#kierras.

if there was a god, and he ever gave jj the time of day, he’d be left alone to sit in his waterlogged peace under the barely there protection of a tree. but there wasn’t. and no more than five minutes after jj’s bike caught against one of the gnarled, overgrown roots of said tree, an extremely familiar xterra was pulling up with it’s hazards on. kiara. great. he was pretty sure his leg was bleeding, but he couldn’t see through the rain caught in his eye lashes — maybe some tears too, but that was no one elses buisness, thanks — he only knew that it was kiara when she got out of her car and started yelling over the sound of the storm. the blonde still couldn’t hear. maybe she was saying what the fuck are you doing here? or do you have a fucking death wish? no matter what it was, he was pretty sure the word fuck was in there. and overly anunciated. “luke locked me out,” jj called up to her. “stuck out here i guess.” he was glaring at the mangled front wheel of his bike when he felt kiara’s hands on him. squinting up at her, he realized she was helping him up. let’s go home, she was saying. where the fuck that was? jj didn’t know, because he was absolutely sure that the carreras wouldn’t want him of all people dripping on their carpets that were spun with gold or whatever. but he was also not in a space to argue. so he stood with her, and stowed his bike in the trunk before getting in the passenger seat. “thanks,” he said finally, the sound of rain finally muffled by the car doors, letting him finally hear how badly his teeth were chattering. “figured it was going to die down eventually, but i appreciate this.”

“hm?” jj asked, head still ducked under pope’s new car. they had barely declared it the pope mobile before pope backed it into a tree on his way to pick up dinner. it would’ve been comical, honestly, if the smell of motor oil wasn’t fucking with his newest concussion. but, he had sent john b, sarah and pope to go get dinner while they waited for cleo and kie to get back from the other side of the island. cleo must’ve walked by him, but the shift in the air around the car, and the comforting sound of his girlfriend’s voice, settled around the blond, the annoyance for pope’s stupidity melting as he slid out and squinted up at kie.  in truth — he hadn’t meant to avoid her. he never wanted to avoid kiara. but in the past few days since he went to the hospital, he’s been keeping to himself at home. john b left him alone, only stopping by his room to feed his best friend like a skittish dog who was prone to biting — honestly at this point, jj wasn’t sure that was so far off — while the girls were on figure eight. on any other day, jj would be there too, helping kie finish packing the last of her previous life. to say goodbye to the home she grew up in. but, jj didn’t really want to be near mike carerra right now. considering he was the one that put him in the hospital in the first place.  they had been going to finish kie’s move two days ago. all the pogues coming for support, jj leading the charge. he had managed to get past anna, who looked almost resigned to the events occurring in her home. but then, all 6 foot 3 inches of michael carrera were blocking his way. jj had blacked out, as he often does in a situation like this. adult men jabbing fingers into his chest, yelling at him about ruining everything. if he was smarter, jj would’ve stepped around him, ignored the poison the adult was spitting at him, to get the rest of kie’s stuff. and let him be angry in his own corner. but he wasn’t known for his wisdom. he couldn’t remember what he said, all he remembered was the splitting pain in his cheek, the blood in his mouth, and the feeling of his head smacking against the concrete of the carerra driveway.  the police were called. shoupe peeling him off the concrete, a quiet what are we gunna do with you, kid? the last thing jj heard before he passed out. the concussion wasn’t his worst to date, but he still had to lay in the dark for most of the day following. this outing to fix pope’s car the first time since the fight he’s spent a prolonged amount of time outside. which was the reason why he hadn’t seen kie in a few days, but he wasn’t trying to avoid her. “sorry…just figured it was better to stay away from your dad. is everything alright over there?”

“Shut up, it’s too early for that.” 

“Is that really the way to talk to someone who’s bringing you breakfast in bed?” The blonde asked, dumping said breakfast - a foil pack of Pop Tarts - onto the bed beside her. Turning the dial of the standard issue radio down to off again, JJ collapsed back into bed with his girlfriend. There hadn’t really been a reason to turn the radio on, considering his charter boat was docked, so it wasn’t like he needed to hear news, but after being gone for two weeks on an extended charter, it was force of habit. He had docked the night before and had barely tied the boat to the dock before Kie was running down to meet him. In the year and a half since they found the gold, the two of them had been pretty much inseparable save for some weekends away for work. Mostly because JJ didn’t trust her parents not to turn up with an armed guard to take her to another prison under the guise of good parenting. But this group of Kooks were offering a lot of money for a long trip and while JJ wasn’t hurting for the cash - money issues weren’t really a thing for them considering the whole Lost City of Gold thing - the publicity was good. The two of them had spent the night on the boat, trying to soak in as much alone time as possible before the day ahead. “We’re probably going to have to get up soon anyways,” JJ mumbled, face half in a pillow as he checked the time on his phone, other arm tossed around Kie loosely. “We gotta be at that stupid celebration thing at like…11?”

“no,” he said, moving the woman from his arms to the stretcher half hanging out of the ambulance in front of the giant building that was being evacuated. there was chunks of drywall caught between curls, particles of paint — probably just as old as the university — floating in the air as he sat the back of the stretcher up, making sure she didn’t have a chance to lay down. “gotta stay up until you’re cleared of head injury.” the blonde went through the motions of the vitals test he’s done a million times over, while his coworkers and campus security moved around them. he didn’t fully know what happened before they were called. all he knew was that part of the building collapsed and the town was small enough that he had to be called in on one of his days off. 

he didn’t think he’d see kiara this soon after their first date, and jackson definitely would’ve preferred better circumstances. making a note, jj pulled his pen light out of his pocket and turned back to the woman he carried out of the dusty disaster zone. “hey!” he said, patting kiara’s cheek. in the time it took him to take her blood pressure, she had closed her eyes. “what did i say?” once the big brown eyes were fixed on him again, jj held an eyelid open, knowing some of the glittery eyeshadow there would transfer onto his thumb, as he tested her eyes with the penlight. he’d apologize later. “stay awake.” he hovered over her, to do the same with the other eye before sitting back down on the ambulances bumper. he started taking notes. “y’know,” he said, a chuckle in his voice as he wrote. “this is probably the most a girl has done to get out of a second date with me…causing a roof collapse? was i really that bad of a time?”

— send me 📷 & i'll share photos of your muse my muse has saved on their phone!

look - call him a simp all you want - but jj maybank knows that his girlfriend is hot and he will be takin a photo of her any chance he gets.

he also screenshots every single snapchat he gets from her.

took the words right out of my mouth 💖

for once in his life, jj was still, or at least his body was. his brain was moving so fast he was surprised there wasn’t steam coming out of his ears. his nightmares haven’t been this bad for awhile, just phantoms of his past haunting the corners of his subconscious as he dreamed of riches and fishing. but tonight, he had been dreaming of being in the heart of a prison brawl. everyone was so much bigger than him, honestly, he was sure that his father was one of the people throwing fists in his direction. and as he tried to run, he’d be stopped by office plumb, who would stand there with the smug ass bun on her head and smirk on her face, reminding him that this is just what happened to people like him.

he woke up screaming with his stomach in his throat. jj barely had time to realize he woke kie up where she had been asleep on the pull out while he was sprawled out on the chateau’s living room floor after a movie night, before he was running into the bathroom, dry heaving into the toilet. it was humiliating, not only for jj to be reacting like this in front of her, but that he forgot to close the bathroom door, so she had followed him in. leaning in the doorway, the girl of his dreams watched as he leaned against the side of the bathtub. if the door wasn’t locked before, it sure as fuck was now. “just a nightmare,” he mumbled, rubbing his eyes. “‘bout what plumb said about me ending up in jail…where people like me end up.”

there’s nothing bad inside you. nothing. blinking up at her, blue eyes went wide for just a second. his heart was in freefall. she really was everything to him, and hearing kiara tell him that there was nothing bad inside him gave him just a fraction of hope. but then it came crashing down again. “are you sure about that?” he asked. “you’re probably the only one on the island that thinks so.”

— send ‘maybe you’d be happier with someone else’ for my muses reaction.

it took jj a second to realize the words were being directed at him. mostly because he thought he was alone on the dock, but also because he couldn't really process the thought. you'd be happier with someone else. that was hilarious, so much so that jj actually laughed before he could even form words. "kiara, i've tried being with other people, remember?" tossing the rag he was cleaning the engine with onto the boat before turning to look at his girlfriend. arms crossed, eyebrow arched up. that year between kiara "locking the door", and making her move after she came back to them from kook world had been a half assed attempt at getting with girls who didn't interest him. no, the one that interested him was the one in front of him. "i've never been happier than i have with you. so you wanna talk about what's goin on in that pretty brain of yours or should i go back to cleaning?"