mihstar
mihstar
𓆝.𖥔˖༘⋆M
178 posts
forever creating a story in my head
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mihstar ¡ 10 days ago
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no because I still remember that one time a person actually said abby is canonically lesbian and just dated a male character because of her daddy issues-
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That was boderline concerning to hear
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mihstar ¡ 12 days ago
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shared burdens —
CHAPTER ONE: FUNERAL FLIES
summary🏹: Winter brings snow and loss, and with that, memories that could surface anytime.
IMPORTANT INFOS: this story flows between flashbacks and the present so OC's childhood povs are common and written in Italic like this, very tommy x OC centric (platonic!!) but also OC's friendship with others, this story sticks with game timeline reguarding the Outbreak, and sometimes the story in general will mix/choose between game and show canon (don't worry, you'll know which things throughout it): for example, in this chapter we will see that Benji was actually some months old already when joel and ellie visits Tommy in Part1
CHAPTER WARNINGS: typical tlou violence mentioned, angst, description of grief and depression, mention of death, mention of Joel's death later in the chapter, no beta reader, english isn't authour's first language, comment if you think I forgot to warn something. Enjoy!
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Lupita remembers her grandmother told her, maybe twice at some point, that she had a type of resistance and strength that was deep and not known by herself. And if she's being honest, this was probably one of the few things her grandma said that didn't sit right with her, because how could a girl who flinched with loud noises and teared up over left letters of long gone strangers be strong? Resistent enough to carry weights too heavy for her back, things she even never had to go through, and still not crack? Just the thought makes her think of picking unnacurate cards in a memory game, something senseless and just not correct.
And she probably voiced that at the time, because she also remembers the woman saying sensitivity and compassion could be the pillars of brave decisions and toughness, contrary to what many thought.
Lupita doesn't know about that.
When she was almost thirteen, only three years older than when she joined Jackson, her grandmother died. And Lupita never felt the weakest.
She's sure if she closes her eyes, no matter how many years come, she'll always be right back to that night if she try: music ceasing as her words sobbed from her like bubbles, several hands she didn't recognize trying to touch her shoulders and back, a blurring mess of lights and eyes trying to get explanations from her— explanations that strangled when they tried to leave, no matter how better she tried to phrase. Even here, in her room while Maria was downstairs in charge to thank every neighbour that came to drop casseroles and pies meant for her (when Lupita knows that this is just an excuse of the woman to be here and make sure she doesn't do anything stupid), she can still remember vividly their voices. 'A sudden death' were the first words said when some people entered her house to check, and didn't take to long for the guesses to start between people ('my cousin's husband died like that, we found out he was bitten by a scorpion' 'Maybe old age?' 'God no, Ina wasn't that old') and later the town's best doctor and his team (Hypertension? Heart Attack? 'Did she had asthmatic attacks, missy?') and after she explained, half numb, that her grandma was complaining of a headache and claimed she was a bit tired earlier that day, they concluded she suffered a stroke.
A stroke. Her grandma, the strongest woman she knows and was raised by, who was always so careful to not get infected, died of a stroke.
Lupita has been locked in her house, now empty and without the smell her grandmother's food cooking but her perfume still hovering between the walls, for almost a week now since her burial. Maybe this is how long it's taking her brain to digest the tragic fucking ending. Maria and Tommy, probably the most influential people in town and the closest ones to them since they joined Jackson, had visited her plenty since she disagreed to stay in their house during this delicate moment. Maria was the one who stayed most of the time, since Tommy was very busy all the time. Maria assured her this wouldn't bother her at all since the council had given her more free time since Benji was born last year, and Lupita was too drained to have the heart to explain 'brothering' wasn't the main reason she didn't wanted to have anyone in her house at the moment.
But still, Maria seemed to get it. While Lupita spent most of her time in her room, Maria was there on the couch doing her own thing or cleaning like it was her own house, even genuinely accepting when she was told not to clean her grandmother's room, not yet. When she decided to get out bed to wander around the house like a aimless ghost and gone to sit on the couch, Maria would stay still like she wasn't there while Lupita hugged her own knees and looked at the window some feet away. And then the woman would set her book aside without a word to hug her when she would start to cry.
It was quite comforting, she dares say, having someone there even when she feels like herself isn't. And besides, Maria really was honest and seemed not to mind visiting her everyday for hours— even tho Lupita can still hear whispers here and there behind the walls; low and rushed talks with Tommy that she shouldn't live alone this young, that it would be hard to convince the council not to send her to live with another adult now, or even with the two of them.
"Lu, honey," Two soft knocks on her door. And although pain and a tasteless emptiness seemed to have made a home in her heart these days, something inside her still burns warm on the endearments Tommy uses on her. Honey, doll..."I'm comin' in, okay?"
She doesn't answer, and the hinges of her door stretches without the need of.
Tommy's footsteps are attentive and calm, but still sound heavy against the floor as he approaches, and on another occasion she would probably have turned to see the tall man come in with the puppy expression that she knows he has. Always looking like he had a hard time making a safe way into her little, low roof bedroom without looking like a clumsy caveman. 's like a damn treehouse, he said before. Small as hell, cozy as fuck.
She doesn't look at him now, not even turns to him as she chooses to stay sat and hugging one of her knees in her swivel chair, facing the window. Her white curtains sway a little with the breeze and cover her half-closed window almost completely, but the fabric is so thin and delicate she can still see her frontyard. There are so many flowers deposed in front of her house, they make her wonder if grief always smells like a beautiful garden.
Even though he hasn't gotten her initial attention, Tommy doesn't let himself bother: "Smell downstairs it's pure cinnamon, I think about two people have come wantin' to fatten you up since I arrived...but don't worry, Maria is taking care of 'em. She asked me to give you this." She feels his gaze linger a little longer on the untouched asparagus and mashed potatoes on her nightstand, now cold, before he quickly replaces them with a new plate quietly. Two cinnamon rolls, syrup still melting.
She keeps looking foward at her window, now staring more at the wood around the glass than to the new person from afar that came to put another flower against her yard's fence. Her thumb is brushing her chin without precise motion, and her voice comes out softspoken as usual, but raspy even for her "I thought you had patrol today."
The answer doesn't come right away, but when it comes, Tommy's voice is low, but painfully sweet and full of empathy, like she's is oblivious to a nicety to her "Stopped by to see you."
She looks up at him, feeling her own eyes tiny, swollen from the tears she shed when they felt like it. She could say she's a bit proud that today she is relatively less of a crying mess and choking on her breath like she's agonizing, now in a more serene state. Or maybe catatonic. Either way, she's relieved she's looking at someone in front of her without breaking in tears, and she tries to control her breathing as much as possible so as not to break her current state she found herself on, even if the state is a facade.
Must be working, because Tommy's posture is slightly more relaxed when he places his hand on her shoulder. Touch light, but firm enough over the comfortable fabric of her loose t-shirt it almost makes her closes her eyes for some reason. She doesn't. Instead, she keeps her swollen eyelids open as she can when he starts to sit on the matress of her bed.
"Jimmy and I were talkin' while we were fixing part of the roof from the stables, this mornin" His southern accent rolls in his tongue "He said his kids, Henry and that one girl, are quite... putting off going to school for now, they're real sad for their favourite teacher." She flinches. It's discreet and she didn't mean to and she's normal in a beat, but she does. Tommy talks again, tone enveloped in carefulness, but certainty "And I heard they weren't the only ones... She was real loved not only by you, doll. I hope you know this."
And damn her if that doesn't sting. Knowing she wasn't the only kid her grandma left heartbroken, wishing to hear her voice again. Miss her company. And yet, the mourning of none of them comes close to the pain she's feeling right now.
"Yeah-" Her confirmation sound wet and choked. She clears her throat "I know."
"And It's not just them they're missing, you know. Town has been uh, real worried about you and wantin' to see you, told them to be patient. Even the dogs. Even Jesse stopped me today, to ask about you." There's a hint of hope playing between his words, a failed attempt to get any fragment of her curiosity at the mention of the boy Tommy somehow knows she has a thing for. "I guess he misses seein' you around... I think I do too."
She gives a half harted roll of her eyes "You see me almost everyday."
"So what, I can't miss you?" his voice fakes annoyance, pretending to be offended "I've been missing my quarry assistant, catch up with my friend, talk." A beat. From the corner of her eye, he's looking at her wall of posters. "I've been trying with Benji, but he keeps drooling..."
She snorts when she involuntarily tries imagining it, sound so spontaneous that surprises even her, and Tommy laughs too. It's not the loud, full chest laugh he usually has but one that makes his eyes shine and smile with him.
She just notices the corners of her mouth are curved too after Tommy admires her for brief seconds, before dropping his chin like a nod "Missed that smile too."
And the look he's gives her is so fond and comprehensive and Tommy she just realizes she's breaking down when his whole face melts in worry.
"Oh, sweetheart..." Her head drops as her tears finally fall, and her heart is so consumed in the sensation of pain burning her heart and the throbbing in her head, she doesn't even notice when her body gave up of her chair and Tommy was the one slowling landing her to the ground, his arms hugging her and supporting her as she buries her face in his chest. And like that, a core memory suddently is conjured in her mind like a vision: She's younger, younger than she's now at twelve, and they're back in their small apartment in Denver. She's crying, disappointed for something she can't remember anymore, and her grandma is holding her real tight while they're are swinging in a slow cadence in her rocking chair. The same rocking chair they had to leave behind after when they moved. She wishes her here now to tell her the reason she was crying, she would probably remember. She wished to be in another arms, feeling another person's smell as she breaths her sobs out. She wishes to be rocked, like the young she was and the small she feels now.
"What was that?" Tommy asks, caressing her short wisps of hair.
"I wish she was here" she whispers, choking. The hand placed on her back presses against her with more force. "I wish she was here."
It's funny, how mind works (or maybe just hers, she doesn't know). Days ago, she was was asking her grandmother to help her braid her hair for Jackson's anniversary party, little knowing that the next day she would be burying her. And a day after that, she would attend church watching the little ceremony called funeral people in town made in her honor, doped up in medicine that seemed to have numbed her for a while enough to be there. She doesn't remember who gave to her, doesn't even remember how or when she agreed to be there. Everyone was dressed in dark clothes and it was raining a bit. She doesn't remember who was by her side. Some people, even kids who met her grandmother in Jackson's school, went forward to speak what they wanted to. Lupita doesn't remember any word said, doesn't even remember the faces of the people who went there to do it. She was too busy staring at one of the windows, watching grey raindrops slip on the foggy glass where a small fly struggled against. It was fallen on the dry edge on the inside, miserable body agonizing and succumbing to a desperate end while everyone else in the room passed by her, giving their whispery condolences before leaving. The fly was already dead, and she was alive to see that she was the only one in the church when the rain stopped. She's not sure why she remembers that now.
"It doesn't get better." Tommy says suddently above the ear that isn't pressed against the fabric of his flannel, and only now she notices she stopped bawling. some hiccups still come out of her chest and some single tears still roll on her cheeks, but her body stopped vibrating and howling in torment. "-If that's what you're wondering. This suffering, this longing.... It stings, it never says goodbye to you again. I'm sorry."
She closes her eyes for a brief second, absorbing the words spoken slowly that she doesn't know if are meant for her now anymore.
"But listen"
The heat that emanates against her body cools down, and long callused hands are pushing her away with a soft, but steady grip on her arms. When she looks up her eyes find him on her eye level, and his brown eyes are boring right on hers.
"Just because you'll miss your nana forever that doesn't mean this pain won't get bearable with time, 'cause it will and you will you will get used to it- Hey" he shakes her shoulders, without real strength when her attention diverts lower without meaning. Tommy's eyes shine in trust, like it does when they're in patrol and he's giving her an order he wants her to listen "You have to believe better days will come, Lupita, no matter how much you're hurtin' right now."
She stares at through her disheveled bangs that fall on her eyes, already feeling the back of her head start to hurt. Tommy's lips are a thin line as his eyebrows are raised above his lashes, that look damp and darker than when he came. The concern that shine between them is as recognizable as a reflection of a lake, yet too unfamiliar. She thinks of her grandmother along the years, casting her with a ghost of that same care. She thinks of ellie, that funny girl with a lack of manners that came to town last winter and went away the same day.
She thinks of Tommy's brother, that came along and also stayed briefly. She heard stories about him before, most memories of childhood and a shared life from Before. And yet, when she glanced at that grizzly hair and lost face from afar, all she could think is that he didn't look one bit like the man from those stories.
"It worked for you?" She asks, instead.
She doesn't elaborate, but it's not necessary. Tommy's eyes keep looking at hers in a silent conversation she's not sure she understands. One of his hands get a soft grip on the side of her neck, while his other one stretches to take something from his own shirt pocket - a white piece of cloth, like a tissue, but with delicate embroidery on the edges that fold between the tips of his fingers. His hand raises to her face in silence, and the feeling of the velvety fabric against her wet cheeks makes a sob in her throat choke back.
He breaks the silence, clearing his throat "Yeah. Sure did."
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Snow crunches loudly against her boots, and she can't help keep glancing down to make sure it's not an infected's hand. Or a corpse she might know.
The air is thick—soot and smoke hang low like a choking fog, drifting through the streets like a trail. The acrid smell of gunpowder clings to the wind, sharp and metallic, while the iron scent of blood seep from all directions and paint snow scarlet. What's left of Jackson seems like it held its breath and suffocated. Stores sit in a morbid stillness, the windows blown out with shards of glass glittering the ground like confetti. Mrs. Danna's bakery near the small church is half-collapsed, the sign above it swinging pathetically in the wind and the mess looking even worse on the inside. The silence is eerie and unnatural, like people around are afraid of speaking a word and prefer to see who will be the first to dare to. The dull thump of boots against frost is only broken by the occasional clatter of weapons being collected, or a hushed voice calling out a name, desperate for an answer that might not come. Figures move like ghosts trough the haze — men dragging the corpses of their neighbors out of the street, others rushing to the places their families were hiding during the attack, while the rest seem lost among the sidewalks. As if they don't know what they should do first. We won, is what she had heard at the shelter she was in with other civilians. But now, with a strange despair of loss heavy in the air and pressing down like sky itself might cave in, she wonders if victory wasn't supposed to be different.
It's strange. Lupita has lived here for almost eight years, and for the first time in so long It feels like she's in the middle of a ghost town, wandering through a territory that isn't hers.
A sudden cold breeze blows her hair out face, the wind bringing the putrid smell of burnt corpses to her nose and making her face wrinkle. She knows she should be with the others refugees instead of being here. But It was difficult to hear the news about the oldest Miller brother beginning to spread between gasps and whispers and choose to stay inside.
So that's what she does. Her hands hold her coat tighter against her own torso as she squints, walking down the main street among the piles of rotten infected and heads rolled on the snow, some with flames still dancing on their decomposed flesh. As she crosses the path and tries not to step on mortal remains, a biblical passage she's heard before springs in her mind as if whispered to her ears. A thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right, but it shall not come near you. Maybe, if she didn't find herself in the current circumstances, the visual similarity would've caught more of her attention.
Her pace quickens as she reaches the corner and sees the wood cabin —usually locked and unused— open, heels dragging with more struggle in the snow. It's just now that she's so close to this place, she realizes she doesn't know what people call it here. She doesn't have a vast knowledge from Before, but she knows morgue it's what they used call places like this. Here in Jackson? It's just the place bodies come when they're lifeless to be cleaned and seen by their loved ones for the last time, and she's not sure if people here got so used to death they would consider it just a room without a special name.
She's been here before once, and she had a vague impression it all seemed bigger: the walls, the sliding door in the front, even the step height at entrance. But now at seventeen, taking a few cautious steps towards the cabin, Lupita concludes that she simply was just small back then, and everything around you seems bigger when you're small.
Sean is inside and right next to the door when she reaches the front step, posture tense and alert as if he's waiting for someone. He sees her in the entrance on his peripheral and turns to her fully, hiding a bleeding wound on the nape of his neck from her curiosity. He’s been in Jackson longer than she has, but it was only last year that he unofficially started helping out with the corpses—usually when the bodies came from patrol too torn up for the others to stomach. The council didn’t assign him, not exactly. But after they figured if he could gut pigs without blinking when he was a butcher, he wouldn't puke to a bloody body.
(There was a time in her life she was dead sure Sean was a serial killer. She used to glare at him from across the street like he was some kind of villain—fists clenched, morally outraged on behalf of every pig in town and cautious for other civilians. Granted, she was nine. It didn’t matter that he smiled at her or waved sometimes; in her mind, the man was definitely up to something, and her only real evidence was that he worked in the slaughterhouse. Back then, that felt like solid reasoning. But of course, with time, she’d realize he was just... Sean. Funny. Kind. The kind of man who kissed his husband in public and looked like he should be baking bread instead of sharpening knives.)
But now he looks at her, and she doesn't see the usual warm and genuine simplicity shining on his eyes beyond her reflection. No, what she sees is foreign. Loaded with tension and something she can't quite put a finger on. And she knows whatever she's showing through her expressions also must be odd. Sean is only here when he is needed. If he is here, then...
Her mouth is half open and speechless, as if she forgot what she planned to say when she was coming here. Sean must read her confusion expectancy, because the inner edge of his chapped lips press each other and his attention drifts from her to something behind him. Her eyes follow.
The inside of the cabin seems even colder than outside, if possible — the snowflakes that begin to fall cumulates on the fragile-looking windows as if they're gonna break the glass, and the source of light that barely brightens the room is coming from the door where she stands. A woman whose name Lupita can't recall is giving some rushed instructions to a red-haired man while her breath comes out in condensed puffs of her mouth, and she's pointing vaguely at the rectangular tables with thin sheets on top. Lupita notices the pairs of shoes and boots slipping out from some of them. The redheaded man mutters an agreement, covering the face of the corpse lying in front of him just when Lupita's gaze drops, a failed attempt to peek. And her head is ready to turn towards the next covered body, before her eyes go lower— and she sees it.
The tanned, hairy arm that pokes lifeless out of fabric and doesn't shiver with the cold breeze that comes in behind her. Worn out watch with glass broken right in the middle, attached to wrist and decorating a large, wrinkled hand. Nails are getting blue, and the paleness in the fingers looks like is slowly rising.
The sheet above him is becoming stained bright red.
You're smart, kid.
For a mere second she wonders if the cold froze all the oxygen around, because suddently it's hard to breathe.
Little moths hanging around the light, the smell of caffeine invades her nostrils.
Her eyes dart to Sean, almost involuntarily. He seems to say something— ask, rather. But she doesn't hear, her thoughts spiraling and looping — Ellie, Tommy, Benji, Funneral, Ellie, Tommy, Joel, Ellie...— even when not a word seems to come to her mouth. Her cold fingers curl.
He squats down just mere inches to gain her attention, big eyes in her field of vision as if waiting for a response to something (what did he asked?), her brows furrow in confusion, her head seems to spin and she suddently feels the urge to sit down there on the ground for a bit. She doesn't.
Instead, her ankles rub against the wet extension of her socks as she drags her feet to movement with a final determination, walking back to the direction she came from and leaving Sean and a dead Joel Miller behind.
You're an intuitive little thing, she's been told once, and maybe that's what makes her body move decisively back to the main street even when the rest of her mind is numb to even think in a rational way, much less to reason where anyone in this town could be — instinct, an assumption that doesn't need that many thought to reach. She turns the first corner, not once checking if she's stepping on fingers on the way or glance to the new body being covered a feet few away.
By the time she reaches the stables, her racing thoughts seem to grow quieter.
One of the wide wooden doors hangs ajar, creaking slightly in the wind. No soul is leaving or entering, apparently them all too very busy cleaning up the debris and recovering what is left. And when she comes into the wooden building, her surroundings seem to be swallowed by an eerie quietude. Even the horses, usually neighing and tossing their heads at any sign of arrival, now all greet her with lowered ears and an uncanny stillness, almost as if they could sense the tension weighing outside even from here. They track her passing with brief, distant glances from the darkness of their stalls as she walks in hesitant steps, her boots wetting the ground with melted frost as she goes further in.
And she caughts it—A shaky sigh, so low it could've slipped past her if the loud blizzard outside hadn't died down. She approaches the source of the noise as delicately as if the ground was breakable, the smell of dry straw and hay thick in her nostrils congested by the cold. Her eyes adjust to the dimness near the back of the stable, the shadows bleeding into one another until they settle on a familiar shape.
At first, it barely looks human. Just a dark silhouette slumped forward on the worn wooden bench in front of the rest of the stalls, board shoulders bowed and unmoving, head low. It’s only when she sees the bun and the way his hands clutch at his knees, white-knuckled, that the shape becomes someone she expected.
Tommy is curled foward with his elbows on his knees, face hidden in his hands. The image is so familiar it could be capable of looking nothing different from his usual exhausted posture after long hours of hard work, but it's the way his bun bounces akwardly in the top of his hair and his back trembles what makes her nose burn and her eyes start to wet.
Muffled sobs tear the air.
The sound coils in her chest, an invisible tether pulling her towards him.
As she walks foward, the dim light that enters through the gaps on the walls catch better the edges of him—His flannel jacket damp with snow, his trembling hands alternating between anxiously running over his face and gripping his knees over the jeans until his knuckles pale. He's so absorbed in his own pain he doesn't even notice her precense so close
It's cold. A sharp breeze whistles outside and shudder some parts of the ceiling above. The horses doesn't seem to mind or even feel the coolness present and the few snowflakes floating around like spores.
Her right palm takes in the warmth his jacket provides.
His body doesn't tense under her mere touch, and his shoulders don't flinch. But his breath hitches, and he's looking up at her before she has a chance to think about moving away.
In all these years, she only saw Tommy Miller cry once.
And not just tear up— not two or three lonely tears or glassy-eyed look he gets whenever he talks about people and memories from Before, no. She's means really cry, with red face and all. It was the day Benji spoke for the first time. She had been cooing at him and giving him attention, after a dinner Lupita and her grandma were invited when she was eleven. Grandma was in the kitchen, helping maria wash the dishes while the three of them were in the living room: Tommy sitting comfortably on the couch and her sprawled out in the carpet with Benji, making faces and coaching him into talking after Tommy commented the baby was 'babbling like crazy lately, threatening to speak soon'. And she didn't even needed to repeat 'say daddy, Ben. Dada...' before it slipped out of him loud and clear, not only once but twice when Tommy and her yelled for Maria like maniacs. And while her grandma went on about how impressive it was for Benji to be talking with just some months old, and Maria rolled her eyes ('Motherhood. We carry the kid for nine damn months just for daddy to be the first they acknowledge.'), Tommy was just... standing there. Aftershock of joy still on his face, and Lupita was the first one who noticed when his eyes began to shine and the sudden flush rising to his cheeks . Maria must have been the second, because she quickly made an excuse to get up and pulled her husband to the kitchen, were they stayed a minute or two. And at some point between, she must have missed them and left grandma with Benji, who was too busy making him giggle to notice Lupita made her way smoothly to the kitchen, and she stopped hesitant behind the wall when she heard them. She didn't hear (or perhaps, can't remember) what Maria was whispering to him or what was Tommy nodding to, but she never forgot the parts of him not hidden by Maria’s or his own hands — the wet streaks, the scrunched-up, unguarded expression, how he sniffled and let the tears come. How he kept nodding with his eyes shut while Maria gently wiped his face. And she still recalls the beat of her heart missing fearfully when his eyes finally parted and she was caught peering with worry, and she's not sure which of the two he saw on her first, but he smiled— gentle and reassuring, like he had done for the past two years, and held out a hand for her "It's alrigh', doll, c'mere..." .
Back then, it had been different — so completely, achingly different.
That time, he had looked like someone caught off a love that seemed to overflow from his chest, and there was nothing in that moment but pride and gratitude and hope.
But now she looks at this man in front of her and she's almost not sure if she recognizes him.
It wasn't just blood, though that worried her too: a thick, angry cut across his brow, just above his left eye. The split had bled downward at some point, smearing a dark streak through the creases of his temple, now drying on his freckled cheekbone with sweat. His brown eyes were swollen. Small, red on the white spaces, skin pulled tight and bruised beneath like it has been rubbed too much — he looked at her with something so... so raw, and unable. Vunerable. Not the kind of vulnerability that made his eyes sparkle in devotion and a growing love, but in way that seemed inappropriate.
And his mouth twitches and compresses — so characteristically him, like he wanted to say something, explain himself, guide her trust on his words like he's been doing to her and the other ones that looked up at him. But his nostrils flare with the uncompensated breathes his chest rise to and his brows frown like he doesn't know what to say to her for the first time.
Can't even try.
And something about it so fucking wrong and twisted that—
Her lip starts to quiver. Cold teardrops were rolling down her cheeks long before she noticed them.
And every word she could've thought to say die on her throat.
Tommy doesn't seem to mind, head lowered back to his unrestrained suffering as she sits by his side, astonished. Helpless. Small.
None of them utter a noise when she puts her hand in her coat pocket and slides the cotton-white, soft tissue to his trembling palm.
The unspoken absence of Joel was already speaking volumes between them.
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REBLOG AND COMMENT!
taglist: @ivyinthesun @lululovesyoutoo comment if you wanna be part of taglist
song list (listened while writing ch.1)🎧: "the way it was" (gustavo santaolala), "roscian" (agnes obel), "poison tree" (grouper), "cry" (cas), "into dust" (mazzy star)....
Thanks for reading!
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mihstar ¡ 14 days ago
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shared burdens, a the last of us story
ᝰ synopsis🏹 shaped by resilience and roots, Lupita's path unfolds in the cracks of trust and survival. From the familiar safety of Jackson to the unforgiving, rain-soaked streets of Seattle, she must decide how far she's willing to go for the ones she considers family.
WHAT TO EXPECT: this story will be very tommy miller x platonic!teen OC centric, but the relationship between other characters and my OC (specially ellie) will also be present. This will be set in the game!timeline of the Outbreak (cause I can't with the hbo one, sorry), and the story in general will be a thin line between following the game events and the show ones.
WARNINGS/TW/MAY CONTAIN: pov of child of different ages, flashbacks, mentions of deaths (including joel), descriptions of grief and revenge, mention of pregnancy (don't worry it's Dina), Loss of family, vomiting, blood, description of corpses, and typical tlou violence in general as usual. If I see there's more things to add I will do eventually.
guide/chapter list (status = to be completed):
MEET THE OC
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
.....
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mihstar ¡ 14 days ago
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shared burdens —
CHAPTER ONE: FUNERAL FLIES
summary🏹: Winter brings snow and loss, and with that, memories that could surface anytime.
IMPORTANT INFOS: this story flows between flashbacks and the present so OC's childhood povs are common and written in Italic like this, very tommy x OC centric (platonic!!) but also OC's friendship with others, this story sticks with game timeline reguarding the Outbreak, and sometimes the story in general will mix/choose between game and show canon (don't worry, you'll know which things throughout it): for example, in this chapter we will see that Benji was actually some months old already when joel and ellie visits Tommy in Part1
CHAPTER WARNINGS: typical tlou violence mentioned, angst, description of grief and depression, mention of death, mention of Joel's death later in the chapter, no beta reader, english isn't authour's first language, comment if you think I forgot to warn something. Enjoy!
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Lupita remembers her grandmother told her, maybe twice at some point, that she had a type of resistance and strength that was deep and not known by herself. And if she's being honest, this was probably one of the few things her grandma said that didn't sit right with her, because how could a girl who flinched with loud noises and teared up over left letters of long gone strangers be strong? Resistent enough to carry weights too heavy for her back, things she even never had to go through, and still not crack? Just the thought makes her think of picking unnacurate cards in a memory game, something senseless and just not correct.
And she probably voiced that at the time, because she also remembers the woman saying sensitivity and compassion could be the pillars of brave decisions and toughness, contrary to what many thought.
Lupita doesn't know about that.
When she was almost thirteen, only three years older than when she joined Jackson, her grandmother died. And Lupita never felt the weakest.
She's sure if she closes her eyes, no matter how many years come, she'll always be right back to that night if she try: music ceasing as her words sobbed from her like bubbles, several hands she didn't recognize trying to touch her shoulders and back, a blurring mess of lights and eyes trying to get explanations from her— explanations that strangled when they tried to leave, no matter how better she tried to phrase. Even here, in her room while Maria was downstairs in charge to thank every neighbour that came to drop casseroles and pies meant for her (when Lupita knows that this is just an excuse of the woman to be here and make sure she doesn't do anything stupid), she can still remember vividly their voices. 'A sudden death' were the first words said when some people entered her house to check, and didn't take to long for the guesses to start between people ('my cousin's husband died like that, we found out he was bitten by a scorpion' 'Maybe old age?' 'God no, Ina wasn't that old') and later the town's best doctor and his team (Hypertension? Heart Attack? 'Did she had asthmatic attacks, missy?') and after she explained, half numb, that her grandma was complaining of a headache and claimed she was a bit tired earlier that day, they concluded she suffered a stroke.
A stroke. Her grandma, the strongest woman she knows and was raised by, who was always so careful to not get infected, died of a stroke.
Lupita has been locked in her house, now empty and without the smell her grandmother's food cooking but her perfume still hovering between the walls, for almost a week now since her burial. Maybe this is how long it's taking her brain to digest the tragic fucking ending. Maria and Tommy, probably the most influential people in town and the closest ones to them since they joined Jackson, had visited her plenty since she disagreed to stay in their house during this delicate moment. Maria was the one who stayed most of the time, since Tommy was very busy all the time. Maria assured her this wouldn't bother her at all since the council had given her more free time since Benji was born last year, and Lupita was too drained to have the heart to explain 'brothering' wasn't the main reason she didn't wanted to have anyone in her house at the moment.
But still, Maria seemed to get it. While Lupita spent most of her time in her room, Maria was there on the couch doing her own thing or cleaning like it was her own house, even genuinely accepting when she was told not to clean her grandmother's room, not yet. When she decided to get out bed to wander around the house like a aimless ghost and gone to sit on the couch, Maria would stay still like she wasn't there while Lupita hugged her own knees and looked at the window some feet away. And then the woman would set her book aside without a word to hug her when she would start to cry.
It was quite comforting, she dares say, having someone there even when she feels like herself isn't. And besides, Maria really was honest and seemed not to mind visiting her everyday for hours— even tho Lupita can still hear whispers here and there behind the walls; low and rushed talks with Tommy that she shouldn't live alone this young, that it would be hard to convince the council not to send her to live with another adult now, or even with the two of them.
"Lu, honey," Two soft knocks on her door. And although pain and a tasteless emptiness seemed to have made a home in her heart these days, something inside her still burns warm on the endearments Tommy uses on her. Honey, doll..."I'm comin' in, okay?"
She doesn't answer, and the hinges of her door stretches without the need of.
Tommy's footsteps are attentive and calm, but still sound heavy against the floor as he approaches, and on another occasion she would probably have turned to see the tall man come in with the puppy expression that she knows he has. Always looking like he had a hard time making a safe way into her little, low roof bedroom without looking like a clumsy caveman. 's like a damn treehouse, he said before. Small as hell, cozy as fuck.
She doesn't look at him now, not even turns to him as she chooses to stay sat and hugging one of her knees in her swivel chair, facing the window. Her white curtains sway a little with the breeze and cover her half-closed window almost completely, but the fabric is so thin and delicate she can still see her frontyard. There are so many flowers deposed in front of her house, they make her wonder if grief always smells like a beautiful garden.
Even though he hasn't gotten her initial attention, Tommy doesn't let himself bother: "Smell downstairs it's pure cinnamon, I think about two people have come wantin' to fatten you up since I arrived...but don't worry, Maria is taking care of 'em. She asked me to give you this." She feels his gaze linger a little longer on the untouched asparagus and mashed potatoes on her nightstand, now cold, before he quickly replaces them with a new plate quietly. Two cinnamon rolls, syrup still melting.
She keeps looking foward at her window, now staring more at the wood around the glass than to the new person from afar that came to put another flower against her yard's fence. Her thumb is brushing her chin without precise motion, and her voice comes out softspoken as usual, but raspy even for her "I thought you had patrol today."
The answer doesn't come right away, but when it comes, Tommy's voice is low, but painfully sweet and full of empathy, like she's is oblivious to a nicety to her "Stopped by to see you."
She looks up at him, feeling her own eyes tiny, swollen from the tears she shed when they felt like it. She could say she's a bit proud that today she is relatively less of a crying mess and choking on her breath like she's agonizing, now in a more serene state. Or maybe catatonic. Either way, she's relieved she's looking at someone in front of her without breaking in tears, and she tries to control her breathing as much as possible so as not to break her current state she found herself on, even if the state is a facade.
Must be working, because Tommy's posture is slightly more relaxed when he places his hand on her shoulder. Touch light, but firm enough over the comfortable fabric of her loose t-shirt it almost makes her closes her eyes for some reason. She doesn't. Instead, she keeps her swollen eyelids open as she can when he starts to sit on the matress of her bed.
"Jimmy and I were talkin' while we were fixing part of the roof from the stables, this mornin" His southern accent rolls in his tongue "He said his kids, Henry and that one girl, are quite... putting off going to school for now, they're real sad for their favourite teacher." She flinches. It's discreet and she didn't mean to and she's normal in a beat, but she does. Tommy talks again, tone enveloped in carefulness, but certainty "And I heard they weren't the only ones... She was real loved not only by you, doll. I hope you know this."
And damn her if that doesn't sting. Knowing she wasn't the only kid her grandma left heartbroken, wishing to hear her voice again. Miss her company. And yet, the mourning of none of them comes close to the pain she's feeling right now.
"Yeah-" Her confirmation sound wet and choked. She clears her throat "I know."
"And It's not just them they're missing, you know. Town has been uh, real worried about you and wantin' to see you, told them to be patient. Even the dogs. Even Jesse stopped me today, to ask about you." There's a hint of hope playing between his words, a failed attempt to get any fragment of her curiosity at the mention of the boy Tommy somehow knows she has a thing for. "I guess he misses seein' you around... I think I do too."
She gives a half harted roll of her eyes "You see me almost everyday."
"So what, I can't miss you?" his voice fakes annoyance, pretending to be offended "I've been missing my quarry assistant, catch up with my friend, talk." A beat. From the corner of her eye, he's looking at her wall of posters. "I've been trying with Benji, but he keeps drooling..."
She snorts when she involuntarily tries imagining it, sound so spontaneous that surprises even her, and Tommy laughs too. It's not the loud, full chest laugh he usually has but one that makes his eyes shine and smile with him.
She just notices the corners of her mouth are curved too after Tommy admires her for brief seconds, before dropping his chin like a nod "Missed that smile too."
And the look he's gives her is so fond and comprehensive and Tommy she just realizes she's breaking down when his whole face melts in worry.
"Oh, sweetheart..." Her head drops as her tears finally fall, and her heart is so consumed in the sensation of pain burning her heart and the throbbing in her head, she doesn't even notice when her body gave up of her chair and Tommy was the one slowling landing her to the ground, his arms hugging her and supporting her as she buries her face in his chest. And like that, a core memory suddently is conjured in her mind like a vision: She's younger, younger than she's now at twelve, and they're back in their small apartment in Denver. She's crying, disappointed for something she can't remember anymore, and her grandma is holding her real tight while they're are swinging in a slow cadence in her rocking chair. The same rocking chair they had to leave behind after when they moved. She wishes her here now to tell her the reason she was crying, she would probably remember. She wished to be in another arms, feeling another person's smell as she breaths her sobs out. She wishes to be rocked, like the young she was and the small she feels now.
"What was that?" Tommy asks, caressing her short wisps of hair.
"I wish she was here" she whispers, choking. The hand placed on her back presses against her with more force. "I wish she was here."
It's funny, how mind works (or maybe just hers, she doesn't know). Days ago, she was was asking her grandmother to help her braid her hair for Jackson's anniversary party, little knowing that the next day she would be burying her. And a day after that, she would attend church watching the little ceremony called funeral people in town made in her honor, doped up in medicine that seemed to have numbed her for a while enough to be there. She doesn't remember who gave to her, doesn't even remember how or when she agreed to be there. Everyone was dressed in dark clothes and it was raining a bit. She doesn't remember who was by her side. Some people, even kids who met her grandmother in Jackson's school, went forward to speak what they wanted to. Lupita doesn't remember any word said, doesn't even remember the faces of the people who went there to do it. She was too busy staring at one of the windows, watching grey raindrops slip on the foggy glass where a small fly struggled against. It was fallen on the dry edge on the inside, miserable body agonizing and succumbing to a desperate end while everyone else in the room passed by her, giving their whispery condolences before leaving. The fly was already dead, and she was alive to see that she was the only one in the church when the rain stopped. She's not sure why she remembers that now.
"It doesn't get better." Tommy says suddently above the ear that isn't pressed against the fabric of his flannel, and only now she notices she stopped bawling. some hiccups still come out of her chest and some single tears still roll on her cheeks, but her body stopped vibrating and howling in torment. "-If that's what you're wondering. This suffering, this longing.... It stings, it never says goodbye to you again. I'm sorry."
She closes her eyes for a brief second, absorbing the words spoken slowly that she doesn't know if are meant for her now anymore.
"But listen"
The heat that emanates against her body cools down, and long callused hands are pushing her away with a soft, but steady grip on her arms. When she looks up her eyes find him on her eye level, and his brown eyes are boring right on hers.
"Just because you'll miss your nana forever that doesn't mean this pain won't get bearable with time, 'cause it will. And you will get used to it- Hey" he shakes her shoulders, without real strength when her attention diverts lower without meaning. Tommy's eyes shine in trust, like it does when they're in patrol and he's giving her an order he wants her to listen "You have to believe better days will come, Lupita, no matter how much you're hurtin' right now."
She stares at through her disheveled bangs that fall on her eyes, already feeling the back of her head start to hurt. Tommy's lips are a thin line as his eyebrows are raised above his lashes, that look damp and darker than when he came. The concern that shine between them is as recognizable as a reflection of a lake, yet too unfamiliar. She thinks of her grandmother along the years, casting her with a ghost of that same care. She thinks of ellie, that funny girl with a lack of manners that came to town last winter and went away the same day.
She thinks of Tommy's brother, that came along and also stayed briefly. She heard stories about him before, most memories of childhood and a shared life from Before. And yet, when she glanced at that grizzly hair and lost face from afar, all she could think is that he didn't look one bit like the man from those stories.
"It worked for you?" She asks, instead.
She doesn't elaborate, but it's not necessary. Tommy's eyes keep looking at hers in a silent conversation she's not sure she understands. One of his hands get a soft grip on the side of her neck, while his other one stretches to take something from his own shirt pocket - a white piece of cloth, like a tissue, but with delicate embroidery on the edges that fold between the tips of his fingers. His hand raises to her face in silence, and the feeling of the velvety fabric against her wet cheeks makes a sob in her throat choke back.
He breaks the silence, clearing his throat "Yeah. Sure did."
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Snow crunches loudly against her boots, and she can't help keep glancing down to make sure it's not an infected's hand. Or a corpse she might know.
The air is thick—soot and smoke hang low like a choking fog, drifting through the streets like a trail. The acrid smell of gunpowder clings to the wind, sharp and metallic, while the iron scent of blood seep from all directions and paint snow scarlet. What's left of Jackson seems like it held its breath and suffocated. Stores sit in a morbid stillness, the windows blown out with shards of glass glittering the ground like confetti. Mrs. Danna's bakery near the small church is half-collapsed, the sign above it swinging pathetically in the wind and the mess looking even worse on the inside. The silence is eerie and unnatural, like people around are afraid of speaking a word and prefer to see who will be the first to dare to. The dull thump of boots against frost is only broken by the occasional clatter of weapons being collected, or a hushed voice calling out a name, desperate for an answer that might not come. Figures move like ghosts trough the haze — men dragging the corpses of their neighbors out of the street, others rushing to the places their families were hiding during the attack, while the rest seem lost among the sidewalks. As if they don't know what they should do first. We won, is what she had heard at the shelter she was in with other civilians. But now, with a strange despair of loss heavy in the air and pressing down like sky itself might cave in, she wonders if victory wasn't supposed to be different.
It's strange. Lupita has lived here for almost eight years, and for the first time in so long It feels like she's in the middle of a ghost town, wandering through a territory that isn't hers.
A sudden cold breeze blows her hair out face, the wind bringing the putrid smell of burnt corpses to her nose and making her face wrinkle. She knows she should be with the others refugees instead of being here. But It was difficult to hear the news about the oldest Miller brother beginning to spread between gasps and whispers and choose to stay inside.
So that's what she does. Her hands hold her coat tighter against her own torso as she squints, walking down the main street among the piles of rotten infected and heads rolled on the snow, some with flames still dancing on their decomposed flesh. As she crosses the path and tries not to step on mortal remains, a biblical passage she's heard before springs in her mind as if whispered to her ears. A thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right, but it shall not come near you. Maybe, if she didn't find herself in the current circumstances, the visual similarity would've caught more of her attention.
Her pace quickens as she reaches the corner and sees the wood cabin —usually locked and unused— open, heels dragging with more struggle in the snow. It's just now that she's so close to this place, she realizes she doesn't know what people call it here. She doesn't have a vast knowledge from Before, but she knows morgue it's what they used call places like this. Here in Jackson? It's just the place bodies come when they're lifeless to be cleaned and seen by their loved ones for the last time, and she's not sure if people here got so used to death they would consider it just a room without a special name.
She's been here before once, and she had a vague impression it all seemed bigger: the walls, the sliding door in the front, even the step height at entrance. But now at seventeen, taking a few cautious steps towards the cabin, Lupita concludes that she simply was just small back then, and everything around you seems bigger when you're small.
Sean is inside and right next to the door when she reaches the front step, posture tense and alert as if he's waiting for someone. He sees her in the entrance on his peripheral and turns to her fully, hiding a bleeding wound on the nape of his neck from her curiosity. He’s been in Jackson longer than she has, but it was only last year that he unofficially started helping out with the corpses—usually when the bodies came from patrol too torn up for the others to stomach. The council didn’t assign him, not exactly. But after they figured if he could gut pigs without blinking when he was a butcher, he wouldn't puke to a bloody body.
(There was a time in her life she was dead sure Sean was a serial killer. She used to glare at him from across the street like he was some kind of villain—fists clenched, morally outraged on behalf of every pig in town and cautious for other civilians. Granted, she was nine. It didn’t matter that he smiled at her or waved sometimes; in her mind, the man was definitely up to something, and her only real evidence was that he worked in the slaughterhouse. Back then, that felt like solid reasoning. But of course, with time, she’d realize he was just... Sean. Funny. Kind. The kind of man who kissed his husband in public and looked like he should be baking bread instead of sharpening knives.)
But now he looks at her, and she doesn't see the usual warm and genuine simplicity shining on his eyes beyond her reflection. No, what she sees is foreign. Loaded with tension and something she can't quite put a finger on. And she knows whatever she's showing through her expressions also must be odd. Sean is only here when he is needed. If he is here, then...
Her mouth is half open and speechless, as if she forgot what she planned to say when she was coming here. Sean must read her confusion expectancy, because the inner edge of his chapped lips press each other and his attention drifts from her to something behind him. Her eyes follow.
The inside of the cabin seems even colder than outside, if possible — the snowflakes that begin to fall cumulates on the fragile-looking windows as if they're gonna break the glass, and the source of light that barely brightens the room is coming from the door where she stands. A woman whose name Lupita can't recall is giving some rushed instructions to a red-haired man while her breath comes out in condensed puffs of her mouth, and she's pointing vaguely at the rectangular tables with thin sheets on top. Lupita notices the pairs of shoes and boots slipping out from some of them. The redheaded man mutters an agreement, covering the face of the corpse lying in front of him just when Lupita's gaze drops, a failed attempt to peek. And her head is ready to turn towards the next covered body, before her eyes go lower— and she sees it.
The tanned, hairy arm that pokes lifeless out of fabric and doesn't shiver with the cold breeze that comes in behind her. Worn out watch with glass broken right in the middle, attached to wrist and decorating a large, wrinkled hand. Nails are getting blue, and the paleness in the fingers looks like is slowly rising.
The sheet above him is becoming stained bright red.
You're smart, kid.
For a mere second she wonders if the cold froze all the oxygen around, because suddently it's hard to breathe.
Little moths hanging around the light, the smell of caffeine invades her nostrils.
Her eyes dart to Sean, almost involuntarily. He seems to say something— ask, rather. But she doesn't hear, her thoughts spiraling and looping — Ellie, Tommy, Benji, Funneral, Ellie, Tommy, Joel, Ellie...— even when not a word seems to come to her mouth. Her cold fingers curl.
He squats down just mere inches to gain her attention, big eyes in her field of vision as if waiting for a response to something (what did he asked?), her brows furrow in confusion, her head seems to spin and she suddently feels the urge to sit down there on the ground for a bit. She doesn't.
Instead, her ankles rub against the wet extension of her socks as she drags her feet to movement with a final determination, walking back to the direction she came from and leaving Sean and a dead Joel Miller behind.
You're an intuitive little thing, she's been told once, and maybe that's what makes her body move decisively back to the main street even when the rest of her mind is numb to even think in a rational way, much less to reason where anyone in this town could be — instinct, an assumption that doesn't need that many thought to reach. She turns the first corner, not once checking if she's stepping on fingers on the way or glance to the new body being covered a feet few away.
By the time she reaches the stables, her racing thoughts seem to grow quieter.
One of the wide wooden doors hangs ajar, creaking slightly in the wind. No soul is leaving or entering, apparently them all too very busy cleaning up the debris and recovering what is left. And when she comes into the wooden building, her surroundings seem to be swallowed by an eerie quietude. Even the horses, usually neighing and tossing their heads at any sign of arrival, now all greet her with lowered ears and an uncanny stillness, almost as if they could sense the tension weighing outside even from here. They track her passing with brief, distant glances from the darkness of their stalls as she walks in hesitant steps, her boots wetting the ground with melted frost as she goes further in.
And she caughts it—A shaky sigh, so low it could've slipped past her if the loud blizzard outside hadn't died down. She approaches the source of the noise as delicately as if the ground was breakable, the smell of dry straw and hay thick in her nostrils congested by the cold. Her eyes adjust to the dimness near the back of the stable, the shadows bleeding into one another until they settle on a familiar shape.
At first, it barely looks human. Just a dark silhouette slumped forward on the worn wooden bench in front of the rest of the stalls, board shoulders bowed and unmoving, head low. It’s only when she sees the bun and the way his hands clutch at his knees, white-knuckled, that the shape becomes someone she expected.
Tommy is curled foward with his elbows on his knees, face hidden in his hands. The image is so familiar it could be capable of looking nothing different from his usual exhausted posture after long hours of hard work, but it's the way his bun bounces akwardly in the top of his hair and his back trembles what makes her nose burn and her eyes start to wet.
Muffled sobs tear the air.
The sound coils in her chest, an invisible tether pulling her towards him.
As she walks foward, the dim light that enters through the gaps on the walls catch better the edges of him—His flannel jacket damp with snow, his trembling hands alternating between anxiously running over his face and gripping his knees over the jeans until his knuckles pale. He's so absorbed in his own pain he doesn't even notice her precense so close
It's cold. A sharp breeze whistles outside and shudder some parts of the ceiling above. The horses doesn't seem to mind or even feel the coolness present and the few snowflakes floating around like spores.
Her right palm takes in the warmth his jacket provides.
His body doesn't tense under her mere touch, and his shoulders don't flinch. But his breath hitches, and he's looking up at her before she has a chance to think about moving away.
In all these years, she only saw Tommy Miller cry once.
And not just tear up— not two or three lonely tears or glassy-eyed look he gets whenever he talks about people and memories from Before, no. She's means really cry, with red face and all. It was the day Benji spoke for the first time. She had been cooing at him and giving him attention, after a dinner Lupita and her grandma were invited when she was eleven. Grandma was in the kitchen, helping maria wash the dishes while the three of them were in the living room: Tommy sitting comfortably on the couch and her sprawled out in the carpet with Benji, making faces and coaching him into talking after Tommy commented the baby was 'babbling like crazy lately, threatening to speak soon'. And she didn't even needed to repeat 'say daddy, Ben. Dada...' before it slipped out of him loud and clear, not only once but twice when Tommy and her yelled for Maria like maniacs. And while her grandma went on about how impressive it was for Benji to be talking with just some months old, and Maria rolled her eyes ('Motherhood. We carry the kid for nine damn months just for daddy to be the first they acknowledge.'), Tommy was just... standing there. Aftershock of joy still on his face, and Lupita was the first one who noticed when his eyes began to shine and the sudden flush rising to his cheeks . Maria must have been the second, because she quickly made an excuse to get up and pulled her husband to the kitchen, were they stayed a minute or two. And at some point between, she must have missed them and left grandma with Benji, who was too busy making him giggle to notice Lupita made her way smoothly to the kitchen, and she stopped hesitant behind the wall when she heard them. She didn't hear (or perhaps, can't remember) what Maria was whispering to him or what was Tommy nodding to, but she never forgot the parts of him not hidden by Maria’s or his own hands — the wet streaks, the scrunched-up, unguarded expression, how he sniffled and let the tears come. How he kept nodding with his eyes shut while Maria gently wiped his face. And she still recalls the beat of her heart missing fearfully when his eyes finally parted and she was caught peering with worry, and she's not sure which of the two he saw on her first, but he smiled— gentle and reassuring, like he had done for the past two years, and held out a hand for her "It's alrigh', doll, c'mere..." .
Back then, it had been different — so completely, achingly different.
That time, he had looked like someone caught off a love that seemed to overflow from his chest, and there was nothing in that moment but pride and gratitude and hope.
But now she looks at this man in front of her and she's almost not sure if she recognizes him.
It wasn't just blood, though that worried her too: a thick, angry cut across his brow, just above his left eye. The split had bled downward at some point, smearing a dark streak through the creases of his temple, now drying on his freckled cheekbone with sweat. His brown eyes were swollen. Small, red on the white spaces, skin pulled tight and bruised beneath like it has been rubbed too much — he looked at her with something so... so raw, and unable. Vunerable. Not the kind of vulnerability that made his eyes sparkle in devotion and a growing love, but in way that seemed inappropriate.
And his mouth twitches and compresses — so characteristically him, like he wanted to say something, explain himself, guide her trust on his words like he's been doing to her and the other ones that looked up at him. But his nostrils flare with the uncompensated breathes his chest rise to and his brows frown like he doesn't know what to say to her for the first time.
Can't even try.
And something about it so fucking wrong and twisted that—
Her lip starts to quiver. Cold teardrops were rolling down her cheeks long before she noticed them.
And every word she could've thought to say die on her throat.
Tommy doesn't seem to mind, head lowered back to his unrestrained suffering as she sits by his side, astonished. Helpless. Small.
None of them utter a noise when she puts her hand in her coat pocket and slides the cotton-white, soft tissue to his trembling palm.
The unspoken absence of Joel was already speaking volumes between them.
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REBLOG AND COMMENT!
taglist: @ivyinthesun @lululovesyoutoo comment if you wanna be part of taglist
song list (listened while writing ch.1)🎧: "the way it was" (gustavo santaolala), "roscian" (agnes obel), "poison tree" (grouper), "cry" (cas), "into dust" (mazzy star)....
Thanks for reading!
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mihstar ¡ 23 days ago
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SHARED BURDENS • MEET THE OC:
Lupita Jones
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Lupita, who is seventeen and lives by herself in the smaller house near Jackson's main street since she was twelve;
Who is more reserved, but once you get to know her better, you'll meet a quiet comfort (and perhaps long talks and silly references of whatever);
who got a soft spot on tommy miller's heart since they met, becoming his partner in crime in her spare time and the reason he gotta disguise his favoritism from the other town kids;
(well, he tries.)
Lupita, who was ellie's first friend when the other girl came to Jackson with joel miller, both the first time and when they both returned from Salt Lake;
is often working and helping around, specifically at the town's kennel. She loves dogs, and knows each with the palm of her hand;
does patrols, not often like others, but is usually paired with either ellie, some of her friends, or one of the miller brothers;
Has some good drawing and painting skills, and usually the one some folks go to when they want portraits of their own families or landscapes for their homes;
And if the person she's trading with can cook good shit, the better;
lupita who, if she was canon character on the games, wouldn't have that focus like the other main characters (at least not until part² plot is escalating), but would still have a few pleasant appearances;
When she's not hanging around town with her discman or other teens in town, you'll probably find her sitting on her porch steps doing nothing, in the sole company of a stray grey cat that often passes by;
And if people notice she frequently visits Jackson's cemetery and puts fresh flowers on a specific grave, they don't mention.
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first chapter here feel free to comment and reblog!
TAGLIST: @lululovesyoutoo @ivyinthesun
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mihstar ¡ 24 days ago
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Fuck it, I just did🏃🏻
If I wrote a story about a fem!oc of mine where the fic is very dad!tommy core and takes place in part 2, would you read?
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mihstar ¡ 24 days ago
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shared burdens, a the last of us story
ᝰ synopsis🏹 shaped by resilience and roots, Lupita's path unfolds in the cracks of trust and survival. From the familiar safety of Jackson to the unforgiving, rain-soaked streets of Seattle, she must decide how far she's willing to go for the ones she considers family.
WHAT TO EXPECT: this story will be very tommy miller x platonic!teen OC centric, but the relationship between other characters and my OC (specially ellie) will also be present. This will be set in the game!timeline of the Outbreak (cause I can't with the hbo one, sorry), and the story in general will be a thin line between following the game events and the show ones.
WARNINGS/TW/MAY CONTAIN: pov of child of different ages, flashbacks, mentions of deaths (including joel), descriptions of grief and revenge, mention of pregnancy (don't worry it's Dina), Loss of family, vomiting, blood, description of corpses, and typical tlou violence in general as usual. If I see there's more things to add I will do eventually.
guide/chapter list (status = to be completed):
MEET THE OC
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
.....
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mihstar ¡ 24 days ago
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If I wrote a story about a fem!oc of mine where the fic is very dad!tommy coded and takes place in part 2, would you read?
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mihstar ¡ 29 days ago
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For people who both played/watched the games and then watched the show: you think Tommy having a kid was a good addition or not? Would have you done differently if you had some power to decide about it?
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mihstar ¡ 29 days ago
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Unpopular opinion: making shimmer die would be less disappointing than seeing this ellie doesn't care that much about her
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mihstar ¡ 29 days ago
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It's weird how they made ellie strangely apathetic towards jesse. Like her and dina and the baby were all in an inner circle that Jesse wasn't part of. For starters she had her way with his literal girlfriend, then nobody told him about the pregnancy right away and he had to guess, and then while in the games ellie and him was having such a serious talk about it, ellie in the show was like "oH yOu WeRe gUeSSInG?" "well she's gonna tell you so act surprised🤪" and then throwing in his face that he didn't save the Seraphite child like?? The dude is nervous to find out he's gonna have to move mountains to protect himself and his sudden baby in a war zone and you're acting like a total jerk dude, yikes. Sometimes I think she took the "I'm gonna be a dad" joke fr and is thinking she is dad instead of jesse. And then they made Jackson be jesse's whole personality and say that shit about voting No and that's when their friendship went to hell🤦🏻
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mihstar ¡ 30 days ago
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Rip these two, they would hate to see what hbo did to their friendship <\3
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mihstar ¡ 1 month ago
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Instead of doing a lot of posts about it, I'm just gonna resume all I liked and disliked about episode 6 last night:
Pros:
The scene where ellie burns her arm was good and reminded me of the amount of fics I've read about it.
The cake scene was funny and very ellie. The way Joel found it amusing was extremely adorable. Also the way they they humanized seth this season it was a cool touch.
The fact that he built her guitar instead of seeing it somewhere and remembering of her was a very joel thing, since he canonically builds guitars.
The scene with the birds and bees was funny specially when the old man flinched when ellie made it more scandalous. He really is an old man.
The scene where she closes her eyes inside of the spaceship made me cry like a baby. And that's coming from someone who didn't even cried when joel went to play golf with God on episode 2.
The scene with Eugene and later with gail was a nice touch, specially when ellie starts to see a pattern of behavior in Joel and how easily he lies to people (and consequently comparing this to Salt Lake).
The fact that they made him die on New Year's morning was heartbreaking. When he said to tommy "see you next year" made me speechless for a second.
I liked that they made him curious of Ellie's tattoo enough to talk to gail about it.
He said he loves her with all these specific words. And I felt so bad when he said that he would pay for what he did just knowing that she be distant with him. Pedro Pascal is an amazing actor.
Cons/Things that got me confused:
•Me waiting for the rocket pin scene so I could show to the person beside me that I also had that pin:🤡. Honestly I don't even know why they they took this detail away when it would only last less than 10 seconds. The entire birthday scene felt rushed af but I was very understanding of why, but the pin was a would be the cherry on top.
•I don't really like the way Joel found out she had a tattoo. When he caught her with cat and emphasized "[having sex] with girls??" made him sound homophobic, like oh so with boys would be no problem to him then. Joel is probably ellie's number one Ally, so the way that line existed and was delivered was odd.
•Okay, so, as the 17-year-old ellie flahsback ended and it didn't showed to us her finding out made me frown at my TV for a good amount of seconds trying to understand, and then the 19-year-old ellie period started and I was like "wait what? Oh so she's gonna find out now in this patrol?" and was already thinking that, unlike games, she was going to oficially stop talking to him only for some months.
•And then they surprised me again and she only made him come clean with the truth the night before he died, and the feelings I have about it are... complicated. Because first of all, as much as the 2 years (and a half) period of time game!ellie doesn't talk to him is cruel and soul-crushing to us, that was what made the game even more dramatic and ellie's revenge/guilt arc even more painful. Show!Ellie didn't have the courage to face the truth all these years, and even tho it's mentioned she was not very in touch with him anymore on those months after Eugene's death, It still doesn't have the same weight that this lore between her and him had canonically. At the end of the second game we felt the guilt she had for not talking with that man for 2 entire years when he was always there, but in the show ellie doesn't even have reason to be that guilty anymore. Unlike the games where her resentment was exaggerated and became pride (which even she is ashamed of later), in the show she had a very proportional reaction to her reasons to be mad.
•And then she forgave him the same night he admitted to having done what she most feared that happened, and that was the end for me honestly. It felt forced, rushed, and honestly I don't even wanna hear show fans cry about how sad their lore was because HBO was very kind to you guys. I had already made a post about how weird it was for Ellie to scream at the top of her lungs that she is immune on patrol and how it made it look like she is even proud of being immune, but honestly after they changed the whole timeline of the Lie Lore for... that, I'm now even more firm on the thought that the whole deal with the immunity and the lie are not that painful and important to Ellie in the show.
•Now jokes on me🤡 I was so confident they wouldn't change anything crucial on this adaptation and got fooled, now I won't even be surprised if Dina's baby turns to be a girl instead of a boy.
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mihstar ¡ 1 month ago
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Pinterest: hey you saved something that we consider wrong somehow, stay in line or else :/
Me: Oh, can I see what I saved?
Pinterest: No👍🏻✨
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mihstar ¡ 1 month ago
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HES ALIVE AND WELL IM NOT DELUSIONAL AT ALL
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mihstar ¡ 1 month ago
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wish there was enough fics and active writers in this app to satisfy my crush on edmund pevensie
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mihstar ¡ 1 month ago
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which by the way, I don't exatcly know why they made Jesse scold ellie like he was pissed at her in that scene but honestly I'm SO glad he did! I don't know what is wrong with this show!ellie but they're making her all goofy and act like seattle is a walk in the park with her pretty girlfriend, like?? Someone needed to be serious about it and put some sense of reality in her.
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