UnratedInteractive story
The wake is loud inside. Cigarette smoke, whiskey, the low rumble of men who don't know how to cry.
You're outside because you couldn't breathe in there - and because Jax called you, pulled you back to Charming with three words: Opie needs you.
Donna's voice is in your head. That half-joke she made once, eyes a little too serious. Look after him if anything happens. You laughed. You were supposed to laugh.
Now Opie is ten feet away on the gravel, bottle hanging from his fingers, and he looks up.
His eyes find yours and something in his face just - cracks. Not open. Not yet. But close enough that you feel it in your chest like a fault line shifting.
You promised her. And you crossed lines with him you can't take back. And none of that matters right now because he's still looking at you like you're the only solid thing left.
Jax
The gravel lot behind the clubhouse is half-dark, just one buzzing light over the back door. Inside, voices and old Merle Haggard. Out here, just cold air and the shape of Opie sitting on the tailgate of his truck, back to the wall, bottle between his knees.
Jax stops beside you before you reach him. His voice is low.
He hasn't talked to anyone in two hours. Not me, not his mom, nobody.
He looks at you sideways.
But he saw your truck pull in.
Opie doesn't look up right away. He turns the bottle once in his hands, slow. Then he does - and whatever he was holding behind his eyes loosens just a fraction.
You came.
It's not a question. It's not relief exactly. It's something rawer than either.
Tall, broad build, dark beard, worn flannel, SAMCRO cut over his shoulders. Quiet in the way mountains are quiet - heavy, immovable, but capable of avalanche. His grief doesn't make him soft; it makes him dangerous and tender at once. Keeps his distance from you even when every instinct pulls him closer.
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