❝SHITTY DADS RAISE SHITTY DAUGHTERS.❞
third person.
sage had never cared to learn family history.
if you asked her, nothing about her dad's lineage interested her, because the only goal of john routledge's only daughter was to be a better parent to her kids than he was to her.
from a young age, sage knew her dad didn't care for her. it was apparent when john b would be praised for everything from making his own sandwich to wiping his own ass, but sage couldn't do anything right. no matter how hard she tried to do something that would please her father, he was never a fan of his daughter.
sage admittedly took it out on john b, resenting her younger twin from a very, very young age, however that all stopped when she was a teenager and realized that john b was in her corner more often than not. the boy constantly went to bat for his sister when it came to their dad, and it was something sage could appreciate later in life, but it didn't change the fact that big john was more of a side character in her life than a father.
so, trudging through a graveyard in the dead of night, sage though she had an idea of where john b was taking them, and she wasn't pleased with it at all.
"this place is scary as shit." morgan mumbled.
"everyone on my dad's side is buried here, i have no idea where mom's family's at." sage replied, taking the flashlight john b had passed her and clicked it on, shining it around the cemetery. "so, are you gonna stop trying to be the edge lord and tell us why we're here, or are we gonna have to play a game of twenty questions to figure it out?"
"y'know when you listen to a song and you can't remember who sings it?" john b asked.
"okay, we're playing twenty questions." morgan mumbled.
"redfield, this whole time, i thought it was a place, right?" john b questioned further, sage nodding slowly. "well, it's not, it's our great-great/ grandmother, olivia redfield. that was her maiden name."
john b shined his flashlight up at a white stone tomb that was overgrown in weeds, sage actually smiling a little at the fact they were finally making progress to help her brother's delusion.
"voi-effing-la." jj said bluntly from behind the routledge girl, exhaling a cloud of smoke from his blunt as he did, morgan shaking her head.
"nope, not it." she stated, jj glaring at her out of the corner of his eye.
"guys, come help me with the door." john b told pope and jj, the maybank passing his blunt to sage as he went to help him and pope push on the stone door of the tomb, the trio making little to no progress.
"you're doing amazing, ladies, keep up the effort!" sage cheered from behind them, a loud hissing making the three jump back. jj practically jumped into sage's arms as a large snake slid out of the small hole between the tomb door and the doorway, the pogues and morgan all scrambling out of the way of the animal.
"that's a moccasin alright! ye olde dr. cottonmouth!" jj announced. "it's death in tall grass-" he stopped himself from speaking, running towards the snake and, much to everyone's shock, starting to bark at it.
"jj- jj!" morgan shouted.
"jj, shut up, shut up!" pope whisper-yelled at the boy.
"i'm gonna throw your blunt if you don't stop!" sage threatened, jj turning back to the group, his headlamp shining directly in their eyes and making sage step back, shielding her face from the large light.
"what?" he asked cluelessly. "they're afraid of dogs, everyone knows that."
"no, honey, they aren't." sage responded, sounding more like jj's concerned mom than anything as she gently rubbed his shoulder as to say 'i'm sorry for my son's behavior."
"just get the door open." morgan told the boys, john b and pope walking towards the door, but jj stopped them.
"guys, guys, wait." he ordered. "if there's one. there's probably dozens."
"can you stop- you're scaring me!" kiara whined, sage shaking her head. jj, once again, began barking at the door, john b grabbing him by the back of his shirt.
"stop barking at the snakes!" he gritted, pope grabbing the routledge boy's attention.
"look, john- shut up. john, look." pope started bluntly. "we're not gonna get in there, alright? it's not budging."
sage shined her flashlight at the tomb, noticing the hole in the door. a hole big enough for a person to fit through.
"i can go in." she interrupted pope and john b's conversation, everyone turning to look at her blankly.
"how?" morgan asked, sage nodding towards the door.
"i'll go through the hole." she said simply, john b raising his eyebrows at his sister.
"you're gonna go through the hole- you're gonna go through that hole?" he questioned.
"just because your fatass won't fit doesn't mean i won't either." sage snapped back. "i can go."
"sage, you're not gonna go through the hole." john b said insistently, sage biting the inside of her cheek.
"look, this is about dad. and while i wish he was dead, more than anything, might i add, you deserve to know what really happened." sage said sympathetically. "if i can get some help getting up there, i can fit through the hole."
john b didn't protest anymore, jj shoving past the routledge boy who was still looking at his sister blankly.
"okay, i'm gonna give you a boost, okay?" he explained, leaning against the wall of the tomb and looking at sage. "i've seen it in the movies multiple times."
"i know, you watched them at my house." she replied shortly. pope stepped forward, starting to pull the brush away from the hole with the help of morgan, the two of them tossing it off to the side.
"what exactly is she trying to find?" morgan asked.
"you'll know when you see it." john b told sage unhelpfully.
"okay, edge-lord." sage deadpanned.
"okay, on the count of three." jj told sage, but she had already stepped into his hand and started pulling herself up onto the ledge of the hole. "okay, never mind. just forget three."
sage hit the ground on the other side of the door with a thud, her feet landing on dirt as she shone her dim flashlight around the room, not seeing anything yet.
"give me more light!" she yelled up to the hole.
"got it." john b replied, sitting a lantern on the ledge, which lit up the rest of the tomb. sage looked around, her eyes falling on a fedex package laying on the casket placed against the back wall. the words 'for bird' were written across the front in a scrawl, which she recognized as her father's handwriting.
"you found anything?" jj called.
"yeah, yeah i did." sage replied, grabbing the envelope and stepping onto the edge of the casket and climbing back out of the hole, jumping onto the ground and passing the package to john b, who looked at it with wide eyes.
"that's... not gold." pope said disappointedly from behind the twins.
"no shit." sage snapped, john b still staring at the package like it was his firstborn child.
"this is from my dad." he breathed, looking up at sage, who shrugged.
"it doesn't have my name on it." she said shortly, catching a whiff of the smoke jj had just exhaled from behind her.
"guys." the blonde mumbled. "square groupers." everyone turned to see where a golf cart had pulled into the cemetery.
"come on!" morgan urged, grabbing sage by the wrist and pulling her around the side of the tomb, the rest of the pogues following behind her.
"flashlights!" kiara ordered, sage immediately turning hers off, only to look to her side and see john b attempting to shove his light under his shirt, which made him appear to be a brightly glowing paper lantern. the older girl snatched it away from him, clicking the light off.
"it's on strobe!" jj panicked, sage rolling her eyes and reaching over to shut off his headlamp.
"it's not that hard." she said impatiently, pressing her body against the wall again. "are you sure that's them?"
"homie's got a gun." jj announced quietly.
"screw this." kiara mumbled, throwing herself forward and running through the cemetery, the rest of the pogues following close behind. they got to the gate where the twinkie was parked, sage opting to jump over the fence next to it instead, pulling morgan up before jumping over.
"guys, guys!" pope whispered in a panic, sage turning to see the boy stuck on the fence by the leg of his shorts. "guys, i'm stuck!"
"pope- hold on, okay? don't move!" jj commanded, sage turning to see he had the gun held tightly in his hand, pointing it directly at the heyward.
"no!" she yelled, jj turning to her and throwing his arms up in surrender as john b grabbed his friend by the waist, pulling him off the fence, tearing his shorts off his body in the process despite pope's protests.
"nice, man!" jj exclaimed as pope ran towards the van, his head low in embarrassment as sage and morgan laughed, jumping into the backseat with him. they pulled away as the golf cart approached the fence, sage looking around the van.
"hey, one of your grabbed the envelope, right?" she asked, john b slamming the breaks and turning to his sister.
"you didn't grab the envelope?" he asked.
"i thought you did!" she shouted back, morgan reaching behind her back and passing the package up to john b.
"thanks, morgs." john b said quietly, sage smiling at the redhead sitting across from her on the floor.
"that bread had mold on it three days ago." pope said to jj as he walked through the kitchen where the maybank was spreading peanut butter over a piece of bread marbled with green splotches of mold.
"i'll just peel off the bad parts. besides, mold is good for you, it's just a natural organism." jj defended himself.
"no, no it's not." morgan deadpanned, shaking her head as john b threw himself into a chair in the dining room, she and sage standing in front of the open fridge again.
"if you peel off the bad parts, there isn't gonna be much bread left to speak of." sage stated bluntly, looking at jj with concern in her eyes.
"i'll be fine, you've seen me eat worse." he reminded, sage shaking her head.
"yeah, and for some reason i'm still surprised you turned out this way." she snapped back.
"guys!" pope called from the dining room, sage shutting the door of the fridge as she and morgan followed jj.
"yep! hot damn!" jj exclaimed, taking a bite from his essentially peanut butter and mold sandwich, immediately gagging and walking to the kitchen to spit it out.
"told you so!" morgan called after him, john b ripping open the envelope and dumping the contents on the table, grabbing a map and unfolding it, spreading the paper across the table for everyone to see.
"x marks the spot." pope said bluntly, talking about the x written in sharpie on the map.
"coordinates, he found something." sage added, pointing at the numbers written next to the x on the map.
"what's that?" jj asked, pointing at the brown device that had also come from inside the envelope.
"it's a tape recorder. dumbass." kiara said, whispering the last part as jj glared at her out of the corner of his eye, the carrera girl getting a similar look from sage. john b didn't say anything, grabbing the recorder and clicking the button on.
"dear bird."
"who's bird?" jj asked, but he and morgan both took notice of how sage's body tensed at the sound of her father's voice echoing over the recorder.
"it's what my dad called me." john b breathed.
"i hate to say i told you so, but i told you so, and your doubted your old man. i imagine at this moment you're probably filled with guilt and self-loathing over our last fight, but don't kill yourself just yet, kid. i didn't expect to find the merchant either."
sage's breath hitched in her throat, jj immediately wrapping his arm around her shoulder, but she shrugged it off quickly, gripping the back of john b's chair harder from where she was standing behind it.
"you and sage were right to call me out, i wasn't exactly father of the decade, especially not to her. but hopefully we're all listening to this in our brand new sugar shack down in costa rica living off past investments and pulling permits. but if we're not, and you find this for less than optimal reasons, that's what the map is for."
sage looked down at the map, the little x scrawled across the yellowing paper just off the shore, maybe a mile if she had to guess.
"there she is, the wreck of the merchant. if something happens to me, finish what i started. i love you, bird, even if i didn't always act like it. take care of sage, she needs you. i'll see you kids on the other side."
sage stepped back from john b's chair, pushing her hair back with her hands. her brother's chair scraped against the hardwood floor as he attempted to walk out of the room, but he collapsed against the doorway, sobs racking his body.
"holy shit- he did it! big john, he found the merchant!" jj exclaimed.
"can you not?" kiara asked, motioning towards john b. jj immediately apologized, but he, pope, and morgan all turned to save while kiara comforted john b. the blonde was standing in the doorway off the hallway that went back to her and john b's rooms, still slowly backing away from the table.
"sage?" morgan asked, the girl finally looking up at her friends, her eyes previously trained on the floor, like she was trying to memorize every detail of it. "you okay?"
sage didn't say anything, just turned into her room and shut the door behind her, the three who weren't comforting john b looking at each other.
"you should be with her." morgan said to jj, the blonde giving her a questioning look. "she's opened up to me about this, but you're her best friend. you should go."
jj didn't say anything, just walked to sage's closed door and knocked a couple times before turning the knob and walking in, the blonde's back turned to him as she stared out the window on the other side of the room from where she was sat on her bed.
"sage?" he asked, but his friend didn't turn to him. she still stared, looking out into the darkness. she was trying so hard not to cry, to not grieve for the man who had given her nothing. the man who had taken away her childhood. the man who had been more of someone who she just saw on occasion rather than a dad.
he was still her dad.
eventually, she let a sob out. she felt the bed dip underneath her, and then jj's arms wrapped around her. she cried into his chest, the feeling of jj's hands rubbing circles on her back providing little comfort, but also helping her to realize he was there.
jj had barely seen sage cry.
but now, feeling her cling onto him like they were the last two people on earth, he realized for the first time that she felt things the same way everyone else did. not that he had thought she was like, emotionally detached or anything, but she was always someone who everyone else went to to get their shit off their chest. jj was surprised that the night of everything that happened at the kegger, sage had told him about how she was feeling to behind with, but full on crying to him over her dad was something that had never happened before.
he had come to her with his own family issues, sometimes at two in the morning and others when her and john b were in the middle of dinner. she always let him in and cleaned him up, gave him something to eat, as most times he would've been a couple days without food by the time he was able to get out of his house and get to the chateau, and set up a bed for him in the living room.
he never slept there, however, as right after john b fell asleep, sage would lay in bed for about five minutes, on her phone, staring at the ceiling, or reading a book while she waited for jj to enter her room unannounced, at which time he would let everything off his chest about what had happened the last couple days at his house. she always listened, let him cry, and let him stay in her bed with her, as he never liked to be alone after the run-ins.
sage knew about jj. she knew his favorite colors and foods, his insecurities, his loves and his hates. he was open about those things, they were active displays of his personality.
jj didn't know as much about sage. sure, he'd known her for most of his life, but the routledge girl was always so closed off. maybe it was due to her lack of a maternal figure during her early years, or the fact she never got to come into her own due to big john treating her so horribly.
everyone liked sage, but they were also aware of the fact she was a bitch. that if you were someone she didn't like, you'd know how she felt about you, she wasn't going to try and hide her feelings from anyone.
so, laying against jj, sage was only able to utter the words she had sworn by since she was ten. a phrase she had come up with at such a young age that she believed to be an accurate explanation for why she was constantly so emotionally unavailable, both to the pogues and to john b.
"shitty dads raise shitty daughters."
kens speaks 🪐
it was sage and jj in the og so i wanted it to be sage and jj in the rewrite