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Tommy has always been a horrific meddler.
He started at age 5 trying to run between their parents convincing one to apologize to the other, fabricating scenarios at any opportunity to get them alone together and somehow on a unified front. Somehow that front had always been “being upset with Joel.”
That hadn’t worked out all that well, but it didn’t deter Tommy from messing in other people’s business. He just wanted to help make people happy. If he got something out of it – all the better.
He quickly graduated to scheming in the lunchroom – setting up his Math and English teachers because “maybe if they had more to do outside of school, they wouldn’t want to spend all weekend grading stupid assignments.”
That had worked out remarkably better, in a way that gained him confidence in his worthiness to slide himself right into anyone else’s life.
His group of army buddies would have said the same. Somehow, whenever they got to make a call, Tommy was right there, leaning against the wall and gesturing pointedly for them to say whatever it was he’d insisted that would make sure their girls back home stuck around until they could get back themselves.
Joel could spot Tommy’s meddling from a mile out. Joel had dodged attempted set ups and pulled Tommy out of more than one bind just because he caught an idea about a couple of people he didn’t really know all that well. Joel had been pestered about every girl he’d ever liked his entire life and plenty that he didn’t like at all.
“Come on,” Tommy would plead, “this one’s different. You’re gonna like her. Can’t hurt to have a drink, Right?”
“A drink,” Joel huffed, “One.”
*
When Sarah’s mom left, and it was just him and Tommy and a screaming 6-month-old little girl – it almost stopped. If it hadn’t, Joel couldn’t have noticed. He was so sleep deprived from the baby, from work, that he could barely string a comprehensible sentence together most days, much less worry about anything outside of his bubble made of dirty diapers and architects who didn’t know shit about the city code.
And then Sarah learned how to talk. And she was an actress. And Joel would do just about anything she asked if she just asked for it right. And Tommy could not have loved her more. It only works few times on Joel before he catches wise. Sarah still learning how to whisper and Tommy too meticulous about their scheme. It wasn’t much, a date here or there, sleepover or two, before he’d call it off – “too busy anyway,” he said once, “Can’t have Sarah finish raising you before she graduates high school.”
*
Everything went to shit, as everything is wont to do in a world overtaken by infection. The meddling was different after that. The goal couldn’t be happiness anymore, just survival. It turned from prying questions about girls to prying empty bottles from his brother’s white knuckled grip. Lighthearted teasing transitioned to questions like “are you sure you’re ok,” that were heavier than either of them could carry – even with both trying as best as they could.
It increased in intensity and frequency when Tommy went off to hunt one day on the road and heard a shot go off behind him just as he’d sighted a deer. The scattering caws and sharp wingbeats of a dozen birds ringing in his ears for over a decade. Meddling turned to fear and mistrust which bred anger and resentment. They hadn’t spoken in weeks when he left with the fireflies.
*
He got in good with Jackson. He was still good with his hands and still had a knack for planning out a build. He was a better shot than near anyone else in town. He was happy. These people liked him, for the most part, he wanted them to be happy. And he wanted the credit for it.
Maria caught on pretty quick. She saw him leaning at the bar, then making his way to a table in the corner to sit down and start a conversation that would have whoever he was talking to looking back up at the bar by a few minutes in. It was harmless, and funny. Friendly gossip was good for town morale and Tommy was a masterful progenitor.
It wasn’t until he started to meddle with her that she said anything about it - too many drinks deep at the first communal event Jackson had hosted since he arrived.
“Tommy Miller, you’re in everybody’s business but your own, you know that?.” She snapped, side- eying him on the barstool next to her.
Tommy had quirked the goofiest smirk she’d ever seen, the twang and drawl of his voice exaggerated by the whiskey. “We’ll I don’t know about everybody’s, but I’d like to be - “
“Damn boy, who raised you?” Maria choked a laugh and smacked him across the shoulder. If she wasn’t half as lost on him as she was, she might have left.
Tommy had just smiled, but his eyes went just a little dimmer, “my brother,” he said. “Joel. Can’t say he did well, but he put in a good effort.”
Maria’s grin dropped just a little, “It makes sense that you were raised by a teenaged boy considering you still act like one.” She poked back, keeping it light.
Tommy shrugged and leaned in a little closer, eyes sparkling, “you have no idea.”
*
Ellie didn’t have an ounce of Sarah’s proclivity for acting and scheming. She had the kind of anxious sharpness only people who’ve lived outside of walls can have, and the worst poker face he’d ever seen. But they both had Joel. Joel, who after showing up at his gates for a second time was somehow more tired and more beaten down than when he arrived from Boston. He looked worse with a smile and deeper worry lines across his forehead than he had just a few months prior. It didn’t take much to meddle out what had happened the few states over. It took much more to meddle the two into a sort of routine that involved anyone but themselves.
Joel was a hard nut to crack, having had over half of their lives watching him try to get involved in anything he could.
Ellie was more like squishing a blueberry that wasn’t quite ripe. Dina was already a huge fan of Tommy. She was a huge fan of gossip and Tommy always had the juiciest details because when you work your way into people’s good graces, you get a much bigger picture of what’s going on around you because when you work your way into people’s good graces, they like to tell you things. Not that Tommy went around airing out everyone’s dirty laundry. He just happened to know what was going on. If Dina sidles up next to the mare he’s grooming and offers good intel to trade, that’s their business.
So it didn’t take more than a word here or a nudge there for Ellie to awkwardly make her way to a Dina who was already primed to be more than patient while joining the noble effort that was trying to domesticate his nearly feral niece. Just a coincidence that they started spending time together, then more. That one thing led to another over the years is awarded substantial clout in his Meddling Hall of Fame. That it gave him a truly limitless fodder to pick and tease at Ellie with until she was snapped back into her grounded reality that she had safe, normal teen girl problems – that was just icing on the cake.