stevie | outer banks | JJxOC

18- the boys are incompetant

"Pope, we're not stealing the drone," John B reassured the boy, worried that they'd get caught, "We're browning it."

"Humans are the only animal that can't tell fantasy from reality," Pope said, sounding smarter than he already was whilst JJ looked stupid rolling a joint.

"Did you come up with that?" Stevie asked.

"No," Pope shut her down, "Albert Bernstein came up with it," which made JJ laugh at her mistake. She sneered back at him and crumpled up his joint in retaliation, "but it applies to this whole treasure-hunting thing. So which is it? Fantasy or reality?"

"Why are you so weird, Pope?" JJ asked whilst trying to remake his destroyed joint.

"It's fantasy, but possible reality," Kiara concluded.

"Reality," John B said confidently. JJ went to light the joint that he had spent the whole journey preparing when Pope grabbed it from his hands and throw it to the back of the truck where Stevie was sitting. She laughed and pocketed it for later.

The Twinkie had pulled up to the salvage yard gates and the teens started formulating their plan. "So we need someone to distract him." John B asked and both Kie and Stevie volunteered.

"No offence but he actually has to be distracted," JJ said to Stevie insincerely. It took her a minute to fully register what he meant and if she heard him right.

"What the fuck is that supposed to mean?" She asked on the edge of flipping out, she couldn't quite tell if he was insulting her looks or her general ability to keep someone occupied. Did he think she wasn't pretty and smart enough?

"Nothing, just Kie would be better," JJ still acted calm and collected, "Look you'll get confused and start blabbering and forget what you're saying. Kie's better all around better. She can keep him distracted."

"You think I'm useless," Stevie self-deprecatingly smiled at herself as she connected the dots. He always said no to when she wanted to help like diving or going into the tomb, all because he thought she was useless. It bothered her that he didn't think she could do it.

The boys and Stevie got out of the van and crouched behind a piece of wood so they could watch Kie as she asked for help with a tire. JJ grilled John B on how things with him and Kiara were going but Stevie lost interest as she knew Kie didn't have feelings for John B. Kie brought the man out to her car and the others sprinted to the gate to sneak in before it shut. They ran between the cars and boats, following JJ, until they reached the building where JJ knew the drone was. He fiddled with the lock and pulled but it didn't come off.

"Do you have the right numbers?" Poep asked as he continued to struggle with the door.

"All right, so I might have the wrong numbers," JJ sighed in defeat. Who's useless now? Stevie thought. In the distance, they heard a deep dog bark which got louder and louder. It dashed around the cars and cornered them by the building, barking like mad.

"That's a cougar," John B panicked and ran behind the building leaving the other three. Pope tried to waft the dog away with a pipe whilst Stevie ran to hide behind a boat leaving the dog to JJ. He baited it with a fake toy but then the dog just chased after him. Stevie crawled out from her hiding place to find that both Pope and John B had bailed, returning to the van for safety.

Stevie looked at the lock and tried the numbers JJ had used again in case it was jammed before but there was no movement. She looked around and saw the pile of pipes where Pope had grabbed his that you used to fend the dog off with. She whacked the lock a few times and eventually broke it. Not really knowing what she was looking for, she spent a few minutes scoping around all the things they stored until she found a box that must have been the drone. A smile grew across her face reaching cheek to cheek. JJ would have to thank her now.