*Disclaimer* This chapter is going to be pretty hard to write, since the episode consist of mainly John B and Sarah out at the archives. Obviously I'm not going to have Rain tag along so John B and Sarah can have their moments. The chapter may be pretty short, instead of the usual 4,000-5,000 words. Thanks for reading and enjoy chapter 4!
TW: fighting, mention of domestic violence, Rafe hits Rain in this episode. If this bothers you and you don't want to read this chapter, go to the end of the page where there will be a short summary, where it will be less detailed of what happened. The reason I added Rafe hitting Rain, is to lead up to where Rafe tries to kill Sarah at the end of the season. It was very sudden in the show and I kinda wanted to touch into that side of him.
The air smells of rain. I know that's weird, but rain has a smell. I'm sure other people can smell it too and I smell rain. The weather on an app on my phone confirms it, there's gonna be a storm. Nothing like Agatha, but a storm nonetheless. Sarah's house comes into view, getting larger and larger as I pull into the driveway. I see Sarah rushing out of the house, a small drop of blood prominent on her white pants.
"You good?" I say and she whips around to face me. She looked shocked as if she didn't see my jeep right in front of her.
"Rain! What are you doing here?" She says, glancing at her car and back towards me.
"Um, I come here every day? Do you have amnesia or something?"
"Rain, I love you. But I have to go,"
"What, are you on the run from someone? Did you kill someone? I'm sure it was a good reason, I can help you," I say, half joking and she chuckles.
"No, not on the run. I just have to be somewhere. I'll be back, I swear," She says and starts backing away from me.
"Okay, where are you going?"
"I love you!" She says and runs to the driver's side of her car. Call me crazy, but I swear I see a man in the passenger seat. I guess she and Topper made up. I shake my head, slightly confused at our interaction.
With Sarah gone, I don't really know what to do with myself. I don't remember the last time I spent a day without Sarah, except for when I had work, which I only have once a week. But a flier for the OBX series drive-in flutters on a pole and it immediately sparks my interest. Me and Sarah used to go all the time. It'll be different without her, but still fun. And I'll just sleep in Sarah's bed until she gets back.
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A familiar blonde boy walks out of a fishing shop, his hat backwards and hair fluffed out from the humidity.
"Blondie!" I shout and he doesn't even spare a glance in my direction. "JJ!" I try again and he holts to a stop, a fiery and annoyed look in his eyes.
"What, no hi? Or 'sup?" I joke and he glares at me. "I'm sorry, I don't remember pissing in your cereal this morning, so can you refresh my memory and tell me why you're mad at me."
"Are we supposed to be all buddy-buddy after your boyfriend jumped my boy at the golf course?"
"What are you talking about," I say and his look softens slightly.
"Rafe and Topper jumped Pope when he was delivering groceries. With a golf club, Rain. They bashed his face in. He came back with a bloody and swollen face," I hear his words but they don't connect. I don't even react. I genuinely don't know what to do or say. Part of me wants to defend my boyfriend, say he wouldn't do that, that he's better than that. But I know better than to lie to myself. And I don't want to lie to JJ.
"I didn't know. Me and Rafe aren't on best terms right now so we aren't talking,"
"Are y'all ever actually on good terms?" He accuses and it's my turn to glare at him.
"My relationship with my boyfriend is none of your business,"
"Right. Well seems to me that you and your boyfriend need some marriage counseling,"
"Fuck off," I snap and he cocks an eyebrow.
"Wow. Rafe attacks Pope and then you tell me to fuck off? What's next, Sarah gets John B fired from his job?"
"Oh, screw you asshole. Sarah explained to John B that she didn't do anything. Take your bitchiness somewhere else," I say, anger stirring up, "So what did you do?"
"What do you mean?" He says, crossing his arms.
"Oh, I know you Pogues. Gotta get revenge somehow. So, what did you do to Topper and Rafe? Since they jumped Pope, what was the revenge?" I ask, crossing my arms too, mimicking his stance.
He stares at me for a second, reading my expression but then shakes his head, "We didn't do anything," he says, shrugging a shoulder.
"You're lying," I accuse and he chuckles.
"I'm not lying. We didn't do anything to them," He says, not breaking eye contact. I stare at him for a second longer, expecting him to break, but he doesn't.
"'Kay," I say with a shrug, "Not my business anyway. I don't care how y'all battle it out." I turn around without a word and start to walk away.
"Nice talking to you, Princess!" He shouts to me. I try to think of something sarcastic or snarky to say in return, but surprisingly I was speechless. So I just kept walking and acted like I didn't hear him, trying to ignore his words ringing in my head.
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I have to remind myself that I'm a Kook. Just like Sarah. I'm not a Pogue anymore so it's fine when I'm in Kook designated areas. I'm not going to get jumped like the other Pogues. I'm one of the Kooks, the Kook prince's girlfriend for that matter. It's just weird when I'm not with Sarah. It seems like I lose who I am when I'm not with her. She basically made me, so what am I when she isn't around?
There are a lot of people here, happy that they finally got the OBX SUMMER SERIES back on. It's a good distraction from what's happened lately, like the hurricane and that poor man being found dead.
I thought my fears would calm at the sight of my boyfriend and his two best friends, but they weren't. Dread fills my stomach and I stare at them, trying to figure out my next move. Would it be weird if I tried to ignore them and sat away from them or would it be a bad idea to go to them, and risk yet another fight? But before I could even debate it, Rafe, with his spidey sense, catches me staring at him. My heart drops, scared at what's going to happen, but I end up being surprised.
He smiles a genuinely happy smile and immediately stands up and rushes towards me, apologizing to the people he bumped into. I freeze in my place, watching his hands reach out toward me, my fight-or-flight instincts completely gone. But he wraps his arm around my waist and pulls me into a hug, pressing a kiss to my forehead, letting his lips linger there for a second. He pulls away and looks down to look at me.
"Hi," he says sweetly and smiles. My mouth automatically pulls into a grin.
"Hi," I whisper, quietly, immediately getting shy. The older me, the me that had a huge crush on my best friend's brother comes out, getting shy at the fact that he would even spare a second to look at me. My shyness only makes him smile bigger, knowing exactly what's going on in my head.
"I bought Twizzlers. There over by Kelce and Topper," he says, "We can share. Do your weird Twizzler straw thing."
"It's not weird," I say, pretending to be offended and he laughs.
"It's a little weird," I shake my head and mouth it's not and he quickly bends down and kisses me. "I like your weird habits." My cheeks turn red and I hide my face in the crook of his shoulder, breaking eye contact with him. He laughs and wraps both his arms around me, holding me to his body. When I look up, I see JJ staring at me from his spot on the grass. I quickly lose my smile and pull back from Rafe. And behind JJ, are Topper and Kelce. I freeze for a split second, staring at Topper. If Topper wasn't
"Let's go sit down. I see Topper and Kelce over there," I say and turn to walk in their direction. I make a mental note to address the Topper vs. mystery man later, when I see Sarah again.
"You head over, I'll be over there in a second," He says and I nod.
"Okay," I say and turn around. I make sure to not even look at JJ or Pope when I walk past them, but I can feel their eyes burning into me, the bruise on Pope's face taunting me.
"Rain! What's up?" Topper says and I give a small wave.
"Hey, Top. Hey, Kelce. How are you?"
"Pretty good. Hey, uh, where- where's Sarah?" He says, tilting his head. I stutter for a moment, trying to think what to say.
"Yeah, I'm not sure, actually. I saw her this morning and she just said she needed to run some errands."
"Oh, okay. 'Errands'." he says and I nod, making him drop the subject. I see Kiara sit next to JJ and Pope and Rafe comes up beside me with two Cokes in his hand. He hands one to me and I take it with a smile, taking a Twizzler from Kelce. I stick it right in the hole in the can, drinking the Coke from the Twizzler, like a straw. The whole time Rafe is looking at me smiling. Out of the corner of my eye, I see JJ and Pope whip their heads around to look at us and then quickly turn back. Topper laughs and Rafe grins.
"Uh, what the hell was that about?" I ask, turning to Rafe. I feel like it has something to do with Rafe and Topper jumping Pope, but I don't know. Something just feels off.
"Nothing. Don't worry about it," Rafe says and pats his hand on my thigh, leaning in to kiss me on the cheek.
An hour goes by and it's dark now, the only light coming from the projector screen and a few lamps here and there. The movie is fine. Kinda old-timey and a little boring. But it's something to keep me busy, which I can appreciate. I notice Pope and JJ get up and rush somewhere behind the screen but I ignore it. I feel Rafe stir as I lean against his back. His arms are circled around my chest, his chin resting on my head. He taps my leg and tries to stand up.
"Hey, we gotta go somewhere real quick. You mind standing up?" He says and smiles at me.
"Where are y'all going?"
"Don't worry about it. It's fine, Rain. Enjoy the movie," he says and presses a kiss against my temple. Rafe, Topper, and Kelce all get up and follow JJ and Pope behind the screen.
"What the hell?" I whisper and settle back into the seat. About two minutes go by and I see Kiara get up and go exactly where all the boys went. "Screw this," I say, standing up and following Kiara. People glare up at me when I quickly run across them and I mutter a few sorries to them.
There's some yelling that is drowned out by the movie, but gets more clear as I get closer. I quicken my pace and everything starts to make sense. Kook vs. Pogues fighting per usual. Except they are kicking each other's asses. I'm running over when I see Kiara jump on Topper's back and Rafe grab her and throw her to the ground. Pope yells out for her and I run over to the group.
"Rafe! Rafe, fucking stop!" I yell and hurry over to Kiara and try to help her up. She ignores me and grabs for a brown bag. I see Topper choking Pope and Rafe and Kelce punching JJ over and over again. I don't really know what I'm doing but I grab Rafe's arm before he can go to land another blow on JJ's face. "Rafe! Please stop!" His arm slips from my grip and he punches JJ again. I go to grab him again but Rafe lightly pushes me away, but hard enough to make me let go.
"Stay out of this, Rain!" He yells and hits him again. I grab Rafe and hold on as hard as I can. His arm shoots out to push my chest again but he misses. Instead, he makes connection with my cheek and I'm on the ground. I don't even realize what happened. One second I'm watching Rafe try to murder JJ and the other second all I see is grass and dirt and floating stars.
"Rain!" someone yells and I think it's Kiara. I cough a little, the breath knocked out of me from the impact of the hard ground. The Pogues are losing and almost dead and then there's the distinct smell of smoke and waves of heat. There are gasps and people clamoring and I look up to the entire projector on fire, close to revealing us to everyone watching.
"Guys, fire!" Rafe says and Topper pushes Pope away from him. He falls to the ground, gasping for the now smoky air.
"Get off of him! Kelce, let go of JJ!" he does and JJ grabs his face, staring at the others.
"Rain, come on," Rafe says, and goes to grab my arm. I push him away and smack his hand.
"Do not fucking touch me!" I spit at him, one hand covering my cheek. "Get the hell away from me!" Rafe stares at me and my vision gets blurry with tears I refuse to let fall. JJ is looking at me and Kiara and Pope are looking at him.
"JJ! Come on, we gotta go!" She says. She looks at me sadly, quietly saying an I'm sorry and they run away. Rafe shrugs and turns to Topper.
"Holy shit, you almost killed him, man!" He says laughing and turns to look back at me. But he doesn't spare it any mind. Just walks away like nothing happened. I'm left standing there and I turn around to see people staring at me through the burning screen. Or what's left of it. I turn around and slowly jog back to my car, clutching my swollen cheek in my hand.
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I don't know how the hell I ever took them off in the first place, and I know even less on how to reinstall them. The doors to my jeep are laid on the ground beside my car. I didn't want to go back to Sarah's. Not with her gone and Rafe there. Not after the now yellow bruise on my cheek is 3x more noticeable than it was an hour ago.
"You alright there, Missy?" Mr. T says, coming up behind me.
"Mr. T! Hi, how are you?" I say, wiping my hands on my pants.
"I'm quite alright. How 'bout yourself?" he says, nodding his head towards my car.
I give a small laugh, "Yeah, I'm having some trouble putting the doors back on."
"That's smart. Putting the doors back on before it rains again," he says and I nod awkwardly.
"Uh yeah, the rain," I say and step to the side when he comes up.
"You know I was a car mechanic back when I was your age," he says, and I help him hold the door up to the car. He gets to work immediately, with a small smile on his face.
"Were you?" I say.
"Sure was. I loved every second of it. Back then my hourly pay wouldn't even buy you a coffee today, but oh, did I love it. But then I met my wife and we got this shop together. Wouldn't trade it or her for the world,"
"Aw, I didn't know you were such a romantic Mr. T!" I say and he chuckles.
"Well, there you go Missy," He says after a while. We got both doors on and fixed. I pull a 50 out of my wallet and try to hand it to him. "Oh no, I won't take that." He says and pushes my hand away from him.
"Please? You were a huge help. I never would have done this without you and you saved me a ton of money for a mechanic to do the exact same thing."
"Nope, keep that for yourself. That's just what we do around here. Stay safe in the rain, Missy."
"Thank you, Mr. T," I say, making a note to sneak some cash into his register somehow. He waves goodbye and gets into his own car and leaves. I grab the blanket from the back of my car and climb in the passenger seat, putting the seat back as far as it will go. This will have to do as a place to sleep until Sarah gets back and I can face Rafe again. The exhaustion from today has my eyes closing almost immediately, pulling me into well-needed sleep.
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A loud rapping on my car window wakes me up and I turn to see a familiar blonde boy peering from my window. He gives a giddy wave and gestures for me to roll my window down. Judging by the sun, or complete lack thereof, it's very early in the morning. His face is all cut up and bruised, my boyfriend's doing. I immediately feel sorry for him and start to apologize before he cuts me off.
"Not very Kook of you to be homeless, princess," he says, leaning against my car door, his head sticking in my window.
"I'm not a kook," I grumble, running a hand over my face.
He scoffs and nods, "Yeah, okay," he says sarcastically. I gesture to my car and my blanket.
"Not very Kook of me to be homeless," He stares at me for a second and reaches down, and hits the unlock button on my car door. He circles around and opens the driver's seat door and hops in my car. "Uh, welcome in?"
He makes a show of getting comfortable, grabbing the blanket on my lap and stretching it so it fits both of us, but he freezes when he gets a good look at me. The street lamp was behind me at first, so I guess he couldn't see me, but now with me facing the street lamp, he can see the yellow-purple bruise forming on my face. Not nearly as bad as his, but he has the expression that I was almost beaten to death.
"Was that, uh-," he says and stops. He runs a hand over his mouth and starts again, "Was that from your boyfriend?"
"It's not a big deal. He just went to push me but accidentally punched me," I say and shrug.
"Okay, I'm not some love expert, but I'm 95% sure that's not okay. Like seriously, Rain. He hit you, you should break up with him. Now," I look at him in silence, not really knowing what to say. My dad was known for hitting my mom and I always vowed that if a man ever hit me, I would leave, no questions asked. But now that I'm actually in this situation, I don't know what to do. I want to give Rafe a second chance. And I'm going to see him every day, so breaking up with him could make things way worse. I bring my thumb to my mouth and bite on my nail, slowly nodding.
"Okay," I say. That's all I say. I have nothing else to say. I don't know what to do.
"Okay, look Rain. I have to go, but uh, if you ever want to come by John B's house, you can. We are almost always there, so that's where you'll find me. Only if you want to," he says and slowly gets out of the car. He smiles sadly at me and I just stare at him, completely lost for words. It's like my brain has shut off and my mouth just decided to not form words. "Okay, later princess."
For the first time in my life, I was completely and utterly speechless.
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Hi, thanks for reading episode 4! I'm getting my wisdom teeth out tomorrow so I'll have plenty of time to sit in my bed and do nothing except for write and read. So hopefully episode 5 will be out. Lots of love!
Summary:
Rain goes to meet up with Sarah at her house, but Sarah looks rushed and tells rain that she has to go. A man is in Sarahs car but Rain doesn't know who it is. Rain later sees JJ walking out of fishing shop and she calls out to him, but he ignores her. She confronts him and he snaps at her, explaining that Rafe and Topper attacked Pope and JJ is mad. Rain says she didn't know and is sorry and he isn't as mad anymore. She explains she isn't talking with Rafe anymore and JJ makes a snarky comment asking if they are ever on good terms and Rain gets mad, snapping at him and telling him to fuck off. She yells at him but he finds it funny. she asks him what they did for revenge and JJ lies and said they didn't do anything. she doesn't believe him, but still walks away.
Rain goes to the drive in movie with Rafe, topper, and Kelce. her and Rafe are good again and snuggling while watching the movie. Rafe says he needs to do something and Kelce and topper go with him. Rain doesn't know where they went, and follows Kiara when she went the same direction. She discovers Rafe, Topper, Kelce, Pope, JJ, and Kiara fighting and Rain tries to help stop it. That's when (TW) Rafe accidentally hits her.
Rain, with he help of Mr. T, puts the doors back on her car and Rain sleeps in her car. JJ wakes her up early the next morning and sits in the car with her. Basically tells her to break up with Rafe and Rain can always come find him and John Bs if she ever wants to talk.