***Update from your humble author: Thank-you so much for reading this story! As of yet, I am still without a beta, so I apologize for any errors; grammatical or other-wise!
If you're interested in being a beta for this story, I'd be ever-so-grateful. So. So. Grateful.
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Thanks so much!
Sphered Rhyme
Chris was finally home for the evening. She'd set herself up on the couch, and was ready to pass out in front of the TV with her dogs. She set her drink down on the aged coffee table in front of her. The neglected stain of the old trunk really buried the beautiful wood underneath. When her grandparents had brought it home, Chris and her brothers made it their home base. It was their fort, their safe zone in games, they used blankets and pillows and brooms to make it their great castle, just like the ones their grandparents told them stories about from Scotland. They would curl up in their castle and eat delicious treats made by their grandma while their granda told them stories of faeries, great tricksters, and mighty heroes.
The hinge had long ago been broken by too many frenzied games of hide and seek, the top wrenched open none too uncarefully by her and her brothers. It was one of the few possessions from her childhood that Chris had managed to keep with her through the years.
She looked forward to propping her feet up on the old table, and zoning out to TV with the dogs. With her work at St. Thomas, she was rarely home at a decent hour, and this week had been especially trying. This was the first day she had been home before 11.
She didn't mind though. She preferred being at work. At work she was always busy, always going. She didn't have time to think about anything but work. Most of the time she was at home she spent buried in books or with her dogs. She rarely had time to just sit in front of the TV. She owned a large TV, with one of the newer game systems and games, but it was mostly so that the boys could watch it when they were crashing at her place.
Tonight though, she just wanted to pass out to the mindlessly droning television, letting her mind slip into unconsciousness.
But apparently, that just wasn't going to happen.
The dogs began whining shortly before Bobby and Tig burst through the door struggling to keep another man in tow with them. She'd never seen the two of them have this much trouble with anyone before.
"Fuck guys! What the hell?" Chris blurted out, shooting up from her place in front of the TV.
If they heard her, they didn't show it.
The man she didn't recognize threw a wild haymaker at Tig, and she cringed at the strength of the connection. Tig stumbled backwards into the wall. Bobby rushed forward between them, using himself as a barrier.
"For Christ's sake Tig! Just fucking get control of him would you?!" Bobby snapped at Tig, letting out a huff at the exertion.
The bruises and cuts on Tig's face were enough to let Chris know that he'd been the one wrestling with the man for most of the evening.
"Fucking easy for you to say!" Tig was doubled over on the ground, the punch having obviously thrown him off-guard. The other man was relentless. Bobby was using his entire body's momentum to push him into the opposite wall, barely able to restrain him, even given his large size advantage. "I've been wrestling with this cunt for hours! Why don't we just see how you'd do?!" Tig popped his jaw coming up to one knee, taking his sweet time while Bobby wrestled with the younger man.
"Just fucking control him, would you?!" Bobby barked back, quickly losing his patience, as well as his footing on the tile of the entry way.
"Alright, alright. Shit. You owe me old man." Tig steadied himself on two feet, and shook off any hesitation he had as he threw himself past Bobby and back into wrangling the other man.
Chris remained next to the couch, content to watch the men squabble after the initial shock of the interruption had worn off. She yielded to the inevitable fact that she'd be cleaning up this mess later. She was used to this, but the club's initial bust-ins into her house never became any less startling.
She folded her arms across her chest as Bobby straightened himself out. She couldn't help a slight chuckle when Tig tripped on the lip of carpeting dividing her entry way from the living room.
"Amused are you?" Tig growled through his teeth, red-faced and winded from the fall, trying to keep the upper hand while standing the two of them up, tying to herd the man towards the living room. She cocked an eyebrow at him, "A bit." She chuckled, turning to Bobby. "To whom do I owe the surprise visit?" She nodded towards the men scuffling towards her living room.
Bobby shook his head, letting out a tired huff, rubbing his jaw. "Ah, that's the new guy from Belfast. He came over to us after — well, he's ours now." The hitch in his usually even baritone elaborated that this was nothing she need press on right now.
She worked to suppress an annoyed grunt as she turned her attention to pulling loose threads from her sofa. "And he's here because…?" She replied, raising an eyebrow, still looking down at her sofa. She looked up just as she heard the scuffling feet of the men coming her way, and managed to step out of the way. She recrossed her arms to look back at Bobby, who hadn't missed a beat.
"Because he needs someone who can take care of him." Bobby replied.
She reached down to pick up a picture that the two had knocked off the back table of her couch, placing it back on the table as they scuffled off. "And he can't stay at the club because…?" She craned her neck forward, as if actually looking for an answer.
"Look," Bobby exhaled, running his hands through his hair, gaze shifting to the floor, "he needs more than any of us can give him. You're the only option we've got." He took a step in her direction, trying to get her to give into his charm.
Chris rolled her eyes, not at all moved by his statement. She knew that he knew exactly what he was doing, but she wasn't about to give him the satisfaction of giving in to it so easily. Tonight, she was not in the mood. "And what? I have sooo much more time than any of you? Why can't you take him to the hospital? I can't—"
"He doesn't have any insurance. We got your shifts at St. Thomas covered. The kids will be fine without you for a few days..." Bobby started really trying to win her over. He knew that her practice was important for her, and they would only get her shifts covered when they really needed her.
Chris mulled it over in her head, thinking a few days off to take care of one of the Sons may not be so bad. Even if he did seem to be a rather, well, cranky guy. If nothing else, he would keep her distracted. Still, she didn't want the club to just think they could just come running to her every time someone needed a patch up. She did have a life outside of them. Granted, that only consisted of her work and her horses….but—
"Your horses are fine too. Got someone highly recommended from Oswald to take care of 'em for a few days while we sort this out." He said, casting a self-satisfied smirk in her direction.
She shook her head, wracking her brain for any excuse they couldn't have possibly thought of yet. She shifted her weight to look at the man that they wanted to be her burden, Tig having finally wrestled him onto the couch, half throwing him there.
Tig took several haggard breaths before taking one large, deep breath and smoothing out his hair; the thatch of wild dark curls looking, if possible, even more disheveled than usual. She had a brief moment of humor seeing his wild blue eyes glinting with even more than their usual mania.
She walked around to in front of her coffee table/trunk, laughing as Tig flinched when she approached him. "Easy Tiger, he's down."
But when her gaze met the mangled body strewn over the side of her couch, her arms fell from their position across her chest, and she fought to keep from reaching out to him.
She was used to the state of the guys that came through her house, but she'd never seen anything that looked so—personal. The jeans and black t-shirt that he wore covered most of his body, but from what she could see of his arms, what was hidden didn't fare much better than what she could see. She could make almost nothing of the face beneath the deep gashes and bruises.
The man she was looking at was different than the angry, wild frenzy of limbs that she watching fighting with Tig just moments earlier. There was emptiness about his eyes, as if something vitally essential to him had been ripped from him, leaving nothing but a bleeding heap staring blankly on her couch.
Unable to wrench her eyes from the beaten man, she asked Bobby, "What—what happened to him?" She stammered, fighting a sudden overwhelming feeling of nausea and fatigue. She stared at the man with a sick fascination. All of the skin that she could see was painted in thick purple and crimson, broken only by angry deep gashes.
The dogs seemed curious about him, though warily keeping their distance, circling around him and the couch. But he seemed to pay the animals no mind, like they weren't even there.
"That—"he took a hesitant breath, "that's not for me to tell you Chrissy." Bobby spoke, a solemn tone coating his words. Chris fidgeted at his statement, running her fingers through her hair nervously, her pulse a heavy presence in the base of her throat.
He laid a heavy hand on her shoulder, giving it a reassuring squeeze.
She slowly turned to face him; fervently hoping what she'd seen was an overreaction, a fiction of her sudden adrenaline-fueled imagination. "He needs you, Chrissy. He needs whatever it is you do." The insinuation of his words reverberated in her mind, not at all helping her will to turn the man away.
"Bobby…" She turned back to look at the mystery man, wondering how she could possibly help him. The wounds on his face were freshly reopened from the scuffle with Tig; thick blood was dripping down his cheeks, oozing out from two main gouges on either side of his mouth. The gashes reminded her of something her granda had told her about.
The mystery guest was nearly as red as the blood seeping down his face. Beads of heavy perspiration standing out on his flushed skin, highlighting just how swollen the skin was. She sighed, a headache forming at the base of her neck, creeping up to her scalp, and beginning a tight squeeze on her temples.
"I just don't know…"
Bobby spoke, his hand cupping her chin, turning her away from the sight before her to meet his uncompromising gaze, "Please, Chrissy, he needs you." Bobby knew she couldn't turn anything on its last chance away. She had a way of finding people that others had given up on. The therapy work she did with her horses had convinced him that she could help anyone. The way the kids come to life when they get around her and those horses, almost made him forget about the rest of his fucked-up world when he saw it. He'd told her as much soon after she'd first come to Charming.
They had her pinned. She couldn't turn him away. He obviously needed medical attention, and Bobby and Tig were right, she was the only one who could help him here; though she wasn't buying the 'no insurance' act; there was some reason they didn't want him in a hospital.
She cast a glance in the man's direction, hanging her head and sighing heavily, "I'll do it." Her eyes squinted and she brought a hand up to her forehead, running it through her hair, "I'm going to need a few things for him though, and I don't have anything in the fridge. And I might need someone to watch him while I go on a supply run; I haven't looked at my first aid cabinet lately."
The tension fell from Bobby's face, and he engulfed her in a bear hug. "Thanks Chrissy, we owe you one."
"Yeah yeah," she pushed him off, unable to help the smile creeping onto her face, as he managed to give her a kiss on the cheek. "Love you girl."
"Yeah, well, we'll see how I feel about you in a few days." She replied, rolling her eyes, through glad for Bobby's effortless ability to lift her mood.
She felt a slap on her shoulder, as she was whirled around into Tig's embrace. "Good luck Chrissy-Boo. You're gunna need it."
The sound of his hated nickname for her made her grimace, and she struggled to get out of his tight embrace as he planted a kiss on her forehead.
She wrestled her way out of his hug, sidestepping a ways away from him until she was nearly at her door. "I hate you guys." She didn't miss the look of trollish satisfaction of Tig's smug face. She wrinkled up her nose and stuck her tongue out at him as he and Bobby both scrambled out the door before she had a chance to change her mind.
"Love you!" They both hollered from her front yard as they ran to their bikes.
She sighed and let out a shaky laugh as she leaned against the door frame, closing the red door behind her. She smoothed her hair while she waited to hear the rumble of their bikes starting up. She stepped to the left of the door, peering through her curtains, watching their headlights pull out of her driveway, and the van follow behind them.
She closed her curtains and locked her door as the bikes rumbling faded away. She glanced down at her youngest dog, a black German Shepherd, standing at her side and cocking his head at her, shifting his weight back and forth, obviously still unsettled by the guy's interruption.
She shook her head, sighing as she patted him on the head, "Yeah Harley, I don't like when they do that either." Her other shepherd, Khunny, was still in the living room, and she could just see his tail poking out from the side of the couch where the man was still seated.
She braced herself as she turned to go to the man.
Well, this should be fun.
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