𝙵𝙾𝙾𝚃 𝙸𝙽 𝙱𝙾𝚃𝙷 𝚆𝙾𝚁𝙻𝙳

“what?” jj’s scoff was matched with a rough tug on his hair. hard enough that some strands stayed stuck between his knuckles. “who the fuck said we were having sex…we made out.” maybe if the bathroom in the chateau wasn’t the size of a coffin, things would’ve gone farther. Probably would’ve gone farther considering jj’s going down a self-destruct spiral and the easiest way to get kiara to hate him was to hook up with someone else. it already seemed to be working. emily, the tourist that squeezed jj’s biceps a little too hard and danced a little too close to him, had suggested moving to the bedroom that she had seen jj throw some of his stuff into earlier, but he had refused. he was in self destruct mode, sure, but that was too far. only one girl got to go in that room with him.

kiara's not sure if jj's distinction really makes her feel any better or not. what's it matter how far they had gone? the fact that he had been with someone else at all cuts her all the same. and besides, for all she knows they had been on their way to his bedroom or the backseat of the twinkie to carry on so she doesn't say anything, instead just shaking her head and clenching her jaw. despite herself, she can't help the mental image of jj and someone else wrapped up together, a sick, sinking feeling accompanies the stinging behind her eyes.

— it’s worse than we thought starters // accepting! — @kierras said: “just a little sleep?”

kiara whines, an embarrassing highpitched noise as she tries to jerk her head away from jj's touch. "don't hit me," she pouts, trying to slap away his hand from her cheek — and failing miserably. "m'tired, jay." she almost certainly has a concussion and probably some kind of lung damage from all the shit she's been inhaling. really, this is the worst case scenario for her. the roof collapsing on her was bad enough, but the hot firefighter she'd gone out with last week being the one to have to rescue her? she kind of wishes she'd been swallowed up by a sink hole instead.

she had a point — which isn’t surprising, kie always seemed to understand how he was feeling and it always seemed to be better than he did — and it helped a little. but it was also something he had struggled with for a long time. before all the treasure hunting, when it was just the pogues trying to live their lives on the cut, it was hard for jj to be around big john and john b when they were bonding, or the heywards when they invited him to dinner. it was just too pleasant, and while he loved that his friends had family that loved them, it was hard for jj to maneuver. it was why he was so ready to jump at the chance to help when kiara’s parents were threatening to kick her out. he knew how to deal with parents being shitty. and after dealing with it alone for so long, he wasn’t about to make kiara shoulder that responsibility by herself. “y’think she would be?” he asked into his girlfriend’s shoulder. “proud of me, i mean.”  their breath was mingling together as kie bumped their noses together and jj laughed ruefully at her question. “nah babe, the universe is kinda kicking our ass right now,” he mumbled, chasing kie’s kiss to steal another before shifting so his head was resting against her stomach, calloused fingers tracing the jut of her exposed hip bone as they lay there. kie was talking, saying something about the house. the reminder that they were losing the house made jj freeze for just a second before blue eyes glanced back up at her face. “a houseboat? we could take it to go on the surf trip…might be cheaper than airbnb’s right?” he hummed. “would be nice…and we could always come back when we’re ready right?”

kie leans back against the headboard, shifting as jj situates himself into a laying position, his head pressed against her stomach. she smiles softly and feels an ache in her chest at his question, letting her fingertips scratch against his head gently. "yeah, i think she would be." a few weeks ago, kiara hadn't had a clue who larissa genrette even was. but she's done a some google searches since then, did her best to deep dive down jj's family tree. to say the woman was beloved would be an understatement. she had seemed to be sunshine personified, brightening up everything around her in a way kiara knows that jj does too. she had always wondered where he got that from because it certainly hadn't been luke. "after everything you've been through? how you've managed to come out of it? how could anyone not be?"

A soft chuckle erupted from Leah’s lips as she heard her words. “Damn straight,” she muttered with the brightest smile etched upon her features. A low hum of approval emitted from her throat. “Never Kie, between you and JJ you’re extremely adventurous,” she mused. “But this is going to be something hopefully more relaxing, and definitely not stressful for you, I hope,” she added quickly. She sighed in relief at her kind words. She was always able to make her feel more at ease within herself whenever she hung around Kie. With a shy smile gracing her features, we’re actually going to be going to Greece. My parents enjoy going to all the touristy thirst traps,” she giggled with excitement. She nodded, “Yeah, I think it’ll do me some good. The change of scenery certainly give me some inspiration. Either that or be completed by getting drunk every night,” she mused. “You read my mind. Yes please. Perfect. We’ll have plenty of those,” she answered, getting excited. She, too, shimmied her shoulders. “Come on, let’s go get wasted. Whoo,” she yelled with another chuckle. “The night is ours, Kie. I’ll make sure you have fun,” she grinned brightly.

leah's promise of fun is one that kiara is all too happy to accept, the pair linking arms and making their way across the island to rockfish where the drinks are a little watered down but they're cheap, so who can really complain? certainly not kiara. in fact, she's on her third margarita, carrying one in each hand as she swivels through the crowd back to the table she and leah had claimed. "alright, cheers," she holds her drink up expectantly after putting the other girls in front of her. "to... uh... getting off this island for once?" at least, doing so and not running for her literal life for once. "i can't believe you're going to greece — i'm so jealous. you have to send me pictures."

sliding the piece of plastic back into his wallet, jj snorted. “yeah well, you should know better,” they’ve been — them — for a little bit now, and jj has gone as far as to snatch the wallet from kie’s bag to make sure she didn’t even try to take it out. from the outside, he was sure everyone was expecting kie to cover everything. she was rich after all. and jj — to the rest of the island — was a deadbeat, a mooch. he refused to be that with kiara, and he worked three jobs to be able to have the funds for things like this. so he’d never let kiara pay, no matter how misogynistic it may look to people. “y’know i take care of that,” hunger was the type of thing that jj had learned how to ignore for awhile. but tonight, with a takeout container sitting in front of him after his shower, he couldn’t avoid how starving he was. their fingers smelled like the joint they had outside earlier, when they wished sarah and john b luck on their outing to figure eight. but now they were alone and jj’s brain was cushioned by the weed and he was finally eating, so things were looking up. glancing up at kiara’s question, jj cleared his throat. “i mean,” he started, feeling a flush hit the back of his neck. “yeah i have.” it had been something that he thought about a lot actually. “just is a little hard, john b is still looking for his dad, right? this is technically his room so if i move in before he comes back, it might be a little awkward, y’know?” it felt like a loose excuse, and it sounded like one too, and he was just high enough to mention “and i’d feel bad for leaving my dad.”

kiara didn't want to dampen the mood again. the combination of being freshly showered and the post-smoke session haze had lightened things up considerably, the two finding themselves back in the comfortable warmth that so often envelopes them. so she'd kept her tone casual when she asked, knowing jj might feel embarrassed or uncomfortable about it — and the flush on his neck confirms that so she nudges his foot with her own gently in an attempt to keep him with her and not send him spiralling. "yeah, i guess so." she doesn't say it because she knows how terrible it is, but with every passing day the idea of big john coming back is becoming less and less likely. but she can't blame john b for holding onto the hope. "could always get your own place," she hums, shrugging. her lips purse when he mentions his dad and she does her best to keep her expression from souring. "you don't know him anything, you know."

he didn’t know it, but his own anger was matching kiara’s in a warped, funhouse mirror of their situation. isn’t it so funny that they’re still so in sync, even after he ended things. his anger was pounding in his ears, making his only a little buzzed brain stagger, sending his equilibrium out of focus until he was leaning against the doorway he was hovering in, like the universe was exhausting him. and in all honesty, it was. this had been what he wanted, wasn’t it? for kiara to realize that she deserved more than him. that he wasn’t worth the trouble. but why didn’t it feel the way he thought it would? kiara looked pissed off and he couldn’t shake the knee jerk reaction to want to fix her issues for her. that wasn’t his job anymore, he made that decision. blue eyes shot up at the accusation that it didn’t matter to him. “fuck that,” he said between the space of his gritted teeth. his anger was making his fingers tremble, but he wouldn’t yell at kiara. he wouldn’t let that part of luke maybank’s father ever see the light of day in front of her. “you don’t exist to me? kiara i wish there was a second that i didn’t have you on my mind. it would make my life so much fucking easier. and don’t…this matters. like a lot. and i can’t believe you would say that to my face.” he said, as if she could read his mind and understand the reasons that he didn't offer to kiara while he was breaking up with her. “this shit isn’t easy for me either.”

god, this is so humiliating. here she's been heartbroken while life has gone on as usual for jj. "you can't believe i'd say that?" she echos his words, disbelief lacing her words. "seriously?" she doesn't know what he wants from her, doesn't know what else he expects her to think. "i'm on your mind so much that you have to go and have sex with the first girl to make a move at you?" the words are harsh and kie knows it but now that she's gotten going, she can't stop herself. her steely expression falters, despite her best efforts not wanting to show him just how much it hurts her when he admits to wishing that he didn't care about her. "yeah, it looks really hard for you." the laugh accompanying her words is nothing short of humorless, voice hitching and kiara feels the familiar sting of tears behind her eyes from the combination of anger and sadness. "you know, the idea of even letting anyone else touch me still makes me feel sick but yeah — you're right. it must be so hard for you."

leaning up on an elbow, he stole the joint back from her as his question hung between them. holding the burning end of the joint away from them, jj ducked down to steal a kiss off kiara’s smoke warm lips. just because he could. because that was his wife. his wife. god he was never going to get tired of saying that. “i think they’re all asleep anyways,” jj said finally, leaning back into the sand beside kiara, pulling her ever closer, until almost every point of the left side of his body was touching hers. “also i don’t want to have to listen to them ramble about everything they’ve been doing while we’re gone.” the blonde loved their friends — their family — but after a few experiences on their last treasure hunt, it was hard to unnotice where their priorities lie, or the fact that john b was a little mad they weren’t invited on the surf trip. jackson took a drag off the joint before pulling his phone out of his pocket. there were texts that he’s been ignoring for days, and then a thread from a number he doesn’t have saved. the photographer. there were hundreds of pictures that he had finished editing, there were more on the way, he knew that much, but there were some good ones already. “posting you say? i think that would be fun…post on instagram, no notice, then turn our phones off for the night?” he held his phone over both their heads. “pick your favorite, this one’s mine,” his ringed thumb opens a picture of kiara and jj out of focus in the foreground, jj twirling kie around in the sand, while the sign declaring just married behind them was in focus. you could barely see their faces, but it was a whirlwind of a photo. just like the night had been.

kiara loves their friends — after everything they've been through, the pogues are her family. more so than mike and anna carrera, more so than anyone. but jj is her family in a different way — in a way that's just a little bit more tangible, in a way that she won't have with anyone else. at the end of the day, no matter what happens, she knows that it comes down to the two of them. that she can count on him to do the right thing for her, to hold her hand through whatever life is going to throw at her, to build something real with her. so, no, she doesn't really feel bad about the fact that none of the pogues had been here for this step in their relationship and she doesn't really want to spend their first night married fielding questions from them about the whole thing.