Work Text:
JJ was in love with Pope, and he didn’t know whether the epiphany was more terrifying or exhilarating. One way or another, it changed everything.
He’d known for a while that things had changed in the way he looked at Pope, saw Pope, but he didn’t (couldn’t) think too much of it. He knew his eyes had started to linger, that Pope’s smile did something funny to his stomach, that he thought about kissing him, sometimes. Too often. Dangerously often. But he could brush that off. Everyone thinks about kissing their friends at least once, just wonders what it would be like, just idle curiosity. It was normal, and so what if he tried to think about kissing John B and couldn’t do it. So what if thinking about kissing Kie didn’t make his stomach flip like that. So what?
So he had a little crush on Pope. Fine. He’d live. It wasn’t like anything would come of it.
So he lived that way. He watched Pope when he wasn’t looking (and sometimes when he was.) He went out of his way to touch him. He wanted to spend time with him always, not just with the pogues, and sometimes he could. He thought about kissing him and pushed the thought away, only really considered it late at night in the dark of his bedroom when there was nothing else to distract him from it, and in those moments he caved to it, just a little. Fine, he thought about kissing Pope. (He thought about kissing his neck.) Pope was soft and pretty and his laugh made his eyes crinkle in that endearing way, and JJ liked the way his eyebrows furrowed when he was thinking too hard, and he liked the way he rolled his eyes at JJ when he did something dumb. (He went out of his way to do dumb things just to see that eye roll.) He could live with a crush.
Until he couldn’t. Until that party in the boneyard when Pope laughed with a girl—not a touron, but someone from school that JJ recognized but couldn’t for the life of him put a name to—and JJ wanted to tear his own hair out. JJ felt a twist of something in his stomach and he thought, I’m jealous, why the hell am I jealous?
Then the twist began to ache and he thought, Shit, this isn’t jealousy. This is heartbreak. This is longing. This is wanting and never ever being able to touch.
Then the girl reached out a brushed Pope’s elbow and he didn’t even pull away, because Pope, the oblivious idiot, probably didn’t even realize she was flirting, and JJ thought, Fuck. I love him.
Everything. It had changed everything.
And now JJ could hardly stand to look at him.
It didn’t make sense, because nothing had changed. Pope’s smile still caused that little bubble of elation in JJ’s chest and his bare chest still made JJ’s head spin and his lips still drew his eyes like a beacon. He still wanted to hear him talk, ramble, babble on about school and his parents and music and JJ still never, ever got bored of him. Nothing had changed, except everything had changed. Except love was something too big, too terrifying to look in the face.
What did JJ know about love? His mother hadn’t loved him, at least not enough to stay; his father loathed him. He’d never had a girlfriend, never even wanted one, really. He loved the pogues, but that was different, that wasn’t a big insidious unknown. JJ knew how to love the pogues; he didn’t have the slightest idea how to love Pope.
So he simply decided not to think about it. (Which was significantly easier said than done.)
Not thinking about it meant avoiding Pope, because how could he not think about it? How could he look at Pope and think anything but I love him I love him holy shit I’m in love with him and I’ll never get to kiss his stupid, smiling face and I’ll never get to hold him. I’ll never be able to kiss his neck. (How could JJ look at him and not think about kissing his neck? How could he learn not to crumble at the sound of his voice? Pope saying his name?)
Yeah, he was a coward. Sue him.
And Pope (god bless him, god damn him to hell) wouldn’t allow it.
JJ could only avoid him so long before he stopped JJ in the hallway between classes or cornered him when the pogues got together. There was only so much avoiding someone could do from their best friend before they realized something was up, and Pope knew him better than he knew himself. Pope saw it the moment JJ realized and Pope refused to let him pull away. (God damn him, God bless him.)
And JJ was thinking about kissing his neck. (Fuck.)
So in typical JJ fashion he panicked and pulled a disappearing act. He spent an entire week out of school and avoided the pogues (all of the pogues) like the goddamn plague and tried to figure out what to do about all this. He couldn’t keep seeing Pope but he couldn’t keep pulling away, because it’d been less than a week and his chest positively ached with missing him. He was an idiot to think he could ever leave Pope, but goddammit this hurt. It hurt to look at him, and JJ thought Fuck. If this is love I don’t want it.
(But he wanted Pope. Always.)
This is how Pope found him:
It was the first rain of the year and JJ didn’t have the energy to storm-surf. He didn’t want to do much of anything and his father had dipped for a ferry trip a few days ago so JJ didn’t even need to avoid his house. He was curled up in his bedroom, listening to the rain and trying to sleep but of course he couldn’t, and trying not to think about Pope but of course he couldn’t, and trying not to love him, but what a lost cause that was. As if he was allowed to choose.
And there came a tapping on the window.
The pogues knew not to come to his house. They knew he didn’t want them to. They never came here looking for him, but now there was a tap tap tap on his window and it was too intentional to be anything but a hand. JJ knew, had never been more sure of anything, that it wasn’t John B or Kie or anyone else in the entire damn Banks—it was Pope. Pope come looking for him. Pope out in the goddamn storm (because he couldn’t have waited for the rain to clear out, the dramatic little shit.)
And JJ tried, he really tried not to open the blinds, but JJ had never been good at telling Pope no.
There he was, soaked to the bone and dripping and his face crumbling with relief at the sight of JJ standing there, and maybe he was tearing up but JJ would never be able to tell with all the rain, anyway. So JJ stood there frozen for a few seconds that dragged on lifetimes before he looked at Pope again and realized how goddamn cold he must be and unlocked the window, slid it open a few inches, left to grab a towel. (Melodramatic idiot.)
Pope was standing in the middle of JJ’s room shivering when he came back, dripping all over the carpet like a stray dog. JJ wanted to tackle him to the floor and kiss those stupid raindrops from his lips and rub the feeling back into his fingers. To hell with staying dry.
But JJ Maybank was trying very hard not to be in love with Pope Heyward, so instead he tossed the towel at him and stayed there in the doorway, just looking at him. He wanted to look at him forever. He wanted to memorize every mole on his devastating face.
“What the hell did you come in the rain for?” JJ asked.
Pope smiled sheepishly, rubbing the towel over his head like he was drying off a dog. “I was worried you were out surfing. Didn’t want you to drown.” Pope was out of breath. JJ sort of was, too, and he hadn’t done anything at all.
“Why’d you come here?”
“I checked the beach first and didn’t see you. I might have panicked a bit.” He looked away, biting his bottom lip. JJ struggled valiantly not to look. “I came to your window instead of the door. Didn’t know if your dad was home.”
“He isn’t,” JJ said shortly, then nothing else. He didn’t know what else.
Pope shifted uncomfortably on his feet, clearly at a loss. “I just- I just wanted to make sure you were okay. You’ve been avoiding us all week and John B and Kie didn’t want me to come here, said you would hate it. Which-” he cleared his throat, “sorry. I know you do.”
JJ didn’t say anything. Couldn’t. Pope had wanted to look for him.
“I don’t know what’s going on, JJ. I wish you would just talk to us, to me at least.”
“Nothing’s going on.”
Pope’s face flickered with exasperation. “Will you quit? There’s sure as hell something going on and none of us can help you if you won’t let us.”
“I said it’s nothing, Pope!” JJ snapped, and it came out more acidic than he wanted it to.
“It’s obviously not!” Pope said, and fuck, now he was angry. “I don’t know what I did, I don’t know why you’re so pissed at me, and it’s making me crazy! Then you disappear so I can’t even ask!”
JJ could feel the ball of panic rising up in his chest, and worse, he could feel the walls rising up around him, and this was going all wrong but JJ didn’t know what to say and this was so much. It was too much. He dug a hand in his hair, grabbing and pulling and trying to breathe. “We are not having this conversation,” he forced out, and (like he always did, like he hated) ran.
He was through the hallway and through the front room and out the door into the downpour that only seemed to have gotten worse, and he knew it would be a stupid, stupid idea to get on his bike with the roads like this, but he’d done stupider.
He heard the door hit the paneling of the house as Pope followed him out and he couldn’t turn around, couldn’t look at him. His feet were sliding in all the mud and the rain was coming down so hard he could barely see fifteen feet in front of him but he didn’t care, didn’t care, he needed away from here before he did something stupid like kiss his best friend or tell his best friend he was hopelessly fucking in love with him and he didn’t trust himself around Pope anymore. Didn’t trust his heart. Didn’t trust his impulse control, as if he had any in the goddamn first place.
“JJ,” Pope shouted, and the rain very nearly drowned him out. “JJ you’re going to get yourself killed!”
(You’re killing me. Your lips and your eyes and your furrowed eyebrows are killing me.)
“I can’t do this right now, Pope!” But JJ was facing away and the wind was carrying the other direction and he thought it probably took his voice with him.
“I’m sorry, alright? Whatever I did I’m sorry! Just come back inside and stay there and I’ll leave, I swear to god I’ll leave!”
“Can you hear me?” JJ shouted, as loud as he could, as loud as he could manage, and Pope said nothing. Couldn’t hear a goddamn thing. “I’m in love with you!” he shouted, and nearly started laughing. “I’m fucking in love with you!”
Pope again, but his voice was closer and JJ didn’t even realize he’d stopped walking and Pope hadn’t. “Go inside, alright? I’m sorry that I chased you out of your house and I’m sorry for whatever I did to make you hate me in the first place but I’ll be much more sorry if you get yourself killed trying to drive in this mess!”
JJ lost everything Pope said after ‘hate’.
Hate? Pope thought JJ hated him?
(JJ had tried to hate him, once, when he first realized he had no control over this, over his feelings, and he thought hating Pope would have been easier. But the moment that boy said his name or glanced his way or bit those awful, gorgeous lips he crumbled. He loved him. Loved him. Loved him.)
How could JJ ever hate Pope?
JJ pivoted and Pope was there barely five feet away from him. JJ closed the distance to stop right in front of Pope and he was panicking and maybe he was crying but probably it was just the rain. He couldn’t let Pope think he did something wrong, that any of this was his fault. It was JJ who fucked up, over and over again. It was JJ who didn’t know what the word love meant and didn’t know how to look it in its eyes.
“You didn’t do anything,” JJ told him desperately, and they were close enough not to need to yell anymore but he still sort of did.
Pope threw his hands up in frustration and tried to step back but JJ grabbed his shoulders. He couldn’t let him leave, not now; he’d only just gotten him back. Pope froze at the touch and gave in, dropping his hands and staying there. “What is it then?” he said. “Just- god, just tell me. ”
Pope was standing really, really close. JJ was losing his mind. “Do you really want to know why?”
“Yes,” Pope pleaded, “I’m begging you.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes!”
JJ knew that if he thought about it he’d run. If he thought about Pope’s lips and Pope’s laugh and the way he talked about his mother or thought about how much was at stake, he’d run. So he didn’t. He didn’t think. JJ never thought, not before Pope; it was boring and tedious and at this point he was just goddamn sick of it.
So he didn’t think; he grabbed Pope’s face and kissed him.
Pope tasted like rain.
JJ wasn’t good with words, never had been, so he tried to tell Pope like this. He kissed him and tried to say all of it where their lips touched. You terrify me. You terrify me because I can’t get you out of my head. You terrify me because I think about kissing your neck.
I’m in love with you. I am. I am. And I don’t know how to say it.
Pope didn’t kiss him back.
For a few seconds JJ couldn’t bring himself to care, just marveled at the fact that his lips were on Pope’s and that Pope wasn’t trying to pull away, but he wasn’t kissing JJ back. He went stiff. So JJ pulled away (with no small amount of effort) and kept his hands on Pope’s face and tried to breathe, too stunned to put coherent thought together. He had kissed Pope. And Pope tasted like rain.
JJ was still cradling Pope’s face and he hadn’t yet opened his eyes but when he did he lost his mind all over again, because there was Pope. Fuck, he was so close. His eyes were wide and his lips were parted and JJ swore he could still taste them, and Pope said nothing. Nothing.
The silence was louder than anything he might have said.
JJ stumbled back, nearly slipping in the mud. Holy shit, holy fuck, I just kissed Pope Heyward.
(I just kissed Pope Heyward and it felt like coming home.)
And everything crumbled.
“I’m sorry,” he said dumbly, eyes still locked on Pope. Then his panic swelled. “Fuck, oh my god, I’m so sorry. I didn’t- I didn’t mean to do that. That was a mistake that was- holy fuck.” JJ fisted both hands in his hair and pulled, trying to breathe. He had ruined everything. This was the moment he lost Pope. “I’m so sorry,” he repeated, and this time it came out breathy and soundless but he knew Pope could read his lips.
He turned to run.
“JJ,” Pope shouted after him, finally finding his voice. JJ couldn’t look. “Fuck, goddammit,” (Pope never cursed) “come back. Shit. ”
No no no no no.
“ JJ! ” he said again, desperate, and JJ stopped. Because he was a slave to Pope’s voice. Because he loved him. (Because there was still a bubble of hope in JJ’s chest that he’d never be able to break.)
Pope’s hand grabbed JJ’s shoulder and he jumped. Too close. Pope was never far enough from JJ. “I’m sorry.”
This time it wasn’t JJ apologizing. The hand on his shoulder tugged and the boy turned around, and it was still pouring but the tears were too hot on his cheeks to be rain. JJ’s eyes fell to Pope’s lips immediately—he couldn’t help it.
Those lips, those lips. Your lips will be the death of me.
“You just-” Pope cleared his throat. “You surprised me.”
JJ smiled weakly. “Sorry,” he managed.
“No,” Pope said quickly, “no, I-” He stopped. Swallowed. JJ’s eyes tracked the movement (and he thought about kissing his neck.)
Pope said, “Can I kiss you?”
“Can you-” JJ’s mouth dropped, heart skipped at least three beats in his chest. “What?”
“Can I kiss you?” Pope repeated.
JJ inhaled quickly. Jesus Christ.
“Yes,” he breathed out. “Holy fuck, yes.”
They were standing in a downpour with the distant crack of thunder and JJ had lost feeling in his toes a long time ago. JJ was terrible with words and terrified of love, of what love could do to him, but when his best friend said can I kiss you, JJ said yes.
(And Pope did.)