The Outer Banks, paradise on Earth. It's the sort of place where you either have two jobs or two houses, two tribes, one island.
There is Figure Eight, the rich side of the island. Home of the Kooks... So, guess where we don't live.
Then there is the south side or the cut, home of the working class who make a living busing tables, washing yachts, running charters. The natural habitat of... dumbroll please... the Pogues. That's us.
Pogues, pogies, the throwaway fish, lowest member of the food chain.
Okay so, the downside of the Pogue life is we're ignored and neglected, but the upside of Pogue life? We are ignored and neglected, which means we do whatever we want, whenever we want.
It was a warm, sunny day on the Outer Banks and the Pogues were on the balcony of a house under construction that would have belonged to a perfect Kook family. It wasn't the most legal thing in the world, but neither the most illegal they did.
Samantha glanced up and shook her head amused when she saw her friend John B hovering on the roof. She was sitting on a scaffold next to her best friend JJ; they both rocked their legs and sipped their beer.
As she rested peacefully her head on JJ's shoulder, a light breeze blowed, seeping in her black hair and brushing her face. She closed her eyes, enjoying the inusual pacific moment. The scent of the sea pervaded her nostrils, and the cries of seagulls grew as a flock of them passed overhead.
"Is my shoulder comfortable?" the sound of the blond boy's genuine giggle filled Samantha's ears. She opened her eyes, the light of the setting sun reappeared. "You interrupted my moment of contemplation, JJ" she sighed, but deep down she liked how his voice sounded.
"I bet you got to the part where I'm naked".
Samantha lifted her head, leaving the comfortable spot. "Gross" her lips twisted in an exaggerated grimace of disgust.
"That's what, a three-story fall to the deck?". JJ and Samantha lowered their gaze and looked at Pope who was talking, or rather, yelling, at John B. "I give you about a one-in-three chance of survival".
"I wouldn't even give him one" Samantha intervened, raising her voice to be heard.
"Hey, which side are you on?" John B frowned and turned cautiously to his friend, feigning offense. Samantha winked at him and smirked.
"Jump!" Pope insisted, and this time he pointed a drill at John B. "I'll shot you on the way down".
"What are the chances of him crushing his face on the ground?" Samantha asked JJ.
"Uhm ..." he gazed upward, to peer deeply at his friend. "eight and a half out of ten?".
"Yes, it is reasonable" the girl shrugged.
In that moment, Kiara's voice reached them, as she ended touring the house. "They're gonna have Japanese toilets with towel warmers" she stated, indignantly.
Kie was the last to join their group, but Samantha felt aan instant connection with her. Although she was a kook, Samantha sensed that they could trust her, and so they had become in a short time best friends.
"Of course. Why wouldn't they?" JJ asked.
"This used to be a turtle habitat, but who cares about the turtles, I guess?" Kiara snorted.
"Natural selection, dear. The kooks're gonna eat this fuckin' island out" Samantha replied, not caring about Kiara's status. She was a pogue now, and she knew every negative reference to the world of her friend was shared by her firstly.
Next to her, Samantha heard the loud sipping of JJ. "Could you try to be decent?".
"I'm more than decent, actually" JJ winked.
Samantha rolled her eyes, knowing that he would alway have a ready reply for all kind of statement, and that it would have been about his physical aspect, or his physical... abilities.
She turned her attention to Kiara, who had just noticed John B. "Can you please not kill yourself?" she said worriedly.
"What harm is there if he wants to do it?" Samantha asked chuckling, getting a sideways look from her friend.
"By the way, don't spill that beer. I'm not giving you another one" JJ warned his friend but, one second later, John B lost his balance and the can slipped from his hand, falling to the ground with a flight of several meters, and it poured the dark liquid on the floor. "Shit!" he exclaimed.
"At least it wasn't his head" Samantha shrugged.
"I swear that-" JJ's words were interrupted by Pope's ones. "Hey, uh, security's here" he warned his friends, looking towards the street. "Let's wrap it up". Sharpening her hearing, Samantha could hear calls coming from the lower floor.
"Boys are early today" John B stated with a snort, coming down from the roof.
"It had become a bit boring, anyway". Samantha stood up, waiting for JJ to get off the scaffolding first. He turned to help her, grabbing her by her hips as she placed her hands on his shoulders. "It's always a pleasure to help you, Sammy" he said, mischievously, as he rested his hands on her even after she landed on her feet.
"Shut up and hurry up, if you don't want cold handcuffs around your dirty hands". JJ smirked amusedly, then he shifted his attention. "Hey, Gary, is that you? It's me!".
"JJ!" the scream of the guard was closer than expected, so Samantha ran inside the house and followed the others, with JJ behind her. They rushed down the stairs, adrenaline and pure fun flowing through their bodies.
Once on the ground floor, Samantha saw out of the corner of her eye JJ taking the opposite direction from her, finding himself faced with a furious and sweaty guard.
Samantha kept running, reaching an exit that led her to a green lawn bordered by a fence, easily climbable. Her legs were shaking and felt pangs of pain in the belly due to the lack of breath, but she remembered that time they had climbed a higher fence, after having used the pool of someone not so good at sharing.
"Bus is leaving!" a honk came from John B's van, where he and Kie were waiting for their friends. Samantha reached the van and literally threw herself into it. "What is it, tired already?" Kiara asked ironically, panting out of breath.
A second later JJ and Pope got on the van, urging John B to leave. The vehicle sped up, as a sweatier-than-before Gary tried to catch up with them. JJ leaned out of the van, handing a blunt to the guard and teasing him. "Check out Gary, gunning' for a raise. Come on, you're so close!"
"You gonna him a heart attack" Samantha laughed.
"Hey JJ, stop" Kiara pulled the blond boy by the shirt into the van.
"Oh, come on. That sort of initiative is just begging to be punished" Samantha chuckled, still with shortness of breath. She felt her cheeks literally burn and her chest going up and down, catching breath.
"Hey wait, you have ..." JJ's hand came close to the her face. As his thumb touched Samantha's cheek to remove her fallen eyelash, she felt the strange instinct to avoid his gaze. The weird little moment was interrupted by Kiara's reply.
"I know, but we want to keep Gary alive, remember?"
• • •
Hi guys!
Here is the first chapter of the story. I am very excited to have started this fanfiction, also because it is one more reason to rewatch all the episodes of the first season waiting for the second.
I know this is a very short chapter but I wanted to use it as a kind of introduction :)
See you tomorrow ♡