Chapter Text
Sarah Cameron's infamous 16th birthday party falls on the first weekend of 10th grade, and suddenly Kiara finds herself completely shunned at school. Like a leper. Not only would no-one talk to her, they totally refuse to acknowledge her presence.
About a week later, the entire island is grappling with the news of Big John being lost at sea. And things have gone to complete and utter shit, apparently, so much so that Kiara has to hear it first from her freaking mother, of all people.
“It’s a shame, what happened,” Anna Carrera comments, almost off-handedly. At first, Kiara barely lifts her head from her breakfast. Her mother has a sixth sense for Island gossip, and Kiara is desperate to signal that she is not interested.
But her mother sounds way more upset than she normally would for an early morning chit-chat. She moves her chair closer to Kiara, turns her whole body towards her and gives her one of her looks. “Honey, if you need to talk… I know you haven’t hung out with John B in a long time, but you two used to be so close.”
And, well, that catches her attention.
“What?” Kiara mutters, finally looking up from her cereal. “What happened to John B?”
Anna stares at her with odd, scrutinizing eyes. “You haven’t heard?” she says, and then her face shifts into a softer expression. “Oh, honey, Big John’s been missing for a few days. He went out on his boat and nobody’s heard from him since, there’s been a search party and all. I thought you knew.”
“Big John’s what ?” she practically cries, and she can literally feel her own blood as it drains from her face. Kiara looks white as a ghost, she’s sure of it, because her mom speaks softly to her, taking one of her hands in hers.
“I really thought you knew.”
The world goes black for a few seconds. How did this happen? Has Kiara really been so self absorbed to have missed something like this? Big John’s gone missing. Possibly died at sea, at this point. Her best friend’s dad, the same Big John that made them popcorn when they watched movies at the Chateau, that let her crash on the pull-out when it got too late to drive home, that always smiled when he saw her.
She can’t believe it. She just can’t believe it.
Her first instinct is to run to the Chateau to check on John B, hug him close and let him know how terribly sorry she is, but she doesn’t. Because she’s been gone almost a year, she can’t even remember the last time she texted any of them, let alone talked to them, and now she’s not sure what the correct protocol is for showing up for a friend after leaving them for so long. It makes her bones ache, this distance between them. The fact that she knows he’s hurting, she can feel it in her blood, like phantom pain, and yet she doesn’t know how to be there for him. If he’d even want her to, after all this time.
She tries to call, she really does, picks up the phone and stares at his name on the contact list multiple times, but it’s too hard. She settles on a text. Writes it and deletes it a thousand times, finally sends a lame, ‘I heard about your dad. I’m so sorry.’
John B doesn’t respond, and frankly she’s not even sure he’s seen it.
She doesn’t blame him.
A few days later, JJ of all people shows up at her door. Well, not really at her door. She finds him at the back entrance of the Wreck at the end of her shift, leaning against his bike and smoking nervously in the corner of the staff parking lot. He stubs the cigarette as he sees her, walks up to her.
“Hey,” he says, just that. His eyes settle on her face for less than a second before falling resolutely to the ground. She wants to say so many things, ask so many questions, apologise all the way to tomorrow. And yet nothing comes out of her mouth.
“I dunno if you heard, but Big John’s gone missing,” he tells her, staring intently at the asphalt at their feet. Kie feels a solid lump in her throat.
“Yeah, I–” she stutters, and her voice feels rusty, as if she hadn’t spoken in a hundred years. “I texted him. Didn’t know–”
She leaves that thought without finishing it. Didn’t know what to say to him; didn’t know if he’d like her to try.
“Yeah, well. He’s not doing very well,” says JJ, still not looking at her. He takes a deep breath, his eyes darting towards the edges of the lot, scanning the dumpster bins behind her. “I thought maybe you might want to come by. See for yourself.”
Her heart swells in her chest. JJ is not good at asking for favours, and she’s sure she’s not anywhere near the top of his list of favourite people at the moment, but if there's one person JJ would fuck himself over for, it's John B. She’s nodding furiously before she even realises, trying her best to keep the tears prickling at the back of her eyes from falling.
“Yes, uhm, of course. I’ll be there. I– ugh… tonight?” she checks the time on her phone, does some mental calculations. “I need to go home and shower, but I can be there in, like, an hour or so. I can bring food? Anything else he needs?”
A father, is the obvious answer, but JJ is kind enough not to say it. He doesn’t say much, in fact, barely reacting to her word vomit.
He nods back at her, and he briefly lifts his eyes to look at her.
She feels like her skin might burn under his gaze.
Fifty-four minutes later, Kiara is standing outside her car, parked in front of the Chateau. She has a cooler full of food with her, quickly packed with anything from her fridge she thought her parents might be able to spare, and three take-out bags from the Wreck. And she is terrified.
The day before starting high school, over a year ago now, she had come here early in the morning. John B had gotten the HMS Pogue ready and they’d all set out to make the most of the last day of summer. Many hours later, their skin raw and wrinkly from the salty water, they’d all collapsed on the hammock outside, swinging lazily as the afternoon turned into dusk. She’d stayed until the sky was dark, the sun long gone, and her mother had come to pick her up to take her home.
In those long, still moments, surrounded by the sounds of the marsh, so close to her favourite people that you couldn’t really tell when one started or ended, Kie had made the boys promise they wouldn’t turn their backs on her, now that she was forced against her will to be away from them. And oh, the irony.
The truth is, she’s the one who left them behind, not long after. Not by choice, and not even entirely consciously – school just absorbed so much of her life, between the exhausting commute to the mainland and back and the piles of homework that teachers dumped on them on a daily basis. And then, well. Then she met Sarah.
Kiara had still clung to the notion that the Pogues were her best friends long after meeting Sarah. In fact, she had resisted Sarah’s attempt to ascribe the title to herself for months, even once she had stopped hanging out with the boys. She’d insist that Sarah was her best girl friend, or her best high school friend. Eventually, Sarah snappily pointed out that she never really saw these so-called best friends, and that forced Kie to finally pause and face the truth. By the time her birthday came around in January, things had been radio silent between them for so long that she didn’t even think to invite the boys to the party her mom was planning. She told herself it was best that way, that the boys would hate being forced into a room full of Kooks, that her classmates would very likely say something or do something that’d make the Pogues uncomfortable.
Now she wonders what would have happened if she’d swallowed her pride and reached out to them. If their years-long friendship could have been salvaged before it went utterly and completely down the drain.
Kiara takes in the house in front of her and tries to gather the courage to walk inside. She can make out the faint light of the living room filtering through John B’s window, and she can picture the boys inside so clearly.
She takes a deep breath, then another. Her right arm is aching under the weight of the cooler she’s been holding for too long. Finally, she climbs the front steps of the Chateau and pushes the door open.
As she steps past the screeching door, Kie’s immediately hit by the familiar smell of home that the old fishing shack emanates. All the lazy days she spent here, all the easy laughter around this kitchen table, all the nights piled up on the couch with the boys. All those years of friendship that was more than that – it was family, and a promise of forever. She crosses the kitchen towards the main room, her eyes immediately drawn to the corner where the pull-out sits comfortable under the dirty windows. The Pogues are there, legs and limbs interlinked in a tangled mess, the rattling sound of one of Big John’s old VHS tapes coming from the even older TV. Pope’s head turns towards the kitchen at the noise of her entrance, and his expression shifts – attention razor-sharp on her.
“Kie,” he whispers, eyes fixed on her and unmoving.
As if reacting to Pope’s call, John B’s head snaps instinctively to follow his gaze. “Kie?”
There’s a baffled look on his face, one that makes Kiara’s heart swell in her chest in a way that is both warming and painful at the same time. There’s a new harshness about John B’s features, one that wasn’t there on the boy she knew – most likely a combination of his face shaping out and losing his childish roundness, and all the worry and sleepless nights he must be going through. He looks so much older than the last time she saw him.
She steadies herself, gulping down the sudden dryness in her mouth and putting on a guarded smile.
“Hey, boys,” she says, and allows herself to scan around the room. JJ is sitting quietly in the corner of the couch, his eyes low to the ground – the only one of them seemingly unbothered by her presence. She lifts the takeout bags before placing them on the table, drops the cooler at her feet. “I brought food.”
It seems like the boys have taken a vow of silence, one that somehow prevents them from moving, too. Kiara takes a deep breath, gathering her feelings, and then strides across the room and plants herself in front of John B.
“I’ve heard what happened,” she says, and she can already feel the tears building up in the corner of her eyes, so she throws all caution to the wind and throws herself in John B’s arms. “I’m so sorry, John B,” she whispers, head pressed so close to his that his scruffy hair is tickling her cheek.
John B seems completely stunned for a second, but then he wraps his arms around her and hides his face in her shoulder, and she feels him heave a sigh so deep that her whole soul vibrates with it. She reaches up a hand to the back of his neck and strokes him gently – as if it were still normal, as if she’d never stopped doing this.
“You came,” he mutters into her shirt – soft and tentative and so small.
She feels it deep in her chest, the need to burst out crying and plead for forgiveness, the tears that she’s desperate to shed. “Yes,” she says, “I’m here.”
They hold onto each other for a few long, silent moments. John B’s breathing feels shallow and inconsistent, his clasp strong around her waist. Kiara bites down her lip to stop her feelings from slipping out of her. Forever ago she would have exchanged a look with Pope and JJ, wordlessly checking on the best course of action. Now, she can’t even bring herself to look at them, afraid of the judgement she might find. Instead, she zeroes in on John B, the exact spot where his tense shoulders meet her ribs. She slides a hand along his arm and gives his a little squeeze.
“Hey, uhm, why don’t we step outside for a minute? Get some fresh air?” she whispers in his ear. John B nods, his fingers curling around hers. She helps him up from the couch and he follows her out the back door.
She lets go of his hand once they’re on the porch, yet she’s hyper-aware of his presence just behind her. They walk down the backyard, to the water, and Kie pretends not to notice the wetness in his eyes, or the nervous way he wipes them off when he thinks she’s not looking.
She takes a seat on the edge of the dock, her feet dangling just above the dark surface of the water. John B mimics her, slouching down in the opposite corner. His back is straight against the wooden beam, a hollow look in his eyes. It feels wrong, all this distance between them; she feels like she should close it, move next to him, be there for him. But she can’t bring herself to do it.
John B is fidgeting with his hands, the rhythmic thud of his foot tapping on the deck the only sound breaking the silence between them.
“I’m sorry I haven’t replied to your text, the other day,” he suddenly says. “I wasn’t ignoring you, I-”
“Hey, no, of course,” she cuts him off. What is this even, why on Earth is John B apologising to her? She searches for his eyes, earnestness seeping through her from every pore. “I’m the one who’s sorry, I should have come by earlier.” The words catch in her throat, but she still forces herself to add, “I should have never left.”
It’s the ugly truth between them, and it leaves a bitter aftertaste in her mouth. She had promised them she would never leave them, and then look at what happened. She completely abandoned them. She’s bracing herself for what will come next, whether John B will spew accusations at her, confront her about her shitty behaviour. She’d deserve it, clearly, and yet she doesn’t know if she’d be able to keep it together, to accept her due as stoically as she should.
What happens instead is: John B shakes his head lightly at her. He moves from his spot and crawls across the deck, scooting close to her. She lifts her arm to make space for him, and he leans his head down to rest in her lap – as if it were the most natural thing to do. And, somehow, it feels like it is. John B’s chest rises and falls with his breathing, his body warm against her thighs. Kiara puts a hand over his shoulder, gently strokes his arm up and down.
She doesn’t prompt him to talk, it wouldn’t feel right. She can feel him taking deep breaths, as if he were building himself up, but nothing comes out of him the first few times.
“Everyone’s starting to think he won’t be back,” he finally says – and it’s so quiet she almost misses it.
She squeezes his shoulder, does her best to ignore the sudden knot in her throat.
“I’m sure it’s not true,” she manages to say. “I saw the search party leaving from the marina the other day. The entire island is looking for him.”
John B shakes his head into her lap. “Yeah, the first couple of days, maybe. It’s already scaled down so much there’s barely anyone out there. The police say they’re still looking, but I know a lie when I see one, Kie. They’re giving up on him.” It feels like the entire night is closing in on them, the darkness and the sounds of the marsh almost oppressive. “What if he’s somewhere out there and he needs help, Kie?”
Kiara blinks a few times, eyes fixed on the water. She’s glad that John B can’t see her face.
“I’m sure he’s okay, John B. Your dad’s spent his life out on the water, he knows what he’s doing. He’ll be back.”
John B exhales a ragged breath and tightens his hold on her ever so slightly.
“But what if he’s not?”
Kie tries her best to school herself to remain impassive, for his sake.
“It’s never been like this before,” he admits. “Yes, he’s gone a lot, but he always makes sure to send word back one way or another. I’ve been spending days and nights attached to the radio, checking all of the frequencies, hoping to get anything. He just left one morning and nobody’s heard from him since. I’m so worried, Kie, I-”
His words catch in his throat with a sickening sob. Kiara’s tears are falling freely down her face, mirroring his. She leans down and wraps his shaking shoulders in her arms, hoping to somehow share a little bit of comfort with him. John B’s arms clasp convulsively around her waist, his face buried in her lap. Kie shushes him gently, murmuring soft reassurances that don’t make much sense to her own ears, and for a while they just hang in there, holding onto each other and crying away their sorrows.
Eventually, John B jerks away from her, propping himself to sitting. He rubs his eyes against the back of his hand, head turned away from her.
“I’m sorry,” he mutters.
“Hey, no,” she sniffles back at him. “Of course, anytime. What are friends for, right?”
Her breath catches with anticipation to his reaction, and she hates herself for it. How selfish can she be, worrying about him being mad at her when John B has so much going on at the moment?
But John B glances over to her with a liquid smile. “Thanks, Kie,” he says – and he looks like he means it, too.
She lifts her palms to her face, wiping out the tears, fanning some air into her eyes in a vain attempt at recomposing herself. When she looks at John B next he’s holding himself up out of sheer willpower, his eyes closed and his head dangling slightly forward. Kie lifts herself up, drying her hands against her jeans.
“Come on,” she says, offering him a hand. “Let’s take you back inside.”
John B’s eyes are droopy as he looks up to her, almost unfocused for a moment. He accepts her hand, though, stands up beside her and follows her back to the Chateau.
“You coming in?” he asks her, stepping up onto the back porch.
Kie hangs back, her arms folded over her chest. “In a minute,” she says, her voice wavering just a little.
He nods at her briefly. "You're welcome to stay the night, if you want," he says. Just like old times, except back then he didn’t need to spell it out. She knew already, it used to be an unspoken agreement.
John B pauses once more as he reaches the doorway, turns back towards her. "Thank you for stopping by, Kie. It's good to have you back."
His eyes are still red-rimmed from before, the faintest shadow of a smile lifting the corner of his lips, and just like that she thinks her heart might have grown two sizes bigger. She nods back at him, suddenly unable to speak, and gives him the most confident smile she can manage. It falls from her face immediately as he disappears into the house. Kiara lifts her hands into her hair, grounds herself with a few steadying breaths. She takes a seat on the porch steps, then, hugs her knees close to her chest and gazes into the night. She focuses on the sounds around the Chateau, so familiar it’s like they run in her veins. The soft whoosh of the tide, the chirping of the crickets in the grass of the marsh, the tree branches moving slightly in the light evening breeze coming from the sea. The soft voices inside the house, quiet murmurs of childhood friends that only need so many words to understand each other. She misses it all so acutely, being one of them. Part of their lives, for good and bad.
She’s still wrapped into her thoughts when the screen door screeches behind her and JJ steps outside on the porch. He stops just behind her, and it takes her a few seconds to realise he’s handing her a beer. She accepts it gladly, taking a sip as he plops down on the steps next to her.
“Hey, so, I don’t know what you told him, but he’s asleep in his bed, so I guess it worked.”
Kie thinks back to the dark circles under John B’s eyes, his shattered expression. “Looked like he needed it,” she says, and JJ hums in agreement.
“Pope still here?”
JJ nods, taking a swig of his own beer. “He collapsed on the pullout.”
She takes a good look at him, his pale face, the shadows under his eyes that mirror John B’s.
“You look like you could use some sleep, too,” she says, gently.
“Yeah, well,” he scoffs, gaze lost in the sky above the Chateau. He nods back towards the house, shrugs a shoulder. “He’s been having trouble sleeping,” he adds, as a way of explanation.
“You guys been staying over, I suppose?” she asks. JJ spends most nights at the Chateau at the best of times, so there’s no doubt in Kiara’s mind that he hasn’t left John B’s side since Big John’s disappearance. And Pope would probably want to be around, too.
JJ turns his head towards her, meets her gaze. He nods again, running a hand through his untamed locks. “He doesn’t like being alone. Never has,” he mutters.
She remembers that. John B always hated it whenever Big John was gone for a few nights. They used to all pile up on the pullout and watch old movies until morning – Kiara always had to lie to her parents about the lack of adult supervision on those occasions.
“Do you think he’ll be back?” she whispers, and her own words make her shiver.
JJ takes a very long time to answer. She ventures a glance towards him, sees the conflicted expression on his face.
“Honestly?” he finally says, his voice low and quiet. “I don’t know, Kie. He’s been gone over a month now. Realistically, the chances are getting slim.”
That throws her off completely. “A month? What–” she stumbles upon her words. “But I thought, the search party… that was less than a week ago…”
JJ glances towards her, vaguely studying her. He leans back against the railing and pulls his knees up to his chest, messing with his hair once again. He bites down on his lip, eyes switching away from her and into the yard. “He’d been gone over three weeks before we reported him missing,” he tells her. His tone is even, measured, in a way she can’t quite read.
She feels so stupid.
“That’s a long time,” she says.
JJ nods back, staring off into the distance. There’s a suspicious glint in his eyes, and she quickly buries her gaze in the dirt at their feet.
“So, you guys been here, then? This whole time?”
JJ exhales the biggest breath she didn’t know he was holding. He moves around a little, rearranging in his seat. She kind of forgot how fidgety he was. It’s a little unsettling.
“JB’s uncle was here at the very beginning, but had to split again,” he says. “And you know Pope’s folks, dude has to go home every few days or they’ll have his head. Plus he’s working at Heyward’s, like, all the time now.” He pauses to take a swig of his beer, his glance passing briefly over her before returning to the yard. “But other than that… I moved some shifts around at the hotel to be here when Pope’s manning the store. But the season’s dying down now, so.”
She finds herself staring at him, not sure what to say. Yes, she knew they’d be here for John B, of course they would; she didn’t necessarily imagine they’d have a freaking schedule to make sure he was never alone, though. No wonder they’re all exhausted.
JJ runs a hand over his tired face, oblivious to her thoughts, to the ache behind her heart. “To be honest, the past year hasn’t been easy,” he admits to her, quiet words into the night. “Big John was growing even more erratic than usual, leaving home for weeks at a time, spending money meant for bills and all.”
Kie feels like she’s been stabbed in the guts, and she can’t complain, really, because she deserves it. All of this was happening and she didn’t know, she didn’t know because she abandoned them. Her friends, her boys. Her family.
“I should have been here. I’m sorry,” she whispers, so low she’s not sure he’d hear her.
JJ shrugs, and it’s so casual it almost hurts.
“It’s fine, Kie. No one blames you.” They both know he’s not just talking about this past few weeks anymore. JJ sends a sheepish look her way for a brief second before training his eyes firmly on the ground at their feet. “We kind of always knew that you’d eventually realise you were too good for us. Figured the time had come.”
And wow, that definitely hurts.
“That’s not true, JJ,” she manages to say. “And that’s not what happened, by the way.”
JJ shrugs, gives her a look that seems to be asking, isn’t it, though?
“Whatever,” he says, “What, like, Miss Kook Princess Sarah Cameron isn’t better for you than us Pogues, in your folk’s eyes? We get it, Kie. As I said, it’s not like we didn’t see it coming.”
Despite herself, Kie flinches slightly at the mention of her former friend. It’s still too raw, too painful.
“Sarah and I are not friends anymore,” she says quietly. “Part of me wonders if we ever were.”
In the corner of her eye she sees that JJ does a double take. She doesn’t blame him, really. She and Sarah have been attached at the hip for months, including this whole past summer – very visibly to the boys. The breakup is still fresh, and they’ve clearly had bigger things to worry about while she was busy questioning her life choices and friendships, so she’s not surprised he hadn’t noticed.
“Uhm, okay,” he finally says. Then he shuffles slightly next to her, in that nervous way he moves when he doesn’t quite know what to do with himself. “Do you, dunno, wanna talk about it?”
Kiara lifts her eyes to the sky, shaking her head. “Not really, no.”
JJ nods, silence falling between them, and she’s so grateful he’s not pushing it. It’s been so long since she’s been around him, around them, and yet it’s so easy to fall back into their old dynamic. How comfortable everything feels.
“I’ve missed you,” she whispers, and he turns to look at her. “I’ve really missed you guys, every day. I wanted to come back, believe me, I just–” she takes a deep breath, and yet she makes a point not to drop her gaze. “I just didn’t know how. I was afraid you wouldn’t want me, anymore.”
JJ is still looking at her, his expression unreadable. God, she wishes he’d say something, this silence is so intense. Eventually she’s the one breaking off first, diverting her eyes, shaking her head into the ground. “I fucked up, I know that. And I don’t know if I deserve forgiveness, but I’m here now, and I want to be here for you guys, if you let me, and–”
“Kie,” he stops her, softly. She looks at him, and realises she has tears in her eyes. She fights them back because, no, she’s not doing this, playing the wounded damsel to win back their manly sympathy. She’s not gonna take the easy way out.
“It’s okay,” he says. Then he smiles at her, dimple in his cheek and all, and it’s soft and quiet and almost sad. “We still love you, you know.”
She lifts her face to the sky, blinks a couple of times too quickly. Wills her tears away. JJ shuffles again next to her, wrestling something out of his pocket. His zippo clicks into the night, soon followed by a whiff of the familiar scent of weed. She turns her head slowly towards him and catches him exhaling the first puff and passing the joint on to her, held between his index finger and his thumb. It’s a sign of friendship, a gesture of reconciliation, and Kie sees it for what it is. She still knows these boys like the back of her hand, after all. So she stretches a hand out and accepts the offer. Takes a few inhales ( god, it’s been a while), passes it back to him. She slowly exhales the warm smoke into the night and enjoys these perfectly still moments, JJ just two feet away.
“Besides,” he says after a beat, huffing smoke out of his lungs, “Your boobs grew, like, three sizes since you’ve been gone. That’s a sure ticket to any forgiveness you’ll ever need.”
She snorts out a laugh, at that, and it comes out halfway as a sob. She swats away at his arm, and catches the playful smirk on his face.
“Hey, just speaking the truth,” he says, hands raised. And god, Kiara could hug him right now.
Instead she leans in, snaps the half-smoked joint from his fingers once more, leans back against the wooden railing across from him and takes a couple of hits in silence.
The door screeching on its hinges almost startles her, but JJ barely turns his head at the sound. It’s another reminder of all the little things she’s forgotten, the sounds of the Chateau, the easy coming and going of people. Pope closes the screen door behind him, looking ruffled from sleep. He shuffles towards them, making grabby hands at JJ until he passes him his beer. Pope takes a swig, then lays down carefully on the floor, lying his head on JJ’s leg.
“Hey, Kie,” he says. He stretches a hand towards her and she takes it, accepting his light squeeze.
“Hey,” she says, quiet.
“You good?”
She looks at them, really looks at them. JJ’s body sprawled back, relaxed, lazily bringing the stub of the joint to his lips every few seconds. His hand casually resting on Pope’s shoulder, eyes closed and curled against him. She’s always loved the casual affection the boys have between them (used to have for her, too). They’re always touching each other, whether rough-housing or slapping each others’ backs or hugging or anything. And when it’s dark outside and they’re sleepy, like now, it all gets quiet and they just fall in place with one another. “Yeah, I’m good,” she says, and realises it’s true. Sure, she wishes the circumstances were better, she wishes there weren’t a freaking tragedy hanging over them. But for months now she’s been sure she’d never get to have this again, that she’d burned that bridge and there was no coming back, that the boys would hate her forever for ditching them and leaving them behind.
But they don’t.
They’ve welcomed her back with open arms, and for some reason she can’t fathom they seem genuinely happy to have her around.
She’s going to savour this moment, this feeling, to the fullest. And she’s never, ever going to leave them again.