┌───❀*̥˚───❀*̥˚───┐
REVIVING OPHELIA
𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘥𝘢𝘳𝘬𝘦𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴 𝘪𝘯 𝘭𝘪𝘧𝘦
└───❀*̥˚───❀*̥˚───┘

THERE WERE NO GREAT expectations going into tonight, but all good things come when least expected... or some bullshit ancient philosophers used to pull out of their asses. By the final stroke of midnight, JJ Maybank saw truth in their existential nonsense. He felt like he was on top of the world and nothing could ever drag him down.

(Those scattered, broken pieces had finally fallen into place.)

It was unthinkable, really. Never before had he been one to entertain feelings or emotions of any kind—at least not out loud, but in secret the boy felt too much. At first sight, JJ would bury them six feet deep and leave them to rot, surrendering himself to the temporary reprieve of cheap booze and one night stands. It always seemed easier that way—easier and much safer. The two people meant to love and treasure him the most were the ones who broke him first; why would he dare give anyone that kind of power over him ever again?

Keep your heart closed. It was a silent rule he kept loyal to for so long. Many fought tooth and nail to challenge that fixed mindset of his; just wait for the right one and everything will change, they said. He could have laughed himself to hell at the idea of a right one, dismissing it as fairytale folly. An impossibility. A fucking lie. How could he ever find someone that would accept him for who he was, baggage and all? Someone who would want to repair the heart his parents left shattered? Restore the ability to trust, to care and even to love?

The right one? Those fairytales weren't written for people like him.

He was steadfast in his belief for so long, but that diamond-strong resolve was left to slowly chip away the day they first crossed paths, just two young hearts roaming endless shelves of literary escapism.

Years had passed since then and even still he wasn't quite sure when everything changed. Was it one of those nights at the Boneyard? The nights they would play as lovers to avoid unwanted advances? Or was it something else? He couldn't say. All JJ Maybank knew for sure was that if Kaia Hollenback told him to jump, he would ask how high; if she pointed to a cliff, he would dive down without a second thought.

Just wait for the right one and everything will change.

It took some time but he finally figured it out.

Kaia Hollenbeck is what they meant.

Even in sleep his lovestruck euphoria was overwhelming, but a frown lined his lips as he reached for the soft body once entangled with his own. Peeling his bleary eyes open, JJ woke to an empty bed, alone in the dark.

Panic flared in his chest. For a moment he feared their reconciliation had been a figment of his imagination, but his worries were laid to rest when reality walked through the door.

Wisps of silver moon spilling through the clouds painted her angelic; hazy-eyed, unsteady on her feet and swallowed whole by one of his worse-for-wear tees, JJ made sure to commit every detail of his precious girl to memory. His bursting heart swelled even more when their eyes locked and a sleepy smile illuminated her features.

Beautiful.

Their moment abruptly ended when Kaia tripped over something unseen, losing her footing and stumbling like deadweight against the mattress. JJ was lightning-quick to catch her by the waist before she could fall, brows furrowed in concern as he guided her down. "Careful there, clumsy."

"M'sorry, baby." Kaia stifled a giggle by kissing the pout from his lips, the gentle brush of her thumb against his cheek easing the tension in his face. "All your damn clothes're trying to take me out."

Lips curling into a smile, he nudged her scrunched up nose with his own. "Maybe y'should've looked before you tossed 'em."

"Just wanted 'em off. Didn't give two shits where they ended up."

His smile stretched into a grin. "Oh, really? Couldn't tell."

Kaia could only giggle as she curled into him, cheek flush against his bare chest and arm draped across his middle, melting like a puddle into his protective embrace. Softer than snow, the pads of his fingers trailed up and along her spine. Pressing a kiss or two against the crown of her head, every fortress wall he ever built came crumbling down. Peace of a kind he'd never known washed over him and he never wanted to lose it.

It seemed impossible for one so stone-hearted to feel light as a feather—so detached from the laws of gravity—and yet there he was, feeling like he could touch the stars. Maybe these fairytales were written for people like me after all.

"What's goin' on with you?" Her mumbling voice filled his ear. "Didn't wake you up, did I?"

"Nah, don't worry about me." A smile swallowed his sleepy features as he twirled a messy violet-purple wave around his finger. "Just thinkin' too loud, I s'pose."

Goosebumps rose as her lips brushed against his skin. "What's got you thinking s'loud?"

"You. Just you... you and how fuckin' happy you make me. Like the way I'm feeling right now, I—it... I-I'm serious, baby, and it scares me shitless. Like I'm scared to death right now because... y-you have this way of making me feel like I actually deserve it." His seemingly infinite confidence gave way to vulnerability, and how he hated feeling so weak. "I haven't felt like that in... not since my m-mom."

It never seemed to matter how many years ticked by—grief still cut like a white-hot knife every time he thought of Dianna Maybank, the first woman to ever break his heart. Though a small child when she disappeared into the night, he would always remember the way his mother left: without a note, without a trace, without him.

Everything in him shattered the day his guardian angel left him to fend for himself in the lion's den.

To hear him speak so candidly was rarer than a blue moon or a four-leaf clover; there were few things that terrified him more than vulnerability, something she could always feel in the way his body trembled. Her small fingers threaded through his own, hoping physical touch would be enough to calm that hurricane heart.

"Y'do deserve it. All of it." Featherlight kisses tickled the underside of his jaw. "Never letting you go again. Keeping you forever this... this..."

"Cat got your tongue, pretty girl?" His lips brushed against her forehead in a teasing whisper, too euphoric to notice the way her body slumped and stilled.

A short stretch of silence passed him by with no reply; as her steady breath began to weaken, hand falling limp in his grasp, JJ quickly assumed that his sleepy girlfriend was nodding off mid-sentence.

"C'mon, sweetheart. Can't go falling asleep on me just yet." The words were soft on his lips as he gave her a waking shake. The last thing JJ wanted to do was wake her, but knowing that morning would bring a kink or two in the neck if he didn't move her—he wasn't about to let his girl feel uncomfortable.

But she didn't stir. Not even a flinch.

Instinctively, JJ rolled his eyes and cursed under his breath because this was much too familiar. Kaia Hollenbeck was a name molded by many things, but what attracted him the most was the trickster spirit—Figure Eight's resident Yun-Harla, as Pope once called her. Naively he assumed that the boyfriend card would serve as protection against these tricks, but it only gave her reason to target him more. Kaia was well known for her dark humor, but nothing else compared to the sick, twisted pleasure she found in dropping unresponsive at random. She thrived off their panicked reactions, especially his; it scared him shitless every single time.

"Babe, this shit still isn't funny." Annoyance seared his tongue, every feature twisting up as he awaited that stupid giggle. JJ had long mastered the art of prediction, able to pinpoint the very second that sound would follow, but it never came. "Kaia Yve, what the hell are you playing at?"

(How terrifyingly wrong he turned out to be.)

One brush against her pulse rocked him like an earthquake and the world fell away at his feet—faint, fading. JJ Maybank was king of the clouds no more; those waxen wings flew too close to the sun, melting away and casting him to the deep blue sea. Once flying, now drowning.

"Kaia?"

Her graveyard silence had his heart racing, no more than a beat away from tearing through his chest. Bones felt like lead as he shifted in place, hovering over her and willing those eyes to open with every shake.

"Hey—hey, c-come on. Gotta wake up for me—open your eyes for me, okay?"

Tears blurred the boy's vision as he smacked her cheek once, twice, thrice in an attempt to elicit a reaction—something, anything at all—but nothing came. Not even a twitch.

"Kai?" He choked on his own breath, voice breaking in a miserable whimper; when reality hit and the gravity of the situation finally settled in, the rainstorm behind his eyes burst free. "Please—fuck—guys! Pope, Kie, John—help me!"

The sleeping house was startled back to life. Hasty footfalls echoed like thunder as the trio rushed in, springing into action the second he cried out like that—that broken, gutted sob so unfamiliar, so unlike him. A thousand and one questions burned at the tips of their tongues, but every single one was erased upon crossing the threshold. Their alcoholic haze began to dissipate when they caught the tear-soaked, desperate eyes of JJ Maybank and the ashen-fleshed, unmoving girl in his arms.

"JJ, what the hell?" Any residual happiness blinked out like a dying star as Kiara rushed forward, cocoa eyes glossing over when she noticed those rosy lips tinged blue. "Oh my god, JJ—JJ, what the fuck happened? What happened to her?!"

"I-I don't know!" JJ struggled to speak, feeling as if his chest cracked itself open with every breath. "I don't—she was fine, okay?! She was fine a-and then she just... she just—I don't know what happened!"

Never failing to be the mind of reason, Pope Heyward rushed to the phone for help. His vision blurred with tears of his own, feeling as if he were a spark away from combustion, and that feeling only intensified until the operator could be heard on the other end. "Hello? Hello! Please, I-I need help—ambulance! Yes, I need an ambulance! Not for me, no—i-it's my friend, she's unconscious and unresponsive and we can't wake her up and we don't know what happened! Yes, unresponsive!"

The storm of Pogue chaos became white noise as the frenetic thud thud thud of JJ's heart came to the forefront; the violence left him feeling on the cusp of a heart attack, but that's not what this was—no, he knew what this was. Though he was no stranger to panic attacks—suffering countless over the years, varying drastically in frequency and severity—none ever felt quite like this.

Yes, it's true that all were born from fear, but it wasn't the same. While those of the past came from the fear of his father—of his hands, his feet and the pain they could bring—this came from the fear of loss.

Intrusive thoughts won out—hammering into his head with every slow, wilting flutter of her pulse. Flashes of a rainy-day funeral, a gravestone beneath a dying tree, living the rest of their lives without her... everything tore him to pieces. Tears fell like hurricane rain and the hands that held her trembled; Kaia Hollenbeck was dying in his arms and there wasn't a damn thing he could do to stop it.

"JJ!" By some miracle, Pope's voice managed to break through the cracks and reach him in the dark; reluctantly, blue eyes lifted. "JJ, what did she have to drink tonight? Did she take anything?"

"Take anything?" The insinuation made the blond boy's blood boil, words soaked in venom and incredulity as he spat them out. "Why are you asking such stupid shit? Kaia doesn't do drugs, bro! Fuck off with that!"

Pope was quick to clap back. "I don't just mean the illicit shit, JJ! Meds and alcohol can be a catastrophic combination depending on the type. Did she take anything?"

"I-I don't—" Sifting through every memory he possessed of the night, JJ wanted to scream in frustration when nothing sparked to life. "I don't know! I don't—"

"Well, think harder!"

"I don't know!"

"Shit—just get her on the floor, man!"

Somewhere amidst their chaos, John B Routledge grew sick of the emotionally charged back and forth—after all, who was it helping? Refusing to wait for a memory that might never trigger, he took it upon himself to sift through Kaia's things in search of something—anything—that might give them answers.

It didn't take long to find.

Above the noise, a faint rattling deep in her purse caught his attention. John B slipped his fingers to the very bottom and found the culprit; oxygen was lost the moment he pulled an orange bottle from the clutter. Reading the label sent his heart plummeting ocean deep because he knew damn well those were not prescribed.

"Guys? Guys!" He shouted above the clamor; in perfect synchrony all eyes were drawn to the bright, unmissable bottle in his hand. Tears falling slowly, John B's broken whisper stirred the silence. "It's oxy."

JJ Maybank didn't believe it was possible for a heart to break more; surely by now there was nothing left of his but dust.

Whimpers freely flowed as Kiara's grip on Kaia's limp hand bled her knuckles alabaster-white. Realization was quick to strike; their friend was overdosing—dying—and there was nothing they could do. "Oh, God, what do we do? Pope, what do we do?!"

First Dad, then Mom and now her. Why? Bitterness and fury burned like a fire as his thumb dusted across her paling cheek. Why do these fucking pills keep taking everything I have?

Sanity hung by a faulty thread in the Chateau. Kiara's body trembled as she cried, clinging to the hand of her only true girl-friend like a vice. John B like a marble statue in the room, frozen solid and barely breathing as their take-no-shit sister slowly slipped away; he cursed emergency services for their inability to rush and prioritize The Cut just this once. Pope felt as if mind and body were shutting down on the spot, the ricochet of panic ringing loud in his choppy reiterations of the operator's every word. But JJ—though he could barely function through the emotional turmoil—found a ray of hope in what should've been a hopeless place.

Narcan.

His heart thundered against his ribs. He could do something.

As if a switch had flipped, JJ sprung into action. "Guys! Guys, I-I need one of you to get my backpack, okay? It's—I left it on the porch. On the porch by the door, I think? By the door—it's out there, just—"

"She is overdosing, JJ!" Brown eyes narrowed into a harsh glare. "What the hell are you gonna do?"

Kiara's harsh words stirred up offense and rage—a lethal combination for one so short-fused. "Just shut up and get my fucking backpack!"

Opting to avoid tempting his emotional volatility, John B rushed to retrieve the tattered thing; though he was unsure of its importance in the moment, he quickly decided that it didn't matter. If JJ thought he could somehow safe their friend—that was all he needed to hear. Quick as lightning, John B returned to the bedroom with the backpack in hand and tossed it off to the frazzled blond. Three pairs of eyes watched like a hawk as the boy on a mission dug through the clutter, quick to grasp one of the two newly purchased kits at the bottom and pulled it free.

The Pogues glimpsed the name printed across the box—large, dark, unmistakable letters contrasting brilliantly against pure white—and their breaking hearts slowly began to mend. "JJ, what the hell?"

He could do something.

"I-I got some the other day just—y'know, in case my dad—" Silencing the thought before it could conclude, JJ ignored their watchful eyes and got to work, skimming the directions one final time before he all but tore the package to shreds. As he finally held the medicine in his hands, he willed them to be still. "Kie, I-I need you to hold her head—just tilt it back, okay?"

"Y-Yeah. Yeah, okay." Attempting to pull herself together (at least enough to do as she was told), Kiara shifted on the mattress, one hand securing the girl's neck and the other tilting her head up. "Okay, wh-what else? What else can I do?"

"That's it, Kie—just keep her steady for me, alright? Keep her steady."

Peel and place.
Thumb on bottom.
Secure the nozzle.
Knuckle deep.
Press and release.

Peel.

Place.

Press.

Hours were spent memorizing those instructions for someone who didn't deserve the time of day; fresh tears began to swell because it was never meant for her, but her antithesis—his deadbeat, piece of shit father who wasn't worth saving. He felt absolutely sick to his stomach as his girl lay half-alive, clinging to life by a failing thread, knowing all he could do was wait.

"Come on, Kai—stay with me." His voice cracked miserably. "You're not dying tonight, you hear me? You're not."

Why did this happen? He wondered. Why didn't she just talk to me?

Two agonizing minutes ticked by slowly—the ambulance was still a good fifteen minutes out and the first dose showed no effect. Multiple may be needed to bring her out of it, the operator informed; swallowing his nauseating panic, he tried again and again—once, twice, thrice. No change.

Hope was fading fast.

"You're not fucking dying tonight." His broken whisper pleaded with her to fight—to win—as he released the final dose. "Open your eyes and come back to us. Kaia, come back to me, please."

(Through the darkness, she heard him.)

All at once, JJ Maybank felt he was falling apart and coming together again the moment those cosmic eyes opened to life.

AS JJ SAT SILENT beneath the fluorescent lights, he wondered how many ghosts roamed these halls. More than anything, he wondered if it was his girlfriend's time to join them.

The thought alone made him sick to his stomach, but it was one he could not escape. The more he resisted, the stronger it became. Though the image of her paling face and failing heartbeat were forever imprinted in his memory, JJ tried to focus on the little victories—on the fact that he was able to see those beautiful brown eyes again.

But sometimes it's easier said than done. A lifetime of trauma guaranteed that.

She's not okay.

You're too damn late.

She's gonna die and it's your fault.

Really thought a piece of shit like you could've saved her?

Only a matter of time before you dragged her down too.

Every word a bullet of its own, but it wasn't his voice pulling the trigger. It was his father's.

Shut up. Shut the hell up, he fought against the malicious echo, white-knuckled fingers pulling at his hair. She's fine. She's gonna be fine. You don't know shit.

JJ Maybank's hate-list was long enough to bridge the seven seas and the majority centered around one man. Among the many, JJ hated when his father's voice poisoned everything, but he hated when the voice was right even more.

Because he didn't notice. Not really.

There were an abundance of red flags, of course—bright scarlet waving in his face since they first spoke on the phone that night—but he was blind to the depths of her brokenness. JJ wanted to scream, cry and damn himself to hell for being the worst kind of failure; his beautiful girl was fighting a losing war in her own head and he couldn't see it.

Piece of shit son and boyfriend too.

Every cell burned like fire. Every bone ached with misery. Every bullet tore him to pieces.

Nothing you're actually good at, is there?

Shut up.

Your mama knew—that's why she left you too.

Shut up!

The cruelty he could never seem to escape for long fell quiet the moment familiar tenderness began slipping through the cracks. He heard the call of his name piercing through the white noise, tear-filled eyes lifting from the tile floor to glimpse her parents barreling their way—his way. That's the way it always seemed to be, he noticed; whenever something concerned their oldest, Caleb and Laura Hollenbeck found him first. Always, without fail.

One look left him chipping away. One touch and the dam began to rupture entirely. Like age-old ruins, JJ Maybank crumbled.

Caleb halted in his step, every question geared toward the blond boy dying on his tongue; frown deepening at the unfamiliar sight, the father thought it best to redirect elsewhere. "What have the doctors said? Any news yet?"

"No. No, th-they wheeled her away as soon as we got here. We haven't heard anything since." Despite the streaming tears and bodily tremble, Kiara found her voice on behalf of the traumatized misfits, quick to accept Caleb's shoulder to lean on. "I-I keep asking but no one will tell me anything because I'm not family and they need a parent or guardian and—"

"Wait, Rose isn't here yet?" Caleb asked, eyes surveying the area in a quick sweep. "What the hell is taking her so long? Tannyhill is barely—"

"Rose is gone—like off the freaking island gone." Though it continued to make little difference, Kiara hastily wiped at the falling tears. "Lord Capital and his Queen Bitch ran off to Charleston without telling her. The house was empty when K—when she got there and that's why she came over tonight. S-Sarah's on the way but Rose isn't answering her phone—I tried her like twenty times."

Tick in jaw and gnashing of teeth aside, anyone with functioning sight could see red-hot fury emanating from the man in waves—the kind only Rose Cameron could stir up. "This woman is fuckin' unbelievable."

"They're not gonna release anything without our consent. Go on ahead and find out what's going on with our daughter." The sunshine-gold southern drawl the Pogues had come to know so well never seemed so dull—so broken. "I'll stay here with the kids."

Once rising anger began to wane at the mention of his child and the worried father needed no further prompting. Giving Kiara's shoulder a comforting squeeze and a pat to JJ's back in passing, Caleb sought out the first white-coat he could find. Meanwhile, Laura's focus kept glued to the four terrified children in her care, specifically the glass-boned blond trembling like a storm-blown tree underneath her touch.

"Are you kids alright?"

Though the question might've been ridiculous to ask—in the moment, not one among them was even in the ballpark of okay—Laura knew such trauma might need an outlet and she wanted to be that sanctuary for them. God knew these kids needed it more than anyone else, yet often went without it.

"I-I'm sorry—I'm so sorry." The blond quivered with poorly-restrained sobs, blame and shame like the weight of the world on his shoulders. "I sh-should've done something. Sh-She was off all night a-and I should've known. I'm sorry—"

Laura Hollenbeck didn't imagine anything more could break her heart that night but his broken cry ripped her in two. It was easy to forget that this young boy was an imperfect mirror of the one she married; their parallels were many, but none clearer than their ride-or-die loyalty, their hearts being freely worn on their sleeve and how deeply they felt every little thing.

Having no more of his self-blame, Laura gifted him something he'd long gone without: a mother's loving embrace to fall apart in. And so he did. "Now sweetheart, you listen to me right now. I don't know what the hell happened tonight but I know damn well it wasn't your fault. You know that girl would be dragging your ass to hell and back for even playing this blame game, so don't be doing that to yourself."

It's not your fault.

Yes it is.

Don't do that to yourself.

She's gonna die because of you.

The brutal back and forth made him want to scream; a tug of war between good and evil—angel and devil—and he didn't know who to believe.

Psychological warfare was brought to a ceasefire with Caleb's swift return and JJ's lungs collapsed upon catching a glimpse of the white-coat at his side. As the earth itself seemed to shift underneath his feet, he gripped Laura's hand as if it were his lifeline, and the beat of his aching heart felt like an earthquake in his chest. In the moments that followed, JJ Maybank prayed to heaven that his father's words were a lie. That for once in his godforsaken life, he was enough.

Laura could feel the boy's fear emanating in waves—in the way he trembled as if cast to sub-zero temperatures—and she gave the hand bound to hers a gentle squeeze. A sigh of relief left her lips when she recognized the doctor at her husband's side; though she tried her best to read his eyes, it was all in vain. "Alan, how is she?"

Dr. Alan Harris held his tongue, eyes flickering between the worried parents and the unfamiliar cluster of kids—not because they were noticeably derelict kids from the southside, but because he wasn't sure of what he was allowed to disclose in the presence of others. What lines he was allowed to cross.

Caleb was quick to notice and even quicker to understand. "Doc, these kids are family. Anything you've gotta say about our girl, you can say in front of them."

"Of course." Dr. Harris flashed a somber smile, but it was gone as soon as it came. "Look, I'm not gonna lie to you, Cal, and I'm not gonna sugarcoat. The fact that your kid is still breathing is a damn miracle. Tox screen showed traces of fentanyl in her system."

A fucking gut punch.

"Wait... fentanyl?" John B's hoarse-from-emotion voice spoke up for the first time since it happened, brows pulled together in confusion and features awash with devastation. "But I saw the bottle. The label—it-it said oxycodone."

"Things aren't always what they seem, especially where street drugs are concerned," the doctor informed with a heavy heart. Despite how often he'd seen this very scenario play out, he feared he would never become desensitized to it; if anything, it only continued to hurt worse with every passing case, but none quite as deep as this. "Dealers lace their products with all kids of shit and unfortunately fentanyl's popularity is on the rise; it's highly potent and cheap. Doesn't take much to be lethal and it can kill a person in minutes. Again, your daughter is lucky to be alive... and it's my understanding we have these kids here to thank for that."

The Hollenbecks knew as much—it was no secret that their girl wouldn't have stood a chance without her friends at her side to phone for help, but Caleb noticed that the doctor's words seemed to insinuate something more. "What do you mean?"

"One of these kids was smart enough to take initiative and administer a few doses of Narcan before paramedics arrived." Soft, kind eyes swept them over, awaiting a spark of recognition or a show of confirmation. "Which one of you did it?"

Not one among them answered in words, but they didn't need to. Every gaze fell upon the broken-hearted blond in the corner, hanging on by a frail little thread.

Dr. Harris's smile grew. "What's your name, son?"

"JJ." His voice was a whisper, unable to trust himself with anything more, fearing he might crumble and break. "It's JJ."

"Well, JJ... What you did—your friend would have died without it." A hand clasped the boy's shoulder, leaning down in an attempt to meet his eyes; those teary ocean blues lifted to pride, joy and everything in between. "You saved that girl's life tonight."

For once in your godforsaken life, you are enough.

FINALLY!!!! Shout out to Eryn for listening to my misery and complaints. 🫶