Welcome to Hickstead, home to both Seven Oak Stables, and Blue Acre - two rival stables. Both offer opportunities for their clients to reach the highest level of excellence. Each stable differs from the other, so choose wisely and never forget, loyalty is everything... Meanwhile as the stables battle it out, there's trouble brewing at the university. Be careful, if you don't pick a side you may get caught in the cross-fire...
This is an chilled out rpg with a super friendly and relaxed atmosphere! Remember to sign up with your characters full name in all caps and don't forget to do your claims! Thank you and Welcome, we've been established since 10th March 2009 but unfortunately have had to close guest view of our boards due to multiple sites ripping off our hard work, such a shame! Come chat to us in Discord before joining if you like!.
it was a rare day when he got to spend it all at home. it was his day off, holly had taken the boys out for the day and he had nothing else to do. he'd gone to work karma that morning, taking him for a quick jaunt around the cross country course and surviving. he wasn't planning on telling holly that he was jumping karma again, at least not yet. he wanted to settle into it and see how it went before he crossed that very dangerous bridge. it had been an up and down few years for him, the wheelchair had been the enemy he'd had to face twice. both times he'd beaten the odds everyone including himself had stacked against him and he'd come through the other side. it hadn't been easy though, nothing in life that made it worth it was.
he opened the fridge and pulled out a soda, deciding to stick to the soft stuff until what he thought was a more acceptable hour. but it was oddly quiet in the house and it unsettled him just a little. their house was chaos. it was loud moments, it was fights, it was arguments and it was children running around making their presence known. dean and levi were often in and out of every room, rocke usually let his opinion be known even though he wasn't old enough to have one but since joe had come home, they'd been doing their best to help him feel comfortable in civilian life and he knew screaming children weren't the best for that. neither sometimes were the people you loved.
he'd heard what had happened with joe and heather the day his brother had come home and while he'd been angry heather had been hurt he couldn't hold it against joe. none of them could but avery especially. he'd done something similar to holly when they'd first started dating. it had almost broken him but he'd made it out the other side and he knew joe would too, if he let himself. he hadn't brought it up to him or mentioned it, because the last thing people wanted was to have advice and help thrust upon them, especially men with the last name of mccarran. but he'd be there for his brother when he needed him, whenever that would be.
TWENTY SIX | YOUTH WORKER | HOLLY MILEY EVANS LEVI MACCARRAN | 3 ROCKE MACCARRAN | 1
In the days following his shameful attack on Heather, Joe had been quiet. Sure, he engaged when he was addressed, but when the conversation died Joe went back to staring at blank space while his brain worked over time reminding him of what he'd done.
He was running on nothing too, which wasn't helping. Sleep was also eluding him; snatching ten minutes in a quick power nap here and there was not going to end well and he knew that, but he wasn't going to take those tablets the doctors told him he needed. He had enough issues without being able to defend himself as the nightmares crawled in.
But he did appreciate his family trying, but even he could tell that they weren't enjoying the fact that things were not running as normal. He felt guilty now, even as he sat outside in the sun, staring at the grass like it held the answers he sorely needed. The key to freedom. Maybe he should've looked at getting himself an apartment and ease into everything that way. Maybe then he could try to find some balance, force something normal into his day, force himself to not sit around.
Who was he kidding? If he did that, he would scarcely get out of bed or eat or do anything really. But denying it made entertaining the idea possible. He had nothing on today - no therapy, no counseling, no group meetings, no doctor's appointments or nurse checks. A day where no one was going to be trying to pull him apart, dissecting the pieces and trying to push everything back together in the hopes it was better than he had been. He rolled his neck and held his hands together, a thumb running back and forth over his gloved hands - a tick he'd developed when he was anxious. He caught himself doing it, frowning - why was he so anxious? Nothing had happened, no one had spoken, the world was silent to him and yet he was doing that tick again. He didn't try to stop it, just tried to understand it. His stomach growled loudly, but he ignored it - he didn't feel hungry. He rarely felt hungry, he'd been skipping most meals in the house and then forcing himself to eat dinner with everyone. It made him feel sick afterwards, but he just smiled and went along with it. He'd disappointed people enough already.
it didn't take him long to see joe sitting out in the garden. his heart went out for his brother as he saw him. he knew what it was like, to come back to civilization after what could only be referred to as hell. he knew the feeling of missing home so much it hurt, to fall asleep to your loved ones faces night after night and to wake up to the disappointment every day that they weren't there. then to come home and find yourself still there. the faces changed to the people you'd left behind, the people you could no longer help and the faces of the brothers you'd gained. leaving was hard, coming home was hard. there was no in between and there was no making it easier. all they could do was really be there for him when he needed them and to make sure he knew he wasn't alone, even if he felt he was the only one on earth. he went about making two sandwiches, just ham and cheese so nothing special and he opened a bag of chips to add to the plate.
it was the crinkling of the bag that brought his daggy dog gidget down the stairs. "were you sleeping on dustin's bed again?" he asked the bernese mountain dog as his tongue lolled out of his mouth and he waited for the chip that avery eventually threw to him. "spoiled mutt." he said with a smile as he grabbed the plate with the food and another soda out of the fridge and he somehow managed to open the back door. he watched the dog pad out of the house in front of him, watching carefully as he trotted past joe to walk circles in the grass in front of them. he walked over to where his brother was sitting, making his footsteps as loud as he could. "you trying to get a tan?" he said with a smile as he sat down beside him, setting the plate on the ground between them and he picked up one of the sandwiches, not offering the other to joe because he knew it would be rebuffed, but leaving it there in case he took up the option on his own.
TWENTY SIX | YOUTH WORKER | HOLLY MILEY EVANS LEVI MACCARRAN | 3 ROCKE MACCARRAN | 1
Joe turned his head slightly hearing the footsteps on the floor inside; they were loud enough to hear, for which he was grateful, but he also knew that it was probably annoying his family. His eyes didn't move from the dog, almost glaring at the beast as if it was the reason why he was without his own loyal companion. He should've been over that already, but his mind kept calling back to Maddox, how the shepherd had been so utterly devoted to him. He missed his shadow.
"You trying to get a tan?" he said with a smile as he sat down beside him.
His eyes went back down to the grass as he pondered Avery's question; it was a joke, yes, he recognized it, but was it also a jab at his tanned skin? He felt as if he was out of place, slightly more sun-weathered from his time abroad. He offered a shrug.
"Can't hurt to be a little more tanned than I am," he said simply, keeping his tone as neutral as he could.
He pulled at his jumper sleeves, making sure there was no exposed skin, too self-conscious of his own body to be ok showing more than his neck up. He couldn't even look at himself in the mirror, he made a point of avoiding looking at it - he didn't need reminders.
"What are you doing home today?" His words weren't unkind, more curious than anything, understanding that his siblings were running around with their own lives.
If he was honest, he felt like he was stepping on their toes. They had their own lives, they were happy and he'd thrown them all off by coming home unexpectedly. He let his head tilt back and closed his eyes for a moment; maybe he should've just let the army shuffle him into a quiet apartment. Was it too late to do that? Probably. Coward, wanting to run away from your family. He huffed and made a face, opening his eyes again.
"It's strange," he murmured, "Being here instead of on duty."
he couldn't help but see the look that joe was giving his dog. the problem was they didn't know anything about what joe had been through, what he'd lost and what he'd seen. had there been a dog involved? kids? they didn't know. he just wished he could convince his brother to open up about it but he doubted that he would. plus that would be the pot calling the kettle black because he hadn't been all that forthcoming when he'd first come home to the family. he ignored the look for now though, certain that joe wouldn't hurt the animals that lived in the house because while they had their free run they were usually with their owners or sleeping spread around the kids rooms. gidgit had taken to sleeping under levi's bed from the day they'd brought his oldest home from the hospital.
"you'll make heather jealous. she'll run out and buy all the tanning shit she can to keep up." he joked with him as he took a bite out of it, crunching through the lettuce in the quiet of the back yard. it was strange that it was so quiet but he knew it wouldn't be too long before it went back to a new normal. they couldn't ask the kids to stay quiet for much longer, as well as dean and levi were doing they were children and they needed to behave like it. he couldn't help but grin a little as his doofus of a dog started rolling around in the grass, making himself sneeze as the dirt moved.
he watched his brother tug at his sleeves and he couldn't help but frown a little. come to think of it he hadn't seen joe in anything except long sleeves since he'd come home and while it wasn't crazy it was a little bit unusual. it made avery think there was something on his arms he wanted to hide and he doubted it was tattoos. although there had been one guy in his unit stupid enough to bring a tattoo gun onto the base and there were a few guys who had ended up with different anatomy drawn on their skin. avery had been smart, he'd just got his callsign on the back of his neck. "we all have scars." he said softly as he said the only logical reason he could into the quiet of the backyard, not to his brother in particular but he hoped joe heard it. that he and dustin were scarred too, on the outside and on the inside.
"i got one of those rare things called a day off." he said as he finished the sandwich and he took a sip of his soda. "so i took advantage of it and took karma out for the first time in weeks." heather normally rode the horse for him when he couldn't get there every day to work the horse, though he paid a little extra to have the horse turned out and worked, plus he knew that his horse expended a lot of energy trying to get through every fence to the love of his life, charade, so he wasn't worried about not getting there all the time. "i can't promise it'll ever stop feeling strange joe." he said honestly. there were still mornings that he woke up and it took him more than a few moments to remember that he was a civilian now.
TWENTY SIX | YOUTH WORKER | HOLLY MILEY EVANS LEVI MACCARRAN | 3 ROCKE MACCARRAN | 1
"You'll make heather jealous. She'll run out and buy all the tanning shit she can to keep up."
Joe offered a faint shrug, "She can be jealous all she wants. I'll get her a one way ticket out to a desert where she can tan for free."
"We all have scars." he said softly.
Avery's words were a little jumbled in his ears but he flinched all the same as he pulled more on his sleeves.
"That might be so," he grunted, "Doesn't mean I need reminders. I'm trying to forget, not remember."
"I got one of those rare things called a day off." he said as he finished the sandwich and he took a sip of his soda. "So i took advantage of it and took karma out for the first time in weeks."
"Karma?" he asked, glancing at his brother, trying to work out what that meant.
"I can't promise it'll ever stop feeling strange Joe." he said honestly.
"That's comforting," he said, rolling his eyes, "So every time I wake up, I have to wonder if I'm in danger and if there is something waiting around the corner for me? What a life. If only there was a reset button where I didn't have to think like that and wonder, where I don't sit and assess my own family."
he chuckled a little as joe offered to buy the one way ticket for their youngest sister. he shook his head a little as he glanced over at joe, wondering if he'd forgiven himself for what he'd done to heather yet. he didn't think he would be, there were still nights that he himself still dreamed about what he'd done to holly the first night he'd ever spent at her house. he didn't think he'd ever get over the feel of it. "well at least spring for a return ticket, she might be a pain sometimes but we would like her to come back home." he said with a slight grin as he bit into the sandwich again. he made a mean sandwich he couldn't help but think as they sat their in the garden together.
he saw the flinch and almost regretted his words but he knew it would only be a matter of time before joe worked out that he wouldn't be able to ignore them forever. they would always be there and they would always be a reminder but he knew that it would take joe a long time to realize that, it had taken him years to be able to look at himself in the mirror and not be taken back to the night he'd been injured. he couldn't say anything back though, because he'd been the same. dustin had tried to tell him the same thing he'd just told joe those years ago when he'd been sitting in the chair staring out the window hating the world that continued to move on by while he was stuck in the one spot.
"my horse." he said with a grin as he reached into his back pocket to pull out his phone. "you'll have to come down to the barn and meet him one day." he said casually as he flicked through his photos until he could find one of the chestnut beast. once he found one he held it up for his brother to see before he set the phone down next to the plate of food. "he was good to talk to when i needed it." he said thinking back to the many conversations he'd had with karma from his chair. he did credit the horse with being one of the things that had gotten him through. he'd originally got him for heather to work with, under the guise of looking after his horse, so she'd keep out of trouble while she was growing up and it would give her something to do while they were deployed but he was avery's horse.
"it wasn't meant to be comforting, it was meant to be honest." he said as gadget finally got bored of rolling around in the grass and he came over and sat himself down between avery's knees and stared longingly at the plate that was sitting between him and joe. avery smiled softly and he rubbed his hand over the dogs ears lightly, it was if he'd known this part of the conversation might be difficult for his owner. "no, you won't always think that. it'll get start feeling different and you'll find yourself going longer and longer between feeling like you need to. and if assessing us makes you feel better right now, don't worry about the fact you are assessing us. you do whatever you need to do to feel safe in this house. because we can sit here and tell you you're safe till the cows come home but unless you feel safe you won't believe us."
TWENTY SIX | YOUTH WORKER | HOLLY MILEY EVANS LEVI MACCARRAN | 3 ROCKE MACCARRAN | 1
"Well at least spring for a return ticket, she might be a pain sometimes but we would like her to come back home." he said with a slight grin.
Joe grunted, shrugging. Heather was not the same sister he'd left behind, but then he felt that way about his siblings in general. He'd left just his siblings behind and now there were strangers in his life; nieces and nephews at had arrived before he'd come home.
"My horse." he said with a grin as he reached into his back pocket to pull out his phone. "You'll have to come down to the barn and meet him one day," he said casually as he flicked through his photos until he could find one of the chestnut beast. Once he found one he held it up for his brother to see before he set the phone down next to the plate of food. "He was good to talk to when i needed it."
"A horse," he said dumbly, "Never thought you were much of a fan."
"It wasn't meant to be comforting, it was meant to be honest." he said as gadget finally got bored of rolling around in the grass and he came over and sat himself down between avery's knees and stared longingly at the plate that was sitting between him and joe. "No, you won't always think that. It'll get start feeling different and you'll find yourself going longer and longer between feeling like you need to. And if assessing us makes you feel better right now, don't worry about the fact you are assessing us. You do whatever you need to do to feel safe in this house. Because we can sit here and tell you you're safe till the cows come home but unless you feel safe you won't believe us."
"It's more than the fact that I am assessing you all that's irritating me," he said, frowning as he closed his eyes, "Every fork and knife, every little movement I think someone or something is going to happen. I sit there wondering when my commander is doing to slap me on the back of my head and tell me to get ready, patrol in five. I keep reaching for my gear even though its not there. I have to remember that the house is dead at four am. That I don't have to run drills, I don't have to fill in paper work or report to my senior. I'm waiting for so many things that will never come and.. it hurts Ave. But the second I think things are getting easier, a car backfires, I hear shouting out on the street, there's a sudden flash and I'm back on base for the briefest of moments... I... I want to go back to the routine."
Perhaps that was just selfish; but five years of routine that he'd loved and now... everything felt so bleak and alien without it. He loved siblings, but he missed his other family.
he wasn't sure how to take the grunt from his younger brother but he didn't press the issue either. it wasn't easy to come home and see things had changed while you were gone. that the world kept spinning without you, people lived their lives while it had felt like you were stuck in time. he'd experienced that every time he'd come home from service. he tucked his phone back into his pocket after he'd showed joe the photo and he shrugged a little, grabbing one of the cans of soft drink and cracking it open gently. "i really wasn't but i got him so heather had something to focus on while dustin and i were gone. and then he helped me when i came home in a wheelchair." he said as he took a sip of the drink. he'd also been filling a childhood wish of having a horse of his own but that he was taking to his grave with him.
he listened to his brother without saying a word, letting him get everything he might have needed to out in that moment and glad that it seemed he was willing to talk about some things. it was a start, it might have been a slow start but it felt like one to avery. it had been hard watching his brother come home and struggle on his own, seeing him hide himself away from the people who loved him and his nephews and niece who were just chomping at the bit to let them love joe, to get to know him outside of the photos they'd been shown of him. "joe i know exactly how you feel." he said gently, trying to work out how to tell his brother that he and dustin would understand almost anything he could share with him. "when i first came home i was watching over my shoulder constantly, ready at a moments notice and i did react to things that scared me just like you are." he added that last bit because he felt he needed to.
"i still get jittery and nervous when i hear planes go overhead .. especially at night." he admitted to his brother. he hadn't really told anyone that before, not holly and not dustin. he'd told levi and rocke when he'd been up with them late at night so holly could sleep but they were easy to talk to because they didn't really talk back when they were sleeping. "wanting to go back, yeah i know that too." he said as he set the can of drink down and he wrung his hands together lightly. "i missed my men, my crew, my job and hell i even missed the heat." he said as he looked at his hands, smiling a little when gadget pushed his nose into them. "and when i was finally out of the chair, proving the military doctors wrong thanks to holly, i got the chance to." he said with something of a sigh. "holly and i were newly engaged, i got this opportunity and i couldn't say no. i went back to what i knew, what i missed and where i thought i belonged."
TWENTY SIX | YOUTH WORKER | HOLLY MILEY EVANS LEVI MACCARRAN | 3 ROCKE MACCARRAN | 1
"I really wasn't but I got him so Heather had something to focus on while Dustin and I were gone. And then he helped me when I came home in a wheelchair." he said as he took a sip of the drink.
A little piece of trivia. He shrugged it off. That didn't matter to him, it wasn't like he suddenly owned a dragon, it wasn't world changing. It changed nothing, it was just something more to know.
"Joe I know exactly how you feel." he said gently, trying to work out how to tell his brother that he and Dustin would understand almost anything he could share with him. "When I first came home I was watching over my shoulder constantly, ready at a moments notice and I did react to things that scared me just like you are."
Joe began tapping, his brain tripping off red flags for him. He didn't even register the fact that his body tensed and flexed like he was about to go into a fight.
"I still get jittery and nervous when I hear planes go overhead .. especially at night." he admitted to his brother, "Wanting to go back, yeah I know that too." he said as he set the can of drink down and he wrung his hands together lightly. "I missed my men, my crew, my job and hell I even missed the heat." he said as he looked at his hands, smiling a little when gadget pushed his nose into them. "And when I was finally out of the chair, proving the military doctors wrong thanks to Holly, I got the chance to." he said with something of a sigh. "Holly and I were newly engaged, I got this opportunity and I couldn't say no. I went back to what I knew, what I missed and where I thought I belonged."
He bristled even though he knew he had not reason to; his brother was being honest with him, so why did it make him feel as though he had to brace himself to defend against him? It confused him.
"It's not past tense for me, as much as its written in stone," Joe grunted, "I'll never get the chance to go back. I'd go back right now, get on the next plane and throw myself into it no questions asked. This feels alien now, more than when I was younger. Coming home, I thought I would slot back into place but it doesn't feel right and no matter what I do, it doesn't feel like I'm going to slot in again. It's a strange disconnect."
avery couldn't help but sigh as he listened to his brother talk about how he'd go back there in a second. that hadn't been the point he'd been trying to make but he didn't think he was all that good at talking to joe. dustin had the much better touch when he came to connecting with people. he worked with kids, there was a reason he didn't work with adults because kids were easy, straight shooting was the best way to talk to them. but adults sometimes needed a different approach and he was lacking in that department. he knew what joe meant though, about home feeling alien but what he didn't get to tell him before was that when he'd gone back after being hurt, it had felt just as alien as home.
"you haven't been home long joe. you need to give it a chance." he said as he shifted on the step, turning so he was sitting and facing his brother now, rather than the backyard. "why do you think you can just slot right back in where you were when you left? we're all different. you're different." he didn't mean there wasn't a place for him here anymore, far from it. they'd been missing something while joe had been gone, he just needed to find the spot on his own, they couldn't help him with that. "you just need to give yourself time to find your spot, to start to feel like you're not on an alien planet and to stop being so hard on yourself when you can't just fit back in right away. because i guarantee you there is always, always going to be a space for you in this family when you're ready for it."
he wanted to reach out to his brother, put his hand on his shoulder or something but he didn't know if it would be well received and the last thing he wanted was to make joe feel like he was coming after him, physically as well as mentally. "something that might help is you could actually put some effort into learning about what's changed while you've been gone." he offered to his brother, something he knew joe had been avoiding doing since he'd come home. "let yourself care about us again, invest in our lives and then let us invest in yours."
TWENTY SIX | YOUTH WORKER | HOLLY MILEY EVANS LEVI MACCARRAN | 3 ROCKE MACCARRAN | 1
"You haven't been home long Joe. You need to give it a chance." he said as he shifted on the step, turning so he was sitting and facing his brother now, rather than the backyard. "Why do you think you can just slot right back in where you were when you left? We're all different. You're different."
In more ways than you know.
"I'm trying," he grunted, "I just expect myself to fit back in all but seamlessly. Knew it wouldn't be perfect, there would be gaps, but more or less back into place."
Is this you telling me to stop trying?
"You just need to give yourself time to find your spot, to start to feel like you're not on an alien planet and to stop being so hard on yourself when you can't just fit back in right away. Because I guarantee you there is always, always going to be a space for you in this family when you're ready for it."
He couldn't help being silent. What was there to say about that? He got the message - he wasn't doing a good enough job at adjusting. He'd just have to try harder.
"Something that might help is you could actually put some effort into learning about what's changed while you've been gone." he offered to his brother, "Let yourself care about us again, invest in our lives and then let us invest in yours."
That made a muscle in his jaw flex. He knew he wasn't making a huge effort right now to know exactly what had changed. He was aware of the void he was skipping around, but he couldn't help feel like his brother was giving him a verbal slap to stop being a coward. It mightn't have been the exact words, but by hell did it feel like that. He ground his back teeth together, his fingers tapping on his leg quickly, agitated.
"You've got kids. Dustin has kids. Kara has children. You all have partners. Heather is still annoying as hell. There are pets. Am I missing anything?" he growled - he didn't want to sound like an asshole about it, but the words were out before he could check himself.
he knew what it was like to come back to a place that felt just as foreign as the place he'd been sent to. he'd bene different when he'd come home, his legs hadn't worked. he'd been an invalid. he'd needed everyone's help and he'd had to rely on everyone. it had made him bitter and snappish so he knew what joe was going through, as much as his brother didn't want to think it. he didn't know exactly because everyone handled it differently but the basic feeling was the same. the disconnect, the changes that had happened. his little sister had grown up while he'd been gone, had grown an attitude and that was only the start of the changes. but then he'd met someone that had changed it all. she'd worked on him slowly, had broken through the walls he'd thrown up to protect himself from the hurt that had come from being a stranger in a familiar land and she'd brought him home. now they were planning a wedding, raising two boys and he didn't think life could be better. his brother just needed to give it time, that was the one thing he needed but the hardest thing he could do.
"it's a different place for you now. it's still in our family and you are still a very important part of it but it's not the same part as before because none of us are the same people. you need to slot into roles you didn't have before. you're an uncle, your older, your injured, there is new people in the house and that's just the start. you just need to give yourself time. it's a lot to take in but shutting the door on it isn't the answer." he didn't mean to lay it on a heavy but he could see what it was doing to his brother, the inner turmoil he tried so hard to hide and avery knew that while he'd seen it in his brothers eyes what he'd seen was barely a scratch on the surface to what must have been going on in his brothers head.
he couldn't help but let out a chuckle at joe's answer and the way his brothers jaw was set made him feel like he might regret it in a second but it had just amused him a little. "well that's a good start but considering we sent you photos of the kids, information about our partners and all the adorable puppy pictures, you might need to dig a little deeper than that." he said as he rested his elbows down on his knees gently. "heather isn't that bad. believe it or not, she's mellowed a little in the last year or so." it had been touch and go on whether his sister would settle, but sam seemed to be making a difference in how wild she was. her and dustin still butted heads but there was still something none of them could figure out that triggered her.
TWENTY SIX | YOUTH WORKER | HOLLY MILEY EVANS LEVI MACCARRAN | 3 ROCKE MACCARRAN | 1
"It's a different place for you now. It's still in our family and you are still a very important part of it but it's not the same part as before because none of us are the same people. You need to slot into roles you didn't have before. You're an uncle, your older, your injured, there is new people in the house and that's just the start. You just need to give yourself time. It's a lot to take in but shutting the door on it isn't the answer."
Joe's eyes slowly traced over the yard in such a way it was like he wasn't there for those few seconds, revisiting some distant memory.
"There might've been a period of time where I could've been less of a prick, I get it. And I know I'm an ass, I don't need reminding. But this 'you need' shit doesn't fly. What I need and what you want are two different things Avery. What I need, what I want, it won't happen - it can never be given."
"Well that's a good start but considering we sent you photos of the kids, information about our partners and all the adorable puppy pictures, you might need to dig a little deeper than that." he said as he rested his elbows down on his knees gently. "Heather isn't that bad. Believe it or not, she's mellowed a little in the last year or so."
"Why? Why dig? What do I need to know about your partner, your kids? I don't need to know them as much as you are suggesting. Shutting the door is the way I'm dealing with it, as you put it. I don't need to be flooded with irrelevant information. And as for Heather, she is still the same cow I know, so that hasn't changed."
avery couldn't help but frown as joe responded to his seemingly unwelcome words. he was used to working with difficult kids, kids who had problems and kids who had been through things that broke them, changed them and hurt them. he wouldn't say they were just like joe but there were definitely some similarities between them. normally he had the patience to let things roll off his back but with joe it was harder. the desire to shake him until he was joe again was strong but he knew he couldn't. he was dealing in the only way he knew how and if he didn't want to listen to them he wouldn't, but that didn't mean it didn't hurt that he didn't seem to have any interest in their family.
"i never called you an ass. don't forget some of us have a vague understanding on what you're going through. you don't have the monopoly on the army hurting you badly enough to change your life, so stop acting like a fucking martyr and that you're the only one whose ever come home hurt." okay so he might have been letting his patience slide a little but this whole woe is me attitude was getting a little old, he might have felt sorry for himself when he'd come home but he'd never tried to invalidate dustin's trauma by saying his own was worse.
"forgive me for wanting my brother to know his sister in law and his nephews." he frowned as he rubbed his hands over his knees lightly, fighting the urge to curl his hands into fists because he was taking the hits his brother was handing out more than a little personally. there was only so much ignoring and benefiting of the doubt he could do. "if you don't want to be a part of the family why are you here? a free roof over your head and food you don't have to pay for?" he asked him, honestly wanting to know the reason. "if your family is irrelevant, why put yourself through being around us." his eyes narrowed a little at the words of his sister and he really fought the urge to slap the back of joe's head. "don't." he snapped at him. "don't say that about her if you haven't cared enough to find out what she went through to make her bitter." he said as he stood up from the steps and he whistled sharply, loudly for gadget to head to the door. "you might not care about her but we do, this is her home and if you can't handle that fact, that's a you problem joe." he said as he started up the stairs to the back door.
TWENTY SIX | YOUTH WORKER | HOLLY MILEY EVANS LEVI MACCARRAN | 3 ROCKE MACCARRAN | 1
