#fearxtoxfreedom

Still at work -- Long days just didn’t seem to end anymore. Maybe because she no longer looked forward to going home? Wasn’t as if Jax would be home. She’d chased away Gemma. And there was a non-zero chance the walking reminder that Abel WASN’T. HER. SON. Would come waltzing around with another empty threat of a CUSTODY BATTLE that that bitch could ONLY lose. Was lonely at home alone. All she could hear was those thoughts in her head. Biting, scratching, clawing at her psyche, screaming out in her mind. JUST WHO ARE YOU NOW?! And she never had an answer. All she could do was tear her hair out, trash the kitchen, curl up in the shower naked, and cry. …

She usually coped with that through alcohol and weed. NOT UNLIKE A CERTAIN OTHER WOMAN SHE KNEW. And the times it all just became too much? She just wanted to walk away. Run away. DRIVE AWAY. Just her and the night. How had things gone so awry? She’d only ever had the best of intentions… Buzz of her phone and her eyes flicked. GEMMA? Glance out the window, tongue flicking at her teeth and she sighed, checking the message. Eyes snapped wide in an instant. Oh? Looks like Gemma got her message… And had one of her own to deliver. Bite of her lip. Clit throbbed and she shuffled in her office chair.

( sms. Teller-Morrow )  So that bitch in my office today? ( sms. Teller-Morrow )  Tell me what was she doing before you paid her for your little power play? ( sms. Teller-Morrow )  Two dicks in her ass like Luann? ( sms. Teller-Morrow )  Lyla’s thirteenth pussy of the month? ( sms. Teller-Morrow )  No. I got it. Another Crow-Eater for SAMCRO to ruin and sell off to Belfast? ( sms. Teller-Morrow )  Whose was it this time? Ratboy? Phil? And how many times did you bust her nose until she learned her place?

Thank God they were talking over a screen right now. No shot could she hide lust darkened eyes or the intense focus she had on the conversation if Gemma was here IN PERSON. And there was no shot she could hold herself back if she was watching Gemma FUCK HERSELF in person, either. She had to maintain her composure. Gemma was just WANTING HER to slip the fuck up right about now.

( sms. Teller-Morrow )  The fuck yourself wasn’t LITERAL, y’know?

And yet…

Tara looked up from her desk, well her OLD desk. She wasn’t going to be a doctor here much longer. And this wasn’t going to be her office. Dark eyes pierced the other as if trying to peer into their soul, cogs turning within her mind, questioning how they even know about Gemma. This HAD to be one of that twisted bitch’s taunts… “What I do with Jax is my business. And if what I do with Gemma is your business. Then I suggest you ask HER.” Cold reply, voice unwavering and she turned back away. Still the question dug into her mind like a leucotome being pushed through her eye socket for a transorbital lobotomy. The truth was? Far too complicated to hash out with a random cunt bitch in her office at the hospital. And in deeper truth? She hadn’t entirely even hashed it out with her own CONSCIENCE & SUBCONSCIOUS.

She supposed she had something to prove. TO FIX. Like an obsessive compulsive dictatorship within her mind, telling her that the only scenario in which gets out of this as a GOOD PERSON would be if she was with Jax & the kids, and if she helped him escape the lifetime she’d previously ABANDONED HIM to suffer through all alone. She never should’ve left. Or maybe she never should’ve come back. Wasn’t it ironic, though? In coming back home and taking back Jax, she’d neglected to share her deepest secret. And, no, somehow she WASN’T talking about her abortion. No, no… The truth was? Tara had made the decision to leave after she’d cheated on Jax WITH GEMMA at the tender age of eighteen .She was lost and confused -- SCARED. Definitely scared. And she panicked and she believed the best thing she could do was leave this mess before it erupted right in her face.

In her mind that made HER the problem. HER the monster. She’d been the unfaithful one. And as Gemma repeatedly would tell her. She & Tara? Leaving Jax? Leaving Charming? Would RUIN HIM. So maybe Gemma only had herself to blame for Tara’s obsession with fixing what she’d broken. Oh, who was Tara kidding? That was her desperate need to appear INNOCENCE & BLAMELESS. Tara had made this mess. She knew she would. And still she left. She hadn’t even come back for Jax. She’d come back for the SAFETY he’d provide from Kohn -- The man she’d married and been impregnated by while Jax was falling apart. And once he’d killed Kohn for her? Well, how the fuck was she supposed to leave THEN? …Turned out Gemma wasn’t the only one living a tangled web of manipulative lies. Besides, perhaps they were right. After all, the truest words she’d ever spoken to Jax were that night she’d FORCED HIM to tell her he loved her. And he did. Before asking her if she loved him…

“If I could stop, I would…”

Shangguan glanced up toward Li Bai, deadpan glare, one of distrust and disgust. “Why am I not surprised?” Judgmental droll as she shifted against her bindings, rope thoroughly wrapped around her body, pushing up her breasts, burning into bare thighs. “Just get me out of here, already. And don’t mention a WORD of this to the Empress or Magistrate…” Continued struggles as she scowled at Li Bai, seeing a deeper LUST burning in his eyes. He really DID have a BDSM streak, huh?

She’d never felt more like a PIECE OF MEAT. And she’d spent years as a political prisoner and servant after her father was incarcerated for conspiracy to overthrow the monarchy. Still… There was something… EQUALLY ALLURING in Li Bai’s eyes… She’d also never really been afforded any freedom in her own life. Political slaves weren’t exactly ALLOWED to feel love. And many nobles would, ahem… INVITE THEMSELVES to be… ‘serviced’... by many of the maids. It was only with the favor of the Empress that Shangguan herself had escaped some of the WORSE fates of her fellow maids.

The Hermit

The Moon

She's smiling, laughing, brow raising, thoroughly amused. "Smash or Pass Clay's Old Lady? Ain't that ironic..." This WAS the same bitch that took a skateboard to her face and broke her nose for SMASHING -- NOT PASSING -- Clay himself. As if she even had a choice if she wanted to stay with the Devils for the patch over into the Sons. "Y'know my answer." But not the SPECIFICS. "I'm just a Sweetbutt, lookin' for someone to make me their Old Lady. They say smash, I ask how many." Fingers curled around a beer at that point, taking a swig off the top, face scrunching in frustration and disgust. "No. No. No. That's not it. Truth is, I'da passed on three hundred guys in the last five years given the choice. But I never had one. Not until Kip. And then somewhere along the way... Well..." She got a far-off look in her eyes, turning toward the bottle, thumbnails absentmindedly picking at the label.

"When the feds came. Wanted me to rat. I never went to Sack. I went to the BITCH who stove my head in with a skateboard..." It had been GEMMA she had told about her husband, the grand larceny and the arson. It was GEMMA that got to hear the name "Rita" for the first time since her dog died. And it was Gemma, and Gemma's son, that had gotten her out of the Goddamn country before she RATTED on SAMCRO. Rita had always known her place. She survived by falling in line. Staying within her limits. Never pretending to be someone she wasn't. (Name not included.) And yet... This thing with Gemma... She'd be lying if she didn't want to be a little bit SELFISH. -- MAYBE A LITTLE BIT STUPID. ...Just this once... "Y'know. Here in Belfast. Every night I had Liam's dick inside 'a me? It wasn't him I was thinkin' about. ...Wasn't even Sack..." She looked away, slid across the beer. "Here, you can finish this." She stood to her feet, looking across to what remained of SAMBEL. Then to the door. "SMASH..." She proclaimed before walking out.

Exhale, tongue running along the inside of her gums. Glance down. Sigh out. Glance back. "Really? Smash or Pass Gemma Teller Morrow? The mother of my husband? The woman who hates my guts? And never wanted me in this life?" Brow raised, head tilted, and she shrugged. "So what? We're fucking fifteen again? Sitting in a circle, getting drunk in Ted's mom's house?" Who the fuck was Ted? "Playing our silly little games? Guess we'll play spin the bottle next. Or truth or dare." Was she protesting too much? Cold. Hard. YES. "What happens between me and Gemma is my business. No one else's." Well, by definition it HAD to be Gemma's business. But she wasn't the one asking. And Tara had no answer either way.

Truth was, Tara was SCARED to try and figure out whatever the fuck THIS was between her and her old man's mom. (Formerly archnemesis.) See, here's the thing: Actions didn't need to lead to promises or conclusions. Until one of them said exactly what this meant to them personally, this was all just chaos, confusion, emotional turmoil, two lost women struggling to orient themselvse and navigate a world steadily leaving the BOTH of them behind. Gemma had lost Clay. Tara was losing Jax. Wendy wanted to take Abel. And between Half-Sack, Luann, Piney, Ope, Donna, Miles, & Kozik? They were slowly looking more like a graveyard than a Motorcycle Club.

----SHIT....

"Stop interrogating you?" She scoffed and smiled, shaking her head. Oh, how the tables had turned. The might had fallen. And the dead had come back to life. (And it seemed Wendy wasn't the only ghost from Gemma's past haunting her right about now.) "Hey, Gem. Do you remember what you called me? The last thing you ever said to me? A junkie whore and that my baby would never call me mommy so long as you were around. I'm not interrogating you. I'm just making sure that I left my baby in the care of the RIGHT. PEOPLE." What a mess she'd come back home to. Funny, she copped all the blame for every little thing that had went wrong with that poor boy and Jax over the last ten years. And don't get her wrong: She ABSOLUTELY hurt Abel. But Jesus Christ, if she was the problem? Why had things only gotten WORSE since she left? If Tara & Jax truly believed they were the fix? Why had NOTHING. BEEN. FUCKING. FIXED. And if Gemma really was so damn above her? Why the Hell was Gemma the one getting high right now.

"Y'know, shooting up in the hospital? I did that because I believed I deserved it. I gave God his pound of flesh, and he delivered me back into this life to fix my shit and be there for my son. I own that. And I can never apologize for it." She was circling around the table now as she spoke where Gemma sat with a burnt up joint and empty glass of whiskey. "But what I can do is be there for my son STARTING NOW. You said I would break in 6 months. 3. A few weeks. That I wouldn't make it through rehab. And I told you. That I had my Goddamn baby to live for." Crash of her palm against the table, face getting in Gemma's own. "That it would be different. And it is. I'm clean. You're not. And now the two people I signed custody of my kid got him kidnapped, nearly killed him, and are currently wanted on multiple counts of assault, battery, murder, fraud, drug muling, gunrunning, money laundering, and accessory to murder."