie asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Just get me the usual." 

Kie smiled before walking away towards the back.

"I finished that book you recommended to me last night and I was speechless. The ending was...wow." You leaned back in your chair, taking a drink of water. 

"I know right. That book made me want to read all his other works and they're all just so amazing." Pope grinned.

"His writing is so poetic that I was surprised I wasn't reading an actual poem."

"Exactly. He's such a good writer."

You two talked for hours about different authors and books you guys liked, eventually both of you started writing down names of books and authors for the other to check out.

"How long have they been like that?" John B asked, JJ sitting beside him along with the kook boys who joined them unexpectedly with no hassle whatsoever. 

"Lets see. You five have been here for 45 minutes to an hour, Pope showed up a couple of hours before you. So...almost four." Kie smiled before scurrying off to wait on another table.

"Four what? Hours?" JJ asked. 

"Yes, dumbass." Rafe rolled his eyes before turning his attention back to the table where you sat with Pope.

"They both look so happy." Topper commented.

"Because they are. They're in love." Kelce sighed with a dopey smile on his face, resting his head against his hand.

"Aren't they a little young for love?" John B raised an eyebrow.

Kelce shot him a look which caused John B to raise his hand in surrender. 

"What do you think they're talking about?"

"They're both nerds. Take a guess."

JJ opened his mouth to object, offended on behalf of his best friend but John B stopped him. "No, no. He has a point."

You glanced at your watch before standing up, saying something to Pope who nodded, handing each other your phones. 

JJ smirked. "My boy is getting some." Rafe, Kelce, and Topper all turned to look at JJ, unamused with his words. "Or not."

*****

Pope shook his head. "No way. That is one of the dumbest and most cliche tropes ever." 

It was a week later and you and Pope sat at The Wreck again, having a conversation about whatever you recently read and now, apparently, your favorite and least favorite tropes.

"I have to disagree. Enemies to lovers has my heart." You responded, taking a bite out of your burger after you spoke.

"One bed and they have to share reigns supreme." Pope popped a fry into his mouth like that was the end of discussion. 

You held up your finger as you finished chewing before swallowing. "You have to have some love for the enemies to lovers trope then because a lot of enemies to lovers involve sharing a bed." You pointed out.

"What about friends to lovers? Hmm? Hmmm? That right there is practically gold and bed sharing comes into play." 

You rolled your eyes. "At some point, a friend likes another. I can tell you in confidence that I had a crush on Topper, Kelce, and Rafe at some point in our friendship. It was bound to happen because we hang out so much. Enemies to lovers though? Who willingly hangs out with their enemy? No one." 

Pope laughed. "Alright. Sure. Whatever." 

"Don't whatever me Pope. I'm right and you know I am." You laughed. 

Pope held his hands up in surrender.  "Sure. Whatever helps you sleep at night."

Kiara walked over to your table and you smiled. "Lets ask Kie."

"Ask me what?" Her eyes darted between you and Pope.

Pope turned to Kie. "I want you to be honest with me, Kie. Which trope is better? Best friends to lovers or enemies to lovers."

Kie blinked slowly as she spoke. "I was just coming here to ask if you need refills or anything else."

"This is more important. Best friends to lovers or enemies to lovers?" 

You both looked at the girl expectedly and she shrugged. "I'm more of a fake dating girl myself so neither."

"Or both." You raised your eyebrows.

"True. Enemies could fake date or friends could. Sounds like a both thing for me."

Kie just turned and walked away, shaking her head with a small smile. 

Your phone dinged and you looked down, seeing a text from your mom. "Thats my mother paging me." You sighed as you stood up. "This has been a fun date, Pope." 

"Date?" 

You felt your face heat up from embarrassment."Oh, was this...not- I shouldn't have assumed. I'm sorry."  

"No, it was. I just didn't think you'd think of it as one." Pope quickly said.

You smiled before kissing his cheek. "I'll talk to you later then.'

Pope blushed as he watched you walk away, paying for your half of the meal before exiting the building.

****

It's been a month since you and Pope became official. A lot of your dates were either study dates, beach dates, or dates that consisted of you two eating at The Wreck while discussing anything under the sun.

Pope was kind of scared when you asked him what he wanted to do for a living, considering everyone else thought it was weird but you were supportive.

"That's cool." 

Popes eyes widened in shock at your words. "Really? No 'why would you choose a coroner' or 'why the hell would you wanna work with dead bodies'?"

You shrugged as you stole one of the fries from his plate. "I think it's cool. It's a job not many people want but it's an important one." 

That was probably when Pope knew that he was in deep with you. The fact that you didn't judge the things he was passionate about and what he wanted to do. That just made him fall for you more and let him know that you were the perfect girl for him.

Now here you were, spending the weekend together in the best way.

You sat in Pope's living room, okay laid in Pope's living room, watching Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Pope had the house all to himself for the weekend and invited you over for a Harry Potter movie marathon since you two just finished rereading the entire series. 

So here you were, curled into your boyfriend's side with his arm draped over your shoulders, holding you closer if that was even possible. 

You sighed as Alan Rickman appeared on the screen. "I miss him."

Pope kissed the top of your head as he rubbed your arm. "I know, sweetheart. You say that everytime he pops up on screen."

"I can't help it. He was just such a good soul." 

Pope smiled, twirling some of your hair around his finger. He loved listening to you talk about things and people you were passionate about. The smile on your face whenever someone, usually him, brought up one of those topics was worth it and he could listen to your voice for hours on end, which usually happened when a topic of interest was brought up. 

"Are you even listening to me?" You'd ask, tapping his wrist.

"Every word."

You'd lean back and cross your arms, a smirk on your face as you raised one of your eyebrows. "Oh really?"

He'd nod before speaking. "You were saying how you think iced coffee is better than regular hot coffee."

You'd make an impressed face. "Are you going to say anything at any point in this conversation."

He'd pretend to think about it before shaking his head. "I'm good." 

You'd roll your eyes before purposely bringing up a topic that would cause him to talk some because just like him, you were obsessed with seeing his smile when he was interested in a topic and hearing his voice.

"Pope, did you hear me?" 

Pope blinked before shaking his head. "No. Sorry. I was spacing this time."

"I asked if you wanted to make stir fry tonight?" You laughed lightly at the space cadet you called a boyfriend.

Pope smiled and nodded. "Sounds great. I'll ask dad if we can raid the store for whatever we don't have." 

You both pulled out your phones, you to get the recipe and Pope to ask his dad if it was okay to take whatever was needed for dinner. 

You walked into the kitchen and started pulling out whatever you could find that was needed for the stir fry before writing down on a notepad what was left.

"We got the go ahead." Pope told you and you held up the notepad.

"Then let's go on an adventure." 

You two paused the movie and made your way down the street towards Heywards hand in hand.

"Have you ever seen the Percy Jackson movies?" You asked, genuinely curious if Pope had or not. Pope shook his head and you let out a laugh. "Oh boy. We might have to take a break from good ol' HP so you can watch them." 

"Why?" Pope swung your arms as looked at you.

"You might find them...interesting. That's all." You shrugged.

"Are they good?" 

You smiled up at him as you leaned your head on his arm. "You'll have to see."

Normally, you wouldn't recommend watching the movies to anyone but when it came to Pope, you wanted him to see it. You wanted to see him rant about all the differences and how bad this adaptation was. You wanted to see him get all flustered at the smallest details that the movies got wrong and complain about how this doesn't do the books any justice. 

"Are you setting me up?" A small smile sat on Pope's lips.

You placed a hand to your heart.  "Ouch Pope. That stings."

He just laughed before kissing your temple as you approached Heywards. Pope unlocked the door and you followed him inside, picking up the rest of your ingredients before walking over to the counter and pulling a 20 out of your pocket, sliding it under one of the boxes for Mr.Heyward to find.

"Really? You know my dad loves you right? Like you don't have to pay him for this stuff. He gave us the okay." Pope said.

You shrugged. "It's fine and it's only right. I mean, I'm taking things from his store. The least I can do is pay him." You turned to the security camera and waved before pointing to the box the cash was under and doing the hand signal for money.

"You do know he cant check the system from his phone right?" 

"Yeah but if he plays it back, he'll know and no one else will see the footage." You smiled before turning back to your boyfriend. "Ready?" You asked as you placed your things in a bag. 

Pope grabbed your hand and the bag as he nodded. "Lets get cooking." 

You laughed as you followed him back outside, waiting for him to lock the door before beginning the short journey back to his, the pair of you thinking about how lucky you were to have someone like the other.

~~~~~~

[jjmaebank]

JJ Maybank - She Will Be Loved

A/N: This is based off the song She Will Be Loved by Maroon 5, I hope its okay I'm still trying to get back into the groove of writing again ://

I RECOMMEND LISTENING TO THE ACOUSTIC VERSION WHILE READING

Warnings: mentions of an emotionally abusive relationship, a lot of talk about struggling with self love and body image

Words: 1.9k

masterlist

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Beauty queen of only eighteen she Had some trouble with herself

You were the most beautiful thing JJ had ever seen. He could stare at you all day. The way your hair flowed so perfectly in the wind on the HMS Pogue; the way your eyes glistened and lit up when you talked about something you were passionate about; the way you played with your fingers or chewed the inside of your cheek when you were nervous. He loved your laugh, oh how he loved it. He could be having the worst day, have got in a bad fight with his dad and your laugh would make him forget all about it. That's why he was always trying to be funny and cracking jokes; he wanted the satisfaction of knowing it was him who caused that beautiful sound.

So he never understood why you were so insecure, so broken. He noticed the way you looked at yourself, talked about yourself even, like you were worthless...and it broke his heart. You would always play it off as a joke every time you made a derogatory comment about your body, but JJ knew you better than that. He could see right through your facade that masked how fragile you really were.

He was always there to help her, she Always belonged to someone else

So JJ made it his job, his mission even, to be there to make you see just how special you really were. Every time you insulted yourself using a joke, he wouldn't laugh, instead he would tell you just how wrong you were. You wouldn't know how to respond to his plethora of compliments, all you could do was blush and look down at the ground, telling him to stop spurting nonsense.

But JJ wouldn't give up, he just wanted to make you feel beautiful, he wanted you to see yourself the way he saw you...absolutely gorgeous, inside and out. Oh how he longed to be able to call you his, there was nothing he wanted more.

But he couldn't. You belonged to someone else, Rafe Cameron. He hated that boy, not only for the way he treated the pogues but for the way he treated you. He knew Rafe planted these self-depreciating thoughts in your head; it was no coincidence that they'd started when you began going out with him. JJ just couldn't wrap his head around why you were with him, he couldn't fathom why someone as kind and gentle as you would want to be with someone as monstrous and selfish as him.

The truth was you were afraid that you weren't capable of being loved and thought that Rafe was all you were going to get. You were as in love with JJ as he was with you of course, but you'd convinced yourself he could never feel the same way, ignoring the blatant signs that you were wrong. Yes, Rafe caused a huge strain on your mental health, constantly reminding you what was wrong with you, but he said those things because he loved you. Or that was what you convinced yourself. He just wanted you to be the best version of yourself right?

You were so scared of solitude, of being alone for the rest of your life as you watched JJ fall in love with someone else that you were oblivious to the fact that this was in fact JJ's reality. He had to watch the girl he loved convince herself that a boy who made her feel worthless was all she deserved.

You would get into fights about it...all the time. JJ just couldn't bear the fact you were with him. He'd end up yelling at you for being so naive as to think what you had with Rafe was actual love.

"Can't you see he doesn't love you (Y/N)?" He pleaded, his voice cracking.

"You're wrong...he's the only one that does," you whispered sadly.

Those words were enough to break him. All JJ could do was stand there and look at you in complete disbelief, and so he stormed out of your house leaving you in tears.

I drove for miles and miles and wound up At your door I've had you so many times but somehow I want more

It had been a week since you and JJ last spoke, since he stormed out of your house. JJ was driving around The Cut after getting into a fight with his dad and receiving another beating. But the pain from his fresh bruises was nothing compared to the pain in his heart every time he thought about you, which was every damn second.

All JJ could think about whilst driving about in the rain aimlessly was how close you two were, how much you meant to him and how this week without you had felt like a year. He had you, you were his best friend, but he wanted more...and he couldn't keep it to himself anymore. He'd spent too long keeping it a secret and all for you to wind up with someone who didn't deserve you. Hell, JJ didn't even feel he deserved you, but he wound up at your door in the middle of the night anyway.

I don't mind spendin' everyday Out on your corner in the pourin' rain Look for the girl with the broken smile Ask her if she wants to stay awhile

He could feel his heart beating out of his chest as he stepped onto your porch. After hesitating for a few moments he finally plucked up the courage to knock on your door. He didn't know what to expect as it probably wasn't the most appropriate time to be confessing his feelings for you, his feelings that he was sure were unrequited.

After receiving no response, JJ decided if he didn't tell you tonight, he wasn't ever going to, so he wasn't leaving. He began to chuck small pebbles at your bedroom window, getting completely soaked from the rain that was pouring down on him. Finally your light turned on. You looked at your window and saw JJ and began to smile. But JJ could see how broken you were, despite being genuinely happy to see him.

You opened your window and shook your head in disbelief at the blond haired boy.

"JJ, what are you doing?" You whisper shouted.

"Can I stay a while? It's wet out here." JJ grinned. You nodded.

You let him in and urged him to tip toe up your stairs as not to wake up your parents who had miraculously slept through his racket. You both sat down on your bed, silence consuming the two of you at first, neither of you daring to speak first.

"I missed you," you whispered.

"Me too,"  he said, smiling through his sigh.

And she will be loved, and she will be loved

JJ took in your appearance, you looked...worse. Your eyes had dark bags underneath them as if you hadn't slept the entire week and they looked bloodshot. Your lips were chapped and broken, a sign that you had been chewing at them more than usual. It broke his heart knowing that your external appearance only showed a fraction of how you felt inside. You needed to be loved, properly loved. Not the love you thought you had with Rafe, but a love only you could bring yourself. You needed to love yourself, and he knew you wouldn't do so without help, his help. So he was going to love you the way you needed to yourself until you could finally see how deserving of it you were.

"(Y/N), I need to tell you something," JJ said gently, gazing into your eyes.

"What is it?" You replied just as gently.

Tap on my window, knock on my door, I Want to make you feel beautiful I know I tend to get so insecure It doesn't matter anymore

"You deserve to be loved," JJ started, causing you to tilt your head in confusion.

"What?" You asked.

"You deserve love, (Y/N)," JJ repeated seriously, never breaking eye contact with you.

"JJ...I-I don't know what you mean, I-I am loved, Rafe-" you stuttered before JJ interrupted you.

"You and I both know Rafe doesn't love you," JJ stated, raising his voice ever so slightly.

You went silent. You did know, you knew it all along but you'd just hoped the day you had to face the reality of it would never come. Rafe never made you feel loved, all he would do was make you hate yourself more and more. Tears began to well up in your eyes as you looked down at your hands, they'd began to shake and you'd started to chew at your bottom lip again, causing it to sting. You felt so unbelievably alone despite the fact that the boy you loved was sat only inches away from you. All you wanted to do was tell him the truth, about how Rafe was simply your attempt to fill the void in your heart, the void caused by the thought of JJ not reciprocating your feelings. This thought that you'd spiralled into a false truth.

"But I do," JJ whispered.

In that moment, it felt as though your heart had leaped out of your chest. Your eyes widened as you looked up from your hands and into JJ's blue eyes. They were full of sincerity, kindness, adoration...and love, genuine love.

"W-what?" You croaked.

"I love you, (Y/N)," JJ repeated, just as sincere as before, "and not in the way I love Pope, or Kie, or John B...I am in love with you (Y/N)."

JJ felt as though a weight the size of his entire body had been lifted from his chest. He stared at you in anticipation, dreading what words might escape your lips, but also excited. You stared at him in shock, not being able to believe what you were hearing. JJ Maybank was in love with you this whole time? How blind could you have been?

"H-how could you love me?" You asked in disbelief.

"Because you're beautiful (Y/N), inside and out. I know you don't see it, but I want to help you see it. I wanna make you feel beautiful. I don't care what it takes, hell I stood outside your house in the pouring rain throwing pebbles at your window so I could tell you this!" JJ gushed, cupping your face instinctively so you would look him in the eye.

You'd never felt more special, more meaningful, more loved. You let a tear slip down your cheek. You were crying, but for the first time in forever they were tears of happiness. JJ tenderly wiped your tears with his thumb as you looked up at him.

"I love you too, JJ Maybank," you whispered in absolute adoration.

"I love you more than you could ever imagine, (Y/N) (Y/LN)," he smiled, some tears of his own escaping at the beauty of this moment, it was everything he'd dreamt of and more.

He did it, he finally got the girl...and he, JJ Maybank, was going to make sure you were loved the right way.

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a/n: dhfksdkf this is my first song fic in 2 years, I'm so nervous idk whether I like it or not but I promised myself I would post this, I really hope you enjoyed

[s-brant]

Cherry Bowl (3/8)

(gif: @kiekiecarrera) (PART TWO) (PART FOUR) (SERIES MASTERLIST)

Summary: When Kie cancels their plans together, Y/N asks JJ on a date to the Cherry Bowl Drive-In. Unsure of how to navigate his first ever date, JJ seeks out advice. Unfortunately, the night doesn’t go as planned, and both parties are left shaken by miscommunication.

Word Count: 10.6k

Warnings: Smut, public sex/exhibitionism, sexual choking, angst, depictions of mental illness, post-traumatic stress disorder, and implied/referenced abuse.

A/N: Welcome back to Tokens! Slight trouble in paradise is brewing for these two lovers, so buckle up and read because it’s gonna be a rollercoster for a little while after what happens in this chapter. I hope you all like it, and if you did, feedback is very appreciated. Have fun!

"I'm just saying that oatmeal raisin is superior to chocolate chip, why is that such an egregious crime, Kie?"

The lunch room is filled to the brim with students going to town on questionably cooked frozen foods, soggy tater tots, and sugary drinks from the vending machines despite the Obama-era posters on the walls advocating for healthier school lunches that never seemed to make their way to Kildare County High. The extent of their healthy lunches extended to a serving of overcooked canned green beans served with the worst slice of doughy pizza known to human kind, so it was sort of contradictory.

Y/N sits across the table from Pope and JJ, the latter of which being the one who launched into a full-fledged debate with Kiara about which type of cookie was better.

The clear cling wrap sits, unfolded, on the table with one of her stickers neatly placed on the back of it. As consolation for his epic loss yesterday at the beach, she paid an extra .75 cents to get him it when she arrived first to their shared lunch period—one of only two class periods they have together, the other being gym. He was still in line when she peeled a surfboard sticker off of her sheet and placed it at the center of the wrapped up cookie as if to remind him of her triumph over him in the waves.

"Thanks, hot stuff," he said, voice somewhat quieter despite the fact that hardly anyone was in the cafeteria with them. Then his smile dropped into an deadpan expression as soon as he saw her choice of sticker and looked back up at her. "You're never gonna let me live that one down, are you?"

"Never in a million years. I'll be gloating about it until I'm elderly."

"That's my girl."

The sound of the constant chatter surrounding them from at least two hundred other people drowns out the memories of yesterday that threaten to haunt her when she watches him debate with Kie. The mere recollection of their night in the back of the van has her reaching to pull the collar of her cropped tee up to assure that the hickeys remain hidden on instinct, and he catches the action out of the corner of his eye. It has him fighting a smile.

Kie quips, "Maybe on another planet, but, here, I think we can all agree chocolate chip is better, right Y/N?"

Y/N's eyes widen around a forkful of mushy "green beans" at the sound of her name being said bringing her from the depths of her memories.

Usually, she's quick to jump in and give her two cents on whatever stupid back and forth they're all having, but her mind was elsewhere. Unbeknownst to Kie and Pope, she was mentally reliving every second of getting fucked in the van last night, so her attention to detail when it comes to the Chocolate Chip vs Oatmeal Raisin case isn't all too sharp.

"Uhhh," she stops for a second, looking at the half eaten chocolate chip cookie in Kie's hand, "If I say chocolate chip is better, can I get a piece of it?"

Kie's face lights up at her words, and she's already pulling off a generous chunk of the baked good to hand off to her. The sound of a certain someone whose lap Y/N's legs are outstretched onto from beneath the table scoffing distracts her from the first bite.

"I know you prefer oatmeal raisin, you traitor," JJ says.

Their brunette friend's brows scrunch.

"Why is she a traitor?"

They try to keep from making any faces or giving anything away, but Y/N has to stifle the sound of her choking on her mouthful of cookie at the question. You'd think one of them came out and asked if they were dating or something with how she reacts, and she feels JJ squeeze her ankle in a non-verbal way of telling her to hold it together. It was her idea in the first place, yet he's a lot smoother with keeping it under the radar.

Under it all, the aspect of keeping it a secret does unnerve him to a degree. He doesn't think he'd be brave enough to communicate it, especially not when their relationship remains undefined, but the darker side of his mind wonders...

He shrugs, saying, "Cause we were friends first. Duh. Other than John B, I've known her the longest."

None of them stop to acknowledge the identical aches in their hearts at the mentioning of his name. They skip right over it like it never happened. After the funeral a few days ago, they've filled their quota on mushy-gushy sad talk for the next week and a half.

The real reason is something far more complicated than him having a claim staked on her loyalty through having the longest friendship. It's something tied up in days of slowly getting pulled into one another's worlds like the tug of gravity itself, in how he has to refrain from slipping his arm around her waist in the hallway or kissing her goodbye after a sleepover at the Chateau. But until she gives him the go-ahead, he won't let it slip to anyone.

Pope speaks up from beside him, "You literally met her twenty minutes before we did."

"Still counts. Technically, I did meet her first, so her betraying Team Oatmeal Raisin is enough to be tried for treason in Pogue Court."

"Pogue Court isn't a thing."

He crosses his arms after he pops the rest of the cookie into his mouth.

"It is now. You can be tried for treason for breaking the rules. Rule number one is that all Pogues have to admit oatmeal raisin is superior."

He's about to ball up the cling wrap to throw away later when the surfboard sticker catches his attention again. It's the same color as his board, which he'd like to think is a result of her being an evil mastermind that went out to get this sticker sheet for the sole purpose of teasing him, but he's the one who got her the sheet as a gift for her birthday, so he knows it was pure coincidence.

Last second, he peels the sticker away from the cling wrap and looks down to place it over the top of her yellow converse that were once a vibrant, paler color when Big John got them for her, but have since turned into an ugly mustard/dirt-dusted color they heckle her over.

"What are the other rules?" Y/N asks.

One of the hands holding onto where her feet are casually planted in his lap, something that they've done long enough that their friends won't see it as anything odd, slides down to caress the stretch of skin beneath the frayed hem of her dark jeans. Something she didn't know about him before whatever it is they have together started was that he constantly needs to be touching her. She can't say she doesn't love it though.

Pope answers, "The oatmeal raisin rule is not official"—a pointed glance at JJ—"But I'd assume the rest of the rules of Pogue Court would be no lying and no macking."

"So, basically you two break almost every rule except the oatmeal raisin one, and I lie," JJ says and turns to look at her, "How does it feel to be better than everyone, Y/N?"

"Pretty good, not gonna lie."

He keeps caressing little circles and tracing up and down her skin beneath the flared out pant leg of her jeans while he swipes his phone off of the table top without attracting the attention of their friends, who continue on to a new topic. She isn't too focused on what it is. She only picks up that it has something to do with a class they're in that's more advanced that hers, so she promptly checks out of the conversation.

Ever since John B died, she hasn't been performing too well in school. She tries, truly tries, but her mind outright refuses to absorb any of the information. When she reads her assigned reading, she hovers over the same paragraphs over and over until she shuts the book in a huff and hides it in her backpack again. Losing someone you love has a surprising amount of side effects.

Her phone buzzing in her hand brings her away from the impending cloud of doom that often accompanies any thoughts of John B, and when she taps in her passcode, her brother's birthday, a message bubble appears with a banner displaying JJ's contact name.

JJ (Derogatory) ur a good liar. prob could've fooled me if i weren't the one macking on u

Their eyes meet for a second across the table, then he watches her thumbs move to type a response.

Kief Princess Little do they know I break every rule now that I've switched sides on the cookie debate. Kinda impressive ngl.

JJ (Derogatory) triple threat, baby

JJ (Derogatory) thanks for the cookie btw

She smiles to herself, so wrapped up in their own world that she doesn't notice everyone in the room starting to pack up their stuff in anticipation of the bell that is due to ring any second now.

Kief Princess Had to repay you for last night somehow ;)

When she glances up to see his reaction, she watches his chest rise with a particularly large inhale, and he chews on the inside of his lip in thought.

JJ (Derogatory) strategically bringing up last night so i'm turned on in physics? ur an evil mastermind

Kief Princess I try.

Kief Princess Apparently whooping your sorry ass at surfing isn't the only thing I'm good at.

She hears him scoff.

JJ (Derogatory) first of all, ouch. second, u barely beat me

Kief Princess I'm happy to challenge you to a rematch. I have plans with Kie tonight, so I can't till this weekend. All it'll prove is that I am the rightful winner, but we knew that already.

JJ (Derogatory) what r the stakes this time

Kief Princess No sexual favors. If you beat me (fat chance) I'll formally rejoin team oatmeal raisin.

JJ (Derogatory) :( sex makes it more fun but i still accept those conditions

JJ (Derogatory) team oatmeal raisin needs u, even if ur a traitor

Kief Princess Why bet sexual favors if you're just gonna fuck me after anyway?

JJ (Derogatory) good point

The sound of the bell ringing echoes through the cafeteria, and they both pop their heads up from their phone screens to see everyone, including Pope and Kie, already packed up and raising from their seats to scurry off in the direction of their next classes. Meanwhile, their stuff is all bestrewn across the table, particularly JJ's belongings.

The sight of Kie walking away makes Y/N ask after her, "We're still on for tonight, right?

She stops with Pope's hand interwoven in hers. The look on her face when she turns would make you think she got caught doing something she wasn't meant to. Something like forgetting about the plans they made last week to watch Fear Street together. The Cherry Bowl Drive-In is premiering the first two movies as a double feature for the horror movie buffs of Kildare, so they decided to get tickets. Kiara shares a fondness of horror movies with her. Since gory movies make the boys squirm, though JJ pretends they don't, it's their own thing.

"Actually, Pope and I were gonna go to the beach. I'm sorry."

JJ knows she's more upset about it than she lets on, but Y/N simply gives the pair a smile that doesn't reach the eyes.

The sound of JJ behind her makes them laugh on their way out, diffusing the minor tension lingering in the air from the awkward encounter, "Use protection!"

After their friends offer them a goodbye, they gather their stuff quite leisurely, not really caring about being late.

It's something they've talked about before here or there: her feelings surrounding Kiara and Pope's sudden relationship. It's not as if she harbors any ill feelings for them, she doesn't, but the ripple effects of their pairing on the group, and more importantly the girls' own friendship, couldn't be clearer from her perspective. Between the missed hangouts, forgotten plans, and the convenient way she never seems to have time to hang out with her and JJ unless Pope is there too, it's been building up for a month now.

What makes it sting the most is how close her and Kie used to be. They didn't hit it off immediately the way she and JJ did as children until her thirteenth birthday when no one she invited showed up to the party Big John helped her set up in the yard of the Chateau.

She was the one who rallied the boys together to walk to ask their school friends from the year above to come hang out for an hour or two, promising a slice of the wonky-looking but delicious strawberry cake her and John B spent the morning crafting together. She can remember the sound of their high-pitched laughs and the cloud of flour that hung in the kitchen when they high-fived over the finished product like it was yesterday. In her heart, it was yesterday.

That night was when she fell in love with her friends, and that was when she first knew Kiara was her best friend. They wove friendship bracelets on each other that night and wore them for years until they withered away. No one had ever done something like that for her before. Not even JJ.

"You okay?"

Feeling his hand on her arm, slipping down to take her hand for a moment in the seclusion of the empty cafeteria, makes her glance up at him with a distinct sorrow washed over her features.

You know what? Screw this. Why should she be torn up over Kie and let it ruin her excitement for the double feature tonight? There's no way in hell she's letting her best friend ditching her for her boyfriend get in the way of her plans.

"Do you wanna go on a date tonight?" she asks him abruptly, then adds, "To the Cherry Bowl with me instead of Kie?"

The question sparks a pause in his mind, a halt of hesitation in which he worries about her avoiding having to answer what he asked, but he attempts to play it cool and not fuss over her outwardly. There have been times where being treated like that has made her feel suffocated, so he doesn't want to risk it. When she's ready, she'll talk about it, and if she takes too long and buries her feelings, then he'll intervene. For now, he tries to keep his face neutral despite the frown tempting his lips at her disappointment.

JJ looks around once more before throwing his arm around her shoulder to walk her out.

"You bet your ass I do."

What is a person supposed to act like on their first date that's not actually a date cause everything between them is the same, but kinda is a date because they called it one? If you ever find out, please find JJ and tell him because he has no clue.

Pope wasn't too much help in the Instagram group chat he made for it seeing as his and Kie's relationship is too fresh, John B isn't even alive, so he's out of service for advice unless there's Ouija Board he can borrow, and, thankfully, Kiara was his savior.

Their phones began blowing up as soon as he reached his class after lunch period ended. He couldn't under any circumstances let it be known that this mystery girl he had a date with was their friend, but thankfully Y/N already had the alibi of going to the Drive-In alone. All he had to do was make up a fake date scenario and get basic advice.

danknugstickiestickies added kiara-c and popeheyward to the groupchat

danknugstickiestickies named the group HELP ME

danknugstickiestickies i have a date with this chick i met on the beach when i was out with y/n last week. i need ur advice

His phone screen lit up with the notification that both of his friends were typing, signified with the three dot symbol bouncing in the bottom left corner as he thought it through. They couldn't possibly figure it out, right? They'd been careful, he'd been respectful of her wishes, and they'd been too busy together to notice anything new with them. He figured it would work. It was a risk, sure, but it was worth it to him. He didn't want to fuck this up with her.

Knowing her, she probably wouldn’t even treat it differently than any of their other hang outs. It's not like they haven't been romantic or sexual with each other. They've done everything but go out on an actual date, so why was he nervous?

kiara-c ummmm

popeheyward Yeah, I'm gonna need you to ELABORATE!!

kiara-c did hell freeze over? since when does jj maybank go out on dates??

danknugstickiestickies renamed the group hell froze over

kiara-c very funny, I'm laughing so hard 😐

popeheyward Do we know her?

danknugstickiestickies don't think u do. she moved here last week and hasn't enrolled in school yet. her name's steph

popeheyward What about Y/N though?

kiara-c ^^

JJ's chest muscles tightened with the question prompting a rush of anxiety that made his breathing feel slightly harder. He glanced up at his Physics teacher, who was essentially dozing off behind his desk with his hand in a bag of chips and an educational video on the projector as an excuse to not teach, and looked back down at his phone without the added stress of possibly getting his phone confiscated.

Pope's message might as well have been a sucker punch. Forget butterflies, he set a wasp’s nest loose inside of his stomach to tie it into knots and flip it every which way. His neglected textbook served as a prop for his phone to lean on as he set it down to think.

Did they know? As far as he was aware, they were getting away with it. No evidence, concrete or circumstantial, was there to prove it. At least the stress of the situation killed any chance of him being turned on by her reminder of last night in their messages. This shit was boner repellant of the highest degree.

He played stupid. Better to let them volunteer whatever information they had before he went in saying anything incriminating that they didn't already know. If anything would sour the experience of their first date, it would be him accidentally making their strange in-between relationship public behind her back.

danknugstickiestickies ?? what do u mean

Three dots bounced in the bottom left corner of his slightly cracked phone screen.

popeheyward ...

kiara-c I mean, you don't see it?

danknugstickiestickies see what

popeheyward I guess we were wrong, but all of us always thought you two had some feelings going on.

"You don't say?" JJ murmured sarcastically to himself under his breath. "Never crossed my mind, Pope."

danknugstickiestickies bro that's jb's little sister

kiara-c so?

danknugstickiestickies forbidden fruit? making john b roll over in his grave? do those ring a bell or am i speaking in tongues

He was already a proficient liar in real life, but, fuck, it was easy in text messages. There's no chance at deciphering facial expression or tone, just a plain message with no room to budge. Thank God he didn't do this in person with them. He could've survived, but it wouldn't have been as quick and painless as the group chat was.

kiara-c jeez, sorry

Pope didn't voice it, but he noticed something.

He looked up from his phone and stared off at the wall in thought in his AP European History class. It piqued his interest that JJ simply said she was off limits, forbidden fruit as he put it, but did not outright deny having feelings for her. In fact, he didn't even address the question. He made excuses for why he shouldn't have feelings for her, but he never said he didn't have feelings for her.

Kie did not notice. Not because she wasn't smart enough to either, but because she was too busy hiding her phone behind her backpack to think too deeply about it. Her teacher was one of those teachers that would flip shit if they saw a cell phone turned off and faced down on the desk, let alone being used by a student during a lesson.

In his classroom across the hallway, JJ bounced his leg up and down beneath his desk in an absentminded urge to release the built up energy the anxiety produced in an over abundance.

popeheyward Our bad then. Even John B thought y'all were sus lmao.

Since when was that a known fact? Could he tell? Did he talk to Pope about him and Y/N before he died? Either way, it wasn't the time to pry about it.

kiara-c yeah you guys honestly could've fooled me if you wanted to

danknugstickiestickies well thank u, glad ur invested in our friendship but

danknugstickiestickies please help, i have no fucking clue how to act on a date and this girl is too cool for me to screw this up

That was when they finally dropped the interrogation session and started offering up tips. The best ones came from Kie, which made sense to him since women are more likely to know what other women like than two dudes who share one collective brain cell and never had real relationships.

Rule One: Be ready to pick her up five minutes early.

He wasn't ready to pick her up five minutes early. His bike broke down by the time he made it halfway down his street, so he had to push it back up the road and into the yard before setting off on foot to reach the Chateau quickly enough. And by quickly enough, it means he got there five minutes late, not early.

Rule Two: Compliment her after you get in the car.

She tossed him the keys to the Twinkie from across the hood, not giving him the chance to open the door for her, and it wasn't until they were setting off down the road that he remembered the next piece of advice he was given.

Side-eyeing her in his peripheral vision, he tried to find something to compliment her on specifically rather than the general compliments about her being pretty that she never fully believes when he says them. He was intending to say something about the skirt she had on, but when he chanced a glance over at her, she caught him and asked—

"What is it?"

Sent into panic mode, JJ blurted out instead, "I like your shoes."

He could've bashed his face against the steering wheel twenty times right then and there at the utter absence of reaction on her part for the next few uncomfortable seconds. It wasn't that it was a bad compliment. She appreciates any compliments at all...but her shoes were hidden from his view. Not to mention, they were the dirty, mustard yellow converse that the Pogues bash on a daily basis.

She laughed, lifting her leg to expose the sneaker on her right foot, and asked, "These? Dude, you roast me for these all the time. You and John B said they look like Big Bird shit on them."

The skin on the apples of his cheeks scorched hot with embarrassment, and he was never so glad that the overhead lights in the van were burnt out until that moment. He would've died on the spot if she saw him blush like that, face flushed pinker than sunburn. All he could do to save himself was murmur something about the color growing on him and keep driving in the direction of the theater with his hands white-knuckling the steering wheel he fantasized about banging his face into.

Rule Three: Insist on picking up the check.

In this case, it meant insist on buying the popcorn and drinks, and he miraculously managed to drop his wallet somewhere along the way when he ran over to the Chateau, so when he stepped up to the makeshift concession stand with her standing at his side, he felt around for his wallet in his jeans to no avail.

His thoughts echoed back to him, You gotta be fucking kidding me. Seriously? Is this actually happening right now?

"JJ, it's honestly fine," she said softly as he leaned over to search back of the Twinkie for the wallet. "We can look for it on your street right now if you want. It has your ID and stuff, you don't want a stranger to have that. We don't need to stay—"

It took all of his control to not shout it in reaction when he said, "No way. You've been waiting for this, and Kie ditched you, so I ain't ditching you too. We're staying."

His wallet could go kick rocks.

He came too far to be dragged down by the old leathery piece of shit anyway. Would he go out and search for it tirelessly the second the date ended? Hell yeah, that fucker had twenty dollars and his debit card in it, but he couldn't bear the thought of abandoning her or ruining her anticipated movie night by taking her out to search the streets with their phone flashlights for a wallet they might not find. He'd wait till the movies ended, take her home, then haul ass around the Cut searching for it after.

Thankfully, he found a couple bucks crumbled up in his front pocket while she scavenged for coins in the glove compartment, and they came up with enough to buy a water bottle and small popcorn to share together.

Rule Four: Don't have sex on the first date.

And it may sound easy enough to not act like a complete Neanderthal for the length of two movies, but the girl makes it pretty damn difficult if he's to say so himself.

That's what led him here, laying in the back of the sideways-parked Twinkie in the farthest corner of the outdoor theater with her practically on top of him. In any other instance, he wouldn't be opposed in the slightest, but with the cursed fourth rule in mind, he isn't too thrilled with the feeling of her hand rubbing up and down his thigh.

It isn't even meant to be sexual. They're constantly touching one another this way. She'll even slip her hands up under his shirt just to feel the warmth of his skin or when he asks her if she can get an itch on a part of his back he can't reach, but for some reason his brain is short circuiting right now.

The thing is, when Kie and Pope said he shouldn't do it on the first date, they meant it for his and Steph's made up circumstances, not his and Y/N's full-blown relationship without labels. When you've had sex with someone as many times as they have with each other, the hesitancy on the "first date" is nonexistent. It doesn't matter. But JJ, trying to follow the advice given to him to the letter for the sake of being the date she deserves, doesn't think about it that way.

It shouldn't be this nerve-wracking. They've been best friends since they were children, they've been flirting since they found out what basic attraction was in the first place, and they've been forming this relationship ever since John B died. Why can't he relax? Why is this so different compared to how easy it felt between them yesterday on the beach or today at lunch?

Rule Five: Be yourself.

It takes him another few moments of laying here with her before he realizes quite abruptly what went wrong in a quick flash of a thought that brings the fifth rule back to him. The problem wasn't the bike, or the weird compliment about her Big Bird sneakers, or the lost wallet.

The problem is him. The problem is that he's trying way too hard to make this something it isn't. The part about them that he adores so dearly is how they never have to try when they're together. With any other girl or guy, they'd have to fake something or act a certain way, yet when they're together, they can simply exist and everything is runs smoothly. That's not to say they don't disagree or bump heads, they do, but short of those outlier moments, it's easier than anything else they do in life.

His eyes flicker away from the screen for the first time since the movie began, which, by the way, is gruesome enough at times that he had to divert his eyes to prevent himself from seeing it happen. They land on where she lays, completely content with the night in spite of its mishaps, with her head propped up on the pillows they brought from the Chateau.

He wonders if she can tell he's acting differently. Surely she must notice. She's the type of person that typically never misses a thing, perfect for the gold hunt they went on in the summer with picking up the clues and helping her brother unravel the mystery, so maybe she noticed how flustered this date has him. Does it bother her? Does he bother her?

With a confirming glance back up at the movie to see nothing important happening, he can't fight the urge to speak anymore.

"Can I tell you something?"

His voice appearing through the darkness of the shut off van after spending the past half hour in complete silence makes her jolt at first before realizing who it was. Though she loves horror movies, she can't claim to not be affected by them. The night she falls asleep after watching one, she often finds herself compelled to turn a light on and keep her feet from dangling off the edge of the bed. It's worth the fear, though.

When she turns to look at JJ, there's a warm smile on her face. She's cuddled into his side with a hand placed casually atop his thigh, caressing with no purpose or intent, and her movement halts when the light from the movie on the projector allows her to see the expression on his face.

Anxiety has become an increasingly significant presence in his life with the recent events in mind; John B and Sarah, the four-hundred million dollars they lost out on, and dodging his father whenever he sneaks home to switch out the backpack of clothes and personal belongings he keeps at the Routledge house.

It manifests itself in jittery nerves, stomach pains, shortness of breath, and, at worst, panic attacks striking either at random or in response to a specific trigger. It's one of the few things he still tries to hide from her, and she tries not to push him too hard with opening up about it.

She abandons the movie for the time being and rolls onto her side to face him, upper body propped up on her elbow as she examines his face with downturned features.

"Of course," she says.

The words left unsaid are, "You can tell me anything. Whenever you need someone to listen, or to talk to about shit, you can tell me." He's heard her say it enough that he doesn't need to hear it now to know it's true.

There's a pause, then—

"I feel like I fucked this entire date up," he starts to ramble and cuts her off before she can think about saying what she wants to, "and I know it's okay to you. You have way too high of a tolerance for my bullshit, and I've been trying so hard to make this perfect, but all that did was screw it up."

She's left quiet for a second, taking it all in.

Maybe if he hadn't been so anxious about it, he would've realized what was wrong with his bike when he rode it home from school, or he would've noticed his wallet fall out of his pocket. The point is, he wishes he hadn't let the label attached to this freak him out so much. He isn't sure why it does, but it does.

But she doesn't do what he expects. She isn't drowning him in reassurances and, "It's okay's" because she knows he doesn't care for them much. When he, the most stubborn person she knows, apologizes for something he did, he doesn't want it to turn into the person accepting the apology coddling him.

Y/N sighs.

"Is that why you've been acting so different all night? I scared you with the whole ‘date’ thing, didn't I? It doesn't have to be a date if you don't want it to be."

What she doesn't know is that he wants it to be a date. He wants it to be a date so badly, he risked Pope and Kie finding them out for the sake of getting some proper advice on it, and now he's caught up in the same game of tug and war in his mind that always occurs when he wants to tell her the truth about his feelings for her.

Part of him doesn't understand why he doesn't outright say it. With every other girl he once showed interest in, he had no issues in letting them know he wanted them, but this is different. This isn't simply wanting someone, he thinks he's fallen for her. But whenever he says he's gonna grow a pair and tell her after all this time, he chokes. Involuntarily, he's reminded of his parents. Other than his friends saying it platonically, the only people to tell him they loved him were them, and with how they treated him, he sure as hell doesn't think that is love.

From his dad's brutal physical abuse to his mom's abandonment, he's too timid to tell her he loves her because of what could happen if she loves him back. Everyone else that has said that to him has either hurt him, died like John B did, or abandoned him.

He won't let that happen with him and Y/N. What they have, albeit undefined and codependent, is safe. It's the only thing he has left. Maybe it isn't right, and maybe he should open up about it to communicate the correct way, but somewhere in the misshapen logic of his mind, he correlates love to abandonment. And he doesn't want that to happen with her.

There are two sides of him at battle inside his mind. One side, the side that wants to do right by their relationship and actually communicate his feelings for once in his life, wants him to tell her everything. The other side, the side that responds based on the history of his past, wants him to hide it all.

"Will you be mad at me if we don't call it a date?" he asks.

She shakes her head.

The heavy sensation inside of JJ's chest nears a point of vitriolic violence against him as he starts to realize what he's doing to her, clearly letting her down, but he can't stop himself. Like a passive witness watching himself from outside of his body, the instantaneous trauma response to the sudden confrontation of his true feelings for her guides his actions without his permission. It shuts down any protest he has.

The sound of the movie fills the gap of silence between them the entire time. It’s a variety of bloodcurdling screams and disgusting sounds that would've made him gag if he weren't as distracted.

They can make out each other's faces through the darkness, but barely. It takes a flash of bright color from the film or a nearby car's lights turning on for them to fully see one another. Without the other knowing, they both put masks of calm and collected coolness on their faces despite the feelings raging beneath the surface—more so on his part than hers.

"Maybe," he says, pausing, "we should just keep things the way they've been."

As soon as the words leave his mouth, a soul-crushing amount of disappointment weighs her down. She said it was fine if he doesn't want it to be a date—and it is, she would never hold it against him—but that doesn't mean it can't hurt her. Things have been going so well, she almost thought...If tonight went well, she was thinking about no longer keeping it a secret, but if he said he wants things to stay the same, then maybe he isn't as ready for it as she is?

Meanwhile, JJ is on another page entirely.

She's embarrassed of being with you, a familiar voice in the back of his head croons. She's gonna leave just like everyone else does. If she doesn't even wanna tell your friends, why should you pretend you're dating?

The internal comments are the type that cause him to physically grimace when he's alone. Intrusive thoughts are just that: intrusive.

Sneaking into the guarded sanctuary of a person's mind, they set out to convince them the opposite of their reality. The only thing is, where most people's minds are guarded sanctuaries with walls of impregnable defense, his mind is the equivalent of a fortress blown to smithereens. The castle walls lay in rubble, the guards no where to be seen, and the path for these thoughts to slip past and straight to the vulnerability of his mind is left wide open.

In the privacy of his room, these thoughts attack him the most at night when he tries to fall asleep—when things get too quiet. With nobody around, when they get this bad there's nothing he can do except break down. It builds from the mere anxiety of attempting to force the thoughts away to full-blown panic attack mode. The more he resists them, the more aggressive they become. He'll gasp for air with tears streaming down his face, hitting his head with the heel of his hand as if that'd do something to stop his relentless mind.

But he can't afford to react in front of her, so the extent of his reaction is a subtle twitch of his face that she cannot see in the momentary darkness before the movie switches to another scene a second later. In a way, it does make the thoughts go away to have her here preventing him from spiraling alone. Having to focus on her keeps his mind away for moments at a time until the thoughts ease their grip on him.

When she hasn't answered for a while, he asks, terrified that he did something bad, "Are we good?"

The question seems to wake her up, snapping her out of the lonely direction her thoughts went into when he "rejected" her. It takes every bit of common sense she has left to force herself to understand that this doesn't mean he doesn't want her. He does, and not calling this a date doesn't mean they won't be together in the way they have been since John B's death, but she isn't perfect. She gets as unsure and insecure as he does.

As if the cloud of doom was lifted off of her, she makes her face lighten where she lays on her side next to him. Seeing this expression makes his chest feel less heavy, and he could let out a sigh of relief at the realization that he didn't break her heart and stomp on it. He should've known. Y/N is the sweetest person he knows, so she never would've flipped shit over him not wanting to label this as a date. That's not how she is.

And he's partly right. It isn't how she is. She would never hold it against him if he didn't want something further with her since she got herself into this position by pursuing him with his reputation with girls in mind, but she can't ignore it. Whether she wants it to or not, it had its affect on her as soon as he said it.

She leans in to kiss him, their lips meeting in the middle with the faint taste of popcorn salt mingling at the soft peck.

When she pulls away, she brushes the hair back from his face and says, "Don't worry. Nothing can change how I feel about you."

She has no clue what it feels like to hear that from her.

Despite the turmoil they unknowingly share beneath the surface due to this conversation, he could cry hearing her say it. It doesn't feel real to him that she feels the same way he does about her, because nothing could change how he feels about her either. That’s why he manages to work up the courage to repeat it back to her, and, for now, this is the closest he's physically capable of coming to telling her the truth.

"Ditto," he says.

It isn't what she wanted, but it's close enough, and if she dwells on this any longer, she might start getting too emotional and let the urge to tear up become too strong. Why does she have to be this sensitive? It's no secret that it's remarkably easy to make her cry, but this is insane to her. When all of this began with him, she didn't give a shit about him not wanting a label. She understood him, and she understood that he doesn't do this kind of thing, so why has it changed? Why doesn't she want to keep it a secret anymore? Why does she want this to be a date when she knows he doesn't want it to be?

Pulled by an invisible string back to him to silence her mind, she leans in to kiss him again with a hand cupping the back of his neck to guide him the rest of the way to her.

It shouldn't be laced with any sexual intention. She should be kissing him simply because she wants to, and, in a way, she is. Their kisses and touches are never lacking the motivation that is their underlying connection and mutual feelings for one another, but this is not the same. As he kisses her back with as much confidence and passion as always, she is reeling from the conversation that reminded her too much of a breakup.

It takes another minute of this for the kiss to heat up, their breathing becoming shallower in the moments they part to inhale, and she is undeniably the one instigating when she officially crosses the line between casual and sexual by crawling onto his lap. It's not hard for him to pick up on when their innocent moments take a turn. She's easy to read in that regard, and this has happened a multitude of times with them, so the shift of a mini make out session turning into something more is nothing out of the ordinary for them.

If he knew how shaken she is on the inside, he'd never want this. And the same would go for her if she knew what he was thinking before this. Neither of them wants to admit what they're feeling.

With her legs seated on either side of his hips, she kisses him like it's the last time she'll ever get the opportunity to. Her hands wander wherever they can, pulling at his shirt and feeling him up as his hands guide her hips to move against his in a steady grinding that she has no issue partaking in. It's an eagerness he hasn't seen from her in weeks. She's never un-excited when it comes to being physical with him either, but this is another level. The last time a girl was all over him like this, it was desperate touron at a party a few months ago.

In the span of time it takes her to glance over her shoulder to see if anyone could see them and reach to pull her skirt up until it bunches around her hips—no one can see them, by the way, since they got here late and were forced to cram the van into the back corner of the lot with no street lights illuminating the path—his brows raise at her presumptuous behavior. Not that he's one to complain, however, seeing as he's typically the one doing what she is.

Their next kiss clashes their teeth hard enough to make them wince, but he loves it. It makes him smirk into her parted mouth, alive with both the feeling her reassurance provided and the fuzzy-headed high that often finds him when they're together in this way. Incomparable to past flings or the high related to any drugs, she is the peak of everything to him. It's no contest.

His chest stutters against hers with a bout of amused laughter, asking within a brief pause in what feels like the most JJ thing he's said this awkward night, "Two for two in the Twinkie. What's gotten into you?"

Y/N's hand dips between where their bodies move together to unclasp the closed buckle of his belt in one smooth motion that has it falling apart with a clinking noise.

Her features are set with a look that tells him she means business. Whatever it is that sparked this, he wonders how the fuck to make it happen again another time. She's begged for it before, but never taken control so dominantly, and he can't deny what the role reversal does to him. The evidence is obvious in the distinct hardness she feels pressing up against the hand undoing his jeans.

"I was hoping it'd be you," she says, voice breathless and airy from the constant contact in a way that makes it ten times hotter for him.

If there were any chance of him not being in the mood prior to this, which wasn't the case anyway, it's gone now. He never wants to hear her say she doesn't deliberately try to tease him ever again.

He doesn't need to be told twice.

JJ surges forward to capture her mouth with his, this time with no intention of pulling away to breathe or speak again. No, he'll let himself get lightheaded and dizzy if it means he can stay with her for as long as possible.

With the circumstances of it all, them being visible to someone if they happened to pass by the open door of the van, they move at a pace quicker than usual. She's immediately helping him shimmy his jeans and underwear far enough down his hips to free his dick from the confines of his clothes, making him sigh out a breath of relief when her hand brushes against him in the process.

There's no opportunity to slow down, it has exploded into a full-throttle speed race that neither of them can halt.

His hand blindly flies out beside him to grope the floor of the van for the set of keys he tossed carelessly to the side once the movie started, eyes shut in the midst of the hot, messy kiss they share. His fingers find the fabric of one of the blankets they brought in case they got cold, then drifts again and lands on her Big Bird sneakers until he feels the sharp metal of her keys meet his calloused palm.

After the events of last summer, she bought a switch blade to keep on her key ring alongside the keys to the van, HMS Pogue, and Chateau. She may not like violence or weapons, seeing as she was a skeptic of JJ keeping the gun alongside her friends, but she saw it necessary. Between Rafe, Topper, and Kelce, how could she leave the safety of her and her friends up to chance knowing what some of the kooks did to them not long ago? What happened to Pope on the golf course alone was enough to make her skin crawl.

Right now, though, the knife flips out from the pressure of his thumb pushing the button to release it. He holds it out away from her at first to assure it doesn't nick her in the process, then uses his other hand to tug the side of her panties that hugs her hip far out enough to press the sharp side of the blade onto the inside of it.

She can hardly believe what she's watching as JJ cuts the delicate maroon underthings from her body as if he were doing something so normal, like it's something he's done before. Her forehead is pressed against his, her mouth parted both in shock and in a need to pant for oxygen, and she watches the knife ruin her favorite panties. The stitches come apart with a satisfying ripping noise that can hardly be heard over the sound of people reacting to the movie in the background.

Other customers of the Cherry Bowl Drive-In are too glued to the screen as a beloved character is chased down, reacting in shouts when she's seized by the killer and shoved onto the table of an industrial bread slicer, so they remain wholly unnoticed.

The lace, now ripped in half, dangles on the tip of the knife when he lifts it away from her, tosses it aside, and presses the button once more to retract the blade. It clatters to the floor, but is in no way forgotten with them resuming in a desperation to keep going until they both satisfy the need clawing at them from the inside. But her sense of need is different from his, and even with the fresh memory of him with the switch blade in mind, she's still somewhere else the whole time.

Her mind is faraway, muted through layers of sadness, anger, and disappointment as he reaches between them to line himself up to her entrance. The sensation of him running his cock, hard and messy with a few drops of precome, through her dripping pussy to coat it in her slick arousal is enough to make her moan pathetically. Yet when he's about to guide himself inside of her, she stops him.

"Wait, wait, wait," she breathes out rapidly, heart pounding so hard she can feel herself pulsating between her thighs, "Condom."

They were so antsy to get to it, they almost forgot.

"Fuck," he curses under his breath, and his eyes flicker from where they were trained between their bodies to glance back and forth around the van before it hits him. "I lost my wallet..."

But right when he thinks their public rendezvous in the back of the Drive-In is over due to his unfortunate mistake, she shakes her head and slips away from her perch astride his lap to crawl over to her bag.

She fumbles with the old tote bag and plunges her arm in to sift through the hodge podge of things that are purely Y/N in nature—stickers, glitter pens, a half-eaten bag of candy, etc—for the square foil package she decided to toss in before she left just in case. She usually doesn't keep them on her because he never fails to have one, but, thankfully, she had the random instinct to bring it tonight.

The only thing to bring her out of her cloudy, malevolent storm of feelings when she settles back onto his lap with the condom wrapper ripped open for him is him saying, "So you planned this, huh?" with his mouth tipped in a familiar self-satisfied grin.

She didn't plan it. In fact, she threw herself at him the second she sensed him withdrawing from her and can't stop herself despite the fact that she constantly feels two seconds away from letting a tear slip down her cheek. If that counts as "planning it", then sure.

"Maybe so," she answers, cool, calm, and collected—the antithesis of the truth.

They usually don't lie to each other.

They're thrown right back into it without any other hiccups once he rolls the condom on, and he takes in a shaky breath at her hand wrapping around him to align their bodies up. Before she can do anything, though, he takes chance to swipe the blanket he found a moment ago and wrap it around her back to keep her covered in case they get caught.

Y/N sinks down onto his cock with her lip caught between her teeth to stifle the sound that threatens to escape. JJ, on the other hand, doesn't bother concealing the sound of the groan he makes at the sensation of having her wrapped around him like this. The tension in her entire body from the anticipation and the looming threat of being seen by someone has her squeezing him so tightly, he can't help but be a little louder than he should.

Her soft palm slaps over his mouth with enough pressure to force his groan to quiet itself, and she watches his pretty blue eyes widen in reaction to the dominant action. Who is this girl and what has she done with his sweet, submissive Y/N? Don't get him wrong, he is very turned on by it, but it's unlike her to take the lead this way. He can't figure it out.

"What's wrong, angel?" she asks in a whisper into his ear, her hand over his mouth and her hips starting to slowly rock against him, "Watch the movie."

Once the words leave her mouth, she drops her hand, just in case he wants to stop and can't say anything because she had his mouth covered, and JJ is pretty sure he's died and gone to heaven.

He doesn't watch the movie, not at all, because he's too busy watching her. For someone losing their mind internally, she does not let it show, nor does she let it distract her from what's happening. If anything, the distraction in this situation is the sex, not what's going on inside of her head.

There's a moment of adjustment and going as slowly and gently as possible while waiting for the dull pressure of feeling him inside of her to fade away, but, for the most part, she doesn't waste any time. As soon as she feels comfortable enough with the ache between her thighs giving way to a spark of pleasure when she grinds her clit down on his pubic bone, she starts to ride him at a better pace than the initial slow movements of her hips.

She raises herself up and takes him again inch by inch, enjoying the sense of fullness she gets from having to fit him in spite of the slight discomfort at first, and she could swear that he'll leave bruises in the shape of his handprints with how tightly he clutches her hips. It's all he can do to prevent himself from moaning or saying something, ever the vocal lover she's come to know.

Unless his mouth is preoccupied like it was on the beach yesterday afternoon, JJ is usually impossible to shut up, especially in this context. With him always whispering dirty things to her, whether it be praises, pet names, or plans on what he wants to do to her, she has come to find it breathtakingly hot. He could likely get away with saying something if he wanted to, but he isn't sure he wants to risk it. If he opens his mouth to spew something filthy to her, he won't trust himself not to make a louder, different kind of noise that won't fit in the with background audio the other moviegoers are listening to.

The wet sound of their bodies colliding that fills the space of the van is drowned out by the loud and violent sequence occurring on the screen far ahead of them, and hearing it makes her bounce herself on him a little harder. She's fueled on by it all, and, strangely, what happened before she practically pounced on him is the main contributor.

Similarly to the nature of his intrusive thoughts, the harder she resists the memory of how it felt when he told her he didn't want this to be a date, the more forceful it is in its return. Her eyes trail down to watch where they connect with her forehead pressed to his, then she's thrown back into the feeling of helpless disappointment and insecurity. His head tips back against the window with his bottom lip dropped open and his brows furrowed just enough to create a crease on his forehead, and she's bombarded with the look of relief on his face when he realized he didn't have to be tied down to her with a label.

It makes her want to get rougher, harder, and she doesn't even care if it'll make her sore later on. She presses herself down so far every time she slides down on his cock, her teeth draw blood on her lip with how hard she must bite it to remain quiet. The pain of her hipbones rubbing against his doesn't even matter to either of them at this point. They're both too lost in the pleasure that has begun to take control of them to care about something as minuscule as that, or the burn in her thighs from the repetitive physical strain.

She grabs his wrist and brings his hand between them, flattening hers overtop of it and pressing down on the base of her abdomen in the midst of the increasingly feverish thrusts.

"Feel you here," she murmurs to him through a quiet moan, hoping he can hear it over the movie, and pushes down on his hand for emphasis. And if the way he reacts by cursing under his breath tells her anything, it's that he picked up on it. "JJ..."

He reaches out to grab her by the throat with his free hand and tug her forward to kiss him, as if something inside of him snapped in response to her doing that. The motions of her jolting up and down throws the already messy and uncoordinated kiss off-kilter, but they don't mind. It has them separating every time she lifts up, producing this heady little head rush from from them breathing in each other's air without actually letting their mouths meet in the middle.

Though they're trying their hardest not to alert anyone outside of what's happening, it didn't occur to him until now, when his eyes catch John B's old bandana swinging back and forth where it's secured around the rear view mirror.

They're worried about moaning while the entire fucking Twinkie is rocking with their movements. Well, at least it makes good use of the corny sticker he gifted John B last year as a gag gift. He tried to peel it off after JJ snuck it onto the side window to no avail. So, now Y/N is stuck with a sticker on her car reading, "If the van's a-rockin', come on in, we like orgies," rather than the more common phrase.

It almost makes him start laughing, and he prays no one takes that shit seriously, 'cause he is never intent on sharing this breathtaking girl. Ever.

Y/N isn't anywhere near laughing like he is, in fact, she's finding it difficult to keep herself together. She feels her eyes sting with the promise of tears, and she's never felt so pathetic before. Is she seriously about to cry during sex? Is she really that girl that is so ill-equipped to handle rejection, she can't get through it without tears?

She won't cry. Perhaps if he sees how glossy her eyes have become in a rare moment of good lighting, she can blame it on the hand around her throat putting pressure on the sides of her neck.

The worst part about her being near to crying is the timing of it.

The emotion of what she feels mentally mixes with the swirling, building sensation she feels in the pit of her stomach that tells her she's close to going over the edge, and it's so overwhelming. Was she imagining that their friendship had changed? More importantly, is this all she'll ever be to him? Sex is the only thing she's sure of with him, it's the only thing that doesn't require deeper emotions, and when the ground beneath their fragile relationship felt shaky...

He can feel her starting to unravel, and he knows that he'll come before she does if he doesn't do anything now, so he decides to take control.

JJ pulls the hand he had resting on her abdomen away as though he were burned by it, wrapping his arm around her waist to steady her body against his and using the hand around her neck for leverage to thrust up into her, effectively reducing her to a teary-eyed, moaning mess atop him. They both stopped caring about making noise the second he began to fuck her like this.

She cries out in ecstasy at the sudden change in pace and depth that has him hitting all the right places. Every time he thrusts up into her, just as rough as she wished for, the tip of his cock nudges into that perfect spot inside of her that makes her incapable of silencing her moans. This time, it's JJ that puts his hand over her mouth, letting the one he had around her neck move away to keep her from alerting everyone around them of what's happening.

There's nothing she can do to stop her climax as it barrels through her in its initial sweeping wave of bliss to contrast the venomous doubts in her mind. She's never felt such conflicting, yet powerful feelings before—the intensity of the physical pleasure that makes her whine into the palm of his hand, then the part of her mind replaying every word he said in their conversation before this.

Her body is rigid and tense through it all, squeezing down around his cock with the involuntary spasms of her orgasm, and he can't help himself anymore. All it takes are a few more frantic thrusts for him to bury himself inside of her one last time and spill into the condom, uncovering her mouth so he can drown out his own groans into a kiss.

Their skin sticks to their clothes on the inside with sweat from the exertion of their actions, and he can feel her stomach tremble where it presses up against his with each undulation of her hips that meet his as he rides it out.

But even with the added distraction of the sex, she can't rid herself of the feeling that started plaguing her as soon as things went awry. That was why he was acting weird all night. He must have been so worried about her thinking this was anything more than their typical hangouts that he couldn't bring himself to act normally.

She forces herself to look happy when they pull away from the kiss, panting, and JJ, unaware of what she's been thinking, doesn't notice the small deception.

Tag list: @gabiatthedisco