It was love, wasn't it?

I can make the blood run back up my nose, ants rushing into a hole, that's how we bring Dad back.

♰

Backwards, Warsan Shire.

  The 𝕮ut is called the Cut for a reason. It is a shiv with serrated teeth, tucked into the waistband of a feral-eyed kid with the whole world against him. As for Figure Eight, it's an ouroboros of punishment. It curls around itself in real snake skin, and the kids there are bound to suffering through the sins of their father long before conception. Blessed be the daughters of Cain—or else the daughters of Ward Cameron.

  As all fathers tend to do, Ward clung to a life that no longer exists. He might've had the American Dream once, but a rich man is a gluttonous one. He wasn't born rich. He's born on the wrong side of the island, that's what his soft-hearted mother tells him through rasped, smoky breaths. That blade was in his grasp since the day he was born—he had been that feral-eyed kid with the whole world against him. Now, the whole world is his. And even that isn't enough.

  Rafe and Alex weren't born too far apart.

  Rafe's the would-be heir. The eldest boy. The son of Ward's wife, with her hair the colour of sunshine, and Diptyque perfume—born into money, with a name that means something, holds a certain kind of gravity in the banks. He's born wrong, Ward decides. He has those same wild, blown eyes, but none of the struggles that Ward had. He didn't know anything about the Cut. There's no knife against his back, or world against him. It's all at his feet, and still he is nobody. A plastic adversary, Ward settles on when he looked at his empty husk of a son and saw nothing heir-worthy in him at all.

  Alex was the real first born. He's got the same hickory eyes that Ward fell in love with at eighteen—the colour of the unsalted earth back in the Cut that he can't seem to wash out from his nail beds. His mother, not Ward's wife, gives him the middle name Eyre. "I always loved the Brontë sisters," she tells Ward when he cradled Alex in his arms for the first time. But he knew better. He knew her, his Carmen. Alexander Eyre. He's born right, he decides. The world was against him, because he was a bastard: illegitimate. The son of two pogues. The blade might cut his favourite son up into ribbons but he'd still be less mangled than Rafe.

  Two daughters next.

  Ward's wife gives him a blonde-haired princess, and she's meant for Figure Eight. Sarah's sweeter than her brother—than both of them. Rafe didn't like to share his toys, and Alex was beginning to hold grudges just as hoggishly. He'll be better for her, Ward decides. Rafe's all wrong, and Alex will never stand to inherit anything, but Sarah. He can love her with a little less shame than his first-born son with a nobody mother.

  (At least, that's what he tells himself).

  He goes back to Carmen. He always does.

  She thinks, rather desperately, that he's been so distant because it's a daughter he craves. But how could he possibly love with Sarah when she looks more like his wife than himself? He's a narcissist, and Carmen's always known that. He'll want a daughter that looks like him, she tells herself. So, she gives him one: Iris Soleil. Not as on the nose as "Eyre"—but Carmen hopes that it's a name that holds enough dignity for Ward Cameron to remember what side of the island he really belongs to.

  Simone de Beauvoir said that fathers never have exactly the daughters they want because they invent a notion of them that the daughters have to conform to. Sure, it's right there in Sarah's blood to be a princess. Old money lineage from her mother, and a teeth-gnashing determination from her cutthroat dad. The island's hers, everything is hers. She is stuck in the ouroboros just like every other doll-like girl in Figure Eight. Iris didn't have it so easy. If she's to mean anything at all in the world, she's got to make sure her dad loves her. She can't be mangled, like Rafe. She can't hold grudges, like Alex. Blood isn't enough for bastard daughters from the Cut. In her nightmares, Iris has red-soaked skin under her nails from prying open the bellies of hurt animals because, to her, she is her father's doglike girl that stands to inherit nothing and be nothing.

  The real snake eating its own tail is this destructive pattern that her parents have found themselves in—the only real victim was Rafe and Sarah's mum. She's losing all colour, Iris notices every time she's at Tannyhill. Their mother is all bird bones and cigarette smoke. Her hair can't even be called golden anymore. She rots outside by the pool with her stick legs dipped into the cold water, and she knows that her husband must be either with the mother of his other children, or at work—planning to expand that empire of his deeper and deeper into the Cut until everything in the Outer Banks belongs to him.

  His wife dies giving him Louisa. She's got weak lungs, but his dark hair—how happy Mrs. Cameron must've been in her final moments, to finally give her husband a child with his colouring. He buried his wife in Charleston; she always loved it on the mainland, away from his malignant business, spreading into the darkest corners of the banks, away from Carmen and her ill-gotten children.

  Four years later, Carmen gives him Phoebe. A final girl to add to his collection. Carmen didn't have to die to give him another daughter. There's a sick satisfaction she cannot ignore when she survives, and thinks about his motherless would-be heirs at Tannyhill.

  𝕭lessed be the children of Ward Cameron. Three are Cut-born, the others are in an endless loop of punishment for their dad's greed. He'll ruin them all, in the end.

Cailee Spaeny ✹ Iris Soleil Cameron Mariano

I. Cherries & Cream, Remi Wolf.

Nicholas Chavez ✹ Alexander Eyre Cameron

II. Angel, Massive Attack.

Ayo Edebiri ✹ Magdalene Magda Heyward

III. Noise, Zsela.

Frankie Corio ✹ Phoebe Iris Cameron

IV. Right Now, Gracie Abrams.

Lana Parilla ✹ Carmen Mariano

V. Both Sides Now, Joni Mitchell.

Geraldine Viswanathan ✹ Marnie Aachari

VI. Girl, so confusing, Charli XCX, ft. Lorde.

Rudy Pankow ✹ JJ Maybank

VII. Fallingforyou, The 1975.

Jonathan Daviss ✹ Pope Heyward

VIII. Watching Him Fade Away, Mac DeMarco.

&.

Chloë Sevigny, Rose Cameron
Dylan O'Brien, Jesse
Rachel Sennott, Talulah Applebaum
Ebon Moss-Bachrach, Lev Scatorccio
Havana Rose Liu, Immie Zhou
Callum Turner, Matt from work
Madelyn Cline, Sarah Cameron
Drew Starkey, Rafe Cameron.

🌞

AUTHOR'S NOTE.

  i. 🤡 hi.... welcome to June Gloom. named more for the overcast skies in late spring, less for camila cabello song. this is my last ditch attempt at an obx fic. if this flops, i'm giving up with this cursed show. it's so ridiculous, but unfortunately i always go back. it's like my ex.

  ii. so, first and foremost, i'd like to apologise for that long-winded summary. it's expo up to the nines, but i needed to set the scene - aka, ward cameron is the nastiest skank bitch i have ever met do not trust him he's a fugly sl*t. ive sort of left the identity of rafe, sarah & wheezy's mum up in the air because idk i feel like the clowns in the obx writer's room are really gonna try half-siblings with jj...? idk seems like that's where this is all going, wouldn't be surprised. but the most important thing here is - ward was married to mrs cameron, but he keeps going back to his "old life" in the cut, with his childhood "sweetheart," carmen. she thinks that giving him children - children who look more like him than his legitimate ones - will make him stay and choose her. ultimately, it doesn't.

  iii. the mariano-cameron siblings are very important to me. alex, eldest boy, is a slightly less pathetic connor roy - eldest, but never the heir. which makes rafe some kind of roman/kendall hybrid in succession language. then you have iris - my precious girl, has been told her whole life that to survive she needs to be her dad's favourite daughter, but what if that ruins her, what if her father's the worst man alive. (he is). she slums with the pogues, because she is a pogue at heart. and then there's phoebe, the baby. ward's youngest. born to literally spit on his wife's grave - carmen is not a good person. but phoebe is her heart, she's everyone's heart. where wheezy is forgotten, phoebe is adored.

  iv. as for love interests - alex has some sydcarmy thing but not really going on with pope's big sister, magda, who works at the country club. they're very dear to me. alex is a bit of a piece of shit, and he's struggling a lot with identity, where he belongs and stands, what he should do with himself. magda keeps his head straight. pope deserves a big sister!!!! as for iris, it's between pope & jj - but this all depends on the fate of alexmagda, and also if jj continues to piss me off in season 4. alas, im getting ahead of myself.

  v. content warnings ╲ violence, substance abuse, mentions of OD, addiction, murder, strong language, very questionable morals, daddy issues, mommy issues, mentions of EDs, etc.

  vi. dedicated to... ayoedebiris coffinruinss resrvoirdogs yllwjckts orchidwave madmaxology starjely bananapopsicIes iheartmiles icedheartss 

  vii. the beautiful cover was made by the very, very talented aastratta!!! massive thank you <3 

EST. Oct, 2024.