heaven is here (it's right where you're standing)
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if devotion is a river then i'm floating away by rowenamacleod
Fandoms: The Last of Us (Video Games)
20 Apr 2023
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It takes a few months for the reality of Jackson to fully set in.
Tess still sleeps with a knife under her pillow, convinced someone will come to hurt them in the middle of the night; unused to the safety the small community afforded them. Ellie, with her own room, thinks they can’t hear her crying occasionally in the middle of the night, and Joel lays tense beside Tess, neither of them sleeping. And Joel- Joel has never learned to leave his guard down, despite being surrounded by the women he loved and his brother and a safety net of community.
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The Miller family grows.
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so fathers be good to your daughters by rowenamacleod
Fandoms: The Last of Us (Video Games)
19 Jun 2023
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Holidays in Jackson had become more common as the years passed; they trickled in steadily as time went on, and more and more families settled into the community.
Father’s Day is one of the ones Joel had a more complex relationship with; it had been easier when the girls were smaller and didn’t really understand what the day meant. Tess and Ellie had always done something small for him, to let him know how appreciated he was, and it had been enough. But now Maeve was four and had a better view of what the day meant- at the very least, she knew the day was supposed to be all about her Daddy, who was currently her favorite person in the whole entire world- and Darcy and Ruth would soon follow suit.
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He delights in the way Tess’s nose crinkles as she rises to consciousness; as if she is annoyed to be awake already. She stretches, groaning low in her throat, and blinks cat-slit eyes at him, contemplating him in the low morning light.
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Independence Day hadn’t really returned with the rest of the holidays; perhaps because there was no need to celebrate the independence of a nation that no longer existed, or perhaps because it had only ever really been a holiday meant for drinking and pool parties.
Truthfully, though, as time went on, the town began to look for more and more reasons to celebrate; holidays crept back in slowly but surely, tumbling into the mix of ordinary life. Christmas came first, then Halloween traditions- until the smaller holidays like Valentine’s Day and St. Patrick’s Day followed until something similar enough to Independence Day began to be regularly celebrated.
In the weeks leading up to what had been deemed the Summer Celebration taking place in the middle of August, Tess was busy with the council prepping things for the holiday cookout and bonfire, so Joel ended up with the girls more often than not.
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Maeve gets her ears pierced.
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of birthdays and babies by rowenamacleod for Kokureno
Fandoms: The Last of Us (Video Games)
06 Aug 2023
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It's almost Maeve's fifth birthday, and she has an idea of what she wants.
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They don’t do it often.
But sometimes, Joel needs to get out of his own head, and Tess’s need to dominate sparks in her blood. So after the girls go to bed, and Moose is outside for the night, they lock the door to their room and Tess opens the drawer in her bedside table that’s usually locked.
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- Part 1 of tessjoel kinktober 2023
- Part 8 of heaven is here (it's right where you're standing)
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Joel forgets his and Tess's anniversary, with consequences.
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- Part 19 of tessjoel whumptober 2023
- Part 9 of heaven is here (it's right where you're standing)
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The storm hits just after dinner.
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- Part 25 of tessjoel whumptober 2023
- Part 10 of heaven is here (it's right where you're standing)
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The compound doesn’t have any true kind of graduation- school doesn’t work like that anymore- but there’s a kind of moving up ceremony for the seventeen year olds that had completed their schooling and would start to be put into the working rotations in the storehouse and the gardens.
Today was Maeve’s moving up ceremony; she’d turned seventeen three months prior, and finished her schooling last week.
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your christmas of white by rowenamacleod for Kokureno
Fandoms: The Last of Us (Video Games)
19 Dec 2023
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When December rolls around, Maeve is shy of a year old, and the curve of Tess’s belly is prominent once again.
“I want to do something nice,” Tess chews at her lip- Joel’s finger tugs it gently from between her teeth, soothing to marks she’d left behind.
“She’s still a baby, Tessa,” he reminds her, and Tess sighs, rubbing at her stomach as she shifted in bed.
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- Part 6 of 12 days of fic 2023
- Part 12 of heaven is here (it's right where you're standing)
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shop 'til you drop by rowenamacleod for Glitter_Gecko
Fandoms: The Last of Us (Video Games)
23 Dec 2023
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“Mama, where are we goin’?” Ruth tugs at her hand, and Tess looks down at her with a smile. Elsa is strapped to her chest, sleeping contentedly, and they’re heading into the local, smaller mall to shop. Joel has the older girls, shopping himself, and Tess has a surprise of her own.
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- Part 11 of 12 days of fic 2023
- Part 13 of heaven is here (it's right where you're standing)
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The house is quiet when Tess tiptoes back in; she’d been at Tommy and Maria’s, helping Maria for a few hours with the new baby. She toes off her boots, hangs up her coat, and undoes the braid in her hair, massaging her scalp against the tug of her roots. It’s been a long couple of hours- it hadn’t been a difficult birth, but Maria had lost a decent amount of blood, so Tess had stuck around to help Tommy with Levi and the newest Miller baby.
She stops, though, at the sight of movement at the corner of her eye in the living room; flicks on the hall light, and finds Joel sprawled out on the couch, Maeve and Darcy both curled up on his chest.
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The crunch of Tess’s knee under the golf club makes her nauseous, but she refuses to emit more than a squeak of pain; refuses to give the young blonde woman the satisfaction of a noise loud enough to truly hear.
“Tess,” Joel’s growl of pain is enough for her, though, and she grins- swings the club up onto her shoulder and peers down at where they’re sprawled on the floor, mere feet apart. Ellie is farther away, just visible through the doorway, and she’s clearly in agony, watching this woman- this Abby- torture them.
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“It’s really not as bad as it looks,” Tess tries to play off the pain in her voice as Ellie tilts her face to view the rapidly swelling bee sting on her upper left cheek.
“Tess, are you allergic to bees?” the younger woman asks, eyes narrowing, and Tess shrugs a shoulder.
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Tess tries hard not to giggle- she really does. But it escapes through the fingers she has clasped over her mouth, bubbling out and filling the air, and Joel glares at her, eyebrows knitted together as he stands before her.
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“I think we should have another.”
He looks up at the voice, blinking, sure he’s misheard. Tess is standing there, Ruth sound asleep in her arms, and she’s got that look on her face- soft and tender, like a fresh bruise. He’s got Maeve asleep in one arm, Darcy in the other, and they’d been a handful to get down tonight- he’d taken them out into the early summer evening to stargaze, and it had taken a lot of half-made up stories about different constellations for them to drift off.
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When Ellie offers to take the girls for the day, freeing Tess and Joel up for a day on their own, they almost don’t know what to do with themselves.
It was a pleasantly warm June day, and it had rained the weekend previous, so the creek was nice and full, perfect for swimming. So, they pack up a picnic lunch, change into as close to swimsuits as they owned, and head to the shaded bit of creek they tended to prefer.
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- Part 28 of tessjoel kinktober 2024
- Part 19 of heaven is here (it's right where you're standing)
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don't wanna bare teeth (but don't wanna look weak) by rowenamacleod for Glitter_Gecko
Fandoms: The Last of Us (Video Games)
08 Dec 2024
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Tess is nearly done with her patrol, preparing to turn around and head back to the settlement, when she practically stumbles upon the two wanderers.
“Easy,” she soothes Hera, backing the horse up, and frowns down at the two people down below, cowering at the large mare before them. “Are you infected?”
“No,” the woman is quick to answer, shaking her head and stepping forward, though she keeps a hand against her companion’s arm. “No, we’re not bitten, I swear. I’m looking for someone.”
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