extra chapter three
"the after"
———
brief summary: in sum of me being completely impatient for the new season to come out, i just want to write a chapter on (what i think could potentially happen) to the remaining pogues. (edit — this is NOT canon, just purely au)
"EVELYNN, WILL YOU GET THOSE damn salads out already!?"
Lynn let a loud sigh fall from her lips, clasping her eyes shut while she simply took a moment to herself. Days were blended together at this point, it had all bee so cloudy since the day she lost John B and Sarah Cameron. School went by in a drag, work shifts seemed even slower, and life as she knew it was even greyer. It had been almost three months since she lost two of her best friends due to the nasty storm that hit the Outer Banks.
Currently, she was working her part-time job at the restaurant JJ originally gotten her hired at, but work was bland and boring without the boy.
And it had been for quite awhile.
"Yeah, Benny, I'll get them out in a second, alright?" Lynn grunted out while adjusting the black waitress tray she once had pinched in between her arm and leg but was nw full of those salads that needed to get out to table four.
Lynn brushed a strand of her blonde hair while she sighed just the same as before, slowly forcing a smile onto her face as she guided her way with ease towards the table of a small family — father, mother, one little girl and then a boy who only looked slightly older than the girl. Once she passed out the food to each individual, greeted the children with the restaurants coloring pages and crayons, she made her way back to the kitchen.
"I'm taking a smoke break," Lynn stated with no absolute care in the world, glancing at Benny merely for a second before fishing out a pack of half crushed cigarettes that had been tucked in her jacket pocket.
"Those'll kill ya, y'know," Benny spoke up, and Lynn's eyes flickered over towards the man will a slightly annoyed glance, mostly because he seemed to be digging in her life.
"Does it look like I give a shit?"
Benny didn't say anything else, probably because he knew it would be no use. There was no talking to Lynn, no getting her to open up about her quite obvious problems. If people thought she had a brick wall built up to keep people out before, she now had the Great Wall of China surrounding her heart.
She refused to let anyone get close like she allowed John B or Sarah, she couldn't take another lost — she wasn't sure if she'd survive it.
So, that's why she told Kie that she was quitting The Wreck, that's why she told Pope she would no longer be his surfer buddy on Tuesday's, and that's why she told JJ that they weren't meant to be together.
It shattered her damn heart to see the glossy eyes and lip curling from JJ the moment she officially broke up with him, because she was utterly and completely consumed in love with the boy. He made her happy, even with all the darkness that had been clouding her, towering over her with rains of sadness and anxiety.
But she knew that there was some chance, some chance somehow and at some point, that she would lose JJ, and she wasn't going to risk that. So, if you take a piece off the board altogether, you don't have to worry about what could come.
Lynn pushed open the door to the back where the restaurant usually got their supplies, and took a seat on an old carton box of plastic while she hooked her fingers around her lighter. Swiftly, she pinked up a cigarette and light it up, placing it smoothly between her pink lips as she inhaled.
After she exhaled plenty of smoke, she paid her attention back towards the lighter in her fingertips, and she sniffled a bit as she ran her thumb over the scribbled words of JJ and then the EVE that was right beneath his name. She remembered the day as if it had been yesterday, and a little sad smile took over her lips as she fought the urge to cry.
"JJ, I just bought you that damn lighter! And you already ruined it?"
Lynn grinned ear to ear as she took a seat beside the boy on the boat ramp in the back of John B's. She glanced over her shoulder to spot both John B, and then Big John sitting on two old and surely rotten tree stumps that were surrounding a fire, and Kie and Pope were sitting on a long log on the opposite side of them.
Night was creeping onto the Pogue crew, where the sun was setting directly in front of where JJ and Lynn were resting -- their legs swinging over the urge where their toes were just barely reach the water, creating small splashes.
"You mean the lighter you stole," JJ corrected, and Lynn rolled her eyes dramatically. "And I'm not ruining it, I'm customizing it."
Lynn's curiosity was peaked so she rose her head over JJ's shoulder, nodding her head off to the side as she saw the small pocket knife he had in his hand, and that was when she finally saw what JJ had been scrawling into the metal. Their names. He had already finished JJ, but he only had EV down for her, currently working on the last E.
"Wow," Lynn breathed out, letting a little smile crawl onto her lips.
"Like it?"
Lynn nodded as her grin only grew, and she placed her head onto JJ's shoulders while the two watched the sunset. It was quiet for a little while, where they could only hear the metal scrap against the knife, or their breathes, or the waves settling on the sand, or their friends letting out loud laughs.
It was the summer the year before everything was ruined.
Lynn wiped a single tear from under her eye as she painfully recalled the memory, and how everything had been so utterly fucked up since then. She couldn't even imagine what it would be like to even feel those emotions, and she missed the smell, the feeling, god, everything about JJ.
She missed him so damn bad.
——-
Lynn sighed dramatically as she closed the glass door behind her, pressing her back against it lightly while she rested the back of her head on it.
She was at the Chateau, where she had been staying the past three months — after she had briefly met her father where he stated he wanted nothing to do with her ever again. She packed her things, and made her way to John B's, even if he wasn't there. Big John had paid off the rugged shack over a year ago, right before the man disappeared. She figured that if it was empty, she may as well take what she could get.
She was saving up enough money to get out of the Outer Banks. She was tired of it, tired of the Pogues v. Kooks, tired of her father, tired of seeing something and getting memories of things she wants to bury deeply inside herself.
She threw her set of keys — basically just the Chateau, her bike lock, and then her father's house key, onto the wooden nightstand by the door. Shrugged off her sandals, and headed towards the kitchen.
After fetching another cigarette from her pocket, she easily light it and painfully ignored the memory of JJ's lighter and went to search the fridge. Few beer bottles, one quite expired container of ham, and just basic eggs.
"Yeah, I already looked, it's like you're living off scraps."
Lynn jerked from her distracted position and she jumped a foot or so backwards, complete shock written on her face as she met eye contact with those breathtaking blue eyes.
It was JJ.
"J? W-What are you doing here?" Lynn breathed out with surprise, knowing that it had been over a month since she had seen the boy. Which seemed so odd, she had always seen JJ once a day everyday, or at least every other day.
"I needed to see you, Evie," JJ explained, and Lynn took a second to examine his face.
He seemed older, even though it had been such a short time, where he had grown out his blonde strands even longer than before, and he had a straggly beard coming through. His eyes flashed sadness, not his usual brightness in them, and he generally looked worse than Lynn had ever saw him before. Although, that's what happens when two of your best friends end up dead.
Even with that, JJ still believed that John B and Sarah Cameron were out there still. On their way to the beaches of Mexico and by now we're fishing crabs and surfing waves, just waiting for the rest of the Pogue crew to join them.
"I needed to see you," JJ repeated, softer this time as he narrowly escaped Lynn's eyes, dropping their gaze.
"J..."
"No, don't start with it," JJ interrupted, and Lynn almost seemed taken back from his not so gentle tone. "You don't get to push me away because you're afraid. Because Eve, I'm scared too, fuck, we're all scared. B-But Kie, and Pope, we miss you so much. I miss you so much. Evelynn, I love you — I'm in love with you, and I don't think I can take another second on this God forsaken Earth without—"
JJ didn't get another chance to finish his rant, because he was interrupted when Lynn launched forward. She wrapped her arms over JJ's shoulders as their lips intertwined with one another's, and she completely forgot just how amazingly spectacular it felt to be touched, kissed, held — hell, everything, by JJ Maybank.
"I've missed you so much..." Lynn breathed out once their firework littered kiss had briefly ended. "I just don't think I could survive losing you too, J."
"You won't, Evie, God, I promise I will never, ever leave you," JJ responded, his breath slightly bouncing off Lynn's cheek as he rose his chin to kiss her forehead. "I love you, Evelynn Bardot."
"And I love you, JJ Maybank."
———
a/n: this was just a sad/cute lil chapter since i'm desperately missing writing about outer banks haha