FIC: Scratch by Spacebabe (Chibs/Juice)

[spacebabe]

Author: Spacebabe
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Chibs/Juice (established)
Warnings: None, really. Coupla bad words.
A/N: Thanks go out to to edie_sunshine for excellent beta services :)

Disclaimer: Fictional situation involving fictional characters. Kurt Sutter, Sutter Ink, Linson Entertainment, Fox 21 and FX Productions hold all rights to Sons of Anarchy. No money made. I’m just playing in their sandbox.



Scratch

It’s hot. The mercury hit triple digits at ten a.m. and it’s been climbing ever since.

Juice stomps across the blacktop in front of the workshop. “I fucking hate repo duty,” he snarls.

Next to him, Chibs grunts his agreement.

Last job of the day, and Juice had been hooking up the Impala to the tow truck, struggling with the chains. He hadn’t noticed anything until the guy was on top of him, until hands the size of Texas grabbed him and tossed him through the air like he weighed nothing. He’d gone face first into a brick wall, bouncing off it and landing hard. And Chibs, that asshole, he was supposed to watch his back, run interference if needed, but he’d been too damn busy chatting up some pretty little skirt off to the side to notice.

Juice had tried to shout, but the wind had been knocked right out of him and the guy had grabbed him by the front of his shirt and dragged him up, roaring colorful, garlic-smelling threats into his face, raising his fist. Luckily for Juice, his yelling must have caught Chibs’s attention, because suddenly he was there, wrenching the guy away.

While Juice had tried to convince his lungs that yeah, breathing would be real nice, thank you very much, Chibs and the guy had gone at it, snarling, wrestling, and they’d ended up rolling down the muddy, overgrown ditch. The guy had been huge, as tall as Opie and twice as wide, but Chibs knows all the dirty tricks, and eventually he’d gotten the upper hand. Covered with bits of grass and leaves and slimy mud, he’d managed to beat the fucker into bloody submission and convinced him it was in his best interest to back the hell off.

But of course, at this point, someone had called the cops on them.

Luckily, the chick Chibs had been busy with had corroborated their self-defense story, but it still took a good hour of paper work and bullshit in the baking sun before they’d been out of there. Some merciful soul had shoved an icepack into Juice’s hand and he’d pressed it against his pounding face, glaring daggers at Chibs when he’d caught the chick scribbling something on the back of a receipt and handing it to the Scot.

The drive back to the workshop had been tense. And smelly. Something must have crawled into that ditch and died, because Chibs fucking reeked and Juice sat leaning as far out the side window as he could get. Back at TM, Gemma had yelled about liability and insurance and shit. Jax had made sure everyone was okay, then joined the rest of the crew in laughing their asses off at them in the shade outside the workshop.

“Go home,” he’d told Juice when he could speak again. “Take the rest of the day off.”

So that’s what Juice’s doing. He’s going home.

Chibs trails after him as he stomps to the bikes. Climbing his Dyna is painful. His entire right side aches, from his ankle to his knee to his hip to his elbow, and it’s all Chibs’s fucking fault.

Tig walks by. He pulls an oily rag from his pocket and wipes his hands. “What happened to you idiots?” He wrinkles his nose. “And what the hell is that smell?”

Juice hikes a thumb in Chibs’s direction.

“Jesus Christ. You stink worse than Bobby’s feet.”

“Eau de Telford,” Chibs grins and leaps onto Tig’s back, wrapping the man in a bear hug. Tig swears and staggers and Chibs starts humping against him, rubbing as much dirt and crusted mud onto the other man as he can before Tig regains enough balance to shove him off. Chibs stumbles away, laughing.

Tig stabs a finger at Chibs as he walks away. ”Payback’s gonna be a bitch, y’know.”

“Promises, promises,” Chibs sing-songs after him.

Juice grabs his helmet from the handle and pulls it on, doesn’t bother fastening it. He looks up to find Chibs squinting at him over the shades that’s perched low on his nose.

“Shouldn’t be riding like that,” Chibs says.

“I’m fine.”

It comes out curt, angry, but Juice doesn’t care. He is angry.

“Come on. I’ll give you a ride home in the truck.” Chibs’s hand gives his shoulder a light squeeze, but Juice shrugs it off.

“He’s right, you know,” Jax says as he passes them on his way to his own bike. “Take the ride.”

“No, thanks.”

Jax turns back and suddenly it’s not the Jax that was just laughing and horsing around outside the workshop that’s looking at Juice, it’s the Pres and there’s no space to argue. “Take the ride, Juice.”

Juice feels his lips thin into a line. He hates it when people don’t think he can take care of himself. “Alright. Fine.”

“Good.” A beat of silence and then, just like that, it’s Jax again. “Catch you two later,” he says and Juice will never in a million years know how the guy pulls that off, how he can be the person Juice has known for years and years one moment, and this other person, this stranger that appeared at the head of the table one night the next.

But an order is an order, and he waits outside while Chibs gets the keys from the office, and then they’re on their way.

Juice rolls down the window, because Chibs still smells like a week-dead raccoon, and Juice doesn’t know if it’s possible, but the stink seems to be getting stronger.

“How’s the face?” Chibs asks as they roll through the gates away from the Teller-Morrow lot.

Juice turns on the radio, scrolls through the frequencies. “Fine.”

He finds something with an angry, ferocious beat to it and cranks up the volume before retreating to the open window. In the corner of his eye, he sees the minute shake of Chibs’s head and he knows the guy’s rolling his eyes beneath the shades, but Juice doesn’t care, because he’s still this close to starting to yell. And Chibs will let him, he knows that. He will let Juice vent and bitch and get it all out with that calm, patient look on his face. Juice hates that look, fucking hates it, because it always makes him feel like such a chick afterwards, like he’s being overly dramatic and blowing things out of proportions, even though he’s got every right in the world to be pissed off.

It’s not fair. Everyone gets to yell at him when he messes up.

Well, fuck them.

He leans back and closes his eyes, tries to think of something else, like the beer that’s waiting for him at home. In ten minutes he’ll be there and he can lock the door and leave this shitty day behind. Hit the shower. Grabs some food. Maybe roll a joint, get lost in the game he got last week and forget that he feels like hitting something.

He cracks his eyes open just in time to see the road that would take them down south to his neighborhood pass by outside the window. Chibs keeps going straight ahead, out towards the edge of town. “Hey.” He sits up. “Where you going?”

Chibs puts his hand behind his ear. “What?” he mouths over the music. “Can’t hear ya.”

Juice reaches over and clicks the radio off in the middle of a wailing guitar riff. “What the hell, man? You said you were taking me home.”

“I will,” Chibs assures him. He takes a right at the next intersection and then immediately a left, and now they’re going west on Booker, getting further away from Juice’s shower and weed and game by the second. The rows of houses are thinning out, nature getting more prevalent, and in a mile they’ll hit the town limit.

“Seriously. Turn around and take me home. Now.”

“Jesus. Relax,” Chibs huffs.  “Just gonna pick up some food. Last time I checked, the only thing in your fridge was beer, ketchup, and mold, and I’m starving.”

“You can pick that up on your way back.”

“Not goin’ back today.”

Juice sits back and folds his arms over his chest. “On your way home, then.”

Chibs ignores him. He turns into the small parking lot of El Ranchero and kills the engine. “Be right back,” he says.

Juice lights a smoke and watches him go. It’s an odd location for a restaurant, hidden away on a side street on the very edge of town, far away from anything even remotely commercial, and Juice thinks it’s a freaking miracle they stay in business, because whenever he’s been here, the place has always been empty of customers. But they do have the best Mexican food in town, hands down.

They also have the slowest kitchen in the history of mankind, so Juice settles in and prepares for a long, miserable wait in the stifling heat. At least he can breathe now that Chibs isn’t in the truck with him.

To his surprise, Chibs comes back out not one minute later, carrying an overloaded plastic bag in one hand and a greasy paper bag in the other. The stink returns with him.

“That was quick,” he says and flicks the cigarette out the window.

Chibs drops both bags in Juice’s lap. “Called it in before we left.”

He turns the key in the ignition and they’re on their way again.

The trip back through town and up to Juice’s place is quiet. Chibs reaches over and turns the radio back on, but he turns down the volume and instead of music he settles on some stupid talk show where a woman with an annoyingly high-pitched voice is giving some caller advice on how to grow fucking orchids.

Chibs parks the tow truck out front by the curb and Juice gets out. He already knows Chibs will follow him inside, denying Juice the space he so desperately wants right now. He sticks the key in the lock and hears Chibs greet the neighbor next door behind him. He looks over his shoulder and old Mrs. O waves her garden-gloved hand at him. Juice forces a smile and raises his hand in return. If he’s lucky, she’ll keep Chibs there for a while. Lord knows that woman likes to talk, and Chibs has this weird thing about being polite to old ladies. He’ll tell anyone else to fuck off without second thought - priests, doctors, even scorching hot chicks - but throw a wrinkly old lady at him and he turns as meek and mild as a choir boy.

The inside is almost as hot as the outside. Juice drops the food bags on the counter in the kitchen and stomps towards his bedroom, yanking the t-shirt over his head as he walks. He wipes the sweat from his chest and neck with it and drops it on the floor outside the bathroom as he passes.

The bedroom is cast in shadows, the shades are still drawn, and it’s marginally cooler in there. Juice sits on the bed and unties his boots. He toes off his boots and peels off his socks. His feet are roasting.

He hears the front door open and close. Apparently, Mrs. O wasn’t all that chatty today. Or maybe she couldn’t stand the stink, either.

The noise from the kitchen tells him Chibs is rooting around in fridge, and a few seconds later, the man appears in the doorway, beer in hand. Chibs twists the cap off and looks around for somewhere to throw the cap, but finally just shoves it into the front pocket of his jeans before taking a swig. “Want one?” he asks and rubs at his forearm. Flakes of dried mud fall like dirty snow.

Juice gets to his feet and shoulders past Chibs into the hallway. “No.”

“Juice… C’mon.” Chibs catches his arm and Juice knows he wants him to be reasonable.

But Juice doesn’t want to listen, doesn’t want to be reasonable. He pulls free and heads down the hall. In the small bathroom, he grabs band aids, saline solution, cotton swabs, and Neosporin from the cabinet and dumps them in the sink. He catches his image in the mirror. Shit. No wonder Jax didn’t think he should ride home. Looks like he’s introduced the side of his face to a fucking sander.

The sickly, rotten smell reaches his nose before Chibs even steps into the small bathroom. He shoulders in next to Juice at the sink.

Juice shoves him away. “Christ, you stink.”

“Pardon me for offending yer delicate senses,” Chibs says and shoves right back, reclaiming the spot by the sink. He runs the tap, rinses his hands, and the water is brown and cloudy as it swirls down the drain. Chibs spends a moment tilting his own head to the side, checking his reflection, and Juice can’t help join the cataloguing of injuries. An angry spot of swelling is blooming red on Chibs’s cheek where the guy apparently got a good one in, and there’s a cut above his eyebrow. But other than that, he seems okay.

Chibs pumps a squirt of soap into his hand and rubs it vigorously up his forearms and over his hands, working up a good lather. When he’s done, he rinses and shakes the water from his hands. He’s one itty bitty little moment away from drying them off on his dirty pants, and that would be great, would feel like a small victory for Juice to get to laugh at him for getting them dirty again. But Chibs catches himself at the very last moment, he starts looking around for a towel, and Juice doesn’t get to laugh.

“Sit down,” Chibs tells him.

When Juice doesn’t comply quickly enough, he’s grabbed and backed up until the back of his knees hit the toilet seat and he has no choice but to sit. He turns his head away. This close, with no air circulating between them, the smell is almost enough to make his eyes water.

“Oh, suck it up, Princess,” Chibs tells him. He drenches a cotton ball with saline and puts one hand under Juice’s chin, tilting it up.

Chibs is careful, dabs the wet cotton lightly against the raw skin, but it still stings like crazy and that smell, Jesus, that smell is making Juice’s stomach turn. He closes his eyes and holds his breath, tries to concentrate on something else, but it’s no use. He presses the back of his hand against his nose and pushes the other man away.

“Shit. Seriously, man. I can’t do this. You have to shower.”

Chibs looks down at him, red-tinged cotton ball in his hand. Juice can tell there’s another ‘Shut up and be a man about it’ on the tip of his tongue, but then Chibs apparently sees something in Juice’s face that makes him change his mind, because he takes a small step back.

“That bad, eh?”

“Yeah. That bad.”

Chibs looks down at himself. “Probably in my clothes.” He tosses the cotton ball into the sink and reaches up, gets a hold of a handful of hair and brings it to his nose. “And my hair,” he says with disgust.

Juice gets to his feet. “Strip. I’ll get a plastic bag.”

In the cabinet under the sink in the kitchen, he finds one of the heavy duty black plastic bags that he’s used on the few occasions when he’s cleaned up in his yard. He pulls one out and returns to the bathroom, where Chibs is already in the shower, his clothes lying in a heap on the floor.

Juice doesn’t want to touch them, doesn’t even want to go near them, but he thinks he might have to strip the walls and floors and ceiling in here and wash the rest with bleach if he leaves the clothes lying around like this for much longer. He manages to get them down into the plastic bag with a minimum amount of contact and ties it off securely. To be sure, he gets another bag from the kitchen and puts the first one into that, then he dumps the whole thing outside, at the far end of the yard.

If he gets his way, they’ll burn them.

Back in the bathroom, Juice swings the door open and closed a few times, hoping to get the air moving a little, to help get the lingering smell out. It doesn’t help much, but it’s better than nothing. Inside, the mirror is already steaming up. Juice wipes it clear with his hand, grabs the saline and a new cotton ball and continues to clean out the scrapes on his face. He goes through four cotton balls before he gets all the dirt out, before the red scratches look clean enough. As he dabs Neosporin over them, the shower turns off and Chibs pulls the shower curtain back.

“You try to scrub your skin off?” Juice asks and puts the cap back on the tube.

Chibs glances down at his himself. He pokes a finger at his left arm where the skin looks red and chafed. “Nah.“ He grabs the towel Juice tosses him and rubs it over his hair a few times. “It’s just the heat.” He wraps the towel around his waist and steps out of the bathtub, dripping water everywhere.

Juice watches him sniff at his own hair again.

“I think I got it all out.” Chibs leans over, shoves his head under Juice’s nose for verification.

Juice takes a careful whiff.  He thinks he can feel a hint of that horrible smell still, but he can’t be sure if it’s coming from Chibs’s hair or if it’s just in his mind. Mainly he just feels the scent of his shower gel and the shampoo Chibs dragged here ages ago, the one Juice doesn’t use because it smells weird.

“Good enough,” Juice tells him.

Chibs dries off and Juice feels his eyes on him as he cleans the scrapes on his underarm, on the heels of his palms. They’re not bleeding, not quite deep enough for that, but how the hell can something this minor sting so much?

When he’s finished, Juice unbuckles his belt and chucks his ruined pants. He scowls down at his skinned knee, at the dirt and the trail of dried blood that runs down his shin.

Chibs takes the saline and the cotton from him. “Get up,” he tells Juice and cants his head towards the narrow counter.

Juice does what he’s told. Somewhere between coming home and taking the stinky clothes outside, the fight has bled out of him. All that’s left now is a bone-deep tiredness.

Chibs douses Juice’s knee with saline directly from the bottle and then begins to clean out the dirt and gravel. Juice watches him work in silence, and it’s not long before Chibs is satisfied with his work. He reaches for the pack of band aids in the sink and pulls one out. He presses the band aid gently over Juice’s knee and sits back, studying his work.

“Gonna kiss it all better?”

“Yeah, right, “Chibs scoffs, but he strokes his finger over the edge of the band aid, pressing where the adhesive hasn’t quite stuck to the skin. He frowns, looks up at Juice and is suddenly very serious. “You okay?”

Juice sighs. “Yeah. I’m fine.”

He is. It’s just scrapes and cuts, he’s had much worse, but Chibs is scrutinizing him, looking him so deep in the eye that Juice feels like the back of his skull is itching. He ducks his head, suddenly self-conscious, sitting there on the counter like he’s five years old and just fell off his bike. He did that. A lot. He was a clumsy kid, and it was always mom who was there lift him onto the kitchen table where he’d sit with his legs dangling over the side while she patched him up. He can’t stop the snort that escapes when he gets a mental image of Chibs - tattoos and scars, graying hair and a cigarette wilting at the corner of his mouth ­- in his mom’s red summer dress.

“What?” Chibs looks suspicious.

Juice shakes his head. “Nothing.”

“Nothing, my ass,” Chibs mutters, but he doesn’t push. Instead he pulls the bathroom rug closer with his bare foot, arranges it in front of the counter and gets down on his knees in front of Juice.

Juice looks down at the crown of his head, at the wet, glistening skin of his shoulders as Chibs leans in. Juice knows he’s sweaty and all kinds of gross, but Chibs doesn’t seem to care, he just buries his face in Juice’s crotch and sucks and nuzzles at Juice’s cock, breath hot and moist through the cotton blend.

It’s not unexpected. This is what Chibs does, his fucked up, roundabout way of apologizing, and Juice thinks about telling him no, about telling him that it’s okay, that he doesn’t have to. But Chibs wouldn’t listen, wouldn’t take no for an answer unless Juice got up and walked away, and sure, he’s still a little pissed, but not enough to not allow Chibs to make amends. So he reaches out, places both hands over Chibs’s wet hair, as the other man licks and laps at him.

Juice opens his legs a little more and enjoys the sensation of Chibs’s pressure of tongue through the fabric, the wetness, the heat. Then Chibs’s hands are around Juice’s hips, and he’s dragged forward, until he’s sitting right on the edge of the counter.

Chibs’s fingers hook into the elastic of his underwear. “Up,” he says, and Juice braces his hands against the counter and lifts his hips, allowing Chibs to pull the interfering piece of clothing down and out of the way.

Chibs is efficient in everything he does, and this is no different. He takes Juice’s cock into his mouth and works it like it’s a fucking lollipop, wetting it liberally with saliva and god, Juice closes his eyes and wraps his fingers in Chibs’s hair, holding on.

He’s growing hard. It’s almost scary how Chibs can rev him up like this, take him from zero to a blazing hundred in next to no time at all. Chibs works his mouth up and down, his strong hand gripping the base of Juice’s cock, and Juice places one hand on his shoulder, spreads his fingers over the cool, moist skin, over the ink and the scars.

He leans back, one hand behind him for support. The back of his thighs are sticky with sweat, catching uncomfortably against the counter top, but he doesn’t care, he doesn’t care one little bit, because Chibs is taking him deep now, his throat working , and fuck, Chibs makes deep throating seem so easy, like there’s nothing to it, whereas Juice gags and coughs every single time he tries to go just a little deeper than halfway. But it feels so good, that’s why he keeps trying, because he wants Chibs to feel what he’s feeling right now, the wet heat, the tight slick slide of muscles as Chibs’s swallows around him . He wants to give that to Chibs.

Sweat trickles down the side of his face, stinging as it goes, and he closes his eyes. He can feel everything going tight inside him, pulling up and pulling in, slowly building, building, building, pressing everything outwards until there’s no space left inside, no space for anger or worries or the stupid, girly words that float around in his head (you’re an idiot but you’re the best thing that ever happened to me please don’t ever leave me), and he has to bite down, lock his jaw to keep them in.

Juice pulls his feet up, places them on Chibs’s shoulders and lets his knees fall outwards. Chibs keeps working him, mouth and hand on Juice’s cock, looking up from time to time, eyes dark beneath the curtain of hair that falls over his face. He keeps coaxing Juice closer and closer to the edge, and Juice knows he’s panting, knows he’s making noises that he’d rather not make, but he’s lost, gone baby gone, and when Chibs speeds up his hand, wraps his fingers tighter around the base of Juice’s cock, Juice can’t keep it back and he’s freefalling.

He shivers through his orgasm, and Chibs mouth is still there, softer now, moving slower, milking him, lapping up every ounce of Juice’s cum. Juice swallows and tries to catch his breath, but it stutters again when the sensation of Chibs’s mouth on his cock predictably changes from oh god fucking amazing to way too much, and Juice pushes him away.

When Juice sits up, Chibs is watching him, still perched on the floor between his knees.  Juice leans down and presses his lips to Chibs’s, and when he pulls back, there’s a look in Chibs’s eyes, such a soft look of fondness that it makes his chest hurt. For a moment, it looks like Chibs is going to say something, but then he looks away, shakes his head at something in his own mind and gets to his feet with a groan.

“Hit the shower,” he says, and that’s that.

*   *   *

Juice showers as cold as he can stand it, and when he’s done he pulls on a tank top and a pair of boxers, it’s too hot for anything else. He pads to the kitchen and finds Chibs smoking and scowling down at the newspaper in front of him on the table, absently scratching his neck. Juice has no idea where the paper came from. The only thing he reads is bike and gaming magazines.

The kitchen smells like food, and Juice is suddenly very hungry. He grabs one of the food containers that’s lined up on the counter and sniffs at it. “What’s this?”

Chibs looks up from his reading. Juice tilts the container so he sees the contents.

“Carnitas.” Chibs points at the other two containers with his cigarette. “Bean enchiladas and… Pollo something. There’s rice somewhere, too.”

Juice pulls the chair out with his foot and sits down across from Chibs. He fishes a piece of meat from the container with his fingers and pops it in his mouth, pointedly ignoring the fork Chibs pushes at him. “So, that chick, huh?”

Now that he’s not boiling with anger, he doesn’t care about the pussy that seems to gravitate to Chibs like he’s catnip. That’s peripheral, without substance, but he’s not above reminding the guy that he messed up today.

Chibs frowns, his fingers moving from his neck to scratch at his arm. “Who?” A moment later he catches on. “Oh, her. Nah, not my type.”

Juice licks the sauce from his fingers. “Got her number, didn’t you?

“Actually, her brother’s number.”

“You scored her brother’s number?”

Chibs grins. “Jealous?”

“Why the hell would she give you her brother’s number?”

“Lass told me he’s selling spare parts and I might be able to get a good price. Need new front breaks, mine are going to shit, so--” Chibs stops mid-sentence, swears and scratches his nails against the side of his neck.

“What? What’s wrong?”

Chibs makes a noise of frustration. “I fuckin’ itch.” His fingers leave his neck and moves up to rake through his hair, scratching his scalp in a way that looks positively violent. When he’s done, his hair is wild and strands are sticking out in all directions.

Juice puts his food down and leans across the table, looking closer. What had looked like a heat flush up Chibs’s upper arm in the bathroom not twenty minutes earlier has spread and is now covering both of Chibs’s arms and his neck, even the back of his hands. Juice can see the raised bumps, red and angry-looking.

“Um, that doesn’t look good, man.”

“No shit,” Chibs growls and scratches some more, harder.  “Fucking better not be poison ivy.”

“Poison ivy? Where would you have picked that up?”

Chibs looks at him like he’s stupid. “How ‘bout the bloody ditch I rolled around in?”

“Oh. Right.” Juice takes another look at the rash and shakes his head. “Nah. Don't think that's poison ivy. Had it a few years ago, back home, and it took lots longer to show up. Like, a day and a half. And it didn’t look anything like that. Besides, I read somewhere it doesn’t even grow here.” He sits back. Laughs. “Hey, maybe it’s mange. Would go great with your image.”

Chibs flips him off.

“Okay. You don’t like the idea of mange, how about karma?”

“How about you shut your fuckin’ mouth?”

Juice keeps laughing. He likes the idea of karma, at least as it applies in this situation. Chibs’s discomfort helps chase away the last of his bad mood, and man, he’s gonna milk this for all its worth. But he’s not a total jerk, so he gets the bottle of Calamine lotion from the cabinet and tosses it to Chibs, and later, if it doesn’t settle down, he’ll drive the guy to Tara or to the health clinic.

But for right now, Juice is more than happy to sit back, stuff his face and watch Chibs suffer.

Karma, much like payback, is indeed a bitch.

~ The End ~