underachievement | IC INBOX + OPEN POST / memes, psl, etc.

She's beginning to wonder where Rocky's gotten off to when his bark rings out. Trusting Frank's instincts, Jess mirrors them behind his back. She pursues a step behind and ends up at his side with her fists clenched. Whether the threat is a bear or a hitman, she'll protect Frank if he gets Rocky out of harm's way, but the plan dies on an exhausted scoff.

Still keyed up, Jess drops her head as her hands go slack. "Come on," she says as she coaxes Frank back into a walk, taking him softly by the arm. She calls for Rocky, and after a few increasingly stressed shouts, he returns to them with his tongue lolling out.

"Does he do that in the city?" she asks. They could talk about the respective paranoia noosed around their throats or they could talk about squirrels, make out, and sleep it off. Hard, painful conversations are a night two activity, at the earliest.

"Uh," he says aloud, his brain stalling until she grabs him. Her touch pulls him back to reality though he still looks visibly shaken as they lock eyes. Immense gratitude lit by some deeper, darker emotion swims into his gaze before he forces his eyes back on the path, a pleasant warmth gathering in his middle despite the cool air and everything that just occurred. "Yeah, I mean. He's a dog." Dogs chase squirrels, it's not a big deal unless you're a super paranoid ex-special ops guy with three different collectible sets of PTSD. Not like she'd know anything about that, right? He relaxes just in time for them to come up to the cabin, his breathing finally evening out even as he prepares himself to search the place before they get settled for the night.

"And city squirrels are assholes," she says, coming to her roundabout point. They're tenacious, greedy and brazen. If they've all run away from him, Rocky has to be narrowing in on the one that finally won't. She can imagine Frank avoids taking him through parks, depending on his own mood.

The cabin appears to be exactly the same as they left it, without any out-of-place details sticking out as they get closer. Rocky runs ahead of them, onto the deck to toss himself into the couch cushions. "Get inside," she chides him, then calls to him again once she's at the door. After a false start, he gives into the draw of her attention. He doesn't sniff out any unusual scents around her feet, nor stand alert at any noises inside, and Jess doesn't hear or sense anything either.

Once she lets him in, he does the bulk of the sweep in seconds, popping in and out of every room before returning to her. Jess switches on the lamp closest to the door and rests for a beat. She scans the room, satisfied it's undisturbed. Barring squirrel attacks, they can securely hunker down for the night. She gives Rocky a scrub between the ears, rewarding him for giving Frank back some peace of mind, and heads out to grab the couch.

He half-grins at her remark, and then the smile warms up at the rest of her actions, watching as she guides Rocky into searching their temporary home so he doesn't have to. She's such a dog mom and doesn't even know it; and he's sure as fuck not going to tell her and risk throwing it off. When she starts to move furniture back inside, he spurs into action to help even knowing full well she doesn't need it, just to speed things up more than anything. With that done, he sets the rescued bottle of whiskey on the table for her and abandons his jacket on the arm of the couch before going to crouch by the fire to get it started.

"Can you check on his water?" Frank asks while deep in the throws of his task, not realizing he's asked her to help him in a few short hours more than he ever has before, like all of a sudden he's no longer walking on eggshells every time they're together. Later he might realize it and start fucking up again, but for now he feels relaxed and on task.

Jess shoots him a dry look from the opposite arm of the couch, then bites the inside of her cheek until the temptation to smile passes. They set the furniture down and Jess shucks her jacket on top of his. She eyes the bottle of whiskey behind Frank's back, glancing to him when he speaks.

She mutters a "yeah" and turns heel for the kitchen. The bowl on the floor is half empty but the remaining water is a little cloudy. Rocky's paws clack tellingly against the floor as he curiously goes from person to person, unable to puzzle together their actions. Jess's activity is more familiar so he stands a foot away from her, sight pinpointed on the water bowl. She picks it up to rinse it and fill it with fresh water, then barely has it on the floor before Rocky's muzzle splashes into it.

The obnoxious sound of his lapping tongue reignites her thirst. Jess grabs the nearest glass to pour herself enough water to then swallow down in couple gulps.

"Water or beer?" she calls over to Frank. Though unaware of it, she's enjoying their streak of easy ask-and-answer. It's the first time they've cooperated this long without someone's life at stake.

He does a deep soul-search for such a simple inquiry, a long pause following her question that stretches on so long she may think he didn't hear her or is ignoring her. But finally, he speaks up in a gruff tone without looking away from the hearth, he can tell she's in the kitchen by the tenor of her voice and it's comforting the way interacting in soundproofed spaces keeping to low tones once was.

"Water. Please." Frank licks his lips as he realizes just how dehydrated he feels after the long drive and brief imbibing followed by their walk.

His pause for deliberation gives her time to consider the glass in her hand and replacing it for a new one. That would be three used today, which is more dishes to do later. Growing up Walker has made her over-reliant on dishwashers, and of all the chores she doesn't do in her own home, washing dishes is routinely reshuffled to the bottom of the priority list. Jess shakes out a couple loose drops from her glass, to be reused, and gets Frank a clean one from the cupboard.

She assumed he would choose water and got dangerously close to second guessing herself for a second there. Maybe he was tallying the number of bottles he brought against his rate of consumption but she's probably thinking about it like an alcoholic.

Jess brings his glass over, offering it from over his shoulder. She brushes his temple with the back of her knuckles once he takes it. "You got a lighter?" If not, she can rootle around for one. First, she puts her glass on the coffee table -- at the far end from the whiskey for convenience's sake. They all know what's up.

It's not like he'd have been offended if she brought him a beer, he'll probably grab one for himself in a bit. Either way, he accepts the glass with a grateful murmur, turning his face into her hand and closing his eyes to savor it for the brief moment it lasts.

"Yeah," he answers her, taking a gulp of water before pointing to his jacket. It's in there, probably with a knife.

She wasn't offering to go get it. But the cabin is so small that going from one end to the other would be a negligible favor, and it's a lot closer than that. Jess passes the dog on her way to his jacket, where she fishes around in one pocket after another. The leather edge of his sheathed knife rings a distant bell that Jess tunes out.

Shortly, she has the lighter and approaches to hand it to him over his same shoulder as before. There's no warmth to his skin when their hands slightly touch, which gives Jess an idea. She ducks out of the living room, to strip the bed of its accent blanket. She returns with it bundled loosely in both arms.

He was spacing out some, honestly, the cold stalling him out even as he tries to get their fire started. Frank takes the lighter from her with a somewhat owlish blink as he watches her traipse off and turns back to his task, redoubling his efforts. By the time she's back with the blanket, a baby ember is steadily gaining confidence. Once Frank is sure it can sustain itself, he turns to see what she's doing, Rocky trailing after her closely. Folding one leg under himself so he can watch her uninterrupted this time, a smile starts to build without him putting any effort towards it at all.

"Good call," he murmurs, waiting to see where she'll settle before he tries to move, he's rather enjoying being right next to the flame anyway since it's not throwing tons of heat yet.

"I know," she responds, then bites the inside of her cheek to suppress a grin.

Jess drapes the blanket over the arm of the couch, freeing up her hands to brush off the dirt loosed from Rocky's paws. He interprets it as her patting the cushions and accepts the invitation by hopping up, circling in place and hunkering down. She admonishes him with a glare but concedes defeat. Jess pulls the blanket around herself before having a seat beside the dog. While he fosters an ember in the hearth, she slides the whiskey bottle over, as well as her glass.

She glances up when she starts to pour. Muscle memory will serve her the right amount. She nods at the fireplace. "Any heat yet?" If there is, it's not enough to make it past him yet. Fair trade-off, with her hogging the blanket.

"A little," he admits, though they look far cozier on the couch. He glances back at the fireplace to make sure it isn't about to fizzle out before dragging the screen in front of it and scrambling his way up like a cartoon that can't get its legs under it. Once he's up, it's only a few steps to where she's sitting and he negotiates his way into her other side. He crunches his frame in between Jess and the arm of the sofa, Rocky making it difficult for him to get much room but the last thing he'd do is complain. Though he does the next best thing in tugging at the blanket in a silent beg for her to share it with him.

At first, she groans and budges stubbornly. She shuffles over more accommodatingly as he squeezes in, displacing Rocky's paws in turn. His grumble sounds alarmingly like hers, to her own ears. Within a second, the dog has resettled, and the blanket's gotten wedged under her thigh. Jess yanks the corner free, then the whole thing, just in time for Frank to tug on it. Spontaneously, she overindulges him and tosses the greater half of it into his face and over his head.

A startled little noise escapes his lips as he struggles to get the blanket off his head and rubs at his eye pathetically where it hit him. Frank pouts at her a second but then settles in at her side, nudging one leg under hers so they can fit better at the half of the couch Rocky has graciously allowed them to sit on.

"Rude," he protests belatedly and with absolutely no heat whatsoever. Instead, he retaliates by securing the blanket around his shoulder and snagging her around the waist with his other arm so it can insulate them with their own body heat. His cold nose presses just under her throat as he lays his head practically over her heart to stay. Good luck prying him loose any time soon.

That's a new noise. Jess's lips purse as she battens down a smirk, and she threads her fingers securely through the roots of his hair while he gets comfortable. Having his arms around her, his rough muscles at ease, lulls a sigh free from deep down in her lungs. The breath she takes after feels all the more vital to maintain a vestige of alertness. For his sake. No conscious part of her wants him to find safety in her company, yet she likes it when he does, and she hates it a bit less with every instance unshadowed by the monsters in their shared past.

"You're rude," is her comeback; she struggles quarter-heartedly to lean forward and grab her whiskey though the glass remains several inches out of reach. Jess is amused enough by the picture in her head of easily standing up and dislodging him, she's not bothered. In reality, his reflexes would probably save his ass from hitting the floor, but that's not how the image plays out for her.

He grins against her, catching a tiny breath in his throat at the way she hangs onto his hair. He's back to his clean-cut self, but he left the top just about as long as he could get away with in regulations - something he never pushed while enlisted, of course. Now it has a different meaning altogether.

"You got me," he admits, voice gravely and close to her ear. If she didn't make his heart race just by breathing near him, he could easily drop off to sleep here, the way they used to do in shifts. It's never been in his nature to be this comfortable with someone else watching his back, and after the betrayal he'd faced it wasn't an easy road getting here; but he honestly can't think of one thing that would displace his trust in Jess now, as much as she might hate it.

IC INBOX + OPEN POST / memes, psl, etc.

a paradoxically casual devotion

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