Piney threw an arm around your shoulder and pulled you into his side, ruffling the top of your head fondly; in many ways, he was just as much of a father figure to you as your uncle Clay was, possibly even more so. Clay was the one you went to for good advice but Piney was the one you went to when you just needed a kind ear to listen to your problems. You stood together and watched as the guys sped out of the Teller-Morrow backlot; they were headed on a ‘blood drive’ for the Children’s hospital, or at least that’s what you’d been told. Honestly, sometimes you swore all the guys thought you were born yesterday when they tried lying to you - it was clear that their journey had nothing to do with charity and was actually a cover up for something all the more sinister. You didn’t care that Jax had lied to you because you knew he did it for your own protection and peace of mind, you just hoped they all made it back alive.
Between everything that was going on with the club and the feud between your uncle and brother, the chances of someone coming home in a body bag were higher than ever.
“I gotta take Abel home,” You told Piney. “He’s staying with me while Jax is away.” The old man smiled at you, one of the most genuine smiles you’d seen coming from him since you first got back. “How’s all that going?” He asked. “You enjoying motherhood?” You scoffed. “I wouldn’t call it motherhood, but I love taking care of him. He’s the calmest kid ever, some days I can’t even believe he’s Jax’s.” “You’ll be more of a mother to that boy than anyone else ever will,” Piney said. “And it suits you, Y/N.” You ignored the pain that blossomed behind your right eye. Talking about this was going to give you a migraine. “Thanks, Piney. You should come over later, I’m doin’ dinner for Gem.”
Piney kissed your forehead and disappeared into the clubhouse. You picked up Abel’s car seat being careful not to wake him and loaded it into the back of your Jeep. As a general rule, you took your bike over your car no matter where you were going, but today you were transporting precious cargo, meaning you’d had to trade in your Harley. It was worth it if it meant you got to spend time with your God son. You gave him a bottle to drink on the way to the grocery store before getting behind the wheel and pulling out of the lot.
-
You grabbed what you needed and was in the middle of putting Abel back in the car when Gemma ran past you. At first you didn’t even realise it was her, but when you spun around and saw her chasing a blonde you didn’t recognise, you knew you had to run after her. You couldn’t exactly leave Abel so you took him with you, cradling his head against your chest as you jogged after her, hoping they wouldn’t make it far so you could catch up.
You swore under your breath. Why could nobody just have a normal bloody day in Charming?
When you rounded the corner, you saw Tara was also chasing Gemma, although you had no idea where she’d come from. The blonde woman that had Gemma rattled climbed into a car with a guy you recognised but couldn’t place, leaving Gemma standing dumbfounded on the sidewalk. Before you could get to her, Tara came up behind her and reached out to put a hand on her shoulder; the next thing you knew, Gemma was clocking her in the face.
“Shit,” You sighed, jogging over to the two of them. “What the hell is going on?!” “Y/N?” Gemma said. “What are you doing here?” “I was getting groceries and I saw you run past. Who was that?” Tara was clutching her nose, blood dripping between her fingers. “I need to go to St Thomas. This is definitely broken.” “You broke her nose?!” You yelled. “Gemma, what-” “Not on purpose. If I wanted to break her nose, I would’ve done it a long time ago.” “My car is around the corner,” You said, shaking your head. “I’ll drive.”
-
While Tara got her nose looked at you and Abel waited with Gemma in the hospital’s chapel. You didn’t consider yourself to be a religious person, not after the things you’d been through in your lifetime. Surely if there was a God he wouldn’t just sit back and watch while people suffered so greatly, right? So sitting in the chapel with Gemma was just like sitting in an ordinary room. You gave Abel your car keys to play with while he sat in your lap and tried to work out the best way to go about talking to Gemma about what had happened. Having grown up under her care, you knew Gemma well, and you could tell just by looking at her that she was currently at war with her own mind.
Tara poked her head around the door and once she saw the three of you sitting there, she came over and joined you, reaching out and letting Abel wrap one of his tiny hands around her finger. “How’s your nose?” You asked.
“It’s gonna be fine,” She explained. “It isn’t broken.” You nodded. “That’s good.” Gemma sighs. “I’m sorry.” “Guess I’m lucky you didn’t blow my head off,” The ghost of a smile flickers across Tara’s face. “You okay? That running couldn’t have felt good.” You wondered what Tara was talking about, but then it dawned on you just how much pain Gemma was probably in after what happened to her. She shook her head. “Yeah, I’m fine.” “Who was the girl?” When Gemma didn’t respond, Tara looks to you for help, but you have no idea what to say either. “Jesus Christ Gemma, you have to talk about what happened. I know what it’s like to keep something like this inside.” You realised what Tara is doing and it occurred to you that maybe if Gemma heard that you both understood what she was going through to some level she might feel like opening up. “So do I,” You said. She scoffs. “I doubt that.” “You know why I was carrying that gun a few months ago?” Tara presses. “The fed. You got a restraining order.” “Yeah.” “He went after you?” Tara and Gemma lock eyes. “Yeah.” “Raped you?” “Uh, it almost went there. I was able to stop him.” Gemma looked the way you felt - abhorred. “Does Jax know?” She asked incredulously. Tara nodded. “I had to tell someone. I… I knew it would eat me up if I didn’t.” You and Gemma looked at each other knowingly. “What did Jax do?” “Well, there was nothing he could do. Kohn was already gone,” You knew that was bullshit. “My point is, you need to get this thing outta your head before you kill someone.” “Tara’s right,” You interjected. “Keeping shit like this to yourself ruins your life, Gem.” “And what would you know about it?” Abel shifted in your lap and you looked at him, tears already blurring your vision. “I didn’t come back to Charming because I was homesick. I came back because I almost had a baby with a man who used to beat me when he drank.” Tara gasped while Gemma just stared at you, open mouthed. “Why didn’t you say something sooner?” You smiled sadly. “This is the point I was trying to make.” “You could’ve talked to me, darl,” Gemma reached out and took your hand. “But I couldn’t. I didn’t know how to get the words out. Telling Jax and Opie was bad enough, I had no idea how to go about telling you.” “Does Clay know?”
You shook your head. You could imagine how your uncle would react if you told him about your ex, and right now that was more than you were able to handle. Maybe once Gemma had told Clay her story and he’d processed that you could tell him about your past, but until then you had no desire to bring it into the present.
“The point is, keeping this to myself and making the conscious decision not to deal with it had me running home with my tail between my legs,” You explained. “I’m not saying that I regret coming back to Charming, but maybe if I’d opened up to someone about it I wouldn’t have felt the need to run. You need to deal with what happened to you before your trauma starts calling all the shots.”
-
Abel stared up at you with wide, curious eyes when you started to sing him an old country song you loved as a teenager. You were giving him his afternoon bottle and attempting to lull him to sleep, hoping he would nap for a couple of hours so you could get some writing done. Since you’d spent most of the week taking care of Abel, the two of you had a pretty good routine down and as his eyes started to droop as he fell asleep, it dawned on you that there was nothing else in this world quite as precious to you as your god son. If anything ever happened to him, you would personally see to it that hell was raised and somebody paid a pretty price.
Being careful not to wake him, you laid him down in his travel crib and crept downstairs, but before you could even open your laptop and get to writing, somebody knocked on the front door. You assumed it was Jax coming to collect Abel since the guys were supposed to be coming home from the run this afternoon, but when you opened the door you were face to face with Juice.
You blinked in surprise. You hadn’t spoken to Juice since the wrap party. Truthfully, you’d been avoiding him, but now that you were looking him in the eye you couldn’t for the life of you remember why. “Hey,” he grinned. “Hey yourself,” You smiled. “What’re you doing here?” “We just got back and I thought I’d come over and check in.” You stepped aside and gestured for Juice to come inside. “You want something to drink?” “I’ll take a beer if you’ve got one.” “Sure.”
Juice followed you through to the kitchen and perched himself on the counter while you fetched two beers from the fridge. He shrugged out of his kutte and a slew of inappropriate thoughts went through your head as you found yourself wondering what he looked like underneath the rest of his clothes. You handed him his beer - avoiding eye contact entirely - and leaned against the opposite counter, putting a fair bit of distance between the two of you.
“So, you came to check on me?” Juice grinned sheepishly. “Kind of. I realised we hadn’t really spoken since the party and I wondered if there was something wrong.” Internally, you flinched. You’d hoped he wouldn’t notice. “Nothing’s wrong, just had a lot going on between babysitting Abel and trying to start my next project.” “Okay,” Juice sipped his beer. “I thought maybe you regretted what happened.” “Why, do you?” “Nope.” “I don’t regret it,” You told him. “I just don’t know how I feel about it.” Juice slid off the counter and closed the distance between the two of you. He didn’t make any moves to touch you, but the proximity was enough to stop your heartbeat. “That doesn’t sound good.” “I-” “Maybe you just need it to happen again so you can figure it out.” You raised a brow. “You think so?” “Yeah, I do.” There was no point trying to put a stop to the inevitable, so you let Juice grab you by the waist and lift you onto the kitchen island. “Maybe you’re right.”
He began peppering kisses along the side of your neck and your jaw, leaving a trail all the way to your lips, which he took between his teeth before finally kissing you. You released a quiet, breathy moan and wrapped your legs tightly around his waist, locking him in, even though there was no way he would have moved anyway. He ran his tongue along your bottom lip and you let him in, exploring his mouth with your own tongue while he tangled his hands in your hair.
“Figured it out yet?” He asked breathlessly. You smirked. “Not yet.”
This seemed to be the final push that Juice needed and before you could react he swept you up off the counter and headed for the stairs, all without breaking the passionate kiss that the two of you were wrapped up in. You wrapped your legs even more tightly around his waist and gasped at the friction this caused; it had been so long since you had been intimate with someone and as a result, your body was both excited and nervous simultaneously.
Juice kicked your bedroom door shut behind you and laid you down on the bed, kicking off his boots before climbing on top of you. After a while, you began to get desperate to feel his skin against yours, so you tugged on the hem of his t-shirt, practically begging for him to take it off. He pulled away from you and sat up, a shit-eating grin spread across his face - he knew that he had you right where he wanted you.
“You first,” He said, trailing his fingers underneath the waistband of your denim shorts. A shiver ran through your entire body, but you did as Juice told you. “Now you.”
Obviously you knew he was in fairly good shape and you’d had a pretty decent idea of what he looked like underneath his clothes since the day you met him, but nothing could have prepared you for actually seeing it. He was genuinely the most gorgeous man you had ever seen, ripped and toned in all the right places, and the sight of him laid practically bare in front of you was making you feel some type of way. You unclasped your bra without needing to be told and pulled him back down, reconnecting your lips in a fiery kiss. His skin was warm against yours and you couldn’t wait to get even closer; hell, you wanted to crawl up inside the man and stay there forever.
You were genuinely in awe of how naturally things seemed to be flowing between the two of you, the way you were able to communicate your desires to Juice without needed to use words like you could somehow speak telepathically. You both ridded one another of the rest of your clothes and after you had fetched a condom from your bedside drawers, Juice pushed into you. After being practically celibate for the better part of a year, it was initially quite painful and - as though he sensed this - Juice made sure to go slow and gentle until you gave him the word to speed up.
You and Juice became a tangle of limbs beneath the sheets, coaxing each other towards your highs. Part of you didn’t want it to end; never in your life had you been with such a caring man, it was like having sex for the first time all over again.
When you were both finished - and Juice made sure you did finish - you cuddled up next to him with your head resting on his chest, listening to the rise and fall of his breathing and the steady beat of his heart.
You could hear the smirk in his voice when he said, “Figured it out now?” “I think so,” You teased. “Might have to try again just to be certain.”
-
There was lots to get done at TM that day, cars that needed servicing and repairing, books to check, payslips to hand out. As per usual, you were one of the few mechanics actually getting these tasks done, mainly because the club was knee deep in bullshit again, meaning all the guys were tied up. You had just finished changing the oil of a beamer and you were desperate to go home and take a shower, partly because you were sweating through your overalls and partly because the energy at the garage was so low, you didn’t really want to hang around much longer.
You were contemplating heading home when the explosion happened.
One minute everything was normal, the next your ears were ringing and the mini van that had just been brought into the lot was up in flames and Chibs was being thrown across the asphalt. The only other time your heart had stopped within your chest like this was when you found out that you were pregnant, but at least then you’d had the opportunity to brace yourself. Now, as you found yourself sprinting across the lot to get to Chibs, it felt like your heart would never beat again. Everyone had had the same reaction as you and you’d all formed a protective circle around Chibs as Tara knelt down next to him to check that he still had a pulse.
In the time it had taken for you to get from one side if the lot to the other, everything had suddenly became clear to you and it dawned on you that you were much more invested in the Scotsman lying half dead on the floor than you had first thought. By the time the ambulance arrived and Juice had wrapped a protective arm tightly around your shaking shoulders, you knew that you wouldn’t be able to cope if Chibs didn’t make it, and you had figured out exactly how you felt. Deep down, you’d always known that your ex wasn’t the only reason you’d come home, but you just hadn’t been able to put your finger on why until now.
Authors Note: This is Part One of my Holiday series (with my first ever OC). Every major holiday I will be continuing this series, I am super excited for this and I hope you all enjoy I have also linked an image of the costumes I imagined throughout the story (just click on their names). This will also be my entry for the @samperv challenge! Let me know what you all think, feedback is always welcome!
