#this is the end of the episode asks where i have to unload salt... thank you all for coming to my gripe-y bitch-y ted talks <3< /div> Explore tagged Tumblr posts

[s-brant]

Angels Roll Their Eyes (2/2)

(gif: @toesure) (PART ONE)

Summary: Hurricane Agatha approaches Kildare Island during the aftermath of the eventful Fourth of July party. JJ and Y/N are determined to continue avoiding each other after what happened at the party, but John B has other plans for them.

Warnings: Smut, strong language, angst, implied physical abuse, depictions of anxiety/panic attacks, and sickeningly sweet fluff.

Word Count: 24k

A/N: Here we goooo! To celebrate the trailer dropping today, here’s part two to Devils Roll The Dice. If you haven’t read the first part, I suggest you read it and come back so this makes sense. This one has all the drama and spice, so buckle up! Thank you for the love and support on the first part. Let me know if you enjoyed this and have fun, cause I had a blast writing it.

Hurricane Agatha.

It was the first thing she heard about as soon as she woke up yesterday to the sound of her phone blaring with an obnoxious tone that reminds her of waking up too early in the morning for work or school.

Her sleepy eyes couldn't make out who was calling, so she pressed the button to answer and lifted the phone to hear her mom's voice squawking through the speaker at her about the hurricane projected to hit the island in the middle of the night tonight.

The problem is, her parents are out of town this week, leaving her all alone to prep the house and endure the storm alone. And for someone who flinches whenever she thinks she hears the sound of thunder in the sky, that is the worst it can get.

It's a fear her friends are conscious of. One time when they were out on the HMS Pogue, a quick summer storm started to drift overhead and it took all of her self control to not fall into a blind panic when thunder began to rumble above. John B was already steering them back in the direction of the Chateau but she knew it would do nothing to calm her nerves until she was back inside of the house.

The anxiety was starting to become too overwhelming when JJ sat down beside her and threw his arm over her shoulder. It was their first month of knowing one another, so the casual friendly gesture made her jump at first and turn her head to look at him, but he acted like everything was normal.

The next person to notice was John B. With JJ currently out of commission, the only person she thought to call to help her prep the house for the incoming storm was him. Since they never got hurricanes up where she used to live her whole life, she needed someone who's been through a couple to help her while her parents weren't home.

That's how she ended up here. Sweating bullets in the front yard of her house as she unloads the contents of the van with John B was not how she envisioned her Saturday night to go, but she's glad she has someone who's willing to help.

In the past five months of being with the Pogues, she's learned that it's lovely to have friends. She never used to have any before she moved, so in situations like this or when she got so drunk at the party, she never would've had anyone to be there for her. It's quiet moments of kindness and companionship like this that make her realize how much better life has been on the other side of uprooting everything to move here—self-inflicted boy drama and all.

The sandbag on her shoulder sends a growing ache through her back muscles with every step she takes to follow him up the length of unpaved dirt path up to her front door. As usual, he makes it look way easier than it is, and it almost makes her want to laugh at how different they are.

Most of her new friends are effortless, naturally picking up anything they decide to try at while she is inept by comparison. It's part of what attracted her to JJ in the first place. He may have his insecurities the same way every other individual does, but in her eyes, he has nothing to be insecure of. Even when he wipes out on a wave and appears out of the water with sand clumped in his salt-kissed strands of blonde hair, he manages to make it look cool.

"What are you smiling about?"

John B's laughter makes her look up from where she concentrated on the dirt path to see him looking back at her. He stands at the entrance to her house with the rest of the sandbags they carried up placed meticulously in front of the door to prevent water from entering the house. They did the same thing with the back door an hour ago.

Is she smiling? She hadn't even realized her expression changed from one of exhaustion and fear at the dark clouds closing in above to a grin, so her face instantly drops in guilt. After running out on JJ for the second time two days ago to go to work, any mention of him from their friends has left her drowning in shame.

She can't recall the bulk of her memories from the night of the Fourth of July party, but she fills in the gaps between those flashes of memory with what their friends told her about it.

Thanks to her overindulgence, there are holes poked in the fabric of her memory.

It jumps from her last fully sober moment of seeing JJ across the room with the kook girl to dancing clumsily with Kie to the floral scent of her makeup wipes that she can't attach a specific visual image to.

Then, she can remember waking up with a start in the middle of the night to throw up in a pot beside the bed while he held back her hair. Before John B explained it, she was quite confused after waking up about how she somehow got from being jealous over JJ flirting with another girl to waking up in the same bed as him.

She grunts as she plops the last sandbag down into place and decides to take a seat on the steps leading up to the door.

"It wasn't anything special," Y/N says and watches him come down to sit next to her, "I was just thinking about taking something so I can pass out and avoid having a panic attack over this stupid storm."

Unlike JJ, she isn't that skilled of a liar. It's obvious to anyone who knows her well when she does it based on the way her eye contact begins to drift away and her voice raises in pitch when she speaks. She's too honest with her friends to handle keeping secrets from them, which is why it's been so difficult for her with everything that has happened recently. Not only does she lie to the Pogues, she also avoids them by association in the process of trying to avoid JJ.

Regardless of how obvious her bluffing is, John B doesn't call her out on it. Instead, he focuses on a different part of what she said.

"Are you sure you're gonna be okay alone? I know your parents are out of town till next week..." he trails off into concerned silence.

The tip of her sneaker hangs off of the edge of the bottom step and absentmindedly digs a line into the dirt as she takes in his question.

Being alone when she's prone to panicking is a recipe for disaster. Anxiety and loneliness have a relationship similar to that of a weapon and ammunition. It takes very little for her to fall down the rabbit hole of obsessive thinking and break down into a hyperventilating, fearful mess, especially when no one else is there to tug her out of those dark thoughts.

Most of the time, the people who help her with that are her parents. If they're home during one of these episodes, she'll come stumbling downstairs to them from her room for help, and they'll do everything they can to bring her down from hysterics. Her friends, on the other hand, have yet to witness her have one of those moments.

"Having people with me helps, you know? But it is what it is, I'll just try to cope the best I can and hope for the best."

He nods, and though he's a portrait of understanding, she wonders if he finds it as juvenile and stupid as she does.

Logically, she knows that this anxiety is something many people experience. She understands that it's something that is mostly out of her control but can't help but tear herself apart over it.

She thinks to herself, What kind of weirdo can't sit inside during a thunderstorm or hurricane without losing their shit? Why am I not the one in control of my own mind when this happens?

Do her friends think similar things? Do they think it's as pathetic as she does, or is she just paranoid that they pick her flaws apart as much as she does? And, of course, she wonders what JJ would think if he saw her panic like that. He may have seen her start to become anxious on the HMS Pogue, but he hasn't seen her panic panic before, not in the way that her parents have, and she wonders if he'd think less of her for it.

Right when she's about to change the topic and steer him away from a chance to think of how ridiculous she's being about the approaching hurricane, he says something that makes her look back over at him.

"Then come spend the night at the Chateau. I can distract you. We can play board games and shit."

"Really?" she asks.

The idea of anyone wanting to waste an entire night playing board games and possibly signing themselves up for having to talk her down from a panic attack makes her heart melt.

"Yeah, why not? You need a friend tonight. You know any of us would do anything for you. You're like my little sister, dude, we'd all probably hack off a limb if we thought it'd help you. Especially JJ."

John B's last second name-drop is designed specifically for where he wants this conversation to go. Underneath the need to get his friends back to normal, he does feel a little guilty for having to do this. She thinks he's only offering to let her stay with him to help her—and he is, even if there weren't a rift between her and JJ, he'd still offer—but he has a different reason.

"Right," she says softly. "Speaking of which...is he gonna be there tonight?"

With how often he escapes his house to spend a night or two in temporary safety at the Chateau, it's not an unfounded assumption. He and John B spend more time together than any of them because of this, and when she goes over to hang out, she knows that he and JJ often come as a package deal.

He tries to play it cool and not give up anything that could make her suspicious of him, looking off at the van parked in the driveway as he takes a second to collect his thoughts. It's never easy for him to deceive people he cares about, even if it's for their own good. It wasn't easy when he invited JJ to spend the night a few hours ago with the knowledge that he'd soon invite Y/N too either, but he managed.

As always, Pope is the brains behind this operation. He was the one to suggest inviting them both over to wait out Agatha together when the three of them put their heads together to come up with a solution to their oblivious friends' drama. After JJ stormed out of the house the morning after the party, they knew they had to do something about it. This was what it came to.

"Nah. I offered but he said he's staying at home until this whole thing blows over."

He isn't sure why she buys into it.

She knows JJ well enough to know that he would literally rather eat glass than be trapped in a confined space with his dad for an entire day. Perhaps it's only because it's what she wants to believe. She wants to believe that she won't have to see him again tonight after everything that happened. How can she handle having to tell him why got so drunk that night and made an ass of herself? She can't bear to tell him all of that unnecessary drama started because she was jealous.

What right does she have to feel that way? He isn't hers. They aren't together, and she thinks it's quite obvious that he doesn't want a relationship out of whatever it is they have together. It was one night. She has no right to be mad at him for flirting with other girls because of it.

"Then I'll definitely be taking you up on that offer. Thank you," she says.

The old wooden stairs make a squealing sound when she stands to make her way inside to gather her things for the night, but the feeling of a warm hand gripping her forearm stops her mid-step. Her eyes follow down the length of her arm back to where he sits, glancing at her with this knowing look in his eyes that makes her want to turn and hide.

"When are you gonna talk things out with him, Y/N?" he asks. "He misses you."

Since the party, no one has had the courage to burst her bubble of pretending not to care until now, but now that someone has, all of her bottled up emotions stir inside of her at a simple concept she hadn't considered yet.

JJ misses her.

For the first time since they began this stupid game of cat and mouse, she is confronted with how desperately she misses him back. So consumed with the task of concealing everything that happened and trying to avoid him, she hadn't acknowledged that all she ever really wants is to be with him lately.

She misses his jokes and the way he looks at her when she giggles at them. She misses his smile when they play fight on the HMS Pogue. She even misses when he dangles her over the edge of the boat as a means to end the wrestling match, making her squirm in his strong hold as he threatens to toss her overboard.

But what she misses most of all is how he never lets her fall in. It's something about the way he looks at her as he pulls her back onboard, how time itself seems to stop in the moment between when he's still holding her and when she feels her feet touch the deck again.

Then, they'll suddenly want nothing to do with each other for the next half hour.

JJ will make himself busy forgetting the way her hands felt holding onto his shoulders for dear life, burning the memory of her palm prints into his skin for the next few hours. And she'll try her hardest to forget that charming smile and the feeling of his arms around her. But it won't work, not really, and when they're both laying down to sleep at night, they'll have one thing keeping them awake.

She takes a second to internalize what he said and avoid exposing the effect it has on her to hear it before asking, "Did he tell you that?"

The sky overhead grows darker and darker by the second, but she has yet to notice it due to the topic of their conversation. With JJ involved, her attention shrinks to a tunnel leading only to him. There's no room for anything else but the audacious idea planted in the back of her mind that he might miss her as much as she misses him.

"No, he didn't," John B admits, and right when she's about to say more in response, he cuts her off, "but hear me out. I've known him since we were kids, so I can tell when things aren't right with him, and ever since your relationship with him got complicated, I picked up on some weird vibes."

Y/N doesn't give anything away with how she reacts. He can't tell if she's about to bolt like JJ did or stay to talk and open up to him. All she does is cross her arms over her chest and lean back against the railing.

"Weird in what way?"

"Weird in a way that makes me think you two have to talk it out before you ruin your friendship. I've never seen him act this way over a girl."

That doesn't surprise her. He has a reputation for chasing after any girl available to him, something the Pogues have gently teased him about, and it factors into why she doesn't want to have this dreaded conversation with him. She doesn't want to sit there and listen to him tell her that she was just another one of those girls to him.

Going for broke and being honest about what he thinks of their situation is a better strategy for trying to get her to talk to JJ than the other way around. John B can look back on what happened the morning after the party and see where they went wrong in their approach of trying to get him to talk, but she's less unpredictable and turbulent than he is. The fact that she's hearing him out is enough proof of their differences.

She sighs.

"I know we need to talk sooner or later, but it's hard, you know? I'm so embarrassed of how everything went down at the party, even though I was too fucked up to remember most of it, and I just—" There's a brief second that lapses between when she stops and when she starts again where he can almost see her working through it in her head. "I don't wanna get hurt."

John B's face falls at the mention of the party and her feelings surrounding it.

"You have nothing to be embarrassed of. You drank too much but who cares? The only person who should be embarrassed about that night is the guy that tried to take advantage of you."

That part is the most fuzzy in her mind.

She can remember what led up to it and the moment she saw JJ pull him away from her, but she can't remember anything about the interaction itself. It wasn't as if he did anything to her—not yet—but the thought of it alone makes her skin crawl because she's seen that before. She's been the JJ in that situation, pulling a wasted Touron away from someone who thought nobody would be looking out for other people at the party, and she knows how quickly those situations can escalate past "harmless" flirting.

The sound of JJ shouting at Tyler echoes in her mind as she reaches for any remaining memories left from the party. He said it right after he punched him, when he was starting to rush forward to follow him onto the ground and pin him there.

"If I see you near my girl again, you're fucking dead! You got that?"

She doesn't remember realizing that he called her that at the moment. She was confused and upset and all she wanted to do was stop him from getting himself in trouble, so she pulled him away from hitting Tyler again without realizing what he said. And even now, she tries to avoid acknowledging it. She reasons with herself, telling herself that he was pissed off and didn't mean it, because if he did, why hasn't he told her how he feels yet?

Y/N looks up and sees how dark the converging clouds have gotten in the time since they began working on prepping the house for the hurricane, so her next words are shakier than usual.

"I guess you're right." She pushes off of her spot against the railing. "But can we not talk about JJ tonight? I kind of wanna hang out and forget about the rest of the stuff I've got going on right now."

This makes him feel a pang of guilt inside of him for the ulterior motive he's kept hidden from her for the duration of the conversation, but he knows it's for the best. Even if her and JJ's inevitable conversation goes in the wrong direction and they don't end up mending fences, it's better that they let it out sooner than later. If they wait any longer, it'll make it worse, and he knows that they're stubborn enough to keep this childish game going for another week or so.

So, he keeps her in the dark for now and offers a kind, "Sure, that's cool with me," despite knowing how messy the night will soon become.

A smile pokes at the edges of her mouth, making the sides of her eyes crinkle, and she extends a hand to help him up from where he sits.

"Now," she says as they make their way inside the house for her to pack a bag, "are you ready to get absolutely crushed in Monopoly?"

It started to rain before they left her house, and by the time they pull into the driveway of the Chateau, it's pouring down on them with violent winds whipping droplets at their faces hard enough to hurt.

The rapid pace of her pulse beats with such an intensity, she can feel it in her head. They shouldn't have taken so much time at her place before heading over here. While she was packing, they talked and dilly-dallied the whole time, and now they pay the price for it.

If she knew that it would start this soon into the night, she probably would've hurried things along sooner, but it's too late. She's already starting to feel that tightness in her chest and each breath of air feels less satisfying with every inhale. It's not so bad that she loses complete control of herself, but it's getting there, and she can't express how badly she doesn't want to lose her shit in front of John B.

The passenger side door is slammed shut by the force of the wind behind her, the noise becoming swallowed up in the rest of the budding storm, and she stifles a sound of surprise that escapes her in reaction to it. They're lucky they made it here in the first place. Any later in the night and they probably would've had to take refuge at her place until it blew over.

She decides to focus on how the edges of her white sneakers are swallowed up by the muddy earth on her way through the front yard to distract herself. It stains them a deep brown color and simultaneously washes them clean from the rain coming down from above, which she'd probably be annoyed about if she weren't such a nervous wreck. But, because she's too busy keeping her backpack raised over her head to shield herself from the rain on her way up to the front door, it's not high up on her list of priorities.

Since both the screen door and the door behind it are unlocked, she doesn't hesitate to come bursting into the house as she usually does.

Y/N lets out a deep breath, feeling that telltale tension in her chest and shoulders, and laughs at the sight of John B running in as she kicks off her shoes. His t-shirt is speckled with rainwater, and his hair is saturated enough with it to stick to the sides of his face after he crosses the threshold into the Chateau.

The sound of her laughter makes JJ's heart stop from where he stands in the kitchen.

"There was an umbrella right on the dashboard, why didn't you take—"

Her heart might as well have stopped just as abruptly as the sentence she was in the middle of saying when she turned and saw him standing there.

Maybe they're both a tad too dramatic, but it takes a full few seconds for them to stop staring at each other in surprise. He looks like a deer in the headlights, eyes wide with surprise like he was caught doing something he shouldn't even though all he was doing was grabbing a beer from the fridge.

It's been two days since they last saw each other. For him, the last glimpse he got of her was when he peeked through the blinds to see her pedaling away on her bike to go to work, but hers was somewhat different.

The last time she saw him, he was asleep. Their legs were tangled together underneath the sheets and his face was smushed against her chest, allowing her to feel the soft puffs of his exhales on her skin every few seconds. It's a wonder that she managed to slip away unnoticed once she remembered she had work that morning. He was holding her closely, so closely that she found it hard to discern where she ended and he began in the dazed, hungover headspace she woke up in.

It's when the conversation she had with John B on the front steps of her house comes back to the forefront of her mind that she puts together what's happening right now. Now that they're here, it's far too late to leave. With how aggressively the wind and rain batter the area surrounding the house, it's obvious that they're not going anywhere.

It seems to click with them at the same time, because JJ turns to look at him only a half second after she does.

Y/N says, completely serious, "If you did what I think you did, I'm gonna kill you."

Before either of them can think of doing anything, John B shoots out from the doorway and runs past her in the direction of the hallway where his bedroom is.

"Gotta catch me first!"

They both chase him, JJ hopping over the back of the couch to run after him, but they end up coming to a screeching halt at the shut door right when they hear the lock turn and click.

Neither of them knows what they were planning to do when they caught him, cause it isn't like they'd hurt him, but they bang on the door nonetheless. The sound is drowned out by the sound of the wind and rain pounding the outside walls of the house, picking up speed, and for a second she wants to kick the door open.

She shouts, "John B! Open this door!"

The last thing she wanted tonight was to be trapped in a house with the one person she didn't want to see. Doesn't John B realize how embarrassing it is for her to be around him when she knows that he's gonna reject her? He may have said something about JJ never acting so weird over a girl before, but he's wrong. There's no way JJ actually wants her...right?

"I can't hear you, this storm's kinda loud!" he yells back at them through the locked door. "Maybe try again later!"

Neither of them wants to acknowledge the other. In fact, they don't even want to look at each other right now, so all they can do to stop themselves from acknowledging the elephant in the room is continue trying to get answers out of John B. What does he think that locking them together in the Chateau for the night will accomplish other than make them ignore their own drama and team up to plot their revenge on him?

Though he's significantly less angry than she is, JJ pulls the doorknob enough to make the door whine on its hinges and pleads with their friend, "This isn't funny, John B. Open the door."

"Not until you guys stop being immature and talk to each other."

She furrows her brows at him even though he can't see her, saying, "It's none of your business. You can't just trap us here cause you think you know what's best for us."

The sound of thunder rumbling above the house makes her flinch, hand shooting out to latch onto JJ's arm on an instinct she couldn't consciously resist. Feeling the warmth of his skin beneath her palm and the fingers clutched around his wrist sends shocks of familiar electricity up her body. Touching him always makes her feel hyperaware of herself, leaving her to wonder if he can sense her pulse picking up or notice how her breathing pattern turns uneven.

With that being said, it's safe to say that the night they spent together took that sensation of electricity and hyperawareness to a height it hadn't reached before.

That time, it wasn't a brush of their hands or an arm over her shoulder, it was the epitome of physical closeness. She couldn't handle it. He was so sickeningly sweet with her, yet, at the same time, he knew all of the right times to be commanding and in control too. There were awkward moments at first, sure, but once they became comfortable with each other, it was game over.

And whenever they've touched since, she hasn't been able to get those memories off of her mind. It's less prevalent now, since she's only holding onto him out of fear, but it's still there underneath it all—the unfiltered desperation of the lust in his eyes, the low noises that escaped his parted lips, and the strong pair of hands that pinned her hips down on the mattress to give him the leverage to really give it to her at the intensity she begged for.

It's pathetically easy for her to be sucked right back into the vortex of emotions, memories, and fears that haunt her whenever they touch, but he brings her back out of it just as easily when he speaks.

"You okay?"

John B was as good as forgotten by him as soon as he felt her jolt next to him and grab onto his wrist like she was hanging from a ravine and he was the only thing preventing her from falling. It makes him feel like a fool, but even when they're ignoring each other, the urge to comfort and protect her from anything that displeases her never disappears. He'd literally fistfight Zeus if it meant there'd be less thunder to scare her.

If he weren't hiding behind a locked door to avoid their wrath, JB would probably be calling him a simp right about now.

The concern on his face is so pure and unaffected by any of the chaos that surrounds them, both physical and emotional, that it makes her stomach turn with a sick feeling. God, he really does care about her. Why does that scare her? Why doesn't she want to believe that he cares? Why is she so set on believing that he wanted nothing more than a quick fuck from her?

Her eyes turn down to see their connected hands, realizing all in one moment what she did and pulling her hand away as if she were burned.

"I—Yeah," she stops, looking up at him, then back to the closed bedroom door, "I'm fine. You know how it is, it's just the storm."

They're both left with no choice but to face the music after days of avoidance that had no good reason behind it other than the respective doubts and fears they have. Yet even now that they're standing here, unsure of what comes next, they're hesitant to say or do anything that might disrupt the illusion they've created in the week and a half since they first ruined their friendship for good.

It feels as though the tension that has been boiling between them is coming close to turning explosive and all it will take is one tremor of their self-control for it to spill over.

Every feeling they have feels so contradictory. They want to but they also don't. They almost do it, then hesitate and decide to ignore each other for days. At the party, this tug of war game was at its peak for JJ when she was telling him about her jealousy and cuddling up to him, but he couldn't do it then, not when she was drunk. And by the time he had a whole night to think it over and see her biking away, he didn't want to risk it.

She looks away from him, hoping that "out of sight, out of mind" may ring true for once, and says to John B through the door, "Whatever, have fun. I won't hold JJ back when you finally come out of there though."

He won't actually do anything to him, maybe just a non-serious fight that'll end with her walking in on them rolling around on the floor trying to wrestle each other, but she likes to fuck with him anyway. For the dick move he just pulled, she thinks he can withstand a little teasing.

Without anything else to say, Y/N turns and walks off to make herself useful elsewhere—anything to distract from the buzzing, anxious energy that surrounds her from both the hurricane and being forced to confront JJ. She tries to play it cool though she is anything but at the moment, allowing herself to grimace once her back is turned to the blonde boy still standing against the wall in the hallway.

Maybe if she keeps pushing this false sense of normalcy, it'll work. It worked when they both started pretending things never happened between them initially after they had sex, so who's to say it can't work now?

All they have to do is get through the next 12-24 hours without talking and all will be well. Right?

They tried.

They truly tried to get through the night without inciting chaos within the Chateau, but, for these two idiots, not inciting chaos is a task easier said than done. Not only was John B much more stubborn with staying in his room than either of them bargained for, he didn't even attempt to speak to them for the first five hours and they were left with nothing to do but find new ways to avoid talking to each other.

It was simple in the beginning.

She went off on her own and sat with her headphones in to drown out the sounds of the storm.

With her eyes fluttered shut to block out anything but the sound of The Cure blasting into her ears, there was no reason for her to have to worry about anything once her nerves began to settle. Since the songs drowned out any sound and all she could see was darkness behind her closed eyelids, she was able to drift away with the distraction of the music.

The thing is, after a while, she started to see pieces of him in every song she skipped to. She made it a full minute into Just Like Heaven before a supercut of her most treasured memories of him began appearing in her head. Fade Into You? Skipped as soon as the first dreamy lyric flooded in through the tangled cords of the headphones. Cloud 9? Forty seconds in. By the time Dirty Little Secret came on, she decided that her playlist was mocking her.

The headphones were out of her ears, hastily wrapped up, and stowed away in the small pocket of her overnight bag before the chorus of the song could hit. Thankfully for her, JJ wasn't looking when she ripped the headphones out and put them away in a huff, so by the time he turned to see her again, she was laying down on the couch to "nap"—meaning she laid awake for another hour and cursed John B for making her endure this.

While she was daydreaming of a John B voodoo doll, JJ was worried about her.

Yes, the topic of their relationship/friendship/situationship/whatever-the-fuck-it-is was bombarding him against his will every five seconds, but not without him coming back to his concern for her. A small sound of thunder on an otherwise perfect day was enough to make her zone out and start getting antsy that day on the boat, so he didn't want to know how bad it could get during a time like this.

He tried to play it cool, and, in all honesty, his remaining scraps of sanity lasted a lot longer than hers. Four and a half hours passed, then, as the storm began to do its worst on their town, the power flickered out and left them in complete darkness. At that point, John B was passed out in his bedroom, so he didn't care nor notice when they had to find a few candles and stumble through the dark.

Somewhere along the way, having to search through the dark house for candles to light and place around the living room led them here...he isn't quite sure how.

JJ can hardly open his eyes enough to see through the rain that pounds against him the second he runs after her through the back door. The wind is so aggressive and unrelenting, it almost sends him stumbling a few steps when he follows her blurry figure a few paces behind where she tries to flee the house in a panic.

"Get back inside!" he shouts as he picks up his speed to catch up, "Y/N!"

The part of him that isn't focused on the pure physicality of trying to see and move through the stormy weather is utterly overwhelmed with fear. Not for himself but for her. She's deathly afraid of mild storms, let alone hurricanes, and yet she ran through the back door when he tried comforting her through an anxiety attack. One would think that she wouldn't want to go directly into the thing she fears the most, but what sent her running for the hills wasn't the panic itself, it was him.

It's hard for her to think rationally in this state, but all she knows is that he was there, he was saying all the right things and holding her, and she couldn't do it. The fear began to blend to one centered around both him and the storm. The hours of useless distractions and ruminating in her thoughts built up to this point of contention, then it snapped.

Between the thunder, his voice, and the voice in the back of her head that was urging her to confess her feelings and do as John B advised them to, it became too much. Maybe it was the most idiotic split-second decision she made without any regard for logic or reason or her safety, but she bailed. For the third time, she couldn't handle the pressure and ran from him.

The only difference is that he couldn't let her leave this time.

He gasps for air against the streams of water flowing down his face, soaking his hair and making it hang in his eyes to obstruct his view more than the weather already has. It happened so fast, neither of them are wearing shoes. His feet sink into the muddy yard with every stride he takes in his frantic pursuit of her and it frustrates him no end because of how it slows him down.

There's endless dangerous possibilities with her being out here. She could be knocked over into the marsh by the wind, or stuck and hurt by a piece of debris—merely thinking about it makes him call out her name louder in the hopes that it'll wake her from her panicked trance.

After trudging through the mud all the way to the edge of the yard, he finally manages to get to her.

"What are you doing?" JJ shouts, turning her around and grabbing onto both of her arms as if one gust of wind would sweep her away if he didn't, "You're gonna get hurt!"

Stumbling backwards in the direction of the screened-in porch that surrounds the back door, he uses their difference in strength to tug her away in the direction she came out in. The rain makes it difficult to keep a firm grasp on her, and she almost slips away a couple of times when the wind picks up enough to make him too unsteady to hold on.

His arms slip around her waist for a better grasp on her the closer they come to reaching the house. The last thing he wants is to almost get her back inside and lose her at the last second. She isn't thinking rationally right now with the panic she feels taking full control of her responses. He knows firsthand how it feels to be thrown headfirst into a panic attack, he's been in her shoes before and knows better than anyone the lengths your irrational mind will go to if it means survival. And for whatever reason, her response is flight, not fight.

The door to the screen porch takes all of his effort to open against the power of the wind blowing it back against the house.

He grits his teeth as he forces it open, one arm secured around her midsection, and helps her in before he slips inside too. The second he lets go of the door, it's sent slamming back into place and rattling in the frame behind them, but he doesn't spend anymore time on it other than the few seconds it takes to lock it. As soon as it clicks with him that they're safe—most importantly, that she's safe—he whips around to face her with a cold rage flowing through his veins.

"What the fuck?"

She stands in front of him with water pouring off of her in rapid drops onto the rug, and there are no thoughts in her head outside of the ones telling her to leave. Her tears blend in with the droplets of rain so seamlessly that he wouldn't know she's crying if not for the sound of it.

In between her rapid breaths and sobs, she yells back at him, "I was scared, okay?"

"Why'd you run out into the storm if you—"

"I wasn't afraid of the storm, I was afraid of you!"

The silence that follows is louder than anything they've experienced. Nothing can rival it, not the thunder, the rain, or anything can drown it out while he stares at her in shock. His eyes are wide, lips slightly parted as he reaches for something, anything, he can say in response to that, but there's nothing. For once, he is absolutely speechless.

Things got awkward between them in the initial aftermath of last week, but not like this. There was never an instance where he felt like there was nothing left for him to say to her to fill the uncomfortable silence that always brought forth memories of them together until now. Until she said the last thing he wanted or expected to hear.

His anger subsides as he picks over what he did in his head for anything that could've made her feel unsafe.

Before it evolved into him chasing after her through the hurricane, he noticed how terrible it had gotten for her when he lit the first candle. Her cheeks were streaked with tears and her chest began to rise and fall faster with each second that passed. He could see it on her face that things were getting worse, but, now that he thinks of it, it got worse once he reached out to put his hand on her shoulder.

It felt like a dream sequence in his head, so hazy and faraway now that it's over, and he was so stunned by what she was doing, he didn't run after her until a few seconds later. There was a delay in which he stood there in surprise and tried to process what the hell just happened to no avail. Though it wasn't very long, he remembers it feeling like eternity tucked into the cramped space of four seconds.

JJ's voice is softer than she's ever heard it, asking into the void of the near-darkness that encloses them, "What'd I do?" And it breaks her heart in half to hear him sound so concerned, so terrified of the idea that he did something to hurt her when all he did was try to help. "I never meant to scare you, I swear. I know how bad it can get sometimes, and I know we haven't been talking but I'd never try to hurt you if that's what you thought..."

His thoughts run rampant with the possibilities of what she was thinking at the time, and he realizes that he can't stand the idea of her thinking anything badly of him. He never cares about what people think, but, fuck, he loathes the idea of her having any ill feelings toward him.

Y/N immediately starts shaking her head, her face scrunching with the emotion and incessant tears.

"I know you'd never hurt me. I was scared because..." she stops herself mid sentence, catching it right when she was about to admit the one thing she promised herself she wouldn't.

But the need to say it doesn't go away this time. Usually, once she catches herself she comes to her senses and realizes how foolish it would've been to confess, but this time is different. This time, the urge to speak her mind and tell him everything sticks around. The words left unsaid creep up her throat, thrashing and begging to let out after months of being pushed aside.

The look in her eyes is strangely reminiscent of the way she looked at him the night they hooked up, almost yearning in its nature, and he couldn't be more confused. She's scared of him, but she's looking at him like she did when she was two seconds away from jumping his bones. And if he didn't do anything wrong, why was she afraid enough to face her worst fear in order to avoid him?

"Because what?" he asks.

That frustration from when they first stepped into the porch hasn't vanished, it only took a backseat once she said she was afraid of him, not the storm, and he can feel it stirring up again. He's tired of not having answers. He's tired of mixed signals and loneliness and unrequited love. Most of all, he's tired of her running away all the time. At this point, he questions whether or not it's worth it to expose his feelings to her and suffer the consequences.

John B was right. This isn't healthy for them, nor is it healthy for them to put their friends through this along with them, and it might be better to not be friends than to stay this way forever. At least that way they wouldn't be wishing for answers that would never come for the rest of their time together.

She decides at this moment that this has to be said before it gets worse, before she runs away again like a scared, immature child and ruins everything.

"Because," she has to shout over the lightning that cracks down on the earth down the street, something she would be trembling in fear over if she weren't so focused on him, "I've been in love with you for a couple months and it scares me more than anything, even this stupid fucking storm! And I've tried so hard to ignore it because I know you don't feel the same way, but you touched me and I just"—a soft cry escapes her—"I couldn't do it anymore."

There it is.

After months of ruminating over it and hiding everything, he knows, and her immediate feeling after she says it isn't what she thought it would be. She expected trepidation and regret, but what she finds on the other side isn't either of those, it's relief. Her dad often tells her when she's nervous about something that the anticipation is worse than the thing itself, and that has never been as true her as it is now.

However, some of the nerves return with the time that passes after she spoke in complete silence. Much like the delayed reaction he had to her running out of the house, it isn't as long as it feels to her. It's a short span of time that it takes for her words to process with him, but it feels like an eternity that he stands there with his head facing the floor in quiet contemplation.

Her heart sinks.

This means he doesn't feel the same way, doesn't it? If he were the one telling her he loved her, she likely would've leaped into his arms and said it back, but he stays where he is.

Then, after what feels like forever, she thinks she sees him start to smile and feels like she's losing her mind. It's quite dark out here, so there's only a limited amount of light to allow her to see his features, but there's no doubting it when a flash of lightning floods the porch with a split-second of harsh light.

Oh God, why is he smiling? What does it mean?

Much to her frustration, the first thing he says after her confession isn't much help in making her understand his feelings either.

"Why didn't you just talk to me?"

Why? The voice in the back of her mind asks incredulously. Is he seriously asking why? He ignored me too. He didn't want to talk about it either, so what else was I supposed to do?

Maybe she was undeniably worse when it came to the avoidance and lack of communication, but he could've reached out to her too. They both could've. Instead, they spent day after day waiting for the other to make the move and pushed the tension further and further until it finally broke. Now she's waiting for him to hurry up and reject her so she can move on with her life.

She shivers from the wind blowing at her wet skin through the screens separating them from the outside world, crossing her arms over her body to hug herself. His eyes follow her movements down to the breaths that are slowly evening out without her realizing it. It turns out that confessing your love for the guy you've been crushing on since the day you met him is a hell of a distraction.

"I thought you wouldn't wanna hear me being all emotional and shit over a one time thing. You've literally never had an actual relationship before. And that's fine," she rambles, "I'll be okay eventually, but that's not who you are and there isn't a problem with that. I just caught feelings when I shouldn't have."

In her defense, she isn't making baseless assumptions about him, he hasn't had a relationship before. His love life hasn't ever really revolved around love itself, it was mostly comprised of random chicks he'd meet at parties or at the beach during the summertime when tourists come to visit the island. Out of all of them, he's the last one the Pogues would expect to fall in love with someone and commit to a relationship, but then...

He looks over at her with a swell of emotion within him that he's never felt before. It wasn't like he hadn't known before now. He did. He even said it out loud to himself that morning after the party, but this is when it feels the most real. Now that she's said it to him, he doesn't feel so stupid for toying with the four letter word in the back of his mind for the entirety of the past week.

In all honesty, he was the last person he would've expected to fall in love with someone this quickly too. He thought he knew himself better than this. He thought he could keep himself hidden away and not let anyone close enough to see him—the real him, faults and feelings and vulnerability included—but she proved him wrong. In walked Y/N with her pretty smile, teeny bikini bottoms, and oddly strong opinions on Ratatouille, and he stood no chance.

This sudden crescendo of emotion only continues to grow when he watches her shiver, soaked to the skin, across from him and decides that he never wants to deny himself of her again. Those feelings of inadequacy that forced him to question his relationship with her may not have gone away, not by a long shot, but they can't stop him anymore. Nothing can.

Like a light flickering to life in this swirling, stormy darkness, she hears JJ's voice asking her, "What if it is who I am?"

It was said so softly, she nearly lost it beneath the rain and wind. But it was not said with a lack of certainty, which is why she questions if she heard him correctly. He sounded so sure of himself that it feels too good to be true. After his reaction, or lack thereof, to her telling him she loved him, she accepted what was coming and this was not it.

"What?"

He doesn't miss a beat.

"You heard me." There's a pause. "Maybe I needed to meet the right girl."

There is no way he's saying what she thinks he's saying because if he is...if he is then that means the tears and frustration have all been for nothing because he loves her back. But if he loves her, then what was with the kook girl? Was it to make her jealous, or is she misinterpreting him right now and he was flirting with that girl because he doesn't have real feelings for her?

"JJ..." she trails off, looking down and thinking to herself how thankful she is that it's too dark for him to fully see how nervous he made her, "don't do that."

Partly, he should feel offended that she'd think he'd toy with her feelings like that, but he isn't. He's too busy wondering what on earth made this poor girl so insecure to think that someone has to be joking to confess their love to her. It makes him wonder if anyone wronged her before she moved here, and he feels that switch of impulsive anger inside of him flip at the thought.

But that anger has nowhere to go, so it shifts into something different—a need to spend every waking moment of the rest of their time together proving to her that she doesn't have to be so afraid. Does it make him a hypocrite? Probably. It wasn't too long ago that he was telling the Pogues how much he didn't deserve to be with her, but he doesn't see himself the same way he sees her. In his head, he has reasons to believe he doesn't deserve her love, but how could she ever think that herself?

He steps closer to her, the movement something so natural and unconscious to him that he doesn't recognize he does it until he hears her breath hitch in the back of her throat. They were already close enough to reach out and touch each other if they wanted to, yet now it's the kind of closeness that wipes the slate of her mind clean with nothing else but the thought of him there to stay.

He starts to say, "I'm not fucking with you, dude, I'm being serious—"

"Then prove it."

Oh.

The sound of his unfinished sentence lingers on the tip of his tongue as he blinks away his surprise at what she said, though it was less of a statement and more of a challenge. What the challenge is, he isn't too sure, but he thinks there could be a couple of meanings there.

The fire in her eyes when she looked up at him is one he recognizes very well, it stars in one too many of his daydreams that center around their secret night together. She rose to the occasion without fail and matched his chaos every time, and that steely-eyed stare is reminiscent of it.

Yet, the sexual undertone isn't the only part of it to be discovered. There's a clear meaning there for him to actually prove it, to put his money where his mouth is, grow a pair, and tell her how he feels with no room for confusion. No more miscommunication, running away, or insecurity getting between them, just a clear cut confession like hers.

His hand runs through his hair to sweep it out of his eyes and keep the wet strands from dripping down his face. It helps him see her a little better too, grounding him to the moment and calming him at the dimmed sight of her expectant, wide eyed gaze.

There were a million versions of this whenever he let himself imagine admitting it. He only let himself picture it on the worst days, days like the one two days ago when he went home to his dad, ending the night by cleaning his own cuts and inspecting his own bruises in his locked bedroom. He did it to distract himself from wanting to storm out of the room and finally kill the son of a bitch after years of suffering in silence.

JJ closed his eyes, shaking with anger, and dreamed of how he'd tell her. There were versions with long speeches that were far too sappy to exist outside of the realm of his imagination. There were versions with him burying the words between friendly jokes to play down the extent of his feelings too, but he thought it worked best in its simplest form.

So he puts it as simply as it gets, lips fighting a soft smile as he crosses the space between them and rushes in to kiss her. It's charged with an accumulation of the pent up love, anger, and sexual desire that has been repressed until now, resulting in something utterly explosive.

He stops for a second to whisper, "I love you too," into her parted lips, and she finally lets herself go at the sound of those words.

Forget that they've only known each other for five months, when you know you know. This is the real deal. This is the kind of feeling that possesses every accessible inch of her heart and she'd never be open enough to admit that to anyone but him at the moment, but neither of them minds that. It's such a new, rapidly developing feeling that they want to protect it and keep it close to them for the time being.

His arms twine around her waist, tugging her the last bit forward and leaving no space between their bodies this time. The sudden movement draws a sharp gasp from the back of her throat and sends her hands out to brace themselves on his shoulders. The sound of the gasp that disappears into their connected mouths only fuels him on more. It makes him more eager with how he touches her with his hands drifting down the plane of her back, one of which playfully slipping beneath the hem of her soaked shirt in a way that makes her smile into the kiss.

He knows exactly what he does to her. He can sense it in the small reactions that would often go overlooked if it were someone less familiar with her.

It's easy to tell by the way she completely surrenders herself to him, letting out these soft little noises she doesn't even realize she's making when he takes control of the interaction and kisses her like he's starved for it. In a way, he is starving for affection and attention from her. He never knew it was something he needed so badly until he got it, and now he never wants to go without having her again.

That's why it doesn't surprise him when she starts getting antsy after a moment or two, especially after keeping away from him for days.

Her hands run down the length of his chest over the soaked t-shirt, taking a quiet victory in how his stomach flinches inward in response to her exploring touch, and she could swear his next exhale trembles as she continues lower. Never once does she break the kiss, which, by the way, has gone past the point of being passionate and straight to downright needy, but her concentration does falter. The perfectly paced rhythm of her mouth moving with his is interrupted when she touches him over the fabric of his shorts.

Those plushy soft lips go on an exploration of their own too. Leaving him with the first opportunity to catch his breath in minutes, she dips her head beneath the sharp edge of jaw in pursuit of the sweet spot she remembers reducing him to a grabby, moaning mess the last time they did this. It doesn't take her long, not if the tightening of his arms around her and the satisfied hum of a moan she feels vibrate beneath her mouth has anything to say for it.

He loses himself in it for a second or two...okay, fine, maybe ten.

The separate sensations combined spark a flame inside of him that burns so hopelessly for whatever she'll give him. His mind sends him images of them together, both real memories from their first time together and imagined fantasies he only let himself visit in his dreams, and he realizes how thinly spread his self control has become lately.

First, it's the thought of her from last week, thoughts of her gasping, writhing, and begging beneath him that makes his cock throb under the teasing contact of her hand through his shorts. But then he's brought elsewhere. Then, though he hasn't thought of it since the day after the party, he thinks of the mix of jealousy and anger he felt when he saw Tyler with her.

He remembers being sane one moment and charging across the room like a madman the next. He remembers how it felt to watch another person's hands slip under her dress, how it felt to see someone else try to kiss her the way he had, and this raw wound of a memory is all it takes to spur him into action.

It happens so quickly, she doesn't even notice what's happening until he has her scooped up in his arms with her legs around his waist. She doesn't even have the chance to voice her surprise or crack a joke at the expense of his neediness before he reconnects their paused kiss with enough force to make her teeth ache in the collision.

JJ's rings are colder than ice, digging into the flesh of her thighs as he holds them with a tight grip and blindly takes the few steps necessary to reach the back entrance of the house. His wet handprint smudges on one of the cracked-open glass doors and sends droplets of water dribbling down the surface. The teardrop of rain zig-zags at the swinging motion of the door on their way in, only changing course again when he nudges it shut behind him a little too loudly.

"Wh"—her question is cut off by him laying her down on the rug-covered floor in between the couch and coffee table—"What if John B wakes up?"

His first thought was to bring her into the spare bedroom, but then he realized that it shares a wall with John B. Then, he considered the pull out couch but realized that would be louder than the room adjacent to their friend's. His only conclusion was this.

It isn't nearly as romantic as either of them would've pictured, but they're not exactly picky either. They're so desperate for it, they'd likely do it on the porch in the middle of a hurricane if there weren't another option. And in their own weird way, they make it romantic.

There's no one else she'd rather risk rug burn for, and that is the peak of romance.

"John B sleeps like a fuckin' rock," JJ says, "and it's own his fault for trapping us here anyway."

He follows her down onto the floor without a second thought, not even looking up to see if they woke their friend with the sound of the door shutting behind them.

Hovered above her, he looks particularly captivating in the flickering candlelight. The fire burning in one of the three-wick candles they scoured the bathroom cabinets for brings out the warm hues in his blonde hair and highlights every edge of the angular face that looks down at her. The porch was far too dark for her to see him in all of his near-perfection, but this is enough for her to notice a multitude of things.

His slicked back, wet hair allows her to see his features better and the way he looks at her...it's enough to make anyone feel red in the face. How hadn't she see it before? She knows it was denial, but, somehow, she used to overlook the small hints along the way like how he looks at her like she's the only thing that makes sense to him. For the first time in a while, she allows herself to embrace the idea of being loved without looking for something to justify her fears surrounding it.

The sound of her voice brings him out of the mesmerized trance he fell under at the sight of her.

"I've missed you," she says softly, "like a lot."

The sweet admission slows him down for a second, making him stop to ignore the distracting desire that she sparked to life a moment ago and take the time to cherish this moment of rare serenity with her.

It's a wonder that she hasn't even acknowledged the storm raging on outside since they've come back in. It's all thanks to him, of course, since she's been too focused on everything happening between them, but it surprises him. It makes a sense of pride flare up in him on her behalf for being capable of forgetting something she fears so much.

But, on the other hand, it reminds him of how distraught she was right before their conversation/argument on the porch shifted from her panic to the topic of their relationship, and he can't help but hesitate a little.

"I missed you too." The hand he isn't using to support himself above her cups her face, his thumb tracing the line of her cheekbone. "Are you okay though? You were just crying and I don't wanna make you—"

"Yes."

It was so said so quickly, there was zero hesitation. It's not that it doesn't surprise him that she's as eager as he is after what started to happen out on the porch, but it does make his eyes widen a little. His mouth curls with a slight grin. It's the kind that never fails to make her stomach fluttering and light with butterflies.

"You don't have to worry about me. I'm okay, and I promise I'll let you know if I'm not," Y/N clarifies.

"Okay."

There's a short moment where all they do is look at each other with a complete loss for words to convey what they feel right now. It isn't as awkward as it would've been prior to tonight. Before they confessed their feelings, they wouldn't have been able to look at one another for any longer than a few seconds without needing to walk away to break the tension. Now, things have changed. They don't feel the need to conceal how much they care anymore.

They're still the same bickering duo they've always been with the added fun of being head over heels. She never used to understand how some people could let their feelings for another person drive them crazy, but it's done more than make her crazy this past week. It made her jealous, obsessive, and somehow happy too, and no one has ever made her feel so many varying emotions in her life.

Her fingertips graze the stretch of skin between where his cargo shorts sit on his hips and his shirt rides up the side of his torso, and he swallows thickly at the feeling.

"Do I make you nervous?" she asks.

Her lilting, smooth voice is enough to soothe any nerves he could possibly have. It's as if hearing her ask that paired with the hand teasing the waistband of his shorts pulled him back to the place he'd been before when she was teasing him over his clothes.

He answers honestly, his head going fuzzy with the crushing desire that courses through him, "Not as nervous as I make you," and closes the space between them again.

The cheeky comment doesn't go unnoticed by her, not one bit. It makes her face heat up in embarrassment that is purely instinct after having to hide her feelings from her for so long. Maybe after they've been together for longer, it won't make her blush every time he acknowledges the effect he has on her out loud, but that day isn't today. Today, she goes hot in the face from a sole second of his attention, let alone this.

JJ lets his hand climb up the length of her torso as they kiss as if they have all the time in the world, as if their best friend isn't sleeping less than twenty feet away from them, until it flattens at the base of her neck. It doesn't curl around her neck and squeeze, nor does it do anything but remind her how much she loves the feeling of him touching her, the large palm of his hand simply stays draped over her throat to flaunt his ability to sway her nerves.

She's pretty sure if it were anyone else, it wouldn't work, but he's JJ for fuck's sake, and the quiet display of dominance sends an exhilarating little thrill rumbling through her. It isn't anything over the top or exaggerated like some people would do in an attempt to stake a claim over the person they love, just a simple gesture that they both know the meaning of.

She's his. After five months of friendship, two months of silent pining, and a week of sexually confused hell, she's his, and he'll never let her forget it.

The wind rattles the windows over the couch with its force and she notices that his hips grind into hers at the sudden sound. Even in the midst of such a heated moment, it's downright cute how he still makes an effort to distract her from what she fears. And, boy, does it work.

Their panting breaths in the brief seconds they allow themselves to break away from each other are the only sounds audible in the small living room. The storm drowns it all out for now, including the noises that start to leave them from the steadily building pleasure of their bodies moving together.

She can feel how hard he is through the layers that separate them with every absentminded thrust that brushes the fabric of her panties up against her clit each time. It leaves her breathless and wondering, despite already knowing, what it'll feel like when he finally slips inside of her again.

They both fantasized about it in the time they spent apart. Neither of them would dare deny it, least of all JJ. It actually became frustrating after a while because she started to become the only scenario he could conjure to get himself off when he had a rare moment of privacy. His fantasies, all stemming from the night that was so perfect, he began to question the reality of it, linger in his head.

The best part of his fantasies were the parts of them based in truth, and if he knows anything about her when she's in this state, it's that she's needy. Her tongue swipes along his bottom lip in a silent urging to let her deepen the kiss, and he complies without a second to spare, willing to entertain her every whim so long as she keeps being so good for him.

He revels in her muffled squeak of a moan when he presses down on the sides of her throat at the precise moment his hips grind down to meet hers. She can't keep herself still for any longer than a half-second, always meeting his movements halfway and unknowingly doing another thing that will be the death of him.

She leads his shirt up his body without having to second guess herself, knowing that he's always on the same wavelength as her no matter what. This was how it was the last time too. Anything she did, he was already one step ahead, and tonight isn't much different. By the time her hands ball up the dripping cotton fabric, JJ is lifting the hand off of her neck to reach for the neckline of the shirt and help tug it off.

There's a sense of urgency in everything they do. Charged up with frustration and jealousy that brewed within the days they spent apart, there's nothing to stop them from reducing themselves to a pair of panting, impatient lovers too consumed in each other to care about the outside world.

The sopping wet fabric is thrown beyond her line of sight and lands on the hardwood floor with a 'thwack' that accompanies their cacophony of moans and gasps, and she whimpers at the sight of him. It may have to do with the fact that he's guiding their bodies together at a cadence and pressure perfect enough to make her legs tremble, but seeing him like this does nothing but aid the sensation.

Golden skin glistening under the candlelight, tendrils of half-dry blonde hair falling into his face with the lazy effort of his movements, and a stray raindrop that squeezed from the wet shirt dripping down his chest...she's not gonna make it out of tonight alive, is she? In her memory, she knew he was a sight to see in the midst of a heated moment, but, fuck, memories do not hold up beside the real experience of it.

Y/N is so caught up in his seemingly endless beauty, she doesn't notice him peeling her damp denim shorts off of her hips until they're halfway down her legs, and the only reason she does notice is because he must shift his position to do it. Suddenly, the budding feeling that stirred from their needy antics is plucked away and left to ache for more in the absence of him between her thighs.

Her middle and index fingers hook around the front of his necklace to pull him back down to her, but he doesn't budge at first. He's too busy trying to rid her of her shirt to care.

It was too much of a distraction while they kissed for him to resist slipping it off of her when he got the chance to. Much to his frustration when he first realized they were trapped with each other, she's braless underneath, and it's only worse now that the t-shirt is soaked to her skin and clinging to every delicate curve.

Once the clothing gives way to the canvas of her bare skin, he submits to her urgency and follows her down by the fingers hooked around his necklace without any qualms.

As soon as they resume, it's as if they never stopped to begin with, and they start to realize how seamlessly they fit together as the seconds elapse. Neither of them are actively thinking about it while he dips his hand into the front of her panties, but it is in their subconscious.

It's a revelation of sorts, an ah-ha moment where it hits them both in a sweeping realization that it was obvious from the day they met. They should've known sooner, they should've dropped their pride and admitted it as soon as the first inklings of desire began to pop up, but they didn't. Instead, it washes over them now and they let the current take them away together.

Her mouth falls open against his cheek at the feeling of his fingers swiping through the arousal that pools in her underwear for him, dragging the wetness over his fingertips and spreading it up to brush fleetingly against her clit. It's a split-second of a touch that it makes her hips lift up off the floor on their own accord to seek out more. It makes her dig her nails into the skin stretching over his taut shoulder muscles in a wordless plea for more that he doesn't indulge her in at first.

He makes her earn it from him without having to say a single word. He touches her, but he doesn't touch where she wants or ease his fingers into her to satisfy the need she feels yet. It's a blessing and a curse that he manages to turn her on to such an extent. He does it for her like nothing else can, so much so that she's noticed a distinct difference in how it feels when she's alone versus when they're together. When she's alone, it can tend to feel like active effort, but when she's with him, it's as natural as the urge to breathe.

His smirk is felt against her skin the entire time she begs for it through the revealing actions of her body—her hips jerking up toward him, her chest pressing tightly to his, and the sound of her murmuring, "Please," in a breathy tone that could stop his heart.

"Tell me what you want," JJ says, every word constrained and tight in a way that tells her he's a lot less composed than he lets on, and "accidentally" swipes his thumb over her clit again. "Talk to me, baby."

She almost forgot in their time apart how much of an effect he has on her, but this is the best reminder of that she could possibly imagine. If she could, she would find a way to bottle the feeling he gives her and keep it with her forever so that, no matter what happens between them, she'll never have the misfortune of forgetting him.

What he said simultaneously melts her heart and frustrates her to no end because he knows! He knows damn well what she wants from him and won't give it to her unless she asks for it, and she hates herself for loving it. She hates herself for enjoying the flushed-face embarrassment it brings to her cheeks to be so open with him about what she needs.

She swallows the lump in her throat and tries to focus through the clouded landscape of her head to speak to him. It's hard to concentrate when he's above her like this, touching her, calling her pet names, and looking at her like that.

With his lips worshiping the sensitive skin along her neck, she finds it hard to choke out the words, "I want you," into the humid air that has infiltrated the house.

It's not a lie. Anything regarding her wanting him or any related feeling is no longer something she can hide anymore, but they both know it isn't exactly what he wanted. No matter how it took his breath away to hear her say it, he was seeking something more specific. He was aiming to make her ask, maybe even beg, for it. They're both too impatient to wait and based on how wet his fingertips are from barely dipping into her, he can tell she's as eager as he is.

It's been thirteen days too long since the last time they allowed themselves to meet this way, and neither of them wants to let it happen again.

She was nearly trembling with the urge to go to him whenever they were together in the company of their friends, unable to think about anything except for how badly she wanted him. All the while, he appeared so unbothered, especially on the night of the party when he flirted with someone else, that she didn't even believe he felt the same way back. Thankfully for her, she couldn't have been more wrong.

He clicks his tongue and says, still teasing her with light touches that never linger in one place for too long, "That wasn't very specific."

Part of her should know that he's about to do something based on how he withdraws his head from its cherished place in the crook of her neck, but she's too caught up in the anticipation and seeing his face for the first time in a minute to think about it. How dare he look so good? She could cry in frustration, although she might actually already be tearing up a little with the rush of neediness hitting her in its full force.

Never has she felt so turned on by so little physical contact before. It usually takes longer for her to get to this point, whether it be alone or in the past with previous partners, yet all it took was being kissed, touched, and being given his undivided attention and now...She realizes she's in trouble. He has her in an emotional and sexual chokehold at this point, and she fears that no one can compare.

"I want—" her voice is snuffed out in an instant when he eases two fingers into her, "Oh!"

So that's why he pulled away from her neck to look at her.

It was worth abandoning the mark forming on her neck just to see the expression on her face shift. She gets this cute look when anything overwhelming starts to happen where her brows scrunch a little to create a soft wrinkle between them as her mouth drops open in a moan. And after ten steady minutes of doing nothing but some over the clothes action and painstaking teasing, this is as overwhelming as it gets without it crossing the line to being too much.

It never occurred to her how much larger his fingers are compared to hers until now. This type of pleasure is like an itch only someone else can scratch to her, she feels virtually nothing when she does it to herself, but when he does it, it's like an explosive being set off inside of her. Especially with the thumb that sneaks up to circle her clit without stopping to tease her again, she is putty in his hands at this point.

Every smooth stroke of his fingers into her reaches a spot she can never quite find on her own, and she can feel the cold bite of rings when they're buried into her to the knuckle.

It's a surprise every time, even when she knows to expect it. Like a delightful chill running up through her body and down her spine exactly how it's intended to. It strikes an idea in her head for when he eventually pulls them out of her, conjuring the image of her sucking them clean for him just for the sake of imagining what it'll do to him.

With that idea tucked away in the back of her mind, he's the center of her world right now. All she breathes, thinks, and feels is him. Whether it be the sight of him, or the feelings he's giving her, or even the taste of his kiss that still lingers on her tongue, it connects to one common thread.

"What were you saying?" JJ asks, and she wants to wipe that smirk right off his face.

It's virtually impossible for her to piece together a coherent thought, let alone a sentence detailing every filthy idea she has for him, but she tries. It takes another moment or two of her succumbing to the rapid incline of pleasure that he gives her, watching her in wonder through any greedy buck of her hips or gasping inhale that makes her head loll back onto the floor.

At first, what she wanted to say was that she wanted him to touch her, to do anything more than the fleeting touches he gave before. Now, she wants more than that. Now that she's drawn in closer to the eventual high that's to come, she doesn't want it to happen like this. She wants to feel closer to him than this, wants to feel him throb inside of her and fuck her with all of the urgency and desperation that has accumulated in their time apart.

That's why her hands start to grab at the belt loops of his shorts to tug him closer by them, meeting his gaze through the hazy bliss of his fingers pumping into her. It's not enough.

"Please"—she keeps pulling him closer to her, so close that there's hardly any space left to cross, and he revels in her desperation—"just fuck me already..."

Internally, JJ is losing his shit.

Though this was what he wanted, what he coaxed out of her with the teasing and the pretend sense of a nonchalant attitude on his part, it hits him harder than he expected it to to hear her say it. It's not necessarily the act of begging itself either, it's the fact that she's the one doing it. She may have been jealous of the girl at the party, but she had nothing to worry about. Not in the slightest.

Before her, he never thought he'd fall for someone this way. It's not like he had a hatred for love or anything, he understood the appeal, it simply wasn't his thing.

He was perfectly content with his only form of companionship being his friends. Then, she came along and changed it. So to hear her say something like that isn't just breathtaking, it's the kind of thing that makes his heart ache for her. It hits him precisely where she wanted it to, and he has never felt as consumed with love the way he does now.

JJ can do nothing to stop himself from pouncing on her at this point, like some animalistic form of himself has worn down the restraint he used to keep himself at bay.

The loss she feels when his fingers slip away from her is an emptiness she mourns at first before she realizes what's happening. He pulls away slightly to reach down between them for the front of his shorts, and their hands clash as they both frantically try to undo them together. The rings adorning his fingers glisten when they catch the light and remind her of the thought that popped into her head when she first felt their coldness against her skin.

That idea paired with the promise of what they're trying to accomplish in their uncoordinated attempt to get the rest of their clothes off makes her want to press her thighs together. Her hands abandon the task of undoing his shorts for the sake of ridding herself of the last layer that separates her from him.

Her most embarrassing old pair of brightly colored panties, courtesy of past Y/N's questionable decision to trust her mom to buy some on her behalf, are hardly a sight to behold. They're the kind that come in a value pack from Walmart, vibrant blue with the word, "Tuesday," printed on the front of them, and she could hide her face into the rug in shame if she weren't so determined to get them off. Of all the days to wear the day of the week undies her mom accidentally got her, of course she chose today.

By the time she reaches for the waistband, he has pushed his shorts and underwear down his thighs and comes back to her with just as much excitement as he left with, but when he helps her tug her panties down her legs, he laughs. Apparently, he had also been too eager to touch her to notice what was written on them before.

"Cute," he breathes out through a laugh, then adds as the cotton fabric slips over her knees, "Pretty sure it's not Tuesday though."

"If you tell anyone, I swear I'll—"

He cuts her off, "Whatever you wanna threaten me with won't work, chances are I'm gonna be into it."

Her eyes are alight with a certain fire he's had yet to fully lure out of her. Even her voice is slightly more airy and seductive as a result of it.

"Promise?"

JJ grins down at her as he finally tosses her panties aside with the rest of their clothes, "Cross my heart, pretty girl."

His hands grip her thighs and tug her down the  rug to him with a quick jolt that snaps them out of the playful nature of their back and forth teasing. No matter how lighthearted of an interruption it was, the mini-conversation might as well have never existed for how easily they fall back into it again.

She watches with her forehead pressed against his as he strokes himself a few times, then drags his tip, messy with precome, through her wet heat. And though she watches it happen, her body still arches into his when he lines up with her and sinks his hips forward.

She anticipated it, but she still gasps and digs her nails into his biceps at the sensation of him pushing into her. Neither of them bothers to worry about the obvious lack of a condom—it was discussed the first time around when he offered and she told him it was okay. He's often the one to silence the alarm on her phone warning her in its title to, "Take your birth control or else, bitch," while she searches her bag for it anyway, so he trusts her.

Both of them prefer it this way enough to risk the  minuscule failure rate of the pill anyway. It's more intimate, closer, and they can both feel the warmth of each other in a way that would've been somewhat muted with an added layer between them. It makes the feeling of him entering her all the more gratifying as she tenses up around him in reaction, drawing a groan from where his parted lips brush against hers.

She lifts her head off of the floor as much as she can to capture his mouth with her own and stifle the sonorous sound despite the storm doing a better job of it.

It seems that every blast of wind and roll of thunder is in their favor tonight, so much so that he isn't even worried about getting walked in on. It's not a thought in his head at this point, the only thought he's capable of having is this. Forgive him for being shortsighted, but he doesn't give a shit if John B notices or hears what's happening when he's buried inside of her so deeply.

His hips are flush with the backs of her thighs in a matter of seconds, and right when he pauses to give her a breather, he feels her shake her head ever so slightly against where their faces are pressed together.

The touch of her hands on his hips is not timid by any means, it's commanding. Her palm prints singe an indelible claim into the surface of his skin as she guides him to start moving without a second spared to dwindle the discomfort of him filling her up. It's less like a pain and more of a pressure blooming from the insistent presence of him, not so overwhelming that it's painful, but it's an effort to breathe evenly and the only thing that'll ease this transitional moment is to continue.

At first, their bodies start to rock together lazily as though on autopilot. They'd hardly be conscious of the fact that they're doing anything if not for the initial sensations of heady ecstasy that flash like the sparks of a lighter in response to their movements. As soon as he felt her hands coax him into action, he sighed happily and surrendered himself to the instinct of wanting to move.

The merging of their bodies is less of the aggressive rutting motions they'll surely succumb to once their current pace is no longer satisfying, but that doesn't make it any less intense. She's partly sure that this is one of the most vulnerable moments either of them has ever had when it comes to sex, and it wouldn't work if it weren't them together. No other person could consume her the way he does, taking up every unoccupied space of her soul until there's nothing left but the silent begging of her heart for him.

Their kiss is messy when it breaks to allow them the chance to suck down a couple breaths of air, saliva shining on his lips in between the seconds it takes them to come crashing back together.

It's loving enough to rot her teeth with its sweetness, a slow but impossibly deep grinding of their hips together that continually presses the tip of him into that sweet spot inside of her, but it takes a turn.

Not only do her hands shift from his hips up to the sides of his waist to get a firmer hold on him, the kiss starts to become vigorous, almost hungry, in search of something more. The dreamlike sequence of the first moment or so they spent slowly fucking under the warm hues of candlelight starts to unravel to reveal the baser instincts that guide them forward.

"Fuck, you feel so good," he whispers the praise into her mouth.

As soon as the words are said, he can feel the effect it has on her. The hands braced on his waist pull his body closer to her at the same moment that she involuntarily squeezes down around him, making the smooth drag of his cock against the velvet-soft heat of her walls even tighter than he thought possible.

The sudden feeling of it makes his first returning thrust much harder than the last. He jerks forward into her with none of the restraint he's retained for the past few moments, and her reaction is nothing short of perfection, at least from his perspective. He watches her throw her head back in a moan, hips bucking to him in pursuit of more, and feels the tips of her fingernails digging crescent-shaped marks into the unmarred skin along his waist.

"JJ!" she gasps in surprise, and if her initial reaction weren't enough to spur him on in a frenzied state of desire, this is.

He almost forgot how intense it had been the first time. Their confessions of love preceding this made them both somewhat softer and sweeter in their approach when they started, but he knows how she likes it.

Nobody would expect it from her. He's another story entirely, especially considering how much John B and Pope know about him, but her? He didn't have any in depth conversations about it with either of them, so none of their friends know how dirty she is.

But when you start to tease it out of her, she's got a side to her that makes his blood run hot. Considering how polite she is, he sure as hell didn't see it coming. For fuck's sake, she's the kind of person who'll apologize to a chair if she bumps into it. With that in mind he never thought she'd be the type to demand such things of him.

Just like that, with one moan of his name, it's like she flipped a switch in him that they forgot was there in the first place. It'll never stop surprising him how little it takes to get him going when he's with her, and he doesn't see that changing no matter how long they spend together in the future. Just a touch from her is all it takes, so it's needless to say that the sound of her calling out his name was more than enough.

Those slow, deep movements he made to sink into her again and again have turned rapid and rough, but still controlled enough to have a semblance of precision to them, hitting in all the right places.

"I bet," JJ speaks lowly, "that you want John B to walk out and see us right now."

She doesn't want to admit how much of an instantaneous effect those words have on her, but the feeling of her clenching around him as she bites back a moan completely betrays her. Partly, she worries that he'll take that the wrong way and think it has something to do with John B when it has nothing to do with him at all, but he doesn't. For the spare second of thought she's allowed to have before her mind goes hazy again, she notes how much more eager he is on the upstroke of the next thrust.

Noticing how right he was in his assumption about her liking the risk of getting caught jumpstarts his heart and makes everything he does rougher. She can sense that he's starting to lose control over himself and is acting on instinct alone.

It makes her much more sensitive to everything he does, and all she can do is cling to him and enjoy it as she takes in everything he says and does. It's hard to pick one thing to focus on between the switch up in pace and what he said.

"You want John B to know you like getting fucked like a slut, don't you?"

She could get off on the sound of his voice alone. Hearing him say stuff like that kills her, it makes the swirling bliss that builds in the pit of her abdomen with every thrust he gives her triple in its extremity.

Her legs are tightly wound around his hips to keep him as near to her as possible, her hands sliding up around his waist to keep a steady grasp on him while he pounds into her. The rug scratches at her back enough to make it sting alongside the immense pleasure building in her, but she doesn't care. When blended with the good sensations, the pain underscores the addictive feeling of him inside of her, fucking her exactly how she asked him too.

Looking up at him when he's like this is simply unreal. There's no other way of describing it in her eyes except for that. He's so stunning, she's inclined to believe that he isn't even real as a means of explaining it. This shouldn't be real. It should be one of her daydreams while she steals covert stares at him as they hang out with the Pogues, but it isn't. She can't wrap her head around it.

Those strands of hair that were damp from the rain are mostly dry as they fall into his eyes with the force of his movements. The sight of him alone, set aside from the rest of it, is enough to make her writhe beneath him and claw at his back in tandem with another thrust that sends her jolting against the rug.

He takes one of his hands up from where they both held her hips for leverage to weave his fingers into the roots of her hair.

He demands between the panting breaths and moans that flood the limited space between them, tugging on her hair, "Answer me."

She instantly blurts out the words, "I want him to see us." The feeling of him tilting her head back by the fistful of hair he has wrapped up in his hand is her persistent reminder to concentrate enough to continue, and she bites down on her lip to contain a moan before speaking again, "I want him to know..."

Her cheeks burn with the mere thought of it, let alone saying it out loud. He's the only person she'd ever let in on this intimate side of her, the side that makes her crazy when she hears him say stuff like this. The reason she feels so comfortable doing this with him is that she knows he understands her. It's as if he can read her mind without even having to try, knowing exactly what to say and when to say it.

It wouldn't matter if the topic of their exhibitionism were any other Pogue or a stranger, it isn't about who it is, it's about the thrill attached to the concept of almost getting seen during such a heated moment. In all actuality, John B is probably snoring face down into his pillow right now with no care for what's happening out here, but he knows what it does to her when they push the boundaries of decency this way. It's the same rush he gets from stealing random, useless things every so often, it's the thrill of getting away with something.

The hand tangled up in the roots of her hair sneaks down between their colliding bodies to rub her clit, and her mouth drops open to take in a shaky breath.

The sight of her beneath him is undoing in and of itself. Head tilted enough to expose her neck to him, chest rising and falling rapidly with her breaths, and breasts bouncing gently with the momentum of their actions—seeing her this way makes his thrusts ramp up into more of a frenzied, uncontainable pace rather than one with the same control and cadence as before. But it's mostly the eye contact that kills him. She doesn't dare to shut her eyes the entire time, as if she can sense that he'll tell her to look at him again the second she does.

"You want him to know what?" he asks, and she knows he won't let her get away with not saying it.

She whines, utterly helpless to the climax starting to build inside of her, "Please."

What she's pleading for, she isn't quite sure, but he can tell by how she's acting that she's starting to get closer, and he wants nothing more than to tease her with the impending chance of her orgasm.

"If you wanna come, you're gonna have to do a lot better than that."

Just like that, he withdraws his hand from between them and leaves her desperate, blindly grasping for the peak she was so close to reaching, she could almost feel it already.

With JJ rocking into her at a relaxed, slower rhythm, the pleasure hasn't disappeared completely. It's there, but she can sense the feeling of her orgasm receding as quickly as it had creeped up on her as soon as he slips his hand out from between them.

It's instantly clear to him how desperate she is as all of her previous shyness surrounding having to admit this to him out loud withers away in seconds. She isn't beneath begging again at this point. He could tell her to crawl across the floor to him and she'd happily do it for the chance of touching him. It's pathetic but true. As much as she has him wrapped around her finger, he has done the same to her and she isn't afraid to admit it anymore.

Her hips jerk toward him in search of the familiar frenzy they were in before that sent her to the brink of climax, but he is impressively stubborn. Despite the fact that it physically pains him to dial it back again, he tries to keep the signs of his own frustration at bay. She knew what she had to say to get what she wants, so he'll only cave when she does.

This time around, she doesn't give a fuck about how badly she blushes or the voice in the back of her mind telling her she should keep this side of her to herself. This time, the one thing she needs to do to prompt her to open her mouth and speak the dirty words he asked her less than a moment ago is look at him. One second of staring up at him and here she is, driven mad enough to say or do anything to get him to pick up where they left off.

She says between the soft noises and breaths coming from them both, clinging to him through every slow but deep thrust that sends sparks ricocheting through her body, "I want John B to know I like getting fucked like slut." Her voice is breathless, and he hangs off of each word as she pauses, looking up at him with a challenging attitude swirling in those pretty eyes. "So stop being a tease and fuck me like one."

His jaw clenches at the bratty statement, one he's too far gone to resist at this point, and right when he's about to respond to her, she speaks again.

"Either that," she says, and a deceptively sweet smile crosses her kiss-swollen lips, "or I can go ask him to—"

She doesn't even get the chance to voice the rest of that thought before he's set into motion.

The hands on her hips flip her over with such casual strength, all she can do is yelp in surprise at the sudden movement that blurs the living room in her peripheral version until she lands with her hands and knees pressing into the rug. He was so swift in pulling out of her and tossing her onto her front like she was nothing more than a rag doll, she hardly had the time to take a breath before she ended up here.

There's hardly any time between when he pulled out to flip her over and when he returns to her again, but it feels like an eternity for them. The few second transition might as well be a few years as she feels his hands guiding her body where he wants it, pushing down on her back until it arches just so, and falls down onto her arms. But as soon as she gets situated, she feels a pair of hands yanking her arms away from where they were braced against the floor and put them behind her back.

It's only then, when he has an unflinching grasp on where he keeps her wrists behind her back with one of his hands, that she is met with the relief of him sinking into her again.

Y/N's jaw goes slack, and she cries out into the rug that her cheek is pressed into as he gives her no chance to adjust or catch her breath before resuming the brutal pace they kept a moment ago. Mentioning anyone else but him doing this to her was the quickest way to get him to snap, so it's safe to say that she's getting what she wanted. After all, she did what he asked, it's fair that she gets rewarded for it.

Amidst the sounds of the storm waging war on the landscape outside of the house, the one thing she can hear over the buzzing pleasure that drowns out her senses is the sinful blend of sounds they create together. It's the sound of their bodies merging, his name falling from her lips, and the curses he makes under his breath that never fail to drive her a little wild.

The hand that isn't holding her arms behind her slides down the length of her curved back until it wraps around her throat to pin her down, and her reaction is everything he could ask for. Seeing her rock back against him to meet him halfway makes his grip on her wrists tighten enough to turn his knuckles white.

Her hair is spread in endless directions in a fan around her head, and he can only see one side of her face from where he kneels behind her, but that glimpse is more than enough. Brows scrunched in pleasure, mouth dropped open in a gape as soft 'uh's and 'ah's escape her on the upstroke of each thrust—she's a mess right now. A beautiful, perfect mess.

"Oh God, JJ," she moans between her rapid breaths and the strong hand constricting her neck, "I'm so close. Please, just let me come."

It took virtually nothing for her to be pushed right back to the edge of the peak she was at less than a minute ago. It took a mere half-minute of this and she's once again reduced to incoherent pleas for more and shaking with no control over herself. Her legs tremble with the effort to keep herself up in this position, and she isn't even the one doing most of the work. In all fairness, this change in position has made the intensity triple. It's deeper this way, and with how harshly he slams into her, it's as though she can feel it in the base of her abdomen.

It's the enjoyable type of pain, however, not the bad type. It'll surely end up with her being sore tomorrow, but she can't hide how much she loves the painful pleasure of how rough it's getting. Being denied an orgasm when she was so, so close to it was initially disappointing too, but it was worth it. If the build up to what would've been her climax before was a spark, this is a flourishing fire spreading through her with no chance of smothering the flames.

He lets go of her throat and taps the side of her jaw in a silent request that she picks up immediately, letting her lips fall open to suck his fingers into her mouth without a second of hesitation.

The taste of her arousal on them is faint, but still there, and it occurs to her that she thought about this earlier before things evolved into chaos. Her tongue swirls around the tips of his fingers as he starts to pull them away in what feels like the blink of an eye to her, leaving him to remember what it felt like when her lips were once wrapped around a more sensitive part of him a week and a half ago.

The one other time he let himself remember it was when they were on the boat with the Pogues, yet that wasn't really of his own volition. It was hot out, so Kiara bought ice pops for them and his mind wandered far from where it should've stayed.

Shining with her saliva, his fingers are pulled from her lips with a soft 'pop' in pursuit of that sensitive collection of nerves at the apex of her thighs. She just needs is a little push to go over the edge, and when he slips his hand down her body to rub tight circles onto her clit, she loses whatever remnants of control over herself she had left.

The steady rhythm of her hips moving back against him falters as she is overwhelmed with the separate sensations culminating into one and giving her the push she needs to come. Her entire body tenses up in anticipation, and since she's pinned to the floor with her hands behind her back, she can only lay there and savor the feeling as it hits her.

After what felt like ages of having it build and build within her, then having it taken away to start the process over again, finally being given a release is a relief beyond any she's felt before.

It's so consuming, it takes away her ability to think of anything outside of how it feels to dissolve into the shockwaves of euphoria rushing through her. Every pulsing wave is prolonged by him, not even through the peak of it does he let up on his precise touches and unforgiving thrusts into her that turn a typical orgasm into the most intense thing she's ever felt.

She's melting in his arms through it all, and as if the change in position didn't make it worse, her involuntary spasms leave him hanging on by a thread.

JJ collapses onto her, barely having the chance to keep himself propped up on his arms as he lets go of her wrists and falls forward onto her sweat-slick back.

The heat of his panting exhales raises goosebumps in its wake where his face is buried into the curve of her neck, and he whines at the impossibly tight feeling of her squeezing around his cock through the end of her climax. Those sounds he doesn't realize he's making have her writhing through the aftershocks, answering with a sound of her own that almost makes him come instantly.

For that reason, he makes the decision to pull out and flip her onto her back.

At this point, she's so dazed and fucked out that she doesn't register any of it until she notices the hollow absence of him inside of her, but it doesn't matter when his face appears through the partial darkness above her.

Despite how sensitive she is right now, the sight of him makes her hands reach out blindly to pull him closer again. They're frantic in their need to get back to one another, grasping and clawing until he finds his way back to her in less than a second, hiking her legs up around his waist with a touch that is somehow demanding and tender at the same time.

It's only when he's inside of her again that it occurs to her why he rolled her onto her back again, and it makes her want to kiss him until her lips turn numb. It may be undeniably hotter to pin someone down and fuck them hoarse, but, no, that wasn't what he wanted. He wanted to be able to look at her, to see her face, and the thought of that has her biting back a sudden confession of love. She isn't sure why she doesn't say it right away, since it isn't like they haven't already done it, but she keeps it to herself for a second first.

It's different now. It's not less passionate or frenetic. It isn't as if he isn't being as rough with her as he was before, but they can both sense a shift in the energy between them as soon as he reenters her. It's less about the pursuit of pleasure and more about the feelings they've kept hidden away for so long. It's a simultaneous realization that hits them a little late after they initially confessed their feelings for each other: this is reality. It's real, and when she touches him this time, he isn't going to disappear if she opens her eyes.

The realization of what happened tonight had yet to hit them until right this second, but now that it has, they move forward with a sense of sentimentality that remained partly dormant before.

If there's anything JJ dislikes, it's being vulnerable. The idea of letting someone in to see every part of him, including the parts he doesn't want to see of himself, has always terrified him after years of being made to believe he's undeserving, yet he isn't uncomfortable right now. Somehow, he feels safe with her. Sex has never been something so emotional for him until now, until her, and he doesn't want it differently.

Their bodies are drawn in close, her arms thrown around his neck, and he's so close, he can feel the muscles leading down past his lower abdomen contract with the inevitable approach of his orgasm. She can sense it too in how he acts.

When he gets close, he becomes clingier and lets his feelings get the better of him. His hands squeeze at her hips, sliding up her sides and back down to hike one of her legs up high around his waist to press deeper into her. He can't bear to allow his touch to stay in one place for too long before exploring another part of her, wanting to memorize the delicate intricacies of her body in its entirety.

It's as if she can read his mind too, cause even when she's sensitive enough to gasp when he pushes her thigh to her chest and throws his remaining energy into fucking her at a satisfying pace, she understands what he needs. She knows to reach up and run her fingers through his hair, to tug on it gently until the light strands are taut from his scalp. She knows to lift her head off of the floor enough to trail tender kisses along his face, his jaw, his neck—anywhere she can access.

"Come for me," she says into a kiss placed on the edge of his cheekbone, reeling in overstimulation as she jolts with his quickening thrusts, "I want to watch you..."

Hearing those words, paired with the kisses and fingers pulling on his hair, does it for him. It doesn't take more for his hips to falter and jerk forward into her a final few times before he comes.

Their foreheads press together as they cling to one another for stability, though it's mostly JJ clinging to her while she watches in adoration, and she has to bite her lip to contain a moan at how it feels. The aftershocks of her orgasm have yet to fade as the feeling of pulsing warmth inside of her makes them stronger, reigniting the fire she felt a moment ago if only for a second.

There's a closeness to this situation that they hadn't felt the last time, and they know it has everything to do with what was said before this happened. The sex itself feels like a dream sequence in her mind now that she's coming down from it with him, moving together slowly and gently beneath the candlelight until they ride out the ends of their highs. It was like they were put under a trance by each other, and now that it's over, the first thoughts that come to mind are of what comes next.

It's not the sole topic on their minds though. They're more focused on catching their breath from where they lay, tangled up together, on the living room floor. As soon as the very last of his orgasm faded from him, he fell onto her without a single ounce of energy left to spare. He's careful not to crush her, but, for the most part, he relaxes on top of her and lets his head rest on her heaving chest.

Strong arms slip down to loop around her waist, and she sure that she couldn't get him to release her if she wanted to, which she doesn't.

But they can't stay like this, not for any longer than a few moments anyway, since they don't know how if John B might wake up and come out of the safety of his bedroom after hours of leaving them to their own devices. JJ was right. He's out cold, but for as much as it turned them on in the heat of the moment, neither of them finds getting caught by him as hot with the clarity of their rational minds coming back to them.

He's the one to break the silence.

"As much as I wanna stay like this, we should probably move in case John B wakes up."

The sound of his voice settles in her with the effects of a sedative. It calms her more than anything else could, especially with the added comfort of him cuddling her so closely. One of her hands strokes through his hair and pushes the damp tendrils of sunshine away from his face as he cranes his neck to look up at her. And, for fuck's sake, what else is she to do except admire him?

His cheeks are dusted pink in a way they often are when he spends too much time outside without one of his hats shielding his face, and she thinks he's never looked better.

Ever since they became friends, she's had this theory about him. In the unrealistic landscape of her overactive imagination, JJ didn't come to this world the way the rest of them did. To her, it seems impossible that someone so good, even in his worst moments, could've come from someone like his dad.

So, in idle moments where she would watch him on a day out with the Pogues or daydream about him, she decided that he's the sun.

She imagines he was created in those breathtaking but brief moments where the sun meets the horizon atop the ocean and washes the sky with a vast array of colors. She likes to think he's the incarnation of it. Golden, warm, and bright for everyone but himself, he keeps the world light for her and their friends without intending to.

Some days are warmer than others too. Some days, the light is dimmed by another bruise beneath his clothes or a bad run-in with some kooks, but today is not like that. This moment is eighty-five and sunny with a balmy breeze. Looking at him right now feels like basking in the sun, and she'd burn here forever if he let her.

Without realizing she zoned out, she jolts when he pinches her arm to rouse her from her ridiculous thoughts. He has this dopey half-smile on his face that nearly draws her back into them again.

"You know what they say," he says, "if you take a picture..."

Her soft laughter invades the room, filling his heart with this light, fluttery feeling that always finds him when she's near. His smile grows as she playfully shoves him and reaches above their heads for her wet shirt to cover up with just in case. Odds are, their friend isn't waking up at the exact moment before they seclude themselves to the spare room and get dressed, but she doesn't wanna take that chance.

"I wasn't staring."

She was totally staring. But who could blame her? When someone looks at a person the way he looks at her, how could they ever stay away?

"Whatever you say."

JJ keeps smiling to himself while he pulls his underwear and shorts up his legs and waits for her to be decent enough to sneak past John B's bedroom to the bathroom at the end of the hallway.

The clothes are soaked through with rainwater, so they feel quite uncomfortable to slip back on, but they merely redress enough to be covered. She stole his shirt to avoid putting her shorts back on, the hem of the grey tee hanging right at the tops of her thighs when she walks. As soon as she slips her panties back on and picks up the rest of their cold, wet clothes, that's the cue he needs to scoop her up and take her away.

Y/N curses under her breath in surprise at feeling her feet being plucked off the ground, but she relaxes again once she's settled in his arms, realizing that it was just him who snuck up behind her and lifted her into his arms.

She doesn't say anything on the way to the bathroom. Instead, she lays her head on his shoulder in exhaustion and finds herself staring at the mark she left behind on his neck.

It's a deep, purplish red against the backdrop of his tan skin...the Pogues will surely notice the next time they see him. And while it will make her blush, it won't make her scared as it once would've. There may be a lingering sense of doubt and insecurity within her, but she wants this with him. Even if it means being teased by their friends or dealing with the jealousy of watching kook girls and tourons at parties hit on him, she wants this.

By the time the shower is spraying the rainwater from her hair and washing her clean of sweat sticking to her skin, she realizes that he isn't saying anything either, but she doesn't think it's out of any awkwardness or miscommunication. There's truly nothing to say, at least for now.

Though they didn't have the chance to talk in depth about everything yet, neither of them thinks of that right now. All they know is that they're together, whether it be officially or not, and it feels good. For once, something in his life feels right, and he lets himself enjoy it in silence.

The shower is a cramped space when shared between them and the wet clothes they have draped over the back edge of the tub, but they make it work. It's not like they mind anyway.

They bump into one another whenever they do so much as breathe, and the white walls echo the sounds of her giggling when he tries to tickle her. She leans her head back against his chest and lets out a laugh with shampoo dripping down the front of her face, and he'll be damned if he ever heard a sound as intoxicating as that.

It's a little weird. He's never been as soft and loving with a person before, and he has already felt overwhelmed in the lulls of quiet between them when he's given the chance to think about it.

When she washes his hair for him, insisting that she must return the favor after he so kindly washed hers, he was struck with the same mixture of wanting to simultaneously lean into and pull away from her that he felt the night of the party.

The warmth of the water loosens his sore muscles, washing suds of the green apple scented shampoo over his shoulders and down, down, down until it circles the drain beside his feet. All the while, her fingertips are delicately tracing over a healing bruise on his torso. Those pretty lips of hers are painted in a suppressed frown that she can't hide from him.

"Are you okay?" Y/N asks.

His instant reaction is to fake a smile, to brush it off and distract her as he usually does, yet he doesn't. He forces himself to remain neutral and not push her away.

"Happens all the time," he murmurs, shrugging and averting his eyes to reach for the soap off on the ledge.

The hands holding either side of his waist tighten as he tries to turn, pulling him back to her with more strength than he knew to anticipate from her. Their chests gently collide back together beneath the stream of water, and she can feel his breathing catch for a second or so in response.

The fact that their relationship has changed doesn't change how she handles this aspect of his life. Their new confessions don't have an impact on the part of his life he never wants to let anyone see, so she isn't going to force him to talk about it because they're trying out this whole relationship thing now. He has hard boundaries that she knows not to push sometimes. That's the way it is, and it might change as they grow closer but she knows to accept it for the moment.

As soon as he hears what she has to say next, he could crumble in relief at the realization that their new dynamic doesn't change anything.

"I didn't necessarily mean...that...I meant generally, you know? It's just that—" she sighs, "you shrink away a little when I hold you, and I wondered if I was making you uncomfortable."

Before she could finish the sentence, JJ was already thinking of what to say to prove her wrong, because that's not it. That's not what it is, and if she thinks she's done anything wrong, he'll do anything to convince her otherwise because it isn't her. It's him.

It's his dad lingering in the darker trenches of his mind, commanding his fear and attention so that even when he isn't physically present, he's still here. Part of why he denied wanting her was because he knew these types of things would arise in the beginning, that there would be difficult adjustments to make and conversations to be had, and he didn't want her to leave him as soon as she was faced with one of these things.

He shakes his head.

"You didn't do anything."

The feeing of her chest rising and falling with his begins to steady him after a moment of allowing the initial hesitation to dissolve. His internal reaction to her touch is the mental incarnation of a flinch. It's him waiting for the other shoe to drop and expecting her to do something, to hurt him, before his mind catches up with his heart. But once he realizes everything's okay, he loves it.

"It's kinda embarrassing, but I guess when you touch me, I'm expecting something else," he says softly, scared that if he speaks too loudly, everyone in the world will know how weak he feels.

She should've figured, but hearing him say it is different than wondering what the reasoning behind it is. Hearing him admit it after months of strict avoidance on the topic is a sucker punch to the gut.

Both times they had sex, he was too distracted and thoughtless to get caught up in that part of himself, but it's when the bliss of the afterglow disappears that it creeps back in. That's why he could always handle touch when it came in that context. It was his way of obtaining what he wanted without having to face this side of it—a temporary fix to a greater web of issues.

But there's nothing temporary about her. He doesn't want her to leave him, not without him resisting the urge to beg her on his knees to stay and at least remain his friend, so there's no choice but to face these momentary challenges head on.

She pauses for a second, thinking, then says, "You don't have to be embarrassed about it, I get it. We'll just have to take it day by day then. We can take it slow, and you'll let me know if it gets to be too much, okay?"

It's hard not to be shocked by how well she's taking it. A lot of people probably wouldn't feel too great after someone they love tells them they expect to be hit whenever they touch them, yet she's taking it in stride.

Things are back to normal as soon as she sees the grin on his face.

"So, you're saying you're gonna be trying not to throw yourself at me all the time?" JJ asks, then clicks his tongue as though in thought. "I give you a week. Tops."

Her eyes go wide as she looks at him. She holds her hand over her heart as she pretends to be scandalized by such an accusation, but they know it's true. They both can't keep their hands off of one another, which is why it confuses him. How can he want to reject and enjoy her touch at the same time? Sure, the discomfort disappears after the first split-second, but the fact that it happens in the first place annoys him to no end.

She rolls her eyes and tries to hide the fact that she's giggling as she reaches for the soap.

"You're a little shit, you know that?"

He doesn't miss a beat, saying back, "Yeah but I'm your little shit, so I feel like that says more about you than it does me."

While he's too busy rinsing the rest of the shampoo out of his hair, she smiles to herself at what he said.

Hers.

Nobody has ever been hers before, or proclaimed themselves as belonging to her as proudly and casually as he just did, and her heart melts over the sweet sentiment he didn't think twice about.

Less than a day ago, she was agonizing over her relationship with him and trying to ignore how powerful those feelings for him were, and now they're here. She no longer has to steal glances when he looks away or hide how jealous she feels when other girls flirt with him. To finally let the tension disappear is an immense weight off of her shoulders.

The rest of the shower is as quiet as the start of it was, and that comfortable silence continues through from when they're drying off and redressing to when they hit the mattress in the spare bedroom with tired sighs.

After the day they had, the mere suggestion of sleep is enough to make them start yawning, so being able to slip beneath the sheets and rest their heads almost sings her to sleep instantly.

Their bodies are laying in the exact outlines of where they laid the night of the party, the only difference this time being their mindsets. This time around, they aren't holding themselves back from anything, and it's most evident in the little things. Like how she doesn't turn around to shield her face from him, instead laying with her head propped on the other end of his favorite pillow.

They're so close, their noses brush if they make any slight movements, and this would be enough for him to submit to the urge to drift into sleep if not for the fact that he feels her jolt when thunder rumbles loudly outside of the window.

Much like his own fears being pushed to the side amidst their desire for each other, her anxiety about the storm wasn't on her mind until they laid down to sleep.

She was so wrapped up in him and everything that happened between them that she didn't have the time to think again until now, until she hears the violent patter of rain against the roof and feels her stomach drop at the sound of the thunder. Suddenly, she's not the one reassuring him about his fearful reactions, it's the other way around.

His warm hand takes hers, snatching it up as though he's worried it'll disappear if he doesn't take it quickly enough, and she lets him. Her eyes flutter shut with the release of a slow, deep breath, and she lets the presence of his hand in hers bring her back to earth.

JJ asks into the darkness, "Can I take you out on a real date?" After a beat of silence, the comforting sound of his voice returns to her. "Not that this isn't fun, but I think you deserve a little more effort than John B's living room floor."

A short-lived chuckle escapes her—a win as far as he's concerned. It's difficult to lure her head from the clouds when she gets this way, and it isn't like he has much experience with calming her during these moments either, but that sounded good to him. It sounded like she wasn't thinking about the increased pace of her heart or the howling wind outside.

He was planning on asking anyway. However fitting of a first night together this was, he wants to take her out for real sometime soon. He doesn't have much money for it, like at all, but they can come up with something special together, even if it's similar to the same shit they usually do together. As long as it's time alone together, they don't necessarily care if it's a perfectly traditional first date.

The tip of his thumb rubs comforting circles onto the back of her hand in the brief time it takes her to respond, stroking the soft skin as if to tell her that everything's okay. It seems to say, I'm right here. Nothing can hurt you. And it might make her crazy, but she believes him. JJ could take her back out into the eye of the hurricane at this very moment and she'd still believe his unspoken promise of not letting her into harm's way.

"Of course," she says, then pauses, and the sound of her sleepy voice hardly reaches his ears when she speaks again, "...I'm sorry I avoided you for the past few days. I was scared to tell you how I felt but I shouldn't have left that morning."

The memory of waking up in his arms is fresh in the forefront of her mind, so much so that she can remember the way his breath felt where it exhaled in warm puffs onto her skin.

In the first few moments of consciousness, it was peaceful.

She laid awake for a minute or two to count his breaths and soak in the comfort of being cuddled up next to him, wishing she could stay there for hours. It wasn't until another moment passed that it clicked with her where she was and what was going on between them recently, and that was what prompted her to slip away from the bed to get ready for her day at work.

It was the second time in a row that she left him in that bed with nothing to wake up to but the cold absence of her body between the sheets he slept under, and he can't deny that it's part of why he holds onto her hand so tightly tonight. Even though she's promised him otherwise, he can't help but think she'll be gone by the time he wakes up. At this point, he's struggling to stay conscious. She can see those pretty eyes drooping more and more by the second, yet the hand holding hers doesn't loosen its grip.

He takes a deep breath and scoots closer to her, keeping his one hand in hers while the other arm drapes itself over her waist, and he can feel her relax into the touch.

"It's okay," he says.

It's easier for him to adjust to so much physical contact when he's the one initiating. He knows that's why she only reached out to hold his hand. If she had it her way, she would've already been cuddling with him as soon as they laid down, but he likes that she gives him the space to initiate it. In the ways it counts the most, she cares about him more than anyone else has.

The touch in itself is his way of accepting her apology. However, truth be told, he already forgave her for it before knowing his love was reciprocated could be a possibility.

Right when she's about to fall asleep, the screen door slamming open and shut with the wind on the back porch makes her whip her head around to look over her shoulder in the direction of the sound. It seems like every time he successfully distracts her from it, the storm finds new ways of reminding her of what's happening outside of the safety of the Chateau.

There's the sound of a barely audible, sharp inhale, then her whispering into the dark room as she looks at the closed door, "I can't believe I went out into that. What the fuck was I thinking?"

It's beginning to close in on her again; the sounds of the storm, the sense of being trapped no matter how safe they truly are, and the rising tidal wave of anxiety that picks up speed the more she tries to will it to stop. This is the part where she tries to relieve it in some way, usually by smoking weed to sleep or going to one of her parents so they can help her through it, but she can't help herself right now.

Debris was being picked and tossed around in the wind like it weighed nothing when she was out there, she could've been knocked into the marsh or struck by a piece of debris.

How could she be so stupid?

Not only could she have hurt herself, she could've hurt JJ knowing that he'd likely follow her out into the storm to bring her back inside, and the thought of him being hurt makes the tension in her chest heavier. Her breathing picks up speed, the anxiety starting to snowball out of control when—

"Hey, look at me," JJ says, reaching up to turn her head to face him, and she damn near crumbles in relief at feeling his hand cup her cheek. It doesn't make it all disappear, but it provides a momentary comfort that she doesn't take for granted. "You're safe here. You know damn well I'll do anything to protect you. I mean, shit, dude, if I have to go out there and tell that rain to fuck off, I will."

This draws out a laugh from her, chest stuttering with the happy sound through the tears glistening in her eyes, and he never wants to stop hearing it. His thumb swipes away the first teardrop that falls before it can slip over the apples of her cheeks. I'm Her quiet cries and shaky breaths continue for a while after the laughter disappears. For a second or two, he watches with his thumb still wiping her tears away and hopes that it'll be enough to comfort her, but it can't do it completely.

He pulls away from her to get up from the bed with an idea popping into his mind, but upon hearing her whine at the loss of contact with him, he pauses to say, "I'll be back quick, don't worry."

The remaining humorous side of her left wonders if he's actually gonna go tell the rain to fuck off, but he's just opening the bedroom door to trot out into the living room.

A candle burning on the coffee table illuminates the space for him, guiding him straight to the forgotten backpack she left slumped against the arm of the couch hours before their relationship was changed for the better. It takes him an instant to get there and back with the bag in hand, and he's digging through it for a second before climbing back into bed with her.

If anyone else rifled through her bag, sifted through her personal belongings, and dug her phone out of it, she'd probably be annoyed, but she never is with him. She's inherently protective of her things, but JJ can do whatever he wants and it has always been that way. It should've been the first warning of what was to come.

He pulls the sheet back over his body and scoots up close to her, trying to resist the urge to retreat at first when he maneuvers her to lay with her head on his shoulder. It should trigger the flight or fight response that often alarms in his head, but he's able to push it away.

She's so vulnerable right now, so gentle and in need of the warmth of another person that he isn't as intimidated. It's not that she couldn't hurt him if she wanted to right now, she could, but he knows her. He knows that the last thing she'd ever want to do is hurt him, so he has to remind himself of that and give himself the permission to enjoy the physical intimacy of her touch. The part of him that questions if he even deserves it can't reach him now, not when he's so focused on her.

"Thumb?" he asks with the phone held out expectantly.

The screen is less than two inches from her face, so she has to push it back slightly, but she flattens her thumb to the button without further hesitation.

When he unwraps the pair of headphones from around the palm of his hand and plugs them into the charging port, she realizes why he left in the first place.

When she was facing away from him, eyes shut and headphones in to distract herself with music earlier, he was stealing glances at her every so often. He tried to keep away from her for the most part. It was difficult though, especially knowing what she said about being jealous the night of the party and knowing how scared she was of the hurricane. He couldn't help but keep an eye on her, for both his own selfish needs and his worry for her.

He keeps an arm tucked around her, pressing her body into his while he pops one of the headphones into her ear and the other into his. The thing is, her eyes aren't trained on the screen like his are once he starts looking through her vast collection of not-so-legally acquired music for a song that suits both of their tastes, they're trained on him.

Their taste in music tends to diverge in certain ways and overlap in others, so there's always a fifty/fifty shot of him liking what she plays when she's the one picking the music. That is why he smiles to himself and halts the endless scrolling in its tracks to hover his thumb over one song.

He obviously heard it before she played it that one time, but it's different for him now. They were riding together in the backseat of the Twinkie on the way to the beach with John B, Kie, and Pope when they let her take her turn to play a song.

That's how it is with them, the driver goes first, then it goes to the front seat passenger, and so on and so on until they make their way back to the beginning of the rotation. It was her turn when she picked this song, and it could've been the song, or the sunset shining through the window, but he felt as though his heart exploded when he looked at her in the middle of it.

He remembers feeling confused, confused as to why he couldn't catch his breath and why he suddenly adored the song he only heard casually a couple of times.

It was her. It was everything about her. The soft hum of her voice murmuring the lyrics, too shy to actually sing them in the presence of anyone else, was too delicate for the others to appreciate over the sounds of the van. He heard it though. He clung to it and admired her, so unashamed in his staring that he didn't realize he was doing it. It wasn't until she noticed that he stopped.

"Do I still have ice cream on my face or something?"

Her fingers came up to wipe at the corner over her mouth, and the action sent him turning his attention away quicker than he knew he could move, pulling the lighter out of his pocket to fiddle with as he mumbled, "Yeah, but you got it off now."

The cheery melody of Just Like Heaven bursts out of each headphone into their ears.

How did he know? How is he constantly reading her mind without realizing it?

This was her first song on the couch that she couldn't stand to sit through without thinking, naturally, of him when confronted with the topic of love. Somehow, it's like he knew that, and instead of feeling exposed and scared he'll know her feelings like before, she feels loved.

She is never skipping this song again.

"Go to sleep," he murmurs, clicking the screen off and resting it on his stomach.

It takes him a short thirty seconds to fall into an easy, calm pattern of breathing that tells her he isn't asleep, but soon will be. But she's fighting her sleepiness to continue looking at him. His eyes are fluttered shut, hair messy on the pillow, and she'd want to reach up to kiss him if he weren't trying to fall asleep.

Instead, she settles for matching her quickened breaths to the slow rise and fall of his chest beneath her hand and shuts her eyes along with him.

By the time the song reaches its end, she thinks he's asleep, but she still whispers, "Thank you," and feels his arm squeeze around her body in response.

The next songs fade into white noise at this point for her, drowning out the storm to the point where she begins to forget it's happening out there.

Maybe they can be each other's safe place when things get rough. After all, he handled this wonderfully considering his lack of experience with her anxiety and she never pushes him on his plethora of unsorted issues, even when she wants so badly to be the one to initiate the touch.

She never makes him think she pities him, or wants to "fix" him like so many partners with savior complexes who will never try to understand how it feels often do in these situations. With each other, maybe it doesn't have to be so complicated anymore, even when they have those inevitable arguments here or there.

The last thing he does before allowing himself to be dragged under is brush his lips on her forehead in a tender kiss. And when he eventually wakes to the rising sun shining through the windows in the aftermath of the violent hurricane, she's still there.

Tag List: @jjjmaybank, @its-simply-fanfiction, @naughtydild0swaggins.

[katehuntington]

Title: Black Dog - part five Word count: 5600± words Episode summary: When  Sam gets an anonymous phone call with information about his father, Dean receives a text message with coordinates to different location. The brothers clash and split up, one following orders, the other trusting his instincts. Meanwhile, in the wilderness of Cascade Range, Washington State, Zoë loses grip on a personal case and is forced to confront her demons. Without back up, this might very well turn out to be her final hunt. Part five summary: Dean and David hike up White Horse Mountain, and the hunter stumbles on something he never expected to find. Episode warnings: Dark! NSFW, 18+ only!  Angst, gore, violence, character death. Description of blood, injury and medical procedures. Supernatural creatures/entities, mentions of demon possession. Swearing, smoking, weaponry. Descriptions of  torture and murder. Illegal/criminal practices. Mentions of nightmares and flashbacks. Descriptions of suicidal thoughts and tendencies, depression, panic attacks, hallucinations. Author’s note: Beta’d by @winchest09​​​​​ & @deanwanddamons​​​​​​. Thanks, girls!

Supernatural: The Sullivan Series Masterlist

S1E03 “Black Dog” Masterlist

     “There. That’s our car.”

     David points at the Ford Escape ahead, which is parked alongside the road next to a stream. Dean peers through the windshield and nods, satisfied. He didn’t actually think it was possible, but David is as good at chart reading as Sam is. The nineteen-year-old remembers these backroads well. 

     Even though the timing isn’t perfect, now that the end of the day is approaching fast, the kid with the heart of a lion is determined to find his family and bring them home. If this creature turns out to be a wendigo, a hunt at night adds a bigger risk, but according to David, the weather is going to take a turn within the coming days, leaving not much time to lose. Then there’s the factor of those three missing hunters. The old wise man down in the village presumed them to be dead already, but a presumption isn’t definite. Dean will not write them off without finding either solid proof or dead bodies, and every minute passing slims the chances of their survival.

     As the hunter pulls over, he observes his surroundings. A fallen tree blocks the road ahead. It has been there for a while by the looks of it, because besides the SUV of David’s father, two other cars also await their owners to come back. One is a 4x4 Jeep with huge antlers attached to the grill, the other is a two-seat Land Rover with way too many bumper stickers on the rear end.      “I’m guessing those are the hunters’ cars,” Dean presumes.

     He turns off the ignition, the guitars and drums of Led Zeppelin’s Black Dog cut short, then he gets out of the Impala. The frozen ground crunches under his boots, the breath he blows out forming a small cloud as soon as it collides with the cold air. David takes his example and exits the car as well, moving towards the Ford.

     “There’s equipment inside that we’re going to need,” he says, while trying to have a look through the window.      Dean walks around his Chevrolet and slides the keys into the lock of the trunk. “Like what?”      “You know, the ten essentials. Ice axes, crampons, snowshoes, all that,” David sums up.      “Apparently I don’t,” Dean mutters, realizing it’s a good thing David decided to come along for the ride. His father had taken him and his brother on survival training plenty of times, but never in these snowy conditions on treacherous mountain tops.

     David curses, as he tries to open one of the doors. “Damn it, Dad locked it.”      “That’s where my equipment comes in handy.”      David turns around to see what Dean is talking about. He has opened the trunk of the Chevrolet and takes out a steel lath which is slightly bent at the end. David has seen it before in movies; it’s used for carjacking. For a second he glares at Dean. Why would he carry something like that with him? Skillfully, Dean slips the lath between the glass and the rubber frame, and with a quick motion, he unlocks it, without leaving a scratch.      He steps back and gestures to the car door. “Knock yourself out.” 

     Stunned, David glances from the SUV to Dean as he starts to wonder what this guy does for a living. Before he can ask, the stranger fires a question at him, though.      “How long did it take you to get over that ridge?” Dean wonders.      “About three hours. It’s getting dark already, so it might take a little longer than that,” David admits, watching Dean head back towards the slick, black car. “Where are you going?”      “I need to make a call before we go on this little adventure,” he notifies before he lowers himself into the driver’s seat.

     He closes the door and sighs, then takes out his phone. For a few seconds, he stares down at the little device in his hand, unsure if he should go through with what he’s about to do. Sam chose to walk away from him when he offered him a choice, Dean should not be the one crawling back to him. Or should he? Does he need to be the bigger man here? The first one to restore contact? If he does, he needs to do it now. The signal is bad down in the valley, not to mention up there between the clouds. 

     Pressing the speed dial before he can decide otherwise, Dean presses the dial button, but is eventually put through to voicemail. He can’t help but wonder if Sam just denied his call or that he’s unable to come to the phone. While the standard message plays, he starts to get worried. His little brother better not be in some kind of trouble. Then the final beep sounds in his ear and he leaves a message.

     “Hey, Sammy... It’s - it’s me. I just wanted to let you know that, uh... I’m in Darrington, Washington State. Dad was right, there is a case here. I’m not sure what it is yet, but I’ll figure it out. Anyway, I’m going into the woods and won’t be able to contact you any time soon, so…” He pauses and takes a breath. “I hope you’re doing okay, Sam. Leave me a message when you get this.”

     After those words, he hangs up and stares at his phone. Why couldn’t he say it? Why couldn’t he pronounce that simple word? Is it that hard to tell his brother that he is sorry about that fight? Apparently it is. With a deep sigh, he gets out of his car and notices David is already waiting. He has two backpacks ready and is carrying all sorts of tools on him.      “You’ll need this,” he offers, handing Dean a backpack.      Dean takes it and hooks his arm through one of the loops, then he turns to the trunk of his Chevrolet.      “Good, now let’s bring on the good shit.”

     With those words, he opens the lid and lifts up the double bottom, revealing his weapon collection. David’s eyes widen and stare down the trunk. Pistols, shotguns, knives, grenades, a sniper rifle, axes, crossbows. And is that…? Is that a grenade launcher? Every single weapon you could possibly think of is stored in that car. 

     Frightened, he looks over at Dean. “Are you going to kill me?”      Dean looks aside, puzzled. “What? No, of course not.”      He takes his gun from his waistband, unloads it, and replaces the bullets with silver ones. Curious yet scared, David monitors his actions.

     “Do you know how to handle a rifle, David?” Dean asks while he packs a set of flare guns and extra cartridges. It still bugs him that he’s not sure what he’s dealing with yet, which is usually step one when it comes to hunting. He doesn’t want to waste more time, though, with so many lives lost already, so he’s gearing up for every creature still on the list.      “Yeah, Dad took me deer hunting a few times,” the young guy replies, still doubtful.      “I’ll tell you one thing, it ain’t deer we’re gonna hunt,” Dean comments.

     He hands the young guy a loaded pistol, which David puts away behind his belt. Dean loads a shotgun with rock salt, in case he finds a spirit in these woods. When he’s done, he gives it to David as well as a flare gun.      “Shoot first, ask questions later,” he orders.

     “What are we hunting exactly?” David likes to know, slightly freaked out.      “Probably a skinwalker, which is a creature that is able to change into any animal it wants, and if we’re really lucky, it’s a wendigo, which is an incredibly fast and close-to-perfect hunter. But it could also be a daeva, ” Dean rambles, as if he’s reading from a boring history book while preparing his own shotgun.

     David's jaw drops. What did he just say? Is this guy for real? Or is he about to hike up a mountain with someone who should be admitted either to a mental institution or locked up in jail? That would be the obvious explanation, but after what he experienced, he knows it’s not the only scenario. This stranger, who he had never seen before in his life, is the only one who believes his story and has taken him seriously. He wonders, though. What’s the scarier thought? Going into the woods with a possible mad man, or to seek out something evil, something supernatural, in the wilderness? 

     Dean notices his guide’s reaction as he slams the lid of his car and locks it up. He figured the kid needed some time to comprehend, but they need to get going. The hunter turns to David again, skillfully loading his rifle single-handedly.      “Welcome to my world.” 

     Leaving the teenager in complete shock, he walks past him and expects him to follow, which he eventually does, once he snaps out of it.      “So… we just kill the monster?” he asks as he catches up with Dean, looking aside.      “Not ‘just’. These creatures are damn fast, so it’s gonna be a hell of a task.” Dean gives the directions clearly, knowing they will need some time to sink in. “If you see any kind of animal, you shoot it with that gun I just gave you. If you see something that looks slightly human, torch the fucker.”      “What if it’s something else?” the only remaining Cleveland questions.      “Then you run like hell and let me take care of it,” Dean orders.      David nods, trying to process the information. “And the shotguns?”      “Oh, I took those just in case we run into an evil spirit,” Dean adds nonchalantly.

     The young guy, who is exposed to way more new information than he can digest, stops dead in his tracks, leaving Dean in the lead. Completely staggered, he stares at him, bug-eyed. Did he just say ‘evil spirit’? As in a ghost?

     “You’re insane!” he concludes.      “If you have a better explanation for all this, please share,” Dean returns, growing impatient.      David catches up with him again, observing him while they march up the trail.      “You do this for a living? You actually hunt these things down?” he asks, both stunned and curious.      “It doesn’t pay well if that’s what you mean, but yeah. Someone has to do the job,” the hunter admits.      “And I thought I had it bad in college,” the teenager scoffs under his breath.

     Silence follows as the company of two starts their journey up the steep hills at the foundation of Whitehorse Mountain. It’s a good thing Dean has endurance, because it’s a tough trail they’re following. They parked the car at 750 feet, far below the Lone Tree Pass, and crossing these terrains isn’t exactly a walk in the park. Downed evergreens make it difficult to move fast, almost as if the woods are trying to slow them down, knowing what’s up there.

     They are about two hours on their way when they hit snow. The thin layer of white allows the two young men to make good time, and it doesn’t take them long to reach an open area. Ice crystals reflect the mystical moon rays, the only source of natural light they have. Dean might be wearing several layers of clothing, but he can’t shut out the freezing temperatures completely. His hands tingle and his nose and ears feel cold, the brisk night air uncomfortable against his skin. The hunter turns up the collar of his jacket to protect his neck from the elements, but silently wishes he had brought a scarf at least. 

     The snow that fell yesterday reached lower altitudes than it did last week, announcing winter. David’s flashlight shimmers on the silver surface as they cross the open space. Cautious, Dean scans the area holding his torch up, shining it in the direction where he’s looking. David, on the other hand, checks his altimeter.      “We’re at 2400 feet,” he notifies.      Dean checks his watch, it’s almost ten-thirty. “We’re not gonna reach the Lone Pass Tree before midnight, are we?”      “I’m afraid not. Want to set up camp?” David proposes.      “No, we’re not gonna close our eyes in these woods. Something’s off,” Dean replies, alert.

     The skilled hunter can’t put his finger on it, but the hair in the back of his neck is straight up. He looks around, his focus flicking over his surroundings. He lets the light glide along the edge of the forest, when he sees a hint of a shadow. It moves so fast he barely captures it, yet he immediately draws his shotgun, which alerts David.      “What?”      “Shh…”  Dean hushes him and gestures to follow him. “Stay close. Keep your eyes open.”

     Scared yet brave, David takes out his gun and does as told. The only thing they hear are the noises coming from the woods and the snow rustling under their shoes. Dean wants to get out of this clearing as fast as possible; they are sitting ducks out here in the open. 

     With his hunter instincts on high alert, Dean crosses the field, the stock of the shotgun against his cheek and the back end firmly against his shoulder pocket as he peers past the barrel. His father, having served in Vietnam, taught his sons everything he knows about 360 degrees combat. The military training has proven his worth  throughout his career in hunting evil, and today is no exception.

     The two make it to the treeline, finding shelter in the shadows of the forest. After a few hundred yards, Dean stops dead in his tracks, spotting something that doesn’t fit the picture. What appears to be the remnants of a campsite comes into view, and he lowers his weapon. He realizes it’s probably the three missing hunters, but as they approach, it becomes clear that the creature he’s tracking has beaten him to it.

     The place is completely trashed. A fire has died out, fresh snow covering the blackened logs. The tents, which were set up in a triangle around the only heat source, are shredded to pieces. Strips of canvas sadly hang from the tentpoles, the soft breeze moving them back and forth. Blood that leaked from the groundsheet and tainted the ice should have been a warning, but the young Cleveland pulls back the cover anyway, regretting it the second he beholds what’s inside. He stumbles away, instantly throwing up and dumping his half-digested meal into the snow. 

     Dean watches the young guy for a second, who wipes his mouth and stares back at him, pale as a ghost. Unfortunately, it wouldn’t be the first dead body the hunter has come across, yet he still pushes away the torn canvas with caution. He can understand David’s response, because it’s anything but a pretty sight. Inside lies what remains of one of the men. His torso has been ripped open and bodily fluids have splattered everywhere. Bite marks and scratches have torn his clothes, revealing the disemboweled body. His face has been eaten away, his remaining limbs already turning black. Scavengers have been snacking on his flesh, yet the frost that covers him has taken away the worst of the smell.

     With a sigh, the hunter steps back and investigates the other tents, finding the same dramatic portrayal behind every curtain. He spots the rifles by their sides; they got ambushed. The fact that all three of them are still in a sleeping position indicates that the attacks happened at once. It’s not just one predator who has made this area their hunting grounds. There are at least three of those creatures out there, which makes them outnumbered.

     His flashlight catches the torn-up canvas. The fabric is cut up by razor-sharp claws by the looks of it, four digits instead of five.      “I can tell you one thing, it ain’t no wendigo,” he concludes, ruling out the lonesome monster.

     But if it isn’t a wendigo, then what? Dean glances up at the sky through the branches. The moon was full a few days ago, yet now it’s partly shadowed; it can’t be a werewolf either. When he redirects his gaze back to the ground, he spots an imprint of a paw, stained with crimson. It looks like one of a wolf or some other canine. The experienced hunter is putting his money on the monsters being skinwalkers, until he looks back into one of the tents. The guy’s chest is ripped to shreds, but his heart is still there. So what the hell could this be then?

     Pondering, he steps back, making eye contact with the teenager. David is trembling slightly, and Dean would do anything to break the picture that will be forever framed in his mind. The kid is scared for life.      “You good?” he asks sympathetically, holding his gaze.      His question is answered with a nod of the head. David swallows with difficulty, but then he exhales, collecting himself.      “Let’s keep moving, there’s nothing we can do for them,” Dean says. “Turn off your flashlight, it will only make us easy targets. Those things could be anywhere, so stay close, alright?”

     David nods silently once more, doing exactly as Dean tells him. They move away from the site where the horrific event took place and traverse left, further into the forest to a wide-open strip, leading to the slopes of the Lone Pass Trees. The tall evergreens seem to try and cut out every bit of light, isolating them from the rest of the world. Darkness overshadows the boy and the hunter, who have both drawn their weapons. 

     For a moment, Dean closes his eyes and listens, trying to identify the many sounds of the night. Then he opens them, giving his pupils time to adjust. They are being watched, the hunter can feel it in his bones. He taps David on the shoulder to tell him to stop. Alerted and highly aware of what’s going on around him, Dean holds his shotgun up. If it’s a forest spirit, the rocksalt is going to hurt, but if this thing turns out to be a daeva, it’s only going to buy them a few extra seconds. 

     Then he notices it, something sneaking at ten o’clock. A branch twitches softly, but it’s enough for Dean to aim the barrel in the direction where it came from, trusting his trained ear. In a reflex, he steps in front of David and pulls the trigger, shooting a slug from the barrel, immediately taking cover behind a tree and pulling his guide with him. It’s a good thing he does, because whatever it is, it shoots back. He hears the rock salt hit the target right before the slug from the other weapon splinters the bark right next to his head. As he turns his face and shuts his eyes, protecting them from the wooden fragments, he hears the creature scream out. 

     “AAH! God damn it!!”

     Dean’s eyes widen as he feels the tree trunk against his back. No fucking way. Impossible. Yet, he knows that voice, he knows it way too well. The hunter carefully peeks from behind his cover. “Uh-oh.”      “What?” David whispers, scared. “What is it?”      “This is far worse than a wendigo or a skinwalker,” Dean comments under his breath, after which he puts on a louder voice. “Zoë?”      A short silence follows as it seems to sink on their opponent who she just had a face-off with. When the realization hits, hell breaks loose.      “Dean Winchester, you fucking ASSHOLE!!” Zoë curses.

     She has her arm clamped over the area where Dean just unleashed the insides of his shotgun. The agonizing injury has her coughing, the wind knocked from her lungs just moments earlier. Zoë has never been shot with rock salt before and although she knows it won’t kill her, it’s certainly not a pleasant experience. 

     “You two know each other?” David assumes, surprised by this unexpected development.      “Unfortunately, we do,” Dean comments.      “You fucking SHOT me!!” she cries out, infuriated.

     Dean grimaces, cowering at her harsh tone; he’s dead meat. He just fired a gun at Zoë Sullivan and actually managed to hit her. He’s not sure if he will live to tell the tale. Then he remembers the little prank she pulled on him in Paragould. As his facial expression changes, he glares around the tree.

     “Well, you deserved it!” he shouts back, a part of him regretting his words the moment he pronounces them.      “WHAT did you just say to me?!” Zoë returns, in disbelief.      “You wrecked Baby!” Dean argues.      “Baby? What are you… Oh, you have got to be shitting me!” she snaps, frustrated. “You shot me over a fucking car?!”      Immediately, Dean’s eyes widen and he scoffs, insulted. “It’s a--”      “- ‘67 Chevrolet Impala,” the huntress interrupts. “Big fucking deal!”      “You know what’s a big deal? You shot me too, back in Rochester. With a real bullet!” Dean counters.

     Another pause follows, the quiet moment allowing her ragged breaths to be audible. Dean can hear her cough and groan. Shit, she’s in a lot of pain.  

     “Zo?”      “Yeah?” she moans.      “Sorry.”      The huntress huffs. “You will be when I’m done with you.”      “You’re not gonna shoot me, are ya?” Dean questions, before he dares to come out of hiding.      “No, I guess we’re square,” she sighs.

     Dean appears from the shadows while Zoë tries to crawl up, her forearm still tightly pressed against her chest. Seeing her on the ground has the older Winchester sibling fasten his steps towards her. He offers his hand, and when she glares at him she notices the concern in his eyes, despite the dim light. Reluctant, she places her palm in his and allows him to pull her in an upright position, after which the hunter crouches down next to her.

     “You alright?” he checks, peeling her warm coat away.      “Had worse,” Zoë croaks, clearing her throat with difficulty.      The winter coat she’s wearing has cushioned the rocksalt somewhat, but bruising is already evident, blood surfacing through her skin.      “Shit,” he cusses, his voice laced with guilt. “David, give me some light, will ya?”

     Perplexed, the huntress looks past Dean at the young guy who pulls a torch from his backpack. She assumed the tall figure behind the hunter was Sam, since the two siblings are so unhealthily co-dependent on each other.      Zoë snaps her head back to face the older Winchester brother, then hints at David. “You brought him here?”

     Before the hunter can answer her, the flashlight flips on, its rays exposing the state the woman before him is in, silencing him instantly. A blood splatter has painted her neck and chin with red, her brow and temple badly bruised. Crimson has dripped down from her forehead and dried into her pores, a cut on her cheekbone is still bleeding. No way in hell that a bit of rock salt caused that.

     Dean gapes at her. “Jesus, Zo. What the fuck happened?”      “I got into a little fight,” she admits carelessly.      Not satisfied with that answer, he sternly stares into her eyes. “With what?”      “Doesn’t matter,” she mutters, pushing herself off the ground, half accepting Dean’s support when he helps her. “I still can’t believe you dragged the kid with you.”      “He needed a guide,” David answers before Dean does. “I thought you were with Wildlife Services?”      Confused, Dean shifts his attention from Zoë to David and back. “You talked to him?”      “Of course I did. You think I would work a case without a background check?” she snaps, pulling herself loose from the hunter’s grip once she’s on her feet.      “Why didn’t you tell me?” Dean now asks David.      “I didn’t think it was relevant. I had my statement taken by several people. How was I supposed to know that she’s a hunter too?” the young guy excuses.      Now it’s Zoë’s turn to Dean in shock. “You told him?!” she cries out.      “He deserved to know, Zoë,” Dean defends.      “He deserves to live and so do you,” she returns firmly. “The both of you need to get off this mountain. Now.”      “No, not without my family,” the brave teenager states, determined.      “You’re no good to them dead, David. Believe me, you will end up the same way as your father and sister if you don’t go back,” she lectures.

     Confused, Dean watches the exchange, unsure what Zoë’s words could mean. “For fuck's sake, Zo. What are you hunting?”      “It’s taken care of, but you two need to leave. Now!” she replies firmly. “You can come back for your family’s remains, I promise you that. But not tonight, unless you want to suffer the same fate.”

     Her brown eyes bore deep into David’s. Her promise is sincere, but so is the warning. A pressing expression strengthens her words, convincing him to listen. There is something about her that forces David to understand he must do what she tells him to. He looks from one hunter to the other, then he nods as he swallows apprehensively.      “Okay,” he agrees.      “Here, take this with you,” she hands him an amulet.      Dean recognizes it as the demon protection necklace Zoë stole from his trunk back in Rochester. When he took the pendant back, he was sure he had left it in the trunk of the Impala, but she must have snatched it again when he wasn’t looking. Why would she need the enchanted jewelry? What is hiding in these woods that the amulet would work on? Demons? But that doesn’t fit the leads at all.      Wanting to get a grip on the situation, the hunter tries to read her, but Zoë gives him nothing.

     “Run and don’t look back”, she tells David.      “And the gun?” David gives the man who accompanied him on this quest a wondering look, the 9mm Glock burning behind his waistband.      “Keep it. Might come in handy,” Dean insists, also handing him a card from his pocket. “This is my brother’s number. When you get back to the village, give him a call and he will help you.”      “You’re going with him,” Zoë decides strictly.      The older Winchester sibling glances from David to the injured woman. Her breathing is still elevated, but her gaze is as penetrating as ever.      Dean doesn’t back down, though, his green eyes are as piercing as she has ever witnessed them. “No, I’m not.”      The huntress rolls her eyes skyward, trying to tie down the anger that is building in her stomach. Now is not the time for the hunter to fight her, yet she has to convince him fast before they run out of time. “Dean, listen to me--”      “I’m not gonna bail,” he makes clear, his father’s orders in the back of his mind.      “You are not part of this case,” Zoë hisses, suppressing her rage.      But Dean doesn’t falter. “I am now.”

     The smart woman who has made quick-thinking her middle name, turns away from him, her hands moving to her head, fingers raking into her brown locks. When she swings back around to face him, he sees a desperation in her stance he has never witnessed before.      “For fuck’s sake, Dean! Listen to me for once! If you stay, you will DIE!!” she cries out, retreating her hands from her hair and gesturing wildly.

     The complete change of demeanor stuns Dean. Trying to unravel her odd behavior, he watches her, noticing the shimmer in her eyes when the moonlight catches them. It starts to dawn on him that she’s not sending him away because she doesn’t want his help. There is so much more at stake than just pride.

     “I don’t want your blood on my hands, Dean,” Zoë continues, her voice much softer now. “Please, just… Please go.”

     Compared to her harsh words a moment ago, these come out as a pleading whisper. He could have sworn he heard a tremble, her words laid thick with fear and sadness. Nothing about this picture seems right. Could it be that the mighty huntress is actually scared? 

     It only fuels Dean’s determination to remain by her side even more. His green eyes turn softer, a mix of comfort and compassion filling them. “I’m not leaving you alone on this one, Zo.” 

     She breathes out a shuddering sigh, admitting the loss. It’s not often that it happens, but Zoë doesn’t argue further. The commitment in his tone, the way he’s looking at her right now, she knows that a nation’s army couldn't change his mind.      David seems to realize it too, because he steps back and intends to leave. “Good luck,” he wishes them.

     Both Dean and Zoë give him a nod, after which he disappears into the darkness of the forest. When he’s out of sight, the remaining hunter turns back to Zoë. She can’t look at him, aware that she has already lost the battle and that Dean has sealed his fate. She and the older Winchester brother might not get along, but this is not what she wishes for him. Now that he chose to stay, he chooses to die. Not okay with this in the slightest, she shakes her head and looks down at the icy soil at her feet.

     “You shouldn’t have followed me, Dean,” she sighs, trying to keep the tears at bay.      “I didn’t,” he returns, truthful.      “Oh, come on,” she scoffs. “How else would you explain that you end up here on the--”      “Dad sent me.”

     Stunned, she looks up, his words a complete shock to her. Several questions start to swirl inside in her mind. John? John sent him here? How did he even know she would be on this mountain? On this exact spot? And why would he send his son on a suicide mission? 

     “Why in hell would he jeopardize your life?” she counters, frustration and fury thick in her tone.      “Maybe because he thinks yours can be saved,” Dean brings to mind.      Zoë chuckles and turns away from the Winchester son who bears such a resemblance to his father, taking a couple of steps away from him while she tries to wrap her head around the situation.

     “Is that funny to you?” he questions, hostile, her cynical laugh rubbing him the wrong way.      “It is, because last time I checked, saving my ass is about the last thing your old man wants to do,” she returns, venom in her voice.

     Her acquisition puts John’s son off once again. He has noticed her disrespecting and aggressive attitude towards his father several times before and he can’t resist continuing on that matter this time.      “What the fuck is your problem with my father?” he asks defensively.      “Can we please not do this? Not now,” she intervenes, seemingly tired, after which her gaze wanders. “You shouldn’t have come.”

     Dean observes her intently, unable to comprehend what is happening. Zoë Sullivan who doesn’t want to pick a fight? That’s a new one. Her choice of actions alerts Dean, even frightens him a little. However, nothing will ever make him reconsider the decision to stick around. Dad gave him a job to do and finding the huntress here, clearly in deep shit, can’t be a coincidence. He approaches Zoë, forces her to look him in the eye by gently gripping her shoulders and turning her to face him.

     “Zo, what are you hunting?” he asks, emerald greens staring at her.      “I’m not hunting, Dean,” she answers, her voice only having a fraction of its usual strength. “I’m ending this.”

     In the far distance, a church bell rings. Startled, Zoë snaps her head to the side, staring into the direction of the valley as the single carillon chimes. Midnight is here. 

     Three… four… five… 

     Time becomes valuable when it runs out. This is it. This is the moment she has feared for exactly one year now. This is the moment that she has to pay her dues. 

     Seven… eight… nine…

     “Zo?”      Dean tries to call her back, hoping to get her attention, but she has shut herself out. The woman before him is identical to the girl he met four years ago, when she was possessed and the carpet got pulled from under her. Panic and fear swim in her eyes and tears begin to pool just above her bottom eyelashes. Unable to respond, she listens to the sounding of the bells, pulling in irregular breaths. She’s on the verge of breaking down.

     He isn’t sure how to handle her, the huntress who has seen so much evil and has endured so much pain. She never gives in to fear, never wavers, never gives up, until now. And still, Dean doesn’t have a clue what is going on, but he is starting to fear the worst himself. 

     Gently, he slides his hands down her arms until he’s holding her by the wrists, tightening his grip to get her to look at him. Finally, Zoë turns her head and stares back, teardrops coming down her bruised and bloody face. Despite the lack of light, he can see them glisten with sorrow. 

     Ten… eleven… 

     Then the last call of the church bell echoes through the valley. It feels like the drums stop right then and there and the floor is about to disappear from under her, which will force the seemingly unbeatable huntress to fight the noose. Her entire form trembles under Dean’s touch. She can barely say a word, because she knows they will be one of her last. And so she whispers the most fragile, truthful, and frightening message that has ever left her lips, only for him to be heard.

     “I’m so sorry.” 

Dun-dun-dun! Hope you enjoyed the cliffhanger. Feel free to rant about after the read. Thank you so much for reading. I appreciate  every single one of you, but if you  do want to give me some extra love,  you are free to reblog my work or  buy me coffee (Link in bio at the  top of the page)

Read part six here

[stusbunker]

WW - S06 E04 Weekend At Bobby's 😘

(Weird Wednesdays are brought to by bastardizing the wiki)

One year ago and shortly after trapping Lucifer and Michael in Lucifer's Cage, Bobby summons Crowley and demands the return of his soul. Crowley refuses and smugly quotes his contract, which states that he only has to "make best efforts" to give Bobby his soul back. He agrees to give Bobby ten years of life, but that is all. Bobby then reveals he has trapped Crowley in a devil's trap made with black light paint, but Crowley threatens him with his hellhound until Bobby releases him.

Bobby’s junkyard dog, Rumsfeld, who everyone forgot about, perks up at the sound of a new friend and Crowley relents and summons Juliet for a playdate. The dogs run the perimeter of the salvage yard and the owner’s discuss training and stories of when they were pups. Bobby brings out some glasses and Crowley falls for the holy water in his scotch. Eventually, they laugh it off.

In the present day, Sam and Dean are in Wisconsin (namely Kenosha, where my husband was born) on the trail of a monster that cracks open the bodies of its victims. It leaves a large black claw in the chest cavity of the latest victim, and they call Bobby for help. Even though Bobby says that he's busy. And Sam always has wifi. Bobby steps up and spends hours researching, going so far as to break into a University library to find a book that he needs. I mean, they’re his kids, who else would he go to jail for?

And we wonder why he was the one with all the drunk and disorderlies...

It's early morning the next day when he calls Dean to tell him that they're hunting a lamia. Usually only in Greece, a lamia "juices hearts and chugs the blood." Which Sam quickly jots down, because that could be the next step in his smoothie fixation. Bobby tells them it can be killed by a silver knife blessed by a priest. What kind of priest? Who knows, who cares. Probably an acolyte of Apollo or some shit. But, they can do their own research now, moochers.

After he's off the phone, Bobby goes down to his basement, where he has a crossroads demon tied up and caught in a devil's trap. He wants to know Crowley's true name - the name he had as a human before he died and became a demon in Hell - so he tortures the demon by using a blowtorch to singe its bones. Finally, she admits that Crowley, who is now the King of Hell, was a Scottish man named Fergus MacLeod in life. The other demons call him "Lucky the Leprechaun" behind his back.

Which just goes to prove that demons are stupid and unofficially most Scots and Irish end up in heaven, because there is no way it was that funny of a joke.

Once Bobby has the information he needs, he burns the demon's bones, killing it and its host. And no one is really surprised, we are only allowed to worry about vessels when it’s a recurring character.

After killing the demon, Bobby answers phones and backs up other hunters posing as various law enforcement officials until Rufus knocks on his door. Rufus has the police on his tail and needs Bobby's help burying the body of a Snorlax, a monster usually only seen in Japan. They bury the body on Bobby's property and Rufus leaves just before Sheriff Jody Mills shows up with an FBI agent, Agent Adams. Agent Adams is looking for Rufus.

And as exhausting as this episode is, it just shows what Bobby Singer’s life really is like. It wasn’t a single week of annoyance, it was always like that. He’s a goddamn saint in a cantankerous facade. Bobby is a fucking hero.

Dean calls while the FBI agent is there and asks for help killing the lamia because they couldn't kill it with a silver knife blessed by a priest. Bobby tells him to find salt and rosemary and "blend the herbs, saute over a high heat, and cook well," and hangs up when Dean finishes his audition for Cutthroat Kitchen and flambes the lamia. Agent Adams is persistent, and Sheriff Jody Mills tries to distract him, but Adams finds the spot where the Snorlax was buried. Fortunately, there is no longer any evidence of a crime because the damn thing is gone. Unfortunately, Rufus didn't stab it enough times to kill it, and it has been feeding on single white gamers while they sleep.

Rufus and Bobby deserved a fucking spin off for this episode alone. Jesus these two were perfect.

While Bobby was interrogating the crossroads demon, Marcy Ward rang his doorbell with a homemade peach cobbler. She has been his neighbor for six months now, and seems to be interested in him romantically, asking him over for dinner and a movie and then, when he seemed hesitant, asking him to come over and take a look at her wood chipper, which has broken down. When he learns that the Snorlax might be after her, he breaks down her door with a shotgun, scaring her, but drawing out the Snorlax, which had been waiting in her bedroom to kill her. Her playstation still paused to the final boss.

When the Snorlax is killed in Marcy's (obviously functioning) wood chipper, she is covered in blood. Bobby still tries to salvage a relationship with her, but she turns him down. He never was as cavalier as he wanted to be and victims are rarely as grateful as they are in fanfic.

Rufus thanks Bobby for helping him with the pokemon, and tells him what his contacts in Scotland have learned about Fergus MacLeod, aka Crowley. Crowley had a son named Gavin MacLeod, whose signet ring is now on display in a maritime museum in Andover, Massachusetts. Rufus is already there willing to steal the ring for Bobby. Because, that’s what friends do. And no matter how annoying or argumentative they are, both of those ornery bastards listen when the other is talking or dealing with their own problems.

Dean calls to talk about Sam and how he's changed in the past year, Dean can’t stand his new manscaping regimen especially, but when Bobby puts Dean on hold to talk to Rufus (who is fleeing law enforcement after stealing the ring), Dean accuses him of being selfish.

I have seen people go off on Bobby for this rant and I just want you all to know, FUCK OFF. Bobby had every right to say what he did in this episode. We all knew Sam was “WRONG”, Dean should have picked a different way to unload on Bobby about it.

Bobby asks for Sam and he yells at the brothers over speakerphone, calling them "whiny, self-absorbed, sons-of-bitches" that he does everything for without a word of thanks. He reminds them Crowley still has his soul and tells them to "sack up" and help him for once. Sam says all Bobby had to do was ask. While Dean pouts in the corner because he didn’t want to talk TO SAM about SAM. He wanted to gossip.

As a favor to Bobby, Sheriff Mills extradites Rufus and allows him to "escape custody" so that Rufus can deliver the signet ring to Bobby. You just gonna gloss over how he got it to South Dakota safely? Really? That level of dedication is just overlooked these days.

Bobby uses the ring to summon Gavin's ghost, and they "have a chat." He then summons Crowley, who arrives and discovers he is trapped in another devil's trap. Which, why isn’t he always at this point? Summon him constantly gents, it’s like a round of musical Crowley. No? Too much? Eh, what do you know.

Crowley repeats his position that he won't give Bobby his soul, but Bobby counters by revealing his son Gavin's ghost. Fergus, aka Crowley, and Gavin hated each other so Gavin is useless as a bargaining chip, but he gave Bobby all the information he wanted about Crowley, including where his bowling shoes were buried. Which I don’t think Gavin would have known, but that’s just more confusing shit for a later episode where we time travel to find the real Gavin and not just a bitter old spirit.

Bobby hands Crowley the phone so that he can talk to Dean, who tells him that he and Sam are standing over Crowley's comical size sevens in Scotland. Bobby makes Crowley an offer: his beloved shoes in exchange for Bobby's soul, and Crowley agrees. Bobby makes sure that he will still have the use of his legs before releasing him from the devil's trap, with a pat on the ass for good measure.

Crowley appears in Scotland moments later, where Sam and Dean are still standing over his supposed grave. Dean threatens to burn the lucky bowling shoes anyway, but Sam tells him to stand down, saying "a deal's a deal." Crowley picks up his personalized bag and disappears, and Bobby thanks Sam and Dean for flying to Scotland and helping him get his soul back.

Dean was on a plane for 8 hours? Sam must have given him that good shit, because aint no other way that was happening....

[shirtlesssammy]

Clap Your Hands if You Believe: 6x09 Recap

Then:

Souless!Sam sure looks soulful when he’s telling Dean he doesn’t care about him.

Now:

***X-FILES ALERT***

Before this recapping nerd was a Supernatural fan, I was (and still am) an X-phile. I’m pretty sure I stuck out the early seasons of Supernatural just because I knew Kim Manners worked on the show. This episode doesn’t usually ping my top 5, but it’s special.

It’s as special as the night the cold open couple was having before the boyfriend, Patrick, disappeared in a cornfield.

Literally cue knock-off X-Files theme.

Sam and Dean head to Elwood, Indiana and interview townsfolk, including Wayne Whitaker, Jr. (played by Robert Picardo. Ignore the famous character actor in the corner. Move along.) about the strange abductions. Wayne is decidedly Team UFO, the local cop doesn’t believe anything supernatural is amiss, and one nice lady believes it’s fairies! Dean is diplomatic and thanks the woman, and Sam calls her out on the ridiculousness of her stance. This episode was Peak Souless!Sam. GOLD EVERYWHERE.

Dean tries giving Sam a lesson in Souls 101, but Sam really needs to sign up for the PhD course. Sam asks if he’s just supposed to fake it? Dean, the master in this, affirms, “Yes, fake ‘til you make it.” (Here’s to Dean not needing to fake it in season 13.) And to help him out, Dean will be his Jiminy Cricket.

The boys head off to interview Patrick’s father. He’s less than accommodating to their questions, insists his son was “taken”, and tries to kick the brothers out of his clock making workshop.

His son has been missing for weeks; he’s not coming back. Dean leaves his number for the man to call them with any information. Once he’s alone, the clockmaker looks to the side --at nothing-- and asks, “Is that alright?”

The brothers split up. Sam stays to watch the watchmaker, and Dean heads to check out the crop circles. Once at the crop circle, Dean gets a call from Sam. It seems Mr. Clockmaker is just drinking his night away at the local diner. Sam wants to talk to him, and before Dean can really talk him out of doing anything, the Impala shuts off and Dean sees a glowing light from the sky. “UFO! UFO!” Sam calmly tells Dean to stop yelling. Lol. “CLOSE ENCOUNTER! CLOSE ENCOUNTER!” While Dean is screaming about empathy, Sam orders another beer. The light finally catches up to Dean, and even with all weapons drawn, Dean disappears into the bright light.

With his call cut short, Sam enjoys his beer and male gazing at the waitress. He does eventually make it to the cornfield to find his brother’s dropped cell phone.

He then finds a small enclave of UFO believers, and starts to ask questions. He finds Wayne Whitaker and asks how to “get them.”

Sparrow, another UFO enthusiast approaches their conversation, and hears Sam admit that his brother was abducted.

Sparrow: Your brother was abducted?

Sam: Yeah.

Sparrow: Oh my God.

Sam: It’s fine. I mean, I’ve had time to adjust.

Sparrow: Did it happen when you were kids?

Sam: No, like, half an hour ago.

Oh, Souless!Sam, never change. He tells Wayne that he sucks, and walks off. Sparrow follows, offering her help, and a flirty smile.

Back at the cornfield, Dean reappears screaming, with knife and gun still fully engaged. Cut to him making it back to the motel room to find Shirtless!Souless!Sammy in bed with Sparrow.

Sparrow makes her exit, but not before asking Dean about his abduction. “They were grabby, incandescent douchebags. Goodnight.” Sam senses Dean’s anger. Dean was barely gone an hour, and Sam ends up in bed with “Patchouli”? Sam corrects Dean: He’s actually been gone most of the night. And that fits with a lot of UFO lore. Sam insists that Dean tells him what happened. Dean is disgusted with his own story but admits that there was a bright, white light, and there were beings pulling him towards a table. “A probing table!” “God, don’t say that out loud!” Dean had a close encounter, and won. He’s gonna take a shower now.

The next day, Sam and Dean break down the existence of aliens.

Well, Dean does while Sam checks out the bar’s waitress. (And check out that shot: The El Sol sign is there. I get it, the title of this episode reveals it’s not aliens, but I do love the story the set design tells every week.) And this whole scene where Sam questions the correct actions of someone who just lost their brother to an abduction ---and Dean’s insistent, “Yes, you sit in the dark and feel the loss!” Sam’s final exam essay: “So you’re saying having a soul equals suffering.” (And Dean’s notes on that essay: “I’m saying it’s the only game in town.”) Bwaahh. This whole scene sums up Dean Winchester so well.

As the boys leave the cafe to research UFO lore, Dean sees a strange man staring at him through the window. Sam doesn’t see him.

Sam does research in the library, Dean does research in the motel.

For Nostalgic Science:

I know these are just mock-ups for the show, but just doing a random search on the X-Files revealed that Angelfire is still out there! Angelfire! Ah, those were the days. My X-files webpage was on Geocities, and with much relief alas, the Wayback Machine didn’t crawl it back in 1998.

Sam tells Dean that there’s a lot of lore in the library but he’ll be heading back to the motel soon. Dean continues his research, while fittingly listening to “Space Oddity”. The lights flicker off and Dean mutters, “Not again.” The door flies open to reveal a glowing orb of gold. Dean tries going for his gun, but the creature stops him, and close up Dean gets a good (“Nipples?”) look, before it takes a nice swing at Dean. In the ensuing fight, the music crescendos, and Dean nukes the little monster.

Once Sam gets back Dean triumphantly shows him his kill...only Sam can't see anything in the truly disgusting microwave. “You don't see the...EEUCH? It's right there?” Sam doesn’t see all the “Blech.” The next person who stays there is going to be eating some disgusting burritos, man.

Dean tells Sam that he nuked a little, glowing, hot naked lady with nipples and everything. Sam asks if the little lady had wings and when Dean admits he's bang on the money, Sam tells Dean that a fringe theory could fit their case. The abductions aren't from aliens – they're from fairies instead.

The Winchesters head to Marion, the crazy fairy lady's home where she sets out tea in fine china and explains the many different types of fairies. The fairy dimension is another reality and only those who have been to Fairy can see fairies on earth.

The woman says the fairies only take first born sons. Her theory? They're taken to Avalon to service King Oberon. Dean looks sobered by this revelation and asks Marion how they can “forcefully interact” with fairies. Fairies love fresh cream, hate iron and silver, and spilled sugar or salt compels them to count each grain.

Dean and Sam spot the watchmaker loading up his car with cream and follow him back to his shop where he unloads the cream, then takes off again. They split up, Sam tailing the watchmaker while Dean scopes out his shop. Dean breaks into the back and finds a shop filled with noise from...tiny toiling hands. The workroom is full of tiny workers wielding torches, using drills, and otherwise kicking some ass on the clockmaking front.

Dean leaves the store and frantically calls Sam. The shop's “freakin' full of Keeblers” and now Dean suspects that Brennan the watchmaker made a deal with a bunch of fairies. Sam approaches Brennan in the bar and compliments his watchmaking.

“Hell, if I didn't know better, I'd say you have a bunch of elves working for you.” Brennan looks up guiltily and Sam goes in for the kill, asking how he could stomach the loss of his first born son for a bunch of watches.

Back on the street, Dean spots the man in the red hat who follows him down the street, ominously...

Back at the bar, Brennan confesses to Sam that he'd desperately summoned fairies a few months ago. He ended up with a leprechaun who promised him wild success as long as they had a place to rest and enjoy “the fruit and fat of the land.” It turns out that their price was the first born. Brennan wanted to undo it, but his spell book is locked in a safe in his shop - and it’s guarded by fairies.

Cut back to Dean who's still being stalked by the man in the red hat.

Dean hides around a corner and jumps out on a man who is NOT the red hat guy. While the man’s (who has dwarfism) horrified young daughter looks on, Dean wrestles him to the ground, shouting all the while about fairies... When Sam runs up Dean is getting arrested. “You fight those fairies,” Dean yells, about 90% on the way to a total breakdown.

In the jail, the police chief interrogates Dean. Just what kind of hate crime is this? “If this gentleman were a full-sized homosexual, would that be okay with you?” Dean protests that he doesn't hate any size person – or anyone who's homosexual. Well, as it happens the man he attacked is the District Attorney for the county. Whoops…

Dean paces his cell while Sam and Brennan sneak back into his workshop. They creep to the safe, the workers all drunk on cream, and Brennan pulls out his spellbook. He begins an incantation to send the fairies back to their realm until he's suddenly stabbed through the heart. It's the great Robert Picardo! ...uh, I mean, it's the leprechaun and UFO enthusiast, Wayne.

Sam summarizes Wayne’s M.O. Fairies make a deal and settle in to stay, abducting first borns merrily. All the while, Wayne's in town stirring up UFO nuts as a cover for fairy activity. Wayne chuckles at Sam's accusations. True, true, all of them. And he's here to stay. Furthermore, Dean's marked as belonging to the fairy realm, and Sam can't actually see him if he doesn’t allow it. Wayne disappears. Neener neener neener. (Listen, do I want a follow-up episode with fairies dealing with Dean being marked for the fairy realm? Yes, yes I do.)

When Wayne reappears he tells Sam that he's “missing a certain piece right in the center.” The human soul is something that the energy-obsessed fairies can sense. They can't sense that with Sam. Wayne tells him that he could fish his soul out of hell for a price.

“There no frickin' way a leprechaun can do what angels can’t,” Sam scoffs. Au contraire, Wayne protests. Angel mojo is no match for “real magic” born from fairy. Sam doesn't bite at the deal and shoots Wayne. His iron buckshot has little effect and Wayne poofs out.

In jail Dean looks up, sensing a disturbance in the Force. He looks around to see the man in the red hat smiling at him from his prison cot. The red cap (for that's what he is) starts beating the shit out of Dean while Sam tangles in a fight with Wayne. Sam's not doing so great but has a brainstorm. He pulls out a salt bullet and pours salt all over the floor.

Wayne snarls and settles down to count the salt, giving Sam the chance to finish the spell. All the fairies, including Wayne and the red cap, disappear.

Later, on a back country road Sam and Dean share a beer. The “tiniest D.A.” has dropped the charges, letting Dean go free. Dean wonders if what the leprechaun said was true – if he could save Sam's soul.

Dean asks why Sam turned down Wayne's offer to get his soul back and Sam insists that deals are always bad. Dean asks if Sam still wants his soul back. “Sure, yeah, whatever,” is essentially Sam's response. The camera lingers on his brooding expression...

(By the way, I feel like I see this photo used as an iconic Sam/Dean/Impala image? But it's actually Dean and Soulless!Sam and that's...kinda sad actually.)

Close Encounters of the Quotes Kind:

There's something out in the corn.

Okay, if you want to add glitter to that glue you’re sniffing, that’s fine, but don’t dump your whackadoo all over us.

Third kind already? You better run, man. I think the fourth kind is a butt thing.

You just gave her the silent 'how you doin'?'

You're the one who pizza rolled Tinker Bell.

It's like Sedona, Arizona crap in here.

Fight the fairies!

Got a way of getting in back doors.

[orpelia]

Spirits: “The Southern Lights”

What’s got Bo so spooked?

Korra and Co. are traveling South in Book II, Chapter 2, and there’s definitely something lurking in the wind.

As for Tenzin and family, they’ve gone to see where Grandpa Aang was born. Let the shenanigans and the feels commence.

Graphic content featured; I’ll give you a warning in case that’s not your thing.

Bro vs. Bro

Ah, yes. 

Another flashback to another pair of Northern Water Tribe brothers. Only this time, we get the flashback very early into the season so their stories actually (hopefully) have time to grow.

Can you tell there’s still some salt for the “Amon/Noatak is my brother” reveal? 

Man, do I love being petty~~

Tonraq, Korra’s father, was a general for the Northern Water Tribe.

To keep their city protected, he drove barbarians to an ancient forest,

and the ensuing battle destroyed the hallow grounds.

As punishment for disturbing their dwelling, angry spirits laid siege to the city.

Only Unalaq, Korra’s uncle, could tame the spirits and guide them back to their homes.

Ultimately, Tonraq was banished from the North and he looked to the South to start anew.

So I’m, like, 92% sure Unalaq is the big bad of the season.

(I also may or may not know some spoils.)

Reminiscent of Yakone, if I do say so myself:

If he is the big bad, then he’s totes schemin’. 

Look at him, establishing a bond and forging a trust with Korra:

All potential villain-ness aside, this scene had great dialogue:

Unalaq: You have to believe in yourself, like I believe in you. Korra: I guess I’m just so used to people telling me how to do things that I forgot what it was like to have someone trust in me. Unalaq: Korra, all the past Avatars live on inside of you. Let them guide you. Let them help you find the light in the dark.

// By the way, I love when stories integrate the concept of light and dark. For one, it gives me all the Kingdom Hearts feels, but it’s also such a universally applicable idea. I cannot wait to see how this theme will play out in the rest of Book II.

But look at him, and tell me there isn’t something sinister about that smile:

So while Unalaq’s plan seems to be on the horizon, 

I’m still trying to figure out how Tonraq fits into all of this.

I know Bo made light of the situation---

Bolin: Whoa, so you [Gestures to Tonraq.] were supposed to be chief, then he [Gestures to Unalaq.] became chief. No wonder you guys don’t like each other.  [Mako elbows him.] Ow! What? Isn’t that what happened?

---but perhaps this is one of the central conflicts of the season.

Naturally, as both daughter to Tonraq and niece to Unalaq (as well as a member of the Water Tribes), Korra will be caught in the middle. But as the Avatar, she is also responsible for keeping balance in the world, and I suspect this bro-on-bro feud may upset the nature of both physical and spiritual worlds.

Yeesh. 

I wish you luck, Korra.

Dark Unbalanced Spirits

This episode’s writing was solid. 

One of the reasons for its success is that it built upon concepts that have long been established in the Avatar-Korra universe, most notably balance, separation, and good vs. evil (or, in this case, light vs. dark).

In defense of the spirits, Unalaq claims, “There are no evil spirits, there is light and dark in them all. But when they’re unbalanced, the darkness takes over.”

Tonraq confesses, “I don’t want [Korra] to make the same mistake I made. I should never have gone into that forest, and we shouldn’t be going to the South Pole now. Spirits and the physical world should remain separate.

To rebut, Korra exclaims, “Dad, it’s my job to be the bridge between the spirits and the physical world, and I finally have a chance to live up to my potential.

In further defense, Unalaq reminds them: “There used to be lights at the South as well, but during the Hundred Year War, the South was thrown out of balance and the lights disappeared. When the War ended, the North helped to rebuild you physically as a nation, but we have not rebuilt you spiritually.”

So many juicy bits; let’s break it down:

Light and Dark

The writers are playing to one of A:TLA’s (and now, hopefully LOK’s) strengths: refusing black and white story lines and plunging head first into those grey, murky middles.

Just as there is no such thing as a person who is wholly good or wholly evil, there is also no such thing as a person who is entirely made of light or entirely made of dark. Instead, it is our actions---our choices---that reflect who our true characters are.

But what if it’s not your actions or your choices that cause you to turn to darkness, which is potentially the case with the Southern spirits? It’ll be interesting, then, to see how Korra and the others atone for causing the spirits’ disarray.

Separation

Given his experience with spirits, Tonraq sides with logic: the physical world and the spiritual world should remain separate.

But Korra is the Avatar; it’s literally her job to harmoniously bridge two separate worlds. Besides, I would think it’s pretty normal to have spirits living among them.

Whose to say spirits don’t live among us in our world, too?👀

As we first learned in “The Guru”: “the greatest illusion of this world is the illusion of separation.” Thus, it would be super dope (and super consistent!) if they extended that same wisdom to the story here. 

Balance

This.

The concept of balance is probably what grounds the entire Avatar-Korra franchise, so it’s no surprise that the spirits are struggling with their states of unbalance.

Can I just say, I loved the callback to the Hundred Year War. This is what I’m talking about; write episodes that build upon ideas the audience already knows! Referencing the War serves to fill in the missing gaps from when Aang’s journey ended and Korra’s began, but it also helps propel Korra’s story forward. 

There was also a nice throwback to the “Winter Solstice, Part 1: The Spirit World,” where we learn that a spirit named Hei Bai is terrorizing a village to retaliate against the Fire Nation soldiers who destroyed its home in the forest. We see the same scenario play out when Tonraq and his men annihilate the sacred woods; consequently, the spirits attack the Northern Water Tribe.

I don’t know about you, but I’m ready to see Korra bring the spirits balance and find that balance for herself as well.

In the meantime, Korra’s got to work on her “spirit fighting”:

And I still don’t understand why the spirits have to 1) look super freaky and 2) look like the Demogorgon!!

Graphic Warning

Tell me I’m wrong:

Yes, Bitch.

Korra had her irritating moments, especially when she was quick to accuse people who were just trying to protect, trust, and love her.

But she was bad. ass. this episode:

Badass Example #1:

This one always gets me.

She ruthlessly, unflinchingly shoves her entire arm down the spirit’s mouth and then sets her fist on fire. 

Biiiiiih.

Badass Example #2:

I think this marks the beginning of Korra starting to believe in herself as the Avatar,

and it makes a mama proud.

All the Hollas

@Jeremy Zuckerman, the music was on point.

@The Animation Team, the scenery in this episode was something else.

Bolin: It’s beautiful.

My thoughts exactly, Bo.

Parting Thoughts

Alright, girl.

What’s good?

Why are you waking up in the middle of the night,

wandering the halls of the temple,

stumbling upon unknown Avatars,

who mysteriously and simultaneously light up when Korra opens the South’s spirit portal?

And why only you, my dear Jinora?

It has to be said: I’m so happy our eldest airbender might have more of an arc in this book. Her two siblings definitely overshadowed her last season, but only because they have such big personalities! 

Still, Papa Tenzin: please keep your little girl safe!!

Favorites

Tenzin took his little airbending family on a field trip!

(Aunt Kya and Uncle Bumi also tagged along and they proved very helpful by unloading Oogi.

No, seriously. They were mistaken for servants, haha. 

I told you Tenzin would get his payback for all of last episode’s teasing.)

There were so many giggly moments with my favorite family today!

How to Be Polite (ft. Tenzin):

Abbot Shung: This is an ancient airbender head shaver we’ve refurbished just for you.

Tenzin: Oh. Okay?

How to Be Polite (ft. Pema):

Abbot Shung: These flowers once filled the mountainside! Now, they can brighten up your room.

Pema: That’s... sweet? Y-you didn’t have to.

I know this moment is a funny one, but thank you for recognizing Pema for birthing, nurturing, and loving her beautiful, yet all over the place children. 

Which reminds me...

These kids are the best kinds of headaches:

Meelo: Mommy, Daddy, look! I finally got a lemur! I’m gonna name him---Poki!

Poki! Come back!

Ikki: No! That gift is mine! Jinora: You don’t even like to read! Ikki:

No actual dialogue in this scene and yet their sleeping positions say so much.

I’m sure Papa Tenzin would agree:

Tenzin: Where are your brother and sister?

Meelo: You can’t catch me! I’m the greatest air scooter-er of all time!

Tenzin: Meelo!!

... maybe not.

The Dork and the Deadpan

As always, we have Bo being Bo:

^dork.

And how are things coming along with Eska, you ask?

Eska: Does this sidecar have the capacity for two passengers?

Bolin: [Flirting.] Sure does. But, uh... who’s gonna drive?

Mako: [Teasing.] Well, what do you know? Looks like---

Bolin: Go away, Mako.

I have to say, the surprise of the episode is definitely Eska! 

She’s hilariously deadpan, especially when she’s protective

Bolin: Can we not talk about dark spirits, please?

Eska: Don’t worry. I will protect you, my feeble turtle duck.

Bolin: Oh, it's in the engine! Ahhhh! I can’t stop it!

Eska: I’ll save you.

Bolin: I’m a raft!

[...]

Bolin: Uh, can someone please deflate me? 

Thank you.

or jealous of Bo:

Eska: Why are you initiating physical contact with another woman?

Bolin:

Hate to break it to ya, Bo, but it looks like Eska’s wearing the pants in this relationship.

(And there ain’t nothing wrong with that.)

Quote(s) of the Episode

Mako: You never cease to amaze me.

Korra: Thanks. By the way, I’m really sorry for being a total pain. Things were really stressful and pretty confusing... It’s hard being the Avatar. Mako: [Jokingly.] It’s harder being the Avatar’s boyfriend.

I stan an apologetic, understanding, and supportive couple.

The Southern Air Temple:

This episode was begging for parallels,

and my purpose in life is to serve.

Remember when Aang got upset because his home was so different and so empty?

Look at it now! How it’s thriving!

Jinora: Wow. The statue room.

Tenzin: That’s right, Jinora. The most sacred place in the entire Southern Air Temple.

Katara: They’re Avatars! All these people are your past lives, Aang.

Aang: Wow! There are so many!

The Trance™

To me, this is also Aang’s place of “re-birth.”

For it is here that the world discovered the Avatar had returned.

Aang now rests in the place that started it all, and it’s got me feeling some type of way.

credits