Disclaimer: Any recognizable characters do not belong to me, nor does Sons of Anarchy. The title is taken from the song "Strange Fruit".
This is a spin off from one of my drabbles in my other story, "The Ties That Bind, encouraged to be written by xLila Rose. It's going to be multi-chaptered, but a fairly short one, nearing about five or six chapters.
This first chapter is directly from chapter six of The Ties That Bind, so for those of you that have been keeping up with that, then you've probably already read this. If you haven't read it yet, think of this as a prologue of sorts.
He didn't tell him anything.
At least Juice could feel proud about that. Though it meant nothing. The damage had been done, but as it stood; he didn't say anything else.
He told Roosevelt he wouldn't be giving him the brick, he wouldn't be giving him anything.
"Just do what the fuck you want," Juice had said tiredly after being pulled in to his office once again. "I don't care. Throw me in jail. Mark me as a rat. Tell the club. I don't care. I'm done."
The other man had leaned forward, intense and incredulous. "You go to jail and you'll be dead or worse in the first hour after being marked as a rat. The Sons will kill you."
"I don't care," Juice had said with emphasis, finally lifting his eyes to stare at Roosevelt. "Do what the fuck you want."
"What are you doing, Juice?" the man had asked quietly, changing tactics smoothly.
Juice was too tired to play games. He closed his eyes. "They're my family." He opened his eyes again, exhausted and guilt ridden. Done. "They're my family. Not some ghosts you decided to pull up from my past. Those people don't matter. The Sons of Anarchy are everything to me. I won't do it. They don't deserve it. I won't let you use me." He looked away, not even curious to see Roosevelt's expression.
"And what do you think? You tell them you didn't rat anymore, and they'll accept you back, patch and all without any consequences?"
Juice gave a wry smile. "No," he had said softly, not really looking at anything. "I know they won't. They're my family. I know them. So, no. No. They won't."
"And you're okay with that." It wasn't a question.
Juice had stood then, smiling down at the other man sitting on the desk. "Either way I betrayed them. I'm going to die either way. At least now I won't be bringing them down for my own sake."
With that, he had walked out with the intent of never being in that station again.
Now, Juice was making his way through the woods in the darkness, dragging the heavy chains behind him. If he were a philosophical kind of guy, he'd wax poetic about how the chains were just the physical being of the metaphorical chains that had been wrapped around him since returning to Charming.
But he wasn't particularly philosophical, so he hauled the heavy chains through the dirt with guilt clawing at his throat, leaving a greasy trail behind in his rolling stomach.
He arrived at the tree he had spent so much time around lately, sitting up on the branches for hours, thinking instead of sleeping, feeling heavier than the chains Juice now held in his hands.
He held the end of one of the chains in his hand, climbing on the first branch and pulling the rest with him. Juice paused, looking consideringly at the branch he usually sat on. Frowning, he reached a hand up to shake the branch, and saw the bark at the trunk start to crack as the branch swayed. Juice climbed higher to the thicker, sturdier branch, bypassing his usual branch for this.
He didn't want the branch to break, after all.
The other branch was thicker, and held Juice and the links of chains comfortably. Juice looped an end of the chains around the branch, pulling it tightly.
He sat there for a while. Thinking. He thought of his brothers. Not second guessing, no, but of what he had done to them after all they had done for him. He thought of Miles. When did he not think of Miles? No amount of Contrition prayers would forgive Juice. He thought of Jax, of Clay and the man of mayhem patch he didn't deserve. Bobby. Opie. Piney. Tig. Happy. Chibs.
Chibs. Chibs was on the forefront of his mind as much as Miles. Juice pushed it away like the traitorous coward he was. He shook his head, a sneer on his lips, twisting them as the removed his kutte, laying it on the branch next to him. He laid his hand on the reaper and shut his eyes, shaking his head, overwhelmed and sorry. He was always so fucking sorry.
"I'm sorry," Juice whispered. For the club, for Miles. He shoved it aside, and cleared his expression, even as the bile and disgust for himself rolled in his stomach and climbed his throat.
He lifted the other end of the chains, wrapping them around his throat. The icy metal dug into his skin painfully, and Juice sighed in relief, by some twisted happenings, knowing he was getting everything he deserved, and not at all.
He checked to see if the chains were secured. They were. He didn't want anything going wrong.
He contemplated actually jumping from the branch, but he didn't know what that would do to the wood, if it would hold. Besides, Juice thought, twisting his lips, that was an easy way out. Jump, and one broken neck and you're gone forever just like that. In Juice's eyes, he deserved to suffer.
So he slid forward on the branch easily, and off. He was falling, and then jerking suddenly, pulled back by the hard chains crushing his wind pipe. His body reacted of course, on pure instinct, struggling for air, his hands clawing at the chains and nails digging in his skin. He fought to breathe with everything he had, even as every fiber told himself he had to die.
He struggled for how long he didn't know, until his vision blurred at the edges, and the suffocating burning in his chest eased somewhat. He arms fell uselessly by his sides, and his last thought was of his family.
*.*
"Maybe I should go see where the lad is," Chibs said for the millionth time, standing from the bar stool, only to be pushed down once again by Tig and Bobby.
"Leave him alone, Chibs," Bobby said, taking a pull of his beer, hunched over the bar with his hand still on Chibs' shoulder.
"I'm tellin' ya, something don't feel right here. He shouldn't be alone." Chibs argued, pushing against their arms.
"You don't even know where he is," Tig replied easily.
Chibs ran his hands through his dark hair in frustration. "That is why," he said through his teeth, "I said I should go look for him."
Bobby shook his head at Tig, as if giving Chibs up for a lost cause. Tig heaved a sigh and with finality, handcuffed Chibs to the bar.
"What the bloody fuck do yeh think ye're doin'?" Chibs asked indignantly, his brogue thickening as he struggled against the restraints.
Bobby slid a beer towards the Scotsman. "Trying to make you relax."
"For once, stop thinking about your boy. He's probably fine. Get drunk," Tig said, leaning against the bar without remorse. "Find a pussy. Or a mouth. Or whatever orifice you prefer. But ease back already. He can take care of himself."
Chibs' shoulders hunched, pushing his beer away. "Somethin' just don' feel right."
Tig gestured over a woman who wore little and showed much, shoving her towards Chibs. "Make him forget how to think, will you?"
"Christ," Chibs turned away in disgust, glaring at Tig even as he said through gritted teeth. "Not interested. Find someone else."
The woman shrugged, flouncing off to go sit on Happy's lap. Tig looked closely at Chibs. "you're that worried?"
"Finally, the fucker gets it," Chibs exclaimed. "Now will you get these bastardly cuffs off of me?"
"No," Tig said, shaking his head. He continued on, ignoring Chibs' yell. "No. You don't have to get drunk, you don't have to fuck someone, but you aren't going to go out god knows where looking for him. The guy probably wants to be alone, otherwise he would be here. Leave it until morning. Then you can search the entirety of fucking Charming."
Tig walked off before Chibs could reply, and he laid his head on the bar. "I don't like this." He said to Bobby.
Bobby gave him a considering look. He leaned forward, murmuring. "Tell you what," he said. "You go take two hours down, sleep if you want, clear your head, and if you're still that worried, I'll go with you to find him."
Chibs turned his head, eyes narrowed. "This isn't some underhanded trick to get me to leave Juice alone, is it?"
Bobby shook his head. "The guy's been off lately. No one else has noticed, I don't think, but he may just need to be alone to deal with what he needs to deal with. I'll keep my word. Two hours down, and we'll go look for him."
"An hour."
Bobby raised an eyebrow. "And hour and a half, otherwise I'm not taking those cuffs off."
Chibs huffed out a breath. "Fine." Bobby leaned over, pulling an extra key from his pocket and taking the restraints off of him. Chibs sighed, standing and rubbing his wrists. "I'm going to sleep, and I'm setting an alarm. Even if you don't keep your word, I'm going."
Bobby nodded, "Fair enough." He watched the other man walk off; waving away a girl and a beer as he started down the hallway. Bobby shook his head, and took another pull of his drink. "Juice, you had better be okay," he whispered, feeling uncertainty coil in his stomach.
In the woods, a shadowed figure swung slowly, rotating and swaying, hanging from chains and a branch that never broke.
This story will be AU. Completely different after Fruit for the Crows.
But otherwise; reviews are much appreciated and loved. If you care to leave one, it would probably make my day completely.