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A GUNSHOT RINGS THROUGH THE AIR, it's gun powered ridges burning the stuff animal, turning the insides into crisps.
Where'd he get the stuffed teddy bear you might ask? Ms Lola had gifted it to him as a tease for being approved by the great teddy bear king himself.
Marty was right when she said that her father was as sweet as honey and a cuddling stuffed animal. Though he did get the impression that Chris Holland still had some trouble trusting a Maybank.
JJ noticed he became hesitant to shake his hand after he said his last name. Although he doesn't blame Marty's father, especially after learning about the past love shared between his father and Lola. He wouldn't trust his wife's ex's kid either. But it still hurts, he just wants to be good enough for Martha.
She bought the stuffed bear after Hurricane Agatha, knowing that someday he would finally meet her husband officially —she just didn't plan on the bear to be soaked to the bone with salt water and fish pee.
JJ's arms wrapped around Martha's, their hands sticking to one another on the dark gun. He was teaching her how to shoot, in case she had to —or worse, he needed her to.
"See? Like that!" He yells into her ear, his headphones muffling sounds. He smiles down at her, pulling away and grabbing the sig sauer. "When you get comfortable, you can really show off. Here, watch," he says, stepping in front of her in case any shells pelted the wrong way.
He shoots again, not hearing Pope frantically call his name.
"What was that?" He taunts, imagining the bear as anyone who's wronged him. Rafe. Luke. CPS. He fires again, getting more cocky. "That's what I thought, man."
"JJ! Mars!" Pope yells again, startling Marty with his close presence because she honestly couldn't hear anything.
"Pope, what's wrong?" She asks, taking off her headphones, pulling JJ's shirt to let him know something's up.
"They know."
"What?" JJ turns, clicking on the safety, and pulling off his sound silencers.
"They know," Pope repeats, his hands start to sweat as he wipes them off his shorts, trying to calm himself down.
"All right, chill, bro. All right?" JJ sighs, fully taking off his gear and throwing it into the tall grass. His shark tooth necklace bouncing up and down from his walk, his red baseball cap backwards as it keeps his hair out of his face, his big work-sleeve dirty but comfortable. "They don't know shit."
"Yeah, don't let them get in your head," Marty says, her hand finding JJ's. He smiles at her, laying down the gun and sitting on the tree stump. He pulls her into his lap, so that she's straddling him, almost forgetting about Pope as he nuzzles his face into her neck and chest.
"Topper knows I sunk his boat," Pope vents, his hands flying to hold his head.
"How do you know they know?" JJ sighs, grudgingly lifting his head from the warmth of Marty's body and resting his chin on her shoulder.
"But they don't know, that we know that they know," Marty mumbles, laughing at herself from the F.R.I.E.N.D.S. reference.
"I'm sure they know that we know now," Pope replies, completely missing the joke.
"That was actually a tv show reference, but, nevermind," Marty quietly mumbles, combing her fingers through JJ's soft hair at the nape of his neck.
"Because Rafe and Topper posted outside of Heyward's and mad dogged me," Pope continues, moving in front of JJ's view as he begins to pace back and forth.
"Will you call down and get a grip, man?" JJ lifts his chin from Marty's freckled shoulder, gripping onto her legs and thighs as his chest heaves in frustration. "They don't know shit," he repeats once more.
She shapes her lips into a fat line, acknowledging his stress, before turning around and facing their frantic friend.
"They have cameras," Pope raises his voice, leaning down to the couples' eye level. "They could've seen me."
"There's no power, Pope. How could they have seen you?" Martha points out, trying to reason with her anxious friend. She's been in this spiral before, it's like there's no way for your brain to stop.
"It's Figure Eight. They got generators." Pope retorts, still pacing in the tall grass. "They don't give scholarships to kids who vengefully sink boats."
"They don't give scholarships to kids with ticks either. Stop pacing in the tall grass and calm down," Marty points out, trying to joke off the matter. Maybe some of her methods of stopping this spiral could work on him.
"It's not gonna look good on my transcript," he rambles on, not calming down but coming back to the shorter fields nonetheless.
"Enough with the regrets, bro!" JJ yells, startling Marty and Pope alike. "I don't mean to yell but, they caved your face in." He points to his friend. "They caved her face in too," he points over to his girlfriend perched on his lap. "They hit us, we hit them. It's the law of the jungle."
Marty pulls Pope by the arm, pulling him down to their level once more.
"Now, if any Kooks come up to you and ask if you had anything to do with it, you walk up to 'em," JJ says, leaning forward as he grabs his friend's right shoulder and motions up to his eyes. "Look 'em right in the eye, and..."
He pauses, waiting for the correct answer.
"Deny the loving shit out of it," Pope finishes, earning a grin and a few pats from Martha.
"That's right," JJ congratulates, joining his girlfriend to pat his best friend on the back. "Deny, deny, deny."
"It'll be okay Pope, I promise," Marty says softly, before JJ finishes his sentence.
"But, just for safety, we don't do anywhere without protection," he points down to the bloody weapon lying peacefully in the short summer grass. "Right?" He asks, cupping Pope on the side of his face and cheeks.
Pope swallows away his thoughts, the only thing he could feel was the blush forming on his cheeks and a burning sensation on his skin. It's in these rare times and rare flare ups that he's happy to have melanin. "Okay," Pope nods, biting his lip as he shakes off his best friend's callous hand, "maybe, I was overreacting a little bit."
Stop crushing on JJ —his girlfriend is right in front of you. She's good for him. Not you. He would never fall in love with a boy.
