MASTERLIST Heather/Rebel/Bravo Six 🔥18+ Only!!! If there's a rebel around you know it's gonna be one of us 😈🔥 Just living my life causing chaos as I go, fully fledged petrol head and live for my little beast of a car! Multi- fandom blog; F1, SEAL Team, SOA, MARVEL, CPD, Suits. Just a thirsty hoe for Charles Leclerc, Clay Spenser, Thor Odinson & Jax Teller 😍🥵🤤 The Clay To Chibsy’s Sonny 💜
So I’ve decided why no jump into the deep end and do a 14 prompt list for October.
I’m only taking requests for Jax Teller and Charles Leclerc at this moment. I will only do one person prompt and it’s for the first person who gets asked for. I will update the below as prints get asked for.
Secretly Married to each other and having to act like they aren’t so pretend to be enemies - CHARLES LECLERC
"You broke my heart, and I tried to move on. But now I see the pieces of you in every moment." - JAX TELLER - Why Do You Still Wear It?
"I’ve wanted you for so long. But I’ve been trying to be good, trying not to cross that line." - JAX TELLER
"Every time I look at you, it’s like a battle between my head and my heart. But right now, I think my heart’s winning."
"You still wear the necklace I gave you. Don’t pretend I don’t mean anything." - JAX TELLER - Why Do You Still Wear It?
A conceals illness/injury for a date with B they really want; B finds out
"There's only one bed." "Well, darlin', I'm not sleeping on the floor, so I guess we'll have to share." - JAX TELLER
“do you think i want this? do you think i want to be stuck in this endless cycle of wanting you? do you truly think i enjoy waking up every morning realizing you’re not there?”
“i figured we were close, i just didn’t think it was “call me at two in the morning from a police station” kind of close.” - JAX TELLER
“is- is that [name]’s shirt?” - CHARLES LECLERC - Who Is He?
“I don’t need the world to love me. Just you.” - CHARLES LECLERC
"You want to know what's wrong? I'm in love with you, and I'm tired of pretending I'm not!" - JAX TELLER
you’re stuck in traffic together, both of you getting increasingly annoyed. without thinking, they hit the steering wheel in frustration and yell, “i hate this! …but not as much as i hate pretending i don’t love you.” it’s a confession wrapped in irritation, as raw as it gets.
"We have to stop." "What are you talking about?" "We can't keep doing this. We're going to get caught." "I don't care." - CHARLES LECLERC
Pairing: Jax Teller x fem!nurse!Reader Word Count: 2.9k [Series Masterlist] [Jax Fic Masterlist]
Warnings/tags: 18+; emotional hurt/comfort, fluff, little bit of sexual content
Summary: With everyone settling into Goose Lake, there's finally hope for a future.
a/n: I can't believe this is the last update for this series! It turned into something far bigger than I initially intended, and I am so so grateful for all of you who've been enjoying this zombie journey over this past month🫶🏻❤️ I changed the initial ending in order to keep this story open for more in the future, though... Feedback and reblogs are always appreciated!
Your attention remained on the side of the blue tent, watching as shadows danced along the fabric, the shapes created by the flickering glow of the campfire at the center of the makeshift camp. With Jax gone at some meeting among all the presidents of the different Sons’ charters here at Goose Lake–where you’d all been settling in over the past two days–you’d been unable to drift off to sleep.
After everyone had arrived here the other day, and with how many people were already settled in around the bunker at Goose Lake, it’d certainly been a big change from how things had been in Charming–though not a bad one. Especially since this place, with some work, had given you all hope that it could grow into something more. Somewhere you all could build a future, a place to call home in the aftermath of the outbreak.
When you'd been given a tour of the underground bunker yesterday afternoon, you'd learned that it unfortunately hadn't been built with the intention of housing the more than sixty people who were now beginning to call this place home. But the bunker was still impressive–it was powered by solar panels and boasted running, filtered water from the lake to drink, actual plumbing with showers that had hot water you’d nearly cried when you’d felt, and a fully functioning kitchen large enough to make meals for the entire group staying here. It even had a well stocked pantry filled with nonperishable goods and a small bit of medical supplies.
But since the bunker wasn’t large enough to house everyone inside of it, you’d all been staying in tents or the vans that had been stationed in the clearing of the forest around the bunker. Which meant that you were still sharing a tent and a sleeping bag with Jax–not that you minded. With more than enough Sons from all the various charters, there were plenty of people taking shifts at night to keep everyone safe and protected while they slept outside.
As you continued to stare blankly at the side of the tent, lost in your own thoughts after that long and eventful drive the other day, the sight of a shadow steadily growing larger alongside the wall of it drew your eyes. The sound of heavy footsteps approaching came from just outside of the tent before the zipper of it began to open with a soft noise. The tent flap fell back to reveal a tired Jax as he slipped inside before he turned around, closing the tent after himself carefully. But when he turned back around and stood up, his eyes landed on you. When he realized you were lying there still awake, his expression softened.
“What’re you still doin’ up?” he asked.
You smiled sheepishly back at him, scooting to the side of the sleeping bag to make room for him. “You should already know by now that I can’t sleep without you around,” you answered.
The corner of his lip drew back into a small smile as he shrugged off his kutte, letting it fall to the floor of the tent. His hands reached for the hem of his shirt afterwards, tugging it up and over his head before he tossed it aside. He began undoing the button and zipper of his jeans next, and you shamelessly watched as he undressed and made himself comfortable for sleep.
“You worried ‘bout me?” he asked.
His hands pushed his jeans down his thighs, your eyes following the slow reveal of bare skin and muscle in the soft glow of the distant campfire. But despite Jax standing nearly naked before you, it wasn’t desire that you were feeling as you watched him–not that that wasn’t there. But you felt something far softer steadily filling you as you watched him undress. There'd been an unexplainable tug in your chest, a steadily growing warmth that lingered every time Jax was near over the past few days–something beyond just the sense of comfort and safety you always felt around him.
“I’m always worried about you,” you told him. “But I also just…can’t relax when you’re gone.”
Crouching down, Jax unzipped the sleeping bag and climbed inside of it with you before he zipped it shut and rolled onto his side. Slipping an arm around your waist beneath the fabric, he pulled you completely against the front of himself. A small, half-smile spread over his lips as you snuggled up against his chest, something fond lingering in his gaze as he looked at you.
“Yeah,” he murmured, holding you close to his chest. “Feel the same way. I feel better knowing that you’re safe next to me.”
Sighing softly in contentment, you relaxed into the warmth of Jax’s bare skin beneath the sleeping bag. He'd been busy most of today dealing with important issues now that the Indian Hills and SAMCRO charters were settling into Goose Lake, so you'd spent the day missing him even if you’d found things to keep yourself busy with. But you’d been looking forward to tonight when you knew you'd get him to yourself again, something you’d grown used to over these past few weeks. Though you understood that he had responsibilities now–more than he had when you were all back in Charming.
“So how was that meeting?” you asked, unable to stop your curiosity. “With all the other presidents?”
Jax’s hand began rubbing absently along your lower back, his eyes still fixed on yours as his fingers danced along your skin beneath your shirt. You could feel the tension in his body as you laid beside him, could see the stress hidden in his eyes. He was still struggling to come to terms with what it meant to be SAMCRO's president after Clay’s death. You'd seen him struggling with the weight of it ever since he'd had to put Clay down himself–which you knew also still weighed heavily on his mind.
“They’re thinkin’ about making a council,” Jax answered. “Somethin’ that would run everythin’ around here, made up of just the presidents of each charter. Each one would represent their own people, and our clubs would become advisors to us or somethin’.”
You couldn’t fight back the grin that slipped onto your face at his explanation about the governing of Goose Lake. “How very democratic for a group of anarchists,” you teased.
Jax huffed out a laugh, his tired eyes creasing at the corners. You felt your stomach flutter at the sight, not having seen that light in his eyes much over the past few days with everything he'd been carrying on his shoulders.
“Yeah, yeah,” he replied, dismissing the teasing comment. “But we kinda need some semblance of order out here. With all the people relying on us now, we need to figure some shit out. Jobs for everyone to do ‘round here. Protection runs to put people on. There’s shit that needs to get built to make this place a functioning and safe community–like a wall to keep things out. Houses for everyone to live in, ‘cause these tents won't work forever. Can't get everyone on board to get all that shit done if we're all butting heads.”
“It makes sense,” you agreed. “With how many people are living here, there needs to be rules and structure. I'm not disagreeing with that, I just think it's ironic.”
Jax playfully rolled his eyes at you, his hand still rubbing absently along your lower back. But you saw the way his grin slowly vanished, gradually slipping off of his lips. He was getting lost in his thoughts again, something you'd noticed him doing more and more frequently. With the arm slung over his waist, you gave him a faint squeeze to draw him back to the present.
“What's on your mind, Jax?” you whispered.
He expelled a heavy breath at the question before his hand left its place along your back, coming instead to cup your cheek in the dark. His thumb gently stroked back and forth along your cheekbone as his teeth sunk into his bottom lip. The silence lingered in the tent for a few moments before he finally answered.
“When I made VP all those years ago,” he began, words coming out quietly, “I knew what I was gonna be stepping into when I finally took over the gavel. I'd been prepared for that, y'know? All that shit–running guns and dealing with gangs, cutting deals and making smart moves–I was good at it. But this?”
Jax paused, his throat visibly bobbing in the orange glow of the firelight outside as he swallowed thickly. Your fingers gently trailed up and down his back gently, following the length of his spine as you waited for him to continue.
“I'm not sure how to do this,” he admitted quietly. “Runnin’ all this shit? Having all these people here depending on me to keep them alive? Safe? Fed?”
“It doesn't all fall on just you, Jax,” you reminded him. “You've got plenty of others here making decisions, too. You aren't going to have to make the final call for everything.”
“But what if I can’t do it?” he asked, thumb still running tenderly along your cheek. “What if I ain't cut out for this sorta shit? Because I got no damn idea how to keep a whole community running.”
Offering him a warm smile, you held his stare, catching the nervous edge in it. “You were already doing it back in Charming,” you pointed out. “Taking care of the people who'd come to you guys for help, making big decisions about safety and food. Keeping us all safe. The fact that you even care enough to worry about how good you're going to be at running things here says plenty in itself.”
Jax leaned forward towards you in the sleeping bag, his eyes closing before he nudged his nose against yours. Your own eyes fell shut as you held him a bit tighter, aware that this was Jax opening up to you in a way that he probably didn't do with anyone else. This was him being vulnerable for once–feeling safe enough with you to be this honest and insecure.
“You've got too much faith in me,” he murmured.
“You need more of it in yourself,” you countered. “You're smart, Jax. And you've got a big heart. You're exactly the kind of person a place like this needs to keep things running and to keep everyone safe.”
Jax shifted in the minimal space between you both until his mouth found yours. He kissed you slowly, his lips lingering against yours as if he was absorbing your reassurance from the gentle press of his lips on yours. Your hand made its way up his back, gripping the back of his shoulder as you pulled yourself more firmly against him.
“Don't know how I'd be doin’ this without you,” he whispered, lips brushing yours.
Closing the little space between you both again, you placed another soft kiss against his mouth before you responded. “Then it's a good thing you saved me in the very beginning, because you don't have to do it without me.”
His thumb gently stroked across your cheekbone again, some of the tension in his body beginning to gradually ease as he relaxed beside you. The world may have felt like it ended all those weeks ago–everything you once knew completely altered in the blink of an eye–but this new life still offered hope. It still held moments that you'd never expected, ones that you would never choose to give up.
And it had given you Jax. A man you'd spent years fearing because you didn't really know him, you didn't understand him. Yet you'd seen him risk his own life to save others, you'd seen him step up for the people who mattered to him, and you'd personally been rescued by him–a woman who'd been nothing more than a stranger to him at the time. He owed you nothing, yet he'd saved you at that Save Mart and taken you in, protected you, comforted you, confided in you.
This life might have veered down a vastly different path than the one you’d initially planned for yourself, but that didn't change the fact that you were finding yourself quickly falling for the man laying next to you. That you were looking forward to what future you both might have in this changed world.
“Awfully quiet, baby,” Jax murmured, breaking through your thoughts. “What's gotten you thinkin’ so damn hard?”
A light, breathy laugh fell between your lips at his observation. You weren't quite ready to tell him what you'd begun to realize you were feeling for him just yet, especially since it hadn't quite been two months since you'd met each other, and you were still trying to make sense of those feelings, so you opted to answer with something else.
“You mentioned something about building houses out here,” you began carefully, “and I was wondering if that means I get my own house out here or…?”
Opening your eyes, you caught the smirk just as it slipped onto Jax’s face at the unfinished question left hanging in the tent. His eyes blinked open a few seconds later as he shifted a fraction away so he could look at you.
“You're obviously moving in with me, darlin’,” he stated simply.
“Oh am I?” you teased back, a wide smile stretching across your face. “Jax Teller is going to live with a girl that quick, huh?”
Jax made a face, his smirk melting into a playful grin. “Baby, your ass has been in my goddamn bed every damn night for the past few weeks,” he reminded you. “You practically moved in with me a long fuckin’ time ago.”
Your smile only grew at how casual and comfortable he sounded pointing that out. But the thought of having a house together filled you with that unexplainable warmth you kept feeling around him lately, your heart skipping excitedly at the idea.
“So we're going to have our own house eventually, hmm?” you asked him.
“Yeah,” he answered.
Your leg slipped over his, your smile growing a little devious. “Just you and me?” you whispered.
“Mhmm,” he hummed. “But who knows–”
He leaned in towards you, his teeth sinking into your lower lip and giving a firm tug against it. You shifted against him, something like a throaty, pleased purr vibrating in your throat in response before he released your lip from between his teeth.
“Maybe someday there'll be more than just you and me in it,” he continued, his hand leaving your cheek before it came down with a light smack on your ass. “Might fill it with little versions of us. Especially when that birth control of yours ain't workin’ anymore.”
You pulled back a bit in the sleeping bag, your eyes widening in surprise. Jax chuckled softly in the dim light at your reaction, his hand smoothing itself over your ass.
“Are you…?” you asked, still stunned. “You're talking about kids?”
He shrugged a shoulder casually, that little grin firmly in place on his face. “I dunno,” he answered. “In all honesty? I never thought about ‘em before, and this world ain't exactly that fuckin’ great at the moment. But a few years from now? If this place becomes something more?” His expression softened as his hand paused on your ass, giving it a firm squeeze. “Maybe. ‘Cause I still see you right by my side.”
Ever so slowly, you watched the grin on his mouth shift, quirking into a devilish smirk that you'd gotten far too acquainted with lately. It sent a jolt straight through you, the sleeping bag suddenly feeling a little warmer.
“Besides,” he continued, tone dropping into something low and husky, “someone's gotta repopulate this shithole world now.”
A surprised laugh slipped out of you, your body shaking against his. “How very civic minded of you, Jax,” you joked between laughter.
“What can I say,” he replied, that mischievous glint still in his eyes. “Think you'd make a good mom, and running outta condoms ain't gonna keep my damn hands off of you, baby.”
Before you even knew what'd happened, Jax had rolled over on top of you, both of his arms boxing you in between them as he pinned you beneath himself. His blonde hair hung down towards you as he held your stare, the tips of it tickling your neck as that devilish smirk on his face set your heart racing.
“Does this mean I'm your old lady?” you whispered.
The smirk only grew even wider at the question. “You're goddamn fuckin’ right it does.”
Jax dove forward without hesitation, his mouth landing on yours as he kissed you deeply. His body pressed you down into the sleeping bag as your hands wound their way into the strands of his hair, curling them around your fingers. You felt him press himself against you, showing you exactly what effect you had on him, and you couldn't fight the breathy noise you made against his mouth.
As his hands began to undress you, his mouth refusing to move far from your own, you knew one thing for certain. It had taken the entire world falling apart just to put you both in each other's lives, and you weren’t going to ever take that for granted.
Ahhhh!! I was enjoying seeing all of your reblog reactions as you made your way through this series!! I loved them all! Thank you so much!! 💕🫶🏻 I'm very glad you enjoyed this zombie fic!!
Apologies it took me so long to get through it 😅 i apparently disappeared into a pregnancy/house renovation hole 😅
Now to catch up on everything else but this series was so different to anything I read and it was a breath of fresh air to see another side to Charming 🩵
No need to apologize!! You've certainly got a lot going on and pregnancy really takes it out of you even without renovations!
I hope things have calmed down a bit for you and you can relax and enjoy all your catching up! 🤍 And I'm happy to hear that you liked our dead-infested Charming! 🙃 I might eventually have to give this series a sequel...
Pairing: Jax Teller x fem!nurse!Reader Word Count: 2.9k [Series Masterlist] [Jax Fic Masterlist]
Warnings/tags: 18+; emotional hurt/comfort, fluff, little bit of sexual content
Summary: With everyone settling into Goose Lake, there's finally hope for a future.
a/n: I can't believe this is the last update for this series! It turned into something far bigger than I initially intended, and I am so so grateful for all of you who've been enjoying this zombie journey over this past month🫶🏻❤️ I changed the initial ending in order to keep this story open for more in the future, though... Feedback and reblogs are always appreciated!
Your attention remained on the side of the blue tent, watching as shadows danced along the fabric, the shapes created by the flickering glow of the campfire at the center of the makeshift camp. With Jax gone at some meeting among all the presidents of the different Sons’ charters here at Goose Lake–where you’d all been settling in over the past two days–you’d been unable to drift off to sleep.
After everyone had arrived here the other day, and with how many people were already settled in around the bunker at Goose Lake, it’d certainly been a big change from how things had been in Charming–though not a bad one. Especially since this place, with some work, had given you all hope that it could grow into something more. Somewhere you all could build a future, a place to call home in the aftermath of the outbreak.
When you'd been given a tour of the underground bunker yesterday afternoon, you'd learned that it unfortunately hadn't been built with the intention of housing the more than sixty people who were now beginning to call this place home. But the bunker was still impressive–it was powered by solar panels and boasted running, filtered water from the lake to drink, actual plumbing with showers that had hot water you’d nearly cried when you’d felt, and a fully functioning kitchen large enough to make meals for the entire group staying here. It even had a well stocked pantry filled with nonperishable goods and a small bit of medical supplies.
But since the bunker wasn’t large enough to house everyone inside of it, you’d all been staying in tents or the vans that had been stationed in the clearing of the forest around the bunker. Which meant that you were still sharing a tent and a sleeping bag with Jax–not that you minded. With more than enough Sons from all the various charters, there were plenty of people taking shifts at night to keep everyone safe and protected while they slept outside.
As you continued to stare blankly at the side of the tent, lost in your own thoughts after that long and eventful drive the other day, the sight of a shadow steadily growing larger alongside the wall of it drew your eyes. The sound of heavy footsteps approaching came from just outside of the tent before the zipper of it began to open with a soft noise. The tent flap fell back to reveal a tired Jax as he slipped inside before he turned around, closing the tent after himself carefully. But when he turned back around and stood up, his eyes landed on you. When he realized you were lying there still awake, his expression softened.
“What’re you still doin’ up?” he asked.
You smiled sheepishly back at him, scooting to the side of the sleeping bag to make room for him. “You should already know by now that I can’t sleep without you around,” you answered.
The corner of his lip drew back into a small smile as he shrugged off his kutte, letting it fall to the floor of the tent. His hands reached for the hem of his shirt afterwards, tugging it up and over his head before he tossed it aside. He began undoing the button and zipper of his jeans next, and you shamelessly watched as he undressed and made himself comfortable for sleep.
“You worried ‘bout me?” he asked.
His hands pushed his jeans down his thighs, your eyes following the slow reveal of bare skin and muscle in the soft glow of the distant campfire. But despite Jax standing nearly naked before you, it wasn’t desire that you were feeling as you watched him–not that that wasn’t there. But you felt something far softer steadily filling you as you watched him undress. There'd been an unexplainable tug in your chest, a steadily growing warmth that lingered every time Jax was near over the past few days–something beyond just the sense of comfort and safety you always felt around him.
“I’m always worried about you,” you told him. “But I also just…can’t relax when you’re gone.”
Crouching down, Jax unzipped the sleeping bag and climbed inside of it with you before he zipped it shut and rolled onto his side. Slipping an arm around your waist beneath the fabric, he pulled you completely against the front of himself. A small, half-smile spread over his lips as you snuggled up against his chest, something fond lingering in his gaze as he looked at you.
“Yeah,” he murmured, holding you close to his chest. “Feel the same way. I feel better knowing that you’re safe next to me.”
Sighing softly in contentment, you relaxed into the warmth of Jax’s bare skin beneath the sleeping bag. He'd been busy most of today dealing with important issues now that the Indian Hills and SAMCRO charters were settling into Goose Lake, so you'd spent the day missing him even if you’d found things to keep yourself busy with. But you’d been looking forward to tonight when you knew you'd get him to yourself again, something you’d grown used to over these past few weeks. Though you understood that he had responsibilities now–more than he had when you were all back in Charming.
“So how was that meeting?” you asked, unable to stop your curiosity. “With all the other presidents?”
Jax’s hand began rubbing absently along your lower back, his eyes still fixed on yours as his fingers danced along your skin beneath your shirt. You could feel the tension in his body as you laid beside him, could see the stress hidden in his eyes. He was still struggling to come to terms with what it meant to be SAMCRO's president after Clay’s death. You'd seen him struggling with the weight of it ever since he'd had to put Clay down himself–which you knew also still weighed heavily on his mind.
“They’re thinkin’ about making a council,” Jax answered. “Somethin’ that would run everythin’ around here, made up of just the presidents of each charter. Each one would represent their own people, and our clubs would become advisors to us or somethin’.”
You couldn’t fight back the grin that slipped onto your face at his explanation about the governing of Goose Lake. “How very democratic for a group of anarchists,” you teased.
Jax huffed out a laugh, his tired eyes creasing at the corners. You felt your stomach flutter at the sight, not having seen that light in his eyes much over the past few days with everything he'd been carrying on his shoulders.
“Yeah, yeah,” he replied, dismissing the teasing comment. “But we kinda need some semblance of order out here. With all the people relying on us now, we need to figure some shit out. Jobs for everyone to do ‘round here. Protection runs to put people on. There’s shit that needs to get built to make this place a functioning and safe community–like a wall to keep things out. Houses for everyone to live in, ‘cause these tents won't work forever. Can't get everyone on board to get all that shit done if we're all butting heads.”
“It makes sense,” you agreed. “With how many people are living here, there needs to be rules and structure. I'm not disagreeing with that, I just think it's ironic.”
Jax playfully rolled his eyes at you, his hand still rubbing absently along your lower back. But you saw the way his grin slowly vanished, gradually slipping off of his lips. He was getting lost in his thoughts again, something you'd noticed him doing more and more frequently. With the arm slung over his waist, you gave him a faint squeeze to draw him back to the present.
“What's on your mind, Jax?” you whispered.
He expelled a heavy breath at the question before his hand left its place along your back, coming instead to cup your cheek in the dark. His thumb gently stroked back and forth along your cheekbone as his teeth sunk into his bottom lip. The silence lingered in the tent for a few moments before he finally answered.
“When I made VP all those years ago,” he began, words coming out quietly, “I knew what I was gonna be stepping into when I finally took over the gavel. I'd been prepared for that, y'know? All that shit–running guns and dealing with gangs, cutting deals and making smart moves–I was good at it. But this?”
Jax paused, his throat visibly bobbing in the orange glow of the firelight outside as he swallowed thickly. Your fingers gently trailed up and down his back gently, following the length of his spine as you waited for him to continue.
“I'm not sure how to do this,” he admitted quietly. “Runnin’ all this shit? Having all these people here depending on me to keep them alive? Safe? Fed?”
“It doesn't all fall on just you, Jax,” you reminded him. “You've got plenty of others here making decisions, too. You aren't going to have to make the final call for everything.”
“But what if I can’t do it?” he asked, thumb still running tenderly along your cheek. “What if I ain't cut out for this sorta shit? Because I got no damn idea how to keep a whole community running.”
Offering him a warm smile, you held his stare, catching the nervous edge in it. “You were already doing it back in Charming,” you pointed out. “Taking care of the people who'd come to you guys for help, making big decisions about safety and food. Keeping us all safe. The fact that you even care enough to worry about how good you're going to be at running things here says plenty in itself.”
Jax leaned forward towards you in the sleeping bag, his eyes closing before he nudged his nose against yours. Your own eyes fell shut as you held him a bit tighter, aware that this was Jax opening up to you in a way that he probably didn't do with anyone else. This was him being vulnerable for once–feeling safe enough with you to be this honest and insecure.
“You've got too much faith in me,” he murmured.
“You need more of it in yourself,” you countered. “You're smart, Jax. And you've got a big heart. You're exactly the kind of person a place like this needs to keep things running and to keep everyone safe.”
Jax shifted in the minimal space between you both until his mouth found yours. He kissed you slowly, his lips lingering against yours as if he was absorbing your reassurance from the gentle press of his lips on yours. Your hand made its way up his back, gripping the back of his shoulder as you pulled yourself more firmly against him.
“Don't know how I'd be doin’ this without you,” he whispered, lips brushing yours.
Closing the little space between you both again, you placed another soft kiss against his mouth before you responded. “Then it's a good thing you saved me in the very beginning, because you don't have to do it without me.”
His thumb gently stroked across your cheekbone again, some of the tension in his body beginning to gradually ease as he relaxed beside you. The world may have felt like it ended all those weeks ago–everything you once knew completely altered in the blink of an eye–but this new life still offered hope. It still held moments that you'd never expected, ones that you would never choose to give up.
And it had given you Jax. A man you'd spent years fearing because you didn't really know him, you didn't understand him. Yet you'd seen him risk his own life to save others, you'd seen him step up for the people who mattered to him, and you'd personally been rescued by him–a woman who'd been nothing more than a stranger to him at the time. He owed you nothing, yet he'd saved you at that Save Mart and taken you in, protected you, comforted you, confided in you.
This life might have veered down a vastly different path than the one you’d initially planned for yourself, but that didn't change the fact that you were finding yourself quickly falling for the man laying next to you. That you were looking forward to what future you both might have in this changed world.
“Awfully quiet, baby,” Jax murmured, breaking through your thoughts. “What's gotten you thinkin’ so damn hard?”
A light, breathy laugh fell between your lips at his observation. You weren't quite ready to tell him what you'd begun to realize you were feeling for him just yet, especially since it hadn't quite been two months since you'd met each other, and you were still trying to make sense of those feelings, so you opted to answer with something else.
“You mentioned something about building houses out here,” you began carefully, “and I was wondering if that means I get my own house out here or…?”
Opening your eyes, you caught the smirk just as it slipped onto Jax’s face at the unfinished question left hanging in the tent. His eyes blinked open a few seconds later as he shifted a fraction away so he could look at you.
“You're obviously moving in with me, darlin’,” he stated simply.
“Oh am I?” you teased back, a wide smile stretching across your face. “Jax Teller is going to live with a girl that quick, huh?”
Jax made a face, his smirk melting into a playful grin. “Baby, your ass has been in my goddamn bed every damn night for the past few weeks,” he reminded you. “You practically moved in with me a long fuckin’ time ago.”
Your smile only grew at how casual and comfortable he sounded pointing that out. But the thought of having a house together filled you with that unexplainable warmth you kept feeling around him lately, your heart skipping excitedly at the idea.
“So we're going to have our own house eventually, hmm?” you asked him.
“Yeah,” he answered.
Your leg slipped over his, your smile growing a little devious. “Just you and me?” you whispered.
“Mhmm,” he hummed. “But who knows–”
He leaned in towards you, his teeth sinking into your lower lip and giving a firm tug against it. You shifted against him, something like a throaty, pleased purr vibrating in your throat in response before he released your lip from between his teeth.
“Maybe someday there'll be more than just you and me in it,” he continued, his hand leaving your cheek before it came down with a light smack on your ass. “Might fill it with little versions of us. Especially when that birth control of yours ain't workin’ anymore.”
You pulled back a bit in the sleeping bag, your eyes widening in surprise. Jax chuckled softly in the dim light at your reaction, his hand smoothing itself over your ass.
“Are you…?” you asked, still stunned. “You're talking about kids?”
He shrugged a shoulder casually, that little grin firmly in place on his face. “I dunno,” he answered. “In all honesty? I never thought about ‘em before, and this world ain't exactly that fuckin’ great at the moment. But a few years from now? If this place becomes something more?” His expression softened as his hand paused on your ass, giving it a firm squeeze. “Maybe. ‘Cause I still see you right by my side.”
Ever so slowly, you watched the grin on his mouth shift, quirking into a devilish smirk that you'd gotten far too acquainted with lately. It sent a jolt straight through you, the sleeping bag suddenly feeling a little warmer.
“Besides,” he continued, tone dropping into something low and husky, “someone's gotta repopulate this shithole world now.”
A surprised laugh slipped out of you, your body shaking against his. “How very civic minded of you, Jax,” you joked between laughter.
“What can I say,” he replied, that mischievous glint still in his eyes. “Think you'd make a good mom, and running outta condoms ain't gonna keep my damn hands off of you, baby.”
Before you even knew what'd happened, Jax had rolled over on top of you, both of his arms boxing you in between them as he pinned you beneath himself. His blonde hair hung down towards you as he held your stare, the tips of it tickling your neck as that devilish smirk on his face set your heart racing.
“Does this mean I'm your old lady?” you whispered.
The smirk only grew even wider at the question. “You're goddamn fuckin’ right it does.”
Jax dove forward without hesitation, his mouth landing on yours as he kissed you deeply. His body pressed you down into the sleeping bag as your hands wound their way into the strands of his hair, curling them around your fingers. You felt him press himself against you, showing you exactly what effect you had on him, and you couldn't fight the breathy noise you made against his mouth.
As his hands began to undress you, his mouth refusing to move far from your own, you knew one thing for certain. It had taken the entire world falling apart just to put you both in each other's lives, and you weren’t going to ever take that for granted.
Ahhhh!! I was enjoying seeing all of your reblog reactions as you made your way through this series!! I loved them all! Thank you so much!! 💕🫶🏻 I'm very glad you enjoyed this zombie fic!!
Apologies it took me so long to get through it 😅 i apparently disappeared into a pregnancy/house renovation hole 😅
Now to catch up on everything else but this series was so different to anything I read and it was a breath of fresh air to see another side to Charming 🩵
PSA to fic readers, it is so hard to freak a fic writer out with your comments. we are just as crazy about the fic as you are.
tell me you love it. tell me it made you slam your laptop shut. tell me you brought it up at your college lecture about kink. key smash in all caps. quote the passage that made you think. i promise, we’ll love it.
we spend hours thinking about it, writing it, editing it. there is no such thing as over enthusiasm when you’re talking about our fics to us. we are sooooo weird about them, i assure you. you are just matching my freak. the freak bar is already set so high. feel no anxiety about enjoying something and letting the creator know.
Jax-Pocalypse 2025 Masterlist
A Walking Dead/SOA style mini-series
When the dead don't stay dead, it's a good thing the Sons have guns.
Pairing: Jax Teller x fem!nurse!Reader
Series warnings/tags: 18+; Horror/gore/violence, zombie outbreak, death, hurt/comfort, smut
《Jax-Pocalypse Playlist》
Installment List 《dates/titles are tentative & possibly more to come》
*Each installment has their own warnings/tags*
☣ Outbreak
☣ A Safe Haven
☣ No Other Choice
☣ Still Awake
☣ The New Normal
☣ Pretending It's Fine
☣ Bite the Bullet
☣ Beneath the Stars
☣ Confiding Truths
☣ Protect Our Own
☣ Separated
☣ A Reason to Fight
☣ Hard Choices
☣ Looking Forward
Pairing: Jax Teller x fem!nurse!Reader Word Count: 2.9k [Series Masterlist] [Jax Fic Masterlist]
Warnings/tags: 18+; emotional hurt/comfort, fluff, little bit of sexual content
Summary: With everyone settling into Goose Lake, there's finally hope for a future.
a/n: I can't believe this is the last update for this series! It turned into something far bigger than I initially intended, and I am so so grateful for all of you who've been enjoying this zombie journey over this past month🫶🏻❤️ I changed the initial ending in order to keep this story open for more in the future, though... Feedback and reblogs are always appreciated!
Your attention remained on the side of the blue tent, watching as shadows danced along the fabric, the shapes created by the flickering glow of the campfire at the center of the makeshift camp. With Jax gone at some meeting among all the presidents of the different Sons’ charters here at Goose Lake–where you’d all been settling in over the past two days–you’d been unable to drift off to sleep.
After everyone had arrived here the other day, and with how many people were already settled in around the bunker at Goose Lake, it’d certainly been a big change from how things had been in Charming–though not a bad one. Especially since this place, with some work, had given you all hope that it could grow into something more. Somewhere you all could build a future, a place to call home in the aftermath of the outbreak.
When you'd been given a tour of the underground bunker yesterday afternoon, you'd learned that it unfortunately hadn't been built with the intention of housing the more than sixty people who were now beginning to call this place home. But the bunker was still impressive–it was powered by solar panels and boasted running, filtered water from the lake to drink, actual plumbing with showers that had hot water you’d nearly cried when you’d felt, and a fully functioning kitchen large enough to make meals for the entire group staying here. It even had a well stocked pantry filled with nonperishable goods and a small bit of medical supplies.
But since the bunker wasn’t large enough to house everyone inside of it, you’d all been staying in tents or the vans that had been stationed in the clearing of the forest around the bunker. Which meant that you were still sharing a tent and a sleeping bag with Jax–not that you minded. With more than enough Sons from all the various charters, there were plenty of people taking shifts at night to keep everyone safe and protected while they slept outside.
As you continued to stare blankly at the side of the tent, lost in your own thoughts after that long and eventful drive the other day, the sight of a shadow steadily growing larger alongside the wall of it drew your eyes. The sound of heavy footsteps approaching came from just outside of the tent before the zipper of it began to open with a soft noise. The tent flap fell back to reveal a tired Jax as he slipped inside before he turned around, closing the tent after himself carefully. But when he turned back around and stood up, his eyes landed on you. When he realized you were lying there still awake, his expression softened.
“What’re you still doin’ up?” he asked.
You smiled sheepishly back at him, scooting to the side of the sleeping bag to make room for him. “You should already know by now that I can’t sleep without you around,” you answered.
The corner of his lip drew back into a small smile as he shrugged off his kutte, letting it fall to the floor of the tent. His hands reached for the hem of his shirt afterwards, tugging it up and over his head before he tossed it aside. He began undoing the button and zipper of his jeans next, and you shamelessly watched as he undressed and made himself comfortable for sleep.
“You worried ‘bout me?” he asked.
His hands pushed his jeans down his thighs, your eyes following the slow reveal of bare skin and muscle in the soft glow of the distant campfire. But despite Jax standing nearly naked before you, it wasn’t desire that you were feeling as you watched him–not that that wasn’t there. But you felt something far softer steadily filling you as you watched him undress. There'd been an unexplainable tug in your chest, a steadily growing warmth that lingered every time Jax was near over the past few days–something beyond just the sense of comfort and safety you always felt around him.
“I’m always worried about you,” you told him. “But I also just…can’t relax when you’re gone.”
Crouching down, Jax unzipped the sleeping bag and climbed inside of it with you before he zipped it shut and rolled onto his side. Slipping an arm around your waist beneath the fabric, he pulled you completely against the front of himself. A small, half-smile spread over his lips as you snuggled up against his chest, something fond lingering in his gaze as he looked at you.
“Yeah,” he murmured, holding you close to his chest. “Feel the same way. I feel better knowing that you’re safe next to me.”
Sighing softly in contentment, you relaxed into the warmth of Jax’s bare skin beneath the sleeping bag. He'd been busy most of today dealing with important issues now that the Indian Hills and SAMCRO charters were settling into Goose Lake, so you'd spent the day missing him even if you’d found things to keep yourself busy with. But you’d been looking forward to tonight when you knew you'd get him to yourself again, something you’d grown used to over these past few weeks. Though you understood that he had responsibilities now–more than he had when you were all back in Charming.
“So how was that meeting?” you asked, unable to stop your curiosity. “With all the other presidents?”
Jax’s hand began rubbing absently along your lower back, his eyes still fixed on yours as his fingers danced along your skin beneath your shirt. You could feel the tension in his body as you laid beside him, could see the stress hidden in his eyes. He was still struggling to come to terms with what it meant to be SAMCRO's president after Clay’s death. You'd seen him struggling with the weight of it ever since he'd had to put Clay down himself–which you knew also still weighed heavily on his mind.
“They’re thinkin’ about making a council,” Jax answered. “Somethin’ that would run everythin’ around here, made up of just the presidents of each charter. Each one would represent their own people, and our clubs would become advisors to us or somethin’.”
You couldn’t fight back the grin that slipped onto your face at his explanation about the governing of Goose Lake. “How very democratic for a group of anarchists,” you teased.
Jax huffed out a laugh, his tired eyes creasing at the corners. You felt your stomach flutter at the sight, not having seen that light in his eyes much over the past few days with everything he'd been carrying on his shoulders.
“Yeah, yeah,” he replied, dismissing the teasing comment. “But we kinda need some semblance of order out here. With all the people relying on us now, we need to figure some shit out. Jobs for everyone to do ‘round here. Protection runs to put people on. There’s shit that needs to get built to make this place a functioning and safe community–like a wall to keep things out. Houses for everyone to live in, ‘cause these tents won't work forever. Can't get everyone on board to get all that shit done if we're all butting heads.”
“It makes sense,” you agreed. “With how many people are living here, there needs to be rules and structure. I'm not disagreeing with that, I just think it's ironic.”
Jax playfully rolled his eyes at you, his hand still rubbing absently along your lower back. But you saw the way his grin slowly vanished, gradually slipping off of his lips. He was getting lost in his thoughts again, something you'd noticed him doing more and more frequently. With the arm slung over his waist, you gave him a faint squeeze to draw him back to the present.
“What's on your mind, Jax?” you whispered.
He expelled a heavy breath at the question before his hand left its place along your back, coming instead to cup your cheek in the dark. His thumb gently stroked back and forth along your cheekbone as his teeth sunk into his bottom lip. The silence lingered in the tent for a few moments before he finally answered.
“When I made VP all those years ago,” he began, words coming out quietly, “I knew what I was gonna be stepping into when I finally took over the gavel. I'd been prepared for that, y'know? All that shit–running guns and dealing with gangs, cutting deals and making smart moves–I was good at it. But this?”
Jax paused, his throat visibly bobbing in the orange glow of the firelight outside as he swallowed thickly. Your fingers gently trailed up and down his back gently, following the length of his spine as you waited for him to continue.
“I'm not sure how to do this,” he admitted quietly. “Runnin’ all this shit? Having all these people here depending on me to keep them alive? Safe? Fed?”
“It doesn't all fall on just you, Jax,” you reminded him. “You've got plenty of others here making decisions, too. You aren't going to have to make the final call for everything.”
“But what if I can’t do it?” he asked, thumb still running tenderly along your cheek. “What if I ain't cut out for this sorta shit? Because I got no damn idea how to keep a whole community running.”
Offering him a warm smile, you held his stare, catching the nervous edge in it. “You were already doing it back in Charming,” you pointed out. “Taking care of the people who'd come to you guys for help, making big decisions about safety and food. Keeping us all safe. The fact that you even care enough to worry about how good you're going to be at running things here says plenty in itself.”
Jax leaned forward towards you in the sleeping bag, his eyes closing before he nudged his nose against yours. Your own eyes fell shut as you held him a bit tighter, aware that this was Jax opening up to you in a way that he probably didn't do with anyone else. This was him being vulnerable for once–feeling safe enough with you to be this honest and insecure.
“You've got too much faith in me,” he murmured.
“You need more of it in yourself,” you countered. “You're smart, Jax. And you've got a big heart. You're exactly the kind of person a place like this needs to keep things running and to keep everyone safe.”
Jax shifted in the minimal space between you both until his mouth found yours. He kissed you slowly, his lips lingering against yours as if he was absorbing your reassurance from the gentle press of his lips on yours. Your hand made its way up his back, gripping the back of his shoulder as you pulled yourself more firmly against him.
“Don't know how I'd be doin’ this without you,” he whispered, lips brushing yours.
Closing the little space between you both again, you placed another soft kiss against his mouth before you responded. “Then it's a good thing you saved me in the very beginning, because you don't have to do it without me.”
His thumb gently stroked across your cheekbone again, some of the tension in his body beginning to gradually ease as he relaxed beside you. The world may have felt like it ended all those weeks ago–everything you once knew completely altered in the blink of an eye–but this new life still offered hope. It still held moments that you'd never expected, ones that you would never choose to give up.
And it had given you Jax. A man you'd spent years fearing because you didn't really know him, you didn't understand him. Yet you'd seen him risk his own life to save others, you'd seen him step up for the people who mattered to him, and you'd personally been rescued by him–a woman who'd been nothing more than a stranger to him at the time. He owed you nothing, yet he'd saved you at that Save Mart and taken you in, protected you, comforted you, confided in you.
This life might have veered down a vastly different path than the one you’d initially planned for yourself, but that didn't change the fact that you were finding yourself quickly falling for the man laying next to you. That you were looking forward to what future you both might have in this changed world.
“Awfully quiet, baby,” Jax murmured, breaking through your thoughts. “What's gotten you thinkin’ so damn hard?”
A light, breathy laugh fell between your lips at his observation. You weren't quite ready to tell him what you'd begun to realize you were feeling for him just yet, especially since it hadn't quite been two months since you'd met each other, and you were still trying to make sense of those feelings, so you opted to answer with something else.
“You mentioned something about building houses out here,” you began carefully, “and I was wondering if that means I get my own house out here or…?”
Opening your eyes, you caught the smirk just as it slipped onto Jax’s face at the unfinished question left hanging in the tent. His eyes blinked open a few seconds later as he shifted a fraction away so he could look at you.
“You're obviously moving in with me, darlin’,” he stated simply.
“Oh am I?” you teased back, a wide smile stretching across your face. “Jax Teller is going to live with a girl that quick, huh?”
Jax made a face, his smirk melting into a playful grin. “Baby, your ass has been in my goddamn bed every damn night for the past few weeks,” he reminded you. “You practically moved in with me a long fuckin’ time ago.”
Your smile only grew at how casual and comfortable he sounded pointing that out. But the thought of having a house together filled you with that unexplainable warmth you kept feeling around him lately, your heart skipping excitedly at the idea.
“So we're going to have our own house eventually, hmm?” you asked him.
“Yeah,” he answered.
Your leg slipped over his, your smile growing a little devious. “Just you and me?” you whispered.
“Mhmm,” he hummed. “But who knows–”
He leaned in towards you, his teeth sinking into your lower lip and giving a firm tug against it. You shifted against him, something like a throaty, pleased purr vibrating in your throat in response before he released your lip from between his teeth.
“Maybe someday there'll be more than just you and me in it,” he continued, his hand leaving your cheek before it came down with a light smack on your ass. “Might fill it with little versions of us. Especially when that birth control of yours ain't workin’ anymore.”
You pulled back a bit in the sleeping bag, your eyes widening in surprise. Jax chuckled softly in the dim light at your reaction, his hand smoothing itself over your ass.
“Are you…?” you asked, still stunned. “You're talking about kids?”
He shrugged a shoulder casually, that little grin firmly in place on his face. “I dunno,” he answered. “In all honesty? I never thought about ‘em before, and this world ain't exactly that fuckin’ great at the moment. But a few years from now? If this place becomes something more?” His expression softened as his hand paused on your ass, giving it a firm squeeze. “Maybe. ‘Cause I still see you right by my side.”
Ever so slowly, you watched the grin on his mouth shift, quirking into a devilish smirk that you'd gotten far too acquainted with lately. It sent a jolt straight through you, the sleeping bag suddenly feeling a little warmer.
“Besides,” he continued, tone dropping into something low and husky, “someone's gotta repopulate this shithole world now.”
A surprised laugh slipped out of you, your body shaking against his. “How very civic minded of you, Jax,” you joked between laughter.
“What can I say,” he replied, that mischievous glint still in his eyes. “Think you'd make a good mom, and running outta condoms ain't gonna keep my damn hands off of you, baby.”
Before you even knew what'd happened, Jax had rolled over on top of you, both of his arms boxing you in between them as he pinned you beneath himself. His blonde hair hung down towards you as he held your stare, the tips of it tickling your neck as that devilish smirk on his face set your heart racing.
“Does this mean I'm your old lady?” you whispered.
The smirk only grew even wider at the question. “You're goddamn fuckin’ right it does.”
Jax dove forward without hesitation, his mouth landing on yours as he kissed you deeply. His body pressed you down into the sleeping bag as your hands wound their way into the strands of his hair, curling them around your fingers. You felt him press himself against you, showing you exactly what effect you had on him, and you couldn't fight the breathy noise you made against his mouth.
As his hands began to undress you, his mouth refusing to move far from your own, you knew one thing for certain. It had taken the entire world falling apart just to put you both in each other's lives, and you weren’t going to ever take that for granted.
Summary: The journey towards Goose Lake isn't without incident.
a/n: This is the second to last part of Jax-Pocalypse, and hopefully my tired brain has edited this one enough. Feedback and reblogs are always appreciated!
Sitting on the floor of one of the many vans making the journey north towards Goose Lake, your whole body ached from the tight quarters. With your legs drawn up to your chest and your arms wrapped around them, you sat squeezed between Chuckie and Dana–one of the wives of an Indian Hills’ Sons’ member.
Shortly after the sun had risen this morning, you’d reluctantly disentangled yourself from Jax in his tent and gotten dressed. Everyone had eaten a small breakfast before needing to tear down the makeshift campsite beside the cabin, and then you’d all packed everything into the vans for the final move out to the new location.
Clay and Jury–the Indian Hills’ president–had reassigned groups for the ride out, which had left you in a different van than when you’d left the clubhouse in Charming the other day. But somehow you’d fortunately avoided the van with Ima at least, which you were grateful for considering just how long this trip was going to take.
From what the Sons had said, a normal trip up towards the northeastern corner of California would’ve been just over a six hour trip. A drive of that length wasn't necessarily too long in general–but that was before the outbreak. Now the vans and bikes had to maneuver around roads that weren’t fully clear of cars and debris, which had sometimes led to off-roading or driving on the shoulder, and that slowed traveling down. With all the main roads congested, the Sons had ultimately charted out a route ahead of time that had everyone taking back roads instead of highways, which had also tacked on even more time for the drive.
As you sat on the floor of the van, you couldn't stop thinking about how much you hated being away from Jax. After having just been separated from each other for the past day, it was almost physically painful having him outside of the van riding his bike instead of next to you. You wished it was his shoulder you kept accidentally bumping every time the van jostled around instead of Chuckie's.
You felt a little pathetic for missing him already, aware that it had just been a few hours since you'd been apart, but you couldn’t help how you felt. Particularly after how you'd both spent last night in his tent–with you asleep on top of him and his cock buried inside of you. Last night had been far more intimate than any other night you’d shared with Jax before, and now this thing between you both was no longer about just sex or stress relief. He’d made that very clear last night.
You were together.
Turning your head, your eyes drifted over the seats at the front of the van where Bobby was driving. Next to him sat the Indian Hills member you recognized as Mickey, the man who'd found you all in the woods yesterday afternoon. But they weren't what you were interested in–just past their shoulders, you could see Jax on his bike through the front windshield. His long hair peeked out from beneath his helmet, blonde strands flying in the wind as he rode his Harley.
A faint smile crept onto your lips as you watched him on his bike. You knew that he’d purposely fought to ride alongside your van for the trip–the closest he could realistically be to you for the length of the journey. Every once and awhile you’d catch sight of him on the road, and it helped to ease your nerves about the trip and the separation between you both for the day, part of you afraid of yet another unexpected separation.
As the hours wore on and the miles continued to slowly tick by, you’d eventually begun to steadily drift in and out of sleep from sheer boredom. There wasn’t much to do in the van, and everyone was too nervous about the trip to make much conversation. So your head had dropped back against the metal wall, your eyes having fallen shut as you gradually began to drift off. Until you felt the van begin to slow and come to a stop on the road, the sound of hushed voices around you pulling you back to the present.
Eyelids fluttering open, you remembered how Clay and Jury had agreed on plotting out a couple of refueling points ahead of the trip. You figured that’s what was happening now as you looked out of the front windshield, catching sight of Jax throwing his kickstand down and killing the engine of his bike. No one had wanted to be caught in an unforeseen situation involving a group of dead and a vehicle running out of gas, so they’d planned breaks to refuel ahead of time to avoid an incident like that from happening.
Putting the van in park, Bobby cut the engine before he and Mickey unbuckled their seatbelts and climbed out of the front. You and the few others sitting in the back of the van remained quiet, waiting as the Sons outside surveyed the area for any sign of danger. They'd said the refueling breaks would be an opportunity for everyone to eventually get out for a few minutes and stretch their legs or go to the bathroom, but you were patiently waiting for them to clear the area so you could see Jax.
After a few minutes of everyone nearly holding their breath in the back of the van, on edge at the fear of the Sons finding something outside, most people startled when Bobby finally pulled open the back doors. Light flooded the interior space, causing you to blink a few times at the brightness as you tried to let your eyes adjust.
“We're gonna refill gas tanks,” Bobby informed the group. He gestured his head behind himself as he took a step back. “You can get out for a few minutes, just stay close by. Don’t want anyone wanderin’ off into the woods or makin’ a ton of noise, though. This is just a short stop and then we're goin’. So if you need to piss or somethin’, do it now. We ain't stopping again for a bit.”
One by one, everyone began climbing out of the back of the van and dispersing, reconnecting with some of the others who'd been on motorcycles or in another van. A few people stepped cautiously into the tree line to use the bathroom. You began walking through the grass on the side of the road, your eyes scanning around a few groups that had begun to form beside the vehicles. You searched for Jax among the Sons moving around, focused on refueling all the vehicles, but as your eyes drifted from one leather-clad man to another, you'd somehow lost sight of him.
“Hey.”
Your head darted over your shoulder towards the smooth sound of that familiar voice, spotting Jax sauntering over to you from behind. Turning around, a warm smile spread over your lips as he stopped in front of you, your heart thrumming like an excited bird at the sight of him. One of his ringed hands casually reached out as he grabbed your jaw before tilting your face towards his. Without caring about everyone being able to see you both, he leaned right in and kissed you. Taking a step in towards him, your hands instinctively grabbed onto both sides of his kutte, fingers curling into the leather as you relaxed into his presence that you’d been missing over the past few hours.
You could get used to this. To the casual kisses out in the open, the taste of cigarettes on your tongue and the smell of sweat, leather, and Jax in your nose. To the way he held you like he owned you–one hand firmly cradling your jaw in his hold, the other squeezing your hip as he kept you close. Even the tender way he was kissing you–unhurried and full of warmth–felt impossibly perfect despite the state of everything else in your life.
You were in deep with him.
He pulled back first, but your eyes remained shut for just a few seconds longer, not wanting to let go of the kiss quite so fast. These small moments were what you held onto when the world started feeling too bleak and too scary. But at the gentle tightening of his fingers on your jaw and the soft chuckle from him, your eyelids finally fluttered open in time to catch Jax grinning back at you.
“How’s my girl doin’ in that cramped fuckin’ van?” he asked.
The pad of his thumb reached up from where he held your jaw, gently brushing the corner of your lips with it. The grin remained firmly on his mouth, his eyes creased at the corners in a bit of amusement, as if he thought the way you looked so dazed by a kiss was amusing. Trying to collect your thoughts, you focused on the question and not the simple way he’d called you ‘his girl’ now like it was no big deal.
“It’s not ideal,” you told him, “but it could certainly be worse. How far out are we still?”
“Still a few hours left,” Jax answered, thumb still running along the corner of your mouth. “But I gotta go fill up my bike, baby. I’ll see you before you get back in the van, yeah?”
Despite the disappointment filling you at how brief this moment was, you knew there were more important things to deal with. And tonight, whenever you finally all made it to Goose Lake and settled in for the night, you’d be back with him again Alone with him in his tent.
“Yeah, alright,” you agreed.
Jax leaned in one more time, pulling you towards him with his hand still on your jaw. He kissed you again, but this time it was a gentle peck that left you craving more when he pulled away. Especially with the little smirk that drew itself over his mouth as he took a few steps back from you, looking exactly like he knew what the hell he did to you.
Biting your lip, you fought back the wide grin threatening to overtake your whole face as you turned around and started making your way over to one of the groups. Gemma was handing out food from her van to a few people as a form of a lunch, so you strode over with the intention to help her pass things out more quickly. But the voice of the last person you wanted to hear came from just over your shoulder and you instantly tensed, your feet halting in place a few feet away from the group.
“He’s just going to toss you aside once we get to this new place.”
Jaw tightening at the sickening sound of her voice, you looked over your shoulder and saw Ima standing there. She had her arms crossed over her chest, one brow arched back at you and a sharp smile on her face. You couldn’t resist the way your eyes rolled at the sight of her and her bullshit false confidence. She had no idea what had just happened between you and Jax last night, or where you both clearly stood now.
“Don’t you have something better to do?” you asked her. “Can’t you go help out with something instead of standing here annoying me?”
“Annoying you?” she repeated in disbelief. “Sweetie, I’m just trying to make sure you don’t end up getting your little heart broken. You have no idea how to keep a man like him, and I can assure you whatever you think is going on? It’s one-sided.”
You couldn’t fight the amused snort at her comment. Forgetting about trying to help Gemma, you turned to face the irritating blonde fully. She was still grinning at you as if she thought she was managing to get under your skin like she'd done in the past. Except she wasn’t. Not anymore, not after knowing where Jax stood with you. She was just jealous and desperate, trying to ruin what you already had–but you weren’t going to let her.
“The only thing you know how to do is suck cock and spread your legs, sweetie,” you shot back, a sickly sweet smile on your lips. “And what you don’t seem to understand is that is not what keeps a man like Jax around. If you actually knew him, you’d know that.”
Her eyes narrowed at you, her smile faltering just a bit. The sight of her somewhat losing her composure for once felt incredibly satisfying to witness. It’d been over a month of her constant torment, always trying to make you second guess Jax, or her trying to make you feel bad about yourself, like you were someone Jax would be ashamed to be with. You were tired of her acting like a child when the world was falling apart.
“Just because you fucked him a few times doesn’t mean you know him,” she shot back.
“And just because you’ve fucked a ton of men,” you easily countered, “doesn’t mean you know anything about keeping one. And it doesn’t mean that they all want you.”
Ima scowled at you, her expression hardening at your attitude. Normally, you weren't this outrightly biting in return with her, but you'd had enough of her trying to get in your head. You were tired of holding your tongue and listening to her cruel comments.
She turned away from you with a huff and a flip of her hair. “Whatever,” she said dismissively. “You’ll never be his type. You're just a stuck up bitch that he’s going to throw away in a few days.”
Glaring at her retreating back as she made her way toward the treeline, you grit your teeth and fought to say something callous in return, hating that she always had the last word with you. But instead of stooping to her level, you took a deep breath and focused on the fact that you'd get to see Jax again before getting back in the van. Because he was going to seek you out–not Ima–and that was ultimately what mattered.
You began searching through the groups of everyone by the side of the road again, looking for the familiar blonde head of hair as the Sons finished refueling the vehicles. You wanted to catch a glimpse of Jax before you went to help Gemma pass out the food. But as your gaze drifted past Jury, Chibs, and Tig, a scream abruptly ripped through the air and caused your entire body to tense. The sound of it lit you with fear before your head darted towards the source of the shriek.
Looking over towards the treeline, your mouth fell open at the sight of a few dead appearing from between the thick trunks of trees, but it was the sight of one of them having torn a chunk straight from Ima's throat that had you standing dumbstruck. Blood spilled down the front of her shirt, spurting thick from the wound on her neck. Two more dead came up behind her, easily knocking her off balance and causing her to fall down into the grass. You stood there in shock, horror on your face as the dead collapsed on top of her. One of them sunk their teeth into her shoulder, gnawing on the flesh and muscle, while the third's teeth sunk into her bare stomach beneath her usual tight crop tops, tearing her abdomen wide open as one last scream fell out of her in the grass.
Chaos broke out among the rest of the group afterwards as more of the dead began spilling out from the forest. Heart pounding hard in your ears, your hand flew to the gun in the waistband of your jeans as some of the Sons began firing off bullets and dropping the dead.
“Everyone back in the vans!”
Your eyes flew towards the booming voice of Clay as he staggered out of the line of trees, a gun gripped in his hand while his other rubbed at his shoulder. A severe look spread over his features as he took in the sight of everyone's panic.
“Let's get the hell outta here!” Clay ordered.
His sharp command cut through the terrified screams as everyone began rushing back towards the vehicles on the road. Taking a few steps backwards yourself, your gun still held tight in your hand, you kept searching through the groups of everyone running back to their designated vans for a sign of Jax.
A few seconds later, your eyes caught his through the hysteria and it felt like time stood still. His head gestured sharply towards the van you'd been riding in, his eyes quietly begging you to get back into it as he gripped his own gun. Biting your lip, you nodded once before reluctantly tearing your eyes away from him. As you ran back towards the fourth van in the line of vehicles, the sound of gunfire continued ringing out through the air.
You climbed into the back of the van and sat down beside a woman you knew as Amy and her daughter, Lisa, both of them huddling together in fear. You began doing a quick headcount of the group around you when Bobby and Mickey ripped open the doors to the front of the van, climbing back into their seats.
“We good back there?” Bobby asked, his eyes meeting yours through the rearview mirror as he started the engine.
“Yeah,” you answered. “Think we got everyone here.”
“Then shut the damn doors,” he ordered.
Nodding once, you turned around and grabbed both of the back doors. As you began to pull them shut, you saw the Sons mounting their bikes outside, still firing off a few rounds at the dead as they did. Fortunately, there didn't seem to be as many infected attacking here as when you'd escaped from Charming the other day, but you knew all this noise would likely attract more of them to this area.
It was a good thing you weren't staying here.
You slammed the doors shut forcefully before sitting back down on the floor of the van, your back pressed against them. But in this position now, you couldn't see through the front windshield. Meaning you had no view of Jax to reassure yourself that he was safely on his bike riding alongside the van.
So you sat there with your stomach twisting into nervous knots, waiting until the bullets stopped ringing out and waiting for the dead to be left far behind you all.
Hours had passed since the incident at the fuel stop, the group having lost the dead a long time ago. The infected were miles and miles away by now, and as Jax continued to ride down the long stretch of road, he was grateful that no one else had been taken down by those psychos besides Ima. But even if she was irritating as all hell, he knew no one deserved to go out quite as violently as she had.
His gaze drifted over to the van behind him, catching a glimpse of Bobby sitting behind the wheel in his side mirror. At least you were safely inside the van this time and not torn apart or lost to him somewhere that he couldn't find you. You’d made it out of that unexpected attack safe and alive.
All Jax just wanted to do now was finish this last bit of the ride to Goose Lake without further issues, then he could take a moment to breathe once they reached their destination. At least this new place had a few different SOA charters already there waiting for them, and according to what Clay had been told on the satellite radios, they'd already built some semblance of a campsite around the bunker. Which meant some of the pressure could be shifted off of Jax’s shoulders and onto more of the other Sons when they arrived–something he desperately needed with the stress of the last few days.
Attention shifting back to the road in front of him, Jax’s hands abruptly tightened around the handlebars of his bike when he saw the van in front of him begin to swerve on the road, moving erratically over the pavement. Slowing down his speed, Jax’s eyes grew wide as he just barely avoided catching the front wheel of his bike on the bumper of the van that Clay was driving, nearly colliding with the vehicle altogether.
“What the hell are you doing?” Jax shouted over the roar of the road.
Clay’s van started to slow down, losing speed until it eventually fell to a stop in the middle of the road. The rest of the group of vans and bikes took notice, everyone else beginning to slow to a stop as Jax forcefully threw his kickstand down. He cut the engine to his bike and unbuckled the strap of his helmet before hanging it off of the handlebar, cursing under his breath at whatever the hell was going on now.
Jax swung his leg over his bike and dismounted, his eyes carefully sweeping the area around the road as he approached the van. The last thing they needed was another ambush from the dead taking more people out on this trip. But an uneasiness settled low in his gut as he headed straight to the driver’s side of the van, wondering what the fuck had caused Clay to start driving like that. Even with his arthritic hands, he shouldn’t be struggling to steer a vehicle. But the second Jax saw the state of Clay through the driver's side window, he already knew what was happening.
Clay sat slumped against his seat, his eyes half-lidded and his skin pale and clammy. He looked feverish and out of sorts, the whites of his eyes tinged in red as he met Jax's stare through the glass.
“God–fucking–dammit,” Jax cursed.
Clay had been bitten. He was infected.
Leaning over Clay from the passenger seat, Gemma quickly rolled down the window and met Jax’s stare with a worried look of her own. He could see the pain reflected back at him on his mother’s face, and he hated to see it. Standing beside the vehicle, he struggled to ignore his own feelings about this situation despite the deep frown tugging at his mouth.
“Why the fuck did no one tell us he was bit?” Jax asked his mother, trying to rein in his frustration. “How the hell did this even happen?”
“The woods,” Clay managed weakly. “Couple hours ago. Thought I could…manage the drive at least.”
A rough sigh fell out of Jax as he ran a hand through his hair in irritation, his fingers roughly combing through the tangled strands. Why the fuck had he not said anything? What if he had turned with everyone trapped in the van with him? He could’ve killed everyone in here.
Gemma’s eyes drifted from Jax back to Clay, her lips pressing together in a firm line. “There’s gotta be something we can do for him.”
Glancing into the back of the van, Jax could see the discomfort among the faces of everyone there–Lyla, her son Piper, Kenny and Ellie, a mechanic at TM by the name of Jason and his wife and kids. By now, everyone already knew what it meant to get bitten by one of these things, even if this was the first time it was happening to one of their own. But Jax knew they had limited options for dealing with this entire situation–either they left Clay behind, or they killed him before he could turn. There was no cure, nothing more any of them could do at this point.
Looking back down at his step-father slumped miserably in his seat, Jax had a feeling he already knew which option Clay would choose. The look he sent Jax when their eyes met again told him his answer already.
“You know there's nothing we can do,” Jax told Gemma. “He's infected. Just like those other things.”
Clay shifted in his seat, his head rolling slowly towards Gemma along the headrest. “You gotta finish out the drive for me, baby,” he said. “Make sure our people get to where we're goin’. This is where my part of the trip ends.”
“Don’t,” Gemma begged him, emotion thick in her voice. “Don't you go saying that.”
As Clay’s hand fell down on Gemma’s knee, the gesture seemingly taking quite a bit of effort from him, Jax turned away from the van to give them a moment to say goodbye. His eyes drifted to the other Sons who’d begun gathering around the area instead. Each of them were wearing a matching grim expression, already having realized what was going on by just taking one look at their president.
“Christ,” Chibs cursed quietly, shaking his head.
“When the hell do we stop losin’ people in this shit?” Tig asked, his own expression pained.
When the door to the van creaked open behind him, Jax glanced over his shoulder, watching as Clay pushed himself out of the driver’s seat, clearly struggling with the effort. Jax swallowed hard as he watched his step-father take a few slow steps towards the side of the windowless van, one hand bracing himself against it to keep himself upright as he walked. Clay's eyes met each of the surrounding Sons as he walked, a solemn look of resignation on his face. When he came to a stop near the back of the van, his hands began to remove his kutte from his shoulders, sliding it off of himself.
“You sure this is what you want?” Jax questioned.
“Yeah,” Clay answered, eyes shifting to him. “Don’t got much more left in me, this is where I go out.”
Clay slowly folded his kutte, taking a moment to run a hand over the ‘president’ patch stitched onto the front. With a heavy sigh, he held it out towards Jax, the gesture carrying more weight than Jax wanted.
“Everything falls on you now, son,” Clay told him. “You take that patch and do me proud. Keep those people safe. Keep your mother safe.”
Jax’s throat tightened as he accepted the kutte from Clay, his other hand retrieving his pistol from inside of his own. Gritting his teeth so hard together that he could feel the muscle jumping in his cheek, Jax tried to fight back the swell of emotions threatening to overtake him while the other Sons all watched the scene unfolding in front of them. Jax knew what needed to be done–knew it was falling on him to carry this burden–but he hadn’t expected things to happen quite like this.
“I will,” he promised.
Clay gave a single nod, his sweat-covered face looking up towards the clear blue sky. The afternoon sun beat down overhead as he looked up, acceptance of his fate written in the way his features gradually relaxed.
“Yeah,” he said quietly. “I know you will.”
Clay’s eyes slowly closed, his head still tilted back. Jax’s fingers gripped the handle of the gun tighter, his jaw still clenched so tight that his gums ached from the pressure. This landed on him, he knew that.
“Whenever you’re ready, son,” Clay told him.
Expelling a slow, trembling breath, Jax raised the gun in his hand and placed it at Clay’s temple. For a few seconds, all Jax could hear was the sound of his own blood rushing in his ears, the noise almost deafening. Until he finally pulled the trigger, a loud shot bursting into the otherwise quiet afternoon–sharp and sudden. Clay abruptly sank to his knees before collapsing to the road, lying entirely still on the cracked pavement.
A thick silence followed the gunshot as Jax’s eyes lingered on Clay's lifeless body in front of him. Chibs gradually made his way over, clapping a hand onto Jax’s shoulder before gently removing Clay’s kutte from his white-knuckled grip. Jax released the leather, reaching up and running a hand across his mouth as he fought back the burn of tears in his eyes.
“Dig a grave,” he ordered the others, voice tight. “Bury him quick before we go.”
None of the Sons said a word as they began moving, following the first command of their new president. But as all of them began getting to work, focused on digging a quick grave and moving Clay’s body, Jax slowly tucked his gun back into his kutte, his feet still rooted to the spot. At the light, surprising touch of a hand on his shoulder, his head sharply darted to the side.
You were standing there, your hand resting on him as if uncertain whether he’d want you there. Jax’s vision blurred with tears as he turned towards you, a surprising amount of fear filling him–fear of what you might think about him now that you'd just watched him kill a man. But instead of being met with horror or disgust for what he’d just done, your eyes only held understanding and compassion. Before he even knew what was happening, you’d wrapped your arms around his shoulders and pulled him in towards yourself.
Jax leaned into you, both of his hands gripping the back of your shirt and twisting his fingers into the fabric. He buried his face against your shoulder, a few tears sneaking out as the reality of what he’d just done fully hit him. Even if Clay and him had butted heads–even if he’d been the sort of man Jax didn’t ever want to become–he’d still helped raise Jax for most of his life. Taking him out like that hadn’t been easy, and now he was left carrying the weight of being SAMCRO’s president in the midst of all of this shit.
“Fuck.”
He breathed the single word against you, so much pain coating it. Your arms only held him tighter, pulling him more firmly into yourself. He didn’t even care if the Sons were watching right now, he didn't care how this would look to them. Because this was the exact thing he needed–not just sex, not something to take his anger out on, and not a handful of drinks to get wasted and forget. He just needed you and your acceptance.
“I know,” you whispered, turning to press your face against the side of his. “It’ll be alright. We’ll be alright.”
Jax knew the group needed to keep going, that he needed to start overseeing the last few hours of this trip with Jury to keep everything on track for their arrival to Goose Lake. All of that fell on him now. But at this moment, all Jax wanted was to stay here with you. To find strength in your presence while silently giving thanks to whatever higher fucking power existed that had led to him finding you in the mess of everything.
Summary: After the Indian Hills charter arrives at the safehouse, Clay sends SAMCRO out to search for their missing people. But when their search is fruitless, Jax's fear increases.
a/n: We're nearing the end of this fic/event and I'm getting a little emotional about it over here. I'm not ready for y'all to reach the end of this! But as always, feedback and reblogs are always appreciated!
Jax stepped into the cabin’s kitchen, his arms crossed over his chest and his expression hard. He was pissed off–beyond furious–but even he knew that his rage was just covering what he was really feeling this afternoon.
Fear.
Just before noon, Jury and the rest of the Indian Hills charter–what was still left whole of it after the past few weeks of this outbreak–and the few families that had arrived with them had finally met up with SAMCRO at their safehouse. After a brief period of Indian Hills settling in, Clay had reluctantly agreed to send out a few Sons to search for Bobby, Unser, Chuckie, and you since Jury’s men were able to hang back and protect the others at the cabin.
But after a few hours of searching, everyone reconvened back at the cabin without any luck. As Jax followed Clay and the rest of SAMCRO into the kitchen for a meeting, he’d felt that sinking feeling in his gut growing. You were still out there somewhere, and it was tearing him up inside not knowing what the hell was going on or how to find you. He didn’t want to even think about the worst possible outcome, the one it felt like Clay was going to suggest judging by his expression when he’d taken a seat at the small wooden table in the kitchen.
“So we still got nothin’?” Clay questioned the Sons. He folded his arms along the table as his eyes scanned the faces of the others in the tight quarters of the room. “No sign of ‘em anywhere?”
Solemn expressions painted every Sons’ face as they shook their heads in answer. Jax didn’t want to admit it, but it had been near impossible trying to search for all of you when they had no damn idea where to even start looking. They’d divided up into groups, trying to cover more ground, but that apparently still hadn’t panned out with any results.
“Well,” Chibs said, breaking through the heavy tension in the air, “Tig and I found their van.”
“Where?” Jax demanded, rounding on Chibs. “Where was it?”
Jax’s head darted over his shoulder quickly, his eyes landing on the Scotsman. They’d found the van and he was just now saying something about it?
“Still in Charming,” he grimly answered. “Parked in front o’ Lumpy’s gym. It was empty. My guess is that the group o’ dead cut ‘em off and they were forced to leave it.”
“So then we go back out to Charming and look for them,” Jax stated matter-of-factly, his piercing stare landing back on Clay sitting at the table. “We’ve got a lead now. Maybe we can find something to track from the van, some sign of where they went.”
“Ah, well,” Tig cut in, making a face and shaking his head at the idea. “Charming ain’t exactly that safe to just go walking around now, brother.”
“Aye,” Chibs agreed with a nod. “We had to navigate it on foot. Left the bikes outta town. All that shite yesterday really stirred up all the dead. Hundreds of ‘em–maybe more–are just wanderin’ ‘round the town now. It’s like the population o’ Charming is just walkin’ the streets.”
Clay ran a hand across his mouth, his eyes focused on the table as he contemplated the information. “If it’s that bad,” he mused slowly, “might not be worth sending more men in. Might lose more in the process tryin’ to save a few–assumin’ they're even there. Not sure it’s worth the risk.”
Jax’s eyes narrowed as he took a few heavy steps forward before slapping both of his hands harshly down onto the table, his rings creating a loud crack that echoed through the kitchen. “Are you fuckin’ serious?” he snarled, holding Clay’s stare. “You’re gonna give up on them just like that? We have a lead now, Clay. Somewhere to start.”
“Calm down, Jackie,” Chibs called from across the kitchen. “It’s possible they got outta town on foot. And Bobby and Chuckie know how to hotwire a car, maybe they took somethin’ else. We found no sign of ‘em near the van. We looked ‘round the building, brother. There’s no trail to follow.”
“So what?” Jax snapped, eyes darting to Chibs. “You agree with him then?” His hand raised from the table, roughly gesturing at Clay. “Think we should just sit on our asses and count them as dead now? That it? You wanna say that about Bobby?”
“Enough,” Clay warned, his firm stare fixed on Jax. “You need to calm down, son. Now, we went out and tried lookin’ for them already, just like I promised we would. But you heard Chibs and Tig. Charming is crawlin’ with those psychos, and they didn’t find any trace of ‘em. We can’t just go running in there risking more lives because of an empty van. At this point, they either didn’t make it out, or they did and they’re still on their way to the cabin. There ain’t any more we can do for them.”
Jax’s dark glare held Clay’s, the two men in a clear war over the same issue as yesterday. With both hands still flat on the opposite end of the table, Jax’s jaw tensed so hard that the muscle was jumping in his cheek.
On her?
“Then what?” Jax asked in a dangerous growl. “We’re just supposed to give up on them?”
Clay sighed heavily before settling back in his chair as he held his step-son’s stare. “We ain’t goin’ anywhere ‘til tomorrow morning,” he told him. “That gives ‘em all day to make it up here before we move out. We got Jury’s guys keepin’ an eye on the perimeter in the woods lookin’ for them. What more do you want me to do here, Jax? If they don’t show up today, I think we both know they ain’t ever showin’ up.”
Jax’s hands curled into fists along the table, aware of each of the Sons’ in the room staring at him. He knew he wasn’t acting like himself over this, he knew he seemed far more emotional than he should be about a few missing people. He wasn’t acting level-headed, he wasn’t thinking clearly. But how could he? You’d been missing for a day now. Out there in the middle of the mess of the world facing who knew what.
Commotion outside of the cabin abruptly seeped in through the wooden walls, the muffled sounds of voices growing louder outside. The uptick in noise interrupted the Sons’ meeting, everyone’s attention shifting to the window above the kitchen sink. A few of Jury’s men and some of the others were making their way towards the treeline out of the sightline of the kitchen. Jax’s first thought was that some psychos had found their camp, but no one outside looked panicked.
In the other room, the front door of the cabin loudly flew open as it hit the wall with a sharp bang. The abrupt sound startled the men inside, and Jax’s attention shifted to the kitchen doorway just before Gemma appeared, her hair a little windswept like she’d just ran inside.
“They’re back,” she said, breathless. Her eyes drifted from Clay to Jax. “Jury’s men just found them.”
With his head spinning, Jax didn’t hesitate. He shoved his way past Gemma in a rush and headed straight for the door to the cabin. His heart was hammering in his chest with each swift step as only one thought ran on repeat in his mind.
Please be alive. Please be alive. Please be alive.
Ever since the Calaveras MC attacked the clubhouse, you'd been living a nightmare.
The dead cut off your van from the rest of the group when you’d been trying to get out of Charming, forcing Bobby to circle back through downtown. But you’d all run into a wall of more dead blocking the van’s path when he'd tried to find another exit from town. With the way Jax, Chibs, and Happy had been trying to round up the infected and keep drawing them into town, it’d ultimately led to all of you getting trapped inside of it.
Now as you dragged your tired and aching feet through the dirt, you walked behind Bobby and Chuckie through the forest as best as your completely exhausted body could. Your eyes burned from lack of sleep, the three of you having walked miles on foot all the way from Charming up towards the Sons’ cabin. No one had felt comfortable enough to sleep in the dark last night when you’d all inevitably had to stop, unable to safely travel in the dark. With every snap of a twig and rustle of leaves, everyone had been too on edge to drift off.
Your fingers felt permanently curved around the handle of Jax’s old Glock he’d given you, having kept it in a tight grip over the past twenty-four hours. Too terrified to set it down or put it into the backpack on your back, you’d preferred the comforting weight of it in your hand in the event that the dead suddenly ambushed you all. But the joints of your fingers ached fiercely, even though that paled in comparison to how hungry you were.
Unfortunately, it’d been impossible to grab everything inside of the van when it’d been overrun by the dead. Since your van hadn’t been the one transporting a lot of the food and water–because no one had planned for a group to get cut off from each other like you had–you’d all had to make do with the scraps you had in your bags. But now each of you were severely dehydrated and starving from the long trek on foot.
Bobby’s head perked up when the three of you began nearing what looked like a break in the trees up ahead, the movement drawing your eye. Just past his shoulder, you spotted a man with dark, cropped hair and a thick beard approaching, the sight of him instantly causing you to tense. Fingers tightening around the gun, you weren’t sure if a fight was about to break out before you noticed the leather kutte he was wearing. In front of you, Bobby began to relax as if he recognized the man, and your fear gradually eased away once he called out to him.
“Mickey?” Bobby shouted. “You boys make it out here already?”
“Goddamn, Bobby!” Mickey called back, a grin breaking out over his face at the sight of the group. “Christ, everyone’s been goin’ mad wondering where the hell you all were!”
Relief flooded you as you finally breached the line of trees, the small cabin you'd all been looking for, along with a little makeshift camp full of people beside it, came into sight. You spotted tents scattered around an unlit firepit, multiple bikes parked by vans on a gravel path in front of the cabin, but your eyes were quickly drawn to the handful of Sons making their way down the front porch of the small, wooden building.
“We had a small detour,” Bobby attempted to joke.
Whatever they said next, you didn’t quite hear because you caught sight of the familiar blonde head of hair among the Sons, your eyes finally landing on Jax. It felt like a breath you’d been holding in for far too long finally made its way out of you at the knowledge that he’d made it here safe himself. But the look on his face as his feet began carrying him faster towards you had your chest tightening.
Your sore feet came to a stop along the dirt just as Jax suddenly bolted the rest of the way towards you–his eyes on you and you alone. He’d nearly knocked you off balance when he finally reached you, practically slamming into you as his arms circled your waist. He tugged you roughly against himself, fingers digging into your back as he crushed you into his chest in a tight embrace you hadn't expected.
Tears bloomed in your eyes as your fingers finally released your steadfast grip on the gun, letting it fall to the ground beside your feet before your own arms wrapped around him in return. Your fingers clutched at the back of his kutte, nails digging roughly into the leather and the patches as you held onto him. You pressed your face into his chest, the cool material of his kutte reassuring as the tears began to fall, a strangled sob muffling against him.
Jax buried his face into your neck, his scruff scratching your skin as his hot breath brushed over you. “Shh,” he soothed against you at the sound. “You’re okay, baby. You’re okay.”
You clung to Jax, barely paying attention to everyone else around the two of you greeting Bobby and Chuckie. How this reunion probably looked to everyone else didn’t even cross your mind, all you could focus on was how much you’d missed Jax. How much you hadn’t realized you’d been desperate to see him again.
“Thought I lost you,” he confessed hoarsely, face still buried against your neck. “Really thought I fuckin’ lost you.”
“We had to make it out of Charming on foot,” you told him, turning your face to rest your cheek against his chest. He smelled heavily of cigarettes and sweat, your tear-filled eyes closing as you breathed in the scent of him. “Walked all the way up here.”
Jax exhaled a trembling breath at the realization, his arms squeezing you tighter against himself. “Jesus, I’m sorry, baby,” he murmured.
This time, your ears picked up on the change in what he’d called you. He hadn’t called you that before today–not even once–but you weren’t in the mindset to ask him about it. Especially with how your body reacted at the sound of it–stomach fluttering, heart skipping.
“How the fuck did you get outta Charming?” Jax asked. “Chibs and Tig were out there lookin’ for you guys today, said it was crawlin’ with psychos now.”
Grimacing at the memory of what’d happened when the four of you had been trapped inside of the gym downtown, you pulled away from Jax. Tears continued filling your eyes as you met his confused stare, but everyone else suddenly seemed to realize the singular absence of your group at that moment.
“Where’s Unser?” Gemma called out, eyes darting around the three of you.
Your nails dug tighter into Jax’s kutte at her question, already knowing the answer. Thankfully, Bobby was the one to respond.
“He didn’t make it,” he answered gravely. “We were trapped in Lumpy’s gym downtown tryin’ to catch our breath after we’d gotten outta the van. Dunno how many dead were surrounding the place when we got in there.”
Biting your lip, a few more warm tears slid down your cheeks as Jax shifted his attention over to Bobby, listening as he explained what happened to the missing ex-Chief of Charming Police. You could unfortunately recall that moment all too vividly yourself.
“Unser stayed behind to distract them,” Bobby finished gravely. “Said the cancer was gonna take him out in this world anyway, he wanted to go out doin’ somethin’. Hoping to make up for all the shit he’d done in the past.”
A quiet settled over everyone as the realization of what Unser had done hung in the air. You hadn’t forgotten the way he’d said goodbye before the three of you left him to his fate in that gym. You knew he'd gone down just like Half-Sack had. Your throat felt tight as the tears continued softly falling down your cheeks, hating that this was how things were now.
Jax’s attention returned to you still wrapped in his arms, his blue eyes softening as he began to understand just what you'd gone through out there. “You good?” he asked quietly. “I mean…really okay?”
Shaking your head, you shrugged weakly at his question. “I don’t really know how to feel right now,” you whispered back, still clutching his kutte. “This past day has been…”
Your voice trailed off as you pressed your lips firmly together. A few more tears slipped down your cheeks as you shook your head again, bottom lip trembling. You didn’t want to talk about it. You didn’t even want to think about it.
“I’m just tired,” you finished softly.
“Well, you're safe now,” Jax assured you. “A’ight? I got you now, baby. So why don't we go get you somethin’ to eat and some water, yeah?” He shifted, keeping one arm wrapped around your waist like he refused to let you go as he bent over to retrieve the gun you’d dropped. After, he started guiding you back towards the cabin. “You can get some rest in my tent after I get you taken care of.”
Your sore feet followed along beside him, protesting each step with how much you'd already walked over the past day. But it took you a moment to catch what he’d said, your brows drawing together in confusion when it registered.
“You…want me in your tent?” you asked.
Jax's head turned over his shoulder as he looked at you, the ghost of a smile on his lips. “‘Course I want you in my damn tent,” he answered like it was obvious. “I'm not lettin’ you outta my goddamn sight after that.”
His words relaxed something inside of you as you both continued towards the cabin, and you found yourself leaning into his side. Your head slowly lowered to rest against his shoulder, feeling some peace in the simple fact that you'd at least found each other again.
With how spent you'd been from the long walk up to the cabin from Charming, you'd easily fallen asleep for the rest of the afternoon after Jax made sure you’d eaten. He had brought you back to his tent to let you rest, and you'd snuggled up in the sleeping bag that smelt so much like him that it lulled you straight into a deep sleep despite all of the noise outside. You'd only woken in the evening when Jax had stopped by wanting to make sure you didn't miss dinner. But then you'd returned back to the safety and comfort of his tent afterwards, trying to get as much rest before the drive to Goose Lake tomorrow morning.
It wasn't until Jax was sliding into the sleeping bag with you–not even having heard the zipper of the tent or him removing his clothing–before you stirred in your sleep. A soft hum vibrated in your throat as you drowsily blinked open your eyes, darkness meeting your sight. The warmth of Jax pressed against your back registered in your half-awake mind just before you felt him sliding a hand over your waist, resting it against your stomach as he pulled you back against himself.
“Go back to sleep,” he murmured.
Your heavy eyelids slowly lowered when you felt his nose nuzzle just behind your ear, his lips brushing against the skin along the side of your neck as his warm breath fell down the front of you. It felt far too good to be held by him again, to be safely tucked up against him while you slept. Last night was the first night in weeks that you hadn’t had Jax’s comfort to fall asleep with, your back instead pressed against the rough bark of a tree as your tired eyes fought to stay open until sunrise.
“I got you now,” he assured you.
His warm breath continued grazing the side of your neck, causing goosebumps to erupt over your arms as the little hairs along them rose. You shifted further backwards against Jax, seeking the comfort of him while half-awake as another sleepy, contented noise left you. Shifting beneath the sleeping bag, one of your hands grabbed the one he had resting on your stomach, and Jax’s fingers threaded through yours.
“Sleep,” he ordered firmly.
But you could feel the way his lips drew back into a smile against your skin, amused at the way you were trying to get closer to him. The feel of it had a faint smile pulling at your own mouth, grateful that you could still have moments like this with him even though you were no longer in his room at the clubhouse. With the haze of sleep still hanging heavy over you, clouding your mind, your quiet words came out before you realized they had.
“I missed you,” you confessed.
“Yeah?” he asked gruffly, his smile still pressed against your neck. “Did you now?”
You hummed a sleepy response, eyes still closed as the warmth from his body filled the sleeping bag. His nose gently brushed against the shell of your ear, the gesture soft and intimate. Affectionate. Something you weren’t used to with him. It had a heat beginning to settle low inside of you as your ass involuntarily pressed back into him again.
“Didn’t think we’d make it here before everyone left,” you told him, exhaustion still heavy in your voice. “Didn’t think we’d make it back at all.”
You’d spent so much time on that long, awful journey from Charming out to this cabin thinking that kiss in the clubhouse was the last time you’d ever see Jax. Thinking that you'd lost him forever, either because you figured you'd die on your way trying to get to the cabin, or because everyone would have already left by the time the three of you had gotten there. Or because maybe Jax had gotten himself killed trying to round up the dead and hadn't gotten to the cabin, either.
“I was worried as shit ‘bout you,” he admitted, his warm breath brushing along your skin as he spoke. “Felt like I was goin’ outta my goddamn mind wondering where you were. I hated every fuckin’ second you were gone. Kept fighting with Clay to let me look for all of you.”
Jax’s lips pressed a soft, barely-there kiss against the side of your neck that caused your breath to catch at how gentle it was. Your eyelids fluttered open, landing on the dark blue wall of the tent in the faint bit of moonlight seeping through the fabric. His hand knitted with yours on your stomach pressed you even closer to his chest and you swallowed hard.
You couldn't leave things unspoken anymore. You knew that now. Not after the way you'd both been separated, and not with the way he'd greeted you when he saw you again. You needed to understand what was going on between you both before you somehow lost the opportunity.
“What is this, Jax?” you whispered into the dark.
His lips grazed your skin as he ran his mouth back and forth along the base of your neck, his warm breath fanning across you. “Think we both know this ain't just stress relief,” he murmured. “And after losing you for a day–”
His mouth pressed another kiss to you, but this one lingered, flooding your body with more of that familiar heat. A soft sigh fell past your lips, your thighs involuntarily pressing together as your hips once more shifted against him.
“You’re what keeps me fighting,” he finished quietly.
You instantly stilled at his words, your eyes staring at the wall of the tent. You had not expected him to say that. But hearing it sent a pleasant thrill through your whole body that you couldn't ignore, one that felt like it set your blood on fire.
Rolling over in his hold, you turned towards Jax in the sleeping bag, his face just barely visible in the dark. Slipping a hand over his waist, your fingers ran up the expanse of his bare back before digging into the warm flesh and tugging him closer to you. Your stare held his as your heart pounded loudly in your own ears at that unexpectedly honest confession.
“You're my reason, too,” you whispered back.
Jax's hand left its place on your hip, cradling the side of your face in his palm before he abruptly drew you forward. His mouth landed firmly on yours–urgent and needy. The scruff of his facial hair gently rasped against you as you returned the kiss, your fingers digging tighter into the muscle of his back as if you could somehow hold onto this moment forever.
This kiss felt far different than all the others you'd had before with him. As his tongue pushed its way into your mouth, slowly lapping against yours, you could tell he was kissing you as if trying to reassure himself that you were actually here–that this was real. That you'd truly made it back and found each other.
With both of you quickly losing yourself in each other, Jax’s hands began eagerly tugging at your clothes, removing everything you'd fallen asleep in. But even as your own hands slipped his boxers down his thighs, neither of you completely broke away from the kiss that had grown more heated and hungry with each passing second. And when you’d finally gotten each other completely unclothed, mouths still connected in an increasingly frenzied kiss, Jax’s hands found your hips before he pulled you up onto himself. The sleeping bag fell away from the both of you as you straddled his waist, laying over the top of him.
“Stay with me,” Jax demanded against your mouth.
Those three words had you involuntarily beginning to rock against him, your slickness gliding along the underside of his cock pressed between you both. A hiss of pleasure fell out between Jax’s gritted teeth and you groaned at the sound, your body beginning to move a bit more desperately against him. His fingers dug into your hips, blunt nails leaving a delicious sting as you rested your forehead against his.
“Stay with me through this shit,” he breathed out. “Just stay with me.”
Your nose lightly nudged his, a small smile slipping onto your face at what he was asking of you. “I haven't wanted to be anywhere else for weeks,” you confessed, your faces barely an inch apart. “I thought I was just sex to you.”
His hand reached down between you both, gripping the base of his cock while his other hand helped shift you on top of him. A low hum fell past your lips when he pressed the thick tip of himself against your entrance, his hand on your hip gently urging you down onto his length.
“You're the only fuckin’ thing keepin’ me sane,” he husked out. “Since the goddamn beginning of this shit.”
With that rough grip on your hip, Jax helped ease you down onto him until he filled you fully. He moaned out–the noise deep and throaty–as your walls began to stretch around him, always struggling to fit him at first. Your own teeth sunk into your bottom lip as your hips gave a few slow, circular rolls along him, just enjoying the fullness of him inside of you again.
“Fuckin’ missed you,” he grit out.
His hand caressed its way up your spine until his large palm cradled the back of your head, then he sharply pulled you down towards his mouth again, keeping you lying flush over the top of him. As he pressed his lips against yours, his other hand grabbed a fistful of your ass and began urging you to move along the length of him–steady and deliberate.
You immediately obliged, your hips bouncing along his cock in a rhythmic pace. His own hips began rocking up to meet yours, plunging himself deeper and deeper inside of you, hitting that spot that had your eyes struggling not to roll back. He felt so good, filling you so completely like he'd just finally made you whole tonight, the sound of your panting breaths filling the tent. His hand on the back of your head kept your forehead pressed against his, your hot breaths mingling in the small space between your mouths.
“You're with me now,” he grunted. “Got that?”
You nodded against his forehead, feeling that familiar knot low in your stomach beginning to abruptly tighten with how your clit kept rubbing along him in this position. Moaning against his mouth, you could feel the flex of his muscles against your own body as the pair of you moved in sync together, both of you moving in a way that felt far more intimate, far more intense than anything you’d ever experienced before.
“My girl,” Jax ground out.
Nodding your forehead along his again, a high-pitched whine left you. “Yours,” you agreed breathlessly.
You could feel your orgasm fast approaching, quickly nearing its peak. There was absolutely no way you were going to last, not with all the emotions being laid bare between you both right now. As a low moan fell out of you, Jax’s lips crashed back onto yours and swallowed down the sound, attempting to keep you both from making too much noise with everyone else asleep outside in the other tents.
His hand gripping your ass held it tighter in his hold, pressing you roughly back down onto him over and over. When he groaned into your mouth, you knew he was close, too. Your pussy tightened around him, your own body trembling on top of his as you drew closer to that delicious edge. When your hips began to stutter against his, your eyes squeezed tightly shut just before your orgasm finally slammed into you. His mouth muffled the cry of pleasure that flew up from your chest while his hand cradling the back of your head held you firmly in place.
Jax was following after you almost immediately, his hips bucking roughly up into you before a deep rumbling noise in his chest vibrated against yours. He came seconds later, his warm release filling you like he was claiming you as his, your cunt still clenching around him in the aftershocks of your own climax. Both of you continued unevenly rolling your hips into each other as you rode out your high, desperate to prolong this moment together.
Breathing heavily in the small tent, it took a minute before you both eventually began to still against each other. Still lying flush over the top of him as you both panted for air in the dark, Jax’s hand dropped down from the back of your head, falling to rest between your shoulder blades. His own chest rose and fell heavily beneath you, the movement rocking you gently along him.
You'd never fucked each other quite like that before–not even that night after kissing on the clubhouse rooftop. You’d felt an intense mix of emotions that had your chest heaving against his, your eyelids growing heavy with exhaustion and contentment. But as you tried to push yourself upright to get off of him, feeling his cock gradually softening inside of you, his firm grip on your back kept you from moving far.
“No,” he breathed out beneath you. “Stay.”
You looked down at him in the dark, brows drawing together. “You sure?”
He nodded, pushing against your back again and urging you to stay there. Lowering yourself back down against him, you rested your cheek against his chest and let your eyes close as a blissful smile slipped over your face.
“Keepin’ you right here,” he mumbled.
Jax began to adjust the sleeping bag back over the both of you, shifting a little beneath you as he did. He clearly planned to settle in for sleep like this, and you couldn't fight the breathy, amused noise that left you, aware of his cock still inside of you and the wet, sticky mess between your bodies.
“You're sure you're going to be comfortable like this?” you asked him.
After pulling the sleeping bag back over you both again, Jax’s fingers began lightly running along your back, trailing up and down your skin and causing you to shudder at his touch. You felt yourself relaxing further against him, the exhaustion taking hold of you again.
“Damn right I am,” he assured you, a hint of his usual smugness returning. “Ain't movin’ the rest of the night, baby. You're stuck like this ‘til the sun comes up. Dick and all.”
Shaking lightly with laughter along the top of him, you found yourself not remotely minding the idea of sleeping in this position. In fact, you liked the thought of there not being a single inch of space between you both for the rest of the night after the distance you'd just experienced. As you shifted to get comfortable, you were incredibly aware of the fullness of him inside of you, your pussy still occasionally squeezing around him.
“Mmm, guess I'm not complaining,” you hummed back.
“Good,” he said, a smile in his voice. “Now go back to sleep like I fuckin’ told you to.”
Eyes remaining closed with that little smile still on your lips, the last thing you remembered was the soft press of his lips along the top of your head before you finally drifted off.
Pairing: Jax Teller x fem!nurse!Reader Word Count: 2.4k [Series Masterlist] [Jax Fic Masterlist]
Warnings/tags: 18+; angst, pissed off Jax
Summary: When Jax arrives at the Sons' cabin in the woods, he immediately notices something is wrong.
a/n: Well now, who didn't see this coming? Feedback and reblogs are always appreciated!
The sunset painted the sky a vibrant orange that faded into a deep purple as the sun sank below the treeline, casting a warm halo of light along the tops of the trees. It set the sky on fire tonight, turning it multiple colors that should have been beautiful, but amid a day of loss and fear, it wasn’t even worth noting.
Jax, Chibs, and Happy turned their bikes down the gravel road surrounded by familiar tall trees which quickly hid them from view. Sweat beaded along Jax’s forehead, drops of it running down his back beneath his shirt and kutte–a culmination of riding in the heat and the stress of what he'd just done.
There’d been a few close calls among the three of them while they’d been trying to round up the dead, attempting to lead the psychos further into Charming in order to give the others an exit out of town. A few times, the hands of the dead had grabbed Jax while his bike crawled at a teasing pace, luring them to follow him instead of the vans. Once, he'd almost lost his balance when a few of the psychos had gripped at his shirt, yanking at him roughly enough to nearly dismount him from the bike.
But despite the close calls, they'd all made it to the cabin alive.
As gravel flew up from beneath the tires of the three motorcycles, the Sons’ safehouse came into view. But the first thing Jax noticed were the two vans parked out in front beside the handful of Harleys. Two vans–not three. A sickening sense of dread began to coil deep in his gut as he pulled his bike to a stop beside Chibs, all three men parking their motorcycles and cutting their engines.
As Jax threw his kickstand down, his mind began racing with questions. Where the hell was the other van? And which van was missing? Who the hell hadn't made it to the cabin yet?
His fingers fumbled with the buckle of his helmet beneath his chin as his eyes drifted around the small group gathered outside. Clay and Gemma were standing near the cabin and deep in conversation. Juice and Tig were assembling a few tents that the Sons had scavenged for the move up towards Goose Lake, while Lyla, Ima, and a few of the kids and their families hung back as Opie focused on setting up a small campfire.
Swinging his leg over his bike and dismounting, that fear in the pit of his stomach gradually began to grow. Because he didn’t see Chuckie, or Unser, or Bobby anywhere among the people gathered outside trying to get everything set up before nightfall. He didn’t see you anywhere, and you’d been in that van with them.
Jax’s pulse spiked as he carelessly tossed his helmet down onto the seat of his bike, brushing right past Chibs and Happy without a word. His eyes kept scanning the clearing beside the cabin, desperately trying to find you somewhere among the group, but you were painfully absent.
His stomach gave a sharp twist at the realization as it steadily sunk in. You weren’t here. It was your van that wasn’t here yet. You were missing.
“Where are they?” Jax snapped, immediately turning and rounding on Clay and Gemma beside the cabin. “The other fuckin’ van? Where is it? Why aren’t they here yet?”
Clay’s expression remained grim, the earlier loss of Piney still weighing heavy over everyone. But Jax refused to accept any more losses today. You weren’t gone. You wouldn’t be just another person they’d lost today–he would not accept that.
Clay exchanged a brief look with Gemma beside him before his heavy stare landed on Jax.
"Got separated from the rest of the group when we were leavin’ town," Clay answered solemnly. "Another herd of dead was drawn by all the noise when we were gettin' outta Charming. Cut 'em off on the road behind us and we lost track of 'em."
"They drove off in a different direction," Gemma added. "But I'm sure they found a way out, Jackson. They’re probably just trying to find an open road to get up here."
His teeth grit together at the information, rage thickly coursing through him. He wanted to hit something as he looked around, seeing everyone here building fires and setting up tents like four other people weren't just out there somewhere.
“And did anyone go look for them?” Jax demanded, eyes boring into Clay's. “Did you even fuckin’ send anyone to find them?”
“No,” Clay answered firmly, eyes narrowing at Jax’s harsh tone. “And I'm not gonna. Not right now. We don't know where the hell they're at, and we got no way to communicate with ‘em to find out.”
“I don't give a shit!” Jax snarled back. He leaned forward, practically growling the words at his step-father. “I'll go look for them then. I'm not just gonna leave our people out there somewhere while everyone here plays fuckin’ summer camp!”
“You,” Clay shot back, raising a firm finger and jabbing it in Jax’s direction, “are gonna do what you're goddamn told. You're not goin' out there trying to play hero lookin' for anyone when it's about to get dark. The smartest thing to do is to stay put.”
Gemma's eyes flickered between her husband and her son. She could feel the mounting tension between them, a fight about to break out. That was the last thing this group needed right now–dissent among leadership in the aftermath of what the Calaveras had just done to them. Everyone was already on edge.
“They know where we're at, baby,” Gemma reminded him. “And outta all the vans that coulda gotten lost, they’re the most capable of taking care of themselves out there.” She paused, clearly weighing her next words and considering her son's anger before she continued, as if she knew the real reason why Jax had gone from zero to fury. “She's got Bobby and Unser with her. They're far better suited to keep her safe than the vans with kids or the porn girls. She'll be fine.”
Jax bit his tongue at the sharp comment that was about to fall right out of his mouth in response. Even if he would never fucking admit it, he knew there was logic in Clay’s reasoning for not sending a search party. Because it was getting dark, and if you all had gotten lost back in Charming, there were a whole lot of miles between here and there that you could've ended up. He had no goddamn idea where to even begin looking for you on his own.
But that didn't stop him from still wanting to get on his bike and search for everyone–for you. He couldn't just sit here doing nothing wondering if you were alright, or if you were scared, or if you were…
“Hey,” Gemma said, her hand resting on Jax’s shoulder, attempting to soothe him. “They're gonna be alright, baby. They'll figure it out and they'll get here just fine. You just gotta have some faith, Jackson.”
His lip curled back in distaste at the word. Faith? In this shitstorm? Where the dead were coming back to tear them apart? Where they’d already lost Half-Sack and Piney, and now you, Bobby, Unser, and Chuckie were missing? There was not a fucking thing to have faith in anymore. But before he could tell Gemma what he thought about her idea of faith, the last person he wanted to fucking hear interrupted their conversation.
“How long are we supposed to sit in the woods waiting?” Ima called over to them. “Because they had a lot of those things following them when they got cut off. If they didn't make it, we can't just sit here forever and–”
Jax's head snapped in her direction, his harsh voice cutting her off as he jabbed a finger in her direction. “Shut your fucking mouth!” he shot at her, words laced in danger and warning. “You're not in a position to be giving opinions. You fuckin’ hear me? Keep your goddamn mouth closed.”
Ima’s eyes widened at his angry outburst before she quickly glanced away, focusing back on the fire Opie had finally started. But Jax didn’t feel an ounce of remorse for blowing up on her. He knew exactly what the fuck she was doing. He'd known all along how much Ima disliked you, how much she hated his attention on you. She was probably rejoicing at the fact that you were gone–or hoping that everyone would leave before you could meet back up with the group so that you’d be lost to him forever.
But fuck Ima. Because you were going to come back. You were still alive out there. You had to be. Because he still needed to talk to you about all those goddamn feelings that had just hit him at the worst possible time, he needed to tell you how he felt. He needed to know you felt the same.
He needed you to come back.
“I need to go look for them, Clay,” Jax stated, attention returning to him. “I can't just sit on my fuckin’ ass and wait here hoping. I gotta do something.”
Clay's jaw visibly tensed, his irritation finally spiking at his step-son’s continued insistence. But Clay still outranked Jax, and Jax could feel him about to throw that weight at him over this.
"I get it, alright?" Clay retorted. "I get wanting to go out there and find ‘em. Bobby is out there with ‘em. He's one of us. So is Unser. And Chuckie and that nurse, well..."
Clay trailed off, tilting his head back and forth as if he was considering his choice of words. Gemma tensed beside her husband, clearly feeling the power struggle about to break out between Clay and Jax.
"They've become one of ours in their own way," Clay diplomatically finished his thought. "But we ain’t goin' anywhere, Jax. We got no damn idea where they might be, and we can't go running around in the dark drawing more of those things and who knows what else back to everyone we got here.”
A frustrated growl rumbled in Jax’s throat. What the fuck was he going to do stuck here all night? Pace the perimeter looking for any sign of you? Because he sure as shit wasn't going to get any sleep, not with you out there somewhere.
“I can’t just sit here and do nothing,” Jax repeated, his hands balling into fists at his sides. “Just send me out. I'll go alone, I don’t give a shit.”
Clay's expression only hardened further as he held Jax's challenging stare. "I said no," he stated firmly. "It'd be one thing if we had any damn clue where they'd ended up, but we don't. And as I already said, we got no goddamn way of contacting them to find out. They know where the meeting point is. I can't risk you goin' out there alone because of some...pussy you've gotten yourself attached to.”
He’d heard the way Clay had spat that word out. Caught the way he’d diminished you to nothing more than something to use, something to throw away. Not anything that mattered. It pissed him off, immediately coating his vision in red.
"She's not just some pussy!" Jax spat, his anger rising straight to the surface. "And she's out there possibly lost with the rest of our people!"
Gemma quickly stepped closer to him, placing herself between both men as she noticed other eyes being drawn at the rising volume of their confrontation. "Jackson," she began, attempting to sound soothing. “I know you're hurting, but going off looking for them isn't the answer. Clay's right. Just give them more time to get here.”
"We give them another full day to make it to the cabin," Clay stated, his words brokering no room for arguments. "They know where it is. Your nurse," he continued, saying your occupation with a weight to it that Jax didn't like, "is surrounded by the most capable group she coulda been in during the division of the vans. She's got Bobby and Unser."
Clay waved a hand at the group still making a small camp around the fire in front of the cabin. They were all families and friends of the club that they'd managed to keep safe since the outbreak first started, none of them as capable as the Sons when it came to fighting off the dead.
"We got people here who need us, too," Clay pointed out. "Women and kids. Opie's kids. Now, we just lost Piney, I don't wanna send anymore people out on a suicide mission. So we wait. Meanwhile, Jury's charter is meetin' us here tomorrow,” he reminded Jax. “Maybe with more manpower we can send out some people to look for them once Indian Hills arrives tomorrow. Assumin’ they still ain't back yet.”
Jax wanted to fight back, to argue further as his blunt nails bit into the palms of his hands. He wanted to disobey orders and hop on his bike and go searching everywhere from here to Charming for a sign of you. But he had to begrudgingly admit that Clay had a point–he had no idea where to start looking, and they only had so much fuel. Fuel they needed for the trip to Goose Lake.
But the thought of doing nothing all night made him feel completely sick to his stomach.
“Fine,” he reluctantly ground out between clenched teeth. “We go look tomorrow. When Jury's men get here.” He stepped forward, getting in Clay’s face as his words came out a bitter hiss, “And we will go look for them.”
Stalking away towards the cabin with his mind raging like a furious storm, Jax couldn't help but remember how final that kiss felt before you'd both parted ways back at the clubhouse. He was quickly realizing just how much you'd come to mean to him in such a short amount of time, but unfortunately he’d figured it out right before he'd lost you–the exact thing he’d been trying to keep you at a distance to avoid.
Pairing: Jax Teller x fem!nurse!Reader Word Count: 3.1k [Series Masterlist] [Jax Fic Masterlist]
Warnings/tags: 18+; violence, suspense, angst
Summary: On the cusp of the big move to Goose Lake, the Sons are faced with a serious problem.
a/n: I just want to thank y'all so much for all the love on this series!! It's seriously been so motivating for getting this entire fic written in the span of about a month, so thank you!! And now we're back in the middle of some action, y'all! Feedback and reblogs are always appreciated!
For the past week, after that trip to St. Thomas, things had been mostly uneventful. Everyone at the clubhouse was focused on packing all the necessities up, and the Sons had done a few more last minute supply runs to pick over whatever they could find that was left in Charming. Clay had assigned groups for everyone to travel in among their three vans for the drive to Goose Lake tomorrow, with only a handful of Sons allowed to ride their bikes in an attempt to save on fuel.
But apparently the lack of surprises had come to an abrupt end this afternoon.
With his hand resting on the pistol tucked into the back of his jeans, Jax stood on top of the clubhouse beside Opie. Near the edge of the rooftop, Clay was flanked by Happy and Piney on either side of himself, both men with their guns drawn in anticipation of a fight as the sound of approaching motorcycle engines tore through the otherwise quiet of the day.
As two motorcycles eventually came rolling into view down on the street below, Jax could tell they weren’t the Indian Hills charter that SAMCRO was waiting to meet up with. Because even though they had finally set plans into motion with Jury over the satellite radios, intending for both charters to travel together to that plot of land further north where all of the other SOA charters were currently meeting, he knew they hadn't arrived in Charming yet. So these two bikes speeding through their town were already an unwelcome sight.
In the bright afternoon sun, Jax’s eyes narrowed as he examined the emblems stitched into the back of their kuttes as they drew nearer to the clubhouse–three skulls, the largest one with a crown. The Caleveras MC from Lodi.
“Caleveras?” Opie muttered next to him.
“What the fuck are they doin’ here?” Jax questioned in confusion, his eyes not leaving the two approaching men. “Thought they were tryin’ to patch up with the Mayans before all this shit, weren't they?”
“Dunno, thought so,” Opie answered, his expression hard as he tensed beside Jax. “Maybe this is some sorta club initiation? Even with all this shit goin’ on?”
“Would be shitty fuckin’ timing for that,” Jax retorted.
When the two motorcycles on the street below finally came to a stop in front of the clubhouse, their idling bikes growled low as the Calaveras’ president and vice president sat looking far too comfortable for the situation they'd just stepped into. Clay lifted a foot, resting it on the edge of the rooftop as if he wasn’t the least bit intimidated by their sudden appearance.
“I don’t know what ya think you’re gonna get here, Salazar,” Clay called down to the MC president, “but you should ride back outta here before my men and I fill ya with bullets.”
“Might wanna save those bullets,” Salazar shouted back up to the Sons, an arrogant grin spreading over his lips. “Got a feeling you’re gonna need every last one.”
At the clear threat, Clay slipped his hand into his kutte and retrieved his own gun, his expression hardening at the blatant disrespect. Behind him, Jax and Opie followed his lead and withdrew their own weapons, a heavy tension settling in the air around them. There were countless innocents in the clubhouse beneath them–including children. One more wrong word and these two would be wearing matching bullet holes in their faces.
But Jax curiously noted that the two Caleveras’ below didn’t draw their own weapons in return. As he watched Salazar sitting on his idling motorcycle, he noticed that the Caleveras’ president still seemed far too smug, far too confident.
“Somethin’ ain’t right here, Ope,” Jax muttered. “I gotta bad feelin’ ‘bout this.”
“Yeah, same,” Opie agreed, expression hard as he stared down at the two rivals. “They wouldn't have just shown up without some kinda plan.”
“And what the hell do ya think you’re gonna get here?” Clay called back down to Salazar. Making a show of it, he glanced around at Happy, Piney, Jax, and Opie all standing with him on the rooftop, each Son with weapons drawn. Looking back down at the rival president, he continued with ease, “‘Cause it seems to me, you’re outmanned and outgunned here.”
“Just planning on takin’ all your shit, cabrón,” Salazar shot back, still oddly unfazed. “Your guns, your resources, your clubhouse. All of it.”
A rumble in the distance caught the attention of the other Sons on the roof. Something twisted uncomfortably in Jax’s stomach at the sound of more bikes steadily heading their way. He couldn't quite see them yet, but he was getting a very bad feeling about all of this.
What the fuck were they up to?
“Not as safe in there as you think,” Salazar called up to them.
“And what? You think your little MC can take on the Sons? On our own turf?” Clay taunted back. With a deep chuckle that seemed to echo through the air, Clay shook his head. “Not gonna happen.”
"Oh, we got more than just our MC," Salazar retorted, that smug smile never wavering. “Maybe you wanna take a look.”
Salazar turned his head over his shoulder, entirely at ease taking his eyes off the Sons above him that were armed with guns as he focused on the approaching bikes. Turning the corner a few blocks away, three more motorcycles appeared in the distance, all of them riding at a steady crawl. The Sons on the rooftop turned their attention to the growing noise, but it wasn't the Calaveras MC showing up with the Mayans or some other group of allies as backup. What they had was far worse, the sight filling Jax with a cold sense of dread.
The three bikes that had just appeared around the corner at the far end of town were leading what looked like a large group of Charming’s infected. Numerous psychos ambled behind the three bikes, clearly attracted to the loud noise of the motorcycles as the Calaveras guided them down the street and straight towards the clubhouse.
Jax felt sick to his stomach. No wonder these bastards were sitting there looking so fucking smug–they'd planned this. Because there was no way in hell the Sons would have enough firepower to kill all of those psychos before they broke through their fence and overtook everyone inside, and these bastards clearly knew that. They were going to be overrun here in no time if they didn’t do something fast.
“We need to get the fuck outta here!” Jax shouted at Clay, panic setting in deeper. “We gotta get everyone inside moved out now!”
“Don't bother," Salazar called up to the group. “We'll just pick over your dead bodies. Easier if they ain’t scattered too far.”
The two Caleveras in front of the clubhouse revved their bikes, but out of the corner of Jax's eye he saw Piney raise his gun and aim it at the Calaveras president. It happened too fast, far too fast for Jax to even react. Piney pulled the trigger of his gun and missed–but the immediate return of gunfire from the Calaveras' VP didn't miss Opie’s father.
It felt like time stood still as the bullet hit Piney right in the head, dropping the old man and his oxygen tank straight to the roof without warning. Happy fired off a few rounds at the men below, but the noise barely registered in Jax’s ears as he watched the old man lay there motionless while a heartbreaking shout tore straight out of Opie beside him. The two motorcycles sped off down the street, and the other three that had been leading the herd of dead straight to them quickly sped after them.
Opie darted across the roof and right to Piney's side, crying out for his father who’d just lost his life because of a foolish and impulsive move. But Jax’s attention was drawn to Clay as he spun around from the edge of the roof, the Sons’ president’s expression darkening. There was a problem that needed to be dealt with, and it needed to be handled fast.
“We need to get everyone moving,” Clay stated, addressing Jax and Happy. “The vans and bikes are already fueled for that trip. We keep to our groups–both of you with Ope, Tig, and Chibs on bikes. Bobby, Juice, and I got the vans with our people and our supplies.”
Over the heavy sounds of Opie crying beside his father's lifeless body, Jax struggled to remain focused on Clay's orders. He wanted to grieve the loss of Piney with his best friend. He wanted to seek revenge on the Caleveras, to hop on his bike and hunt them down, putting a bullet in each one of them before they could make it out of Charming. But as he ground his teeth together, he knew he needed to focus. The safety of the entire group was the priority here–everyone's lives were at stake right now. He would grieve Piney with Opie when the threat was over.
“I want the two of you and Chibs tryin’ to round those damn things up and lead them off our tail,” Clay barked out. “Make us an exit to get the vans outta Charming. I'll radio Jury, let ‘em know we've got a change of plans. All of us are meetin’ back up at the safehouse in the woods. Understood?”
Happy and Jax nodded in agreement with the quickly devised plan, neither of them interested in arguing. The group would temporarily split, but getting to the Sons’ cabin shouldn't be too hard. It wasn't quite an hour away from Charming, so it wouldn’t be that far of a ride. It’d been a fortunate coincidence at least that everything was already packed for the trip up towards Goose Lake, which would make it easier to get everyone into vehicles and out of here immediately.
“Round everyone up and get Ope on board,” Clay finished. "We move now before all those dead are on us."
Without another word, Clay turned and stalked across the rooftop, stuffing his gun back into his kutte as he headed to the ladder. When Happy glanced over at Jax, Jax already knew what he was silently asking.
"I got Ope," he assured him with a nod. "Help gather everyone up, we'll meet you down there soon.”
Trying to steel himself for everything that was about to come, Jax exhaled a sharp breath before he started making his way across the roof and towards his best friend. Opie was on his knees, tears still steaming down his face as he cried over his father's body. But a single glance over the edge of the roof showed that the herd of dead was still making their way down the street towards the clubhouse. They'd be lucky if they had enough time to get everyone out of here.
And he wanted to find you before he left.
“Ope,” Jax said solemnly, reaching down and grabbing his best friend's shoulder. “We gotta move, brother.”
Opie expelled a hard, shuddering breath as he stared down at Piney’s body. He sat there for a few moments longer before his eyes eventually drifted over the edge of the roof, landing on the approaching dead. Firmly pressing his lips together, he gave Jax a firm nod as he attempted to pull himself together, aware of the incoming threat.
Standing back up on his feet, Opie wiped the back of his hand roughly along his face, smearing some dirt across his cheek as he tried to dry away the tears. Giving a final glance down at Piney's body on the roof, Jax couldn’t shake how wrong it felt leaving him here, but they didn't have another choice. There was no time for a burial.
“We need to round everyone up,” he told Opie, repeating Clay's orders. “Same groups as we had for the trip. Hap, Chibs, and I are gonna try to lead those things away and give everyone else a chance to get to the safehouse. Right now everyone in that clubhouse–your kids included–are the priority.”
Opie gave a single, curt nod, but Jax could see how numb he looked right now. He didn't blame him, but with the dead closing in, there wasn’t time to deal with the loss. He'd check on Opie later, but they needed to deal with getting everyone out of here alive first.
“Yeah, alright,” Opie agreed. “Let's get ‘em loaded up.”
Jax roughly clapped Opie on the shoulder again, shooting him a sympathetic look. He knew that'd just tore him apart, watching his father get shot right in front of him like that. It was tearing Jax up inside, too, but he refused to think about it right now.
Without another word, Jax tucked his gun back into the waistband of his jeans as he began hurrying across the rooftop and over to the ladder. A single glance over his shoulder proved that Opie was following, even if he still looked a bit lost. Climbing down the rungs in a rush, Jax knew he wanted to find you before he left, but he didn't want to think too hard about why he so badly felt compelled to say some sort of goodbye.
But as soon as Jax's Nikes touched the pavement below, it was organized chaos. Bobby and Tig were trying to round up families into the designated vans with their things, directing everyone in the lot where to go. He could hear more people inside of the clubhouse, the door propped open as frenzied voices carried their way outside. His heart was pumping hard in his chest as he scanned around the lot, but he didn't see you anywhere.
Moving through the crowd of people, Jax pushed past everyone without a second glance as he headed towards the clubhouse in search of you. The second he was inside the building, he was scanning over the few people still rushing to pack a few things. His eyes darted around the room before he eventually found you coming down the hallway back from the bedrooms, your bag slung over your shoulder.
He maneuvered around the few others blocking his path, his feet carrying him straight to you in a panicked rush. The second he'd stopped in front of you, he felt the tightness in his chest ease just a little despite the wide-eyed look of confusion on your face. You were alright, already ready with your things to head out.
“What's going on, Jax?” you asked.
Jax's teeth sunk into his bottom lip at the question, noticing the fear in your eyes. He didn't want to scare you any further, and you didn't need to know everything right this second about what had just happened outside. Lowering his voice so only you heard him over the commotion of the people still inside, Jax leaned forward and answered you.
“A rival MC showed up,” he began to explain, his words coming out quickly. “They want our resources–guns, ammo, everything. Assholes lead a whole bunch of dead straight to us. Those psychos are gonna be on the clubhouse in a matter of minutes, so we gotta move everyone outta here right now.”
Before he knew what he was even doing, his hands reached forward and firmly cradled your face between them. He hated the fact that this parting felt a little too heavy right now. He didn't even want to consider why it did, either.
“There's a cabin we own ‘bout an hour from here,” he continued. “The vans and a couple of the guys are takin’ you and everyone else up there. It's the new meeting point with that other charter we were waitin’ on.”
He caught the way your brows drew together at his words, a little worried crease forming between them. He knew what you were about to ask before you'd even asked it.
“What do you mean ‘the vans and a couple of the guys’?” you asked slowly. “Don't you mean everyone is heading there? Aren't you heading there?”
Inhaling a deep breath, Jax held it in as he shook his head. “No,” he answered.
“What do you mean no?” you shot back, eyes growing wider.
Expelling the breath roughly between his lips, he knew he'd have to tell you. It wasn't like you wouldn't notice him heading out before the group.
“I'm gonna help Hap and Chibs reroute the dead,” he told you. “Try to lead ‘em somewhere else and clear a path for the rest of you to get out.”
“Jax–”
“And I will see your ass at the cabin afterwards,” he stated sharply, cutting you off as his thumb brushed softly against your cheek. “A’ight? Now we gotta get movin’. You got that gun I gave you?”
You nodded your head in his hold. “Yeah.”
“Good,” he stated. “Use it if you need to.”
He held your stare, knowing he needed to get his ass on his Harley and get shit rolling with Chibs and Happy, but for some damn reason standing there with you had him wishing he wasn't parting ways. He didn't know what the fuck had taken over him, made him feel this desperate urge to stay by your side. You were just some girl he met a few weeks ago, some girl he'd been trying to survive the insanity with during all those nights you'd shared together in his room. You weren't supposed to be anything else.
Except you suddenly fucking felt like it.
Without a second thought, Jax leaned forward and closed the distance between you both. His lips crashed down hard on yours, his hands gripping your face a bit tighter in his hold like this might be the last time he would ever kiss you. He tried to ignore how this all just felt far too serious. Far too final. He tried to savor the kiss instead–the soft feel of your mouth, the familiar taste of you, the way you leaned into him–but he knew he needed to go.
Reluctantly breaking away, Jax's blue eyes pierced into yours, his voice coming out like a heavy warning. “You better fuckin’ make it to that cabin, darlin’.”
Not letting himself think about anything further, telling himself he would figure out what the hell he was feeling with you tonight when everyone was safe in the woods at the cabin, his hands dropped back to his sides. Abruptly turning away from you, Jax stalked straight to the exit of the clubhouse with his mind solely focused on his task–rerouting the dead so that you and everyone else could get out of Charming safely.
Pairing: Jax Teller x fem!nurse!Reader Word Count: 2.2k [Series Masterlist] [Jax Fic Masterlist]
Warnings/tags: 18+; mentions of sexual content, Jax & Ope being besties
Summary: Jax confides in Opie, but he's still too stubborn to admit everything.
a/n: I feel like this series needed a moment between these two. I love their friendship far too much to not include it! Feedback and reblogs are always appreciated!
Pulling himself up onto the rooftop of the clubhouse, Jax found Opie sitting beside the edge overlooking the front of the building, keeping an eye on the unlit streets below. The rifle all of the Sons shared during watch sat beside him as he raised a lit cigarette to his lips, taking a deep drag from it.
Jax combed his fingers through his messy, tangled hair, attempting to fix it as he swaggered across the roof towards him. Catching the light noise of approaching footsteps, Opie’s head shifted over his shoulder. A knowing grin slid onto his best friend’s face when he spotted Jax, his lips curling around the cigarette pressed between them. A rough huff fell out of Jax at the sight of it, already able to guess what that look was about.
“What?” he asked.
Chuckling and shaking his head at the sharp question, smoke curled its way past Opie’s lips. Raising his left arm, his eyes dropped down to check the time on the watch on his wrist–a necessary accessory all the Sons had taken to wearing now to keep track of time.
“You're over twenty minutes late for your shift, brother,” Opie pointed out, looking back up at Jax's disheveled state. “You get held up in bed? Or did she hold you hostage in it?”
The corner of Jax’s lips quirked at Opie’s teasing before reaching a hand into the inside pocket of his kutte. His fingers dug around before he retrieved his own cigarette and lighter, rolling his eyes at Opie. Jax knew he wouldn't be able to deflect his way out of this, especially since he had definitely lost track of time because he'd been too busy with you. But checking the time had been the last thing on his mind when he'd been buried deep inside of you, lost in the sight of you on all fours on his bed bathed in moonlight, whining and panting as you fucked yourself on his dick.
“Shut the hell up, asshole,” he muttered around the smoke in his mouth, a grin on his own lips. “Hard to keep track of time now.”
“Yeah, I bet it is,” Opie teased back.
Jax lit his cigarette, taking a deep inhale as the nicotine helped to take the edge off of reality once again. All the Sons had been significantly drinking less, not wanting to be caught shitfaced in a life or death situation and too stupid to react properly. And thanks to Chuckie the other week, they had a surplus of smokes at the moment, though Jax didn't want to think about what happened when they inevitably ran out.
Placing the lighter back into the inside pocket of his kutte, Jax shuffled forward on tired feet and sat down beside his best friend. He tucked one leg up towards his chest, draping an arm across his knee as he looked down at the empty streets. It never got easier seeing Charming like this when he came up here at night–dead, dark, and desolate.
“So what's goin’ on with that?” Opie pushed. “You and the nurse?”
The question drew Jax’s eyes over to Opie beside him, one of his blonde brows arching up at him. He knew what Opie was asking, because it wasn't exactly a secret at this point that you and him were having sex. Even if that fact still never stopped Ima from blatantly hitting on him and not-so-subtly asking him to take her back to his room all the goddamn time. And Jax wasn't an idiot–he'd picked up on the tension growing between you both, but he'd intentionally stayed out of it. He’d figured you were the one who’d torn the poster of her in his room down before stuffing it into his garbage, a detail he’d noticed and chuckled at the other week.
He was aware that you didn’t like her, and truthfully he didn’t blame you. She’d been getting on his fucking nerves lately more than usual. She was constantly seeking him out, trying to pull him away or distract him with her flirting or her tits. But he’d grown so damn tired of her, sick of how she acted like the world hadn’t changed. Annoyed that all she seemed to want from him was sex when he had enough shit on his mind to worry about every goddamn day–especially since he was the VP and a lot of people were looking to him for answers and safety.
At least you seemed to understand that. You didn’t ever come to him with useless, stupid bullshit. And you somehow often managed to pry out a few of his thoughts and fears that he kept buried in those late nights you both spent between his sheets. You actually tried to understand him and how he was feeling without throwing judgement at him. You weren’t just another person trying to get something from him in the middle of all this.
Pinching the cigarette between his fingers, Jax pulled it from his lips and exhaled the smoke. He shrugged a shoulder at the question. “I don't even fuckin’ know, man,” he admitted to Opie.
Which was true. He'd kissed you up here on the rooftop just a few nights ago, and that goddamn kiss kept haunting him ever since. Whenever he was trying to focus at church in the mornings with the guys at the table, or whenever he was keeping watch up here alone at night, or whenever he had gone out scavenging for more gas for the upcoming move to Goose Lake, he couldn't stop thinking about it–about you. About that little fucking sigh you'd released against his mouth, and how you'd gripped his hair and kissed him back so soft and delicate–like he was the fragile one. Like you wanted him and not just a distraction.
That kiss had felt like it'd changed something between the two of you, even if nothing had actually changed about the situation you both were in. Neither of you had talked about it, or about the oddly tender sex you'd both had when you'd gone back to his room together afterwards.
He had never fucked someone like that before, either. Not even Tara all those years ago. But for some reason after seeing one of those psychos almost tear your neck apart the other day, especially after how you were both still trying to accept what'd happened to Half-Sack, the last thing Jax had felt like doing that night was leaving marks on your skin. Being rough with you, hurting you, holding you down and taking his frustrations out on your body like you'd been letting him do every night since that first one.
Though, that had been the only night that'd happened. Because the following night, you'd been the one to attack him the moment he'd stepped into his room, tearing his clothes off of him like a wild animal before throwing him down on the bed. You'd taken him by surprise and ridden him so goddamn hard that you'd somehow fucked him stupid–not that he would ever admit that to you.
But he still had no fucking idea what was going on with you. He didn't really want to call it something serious because he didn't think it was, even if the idea of you possibly fucking someone else made something dangerous awaken inside of his chest. And the thought of somehow losing you felt like a loss that'd be just as unbearable as if he lost Gemma or one of the Sons–something he didn't even want to begin to understand.
Which was why he'd spent some free moments over the past few days teaching you how to properly use a gun. Ever since that trip to St. Thomas, and with the move to Goose Lake fast approaching, he’d had an uneasy feeling settling in his chest. Something telling him you needed to know how to handle yourself beyond the safety of the clubhouse. So he’d taken to teaching you how to use his old Glock, setting up a target practice and attaching a suppressor onto the pistol to keep the shots quiet to avoid attracting the dead.
“You're hittin’ that, though,” Opie pointed out, pulling Jax from his thoughts.
Placing his cigarette back between his lips, he shot Opie a sidelong look as he took another drag. “Yeah,” he said around the smoke. “So?”
“C'mon, man,” Opie pried, flicking his spent cigarette over the edge of the roof where it flew to the street below. “I see the way you watch her lately. Eyes always on her when she's helping make dinner for everyone with Gemma, or when she's distracting all the kids with coloring books or some shit. And I see the look you get whenever Tig and Chibs are makin’ her laugh, the one that looks like you might murder them.” He looked over at Jax, a small grin on his face. “She matters, brother. I can see it.”
Jax glanced away, his eyes drifting over the darkened roofs of downtown Charming around them. The cigarette hung between his fingers as smoke curled up towards the night sky, his jaw tensing at the observation from his best friend. It wasn’t fair that Opie could always read him so damn well sometimes.
“So what if she did matter?” Jax shot back after a moment. “The world is fuckin’ over, there's infected people eatin’ everyone out there. Who fuckin’ cares about feelings or relationships, Ope?”
The words came out bitter but not marked in anger as his gaze drifted down to the glowing red tip of his cigarette. There was no reason to further complicate whatever was going on with you two by trying to understand it and label it. What would be the point? Sex was enough for now, wasn't it?
“My mind is on survivin’ right now,” Jax continued, the bitter edge fading a little. “Keepin’ us and everyone inside this damn clubhouse alive. I don't care about anythin' more than that. She's just–she's a fun distraction from all the bullshit. Alright? And she doesn't get on my goddamn nerves like Ima with her constant dramatic whining and clinging.”
Opie held Jax's stare for a long moment, waiting for Jax to backtrack the clear lie he’d just spit out. But Jax ignored the look, deciding to change the topic instead. He didn't want to be interrogated about you right now.
“Better question is–what's goin’ on with you and that blonde?” he asked. “The one with the little boy?”
Unable to stop it, a smile spread across Opie’s lips in the dark at the question. “Lyla?” he clarified. “Dunno. She's been helpin’ Pop with Kenny and Ellie when I'm busy doin’ shit. Not really sure what's goin’ on beyond that. Don't really have the luxury of a room to myself like some people.”
Jax grinned devilishly at the comment as he tapped the ash off the end of his cigarette, aware Opie shared his room at the other end of the hall with his kids. Privacy for having sex wasn't as easy for him to come by as it was for Jax at the moment–something he didn't envy. If he couldn't have those nights of release with you, he didn't know what state of mind he'd have been in by now.
“Just gotta get creative,” Jax told him.
Opie’s smile grew into a boyish grin, a deep chuckle falling out of him. “Yeah, we have,” he confessed. “Thing is, free moments away from three kids and everyone else in there ain't exactly easy. But that's not the point.” Opie clapped a hand on Jax’s shoulder, his grin fading a little. “The point is that there's nothin’ wrong with holding onto somethin’ that makes all this feel a little less shitty. So don't just write off your thing with the nurse, brother.”
Jax's mouth dropped back into a frown as Opie rose up to his feet, stretching briefly beside him as he prepared to head back inside and get some sleep. Jax knew there was some merit to what he'd said, that holding onto something good in all this bad made everything feel less bleak and depressing. Less hopeless. But with how it felt like everyone had an end date approaching, especially after what just happened to Half-Sack, he was terrified to let himself feel something he hadn’t in a long time only to have it torn away from him again.
“Not writing anythin’ off,” he muttered, glancing down at the streets of his hometown. “Just don't need to be gettin’ attached in a fuckin’ apocalypse.” He drew the cigarette to his lips, his words coming out around it. “You should go get some sleep, Ope. It’s late.”
“Yeah, you’re right,” Opie agreed, exhaustion creeping into his tone. “I’ll see you in the mornin’, brother. Maybe think ‘bout what I said.”
Jax took a deep drag from the smoke pressed between his lips, a short grunt of a response falling out of him. But as Opie began shuffling across the roof back towards the ladder, that goddamn kiss from the other night began replaying in his mind again.
Pairing: Jax Teller x fem!nurse!Reader Word Count: 3.3k [Series Masterlist] [Jax Fic Masterlist]
Warnings/tags: 18+; bit of angst, emotional hurt/comfort
Summary: In the aftermath of what happened at St. Thomas, you seek out Jax for comfort.
a/n: I'm loving all the reactions to this series!! Thank y'all so much! I'm still trying to finish drafting part 12 and then I've got 2 more to write for this, but seeing y'all so invested really helps keep me focused. I appreciate all of y'all!! So of course feedback and reblogs are always appreciated!
There was no way of knowing how long you’d been laying in Jax’s bed staring up at the ceiling in the dark as the silence closed in on you. After what had happened earlier today at St. Thomas, you knew that falling asleep wouldn't come easy. Not with Half-Sack's screams still playing on repeat in your mind.
With a defeated sigh, you finally gave up on trying before throwing the sheets roughly off of yourself and kicking your legs over the side of the bed. Your bare feet landed on the cool floor before you glanced over your shoulder at the space beside you, taking in the sight of the sheets on Jax’s side of the bed still crumpled and untouched from when he’d woken up this morning. A mess that only reminded you of just how alone you were right now.
You'd barely gotten to speak with Jax after returning from the hospital earlier. He and the other Sons had intentionally kept busy the rest of the day, trying to avoid dealing with the loss of Half-Sack by focusing on the upcoming move. When the night had wound down, he'd gone up on the roof and taken the first shift to keep watch, leaving you alone in his room still reeling from the day.
Standing up from the bed, you padded quietly over to the bedroom door and pushed it open, your eyes gradually adjusting to the even dimmer light in the hallway. Trying to remain as silent as you could so that you wouldn't wake anyone, you walked softly through the darkened hallway towards the main room of the clubhouse, keeping each of your steps careful as the soles of your feet repeatedly met the cold cement.
Everyone else was currently asleep out in the main room. The families and friends of the Sons were huddled together under blankets or curled up inside of sleeping bags, everyone scattered around the floor or on the couches. Carefully navigating your way through the spaces between all of the sleeping bodies bathed in the soft, silvery moonlight from the windows, you tiptoed straight to the clubhouse's exit. Opening the door to the lot outside, you traded the sound of heavy breaths and deep snores for the peaceful hum of crickets.
You spotted Unser's trailer parked by the auto shop before you took a sharp left turn, walking alongside the large building and letting the moonlight above guide you. The rough concrete of the parking lot scratched the bottom of your bare feet with every step until you stopped at the metal rungs on the side of the building. Reaching up and grabbing onto them, you began to climb your way to the rooftop. Despite having never been up there before, you weren’t feeling quite that afraid of heights after today.
When you finally pulled yourself up onto the roof, you found Jax sitting near the edge overlooking the street. His back was facing you, but you could see a cigarette pressed between his lips as smoke from the tip of it trailed up towards the dark sky. His knees were drawn up towards his chest, a rifle laying just to the right of him as he sat watching over the front of the clubhouse. But at the sound of your approaching footsteps, he looked over his shoulder at you, one hand reaching up as his fingers pinched the cigarette between them. His face remained difficult to read as he pulled the cigarette away from his mouth, blowing the smoke out between his lips while his eyes slowly ran over you.
“Hey,” you greeted softly.
Jax nodded his head once in return, eyes still following your approach. “Hey.”
Stopping just a few feet away from him, your arms wrapped around yourself as a thought abruptly hit you. Maybe you shouldn’t have come up here. Maybe Jax would’ve preferred to be left alone after the events of the day, especially since you hadn’t seen him much after you’d all returned from St. Thomas. Or maybe you were not the person he’d want to sit up here with. You probably shouldn’t have just come out here under the assumption that your presence would be welcome right now.
But instead of turning you away, Jax shifted on the rooftop before his left hand reached out and lightly patted the space beside himself. His other hand tapped off the ash on the end of his cigarette as your worries gradually drained away at the simple gesture meant for you to join him. You closed the distance between you both and lowered yourself to sit beside Jax, settling down onto the cold roof next to him.
Stretching your legs out in front of yourself, you leaned back and rested your weight on your palms, trying to make yourself comfortable. Tilting your head back, your eyes drifted up towards the night sky as the chirping crickets filled the air around you both, Charming glaringly more still than it ever used to be at night. With the power grid having failed across the entire country, there were no city lights left anywhere to create light pollution, which resulted in the night sky looking vastly different from any other time you’d ever looked up at it before. Countless bright stars dotted the black abyss above you, an endless myriad of shining lights hanging in the sky like little pieces of hope just out of reach. For a few minutes, all you could do was just sit and stare at them all.
“I couldn’t fall asleep,” you finally admitted, breaking the silence as your eyes still focused upwards.
Out of your peripheral, you saw Jax's head turn towards you, his eyes lingering on the side of your face as he took another drag off of his cigarette. The red tip of it glowed in the dark as you felt him watching you, the weight of Half-Sack’s death lingering unspoken in the air.
“Don’t blame you,” he murmured.
Another silence settled between you both as you sat beside each other, your eyes taking in the sky as you tried to find shapes among the stars, wishing that you could be just as far from the mess of this world, too. But even the faint noise of the crickets and the endless stars above couldn’t erase the horrible death you’d witnessed just hours ago.
“Don’t think I’ve ever seen this many of them before,” you mused quietly, nodding your head up at the sky.
Blowing out a trail of smoke between his lips again, Jax’s head tilted back as he looked up with you, his blonde hair falling past his shoulders. You figured he’d caught the faint tremor in your voice when you’d spoken. You knew that Jax wasn’t stupid, knew that he knew you hadn’t come up here to stargaze and chat just to pass the time.
“Yeah,” he replied gruffly. “S’pose it’s kinda pretty.”
Chewing your bottom lip, you began to wonder how he was holding up after today. He’d lost Half-Sack, too, and while he hadn’t been a patched member that Jax had known for nearly as long as the other Sons, you figured his death still hit hard. But from the short time you’d been getting to know Jax, you gathered that he kept everything he truly felt bottled up deep inside, only releasing it in the way he’d been fucking you late at night, not by using his words.
Did he even have anyone to confide in? Someone to talk to about the things that haunted him, especially now? Because the Sons still walked around like they had on the first day of the outbreak–as if they were always in control, always knew what was going on or what needed to be done. But even they couldn’t possibly be that strong and resilient as to be so unaffected by what felt like the end of the world happening around you all.
Lowering your head, your eyes drifted over to Jax as he sat beside you, taking in his profile as he took a final drag off of his cigarette. He looked tense as he sat with his knees bent, a careful neutrality in his eyes as he continued staring up at the expansive black.
“Are you okay?” you asked.
Your voice broke the delicate silence that had fallen over the pair of you, causing Jax’s gaze to gradually drift down from the stars before they met yours. But they flitted away from you quickly as he pulled the cigarette from between his lips and flicked it over the edge of the roof. You followed the spent cigarette as it fell downwards until it disappeared out of view, falling to the pavement below.
“I’m fine, darlin’,” he answered, resting his hands on his knees, fingers curling against the denim.
Tongue slipping out, it ran along the length of your bottom lip at his dismissive answer. You knew that was a lie, but you also weren't sure how much you could push for truth with him. After all, you were just the nurse he'd saved, the one he'd been taking his frustrations out on in his bed late at night, even if you'd begun to view him as far more than a distraction yourself.
“It's okay if you aren't,” you gently pointed out. “Don't think it'd be normal to be fine after…that.”
Jax sighed heavily as he raised a ringed hand, running it through his hair and lightly mussing the strands. His eyes were fixed on the empty streets in the dark below. “Don't think there's a thing as normal at this point,” he muttered.
Drawing your own legs up, you tucked them against your chest as a frown settled onto your lips. He had a point–what the hell was normal about any of this anymore? People were eating each other, the dead didn’t really die, and nowhere felt safe anymore. Even the clubhouse wouldn’t survive a herd of those things attacking all at once.
Wrapping your arms around your knees, you raised your thumb to your lips before slipping the nail between your teeth. Absently, you began to gnaw your nail as you stared down at the street devoid of life below. Jax’s head shifted towards you, quietly watching the nervous gesture for a moment.
“Hey, c'mere,” he finally murmured.
Raising an arm, he draped it over your shoulders before pulling you in close against his side. His large hand rested just past your shoulder, the tips of his fingers toying with the edge of your t-shirt sleeve. Pulling your thumbnail back out from between your teeth, you leaned your weight into his side, the warmth of him easing a bit of the tension from your own body. You'd missed his comfort today, desperate for it more than usual.
“Today scared the hell outta me,” he admitted quietly, attention still fixed on the street as he kept watch. “Seeing you get attacked like that…”
His voice trailed off as his fingers brushed over your arm past the sleeve, the calloused pads of them making small circles along your skin. Eyes drifting sidelong towards him, you studied his profile as he continued looking straight ahead, waiting to see if he’d continue.
“Thought none of us were gettin’ outta there alive,” he confessed further. “Not with two floors of psychos comin’ after us in that hospital.”
“I didn't think we were, either,” you whispered. “Especially not after Half-Sack–”
You couldn't bring yourself to say it. The way those things had torn the skin and muscle from his bones was horrible. There was no way to ever erase that from your memory. Pressing your lips firmly together when they’d begun to tremble with the threat of tears, you tried to shove the image of it away even now.
Jax's arm over your shoulders held you more firmly against his side. “We don't need to think about that now, a’ight?” he stated roughly. “Half-Sack did what he did to protect you, darlin’. And we made it outta there. That's all that matters.”
The fact that Half-Sack had died protecting you hadn't made you feel much better, though. He'd pulled that infected off of you without knowing two more were going to burst through that door and take him down. Maybe if you’d been more prepared to go into a place like that, or if you hadn’t accepted Clay’s orders to go with the Sons just because you were trying to prove something, Half-Sack might not have died. Things might've gone differently.
“I shouldn’t have come with,” you breathed out, giving life to the guilt growing inside of you. “You were right to want me to stay behind.”
Beside you, Jax shook his head roughly and definitively at what you’d said. His head turned towards you as his other hand reached out, his fingers firmly grabbing your chin. He turned your head, forcing you to meet his stare as his blue eyes burned with something you hadn't seen in them before.
“Stop it,” he demanded sharply. “Don't you dare start blamin’ yourself for what happened today. None of it was your damn fault, you got that? It was shit luck. We all know the fuckin’ risks when we go out there. Half-Sack did, too. So that?” he continued, a ferocity to his words as he pierced you with his stare. “It wasn't on you, you hear me?”
The way he'd just laid it all out like that felt less like a question and more like Jax demanding you throw aside your guilt before you let it grow too strong. You felt your chest tighten the longer you held his stare, the look in his eyes doing something different to you tonight than it usually did. He wasn't just physical comfort to you in a world that was destroyed anymore. He wasn't just someone that felt safe to be around, or someone you found an attractive distraction.
You cared about Jax, deeper than you'd begun to realize. Developing real feelings that made you scared every time he left the compound on a run, terrified that he wouldn't make it back. Feelings you were too afraid to verbalize to him because you weren’t certain if you were just sex to him, that this wasn't as real for him as it was becoming for you.
“Okay,” you whispered back.
“Good.”
His eyes continued to search yours as he held your chin between his fingers, his thumb gently brushing along your jaw. The gesture felt tender, affectionate. Different from the ways he always took you hard and fast in the middle of the night.
You weren't sure if it was just you or if something had shifted in the air between you two. As the hum of crickets filled the night while everyone else safely slept beneath you both inside the clubhouse, you found yourself hesitantly leaning in towards him, almost as if you couldn't help it. But for once it wasn't just about seeking comfort or a distraction from the dead out there. It was about wanting him. Not in the way you'd had him alone in his room over the past few weeks, but something more than that. Something real.
A heavy tension hung in the minute space between you both, the scent of cigarette smoke and sweat wafting off him. The smell and the way his warm breath lightly brushed over your lips had you growing lightheaded. When Jax’s grip finally left your chin, his hand sliding around to cup the back of your neck, your gaze dipped down to his mouth before slowly raising to meet his again.
A silent question sat in the space between you both. One you were waiting for him to answer.
You held your breath, waiting in impatient anticipation. His answer came in the soft grip of his fingers along the nape of your neck as he guided you towards him, his warm mouth colliding with yours seconds later. Turning to face him fully, your hands left your sides, fingers tangling into the blonde strands of his hair as you tugged him closer to you, kissing him with an urgency you hadn’t before. An almost relieved, contented sigh slipped out of you against his mouth.
But this wasn't about sex. This wasn't about need and want and desire. It was sweet. A deliberate press of his lips against yours, something soft and tender. Something he'd never been with you before. Something you found yourself quickly getting lost in as his tongue slid along your bottom lip like a silent reassurance that maybe it wasn't all just about the sex for him, either.
The sound of someone making their way up the ladder on the side of the clubhouse broke the moment, causing you and Jax to pull apart. Sitting there catching your breath, your eyes lingered on Jax in the moonlight, briefly catching something in his expression before he looked past your shoulder at who'd interrupted the kiss.
Following his gaze, you looked over your shoulder and saw Tig pulling himself up onto the rooftop. There was an almost apologetic expression on his face, as if he felt bad for walking in on something private.
“Shift change,” Tig explained. He gestured his head back towards the ladder beside him. “I got it covered now, why don't you go get some sleep, Jax.”
Clearing your throat, your heart sank a little when Jax’s hand fell back to his side. Both of you began to stand up, your hands fidgeting awkwardly with the hem of your shirt when Tig glanced at you. The corners of his mouth pulled back into something that actually looked like a sympathetic smile when your eyes met.
“How you holdin’ up, doll?” he asked gently.
Your tongue darted out between your lips to wet them, and the taste of cigarettes and Jax danced across it. All of the Sons knew about what had happened at the hospital, how close you'd been to the grisly scene. But you'd focused on making dinner and cleaning up afterwards before hiding away in Jax’s room once you'd gotten back, not really talking to anyone because you couldn’t talk to the one person you’d wanted to. Raising a shoulder weakly in a shrug, that was all the answer you gave Tig.
“She'll be fine,” Jax told him, his attention shifting to you. “She’s tougher than she realizes.”
Your eyes drifted over to Jax, a warmth blossoming in your chest at his comment, surprised that he thought that of you. That he thought you were tough, as if he believed that you could handle yourself out in this world. Which was something you still found yourself questioning every day–even more after what’d happened at the hospital.
Jax wrapped an arm around your waist and began guiding you past Tig who’d walked over to take his place. “C'mon, darlin’,” he said, the exhaustion evident in his voice. “Let’s get you to bed. Been a long day.”
The two of you crossed the rooftop to the ladder, Jax’s hand giving your hip a single, gentle pat before he removed it. His head gestured for you to head down first, so you turned around and began to climb back down the rungs ahead of him. With that kiss still running through your mind, you made your way back down to the parking lot below knowing that you'd be curled up with him beneath his sheets soon. Because that, at least, was something good in the middle of everything else.
Pairing: Jax Teller x fem!nurse!Reader Word Count: 5.7k [Series Masterlist] [Jax Fic Masterlist]
Warnings/tags: 18+; zombies, horror, gore & graphic violence, suspense
Summary: At Clay's insistence, you accompany a few Sons on a supply run to St. Thomas Hospital.
a/n: This is me tapping the sign at the front of the bus reminding y'all here to read the warnings for each part. This is a zombie fic after all, so expect explicit horror/gore/violence/death here and there. Feedback and reblogs are always appreciated!
That first step into St. Thomas Hospital was like walking into somewhere else entirely. Nothing about the building seemed familiar–it didn’t feel like the place you'd spent the last few years employed. This wasn't where you'd wandered the halls on your rounds checking in on your patients, cracking jokes and bringing smiles to faces. This wasn't the same place you sipped awful hospital coffee with your co-workers while working the dreaded third or double shifts and chatting at the nurse's stations just to stay awake.
This wasn't St. Thomas anymore.
The generators had gone out well over a week ago, throwing the entire hospital into darkness with the power gone. The automated doors at the entrance that the five of you passed through were ominously stuck wide open, and the only light illuminating the inside of the once-familiar emergency room waiting area came from the late morning sun pouring into the space through those broken doors and the mostly shattered windows behind you.
Stepping cautiously inside, the rancid stench of something far worse than death hit your nose, causing it to wrinkle in disgust before you began coughing, choking on the strength of it. Immediately stopping where you stood, the hand not tightly gripping the handle of Jax’s knife which he’d given you out in the parking lot quickly covered your nose and mouth. Gagging on the smell of rotting flesh, a wave of nausea slammed into you hard. Your stomach twisted and churned while you struggled to keep the protein bar you'd eaten this morning from coming back up.
Jax and Happy halted just ahead of the small group, both men turning around at the sound of you sputtering and gagging. Looking at you over their shoulders, their flashlights and guns remained pointed forward as you attempted to compose yourself. The Sons all shot you wary glances, ones that made it clear what they were all thinking. It was obvious in the look Opie and Jax exchanged–they'd all begun reconsidering bringing you along for this trip at Clay's insistence. Next to you, Half-Sack, the younger prospect you’d met at the beginning of everything, shot you a sympathetic smile.
“You get used to it,” he told you.
As if that was reassuring.
All of them had far more exposure to the current state of the world than you did. For over the past two weeks, they'd been the ones leaving the safety of their compound and hitting up gas stations, looting houses, and checking grocery stores for items that had been missed in the pre-outbreak looting. All of them had been used to taking out the infected, inhaling the reek of decaying bodies, and seeing the world in a new light–or rather, lack thereof. This was your first time really out in the middle of everything after the world ended. Your only other time had been with Jax and Juice right at the start, when you’d been ambushed by your infected elderly neighbor in your bedroom.
But this wasn't the time or place to stand here mourning what the world used to be, or wondering how many of those things were still in here with how disgusting the hospital smelled. You needed to focus, to get everyone in and out as fast as possible. That was why they'd brought you along–to make this trip quick and efficient. Attempting to pull yourself together, your voice came out muffled as you spoke behind the hand still covering your face.
“We need the third floor,” you told the Sons. “The best stocked medication room is on that floor just behind a nurse’s station. We can grab medical supplies from the nurse’s unit and scripts from the medication room. Hit everything at once and then leave.”
“Sounds good to me,” Jax replied.
Turning his attention back ahead of himself, your eyes drifted to the always so eerily silent Happy beside him, watching him readjust the backpack on his back as his flashlight beam scanned across the waiting area. Chairs were upturned and thrown about the floor, blood smears staining the once white tile–a grisly sight within itself. But it was the bits of body parts that you hadn’t initially noticed scattered about the space that had your stomach roiling fervently. Face scrunching up in a mixture of fear and disgust, you pressed your lips firmly together and desperately hoped you wouldn't get sick while you were here.
“Which way we goin’?” Jax asked you, his flashlight still scanning the space. “Can’t use elevators with the power out, so what’s the closest stairwell?”
“It’s just down the hall to the right and–”
You broke off mid-sentence as you’d begun explaining the best route, gesturing the hand with the knife towards the hallway to the right. Fortunately your other hand still covering your face managed to muffle the soft cry that fell out of you when Jax’s flashlight stopped on what had once been the front desk of the emergency waiting room. Another wave of nausea hit you, the taste of bile filling your mouth at what was laying on top of it.
Marissa, a nurse you’d worked many shifts with over the years, was splayed over the desk on her back. Her head hung limply off the edge of it, but it was the sickening sight of her chest and stomach torn wide open with her entrails spilling out along the surface beneath her, dangling down towards the floor in a grisly mess, that had you tensing in absolute mortification.
Looking back over his shoulder at you when you’d cried out, Jax shook his head before shifting the light off of her. “Just don’t look, alright?” he said softly. “Don't focus on that, darlin’.”
Nodding your head weakly, you tore your eyes away from where Marissa’s corpse lay still somewhat visible in the faintest rays of late morning light streaming in through the shattered windows behind you, shifting your focus on the hallway farther to the right again. Swallowing down the acidic taste of bile, you tried to keep your mind on the task you were here to accomplish, refusing to think about anything more. You could fall apart later when you were all back safe at the clubhouse.
“Stairwell is down the hall to the right,” you continued, breathless. “End of the hall.”
Without waiting for further instruction, Happy took the lead and started walking through the blood-stained, gore-filled room on quiet feet looking entirely unbothered. The corner of Jax’s lips twitched before he gave you a single nod, then he turned and closely followed after Happy. Opie’s large hand came down on your shoulder from behind, causing you to lightly startle before he gave it a gentle, encouraging squeeze. He gestured his head after the others, silently telling you to keep moving. Willing your feet to follow, you began walking through the trashed waiting area after both men with Half-Sack and Opie following along beside you. With each step you took, you tried your hardest not to pay too close attention to what you were stepping around.
It wasn't until you neared the entrance to the hallway that you heard the familiar blood chilling sound, the one which still haunted you from your encounter with Mrs. Palmer. A low growl filled the poorly lit waiting room, the hair raising on the back of your neck. Before you could even react, Opie’s large hand was back on your shoulder, instinctively shoving you behind himself and towards Jax as he raised his gun in his other hand. Your eyes widened in horror, sucking in a sharp breath when Jax’s flashlight beam illuminated Marissa’s corpse again–because she was moving now.
Despite her body being torn wide open and her organs spilling out of her, she was propped up halfway along the desk. One of her arms was reaching out towards the group of you, her clouded, off-white eyes fixed on Opie as he approached her. Another guttural, unsettling growl came from between her lips, the sound growing more frenzied the closer Opie grew to her. Without hesitation, Opie traded his gun for his own knife, retrieving it from the holster at his side before he abruptly sunk it into her head. Marissa went silent and still at the impact, falling down limp once Opie had removed the blade from her skull.
Mouth hanging open, you stared wide-eyed at her body in shock and revulsion, still half-expecting her to reanimate again. One of your hands weakly raised, a finger pointing at her body in disbelief from across the waiting room. “But she–she’s–” you stammered, struggling to find the words. “How could she have…?”
“Yeah,” Opie’s grim response came as he returned to the group, exchanging his knife for his gun again. “They stay like that if you don’t get ‘em in the head.”
“C'mon,” Jax urged, a hand gently pulling at your waist. “That wasn't her anymore, and she's not a threat now. Let's just get movin’ before we attract more of ‘em.”
Exhaling a shuddering breath as a chill ran down your spine, you nodded. You certainly didn’t want to come up against more of those in here.
Jax and Happy continued leading the way down the pitch black hallway with everyone else following after them. The hair along your arms rose the further into the hospital you went, your heart unevenly thumping against your ribcage as you walked with the Sons through the narrow, dark space. Opie and Half-Sack kept their place behind you, making sure that nothing snuck up on everyone, but that didn't stop the way your breath came in a bit sharper from the fear flooding your body.
The state of the hospital's first floor only added to your nerves and growing unease. As the Sons’ flashlights swept across the hallway while the five of you quietly approached the stairwell at the end of it, you saw the overturned IV hangers and medical carts littering the floor, computer screens smashed and broken. There were hospital beds pushed up against some of the doors to rooms, as if someone had barricaded something inside of them–and you could probably guess at what. Dark red splatters of dried blood and other gore tainted the once sterile white floors and the powdered blue and white painted walls of St. Thomas, the sight and smell not alleviating your nausea.
“Hey,” Half-Sack's hushed voice carried through the dark. “You guys think it's a little too quiet in here?”
“Most of the psychos on this floor probably got out,” Happy replied quietly. As he and Jax stopped before the closed stairwell door at the end of the hallway, Happy's head nodded towards it. “Bet more of ‘em are trapped up on the other floors.”
His answer didn't help your growing anxiety, your heart pounding hard in your chest as you watched him reach the hand holding his flashlight forward and lightly ease open the metal door that led to the stairs. It opened with a soft creak before Happy peered inside the black stairwell, holding the door open with his shoulder as the beam of his flashlight scattered through the darkness.
You figured he had a point, though. While you didn't know how these things acted–especially with your limited interaction with them–it made sense that any infected on the main floor would have already wandered out of the hospital through the open doors and windows. But there were vastly more patients usually kept in St. Thomas’ second and third floors, meaning the likelihood that there were infected individuals lurking in the rooms and halls on the two floors above you all was higher.
“We should keep talking to a minimum then,” Opie suggested quietly, his eyes drifting over to Jax. “Don’t talk unless it’s necessary. Don't wanna draw attention to ourselves.”
The rest of the group nodded in agreement, no one interested in drawing the dead out. As Happy pushed the stairwell door open wider, the sharp sound of the hinge creaking again caused you to wince. You sincerely hoped nothing else had caught that.
Happy slipped past the door with Jax tailing close behind, both men keeping their guns and flashlights raised and at the ready. Ignoring everything in your body telling you to run in the opposite direction, you bit down on your bottom lip and quickly followed behind Jax, aware that the time to back out had long since passed. Opie and Half-Sack took their places behind you without a word, their footsteps soft along the tiled floor as they continued watching everyone’s backs.
Beginning to climb the stairs with your teeth gnawing at your bottom lip, the door to the stairwell closed with a soft click that sounded perilously final. Taking each step carefully, you made your way upwards one stair after another, your heart threatening to burst out of your chest with how hard it was pounding. But your breath caught in your throat when you neared the landing for the second floor.
Even Jax and Happy briefly hesitated on the landing, glancing over at the shut door nervously. From behind it, you could hear the sounds of a couple of those things–zombies, infected, psychos–making noises as if they’d been alerted to something. Most likely the quiet padding of feet as all of you climbed the stairs as noiselessly as possible in the otherwise dark. The last thing you needed was for a few of them to realize the five of you were in here.
With no interest in lingering by that door, Happy and Jax continued moving again towards the third floor. Continuing after them, you were hit with an abrupt wave of regret. You shouldn't have come with them on this run to the hospital. You weren't ready for something quite this dangerous as your first real journey out into the world, not with how panicked and unprepared you felt right now. But now you were stuck navigating the mess you'd put yourself in until the job was finished, hoping like hell you didn’t do something stupid that resulted in the whole group getting attacked by the dead.
You’d only ultimately accepted Clay's request to accompany the group here in the end because you were trying to make yourself seem more useful. But not just useful to the group as a whole. With everything Jax had told you last night about all of the SOA charters on the west coast making their way out towards Goose Lake to build a community with all of their people, you'd become more and more afraid at the possibility of losing whatever the thing between you and Jax was to someone else. Because undoubtedly there’d be more women making their way out there with these other charters, meaning more options for him to choose over you.
You knew Jax’s reputation before the world went to shit. He wasn't a monogamous, one woman sort of guy. He slept around–something Ima was always all too happy to point out. And somehow through all of this hell, you had developed feelings for him against your will and better judgment. With every shared moment you'd spent together, whether he was inside of you or not, you’d found yourself growing closer and closer to him in a way you hadn’t initially anticipated.
But you'd stupidly thought that maybe if you made yourself stand out–seem more valuable to him than someone like Ima–that you could hold his interest still when the charters all eventually met up. Now as you ascended the stairs to the third floor landing behind him, you felt as if you were walking towards certain death, all thanks to your foolish hopes of not losing him by doing something dangerous.
Reaching the third floor landing first, Jax and Happy both took a moment to prepare themselves before opening the door. Your hand gripped tighter around the handle of Jax’s knife, bracing yourself for the infected to begin spilling out in droves once they opened it. Your body tensed in anticipation as Happy cautiously pushed the door open, the metal door making a faint groan. Your breath died in your throat at the sound, terrified that little noise had given all of you away.
But relief hit you hard when none of those things instantly came barreling out trying to attack. Though as you stepped out into the dark hallway after them, your nose filling with a rancid smell far worse than what was on the first floor, your relief was short-lived. The sound of growling and feet shuffling echoed through the pitch black halls, making you more than aware that you weren't alone on this floor.
Opie and Half-Sack followed you through the door, gently pulling it shut as silently as possible after themselves, but the faint click felt even more final than the previous time. Jax glanced over his shoulder at you, his eyebrows raising slightly in a silent question, wondering which direction they were supposed to head in now to find the nurse's station and the medication room you'd mentioned.
Still trying to ignore your own growing panic and your body's increasing reaction to the fear filling your system, you focused on reading the placards on the wall in the light from the Sons’ flashlights. From what you could see in this hallway, it looked just as disastrous as the main floor–medical equipment knocked over, IV hangers scattered about, beds upturned or barricading doors, and blood splattered along the walls and floors. You were having difficulty immediately orienting yourself in the dark among the mess with nothing looking familiar.
After a few deep breaths of the rancid air, you gradually began to mentally picture the layout in your mind again, trying to focus on a few of the signs on the walls. Tamping down your fear so you could concentrate, you met Jax’s questioning stare again and began giving him directions. You pointed towards the left of the hall with a finger before signaling a right, directing him which hall and where to turn. He nodded at your instructions before him and Happy took the lead again, but it was clear that both Sons had grown tense now.
Moving slowly and following the directions you'd given, Jax and Happy led the group onward. You felt like you were hardly breathing with each step you took behind them, the sound of the dead always present somewhere in the dark. It was unsettling being able to hear them–to know they were close without knowing how close.
Eventually, the hallway opened up to a small waiting area with a nurse’s station–the one you were looking for. But just like everything else in the hospital, it was a mess with chairs and medical equipment thrown about the space. Papers and folders were strewn along the blood-stained tile as if staff had tried to flee in a panic. You tried to ignore the thoughts beginning to creep into your mind about what might’ve happened to you if your shift had ended later that first day of the outbreak.
Keeping behind the two Sons who were leading the group, you watched as their flashlights scanned the area for any sign of the infected. Fingers squeezing the knife in your hand, you were grateful when nothing appeared to be lurking in the shadows. But that didn't quell the steadily growing uneasiness inside of yourself. Where the hell were all these things hiding if you could hear them but couldn’t see them?
Not interested in standing still for too long, Happy and Jax continued moving through the mess of overturned chairs until you all reached the back of the nurse's station. Happy began shrugging off the empty backpack he'd been carrying before he glanced over at Jax beside him. With a silent gesture of his chin at the supplies under the counter, he wordlessly told Jax that he planned to fill his backpack with the easy to grab items on the shelves and in the drawers.
Jax gave a curt nod before his attention swept towards Half-Sack standing beside you. He held out his hand with the flashlight to the prospect, silently asking for the other empty backpack he was carrying. Half-Sack began slipping the empty bag off of his shoulder before he stepped forward and handed it over to Jax.
While Opie and Half-Sack kept an eye on the waiting area around you, surveying your surroundings with flashlights and guns at the ready, Happy crouched down and began filling supplies into his backpack. Jax's focus shifted towards the door behind the nurse's station that was clearly labeled as a medication room–the room with the medication that you would need to grab.
Reaching out a cautious hand, Jax pushed the door open before sweeping the room three times with his flashlight and gun. Considering it was just an open space with shelves, he quickly deemed the room clear and looked back over his shoulder at you. With a subtle nod of his head, he called you over and extended the empty backpack to you.
Breath still coming in shallow, you made your way over to him, trying to ignore the sounds of something groaning in a nearby hall, the sound eerily cutting through the dark. A shudder ran down your spine as you accepted the bag from Jax's outstretched hand before you stepped into the medication room. Pointing his flashlight towards the ceiling, Jax attempted to illuminate the entire space for you to work in, and you paused long enough to give him a tentative, appreciative smile.
But you had no interest in being here longer than necessary, especially with all the noise the dead were making, so you holstered Jax’s knife at your side and hurried over to the shelves on the left side of the room. Scanning over the labels of medication on all the boxes and bottles stored along them, you began grabbing each one in a rush, stuffing what you considered most important into the opened backpack in your other hand as you moved quickly. You didn't want to keep the Sons waiting, aware Happy's task of ransacking the nurse's station was probably already about finished.
By the time you'd made your way through the entirety of the room, your bag was stuffed full of various boxes and bottles of pills. Making your way back to Jax, your trembling hands zipped the backpack closed. You welcomed the brief touch of his palm against your lower back as he guided you out through the door and back behind the nurse's station where the others were already standing on guard waiting for you.
With the main purpose for this trip finally completed, you slung the backpack onto your back, desperate to get out of here fast. Happy and Jax took point once again, carefully leading you all away from the nurse’s station and back towards the hallway you'd initially come from. Pulling Jax’s knife from out of the holster on your belt loop once more, you held it firmly in your hand, hoping like hell that you could all slip out of here without incident. Especially since things had managed to go without issue so far to get up to the third floor and grab everything.
But of course, your luck had to run out eventually.
It wasn't until you had made it back to the hallway where the door to the stairwell was finally in sight again that it happened. Opie and Half-Sack had been following behind you, both of them on alert as the sound of the deads’ growling and shuffling grew louder and closer. But with how dark it was and how on edge you all were, the toe of Half-Sack's shoe accidentally kicked a metal tray on the ground as he was walking, the offending object clattering loudly across the tiled floor before it hit the wall.
What happened next was almost instantaneous. The infected on the third floor let out a chorus of low snarls and guttural growls that suddenly filled the rotten air, clearly having caught the noise. It felt like your heart stopped as the sound of multiple sets of feet began shuffling even quicker against the tile with purpose now, the sound chilling you straight to the bone.
They had definitely just heard that, and that little accident had just led the dead on this floor straight to the five of you.
Looking over your shoulder, your mouth fell open in horror when you saw Opie swing his flashlight behind the group, the beam of it bouncing off of at least five of the infected at the end of the hall. Fear slid through your veins at the sight of them running towards you in an unnatural way, a handful of them bounding quickly towards everyone. Their hands reached out in front of themselves as their snarling and growling intensified, their feet moving disturbingly fast along the tile.
There was no way in hell you'd be leaving St. Thomas without a fight now.
No longer able to avoid the noise of gunfire anymore, Opie didn't hesitate to fire off two rounds at the bodies barreling down the hall towards everyone. Two of the dead dropped to the ground as the bullets lodged into their heads, but more of them just appeared in their place right after, stepping right over the downed bodies as if they weren’t an obstacle.
How many of these things were there?
Ears ringing from the piercing sound of Opie’s gun firing in close quarters, you just barely caught Jax’s order to run for the stairwell door. Leading the group faster down the narrow hall, Jax and Happy were soon forced to shoot off bullets when a few of the infected began making their way towards everyone from the front. Another group of the dead had rounded a corner about twenty feet away and were beginning to rush towards all of you.
Feeling helpless in the middle of the group with just your knife, you realized the dead had you cornered from both sides now, and you figured the ones on the second floor would soon be drawn by the noise next. If everyone didn't get out of here soon, you'd have both floors of dead attacking with no chance of escape.
But progress towards the stairwell was slow, the deafening noise of gunfire filling the hallway over and over as the Sons dropped one after another of the infected. Fear clamped a cold hand around your throat, your breath still coming in short as your eyes kept darting in front and behind, watching the infected closing in from both sides.
How the hell were you all supposed to even make it back to the main floor now with this many of them after you?
It took a minute, but Jax and Happy eventually managed to clear a path to the stairwell door. While Happy held the herd of dead back, shooting each one as it got closer, Jax shoved open the stairwell door before roughly grabbing you by the arm and dragging you into the dark with him. But he abruptly pushed you behind himself when a straggler infected was lit up by the beam of his flashlight. He shot it quickly before it dropped down the stairs, tumbling down them with a few solid thuds. You assumed that one must have slipped through the second floor's door during all the chaos, drawn by the noise.
Behind you, Opie, Happy, and Half-Sack continued firing off rounds and thinning out the approaching herd. They were inching their way back towards the stairwell door until they finally darted inside of it and slammed it firmly shut after themselves.
“Hold them back!” Happy barked out.
Jax continued to keep his eyes, gun, and flashlight on the stairwell below you all, making sure nothing more snuck up the stairs from the second floor again. With your heart hammering in your throat, your palm began sweating against the knife handle as fear kept you in its grip. You had no idea how they planned to keep all of those things from following all of you down the stairs and back out to the van.
Heavy thuds rang out as the dead banged against the door that Opie and Half-Sack were struggling to keep shut, pressing their entire bodies against the metal door and straining against the weight. The dead sounded as if they were throwing themselves against it from the other side, trying hard to burst through it.
Without wasting a second, Happy dropped his gun and flashlight to the stairwell landing in a rush, confusing you as he began undoing his belt buckle in a hurry before slipping it out of his belt loops. Brows furrowed, you watched as Happy reached up and began securing his belt around the hinge of the door at the top, rapidly wrapping the length of it around the metal until it was tightly clamped shut enough to keep the door firmly closed.
“Should hold ‘em back long enough,” Happy grunted out.
Bending back down, he grabbed his gun and flashlight from where he'd dropped them while Opie and Half-Sack took a couple of hesitant steps back from the door. Harsh banging continued coming from the other side of it as the infected pushed against the metal, trying to get through the door, but thankfully the belt secured around the hinge held firm for the moment.
“Let's get fuck outta here,” Jax ordered.
Happy brushed past you on the stairs, taking his place beside Jax as the pair began rushing back down them. Not needing to be told twice, especially with the continued snarling and pounding carrying through the stairwell from that door, your feet followed down the stairs after them. Opie and Half-Sack remained in their position behind you, the sound of their heavy footfalls a comfort amid the unraveling of everything.
Running down multiple flights of stairs faster than you'd ever moved for anything in your entire life, your legs burned in a protest that you completely ignored. But with your blood rushing through your body and mixing with the adrenaline coursing through you, you didn't realize what was happening until it was too late.
Happy and Jax bolted past the door on the second floor landing, continuing their way down to the main floor in a frenzy, but as the rest of you came upon it, the door unexpectedly burst open. Opie reached out, attempting to grab you and pull you out of the way of one of the infected that had darted through it, but he lost his footing and stumbled down a few stairs when the thing had lunged forward and solidly slammed you into the stair railing.
Your hands instinctively flew up, pushing against the thing’s chest to keep it back. Unable to see much in front of yourself without a flashlight, the infected thing was heavily shadowed as it gnashed its teeth in an attempt to bite your jaw. Its eyes were wild and clouded-over, an unnatural white just like Mrs. Palmer’s had been when she'd attacked you in your bedroom just over two weeks ago. Except this thing reeked of decay and rot, dried blood coating the man's face which looked sunken in, the flesh on his cheeks beginning to peel off the muscle.
Already knowing what you had to do, you readjusted your grip on the infected and used all your strength with one hand to hold it back before raising the knife in your other. You roughly plunged it down into the man's head, already anticipating the disgusting noise as the blade sunk in. The second he went limp, you pulled the knife out and shoved him away from you on the stairs, hearing the solid thump as he hit the concrete landing.
Turning your attention over to Half-Sack nearby, you saw him down an infected with his own knife as the sounds of Jax and Happy trying to hurry their way back up to help echoed in the confined space. Knowing you couldn’t just wait around for them, you darted forward on the landing, moving quickly to shut the door to the second floor in an attempt to keep the dead that were running towards it back. But before you could even fully get it shut, another forcefully pushed its way through the opening. Half-Sack didn't even give you a chance to fight it before he was grabbing the infected nurse away from you to take her down himself.
You'd barely had a chance to blink after that. One moment it was just Half-Sack about to sink his knife into the lone nurse, and the next, two more of them came bolting past the door and knocked him off balance. The prospect went down towards the cement landing just as one of those things tore its teeth right into his shoulder, viciously pulling the muscle straight from the bone. His resounding shriek of pain ricochetted in your skull as another one of them bit the side of his face and tore the flesh clean off in front of you.
You barely registered the feeling of Jax’s hands on you, dragging you backwards down the stairs with him, Opie, and Happy. Your vision blurred from the tears filling them as Half-Sack fell silent beneath a growing pile of infected on top of him, but the repulsive sound of those things tearing him apart ripped through the stairwell.
“We gotta go,” Jax’s gruff voice said beside your ear, roughly dragging you down the stairs to the main floor with him. “We gotta go, darlin’. He’s gone. We can't help him.”
With the dead temporarily distracted by tearing into Half-Sack, the four of you managed to make it down to the main floor. Happy, Opie, and Jax wasted no time immediately beginning to barricade the stairwell doors shut with the hospital beds that littered the hallway, trapping the dead behind it to give you all long enough to get outside and into the van without accidentally leading them back to the clubhouse.
While they worked, you stood in the dark hallway, your clothes splattered in blood from the infected you'd killed. Your hands violently shook as tears quietly streamed down your cheeks in warm streaks, struggling to comprehend the gruesome way you’d just watched Half-Sack die. Especially since he’d just lost his life trying to save yours.
Summary: You can tell something is bothering Jax with the way he's using you tonight, but you're shocked when he finally tells you what it is.
a/n: I am so excited to share this update with y'all!! It's so damn hard keeping quiet about everything that's coming in this fic when I'm over here working on part 12 and y'all are only at part 6. But feedback and reblogs are always appreciated!
Fingers twisted up in the sheets of Jax’s bed, your teeth bit down hard on his pillow stuffed in your mouth, fighting to keep from screaming out.
Jax lay flush over the back of you, his sweat-slicked chest pressing you down into the mattress, his body so close that you could feel the taut muscles of his abdomen flexing along your back with each thrust. He was raised up on just a single forearm, his other hand firmly holding the back of your neck and keeping the side of your face shoved into his bed. With his mouth hovering over your right shoulder, every rough grunt and sharp gasp fell into your ear while he hammered himself into you so forcefully from behind that his mattress rammed into the wall with a repetitive thump thump thump.
The tips of his blonde hair tickled your back while your entire body trembled beneath him, your pussy constricing around his length as he kept punishingly slamming it into you as if he needed this more than he usually did. You struggled to keep from crying out in pleasure at the aggressive way he was using you tonight, but nothing could quiet the forceful sounds of his hips slapping against your ass over and over and over.
“That's fuckin’ right.” Jax’s words came out a snarl between gritted teeth, his pace unwavering. “Wanted this, didn't you? Needed to get fucked so hard you couldn't fuckin’ think?”
The only response you could manage was a choked whimper around the corner of his pillow in your mouth. You could feel your orgasm rapidly approaching, pleasure burning its way up your spine as your fingernails dug into the mattress with it drawing nearer.
“Think you can keep that pretty fuckin’ mouth of yours shut?” he growled beside your ear. “Think no one's gonna know who's been makin’ you moan every–goddamn–night?”
His final words were punctuated with three rough thrusts that had your eyelids growing heavy, your back arching up further into his chest behind you. Whenever he lost himself in you and the filth started to pour from his lips, you found yourself falling apart even faster than normal. No one had ever said half the shit he did to you, and something about the low, gravely tone of his voice paired with his words always had you coming undone like it'd become your singular weakness.
Teeth grinding down against the pillow in your mouth, a muffled cry burst out of you just before your orgasm hit like a wave finally cresting. Body quivering on the bed beneath him, your nails bit into the mattress as you came hard on his cock, eyes squeezing shut. But Jax's relentless pace continued as he chased after his own release, your pussy clenching tight around him as he fucked you through your orgasm.
“Fuck,” Jax gritted out beside your ear. He continued roughly pumping into you, his hand on your neck holding you firmer to the bed and keeping you trapped against it. “Thatta girl. Thatta fuckin’ girl. Let it out.”
Tears pricked at the corners of your eyes at the intensity of your climax while he kept up his brutal pace, pounding himself into you from behind. Breathing hard through your nose with the pillow still clamped between your teeth, you felt his hand tighten its grip on the back of your neck a little more. With another powerful and unsteady thrust into you again, Jax slammed himself so deep inside of you that you inhaled a sharp breath through your nose, swearing you could feel the delicious burn of him all the way behind your eyes.
The curse under his breath was followed by a low groan before he came, your body growing leaden beneath him with the aftermath of your orgasm still coursing through you. You could feel the warmth of his release as he began to empty himself inside of you in hot spurts–something he got off on since he knew you couldn’t get pregnant. Your pussy continued convulsing around him with the aftershocks of your pleasure, taking everything he had to give until the tension in his body finally began to ease against your back.
Jax exhaled a long, slow breath afterwards, the warmth of it running down your shoulder as it fell past his lips. Releasing his hold on the back of your neck, his hand landed on the bed beside you before he slowly pushed himself up, his cock softly slipping out from inside of you. He collapsed down on his back next to you in the dimly lit room with a grunt afterwards, his chest rapidly rising and falling as he tried to catch his breath.
One of your hands sluggishly reached up, pulling the now damp pillow out from between your teeth. Readjusting your position on the mattress, you tugged the pillow just a bit further down to rest your head on it, a tired and contented smile drawing over your lips as you lay beside him in the dark. Your pussy would be aching and sore tomorrow with how roughly he'd been pounding into you tonight and last night, but you didn't care. Every time Ima threw you a dirty look across the room as she clung to Jax, you at least had the reminder of who he was actually spending his nights with every time you shifted in a chair.
Beside you, Jax scrubbed a hand down his face as his own breath came in labored and heavy, that sound now replacing the obscene noise of skin against skin from a minute ago. His hand wearily slid down past his chin before it fell to rest along his bare and sweat glistening chest. Turning his head on the pillow, his eyes found you in the dark.
“You good, darlin’?” he asked, breathless.
Gaze meeting his, you nodded once. “Mhmm,” you hummed.
Your body was still buzzing from the orgasm, your own breath still a little uneven as you lay there next to him. He’d certainly been rougher than usual tonight, but you hadn’t exactly minded. Despite only actually knowing Jax for almost two weeks now, you trusted that he wasn’t going to hurt you. And the sex was still a useful distraction from everything else happening around you in the world, a distraction you had no intention of losing.
“C’mere,” he murmured, a hand sliding towards you along the bed.
Letting Jax tug you closer to him by your hip, you slid over to him until you were wrapped up in his arms. Snuggled up against his naked body, his broad shoulder became your pillow as it often had recently.
This was the part of your days that you always looked forward to–the aggressive sex that was immediately contrasted with the softness of cuddling naked on his bed after. You’d usually fall into conversation for a bit before eventually drifting off to sleep, something that always made your nightmarish days better. Despite the few little interactions you occasionally managed with him during the day, you at least got him completely to yourself like this every night. And while you still had no idea what the hell this arrangement between you both even was, having fallen into it with him since the beginning of the outbreak–even with Ima’s continued attempts to undermine it–you liked it. Jax made you feel safe, and these nights gave you something to look forward to during the day.
But the way he’d been with you tonight wasn’t lost on you, and you figured the roughness and apparent frustration in the way he’d fucked you wasn’t due to just the stress of the supply run he’d been on earlier today. Even with how exhausted and spent he was as his fingers traced up and down your back absently, you could tell something was on his mind.
Raising your head from his shoulder, you rested your chin along his chest as you looked up at him. Through the faint moonlight illuminating his room at the late hour, you saw his eyes shift down from the ceiling as he focused back on you. You noticed that he was quieter than usual tonight, too.
“You seem frustrated still,” you pointed out carefully. Fingertips running softly along his chest, you felt the bit of sweat lingering on his skin dampen the pads of them. “Something on your mind, Jax?”
A deep sigh fell out of him before he glanced away from you, his tongue wetting his lips in silent contemplation. He looked like he was considering telling you it was nothing–which you weren’t about to believe after how he'd just used you. With the way the world was now, there was clearly something eating at him with how he was acting tonight.
“Hey, what’s going on?” you gently pressed, a crease forming between your brows as your concern grew. “Something’s bothering you, I can tell.”
“It’s just–” he hesitated, his eyes drifting back towards you in the dark. With a frustrated noise, he ran a free hand across his forehead, pushing some of his hair back from his sweat-dampened skin. “There’s a hospital run Clay wants to do tomorrow. To pick up more medical supplies and meds before St. Thomas gets overrun or picked over by someone else,” he finally relented.
“That’s…not exactly a bad idea,” you countered slowly, brows still furrowed. “My medical bag is limited. And I don’t have things like penicillin in there if someone were to get an infection. The hospital would have a lot more useful things I don’t have access to.”
In the dark, you saw the way Jax’s lips thinned out on his face. His hand paused its movements along the length of your spine, lingering against your lower back as his fingers rubbed absent circles over your bare skin.
“Yeah, sure,” he agreed easily. “But that’s not exactly the issue.”
You blinked back at him for a moment, trying to read between the lines and failing. “Okay, so what is the issue?”
He blew out a rough breath, the tension returning to his body beside you. “He wants you to come with a few of us when we go,” he answered. “And I don’t like that.”
Your head lifted off Jax’s chest in surprise, your eyes widening a little. “Me?” you asked. “What? Why?”
Jax’s fingers stopped moving entirely at your questions, his hand splaying wide over your lower back instead. The warmth of it was soothing despite what he’d just told you, but it didn't stop the image of Mrs. Palmer from the other week briefly flitting through your mind, or the sound of her inhuman snarling resurfacing in your memory.
“Clay thinks you’d be the best person to go,” Jax explained. “You’re a nurse who used to work there. He figures you’d know what’s worth grabbin’ and where it’d be, but I don’t see why you couldn’t just make a list or somethin’. Makes no damn sense to put you in danger by bringin’ you with us.”
This was the first you were hearing about this hospital run and your mind immediately began racing with panicked thoughts, nerves steadily filling you at the idea of going with them–of leaving the safety of the clubhouse. Ever since the outbreak started almost two weeks ago, only the Sons and Chuckie had been allowed to leave on supply runs. The Sons had never cleared anyone else to go out past the clubhouse's tall fence, not deeming it safe.
You figured the hospital’s generators would have been down by now because they weren’t meant to last a power failure of this length. Which meant pitch black hallways probably filled with the infected, especially since the place hadn’t been evacuated when the outbreak started. It wasn’t like St. Thomas was some massive hospital inside of a city, but it still held multiple patients on multiple floors. Meaning who knew how many of those things like Mrs. Palmer lurked in the shadows wanting to tear apart anyone who stepped foot inside.
But you couldn’t deny that Clay had a point. While Jax was right, you probably could make a list of important things for them to grab, and maybe you could draw up some sort of map for the guys about where to find everything, you also knew the risk for error was higher if they went without you. You knew that hospital far better than any of them, you’d be able to get them in and out significantly faster. And a faster trip meant less chance for those things swarming them in the narrow hallways, or for them to get trapped on a floor not knowing how to navigate the confusing layout in the dark in order to get out.
“You don’t have to agree to it, darlin’,” Jax said softly, breaking through your thoughts. “It’s just an option. One I don’t like.”
“He’s right, though,” you stated, eyes finding his once more. “Things would go a lot smoother with me. It’d be more efficient. I’d be an asset to the group on this.”
“Darlin’–”
“I’ll go,” you told him, ignoring your increasing anxiety at the idea. “If there’s something more I can do to help out besides cooking, cleaning, and patching someone up, I’ll help. You guys took me in when you didn’t have to, and it’s stupid to rely on everyone else to keep me safe. Besides, I should learn how to handle myself out there.” You shrugged, your fingers resuming the gentle ministrations along his bare chest again as you tried to draw strength from him. “We’re all just living on borrowed time now, right? Not like we can live in this clubhouse forever. Food is eventually going to run out, and that means at some point we'll have to leave here. I need to–to get used to the idea of what’s happening out there.”
Jax studied you silently in the dim moonlight shining across your face, a pensive expression on his own. Your hand moved up along his chest, your fingers finding their way into his beard as the tips of them lightly played with the hairs somewhat affectionately. Jax laid there with his head on the pillow, some of his blonde hair still clinging to the sweat on his forehead as he watched you.
“What?” you asked.
“It’s just–you’re not wrong,” he admitted after a moment. “About stayin’ here forever. It’s somethin’ we’ve been talkin’ about for a bit, somethin’ we’ve been tryin’ to figure out. But we’ve been keepin’ everything quiet while we’ve been discussing the details.”
Head tilting curiously to the side, your fingers continued running back and forth along his jaw as his words piqued your interest. But the way he leaned into your touch like he was craving it hadn’t gone unnoticed.
“The details for what, exactly?” you questioned.
“We’ve been keepin’ in touch with a few of the other Sons’ charters,” Jax began slowly, as if uncertain whether he was supposed to be telling you all of this. “Using satellite radios. One of the guys in another charter told us ‘bout this place up near Goose Lake where some crazy doomsday prepper built a bunker. The other charter presidents around here are thinkin’ we can caravan our people out there and turn it into some sorta community. Build it up, fortify it, figure out how to grow food. A few of the guys are already good at hunting and fishing.”
Lips parting in surprise, you hadn’t expected Jax to drop that on you. That was…big. Huge. A journey a few hours further north to the corner of California would certainly be dangerous while trying to move everyone, but a place to actually build a community? One with multiple Sons of Anarchy charters capable and willing to protect it? You couldn’t deny that it sounded like a smart move, because the clubhouse wasn’t a viable option to live in forever. At some point, resources would run out here.
Though you couldn’t help but feel a tinge of disappointment, not just at the idea of leaving Charming, but at eventually losing all these nights in private with Jax. Would this thing between you both even continue if the sex stopped or became too infrequent because of a lack of privacy? Or would he find someone else among the other groups meeting up at Goose Lake and lose interest in you? The thought had a sinking feeling hit you in the chest, as if there was suddenly a timer ticking down on whatever this thing was. An expiration date closing in.
But however confusing your feelings were at the moment, they were not what was important right now, not when you needed to worry about staying alive. The little community they wanted to build together was a good idea and the best shot you all had at long term survival in this mess. Even if that meant you might have to lose whatever this was between you and Jax in the end. You needed to focus on the bigger picture and not on the present. If Jax found someone else, then he found someone else.
“So that’s why Clay wants to hit up St. Thomas?” you asked, fingers stilling along his jaw. “Because we’re leaving Charming soon? And we’re going to need more medical supplies for a larger group of people?”
Jax nodded along his pillow, his eyes narrowing slightly as if he’d caught your subtle shift in mood. “Yeah,” he answered. “Some charters are already headin’ out that way, but Clay is waitin’ on one of ‘em to meet up with us here before we head up north. But once we do, we ain’t comin’ back here.”
Swallowing hard, you tried to quell the rising nerves at the thought of the run tomorrow that was overshadowing your fear of Jax finding someone else. “Then I'll go along with you guys to the hospital,” you repeated more firmly. “We're going to need a lot more things if we're growing our numbers soon.”
A frown tugged at the corners of Jax’s lips as his hand slid up your back, pressing gently between your shoulder blades and urging you to lay back down against him. “Then we should get some sleep, darlin’,” he murmured. “Gonna need to be rested to deal with all of that shit tomorrow. I need you thinkin' clearly.”
Resting your head back onto his shoulder, Jax began pulling up the sheets, fixing them to cover both of your naked bodies. As you settled against him to sleep like you'd done over the past few weeks, you clung more tightly to him than usual, aware that an end to these nights alone in his room was on the horizon.
Prompt: “I am this close away from strangling you.”
Warnings: pregnancy
It wasn’t the first time you had found your husband in the nursery in the middle of the night surrounded by more cans of paint
Rolling over you felt the emptiness on your husband's side of the bed, the coldness indicated that he hadn’t been in bed for a while. Slowly you let your eyes flutter open, squinting at the alarm clock on Jax’s bed side table.
The red lights blinking 2:16am, what the hell was he doing up at this time? Groaning in frustration you rested your hand on your stomach, summoning up the energy to roll out of bed. “What’s your daddy doing now?” You whispered to your bump, as you swung your legs round, letting your feet find the large fluffy rug.
You shouldn’t have been surprised that it was the middle of the night and your husband wasn’t sound asleep, this wasn’t the first time you found him wide awake. Normally he was slumped over his desk mulling over some deal or problem the club was having.
Reaching up you rubbed the sleep out of your eyes with the palm of your hand before grabbing Jax’s hoodie, the smell of his aftershave washing over you like a comforting blanket. A small smile crept onto your face, it was your favourite smell in the world and one you’d never tire of smelling.
“Let’s go find daddy,” you said softly, rubbing your bump as you pushed yourself to your feet.
As you exited the bedroom you noticed the soft glow coming from under the door to the nursery. Reaching out you wrapped your hand around the door knob just as you heard a clattering followed by Jax cursing.
“You okay baby?” You asked, pushing the door open to find your husband slumped on the floor covered in paint.
“Shit, did I wake you Darlin’?” He questioned pushing himself to his feet.
“No you didn’t,” you smiled, letting your eyes dart around the room to see the colour had changed for the 4th time. “What are you doing up and what colour is this one?”
Jax looked at you with a bright smile on his face, “I couldn’t sleep, I had an idea for the theme and just needed to try it out.”
“So you found a hardware store that is open in the middle of the night to get the paint?” You hummed, with a smirk on your face.
“It pays when you are the president of the biggest MC in town,” he chuckled, as he quickly picked up the empty paint cans he had kicked over. “But I think this theme might be the winner,”
“Babe, we still have a month and a half before the due date, I have a feeling that this room will change about 3 more times until then,” you giggled, lowering yourself down onto the chair in the corner of the room.
“I just want this room to be perfect,” he smiled, standing in the middle of the room, taking in the new paint colour. “Actually, I don’t think I like this colour any more, I think it’s too much.”
Staring at your husband in disbelief, the paint hadn’t even dried yet and here he was changing his mind again.
“Swear to god, I am this close away from strangling you,” you said with a large smirk on your face, holding your fingers millimeters apart. Jax flashed you his signature smile, the one that caused you to fall in love with him all those years ago. “Tell you what,” you breathed, “let’s go back to bed and we can decide on the colour in the morning. But please stop changing your mind, you are spending a fortune on paint, I swear we will be able to open our own paint shop.”
