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hypnotisedfireflies · 3 months

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I am re-reading Drifter's Dawn and in the chapter when Tess tells Joel the actual story of what actually went down when the outbreak hit with Mike and Nico, I couldn't help but wonder how Joel would react in that situation. (Basically just slotting Joel in for Mike, with Nico)

I think Tess and Joel's near-telepathic sympatico stems from their chemistry but also their circumstances, having to fight for their lives and get very good at it very quickly. So obviously that wouldn't have developed on Outbreak day, but there would still be a strongggg underlying understanding they would have between them.

All this is to say, may I please request a one-shot re-imaginging of that Outbreak moment where Joel and Tess are married and Nico is their son. (Sarah may or may not exist in this universe)

Thank you kindly!

Oof, what an ask, friend! You are requesting my brain to do some seriously tricky rewiring here. And it’ll be kind of weird too, given I’ll be taking the script and changing a character. I don’t think I’ve ever done that before. But some mental gymnastics never hurt me so … let’s give this a go!

For this to work, let’s assume all the following are true for the exercise:

Tess and Joel are married and living in Detroit – as you say, just swapping in Joel for Mike (ouch)

Sarah is Tommy’s kid and they’re still in Texas (just to uncomplicate it a little)

Up until now they have lived an ordinary life within their ordinary careers and nothing live-changingly traumatic has happened to them (ie, they have not been tested as they have in Driftersverse) but, as you say, they still have that powerful current of understanding

Let’s not question why any of the above is true and also not hate on Mike too much for what happened in Driftersverse canon :p

I wrote this really fast so I didn’t overthink it, and then proofed it just as fast, so please forgive any errors.

Thank you for the prompt! I hope you like it. <3

Okay ... here's an alternate universe version of the first chapter of Drifter's Dawn:

A low rumble infiltrated Tess’s consciousness. She let it in, let her mind mull over what it might be … and then let it go as the inviting temptation of deeper sleep engulfed her. She turned on her side and took a deep breath. A truck, or someone revving their motor too late into the night. Tess heard it again and thought even less of it now the noise was rationalised. She slid her arm over Joel’s waist and felt him bring her hand up to his chest.

His warmth suddenly lurched from her grasp. Tess blinked in confusion and sat up on an elbow.

“What are you doing?” The words lay thick in her mouth.

Another rumble came as Joel, dressed only in his shorts, raised the blind. The bedroom was cast in acrid honey light and this time, Tess recognised the rumble as too deep, too long for any truck or car. As the blind came up Joel was silhouetted completely by unnatural light.

The next sound was no rumble but an explosion. The boom swallowed them up and Tess heard herself scream, saw Joel duck down and extend his hand out to her to stay back. She could hear the windows rattling. Nico began to cry in the other room.

“Jesus Christ,” Joel moved back from the frame, still in a half-crouch. “Stay there. Stay where you are. I’ll get him.”

“What’s going on out there?”

“Just stay there!”

Tess watched him go with some kind of amazement. In her sleep-addled, scared mind it seemed Joel had somehow done this, or that he had answers that he was denying her. She came up to her knees and leaned toward the window. She could see smoke buffeting up into the sky. Something was gone. What was over that way? Tess flinched as she heard another explosion, further away.

She was still looking toward the window when Nico’s cries drew closer. Joel had him: the baby was bothered enough to be twisting himself about, flinging his arms and legs and making him hard to hold on to. But Joel’s hold was inescapable, and the security began to calm Nico even as Tess watched.

Tess slapped around for the remote control. She extended her arm like a wand to turn the TV on and it came alive across the other side of the room. An explosion that big was surely breaking news. Maybe there’d been a trash crash, or a bad fire …

“What the fuck …” she breathed.

It took Tess a moment to realise that she wasn’t watching a movie. She flipped two channels ahead and then went back again. She was seeing the same kind of footage on every station. People rioting, buildings going up, the army deployed. A police car on fire. People were screaming about rabies and terrorists, but all Tess could see in every single shot was masses of bodies rushing and falling all over each other. She didn’t notice that Nico had gone quiet. They lost track of time as they watched the same news on every channel.

“That’s Chicago,” said Joel.

More cities they recognised played out before them, seized in chaos, dense under thick smoke and the screams – the same screams everywhere, on every channel, on every camera.

“What is this? Joel, are you seeing this? Joel?”

“That was Houston,” he said.

She tore her gaze from the screen. Joel was balancing Nico with one arm against his body – the baby still grizzling – and thumbing the buttons on his Nokia with the other. He pressed it up against his ear, shook his head furiously, and tried again.

“Come on, Tommy. Tommy, pick up.” He finally threw the phone on the bed in disgust. “It’s not connectin’.”

Tess scrambled out of bed and hurried to the dresser, rummaging around for her jeans.

“What are you doing? Tess?”

“Getting dressed.”

“What the fuck is going on, Tess?”

“I don’t know. Get dressed.”

Joel deposited Nico on the bed, where he immediately began to burrow. They pulled on clothes, passing pieces that belonged to one another back and forth, and then were drawn back to the TV like magnets. It was increasingly terrifying – two stations went off-air even as they watched, one of them when the camera itself suddenly careened sideways into the out of focus floor, but the screaming was unmistakable. They discussed what they saw in fractured sentences, trying to make sense of it. But the message from all authorities were the same: stay indoors. Joel kept trying Tommy. He tried his father. Tess, slow to the party, found she was unable to reach anyone when she tried, too.

“Take him.” Joel passed Nico into her arms. He was sleeping now, and didn’t protest.

“What are you doing?” Tess leaned forward, moving Nico to her other shoulder.

Joel was in the wardrobe. He reached up and shifted a few boxes around and it took her way too long to realise what he was doing. He had a handgun which Tess didn’t much like, stored away at the back of the closet. He’d kept it so casually in the drawer for years but once Nico started moving around, Tess had insisted it be put away. She watched him take it out and load it up with ammo from a separate box.

“Joel …” Somehow, this sight was more terrifying than anything else she had seen so far.

“We’re not gonna need it,” he told her. “It’s just in case.”

He stuffed it down the back of his jeans and sat before her. He smoothed his hands through her hair and cradled her face. He kissed her soundly. “It’s just in case.”

A new report on TV caught their attention, and they both turned to watch a terrified woman reporting from the back of a news van, which seemed to be speeding through the night.

Tess stood abruptly. “What the fuck are we doing?”

“What?”

“Joel.”

“Oh, shit.”

It was so surreal, watching the world crumbling on TV. They had been so engrossed in what they could see in the box that they had forgotten it was meant to be everywhere. They stood on either side of the bed and stared across at one another, hardly able to believe they had both missed the obvious. And then a long scream came from somewhere outside, and they ran.

They pounded down the hall. At the top of the stairs Joel grabbed Tess and pulled her to him to make her stop, and then thrust her back.

“Stay up here with him.”

“He’s fine. No. No.”

“Stay up here.”

“No. No, no. No!”

Tess wouldn’t let him go. Every time Joel freed part of himself, Tess grabbed him again, and he eventually had no choice but to take her hand. They went down together, quieter now. Their blinds were already closed. They went to each door and window and checked the locks and then, by silent agreement and pointing, began moving furniture in front of the doors. There was not much they could do about the windows.

“Are we doin’ this wrong? Wait, let’s just think.”

Joel came around the couch they had just lugged into place and grasped her elbows.

“Let’s just think a minute. Should we be goin’ somewhere?”

“… where?”

“I don’t know.”

“Go where, Joel?”

“I don’t know!”

Tess pressed her hand to her mouth and took a long, steadying breath.

Think.

They were scared. They’d been woken in the middle of the night to … something, and they didn’t know what was going on. Not really. They didn’t know anything except that it was apparently everywhere and the authorities were saying they needed to stay inside. Now that they were still, Tess could hear other sounds outside, too. Between the screams was the angry hum of traffic, crashes, alarms. Her head was buzzing with it. Tess shook it off.

“This will pass,” Tess told him. “This is crazy. We just need to lay low a minute, and it’ll – burn itself out. Whatever this is.”

Joel was nodding, reassured. “Okay.”

“We wait. We just wait here and – the phones will clear and that’ll stop,” she pointed vaguely outside, “and if we have to leave, then the army will come and evacuate us. Right? That’s what they do.”

“Yeah. That’s what they do.”

“Okay. Let’s – we can wait it out, right?”

“Sure.”

“It’s the right thing?”

Joel pulled her in close. She could feel the tension vibrating in his body. “You’re right. We just wait it out. Let’s – let’s bring up some things, we’ll wait upstairs. Stay good and quiet. Upstairs.”

“Okay. And – and we’ll pack for when the army comes,” Tess added. She could feel the uncanny hysteria trembling at the edges, but a plan helped put it in its place. “One bag each. That’s what they always – that’s right, yeah? We pack one bag each.”

The activity kept Tess sane. They swept up everything they thought they needed from the kitchen (panic shopping – they would make two more trips later in the day) and then packed three small bags. Tess laboured over it for hours. She couldn’t decide what were the most important things they should take. She had visions of their luggage being tossed aside and losing important documents. There was no sentimentality in her packing. She left out Nico’s favourite toys until Joel reminded her that those might be a good idea, and she almost lost it because she’d just gotten everything organised in a way that made sense to her. She snatched the toys and pushed Joel away to repack without his meddling. When she was done, she took them downstairs and placed them by the front door in readiness.

He stayed with Nico. He paced with him or sat up in bed, talking to him like nothing was going on out there. They divided up the duties of parenting and packing without even talking about it. Nico’s bond to Joel was stronger, anyway. Things had been improving for Tess, especially in the last few months as Nico grew older, but in times of distress Nico was better off with Joel. He could calm him ten times faster than she could. Tess had no doubt that were she holding him right now, all her fears would transmit directly to him and he’d be wailing and terrified. His big, brown eyes were uncertain and wet, but he was quiet. His fists were balled in Joel’s shirt. He couldn’t have handed him over Tess even if he wanted to.

She sat with them only when she couldn’t fuss around with the packing any longer. Tess thumbed Nico’s hot cheeks. “We’ll just wait it out, yeah? Little holiday at home, we’ll just wait it out.”

The night passed. All the channels had gone off air and the phones still weren’t working. They kept the blinds down and agreed on silence, regular patrols downstairs to check everything was all right. They thought they recognised some of their neighbours out there and had a quick conversation about whether they should check it out. But when they saw one tackle another at high speed they quashed those plans, and never brought them up again. Sometimes the air was thick with shouts and screams, the squealing of car tyres and crunching metal. Helicopters pounding overhead, explosions near and far. And then it would go eerily silent for awhile and that was worse, waiting to hear something. Then there would be pounding somewhere and breaking glass, more shouts, gunshots. So many gunshots.

“We did the right thing?” Tess asked not long after the power went off.

“Someone will be along,” Joel promised her, but it was hard to believe him. “Why the fuck are all the lines down?”

He tried Tommy again, tried his father. He got nowhere both times and lost his temper, tossing the little phone across the room. It hit the wall and the casing split open.

“God-fuckin’-damnit. Oh shit – no, baby – come on. It’s all right.”

The tantrum had been stewing in Nico for hours, and they had only just managed to keep it under control. Now it unleashed, and he was arching his back and wailing. Tess hurriedly passed him over to her husband but Nico was too far gone, and not even he could bring him around.

And then the pounding started at the back door.

“It’s okay!” Joel held out his hand to Tess. “They’re locked, we – we barricaded them up.”

The pounding began at the front door.

“If they get in, there’s nowhere to go,” Tess said.

She had been unable to contemplate any alternative other than the turmoil dying down or the army coming to get them. Going out in the car was unthinkable. They had no place to go. And all night they’d heard collisions, honking horns, squealing tyres. Maybe if it had been the two of them they would’ve tried going somewhere, but not with Nico.

Who was still bawling.

“They’re not gonna go away,” she added.

They’d seen that play out in the house across the street. People – these possessed, angry people – mobbing around doors until they got inside. It had sometimes gone on for hours.

“Quietly,” Joel said, which was stupid given the noise Nico was making, but she understood.

As they went down the stairs the pounding grew worse. Tess was pacing herself through what was next – the luggage, the garage door, Nico’s seat. Should they even bother with that? She could drive, Joel could hold him. But that wasn’t safe. Was there time, though?

And then windows broke somewhere in the house. One side or another – it was hard to say – but they were shattering inward and Joel was pushing her but Tess could already see it was too late. As they neared the garage door the first of the figures – bloodied and torn from the windows, presumably – lunged toward them.

The gunshot was so loud at Tess’s ear that for a moment she didn’t know what it was. Joel emptied the entire clip into the shapes – there was more than one, how could she not have seen that – and cut them down until they lay strewn on the carpet laid only four months ago. Tess looked back at him.

He seemed more shocked than she was. Nico squalling on his hip, the gun still pointing off into the living room. Tess pushed his arm down and urged him into the kitchen, thinking of the garage and the steps they would need to take to get out.

Another figure threw itself at them. It must have come through the other side. She could see glass in the man’s hair and it tinkled in his wake like fairy dust. Joel tried to shoot but he was out and then it was on him. Joel turned Nico away and threw up his arm.

The kettle was in Tess’s hands before she could think. It was the first thing within reach. She swung it straight at the head – maybe she shouted, maybe not – and it took three tries to crack the exterior and drop the attacker. Springs bounced across the kitchen tile. Tess hit him two, maybe three – maybe ten more times when he was down until she was sure. She might’ve kept going if Joel didn’t grab her.

“Come on!”

“Are you okay?!” She clutched at him, at Nico. He was shocked to silence, gaping at the carnage. Perhaps he was finally, properly scared. “Is he okay?”

“We’re okay! Tess, come on!”

With her free hand, Tess snagged the entire knife block – all seven that had been a wedding gift from Julian – and tucked it under her arm. Joel pushed her into the garage and she had time to grasp just Nico’s bag. They threw it in the back.

“What’s that?!”

“The knives!”

“What?!”

“You’re out of ammo!”

“I got more!”

“I didn’t know! Get the door!”

“His seat – ”

“There’s not time! You’ll have to hold him!”

Sounds inside the house again, a thump against the closed door.

Tess pointed. “Get the door!”

They pulled out of the driveway moments before the kitchen door crashed inward. Tess pulled out and stopped with a jerk when she hit something –

“Letterbox!”

“It’s on the other side!” She cried.

“Just fuckin’ go!”

Tess turned the wheel hard and they sped into madness.

#driftersverse #tlou #tlou fanfic #asks #the last of us #tess servopoulos #joel miller #joel x tess

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hypnotisedfireflies · 14 days

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looking back at spite and the Rough Era™ of tess and joel's partnership, what do you think were the genuine root causes of the angst and tension between them? and if you had to pick, what did each of them want in that whole mess but couldn't ask for of the other?

This is a hard question, I guess because I don't really view the story critically, I just kind of feel my way through. That's how it makes sense to me. So I'm feeling my way through this answer too, lol. I hope it makes sense and answers your question properly!

The Rough Era™ in Driftersverse really covers two periods, which are the Indy years (which is in Dawn but covered in better detail in Spite) and the Boston years, which are briefly in Dawn, Cassius blue and will be covered more in a future fic. In each period, they essentially faced the same set of issues that led to some estrangement from one another.

The Indy years were worse because it was earlier in their partnership and they were still finding their way as survivors, and what they were capable of. But the resolution of Spite set them up to be able to survive what would later come in Boston, if that makes sense. By Boston, there really wasn't anything they could do to one another that would threaten their partnership at all. They'd survived it before. They were set by this point, and understood one another on every level. Without the Indy years they wouldn't have survived Boston. (Plus also, Tess was different by Boston - she had moved forward, while Joel was still wallowing in the past). The dynamic was strong but it was different.

With that out the way ...

The root causes of angst and tension were probably the stationary aspect of their situation. They were relatively secure and didn't have to worry about food or shelter, and it gave them all this time to really turn on themselves. They had a similar situation in Tennessee but they weren't around other people then, they could just get on with building chicken coops and gathering food, without all the fear and aggression and worst of humanity crowding in around them. When survival wasn't at the absolute forefront of their everyday, there was time to reflect on what they'd lost and how shit everything was and all the terrible things they'd done to make it. (Incidentally, Tess would return to that stationary mode of thinking in Jackson, but Joel doesn't, and that's a Whole Other Thing).

And what did each of them want but couldn't ask of the other? Tess wanted Joel to heal. Joel wanted Tess to give him her whole self.

Thank you for the ask, lovely. xxx

#driftersverse #asks #tlou fanfic #the last of us #joel miller #tlou fanfiction #joel loves tess

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hypnotisedfireflies · 14 days

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Okay, I'm putting this here because then it makes it "official" and I'll absolutely do it.

Coming soon sometime this year: four short Tommy x Maria stories, each based on one of my universes (Drifters, SQ, LoC and IO) around a season and a first kiss.

Also still coming soon sometime this year, the SQ sequel and the Boston-era fic.

Whew.

#driftersverse #tlou #tlou fanfic #tlou fanfiction #fic plans #gotta commit

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hypnotisedfireflies · 28 days

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I miss Lachie! I specifically miss Tess and Lachie, their family friendship warms my heart every time. Would you perhaps consider giving us a snippet of the two of them? Perhaps a late night conversation while they’re camping out on their way towards Jackson? (I’m desperate to hear anything more about their road trip)

(Also will Lachie make any appearances in IO???)

Hi anon! Thank you for your ask (and giving me the chance to pop back into Driftersverse!)

I don't think Lachie will be appearing in IO. I tend to keep the OCs to their respective universes, DD/SQ, IO, Charro, etc. But who knows??

Hope you like this little ficlet. It's set during the events of TLOU while Ellie and Joel are off Ellieing and Joeling and Tess is making the trip across country with Lachie. This is as they begin to reconnect after the Firefly crew has perished, and Lachie is experiencing the earliest trouble with his lungs that later leads to something worse.

Autumn, 2023 Wisconsin.

In Little Hope, Wisconsin, Lachie did something that he hadn’t done in years.

Dear Mum, Dad and Col.

Lachlan Maynard had penned letters on scraps of paper up and down the USA and posted them in every undamaged mailbox he could find. He was very careful to address them neatly and correctly. If everything got back on track – one day, eventually – those letters might make their way home. Somebody had to empty the mailboxes eventually, right? And when that happened – if, if that happened – then Lachie wanted that chance of some small piece of him finding his way home, even if he was long-dead and nobody remembered his name anymore.

Some time ago – when exactly, who knew – Lachie had stopped. The hope that those letters might one day find their way across the ocean had not dwindled (however increasingly unlikely it seemed) but there were fewer things to say. Sometimes, he didn’t really want his family to know what he’d done. It was increasingly difficult to explain or justify the confusing nature of the Firefly cause, which sometimes seemed so righteous and other times seemed like a poorly organised terrorist chapter.

There just wasn’t much he wanted to write home about anymore.

But on this bright, golden autumn day in Little Hope, Lachie felt the urge tickling his fingers once again. He dug around until he found a pencil. Lachie sharpened it carefully with his smallest knife and lifted the shavings to his nose. He breathed them in. Fresh, new pencils! His cousin, Shannon, had a box of Derwents that she only used for special occasions. Nobody else was allowed to use them, but sometimes Lachie liked to lift up the tin lid and have a good, long sniff.

I am in Wisconsin, he wrote.

“Lachlan.”

He looked up. He was sitting on the bonnet of the truck to soak up the sunshine. Tess only called him by his full name when she really wanted his attention. He looked right and saw her standing against the vibrant backdrop of autumn leaves. Many were still doggedly clinging to their branches like they could outlast winter. Lachie could feel its cold, deadly little talons digging deeper into every day. It made him cough in the mornings.

“Everything okay?” Lachie pined the paper to his thigh with the side of his hand. The wind buffeted up a little whirlwind of dry, crackling leaves.

“Your … friend,” she said with as much tact as he could expect, “has a much warmer jacket than mine. I’m gonna take it. I just wanted to … tell you before I did it.”

“Oh.”

Lachie glanced at the low ditch on the side of the road where Toni lay. She’d fallen and suffered a terrible gash to her leg the day before, and had died in the back of the truck during the night. Catastrophic blood loss. Lachie used to think Toni was all right, but Toni hadn’t liked Tess, and Toni had made it clear – loudly and often – that Tess would be easier to transport with her vitals preserved in jars. Dev (before he got himself ripped up by two clickers) told Lachie Toni’s prejudice was rooted in fear, and she was convinced Tess would turn eventually. Some of the others were, too. Toni also wanted Tess on reduced rations, and she wanted her restrained at all times.

Tess gained her full freedom when the numbers of their team dwindled so pitifully that they desperately needed the extra, free hands. Toni mouthed off only once more after that. Tess decked her with two hard, savage hits, breaking the other woman’s nose. The others just looked on – Toni had said some shit, after all. And Lachie grinned as he gathered up some supplies to treat the injury. He suddenly felt just that little bit safer.

Tess never had held back.

“I’ll help you,” he suggested.

Lachie jammed the paper in his pocket and pencil behind his ear. He followed Tess to the ditch and helped skin the thick, fleece-lined jacket down Toni’s arms.

“You want her boots?”

Tess considered it. “No, they’re too small for me.”

“Let’s take her jumper too, just in case.”

“Jumper,” Tess repeated, grinning at him.

“You know what I mean.”

“What happened to your accent?”

“It has its moments.”

They completed the grisly task of stripping Toni for the last of her worth and then covered her body with leaves. The ground wasn’t too hard yet. They could bury her. But Lachie didn’t see the point in going to that effort. They needed to conserve their calories. And Little Hope was a nice enough place in the world to become bird food. Toni could do worse.

“Guess that makes you two even for the hard time she gave you.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Tess muttered, shedding her own jacket and dressing in Toni’s. She emptied the pockets of meaningless trinkets, then turned up the collar. “Thanks for making that easy.”

“Yeah, no problem.”

“I know she was your friend so … I’m sorry.”

Lachie squinted as another squall twisted a pile of leaves up into a new dance. “It doesn’t matter.”

The breeze lifted Tess’s hair. She had long, silver strands throughout now. It was still kind of hard for Lachie to believe she was really standing there, really alive. He’d never had any doubt that she’d made it through the years – if anyone could, it was her – but the fact that their paths had crossed again was a miracle he couldn’t overlook. It was almost more incredible than her surviving becoming infected, for fuck’s sake.

“We should make camp,” Lachie suggested. “I reckon we’ve come far enough today.”

Tess was scanning the handful of crumbling old buildings. This must have been a charming little town, once. There was next to nothing here, but it had a postcard-selling vibe.

“You feel up to trying a building or two?”

“Sure.” Lachie shrugged. “What are we looking for?”

“I want to get you out of the cold, for starters,” Tess said, already pulling out her handgun and checking the load. “The coughing in the morning’s getting worse.”

“Nah, that’s just – yeah, nah, that’s nothing,” Lachie tried to wave it off. “That’s just – I had asthma kind of bad when I was a kid and sometimes it acts up a bit, that’s all.”

“Well, the cold can’t be helping. Let’s find something with a bit more shelter tonight, okay?”

He was kind of stoked that she gave a shit. Tess had looked out for him when they were in Indy, too. He was definitely just an afterthought behind Joel and Tommy and Rachel, but the fact that she’d given a damn at all had meant something to him then, and it still did now. And well – hey. It was probably just strategy on her part. Two of them stood a better chance of making it cross country than one alone. But then she met his gaze and he recognised a softness entirely separate to survival.

“Okay?”

Lachie nodded. “Yeah, okay.”

“Let’s try that one first.”

“You’re the boss.”

Tess, who had already turned away, stiffened. Lachie looked on ahead. Had she seen something? And then Tess snapped the cartridge into place and plowed on ahead to the building.

“Come on, move.”

The town had been abandoned by living, dead and infected for a very, very long time. The general store had been turned over of absolutely everything of value and there was a single, crumpled human who had perished at some phase of infection. They were almost skeletal, their body and ragged clothing ruptured by powdery, dry fungal plates.

At the back of the general store was a room claimed by the sky. Half the roof was missing. Tess and Lachie built their fire here, where the smoke could pour up into the air, and the walls around them would provide some warmth against the coming night. Lachie pulled out two FEDRA-issued dinner ration packs. The grade was excellent.

“Do you want Butter Chicken or Beef Ragu?”

“Have we got any of the Chicken Italiano left?”

“Nope.”

“Ragu, then.”

They prepared the meal packets in boiling water and ate inside their sleeping bags on two sides of the fire. Tess had been right. He felt warmer with the wall against his back, and there was no wind in the old structure, save that which whistled through the cracks.

“You know what really pisses me off about these?” Tess said, poking around her bag with a fork.

“That they’re better than what ration cards could buy?”

“Yes,” she answered, sounding mildly annoyed that he guessed right. “The shit we used to eat in Boston sometimes, you know? We knew what they were feeding the soldiers was better than what we got, but this is something else.”

Always we. We did this, we did that. Tess couldn’t name Joel, but he was always moving in and out of the conversation.

“Fireflies didn’t have this stuff most of the time either,” Lachie admitted. “Think we were eating better than most civilians though, if you were stationed outside the zones, that is.”

“Like you were.”

“Yeah, like I was. Funny when you think we were only a few miles apart for years.”

Tess didn't respond.

“Anyway,” Lachie continued. “Fireflies were raiding stuff all the time, but when they got their hands on premium rations like these, they stockpiled them for the big ticket events.”

“Like a cross-country trek?”

“Yeah. Build up the strength, that sort of thing. Speaking of. We should reach that Firefly supply cache tomorrow, all things going well.”

“White Earth Reservation?”

“Yeah?” Lachie shot her a suspicious glance. “How'd you know that?”

“I've been listening. My ears weren't handcuffed.”

“This is gonna be awkward for awhile, isn't it?”

“Till the day you die, Lachlan.”

He coughed softly and set his meal aside. They'd argued about this many times already: he'd plead his sorry case and she'd stonily stared him down.

“White Earth Reservation,” he confirmed, pulling out a map. He held it up to Tess and followed a general route along the top of the country with his finger. “So we’re … like … hereabouts. We come up north into Minnesota – avoid Minneapolis, I’ve heard shit from there that’d make your hair curl – and come at the Reservation this way.”

Tess was studying the map with great interest, so he passed it into her custody. “Is anyone stationed there?”

“Supposed to have been deserted for a few years. Unless they sent someone up there from the east, I dunno. Seems unlikely, though. So yeah, nah. We'll scoop in and grab the gear, then go down through the Dakotas.”

“To Salt Lake City?”

Lachie held his breath while he calculated his answer. He sighed and picked up his chicken. That had been the original mission. Evacuate Massachusetts, empty the final Firefly caches cross country and regroup with the dwindling remnants of the cause out west. Deliver the subject - Tess - to Salt Lake City for further study.

There was nothing in that mandate about locating Tommy Miller out in whoop-whoop Wyoming or reuniting the subject with her spiritual husband.

“Maybe after,” Lachie mumbled around a mouthful of rations. “See if that dickhead Tommo’s all right first, maybe.”

“How… how was he last time you saw him?”

“I didn't know there was a problem till he fucked off without saying goodbye. I knew he wasn't happy but … shit, is anybody? You really think he's in trouble?”

“Maybe.”

“This trip was really for Joel, huh? He needed to know what was what.”

“It was for us both,” Tess quietly answered. “I don't know if we ever meant to stay so long.”

“In Boston?”

“We had an apartment,” she continued, eyes on the fire. “Living every day in a fucked up dollhouse for thirteen years.”

“A lifetime.”

“A parody.”

“Why didn't you leave?”

“Go where?”

“I dunno. Tommo said you'd come from some place up in the mountains. South? Could've gone back, tried for it. If anyone could've made it, it was you two.”

Tess shook her head slightly. “Bit past happy endings by then, Lachie.”

“Well,” he finished his meal. “Guess it's a good thing it's now. Hey Tess? Can do shitloads with now.”

“You're still painfully optimistic.”

He laughed a little. Sure. It was easy to have hope in and for other people. The heat was off.

He waited until Tess was asleep before digging out his letter again. He deliberated over the cordial lines and wondered what he could add. So deep in concentration was he that the bottom of the page caught on an ember and smoked. He swore softly and smothered both flame and another coughing fit.

Going to Yellowstone.

He didn't write any more until the following morning. Tess helped him sit up as a more aggressive spate of coughs woke him.

“This is asthma?” She asked, passing a flask of water.

“Woodsmoke doesn't do me any favours,” he managed, rubbing his watery eyes.

Tess didn't seem convinced. She did most of the packing up and loading while Lachie got himself together.

“I'll drive,” Tess announced.

“Yeah, no worries.”

“You ready?”

“Yeah, just give me a sec.”

Lachie looked down at his measly letter. He glanced at Tess, who was circling the truck and checking the tyres.

Catching up with some old mates.

He pushed the letter into a mailbox as Tess turned the ignition over.

#driftersverse #tlou #asks #the last of us #tlou fanfic #tess servopoulos

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hypnotisedfireflies · 2 days

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So what did happen to Lachie's family?

Aw, thanks for a Lachie question!

Lachie lost everyone. 🙃

Almost all his family lived in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne, and the infection tore through there in the early days. Lachie was in Death Valley during outbreak day and the world was completely gone by the time his tour group emerged. His family were dead by the time he even knew there was a problem.

He never finds out what happened to any of them, but eventually, as the world slowly starts connecting up again, he receives word about what happened to Australia, New Zealand and many Pacific nations. That gives him peace.

I have a whole hc about what happened in that part of the world but that's a whole other ask. 😂

#driftersverse #asks #tlou fanfic #the last of us

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hypnotisedfireflies · 4 months

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Could you tell us about the first time Tess sees a photo of Sarah? (Assuming there’s pictures of her in Jackson like in the game) Does Joel show her later on? Does she stumble across it in Tommy’s house when she first arrives in Jackson? I imagine it being a pretty weird moment for her, finally being able put a face to someone who had such a huge influence in Joel’s life.

Hi Anon, happy holidays! Thank you for sending me an ask. :)

I can say yes – there are a few photos of Sarah in Jackson! Tommy, shortly before leaving the Fireflies, was in Austin with Lachie years prior and he went back there, like in the game.

The photos are in bad condition. They were exposed in the house and then they had to make it all the way north with Tommy again, and through various adventures he had, so they’re bent and faded and damaged, but they’re there.

As they’re in such poor shape, they’re not displayed to protect them from further light damage. Joel keeps his in the hidden compartment in his bedroom and Tommy has them in a box on the mantle.

Joel takes the time to show Tess deliberately. He knows she couldn’t look at pictures from her own past (she never knew about Rachel’s photos that he kept in Boston, for instance) but he thinks his might be different, and he’s right. She comes out of the shower one night when he’s looking at them and asks what he’s doing and he’s like, “looking at Sarah,” and she knew they were there, but it’s the first time they’ve been out with her around.

Joel would ask if she wants to see them and she does, so she would go over to the bed and he’d hold the photos for her and show her each one. And Tess kind of wouldn’t say anything and at first, Joel would be confused about why she has absolutely nothing to say, and then he’d realise that she’s crying silently.

She wouldn’t be able to stop. Tess would cry basically all night, fully grieving his loss in a whole new way. Some time in the next day she’d say something like, “she’s so much more grown-up. I don’t know why, I knew how old she was, but she was just so much younger in my head.”

#driftersverse #asks #joel x tess #tess servopoulos #joel miller #sarah miller #tommy miller

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hypnotisedfireflies · 5 months

Text

Coda

TLOU Advent Calendar Story #2 for @bumblepony

Joel met her gaze briefly. She preferred when he didn’t look right now, and he seemed to like it better that way, too. There was something dark and unfathomable in his eyes, a distance. It was different than the way he'd looked when she was just cargo. It made her feel safe, although there was nothing soft within those depths. Ellie refocused her gaze on the tightening muscle in his jaw.

“When he was trying to make friends with you?”

Ellie nodded slightly and tilted her head as Joel scrubbed it. It felt like it was happening to someone else. “I didn’t know what else to do, so I took it. And they followed me.”

“Don’t worry about that.”

“Well, I’m gonna.”

More on AO3

#driftersverse #tlou #tlou fanfic #the last of us #joel miller #ellie williams #fanfic #ellie & joel

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hypnotisedfireflies · 5 months

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How do Tess and Joel react to their first ‘Day off’ together in Jackson? So after weeks/ months of them just getting on with duties, Maria is finally like ‘Take the day off, spend some time together.’ And they’re like ????

(I’m picturing them both lying in their bed that morning, wide awake like ‘Why are we doing this again?’ … ‘I don’t fuckin’ know, you’re supposed to lie in on days off.’ )

Basically, I need to hear about them getting used to relaxing and the beginnings of the slightly more domesticated Tess and Joel we’re seeing in You Only Live Twice

I started this awhile ago and got distracted - but I finished it tonight while my dinner was cooking. Hope you enjoy this, anon! Thank you for sending a fun prompt.

Cheers

November, 2024, 8am

"No, you can see it."

"I can't see it."

Joel took Tess by the upper arm and eased her sideways, so that her head was more or less level with his. He pointed again and she made an effort to follow his line of vision, squinting at the corner opposite their bed. Her palm shifted on the mattress, catching in the sheets.

"It's just like Boston," Joel explained. "The wall's just a slightly different colour. Don't look right at it. Look up and you'll see the discolouration out the corner of your eye."

Tess held her breath.

"Oh. Oh, right. I see it, yeah."

TVs were one of those things that were magicked out of homes. Their Boston apartment had lots of square blank spaces. FEDRA stripped everything that might have viable parts for repurposing, but they also had the heart to take the photos off the walls, too. Their Jackson house had the boxy TV downstairs, but for some reason, the bedroom set was gone. It explained the blank space.

Tess settled back. "If you could watch anything on TV right now, what'd it be?"

"Oh," Joel hissed, folding his hands atop his head. "Good question."

Neither Tess nor Joel considered how much they'd been in need of a rest. It was always one foot forward, head down, go on and don’t look back. There had been pockets of relaxation over time, but those had gotten further away from them in the later Boston years, when keeping busy kept them together. In Jackson, they had a collective kind of rent to pay that justified the action.

Or maybe Joel was better at stopping now; but not Tess.

Maria had taken them off their work rosters. It had come to her attention (meaning, someone told) that they were actually doing almost double the work of most other citizens. Given that they had only settled in Jackson that year, hot of the back of surviving Out There, they had been told there was no need to fill up their days quite so strenuously. It had been phrased like they were being done a favour, but Tess didn’t take it that way. She needed to be busy. She needed to keep her mind humming along.

“I didn’t watch much TV,” Joel admitted. Then he quickly raised his hand. “And I’m not – sayin’ that like one of those assholes who thinks they were too good for it. But I don’t know. I worked long hours, all over the place, and Sarah had her soccer and this thing and that and such like. I guess I watched stuff that was just on, the kind of thing that didn’t matter if you’d missed all the other episodes.” Beat. “I liked <i>Cheers.”</i>

He talked about Sarah much more freely these days.

“Of course you did.”

“Did you watch much TV?”

Tess shrugged one shoulder, staring up at the ceiling. “Sometimes? Mike had his shows he liked. I just watched those. I kind of preferred to read at home and watch a movie on the big screen. Did you have a TV in your room?”

“No. Sarah had a little one, gift from – someone. When she was in trouble – which wasn’t a lot – I’d take the remote. My dumb ass didn’t realise she could open it at the bottom and use it that way.”

Tess pulled the sheets over her mouth and sniggered into them. “How did you not know that? You’re not stupid about that kind of shit.”

“It just … I don’t know. Thing is, I did know, because one time we lost the downstairs remote and we used the TV that way till it turned up.”

They both laughed about that for a little bit and then lay there, wondering if they should get up, what they were supposed to do with a day with nowhere to be. Even in Boston, they always had somewhere to go, whether it was legitimate business or not. It might be just fixing something in the apartment to keep it habitable. There was always something to do. If they’d really wanted to, maybe they could have made some plan for the day, but it just kind of got away from them. And now they were awake and at a loose end.

Tess turned her head on the pillow. “What did you used to do on days off?”

Joel took a deep breath and folded his hands behind his head. “Huh. Housework.”

“Yeah, good fun.”

“Work on my bike. It always had somethin’ fuckin’ wrong with it. I’d get her all nice and ready to go and then by the time I had time to take her out, she was fucked again.”

Tess put her hand by her mouth. “Do you remember when you and Tommy thought it would be a great idea to -”

“That wasn’t a bad idea.”

“The roads! We could’ve been catapulted to Kingdom Come.”

“Not with the way we rode,” Joel assured her, so earnest and cocksure of their abilities as riders that Tess had not the heart to argue it further. She just nodded and smirked.

“Not with the way we rode,” he repeated, almost to himself. “So what did you do on your days off?”

“I was gonna say that seems like so long ago,” Tess began. “But it actually is so long ago. I liked to go for a drive. Get away, get out of the house. Didn’t have to be far. Just pick a direction I hadn’t been before and find out what was there.”

“Well, Tess, you’ve certainly fuckin’ done that over the past two decades.”

“Yeah, be careful what you wish for,” she snorted.

“So even on our days off we were doin’ somethin’,” Joel noted. “You ever just stay home?”

“Sure, if I was alone.”

Joel looked at her. That was a little more honest than she had intended, even for herself.

“I liked my own company,” she added, quieter. “It could be nice to just … order enough takeout for two meals, eat it in bed. Read. But I kind of only liked doing that by myself.”

Joel pointed at himself and then at the door.

“No,” she said. She eased closer and rested her head on his chest. “I’ve got the feeling you might’ve been an exception.”

His fingers combed through her hair, easing out the knots. At length he mused, “Well, I don’t know about the old-fashioned kind of takeout, but I could see what we got downstairs. Gotta be enough for two meals down there. What do you say? Sounds like somethin’ me and you could do today.”

“It’s a start,” she agreed, smiling. “Then we can stare at that blank space and try and remember – did Sam and Diane ever end up together, after all?”

“Wasn’t that set in Boston?”

“Get out, was it?”

“Yeah. Donovan told me about it. He was a big fan.”

“Get the fuck out,” Tess laughed. “In Boston?”

“Yeah, not in the QZ,” Joel added. “But somewhere.”

“… huh. I would’ve liked to have seen that.”

“And no. They didn’t end up together.” His fingers turned gentle circles against her scalp. “Just didn’t have enough time to sort their shit out, I guess.”

#driftersverse #asks #tlou #tlou fanfic #the last of us #joel x tess #joel miller #tlou fanfiction #tess servopoulos

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hypnotisedfireflies · 5 months

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Your honor, I am requesting TessJoel & Tess’s assistant supporting Sarah at a really terrible musical she’s in. This is a challenge because you hate fluff. But we, your loyal audience, adore your fluff.

You have made me relive some high school trauma, my friend. I listened to the soundtrack and it took me back places I never, ever wanted to go again. I cannot vouch for anything I've written. In fact, there's a chance that below the cut is just:

"all Joseph and no play makes Arien a dull girl"

over and over. I just don't know.

Go, Go, Go Joseph!

Between Chapters 41 and 42 of Snowqueen of Texas.

Ji-Min was on Tess’s left and Joel on her right and the moods between the two could not have been more different. Ms Positivity and Light was poring over the program and chattering enthusiastically about her school musical experiences. Joel was quiet, uncomfortable. He smelt the horrors yet to come and was helpless to parent his daughter out of the danger.

“I actually have kind of an amazing voice,” Ji-Min continued. “I did this when I was in school, can you believe that? I played the Narrator. I still know all the words. And then the next year I got to be Sarah Sister Brown in Guys and Dolls. Ha. Can you imagine? And the year after that –”

Tess leaned sideways into Joel and pulled his hand into her lap. “Are you gonna make it?”

“It never gets easier,” he admitted, staring at the seat in front of him. “If anything, it just gets worse. Every year, they get worse.”

“How did Tommy get out of this?”

“Work dinner with Maria,” he answered. “Thing is, Tommy actually likes these fuckin’ things.”

Ji-Min squealed and thrust the program in their faces. “Look, there she is! She looks so pretty, Joel!”

And there was Sarah’s smiling photo. Sarah Miller is NAPHTALI.

“I would never have picked Sarah as willingly joining a musical,” Tess commented, passing the program back to Ji-Min.

“Her fuckin’ friends,” Joel muttered. “Poppy and Taissa, specifically. You know what really pisses me off, though? Taissa didn’t even get cast this year. There was a whole thing between them about it.”

“Oh – is that what that was about?”

Ji-Min leaned over, nodding enthusiastically. “Yeah, Taissa wanted her to quit and tell Miss Oswald to cast her instead. Keep an eye open for Joseph. Everyone’s chasing him.”

“Sarah?”

“No,” Ji-Min folded her program back and fanned herself. “She’s dated the Baker a couple of times.”

Joel looked at Tess’s profile. “You know about that?”

“No, of course not,” Tess lied, squeezing his hand.

The lights dimmed and gentle music filtered down. A single spot washed out a girl in a tuxedo, her hair slicked back.

“Some folks dream of the wonders they'll do Before their time on this planet is through…”

Ji-Min was passionately mouthing along. The girl’s voice wasn’t bad, but this was going to be hard to listen to for the next …. However long they were trapped here. The prologue finished and a soft calypso beat filled the auditorium.

Sarah had told Tess about Scott, who played Joesph. Scott was the lead singer of the school’s resident metal band and while his voice was … fine … it wasn’t really geared toward a matinee musical. The softness of Any Dream Will Do took on a new edge. By the time he neared the end of the number the innocence was lost and his voice had taken on a raspy, electric edge.

“Why is he wearing leather pants?” Joel muttered. “Those are leather pants, right?”

“He’s gonna regret that under that spot,” Ji-Min murmured, almost looking frightened for him. “I saw someone get stuck in a pair of leather pants once. They had to cut him out. With nail scissors.”

The band nearly knocked them out of their seats with noisy, overly loud fanfare.

“Oh sweet Jesus,” Tess whispered.

The Narrator was almost shouting to be heard over the top.

“JACOB!! JACOB AND SONS!!”

Ji-Min interrupted her own sing-a-long to point. “There she is!”

Sarah had appeared on the side of the stage with the rest of Jacob’s sons.

"...AND RED AND YELLOW AND GREEN AND BROWN AND SCARLET AND BLACK AND OCHRE AND PEACH AND RUBY AND OLIVE AND VIOLET AND FAWN AND LILAC AND GOLD AND CHOCOLATE AND MAUVE AND CREAM AND CRIMSON AND SILVER AND ROSE AND AZURE AND LEMON AND RUSSET AND GREY AND PURPLE AND WHITE AND PINK AND ORANGE AND BLUE!”

Every colour was like a fresh blow across the head.

“Wait, Joseph’s supposed to be the good guy?” Joel muttered in the next song.

It was all kind of downhill from there. It rapidly became clear that the band had only moderate success with learning how to play all the songs together. The first few numbers were pretty tight and then it began to unravel at a frightening rate. It was painfully under rehearsed and too loud. The drowned out the softer singers and the bolder overcompensated. The choreography was standard, framed around the few solid dancers they had, who took up most of the space and sometimes just gave over to wild dancing that was all about showing off skill, regardless of whether it suited the scene or not.

By Go, Go, Go Joseph, Joel brought Tess’s fingers to his lips and closed his eyes. He tilted their heads together.

“I am so fuckin’ sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

“Please don’t leave me.”

Tess’s witty response was swallowed up by her giggles. What else was she supposed to do? They still had all of Act II to contend with.

Ji-Min leaned over. “When I need to really pick myself up, I sing this to myself. I mean, not all of it. Just the plucky bit. Doesn’t it just make you feel like you can do anything? It packs the same punch as Flashdance.”

Joel covertly gestured to her PA. “You willingly made friends with this woman?”

“GO, GO, GO JOSEPH YOU KNOW WHAT THEY SAY HANG ON NOW JOSEPH YOU'LL MAKE IT SOME DAY SHA LA LA JOSEPH YOU'RE STILL IN YOUR PRIME YOU AND YOUR DREAMCOAT AHEAD OF YOUR TIME!”

“What if I asked you to learn this for me?” Tess whispered in his ear.

“I’d leave you.”

Intermission began. Ji-Min got chatting to one of the teachers involved and Tess pulled Joel aside. She glanced down the empty corridor lined with lockers and pulled him along with her.

“Tess, no,” he weakly protested. “We’d get Sarah expelled.”

“Shut up,” she laughed. “You’ve got a dirty mind.”

“No way I can get it up anyway. No way I can ever get it up again.”

Tess stopped around the corner, a darker corridor. She reached into her handbag and fished out a little flask.

“I came prepared. I thought weed might be better, honestly, but they’re trained to sniff that shit out in places like this.”

“What is it?” Joel took the flash and uncapped it. “Whisky?”

“Mm hm.”

“Fuckin’ godsend,” he muttered. Joel kissed the top of her head and they shared a few clandestine nips before heading back to the auditorium to suffer through Act II – though perhaps now they had the fortitude to survive it.

Act II seemed longer, but everything wrong with the horrendous musical was suddenly a little easier to bear. They giggled through the Pharoah’s song and Ji-Min was most encouraged by their change of heart until she caught a whiff of the whisky.

She tutted at them. Then: “Any left?”

Tess passed her the flask and she slouched down in her seat to finish it off over the course of the song.

“Why is he Elvis?!” Joel finally asked, scandalised.

Tess pressed her hands to her face. She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “Why are they so loud!?”

“COULD IT BE, COULD IT BE COULD IT BE, COULD IT BE COULD IT BE, COULD IT BE COULD IT POSSIBLY BE BENJAMIN? YES! YES! YES!”

Ji-Min leaned forward and gaped. “It’s getting worse! Is it getting worse?”

“I thought you were enjoyin’ it!” Joel hissed across Tess’s lap.

“My musical was the living end, Joel. The living end. There is no therapy that will fix your daughter after this. Or you. You’ll be singing these songs for weeks.”

“You’re singin’ along!”

“I’m reliving my trauma!”

Tess squinted at the colourful stage. Nobody seemed to know what they were doing anymore. The Narrator was doing her level best to hold it together but most of the kids were looking at each other to guess what they were supposed to do next.

And then it seemed to be mercifully over – but no, it was just a repeat of that song again, the namesake song. At least they all kind of knew what they were doing with that one, though. Then there was an indeterminable flurry of bows and thanks to this person and that. But by then, Tess was just looking at Sarah. She was giggling with two of the other brother roles and looked so alive, so thrilled with herself. She was a smart girl. She knew it was garbage, and she was still having the time of her life up there.

They met Sarah outside. Ji-Min rushed to grab her and handed over the big bunch of flowers she’d left in the back of the car. Sarah’s flushed, pleased face peered out from above the tulips. “Thank you!”

“You were great!”

“How bad was it?” Sarah asked, looking from one face to the next.

“It was pretty bad,” Tess admitted.

Joel and Ji-Min looked at her in horror.

“Oh come on, she knows.”

“It was so bad,” Sarah agreed and began to laugh, pushing her face into the flowers. “Oh my God. I am so glad that is over. I am done. I am done forever.”

“We need to get out of here,” Ji-Min said, and turned to the car.

Tess leaned over and kissed Sarah’s cheek. “You were amazing, though.”

“Fully technicolour?”

“Let’s not push it.”

Tess got behind the wheel. Ji-Min was texting and complaining about her sister, but Tess’s gaze was on the rearview mirror. She watched Joel and Sarah talking. She beamed at him and he pulled her in for a tight hug under one arm, kissing the side of her head repeatedly. The car bounced back and forth as they climbed in.

“Can we get milkshakes?” Sarah asked.

“You haven’t asked enough of me for one night?” Joel asked. He grinned at her and then swung to Ji-Min. “You want to come, too?”

Ji-Min nodded distractedly. “Yeah. I just – gotta call my sister. She’s freaking out again.”

It took ages to get out of the carpark. Tess put the foot down once they were clear and headed to Sarah’s favourite milkshake spot. Her fingers tapped on the steering wheel until Joel reached across to stop her at the lights.

“Don’t. Don’t do that.”

“IT WAS RED AND YELLOW AND GREEN AND BROWN AND SCARLET AND BLACK AND OCHRE AND PEACH AND RUBY AND OLIVE AND VIOLET AND FAWN…”

#driftersverse #asks #tlou #tlou fanfic

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