#Dread Extensions in Texas | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

sl-ut · 2 years ago

Text

you should probably leave

pairing: pre-outbreak!joel miller x fem!reader

description: joel is enamoured by his new neighbour, but old patterns will always be his downfall.

warnings: UNEDITED, slight age gap, slight smut, implied unprotected piv, protected piv, swearing, alcohol consumption, insecurity, angst, reader is given a birthday (she's a sag like me)

words: 10.8K (my longest fic to date)

date posted: 14/03/23

part two

(inspired by you should probably leave by chris stapleton)

OCTOBER 12, 1998

The weather was something that she was unsure if she could ever get used to. For her entire life, she had spent the entirety of the late autumn months dreading the first snowfall of the season before lugging out her extensive collection of knitted sweaters and fur-lined boots. Instead, her little archive of winter clothing was left in a cardboard box in her childhood bedroom, along with the majority of her other belongings that she had not brought with her on her grand adventure–if you could even call it that.

The University of Texas at Austin had not been her first choice of school, or her second, or third; she actually had never even imagined going to school any further than a few hours from her hometown in Pennsylvania, and yet there she was, standing in front of her brand-new home, sweltering under the harsh Texan sun as she struggled to unload her packed car all on her own. Well, to call it her home would be a pretty tight stretch, as well as to label it as “brand-new.”

The small bungalow-style house had caught her eye on a flyer in the grocery store, a listing for one female roommate in a cul-de-sac not too far from the city. It wasn’t exactly her dream home by any means, with an ugly yellow exterior and a kitchen that could certainly use an updating, but it she had recently been forced out of her own apartment due to her previous roommate preferring her boyfriend to live their with her instead and it was the nicest of the few places within her price range that would also accommodate the mutt she’d rescued during her first year. All things considered, it was quite literally perfect for her situation–plus her new roommate seemed to have been at least more considerate of her boundaries than the last, which gave her some hope that things might actually work out.

Y/n grunted at the weight of the box, cursing herself internally for enrolling in school and owning so many textbooks as she lugged it up the front steps, dropping it just inside the door. She couldn’t help but grimace as she glanced up, meeting the watchful gaze of Manny, his furry little head tilting curiously–likely wondering why she was making so much ruckus and interrupting his nap.

“Lazy ass,” she muttered under her breath at him, kicking the box to the side before trudging back out the door.

The next few boxes were filled with clothes and shoes, fortunately for her spine. She hauled several out, dropping each of them to the pavement of the driveway carelessly as she wiped at her sweaty forehead, apparently too enthralled in the work to notice the beat up truck as it turned into the neighbouring driveway.

“Hey there,” she turned to find a young man, his hair combed back to expose his effortlessly charming face to her, “You need a hand?”

She glanced down at the boxes at her feet, “I wouldn’t wanna bother you.”

A young girl appeared at his side, wide eyes peering over at the older female curiously. The man shrugged, puffing out his broad chest as he moved. Y/n almost laughed at how obvious he was being, only seconds after meeting her. The man gave off the impression that he had always thought fairly highly of himself, probably the quarterback of the high school football team, maybe even involved in the armed forces–the navy, she was betting. He crossed the barrier between the two driveways in two long strides, extending his hand out to her as he came closer.

“I’m Tommy,” he flashed her a grin, his accent coming out thicker than it probably would have normally. He glanced over his shoulder, motioning for the young girl to follow him into the neighbouring yard, “This is my niece Sarah.”

Y/n smiled politely, shaking his hand lightly, “Hi, I’m Y/n. I guess it’s nice to meet some of my new neighbours.”

“Well, Sarah, here, is your neighbour. Me, I live–”

“What happened to Stephanie?” Sarah interrupted, “I didn’t know she was moving.”

Y/n turned her attention to the young girl, “She isn’t, we’re just living together now.”

Sarah’s mouth formed an ‘o’, the gears visibly turning in her head as she formulated her next question, “Are you guys dating?”

“Sarah!” Tommy choked on his spit, “I’m sorry–”

“It’s okay,” Y/n chuckled at his response before turning back to the young girl, “No, we’re not. I guess she just didn’t wanna be living here all on her own anymore.”

Tommy’s shoulders relaxed, the mortified expression leaving his features in favour of one that she might have even considered relief. He shook his head at his niece, giving her a hard stare, “I’m sorry about her. I figured that she would have some better manners by now–my mistake.”

Sarah swatted at him, a pout appearing on her lips as her brows furrowed. The girl didn’t quite understand how the question may have been taken with offence by some, and was quite miffed by her uncle’s insult.

“No, no, it’s okay,” Y/n affirmed, “I think it’s actually a good thing that she knows about that kinda stuff.”

Tommy glanced down at the boxes, clear discomfort appearing on his features, “Alrighty then, how about these boxes?”

Y/n gave in, offering Tommy one of the heavier of the three boxes, while shifting the smallest and lightest to the young girl, who had been adamant in helping out. She instructed them to just drop the boxes to the floor by the door, not looking to take up much more of their time.

A loud gasp escaped Sarah, her wide eyes falling on the mutt, who had appeared to have been equally as excited to see her as he rushed over, tongue lolling out of his mouth and tail flapping wildly. Sarah squealed when he barrelled into her, a fit of giggles leaving her mouth as he brought her to the ground and began to cover her face in slobbery kisses.

“Manny!” Y/n groaned, grasping the dog’s collar and pulling away enough for Sarah to sit up off of the floor, “Sorry, he’s just convinced that everyone wants to be his friend.”

“I’ll be his friend!” Sarah beamed, reaching out and squishing the dog’s face in between her palms, “I mean… Can I?”

Y/n shrugged, “As long as it’s okay with your…” She glanced at Tommy for help, unsure about Sarah’s parentage situation. He’d already made it clear that he did not live next door, but had never explicitly stated who did.

“You’ll have to ask your dad, Sarah,” He chastised her, “Anyway, we should get out of your hair now, let you settle in.”

Y/n nodded, “Yeah, thank you for the help, though.”

“No problem, ma’am,” He winked, southern charm on full display as he stepped out onto the front step, “Anytime for a pretty girl like you. C’mon, Sar.”

Sarah begrudgingly offered the needy pup one more affectionate squeeze before following after her uncle, leaping off of the step and bounding across to her own front yard. Tommy paused, hand resting on the railing of the step and giving it a firm shake. His lips pursed into a line as he let out a small huh as the bannister shifted out of its place, then back in under the pressure.

“Yeah, Steph said there were all kinds of little things wrong with the place,” Y/n noted, “But hey, if it’s got four walls and a roof, it’s good enough for me.”

He chuckled at her, shaking his head, “You know, my brother and I are contractors, we could come over and help you fix things up if you guys wanted.”

She hummed, “I’ll mention it to Steph. Wouldn’t wanna just start making changes to her house while she’s not here, would I?”

Tommy hummed, “‘Spose that’s true. Anyway, I should go see where she ran off to, but I sure hope I’ll be seeing you around.” He shot her a cheeky wink before jogging back over to the neighbouring yard, leaving her and Manny among the mess of boxes in the entryway.

Y/n huffed, glancing around at the mess, then at the furry little beast at her feet, who waited patiently for her to begin offering him her love and attention. She rested her hands on her hips, shaking her head softly, “Well, let’s just get this done, boy.”

– – –

Joel grunted as he clambered in through the side door of his home, sighing in relief as he slipped out of his heavy work boots and dropped the armload of groceries onto the kitchen counter. He could hear the TV on in the living room, drowned out by Sarah’s yell of a greeting. He rushed to put away the groceries, sticking the brown paper bags in the recycling before stepping into the dimly lit sitting area.

Tommy was reclined on the couch, slumped into the worn leather like a pile of mashed potatoes as he balanced his can of Budweiser on his bent knee. He nodded to his brother briefly as he lifted the beer to his lips, hardly taking his eyes off of the football game on the screen as Joel plopped down next to him. The older brother leaned forward, pressing a small kiss to Sarah’s head so as to not disturb her as she worked on her homework on the coffee table in front of the couch before finally copying his brother’s position.

“The hell took you so long? You left the site the same time I did, and I had to go pick this shithead up from school,” he playfully kicked at Sarah’s leg, “plus I helped your new neighbour move in.”

“Supermarket was a zoo,” Joel moaned as he ran his palm flat over his face, then furrowed his brow, “What new neighbour?”

Tommy nodded his head back in the direction of the mustard yellow house, “Chick next door got a new roommate.”

“Uncle Tommy was flirting with her,” Sarah chimed in, not taking her eyes off of the math textbook in front of her.

Joel rolled his eyes, “Now tell me why I’m not surprised.”

Tommy shook his head, taking another large gulp of beer, “I know what you’re thinking, but this girl’s different. She’s not from ‘round here. Not sure where, but she’s got an accent. Canada, maybe.”

“You know what a Canadian accent sounds like?” Joel scoffed, knowing that his brother was prone to drawing his own conclusions.

“Well, no,” Tommy frowned, “But I imagine it might sound like that. Doesn’t matter, I think I’m gonna ask her out.”

Joel grunted in response, turning his eyes to the game on the screen.

“She wasn’t flirting back,” Sarah grinned up at the two men, her eyes lighting up at the sight of her father’s growing smirk and giggling as his own laughter came tumbling out. Tommy kicked her again, only this time with a little more force, “What? You invited yourself over there and were all,” She puffed her chest out and deepened her voice, “Anything for a pretty girl like you.”

Joel rested a palm on his belly as he shook with laughter, his other hand landing on the top of his daughter’s head affectionately as Tommy crossed his arms, sulking.

“I think she was flirting back,” he argued.

“She wasn’t,” Sarah reaffirmed.

Tommy leaned forward, “Now how the hell would you know anything about flirting, huh? You been doin’ a lot of it at school?”

Her face burned in embarrassment, sputtering for a response, “No, that’s gross!”

Joel frowned at her, shaking his head in feign sternness, “You better not be. Otherwise I might need to break out grandpa’s old hunting rifle.”

She didn’t utter another word, simply gathering her things in her arms and rushing off to her bedroom, slamming the door shut behind her as the laughter of her father and uncle followed her every step.

OCTOBER 17, 1998

Just under a week had passed since he’d first caught wind of his new neighbour, and Joel had yet to even see this woman. He’d noticed the new car in the driveway, and he’d picked up on the presence of the dog fairly quickly, especially after he’d caught Sarah tossing some of the vegetables from her dinner over the fence for him. Joel hadn’t paid it much mind, he was far too busy to be concerned with some young girl who didn’t seem to be causing much issues.

He’d had words with Stephanie several times in the past; once for blatantly smoking pot on

her front step when they were heading out for the day, then for leaving her garbage bin too close to his driveway, causing him to back into it and scratch the paint on his truck, and then once more when she’d had a little get together that ended up lasting until 4am, when the police arrived. He would normally have called himself a narc for having the party shut down, but it was keeping Sarah awake and the door had been shut in his face when he went over to ask politely.

The day had been long, and normally he would have refused Tommy’s invitation to head over to one of the local dive bars, but after dealing with the shit-show that had gone on at the job site that day, he really needed a drink. Sarah was out of the house, anyway, having slept over at a friend’s house, so there was quite literally nothing keeping him away.

“Brother’s night, my ass,” Joel grumbled into his glass, glancing over to the corner booth, where his brother had joined a pretty brunette, leaving Joel to himself at the barside. He waved at the bartender, motioning for another top-up of his whiskey.

A figure appeared at his side, leaning onto the bartop to call out to the bartender. Joel glanced over, his eyes raking over her radiant side profile in awe. He shot his gaze back to the glass of amber liquid in front of him, then briefly over to the girl once more. His eyes narrowed in on her pursed lips, noting how her brows furrowed in frustration as the bartender migrated to the other side of the bar. She turned to him suddenly, and Joel whipped his head back around to ensure that he wouldn’t appear to be some creep–though he was positive he certainly had been.

“Is it always like this here?” She asked him, tilting her head. “I swear, I’ve gone to three different spots along this bar, and buddy keeps looking in the other direction.”

He cleared his throat, “You not from around here?”

She smiled sheepishly, “Is it that obvious?”

Joel chuckled, “Just a little. You gotta get his attention, be firm. Here,” he tucked his index finger and thumb into his mouth and let out a loud whistle, nodding at the bartender as he rushed over.

“Two vodka crans, please,” The girl smiled prettily at the bartender, then scoffed as he turned to begin pouring the drinks, “Shit, I guess I could stand to learn a thing or two.”

“It comes with time,” He frowned, realising that he may have implied that he was at the bar every other night, “I mean, not that I’m–”

She touched his arm softly, electricity running through her fingertips and into his bicep, “Hey, I’m not here to judge you if you’re not here to judge me, heh?”

He nodded, opening his mouth to speak once more when another figure appeared at her side. His smile dropped, taking in the sight of his next door neighbour, probably one of the last people he wanted to see on his night off.

“What the fuck is taking you so long–oh,” Stephanie narrowed her eyes at the older man, who simply turned and took another long swig of his whiskey, “Hello, Joel.”

“Stephanie,” he drawled, “How you doin’ tonight?”

She smirked at him maliciously, “Fine. Y/n, this is the guy I was telling you about.”

Oh, this is Y/n, he thought to himself, suddenly understanding Tommy’s instant interest in the girl.

“All good things, I hope,” he sighed into his glass.

She shook her head, “Oh, just that you’re the neighbour from hell, and that you’re a narc.”

Y/n tucked her bottom lip in between her teeth, visibly uncomfortable at the confrontation. His eyes fell to her mouth at the movement, wondering what it might feel like to take that same lip in between his own teeth.

“You keep telling yourself that if it helps you sleep at night, Steph,” he huffed, praying to any god that would listen that she hadn’t completely turned Y/n against him.

Stephanie sneered at him, grasping one of the drinks from the bartop and stomping off, leaving a thick tension over the remaining two. Joel met Y/n’s gaze once again, noting the visible embarrassment on her face as she began to laugh slowly.

“Sorry about her,” She laughed nervously, “For the record, I know that she’s a little dramatic.”

“‘T’s fine,” Joel grumbled, swallowing the last gulp of whiskey, “You ain’t gotta apologise for her, she can feel however she wants about me.”

Y/n chuckled, a genuine one this time and Joel couldn’t help but carve the melodious sound into his memory, “I’m Y/n, by the way.”

He nodded, accepting the soft handshake that she offered, “So I’ve heard.” He noticed the slight furrow of her brow before he clarified, “I’m Sarah’s dad.”

Realisation crossed her face, “Oh, Sarah! She’s a real sweetheart.”

“Yeah, she is,” he smiled softly at the complement, “She sure likes you, and I’m assuming that it’s your pup that I’ve caught her feeding her broccoli to?”

Y/n giggled at him, “Huh, I’d noticed that he was especially gassy lately. Here I was thinking it was something in the water.”

Joel let out a loud laugh, then realised that he had not actually introduced himself, “Shit. Sorry, I just–” he coughed, “I’m Joel.”

“So I’ve heard.” She repeated to him, clearing her throat before turning to gaze at him through her lashes with a soft smile, “So Joel, is this seat taken?”

– – –

Y/n had not expected to have enjoyed herself quite so much when Stephanie forced her to go to the grubby little saloon, feeling incredibly out of place among all of the southerners. She had been hesitant to leave Manny on his own so soon after moving in, but the last thing that she had wanted to do was get on Stephanie’s bad side so early on. Then, she’d stumbled upon the devastatingly handsome man sitting all on his own at the bar, and her tune changed drastically.

She sat on that stool for the better part of two hours after Stephanie had fucked off, leaving them to become acquainted with one another. Joel had offered her another drink, which she accepted under the terms that she would buy the next round, and against his better judgement, he found himself doing a shot of tequila with her as well. She smirked to herself when she took note of the flush that had crawled into his cheeks, and how cheerful his dark chocolate eyes looked under the dim lighting of the bar.

Y/n had noticed Tommy in the corner booth, and how he had been blatantly pressing his southern charm onto the brunette under his arm in the very same way that he had to her, which made her feel much better knowing that he couldn’t possibly be that upset about her doing the exact same to his brother.

Her hand had come to rest on his knee, leaning across to invade his personal space animatedly as she spoke, her own cheeks flushing each time that he grinned or laughed at her words, and she had lost count of the amount of times that she had rubbed her thighs together or considered smashing her lips to his.

Tommy appeared at his side, clutching his shoulder in his firm grasp, “Hey Joel, you think you’re ready–oh, hey, Y/n.” His cheeks had turned red, one hand self-consciously rising to rub at his cheek, where the stark red lipstick stain had once acted as a trophy and was now an admission of guilt. Tommy pursed his lips, “Wasn’t expecting to see you here tonight.”

She shrugged, “Steph forced me out.”

He nodded awkwardly, unsure of how to save himself in this situation.

Y/n turned her head, catching sight of her roommate’s drunken attempt to seduce the bouncer before turning her attention back to the older of the two brothers, squeezing his knee once before sliding off of the stool, “Speaking of, I should probably leave, she’s gonna get us banned from here any minute now. It’s been nice, talking to you, Joel. See you, Tommy.”

Both men watched as she disappeared into the crowd, eyes trailing after her figure longingly.

Tommy huffed, “You think I still got a chance?”

Joel’s shoulders shook in a drunken fit of giggles, lifting his own hand to proudly show off the nine digits that had been marked into his skin, “Nope.”

Tommy’s jaw dropped, clear disappointment on his features before it was quickly replaced by pride, “Well fuck, brother. Didn’t think you had it in you.”

OCTOBER 31, 1998

Y/n wiped at the sweat on her brow, breathing picking up in delight as she turned the corner and the blinding yellow house came into sight. The sun had already begun to set by the time that she and Manny had set out on their evening walk, now settling low on the horizon and casting a golden hue to the world below it as Manny tugged on his leash, obviously also desperate to escape the heat.

A loud honk sounded from behind her, muffled slightly by the music playing over her bulky headphones, drawing her attention to the dark pickup truck as it sped past, Sarah hanging out the back window with a grin on her face as she waved dramatically. Y/n chuckled at the young girl, allowing Manny to lead her into a faster pace as they grew closer to their house.

She slid the headphones down to rest around her neck, pressing pause on her walkman as Sarah rushed towards them. The girl paid very little mind to the woman holding the leash, instead dropping to her knees and reaching out for the excited dog’s face, laughing as he began to lick enthusiastically at her cheek.

“Hi,” her gaze rose to find Joel as he rounded the bed of the truck, hand resting on the top of the tailgate as he tried his best to look casual, “sorry, this one never shuts up about that dog.”

Y/n smiled at him, warmth flooding through her cheeks. She’d only actually spoken to Joel a handful of times since that night at the bar, mostly simple greetings while Sarah occupied herself with Manny. Joel was too awkward of a person to try anything with Sarah present, and Y/n was too compassionate to question him about why he hadn’t bothered to call yet in front of his daughter.

Y/n shrugged, “To be fair, he never shuts up about her, either.”

“Oh did he tell you that?” The man asked, brows raised playfully, “I didn’t know you spoke dog.”

“There are many things you don’t know about me yet, Joel,” She smirked at him, “Oh, happy Halloween, by the way.”

“Right,” Joel raised one hand to stroke his hairy chin, “Yeah, you too.”

Sarah glanced up from Manny’s pleading brown eyes, “Dad forgot.

Joel sent a sharp glare to his daughter, then smiled sheepishly at her, “Not too concerned about a holiday that’s got nothing to do with me, anyway–this one decided she’s too cool for trick-or-treating with dad this year.”

“Oh don’t feel too discouraged, I gave my dad the boot when I was even younger.”

“See?” Sarah pressed, glancing back at her father, “You don’t even like Halloween, I don’t get why you’re mad.”

Y/n widened her eyes and clutched her chest dramatically, “What do you mean, you don’t like Halloween? It’s like, one of the best holidays!”

Joel rolled his eyes, “Oh don’t tell me you’re one of those people.”

She pursed her lips, “And just when I was starting to like you, Miller.”

His eyes met hers, curiosity pooling into the dark mocha irises as he considered her words. He almost appeared apologetic; could he feel guilty about not calling her? Y/n did her best to not appear too shaken by his lack of contact–she hadn’t expected anything from him the next day, but after two weeks and still no call? She’d taken that as a sign that he’d been a tad too drunk when he had been so shamelessly flirting with her, and that he had no intentions of ever pursuing anything.

Y/n was thankful when Sarah interrupted the pair, preventing her from spiralling into a nervous breakdown from her own inner monologue, “What are you dressing up as?”

The woman shook her head with a mischievous smirk on her lips, “I guess you’ll just have to wait and see when you come knocking at my door, huh?”

“No big plans?” Joel tilted his head, “I figured that roommate of yours would have you out on the town.”

She shrugged, “Steph’s out of town. Something about the drinks and the guys being stronger. Looks like it’s just gonna be me and my little guy here,” she gently clapped a hand against Manny’s side, “Well, us and a selection of horror movies.”

Sarah stood up, leaning into her dad’s side with her elbow, “How convenient, my dad will also be home alone tonight.”

Joel dropped his head in embarrassment–just leave it to Sarah to blatantly play the role of her father’s wingwoman. He refused to meet Y/n’s amused gaze, ears burning as Sarah continued.

“And he totally loves horror movies. He watches them all the time.”

“Oh really?” Y/n did her best not to burst out laughing, enjoying the sight of both Joel’s embarrassment and how confidently Sarah was trying to talk up her own father. She crossed her arms over her chest, doing her best to not make it too obvious how much she actually wanted to invite him to join her, but she didn’t want to display too much interest in him if he genuinely had none in her, “Well then maybe he should head to Blockbuster before all of the good ones are rented.”

She raised her brow at him, signalling to him that it was his turn to make a move, as she would not be making any more. He nodded at her, red flooding his cheeks as he tried to muster up the courage to discuss the clear tension between them.

Y/n smiled politely at them both, then glanced down at the heavily panting dog at her feet, “Well, I better get this guy out of this heat. See you guys in a bit, then?” She led the dog past them, glancing back over her shoulder, her lips pursed as she watched Sarah poke at her father’s side sharply.

The young girl smirked at her dad knowingly, remaining silent, though the expression on her face made her thoughts very clear to the man. She scowled at him, crossing her arms over her chest, “Christina’s sister is so right; all boys are stupid.”

The man scowled at his daughter, watching in silence as she moved around him without another word, disappearing through the front door without so much as another glance. Joel scoffed, shaking his head at her, and wondering how the hell his nine year old could be so goddamn right about the situation.

– – –

Joel wiped his hands anxiously across the expanse of his thighs, attempting to rid himself of the nervous sweat that had collected in his palms as he stood on Y/n’s front step, mustering up the courage to finally knock.

“The fuck am I doing,” He cursed to himself, shaking his head as he ran a hand over his face.

Y/n was younger than him; not by a lot, but they were still in very different stages of their lives. He wasn’t willing to admit that he genuinely did like her, and considering that she was still a young woman and still in college, he wasn’t entirely sure what she was looking for with him. Was it just some quick fuck that she wanted? Joel wouldn’t be opposed–hell, he was ashamed that he’d imagined such a thing more than a few times since meeting her–but he wasn’t sure if he could jump into bed with her and then move on with his life, nor could he expect her to be willing to just pick up the role of step-mother to his little girl.

Joel had woken up on October 17, hungover as hell and struggling to recall any of his memories from the night before. He’d forced himself out of bed much earlier than he would have liked, needing to pick Sarah up before her soccer game. The man had stumbled his way into the shower, blindly going through the motions of bathing himself as the warm water slowly began to remove the fog from his mind. It was then, as he had reached out for his bottle of body wash that he noticed the smudge of blue ink on his skin, and then jumping in surprise at the memory of the beautiful woman who had given him her phone number–the woman who had him laughing like he hadn’t in so long and blushing harder than he thought possible–the woman who he hoped was now lying peacefully in her bed next door, preferably all on her own.

The few times that he had seen her since then, he had thought about apologising for not calling and telling her the truth of what had happened, despite his embarrassment. He wanted to ask for it again, but every time, Sarah was there, making a fuss over the little pooch that never seemed to leave Y/n’s side. He wished that he were more confident in himself, more willing to speak to other women even if his daughter was there, but he simply would never be able to look at the young girl again if Y/n were to reject him.

“Shit,” He swore loudly as he turned to rush off of the step, instead booting one of the carefully carved jack-o-lanterns onto the pavement of the driveway and watching in horror as it shattered on impact.

“Joel?” He froze at the sound of the door creaking open behind him, smiling bashfully at the young woman as he did his best to not appear too guilty. Her eyes fell from his flushed face to the mess of orange at his feet, a surprised chuckle leaving her lips, “Damn, you really do hate Halloween, huh? Enough to come over here and start destroying my decorations, anyway.”

He sputtered for an answer, “I–it was an accident, I just knocked it off by accident on my way out–”

“Your way out?” She questioned, crossing her arms over her chest and leaning against the doorframe, “So what, you were just loitering on my front step?”

He scoffed at her, “I was actually on my way to apologise, but if you’d rather I just get lost…”

Y/n raised a brow inquisitively, “I’m listening.”

“I just–I’m sorry for not calling,” Joel admitted with a sigh, debating whether or not it would be best to explain exactly why, “For what it’s worth, I would have if I hadn’t washed it off by accident.”

An amused expression crossed her features as she mulled over his explanation, “You…washed it off?”

He shrugged and scratched the back of his neck sheepishly, “I did.”

She narrowed her eyes at him, as if she were trying to decipher whether or not he was being truthful, “Okay.”

His gaze shifted from side to side, uncertain as to what she meant, “Okay?”

“Okay,” She affirmed, “So what time did you wanna come over tonight?”

Joel swallowed the lump in his throat, “Tonight?”

Y/n shrugged nonchalantly, ignoring the butterflies that slammed at the lining of her stomach and threatened to erupt, “Tonight. You said it yourself, Sarah’s gonna be gone all night, so would you rather be home alone or come over? Otherwise, I’ll just be here by myself, scared and in need of a devastatingly handsome cowboy to protect me from Michael Myers.”

Blush spread across his cheeks, his hands coming up to rest on his hips, “I don’t know about ‘devastatingly handsome’, but I think I could handle some asshole in a mask.”

She grinned at him wickedly, “That’s what everyone thinks, but I guess we’ll see tonight, around eight?”

“Eight.” He confirmed, then glanced down at the mess at his feet, “And sorry about your pumpkin.”

“It’s alright,” Y/n smirked, “You’ll just have to work extra hard to make it up to me.”

– – –

Joel anxiously adjusted his shirt, frowning at himself in the window of her front door. Despite dismissing Sarah’s teasing by claiming that this was in fact, not a date, he’d taken her advice in showering the moment that he had gotten into the house.

He was aware that she was flirting with him, but until he had gotten out of the shower, towel sitting low around his waist as he wiped the steam away from the mirror and took in his shaggy appearance, he had not been at all concerned about what activities the night might lead to. Staring at his own reflection, nervousness quickly began to settle into his bones.

He had made quick work with the clipper, shortening the length of his facial hair after several weeks of negligence and leaving his lower face to be covered by a light stubble. He put a little more effort into his hair than usual, running a thin layer of gel through it while noting to himself that it was probably time for a haircut. He even took things a step further, dabbing a few drops of some woodsy cologne onto his skin; the bottle had gone untouched for two years, having been a Christmas present from his mother.

“Are you wearing cologne?” Sarah asked as she appeared at his side, face painted to resemble a circus clown, “I knew this was a date.”

“It’s not a date,” He argued, doing his best not to jump in fright at her appearance, “Shouldn’t you be out on the town by now, Ronald McDonald?”

“You showered, put on cologne, and you’re bringing candy? It’s a date.” Sarah listed, “And I’m Pennywise, by the way. Christina’s sister is coming to pick me up soon. She says that guys always dress up when she goes out with them because they want her–”

Joel grunted, glaring at his daughter, “I want you to stop hanging around Christina’s sister.”

Sarah ignored his comment, “Is that what you’re wearing?”

Joel glanced down at his outfit–a clean pair of jeans and an old t-shirt that he’d probably gotten out of a beer box or something, “What’s wrong with this?”

“What’s right with it?”

Joel considered his parenting style for a moment, wondering if he would be free of this headache if he had spanked his daughter once or twice in her life. Sometimes he forgot that the girl was only nine years old with how intelligent she was and how much more mature she seemed in comparison to other kids her age.

“It’s not a date, Sarah.”

She rolled her eyes, “It could be. Come on.”

Sarah rushed past him, leading him into his own bedroom as she began to dig through his closet. She frowned with almost every piece that she picked out, tossing them behind her recklessly and ignoring her father’s scolding for the mess that she had quickly created.

“Hah!” The girl pulled out an egg-plant button down and shoved it into his grasp, “I knew you had to have something that wasn’t that ugly.”

He grunted at her, but didn’t reply out of respect for her brutal honesty as he quickly shed himself of the worn t-shirt he’d previously been wearing in favour of the one that Sarah had chosen. Now, as he stood at her front door and internally decided for himself that this was a date, he couldn’t help but thank God for his daughter’s awareness.

Finally, after tugging at the hem of his shirt, he raised a fist and knocked heavily on the door. Joel choked on his own saliva when she appeared in the window, smiling sweetly at him when she pulled the door open. She had already changed into a pair of black yoga pants and a sky blue shirt that exposed just a tasteful amount of her midriff.

“Hi, again,” she breathed, a smile forming on her face, “You look nice, purple is definitely your colour.”

Joel burned, “I–thank you. Sarah picked it out.”

Y/n turned to the girl, who had already ushered the dog up onto the sofa with her, “Well she has a clear eye for style.”

“She definitely thinks so, that girl damn near harrasses me about my clothes everyday.” Y/n laughed out loud, Joel’s ears tingling at the melodious sound, “You look great, too.”

Y/n beamed down at her outfit, shrugging to herself, “Thanks, I thought about keeping my costume on but I wasn’t entirely sure how much you would be into Strawberry Shortcake.”

Joel chuckled at her, glancing down at the object in his hand, “I brought beer, by the way. Wasn’t sure if I should bring anything, or if you even like–”

Y/n reached out, snatching the six pack from his grasp, “Ever the gentleman, cowboy. So, you coming in?”

– – –

The house was filled with laughter, both having nearly finished their first beer as they shared stories freely. Halloween played quietly in the background, though neither of them paid too much attention. Y/n did her best not to physically melt when she felt Joel’s arm drape across the back of the sofa behind her, resisting the urge to tease him for attempting to cover it up by faking a dramatic yawn.

She brushed her fingers along the top of his thigh, smirking to herself as she watched his leg slowly shift closer to her, though he didn’t address the affectionate touch. He spoke to her softly, and made an effort to hold eye contact with her as he did to–she was starting to feel some guilt about the conclusion that he’d drawn about him after he’d failed to call her. Her own gaze continuously fell to his lips as he spoke, and she was sure that he had noticed by the way that his lips began to curl confidently. Her heart hammered in her chest, wondering how much longer she would need to wait before he finally made a move.

Joel, however, was wondering exactly how he possibly could make a move. While feeling confident around her, there was no way to escape the fact that he hadn’t been on a date in at least a year, and he could count the amount of women he’d slept with since Sarah’s mother on one hand. At various points throughout the night, he had considered leaning in to kiss her, but had successfully siked himself out each time. The first time, he’d been interrupted by the pooch who had been jealous of his owner’s attention being focused elsewhere, though he could only blame every other time on his own insecurity.

“Do you want another beer?” Y/n asked as he swallowed the last gulp out of his can, “Or I have wine and pop?”

“Pop,” he scoffed, chest rumbling with quiet laughter.

She raised her hand and slapped his pec as she stood up from the couch, “Fine, you don’t get anything.”

He laughed, watching as she disappeared into the kitchen and shamelessly admiring the shape of her backside in the darkness of the dimly lit living room. He sat there for a few moments, staring at the movie in discontent, sighing as he ran his hand over his face and murmured a nearly silent fuck it, and following after her.

“Is it too late to apologise and get that beer?”

She glanced over her shoulder at him, smirking as she shrugged coyly as she turned and leaned her back against the front of the refrigerator and holding the perspiring can out in front of her, “You’ll have to come get it yourself.”

Joel crossed the small room in two long strides, stopping as the can met his chest, though he paid it little mind as she stepped away from the fridge, pressing a fleeting kiss to his lips. He froze for a second, stomach clenching at the soft touch.

“Sorry,” Y/n whispered, though her tone betrayed how unapologetic she truly was, “Was that okay?”

He didn’t respond, quickly taking the beer out of her grasp and tossing it onto the counter as he cupped her face, capturing her lips with his and pressing her back against the fridge once more. She smiled against his lips, fingers bunching in the material of his plum coloured shirt and tugging him even closer.

His lips were chapped against her own, the telltale sign of a busy man who hadn’t been too concerned with his physical appearance up until now, though she could not picture another kiss that she had received in the last several years that would even compare to Joel’s.

One of his hands fell, fingers splaying around her waist as he pressed even closer, parting his lips as he felt the tip of her tongue prod at the seam and allowing her to seek out his own. He moaned at her taste, fingers wandering to her hip and hesitating, almost as if he had been asking for her permission to move even lower. She grasped his hand, guiding it around to cup her bottom.

Pulling away for air, she giggled softly and fluttered her eyelids open to find him already staring at her with blown pupils. One of her hands slid up his chest, tugging at the collar of his shirt before her fingers trailed over his patchy beard affectionately, “I don’t know if this is too soon, but do you wanna move to my bedroom?”

Joel chuckled at her, squeezing her cheek through her yoga pants, “Lead the way.”

– – –

Joel worried that he might have gone into cardiac arrest as he struggled to catch his breath, back slouched against the headboard as Y/n slumped flush against his chest. The cotton sheets pooled around her hips as she continued to move softly, working them both through the aftershocks of their climaxes. The man sighed in appreciation as her lips continued to slide against his jawline and leave gentle kisses in their wake, her fingers still lost in his dark curls.

Joel’s own hands squeezed her hips as she finally slowed to a stop, helping her slide off of him and smirking to himself at the whine she let out at the loss of contact. She shifted, moving out of his lap and curling into the cool sheets on the bed next to him.

“How was that?” He panted, “Have I done enough to make up for lost time?”

She grinned at him, her own chest rising and falling with her slowing breaths, “I think I recall doing most of the work, actually.”

“Bein’ on top doesn’t mean you were doing any work, sweetheart, I think we both know that.” His eyes fell on the digital alarm clock on her bedside table, grunting to himself as he took note of the late hour, “Shit–how the hell is it ten-thirty already?”

She glanced over to the clock briefly, then back at him, “Time flies when you’re having fun.”

Staring down at her nude form, guilt began to eat away at him as he began to slide off of the mattress and begin gathering his clothes that had been scattered around the room.

“Are you leaving?” His back was turned to her as he pulled on his jeans, though he could only imagine the look on her face from the emotion that dripped from her voice; she was disappointed, facing the reality that she would be abandoned after doing something so intimate.

“I mean…” Joel coughed, “Yeah, I should probably leave. Gotta work early tomorrow, and Sarah’s got soccer practice, and–”

“You don’t have to explain yourself,” She sat up, hugging her knees to her chest in an attempt to regain her modesty, “I get it.”

Joel couldn’t help but wonder how many times she’d done this. She seemed disheartened, but not entirely surprised at his decision to head out, as if she was expecting this time to be different from the others–as if she was expecting Joel to be any different from the other shitty guys she’d met since moving to Austin.

“Darlin’,” Joel cooed, coming to sit at the edge of the mattress and cupping her face in his large palms, “It’s not like that. I want nothing more than to stay the night, but I know that I won’t sleep a wink tonight if I do.” His thumb stroked her bottom lip as her mouth slanted into a small, saddened smile. He leaned in, pressing three kisses to her lips, each one longer than the last before pulling back, “Can I get your number? I promise I won’t ask for a third time.”

Y/n smiled at him, kissing him once more before snatching a pen off of the bedside table and scribbling on his hand, “You won’t get it if you ask for a third time, Miller.��

MARCH 12, 1999

Y/n sighed blissfully, gnawing at her lip to prevent any moans of pleasure as Joel worked himself into her over and over, his hips meeting hers with slow, meaningful movements as he did his best to keep both of them quiet. Joel wasn’t normally one for booty calls, though he had hardly seen her in the past few days and couldn’t resist when his mind had wandered while in the shower–and for the first time in what felt like decades, he could rely on the help of soft, feminine touches rather than his own fast and rough tugs.

Her thighs shook, teeth biting into the pillow beneath her face as she pressed her hips back against him and arched her spine in pleasure. She met his thrusts enthusiastically, fingers winding into the sheets tightly.

“Shit,” She gasped, “Joel, I’m gonna–”

“I know,” He rasped, “Shhh baby. Let go, I’ve got you.”

She didn’t hold back, allowing the white hot pleasure to run through her veins, muffling her cries in the plushness of the pillow. Her walls clenched around him, gripping him for everything that she could manage as he fucked her through it, head rolled back in pleasure as his own orgasm teetered over the edge. His fingers tightened around her hips, hauling her back against him a few more times before his seed painted the inside of the condom.

His hands slid up from her hips, one pressing on her back to force her to lay flat against the mattress while the other cupped the soft flesh of her belly to roll her over. Joel took in her figure, eyes scanning her face for any signs of discomfort before dropping to her breasts; the man was absolutely entranced by the shape of her breasts, eagerly pawing at them during makeout sessions and suckling at them with the utmost love and desire as he fucked her. She smiled at him tiredly, hooded eyes admiring his own figure as he slipped out of her, sliding off of the bed and disappearing into the ensuite.

When he returned, he wore a pair of black boxers and carried a maroon washcloth in his hand, carefully parting her legs and sliding the cloth through her folds, puffy and sore from his touch. He whispered an entirely disingenuous apology as he pressed lightly against her abused clit, chuckling to himself as she jumped. Tossing the cloth aside, he settled into the mattress next to her, sliding an arm around her waist and tugging her into his side, sighing in relief at the physical contact.

The rising sun had slowly begun to peek through the blinds, filling the room with a soft glow in the aftermath of the third round. Y/n glanced at the clock on the far wall, sighing to herself as reality settled into her bones. She hadn’t intended on staying so long, especially after how eagerly the both of them had initiated the first round, having allowed herself to remain at his side until she felt his member begin to grow against her thigh once more. Now, after taking him inside of her three times over the past six hours, she knew that she would eventually need to get up and leave–a habit that they both had and hated when they were finished.

She pressed careful kisses into his flesh, lips moulding to the sweaty skin of his shoulder and neck affectionately while her palm rubbed circles into his firm chest. Joel nuzzled his head into her hair, his own lips pressing to the crown of her head as he, too, appreciated the afterglow.

Y/n’s body and heart screamed at her as she finally pulled herself away from him, hopping out of the bed and collecting her clothing from the floor. Joel watched her with sunken eyes, his attempt to remain stoic as he easily recognised what she was doing proving fruitless.

“You don’t–you don’t gotta go just yet,” he called to her, desperation lacing his voice, “Don’t gotta be at the site till eleven tomorrow–”

“Today,” she corrected, “And that’s in seven hours. Besides, I don’t wanna fall asleep and risk having to run into Sarah. I should probably leave.”

He nodded slowly, continuing to watch her as she dressed and fixed her appearance, preparing herself mentally and physically for her four A.M. walk of shame. Joel wanted to call her back to bed again, to convince her to stay with him and promise breakfast in the morning, but instead watched helplessly as she disappeared into the dark hallway, and closed his eyes disappointedly at the sound of the front door closing behind her.

JUNE 2, 1999

Golden rays of sun peeked through the blinds, trailing up the length of the bed with each passing moment before finally gracing over the soft skin of the woman next to him. Joel laid in his bed as still as possible, one arm around her shoulders to keep her flush against his chest, savouring the intimate, domestic moment before it would eventually come to an end–it always did.

The alarm clock flashed the time tauntingly at him, as if mocking him for wanting to keep her there for much longer than he knew he could. This was undoubtedly the latest she had stayed in his bed; it was nearing six A.M. and she had yet to stir from her deep slumber.

His eyes trailed the length of her bare back, his fingers pressing gently at the indent of her spine as he pushed her body impossibly closer to her and bathing himself in the feeling of her nude body against his own. Joel resisted the urge to shake the growing ache out of his leg as pins and needles crawled up the length of his limb, too afraid to move and wake her–he knew what would come once her eyes had opened, as she had done it countless times now.

It was the twitch of her fingers against the soft flesh of his belly that alerted him to her growing consciousness, nails following the pattern of hair that covered his abdomen softly, drawing a quiet moan of delight from the man beneath her. He felt the curve of her lips against his shoulder, turning his head to meet her eyes as they fluttered open.

“Morning, cowboy,” Her throat was dry and her voice was scratchy, but her words still held the power of causing an eruption of butterflies in his gut.

“Morning,” He leaned closer, the tips of his nose brushing her own before she swatted him away, covering her mouth self-consciously and mumbling something about morning breath. Joel chuckled at her, moving her hand away and planting a soft, closed-mouth kiss against her lips.

Her smile grew, hazy vision flickering around the sun-lit bedroom as realisation dawned on her, “What time is it?”

Joel’s own smile faltered as he cleared his throat, glancing over at the alarm clock again, “Five-to-six.”

“Shit,” She groaned, a hand settling on her forehead, “I should probably leave. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to fall asleep.”

Joel shook his head at her, “You ain’t got nothing to apologise for. I like having you here.”

She pecked his lips again, fondness creeping through her at the man’s admission, “I like being here. But I should go before Sarah wakes up.”

Joel caught her arm as she moved to crawl out of the bed, “Stay.”

“What?”

“Sarah knows you’ve been coming around and leaving early in the morning.” He told her, thumb smoothing circles against her wrist, “She says she’s happy for me, but she said that she won’t approve until you start bringing that damn dog of yours over here when you come.”

Y/n chuckled, her eyes growing a thin red rim along her waterline, “What are you saying?”

“I’m asking you to stay. Every damn night you spend here, you go rushing out like this is just a quick fuck, but I think we both know that it’s a lot more than that. Just come back to bed, please.”

Y/n shook her head at him, glancing over at the rising sun through the blinds in contemplation before she finally shrugged, crawling back into the bed and settling against his naked form with a sigh, her hand resting on his chest as she massaged small circles into his sweaty flesh. Both of them relaxed into one another, enjoying the silence of the early morning and dreading the unavoidable fate of the alarm going off in the coming hour.

NOVEMBER 27, 1999

Y/n tapped her nails against the hardwood of the tabletop rhythmically, doing her best not to make her dissociation too clear as her friends and family chattered back and forth. Her mother was busy on her left hand side, sharing dozens of her favourite childhood photographs to Y/n’s friends with a fondness that only a mother could have, while the seat to her left was empty. The watch that she’d received as a gift from her parents sat on her wrist, the time ticking away as grief settled in her stomach, the realisation that he simply wasn’t coming eating away at her pride.

Her birthday was not something that she generally liked to celebrate, but knowing that her parents, siblings, and a few members of her extended family had orchestrated a trip to visit and celebrate with her had her counting down the days, especially after she had convinced her unofficial boyfriend to join them for dinner at one of the nicest wallet-friendly restaurants in Austin. Now, as she sat silently and watched as her friends laughed and cooed over possibly the most embarrassing photos of her while picking at their slices of birthday cake, her mind only wandered to where exactly he was, and how much more fun she would be having if she were warding him off of any of those photographs–especially all of the ones from her junior high years.

She hadn’t had the chance to speak to him at all that day, having woken up after he had already left for work and dropped Sarah off at school. At the time, Y/n had smiled to herself, thanking him mentally for allowing her to sleep in on her birthday, though she was beginning to wonder if she should have taken the lack of birthday wishes as a sign.

She actively avoided Stephanie’s gaze, wanting to escape the oncoming I told you so, and made as little eye contact as possible with her mother, who watched her sympathetically, and her father, who silently raged over the presence of the empty chair. Y/n now felt embarrassed over how much she’d actually gushed over the man to her family before dinner, wondering if maybe she was more invested in him than he was in her. After all, he had yet to officially ask her to be his girlfriend, despite the fact that she and Manny had taken up residence in his home at least four nights a week and that she had been included in more recent movie nights with him and Sarah.

Maybe she was reading into it too much–something must have happened. Something happened to Sarah, or maybe Tommy had been locked up again. There was no way that Joel had forgotten her birthday, there was simply no way.

– – –

Joel’s feet ached, crying out in pain with every step and sighing in relief as he finally kicked off his heavy boots. The crew that he’d brought on for his most recent and highest paying job to date had given him hell that day, leaving him aching for nothing more than a hot shower and a peaceful night at home with his best girls. He hated having to tack on extra hours to his day, but not arriving home until after ten was something that he would have to deal with in order to finish the job, and he was hoping to save up to take Y/n and Sarah on a little getaway for a weekend in the near future.

The kitchen was dim when he stepped in, and he was somewhat surprised when he discovered no plate of food left for him in the microwave, nor was there a pan of leftovers in the fridge. Instead, there was a single empty carton of a microwavable dinner on the counter along with an empty can of Pepsi. Not wanting to seem ungrateful, he shrugged it off, though he had grown accustomed to Y/n bringing dinner over and making sure that it was ready for him on days that he worked late.

Soft footsteps rushed down the stairs, Sarah rounding the corner with a wide grin on her face as she held a small piece of paper in her hands.

“Hey babygirl,” Joel kissed her head softly as he moved into the living room, even more confused when he did not find Y/n curled up on the couch with a stack of her textbooks, as she so often did while waiting for him to return.

“Hi dad,” Sarah’s smile dropped, glancing back into the entryway in confusion, “Where’s Y/n? I made this card at school today but I figured I’d wait until after you guys came back to give it to her.”

The blood in Joel’s veins ran cold, his heart skipping a beat at the sudden realisation of why his house appeared to be so void of his girlfriend, “Fuck.”

“Dad?” Sarah’s wide eyes narrowed, all too used to her father’s undiagnosed case of short-term memory loss, though he had never ever forgotten something like this before.

“Shit,” He swore again, snatching his keys off of the counter and rushing to jam his feet back into his uncomfortable boots, “Sarah, go to bed. I’ll be back later tonight.”

The girl watched helplessly as her father raced out the door, tears welling in her eyes as she stared down at the happy picture she had pasted into the card and frowning as she feared the worst.

– – –

Joel arrived at the restaurant just before eleven. He knew it was a long shot, as the reservation was for seven-thirty, which he had purposefully written down and stuck to the fridge so that he would not forget. The few remaining staff inside shook their heads in pity at the man, quickly coming to understand his situation as he rushed inside, asking about the reservation with a bouquet of flowers in his grasp.

His shoulders slumped as he parked in his driveway, trudging across the lawn into the neighbouring yard and knocking firmly on the door. He waited a few moments, cursing quietly as he got no response and knocking again.

His frown deepened when the door swung open, a fuming Stephanie standing in his way. Her face burned scarlet, fists clenched at her side as she took in Joel’s pitiful appearance. She took a step forward, joining Joel on the front step and closing the door behind her.

“The fuck do you want?”

“Where’s Y/n?” He asked, ignoring her bluntness.

“She doesn’t wanna talk to you,” the girl sneered at him. “It’s one thing to stand someone up, even to forget their birthday, but to embarrass her like that in front of her family?” She scoffed, “you know, I warned her about you, but I took no pleasure in being right. You should have seen her tonight, barely spoke at all.”

The metaphorical knife in Joel’s gut twisted at her words, the fist clenching the bouquet tightening even further around the stems. He could picture her; all dolled up, chatting with her family as she eagerly awaited his arrival, her pretty smile dampening as time passed and eventual tears in her eyes as she realised the truth–he had forgotten about her.

“Just let me talk to her,” he begged, “Please.”

Stephanie shook her head, “I think it’s best if you never show your face on my property again, Miller.”

“Joel?” Both of their eyes turned at the sound of Y/n’s voice, finding her peeking around the door curiously. “Steph, can you give us a minute?”

The woman sent Joel one final glare, patting her roommate on the shoulder before slipping back into the house.

If the knowledge of what he’d done hadn’t been enough, Y/n’s appearance was the final blow to his gut. Her eyes were bloodshot, cheeks swollen and marked with visible remnants of tears. She wrung her fingers together anxiously, keeping her gaze lowered in shame as she closed the door behind her and turned to face him.

“Baby–”

“Don’t.” Y/n interrupted, “Just explain.”

He sniffled, “I can’t explain it, or excuse it. We got held up at work, and I really need this job to be done and over with already. I’m so sorry, baby.”

She shook her head, lifting her sleeve to wipe at the underside of her nose, “You didn’t even say goodbye before you left this morning. Did you even remember at all?”

Joel bit his lip, “I’m sorry. Let me–”

“Joel,” Her voice cracked, “I love you.” His heart soared as she spoke those words for the first time, then shattered as she continued, “I understand that I’m not your first priority–that’ll always be Sarah and I can’t blame you for that. But, fuck, you suggested the restaurant, Joel. You spoke to my mom over the phone and promised her the best steak in town, and she sure seemed to like it, but you weren’t even there. I won’t ever be your first priority, but I can’t be your last, either.”

“Y/n–”

“I think my cousins liked it, you know.” She continued, wiping at her cheeks, “They’re the type to pray for your downfall, and I’m sure they were loving every second of the dinner once everyone realised that you weren’t coming. Hell, all I did all night was talk about how amazing you were, and then–” Y/n cut herself off with a quiet sob. “You should probably leave.”

“Don’t do this,” Joel cupped her face, dropping the flowers to the deck recklessly as he wiped the tears away from her cheeks with his thumbs, “Tell me what to do. Hit me, yell at me, do something, but don’t ask me to walk away.”

She looked into his eyes, and for a moment, Joel felt hopeful that she might actually listen to him, though all hope was quickly diminished as he removed herself from his grasp, reaffirming her statement as she stepped back into the house.

“You should probably leave.”

#joel miller x you #joel miller fanfiction #joel the last of us #joel miller imagine #joel miller x reader #joel miller #joel miller smut #joel miller one shot #joel miller fic #the last of us #tlou #hbo the last of us #Spotify

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bloodfromthethorn · 4 years ago

Text

Misunderstandings

Their partnership might have gotten off to a bad start, but Mac has a good feeling about Jack Dalton - right up until he messes it all up, that is.

Or, the time Jack learns about Mac's fear of heights and it's still not the most important realisation he has that day.

Also on AO3

Mac had never really been sure quite what he expected from Afghanistan and now, six months in, he still wasn’t particularly confident on exactly what it was he had found. It certainly hadn’t been easy, and he’d already managed to experience the most profound loss he’d felt since the death of his grandpa, but there was still something undeniably… compelling about it all. The way he could fall into an uncomfortable bed at the end of the day exhausted but with the bone-deep knowledge that the work he had done was important, had made a difference. That there were people walking around out there, living their lives, because of the things that he had done.

It wasn’t good, precisely, but it wasn’t all bad either.

Jack was a wrench in the works. They couldn’t have gotten off to a poorer start and for a hairy moment there, Mac had been convinced that the next two months of his life were really going to be hell on earth. Jack was loud-mouthed, crass, opinionated, and had some of the worst taste in both music and film known to man. He had little to no regard for anyone else’s opinion of him and he was more than ready to settle a fight with his fists if he thought the situation called for it.

He was also probably the best soldier Mac had ever met.

It might have taken them some time to get traction but after the first few rocky missions, they’d both managed to settle down just enough to actually get a good look at one another. What Mac had found was nothing like what he’d expected.

For one, Jack was very, very good at his job. A crack shot, backed up with a keenly tactical mind that went far beyond anything Mac had been taught at basic. He’d never asked to see Jack’s file – and given that he was almost certain the man had been an Alphabet at some point, he’d probably get denied even if he tried – but he had a feeling that the record would be long, expansive, and impressive. He knew far too much about soldiering to not have been doing it most of his life and he handled a vast range of weaponry with too much familiarity to have always been saddled with Overwatch duties.

No, somewhere in his past, Jack had been crafted into an immense force to be reckoned with. He might tell jokes, laugh loudly, and act the fool, but buried underneath it all was something dangerous just waiting to be unleashed. It should have been scary – and in a distant, sort-of-intrigued kind of way, it was – but mostly Mac was just impressed. Whatever else he might have done, Jack had decided to use his extensive training to serve the purpose of protecting EOD technicians in a place where there were enemies at every corner.

More than anything, Jack made him feel safe . Safe in a way he hadn’t truly felt since watching Peña die barely twenty feet from him. After so long in the Sandbox, constantly having to watch his back as his hands took apart contraptions designed to kill him, he’d almost forgotten what it felt like to be out from under that constant cloud of dread. Jack gave him that freedom and Mac couldn’t help but be hopelessly thankful for it.

Of course, increasing familiarity aside, it wasn’t perfect. Two men trapped in very close quarters in a high stress environment were occasionally going to butt heads no matter what, and Mac wasn’t naive enough to think they’d be an exception.

Jack had been waylaid by a messenger as soon as the pair of them arrived back on base, both already worn out from a long, overly hot day in the sun. In an act of mercy, he’d waved Mac off to go on ahead in an attempt to spare him whatever bureaucratic nonsense was likely about to come his way – an assumption that was almost immediately proved accurate when three minutes later Mac saw him stalking off in the direction of the command centre.

He didn’t think much of it; Jack was perpetually being pulled in by the brass for reasons he was never particularly keen to explain. When directly asked, he’d always brushed it off with some sarcastic comment about how people just couldn’t get enough of his charm, but the hardness in his eyes had stopped Mac from trying to press further. If anything, it only added to his growing surety that Jack was a far more important person than he wanted to appear. Nothing Mac was doing was of particular note to anyone beyond what command already learned through his reports, but if someone with extensive training in observation and tactics was given free rein to roam the area under the radar for the sole purpose of watching what was going on – like, say, an Explosive Ordnance Disposal Overwatch – then that opened up a whole new avenue of surveillance.

If he’d had to bet, Mac would have said that according to the letter of Jack’s job description, keeping him safe was a secondary consideration at best. Fortunate, then, that the man himself didn’t seem like the type of person to do anything halfway.

Today, though, something was different. On the way back to base, Jack had been relaxed and easy, content as always to fill in Mac’s silence with a running commentary of his own about what he was most looking forward to when he got back to Texas, but clearly whatever had happened in the command tent had thrown that off. When he finally stomped into the dorm over an hour later, his brow was shadowed and tense, and he didn’t even acknowledge Mac’s presence as he grabbed a clean set of fatigues and headed for the showers.

Sitting cross legged on his bunk with his gear spread out before him, Mac watched him go with troubled eyes. Jack, as anyone in their situation did, occasionally had off days when he was less talkative and clearly wanted to be left alone, but Mac had never seen him turn on a dime quite so quickly.

Truthfully, Mac hadn’t thought him the type. But, he reminded himself forcefully, he still barely knew the man and regardless, it almost certainly wasn’t any of his business. Far better to just keep going through his kit, cataloguing anything he needed to replace or repair, and let Jack work through whatever his problem was on his own; if he wanted to talk to Mac about it, he knew where to find him.

Despite his preoccupation, Mac did end up immersed in his task. Kit checks were dull but important, and he was fastidious enough to make sure he did the job right every single time. As an EOD tech, he was lucky – everyone else had to do mandatory checks before and after any excursions outside of the FOB, no matter how frequent they may be. Officially EOD specialists were supposed to do the same but in deference to their unpredictable schedule and unique loadouts, command typically waived the usual report requirements and let them do their own thing. He was still liable to be disciplined should he get spot checked and fail, but he had a lot more freedom than most people on the base.

He was about halfway through when Jack made his reappearance, freshly washed but looking no happier for it. He dropped his dirty laundry in a heap next to his trunk and flopped down onto his bunk without a word, reaching out a few moments later to fiddle with the ancient radio beside him. He’d told Mac some time ago that he’d inherited it from his dad and it was clear from the reverence with which he spoke about it that it was deeply important to him. Important enough, apparently, that no one else sharing their tent complained when he had it blasting out whatever station he could pick up, even with the god awful crackle that all but drowned out any actual words that might try to come through.

The crackle that was evidently getting worse, going off the horrendous screech the radio let out the moment it was turned on. Mac flinched sharply at the sudden noise, but didn’t protest. Jack, if anything, looked more pissed off at the continued buzzing no matter how he adjusted the dials, rasping and hissing in turns but never letting any clear audio through. After listening to Jack cursing under his breath for a minute or two, Mac figured it was about time he offered a hand.

“That’s not sounding too good,” he pointed out unnecessarily, keeping his voice light. “Want me to take a look?”

“It’s fine,” was the short response, bitten out and frustrated.

Mac rolled his eyes, not catching the warning edge of Jack’s tone. “Look, I know I promised I wouldn’t touch any of your stuff again, but if you let me have a look, I can probably fix it.”

It was an honest offer – the radio was hardly a complicated bit of kit and Mac was pretty sure he already knew exactly what the issue was. If he was right, he could have it fixed inside of five minutes and he wouldn’t even need to cannibalise parts from anything else to do it. Sure the rule might have been that Mac couldn’t touch Jack’s gear again, but they’d been forced to relax that within a week of working together and recently it had felt more like an in-joke than anything.

Apparently, Jack didn’t feel the same.

“Or you’d just break it down for parts like you do with everything else,” he shot back acidly and for the first time, Mac realised the heaviness in Jack’s gaze wasn’t simple fatigue or irritation; he looked pissed . “Yeah, thanks but no thanks. Keep away from my stuff.”

Mac blinked. The words themselves were surprising, but it was the tone that really cut at him; sarcastic and unfriendly and mean . Mocking in a way that Jack often pretended to be when he was trying to lighten the mood, only this time neither of them was laughing. He looked dead serious.

“I-uh,” Mac said haltingly, forcing himself to suddenly adjust his entire perspective on the conversation. He really had just been trying to help. “Right,” he said after an awkward pause. “Sorry.”

He ducked his head and turned back to the gear spread out across his bunk, wishing fiercely he hadn’t bothered to open his mouth in the first place. Cleaning and sorting his kit had suddenly become a much less enthralling task – and it hadn’t exactly been the highlight of his day to begin with – but he kept his eyes down and vehemently forbade his attention from wandering back to his partner.

Less than a minute later, Jack let out a sharp sigh that might have included a curse, and stomped out of the tent. Mac refused to look up.

They didn’t talk about it. The next morning the pair of them loaded into their transport for the day – for once they’d been gifted an MRAP that in any other situation Jack would probably be crowing about – in stony silence that persisted straight through until evening. The only time Jack deigned to talk to him was for mission-critical comms, almost all of which was delivered via radio in a blank monotone that made it abundantly clear how little he actually wanted to be speaking with him. Mac surprised himself by how fiercely he found he missed the usual inane commentary in his ear.

None of it made sense.

Evidently he’d messed up somehow, done something that crossed a line he hadn’t seen, although he had no idea what it could possibly have been. Okay, yes, the radio was obviously important to Jack on some personal level Mac wasn’t allowed access to and maybe he really didn’t want Mac touching it. That was completely fair – Mac wouldn’t have argued against him at all if the man had just said ‘no’ and left it there. Instead his response had been- Well. There were a lot of words Mac could use to describe it and he didn’t really want to confront any of them.

It wouldn’t change the result either way. Mac had a sneaking suspicion that whatever it was he had broken had been something irreparable, especially if Jack wasn’t even going to let him talk it out.

The closest they came to it that day was during their last call-out for the evening, a surprisingly tricky little device some asshole had planted outside of a shop known to serve US soldiers. A bit of petty revenge most likely, but packing enough explosives to level the building and take out anyone unlucky enough to be standing within a twenty metre radius.

“Everyone within half a block of you is gettin’ out of dodge,” Jack reported about half an hour after their arrival. “No sign of whoever put that thing there.”

Mac digested that, doing a quick mental calculation to decide if the evacuation zone was large enough and ultimately deciding that it was. “Good. You set up somewhere?”

“Behind you, thirty metres back.”

There was a tell-tale tickle on the back of his neck that Mac had come to associate with Jack’s scope passing over him. At the start of their partnership it had made him uncomfortable; now, it was distantly reassuring. A part of him wanted to turn around to make sure of Jack’s position himself, but he knew that was sure to piss Jack off even more – he always got jumpy about Mac indicating his position whenever they were out in the field.

“I’m going to be a while,” he said instead of cracking a joke. “This thing’s complicated.”

“Fast as you can.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

There was a telling silence where a sarcastic retort would normally sit, and Mac had to pause for a second to remind himself that the IED in front of him needed his attention far more than his own unimportant tribulations. It wasn’t until another ten minutes had passed that he spoke again. “Okay, I’ve figured out what I’ve got to do, but I’m going to need some of your gum.”

He said it mostly without thinking, too used to being able to just state what he needed and for Jack to freely offer up whatever it was, albeit with some bellyaching about having to give up his stuff. The words were already out of his mouth before he remembered how vehemently Jack had been against Mac being anywhere near his personal possessions just yesterday.

Fortunately, Jack seemed to understand the urgency of the situation, because he simply sighed before saying, “Copy that. On my way to you.”

He didn’t offer any further protest when he appeared at Mac’s back either, handing over the stick of gum without a word, then hunkering down in the alleyway to keep watch with his rifle balanced on his knee. It was strangely normal for all that had come before, except for the silence that still hung over them like a cloud.

Exhausted, and with bigger things to focus on, Mac just went about his job and didn’t say another word.

Jack’s mood continued over the next few days, with little sign of abating. It would have been much easier to bear if Mac had any clue what exactly had triggered it beyond the vague sense that this was all somehow his fault, but it wasn’t like he could just walk up to the man and ask. Any time he’d even thought about striking up conversation or doing anything to try to make peace, Jack’s responses had been sharp and to the point. He didn’t want to talk, that much was clear, and Mac was nothing if not a quick learner.

After the first day of strained silence, he figured it was better to just keep his mouth shut and stay out of Jack’s way.

One thing he hadn’t really counted on was how strange it would feel now to be wandering around base on his own. Since being paired up with Jack, he’d hardly had a minute to himself – the man took his Overwatch duties very seriously even in the relative safety of the FOB – but now he was apparently free to roam as he pleased. Almost as soon as they returned to base each day, Jack took himself off to places unknown with a determined sort of look on his face and usually didn’t reappear again until he fell into bed beside Mac’s at night. Mac very firmly did not think about what that said about Jack’s newly-discovered ambivalence towards his safety. Now, after only a month of that partnership, it felt almost unnatural to be alone again.

At the very least it meant that he was free to go and eat whenever he felt like it, rather than having to bend around Jack’s schedule. It was that line of reasoning that had him heading towards the mess that evening, late enough to miss the main crowd who piled in at 7 but too early to run into the late shift teams who had a second run at things once the night had drawn in. The approach meant that he could count on getting a good table with minimal interference, but it did mean sacrificing any chance of getting decently hot food. The ‘buffet’, such as it was, would be topped up with fresh food at about 10, but for now Mac was stuck with the dried out, cooling remains that no one else had wanted earlier.

He nodded at the woman KP duty, earning an apologetic smile at the state of the food in return, then glanced around the marquee to find somewhere to sit.

A group of camp runners were huddled together in the corner, loudly engaging in a round of ‘I have it worse than you’, but otherwise the place was pretty deserted. With his pick of the tables, Mac settled himself down as far from the runners as he could get, hoping for a little bit of peace, but with no other nearby noise to drown them out, their voices washed over him all the same. They’d taken no notice of his presence beyond a quick check to make sure he wasn’t wearing officer’s stripes and in the absence of any authority, they seemed quite content to air their grievances to anyone close enough to listen.

For the most part he studiously ignored them – he had exactly zero interest in the minutiae of memos being passed around the base – and went about the business of choking down the cold food in front of him quickly enough to avoid its bland flavour.

It wasn’t until he heard a familiar name that he automatically tuned back into the conversation across from him.

“ Please ,” One of the runners was scoffing with an imperial hand wave, “As if Carter is anything to worry about. I’m the one who had to tell Dalton his reassignment request was denied. Thought he was going to take my head off when I said I didn’t know why.”

Mac froze in place, the rest of the discussion fading completely into the background as all the pieces of the puzzle he had been building snapped into place with painful efficiency. So that was why Jack had been so grouchy over the last week, why he’d been so sharp whenever Mac had tried to make conversation: he’d put in a transfer request to get away from him and been shot down. Jack wanted to leave and couldn’t. Of course.

It shouldn’t have been a surprise. Mac knew how he could come across, had seen how people reacted to all the weird quirks of his personality, and Jack would hardly be the first person in the world to take one look at him and start heading for the hills – hell, he’d barely crack the top hundred. And yet, despite all of that, all of his previous experience warning him that anyone could leave at any time for any reason, Mac still found himself caught wholly off guard.

He'd thought they’d been getting better. Sure, it wasn’t like they were close and half the time they could still barely stand each other, but more and more that had felt like an act they were putting on to avoid revealing they didn’t actually mind each other all that much after all. Clearly he’d been wildly wrong in that assumption. What he’d thought was increasing camaraderie was- what? Nothing but his imagination? Or maybe an attempt on Jack’s part to show the brass that he really had given their partnership an honest shot before trying to bail?

Worse than the simple rejection was how deeply unnecessary it felt. As Mac had so often been reminded, Jack only had twenty-eight days left of his tour before he was headed home for good and none of this would even matter anymore. Was he truly so unhappy with Mac’s partnership that he was going to go through the arduous process of reassignment for the sake of four weeks? He’d just had to stick it out for one more month and he would have been free and clear, and yet somehow that was still too much.

It might have been insulting if it hadn’t been so fucking painful.

But this wasn’t the place for that. None of these were revelations he should be having in the mess hall, in full view of anyone who cared to look in his direction. He shook himself forcefully, surprised to realise that his entire body had gone rigid while his mind raced in all directions, and made himself climb to his feet. There was still some food left on his plate but if it had been unappetising before, now it was positively nausea-inducing. Mac knew he wasn’t getting any of it down his throat without it making a reappearance sooner or later, so he quietly chucked the scraps in the bin, returned his tray, and retreated to the barracks as quickly as he possibly could without drawing attention.

Two of the guys were there, both camped out on their own bunks as they occupied themselves with whatever they got up to in their downtime, but neither did more than nod in acknowledgement as he made his way past them to his own bed. Truthfully, he was glad of the pseudo-privacy. He wasn’t entirely sure what he would have done if Jack had been there – most likely he would have said something regrettable – but in his absence, Mac was free to mull over this new information without interference.

A large, loud part of him demanded that he go and find Dalton right now so they could hash this out, get it all out in the open so that at the very least Mac wouldn’t have to feel so fucking stupid for ever thinking they might have been friends. He’d seen that Jack cultivated a very deliberate amiability with the other guys sharing their bunk, even if they weren’t all on the best terms, and he couldn’t believe he hadn’t thought for even a second that his Overwatch might be turning the same trick on him. He’d been so goddamn stupid .

Another, much quieter and injured part of him kept insisting that he must have gotten something twisted, connected the wrong wires to the wrong ports, and really this was all some big misunderstanding because he couldn’t bear the alternative.

He ignored them both. As much as he might want not want it to be true, he knew what he’d heard and all the pieces fit together too perfectly for him to have somehow misconstrued their meaning. His own feelings did not affect the facts, and he’d do well to remember that. And fighting with Jack wasn’t going to solve anything, it was just going to upset what little balance they managed to actually maintain. Despite his best efforts, Dalton’s transfer request had been denied so he wasn’t going anywhere for another month – Mac could grin and bear the discomfort until then, even if it meant having to sit next to a man he’d thought a friend for every single one of those twenty-eight days.

The humiliation of it all was almost unbearable, and he knew just how easy it would be to let it become rage instead – but he wouldn’t do that. If Jack wanted to leave then he wouldn’t be the first, which meant the fault almost certainly lay with Mac and there was no point trying to punish the wrong man for it. Sure, Jack pretending they were getting along was kind of a low blow, but it was understandable; they were stuck together in extremely close quarters, might as well act like they were comfortable there, right?

Maybe Jack had had the right idea all along. Mac was the one who hadn’t gotten with the programme already.

Besides, he reminded himself firmly as he bit down on the emotions threatening to get away from him, he hadn’t signed up to be sent into an active warzone to defuse explosives to feel safe . It didn’t matter one jot that Jack had managed to give him that for a time – that wasn’t his job and Mac didn’t have any right to mourn its loss. He needed to grow the fuck up and stop looking to others to protect him – he was a soldier in the US army and it was high fucking time he started acting like it.

With a tight sigh, Mac forced his stressed body to relax and flattened himself against his bunk, glaring a hole in the canvas above him.

Just twenty-eight days, and he could be done with this mess. Four weeks. He could do that.

Despite the bedlam going on inside his head, the heat and the shade must have got the best of him because he was jolted out of a doze an hour or so later by Jack Dalton himself smacking at his foot. He twitched the limb out of range with a muffled grunt of disapproval before his brain caught up with him and he remembered everything that had transpired before he fell asleep. The faux-irritated expression he’d pulled on crumbled instantly into blankness.

Jack blinked down at him, a bemused smirk on his face. Cuttingly, it was the friendliest he had looked in days. “What happened to you?”

Mac frowned, tried to do a quick mental assessment of what he probably looked like. “What?”

“You look like someone kicked your puppy. What’s going on?”

“Nothing. Did you wake me up for a reason?”

His Overwatch’s smirk faded somewhat, his eyes taking on that calculating look he normally got a few seconds before he said something much smarter and more observant than Mac would ever have credited him with when they first met. It was almost a relief – focused was a much easier expression to react to than a smile. “Seriously. What’s happened?”

“ Nothing ,” Mac stressed, trying and failing to keep a thread of annoyance out of his tone. “Do you need me for something or can I go back to sleep?”

It wasn’t the right answer, evidently. Jack’s face darkened and he thinned his lips against what was very visibly going to be an annoyed outburst, but in the end all he said was, “On your feet. We’re heading out.”

That was- unusual. He cast a quick glance at the clock. “Now? It’s going to be dark in a few hours.”

“Yeah well, tell that to the T-men. C’mon, get up. I wanna roll out in five.” With that he retreated to his own bunk to retrieve his equipment and resolutely ignored Mac.

Still confused and really wishing that he could just roll over and go back to sleep if only to avoid what was obviously going to be another uncomfortable Humvee ride, Mac obligingly scrambled to his feet and started pulling out his own gear. For all the little bits and pieces of equipment they had to keep track of, both of them kept their packs ready to go at a moment’s notice, so it was really only a matter of slipping on his jacket and vest, then stopping by the mess to refill his water bottle and grab a few energy bars before Mac found himself sliding into the passenger seat of the Humvee. Apparently more prepared than he had been, Jack was already waiting for him.

“Got a bit of a situation a few klicks out,” He announced once Mac was settled. “Looks like someone’s trying to sabotage our communications – a scout team thinks they’ve found an IED on one of our radio towers. Shouldn’t be anything too complicated for you, but there’s a lot of visibility and no cover so we need to get this done ASAP, understand? The scouts are patrolling the area and I’ll have your back, but someone might try to get lucky with a sniper, so keep your head down .”

There was a lot there to work through – most importantly just what Jack meant by on the radio tower – but he didn’t bother voicing any of those questions. He’d see the situation soon enough and his priority needed to be elsewhere. “Did the scout team say what type of device we’re dealing with?”

“Negative. Couldn’t get a good look without approaching and they figured that probably wasn’t a good idea.”

They had likely been correct in that assumption, but it didn’t make Mac’s job any easier. Approaching an unidentified device was nothing new to him, but it wasn’t something that gelled well with the speed at which Jack was evidently hoping this was going to go. If he rushed anything for fear of being shot, he ran a much higher risk of blowing the pair of them up and doing the terrorists’ job for them.

As promised, it wasn’t a long trip and within ten minutes they came to a stop in the gathering gloom, about a hundred metres away from the tower in question. The 150-metre-tall tower. God, this was not going to go well.

“When you said the device was on the tower,” He started slowly, his eyes darting around the ground supports he could see and coming up blank, “You actually meant on , huh?”

Jack snickered, either not noticing or not caring about the thread of uncertainty Mac could feel in his voice. “Hope you’re ready for some climbing.” He paused, then relented slightly by adding, “We don’t have to go the whole way. Report said it was about half way up. There’s a platform for maintenance work.”

If he had noticed the apprehension, evidently he was assuming that Mac just didn’t feel like climbing up there with all his gear dragging him down. Technically he wasn’t wrong about that – he’d just missed the why. Mac wilfully held in a shudder.

“Now, normally I’d say you should wait down here while I go up and see what I can see, but given how open this is, neither of us can risk being up there that long,” Jack said, catching him with one of his no nonsense looks. Dalton might act the fool, but he was still a highly trained army sergeant and despite everything, when he gave orders, Mac would listen. “So we’re going to go up together, okay? You’re going to keep your head down and you’re going to get that device handled as quickly as you can. We’ve not got much daylight left to work with and torches are going to be a dead giveaway of our position, so unless you desperately need more light, you keep it off. Understand?”

“Got it.”

This would really be the time to tell Jack that the very thought of going up that tower was enough to make Mac feel physically nauseous – the man was his Overwatch, he needed to know when Mac couldn’t do his job – but he bit his tongue. There was a bomb somewhere up there and he was the only person in a ten klick radius who had any chance of defusing it. His personal discomfort was nothing against the lives that could be lost should their communications chain fail.

With that in mind, he slipped out of the Humvee and shadowed Jack as he strode towards the tower, not letting himself pause to think before putting his foot on the first rung of the ladder and hoisting himself up.

Here goes nothing .

Something was off with Mac. Jack couldn’t quite put his finger on it, exactly, but he was good at reading people and he’d been watching every single move his bomb nerd made for a solid month now so he had a pretty good idea when something wasn’t right. Right now, hunched over a bomb 250 feet in the air, something was very definitely not okay .

The kid had been quiet for days, wrapped up in his own head about something or other judging by the deeply thoughtful face he’d been wearing, but it had meshed well enough with Jack’s own pisspoor mood that he hadn’t bothered to question it. Mac hadn’t seemed anything more than a little subdued, something any soldier downwind was bound to encounter now and again. Their work was hard and the constant threat of danger could weigh anyone down given enough time. Now though? Now it seemed like more.

Admittedly, the whole bomb-250-feet-in-the-air situation might have been a contributing factor, but Mac had faced down hundreds of IEDs in their time together and he’d never once flinched. Whether he was the bravest man Jack had ever met or he just genuinely had no regard for his own wellbeing was something Jack was still trying to figure out, but the point was, he shouldn’t be acting like this. The situation was far from perfect and every second they spent on that tower had Jack’s anxiety levels ratcheting up, but Mac had always kept a level head.

“How’s it coming over there?”

Mac let out a low grumble of sound, his usual stand-in for when he had too many things going on in his head to worry about actual words.

“That well, huh? Well, in case you hadn’t noticed, we’re running out of daylight so if you wanna-”

“Rushing me isn’t helping,” Mac interrupted before Jack had a chance to finish, carefully pulling a now-disconnected wire from the bundle he had been examining.

“Ain’t trying to rush you, just letting you know-”

“Yeah, well, it’s not helping.”

Jack had worked with plenty of EOD techs who would have given him that response and it would have been the most normal thing in the world. With Mac, it was a glaring red flag. Well, that, as well as the fact that Mac hadn’t even bothered to correct Jack’s repeated assertions that they were perched on a radio mast, when he knew good and well it was actually a telecommunications tower. Momentarily lifting his head away from his rifle scope, trusting that the scouts could hold the fort for the next minute or two, Jack turned to stare at his partner. “What’s going on man?”

“I’m concentrating .”

“I’ve seen you concentrating plenty. That’s not what this is. C’mon, you’ve been weird since this afternoon – is this about the other day? ‘Cause I didn’t mean to snap at you and I’m sorry about that, but right now I need to know that you’re good to do this job.”

Mac huffed a sharp breath out of his nose in frustration, his eyes not leaving the place where he was carefully prying apart the panels of the device’s container. It wasn’t until then that Jack finally noticed the way the kid’s shoulders were up around his ears, his whole body rigid where he was hunched over. His hands didn’t shake in the slightest – a necessity in his line of work – but the rest of him was shuddering with fine tremors.

“Mac-” Jack started, alarms blaring to life in his head. He’d known something was wrong , but clearly he had deeply misjudged just how wrong until he’d actually taken the time to look. Goddamn, he was supposed to the kid’s fucking Overwatch! “I need you to talk to me man.”

There was no response so Jack put his eye back to his scope for another quick scan of the surrounding landscape – still as barren and unoccupied as before – before sliding the rifle strap back over his shoulder and turning fully to face his partner. He was far too well versed in working with EOD to ever touch Mac when he had his hands on an IED, but he only had to wait a few seconds before Mac backed up to fiddle with the tools on his knife and he was free to snatch him by the shoulder and forcibly turn him around.

“Jack, what-”

“Something’s going on with you and we are in way too dangerous a position right now for me to not know what it is so start fucking talking to me Mac.” The shoulder under his hand was rock solid with stress and the kid’s face looked bone pale in the fading light. What really grabbed his attention though was the way Mac had shot out his free hand to snatch blindly at the handrail beside him, anchoring himself where Jack had pulled him off balance. Coupling that with the sudden dart of Mac’s eyes to the yawning chasm of the drop beside them, it wasn’t exactly complicated math. “You’re afraid of heights,” he murmured with sudden realisation, his grip on Mac faltering in the face of his own surprise.

Mac’s expression twisted with some combination of resignation and guilt. “I’m doing fine. Just let me get this thing defused and we can all go home, yeah?”

“You’re afraid of heights and you didn’t think this was important information for me to know before now?” If he hadn’t still been sitting half an inch from an active explosive device, Jack would have shaken him.

“ Jack ,” Mac said, apparently also running to the end of his patience, “I’m fine. I’ve almost got this done and I really, really want to get down from here, so can you please just let me do my job while you worry about yours?”

“Looking out for you is my job, dumbass,” Jack snapped back, but he did at least let go of him and return to his post. As much as he might hate everything about this, the fact was that Mac was already here and there was an IED in desperate need of attention right in front of him. Getting that fixed and getting Mac back on the ground pronto had just become priority uno. “Work fast.”

With the dusk drawing in, it made sense to switch out his scope for the thermal one he’d thoughtfully decided to bring with him, though it did mean he’d have to zero the thing before it would be of much use to him. Then again, any shots ran the risk of drawing attention and from so high up, the sound could travel for miles without hitting anything. He held up the loose thermal scope to his eye while he mulled over the problem, making note of the scouts’ positions and checking any obvious spots for potential shooters. Still nothing.

“I’m not rushing you,” he said lowly, “But do you know what kind of timeframe we’re looking at here?”

Mac hummed absently. “Couple more minutes I think. Starting to need light though.”

Which really only meant they needed to get this over with as soon as possible, for Mac’s sake if nothing else. Jack slid the thermal scope back into its slot on his vest and tugged free the square of tarp attached to his pack. Its official use was to give him something to lie on should he need it when settling into a sniper nest, but right now it was of far more use to both of them as a light break.

“This thing isn’t going to go off if I tuck this around you both, is it?” He asked, holding the tarp where Mac could see it.

Even scared out of his mind and all but shaking with it, Mac caught onto the idea in a heartbeat. “No, we’re good. Just make sure you don’t jostle it.”

Jack did as he was bid, carefully constructing a makeshift tent around Mac and the device so he could use a torch without broadcasting his exact location to anyone in a five-mile radius. It wasn’t perfect, certainly, and from the way Mac’s breathing hitched ever so slightly the confinement was doing nothing for his nerves, but it would have to do for now. That taken care of and trusting that Mac could get on with things without further assistance, Jack returned to his rifle and performed another sweeping check of the area.

Still deserted. A quick check-in with the scouts reaffirmed his conclusion.

It was strange that someone had felt the need to climb up here to plant an IED and then hadn’t even bothered to hang around to see the fruit of their labours, but it wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility. It would hardly be the first time a would-be bomber had seen the US army rolling in and got the hell out of dodge. Regardless, Jack couldn’t help but count the seconds until he was free to get his infuriating EOD technician back into actual, honest-to-god cover.

“How’s that vertigo treating you?” He asked, more to distract his own mind from the sudden, crippling mental image of Mac being taken out by a sniper bullet Jack had no chance of stopping than out of any genuine curiosity. Mac wasn’t going to be happy until he had his feet back on terra firma, that much was clear.

“If you’re trying to help, stop. It’s not working,” was the irate reply.

Despite the gravity of their situation – literally – Jack snickered. “You’re mean as a snake when you’re uncomfortable, aren’t you?”

Mac didn’t bother responding to the dig at all. It could be down to his discomfort at their current predicament, but Jack’s instincts were warning him that there was something more going on here and he’d long since learned to trust his gut when it was trying to tell him something. Another anxious look over his shoulder revealed nothing more than that his tarp tent was mostly doing its job of stopping light spilling out into the growing darkness.

His normal go-to technique for prompting Mac to open up was teasing, but evidently that wasn’t going to get him anywhere this time. Certainly not when they were still so high in the air. Perhaps this was a conversation better saved for when the device was defused and they were back safe in the Humvee on the way back to base; at the very least, Mac couldn’t escape him that way.

Right on cue, the faint glow of Mac’s torch snapped off and his blonde head poked up out of his mini tent. “We’re good.”

“Defused?”

“Yeah. Explosives are still a risk though – we can’t leave them up here.”

Jack eyed the bulky shape still hiding beneath the tarp. “Getting that thing down isn’t going to be easy, kid.”

Mac might have scowled at that, but in the dwindling light it was hard to be sure. “I know that, but no clean-up crew is going to be getting out here until tomorrow morning and a well-placed incendiary round could still set this thing off. I can’t leave it.”

“Okay, okay, I getcha,” Jack soothed. “How’re we doing this then?”

“I can take it apart. Split the weight and the bulk between us. Nothing’s motion or impact sensitive any more so we don’t need to be that careful.”

Jack obligingly slipped off his pack and pushed it in Mac’s direction, trusting him to have a better idea of how they could get everything down safely and instead using the time to dismantle the makeshift rest he’d constructed. Attuned to each other as they were, it was the work of mere moments.

In the interests of getting Mac out of the line of fire – and back on the ground – as fast as possible, Jack ushered him down the ladder ahead of him while he radioed the scouts to fill them in. They returned a chorus of relieved gratitude and promised to maintain their position until Mac and Jack were well on their way out of there, making sure that whoever had set the device in the first place didn’t come back to try again. Already feeling exhausted and knowing he had a debrief waiting for him back on base, aside from whatever the hell was going on with his bomb tech, Jack wrestled down a sigh, and started making his way down the ladder.

He was pleasantly surprised to find Mac waiting for him at the bottom. Jack had long ago implemented a rule that Mac was to stick to his side like glue whenever they were moving in potentially hostile territory, but with whatever was going on with the kid, he hadn’t entirely expected it to hold. That it had was encouraging.

“Alright, let’s- get out of here,” Jack announced on reaching the ground, only just managing to cut himself off from saying ‘blow this joint’ . Mac might normally appreciate the gallows humour, but now was almost certainly not the time.

As if to demonstrate that point, Mac just nodded silently and fell into step just behind his Overwatch without a word.

One of the scouts had been keeping watch over their ride to make sure no one left them any nasty surprises while they were otherwise occupied, though he melted into the shadows of the night as soon as they reappeared. Comforted in the knowledge that he didn’t have to waste any more of his evening waiting for Mac to do a trap check, Jack gratefully folded himself back behind the driving seat and heaved a great sigh of relief. Mac twitched at the sound, but said nothing.

In deference to their shared fatigue, Jack let the silence reign for a solid minute before he broached the subject. “So,” he started slowly, “I get the feeling you and I need to talk.”

Mac’s eyes flicked to him too quickly to be casual, but still he stayed silent. Well, if that was the game he wanted to play, he was damn well going to have to listen, wasn’t he?

“Let’s start by saying that you not telling me about the heights thing was reckless as all hell man, and I mean really, really stupid.” He did what he could to keep the anger out of his voice, but did nothing to soften the seriousness of his tone. For their partnership to work then they needed to be able to trust each other with their flaws and weaknesses; without that, they wouldn’t stand a chance. “You gotta tell me when there’s something going on that’s going to affect your ability to do your thing, no matter what it is. It doesn’t matter if you think it’s something small or unimportant, you have to fill me in. I’m not going to judge you for it if that’s what you’re worried about, but the only way I can do my job is if you’re honest with me. You get what I’m saying to you?”

The blonde was back to his usual sullen trick of staring straight out of the windshield, seemingly seeing nothing, but he did at least incline his head. Even when they’d first been starting out, he hadn’t been this difficult.

“Right. Well. If that’s out of the way, you planning on telling me what’s going on in that head of yours? Something’s been bothering you since this afternoon and clearly it’s important. Fill me in?”

Mac’s forcefully blank expression momentarily fractured into a frown before he got it back under control. “I’m fine Jack. Just tired. I wasn’t expecting to get called out again tonight.”

That was a reasonable excuse, except for the fact he was clearly lying. “Yeah, I’m not buying that. Didn’t I just get done telling you that you needed to let me know when something was going on with you? Whatever this is, I’m pretty sure it qualifies.”

The frown reappeared and didn’t immediately melt away again. Annoyance wasn’t exactly what Jack was aiming for, but at least he was getting a response. “I think I just proved that I’m perfectly capable of doing my job.”

Jack couldn’t help the sharp sigh that escaped him as frustration started to seep into his bones. Clearly he’d miscalculated just how far from alright Mac really was in that moment. Maybe he should have been paying better attention over the last few days after all; well, lesson learned, at least. “I know you are man,” he tried as gently as he was able. “That’s not what I’m getting at. But something’s clearly thrown you off your game and I want to help if I can, okay? This job’s rough enough at the best of times; you don’t need t’be adding to the pile.”

If Mac recognised that for the olive branch it was, he made no sign of it. His only outward reaction was to return his eyes firmly to the windshield and clench his hands together to keep himself from fiddling with a piece of wire he’d been worrying at since they started driving. There was a long, strained pause; Jack desperately wanted to press the matter, but he knew Mac well enough to know that trying would only shut him down further. If Mac didn’t want to share whatever was going on in his head, then he wouldn’t – it was as simple as that.

Fortunately for Jack though, Mac had never seemed all that comfortable with expectant silences. “It’s nothing. I’m just working through something in my head. Don’t worry about it.”

“Mac… Is this about the other day? ‘Cause I meant what I said up there; I’m sorry I lost my temper. It wasn’t ‘cause of anything you did-”

“Look,” Mac said with sudden force, dispensing of his heretofore unconvincing meekness and turning to put Jack directly into his sightline. “I get it. It’s fine. I’m sorry your request got denied but it’s- We’re both stuck here, okay? We’ve got four weeks left and then you can get back home and put all of this behind you. We’ve just gotta get through one more month.”

For the first time in a very, very long time, Jack was stunned into utter silence. Mac apparently took his frozen expression for one of acceptance and turned back to stare straight ahead with a sharp nod, as though they’d come to some sort of arrangement. Jack, for his part, did his best not to crash the Humvee into a ditch as the bottom of his stomach dropped away.

Then he rethought quickly; to have this conversation he definitely needed to be able to keep his eyes on his partner and driving wasn’t exactly conducive to that. He hit the brakes and pulled over. Mac chirped in surprise.

“Okay, woah, hold on,” Jack started, turning bodily to face the man beside him. “Let’s slow it down real quick because I think I’ve missed something here. What are you talking about man?”

Mac blinked at him like he was the one acting weird. “What?”

“What what?”

The blonde scowled faintly, but it wasn’t entirely clear if it was actually directed at Jack. Regardless, he relented with a sigh. “I heard about your transfer request getting shot down. I’m guessing that’s why you were so pissed off? Well, I’m sorry about it. You shouldn’t be stuck with me if you don’t want to be.”

A lot of things suddenly made a lot of sense. Jack could have kicked himself – he would certainly have deserved it. “That’s not- You’ve not heard the whole truth there, man. Shit I’m sorry, it’s-” He bit down hard on his tongue and forced himself to get the words in order. Mac seemed willing to take his stumbling apology as an embarrassed confirmation of the story he’d so readily believed and to be honest, Jack could hardly blame him.

“It isn’t what it sounds like, I promise you,” he said carefully. “I didn’t tell you about the request and that was stupid, but I swear I wasn’t trying to get away from you.”

Mac snorted very softly, a grim smile playing at the corner of his mouth for a moment before he choked it down. In all their time together, Jack had never seen him look so bitter.

“I mean it. I don’t know what you heard, but the request was for both of us.” That got Mac’s head snapping up to stare at him in visible confusion. Jack’s chest clenched painfully with emotion he didn’t want to put a name to. “I heard a rumour we’re being shunted to Paktia to shore up the EOD team in Gardez. They’ve taken some heavy hits lately and want more hands on deck.”

Mac’s brow was furrowed, clearly not entirely trusting what he was hearing but at least willing to listen. Given the circumstances, Jack was surprised he was even allowing that much. “And you didn’t want to go?”

“Hell no,” Jack said instantly. “The Gardez boys might need help but I don’t want to put you within a hundred miles of that place. Ghazni ain’t been kind to you, but at least it hasn’t blown your fool head off; worst we’ve had to deal with here is individual cells trying to make things difficult. Paktia’s crawling with T-men.”

“All the more reason we should be there, helping.”

“Yeah, and what happens in a month when I ship out and you’re stuck there without me to watch your back, huh? I don’t know who your new Overwatch is gonna be and if I can’t be sure they’re gonna have your back, I want to at least try to keep you as safe as I can while I’m here. I put in the request to shift us to Wardak instead. It ain’t safe there either, but it would have given you a cleaner run at things.” He huffed, remembering the raging argument he’d had with the Captain when his request had been denied. Looking back, he’d been lucky to walk away without disciplinary action but he didn’t regret it for a second. “’Course, none of that matters now, since we’re heading to Gardez regardless.”

He forced himself to meet Mac’s eyes and tried not to flinch at the calculating look being shot back at him. Evidently his partner needed a moment to work out whether or not Jack was lying to him to try to save face and that-

-That hurt. It was fair, completely fair , given that Jack had given him exactly no heads up about what was happening before going behind his back to try to rearrange his life without permission, but it was still crushing to realise how badly he’d fucked up. Their start together had been rocky, to say the least, but Mac had a kind of honest goodness about him that made him impossible to dislike after about thirty minutes of knowing him. Put together with his dry humour, endless patience, and his literal, honest-to-god genius, and Jack hadn’t stood a chance of not befriending the kid. It was somewhat convenient that it was Jack’s job to watch Mac’s back, because he had the sense he’d want to spend every second he could trying to protect him.

Then again, that’s what the transfer request had been about and look how that had all turned out. God, he was such a fucking idiot.

“I should have told you all of this before I did anything, I know that. I’m really sorry for it, and I’m even more sorry that you ended up finding out the way you did. That was shitty and you didn’t deserve it for a second. But I promise you, none of it had anything to do with me not wanting to be here.”

There was a pause while Mac’s face did something complicated, then he asked quietly, “You weren’t trying to get away from me?”

“Not for a single second, kid. I would never.”

It was the honest truth and yet Jack knew instinctively that it wasn’t going to sink in in the way he wished it would. Mac hadn’t talked about home all that much in their time together, and what he had let slip had some gaping holes where family should have been; Jack was good enough at hearing what people weren’t saying to understand that at some point, someone had let the kid down badly. Now, apparently, he had to add his own name to that list.

This was all such a goddamn mess .

Whether or not he bought Jack’s attempt at reassurance, Mac did at least appear to accept the truth of his account with a small, thoughtful nod. To be honest, even if he hadn’t believed it, this was something Jack could easily prove once they were back at base by digging out the request file, but it was comforting to know that he hadn’t screwed up so badly Mac couldn’t take him at his word.

“Okay,” Mac said softly, still frowning thoughtfully but no longer twisted up with bitterness and hurt. “Okay. I understand. Sorry for leaping to conclusions, I guess.”

“You ain’t got nothing to be sorry for,” Jack replied instantly. This was not the kid’s burden to bear. “I should have told you. You have every right to be pissed as hell about it, even knowing the truth.”

“That’s not- It’s fine,” Mac said haltingly, not meeting Jack’s eyes. “I appreciate you looking out for me.”

Jack watched him for a long minute as he shifted uncomfortably in his seat, taking in all the tiny little signs of distress he should have noticed days ago. It was only now that he was really looking that he could see how fucking exhausted he looked. Like the whole world had come crashing down on him and he was still trying to soldier on under its weight like nothing was wrong.

“Man, I really fucked up, huh?” He murmured quietly. Mac’s gaze twitched to him and away. Louder, he said, “I let you down and I’m sorry for that. I promise, no more secrets.”

There was a pause, then Mac seemed to decide something because he turned to look at him properly again. “That mean you’re going to tell me what you’ve been up to the last couple of days?” At Jack’s blink of surprise, he actually managed the shadow of a smile, despite everything that had happened. “What? You think just because I’m not Overwatch I’m not paying attention?”

Jack couldn’t help but grin at the spark of life returning to his partner’s tone. Of course he’d noticed when Jack had made himself scarce around the FOB. “I watch you and you watch me, huh? Should have known.” He shook his head ruefully. “Well, in that case, if you really want to know, I’ve been hitting up my contacts.”

Mac’s eyebrows rose. Jack rubbed at the back of his neck self-consciously.

“Yeah, yeah, I know I’m just a grunt but I know some people okay? I figured that if I couldn’t get us reassigned from Gardez, at least I could rope in someone I trust to replace me when I’m gone. No one’s as good as me, o’course, but it would be something at least.”

It took Mac a moment to digest that, as if trying to work out what he should react to first. In the end, he settled on, “I don’t think you’re a grunt.”

That was news to him. “No?”

Mac’s smile was a careful thing, like he wasn’t sure this was something he was allowed. “You play a good game, but you know way too much about- well, everything to not have been through something more than bootcamp.”

Jack should have known that he couldn’t get anything by a kid as smart as Mac obviously was, but he was still struck with a quiet swell of pride at how easily his EOD had figured him out.

“Plus, you know you’re by far the highest ranked Overwatch sniper on base? There can’t be many sergeants electing to watch bomb nerds day in and day out.”

There was an obvious question in there, but Mac was still too unsure of the situation to ask him straight up who he’d managed to piss off to get lumped with babysitting duty. And, honestly, that was a whole can of worms that Jack really didn’t want to dig into right now – or ever, really. Instead, he deflected. “Oh? That almost sounded like a compliment. You been checking out my record?”

“No. But if I did, I’d be surprised if most of it wasn’t redacted. Am I wrong?”

He definitely wasn’t. Jack’s smile was sharp as he started up the Humvee again. “You sound like you have some idea already.”

It was a clear invitation and, with only a slight hesitation, Mac took it. “You’re observant in a way that has to be taught. You seem too well travelled for it to not have been international, so I’m guessing CIA. Then there’s the tactical stuff – command wouldn’t ask for your opinion unless you’d been involved in something important. Putting that with that team of yours you sometimes mention without meaning to, I’m guessing you were special forces of some description. That’d explain the rank too.” He hummed thoughtfully. “Still doesn’t explain why you’re stuck watching me though.”

Jack whistled in surprise. Evidently Mac had been paying much more attention than he’d given him credit for. “I’m not stuck doing anything,” he protested lightly. “I like working Overwatch; it’s more relaxing than most gigs.”

Mac shot him a wry smile. “So I’m right then?”

He chuckled easily, letting the strain of their earlier conversation start to bleed out of his shoulders as they settled back into their usual patter. He hadn’t realised until right then just how much he’d missed it and from the way Mac was leaning back in his seat, he was thinking much the same. “About pretty much everything,” he confirmed. “You’re far too smart for your own good, you know that right?”

There was a pause. “You aren’t going to tell me what branch of the special forces you were in, are you?”

“You’re a smart kid,” he said with a broad smile. “You’ll work it out.”

The scene I didn't write is in a few weeks, after Mac's done some thinking and some very careful asking around and he sidles up to Jack one afternoon and very quietly says 'Delta'. Jack smiles, says 'Hooah', and neither of them mention it again.

#MacGyver #angus macgyver #jack dalton #sandbox fic #sandbox #army days #fanfiction #my fanfic #Everyone's OOO but it's for the angst #let me have my angst #Mac and Jack

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mikasaessucasaa · 4 years ago

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Title: Flatlanders

Summary: After being forced to retire from singing, Sansa returns to Winterfell Ranch, a place she hasn’t called home in over ten years, and finds the man that she left behind all those years ago.

Part 1 .... Part 2

1991

King’s Landing, TX

Sansa’s hair was a frizzy mess. It wasn’t usually so humid this far inland, but of course the moment she came back was the same week that the summer storms started. It only ever rained once a year when she lived in LA.

And now she was trekking around town when the sky looked like it was about to open up. She needed to fix a broken fence that’s been neglected for weeks. And she needed to talk to the bank and get their finances sorted. What the hell has Arya been doing all this time?

Fence first. Bank later. And maybe she’ll get so busy getting wood that she might not even have to see Petyr.

And of course it started pouring as soon as she pulled up to the Night's Watch General Store. Damn. It better not be a flash flood. She should have listened when Mama told her to bring a damn umbrella. Bless Sansa’s heart.

Accepting her fate, she steeled herself and made a dash from the truck to the front door. Even the thirty seconds it took her to get inside was enough to make her look like a drowned rat. Forget frizzy hair, her auburn hair was soaked and limp.

She was greeted by a familiar face, but she couldn’t place his name, not having seen him in over a decade. He was scrawny and of average height with short cropped hair.

“Sansa! Woah, never thought I’d see you again in these neck of the woods.”

Honestly, neither did she.

She looked at his name badge. Ah. Pyp. One of Jon’s lackeys who used to follow him around high school. She thought it was adorable back then. She wondered if he still talked to Jon.

“Jon’s gonna be so happy to see you.” She doubted it, but she nodded and smiled. “How can I help ya today?”

“Got a whole section of my fence broken. I think from lightning a couple of weeks ago.”

Pyp showed her a couple of different options. She wanted to buy the cedar since it would last longer through the unpredictable Texas weather, but she saw their finances, and Mama definitely understated just how much trouble the ranch was in. She didn’t know how long her own cash was going to last with her singing voice now gone.

So she went with the pine instead. She’ll deal with it later.

“I’ll give you the friends and family discount,” Pyp said when he rung her up. As she was signing the check, he pulled out another piece of paper and asked, “Do you mind also signing this? My niece loves your music. She’s always jamming to your album on her little boombox.”

Sansa hadn't thought she was that popular. She had one or two songs played on the radio nationally, and produced a couple of songs for commercials. She bet it was her local celebrity fame that made her popular down here.

She gave her signature and hauled ass out of her store with her fence posts while the rain momentarily stopped. She covered her new purchase with a tarp and settled back into her truck.

She checked the time, and damn the bank was still open.

So she made her way over to the Eyrie Bank. Her parents had only ever gone to one bank their entire life because it was owned by a family friend. Papa had been good friends with Jon Arryn for a long time before he passed, and then Aunt Lysa remarried a childhood friend, Petyr Baelish.

To Sansa, Petyr had always been the creepy uncle, but if anyone could help her sort out the mess with the ranch, he could.

There weren’t many customers when she entered the bank, so of course they let Petyr know right away that she was there to see him.

He smiled that creepy smile that he always had, as if he wanted to devour her. It was the same look music producers always gave her when she entered the room. They always undressed her with their eyes first before they bothered listening to her demos.

And she smiled back, as he leaned forward and held her in a too intimate hug. Gross. “Sansa, my dear. It’s so good to see you. I’ve missed you so much over these last twelve years.”

“Same here, Uncle Baelish.”

“I wish you had come to visit more often.”

“Well you know what it’s like for artists trying to break in.”

“I can’t imagine what it’s like to give up everything to chase your dreams. You’re so brave.” Liar. Everybody knew that Sansa was forced to leave.

Sansa smiled more. “Thank you Uncle.”

Baelish led them to his private office, and the way that he patted her shoulder after he closed the door made her uncomfortable, but she held it in as she watched him take a seat.

“So how can I help you, my sweetling?”

“I need you to walk me through the Winterfell finances.”

“Certainly, I’ll make it as easy as I can for you to follow.”

Sansa started tapping her finger against the arm rest.

She resented his insinuation. She didn’t finish high school, but she learned to manage her finances, learned how much the Lannisters stole from her, knew how much she willfully turned away from because she needed the Lannisters as much as she hated them.

Still he did make it easy for her to understand, all the while outlining all of the paperwork.

Mama had been behind on bank payments for a long time, even after being given extensions consistently. Eventually, even Petyr’s generosity, so he says, couldn’t save the ranch. So Robb took out a private loan to cover the bank payments.

“Another bank?” she asked.

“No more personal than that. I believe Robb was good friends with Rhaegar’s boy.” He probably wanted to say bastard, but knew better since he was Robb’s best friend.

But she couldn't believe that Robb would be stupid enough to take out a loan from the Valyrian Dragons. Maybe he had a death wish after all.

“And that’s what’s keeping the ranch afloat now? Do you know how much we owe?”

Petyr gave a number and it wasn’t absurd, but, “This interest rate is insane. We won’t ever be able to touch the principle.”

Petyr shrugged. “I did try to warn your dear brother. I told him that it would be better for the bank to repossess the ranch. We would have certainly allowed your family to manage it still.” But he would own it all. “But alas your brother couldn’t see sense.”

She couldn’t tell if Robb was a prideful fool, or smart not to fall into bed with Petyr.

She thanked Petyr for his time and headed to the Dragon’s clubhouse. She had dreaded this part of coming home. Sansa hadn’t seen Jon in twelve years, and she didn’t know what kind of man he grew up to be. He had always been kind and sweet as a child, but kind and sweet men don’t join the Valyrian Dragons.

But she had to know if Robb had a plan all along, or if he was dumb enough to leave his family and the ranch at the mercy of the Dragons.

The clubhouse didn’t know if it wanted to be an auto shop or a bar or a boarding house, just the kind of trashy place that you would find in the south, because what else could it be?

She never thought she’d actually step in this place.

When she was still in school, the girls used to whisper about how they dreamed they would lose their virginities to one of the Dragons’ members. Egg would be ideal, with his pretty boy charm and silver hair, but Jon would do — he may have been shy back then, but the girls all took it as mysterious and dangerous. She wondered if the girls’ assumptions became true in his adulthood.

She assumed Egg must have been successful in popping a lot of cherries, but in her loneliness she sometimes liked to think that she was the only one for Jon, that she was somehow special, despite the mess she left.

There were a couple of pretty girlies loitering in the bar area of the clubhouse when she entered. They teetered around on high heels and tight skirts and tops, and suddenly Sansa wished she had the foresight to dress for battle. Instead she was wearing her stupid ripped jeans, work boots, and a white tee with a flannel shirt.

The girlies turned to look at her and their excited chatter died down. She’s guessing the red hair gave her away, or she really was more popular than she thought.

Out of the crowd of girlies, a silver haired woman emerged in black stilettos, leather pants and a black corset top. Shit, who could wear leather pants in this weather except for Daenerys Stormborn?

“So it’s true, the prodigal Stark daughter returns,” Dany said sweetly, but Sansa knew there was nothing sweet about the woman. She was all fire and ash. Dany probably thrived on the club wars.

Sansa shrugged. “Everyone’s gotta come home sometime.”

“Only when they’re incapable of surviving the world out there.”

“But at least I went out into the world.” Instead of being trapped in this hellhole.

“Only goes to show that you don’t belong here.”

“Winterfell is my home.” Even Sansa would have rolled her eyes at herself if she heard her speak.

“But the clubhouse isn’t. What do you want?”

“I need to speak to Jon.”

“No. You left him a mess all those years ago, and you think you can come waltzing in here years later and just talk to him? Wake up honey. He won’t want to talk to you.” Dany crossed her arms. “Whatever you want to say to Jon, you can tell to his girl.”

Dany had always wanted to claw her way into the Targaryens, maybe she finally did.

“It’s got nothing to do with you Dany.”

Dany waved her hand, flashing an engagement ring. “See this here? Says it’s got everything to do with me, missy.”

Sansa’s heart started pounding uncomfortably in her chest and she felt nauseous and lightheaded. Shit. Of all the damn times to have an anxiety attack.

She stumbled backwards into something solid.

“Sansa.”

The low, broken sound snapped her towards the man.

“Jon,” Sansa said, equally as broken.

Part 3

#Flatlanders #jonsa #retired singer sansa #rancher sansa #mc jon snow #motorcycle club jon snow #Title is from the Texas country band FYI #also what am I doing #someone tell me to write TGW instead

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mohammed-130223 · 4 years ago

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ID: 130223

Date: 4/10/2021

MASS2113_21

Title: The Great Galveston Storm

Hurricane season 2017. According to the National Hurricane Center, this year has been the most damaging in recorded history, with damages estimated to total more than $200 billion. It is also the first time the US has been slammed by three Category 4 cyclones in the same year.

Despite the damage in Texas, Florida, and Puerto Rico, Americans were able to predict the tornadoes' arrival. The storm tracks were extensively reported by television networks. But in the other hand, This hurricane, and, came without notice.

The most opulent city in Texas:

The Great Galveston Tornado hit the coast on the night of September 8, 1900, with a Category 4 storm.

On Galveston Island and the mainland, between 6,000 and 12,000 people died. The most developed city in Texas was devastated.

Forecasting back then was unsophisticated, relying on sporadic data from mariners in the Gulf of Mexico.

Dreadful moment:

There were bodies all over the place. Authorities proclaimed martial law and ordered men, the majority of whom were black, to pick the corpses, load them onto barges, and throw them in the Gulf for burial.

Suddenly, the bodies back on the beach. As a result, they were required to be burnt on funeral pyres.

Galveston recreated itself in the years following the devastating tornado, with a spurt of municipal drive. A 17-foot seawall was built by the US Army Corps of Engineers.

The city embarked on a large-scale "grade-raising" project. Two thousand structures were lifted up and mud pumped underneath them, ranging from shanties to a large Catholic church.

The seawall and the grade-raising were both considered engineering wonders at the time.

This is the deadliest disaster in US history, with 6000 to 8000 people killed on this little island as a result of the hurricane.

In 2000, former Senator Pep Schwartz, a leading figure in Galveston, was interviewed, who said, "People who survive a storm are like those who survive a war.

https://www.npr.org/2017/11/30/566950355/the-tempest-at- galveston-we-knew-there-was-a-storm-coming-but-we-had-no- idea

#MASS2113_fall21

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creek-cryptid-deluxe · 5 years ago

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There's something i need to get off my chest, dear followers (and random people & tech savvy cryptids that stumble upon this blog of wonders blindly).

So, I'm about to turn 35 which puts me in the oldest couple years of the notorious & dreaded millenial generation. We are a generation that has watched the rise of the internet & cellphone tech (we got dial up in on our family shared home computer when I was 12 & I got my first cell, a nokia brick, when I was 16 because I had a job & could pay for it). I was 16 when the attack on the twin towers happened. We are a generation that has just accepted that the generations before us ruined things just enough to leave us shafted when it comes to employment, wages, and housing while complaining that we aren't thanking them for giving us the opportunity to be alive. We've come to terms with the fact that it's just how it is. Those are the card we were dealt & we try to work with them to scrape by. Some do better than others, but most of us are & always have lived paycheck to paycheck with considerable debt, constantly terrified of a major unexpected event that could ruin us at any moment.

Some of us are the ones raising gen z (some of the gen xers are, too, but this isn't about them). I personally have a gen z kid, The Spawn, who turns 16 this weekend. Now, being the type of approachable, laid back, open parent I am has afforded me some privileges that other parents might not be so lucky to have. I am introduced to all the friends. They all add me on snap or Instagram, send me memes & funny stuff, and casually talk to me about their lives, problems, thoughts, & views. I'm included in the social circle as an honorary member & they gather at my house regularly & often spur of the moment.

I love this because it gives me an inside look at their thought process, values, attitudes, and code of ethics. I've gotta say, guys, they give me hope for the future. This group of young people is so fascinating, funny, and outright brilliant that I'm 100% sure they will do amazing things, big things, as adults.

Because they've had easy, fast internet access from the start & most have had it in the palm of their hand since middle school (11 yrs old) if not earlier, they've had constant access to all that it offers, including information. They are always up on current events, news, & issues society is facing. They feel very strongly about things.

This generation is kind, compassionate, empathetic, and has a strong sense of social justice. They won't bully someone having a panic attack or going through a depressive episode, chosing instead to go out of their way to try to help them through it. I can't tell you the number of times middle school aged The Spawn popped into my room when her phone curfew was approaching to ask for an extension because a friend was considering self harm & she wanted to keep talking to them to make sure they stayed safe. They help each other, even when they don't know each other well. (Obviously there are exceptions to this, and everything I've said/am saying here but this is my overall generalized view of these kids based on my experiences interacting/observing them at home, online, & in public.)

But they are also witty, funny, & surprisingly nihilistic. They are all convinced that the world as we know it, humanity, will end in their lifetime so... fuck it. If they feel someone is doing harm or has wronged society, they seek justice but in a way that amuses them. At least half of what these kids do is for their amusement. For the LOLs. The best example I can think of currently that is widely known is the incident recently where a bunch of teens got together & obtained thousands of tickets for a Trump rally in Oklahoma. They knew he wouldn't be able to resist bragging about the projected attendance numbers based on tickets given out/sold. They also knew he would be a laughingstock when a significantly smaller number of people turned up. So they said "Fuck it. This will be hilarious & he has ruined our country."

And they were right. He bragged about the 100k+ tickets distributed for the rally. A little over 6k people actually attended. It was shared across the internet.

Multiple groups of these kids in my area coordinated corona relief efforts, mask creation & donation, food & supply drives, peaceful marches for BLM (just as they did for gay rights prior to Texas' legalization of gay marriage). I overheard them on a group call talking about using their fresh driver's licenses to help people get out to polling stations to vote out here in November. The Spawn & her friends have discussed accessibility issues for those this disabilities multiple times.

The kids aren't content to do what my generation has done & just accept how things are & manage. They want change and they are already willing (& attempting) to do something about it before they've even reached adulthood because they are already so aware of the issues within our society & our government.

So, in summary, I have hope for the future because gen z is full of kind, compassionate, empathetic, socially conscious, driven, brilliant, tech savvy kids who dole out their own form of very entertaining justice and don't give a single fuck if they piss of the people they feel have wronged them, or their community as a whole.

I couldn't be more proud of them or more hopeful for the future.

#gen z culture #gen z things #proudmom #disabilties #disabled #disability #disabled life #ehlers danlos syndrome

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contractremodelingtx · 4 years ago

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The Perks of a Small Bathroom Remodel in Austin and Pflugerville, Texas

A bathroom is an important place where individuals get to spend some quality time with themselves. It’s a place where one can open up and introspect. According to experts, most of the creative thoughts come up when someone is in the bathroom. Keeping it in good shape is an absolute necessity.

A lot of the home health depends on the bathroom. A dirty bathroom with paints coming off of the walls is a plain turn-off. One can contract diseases and illnesses due to using a dirty bathroom. Women dread them the most.

Dirty toilets make one cringe and land one in the hospital because of the severe health risks associated with them. Women, especially, are more likely to contract diseases and infections.

A small bathroom remodel in Austin and Pflugerville, Texas, entails a whole lot of planning and preparedness. An idea can only be implemented provided there is a proper supply of materials. The use of inferior materials translates to people experiencing more trouble and more issues in the future.

Most homeowners love to take a shower in large bathrooms rather than small ones. A large bathroom is more inviting and welcoming than a small nook. Many individuals nowadays often wonder as to what they can do to make their bathroom look beautiful. It is not challenging, though, with the latest equipment and designs on the market.

A bathroom is more than just a place where people take a shower or freshen up. It’s a place for one’s personal quiet and relaxation. Small or big, ideas for the renovation of small bathrooms often come in categories like optimizing space, making designs more extensive, and innovative storage solutions. For a start, adding a wall-hung sink and a toilet would be a fantastic choice if a bathtub were to be replaced with a stall shower. Using wall-mounted cabinets and a bigger mirror medicine case on the wall can make a big difference. There is a lot more room for ideas, but these are just a few remodeling ideas.

As it’s already been mentioned, certain classic tricks enable a bathroom to look and feel bigger than it is. To achieve that, one should combine light paintings that provide a tranquil and spacious sense. When using wallpaper, be sure to choose tiny designs to avoid stuffing the space with the wallpaper of bigger patterns or using tiles with small patterns repeated on the floor. The placement of a mirror may also make a bathroom look bigger. The idea of the positioning of mirrors opposite each other does marvels with lots of lighting.

Placing a mirror against the window at an angle is a feasible and effective option. Simple renovation processes, not overusing towel racks or avoiding floor rugs or mats, or adding paints to the dark corners are few ideas worth considering. The average cost of small bathroom remodeling for the required renovation usually sets one back at $5,000 to $30,000. Even if the bathroom remodeling amounts to a little more fortune, it saves homeowners a lot of worry and aggravation. So hire a general contractor in Austin and Pflugerville, Texas today.

#small bathroom remodel in Austin and Pflugerville TX general contractor in Austin and Pflugerville TX

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sjrresearch · 4 years ago

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The History of the Survival Horror Genre

It started with a question of curiosity - “What was your introduction to the survival horror genre?”

It simply intrigues me to see where players received their first glimpse of a genre. When I put the question out onto Twitter, I never expected it to lead into a deep dive into the genre's history. However, two of the answers I received made me realize a discrepancy in the known timeline of survival horror.

Much like myself (and I’m sure many others), former game guide author Dan Birlew first experienced the genre with the sprawling Spencer mansion of Resident Evil (1996). As he explained, “Resident Evil: Director’s Cut was my first survival horror game. It’s the first time a game made tensions mount and my pulse rise while I was walking down a corridor, not sure what would pop out at me in the next camera angle. There were jump scares and also creepiness galore, and I was so impressed that a horror game was finally making me afraid... and I was immediately hooked.”

It’s exactly as I’d describe my time with the first entry in the long-running series. And it seems like such a solid starting point for survival horror. In fact, the release of Resident Evil was the first time the phrase “survival horror” was used to describe a genre of gaming. Since so many games mimicked the style and mechanics of Capcom’s zombie horror title, it only seemed logical that Resident Evil was where survival horror got its start.

But then I received two more responses. The first was from Mikael Kasurinen, director of Control (2019) and Alan Wake (2010) designer, who said:

Then, indie developer Sergio Hidalgo, known best for Dreadhalls (2017) and the upcoming Cosmophobia, shared a similar response:

And that’s when it hit me.

Capcom may have coined “survival horror,” but as we’ll see in this exploration of the genre’s history, Resident Evil was merely a popular pioneer for a type of game that had already existed for more than a decade.

The 80s and the Age of Interactive Horror

Horror entertainment has been around for centuries, with many believing English author Horace Walpole to be the medium's father with his work, The Castle of Otranto (1764). More than a century later, George Melies’ The House of the Devil (1896) brought horror into the movies. As decades passed, the genre morphed into a means of escape from the real world. The classic Universal Monsters came to be amidst the horrors of war, followed years later by the grizzly killers of the slasher genre and, later still, the advent of “torture porn.”

Nestled somewhere in that extensive timeline is Mystery House (1980), an adventure game developed by On-Line Systems (which would later become Sierra Entertainment). Today, few people would consider Mystery House scary, but the murderous events and scattered dead bodies do offer a taste of the genre. Around the same time, players were enjoying the horror-speckled murder-mystery title, another game was garnering attention - and being loosely based on an Edgar Allen Poe story, it’s hard not to see the horror influences behind the Apple II’s House of Usher (1980).

What’s so intriguing about Mystery House and House of Usher is that they weren’t marketed as horror experiences. The latter was dubbed an RPG, though it featured elements we see today in survival horror. The protagonist had a courage meter and was surrounded by mummies, hatchet-wielding killers, corpses, and other staples of the modern genre. But it didn’t fall into the horror category until many years later, and it wasn’t until 1982 that Atari released the first game to be actively marketed as a horror game - Haunted House. Sometimes considered the “original horror game,” Haunted House may not look like much, but it forced players to consider inventory management as they navigated the pitch-black home of Zachary Graves.

Atari may have introduced players to horror, but the mid- to late-80s really gave the genre steam, especially as developers shifted toward gothic horror and borrowing from other intellectual properties. Castlevania may not be scary, but its castle setting and supernatural fiends were deeply rooted in the genre. Other games like The Evil Dead (1984), Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1983), Frankenstein’s Monster (1983), Friday the 13th (1989), Halloween (1983), and Zombi (1986) showed promise of what the future held, but it was a1989 RPG that really laid the groundwork for the survival horror genre.

Home Sweet Horror

In 1989, director Kiyoshi Kurosawa released Sweet Home, a Japanese horror movie that follows a film crew as it explores the inner workings of an abandoned mansion. Sprinkle in a poltergeist and a supernatural mystery, and you have the basic premise of the movie that inspired the game that eventually gave life to Resident Evil. The horror RPG, also developed by Capcom, thrust players into a mansion riddled with supernatural terrors. Zombies, specters, and all manner of ghastly horrors threatened the sanctity of the hapless heroes throughout the sprawling manor. Sound a little familiar?

According to Sweet Home’s video game director, Tokuro Fujiwara, Resident Evil was his opportunity to do all the things he wanted to do in the original Sweet Home but couldn’t due to graphical and technical limitations. In fact, the Shinji Mikami-director survival horror title was intended to be a Sweet Home remake, but a rights issue forced Capcom’s hand. That didn’t stop the development team from borrowing elements from the 80’s RPG to flesh out the zombie romp in the Arklay Mountains.

Item management, puzzles, dreaded backtracking, character-specific items, and even the mansion setting were all siphoned from Sweet Home to build a better, more expansive horror experience. With the tech of the original PlayStation, Fujiwara would finally be able to recreate the success of Sweet Home with a visually horrifying game. But it was Mikami that spent the initial months of development sketching concepts and envisioning the final product, and it actually wasn’t Sweet Home that drove him to include one of Resident Evil’s most striking features.

Horror Gaming Gets Cinematic

In its earliest stages, Resident Evil was intended to be a first-person video game. Then Mikami happened upon Infogrames Alone in the Dark (1992), a thriller that blends the dreary tones of Edgar Allan Poe with the cosmic horrors of H. P. Lovecraft. Today, it’s known as the first 3D survival horror game, but it was just another horror adventure when it first released. Alone in the Dark had everything going for it - a creepy setting, a unique art style, solid combat, and a story that did its inspirations proud. However, it was lacking one thing it needed to shine and earn recognition as the true dawn of the survival horror genre, and that was name power.

When Infogrames released Alone in the Dark, it didn’t do so with a long history of successful releases. In fact, by 1992, the development team hadn’t really done anything even marginally stellar. Capcom, on the other hand, was knee-deep in classics. They may not have been in the realm of horror, but it was impossible to navigate the gaming industry and not come across a well-received Capcom-developed title.

Couple that with the gut reaction some players may have had toward Poe and Lovecraft's heavier works, both known for their intricate and profound themes, and you have the makings of a game that deserved the spotlight but couldn’t quite muster the same star power as Resident Evil. The 1996 title didn’t suffer the same fate and instead quickly became the best-selling PlayStation game shortly after its release.

Beyond Resident Evil

Resident Evil's commercial success indicated that there was an untapped market for survival horror video games, and so the late-90s became a treasure trove of memorable launches. In 1998, Square, already known for its Final Fantasy series, released Parasite Eve, a horror-RPG based on the 1995 Japanese novel of the same name. Though focused more on the action-RPG elements, Parasite Eve borrowed from the newly defined survival horror genre.

A year later, Konami released the first entry in a series that, like Alone in the Dark, put a heavy emphasis on atmosphere. Unlike Parasite Eve, Silent Hill made no qualms about being a horror game. From the look and feel of the foggy town to the hellish monsters that called it home, Konami took video game horror a step further than Capcom. With minimal lighting and sparce resources, players guided an “everyman” through a twisted tale backed by the jarring and haunting sounds of composer Akira Yamaoka.

The 90s continued to bring the scares with games like Dino Crisis (1999), Clock Tower (1995) and its sequel Clock Tower II (1996), Countdown Vampires (1999), Nocturne (1999), and many more. Of course, the genre didn’t just fizzle out come the new millennium. On the contrary, many of the series bred during the influx of 90s survival horror continued to thrive, paving the way for all-new franchises to take shape and expand upon the definition of “survival horror.”

Modern Horror and the Expansion of the Genre

Throughout the 21st century, Resident Evil and Silent Hill continued to dominate the horror market, but they weren’t without competition. The first few years after the turn of the century introduced players to now-forgotten gems like the trilogy of games based on The Blair Witch Project (2000), a resurgence of Alone in the Dark, and an atmospheric iteration of The Evil Dead (2000). In 2001, the Fatal Frame series entered the fray, bringing with it supernatural horrors that put Capcom’s zombies to shame.

Developers were getting smarter and started to realize that the tried-and-true formula of Resident Evil could only appease gamers for so long. Even Capcom aimed to branch out, using series like Onimusha (2001) and one-offs like Haunting Ground (2005) to expand its horror repertoire. Silicon Knights’ Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem (2002) borrowed gameplay mechanics from Resident Evil but crafted a new style of survival horror that focused on the human psyche. Manhunt (2003) from Rockstar tossed out the undead foe in favor of human terrors and grounded the genre in reality.

While Resident Evil's classic camera angle carried the genre for a spell, Capcom returned in 2005 with a groundbreaking alteration. With the angle shifted behind Leon S. Kennedy in Resident Evil 4, players could become more immersed in the horrors unfolding in front of (and behind) them. It revitalized the series and allowed the development team to integrate action elements, but also greatly influenced a project brewing in the creative minds at Electronic Arts.

Everyone had something new to add to the genre, but in 2008, body horror took center stage with Dead Space. Visceral Games transported players out into the depths of the universe to combat a resilient enemy that needed more than just a well-placed headshot to take down. Necromorphs became the scariest thing in gaming, popping out of vents and floorboards of the USG Ishimura in a game that embodied the best parts of Resident Evil, Alien (1979), The Thing (1982), and even touches of Lovecraft themes. Its faster pace proved that horror and action could reside in the same space, which became a core component of survival horror as the years went on. However, for players still pining for that feeling of helplessness often found in early survival horror, Frictional Games delivered Amnesia: The Dark Descent (2010).

Amnesia spurred a new trope of survival horror - the unarmed protagonist. It’s become a driving force for so many AAA modern horror titles, including Outlast (2013) and Alien: Isolation (2014), and is heavily prevalent in indie-developed titles. Developers continue to prove that there is still much to be done with the genre, especially as we see advancements in tech like virtual reality becoming common in the average household.

As we can see in tracing the history of survival horror, the genre is ever-evolving. Who knows what grizzly frights will be thrown our way next.

At SJR Research, we specialize in creating compelling narratives and provide research to give your game the kind of details that engage your players and create a resonant world they want to spend time in. If you are interested in learning more about our gaming research services, you can browse SJR Research’s service on our site at SJR Research.

#gaming #horror #video games #history #survival horror

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