AN: Based on the time in between episodes 12 and 13 of season 6. Just testing out my OC for a larger story. Reviews are love!

Alex Marshall belongs to me. The rest belong and are being abused by Kurt Sutter. Shame on you, sir, for what you put my babies through this season.

Though I still felt uncomfortable walking into Diosos, I sat on one of the couches and folded my hands modestly on my lap. I had promised Lyla we would meet for lunch, so I put on a smile as the other girls strutted in their high heels and short dresses, attracting the attention of men of all ages as they sipped their complimentary drinks. I was tempted to shake my head in pity at these young women who sold themselves for sexual favours, but at least I could take comfort in the fact that Nero took care of his girls and treated them right. Still, every one of these girls had such high confidence that I sighed and wished I could be more like them. The guys from the club always noticed Diosos' girls…especially Juice. I swallowed my pride whenever I watched him come back from 'being' with one of the girls, with a stupid smirk on his face that made me want to slap him, but I simply ignored the growing jealousy I felt and feigned indifference; he wouldn't be worth it if he didn't like me for who I am.

Just as I turned down a beer offer from a voluptuous Mexican girl, Lyla came through the hall and made a bee-line straight for the counter. I approached her as soon as I saw the statuesque blonde down a shot of liquor.

"Whoa. What was that for?"

Lyla whipped around and stared at me as if I was a stranger and then remembered. "Shit. I forgot we had lunch today." She looked over her shoulder to the rooms and rubbed her arm absently. "Can we rain check?"

"Sure, but why? What's wrong?"

Lyla opened her mouth to answer but Gemma appeared, looking frazzled. "Nero's keeping an eye on him, but he's okay," she said as she fiddled in her purse for her keys. She nodded to me, while I stood confused between the two women. "I gotta get to the cabin. Tara needs my help."

"Who's okay? What's going on?" I demanded.

"Juice is in room ten. He overdosed on some oxy, but Gemma and Nero managed to stabilize him," Lyla said as she pressed her fingers against her temple.

"Why don't you keep an eye on Juice, darlin'?" Gemma winked at me, and I blushed. I can't hide anything from this woman. "I know you'll take care of him."

Lyla pushed me in the direction of the room and turned back to take care of the customers. I hesitated before opening the door, the stench of vomit reaching my nostrils almost making me gag. When I went inside, I found Nero helping a barely conscious Juice onto the bed.

"Oh my god!" I dropped my bag on the floor and rushed to kneel in front of Juice as he buried his face deeper into the pillows.

"Don't worry, chica. He's gonna be fine." Nero rubbed his eyes in agitation, I noticed, and stood up slowly from the bed. "Take him back to his place so he can sleep this off. I got shit I gotta do." He gave me a quick but affectionate hug before walking to the door. "Thanks."

When he left, I took his place on the bed and gingerly laid my palm against Juice's arm.

"What did you do to yourself, Juice?" I asked softly. He moaned in response and tried turning over, but I stopped him by moving my hand on his shoulder. "Take it easy, there. Where do you think you're going?"

He moaned again and I was shocked to see tears running down his face. "I wanna go home," he croaked. I sighed and helped him to sit up.

"Here," I said as I grabbed his sweater from the end of the bed. I held it out to him awkwardly, trying not to focus too much on the tattoos that enhanced his muscular body. "Do you think...can you manage?"

Juice pulled one arm through one sleeve, but I had to reach around and help him with the other one. I also had to zip up the sweater for him; I held my breath nervously as I crouched before him, sliding the zipper to the top and hoping that he wouldn't comment on how flushed my face had suddenly gotten. After his shoes and kutte were on, I led him to my rusty station wagon and put his seatbelt around him. We were barely out of the parking lot when he spoke again.

"I took too many," he said in a deadpan voice. "I almost died; I wanted to."

"What?" I nearly swerved the car in shock but managed to focus again on the road. "Juice, why would you say something like that? Who put that asinine idea in your head?"

"The guilt is too much. I wanted to go...I panicked. Gemma and Nero saved my life. I should never have killed her."

"Killed who? Juice, you're not making any sense!"

He leaned against the window and closed his eyes. "It doesn't matter now..."

"Juice," I started, but I stopped when I saw he was sleeping. He remained asleep until we got to his apartment, where I had to get him to lean on me just so I could get him to the door. After some embarrassing searching through various pockets, I found his keys and unlocked the door.

He walked inside and began shedding his clothes, leaving a trail of items to the bathroom where he now stood in just his pants. He turned on the faucet and I watched as he stared at his reflection in the mirror for a long time before splashing water on his face.

"Do you need anything else, Juice?" I asked as I looked around. It was a typical apartment for a single person; a small kitchen with faded green countertops, a ratty brown couch in the reasonably large living room that faced a TV that looked like it was from 1998. The bedroom was to the left of the bathroom, but the door was closed so I wasn't able to see what was inside. It was simply furnished and perfect for someone who was barely at home.

I was broken out of my reverie by the sound of Juice coughing.

"I'm fine, I guess." He tottered out of the door and stood dazed in the middle of the living room. The tears welled up in his eyes again when his gaze finally met mine. "Will you stay?"

I barely had time to recover from the shock of his question. "Stay?"

Juice nodded. "I don't want to be by myself. I need a friend tonight, Alex. A real friend. Please?" He then abruptly opened the door to his bedroom and fell onto the messy bed. He pointed to a small closet on the opposite wall. "You can grab some clothes if you want. I just need to sleep..." He was out before he finished his sentence. Seeing that I basically had no choice but to stay, I sighed and pulled the sheets over his body. I opened his closet to find numerous t-shirts, dark coloured sweaters and dark grey pants, dark jeans, dark everything. Nothing seemed remotely comfortable to me until I found a pair of light grey sweatpants and an oversized red t-shirt I had never seen him wear. After getting dressed in the bathroom and folding my clothes neatly, I wandered over to the couch and curled up with one of the blankets I took from his bed. With my eyes on his bedroom door, I heard the light, even snores coming from Juice and I let myself surrender to sleep.

At about 4 AM, I got up to go to the bathroom. I had almost forgotten where I was when I woke up, but remembered why I had slept over at Juice's apartment. Speaking of, I thought as I washed my hands, I haven't heard him snoring in a while. I tiptoed into his room and gently leaned over the bed to see if he was alright. As I straightened when I was reassured he was fine, his eyes flew open and he grabbed my wrist in a panic.

"Who's that?" He demanded. Still reeling from the fear of the savage look in his eyes, I tried to tug my arm free.

"Juice, let go! It's me!" I heard him sigh after a moment's hesitation and he dropped my arm. "Ow! Jesus Christ, who did you think it was?"

He rubbed his eyes sleepily. "I thought someone broke in. I didn't think you had actually stayed with me."

I clicked my tongue as I rubbed my sore wrist. "Of course I stayed, you moron. You almost died today, remember? I couldn't just leave you by yourself!"

"You sound like my mom," Juice said with a smile.

"Oh, thanks. Way to make things weird, now." I was about to get up and go back to the couch when Juice started laughing. In fact, he was soon doubled over with laughter and was clutching at his sides and had tears streaming down his face. I almost started laughing too, until I saw his tears of laughter turning into actual, heart-wrenching sobs.

"Oh no. No, Juice. Don't cry, please!" I spoke in my most comforting voice, but it made him cry even harder. I gathered him into my arms and held him to me while I rubbed his back in comfort.

"I don't know why I screw everything up. If he ever finds out—" He stopped himself from talking, and took a deep, shaky breath. "I'm sorry."

I sensed that Juice felt he done something terrible and felt guilty about it, but to feel so guilty that you would try and take your own life? I didn't want to pry into his personal business, but I had a feeling that it had something to do with the club, specifically, Jax. The annoyance that I already felt for him suddenly doubled and I wanted to rant and rave about him to assure Juice that I would never blame him for something that Jax made him do. But instead, I willed myself to focus on calming him down.

When he finally looked up at me, his eyes were red-rimmed from crying and he wiped his tears away with the back of his hand. He exhaled in a loud huff and glanced out at the living room before clearing his throat.

"You know, you can sleep in here if you want. I know the couch is pretty shitty, so I can move over and we can share the bed."

"Ah..." I straightened and stared at Juice, dumbfounded. Was it my imagination or was he actually asking me to sleep in the same bed as him? "I dunno-"

"I'll feel better knowing that you're beside me; that way I know I'm really not alone." He pulled down the covers for me and attempted a small smile. "And I won't try anything, I promise."

I almost told him that I wished he would try something, but I managed to stop my mouth from opening as he moved to one side and lay down, covering himself with the sheets. When I didn't make any further moves, Juice chuckled softly. "I didn't know you slept sitting up," he said, peering over his shoulder.

Breaking out of my reverie, I grinned at him and stretched down on the bed, feeling the tension lessening, but only by a little bit. When I set my head down on the pillow, exhaustion overcame me and my bones suddenly felt very heavy. I had just closed my eyes and felt sleep coming up fast when I heard Juice's voice from beside me, but it sounded so far away.

"Thank you..."

I wasn't sure what time it was when I woke up, but the sun was shining brightly through the dark curtains, so I figured it must be sometime in the early morning. I sucked in a deep, shocked breath when I realized that sometime during the night, Juice and I must've gotten tangled up. I usually just stuck to my side when I shared a bed with someone, but I felt my legs entwined with Juice's and my hand laid casually across his bare torso. I could feel my face grow red as I moved my hand away, feeling the taut lines of muscle on his abdomen, but I froze as he shifted and turned onto his side, facing me, with our legs still tangled together.

Shit.

His skin felt so warm underneath my hands that I almost lost my concentration as I slowly tried to detangle my legs again, holding my breath in case my breathing woke him up. Luckily for me, he seemed to be in such a deep sleep, he didn't even hear the pounding on the door. I wouldn't have gotten up; I would have been happy just to lie beside him and listen to him breathe. But what if someone was looking for Juice and they panicked and kicked the door down and saw us together in bed? I freaked out at the thought and forcefully extracted myself from my position and sprinted to the entrance before throwing the door open to find a very flabbergasted...

"Lyla?"

"Wha—where's Juice?"

"He's still asleep. What are you doing here?" Lyla stepped over the threshold and looked around the room. When she finally turned back to me, her knowing smile made my stomach clench.

"I came by to see how Juice is doing. I was gonna pass by your place afterwards to see if you wanted to grab a coffee or something, but I can see that you might not have time."

I shook my head violently and waved my hands a gesture of innocence. "No. Whatever you think happened, as much as you wish it did, didn't happen."

"Uh huh," Lyla smirked and ran her eyes over my body. "Then why are you wearing his clothes?"

"I…slept over."

Lyla walked over to the couch and sat down on top of the blanket that I had been using. "Where did you sleep, Alex?"

Her smile unnerved me. "I've been up for a while."

"Liar. You slept with Juice, didn't you? The couch isn't warm, so there's no way you just got up from here." She laughed at me, probably because I looked like a caught thief and fiddled around in her purse. "Have you looked in the mirror yet? You look like you've had a very busy night."

She produced a compact mirror and pointed it towards me. My mouth hung open as I saw my reflection; my hair was a mess and my makeup was smudged.

"Holy shit. I gotta clean myself up before he sees me like this!" I ran to the bathroom and grabbed a towel to soak in cold water. When I returned to Lyla, she was smiling. "Can you wipe that smug look off of your face?" I snapped while scrubbing my face frantically. "Nothing happened, okay? We just...slept. He didn't want to be alone and he asked me to share the bed with him because the couch is uncomfortable."

She just laughed. "Whatever you say. But please don't deny that you like him; it's getting obvious to everyone now."

"What do you mean? Who's 'everyone'?"

"Well, other than me," Lyla remarked as she sat back and began counting on her right hand. "Gemma, Chibs, Happy, Nero, Jax, Tig, Ratboy—"

"Are you fucking kidding me?" I threw the towel across the room. "Why would they think that?"

"You make googly-eyes at him all day! Every time I pass by the office I see you staring at him while he's covered in motor-oil and grease!"

I raised my hands to shush her as I heard movement from Juice's bedroom. When it was quiet again, I lowered my voice so I wouldn't risk waking him up. "Can we please talk about this later? I don't want him to wake up. He needs to rest." Lyla's eyebrows shot up at my protective tone. "He almost died yesterday. Gimme a break!"

"Okay, okay." She stood and swung her purse over her shoulder. "Still want that coffee? I can bring some by for you guys."

"Thanks but no thanks. I'm going to be leaving soon anyway." I walked her to the door until she turned around and faced me again.

"Would it really be so bad if you admit that you like Juice? He's a great guy; not exactly the brightest but he's loyal and caring, even though he puts on a tough act. He reminds me of Opie that way." She hesitated before speaking again and I understood why. Opie was a wound that was still too fresh for her. She took my hand in hers and gave me a wobbly smile. "Just think about it, okay? Ending up with Juice would not be the worst thing that can happen."

I leaned against the door when she left and put my head in my hands. Her words echoed in my mind as I squeezed by eyes shut, trying to block out any intimate thought I've ever had about me and Juice being together because it would be the worst thing that could happen.

For the both of us.

Juice pretended to still be asleep when Alex came back into the room. He felt the bed shift as she sat next to him, and he opened his eyes.

"Hey," he tried to make his voice sound groggy.

"How are you feeling?" she asked, her face marred with concern. He sat up and rubbed his face with both of his hands.

"Better."

She gave him a small smirk. "You look better. I think you're gonna be fine."

"Thanks," Juice said. He placed his hand over hers and saw her eyes immediately dart to them. Then, she started to fidget.

"Uh, no problem. I'm glad I could help." She shot up from the bed and took quick steps towards the door. "I'm gonna-I've gotta get dressed."

When she closed the door behind her, Juice exhaled heavily. He had heard her entire conversation with Lyla, and was even awake for a while when she was trying to untangle herself from him. His mouth had turned up at the corners when she denied having a thing for him. Until he heard Lyla point it out, he never realized that Alex liking him was even a possibility. He was attracted to her, sure; she had the warm, girl-next-door type looks and she had a mind that could match wits with any guy in the club. He would have asked her out a long time ago, but whatever her life was before she came to Charming had given her a tough-as-nails exterior that made it hard to approach her. She was a little intimidating, acting like one of the guys sometimes, but then there were moments when he caught a glimpse of the femininity she kept hidden, like when she and Lyla went on a double date and Alex was convinced to wear a white dress with pink roses printed on it. He would never tell her, but he saw her twirling around in it while she thought no one was looking.

She returned to the room in the same outfit she was wearing the day before. At least from what he remembered. She stood in the doorway, and Juice took the opportunity to see if what Lyla said was true. He got out of the bed and raised his arms to the ceiling in a long stretch, and saw Alex practically drinking him in before he turned back to her. So, he thought with a grin.

"I'm gonna head out, Juice. Are you feeling okay to be alone?" She placed his folded clothes on the bed and he caught her hand before she backed away.

"I feel great." He pulled her into a hug, one she hesitantly returned. "Thanks for taking care of me."

"Anytime, Juice. Only try not to let it happen again too soon," she teased, laughing. He placed his hand at the small of her back to push her closer to him. He shivered with pleasure when he felt rather than heard her sigh against his ear. Then she suddenly pulled away from him, as if she caught herself doing something she shouldn't have.

"Well, I've gotta go." He heard a tinge of disappointment in her voice. He followed her, still naked from the waist up, hoping she would at least give him a second glance. But her spine was rigid as she opened the front door.

"Thanks again," he called after her as she cantered down the hall. She waved at him without as much as a look behind her...

...To be continued?