Author's Note: This takes places during 2x05 with some canon divergence- namely JJ doesn't try to break John B out of prison. Trigger warning for self harm.
Kiara gets out of the shower, skin tinged red from the scalding water, and wraps herself in a towel. Slowly she makes her way down the hall to the room she has adopted as hers after being kicked out of her house. Quietly, so as not to disturb the boys in the other room, she sets out to find something to wear to bed.
The towel brushes against her thighs and Kiara grits her teeth. Her skin burns as if it were on fire, but she doesn't have a chance to pay it much attention. Instead, her focus goes to the sound of floorboards creaking behind her. She turns towards the sound, not taking time to think her actions through, and finds JJ standing in the doorway of her temporary bedroom. He leans against the door frame in a way that is so quintessentially him, it distracts her for a moment.
"Just wanted to sa-" he begins, before his voice catches in his throat.
Kiara stands there confused- contemplating why JJ, the boy who never shut up, was all of a sudden struggling to form a sentence. It's in that next moment that she realizes what had happened. It's in that moment she realizes her fatal mistake.
"Kie," JJ barely whispers, his voice catching in his throat.
She turns away from him.
"Don't you knock?" she asks, trying to make light, desperately hoping JJ will get distracted and walk away. While he may not do well in school, JJ is not dumb, and he most certainly is not going to leave his friend- no, the love of his life- alone after what he had seen just below the hem of her towel.
"Kiara," he says her name again, as if it were the only thing he was able to say. Still, she refuses to turn around. She can't face him, not after the marks he had seen on her thighs.
"Kiara," once again she hears her name leave his lips. The pain in his voice feels like a knife to her chest. It's breaking Kiara's heart, keeping her back to him, but the alternative is worse. The idea of JJ seeing her right now- seeing what she had done to herself- makes her stomach turn.
Once again, Kiara hears the creak of the old floors at the Chateau. She feels his presence behind her just before his hand comes to rest on her bare arm.
"Please," JJ asks, voice raspy.
Kiara knows she can't do this much longer. Every crack in JJ's voice feels like another dagger plunging into her heart. As much as Kiara wants to turn around and tell him everything is fine, she knows it won't be the truth and the idea of lying to JJ feels even worse than telling him the truth. With a deep breath, Kiara turns around so her and JJ are face to face once again.
The look on his face is a thousand times worse than Kiara could have ever imagined. JJ very rarely cries, but in that moment Kiara can see his blue eyes glistening with barely contained tears. His face- which is so often plastered with that perfectly imperfect smile of his- looks broken. He looks terrified.
"JJ, I-" she begins, but he cuts her off.
"How long?" his voice is rough and he sounds terrified. She had only heard him like this one other time- when he fought with Luke after he tried to steal the reparation money. There isa long pause as Kiara searched desperately for the right words. Eventually she just decides to go with the simple answer.
"Since John B and Sarah," she whispers, staring down at her feet.
The last couple of months had been hard on Kiara. So incredibly hard. Almost losing John B to foster care, their desperate search for the gold, the constant fighting with Ward Cameron- all of these things Kiara had dealt with. But that night on the beach, it broke her. Two of her best friends in the world were pronounced dead that night. Kiara remembers sobbing for days after that, breaking down at the sight of anything that reminded her of them. All she wanted was to stop feeling that hurt, even if just for a bit.
The first time Kiara did it was by accident. She had been at her desk, cutting out pictures of the five pogues for a collage, when the scissors slipped from her hand. They fell, but before they could reach the floor, the blade caught the side of her thigh. Bright crimson bloomed to the surface of her skin and Kiara just sat there and stared. For a moment, all of her thoughts were on the cut on her thigh. For a moment, the pain of losing John B and Sarah vanished.
It was two days before Kiara did it again, only that time it was intentional. Just above the hem of her shorts she made a single cut and once again, Kiara's mind went blank. This pattern continued, growing more and more frequent as time passed.
Then the pogues were reunited. John B and Sarah had come back from the dead and Kiara was so unbelievably happy. Following that reunion, for the briefest bit of time she stopped. But soon after, John B was arrested for murder- a murder that Rafe commited. Watching the cops take John B in hurt, but his hearing nearly killed her. The death penalty. Those three words echoed in Kiara's head her entire way home.
After the hearing, Kiara arrived at home hoping her parents would be able to help, but it just made things worse. It had been a long time since Kiara had a good relationship with her parents, but that day it all really blew up in her face. The conflict with her mom came to a head and she kicked Kiara out. The memory of her mom throwing her clothes over the railing would be burned in Kiara's memory for the rest of her life. In that moment it was as if she no longer cared what happened to Kiara.
"Go live like a friggin pogue," her mom yelled at her, "Nobody's stopping you."
And so she did. Kiara descended the stairs, gathered a few pieces of her scattered clothing and headed for the Chateau, where she's now face to face with JJ.
They stand there in silence, Kiara still wrapped in a towel and staring at her feet. Carefully, she sneaks a glance upwards, trying to read JJ's expression. What she finds is pure sorrow.
"How did I miss it?" he mutters to himself, a single tear sliding down his cheek.
"You're my best friend. You're the lo-" he cuts himself off.
"You're my best friend," he repeats, shaking his head in disgust at himself. How could he miss this? How could he miss anything when it came to Kiara? Let alone something this big? Is he really so self-centered- or so stupid- that he could miss something like this? JJ takes a breath, trying to prepare himself for the worst before asking his next question.
"Why?"
The silence that follows feels like it drags on for eternity. There are so many different thing Kiara could say in response- all varying degrees of awful- but she doesn't respond at all. And every second of Kiara's silence is another second that he can't help her. Another second for which he doesn't know how bad things are. The entire time JJ is hoping, begging, praying to God, that she's okay. That he isn't pushing too much. That she won't hate him by the end of this. Because he doesn't know how he would cope with knowing that Kie hates him. And he can't imagine a world without her in it. He doesn't want to.
"It started as an accident," Kiara hastily explains, seeing the concern on JJ's face.
"It's just something else to focus on for a bit," she continues, "like a distraction from all the shit that we've been through lately."
"If you need a distraction, I can help with that," JJ jokes unthinkingly, but immediately regrets it.
How insensitive can he get? He berates himself internally. But Kiara looks at him with a small smile, thankful for the semblance of normalcy that comes with JJ cracking inappropriate jokes. At the sight of Kiara's smile, JJ's heart soars. Now that he thinks about it, genuine smiles from Kiara have been in short supply lately. The fact that he was able to make her smile at a time like this gives JJ a sense of hope. He smiles back at her with that lopsided grin that Kiara loves so much.
"How are you doing?" he asks hesitantly. His voice seems to have calmed down a bit, but Kiara can still see his hands shaking.
Once again, Kiara smiles. With so many people, JJ hides himself away behind a carefree, devil-may-care attitude, but with the pogues, he's never done that. That's one of the things she loves so much about him. After all JJ's been through with Luke over the years, it would be so easy for him to shut everyone out, and yet he doesn't. That knowledge makes her all the more grateful that JJ is comfortable being himself with her.
"I'm alright," she shrugs.
JJ shoots her a look, telling her that he sees right through her flimsy response.
"I don't know," Kiara elaborates, "everything has just felt so freaking impossible lately."
JJ nods, not knowing what to say and feeling like an absolute idiot.
"Sometimes I just-" she sighs in defeat, "I feel like I can't take any more. Like if one more freaking thing happens to us, I'll break."
"I'm sorry, Kie. I wish I had known and I wish I could have done something, or been there for you, or-"
"JJ, you were always there for me," Kiara tells him, taking his hand in hers.
It's only once Kiara takes JJ's hand in hers that she notices how badly he's shaking.
"Whether you know it or not, you've always been there for me, JJ."
Suddenly feeling incredibly drained from the day she's had, Kiara takes a step backwards and sits on the edge of the bed. Refusing to let go of JJ's shaking hand, Kiara pulls him towards her until he's sitting beside her. Their eyes meet once again for a brief moment before JJ looks away. He's suddenly very conscious of the flush in his cheeks as he realizes Kiara is still only wrapped in a towel.
"Do you have something to sleep in?" he asks, unsure what exactly went down with Kiara's mom, and how much of her things she was able to get before coming to the Chateau.
"I'll just put on what I wore today," Kiara responds with a shrug.
The idea of Kiara sleeping in dirty clothes makes JJ irrationally upset. He remembers days where Luke was being particularly horrible and going home at the end of the day just wasn't an option. One of the only things JJ missed on those nights was sleeping in comfortable clothes in his own bed. While JJ couldn't get Kiara her own bed to sleep in tonight, he could damn well make sure she had something comfortable to sleep in.
"I'll be right back," he tells Kiara as he reluctantly removes his hand from hers.
Moments later JJ comes back with a t-shirt in hand. It's blue with a faded anchor on the front, and when he hands it to her, Kiara notices how much it smells like him.
"It's not much," JJ explains, "but y'know, it's soft and I figured you'd want something more comfortable to sleep in. So, yeah, I mean, if you don't want it that's cool, I just-"
Kiara can't help but smile at his rambling, "Thanks JJ. It's perfect."
Kiara can see his shoulders relax at her response. She finds it adorable how concerned he is that she's comfortable.
"If I'm gonna change, you should at least turn around JJ."
"Right, right," JJ responds, sounding a bit flustered. He stands up, turns to face the doorway and puts a hand over his eyes for good measure. At the sight of that, Kiara lets out a small laugh.
"Just tryin' to be respectful," he remarks, back still turned to Kiara.
Kiara stands up and grabs a pair of underwear from her small pile of clothes. Carefully she pulls them on, grimacing in pain as they slide over her thighs. She then takes the shirt JJ gave her and pulls it over her head. The moment it's on she's greeted with the familiar smell of JJ. It's as if he has his arms around her, even though he's still standing by the doorway.
"You can turn around now," she informs him.
She clears her throat, trying to indicate to JJ that he can turn around. Clearly, he gets the message as he turns to face her. The sight of Kiara in his t-shirt makes JJ feel as if his heart will pound out of his chest. It's just slightly too long for her, making it the perfect thing to sleep in. They both go back to sitting on the bed, and once again, JJ finds his hand intertwined with Kiara's.
"I'm sorry Kie," he begins, "I wish I had been there for you more. I just wish I had done something to help."
"Seriously JJ, you were always there for me. Everything just sucked and I couldn't handle it," Kiara tries to explain.
"I still don't know if I can handle it," she adds reluctantly, leaning into him.
"You won't have to do it alone. I'm here all the way, Kie. I promise."
JJ wraps his arm around Kiara, pulling her even closer to him. She can hear his heart pounding in his chest as he embraces her. Gently, he cups his hand under Kiara's chin, tilting her head so their eyes meet. JJ pauses for a moment, giving her the chance to stop if she wants to, but desperately hoping she won't want to. When she doesn't move away, JJ leans forwards just enough to close the gap between them.
Their lips meet and Kiara melts into the kiss. It's as if they are the only two people who exist in that moment. Kiara shifts slightly, so she can wrap both her arms around his neck, pulling them even closer together. JJ kisses her with so much emotion she feels as if her heart could burst. Their kiss feels like it lasts both an eternity and a single second. When they finally pull away, Kiara smiles up at JJ and he smiles back at her.
Finally losing her battle with exhaustion, Kiara lies down, pulling JJ with her. While surprised by Kiara's actions, JJ sure isn't complaining. Carefully he pulls the covers over them both. rolls over so her back is to JJ and he wraps his arms tightly around her. For a few minutes they simply exist in a comfortable silence, relishing in each other's company and touch. Eventually the silence becomes unbearable for JJ.
"Kie?" he whispers, unsure if she's still awake.
"Yeah?" she responds sleepily.
"I love you."
"I love you too JJ."