Jesse
"Walk with me crabbie." Jesse had never been one to be startled but even he jumped when Chancellor seemingly appeared out of nowhere.
"Don't call me that." He'd snapped back at the old man.
"So what am I supposed to call you?"
"JJ is fine." Jesse replied before pocketing the keys of his house and moving towards the older resemblance of his.... of Hunter.
"Eh too long." Chancellor waved dismissively. JJ was close to chucking the man onto the streets. How in the world was JJ longer than crabbie or whatever it was that Chancellor called him.
"Your logic is so flawed old man." JJ replied as they started walking down the path. Ever since he and mamba had gone to bail the old fellas out, he hadn't seen Chancellor again until now.
Seeing the man waiting outside his house was definitely a surprise to him.
"You know, things were never meant to turn out this way." The oncoming fall season's weather bit into JJ's skin and he instantly regretted leaving the house without a light jacket. Chancellor however continued down the path, down the street.
What he was about to tell JJ, no other soul except Dickory and Hunter of course knew about it.
He'd watched from afar as the boy and his son grew closer and closer, although he knew his son's stubbornness was the only thing holding him back. He'd been the one to blame for that. Hunter had to grow up faster than his peers and so being tough, "masculine",and strong was the only way he saw to do that.
Chancellor should have done better to let his son know that he wasn't to blame for what happened. But instead he had retreated into his own head, and let his son carry the blame on his shoulders. He knew how special Hunter's mind was but he'd done nothing to steer that mind in the right direction. He watched from afar as his son became an outlaw just like his father.
Jesse watched the man beside him quietly as he seemed to have retreated into his mind. He wasn't good with words so he aimlessly watched Chancellor who also seemed to be struggling with his thoughts and words.
"Mary was always the glue." A smile appeared on the man's face at the memories of his late wife. "She was the love of my life. The mother of my child.... well almost children."
Chancellor remembered that day vividly like one remembers money. Mary had always loved kids but through miscarriages and repeated fertility issues, it was just Hunter for a long time. "The day she took the pregnancy test and it came out positive, she could barely control her joy." Chancellor remembered Mary calling up everyone on her contacts to break the news. He even remembered having to physically restrain her from dialling 9-1-1 just to break the good news to the first responders too.
But then shit happened.
They'd successfully walked the entire length of the street and Dove's Bar stood opposite their position at the moment.
To Jesse, the bar would always be a special place. It was where he and Hunter officially met, unknown to him that Hunter had first sighted him at the clubhouse.
"The club always came first for me. Shit I ate, drank, breathed, and lived for the Devil's Sons. So of course when the club ran into financial problems at the time of Mary's pregnancy, I sold the one thing that had been in my family for two generations." Chancellor pointed to the closed Dove's bar across from them.
"Dove's used to be yours?" Jesse was legitimately surprised that such enterprise was owned by the Wilson family and Chancellor had managed to sell it out.
"It used to be called Southern Lodge. My grandfather fought in the World war so when they got back, he erected a small shed right there to host his friends every night. My father had built it and then turned it into the family's business and when he died it was passed to me. I sold it when the club ran into trouble, I used the cash to bail us out." Jesse was too stunned to even make up words, his head still reeling on the information he'd been fed so far.
"I sold it without Mary or Hunter knowing." Chancellor remembered the look of devastation on Mary's face when he'd told her what he had done. "I was in the backyard that day and when I told her, she complained about a tightening in her chest."
Tears welled up in Chancellor's eyes as he relived that day again, the worst of his life. "I knew she was angry at what I'd done, she was disappointed in me. It seemed like a good idea at the time to let her get some space so when she headed back into the house, I didn't follow."
More tears welled up in the older man's eyes.
If only he could go back and warn his past self to not make the grievous mistakes he made.
But alas, he couldn't.
"That was the last time I saw her alive. All I remember is Hunter running out, screaming for me to come see what had happened." The image of Mary's lifeless body, unmoving, unbreathing, as she lay bare on the floor would forever be etched into Chancellor's head. Through the EMT's and the ride to the hospital, he hoped that it was just all an awful dream that he needed to wake up from. It wasn't.
"She died from a massive heart attack according to the autopsy." Neither Mary nor Rider, survived. She'd been so happy when Hunter suggested Rider as the baby's name after all his father was the president of a motorcycle club.
Jesse couldn't even imagine how he would be if he lost Laney or even Renee, he didn't think he'd be able to bear it. His heart sunk for the weeping man next to him.
"I was so lost in my head and I know it's no excuse for what I did but it was all I could do to avoid losing my mind." JJ who had been real quiet all along finally found the courage to talk.
"Whatever you did, I know there's forgiveness out there for you."
Chancellor let a teary chuckle escape him. It was nice, the boy trying to cheer him up but even he knew deep down that there was no forgiveness anywhere for him. "Hunter had always believed that he was the one at fault, I never sat him down to correct that notion nor did I emphasize the fact that it wasn't his fault."
JJ's eyes widened comically as he stared at the man next to him. Not knowing what to say, only understanding the hurt that Hunter must have went through thinking he was at fault.
His mind reeled back to that night when Hunter confided in him about struggling with depression. He remembered reading about it online and one of the causes of depression was sadness/grief. Was that where Hunter's stemmed from?
He wanted to smack Chancellor for messing with Hunter for years, making him blame himself for the death of his mother and unborn brother.
But he also wanted to tell the guy that everything would be okay, that it was never too late to seek forgiveness and mend broken bridges. He settled for just offering Chancellor the handkerchief in his pocket. The latter took it graciously and wiped the stray tears.
"I'm not telling you this to make you feel sorry for me." Sorry was the last thing JJ felt right now. Battling with his own daddy issues he understood how messed up ones parent could make them feel.
"Hunter was never supposed to be an outlaw. Mary didn't want that and I also knew that." Chancellor had continued.
"I overheard his conversation with Levi one day, they were in his bedroom and I just happened to pass by." Jesse's possessive nature would have spiked but he knew there was nothing at all between bruiser and mamba. "Hunter was showing Levi his box of quarters and basically out of the $3.00 that he got for school everyday, my son had been saving four quarters everyday in his box."
"Levi asked what he was saving for and Hunter replied that he was saving to buy back his family's bar." That was one day Chancellor would never forget, he'd cried. His son was just 15 years old.
Jesse stared at the bar where they'd met, the history surrounding it far deeper than what he knew.
"I did a shitty job in letting Hunter know how special he is, his brilliant and industrious mind was not meant to be an outlaw." Jesse definitely agreed with that. So many things he hadn't known about the Vice president and now he felt like he knew him more than he had yesterday.
He hoped to know him more tomorrow... if Hunter would let him.
None of this made JJ want to run away. Instead it made him want to hold onto Hunter tightly and never let go. Ever again.