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drabbles-mc · 1 year

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Far From Over

Gilly Lopez x OC Josephine Costa

Chapter Index

For Day 30 of @whumpril's 2023 Challenge: holding hands / human shield / "Don't let go"

Warnings: 18+, language, angst, blood/injury

Word Count: 3.7k

A/N: We did it! We made it! Last day of whumpril, babyyy!!! Thank you for everyone who came along for the ride. Special shout-out to @narcolini for being the other half of this insane whumpril journey with me, and for also giving me the idea of this entire dynamic. What better way to end whumpril than to come up with a new OC to torture? Iconic. And in true Tay Fashion there will be more for these two. Trust.

Mayans Taglist: @buckybarneshairpullingkink @thesandbeneathmytoes @paintballkid711 @queenbeered @kelpies-shed @gemini0410 @mijagif @amorestevens @garbinge @justreblogginfics @rosieposie0624 @choochoo284 @littlekittymeow @artemiseamoon @nessamc @withmyteeth @crowfootwrites @beardburnsupersoldiers @winchestershiresauce @frattsparty @fanfic-n-tabulous @justazzi @darqchilddaydreamz @proceduralpassion @camelia35 @danzer8705 (If you want to be added to any of my taglists, please let me know!)

When she’d shown up to the clubhouse, Josie had already known that it was going to be a bad idea. Going into it there was no hiding the fact that it was going to backfire on her, coming and pushing that door open when weeks before Gilly had told her that she should, for all intents and purposes, consider it permanently locked. So she had prepared herself for it to be messy. She had prepared herself for the worst case scenario, or rather, what she thought was going to be the worst case scenario.

She’d been preparing herself to get reamed out by Gilly, yelled at in front of the guys from the MC for having the audacity to show up after everything she’d done. She was ready for everything about that. What she hadn’t been ready for, though, was being thrown into a fucking shoot-out.

Getting into a public spat with Gilly was now officially the least of her problems. All of that worrying about what he was going to say when he saw her, how he was going to react to it all, and he wasn’t even there. She hadn’t had the time or the courage to ask where he was, but now she was wishing that she had. It was too late now—there were too many other larger problems to deal with.

“Come on,” EZ’s voice snapped her to attention, putting a temporary pause on the trembling that was wracking her entire body. “I need you with me.”

She nodded, following him even though she had no idea what he actually needed from her, if she was really going to be any help. Telling him no wasn’t really an option at this point. He flagged down one of the other girls that was there, one Josie remembered working behind the bar when she used to actually be allowed into the clubhouse.

The woman tossed Josie one of the bottles that she had been holding. By some minor miracle, Josie managed to catch it before following her and EZ back through the clubhouse and towards the steps that would take all of them up to the roof. Josie was standing at the back of the pack, and as she watched the other two start climbing up, she found herself rooted to her spot. She was trying to will her legs to move, but she couldn’t.

It was only when EZ reached the roof and turned around to help Josie and the other girl up onto the roof, that he realized only one of them had even started coming up. Looking down, he saw her, fear in her eyes as she stared up at them.

“Josie!” he snapped, waving for her to come up. “Fucking come on, we don’t have time for this.”

There was just enough edge to his voice to get her feet to start moving one in front of the other. Tucking the bottle under her arm, she braced herself against the wall and started to pull herself up to him. When she was close enough, he held his hand out to her and helped safely pull her up onto the roof, keeping her as low as he could.

“Got your lighter?” EZ asked once she was lying on her stomach along with him and Cielo.

Josie swallowed hard, nodding as she stuffed her hand into the pocket of her jeans. Of all the reasons that she should’ve quit smoking, she never thought that being off the hook for having a lighter on her would’ve been one of them.

He was holding the end of his bottle close to her as he waited. When she finally pulled the lighter from her pocket, she pushed the bottle away. “Not so close to my goddamn face, Ezekiel,” she said, trying to shout and whisper at the same time.

“Sorry,” the apology was more compulsory than it was sincere, but it was something, and that was more than anyone could ask for given the current situation.

Once the flame caught the fabric, EZ shot up onto his feet and threw the bottle as far as he could. He stayed standing for a few beats longer than he should have, somewhere between admiring his work and trying to figure out what the next best move would be. He stayed up too long, though, and when the gunfire picked up again, this time they were aiming directly for him.

Josie didn’t think twice about it as she reached and drove the bottom of the bottle in her hands into the back of his knee, causing him to drop to a kneeling position. She heard him curse, and she was ready for him to snap at her, but when she saw the look on his face she knew that he understood exactly why she had done what she did. The mild throbbing in the back of his leg was better than a bullet being buried in his sternum.

“Next one,” he said, motioning for Josie to hand him the bottle.

They did it that way a few more times over. Josie was lighting the bottles for EZ and Cielo, allowing them to aim and throw. When they were starting to get down to their last few, Cielo went and dropped back down, intent on getting more bottles to throw.

When it was just the two of them waiting for Cielo to come back, EZ couldn’t help but to ask, “What the fuck are you doing here anyway?”

Josie let out a shocked laugh. “That’s your fucking question right now?”

“I just—”

He was cut off by the string of bullets that came flying up towards them, far too close for comfort. Both he and Josie were cursing under their breath as they scrambled back towards the opening that led to the clubhouse stairs. EZ was all but shoving Josie down them first. Both of them saw Cielo about to climb back up and they both frantically told her to back away and give them room.

“What the fuck are we gonna do?” Cielo asked as EZ’s boots hit the floor.

He shook his head. “I don’t know.” He motioned for both of them to follow him. “But come on, get in here—stay away from all the fucking windows.”

There were a few moments of stillness, silence that no one could manage to take comfort in. Josie was slumped down on the floor, her back against the bar as she listened to the eeriness of it. She’d heard a term for it before, one that Gilly had said at some point in the past, most likely referencing something that wasn’t nearly as intense as the phrase called for.

Pressing her forehead against her knees, it hit her and she whispered to no one but herself, “Riot quiet.”

“What?”

Josie lifted her head, not realizing that Cielo had been sitting so close to her. Looking over, she shook her head. “N-nothing. Sorry. Talking to myself—trying not to freak the fuck out.”

Just as Cielo was about to say something else in response, there was a thudding sound on the roof. Everyone froze, looking upwards as they heard the series of thuds making their way across the roof. EZ and Angel grabbed their guns, making their way towards the hatch that would lead down into the clubhouse. They remained silent, guns pointed and at the ready.

Every logical bone in Josie’s body was telling her to stay put, but she still found herself pushing herself up off the floor, trailing behind them. She wasn’t close enough to be in the thick of it, but she was close enough to listen to everything that was going on. She heard the creaking of the hatch open as everyone shut off their flashlights, heard the sounds of someone coming down the steps.

Her fists were clenched, pressed tightly against her own chest. It felt like everyone in the clubhouse was holding their breath as EZ turned his flashlight back on.

“Get that fucking light out of my eyes!” Gilly’s voice boomed through the cramped space that they were all packed into.

Without even realizing it, Josie let out a shuddered sigh of relief. She leaned back against the wall, trying not to let herself crumble to the floor. She could hear them all talking in the background as Gilly got the rest of the way inside, him and Coco both coming down from the roof, but she couldn’t really make out any of the words that they were saying. She was too wrapped up in just listening to the reassuring thrum of Gilly’s voice, somehow getting something out of it even though he had more anger in him at the moment than anything else.

As the whole crew of them made their way back to the main part of the clubhouse, they passed right by Josie, who still had her back against the partial wall that had separated the main expanse of the clubhouse from where they had all been standing and ready to nearly blast Gilly right back up onto the roof. She watched them all as they walked by, Angel and EZ, then Gilly, then finally Coco. None of them were saying much of anything now as they watched Coco and Gilly take stock of the entire situation.

Gilly turned to look around the clubhouse, try and see just how severe all of the damage was. It was only then that he saw Josie, pressed back against the wall like she was trying to fade right into it to avoid being seen by him.

“Josie?” he said it like a question even though there was no one else that it could possibly be.

“Gil—”

“What the fuck are you doing here?” he cut her off.

She scoffed, the relief that was coursing through her now balanced out by her frustration. The situation they were in wasn’t Gilly’s fault. That was true for the shoot-out and their breakup, but he was still the easiest person to take it all out on.

Her fear got set on the backburner for a moment as she said, “Trying not to die in a fucking shoot-out, Gilly. What are you doing?”

“You wouldn’t be in a fucking shoot-out if you just stayed the fuck away like I—”

“Hey!” EZ cut them both off. “Sort this shit out later.” He focused on Gilly. “Come on. Grab a fucking gun.”

Gilly looked over at the table where everyone had piled their guns. Confusion took over his entire face as he looked around to the rest of the members of his club. “Where the fuck are the rest of the guns?” When no one had an answer for him. He shook his head. “Fucking unbelievable.”

Josie watched as he grabbed one off the table. She couldn’t help but to look around at the other men in the room, trying to piece together if any of them really had any fucking clue what was going on. She wondered if any of them even had a semblance of a plan or if they were all feeling just as lost and confused as she was, but they were just better at hiding it.

The room because quiet again as everyone reached for their own guns, getting ready to dive into the next wave of whatever the entire situation was about to play out to be. It felt like the room was split clean down the middle between those who were ready to do something even if they didn’t know what, and everyone who was too confused, too lost and scared to even think about doing anything. Josie wished that she felt more in control of anything than she really did, herself included.

“Alright,” EZ’s voice cut through the quiet of the room, causing everyone to turn and look over at him, “we’re gonna—”

His sentence was cut short by a tirade of bullets tearing through the walls of the clubhouse. Everyone was screaming, crying, dropping to the floor either out of fear or because they were buckling underneath the impact of a bullet. Everyone that had grabbed a gun turned and started firing back, not even bothering to wait to get up to the windows so that they could actually aim.

It was hard to tell which bangs were from bullets going out, and which ones were from bullets coming in. Angel and EZ were already up against the windows, finally in a position to aim their shots. Gilly was coming up behind EZ, ready to perch his gun on the sill right beside him, all of them so controlled in the face of so much chaos.

Josie tried to leech some of the certainty off of them, find just a shred of it in the middle of everything, but she couldn’t. Her hands were shaking in front of her as she watched them. All the times that she’d been with Gilly, been at the clubhouse, she’d never had the misfortune of being caught in the midst of anything like this. All good things really must come to an end, apparently.

She was already halfway back down to the floor, trying her best to get low and out of the line of fire when she felt something tear through her shoulder. She got half a scream out before she clamped her hand down over her mouth, stifling the rest of it as she fell ungracefully the rest of the way to the floor.

Gilly’s head snapped around when he heard the short sound of pain she let out. His anger battled with his concern, the myriad of conflicts he was feeling painted clear as day all over his face. Turning back around, he fired two more shots before shoving his gun into Coco’s chest and walking over to where Josie was sitting on the floor.

Her eyes were shut tight, so she didn’t even see him coming over. Her head was pressed back hard against the bar behind her, like the pain and pressure against her skull would distract her from the pain shooting through her shoulder and down her arm. It didn’t help, but she couldn’t stop.

“Come on,” Gilly reached, grabbing onto her good shoulder, “you gotta get behind the fucking bar.”

“I can’t—”

He cut her argument short. “They shoot your leg?”

“No but—”

“Then you can fuckin’ move. Come on.”

For abrasive as he was being with her, he was still keeping her alive. It was more than he was obligated to do at that point. Josie knew that, too, so she kept her mouth shut as she used her good side to grip onto Gilly’s arm, allowing him to pull her out of the shock that was beginning to settle into her bones as he got her into a crouching position so that they could scurry behind the bar. He kept himself between her and the window, a shield between her and anymore bullets that might stray lower than they bargained for.

When they were finally behind the bar, one of the few actual barriers the clubhouse afforded them, Josie collapsed back to the floor again. There were a few comments on the tip of Gilly’s tongue about it, but he reminded himself at the last minute that this shit was his life, not hers. Normal people usually couldn’t just push through taking a bullet to their shoulder—of all the things that he could hold against her, that wasn’t one of them.

“Lean forward,” he finally said, “and let me see.” There was a deep frown on his face as he looked at her, concern bubbling up in the midst of the gunfire and other things he should’ve definitely been worrying about instead. “Seriously, Jos, why the fuck are you here?”

She winced in pain as he touched near where she’d been shot. “It’s really not the fuckin’ time for this conversation, Gilly.”

“You’re the one who showed up and put yourself in this mess so really—”

“Fuck you,” she snapped, immediately cringing afterwards as another jolt of residual pain went through her shoulder. “If I had known that you were all gonna be knee-deep in shit I wouldn’t have shown up.”

“Shit aside I told you that you have no reason to fucking come back here. This is what you get, Jos, because you never wanna fucking listen.”

“Getting shot is a fair punishment to you? For showing up for a fucking conversation since you blocked my goddamn number?”

“What the fuck is there to talk about?!” He was yelling and angry, but he was still moving Josie’s hand so that it was covering her bullet wound, applying pressure through her hand with his own.

“Eva’s wedding!” she snapped back at him, not wanting to even mention it now because it felt so stupid and small in the face of all they were dealing with, but she knew Gilly well enough to know that he would be too stubborn to let the topic drop before he got his answer.

Her reply caused him to lean back, weight shifting to his heels as he studied her face. Part of him felt like she must’ve been joking, but he knew that there was no way her brain was working well enough in the moment to come up with a lie like that. The whole scenario truly was just as absurd as it sounded.

“You’re right,” he conceded, “It’s not the fucking time.”

In direct opposition to everything that was happening to her and around her, Josie let out one short laugh. “Told you.”

Gilly shook his head at her but he didn’t say anything in response to her quip. Instead, he reached for her hand that was in her lap. He couldn’t deny that he did feel a bit of sympathy, guilt even, at the pained expression on her face as he lifted the hand on her bad side to put it over the other that was already there. He pressed them together, trying to encourage her to do the same before pulling his hand away. He went to stand up, put himself back in the fight, when she reached and grabbed onto his hand, not caring about the jolt it sent through her, the way the pain made her grip on him that much tighter.

“Gilly—”

“Look, the bullet is still in there, but you’re gonna be fine,” he said with a nod, sounding sincere with her for the first time in far too long. “Just, just keep the pressure, okay?”

“What about you?” she asked, her hold on his hand not loosening. Despite all that she’d done, she still cared. She knew that even before this mess, but now it was a fact that she couldn’t push back form the forefront of her mind.

Gilly wouldn’t ever admit to the fact that the pain in her face, the worry in her eyes, almost made him soften for a second, almost made him backpedal just the tiniest bit. But he held his ground the best way he knew how. “I’ll be fine. Always,” he sighed and shook his head, “always fucking am.”

She knew that she had no right to try and make him stay there with her. He didn’t owe her anything at this point, and he never passed up an opportunity to drive that point home to her. Regardless of the mess that they were stuck in together right now, a mess that she really shouldn’t have been a part of in the first place for countless reasons, the current circumstances didn’t change the fact that his loyalty in the moment belonged to his club. Still, even though all of those facts were so salient in her mind as she looked at him, she still didn’t want to let go of his hand, didn’t want to let him go back into the fight.

Every day for weeks, Gilly had been wishing that things were different. He wished it now, too, but for other reasons entirely. He wished they were different so he could try to say something that would air just enough on the side of humor to be reassuring to her. They were long past that now, though. Too much damage had been done.

“Just, just lock your fingers,” he did it for her as he spoke, “like that, and press. Don’t let go, don’t stop putting pressure on that.”

If things looked more hopeful than they did, he would’ve tacked on a comment about how when it was all over, he’d find someone to dig the bullet out of there for her, but he had never been a good liar and he wasn’t certain that they were all going to walk out of the mess that they were in together. Instead, he just pressed her hands a little harder, knowing that whatever pain she was feeling from it would be far outweighed by the benefit of slowing the bleed.

When Gilly finally backed up, getting ready to go and rejoin the rest of his club, Josie almost reached out for him again. She managed to stop herself, thinking that she owed him this one thing, this one time of listening to him if nothing else. All the shit they’d been through, shit that she had put him through, she could give him this. It was a lingering thought in the back of her mind that it might be the last thing that she would be able to do for him.

She watched as he disappeared back around to the other side of the bar. She shut her eyes again, feeling her tears for the first time in the middle of all the chaos. Her face was soaked with them, with sweat, but she’d been too distracted by the rest of it to even notice. But now it was just her, the other girls hiding out behind the bar, and deafening sound of her heart pounding in her chest. She tried to listen to what else was going on. She could hear the guys cursing, giving directions to each other, but once again none of the specific words really sank in with her.

What she did notice, though, was how the sounds of the bullets were beginning to slow. The lack of gunfire should have been something that provided comfort, but it didn’t. Even with as far-removed as Josie had been from this side of club business, she was smart enough to know that just because the firing stopped, it didn’t mean that the fight was over. Whatever the mess was that she had accidentally thrown herself into, it was far from over.

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