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After the Zero Hour by Arien for Bumblepony
Fandoms: The Last of Us (TV), The Last of Us (Video Games)
30 Dec 2025
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Summary
Joel pushed up the gable window. “That is some good workmanship. All these years, all this weather, and it still does what it’s supposed to.”
He reached inside for a brass bell. The museum was full of Revolutionary War exhibits, and the bell had probably belonged to somebody important and was beyond price. But it was just a bell, now. Joel rang it twice and sat back, ready to slam the window down if anything came to investigate. Tess leaned close to listen.
“I don’t hear anything,” she declared a few moments later.
“Okay.” Satisfied, Joel climbed in. He gave the room a cursory glance and then reached back to help her. “Guess the museum’s still Cordyceps-free.”
“We belong in the museum. Not them.”
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After a successful trade with Bill and Frank, Tess and Joel have serious trouble getting back into the QZ.
Series
- Part 23 of Drifters, a book of Tess and Joel
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Summary
“They were my pills, too. If you were anyone else …”
“You’d what?”
A ghost of a smile touched her lips. “I’d send you after them.”
He returned the smile, but it was awash with the guilt he’d always helplessly, hopelessly, love more than her. Joel wanted her angry and unforgiving. It sustained him. Tess knew what it was to want to hurt at the hands of the one she loved most. They gave one another everything. Most of the time, it wasn’t pretty. But that was what they were.
“Next time – ”
“You can’t lie to me,” she swiftly countered. “I’ll take the rest Joel. But not that.”
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Joel is a mess and everything is miserable.Series
- Part 24 of Drifters, a book of Tess and Joel
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Summary
“You can scream if you want,” Joel murmured. “Hell, that’s probably more convincin’. But I need you to listen first. Can you listen? You ain’t too scared to do that?”
Tess swallowed hard. Her breath rasped in her throat and her skin prickled all over. She was reeling from his speed and strength. He could do whatever he wanted. He was strong enough and fast enough to do whatever he wanted and there wasn’t anything she could do to stop him. The hubris of thinking she could actually have gotten herself out of the trap was staggering. If she was quiet, if she could be still, maybe another chance would open up. But the fight would not leave her body.
She loathed herself for it.
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Zenith and Nadir by Arien for marchflower
Fandoms: The Last of Us (TV), The Last of Us (Video Games)
18 Oct 2025
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Summary
This was good. Joel could work with this. Dallas was far enough away without having to worry about hitting the reset button on every aspect of his brother’s life. He nodded quickly. He wasn’t worried about the kind of work he might be asked to do. He didn’t even consider it then - he saw a way out and that was all that mattered. But a wave of anxiety did wash over him which left him faintly trembly, weak in the belly. Everything was going to be on him, now. He had to do right by Tommy. There was no point to any of this if he couldn’t do it better than his old man.
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Joel through the years, the people he loves most and the patterns which emerge.
Series
- Part 3 of Night Fever, a Tess/Joel 1970s AU
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Paradigm shift by Arien
Fandoms: The Fantastic Four: First Steps (2025), Marvel Cinematic Universe
24 Aug 2025
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Summary
They have four fantastic powers, but they need four fantastic suits that can both keep up with them - and remain intact. Or; how we ended up with that exact shade of blue and the complications that come with accepting a new way of being.
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Summary
The longer Cassian looked, the surer he became that there was nothing to see. And why had she come outside without a blaster, without calling to them? Bee kept watch at nighttime, and he had spotted nothing. He swung back to Bix with a fresh question on his lips but finally, for the first time, he registered the blankness in her eyes. She was static in fright but there was distance in her intensity, like a moment frozen in time.
“Bix,” he murmured, “put down the vibroblade.”
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Bix in the aftermath of her ISB interview, and how she and Cassian find their way back together again. Beginning between seasons before branching into early season 2.
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These Violent Delights by Arien
Fandoms: The Last of Us (TV), The Last of Us (Video Games)
25 May 2025
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Summary
It’s 2006. Tess, Joel and Tommy face threats in the open country and grapple with the moral chasm opening between them. Survival must be earned. Evolution cannot be walked back.
Or: Everything wants to kill them and the brothers want to kill each other.
Joel dove off the bridge.
He was enveloped with a sharp, sudden slap. The water was shockingly cold. Murky sunlight streamed through the surface and lit upon rusting cars and mossy debris. Joel pumped his legs and thrust up to fresh air like a cork. He sucked in a breath. Tried to orient himself. The river was moving faster than it looked and the bridge was already shrinking. He needed to find Tommy, but before he could do that he had to get control of his own body because right now, the current was in charge. If he didn’t figure it out, he was going to break an arm.
Or he might drown, too.
Series
- Part 21 of Drifters, a book of Tess and Joel
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Summary
"He was a soldier. He was a threat. He was an Imperial threat. You and I are here now because he's dead. It had to be done."
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What happened between Bix, Cassian, and the soldier.
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Never is a Promise by Arien for bignosebushybrows
Fandoms: The Last of Us (TV), The Last of Us (Video Games)
04 May 2025
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Summary
Fix-it fic for episode 02.02. Same situation, different choices, new stakes.
“Your friends?” Tess graciously posited.
Complication. Tess didn’t know her; she didn’t know her friends. She knew the Lodge was a mess and at higher altitude; colder, maybe. She knew they had two horses and they moved faster with two riders. This girl had no weapon and no credentials.
And Tess did not like outsiders.
Series
- Part 22 of Drifters, a book of Tess and Joel
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Summary
The two of them had paid their dues, separately and together. They had earned their happily ever after and Joel was ready to seize it. He had promised himself he wouldn’t take a moment of it for granted. What exactly lay in their happily ever after was nebulous, however. They had the romance, they’d built the house, they had sworn promises deeper than vows. What else was there?
The Snowqueen of Texas sequel: a no-outbreak AU where the biggest challenges are plain old life and they get to live as their softer, untraumatised selves.
Series
- Part 2 of Making Mirrors, a Tess/Joel Modern AU
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A Golden Cadillac by Arien for Ameerawrites
Fandoms: The Last of Us (TV), The Last of Us (Video Games)
26 Feb 2025
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Summary
Maria said: “I think this is over and I don’t want to argue about it.”
At first, Tommy thought she was joking. It blindsided him. He glanced around the bar where they had come - he thought - to celebrate her divorce from Winston. She had come through relatively unscathed. She had full custody of her son. They had won. Tommy’s eyes watched the dancers sloping around the floor under intersecting, round spotlights. He had been waiting for the right song to ask her to dance.
He’d made a lot of plans that night, actually. It was supposed to be a celebration.
Politely, he cleared his throat. “What?"
Series
- Part 4 of Night Fever, a Tess/Joel 1970s AU
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How the Breakers Roar by Arien for Toointojoelmiller
Fandoms: The Last of Us (TV), The Last of Us (Video Games)
28 Dec 2024
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Summary
Two weeks into the Cordyceps outbreak, Tommy and Joel go looking for their father in Houston. Maybe there is still something to hope for.
Joel was shouting, dragging Tommy away by his backpack. Tommy’s mind caught up and he turned, following his brother down a dark street. As they ran more infected peeled out of fresh shadow, careening toward them, falling, skidding, smacking into one another in their deranged sprint. He and Joel swerved sideways to avoid another clutch and he saw two hit one another so hard that teeth shattered from gums. There was no making a brave stand. There was only the breath searing their lungs as they sprinted faster, faster, putting on speed they didn’t even know they had. His calves burned. His boots pelted the pavement. Tommy stopped looking back. To look back was to die.
Series
- Part 20 of Drifters, a book of Tess and Joel
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Vanishing Grace & Other Stories by Arien
Fandoms: The Last of Us (TV), The Last of Us (Video Games)
25 Dec 2024
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Summary
Second year of advent calendar fic!
This year, these are taken from the collections listed below plus two new Mystery AUs, a crack fic
and a partridge in a pear tree.One story per day from 1 to 25 December.
Series
- Part 19 of Drifters, a book of Tess and Joel
- Part 4 of Making Mirrors, a Tess/Joel Modern AU
- Part 3 of Tin Star, a Tess/Joel Western AU
- Part 5 of Night Fever, a Tess/Joel 1970s AU
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Ocean shrouds and sepulchres by Arien for batard_loaf
Fandoms: Dune - All Media Types, Dune (Movies - Villeneuve)
07 Dec 2024
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Summary
The watery catacombs beneath the surface of Caladan are vast and mysterious. Leto wishes to show Jessica this hidden world, and takes personal carriage of her training. But it is no easy passage for the uninitiated ... though it may be a beautiful place to die.
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Only Half a Perfect World by Arien for marchflower
Fandoms: The Last of Us (Video Games), The Last of Us (TV)
18 Sep 2024
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Summary
In the summer of 1951, a 16-year-old Joel Miller escapes with his little brother for a beach vacation.
Joel tried to turn Tommy’s face toward his. He wanted to see how that bruise was coming along, and if the capillaries in his eye had healed. But Tommy batted him away.
“Get off!”
Joel gave up and tossed him the folded postcard. His brother knew what it was almost right away, but he did not dare hold out too much hope. He stared at the umbrella and the legs and the white-tipped sea.
“What are we doin’, Joel?”
“Better start growin’ your flippers.”
Series
- Part 2 of Night Fever, a Tess/Joel 1970s AU
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Summary
He laid his thumb pad between her eyes, stroking up a couple of inches, lifting, and repeating the motion. Her lids closed and he heard a little growl of relief come from somewhere deep in the back of her throat. He continued the pattern for a few more strokes, and then veered left to smooth beneath one eyebrow, and then the other. He repeated the motion between her eyes and then opened his hand across her brow. Slowly, firmly, he appeased the headache into submission by targeting either temple, where Tess’s headaches liked to burrow.
Tess is sick. Joel deals with it.
Series
- Part 18 of Drifters, a book of Tess and Joel
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Fortunate Son by Arien for mariatesstruther (JenniReals)
Fandoms: The Last of Us (TV), The Last of Us (Video Games)
19 Jul 2024
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Summary
Maria Sinclair agrees to help Tommy Miller, a probationary resident at Jackson, with a life-changing opportunity.
He’d startled her, that was all. Maria was used to sharing the bathroom with exactly one other person, and busting in on a half-naked man was not on the bingo card for her day. She tried to shake loose the image of the dark trail of hair disappearing beneath his towel before it could permanently imprint on her memory and deal some real damage to her subconscious.
“Maria?”
“What?” She didn’t want to turn around. She could see him in her peripheral vision, hanging half-naked out the doorway.
“Forgot this.”
He just couldn’t elaborate, could he? Maria turned and saw he was holding her stays. Confused, Tommy turned them this way and that. “Some kind of … fancy vest.”
Series
- Part 17 of Drifters, a book of Tess and Joel
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The Dragon Meleys by Arien for pktralkgirl
Fandoms: House of the Dragon (TV), A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms
10 Jul 2024
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Summary
The princess held her breath as the ground shimmered beneath her boots. She flexed her fingers by her side and held fast, when all she wanted to do was bolt right into the cavern and to the awaiting creature. But she was thirteen and knew better; the princess was renowned for both beauty and poise, a cool command of herself that could not be challenged even by the dragon who called to her in dreams.
The acolyte’s torch grew close again. In the flickering warmth, the princess could just make out two elders on either side of the dragon, whose scarlet scales melted from the dark and took on her full, lustrous hue before the princess’ eyes.
“Princess Rhaenys: The Dragon Meleys.”
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Interstellar Overdrive by Arien
Fandoms: The Last of Us (TV), The Last of Us (Video Games)
01 Jun 2024
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Summary
Tess is a powerful underworld figure, brokering information. When an internal threat has her questioning the loyalties of those closest, she must enlist the help of someone who has just as much to lose as she does. A bodyguard/boss AU set in the 1970s.
His fingertips brushed through the curtain of hair hanging to her waist. Dressing like a goddamn hippie with motivations that were resolutely square. A capitalist muckety-muck playing dress-ups with the beautiful people. Tess had some goddamn nerve and he wanted every last piece of her, Duke’s warnings be damned.
Because Duke was right – he’d never met anyone like her before. And maybe by getting a little closer he could unravel the enigma, because he’d meant what he’d told Duke – one woman was, essentially, the same as another. There were a finite number of parts people could play. And she was just playing one of them, concealing it a little better than most.
Tess whispered again in his ear: “You answer to me, now.”
Series
- Part 1 of Night Fever, a Tess/Joel 1970s AU
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Levi's 505 by Arien for elfin (finnelfin)
Fandoms: The Last of Us (TV), The Last of Us (Video Games)
30 May 2024
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Summary
Tess and Joel make sure his new jeans fit the way they're supposed to.
Series
- Part 16 of Drifters, a book of Tess and Joel