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Juice knows how it happened. He's pretty sure no one else would understand this, the thing with him and Chibs, but he can pinpoint when it really started. Two months before he actually got the guts to kiss Chibs, and three months before Chibs relaxed enough to kiss him first.
The funny thing is, it all came to a head with a little blonde Crow-Eater. Juice still has a soft spot for the kinky bitch.
(once upon a time)
It comes to Juice as he's lining up to pocket the eight ball for his fifth straight game of pool that he's good at this. Not just the pool - although that's always come naturally - but the rest of it: pool in the clubhouse with guys he's starting to see as brothers, lining up shots for chicks dressed in less than you'd usually see on a stripper stage, fixing engines and brakes during the day - but the thing in general, being a part of something this big. It's not something he'd ever thought he'd see himself as good at, but as the eight ball sinks and Chibs cries out in mock-fury over yet another loss, he realizes that he's good at just being with these guys, and it gives him a sense of accomplishment that he's never had before. And when Chibs grabs him roughly around the neck, scrubs knuckles through his strip of hair, it comes to him on a haze of good tequila and endorphins that he's never felt that he belongs so much.
That's when he decides he's gonna kiss Chibs.
Yeah, one day.
(there was this guy)
The night that it finally happens, Juice isn't ready for it. Chibs has been in a 'mood' most of the day, since he got that phone call when the two of them were smoking outside after lunch. Chibs immediately walked away from the table to the other side of the ring, flip phone pressed to his ear in way that looked decidedly uncomfortable to Juice, and there's something about his stance and the pained look tightening the laugh lines around his eyes that lets Juice know that this is a big deal.
And that's even before Jax sends Chibs home for the day, after the third time he knocks his thumb knuckle with a wrench hard enough to make him cuss.
Chibs eventually turns up back at the clubhouse, reeking of weed and whisky, racks up the balls on the pool table and uses a cue to give the nod to Juice. Chibs plays like he's possessed, and Juice has never had to work this hard to win a simple game of nine-ball. The girls are, for the most part, avoiding Chibs tonight - and THAT'S something Juice has never seen - but there's one, this little blonde that doesn't come around that often, that's feeding off the violence that's pulsing from Chibs in waves. Juice thinks that she's probably more on his radar than on Chibs's - at least until she leans in and slides her small hand along Chibs's inner thigh as he goes for the last shot, making him scratch the eight ball. Juice is actually kinda scared that Chibs is just gonna break a pool cue over her head at first, the way he turns around - and controlled violence looks good on him - but then it's like he can *see* the little inhale Chibs gives as he really gets a good look at the girl, the way she's breathing him in with her pupils all dilated and rock hard nipples pressing against her thin cotton t-shirt... and Chibs just kisses her instead.
Just about the time that Juice realizes his scrutiny is probably reaching the point of stalkerish, the chick pulls back a little from Chibs's mouth and she stretches her lithe little body up to whisper in Chibs's ear. Juice sees Chibs's eyes go dark, sees him nod, and then the girl is crossing the empty space around the pool table to Juice, and when she raises up on the tiptoes of her small black boots to kiss him, Juice can taste Chibs in her mouth.
As it turns out, she wants to watch Juice kiss Chibs.
Never let it be said that the Sons aren't all about the service.
(and he was perfect for this other guy)
Juice really expects things to change after that. After all, he's still sporting a Prospect patch and Chibs is sponsoring him, and he's really not sure which would be worse - Chibs favoring him or Chibs treating him like some random slut. As it turns out, the awkwardness in Chibs's kisses that night has translated into them moving together perfectly in the garage, hands finding and passing the right tools, hips moving at just the right times to avoid hot-tempered motions of pushing the other out of the way. Juice comes to realize that Chibs smiles often and means it rarely, and that just makes him want to get in deeper.
Juice thinks he's hit status quo - him wanting Chibs, Chibs wanting nothing - the night that Chibs finally pushes him up against the wall outside the dorm bathroom. "Was thinking I oughta do this right, if I was gonna do it," Chibs whispers, and when his mouth covers Juice's this time, there's no hesitance, no sense that he'd rather be anywhere in the world than right here, right now, kissing Juice in the dirty hallway outside an MC bathroom in Charming, California.
And Juice thinks it's probably the best kiss he's ever been involved in.
(and then there was this girl)
"So. You're married," Juice says, voice flat and eyes boring a hole in the wall about three feet to the left of Chibs's head and Chibs groans. He had half-convinced himself that Fi had been some sort of fever dream, that he had imagined the cool press of her lips against his flesh.
"Aye," Chibs says, shifting uncomfortably in the narrow hospital bed. "Juicy..." He knows he has to get this right, make Juice understand how it was - him and Fi and Jimmy - that he's probably only got the one shot to make it right but his head's aching so...
He hears Juice sigh, feels the lad's fingers twine with his as he drifts off again on a gray haze of opiates and shock. "We've got time," he hears Juice murmur. "We've always got time."
-End