#yeah though

Ocean can’t deal a good punch, nor is she very good at kicking (look at her. she’s got the same body structure of those towers you would make out of dry spaghetti and marshmallows in science class), but you know what she can do?

bite.

this girl bites HARD. once she’s latched on, she Won’t Let Go. she’s like a leech with red hair.

one time when Mischa was in a fight, Ocean LEAPT onto the other guy’s back and CLAMPED down on his shoulder. from the ground, Mischa just watched in awe as this dude spun around wildly, screaming, as this whole ginger clung onto him like a gnat with a revenge plot.

people are less inclined to continue fighting when you take a chunk out of them, and Ocean knows this.

she can also tear up your skin with her fingernails. she WILL scratch you to pieces.

also! she may not have much physical prowess, but she can ABSOLUTELY verbally pummel you with her extensive vocabulary. someone was making fun of Constance, so Ocean went onto this huge school group chat with a bunch of other kids and typed out this long-winded message publicly detailing the bullies underage drinking problem, their relationship with an adult man when they’re a minor, and then calling them a whore in several different ways. while at choir practice, one of the other students in the chat called her and was like “Ocean— Ocean, she’s fucking crying, oh my god” about the kid who the text was calling out.

Jas was devastated by the loss, and honestly didn't really have much of a clue how to raise JJ on his own. Especially since JJ had a few periods in which he was a fairly difficult kid to work with (For Jas, anyway). For example, JJ was an extremely anxious and sensitive kid, and Jas has always been a little...out of touch with his emotions. He's always been a very straightforward person. So not knowing why JJ was feeling the way he was, and not really being able to relate (not for lack of experience I feel, but more lack of recognition at what JJ was feeling), or how to "fix" whatever was making JJ hurt or afraid or anxious was hard for him.

That, coupled with losing his wife, on top of a pile of other things made him drink more and more over the years. It peaked when JJ was around the equivalent of 17 or 18 years old, and it got so bad that for a long time, JJ felt as though he was the one taking care of Jas most of the time, instead of the other way around.

A year or so after that though, Jas got his first major wake-up call (because as much as I hate to say it, Jas was a very functional alcoholic in public. Very few people could even tell that he was struggling with it in the first place...and when he did start to feel like people were catching on, he didn't interact with people as much, so he could continue to hide it.) when JJ very abruptly moved out on his own. It did take a bit to set in though, as after JJ left, he fell into another slump because JJ cut pretty much all contact with him at that point.

I couldn't say exactly what finally made it set in, but after a couple more months, Jas went from an "I failed my son, I couldn't make myself be the father that he deserved, I'm the worst" spiral, to "I failed my son, and so now I have to make it up to him and get better for him, even if he can't forgive me after everything."

And a lot happened over the years he was getting clean. JJ ended up moving back in with him after Jas saved him from a really bad romantic relationship. There were times he fell off the wagon. Times that he and JJ's relationship got really strained again, and times that they were okay.

R I G H T?