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JJ Maybank is greedy.
He's a lot of things. wrathful, prideful, envious -that’s a big one-, but if any of the seven sins would describe him best; he thinks it'd be greed.
The way he sees it, Kildare County is a garbage disposal. Beneath every bit of asphalt and stuck to the seams of shuttering window panes, lies its history. Like garbage, even when it’s covered and hastily scrubbed clean, it leaves its imprint; the stench of dirt, the markings of what came before.
He sees it in his friends. John B in the stubbornness, the glint in his eyes mirroring his dad. Pope and his steady hands, good in every part of him. Sarah in her self assurance, the tone of her voice showing her upbringing. Kie with her dirty shoes and expensive clothes, regularly scraped knees and perfectly unmarred face, split unevenly between two worlds.
Most of all, he sees it in himself.
It’s the way he carries his stolen gun, the bullshit he spews every chance he gets. reckless and uneasy, always quick to act and slow to think. His jittery movements,
It’s in his want.
Georgia Maybank came from a good family. It’s something not many people know of, something JJ never understood as a kid.
She had soft hands, gentle as they cupped his cheeks, even despite her job as a waitress, scrubbing dishes and waiting tables. Sometimes, she’d lift her hand up to her chest as she cried. JJ doesn’t remember anything else about her, but maybe if he did, he’d carry some part of her around too, he thinks he’d like that better. But he got dealt a shit hand, and he’s all Luke, down to the color of his eyes and the contours of his face.
Sometimes, when he’s particularly shitfaced, beer can crinkling and empty in his grip, he wonders if she saw that in him, and that’s why when she left, she didn’t take him with her.
He wonders if it's the greed that makes him relish Kiara’s attention at first, if he can’t help it.
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JJ doesn’t find out what Kiara did for him until almost a week into their stay on the island.
He isn’t stupid. Or at least, not quite as stupid as most people would think, at first glance. He can tell when his friends are hiding something from him, and he may not remember what happened, but he does remember some,
He remembers waking up, salt and metal on his tongue. Sometimes when he sleeps, he remembers drowning.
He remembers waking up, eyes hurting and open, looking for her, and he remembers feeling the pressure of her fingers on his chest, a beat later. She smiled at him, and pulled him to her, and he smiled back because he didn’t know what the fuck was going on but she was there, and they were safe.
He remembers the way her eyes blazed that first day after, the dark shadows beneath them betraying her, letting him know she didn’t get much sleep. He remembers that it felt different between them all of the sudden, that she looked almost scared, looked at him a little like he imagines she would a ghost, reaching up like she wants to touch his face, the scarred side of his head under floppy hair, then backing away, tripping over her words like she never does.
He isn’t stupid, but it takes him five days to figure shit out, and even then, only when it’s pointed out to him.
Sarah and him were never good friends, before. But there’s something about the open space, navy blue skies and the sound of foamy waves hitting the shore that makes it easier for him to accept it, when she makes her way next to him in the sand, folding herself up quietly. JJ thinks she might be cold, from the way she holds herself, but he doesn’t ask why she left the shelter of the cave to sit out here with him, wind nipping at her exposed skin.
“She’s just worried about you, you know.” Sarah breaks the tentative silence, a stubborn set to her mouth. JJ lets his fingers run over the fine sand, soft and yet somehow still rough in his palms. “I’m fine.”
“Yeah well you weren’t there. You weren’t the one who had to-” Sarah lets out a breath, a little frustrated, voice hitching and then smoothening, like she’s thinking through what to say. “Look, I know what it feels like, drowning. And it isn’t something that’s easy to get past.”
He wants to ask, he does, knows that Sarah’s been through more than any of them could ever understand, has heard her wake up sweating and hoarse and knows there’s more to it than what they’ve all seen. He sees the fading marks on her neck, barely there discoloration that she tries to hide. He wants to ask, but she beats him to it, and then he forgets to. “John B told me you don’t remember much of it, but she does.”
What? “What?” JJ asks, finally turning to look at her.
“It wasn’t the same, but she almost died out there too.” JJ stares it her, not fully understanding. What.
“For a second it even looked like-”
“Like what?”
“Like she couldn’t hold the weight anymore, like you’d both sink.”
She must see something on his face, because she bites her lip and looks back at the sleeping figures of the other pogues for a second, barely visible, before speaking, “What? You thought you got hit by that machete and we were ready with the lifeboat? Perfectly in place, and just got you out?”
Yes. “No.”
Sarah smiles like she doesn’t believe him, says, “She jumped in after you, held you up. That’s how we found you.”
JJs brain short circuits, and then he gets it.
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Kiara looks small when he seeks her out, still not going near the beach, still with those shadowed eyes. Like a flame burning low, the fight in her run out. JJ feels gritty and tired in turn, reminded that he did that to her.
“You shouldn’t have done that.” his voice shakes, he hopes she doesn’t notice. He focuses on his anger so he doesn’t have to face his fear, “That was stupid.”
I’m sorry, is what he wants to say, I’m so sorry Kie.
He doesn’t say what he’s referring to, but he doesn’t have to.
Kiara shakes her head, swallows, “Stupid things have good outcomes all the time. Case in point, you’re alive, you’re okay.” she ducks her head, makes sure he’s looking her in the eye as she continues, “I’d do it again.”
And that’s just them, isn’t it? All of them, always doing the most for each other. He doesn’t like it. In this moment, he wants her to care less. She should care less.
“You could’ve-” he isn’t sure if it's the light playing tricks on him, making her eyes brighter, or if its the blur of his own tears clouding his, but it almost looks like she’s on the verge of crying. His words falter, and JJ wants to turn around so he doesn’t have to face her, but she still looks so small, and he’s missed her. So much empty space, just for the six of them, and it feels like all its done is pull them further apart, give them room to avoid each other. He misses her.
He hugs her then.
He hugs her, even though he almost never does it first, he pulls her in tight and bites back the urge to apologize, tucking the words behind his lips, soupy thick and sticky like molasses. He doesn’t apologize, but something still escapes, unbidden,
“Don’t ever do that again.” he says it into the crook of her neck, barely audible, and he childishly wants to make her promise.
She just wraps her arms tighter around his shoulders, and in holding one another, they both let go, sharing their pain like they would a joint back at the chateau, rocking gently like they would on the hammock.
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That’s the turning point, with them. The others don’t say anything, when they suddenly sleep closer, head to head and near enough that if one wakes the other is quick to follow, sleepless together and well rested together too. Sarah gives him imploring looks sometimes, teasing ones too, but he ignores her.
He pretends things haven’t started to blur, he pretends he can’t see the way she looks at him sometimes, with the same fondness but a different tilt to her mouth, eyes straying down to his lips.
It starts to feel good, being on the island. Kiara starts smiling more, venturing near the beach and even into the water, shaking less every time. Pope manages to carve out a checkers board, of all things. There’s straw hats and coconuts and a collection of herbs and plants that Kiara carefully inspects every day until they’re deemed edible.
It’s in the second week that he realizes, and the fourth that he finally vocalizes it. He never wants to go back. He sees the look on Pope’s face sometimes, he knows he misses his parents like he would a phantom limb, he knows he’s being selfish and greedy, always so greedy, when he hopes they’re never found.
But he sees Kiara’s face too, and he thinks she gets it. He hopes, sometimes he even prays, that she does.
“We’ve got everything we need, right here.”
“Just like we talked about.”
She remembers, a treacherous part of him celebrates, she actually remembers.
“Exactly.”
︵‿︵‿୨♡୧‿︵‿︵
Every good thing must come to an end, isn’t that what they say? JJ knows a lot about that, because it’s what his entire life is built around.
He expects it when they’re taken off Poguelandia, is resigned with dragging feet as he approaches the shabby plane.
He doesn’t expect it when Kiara is kidnapped.
︵‿︵‿୨♡୧‿︵‿︵
He looks around, searching for her face amongst the others, “Where’s Kie? Guys, where’s Kie?”
A lot of it is a blur, after that.
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“Do you have Miss Carrera’s friends?” Singh asks, voice clear and sharp on the line. JJ means to reply, takes in air through shuddering lips to form words, but he suddenly can’t.
He realizes what’s at stake, who he’s talking to. He really has her; he could hurt her.
He could hurt her.
John B takes the phone out of his slack grip.
︵‿︵‿୨♡୧‿︵‿︵
When they get the text to meet, he doesn’t let himself hope. He refuses to hope for things, not when the disappointment would eat him alive if he’s wrong.
He approaches the boat warily, and he thinks that at least, at the very least, if it is Singhs men waiting for him, maybe they’ll let him see her again, maybe he could be there with her like she’s always there with him.
It isn’t Singhs men.
He turns around, and she’s standing there, in weird ass kooky looking pajamas. He thinks, this must be a trap, this can’t be real. She says his name, and he thinks, fuck, he’s missed that voice.
And then he stops thinking at all, and he’s walking nearer and she’s running into his arms, letting out a broken sound on impact.
JJ tightens his grip, “I’m so glad you’re safe.”
She pulls away to look at him, holding his face with grounding, gripping hands, “I didn’t think I’d ever see you again.” He pulls her back in, to hide his face, but more to hold her again, unyielding and desperate in his grasp.
He silently swears to himself that no one, not Singh, not her parents, not even the angel of death will ever take her from him. He’ll be right there with her, no matter where, always.
Screw you, he thinks at the universe at large, you can’t take her from me, not if I never let go.
︵‿︵‿୨♡୧‿︵‿︵
Going back to the obx feels like waking up from a dream, that hazy disappointment and bitter realization, creeping in as soon as the boat approaches the dock.
They drop Kie off at her house, and Cleo makes some joking comment about it, and then Kiara turns to him, hand on the railing. “Bye Jayj.” It amplifies then, the feeling; swelling big and pushing at his chest.
It hits him, once all he has to go home to is an eviction notice and trashed house, that there’s really no going back.
For a month, a blissful, far away month, it felt like they were in paradise. They were far away enough that the past couldn’t reach them, the wispy figures of their parents and those before them not able to touch them in this safe haven of theirs. For a month, twenty nine days and a couple of hours past sunrise, he and Kiara were just that.
Then came Barbados, them inches apart on the boat, closer than they’ve ever dared, and now,
Now he looks around, and the living room still smells like his dad, the door creaks and he’s tipsy enough that it sounds like screaming, the four walls close in on him and there’s no running away from who he is.
︵‿︵‿୨♡୧‿︵‿︵
She comes to see him, of course she does. Kiara Carrera cares about people with her whole body, ready and willing, loyal to a fault. She deals with things head on, confronts them, where he runs and screams and thrashes through them like a little kid.
“It was just weird, what almost happened on the boat. It was weird.”
“Not bad weird.”
He steps closer, drawn and helpless. “No, not bad weird.”
There's an itch near his chest, but not- not over the skin. it's deep beneath the skin and muscle and bone of his ribcage, scratching at his blood supply with gnawing teeth and sharp fingernails. And he knows that sounds batshit insane, but he could swear that there's something there, eating away at him.
Usually, it aches most when something really awful happens, like when John B and Sarah disappeared, Kiara got drowned, and Pope almost died getting the cross, but lately...Well, lately it's been rearing its ugly head regularly, a third entity to their every interaction. If he could just stop at this point, by his own doing, then maybe he can salvage some of it.
He doesn’t wanna ruin a good thing.
JJ is greedy, and he’s impulsive. It would be so easy for him, to close the gap between them and kiss her, he wouldn’t even have to think about it. But he can’t, because he knows. He knows it’ll fuck everything up, and screw everything, fuck it all to hell, but not this. Not her.
He could.
He doesn’t, just barely holding himself back.
Hey, I do care.
His face slips, he loses control of it, crumbling like a stack of cards in the face of her words, and so he does what he does best. If he focuses hard enough on it, he won’t have to look at her face for too long. if he spits enough of the cruel, hungry part of him out, she’ll know better than to try again.
And then he gets on his bike and leaves. Maybe that’s something he holds from his mom after all. Leaving. Leaving or fighting or fucking shit up, a Maybank specialty.
︵‿︵‿୨♡୧‿︵‿︵
They call a truce, and not a day later he’s in her kitchen, eyes on the seamless island as her parents dig at her story with disbelieving, foreboding tones.
It’s not long before Mike finally vocalizes what he feels about JJ, straight to his face.
It’s not long before he says those damn words, those godforsaken, vicious words that have JJ by the throat in their truth, ringing like a prophecy.
Just like his father.
JJ’s fingers don’t falter as he pockets the money clip and walks out.
︵‿︵‿୨♡୧‿︵‿︵
The heist goes wrong, because of course it does. He thinks he’s gonna die but he doesn’t, picking himself up off the floor in one uncoordinated movement, rubbing dirt off his clothes. Pope hugs him, Sarah too. He waits for her smile, her relieved laugh.
Instead,
“Don’t- don’t ever do that again.” she echoes his own words back at him, breathless and shaking.
JJ gets that old urge again, I’m sorry. He can see the fear in her face and as he puts his cap back on with a twist to his mouth, he wavers. He wants-
The cops interrupt before he gets the chance to finish the thought.
︵‿︵‿୨♡୧‿︵‿︵
After Georgia left, JJ made a shrine of some sorts. It’s small, just an old shoebox with whatever he could find of hers that his dad didn’t burn. A yellowed receipt with a hasty note on it, her wedding ring, since it doesn’t fit on his fingers anymore, a hair tie, and finally, the shark tooth necklace he hasn’t taken off since she left.
Strength and protection, that’s what Kiara said it represents.
JJ doesn’t feel very strong, and he hasn’t felt protected a day in his life.
“I don’t know what to do.” he trains his gaze on the receipt as he says it, the swirling handwriting of his mom staring back at him, still and unhelpful. “I can’t- I’ve wanted this for years.”
He curls up into himself, tucks his head between his bent knees, clenches his fists. There’s no response, but he sits there on the hard ground and tries to imagine what she’d say. Would she warn Kie off? Would she yell at him for berating her, stealing from her dad?
He’s wanted this- her-, since they were just kids in over their head. He looked at her on the pullout, messy and beautiful, and he listened as she went on her very first rant about turtles and marine conservation, throwing in goading comments when needed. He looked at her and he just knew, right then.
And it was okay. It was always okay because it was one sided. He watched John B and Pope grow to like her that way too, and he found comfort in knowing that it was inevitable, because really, who wouldn’t? He found comfort in knowing that he could love her in quiet, from afar, and it would never have to change anything because she’d never like him back.
And now she stands there every day, determined and serious, and God, but she likes him back. he doesn't know why, or how, but she does.
I love you,
That’s what she’d said, looking pretty as ever, the setting sun casting her aglow, words angry and pleading and freezing him in place for a split second.
It’s not gonna work,
That’s what he replied, cruel and avoidant as ever, too much of a coward to lie and say he doesn’t love her back.
︵‿︵‿୨♡୧‿︵‿︵
The guilt settles low and burning in his stomach as they all gather in the chateau getting ready to go to South America of all places, as he looks at her sitting on the couch, gentle as she strums her old Ukelele.
She’s been so kind to him, not nearly angry enough for everything he’s done, letting him sit down next to her without a word.
“You’ve still got it.” he says, fond and unable to help it.
Kiara has been playing the ukelele since the summer before her kook year, and in the chaos of everything, all sense of normalcy ceasing, she's stopped. it's nice to hear, and he could sit for hours, watching her play, tracking the practiced movements of her fingers until he's sleepy with it. He tried to make her a new one, on Poguelandia, but it never sounded right, and strings are hard to come by in the jungle.
“Hey Kie?” he interrupts nervously when the music trails off, feeling her gaze on the side of his face.
“You know that whole entire money clip and dad situation?” he doesn’t mention the anniversary party, her hasty confession and his shitty response, he can’t. Kiara shrugs, flippant, “Yeah.”
JJ looks away, stuttering, hand gripping the back of his own neck as it heats, as she starts to smile through his mumbled words.
He trails off for a second, stalling as he looks up and away from her, and is almost grateful for the interruption, flames licking the air outside.
︵‿︵‿୨♡୧‿︵‿︵
“Last night, you were- you were saying something?”
JJ screws his face up, trying not to grin, “I’ll tell you what- I’ll tell you on the plane. Just- to make sure you get on.”
Kiara hums, sees right through the deflection, “I’m gonna hold you to that.”
“I’m sure you will.”
The grip in his chest loosens, just a little.
JJ Maybank is greedy, with open palms and a starving heart, too big for his chest, and maybe Kiara sees that in him too.
Maybe she sees him for what he is, messily put together with the face of his dad and the haunts of his past, bruising and marked,
and maybe she loves him still,
Maybe.
︵‿︵‿୨♡୧‿︵‿︵
When she doesn’t show up at the tarmac, he immediately knows it's her parents.
He didn’t expect them to actually do it, Anna cares too much about Kiara to do that to her, right? You don’t send your daughter somewhere like that after she’s just been nabbed, you just don’t, even JJ knows that.
For what feels the millionth time in his life, he stands corrected as they explain,
“Let’s just say you’re not gonna see her for a while.”
JJ gets in the twinkie and drives,
He’ll come up with something.
︵‿︵‿୨♡୧‿︵‿︵
Kitty Hawk looks bigger at night, lonelier too, and JJ takes comfort in knowing his plan, dumb as it always is, worked out well enough that he knows where she is.
Cabin 6. The wood read, and he touched his fingers to it like he would something sacred, feeling stupid at how much relief seeing some part of her, even as small as writing on a wall, gives him.
He treks his way through each cabin until he finds the right one, almost slipping a few times in his hurry. He jams a card in between the small opening of the door, pushing until it gives.
The door clicks open, and he pushes into the room slowly, trying not to be too loud.
“Kie.” he hisses her name, kneeling close to the ground, “Kiara.”
Of course, he manages to wake the entire place up, head popping up one by one, looking at him disdainfully.
Please don’t scream, he thinks desperately, as he tries to explain.
“I’m just looking for someone.“ JJ swallows, looks around, “I’m looking- I’m looking for-“
“Me?”
He’s out of breath, and his palms are sweaty where he rubs them on his pants. She’s sitting up, and he came for her but is somehow still shocked by the sight of her, alert with a furrow between her brows like she’s surprised. “Kie.”
And then she’s walking toward him, almost running, and he’s reminded of the dock, the force she hit him with. He’s reminded of midsummers, the silk of her dress against his fingertips. He’s reminded of every time he’s held her before and he doesn’t wanna let go.
JJ breathes in shakily, trembling where she’s steady. He clings to her until she lets go to look at him, eyes bright,
“How did you?... how?”
“Long story. no time to explain, though.” he gestures with his hand clumsily, places both on her upper arms. “Wait, there’s one thing though.”
“You know how you asked me what I was gonna say last night,” he didn’t exactly have a plan, nothing more than an apology and bitter guilt, nothing more than a love so great he’s afraid of saying it out loud. He doesn’t have one now, but he needs to say this, “I wanted to say I’m sorry.” for once, he doesn’t look away, he doesn’t try to make it seem like something it isn’t. He stands, rooted in place, and he doesn’t run away. “I’m sorry, Kie.”
He isn't just talking about the money clip.
Kiara nods slowly, smiles like she understands, and then, “I love you.” easy and sure, like she says it every day. She says it like she means it, like she doesn’t care if he says it back. In a room full of strangers, in a foreign place, just for his ears.
There’s a split second, a tiny folded moment in time, where his breath freezes in his lungs. The ache burns, but not with sharp teeth to hurt. It aches and it’s good.
It’s good.
Without realizing it, he lets the breath out. He says, he finally says,
“I love you too.”
And then she’s kissing him, her hand on his face, and he pulls her in, kisses her back.
They kiss, and the world doesn’t crash and burn around them, so they keep kissing, until the commotion around them forces them to pull apart.
It’s short, and it’s public, and it’s soft like nothing he’s ever done before.
It’s the best kiss he’s ever had.
︵‿︵‿୨♡୧‿︵‿︵
“You got somewhere else to be?”
“Not anymore.”
“Me neither.”