Strangers No More
I own nothing but the original characters featured. I love Sons of Anarchy, I hope it runs as long as Sopranos if not longer and continues its excellent quality story telling.
The first time they met she was a kid, 17 and working in a dinner off the highway till midnight most nights. Her mum wasn't 'well'. That's what she and her sister had taken to referring to their mother's alcoholism as in their infrequent phone conversations.
Caroline didn't like school, she wasn't good at it. She didn't dream of escaping Charming for an Ivy League diploma, she did dream of escaping Charming though. The second Principle Davis placed that paper in her hand with a thin lipped smile that said 'Good Luck Caroline, you will need it' she was out of here and heading for LA. She had a voice like you wouldn't believe, everyone told her so, likened her to a cross between Janis Joplin and Suzie Quatro.
The kitchen closed at 11 when the 'chef' went home and customers gradually left, then she'd flip the sign to closed, put the chairs onto the table and mop the floor before turning the lights off and locking the door. If she got the bus it took nearly a half hour, if she walked it took 10 minutes to get home. The 10 minute walk meant she had to cut through some wasteland and a wooded area. She always took the bus. Whenever she caught sight of the woodland at the back of her house her blood ran cold. 3 years and still it haunted her.
On a non descript Tuesday night he came in. It was 11:30 and a man already sat in a booth at the back, didn't look like he had anywhere better to be and she briefly wondered about staying the night in one of those booths. If this other guy stayed till midnight then she wouldn't be done mopping and locking up till gone 12:30 and the bus had a horrible knack of being on time. The owner was kind of a freak about not mopping when customers were still around. Some years back someone had slipped, sued and nearly bankrupted him so he was paranoid about lightening striking twice.
"Sorry, kitchen's closed" she said from where she leaned on the counter.
"You got Coffee, right?" he said in the raspiest, gravelliest voice she thinks she might have ever heard in her life. She imagined the dirtiest things being spoken in that voice, the kind of things that 17 year old girls shouldn't have any experience in, for all their hormones teenagers don't venture far beyond heavy petting, sloppy blow jobs and the missionary position. Caroline should know.
"Yeah" she nodded. He took a seat at the counter and she went to fetch the pot.
"What kind of pie is that?" he asked nodding towards the pie display.
"It's cherry"
"It good?"
It was the best pie ever, she'd made it...and she'd been planning to eat it herself. The last piece. But something about the guy said 'you lie to me, bad things will happen'.
"It's real good" Caroline sighed, "real sweet and moist"
His lips twitched, like that's what passed for a smile with him.
The customer in the back booth made his way to the door, dropping some notes on the counter.
"Thank you, come again" she called in a joyless tone.
"Warm it up, be back in a second" he said as he headed for the door.
"You want ice cream?" she called after him.
He just raised an arm and gave her a thumbs up from over his shoulder indicating that he did.
She didn't hear him go up behind the customer and jam his knife into his neck as she made her way to the kitchen in the back, his arm coming up to smother his screams. Death came for him quickly but even after life left his body blood continued to spread over his killers sweatshirt.
The man wrestled the corpse into the back of the van he'd pulled up in, tossed in his ruined sweatshirt and headed back inside.
Caroline should have known better, she'd spotted a tattoo peaking out of the neck line of his sweatshirt, but that didn't stop her from nearly dropping the plate when she came out of the kitchen and saw him coming back inside, a fearsome reaper on the front of his T-shirt.
Sons of Anarchy. Of course.
She'd lived in Charming her whole life, she'd had to of been walking round with a blindfold on for 17 years not to notice that SAMCRO ran this town.
She shuffled back up to the counter and placed the pie in front of him.
"This better be as good as you say"
She just smiled quickly before her dimples shrank back into her face. He didn't dig into the pastry, he stabbed into it and scooped it into his mouth. His lips pursed around the spoon. She squeezed her legs together to attempt to satisfy the sensation building low in her body as she watched him eat. His lips could probably do things she couldn't properly comprehend.
"Fuck me, that's good" he mumbled, "you make this?"
She nodded,
"You'd make someone a hell of an old lady some day"
"That a biker thing?"
He nodded.
She lingered only a moment longer, teeth sinking into her bottom lip as she watched both of his wrap around the spoon again. She busied herself by putting the chairs onto the table tops and readying her mop and bucket before hovering by the door.
"Don't mind if you got to clean up" he said, gesturing to the bucket with his half drunk coffee mug in one hand.
The top row of her teeth sank into her bottom lip again. She wondered how old he actually was. Early 30's was her guess. Too old to consider a proposition from her as something more than a guaranteed jail sentence?
"The owner doesn't like me doing that with customers around. Swear you won't tell anyone?" she said, completely seriously. She needed this crappy job.
"What you gonna do for me?"
"No charge for the pie" she shrugged. Honestly she didn't know if she'd have the guts to charge a Son for stale pie with no one around to hear her scream.
"Then I ain't a customer. Deal"
She mopped in silence and he left just as she was pulling her denim jacket on over her uniform. And that was that she supposed, she'd never lay eyes on him again.
No goodbye.
The lights flickered off at the flip of the switch and she twisted the key in the lock and turned to light that came from a street lamp 20 feet from the dinner that lit up the bus stop, like a lighthouse calling a ship to shore.
Then something else caught her eye. The tattooed stranger making his way over to a van.
Caroline's life was hard. She wasn't academic, spent her day at school being told things she didn't understand or knew she'd never need in the real world. She worked till midnight. And in all the time in-between she was either making sure her mother was rolled onto her back and not choking on her own vomit or listening to her alcohol induced tirades hearing how useless and stupid she was, how no one was ever going to love her, how not even Stephanie loved her enough to stick around and had now vanished into Nevada where she's doing god knows what for god knows how much. So what if she climbed into the backseat of Seth Duvall's car every now or again? Caroline realised she liked sex not too long ago, she probably 'treated herself right' in the shower most days. She needed something in her life that made her feel good.
And this stranger made the lowest parts of her abdomen ache with just a look, in ways Seth could only achieve with a lot of effort and a sore wrist. So she went for it. It was now or never, the worst he could do was laugh at her or be repulsed.
Her feet carried her over and she was formulating something seductive to say, something he wouldn't... couldn't turn down when he pulled open the van door she saw it. A bloody arm flop out.
Caroline felt her mouth open and a scream come bursting out. Within a heartbeat he was in front of her, a hand over her mouth and another around her neck.
"You need to listen to me" he said. He was calm. This did not make Caroline's legs stop shaking or her heart stop thundering in her chest. She'd waited 17 years for a man to make her heart feel like this and now it was for all the wrong reasons.
"That man, he was a bad man. He was a drug dealing Nazi ass hole, he hurt women and children because they were the wrong colour, does that seem right to you? That someone like that should be free to walk around and do the shit he did?"
She shook her head.
"Good girl" he said in that raspy voice of his but he keeps himself against her for a few moments more, takes one of her long blonde curls between his fingers and rubs it, feels how silky smooth it is.
Later, when she's not terrified, she wonders whether he shaves his head or had lost his hair entirely; She wonders if men with no hair secretly hate women because they'll rarely loose all there's, and she wonders what his scalp would have felt like beneath her fingers. She could feel him getting hard under his jeans, she was scared of what he might do with an erect cock and no witnesses but that didn't stop her from feeling the ache low in her belly becoming never more apparent, from her underwear becoming just a little bit damp. She was angry with herself after, when she was 14 one of her friends was raped and that was horrific, rape in general was horrific, not something to be turned on by. For the rest of the night and some of the morning she pictured Laura sitting on her living room couch, curled up in a blanket and unwilling to engage with any of her visitors.
Then she heard a low rumble and saw head lights a little way down the highway.
"M-my b-bus is coming" she whispered.
"Go" he ordered.
Her legs never carried her so fast.
The next time they met Happy was gunning it down the highway, close to midnight, with Myan's on his tail.
He has yet to be filled in on what's going down in Charming but when a gun shot had narrowly winged his shoulder followed by a barrage of bullets and he'd quickly glanced over his shoulder he'd had his suspicions that it involved Myans. He'd hit the accelerator and been travelling at the same pace for 10 minuets. It felt like a life time. He'd started to give himself the 'so this is it' speech in his mind, the one a person unafraid of death gives themselves when faced with the certainty of it.
Then he'd seen the sign that advertised 'Betty's Place' being a quarter of a mile ahead and the decision had been made for him.
Never return to the scene of the crime seems like a good policy to have, even if their waitress do have a pretty face and long legs that she wants to wrap around you so badly you can practically smell the want coming from between her legs. He'd wanted to go back, passed the place on his way in and out of Charming a few dozen times over the past 4 months. The place had huge glass windows that wrapped around the front and sides of the building, at night with all the lights on you could see everything inside. It was how he'd known his mark had been sitting in a back booth that night. He saw her occasionally when he rode past at night, he could see that pretty blonde hair pulled back and her pouty pink lips that stood out against her pale skin. And he was so sure that the blue dress uniform didn't do justice to the young body underneath he'd bet his bike on it.
He swerved into the dinner parking lot and leapt off the bike
He holds the pre pay up to eye level for a second and skims the list for SAMCRO's direct line before dialling and sprinting up to the dinners front door. She's just stepping out from the kitchen, bucket and mop in hand when he crashes through the front door, grabs the mop from her hand and jams it in the door handle.
"Hap?" Tig answers,
"I'm at Betty's Place, Myans chancing me, I need you!" he said quickly,
"On our way"
The Myans open fire just as he's dragged her behind the counter, pushed her to the floor and dived on top of her. She can't see anything but the sound of an MC riddling her workplace with bullets scares her so bad she can feel tears pouring down her face.
Her hearts beating in her ribcage like a jack hammer on tarmac. He can feel it as he covers her body with his, protecting her from the grass shards currently flying all about the place. When she's older she'll ask him what her face looked like, that she must have looked like shit. He'll grin and tell her that he was more preoccupied with feeling her tits over her uniform under the pretence of protecting her.
It was laying on that floor that Caroline made the final decision on a dilemma that's been plaguing her for her entire life.
Screw her mum, she was getting the hell out of Charming. She's taking the $3288.37 she's got stuffed into her mattress, hopping on the next Grey Hound to LA and starting to live her life for herself.
When SAMCRO turns up he tells her over the sound of the shoot out to crawl into the kitchen, stay there until she's sure they've gone, call the police and tell them that Myans shot the place up, too say NOTHING about SAMCRO. He doesn't tell her that he's sorry for bringing this on her. That bothers her.
When one of Unser's lackeys takes her home hours later she tosses every item of clothing she owns into the one piece of luggage Steph didn't take with her two years ago as soon as she gets home from the station. Her mother staggers to the front door as she's leaving and yells incoherent nonsense that Caroline barley registers. Dragging the wheel-less suitcase along the streets of Charming in the wee hours should feel like a chore but the difficulty is oddly wonderful, like Charming's trying to keep her there and she's fighting against it, better yet she's wining.
The LA plan holds up for all of 8 months. Before the end of April she finds herself glaring at the "Welcome to Charming" sign.
She sees him in Vegas. She's in a shitty motel off the strip, here for a few days attempting to track Stephanie down because Steph's paternal grandparents received a package from her a few days ago containing a working light-up 'Welcome to Vegas' sign and think she might be there. They're too frail to make the trip themselves but fund it and send Caroline 'a little something' for herself that she knows they can't afford but she can't afford to turn down.
It's 2 in the morning and she's been awoken by the close roar of motorcycles. She spots him standing in the light of a streetlamp, half in shadow, half illuminated. She recognises the sleeve tattoos first, she spent 20 of the worst minuets of her life studying them on the diner floor.
She considers going down there before the far more sensible part of her brain reminds her that they've met twice and that both times were terrifying. Also he's with 6 other guys and this seems to Caroline like the part of 'The Accused' that she could stand to watch and that does not fit in with the E! True Hollywood Story/ VH1: Behind The Music that Caroline's got planned out for herself.
She watches him leave and feels the pit of her stomach fill with dread that she's missed an opportunity.
Her trip is unsuccessful as she believed it would be but went to make an old, infirmed couple happy. She does her best though, visits every bar that lets her over the threshold, asks all the staff at every strip club that'll allow her in, every hooker she comes across if they know of a 'Stephanie Sweet'. It's coming to the end of her trip, her bus leaves in 14 hours and she's asking a row of prostitutes if they've ever head of 'Stephanie Sweet'. One woman says she might if Caroline's got something to 'make her remember'. Caroline's fallen prey to this yesterday and has already lost $100 to it. She learns quickly.
She's walking away when another woman comes up behind her and gets her attention. The woman looks around nervously before telling her that she knew a girl calling herself 'Sweet Caroline' last year but she hasn't seen her around since. Caroline manages to thank her before rounding the corner and screaming in frustration. Why hadn't she thought to ask that 2 days ago?
When she calls Barbra and Jim the next morning she tells them that she's seen Steph, she's working in a bar, living with a few girls she works with and that she's in a support group for coke users. The lie makes them happy in ways she didn't believe possible.
He'll never admit it but he thinks about her a lot. It's the fact that nothing happened that makes it so intense, the promise of what could have happened, that he could have gone round the counter, hoisted her up onto it and fucked her in that little blue dress she wore as a uniform. That while they were lying on the floor, gun fire all around them he could have touched her in ways that would have made her forget that death was three feet above her head.
The fantasies killed a lot of the time he spent staking out his mark's. Like now he was standing in an alleyway in a Vegas suburb eyes trained on a non-descript house. The beat up car pulls up onto the driveway out front and the woman he's been waiting for gets out, looking over her shoulder as she does. She knows she's in danger and still she came back. Stupid Bitch.
It takes no time at all to break into the house, the door gives in at the lightest 'encouragement'. She tried to run for the back door but he's on her in seconds, her hair in his hands reminds his of The Waitress, the squeal that she emits when he pulls her back to him reminds him of the noise that The Waitress made when he pushed her to the floor.
It lasts a second, he puts his silenced 9mm to her temple and pulls the trigger.
Another sweatshirt ruined.
The next time she sees him she's 19 and her mother's just died. She's at the hospital and just coming out of the corridor that leads to the morgue, trying to keep it together when she sees him.
She's chanting 'I will not cry for her' over and over in her head when she turns the corner and sees a bunch of Sons gathered a few feet away. He's with them, standing and listening to Jax Teller with the rest. He nods once before turning to make his way in her direction, their eyes lock and she practically dives into the chapel.
She hopes he doesn't follow, she knows she's going to crack the second she lays eyes on him. She'd right, he enters and tears burst forth.
"My mum died" she finally managed to whisper. Saying it out loud didn't feel like 'the first step to recovery', it felt like it made it more true than it had been a minute before.
"That's rough" he said with that gruff voice that managed to turn her on at even the most inappropriate times, "I'm sorry"
"They haven't done an autopsy yet but they think she fell and smacked her head on the coffee table corner" she wheezed, "drunk, as usual. Sorry, You didn't ask to know this shit"
" 'S alright"
"God, I don't even know why I'm crying, I hated her, drunk bitch never did a damn thing for me"
"Shouldn't talk about your mum like that"
She finally lifted her head to look at him, stared into his eyes; they were softer than they'd been in their previous two interactions. He wasn't scolding her, it was almost telepathic but in his short statement he seemed to tell her not to hold a grudge she couldn't resolve.
"You close to your mum? She a good mum?"
"Yeah" he answered but he seemed uncomfortable.
"Jesus, I'm just so angry I can never tell her that she sucked! You know? Just tell her how bad she was to me, how I thought about her every day but I'm sure she wasn't thinking of me"
They sat in near silence for a few minutes, Caroline's heavy breathing filling the air. When she finally managed to compose herself he spoke again.
"You need a ride home?"
"On your bike? No thanks" she sniffed, whipping away some of her tears.
"What? You scared?"
"Terrified"
"Come on, I'm a good rider, promise"
He stood, was going to leave with or without her and she realised that she really didn't want to be alone, she really wanted to be with someone, anyone.
"Ok, if you promise" she consented. The next 10 minuets were a blur, literally. Charming whipped past her at a speed she wished the hard work she was putting in down in L.A, playing dives even her mother wouldn't seek a drink out, before her inevitable discovery followed by immediate fame and fortune.
"Do you want to come in?" she'd be a liar if she denied knowing what she was actually asking.
They crossed the threshold in silence.
"You grow up here?"
She nodded, "my whole life"
"No dad?"
She shook her head;
"I never ever met him, fuck knows if she knew who he really was, she always said he was some dead beat Elvis impersonator" she said.
He temporarily lost all control of his facial muscles.
"He wasn't, like, in costume or anything, she wasn't 'into' that sort of thing" she explained when she saw his expression change in the space of seconds after she revealed this information about her father. "At least I hope she wasn't, eww, can you imagine?"
He let out a low deep laugh and grinned.
"You got no kinks?" he smirked.
Her lips thinned.
Yes.
His eyebrow twitched.
"Really? What?"
She shook her head and refused to look him in the eye,
"You'll laugh at me"
"Not gonna laugh darlin'" he said placing his index finger under her chin and gently forced her to look at him.
She sighed, getting ready for light hearted ridicule.
"I like...to keep my shoes on" she said.
"You like to fuck in your shoes? That's hot" he rasped out looking down at the flat tan leather boots, "You got spiked heals or something?"
"No, I've kept these on a couple of times" she admitted running her lift foot up and down her left calve.
Her eyes never left his own dark intense stare. She felt like her insides were slowly melting, warm and soft.
She ran her tongue over her drying lips; He stepped closer.
"I don't even know your name" she murmured,
"Don't know yours either sweetheart"
"Should we trade or would that ruin everything?"
He leaned down and pressed his lips to hers for the very first time. That night was the night of a lot of firsts. The first time they kissed, the first time she took his hand in hers, the first time he wrapped himself around her as they slept, the first time she a woke to find him gone and felt stabbing disappointment in the pit of her belly where lust had been hours before.
The kiss started gentle but grew hot and heavy within seconds. His lips sucked and nipped at hers, her head tilting to one side, his to the other. His hand buried itself in her thick, wavy blonde hair. It felt even better than he remembered, he had nothing to compare the softness too. Her hands found their way to his chest, twisted themselves in the front of the wife beater he wore under his Cut, her thumps running along the underside of his pectorals.
She pulled away and took hold of his hand in hers, leading him to her childhood bedroom. It was still the way she left it 8 months ago, covered in any image that inspired her. She was completely mortified when she pushed him down onto the bed and his head landed on the soft belly of Smokey, the red dragon she'd once confided all her hopes and fears in.
"He's cute, he share your bed every night? Might make me jealous"
"Sorry, he...he...it...ignore him" she settled on, ripping the stuffed animal out of his hand and tossing it into a chair by the window.
"Nice shot"
"Thanks. Now loose the shirt"
"Think I'm gonna have to see yours before I show you mine darlin'"
She grinned but rolled her eyes, tugging the long sleeved t-shirt over her head. Her bra was electric blue but plain.
"Want to see more skin? Start stripping"
"Want to see all your skin baby"
She straddled his lap and pushed the Cut off his shoulders before grabbing the hem of his shirt.
"What's the matter? You shy?" she teased.
He flipped them over and lay her so her head was on the pillow, him supporting his weight on his arms above her. He said nothing as he pressed his lips to hers again, his tongue forcing her lips apart as one hand travelled down to the hem of her skirt. The moment his finger brushed her lace covered pussy she felt electric, like every fibre in her body was tingling; her breath came out in a ragged pant. He ran his finger from back to front, his index finger coming to rest on his clit that seemed to go rock hard at the contact. She was ready for almost anything, anything except him standing up and removing his body from over hers.
She whimpered and he couldn't help laughing,
"Be back baby, promise"
"Ok, if you promise"
He pulled off his wife beater revealing the abundance of muscle and ink.
"Jesus" she muttered, not really knowing what she was in awe of. He undid his belt buckle, unzipped and took his boxers down with his jeans after kicking his boots and yanking his socks off.
"Fuck, you're big" she muttered, eyes never leaving his half hard cock. "Like, really big, I'm not...fuck, you're big" she repeated. She'd had a rough day, she wanted to fuck, not do uncomfortable yoga moves to accommodate his impressive size.
"You'd be amazed at what a body can do" he told her kneeling back on the bed and reaching for the button and fly of her denim skirt. She let him unzip it and slide it down her thighs and off at her ankles, working it over her boots. His eyes stayed on her panties for a while, she shifted under his scrutiny pushing up on her elbows to sit up a little.
"What?"
"Nothin', just didn't figure you too match your underwear"
"Always match your underwear" she told him matter of fact-ley, "it's the only advice my sister ever gave me. Well, that and 'get the hell out of Charming'"
"She around?"
"Why? Already board of me?"
"Nah. Just feels sad to think you're all alone"
"Don't. You'll ruin it" she said lightly. She wanted to keep things fun, his concern, no matter how minute made things considerably less so.
"Sorry" he said before crawling up kissing her hard, getting the passion back. It came back tenfold. He wrapped an arm around her lower back and encouraged her up onto her knees and allowing him access to the back of her bra. He practically tore it off from over the full, round globes that were creamy and soft and had never seen sunlight, you could tell from her fading tan lines. He grazed her rock hard nipples with his thumbs while her mouth assaulted his neck.
"Mmhh" she mumbled into his flesh. One of his hands travelled down the flat expanse of her stomach to the waist of her blue lace bikini briefs that exposed more of her ass than they covered. He dipped in and instantly felt the heat coming off her. His suspicion that she was wet was confirmed when he moved his middle finger down to her opening, grazing her clit as he went.
"Fuck that's good" she breathed before an incoherent screech when his finger finally slipped into her tight, wet cunt.
"You're real tight"
The only response was a ragged breath expelled from her nostrils. He moved his finger our slowly and then back in, attempting to add another finger. She moved her hips in time with his fingers, the bounce she was getting from kneeling on the mattress achieving the kind of sensation everyone hopes to achieve when they have sex.
"Wow" she breathed, "Oh god, wow, god"
He felt her pussy tighten and contract around his fingers and knew she was close. His thumb rubbed against her clit to finish her off and her orgasm came in ragged pants. He gently slid his fingers out and pushed her back onto the bed, a smile of pure ecstasy on her face. Beautiful. The cum produced was going to help but he'd felt the blissful but excruciating snugness of her cunt and wasn't completely convinced that he was going to get his length even half way in. He reached down to his jeans and found a condom.
"Hey, you got anythin' for lubrication? Y'know, just in case"
"Don't think so. I'll see what I can find" she said standing up on shaky, boot clad legs. "Don't go anywhere"
"With this?" he said, gesturing his now rock hard cock. He lay back on the bed and glanced at the clock radio. 22:23. He was supposed to be on the road now, on his way back to Tacoma at the SAMCRO VP's command. Fuck it. He'd make up some excuse. This was The Waitress, the one who'd haunted his mind for 2 years.
She was gone longer than he'd thought, surely she either had lube or she didn't.
She stood in the doorway, her cheeks flushed but not completely from her orgasm, she was embarrassed that she was even going to suggest this but...she really wanted to fuck.
"I...this is all I could find. I think it'll work just the same"
His eyes trailed down to what she held in her hands.
He grinned and shook his head,
"You are so kinky"
"I haven't got anything else and I saw this in a movie once" she said earnestly. She wasn't trying to be kinky and seductive. That made it a million times more sexy.
"Get over hear" he said with a smirk, "I'm gonna be writing to Penthouse after this"
The first time they fucked she left her boots on.
He swore that if he ever found himself inflicted with amnesia and forgot every single thing about himself he'd remember the girl with the softest hair and perfect lips who liked to fuck with her shoes on and used butter for lube.
