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Tara Knowles ([personal profile] drownedindreams) wrote2014-05-06 10:59 pm

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It takes her hours to actually let herself call him.

The first time had been a mistake; she'd fumbled around, calling everyone she knew like a cry for help. She couldn't hold herself together, couldn't manage this on her own. What she said then was simple; I need you to come to the hospital. It's Jax. She'd meant to call him, too, but now that the surgery was done, now that people were gone and he was in recovery and there was nothing she could do...

She felt so alone. She'd meant to call him in the beginning, but she'd called Mary instead. Now... now that Jax was resting, and the boys were with Melissa, and she found herself alone. She found herself in the bar across the street from Darrow General, and it didn't matter what time it was. It didn't matter how little sleep she'd gotten. She'd get sleep - she would, but everything was in pieces and broken; everything was a mess, because he told her-- because Jax told her that he'd gotten her a ring and she'd started crying. Because she'd lost it.

And now she was in this dive bar with a rum and coke and she looked like death. She'd been thinking to call him - she didn't know how late or early it was, but she needed a friend, and somehow... there was something about John that made Tara think he'd understand, maybe.

What she said in the phonecall wasn't actually important. It was pretty much I'm going to be honest - I need you to come to Flannigan's, I can't do this. Please. Just you. Not Mary, who had been well meaning but her saying that this place was a new start after Jax had been stabbed again, just like he'd been back home... that wasn't something she could deal with.

She sat there - and had drained at least two drinks, enough that when he comes in, it takes him talking to her for her to notice him. She's still in her scrubs, and even though she's washed Jax's blood off her arms, she's not wearing her brace; the raised ruin of the scar across the back of her hand and the thin, straight scars from the repeated reconstructive surgeries go unnoticed by her, even though the only person who'd seen it before today was Jax.
nervesofsteel: (na_shao) (14)

[personal profile] nervesofsteel 2014-05-08 02:05 am (UTC)(link)
It’s late when John gets the call, but even through hazy slumber, he knows self-pity and panic when he hears it, and after the day that Tara has had, she doesn’t deserve to be alone. So he tries his best not to wake Mary - it isn’t like they get many chances for a good night’s sleep these days - and slips out into the night.

Tara is hunched like she wants to disappear into the heavy pine of the bar, but she’s easy to spot. He slides into the stool next to hers and orders and whiskey - and for good measure, “Another for her.” He manages a half-smile for her. “Long day?” It isn’t really a question.
nervesofsteel: (na_shao) (14)

[personal profile] nervesofsteel 2014-05-08 10:08 pm (UTC)(link)
For a second, John thinks about lying. “I found him, actually,” he confesses, noiselessly drumming his fingers on the table. “Kept an eye on him until the ambulance showed up. Kept him talking.” And the fact that Jax had kept talking is one of the reasons John isn't more worried. Sure, that was no guarantee - he’d had whole conversations with guys who’d just had both their legs blown off and were bleeding out about the last email from their girlfriends or whatever - but he had a good feeling.

That doesn't make the current situation much less shit, of course.

“How’s he doing?” For now, he lets ‘same old, same old’ slide without asking questions.
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[personal profile] nervesofsteel 2014-05-09 12:51 am (UTC)(link)
The bartender places the rum and coke between them, and John nudges it in Tara’s direction. As Jax had been rushed into the ambulance earlier that day, John had hoped to hell that Tara would be elsewhere in the hospital when her husband came in - but whatever higher power might exist, it obviously hadn’t been listening.

“Well, fuck.” He exhales, tipping the whiskey around in its glass, and then taking a sip. “And they say lightning doesn’t strike twice. Tara-“ he tips his head to the side to look at her, “the important part is that he did get help. He’s gonna be okay."
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[personal profile] nervesofsteel 2014-05-09 02:10 am (UTC)(link)
It’s as though all the breath’s been sucked out of him. If he actually knew who I was, he’d hate me. The words strike close to home, sharp, and deep, and startling, an echo of something he so often thinks when he wakes up in the morning. Mary is more familiar with John’s inner demons than anyone, except maybe Sherlock, but still he is convinced that someday she’s going to see something of the real him - the dangerous, nothing-left-to-lose, adrenaline-charged, righteous real him - and will realize what a mistake she’s made.

Not for the first time, he wonders if he and Tara have more demons in common than either of them quite realize.

He downs his drink and waves down the bartender for another. “Nah,” he says after a beat. “Nah. Love’s way more messed up than that. Doesn’t matter what he knows. He loves you. He’s crazy about you. You won't get rid of him that easily.” Another beat, and then, casual as he can, “What’s he gotten into?” The attack on Jax had been planned, a retaliation of some kind, you’d have to be stupid not to see that. Why does’t matter that much to John, except that knowing would make it a hell of a lot easier to track down the bastards.
nervesofsteel: (na_shao) (14)

[personal profile] nervesofsteel 2014-05-09 03:07 am (UTC)(link)
John lifts a single brow. Jesus Christ, you can’t get a single normal friend, can you, Watson? But the details of Tara’s past, so many of which he still doesn’t quite know, have crept up on him so slowly that now, he’s just resigned. He’d laugh if the situation weren’t so dark. “Well, plenty of people say we’ve all ended up here for a reason.” His voice is a little thick, and he takes a drink of whiskey. “And the two of you being what you should be sounds like a pretty good reason to me. Neither of you are who you were back there. None of us are.”

He wishes he believed that a little more, but for now, he’ll believe it for Tara’s sake. “So some stupid kids get rattled ‘cause Jax won’t mess around with them ‘cause he isn’t an idiot, and they come after him, and that’s your fault? You’re full of shit. The gangbangers on their motorbikes, they’re the ones to blame. Trust me, I saw them do it."
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[personal profile] nervesofsteel 2014-05-10 03:16 am (UTC)(link)
John takes a long drink of whiskey before he speaks. “So, let me know if I’ve got this right. You think that if he hadn’t listened to you, if he’d kept doing favors for Locos Lobos, you think he’d have been less likely to get hurt? You think he would have never gotten hurt if he’d started running with them? Really?” He looks at her, skeptical and a little hard, not because he can’t understand her pain and guilt, but because sometimes you have to tell your friends when they’re being stupid, no matter how low their emotions have sunk.

“From what I’ve heard, you’re both a lot better off without that motorbike club. You’ve just gotta learn to live with that, learn to pin your problems on something else.” His voice goes gentle at the end, more gentle than the words might imply. “They didn’t kill him. Jax is alive, and he’s gonna stay alive ‘cause he’s gonna stay away from those guys. And if he does ever need backup,” he rolls his shoulders a bit, “Jax has always got backup."
nervesofsteel: (na_shao) (14)

[personal profile] nervesofsteel 2014-05-10 03:52 pm (UTC)(link)
“So you keep trying. You keep trying, both of you, and maybe some more shit happens, but you still keep at it ‘cause you haven’t got any other choice. To be honest, I don't know if we can be different people here, but we have to try.” He looks right back at her, and if he were the kind of guy to put his arm around her he might have. But his eyes are full of compassion, even if he doesn’t reach out. “Look,” he exhales, “there’s a lot you don’t know about me, and there’s a lot I don’t know about you, but we’ve both gotten ourselves tied up in some crazy things, and we’ve done stuff that most people would consider reckless, or dangerous, or... kind of psychotic. Am I right?”

“And...” He downs the rest of his second drink. “I don’t know what I’m trying to say, except I’ve got your back, yours and Jax’s, and I don’t really care what you’ve done, or even what you might do. It’s all...it’s all fine.” John almost laughs at the memory that springs to mind. “I know exactly what kind of backup you mean, and you've got it."
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[personal profile] nervesofsteel 2014-05-17 03:53 am (UTC)(link)
“Or close enough.” Frankly, Tara doesn’t look like she needs to be more drunk, but John isn’t about to stop a woman from getting plastered on the night her sort-of-husband was stabbed by a gang of thugs. He’ll get her in a taxi if he needs to. “Another for my friend here,” he tells the bartender. “And another scotch while you’re at it.” When the bartender puts the drinks in front of them, John holds up his glass, his smile dark around the edges. “To trying. Even when you don’t think you can try any longer."
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[personal profile] nervesofsteel 2014-05-21 02:11 am (UTC)(link)
John snorts. “Tara, I’m fine. He’s not the first friend I’ve stopped from bleeding out.” He runs his finger along the edge of his glass, dipping into silence for a moment. "I’m just glad I was there. Jax might not be so glad, though. I did spend a lot of time reminding him that he’s a first-class idiot.” A touch of a smile. Tara is radiating pain, but he knows there isn’t much he can do but sit here. Talk. Get her home.
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[personal profile] nervesofsteel 2014-05-25 09:40 pm (UTC)(link)
Sometimes, John forgets that not everyone hides from suffering behind nonchalance and gallows humor. “Good. Good, then he still knows his place.” He swallows hard and clears his throat as she collapses into herself, and though her tears are inevitable, and probably better in the long run, he winces. “Tara...” John is as bad at other people’s feeling as he is at his own, but even he can put his arms around a grieving friend, and he does, sliding his stool closer to hers and squeezing her shaking shoulders. “It’s all right,” he murmurs, and puts his hand over her injured one to steady it - his hand that was never really hurt but used to shake something awful. “Even if it’s just for now, okay?"