MASTERLIST A humble Tommy Miller appreciation corner ❤️🔥
📖 [AO3]
+18 only!!
~~~~~~ Series ~~~~~~
Edge of Town ᖭ༏ᖫ [Tommy Miller x F!Reader] (completed)
Fic Summary: As a FEDRA officer in the Boston QZ, you had no business falling in love with a Firefly. …Unless you didn’t know he was a Firefly until it was too late. Tommy Miller was either the best thing that ever happened to you… or the worst.
Solar Power [Tommy Miller (game) x F!reader, Joel Miller] (WIP)
Fic summary: It was supposed to be casual: a hot contractor in a pony tail, improper use of company time and zero expectations. Then, a promotion pulls you back to your home country just as Tommy Miller starts feeling like home.
Unfortunately, ambition doesn’t care about timing or love, and neither do USA visa's.
You will have one last summer in Texas with your summer boyfriend.
warnings: No Outbreak, AU, the last of us, smut, explicit sexual content
Show me how bad you can hurt me [Tommy Miller x F!reader, Joel Miller] (WIP)
Fic Summary: Four years after the outbreak, Joel and Tommy Miller are hardened smugglers in the Boston QZ: mean, violent, and willing to do whatever it takes to survive. When they’re paid an obscene amount to smuggle you across the ruined country to Columbus QZ, they didn't ask what secrets you carry to be worth that much. They just expect an easy job. You're supposed to be just cargo. They will soon discover this cargo has teeth… and the power to make even the worst men start to crack.
~~~~~~ One shots ~~~~~~
Between Millers (WIP) [Joel x reader x Tommy]
Fic summary: What starts as innocent Saturdays at your niece’s soccer games quickly turns complicated when you meet her best friend’s dad and uncle—Joel and Tommy Miller. When an unexpected trip offers the perfect opportunity, you may finally give in to the temptation to have them both… at the same damn time.
Riding the mustache [Tommy Miller x F!reader]
Fic summary: Tommy decides to grow a mustache, and it does catastrophic things to your body - pulling your heart toward the light and your lower half straight onto his tongue.
warnings: post-outbreak (the last of us), explicit sexual content
Solar Power [Tommy Miller (game) x F!reader]
Fic summary: It’s just another home-office morning - spreadsheets, caffeine, and Teams notifications — until the doorbell rings. You are half corporate shark, half Hello Kitty chaos. One very distracting contractor with a southern drawl, a ponytail and a t-shirt that says Miller Construction is offering you premium services.
warnings: No Outbreak, AU, the last of us, smut, explicit sexual content
Save the date [Tommy Miller x female OC]
Fic summary: Noelle just got to Jackson. Tommy just got dumped.
She wants a husband. They both decide to get drunk. What could possibly go wrong?
warnings: post-outbreak (the last of us), slow burn, romance
Caught by Joel [Tommy Miller x F!reader, Joel Miller]
Fic summary: Tommy’s feeling proud after a long night with you. Joel’s got a few things to say about manners, and Tommy couldn’t care less.
warnings: post-outbreak (the last of us), slow burn, romance
Also check my Tommy fics recommendations from other authors
Chapter Summary: Tommy asked for a sign. He is searching for a reason, an excuse, anything that reminds him he can be the good man you fell in love with.
Just to conclude that this man never existed.
But people in love leave pieces of themselves along the road. And if it's bright enough, it can still be found.
Fic Summary: Four years after the outbreak, Joel and Tommy Miller are hardened smugglers in the Boston QZ: mean, violent, and willing to do whatever it takes to survive. When they’re paid an obscene amount to smuggle you across the ruined country to Columbus QZ, they didn't ask what secrets you carry to be worth that much. They just expect an easy job. You're supposed to be just cargo. They will soon discover this cargo has teeth… and the power to make even the worst men start to crack.
Tags: Tommy Miller x Reader, Dark!Tommy, Raider!Tommy, Explicit Sexual Content, Post-Cordyceps Outbreak (The Last of Us), Stockholm Syndrome, Dark Romance, Tommy is mean but not too much, Tommy Miller Fanfic, Enemies to Lovers, Tommy was corrupted by Joel, Vaginal Sex, Fireflies (The Last of Us), Slow Burn
wc: 6k
Author notes:
I knew I wouldn't have enough time this week to write everything I'd planned, so I made a decision: shorter chapter, stretched suspense. And honestly? It worked better than the original plan. This is one of the most heart-wrenching things I've ever written. And so special, because yesterday I was at a Twenty One Pilots concert, crying and singing Drag Path at the top of my lungs. And here we have two lovers leaving trails to find each other. omg.
----
It was just another warm Saturday in Austin. Tommy honked again and dropped his elbow out the car window, with a cigarette hanging off his lip. The radio was playing some country song he half knew and couldn't name, and he turned it up anyway, drumming the wheel.
The front door banged open and Sarah came down the walk like a hurricane, with her cleats untied, jersey half-tucked, sports bag on one shoulder, water bottle under her arm, a tube of lip gloss in one hand and a strip of bacon in the other.
She hauled the truck door open and dumped herself into the passenger seat, all elbows.
"Jesus Christ, kiddo. We robbin' a bank on the way?"
"We're late, Uncle Tommy."
"We're fifteen minutes early by my count."
"Your count's been broken since the nineties." She took a bite of the bacon. "Drive."
Tommy shook his head, grinning around the cigarette, and eased the truck off the curb.
Sarah eased her bag down between her feet, and the country song cut out mid-chorus for a news break: something about an outbreak overseas, officials monitoring the situation.
"This again." She reached over and punched the dial to a pop station without asking, and some song made entirely of sugar filled the cab.
"Your daddy doesn't like you ridin' up front."
"My dad doesn't like a bunch of things." She said it breezy, then her face dropped an inch. "He's gonna miss the final again, isn't he."
"He ain't missin' nothin'. We're pickin' him up on the way. He's done now, I talked to him twenty minutes ago."
Sarah's whole face lit up, and she did a happy little shimmy in the seat, drumming her cleats against the floor mat. "Yes. Okay. Okay okay okay."
Tommy watched her out of the corner of his eye, that quick flare of joy.
"'Course," he said, poking her shoulder, "I will be tellin' him you are eatin' bacon before a game."
"No, I'm not." She shoved the entire strip into her mouth and chewed at him, slow and enormous and dramatic.
"That's disgustin'."
"And I'm," she said, still finishing the bacon, "telling my dad you're smoking in my presence."
Tommy took one long, luxurious drag, mirroring her theatrics beat for beat, then flicked the cigarette out the window. "No, I'm not." He gave her the same smile she'd given him.
"How are you even gonna play after eating bacon, kiddo?"
"How are you gonna hit on women after bein' all smelly of smoke?"
"Wait, what? I'm not hittin' on any women—"
"Oh, come on, Uncle Tommy." She reached over and lifted the dog tag off his chest with two fingers. "You only wear these outside the shirt when you're trying to impress somebody." Her hand went up to his hair next, patting it once. "And this? There's product in this. Please."
He swiped her hand off and tucked the tag inside his collar, ears going warm. "It's called bein' presentable."
Tommy's eyes left the road just long enough to look at her, this scrawny teenager with a foot up on the dash, tying her cleat, reading him like a large-print book.
"I'm tellin' your old man you keep puttin' your foot on my panel."
"I'm telling your brother you keep making a move on Lindsay's mom."
"Ohhh." He nodded slowly, tongue in his cheek. "That so? 'Cause I'm tellin' my brother somebody's been makin' a move on Lindsay herself."
Sarah's mouth fell open. A full three seconds of scandalized silence. Then she raised both hands, palms out. "Okay. Truce. Truce."
"That's what I thought." He settled back fully, insufferable, one wrist on the wheel. "And you best keep it that way, kiddo, 'cause I can also tell him a certain somebody lifted a twenty out of his wallet to fix his own watch and hand it back to him as a birthday present."
"I didn't steal it. I earned it."
"For it to be earned, he's gotta give it to you."
"I earned it," Sarah said, with confidence, "because tomorrow he's gonna forget his own birthday cake. And I will have no cake to eat. You wanna bet?"
Tommy laughed. "No bet. Man forgot his own birthday two years runnin'."
"Last year I had to remind him. On the day." She dropped her voice into the gravel register, doing the impression she'd been perfecting for years: "'Huh. That today, babygirl?'"
"'Well. Don't make a thing of it.'" Tommy matched it, jaw set, eyebrows down, the full Joel.
"'Sarah. The door.'"
"'Tommy. The music.'"
They broke at the same time, Sarah tipped her head back against the seat, gasping.
The laughter slowly settled into the road hum and pop music. Sarah was still looking at him. She reached over and pulled the dog tag out from under his collar again. She turned it over in her fingers, reading the stamped letters.
"Uncle Tommy?"
"Yes, sweetheart?" He kept his eyes on the road.
"Why'd you decide to join the army?"
He glanced at her, shifted his grip on the wheel. “Well… after I finished high school, I didn’t really know what I wanted to do with my life. Joel was already workin’. I felt kinda lost, like I needed to do somethin’ that mattered.” He paused, glancing at her again. “I guess I wanted to be useful. I wanted to protect people. Help make the world a little safer, even if it was just one small piece of it. Sounded noble at the time.”
Sarah stared at him for a long moment. "That's so naive."
“Well, somebody's gotta be dumb enough to believe things can get better. Might as well be me."
"Now, that’s profound.” She smiled, then looked at the road. "And why didn't Dad join?"
"Because the army don't take young guys that behaves like grumpy old men."
Sarah cracked up. He tapped the wheel, letting her giggle run out, and then gave her the real answer. "Nah. He never felt like it. And he had you very young. Single dads don't get to enlist, even if he wanted to." He shrugged one shoulder. "Besides," Tommy added, "between the two of us, I'm the better shooter, the more athletic, and the better-lookin' one. The army simply took the superior Miller. It's basic math."
"Come on! You're literally identical from behind. Lindsay's mom said so."
"She's been lookin'?"
"UGH." Sarah slammed her hand against her face.
They stopped at a red light and Sarah's head turned round toward the shop window on the right, her whole face changing.
"Uncle Tommy!" She grabbed his arm with both hands. "Look. Look at that shirt. Can we come back here after? Please?"
In the window, a pink Nirvana t-shirt, faded graphic.
"You got money?"
She turned to him with the expression. Head tilted exactly forty-five degrees, bottom lip barely out, eyes enormous. The one expression that had been breaking him and Joel both since she was approximately three years old and had figured out it worked.
"I don't," she said sweetly. "But my very generous and extremely handsome uncle does."
Tommy huffed a laugh, glancing back at the traffic light. “Now I’m extremely handsome, huh?”
Sarah nodded, completely earnest. “Yes. The most handsome.”
He raised an eyebrow, unable to resist. “More handsome than your dad.”
She didn’t even hesitate. “Way more handsome than dad.”
Tommy looked back at the shop window, satisfied. "Okay. If you win the game. We come back. I'll buy it."
She made a sound somewhere between a thank you and a victory screech, patting his arm rapidly. "You're the best! You're my favorite uncle."
Tommy looked at her and felt the particular, uncomplicated love that she produced in him without even trying. “I’m your only uncle, Sarah.”
“See? Favorite and exclusive.”
He watched this kid grow up from a tiny howling red face thing into this sharp, sarcastic hurricane, and she still managed to be the best thing in his life. She owned some piece of him that nobody else had ever had access to, and she didn't even know it, and he was glad she didn't know it because she'd absolutely use it against him.
The light turned green.
And a sharp impact came from the left without warning. Just the sudden enormous crash of glass and metal and the world tilting sideways faster than his brain could process, the world spun and the truck was on its side and something was ringing and ringing and would not stop.
When he opened his eyes, it was night. The rifle was in his hands. He didn't remember picking it up. He didn’t remember being in this street. He was behind the overturned truck, and the street was wrong, the street was completely wrong. People running and screaming and something was terrifying with the way some of them were moving, and he turned and fired at the shape coming toward him before he'd could process it.
The shape twisted and dropped. He stared at what he'd done.
And then he knew. The knowledge arrived all at once, fully formed: He knew what this night was. He knew exactly what came next. He ran.
Because every time he dreamed it, he knew what would happen and he’d ran anyway.
He heard the shot. He turned the corner toward the empty field.
The FEDRA officer was still standing. Tommy raised the rifle and fired once, and the man dropped, and he crossed the distance to his brother in three strides, already knowing, his chest already hollowed out.
And then he was there and Joel was on the ground and Sarah was bleeding and breathing hard.
“No, no, no, no, no, no,” Joel said, moving immediately to his daughter.
“I know, I know, I know it hurts baby. Let me see,” His hands ran to her stomach and found nothing that could be fixed with his hands. “You’re ok. I know, I know, I know baby, I know,” Joel says urgently, pressing were the blood spilled. “You’re gonna be ok. Baby? Baby? Listen to me. I gotta get you up. Ok? I gotta get you up. Come on,”
Joel pulled her up as carefully and as quickly as he could.
“Come on. I know, baby. I know, I know, I know,”
She was so small in Joel’s arms.
He could still hear it. Uncle Tommy! Look. Look at that shirt. Can we come back here after? Please? They lost that day. Tommy didn’t buy it.
Joel was rocking her, voice breaking. “I know baby girl, I know.”
You're the best! You're my favorite uncle.
“Tommy! Help me!”
Silence.
“…Joel,”
He'd failed them. He'd been the only one in this family with military training, and he was behind the overturned car with a rifle in his hands while this was happening thirty feet away, and he'd failed them. And no version of this ever ended differently, and he would never stop running toward that field, and he would never stop being too late.
Tommy woke up on the thin mattress on the floor, gasping for air loudly.
"Jesus fucking Christ." Sarah, the other Sarah, was already sitting up across the camp with her rifle in both hands in an automatic reflex. She looked at him. Looked at the empty camp around them. Lowered the rifle a fraction.
"You scared me," she said, not rude but not gentle either. "Again."
She set the rifle across her knees and pushed her hair back with one hand. "Do you ever actually sleep? Or is that just not somethin' you do anymore?"
“I… I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine.” She tried to read his face, tried to understand why this man is being punished by his own mind like this. But she realizes there’s too much in those eyes to be asked to someone she barely knows, and just turns back to sleep instead.
He was ashamed of himself. He had woken Sarah three times before dawn. The second nightmare had been the pregnant lady dropping after he pulled the trigger.
The first one had been you.
You, with your hand pressed flat to your chest, panting. Except in the dream there was no one else, just you on the ground, looking up at him and saying go away, you made your choice already, while your fingers pressed harder against your sternum like you were holding together a heart he was the sole responsible for breaking.
He'd woken from that one with his hand reaching across the dirt for a person that wasn't there.
He was used to dreaming about the night his niece died. As he was used to dream with all the other horrific things he had to either enforce or endure.
Tonight it had broken the routine. Tonight it had put you in the rotation, slid you in among the dead like you belonged there. And then it had done something it had never done in four years: it had given him the day before with Sarah. Every second of it real, every second of it the last good bye he could never see coming, like his mind had been keeping it pristine all these years specifically so it could hurt him with it now.
He shifted on the thin mattress, pulled the blanket up, and tried to lie still.
The signs. He'd asked God for one. One. And he had two versions of Sarah’s coming uninvited with many messages he could not read. God was either silent and these were painful coincidences, or He was a sadist, and Tommy was starting to suspect the second.
Sarah. Sarah meant Joel. Right?
But this Sarah has a camp to help people. That Sarah asked about his dog tag. This thing, this… hope. Meant the fireflies?
Is it worth to continue? Would he ever reach Joel? Would he be too late once more?
…Would he ever see you in Boston again?
The guilt crawling back meant the debt with his brother.
But whatever you had to do in a ruined Baltimore seemed more complicated than his mind could figure out and he was scared of what that would really mean.
God. His brain barely woke up and it was twisting and turning inside his head.
He didn't even know if his brother was alive, and lying here he could admit the ugliest thing: he genuinely didn't know if he was going for Joel or just back for you.
But he knew he couldn’t allow his mind to go into this rabbit hole. So, he did the only thing that quieted the storm. The one thing a coward man should never do when he's trying to forget a woman who’s heart he finished breaking.
He thought about your smell, still living in his chest where he'd breathed you so many times and not remotely enough. He thought about the book open in your hands, your neck close enough and the urge to never let his lips away from it. He thought about your kiss and the way you'd smile into the second one. The taste of you. The exact shape you made inside his arms, how you fit there like the space had been measured for you years in advance and now he'd just been carrying it around empty.
He played it again, and again, and again. Not to feel good, because it hurt like pressing on a wound to keep from bleeding out. He played it because the devils couldn't get in while you were there.
Somewhere before dawn, it finally pulled him under.
---
It's still too early when you wake up. Frank is asleep in the sleeping bag beside yours, and your eyes go looking for the familiar shape of broad shoulders and dark long curls you've been waking up to for weeks. They find Marcus short blond hair instead, pacing the perimeter slow and alert, rifle in both hands. He catches you looking and nods a silent good morning. You manage half a smile back.
You get up and cross to him, hugging your jacket closed against the dawn chill.
"Sleep well, boss?"
"Don't call me boss," you giggle. "And yes."
It was a lie.
"You?"
"I always sleep well. Too well, honestly. Frank says I could sleep through the end of the world."
You huff a small laugh. The quiet stretches, comfortable, until it isn't.
"…May I ask you something?" he says.
"Sure."
He tips his chin toward your chest. "What happened yesterday. Is it okay? Should we be… concerned?"
For one second you let yourself believe he's asking about you. The human, not the solution. And he might be. Marcus is a good man.
"Don't worry," you say, lighter than you feel. "I'm not ruining the mission. It'll reach Baltimore intact. The doctor gets it exactly as promised."
"No— no, that's not what I—" Marcus fumbles, and the protest comes exactly one beat too late. "I was asking —"
"It's okay, Marcus." You wave it off before it can become a thing.
Marcus looks at his boots.
"…What I'm carrying is bigger than me," you finish instead. "That's the only reason any of us are in this mess."
He nods slowly, still not looking up. Somewhere a bird starts singing.
"But,… there's this thing with the device," you go on, because facts are easier. "It has a smart battery function. Lifespan control. When the heart rate spikes too high, it corrects just enough to keep it from failing completely. It won't waste charge smoothing out the discomfort. Made perfect sense when they implanted it. How often does a person's heart really redline on mundane life?" You give a dry laugh and gesture at the ruined world in general. "In the apocalypse, in the other way around..."
"And it happens often?"
"Thankfully, no. Yesterday was the fourth time in all these years." You count them off without meaning to. "Outbreak day. The day my uncle died. The day Lincoln betrayed us. And… yesterday."
Marcus is quiet for a moment. Then, carefully, the way a man steps onto ice: "I'm sorry, but… doesn't that seem like it's being triggered by smaller things now? I mean, no offense, but… Lincoln’s deal, Lincoln you saw coming, let’s be honest. Can't compare with outbreak day and your uncle passing away. And then yesterday it was just that smuggler—"
"Well." You cut him off fast. Heat crawls up your neck, because he's right, and you know he's right.
"…I'm sure the doctor will have answers," you say. "For all of it."
Marcus looks at you. You look at Marcus. "Yeah," Marcus says. "Yeah. It'll all be fine."
He pats your shoulder, careful and warm, and it lands like hope and strength and farewell delivered at once. "Thanks for being this brave. Whatever happens there, I hope you know you're our—"
"It will all be fine, Marcus." You cut him off before the sentence can finish becoming whatever it was becoming. "I've survived one hundred percent of everything life has thrown at me so far. I’ll survive this one too."
"…Right." He huffs. "Right."
Boots in the grass behind you. Frank, scrubbing a hand through his hair, squinting at the light. "You two solvin' the world's problems before breakfast?"
"Something like that."
"Road looks good on the map. If the weather holds and that bridge at the county line is still standing, we're maybe a week out from Baltimore. Week and a half if it's not." He looks at you then. "How you feelin' about that, pumpkin?"
You glance at Marcus. Back at Frank. Two men who cares deeply for you, watching you like a held breath.
"I'm feeling we should move," you say.
And so you do.
You walk most of the day. It’s afternoon already and you walk between the two men. The formation feels wrong.
You keep glancing back occasionally, even knowing you’ll find nothing there. For weeks there was always something back there worth the glance, sometimes scowling, sometimes scanning the tree line, sometimes pretending so hard not to look at you that it was its own way of looking. Always Tommy, holding you in his attention a thousand small ways he thought you never noticed.
Marcus catches your fourth glance and gives you a kind, useless smile.
You spot a small river. The sun is warm and should settle soon, and you feel the pull of it in your skin before you've said a word. Water is the only thing left in the world that takes things off of you. Days, sins, hands, grief.
“Frank,” You nod to the river. "Ten minutes," you ask. "Please."
Frank and Marcus scan it. Sight lines, calm water. Birds behaving. Nothing but a calm afternoon.
"…Ok. There's a boathouse past the bend," Frank points. "We'll check it quickly for resources to give you privacy. Anything moves, you shout."
"Sure.”
You strip on the flat rock and walk into the river.
The cold grabs you. You duck under, come up gasping, and stand there with the water at your waist while the sun makes the surface look shattered and golden. You wash your arms, your neck, the back of your shoulders, and your own hands are careful and small and completely, uselessly wrong. You can’t stop yourself from wishing they felt differently. Rough. Calloused. Warm even in cold water, spread wide across your stomach. You touch the top of your scar and think of a thumb that traced it once like it was something holy instead of something broken.
The last river you stood in, those hands held you under it. And it’s sick and twisted but you'd give anything to have those hands on you again, gentle, silently asking forgiveness.
You allow yourself exactly three tears. They fall off and mix with the river water, and the river takes them like it takes everything from your back. Then you walk out.
You dress fast, skin still damp. Panties, trousers, boots. You're just secured your bra when a hand closes over your mouth.
"Isn't this our lucky day," a voice says against your ear.
Your whole body lurches, and the arm around you was ready for that, tightening you back against him. Your heart slams once, hard, and then begins to climb.
"Easy," the voice says. "Behave and you'll be fine."
Your eyes rake the bank. The bend. The boathouse. Frank. Marcus. Nothing.
A second man steps around into your field of view, unhurried, rifle slung, looking at you the way men evaluate horses. "Well, hell," he says. "They weren't lying. This will be the best batch we'll have had in years." He pulls a radio off his belt, keys it. "Damian, you copy?"
Ten seconds.
"Copy."
"We found the girl. Matches the description head to toe." His eyes travel down and stop, and something in his face does arithmetic. "Damn. She pretty as fuck. Got one flaw on her, though. Big ugly scar, right down the middle." He traces the line of it with his thumb, slow, proprietary, and the disgust and fear run equal parts through you. "Hope that don't knock the price. Some clients get particular about the packaging."
Damian's voice is flat and bored and absolutely in charge. "The men. You have them, Lucas?"
Lucas glances toward the bend, unbothered. "Two with her, armed, off down the bank. They’re not who we’re looking for, though. Don't match at all. It ain't the brothers, for sure."
A pause on the radio, long enough to hold a decision about whether Frank and Marcus live or die without ever meeting them.
"Then don't waste the time or ammunition."
“Damian. I think we should—”
“Lucas. We don’t kill men. Anyone is a potential client, sooner or later. Take the batch and head for the office. Quiet.”
"Copy, Damian."
“No, no, no, no, please no, please!” You say it muffled into the man’s hand.
They turn you away from the river, and your heart is climbing now, the fear and panic consuming you completely.
This can’t be happening. No. This can’t be. Can’t be. Think. Think.
Your fingers find the chain at your throat.
You snap it with one discrete pull and open your hand.
The firefly lands face-up in the grass. Your name. 00001. The first light, left laying behind you.
Because that's what people in love do, you learned it from him. They leave pieces of themselves along the road, bright enough to be found.
Please come for me, Frank.
The plea fires on its own, automatic, the way you'd reach for a railing while falling. Frank loves you. Frank will search until his body give out.
But the trees close around you, and your heartbeat throws itself against the device.
There was exactly one person in this world who would never have let this happen. One person built for men like these.
And you know the difference between the man who would die looking for you… and the man who would refuse to die until he found you.
…Please. Please. Find me, Tommy.
---
Tommy woke to the smell of coffee. Sarah was crouched at the fire.
"Well. You finally went down proper," she said. "Last stretch there you didn't move once. I checked twice to make sure you weren't dead."
"Sorry. Again. For the—"
"It's fine." She said, flat and done.
He sat up, worked the stiffness out of his neck, and his stomach announced itself with a long, loud sound
Sarah laughed. An actual laugh, short and surprised out of her. "Good Lord." She pointed the stick at a milk crate by the supply lean-to. "There's food in the box. Help yourself."
He crossed the space and dug through it, and then his hand stopped on a small cardboard box, dented but sealed, the print faded to pastel.
Cookie Dough Bites.
You have got to be kiddin' me.
He stood there holding it. Of course. Of course it was this. God couldn't even let a man eat breakfast.
"Lucky find, those," Sarah said, watching him. "Whole case in a flipped vending truck last spring. Taste amazing, I'm warnin' you now. Ruined me for regular jerky."
Tommy turned the box once in his hand. Then he slid it into his pack.
"Not eatin'?"
"Later," he said.
She poured coffee into a mug and held it out to him, then filled her own. They sat across the fire from each other and drank quietly.
"So," she said, in the tone of someone who already knows the answer and has decided to ask anyway. "The nightmares. Every night like that?"
He looked into his mug. "Most. Some worse than others." He shrugged one shoulder. "Who ain't got 'em, since outbreak."
"I don't."
He looked up.
"I sleep well."
He didn't mean to do it, but his eyes went the clouded blind eye with the scar run clean through it, the mapwork of marks in her neck disappearing under her collar, the left hand around the mug with its missing finger. The whole weight of what the world had inflicted to her, and his face must have asked the question, because she caught him at it and didn't flinch.
"You're wonderin' how somebody who looks like this sleeps fine," she said.
"…Sorry. Didn't mean to stare."
She turned her mug slowly, looking into the fire. "I'll tell you what changed it. Somewhere along the way I stopped puttin' my life first. Sounds backwards, I know. But the day my own survival dropped to second on the list, behind bein' of use to somebody, the nights went quiet." She shrugged. "There's nothin' left in this world for me to want, Tommy. Think about it. Things? Everything's free now and none of it's worth carryin'. Experiences? I've had all of 'em I'd wish on anyone. Knowledge, money, land. For what?" She shook her head slowly. "I've been mostly alone four years. And the only thing that still fills the tank, the only thing, is when somebody stumbles into this camp half-dead and walks out whole." She tipped her chin at him. "That's the entire economy I run on. Bein' useful. Everything else is decoration."
The fire popped. Tommy drank so he wouldn't have to answer.
"Only thing I ever grieved," she went on, quieter, "was Baltimore. The idea of it. Whole group of people organized around exactly that: bein' of use, at scale. Takin' whole cities back for regular folks." Her jaw shifted. "I was gonna be part of somethin'. And it burned down before I ever got to touch it."
Tommy sat very still.
"…If you knew they were still workin'," he said. "Still operatin', successful, somewhere else. Would you go?"
She thought about it properly. "Hm. Maybe. I've settled here. Every once in a while I get to be some use where I stand. So… maybe. Or not." Her good eye came up to him, narrowing. "Why?"
He was silent.
She leaned over and topped off his mug, unhurried, eyes never leaving his face. "You know something."
"I might." He sipped.
He tipped his head, a small, sideways acknowledgment.
"Say the name, then," she said. "If you know that much."
"You say it first."
"We say it at the same time."
They looked at each other like two card players evaluating the opponent.
"Fireflies?"
The word came out of both of them at once, and Sarah sat back slowly with her mug halfway to her mouth and did not drink.
"Boston QZ," Tommy said. "They're operatin' there. Organized." He watched her face do a thousand calculations in the spam of seconds "I’m heading there. You could come," he said. "Safer with two."
The sentence hung in the air in front of him, and he looked at it, and something in him asked, quiet and honest: Am I? Am I really going to Boston?
Sarah looked past him, at her camp. He watched her and recognized: hope arriving in a person who had carefully, methodically finished grieving it. It didn't look like joy. It looked like disturbance.
"That's… useful to know," she said finally, and her voice had gone somewhere careful. She turned the mug in her hands. "But… maybe later. Maybe when winter comes. For now I'm… I'm good here." A pause. "I'll think about it. Okay? Thank you. For tellin' me." Another pause, and the corner of her mouth moved. "Maybe we meet there."
"Maybe. Yeah."
They drank in silence. The air had gone thick, he could see her doing it, the thing he'd been doing for weeks since he met you: taking her whole settled life down off the shelf and turning it over.
He reached for something else.
"How'd you manage it, anyway? Alone, four years... I mean, it's hard enough with two. Most people don't last a season solo."
"Experience," she said simply. "I had a head start on the apocalypse. Army, before. Twelve years in."
Tommy went stiff.
No. Not this. Not one more. Goddamit, not one more.
He set his jaw and stared into the fire and something behind his ribs started to hurt in advance, because he already knew that whatever she said next was going to be precisely tailored to him at this point.
"All this damage you're lookin' at," she went on, and gestured roughly at herself . "I want you to understand somethin'. None of it was done to a victim. Every mark on me, I was standin' in front of somebody. Or somethin'." She flexed the four-fingered hand once, looked at it. "And I don't regret one square inch. That's the job. That's what a soldier is. You put your body between trouble and your country, and whatever trouble takes off you on the way through, that was the price and you knew it when you signed."
Tommy puts the mug down because his hand started shaking and had stopped being reliable.
"People look at me and see what the world took," Sarah said. "I look at me and see everything it didn't get. Because it had to come through me first." She drained her coffee.
Tommy was not well. It came up through him like floodwater. She was the road not taken sitting six feet away drinking coffee. She was what he'd told a younger Sarah he was going to be. She was the real hero, and not a coward that convinced himself years ago he could be.
He stood. Adjusted his jacket, got his pack, small mechanical motions, reassembling himself piece by piece in real time.
"I'm sorry— I'm too far behind already," he said. "I need to find a horse, a car, somethin' with more legs than I got."
She noticed the retreat for what it was, she let him have it.
"Oh. Ok. Horse, good luck. Car…" she considered. "There's a farm supply six, seven miles north, machine shed out back, might be somethin' with a battery worth pullin'. And the state route past that had a National Guard checkpoint. Some vehicles left standin' last I passed, most stripped, but most ain't all. Long odds either way."
"Long odds is my whole portfolio these days."
He gathered his things. She walked him to the edge of the camp, rifle slung, and he stopped and faced her.
"Thank you," he said. "And I'm sorry to run out on you like this, I know this is a hell of a way to repay hospitality”, he gestured at all of it, the pit, the mattress, the coffee, the stitches. "I mean, thank you. Profoundly. I owe you one I can't pay."
"You don't owe me nothin'. Told you how my economy works." The scarred face creased, almost warm. "Door's always open here, Tommy. You, anybody with a decent heart. They find me eventually."
He hesitated. He was already turned half away and he came back to it, because it was going to come out of him whether he permitted it or not.
"Thank you for bein' this good to the world, Sarah. Somebody ought to say it to you out loud once in a while. The world got mean," he said. "got mean 'cause people stopped helpin' each other. And you didn't have to, but you chose being good and nobody's watchin', and you do it anyway." His voice had gone rough at the edges.
Sarah looked at him for a long moment. Then she smiled.
"You're no different than me."
His chest detonated quietly. Nothing moved in his face, but somewhere behind the sternum the whole structure went at once.
He smiled at her. Completely, silently disagreeing.
"Take care of yourself, Sarah."
"Avoid the central region goin' north, it’s full of infected." she said.
"And Tommy." He looked back. "Whoever the candy's for. They are welcome too, if needed."
He didn't answer that. There was no answering that. So he just walked.
He walked, and the camp fell away behind him, and the roads and the hours took him deep. And he walked. North, he told himself, north, the farm supply, the checkpoint, to Joel.
Because Sarah proved good people survive hell intact. It was always a possibility to stay good.
The message that was sent to him was clear now, brick by brick. What he did was a choice, not a necessity. Which proves you were wrong about him. He's not a good man buried under bad acts, he's a man who chose the acts. Your love is a symptom. Of captivity, fear, of your own desperate thesis needing a proof.
I love you, Tommy Miller.
And I love you too, he heard his own voice saying back.
He felt it crush his chest: the sincere smile in your lips just for him, your hopes fully laid on him. The absurdity of repaying that with violence, with brutality, with bruises and broken fingers and abandoning.
In another life, he’d be the man who stands beside you. In this one, he is not the hero young Tommy thought he could be. This version of himself can only bring disappointment and pain.
The kindest thing I'll ever do is stay a stranger. He thinks.
The best possible thing I can do is acknowledging I’m no good for her before it’s too late.
And he was never more in love than in this very moment, where he really decided he had to leave.
And he walked, and walked, and walked.
The box of cookie dough bites rode in his pack anyway, untouched, waiting there.
-----
end notes:
Off to survive second day of music festival now. I'm exhausted, I'm too old for this omg. This chapter cost me sleep I'll never get back, so: did it hurt? Tell me it hurt! haha
Please flood me with love for all effort I put to write it in this chaotic week. Now I'm leaving to watch Ethel Cain (again) and The Cure <3
Helplessly Hoping - Chapter 14 (Joel Miller x OFC)
Summary: Juniper Wright found peace in the apocalypse after discovering a cabin hidden deep in the woods of Wyoming. But when an accident put two strangers in her path, bringing drastic changes with them, she is forced to destroy the walls she spent many years building around herself.
Joel Miller never planned to fall in love again. His life was already complete; he had more than he could have bargained for in Jackson. But the girl with bright eyes he and Tommy found in the woods certainly had a way of getting to him.
Warnings: explicit sexual content, MDNI. Eventual smut, slow burn at first, rough sex, oral sex, vaginal sex, dom/sub undertones, age difference, older man/younger woman, past trauma, eventual romance, daddy kink
Word count: 2.4k
Masterlist Read on AO3
Chapter 14 - What happened between you and Joel?
Everything happened very fast.
Joel should have been paying attention; he was always paying attention. Only this time he wasn’t.
The gunshot was loud, coming from somewhere in the woods behind him. It hit a spot on the tree, right above Juniper’s head. Her eyes went wide and Joel felt as if he had just swollen a block of ice. One inch lower and she would have been dead right in front of him.
— Drop your weapons now! — A man’s voice echoed.
Juniper dropped the knife she was holding. She had left her beretta in the cabin, thinking they were going to be out for only a moment before coming back.
Only then Joel realized he had forgotten riffle there too. They were supposed to go back quickly, the juniper tree was close to the cabin, and he had been so distracted by her that it didn’t even occur to him to bring it. He felt so embarrassed he couldn’t meet her eyes.
— You too, old man! — The voice shouted.
— I’m unarmed. — Joel said.
— We’ll see about that.
From a hiding spot in the woods, two men came. Juniper could guess they were younger than her and much too skinny, they were probably wandering through these mountains for a while now, lost and with nowhere to go until they found her and Joel by accident.
One of them was tall, his hair pitch black and dark shadows under his light eyes. He had an old pistol in his hands and a knife in the waistband of his jeans. He pointed it to Joel’s head as he raised his hands in surrender and the young man checked to see if he was truly unarmed.
The other one, who looked even younger and had blond, thin hair, came to Juniper’s direction. He was armed only with a knife.
With a gun pointed at Joel’s head, she could only stay still while the man went to stay behind her and put the knife to her throat.
— What do we have here? — The blond man said. — Must be our lucky day. Can’t remember the last time we had one this pretty.
Joel lifted his gaze for the first time, letting her see the rage in his eyes. She decided to speak before him.
— We have supplies. And horses too. — The last part was painful to say, she didn’t want to give up on Ivory and let her go with these awful men. — I’m sure we can negotiate.
The man with black hair laughed. Juniper didn’t miss the way his hands trembled every once in a while. She could tell none of them was much experienced in whatever this was. She figured they would hesitate when it counted, knowing Joel was probably arriving at the same conclusion.
— Negotiate? I gotta a better idea. Why don’t I kill your dad here and then we keep you, huh? I’m sure we can think of a few ways to put you to proper use; good pussy is a rare thing these days.
— Leave her out of it. — Joel spoke for the first time.
Juniper was suddenly aware that his whole demeanor had changed. This wasn’t her kind, caring Joel with sad eyes, the man who took her in his arms in the cabin moments ago. He sounded calm, serene even. But in his eyes, she recognized a mortal glare.
— And why would I do that, old man?
Joel didn’t answer right away.
— I asked you a question! — The man shouted, his hand trembling even more now. — I want you to kneel now!
With Joel’s lack of response, he gave him a push on the shoulder, lowering the gun only for a fraction of a second. It was enough.
Joel elbowed the man with full force and gave him a kick at the same time, making lose balance and fall with a grunt.
It was easy to figure out who was the one giving orders and who was the one obeying in this pair, and Juniper knew the one with the knife to her throat would face a moment of panic with no orders to follow.
So, she kicked him on the shin. The hand that held knife faltered and it was all she needed. In the span of half a second, her own hand tried to grab the knife from him.
The blade ended up getting in contact with her palm, leaving a cut, but Juniper didn’t let go of it. Before she was able to steal the man’s knife, Joel had overpowered his attacker and got the gun.
He shot the man without a second of overthinking, on the head.
— Release her. Now.
Joel’s simple order was enough to make the blond man stop fighting with her, letting the knife fall to the ground. Joel’s eyes went to her bleeding hand.
— Please, man, I… — He tried to reason with Joel. — I’ll just go; I’ll leave now. I didn’t mean to…
— I told you to leave her out of it.
The shot came at the end of the sentence, on the head again.
Joel still held a deathly glare as he approached her, looking at her injured hand.
— What were you thinking? — He asked. — I had it handled; you should have stayed put.
— And how do you know he wasn’t about to kill me if I didn’t do anything?
— I knew it! — He was furious. — I wasn’t going to let you get hurt. When we’re out here, you follow my rules, you shouldn’t have reacted like that.
— I can’t believe you’re scolding me for defending myself. We’re partners here and yet you treat me like a child. — She raised her voice without realizing it.
— Then maybe you should stop acting like a child and listen to me. Let me see your hand.
At first, Juniper didn’t move, not wanting to show him.
— Let me see it. I don’t have time for this.
She lifted her hand for him to see the deep cut.
— You’re gonna need stitches. You ride back with me; you can’t hold the reins with a hand like this.
— But we can’t leave Ivory here. — Juniper sounded worried.
— I’ll come back with Tommy to get her later.
The look she gave him made Joel aware that she wasn’t convinced.
— Hey. She’ll be alright. I’ll come back later today, I promise. Now I gotta take care of you.
Juniper was still reluctant to agree.
— Okay. — She ended up saying.
The short walk back to the cabin was silent. Joel made her stay by his side, glancing at her from time to time, as if he was worried she might disappear.
She felt simultaneously embarrassed and angry at this situation. What was she supposed to do, stay still and wait to see if the man was going to slit her throat while Joel was fighting with the other one? She was starting to feel incompetent, given the way he always seemed to have to save her from one thing or another, fearing she would soon become a burden.
When they reached the cabin, she went straight to Joel’s chestnut horse, intending to mount on it. But he held her by the arm, making her stop.
— I don’t want you to put pressure on this hand.
And with those words, he lifted Juniper with care and put her on the horse’s saddle. He proceeded to climb to sit behind her, his arms encircling her body and getting her even closer to him.
There was no way to run from it, to run from him. Juniper had to sat with the discomfort of wanting him so much and the feeling of inadequacy that came with it.
Joel didn’t say a word on the whole way back to Jackson. He felt deeply ashamed, truth be told. How could he forget his rifle and then fail to realize they weren’t alone in the woods? This wasn’t like him. He remembered the shot on the tree trunk, right above her head, and felt a shiver to his spine. He could’ve lost her. He knew he wouldn’t survive this.
He held her tight, pressing her back against his front, more out of instinct than conscious thought. He shouldn’t have taken her to patrol or to any run in the first place, should have told Tommy she wasn’t cut out for it. But his immensely selfish desire to spend more time with her made him ask to be paired with her at all times. He had put her in harm’s way.
When they arrived in Jackson, Tommy was waiting for them by the gates, coming in their direction as soon as Joel helped her dismount.
— What the hell happened to you two? — Tommy asked right away. — I was ready to send a search party; you were supposed to come back yesterday.
— I got… A bit overwhelmed because I was back at my old cabin, it was snowing and Joel suggested we could stay the night. — Juniper was quick to lie. — And then today we encountered two men and… They wanted… Well, they wanted me. Joel killed them both, but one of them left me with a cut on the hand.
She lifted her left hand for Tommy to see.
— Jesus.
— I’ll take her to the infirmary now. — Joel intervened before his brother couldn’t come up with more questions. — I’ll see you later.
Juniper followed Joel to the infirmary, wishing she hadn’t had to lie to Tommy’s face. She didn’t understand why this relationship, if she could even call it that, had to be hidden from others. All she knew was this unspoken agreement that bound them to secrecy.
Joel stayed by her side the whole time, watching the doctor stitch Juniper’s hand as her face contorted in pain, even though he could tell she was trying to put on a brave façade for him to see.
He realized with a sigh and a painful ache in the heart that he was no good for this girl.
(...)
When Juniper heard a knock at the door next morning, she could only assume it was Joel.
He accompanied her to get stitches and took her home afterwards, but she felt something in him had changed.
She knew he was angry at her for reacting at the same time he did, and she could understand his reasoning, up to a point, even though she didn’t think the matter was this serious. She had had closer encounters with death than this one. Why couldn’t he just move on from it?
She assumed this was what was about to happen. Joel came to see her to apologize.
She was very surprised to open the door and find Tommy, standing on her porch.
— Mornin’. — He said almost apologetically, sensing her troubled expression. — Hope I’m not interruptin’ anything, I have something I gotta talk to you about.
— No, not at all. — She controlled herself. — I just woke up. I was about to make some hot cocoa. You can come in.
Tommy followed her to the kitchen, his eyes scanning through the decoration. The pink front door, a bookshelf half full, a vase with wildflowers on the table. It was all undeniably her, even him could tell.
He took a seat, watching her make the hot cocoa in a bit of a clumsy way, not able to use her left hand, covered in bandages.
— Do you want some? — She asked.
— No, thank you. Already had breakfast.
She grabbed the mug and sat at his side.
— So, what did you want to talk about?
— I’ll be pulling you out of patrols for a week or so, ‘til your hand is healed.
— It’s alright, I imagined it. — She took a sip of the hot cocoa. — It’d be difficult to shoot anyway, since I’m left-handed. Will I be back at the watchtower?
— Yeah, if you don’t prefer to do something else.
— No, no, the watchtower is fine. Eleanor will be happy to have my company again.
Tommy watched her drink for a moment, with a slightly puzzled look, as if he was trying to decipher her. Juniper avoided his gaze.
— I had another thing to ask you. — He finally said.
— Go on.
— Did anything happen out there? Between you and Joel?
Oh the definitive question. What happened between you and Joel?
— It was like I told you when we arrived. We were attacked and… — Her words trailed off.
— This part I know. He recounted the same story to me. I’m asking if something else has happened. — His tone got a bit more serious, but still kind. — Did you two had any kind of fight?
— Fight? What did he say exactly?
— Not much. That’s why I’m asking you.
It wasn’t difficult for him to notice that she was tense.
— He got angry with me ‘cause I reacted and got my hand injured. Said it was his job to handle it, that I should’ve stayed put.
— Yeah, sounds like my brother. And this was all?
For a fleeting moment, Juniper wondered if she should tell him the truth and ask for advice, try to get an insight from Joel’s mind, his brother surely would be able to explain at least some of it, knowing him better than she did. But she didn’t have enough courage to do it.
— Yes, that was all.
Tommy let out a deep breath, a sudden look of exhaustion on his face.
— He asked me to take you out of patrols for good. I thought you were going to tell me why he would do that.
— What? — The anger in her voice was palpable.
— He said you weren’t ready for it.
— And what was your response?
— That I’d think about it.
— Think about it? — Juniper spit the words. — I thought I passed your shooting test with flying colors.
— Look, you’re right, you did. But he was very worried and…
— If Joel doesn’t want to be my patrol partner anymore, you can just pair me up with someone else. But I want to go back once my hand is healed. And I’m not asking his permission to do it, he’s not in charge to decide it. I’m asking yours.
If Joel wanted to end things with her, he could at least have come to say it to her face instead of being a coward.
it's cominggg 😭 painful memories, yearning, blood, just the way we like it.
it's 50% done rn and I'm TRYING my best to have something ready by tomorrow (sunday)… buttt I have concerts both nights this weekend (21 pilots and Ethel will be there 😭) .
also not gonna lie, I got a lil distracted this week bc I NEEDED Edge of Town continuation and that ate into my Show me how bad you can hurt me time. oops
can't promise anything but I'm giving it my all!! 💕
and if I do manage to post… I WILL be demanding love. OKAY? feed the writer, I run on validation and caffeine
Ahhh hi! Idk why but I just wanted to let you know as a VERY FREQUENT reader it’s been a whileeee but I promise I will be back soon and commenting my heart out as “just a girl” I swear I think the Ao3 curse hit me
OMG, not the AO3 curse!! I'm so sorry to read this, I hope everything gets better soon!
And no worries, Tommy will be waiting for you when you're ready <3
Thank you so much for your love and support. You're one of my fave readers on AO3, and I remember you commented on something in the last chapter that I wrote specifically to create the hook for this continuation. You were spot on, haha.
"Girl why did I not even THINK about the line “Ain’t nothin’ in this world stronger than you and me, darlin’,” he says quietly.“ because ahh you’re so right! If the story goes the canon way he is such a lier! And omg right?!
Chapter Summary: Ten years later. Jackson thrives under your and Tommy's care. Your father is five minutes away. Tommy Miller has only grown sweeter with the grey at his temple.
Life has been merciful. Life has been generous. Life is, at last, chill.
But even the most generous life keeps one door closed.
Author notes:
Wait... a new chapter in EoT?
I've been craving making Tommy a dad for SO long (my man had baby fever for chapters already), but I was focused on writing my new Tommy fic 'Show me how bad you can hurt me' (the COMPLETE opposite Tommy... mean, smuggler, swallowed by the darkness and by Joel's corruption). Then this sweet reader commented in ao3 (WestGasper thank youuu) and my dad-Tommy-in-Jackson fever came back STRONG.
Fic Summary: This is the continuation of Edge of Town. You can read it individually, but i highly recomend reading AFTER EoT to avoid huge spoilers :)
Grain inventory. The east fence section that took storm damage last week. A dispute between two families over a dog that, in your opinion, is not worth half the shouting it has generated. Rotation schedules. A wedding request for the community hall. Somewhere in the middle of all of it, your father's handwriting - Because even "retired," the old man can't resist leaving notes pinned to the council board.
Bug, check the water filtration on the north fence. Don't trust Earl's job. Love, Dad.
You smile at it every time. For many years, he was just a voice you’d never thought you’d hear again, crackling through Colorado radio once a month. Now it's five minutes down the streets, in a house with a porch he built himself, where he spends his days spoiling other people's kids with cookies and survival lessons.
He handed Jackson totally to you and Tommy three years ago. He just stood up in the middle of a council meeting, said "you two have been running this place better than me for many years already, and I'm too tired," and sat back down. That was the whole retirement speech.
And so, here you are. You, who once wore a navy uniform, a hidden face and a name that made a whole QZ flinch. Running a town where people wave smiling at you in the street. Where people have second chances. Where, when you're not concerned with hordes of infected or raiders, you're deciding how the Christmas celebration will look, or which movie will be displayed in the town cinema this week, or whether the greenhouse expansion beats the new schoolhouse roof for next month's lumber. You keep the dam turbines turning, you walk the wall twice a month yourself, checking the gates, the watchtower rotations. You approve patrol rosters and ration adjustments.
You'd be lying if you said you don't still wake up some mornings waiting for the catch.
Colorado… It’s been some time that that dream fell apart now. It was supposed to be the dream. For a while, you even let yourself believe it was. You arrived broken, literally. Tommy stitched back together in a hospital bed, your leg in a cast, your hand still learning how to be useful with some fingers less. And the Fireflies took you in with open arms.
But that's the thing nobody tells you about chasing the light: Not all things look good when seen clearly and brightly.
You gave them four years. Tommy gave them more. His aching back, his aim, his sleep, his sanity and that stubborn hope of his that they fed on like fuel. You worked the clinic until your hands cracked. Tommy led supply runs and fought enemies through territory that got worse every season, watched many friends get buried, and came home each time a little quieter.
And the cure… the reason, the purpose… never came. One more sample, one more expedition, one more body in the ground. Joe Warren's lab produced just papers and promises.
When you and Tommy finally sat down one winter night and counted what the Fireflies had given back for everything they'd taken, the math came out the way you both already knew it would.
It wasn't lack of hope that made you leave in the end. It was Tommy, sitting on the edge of the bed one night after they'd lost two more people on a run for equipment that never worked, saying in that low, wrecked drawl:
"I keep fightin' for a world I ain't never seen, darlin'. And your daddy's out there buildin' one we could touch with our own hands."
That was it. That was the whole revolution.
You just packed, said your goodbyes to the ones who mattered, and pointed yourselves at a set of coordinates. Jackson.
Jennifer and Eugene came with you. By then the four of you were less like friends and more like a family with four big attitudes.
Just as you did with Butcher, Jennifer buried her FEDRA name at the town gate. "Gail," she announced, the first week, to anyone who'd listen. Gail Linden. And Jackson, it turned out, needed a therapist more than it needed another shooter.
She and Eugene got married by the river, Eugene crying harder than anyone, his beard finally gone fully grey. He runs the town's comms, patrols and power grid and grows questionable things in his greenhouse, and Gail pretends not to know, and everyone pretends not to smell it. And it is the second happiest marriage in Wyoming.
The first one lives in the house with the thick walls. Yours.
Ten years, and the two of you have grown into something Boston-you would never believe possible. Not because the love got bigger, it was always too big. But because it finally got to relax. Tommy hasn't given you a single shadow of the old fear in years. Forty-something Tommy Miller is a serious man now, people follow him, lean on him, trust him with their lives. But what survived all that growing up, mercifully, is the boy in him. The jokes got worse, if anything. He still flatters his own cooking like a reality show host, still lyric baits, still flirts with you at council meetings so shamelessly that your dad once threw a pencil at him. And then he comes home, and slow-dances you past the stove to no music at all, and remains, at his core, hopelessly, incurably optimistic and convinced that everything is going to work out. The apocalypse never managed to take that from him.
Life is good. Life is… chill. As chill as anything can be after the end of the world. Tommy is the love of your life and every day by his side feels like a blessing.
Yes. Life is good.
But…
There's one room in that house that stays too quiet.
You don't talk about it much anymore. You've been trying for years. Years after counting days, of hope arriving every month and leaving the same way. There was the appointment with Jackson's doctor, who was kind and honest and had no machines to give you anything better than "sometimes it just doesn't happen, and we can't know why."
But you know why.
The miscarriage. The years of pills, the ones you swallowed to sleep, to work, to stay upright through Boston. The drinking. The stress your body ran on for a decade like an engine melting with the wrong fuel. Sebastian. All of it. You broke it. You broke it a long time ago.
Gail says self-blame is grief looking for an excuse. She says a lot of true things you can recite by heart.
Tommy never says it's fine. He just holds the hope for both of you, as Tommy Miller does best. "When it's right, darlin'," he says. "When it’s the right time, it will happen’."
You were doing okay. Right up until today.
It's late afternoon when you cut through the market square on your way home. That's when you see him. A boy, maybe six, chasing another kid, laughing, completely unaware that he had just stopped your heart in the middle of the street.
He is wearing a jacket that brings mixed feelings to you. Dark green canvas, corduroy collar, the dinosaur patch. The exact jacket Benji was wearing the day you saved him and was bitten in exchange. The scariest day of your life, and the one that changed absolutely everything – against all odds - for better.
If I ever have a kid half as brave as you, I’ll name him Benji too.
The boy tears past you close enough that you catch yourself almost reaching your hands to hold him, hug him.
You don't remember the walk home. You remember getting in and sliding down against the kitchen cabinet before the first sob tore loose.
Tommy finds you there minutes later. The patrol ran long and he comes through the door still smelling of horse and pine, already halfway through calling your name, and stops.
You're on the floor by the kitchen table. Knees up. Face wrecked. You hear his gear hit the ground.
"Hey, hey, hey-" He's down on his knees in front of you, his hands finding your face, tilting it up, his thumbs already moving through the mess on your cheeks. "You hurt? Sweetheart, look at me. Are you hurt?"
You shake your head, and you watch the fear in him change shape. Because he knows... Of course he knows. There's only one thing left in this whole peaceful, honey-colored life that puts you on the floor.
He gathers you into his chest. "I got you," he murmurs into your hair. "I'm here. Let it come, darlin'. Let it come."
So you do. You cry, and he holds every second of it, rocking you slightly.
"I- I want a baby with you so bad, Tommy. I want it so bad and I can't- my body won't… I broke it, Tommy, I broke it before we ever got here, all those years, I did this-"
"Hey. No." His hand comes up, tilts your chin, and his eyes find yours. "You didn't break nothin'. Your body carried you through hell so you could be here with me."
"…why, Tommy? Why won't it happen? Am I too old now?"
The thing you don't see, because your face is buried against him, is Tommy Miller looking up at the ceiling of the house he built, jaw locked, blinking hard. Because he wants it too. God, he wants it, since he watched sunlight worship your bare skin for the first time in your kitchen, and understood what forever meant. He has names picked out he's never said aloud. He's caught himself, on patrol, memorizing which meadows would be good for teaching a kid to ride.
But you're on the floor, and he learned a long time ago that the two of you don't get to fall apart at the same time. So he does what he's always does: He takes his part of the weight, and then he takes yours too.
"I don't know, darlin'," he says, and his voice only shakes a little. "I don't know why. But I know this…" he presses his lips to your temple, lingering, "we ain't done. You hear me? Whatever shape our family's supposed to take, whenever it decides to show up… there ain't a single version of my life that would choose otherwise."
You breathe him in. Horse and pine and tobacco and Tommy. And let his heartbeat and his smell flood you.
He lifts you both off the ground, one arm around your waist, walking you to the couch.
He lands first and pulls you down into him, arranging you against his chest with the ease of who's done it a thousand times, in a hundred worse places. Your legs tangle with his. His hand starts moving through your body, slow and caring.
"Talk to me," you murmur against his shirt, because you need his voice. "How was the day?"
"Oh, thrillin'." His chest rumbles under your ear. "Big ol' tree came down across the north trail." He tips his head back against the cushion. "Took me, Jesse, and two chainsaws the better part of the afternoon. And you'll be pleased to know Jesse spent the whole time explainin' why his cutting angle was superior, until he screwed one of the chainsaws by doing it wrong. I had to spend the whole way back mocking his so-called superior angles."
A small laugh escapes you.
“Come on, Tommy. He’s just a teenager. I don’t know why you keep pulling him to patrols or to this type or work.”
“Hey, I’m doing as his parents asked. He is too strong for intern work. And he’s almost eighteen, anyway. Besides… someone needs to make sure that boy stays humble.”
You laugh again.
"Your turn," he says into your hair.
You groan. "The Hendersons and the Ortegas are both claiming Biscuit."
"Biscuit?"
"Yes. The dog. Biscuit."
"We're runnin' a whole town," he says slowly, savoring it, "in the apocalypse. And the crisis of the week is custody of Biscuit?"
“Precisely.”
He laughs. Small problems belonging to people lucky enough to have small problems.
The quiet settles. He finds your left hand, laces his fingers through what's still remaining there.
"Hey. Look at me a sec."
You tilt your head up. The dim light is doing unfair things to his face, the grey coming in at his temples and his goatee now, the lines around his eyes that Jackson carved gently, and those eyes themselves, still sweet, still looking at you like you're the only thing in the world.
"I need you to hear somethin'," he says. His thumb traces your knuckles. "If it's you and me and a houseful of kids… I'm the happiest man on this earth. And if it's just you and me, gettin' old and grumpy on this couch, arguin' about dogs named Cracker-“
“Biscuit.”
“-Biscuit, till we're ninety… Then I'm still the happiest man left on this earth."
He kisses you, unhurried, deep, his hand sliding along your jaw. His lips warm and sure against yours, tasting faintly of the cigar he smoked maybe minutes before arriving. His tongue brushes yours with gentle insistence, like he’s pouring every promise into it. You melt into the steady rhythm of it, letting the sadness and the gratitude tangle together in your chest.
You shift, climbing into his lap, and his hands settle at your hips, steadying you.
"Well, hey there," he murmurs against your mouth, grinning.
"Hi," you whisper back.
What was tender and soft and romantic suddenly turns electric, hot, and urgent. He looks into your eyes, then down at your lips, then back to your eyes again. You’re hypnotized by the freckles across his nose in this light, the way they stand out against his skin like stars you’ve memorized a thousand times.
“Let me make you comfortable, ok?” he says, voice low and rough with want.
He takes your shirt and bra off. His mouth finds your breasts, kissing them deeply, eagerly, lips and tongue and the soft scrape of stubble that makes you shiver. He sucks one nipple into his mouth while his hips roll up, pinning you against the hard line of his cock still trapped in his jeans. His hands grip your waist, pulling you down. You thread your fingers into his long curls and grip tight, a soft moan slipping out as pleasure sparks through the ache in your chest.
You stand just long enough to push your trousers and underwear down your legs. He frees himself from his jeans and underwear in the same breath. You climb back into his lap with no ceremony, sinking down onto him in one smooth, desperate motion.
You move up and down on him, slow at first, savoring the stretch, the fullness, the way he fills every empty place inside you. He meets your hips halfway, thrusting up with deep, steady rolls that make you gasp. You push your torso back, bracing your hands on his thighs, and both of you stare at where you’re joined. The wet, obscene glide of him driving into you to the hilt and pulling back.
You close your eyes, lost in it, but his voice brings you back.
“No, no, look at it, darlin’. Look how good it is. Look how perfect you take me.”
You keep moving together, the rhythm building, tender and hungry at once, the sadness and joy and love all tangled up in every breath and moan.
When you’re both close, trembling on the edge, you lean forward and wrap your arms around each other, holding tight. Your foreheads press together, eyes locked, and you come together as you have learned to sync without words over the years, his hips stuttering deep inside you, your walls pulsing around him as pleasure crashes through you both in long, shared waves.
Afterwards you lie tangled on the couch, your ear over his heart, his fingers drawing lazy shapes on your bare shoulder until sleep comes.
---
Morning comes and the sadness is still there.
So you do shower. Coffee. Plan the day.
You narrate your schedule to Tommy over breakfast. The water filtration, the Biscuit dispute, a preventive maintenance meeting for the Dam at noon.
"-and Rebecca wants to go over supplies before Friday, so I should probably-"
"Darlin',"
"-get to the warehouse early, because if I let fucking Earl start talking about the ledger first we'll be there till-"
"Darlin'."
You stop. He's leaning against the counter, coffee in hand, watching you. He doesn't say you're pretending, he knows you’re just filling the room with noise to avoid breaking down again.
"…I'm fine," you try anyway.
Tommy sets his mug down. Takes your face in both hands and studies you .
"Here's what I'm thinkin'," he says. "The community will survive one day without you. Earl and his pipes will survive. Biscuit will survive." His thumbs stroke your cheekbones. "Come on patrol with me."
You blink. "What?"
"Patrol. Me, you, two horses, the east area." He says it easy, but you can see the care underneath, the way he's been planning this since sometime around dawn. "Weather's nice. Ain't been more than a couple stray runners in months. It's about as safe out there as out there gets."
"Tommy…" Your hand finds the counter. "I haven't been outside the wall since-"
"I know.” There is no accusation on this voice - He's the reason, after all.
He preferred you safe taking care of the town, not having to face any trauma again, not quite trusting you to not get bitten… again. He kept convincing himself, you, everyone, that you’d be more useful inside. And you let him. Laying the armor down for good, learning to be a normal person with a clipboard, saving the hero hands for the days Jackson genuinely needs them, and letting the rest of you be ordinary.
"I just think it will be good for you to spend a few hours outside. And for me. To be on a horse with my wife, in the sunshine, far away from every folder and task in this town." He tucks the loose strand behind your ear. "Sometimes the walls keep things out, darlin'. And sometimes they just keep too many things in. Come see some woods with me."
You look at him for a long moment.
"…Okay," you say. "Okay, cowboy. Take me outside."
A cute boyish grin breaks across his face.
---
The east loop takes you up through the aspens in the morning light, the Tetons standing along the horizon beautifully. Your mare Wendy, because Tommy named her just after Bruce Springsteen song, of course he did - moves easy under you, and somewhere in the first mile your body remembers this: the rhythm, the cold clean air, the particular silence of a world with no walls in it. Tommy rides half a length back the whole way, and every time you glance over your shoulder he's already looking at you.
"Eyes on the road, Miller."
"Road's borin'," he calls back. "View's better over here."
You cross paths with exactly three infected. Distant stragglers, slow and half-rotted, drifting through a creek bed far below the trail. You don’t fear them. Maybe the distance helps, maybe ten years help. Maybe trusting Tommy blindly to protect you if needed helps too.
"Well, look at that," he says softly.
He dismounts, unbuckles the long rifle from his saddle, the scoped one, the one he cares about like a third member of the marriage, and holds it out to you with both hands. "Been meanin' to teach you this one proper. FEDRA never gave you anythin' with reach." He grins. "Figured my best student deserves good classes."
You take the rifle. It's heavier than anything you carried in Boston. He steps around behind you as you raise it. And this, it turns out, was the entire plan, because "teaching" apparently requires Tommy Miller pressed all along your back, his boots bracketing yours, his arms coming around you to adjust your grip with a thoroughness the task does not strictly demand.
"Feet apart," he murmurs, and nudges your leg with his knee. "There. Stock tight into the shoulder.” His hands slide down your arms, slow, correcting angles. “No. tight, darlin'." His mouth arriving at your ear and breath hot against your skin. "Cheek to the stock. Easy. Yeah… Just like that."
“Jesus, Tommy. I hope I’m your only student.” you say, breathless but not because of the rifle or the infected.
“Nah, I teach Jesse too.”
"Oh my. Is this how you taught Jesse? No wonder the boy likes you so much." You giggle.
"Ha-ha. Funny girl. Jesse got the far less romantic version." His stubble grazes your jaw as he leans in even closer, lips brushing the shell of your ear. "Now. Breathe in… let half of it go… and squeeze slow. Don't pull. Squeeze. Like you're-"
"Tommy. Miller. If you finish that sentence I will miss on purpose." You say, despite the heat he is causing to your core.
His laugh rumbles straight through your spine and into your ribs. "Yes, ma'am."
You breathe. You squeeze. The first infected far away falls to the ground.
"Well, God damn," Tommy drawls, reverent, his arms still wrapped around you.
"Again."
"Sure, go ahead."
You prepare again, but you miss the next shot, following by one that doesn’t quite kill the second creature.
“Hey, take it easy. Breathe and try again.” He says still holding you from behind with his chin hooked over your shoulder.
You kill it in the next shot.
“That’s it.” He whispers again in your ear, definitely not using a professional teacher tone. “Good girl. Doin’ so good, sweetheart-“
“Tommy.”
“What?” He sounds far too innocent for a man whose hips are pressed firmly against your ass.
You shake your head. “Oh my God. You’re insufferable.”
“You mean irresistible?”
You exhale a long huff. “Yeah… that too, to be fair.”
You aim and the last one is down with a clean shot.
Tommy lets out a low, proud whistle, finally stepping back but keeping one hand on your waist. “Damn, darlin’. You’re not rusty at all. Still got that steady hand and those sharp eyes.” His grin is wide and crooked, eyes shining with open admiration. “My wife’s a natural.”
He takes the rifle from you gently, slings it back over his shoulder, and presses one last kiss to the side of your neck before stepping away completely. You both mount the horses again, the warmth of him still lingering against your back.
"One more stop," he says. "Best part."
---
The lookout sits at the top of the ridge, a cozy wooden building, and beyond it a view that stops the breath in your chest: the whole valley laid out gold and green, the river a bright thread, Jackson's rooftops small and safe in the distance. Everything you run. Everything you help to built.
"Oh, Tommy!"
"Told ya." He comes to stand behind you, arms folding around your middle, and for a while neither of you says anything at all. For a while neither of you says anything at all, just breathing together in the quiet beauty of it.
"Second best view in Wyoming," he murmurs eventually. "…Number one is when I’m between your-"
“Tommy!”
“What?” He sounds far too pleased with himself.
"You had to ruin it. The romantic moment."
"It’s true." He laughs, proud and warm.
Inside the place, there’s a long wooden counter, and a battered logbook on it. Patrol protocol, every pass recorded: date, names, anything sighted.
Tommy flips it open and writes, narrating aloud his notes.
"Sept 1st. East loop clear. Three infected sighted at the creek. Neutralized at distance by a real pretty girl with a rifle. I think I'm in love."
And signs it: Mr. Miller & Mrs. Miller.
"Tommy," You grab for the pencil; he holds it above his head like the tallest twelve-year-old alive. "That is an official document!"
"Give me-" You get the logbook instead, flipping back through the pages to assess the damage, and the damage, it turns out, is extensive. Years of Jackson patrol history, and threaded all through the legitimate entries, in that unmistakable handwriting:
"Aug 14th. North ridge clear. Eugene claims he saw a bear. Eugene also claims his tomatoes are tomatoes. Nothing sighted. — T.M. / E.L."
Below it, in Eugene's cramped scrawl: "The bear was real. So my tomatoes. — E.L."
"Aug 2nd. All clear. Jesse fell in the creek. Recommend council to add swimming lessons to patrol training. Jesse votes no. — T.M. / J.Y."
You flip it further.
"Apr 30th. Sighted: one moose, majestic. One Eugene, less so. Both allowed to pass. — T.M. / E.L."
"Feb 21st. Cold as fuck. Zero infected. Even they got better sense than to be out here. — T.M. / K.G. "
You look up from the logbook. He's leaning against the counter, arms crossed, absolutely delighted with himself, silver at his temples but not one single ounce of shame anywhere on his face.
"Tommy. This is a safety record. People's lives depend on this book. It is not a place for jokes."
"Now, see, I disagree." He pushes off the counter and comes over, tapping the page. "Anybody can write 'all clear.' But some poor soul's gonna be sittin' up here alone on a night watch someday, cold and scared, and they're gonna flip through this book, and they're gonna laugh." He shrugs. "Way I see it, that's a safety feature. For mental health."
You stare at him. The scolding dies somewhere on the way up, ruined by the smile fighting through it.
"Gosh. You're impossible."
He plucks the pen back, adds one more line beneath today's entry, and turns the book so you can read it:
"P.S. Pretty girl scolded me. From now on, logbook will be just for serious notes."
You shake your head slowly, hopelessly, and take the pen from his hand. Beneath his line, in your own careful writing, you add:
"You’re welcome, guys. — Mrs. Miller."
He grins like he just won the whole valley. Outside, the sun is starting its slow slide toward the Tetons, and neither of you moves to leave just yet.
Tommy watches you for a long moment, his expression softening. “C’mere, darlin’. My wife deserves to relax. You’ve been too tense lately… carryin’ the whole town on your shoulders and blamin’ yourself for things that ain’t your fault.” He pulls the old couch closer to the big window, positioning it right in front of the sweeping view. “Sit.”
You raise an eyebrow but sit anyway. Tommy drops to the floor in front of you, kneeling between your legs. He takes your boots off one by one, slow and careful, then wraps his big, warm hands around your foot and starts massaging it with firm, soothing strokes.
You let out a soft sigh, leaning back. “I didn’t know this route came with special spa treatment.”
“Only Jackson’s prettiest girl is entitled to it,” he says, voice low and warm, thumbs pressing into the arch of your foot.
You laugh, the sound light and easy in the quiet lookout. Tommy smiles up at you, eyes crinkling, and keeps working, his hands moving from your feet to your calves, caressing slowly up your legs. The touches grow longer, warmer, more intentional. His palms slide higher, thumbs brushing the inside of your thighs.
When his fingers reach the button of your pants, you protest softly. “Tommy…”
He looks up at you, gaze steady and full of love. “Let me take care of you, sweetheart. I just want my wife to feel good. To relax. Nothin’ else. Let me make you feel good.”
You hesitate for a second, then nod. He peels your pants and underwear down your legs, kissing every inch of skin he uncovers. Once they’re off, he gently pulls you to the very edge of the couch by your ass, spreading your thighs wide for him. You’re completely open, bare to his hungry eyes and the golden light pouring through the window.
Tommy glances out at the valley for a moment. “Second best view in Wyoming,” he murmurs, voice thick. Then back to your pussy, a slow, appreciative grin spreading across his face. “Number one is right here.”
You grab a cushion and hit him with it, laughing.
“I meant it,” he says, completely unashamed.
Before you can answer, he dives in. His mouth is hot and eager, tongue licking a broad, slow stripe up your folds before sealing around your clit. He eats you whole. messy, devoted, groaning against your skin like he’s the one being spoiled. Two thick fingers slide into you, curling just right as he sucks and laps, praising you between breaths.
“Fuck, darlin’, this wet already?” he murmurs, voice vibrating against you. “Been cuttin’ off all my flirtin’ all day… and this whole time you’ve been this soaked for me?”
You moan, fingers threading into his curls, hips rolling against his mouth as he works you with relentless tenderness and hunger. He doesn’t stop. Tongue, lips, fingers, all of it focused on making you feel good, completely lost in you and the view he loves most.
You look at the golden valley stretching out forever, and then back down at him. Truth is, you can barely focus on the landscape in front of you. You’re mesmerized by Tommy’s face between your legs, his mustache slick and glistening with you, those dark curls catching the sunlight. You don’t say it out loud, but he is your number one view in Wyoming too.
Your thighs start trembling around his head, your whole body going boneless as the first orgasm crashes through you. You cry out his name, fingers tightening in his hair, hips jerking against his mouth. But Tommy doesn’t stop. He keeps licking, slower now, gentler, but still relentless, his fingers curling steadily inside you.
“Tommy-fuck-too much,” you protest, oversensitive and shaking, trying to squirm away.
He hums against you, the vibration pulling another helpless moan from your throat. “Just one more, darlin’. Let me have it.” He slows down but doesn’t pull away, tongue soft and coaxing, fingers stroking that perfect spot until another orgasm piles up impossibly fast and good. It hits you harder than the first, ripping through you in long, shuddering waves that leave you gasping and limp. You close your legs around his head automatically, locking him there, for some seconds.
You feell you whole body relax and your muscles loose. Only then does he ease off, pressing one last soft kiss to your inner thigh before rising. You’re still dizzy, legs trembling, when he gently pulls you off the couch. He turns you toward the big window, guiding your hands to rest flat against the cool glass.
“Stay right there,” he murmurs, voice rough with need.
You hear the sound of his zipper opening behind you. Before he can step in, you turn around, knees hitting the wooden floor. You look up at him, eyes heavy with want, silently asking for his cock.
Tommy’s head tilts, a slow, heated grin spreading across his face. “Is that so?”
You nod, biting your lip.
He threads his fingers gently into your hair, holding you just right. “Good girl.” He guides his thick cock to your lips and sinks in slowly, feeding you every inch until he’s buried deep in your throat. You suck him eagerly, hollowing your cheeks, tongue swirling along the underside as you look up at him through wet lashes. The stretch makes you gag softly around his length, drool slipping from the corners of your mouth, but you don’t pull back. You take him deeper, delighted by how deliciously big he feels, how perfectly he fills your mouth.
Tommy groans low, eyes dark with pleasure. “That’s it, darlin’… so good for me. Look at you, takin’ me so pretty.”
He drives into your mouth with long, steady, dragging strokes; deep and controlled, letting you feel every thick inch sliding over your tongue and into your throat. You gag again, eyes watering, but you keep sucking him with devotion, moaning around his cock as you watch his face. His thumb strokes your cheek tenderly even as his hips keep that slow, relentless rhythm.
After several deep, dragging strokes, he pulls out with a shaky breath, his cock glistening with your spit. His voice drops, low and bossy:
“Hands back on the glass, legs spread.”
You obey instantly, turning again and bracing yourself against the window, spreading your legs for him. The valley stretches out in front of you, endless and beautiful, while Tommy steps in close behind, hands settling on your hips.
With one smooth thrust he sinks all the way inside you, burying himself to the hilt in one deep stroke. You both moan at the same time, the sound mixing with the quiet of the lookout. He starts moving, slow and powerful, each thrust pushing you forward against the cool glass.
You arch your back completely for him, pushing your ass back and curving your spine, offering yourself fully. Your hands tremble against the window as pleasure sparks through every nerve.
Tommy groans low, one hand caressing your ass cheek, squeezing the soft flesh appreciatively. “Fuck, darlin’…” His other hand slides to the small of your back, pressing gently to deepen the arch, while the hand on your hip pulls you back into every thrust.
He leans over you, lips brushing your shoulder, voice tender even as he fucks you deep and steady. “You enjoyin’ the view?”
You can barely answer, a broken moan slipping out instead. The sight of the golden valley blurring in front of you, combined with the feeling of him moving inside you, is almost too much.
You manage a shaky “uh-huh,”.
Tommy’s thrusts grow quicker, deeper, the sound of skin meeting skin filling the space. You find your voice again, breathless and teasing.
“You? Enjoyin’ the view, cowboy?”
He laughs, low and rough, and shakes his head. His hands leaves your hip to spread your ass cheeks, his eyes dropping to watch the way his thick cock drives in and out of your soaked pussy, lingering on the tight ring just above.
“Hell yeah, I’m lovin’ this view,” he groans.
You clench hard around him at his words. Tommy feels it immediately.
“Already cumming again?” he asks, surprised and delighted.
“Yes, fuck, yes, I’m.. so close, Tommy,” you whimper, pushing back against him desperately.
“Don’t say it like that, darlin’… I’m close too,” he rasps, slowing his thrusts in an attempt to hold back.
“No, don’t slow it…keep going, please,” you beg, voice trembling. “I’m so close, cowboy.”
The plea breaks him. “You ask like that… I can’t hold no more-”
“Don’t,” you gasp. “Come with me.”
Tommy groans deeply and gives in, fucking you harder, faster, both of you chasing the edge together. Pleasure crashes over you at the same time, your walls pulsing tight around him as you cry out, his cock throbbing as he spills deep inside you with a broken moan of your name. You collapse forward against the cool glass, still connected, breathing hard together while the aftershocks roll through both of you.
He presses a soft kiss to the back of your head, lips lingering there.
“I love you,” you whisper, voice hoarse and full of everything you feel for him.
“I love you more,” he murmurs against your hair, arms wrapping around you from behind.
You stay like that for a long moment, breathing together, his cock still buried inside you, the golden valley glowing in front of you. Then Tommy chuckles softly against your neck.
“Should I report this in the log-”
You snap your head toward him, eyes wide with playful outrage. “Tommy!”
---
Two months later
October brought the cold weather and the sun clocking out earlier and earlier every day. And your body, apparently, have decided to hibernate.
"Well, look at this," comes the drawl from above you. "Sleepin' Beauty herself."
You crack one eye open. Tommy is standing at the edge of the bed, fully dressed, jacket on, rifle slung, smelling like coffee and looking down at the blanket cocoon.
"Time is it," you mumble.
"Time is late, ma'am." He sits on the edge of the mattress, and the tilt of it rolls you helplessly toward him, which was obviously the plan. "Third mornin' this week I'm leavin' while you're still in bed like a hibernatin' bear. You gettin' lazy? Sleepy little thing lately." He brushes the hair off your face, tucking it back with gentle fingers. "Should I be worried? Should I alert the council? 'Jackson leadership compromised by mattress.'"
"The paperwork can wait." You burrow deeper, unrepentant. "What's the benefit of being Jackson's big boss if I can't set my own schedule?"
Tommy's eyebrows climb. "Big boss, huh." He leans down. "Funny. I coulda swore this was a democratic commune. Council-run. No big bosses. I've heard the speech, darlin'… hell, I've heard you give the speech."
You lift one hand out of the blankets, press a single finger to your lips.
"Shhh. That's just what I tell people. To look nicer. Deep down I’m still a mean controlling bitch."
The laugh comes out of him whole, head back, shoulders shaking, the real one, and he drops down to kiss you through it, grinning against your mouth. "God, I married a tyrant," he murmurs, delighted. "A sleepy tyrant." He kisses you again, slower this time, one hand cradling your jaw, and pulls back only far enough to look at you. "Alright. East loop with Jesse. Back soon."
"Take care," you say. the same two words, every time, the old ritual neither of you has ever once skipped.
"Always do, darlin'."
His boots on the stairs. The front door. The quiet.
You lie there in the warm dark of the blankets and take a lazy inventory of yourself, because he's not entirely wrong. You have been sleepy. Bone-deep, for a couple of weeks now. But it's October. The sun sets early. The cold makes everything heavier. Bears have the right idea, that's all. It's the season. It's the weather. It's-
The nausea arrives with no introduction whatsoever. The next second your whole body sits up without consulting you, stomach rolling, and you're out of the blankets and across the cold floor and on your knees in the bathroom with just barely enough time to lift the lid.
You're vomit until there's nothing left, forehead finally coming to rest on your arm, breath ragged.
"Okay," you tell the toilet, hoarse. "Okay. That's new."
You stay sitting on the bathroom floor, back against the tub.
"Tommy?" you call out, before your brain catches up with the clock. He's half a mile gone by now, riding east with Jesse, and you're alone on the bathroom floor with a thought you are absolutely not going to have.
You are not going to have it.
It's the stew. That's what it is. Last night's stew sat out too long, or the venison turned. You bet half Jackson is sick this morning, complains piling to the council, you'll walk into the dining hall later in the week and it'll be a whole thing, the great October stew incident, Tommy will write it in a logbook somewhere-
Your body gets up before the thought finishes. Your body just stood, walked you to the cabinet below the sink, and opened it.
Your hand goes past the razors. Past the aspirin, the bandages, past a bunch of things. All the way to the back corner, where your fingers fumble and then close around a small paper-wrapped bundle you hid from yourself years ago.
Pregnancy tests. Long, long overdue. Three of them. Back when hoping was a thing you did on purpose. And then hidden, after the doctor's kind honest diagnosis, after the months turned into years, because throwing them away would hurt as much as looking at then. So: the back corner. Out of sight.
You stand there holding it, and your hands are shaking, and you hate it.
"It's food poisoning," you inform your reflection in the mirror. “That's all this is."
You take the test.
And then comes the wait. And God, the wait. Three minutes, the faded box says. Three minutes.
You do not make it thirty seconds before you're pacing.
Bathroom door to window. Window to bathroom door. You count seconds. You build the case against hope, brick by brick, out loud, to the room: it's nothing. It's the stew. It's the cold. And even if… even if… you'd know, wouldn't you? Except you wouldn't, and that's the worst brick of all, the one your mind keeps picking up and turning over: the last time, you felt nothing. Not one symptom. Not one whisper from your own body before the miscarriage took even the knowledge away. So it stands to reason. Feeling something now, feeling sick, feeling wrecked, means it's precisely nothing. Bad food behaves loudly. That's all this is. You will not be disappointed again. You have done disappointed. You have done it so many times, and you are not signing up for the advanced course, not over one bad stew.
Pacing. Counting. It has been, according to every cell in your body, several hours. It has been, actually, just long three minutes.
You stop in the bathroom doorway. You look at the little strip lying on the edge of the sink where you left it face-up.
Two lines.
Your brain runs the math first, looks for the error, checks the box against the strip against the box again. Expired, surely, false, surely, faded, surely. And the two lines just go on sitting there anyway, clear and pink.
The test slips out of your fingers and falls against the tile, and you don't pick it up. You slide down the doorframe until you're sitting on the bathroom floor for the second time this morning, both hands over your mouth, and the sound that comes out from behind them isn't quite a laugh and isn't quite a sob, and you can't believe it. You cannot. You cannot.
You do the second test.
Two lines.
You sit on the floor of the house, and you cry until the light moves across the floor.
---
Tommy knows something's wrong before his second boot is off.
The house is never this quiet when you're home. A kettle, the music, you narrating some beef with Earl to no one, and instead there's just silence, and his heart is already climbing his throat as he takes the stairs two at a time with his jacket half off.
"Darlin'?"
He finds you on the edge of the bed, face wrecked and shining. He's just there, kneeling in front of you, hands finding your face, thumbs already moving.
"Hey, hey, I'm here. What happened?" His eyes do the old arithmetic, hands, arms, body, door, window. "Sweetheart, talk to me. Are you hurt? Did somebody-"
You shake your head. You open your mouth. Nothing comes out. You've been trying to build this sentence for seven hours, you built forty versions of it, funny ones and gentle ones and one where you cooked his favorite dinner first, and now he's here smelling of horse and woods with his scared, sweet eyes, and every version has disappeared.
"Breathe," he says, softer, though he's not doing much of it himself. "You're scarin' me a little, darlin'. Whatever it is, we-"
Your hand is already moving. You open your fingers, and press it into his palm, and fold his hand around it.
Tommy looks down.
You watch it happen. You will keep this. You know it even as it's happening, and you will keep the next ten seconds of Tommy Miller's face for the rest of your life. The confusion. The focus. The stillness. The delight at the realization. You make sure this moment is etched in your memory forever in every rich detail.
His eyes going from the two lines to your face, back to the lines, back to your face, wide and dark and filling.
"Is this-" His voice comes out wrecked on the first try. He clears it and it doesn't help. "Darlin'. Is this what- are you- are we-"
" I took it twice," you whisper, and your face is crumpling all over again. "Tommy. Two lines. Both times. I'm… we're-"
You don't get to finish, because Tommy Miller makes a sound you have never heard from him. Something between a laugh and a sob, cracked wide open, and surges up off his knees and wraps you completely, arms round you, lifting you clean off the edge of the bed and into him, one hand cradling the back of your head.
"Oh my God," into your hair. "Oh my God, sweetheart-" He pulls back just far enough to take your face in both hands, and he's crying, openly, gorgeously, grinning through it like the sun coming up over the Tetons. "A baby. We're- you're… there's a baby-" His forehead drops to yours. "I love you. God, I love you, I love you, do you hear me-"
"I couldn't believe it," you're babbling into the inch between your mouths, laughing and sobbing in the same breath.
He pulls back. Looks down between you. He kneels again and presses gently one broad, rough palm flat against your stomach, barely touching, reverent.
"Hey in there," he says, hoarse, in that same drawl that has been undoing you since the first day you met. "It's your daddy."
And that's the end of you. The tears fall mercilessly. You wrap yourself around him and he wraps himself around you, and the two of you stand there swaying, crying, laughing.
----
I SWEAR i sat to write Show me how bad you can hurt me. But I need a baby with dark curls and freckles so bad. When I realized, it was too late, I was sat for 9h straight writing this.
:: Moodboard for next chapter of Show Me How Bad You Can Hurt Me ::
You see it? CAN. YOU. SEE what's about to happen? 👀
I'm finally making one of my fantasies come true next chapter. And because it might take me a little longer to write, I'm giving you a tease/spoiler to keep you as excited as I am! I probably won't be able to post this weekend (I'll try, but realistically... unlikely 😅). In the meantime: if you know any songs that vibe with this fic, send them my way! I'm 100% fueled by music when I write, I pick one song, put it on repeat, and just write write write in a flow state. Right now this chapter feels very "White Feather Hawk Tail Deer Hunter" 👀 but I'd love more suggestions to really lock it in!
Chapter Summary: Tommy Miller has made his decision. He is absolutely certain about it. And he will keep being certain about it, no matter how much it hurts you.
You dared him once to show you exactly how bad he could hurt you. Congratulations. Now you know.
Fic Summary: Four years after the outbreak, Joel and Tommy Miller are hardened smugglers in the Boston QZ: mean, violent, and willing to do whatever it takes to survive. When they’re paid an obscene amount to smuggle you across the ruined country to Columbus QZ, they didn't ask what secrets you carry to be worth that much. They just expect an easy job. You're supposed to be just cargo. They will soon discover this cargo has teeth… and the power to make even the worst men start to crack.
Tags: Tommy Miller x Reader, Dark!Tommy, Raider!Tommy, Explicit Sexual Content, Post-Cordyceps Outbreak (The Last of Us), Stockholm Syndrome, Dark Romance, Tommy is mean but not too much, Tommy Miller Fanfic, Enemies to Lovers, Tommy was corrupted by Joel, Vaginal Sex, Fireflies (The Last of Us), Slow Burn
wc: 10k
When you opened your eyes, Marcus was still completely dead to the world on his cot, one arm thrown over his face, breathing deep. You watched his chest rise and fall for a moment, then looked at the pale light coming through the grimy windows of the shop floor. Early morning.
But Frank was already up. As you walked out the break room, you found him beside one of the old vehicles on the shop floor, looking at something under the hood of a pickup truck that had probably been mid-repair when the world ended. He looked frustrated as he had absolutely no idea what he was looking at.
"You know that's not going to work," you said.
"Well, I'm choosing to remain optimistic anyway."
You leaned against the truck's side, watching him frown at the engine.
A few minutes passed when he finally admitted. "Yeah. I have no clue.” He said scratching his head.
“…He would've known what to do," Frank said. "Your uncle. He would've looked at this thing for thirty seconds and known exactly what was wrong with it." He shook his head. "I swear, half the things I try to fix I hear his voice in my head tellin' me I'm doin' it wrong. God… I miss him."
"Because you are usually doing it wrong."
"Helpful. Thank you."
You smiled despite yourself.
“…I miss him too," you said quietly. "Every day.”
Frank lowered the hood and straightened, wiping his hands on his jeans and looking at you. His palm cupped your cheek for a moment, unhurried, as the gesture could avoid saying more words that would break both of you.
"What time do you think we should move?"
Frank glanced toward the room where Marcus was still blacked out. "Have you seen him?" He shook his head. "Let him have it. We move when he wakes up."
"Okay." You nodded, looking around. "I'll eat something. Maybe read for a bit."
"Good idea, sweetheart."
You turned to go, then stopped.
"Frank."
"Mm?"
"How did you know? With my uncle." You paused, finding the words. "How did you know he was the right person?"
Frank was quiet for a moment.
"I didn't," he said finally. "I knew he was infuriating. I knew he made me laugh harder than anyone I'd ever met. I knew I was angrier at him than I'd been at anyone." A small, private smile crossed his face. "And then when I was sad or sick, or had done something stupid and was too proud to admit it, he'd just quietly fix whatever needed fixing without making me ask. Wouldn't say a word about it afterward. He just made sure I was okay." He glanced at you sideways. "And then one day I realized I was only that angry at him because I cared that much. Because when you don't care about someone, they can't make you feel anything at all." He shrugged once, simply. "Figured that was probably worth payin' attention to."
"Mm," you said.
Frank studied your face. Whatever he saw in it made him exhale slowly through his nose.
"Your uncle would kill me for supportin' you on this, you know," he said.
"No, he wouldn't." You shifted, crossing your arms loosely. "He could always tell when he saw a good man. Even when the man was being an idiot about it."
Frank huffed. He looked at you for one more moment, then clearly decided to stop pulling on that particular thread.
"I have cereal bars in the side pocket of my pack," he said.
“Thank you, Frank.”
You found one and tore it open, taking half.
"I’ll get my book," you said, looking upstairs.
Frank looked up, and then back at you.
"The book is in his pack." You added.
"Mmhm." His mouth twitched. "You going up there to get your book. Or are you going up there to give him…" he tilted his head suggestively, "breakfast?"
You felt heat rise in your face and covered it immediately with the flattest expression you owned.
"Ha-ha."
"I'm just asking."
You thought briefly, involuntarily, about last night. About the way his cuffed arms had pulled you closer. About the things he said afterwards.
"Don’t worry… He's not deserving that kind of breakfast right now."
"Mmhm."
"I need my book, Frank."
"Of course you do."
You turned and walked toward the stairs before he could say anything else, but you could hear his quiet laugh.
The office was dim and still when you pushed the door open. Tommy was awake. He was sitting watching the door as if he knew you’d show up anytime.
You didn't say anything. You crossed directly to his pack, which sat against the far wall against him, and crouched to unzip it.
"Morning," Tommy said.
You ignored and found the book, tucking it under your arm. You took some steps in his direction and held out the other half of the cereal bar without looking at him, and he took it from your fingers.
"You're not gonna talk to me?" he asked.
You moved toward the door.
"Hey." His voice sharpened slightly. "You're really not gonna say a word to me?"
You stopped. Turned around. Looked.
"I'm angry at you," you said simply.
"I can tell."
"You said those things," you continued, voice flat, "right after we—" You stopped, jaw tightening. "You’re still choosing Joel after everything we’ve been through together. You compared me to him. And… you expect me to come up here and make pleasant conversation?"
Tommy's jaw worked. "And what do you expect me to do, exactly? Just give up on my own family?" He looked away, then back. "Besides, you lied to me. You knew your crew was comin' and you said nothin'. Then you used what happened between us as a weapon against my brother." He shook his head slowly. "You don't get to be the only one who's angry here."
You opened your mouth, but he kept going.
"You keep sayin' you want me. Want me in your team. But you keep hidin' things from me, and I got a feelin' there's still more you ain't said." His eyes held yours, steady and tired. "I'm willin' to go to Baltimore. I said that. But not without Joel. And not if I don't know exactly what I'm signin' up for."
"Tommy." Your voice rose slightly despite yourself. "You're simultaneously one of the smartest and one of the dumbest people I've ever met. You know Joel would never agree."
He looked away. "I said I'd convince him—"
"And I've told you everything you need to know." You cut through it before he could finish. "I've shared the deepest secret I have, and you're still standin' there actin' like I'm hiding something. What else do you want from me?"
Neither of you said anything for a few long seconds. Then you pulled the book out from under your arm and shook it slightly in his direction.
"I have more interesting things to do. Bye." you said.
You turned toward the door.
"How long you got left in it?"
You stopped close to the door but didn't turn around. "I'm close to the end."
"Come read here then." You heard the shift of him adjusting against the pipe. "Here, close."
"Why would I do that?"
"Because I want to be close to you." His voice came out low and simple, not appearing to use any strategy in it. "That's all."
"I don't want to be close to you."
"Bullshit."
You turned then, frustrated, and found him watching you with something quiet and certain in his face that made it harder to hold onto the anger than it should have been.
"Why do you do that, Tommy? You don't really care about me. Not the way it matters. So why do you keep pushing this? Why do you keep giving me hope?"
"I never once said I don't care about you." His voice was low, unhurried. "I do. A lot. You know that."
You closed your eyes. Shook your head once.
"Come on, little rabbit." His voice had shifted, softer now, something almost shy underneath the warmth of it. "Read here. Close to me."
You went very still. Little rabbit. The same name Robert called María in the worn pages of the book pressed against your arm. You looked down at the cover of the book. Then at him.
He was watching you with that small, crooked, slightly proud and slightly uncertain smile, like he'd found a key and wasn't entirely sure he was allowed to use it, but had used it anyway.
Unfortunately, that worked. You felt your heart melt a bit and you walked to him.
He watched you come the whole way across the small room, not saying anything, making space for you the best he could with his arms still anchored to the pipe. You tried to settle against his chest, but it was impossible. The pipe pulling his arms, and you ended up half-twisted with your shoulder digging into him in a way that worked for neither of you.
"Take them off," he said quietly, his eyes steady and calm on yours. "I won't do anything. I'll stay right here 'til you finish. I just want to hold you properly."
You looked at him for a long moment, searching for the thing you'd learned to read in his face over weeks of watching it. You didn't find any. Just that same quiet, unguarded love that he never quite said out loud but kept showing you without words.
"Promise me you won't try to escape."
"I promise."
"And promise me you'll stay quiet so I can read."
The corner of his mouth lifted slightly. "Yes, ma'am."
You reached into your pocket, found the small key, and held it there for one more second. Then you unlocked the cuffs.
He rubbed his wrists slowly, one then the other, without looking away from you. Then he opened his arms.
You turned and settled back against his chest, fitting yourself into his space. His arms came around you, careful of his injured shoulder, and you opened the book to where you'd left off.
The first kiss came against your hair. Light, barely there. Then one against your temple.
Then his chin came to rest against the top of your head, and his good arm tightened slightly across you, and his thumb began its slow, idle trace along your forearm. And that was all. That was everything.
You read. And he held you and said nothing.
Tommy spent the night making a decision, and he knew now exactly how this was going to end.
He'd been turning it over since, since he'd sat alone in the dark with the cuffs on his wrists and worked through every possible angle until only one remained. He knew what he was going to do. He knew what it was going to cost.
Which meant he knew how many hours he had left with you. And it was not much.
His thumb moved slowly along your forearm, tracing the line of it. But not to distract you or start anything, just to learn it. He wanted to remember exactly what he was about to lose. The exact texture of your skin under his fingers. The small bones of your wrist. The way your pulse moved quiet and steady beneath his thumb when he found it, and the way something in his own chest loosened slightly every time he felt it, proof that you were still here, still real against him for a little while longer.
He pressed his lips into your hair and breathed in, slow and deliberate, and held it.
He wanted to keep that. Wanted to be able to find it later, in some cold and darker place, and know what it had smelled like to hold you like this.
His hand moved up your arm, unhurried, relearning the shape of your shoulder, the curve where your neck met your collarbone. Just carving it on his memory, the way you'd memorize something you knew you it would soon no longer exist.
You turned pages. He followed the movement of your breathing.
Once you shifted slightly to find a better angle for your neck and he adjusted too. His lips found the side of your neck again, and you let your eyes close for a moment before finding the line on the page again.
You felt it. Equal parts loving and unsettled by: how completely he was paying attention, the way it didn't feel quite like presence. It felt like departure. You couldn't have pointed to any single proof. But you just knew.
You chose to ignore it anyway. Both of you relying on the closeness and silence where words could not solve anything, anymore.
An hour passed. Maybe more. The book moved toward its ending and Tommy held you all along. And it was ordinary and it was devastating in the same way that ordinary things become devastating when you already know they're almost over.
You read the last line. Closed the cover slowly.
"Wow," you said quietly. "Sad… And so beautiful. The story is so-"
His hand came up and turned your face toward his. His lips found yours with careful patience. He couldn’t afford to hurry.
Then slower still, deeper, his mouth opened against yours and his tongue found yours. You felt him learn you all over again in the space of that kiss: the exact pressure, the exact angle, the way your mouth fit against his that you had finally, after everything, begun to know as familiar. His taste. The small sound he made low in his throat when you kissed him back fully.
You kissed him back and felt the angst of it sitting underneath everything, neither of you willing to be the one to end it.
You parted gently. His forehead found yours.
"You know how much you mean to me, don't you?" His eyes were open, looking directly into yours, and there was something apologetic moving behind them that made your stomach tighten.
"No," you said. "I don't, Tommy."
"You do." His thumb traced slowly along your jaw as he said it. "I need to go." His voice came out low and steady. "And I could walk away right now without asking. But I'm asking."
His eyes stayed on yours.
"I understand why you did what you did. I hate the fact you put Tess in the middle of all of this, but I know it was the only way you could be sure of comin' out of it safe from Joel. I don't blame you for any of it." A pause, his thumb stilling against your jaw. "But he's my family. I can't give up on him. That ain't somethin' that's gonna change."
"Tommy, that's not—"
"I'm givin' you the best outcome available." He said it gently, sharing a fact rather than making a threat. "I can go now and nobody gets hurt. We meet back in Boston QZ once you’re done in Baltimore. But if you cuff me and keep this… I've got nothin' left to do than fight back.” His eyes held yours without flinching. “And you can’t stop me. Because you won't let them kill me or hurt me. So, I will go one way or the other… and I’d prefer not to hurt them to do it."
You looked at him for a long moment. And felt, with cold and settling clarity, your miscalculation.
You had planned for every variable. You had run three hundred versions of this encounter in your head across three weeks of walking and thinking and preparing. You had outmaneuvered Joel Miller, which was not a thing most people survived doing.
But you had not planned for Tommy. For the fact that you would be incapable of giving the order that would actually stop him if he fought back.
Frank would do it if you asked. Marcus would do it without hesitation. But you wouldn’t and Tommy knew it.
And without a real threat, nothing could stop him.
He was playing the same game you played him all along. For the first time you had no choice, no plan B. Let him go or wait to see whose body would fall to the ground first. Tommy’s, Frank’s or Marcus’.
You stood up abruptly, the book falling to the floor between you.
"That's dumb." Your voice came out sharp and immediate. "You're so fucking stubborn. They're on horses, at least twenty-four hours ahead of you. You'll be on foot, alone. You won't catch them, Tommy. You'll just die trying."
Tommy knew. He knew the math of it. The distance, the danger, the odds of finding any way to close that gap. He knew the chances were almost nothing.
He also knew that the idea of die trying felt like something he could live with. Giving up on his brother was something he wasn't sure he could.
"I'll find a way," he said. "I'll be fine."
You stared at him. "You're really doing this." Your voice dropped, something close to disbelief in it. "You'll kill yourself going after him. He has three members of my team after him, Tommy. Three. He doesn't need you. He wouldn't want you to risk yourself like this."
"Supposin' your crew actually reached him," Tommy said carefully, not looking at you. "And supposin' he didn't find a way to get past them on his own—"
"What?" The word came out quiet and dangerous.
"Joel's resourceful. You know that as well as I do. If he felt cornered or threatened, he'd—"
"Are you saying—" You stopped. Started again, voice climbing. "Are you actually standing there telling me you think he killed them? My people, Tommy. People who showed him more mercy than he deserved. Are you saying I sent three of my friends to their deaths?" You started pacing, fast and tight, your hands coming up to your face. "And even knowing that, even saying that out loud, you still want to go after him? To save him?"
You spun and kicked his backpack hard across the floor, sending it skidding into his legs.
"You're sick. Just go. Just fucking go."
Tommy couldn't find the words. There were none that would make sense from the outside, none that could explain the thing that ran in his blood, the loyalty that had no rational justification and didn't need one.
You were pacing. He could see you thinking, working something over, and he recognized your pattern: the silence that preceded something you knew would land badly and were going to say anyway.
"…I thought Joel was the way he is because he failed to protect his daughter," you said, voice going very quiet. "That it was his awful way of carrying that guilty and grief. But maybe I was wrong." You paused, your eyes finding his, and something cold moved behind them.
"Maybe it wasn't about him failing to protect Sarah." You kept going, each word placed with the precision to hit a wound. "Maybe she died because you failed them both. Maybe you were the one who should've protected her and couldn't. And maybe… maybe the only reason Joel's still alive is because you forced him to be. Because you saved him when he would rather have died with her."
Your voice dropped further. "And maybe that's why he can't look at you without punishing you for it. Because you made him live when he didn't want to. And you've been paying for that ever since with every scrap of blind loyalty you have, trying to make up for the one time it counted and you weren't enough."
Tommy stood there, his pack in his hand, his jaw working slowly, his eyes doing something you had never seen them do before, going somewhere very far away, somewhere dark and closed that he kept sealed behind everything else. He swallowed once. Then he crossed to the door and picked his gun up from where Marcus had left it on the shelf, his movements very controlled, very deliberate, needing to be careful right now or he wasn't going to be careful about anything.
He shook his head once. Like he was refusing to let your words land anywhere they could do permanent damage.
"That's easy to say," he said quietly, "when you give up on family as easy as you apparently do." His voice had none of the cruelty yours had held, which somehow made it worse. "What did you expect from me? That I'd turn my back on my brother at the first inconvenience?" He shook his head again. "We're blood. We're all each other's got. I don't know what happened with your brother to make you think that's somethin' a person can just… choose their way out of." He looked at you steadily. "But whatever it was, I'm sorry for it. That ain't me. I could never."
The air in the room changed.
He continues. “You pushed me to chose between you and my brother, and—"
"You have no idea," you cut him, spitting the words. "what you are saying right now."
"I would if you'd tell me."
"My brother is none of your business."
"That's funny." His voice stayed even. "Seein' as how you've been diggin' into my relationship with mine since the day we met. But the other way around… that's off limits?"
You crossed the room and slapped him.
The sound of it was sharp in the small office, your broken fingers screaming at the impact, pain shooting up your hand and into your wrist, tears springing to your eyes before you could stop them. You stood there breathing hard, and the tears kept coming but it was not from the pain.
"My brother," you said, voice shaking, "has done nothing but try to protect me. The reason we split is because he wanted what he thought it was best for me and I wanted something different." You pressed your hand harder against your chest, the tears falling freely now, and you didn't wipe them. "That's how hard it was. That's what a real split costs. Giving up someone who has only ever loved you the only way they can, because your paths went different ways."
Your voice broke slightly and you drove through it.
"And I never, never, asked you to choose between your brother and me."
You took one step toward him.
"I asked you to choose yourself. Not me. Not the Fireflies. Yourself." A breath.
"That's what I did when I left my brother. I chose myself and my beliefs." You held his gaze. "I was brave enough to do it. And I'm not going to stand here and let you call that easy, because you're too much of a coward to do the same."
Tommy looked at you for a long moment. The corner of his mouth twisted, choosing silence over feeding the fire. He nodded once and moved toward the door.
Frank and Marcus appeared at the top of the stairs the moment he stepped through it, guns up, bodies blocking the way down.
"Let him pass. He's leaving."
Your eyes dropped to the floor. To the book lying face-down where it had fallen. You looked at it for a moment. Then back at him.
"We were both wrong," you said, the anger draining into tiredness. "That book has nothing to do with you. Robert chose purpose and love over his own survival." You held his gaze. "You're clearly not like that."
Tommy didn't move. He should have. He should have turned, taken the stairs and just leave. But he stood there in the doorway and looked at you and couldn't make himself go.
Frank and Marcus held their positions, watching, silent.
Tommy closed the distance. "Let's stop hurtin' each other." His voice came careful just for you, the anger gone from it entirely, something genuine surfacing in its place. "We're both out of options right now. But that doesn't mean it has to end like this." He searched your face. "Once you're back in Boston, once all of this settles, we can meet. We can talk, proper. It doesn't have to be goodbye."
"I don't know if I'm coming back to Boston," you said.
His brow furrowed. "You said you were. You said you'd meet your friend, bring her in to help with the Boston QZ operations—"
"Maybe I won't survive until Baltimore or Boston." You shrug. Your voice was perfectly even. "Maybe I was lying about all of it. Maybe I wasn't, but right now I don't want to ever see you again." You held his gaze without flinching. "And maybe if I do end up back in Boston and I run into you, I'll treat you like the invisible stranger you were before any of this started."
What you felt next was the terrible feeling you felt many times before. Your hand went to your chest. Your palm pressed flat against your sternum, hard, your breath catching in a way it shouldn't have, a flutter behind your ribs that you recognized immediately and did not want to: your heart responding to everything your body had been holding for the last minutes. You pressed harder, forcing yourself to breathe slowly, willing it to settle, keeping your face as still as you could manage.
Frank crossed to you in three steps, one hand on your shoulder, the other coming up to cup the back of your head.
"Hey, sweetheart. What’s happening?" His voice dropped immediately, all the hardness gone from it. "Is it happening again? Talk to me. What are you feeling?"
He pulled you against his chest with the easiness of someone who had done this before.
"Just breathe," he said quietly, his hand moving in slow circles at your back. "Just breathe, sweetheart. It will get back to normal soon."
Tommy had gone completely still. He stood by your side and watched whatever was happening, and the color moved through his face in waves. Confusion first, then alarm, then something that looked a great deal like terror, his eyes fixed on the hand you still had pressed to your chest, on the way Frank was holding you like he knew exactly what this was and exactly how serious it could become.
“What’s happening? Are you ok?”
You turned your head, cheek still resting against Frank's chest, still panting slightly, and found Tommy's eyes across the room.
"And by the way, Tess is fine," you said, breathless but steady. "She's free. They ambushed her, took the evidence we needed, and let her go." You held his gaze. "We're not monsters. Unlike the two of you."
Something shifted in Tommy's face.
Tess was fine. You hadn't actually endangered her, hadn't become the thing Joel had always accused you of being.
Maybe I won't survive until Baltimore or Boston. He heard your voice in his head again.
You were standing there, small and struggling in Frank's arms, your hand pressed to your own chest like you were physically holding something together, and Tommy had no idea what was wrong with you or how serious it was or whether you were going to be okay on the road without—
"Just go." Your voice came out muffled, still pressed against Frank's chest. "You made your choice already. Go."
Marcus stepped toward him. Tommy dodged the hand before it made contact. "Don't you fucking touch me."
He looked at you one more time.
“What are you feeling? Are you going to be okay?”
"Just fucking go, Tommy!"
Your free hand found the gun at Frank's hip and pulled it, raising it toward Tommy with shaking arms.
Tommy looked at the gun. Looked at you behind it.
You breathed in. Slowly, deliberately, the way you'd taught yourself years ago. You counted the breath out. Felt the flutter behind your ribs settle, reluctantly.
"Sweetheart," Frank started, his hand found your back.
You straightened. Your breathing had evened. "I’m fine. It's over."
Tommy felt the defeat of it move through him from the top of his skull to the soles of his feet, slow and total, like something draining out.
He turned.
He walked to the stairs. Took them one at a time, his hand on the railing, not looking back.
The pale morning light fell through the far door in a flat grey stripe across the concrete, and Tommy moved through it without stopping, eyes forward, pack across his shoulder.
Then he heard it: The truck engine, rough, uneven, but running.
Tommy looked at the truck.
Looked at the door.
Got in.
The engine complained loudly when he put it in gear, and then the wheels moved, slowly at first, then faster, and he was through the bay door and out onto the road before the sound of boots on metal stairs had even finished reaching him.
Frank hit the shop floor at a dead run, Marcus half a step behind him, both of them bursting through the bay door just in time to watch the truck disappear around the far end of the street in a cloud of dust.
"Son of a—" Frank stopped. Stared. His hands came up to his head.
Marcus cursed something considerably worse.
You appeared in the bay door behind them, looking at the empty road where the truck had been.
You stood there in the thin morning light and said nothing, listening to the sound of the engine fading until there was nothing left of it at all, except the taste of his kiss still in your mouth.
---
The road unspooled ahead of him, grey and cracked and empty, and Tommy drove.
The truck shook at anything above forty miles an hour, the steering pulling slightly to the left, the engine making a sound at intervals. Tommy ignored all of it and kept his foot down.
He should have felt relieved.
He had a car. He had his guns. He had an advantage, and somewhere ahead of him was his brother and everything that used to make sense to him about his own life.
But he didn't feel relieved. His chest was tight, and even the pain in his shoulder at every bump of the broken road couldn’t keep his mind from circling back to the same images, no matter how hard he pushed them away:
Your hand pressed flat against your chest.
Maybe I won't survive until Baltimore or Boston.
Frank looking at your scared.
And you, you had looked small in a way he'd never seen you look.
Tommy's jaw tightened.
What was wrong with your heart? What exactly was it doing, or failing to do? What was the something else waiting for you, regarding your heart, in Baltimore? Why weren't you sure you'd be coming back to Boston if that had always been the plan?
All questions he had no answers to, and yet felt were somehow connected. The doubts sat in his chest alongside the tightness and didn't resolve into anything useful.
He had felt so decided when he woke up earlier. But with every mile that passed, the certainty dissolved little by little.
He reached out and pressed the CD player button without really thinking about it, looking for any sound louder than his thoughts.
He didn't expect it to work. But it did. Faint, wavering. The opening notes filled the car while Tommy slowly acknowledge what he was hearing.
He stared at the dashboard for one long, disbelieving second.
Bob Dylan.
Then he hit the player. Hard, with the heel of his hand. The music skipped but kept going. Another one. He hit it again, and then again, harder, knuckles this time. And the panel cracked slightly at the corner and the CD stuttered and finally, mercifully, died into silence.
Tommy's hand stayed on the dashboard, bleeding, breathing hard through his nose.
He drove in silence.
Miles passed before he understood that luck had never really intended to stay. The truck started smoking somewhere around the two hundred mile mark, until it stopped completely.
Tommy sat in the dead cab for a moment. Then he got out, walked around to the front, and lifted the hood. He knew about engines enough to see it was clearly gone beyond repair.
He let the hood drop and found his cigarettes in his jacket pocket, shook one out and lit it. Then he leaned against the truck and smoked in the quiet until it was gone.
He dropped the butt. Retrieved his pack from the passenger seat.
And walked.
----
-Three days later-
Joel shoved the door open with his shoulder and stepped inside. Tommy followed right behind him.
"I was told there's a high-paying job," Joel said to the man sitting in silence.
"I've heard a lot about you two," the man replied, the corner of his mouth twitching. "The Miller brothers. Men who get shit done without asking too many questions."
He paused, then gave a single nod.
"The payment is exactly as promised. Every item on that list. I'm Lincoln, by the way. Follow me."
The man showed them the room full of supplies. As Tommy’s eyes moved around the room, he noticed Lincoln and the men standing guard all wore the same thing around their necks. A small round pendant, with a firefly symbol etched into the metal.
The Millers walked through the supplies carefully, checking, weighing, exchanging the occasional glance that meant this is real and this is enough.
"Alright," Tommy said, voice rough and low. " What's the mission?"
They walked into another room, and it was divided into makeshift cages.
It appeared empty at first. Then Tommy heard you.
"I'm gonna kill you, Lincoln. I'll take that oil you're hoarding for the trucks and boil it. Then I'll pour it down your fucking throat while you sleep."
Tommy turned toward the voice.
You stood at the bars, hands wrapped around them, knuckles white. A fury in your face that was completely out of proportion with how pretty you were. Your eyes burned, your jaw was set, and there was not a single molecule of fear anywhere on you.
Tommy had seen a lot of people in cages. They all looked the same after a while: broken down, resigned, eyes that had already gone somewhere else to survive what was happening to their bodies.
You didn't look like any of them. You looked like someone the cage hadn't touched yet. Something precious and perfect and completely, stubbornly intact.
"The job is simple," Lincoln continued. "Take her to Columbus QZ and hand her over to my partner, Kevin Smith. That's it."
Your eyes moved from Lincoln to Joel, and then to Tommy. And stayed there.
Your eyes stood on him on what it felt for hours. He forgot, for a moment, where he was, and he could not take his eyes away. You were beautiful in a resilient way, the way something is beautiful when it had refused to stop, despite everything. Your hair was a mess and there was dirt on your face and you were gripping those bars like you intended to pull them apart with your bare hands, and Tommy Miller, who had seen enough of the world to know better, felt his chest do a thing it hadn't done in so long he'd genuinely stopped expecting it to happen.
And then there was the way you were looking at him specifically. Not judging him or sizing him up for threat, not already deciding he was a lost cause before he'd opened his mouth. Just looking like you'd already knew he was a person worth looking at.
"Columbus. Ohio," Joel repeated, voice flat, bringing Tommy’s attention back to the conversation. "That's a long fucking way."
Lincoln shrugged.
Tommy shifted uncomfortably. "I don't know, Joel. She ain't exactly built like a raider. Why the hell are they treating her like this? Shouldn't we at least—"
Then your voice came through the bars, low and precise and aimed directly at Tommy.
"Please," you said, voice barely above a breath now, those soft eyes holding his without flinching. "Don't let Kevin get me. He will destroy everything I've been trying to build, everything that still matters to me."
"Let me give you one disclaimer," Lincoln interrupted, turning to face them. "She's real smart. She'll lie. She'll twist things. She'll look for cracks and poke at them until something breaks." He looked between the brothers. "Don't listen to a word she says. Because she will manipulate you."
“He’s right. But I will never lie to you. I promise.” You said, not flinching, still staring at him deeply.
Tommy looked back at you for a long moment.
"I love you, Tommy Miller." Your voice was quiet and certain.
Something in his chest cracked open so wide and so fast that he had to work to keep it off his face. He just stood there with the words landing on him.
"I want you to be free, Tommy." you said. "True to yourself."
The cage was gone.
Joel was gone. Lincoln was gone. The building, the bars, the weak light and the smell of damp concrete — all of it dissolved, leaving only the two of you standing in a space that had no walls and no name, and your hand reaching across the distance between you to find his.
"There are many things worth fighting for. And this love is one of them. Let's build something together," you said softly. "Something good. Something worth leaving behind." Your eyes held his, steady and warm, and you smiled. And it was so different from the previous fury, so completely and disarmingly soft. "I know that's what you want too. Come. Come to the light with me."
Tommy sank slowly to his knees.
He took your hand in both of his and pressed his lips to your knuckles. He held it against his mouth and felt the ache of it move through him, warm and devastating and completely helpless.
He wanted to say it back. He opened his mouth and nothing came.
He tried again, forming somewhere behind his teeth, but the words never assembling themselves.
“I need you to say it Tommy.”
And still nothing, still silence.
You took one step back, your hand fading between his.
“Say it, Tommy. Please.”
“I, I—”
You stepped away completely. “I’m sorry, Tommy. I can’t love you in the dark.”
He sat up gasping, the sleeping bag tangled around his waist, the trees above him pale with early morning.
Third night.
He pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes and held them there, breathing hard, and said nothing to nobody, because there was nobody there.
The dream clung to him the way they it did for the last three nights away from you. Dissolving at the edges faster than he could hold onto it, but leaving the feeling behind like a stain.
I love you, Tommy Miller.
He dropped his hands and looked up at the sky. Grey light, early birds, the distant sound of wind moving through branches.
He wondered if you were sleeping properly. He wondered if your heart was holding steady, if Frank knew what to do if it wasn't. He wondered if Marcus was keeping watch properly. He wondered if the road between wherever you were and Baltimore was as bad as the roads you had already traveled together, and whether you had enough supplies, and whether the danger was manageable.
And he wondered if you were thinking about him too.
He was three days into what it felt the wrong direction with and nothing else except a dream he couldn't stop having.
He'd repeat he made the right choice.
He'd made the right choice. Yes. And he was going to keep moving and find Joel and make sure they’d be in Boston and you’d soon be there too.
He sat in the pale morning and listened to the birds and felt the knot in his throat tighten until it was difficult to swallow around, and did not move for a long time.
The knot and the stillness broke at the same moment with a sound he knew quite well by now. Wet. Broken.
Far enough. He had time.
He gathered his stuff as silently and quickly as he could. The sounds were getting closer but not fast. A runner by the sound of it, moving without specific direction.
Being alone had changed the math. With Joel, they'd engage when they had to. Alone, every fight was a huge risk of one mistake with no one to cover it. So he moved away from the sounds, placing each foot with deliberate care, heel to toe, reading the ground before committing his weight.
He didn't make it far enough. The runner came from behind a tree to his left, too close, already locked on him, already accelerating. A gunshot here would pull everything on top of him.
Tommy put his back against the nearest tree trunk, braced, and waited.
The runner rushed in that horrible single-minded velocity. Tommy sidestepped at the last possible second, grabbed a fistful of the creature's matted hair, and used its own speed against it. Swung it hard into the trunk. The skull connected with a sound that turned his stomach even now, after everything. Once. Twice. A third time, and the body went slack and heavy in his grip, sliding down and dropping.
He released it and stepped back, breathing through his mouth.
The second one was already coming, dragged by the noise of the first. Tommy didn't wait for it to reach him. He ran at it instead, covering the ground between them in four strides, and drove the butt of his gun into the creature’s head with everything he had. It went down, limbs spasming, and Tommy planted his boot and brought it down hard on the back of its skull.
Silence.
He turned a slow circle, scanning. The woods were still. No more wet breathing, no more movement in his peripheral vision.
But the stillness felt wrong.
He turned again.
Nothing.
He knew anyway. A stalker.
The way his skin had started doing the thing it did when something was watching him from a place he couldn't see. He'd learned to trust that response.
The woods gave it too many angles. Too many places to be invisible until it wasn't.
He started moving to an open space, keeping his steps controlled, the gun in his hand and eyes mapping every tiny move.
It came from above, and it dropped from the branch directly overhead with no warning sound at all. Just sudden enormous weight driving him into the ground, the impact driving the air from his lungs in one hard grunt. Tommy rolled immediately in pure reflex, but the stalker came with him, his fingers stiff and half-fused with fungal raking at his jacket, finding his collar, hauling him back.
The stalker's head was close enough that he could see the orange threads webbing through what had been its eye, the tendrils along its jaw. He got a hand up on its forehead, keeping it away, and pushed hard.
Tommy got his knee up, planted it against the creature's torso, shoved.
It moved back two inches. Came right back.
He went for the gun.
The stalker's hand slammed it impossibly fast, and the gun hit the dirt and disappeared into the undergrowth before he'd fully registered it was gone.
Goddamn it.
Hand to hand, then. He'd fought infected hand to hand before. But he'd never spent this long doing it. His arms were burning, his shoulder was screaming at him every time he extended his right arm, the pain spiking white and immediate.
He got his left forearm under the stalker's chin, forcing its head back, buying a half-second. Reached back with his right hand, found the strap of the rifle, couldn't get the angle; the stalker's weight was pinning him at too low a position to swing the weapon free.
With an impulse he could throw the stalker away for a few seconds, and his hand found his knife instead.
The stalker lurched forward and they went over together, moving several steps behind, until the ground simply wasn't there, and then they were falling, both of them, into the hole he hadn't seen, the depression disguised by undergrowth and shadow. The impact at the bottom was hard enough that for two full seconds there was nothing but white.
Tommy came back to the knife in his hand and the stalker writhing on top of him.
He drove the blade in with everything he had left, his arm shaking with exhaustion and blood loss and the effort of keeping the creature's mouth away from any part of him that mattered.
The stalker went still.
Tommy lay there at the bottom of the hole and breathed.
After a long moment he pushed the creature off him and sat up. He checked his hands first, turning them over, looking for the breach in skin that would mean everything was already over.
Nothing. He pulled his sleeves up. Nothing. Legs, working through the fabric, feeling for wet. Nothing.
He exhaled. Then he looked up.
The hole was deeper than it had felt, the walls soft earth and root systems and the occasional jutting rock. He got to his feet, tested the closest wall with his hand, found a root that might hold, and reached up.
His right shoulder detonated.
He dropped back to the ground, hissing through his teeth, his hand flying to the wound. When he pulled it away the palm was dark and wet.
He pressed his hand back against it and looked up at the rim of the hole above him, pale morning sky just visible through the overgrowth.
---
Tommy stayed in the hole for the rest of that day and all of the night that followed.
At some point his body made the decision for him. The blood loss and the exhaustion and the pain combining into something that wasn't quite sleep and wasn't quite unconsciousness, just a long grey absence that he came back from in pieces.
When he opened his eyes fully it was morning again. And he didn’t know anymore if he was in that hole for one or two days.
The stalker body was still there. In the dark he'd been able to mostly ignore it. In the daylight, with the sun hitting the bottom of the hole at an angle that illuminated everything he would have preferred to keep in shadow, ignoring it was no longer an option. The smell alone was enough to make his stomach contract violently.
He pressed his back against the far wall and breathed through his mouth and assessed the situation with what clarity he had available.
The hole was a trap. He could see that clearly now in the light: the edges too clean, the dimensions too calculated, the overgrowth positioned too specifically to conceal it from anyone moving through quickly. Someone had dug this. Someone had covered it. Someone, at some point, had intended for things to fall into it and not come back out.
He closed his eyes.
And thought of you.
He let himself, just for a moment, because there was nothing else to do and nowhere to go.
He thought about the first time he'd played Dylan on the guitar in that house, when all of you were recovering. The way your eyes sparked when you heard it. Despite everything. Despite the fingers he'd broken the day before, still painful and swollen in your lap. Your eyes had done that anyway.
He thought about the basement. And the day you both fell down those stairs and you found the brooch he got from the kid. He'd kept you in that basement like an animal, but the look on your face when you'd found he'd come back to help that family was the same spark, the one that made him feel like the best version of himself.
He opened his eyes. Looked at the dirt wall opposite.
He thought about the lake. Your bare body by the water and the way he'd looked at it longer than any decent man would have, memorizing something he had no right to. And then what had come after. You trying to escape and him punishing you again, drowning you.
Then he thought of his hands all over your body, and the way your brows had dropped in pleasure in that specific, involuntary softening that would unravel him and how he'd used it against you anyway, used the wanting against you, made you desire him and ask for something and then denied it because control was the only thing he had left.
He'd pressed a gun to your head while your bodies were still pressed together and the water was still warm around you both.
What a despicable human being he was.
He let that sit. Didn't construct a defense. Just let it be what it was, in the bottom of a hole in the ground with a rotting stalker for company, which was probably what he deserved.
He'd left. He'd chosen Joel and he'd left, and it was the correct decision, and the correct decision was that you deserved someone who hadn't done any of those things to you, and he was not that person and would not become that person by staying.
That was the logic.
And then his mind, selfish, gave him your smell anyway. The exact weight of you in his lap with the guitar sealing you both. The way your mouth had tasted the first time he'd kissed you properly by that fire, and the second time, and the third, each one a little less careful and a little more like drowning in something he hadn't known he was thirsty for.
He pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes until the pressure became something he could focus on.
He might never leave this hole.
He might stay here until something found him, and whatever found him might not be inclined toward mercy, and he would never know if you'd made it to Baltimore. Never know if Frank and Marcus had been enough, or if the road had been too much, or if you were lying somewhere between here and that QZ with your hand pressed to your chest and nobody who knew how to help.
"Please." He said it very quietly. He hadn't thought of God in a long time. He wasn't sure he believed anymore. But the hole was deep and the stalker smelled like death and his shoulder was on fire and you wouldn’t leave his mind, so he was out of other options. "Please. Just… give me something. Let me know I made the right call. That I'm doin' the right thing for once in my goddamn life."
He sat in the silence that followed and waited for nothing.
The silence lasted exactly long enough for him to feel like an idiot for asking.
And then he heard a voice.
A woman's voice. Distant, coming from somewhere above and to the left, moving through the trees with a careful, stop-and-start rhythm.
"Is anyone there?" A pause. The unmistakable sound of a gun being cocked. "Are you alive?"
He didn't move. He sat still in the bottom of the hole and stared up at the rim of pale sky and blinked. His first and immediate thought was that he'd been down here long enough and lost enough blood that he was now hearing things that weren't there.
The voice came again, slightly closer.
Real. It was real.
He didn’t know if the voice was going to save him or kill him, and understood that he had absolutely no way of knowing. So he stayed in silence.
The head that appeared at the rim of the hole was backlit by morning sky, which made reading anything difficult. What he could see: tall, or at least standing tall. Hair dark and pulled back in a messy ponytail. Pale skin. A gun, pointed directly at him.
"Who are you?"
"Tommy." His voice came out rough, days of disuse and blood loss do that. "You?"
"Are you bitten, Tommy?"
"No, ma'am."
"Are you a threat?"
"No, ma'am." He kept his hands visible, open, at shoulder height. "Is this your trap?"
A pause. "Yes." Her voice was flat and entirely without apology. "Throw your rifle over the edge. Any other weapons you have."
He unshouldered the rifle one-handed, carefully, and tossed it up and over the rim. The knife followed. "My handgun's somewhere in the undergrowth back there, fell during the fight with the stalker."
"I found it," she said. "Step back from the wall."
He stepped back.
A ladder dropped over the edge a moment later.
"Step up slowly," she said. "Both hands visible the whole way. You move fast, you move toward me, you do anything I don't like… I shoot you. We clear?"
"Clear."
He climbed.
It took longer than it should have. His shoulder made the upper rungs a specific kind of miserable, and he was aware of the gun tracking him the entire way up, but he kept his movements deliberate and his hands where she could see them and eventually his boots found solid ground again.
He straightened slowly, hands still up, and got his first proper look at her.
She was roughly his age, though life had done enough to her face that you might guess older if you weren't paying attention. Her skin was mapped with scars. One eye held a scar that ran clean through it, vertical, the eye itself clouded and clearly sightless. Her dark hair had threads of silver running through it and he guessed it was probably for a hard life and stress than from age.
Her left hand on the grip was missing the pinky finger. The remaining four held the gun without trembling.
And covering her neck, disappearing down into her collar, climbing back up behind her ear, tattoos. Large, intricate, that took probably took years and real money in a world that still had tattoo parlors in it. Her hands too, both of them, right up to the knuckles.
This was a woman who had been through hell.
She was looking at him with the one working eye with an assessment that was thorough and unhurried and gave nothing away.
"You're bleeding," she said.
He tilted his head slightly toward his shoulder. "Gunshot. Few days ago. Fight with the stalker opened it back up."
She didn't lower the gun. "Who shot you?"
"Long story."
"I've got time."
"I don’t," He glanced at the hole behind him. "Spent the last day in your trap. Maybe more than one day."
Something shifted in her expression. "You're lucky I check it every other day."
"Real lucky," Tommy agreed. He kept his hands up and his voice even. "I'm not going to try anything. I don't have the energy for it and you've got all my weapons. I just need to get my shoulder looked at and figure out which direction I'm heading."
"Where are you heading?"
"Boston."
Her eyes moved over him again, slower this time. "Alone?"
"Yeah."
"From where?"
He considered how much of that was useful to share with a woman he'd known for four minutes. "South of here. Been walking three days."
"What were you doing south of here?"
"Passing through."
"With who?"
"I was with my brother," he said. "And… a woman. We split up."
"Why?"
"Longer story."
She held his gaze for a long moment. Then, very slowly, she lowered the gun, barrel toward the ground, finger still in the trigger.
"I've got a camp twenty minutes east. I can look at the shoulder." A pause. "Or I can give you back your rifle and point you north and we never see each other again. Your call."
Tommy looked at her, at the scars all over her and all those tattoos, and made a calculation about what kind of person could have been through all of that and still offered a camp and medical attention instead of a bullet to a half-dead stranger.
"Twenty minutes east," he said. "Yeah. Alright."
She nodded once and started walking.
He followed, hands finally dropping to his sides.
They walked in silence for a moment.
"How long you been out here alone?" he asked.
"Long enough," she said, without turning around. "You?"
"A few days."
"First time?"
"Without my brother? Yeah."
She made a sound that wasn't quite a laugh. "It gets easier."
"That supposed to be reassuring?"
"No," she said simply. "Just true."
They reached her camp in twenty minutes exactly. The camp of someone who had been alone long enough to get very good at it.
She gestured for him to sit.
"Had a family here a few days back," she said, already pulling out a tin of supplies. "Mom, dad, one kid." She came back and crouched in front of him, helping him to pull his jacket and shirt off, examining it. "Then they moved on and I was alone again." A pause. "That's how it usually goes."
"Why do you keep helping people?" he asked. "Strangers."
She looked up from the wound briefly. "Why wouldn't I?"
"Because it costs you."
"Most things worth doing cost something." She went back to examining the wound. "Are you a bad person, Tommy? You don’t deserve my help?"
He considered the honest answer to that. "Maybe."
"I don't think so."
"You don't know me."
"No," she agreed, reaching for the needle and thread with calm. "But I know something."
He waited. She threaded the needle without looking up. "That family. The little boy… chatty kid, tells you everything without you having to ask." The ghost of something warm crossed her face. "He told me his dad got shot. Said there were two men and a girl, and the girl and the younger man were shouting at the older one not to do it." She began to work, and Tommy set his jaw and held very still. "Then he told me the younger man, tall, dark hair in a ponytail, Texas accent, came back afterward. Checked on them. Made sure they were okay before he left." She tied off the first stitch without ceremony. "Said his name was Tommy." She glanced up at him. "So I'm hoping you're that person. Otherwise I would have left you in that hole."
Tommy opened his mouth. Closed it. Swallowed.
When she finished she handed him a shirt from a folded pile. He changed it slowly, carefully, and tried not to think about the fact that his hands weren't entirely steady.
"Thank you," he said. "Ma'am."
"You can stay if you want. Rest." Her eye moved over him with clinical assessment. "You're pale. Lost a lot of blood. Pushing on in that condition is how people make small problems into fatal ones."
He wanted to decline but his body couldn’t afford.
"Yeah," he said. "Alright. Thank you."
She handed him water and crackers and sat across him, and for a few minutes neither of them said anything, which felt companionable rather than uncomfortable.
"What are you doing out here?" he asked eventually. "Alone. In the middle of nowhere."
She looked at him for a moment. "I came from the north. Had a group. We were heading to Baltimore QZ." A pause. “Are you a FEDRA, by any chance?”
“Definitely not a FEDRA, ma’am.” He said urgently, his attention immediately caught by the information.
"Good.” She continues. “Heard about a revolutionary group operating there, seems they came from Denver after pushing FEDRA out. People said they were trying to take back the other QZs one by one. Put something back together." She turned the water canteen in her hands. "That was all I wanted. Fight back. Help rebuild something." She was quiet for a moment. "Halfway there, we got a word from it: The whole thing had been burned to the ground. Whatever they'd built, all of it. Gone. FEDRA, the rebelling group… everything. It’s just hunters now."
She shrugged once, flat like someone who had processed this a long time ago and it didn’t hurt anymore. "Most of my group didn't make it. The ones who did… there wasn't much point in continuing. So we stopped. And then one by one they moved on or didn't, and I stayed."
Tommy said nothing.
His mind was doing something loud and structural, rearranging pieces, checking them against each other.
Burned to the ground.
You had told him the Fireflies were operating there, successfully, that your friend had built something real and lasting. You'd said it with the certainty that came from recent information, from active contact, from an organization that knew what its own pieces were doing. Had he misunderstood? Have you been unaware? Or… were you lying?
The crackers sat in his hand uneaten.
The woman showed him a mattress on the ground. He lowered himself onto it.
"Thank you," he said. "For all of it. I'm sorry for the trouble."
"Don't apologize," she said simply. "The world got mean because people stopped helping each other. Every time someone chooses not to, chooses fear instead, or selfishness, or just keeps walking, the world gets a little meaner. I'd rather be the kind of person who makes it a little less mean. That's all." She shrugged. "You don't owe me anything for that. It's just who I am."
Tommy looked at her for a moment.
"Thank you," he said again, because it was all he had and it felt insufficient and he said it anyway.
She nodded. Turned to go.
"Don't call me ma'am," she said, over her shoulder. "We're probably the same age." A pause. "My name is Sarah."
Sarah.
The name hit him like a thunderstorm, and he lay there on the thin mattress staring at nothing.
He'd asked for a sign. That you deserved better and leaving you was right. That going after Joel was right. That for once in his life he was doing the correct thing for the correct reasons.
And in the span of thirty minutes he had received: a woman who proved there were still good people that went through hell but were still willing to fix the world, medical care that had no business appearing exactly when his body needed, news that Baltimore might be ash and hunters and nothing worth arriving at.
And a name.
Sarah.
Who had wanted to go to Baltimore and find the Fireflies and fight for something worth fighting for, and had ended up alone in the woods instead, the revolution she'd been walking toward reduced to ruins.
Was that the message?
He pressed his hands over his face and held them there.
He had no idea.
He genuinely, completely, with more certainty than he'd felt about anything in days, had no idea what any of it meant.
God hadn't sent him a sign. God had sent him a fucking puzzle, wrapped in a coincidence, dropped into the worst possible moment.
----
End notes:
I gave up making commitments on the size of this fic. I'm not adding scope, I'm just terrible at planning. I 've been saying "we have two more chapters to finish" for five chapters now haha. So let's just live and let the story be what it needs to be :D
but it's coming to an end, that I can tell.
Chapter Summary: Tommy Miller has made his decision. He is absolutely certain about it. And he will keep being certain about it, no matter how much it hurts you.
You dared him once to show you exactly how bad he could hurt you. Congratulations. Now you know.
Fic Summary: Four years after the outbreak, Joel and Tommy Miller are hardened smugglers in the Boston QZ: mean, violent, and willing to do whatever it takes to survive. When they’re paid an obscene amount to smuggle you across the ruined country to Columbus QZ, they didn't ask what secrets you carry to be worth that much. They just expect an easy job. You're supposed to be just cargo. They will soon discover this cargo has teeth… and the power to make even the worst men start to crack.
Tags: Tommy Miller x Reader, Dark!Tommy, Raider!Tommy, Explicit Sexual Content, Post-Cordyceps Outbreak (The Last of Us), Stockholm Syndrome, Dark Romance, Tommy is mean but not too much, Tommy Miller Fanfic, Enemies to Lovers, Tommy was corrupted by Joel, Vaginal Sex, Fireflies (The Last of Us), Slow Burn
wc: 10k
When you opened your eyes, Marcus was still completely dead to the world on his cot, one arm thrown over his face, breathing deep. You watched his chest rise and fall for a moment, then looked at the pale light coming through the grimy windows of the shop floor. Early morning.
But Frank was already up. As you walked out the break room, you found him beside one of the old vehicles on the shop floor, looking at something under the hood of a pickup truck that had probably been mid-repair when the world ended. He looked frustrated as he had absolutely no idea what he was looking at.
"You know that's not going to work," you said.
"Well, I'm choosing to remain optimistic anyway."
You leaned against the truck's side, watching him frown at the engine.
A few minutes passed when he finally admitted. "Yeah. I have no clue.” He said scratching his head.
“…He would've known what to do," Frank said. "Your uncle. He would've looked at this thing for thirty seconds and known exactly what was wrong with it." He shook his head. "I swear, half the things I try to fix I hear his voice in my head tellin' me I'm doin' it wrong. God… I miss him."
"Because you are usually doing it wrong."
"Helpful. Thank you."
You smiled despite yourself.
“…I miss him too," you said quietly. "Every day.”
Frank lowered the hood and straightened, wiping his hands on his jeans and looking at you. His palm cupped your cheek for a moment, unhurried, as the gesture could avoid saying more words that would break both of you.
"What time do you think we should move?"
Frank glanced toward the room where Marcus was still blacked out. "Have you seen him?" He shook his head. "Let him have it. We move when he wakes up."
"Okay." You nodded, looking around. "I'll eat something. Maybe read for a bit."
"Good idea, sweetheart."
You turned to go, then stopped.
"Frank."
"Mm?"
"How did you know? With my uncle." You paused, finding the words. "How did you know he was the right person?"
Frank was quiet for a moment.
"I didn't," he said finally. "I knew he was infuriating. I knew he made me laugh harder than anyone I'd ever met. I knew I was angrier at him than I'd been at anyone." A small, private smile crossed his face. "And then when I was sad or sick, or had done something stupid and was too proud to admit it, he'd just quietly fix whatever needed fixing without making me ask. Wouldn't say a word about it afterward. He just made sure I was okay." He glanced at you sideways. "And then one day I realized I was only that angry at him because I cared that much. Because when you don't care about someone, they can't make you feel anything at all." He shrugged once, simply. "Figured that was probably worth payin' attention to."
"Mm," you said.
Frank studied your face. Whatever he saw in it made him exhale slowly through his nose.
"Your uncle would kill me for supportin' you on this, you know," he said.
"No, he wouldn't." You shifted, crossing your arms loosely. "He could always tell when he saw a good man. Even when the man was being an idiot about it."
Frank huffed. He looked at you for one more moment, then clearly decided to stop pulling on that particular thread.
"I have cereal bars in the side pocket of my pack," he said.
“Thank you, Frank.”
You found one and tore it open, taking half.
"I’ll get my book," you said, looking upstairs.
Frank looked up, and then back at you.
"The book is in his pack." You added.
"Mmhm." His mouth twitched. "You going up there to get your book. Or are you going up there to give him…" he tilted his head suggestively, "breakfast?"
You felt heat rise in your face and covered it immediately with the flattest expression you owned.
"Ha-ha."
"I'm just asking."
You thought briefly, involuntarily, about last night. About the way his cuffed arms had pulled you closer. About the things he said afterwards.
"Don’t worry… He's not deserving that kind of breakfast right now."
"Mmhm."
"I need my book, Frank."
"Of course you do."
You turned and walked toward the stairs before he could say anything else, but you could hear his quiet laugh.
The office was dim and still when you pushed the door open. Tommy was awake. He was sitting watching the door as if he knew you’d show up anytime.
You didn't say anything. You crossed directly to his pack, which sat against the far wall against him, and crouched to unzip it.
"Morning," Tommy said.
You ignored and found the book, tucking it under your arm. You took some steps in his direction and held out the other half of the cereal bar without looking at him, and he took it from your fingers.
"You're not gonna talk to me?" he asked.
You moved toward the door.
"Hey." His voice sharpened slightly. "You're really not gonna say a word to me?"
You stopped. Turned around. Looked.
"I'm angry at you," you said simply.
"I can tell."
"You said those things," you continued, voice flat, "right after we—" You stopped, jaw tightening. "You’re still choosing Joel after everything we’ve been through together. You compared me to him. And… you expect me to come up here and make pleasant conversation?"
Tommy's jaw worked. "And what do you expect me to do, exactly? Just give up on my own family?" He looked away, then back. "Besides, you lied to me. You knew your crew was comin' and you said nothin'. Then you used what happened between us as a weapon against my brother." He shook his head slowly. "You don't get to be the only one who's angry here."
You opened your mouth, but he kept going.
"You keep sayin' you want me. Want me in your team. But you keep hidin' things from me, and I got a feelin' there's still more you ain't said." His eyes held yours, steady and tired. "I'm willin' to go to Baltimore. I said that. But not without Joel. And not if I don't know exactly what I'm signin' up for."
"Tommy." Your voice rose slightly despite yourself. "You're simultaneously one of the smartest and one of the dumbest people I've ever met. You know Joel would never agree."
He looked away. "I said I'd convince him—"
"And I've told you everything you need to know." You cut through it before he could finish. "I've shared the deepest secret I have, and you're still standin' there actin' like I'm hiding something. What else do you want from me?"
Neither of you said anything for a few long seconds. Then you pulled the book out from under your arm and shook it slightly in his direction.
"I have more interesting things to do. Bye." you said.
You turned toward the door.
"How long you got left in it?"
You stopped close to the door but didn't turn around. "I'm close to the end."
"Come read here then." You heard the shift of him adjusting against the pipe. "Here, close."
"Why would I do that?"
"Because I want to be close to you." His voice came out low and simple, not appearing to use any strategy in it. "That's all."
"I don't want to be close to you."
"Bullshit."
You turned then, frustrated, and found him watching you with something quiet and certain in his face that made it harder to hold onto the anger than it should have been.
"Why do you do that, Tommy? You don't really care about me. Not the way it matters. So why do you keep pushing this? Why do you keep giving me hope?"
"I never once said I don't care about you." His voice was low, unhurried. "I do. A lot. You know that."
You closed your eyes. Shook your head once.
"Come on, little rabbit." His voice had shifted, softer now, something almost shy underneath the warmth of it. "Read here. Close to me."
You went very still. Little rabbit. The same name Robert called María in the worn pages of the book pressed against your arm. You looked down at the cover of the book. Then at him.
He was watching you with that small, crooked, slightly proud and slightly uncertain smile, like he'd found a key and wasn't entirely sure he was allowed to use it, but had used it anyway.
Unfortunately, that worked. You felt your heart melt a bit and you walked to him.
He watched you come the whole way across the small room, not saying anything, making space for you the best he could with his arms still anchored to the pipe. You tried to settle against his chest, but it was impossible. The pipe pulling his arms, and you ended up half-twisted with your shoulder digging into him in a way that worked for neither of you.
"Take them off," he said quietly, his eyes steady and calm on yours. "I won't do anything. I'll stay right here 'til you finish. I just want to hold you properly."
You looked at him for a long moment, searching for the thing you'd learned to read in his face over weeks of watching it. You didn't find any. Just that same quiet, unguarded love that he never quite said out loud but kept showing you without words.
"Promise me you won't try to escape."
"I promise."
"And promise me you'll stay quiet so I can read."
The corner of his mouth lifted slightly. "Yes, ma'am."
You reached into your pocket, found the small key, and held it there for one more second. Then you unlocked the cuffs.
He rubbed his wrists slowly, one then the other, without looking away from you. Then he opened his arms.
You turned and settled back against his chest, fitting yourself into his space. His arms came around you, careful of his injured shoulder, and you opened the book to where you'd left off.
The first kiss came against your hair. Light, barely there. Then one against your temple.
Then his chin came to rest against the top of your head, and his good arm tightened slightly across you, and his thumb began its slow, idle trace along your forearm. And that was all. That was everything.
You read. And he held you and said nothing.
Tommy spent the night making a decision, and he knew now exactly how this was going to end.
He'd been turning it over since, since he'd sat alone in the dark with the cuffs on his wrists and worked through every possible angle until only one remained. He knew what he was going to do. He knew what it was going to cost.
Which meant he knew how many hours he had left with you. And it was not much.
His thumb moved slowly along your forearm, tracing the line of it. But not to distract you or start anything, just to learn it. He wanted to remember exactly what he was about to lose. The exact texture of your skin under his fingers. The small bones of your wrist. The way your pulse moved quiet and steady beneath his thumb when he found it, and the way something in his own chest loosened slightly every time he felt it, proof that you were still here, still real against him for a little while longer.
He pressed his lips into your hair and breathed in, slow and deliberate, and held it.
He wanted to keep that. Wanted to be able to find it later, in some cold and darker place, and know what it had smelled like to hold you like this.
His hand moved up your arm, unhurried, relearning the shape of your shoulder, the curve where your neck met your collarbone. Just carving it on his memory, the way you'd memorize something you knew you it would soon no longer exist.
You turned pages. He followed the movement of your breathing.
Once you shifted slightly to find a better angle for your neck and he adjusted too. His lips found the side of your neck again, and you let your eyes close for a moment before finding the line on the page again.
You felt it. Equal parts loving and unsettled by: how completely he was paying attention, the way it didn't feel quite like presence. It felt like departure. You couldn't have pointed to any single proof. But you just knew.
You chose to ignore it anyway. Both of you relying on the closeness and silence where words could not solve anything, anymore.
An hour passed. Maybe more. The book moved toward its ending and Tommy held you all along. And it was ordinary and it was devastating in the same way that ordinary things become devastating when you already know they're almost over.
You read the last line. Closed the cover slowly.
"Wow," you said quietly. "Sad… And so beautiful. The story is so-"
His hand came up and turned your face toward his. His lips found yours with careful patience. He couldn’t afford to hurry.
Then slower still, deeper, his mouth opened against yours and his tongue found yours. You felt him learn you all over again in the space of that kiss: the exact pressure, the exact angle, the way your mouth fit against his that you had finally, after everything, begun to know as familiar. His taste. The small sound he made low in his throat when you kissed him back fully.
You kissed him back and felt the angst of it sitting underneath everything, neither of you willing to be the one to end it.
You parted gently. His forehead found yours.
"You know how much you mean to me, don't you?" His eyes were open, looking directly into yours, and there was something apologetic moving behind them that made your stomach tighten.
"No," you said. "I don't, Tommy."
"You do." His thumb traced slowly along your jaw as he said it. "I need to go." His voice came out low and steady. "And I could walk away right now without asking. But I'm asking."
His eyes stayed on yours.
"I understand why you did what you did. I hate the fact you put Tess in the middle of all of this, but I know it was the only way you could be sure of comin' out of it safe from Joel. I don't blame you for any of it." A pause, his thumb stilling against your jaw. "But he's my family. I can't give up on him. That ain't somethin' that's gonna change."
"Tommy, that's not—"
"I'm givin' you the best outcome available." He said it gently, sharing a fact rather than making a threat. "I can go now and nobody gets hurt. We meet back in Boston QZ once you’re done in Baltimore. But if you cuff me and keep this… I've got nothin' left to do than fight back.” His eyes held yours without flinching. “And you can’t stop me. Because you won't let them kill me or hurt me. So, I will go one way or the other… and I’d prefer not to hurt them to do it."
You looked at him for a long moment. And felt, with cold and settling clarity, your miscalculation.
You had planned for every variable. You had run three hundred versions of this encounter in your head across three weeks of walking and thinking and preparing. You had outmaneuvered Joel Miller, which was not a thing most people survived doing.
But you had not planned for Tommy. For the fact that you would be incapable of giving the order that would actually stop him if he fought back.
Frank would do it if you asked. Marcus would do it without hesitation. But you wouldn’t and Tommy knew it.
And without a real threat, nothing could stop him.
He was playing the same game you played him all along. For the first time you had no choice, no plan B. Let him go or wait to see whose body would fall to the ground first. Tommy’s, Frank’s or Marcus’.
You stood up abruptly, the book falling to the floor between you.
"That's dumb." Your voice came out sharp and immediate. "You're so fucking stubborn. They're on horses, at least twenty-four hours ahead of you. You'll be on foot, alone. You won't catch them, Tommy. You'll just die trying."
Tommy knew. He knew the math of it. The distance, the danger, the odds of finding any way to close that gap. He knew the chances were almost nothing.
He also knew that the idea of die trying felt like something he could live with. Giving up on his brother was something he wasn't sure he could.
"I'll find a way," he said. "I'll be fine."
You stared at him. "You're really doing this." Your voice dropped, something close to disbelief in it. "You'll kill yourself going after him. He has three members of my team after him, Tommy. Three. He doesn't need you. He wouldn't want you to risk yourself like this."
"Supposin' your crew actually reached him," Tommy said carefully, not looking at you. "And supposin' he didn't find a way to get past them on his own—"
"What?" The word came out quiet and dangerous.
"Joel's resourceful. You know that as well as I do. If he felt cornered or threatened, he'd—"
"Are you saying—" You stopped. Started again, voice climbing. "Are you actually standing there telling me you think he killed them? My people, Tommy. People who showed him more mercy than he deserved. Are you saying I sent three of my friends to their deaths?" You started pacing, fast and tight, your hands coming up to your face. "And even knowing that, even saying that out loud, you still want to go after him? To save him?"
You spun and kicked his backpack hard across the floor, sending it skidding into his legs.
"You're sick. Just go. Just fucking go."
Tommy couldn't find the words. There were none that would make sense from the outside, none that could explain the thing that ran in his blood, the loyalty that had no rational justification and didn't need one.
You were pacing. He could see you thinking, working something over, and he recognized your pattern: the silence that preceded something you knew would land badly and were going to say anyway.
"…I thought Joel was the way he is because he failed to protect his daughter," you said, voice going very quiet. "That it was his awful way of carrying that guilty and grief. But maybe I was wrong." You paused, your eyes finding his, and something cold moved behind them.
"Maybe it wasn't about him failing to protect Sarah." You kept going, each word placed with the precision to hit a wound. "Maybe she died because you failed them both. Maybe you were the one who should've protected her and couldn't. And maybe… maybe the only reason Joel's still alive is because you forced him to be. Because you saved him when he would rather have died with her."
Your voice dropped further. "And maybe that's why he can't look at you without punishing you for it. Because you made him live when he didn't want to. And you've been paying for that ever since with every scrap of blind loyalty you have, trying to make up for the one time it counted and you weren't enough."
Tommy stood there, his pack in his hand, his jaw working slowly, his eyes doing something you had never seen them do before, going somewhere very far away, somewhere dark and closed that he kept sealed behind everything else. He swallowed once. Then he crossed to the door and picked his gun up from where Marcus had left it on the shelf, his movements very controlled, very deliberate, needing to be careful right now or he wasn't going to be careful about anything.
He shook his head once. Like he was refusing to let your words land anywhere they could do permanent damage.
"That's easy to say," he said quietly, "when you give up on family as easy as you apparently do." His voice had none of the cruelty yours had held, which somehow made it worse. "What did you expect from me? That I'd turn my back on my brother at the first inconvenience?" He shook his head again. "We're blood. We're all each other's got. I don't know what happened with your brother to make you think that's somethin' a person can just… choose their way out of." He looked at you steadily. "But whatever it was, I'm sorry for it. That ain't me. I could never."
The air in the room changed.
He continues. “You pushed me to chose between you and my brother, and—"
"You have no idea," you cut him, spitting the words. "what you are saying right now."
"I would if you'd tell me."
"My brother is none of your business."
"That's funny." His voice stayed even. "Seein' as how you've been diggin' into my relationship with mine since the day we met. But the other way around… that's off limits?"
You crossed the room and slapped him.
The sound of it was sharp in the small office, your broken fingers screaming at the impact, pain shooting up your hand and into your wrist, tears springing to your eyes before you could stop them. You stood there breathing hard, and the tears kept coming but it was not from the pain.
"My brother," you said, voice shaking, "has done nothing but try to protect me. The reason we split is because he wanted what he thought it was best for me and I wanted something different." You pressed your hand harder against your chest, the tears falling freely now, and you didn't wipe them. "That's how hard it was. That's what a real split costs. Giving up someone who has only ever loved you the only way they can, because your paths went different ways."
Your voice broke slightly and you drove through it.
"And I never, never, asked you to choose between your brother and me."
You took one step toward him.
"I asked you to choose yourself. Not me. Not the Fireflies. Yourself." A breath.
"That's what I did when I left my brother. I chose myself and my beliefs." You held his gaze. "I was brave enough to do it. And I'm not going to stand here and let you call that easy, because you're too much of a coward to do the same."
Tommy looked at you for a long moment. The corner of his mouth twisted, choosing silence over feeding the fire. He nodded once and moved toward the door.
Frank and Marcus appeared at the top of the stairs the moment he stepped through it, guns up, bodies blocking the way down.
"Let him pass. He's leaving."
Your eyes dropped to the floor. To the book lying face-down where it had fallen. You looked at it for a moment. Then back at him.
"We were both wrong," you said, the anger draining into tiredness. "That book has nothing to do with you. Robert chose purpose and love over his own survival." You held his gaze. "You're clearly not like that."
Tommy didn't move. He should have. He should have turned, taken the stairs and just leave. But he stood there in the doorway and looked at you and couldn't make himself go.
Frank and Marcus held their positions, watching, silent.
Tommy closed the distance. "Let's stop hurtin' each other." His voice came careful just for you, the anger gone from it entirely, something genuine surfacing in its place. "We're both out of options right now. But that doesn't mean it has to end like this." He searched your face. "Once you're back in Boston, once all of this settles, we can meet. We can talk, proper. It doesn't have to be goodbye."
"I don't know if I'm coming back to Boston," you said.
His brow furrowed. "You said you were. You said you'd meet your friend, bring her in to help with the Boston QZ operations—"
"Maybe I won't survive until Baltimore or Boston." You shrug. Your voice was perfectly even. "Maybe I was lying about all of it. Maybe I wasn't, but right now I don't want to ever see you again." You held his gaze without flinching. "And maybe if I do end up back in Boston and I run into you, I'll treat you like the invisible stranger you were before any of this started."
What you felt next was the terrible feeling you felt many times before. Your hand went to your chest. Your palm pressed flat against your sternum, hard, your breath catching in a way it shouldn't have, a flutter behind your ribs that you recognized immediately and did not want to: your heart responding to everything your body had been holding for the last minutes. You pressed harder, forcing yourself to breathe slowly, willing it to settle, keeping your face as still as you could manage.
Frank crossed to you in three steps, one hand on your shoulder, the other coming up to cup the back of your head.
"Hey, sweetheart. What’s happening?" His voice dropped immediately, all the hardness gone from it. "Is it happening again? Talk to me. What are you feeling?"
He pulled you against his chest with the easiness of someone who had done this before.
"Just breathe," he said quietly, his hand moving in slow circles at your back. "Just breathe, sweetheart. It will get back to normal soon."
Tommy had gone completely still. He stood by your side and watched whatever was happening, and the color moved through his face in waves. Confusion first, then alarm, then something that looked a great deal like terror, his eyes fixed on the hand you still had pressed to your chest, on the way Frank was holding you like he knew exactly what this was and exactly how serious it could become.
“What’s happening? Are you ok?”
You turned your head, cheek still resting against Frank's chest, still panting slightly, and found Tommy's eyes across the room.
"And by the way, Tess is fine," you said, breathless but steady. "She's free. They ambushed her, took the evidence we needed, and let her go." You held his gaze. "We're not monsters. Unlike the two of you."
Something shifted in Tommy's face.
Tess was fine. You hadn't actually endangered her, hadn't become the thing Joel had always accused you of being.
Maybe I won't survive until Baltimore or Boston. He heard your voice in his head again.
You were standing there, small and struggling in Frank's arms, your hand pressed to your own chest like you were physically holding something together, and Tommy had no idea what was wrong with you or how serious it was or whether you were going to be okay on the road without—
"Just go." Your voice came out muffled, still pressed against Frank's chest. "You made your choice already. Go."
Marcus stepped toward him. Tommy dodged the hand before it made contact. "Don't you fucking touch me."
He looked at you one more time.
“What are you feeling? Are you going to be okay?”
"Just fucking go, Tommy!"
Your free hand found the gun at Frank's hip and pulled it, raising it toward Tommy with shaking arms.
Tommy looked at the gun. Looked at you behind it.
You breathed in. Slowly, deliberately, the way you'd taught yourself years ago. You counted the breath out. Felt the flutter behind your ribs settle, reluctantly.
"Sweetheart," Frank started, his hand found your back.
You straightened. Your breathing had evened. "I’m fine. It's over."
Tommy felt the defeat of it move through him from the top of his skull to the soles of his feet, slow and total, like something draining out.
He turned.
He walked to the stairs. Took them one at a time, his hand on the railing, not looking back.
The pale morning light fell through the far door in a flat grey stripe across the concrete, and Tommy moved through it without stopping, eyes forward, pack across his shoulder.
Then he heard it: The truck engine, rough, uneven, but running.
Tommy looked at the truck.
Looked at the door.
Got in.
The engine complained loudly when he put it in gear, and then the wheels moved, slowly at first, then faster, and he was through the bay door and out onto the road before the sound of boots on metal stairs had even finished reaching him.
Frank hit the shop floor at a dead run, Marcus half a step behind him, both of them bursting through the bay door just in time to watch the truck disappear around the far end of the street in a cloud of dust.
"Son of a—" Frank stopped. Stared. His hands came up to his head.
Marcus cursed something considerably worse.
You appeared in the bay door behind them, looking at the empty road where the truck had been.
You stood there in the thin morning light and said nothing, listening to the sound of the engine fading until there was nothing left of it at all, except the taste of his kiss still in your mouth.
---
The road unspooled ahead of him, grey and cracked and empty, and Tommy drove.
The truck shook at anything above forty miles an hour, the steering pulling slightly to the left, the engine making a sound at intervals. Tommy ignored all of it and kept his foot down.
He should have felt relieved.
He had a car. He had his guns. He had an advantage, and somewhere ahead of him was his brother and everything that used to make sense to him about his own life.
But he didn't feel relieved. His chest was tight, and even the pain in his shoulder at every bump of the broken road couldn’t keep his mind from circling back to the same images, no matter how hard he pushed them away:
Your hand pressed flat against your chest.
Maybe I won't survive until Baltimore or Boston.
Frank looking at your scared.
And you, you had looked small in a way he'd never seen you look.
Tommy's jaw tightened.
What was wrong with your heart? What exactly was it doing, or failing to do? What was the something else waiting for you, regarding your heart, in Baltimore? Why weren't you sure you'd be coming back to Boston if that had always been the plan?
All questions he had no answers to, and yet felt were somehow connected. The doubts sat in his chest alongside the tightness and didn't resolve into anything useful.
He had felt so decided when he woke up earlier. But with every mile that passed, the certainty dissolved little by little.
He reached out and pressed the CD player button without really thinking about it, looking for any sound louder than his thoughts.
He didn't expect it to work. But it did. Faint, wavering. The opening notes filled the car while Tommy slowly acknowledge what he was hearing.
He stared at the dashboard for one long, disbelieving second.
Bob Dylan.
Then he hit the player. Hard, with the heel of his hand. The music skipped but kept going. Another one. He hit it again, and then again, harder, knuckles this time. And the panel cracked slightly at the corner and the CD stuttered and finally, mercifully, died into silence.
Tommy's hand stayed on the dashboard, bleeding, breathing hard through his nose.
He drove in silence.
Miles passed before he understood that luck had never really intended to stay. The truck started smoking somewhere around the two hundred mile mark, until it stopped completely.
Tommy sat in the dead cab for a moment. Then he got out, walked around to the front, and lifted the hood. He knew about engines enough to see it was clearly gone beyond repair.
He let the hood drop and found his cigarettes in his jacket pocket, shook one out and lit it. Then he leaned against the truck and smoked in the quiet until it was gone.
He dropped the butt. Retrieved his pack from the passenger seat.
And walked.
----
-Three days later-
Joel shoved the door open with his shoulder and stepped inside. Tommy followed right behind him.
"I was told there's a high-paying job," Joel said to the man sitting in silence.
"I've heard a lot about you two," the man replied, the corner of his mouth twitching. "The Miller brothers. Men who get shit done without asking too many questions."
He paused, then gave a single nod.
"The payment is exactly as promised. Every item on that list. I'm Lincoln, by the way. Follow me."
The man showed them the room full of supplies. As Tommy’s eyes moved around the room, he noticed Lincoln and the men standing guard all wore the same thing around their necks. A small round pendant, with a firefly symbol etched into the metal.
The Millers walked through the supplies carefully, checking, weighing, exchanging the occasional glance that meant this is real and this is enough.
"Alright," Tommy said, voice rough and low. " What's the mission?"
They walked into another room, and it was divided into makeshift cages.
It appeared empty at first. Then Tommy heard you.
"I'm gonna kill you, Lincoln. I'll take that oil you're hoarding for the trucks and boil it. Then I'll pour it down your fucking throat while you sleep."
Tommy turned toward the voice.
You stood at the bars, hands wrapped around them, knuckles white. A fury in your face that was completely out of proportion with how pretty you were. Your eyes burned, your jaw was set, and there was not a single molecule of fear anywhere on you.
Tommy had seen a lot of people in cages. They all looked the same after a while: broken down, resigned, eyes that had already gone somewhere else to survive what was happening to their bodies.
You didn't look like any of them. You looked like someone the cage hadn't touched yet. Something precious and perfect and completely, stubbornly intact.
"The job is simple," Lincoln continued. "Take her to Columbus QZ and hand her over to my partner, Kevin Smith. That's it."
Your eyes moved from Lincoln to Joel, and then to Tommy. And stayed there.
Your eyes stood on him on what it felt for hours. He forgot, for a moment, where he was, and he could not take his eyes away. You were beautiful in a resilient way, the way something is beautiful when it had refused to stop, despite everything. Your hair was a mess and there was dirt on your face and you were gripping those bars like you intended to pull them apart with your bare hands, and Tommy Miller, who had seen enough of the world to know better, felt his chest do a thing it hadn't done in so long he'd genuinely stopped expecting it to happen.
And then there was the way you were looking at him specifically. Not judging him or sizing him up for threat, not already deciding he was a lost cause before he'd opened his mouth. Just looking like you'd already knew he was a person worth looking at.
"Columbus. Ohio," Joel repeated, voice flat, bringing Tommy’s attention back to the conversation. "That's a long fucking way."
Lincoln shrugged.
Tommy shifted uncomfortably. "I don't know, Joel. She ain't exactly built like a raider. Why the hell are they treating her like this? Shouldn't we at least—"
Then your voice came through the bars, low and precise and aimed directly at Tommy.
"Please," you said, voice barely above a breath now, those soft eyes holding his without flinching. "Don't let Kevin get me. He will destroy everything I've been trying to build, everything that still matters to me."
"Let me give you one disclaimer," Lincoln interrupted, turning to face them. "She's real smart. She'll lie. She'll twist things. She'll look for cracks and poke at them until something breaks." He looked between the brothers. "Don't listen to a word she says. Because she will manipulate you."
“He’s right. But I will never lie to you. I promise.” You said, not flinching, still staring at him deeply.
Tommy looked back at you for a long moment.
"I love you, Tommy Miller." Your voice was quiet and certain.
Something in his chest cracked open so wide and so fast that he had to work to keep it off his face. He just stood there with the words landing on him.
"I want you to be free, Tommy." you said. "True to yourself."
The cage was gone.
Joel was gone. Lincoln was gone. The building, the bars, the weak light and the smell of damp concrete — all of it dissolved, leaving only the two of you standing in a space that had no walls and no name, and your hand reaching across the distance between you to find his.
"There are many things worth fighting for. And this love is one of them. Let's build something together," you said softly. "Something good. Something worth leaving behind." Your eyes held his, steady and warm, and you smiled. And it was so different from the previous fury, so completely and disarmingly soft. "I know that's what you want too. Come. Come to the light with me."
Tommy sank slowly to his knees.
He took your hand in both of his and pressed his lips to your knuckles. He held it against his mouth and felt the ache of it move through him, warm and devastating and completely helpless.
He wanted to say it back. He opened his mouth and nothing came.
He tried again, forming somewhere behind his teeth, but the words never assembling themselves.
“I need you to say it Tommy.”
And still nothing, still silence.
You took one step back, your hand fading between his.
“Say it, Tommy. Please.”
“I, I—”
You stepped away completely. “I’m sorry, Tommy. I can’t love you in the dark.”
He sat up gasping, the sleeping bag tangled around his waist, the trees above him pale with early morning.
Third night.
He pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes and held them there, breathing hard, and said nothing to nobody, because there was nobody there.
The dream clung to him the way they it did for the last three nights away from you. Dissolving at the edges faster than he could hold onto it, but leaving the feeling behind like a stain.
I love you, Tommy Miller.
He dropped his hands and looked up at the sky. Grey light, early birds, the distant sound of wind moving through branches.
He wondered if you were sleeping properly. He wondered if your heart was holding steady, if Frank knew what to do if it wasn't. He wondered if Marcus was keeping watch properly. He wondered if the road between wherever you were and Baltimore was as bad as the roads you had already traveled together, and whether you had enough supplies, and whether the danger was manageable.
And he wondered if you were thinking about him too.
He was three days into what it felt the wrong direction with and nothing else except a dream he couldn't stop having.
He'd repeat he made the right choice.
He'd made the right choice. Yes. And he was going to keep moving and find Joel and make sure they’d be in Boston and you’d soon be there too.
He sat in the pale morning and listened to the birds and felt the knot in his throat tighten until it was difficult to swallow around, and did not move for a long time.
The knot and the stillness broke at the same moment with a sound he knew quite well by now. Wet. Broken.
Far enough. He had time.
He gathered his stuff as silently and quickly as he could. The sounds were getting closer but not fast. A runner by the sound of it, moving without specific direction.
Being alone had changed the math. With Joel, they'd engage when they had to. Alone, every fight was a huge risk of one mistake with no one to cover it. So he moved away from the sounds, placing each foot with deliberate care, heel to toe, reading the ground before committing his weight.
He didn't make it far enough. The runner came from behind a tree to his left, too close, already locked on him, already accelerating. A gunshot here would pull everything on top of him.
Tommy put his back against the nearest tree trunk, braced, and waited.
The runner rushed in that horrible single-minded velocity. Tommy sidestepped at the last possible second, grabbed a fistful of the creature's matted hair, and used its own speed against it. Swung it hard into the trunk. The skull connected with a sound that turned his stomach even now, after everything. Once. Twice. A third time, and the body went slack and heavy in his grip, sliding down and dropping.
He released it and stepped back, breathing through his mouth.
The second one was already coming, dragged by the noise of the first. Tommy didn't wait for it to reach him. He ran at it instead, covering the ground between them in four strides, and drove the butt of his gun into the creature’s head with everything he had. It went down, limbs spasming, and Tommy planted his boot and brought it down hard on the back of its skull.
Silence.
He turned a slow circle, scanning. The woods were still. No more wet breathing, no more movement in his peripheral vision.
But the stillness felt wrong.
He turned again.
Nothing.
He knew anyway. A stalker.
The way his skin had started doing the thing it did when something was watching him from a place he couldn't see. He'd learned to trust that response.
The woods gave it too many angles. Too many places to be invisible until it wasn't.
He started moving to an open space, keeping his steps controlled, the gun in his hand and eyes mapping every tiny move.
It came from above, and it dropped from the branch directly overhead with no warning sound at all. Just sudden enormous weight driving him into the ground, the impact driving the air from his lungs in one hard grunt. Tommy rolled immediately in pure reflex, but the stalker came with him, his fingers stiff and half-fused with fungal raking at his jacket, finding his collar, hauling him back.
The stalker's head was close enough that he could see the orange threads webbing through what had been its eye, the tendrils along its jaw. He got a hand up on its forehead, keeping it away, and pushed hard.
Tommy got his knee up, planted it against the creature's torso, shoved.
It moved back two inches. Came right back.
He went for the gun.
The stalker's hand slammed it impossibly fast, and the gun hit the dirt and disappeared into the undergrowth before he'd fully registered it was gone.
Goddamn it.
Hand to hand, then. He'd fought infected hand to hand before. But he'd never spent this long doing it. His arms were burning, his shoulder was screaming at him every time he extended his right arm, the pain spiking white and immediate.
He got his left forearm under the stalker's chin, forcing its head back, buying a half-second. Reached back with his right hand, found the strap of the rifle, couldn't get the angle; the stalker's weight was pinning him at too low a position to swing the weapon free.
With an impulse he could throw the stalker away for a few seconds, and his hand found his knife instead.
The stalker lurched forward and they went over together, moving several steps behind, until the ground simply wasn't there, and then they were falling, both of them, into the hole he hadn't seen, the depression disguised by undergrowth and shadow. The impact at the bottom was hard enough that for two full seconds there was nothing but white.
Tommy came back to the knife in his hand and the stalker writhing on top of him.
He drove the blade in with everything he had left, his arm shaking with exhaustion and blood loss and the effort of keeping the creature's mouth away from any part of him that mattered.
The stalker went still.
Tommy lay there at the bottom of the hole and breathed.
After a long moment he pushed the creature off him and sat up. He checked his hands first, turning them over, looking for the breach in skin that would mean everything was already over.
Nothing. He pulled his sleeves up. Nothing. Legs, working through the fabric, feeling for wet. Nothing.
He exhaled. Then he looked up.
The hole was deeper than it had felt, the walls soft earth and root systems and the occasional jutting rock. He got to his feet, tested the closest wall with his hand, found a root that might hold, and reached up.
His right shoulder detonated.
He dropped back to the ground, hissing through his teeth, his hand flying to the wound. When he pulled it away the palm was dark and wet.
He pressed his hand back against it and looked up at the rim of the hole above him, pale morning sky just visible through the overgrowth.
---
Tommy stayed in the hole for the rest of that day and all of the night that followed.
At some point his body made the decision for him. The blood loss and the exhaustion and the pain combining into something that wasn't quite sleep and wasn't quite unconsciousness, just a long grey absence that he came back from in pieces.
When he opened his eyes fully it was morning again. And he didn’t know anymore if he was in that hole for one or two days.
The stalker body was still there. In the dark he'd been able to mostly ignore it. In the daylight, with the sun hitting the bottom of the hole at an angle that illuminated everything he would have preferred to keep in shadow, ignoring it was no longer an option. The smell alone was enough to make his stomach contract violently.
He pressed his back against the far wall and breathed through his mouth and assessed the situation with what clarity he had available.
The hole was a trap. He could see that clearly now in the light: the edges too clean, the dimensions too calculated, the overgrowth positioned too specifically to conceal it from anyone moving through quickly. Someone had dug this. Someone had covered it. Someone, at some point, had intended for things to fall into it and not come back out.
He closed his eyes.
And thought of you.
He let himself, just for a moment, because there was nothing else to do and nowhere to go.
He thought about the first time he'd played Dylan on the guitar in that house, when all of you were recovering. The way your eyes sparked when you heard it. Despite everything. Despite the fingers he'd broken the day before, still painful and swollen in your lap. Your eyes had done that anyway.
He thought about the basement. And the day you both fell down those stairs and you found the brooch he got from the kid. He'd kept you in that basement like an animal, but the look on your face when you'd found he'd come back to help that family was the same spark, the one that made him feel like the best version of himself.
He opened his eyes. Looked at the dirt wall opposite.
He thought about the lake. Your bare body by the water and the way he'd looked at it longer than any decent man would have, memorizing something he had no right to. And then what had come after. You trying to escape and him punishing you again, drowning you.
Then he thought of his hands all over your body, and the way your brows had dropped in pleasure in that specific, involuntary softening that would unravel him and how he'd used it against you anyway, used the wanting against you, made you desire him and ask for something and then denied it because control was the only thing he had left.
He'd pressed a gun to your head while your bodies were still pressed together and the water was still warm around you both.
What a despicable human being he was.
He let that sit. Didn't construct a defense. Just let it be what it was, in the bottom of a hole in the ground with a rotting stalker for company, which was probably what he deserved.
He'd left. He'd chosen Joel and he'd left, and it was the correct decision, and the correct decision was that you deserved someone who hadn't done any of those things to you, and he was not that person and would not become that person by staying.
That was the logic.
And then his mind, selfish, gave him your smell anyway. The exact weight of you in his lap with the guitar sealing you both. The way your mouth had tasted the first time he'd kissed you properly by that fire, and the second time, and the third, each one a little less careful and a little more like drowning in something he hadn't known he was thirsty for.
He pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes until the pressure became something he could focus on.
He might never leave this hole.
He might stay here until something found him, and whatever found him might not be inclined toward mercy, and he would never know if you'd made it to Baltimore. Never know if Frank and Marcus had been enough, or if the road had been too much, or if you were lying somewhere between here and that QZ with your hand pressed to your chest and nobody who knew how to help.
"Please." He said it very quietly. He hadn't thought of God in a long time. He wasn't sure he believed anymore. But the hole was deep and the stalker smelled like death and his shoulder was on fire and you wouldn’t leave his mind, so he was out of other options. "Please. Just… give me something. Let me know I made the right call. That I'm doin' the right thing for once in my goddamn life."
He sat in the silence that followed and waited for nothing.
The silence lasted exactly long enough for him to feel like an idiot for asking.
And then he heard a voice.
A woman's voice. Distant, coming from somewhere above and to the left, moving through the trees with a careful, stop-and-start rhythm.
"Is anyone there?" A pause. The unmistakable sound of a gun being cocked. "Are you alive?"
He didn't move. He sat still in the bottom of the hole and stared up at the rim of pale sky and blinked. His first and immediate thought was that he'd been down here long enough and lost enough blood that he was now hearing things that weren't there.
The voice came again, slightly closer.
Real. It was real.
He didn’t know if the voice was going to save him or kill him, and understood that he had absolutely no way of knowing. So he stayed in silence.
The head that appeared at the rim of the hole was backlit by morning sky, which made reading anything difficult. What he could see: tall, or at least standing tall. Hair dark and pulled back in a messy ponytail. Pale skin. A gun, pointed directly at him.
"Who are you?"
"Tommy." His voice came out rough, days of disuse and blood loss do that. "You?"
"Are you bitten, Tommy?"
"No, ma'am."
"Are you a threat?"
"No, ma'am." He kept his hands visible, open, at shoulder height. "Is this your trap?"
A pause. "Yes." Her voice was flat and entirely without apology. "Throw your rifle over the edge. Any other weapons you have."
He unshouldered the rifle one-handed, carefully, and tossed it up and over the rim. The knife followed. "My handgun's somewhere in the undergrowth back there, fell during the fight with the stalker."
"I found it," she said. "Step back from the wall."
He stepped back.
A ladder dropped over the edge a moment later.
"Step up slowly," she said. "Both hands visible the whole way. You move fast, you move toward me, you do anything I don't like… I shoot you. We clear?"
"Clear."
He climbed.
It took longer than it should have. His shoulder made the upper rungs a specific kind of miserable, and he was aware of the gun tracking him the entire way up, but he kept his movements deliberate and his hands where she could see them and eventually his boots found solid ground again.
He straightened slowly, hands still up, and got his first proper look at her.
She was roughly his age, though life had done enough to her face that you might guess older if you weren't paying attention. Her skin was mapped with scars. One eye held a scar that ran clean through it, vertical, the eye itself clouded and clearly sightless. Her dark hair had threads of silver running through it and he guessed it was probably for a hard life and stress than from age.
Her left hand on the grip was missing the pinky finger. The remaining four held the gun without trembling.
And covering her neck, disappearing down into her collar, climbing back up behind her ear, tattoos. Large, intricate, that took probably took years and real money in a world that still had tattoo parlors in it. Her hands too, both of them, right up to the knuckles.
This was a woman who had been through hell.
She was looking at him with the one working eye with an assessment that was thorough and unhurried and gave nothing away.
"You're bleeding," she said.
He tilted his head slightly toward his shoulder. "Gunshot. Few days ago. Fight with the stalker opened it back up."
She didn't lower the gun. "Who shot you?"
"Long story."
"I've got time."
"I don’t," He glanced at the hole behind him. "Spent the last day in your trap. Maybe more than one day."
Something shifted in her expression. "You're lucky I check it every other day."
"Real lucky," Tommy agreed. He kept his hands up and his voice even. "I'm not going to try anything. I don't have the energy for it and you've got all my weapons. I just need to get my shoulder looked at and figure out which direction I'm heading."
"Where are you heading?"
"Boston."
Her eyes moved over him again, slower this time. "Alone?"
"Yeah."
"From where?"
He considered how much of that was useful to share with a woman he'd known for four minutes. "South of here. Been walking three days."
"What were you doing south of here?"
"Passing through."
"With who?"
"I was with my brother," he said. "And… a woman. We split up."
"Why?"
"Longer story."
She held his gaze for a long moment. Then, very slowly, she lowered the gun, barrel toward the ground, finger still in the trigger.
"I've got a camp twenty minutes east. I can look at the shoulder." A pause. "Or I can give you back your rifle and point you north and we never see each other again. Your call."
Tommy looked at her, at the scars all over her and all those tattoos, and made a calculation about what kind of person could have been through all of that and still offered a camp and medical attention instead of a bullet to a half-dead stranger.
"Twenty minutes east," he said. "Yeah. Alright."
She nodded once and started walking.
He followed, hands finally dropping to his sides.
They walked in silence for a moment.
"How long you been out here alone?" he asked.
"Long enough," she said, without turning around. "You?"
"A few days."
"First time?"
"Without my brother? Yeah."
She made a sound that wasn't quite a laugh. "It gets easier."
"That supposed to be reassuring?"
"No," she said simply. "Just true."
They reached her camp in twenty minutes exactly. The camp of someone who had been alone long enough to get very good at it.
She gestured for him to sit.
"Had a family here a few days back," she said, already pulling out a tin of supplies. "Mom, dad, one kid." She came back and crouched in front of him, helping him to pull his jacket and shirt off, examining it. "Then they moved on and I was alone again." A pause. "That's how it usually goes."
"Why do you keep helping people?" he asked. "Strangers."
She looked up from the wound briefly. "Why wouldn't I?"
"Because it costs you."
"Most things worth doing cost something." She went back to examining the wound. "Are you a bad person, Tommy? You don’t deserve my help?"
He considered the honest answer to that. "Maybe."
"I don't think so."
"You don't know me."
"No," she agreed, reaching for the needle and thread with calm. "But I know something."
He waited. She threaded the needle without looking up. "That family. The little boy… chatty kid, tells you everything without you having to ask." The ghost of something warm crossed her face. "He told me his dad got shot. Said there were two men and a girl, and the girl and the younger man were shouting at the older one not to do it." She began to work, and Tommy set his jaw and held very still. "Then he told me the younger man, tall, dark hair in a ponytail, Texas accent, came back afterward. Checked on them. Made sure they were okay before he left." She tied off the first stitch without ceremony. "Said his name was Tommy." She glanced up at him. "So I'm hoping you're that person. Otherwise I would have left you in that hole."
Tommy opened his mouth. Closed it. Swallowed.
When she finished she handed him a shirt from a folded pile. He changed it slowly, carefully, and tried not to think about the fact that his hands weren't entirely steady.
"Thank you," he said. "Ma'am."
"You can stay if you want. Rest." Her eye moved over him with clinical assessment. "You're pale. Lost a lot of blood. Pushing on in that condition is how people make small problems into fatal ones."
He wanted to decline but his body couldn’t afford.
"Yeah," he said. "Alright. Thank you."
She handed him water and crackers and sat across him, and for a few minutes neither of them said anything, which felt companionable rather than uncomfortable.
"What are you doing out here?" he asked eventually. "Alone. In the middle of nowhere."
She looked at him for a moment. "I came from the north. Had a group. We were heading to Baltimore QZ." A pause. “Are you a FEDRA, by any chance?”
“Definitely not a FEDRA, ma’am.” He said urgently, his attention immediately caught by the information.
"Good.” She continues. “Heard about a revolutionary group operating there, seems they came from Denver after pushing FEDRA out. People said they were trying to take back the other QZs one by one. Put something back together." She turned the water canteen in her hands. "That was all I wanted. Fight back. Help rebuild something." She was quiet for a moment. "Halfway there, we got a word from it: The whole thing had been burned to the ground. Whatever they'd built, all of it. Gone. FEDRA, the rebelling group… everything. It’s just hunters now."
She shrugged once, flat like someone who had processed this a long time ago and it didn’t hurt anymore. "Most of my group didn't make it. The ones who did… there wasn't much point in continuing. So we stopped. And then one by one they moved on or didn't, and I stayed."
Tommy said nothing.
His mind was doing something loud and structural, rearranging pieces, checking them against each other.
Burned to the ground.
You had told him the Fireflies were operating there, successfully, that your friend had built something real and lasting. You'd said it with the certainty that came from recent information, from active contact, from an organization that knew what its own pieces were doing. Had he misunderstood? Have you been unaware? Or… were you lying?
The crackers sat in his hand uneaten.
The woman showed him a mattress on the ground. He lowered himself onto it.
"Thank you," he said. "For all of it. I'm sorry for the trouble."
"Don't apologize," she said simply. "The world got mean because people stopped helping each other. Every time someone chooses not to, chooses fear instead, or selfishness, or just keeps walking, the world gets a little meaner. I'd rather be the kind of person who makes it a little less mean. That's all." She shrugged. "You don't owe me anything for that. It's just who I am."
Tommy looked at her for a moment.
"Thank you," he said again, because it was all he had and it felt insufficient and he said it anyway.
She nodded. Turned to go.
"Don't call me ma'am," she said, over her shoulder. "We're probably the same age." A pause. "My name is Sarah."
Sarah.
The name hit him like a thunderstorm, and he lay there on the thin mattress staring at nothing.
He'd asked for a sign. That you deserved better and leaving you was right. That going after Joel was right. That for once in his life he was doing the correct thing for the correct reasons.
And in the span of thirty minutes he had received: a woman who proved there were still good people that went through hell but were still willing to fix the world, medical care that had no business appearing exactly when his body needed, news that Baltimore might be ash and hunters and nothing worth arriving at.
And a name.
Sarah.
Who had wanted to go to Baltimore and find the Fireflies and fight for something worth fighting for, and had ended up alone in the woods instead, the revolution she'd been walking toward reduced to ruins.
Was that the message?
He pressed his hands over his face and held them there.
He had no idea.
He genuinely, completely, with more certainty than he'd felt about anything in days, had no idea what any of it meant.
God hadn't sent him a sign. God had sent him a fucking puzzle, wrapped in a coincidence, dropped into the worst possible moment.
----
End notes:
I gave up making commitments on the size of this fic. I'm not adding scope, I'm just terrible at planning. I 've been saying "we have two more chapters to finish" for five chapters now haha. So let's just live and let the story be what it needs to be :D
but it's coming to an end, that I can tell.
Obs. If you are reading the series Edge of town, know that this is a snip of chapter 22 and I removed important details that would not matter in a one shot. So ignore this one and read directly on the original chapter. 🙂
Summary: Tommy Miller was supposed to be just a fling, especially because he’s a Firefly and you’re not meant to be anywhere near that mess. So far it has been only about stolen nights on Boston QZ, no labels, no complications... But he decides to grow a mustache, and it does catastrophic things to your body - pulling your heart toward the light and your lower half straight onto his tongue. And somewhere between the late-night rendezvous and the way he holds you like it’s more than casual, things start drifting into something that looks a lot like belonging.
wc: 3k
Author's notes: This is part of chapter 22 of my series Edge of Town, placed in Boston QZ while Tommy is a firefly ᖭ༏ᖫ. As he grew up a mustache, I was a bit obsessed about celebrating this new era... and I thought it was too good to keep just in a long fic. So I trimmed it and made it into an one-shot. Hope you enjoy! (I know did)
Relationships: Tommy Miller x F!reader
Warnings: Post Outbreak, the last of us, smut, explicit sexual content, oral (F), overstimulation.
[Tommy's masterlist] [ao3]
Boston’s early light slips through the half-open curtains, warm and soft, brushing your skin as you wake. His scent is the first thing you feel as you wake up, eyes still too lazy to open. The familiar smell of him blesses your senses - that unique scent that melts every muscle in your body. Warm skin, worn cotton, the faint trace of tobacco that is unmistakably his. Irresistible. The kind of scent you could drown in without ever wanting to come back up.
You finally open your eyes and you start brushing your fingers gently along his bare chest, slow, as if you could savor him with your fingertips. Enjoying each bit of skin that your digitals touch. You trace the warm lines of muscle. Your fingertips slide to his shoulders - broad, solid, familiar - then down the length of his biceps, feeling every ridge and warmth as if the shape alone could anchor you back into the world. Somewhere along the movement, you note his Firefly pendant – fallen, half-tucked beneath his collarbone, caught against the sheets.
TOMMY MILLER
000505
You pause, lift it delicately with two fingers, and lay it flat against the center of his chest, smoothing it there before continuing to caress him, slow and unhurried. He doesn’t move, but his body responds to your touch, chest rising a little deeper, breath warming your forehead.
Without opening his eyes, Tommy leans in and presses lazy kisses along your hairline. “Mornin’, sweetheart.”
“Morning, cowboy.” You dive into the hollow of his neck, breathing him in, and you kiss him there, slow and unhurried.
You pull back just enough to meet his eyes. He wakes fully then, holding your hand and tangling your fingers with his, thumb stroking absent circles over your knuckles.
“Is it duty time already?” he murmurs in that low, warm, textured drawl that always melts you like nothing else.
You smile. “It depends on your busy rebelling agenda. I have time.”
He nods once, slow and soft, lowering his forehead to yours, brushing the tips of your noses together. He doesn’t let go of your hand - instead he squeezes lightly, guiding you closer, wordlessly asking for your mouth.
You meet him halfway.
The kiss starts slow - soft lips, familiar taste - then deepens as his tongue grazes yours, unhurried, lazy, delicious. A morning-kiss pace. Patient. Like neither of you has anywhere to be.
When you separate, your breaths are still mingling, Tommy brings a hand up to your chin, holding it gently between his fingers. He pulls you in tighter, rolling slightly so your body settles over him. His arms wrap around you, warm and heavy. He kisses your temple, you poke his ribs, he pretends to be offended, and the two of you sink into an easy tangle of morning warmth - giggling, teasing, brushing noses and trading lazy kisses like idiots who have no business being this soft in a city built on brutality.
Soon, all this warmth - the laughter, the breathing, the softness - will have to be folded away again, replaced by Boston’s uniforms, weapons, and a war that doesn’t care about any love.
For now, though, you keep your face buried in his neck, his arms tight around you, stealing every second the sun allows.
“You know,” Tommy murmurs, “I was thinkin’.”
You snort into his neck. “Oh, that’s rare.”
He huffs a laugh, then digs his fingers playfully into your waist in retaliation. “Smart mouth,” he mutters. “Keep talkin’, see what happens.”
You squirm, laughing, trying to burrow deeper into him, and he presses another kiss to your temple like he can’t help himself.
He continues, fingers tracing little circles on your hip. “You were a firefighter before the outbreak.” He pauses, clearly waiting for your reaction.
You roll your eyes.
Here it comes. The Firefly sermon.
You groan into his neck. “Tommy, I swear, if you say I’d be a ‘great asset’ and start preaching Firefly talk this early in the morning I’ll bite your jugular clean off.”
He pulls back just enough to glare, half joking, half pissed. “Oh screw you, lady. It was supposed to be something romantic. You ruined it.”
You lift your head from his neck, propping yourself on your elbow so you can look at him properly. “Okay, okay. I’m sorry. Rewind. Let’s start again.”
Tommy exhales dramatically, eyes closing like he needs divine patience.
“You were a firefighter. Hell of a dangerous job.” He pauses, hand splayed gently on your waist. “Now… please, for the love of God, react like a normal person.”
You straighten your back, clear your throat. “Of course, my love. Your observation is flawless. As always.”
Tommy just shakes his head, defeated. “Goddamn woman… Anyway. That is every man’s fantasy, you know that? And I never got to fuck you in a Firefighter uniform. That’s an offence to all the men who can only dream about it.”
You burst out laughing immediately. “All this? All of this drama for that? Is this your definition of romantic?” You swat his chest, grinning. “Oh my GOD, Tommy.”
He bites back a smile, cheeks going a little pink - just enough for you to see he’s proud of himself.
“You know that sexualizing my firefighter profession is disrespectful, right?”
You slide your hand up his chest, slow, deliberate. “…but if you happen to find a coat somewhere… maybe I’d let you apologize.” You shrug, pretending innocence. “Thoroughly. Repeatedly. Preferably against a wall.”
His jaw drops, exactly the reaction you wanted.
Before the grin can fully form on your lips, his hand is already on your jaw, guiding you in. His mouth crashes into yours - hungry, certain, stealing every breath you thought you had. Your laugh dissolves against him, swallowed by the way he kisses you like he’s trying to quiet every smart remark you’ll ever make.
You’re still getting used to the raw scrape of his new mustache, dragging fire across your upper lip with every roll of his mouth. It’s too much and not enough at once. Every time he moves, the bristles rake a new path - across your cupid’s bow, along the corner of your mouth, the sensitive skin just beneath your nose - until your face feels flushed and hypersensitive. You didn’t expect to like it this much. You didn’t expect it to make you wet just from the scrape. But God, it does.
You break the kiss with a shaky gasp, lungs burning, lips swollen and tingling. Both hands slide to cup his jaw, thumbs brushing that damp, coarse strip of hair as your eyes lock- wild, pleading.
“I need to ride this mustache,” you breathe, voice ragged, “please, Tommy, for God’s sake, I-”
The plea immediately snaps something feral in him. His eyes lock onto yours for one burning second, like a man handed the only mission he was ever born for and fully prepared to die executing it.
The sentence dies the instant his hands clamp onto your waist like iron. No words, just a low, guttural growl rumbling from his chest as he yanks you up, hard. Your knees scrape up the sheets, you shove your pajamas off in one frantic twist, kicking them aside. The cool air hits your soaked skin for half a second before his fingers dig into your ass and he drags you up his body - chest, throat, chin - until you’re hovering over his face.
A desperate, animal sound tears out of him when he sees how wet you are. You sink.
The first contact rips a sharp cry from your throat: that rough mustache meeting slick, sensitive heat, bristles dragging through your folds like fire. He pulls you down harder, mouth already open, tongue spearing up into you as his nose and upper lip grind mercilessly against your clit. You grind back with a broken sob, hips rolling on instinct, thighs trembling around his ears.
“Jesus Tommy- fuck-“ you choke out, the wet, filthy sounds of his tongue lapping, sucking, devouring filling the room. He moans into you, deep and vibrating, the hum shooting straight through your core. Your fingers tangle in his hair, holding on as you ride - slow, filthy circles at first, then faster, chasing the burn of the scraping over and over on your swollen clit.
Each roll drags another raw moan from him, muffled and hungry, his hands flexing hard enough to leave marks as he buries himself deeper, tongue thrusting, mustache soaked and ruthless. You’re dripping down his chin, down his neck, and still he pulls you tighter - like he’ll die if he doesn’t drown in you right now.
You lift your hips an inch, just enough for cool air to rush between you, your slick still dripping off his soaked mustache onto his lips. You pause there, thighs trembling, and smile down at him like a cruel queen.
“Okay, Tommy,” you purr, voice with sweet mock, “you’ve been such a good boy… so I’m giving you one unique chance. Convince me. Tell me exactly what I can expect if I join the Fireflies. Sell it to me.”
His eyes blaze up at you - glazed, frantic, absolutely serious for half a second. He sucks in a breath, chest heaving.
“If you join, you’ll be part of-”
You drop.
The wet slap of your pussy sealing over his mouth cuts him off mid-sentence. A choked, vibrating “mmph-” rumbles into your folds as his tongue spears back inside you like he can’t help himself. You grind once, slow and filthy, letting the bristles rake your clit until your vision sparks.
“I’m… I’m not hearing any arguments, Tommy,” you taunt, breathless and wicked. “Come on, this is your once-in-a-lifetime shot.”
You rise again - just those few cruel inches - strings of slick connecting you. One hand slides down to cup his jaw, thumb stroking the drenched hair of his mustache, squeezing his cheeks just enough to force his mouth open.
“Come on, baby,” you whisper, eyes locked on his desperate ones. “Use those efficient recruiter words on me.”
He tries - God, he actually tries - voice ragged and shaking: “We’ll- fuck -restore order, give people-”
You sink again, rolling your hips so his nose crushes against your clit. His words dissolve into a guttural “Goddamn woman-” growled straight into your cunt, vibrating through you. Then there’s no more talking- just his mouth devouring you again, frantic, worshipful, like he’s decided the only sermon he’s giving today is with his tongue.
Your hand tightens even harder in his hair, the other braces against the headboard. He feels the shift. His eyes snap open beneath you, wild and triumphant, and the growl that rips out of him is pure victory. Both arms lock around your thighs, dragging you down so there’s no escape, no air, nothing but his mouth sealed to you.
You ride like you’re trying to break him. The wet sounds are obscene: slick squelches, his muffled moans, your broken gasps echoing off the walls.
“Tommy- fuck- right there-”
Your back arches as heat coils vicious and sudden at the base of your spine, then detonates. The orgasm crashes over sharp, blinding, ripping a raw scream from your throat. Your thighs clamp around his head, trembling violently on his mouth, pulse after pulse.
He doesn’t stop. He drinks you down like it’s the only thing keeping him alive until you’re shaking, oversensitive, tears forming at the corners of your eyes.
Only then do you collapse forward, chest heaving, palms braced on the headboard while aftershocks ripple through you. Tommy gentles instantly nuzzling into you with a low, satisfied hum that says he’d stay there forever if you let him.
You’re still twitching when you finally manage to lift up, just enough to look down. His face is wrecked: lips swollen, chin and mustache drenched and gleaming with you, eyes half-lidded and utterly smug.
You’ve never seen anything hotter in your life.
You finally push yourself up on shaky arms, sliding down his chest until you’re straddling his hips, both of you panting like you’ve run a marathon. His face is an absolute crime scene. He looks drunk on you.
You drag a lazy thumb across his bottom lip, voice hoarse and wrecked. “Jesus Christ, Tommy… I just saw God and he was wearing your mustache.”
He lets out a low, ragged laugh that shakes his whole chest, eyes half-lidded and utterly blissed-out. Both hands settle on your thighs, thumbs stroking slow circles.
“Jesus...That’s the worst thing anybody’s ever said to me.” He shakes his head, something between baffled and trying not to laugh. “You ain’t right. That’s blasphemy and slander all in one breath.”
You snort, breathless. “And you better take care. I’m goin’ to hell, and I’m takin’ you with me.”
“Then we go together, my sinner,” He tilts his chin up, tapping two fingers against his upper lip. “And this seat is open twenty-four seven, no cover charge, ma’am.”
Your gaze drops to the Firefly pendant lying against his chest, still warm from your skin. The recent memory flashes through you - him trying to preach that rebel nonsense while you were sitting on his face. You hate how it hits you.
Fuck. That was hot. That was actually hot. The idea turned you on, against all odds.
“Alright, recruiter,” you whisper, teasing, eyes half-lidded. “I’m listenin’. For real. Tell me more about this revolution of yours.”
You shift your hips, slow and deliberate, dragging your dripping folds along the hard line of his cock where it’s trapped between you. He’s burning hot, twitching against your slick skin.
“Christ- darlin’-” His hands flex on your hips, trying to drag you down, but you stay right where they are, because he knows the game now. “You’re tryin’ to kill me.”
“Maybe,” you breathe, rocking again, letting the head of him nudge your clit, then slide back through your folds, teasing your entrance. “But I wanna hear it, Tommy. Sell me the dream while I decide whether I’m sittin’ on it or not.”
His head falls back against the pillow for a second, throat working. Then those beautiful eyes snap back to yours, hungry and half-wild.
“We want folks choosin’ for themselves who runs their streets, what they will eat and what they will work with, who keeps ‘em safe. Want a city where a man can wake up and decide his own damn day without some officer tellin’ him when he can piss.”
You sink just an inch, letting the tip of him breach you, stretch you open slow. Both of you moan, yours high and broken, his a guttural curse that vibrates through his chest.
“Keep talkin’,” you pant, rising up again until he almost slips out, then dropping just that same cruel inch, over and over, twerking your hips in tiny, filthy circles that make his cockhead pop in and out.
Tommy’s hands clamp harder, fingers digging bruises into your ass. “We- we got people willin’ to give their lives so kids don’t gotta grow up scared-”
You drop lower this time, taking half of him in one slick slide, then shoot back up so fast the wet sound is obscene. His hips jerk helplessly, chasing you.
“Fuck- good people – ah, shit – good people who believe tomorrow can be better,” he grits out, voice cracking when you twerk in tiny, rapid thrusts that fuck nothing but his head.
“More,” you moan into his mouth, tongue sliding against his. “Tell me how you’re gonna save the whole damn world, Tommy-”
“…I- we- shit, markets that ain’t ration cards. Kids playin’ without lookin’ over their shoulder for soldiers. You and me walkin’ wherever the hell we want, whenever we want, no curfew, no papers-”
Why the fuck is this doing it for me now? You think, half-hysterical, while your hips keep up their cruel little torture. This man’s been spouting the same heroic, half-delusional Firefly gospel for months and you always rolled your eyes so hard. Called it fairy-tale bullshit, pretty words for people who wanna feel like martyrs. But right now, every syllable feels like hope. Like he’s promising a whole world where nobody can ever take this away from you both again, where you get to keep this, him, your name on his tongue, your taste on his mustache, forever. And God help you, you actually want to believe him.
You drop lower, halfway down his shaft, then shoot back up so fast he curses loud enough to rattle the windows.
“-and nobody, nobody, tellin’ us who we can love or how loud we can scream it,” he finishes on a broken growl.
That one hits you right in the chest and lower, hot and electric.
You lean forward, forearms bracing on either side of his head, face inches from his, lips brushing every time you gasp. Your hips stay high, ass up, shaking in quick, nasty little thrusts that fuck just his tip, over and over, fast and shallow and maddening. Your tits brush his chest with every bounce; his mustache scrapes your lips when you kiss him sloppy and open-mouthed between his words.
He’s losing it. You can feel it in the way his thighs tense under you, the way his cock throbs every time you clench around the head and pop off again.
“We blow it all,” he growls, voice cracking, “we burn their checkpoints to the ground, we-”
You slam all the way down.
One brutal drop of your hips and he’s buried to the hilt, stretching you wide, punching the air from both your lungs. The scream that rips out of you is wild, filthy, loud enough to echo down the damn block.
His head slams back into the pillow, a broken “fuck, fuck, fuck” falling from his lips as his hands grip your waist like he’s holding on for dear life.
His rhythm stutters, goes sloppy, hips jerking up to meet every filthy roll of yours. The talk did something to him too; you can feel it in the way his cock swells thicker inside you, the way his breath keeps catching every time you clench around him.
Tommy’s eyes go glassy, pupils blown wide. One big hand leaves your waist, slides up your sweaty spine, then cups the side of your face, thumb stroking your cheekbone almost tender. Then his fingers spread, gripping your jaw and the back of your neck in one firm, steady hold - not rough, just anchoring - forcing you to stay close, to look right at him.
“Look at me, darlin’,” he growls, voice cracking. “Wanna see you when I-”
His whole body locks up. You feel the first hot pulse deep inside you, then another, and another, thick and endless. His eyes never leave yours, dark and wrecked and full of that same stupid, beautiful hope he’s been carrying around like a torch. A long, shuddering groan rips out of him, muffled against his own gritted teeth so the only sound in the room is the wet slap of your hips still rocking, milking every last drop.
Warmth blooms low in your belly, spreads everywhere, and you realize you’re trembling, whispering his name like while he fills you up, pulse after pulse, until you’re both shaking.
Your thighs are still trembling when Tommy slips his hands up your back, big palms smoothing slow, like he’s calming an uneasy horse. He kisses your jaw, then your cheek, then your temple, lazy.
“Careful now,” he murmurs against your skin, voice wrecked but smug. “Firefly insurance don’t cover death by enthusiasm.”
You huff a laugh, tracing slow circles on his chest with one finger. “That’s a shame. This mustache is a lethal weapon.”
Tommy laughs under you, the sound rumbling through both your bodies.
He reaches the nightstand, fingers closing around a cigar. He bites it between his teeth, lits it and takes a slow drag.
“Keep doing these things to me Tommy, and I might actually join your little revolution… only for the benefits package.”
He grins, wicked and wrecked, and pulls you back down for another taste. “Then welcome to the Fireflies, sweetheart, because I don’t intend to stop. Induction starts now.” He tilts his chin toward you in wordless offering the cigar. He tips the cigar toward you - no words, just that look. Normally you’d swat it away or wrinkle your nose, but not this morning. You take it, bring it to your lips, inhale slow, tasting smoke and him and something that feels like stepping over a line you can’t step back from.
Please please please comment if you liked, I love to read your comments! 💜
Chapter Summary: The tables have turned.
Now you have an ungrateful, stubborn cargo with cute freckles and a terrible temper. And the quiet grief of a relationship that died barely after it was truly born.
Fic Summary: Four years after the outbreak, Joel and Tommy Miller are hardened smugglers in the Boston QZ: mean, violent, and willing to do whatever it takes to survive. When they’re paid an obscene amount to smuggle you across the ruined country to Columbus QZ, they didn't ask what secrets you carry to be worth that much. They just expect an easy job. You're supposed to be just cargo. They will soon discover this cargo has teeth… and the power to make even the worst men start to crack.
Tags: Tommy Miller x Reader, Dark!Tommy, Raider!Tommy, Explicit Sexual Content, Post-Cordyceps Outbreak (The Last of Us), Stockholm Syndrome, Dark Romance, Tommy is mean but not too much, Tommy Miller Fanfic, Enemies to Lovers, Tommy was corrupted by Joel, Vaginal Sex, Fireflies (The Last of Us), Slow Burn
wc: 10k
Frank's arms closed around you, and you allowed yourself to melt into it. You'd always known you could trust him, and you never once doubted he would not rest until he found you.
You held on tighter, the relief of it hitting you all at once. Weeks of careful calculation and constant concern are gone. For a moment you let yourself just be held.
The other four rifles stayed steady on the brothers.
Tommy's hands were still raised, his eyes locked on you and Frank. By any reasonable logic, his priority should have been the four guns leveled at them and the math of how he and Joel were going to survive the next sixty seconds. But his mind kept asking a stupid, consuming question: who the hell was Frank?
All Tommy could see was a man you'd never once mentioned, the two of you clinging to each other in a way that made it impossible to determine, from where he stood, what exactly he was to you except someone who loved you. Family? Your presumed estranged brother?... Your supposedly dead uncle? Or… Something else? He had no category for it. The only thing he could conclude with certainty was that there were many things about you he still didn't know.
For one unguarded second, your eyes found Tommy's over Frank's shoulder.
He was still looking at you the way he'd been looking at you minutes ago. None of that had left his face yet. It was still there, raw and unprotected, the same man who said I love you back to you with everything except for words. But now it was covered with concern and doubt.
"Took long enough," Frank murmured against your hair, his voice cracking like that have been held tight for far too long. "We found the trail outside Boston three weeks back. Lost it twice. Started thinkin' we'd lost you for good, sweetheart."
"…He always trusted you to look after me." You pulled back just enough to look at him, a small, tired smile finding your mouth despite everything.
"Somebody had to keep up with your mess, right? My big trouble maker."
You felt the whole weight of the last minutes sitting in your chest at once. The kiss, the secret, the song, the long seconds his mouth had been the only thing in the world. And understood, with a kind of grief, that right now you’d risk to close a door on all of it. Because there was probably no version of the next ten minutes that let you keep both things: the woman who'd sat in his lap singing, and the woman who was about to win this clearing.
You were genuinely afraid. You could only hope things went out as expected and that he understood it all and continued at your side. You held his eyes for one more second as you could convince him just by doing so.
Behind you, the clearing was frozen.
Joel hadn't lowered his hands either, but his eyes were doing the exact thing they always did: the Miller protocol that had kept him alive for years. Cataloguing, counting weapons, counting exits… Measuring the dimensions of the trap he'd just found himself standing inside.
"You got her?" you said low to Frank
Frank's eyes flicked, briefly, toward Joel.
"Yes," he murmured back. "Got her shortly after you went missing. She's safe."
"You got evidence?"
"In my pack."
Something in your chest unlocked. Sharp and bright and deeply, deeply satisfying.
You kept your face neutral as you turned back around, but inside, every piece had just slid into place at once. You had a card now. A strong one. An actual, physical lever sitting in your hand, and you knew exactly how to use it. All those weeks trapped between two Millers, all those long silent roads and miles of walking while you turned every angle of this exact encounter over in your head, calculating, preparing, hoping. It had all finally materialized into the precise advantage you needed. It would cost you. Could possibly cost you Tommy. But there was no other way.
You looked past Frank to the rest of the group.
"Bella." You found the woman first, rifle steady, eyes sharp. "I owe you more than I can say." Your eyes moved to the next. "Marcus. Eli. Dom." Each name landed clean, and you watched something shift in each of their postures as you said it: pride, maybe, or simple relief at being seen. "Thank you. All of you. I don't know how to repay all the trouble you’ve been through because of me."
"Wasn't a question of repayment," Bella said simply. “We'd have walked twice that distance, and counted ourselves lucky for the chance."
You let yourself smile satisfied. You could feel the brothers absorbing every syllable, recalibrating in real time. Let them understand precisely what kind of loyalty they were standing in the middle of.
You gave a short, sharp nod toward Marcus and Dom.
They moved forward without hesitation. They stripped the guns from both brothers in seconds. Then, with a brutal motion, each man's boot caught the back of a knee - Joel's, then Tommy's - driving both brothers down hard onto the ground, the muzzles of their weapons pressed close enough to skull that neither Miller had any illusions left about resistance.
You held Joel’s gaze, steady and unhurried, and let him watch you become exactly what you actually were. You stepped forward, out of Frank's shadow, and let your spine straighten.
Tommy hadn't said a word. You felt his eyes on you rather than saw them now.
He stood there with his hands still half-raised, his mind slowly spiraling down in ways he couldn't stop. Was any of it real? Every soft word, every time you'd melted into his hands when you had every reason in the world to hate him, every time you'd given yourself over to his arms despite the bruises he'd put on you… he started to question now if any of that had been real, or had it been exactly what it looked like right now: a woman who knew precisely how to make a man trust her completely, right up until the moment she didn't need him anymore?
He closed his eyes for half a second.
I love you, Tommy.
He could still hear it. Could still feel the exact warmth of your voice against his ear.
When he opened his eyes again, he found Frank watching with relief, pride and pain, all at the same time.
"Have you seen our signs?" Frank asked. "We've been leaving them since Boston."
"Saw one in the gymnasium," you said. "Thanks for that... Kept me hoping."
You kept pacing across the brothers, and let the silence to stretch on purpose, strategically. You moved unhurried and calculating one last time: turning every possible version of this moment over in your mind until you knew the outcomes could only go your way.
"You wanna explain," Joel said, confident despite the guns still trained on him, "what exactly your plan is here? Or are we just gonna stand around starin' at each other like idiots all night?"
"Shut up," you replied promptly, voice triumphant. "You're not in control anymore, Joel. You'll wait, and you'll stare at my face, and you'll look like an idiot for as long as I want you to. And then you'll do exactly what I need you to do."
"What if I don't want to?"
Marcus, who had his gun trained on Tommy, answered the provocation faster than you could with a sharp kick to Tommy's ribs that doubled him over.
Tommy exhaled a sharp, sonorous "Fuck!" lowering his raised hands for the first time, both arms wrapping around his middle as he fought to breathe through the pain.
Joel hissed, jaw clenching, his whole body straining forward an inch before he caught himself.
"That hurt, right, Joel?" Marcus said, voice almost pleasant. He grabbed a fistful of Tommy's jacket collar and hauled him back upright, none too gently. "Don't pretend we don't know how this works between you two. You wanna play games, little brother pays for it." His grip tightened. "Same goes the other way, pretty boy." He taps Tommy’s shoulder. "Big brother's gonna pay for whatever you decide too. So choose wisely."
Tommy straightened slowly, breath still ragged, and lifted his head to find you directly. The look on his face changed now, but it wasn't pain, it was something colder. It was the look of a man watching someone he'd trusted reveal exactly how little he mattered to the larger machine she commanded.
Your chest cramped at the sight of it. Your hand closed into a fist at your side, hard enough that your nails bit into your palm. Every instinct in you wanted to turn on Marcus, wanted to snap don't you touch him again loud enough for the whole clearing to hear it.
You took one step. Just one, barely an inch, before you caught yourself and forced your weight back onto your heels.
You knew exactly what it would cost you if you finished that step. The words sat right at the edge of your tongue, and you swallowed them back down so hard it physically hurt, your jaw aching with the effort of holding still. Because you knew the authority of your own people couldn't fracture in front of the people you needed most to believe in it. A leader stands by the decisions of her team, in the room, in front of everyone, and saves the reckoning for later, in private, where it belonged.
So instead you moved your eyes slowly from Tommy's face to Marcus's, letting your expression carry everything your voice couldn't. You held it there until you saw the small, understanding nod.
It still cost you something. You weren't sure Tommy would ever know how much.
You looked back at Tommy. He was still staring at you, but like he didn't recognize you at all.
You wanted, more than anything, to rush back to him and put your hands on his face and tell him none of this changed what was real between you.
You wanted to say that everything you’re about to do, it’s coming for his own good too.
But you couldn’t.
So you held his gaze and hoped, with everything you had, that some part of him still trusted you enough.
"So here's where we actually are.” You stopped in front of Joel. “You are two guys. We are six. You have a hand that can't hold steady and a brother with a bullet wound. I have a full team that hasn't slept worrying about me but is otherwise entirely intact." You tilted your head slightly.
"And I have something you care about, Joel." A pause, deliberate, letting it land. "So I'm going to be real generous and offer you a trade. The best deal you're going to get tonight." Your eyes didn't move from his. "Tread carefully, Joel. I rehearsed this moment in my head at least three hundred times on the road here. I have a plan B for every single outcome you might be considering right now."
Joel stayed on his knees, head turned diagonally up toward you, eyes burning with barely contained fury.
Tommy had stopped looking at you entirely. His gaze had dropped to the dirt in front of him and stayed there.
You reached down and took Joel's face in your left hand, fingers closing firm around his jaw.
"You're going back to Boston," you said delightedly, "escorted by part of my team. You'll behave. You won't try to come back for me. And you'll find Lincoln and you'll smuggle the fucker outside Boston. I don't care where you drop him. I just need him out of my business. Permanently." Your grip tightened slightly. "As payment for that small favor you don't get killed tonight. And you still receive part of what he promised you. Say, a quarter." You let go of his jaw, straightening. "Consider that a very, very generous offer."
You turned and paced toward Tommy.
"And my last request," you said to Joel, "is that you don't go looking for your brother either."
Both brothers' heads came up at that, Tommy's eyes finally lifting from the ground, Joel's narrowing in open confusion.
" Tommy's coming with me to Baltimore."
For one long second, nobody spoke, as if everyone were processing it simultaneously. Then everything broke at once.
The Firefly crew looked at each other, confused murmurs passing between them. Joel cursed something low and venomous that you couldn't quite hear, drowned out completely by the sound of Tommy's voice landing like a blow straight to your chest.
"The hell I am—" Tommy's voice cracked with disbelief. "You ain't takin' my brother anywhere, and I'm not goin' anywhere without him."
Frank crossed the distance in three quick strides and closed his hand around your arm.
You looked at him at Tommy. Two seconds. Maybe three. It felt like hours, stretching out endless and silent in the middle of all the noise, your eyes locked directly on his searching, disbelieving, furious. You could read every piece of what was happening behind his face: anger, frustration, the unmistakable accusation that you'd put him in this position without warning, without preparation, without a single moment to brace himself.
And you were furious right back. What exactly had he thought would happen, the moment this came? That you'd simply leave Joel standing there, unaccounted for, free to walk straight back into your life the second your guard dropped? And the absolute audacity of it after everything, defaulting straight back to his brother's side. Less than ten minutes ago his mouth had been on yours, his promise still warm in your ear. We'll get you to Baltimore. I'll convince him.
Frank's hand tightened on your arm, pulling you out of it.
"What are you doing?" His voice was careful, controlled, but there was real concern underneath it now, edged with something close to indignation. "Why do you want to bring him?"
"You have to trust me, Frank." You kept your eyes on Tommy even as you spoke. "Tommy's ready. He's going to join us, and—"
Tommy opened his mouth, something protesting rising in his throat. Joel got there first. A short, harsh laugh tore out of him, sharp and humorless.
"He ain't joinin’ nothin'." His eyes cut to you with open contempt. "I already told you. He stays, princess."
You let the silence stretch for exactly one beat. You could have let it go. You knew you should let it go.
But you didn’t.
"Funny, Joel." you said, voice bright and entirely too pleasant, "considering you just walked in on him kissing me, whispering he'd already decided to come with me.” You tilted your head slightly, watching it land. "Honestly, I was impressed you're still capable of being shocked at this point. You've had the chance to see it weeks ago, and you still chose not to see."
The space went dead silent. Tommy's jaw worked, his eyes closing briefly like he could somehow will himself out of the moment entirely.
Joel's face went through several things at once before ending up on something far worse than fury. His face was painted with pure and devastating disappointment, and despite everything, despite the cost of saying it out loud in front of your crew, it had been worth it just to see it.
Joel turned his head toward his brother, still kneeling, Dom's rifle pressing him back into place the second he tried to shift.
"I was right," Joel said, voice low and venomous. "Wasn't I. You were really gonna run off with this bitch and leave me out here alone." A short, bitter exhale. "That was your choice. After everything I did for you." His eyes raked over Tommy with open disgust. "Tell me exactly where she got you, Tommy. Was it the pretty words? The hope, all that delusional bullshit?" His voice dropped lower, crueler. "Or did you already fuck her, and decide that was worth more than years of—"
"Don't you dare!" Tommy's voice exploded out of him, raw and shaking, cutting Joel off completely. He surged forward, getting half a foot before Marcus shoved him back down. "Don't you dare stand there and act like I was ever gonna actually leave you, Joel! I had a fucking hundred reasons to walk away from you and I stayed! I always stayed by your fucking side!" His chest heaved, voice cracking wide open. "And all you've ever done, all you've ever done, is makin’ me feel like a child, and as if protectin' me physically was the same thing as carin' about me! It ain't the same thing, Joel! It was never the same thing!"
Joel lunged. It happened fast: Joel surging up off his knees despite Dom's rifle, closing the distance toward Tommy with his hands already reaching, and Tommy meeting him halfway, both of them colliding in a furious, grappling tangle of fists and shouted curses. Marcus and Dom moved instantly. They successfully split the brothers, both men fighting against the grip for a few more seconds before finally going still, breathing hard, furious, planted several feet apart with rifles trained on each of them again.
Frank's hand closed around your arm harder now and twisted you to face him.
"What the fuck was that?" His voice was low, perplexed, edged with real anger now. "You got involved with him? Or is this just one more of your games? You were gonna tell me at all?" His eyes searched your face.
You didn't know how to answer. You lifted your chin instead, jaw set, eyes steady as Frank had known since you were younger, that meant you weren't going to elaborate.
He exhaled hard through his nose. His eyes moved to the brothers, then back to you.
"I know it's your call," he said, quieter now, something careful underneath the frustration. "But I think we should end this here."
"No." Your voice came out flat, immediate. "We're not killing them."
"Your uncle would disapprove all of this."
"Well, he's not here, is he?"
Frank's eyes held yours, unflinching. "You've killed before for lesser reasons than this. What's changing now?"
You felt your jaw tighten, anger flaring hot and immediate at him for saying it out loud, here, now, in front of an audience that absolutely did not need to hear it. You glanced quickly toward the brothers close enough, both of them, that there was no version of this where they hadn't heard every word. You needed to see how it landed. They were both staring at you.
And in that moment, you understood, with sudden and total clarity, just how perfectly mirrored they were. Two men carved from the same blood and the same loss, standing several feet apart and looking at you with two versions of the exact same rage. Joel's face held no surprise at all. Just angry at the confirmation that you were everything he'd already decided about you.
Tommy's face held the opposite. Same anger, but of a man who had let himself believe something different and was now watching the floor drop out from under it in real time. He wasn't looking at you like a predator confirmed like Joel was. He was looking at you like something he'd trusted had just turned out to be made of glass.
"I kill," you said, turning back to Frank, "only when there's a purpose to the kill." You said it quietly, almost gently. And that was exactly why it was terrifying. Frank's jaw worked once. He swallowed, nodded, and took a step back without another word.
You turned and squatted down in front of Tommy. Close enough to see the freckles that always undid you a little, scattered faint across his nose. Except his eyes were doing something else entirely now, piercing you with an intensity that made the freckles disappear into the background.
"What changed, Tommy? I thought you wanted to come with me."
"What changed?" His voice was controlled. "What changed is you knew they were comin'. You saw their signs days ago and you never said a word, even after I told you I'd cooperate. And now you're tryin' to send my brother away like I needed you to protect me from him." His jaw tightened. "You did that on purpose. Made him madder at me than he already was. You knew exactly what sayin' that would do to him, and you said it anyway." His eyes flicked, briefly, helplessly, toward Frank. "And now you show up with some man who—" He stopped himself. You watched him try to swallow it back down and fail. "Who—." His hand twitched at his side like a reflex reaching for your skin, for the comfort of your warmth. He caught it almost instantly, fingers curling back into a fist instead, the gesture redirected into something that looked, from the outside, like pure aggression.
"Frank," Frank said, before you could answer, flat and final. "I’m Frank. That's all you need to know, asshole."
Frank eyes moved over Tommy trying to understand exactly what this particular person had that warranted this much risk, this much complication, this much of attention from you. Tommy held the look and didn't flinch from it.
"Tommy, that's not important right now." You kept your voice level. "You really want to interrogate my choices? You kidnapped me. You don't trap a cat in a corner and act surprised when it comes out clawing."
"I didn't trap you." His voice cracked slightly. "I offered to help you. The best way could. We could've talked about all of this before it came to this—"
"Talk." You let out a short, humorless breath. "That's your answer for everything, isn't it. You think you can talk your way out of every single problem, every time, if you just find the right words." You shook your head slowly. "Some things don't have a talking way out, Tommy. No matter how badly you want one. No matter how hard you try to be good." You reached out, almost without deciding to, and tucked a loose curl back behind his ear. He let you.
"You're really still choosing your brother," you said quietly. "After everything."
The silence stretched out long enough that it became its own answer.
"Okay," you said softly. You pressed your lips together for a second, blinking hard, willing the burn behind your eyes to stay exactly where it was. "Got it."
You stood, looking down at him now.
"Doesn't matter anyway," you said, voice hardening back into command. "You're coming to Baltimore regardless, Tommy. Right now I just need the two of you apart from each other." You looked between the brothers. "I know exactly how you two work together. Give you half a chance and you'll find some way to pair up, turn this around, and come after me. I'm not giving you that chance."
Tommy made a low, furious sound in his throat.
"Marcus. Cuff him. They're in his left pocket."
Tommy lunged, instinct overriding everything, and Eli and Bella's rifles snapped up instantly, the muzzles finding him before he'd made it two inches. He went still, breathing hard, fury radiating off him in waves. Marcus crossed to him, pulled the cuffs from his pocket, and locked them around his wrists while staring him dead in the eye. Tommy stared back, unblinking, hatred and heartbreak tangled.
You turned to Joel. "As I said before," you told him, "you're going back to Boston. And I'd recommend you accept this gratefully. I'm not killing you, Joel, even though I have every reason to. Because I don't want Tommy hating me, and because… credit where it's due. You were willing to save me from Gilead Crew when you had the chance. So I'm giving you that. I'm taking your little brother with me, but I'll release him once we're in Baltimore, and he's free to run straight back to you if that's what he wants."
Joel's eyes were black with something dangerous now. "You think you won already," he said, low. "You can send as many of your little toy soldiers after me as you want, princess. I'll put every last one of them in the ground and find my way back to you anyway, and I will bring you to Columbus even if I have to break every single bone in your body."
"Oh, Joel." You shook your head slowly, almost sad. "You're still so sure you're the smartest man in every room you walk into, aren't you." You crouched slightly, bringing your face level with his. "Don't you want to ask me what it is I have that you care about?"
He didn't. He held your gaze instead, jaw locked, refusing to give you the satisfaction.
You let yourself smile, just slightly.
"Fine. I'll tell you anyway." You straightened. "Dom. Tie him. Hands behind his back."
While Dom worked the rope, you got closer.
"Central Boston," you said. "Hawley Street. Building seventeen. Apartment twenty-two." You savored each word while his face twisted at the acknowledgement. "Ring any bells, princess?"
The blood ran out of Joel's face so completely and so fast that for a moment he looked like a different man entirely.
You watched the desperation hit him immediately, the first crack you'd seen in. And watched him fight it, jaw clenching, refusing to give you even that.
"Bullshit," he said, but his voice had lost its certainty. "That's a bluff."
You turned to Frank and held out your hand. He fumbled in his pack and reached for a document, passing it over without a word. You held it up in front of Joel's face, close enough that there was no possible way to mistake what he was looking at.
A photograph of a face he knew quite well. A name typed beneath it in clean block letters.
THERESA SERVOPOULOS
Joel's reaction was instant and total. A furious, desperate surge against the ropes, his whole body straining, a wordless sound tearing out of him in rage. Eli moved fast, helping Dom pin him back down by the shoulders.
"How," Joel snarled, "did you get that?! What did you do to her? What did you do—"
Eli's fist caught Joel across the jaw, hard enough to silence the sound building in his throat.
"You can't lead a revolutionary movement," you said evenly, "and not know what happens in your QZ, Joel." You glanced at Tommy. "I admit, I failed somewhere. I had no record of Tommy at all. That's how important you were in this trio, Tommy. I knew about Joel. I knew about Tess. I never once knew about you." You say, purposefully cruel. You turned back to Joel. "I keep contingency plans, Joel. The same way any operation worth running does, like a government keeps a line of succession, the way you plan for the version of events where the person in charge doesn't come home. My people know exactly what to do if I disappear and don't resurface in a set window of time. And buried in that plan, specific and clear, was a single line: if Miller is a problem, take the girlfriend. Tess."
"And here's the part that matters most, Joel," you continued. "She is safe now. But if my people aren't back in Boston within the next weeks, she starves. In a hole nobody can hear her scream or find her in time. Nobody saves her." You held his gaze. "So believe me when I tell you. You want to get back to Boston. As fast as your legs and that horse can carry you."
Something in Joel broke loose. He moved faster than anyone anticipated: the rope at his wrists somehow giving way, a blade appearing from his boot that nobody had thought to check, and then his hand was around your throat, dragging you against him, the knife pressed flat and cold beneath your jaw.
"Where," he snarled, right against your ear. "Where is she."
Frank moved instantly, closing the distance and grabbing Tommy in response, gun pressed hard against his temple before Joel had even finished speaking.
"Let her go," Frank said, voice low and absolutely level, "or your brother's brains end up on that tree behind him."
"And Tess dies regardless," Bella added coldly. "Whether you kill her right now or not. Only one of us walking out of these woods knows where she's being held, Joel. And it isn't you."
The clearing went utterly silent except for your own breathing, ragged against the blade at your throat.
Tommy's voice cracked through it, raw and desperate.
"Joel. Joel, let her go. Just let it go—"
Joel's eyes moved past you to his brother, to the gun at his temple. He had no way out and he knew it. His brother's life in one hand. Tess's life dangling on a string he couldn't see the end of. And you, the only person who knew where either thread led.
His voice came out hoarse, defeated. "Tell me the address. I'll go alone. You want me out of your hair that bad, I'll go gladly."
You held perfectly still, the blade still resting against your throat, and made him wait one more second before you answered, so he understood completely that this victory belonged to you only.
"Drop the knife first."
A long pause. Then the blade fell away from your throat, clattering into the dirt.
You stepped away, rubbing your neck.
“Blanche Street. Two hundred and four. Close the old Union building.”
Joel moved promptly for the nearest horse, swinging up onto it with urgency. Every gun in the clearing followed him except Frank's, which stayed pressed to Tommy's temple.
Joel hesitated at the reins and looked back at his brother. Cuffed, held at gunpoint, watching him with an expression that contained four years of every single thing that had passed between them, every moment Joel had failed to say the thing that needed saying.
"Tommy's not goin' with you," Frank said evenly. "That was never on the table."
"If you leave," you said, quieter now, almost gentle, "you leave alone, Joel. Either both of you come to Baltimore, or you go alone to Boston. But Tommy isn't going anywhere tonight except with me."
Tommy lunged against Frank's grip, twisting hard enough that Frank's hand found the wound at his shoulder and pressed, sharp and deliberate, until the fight drained out of him in a sharp gasp of pain.
"Joel." Tommy's voice broke completely, all the fury gone out of it now, nothing left but pure, naked pleading. "Joel, don't—."
You watched Joel's hands tighten on the reins. Watched the war happening behind his eyes, the clock ticking somewhere invisible.
You couldn't stop yourself.
"Tick tock, Joel," you said, soft and merciless. "Tick tock. Will you actually make it in time? Or will this be one more woman you loved that you couldn't save?"
It settled exactly the way you wanted to: a direct hit, surgical and cruel, straight into the oldest wound he carried. You watched something seize in his chest, his breathing going shallow and fast, his whole body caught for one terrible second between fight and flight, between his brother and the ghost of one more person he failed to save in time.
“We’ll keep Tommy safe. I promise.”
He looked at Tommy one last time.
"I'm sorry, Tommy. I meet you back in Boston."
And then he turned the horse and rode hard into the dark, the sound of hooves fading fast into the trees.
"Eli. Dom. Bella." Your voice was steady even though nothing inside you felt steady at all. "Go after him. Make sure he gets there."
The three of them mounted quickly on the two horses left and rode off into the dark after Joel, hoofbeats fading into silence one by one until the clearing held only the fire, the four of you, and the enormous, ringing absence of what had just happened.
You turned back to Tommy. He was still held at Frank's side, Marcus's rifle trained on him again, his eyes fixed on the empty trees where his brother had disappeared.
"Guess we're both disappointed," you said quietly. "Neither of us was the first choice of the person who was supposed to choose us."
Frank's grip shifted on Tommy's arm, hauling him forward.
"Move it, cargo," he said flatly.
---
The morning had come and gone without anyone saying much of anything.
You walked at the front beside Frank, your pace steady, eyes fixed on the road ahead more out of necessity than focus. Behind you, Marcus kept Tommy moving with the occasional shove between the shoulder blades whenever he slowed even slightly. Tommy never said anything. He just kept walking with his cuffed hands hanging in front of him, eyes fixed somewhere past the horizon.
Frank carried Tommy’s guns slung across his own pack. The silence had stretched all day long, and everybody actually preferred that way. You could feel Tommy's presence behind you the entire walk, a constant, magnetic pull at the base of your spine, and you didn't let yourself turn around to check on him more than the bare minimum required of someone keeping watch over a prisoner.
The sun had started its slow drop toward the tree line, throwing everything into the long gold haze of late afternoon. You'd been walking for hours. Your legs ached. Nobody had asked to stop, and you hadn't offered.
Frank finally broke the silence.
"We need to talk."
"I don't think we do."
Behind you, you felt Tommy's attention sharpen instantly, with no pretense of disinterest at all, his whole body angling subtly toward the conversation. Marcus noticed it too, and pretended not to care but kept his attention to grasp anything at all. Everyone in the group had questions. Nobody had the nerve to ask them out loud except Frank.
"Oh, we do. You owe me that much. You gonna tell me, or am I supposed to guess?"
Frank watched your silence for a long moment. Then his hand gently found yours, and you hissed sharply, pulling back on instinct, the still-healing fingers protesting the contact.
"What happened to your hand?"
You said nothing.
He took it again, more carefully this time, turning it over in his palm, his thumb tracing lightly over the swelling along your knuckles.
"Is it broken?"
"Maybe."
"How'd this happen?" His eyes lifted to yours, searching. "Did somethin' happen to you out there?"
You stayed silent. Something in Frank's expression shifted, hardening fast. "Tell me it wasn't one of these motherfuckers… I swear to God, I'll break every bone in both their hands myself. Was it him?" His eyes cut sharply toward Tommy. "Fuck, I should've killed both of them the second we—"
"Frank." Your voice came out soft but firm, cutting through it. "I'm fine. I won't say I was given good treatment. But I wasn't tortured either. They did wrong things. They did right things too." You gently pulled your hand back. "They don't deserve to die for it. Can we please stop talking about this."
You kept walking. Kept your eyes forward, your jaw tight, every part of you fighting two opposite urges at once: the desire to stop completely, turn around, and put your hands on Tommy's face; and the equally strong desire to slap him for choosing Joel, again, after everything. You wanted to kiss him and you wanted to kick him right between his legs. The two impulses sat tangled together in your chest with no clean way to separate them.
Frank's patience finally cracked.
"You just dropped a bomb back there about a kiss," he said, voice rising slightly, "about somethin' Joel had apparently been blind to for weeks, happenin' right under his nose." His eyes flicked toward Tommy, hard and assessing. "You drag this man along with us, clearly expectin' he'd join us willingly, and now look at him." His chin jerked toward the cuffs. "And you expect me to just not talk about it? I'm owed at least an explanation."
"Whatever happened between us ain't your business," Tommy said from behind, rough.
Frank turned on him so fast Marcus had to step half a pace to keep pace with the shift.
"Excuse me?"
"You heard me." Tommy's jaw was tight, his cuffed hands flexing slightly at his front.
Frank closed the distance fast, shoving a hand flat into Tommy's chest hard enough to rock him back a step. "She's not thinkin' straight right now," Frank said, voice low and furious, "and somebody's gotta point that out, since apparently you sure as hell ain't gonna be the one to do it."
Tommy lifted his chin and kept his gaze on Frank in response.
"Stop it." Your voice cut through both of them, sharper than you intended. "Stop. Both of you." You turned to face them fully. "I'm tired of both of you acting like I'm out of my mind. Like I'm some helpless, dumb girl clinging to her own kidnapper out of desperation or need." Your eyes burned, and you blinked hard against it, refusing to let it become anything visible. "You wanna know what happened, Frank? I saw it in him. Everything we swore to protect. Everything we promised ourselves we'd bring back into the world. He showed it to me, over and over, buried under all the things he's done to survive” Your voice cracked slightly. "I saw a real man, a good man, buried under a pile of awful things." You shook your head slowly. "I saw that buried, and I had to dig. For him… and for me."
You swallowed hard. “I don’t know anymore now. Maybe I was wrong.”
Frank shook his head. "And what exactly are we doing with him when we get to Baltimore?"
"Just what I said. He's free to go if he wants…” You say with no enthusiasm at all in your voice. “… I just needed to create distance from him and Joel. They are too dangerous together."
Your eyes found Tommy's, and neither of you looked away. It stretched out long and aching, both of you caught in the same current: wanting, more than anything, to close the space between you. Yet, held back by the devastating disappointment you each carried for the other.
Frank made a disgusted sound and walked ahead, putting distance between himself and the conversation entirely.
Tommy drifted slightly closer, close enough now that you could feel the heat of him beside you, close enough that your body remembered things your mind was still furious about. The warmth of his chest at your back on the horse. His mouth against your ear, low and desperate. The guitar between your hands, his fingers guiding yours through chords, the kiss by the fire. Your body hadn't gotten the message yet that all of that was supposed to be over.
And he stared at you from that short distance with a similar ache.
Goddamn you, he thought, the words burning behind his eyes. He hated how beautiful you still looked walking ahead of him. He hated that even now, furious and betrayed and dragged like livestock, some stupid part of him still wanted to reach for you. Still wanted to pull you back against his chest and bury his face in your hair and pretend none of this had happened.
He hated most of all that he believed you. Believed all you said. And that made him feel like the biggest fool alive.
Marcus shoved Tommy forward again, breaking the moment with a rough hand between his shoulder blades.
---
You walked for another hour before Frank finally raised a hand, signaling a stop. A large, abandoned auto shop sat back from the road, its corrugated metal siding rusted through in places but mostly intact.
Frank guided Tommy in first, one hand fisted in his collar, gun raised, scanning the dim interior. Marcus moved through behind him, checking the corners, the stairwell, the rows of dead vehicles.
The place was clear.
There was a small break room near the back, a few cots, clearly meant for workers' midday rest decades ago. And above it, accessible by a narrow, steep metal staircase, a glass-walled office that had probably belonged to a manager once.
Frank and Marcus pushed Tommy up the stairs.
You followed, stepping into the small office space behind them. A heavy metal desk sat bolted to the floor near the window, and beside it, an old radiator pipe ran floor to ceiling, thick iron.
Frank uncuffed one of Tommy's wrists just long enough to loop the chain around the radiator pipe before locking it shut again.
Tommy fought it. A sudden, furious surge against both men, shoulders straining, a wordless sound of pure frustration tearing out of him before Marcus's fist caught him square in the stomach, doubling him over and ending the struggle in one brutal motion. They finished locking him to the pipe while he was still catching his breath.
"Don't fucking hurt him." Your voice came out sharp, immediate. "I’m not asking."
Frank rounded on you, eyes hard. "I'm tryin' to understand you right now. I’m trying to be comprehensive with this bullshit, I really am. But you're makin' it real hard."
You didn't answer him, because your eyes found Tommy’s and somehow it just dragged you out of that conversation as hypnosis.
He was on the floor now, back against the pipe, breath still ragged from the punch, looking up at you from below with something ashamed written across his face: the specific shame, you realized, of a man finally understanding in his own body exactly what he'd put you through.
You looked down at him and there was no satisfaction at all in it. No smugness, no sense of justice finally served. Just a deep, quiet sadness that sat heavy in your chest, looking at him chained to a pipe the same way you'd been chained to a hundred different things since this whole nightmare started.
You held his gaze as long as you could. Frank's hand closed around your arm, firm, pulling you toward the door.
"Let's go."
You let yourself be moved, eyes staying on Tommy's for every inch the distance allowed, until the doorway finally broke the line between you.
Frank pulled the door shut behind you, sealing Tommy alone in the dark office.
You, Frank, and Marcus made your way back down the narrow stairs toward the cots below.
"I'm grateful," you said, the moment your feet stepped inside the room. "I want you to know that. What you did… coming for me, not givin' up. I'll never be able to repay it." You turned to face him fully. "But I need you to remember who's in charge here, Frank. I need you to stop talkin' to me like you know better than me what's good for me."
Frank rounded on you, something raw breaking through his usual composure.
"I don't give a damn about hierarchy right now." His voice cracked slightly, frustration and fear tangled together. "I care about you bein' safe. I care about you still bein' in your right mind after everything those men put you through. I'm doin' this for you, and I’m doing what your uncle would like me to."
"Frank." Your voice softened despite everything. " I really like him… He’s a good man. Believe it or not."
He shook his head slowly, eyes searching your face like he might find an explanation written somewhere on it. "You never used to behave like this. Why are you doin' this? Why him?"
"It's not somethin' I can explain." You held his gaze. "And honestly, Frank… that's exactly the point. That's exactly what it means that he has something real in him."
"Of course Tommy—" he said the name like it cost him a lot. "Of course Tommy has something." He exhaled hard, dragging a hand down his face.
“It’s just a coincidence, Frank— “
“I know it is,” he cuts bluntly. “Otherwise this is fucked up as hell”. He turned away for a second, pacing two short steps before stopping, hands flexing at his sides. “Anyway. You've got bigger things to worry about than him. Especially with what we're walkin' into in Baltimore." He paused. “Tell me you don’t—” Franks pauses. “Have you… told him?"
"Not all of it." Your voice stayed steady. "But the most important part, yes. I did."
Frank's hand slammed flat against the doorframe. He left without another word, disappearing into the dark of the shop floor.
You stood there for a moment, breathing through the silence he'd left behind.
"Don't be too hard on him." Marcus's voice came from behind you. His hand landed lightly on your shoulder. "You know he loves you, and that it’s hard for him to be around you after… after what happened. He just wants to make sure you're okay."
You turned and let yourself lean into him for a moment, Marcus’ arms coming around you briefly.
"Thank you," you murmured against his shoulder. "For everything. For coming."
"Always," he said simply.
---
A few hours later, both men were asleep, dead on their cots. Frank curled on his side, Marcus sprawled loose and boneless beside him. You watched them for a moment, struck by exactly how much the last weeks had cost them. The hollows under their eyes. The way even unconscious, some part of them still looked braced for something. They had walked hundreds of miles on a rumor and hadn't slept properly in longer than that, and now, finally, their bodies had simply given out beneath them.
You sat there in the quiet, listening to their breathing even out, and thought about the narrow metal staircase, and the locked door at the top of it, and the man chained alone in the dark.
You were disappointed. Deeply, achingly sad. But you couldn't blame Tommy, at least not entirely, for choosing family.
You stood quietly, careful not to wake either sleeping man, and moved to gather a few things. Then you crossed to the narrow metal staircase and climbed it silently.
The office door opened without a sound. Tommy was leaned awkwardly against the radiator pipe, his cuffed hands resting in his lap, trying and clearly failing to find any position to sleep. His eyes were opened looking at the window.
He straightened immediately when he saw you.
You crossed the small room and lowered yourself to the floor beside him, close enough that your knee brushed his thigh.
You uncapped a water bottle first, then held one of the painkillers up between two fingers. He looked at it. Looked at you. Then opened his mouth, silent and patient.
You placed it carefully on his tongue, your fingers brushing his lips pretending it was completely unintentional, and tipped the water bottle slowly to his mouth after. He swallowed, throat working, his eyes never once leaving yours through any of it.
You set the bottle down and unwrapped a protein bar, breaking off a small piece and lifted it to his mouth, and he leaned forward slightly to take it from your fingers, his lips grazing your fingertips as he did, unhurried. You felt it everywhere, that small, electric graze, and didn't pull your hand back as fast as you probably should have.
You fed him another piece. Then another.
The silence between you had a different nuance now than it had all day. His eyes stayed locked on yours through every motion, dark and unreadable and somehow, impossibly, still soft.
"You made me sad, Tommy." You finally said it. "I thought you wanted to be with me."
"Well, I'm sad at you too." His voice was rough, quiet. "Thought I could trust you."
"You can trust me."
"Can I?" His jaw tightened. "You knew your people were comin'. You knew, and you said nothin'. Then you throw it out in front of everybody, make sure Joel hears every word about us, make sure he knows exactly how I betrayed him." His eyes searched your face. "And then this man shows up, and who the hell is he, and why does he act like—" He stopped himself. "Why's he act so strange around you?" He looked away, then back, something raw surfacing despite his effort to hold it down. "You never once mentioned him. And the best part: Weeks of you preachin' to me about hope and second chances, and I find out today you've killed people too. Feels like there's a whole lot you never told me."
Your voice came out sharp, immediate. "I've killed. FEDRA. I despise every single one of them and I’ll do it again every time I have the chance." You held his gaze, unflinching. "This is unbelievable. After everything you've done… And I’m the wrong one now. I still believed in you, Tommy. Everything I said to you was real. Every single word."
"Ohh. Sure." His voice cracked slightly. "Was it real, or did you just need the help? Did you need somebody useful, somebody you could turn against his own brother so he'd serve whatever purpose you needed him for?"
A single tear spilled before you could stop it. "That's so fucking unfair." Your voice shook. "Do you know what I actually wanted? Do you want to know, Tommy?" You held his gaze, raw and unguarded now, nothing left to protect. "I wanted to be your girl. Just that."
The words left your mouth and stood there in the air, enormous in the small dark room.
"I wanted to save you and I wanted you to love me. I wanted a whole life with you, somewhere we got to actually do some good to this broken world, and I wanted to wake up every single morning in your arms."
Your voice softened, slowed, something tender bleeding through your hurt.
"I wanted you to reach for my hand before either of us even opened our eyes. I wanted slow mornings where you kissed me until neither of us could remember why we'd ever been in a hurry for anything. I wanted to make love to you slow, Tommy. I wanted you to never stop kissing me." Your voice broke completely. " That's all I ever wanted."
You pulled back, the tears falling freely now, humiliated by how much you'd just given away.
"And you think I was using you? Turning you against your brother on purpose?" You shook your head, already moving to stand. "Fuck it, I should go—"
His cuffed arms came up following the pipe trail and looped around you before you could rise, locking around your back and hauling you forward, guiding you until you adjusted straddling his lap, his forehead dropping hard against your collarbone.
"I hate what you do to me," he said, voice rough and broken open. "I hate that I can't make a damn bit of sense out of it." His arms tightened, pulling you closer, his hips shifting slightly beneath you, pressing up in a way that stole the air from your lungs. "I hate that you're so far under my skin I can't think straight no more."
"I hate that you're so stubborn," you breathed, rocking forward against him without fully deciding to, "and too much of a coward to admit you're not what Joel made you into."
"I ain't a coward."
"You are." Your hips pressed down, slow and deliberate, and you felt him groan low in his throat. "You're a coward who'd rather bleed for his brother than reach for somethin' good when it's right in front of you."
"That ain't fair."
"None of this is fair, Tommy."
His mouth found yours before either of you said anything else, hard, furious, hungry, every word you'd both just thrown at each other dissolving into the kiss instead.
"You're—" his lips moved against yours between breaths, his arms tightening, pulling you down harder against the press of him, already hard beneath his jeans, "—a spoiled brat who manipulates everyone into—" his tongue found yours, deep and insistent, swallowing the rest of the sentence before he forced it back out, "…into doin' whatever you want, whenever you want it."
Your lips kept alternating between kissing and biting each other lips softly and allowing tongues to twirl, breathing and beefing against each other mouth in a non-stop cycle.
"You're a broken man, Tommy— hmm.”
You rolled your hips against him. “… pretendin' to be tough," you breathed against his mouth, feeling him groan low against your lips, "who can't admit you're built for exactly the same thing I am."
"Yeah?" He pressed up into you harder, his cuffed arms trying awkwardly to hug you, dragging you closer still. "What—” his tongue found yours again, breaking seconds after once more. “—what am I built for?"
You rubbed yourself against him, needy and aching, and felt him shudder beneath you.
"To resist." Your voice came out wrecked, kissing him over and over again.
"Same as me… To resist—hm—every bit of corruption and cruelty they force into us."
He broke the kiss completely. His eyes found yours, something burning behind them.
"Take off these fuckin' pants."
You pulled back out of the loop of his cuffed arms just long enough to obey, fumbling the button, shoving the fabric down and off in a rush, and then you were back between his arms exactly where you'd been, his hands finding your back again the moment you settled. Your fingers went to his jeans next, working the button open with shaking urgency, freeing him with a low, broken sound escaping you both at once, and immediately sinking down onto his cock in one slow, aching motion. The stretch pulled a broken moan from both of you at once.
Your mouths crashed together again, messy and furious, tongues sliding, teeth grazing, breathing hard into each other like you were trying to devour the anger and the love at the same time. Your hips rolled down, taking him deeper, and Tommy groaned into your mouth.
“I hate you, Tommy,” you gasped against his lips, riding him slow and deep, grinding down hard with every roll of your hips. “I fucking hate you.”
“I thought I heard you say you loved me,” he growled back, biting your bottom lip sharply before slamming his hips up to meet you, burying himself to the hilt. The sudden thrust made you cry out, the sound swallowed by his mouth as he kissed you harder, tongues tangling, foreheads pressed tight together.
You kept moving, riding him with desperate rhythm, your hands fisted in his hair, pulling just hard enough to make him hiss. Neither of you could say it cleanly with words anymore. His cuffed hands, useless for almost anything else, found place at the small of your back and pulled, pulled, pulled, like he could fuse the two of you together if he just held on hard enough. You needed it just as badly, needed the proof, in skin and breath and the obscene, wet sound of your bodies meeting again and again, that whatever was broken between you hadn't broken the one thing that had always been real: the hurt, the need, and the terrifying comfort you only ever found in each other's arms.
It was the only language left that could make you understand each other, where your own beliefs and his rationality couldn't keep tearing the two of you apart.
“You make me so fucking angry,” you breathed, forehead still pressed to his, lips brushing with every word. “You make me want to scream at you and kiss you at the same time.”
He thrust up harder, eyes burning into yours. "You make me fucking angry too." His voice came out ragged, almost desperate. "I should've gotten rid of you before you got into my blood like this. Before I started needin' you like air."
You moaned, rolling your hips faster, chasing that perfect angle. Your mouths crashed together again, tongues sliding, teeth nipping, breathing ragged and desperate between kisses.
“Don’t stop,” you whimpered against his mouth, foreheads still locked together, sharing the same desperate breath. “Tommy, please, don’t stop,”
“Never,” he groaned, voice breaking. “I couldn’t stop even if I tried.”
Your orgasm hit you hard and sudden, crashing through you with a sharp cry that he swallowed with another fierce kiss. Your walls clenched around him, trembling, pulling him deeper as you rode it out. Tommy followed right after you, burying himself as deep as he could go with a low, guttural groan, spilling inside you in hot pulses while his arms locked tight around your back, holding you impossibly closer.
You both stayed with foreheads pressed together for a long time, mouths barely apart, breathing each other in. Your arms wrapped around his neck, his arms around you, holding you trapped there. You buried your face in the crook of his good shoulder. He pressed his face against yours.
"The thing you told me before," Tommy spoke slowly, voice still rough. "About your... condition. Are you doin' anything about it?"
"I—" You hesitated. "I don't wanna talk about it right now. But let's say... yes. There's somethin' in Baltimore to discuss about it."
He nodded against your hair, accepting it without pushing further.
You stayed like that a moment longer, neither of you quite ready to let the silence end and the rest of it come crashing back in.
"Who's he? Frank?" he finally asked.
You laughed softly, despite everything. "You really won't rest until you know, will you? Why's it matter so much who he is?"
His jaw tightened slightly. "You never once mentioned him. He's attached to you like family and behaves like somethin' more, and I don't understand a single piece of it."
You shook your head slowly. "Frank was my uncle's boyfriend. They were together since before the outbreak." You felt Tommy go a bit relaxed against you. "He loves me like an uncle too, and he feels obligated to look after me since my uncle passed. And it's also why he behaves strangely around me. Because I look enough like my uncle, sound enough like him, that it hurts him just to be near me some days."
Tommy was quiet for a long moment. "Guess… that answers it," he said finally.
You shifted off his lap, helping him resettle his jeans before pulling your own back on.
"Let me go." His eyes found yours, sudden and direct. "Let me go after Joel. I can't sit here not knowin' if he will make it."
"I can't do that."
"Why not?"
"You know why not."
"So I'm just supposed to sit chained to a pipe and trust three strangers with my brother's life."
"Fuck, Tommy. You’re still choosing him over— Whatever. I’m so tired of this. Joel will be fine."
"Will he? Will Tess be?" His voice sharpened. "Because that, by the way… that was dirty. Bringin' her into this whole mess. That was fucked up, she's got no part in any of this—"
"Oh my God, Tommy." You were on your feet before you'd decided to move, pacing the small space, voice rising. "You're really doin' this? Right now? Just after we—" You shook your head, disbelief flooding through the anger. "What the fuck, Tommy. If she's in trouble, that's on Joel and that’s on you. Not me. I do what I have to do to."
"Funny," he said, low. "You're soundin' just like him. It’s a valid excuse when it’s convenient to you?"
"Don't you fucking—" Your voice caught, fury and hurt tangling together so fast you couldn't separate them anymore. You pressed the heels of your hands against your eyes for a second, breathing hard. "This is completely different, you both kidnapped me and you expect… You know what? Fuck you, Tommy. Fuck you."
You turned and walked out before he could answer, his voice calling something after you that you didn’t register, the words lost in the pounding of your own pulse as you took the metal stairs two at a time.
You crossed back to the cots in silence, chest still heaving.
Frank was awake. Standing, arms crossed, watching you with an expression that should have been judgment and somehow wasn't.
"You really like him, sweetheart?" he asked quietly.
"I— I do, Frank."
He crossed the distance and pulled you into a hug, pressing a kiss to the top of your head.
"It's okay," he murmured. "If he's meant to see the light, he'll see it. Can't force a man toward hope before he's ready to walk into it himself. All you can do is leave the door open and trust he finds his way to it." He squeezed your shoulder once. "And if he does, we’ll gladly take him in.”
---
Bye bye Joel, see you never again your asshole <3 haha
Chapter Summary: The tables have turned.
Now you have an ungrateful, stubborn cargo with cute freckles and a terrible temper. And the quiet grief of a relationship that died barely after it was truly born.
Fic Summary: Four years after the outbreak, Joel and Tommy Miller are hardened smugglers in the Boston QZ: mean, violent, and willing to do whatever it takes to survive. When they’re paid an obscene amount to smuggle you across the ruined country to Columbus QZ, they didn't ask what secrets you carry to be worth that much. They just expect an easy job. You're supposed to be just cargo. They will soon discover this cargo has teeth… and the power to make even the worst men start to crack.
Tags: Tommy Miller x Reader, Dark!Tommy, Raider!Tommy, Explicit Sexual Content, Post-Cordyceps Outbreak (The Last of Us), Stockholm Syndrome, Dark Romance, Tommy is mean but not too much, Tommy Miller Fanfic, Enemies to Lovers, Tommy was corrupted by Joel, Vaginal Sex, Fireflies (The Last of Us), Slow Burn
wc: 10k
Frank's arms closed around you, and you allowed yourself to melt into it. You'd always known you could trust him, and you never once doubted he would not rest until he found you.
You held on tighter, the relief of it hitting you all at once. Weeks of careful calculation and constant concern are gone. For a moment you let yourself just be held.
The other four rifles stayed steady on the brothers.
Tommy's hands were still raised, his eyes locked on you and Frank. By any reasonable logic, his priority should have been the four guns leveled at them and the math of how he and Joel were going to survive the next sixty seconds. But his mind kept asking a stupid, consuming question: who the hell was Frank?
All Tommy could see was a man you'd never once mentioned, the two of you clinging to each other in a way that made it impossible to determine, from where he stood, what exactly he was to you except someone who loved you. Family? Your presumed estranged brother?... Your supposedly dead uncle? Or… Something else? He had no category for it. The only thing he could conclude with certainty was that there were many things about you he still didn't know.
For one unguarded second, your eyes found Tommy's over Frank's shoulder.
He was still looking at you the way he'd been looking at you minutes ago. None of that had left his face yet. It was still there, raw and unprotected, the same man who said I love you back to you with everything except for words. But now it was covered with concern and doubt.
"Took long enough," Frank murmured against your hair, his voice cracking like that have been held tight for far too long. "We found the trail outside Boston three weeks back. Lost it twice. Started thinkin' we'd lost you for good, sweetheart."
"…He always trusted you to look after me." You pulled back just enough to look at him, a small, tired smile finding your mouth despite everything.
"Somebody had to keep up with your mess, right? My big trouble maker."
You felt the whole weight of the last minutes sitting in your chest at once. The kiss, the secret, the song, the long seconds his mouth had been the only thing in the world. And understood, with a kind of grief, that right now you’d risk to close a door on all of it. Because there was probably no version of the next ten minutes that let you keep both things: the woman who'd sat in his lap singing, and the woman who was about to win this clearing.
You were genuinely afraid. You could only hope things went out as expected and that he understood it all and continued at your side. You held his eyes for one more second as you could convince him just by doing so.
Behind you, the clearing was frozen.
Joel hadn't lowered his hands either, but his eyes were doing the exact thing they always did: the Miller protocol that had kept him alive for years. Cataloguing, counting weapons, counting exits… Measuring the dimensions of the trap he'd just found himself standing inside.
"You got her?" you said low to Frank
Frank's eyes flicked, briefly, toward Joel.
"Yes," he murmured back. "Got her shortly after you went missing. She's safe."
"You got evidence?"
"In my pack."
Something in your chest unlocked. Sharp and bright and deeply, deeply satisfying.
You kept your face neutral as you turned back around, but inside, every piece had just slid into place at once. You had a card now. A strong one. An actual, physical lever sitting in your hand, and you knew exactly how to use it. All those weeks trapped between two Millers, all those long silent roads and miles of walking while you turned every angle of this exact encounter over in your head, calculating, preparing, hoping. It had all finally materialized into the precise advantage you needed. It would cost you. Could possibly cost you Tommy. But there was no other way.
You looked past Frank to the rest of the group.
"Bella." You found the woman first, rifle steady, eyes sharp. "I owe you more than I can say." Your eyes moved to the next. "Marcus. Eli. Dom." Each name landed clean, and you watched something shift in each of their postures as you said it: pride, maybe, or simple relief at being seen. "Thank you. All of you. I don't know how to repay all the trouble you’ve been through because of me."
"Wasn't a question of repayment," Bella said simply. “We'd have walked twice that distance, and counted ourselves lucky for the chance."
You let yourself smile satisfied. You could feel the brothers absorbing every syllable, recalibrating in real time. Let them understand precisely what kind of loyalty they were standing in the middle of.
You gave a short, sharp nod toward Marcus and Dom.
They moved forward without hesitation. They stripped the guns from both brothers in seconds. Then, with a brutal motion, each man's boot caught the back of a knee - Joel's, then Tommy's - driving both brothers down hard onto the ground, the muzzles of their weapons pressed close enough to skull that neither Miller had any illusions left about resistance.
You held Joel’s gaze, steady and unhurried, and let him watch you become exactly what you actually were. You stepped forward, out of Frank's shadow, and let your spine straighten.
Tommy hadn't said a word. You felt his eyes on you rather than saw them now.
He stood there with his hands still half-raised, his mind slowly spiraling down in ways he couldn't stop. Was any of it real? Every soft word, every time you'd melted into his hands when you had every reason in the world to hate him, every time you'd given yourself over to his arms despite the bruises he'd put on you… he started to question now if any of that had been real, or had it been exactly what it looked like right now: a woman who knew precisely how to make a man trust her completely, right up until the moment she didn't need him anymore?
He closed his eyes for half a second.
I love you, Tommy.
He could still hear it. Could still feel the exact warmth of your voice against his ear.
When he opened his eyes again, he found Frank watching with relief, pride and pain, all at the same time.
"Have you seen our signs?" Frank asked. "We've been leaving them since Boston."
"Saw one in the gymnasium," you said. "Thanks for that... Kept me hoping."
You kept pacing across the brothers, and let the silence to stretch on purpose, strategically. You moved unhurried and calculating one last time: turning every possible version of this moment over in your mind until you knew the outcomes could only go your way.
"You wanna explain," Joel said, confident despite the guns still trained on him, "what exactly your plan is here? Or are we just gonna stand around starin' at each other like idiots all night?"
"Shut up," you replied promptly, voice triumphant. "You're not in control anymore, Joel. You'll wait, and you'll stare at my face, and you'll look like an idiot for as long as I want you to. And then you'll do exactly what I need you to do."
"What if I don't want to?"
Marcus, who had his gun trained on Tommy, answered the provocation faster than you could with a sharp kick to Tommy's ribs that doubled him over.
Tommy exhaled a sharp, sonorous "Fuck!" lowering his raised hands for the first time, both arms wrapping around his middle as he fought to breathe through the pain.
Joel hissed, jaw clenching, his whole body straining forward an inch before he caught himself.
"That hurt, right, Joel?" Marcus said, voice almost pleasant. He grabbed a fistful of Tommy's jacket collar and hauled him back upright, none too gently. "Don't pretend we don't know how this works between you two. You wanna play games, little brother pays for it." His grip tightened. "Same goes the other way, pretty boy." He taps Tommy’s shoulder. "Big brother's gonna pay for whatever you decide too. So choose wisely."
Tommy straightened slowly, breath still ragged, and lifted his head to find you directly. The look on his face changed now, but it wasn't pain, it was something colder. It was the look of a man watching someone he'd trusted reveal exactly how little he mattered to the larger machine she commanded.
Your chest cramped at the sight of it. Your hand closed into a fist at your side, hard enough that your nails bit into your palm. Every instinct in you wanted to turn on Marcus, wanted to snap don't you touch him again loud enough for the whole clearing to hear it.
You took one step. Just one, barely an inch, before you caught yourself and forced your weight back onto your heels.
You knew exactly what it would cost you if you finished that step. The words sat right at the edge of your tongue, and you swallowed them back down so hard it physically hurt, your jaw aching with the effort of holding still. Because you knew the authority of your own people couldn't fracture in front of the people you needed most to believe in it. A leader stands by the decisions of her team, in the room, in front of everyone, and saves the reckoning for later, in private, where it belonged.
So instead you moved your eyes slowly from Tommy's face to Marcus's, letting your expression carry everything your voice couldn't. You held it there until you saw the small, understanding nod.
It still cost you something. You weren't sure Tommy would ever know how much.
You looked back at Tommy. He was still staring at you, but like he didn't recognize you at all.
You wanted, more than anything, to rush back to him and put your hands on his face and tell him none of this changed what was real between you.
You wanted to say that everything you’re about to do, it’s coming for his own good too.
But you couldn’t.
So you held his gaze and hoped, with everything you had, that some part of him still trusted you enough.
"So here's where we actually are.” You stopped in front of Joel. “You are two guys. We are six. You have a hand that can't hold steady and a brother with a bullet wound. I have a full team that hasn't slept worrying about me but is otherwise entirely intact." You tilted your head slightly.
"And I have something you care about, Joel." A pause, deliberate, letting it land. "So I'm going to be real generous and offer you a trade. The best deal you're going to get tonight." Your eyes didn't move from his. "Tread carefully, Joel. I rehearsed this moment in my head at least three hundred times on the road here. I have a plan B for every single outcome you might be considering right now."
Joel stayed on his knees, head turned diagonally up toward you, eyes burning with barely contained fury.
Tommy had stopped looking at you entirely. His gaze had dropped to the dirt in front of him and stayed there.
You reached down and took Joel's face in your left hand, fingers closing firm around his jaw.
"You're going back to Boston," you said delightedly, "escorted by part of my team. You'll behave. You won't try to come back for me. And you'll find Lincoln and you'll smuggle the fucker outside Boston. I don't care where you drop him. I just need him out of my business. Permanently." Your grip tightened slightly. "As payment for that small favor you don't get killed tonight. And you still receive part of what he promised you. Say, a quarter." You let go of his jaw, straightening. "Consider that a very, very generous offer."
You turned and paced toward Tommy.
"And my last request," you said to Joel, "is that you don't go looking for your brother either."
Both brothers' heads came up at that, Tommy's eyes finally lifting from the ground, Joel's narrowing in open confusion.
" Tommy's coming with me to Baltimore."
For one long second, nobody spoke, as if everyone were processing it simultaneously. Then everything broke at once.
The Firefly crew looked at each other, confused murmurs passing between them. Joel cursed something low and venomous that you couldn't quite hear, drowned out completely by the sound of Tommy's voice landing like a blow straight to your chest.
"The hell I am—" Tommy's voice cracked with disbelief. "You ain't takin' my brother anywhere, and I'm not goin' anywhere without him."
Frank crossed the distance in three quick strides and closed his hand around your arm.
You looked at him at Tommy. Two seconds. Maybe three. It felt like hours, stretching out endless and silent in the middle of all the noise, your eyes locked directly on his searching, disbelieving, furious. You could read every piece of what was happening behind his face: anger, frustration, the unmistakable accusation that you'd put him in this position without warning, without preparation, without a single moment to brace himself.
And you were furious right back. What exactly had he thought would happen, the moment this came? That you'd simply leave Joel standing there, unaccounted for, free to walk straight back into your life the second your guard dropped? And the absolute audacity of it after everything, defaulting straight back to his brother's side. Less than ten minutes ago his mouth had been on yours, his promise still warm in your ear. We'll get you to Baltimore. I'll convince him.
Frank's hand tightened on your arm, pulling you out of it.
"What are you doing?" His voice was careful, controlled, but there was real concern underneath it now, edged with something close to indignation. "Why do you want to bring him?"
"You have to trust me, Frank." You kept your eyes on Tommy even as you spoke. "Tommy's ready. He's going to join us, and—"
Tommy opened his mouth, something protesting rising in his throat. Joel got there first. A short, harsh laugh tore out of him, sharp and humorless.
"He ain't joinin’ nothin'." His eyes cut to you with open contempt. "I already told you. He stays, princess."
You let the silence stretch for exactly one beat. You could have let it go. You knew you should let it go.
But you didn’t.
"Funny, Joel." you said, voice bright and entirely too pleasant, "considering you just walked in on him kissing me, whispering he'd already decided to come with me.” You tilted your head slightly, watching it land. "Honestly, I was impressed you're still capable of being shocked at this point. You've had the chance to see it weeks ago, and you still chose not to see."
The space went dead silent. Tommy's jaw worked, his eyes closing briefly like he could somehow will himself out of the moment entirely.
Joel's face went through several things at once before ending up on something far worse than fury. His face was painted with pure and devastating disappointment, and despite everything, despite the cost of saying it out loud in front of your crew, it had been worth it just to see it.
Joel turned his head toward his brother, still kneeling, Dom's rifle pressing him back into place the second he tried to shift.
"I was right," Joel said, voice low and venomous. "Wasn't I. You were really gonna run off with this bitch and leave me out here alone." A short, bitter exhale. "That was your choice. After everything I did for you." His eyes raked over Tommy with open disgust. "Tell me exactly where she got you, Tommy. Was it the pretty words? The hope, all that delusional bullshit?" His voice dropped lower, crueler. "Or did you already fuck her, and decide that was worth more than years of—"
"Don't you dare!" Tommy's voice exploded out of him, raw and shaking, cutting Joel off completely. He surged forward, getting half a foot before Marcus shoved him back down. "Don't you dare stand there and act like I was ever gonna actually leave you, Joel! I had a fucking hundred reasons to walk away from you and I stayed! I always stayed by your fucking side!" His chest heaved, voice cracking wide open. "And all you've ever done, all you've ever done, is makin’ me feel like a child, and as if protectin' me physically was the same thing as carin' about me! It ain't the same thing, Joel! It was never the same thing!"
Joel lunged. It happened fast: Joel surging up off his knees despite Dom's rifle, closing the distance toward Tommy with his hands already reaching, and Tommy meeting him halfway, both of them colliding in a furious, grappling tangle of fists and shouted curses. Marcus and Dom moved instantly. They successfully split the brothers, both men fighting against the grip for a few more seconds before finally going still, breathing hard, furious, planted several feet apart with rifles trained on each of them again.
Frank's hand closed around your arm harder now and twisted you to face him.
"What the fuck was that?" His voice was low, perplexed, edged with real anger now. "You got involved with him? Or is this just one more of your games? You were gonna tell me at all?" His eyes searched your face.
You didn't know how to answer. You lifted your chin instead, jaw set, eyes steady as Frank had known since you were younger, that meant you weren't going to elaborate.
He exhaled hard through his nose. His eyes moved to the brothers, then back to you.
"I know it's your call," he said, quieter now, something careful underneath the frustration. "But I think we should end this here."
"No." Your voice came out flat, immediate. "We're not killing them."
"Your uncle would disapprove all of this."
"Well, he's not here, is he?"
Frank's eyes held yours, unflinching. "You've killed before for lesser reasons than this. What's changing now?"
You felt your jaw tighten, anger flaring hot and immediate at him for saying it out loud, here, now, in front of an audience that absolutely did not need to hear it. You glanced quickly toward the brothers close enough, both of them, that there was no version of this where they hadn't heard every word. You needed to see how it landed. They were both staring at you.
And in that moment, you understood, with sudden and total clarity, just how perfectly mirrored they were. Two men carved from the same blood and the same loss, standing several feet apart and looking at you with two versions of the exact same rage. Joel's face held no surprise at all. Just angry at the confirmation that you were everything he'd already decided about you.
Tommy's face held the opposite. Same anger, but of a man who had let himself believe something different and was now watching the floor drop out from under it in real time. He wasn't looking at you like a predator confirmed like Joel was. He was looking at you like something he'd trusted had just turned out to be made of glass.
"I kill," you said, turning back to Frank, "only when there's a purpose to the kill." You said it quietly, almost gently. And that was exactly why it was terrifying. Frank's jaw worked once. He swallowed, nodded, and took a step back without another word.
You turned and squatted down in front of Tommy. Close enough to see the freckles that always undid you a little, scattered faint across his nose. Except his eyes were doing something else entirely now, piercing you with an intensity that made the freckles disappear into the background.
"What changed, Tommy? I thought you wanted to come with me."
"What changed?" His voice was controlled. "What changed is you knew they were comin'. You saw their signs days ago and you never said a word, even after I told you I'd cooperate. And now you're tryin' to send my brother away like I needed you to protect me from him." His jaw tightened. "You did that on purpose. Made him madder at me than he already was. You knew exactly what sayin' that would do to him, and you said it anyway." His eyes flicked, briefly, helplessly, toward Frank. "And now you show up with some man who—" He stopped himself. You watched him try to swallow it back down and fail. "Who—." His hand twitched at his side like a reflex reaching for your skin, for the comfort of your warmth. He caught it almost instantly, fingers curling back into a fist instead, the gesture redirected into something that looked, from the outside, like pure aggression.
"Frank," Frank said, before you could answer, flat and final. "I’m Frank. That's all you need to know, asshole."
Frank eyes moved over Tommy trying to understand exactly what this particular person had that warranted this much risk, this much complication, this much of attention from you. Tommy held the look and didn't flinch from it.
"Tommy, that's not important right now." You kept your voice level. "You really want to interrogate my choices? You kidnapped me. You don't trap a cat in a corner and act surprised when it comes out clawing."
"I didn't trap you." His voice cracked slightly. "I offered to help you. The best way could. We could've talked about all of this before it came to this—"
"Talk." You let out a short, humorless breath. "That's your answer for everything, isn't it. You think you can talk your way out of every single problem, every time, if you just find the right words." You shook your head slowly. "Some things don't have a talking way out, Tommy. No matter how badly you want one. No matter how hard you try to be good." You reached out, almost without deciding to, and tucked a loose curl back behind his ear. He let you.
"You're really still choosing your brother," you said quietly. "After everything."
The silence stretched out long enough that it became its own answer.
"Okay," you said softly. You pressed your lips together for a second, blinking hard, willing the burn behind your eyes to stay exactly where it was. "Got it."
You stood, looking down at him now.
"Doesn't matter anyway," you said, voice hardening back into command. "You're coming to Baltimore regardless, Tommy. Right now I just need the two of you apart from each other." You looked between the brothers. "I know exactly how you two work together. Give you half a chance and you'll find some way to pair up, turn this around, and come after me. I'm not giving you that chance."
Tommy made a low, furious sound in his throat.
"Marcus. Cuff him. They're in his left pocket."
Tommy lunged, instinct overriding everything, and Eli and Bella's rifles snapped up instantly, the muzzles finding him before he'd made it two inches. He went still, breathing hard, fury radiating off him in waves. Marcus crossed to him, pulled the cuffs from his pocket, and locked them around his wrists while staring him dead in the eye. Tommy stared back, unblinking, hatred and heartbreak tangled.
You turned to Joel. "As I said before," you told him, "you're going back to Boston. And I'd recommend you accept this gratefully. I'm not killing you, Joel, even though I have every reason to. Because I don't want Tommy hating me, and because… credit where it's due. You were willing to save me from Gilead Crew when you had the chance. So I'm giving you that. I'm taking your little brother with me, but I'll release him once we're in Baltimore, and he's free to run straight back to you if that's what he wants."
Joel's eyes were black with something dangerous now. "You think you won already," he said, low. "You can send as many of your little toy soldiers after me as you want, princess. I'll put every last one of them in the ground and find my way back to you anyway, and I will bring you to Columbus even if I have to break every single bone in your body."
"Oh, Joel." You shook your head slowly, almost sad. "You're still so sure you're the smartest man in every room you walk into, aren't you." You crouched slightly, bringing your face level with his. "Don't you want to ask me what it is I have that you care about?"
He didn't. He held your gaze instead, jaw locked, refusing to give you the satisfaction.
You let yourself smile, just slightly.
"Fine. I'll tell you anyway." You straightened. "Dom. Tie him. Hands behind his back."
While Dom worked the rope, you got closer.
"Central Boston," you said. "Hawley Street. Building seventeen. Apartment twenty-two." You savored each word while his face twisted at the acknowledgement. "Ring any bells, princess?"
The blood ran out of Joel's face so completely and so fast that for a moment he looked like a different man entirely.
You watched the desperation hit him immediately, the first crack you'd seen in. And watched him fight it, jaw clenching, refusing to give you even that.
"Bullshit," he said, but his voice had lost its certainty. "That's a bluff."
You turned to Frank and held out your hand. He fumbled in his pack and reached for a document, passing it over without a word. You held it up in front of Joel's face, close enough that there was no possible way to mistake what he was looking at.
A photograph of a face he knew quite well. A name typed beneath it in clean block letters.
THERESA SERVOPOULOS
Joel's reaction was instant and total. A furious, desperate surge against the ropes, his whole body straining, a wordless sound tearing out of him in rage. Eli moved fast, helping Dom pin him back down by the shoulders.
"How," Joel snarled, "did you get that?! What did you do to her? What did you do—"
Eli's fist caught Joel across the jaw, hard enough to silence the sound building in his throat.
"You can't lead a revolutionary movement," you said evenly, "and not know what happens in your QZ, Joel." You glanced at Tommy. "I admit, I failed somewhere. I had no record of Tommy at all. That's how important you were in this trio, Tommy. I knew about Joel. I knew about Tess. I never once knew about you." You say, purposefully cruel. You turned back to Joel. "I keep contingency plans, Joel. The same way any operation worth running does, like a government keeps a line of succession, the way you plan for the version of events where the person in charge doesn't come home. My people know exactly what to do if I disappear and don't resurface in a set window of time. And buried in that plan, specific and clear, was a single line: if Miller is a problem, take the girlfriend. Tess."
"And here's the part that matters most, Joel," you continued. "She is safe now. But if my people aren't back in Boston within the next weeks, she starves. In a hole nobody can hear her scream or find her in time. Nobody saves her." You held his gaze. "So believe me when I tell you. You want to get back to Boston. As fast as your legs and that horse can carry you."
Something in Joel broke loose. He moved faster than anyone anticipated: the rope at his wrists somehow giving way, a blade appearing from his boot that nobody had thought to check, and then his hand was around your throat, dragging you against him, the knife pressed flat and cold beneath your jaw.
"Where," he snarled, right against your ear. "Where is she."
Frank moved instantly, closing the distance and grabbing Tommy in response, gun pressed hard against his temple before Joel had even finished speaking.
"Let her go," Frank said, voice low and absolutely level, "or your brother's brains end up on that tree behind him."
"And Tess dies regardless," Bella added coldly. "Whether you kill her right now or not. Only one of us walking out of these woods knows where she's being held, Joel. And it isn't you."
The clearing went utterly silent except for your own breathing, ragged against the blade at your throat.
Tommy's voice cracked through it, raw and desperate.
"Joel. Joel, let her go. Just let it go—"
Joel's eyes moved past you to his brother, to the gun at his temple. He had no way out and he knew it. His brother's life in one hand. Tess's life dangling on a string he couldn't see the end of. And you, the only person who knew where either thread led.
His voice came out hoarse, defeated. "Tell me the address. I'll go alone. You want me out of your hair that bad, I'll go gladly."
You held perfectly still, the blade still resting against your throat, and made him wait one more second before you answered, so he understood completely that this victory belonged to you only.
"Drop the knife first."
A long pause. Then the blade fell away from your throat, clattering into the dirt.
You stepped away, rubbing your neck.
“Blanche Street. Two hundred and four. Close the old Union building.”
Joel moved promptly for the nearest horse, swinging up onto it with urgency. Every gun in the clearing followed him except Frank's, which stayed pressed to Tommy's temple.
Joel hesitated at the reins and looked back at his brother. Cuffed, held at gunpoint, watching him with an expression that contained four years of every single thing that had passed between them, every moment Joel had failed to say the thing that needed saying.
"Tommy's not goin' with you," Frank said evenly. "That was never on the table."
"If you leave," you said, quieter now, almost gentle, "you leave alone, Joel. Either both of you come to Baltimore, or you go alone to Boston. But Tommy isn't going anywhere tonight except with me."
Tommy lunged against Frank's grip, twisting hard enough that Frank's hand found the wound at his shoulder and pressed, sharp and deliberate, until the fight drained out of him in a sharp gasp of pain.
"Joel." Tommy's voice broke completely, all the fury gone out of it now, nothing left but pure, naked pleading. "Joel, don't—."
You watched Joel's hands tighten on the reins. Watched the war happening behind his eyes, the clock ticking somewhere invisible.
You couldn't stop yourself.
"Tick tock, Joel," you said, soft and merciless. "Tick tock. Will you actually make it in time? Or will this be one more woman you loved that you couldn't save?"
It settled exactly the way you wanted to: a direct hit, surgical and cruel, straight into the oldest wound he carried. You watched something seize in his chest, his breathing going shallow and fast, his whole body caught for one terrible second between fight and flight, between his brother and the ghost of one more person he failed to save in time.
“We’ll keep Tommy safe. I promise.”
He looked at Tommy one last time.
"I'm sorry, Tommy. I meet you back in Boston."
And then he turned the horse and rode hard into the dark, the sound of hooves fading fast into the trees.
"Eli. Dom. Bella." Your voice was steady even though nothing inside you felt steady at all. "Go after him. Make sure he gets there."
The three of them mounted quickly on the two horses left and rode off into the dark after Joel, hoofbeats fading into silence one by one until the clearing held only the fire, the four of you, and the enormous, ringing absence of what had just happened.
You turned back to Tommy. He was still held at Frank's side, Marcus's rifle trained on him again, his eyes fixed on the empty trees where his brother had disappeared.
"Guess we're both disappointed," you said quietly. "Neither of us was the first choice of the person who was supposed to choose us."
Frank's grip shifted on Tommy's arm, hauling him forward.
"Move it, cargo," he said flatly.
---
The morning had come and gone without anyone saying much of anything.
You walked at the front beside Frank, your pace steady, eyes fixed on the road ahead more out of necessity than focus. Behind you, Marcus kept Tommy moving with the occasional shove between the shoulder blades whenever he slowed even slightly. Tommy never said anything. He just kept walking with his cuffed hands hanging in front of him, eyes fixed somewhere past the horizon.
Frank carried Tommy’s guns slung across his own pack. The silence had stretched all day long, and everybody actually preferred that way. You could feel Tommy's presence behind you the entire walk, a constant, magnetic pull at the base of your spine, and you didn't let yourself turn around to check on him more than the bare minimum required of someone keeping watch over a prisoner.
The sun had started its slow drop toward the tree line, throwing everything into the long gold haze of late afternoon. You'd been walking for hours. Your legs ached. Nobody had asked to stop, and you hadn't offered.
Frank finally broke the silence.
"We need to talk."
"I don't think we do."
Behind you, you felt Tommy's attention sharpen instantly, with no pretense of disinterest at all, his whole body angling subtly toward the conversation. Marcus noticed it too, and pretended not to care but kept his attention to grasp anything at all. Everyone in the group had questions. Nobody had the nerve to ask them out loud except Frank.
"Oh, we do. You owe me that much. You gonna tell me, or am I supposed to guess?"
Frank watched your silence for a long moment. Then his hand gently found yours, and you hissed sharply, pulling back on instinct, the still-healing fingers protesting the contact.
"What happened to your hand?"
You said nothing.
He took it again, more carefully this time, turning it over in his palm, his thumb tracing lightly over the swelling along your knuckles.
"Is it broken?"
"Maybe."
"How'd this happen?" His eyes lifted to yours, searching. "Did somethin' happen to you out there?"
You stayed silent. Something in Frank's expression shifted, hardening fast. "Tell me it wasn't one of these motherfuckers… I swear to God, I'll break every bone in both their hands myself. Was it him?" His eyes cut sharply toward Tommy. "Fuck, I should've killed both of them the second we—"
"Frank." Your voice came out soft but firm, cutting through it. "I'm fine. I won't say I was given good treatment. But I wasn't tortured either. They did wrong things. They did right things too." You gently pulled your hand back. "They don't deserve to die for it. Can we please stop talking about this."
You kept walking. Kept your eyes forward, your jaw tight, every part of you fighting two opposite urges at once: the desire to stop completely, turn around, and put your hands on Tommy's face; and the equally strong desire to slap him for choosing Joel, again, after everything. You wanted to kiss him and you wanted to kick him right between his legs. The two impulses sat tangled together in your chest with no clean way to separate them.
Frank's patience finally cracked.
"You just dropped a bomb back there about a kiss," he said, voice rising slightly, "about somethin' Joel had apparently been blind to for weeks, happenin' right under his nose." His eyes flicked toward Tommy, hard and assessing. "You drag this man along with us, clearly expectin' he'd join us willingly, and now look at him." His chin jerked toward the cuffs. "And you expect me to just not talk about it? I'm owed at least an explanation."
"Whatever happened between us ain't your business," Tommy said from behind, rough.
Frank turned on him so fast Marcus had to step half a pace to keep pace with the shift.
"Excuse me?"
"You heard me." Tommy's jaw was tight, his cuffed hands flexing slightly at his front.
Frank closed the distance fast, shoving a hand flat into Tommy's chest hard enough to rock him back a step. "She's not thinkin' straight right now," Frank said, voice low and furious, "and somebody's gotta point that out, since apparently you sure as hell ain't gonna be the one to do it."
Tommy lifted his chin and kept his gaze on Frank in response.
"Stop it." Your voice cut through both of them, sharper than you intended. "Stop. Both of you." You turned to face them fully. "I'm tired of both of you acting like I'm out of my mind. Like I'm some helpless, dumb girl clinging to her own kidnapper out of desperation or need." Your eyes burned, and you blinked hard against it, refusing to let it become anything visible. "You wanna know what happened, Frank? I saw it in him. Everything we swore to protect. Everything we promised ourselves we'd bring back into the world. He showed it to me, over and over, buried under all the things he's done to survive” Your voice cracked slightly. "I saw a real man, a good man, buried under a pile of awful things." You shook your head slowly. "I saw that buried, and I had to dig. For him… and for me."
You swallowed hard. “I don’t know anymore now. Maybe I was wrong.”
Frank shook his head. "And what exactly are we doing with him when we get to Baltimore?"
"Just what I said. He's free to go if he wants…” You say with no enthusiasm at all in your voice. “… I just needed to create distance from him and Joel. They are too dangerous together."
Your eyes found Tommy's, and neither of you looked away. It stretched out long and aching, both of you caught in the same current: wanting, more than anything, to close the space between you. Yet, held back by the devastating disappointment you each carried for the other.
Frank made a disgusted sound and walked ahead, putting distance between himself and the conversation entirely.
Tommy drifted slightly closer, close enough now that you could feel the heat of him beside you, close enough that your body remembered things your mind was still furious about. The warmth of his chest at your back on the horse. His mouth against your ear, low and desperate. The guitar between your hands, his fingers guiding yours through chords, the kiss by the fire. Your body hadn't gotten the message yet that all of that was supposed to be over.
And he stared at you from that short distance with a similar ache.
Goddamn you, he thought, the words burning behind his eyes. He hated how beautiful you still looked walking ahead of him. He hated that even now, furious and betrayed and dragged like livestock, some stupid part of him still wanted to reach for you. Still wanted to pull you back against his chest and bury his face in your hair and pretend none of this had happened.
He hated most of all that he believed you. Believed all you said. And that made him feel like the biggest fool alive.
Marcus shoved Tommy forward again, breaking the moment with a rough hand between his shoulder blades.
---
You walked for another hour before Frank finally raised a hand, signaling a stop. A large, abandoned auto shop sat back from the road, its corrugated metal siding rusted through in places but mostly intact.
Frank guided Tommy in first, one hand fisted in his collar, gun raised, scanning the dim interior. Marcus moved through behind him, checking the corners, the stairwell, the rows of dead vehicles.
The place was clear.
There was a small break room near the back, a few cots, clearly meant for workers' midday rest decades ago. And above it, accessible by a narrow, steep metal staircase, a glass-walled office that had probably belonged to a manager once.
Frank and Marcus pushed Tommy up the stairs.
You followed, stepping into the small office space behind them. A heavy metal desk sat bolted to the floor near the window, and beside it, an old radiator pipe ran floor to ceiling, thick iron.
Frank uncuffed one of Tommy's wrists just long enough to loop the chain around the radiator pipe before locking it shut again.
Tommy fought it. A sudden, furious surge against both men, shoulders straining, a wordless sound of pure frustration tearing out of him before Marcus's fist caught him square in the stomach, doubling him over and ending the struggle in one brutal motion. They finished locking him to the pipe while he was still catching his breath.
"Don't fucking hurt him." Your voice came out sharp, immediate. "I’m not asking."
Frank rounded on you, eyes hard. "I'm tryin' to understand you right now. I’m trying to be comprehensive with this bullshit, I really am. But you're makin' it real hard."
You didn't answer him, because your eyes found Tommy’s and somehow it just dragged you out of that conversation as hypnosis.
He was on the floor now, back against the pipe, breath still ragged from the punch, looking up at you from below with something ashamed written across his face: the specific shame, you realized, of a man finally understanding in his own body exactly what he'd put you through.
You looked down at him and there was no satisfaction at all in it. No smugness, no sense of justice finally served. Just a deep, quiet sadness that sat heavy in your chest, looking at him chained to a pipe the same way you'd been chained to a hundred different things since this whole nightmare started.
You held his gaze as long as you could. Frank's hand closed around your arm, firm, pulling you toward the door.
"Let's go."
You let yourself be moved, eyes staying on Tommy's for every inch the distance allowed, until the doorway finally broke the line between you.
Frank pulled the door shut behind you, sealing Tommy alone in the dark office.
You, Frank, and Marcus made your way back down the narrow stairs toward the cots below.
"I'm grateful," you said, the moment your feet stepped inside the room. "I want you to know that. What you did… coming for me, not givin' up. I'll never be able to repay it." You turned to face him fully. "But I need you to remember who's in charge here, Frank. I need you to stop talkin' to me like you know better than me what's good for me."
Frank rounded on you, something raw breaking through his usual composure.
"I don't give a damn about hierarchy right now." His voice cracked slightly, frustration and fear tangled together. "I care about you bein' safe. I care about you still bein' in your right mind after everything those men put you through. I'm doin' this for you, and I’m doing what your uncle would like me to."
"Frank." Your voice softened despite everything. " I really like him… He’s a good man. Believe it or not."
He shook his head slowly, eyes searching your face like he might find an explanation written somewhere on it. "You never used to behave like this. Why are you doin' this? Why him?"
"It's not somethin' I can explain." You held his gaze. "And honestly, Frank… that's exactly the point. That's exactly what it means that he has something real in him."
"Of course Tommy—" he said the name like it cost him a lot. "Of course Tommy has something." He exhaled hard, dragging a hand down his face.
“It’s just a coincidence, Frank— “
“I know it is,” he cuts bluntly. “Otherwise this is fucked up as hell”. He turned away for a second, pacing two short steps before stopping, hands flexing at his sides. “Anyway. You've got bigger things to worry about than him. Especially with what we're walkin' into in Baltimore." He paused. “Tell me you don’t—” Franks pauses. “Have you… told him?"
"Not all of it." Your voice stayed steady. "But the most important part, yes. I did."
Frank's hand slammed flat against the doorframe. He left without another word, disappearing into the dark of the shop floor.
You stood there for a moment, breathing through the silence he'd left behind.
"Don't be too hard on him." Marcus's voice came from behind you. His hand landed lightly on your shoulder. "You know he loves you, and that it’s hard for him to be around you after… after what happened. He just wants to make sure you're okay."
You turned and let yourself lean into him for a moment, Marcus’ arms coming around you briefly.
"Thank you," you murmured against his shoulder. "For everything. For coming."
"Always," he said simply.
---
A few hours later, both men were asleep, dead on their cots. Frank curled on his side, Marcus sprawled loose and boneless beside him. You watched them for a moment, struck by exactly how much the last weeks had cost them. The hollows under their eyes. The way even unconscious, some part of them still looked braced for something. They had walked hundreds of miles on a rumor and hadn't slept properly in longer than that, and now, finally, their bodies had simply given out beneath them.
You sat there in the quiet, listening to their breathing even out, and thought about the narrow metal staircase, and the locked door at the top of it, and the man chained alone in the dark.
You were disappointed. Deeply, achingly sad. But you couldn't blame Tommy, at least not entirely, for choosing family.
You stood quietly, careful not to wake either sleeping man, and moved to gather a few things. Then you crossed to the narrow metal staircase and climbed it silently.
The office door opened without a sound. Tommy was leaned awkwardly against the radiator pipe, his cuffed hands resting in his lap, trying and clearly failing to find any position to sleep. His eyes were opened looking at the window.
He straightened immediately when he saw you.
You crossed the small room and lowered yourself to the floor beside him, close enough that your knee brushed his thigh.
You uncapped a water bottle first, then held one of the painkillers up between two fingers. He looked at it. Looked at you. Then opened his mouth, silent and patient.
You placed it carefully on his tongue, your fingers brushing his lips pretending it was completely unintentional, and tipped the water bottle slowly to his mouth after. He swallowed, throat working, his eyes never once leaving yours through any of it.
You set the bottle down and unwrapped a protein bar, breaking off a small piece and lifted it to his mouth, and he leaned forward slightly to take it from your fingers, his lips grazing your fingertips as he did, unhurried. You felt it everywhere, that small, electric graze, and didn't pull your hand back as fast as you probably should have.
You fed him another piece. Then another.
The silence between you had a different nuance now than it had all day. His eyes stayed locked on yours through every motion, dark and unreadable and somehow, impossibly, still soft.
"You made me sad, Tommy." You finally said it. "I thought you wanted to be with me."
"Well, I'm sad at you too." His voice was rough, quiet. "Thought I could trust you."
"You can trust me."
"Can I?" His jaw tightened. "You knew your people were comin'. You knew, and you said nothin'. Then you throw it out in front of everybody, make sure Joel hears every word about us, make sure he knows exactly how I betrayed him." His eyes searched your face. "And then this man shows up, and who the hell is he, and why does he act like—" He stopped himself. "Why's he act so strange around you?" He looked away, then back, something raw surfacing despite his effort to hold it down. "You never once mentioned him. And the best part: Weeks of you preachin' to me about hope and second chances, and I find out today you've killed people too. Feels like there's a whole lot you never told me."
Your voice came out sharp, immediate. "I've killed. FEDRA. I despise every single one of them and I’ll do it again every time I have the chance." You held his gaze, unflinching. "This is unbelievable. After everything you've done… And I’m the wrong one now. I still believed in you, Tommy. Everything I said to you was real. Every single word."
"Ohh. Sure." His voice cracked slightly. "Was it real, or did you just need the help? Did you need somebody useful, somebody you could turn against his own brother so he'd serve whatever purpose you needed him for?"
A single tear spilled before you could stop it. "That's so fucking unfair." Your voice shook. "Do you know what I actually wanted? Do you want to know, Tommy?" You held his gaze, raw and unguarded now, nothing left to protect. "I wanted to be your girl. Just that."
The words left your mouth and stood there in the air, enormous in the small dark room.
"I wanted to save you and I wanted you to love me. I wanted a whole life with you, somewhere we got to actually do some good to this broken world, and I wanted to wake up every single morning in your arms."
Your voice softened, slowed, something tender bleeding through your hurt.
"I wanted you to reach for my hand before either of us even opened our eyes. I wanted slow mornings where you kissed me until neither of us could remember why we'd ever been in a hurry for anything. I wanted to make love to you slow, Tommy. I wanted you to never stop kissing me." Your voice broke completely. " That's all I ever wanted."
You pulled back, the tears falling freely now, humiliated by how much you'd just given away.
"And you think I was using you? Turning you against your brother on purpose?" You shook your head, already moving to stand. "Fuck it, I should go—"
His cuffed arms came up following the pipe trail and looped around you before you could rise, locking around your back and hauling you forward, guiding you until you adjusted straddling his lap, his forehead dropping hard against your collarbone.
"I hate what you do to me," he said, voice rough and broken open. "I hate that I can't make a damn bit of sense out of it." His arms tightened, pulling you closer, his hips shifting slightly beneath you, pressing up in a way that stole the air from your lungs. "I hate that you're so far under my skin I can't think straight no more."
"I hate that you're so stubborn," you breathed, rocking forward against him without fully deciding to, "and too much of a coward to admit you're not what Joel made you into."
"I ain't a coward."
"You are." Your hips pressed down, slow and deliberate, and you felt him groan low in his throat. "You're a coward who'd rather bleed for his brother than reach for somethin' good when it's right in front of you."
"That ain't fair."
"None of this is fair, Tommy."
His mouth found yours before either of you said anything else, hard, furious, hungry, every word you'd both just thrown at each other dissolving into the kiss instead.
"You're—" his lips moved against yours between breaths, his arms tightening, pulling you down harder against the press of him, already hard beneath his jeans, "—a spoiled brat who manipulates everyone into—" his tongue found yours, deep and insistent, swallowing the rest of the sentence before he forced it back out, "…into doin' whatever you want, whenever you want it."
Your lips kept alternating between kissing and biting each other lips softly and allowing tongues to twirl, breathing and beefing against each other mouth in a non-stop cycle.
"You're a broken man, Tommy— hmm.”
You rolled your hips against him. “… pretendin' to be tough," you breathed against his mouth, feeling him groan low against your lips, "who can't admit you're built for exactly the same thing I am."
"Yeah?" He pressed up into you harder, his cuffed arms trying awkwardly to hug you, dragging you closer still. "What—” his tongue found yours again, breaking seconds after once more. “—what am I built for?"
You rubbed yourself against him, needy and aching, and felt him shudder beneath you.
"To resist." Your voice came out wrecked, kissing him over and over again.
"Same as me… To resist—hm—every bit of corruption and cruelty they force into us."
He broke the kiss completely. His eyes found yours, something burning behind them.
"Take off these fuckin' pants."
You pulled back out of the loop of his cuffed arms just long enough to obey, fumbling the button, shoving the fabric down and off in a rush, and then you were back between his arms exactly where you'd been, his hands finding your back again the moment you settled. Your fingers went to his jeans next, working the button open with shaking urgency, freeing him with a low, broken sound escaping you both at once, and immediately sinking down onto his cock in one slow, aching motion. The stretch pulled a broken moan from both of you at once.
Your mouths crashed together again, messy and furious, tongues sliding, teeth grazing, breathing hard into each other like you were trying to devour the anger and the love at the same time. Your hips rolled down, taking him deeper, and Tommy groaned into your mouth.
“I hate you, Tommy,” you gasped against his lips, riding him slow and deep, grinding down hard with every roll of your hips. “I fucking hate you.”
“I thought I heard you say you loved me,” he growled back, biting your bottom lip sharply before slamming his hips up to meet you, burying himself to the hilt. The sudden thrust made you cry out, the sound swallowed by his mouth as he kissed you harder, tongues tangling, foreheads pressed tight together.
You kept moving, riding him with desperate rhythm, your hands fisted in his hair, pulling just hard enough to make him hiss. Neither of you could say it cleanly with words anymore. His cuffed hands, useless for almost anything else, found place at the small of your back and pulled, pulled, pulled, like he could fuse the two of you together if he just held on hard enough. You needed it just as badly, needed the proof, in skin and breath and the obscene, wet sound of your bodies meeting again and again, that whatever was broken between you hadn't broken the one thing that had always been real: the hurt, the need, and the terrifying comfort you only ever found in each other's arms.
It was the only language left that could make you understand each other, where your own beliefs and his rationality couldn't keep tearing the two of you apart.
“You make me so fucking angry,” you breathed, forehead still pressed to his, lips brushing with every word. “You make me want to scream at you and kiss you at the same time.”
He thrust up harder, eyes burning into yours. "You make me fucking angry too." His voice came out ragged, almost desperate. "I should've gotten rid of you before you got into my blood like this. Before I started needin' you like air."
You moaned, rolling your hips faster, chasing that perfect angle. Your mouths crashed together again, tongues sliding, teeth nipping, breathing ragged and desperate between kisses.
“Don’t stop,” you whimpered against his mouth, foreheads still locked together, sharing the same desperate breath. “Tommy, please, don’t stop,”
“Never,” he groaned, voice breaking. “I couldn’t stop even if I tried.”
Your orgasm hit you hard and sudden, crashing through you with a sharp cry that he swallowed with another fierce kiss. Your walls clenched around him, trembling, pulling him deeper as you rode it out. Tommy followed right after you, burying himself as deep as he could go with a low, guttural groan, spilling inside you in hot pulses while his arms locked tight around your back, holding you impossibly closer.
You both stayed with foreheads pressed together for a long time, mouths barely apart, breathing each other in. Your arms wrapped around his neck, his arms around you, holding you trapped there. You buried your face in the crook of his good shoulder. He pressed his face against yours.
"The thing you told me before," Tommy spoke slowly, voice still rough. "About your... condition. Are you doin' anything about it?"
"I—" You hesitated. "I don't wanna talk about it right now. But let's say... yes. There's somethin' in Baltimore to discuss about it."
He nodded against your hair, accepting it without pushing further.
You stayed like that a moment longer, neither of you quite ready to let the silence end and the rest of it come crashing back in.
"Who's he? Frank?" he finally asked.
You laughed softly, despite everything. "You really won't rest until you know, will you? Why's it matter so much who he is?"
His jaw tightened slightly. "You never once mentioned him. He's attached to you like family and behaves like somethin' more, and I don't understand a single piece of it."
You shook your head slowly. "Frank was my uncle's boyfriend. They were together since before the outbreak." You felt Tommy go a bit relaxed against you. "He loves me like an uncle too, and he feels obligated to look after me since my uncle passed. And it's also why he behaves strangely around me. Because I look enough like my uncle, sound enough like him, that it hurts him just to be near me some days."
Tommy was quiet for a long moment. "Guess… that answers it," he said finally.
You shifted off his lap, helping him resettle his jeans before pulling your own back on.
"Let me go." His eyes found yours, sudden and direct. "Let me go after Joel. I can't sit here not knowin' if he will make it."
"I can't do that."
"Why not?"
"You know why not."
"So I'm just supposed to sit chained to a pipe and trust three strangers with my brother's life."
"Fuck, Tommy. You’re still choosing him over— Whatever. I’m so tired of this. Joel will be fine."
"Will he? Will Tess be?" His voice sharpened. "Because that, by the way… that was dirty. Bringin' her into this whole mess. That was fucked up, she's got no part in any of this—"
"Oh my God, Tommy." You were on your feet before you'd decided to move, pacing the small space, voice rising. "You're really doin' this? Right now? Just after we—" You shook your head, disbelief flooding through the anger. "What the fuck, Tommy. If she's in trouble, that's on Joel and that’s on you. Not me. I do what I have to do to."
"Funny," he said, low. "You're soundin' just like him. It’s a valid excuse when it’s convenient to you?"
"Don't you fucking—" Your voice caught, fury and hurt tangling together so fast you couldn't separate them anymore. You pressed the heels of your hands against your eyes for a second, breathing hard. "This is completely different, you both kidnapped me and you expect… You know what? Fuck you, Tommy. Fuck you."
You turned and walked out before he could answer, his voice calling something after you that you didn’t register, the words lost in the pounding of your own pulse as you took the metal stairs two at a time.
You crossed back to the cots in silence, chest still heaving.
Frank was awake. Standing, arms crossed, watching you with an expression that should have been judgment and somehow wasn't.
"You really like him, sweetheart?" he asked quietly.
"I— I do, Frank."
He crossed the distance and pulled you into a hug, pressing a kiss to the top of your head.
"It's okay," he murmured. "If he's meant to see the light, he'll see it. Can't force a man toward hope before he's ready to walk into it himself. All you can do is leave the door open and trust he finds his way to it." He squeezed your shoulder once. "And if he does, we’ll gladly take him in.”
---
Bye bye Joel, see you never again your asshole <3 haha
