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drabbles-mc · 3 years ago

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State of Grace (3)

David Hale x OFC (Grace Teller)

Request by Anon: I got a thirst for Hale after seeing a drabble earlier - what about a Hale x reader, where Hale is having an inner battle with his feelings for the younger sister of Jax Teller? Maybe, a situation where both have liked each other for a while, which equally infuriates Clay and Jake respectively, but ultimately, a near miss with Zobelle’s crew pushes them together more, and then it’s used against Hale, and then ultimately there’s fluff?

Warnings: language, light angst

Word Count: 4.7k

A/N: Guess who is rewatching SOA from the beginning and getting thrown back into their Hale feelings??? It’s me.

Chapter Index

SOA Taglist: @masterlistforimagines @espieviolet99 @mijop @chibsytelford @thanossexual @xladymacbethx @i-just-read-stuff @lilah1903 @multiyfandomgirl40 @bport76 @toni9 @unicornucopia-fuckers @buckybarneshairpullingkink @shadow-of-wonder @punkgoddess-98 @paintballkid711 @black-repunzel99 @garbinge @lexondeck @jitterbugs927 @mrsstevenbuchananstark @mijagif @frattsparty @winchestershiresauce @bruxasolta @bellisperennis0 @crowfootwrites @redpoodlern @beardburnsupersoldiers @mveggieburger @xeniarocks @choochoo284 @littlekittymeow @beardsanddetectives @i-love-scott-mccall @be-my-dear @withmyteeth @flacalatke (If you want to be added to any of my taglists, let me know!)

Grace whipped her bike into line with everyone else’s when she got to the clubhouse. It stood out against everyone else’s, but she didn’t care. She got over that insecurity a long time ago once she started putting her time and money into customizing her bike. No amount of jokes from her brother, or back-handed compliments from Tig would make her regret any of it.

She left her helmet on the seat, shaking her hair out as she walked towards the garage. Scanning to see who was there, her body relaxed a bit when she spotted Juice elbow-deep in the truck he was working on. She had no idea if Opie had mentioned anything to him, but she supposed that it didn’t really matter anyway. In all the years that she’d known Juice, the man had never said no to her. It was hard to tell if that was because Juice actually liked and respected her, or if he was just that afraid of pissing off Jax. Either, way, it worked out in Grace’s favor.

Juice was too focused on his work to hear her walking up behind him. She lingered for a few moments, smiling to herself at how one-track his mind was sometimes. When it became clear that he wasn’t going to notice her on his own, she cleared her throat a little louder than necessary.

He turned, eyebrows raised. There was almost a hint of annoyance in his eyes before he realized who it was that was trying to get his attention. Once he saw it was her, his expression immediately softened, although the confusion still lingered.

“Hey, Grace,” he took one hand out of the truck to he could turn and face her more directly, “You okay?”

She nodded, “Yea, I’m good. Did, uh, did you talk to Opie at all today?”

He shook his head, confusion intensifying, “Was I supposed to?”

She laughed quietly, “No, no. I just, I called him earlier and mentioned maybe needing a favor from you. Didn’t know if he passed along the message.”

His confusion faded to intrigue as he started to wipe both his hands off, attempting to rid them of the grease and oil that was streaked on them. He was partially successful, twisting the rag in his hands as he tried to figure out just what kind of favor Grace Teller might need from him.

“What do you need?” there was a tentative lilt to his voice, “I’ll, I’ll do what I can.”

“If you can’t, or don’t want to, you can say no,” she shrugged, “I won’t hold it against you.”

He chuckled, but there was something else, something that wasn’t amusement, in his eyes as he spoke, “Can’t be worse than anything the club has asked me to do. What’s up?”

She pressed her lips into a thin line, realizing now that starting a new chain of favors could get dicey rather quickly. There were worse people to be indebted to, sure, but she didn’t want to rope Juice into something that could easily blow up in both their faces. It was one thing for her to lie to Jax and Clay, but it was another thing entirely to expect him to be comfortable doing the same.

“You still got an in for the DMV database?”

His brows furrowed, “Yea, why?”

She took a deep breath, knowing that there was no going back at this point, “Think you could run a plate for me?”

“Now?”

She shook her head, “Doesn’t have to be now. When…whenever you’re free?”

He thought about it for a moment, eyes dropping to the ground as he mulled over his options. Looking back up at her, he said, “Let me finish with this? Maybe another hour?”

“Yea, that’s fine. Just come get me when you’re ready.”

Juice gave her a nod, but didn’t quite know what else to say. Grace took the silence as her cue to leave and turned on her heel to make her way to the clubhouse. Juice watched her for a minute before forcing himself to get back to work. His mind was racing as he tried to figure out what was going on. It was futile, and a waste of his mental energy to try and predict what he was walking into, and he knew that, but he couldn’t stop himself. Grace never asked him for anything, never really asked anyone for anything for that matter. He tried to shake the thoughts from his head to he could focus on his work, knowing that the faster he wrapped up, the faster he could get answers to his questions.

In the meantime, Grace kept herself busy in the clubhouse. No matter how many times the guys offered her the job of bartender, she always turned it down. She didn’t want to set herself up to get even more entrenched with the club than she already was. While she recognized that her life as she knew it, the bad and the good, was because of the club, she also knew that she could only grow so much within its confines. Depending on the club as a child and teenager, and depending on the club as an adult were two different things. She never quite knew how to say that without upsetting anyone, though, so instead each time they offered she brushed it off with a joke about how they were all shitty tippers and she wouldn’t be able to cover her rent.

But just because she didn’t work there, didn’t mean that she liked to see the clubhouse looking like a mess. The guys didn’t really care about how neat and orderly things were. Cleanup was always left to the latest prospect, or whoever they roped into working the bar. Needless to say, none of those people took it all that seriously either. So if Grace popped in and needed to keep herself busy for a little bit, there was never a shortage of things to do.

When Juice walked in about an hour later, he came in to see Grace tying the drawstrings on the top of a garbage bag that looked about ready to rip at the seams. His eyes widened as he quickly made his way over to her.

“I got that,” he took it from her to dispose of it, “You don’t gotta do that.”

“Well,” Grace laughed, “someone’s got to. Last time this place looked decent on a regular basis was when you were prospecting,” she smiled, giving him a playful nudge, “The only orderly MC member I’ve ever met.”

Juice let out a quiet laugh, feeling his face heat up a little, “First time for everything,” he cleared his throat, “Let me run this out and then we can…you know…”

Grace chuckled, nodding, “Sounds good.”

Juice came back inside moments later, grabbing his laptop before joining her at the bar. He opened it as he sat down, but before he could get too comfortable, Grace asked him, “Hey, um, could we do this somewhere…not here?” she glanced around, and even though the clubhouse was pretty dead at that point, it could change in an instant, “I don’t really need anyone else asking me about this.”

He nodded, “Yea, uh, okay,” he hopped off his stool at the bar, “C’mon.”

Grace followed him back to his dorm, and she could feel the nervous energy coming off of him. His pace was quicker than usual, like he didn’t want anyone to see them. She supposed that maybe that wasn’t the worst thing in the world.

Juice shut the door to his room behind the two of them, and Grace couldn’t help but to look around. It was sparse, but it was evident that everything was in the exact place it was supposed to be. The neatness of the room stood in stark contrast to the currently dirty and disheveled appearance of the man that it belonged to. Juice’s cargo pants and T-M work shirt were stained already despite the fact that the day had only just really gotten underway.

He didn’t notice Grace thinking any of that, though, as he gestured for her to take a seat on the edge of his bed. She sat down next to him, nervously twisting her hands in her lap as she watched him pull up all the necessary software on his laptop. His fingers flew across the keys and Grace couldn’t help but to watch in admiration. Juice was usually the butt of every joke from the rest of the guys, but until this moment Grace had to admit that she had never really seen him in his element. He was like a completely different person.

“You said you needed me to run a plate?” he asked, eyebrows raised.

“Yea,” she paused, “Like I said, if you don’t want to you don’t have to.”

He shook his head, “It’s not a big deal.”

“Okay,” she looked back and forth between her hands in her lap, and the screen in Juice’s, “But just, promise me something?”

“Sure.”

“Don’t tell Jax about this.”

His expression faltered, “Wh-why not?”

She shook her head, “Because this isn’t any of his business,” there was a long stretch of silence between them, “Promise?”

He paused, really thinking over whether or not that was something he could promise her. The pleading look in her eyes hit too close to home, though, and he knew that he didn’t really have a choice, “Okay. Promise.”

Letting out a sigh of relief, she rattled off the license plate number to him. It took him no time at all to get the vehicle and registration details. Grace could’ve left it at that, but she figured that while she had Juice’s attention and the means to do it, they might as well look into the registered owner of the car. The name didn’t ring a bell, but if Juice could pull up a picture maybe something more would jog her memory. The guy had been wearing a mask, but maybe she’d seen him somewhere before. After all, it was difficult to believe that a total stranger had chased her down like that—there must’ve been some kind of connection.

“AJ Weston…” Juice’s tone was contemplative.

“You know the name?”

He sighed, “Sounds familiar. Hold on,” he pulled up another window and dove into another search, easily pulling up photos of the man in question.

Both their eyes went wide when they saw the pictures in front of them, each of them simultaneously saying, “Oh, shit,” when the recognition hit them.

The weight of their discovery hung in the air. Grace had only seen that man once—standing outside talking to David’s brother. She had no idea what the connection was, if there was any at all. However, in a small town like Charming, it was hard to believe that the Deputy Chief’s older brother, a family who had never had any use for the club, fraternizing with the man who had attacked her, was just a big coincidence. There was too little information to do anything with, though. There was no one that she could go to.

Juice, on the other hand, knew all too well who the guy was and what he was capable of. They hadn’t spoken much, but you don’t get to be his rank in the Aryan Brotherhood by being a friendly, chummy individual. He might’ve been under Zobelle’s thumb, but he had all the animosity and willingness to get his hands dirty that the more well-known businessman didn’t. He was a guy that Juice wanted as little to do with as possible, for a multitude of reasons.

“Why’d you say you needed this plate again?” Juice asked, trying and failing to sound nonchalant.

“I didn’t,” Grace’s face was paler than usual as she tried to take a deep breath, “Thank you, Juice. I, I owe you,” she gave him a brief, but tight, hug before getting up off the bed and making her way towards his dormitory door.

Juice called out after her, but she was in no mood to linger. She needed to get out, get away from the club and everything that came with it for a while. She was making a direct line towards the door of the clubhouse, not taking note of anyone in her path.

She was already halfway to the door by the time Juice made it to the dorm hallway. Jax was standing at the hallway intersection, only having seen Grace’s rushed exit and the way she ignored not only Juice calling after her, but Jax trying to get her attention as well, and then Juice coming into the hall looking worried.

Jax’s mind automatically went to the worst, and he found himself getting tense and defensive, “What happened?”

Juice knew by the look in Jax’s eyes that if he didn’t say the right thing, the outcome was going to be bad. He fumbled his way through a lie, not wanting to break his promise to Grace so soon after making it, “She came in upset, said she’s been having a rough time. I, I tried to get her to talk about why and she stormed out.”

“Shit, alright,” Jax didn’t offer up anything else as he turned and tried to catch up to his sister.

He made it out to the lot as Grace was pulling her helmet down over her head. He called out for her, and Jax knew that she had heard him by the way that she hesitated for a moment. But it wasn’t enough to persuade her to stay. The sound of her bike’s engine cut through the otherwise quiet atmosphere of the compound before she took off. Jax sighed heavily, running his hands back through his hair. He knew that he could take off after her, but he also knew that that wasn’t going to get him anywhere.

When Grace got back to her apartment that night, after a day of cruising around and going nowhere in particular in an attempt to clear her head, the first thing she noticed was her brother’s bike parked in the lot. Taking a deep breath, she cut the engine on her own and made her way inside.

Heading straight up the stairs, she got to her apartment door to find it locked. Despite how tired she was, she couldn’t help but to laugh as she popped the key into the lock. At least he was courteous enough to be safe when he showed up uninvited.

When she pushed the door open, she heard the sound of her television and while she wanted to be a little annoyed at Jax for popping up without an invitation when she had clearly showed no interest in wanting to talk to him just yet, she found a sense of comfort in not coming back to an empty home. She wasn’t going to tell him that, though.

“Gave you that key for emergencies, you know,” she said with a laugh as she stepped into the living room.

“It was an emergency,” Jax looked up at her from his position of being sprawled out on the couch, “The Chinese food was gonna get cold if I stayed outside.”

“You’re the wor—” she stopped herself short, setting down her helmet and peeking into the bag of takeout food, “Did you get eggrolls?”

“Pfft,” Jax scoffed, a smirk taking, “did I get eggolls. I’m not a rookie.”

She laughed, reaching into the bag and pulling out the pack of food, “Debatable.”

That was the last that either of them spoke for a while. They got through dinner and a few episodes of a mindless television show in comfortable silence. It was evident that they each knew the other was holding out on something, but it was nice to pretend to just be two siblings having dinner together at the end of a long day. For a little while there were no ulterior motives. It was short-lived, though.

“Juice said that you were upset earlier?” Jax finally spoke up.

Grace sighed, looking up at the ceiling for a moment before shaking her head, “It really wasn’t a big deal. I’ve just…I’ve had a lot on my mind lately. Got overwhelming,” she shrugged in an attempt to downplay the entire situation.

“Anything to do with the letter on your fridge?”

Grace’s heart dropped into her stomach, “Fuck.”

“Why didn’t you tell me you were going back to school?”

She shrugged, not able to meet his eyes, “Not like our family has a history of being pro-school…or pro…having a life outside the club.”

“The whole family? Really?” he cocked an eyebrow.

She knew exactly what he was getting at, “I didn’t want you telling Mom. Or Clay.”

“I wouldn’t. If you asked me to, I would’ve kept my mouth shut.”

She pressed her lisp together for a moment, not really having prepared herself for this whole discussion with everything that had been going on lately, “I’m sorry. I just, I know that Mom gets into everyone’s heads. Doing this shit was tough enough, I didn’t need her making it more difficult.”

“You think I just tell her everything?”

“No, no. She just, you know,” she made a fake strangling motion with her hands, “boa constricts shit out of people.”

It got Jax to chuckle. He knew that Grace was right, and he couldn’t pretend that there weren’t times over the years when he kept things from her for a while for the same exact reason. It just felt shitty being on the other end of it, especially with something that was so impressive. Both of them had been great at school, and while Jax had always known that it didn’t quite matter for him because his life was going to be about the club, there was always part of him deep down that wanted Grace to make more out of her life than waiting around on the MC.

“How long have you known you were in?”

She shook her head, “Literally just found out when I got home yesterday.”

“Woulda brought something to celebrate if I’d known,” there was a smile tugging at the edges of his mouth. Underneath it all, despite the fact that it stung that she didn’t want to tell him, he was still proud of her.

Grace stopped herself before she made a comment about the fact that she and Opie had celebrated enough. She didn’t want to end up pouring more salt into the wound. Besides, she knew that Jax wouldn’t end up taking it out on her, and Opie didn’t deserve the brunt of something that wasn’t his fault.

“Save the celebrating for when I survive it all,” she laughed.

“That all that’s been going on?” despite the smile on her face, Jax could still see it in her eyes that something was nagging at her.

She shrugged, “There’s always shit going on with us, right? That’s like, our thing. Teller family curse,” she looked over at him and saw that her response wasn’t what he had been looking for. She shook her head, “I’m alright, Jax. Promise,” there was a beat of silence between them, “What about you?”

“What about me?” he cocked an eyebrow.

“I’m not the only one who’s been looking like shit lately,” she chuckled, “You good? Club good?”

“I’m good,” it wasn’t a complete lie, “The club is…figuring shit out.”

“What’s there to figure?” she posed the question, not exactly expecting an overly informative answer.

He huffed out a sigh as he raked his fingers back through his hair, “Same this that we’ve been trying to figure the last few years.”

“Guns and staying out of prison?” there was a small smirk on her face.

He chuckled, nodding, “Yea, guns and staying out of prison.”

A few minutes of silence passed between them before Grace spoke up again, having let the previous conversation fall by the wayside for both their sakes, “You crashing here tonight?”

Jax shook his head, leaning forward so that his elbows propped against his knees, “Nah, I gotta get going. Kid’s coming home soon and the house is still a mess.”

“Gonna get a lot of cleaning done at this hour?” Grace knew her brother well enough to know that he was going to go home and pass out, either on the couch or in his bed.

“No, but I can guarantee that Mom is still there. Gonna go kick her ass out,” he smiled and shook his head.

“Let her know that any time she wants to clean my place, she’s more than welcome.”

Jax rolled his eyes as he stood up, “Right,” he leaned down, kissing the top of his sister’s head, “Call me if you need anything, alright?”

“Alright. Love you.”

“Love you too.”

The next morning, once Grace had showered off the day and night before, she grabbed her laptop and started doing some snooping of her own. While she didn’t have access to as many things as Juice did, there was still a lot that she could find out about people if she took the time. The internet was a wild west that was at her disposal even without hacking into anything. The name AJ Weston had been playing on an incessant loop in her brain since she and Juice had come across it the day before.

She knew for a fact that she shouldn’t be following up on anything that she found on her own, but there wasn’t anyone else that she could go to. She’d pulled Juice into enough shit asking him to look into things with her in the first place, and she still didn’t want to bring any of this to Jax or Opie. They had too much going on with the club, and if this asshole was aiming to create tension between them all, she didn’t want to let him have that.

The thought crossed her mind to call Hale, but he was still playing by the rules of Charming PD. She wasn’t mad at him for that, per se, but it reminded her that there was still a degree of separation between the two of them. No matter how much Hale wanted to help her, he was still a cop, and he was still very much aware of who the rest of her family was and what they did. At the core of it, she knew that it was always going to be hard for him to trust her. Maybe she shouldn’t blame him for that part of it, but she did. She stared at his name in her contacts for longer than she should’ve before completely abandoning the idea of calling him.

She rolled up to the address that she’d come across, brows instantly furrowing in confusion. Of all the places that she thought this guy would be working, frequenting, whatever, she wasn’t expecting to roll up to a cigar shop. For a moment she thought that maybe she’d written down the wrong address, or stumbled across information on the wrong guy, but when she saw a very familiar Charming PD Jeep parked along the sidewalk, she had the feeling that she was in the exact right place.

Even before Grace pulled off her helmet, Hale knew that she was looking at him. A knot formed in his stomach, knowing that whatever was about to unfold between them, wasn’t going to be pretty. She was angry, and she had every right to be, but that didn’t mean that she could go trying to handle all of this on her own the way that everyone in the club always seemed to handle things. If that was what she had wanted, she shouldn’t have brought any of it to the cops in the first place.

Lifting her helmet off of her head, she tucked it against her hip as she locked eyes with Hale from a little ways down the block. She saw the rise and fall of his shoulders, knowing that that sigh was in preparation for whatever talk they were going to try to have about her showing up there.

Hooking her helmet onto the handlebar, she swung herself off of her bike. While Hale had parked directly in front of the shop, she’d chosen to park a few storefronts down. A little extra distance couldn’t hurt, especially since she didn’t have a badge to hide behind like Hale did.

“Didn’t know that you were into cigars,” Hale spoke up first as he went down the sidewalk towards her.

Grace tucked her hands into her back pockets as she met him halfway, “Could say the same about you. Don’t think it’s all that great to be smoking them around your cancer-ridden supervisor, hm?”

He shook his head, crossing his arms over his chest, “What’re you doing here, Grace?”

“I feel like I should be asking you that.”

“I’m a cop. I’m allowed to show up and question people—it’s part of my job. What are you doing here?”

“Following up on some leads of my own, Hale.”

“You can’t just—”

“You knew,” her tone was sharp as she fought the urge to yell, “Before I even left your office, you fucking knew.”

“I told you I needed to follow up and I would tell you—”

“Just look at his fucking face David!”

“Don’t,” he stepped in closer to her, quieting his own voice in the hopes that she would mirror him, “Stop yelling, alright?” he stopped, sighing, “What was your plan, anyway? Go in there and blow his brains out? In a shop in the middle of Main Street?”

She rolled her eyes, “I’m not an idiot, you know.”

“Keep it that way, and don’t start doing anything stupid.”

“You’re supposed to have my back,” she shook her head, “Why didn’t you tell me—”

“Because I didn’t want this to happen,” he gestured between her and the cigar shop, “But I should’ve known you’d go to someone and have them do your digging for you.”

“Fuck you,” her voice was harsher than he’d ever heard it before, “Don’t talk to me like that, like I’m a child who did something wrong. Some asshole tried to assault me—I have every right to hunt him down if I want to.”

“You want me to help you, Grace?” he was fighting the urge to grab her by her shoulders, to try and shake some sense into her before she got herself hurt, or worse.

“Do you want to help me, Deputy?”

“You know I do.”

“Then stop holding out on me.”

“It’s not that simple. I gotta—”

Before he could finish his sentence, a door opened a little ways down the block, a man stepping out with a clearly fake smile on his face. Grace’s stomach churned at the sight of him, hands coming to her sides and clenching into fists. Hale looked over his shoulder when he saw her reaction, and he felt the tension rise in his own body as well when he saw the smug look on Weston’s face. The man walked towards the two of them, looking perfectly pleasant and professional to anyone who didn’t know the intricacies of the situation, despite the wicked bruise on his face.

“Officer, wasn’t expecting to see you today,” he stopped beside the man he’d been speaking to as he looked Grace dead in the eyes, “Afternoon, ma’am. Something I can help you with?”

His voice alone made her sick to her stomach. She shook her head, fighting the trembling in her hands, “I’m good,” she looked at Hale, hoping that the tears she felt beginning to sting at her eyes weren’t painfully obvious, “If I don’t hear from you before the end of the day—”

“You will,” his tone was steady, reassuring.

She didn’t offer either of them another look or a goodbye as she got back onto her bike. As soon as her helmet was on, she was whipping away from the curb, glad that the full-coverage of her headgear hid the fact that the tears were running down her cheeks now. She fought to control her breathing as she tried to figure out where she should go next.

#soa #sons of anarchy #sons of anarchy imagine #soa imagine #David Hale #david hale x oc #deputy chief hale #deputy hale #state of grace #oc grace #oc grace teller #my writing #fanfiction #drabblesmc

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