I have a theory that the moon IS a trans woman cause she’s always associated with feminine things but when we saw the craters that look like a face we called it “The Man In The Moon”. She’s a woman with a face that people may perceive as male. She’s a beautiful trans woman
the moon is a beautiful trans woman who hates terfs and shows her face every night to remind other trans women they are beautiful and strong and loved and important and wonderful and that terfs and their opinions dont matter
I wanna add to this if it’s ok?? In Hindu mythology, Chandra, the moon, was originally thought of as a male deity. However, as time went on, symbolism involving the moon and the name “Chandra” itself became identified with femininity, with beautiful girls being described as having “moon-like faces,” with their dark, long hair reminding lovers of the midnight sky, and names like “Nilaa” (”moon” in Tamil) and “Indu” (in Sanskrit) are now pretty much now completely girl names!
AlsO Chandra is married to 27 wives, who are all stars. The moon is a trans lesbian and is gay for all the stars in the sky.
summary: every day, jj wakes up to love you. every night, the clock strikes 10:49 – and he loses you all over again
warnings: angst, fluff, time loop, establish relationship, no use of y/n, english isn't my first language
word count: 7.6k
a/n: ugh, it took me so long to edit this text. and at the end I felt like my whole soul ended up in this one shot. hope y'll like it and leave a comment, 'cause it's so important to me
ᯓ★ now playing…
lord huron - the night we met
YOU SHIFT BESIDE HIM, just barely, your bare shoulder brushing his chest as you curl away from the slant of morning sunlight spilling through the half-open window. The sheets rustle, soft and worn from too many mornings like this. Outside, waves break gently against the shore, that steady rhythm threading into the room along with the salt-heavy breeze. It smells like summer. Like home.
JJ blinks awake. His eyes are slow to adjust, drifting toward the dim red glow of the digital clock on the nightstand.
10:49.
His heart stutters.
Without a word, his arm wraps tighter around your waist, anchoring you to him, as if his grip could freeze time. His nose buries into your hair, breathing you in, like he’s terrified to forget. You let out a soft, sleepy giggle at the ticklish sensation.
He exhales against your neck.
Twelve hours left.
Exactly twelve hours until the world tilts again, cruel and familiar. Until the loop resets, and he’s forced to start over. Again. And again. However many times it’s been – he’s lost count. He doesn’t want to know anymore. All he knows is he loses you. Every damn time.
You stretch with a lazy smile, limbs brushing against his beneath the sheets. Your fingers trace a lazy line along his jaw as you lift your head, blinking up at him with sleep-heavy eyes.
“Are you ever gonna stop looking at me like that?”
His throat tightens. He blinks once. Breathes in.
“Not really.”
Your laugh bubbles out – soft and familiar, like the morning light. Like the first time.
JJ watches you with a kind of desperate reverence, memorizing your face even though he already knows every freckle, every dimple. You say those words every morning. Every time.
He used to answer differently. Used to joke. Flirt. Now he just tells the truth. Because the truth is, he doesn’t know how not to look at you like this. Like you’re everything.
Maybe it’s been a month. Maybe longer. A year? Two? Time is water in his hands. He can’t hold onto it, and he can’t let go.
But he always counts the seconds between now and 10:49 pm.
Every time you whisper his name, it cuts deeper and heals all at once.
And every time he watches you die, it feels like the first time – and the last.
The first time it happened, he thought it was a dream.
He told himself that for a while, for hours, days, maybe longer. Maybe because it was easier to believe that than face what was real. Or maybe because everything felt too bright, too sharp, too final to be anything else. But the thing about dreams is they fade when the sun comes up. They don’t keep repeating.
And this did.
Over and over and over again.
He remembers that first day the way someone remembers the worst moment of their life. Not like a memory, but like a wound. It doesn’t fade. Doesn’t dull. It just pulses.
The same road. The same fading sun. The same song playing low through the speakers, something soft and careless and golden. You were in the passenger seat beside him – legs curled up, hair messy from the wind and the salt, bare shoulders glowing from the beach. You hummed along to the music, drumming your fingers on the window, laughing to yourself like you were holding a secret.
He remembers thinking that silence had never felt so earned. The kind that sinks into your bones after a long day, when nothing needs to be said because everything is perfect exactly as it is.
JJ doesn’t remember his eyes getting heavy. Doesn’t remember the moment his body gave in. But he remembers the time on the dash.
10:48 pm.
His hand rested on your hip, warm and easy. You ran your fingertip along the inside of his wrist like it meant something, like you were memorizing him, even though you didn’t know why.
“I think I could stay here forever,” you murmured.
Soft. Thoughtless. Real.
He smiled. God, he smiled like he meant it. Squeezed your hand gently, knuckles brushing yours. He turned his eyes back to the road, but his heart… it was loud. Loud in his chest, too loud to ignore. The kind of loud that meant something was trying to break out. Words pressing against his throat.
Three of them.
Three words that had never crossed his lips with you, not yet. Not because he didn’t feel them, but because he felt them too much. And because saying them would make them real. And real things break.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw your face shift. That soft, open look you wore when you were hopeful. But then – just like that – it faltered. You turned your head. Bit your lip. Looked out the window like you were trying to hide something. It was small. Quiet. But it gutted him.
He hated himself for not being ready.
10:49.
He looked at you again, just as you reached out, touched his cheek with the back of your hand, featherlight. You smiled, like always, and turned his face gently back toward the road.
Then–
White.
Searing, unnatural light.
The sound of tires screaming against asphalt.
A jolt. A crack. A tearing.
And nothing.
Not even silence. Not at first. Just absence. Like the world had been yanked away all at once and replaced with static.
When he opened his eyes, the windshield was shattered, the world outside swallowed in smoke. Sirens were wailing somewhere far off – thin, almost unreal – but he barely heard them. The only sound that mattered was the blood rushing in his ears, loud and panicked and alive.
You weren’t moving.
You were still holding his hand, but limp. Unmoving. Your head rested against the seat, neck tilted too far, lips parted. There was a softness frozen on your face – the trace of the smile you’d given him just seconds ago.
He couldn’t breathe.
Not from the smoke. From you. From the absence of you. It wrapped around his ribs like a vice.
“Hey,” he whispered, voice cracking. “Hey, baby. Look at me. Come on.”
He shook your shoulder. Brushed the hair from your face with trembling fingers. Touched your cheek. You were still warm.
“Wake up,” he said, louder now. “Come on, please– Hey. Look at me.”
Nothing.
The pressure in his chest cracked. It split him wide open.
He was shouting your name. Screaming it. Again. And again. Like maybe if he said it enough, the universe would give you back.
But you didn’t move. You didn’t blink. And all he could hear now was the sirens growing closer, and his own voice falling apart.
He blinked.
And the world blinked with him.
Morning.
Your body shifted beside him with the quiet rustle of sheets, your skin warm against his under the thin motel blanket. Sunlight slid in through the blinds in long gold stripes, catching in the strands of your hair, gilding the dust that floated in the air like ash. The room was too still. The silence was the kind that makes your lungs hesitate, like the world was holding its breath.
JJ didn’t move.
He lay there, barely breathing, watching you stir, your lashes fluttering before your eyes opened. You blinked at him like you always did – sweet, drowsy, unguarded – and then stretched with a soft sigh, the sheet slipping down your bare shoulder. You looked like heaven, like something the sea might’ve given up just for him.
“Will you ever stop looking at me like that?” you asked with a tired laugh, unaware of the weight behind his eyes.
He blinked once. Only once.
Then he let out a breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding. Like your voice pulled him back from the edge. His hand found your cheek, brushing his thumb under your eye, and he kissed you with something quiet and trembling in him.
“Never,” he whispered. His voice broke on it.
But it didn’t matter.
Because it all repeated again.
Night. The highway. The quiet.
10:48.
The same moment, the same song, the same soft way you laced your fingers through his. You turned to him, smiling. He kissed your hand like it might save you.
And again light. Blinding. Screaming. And you… You weren’t there anymore. And he woke up.
Alone.
The third time, he didn’t wake up calm.
He sat up with a gasp, the sheets tangled around his legs, the air thick in his lungs like smoke. He turned to you, grabbed your wrist, heart pounding so fast it felt like it would rupture. His voice cracked as he begged – begged – you to stay.
“Please. Don’t leave the room today. Don’t fall asleep. I need you to trust me. Just- Just for one day, please-”
You blinked, confused. Concerned. Laughing at first, like it was a game. But he wasn’t laughing. He was already shaking. Already staring at the clock like it was counting down to a bomb.
You died anyway.
The fourth time, he got behind the wheel and didn’t slow down. Drove the car straight into a tree before 10:49 could touch you.
But he woke up again. No blood. No scars. Just the guilt still clinging to his chest like smoke.
The fifth time, he screamed until his voice gave out, shoving his face into the motel pillow so no one would hear the way he broke apart. He kicked the nightstand so hard the lamp shattered. He tore his knuckles on the wall and bled in silence. You lay sleeping beside him the whole time.
The sixth time, he didn’t talk to you. Didn’t touch you. Couldn’t look at you.
He just counted the minutes.
The eighth time, he changed everything – your breakfast, your route, your clothes, the music you played. He filled the day with distractions, hoping to outsmart the loop, to reroute fate. And for a moment, it worked.
Until it didn’t.
Because at 10:49, you were gone again.
The tenth time, he tried to beat death to the punch. He took every pill in the drawer, fell to the floor in the motel bathroom. And still, he woke up next to you. Alive. Cursed. Crushed.
Time lost meaning.
It wasn't hours or minutes anymore. It was just distance. Distance between now and the moment the world ended again. The sun didn’t rise anymore. It just counted down.
He tried everything.
He nailed the door shut, dragged the dresser in front of it. Burned the car. Hid the keys. He locked you in the bathroom and stood outside, sobbing, fists clenched against the wood. He made you wear a helmet. Made you promise not to speak, not to move. He held your body too tight, lips against your temple, whispering, please don’t die this time, please don’t leave me, please, please, please-
Still, every single time-
10:49.
10:49.
10:49.
10:49.
And you were gone.
It started to feel like punishment. But for what? For his past? For the fights, the arrests, the lies? For not telling you he loved you before the loop began? Did that moment even exist anymore?
He didn’t know what day it was. What month. If it had been weeks or months or years. You never remembered a thing. You were always new, unbroken, untouched by the fire of this loop. But he remembered everything.
And that was the curse.
Then came the night he stopped trying.
He lay beside you and didn’t speak. Didn’t tape the windows, didn’t light a candle, didn’t check the time every ten seconds. He didn’t tell you to stay. He just curled closer and held you as if it wasn’t the last time. He told you stories – real ones, messy ones. Childhood memories. Dreams he had. Things he’d never said out loud. He told you about the first time he realized you were it for him.
And when the clock struck 10:49, you didn’t jerk, didn’t bleed, didn’t vanish in a storm of glass and steel.
You just… faded.
Soft. Silent. As if the light went out in the universe and took you with it. But before it happened – just before – your eyes locked with his.
And something in them knew.
You looked right at him like it wasn’t the first time. Like it never had been.
“I know you.”
That broke something. Or healed it. Or maybe both.
From that night on, JJ stopped fighting the end. Instead, he started changing the middle.
He gave himself twelve hours to love you like he never dared before. Twelve hours to kiss your wrist. To trace the freckles on your back. To slow dance in a motel kitchen. To laugh until you snorted. To watch you bite into an apple and act like it was divine.
Twelve hours to live like it would last.
If this was a curse, then he would make it beautiful. Make it worthy of you.
And after that something has changed.
10:01 AM.
You shift beside him in the mess of motel sheets, limbs tangled, your skin warm against his beneath the thin blanket. The morning light creeps through the slats of the blinds in golden stripes, cutting across your bare shoulder and catching the dust suspended in the air, making everything shimmer. The room is still and slow, like the world itself hasn’t fully woken up yet.
JJ doesn't move. He just watches you. Like he always does. Like it's the only thing he's sure of anymore.
He memorizes every single detail – how your nose wrinkles just a little when the sunlight finds your face, how you instinctively shift closer to him, nose nudging against his chest, the ghost of a smile tugging at your lips as you bury yourself in the safety of his warmth. How your eyes flutter open, heavy with sleep, but still sharp, still playful, that familiar glint already dancing in them.
And then, like clockwork – like ritual – you stretch slowly, a grin tugging at your lips, and ask the question that starts every day in this cursed cycle:
“Will you ever stop looking at me like that?”
Your voice is sleep-rough and teasing, but he hears the tenderness under it. The hope.
He blinks once. Breathes in. Breathes you in.
“Not really.”
Your laugh is slow and unguarded, like the morning sun itself – warm, soft, effortless. And for the first time in longer than he can remember, JJ doesn’t think about 10:49. Doesn’t think about the end. He lets it go. Just for now. Just for this.
He lifts a hand and gently brushes a strand of hair from your cheek, tucking it behind your ear. You’re still smiling. Still his. So he kisses you. Your temple first. Then your eyelids. Your cheeks. The tip of your nose. Slow, reverent kisses like prayers. Worship. Like he’s afraid you’ll disappear if he stops. He kisses every inch of your face until there’s nothing left but your mouth.
You laugh again, half-heartedly trying to squirm away, but it’s no use. The moment your lips meet his, everything else in the world falls away. There’s no motel. No clock. No curse. Just you and him. Just this.
His fingers cradle your jaw as he deepens the kiss, tilting your chin toward him, and your hands slide into his hair, pulling him closer. He doesn’t stop until his chest starts to burn from lack of air, and even then he breaks away only for a second, breathing hard, and between every sharp inhale, he kisses you again. Tiny, desperate kisses. Like he’s trying to stay tethered to this moment.
You're breathless when you turn away, laughing, cheeks flushed. His weight is half draped over you now, hovering just enough to watch you, to keep taking you in like it might be the last time.
The sunlight glints off your lashes. The freckles you always complain about – his favorite thing – are scattered across your nose like tiny constellations. Your lips are swollen, kiss-bruised and parted, and you look like a secret he never wants the world to find out.
You look like infinity.
“Too greedy today, Maybank?” you tease, brushing the hair out of his eyes. Your fingers thread slowly through the strands, and your nails scrape gently across his scalp.
He shudders.
And then he crumbles.
He lowers himself until his forehead rests against your collarbone, his body curled into yours like a man in need of shelter. His arms wrap around your waist, and he breathes you in like you’re air, like you’re home, like nothing else matters. And in that moment, he is soft. Unguarded. Devoted. He hums low in his throat, a sound that’s not quite a laugh, not quite a sigh.
You laugh again – light, musical, perfect – and hold him tighter.
And JJ thinks if this was all the loop ever gave him, he would let it break him a thousand more times, just to hear that sound one more time.
12:17 PM.
You're still in bed.
Neither of you has moved much. The sheets are tangled around your legs, warm with body heat and littered with crumbs from the biscuits you demolished straight from the pack. The sweet scent of raspberry tea lingers in the air, mingling with the faint haze of cigarette smoke. Sunlight, now softened and lower in the sky, casts long golden shadows across the motel floor.
The radio murmurs in the background, an old tune playing like it wandered in from a 1960s rom-com, all soft guitars and dusty vocals. Static crackles through every so often – brief bursts of white noise – like the universe can’t quite hold the moment still. You’re lying on his chest, your ear pressed to the steady thump of his heartbeat, and every so often, he feels your breath against his skin.
JJ hasn’t said much. He’s content to breathe you in. To let your weight anchor him to the moment.
But then, without warning, he stubs out his cigarette and leans down, his lips brushing the shell of your ear.
“Shall we dance?” he murmurs, low and soft, like it might break the spell.
Your body shivers involuntarily at the sound of his voice so close, and you twist just enough to look up at him over your shoulder, pressing a light, lingering kiss to his neck. But your brows furrow.
Dance?
JJ Maybank doesn’t dance.
Not at parties, not during slow songs at school dances, not that one night at the Château when it was just the two of you left under the stars. He always stayed back, leaning against the wall or the hood of someone’s truck, cigarette tucked between his fingers, watching you like you were something he couldn’t quite reach. Like he was scared that if he moved, you might vanish.
So you frown in confusion, and he notices immediately, letting out a quiet laugh as he reaches up to smooth the crease between your brows with his thumb.
“Don’t look at me like I’ve grown two heads,” he says, smiling in a way that makes your stomach flip.
You roll over, sitting up, pulling the blanket with you as you plant yourself in front of him, eyes narrowing playfully.
“You, JJ Maybank, my boyfriend of three years who can barely clap on beat, you’re asking me to dance?” Your voice is half mockery, half wonder, your mouth already twitching with the threat of a smile.
He shrugs like it’s no big deal, but there’s something in his eyes. A softness. A hunger. You haven’t seen that exact look before.
You gasp, dramatically clutching your chest.
“Where’s my boyfriend?” you say, eyes wide. You throw the blanket off and leap from the bed, backing away toward the center of the room. “You alien! What have you done with him? Where is my real JJ?”
He laughs – really laughs – and the sound is so full and bright that it sends shivers through your entire body. That laugh always gets you. It always has.
You squeal and take off across the room like a mouse, darting from corner to corner, trying to keep distance between you, but it’s useless. He chases you with a grin, slow and patient, eyes full of amusement like a hunter who already knows the ending.
When he finally catches you, his arm loops firmly around your waist and pulls you flush against him. You're breathless with laughter, heart pounding, and you reach up to push at his chest, but he just kisses you instead. Quick and hot and full of something deeper than playfulness.
The music shifts behind you. The radio skips into a slower song, mellow and swaying, like the universe decided to join in.
He pulls away from the kiss just enough to make you chase his mouth, to leave you hanging there for a second, lips parted and wanting. His forehead presses against yours, and his hands find yours, curling his fingers gently through yours as he breathes you in.
“Kisses only after dancing, my lady,” he whispers, voice thick with teasing but there’s an ache in it too, something too tender to ignore.
Your heart stutters.
You exhale and let him lead, stepping with him into the middle of the room as he guides you into a slow sway. It’s awkward at first – he steps on your toes, mutters a curse under his breath, and tries to apologize– but you just laugh, grabbing his face and brushing your fingers through his messy hair like you always do.
You whisper something silly. Something soft. And he smiles against your forehead.
There’s nothing graceful about the way you move together. His rhythm is clumsy, yours offbeat, but none of it matters. Not when he’s looking at you like this. Not when you’re so close that you can feel his breath between each word. Not when the air around you is glowing with sunlight and something that feels suspiciously like forever.
JJ wants to bottle this moment. Wants to burn it into his skin. He wants this memory to scar. Because nothing – not time, not death, not fate – could take this from him if it’s part of him.
You rest your head on his chest, and he closes his eyes, letting the music and your heartbeat blur into one.
Few things in the world could ever be better than this.
And if he has to lose you again- … if 10:49 comes and rips it all away- … then at least he had this.
At least he had you, dancing barefoot in the middle of a cheap motel room, smiling like you had no idea the world was ending.
2:53 PM
He gave this day to you. Every second, every breath.
If there was a time when JJ Maybank fought this loop – raged against it, tried to break it – those days were long gone. Now, he didn't fight anymore. He endured. He accepted the curse, welcomed it even, because what was the alternative? A world without you.
He could live in this purgatory a thousand lifetimes if it meant hearing your laugh in the morning, watching your lashes flutter open, feeling the weight of your body slide over his under sun-warmed sheets. He would watch you die a hundred more times just to see you wake up again. Because you always woke up. Disheveled. Glowing. Soft.
So when you stepped onto the motel balcony, coffee cup in hand and sunlight painting your skin, and said you wanted to go to the beach.
He didn’t hesitate.
He packed the bag before you finished your sentence. You teased him about it, still in your robe, rifling through your bag to choose a swimsuit like it was the most important decision in the world. Maybe it was.
Ten minutes later, you were in the passenger seat, legs on the dashboard, blasting a playlist of chaotic 2010s summer hits. Your voice cracked as you sang too loud, too off-key, but JJ had never heard anything better. The windows were down, your hair whipped around like a wild thing, and he thought: God, don’t let this end.
He gripped the steering wheel too tight.
The wind tangled your hair, and you threw your hands up to the chorus of a song that meant nothing, and yet suddenly, everything. His chest ached with it. You weren’t doing anything special. Just being. Just existing. And he couldn’t bear the thought that soon you wouldn’t.
You stopped at a gas station halfway there, claiming the picnic wouldn’t be complete without “a borderline irresponsible amount of snacks.” He didn’t argue. He didn’t look at prices. What did money matter in a world that reset?
You stood in the candy aisle debating the moral superiority of double-stuffed Oreos versus original. He watched you like he was afraid you'd vanish if he blinked. He bought both. And a pair of overpriced tourist keychains – mini surfboards, one pink and chipped, the other blue. He handed you yours, clipped the other to his keys like it was sacred.
You beamed. Your arm looped through his like you never wanted to let go.
By the time you got to the beach, the sun had begun to soften into gold. The sky was pale and endless. The air smelled like salt and sunblock. The water was warm like milk, shimmering with that late-afternoon kind of peace that made the world feel far away.
You spread out the blanket, flopped onto it with dramatic flair, and asked him to rub sunscreen on your back. Of course he made a comment. He always did. Something whispered in your ear that made you squirm and laugh and swat at him. But you let him linger. His hands warm against your skin, fingers tracing your spine like he was trying to memorize you all over again.
And then he went to surf.
He felt more alive than he had in days, months, maybe ever. The board under his feet, your voice calling from the shore like the sun itself had learned how to speak.
“That’s my man! Get it, babe!” you shouted, clapping like an idiot, earning a few looks from strangers. You didn’t care.
He fell. Of course he did. The wave knocked him sideways and the water filled his nose and ears, but when he came up sputtering, all he could hear was your laughter ringing across the sand.
“Fall more gracefully next time, Maybank!” you shouted, tossing him a towel as he dragged himself onto the shore. “I’m out here hyping you up and you’re out there dying!”
He didn’t even bother with the towel. He grabbed you instead.
You squealed and kicked, laughing so hard your body went limp against his as he hauled you toward the water. You shrieked when it touched your skin, cold and shocking, but then you melted into it, into him, arms around his neck.
You splashed water in his face. He got you back. You shrieked louder, but your smile never faded.
It ended in a kiss.
It always did.
Your mouth met his with salt still on your lips, your legs still tangled around his waist, and his hands pressed against your back like maybe this time – maybe – he could hold you together.
“PG-13, JJ,” you murmured between kisses, breathless, flushed. “There are kids here.”
He grinned like he owned the ocean.
“I’d care,” he said, biting back another kiss, “if they were ours.”
You blinked at him.
Before you could react, he slapped your ass underwater and lifted you into his arms again, spinning you around as you shrieked and giggled and wrapped your legs tighter around him.
People stared. But you didn’t notice.
JJ didn’t care.
All he could think about was you. The weight of you in his arms. The way your laugh carried on the wind. The feeling of your body molded against his in a sea that could wash it all away in seconds.
And he thought: if this is the day I have, I’ll live it like it’s the only one that ever mattered.
Because to him, it was.
6:37 PM.
JJ stands shirtless at the tiny stove in the motel kitchenette, wearing nothing but gray sweatpants slung low on his hips, the waistband damp where the shower never fully dried him. His skin still smells like your soap. His curls drip onto the back of his neck.
You’re sitting cross-legged on the counter behind him, legs swinging idly, dressed in one of his T-shirts that swallows you whole. The hem brushes your thighs and clings to your still-warm skin. You hum a ridiculous, made-up melody – off-key and proud of it – as you balance a spoon on your nose like a circus act.
He doesn’t turn. Doesn’t have to. You know he’s smiling.
The spoon wobbles. You catch it, spin it like a baton.
“Macaroni and cheese counts as dinner, right?” you ask, tone serious like this is a moral dilemma.
He hums in acknowledgment, still focused on the bubbling pot in front of him. But you’re not looking at dinner.
You’re watching his back. The ridges of muscle shifting as he moves. The constellation of tiny red marks along his shoulder blades – your marks. Left there last night in a fit of laughter and gasps and nails digging in too hard because you didn’t want to let go.
You grin, a slow burn curling in your stomach.
Sensing your eyes, he turns the burner off and finally faces you.
He walks toward you slowly, lazily, like a predator indulging a game. His bare feet are quiet on the linoleum. When he stops between your knees, you feel the heat of him first – radiating off his skin, soaking into yours.
Without a word, he plucks the spoon from your nose with two fingers. You open your mouth to protest, but the words die when he leans in and presses a feather-light kiss to the tip of your nose. The most infuriating kind of disarming. You roll your eyes, but your smile gives you away.
He laughs. The sound vibrates in his chest – low and warm – and you press your hands to him just to feel it.
“Only if we open that bottle of wine that’s been in the fridge forever,” he murmurs.
You snort.
“We’ve been here two days, Maybank.” You flatten your palms against his chest, feel the subtle flex of muscle beneath your fingers. He’s not trying to impress you. He’s just there. Solid and warm and yours.
Your laugh slices through the stillness like a spark in dry air.
He watches you like he could memorize you in pieces. The curve of your cheek. The glint in your eyes. The way you tilt your head when you laugh like this. He wants to burn this version of you into his memory. Etch it into his skin. Something he can take with him when time rips you away again.
His hands slide to your hips. And then his voice drops, barely a breath. “This is forever for me.”
The words are soft but heavy. He doesn’t say them like a promise. He says them like a fact. Like a quiet surrender.
Then he kisses you.
Slow. Intentional. Like he’s trying to kiss twelve hours into forever. Like if he lingers long enough, you won’t disappear at all. Your fingers slide up the back of his neck, pulling him closer, and he lets you consume him. Lets himself fall.
You exhale into his mouth, your body melting into his, the taste of salt and heat and a long day clinging to his skin.
You don’t notice the way his hand shifts behind your back. The way his eyes flick down to his wristwatch.
6:43.
Time is still moving.
And he’s running out of it.
7:44 PM.
You’re curled up on the motel’s hideous plaid couch, one of those scratchy, faded things that looks like it belonged to a waiting room in the '90s. The television glows quietly across the room, playing some forgettable drama neither of you is watching. The volume’s low, the dialogue muffled, white noise against the silence that’s slowly thickening between you.
Your legs are stretched out, your bare feet resting in JJ’s lap. His hands trace gentle patterns along your ankle, lazy and distracted. He doesn’t look away from you, though. Not really. His eyes are there in the periphery, watching the way you fidget with the hem of his shirt. The way your breathing changes when the silence goes on too long.
The room is dim, lit only by the flickering blue light of the TV and the faint red glow of the clock on the nightstand. It flashes rhythmically…
7:44…
7:45…
…like it knows something you don’t.
And maybe you do. Some part of you. Somewhere deep in your bones.
“JJ,” you murmur. Your voice is small, tired. A little lost. You shift your head to rest against the back of the couch, your eyes on the ceiling now. “If this were the last day of your life… what would you do?”
It’s quiet.
Too quiet.
He freezes. Just for a second. But you feel it.
JJ’s breath catches in his throat, and his grip on your ankle stills. His chest contracts like something inside him is physically caving in. The clock pulses again.
7:46.
He turns his head to look at you.
And in that moment, he sees you in a way that punches the air from his lungs, like he’s seeing you for the first time and for the last time all at once. He takes you in like someone memorizing a painting before it’s torn off the wall. Your bare knees curled into the cushion, the sleepy line of your mouth, the creases at the corners of your eyes, the way his shirt hangs off your shoulder like it was made for this: for you, here, now.
He doesn’t want to think about time. Not now. Not with you like this.
So he doesn’t.
He leans forward slightly, his voice low and steady.
“I’d spend it all on you.”
He presses a kiss to the crown of your head. Gentle. Almost reverent. Like he’s afraid it’ll break you. Like he’s already broken.
You blink at him, surprised by how serious he sounds. You weren’t expecting a real answer. You meant it as a joke – something light to toss into the room to fill the silence, to chase away the shadows gathering at the edges of the night. But JJ doesn’t laugh.
He’s still watching you.
And there’s something in his gaze – tender and full of something else, something heavier. A kind of sadness you can’t name yet. A softness you don’t quite understand. Like he’s letting you see something he’s been hiding for a long time.
Your throat tightens.
You open your mouth to joke, to defuse it – something about how cheesy he sounds or how he forgot about pizza – but the words don’t come. They catch halfway and fall flat, and suddenly your chest aches and your eyes sting and you’re pressing your face into his neck without knowing why.
Tears slide down your cheeks silently. They don’t come all at once. Just a slow, steady leak of emotion you can’t explain. You don’t know why it feels like this. Like something in the room is shifting. Tilting.
But JJ knows.
He wraps his arms around you like he means it. Like he needs it. Like if he doesn’t hold you right now, he’ll fall apart completely.
And you ask him, voice shaking: “Tell me something true.”
There’s no hesitation. He doesn’t say it like it’s a confession. He says it like it’s a fact. Like it’s always been true and always will be. “You are the only thing that has ever mattered.”
You don’t respond. You can’t.
You just stay there in the dim glow, tucked into his chest as the clock ticks louder in the silence.
7:49…
7:50…
And the night is beginning to end.
10:42 PM.
The motel is quiet now. The television’s off, and the soft hum of the fridge is the only sound left to fill the room. The air is warm and still. Your leg is tangled over his, your cheek resting on his bare shoulder like it belongs there, like you belong there.
JJ doesn’t move. He barely breathes.
He wants to remember this moment in microscopic detail. The way your fingers curl loosely against his ribs. The sound of your sleepy exhale. The faint scent of coconut shampoo clinging to your damp hair. He wants to stop time – not to fix it, not to change anything – but just to live here a little longer. In the quiet. In the warmth of you.
You speak softly. Your voice is low and dreamy, heavy with the kind of sleepiness that makes everything feel far away.
“I had a dream once,” you say, like you’ve forgotten the weight of the world, like you don’t know what’s coming in seven minutes. “We lived in a town in the mountains. Really small. There was this little house with yellow shutters and a garden that needed weeding all the time.”
JJ closes his eyes. He can picture it.
“I worked in a bookstore,” you go on. “And you… I don’t know, you fixed bikes or something. You wore flannel. We had a dog- … huge, stupid thing. Chewed everything. You hated that dog.”
He lets out a soft laugh, his nose buried in your hair. It smells like your soap. It smells like home.
“I’ve never hated dogs,” he mumbles.
“You didn’t like this one,” you murmur, smiling against his skin. “He ate all your shoes.”
He laughs again – quiet, real – but it barely rises above a breath. He wants to say something, but his throat is tight. Too tight.
You tilt your head and look up at him, your eyes still half-lidded from sleep.
“I liked that dream,” you whisper. “It felt like something we could’ve had. If things had been easier, I guess.”
JJ swallows hard.
He can see it all now. You in a faded apron behind a bookstore counter, glasses slipping down your nose. Him outside in the cold, grease on his hands. A porch light that never goes out. Mismatched mugs. A kid with your laugh and his temper. You yelling at the dog while he swears under his breath about another chewed boot.
It could’ve been a good life.
It would’ve been.
“It sounds perfect,” he says, quietly.
“I'd give anything to give it to you.” But he doesn’t say that part out loud.
You keep talking, voice barely above a murmur now. You say the word wedding, and it slips through his chest like a blade. Then something about matching tattoos. Then you mention fixing some beat-up car together. A child. Porch lights.
Your sentences start to drift, unravel, blur into one another. Like mist on glass. Like you’re dissolving and don’t even know it. But JJ knows.
He doesn’t panic. He doesn’t move. He doesn’t try to stop the clock anymore. He just watches you with the kind of stillness that only comes when a heart is breaking silently.
And maybe that’s the difference tonight.
Because this time, he isn’t fighting fate. He isn’t screaming or running or trying to change the rules. He’s just… loving you. With everything he has left.
And suddenly, something inside him breaks open – not with fear, but with clarity. This isn’t about endings. It never was.
It’s about you. Your voice. Your warmth. The way your lips twitch before you smile. The way you say his name when you're too tired to pretend you're not in love with him.
So he says it. Quiet. No weight. No build-up. Just truth.
“I love you.”
You blink.
Then you freeze – not like someone dying, not like someone slipping away. But like someone hearing something they've been waiting for their whole life.
“What?” you laugh softly, blinking again, like maybe you misheard.
JJ doesn’t look away.
“I love you,” he repeats, even quieter now. Like a prayer. “I don’t need the house, or the dog, or the porch light. I don’t need anything if you’re not there.”
Your eyes shine in the half-light of the motel room, wide and startled. Your hand comes up to touch his chin, soft fingers grounding him in this moment.
“You’ve never said that before.”
He breathes in, slow and deep. “I know.”
“Why now?”
He looks at you. There’s no fear in his eyes anymore. Only you. “Because I finally stopped being afraid.”
You blink again – once, slowly – and lean in so close your forehead brushes his. “Then say it again.”
He smiles, like it’s the only thing that’s ever made sense.
“I love you.”
The clock glows behind you.
10:47.
10:49 PM.
You're breathing.
And then you keep breathing.
10:52 PM.
JJ doesn’t notice it at first.
Not when the minute hand ticks forward. Not when the silence in the room stretches out just a little too long.
He’s too used to the ending by now. Too used to bracing for it every time, like it’s a wave about to hit.
The split-second shift in the air.
The noise.
The light.
The crash.
The absence.
But this time… the wave never comes.
The hum of the air conditioner kicks back in. A soft mechanical sigh that fills the quiet, casual and familiar and utterly, impossibly normal.
Then you shift beside him. Just a little.
You murmur something, your voice drowsy and sweet, sliding over his skin like a dream: “I think I fell asleep.”
You stretch, move against him, and your leg brushes against his. Warm. Solid. There.
And suddenly the room is too loud.
His heart begins to race – rattling inside his chest like it’s trying to escape. His mouth goes dry. His skin floods with heat, then chills a second later. He doesn't know what to do with his hands.
He blinks once. Then again.
He doesn't understand.
Not until he realizes the clock says 10:52.
Not 10:49.
Not 10:49 and 12 seconds.
Not frozen.
10:52.
You're still alive.
You're still here.
He lets out a sound – an exhale, a choked gasp – like someone learning how to breathe again. His hand reaches blindly for yours, like he needs proof, physical proof, and he closes his fingers around your smaller ones. Clutches them tight. His grip is trembling.
You blink at him in surprise, your head tilted slightly as you watch him. Confused. Concerned. Soft.
“What?” you ask, barely above a whisper. Your thumb brushes against the back of his hand.
He stares at you.
He doesn’t speak right away. He can’t. He’s still somewhere between disbelief and prayer, between memory and miracle.
You’re still here.
Still breathing.
Still real.
He blinks hard, and something inside him breaks open. Tears sting his eyes before he can stop them, slipping down his cheeks without permission. You’ve seen him cry before but never like this. Never with that look in his eyes. Like he’s watching something divine.
“You’re still here,” he whispers.
You let out a breath of a laugh, confused but smiling. You tuck your head into the curve of his shoulder like it’s the most natural thing in the world.
“Of course I’m here,” you murmur. “Where else would I be?”
He doesn’t answer. Because how could he tell you?
That he’s watched you die more times than he’s taken a breath.
That he’s kissed your body cold.
That he’s screamed until his throat bled.
That he’s fought and begged and bartered with a world that refused to let you stay.
And now … now you’re here.
Just here.
Skin warm.
Heart beating.
Eyes sleepy and kind.
So he doesn't say anything. He just pulls you to him, both hands holding your face like it’s breakable, and he kisses you. Not frantically. Not desperately. But like he’s coming home.
And when you kiss him back, your lips soft and sure, you don’t know what you’re giving him. You don’t know that in this moment, you’re rewriting every ending he’s ever lived through.
You don’t know that this kiss is a sunrise after a thousand storms. But JJ knows.
He pulls away only to press his forehead to yours, eyes closed, like he’s memorizing the shape of your soul. Everything in him is shaking. But slowly, steadily, the fear begins to fade.
There’s no sound but your breath.
Your heartbeat.
The quiet hush of the world still turning.
The clock ticks again.
10:54.
Nothing happens.
Except you.
You look up at him, smiling in that way you always do when he looks at you like this – like you're his whole life, and he’s just now realizing it. You brush a thumb under his eye and kiss his cheek.
He whispers, hoarse: “That was it.”
“What was?” You tilt your head.
He smiles through the salt still drying on his face. It’s broken and bright and brand new. “All it ever took.”
You don’t ask again. You just press yourself into his chest and close your eyes.
And JJ Maybank stays awake just a little longer, watching the clock blink forward, every second now an uncharted miracle.
Because you’re here.
And this is tomorrow.
thankx for reading <3
okay, that’s it. hope you liked it, because i adore this work. wrote it after rewatching “If I stay” — some old good ya adaptations never leave me with my sad girl mood alone. so if you’ve got any thoughts, I’d really appreciate feedback — whether in the comments or my inbox! :3
♡ mafiaboss!jj who… was a ruthless killer, he spared no one. no life was needed in his eyes but his families and close friends.
♡ mafiaboss!jj who… ran the biggest mafia business in the whole state of california. having multiple companies, businesses, including hotels, clubs etc. he wasn’t someone who played about his money.
♡ mafiaboss!jj who… only killed people who deserved it and never thought twice about it, he didn’t play about him or his family.
♡ mafiaboss!jj who… never thought having a girlfriend was necessary, he always thought that bringing a girlfriend into his world was terrible choice and a deadly one.
♡mafiaboss!jj who… fell instantly in love with sweetheart!reader, even though telling his friends that having a girlfriend was useless, he wanted to try with her.
♡ mafiaboss!jj who… was forced into the mafia life after his father suddenly up and left out of nowhere when he was 20, never heard from again. he was forced to grow up faster than other kids.
♡ mafiaboss!jj who… was 25 years old, starting running the mafia when he was 20, having tattoos all over his body. his right hand men were of course john b and pope. (birthday oct. 15th, libra)
★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
ꨄ sweetheart!reader who… was 22, has a tattoo sleeve (lower) has 5 brothers (one of them being a twin brother) the rest being older. she was the baby of the family and heavily protected. (birthday mar. 21, aries)
ꨄ sweetheart!reader who… wasn’t technically in the mafia life, nor new anything about it. her brothers and closest guy friends took care of that.
ꨄ sweetheart reader who… was originally scared of mafiaboss!jj, but learned to warm up to his loving heart.
ꨄ sweetheart!reader who… loved the idea of love, romanticized about getting married having kids and a mansion etc.
ꨄsweetheart!reader who… wasn’t fond of getting tied into the mafia, her mother forced her father to keep her and her twin brother out of that lifestyle
ꨄ sweetheart!reader who… had two childhood guy best friends, James and Elijah, who protected her from the world just as her brothers did.
ꨄ sweetheart!reader who… was usually hanging out with sarah, kiara, and cleo. occasionally her twin brother (Julian) was also with them most of the time while the guys took care of their work.
im sorry but when the first snowflakes started falling the fucking dread i felt. the pit in my stomach. they have to survive another winter and they have none of the unity they started with. i am gouingh to pass ouut
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