Disclaimer: Still Mr. Sutter's, and those who work with him to bring the show and the characters to life for us.

A/N: This probably goes without saying, but this is AU, and there are spoilers up until the middle of the latest season (I am savoring the last three episodes...because I'm one of those people who defers gratification to the point where it's completely ridiculous). Thanks animegirl1129 for reading and offering suggestions/encouragement even though you don't watch the show, and are unfamiliar with the characters.

Warning: Mentions child abuse of a sexual nature, and repercussions for adults who are living with the memories of it. There is no graphic depiction of abuse in this chapter, nor will there be any in subsequent chapters.

Juice wakes, gasping for air, choking on something that he can't remember as the familiar, yet hazy nightmare, fades away.

It's black as pitch. He doesn't remember falling asleep, doesn't know what woke him, other than the nightmare that he can never fully recall. It's always cloaked in shifting shadows – like meaty hands groping him in the dark.

He doesn't know where he is, or the bed he's in, and what's worse is that he's not alone. He's sandwiched in between two other men, and he has no memory of how that happened.

Juice doesn't immediately recognize the owner of the arm that's draped over his, or the other man whose leg is pinning him to the bed, trapping him.

His head swims and his stomach rebels. He's sick to his stomach, and his heart is beating so fast that it feels like it's going to explode.

Panic burns a fiery trail up the back of his throat, and he has to get out, escape, but the arm and leg are heavy, and he's afraid that moving them will wake his unknown bed companions. This has happened to him before – blacking out, waking up in a stranger's bed, not knowing how he got there, what they did together.

Like that night with Tig, when he'd spilled his guts about Tony, except, that was one night that he couldn't seem to forget, no matter how hard he tried. Of course it didn't help that Tig wouldn't let him forget it, and the man wouldn't stop apologizing for the part of the night that Juice honestly can't remember – giving the man a blowjob.

He still can't believe that he actually gave into Tig's half-hearted request, and doesn't understand why Tig would feel anything resembling regret over it. Neither of them could change what had happened. Most of the time, the men that Juice had been with – whether he remembered it or not – had regretted nothing. They'd been more than satisfied. Maybe he'd fucked something up with Tig – been too drunk, spit when he should've sucked, had too dry a mouth, or . . .?

Juice wonders who he wound up in bed with tonight, how it happened, what he did, what they did to him. The panic slowly ebbs with the familiarity of the situation. He's woken up like this countless times before. When his companions wake, he'll smile, nod and wave and then take his leave with an empty promise of maybe getting together again sometime.

Juice hopes that he's outside of Charming, that no one at the club has witnessed whatever the hell had led to this. He'd thought that he had it under control; it had been years since he'd last blacked out, but then there was Tig, and now this.

The panic surges once again, a tight ball in the pit of his stomach, and he blames Tig for the renewed sense of fear and loss of self-control that he's feeling. If the man would let what Juice had drunkenly told him (another thing he cannot fully recall having done) about Tony go, then Juice is certain that he'd be right as rain.

There's a groan and the arm shifts across his chest, pulling him closer, like a teddy bear. Juice holds his breath, his heart pounds frantically, and he tamps down on the inside of his lips to keep from crying out. I need to get out of here, he thinks, before they wake up. An impossible task now that one of the guys has a tight grip on him.

"Juice?" the tired sounding voice is followed up with a yawn, and the person pinning his legs shifts a little. The man's knee digs into Juice's groin, and it's then that Juice realizes that he's fully clothed.

Juice digs his heels into the mattress and stifles his grunt of pain, waiting for the unwelcome pressure on his groin to be removed. There's another shift, another arm tossed over him, and to his utter relief, the knee is gone, but he's now being, in effect, hugged by his bed partners. He's trapped.

"Whassa matter?" the voice asks.

The man's lips brush against Juice's ear, making him shiver, and Juice's skin runs cold. The overwhelming thought of escape causes him to push at the arms, and he shoves with all of his might, but it gets him nowhere. If anything, the arms only tighten around him more.

"Let me go," Juice's voice is barely a whisper.

The words stick in his throat, and he can't seem to push them around the throbbing of his heart which feels like it's trying to pound its way out of his mouth. He pushes again, the arms tighten, the bodies move closer, and the nightmare returns, except it isn't a nightmare anymore.

"Get off," Juice's voice cracks, his breath hitches, and he's seeing white and black splotches that block his vision.

One of the men seems to rouse, though Juice's words weren't spoken very loudly, in spite of the fact that he'd meant to yell them. There's ringing in his ears, and he can't breathe, can't see and the men are starting to wake, and Juice can't move. He's frozen. Terror grips his heart with icy fingers, and leaves him unable to breathe.

"Juice?"

The bed shifts.

"You alright?"

No. "Yes." It's an obedient murmur. He's always alright. Always. Always. Always. It's never okay not to be alright.

"Fuck, shit, sorry," the voice says, and then the arm's gone, and Juice can kind of breathe again.

"You okay, man?"

Blue eyes are suddenly in his line of vision, and Juice blinks up at them. He recognizes the eyes, but the name that goes with them doesn't immediately come to him. The man frowns and then grabs the other arm that's sprawled across him and yanks it loose. Juice's eyes widen in horror when the man the arm's attached to sputters awake with a loud, "What the fuck?"

And with that abrupt awakening, Juice recognizes, not only the owner of the blue eyes, but also the owner of the loud, unhappy voice. A new horror strikes him as he realizes that he's in bed with Tig and the new Sergeant-at-Arms, Chibs.

Humiliation doesn't even begin to cover what he's feeling now. He quickly runs his tongue over the roof of his mouth, the inside of his cheeks, and is only mildly relieved when he doesn't taste the distinctive, overly salty tang of cum. His hands, chest, face don't feel sticky or itchy. His ass isn't aching.

Nothing happened, he thinks, and breathes out a sigh of relief.

"Move over, would you?" Tig says crossly.

"What time is it?" Chibs ignores Tig's command completely.

He reaches over Juice to snag Tig's wrist, and, only belatedly realizes that Tig isn't wearing a watch. He lets the other man's arm drop, and then rolls onto his back.

Now completely free of the constricting arms, Juice sits up straight in bed and takes in one lungful of air, and then another. He's still shaking, and his head's spinning, but some of his anxiety's gone.

"What the…"

Chibs' oath is cut off by Tig's, "Hey, Juice, it's okay."

Juice shrugs off the arm that Tig tosses over his shoulder. He really doesn't want to be touched right now, even though he knows that Tig is only trying to offer him some comfort. Which is odd in and of itself – Tig, comforting him.

"I'm fine," Juice says; the words automatic.

"You're trembling," Chibs observes, and he moves to offer some warmth, but Juice skitters toward the headboard and shakes his head.

"I'm fine," he repeats. Don't touch me, he screams in his head.

"O . . .kay." Chibs runs a hand through his hair, and exchanges a look with Tig. Juice watches Tig shake his head slightly, and he wonders just when the other man became such an expert on reading him.

xxx

"I'm fine."

"Okay, I think that we've established that you're fine," Chibs says, and it sounds to Juice like the man thinks that he's completely out of his mind, or nearly there.

"I'm fine," Juice says the words again, knowing how crazy he must sound. But the words seem to be stuck on repeat in his head, and he can't seem to make them stop.

"I'm fine."

He can feel himself rocking – knees pulled up to his chest, arms wrapped around them – and he hates himself for it. Hates how weak it makes him look. How vulnerable.

"Fine."

"What happened?" Tig asks, quietly interrupting his mantra. "You have a nightmare?"

Juice shrugs, nods, looks away.

"Look, about what happened earlier. . ." Chibs scratches his head, swipes a hand down his face. "I'm sorry. I…"

"It's okay," Juice says. He can't remember what happened earlier, doesn't know what the hell Chibs is talking about. "I'm fine. It's no big deal."

He's used to this part – the lying, pretending he knows what Bob or Dick or Harry or some nameless, faceless fuck has done or said to him.

Chibs sighs, shares another look with Tig, who nods, and then the man settles his gaze on Juice. "Tell us about Tony."

Juice feels like the air's been sucked right out of him, and he gives Tig a dirty look. Tig isn't even looking at him, though.

"I told you, I'm fine." Juice stops his rocking and levels a glare at Chibs. "I don't know any Tony."

Tig's eyes snap up to meet his, and he narrows them at Juice.

"That's what you called me the other night when…" Tig gestures between them, "you know."

He looks away again, and starts picking at a loose thread on the comforter.

"You had a nightmare, said some things." Tig's eyes are once more on him – accusing him, judging him.

Juice huffs and shakes his head. He can feel the threat of tears, and he prays that they don't fall. This is nothing like coming clean to Chibs about his father being black, or telling Jax about what he did, how he'd betrayed the club.

This is something far worse (he'd thought things really couldn't get much worse, he was wrong). This is something which marks him, not as traitor, but as damaged goods, unclean. A fag. Though what he'd done hadn't exactly been his choice, the guys wouldn't understand. How could they? How could explain the blackouts, the nightmares that he couldn't ever remember, or the times he woke up in some stranger's bed without a clue as to he'd got there?

"It was a nightmare," Juice says, trying to laugh it off, but his laugh comes out strangled and wet, sounding like he's drowning. "People say all kind of shit that ain't true during a nightmare."

"It weren't no regular nightmare," Tig says, and there's no mistaking the anger in his voice.

Juice rubs at his scalp, ignores the way his hand trembles, hopes the guys don't notice it in the dark. "Look, I'm fine." He needs to shave soon. "I just woke up, got a little spooked 'cause I forgot where I was, that's all."

"That happen a lot?" Chibs asks keenly. "Forget where you bed down at night?"

Juice frowns and shrugs. He shakes his head, because, really, what the hell does it matter? And what the fuck is Chibs playing at? The man can't possibly know about his lapses in memory, and it's not like he gives a rat's ass about him anyway. The man's been cold as ice toward him, and honestly, Juice can't blame him.

"Not really." He decides to play it cool, and hopes that Chibs won't call his bluff. "I was just…"

"Cut the crap, Juice." Chibs' voice is hard, and he lays a hand on Juice's knee. He ignores the subsequent flinch, and keeps his hand firmly in place, even when Juice squirms under the touch.

"Why can't you just leave this alone? I'm fine, and it doesn't matter, anyway." His words trail off at the end, and his breath hitches, and it's no longer Chibs' hand on his knee, but Tony's, and he's feeling sick and scared and trapped.

"Juice." Chibs shakes his knee. "You with me? You ain't gonna freak out like you did earlier, are ya?"

"Earlier?" Juice echoes. His ears are ringing, and he really doesn't know where he is right now.

"Shit, I asked you to talk to him, not freak him out." Tig's voice registers to Juice, but it sounds like it's coming from another room.

"'S'not like there's a handbook on this sort of thing."

"Yeah, well, you broke him, again."

A hand descends on Juice's shoulder, and he whimpers and tries to pull away.

"Juice, hey, c'mon, it's just Chibs and Tig. We ain't gonna hurt you." Tig's voice is quiet, close.

"But you've got to tell us what's going on." Chibs' words are harsh, hard, and immoveable.

"I'm fine." He's freezing cold, like someone's spilled a bucket of ice water over his head. "I'm fine."

"The hell ya are."

Fingers dig into Juice's knee, and he does the only thing he can think to do. He grabs at the wrist, wrenches it free and then twists it as hard as he can, bending the hand back toward the man's forearm. He's aiming to break the wrist, make it so that the bastard won't be able to hurt him again.

"Ouch, fuck." Chibs' voice, pained and loud in his ear stops him, but Juice doesn't let go of the wrist, though he does ease up some on the pressure. His head swivels toward the sound of the voice, and it isn't Tony sitting there in the darkened room with him, it's Chibs. A quick glance down to the wrist that he's still got a firm grip on, confirms that it really isn't Tony trying to grope him in his sleep.

"Shit, Juice, let go."

Juice doesn't resist when Tig pries his finger off of Chibs' wrist. He sags back against the headboard and hugs his knees to himself.

"Sorry."

Apologies are for babies; Tony's voice reverberates through his mind. Shut the fuck up and quit your crying. I'm only doing this because I love you, even though you ain't mine. Gotta make you understand. Gotta show you what real love is.

"Sorry."

"Juice, what're you sorry for?" Chibs' voice breaks through Tony's, and Juice raises his head.

He blinks and Tony disappears entirely. It's just Chibs and Tig in the room, and the red numbers on the bedside alarm clock show that it's two-thirty in the morning.

"Sorry for waking you up."

"Juice." Chibs sounds tired. "Can you tell me about Tony?"

Juice shakes his head. He isn't supposed to talk about Tony. Doesn't want to talk about Tony.

Tig nudges him. "We're just trying to help you."

Anger, sudden and uncontrollable, flares up, and Juice stops his rocking, though he doesn't loosen his grip on his knees. He glares, first at Tig, then at Chibs, and then he stares at the foot of the bed.

"What do you want to know?" Juice hugs himself tighter. "How much Tony loved me? Or how often he showed me that he loved me? Or how he'd sneak into my room at night, once mom was asleep, and, and . . . touch me, and, and do other things to me? How he'd threaten to kill me or my mom, or my little sisters if I said anything? How I made him do it? How . . . how sometimes I blackout and, and wake up in some stranger's bed without a clue how the fuck I got there? How, no matter. . ." Juice buries his head in his knees, "no matter how many times I cleanse myself, I'm never really clean? How I can't stand to be touched, but I can't say no? How I'm broken and fucked up and . . ."

"Where is Tony now?" Chibs cuts him off, and though the tips of his fingers barely touch Juice's his ankle, it helps to ground him.

"They want me to testify against him," Juice says. "Some," he swallows, "some kid came forward, and, I don't know how they traced Tony back to me, but the police called the other day, and they want me to go to New York and tell the District Attorney what happened."

The tears come before he can stop them, and Juice grimaces and wipes them away with the back of his hands.

"So, that's what you were looking at the other day," Tig says slowly.

Juice nods and sniffs. He grins, or tries to, but it falls flat. "I was fine. I'd put Tony behind me, and was moving on with my life. I was fine."

"But then I fucked it all up," Tig says.

"What? No," Juice is quick to assure the other man.

"So, what're you going to do?" Chibs asks.

Juice takes a shuddery breath and shrugs. "I don't want to go back. I just want to forget it ever happened."

"Except it did happen," Chibs says, his voice is steely, but not unkind. "And you're fucked up because of it."

"The fuck you know about it?" Anger flares in Juice's gut, burns a hole there.

"Just that you've been walking around, pretending life is all ponies and daisies, and looking at everything through fucking rose-colored glasses," Chibs says angrily, "except that ain't the reality. Is it?"

"I was doing just fine," Juice says. The tears have disappeared, and now he feels indignant.

"So you say, and yet you attacked me, you put your mouth on that one's dick." Chibs gestures at Tig. "And you're . . ."

"That's enough, Chibs," Tig says.

"Is it?"

"Just, stop." Tig holds a hand up to forestall any further argument from Chibs who clamps his mouth shut so tightly that his lips look almost white.

Juice smiles ruefully and hangs his head. "No, he's right."

Juice had known that something like this was going to happen. That, if his sordid past ever saw the light of day, he would no longer be welcome, that he'd be seen as some kind of sexual deviant, and not of Tig's caliber. Tig, after all, had sway with the club. He'd been around far longer than Juice, and, as far as Juice knew, the man had never betrayed the club, had never tried to kill himself either. Tig was accepted, with all of his strange sexual proclivities, because Tig was Tig. He was somebody. He was a legend. Juice was nobody.

"I'll just get out of your hair," Juice says.

His smile's so wide that it hurts his cheeks. He tries to untangle himself so that he can leave, but then two sets of hands are on him, pushing him back, and he forces the panic away when it tries to rear its ugly head again.

"Juice, just slow down a minute," Chibs says, "look, it's late, early, whatever, and it's been a rough night. I think we all just need to calm down a little and . . ."

"It's not like the light of day is going to make me any less of a fag," Juice says.

Tig shakes his head, places his hands on either side of Juice's face and looks him straight in the eye. "Rape has nothing to do with sex, you know that, right? What that asshole did to you, that don't make you gay or whatever. Ain't no one here gonna judge you because of what he did."

Juice laughs. It's a hollow, awful sounding thing.

"Just 'cause they don't judge you, doesn't mean they ain't gonna judge me," Juice says. "I am good for one thing around here, and people like me are a dime a dozen nowadays. Once Jax hears about this . . ."

"Jax ain't gonna hear about this unless you tell him," Tig says, and Chibs nods.

"Look, Juice," Chibs says, and he places a hand on the back of Juice's neck. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry for what happened to you, for being so hard on you, but I'm not sorry that you told me, and I'm not going to betray your confidence. Whatever you decide to do about this thing with Tony, I'll back you up."

"Me too," Tig says.

Juice searches their eyes, tries, but fails to see any deception in them.

"Promise?" he asks, wincing at how small and young he sounds.

"Just promise me that you'll stay put tonight, and that you won't try to pretend like everything's okay when it's not," Chibs says.

Juice nods.

"And another thing," Tig says, Juice meets his eyes. "If you decide to go to New York to testify against this fucker, I'll be going with you."

"Me too."

"You're not going to face this alone. Not anymore," Tig says, and he places his lips against Juice's forehead, and kisses him.

"But. . ." Juice protests.

"This kind of shit's what brothers are for," Chibs says, hugging him. "You shouldn't have had to live with this by yourself for so long."

It takes a little more coaxing, and convincing on Tig's and Chibs' part, but, by the time he's lying down again, sleep pulling at his eyelids, Juice thinks like maybe, with the help of his brothers, he can do this – face the demons of his past, and do what is necessary to bring Tony to justice.

Reviews are greatly appreciated.