chapter twelve
"men are shitty"

      "THIS IS THE NORTH DRAIN, it should've gotten washed into the gully."

      Lynn pathetically cringed up her face when she recognized a completely unreasonable amount of trash circling around the water in and around the drain, only pure disgust could be found scribbled on her face. Each of her friends seemed equally as repulsed from the mix of poison seeping trash and the vile humans that would put it here in the first place.

      Early in the morning, both JJ and Lynn were startled awake by Pope, who slammed open the door and began shaking both blondes violently from their sleep. He told them the fight wasn't over, that if they could get the gun — the gun that Ward had apparently lost in the sewer the night before when he murdered Gavin, then they could take it as evidence and Shoupe would have no choice but to believe them.

      "So, if it got flushed out from this drain, it would've been pushed out to, like..." JJ trailed, his fingers pointing down towards the littered water, and Lynn perked an eyebrow.

      "Somewhere in this trash," Pope finished the drifting words for his blonde best friend.

      "Correct."

      Lynn glanced over towards JJ, just praying that he wouldn't still be so upset about last night. The two rarely, actually, she couldn't recall a single time they went to sleep angry with each other — it was Lynn's number one rule. Life is too short to stay mad at each other when going to sleep.

      Much to her pleasure, JJ sensed the girl staring at him, and he wrapped a supportive arm around her waist to tug her right beside him, as close as physically possible. JJ placed a warm kiss on her cheek, and she could've sworn she heard a muffled, "I'm sorry."

      The two didn't linger as long as either would've liked, mostly because they could feel the intense eyes of both Pope and Kie, so JJ loosened his arm on his girl to move beside Pope instead — where the two boys started to tug on the white net that had caught most of the trash and plastic before it could actually enter the ocean.

      Unfortunately, because of the worn state of it mixed with the fact they were still on The Cut, the net was as ripped and broken as Evelynn herself. She wondered how much trash had actually made it out, because of stupid, lazy humans.

      "Oh my God, people who use plastic should be shot," complained Kie, who shook her head with utter repulsiveness, Lynn was right there alongside her best friend, folding her arms over her chest with attitude.

      "Okay, personally, I love plastic," JJ informed, and Lynn let a snort of laughter out, playfully scrunching up her nose in his direction. "Use it everyday, love the stuff."

      "Well, hopefully you recycle it and don't let it flush into the ocean," Kie snarkily retorted, and JJ seemed to understand that he would, no matter what, be losing this argument with the feisty environmental-lovin' girl.

     "I thought you'd say something like that, so..." Pope pursed his lips out, gaining everyones attention as he momentarily dug through his completely worn school backbag, tugging something out. "Trash bags."

      Switching between both Kie and Pope, it felt as if the two blondes were in fact interrupting a crucial moment, and Lynn gazed over to JJ with perked eyebrows and slack jaw, and the boy seemed just as entertained as she was with their entirely awkward best friends.

      "Did you just proactively protect the environment?" Kie questioned, her head tilting off to the side in an adorable action, and Pope seemed to mimic the giant grin spreading across her face like a wildfire. Lynn even thought, at least for a moment, that she saw the way Kiara's cheeks warm up.

      "Maybe," Pope shrugged, trying to keep the moment cool, but Lynn could practically feel the already existing tension between the two Pogues grow hotter by the second.

      "You want us to leave you two alone, or what's goin' on?" JJ chirped in, and Lynn shifted forward a bit to be able to smack his shoulder, teasingly, of course.

      Lynn snickered a bit under her breath, because the mere second JJ spoke up, Pope threw the trash bags straight at JJ, who only managed to catch it within the last second before it would enviably land straight in the mucky water.

      "Yeah, I mean, we can always do this another time," Lynn quipped, licking her lips as she tried to keep her laughter under control, but not by much. "Pope is practically undressing Kie with his eyes right now so—"

      "—Just pick up the trash!"

      "Well, that was fun."

      The group of Pogues all seemed to simultaneously sigh at once when they glanced upon their finished pile of trash bags, at least four or five of them had been filled to the brim with the collected trash from the drain. They had yet to find the gun that was used in the murder of Peterkin, and that only left one thing for them to search.

      "If it's not in the trash," JJ stated, basically announcing what they were all regretting to accept. The blonde boy rose an arm to quickly wipe some sweat that was growing at the top of his eyebrow, and Lynn had to keep herself under control from the seemingly hot action. "Then it's gotta be in the..."

      "It's in the drain," Lynn finished her boyfriend, popping her jaw annoyingly off to the side, inhaling a strong breath of air.

      "Of course it is," Kie straightened out her face, only pure annoyance, practically accepting their completely unfair luck. "So, are we gonna do, like, boat, water, salt.?"

      "No."

      Kie furrowed her eyebrows at the quite quick response from the boys, and then shrugged her shoulders again, "Or alphabetically?

      "Nah."

      "Or, like, oldest goes?" Kie questioned, but even in her tone of voice there were hints of defeat, like she knew that there was no winning this conversation.

      Lynn crossed her arms over her chest as she gazed down to the boys, who were both in the middle of holding the crowbar that JJ (for some reason) had brought along. They popped the grate that would cover the front of the drain, for purposes of keeping out animals, or humans in this case, but seemingly not the trash. They tugged it to the opposite side of the drain, plenty of enough room for any one of them to make it through.

      "In the sewer, there's this worm that you get when you're done there," JJ explained as he awkwardly cleared his throat, and he knew to avoid Lynn's glaring eyes or else there was a strong chance they could murder him with just a single glance. "It gets into your blood, and then it has to come out your pecker. So, uh, that would be a hard pass for me."

      "Yeah, that's gonna be a no from me," Pope chimed in, bobbing his head several times as he then shifted to stand right beside JJ, who slapped his shoulder proudly.

      Lynn and Kie then shared a single glance, but of them seemed amused by their frightened boys, and Kie was struggling to keep a smirk off her face. The corners of Lynn lips tugged upwards, and the mere looks of the girls was what intimidated them the most.

      "No, we get it," Kie teased, smiling brightly at both of them as they inched further and further away from the disgusting water drain. "You guys are scared."

      "No, we're not scared," JJ insisted, and a swift chuckle escaped Lynn's lips as she leaned forward to press a quick peck against JJ's warming by the second cheek. He would've continued being embarrassed, but Lynn's as always amazing kiss appeared to take him off guard.

      "Good thing we're strong, independent women, hm, Kie?" Lynn hummed, nudging her elbow softly into Kie, who also seemingly laughed at how agitated the boys were becoming from their poking fun.

      "Yeah, it's kinda cute," Kie chimed in, a ridiculous smirk scribbled on her face. "You should've just led with that, you don't have to be scared — we'll do it."

      Lynn shed her sage green short sleeved button up, leaving her in just a plain white tank top that cut off above her stomach, and exposed a decent amount of cleavage — note the button up to cover some of it, just to make it age appropriate. JJ's face straightened out as his eyes fell on her body, and he thought for a second he was going to have to adjust his tightening shorts.

      Kie entered the drain first, but she was quickly followed by Lynn on her heels, or more like her butt. The two girls cringed up their faces as the smell swarmed their nostrils, unwelcomed, and the water splashing on their knees and hands was sticking the smell permanently to their skin.

      They continued on through the darkness that filled the tunnel, only the slightest bit of light due to both sides of the openings, and Lynn was already regretting agreeing to this shitty idea in the first place.

      "Just, uh, holler if you need anything, okay?" JJ's voice echoed out from behind them, however there wasn't enough wiggle room for Lynn to glance over her shoulder to face him. "We'll, uh, we'll holler back."

      "Very helpful, thank you!" Lynn yelled back, she wasn't entirely sure if she had shouted loud enough, but thankfully the echo seemed to carry her voice further. Then, she resumed with a softer voice, "Dumbass'."

      The girls continued on for quite a few minutes, and Lynn was right about to question how much longer the drain could go on for, until she nearly bumped straight into Kiara's ass. She shifted her body a bit, and this was when the blonde finally realized they had come up to the end.

      Lynn hesitantly pinched her lips together, and then after sucking in another deep breath of confidence, she jumped into the deeper water right beside Kie. The water reached right about her hips, but that didn't mean both her shorts and cute tank had escaped the dirt, they would — in no doubt, be ruined.

      After scavenging around the water for a second, Kie groaned as she hooked her fingers around another crushed pop can, "People are so shitty."

      "I bet you it's nearly all men," Lynn retorted, her upper lip curling in disgust as she wrapped her own hands around an empty two liter bottle that had been closed off shut, but it was full of cigarette buds. "Men are shitty."

      "Lynn, you're dating a boy," Kie snorted loudly, and she leaned so far back while gripping her chest with laughter she nearly fell backwards. After she calmed down, she continued on. "But I felt that."

      "What? Paradise with Pope isn't working out how you thought it would?" Lynn pondered with pursed lips, only making eye contact with Kie for a second before going back to shifting through the endless amounts of trash in the basin.

      "It's just...weird."

a/n: did i double update today? Y'ALL BETTER THANK ME (jk jk i love u)