Disclaimer: As always, I do not own the characters of this work of fiction.

A/N: Thanks go to spacebabe (livejournal) who beta'd for me. Any grammatical, etc. errors that I did not catch is totally on me (PM me if you find something). I know that I said that this would be up much sooner than it was; it turns out that I needed a bit of a break from the angst (hence some of the much more light-hearted/crazy things that I posted in the past couple of weeks). Please review and let me know what you thought. This was not easy to write, and I'm not sure what it's like to read.

Warning: This chapter features rape, and, while the rape is not detailed, this is written from the perspective of a rape victim whose mind goes inward. Again, I'm not sure how successful I did in capturing this particular defense mechanism/means of survival, so I'm going to say that you should use caution when reading as it could possibly be triggering.

Something tells Juice that he needs to get away, escape, that something really bad is about to happen, but he can't string his thoughts together, and he can't even feel his legs. His arms are like lead, his head is getting too heavy for him to continue holding up, and he thinks that it's a good thing Clay is there to keep him upright or he'd be lying on the bathroom floor.

He wonders what happened and focuses on Clay's face, hoping to gain some answers from the man. He opens his mouth to speak; sees that Clay is livid and hopes the man's fury isn't directed at him, but at whoever it was that beat the shit out of him.

"Wha' happen'?" Juice's tongue is dry and much too big for his mouth. He's confused and scared.
Clay says something in response, his lips moving rapidly, but Juice can't hear him. Juice doesn't understand what's going on, why Clay seems to be so angry. He thinks the man is shouting, can feel spit landing on his cheeks, and even though the man is close enough for Juice to see his nostrils flaring in anger, he still can't hear whatever it is that Clay is saying and hopes that whatever it is isn't important.

His eyes are drooping, but a hard slap from Clay forces his eyes open, and then the man is flipping him over, pressing his face against the cool, cracked tile. Juice is too stunned, too confused, and his mind and body are no longer working in concert with one another. He has no time to prepare for what happens next, the building pressure and then the breach. His body's unfeeling, and yet on fire at the same time.

Juice spies something out of the corner of his eye, maybe it's a water stain or a mouse hole. He can't tell which it is from where he's bent over, knees digging into the patterned tile - there'll be lines left behind in his flesh, indentations matching the crisscross nature of the tile.

He doesn't really feel Clay inside of him, focuses his attention on the water-stained entrance to the mouse's house, wonders if the mouse has a family, maybe a wife and kids, if he knows what's going on one house over, or if he's turning a blind eye to what's happening just outside his door. Like if he pretends it's not happening, that it isn't happening.

His head is pounding, his knees are aching, and he can hear Clay's grunts and moans, the man's not quite shouted comments that make Juice feel sick to his stomach, things he's said to his girlfriends in the past.

And all he can think is 'make it stop', but he isn't sure what it is that he wants to stop, because nothing's happening to him and he's sitting on the other side of that water-stained hole, joining the mouse for a beer.

They're sitting on a small ratty old couch that sinks in the middle, and the mouse is making the moves on him, except it isn't the mouse, and he's ten years old again, sitting on the living room couch with his mother's latest boyfriend. He can't remember the man's name now, just remembers that nothing happened while they sat on that couch, watching some late night movie while his mom was at work. Nothing happened.

He tries explaining that to the mouse, but Clay's pushing him into the floor, the tiles bite into his cheek, and he can't catch his breath. He can't find the words to reassure the mouse that everything's fine, and he focuses on the water-stain above the hole in the wall, concentrates on it until he works out the figure of it in his head.

It's shaped like a lion, wild mane thick and coarse. He wonders if maybe the mouse had it put there to keep danger away. It's what he would've done. It's what he should do.

He remembers back, to earlier in the night when it was Chibs who'd followed him into the bathroom, and how the man had paced the room like a caged lion, how Juice wishes he would've told him everything and not just about his real father, a man he never knew, being black.

He wishes that he'd told Chibs about his deceptive acts, his cold-blooded murder of Miles and about Clay. But it is too late now, Chibs is gone and there is only Clay and a timid mouse living beneath the water-stain replica of a lion.

Juice isn't even sure that he's really there, he can swear he's been transported back in time to a ratty, old couch that's sunken in the middle, and he's watching some cheesy horror movie with his mom's latest boyfriend. He hurts, but doesn't understand why. The water-stain lion is staring at him with wild, fiery eyes that remind him of Chibs, his mother's boyfriend is touching him, and he can't say no, he can't say no, he can't say ...

"No." The word, little louder than a whisper, startles him and he's aware once more.

Clay is pushing inside of him and then he moves, he pulls out, pushes in, hitting the bundle of nerves inside of Juice that blinds him and makes him want to cry because it hurts. Juice is jerked backward and forward by Clay's frantic movements as the man builds toward his climax. It's violent and it hurts, but he can't find his voice to make it stop.

Juice doesn't feel it as his chin is dragged across the jagged tile, and then Clay stiffens inside of him, pulls out, and then slams back home, spasms inside of Juice, filling him with his seed.

Juice can't move even after he feels the absence of Clay and hears water running.

He sluggishly follows Clay's movements in the bathroom with eyes that are half-closed in pain and fear. The man putters about, cleaning himself in the bathroom sink. When Clay kneels next to him, he flinches, but is unable to keep Clay from touching him.

"Get up."

The words sound far away, and Juice is finding it hard to keep his eyes open. He wonders if the mouse is finally paying attention, or if maybe the little bugger had been paying attention the whole time and had enjoyed the show.

"I said, get up."

Juice can hear the anger in Clay's voice, and he wants to ask the man if he can sleep a little longer, because he's so tired, and he thinks that he might be sick or hurt, or maybe both.

"T'rd," he says, and he laughs because that doesn't even sound like a real word.

Apparently Clay doesn't find it as funny, because the next thing Juice knows, he's being hauled to his feet, and fuck it hurts, but Clay isn't being merciful, he's being efficient, and his lips are moving, which means he's telling Juice something, and judging by the serious look on the man's face, whatever he's trying to tell Juice is important.

His lips feel huge and he thinks that maybe he swallowed some sand or glass, or something, because his mouth is so dry and his throat hurts. "C'nt h'r you."

Clay slaps him, and his ears ring, but then things become a lot clearer. He realizes that the reason Clay seems to be towering over him is because he's sitting, completely clothed, on top of the toilet. He wonders when Clay entered the room and why the hell it feels like he's gone half a dozen rounds with the Hulk and how the fuck he survived it.

Clay kneels until he's eye-level with Juice, and for some reason it strikes him as funny so he laughs only to sober up when Clay slaps him again. He puts a hand up to his cheek and frowns at Clay.

"You with me now?" Clay asks, and Juice nods, thinking, 'When haven't I been with you?'

"Good. I'm gonna get you home, you're gonna clean yourself up, and you're gonna steer clear of Chibs," he says, jabbing a finger into Juice's chest on the last four words.

Juice nods mutely, wondering why he's supposed to avoid Chibs. The man's a good friend of, not only him, but everyone in the club, including Clay.

"What happened here," Clay pauses, runs a hand through his hair, "between us…"

He gestures between them, thumping Juice's chest with the back of his hand, but not hard enough to hurt.

"We needed this," he says.

Juice wants to ask what Clay's talking about, because all he remembers about tonight is Chibs confronting him about what Chibs thought was another suicide attempt, and then waking up on the toilet with Clay talking to him about going home and cleaning up.

It strikes him as slightly ironic that Clay's ordering him to clean up when he's already in a bathroom, but he wisely keeps that thought to himself and holds in his laughter. He doesn't want Clay to slap him again. A sudden thought, perhaps a memory, hits him and he asks, "Did you see the mouse?"

"He lives there." Juice points and Clay follows his finger toward the corner where Juice had focused his attention while ...while... He can't remember what had happened and stares at the tiny hole in the wall with the mouse and the ratty, old couch that dipped in the middle. Must be missing a spring, he thinks, confused by the look of concern on Clay's face.

"I'd better keep an eye on you," Clay says, and his face is much too close to Juice's, but he doesn't push Clay away because it wouldn't be right and Clay might get mad.

"You must've hit your head harder than I thought."

Juice rubs the back of his head and winces at the pain when his fingers come into contact with a lump at the base of his skull.

"Ouch."

"Don't touch it." Clay slaps his hands away, and Juice feels like a two-year-old caught with his hand in the cookie jar. He scowls at Clay and then looks at his hand in fascination.

There's drying, sticky blood on his fingers and he doesn't know how it got there. Has he killed someone else? Is that blood from Kozik? Or are his hands still bloody from the mess he made of Miles? He doesn't think he'll ever quite wash that blood off. Maybe that's what Clay meant when he'd told him to clean himself up. He feels an urgent need to take a shower.

"Let's get you into bed," Clay says, and, exhausted, Juice nods. Bed sounds like a great place to be.

He tries to stand, but he can't get his legs to work. He stares in confusion at them, wondering what's wrong, why they won't cooperate.

"Here," Clay says, hauling him to his feet for the second time that night.

Juice wavers on his feet once Clay releases him.

He mutters an embarrassed, "Thanks," when Clay puts an arm around his waist and leads him to the door.

It's as Clay pauses to unlock the bathroom door that warning bells go off in Juice's head, but then his mind becomes a blank, and he refuses to think past that darkness. Something's lurking in the corner of his mind, but he pushes it aside and follows Clay outside of the bathroom.

Shivering, Juice sticks close to Clay, holding tight to the man as they make their way down the corridor. The walk isn't long, and Juice wonders where everyone has gotten off to. He leans heavily against Clay, and there's a sense of wrongness, like a spider's web cast in a dark, ill-used corner of his mind.

The spider turns to look at Juice, hisses, 'Poison,' and then turns her back on him as he hobbles forward on shaky legs. The world tilts precariously, and it's only Clay's hold on him that's keeping him upright.

He owes the man more than just a simple thanks and wonders how he's going to pay Clay back for all that he's done for him tonight. If it wasn't for Clay, he'd probably have spent the rest of the night lying on the bathroom floor. With a head injury that he still can't remember how he'd gotten, that could've been deadly. He owes Clay his life. Just like in prison when he'd owed the man for keeping him safe.

"Thank you," Juice says when Clay helps him lie down on the bed and helps him take his boots off.

Clay's hands still and he fumbles with the zipper on Juice's jeans. He isn't meeting Juice's eyes and Juice wonders why.

"Just lie still," Clay says.

"'Kay," Juice says, his eyes falling shut of their own accord. He can hear Clay moving around in the small room, the sound of the man's boots clip-clopping over to the bathroom fills him with a sense of unease, but he drifts off into a state of semi-consciousness that isn't quite sleep.

Strange, half-formed images dance around in his head, and always at the edge of them is darkness and Clay. Clay with gleaming, sadistic eyes, touching him, tearing him apart with long talons and gnawing at him with razor-sharp shark's teeth.

He can feel the man's breath at the base of his neck, and it makes his stomach churn. The scent of Clay is stuck in his nostrils, cloying and thick; he fears it will choke him. He can't reconcile these feelings with the image he has of Clay picking him up off the bathroom floor, helping him. That Clay was almost tender with him, well, as tender as Clay can be. But the Clay of his subconscious is vicious and violent. Terrifying. A monster. He knows that his dreams, if that's what these are, are not reality. Clay is not a monster.

"Juice, wake up," Clay orders, and he's only just fallen asleep.

"Tired. Head hurts," he says.

"I'm sorry," Clay says, sighing, and the bed sags as the man sits beside him, "but you need to get cleaned up."

"Don't wanna," Juice says, turning away from the man.

"Open your eyes Juice," Clay orders, and Juice complies, fearful of what might happen if he doesn't listen to the other man when he's using that voice.

"Hurts," he says again, blinking in the dim light of the bedroom. He can see Clay's shadow on the wall. It's dark and foreboding.