What I Need’s Been Buried
What I Need’s Been Buried by ilookedback (AO3; one-shot - 1,200 words)
Fandom: The Last Of Us (TV)
Relationships: Joel/Tess
Summary: He meets her in a FEDRA refugee caravan, one week south of the QZ. Fraternization is discouraged—too dangerous out here, outside the safety of walls and militarized police and diagnostic scanners—and there is an air of wariness throughout the group, with Boston’s salvation so close at hand, a tenuous thread of hope that could be snapped by a single set of infected teeth. But she meets his eyes across the campfire and gives him a quick, wry smile and sits beside him as the guitar gets passed around in turn—this impromptu open mic circle an echo of a humanity that will never be the same—and she raises her eyebrows when he takes it for himself and strums a familiar chord.
Notes: it’s doomed, you know it, they know it
