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drabbles-mc · 11 months

Text

Try Enjoying It

David Hale x Tara Knowles

Warnings: 18+, language, pining

Word Count: 2.4k

A/N: I wrote this for the love of my life @garbinge for the Trick or Treat Exchange and I had the time of my life doing it. I've thought so much about these two together in the past and it was so nice to actually get to write something for them. I also realize I haven't really written any canon character x canon character stuff and posted it here but I do have things lurking around in the docs lmao. Anyway! Enjoy!

SOA Taglist: @espieviolet99 @littlekittymeow @i-just-read-stuff @justreblogginfics @withmyteeth @paintballkid711 @jitterbugs927 @fanfic-n-tabulous @mijagif @frattsparty @winchestershiresauce @beardburnsupersoldiers @darqchilddaydreamz @choochoo284 @artemiseamoon @nessamc @proceduralpassion (If you want to be added to any of my taglists, please let me know!)

Halloween in Charming was about what you’d expect from any small town. Kids were running from door to door, parents half-heartedly playing catch-up with them to make sure they didn’t get too far away. Lights were on above almost every doorway, decorations abound. It was a sweet scene, for the most part.

Just like every other town, though, Halloween in Charming came with its own set of trouble and chaos. Teenagers were running amok causing trouble. Twenty-something’s partied a little too hard and made some stupid decisions in the wake of it. Extra work for Charming PD, but nothing that was unmanageable—they knew it was coming every year.

The one thing that set Charming apart from other small towns, all 365 nights of the year not just Halloween, was the Sons of Anarchy. And, while the club wasn’t exactly known for being festive on Halloween, they were known for causing trouble. Real trouble. Again, that wasn’t something that was specific to the holidays. It was easier to try and hide their messes when there were so many other things going on, though. And they tried.

Hale missed what the original call was on the radio. The details of it didn’t make it through the static but what he did hear was the location, and that was all he really needed to hear. He tried to wrap up the current situation on his hands as quickly as possible. After all, it wasn’t like the kids buying beer from the corner store with fake ID’s were really doing any serious damage. Hale would never admit it, but he was actually a little impressed that they at least tried to be creative enough with their costumes to not get busted for using fakes. Too bad the man behind the counter had been working there long enough to have seen every trick in the book.

By the time that Hale got to the clubhouse, there were still cop cars parked at the compound, lights on but sirens off. Pulling in, he saw Gemma yelling at one of his other officers, Clay standing just a few steps away shaking his head at it all. Whatever the call must’ve been that triggered this, it couldn’t have been that serious if Clay was still there.

Stepping out of his car, Hale walked over. The second Gemma heard his footsteps on the ground she turned and focused all of her attention on him. “Are you the one who started all of this shit?” she asked.

Hale lifted his eyebrows slightly, the smirk on his face was unprofessional, sure, but it wasn’t as though Gemma was the type to give a damn about professionalism. “I don’t even know why we’re all here.”

“Just you and your guys, looking for any reason to jam us up.”

He gave a slow nod. “Yeah,” sarcasm dripped off his voice, “sounds like us.”

The officer she’d been speaking to previously cleared his throat, earning his way back into the conversation even if he didn’t want to deal with more of Gemma’s wrath. “They took Teller and Winston down to the station.”

Hale nodded. “Alright. You got things here, then?”

The young officer clearly didn’t want to be left to his own devices again with Gemma, but he also knew that Hale only phrased it as a question to be polite—he didn’t have a choice in the matter any more than Jax and Opie had a choice in getting brought to the station. “I got it here.”

Hale whipped into the station parking lot just a handful of minutes later. Hopping out of his car, he wasted no time heading right in. It was impossible to miss that Jax and Opie weren’t the only people who had been picked up over the course of the night. There were a few teenagers in the holding cells—they probably wouldn’t even end up booking them, really, just calling their parents and getting them in a bit of trouble at home. A few hours in a cell might be a decent deterrent for a bit, though, so they let them marinate in there.

He ran into Unser before anyone else, which he should’ve seen coming considering who it was that was picked up. There hadn’t been a time in recent history when Unser didn’t look annoyed, but he seemed more annoyed than usual under the current circumstances.

“What’s going on, Chief?” Hale asked, more smug than he had the right to be considering he didn’t have any idea what was going on outside of Jax and Opie being picked up.

“Why don’t you tell me. What the hell are you hoping to get out of Jax and his friend in there?”

Hale held his hands out just slightly, palms out like a sign of innocence. “I didn’t bring them in—I just showed up after the fact.” He paused, letting Unser turn that information over in his mind before asking, “What’d they get brought in for?”

“What started off as a noise complaint turned into assault on a police officer,” one of their other officers piped up before Unser could try and respond to downplay the issue.

Hale couldn’t hide the confusion on his face. “Assault on a—”

“Jax took a swing when one of the guys got smart,” Unser said with a shake of his head.

“When he got smart?” David couldn’t stop the incredulity from sneaking into his voice. He knew that Unser was always going to be pulling for the men in the MC, but sometimes it still managed to shock him.

“Yeah,” Unser replied, no hesitation, just as stubborn as the man in front of him. “Maybe we should have the rookies stop following you around—put ‘em with someone who can teach a little bedside manner.”

Hale rolled his eyes. “Like you? Might end up getting a little too close to the be—”

“Yo!” Jax yelled out from the cell. “Hale, what the hell are we doing in here?”

Hale chuckled. “From the sounds of it, you’re here because you assaulted a police officer.”

Jax scoffed. “Assault. Jesus Christ. Gemma’s hit me harder than I hit him.”

Hale didn’t mean to smile but he still did. “I believe that.” He paused, sucking in a deep, dramatic sigh as he dragged the moment out longer than necessary. Anything to get more of a rise out of Jax. “Assault on a police officer. Not great for either of you, considering everything. Bail for that isn’t gonna be cheap.”

“You serious?” Opie piped up.

Hale shrugged. “Or you can ride it out. Go home in the morning.”

Opie grunted before letting his head fall back against the wall. “Fuck that.”

“Well, guess there isn’t anything I can do for you two, then.” He turned to Unser and the other officer. “Make sure they don’t manage to slip out. Cut ‘em loose in the morning.”

Unser tried to stop him. “Do you really think this is the best use—”

“They can post bail or they can wait it out,” Hale cut him off. “Just like everyone else in Charming.”

Hale was turning on his heel and heading towards the exit before Unser could get another word in edge-wise. He left them with a remark about how if they managed to get anything in a report that could actually stick, to leave it on his desk and he would look at it in the morning. Realistically, Hale knew that whatever someone had called in on the club for, wasn’t going to amount to anything. Same way that Jax and Opie getting into it with his guys wasn’t going to stick either. He was aware of all that, but he was also aware of the fact that it was all going to be annoying and inconvenient for the club. That was worth it enough, in Hale’s opinion.

When he was walking down the steps of the station, he saw a familiar car rolling onto the lot. He slowed down as his boots hit the pavement. The cocky feeling that just had him walking tall out of the station evaporated immediately when Tara’s cutlass slow to a stop and park right next to his Jeep.

“Shit,” he mumbled under his breath, forcing himself to keep walking. He didn’t know why he felt guilty as he walked closer to her car—none of what had unfolded was his fault. And it wasn’t even like anything had really happened. It certainly wasn’t the worst run-in Jax had ever had with Charming PD.

Clearing his throat, Hale got her attention as she was putting her car keys into her purse. “Tara.”

Looking up, her eyes widened slightly for a moment in surprise until she saw who it was that was speaking to her. Her expression relaxed a little bit then, her tiredness showing through a little more. “Hey.”

“What’re you doing here?”

She laughed half-heartedly. “I think you know.”

“You’re not,” he motioned over his shoulder with his thumb, “you’re not here to bail him out, are you?”

“You want me to just let him sit in there?” she asked with a small smile.

“I think you know,” he turned his words right back onto her.

She laughed again, this time a little more genuinely. “David.”

He was smiling before he even realized it. One simple utterance of his name from her and suddenly he felt like he was right back in high school all over again. She always said it the same way, that note of softness that he didn’t hear from anyone else. Even back then. And now, when everyone in Charming had taken to calling him by his last name, and usually with no hint of softness whatsoever, it landed a little harder.

He knew he was too late to stop himself from getting side-tracked with the thoughts of it all, of her, but he still tried to distract himself by dealing with the situation at hand. “Let someone else babysit him for the night.”

She rolled her eyes, still smiling. “I’m not his babysitter. I’m…” she trailed off for a moment, amusement dropping from her face for a moment before she tried to recover, “his emergency contact, apparently.”

“Tara.”

He didn’t have to say anything else. Letting her head drop back, she sighed. “I know.”

“Jax is a big boy—he’ll be fine for one night.”

“You’re enjoying that, aren’t you?” she asked, already knowing the answer.

“You should try enjoying it too,” he suggested with a slight grin. There was a beat of a pause as they both chuckled before he got the courage to just ask, “You two…?” He wanted to finish the sentence but he couldn’t, mostly because he was afraid of the possible answers.

She shook her head. “No. We’re…that’s…no.”

“Right.”

It all felt so similar. Hale wasn’t sure how much he bought into the notion of deja vu, but something about standing there with Tara gave him a feeling that was about as close to that as he could imagine. There were a lot of years and changes between who they were now, and who they were back in high school, sure. But some things clearly hadn’t changed. Tara came back and suddenly old routines were kicking up again—her trying to clean up after Jax, Hale trying to get her to stop. The longer he stood there and looked at her, the more he realized that old habits were accompanied by old feelings. That sense of pining settling into his chest again—it didn’t feel any less hopeless now than it had then. Back then it had always been her looking at Jax, Hale looking at her. He had to hope that some things could be different now, though. That maybe he had a shot now that he hadn’t back then.

“You should go,” he said, firm enough to not sound quite like a plea even though it was one.

She sighed, nodding. “Maybe.”

He saw the slightly lost look on her face and frowned for a moment. Resting his hands on his belt, he said, “You remember, what was it, sophomore year?”

She raised her eyebrows slightly, but there was a hint of a smile on her face. “It’s all a bit of a blur—you’ll have to be more specific.”

Hale chuckled. “Halloween, sophomore year. All of us were supposed to be going to—”

Recognition flashed across her face. “The haunted house.”

He nodded, smiling. “The haunted house, yeah. We were about to head in when a bunch of their friends came by and pulled them away.”

Her laugh turned into a scoff. “To go and egg houses.”

Hale nodded again. “Right.”

Tara gestured towards the police station. “I think this is where they ended up that night too.”

He laughed. “Probably.”

“I was so mad.”

He laughed a little harder. “I remember.”

“That wasn’t a bad night, though.” She crossed her arms over her chest, smiling as it all came back. “We went to the diner, right? Ate our body weights in breakfast for dinner.”

“Yeah,” he said, the grin on his face coming a little more easily now, less guilt behind it.

There was a pause. Tara was waiting to see if Hale was going to get into his Jeep, and Hale was waiting to see if she was going to do what she’d originally shown up to do and go into the station to bail out Jax and probably Opie too. That was the position they were always left in, always waiting for the other to do or say something more. If only either of them had ever figured out what the other was thinking.

Reaching back into her purse, Tara pulled out her car keys. When she looked back at Hale, she smiled, looking a little less tired than she had a few minutes before as she asked, “Are you busy right now?”

He shook his head, caught between feeling relief and excitement at the question. “Was just about to head home.”

She motioned towards her car. “Wanna go eat? Bet the diner still does breakfast for dinner.”

He nodded without hesitation. “Absolutely.” He chuckled. “Think I’ll get a discount if I tell them the uniform is a costume?”

Tara laughed. “Should’ve worn my scrubs.” She shook her head with another laugh before saying, “I’ll meet you there?”

“Yeah, yeah that sounds good.”

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