Disclaimer: See initial chapter
A/N: This chapter's set during 4.11, "Call of Duty," and does feature one quote from that episode. Sorry this is so late; I've been very uncertain about it, and then someone pointed out that there was a mistake in it, so I had to delete the chapter and fix it. I am very anal about such things. Please PM me if you find any other errors and I shall fix them, thanks.
Clay curses beneath his breath when Kozik's blown to bits right in front of him, Romero, and Juice, who thinks this is some fucking video game – what had he called it? "Call of Duty"?
He's nothing more than a kid. A stupid, reckless kid. Idiot, Clay thinks and shakes his head as he watches Juice cower beneath what little cover they have available. The dry air sticks in his throat and he swallows thickly, wishing he had some water or whiskey. But, there's none of that. There're only bullets and god damn fucking mines.
It's insane, and he's the one who got them involved in all this shit. Not a single one of his brothers will be forgetting that anytime soon. He'll just have to remind them that they're all in this together, figure out a way to spin it so that it won't all land on him.
His heart lodges itself into his throat when Juice props himself up on an elbow and takes a blind shot over the ridge of sand he's situated behind. He holds his breath until Juice is ducking back beneath the insufficient cover. The boy is thankfully unharmed, but that just makes him angry. Angry that the boy would risk himself to take a potshot at the enemy. There's no way that any of his shots, wide and blind as they were, hit anyone.
"Stay down!" he shouts at Juice, hoping that the boy will listen, that reinforcements are on their way, though he knows that there won't be anyone else coming, that Jax won't risk anyone else's life on this.
He can't blame his step-son, but damned if he doesn't wish it was Jax and not Juice pinned down on this side of the minefield with him and Romero. He loves Jax in spite of all of the shit that goes down between them, but he doesn't feel the same way toward his best friend's son as he does Juice – like his world will fall apart if he loses the kid.
He could lose Jax, and yeah, it would hurt some, but he would get over it and coax Gemma through it – that'd be the hardest part. The club, though it would be devastated, would eventually move on. Leaders were lost – JT – and gained.
Sometimes, when Jax is in his business, asserting his God-given, birth born right to lead, he wishes that a stray bullet, or, fuck, even a wayward semi would take his step-son out of the picture. He knows he can't do it himself, no matter how many times the thought has crossed his mind.
If he even so much as envisions it, he knows that Gemma will not hesitate to kill him herself, especially after the shit she pulled this morning. She loves her son more than she loves him, and if that isn't more incentive for what he's got going on with Juice, he doesn't know what is.
It takes him a minute before it finally registers what's happening when missiles are launched over their heads, and then he's up and shooting, Romero and Juice doing likewise, and the rest of their combined forces press forward, eliminating the enemy.
When the shooting dies down, Jax calls over to them, asking if they're alright and if they can retrace their steps. Clay's done this shit before, knows that he has a fairly good chance of doing just that, tells Juice to follow behind him.
*"I got it," the kid says, and then he turns, and before Clay can so much as protest, he starts walking. And fuck it all if he isn't equal parts proud and pissed when Juice makes it out of the field and calls it safe. The rest of them walk away, alive, but there's something about the kid that worries him, and he knows that he can't let what happened slide. He'll need to teach Juice who's in charge, again.
A/N: It's a little less intense, I know, but I hope it's okay.