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pearlessance · 3 days

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Lust Among Thieves [part two]

[part one]

Summary: Fifteen years after escaping your captors, leaving them and the cabin in the woods behind, you end up in a community named Jackson and find yourself repeating the same old habits. Warnings: explicit sexual content MDNI, angst galore, mild infidelity (Tommy is with Maria but he and reader share one [1] kiss), canon typical violence, mention of kidnapping, mention of blood, angssssttt but with a happy ending. NOTE: this is a cowrite i've done with my BFF joelmillersgirlfriend!! make sure to go and read her other stuff on A03! thank you guys so much for all the positive feedback on this one, I'm glad you guys are liking it! let us know what you think about the ending <3 [MASTERLIST]

The sun is so warm that it’s beginning to melt the snow, turning it from soft and fluffy to a wet sort of slush. A comforting relief, because the winter holds memories you’re better off leaving behind. Memories of scowls and whittling knives, of the taste of whiskey and lighthearted laughter.

After fifteen years, you thought you’d grow out of the feeling, that you’d grieve the loss and go on instead to appreciate the recovery of your autonomy. But every winter, without fail, you remember your time in that cabin. You remember them.

You’d never grown out of the feeling and you’d never grown into the now tattered canvas coat. If you closed your eyes and imagined the burn of the winter snow grazing your skin, you could remember how Joel smelled. You could remember how Tommy’s lips tasted.

But years had passed. The memory was now a faint one and one that you tried not to dwell on for too long. You have met a lot of people over the years and had dangerous encounters daily. Why was this one different?

Joel and Tommy had turned you into a new person within the four walls of that cabin. You weren’t the same afterward, now you were sculpted into a being with a sharp tongue and a toughed exterior yet… the core of you was soft. If you dug deep enough, the creature that Joel and Tommy had created was still inside of you, tender and vulnerable.

For a while, you considered what you would do if you ever encountered them again. You were so far away from the outskirts of the Boston QZ, the death of your father and the weight of the situation turning into a calloused scar instead of a leaking wound over time. Over the past fifteen years, you had made your way across the country, searching for something. Whatever that something was, you weren’t sure of yet.

If you saw the brothers, would you be angry? Would they? They were heavy on your mind that morning as you made your way through the abandoned, ice-covered streets of Jackson Hole Wyoming.

You had left a compound back in Nebraska weeks ago. The people there weren’t bad, but it felt like another washed-down version of living under FEDRA. Constant patrolling, ridiculous rules. It was no surprise that you felt trapped because you had always felt trapped. It was only a matter of time before you ran away. It was the only thing that you were good at.

You jumped from house to house in Wyoming, occasionally spending a couple of days if you were tired of the constant headache of moving every day. Most of your days consisted of you laying on an old, lifeless mattress, staring up at the ceiling and asking yourself ‘What if I never left?’ Would you have more of a purpose now? Would you not be alone?

You practiced your regular routine of bouncing through dilapidated houses, grabbing what supplies were still left, which was practically nothing. For an area where you had encountered absolutely no one, the houses were surprisingly scarce.

It was getting late in the evening, and you had picked a house to settle down in for the night. The house had a rough exterior, similar to yours, but the inside was surprisingly still in good condition. You crept through the house, picking through each drawer and cabinet to once again, find nothing.

Truly, the master bedroom should have been an indicator to leave, but you were always a sucker for taking things that did not belong to you.

Just when you were about to call searching the house quits and crack open a book from your bag, you noticed a shifted floorboard in the bedroom. You hummed to yourself in curiosity, reaching down to investigate the suspicious piece of wood. It came out of the floor easily, revealing the contents buried inside.

Ammo, water, packaged food, medicine.

But most importantly, a bottle of Jack. Jesus, how long had it been since you had seen one of these? You laughed to yourself when you pulled it out of its hiding spot, half empty but still the perfect amount for a lone wanderer.

You grabbed your pack, slipping all of the things you had found into it before you heard the voices.

Fuck.

Moving swiftly, you grabbed everything you could before glancing around the bedroom. Footsteps and conversations were coming up the stairs, and you couldn’t believe how stupid you were for not checking the perimeter of the neighborhood before poking through the houses.

“Jesse, go get the stuff from the master. Maria is gonna be pissed that we weren’t able to find more. Might as well bring back what we can,” you vaguely heard a gruff voice say.

Into the closet you went, quietly tiptoeing across the room. Your hands were shaking as you grasped the straps of your bag, praying that luck would be on your side, just this once.

The second you faded into the darkness of the shadows in the closet, a man stepped into the bedroom. You could see him through the panels of the closet door, especially if you squinted in just the right way.

He appeared young, with long dark hair that fell into his eyes when he glanced around the room. You held your breath when his sharp, determined eyes shifted to look over at the closet momentarily. It didn’t last long, which you were grateful for. You could feel your pulse ticking in your neck as he moved away to check the floorboards, knowing that he wasn’t going to be pleased with what he found.

He was turned away from you so you couldn’t physically gauge his reaction, but his voice told you all you needed to know.

“Uh, we have a problem here. Stuff’s gone!” he shouted, standing back up quickly to unholster his gun. He glanced around the room once more, waiting for his partner to shout something back.

The voice was distant when it spoke, most likely still downstairs, waiting. “What do you mean, gone?”

The man who was only a few meters from you sighed, shaking his head. “I mean, it’s gone, someone must’ve taken it!”

You could hear heavy footsteps, every movement clearly laced with annoyance as he climbed the stairs. And then they stop a short distance away, and you hear the familiar click of his gun.

In the holster strapped around your thigh sits your pistol. You have only two bullets—enough to kill a clicker in a pinch, but not enough to fend off two grown men who are also armed. You tighten your fingers around the handle of the old knife, leather now cracked with age, formed perfectly to the hills and valleys of your fingers.

Heart hammering, you know and accept the fact that you’re going to have to take your chances and run. You could already see the shadow of the man entering the room, grumbling at having to come up the stairs. His back was to the closet, approaching his partner.

“It was here two days ago,” he began before quickly stopping. His hand reached out, gesturing towards the ground. Your eyes squinted, following the gesture down until you saw what he found. Wet footprints.

You lunged out of the closet before anyone could even move, and latched onto the man's back like a starfish. You looked at the first man, Jesse, before pressing your knife against the second man's throat.

“Just let me leave. Let me leave and I won’t kill him,” you said coldly, the tip of the blade pushing into your prisoner.

Jesse’s eyes widened, his hands spread in an attempt to calm you. “Hey, wait a second. We’re not looking for a fight. It doesn’t have to be like this,” he spoke, loosely holding his gun in his hand. You glanced at it with hesitation, which was enough time for your prisoner to grab your wrist and whip you around.

He was much larger than you, probably almost three times your size. There was no way in hell you would’ve been able to keep him restrained for long.

You whimpered in pain at the feeling of your wrist being twisted, the knife dropping out of your hand and clattering to the ground below.

“Stupid girl,” the man said, turning slowly to face you. There’s something about the way the words sound in his mouth that twists up your insides, a timbre that makes your hands tremble and shake. “Shouldn’t make threats when you’re outnum—” He stops.

And your heart does, too. “Joel?”

He doesn’t say anything. Just narrows his eyes and clenches his teeth, jaw feathering. His hair has gone a little gray and there are defined wrinkles around his mouth and a scar across his nose that didn’t exist the last time you’d seen him, but you’re sure of it. As sure as you are of the ground beneath your feet, you’re sure that a ghost stands before you.

His eyes soften as the realization hits. You know you’ve aged, too—though perhaps not as drastically.

Jesse is the one who speaks. “Do you know each other or something?”

“Yes,” Joel says, in perfect time as you answer, “No.”

“O…kay.” Jesse shifts uncomfortably on his feet before he closes the space between himself and the place you and Joel stand in what seems to be an eternal face-off. He plucks your knife up from the ground and hands it to you, hilt first. “Here. We don’t want any trouble.”

The shine of the blade catches Joel’s eye, and he scoffs as he processes what he sees. He takes the knife from Jesse’s hand before you get a chance to do so. He raises it in front of his face, no doubt inspecting the two letters etched into the metal.

“T.M? Tommy?” Jesse’s brows furrow as he turns his attention to you. “Is this Tommy’s knife?”

Neither of you answer him. Your tongue is stuck to the roof of your mouth and sweat beads your hairline. You can hear your heartbeat in your ears and every cell in your body urges you to run as far and as fast as you can.

“Joel,” Jesse says, voice a little more firm.

“Just let me go,” you plead, staring Joel in the eye, trying to hide your fear. Not of him, but of the feeling that rises in you upon seeing him. The yearning, the desire, the familiarity. You’d convinced yourself it’d be gone by now, eviscerated. But feeling the warmth of his skin, smelling the pine scent of him—it all comes flooding back with a vengeance. “Please. Just give me the knife and I’ll walk away and we can pretend—”

“She’s coming back with us,” he tells Jesse. “Feed her. Get her some new clothes. If she wants to stay, there’s that empty house over by the cemetery. Fixed it up last week.”

“Stay? Where?”

“A town,” Jesse answers. He smiles at you and it’s warm and inviting, something you haven’t seen in some time. “A community.”

Your stomach growls at the thought of a decent meal, but your fear has you shaking your head. “No, I can’t. I’m—”

“You what?” Joel’s voice cuts through you. “Don’t got anywhere else to go. God knows how long it’s been since you last ate.”

You want to protest, to argue with him, to prove him wrong. But you can’t, because he’s right, and that fact enrages you more than anything else.

Still, you agree. One night, you tell yourself. A good meal and a good night’s sleep and then you’d leave, never to be seen again.

Jesse helped you onto the back of his horse, leading the way back to the settlement while Joel followed. Every time you glanced back, unable to prevent yourself from looking at Joel, you saw his icy gaze watching your own. You swallowed nervously, pulling back into Jesse. You wondered what Joel was thinking. If he remember everything, if it meant anything to him.

Jackson was huge. There was food and people and walls. It wasn’t like the QZ. People lived like a family, working together for the better of humanity. It brought tears to your eyes to see.

You felt overwhelmed as you trailed through the streets of Jackson, still mounted upon Jesse’s horse. Random strangers on the street greeted Joel as he led the way like he was some sort of beloved member of the community. All you could do was force a smile and nod during the random greetings, wondering if they knew who Joel really was.

“That jacket looks real familiar,” Joel spoke, gesturing at the worn coat swallowing your shoulders. It was large and had outlived its life, but you couldn’t let it go. It had been with you during some of the coldest winters, keeping you warm.

“Looks a lot like the one my daddy gave me before he passed. I went crazy, thinkin’ I misplaced it. All this time, it was just you stealin’ shit that don’t belong to you,” Joel scoffed, but without malice. You stuttered, closing it around your body to cover your chest, a habit stemming from pure nerves.

It had been your jacket for years, your only source of comfort during cruel winters. It belonged to you just as much as it belonged to him. You were the one who had taken care of it all of the time.

Joel chuckled at your reaction, grinning down at you. “Don’t worry, I’m not gonna ask for it back. I’m happy that you’ve gotten some use outta it.”

It was bewildering, how one sentence he spoke could come across filled with resentment, with ire, and the next be filled with something that felt sort of like relief.

But even back then, even fifteen years ago, you’d never been able to quite understand him. And though his anger was a kindred spirit to yours, Joel was so confusing.

Once in the stables, Jesse helps you dismount. Before you even swing your leg over the horse, Joel’s handing his reins off to the stable hand and rounding the corner, disappearing from sight.

Jesse sees your attention follow him, no doubt reading the expression of confusion on your face. “Don’t worry about him,” he says. “Joel can be a bit of an ass sometimes.”

You think that might be the understatement of the decade, but you keep that to yourself.

“C’mon. Let’s go meet Maria to see where we should place you for housing and then I’ll let you get settled in.”

As Jesse leads you through the streets of Jackson, you can’t help but feel a bit of shock at the way things operate here. There are so many people you can’t keep their faces straight. Children of all ages, people your age, and elders. A rare occurrence these days.

There’s electricity powering lights strewn between the buildings. A carpenter and a grocer and a bar. It feels like something out of a dream.

Jesse leads you into what looks like a cafeteria. There are a handful of tables with hundreds of mismatched chairs around them, and a low chatter that greets you the moment you step through the doors.

You notice him in a second.

Tommy’s laughing. His hair has grown out long enough that he can tuck the dark blonde strands behind his ear now, curling just slightly at the ends.

He’s got a couple more freckles and wrinkles around his soft eyes. And seeing Joel was jarring, but it’s Tommy and his boisterous laughter and that wide grin on his face that makes your chest crack wide open.

You love him, and you’ve always known it. You love them both, but it’s the loss of Tommy’s warmth you’ve felt the deepest since escaping from that cabin. It’s taken you a long time to accept it, but you have—and seeing him brought back a burning feeling that you thought was long gone.

Tommy notices Jesse, waving at him wildly, looking past you as if you were transparent. He didn’t recognize you yet, which wasn’t surprising. You were standing a handful of meters away, and from what it appeared, you seemed to be a ghost from a past life. One that he never anticipated seeing again, with how settled down he appeared to be now.

“Jesse! You have to hear this shit, man! Get over here,” Tommy gestured, a shit-eating smile still filling his face. You noticed the way Jesse looked at you first, evaluating your reaction, which was little to none. You’d grown good at hiding your emotions over the years, a calloused exterior being your own personal form of protection. A shell.

Your brain felt like it was pounding against the walls of your skull when you followed Jesse over to Tommy’s table. You kept your eyes glued down at your feet and prayed, that maybe, he wouldn’t notice you. But, of course…

“Hey, Tommy. I think I found an old friend of yours,” Jesse starts off with, the bastard. Tommy’s soft eyes move over to you, staring blankly for a couple of beats. The noise from the cafeteria droned out as you looked into his eyes, locked on those deep irises that you had dreamt about for years.

The sound of Tommy’s metal chair scraping against the floor pulled you out of your haze. His arms wrapped around you, engulfing your frame - swallowing you in his own body. He was so warm and firm. You hadn’t touched another person for so long, not like this.

But you still were so uncertain. Your hands wavered, shaking nervously as you considered hugging him back. Things were so complicated, incredibly taboo, and filthy. You shouldn’t want to hug him back. You opt on loosely hugging his waist, too nervous to match the pressure of his embrace.

He pulls back, his large palms coming up to cradle the sides of your face. It reminded you of that night all those years ago when you first kissed him. You could still taste the bottle of Jack on his lips, warm and heavy against your tongue.

Tommy was contemplating kissing you, you had seen the look before. It was all too familiar.

His eyes were heavy, but the look left almost as quickly as it had appeared. He awkwardly shifted back, pulling out of your incredibly loose embrace. Jesus, Tommy was just as conflicted with you. His remorse for what had happened was clear on his face, those heavy puppy dog eyes searching your face desperately, praying that you would forgive him. Forgive Joel.

It was all too much - your head was spinning and your tongue was stuck to the roof of your mouth. Tommy glanced over at the table he had jumped up from, directly at a woman who was sitting next to his seat. Her freckled face was etched with a frown, one that was full of confusion about the situation.

“Christ, you’re alive?” Tommy whispered, wavering away from you. His disbelief wasn’t one that you had expected, nor had Jesse. The young man was still standing beside you, watching the events unfold with wide eyes.

“I’m not really hungry, Jesse,” you turned and said, needing to get out of there immediately. Something was unraveling deep inside, what that something was, you didn’t know. Your palms felt slick with sweat, your legs unintentionally pulling you back, protecting you from the conversation.

“Please,” Tommy begged, “Let’s talk. Settle in, get used to everything, but don’t leave town without comin’ to talk. And for the love of God, eat .”

You nodded, backing away from Tommy like a scared puppy. The sound of your heart beating filled your brain as you turned and walked away, Jesse hot on your heels. You heard Tommy’s voice speak, “Maria, come on, we gotta go over some things.”

The air is cool against your heated skin, and you greedily swallow the icy air. You press your palm against your sternum, trying to will your heart to slow and your blood to settle in your veins.

“Hey,” Jesse says, placing a gentle hand on your shoulder that makes you jump out of your skin.

When you turn to face him, you don’t even remember unsheathing your knife from the holster strapped to your belt. He has his hands held up in surrender, that friendly smile on his face, and guilt begins to trickle down your spine.

“Alright, alright,” he says. “I’m sorry, didn’t mean to scare you.”

You lower the knife quickly, returning it to its rightful place at your hips. “No, it’s fine. I’m sorry, too. Uhm…instinct, I guess.”

“I get it,” he says, and for some reason, you believe him. There’s such understanding in his voice that it’s hard not to. “Jackson is a lot to adjust to. Doesn’t happen overnight.”

You nod slowly in response.

“There’s an empty house over by the cemetery. I can show you, and you can rest or look around or…you know, do whatever you need to. There’s hot water, you can shower, and some staples in the pantry if you feel like cooking. I can run to the community hall and get you some new clothes and drop them off if you want some space.”

The words sound foreign in your ears as if he’s speaking a different language. Cooking, showering, hot water …the thought crosses your mind that you’ve somehow died and this is all some kind of strange hallucination.

But a moment along sounds like bliss, and a shower sounds like heaven, so you find yourself nodding and following him through the streets of Jackson. Jesse tries to make small talk, but you’re not in much of a talking mood and he seems to pick up on it and doesn’t press for much more information.

He tells you there are towels in the linen closet in the hall upstairs and promises to return in less than ten minutes with a basket of clean clothes. “I’ll set them just inside the door,” he said. ”Take what you want. If there’s anything that doesn’t fit, I’ll bring it back to the hall later.”

The house is nice, bigger than any of the places you’ve ever holed up in for a few days, and more secure, too. Upstairs there’s a massive bathroom and before you do anything else, you turn the handle to the hottest setting. The water spits and spudders and is freezing at first, but the second it begins to warm you’re stripping off your clothes and stepping beneath the stream.

And you’re not quite sure why, but the sensation of it brings moisture to your eyes, salty tears mixing with the warm spray from the showerhead. The water that pools at your feet is dark and grimy, ridding you of the dirt that clings to your skin.

You scrub your skin raw and still don’t feel clean enough. But when the water runs cold, you leave wet footprints on the wood flooring of the stairs and find that Jesse stayed true to his word.

Just inside the front door is a laundry basket full of clothes; denim and fleece, cotton t-shirts and undergarments, socks, and even a half-decent bra. You settle on jeans and a hoodie that’s just a little too big, but still hold tight to the old coat you’d stolen.

He also left a plate of food, which you assumed was from the cafeteria. Even though you didn’t think you could’ve eaten earlier, not after seeing Tommy, you were suddenly famished. The food was gone in under a minute. You couldn’t even remember the last time you had something fresh, rice, green beans, onions. It was life-altering.

There’s a big bed in the center of one of the bedrooms upstairs, and you tell yourself you’ll rest just for a few seconds. A few minutes. But the moment your head hits the pillow, you know it isn’t true and you don’t have the energy to convince yourself otherwise.

When you finally wake, the room is dark, and the rays from the rising moon are silhouetting the bedroom in a blue haze. You sigh, relaxing into the bed sheets. It was crazy to reflect on your current circumstances. Just a day ago, you were starving, sleeping on an old rotted mattress with a gun held tightly in your hand. Now, you could hear the laughter and shouts of children from the street outside your window.

You rubbed the sleep out of your eyes as you stood up, deciding to leave the house and explore. It would be beneficial to know where everything is, you think. If for nothing else than to know the best escape routes, to become familiar with the routine of the watchers on the walls.

You brush your teeth before heading out, the night air rushing against your face when you step onto the front porch. Even though it’s late in the evening, the streets are still filled with people; families walking back home together, couples holding hands. It almost feels unreal.

Walking past the cemetery, you notice some people crouched at the gravestones, crying. Even when you were somewhere safe, you could never escape the horrors of loss.

It felt like you were floating through the streets of Jackson, an outsider peering in. The closer you got to the center of town, the more people you stumbled upon. Icicle lights were strung across the powerlines and street before you, random strangers greeting you in passing.

You finally grew tired of the attention, the stares, the forced conversations. You ended up pulling up the hood of your jacket over your head, shielding yourself from gazing eyes.

A small church was planted near the center of town, and the doors cracked, allowing you to glance in. Though it wasn’t entirely full, many people filled the pews and watched the priest give his sermon. You could pick up a few words from where you were standing, but you didn’t really care to hear. You gave up on a religion a long time ago.

A couple of meters away was an open space that had a bonfire square in the middle, with a handful of picnic tables spread across the space. The hum of the people talking drew you in, despite not knowing anyone, or so you thought.

“Settlin’ in good?” you heard from behind you, the voice making you jump in surprise. You turned back to see Joel, his dark eyes watching you from a couple of feet away. Those dark eyes still made your palm sweat and your cheeks burn bright. He had always held something in him that made you docile.

You cleared your throat, subconsciously pulling at the strings of your hoodie. “It’s surreal here. Not like the QZ.”

Joel huffs, nodding in agreement. “Thank God it ain’t.“

There is an awkward pause where you stand shyly in front of Joel, uncertain of what to say next. Making small talk with him was never your forte, because typically he never even wanted to speak with you. Now, here he is, actively trying to pull a conversation out of you. He had changed.

“You’re not like how I remember,” you say, your lips moving quicker than your brain was able to think. Joel stiffened, rubbing the scruff of his beard.

“Yeah? And how do you remember me?”

It’s a test, one to see how you would describe your relationship with both him and Tommy. A mutual romantic bond? Or something much more sinister, much more taboo? You don’t fall for the trap because you aren’t even sure how you want to interpret everything. Not entirely.

“Quieter. Less gray hairs too,” you said, not expecting the warm sound of Joel’s laughter to hit your ears. He smiled down at you, the grin boyish and full of hidden memories. It made you ache for something you never even had.

“It’s been a long time. When you left…” Joel trailed off, his expression morphing into a dark cloud. You knew that leaving would hurt both of the brothers, and it felt shameful to admit that sometimes you regretted your escape. Yes, you were free, but what difference did it make? You had lost companionship. Love?

“We both hated to see you leave, but we understood.” Joel was no longer looking you in the eye but was instead staring down at his feet. “What happened there? It wasn’t right, the things we did with you. I can be the first to admit. It was the actions of two desperate, lonely men. But I’m not here to make excuses.”

His eyes moved back to look at your face, to gauge your reaction.

“I’m sorry. Tommy sure as hell is, he beat himself to death over all of it. You don’t have to forgive me or forgive either of us. But, please, just hear him out. He wants you to come over to dinner tomorrow so you can meet everyone. Then maybe we could all talk?”

You stepped back, crossing your arms and shaking your head. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” you tried to explain. The idea of being trapped in a house with people you didn’t know didn’t exactly sound appealing. Joel had apologized for both him and Tommy, truthfully, there wasn’t much of a point to even go now. What more was there to talk about?

“Joel!” shouted a voice from where the bonfire was taking place. Both you and Joel turned to watch a young girl run over to where you were standing. When she arrives you’re able to get a good look at her - pretty blue eyes and a smattering of freckles across her nose that reminds you of the constellations.

For a moment you considered that maybe he had a kid. She looked no older than sixteen - it could be possible. But she didn’t look like Joel, much too soft in the cheeks. Joel had strong features while this girl was the epitome of a cherub, her rounded lips turned up into a smile as she grinned at you.

“Joel. Is it alright if I spend the night at Cat’s? I don’t have garden duty until the afternoon so I’d have plenty of time to get back,” she explained. Well, if she wasn’t Joel’s daughter then she was certainly Joel’s something. The sick thought crossed your mind that maybe something was wrong here, but the moment Joel reached over to tousle her hair, you knew that you were wrong.

“Of course not, El. Be back by dinner tomorrow,” he said, shooting her away, back towards the crowd at the fire. She gave you a farewell wave, one that you returned, as she ran off to find her friend.

Your face was warm when you thought about how you had considered that Joel might’ve been in a relationship with her. Joel noticed your embarrassment, watched the way you huffed into your palm, and shook your head.

“What?” Joel questioned, the distant fire casting a fire over his face. It reminded you of the cabin, of the fireplace. Of his warmth.

“You kidnap her too?”

The small grin that he had on his face disappeared in an instant, replaced with rage and disappointment.

“Of course not,” Joel sputtered, scoffing at the accusation. “I would’ve never- I mean, she is just a child,” he hissed.

“And I wasn’t?” you whispered back just as angrily, pulling your hood off of your head. You wanted him to look at you, to see you.

“I told you, I’m sorry. I’ve had fifteen years to reflect and I can admit that I was,” Joel pauses before snarling, “a goddamn monster back then. But, Ellie, she’s like a daughter to me. She gave me a purpose. With her, things were different,” he sighed, shaking his head in frustration.

Tears were burning the back of your eyes, but you forced yourself to keep it together. You weren’t going to show Joel that he had hurt you. That you had missed him.

“And why wasn’t it different with me?” you questioned, a genuine curiosity behind the words.

Joel only stood, looking down at you with his lips pressed into a frown. This girl, Ellie, had broken Joel, but you hadn’t. What was so special about her that she was able to receive his empathy?

The answer to that question was easy. You knew that deep down, it was never about you. It was about Sarah.

You hated that you weren’t able to watch him grow and change, to help him change. He never gave you the chance.

“I’m going to go,” you said, turning to leave both Joel and the conversation behind. Before you could walk off the sidewalk, you felt a familiar hand wrapped around your arm. A heat rose in your chest and settled in between your thighs just by being touched by Joel.

His dark eyes softened as he took you in, his gaze tracing the lines of your face, your body, your palms. His large hands dwarfed yours when he pulled you towards him, wrapping you in a hug. It was different from Tommy’s, one that was full of surprise and longing.

Joel’s was tender and soft, his large palms moving in small, gentle circles as if he was afraid he’d break you.

“Is this okay?” Joel questioned, one that took you by surprise. He had changed, that’s for sure. You nodded, melting into his touch, practically cemented between the pressure of his arms. It had been so long since you had been touched, focused purely on survival. It felt good, to feel wanted.

“When you left we searched for you,” he spoke into your hair. “With the raiders and all, we thought that maybe more had come and taken you. Took us a little while to realize that wasn’t the case. We understood why you left, why you felt like you had to leave, but… fuck .”

He had pulled back now, unable to meet your eyes. “I didn’t realize how badly I wanted to be by your side until it was too late. I fucked up. We both did. But it was me who treated you badly, who excused it. So, I’m sorry.”

It was Joel’s third and final apology of the night. You had decided that you did forgive him, for all of it. There was no point in wallowing in anger forever. You had to let it go.

“I know,” you whispered, reaching to hold his palm in your hand. He wasn’t a bad man. He had never been, and it hits you only now that maybe you’ve always known from the very first moment that he’s not bad …he’s just like you.

Quick to anger, quicker to self-preservation. Neither of you has ever seen the best in others before the bad, your psyche molded always to expect the worst, tragedy burned in like a bad memory.

“I know,” you say again. “And I forgive you.”

His shoulders deflate as if setting down something so heavy he’d become accustomed to the weight of it after all these years. He gives you this smile, but it’s sort of sad and the sight of it quietly breaks your heart.

But Joel regains his composure quickly, casting his eyes away from you and clearing emotion from his throat. Your hand still sits in his, a firm, warm hold on you, full of surety, devoid of hesitation. You try not to think about how much it feels like home.

“So, would you think about dinner then?”

You don’t know these people. You know Joel and Tommy but everyone else remains a mystery, and though nothing about Jackson raises any immediate red flags, there’s still a nagging warning that rings in the back of your mind. Don’t get close. This is only temporary. You don’t belong here. Yet still, you find yourself nodding, pleased with the look of further satisfaction that finds its way onto Joel’s face. “Okay. Dinner.”

When he releases your hand, it feels like a loss all over again. You swallow it down, bury it deep, pretend it’s not there like you’ve always done. “I’ll see you tomorrow night, then,” he says. “I’m going to try and get some sleep. Been a long day.”

You nod and force the words out of your mouth even though all you want is to beg him to stay, to wrap his big hand back around yours and pull you into his side. “Goodnight, Joel.”

Even though it makes you feel a little pathetic, you watch him walk away. But he’s turning back to face you, slowly walking backward as he quickly says, “You’re free to take any leftovers, by the way. No, uh…no thievery needed.”

It makes you laugh, the joy of the tender moment seeping deep between your bones. “Good to know,” you say. “I’ll keep it in mind, but don’t be surprised if I pocket a silver spoon or two.”

You hardly sleep the entire night. All you can think about it the weight of his calloused palm, of the timbre of his voice as he told you they looked for you.

No one’s ever looked for you before.

Just before sunrise, you allow yourself a moment to regret running. It’s the first time in all your life that you think maybe flight was the wrong response.

Tommy knocks on your door early. He’s got on a pair of Levi’s and a black and red flannel, and there’s a long-barrel rifle slung over his shoulder with a scope attached to it. “Morning, sweetheart,” he says. The familiar sobriquet sends a warmth slithering down your spine. “Thought we could go out today. Just the two of us. That sound okay?”

Before you have the chance to think better of it, you're stepping outside and closing the door behind you. Tommy chuckles softly at your lack of hesitation and throws an affectionate arm around your shoulders. You can’t resist leaning into him, can’t think of another place you’ve ever felt safer.

But then you think of that day so long ago, with Joel wrapped around you, his strong arms encircling your waist, and you think tucked into Tommy’s side might be the second safest place in the world.

The streets of Jackson are relatively empty compared to yesterday. The sun is up, casting orange shadows over the puddles of melting snow, and the lack of prying eyes makes you curious. “Where is everyone?”

“It’s Sunday,” he says simply. “For one day of the week, no one’s got any jobs to do.”

Truthfully, the concept of a weekday or a weekend has been foreign to you for so long you’d nearly forgotten its existence. “Oh,” is all you can rebuttal. And then a few moments later, “Where are we going?”

“Hunting trip,” Tommy explains. “Just like old times. Joel says you still got my skinnin’ knife.”

The words hold some accusation, making you flush, but there’s a proud smile on his face and you know he’s not angry for your stealing. You can feel the weight of it at your hip, and pull it from the sheath attached to your leather belt. Slowly, you turn it in your hand, polished silver glinting.

“Figured you’d taken it when I couldn’t find it. Looked everywhere for that thing. Looked everywhere for you, too. But…I just hoped it kept you safe. Wherever you were, I kinda liked the thought of, ya know…just being able to protect you somehow. I’m glad you had it.”

His confession cracks your chest wide open and leaves you bleeding. You think of all the times his knife had done just that; protected you, fed you, saved you.

“S’alright,” he says. “Go on an’ keep it. S’yours now, sweetheart.”

You slide the blade back into its home on your hip and follow Tommy as he feeds and speaks softly to an all-black horse in the stables. He saddles it quickly and with precision before pulling you up onto the horse behind him.

Instinctually, you wrap your arms tight around his waist and rest your cheek against his spine, inhaling the familiar but long-forgotten scent of him. The watchers on the walls let the two of you pass with only a nod to Tommy, and you ride slowly through the wet grass until you come to a clearing in the woods.

There’s a tree blind, hidden at the edge of the brush. Tommy ties the horse’s reins to the post and he lets you climb up the ladder first.

Once you’re both safely inside, the horse grazing on the grass below, Tommy sits the end of his rifle on the edge of the window before settling into one of the rickety wooden chairs that have been hauled into the blind.

You take the one beside him. Even though you know a big part of hunting is the silence, a million questions press against the back of your teeth. After a few minutes pass by, you can take the pressure no longer and ask, “Who’s Maria?”

A smile climbs onto his face. Unsure of what to expect, it surprises you as he answers simply, saying, “My wife.”

“ Wife ?” It raises a plethora of new questions. How long have they known each other? Did Tommy ever tell Maria about their time in the cabin? Did the two of them build Jackson together? Why does his answer sting?

He seems to sense the confusion and reaches across the open space to squeeze your hand in his. “After you left. Jesus, I think both Joel and I had a moment of realization. I missed you like hell, the feelin’ of you, the warmth. To think that you had gone back out there, with raiders and God knows what else, because of me and Joel? Christ.”

Tommy sighs, pausing before staring out into the wooded distance. You could see how much he had on his mind, an unbearable weight that he had been holding for years. It was wearing him down, weakening his bones.

“I know Joel talked to you, but I really can’t explain to you how sorry I am,” Tommy began. You glanced down at his palm which was still holding your own, large and heavy against your skin.

“There’s no excusin’ it. You were so young, and innocent. Something that we hadn’t been around for so long. We had seen horrible things, had done awful things. We took advantage of you. I took advantage of you.” He turned to look at you, a deep sincerity held in his eyes. “Please, forgive me. I don't know how I’d be able to keep livin’ with myself if you don’t.”

There wasn’t anything to forgive. You had wanted everything that happened, at the end of the day. You had missed both him and Joel.

“I’ll forgive you if you forgive me for stealing from you,” you said in an attempt to break the ice. You knew it worked from the way Tommy’s face broke out into a toothy grin.

“You’re forgiven.”

Tommy explained to you what had happened after you ran away from the cabin. How he had gone back to the Boston QZ in search of you, eventually abandoning Joel there to join the Fireflies. From there he had ditched the Fireflies, deciding that their methods were too extreme, and then, he met Maria. She had saved him, washed him of all of his sins, and gave him a purpose again.

“She’s a good woman. An amazing woman, Jackson wouldn’t even exist without her,” he said, but it felt like he was convincing himself and not you. Tommy looked over at you, a dark lust behind his eyes that you hadn’t seen since the last night you shared in that faraway cabin.

“She is,” he breathed. “But… sometimes I think about how different things would’ve been if I made better choices back then. I’m happy here in Jackson, beyond happy, but-“

You closed the distance quickly, knocking your wooden chair into his own. His lips were warm and soft, just like you had remembered them. It was easy kissing Tommy, like second nature. He hummed into your mouth and didn’t push you away. There was no huge rush of passion behind it, but something much more important. Catharsis. A conclusion.

“For closure,” you whispered into his lips. Tommy nodded, kissing you once more before leaning back in his seat, his hand still holding yours.

“For closure.”

On the way back, Tommy fills you in on Joel’s relationship with Ellie. They met in the QZ, where he agreed to take her across the country to Salt Lake City. When you ask why, Tommy insists it isn’t important, that if it was he would tell you. “It’s Ellie’s secret to tell, anyway,” he says.

You let it go, far more interested in something else entirely. Your arms are wrapped around his waist on the back of the horse and you’re breathing a little easier now as you ask, “Does she make you happy? Maria?”

There’s a moment of hesitation. Or rather contemplation, perhaps. But then he nods slowly and says, “Yeah. Yeah, she does.”

You’re glad to hear it. Truthfully. Even with all that’s transpired, you’re thankful Tommy was able to find this slice of bliss in the hellish affairs of the world.

“Does she know? About what happened?” you asked shyly. Tommy sighed, nodding.

“She knew bits and pieces but not at all of it. After Joel and Jesse found you, I told her everything. It wasn’t fair for her not to know.”

You would’ve guessed that he told her. He seemed to really love her, to trust her. If Joel even trusted her, then that showed the strength in the relationship. It didn’t bother you that she knew. It was for the best.

“And…Joel? Do you think he’s happy?”

This time it’s definitely hesitation. Tommy’s throat bobs as he swallows hard. He lets out a long breath, misting in the cool air. “He hasn’t been the same since…”

“Since Sarah, right?”

Tommy shakes his head. “No. I mean, yes, but…”

There’s something he’s holding onto, and you’re not sure if it’s for your sake or for Joel’s. Either way, this is the secret you decide you need to uncover. “Tell me.”

“When you left…I mean, I know I already said it was hard but it was different for Joel. I had the Fireflies and then I had Maria and Jackson, all things that filled the emptiness but Joel…I don’t know. S’like he never came back from it. From losin’ you.”

You can see Jackson in the distance now. A silhouette of a town, of a home. Your stomach turns, thinking that all this time you’ve both been suffering from the same plight and the cure has simply been forgiveness.

But can you live with entirely forgiving Joel? Completely? He advocated for your death, held you hostage, and shot you in cold blood. You can acknowledge and accept the fact that he’s changed, that you all have, that you’ve grown and matured and established a firm line between what’s right and what’s wrong, something the three of you once lacked.

You’ve finally found closure enough to move on from this, but if you let go of your anger, let it dissolve into nothing, what would be left of what you feel for him but longing?

If you let it all go…there would be nothing left inside you for Joel Miller but love, and you’re fairly certain that that would be even more difficult to navigate than your anger.

Once back in Jackson with nothing to show for your hunting trip but ease in your shoulders, Tommy secures the horse back into the stables and offers to walk you home. You laugh and joke the whole way and it feels natural, just like old times but perhaps even better now that you’re here of your own volition.

Once in front of your house, Tommy takes your hand in his and kisses your palm. “I’ll always care for you,” he whispers, dancing around a word far more intense. Once again, you’re not sure if it’s for your benefit or for his, or if it’s for Joel’s.

You lift his hand to your face and lean into his caress, feeling the warmth on your cheek, the roughness of his skin brought on by age and hard labor. “Me too,” you admit. And then quieter, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have kissed you. I know it was…”

Tommy shakes his head. “No, sweetheart—don’t you ever apologize for that.” He used his free hand to thread his fingers through your hair, not dissimilar to the way you’d first touched him all those years ago. “You needed it. I needed it.”

He wraps his arms around you and you lean in close, soaking up his warmth, his safety.

You share so much in one embrace—longing, lust, regret, forgiveness. And when he pulls away, it all fades into the ether, leaving nothing behind but this deeply rooted fondness for him, a desire for him to be happy above all else.

“If you need anything, and I mean anything, come and find me. We live next to the daycare. Maria said to be there after nightfall tonight,” Tommy spoke, knocking his shoulder across your own playfully. “I hope you’re ready for a home-cooked meal. How long has it been?”

You stand, truly considering his question. Eating in the QZ wasn’t exactly pleasant. Typical meals consisted of stale bread and watered-down soup. You couldn’t even remember your last fresh meal.

“Too long,” you sighed. Tommy smirked, his warm smile making the skin of your cheeks burn.

“Soon enough. See you tonight.”

The day goes by quickly. You fill the empty space with exploration, walking through the greenhouses, around the buildings, and through the one currently being constructed in the northwest corner within the walls.

The people begin to emerge a little after midday, socializing with one another, smiles on their faces and ease in their shoulders. You see Jesse at one point while you’re walking the perimeter, checking for weak spots, and he waves at you and it feels so strangely normal that it startles you.

When the sun begins to set behind the heavy clouds, you find the house beside the daycare and stand a few feet away. You can see through the open windows that you’re likely the last to arrive—and for a second, you consider turning back and running as far away as you can.

Because beneath the yellow light, they all look so happy. Maria, Ellie, and someone else you can’t put a name to, all work together setting the table, six place settings with mismatched cutlery.

Joel and Tommy can be seen in the kitchen, sharing a few concerned looks between warm smiles, once in a while knocking the neck of their glass bottles together. They’re all at home here and have all curated a routine, a familiarity.

And you know without a shadow of a doubt that if you walk in there, you’re going to disturb it. You’re going to break the tranquility they’ve worked towards, you’re going to be the odd one out, the sore thumb in their causal, familiar cacophony. No matter what, you’re not going to belong.

The only hope you have is trudging through the unfamiliarity until it becomes familiar, hoping to integrate yourself into their already established lives.

But after all you’ve done since leaving that cabin, after all the blood on your hands, is that the sort of thing you’ve earned?

It’s not. You know it. You turn to leave.

The front door swings open, yellow lighting silhouetting his familiar frame.

He must see the terror in your eyes, must see the flight response kicking in because he’s off the porch in a second and taking your hand in his.

You’re shaking your head and your breath feels stuck in your throat, amassing into a stone of instinct that sits heavy on your chest.

“Tell me,” is all Joel says.

The words come spilling out, mechanical, one after another. “I don’t deserve it. I don’t deserve this. I don’t belong here. I’ve killed people. I’ve lied and stolen and—”

He takes your face in his strong grip and forces you to look at him, the sight of adoration in his eyes like a balm to your heart. “It doesn’t matter if we deserve it,” he says. “Do you want it?”

More than anything.

Tommy’s voice cuts through the intensity between you and Joel. “Dinner’s ready,” he says. “Come eat, sweetheart.”

You do. Maria’s made a whole platter; roast and vegetables and some sort of broth soup with rosemary. There’s red wine and whiskey and sweet tea. Joel sits beside you at the table. Ellie sits across from you, beside her girlfriend who you learn is named Dina.

They’re all incredibly nice, asking you questions about your life before Jackson, never pressing too much, sensing when a topic is brought up that you don’t particularly want to recall and quickly changing the conversation.

The chemistry flows far easier than you’d imagined it would. You find you even like Maria, and you especially like that fond look in her every time she glances over at Tommy.

The food is delicious and you’re bringing a forkful of roast to your mouth when Dina asks, “So, how did you meet Joel and Tommy?”

The table goes quiet then, and Dina and Ellie share a confused glance. You chew slowly, hoping someone else will answer the question or, better yet, ask something else entirely.

But then Ellie jokingly says, “What? Did guys kidnap her or something?”

You nearly choke, Tommy lets out a long breath, and Joel is stone still apart from the feathering of his jaw. Even Maria looks uncomfortable.

Ellie sees the unsaid words and quietly mutters, “Oh shit.” She turns to Joel then, eyes narrowed into slits. “You kidnapped her?”

“It wasn’t like that,” you supply. “Not exactly. I stole from them first. Back when food was a lot more scarce.”

“So you held her captive,” Ellie corrects, unrelenting.

“A story for another day, maybe?” Maria suggests. “How’s the soup, El?”

You can tell she’ll circle back to the conversation the moment she can, but for now, Ellie lets it rest. And you’re thankful for it, because you’re not sure how to explain a moment of your time spent in that cabin even to yourself, let alone someone else.

After dinner, you help Maria clean while the brothers drink beer out on the back porch and watch Ellie play guitar. From the kitchen you can see Dina stretched across the wooden floor, propped up against the rails of the porch. The sound of Ellie missing a couple of strings makes Maria hum in amusement.

“Joel’s been teaching her for a couple of weeks now. She picks up quickly,” Maria informs you, taking a now cleaned dish from your hand to dry it. It didn’t feel weird, being around her, despite the fact that you had kissed her husband just a couple of hours ago.

“Yeah. She seems like a good kid.”

Maria places the plate into the cabinet before turning to you. She leans against the counter, taking a moment to look you over.

“You weren’t how I imagined you when Tommy told me about everything.”

Her words didn’t feel rude or passive-aggressive. They were more so honest, and revealing.

“How did you imagine me?” you asked, continuing to wash the dirty dishes in the sink. Focusing on the soapy suds melting off the plate the more you scrubbed it distracted you from the conversation. You knew that Maria was trying to understand you, but it made you feel anxious either way.

Maria sighed, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “Not so quiet. Fiery, like Ellie. I suppose you are, deep down, especially if both the Miller brothers like you.”

You used to have more of a spark inside of you, but over time, it had slowly fizzled out. You had killed too many people, done too many awful things. After your father was murdered, you lost the majority of the fire that was meant to burn in your chest. You learned how to be a drifter and not get attached, because getting attached meant losing them someday.

The only exception were the brothers who you could hear laughing loudly from the back porch. Even after all this time, after leaving them, they had found a place to call home where they could love freely.

“They both care a lot about you. You had Joel pacing back and forth, wondering if you’d actually show up.”

A warm blush washed across your face and didn’t stop until it reached the bottom of your spine. Joel was waiting for you? How was it that he had shut you off, practically hated you all those years ago, but now, suddenly was worried about you? What had changed?

As if she could read your mind, Maria spoke. “Ellie helped him open up a lot. According to Tommy, she’s got that same spitfire energy as Sarah. Maybe back then, it wasn’t the right time. Joel was too far gone. But now, it could be different. You could take advantage of his weaknesses this go around if you think it would make you happy.”

You understood why Tommy loved Maria. She had created this town, a haven, and even cares about people she doesn’t know. She allowed her husband’s people to be her own.

“Maybe,” you agreed, focusing your attention back on washing the dishes. Maria didn’t pry and instead moved back into the pattern of taking clean dishes from your hands.

Once you finished, you followed Maria onto the back porch, trailing through the sliding doors. Ellie and Dina were so focused on singing a Foo Fighters song that you hadn’t heard for years (that you were sure Joel introduced them to) that they didn’t notice your approach. Tommy and Joel did, Tommy smiling at Maria before extending his arms. She walked to where he was sitting and joined him, sitting on the edge of his lap.

You were glad that you didn’t feel anything but happiness to watch the intimacy of the couple.

Joel’s eyes were watching you, dark and full of thoughts you wished you could understand. You wondered how he would react if you closed the space and sat on his lap - not that you had nearly enough courage.

“I think I’m gonna get ready to head home. I gotta organize the pantry in the morning,” you said, glancing over at the two girls who had moved on to singing some song you didn’t recognize.

All three of the Millers looked disappointed in your confession. “At least let me walk you back,” Joel begged, but you shook your head.

“No, stay. Don’t wanna miss out on this,” you said, glancing back over at Ellie and Dina singing.

There was something like hurt that flashed across his face, but it didn’t linger long.

“Feel free to come back any time,” Maria said.

“For anything,” Tommy adds.

Joel says nothing, even though you linger there on the porch for several seconds, secretly hoping he would. But you nod silently, thank them for all their hospitality, and compliment Maria on the food, before parting ways to the soft sound of Ellie’s strumming on the guitar.

For several days, you find yourself grappling with a decision. Should you stay, or should you do what feels most natural and flee?

Fleeing would be what you’re used to. A rehearsed, calculated event. Premeditated. You’d been thinking about it from the moment you set foot in this place. Take a backpack full of supplies; food, medicine, water. You’d probably even get away with taking a horse and a couple of guns from the armory.

You’d do it first thing before the sun rises on a Sunday morning when the whole of Jackson is sleeping apart from the watchers on the walls. You wouldn’t say goodbye because you know Joel and Tommy both would convince you to stay.

Instead, you’d leave a note on the table in your kitchen. One Saturday night you even sit there with a pen in your hand, but all you can manage to scribble down are the words I’m sorry.

You trash it before sunrise. And that morning, Ellie stopped by to ask if you’d help her tend to the greenhouse. “It’s an eight-hour shift,” she explained. “Four with an extra set of hands. They have that dance going on tonight, down at the community hall. Dina really wants to go.”

Of course, you agree. And as the hours tick by, you understand Joel’s attachment to her. Ellie is probably the funniest kid you’ve ever met. Intuitive too, and so smart it’s jarring. You like her, mostly because she reminds you a little of yourself when you were her age.

She talks briefly about her journey with Joel to Salt Lake City. Says he started out as this gruff, overbearing man, but towards the end, he was the only source of comfort remaining in her grasp. She says Joel saved her life but then gets really quiet for a while afterward.

You don’t pry. The silence is comfortable, the dirt between the creases of your palms and beneath your fingernails is warm, and you realize that fleeing is going to hurt an awful lot more than you thought.

After your shift in the greenhouse with Ellie, you begin to consider staying. Jackson is a good place, a safe place. One without the tyrannical rules of a standard QZ.

The following weekend, a fight breaks out between two men at the Tipsy Bison. One is drunk and sloppy and he has a knife strapped to his belt. You watch from a far distance as the drunken man stabs his opposition between the ribs, blood pooling in the mud beneath his feet.

You don’t see Joel right away, too focused on the commotion that breaks out over the event, but the moment he steps in he’s hard to miss. He has that strong, domineering energy about him. He breaks up the fight in a second and has the man with the knife unclenching his fist, silver glinting in the pool of blood as the weapon drops to the ground.

Maria and Tommy arrive a short moment later and the man with the stab wound gets carted off to the infirmary. Joel towers over the man with blood on his hands but says not a single word.

You’re not sure why, and you’re too exhausted to attempt unpacking it, but the way he just… controls the situation so easily has your thighs pressing together.

Joel and Tommy take the man someplace, but you don't stay around long enough to find out where. You half expect them to make some scene of it; whippings in the center of the town, a public execution as a display of power. You’ve seen such things before in the QZs you’ve drifted through.

But nothing like that happens, and all anyone can talk about is Rick’s miraculous recovery and what they plan to bring to him in the infirmary.

You ask Jesse what happened to the drunken man who stabbed him, wondering if they killed him someplace away from prying eyes.

Jesse laughs and shakes his head. “No, we didn’t kill him. He was exiled.”

You’re not sure why it surprises you, but it does.

The next time you see Joel, he’s in the stables. The first taste of summer has presented itself, spring slowly giving way, the earth thawing further each day. He’s wearing a navy t-shirt that stretches tight across his biceps and a good-fitting pair of blue jeans, and you watch from a safe, non-conversational distance as he moves haybales from one end of the stables to another, making room for the new ones loaded into the back of Tommy’s truck.

A light sheen of sweat coats his sun-kissed skin, and it makes your mouth water. All you can think about is that first time with him, how he’d gripped your hips with calloused fingertips, how he’d kissed your lips until they were swollen, how he’d pressed himself between your spread thighs.

You run home so fast you’re out of breath when you close the door, and the moment you make it up the stairs and to your room, you're slipping your hand beneath the waistband of your jeans to alleviate the ache that has settled and made a home between you legs.

Telling yourself it was a fluke, you don’t think of it again. In fact, you try very hard not to think about that day in the cabin, you try not to think about the way he looked at you before leaving you and Tommy in the bed on that last day, you try not to think about the way his muscles flexed in the stables.

You fill your time with chores. The greenhouse, watch, patrol, shifts at the Tipsy Bison. Anything that keeps your mind from Joel you greet with ready and willing hands.

But it happens again. Of fucking course it does.

It’s raining hard and has been for several days. The western wall begins to flood, and it’s an all-hands-on-deck situation, moving sandbags from one end of Jackson to the other. Everyone is running around, moving as fast as they can, piling them into the back of one person’s truck and then someone else’s the moment one pulls away.

Maria woke you up in the middle of the night with a yellow raincoat in her hands, and of course, you didn’t waste a moment before you put on your sneakers and ran out the door with her.

She stations you at the western wall with a handful of others, unloading the sandbags and stacking them as high as possible to detour the pooling water.

Joel stands two feet away from you, yelling orders over the sound of the rain, commanding the situation in that way of his. You’re shivering, even with your raincoat, and as Joel’s hand brushes yours when he helps you lift a sandbag onto the pile, it sends an electric jolt down your spine. “Jesus,” he huffs. “Here. Take off your jacket real quick.”

You do, in time with him as he removes his canvas coat, soaked through with water. He pulls his flannel off and hands it to you, and normally you would argue he needs it more considering your dry t-shirt, except you’re freezing.

The soft fabric is warm and it’s a little too big but it’s the most comfortable thing you’ve ever worn. It smells like him, like pine and rain and Joel. For a moment you consider not returning it back to him and adding it to your collection of clothes you’ve taken from him. But for now, you relish in its heat, in its softness.

He goes right back to instructing others after shrugging his coat back on, as if the act of kindness was nothing, as if he’d give just anyone the shirt off his back. And maybe he would, but you’ve never stuck around long enough to find out.

It’s still dark when you finish, sunrise still a while away. Maria and Tommy thank everyone for their help and send you home, telling everyone to try and get some extra sleep, that shifts will start an hour later than normal.

You do as she says, noting the way the muscles in your back ache from strain but finding it strangely satisfying, feeling less like you’d lost sleep and more like you’d protected something that was worth protecting.

Joel’s flannel remains on as you climb back into bed. And though you’re exhausted, all you can think about enveloped in his scent is how he would feel beside you, on top of you, between your legs. Heavy and warm, strong and so incredibly safe.

It doesn’t even feel like there’s a choice when you wiggle your fingers beneath the elastic of your panties. And even though it only takes a matter of minutes to make yourself reach the pinnacle of bliss, it feels unsatisfying. Like it’s not enough, like it’ll never be enough.

You still wear Joel’s flannel while on patrol with Jesse later in the day. You vow to return it, promising yourself this is your chance to change. To be a better person, to reinvent yourself here in Jackson, to stop running, to stop thieving.

But you don’t return it. Several days go by and you practically live in the goddamn thing.

You lost count of how many times you squirmed against your pillow with the flannel pressed against your lips, imagining that Joel was there.

“Just like that, baby girl,” Joel would say gruffly, his strong palms pressed against your thighs to make your hips rock. “Missed listenin’ to those little moans.”

If you squeezed your eyes closed just enough, you could feel him on you, guiding you. You prayed that he still thought about you, but you were scared to know what it meant if he did. It would mean that Joel reciprocated your lust, your feelings.

One evening you walked past Joel’s house after a long, tiring day of helping create concrete for the expansion of the South wall. The summer project was to create space for new houses. Jackson was growing day by day, getting stronger.

You stopped outside the concrete steps, looking at the path to the front door. Would you have the courage to walk up that intimidating trail and knock on Joel’s front door? Would you have the courage to ask him to kiss you, to show you how much he missed you?

Your question was answered once Joel’s front door opened, and a dark-haired woman stepped out. She was turned back, telling Joel something that you couldn’t quite make out. The steps of your sneakers crunched across the gravel of the road, your feet carrying you as far away from Joel’s house as possible.

One last glance back allowed you to witness the faraway silhouette of Joel passing something over to the woman, something that you were much too far away to see. You had done something stupid again - assumed that Joel was single. You weren’t trying to jump to conclusions but Tommy was married after all. It would make sense that Joel had found someone too, someone to settle down and raise Ellie with.

The happiness that you felt seeing Tommy and Maria together was not what you felt when watching Joel with another woman. A big, ugly, green monster bubbled inside of you and threatened to crawl out of your throat.

You hated this feeling. You hated it so much that you’d ended up going to Joel’s house later that, shortly after his bedroom light had turned off. The streets were completely empty except for the night shift patrollers walking towards their posts, the day saying its last goodbyes in the same way you meant to. A basket with Joel’s flannel and his original jacket from fifteen years ago was left on his porch. They were rejected and discarded, like how you felt.

The basket mocked you when you walked away from his porch, a visceral reminder of what you were actually returning. Your devotion.

It was impossible to sleep that night, too many rampant thoughts running wildly through your head. You stayed up the remainder of the night, a scratchy wool blanket tucked beneath your chin as you sat on the couch.

The moonlight streamed in through your living room window, painting colorful silvers and purples across the peeling walls. It was eerily peaceful to watch the earth sleep.

A stark opposite to the peaceful moonlight was the sudden rough knocks banging against your front door. You couldn’t help the way you jumped up, your bloodshot eyes glancing over to watch the wooden frame shake with each knock.

You move over the back of your couch to glance out the front window to see who is pounding at your door. The top of your head peeks over the blanket, your eyes straining to see. It’s Joel, of course, it’s Joel, and seeing him with that frantic look in his eye has your heart in your throat.

When you open the door to ask what he wants, you see both his flannel and his coat clutched in a knuckle-white grip. “Is this your way of saying goodbye?”

Your brows furrow. “What?”

“You’re leaving again, aren’t you?” You open your mouth to speak but he raises his free hand and stops you. “An’ don’t lie to my face, don’t…don’t look at me and tell me you’re staying just to disappear in the middle of the night.” There’s a kind of aggression in his voice you’ve never heard before, even when he shot you. “You’re leaving.”

It’s not a question this time. And you know he’s reliving it, remembering every moment in that cabin, the same way you’ve been since setting foot in Jackson.

The urge to comfort him rises in you, to promise to stay, but you can’t. Not when all you can see is that dark-haired woman on his doorstep. So, you swallow thickly and cast your eyes away, staring at the clothes you’d return instead. “It doesn't matter. Keep them, Joel.”

“It does matter,” he insists. “How can you say that?” He pushes into your house, this desolate place that suddenly comes to life with him in it. “After everything we’ve done, after everything we’ve seen… it matters. This place matters. You —”

Your breath catches at his near confession. It’s the first you’ve heard it from anyone, and the young girl you were fifteen years ago silently begs for him to finish it. She begs to be seen, cared for, and loved.

But you’ve spent so long shoving her into a box in your heart that it’s second nature when you do it this time. Joel shakes his head. He begins to speak, stops, and tries again. “I…you…”

“What, Joel?”

He runs an exasperated hand down his face. Whatever it is he’s trying to say is bothering him, an irritation dug in deep like a tick. “Don’t…”

You know you shouldn’t. You know it’s none of your business, yet you still find yourself crossing your arms over your chest and saying, “Should you even be here right now? Isn’t there someone else you should be giving the pleasure of your company to?”

Confusion sinks in quickly. “What are you talking about?”

You roll your eyes. “Oh, so I can’t lie to you but it’s fine if you lie to me? Typical, Joel. You’ve always been a hypocrite.”

"Hypocrite? What are you talking about? I’m here, trying to convince you to stay in Jackson because it’s safe. Even if you want nothing to do with me, if you want me to…to stay far away, that’s fine. But this place needs people like us and we need it.”

“Jesus Christ, Joel—I saw her. Don’t fucking play dumb.”

“Saw who? ”

You throw your hands up, anger rising to the surface of your skin. “I don’t know! And I don’t want to know! She was leaving your house with a really big smile yesterday so I guess I should say congrats, right? To you and Tommy both, for finding whatever it was you were looking for in me fifteen years ago.”

Joel shakes his head. “No, no—you’ve got this all wrong. It’s not like that.”

“Right,” you say indignantly. “Because that’s believable.”

He closes the space between you and wraps his hand around your elbow, holding tight enough to bruise. Joel stares at you with his eyes filled with intensity, so much of it that you actually start to believe him when he says so quietly, “There’s been no one. No one since you.”

“Oh, so it’s just the start I interrupted then? My bad, Joel, should I apologize?”

“Will you stop?” His jaw ticks, and you can see his irritation as it rises, a near palpable thing. His neck flushes, and his eyes narrow. “She’s Dina’s mom. She came over to meet me formally since Ellie’s been staying over there so often. She doesn’t mean anything. Not like…”

“Like what, Joel?”

“Not like you,” he finally says. It feels like a breath of fresh air, and you think he must feel that way, too. Because his grip on your elbow loosens, his shoulders drop, and his eyes soften instantly. “You…you mean something. To me. An’ I don’t…I want you to stay. I’m…I’m askin’ you to stay. Please.”

In all your life, in all the places you’ve passed through…not once has anyone ever asked you to stay. Not once has anyone seen you like this, seen and known you well enough to know when you’re tempted and have enough time to deter your decision.

Well, until now. Until Joel.

“Don’t do that,” you say, shaking your head, trying to clear the moisture that pools in the corner of your eyes.

He takes your face in his hands, calloused palms rough and warm against the tender skin of your jaw. “Stay,” he says. And again, softer this time, a plea. “ Stay.”

“Don’t say things you don’t mean, don’t give me false hope.”

Joel presses his forehead to yours. “I mean it,” he promises, and you want so badly to believe it, so you do. “Do you have any idea how long I looked for you? And even when I stopped lookin’ I saw you everywhere. Saw you in everything. That first winter without you…Christ, couldn’t think about anythin’ else.”

All you manage to say is his name like an escaped breath. Your skin prickles at his closeness, and you’ve never been good at resisting your impulses so you don’t even try to keep yourself from pressing your lips to his.

His hands slide into your hair, pulling you in closer, his tongue running across your bottom lip. You grant him access in the form of a moan that he echoes the moment he tastes the inside of your mouth.

You forget everything. Everything. All you know is the way this feels, and you suddenly think that maybe all this time you weren’t running from anything. Maybe you’ve been running to him.

“It’s always been you,” he says against your lips. His hands trail down your spine, gently caressing your soft curves.

The pad of his thumb brushes against the bare expanse of your spine where the smallest bit of your shirt has ridden up, but you feel the touch like lightning skittering across your skin. You wrap your hands around his neck, anchoring yourself against him, and it feels like second nature when he pulls you closer and lifts you off your feet.

In fifteen years nothing has changed—you still melt against him, defenses giving way, legs wrapping around his waist. You break the kiss long enough to whimper direction, saying, “The bedroom is upstairs, second door—”

“On the left, I know. Tommy and I fixed it up a couple months ago. Talked about you the whole time,” he says. And you’re not sure why but the knowledge has your heart flipping in your chest.

It’s almost like he knew, like they both did. Like they could feel you somehow, out there, wandering, finding your way back to them.

Joel lays you down and strips your clothes off slowly, fingers familiarizing themselves with every inch of your skin as if he’s learning it for the first time. He kisses your lips until they’re swollen, leaves marks in the shape of his mouth down your chest, and leaves moisture from his tongue over the hardened peaks of your nipples.

When he parts your thighs and tastes you, he’s still fully clothed. And you begin to feel exposed, like the two of you are standing on uneven terrain, but then he lets out a feral-sounding moan and you think maybe he’s suffered in your absence even more than you yourself have.

His tongue is soft and hot and makes your back bend off the mattress. Twice he makes you come undone with nothing but his mouth. And when he rises to his knees, peering over you, he looks sated. Relieved, somehow. As if being this close to you has healed him, stitched up some long-opened wound.

Unhurried, he begins to discard his clothes onto the floor beside yours. His flannel first, and then his t-shirt, and you let out a pathetic moan as you drink in the sight of him. His scarred, masculine hands working at the metal buckle of his black leather belt, his toned arms and his soft tummy, and that trail of thick, dark hair that disappears beneath the waistband of his jeans.

Everything about him ignites you, calling to you like some sort of beacon. Your skin prickles as he discards the remainder of his clothes.

And before you have a chance to speak aloud your fervent need, he’s settling between your thighs and pressing the head of his cock to your entrance. He cradles your face in his hands, gently smoothing your hair away from your face, and there’s so much devotion in his voice that it makes you tremble as he says, “You were made for me, little girl. Do you know that?”

You think you do. You think you’ve always known it, always known that whatever god-like, mystical being that resides in this world had crafted you with Joel in mind. All you can do is nod and bask in the moment, in the sanctity of your creation, in the wickedness of his. Carefully, he pushes his cock into you.

The stretch is painful at first, even with how wet he’s made you. But it’s a bearable pain, a sweet ache, especially with the way he whispers in your ear and presses soft kisses to your cheek with each breath. “S’okay, you can take it. I know you can. See? There you go. So fuckin’ proud of you, baby. You’re so perfect. Perfect for me.”

Joel rocks his hips against yours at a gradual pace. There’s nothing rushed about it, no aggression in his movements. It’s so different from the last time but the change in him just brings the two of you closer. Your orgasm builds like a fire in your belly, burning more and more with each thrust, heightened by the gruff moans that escape him, by the pressure of his body on top of yours.

He’s so warm and he feels like home. A sensation you’ve never felt since leaving that cabin, a safety like you’ve never known since. You love him. You forgive him. And so you tell him.

And as the words escape your lips, as you make that final confession that will alter the course of your life forever, his breath stutters in his chest, and that fire that’s been building in your belly reaches its full height, flames licking at your skin. He says, “I love you, too, little girl,” and it tips you over the precipice.

You reach the high of bliss together, at the same exact time, and everything but this feeling fades into nothing. All that remains is you and Joel and this otherworldly closeness. There’s nothing left to forgive, nothing left to navigate. As one, singular soul, you simply are.

He takes the time to clean you up afterward. You shower together, and he massages body wash into your skin, relieving the ache from your muscles. You don’t ask him to stay because you don’t need to; he just does. Because he knows you like no one else ever has.

You fall asleep quickly. It’s late and you’re exhausted, but for the first time in fifteen years, you feel stable. He holds you through the night.

But when he shifts just slightly, it wakes you a few hours before sunrise. His eyes are wide open and bloodshot, clearly straining to stay awake.

Shifting on your elbow to lean up, you ask, “What’s wrong?”

Joel just shakes his head and gives you a small smile. “Nothing,” he says. “Just go back to sleep. Get some rest.”

It’s clearly a lie. Something is tugging at him, and you’re determined to fix it. “Tell me,” you say.

He hesitates for a moment, working over his words in his head. He opens his mouth to speak, closes it, and tries again. And then he says quietly, unable to look you in the eye, “I wanted to be able to talk you out of leaving. If you changed your mind again.”

The words break your heart, cracking open your ribcage and allowing a trace of bitterness to settle there. It’s your fault, you know. Your fault he worries about you leaving so much, that he allots time to talk you down from a ledge you’re not quite sure even exists anymore. You swallow down the tears that threaten and crawl into his lap. You kiss his face a hundred times, leaving no space untouched until you’re both quietly laughing. “You can sleep easy tonight,” you say.

He nods as if he believes you, but you can tell there’s still anxiety lingering within him. It’s quiet for a long time. He just holds you tightly, arms wrapped around your middle. You think he may have fallen asleep, but then he whispers into your hair, “I’ll take you anywhere you want to go. Just don’t leave me behind again. Please.”

It’s a plea. He’s begging, in his own way. You kiss him hard, and in only moments he’s snoring with his arms locked around you.

You only wiggle out of his grip when the sun rises, yellow and orange hues cast across your bedroom through the glass pane of the window. You pull Joel’s t-shirt over your head and make your way down the stairs as quietly as you can.

This will be the most difficult thing you’ve ever done. You know it will be. You know Joel will pull things out of you you’ve been shoving down deep, know he’ll poke and prod in an attempt to heal all within you that’s been broken.

Because that’s the kind of man he is; one who takes care of those he loves, who sacrifices his own comfort for others. You don’t deserve someone like him and you know it. No matter how much you forgive, no matter how many times you try to wash your hands clean, you know it’ll never be enough for his devotion.

You stand in the middle of the kitchen, eyes glued to the front door. It would be easy to leave, you know. Second nature. Instinctual. You wouldn’t have to face all you’ve done, wouldn’t have to unearth all you’ve buried, wouldn’t have to open that closet with all those skeletons.

Hands trembling, you try to catch your breath. Try to make that final decision, try to forgive a little more. Not to forgive Tommy or Joel, but to forgive yourself.

The longer you stand there in the kitchen, the less you believe you’ll ever possess that sort of absolution.

But it’s worth a try, isn’t it? To find mercy in a place it’s never existed.

You take a slow breath.

And then you put on a pot of coffee.

taglist; @arizonadreamingg @sirendyes @untamedheart81 @pinkiec6-rubi @galway-girlatwork

#joel miller #pearlessance #joel miller x reader #joel miller smut #ao3 fanfic #joel tlou #joel the last of us #ao3 writer #joel miller fanfic #smut #tlou #tommy tlou #age difference #fanfic #joel miller fic #angst #angst with a happy ending #lust among thieves

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wangxianficfinder · 2 days

Text

Fic Finder

Sep 18th

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1. Hi! I don't know if this has been asked before but I'm looking for a fic. It had multiple chapters and might have been mostly from LWJ POV. (spoilers for the fic basically) I only remember clearly that in one of the later chapters it is revealed that WWX took the fall for JC who had set off a cigar fire. Thank you!

FOUND! Nursery Rhymes by manaika (M, 96k, WangXian, NieLan, Modern AU, Inexperienced WWX, Experienced LWJ, Reconciliation, Budding Love, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Unreliable Narrator, Medical Inaccuracies, Slow Burn, Past Character Death, Childhood Trauma, Found Family, Past Injury, Nurse! WWX, Doctor! LXC, Teacher! LWJ, Character With A Heart Condition (Major), Past Incarceration (Major Character), Underage Character With Leukemia (Minor))

NOT FOUND! Insert Coin Now for Extra Life by TriviasFolly (E, 201k, wangxian, modern, ABO, Intersex Omegas, Omega WWX, Alpha LWJ, Marriage contract au, Twitch Streamer WWX, fluff and smut, caring for other while sick, Possessive LWJ, Rare Male Omegas, Pack Dynamics, Sugar Baby vibes, Eventual Smut, Brief mention of lwj/others)

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2. hi - apologies if you have answered this and i missed it, or please ignore if i haven't waited long enough! i really appreciate all you guys do! I'm looking for a longish fic - cloud recesses classes WY gets whipped after JZ/JY engagement broken, recovers in CR while creating talismans. Wens attack and WY explodes heads. ACE JZ, badass Madame Jin, NH sets up JY/NM, WY grabbed by WR, LZ comes to save him and they kill WR. I've tried searching hashtags, but just can't find it -can you help? @oldoni

FOUND? 🧡 To have and to hold by Moominmammashandbag (M, 78k, WangXian, Canon Divergence, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Major character injury, CQL verse, Happy Ending)

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3. Hello Mojo!! I've always used your blog to find missing fics, but this'll be the first time I send in a an ask!!

I read this fic a long time ago and forgot to bookmark it, the premise was Jiang Yanli was engaged to Lan Zhan but she was in love with Jin Zixuan. So Wei Ying, doing what he does best and offers to take her place.

He's invented a talisman that changes his body to look like Yanlis, the catch is that it affects his health everything he uses the talisman until it eventually hurts him to the point of near death. And he falls in love with Lan Zhan along the way.

Can you help me find this fic?

FOUND? 🔒 You Free Your Mind In Your Androgyny by retired (misbehavingvigilante) (E, 368k, WangXian, JC & JYL & WWX, NHS & WWX, Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bodyswap, Crossdressing, Dysfunctional Family, Gender Dysphoria, Hurt/Comfort, Identity Porn, Mistaken Identity, Misunderstandings, Transphobia, Self-Worth Issues, Suicidal Thoughts, Trans WWX)

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4. Hiii there was a fic where wei ying was chased by a dog and took shelter in lan zhans house. i remember wy having a panic attack and lz calming him, and ig he had a cat called bunny?? idk this was on the first chp. and it was a long fic ig?? Anyways hope you can find it!! @for13years-i-play-inquiry-foryou

FOUND? leave all your love and your longing behind by ScarlettStorm (E, 143k, WangXian, Modern AU, no magic, Meet-Ugly, Panic Attacks, autistic lwj, neurodivergent wwx, the neighborhood asshole dog, if you’ve met one then you know, Hurt/Comfort, Pining, Minor Angst, major shenanigans, Happy Ending, for everyone including the asshole dog, Eventual Smut, switch rights, Sex Toys, horny yearning, Masturbation)

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5. Hii I am desperately looking for a fic. It is around cloud recess time and wwx is a genuis and gets recognized by the Lans and they treat him well. I remember super specific stuff like there was an elder who blew something up to reroute a river because he needed the water for fire savety and he is kind of mentoring wwx. And some of the elders imply to lwj to court wwx. And there is a kind of scholar equivalent to a discussion converence and the Jiang scholars get so much shit from the Lans for not supporting wwx talent because he is like a once in a generation genius and they usually have systems in place to support people like that but the Jiangs were afraid of madam yu i guess. Thats most of what I remember. I really hope it still exists somewhere... @frankensteins-gendercrisis

FOUND?🔒in the shadow of moonlit flowers by Reverie (cl410) (T, 56k, wangxian, LXC/NMJ, Cloud Recesses, LWJ & NHS Friendship, Developing Relationship, POV LWJ, Minor Injuries, Autistic LWJ, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, aka the Madam Yu warning, Genius WWX, Light Angst And Hurt/Comfort, WWX Protection Squad, Gusu Lan Sect, Slow Burn, Protective LWJ, LWJ-centric)

FOUND? 🧡 Stunted, Starving Juvenility by TomatenMark (E, 859k, WangXian, WIP, Fix-it of sorts, Talisman master WWX, Not JFM Friendly, Study Arc, Getting together, Fluff and Angst, Engagement)

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6. Hi! I'm looking for a f/f wangxian fic, I don't remember much about the plot but I do know in it wwx bullies young lwj and calls her a lesbian. They later meet as adults and wwx is really trying to atone for her actions. Thank you!! @blessrainydays

FOUND? Out of your system by mimilamp (E, 20k, Female WangXian, Modern AU, Rule 63, Sexual Content, Strap-Ons, jealous wwx, lan zhan FUCKS, mention of LWJ/others straight girl WWX, Y E A R N I N G, Additional Warnings In Author's Note)

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7. Hello! Here for the fic finder, please. It starts with Wangxian hunting a monster that eats dreams. At some point it catches lwj and puts him into a dream and wwx goes into the dream and sees that in it they are married? Does that ring any bells?

FOUND? Dream of Me by KingdomFlameVIII (E, 11k, WangXian, Mild Horror, Dreams, Dream Sex, Bathing/Washing, Domestic Fluff, First Kiss, First Time, Light Bondage, Hand Jobs, Anal Fingering)

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8. Hi! I'm looking for a modern au where WWX was a fox that had gotten taken to a sanctuary and he had a faded red ribbon around his neck, it fell off and he got sad about it. It possibly had his name written on the inside of it? Wen Ning either ran the santuary or worked there. WWX might've been cursed to be in a fox form? I can't remember for sure. I thought I'd bookmarked it but can't find it and there's a gazillion fox!wwx fics and I'm not finding it. I can't remember more than that but hopefully someone will know. TIA!

NOT FOUND! in the arms of the angel by ScarlettStorm (E, 37k, WangXian, Modern with Magic, Fox WWX, animal rescuer LWJ, Minor pining, major shenanigans, Comedy, Smut, Getting Together, Hurt/Comfort, Adhd WWX, the mortifying ordeal of getting your head stuck in a peanut butter jar, and getting subsequently rescued by your crush, there were in fact two beds, but LWJ knows what he's about, Blowjobs, Frottage, switch rights, Scent Kink, mildly telepathic sex, courtship via kittens)

FOUND! Found: Extremely Friendly Fox by wanderingflame (T, 22k, ZhuiLing, WangXian, Modern AU, mild animal injury, Curses, Fluff, Reunions, Fox WWX, Foxxian being a lovable terror, POV Alternating, Modern With Cultivation, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, LWJ wears reading glasses because it's sexy)

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9. Hi can I ask you if you could find me a fanfiction where Wei wuxian keeps doing different ghost games and Lan Zhan keeps interrupting them, the other thing I can remember is that they're both university students and Lan Zhan is responsible for the dormitory.

FOUND?🔒Grandmaster of Demonic Party Games by Trickster_Angel (M, 50k, WangXian, Modern AU, College AU, Crack, Light Angst, Humor, Paranormal, horror, Slow Burn)

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10. Hello! Submitting a request to find a fic, cause i'm honestly at my wit's end.

It was multichapter fic and I'm pretty much sure it was finished. It's basically story, where Wei Wuxian transmigrates from modern times into cultivator setting, summoned by mistake, by his counter-part here and basically hijacked their body? And was then promptly attacked by Lan Wangji, who thought it was original

In cultivator setting, Wei Wuxian was also known as a Yilling Laozu - ancient and mad with grief over Lans killing his husband few hundreds years ago. The present Lan Wangji is reincarnation of said husband, but due Yilling Laozu Wei Wuxian not letting him go, he couldn't properly reincarnate or something? Like - he is still man's husband, Lan Wangji, but a little bit different and that stops him from falling in love with YL WWX?

(There was also something about how this Wei Ying was summoned, because Lan Wangji from that universe probably died, before they had a chance to meet.)

Anyway, after getting (i think?) stabbed by Lan Wangji he got taken to Cloud Recess, then he somehow winded up in Lotus Pier, growing close with Jiang siblings. Also, Wei Wuxian from the modern times was some kind of doctor or inventor (?) and he tried bringing some modern solutions there.

I think this think may be quite known, but i tried all the tags i thought that will work and found nothing ://

Thank you very much in advance

FOUND? Old Foreshadows by protos_metazu_ison (M, 15k, WangXian, YLLZ WWX, BAMF WWX, War, Universe Alteration, Sunshot Campaign, Rated For Violence, Timeline What Timeline, Mojo’s post)

FOUND? 🔒 Transverse by Kytrin, Mslead (E, 192k, WangXian, ChengSang, ZhuiLing, ZhenYi, Dimension Travel, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Enemies to Lovers, Transmigration, Past Lives, Canon-Typical Death, Don’t worry - he gets better)

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11. for fic finder, i've read this a few times and suddenly i can't find it- wwx gets taken by a caiyi merchant while he's on his way to dinner with lwj. the merchant is someone wwx had previously gotten along with, so it's a bit of a depressing realization that even this guy hates him.

queue a sinister array, a timely rescue by lwj, and the sobering realization that wwx can't fully escape what he's done in his past life, and it can crop up where he least expects it @stgroversfire

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12. Hi! This is for fic finder. I'm looking for a fic where sect leader JC returns to Lotus Pier after a trip/night hunt and the junior disciples all clamour towards him. JC then picks one of the youngest disciples who gives a short report and sends them off for training. I think it might be from the pov of someone who accompanied him (LWJ? LXC?) and then I think there's a bit of commentary about the kind of sect leader JC is. I think it's likely some sort of canon divergence or time travel fic, but not sure. Thanks!

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13. hi, i’m looking for a fanfic in which jzx’s death was faked, he was found in the lake (?) by wwx, i remember people thought wwx was dead but lwj managed to find him alive in some village. lwj told jiang yanli to find wwx and after he found jzx, he was told not to sleep in the same room with jyl as she was married woman and it was inappropriate. this fic wasn’t finished

FOUND? Discarded by teawater (E, 178k, WIP, WangXian, Canon Divergence, Dying Lan children, Hurt/Comfort, YL WWX, Golden Core Reveal, Case Fic, Depression, Family Issues, Self-Esteem Issues, Self Confidence Issues, Self-Worth Issues, Angst with a Happy Ending, and it's not always dark, POV Multiple, BAMF WWX, dubious morals in the Lan sect Feels, Pining, Grief, Fix-It, BAMF LWJ)

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14. Hi! I’ve been looking for a fic I read a while ago in which WWX designs a talisman (or something) to test blood relationships and finds out he really is JFM’s son. If I remember correctly he’s already left Lotus Pier, I think he finds out with JYL and JC at Cloud Recesses? “This body yet survives” by RoseThorne comes very close but doesn’t have him as JFM’s son. Help please!

I’m pretty sure 14 is a modern era AU and they take a DNA test which reveals the siblings as wwx’s half siblings - can I locate it? Ehhh, of course not unless I get lucky with my history search

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15. I’m looking for a fic that is a modern au, no cultivation, where wwx leaves home or is driven out of his home and loses contact with his sibling and lwj. Fast forward to the future, he’s living somewhere and is with the Wen siblings? I don’t remember how, but somehow lwj finds wwx first, maybe over text? And slowly wwx starts sharing his life again? I feel like maybe wwx had been abused or threatened to never talk to his siblings again. He’s very afraid. I remember Wen Qing was very suspicious of LWJ and protective of wwx. Thanks for your help!

NOT FOUND! clean from the war (your heart fits like a key) by sysrae (E, 28k, WangXian, Modern AU, Reunions, past xy/wwx, xy is fucked up but not evil because it's a modern AU and I said so, Hurt/Comfort, Panic Attacks, past wwx/jfm, Past Rape/Non-con, Past Abuse, Rape Recovery, transphobic violence, Victim Blaming, Past wwx/others, allusions to past self-harm)

FOUND! Love Don't Belong To Me by airinshaw (E, 28k, WangXian, Modern, Getting Together, Kissing, Intercrural Sex, Light Angst, Happy Ending, PTSD, Panic Attack, WWX's canonical self-esteem issues, Canonical Child Abuse, not as dark as the tags imply, Past Relationships mention)

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16. Hello! Thanks in advance for this. I read ff earlier this year, it was post-canon I guess, Wei Wuxian is staying in cloud recesses and Lan wangji is chief cultivator (I guess). once wwx took juniors to night hunt and he kminda knew that someone will come for him, a walking corpse was searching for him specifically. after empathy wwx got to know that the walking corpse is his father. I dont remember anything other than this scene. Please help! @vbhardwaj-reads

FOUND! An Aftermath More Devastating Than The Storm by UneducatedAuthor (Not Rated, 111k, WangXian, Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Post-Canon, Everyone Loves WWX, The Junior Ensemble Love WWX, Hurt WWX, Protective LWJ, Protective LSZ, WWX Deserves Better, Genius WWX, WWX Protection Squad, Chief Cultivator LWJ, Cultivation Sect Politics, JC & WWX Reconciliation) Has Wei Changze as a fierce corpse searching for his son

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17. For fic finder, I remember it was a multichap canon dovergent wangxian fic with inventor wwx. Tho I am not sure if that tag was used. The most notable part of it was Madam Jin bringing evidence of jgs putting his lot in with wrh complete with bills, transactions, correspondences etc. Jgs tries to discredit her by being a misogynist. That's when madam Jin uses a wwx custom binding spell on him and then says "I am a quick study when I want to be" to wwx and then she says "thank you for your instruction" because she learned the spell from jzx who saw wwx teach it to jc in cloud recesses lectures. After that she tells jzx to take the sect leader's seat and there was resistance from jin elders in the same scene and also in other later chapters. It was complete and happy ending I believe for wangxian too @yiling-laozu-is-loml

FOUND? Cultivating immortality by KizuKatana (E, 231k, WangXian, Canon Divergence, Rogue Cultivator WWX, Mutual Pining, BAMF WWX, BAMF LWJ, Angst with a Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, unreliable narrator, Found Family, First Time, novel canon relationship dynamics)

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18. Hey its my first ask so i don't know if I'm doing it right... I've been trying to find two specific fics really hard but no luck yet. I hope you'd be able to help

A) It was a post-sunshot campaign au..I think someone basically heard wwx getting yelled at by jc and flinching away from his touch. That gives rise to rumours that jc is sexually abusing wwx. Everyone starts pitying wwx and it comes to a head at some sort of banquet..?

B) A post-canon wangxian fluff fic. I think it might've been a 5+1 sort of fic but im not sure. There was one particular scene where wwx is just hanging out with other lan spouses and they are all complaining about their husband but wwx is silent cause lwj treats him really well..After he says so one of the women say "how long will it take your husband to realise if I kill you and take your place?" To which wwx replies "like right away"

I really hope you'll be able to find them

18A)

FOUND? Short Prompts by Vrishchika (M, 40k, WIP, WangXian, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Not JC Friendly, Separate Tags for Each Chapter) chapter 15 I'm sure of it

18B)

FOUND? Life before you was tragic by covalentbonds (Not rated, 4k, wangxian, Fluff and Humor)

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19. Hello! I am trying to find a fix where Wei ying get thrown to burial mound by wen Chao as a child, and then he become the protector of Yiling! He is always covered in shadows when he meet the sects! Can anyone remember the title! It is in AoW but I cannot find it! Help please!🙏 Thanks 😊 Have a wonderful day! @fallingstar77

I don't remember the name of #19 fic, but what I do remember is that it's listed on the amazing Warprize compilation you guys did.

FOUND? 💖 what price is duty, what cost is love by thunderwear (G, 18k, wangxian, Canon Divergence, WWX was never adopted by the Jiang Sect, War Prize, YLLZ WWX, Mutual Pining, First Kiss, First Time, Falling In Love, eventual dramatic confessions, Eventual Happy Ending, Angst with a Happy Ending)

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20. Hi, Im looking for a fic that may have been deleted but i'll try here. In it LWJ takes a'yuan away from cloud recesses to raise outside of the sect after WWXs death. He builds a garden with various monuments one of which is a boulder tied down with ropes to represent the Xuanwu. Eventually he senses something and goes to the burial mounds where he drags a reborn WWX from the blood pool. He takes him home to rehabilitate. On the way he stops at an inn to bathe him. Thats all I remember<3

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#wangxian #mdzs #wangxian fic finder #wangxian fic search #the untamed #wangxianficfinder #long post

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wexhappyxfew · 4 months

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“Don’t leave my sight again” for Kennedy and Bucky! Only if you want! I love your writing! <3

HI SWEET ANON!!!!! thank you so so much for popping this in the askbox and for the love on my writing! it means SO MUCH!! i had a lot of fun with this one - we went in a direction i wanted to explore a bit more with the kennedy x bucky dynamic, especially their ever-present bickering about sports with their (respective) red sox and yankees, hehe. i really enjoyed this prompt because i could still utilize the dynamic i wanted, but inject the prompt into the writing in a way that was more heartfelt and meaningful than anything, so, please enjoy!! :D

lips itching to grin

(a/n): kennedy x bucky girlies, we're back and better than ever and focusing on the early days again with these two, specifically in the ever-present baseball rivalry (with a side of heartfelt and slightly flirty banter that neither side may or may have not predicted.....). ps: there's a whole lot of baseball references in here along with a deep dive into the red sox and yankees baseball almanac of 1942 players, as (to preface) they discuss a yankees x red sox game from 1942, with some of their own perspectives (though we enter the conversation in the middle lol). please enjoy!!! <3333

"Alright, well, runners on first and second, game-tying run at second, bottom of the 5th," Kennedy started, as she watched Paulina offer one of the newer replacements a dance as Billie Holiday sung with those swing trumpets over their heads, "you got Joe DiMaggio coming up with two outs. Dick Newsome's already at 78 pitches."

"Easy," Bucky offers as Paulina and the replacement move out towards the center of the floor and start dancing - Kennedy likes seeing her smile, "DiMaggio hits an RBI double and makes it to second base. Then you ain't even tied up anymore. Score's 4-3."

"But," Kennedy started, glancing upwards at him with a look as she tilted her head, a smile on her cheeks, "you got Charlie Keller up next. Getting to that point in your roster where it gets a little….hairy."

"Says the one with Joe Cronin on your-"

"Focus." Kennedy said snapping in front of his face, bringing a smirk onto his lips as he looked back at her, "We're talking about the fucking Yankees right now, Bucky."

"Don't call them the fucking Yankees."

"They're the fucking Yankees to me, got it?" she said and she watched Bucky turn from his position leaned up backwards against the bar to actually facing her, "What?"

"You get really passionate about your Red Sox, huh?" he said, leaning his hand up against the side of his face and watching her, "I'd hate to mess with you-"

"You already have." she told him in a sing-song voice as she turned and took a sip of her beer and looked out to the dance floor again, "Try growing up as the only girl in a house full of brothers. You either play baseball or you are the baseball, I'm afraid." Bucky snickered at that and sipped his own drink - bourbon maybe, she could smell it on his lips from here.

"What the hell kinda baseball did the Farley brothers play?"

"Wouldn't you like to know."

"Clearly not that great of baseball, you're all Red Sox fans."

"Says the one who willingly became a Yankees fan."

"Willingly-"

"At least I grew up in the area! It makes sense!"

"Can't knock me, Yankees' got a fan all the way from Wisconisn - can't say the same about other teams now, huh?" Bucky said leaning towards her with a grin, "Gotcha there, huh?" Kennedy watched him.

"Bill Dickey comes up and goes out swinging," Kennedy said, staring him down, "Red Ruffing's taken outta the game. Atley Donald's up on the mound. Johnny Pesky's up to bat. Donald walks him. Tony Lupien comes up - an absolute bomb outta the field. Rest of the game is a no-go. Red Sox win. 6-4."

"For someone who despises the Yankees, you sure do know a whole lot about them." Bucky said, sipping his drink again, "It's cute. You trying to impress me with that Yankees stuff."

"I just know a whole lot about games where my Red Sox win," Kennedy mouthed back, the tops of her cheeks burning, "you'd know if I was trying to impress you."

"When's that happened?"

"Never."

"Huh."

"Exactly." she said, sending him a look and he smirked again, his eyes watching her in that manner they always seemed to, "What's that look for?"

"What'd you usually play?" he asked her, that lazy grin growing on his face, "C'mon, I know you were probably in a group of kids that got together to play. What were ya? No….let me guess. First base, you're pretty tall." She stared at him and raised a brow. "No?"

"What about this," she started, standing up straight and holding out her arms, "screams first base, huh?"

"Fine. Shortstop. Speedy, quick-witted-"

"I'll take that as a compliment."

"Don't get in over your head."

"Continue…." Kennedy said with a smirk.

"Shortstop." Bucky said, "Final answer."

"Ding-ding, you're correct," she said with a smile, "usually my older brother and I fought over that position. He usually gave in."

"You were convincing enough." Bucky said, sipping his drink again.

"I was better than him." she offered back, catching that look on his face, "What, like it's hard to believe?"

"Nah, nah," Bucky said shaking his head back and forth and grinning, before avoiding her questioning entirely, "you like hitting?"

"Usually was middle of the pack, sometimes cleanup, I flip-flopped." she said with a winning smirk, "Wasn't often I got cleanup though, my older brother, he's a fucking giant, like 6 foot 5 or something - Bobby - he usually could drive in any and all runners. Sometimes he let me in the spot. It was usually some stupid fight we'd have, but he'd let me have my ways sometimes. Which was nice." Bucky grinned at her again and she couldn't tell whether that was just how he decided to look at people or if there was something else going on behind those eyes and that smile. But she just left it for the time being and took to sipping her drink again.

An upbeat Ozzie Nelson beat came over above them, which immediately sent Kennedy thinking of home again - its summer, the windows are open, her mother's got the radio playing the music she always used when cleaning the house; a mix of Artie Shaw, Billie Holiday, Glenn Miller and Benny Goodman. Sometimes even some Ray Noble. Any sort of music as such would remind her of that time in her youth, racing around the house with her brothers, this music in her ears, the kitchen smelling like lemon soap and freshly scrubbed, the linens hanging outside, the sound of her mother sweeping and shooing away her brothers or their dog, Gunny.

"My ma loves this music," Kennedy said with a smile, looking out to the dance floor as people danced and clung onto one another, as if it were the only thing they had apart from those flying coffins - human touch, more important than anything when they were here, "she played it all the time at home."

"She a big band fan?" Bucky asked her, and she looked to him with a smile and nodded. The corners of his eyes grew soft - she noticed he did that sometimes when he was really listening to you; really, really listening. When she had first noticed it, she'd been taken back at the intensity with which he would watch and listen, but he did it so subtly she had never really noticed until now.

"Always has been." Kennedy said with a nod, "I mean, with five sons and one daughter, there isn't a whole lot of space to listen to quiet jazz, or…something or other. Everyone always wanted big band being played." Bucky let out a bark of a chuckle and then got quiet again, glancing her way with that cautious look painted on his face. He knocked her shoulder lightly.

"And you?" he asked her, a slightly playful look on his face, lips itching to grin again.

"What about me?"

"What do you like?" he asked her, "What does Kennedy Farley dance around to her when no one's looking?" Kennedy couldn't help but laugh, a real genuine laugh and shake her head.

"Usually Benny Goodman or Glenn Miller."

"Like mother, like daughter." Bucky said with a smile, "What's she doing now ya think? Your ma?" Kennedy shrugged, feeling slightly homesick at the thought of her Ma, at home, with all her children off to war, or college, or school, her husband off to work, leaving her in that big house all alone. Her stomach twisted unpleasantly and she couldn't fight the sad expression off her face.

"Probably getting dinner ready - she makes a damn good beef stew. Chop the carrots, onions, celery. Let the beef sit and marinate for a while. The whole house would smell almost like Christmas Eve," Kennedy said softly, before quirking out a grin, "waiting for Dad to get home from work." She stared at Bucky who watched her back. "Your ma?"

"Much of the same probably." Bucky said, leaning up against the bar and schooling his features evenly, "Cooking up dinner, waiting for my dad to get home." Bucky smiled almost bittersweetly. "Wish she didn't have to be there alone, ya know?"

"Yeah," Kennedy said quickly, her emotions warping with her intense want to berate him yet again over baseball, but her softer side took over and she looked at him, "I don't doubt though if I went home, she'd be telling me 'Don't leave my sight again.'" Kennedy said with a small smile. "Broke her damn heart for me to come out here. Only daughter. One of the youngest." Bucky watched her, his face quiet, his expressions even and he seemed at once, intently focused purely on her.

"She didn't want me to come." Kennedy told him honestly, feeling like if she didn't get it off her chest now, she never would tell a soul, "Here. Flying B-17s, being a gunner, getting my hands on a .50 cal. She hated the idea of all of it. But I guess she let me go because she knew it was what I wanted. What I needed. For me." She looked over at Bucky and saw nothing but that gentle, fond expression on his face. She smiled slightly. He smiled right back, almost instantly.

"Well, I'm glad you're here," he said, watching as her face morphed from sadness to mild surprise, to which he laughed at, "yeah, I swear to ya, Farley. I really am. Hey, who was it that saw you shooting that .50 cal back in training and hand-picked you for my gunners, alright?" She was quiet. "That was me."

"And then of course Birdie took you under her wing and the rest is history, but I didn't forget that at some point in time, you were one of my waist gunners," he said, knocking her shoulder lightly again, "a good one at that, you know that?" Just hearing Birdie's name made her heart squeeze.

"It's really nothing special-"

"You shot Expert, Farley," he said, holding her gaze with a firm look, "that sends eyes wandering, I promise ya."

Oh.

She watched him for a moment before her fingers were getting twitchy and she needed something for them and to get herself to look away from that look in his eyes.

"Cigarette?" she asked him, pulling from his gaze to dig her hand into her pockets and produce the slightly crumpled cigarette packet she always had on hand. He watched her before slowly nodding.

"Sure." he said, as she innately popped open the top and produced two cigarettes, sliding one onto her lip and the other into his own hands, "Thanks."

"The least I could do for a compliment like that." she said, almost bashfully, as he placed it on his lip with a chuckle.

"First time anyone's ever told you that?"

"People don't tell me a whole lot of things like that ever so," Kennedy started, before attempting to smile, "yeah, first time for everything" Bucky watched her curiously as he produced a lighter and leaned forward to light up her cigarette before doing his own.

"Really?" he asked her, almost surprised - why would he need to act surprised, why did he even bother to care? She nodded. Bucky watched her for a moment, fingertips drumming against his cigarette as he stared at her; his gaze not one she was entirely even turning away from or wanting to.

"Cleanup." She stared at him, raising a brow.

"Tell Bobby Farley that you shoulda been in cleanup in the lineup." Bucky said, turning towards the bar again and calling for another drink, "Shortstops are usually closer to the top of the lineup anyway, right?" Kennedy watched him, her heart pounding.

"Bucky-"

"I woulda put you in that clean-up spot any day of the week, believe me." he said, smiling at her, with a grin, before turning to the bar and getting his drink. And she recited deep from within her mind, something Bobby Farley had taught her well and good in their screaming matches - 4th slot in the lineup, cleanup spot, usually one of the more or most important players in the lineup; they're powerful, drive in runs and more than anything are one thing - consistent.

#OKAYYYYY #BUT THIS WAS SO FUN #i had been wanting to do this piece for a WHILE #like a straight up talking baseball piece #AND HERE IT IS!!!!#always the not-so-subtle flirting going on with this too like #yall #hellooooo #we see you and hear you loud and clear #the cleanup/shortstop compliment too?#yeah in baseball terms that's a pretty top tier compliment - people must trust u a whole lot #LIKE OK BUCKY I SEE U #(communicating in the sports language she thrives in best <3333 yelling about sports teams ahhhh true love)#kennedy u will always be iconic lets be fr #kennedy x bucky #kennedy farley #bucky egan #bucky egan x oc #john egan x oc #also hi: birdie faulkner mention !!!!!#and YES kennedy *was* a waist gunner for bucky a long while ago #I JUST THEM!!! THEM (distant screams) brb dont mind me fangirling over them in my head (remembers i must continue to write them to continue #to fangirl HEHE)#THANK YOU ALLLLL!!!! <3333

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