AUTHORS NOTE: I decided to write this, spur of the moment, while watching an episode of Sons of Anarchy. Gemma is famous for saying "Jax has loved Tara since he was sixteen years old", or a variation of the bit, and honestly? I've always been completely intrigued by this idea of their 'can't eat, can't sleep', the beginning of this epic love story that we're watching the progression of. So, here it is! My idea of what would be, when Jax and Tara first met, and eventually, fell in love. I don't own the characters, the show, or anything. Taking a few liberties and changing a few things, but generally? Same idea.
Jax
The streets of Charming were desolate and chilly for a California evening, the dew forming on the blades of grass on the lawns and making a sheet of fog rise to my ankles. It was quiet. Calm. The moon hooked in its sharp edges against a clear, black sky, reflecting off the exterior of the motorcycle I stood next to, waiting for me. Waiting for me to commence the insanity, beckoning streets away. Oddly, it felt like every other late night spent with a brown sack of malt liquor and a pack of smokes fresh in my back pocket, except that it wasn't. Except, it was my birthday.
My sixteenth birthday.
I maneuvered onto the bike, fastening my helmet and kicking off the stand, letting it roar to life under me. I relished in the power beneath my weight, my grip strong on the taut handles. The facts of tonight were as follows: The Sons were on a run out of state. Piney left Opie unchaperoned (as he usually did), and we were left with a house. A house to tear to unrecognizable pieces overnight, in my Teller namesake. A way to uplift me, or an excuse to get piss drunk, it didn't matter. It was all for me. Tonight would've harped strong on my adrenaline, pumping me to that uncontrollable excitement which urged me to reek havoc on sleepy Charming – but more often now, I felt a deep sense of... something. Something like emptiness, but it wasn't quite that. It was that nameless thing that kept me up at night, restless and stoic, twisting my recently dead father's rings on my fingers.
SO-NS.
He was gone, and I was... lost. It was the only way to describe it.
Down the familiar streets, I rode, until I turned to Opie's. The structure of the house was vibrating with bass, bodies pouring in and out, and some already passed out on the front lawn. Yes, we would rage, it was inevitable. We would rage until one of us gave out, pouring our guts out into the toilet and passing out with whatever available, interested female body dropped closest to our own.
And it should have felt better.
It should have felt like I was young, free, and wild. It should have given me that reckless abandon, the thing that left my mother clucking her tongue at me, hopelessness in her dark eyes. "You're just like JT. You're just like your father."
I felt exhausted.
When they buried him in his leather cut and Clay gave me that look, that look that said, "Welcome home, son", it started. I was reaped and sowed by the club, made and made fatherless by it. I was tired, and the fight in me was tired, too. I felt the internal clock ticking, signaling me with each stroke. I would be a Son soon. Clay was ready for me now.
After parking my bike by Opie's junker, I stepped through the threshold, a procession ringing out and stealing me away from my internal dialogue.
"HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JAX!"
"Ah, you shouldn't have, you drunk fuckers!" I yelled over the music, provoking laughter and cheers with beer bottles. A pair of bear arms clasped me from behind, slamming into me.
"Happy birthday, jackass," Opie drunkenly slurred, twisting me around so I could embrace him.
"Yeah, yeah," I sarcastically laughed as I slapped his back with affection. "Just get me a beer."
"Follow me, Teller boy. Plenty of beer and pussy to go around."
I followed him, weaving through the wiggling bodies and getting a few slaps on the back and "happy birthday's" along the way. It felt like I was outside of myself, watching from another pair of eyes that weren't my own. Out of body, out of mind. It was all a movie, reeling without me but using my face to star. Had I ever been this melancholy? I'd never felt so disconnected before - everything had always been a game, chasing the next high whether it was the thrill of a fist fight, the buzz of a brew, the calm of the nicotine, or the obsession of the ride. Had I lost the play?
Death was so final. It felt like something in me died with my father, something I couldn't get back.
When we reached the kitchen, Opie tossed me a cold one that I caught with my left hand.
"Happy birthday, Jax!" Wendy Case flung herself on me, wearing something that could only be described as leather-studded-porn-star. She had a coke habit and a way with swinging her hips, but she'd been barking up my desolate tree longer than I cared to admit I'd been rejecting her. Wendy was alright, but I would never belong to a girl like her, and she'd never belong to me.
"Thanks, darlin'," I politely responded, shimmying out of her drunken lush as inconspicuously as I could manage. I avoided her pout. Cracking open my beer and taking a long pull, I watched as one of Wendy's slut squad skanks pasted herself to Opie. We were future Sons, after all. It was in our blood, in our veins, and those girls would give anything to taste it and call themselves an old lady, riding the ride they lusted after.
Something about all of it made me sick. The pang of unwarranted resentment I felt for my father's death fell back on the club, back on the Mayans. Clay took me aside after my father's funeral, and promised a cruel retaliation in my name, in Gemma's name. But I wanted it to be me, my boot on the fuckers throat, my gun against their skulls. Revenge was all I had left to hold on to.
Wendy stuck her chest out at me, a sad attempt to lure, to catch attention. I was so disinterested. "Wanna take some shots with me?"
"Nah, maybe later."
I drowned down the rest of the beer, and went to the fridge to snatch another. I needed to be drunk – the feeling was there. The empty, broken, aimless one, and I wanted to kill it before it killed my night first.
Juice stumbled into the kitchen then, side tackling me. "MY BROTHAAAA! Happy birthday, fucker!"
I laughed, rubbing his shaved head. "Thanks, ass wipe. Smoke?" It was the only thing to calm my nerves, and an excuse to ditch Wendy.
"Hell yeah. ROOF!"
"Yo, Op! I'll be right back, try to keep it in your fucking pants til then," I teased, laughing as Opie tipped his beer bottle at me and rolled his eyes over the skank's shoulder. I knew he'd fuck her, anyway. Opie was easy, a big air of nonchalance and a strong heart that attracted the gentle. I, on the other hand, attracted the thrill seekers - the girls who ached for a taste of the 'bad guy' their mommy's warned them about. I got the crazy ones, the hopeless ones, the ones who needed saving. It was why I didn't date, because the type I'd get, I didn't want for longer than a night of pleasure. I could handle the crazy sex, not the mental instability. I had enough of that with my calculating, rollercoaster of a mother.
Weaving back through the bodies, Juice and I raced up the stairs, headed for Opie's bedroom. His window led to the roof's convenient overhang, where we usually crawled out to smoke, like our own private tree house. There were people throwing up on the stairs, making out in the hallways, and sharing liquor bottles, crowded and wild, rubbing against one another. If I felt anything, I would join them. I would lose my mind and let the chaos take me, take me away to that easy place.
But still, I felt nothing.
As soon as we opened Opie's door, the feeling rocked me, jolting my body as if I'd been smacked with it.
There was a guy. Tall, shadowed, someone I recognized from our side of the tracks, but unfamiliar enough that I didn't know his name. His angry hands were clasping the wrists of a tiny, frightful brunette, who appeared to be rebelling against him. She was screaming 'no', and it was enough. It was enough to know what was happening, and what I would do next. It sparked in me like fire, raging and clouding all of my senses. Fury. Anger. Feeling. My fist connected with his cheekbone before I thought about it, crunching into my knuckles audibly. When he went down, the toe of my boot instantly jammed thick into his ribs, again and again, a continuous thrashing that seemed to release everything that had been bubbling just underneath the parts of me I left hidden. I don't know how long it continued until Juice grabbed my shoulders, hoisting me back.
"Jax! Jax! Ease up! You got him bro. Relax."
I heaved, my face twisted with disgust and want, need to ruin this fucker more. I'd kill him if I did. "Then get him the fuck out. Get him fucking out of here."
He didn't hesitate - he saw it in my eyes, the snap I'd had on more than one occasion, rearing its ugly head once again. "Come on, asshole," Juice grabbed the groaning fucker to his feet, shoving him outside of Opie's bedroom and hopefully into the middle of ongoing traffic where fate could have his punishment.
As I slowly calmed the wave of my break, recovering in solitude, I heard the soft sobs. The girl. I'd almost forgotten she was there, the one I'd just saved from whatever unimaginable disgrace she was about to endure. She was sitting on the edge of Opie's bed, frail knees curled to her small chest as if trying to hold it all in. I took a deep breath, letting the ease take over completely, and slowly crossed over and sat next to her. I made sure it was a few spaces away to give her room to breathe, to feel safe. The last thing she needed was to fear being hurt like that again.
"Hey, hey. It's okay. It's alright." I softly said, trying to bring her out of herself. I'd completely snapped out of my rage, and somehow found myself caring about that tiny little thing sitting next to me.
She wiped her face with the palms of her hands, choking down her sobs. Trying to be strong and not break in front of me, I guessed. The light from the moon was pouring in through the window, illuminating her face.
She was beautiful. So, so beautiful. Small, sloped nose, full lips, wide, heavily lashed eyes. I was stricken by her - I hadn't seen her face before, it was like I'd blacked out and tunneled in on what was hurting her. We connected eyes, and I felt something again. I felt.
"Are you okay?" I asked, softer.
"Yeah. Yeah, I'm... fine." She took a deep breath, hazel irises sweeping over my face. Searching? Wondering if I was insane, a savior, a friend? "Thank you."
I gave her a smile, shrugging my shoulders to lighten her mood. "No need. Fresh air?"
The girl seemed taken aback, and paused for a second, taking a few more deep breaths. Her frame wasn't as shaky anymore and she seemed to calm down; she trusted me now. She trusted that she was safe. "Um... sure."
"Come on," I stood, motioning for her to follow me. I opened the window, curling over and swinging by body out onto the roof. Hesitantly, she followed, edging out. We sat together on the roof in synchronization, our legs dangling over the edge. The cooler air cleared my mind, releasing the last bit of tension I felt from my burst. I watched the girl; she seemed to feel the same, the muscles in her body going limp and the tears ceasing. I grabbed my cigarettes and offered her one.
"No, I don't smoke. Those'll kill you, you know." She said, her voice quiet and silky. I laughed a little, popping one between my lips.
"I'm sure something more interesting will get me first. What're you doing here?" She didn't seem like the type. Not a smoker, and from the look of her clothes, far from a Wendy - the usual type of girl around us. Had I seen her around school? It was a rare thing not to know everyone in Charming, and I was surprised I didn't know her name already.
"I came with a friend. I don't usually... do these kinds of things, but she convinced me to come out. And then she left," She said, starting at her bruised palms. They made me want to slam my foot into that god damned asshole's ribs again.
"What's your name?"
"Tara. Tara Knowles."
I offered her my hand. "I'm Jax. Jax Teller."
She put her dainty hand in my calloused one. "It's nice to meet you, Jax."
"Likewise," I responded, giving her fingers a small shake and then letting go. "It's my birthday."
She gave me a small smile, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. "Happy birthday, Jax."
"Thank you, Tara."
And I felt alive again.