*. 𝔢𝔫𝔡𝔲𝔯𝔢 / 𝕔𝕠𝕟𝕢𝕦𝕖𝕣 .*

PRE-APOCALYPSE BACKSTORY ;  jesse james eugene wilson is the second youngest of four kids, with two older brothers and one younger sister.  and yes, they’re all named after the notorious james family from back in the wild west days  ( frank, archie, jesse & susan ) .  his family ( more so his parents ) were highly religious people.  they did the whole shebang — attend church, knelt for prayer before bed, said grace before every meal.  but his parents also did some things that fucked up the wilson kids.  basically they considered their kids’ souls to be tainted and the wilsons tortured the hell out of them, forcing them to confess all and any sins they may or may not have committed through heavy interrogation and a series of just as crazy pastors.

through this traumatic experience, jesse learned to disguise himself with what others wanted to see, and as he grew older, he became skilled at psychological manipulation, using this skill to acquire information and secrets about other people to his own advantage.  generally he would lure people in with his faux charm and then, once he got what he wanted out of them, his persona would flip a 180 and he would end up driving them away.  so, as you could assume, he’s never had much luck with making friends or committing himself to a serious relationship.  in fact, the only people he’d ever developed a deep-rooted connection with were his own siblings.  considering they’ve gone through and survived so much shit together, how could he not?

to cut to the chase, the wilson kids weren’t popular in their community.  they were infamous with all the shit they put their neighbours and classmates through, but they weren’t very well liked.  an allowance wasn’t heard of in their household, so in order to get simple things like candy or cheap toys, they would steal from their local convenience store.  thus, their newly found addiction to an adrenaline high was born through something they were surprisingly good at executing.  they would continue to push their limits, stealing items of higher value with a higher risk of being caught, until finally they were caught, punished by the police officers and store manager, but punished greatly by their parents behind closed doors.

as the wilson kids grew older, they had the legal opportunity to move out ; to escape the large talons of their parents’ abuse, but they didn’t dare leave the younger sibling(s) behind.  frank remained living in the wilson home until he met and married a woman from los angeles, archie moved out for a brief period of time then moved back in until he was arrested and thrown into prison for possessing and peddling cocaine, and once jesse was old enough, he refused to leave susan to deal with their parents on her own.  it was a lot less intense than it was when they were children, of course, especially with their parents growing old and ill, but the built up resentment was deathly strong.

on the first day there were reports of the outbreak, it was the day that the wilson siblings planned to murder their parents in order to inherit whatever they had locked away and finally be released of the torturous life they were moulded from to live freely as they pleased.  however, when they went up to their parents’ bedroom in the early hours of the morning, they were met with the ultimate surprise — their parents were already dead, but still living? and they attacked the wilson kids for the last time, leaving a very impacting blow on the eldest brother.  before they were able to put the undead elderly couple down, frank received a nasty bite, their father tearing out a large chunk from frank’s neck.  susan tried to stop the bleeding while jesse took care of their zombie parents, however her efforts were useless in aiding and he bled out on the floor.  he, too, also had to be put down again once he arose from his death slumber to try to do the same thing to his siblings that his father had done to him.

TO PREVENT THIS FROM GETTING WILDLY LONG , jesse and susan were surviving through the apocalypse together for about a month or two until they were forcible separated by a heard of zombies and were unable to find each other again.  jesse met several other survivors through his journey, but they never stuck, until he joined up with fort point.  he was a mechanic pre-apocalypse, and enjoyed everything about vehicles, including racing them, which is why he was appointed to be a driver for fort point — his skills at the wheel are hella impressive.  he has no idea about the condition his sister is in, or if his brother is even still alive, considering he was still in prison when the outbreak happened.