✘ the end of all things

Keeping herself busy had always been what worked for her, idle time only leading to bad decisions. And living right over her business, she already had been done more time than she should. She had been turned around by some of her employees, they know Mia was supposed to be out of commission, and the woman knew her brother most likely had talked to them. Not that the town wasn’t aware that something big happened recently, even if it was out of town. But she had been restless and despite her stiff, and painful, shoulder, she was now behind the counter. Taking the order did not require too much out of her right arm and it was the least she could do. “Fell in the shower,” she said with a laugh, as the customer wondered where she had been recently. Mia rarely took days off, let alone almost two weeks, without a warning. “They think I slow them down so I’m stuck at the register.”  The customer paid and moved, revealing a new patron right behind them. “What can I get you?” the brunette asked before looking up.

She'd mismanaged her time the night before, however, forgetting that her shift started at 9 so that she'd only had a handful of hours of extremely drunk sleep that turned into a hungover shower and now, with sunglasses deep across her eyes, sidling up in front of Mia as the other patron had slipped by. Her eyes ran a cursory look at her injury, but didn't draw too much attention to it.

Lamia had met Mia in her work for the MC, but she didn't want to broadcast their business by asking about it and instead said, "Hey, Mia. I just need the strongest coffee you have. Long night."

And I look up, and saw the sun, it separated all the colors. and the ice, into my eyes it fell, and left me blind.

𝐍𝐀𝐌𝐄:Lamia King ( born Malia Thorpe ) 𝐆𝐄𝐍𝐃𝐄𝐑 & 𝐏𝐑𝐎𝐍𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐒:cis woman & she/her   𝐀𝐆𝐄:39 𝐎𝐂𝐂𝐔𝐏𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍: Medic 𝐀𝐅𝐅𝐈𝐋𝐈𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍: Civilians 𝐑𝐀𝐍𝐊: N/A 𝐅𝐀𝐂𝐄𝐂𝐋𝐀𝐈𝐌: Dichen Lachman

+ intelligent, determined, perceptive - stubborn, obsessive, meticulous to a fault

born in new castle, new hampshire, malia thorpe was a strange and precocious child who had odd interests and lofty goals.

as long as she could remember, malia wanted to be a doctor. when she was a little girl she had daydreams about saving people, helping them, and making lives better. most kids her age played at doctor but dreamed of being princesses or firefighters or anything like that… but malia took to the doctor play the most. she got to the point where she’d quote shows she’d heard on tv, often operating on her stuffed animals and yelling ‘stat’ a lot.

she knew what it took to get there, the amount of education she’d need and the aptitudes, and even then some schools would be picky still. she couldn’t afford to dally or deviate from her plan at all.

she spent hours of her recreational time studying old medical journals (and some new) to learn everything she could; she’d dive into microfiche at the library dating back to the early days of modern medicine and was fascinated by it; she was the head of her class, somehow managing to keep a near perfect 4.0 grade average even with all her extra-curriculars; she started several clubs and saw them through until the end, including debate and a safety club.

it was the only dream she had and she wanted to make sure she got there.

her dad was mayor there and her mother held a respectable position at the clerk’s office (and they also were not exactly poor) so she wouldn’t hurt for paying for school, at the very least. malia was likely to get into whatever school she wanted.

university came and she chose the most prestigious she could: harvard. the tuition was massive and the girl was set up exactly as she needed to be, her parents proud and happy for what they’d managed to accomplish in raising her, but everyone knew that malia had gotten there based on her own determination and skill.

an analytical mind had served her all her life and now it was helping push her through the four years of undergrad work, then the four years post grad… the residencies she took up in new mexico, spending the better part of her first 5 years getting tossed around the ER and put on graveyard shifts cleaning up piss and shit in terminal patients in the ICU.

she didn’t ever think she’d have time to date, let alone fall for anyone to the point that they’d move in together, but here she was at 30 falling for someone dangerous and exciting, deviating from the careful path she’d taken all her life and getting in way over her head before she knew what would hit her.

it turned sour fast and six months in she was having to make up lies at work as to why she had new bruises, finding herself terrified in ways she hadn’t planned. he was possessive, violent, and he came from money (more so than she did) which made it nearly impossible for her to disentangle herself.

she suffered for another six months before she finally slipped free of his grasp and fled further into the state, legally changing her name to lamia king and deciding to hide in plain sight. it took a while for everything to go through but she was able to find a simple job at a medical clinic in lancaster, arizona… she just had to retrieve her shit from new mexico first.

that’s when she met yamato ishin.

gunshy, she shied away from the man who was suddenly offering to help her move boxes, recognizing that a woman in a black hoodie pulled deep across her brow and doing this work in the middle of the night was probably not in a good way. she balked, sure the man was sent by her ex but there was something softer about him (not that yamato was ever really soft) and she eventually allowed the help.

she wasn’t stupid enough to tell him where she was going or why, but she did give him the number to a cell phone she’d registered in another state and they kept in touch. he never asked too many questions, he just found her cute and kept up with her because he’d noticed the bruises… and eventually he asked if she wanted to go out.

she balked again, terrified of heading back to new mexico but also not wanting to meet up in lancaster because then anyone could follow yamato to her. she gave in, but with caveats; she liked yamato so she didn’t really want to pass up a chance at someone who had ever only shown her kindness, but… they agreed to meet up at some point between their two points (though she never said how far between) and their whirlwind romance took off.

she wasn’t used to it, and though yamato was a bit withdrawn, he never raised a hand to her, instead treating her as if she were somewhat delicate. the situation itself had left her so terrified that she’d started taking classes in krav maga and muay thai but she was relaxed around yamato; almost content.

he never knew her real name, the one she’d been born with or her past (anything that could tie her to the woman that had been with an abusive man on a track to becoming a renowned doctor) and instead knew her as lamia king, of which he knew she had parents on the east coast and no siblings but she never mentioned harvard, new hampshire, or any of those details. no, she was a struggling woman working at a medical clinic well beneath her pay grade because of the fact that she was terrified to finish residency anywhere that would matter; afraid it would lead a trail right back to malia.

it didn’t take long, however, for lamia and yamato to be so deeply in love that, one drunken night, they went to a quick chapel in one of the cities they often met up in and got married. they both seemed happy, in love, and content with their little marriage, going so far as to wear the cheap rings that had been given in the package along with something more personal and 'expensive’ on their ring fingers.

she worried sometimes, because he was so withdrawn, that he would leave her. it led to a tiny bit of jealousy and worry, but not unfounded. one night she crept to new mexico again, assuring herself enough time had passed and she’d altered her appearance enough to not get caught, and watched as her husband exited a club, drunk off his ass, with his arm around some girl’s waist and stumbled to her car to have sex.

it was a one-time thing, but lamia didn’t know that. yamato hadn’t chosen to cheat on her so much as he’d sort of lost the thread that night in all his business and ended up on the wrong end of an exchange that led to him destroying his marriage. to bring it up meant to admit she’d followed him, but after a relationship in which she’d been physically abused she’d be damned if she accepted one where she was emotionally abused.

the fight was loud and it was long, a year spent with them separated and arguing and yamato never once telling her the details of why it happened. he couldn’t really reveal his club involvement, after all, knowing that it would likely scare her off and implicate her… but he also refused to sit back and be yelled at and just take that hit.

their divorce was as swift as their marriage and to this day lamia laments having lost him, but hates him for having cheated on her. she loved him more than anyone she’d ever met before and the spiral their divorce sent her into was legendary.

it didn’t take long for the slightly wild medic at the local clinic to catch the attention of the wild coyotes and be brought into the fold of the motorcycle clubs. she was their on-call and often was set to patching up bullet wounds with nothing more than her medical kit and a bottle of jack. it was hard work, but her downward spiral had led her to craving things that would both distract and numb her to her own bad luck… she embraced it in fact.

if she was gonna have bad luck she was going to do it head on… and that meant putting herself in dangerous situations that she couldn’t quite control. gone was the girl who had dreamed of soft things in saving people and been determined to be the best in a legitimate field; gone was the woman who had fallen in love and gotten beaten; gone was the woman who had fallen even more in love, been married, and had her heart shattered; malia thorpe had died somewhere along the way and lamia king was evolving into something else entirely.

"Some of us didn't get the option to dip our toes in. We were dunked into the deep from the start." He never asked for the club to break into his apartment. Hadn't asked for them to make an offer that not even the devil would take. No, they'd done that for him and now all he could do was swim. Swim until his body gave out and even then, it was up to him to keep going. "But sure. Guess I'll keep swimming."

He could handle himself, even in the midst of a crisis, he wasn't going anywhere. He could unravel at the seams and at the end of the day, he'd use scotch and what little dignity he had left to patch himself up. That had to be enough.

Her touch, as gentle as it was, caused him to flinch. She knew him, perhaps better than most people in the club, and yet, she couldn't see the way he was breaking? He pulled his hand from her reach, fingers curling around the whiskey glass before him. It wasn't scotch, but it'd do just fine.

"At what cost?" They were the ones who came in with blood on their hands. They'd taken a man from his family and regardless of what he'd done, Xavier wasn't quite sure it was worth the loss they'd taken in return. Two lives for one, but how many others would fall to the fight? "When will enough be enough?"

Instead, she watched as his hand tugged away with an implacable expression and drew her hand back to run her thumb across her own lower lip; a habit when she was thinking. He was obviously thinking far too deeply on this right now and, though she wanted to help address it, they were in far too public a place for her to start offering consolation or advice. Yes, Xavier, here's how you deal with wanting out, let me spell it out where anyone can hear.

"It's never enough, Xav. We both made choices. Yours might have been more pressing but you still made a choice." Or, perhaps, she would bring it up. Maybe she was frustrated by the idea that this was being brought up at the worst time, or maybe she just didn't have the patience to sugarcoat it in that moment, "You reap the benefits along with the ill. You chose to spill blood just as much as I have. We chose."

The last bits were in a hushed whisper, though there was something far more intense behind it. She loved Xavier, he was family, but she felt like he was not only calling himself out but specifically her as well and her emotions were too raw to take that. He had something to lose and she knew that, but she also knew exactly what was going on in that situation too and how tenuous any of it was to begin with.

At current, Maria had nothing but the club and the family she'd made within it. She'd not express it now, or possibly ever, but she wished Xavier were free. He'd live long, at least.

"The kind in the display." Her words were sharp and all hint of playfulness that was there a moment before was gone. Mia was wondering if she would be able to throw the other out herself and if it wasn't for her shoulder, she was have done it. "And we just ran out of coffee. I can throw you a hot water." And by throw, she meant it literally. There was no way she would serve the other.

It was understood that Maria hadn't pulled the trigger on her father because Maria had been too busy in a fight with Mia and her own club at that point — hell, they might have literally hit each other a few times, it was hard to tell in the chaos — but she knew at some point Mia MIGHT come to realize that there was a person she could blame for the rest of her life... and it was her father himself.

Mia likely wouldn't, of course, or at least not anytime soon, but she sure as fuck should, as far as Maria was concerned, "Oh that's so sweet. But I don't have any teabags so your hot water will just have to remain yours to molder in."

Whatever that meant. Probably something to allude to the drama that was coming down the pipeline for both of them. The Coyotes had the one-up but don't ever count out Maria and hers, either. Now, to poke the bear or not...

Well, the place seemed keen on being emptied out after the small exchange had started, perhaps because of their posture and tone, or perhaps because people recognized what was happening in general, but as Maria looked around and then brought her eyes back to Mia, she gave a shrug, "How badly do you want to hurt me right now?"

For her vp though Andrea smiled a little, completely in solidarity with getting shit faced and forgetting how fucked up things were at the moment. Her slender, rarely tensed shoulders shrugged a little— "I don't have much good for you at the moment. Other than maybe production is up and you'll have a lot of money at your fingertips very soon."

As a drug manufacturer for the sinful ones there was at least something she could control. Chemistry was volatile and when the science was right it was a catastrophically beautiful thing.

Moments following her comment a drink and a pill were placed in front of Maria, it was up to her just how fucked up she wanted to get but the options were presented.

"As for bad decisions," a slow rising smirk came to her lips, "I'm free."

The pill was pulled across first and set on her tongue, fully aware of how addictive the drugs Andrea could manufacture were but not really caring in that moment, especially evident by the chaser of alcohol and likely future regrets. She did things in moderation, however, and had never really presented as someone to get addicted to or go overboard with drugs; especially those that could be funneled into the club.

"A saint, at any rate... and shit, production being up is exactly the kind of news we need at this point." Though she didn't want to divulge too much, the SOs were one-hundred percent up a creek without a paddle and it didn't look like rescue was on the way. The initial plans of recovery or reacquisition seemed as far fetched as birds flying out of someone's ass, so what luck could they have?

For being a man who hated being the center of attention, Riggs tended to draw it wherever he went. Whether it was the people in town he'd helped calling out a greeting - of which there were many, because the man was a bonafide Boy Scout at this rate - or just people looking because he was head and shoulders over most crowds, he'd long since grown used to the feeling of eyes on him, even if it did make his skin crawl. For the friendly, charismatic face he put on for almost everyone, he was an introvert at heart.

All of this, of course, meant that when there was a Coyote meeting a Sinful One on the street, it was usually him - because he stood out like a sore thumb, and it was hard to hide. He didn't pretend to understand their motives, but to him, it made sense - pick the most obvious guy if you wanted to avoid a fight, because he drew attention, and wouldn't want to risk arrest for a petty scuffle. At least, that's what he thought.

His hands moving from her waist gave her an annoying pang of regret; she really and truly just wanted to drag him off somewhere and climb him like a tree. Shit, maybe she needed to get proper laid or something. Working too hard and not enough time spent having her hair pulled back and her back thrown out; ridiculous.

And Maria couldn't honestly even remember when the last time had been or who it had been with, so she felt even more foolish as a flush ran up her neck, staring up at him and trying to figure out some kind of witty retort. Her mind screamed 'your mom is better!' but the adult (and vice president, you're vp of the sinful ones Maria, get it together) in her curbed that impulse.

"I still say you should try being less tall. Like by an inch or too, I mean you're just a touch too high for anyone to properly slap you in the face at this rate. I think I'd mostly graze your jaw or your chin." She wasn't THAT short but the point was she wanted him to change. Or pick her up again... who knows.

"Does your girlfriend have to climb you like a tree?"

"I can see why the other guy took an early leave." He knew that someone had played a hand in pushing him out, but with a caseload like his, Xavier wouldn't have blamed him for running the other. If it wasn't the stacked files driving a man made, it was what was within those stacked files that should have sent him running.

Her inability to offer a conformation word left him blowing out a huff of frustrated air. Not towards her, but over the fact that something had happened in retaliation to what they'd done. "Can you blame them?" With anyone else, he never would have asked a question so bold, but with her, he trusted it would stay between them, even if her response was something akin to a scolding.

Over the course of time, he'd found peace in their silence. Despite knowing what was waiting for them in Lancaster, he'd still agreed to every move, if only because there was no other choice. For himself, for Flora. "It gives me a chance to clean up what's already been done." Legally, at least.

There was a shift of her gaze to look over Xavier and a single brow lofted; she could tell there was a battle going on inside of him, they'd been friends for far too long for her to not notice the tell-tale signs of a conscience getting louder. She had her own, sometimes, but it turned out it was easy enough to quiet if you just focused on the end game.

"You're not the other guy and you'll make it through. I mean you have no choice at this point, Xav. We're not talking about dipping your toes in the pool and deciding it's not for you. You've fully dunked, you're in the deep end, and it's either keep swimming or drown." Maria's metaphors might be a bit wonky but they made sense to her and they fit the situation.

A hand moved across to touch on his, shaking her head slowly. He was like family to her at this point, and people generally knew that. She knew about his wife, his situation, almost everything about him. She was the keeper of his secrets and he knew a few of hers as well, but...

"Tell me you've got this and I'll believe you... and as for if I can blame them..." A shrug lifts her shoulders and she exhales slowly, eyes rolling closed for a span of lid-fluttered beats before they open to focus on him again, "I can blame everyone."

Playing the elected role of district attorney was something he'd never quite imagined for himself. Of course, being a part of a club with blood on their hands hadn't been in the cards for him either. His hand had been forced years ago and rather than sulk over something he couldn't change, Xavier opted to make the best of it. His career was as stable as it could be, his position in the club was solid and under his control, and everything else was slowly falling into place. "Things have been... good. Busy, but good. I keep telling myself it'll slow down in a couple of months, but I'm not sure if I want it to." He liked staying busy, preferred it over club work, but when duty came knocking, he had no other choice but to answer. As did the woman before him. He'd watched her settle into her position nicely. There was an unspoken element of trust between them, but in the end, it was club over everything. Xavier called for another round, his empty whiskey glass a reminder of the day he'd had. Voice dropped low, his dark hues scanning over the other's features as he leaned in an inch closer. "Things have been quiet. Should I be concerned?" @amariafm

Maria sat back in her seat as Xavier spoke, watching him with a critical eye and her attention formed solely on him for that moment. It was a look of appraisal, a look to see if he was telling the truth about how he was doing, knowing full well that he wasn't always capable of telling everything he wanted to.

A shrug lifts her shoulders and she nods, "You know it'll never slow down, a DAs work is never done."

There was a grin against her lips as she leaned in to drain the rest of her own whiskey and scooping up the other as it came to settle at their table. Her eyes narrowed slightly, down at the glass more than at him, "You should always be concerned, 'vier. After the hijacking of our product we're waiting for the next move... I'm sure it'll be fine but while it's not I'd be careful of what you do, you know?"

And when you find him, we don’t kill him, we just waterboard him; we killin’ ‘em for freedom 'cause they tortured us for boredom.

𝐍𝐀𝐌𝐄: Maria Alvarez 𝐆𝐄𝐍𝐃𝐄𝐑 & 𝐏𝐑𝐎𝐍𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐒: cis woman & she/her 𝐀𝐆𝐄: 39 𝐎𝐂𝐂𝐔𝐏𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍:  part-time mechanic 𝐀𝐅𝐅𝐈𝐋𝐈𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍:  Sinful Ones 𝐑𝐀𝐍𝐊:  vide-president 𝐅𝐀𝐂𝐄𝐂𝐋𝐀𝐈𝐌:  Diane Guerrero

+   loyal, self-assured, clever -   violent, pigheaded, duplicitous  

TW: CANCER, DEATH

maria was born and raised in lancaster. her mother, sofia, was out of the picture when she was young — fled to follow some dream or another — but her father, dante, remained and raised her the best he could. they struggled a lot with money and keeping things afloat, but he never let his daughter think that she would go without; he always made it work.

by the time maria hit middle school she was already showing promise in academics, but didn’t pursue any of it. she started to sabotage her own progress on purpose and remained middling, even after her teaches tried to contact her dad about how she had so much potential. he’d talked with her, asked her why she was tanking and go a response he wasn’t expecting: I don’t care about going on to bigger and better things, I’m staying in Lancaster and I’m helping you.

as much as dante wanted his daughter to leave — spread her wings and fly more than out of his life — he’d raised her to do what she believed in and so he couldn’t very well try to force her out of it. he asked that she not fail her classes, that she excel as she would normally, but deny any offers that didn’t appeal to her. he’d hoped one would come along to give her a reason to leave.

he decided, just in case, to spend time with maria and teach her a trade of sorts; he’d always worked odd jobs here and there and briefly at one of the mechanics in town and had a lot of knowledge in that realm… so he taught maria.

maria knew her way around the engine of a motorcycle before she hit high school and, as per their agreement, continued to be exceptional in her classes while still maintaining her work with her father on mechanics.

she had plenty of time to be free and do her own thing, getting into the trouble that most teenagers do and, on more than one occasion, ending up in the back of a cop car because she was not nearly so pale as her co-conspirators; she ended up bitter after a while over this and made sure to keep her nose as clean as possible, so to speak, while still reveling in her youth.

when she was fifteen, dante got cancer, something that had been in him for far too long and had been left to molder until it had spread and eaten much of who he was. they hadn’t had any money or convenience to get him checked before when he was asymptomatic and so everything got out of hand. maria wasn’t handling it well and often got into fights with the nurses, though never actually hitting one, and generally raged against everyone and everything and the cruelty of the system.

he only had a year with her, and he had nothing to leave her beside the house. deathbeds are a strange thing and dante, in his delirium, forgot how he’d wanted her to be free to choose… he begged her to sell the house for whatever she could get for it and leave, especially now that he was going to be gone.

only sixteen and having to listen to your father, weak from chemo and barely hanging on, begging you to leave the only home you’ve ever known and leave behind the only family you have on record was too much. even if he passed, he’d still be there, in that place, haunting it in some way or another and she wanted to feel that weight on her.

she lied, she promised to leave and find her own way, to appease him before he died, knowing full well she was staying right there for the remainder of her life. he passed quietly in the night with a smile on his face and his sleeping daughter’s hand in his.

she now owned a house but did not want to end up in the system. she forged a way to stay, leaving school in the process and any of her father’s actually hopes for her there with it; all it took was a little half-assed paperwork and the system thought maria was in new mexico with extended family being looked after. the system didn’t really care about girls like her anyway.

seventeen and on her own in a house and needing to pay the way, she started to take odd mechanic jobs, not actually applying at any one place as it might raise some red flags, but doing off-the-books work to help out when people needed a sub-in, especially at the mechanics that didn’t mind a little under the table work.

the money wasn’t great, all in all, but she managed to survive; she kept the lights on in the house, kept the water running, kept it tidy, and ate (if not well), and she survived. that’s what she did. that’s what she does.

as she turned eighteen and realized that the bills were being paid but she was saving up zero money for any kind of future (even if she planned to remain in town), she turned to the strip club. there were people who would derisively snort at strippers or anyone in sex work, but there was no shame in maria’s game; she knew she was a pretty woman and she knew that taking her clothes off and getting men to pay her bills just for the chance to see her naked was a damn sight better than struggling elsewhere.

she took pride in her work, and when anyone tried to break the no touching rule, she often broke a nose. it would have gotten her into trouble at most jobs, strangely enough, but at that job she was given a nod as a bouncer escorted the bleeding patron away. she felt like herself.

it was only six months in when someone new approached and sat in front of her. she recognized him from one of the shops she moonlighted at for mechanic work — he didn’t work there, she didn’t think, and she hadn’t really seen him around town much but that’s where she saw him — and didn’t let it stop her from doing her thing. there was money given (far more than most) and a piece of paper along with it. someone wanted to talk to her.

the meeting was out of town, not too far but far enough to not be considered lancaster. maria was wary of it and knew that something else was going on but she sat down, she listened, she was offered a position in a club that would rival the wild coyotes and, to her credit, she asked questions. not hard or invasive ones, but she wasn’t keen on leaving lancaster where her father’s ashes had been spread and needed to know more.

she didn’t get it. it wasn’t her place to be asking but she was offered a chance to be involved in something that could change lancaster, and with that promise she was sold. being a prospect was never a fun thing, however.

she suffered at the hands of her seniors, but did so dutifully, finding herself in situations that involved crimes that she didn’t mind committing, even murder in some cases, and didn’t really think about the law-breaking of it all. the law had never been kind of her and she was trying to get her own foothold… become something as her father had wanted, though he likely hadn’t pictured that.

it took a while to get patched in, and in the process she acquired more than her fair share of bruises, scars, cuts, and tattoos; she became a harder person overall, but shrewd and quick witted. she understood the ins and outs of several venues of revenue for the club and offered herself up for as much as she could. she built up a seat of loyalty and dedication to the sinful ones. she served, she evolved, she created, and she was good at it.

it was only a year or so ago that she found herself offered the position of vice president, not hesitating to take that oath and serve the club as she always had. they had designs on lancaster now, and she was going to see her home returned to what it was, rather than what it was forced to be over the years under the wild coyotes as they lost the thread of what they were meant to be.