What Will Be (Chibs and Juice)

19

The shower was nice despite being a bit awkward. Juan seemed really excited about being able to wash Fillip. He'd rubbed the soapy sponge all over him, taking special care in particular areas. His favorite part seemed to be his hair though. He stood it up, laid it down, made a mess of it, he played with it for long that Fillip was sure he'd washed his hair off. Juan had relaxed so much since their tiff, Fillip felt much more at ease after talking with him.

He often forgot that Juan was much stronger than people gave him credit for, even himself. Juan has a need to break down, to shrug off responsibility, that was his way of handling the stress. He knew that for this to work our he'd have to give Juan his confidence and trust him as much as he wanted the lad to trust him.

Now they lay in bed, Juan was wrapped tightly around his body, trying to comfort himself from the weight of the worry he'd taken on. His presence gave Fillip some comfort as well, his brain ran at full throttle keeping him from sleep. The man whose head lay on his chest was peaceful, the opposite of how he looked during the day. Those big eyes always looked worried, and his smile not always blinding but forced. Fillip had come to read him well over the few years they'd known each other.

He hadn't expected to fall for the kid the way he did, but now as he held him close he wished he could go back and keep him safe from the demons that haunted him. The kid that had walked into TM one afternoon was young, and cocky but Fillip hadn't known him then. He now knows that was all an act, a protection he'd put into his personal firewall.

His head was shaved and he had tattoos that made Fillip roll his eyes. Something about the kid drew Fillip to him and he offered to sponsor the kid. Learning how old Juan ,who preferred to go by Juice, was was a surprise. He was a man in his twenties not a teenager. A part of Fillip ached when he looked at the kid though. His clothes were too big, he looked like he hadn't slept in days, nor showered and he needed a decent meal. His big eyes held fear despite his confident words. He was running. From what Fillip didn't know, and he wasn't going to just ask. Clay had accepted him to prospect, maybe not seeing the fear in the kid, maybe he didn't care.

If Fillip had known then the demons the kid fought with he would have never let him patch in. He didn't know. He didn't know the bravado was a learned behavior. He didn't know that the kid just needed someone to trust. He didn't know he was the kids only real friend. Juice took to him, he hung onto every word Fillip said, he always had time for Fillip and his complaints.

Fillip lay in bed now feeling guilty about all the times he'd dumped his heart out to him. He cried on his couch over Fiona and his daughter. Juice just hugged him, letting him cry. Never judging him. He screamed and yelled and broke Juices ash tray against the wall in a fit of rage because of a woman he'd developed feelings for, turned out to be a mole. Juice just hugged him. He never asked too many questions or made Fillip feel weak or broken. He just took it, like he was absorbing the negativity until Fillip had none left. Unfortunately that meant Juice had been holding it with no healthy way to let it out.

He rubbed his nose in Juan's hair and smelled his smell. If he had known back then how hard it had been for Juan to hear him cry, and complain about his love life he would have never told him. If he'd known then that the kid would be the one he would end up falling so hard for he would have let himself fall sooner.

His mind kept rolling through some of moments that led him to this. His heart pounded in his chest. This was the first time since his days with Fiona that he'd felt this way about any other person, he couldn't deny that it was love. He was in love, had been for a while. He spent so much time with Juice because he wanted too, not because he needed too. Slowly he'd seen him come out of his shell more and more and the man he was at home versus the man he was in the club Fillip had learned wasn't the same. The man he held in his arms right now and the man he spent those recent nights with weren't the same. In Charming he was a shell of a man, at the place in LA he was more complete.

Fillip started drifting in and out of sleep. The images he saw in his mind were of a different life. A life where he and Juice were just Fillip and Juan. He knew Juice only joined the club for a sense of family but what sort of family were they really? Back stabbers, cheats, criminals, fair-weather brothers who'd shoot you in the back as soon as you made a mistake. That's not the kind of life that Juice needed, he wasn't made for it.

Juan rolled over scrunching into a ball on the bed, he reached his hand behind him and grabbed Fillips, pulling him to his back.
"Warm." He mumbled in his sleep and drifted back off.
Tomorrow Chibs would talk with Tig, see what he thought about some ideas he'd had. Maybe the world was about to change.