Work Text:
It didn’t take long for Tara to spot Jax outside of the school. He was sitting on his bike across the street in the same spot he always parked in when he picked her up, but what made him stand out was the small group of girls crowded around him.
She could only imagine the way they were giggling and tittering and flashing him not-so-subtle bedroom eyes and felt the need to make her presence known. She sauntered across the street but stopped just behind the small circle of girls, tilting her head to the side. Jax had been holding her gaze since she’d walked down the front steps, but it wasn’t until now that the girls realized he wasn’t looking at any of them and hadn’t been for a while, that his focus was pulled to one point -- Tara. They turned to look at her.
“Oh, hi, Tara.”
She didn’t look at them. “Hi.”
For a few moments, none of the girls moved and just stood around awkwardly, watching Jax and Tara hold a silent conversation with a gaze, their eyes never leaving each other. When they finally did leave, resentful and annoyed, Tara smiled at Jax.
“Didn’t mean to break up your fan club,” she said.
Jax grinned. “My fan club?”
“Mm. Don’t think I don’t know what Carla Greggs was over here promising you.”
Jax licked his lips, took one last drag of his cigarette before flicking it away, and he walked up to Tara. He cupped her face in his hands and kissed her firmly, the intensity of his purpose threatening to make her drop the books she was holding.
He pulled away from her slightly. “They’re just white noise.”
Tara tried not to smile but it proved difficult --- she couldn’t help the glee that flooded her, knowing that they were still being watched by those girls.
“I don’t know, you seemed to be enjoying yourself,” she said.
Jax raised an eyebrow. “You wanna continue bustin’ my balls or are you gonna let me take you somewhere?”
Tara pursed her lips in mock contemplation. “Haven’t decided yet.”
He laughed. “Oh really?”
Jax kissed her again and this time, Tara moaned slightly from the impact it had on her and when he pulled away again, she felt slightly dizzy. Jax looked at her dazed expression and his eyes seemed to glint with something like triumph.
“Take me away, Teller,” said Tara.
He lifted her hand to his lips, kissing her knuckles, before going to his bike. Tara shrugged a strap of her knapsack off her shoulder so she could unzip her bag and put her books in. He handed Tara her helmet and she smiled, biting her lip.
*
Jax parked by the water and he and Tara lay on the grass. At first, they were staring up at the sky, holding hands, twirling their fingers around each other’s, talking about nothing, and then after a while, they turned to one another and stayed that way until their breathing seemed to sync.
Tara skated her fingertip over his eyebrow, tracing the outline of his nose and lips, and he held her gaze as she did, his expression open and as unguarded as he could allow himself to be.
He tried to explain it once, how a universe would sprout between him and her when they lay together like this, including and encompassing them and only them, but it was impossible for him to put that depth into words, to make it make sense to people when it didn’t really make sense to him. He couldn’t verbalize the peace that settled him and that could only ever come with her and how lesser he felt when they weren’t together. He’d never be able to say it out loud, he couldn’t even say it to Tara, mostly because it scared him, but if he could have his way completely, he’d never leave Tara’s side -- ever -- and losing that feeling, that universe, scared him even more than the feeling itself.
Tara continued to trail the contours of Jax’s face. She wasn’t sure why she was doing it, if she simply wanted to learn his beauty, commit every inch of him to memory, but she felt overwhelmed by her need to know him as completely as she could, and kissed him as a sort of release. A peck at first, and then slow and deep, an indication of how moved she felt at that moment. When she pulled away, he followed her, inching his face toward her, barely allowing a breath before kissing her again, intensifying their embrace.
It wouldn’t be long before they’d have to stop or else they’d make a display of themselves in public, Tara was usually the one who had to bring sense back into the equation, but then the noise, that noise, the one she dreaded more than anything, sounded and doused their fire for them.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
Jax stopped the kiss, groaning as he did. He reached over for his pager and looked at it. He paused.
“911,” he said. He took a deep breath. “Let me drop you home, I gotta get to the clubhouse.”
“Why?” said Tara.
“91--”
“Yeah, I know, 911,” said Tara, cutting him off. “But what does that mean?”
Jax pressed his lips together, hanging his head.
“Is it dangerous?”
“I’ll be fine.”
“Yeah, that’s not actually an answer,” said Tara, rolling away from him. “You keep doing that, thinking that I don’t realize that you never give me a straight answer or an answer at all.”
“I don’t have an answer for you,” said Jax. “I just know that it’s an emergency.”
“Bullshit,” she muttered. “This has been happening more and more. I barely see you now and half the time you’re surrounded by other girls---”
“You know they mean nothing, Tara.”
“Fine,” she said. “But seeing it is like … I don’t know, Jax, how would you feel if every time you looked for me, guys were hitting on me?”
“They hit on you all the time,” he said, an edge to his voice.
“No,” said Tara. “Not like with you, not wit them---”
“OK.” Jax didn’t want to hear anymore -- the hypothetical scenario triggered a combination of anxiety and fear, anger and jealousy and it was putting him in a sour mood.
“Never mind.” Tara got up, dusting off her clothes, and started heading for the bike.
Jax got up after her. “Wait. Wait. Just look at me.”
Tara didn’t want to because she knew if she did, it’d be over, her anger would ebb.
“Look at me,” he said again gently.
She did. As she predicted, she felt herself breaking but told herself to hold firm; she refused to let him feel good about leaving. He pressed his forehead to hers, sighing softly but heavily. He whispered, "Tara..." and something in her loosened, making her close her eyes. She didn't think it should be so simple --- that he could just say her name and she'd forgive him everything. She wondered if she could resist him. She tried it now and started to walk away but he held onto her wrist, bringing her back to him and she folded into his arms, melding into him.
“I don’t want to leave,” he said. “You know I don’t want to. It’s like my day doesn’t begin until you get out from school and I can see you, but--”
“Yeah,” said Tara. “‘But’.”
Jax looked at her, at a loss.
“Come on,” she said, “let’s go. It’s an emergency, right?”
*
Tara got off the bike and walked toward her house without saying anything but before she could reach the door, Jax called out to her. She stopped and turned around, her arms folded.
He walked up to her. “I don’t wanna leave like this,” he said.
“Life doesn’t have to be this way, you know,” she said.
Jax shrugged. “My life does.”
“Why? Because your mom says so?” Tara hesitated, telling herself not to continue but she couldn’t help herself. “I mean, what kind of mother--”
“Hey,” said Jax. “Don’t start this again.”
“You dropped out of high school, Jax! And she just let you.”
“I was wasting my time there anyway.”
“Because you didn’t try! You - you barely showed up! If you just went to class and made some kind of effort, you could get the kind of grades that get you into college.”
Jax laughed, shaking his head at the notion. “I can’t argue about this again.”
“But tell me, why is that so crazy? You love to read, I’ve seen your essays, you’re creative and smart, you could be could study English, you could--”
“Come on, Tara, you think I’m going to…” Jax started gesticulating. “Get a degree, be some sort of writer---?”
“Why not? Why is that so impossible?”
He sighed heavily. “Because.”
“Because what? Because Gemma said so? Because she said you needed to prospect to be a part of … what? What is it that you’re a part of, Jax? Because I can’t understand it.”
“I’m more protected this way.”
“Protected from what? You never tell me anything about what happens, you just tell me not to worry.”
He looked at her. “And you shouldn’t.”
“You just said that you needed to be protected.”
“Look, it’s better that we don’t get into this.”
“You mean it’s better for you because it’s not better for me. You say you don’t tell me everything for my own good, you tell me not to worry but all I do is worry, Jax! All I do is worry that your mother is going to call me or Opie is going to show up at my house or at school and tell me you’re dead!”
Jax heard Tara’s voice crack with fear and instantly felt the need to quell it. “That’s not gonna happen,” he said firmly.
“You don’t know that! Your dad---”
Jax took a deep breath, shaking his head. “Tara!” He said it more harshly than he meant to. “I can’t do this right now.”
“No, Jax, every time we get close to seriously talking about this, or talking about your dad you bail!”
“I gotta go.”
Tara clenched her jaw, trying to hold in her tears. “Then go,” she said.
Jax threw his head back. “Tara…”
“Just go, Jax. It’s good to be reminded, again, of where your priorities lie. Wouldn’t want to keep the club or Gemma or whatever the hell it is you have to do waiting, OK? So just fucking go.”
Jax watched as Tara walked into her house, and felt a pull -- a strong desire to go in after her, to stay there with her until the time came to let her take him away with her, away from Charming and everyone and everything in it, making their own separate universe a reality. The pull came from everywhere in his body, a cosmic temptation … and then his pager beeped.
*
The meeting had been over for an hour and now that business was done, now that he was able to let the rest of his life back into his consciousness, all Jax could think about was Tara. He spent the entire sixty minutes waiting by the phone or calling her house and each time he did, her father said she wasn’t home yet. It agitated him, he hated the way they left things, and he wouldn’t be able to settle until he talked to her.
He’d go and wait for her, it would be what she expected anyway.
As soon as he got up to leave, he came face to face with his mother who had her hand on her hip and a knowing expression on her face.
“Where’re you going?” she asked.
Jax looked at her. “You know where I’m going.”
“Yeah.” She sat down on a stool and he sat back down on his. “The future valedictorian’s,” she said.
“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” said Jax.
“Baby, I just want you to be with someone who loves you for who you are.”
“Tara does love me for who I am,” he said sharply.
“Then why did I find college brochures on your desk this morning?”
Jax looked at her incredulously. “What the hell were you doing in my room?”
“Your room in my house that I pay the bills for? I’ll go wherever I goddamn please,” said Gemma.
“Whatever. It’s irrelevant, OK? I’m not going anywhere. This is my life.”
“Then why are you so ready to leave it? To go chasing after pussy?”
“Don’t call her that,” he said,
“‘Don’t call her that’? She’s got you pussy-whipped, I thought I taught you better than that.”
Jax rubbed his forehead.
“Jackson, you can’t bear to spend a second away from her, like it’s life or death. All you two do is fight---”
“No,” he said, cutting her off. “All you and I do is fight because you won’t cut her break.”
“Well, there’s an easy solution to that, Jax. There’s a line of girls out there eager to suck your dick, they’d probably do it with a ‘please’ and a ‘thank you’.”
“Jesus Christ,” he said, rolling his eyes.
“I’m just saying there are plenty of other---”
“There’s no one else,” said Jax, looking directly at Gemma. “There’s only her. Deal with it or don’t but I’m done with this conversation.”
Jax got up and said his goodbyes to everyone as he made his way out of the clubhouse, grinning good-naturedly at the cracks and the jokes about how whipped he was. Once outside, he walked determinedly to his bike, but halted when he saw Tara lingering in the lot, pacing leisurely yet nervously, stopping when she saw that he’d finally come out .
They looked at each other for a long time but didn’t speak. Jax slowly closed the gap between them, his eyes searching hers her face flushed red with emotion
“I always end up here,” she said finally. She furrowed her brow. “I try not to… I try to ignore your calls, I try to forget how I feel… I try to forget you but…” Tara put her hand to her lips, closing her eyes. “I’m always right here. With you.”
Jax wrapped his arms around her, holding her tightly. He pressed his lips to her head, breathing her in, relishing the feel of her against him.
“Stop trying.” Then he said, a little desperately, “Don’t do that to me.” He moved so he could look down “Tara, I don’t know what will happen to me if you …” He cleared his throat. “Just stop trying.”
Her eyes passed over his expression. “OK,” she said, melding back into him.