Pairing: Fezco O'Neill x Dealer!Reader
Summary: Fez is getting a delivery from a new supplier - you. You're not what he expected, but he's pleasantly surprised.
Themes & Warnings: drugs, guns, reader is a dealer, reader is lowkey a gun toting princess, fem!reader who's super girly, mentions of death, blood, fluff, falling for each other, slight angst
Efficiency. It was what you preached and practiced.
Getting a job done and doing it well was your forte. You'd picked this hustle up from an old mentor - a man named Dante who'd found you at fifteen, all sharp elbows with a clever tongue. You were quiet, alone, and running nickel bags to college kids who underestimated you. He'd seen something in you instantly. Potential beyond how pretty you were.
He'd taught you everything. How to cut product without compromising its quality, how to spot a narc from a mile away, and even how to smile at men while palming a blade. With his help, you walked into rooms and owned them before anyone could even question your place there. He'd been a business man first, a criminal second, and had drilled it all into your young, impressionable skull.
Look the part, baby girl. Nobody suspects a little girl wearing pink.
Luckily, you didn't just look the part. You were that girl.
Even before, you'd always had painted nails, immaculately done hair, and clean shoes. Your mother had been absent in the ways that raised a proper girl, but she'd left you with one thing: understanding that looking put-together was the way to live. People treated you differently when you looked soft and expensive. They held doors. They underestimated your intelligence. They saw a pretty face and bright colors and assumed you were fragile.
You let them.
The femininity wasn't a costume you put on for the job. It was you. The acrylics, the gold hoops, the lip gloss that left sticky prints on coffee cups and cheeks alike, all of it was genuine. You just happened to have learned that it was also deeply, profoundly useful. Men saw pink and thought harmless. They saw a skirt and thought easy. They saw you smile and never once clocked the calculation behind it.
Dante had recognized the weapon you already carried. All he did was sharpen it.
He was gone now. Two years dead, buried in a plot you still visited on his birthday. His death had been a lesson all its own. Someone in the inner circle had gotten greedy. Someone had mistaken Dante's age for weakness. You'd corrected that assumption personally.
Afterward, there was no question of who would take over. The men who'd worked under Dante grumbled at first. A woman, barely twenty, with a closet full of pastels and a perfume collection that cost more than their cars. But you restructured the operation from the ground up. Streamlined supply lines. Cut dead weight. Within a year, your product was the cleanest on the East Coast, and your reputation was immaculate. You didn't start conflicts, but you ended them with surgical precision. Everyone who mattered knew: you were not to be fucked with.
Now you were expanding. East Highland was fresh territory: a quiet suburb full of bored kids with trust funds and insufficient supervision. A goldmine. Through the grapevine, you'd heard about a local dealer worth knowing. Fezco O'Neill. Quiet, professional, ran his business out of a convenience store with his younger brother. No turf disputes, no attention, no mess.
Your kind of people.
You'd arranged the first meeting through a mutual contact. Tuesday night. Behind the store. After closing. Samples for cash. Straightforward. Clean.
Fezco, however, had never heard of you. To be quite honest, he was suspicious. He was reluctant to even meet with you.
Your messages didn't come through with a name. They came through with initials, so he didn't even know who to expect. Whether you were a man or a woman, trouble like Mouse or harmless like Laurie.
The first text had come through three weeks ago.
Heard you're the man to talk to in East Highland. I've got product. Clean. Consistent. I'm looking to expand. - D.
No name. No number he recognized. Just a letter and a business proposition. Fez had stared at his phone for a long moment, thumb hovering over the screen, before showing it to Ash.
"The fuck is 'D'?" Ash had asked, not looking up from his Playstation he was playing.
"That's what I'm tryna figure out."
"You text back?"
"Nah. Not yet."
He'd waited two days. Let the message sit. In his experience, people who pushed too fast were either desperate or dangerous, and he didn't have time for either. However, the follow-up never came. No double-text. No pressure. Just silence, patient and professional. That, more than anything, made him curious.
So he'd responded. Short. Careful.
Who put you on to me?
The reply came within the hour. Mutual friend. Used to run product through the East Coast. Said you were solid.
No name-dropping. No sloppiness. Just enough to let him know it wasn't a setup. Fez respected that.
Still. A new supplier was a risk. His last connect had flaked, leaving him scrambling to keep up with demand. He needed someone reliable, but need made you vulnerable. Need made you sloppy. And Fezco O'Neill did not do sloppy.
Over the following weeks, the messages stayed sparse. All business. You proposed a meeting, neutral ground, after hours, his territory so he'd feel comfortable. You offered to bring samples first, no commitment. When he mentioned he ran the operation with his brother, you didn't flinch or question it. Just acknowledged it and moved on.
Tuesday night came slow and heavy, the air thick with the kind of heat that made the asphalt shimmer even after dark. Fez had sent Ash to close up the store while he waited out back, leaning against the hood of the Cadillac. A blunt burned between his fingers, more for something to do than anything else. He wasn't nervous, exactly. Just... alert.
The text had said midnight. It was 11:57.
"You think they're gonna show?" Ash appeared at his elbow, quiet as always. The kid moved like a ghost when he wanted to.
"Three minutes early," Fez said, blowing out a stream of smoke. "Ain't late yet."
"Could still be a cop."
"Could be."
"You keep saying that."
"'Cause it's true."
Ash didn't respond. Just crossed his arms and stared out at the dark parking lot, his small face unreadable. Fez sometimes wondered what it must be like inside his brother's head. If he was scared. If he ever got tired. Ash never showed it. He just stood there, solid as a pit bull, ready to bite if things went sideways.
Headlights cut through the darkness.
Not a cop car - too old, too sleek. A Mustang. Cherry red. Vintage. It rolled into the lot with a low, throaty purr, chrome catching the flickering glow of the broken streetlight. Fez straightened slightly, dropping the cigarette and crushing it under his sneaker.
"Nice car," Ash muttered.
"Yeah."
The engine cut. Silence rushed back in. Through the tinted windshield, Fez could just make out a silhouette. Small. Waiting. After a long moment, the driver's side door opened.
And you stepped out.
The first thing he registered was the heels. Strappy. Pink. Six inches, easy. The kind of shoes that announced themselves before you did, clicking sharp against the asphalt like a countdown. His gaze traveled up, long legs, a white dress that skimmed your thighs, a coat the color of cotton candy cinched tight at the waist. Gold glittered at your ears and wrists. Your hair fell in soft waves past your shoulders, and even in the dim light he could see your nails, perfectly shaped and painted the same shade of pink as the coat.
You looked like a cupcake. Like a trap.
"What the fuck," Ash breathed.
Fez didn't answer. His brain was still buffering, trying to reconcile the professional, clipped messages with the woman walking toward them. You moved like you owned the parking lot, the night, the whole damn city. Chin up. Shoulders back. A small smile playing at the corners of your mouth, like you knew exactly what he was thinking.
You stopped a few feet away, close enough to talk but far enough to run. Smart.
"Fezco?" Your voice was sweeter than he'd imagined. Soft. Warm. Like honey poured over steel.
He realized he hadn't said anything yet. He cleared his throat.
"Yeah."
You extended your manicured hand, the small smile widening into a Cheshire grin. Lip gloss shimmered in the moonlight.
"I'm D." You tilted your head, waiting for him to shake.
He took your hand. Your grip was firmer than he'd expected, your palm warm against his. The acrylics pressed lightly into the back of his hand-not painful, just present. A reminder that the softness had edges.
"D," he repeated, letting go. "That your name?"
"D stands for something else." Your eyes glittered with amusement. "I'm Y/n. My old mentor was Dante. That's where the D comes from."
Fez filed that away. Dante. The name rang a faint bell, something from years back, whispers in the kind of circles that didn't make it to polite conversation. A businessman. A legend in certain circles.
"Dante," he said slowly. "Heard of him. Didn't know he had a.. princess."
"Most people didn't." Your smile flickered, just for a second, something softer and sadder bleeding through before you tucked it away. "He liked it that way. Kept me out of the spotlight until I was ready."
"And now?"
"Now I'm ready."
Ash shifted his weight behind Fez, a silent reminder that they were still standing in a dark parking lot. Fez cleared his throat and jerked his chin toward the back door.
"Come inside. We can talk."
You followed him, heels clicking steadily on the asphalt, completely unbothered by the dim lighting or the barred windows or the way Ash kept glaring at you like you might sprout fangs. Inside the store, you draped your pink coat over a dusty chair near the counter and turned to face them both, hands clasped loosely in front of you. Patient. Poised.
"So." You looked from Fez to Ash and back again. "You've been having supply issues. Your last connect flaked. You've been buying smaller, paying more, and stretching product thinner than you'd like. That about sum it up?"
Fez tensed. "You been asking around about me?"
You scoffed, like it was obvious. "Of course I have. Running this business, you gotta know your clients inside and out," you hummed, examining your nails. "If you're not doing that, that's probably why your people flake out. You're not choosing the right ones."
Fez opened his mouth. Closed it. Behind him, Ash made a sound that might've been a laugh. It was stifled quick, but Fez heard it anyway.
He didn't have a rebuttal. You weren't wrong. His last connect had been a recommendation from someone he'd trusted, and that trust had blown up in his face. He'd been so focused on keeping the day-to-day running that he'd let his vetting slip. It stung to hear it from a stranger in pink stilettos, but the sting meant it was true.
"Aight," he admitted, shoving his hands in his hoodie pocket. "Fair."
Your eyes flicked up from your nails, something like approval glinting in them. "At least you can take criticism. That's rare."
"It's rare 'cause most people don't like being told they're messing up."
"Most people stay messy, then." You shrugged. "Their loss."
You unclasped your tiny lipstick-shaped purse and pulled out a velvet pouch, sliding it across the counter toward him. The movement was casual, practiced, like you'd done it a thousand times.
"Sample. On the house. See what you're missing."
Fez nodded at Ash. The kid stepped forward, still watching you with those sharp, suspicious eyes, and took the pouch. He disappeared into the back room without a word.
Silence filled the room. Fez's blue eyes, missing nothing, analyzed you thoroughly. You stared back, crossing your arms. Without asking, you took a seat in the chair that held your jacket, waiting patiently.
"How old are you?" Fez asked.
You answered honestly. Honesty was important.
"Nineteen." You hummed.
Nineteen. Fez didn't know why that surprised him; maybe it was the way you carried yourself, the weight of someone who'd been doing this for decades instead of years. But no.
"Huh," he said.
"Huh?" You tilted your head, amused. "What's that mean?"
"Means you're younger than I thought."
"You're what, twenty? Don't act like you got years on me."
"Twenty-one." He leaned back against the counter, crossing his arms to mirror you. "Just figured someone runnin' an operation like yours would be... older."
"Dante started teaching me at fifteen. I've been doing this for four years." You examined your cuticles, unbothered. "Age doesn't mean much in this line of work."
The back door creaked open. Ash reappeared, velvet pouch in hand. He caught Fez's eye and nodded once. Clean. Good quality. The tension in Fez's shoulders eased a fraction.
"Told you," you said, not smug, just satisfied.
"How much?"
You named your price. Fair. Better than fair.
"That includes delivery," you added. "I come to you. Every Tuesday. Same time, same place. No middlemen, no runners. Just me."
"Why?"
You blinked. "Why what?"
"Why you sellin' to me?" He gestured at the store, at you, at this whole situation. "You could sell anywhere. Why me?"
You shrugged, grinning.
"I liked what I heard about you. Reliable. Plus, no one raising a kid in this world could be some flaky pussy."
Ash snorted. Actually snorted. A sharp, surprised sound that he tried to cover with a cough. Fez just stared at you for a second, caught somewhere between disbelief and something dangerously close to laughter.
Then the corner of his mouth tugged up despite himself. "That your professional assessment?"
"It's served me well so far." You leaned back in the chair, crossing your legs with the casual elegance of someone who'd just commented on the weather. "You'd be amazed how many people in this business turn out to be flaky pussies. It's an epidemic."
"That so."
"Tragic, really." You examined your nails, the picture of mock solemnity. "All these big tough dealers, and the second things get hard, they fold. And short you and hope you won't notice." Your eyes flicked up to meet his. "You didn't strike me as that type. Was I wrong?"
Fez held your gaze. "No."
"Didn't think so." You stood, smoothing down your dress, and extended your hand. "So. We got a deal?"
He took your hand. Firm grip. Warm palm. Acrylics pressing lightly against his skin.
"Yeah," he said. "We got a deal."
The deal was simple. Easy to commit to, even easier to follow through with. Every Tuesday night, you'd bring him what you had to offer, and he'd pay for it. Sometimes, you'd grab a snack from out front of the store and chat to him while he counted shit out. Sometimes you'd tease and fuck with Ashtray, who'd gotten used to you finally a couple of weeks ago when he'd realized you weren't some sparkly narc. You became friends, almost close friends. Fez respected you, Ash admired you (even though he'd never say that shit), and you had come to like both of them. Very much.
Maybe Fez more than you'd let yourself admit.
On occasion, you sat in the living room with him until 3AM, sharing a blunt and telling stories. You'd hear him laugh - actually laugh, not just a stifled chuckle. He'd tell you about his shitty childhood, his badass grandma that you reminded him of. He'd tell you about how much he loved Ashtray and wanted to see him succeed.
You'd exchange eye contact. The type you tried to ignore, but simultaneously couldn't. Tension. Heaviness, but still soft. You always told him to be safe when you left, and he'd always say he'd try his best. It was a promise, though, hidden behind Fez's standoffishness.
Today, shit was weird. Shit was concerning. Because you, normally polished and up-beat, were bruised and bloody.
The Mustang pulled up at the usual time, but you didn't get out right away. Fez noticed that first. He was leaning against the back door, a fresh blunt between his fingers, and the seconds stretched long enough that he started to straighten up, a prickle of unease creeping down his spine.
The door opened, and you stepped out. You didn't wear heels tonight - flats, scuffed at the toes, but still clean. Your hair was in a high bun, messy ringlets falling into your face rather than your usual roller curls. Your coat was still pink, but a red stain tainted the front. You wore makeup, as usual, but it didn't fully hide the split in your lip or the dark bruise blooming along your cheekbone.
Fez went very still.
"Oh shit," Ash said.
You walked toward them like nothing was different, but your usual stride was off. Slightly stiff. Favoring your right side.
"I'm fine," you said before either of them could ask. Your voice was steady. Tired, but steady.
"You're bleedin'," Fez said. His voice came out flatter than he meant it to.
"It's not my blood." You held up a hand, and he saw now that your knuckles were split and raw, the pretty pink polish chipped in places. "Mostly."
He stared at you. You stared back.
"Inside," he said. "Now."
You rolled your eyes. "Fezco, I'm fine. I have product to-"
"Don't give a fuck," his voice was as calm as usual, chill, but it held a different vibe. A firm, uptight vibe. "Get inside, Y/n. Now."
Surprise flickered across your face. But you didn't argue. You'd never heard Fez talk like that. It may have had something to do with you being a lady or you being a distributor with such high status, but he'd never used any firm tones. For the first time since they'd met you, you didn't have a smart remark ready. You just followed them inside, Ash locking the door after them.
Fez didn't stop walking until he was in the back room, the one with the worn couch and the old TV and the stacks of inventory that lined the walls. He turned to face you, arms crossed, jaw tight.
"Sit."
You sat. Not because you were scared of him - you weren't scared of anyone - but because the way he was looking at you made something in your chest twist. Concern. Real, genuine concern. It had been a long time since anyone had looked at you like that.
Ash hovered near the doorway, arms crossed, face unreadable as always. But he wasn't glaring anymore. His eyes kept darting to the bruise on your cheek, the blood on your coat. He was analyzing the damage.
And he was a little snitch.
"She ain't even putting any pressure on her right." He said, acknowledging the way your body leaned to the left like you were afraid to let your right ribs feel any pressure. "Somethin's under the coat."
You shot Ash a look. A warning. He didn't flinch, the little traitor.
Fez's gaze dropped to your torso, to the way you were holding yourself. The stiff, careful posture. The arm tucked just slightly against your right side. He'd been so focused on your face, your hands, the blood, that he hadn't noticed. But Ash had. Ash noticed everything.
"Take off the coat," Fez said.
"It's fine."
Fez moved, reaching for the right side of your pink coat, but before he could lay his fingers on it, you moved in retaliation. Your fingers wrapped around the gun in your thigh holster, tearing it out and pointing it towards the man. A Glock 19, sleek and packed.
It was supposed to deter him. To get him away. You were afraid of the concern, afraid of the care. It had been so long since someone gave a shit.
The only catch was that Fezco wasn't deterred. Your finger wasn't even near the trigger. You were just waving it around. He knew a scare tactic when he saw one, and you weren't particularly scary to him. Last week, you had literally been playing Crash Bandicoot with Ash on his Playstation.
He rolled his eyes.
"Put that shit away. 'Fore I take it from you."
Your grip tightened on the Glock. "Back off, Fezco."
"No."
The word was simple. Flat. He didn't even blink. Just stood there, arms crossed, looking at you like you were a kitten hissing at a bear.
"I'll shoot your-"
With an impatient yet passive grunt, he plucked the gun from your hand, clicking the safety on and tossing it onto the table behind him. He worked his jaw in annoyance, annoyance you'd never even seen him wear.
"You ain't shootin' shit. Take the coat off. I don't wanna have to do it and have you kickin' and screamin' and shit at midnight."
You stared at him. No one had ever disarmed you that easily. No one had ever dared try. And he'd done it like you were a child waving around a toy.
"Fez-"
"Y/n." His voice was still calm, still low, but there was steel underneath. "You're bleedin' through your shirt. You can barely stand straight. You just pointed a gun at me, which, by the way, we gonna talk about later. Right now, I need you to let me help you. Can you do that?"
Ash snickered from the doorway. "She really tried to shoot you."
"She didn't try shit. Finger wasn't even on the trigger." Fez didn't look away from you. "She's just scared."
"I'm not scared," you said, but your voice came out smaller than you wanted it to.
Ash came forward. He sat on the couch next to you, his voice soft but still a bit raspy. His eyes were still locked onto you, but you couldn't meet them. The kid was too perceptive, just too smart.
"You are scared. We ain't gonna hurt you. But we don't want you bleedin' out in here."
His fingers inched forward. You looked up at the ceiling, purposefully trying to ignore what was happening. Trying to ignore that they were exploring your bleeding wounds, your vulnerabilities, and you had no idea what their intentions were. People always had intentions. They had since you were 15 - ulterior motives, reasons to do what they were doing. But you couldn't read theirs. And that was what scared you.
Ash slowly pulled the shoulder of your coat down. Complete silence fell upon the room.
Underneath, your white blouse was ruined. A dark red stain spread across the right side. The fabric was torn, and beneath the tear, wrapped haphazardly around your ribs, was a bandage. Amateur work. Uneven. Already soaking through. The tear in the fabric revealed the edge of the wound itself, jagged and still seeping.
Fez inhaled sharply through his nose. He didn't say anything. But his hands, still raised from taking your gun, curled into fists at his sides.
Ash was the one who broke the silence.
"That's a lot of blood," he said quietly. Not squeamish. Not scared. Just observing. Cataloging. Like he was memorizing every detail for later use.
"I know," you said. Your voice sounded far away, even to yourself.
Ash, gently working your arm out of the sleeve, let the coat fall. You were limp, accepting your fate.
"You were tryin' to do business with a stab wound. And it's not even bandaged right." Ash said. His tone was almost comical, a motherly lecture. But you honestly hurt too much to laugh. "Looks like shit. You're bleeding still. Bad."
"I was in a hurry," you muttered.
"A hurry to bleed out on our couch?"
"Didn't plan on bleeding out. Planned on dropping off product and going home."
Ash gave you a look. It was the kind of look a disappointed parent might give a child who'd done something particularly stupid. Coming from a fourteen-year-old with a teardrop tattoo, it was almost surreal.
"Dumbest shit I've ever heard," he said.
Fez still hadn't spoken. He was staring at the wound, at the soaked-through bandage, at the jagged edges of torn skin visible through the rip in your blouse. When he finally looked up at your face, his expression was unreadable.
"Ash," he said. "Get the suture kit. And clean towels."
Ash slid off the couch and disappeared down the hall. Fez moved closer, crouching in front of you again. He reached for the hem of your blouse, then paused, eyes meeting yours.
"Gotta take this off too," he said. "Can't fix you through the shirt."
You hesitated. It wasn't modesty - you'd lost that years ago, in and out of motel rooms and back-alley patch-ups. It was the vulnerability. The exposure. The fact that once the shirt came off, there was nothing left to hide behind.
But Fez was waiting. Patient. His hands hovering, not touching. Letting you decide.
"Okay," you said finally. "Just... do it."
He was careful. So careful it made your throat tight. He helped you lift your arms, the right one barely moving, the pain too sharp, and eased the ruined blouse over your head. His eyes stayed on the wound, clinical and focused, never wandering.
Underneath, the bandage was even worse than it had looked through the shirt. Wrapped too loose in some places, too tight in others. The blood had soaked through multiple layers. And the wound itself - when Fez gently peeled back the edge of the bandage - was ugly. Jagged. Still oozing.
"Who did this?" Fez asked. His voice was calm. Dangerously calm.
"Fez."
He sighed, looking up at you. His eyes held a message - no more bullshit.
"You gonna tell me who did this? Or do I gotta test out my detective skills 'n shit?"
"Why does it matter who did it?"
Silence for a moment.
"'Cuz I'm gonna kill his ass."
The words hung in the air. Flat. Certain. Like he was commenting on the weather.
You blinked. "You're not killing anyone."
"The hell I'm not."
"Fezco."
"Y/n." He said your name the same way you'd said his. A mirror. A challenge. "Somebody put a hole in your side. You think I'm just gonna let that slide?"
"It's handled."
"Handled means he's still breathin'."
"He's got two bullets in his leg and a broken nose. He's not breathing easy."
"Not good enough."
Ash hadn't moved from his spot on the couch. His eyes flicked between the two of you like he was watching a tennis match. "Nah, Y/n, that motherfucker is going in the ground. Wouldn't be right if not."
You turned your head to look at him, ignoring the spike of pain the movement caused. "Ash, you're fourteen."
"Age ain't got nothing to do with it." He shrugged, casual as anything. "Someone stabs you, they don't get to walk around after. That's just how it works."
"That's not-"
"You shot him twice and he's still breathing. That's a loose end." Ash's voice was flat, matter-of-fact, like he was explaining basic math to someone who wasn't getting it. "Loose ends get people killed. You know that. Fez knows that. I know that. Only person who don't seem to know that is the guy who stabbed you, and he's about to find out the hard way."
"You ain't comin'," Fez said without looking at his brother.
"I'm definitely coming."
"You're staying here with Y/n."
"She don't need a babysitter. She's got a gun."
"She just pointed that gun at me ten minutes ago. She's clearly not thinkin' straight."
"I'm right here," you said.
Both of them ignored you.
"If I stay here, who's gonna watch your back?" Ash crossed his arms. "You always say never go in alone. I heard you tell Rue that. I heard you tell Mouse that. Now you're gonna go after some guy who already stabbed one person tonight and you're gonna do it solo? That's stupid."
"He's got a point," you muttered.
"I said stay out of this."
"You're not my boss either," Ash shot back. "You're my brother. That means we do this together. Same as everything else."
The room went quiet. Fez stared at Ash. Ash stared back. Neither of them blinked.
Finally, Fez exhaled through his nose. "Fine. But you stay behind me the whole time. You don't move unless I say move. And if anything goes sideways, you run. You don't look back. You understand me?"
"Understood."
"I mean it, Ash. You run."
"I said understood." Ash stood, brushing off his jeans. "We going tonight?"
"Nah. Tomorrow. Let him sit with those bullets in his leg for a minute." Fez finally looked back at you. "You got an address?"
You should've said no. You should've told them to drop it, to let you handle your own mess. That was what you always did. What you'd been doing since you were fifteen.
But you looked at Fez, at the steady certainty in his eyes, the way his hands were still curled into fists, the way he'd stitched you up without hesitation and talked about killing for you like it was the most natural thing in the world. Then you looked at Ash, at the fourteen-year-old who'd held your hand while you bled, who'd called you stupid with the affection of a brother, who was now calmly discussing a murder like it was a weekend errand.
"There's a warehouse on Fifth and Darrow," you said quietly. "Industrial district. Old meatpacking plant. He uses the basement level as a hideout."
Fez nodded, filing the information away. "Anyone with him?"
"The two guys who ran earlier might have circled back. Couldn't say for sure."
"We'll handle it."
You sighed.
"If you're going to do this, you do it clean. No mess. No attention. I meant what I said earlier, I don't need a murder investigation screwing up my supply chain."
The corner of his mouth twitched. "You worried about your supply chain? Right now?"
"Business doesn't stop just because I got stabbed."
Ash snorted. "She's got a point."
He reached for the suture kit again, threading the needle with steady hands. "Don't move. This is gonna sting." You let him work. The first stitch went in, sharp and burning, and your hand found Ash's again. He held on without complaint.
"You know," you said through gritted teeth, staring at the ceiling, "most business partners don't offer to kill people for each other."
"We ain't most business partners," Fez said.
"No. I guess we're not."
Another stitch. Another spike of pain. Ash's grip tightened around your fingers.
"When this is over," you said, "I'm buying you both dinner. Something nice. Not gas station snacks."
"We like gas station snacks."
"Something healthier than gas station snacks."
"That's ain't a high bar," Ash said.
"Shut up."
"You shut up. You're the one who got stabbed."
"I didn't get stabbed. I got cut with a broken bottle. There's a difference."
"Is there?"
"Absolutely. Stabbing implies precision. This was messy."
Fez tied off the last stitch and sat back on his heels, shaking his head. "You the only person I know who would argue while actively bleeding out."
"Not actively bleeding out anymore. You fixed it." You looked down at the fresh bandage, the neat row of stitches beneath.
He shrugged. "Don't mention it."
"I mean it. Both of you." You looked at Ash, then back at Fez. "I'm not good at this stuff. People doing things for me, actually giving a fuck." You stopped. Swallowed. "You didn't have to do any of this."
Ash let go of your hand and stood, stretching. "Can we stop with the emotional stuff? I'm tryna go to bed. We got a busy day tomorrow."
"Murder is a busy day," you said, shrugging.
"It's on the to-do list." He headed for the door, pausing at the threshold. "Night, Y/n. Don't bleed on the couch. It's ugly enough already."
"Night, Ash."
He disappeared down the hall. Fez lingered, gathering the bloody supplies, tossing them into a trash bag.
"You know he likes you," Fez said quietly. "He don't offer to kill people for just anyone."
You snorted, letting yourself lean back onto the couch. Your head lolled against the ugly floral pillows, watching Fez with somewhat relaxed eyes.
"Didn't think murder was a love language. This business teaches you a lot of things."
He sighed, sitting down next to you. Ignoring the blood smeared into the cushions. The silence, once heavy, was now comfortable. These nights, here in Fez's presence, were normally the most relaxed you got to be.
"Nah. It don't teach you nothing good." He admitted, his eyes finally moving over to you. The weight of his gaze was different now. Softer. He wasn't looking at the wound or the bruises or the blood on your ruined blouse. He was looking at you. Just you.
"Dante taught me a lot," you said quietly. "Some of it was good, some of it wasn't, but he taught me how to survive. I don't know if that's the same thing."
"Survival ain't living."
"You sound like a fortune cookie."
"I'm serious." He shifted on the couch, turning to face you. "You spend too much time survivin' and doin' nothing else. You push away all the real shit about you."
You didn't have an answer for that. You'd been running for so long, running Dante's operation, running from enemies, running from the grief of losing the only father figure you'd ever known, that you'd never stopped to think about what came after. What happened when the running was over.
"Maybe I forgot."
"Forgot what?"
"How to be a person." You swallowed. "Y/n. Whoever that is."
Fez didn't say anything. He just waited patiently and steadily. The way he always was, without being frantic or angry.
"Dante used to say I was born for this," you continued. "Said I had a gift, and I do, I think. I'm really good at this shit. But sometimes I wonder if I'm good at anything else. If there's anything else left."
"There is."
"You don't know that."
"Yeah, I do." He shifted closer, his knee brushing yours. "I seen it. When you're playin' Crash Bandicoot with Ash and you let him win 'cause you know his ego can't take another loss. And you bring those fancy snacks from the organic store even though you know I got a whole aisle of chips right here. You talk about Dante and your voice gets all sappy and shit, like you're still that fifteen-year-old girl he pulled off the street."
"I don't let Ash win. He's just better than me at Crash Bandicoot."
"Bullshit. You let him win every time. I ain't stupid. I notice everything," Fez said, as if reading your mind. "About you. Always have, even the sad shit."
The words hung in the air between you. Heavy. Meaningful. Your heart was beating faster than it should've been for someone who'd just lost a concerning amount of blood. You swallowed hard, feeling his blue eyes on your face. You couldn't ignore how your chest felt. Like when you were in 8th grade and you were meeting up with your crush for your first kiss.
You turned and met his eyes. You thought your heart would explode, but he was just too intoxicating.
"I notice you, too. At first, it was just business. Now it's.." You couldn't finish.
"Personal." He finished for you, his voice a low, solid sound.
Yeah." The word came out barely above a whisper. "Personal."
He didn't move. Didn't push. Just sat there, knee brushing yours, those blue eyes steady and patient. Waiting for you to decide what came next. You both knew what was being said. It was an exchange of unspoken words through the spoken ones. A language that only the two of you understood.
It was in the way he'd taken your gun without flinching. The way he'd stitched you up with hands steadier than any doctor's. The way he'd promised to kill a man for you and meant it. The way he was looking at you now, like you were something precious. Something worth protecting and waiting for, and a language written on a wall that he understood completely.
"Dante always told me there was nothing personal about business." You said quietly.
His lip quirked up a little, that lazy smile that he wore. Usually, when he was high. But there was no weed involved. He was high on something else.
"I don't think this is business no more, ma."
You exhaled, your eyes still on his face. The steadiness on it, the lack of panic. As if he hadn't just signed himself up to kill for you, and wasn't subtly admitting he wanted to be more than business partners. You fought the urge to shudder.
"I'm scared. To be honest." Your voice was small.
"Of what?"
"This," you chuckled breathlessly. "It's dangerous. It's wrong to feel this.. when you're dealing drugs and running around with people who could kill you. This will kill you quicker than any gun."
Fez cleared his throat.
"Like I said before.. Business got you so outta touch. You a real person, not just a distributor," he said, his hands shoved into his pockets, as if to resist touching.
You stared at him. At his hands, buried in his hoodie like he was physically restraining himself from reaching for you. At the tension in his jaw, the way he was fighting every instinct to close the distance between you.
"Dante-"
"Dante's dead." His voice was gentle, but firm. "I ain't tryna be disrespectful. I know he was like a father to you. I know he taught you everything. But he's gone, Y/n. And you're still here, runnin' his operation and killin' it. But you ain't livin'. You're just... survivin'."
"Survival kept me alive."
"Survival kept you alone." He pulled one hand from his pocket, gesturing at the room around them. "Look where you at. It's two in the morning. You got stabbed. You showed up at my store 'cause some part of you knew that this was the safest place you could be. Not a hospital. Not your own crib. Here. With me and Ash." He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. "That ain't survival. It's some shit you been fightin' 'cause you think it makes you weak."
"What is it, then?"
"Trust." He said it simply. Like it was obvious. "You trust us. You trust me. And that scares you 'cuz you think it's wrong."
You didn't answer. You couldn't. Because he was right. He was right about all of it.
"I ain't gonna lie and say this life ain't dangerous," he continued. "It is. People die, they go to prison. I know that's some scary ass business. But pushin' everyone away don't make you safer. It just makes you lonely. And you been lonely a long time."
"How do you know?"
"'Cause I was too. Before Ash and Rue. And before you." He pulled his other hand from his pocket and reached for you, slow, giving you time to pull away. "I ain't gonna let nothin' happen to you. And I ain't gonna let you push me away 'cause you think carin' about someone is wrong. It's the only thing that makes this shit worth it."
You looked at his outstretched hand. Scarred knuckles. Blunt nails. The hand that had taken your gun, stitched you up and held you steady.
"You're really not gonna let this go, are you?"
"Nope."
"And if I try to push you away?"
"I'mma push back."
"If I tell you it's too dangerous?"
"I'll tell you you're wrong."
"You're annoying," you whispered.
"Yeah. You've mentioned that before."
"I'm serious, Fez. This is-"
"Dangerous, whatever else. I heard you the first time." He still hadn't lowered his hand. "You done?"
"Done?"
"Done listin' reasons we shouldn't do this. 'Cause I got a whole list of reasons we should, and my list is longer."
You shook, but you finally lowered your fingers into his. You intertwined them through his calloused ones, feeling his warmth and feeling the certainty of all his words. His words were comforting, solid, and never panicked. His touch was exactly the same - the most sure thing you'd ever felt.
He looked down at your hand, brushing a small smudge of blood off the back of it. He smoothed a finger over your damaged knuckles.
"'S easy now, right?" He said softly. "Lettin' yourself feel shit instead of fightin'."
You stared at your joined hands, at his thumb tracing gentle circles over your bruised skin. At the way his palm dwarfed yours. At the scars on his hand.
You didn't respond. Instead, you started to cry.
You knew why the tears were gathering. Not because Fez had done something wrong. You were crying because of Dante, you were crying because you got stabbed, and you were crying because your favorite silky white blouse was completely ruined. You took a breath of air, looking up at the ceiling, refusing to let the tears drop from your eyes.
You were crying because you felt safe enough to do it.
"Fuck." You said, a watery, breathless laugh puffing from your lips.
Fez, his face developing a slight frown, gently turned you towards him a bit more.
"You hurtin'?" He was worried about the stab wound. Maybe the bottle had hit something more important than they'd thought.
You sniffled, pressing down on your eyes with the heels of your hands. You almost didn't want to answer. It was so embarrassing, you were worried he wouldn't understand. He wouldn't understand that beneath the distributor was still a girl who cared about her clothes.
"C'mon, ma. Talk to me."
You laughed again, though it was tearful.
"My blouse. It's ruined."
Silence. You couldn't look at him. Couldn't bear to see the confusion, the judgment, the reminder that you were supposed to be tougher than this. You were the boss. The distributor. The girl who'd shot a man twice and driven herself to a convenience store with a hole in her side. And here you were, crying over fabric.
The blouse, ripped and covered in blood, was at the other end of the couch, discarded.
Fez was still quiet, gears turning.
"We can get you a new one. Tomorrow." He said softly. Not judgmental. Not questioning or rude.
Another sniffle, then a sob.
"But that one.. It was designer."
Fez looked at the ruined blouse. Then back at you. His expression didn't change, still soft, still patient, but something flickered in his eyes. Understanding.
"Designer," he repeated. "Like, fancy designer? The kind with the names?"
"The kind with the names," you confirmed, your voice wobbling. "Vintage Dior. Fall 2004 collection. I found it at this little shop in SoHo. The owner didn't know what she had. I paid two hundred dollars for something worth ten times that."
Silence again.
Another string of sobs, embarrassed and full of mixed emotions, dribbled from your lips. Your face was officially wet. Then an arm, nudging you closer.
"Shh, c'mere."
You went. You didn't have the strength to resist, didn't have the walls left to keep him at arm's length. You let him pull you against his chest, his arms wrapping around you careful and warm, mindful of your bandaged ribs. Your face pressed into the soft fabric of his hoodie, and you cried. Really cried. The kind of crying you hadn't done since you were a kid, since before Dante, since before you learned that tears were a luxury you couldn't afford.
He didn't tell you it was okay or that it was just a blouse or that you were being silly. He just held you, one hand cradling the back of your head, the other rubbing slow circles on your back. His heartbeat was steady under your ear. Solid. Calm.
"I got you," he murmured. "Let it out. I got you."
"I'm sorry," you hiccuped into his chest. "I'm getting snot on your hoodie."
"I got other hoodies."
"It's a nice hoodie."
"It's from Target. Cost me twelve bucks. You can ruin ten of 'em if you want."
A watery laugh escaped you. "Target doesn't sell twelve-dollar hoodies."
"Okay, it was fifteen. You caught me." His hand smoothed over your hair.
You let yourself cry for the blouse and the broken bottle and the two years of loneliness. For Dante, who'd never see what you'd built. For the girl you'd been at fifteen. For every night you'd patched yourself up alone. And for the fact that you weren't alone anymore.
And through all of it, Fez held you. Steady. Patient. A solid anchor in the storm.
When the sobs finally faded into hiccups, you pulled back just enough to look up at him. His hoodie was damp. His eyes were soft. He reached up and wiped a tear from your cheek with his thumb.
"Better?" he asked.
"A little." You sniffled. "My face is a mess."
"You look beautiful."
"I have mascara all over my cheeks."
"Yeah. Beautiful."
"You're lying."
"I ain't never lied to you." He said it simply. Like it was a fact. Like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "Not once. Not gonna start now."
You stared at him. At the freckles. The scar. The steady blue eyes that had seen straight through every wall you'd ever built.
"What did I do to deserve you?" you whispered.
"Nah." He shook his head. "That's my line."
You turned slightly to wipe your face, smudging your mascara further.
"I should let you sleep. You and Ash have shit to do tomorrow."
Fez looked down at you, cradled in his arms like an injured bird. He looked over at the blood soaked blouse, and immediately, his mind was made.
"You ain't driving home tonight."
You scoffed, a small smirk forming on your face.
"This is a business partnership. You're not my boss." You asserted, although weakly.
Fez hummed, still rubbing soft circles into your back. "Told you it ain't business no more. And Ash swiped your car keys earlier, so you ain't leavin' anyway."
You pulled back just enough to stare at him, your mouth falling open. "He what?"
"Swiped your keys. When he sat down next to you. Kid's got quick hands. Learned from his grandma."
"That little-" You looked toward the hallway where Ash had disappeared, then back at Fez. The smirk on his face was infuriatingly calm. "You were never gonna let me leave."
"Guilty."
You rolled your eyes. "Why?"
"I want you to stay where I can see you." He said it without embarrassment, without hesitation. Like it was the most natural thing in the world. "You're hurtin', not as strong. Somebody's still out there who wants to hurt you more. If you're here, I know you're safe. That's all."
You looked at him. At the steady certainty in his eyes. At the way his arm was still wrapped around you, holding you close but not too tight. At the ugly plaid couch and the flickering TV and the stacks of inventory lining the walls. You softened.
"You have anywhere for me to sleep besides the bloody couch?" You said quietly, but not angrily, giving up on fighting.
He cleared his throat. "I can take it. You can have my room. 'Long as you don't mind guns. A lot of 'em."
"I'm not kicking you out of your bed."
"You ain't kickin' me out. I'm offerin'." He shifted, already moving to stand. "C'mon. I'll show you where it is. Got clean sheets and everything. Put 'em on last week."
You frowned. "You're really giving me your bed."
"Yeah."
"And you're gonna sleep on the couch."
"Yeah."
"On the bloody couch."
"I'll throw a towel over it. It'll be fine." He wiggled his fingers. "You gonna take my hand, or we gonna debate furniture all night?"
You took his hand. He pulled you up gently, careful of your ribs, steadying you when you swayed slightly on your feet.
"Easy," he murmured. "You lost a lot of blood. Don't need you passin' out on me."
"I'm not gonna pass out."
He led you down the hallway, past the bathroom and what you assumed was Ash's room, door closed, no light underneath, to the last door at the end. His room was simple. A bed with a plain navy comforter, a nightstand with a lamp and a book you couldn't quite make out in the dim light, a closet with the door slightly ajar. True to his word, there were guns. A shotgun propped in the corner. A handgun on the nightstand. A rifle mounted on the wall above the bed.
"Told you," he said, following your gaze. "Lot of 'em."
"I'm not intimidated by guns, Fez."
"I know you're not. Just warnin' you in case you rolled over and got a face full of barrel."
"Your pillow talk needs work."
He laughed, a warm sound you'd gotten used to. You didn't know it was only for you.
"Shit, I'll remember for next time."
The implication hung in the air. Next time. Like there would be a next time. Like this wasn't a one-off, an emergency, a favor he was doing for a business associate.
"You're very sure of yourself," you said quietly.
"'Bout some things. Yeah." He pulled back the comforter, revealing the clean sheets he'd promised. "Bathroom's the next door down. There's a clean shirt on the dresser if you want somethin' to sleep in. It's gonna be huge on you, but it's better than-" He gestured vaguely at your ruined blouse.
"Better than sleeping in a bloody Dior?"
"For sure."
You stood in the doorway, suddenly very aware that you were in his bedroom. His space. Surrounded by his things, his guns, his books, his clean sheets. You felt awful. This was his space, and you were taking it up.
You couldn't let him sleep on the dirty couch.
"Fez."
He turned back, one eyebrow raised. "Yeah?"
"You're not sleeping on the couch."
"It's fine. I've slept on worse. Slept in the back of the Cadillac once. Couch is luxury compared to that."
"There's blood on it. That's disgusting."
"I'mma throw a towel down. Told you that already, ma."
Silence for a moment. You stood there staring at each other.
"Fezco," you said, preparing yourself for the move you were about to make. "Sleep with me. Please? I.. I don't want to sleep alone."
The words hung in the air between you. Vulnerable. Raw. Nothing like the polished, put-together distributor who'd walked into his store months ago in six-inch heels and a pink trench coat. This was just you. Asking for what you needed. Terrified he might say no.
Fez's expression didn't change, but something shifted in his eyes. Softened. Deepened.
"You sure?"
"I wouldn't ask if I wasn't."
He held your gaze for a beat longer. Then he nodded, slow and steady.
"Aight." He pushed off the doorframe and walked back toward the bed. "Which side you want?"
"Don't care. Just want you to stay."
"I'm stayin'." He pulled back the comforter on the left side and climbed in, then held it open for you. "C'mon. Before you fall over. You're swayin' a little."
You were. The exhaustion and blood loss were catching up, making the edges of your vision blur. You slid into the right side of the bed, hyper-aware of the warmth of him inches away, the clean scent of his sheets, the gun on the nightstand glinting in the dim light.
For a moment, neither of you moved. You lay there side by side, staring at the ceiling, the silence stretching. Then, you turned towards him, shifting up. He did the same, face-to-face. His warmth spread closer to you.
You broke the silence.
"Your eyes are pretty."
He blinked. Then, slowly, that lazy smile spread across his face. The one you'd come to know. The one that made your chest feel too tight and too warm all at once.
"You hittin' on me, ma?"
"Maybe." You were too tired to deflect, too drained to put the walls back up. "Is it working?"
"Yeah." His voice was softer now. Lower. "It's workin'."
"Good."
The space between you felt electric. His face was inches from yours, close enough that you could count his freckles if you wanted to. Close enough that you could see the way his pupils had widened, the way his gaze kept dropping to your mouth and then back up to your eyes.
"You got pretty eyes too," he said quietly. "Always thought so. Since that first night. You stepped out the car and looked at me and I thought.." He paused.
"What?"
"I thought, 'Damn. That's gonna be a problem.'"
"A problem?"
"Mmhmm. 'Cause I knew right then. You were gonna mess up my whole life." His hand found yours under the covers again. "And I was right. You messed it all up. I was fine before you. Just business. Just me and Ash. And then you showed up with your pink heels, your glittery ass gun and your organic snacks and now I'm plannin' a murder, shoppin' for vintage blouses and sharin' my bed for the first time in-" He stopped and thought. "Ever, actually. Never shared my bed before."
"Never?"
"Never wanted to. Not 'til you."
You stared at him. This man who'd killed people. Who'd raised a child that wasn't his. Who'd built an empire in a convenience store and still found time to buy granola just in case you were hungry when you showed up. Who was looking at you like you were the most precious thing he'd ever held.
"I must be a really special girl." You said softly, cool breath fanning over his face.
"For real. You don't know how special, ma."
Your heart stuttered. The way he said it, not like a line, not like flattery. Like a fact. Like he was stating something obvious, something undeniable, something he'd known for a long time and was just now getting around to saying out loud. You couldn't even speak, your chest squeezed so hard you felt like your heart might explode.
"Y/n?" He saif, gruff voice gentle.
".. Yeah?" You managed.
"Gonna kiss you now. That okay?"
You didn't answer with words. You just nodded, a small, breathless movement, your eyes never leaving his.
He leaned in slow. Giving you time to change your mind. To pull back. To put the walls up one last time. But you didn't. You stayed exactly where you were, heart pounding, ribs aching, feeling more alive than you had in years.
His lips encased yours. There was no desperation, like you'd drunkenly had before with some random man outside of a bar. It was soft and deliberate, like worship and reverence. His hand came up to gently cup your jaw, thumb brushing your cheek and tilting your face to just slightly fit against his. He kissed you with no rush, like there was all the time in the world to do this. Like there was nowhere else he'd rather be. Because truthfully, there wasn't.
You shifted closer, a manicured hand pressing against his chest. His heart thumped against it, steady. He smelled like woody aftershave and clean laundry and gunpowder. He made a sound low in his throat, something between a sigh and a hum, and it was the best thing you'd ever heard.
He was gentle with your body, his hand avoiding your bandages. He rubbed your back, gripping the t-shirt hanging loosely off your body. When he finally pulled back, his forehead came to rest against yours. His eyes stayed closed for a moment, his breath warm against your lips.
"Gotta be careful with you," he said, his voice low. "You ain't healed up yet. Not even close."
You could still feel the ghost of his lips on yours, the gentle pressure of his hand on your back. Your heart was racing, your skin tingling everywhere he'd touched.
"I'm not made of glass, Fez."
"I know you ain't. You're a tough girl." He opened his eyes, pulling back just enough to look at you. "But you got stabbed tonight and lost a shit tonna blood. I ain't about to be the guy who hurts you more 'cause he couldn't keep his hands to himself."
"You weren't hurting me."
He chuckled. "Could never. Not a chance. That's why we had to stop for the night."
You whined, flopping back against the pillows. He found you under the covers, putting a warm hand back around your waist.
"You gonna be fine. You lived through worse." He shifted closer, his chest pressing against your shoulder. "You want me to feel bad for bein' responsible?"
"I want you to feel bad for being a tease."
"I ain't a tease. I'm a gentleman who ain't gonna rip your stitches back open."
"You're annoying."
"You mentioned that. Lotta times tonight."
"Because it's the truth. Hot, but annoying."
He laughed, low and warm, his breath fanning over your hair. "You know what I think?"
"I'm sure you're going to tell me."
"I think you're just mad 'cause for the first time in your life, somebody's takin' care of you instead of the other way around. And you don't know what to do with it."
You opened your mouth to argue. Closed it. He wasn't wrong. God, he wasn't wrong.
"Now go to sleep, mama. We got shit to handle tomorrow."
And for the first time in two years, you fell asleep without fear. Quickly, surrounded by warmth and certainty. You even slept through the night, without a single nightmare.
When the morning light began to filter through the curtains, you even slept through that. However, you didn't sleep through Ashtray walking in.
"Yo, Fez, where's the -- what the fuck?"
You pulled the blankets over your head, groaning.
"Ash, man." Fez's voice was thick with sleep, but still somehow calm. You felt him shift beside you, the mattress dipping. "The hell you doin' bargin' in here?"
You heard a loud snort.
"I fuckin' knew it. I knew you two were feelin' each other!"
"Lower your voice. She's sleepin'."
"She's clearly awake, she just pulled the blankets over her head like a turtle." Footsteps. Then Ash's voice, closer now, directed at the lump of blankets that was you. "Y/n. I know you're awake."
You, sensing your defeat, came out from under the blankets. Ash's eyes widened further.
"In his clothes, too. That's wild, the Wu-Tang shirt," he said, an amused grin forming on his face. "My brother is dating his whole ass supplier!"
"It's not-we're not-" You looked to Fez for help. He was absolutely no help. He was lying back against the pillows, one arm behind his head, watching the whole thing with a lazy smile.
"Ash," Fez said calmly, "you gonna stand there and roast us all morning, or you gonna let my girlfriend sleep?"
Girlfriend. The word hit you square in the chest. You turned to stare at him. He met your eyes, that smile still playing at his lips, and shrugged.
"What? Too soon?"
"No, I just.." You blinked. "We didn't exactly define anything last night. There was a lot of blood."
"Consider it defined, ma."
Ash snorted.
"No way out now, girl. I knew it like, a month ago. You were hella close on the couch, making goo-goo eyes at each other."
"We were not making goo-goo eyes," you protested weakly.
"You definitely were. Fez would pass you the blunt and your fingers would touch and you'd both just-" Ash made a face, half disgusted, half delighted. "Stare at each other for like five seconds. Every time. Rue noticed it too. We had a whole conversation about it."
"You and Rue talk about us?"
"Someone has to. You two clearly weren't talkin' about it yourselves." He crunched a chip, a purple bag in his hand. "You're welcome, by the way."
"For what?"
"For stealin' your keys last night. If I hadn't, you woulda driven home and bled out on your fancy apartment floor and none of this-" He gestured broadly at the bed, the two of you, the situation in general. "-woulda happened. So technically, I'm the reason you're together. You owe me."
"We owe you, bruh?" Fez raised an eyebrow.
"Yeah. Big time. I'm thinkin' a new PlayStation game. Or maybe a car when I turn sixteen."
"You're fourteen."
"Fifteen in March. Never too early to start plannin'."
"Ash." Fez's voice was firm, but there was no real heat behind it. "Get out, man. Start breakfast and we can make a deal later."
"Fine. But this ain't over." He pointed a Takis-stained finger at you. "Y/n, you're my favorite supplier. Don't break his heart or I'll have to kill you. And I don't wanna kill you 'cause you bring those fancy snacks."
"Noted."
"Cool. Welcome to the family." He turned and headed for the door, calling over his shoulder: "Pancakes in ten. Don't do anything gross while I'm gone. The walls are thin and I've already seen enough."
Your first real smoke session with Fez behind the store.
2. Behind the Store Blaze
You wake up feeling like someone swapped your body out in the middle of the night.
For once, sleep didn't feel like a punishment. It didn't feel like tossing, turning, staring at the ceiling, counting shadows, and waiting for your own body to stop hurting. Your muscles feel loose. Your brain is quiet. When you stretch, it pulls this tiny, satisfied sound from your chest before you can stop it.
You freeze for half a second.
Then you laugh at yourself.
Because, yeah. Apparently one night of actual sleep is enough to make you feel like a brand-new person.
You shrug into your robe and head straight for the shower, still half-floating from the feeling of it. Steam fills the bathroom fast, fogging the mirror until your reflection disappears behind a soft white blur.
Last night comes back in pieces while the water runs hot over your shoulders.
Dylan's room.
The haze.
The blunt between your fingers.
The way everything went soft and slow around the edges.
Fez.
Fezco, with his calm voice and his half-smile and his stupidly blue eyes. Fezco calling you ma like it was nothing. Like he didn't know one little word had followed you all the way into bed and crawled under the covers with you.
Your phone chimes from the counter.
You turn your head toward it, blinking through the steam.
Fez sent a Snap.
Your stomach does something embarrassing.
You wipe a patch of mirror clear with your palm, then grab your phone with damp fingers. The notification opens to his face.
Fez is sitting on the counter at the store, hoodie pulled loose around him, chain catching the light, eyes squinting just a little like the flash is too bright. He looks relaxed. Effortless. Like he didn't even try to look good, which somehow makes it worse.
Text sits over the picture.
good mornin. come by anytime, ma
A slow smile pulls at your lips before you can stop it.
You stare at the photo for too long.
Then you flip the camera.
Immediately, you hate the angle.
You try again.
Hate that one too.
Again.
Too much face.
Again.
Too little face.
Again.
You groan under your breath, because this is ridiculous. You are standing in a steamy bathroom in a robe, trying to look casual for a boy you met yesterday while accusing your brother of buying meth.
Finally, you settle on one.
Robe tied. Damp hair. Sleep still lingering soft in your eyes. Just enough of your face that he can tell you're awake, but not enough that it looks like you tried.
Even though you absolutely did.
You type.
I plan on it.
Then you hit send.
Your heart gives one tiny, traitorous flutter.
You hate that too.
You don't really hate it.
The heat hits you the second you step outside that afternoon.
Straight sun. Thick air. Summer pressing down on everything like it has a personal vendetta. The sidewalk shimmers a little ahead of you, and the breeze slips through the rips in your jeans, cooling the skin underneath in quick, teasing little touches.
You walk toward the corner store like you've done a hundred times before.
Except this time, everything feels different.
You rehearse what you're going to say.
Hey, I came by.
No. Stupid.
You said to come by, so...
Worse.
So, about last night...
Absolutely not.
By the time you turn the corner, you've talked yourself into and out of seventeen different versions of yourself.
Then you see him.
Fez is leaned against the wall in the shade, one foot braced behind him, head tipped down toward his phone. His shoulders are loose. His hoodie is a little too big. He looks like he belongs there, like the store and the cracked concrete and the heat rising off the pavement are all part of him somehow.
As soon as you get close, he looks up.
His smile warms slowly.
Real.
"Look who it is," he says.
You lift your hand in a little wave, trying to seem way more casual than you feel.
"Sorry about last night," you say. "Didn't realize how late it was when I snapped you."
Fez shakes his head.
"You good, ma. Don't trip."
Of course he says it like that.
Like it is easy.
Like you aren't standing there with your pulse acting stupid just because he looked happy to see you.
He pushes off the wall and reaches for the door, pulling it open and nodding for you to go inside.
"Come on. Lemme show you what I got."
You step past him, close enough to catch the clean-warm-smoke smell of him, and it does not help your situation at all.
Inside, the store hums around you.
Refrigerators buzzing along the wall. Fluorescent lights overhead. Rows of chips, candy, gum, soda, all the normal things that are supposed to make a corner store feel like a corner store.
But following Fez toward the back, it starts to feel different.
Less like a place people stop for snacks.
More like a place with a whole other world behind it.
A world you are not supposed to see.
In the back corner, there is a little operation happening.
A kid sits on a stool, maybe middle school age, maybe younger, calmly counting stacks of money like it's a math worksheet. His face is serious. Too serious. Like childhood left him a note and dipped out early.
"This here is Ashtray," Fez says. "And this is Dylan's twin, the one givin' him hell."
Ashtray looks up.
He gives you one quick nod.
You lift your hand in a small wave, suddenly unsure what to do with your arms, your face, your whole body.
"Hey," you say quietly.
Ash nods again, already looking back down at the bills.
Cool as ever.
Fez opens one of the freezers.
Not the ice cream one.
The other one.
He pulls out a gallon ziplock packed tight with dense green buds, and when he opens it, the smell hits you hard. Sharp. Earthy. Strong enough to make your eyes widen before you can pretend to be cool about it.
"This one's fire," he says. "Got a bunch of it. Got some other shit too."
He keeps talking after that.
Names. Strains. Quality. Quantity. Words you probably should understand if you're going to be standing here acting like you have any clue what you're doing.
You nod along anyway.
Because what else are you supposed to do?
Fez glances over his shoulder at you.
He clocks it instantly.
The cluelessness. The wide eyes. The way you are trying to look normal and failing a little.
A small smile tugs at his mouth.
"So you like... just started?" he asks. "Like, last night?"
Your face warms.
You nod.
"I don't have a clue about anything here," you admit.
Fez lets out a soft laugh, but it doesn't feel mean.
"Aight," he says. "That's cool."
He reaches for a few smaller bags, weighing things out with easy, practiced hands. He makes you a little assortment, talking softer now, explaining without making you feel stupid for needing it.
That surprises you.
Maybe it shouldn't.
But it does.
When he hands the bag over, you reach for your wallet.
Fez catches your wrist gently.
Your eyes flick to his hand.
His fingers are warm around your skin. Not tight. Not controlling. Just enough pressure to stop you.
"Nah, baby," he says. "On the house."
Baby.
Your stomach flips.
He lets go of your wrist like he has no idea what he just did to you.
"Come out back," he says. "I'll smoke you up."
You should say something normal.
Something like thanks.
Or are you sure?
Or I can pay.
Instead, you just nod.
Because his fingers touched your wrist and now apparently your brain has left the building.
He leads you out through the back door into the small sunlit lot behind the store. The air is warmer out here, trapped between brick walls and pavement. A few weeds push up through the cracks like they are trying to prove a point.
Fez leans against the wall, lighter in one hand, blunt in the other.
You watch him prepare it.
Which, really, you try not to do.
But that lasts about two seconds.
His shirt pulls across his chest when he brings the blunt to his lips. The movement is easy. Practiced. Natural in a way that makes you feel like you are watching a scene you aren't supposed to admit you're interested in.
The lighter sparks.
Flame flares.
The tip glows.
Fez takes a slow drag, chest lifting with it, then exhales in a thin stream that curls up into the bright afternoon sky.
You watch all of it like a movie.
He holds the blunt out to you.
"This that Alien OG."
You take it carefully.
This time, you try not to embarrass yourself.
You bring it to your lips, inhale slower, softer. It still burns, scraping lightly at your throat, but it doesn't feel like inhaling actual fire this time. You manage to exhale without coughing up a lung.
A little victory.
Fez chuckles.
"So you been one tough cookie when it come to drugs, huh?"
You shrug, mouth curling.
"I didn't know, okay? Now I know." You look down at the blunt, then back at him. "And it's awesome."
You say it lightly, like you're teasing.
But there is truth underneath it.
The relief.
The softness.
The way your body feels less like a locked room and more like somewhere you can actually live.
Fez watches you as you blow the smoke out.
His eyes trace your face, lingering a little too long on your mouth, the way your shoulders relax, the way your lashes lower against the sun.
You notice.
Of course you notice.
"What?" you ask, frowning a little.
He shakes his head, smiling.
"Nothing. Just... weird seein' a girl like you smoke, that's all."
"A girl like me?" you echo.
You pass the blunt back. Your fingers brush his, and the touch sparks through you so fast it is honestly humiliating.
"Get used to it, Fezco," you say, trying to recover. "I have a feeling you'll be seeing a lot more of me."
There is an edge in your voice.
Something suggestive.
Something you absolutely did not plan.
But it is out there now, hanging between you with the smoke.
Fez's smile deepens.
"Hope so, shawty," he says, soft and playful.
And there it is again.
That feeling.
Like you are stepping closer to something you do not fully understand, but you don't want to stop.
The conversation loosens after that.
Not all at once. Just bit by bit.
You joke. He jokes back. You tell him little stories about Dylan being an idiot, and Fez listens like he actually cares. He tells you about weird customers, about Ash, about people who try to act hard until they need something.
You laugh more than you meant to.
So does he.
The sun moves slowly across the sky. The blunt burns down between you. The back lot gets hazy around the edges, warm and golden, and somewhere in all of it, time stops feeling real.
Then your phone starts buzzing.
You glance down.
Mom.
"Shit," you mutter. "I'm late for tea."
Fez raises his brows.
"Tea?" he repeats. "Like, pinkies up and all that?"
You straighten your spine, lift your chin, raise your pinky, and slip into the most ridiculous British accent you can manage.
"That's right, governor."
Fez bursts out laughing.
"Oh, shit," he says, shoulders shaking. "You sound legit. I woulda believed you for real."
His laugh gets you.
Not because it's loud.
Because it is real.
Because it makes his whole face change.
You decline the call, and reality creeps back in all at once.
You're high.
You're behind a store.
With the local dealer.
Ignoring your mom's Sunday ritual.
That should probably worry you more than it does.
"I should probably go," you say, shuffling your feet. Your hands slide behind your back because suddenly you don't know what to do with them again.
Fez glances toward the lot.
"You need a ride?"
You start to say no automatically.
Because that's what you do.
You don't need help. You don't need rides. You don't need anything.
But your head is light enough that the thought of walking all the way home in the heat feels awful.
Fez watches your face for about two seconds.
"You too high to walk all that way," he says. "Come on. Hop in."
You just nod.
And follow him to the car.
The drive is short.
Fifteen minutes, tops.
But the world outside the window feels extra bright. Extra sharp. The sunlight hits windshields like little bursts of white fire. Trees blur past in thick green smears. The music is low enough that you can feel it more than hear it.
You point left when you reach your neighborhood.
Then you sit up a little straighter as your house comes into view.
Clean white siding.
Perfect windows.
The yard your mom obsesses over like grass can be a moral achievement.
It doesn't feel like you.
Not really.
It feels like a life someone built around you and expected you to grow into.
Fez pulls up to the gate.
His eyes go wide.
"No way," he says, leaning forward a little. "You serious? You live here?"
You look at the house.
Then at your lap.
Then back through the windshield.
"Yeah," you say. "It's my mom's dream house."
"Damn, girl," he murmurs. "That's impressive."
You roll your eyes because you don't know what to do with the compliment.
"It's just a house."
Fez turns his head then.
Fully.
He looks at you instead of the driveway, instead of the big pretty house, instead of everything that makes you look like a girl who should not be sitting in his passenger seat.
His hand comes up slowly.
You should move.
You don't.
His thumb brushes gently along the edge of your chin, tilting your face toward him just enough that you have to meet his eyes.
The touch is light.
Barely anything.
But it sends a hot little jolt straight through you.
Your breath catches.
The air inside the car feels thick all of a sudden. Quiet. Pressed close.
"I should go," you say softly.
Even though every part of you wants to stay right where you are.
Fez lets his hand fall back to his lap.
He nods once.
"Catch you later, ma."
The way he says it makes your chest ache a little.
Quiet.
Sure.
Less like a maybe.
More like a promise.
You open the door, step out, and walk up the drive feeling like your heart isn't fully in your chest anymore.
Like you left part of it in that passenger seat.
Days blur after that.
Not dramatically.
Not in some movie montage way.
Just slowly.
Quietly.
One day slips into the next, and little by little, you start peeling off the layers your mom wrapped around you your whole life.
Scripted prayers at dinner.
Picture-perfect family photos.
White dresses.
Good manners.
Clear skin.
Straight teeth.
The idea of you as some delicate, church-going girl who marries a nice man, buys a nice house, has two perfect sons, and never says anything too loud.
Pure.
Pretty.
Proud.
In that order.
You think about it and physically shudder.
Because it isn't that you hate your life.
It's more complicated than that.
You hate how much of it was decided before you ever got a say.
One evening, you're in your room with the window cracked open. A soft breeze slips through, stirring the curtains while you sit on your bed with a blunt you bought from Fez earlier that week.
The room fills with slow, familiar haze.
You exhale toward the ceiling and watch the smoke twist apart.
Your phone buzzes.
When you see his name, you smile before you even answer.
"Hey, Fez," you say, voice warm.
"Sup, baby. What you doin'?"
His tone is easy.
Curious.
Like he actually wants to know.
"Not much. Smoking," you say, glancing at the curl of smoke in front of you. "Thinking about watching a movie. How was your day?"
He chuckles softly.
"Oh, so now you wanna know 'bout my day, huh?"
You roll your eyes even though he can't see it.
"Oh, suddenly interested in my boring summer days?" you shoot back, flicking ash neatly into the tray.
"Nah, ma," he says.
And this time, the teasing slips out of his voice.
"I like hearin' you talk."
Heat creeps into your cheeks.
You lean back against your pillows, smiling up at the ceiling like an idiot.
"It was decent," you say. "Cheer camp finally started, and it wasn't as bad as I thought. I nailed my back tuck today, so that was kinda sick."
"You do them backflips and shit?" he asks.
The interest in his voice is genuine.
It makes you smile harder.
"Yeah," you say, pride slipping in. "I'm a tumbler on the team."
"That's tight," he replies, and you can hear his grin through the phone.
There is a little pause after that.
Not awkward.
Just full.
Like he is deciding whether to say something.
Then he does.
"You tryna... come over tomorrow?"
Your heart skips.
"To your place?" you ask, even though you already know what he means.
"Yeah," he says. "I mean, unless you..."
"No, I want to," you cut in quickly.
Maybe too quickly.
You bite your lip, then say it softer.
"I wanna come."
Fez laughs under his breath.
Happy.
Relieved.
"Aight then. Come whenever, ma."
When the call ends, you stare at your phone.
Then you grin.
Like a complete idiot.
On his end, Fez drops the phone into his lap.
For a second, he just sits there, fists pressed lightly against his mouth like he is afraid to move too fast and break the moment.
Ash, who has absolutely been pretending not to eavesdrop from the other end of the couch, practically vibrates.
"So?" Ash demands. "What'd she say?"
Fez finally lets his hands fall.
A grin tugs at his lips, slow and helpless.
"We chillin' tomorrow."
Ash jumps up, throwing his hands in the air.
"See? I told you! She into you!"
Fez shrugs, trying to play it off, but the smile stays.
"I don't know, man. She pretty preppy."
Ash rolls his eyes so hard it should make noise.
"Bro, if she was all fancy and uptight, she wouldn't be callin' you at two in the mornin'. Y'all be keepin' me up."
˚༺ summary:: kook!reader has everything, however, jj, he doesn’t have so much to offer. it’s the only reason he won’t be with her, he can’t compare.
˚༺ warnings:: insecurity?? yelling, mentions of lukes (👎) abuse towards jj.
˚༺ a/n:: hiii friends!! this is the first part to my taylor swift oneshot series ;p i hope you enjoy!! 💘💘
༺☆༻
pairing:: bsf!jj + kook!reader
usually, when alone, you spend your time at the country club, drawing, working in the garden, or doing your favourite of all, hanging out with the pogues.
they excused you and sarah being kooks, just because they all love you both so much.
you’re perfect. you are the islands princess.
your hair falls perfectly, like dominoes. you have a bright, warm smile and an Angelic personality.
and not only that, you have a healthy relationship with your family. a healthy lifestyle, too. but, despite all that, you still make time to spend with the pogues.
your closest friend has to be jj, maybank of course. he has always been there for you, through thick and thin.
and you are there for him when things get tough, you can’t count how many times he’s snuck into your window at midnight after a fight with his dad. you always take him in, clean him up, kiss his forehead until he drifts off to sleep in your arms.
he acts like a tough guy, but you know he needs someone to lean on. you try your hardest to be that for him. be the one person he can show his soft, vulnerable side.
so, when you show up to the chateau today in a navy blue and white cap, your soft hair falling down your back, and some denim shorts with a navy blue bikini top on, everybody looks at you.
its a particularly hot day on the obx, so you are all wearing minimal clothing. it doesn’t help that john b has no air conditioning.
“hi guys!” you beam, smiling as you walk up to the hammocks they are all laying on.
jj sits up first, giving you a little whistle when he sees you. “look at you, princess.” he grins.
you shove him over, making room for yourself next to him. “shut up.” you groan, laying down on the hammock.
everybody else gives you a very sloppy hello, the heat clearly getting to them. however—you manage to keep your cheery energy as always.
you did just come from an air conditioned mansion though..so.
“what have you all done today? just..this?” you ask, as you are laying your head down on jjs chest. nobody comments on it, they are all used to your closeness.
“not everyone lives in figure 8, y/n.” john b pipes up, which causes you to smile. “i know, im just saying—this can’t be fun.” you respond.
you feel jjs hand in your hair, its so relaxing you find yourself about to fall asleep right here. you feel a sense of safety with him—you always have.
so, that’s exactly what you do. fall asleep on his chest, in the warm sunlight.
“think she’s out,” jj smiles, looking down at you.
“i’m not surprised. she looks like a puppy whenever she’s next to you.” pope murmurs.
jj gently covers your ears with his hands, despite the fact you are asleep. “shutup, man. you know its not like that.” he grumbles.
pope just makes a teasing sound, winding jj up even more.
that’s when your eyes flutter open, your first sight being jj. the way you like it. you found yourself wishing everyday you could wake up to him, next to him.
“did i fall asleep??” you murmur, wiping your eyes.
he smiles warmly. a smile only you get. “yeah, baby. right here.” he chuckles.
you sigh, before closing your eyes again and falling right back to sleep.
the next day, you found yourself thinking about jj as usual. you were shopping at some markets on main street, bumping into people like rafe and kels.
as you stop at a particularly beautiful little stand, you see a really cute bracelet. its blue, and gold. its beautiful, and it reminds you of jj alot. he loves bracelets, keeping stacks of them on his wrist, most of which you made yourself.
you take a look at the price tag, it nears $300, but for you that’s light work so you carry it to the register.
“hi, just this one please.” you say, smiling widely at the stranger. “this stand is beautiful.” you make small talk, as she puts the numbers into the register.
when you are done purchasing, you walk back to your little bike and begin riding over to john bs, knowing jj will most likely be there.
when you pull up, you hop off your bike, gently placing it against a pillar as you hop up the stairs of the chateau.
there’s jj, laying alone on a chair, joint in his mouth.
when he sees you, he immediately stands up, coming over to give you a hug. “hey princess,” he says, kissing your hair as he towers above you.
“hi!!” you say, excitedly handing him the gift you just got him. “i got you something.”
“woww, look at you,” he grins, as he begins to untie the ribbon.
when he opens the box, at first, his eyes light up. then they begin to fade. “..baby, thankyou—thankyou but i can’t take it.” he begins to say.
“you can, its for you.” you say, innocently. you have no idea how he’s feeling right now.
“you buy me things all the time and i never give you..anything.” he says.
“i know, but that’s okay. i like giving you gifts.” you explain, or try to.
“no, y/n. i can’t take it.”
“jj, please—“
“no!” he snaps. “you dont get it, y/n!”
“you have everything. you live on figure 8, you have money, you have everything—“
“but i love you, jayj, and i want to be with you—“ you say, helplessly.
“no! dont even say that to me—you dont love me. and you sure as hell dont want to be with me, what do i have to offer? i’m fucked up—and you, you’re perfect. too perfect for me, atleast.” he yells, but begins to get softer at the end.
he realises who he’s talking to. who he’s yelling at. his literal Angel. the person that saved him.
“dont say i don’t love you, jayj! you know i do, id do anything for you.” you begin to yell back, hurt by what he said.
“how can you say that? you dont have to live like i do, y/n. you spend the day with us, but then you go home to the perfect life.” he says, his voice slightly breaking by talking to you like this.
“i’ve done everything for you jj, i let you stay at my place when you fight with your dad, i give you money all the time, i take care of you when you need it. how can you say i dont care—i dont love you?” you say.
“because you don’t know the half of it. and it won’t work.” he murmurs, before walking away.
you are left standing there, hurt, and confused. but i guess that’s what loving a maybank does to you. how can he be so soft with you—so loving, just to push you away again??
that’s when you feel someone walking up to you. “hey, y/n. wanna go get something to eat?” you hear john b say, having no idea what just happened.
“yeah..yeah. food sounds nice.” you murmur, the light in your voice suddenly just gone.
when you and john b are sitting at the table, both munching on one half of a sandwich each, you speak up finally. “do you think i’m gonna fall inlove soon? like—my love life sucks.” you say, mouth full of sandwich.
“yeah, of course. everybody wants you.” john b responses.
Everyone always seems to be slightly annoyed by JJ, but not you, never you.
a/n: I'll be writing a few different fics for sweetheart gf reader (has its own section on my masterlist), might post some headcanons or a character profile at some point too!
JJ was used to people getting annoyed at him. In fact, he lived off it — almost like if the world was annoyed at him, then at least it was acknowledging his existence enough to be annoyed. The pogues would get exasperated with his reckless stunts, his stealing, him and his gun — John B rolling his eyes when he would talk non-stop, demonstrating his latest “party trick”. Kiara would walk away, refusing to even listen when he's telling her about his latest “million dollar” idea. Pope trying hard to explain to JJ exactly why it wouldn't work to kidnap Shoupe just to clear their friend's name. His teachers would kick him out of class for being too disruptive, hating the way all their students would immediately be distracted by him just being there.
It didn't bother him — not really — he barely even noticed it most times, other times he would do it on purpose just to get a rise out of people. JJ was someone who was unapologetically himself, and the rest of the world could suck it for all he cared.
“No Pope, listen, if I start driving fast enough and then stand up on the bike, it'll totally work, y’know, titanic style.” He puts his arms out, demonstrating titanic style, talking so fast that he barely takes a breath.
Kiara and John B exchange a look and roll their eyes simultaneously upon hearing JJ mumble a “it’s basic physics Pope, I thought you were the smart one, jeez.” and “thinking never helps when you already got the idea, okay bro?”
“And why would you want to stand up on your bike while it's moving?” Pope gives JJ a look that says yeah that's one hundred percent not happening.
“I don't know, just thought it'd be fun,” JJ grumbles with a defeated sigh as he plops himself directly onto Kiara's outstretched legs on the couch.
“Ow JJ, fuck, you're so fucking heavy, get off.” Kiara pushes him to the side, pulling her legs out from under him.
JJ laughs, unaffected, and turns to John B, grabbing the joint off him mid drag.
“JJ, seriously?”
“What? It's my weed.” He blows the smoke directly into John B's face, laughing to himself as John B screws up his face and gets off the couch to sit next to Pope.
“Sooo, is your girlfriend coming to babysit you anytime soon?” Kiara questions, grabbing the joint from JJ's hand.
“What? Nah, she's working late today, just going to sneak into her room later tonight.”
John B gives him an approving nod as Pope and Kie roll their eyes.
The next few hours pass by unnoticed — clouds of smoke, JJ's endless ‘Number one rules’ and ‘what ifs?’ dissipating into the hot summer air, the sun setting on the day gently.
JJ throws an empty beer can at Pope’s head — Pope shooting him a pointed look, questioning.
“What’s the time?”
Pope pulls out his phone, quickly swiping away the message from his dad asking when he’ll be home.
“9:15.”
“Shit, I gotta go, my girl’s waiting for me.” He smirks, rubbing his hands together, flexing his neck side to side as he stands up.
───♡───
You’re lying on your bed, freshly showered, wearing a matching pajama set — a soft pink tank top that hugs you perfectly and criminally short shorts that had JJ groaning and biting down on his lip when you stepped out of the bathroom. You had giggled, turning the light off and switching on the small fairy lights draped across the top of your bed.
You were scrolling on your phone — needing time to wind down after a tiring day at work — JJ poking your shoulder, trying to get your attention. You hum softly in acknowledgement. JJ doesn’t answer, just continues poking you softly, before squeezing his head into your chest, groaning loudly like he doesn’t know what to do with himself before biting down on the skin just above your top — hard.
You smile down at him, big and bright, like he hadn’t just bit you and wasn’t still poking you obnoxiously.
“Hi baby,” you whisper down at him, running your hands through his hair, giving him your full attention, kissing his forehead softly. JJ feels warmth spread through his chest, through his face, the tips of his ears turning pink, smiling so wide it almost hurt.
You turn back to your phone, still scrolling as JJ pets your head, plays with the fingers on your free hand, poking your sides, squeezing you. You sigh softly, putting your phone down. JJ pulls back slightly, thinking you’ve had enough.
“I love when you love on me, like you can’t get close enough to me.” You kiss his cheek, eyes slipping shut lazily.
JJ smiles, surprised, “You want me to keep doing it?”
“Yeah, keep doing it.” You guide his hand back to your head and JJ nuzzles his face into your chest again, before pulling back slightly, eyes twinkling.
“What would be the first thing you would do as me if we swapped bodies?”
JJ has the biggest grin on his face, watching intently as you ponder his question, giving him your answer. He holds himself back from interrupting you, before telling you exactly what he’d do if you switched bodies for the day — that being the main reason he had asked you.
JJ’s on a roll, repeating all his ideas from earlier that night with the pogues; all his ‘what ifs?’ and ‘number one rules’ and ‘oh did I tell you about the time when…?’ You smile, nod along, hands running through his hair repeatedly, gently cupping his face as he talks excitedly, making sure to keep his voice down so as to not wake your parents.
JJ had never known a love like yours — so patient, so sweet, so understanding. Someone to have his back, be in his corner, pick his side for once, even if it seemed crazy to everyone else. You’d get annoyed from time to time — as anyone would — but you saw past it, past the recklessness, the jokes, the restless energy. You saw his desire for closeness, for affection, his wanting to be heard, wanting to matter, wanting to be taken seriously — and you were more than willing to indulge him. Every single time.
read my other works here: masterlist
taglist: @lolala1414 @loversgirllane @outersbanksgirly @gillybear17 @andrealux21 @katiee-idk @paubotty27 @courta13 @jjsbtch (link - if you'd like to be added to the taglist)
jj maybank x fem!reader | inspired from this scene and this scene, this request/message, and this incredible, heartbreaking song
content warning: anxiety and panic; mild v!olence; non-specific references to child abus3
word count: 6.6k. (not yet proofread so apologies for spelling/grammar errors)
blurb: at the town meeting for the Maybank property, everything that's happened to JJ in the past forty-eight hours comes to a head. In his internal turmoil, you're the only guiding light back to safety.
Energy can’t be destroyed. JJ wasn’t much of a smart ass at school but he managed to understand that much. He remembers the lesson for some reason: maybe it was the muggy classroom, the hottest day of summer, or maybe it was because he was sat next to you and nearly every memory that has you in it is etched into his brain with permanent marker. But JJ remembers physics class enough to recall that law. Newton’s, was it? Who knows.
Energy can neither be created or destroyed - only converted from one form of energy to another.
Maybe JJ understood that law so well because he’d seen it play out more times than he could count. Practical things like that always had a way of welding themselves into JJ’s intelligence; he was better at hands-on learning. He’d seen it in the ocean, riding on waves, journeying from the power of the currents. He’d seen it when fixing up cars, when fishing on the docks, when lighting up a bonfire. But the time he remembers best is when you burnt yourself.
It was a silly thing, really. You’d been craving mac and cheese and had tried to fix a pan of it up. You’d used the wrong type of lid and placed it overtop of a near to overflowing pan of water. The bubbles pushed and prodded at the glass and the steam simmered up and up. Always one to talk, you weren’t much paying attention. You were leaning on the counter, a hand beside the stove, and gazing up at JJ like he was something special. He wasn’t sure why you looked at him like that, all he knew was that he never wanted it to go away. JJ can recall the moment that the lid of the pan came tumbling off. Water overflowed from the lip and trickled down the sides. The bubbles popped and splashed and a hefty droplet of water landed perfectly on the back of your hand. Your eyes were pink from the tears as JJ held your hand under running water, trying to sooth the burn, ease the injury before it could worsen. His lips had pressed to your forehead in a tender way that he always wished his dad would kiss his after a fall or a scrape. Your voice was stuffy and thick when you cursed water and pans and, sadly, mac and cheese.
Glancing to his left, he spots the faint scar on your hand that remained from the incident over a year ago. It’s a distraction from the legal babble that fills the city hall. His eyes trace the curve of your arm, following it like roads on a map, guiding him to your shoulders and your collarbones and your neck and your face. The jut of your chin and the slope of your nose; the shining of your eyes in the bright light as you stare intently ahead at whatever was unfolding. He didn’t want to know. Didn’t want to hear. Your lips are being brutalised; gnawed on anxiously as you track the conversation between lawyers and councilmen. You were always the clever one. JJ would have you explain things to him in physics knowing damn well that he barely understood. It was an excuse to hear your voice and to make you laugh when he made crude jokes. “Kinetic energy, huh? Think I know a thing or two about that.” Maybe, if there were different circumstances, he’d have you translate the jargon being tossed around in the room to him. Put it into layman’s terms, spell it out in the way only you could that avoided being condescending. Only caring.
But JJ can hardly hear over the sound of his own ringing ears. He can hardly think over the buzzing of his thoughts as if his mind had been infested with cicadas. He can hardly breathe through the thick, musty air of the room. His throat feels tight like he’s having an allergic reaction. His heart is aching and pounding all at once in that awful, annoying way it likes to do when things feel like they’re out of control. And, boy, did things feel like they were out of control.
You wince as your teeth pull on a loose piece of skin of your lower lip. It draws blood. Not much, enough to be gone in a swipe of your tongue. JJ remembers his previous line of thoughts. How natural for his mind’s path to be derailed by you.
Energy. The pan. The pressure. JJ felt pressure. He felt like that pan. Inside of him, it was building. The bubbles and the steam, pushing its ways up, churning through his stomach, pressing against his chest, fighting up his throat. It was invading his head. Shrinking his thoughts, clouding his mind, blurring his vision. It was squeezing him, suffocating him. He’d been on the heat for too long. Too many things, not enough time. Too many thoughts. Too many curveballs. If this was a baseball game, it would have had people’s heads spinning. JJ’s head was spinning. There was too much, too little, too big. He didn’t like big. No, he liked small. He liked simple. He liked the house and the garden and the shop and you. He liked his life. But it wasn’t his life. Nothing was his life now. It was building - the pressure. Building and building and building and–
–And any second now, he was going to explode.
Lid on the stove. Water over the edges. Burn on the hand.
Your hand is on his leg. You’re looking at him. It takes him a moment to register. He feels miles away from his body. Eyes slanted with concern, you’re frowning at him.
“Are you okay?” you whisper. Never condescending; only caring. JJ gives a stiff nod and, purely because he can’t stand to see you look at him like that, like he’s something good, he turn his attention back to the front of the room.
“We are scheduled to hear from some of the members of the community,” boldly-locks in the glasses announces into the microphone. “Beginning with a representative from the occupants of the Roger’s Point property, which used to be the Maybank property.”
It’s funny how Maybank has been JJ’s last name his whole life, but hearing it this time, out loud, it doesn’t feel like he knows it anymore. He props an arm up on the stall’s edge, running his fingers over his lips. A representative, huh?
“Anybody feeling brave?” Kiara asks in a hushed tone.
Energy. JJ’s pushing up onto his feet. “I am. I got this.”
Your hand latches onto his arm before he’s fully risen.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” John B murmurs in alarm. JJ looks down at John B, then at you. You’re half-apologetic as you shake your head ‘no’.
“Sit down, okay?” Pope demands in a hiss.
“Not me, then. All right.”
When JJ reunites with the seat, it feels as though the pressure doubles. Your hand reaches for his; fingers intertwined with his. JJ lets your hold linger for a second, enough for you to know he isn’t angry at you, and then he lets you go. He’s too fidgety. Too clammy. Too much, too fast, too little time. You whisper with the others as you try and decide on a voice for the group and, soon enough, John B is volunteered forward. As he stands, JJ claps proudly. That’s his brother.
“Please state your name for the record.”
“I am John Booker Routledge.”
“Damn right,” JJ affirms. In his peripheral vision, he sees you nodding. Susciently, soundly, somewhat calmly, John B fights the Pogue’s corner. He asks the questions that all of you had been asking since this new curveball was fired. JJ felt like he used to be good at dodging things. His dad’s bunches; homework and detentions at school; juvenile and prison and consequence. But now, here, in this room, things are feeling less manageable. Things are feeling more real.
The lid. The stove. The pressure, building.
“Myself and Sarah…We both lost our fathers last year…”
JJ’s eyes squeeze shut. Like whiplash, images flash through his mind. Pictures. Words. ‘I’m not your real dad’. Something that feels like bile creeps up his throat but he forces it down. Your hand reaches out and clenches his knee reassuringly. Pressure. Energy. JJ’s foot taps anxiously against the tiled floor of the building. It’s building.
A kook stands up. Not any Kook. The kook. The prison master in this sick, twisted game that Figure Eight was playing with JJ’s life. He’s perfectly presentable in his black suit, grey hair combed without a single strand out of place, glasses perched innocently on his lightly wrinkled face as if he was destined to age like a fine wine. It’s easy to do that when you don’t know stress. When you don’t know fear.
“Excuse me. May I speak?” he oh-so-politely asks.
“Absolutely.”
“Thank you, Mayor. There seems to be a misunderstanding. Okay? And I think I can clarify.”
“Oh my God,” JJ mutters.
“What an asshole,” you murmur.
With John B’s permission, Mr Zeasy shuffles him out of place and takes over. He talks as though he was born on a soapbox, preaching down the sinners of The Cut, sneering at their poverty, scoffing at their struggle.
“So what the, uh, current occupants of the land don’t seem to understand is that there is an injunction to invalidate the most recent sale.”
JJ’s brows furrow. You shake your head.
“Wh–What does that mean? JJ, what does he mean?” you mumble, glancing at him.
“There was a pre-existing promissory note from the original owner that was in the process of benign finalised when the land auction took place.”
“What the fuck?” you whisper harshly. “Is that even legal? How is that legal?”
JJ can’t move. He can’t breathe. He can’t speak.
Stove. Pan. Lid. Water. Pressure.
“The bank wasn’t legally allowed to go to auction.”
“Bullshit,” JJ mutters. All of it. Everything. Everything was bullshit.
“We have a promissory note right here from the original owner, signed before the auction, and finalised by Judge Holden.”
The applause that follows the announcement feels like a thousand pinpricks into JJ’s eyes.
“That means our sale was invalid,” Pope tells Sarah.
The buzzing is back in JJ’s head. It’s louder now. Deafening. Overwhelming. He has to fight to hear the discourse occurring at the front of the room. His chest feels tight. His throat is closing up. His lungs can’t take in air. They’re shrinking. It’s too little, too much, not enough. Building. Building.
“And where is the original owner and can he validate the authenticity of this document?”
“Yes, he can. He’s right here.”
Mr Zeasy gestures down the aisle. JJ can’t bring himself to move. He’s stuck in place. Until he isn’t, and he’s turning, looking over his shoulder as the room heckles and hollers. There he is. Sitting then standing, taking off some dusty cap. He lingers like a fucking idiot. JJ’s vision blurs. Stove. Pan. Water. Tears. Pressure. Building.
Everything else fades away as Luke locks eyes with JJ. It’s hard to believe there’s any sincerity when he speaks.
“I’m sorry, J.”
It’s hilarious, actually. Everything that’s happened in the past forty-eight hours: what was he sorry for this time? Scratch that, not the past forty-eight hours. His whole life. His whole miserable, bitter existence. His life spent in poverty and in fear and in self-deprecating shadows. Because of Luke. Because of a man who might not even be his father. So, tell me dad, what are you sorry for this time?
JJ can’t take another moment staring at him. He turns back towards the front, bowing his head. His eyes are downcast to the floor. His shoes are dirty. They always are. You always offer to clean them for him but he never accepts. There’s no point, he’d say. JJ was never good at keeping clean.
“Isn’t it obvious? He signs the promissory note and in exchange, he gets amnesty.”
JJ’s jaw clicks. The townspeople are in uproar, hollering out, yelling for justice, frowning upon the inequality of the island. You’re on your feet too. Tossing your arm, yelling out in anger, the pain thick in your voice. Somewhere behind him, somewhere amongst the chaos, is the man JJ thought was his future. The man he thought he was destined to grow into. Why wouldn’t he? They look the same, talk the same, act the same. The hair, the mannerisms, the self-righteousness, the selfishness, the idiocy, the blinding, brimming anger that was always right there on the surface. The man who was JJ’s sign for a deadend - a deadend he was bound to find himself at too, with time. The man who pulled the rug out beneath him merely moments ago.
His head is buzzing. His chest is tight. His throat is dry. His heart is racing. His foot is tapping. His jaw is clenching. His rage is boiling. The pressure, building, building, building. Stove. Pan. Tears. Burn. Too much, too little, too fast. The buzzing is loud, deafening, like a migraine on steroids, and he can’t find a thought, can’t find anything to ground him. You’re not there. There’s no thought of you to invade in and to bring him peace.
It’s building, it’s building, it’s building.
Stove. Pan. Lid. Pressure.
Energy.
It feels like a dream when he pushes onto his feet. His body screams out for relief, for satisfaction, for something. The world lags around him, time dragging like molasses, and JJ feels as though he moves in slow motion as he walks down the aisle of the hall. In the blurring of his vision, there is a clear point of focus, like a road illuminated by headlights in the pitch black of night. Luke comes into view. His father. His dad. His abuser. JJ breezes past him. Makes a right.
Energy can’t be created or destroyed.
His hands grab onto a stray chair. His knuckles whitening with his tight grip on the wooden arms. It feels light as paper when he lifts it from the floor.
Energy can only be transferred.
The glass shatters in a beautiful array of shards as the chair pummels through the window. Daylight floods the room. A breeze brushes over his face as if saying thanks. The fresh air is a relief.
JJ can finally begin to breathe again.
An arm hooks around his neck and JJ’s flailing and throwing himself into action. He grunts and fights and elbows until the grip finally loosens. Another cop is approaching in the pin-point vision and JJ hurls his legs out, leaning back against his aggressor, and kicks the man away. An arm comes loose and JJ uses it to grab at the cop, and then he’s lurching himself forward, tossing the cop over him and onto the floor. Energy. He is full of energy. The first punch lands square on his cheek. The second just skims his jaw. His uniform is scratchy in JJ’s grasp as he holds his down. The man’s face is indistinguishable in the mist of his messy head. It’s Luke. It’s Groff. It’s Mr Zeasy.
The pain of the nightstick is numb when it collides with his back. JJ stumbles forward, grunting. He staggers up onto his feet, disorientated, confused. His vision becomes to sharpen and the room comes back into sight. It’s a cop on the floor. A bloody, bleeding cop.
Oh fuck.
Oh, fuck.
He wobbles back a few steps as his mind tries to catch up with the moment.
Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck.
Your hands grab at the lapels of his jacket. Your face is almost unrecognisable from the panic. But JJ can hear your voice loud and clear as you yell at him.
“Go! Get out of here! Go!”
You give him a push. Energy.
A cop is coming at him, fast. JJ runs out of the room, through the doors, and he grunts as the officer makes a grab for him near the main exit. The two fly out onto the porch and down the stairs. The pain is lessened from the adrenaline coursing through his veins. It’s pure survival instincts as he feels cops surround him, grabbing at him body, holding at his limbs, pushing him against a cop car’s bonnet. The metal is cool against the boiling hot skin of his face. He manages to wrangle an arm free and rams it into the cops face. He imagines it’s Luke’s. The hold on his other arm loosens and he manages to break free, wrestling against the forces.
“Get off me! Get off me, man!”
He’s shoved into the back of a cop car, head first. He grunts as he collides with soft cushions of the seats. But then there’s people at the window, slamming at the glass, yelling at him. No, no this is bad. This is really fucking bad. This is worse than the time JJ spilt wine on your favourite dress. It’s worse than when he accidentally hurt you whilst fooling around. It’s worse than when he thought you’d drowned on t he boat. It’s worse than when you burnt your hand at the stove. JJ looks around frantically but he’s surrounded by people. Everywhere.
What the fuck is going on?
It’s a reflex when he shields his face from the glass of the back window. Squinting, he sees a trainered foot kicking through it. He recognises those trainers. It’s you.
“Back up! Back up!” he yells out the window. It’s you. Pope’s by your side. JJ kicks out his leg and knocks out more glass, clearing a space. You’re there with the others, grabbing at his arms, trying to pull him out as he wriggles his way through the clearing, over the seats. His legs feel like jelly when he gets to his feet.
He stares blankly at John B and Pope, staggering backwards as they drive him away. Then you’re pushing through the two of them, grabbing at his face, simultaneously encouraging him away from you.
“Go! Run, JJ! Go!” you shout.
Never condescending; only caring.
JJ nods.
Energy.
JJ starts to run.
His feet pound rhythmically on the concrete. It’s endless, the energy pounding in his body. He could never be exhausted. For the first time in what feels like his whole life, JJ feels free. And as JJ runs through the abandoned streets of Kildare County, he feels like he’s chasing down the ghost of his father.
Who is he?
JJ had always thought he knew that answer. JJ Maybank: delinquent, future tax-evader, loyal friend, son of a lowlife. A Pogue. A grifter, a grinder. Despite all his ailments in his life, he had never needed to question where he came from. It was plain as day, clear as light, who JJ was. Who his father was. Who JJ would wind up being. Luke had told him so, with every hit he landed on his puppy-fat cheeks, with every slap swiping across his youthful face. Any blood drawn came with the assertion that this was what he deserved. This was who he was. A good for nothin’, low-life just like his father. A waste of space. A high school dropout.
He turns onto a side road and realises he’s heading for Main Street. It’s weird, seeing the town so hollow, nothing but a shell of its buildings. It unsettles him further. He could never run out of energy. JJ keeps running. In the distance, that figment never becomes clearer, never becomes closer. But he follows it anyway.
Luke looked like JJ. The blonde hair, now faded into shades of grey. The lips and the nose and the eyes. It was more than that; it was the temperament too. The frustration and the short fuse, passed down through genetics like an Olympic torch. At least, he thought. So, what did that mean? It was never inherited? Was JJ just fucked up from the start? What was that theory you were trying to teach him about - back when he had tried to win your affection, offering up study dates to help try and pick up his grades. Any excuse to be in your orbit. It’s nature versus nurture, JJ, you’d said, smiling sweetly. Your fingernails were rounded and painted pink, chipping at the tips, as you point at the diagrams. But JJ was watching you, he wasn’t paying much mind to the image. Look! Come on, you have to focus! He’d said something then, something to make you laugh, something that had you all flustered and blushing and him smirking. But then he’d looked. He’d listened. Some traits can be inherited from genes - nature - but some come from upbringing and environment - nurture.
Was that what this was? Nurture? Had all the years spent wrapped up in the daily missteppings of his father moulded JJ into some tormented, tainted failure. Had his soul been pure before and his future been clean and bright, and Luke had used his grubby hands to reshape it into something ugly as if JJ was nothing more than a scrap piece of clay. A scrap that could be thrown away.
He was thrown away, though. Wasn’t he? Groff didn’t want him. Groff didn’t care for him, not like Luke did. He didn’t feed him, didn’t bathe him, didn’t teach him how to fish, how to ride a bike, how to roll a cigarette. He didn’t care for him. He wasn’t a father. But Luke wasn’t either.
Luke wasn’t his father but he hit him like there was the same amount of honour ladened into every punch.
What did Groff look like? JJ can hardly picture his face in the dimming brightness of the streets. The streetlamps were coming on now. The hours were ticking away. Nobody around, time seemed to stand still. His steps ease up just slightly. He isn’t tired though. He just needs to concentrate more on what Groff looked like. But he can’t seem to formulate the picture in his mind. It’s blurs and snippets of shapes and colours. Blonde and white and shifty. Rich. Kook. No, fuck that, JJ wasn’t any Kook. He wasn’t. He couldn’t be. But still, for some reason, JJ finds himself obsessed.
Do I look like him?
Somewhere in the midst, JJ swiped a baseball bat. The whole journey is a daydream. A fever dream, really. It doesn't make sense. There’s no chronological order to it; just flashes of moments like a busted old film reel. You’re the star. You always were in JJ’s life. The brightness, untouched and untarnished, beaming bright on him. The thing he wished on and the thing he planned his life around. He can remember the break in your voice as you yell at him to run. He should run. JJ keeps running.
Something makes him stop. Crickets chirp. He’s panting but not nearly as much as he should be, right? Why isn’t he tired? You’d know. You know everything - maybe even more than Pope. Sirens wail in the distance like a warning. They’re coming. He pushes those thoughts away to the back of his mind. He tries to push that other thought away too, but it won’t budge. Instead, it stands front and centre like the banquet of a movie theatre. Do I look like him?
JJ realises he’s staring at the window of a shop. A jewellery shop. The lights are on because these Kooks can afford to keep the electricity running after hours. They’d never understand what it’s like to go without. To feel so hungry you think your stomach might start to digest itself. JJ knows that feeling - knows it well. JJ isn’t a Kook. A smile presses onto his face. It feels like breathing.
Energy.
He yields the bat and takes a swing. Bam! The glass shatters musically. It’s so beautiful the way it cracks and splinters. He swings the bat, licking at his lips, and saunters along the pavement. The alarm is like an accompaniment to his symphony of vandalism. The door’s window break is a little tougher; JJ grunts. Glancing inside, his eyes latch onto one of the displays. The silver ring glints temptingly in the fluorescents like it’s from Lord of the Rings. You flash through his mind. The images of you that he saved in that corner he hardly liked to go in, too scared of the world in which it might not come true. Images of you and him, married, happy, you round-bellied, a house and a dog and a life with him. With a nobody like him because JJ was not a Kook.
But, do I look like him?
He’s delicate as he removes it from the mannequins hand. He studies it closer and feels settled on his choice. This’ll look good on your hand. You deserve nice things.
“Thank you,” he says, pocketing it. JJ staggers back onto the road. His eyes glance down the empty street and he’s relieved to find the ghost has faded away. Sirens whir like a doomsday call.
“Oh, here they come,” he grins. “Okay. So, y’all wanted one island, huh?”
He approaches a car. He’s never owned a car. Never been gifted one for his eighteenth; never thought that he’d manage to afford anything nice, either. Just a banged-up, second-hander. That’s the life of a Pogue. JJ wasn’t a Kook.
“I’ll give you it,” he grunt, hurling his bat at the vehicle. “Over here, fellas! Y’all wouldn’t want to miss the game.”
Every hit he takes feels like a stone lifted off his shoulders.
The fuse box causes a magnificent explosion, akin to a supernova on earth, and JJ flinches as sparks crackle out. Energy can’t be destroyed. Rooky error.
“Let’s play ball.”
The trashcan clatters as if falls to the floor. Trash spews out onto the street. JJ digs about in his pocket, muttering, and procures his lighter. It’s the one you got him for his sixteenth. The flame flickers.
“Let’s really light it up.”
The fire catches quick. He remembers that from when the chateau burnt down. There’s fun in the chaos, JJ finds, singing under breath and taking swings at windows and doors like they’re nothing more than targets on a fairground game. Every splint of glass is like resolution for JJ. Every hit is like catharsis.
“Oh, that felt good.”
The mannequins are undeterred by his violence. It reminds him of you. You never once budged whenever he’d spiral. Would you budge now, after this?
“Where are my manners?” JJ wonders jovially. His hand cups at the plastic dolls and he guides his lips down to the back of it. The same hand that you had the burn on. His teasing continues on with every toss of the bat. His eyes glance over the male mannequin. The blonde wig and the uppity suit. Did Groff wear suits? What was he wearing when JJ met him?
Do I look like him?
He doesn’t want to think about that right now. No, no, he can’t. It’s too little, too much, too fast. He was just starting to feel in control again. He grabs for the bar stool and builds up some power before tossing it through the window a cafe. Energy. JJ is pure energy. He’s chaos reincarnated. Babylon humanified.
He admires his work like an emperor surveying his kingdom. Just how he imagined the Kooks to do so once they capture his land, his home, his life.
But was it ever his? What is his life, if more than half of it is a lie? What does that amount to then? What does that leave? What’s left of him if he doesn’t have himself - his identity?
Who is he?
JJ takes off running again. This time, he feels like he’s being chased. The figment, the ghost, whoever the hell it is, is behind him now. Haunting him. Hasn’t he always felt haunted? By his mother, by his father. By his future. JJ runs faster. The sirens are like lines of cocaine, propelling his legs ahead. He glacnes frantically left and right and takes a sudden turn.
The streetlamps cast the streets in an eerie orange glow. The trees look like figures looming by the roadside. The houses and buildings lights are mostly off. Dogs bark, sirens echo. A sign comes into sight as if he was guided to it by some divine force. Zeast Realtors. JJ smiles knowingly at his new best friend.
“Light her up.”
The stairs don’t creak as he makes his way up the building. His stairs always creaked. They were rotten. Mice lived under his house as a kid. His family house that no longer holds any significance in his life, just the way his name doesn’t. JJ is without a name.
The alarm fires off the moment the glass shatters on the door. It’s embarrassingly easy to get inside. Within the office are plans laid out like a villainous layer. Plots and plans for:
“A new figure Eight.”
JJ loses it. Whatever remaining grasp of control he had on his inhibition is wiped away like his childhood. Glasses and picture frames and ornaments and business cards: nothing is safe from his bat.
“What’s fair is fair! Huh?”
But it isn’t helping like it was before. He doesn’t feel lighter. He feels like he’s sinking, down and down. Why isn’t it helping? JJ batters more things, hoping for it to change, hoping for everything to change. He wants to wake up now. He wants to wake up in his bed, beside you, and have you hold him and kiss him and ask him about what had him moving so much in the night. He wants you to make a joke on how it was keeping you up. He wants his life back.
A framed photograph of Mr Zeasy sits pretty on the mantle. JJ studies it for a moment. Scans over the pressed suit and the quiffed hair and the stagnant smile. The falseness that lies in the act of being proper. His reflection catches in the light. JJ’s face twists in disgust.
“No way am I a kook.”
The sirens are suddenly very loud. Shit. JJ ducks down out of sight from the windows. His back presses tightly against the cabinets. It grounds him. Shit. His head hangs and his lips purse and his mind reels. This is it. Luke was right. He was a lowlife, a delinquent, a failure. He’ll spend his life in prison. Fuck, he can’t think of how many charges he’s racked up by now. It might be a new record. Maybe for ocne his dad would be proud of him. That’s all he ever wanted.
“This is what I was talking about, son!” Shoupe hollers out.
Son. Son to who?
Who is he?
“You’ve gone too far and we’ve got a serious situation.”
He isn’t Luke.
“I told you this shit would happen and here we are.”
He isn’t Groff.
“I need you to put down any and all weapons you may have, or you will get shot.”
JJ rises to his feet.
“I don’t want that, so just come on out with your hands up.”
He isn’t anybody, anymore.
“JJ, listens up, son-”
“No, you listen up Shoupe!” JJ hollers. “I’m not just gonna come out there so you can take what's ours and let them win again. It was ours, fair and square. So I have a right to fight for what’s mine.”
“JJ! Can you hear me?”
It’s Kiara.
“Just, please, do what they say! This is getting dangerous!”
“No!” JJ shouts. His anger twists. “I’m done kissing the feet of people who’ve taken from me my entire life!”
His voice cracks. Tears sting at his eyelids and he wills them away. It’s not fair. None of this is fair. He was happy: truly, really happy. Maybe he’s cursed. Maybe he isn’t meant to be happy. Maybe that’s who he is.
“Y’all might have given up,” JJ shouts. He swallows. Everything hurts. To himself, he makes a stand. “But I’m not done fighting.”
“So, Shoupe. You want me, you’re gonna have to come get me.”
He starts quickly down the hallway. The beckonings from the cops sounds like the devil trying to lure Eve in to bite from the apple. The sound of whistling and crackling has him ducking for cover. Bullets.
“Jesus Christ.”
No, not bullets. Fireworks. He looks up to find a microwave. His mind works fast. What would you do? Something smart. Think, JJ, Goddamnit. Think!
‘Metals are conductors’, you explain as you stir the mixture in the beaker. JJ’s toying with the bunsen burner, mesmerised by the flames in a way that has you joking he’s an arsonist. ‘Fun fact about it is that if you put it in a microwave it starts sparking and shit. It can even start fires. Something about it reflects the microwaves. It acts like a mirror. Pretty cool, huh?’
JJ scrambles in the kitchen for cutlery. He comes up with a handful of forks and crams them into the microwave. He starts it up and smacks it farewell. Thank God for you and your wonderful mind. There’s no time to waste; JJ races up the staircase of the building. There’s chaos outside. People yelling. He can hear Sarah and Kie’s screams. They’ll be fine. He can’t help them, for once in his life. Maybe he never could. He opens the window and steps out onto the roof. He closes it behind him. Leave no trace, just like his childhood.
He teeters on the edge of the roof and looks down. Shit, that’s a hell of a drop. They’ll be behind him, though, hot on his trail. There’s no time. Sucking in a breath, JJ prepares himself for the landing before jumping off the roof. The metal of the car smacks against his skin and side. JJ’s knee shifts uncomfortably when he makes contact and he grunts. Rolling off onto the grass, he takes a second to check that he’s really alive.
“JJ.”
He blinks and looks up. It’s you.
“Oh my God, JJ,” you mutter, dropping to your knees.
“What–Where–”
“It’s just me, I slipped away from the others, they don’t know I’m here,” you hurry out. You’re hands on his body, helping him up. JJ grunts and registers a dull ache in his leg. The adrenaline works well as pain relief. “We gotta go. Now.”
“No, no, I can’t drag you into this,” JJ panics, trying to shake you off him.
There’s a humour in your eyes as you tell him, “I was already in this. Come on.”
There’s no time to be wasted in arguing. JJ complies and the two of you take off running down the street. You’re guiding the way. JJ doesn't question it. He trusts you. Hell, you might be the last person on earth that he trusts truly and deeply. The limp in his leg slows him down so he lingers behind by a few steps. Your hair is swaying as you race down the street. The streetlamps bask you in an ethereal glow. There’s small cuts on your legs from where you broke the glass of the cop car to break him out. JJ can’t believe you’re here.
“Come on, through here. I know somewhere we can lay low and think,” you tell him. JJ doesn’t ask any questions. The two of you pant as you run down the road. Soon enough, you come to what looks like an abandoned barn. You guide the two of you around the back and push back some metal siding. It reveals a hole big enough to crawl through. You go first and JJ follows, careful to secure the siding back once the two of you are inside. There’s blind patting around before you let out a sigh of relief, and JJ can hear the rattle of something in a box. When you light a flame, he realises it’s a box of matches. Your face comes into view in the faint light and you look around for something. A candlestick that sits in an old-timey holder is balanced on an old piece of machinery. You take it and light it, and place it back. There’s enough light to make out JJ’s face and his yours.
For a moment, the two of you just stare at one another. Then you’re hurling your arms around his shoulders and pulling him against you.
“Oh my God, JJ, I was so worried about you,” you tell him into his shoulder. JJ slowly coils his arms around your body. The warmth of your skin through your dress is like medicine. He tugs you tight against him and suddenly can’t think of anything worse than letting you go. His face buries into your neck and he breathes in the smell of you. It sends him back through time; through adventures and restless nights and sleepless mornings and peaceful evenings and joyful afternoons and mornings spent in Physics class together.
His mind clears enough from the imminent panic of survival that it can make space for that one damning thought.
Do I look like him?
JJ isn’t aware that he’s crying until your running a hand up and down his back soothingly. You shush him gently, almost swaying him, and JJ can’t help but cry more and more. His fingers grapple desperately at your dress and he tries to pull you impossibly closer. He can’t lose you too. He’s lost everything he knows: his dad, his mother, his house, his life, his freedom. He can’t lose you too.
“Are you okay? Are you hurt? Lemme see you,” you worry, unfortunately pulling away from him. Your hands are soft as they brush over the skin of his face, sweeping hair off his forehead, swiping tears off his cheeks. Your smile is sweet and tender when he looks at you through wet eyes. “Are you hurt?”
“Do…” JJ can’t find his breathe. Your brows tug together slightly.
“Does something hurt?”
Everything.
“Do I…” JJ gasps for air and clenches his eyes shut. He knows how it will sound. Like a petulant, pathetic child asking his dad what ‘JJ’ stands for. Like an idiotic, dreaming infant asking his dad where his mother is. Like a useless, stupid teenager asking his girlfriend: “do I look like him?”
When he opens his eyes, you’re studying him, confused and concerned. He thinks you might not have heard him.
“Do I look like him?”
You lick your lips. “Do you…Are you meaning Groff?”
JJ almost winces. He sniffs and nods, trying to steel himself. His shoulders square. He stares at you and waits. Your mouth moves as if to form words but nothing comes out. Sighing, you study him - really look at him - and then you give a half-smile. It’s solemn and sombre.
“No, JJ. I don’t think you look like him. Not really.”
JJ’s eyes press shut. A sob wracks up his throat. He suddenly realises that he wasn’t sure which answer he wanted to hear. Which answer would hurt the least?
I don’t look like him.
“What’re you thinking right now?” you whisper.
JJ swallows thickly. He wipes roughly at his cheeks with the back of his sleeves. You’re expression breaks his heart when he meets your gaze. Your hand cups his cheek, thumb sweeping over his skin like a mother soothing her child in their sleep. JJ wonders if his mother ever did that to him.
He doesn’t know who he is anymore, but he can try and find out. There’s only one way to do that.
“I need to go see Groff.”
Your eyes flicker with withheld surprise. But you’re good at saving face. Smiling, nodding, you back him like you did since day one, sat side by side in physics class due to the fates of a seating plan. From strangers to classmates to lab partners to friends to lovers. And the love you had for him, the love JJ had for you; that was the most powerful energy he'd ever known. An energy that could never be destroyed.
“Okay,” you say quietly, nodding. “Let’s get you to Groff’s.”
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