A/N: I wrote this in response to Beatrix Hart's "Into the Ring" challenge on the SOA Writer's Corner. The challenge was to take two canon characters and place them into the ring at the clubhouse, all while exploring what exactly brought them to this point.
This particular story takes place in a diverging storyline for episode seven, season one, entitled "Old Bones." I consider this to be my AU if Clay hadn't personally gone to Lowell Harland Jr.'s apartment to kill him and explain why his father had to die. Obviously, from the subject matter, this is a darker twist on the challenge.
As per usual, I seem to default to writing one-shots in present tense, where as I prefer past tense for longer stories. Let me know if it works, or not! Any reviews would be lovely. Thank you for reading.
He doesn't show up for work.
Instead he's riding high on the black tar running through his bloodstream, euphoric and heavy. Nothing is wrong. He barely notices Kozik's hands when they wrench him up by his sweat-stained white tee. And the cold water that Chibs dumps on his head only just begins to lift the fog. Blearily, he watches Kozik gently finger the empty heroin syringe before Chibs tells him to toss it in the garbage can.
He doesn't know why they care – he's just a mechanic. Someone else will cover his shift, pick up the slack. How'd they get in here? He decides he doesn't care and he's too tired to fight them off. They're dragging him out of his apartment and back to Teller-Morrow. No one cares about Lowell.
"What, you mad your daddy left you, Junior? Huh?"
The punch comes swift and unexpected. Lowell grits his teeth and tries to ignore what the Junior behind his name implies – that he had a father, once. Every man did, didn't they? But a father wasn't the same thing as a dad. SAMCRO was the reason he never got to know the difference. Old Man Lowell might have been a shitty father, but maybe he could have been better. Maybe everything could be better.
Tig continues to taunt him, relishing in Lowell's pain, stoking it like a fire. His blue eyes are the colour of a bottle of anti-freeze, just as cold as the winter it's supposed to fend off. Tig's hauling him in by the arms, marked up with punctures and bruises, intent on beating a tar of a whole different kind out of him. They're together now in the ring.
"Get up!" he barks. "Defend yourself. Fight for your son, act like you've got something to live for."
Moby. His baby boy. Tears stream down Lowell's cheeks; the salty wet intermingles with the blood and turns it into a lighter shade of pink against the white cotton of his shirt. The finality of his father death fuels him – they found his bones today, buried out by the highway. Old bones buried with Mayans. Hale broke the news to him and then the inevitable questions came. That woman, Agent Stahl, was there too. The conversation kept circling back around to Clay, back to the club, back to old things that Lowell forgot or never knew about. He was only eleven when his father disappeared. Everyone always told him Lowell Senior skipped town because he didn't want to pay child support.
But it's not the truth, is it? He knows who killed his father even if there's no proof. And now armed with that knowledge, he's going to die here today, high and alone, at Tig's hands.
Moby doesn't deserve that.
He's still so high that he doesn't notice the faces in the small crowd that watch the pair in the ring, or think about the significance of who chooses to watch this pitiful fight (if you could even call it that). Chibs' father was a drunk who beat his mother and walked out when he was seven. Juice's daddy knocked up his mama and disappeared the second she told him. Kozik was the result of a transaction with one of hundreds of johns that his mother serviced. Sons who were never sons in their father's eyes.
Tig's fists are unrelenting, mashing blood and bone together into a sickening paste.
"Your old man was a fuckin' rat," Tig says. Lowell begins to cry, it's a lie, it has to be. "He was weak, just like you. But hey, aren't we all destined to become our fathers eventually?" The beating becomes more wild, uncontrolled. Lowell's face lost all sensation about fifty seconds ago.
Chibs starts yelling, and at first Lowell thinks he's cheering on Tig, but instead the Scotsman is yanking Tig off his body. It takes both Kozik and Chibs to pin him down. Through the thudding of his own blood, Lowell hears a wet sound. It's almost as if someone is crying.
Lowell's eyes are practically swollen shut already – it doesn't take much effort to close them the rest of the way and succumb. He passes out.
…
Gentle hands are pressing a cold compress on his face, it feels so nice. Lowell wants to hold the hands and tell them thank you, because all the teeth in his mouth feel broken and he can't say it out loud.
"How ya feelin'?" It's Juice. Lowell mumbles in reply and bit of blood bubbles and foams away at his lips. He likes Juice and he's glad he's here rather than Chibs or Kozik. Or Tig, especially. Lowell's a bit older than Juice and he remembers when the guy showed up here, practically still a scared little kid. Gemma put him to work in the garage and Lowell showed him the ropes. Maybe they could have become friends eventually. But after a year, Juice began prospecting and got sucked into the club.
Chibs enters the room and tells Juice that Bobby's looking for him. Juice pats Lowell's shoulder. The door closes.
"I'm sorry," he says. Lowell isn't sure why Chibs is apologizing – if he was sorry he wouldn't have pulled him out of nothing-is-wrong-bliss and thrown him into the ring with a blue-eyed animal. "It wasn't supposed t'happen that way. Clay just wanted to remind you not to say anything."
Lowell's still confused, but things are a little clearer. He got a firsthand taste of the wrath of the Sergeant – it was what happened when the President released his hound to do his work.
"Tiggy's got some scars that ain't as obvious as mine. Your da was a deadbeat, no one's arguing against that. But that man's been through some horrors that Senior never would've put you through. It wasn't you he was trying to hurt, not really."
Lowell tries to spit and show Chibs exactly what he thinks of that. His bloody mouth just puckers and dribbles as he gargles his own breath. Chibs picks up the cold cloth that Juice left behind and wipes at the tears on Lowell's face. He hadn't even noticed he was weeping. Then, suddenly, it all begins to flow. Lowell doesn't want to die. He just wants to hold his little boy in all the ways no one ever held him, wants to tell Moby he'll never leave him and that he's going to be better. Everything can be better now.
Chibs calmly continues to stroke his cheek with soft, cold cotton.
...
Outside the clubhouse, sitting on the steps beside the shop, Tig sits and puffs at a cigarette. Clay joins him and wraps an arm around his shoulder, a familiar gesture. Life feels too heavy right now. He leans against Clay, unable to hold the weight of it all.
The marks of leather belts and two-by-fours and fists and liquor bottles and electric fence and fists and fists and fists. Nothing will ever be better. Just forgotten.
"You okay, brother?" asks Clay.
"Perfect."