Just got a sudden craving to go back writing Jiara fics (the ones I’ve had in my head since forever/left unfinished in the drafts and lost the motivation for obvious reasons) but there’s still a part of me that’s wondering if it’s worth it and if anyone would still even be interested in reading them, Jiara my beloved you never deserved this ❤️🩹
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
Pairing: Kiara/JJ
Summary: "He knew Mom listened to the soft stuff and Dad listened to the hard stuff. He also knew he had to pick the hard stuff too, every time, if he didn't want his ears ringing from things other than the music that filled their hallways."
or, Kiara helps JJ remember his mom in a better light with the help of music.
after sarah doesn’t invite kiara to her birthday party (a jj x kiara fic)
author : theouterbankpogues aka vi
fandom : jj x kie, jiara | outer banks on netflix
tags : the angst, the fluff, the hurt, the comfort y’know!!
warnings : none
i love writing for this ship bc it has a chokehold on me and i just... i’m so helpless lmao. i read this hc set by @lemon-patches (which you should definitely go and read bc it’s amazing and all the feelings) and it talked about how jj and ki were each other’s first kiss and no one else knows. this is basically how i imagine it happened. enjoy!! as always the validation feeds me so yeah if you like it pls share it and stuff (i love reading tags on reblogs so lmao do with that what u will). i imagine they are 15/16, about 6-8 months before s1 idk if that adds up but lol thats what i went with. sorry for any errors u may find xx
a little preview so u know what you’re getting into hehe: “They stood like that for a while, long and quiet breaths synced, arms entangled in waist and shoulders, hearts rhythmically beating, just enjoying the warmth of the best friend they dearly missed.”
Tears streamed down Kiara’s face. She knew that calling the cops was petty, she knew it was the worst of her manifesting itself, but tonight Ki couldn’t bring herself to care. She found herself toppling some books off of her bookshelf. She had always known that she wasn’t good enough for Sarah. The Sarah Cameron. God, she felt so stupid.
Another wave of regret coursed through her. The pit of her stomach hollowed when she re-remembered that she’d actually listened to her parents and decided to give her kook year a genuine try. She had distanced herself from the cut and the pogues, her best friends, the people that she could always count on, the people who always cared. She gave it all up for the superficial bullshit she knew would eventually fall apart.
That entire evening, the anger and regret approached her in harsh and unforgiving turns. She couldn’t escape her own thoughts, she was so mad at herself. She had let herself become vulnerable, given herself up for someone to use and dispose. She felt so weak. All she really wanted to do was fit in, to have a normal year where she wasn’t disappointing her parents, where she wasn’t out at unreasonable hours getting her friends out of messes, watching their string of luck grow thinner and thinner with every prank and practical joke. She was tired of being the middle between the kooks and pogues, she loved the latter and she could’t escape the part of her that was the former. She just wanted to resign to one side, she just wanted things to get easier. Kiara had decided to leave everything for some peace of mind, and now she knew she’d made a mistake. She hadn’t even checked in with John B, his dad was missing and she hadn’t even checked in with him. God, she felt so stupid. Her sobs overtook her as she sat at her bed.
She was so exhausted from the crying she could scream, it had been a few long hours. And Ki, in a moment of clarity, convinced herself that she was too strong for that. Even though she felt horrible, she reminded herself that she was too careful to let this anger get the best of her. Instead, she resorted to taking a few deep breaths and cleaning up the various books and stationary strewn across her bedroom floor as a remnant of her anger. What had happened had happened, she was just going to have to figure out how to cope on her own.
Yeah, I just have to figure it out on my own. I’ll be fine.
That’s when she heard it.
Thud.
Thud. Thud.
Thud.
‘What the-’
She realised that the sound was coming from her window. Stepping toward the side of her room facing the balcony, she realised that pebbles were currently being thrown at her window by a silhouette below it. She couldn’t tell who it was because the backdoor lights had been switched off for the night. It was well past midnight and her parents were soundly sleeping in the next room, she swore she would never forgive the person currently trying to break her window if they woke up. She didn’t want anyone to see her as the mess she was right now. So as quickly and as safely as Kiara could, she opened the balcony window, “What the actual— JJ? JJ is that you?” Kiara couldn’t really understand what was going on, she had stopped talking to the pogues months ago.
“Yeah, hey Ki! Come down!”
“What?”
“You heard me bro, get dressed and come down!”
After a curt nod, she went back into her room, changed out of her PJ’s into some joggers and a hoodie and found herself sneaking out the back door out of genuine curiosity. When she was outside, she realised that neither Pope nor John B were with JJ. Along with that, she realised that he had two boxes of pizza and some beer cans set down on the grass next to him.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
“I was scrolling through Instagram, realised you weren’t at the party, thought you might need a pick me up,” He seemed to register her tired face and puffy eyes under the dim starlight because he continued, “guess I was right!”
And that’s how, twenty minutes later, JJ and Ki found themselves in a clearing near her house. They sat down opposite each other, the pizza boxes separating them.
“Got your favourite, double cheese, double pepperoni and half the jalapeño.”
Except for the occasional direction here and there, Ki had been quite their entire walk. She couldn’t really even process what was happening. How was JJ here? Why was he talking to her after she’d treated them him like shit the past few months? None of it made sense to her, least of all why this was all from JJ. With all of it perplexing her, the only thing she managed to say was, “You remembered.”
‘Yeah of course I did Ki, just because you stopped talking to us doesn’t mean we stopped caring about you. Come on, dig in, it’s getting cold.”
She didn’t know how to respond to him so she just followed him in picking up a slice from the box. Warm pizza , cold beer and melted cheese heavily complemented the gentle breeze that surrounded them. They fell into a comfortable silence as they ate.
“I’m so sorry.”
“I know Ki-”
“No, everything I did these past few months, the way I cut you guys off, the way I left y’all when you needed me I-”
“Ki we know-”
“God, I’ve been so stupid, I left you guys, like y’all were nothing, y’all needed me and I-”
“Ki, Ki-” Ki just continued, she felt horrible, “KIARA!” JJ saying her full name was so foreign to her, especially since he hadn’t even call her by her nickname these past few months, it undoubtably got her to stop talking.
“I know the pressure your parents put on you to start at that kook academy. Look we all know how hard it is for you to manage these two parts of your life. I know Ki, you don’t have to keep apologising, I know. We know! Why do you think we didn’t try to talk to you when you told us last summer? We want you to do what’s best for you Ki, you are better than us.” At that, Kiara got up and paced back and forth a few steps, remorse hitting her unbearably.
“I’m not better than any of you. A part of me wanted to leave you all behind.”
JJ’s response was almost instantaneous, “I don’t blame you for it!”
“Well you should! I left you and Pope. I left John B for god’s sake. His dad is most probably dead and I wasn’t theRE.... I-I’m not there.”
At this point the tears had returned to her and she broke on her last word. Her voice wasn’t steady anymore. “I left all of you... I left you.”
JJ couldn’t stand hearing Ki like this, there’s nothing he hated more than having to let down his guard and get real. But JJ, when she said that, realised that this wasn’t about him.
“Yeah Ki you did, but fuck that. We know you love us, we know that it was a difficult call! You have to forgive yourself. The reason I came tonight was to let you know that you have the people that care about you Ki.”
He stepped toward her and looked her right in the eye, Ki had never seen someone so determined with compassion before, “Whatever you do Ki - if you wanna go to the kook academy, if you wanna be friends with Sarah Cameron, if you wanna cry about how horribly she treated you, if you wanna listen to your parents and not talk to us, if you wanna leave the cut- we’re never not going to have your back. You’re a pogue. You’re our pogue! And if Sarah Cameron can’t see how kickass you are, she doesn’t deserve you and she never did. You got us Ki, we’re always right here. No matter what.”
And throughout all of that, he hadn’t stopped looking directly at her. She was enamoured to say the least, she couldn’t remember the last time JJ talked about something that real, let alone carry an entire conversation himself. Knowing her words wouldn’t suffice, she hugged him. She smelt the sea salt in his hair and pizza grease on his shirt and it was the epitome of comfort to her. JJ hugged her right back, it meant the world to him that he could make her feel at least a bit better. They stood like that for a while, long and quiet breaths synced, arms entangled in waist and shoulders, hearts rhythmically beating, just enjoying the warmth of the best friend they dearly missed.
Before they could completely untangle from the other, Ki looked back at JJ, god, how did she get so lucky to have someone like him in her life? The air lightened around them as she looked at him, his eyes regained the mischievous glint they always had. It might’ve been because she was slightly tipsy, or because he was staring so intently at her, but for some reason, it felt right. There was no waiting or thinking, she rested her hands on either side of JJ’s face and kissed him. His lips were chapped and they tasted like beer but she loved it. A rush of adrenaline ran through her, it was new and exciting.
When JJ processed her soft lips on his, and her hands caressing his face, he pulled back. Along with confusion and surprise, there was something in his eyes that Ki couldn’t recognise. But before she decided on asking him what it was about, he was already kissing her again.
And this time there seemed to be nothing holding him back. His hands were wrapped around her waist, she was grabbing fistfuls of his hair in reciprocation. They knew that they would never be able to do it again so they just gave in. His hands travelled to the small of her back and her neck and she swore that she had never felt something more intoxicating.
Ki had forgotten where they even were when they broke for air. They were both just breathing, eyes closed and foreheads touching, it was the closest thing to perfect the either of them had ever felt.
When they opened their eyes and looked back at one and other, they were surprised at how comfortable it felt. How... un-awkward, it oddly felt right. But they knew what the rules were, they knew that when Ki got home, they would never talk about it again, and they were fine with that too.
As they approached her doorstep, JJ couldn’t help himself but ask, “Was that your first-” “Yeah.” “Yeah, mine too.” “What?” Kie thought he was joking, JJ had flirted with every other tourist at the boneyard since they were like ten, “Mine, too.” He repeated. There was an honesty to his response that stopped Ki from asking any further.
She hugged him again. “Thank you for this. I missed you.” He hugged her right back.
“I missed you too. When you come back to us, more beer will be waiting for you no questions asked, don’t ever doubt it.” With that, he placed a soft kiss on her forehead and left.
Ki had a small smile playing on her lips; she had never felt lighter in her life.
Maybe I need to write my own S5 fanfic in which JJ comes back and Kiara is by his side again, just to get over this… ‘cause I gotta be honest, one of the things that’s crushing my soul the most is how at the moment I can’t even read Jiara fics, I can’t see JJ’s face on my timeline and not even read his name without seeing him die in front of my eyes and remember that he doesn’t have happiness anymore.
It just makes me so fucking sad that I can’t even think about my comfort character not even in ff anymore and not even watch his scenes back in my comfort show because all I can think about is how he doesn’t exist anymore and he can never be there anymore, never be part of the story anymore and never have that beautiful future we all imagined for him. They took what brought the most happiness to us and turned it into what brings us the most pain. That’s why I don’t even find enjoyment in OBX anymore altogether, they took away what brought that joy.
What I hate the most is how what was my comfort and one of the things I was most passionate about just some days ago, now it’s completely ruined for me. I loved writing and reading for Jiara, it brought me so much comfort and joy and now I can’t bring myself to do it, one of my favorite things to actually do in my daily life and one of the pieces of fiction I was most attached to just ripped away in 5 minutes.
I’ll have to try and write an alternative version in which JJ is still here and has that life he deserves just to cope, even just for myself so I can go back to connect with my comfort character and go back to enjoy those stories in which HE LIVES LIFE and that I loved through the years and that spark my writing.
Maybe I’m wrong and I should just be speaking for myself but I think that for many of us they killed Outer Banks with JJ.
You know what? Fuck it, maybe I am gonna write those Jiara fics I had in mind since forever 'cause if I'm not gonna watch S5 and end this show anyway, then I might as well pretend S4 doesn't exist either. The show ended with S3, everything after that is all up to us in fic.
GOODBYE CANON OBX, thank you for your 4 years of service but we'll take it from here!
Reading Jiara fics was almost part of my daily after a long day, I’ve been trying since yesterday to go back to some of my favorites for comfort but now I can’t even read about them being happy in ff without feeling so much sadness… I hope I’ll find my comfort back soon, at least in those fics I have always loved and helped bringing them to life 💔