Epigraph 1: A Series of Events
August 9th:
Luke Maybank had been in the ICU for a week now. The twins were still in a state of shock, not really knowing what was happening. They'd spent the week alternating between spending time with John B at the tiny cabin and keeping to themselves at the Chateau. The time had passed slow and fast at the same time and no one could get through to them. The two were supposed to be at their aunt's; the lie they told the hospital staff. Little did the doctors know, they hadn't heard from their aunt since their mother took off. Of course, Peterkin knew that, but she didn't feel the need to get in the middle of it this early on. She knew where they were staying.
August 16th:
It had been two weeks. Two weeks of sitting around trying to figure out exactly how they felt. Luke Maybank was on life support and CJ wanted to rejoice, but instead, she felt a pit in her stomach and found herself zoning out on more than one occasion. JJ was worse. He didn't want to rejoice, but part of him felt a relief that their father might be out of their lives soon. The rest of him was twisted up with grief and anxiety, terrified of losing his father. Both were filled with mass amounts of stress and the Pogues couldn't count how many times the two had disappeared - separately. They would go to John B's church, or the hospital, or sometimes secluded parts of the beach. Wherever they were, they were pacing.
August 23rd:
Three weeks. CJ had stopped pacing. Much like with the entire situation with their father, Claire Jones had come to terms with the fact that her father was dying. She had come to terms with the fact that she hated him even more now for getting off easy. For once, she hoped that she was wrong about her beliefs and that there was some sort of devil, just so her father could be tortured in the afterlife. She hoped he would be made to feel like a horrible human being for what he did to his children, and others he'd screwed over. But most of all, she had come to terms with the fact that it felt like utter shit despite the fact that she hated him.
The relief was burning in her gut, but buried deeper was the harsh realization that she would be an orphan. That JJ would be an orphan. Sure, their mom was probably around somewhere, but she'd been left behind long ago. Their only family would be their friends; officially. So, CJ stopped pacing. She stayed alone most of the time, but she sat, staring off into space as thoughts ran rampant in her mind.
August 26th:
JJ was a mess. They were supposed to start school today, but neither of them could stomach going. The doctors had started talking about pulling the plug. While JJ now spent his days pulling at his hair, CJ had thrown up. John B knelt beside her outside the treehouse, holding her hair back as she upchucked all the food she'd managed to eat. It didn't seem right. Putting a grown man's life in their hands. Even if that was where it should have always ended. They were just teenagers, but being the only next of kin left, the decision fell to them.
JJ had no idea what to do. He was utterly torn, causing him to lash out and hit things; one of the biggest reasons the Maybanks isolated themselves at times like these. He'd gotten caught in a panic attack or two, but one of them had been quickly remedied by his sister sitting at his side. One of the few times they isolated together. Tears had been shed and yells had been released and the blonde still hated what was happening.
He needed more time.
More time for his father to change.
More time to play ball and share a beer.
More time to have heart to hearts.
He needed more time.
Their time was up.
August 29th:
CJ hadn't slept. Neither had JJ. The Pogues had no idea where they were, they'd looked just about everywhere. The two were together, but they weren't speaking. They were on different levels of a building, trying to keep their external violence to a minimum as the place they were in held importance.
On August 28th, the doctors told them their father's insurance was up. It was something that hadn't crossed either Maybank's mind, too occupied with everything else. It immediately sent CJ into a panic, something that took her brother ages to calm down. He'd asked the doctor for a second, and the young doctor, not knowing what to do about the hyperventilating teenager, nodded vehemently.
When the doctor came back, CJ had calmed down. Or, more like numbed down. Still, she'd paid attention when he told them they'd have to take Luke off the ventilator if they couldn't pay the hospital bills. She'd paid attention when he explained they had 24 hours to decide before the hospital could no longer cover the charge. She'd understood that he meant they had 24 hours before they had to sign off on their father's death.
CJ knew they didn't have the money. JJ knew it too, even if he didn't - couldn't - accept anything that was happening. While he was upstairs, freaking out, trying to find a way to resolve everything, CJ was downstairs, slowly breaking down while simultaneously trying to figure out how they'd survive after this. The mention of insurance triggered the responsible, caretaker part of Claire's brain and all she could think about was funerals and how to take on more hours at The Wreck while going to school. She had to take care of JJ and she had to take care of John B and she had to take care of herself. They would no longer have the minor help that was their father. The ability to steal his cash to buy weed seeds or his obligation to buy some school supplies and clothes. They would have to deal with the house and DCS and what the hell were they supposed to do?
They were both stuck, but luckily, at least CJ had gotten past the decision of pulling the plug. JJ was still pulling his hair out, going back and forth between logic and emotion. He knew what the only choice they had was, but he was still racking his brain for ideas and filled with extravagant denial. He could get an actual job, he could drop out, CJ could pick up more hours, he could stop smoking and sell all their weed, he could... Their dad would wake up and he would have changed and he'd be a good dad and they could be a family and everything would be okay.
Everything would be okay. Eventually. And the first step of that was CJ coming out of her stupor enough to stand up and walk for the pull-down ladder. With a few creaks, she climbed up the steps until she could see her brother at the other side of the room, peering out a window while he fidgeted on his feet. She couldn't see, but he was nervously biting one of his fingernails.
For a moment, she paused, staring at her brother with such regret for what she had to do. She didn't want to. She didn't want to be the one to pull her brother from his thoughts. His hope. But she had to. They only had an hour.
"JJ?" She said softly, walking forward tentatively. She jumped just slightly when he spun around, not expecting the speed. "Hey."
JJ didn't say anything, but his gaze said everything. He thought she'd figured something out. He thought she had all the answers and like a boy looking up to his mother, he stumbled forward until they were right in front of each other.
When he got there, CJ delicately reached her hands out and grabbed his damaged hands up with her own bruised ones. She just stared at them for a second, trying to prolong the inevitable. With a small squeeze, she looked up at him and stealed her nerves with a huff.
"JJ, we have to do it."
Those six words fractured JJ's heart and his expression twisted as he wrenched himself from CJ's grasp. The action pierced his sister's very soul, but she ignored it as she went after him. Grabbing the boy by the shoulders, she spun him around.
"JJ, he is never going to be a good dad." She told him, eyes wide with earnest. "And if he ever wakes up, which could be years from now, he'll probably be the same, except with brain damage. So we'll have to take care of an abusive asshole. And we'll have to pay for these hospital bills. You think we have that kind of money?" She paused, searching his conflicted face, tears pricking in her eyes as his bottom lip quivered. "It doesn't make sense to leave him on the machines, J. I know you love him. I know. But if you love him, you have to let him go. It's not humane."
Her big brother just shook his head jerkily but didn't pull away from her. His head dropped, and she looked at him with a face full of guilt and sadness. She couldn't tell what he was thinking, but she hated being the reason his body started trembling.
"There's gotta be another way."
"There's not." She told him, eyes welling up with tears as her voice cracked. "We have to go, J."
JJ looked up at her and her throat closed up at the sight of his red-tinged eyes. He was trying so hard not to cry, but a few tears fell from his eyes anyway. His lower lip trembled as his face morphed into a pleading expression. CJ could only shake her head sadly as a tear rolled down her cheek.
They didn't say anything more and eventually, with a small sob, JJ nodded his head. He'd come to terms, as much as he could, with the fact that they had to do this. His sister was right and if he wanted to spend any time with his father, they needed to leave.
The Maybanks arrived at the hospital on JJ's dirt bike, both with blank expressions, feeling quite numb. As soon as they got off of the vehicle, they grabbed onto one another's hands and walked through the front doors as a unit. They never let go, not even when they were cleared to enter the ICU and stood at the foot of their father's bed.
Luke Maybank looked like shit. CJ remembered at one point she'd thought good riddance. He deserved it. Now all she could do was look at all the machines as her eyes filled with tears.
Their father had gotten into a car accident. He'd been drinking and had unsurprising paired it with whatever drug he was using nowadays. He had swerved into the oncoming lane, crashing into an SUV. Luckily for the family of Pogues he'd hit, they span out on the road and received minimal damages; they were out of the hospital within a week. Luke Maybank had kept going and crashed into a tree.
The drugs paired with a massive concussion had put him in a coma. He had a broken arm, a fractured shin and femur, and had lost a lot of blood from a large shard of glass. The cuts that once littered his body were healed and his broken nose was still mending from the airbag.
For CJ, the hardest thing to look at was certainly the breathing tube. No matter how many times she saw him, it never got easier. She could practically feel the thing down her own throat and the sound of artificial breathing made her nauseous.
For JJ, it was the feeding tube. Something about all of the man's nutrients coming from a tube in his nose didn't sit well with him. It wasn't natural.
Luke's daytime doctor saw them when they walked in, but he gave them privacy. He knew they didn't have much time left and it would be wrong to take any of that time away just for a greeting or to tell them things they already knew.
As the twins stood at the foot of their father's bed, JJ's hand squeezed his sister's tighter. His throat had tightened up and he didn't know what to do. Was he supposed to say goodbye? Curse the man out? Stand there and try to understand that in the next thirty minutes their father would be gone? He didn't know and so he just squeezed his sister's hand and stared at the man's face.
CJ was in a similar state, staring at her father in a state of shock. Her blood had run cold in her veins, causing the girl to physically shiver. She didn't notice it though as her eyes filled with tears without her approval, a few spilling over the edge.
They stood in silence for a long time. Just staring. Neither of them moved, not even to wipe tears away. It wasn't until CJ finally tore her gaze away to check the clock that they moved. Her sharp inhale at the time had made JJ look at her and only a second after following her gaze, his breath hitched.
They had seven minutes.
A stuttered breath fell from both of their mouths. They couldn't seem to get the oxygen back as they stared at the clock. JJ was the one to pull from his stupor first, tugging on his sister's hand to get her attention. When her panicked eyes met his, she could tell exactly what he wanted to say if he could find the words. They had to say goodbye.
Turning away from her brother, CJ felt the tears in her throat as she let go of his hand. Walking those two steps to the foot of Luke's bed was the hardest thing she thought she'd ever done. Shaky hands reached up to grasp the footboard, knuckles white. Her lip had curled up in a sad sneer as water ran down her cheeks.
"You were a shitty father." She started, shaking her head as she moved her focus to a random point in the room. She wasn't really paying attention. "Every single day we were scared of you. Worried about what you would say or do even if we did everything right. None of it was ever good enough for you." CJ had to stop for a moment as the ball in her throat kept the words at bay. She looked at the ground shortly before going back to staring at that random point. "I wonder if you even noticed we hadn't come home in weeks. We probably would've had to once school started but I guess we don't have to worry about that now." The girl took in a shuttering breath, sealing her eyes shut. "God, why couldn't you just be a good father? I just don't understand what the hell went wrong in your life that having a family wasn't good enough for you. You chased mom off and then you did the same to us. Were you so miserable that you had to take it out on everyone else? Why marry someone and have kids if the entire time you just wanted to be alone?" She asked him, now looking directly at his unmoving face. "You know how many nights I laid in bed and just wished that someone would take us away? I guess someone finally got the hint, but they grabbed you instead. Karma's a bitch, init?" CJ scoffed, shaking her head with her eyes squeezed shut, tears cascading down her cheeks as she sniffled. "Anyways, umm, you were fuckin' ass. And I hate you so much. But you were my dad. And I'm sorry that you were always so miserable, even if it was never our fault."
When CJ finished her speech, there were three minutes left. She left her brother's side to sit in one of the uncomfortable hospital chairs with her face in her hands. She was sobbing now, something she never thought she'd do over the man in front of her; not in this context, at least. When JJ started talking, the sobs grew much worse and she curled in on herself, head pressed to her knees.
"H-hey, dad. The doctors, they say you might be able to hear us. I dunno if that's true, but I kind of hope it is, because you never listened before and it makes me feel better to think you have to listen now." The boy was standing in the place his sister once did, jello feeling arms lifted to lightly wrap his fingers around the footboard. The warmth his sister's hands left made him feel just a little better. "I'm so mad at you. No matter what you threw at us, I always told myself that it would get better. That you'd change one day and be an actual dad. Even when CJ gave up and told me that you would never change, I kept believing. You know how messed up it is that she told me that when we were thirteen?" He questioned, brows furrowed as he sniffled. "Before we were even in high school, she'd given up on you. She had to pick up a job just so we could get by because you didn't do shit for us." Tilting his head back, JJ tried to stifle the tears as he grew angry, slapping the palm of his hand down on the plastic. The loud noise made CJ jump. "We were good kids, ya know? And everyone in this god damn town thinks we're not gonna amount to shit and it's- it's all because of you." His lip pulled back in a snarl as he pointed angrily at the only father he'd ever had. "We're gonna go places. We're gonna become something and we're gonna have families and fuck you, I'm gonna have kids and I'm gonna be a great dad, just to spite you. And you would've had nothing to do with it and you'll never meet your grandkids because you're selfish. You hear me? You're selfish." Inhaling deeply, he raised his hand to wipe his nose with the back of it. He stood there for a moment, simmering down before he looked at his father with a heartbroken expression. "I love you, you stupid son of a bitch. But I hope you rot."
With his piece said, JJ walked over to his sobbing sister and sat down beside her. As soon as he got there, CJ moved, not caring about the armrest digging into her ribs as JJ held her. The boy's cheek rested on her head and she could feel his teardrops wetting her hair.
Dr. Westoff stood in the doorway, expression pinched as he looked at the children. He'd been standing there for about two minutes, having given the boy some extra time to finish his piece. He wished he could give them more time but the chief wanted that room in the ICU open as soon as possible. He wasn't a very understanding man; his motto was "time is money."
Walking inside, the doctor gently set the chart he was holding on a table. The noise startled the Maybanks, making them look up abruptly. When they saw who it was, their expressions filled with a strange mixture of relief over it just being him and further sorrow over it being him. They knew what it meant.
"I wish I could give you more time." He told them solemnly, keeping his gaze on them even though it was incredibly hard to do. This was the first time he'd had to do this with children. Every other time, there was at least one adult present. "But it's time."
CJ nodded her head as best she could and untangled herself from her brother. She replaced it with a vice like grip on his hand as both leaned forward to look at their father for the last time. They didn't watch as the man turned off all the machines. They didn't have the heart. They just stared at their father's face, taking in all the tiny details they could as they tried to subconsciously block their ears so as not to hear the sound that would inevitably fill the room.
Moments later, Luke Maybank was gone.
September 6th:
The week after Luke's death was hard. Most nights, the twins were woken from nightmares, either from the other sibling or John B. They hadn't been to school yet, the principle had given them some time off under the circumstances.
Unbeknownst to them, Peterkin had given them the same timeline she'd given John B when it came to child services. CJ had spent most of that time either working or with her boyfriend, just trying to keep herself distracted. She couldn't think about everything else they had to do.
JJ was the same. He had gotten a job at a fancy Kook hotel as a busboy. The main chef there, Mama L, had worked in the kitchens of their middle school when they were younger. What time he didn't spend there or with his sister, he spent with Pope. The dark-skinned boy tried his best to keep him out of trouble.
They were both working when the men came. It wasn't a pretty sight as, for obvious reasons, the Maybanks did not like strange men. Especially when they were grabbing them. The two had thrashed and tried to get away, and CJ almost succeeded by kicking one of them in the nuts, but inevitably, they had been dragged away to the sheriff's station. That's where they currently were, refusing to look at Peterkin.
"Look, I dunno what's gonna happen to you kids but I'm gonna try and help as much as I can. I doubt you'll stay on the island, but I'll try and keep you together." Neither Maybank paid any mind, continuing to look at the floor. Both were messing with their hands nervously. "I'm gonna go get your files together and they're gonna come get you. Please try not to make this harder than it has to be."
As she left, the Maybanks turned to look at each other. Wringing hands were moved to grasp one another as panic flashed before their eyes. What if she couldn't do anything to help them? And what would happen to John B? The only way the bills had been paid at his house and food was kept in his stomach was because CJ still had a job. With everything that had happened, they hadn't even looked into how to get him emancipated yet.
Looking out the window, CJ caught the eye of one Mike Carrera. He and his wife, Anna, along with Pope's dad Heyward had all finally been called in to discuss Wade Cameron. Despite the fact that they only really interacted during events, Peterkin was talking to every person possible to get as much dirt as she could on him. She took the travesty of Big John personally; a murderer had been right under her nose for years.
Mike had been staring into that room for quite some time now as he waited for his interview. He'd heard about everything from Kie and had seen the change in CJ over the last month or so. That brightness about her was gone and headphones were permanently stuck in her ears. She'd requested working kitchen duty for a while and Mike had agreed, knowing that Claire couldn't put on a brave face for the customers. He wouldn't want her to.
He watched as the DCS officers walked in from the back room and went for that office. Watched the way CJ's eyes widened and JJ tensed like he was ready for battle. He saw the way they clunge to each other as they were told to get up. He was so focused on them that he didn't see who had just been led into the station, and neither did anyone else when the screaming started.
"Stop it!" CJ cried, thrashing in the arms of one man as the other ripped JJ away from her. "Get your hands off me!"
"CJ!" Her brother yelled, trying to pull away from the child services worker. It didn't work.
"You're not gonna take me from my brother!" CJ screamed, throwing her head back into the man behind her. Sadly, the worker was used to things like this happening and simply grumbled down at her to 'cut it out' as his nose began bleeding. Neither sibling "cut it out" and continued to try their hardest to move.
"Hey, let them go!"
Everyone's heads whipped to the side, seeing another boy by the door. The Maybanks would've been relieved to see him if he wasn't in the arms of deputy dickhead. They'd found him. He'd just needed some food.
"No." CJ whimpered, going limp momentarilly in the man's arms. He used this advantage to keep dragging her toward the door, but she quickly got her wits about her and continued to struggle. Mike had had enough.
"Let them go." He called, voice booming throughout the station. His wife was looking up at him in question and at this point, Peterkin had come back with the files.
The one holding CJ stopped and turned to the man. "Excuse me?"
"I said, let them go." Mike replied calmly, looking to his wife for a moment before turning to the sheriff with a steely resolve. Heyward was walking into the room now, having finished his interview with a female deputy. "We'll take them in."
"What?"
The question came from both siblings, but where CJ's was in soft disbelief, JJ had practically shouted.
"All..of them?" Peterkin question, quirking a brow as she put most of her weight on her right leg. When Mike tilted his head in question, she gestered to John B with her own. "Kid's been on the run ever since his daddy died."
The hope that blossomed with Mike's words fell, as did their faces, when he spoke more. "Not all of them. We don't have room for three."
The room sat in silence for many moments. It was filled with tension that even a knife couldn't cut, along with swirling bits of hope and dismay.
"I'll take him."
Everyone turned to the new voice, the teenagers eyes widening when they saw Heyward standing there with his hands in his pockets. Mike may have had reason to take in CJ - and JJ in retrospect - but Heyward was always calling them bad business. And he held no real personal tie like Mike did with CJ working at The Wreck. Last they checked, he should be more than happy for all of them to get off the island and away from his son.
"You'll take him?" Peterkin asked incredulously, looking between both of the fathers and the teenagers. "So, what? You're just gonna find room for more kids until they can move out? Put 'em to work?"
"No." Heyward told her, gesturing toward the kids. "We'll get 'em emancipated. Help get 'em on their feet. Then they can go back home."
"Home?"
"Yeah. I'm sure Big John left the house to Little John, right?" He was right. After his father's funeral, they did the reading of Big John's will. He'd left John B everything he had, other than a few things he left for his sister. "You know well as I do that Teddy's been gone for months. And those kids have practically raised themselves, their daddy didn't do them many favors. They can take care of themselves."
The prospect hung in the air as everyone stared for a moment before turning to look at the sheriff. The thoughtful look on her face filled the teenagers with hope, warming their hearts. It was the most human CJ had felt in a while.
"And you'll take the twins?" She questioned, turning back to the Carreras with disbelief plastered all over her face.
The husband and wife duo shared a look for a moment. Anna had shaken her head but Mike just fixed her with a look. Surprisingly, in those ten seconds, the woman seemed to come around. After so many years together, she knew exactly what he was trying to say and although she wasn't a big fan of the group of Pogues, she was still a mother. Just as Mike couldn't sit and watch them be separated, neither could Anna.
"Just until they're emancipated." Anna answered this time, turning to nod at the sheriff. "We'll do whatever you need us to do."
And that's how five teenagers all got new lives.
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August 29th, 2020:
It had been a year now. True to the parents' word, they housed the three teenagers until the day they got emancipated. Did everything they could to get them on their feet.
After the twins finally got around to having a funeral for their father - which truthfully, no one really attended - they got to read the will. It was years old and was obvious it hadn't been updated, but he gave the house to JJ. Any money he had went to Claire and since his truck was paid off, that went to them too.
Unsurprisingly, the first thing they did was round up their group of friends to clean the house out. Heyward and Mike scrapped some money together to rent a giant metal dumpster. For days, the kids went through everything in the house, throwing out anything the twins didn't want to keep that had no municipal value.
The next thing they did was move all of their shit to John B's house. That was the next project, but until it took hold, all of their things were just thrown in the living room. Next was a big yard sale. Anything that didn't sell was given out for free. By the end of the weekend, all of it was gone. They made a pretty penny off of Luke's crap.
The truck was next. It was cleaned out and even taken to a cleaner to be restored for as cheap as possible. The thing was still a hunk of junk, but at least it smelled nice and was kind of shiny afterwards. They sold it to some older man for a couple thousand, something that was immediately put in CJ's newly set up bank account.
The house in whole was the hardest. They had to scrub the walls and the carpets were so stained and burnt from cigarettes that it ended up just having to be pulled out. Mike paid for carpeters to come and redo them which CJ insisted on paying him back for at a later date (and she did).
Luckily, the flooring wasn't so bad and was cleaned up well enough with a good mopping and shining. The whole house was repainted, inside and out. That was the task Pope complained about the most; said it made his arm all crampy.
The Pogues didn't have enough money to replace the broken down stove so they simply cleaned it up as much as they could. Same with the fridge. They simply told people new appliances would be needed soon or to bring their own. The family that ended up buying the home had their own anyways so it was an easy deal.
The yard was the easiest to deal with. Any trash that was out there had already been thrown away so it just needed to be raked and mowed to make it look pretty. JJ stacked the wood his father had thrown around at some point while CJ cleaned out the fireplace. That thing obviously hadn't been swept in years.
By the time they were done, the premises looked unrecognizable. It looked like a place that a family could actually be happy. The twins couldn't help but feel an overwhelming sense of melancholy when the new family moved in. It was obvious that they were, in fact, happy, and it twisted their guts as much as it made them joyous that the home would finally be exactly that - a home.
The twins had made a pretty penny on the house. Some of it, Mike made sure CJ put into a CD savings account that would accumulate mass interest. The rest was put into her own savings. Over the course of the year, they'd dipped into it to fix up the Chateau and buy some new things; like a dishwasher. The patched up roof was redone and paint had been bought, each room getting a new color. After everything that had happened, they needed to make it their own. After all, it was.
The Chateau was like a brand new place now. John B's old room was now JJ's and Big John's room now belonged to his son and CJ. All of the plain wooden walls (and the outside) had been repainted, as well as all the cabinets and shelves in the kitchen, bathroom, and laundry room. There were loads of new pictures everywhere and a lot of the old stuff had been taken down. The house now had it's own AC and heating unit, although the Pogues would still use open widows and fans as much as possible and the fireplace in the winter. Even the microwave had been replaced (granted, it had broke). They'd bought a generator too, but it was only to be used to take hot showers and do proper laundry. The only thing that hadn't been touched was the study.
They'd been on their own for two months now, having officially finished the emancipation process after they finished all of the projects and their junior year of high school. Peterkin checked on them once each month and Mike was always making sure they were doing well. He sent her home with food most nights or cooked for the kids after hours.
John B worked at Heyward's now. It wasn't something he'd ever imagined doing, but he wasn't gonna turn the offer down once he was jobless. While Pope dealt with deliveries, he had taken over for the old stocker and cashier. He got discounts now at the store, along with the fish for food deal they still held.
All in all, the Pogues were living better now than they ever had. Things could be a bit hectic and stressful sometimes and there were still nights that they all woke from nightmares or days where John B couldn't quite put a smile on his face, but overall, things were looking up. They all had new phones (something that JJ had insisted on, though they still used Straight Talk), all had jobs, and all officially owned their own house. The twins bought a used honda as well which they shared; they had enough to buy their own but between the dirtbike, the van, the car, and the boat, each of them always had a way to get around. School was going well and with their newfound responsibly, the teenagers rarely skipped anymore. They even got that greenhouse they always talked about; of course, it didn't hold weed plants yet, but they had started growing their own fruits and vegies.
The treehouse, surprisingly, stayed the same through it all. Despite moving forward with their lives, the treehouse was something that would never change. They had the ability to buy an actual bed or something, but they preferred to keep it the same. Where it had once been the Maybanks home, it was now like the teenagers vacation spot in the times where it felt like they were acting a bit too adult like. Of course, it was still their safe haven as well. In coming years, they would put up some new tapestries and buy a stock of cintronella for the tiki torches, but it truly stayed the same as it had since they were children.
They were happy. Now that they were legally adults (in the twins case, doubly so), even Topper left them alone. Or maybe it was just the fact that the Kook's ringleader had finally been thrown in jail. He'd gotten high and got into a fist fight with some underage Pogues. Peterkin had been called by the parents and he was charged with being under the influence, assaulting minors, and possession of narcotics. He'd probably be away for a long time.
The Pogues had spent the summer having as much fun as they could while juggling jobs and Pope now stressing over whether he got a high enough GPA to keep his scholarship. As senior year began - which now included Kie at the public school after a year of fighting with her mom - the teenagers were actually excited to go to school. Their whole group was together, things were going great, and senior year came with free periods (that they made sure they shared) and lots of fun activities and projects. Even Pope, for the most part, had stopped stressing about what would come next.
So they were happy. Despite everything, things seemed to finally be going their way. The strays were no longer stranded and that sinking ship was now floating on peaceful waters.
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KDAFKJKLJKJLKJA Ahhh so this story is technically done now. There will still be another epilogue (along with bonus chapters), but it will be set further in the future so this is basically the end of the main timeline. I seriously can't believe that it's finished.
So, as I said, I will most likely be writing bonus chapters (though, I'm not sure when I will work on them) seeing as this ended a bit shorter and differently than I liked. I already have some plans (so don't say holidays or Kook reconciliation) but I would like some ideas from you guys. It can be virtually any point in time and with any characters (though it will be focused around Routbank). Please leave your ideas in the comments and do not hesitate to throw a bunch of details in there. I do not at all mind reading multiple comments or paragraphs; I absolutely love interacting with you guys and would love to see what ideas you can come up with and what you would like to see. If you guys get any ideas after reading the last epilogue, feel free to leave comments on there or you can come back here if you want.
Anyways, until next time,
~SiriusCatBennett