Sanctuary
Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at http://archiveofourown.org/works/52686964.
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Archive Warning: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Category: F/M
Fandom: Outer Banks (TV)
Relationship: Kiara "Kie" Carrera/JJ Maybank
Characters: minor appearances from the rest of the pogues, and mentions of Rafe
Language: English
Stats: Published: 2023-12-31 Words: 4,336 Chapters: 1/1
Sanctuary
by julevere
Summary
Someone asked me what home was and all I could think of were the stars on the tip of your
tongue, the flowers sprouting from your mouth, the roots entwined in the gaps between your
fingers, the ocean echoing inside of your ribcage.
E.E. Cummings
Notes
Hello! I've been working on this thing since early December and I cannot bring it into 2024
with me, so here we go:
Happy New Year and enjoy!
See the end of the work for more notes
Someone asked me what home was and all I could think of were the stars on the tip of your
tongue, the flowers sprouting from your mouth, the roots entwined in the gaps between your
fingers, the ocean echoing inside of your ribcage.
E.E. Cummings
Kiara had never, not even once, considered what it meant to be in love.
To be wildly, profoundly, life-changingly in love.
She had never considered how it would change your life. If it would. What it would feel like,
if you could describe it. All questions she had never bothered to wonder about, too annoyed,
too distracted, too disappointed by past attempts of leaning into a slight hint of a feeling.
The disbelief only grew, it would never happen to her so why on earth should she consider
any of it in the first place.
But then - the universe perhaps bored and in need of entertainment or rather, fate deeming the
timing was finally right - JJ happened.
Being in love, as it turns out, meant woeful embarrassment. It's the way she possesses a
behavior about him that she used to openly mock and laugh at JB and Sarah for. Her heart
skips a beat whenever JJ enters the room, he doesn't even have to be next to her just near and
the moon is in her chest. He still calls her Kie in a way that makes it feel like it was his name
for her alone but he now also calls her babe or baby or sweetheart' and it makes something
catch in her belly every time, like he's only still a crush and not her proper official boyfriend.
It doesn't take long for it to become comforting in a way that makes her no longer care about
the embarrassment. How content her life is now that they’ve been building one together. She
sleeps easily, deeply, the best she ever has. Her smelly, annoying, antagonistic childhood
friend now turned the man whose feet she wants to touch with her own under the covers.
Whose breathing she longs to have against her bare skin. The world could collapse and yet
there’s a very real part of her that believes she’d keep on living as long as JJ was pressed
solidly against her.
There was a side to being in love, however, she should have predicted. Worrying about JJ was
standard practice for all the years they'd known one another but it would fluctuate, sometimes
rise, sometimes dip, eventually evening out until the next incident. The impulse to pin him
down and keep him close, to protect him, is something she now permanently feels in her
bones and tries not to spend too much time focusing on as it usually makes the feeling worse.
She isn't alone though. These changes are noticeable within him too. How protective he is,
how affectionate. When they were friends JJ miraculously had this gift of knowing when to
touch her and when not to; as a couple, he just leans into that instinct more. He'll use his
fingers and lips or hands at her hips, down her sides. Communicating beyond words, making
her feel so loved and wanted. It's addicting in a way she never would've expected.
But he worries too. His anxiety something that balloons between them. Early into their
relationship he had a panic attack when she wasn’t back yet from work, the establishment of
their routine still new. It took hours to calm him down and it wasn't for another three days
until she could leave him alone, even going to the bathroom spiking something painful in her
chest. They now call or text ahead if they’ll be late, make it a point to check in during the day
even if it's just to say hello.
There's also the nightmares, they're random but no less pervasive. He'll choke or yell out, or
worse sob, heaving on air as she tries to calm him and not cry herself. Afterwards, once he’s
settled, they’ll cling to one another as if the threat of separation loomed heavily and that’s
how Kiara knows that the nightmares are about her.
They don’t talk about it. They have more good days than they do bad, that's what she tells
herself when she loses her nerve, unsure of where to even start. Pretty convinced that either
he needs therapy or they both do together. But it's easier to sink into the laughter rather than
worry about the rest. They laugh so much now, way more than they did as friends.
There’s also the sex. It happened the first time one morning just as Autumn was hitting. He
woke up to find her on the deck, staring at the sunrise, only wearing one of his long tees. She
turned around, as if sensing he was awake and smiled so soft and warm and in that moment
JJ could’ve convinced anyone on the planet that God was real, a God that had given JJ this
gift he did not deserve, would never be good enough for but Kie peeled off the shirt and
starting walking towards him and he forgot about God or worth. From then on the sex
became instinctual, something that no longer made them nervous or shy or awkward but bold
and brave and brought them impossibly closer.
Their days, then weeks and now months shape into predictable routines that feel impossibly
full, routines that allow them to mostly ignore the undercurrent of anxiety and fear and
trauma that lingered beneath them both.
It's Rafe returning after almost a year, bulkier but somehow keeping all his edges, that finally
tips them back into a certain side of reality. He comes bearing news about the Blackbeard
quest, discovering it was the pogues new focus and presents the gift of the missing piece of a
treasure map the six of them had been spending weeks doing reconnaissance on recovering.
The only stipulation to handing it over was the pogues betting on a motorcycle race
happening at the break. Rafe needed the money and to re-establish his reputation and since
returning from South America, the pogues were revered on the island as opposed to being
ostracized.
They'd gone back and forth, debating over how much to throw in ultimately choosing a
number that Rafe surprisingly accepted, asking the pogues to make an appearance on race
day in good faith.
It isn't a surprise however that once they show up, Rafe presents them with new conditions.
“He’s screwing with us.” JJ says as the group huddles on the beach; Kiara looks over at him,
noticing his eyes and the circles beneath them, the way they would look the day after a
nightmare only last night they had barely slept. They instead got high and she sat in his lap as
he pointed at all the stars, making up names for the constellations to distract them and make
her laugh. She remembers feeling his lips against her head before she couldn’t keep her eyes
open any longer but it seems as though she were alone in sleeping.
Sarah shakes her head, barely able to maintain eye contact as if this entire predicament was
her fault. “I don’t think so. Baracuda Mike and a couple of the other guys from the shop
added to the pool. Rafe knows if he ever crossed them he could never show his face on the
Island again.”
“Okay so whatever, we throw in more money. We don’t have to ride.”
Kiara feels JJ nudge at her hand and whether he's aware that he's asking for the physical
contact, she takes it and threads their fingers together as John B now steps forward.
“He says no deal unless there's a pogue on a bike."
“Sarah?” JJ figures.
“No,” John B starts heavily and before he even makes eye contact with her, Kiara knows
what’s coming next. She squeezes JJ’s hand but he’s already looking at John B as if he were
pointing a loaded gun at them.
“He wants it to be Kie.”
JJ moves in an instant, putting most of his body in front of hers; the action is so swift Kiara
doesn’t fully register what’s happened until she’s tucked behind him.
The message is glaringly obvious but JJ speaks anyway just in case it wasn’t.
“No fucking way.” He says, so loudly that Sarah startles and some people walking by
suddenly stop, looking over in concern.
Kiara swallows and takes a beat before she turns around to face him. He looks pissed but also
resolved - like he's already decided not only how this will go but also how it will end and this
is the only version of JJ that truly frightens her; the JJ halfway down the path of destruction.
“Ja-.”
“It's a game, Kie. He’s had it out for you since Barbados.”
It wasn’t entirely inaccurate but it also wasn’t a reason to back out either. Plus Kiara could
pretty much guarantee that Rafe was getting more enjoyment out of the psychological torture
of choosing her out of the others. She understands JJ's worry but it's also a little frustrating
that he doesn't trust her to handle this, to handle herself.
“He’s had it out for all of us since Barbados, it’s fucking Rafe. I held my own with him then,
I can hold my own here too.”
“This is different.” JJ spits, glaring off into the distance, as if Rafe was standing right there on
the horizon.
“How?” She challenges.
“You didn’t have a choice then, Kie!”
“I have a choice now!”
JJ rips his cap off, swearing under his breath before he turns back towards the group, “Nah,
we’re not doing this today. Tell him there’s no deal unless it’s me.” He makes to walk past
her but she grips to his arm, forcing him back around to look at her.
“Why does it always have to be you, huh? Why can’t it be me sometimes?”
“Since, I don’t know, the universe or some higher power or something stupid like my fuckin’
brain decided I couldn’t live without you!”
Kiara can hear the pounding of her heartbeat in her ears and suddenly all she can smell is
exhaust fuel and burnt rubber. She tries to swallow, feels something else in her throat come
up. There are flashes of his broken body off a bridge across her vision and she has to squeeze
her eyes shut tight to get rid of them.
“And what, I can live without you, is that it?”
Whether it’s due to the unspeakably vulnerable outburst or the expression he finds across her
face, JJ is now a fortress, walls coming right up. The last time he’d been like this had been
almost a year ago, before they were together and he was doing his best to convince her she
was better off.
“I’m doing this, JJ, and you can stay here and watch and make sure shit doesn’t go down or
you can go wait somewhere else until it’s over.”
It’s wholly unfair, she knows it is, to present it as if he even has a choice but for what feels
like the first time, she can stop him from running into the burning building and though unfair
something about that felt wholly right.
His gaze shifts back to hers and there’s a few seconds where the mask slips a little and she
can see it, the anguish on his face he was using anger and bravado to mask and she wavers
for a split second but he opens his mouth first
“That’s not a choice, Kie,” He says soberly, “It’s a fucking sacrifice.”
Before she can stop him, he peels off and away from them, beelining for where their boat is
docked. My sanctuary he murmured early one morning against the shell of ear, his naked
body hugging hers from behind and Kiara was too content to ask whether he was referring to
her, the boat or both.
Watching him, his shoulders hunched, his fists balled, the answer seems pretty clear.
“Kie, we gotta go.” John B’s voice gently interjects, breaking her out of the reverie and she
turns, gives a quick nod.
Considering the last time she’d been on a bike had been back in the 9th grade and the one and
only time JJ had given her a riding lesson, she does astonishingly well. It’s only towards the
end where things turn a little south, someone clipping her back wheel just as she’s crossing
the finishing line. It doesn’t change her ranking, she takes second place but the bump is hard,
hard enough that the bike slips out from under her and she topples to the ground.
Cloe is the one who reaches her first, helping her up and shaking the sand away from her
shirt and legs. Blindly Kie reaches up to take off the helmet but her hands are shaking so
much she can barely get it past her chin. That’s when Pope appears, gently but pointedly
taking over, pushing up the visor and slipping the helmet off.
She hears him let out a sharp exhale and then, “Shit, Kie your forehead's bleeding” and he
starts tending to it using what he has on him, clean tissues and hand sanitizer from his
backpack.
There’s no point resisting so she doesn’t, just lets him work while Sarah is unpinning her race
bib, John B taking care of the bike itself and settling the score with Rafe.
There’s a lump already in her throat from the shock of the fall but she’s now in tears from her
friends' stark display of love and care for her. She’s grateful for all of them but how attentive
they are makes JJ’s absence even more apparent.
She looks frantically across the field of bikes and people to see if maybe he decided to stick
around, trying to ignore the rising sense of panic she can feel in her chest when she comes up
empty. Out of the corner of the eye she's aware of John B having just returned and Sarah
exchanging glances, looking to Kiara and then back at one another, seemingly in some silent
debate until John B steps towards her.
“Fuck it. Kie, JJ told us not to say anything but he followed you the entire time on his own
bike. He took off just before you crossed.”
It doesn’t bring her much solace, not to the degree in which John B is probably hoping it will
given the expression on his face but her oldest friend is sweet for trying.
“Thanks, JB.”
John B nods, hesitates for a moment before locking eyes with Sarah who speaks before JB
gets a chance.
“Come home with us, Kie. Don’t be alone tonight.”
Kiara shakes her head but tries her best with the little energy she has to summon a smile
that’ll be enough to put Sarah at ease.
“You sure?” Sarah and Cloe exchange glances just as Pope and John B do, none of them
moving.
It isn’t unfounded for them to be worried about her returning to a dark and potentially empty
boat. Historically JJ was better at staying lost than he was at being found but something she
can’t articulate, something that has her heart pushing against her chest, has her believing it’ll
be different this time.
“I’m sure. We’ll meet you at the house tomorrow.”
And with a resolute nod to Sarah, Kiara heads for the familiar pathway of the pier.
As she walks she lets herself think back to the night of JJ’s bridge crash. Lets herself
remember those few seconds that had felt like an unbearable eternity when she had believed
the worst. The memory doesn't flood her in the way it did before but it still evokes a sense of
anxiety in her belly. She breathes in and out deeply, follows the ocean with her eyes as she
walks. The anxiety passes but she's left with the troubling realization that despite making him
promise that he wouldn’t do that ever again, they’d never actually specified what ‘that’ was.
When they were children it was easier to shrug off and downplay JJ's behavior, to be naive
about what the rationale for it was but now that they were older, there was no excuse for
ignoring how disturbing, how alarming, how terrifying that what his constant thinking had
been, even when he was a boy, was worthlessness.
You're nothing and they're everything, they mean something and you don't, not to anyone, it's
better for you to suffer and make sure that they don't.
Kiara's not sure what breaks her heart more. That this is what he was taught to believe from
the moment he was born or that there was a very real possibility that despite their love for
each other, despite this life they had been building together, he might always believe it.
The sun is setting by the time she makes it onboard.
JJ is leaning against the stern watching it go down, looking for all the world like he’d been
drawn to be there, a perfect picture, something out of a dream. She wants to engulf him, with
her entire body, with her entire soul, to make him believe that who he was and everything he
could ever give was enough, that he didn’t need to operate in such a disposable way anymore.
Despite how engrained this was in his brain, despite what had been done to him to make him
believe it, despite his dad's abuse and abandonment, she wants to spend the rest of her life
trying to show him otherwise, to convince him otherwise.
“See anything good out there?”
If he’s surprised by the sound of her voice she can’t tell, he doesn’t so much as flinch, if
anything appearing as if he’d been expecting her.
But then again, here she was.
“What’d you place?”
Kiara folds her arms. "You tell me."
JJ only takes a beat before he sighs, running a hand through his already helmet-mused hair.
“You would’ve easily taken first. Trent Fisher beat you by a second and that kook always
rides his clutch so hard it’s like he’s trying to fuck it.”
When she doesn't say anything to this, he moves, tilting his body slowly around and leaning
back against the railing.
Just being able to look at him gives her a profound sense of peace, what John B was
attempting to give her before but it doesn’t even come remotely close to the way she feels it
with JJ.
“Which of them told you?” He asks, his eyes gazing across her face and she can tell, even
from a distance, this peace effect is not lost on him either.
“JB.”
JJ scoffs. “Traitor.”
“He loves you, JJ.” Kie says softly, stepping towards him without thinking.
“Yeah funny way of showing it.“
“So do I.”
“Kiara.” He warns, turning back around and hanging his head.
But she's done playing tentative. They're in too deep. She knows his heart in a way she will
never know anyone else's, would hold his heart as though it were glass. Knows what it means
to have him hold hers too - it had been JJ who had encouraged the peace offering between her
and her parents. JJ who championed her work with the turtle sanctuary. JJ who took pictures
of dolphins and birds when he was working because he thought she'd like them. JJ who
revered her body and made her forget that there were things she hated about it.
He was her greatest ally, dearest friend and the love of her life.
It wasn't a choice, falling in love with him, her heart knowing long before her brain did but it
absolutely was a choice the way in which they navigated what that love meant, to continue
giving their hearts over to the other without fear.
“We’re not doing this anymore, JJ. We’re not. Your life means just as much as mine, as any
of ours and you don’t get to believe or think or behave like it doesn’t anymore.”
He makes a sound, an attempt at a laugh but it’s mostly a choked exhale. “You make it sound
so easy.”
She smiles then, wrapping her arms around his body from behind and propping her chin
against his shoulder; he used to tense up when she’d touch him without warning but they’re
now in a place where he freely accepts it, as if it’s not only something he wants but
something his body needs.
“That’s cuz it is, Maybank.”
She feels him laugh more than she hears it; he snakes a hand around to pat her butt. “Watch
yourself, Carrara.”
Kie snorts. "I’ll take my chances.”
It turns silent between them but he does lean back, lets himself be enveloped by her. The
ocean steady beneath them, rocking them just so.
“It shouldn’t be you, ever, Kie. It just shouldn’t.” JJ says quietly after a while, turning his
head back so that it meets the side of her face.
Kie presses her nose against his cheek, it’s less of a nuzzle and more of just a need to be
closer to him. “Don’t you understand how much that hurts me to hear you say shit like that?”
“What shit, baby. It’s true.” He says and the genuine acceptance in his voice makes her heart
break all over again.
She squeezes him meaningfully, gets up on her tiptoes so she can better reach his ear. “I
would give my life up in a heartbeat if it meant keeping you safe, Jayge, and I know you
would do the same for me and that's fucking incredible and it's also shitty and overwhelming
but that’s what this means, this thing between us, that we’re in this together.”
“Kie-“
JJ turns then, shifting carefully in her arms so as not to lose contact with her body. It’s why,
standing as close as they are, that it’s her forehead he sees first.
For a moment the sudden change to his demeanor is disarming, all the color draining from his
face in a matter of seconds and then she remembers the fall and the mark on her head and
realizes that she probably still has dried specks of blood there that Pope couldn't get off.
“What happened?” He asks, putting his thumb to her skin; the action is gentle but she can feel
his body going rigid, as if gearing for a fight. She's too overwhelmed to answer right away
and JJ repeats himself more urgently, “Kie, what happened?”
Despite the increasing elevation of her heartbeat, Kiara tries her best to not mirror his anxiety,
knowing this had the potential to turn from bad to worse; a simmering threat on the horizon.
“Someone clipped me going over the finish line and I came off the bike but I’m fine, Jay. I’m
okay.”
It’s like she’s speaking an entirely different language, his eyes frantically flicking between
hers.
“Rafe?” He asks although it’s less of a question. He tries then to duck past her but Kiara
moves as if on autopilot, reflexively gripping to his arms. It’s a firm hold but he could still
push her aside if he really wanted to which is how she knows that he doesn’t.
“Hey, look at me. Look at me baby.”
It’s like a machine being forced to shut down, the way he holds onto the tension, the
adrenaline until eventually it dissipates and he grows more and more slack. Several seconds
go by until he can finally make eye contact but he can only hold it for so long until he needs
to just hold her, do something with his body which she understands and doesn’t fight, instead,
breathing into the crush of his chest to hers.
They hug for a long time and she knows if she were to ask him, he'd hold her forever. Knows
this because he wouldn't even have to finish asking the question.
Eventually they do separate but only barely, their foreheads coming to meet.
“I need you to believe that your life is worth it, JJ. I need you to believe it the way I do.” Her
voice wavers into the space between them.
“I just…I’m trying, Kie. I swear I am," JJ starts, looking at her with such an open expression,
something much deeper cracking open within him, "But sometimes I wake up expecting you
to be gone. Sometimes I think I need to leave before you get the chance.” He struggles, tears
in his eyes, stuck in his throat.
Kiara sniffs up her own tears and snot, an ache blooming in her chest at the admission.
“Wake me up and tell me that from now on. I don’t care how early it is, I don’t care if it’s
every hour, you wake me up, you hear me?” She shakes him a little until he nods.
“Promise me, Jay.”
“Okay.” He whispers, tucking her hair back behind her ear, “Kie, I promise, I promise.”
Slowly he trails his hands down her body, the lift coming easily and she wraps her legs tight
around his hips. The kiss isn’t hurried or desperate but languid, her fingers scratching through
his hair at the base of his neck until he makes a sound that’s rough and heavy and full of
need.
“Take me to bed, baby.” Kiara whispers against his ear but he’s already walking, slipping his
fingers down the waistband of her denim shorts.
In the safety of the hull of their home, they take off their clothes, trailing fingers against each
new exposed patch of skin, her lower belly, and his spine until he lays her down and sings his
lips between her thighs.
It goes unsaid and yet he says it anyway.
“I love you, Kie.”
A sanctuary, she thinks as their eyes meet and she falls into the abyss of her forever, that’s
what it meant to be in love.
He had been referring to them all along.
End Notes
Come find me over on tiktok: @julevere
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