~𝒪𝓊𝓉𝑒𝓇 𝒷𝒶𝓃𝓀𝓈~
I never knew it could feel so good to be somebody's Star
John b x OC
Cover made by @disney_fanatic36
Season 1- ✅
Season 2- ✅
Season 3- ✅
Season 4- ✅
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"What's this right here?" JJ reached toward the console.
"Don't touch that. I'm trying to work something out." Pope smacked his hand away without looking up.
I laughed, leaning back against the cooler, the metal cold and damp through my shirt. "Man, we'd be done for without you running the drone."
"Technically it's an ROV," Pope said, because of course he did.
"Shut up and take the compliment," I told him.
"Yeah, please. Too early for science stuff," JJ muttered, rubbing his eyes.
"Once we get footage of the wreck, we bring it to a maritime lawyer in town. File a formal claim." John B said it the way he said things when he'd already decided — steady, like the plan was already in motion, and something in me settled just hearing that certainty in his voice.
"That's the part that's bullshit," JJ complained. "Why do we have to do all that?"
"Maritime salvage law. You can't just go to the ocean floor and scoop stuff up," Pope said.
"I know, I know. Lawyers are just expensive."
"Once they see the footage, they'll work for a comp," John B said.
"How do you know that?" Kie asked.
"My dad said it. Like a million times." He went quiet on the last word, the way you went quiet when you were saying something that belonged to someone who wasn't here anymore. I watched him, feeling my own chest tighten in sympathy. He looked like someone listening for a song, hoping it would start again if he stayed still long enough.
"That's fair," Kie said.
"This tether is long. In the wrong weather it could get pushed around." Pope was already looking at the sky.
"Then we go at dead calm," John B said.
Thunder rolled somewhere in the distance, and the salt smell in the air got sharper. I breathed it in and let the wind cool the back of my neck, the humidity thick enough to feel on my skin.
"Today is not that day," I said.
---
JJ, Pope, and Kie went to grab drinks. I stayed on the deck, watching the first drops of rain spot the water, small dark circles blooming and vanishing on the surface. I wasn't even thinking when it started — just a melody that belonged to the back of my mind, sliding out before I'd decided to let it, the words finding their own way out of me.
"City of stars, are you shining just for me? City of stars, there's so much that I can't see. Who knows? I felt it from the first embrace I shared with you—"
I stopped, feeling suddenly exposed, my own voice hanging in the damp air a beat too long.
John B was looking at me like someone who had just noticed a lighthouse they hadn't seen before and couldn't look away.
