All That Glitters

Intro

It was the gold, the treasure that kept his father from coming back. He knew it. As much as he hated to know, it bore itself deep inside his head. His father had gone missing because of it. And he wasn't going to take anyone's word to heart that he had gone off and died somewhere looking for it. Because that's just not what happened.

John B, the kid from the cut whose father left. Presumably to find this great ship that went down a hundred or so years ago. No survivors, but riches beyond anyone who lived on the island could even dream of. And of course his father had spent a majority of his life trying to find evidence that such an unfathomable treasure existed. Not only for him but for the son he left. At least that's how John B remembered him.

Besides that last conversation.

That damn argument haunted his nightmares. It had been a good nine months since he left. And there hadn't been a night that went by where he didn't think about how ungrateful and just ugly towards his own father he was.

He remembered catching him in the kitchen a few times after spending the whole morning and sometimes deep into the afternoon studying old texts and maps and who knows what else in the study he promised not to invade. His father had gone on and on about how special gold was. About how all gold had the ability to change the world. Or rather the person who claimed the gold's world. About these impossible things. Like how the rich and powerful were only rich and powerful because they had all the world's gold in their possession. Ready to be used to cripple or sway governments. And that it was his duty as a nobody from the mid south to find the treasure from the great Royal Merchant. To take it before someone used it for something unspeakable.

He remembered laughing in his father's face. How could gold be that powerful?

"There are things you and I don't have the capacity to understand quite yet, Bird." He said.

And John B wished he'd listened. Not just to more of his father's stories. Maybe then he'd know where to start. Or where to continue rather.

He just wanted his father back.

A time where he didn't need to have his friends sleep over at the chateau every night so that he didn't feel so alone. So vulnerable.

His best friend JJ who stayed over most often was practically the only thing keeping him from diving off the deep end into unknown waters to track down his father who very well could be dead at this point. Now, JJ was his oldest friend. Having known him since he was old enough to talk about the way things made him feel. They were inseparable.

Brothers to the teeth.

That bond between them was so unwavering, so strong, that nothing was going to break it. Not even something JJ couldn't relay to his own father.

JJ of course had his own problems. Aside from finding out what happened to Big John, John B's father. Those of his own father. Half the island knew about his problems. Against his father's wishes. But had anyone stepped in to help him with them? John B remained to be the only one who ever showed he cared enough to get JJ out of his fathers house. That was before they befriended the two other members of the glorious Pogues.

Pope, a shopkeeper's son and by the far the smartest of the four, found peace and a place to blow off steam from the expectations of his own father. Troubled wouldn't be the word he'd use to describe himself. Maybe a bit nervous at times, but John B had made it a point to keep the everyday life outside the chateau.

JJ and John B alike were drawn to the kindness that underplayed every one of Pope's actions. No matter how small. He was safe and willing to make things safe for the people he'd grown to care for. A rock in a world full of water. It made sense that the glue that kept JJ and John B together for so long and through so much was only strengthened as soon as Pope accepted he'd been picked up by the original Pogues.

Somehow the three of them attracted young, beautiful, and rich, Kiara. Who had nothing better to do than to show off just how all the stereotypes put on her were nothing more than hogwash whipped up by her parents. How a Kook princess was in fact a Pogue smothered in love and acceptance from the very people she'd been told were washed up idiots living off of weed and fish they caught with their bare hands.

Her hands caught fish too. Spending day after day on John B's boat cracking jokes and sipping beers she'd swiped from the gas station when her father was berating the cashier for putting his money on the wrong pump. Days like that needed nothing but the four of them. Riding the highs and lows of tides they could surf.

Kiara—Kie was glued to these boys. Even after she'd disappeared when news struck about Big John.

It was the gold that kept John B's father from coming home.

And John B had decided that the gold would be the only thing to bring him back. Whether the legends about it changing the world were true or not. One way or another. He'd bring his father home.

—

It was a good two months of searching for any type of clue to lead John B to his father. Or at least to what he'd found. He didn't get anywhere. He had driven most of his friends away in his attempt to find out what his father knew.

So he took a step back and let his friends know that he wasn't spiraling anymore. That everything his father had left behind at the chateau was a dead-end. How he wanted his friends back. That his father wouldn't have wanted him to not stay on top of his mental health so that he wouldn't do anything stupid with the fortune he was about to inherit.

John B let his father drift to the back of his mind. Thinking how he'd come back eventually so that he didn't have to think about continuing his work. Through school and into the raging warmth of summer, he let the obsession dry up with the evidence he'd found.

JJ especially was happy he was ready to continue life. There was a moment where he'd grown concerned. Specifically during his time of the month when they'd agreed to be together to get him through the only thing he'd consistently had a breakdown over. When he missed it because he was too busy getting choked up over a voicemail his father left him two years ago. Digging down into the rabbit hole. Decrypting messages that weren't there. JJ was just glad his best friend wasn't losing his mind anymore.

They'd heard that the storm passing over shortly would bring the waves of a lifetime with it. Agatha they had called her. There was no doubt that they'd be fishing good after. John B had somehow convinced Pope to go surfing the waves she whipped up later on in the day. Just to test their mortality more than anything.

And just like that. With the sight of a boat too small to take on the storm and the day after a hurricane being of the Pogues to decide, it began.