Summary: This follows the events after the season finale of season 6. Juice reflects on what has happened but when he doesn't answer his phone Chibs begins to wonder why.
Rating: K+ (just to be safe)
Liquid State
Chapter 1
So, the clubs doesn't trust him, Juice reflects as he takes another sip from his glass of whiskey. There is a pain there, sitting in his chest clawing at his throat making it tight, that he tries to warm up and sooth with the liquid fire - unsuccessful for the most part. Nothing helps. Nothing takes away the utter stupidity he feels he is. The soar rawness of the negative emotions that are plaguing his inside - and it's all in the inside – because for the outside, he's still. From the outside, he's sitting on a stool alone in his kitchen, drinking. He's afraid he might breakdown and cry, here in the solitude of his own home – and there's nothing wrong with that, after all who's here to judge him: no one – but he's too tired for that. After tonight – there's just no energy left.
He fucked up. Gemma fucked up. They both fucked up, and that's why he helped her, because either way, he's lost to the club. He might have had his last and final strike, and he might meat Mr. Mayhem soon. So, when he saw Gemma sitting there next to a pool of Tara's blood, shaken and confused, looking up at him frightened, he had to help her. He had to help her because, in all honesty, why not? At that point, she was fucked. He was fucked, too. He had just shot Deputy Sheriff Roosevelt dead and he felt nothing, nothing when he saw his body go down and crash lifelessly on the linoleum floor. Nothing.
He understood then why the club had been so uneasy around him. He must have become unhinged long before this very moment and he simply just never noticed it happen, and that rattled something inside of him. What else had he become? Cold-blooded murderer?
He took another drink, a deep one, one that left nothing but a shallow tinge of golden water at the bottom of his glass. He let it burn and shook his head to take that ugly thought from his mind. And it did for a while, but did nothing for that persistent knot in his throat and it did nothing for the chaos of emotions in his chest.
That was not what was supposed to happen. He wasn't supposed to shoot Deputy Sheriff Roosevelt and Gemma wasn't supposed to kill Tara. But it happened, and he helped Gemma cover up Tara's murder. Something he knows Jax wouldn't be too happy about. But, he simply was too tired to care about what Jax wanted, what Jax would do to him if he ever found out.
'You'll be the next Darvany," A voice whispered in his head. And the thought of her made the knot at his throat tighten. And for a second, he imagined her small and fragile hands around his neck. Holding on to him tight, squeezing the air out of him, whispering lightly like the wind, and reassuring him that nothing bad was going to happen. Just like he did before he killed her.
His lungs protested and he the air came back to him slowly – painfully. He felt his eyes burn, and he blamed the whiskey.
'I fucked up, again.' Juice thought as he poured whiskey in his empty glass till it hit the rim. 'I'm a cold blooded-murderer,' the thought came to him without warning and he felt a chill at the back of his neck as if a ghost had just walked by. The little hairs on his arms stood on end. He shivered and downed the whiskey as fast as he could, wasting no time as he filled the glass up again.
He felt, alone. And scared.
Juice had half a mind to climb on his motorcycle and find Gemma because she's the only friendship he had left. And that wasn't a good thing.
He checked the pockets of his cut, and when he couldn't find his keys there he checked the pockets of his pants. Another failure. He looked about his immediate surroundings through his blurred vision and there at the distant end of his coffee table he just might have spotted the small metallic cluster of keys.
He didn't even consider testing the reliability of his legs when he attempted to stand. In his poor judgment, it couldn't have been too hard. After all, he was sitting on a stool and somewhere in the processes of his mind he was already halfway there to standing. He quickly realized how wrong that logic was when he grasped the counter for dear life as he tried to stop the vicious spinning the room had suddenly taken to doing.
All the spinning was making him sick. He wanted it to stop. He wanted everything to stop. He shut his eyes tightly and felt himself hit the floor – he just couldn't hold on anymore.
He must have fallen unconscious because he was in darkness. It was quiet and cold like the infinity of the night sky. He felt and aching peace. A feeling he related to decay. Like what happens after the pain of death is over, where there was nothing left for you to do but to fade back into the earth. And there was no pain there.
Author's Notes: Labeled this story under "in-progress" because I have a second chapter started already. I hope you enjoyed reading and please let me know what you think. I would love to hear from you guys. Thanks for reading!