aravenamongcrows on Tumblr (ask and submissions are open!)

General trigger warnings for this story: Language, smut, mentions of rape, abuse, drug use/overdose, violence/death.

CHAPTER 36: OLD SKULLS

Tig smirked as he walked behind Sydney while she led him out of the clubhouse, his eyes glued to her ass where his dark red handprint peeked out from the bottom of the skimpy shorts that she wore. She led him onto the compound where they were met by Half-Sack boxing in the ring while Chibs coached him, watching the lunchtime entertainment in amusement before Tig led them to the nearby picnic table that Bobby was at, smirking when he watched Sydney wince as she sat down.

"You okay, baby?" He asked with a knowing smile as she shifted to get comfortable.

Sydney bit her lip and smiled bashfully, looking up at him with starry eyes and glowing cheeks as he stood over her looking far too good in all black with his sunglasses on. He smiled back, climbing onto the picnic table behind her where he put his legs on either side of her and rested her head against his knee. Once she was settled, he alternated between gently caressing her lips, cheek, and jaw, while his other arm draped over her shoulder held onto both of her hands.

"Why don't you get him a real opponent?" Sydney asked Bobby as she eyed the poor prospect who she could tell was dying to blow off some steam as he bounced from one side of the ring to the other.

"And who do you suggest I use for that?"

"Lowell." Tig answered with a shit-eating grin as he turned toward the garage where the young mechanic was working. Bobby raised a brow, but a smirk tugged at his lips as he sauntered over to the twitchy man and ordered him to suit up.

"You work shit out with Jax?" Tig removed his sunglasses and lowered his mouth to Sydney's ear once Bobby was gone, supporting her still heavy head while she strained her neck to look up at him, running his thumb over her jaw.

"Yeah." She nodded softly. "He apologized. Talked to Tara, said he would handle Kohn."

"You think he could do it?" He squinted.

Sydney wasn't surprised when he thought that "handling Kohn" meant axing him - it had been her first thought too. "I don't know if it'll come to that…" She answered as truthfully as possible without telling him that she'd advised he do the exact opposite: let the cops handle it… Something that they did not do. "But if anyone can push him to it, it's her."

Tig nodded his agreement to her statement, his attention turning to Lowell who entered the ring and began sparring with Half-Sack. The kid wasn't bad, but the years of drug use had definitely dulled his senses because he wasn't nearly as sharp as his opponent.

"You know I'm still gonna beat his ass, right?" Tig looked down at Sydney with a raised brow, returning to their earlier conversation.

"Of course." She laughed, her eyes flicking to his lips.

He craned his neck to kiss her deeply, smiling against her mouth before pulling away and wrapping his arms around her, hugging her and rubbing small circles over her chest with his thumbs. The brutal session had definitely had the desired effect - her breakdown before her multiple orgasms had her clinging to him like she never had before.

"We can go back inside and lay down if you want." He mumbled into her hair while he pressed his lips to the top of her head, knowing that she was craving more closeness than he could give her in the open.

"I think we'll both end up with sore asses if we do that…" She spoke wearily as Clay drove into the lot.

"Yeah… Me too." Tig chuckled. "You stayin with me tonight?" She looked up and nodded with those innocent eyes, the action drawing his head down for another kiss. "I love you." He spoke with his eyes closed and a smile on his face when their lips parted.

"I love you more." She nodded sincerely, swooning at just how rough he could be in bed, but how soft he could be outside.

"I'm gonna throw up." Bobby grumbled, tipping his beer back. Tig was the one who sported a bashful smile now, pulling out a pack of smokes as he turned his attention towards the fight where Half-Sack had backed Lowell into a corner. "Hands up Lowell!"

"Anybody can beat up a junkie, prospect… Doesn't mean shit." Chibs coaxed from the sidelines.

Sydney accepted the cigarette Tig passed down to her, snorting when she lit up as Lowell got in a good hit on Half-Sack when he'd been distracted by Jessica bringing Chibs a beer.

"Jesus christ!" Clay groaned as he approached the picnic table, getting an eyeful of Sydney's hickey, Tig's red face, and their collective wild hair. "I try to keep you two busy, and you still find time?"

"Lunch break! Come on boss, a girl's gotta eat." Sydney held out her arms expectantly with a sly smile. "And besides, you didn't let me finish my breakfast."

"Alright, well I trust now that you got a belly full of tigger juice, you won't need to eat for the rest of the day." He tilted his head, matching her quick wit with his own before his attention was stolen from the pair of nymphomaniacs and caught by Lowell taking a solid one of Half-Sack's right hooks before falling to the ground.

"Shit Lowell! Get outta there!" He shook his head. "Who's idea was this?"

"Tig's-"

"Bobby's." The two guilty men answered at the same time.

"How's he doin?" Clay lowered his voice as he took a seat at the table.

"Well, the latest round of rehab seems to be stickin, he hasn't missed any work." Tig reported the status of the junkie.

"If I could get AA to kick up a vig, Lowell could make us all rich." Sydney laughed at Clay's joke as he sparked up a cigar, eyeing Jax as he rode into the lot.

"Lowell's always been a freak… A damn good mechanic though, I guess you taught him that." Bobby nodded to the white haired man.

"How's sugar ray one-nut lookin?" Jax asked as he approached the group at the table, watching Half-Sack who had moved his tirade from the ring, to the punching bag.

"He's wicked fast, got a great right hook."

"How much money gets thrown around at these bare-fist things?" Clay inquired, an idea coming to him...

"The purse is okay… But it's the betting that's gone crazy." Tig nodded, sliding his sunglasses into the front pocket of his kutte. "I know a couple guys who last year, made six figures each."

"Really?" Sydney could see Clay's brows raise in surprise even under his sunglasses, his gaze shifting to Half-Sack. "Got one-forty on hand for McKeevy…"

"You aint thinkin about bettin on the prospect?"

"He could knock any one of those lightweights out, any day of the week." Chibs vouched for his prospect.

"You know… If Half-Sack takes his first five fights, looks strong going into the finish and we control how it ends, it could be a huge payday." Tig backed up his President while Bobby shook his head skeptically.

"What do you think?" Clay asked Jax, showing his VP some good faith for one of the first times in the past weeks that he felt he could bear to.

"I don't know." Jax shrugged carelessly. "But I do know that we need the cash…"

"What if we control both." Sydney took a lazy drag from her cigarette as the men all turned to her with brows raised. "Lowell. We enter them both, bet accordingly, swing it so that they fight each other in the end. That way we get that jackpot from betting, and all of the side coin."

"I'm in." Clay grinned, a chorus of agreements following his announcement, a smile spreading across Sydney's face. "Take fifty grand, I wanna see it tripled." He nodded to Sydney and Tig who exchanged grins of excitement. "You're training them. No booze, no weed, no pussy." He nodded to Chibs, getting up from the table as everyone dispersed.

"Well, it's a good thing Tig aint the one fightin." Bobby scoffed when Clay listed off the three things that made up the Sergeant's entire diet.

"Hey, call Unser, would ya? Been tryin him all mornin." Clay asked the VP who trailed behind him, looking over his shoulder at Sydney and Tig to see if there was a way that he could get her alone.

"He's out on the job…. Water and Power dug up some old bones out on forty-four." Jax reported his findings from his field trip to the police station where he'd told Hale about Kohn and Tara.

Tig's ears perked up from a few feet away when Jax mentioned the discovery of human remains off the highway… The remains that they'd never intended to be found by anyone. He stalked up slowly, eyeing Clay from behind Jax, exchanging looks of wonder over how they were going to get out of this.

Jax could see the guilt all over Clay's face, looking behind him to see Tig sharing the same expression. "What…" He asked regrettably, not liking where this was headed as Clay walked off without a word.

"I don't know." Tig shrugged, breaking eye contact and summoning Sydney to follow.

"Wheelin out two bodies…" Jax spoke from the treeline where Tig, Clay and Sydney stood next to him, watching the excavation of the burial site.

"There should be three." Jax and Sydney both looked at Tig with raised brows.

"I'm afraid to ask…" Jax didn't understand how Tig could speak so calmly. More bodies meant more problems, more likelihood of evidence.

"Don't be. There it is." Tig pointed to the third body bag being hauled off by Hale.

"Is this us?" The VP sighed.

"No shit it's us." Sydney scoffed, blowing a bubble with her gum.

"Yeah…" Clay confirmed, looking over at Tig as Jax walked off in frustration.

Sydney knew that there was something deeper with these bones, and by the looks of it: Clay and Tig were responsible, and Jax - and maybe even the rest of the club - was never supposed to know. She looked between the two older men with her brows raised, letting them know that she knew there was more to the story before she followed Jax back to the bikes.

"Clay, they are going to push to ID those bones." Tig shook his head in worry once the two blondes were out of earshot.

"I know… We gotta stop that from happening. If the club finds out, they'll know something isn't right. And if the feds get to Lowell…" Clay winced. "The kid is on a wire, could run right back to the needle at any second. If there's anything we've learned with this… It's that junkies can't be trusted." He narrowed his eyes at Tig who nodded in agreement. If Lowell flew off the handle over this finding, he would face the exact same fate that his dad did, for the exact same reason.

"Get Sydney up to speed." Clay decided as he watched Hale, knowing that any more crime associated with the club would only heighten their position on A.T.F.'s radar. He needed bodies, and brains if he wanted to keep himself clear of the feds and his club.

"W-what?" Tig shook his head, he must've heard wrong. There was no way that Clay was letting not only an outsider, but a newcomer in on their dirty little secret - a secret that would earn them a one-way ticket to Skeeter's crematorium. "With the truth?"

"Not all of it. Just what she needs to know." Clay clarified, turning to head back to the bikes, looking over his shoulder at his hesitant Sergeant. "Unless, you got a problem with that too?"

"No." Tig shook his head with his lips pursed, ignoring the chill that ran through him when once again, he was called out for not obeying his President - the one thing that his job was to not do.

"Hey, I was hoping to talk to you." Jax looked up from the dirt beneath his shoes when Sydney appeared from the bushes, grateful that it was her and not Clay.

"You talk to Hale?"

"Yeah." He nodded. "Said he's gonna handle it. He was pretty pissed."

"I'm not surprised." Sydney scoffed. "I think you may want to keep an eye on our friend on the force. He's got a little crush on your old squeeze." She smirked knowingly. "Or should I say… Current squeeze?" She mused.

"I don't know if I'd say that…" The blonde man looked back to the ground with a bashful smile.

"You trust him?" Sydney reverted back to the matter that actually concerned her. If Jax didn't trust Hale, she couldn't trust that the club was safe.

"I guess we'll see…" He squinted in the hot California sun, not feeling as confident in his fellow Charming native as he wished he did. "Until Kohn is completely dealt with… I'm gonna need your help."

"I thought I blew that opportunity." She scoffed, kicking a rock with the toe of her shoe.

"It's for the club." He clarified, knowing that she didn't want to help him any more than he wanted her help. "You were right - what you said about me not bringing this to the table… It's bad timing. I need you to help me keep an eye out. Kohn is gonna be pissed, if he's as dangerous as I think he is - he's gonna lurk around for a few days, try and catch some shit that he could use as an excuse to stay. We need to make sure everyone is protected without tipping them off."

"I can do that." She nodded curtly.

"You get a weird vibe from them?" The VP sat down on his bike sideways, nodding towards the clearing in the bushes where he knew Clay and Tig were likely devising a plan to get them clear of whatever the hell was in that hole.

"About the bones?"

Jax nodded - hoping to let her know through his sincere expression that he genuinely valued her knowledge and intuition, even though he didn't always act like it.

"I'm sure they're just shaken. Probably never expected they'd be found, worried about evidence they might've left behind." Her answer wasn't a lie, it just wasn't the whole truth. Clay and Tig had done a horrible job of hiding their worry, which had only led the two blondes to the one conclusion that they wanted so badly to avoid - and she needed to find out what exactly that worry was.

"Yeah… That's what worries me." He trailed off, sliding a cigarette into his mouth when Clay and Tig returned.

"You wanna get changed before the fights?" Tig asked over his shoulder as Sydney settled behind him on his bike.

"Yeah, we have time?" She looked to Clay for confirmation, knowing that the poor man had been worn down to the bone today, and them being late to church again may full well have the power to send the man into an early grave.

"Only if you don't show up with a handprint on your other ass cheek." Clay deadpanned as he put his helmet on.

Sydney's eyes widened - she'd felt Tig's mark for sure, but she had no idea that it was low enough to be visible... She looked over her shoulder and sure enough, there it was, clear-as-day: a dark five-star protruding from her hemline. She looked back to Tig who was wearing a shit-eating grin as he turned back around and fired up his bike.

Tig walked up the stairs behind Sydney with his head hung as the dreaded conversation neared. This was wrong. The fact that the situation even had to be re-lived in the first place was wrong, but having to divulge one of the many dark secrets he had hidden in the back of his mind had him wrestling with his conscience. Even if he only told her what she needed to know, he knew that she would keep digging and eventually uncover the truth. He didn't want to do it, he didn't even want to think about it - but he had no choice.

Sydney pranced around the room, bouncing with excitement over the event of the evening and mindlessly chattering over what she wanted to wear to the fights, but Tig heard none of it as he zoned out, drowning in the noise in his head as he started down at the thread pattern in her comforter.

"Hello?" He heard vaguely before something hit him in the face, snapping out of his trance to see the white top Sydney had been wearing, on the bed next to him.

"Damn." She crossed her arms over her bare chest and raised a brow. "Somethin about those bones' got you real twisted up." She joked when he didn't acknowledge her undressing in front of him.

"Uh." Tig closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead, trying to figure out how to broach the subject in a way where she wouldn't try to pry the details out of him. "Yeah, about that… I gotta tell you somethin."

"Okay." She replied casually, sliding her shorts down and walking over to her vanity chair in her underwear - getting to work on her makeup.

Tig blinked a few times when she didn't seem fazed. "Those bones… They're Mayan."

"Okay?" Sydney drew out in confusion, shaking her head with a scowl - unsure why some Mayan bones had him and Clay so stressed out.

"But the third one… It's Lowell's dad."

"Really?" Her eyes widened with a slight twinkle as she whipped her head around to face him, seeing him struggling with the words he was trying to tell her. "Well shit." She scoffed, turning back to face the mirror.

"Lowell thinks his dad bailed when he was a teenager… Clay's taken care of him ever since."

"And you guys don't want him to find out that you killed him?" She surmised easily, not looking up from the powder compact in her hand.

"We didn't kill him." Tig snapped.

"That's why he was buried with the enemy, right?" She snorted, swirling her brush around in the dark coloured powder before dusting it around the perimeter of her face, getting no response. She eventually turned around to see Tig staring blankly at the floor.

"Why'd you kill him?" Tig heard her soft voice and felt the bed dipping beside him, her hand sliding over his thigh. He had no idea what to do. He couldn't lie to her, but he knew he couldn't tell her the truth…

"One of those things that we can't tell each other?"

His eyes snapped up to see her sitting next to him, bundled up in her robe. His first reaction was to prepare for a fight, something he'd been conditioned to do whenever club business reared its ugly head in his relationships, but all he saw was sincerity behind her eyes.

"Okay." She nodded, taking his reaction as a yes. "Just tell me what I need to do."

"What?" He squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head, unable to comprehend how she was just okay with this. He'd murdered a man, for a reason that she knew had to be bad, and hid it from the club. "Okay? Just like that?"

"Well obviously you're telling me for a reason. I told you before, I understand the life, that there will be things that we can't tell each other. I trust you and I trust Clay, whatever reason you had to kill him was good enough to get him thrown into an enemy grave." She knew that was no mistake or corner cut, that was a message. "But I'm guessing that the rest of the club didn't agree at the time?"

Tig looked at her with his gorgeous blue eyes swimming with tears - overwhelmed by the less than favorable memory of the shady shit he and Clay has pulled off, the anxiety he'd lived with everyday for years over being found out, and the understanding that she was giving him when he didn't deserve it.

"He was a junkie." The truth he could give began flowing easily, but he still couldn't look her in the eye as he explained. "Worked at TM, overheard club shit. We trusted him too much… Let friendship get in the way of safety. When things got heated with the Mayans in '92, he started to buckle under the pressure. We couldn't risk it. The club thinks that he split."

"Well, he did technically." Sydney joked. She believed that what he was saying was the truth, but she also felt like he might've been leaving a few things out, because if Lowell Sr. really was a liability, surely the club would've been on board with terminating a threat? "So what do we need to do?"

"Clay's gonna tell everyone that the bodies are Mayan, swing it in a way where everyone thinks it's to protect us from A.T.F. - which it is, it just aint the only reason. We just gotta nod along."

"Think they're gonna try and ID them?" She thought it seemed unlikely if the bones were dated back to a known gang turf-war.

"Clay thinks they will, that's why he wanted me to tell you…"

"We gotta stop it, because he can't have Jax or anyone else knowing." She surmised, nodding with a smile.

"Yeah." Tig forced a chuckle at her satisfaction over being trusted with the case sensitive information.

"Jax is already suspicious, so we need to make sure this goes smoothly. I'll think of something." She nodded.

"You just love this shit, don't you?" Tig squinted with a smile. The chaos could weigh on him sometimes, yes. But it had always been where he felt the most himself, he'd never thought that he would be able to share that with a partner.

"I only dreamed for this shit back home." She snorted.

Tig chuckled, looking down with a smile before he remembered they were on a time crunch. "Aight, we gotta hurry to get this done before the fights start."

"Well, if this aint shaping up to be the perfect date night, then I don't know what is." She smirked, nudging his shoulder in an attempt to lighten the dreary mood.

Tig felt a grin tugging at the sides of his mouth. "It sure is, baby." He reached out for her, pulling her to straddle his lap. "Now what were you sayin about what you were gonna wear?" He grinned up at her as he pulled her robe open.

"Well I was trying to decide… But my old man wasn't paying attention to me." She pouted, looking down as she fiddled with the lapel of his kutte.

"You got my attention now." He assured her as his eyes bore a whole through her exposed chest.

"I could try some things on for you?" She peeked through her lashes to see his reaction, his face going blank as he slipped into a trance and nodded slowly.

Sydney bit her lip with a smile, hopping up out of his lap and skipping over to the closet where she changed into one of the outfits that he had chosen for her to wear to her first dinner at Gemma's all those weeks ago: the green bodysuit and black jeans.

"Nah." Was the first thing she heard when she came out of the closet, her face falling as she looked down at her attire.

"I thought you liked this one." She whined, she'd been dying to wear it since he'd shown her how good it looked.

"I do, babe." He spoke tenderly, nodding his assurance as he got up from the bed and walked over to her, turning her to look in the mirror as he stood behind her. "But I want this-" He brought his hand down on her ass and squeezed the bruised skin harshly, making her yelp. "Visible. Tonight, you're gonna make everyone want you, and then you're gonna show them that you belong to me." He spoke with his lips against her ear, finally releasing his grip and pressing a kiss to her temple.

A grin spread across Sydney's face as she looked up at him, amused. "Yes sir." She cocked a brow and strutted back into the closet for an outfit that would satisfy his request.

"You know, I'm a little confused Wayne. I thought I made it pretty clear that this friendship's gotta go both ways." Clay squinted as he sat on his bike and lit up a cigar.

"Hale knows I'm dirty." The Chief of police tried to defend himself, taking a look around where they sat at the gas station on the outskirts of town to be sure that none of his colleagues had trailed behind him after they'd left the scene. "I've been pushed out."

"Well then you get yourself back in! I can't have this shit, it will end badly for all of us."

"You think I don't know that? I don't want this shit any more than you do, but I can't slip up with A.T.F. sniffin around!"

"Yeah…" Clay relented, sitting back against his seat. "I guess you're right."

"Look, I'm doing what I can here, Clay." Unser calmed down as well. "You guys just need to stay clear of anything until this A.T.F. heat dies down. I can handle Hale, but I can't sway the feds."

"They gonna be doing any ID on those bones?"

"I don't know… Why?" The worry in Unser's tone returned.

"You don't need to know. I need a favor."

"What is it?"

"Need to borrow a truck, Monday afternoon, will be back Tuesday." Clay spoke bitterly, still unhappy that all he'd been able to convince the stubborn Indian Hills President of was one order with half the cash up front, past the date that McKeevy would be back for the money.

"Okay." Under nodded, glad that he could do this to keep himself off of Clay's shit list. "Need to make it look stolen though."

"Not a problem."