Chapter Text
“We lost ‘em,” Shoupe said, and the world stood still.
For a moment, everything froze, and JJ didn’t know what to think. And then that familiar anger took hold, and JJ was yelling, screaming and pushing at Shoupe without a coherent thought in his mind. All he knew was that John B was gone. Lost. Lost at sea, just like his old man.
JJ was angry, so angry. And even as he ran at Shoupe, he knew the only person he was mad at was himself.
“When are you going to learn, you keep going down this road, you’re gonna end up like your dad!”
Gone. Dead. Lost.
JJ had warned him, seen the signs coming. And yet;
Nothing to lose.
JJ hadn’t realized how wrong he was. And now he had lost everything. Lost John B, lost Sarah, lost the gold and the Phantom. A restitution hanging over his head, his home away from home locked down as a crime scene. And John B was gone. Lost. To the storm. Just like his old man.
Parents came running through the tent, and it shouldn’t have surprised JJ that his dad wasn’t there. It should have been a relief. But Heyward patted him on the shoulder and his hand lingered and JJ couldn’t help the aching in his chest. He wanted his dad. He wanted what Pope had, in that moment, a mother and father to hold as their world came crashing down around them. He wanted what Kie had, parents that held her as she fell apart. Instead, JJ was left standing alone.
Sobs wracked at his entire body, but JJ barely noticed it. Suddenly, the world started spinning again. Like the slow-motion everything was moving in was fast-forwarded to the present, and JJ felt dizzy. Because right before him was his dad.
Luke had anger in his eyes, but JJ didn’t care about the consequences, didn’t care about any of it. His best friend was gone, dead, and JJ needed his father. His dad stormed up to him, but JJ didn’t cower or flinch, no. He fell into his dad’s arms and held him as the world crashed around him. JJ was too dizzy to stand, the world blurred by his tears, holding onto his dad with all his strength. And his dad caught him.
“He’s gone. John B, he’s…he’s,” JJ couldn’t finish the sentence. Not out loud. Not so soon. But it didn’t matter, because his dad’s arms were wrapping around him, and JJ had been falling for so long with no one to catch him. But his dad had him. He let JJ sob into his shoulder, and JJ felt like a child again.
He knew there would be pain later. Behind closed doors, away from the entire Kildare County police force, huddled under a tent with SBI only a few feet away. Away from prying eyes and worried friends. But JJ had a motto he liked to live by, and he clung to it in that moment.
Deny, deny, deny.
John B wasn’t dead. His dad wasn’t going to kill him for stealing the Phantom. Luke wasn’t going to beat the shit out of him. John B and Sarah were still out there, somewhere. Racing across the crashing waves in the Phantom, finally free.
Reality would come crashing down at some point, that was a certainty, but right now, JJ wanted to stay where he was. Safe, for the first time, in his father’s arms. Tears from a grief he wouldn’t acknowledge falling down his face. A despair so deeply entrenched within him JJ didn’t know if he’d survive this. How could he? JJ needed John B, had since the third grade. John B was his reason to live. His only solace in his hellish life. His only escape, soldiers in arms.
JJ was alone, now. He let his dad steer him away, long after Kie and Pope left with their own families. He pulled himself together enough to stand on two feet, and he let muscle memory take him to the car, trailing behind his dad like a lost puppy.
This time, JJ was walking to his doom. Because this time, JJ had no escape. No Chateau to sneak off to, no Twinkie pulling up to save him. JJ was at his father’s mercy, with a month left of summer and friends with parents that would probably ground them for just as long. Isolated. Alone. JJ felt a dread creep up inside him, but it was drowned out by John B. A grief JJ hadn’t felt since his mother died seized him, and JJ didn’t know if he would survive this one.
JJ climbed into the truck, pulling on his seat belt as he spotted the dried blood on the window. And then the tears were back, in full force, an embarrassing breakdown that he’s sure his dad will resent. But JJ was just a kid, at the end of the day, a kid that just lost his best friend, and he was powerless against the waves of grief that threatened to drown him. Just like John B.
His dad got in the driver’s seat, and JJ had the strangest sense of déjà vu. Would his dad attack him again? Like he did outside the police station, a restitution over his head and blood in his mouth?
His dad reached over, and JJ flinched hard. His dad’s hand paused in the air, before darting forward anyway, slinging across JJ’s shoulders. JJ leaned into it, letting himself be pulled in by the side hug, burying his face in his dad’s shoulder. His tears were soaking through his dad’s shirt, and JJ knew there’d be hell to pay for that later, too, but JJ was never one to worry about the future. All he knew was the now. And in the now? JJ let his dad hold him, and he let himself pretend he had a dad like Heyward.
JJ knew it was a delusion, to think Luke would ever be anything more than an asshole.
“You gave me nothing but a shitty life!”
But a son needs their father. And right now, JJ needed his dad more than anything. And for once in his life, his dad was there. He showed up for JJ. He hugged him. And now;
“I love you, son. It ain’t right, what happened to your friend. I’m sorry, boy. I know it’s hard.”
“I’m sorry, dad,” JJ cried. He didn’t even know what he was apologizing for. Stealing the boat. Losing John B. Being such a shitty son. It didn’t matter.
“You fucked up kid. You done gone and made one of those dumbass plans of yours, and now your friend is dead. You stole my boat and sent your friends straight into the storm. Now I ain’t saying that it doesn’t suck. But he’s dead now, you hear, boy? He’s dead. Time for you to face the music.”
His dad turned the key in the engine, and just like that, JJ was reeling. He leaned back into his seat as his dad retracted his arm, and JJ let his head fall into his lap as his dad drove them home.
“Out,” his dad barked gruffly as the car stopped.
Home sweet home, JJ thought sarcastically, as he looked at the run-down house before him, trash littering every inch of land. JJ got out the car with a slam of the door, something twisting within him. It was guttural, a deep hurt that he needed to get out. JJ grabbed a handful of trash from the floor and flung it as far as he could. It didn’t help. Nothing would. John B would.
JJ stomped up the rotting porch steps through the downpour of rain, wondering if they would finally give way. They wouldn’t.Because nothing ever changes, in this damn house. Because his dad could hug him and hold him, but they would still come home and his dad would still beat him. And John B will still be gone.
The front door was open wide and his dad already had a beer in his hand. That was fast. JJ had his hand on the plastic white doorhandle, but he was frozen in place. A screen door separated him from the inside of the house, but the crisscross mesh felt like the iron bars of a jail. JJ contemplated making a run for it. But he was tired of running. And without John B there, there was no one to run to. All JJ had left was Luke. So he opened the screen door and stepped inside the house, and JJ was probably a dead man walking, but what did it matter anymore.
Maybe his dad really would kill him this time. At least he’ll get to be with John B. No, JJ thought sharply. He’s alive. He’s alive. Deny, deny, deny. It was all JJ had left to hold on to. JJ wouldn’t let that hope slip through his fingers, like all of his hopes and dreams had before. He would clench his fist and hold on tight, because John B couldn’t be gone, damnit. He couldn’t.
A small part of JJ hoped his dad would finally kill him, this time. The larger part hoped his dad would hold him as he fell. Hoped his dad would wipe his tears and comb back his hair, like he was sure Kie’s mom was doing for her at this very moment. Hoped his dad would wrap an arm around his shoulders and let him cry like a baby, like he knew Heyward was doing for Pope at this very moment. Like his dad had done, at the tent, in the car.
But his dad was never the mushy feely type, not even when JJ was just a child falling off his bike. The closest his dad got to being emotional was when he was coming down from a high, too out of it to remember what day of the week it was. But with it enough to remember his son. To remember he loved him. JJ always clung to those rare moments. Like the one from earlier that day, stealing the Phantom keys off his dad’s neck as he passed out in his arms. I love you, son. A confession, a truth JJ couldn’t reconcile with the pain Luke caused. But a truth he clung to, nonetheless.
“You gonna keep standing there like an idiot?” Luke asked, and JJ took another step forward, over a glass bottle rolling across the floor. Vodka. JJ wasn’t surprised. And yet, he couldn’t stop staring at it. Couldn’t move one foot in front of the other. The safety of his room was on the other side of the bungalow, his dad a roadblock between, taking up the living room couch with a beer and a joint. A lighter flickered and the smell of weed was overwhelming.
JJ could reach that.
He took another step, then another, until he was standing next to the couch with a cloud of smoke in his face. JJ raised his head, looking at his dad with glassy, dazed eyes, and Luke swung his legs off of the couch, sitting up as he patted the spot his dirty shoes had just rested. The couch was laden with stains though, new and old, and JJ didn’t have the mind to care as the mud hit his drenched shorts.
His dad held out the joint for him, and JJ accepted it wordlessly, taking a pull. He let it wash over him, let it numb him from the crushing pain inside. Another toke, and it burned at his sore lungs. It had been a long day. A long week. Hell, it had been a long life. And JJ was tired, tired like he’d never been before. His bloodied face was just barely healing, his body a mess of bruises. Bruises his dad put there. Blood his dad drew from him. A fit of rage, nothing that hasn’t happened before. JJ passed the blunt back.
“JJ, you need to get your shit together,” Luke started, taking a swig of the beer between tokes.
“Don’t start right now dad,” JJ said with an edge of anger.
“Don’t tell me what to do boy!” Luke yelled, and JJ cowered, anger forgotten.
“Sorry,” JJ muttered, hanging his head. He was tired. So, very tired.
JJ finished off the blunt, letting the high numb out the pain. JJ had no tears left, anyway. It was better not to feel, sometimes. His dad understood that, drown the hurt in a drink, let the pain sink to the bottom of a bottle. Maybe it was time JJ learned.
Or not. JJ wove through the piles of trash to the fridge, the neck of a beer bottle clutched in his hand as he pulled away from the refrigerator light. In a second, JJ’s world exploded in pain as the empty bottle his dad finished was thrown at his head. It smashed against his forehead, shards of glass raining down on him. JJ put the beer back in the fridge. No liquor to forget his sorrows. Nothing to drown his pain. He learned a lesson that day. This was a pain JJ was going to have to live with.
There was blood running down his face, falling into his eye, and small cuts all along his arms and shoulders. There was a large shard of glass in his arm, but JJ didn’t notice it. Didn’t feel it. He couldn’t feel much of anything, beyond the pain. The weed had numbed it, but a pain that deep couldn’t be assuaged so easily. JJ felt like crying again. He didn’t have any tears left, though.
Half-blind, JJ stumbled back to the couch. To his dad. Who hit him with a bottle. Who held him as he cried. Who beat him with a wrench, not days ago. Who said he loved him, not hours ago.
JJ slumped onto the couch, curling up on his half of the two-seater. He didn’t bother to kick off his shoes, a habit long since learned in the house strewn with broken glass and dirty needles. JJ held his knees close to his chest, and he didn’t know whether he was protecting himself from physical harm or the crushing ache inside. All he knew was that everything hurt and there was glass sticking out of his arm and blood in his eye and his dad, here.
“Dad?” JJ asked, his voice small and quiet. JJ hadn’t been this quiet since he was a kid.
“My prized boat, JJ,” Luke reminded him.
JJ let the guilt slide off him.
“Is he dead?”
“I don’t know, son,” Luke said, heaving a sigh. “I don’t know.”
“He can’t be gone,” JJ whispered achingly.
“Truth is, J, he’s probably dead and gone capsized my ship doing it. Fuck JJ, why’d you always gotta mess things up?”
“I don’t know,” JJ responded after a pause. “I’m a screw-up, dad. I didn’t pay the restitution, and Barry has it out for my head, and I sunk your boat and I killed my best friend. Dad, I fucked up. I don’t know what to do. I can’t—I can’t fix this. I can’t fix me. I keep making the wrong decisions. I keep fucking up. I’m a fuck-up, dad. Good-for-nothing, piece of shit—”
“Just like me,” Luke finished. “You were supposed to be better than me, J. But you got your old man’s genes in you. Can’t help that. One of these days, you’ll end up behind bars, or dead in the street from pissing off the wrong guy. Probably sooner rather than later, if you’ve got Barry on your ass.”
“Are you mad?” JJ asked. It was a stupid question, he knew, but curled up there, JJ felt like he didn’t know anything at all. And it was the most sober conversation he’d had with his dad in a long time.
“Why? ‘Cause you pissed off my drug dealer? ‘Cause you stole my boat? ‘Cause of the 30K I’ve got hanging over my head ‘cause of you? ‘Cause you killed your little friends? Yeah JJ, I’m fucking pissed. You’ll get what’s coming to you, don’t make no mistake, boy. But you’ve got a whole month before school starts, so I think I’ve got time to really make the lesson sink in,” his dad said, still slouched into the couch cushions.
JJ knew he should be scared. He knew he would be. I’m not scared of you anymore. A lie. A truth. JJ didn’t know anymore. All he knew was that his dad wasn’t going to let him out of the house ‘till school started, and there was no John B anymore to hold him steady when the pain got too much.
“I’m sorry dad,” JJ said, because it was all he had left. Apologies, but they were just empty promises at the end of the day. Because as angry as JJ was, at himself, at John B, at the cops that couldn’t do their damn jobs and at Ward and Rafe and every other damn Kook on the island, JJ wouldn’t have changed a single thing. The minute they found that shipwreck, there was no doubt they were going for the loot. And the compass? Well, the love of a son for their father knows no bounds, no logic. They were going for the gold. No question about it.
“I’ll believe it when I see it,” Luke said, climbing off the couch. He moved to squat in front of JJ, and JJ lifted his head from where it was buried in his chest. Glassy eyes met fiery ones, and Luke’s hand was on his forehead, his dad’s hand combing through his hair, and for a second JJ thought tonight might be different. That it would be just like he imagined. What he hoped for, every night. His dad, carding a hand through his hair, holding him through his tears. But nice moments never last, and JJ was a fool to think his father was anyone else but the abusive bastard he was.
His hand curled into a fist in JJ’s hair, dragging him from his fetal position. His dad stood, and JJ moved with, a puppet to their puppeteer. A fist rammed into his gut. Then another. And another. And another. The hits kept coming, and JJ didn’t bother to defend himself. He never did. Why fight against what you deserve?
His dad’s hand kept him in place, even as stars danced in his vision and his body tried in futile attempts to turn away from the blows. JJ’s body was twisted, driven by survival instincts, and the blow came hard to his side, leaving a loud crack in its wake. Broken. JJ knew the sound well enough to know what it meant. Pain exploded from his rib, breaking through the numb and the heartache, the high and the grief. JJ jerked violently out of his dad’s grip, feeling the blond strands rip from his scalp.
Luke’s famous right hook came for him, and JJ didn’t have the mind to dodge it. He went down like a sack of potatoes, barely conscious as he blinked the creeping darkness from his eyes.
“Piece of shit. You feelin’ sorry for yourself right now?” Luke yelled, and a heavy work boot came crashing down on his stomach.
“You killed your friend. You did that! You! Killed ‘em!” Luke screamed down at JJ, kicking him repeatedly as he groaned and squirmed around on the dirty rug.
Deny, deny, deny.
It was all JJ could say, repeating in his head like a mantra. John B wasn’t dead. He had to survive. He must have. He’s alive. JJ wouldn’t let the hope slip through his fingers. He couldn’t.
There was no escape as JJ squirmed on the floor, caught between his father’s boot and the sofa, and he twisted. Wrong move. His broken rib was exposed, and his dad’s foot connected. JJ screamed. His vision exploded in a haze of dizzying stars, and his breath caught as the pain froze his lungs. Then…nothing.
JJ woke a few hours later to a house reverberating with his father’s snores, dazed and confused. He pushed himself to his feet, and a flash of pain struck him like lightning. Pain. Why is there pain? JJ’s mind felt fuzzy. He took a step towards the front door. And then he stopped. Because his feet had a destination in mind that was no longer possible.
The pain. John B. It was all connected in JJ’s mind, a loose thread he hastily wove together. We lost ‘em. Shoupe’s words rang in JJ’s ears. There was something warm, though. His dad’s arms, holding him up. Tears, his face pressed into the crook of his dad’s neck. I love you, son. JJ’s feet moved with a purpose. The destination was unclear. All JJ knew was the pain.
The snoring was getting louder. Or maybe JJ was getting closer. His dad’s door was cracked open, and JJ pushed it. It creaked, loudly, and the snoring stopped. The silence made him feel dizzy. JJ leaned against the open doorframe; a hand curled around his throbbing side. There was dried blood crusting one eye closed, bruises that were just starting to find their color, and JJ couldn’t remember how it had all come to be.
“J? Is that you?” Luke asked groggily, squinting his eyes through the dark to make out the silhouette at the door.
JJ let the silence ring out across the room before he realized he should say something.
“Dad?” JJ asked, a soft plea to his uncertain question.
“The hell you doing standing there, boy?” Luke asked gruffly.
John B’s dead. That didn’t sound right. It felt like something was slipping through his fingers. He couldn’t remember what. You killed him. That didn’t sound quite right either. JJ would never hurt John B. He was JJ’s everything. You killed all your little friends. It sounded like his dad’s voice. His dad, who was lying in bed, looking at him expectantly.
Right. A question. His dad asked a question. What was he doing there?
“Dad?” JJ asked again, voice cracking. “I think I screwed up.”
“It’s late. You need me to beat your ass again or are you gonna come lie down?”
JJ crossed the room in seconds, as if he was scared his dad would choose for him if he took too long. He laid on the bed awkwardly, not sure what to do, now that he was here. He hadn’t thought that far ahead. He hadn’t thought at all. You never do think, do you, JJ? It was Pope’s voice, now. Pope, who lost his scholarship. Who nearly lost everything, for them. And what was JJ doing? I keep making the wrong decisions, dad.
JJ sniffed. He hadn’t realized he was crying.
“I miss him,” JJ said thickly, between silent tears that ran pink as they washed the blood from his eye.
“Shouldn’t’ve drove him off,” Luke mumbled, voice heavy with sleep.
JJ wanted to correct him. He couldn’t remember why. He didn’t drive John B off, did he? There was something about the Sherriff. JJ remembered the feeling of the gun in his hands. Dead. Did he kill someone? It didn’t seem right. But JJ remembered standing there as John B pulled out on the boat, remembered sitting in that tent as the waves swelled in the storm. As the boat ran off with flashing lights behind it, shrouded by the dark, thunder-struck night. As John B left. And JJ stood there. And now John B was dead. Maybe his dad was right. Maybe he did drive John B away.
I killed him.
JJ couldn’t bring himself to say it out loud. To acknowledge it as a truth. Deny, deny, deny. JJ’s fuzzy brain could still remember that, at least. JJ sniffled again.
“Quit your crying boy, I’m tryna sleep.”
JJ rolled onto his good side, facing his dad. He let his hand fall onto his dad’s wrist, avoiding his gaze.
“’M sorry,” JJ mumbled.
“Go to sleep, JJ,” his dad said indifferently, but his free hand came up to curl around JJ’s head, resting on the side of his hair. It was warm, and comforting, and smelled like weed and booze, heavy as the punches it could deliver, but it was his dad. It must have been a truce of some kind, a small kindness Luke allowed him in his darkest hour.
JJ didn’t have John B’s bed to crawl into anymore, didn’t have the Chateau to limp to. Didn’t have John B to hold him and promise him it’d be okay. All he had was his dad. A hand on his head. His hand on his dad’s arm. It wasn’t the comforting embrace of his best friend, the safety of John B’s arms, locked around him. There was nothing safe, here. JJ knew that. But it was his dad, and some part of that still held a childish love, a teenaged desire for acceptance. And despite the ever-present fear, JJ felt his eyes closing and sleep take him.
JJ was an easy learner, when he wanted to be. When he wanted to learn something, JJ did it, in a matter of hours. He learned how to build a rooster coop in one afternoon, when John B came home with the loud bastard and JJ announced the rooster his favorite Routledge. He learned how to surf a surge, driven by a reckless abandon and a need to feel alive. He learned how to fish, when food was scarce and his dad laughed at his growling stomach.
When JJ didn’t want to hear it, though, when he didn’t like the lesson being taught, well, his grades spoke for themselves. His teachers would attest to it, too. JJ didn’t learn, if he didn’t want to. But there were some lessons JJ had to learn. Some lessons that were beaten so hard into his bones that JJ was forced to listen. To learn. To understand. To accept.
A month of his father’s lessons, and JJ finally learned. John B was dead. And it was all JJ’s fault.
The denial had ebbed away with every drop of blood. The anger had seeped out of him with every fractured finger. The hope had slipped through his grasp with every blooming bruise.
JJ held on for as long as he could, but everything was weird, and cloudy, and fuzzy. A daze, every day the same. JJ was on lockdown, working on cars dropped off at their house, doing whatever odd job his dad brought home for him. An old generator. A broken-down bike. A sputtering engine. He hadn’t heard from his friends since Kie texted that her parents were taking her phone. Grounded. Pope too. JJ hadn’t seen them. He hadn’t seen anyone. Just Luke.
His dad found a new dealer. It wasn’t as good as Barry’s stuff. He was angrier on it. More volatile. Or maybe his dad was just mad at JJ, for making him have to settle for the shitty stuff. JJ had a burn on his arm to remember that lesson by. The flames had scorched right through his skin as his dad held his forearm against the gas stove.
His dad wasn’t as careful as he used to be. No one saw JJ’s face anyway. Who was going to notice if it was black and blue? JJ learned his lessons, etched into his skin in scars that wouldn’t fade, injuries that his father wouldn’t let heal. Until finally, JJ learned the lesson he had fought so hard to ignore.
John B was dead. And it was all JJ’s fault. He killed his best friend. And there was nothing he could do to bring him back, nothing but accept the pain he so rightfully deserves.
Things had been different, since that first night with his dad. JJ hadn’t risked going back to his dad’s room, not sure it would end as well as it had that first time. He wasn’t so grief-stricken to risk something so stupid again. But his dad was nicer, more often. Or maybe that wasn’t the right word. Luke Maybank was a lot of things, but nice was not one of them. But there were these moments, more frequent than ever before, when JJ didn’t have to flinch every time his dad moved. When the volatility was gone, and there was just exhaustion.
JJ was never good at reading people, but he swore he saw love in his dad’s eyes, in those moments. Or maybe it was pity. More likely, a mixture of both. Pity, for the bloodied and bruised kid he made. Pity, for the shitty life he had brought upon JJ. Pity, for the broken kid who killed his friends.
But with the good came the bad, and for a kid like JJ, the bad came in spades. Anger, unbound as it lashed at him. Hatred and blame piled at his feet, his dad laughing as he tripped over them. The hits, harder than he’d ever endured. Blows that never stopped coming, even as he hit the ground. But Luke was there. It was the most present he had ever been, the most aware of his son he had ever seemed. And JJ found some solace, in the stability of it.
JJ learned to work through the pain. To suffer until his dad relaxed, to wait for that brewing of love and pity that had his dad carding a hand through his hair, promising JJ a lesson that would sink in. Gone were the days of his dad’s half-assed excuses, apologies and promises to get clean. It didn’t matter anymore. Because his dad wasn’t the monster in the house. JJ was. JJ killed his friends, he put the Maybank’s in a debt they couldn’t hope to get out of and so many more fuck-ups along the way. JJ couldn’t forget them if he tried. They were etched into his skin by the scars his dad taught him with.
JJ felt like he was free-falling in a mess of his own making. His dad had been right, all along. JJ was the problem. His dad was just doing what he had to. Lessons didn’t stick with JJ, not unless he wanted to learn them. So Luke learned how to teach the unwilling student. With an iron fist and a steel-toed boots. With broken bones and bloodied bruises. And after it all, JJ crawled into his dad’s waiting arms and let his words sink in, let them take hold of him and anchor to his core. An exchange, for love provided. A lesson learned, to earn a comforting touch.