Curate, connect, and discover
this is for the new Tess Lives / fungus fuckery fic I'm working on. I wanted the first chapter to be up but the fic as a whole is requiring more planning than I expected (read: my science education kicked in and I've had to come up with full fungal evolution plans which has required a shit ton of show research because my brain kept picking wholes in what I had. this is the result of a STEM degree apparently)
the current plan is alongside our favourite characters that each chapter will contain some sort of FEDRA / fireflies notes and or propaganda about what they know about cordyceps, so have the first one now!
A formal announcement of the changes to Quarantine Procedure 48.1.3, 48.2.3, 48.6.2, and 48.6.4, authorised by FEDRA Director for the Denver QZ, Andrew Wirral, 19th January 2024. The new Quarantine Procedures read as follows, with changes in bold, followed by the previous rules in italics: 48.1.3 Testing positive for cordyceps is thus defined as meeting any of the following criteria: - A positive test using a FEDRA regulation scanner. - A visibly infected bite (defined as tendrils further than 3mm (extending) from the teeth marks). - At least two (any of) the below symptoms: Severe and continuous muscle spasms Slurred speech Increased aggression Coughing combined with yellowing eyes 48.2.3 On arriving at a Quarantine Zone, anyone testing positive for cordyceps will be subject to humane euthanasia. If the arrival tests negative for cordyceps, they will be held in a quarantine cell for no less than 72 hours (a maximum of 36 hours), at which point they will be retested. If they test negative again at this time, they will be allowed into the Quarantine Zone for a probationary period of three months, after which they will be recognised as full citizens of the Quarantine Zone. AND 48.6.2 In the event of a suspected outbreak within the rules, FEDRA is explicitly permitted to (may) ignore the normal rights of the residents (detailed in FEDRA Regulations 48.9) until the outbreak is under control and there is no further risk to the integrity of the Quarantine Zone. AND 48.6.4 After suspected contact with an infected in the event of an outbreak, FEDRA retains the right to place the resident into a quarantine cell for no less than 72 hours (a maximum of 36 hours) to ensure no further transmission.
The first (and last) times Joel sees, hears, smells, touches, and tastes Tess.
This is the prequel of sorts to my new Tess Lives series, I wanted to explore Tess and Joel a bit more before I let them be happy and back together. It focuses on how they met and the very early part of the outbreak.
Rating: M
Words: 3k
Warnings: Major character death (does it count if she's not actually dead?), standard violence levels for TLOU.
Full fic below the cut if you'd rather read it here!
Joel Miller's first sight of Theresa Servopoulos was through a rifle scope, watching her dig a knife behind a man's knee cap until he began to speak. He and Tommy had been tailing her group of eight for a few days now, trying to work out where they were headed. In their experience, a group of that size moving purposefully meant some sort of settlement, and they desperately needed to trade for ammo that would actually fit their guns.
This, though, was a surprise. Tommy had clocked pretty fast that the group was divided into two or possibly three smaller groups, the tension rising steadily as time went on. They'd been expecting some shouting and the group splitting, not the only woman of the group, long auburn hair tied back with a bandanna, to stab someone in a way designed to maximise pain and avoid killing them. Joel should probably have found it less attractive than he did.
He turned to Tommy, who was still watching the scene through his rifle scope.
‘Any idea what's happening?’ he asked his brother, lifting the binoculars back up to his face.
‘Think one of the men made the mistake of coming onto her,’ Tommy answered, ‘definitely put hands on her at least, she didn't start it.’
‘As long as they still head towards the settlement,’ Joel responded, dropping the binoculars and picking up his rifle and heading back to the edge of the woods, ‘you keep watch, I'll sort dinner.’
~~~~~~~
The first time Joel heard Tess speak was three days later, when he was sitting on watch beside his and Tommy's stuff, rifle loose in his hands as his brother slept next to him. She slipped through the trees, silent as a ghost, gun loose at her side, and sat opposite him on the other side of the fire, ignoring the gun pointed at her chest entirely.
‘I’ll tell you where the nearest settlement is if you take me with you. I know you've been tailing the people I'm with, and the amount of firearms you have on you suggests you probably need ammo, as food doesn't seem to be an issue,’ she said, nodding towards the deer carcass hanging across the clearing. Her accent wasn’t local, Joel may have lost track of exactly where they were - Tennessee he thought, but he couldn’t be sure - but she was from significantly further north than whenever they were, most likely Midwestern.
‘How’d you know we were here?’ Joel responded brusquely, gun not wavering at all.
‘The rifle scope is reflective. First couple times I wrote it off, but by the third day it was clear someone was tailing us,’ she said, pulling a water bottle out of her pack.
‘Why wouldn't ya’ just go with your group?’
‘They aren't my group. I've been temporarily travelling with them, and that temporary period is now over, given I stabbed one of them. I'd really rather not travel alone, and since you and your brother haven't tried to kill us, rape me, or steal all our shit yet, you're my best option.’
‘We’re a shitty option.’
‘And that would be why I said best, not good. Try anything, I'll stab you too,’ she said, before picking a pinecone from beside her foot and lightly throwing it at Tommy, who sat up, gun loaded and pointed at her before he was fully awake. ‘Impressive,’ she mused, not reacting to the now pair of guns pointed at her.
‘Oh, it's you,’ Tommy said, blinking sleep from his eyes. ‘Wait, why are you here?’
‘We’re travelling to the next settlement together. I know where it is, you don't, and I would like not to go alone. I'm meeting the rest of my group there,’ Tess said coolly.
‘’Kay. D’ya have to wake me up early for that, though? I was hopin’ for more sleep,’ Tommy said, putting the gun down and going to roll over.
‘Tommy!’ Joel hissed, still holding the gun.
‘What? She knew we were followin’ her and she found us here so she's clearly competent, and besides if she wanted us dead she would have shot ya’ before I woke up. She's goin’ where we want to go and is willin’ to take us there. Plus this way we can split watches three ways, this is a win for all of us. Now pipe the fuck down, I'm sleepin’. We can leave at dawn,’ Tommy said, gesturing vaguely with the hand not holding a gun. Tess may not have had much experience with firearms (she hadn't learnt to use one before the outbreak, and hadn't found someone to teach her properly since. The one she carried was more for show than anything else, her words normally enough to keep her safe and a pair of daggers filling in when words weren't enough), but she knew just enough to be impressed by the younger man's trigger discipline even when half asleep.
‘Works for me,’ Tess said, shrugging and pulling a sleeping bag out her rucksack - a warm one, Joel noted, much thicker than his and Tommy's. She crawled inside (clothes and shoes still on, pack neatly fastened and ready to grab to leave at a moments notice, gun loaded and tucked next to her, same as Tommy's), rolled her eyes at the sight of Joel still staring at her, and rolled away from him.
~~~~~~~
The following morning, Joel learnt what she smelled like. He’d kept his gun on her the rest of the night, splitting his attention between her and the woods in case it was a trap. She’d woken with dawn by herself, slipping out of her sleeping bag and going to relieve herself (taking the gun, but leaving her gear, Joel noted), and had arrived back as Joel began prodding Tommy to wake up. Tommy hadn’t been good with mornings and getting up on time since he was teenager, and despite Joel's hopes time in the army had made that habit worse rather than better. She had pulled a granola bar out of her bag, and set up a pan of water over a small camping stove before heating water up, and pulling out a sachet of instant coffee. As Joel moved past her to get to the rest of their water supply to put out the remainder of the fire, he realised her gear apparently stretched to perfume, the scent of woodsmoke and coffee mixing with lavender and jasmine.
‘Ya’ got a good setup there,’ Tommy said, looking on jealously as she made up a large mug of coffee, adding several packets of sugar to it, as well as what looked rather a lot like long life milk.
‘Lots of stuff around if you know where to look,’ she shrugged, going to sip her drink before realising her coffee was definitely still too hot to not burn her mouth, putting it back down as she rolled up the sleeping bag and tucked it away. By the time her coffee was almost cool enough to drink and poured into a thermos to take with her, she had not only packed up but messed with the leaves and branches so you couldn’t tell anyone had been sleeping there.
They set off soon after, Tess pulling out a compass and a paper map (the same one Joel and Tommy had, not that it seemed to be doing them much good) and striding off past Joel to begin a long day of hiking, leaving nothing but the scent of jasmine in the air.
~~~~~~~
The first time Joel touched Tess beyond shoulders brushing as they walked or made dinner together (they had shared rations in Tess’ group so the food tasted better, plus it was much easier to justify having a decent selection of spices if everyone only had to carry the equivalent to one spice jar) was three weeks into knowing each other, when he ended up holding the skin of her stomach together as someone else stitched up a stab wound. This was certainly not how he wanted to first touch her skin and find out if it was as soft as it looked.
He was careful not to touch anything more than necessary or even look too closely at her mostly naked upper torso, to the point Tess would have thought the blood was making his queasy if she didn't know how little blood bothered him, or her, or Tommy, or the rest of their group. She thought it was funny, in a way, how respectful he was being while she was bleeding out. The group medic, an EMT before cordyceps, had cut her shirt down the front to get to her abdomen as fast as possible, then barked at Joel (the nearest person) to hold her still while he stitched her up, so Joel ended up with one hand on her hip bone, fingers brushing what he recognised as a C section scar, and the other spanning her entire rib cage, covering the pair of tattoos there and holding her still as she tried not to scream, the medic suturing as fast as could before tipping rubbing alcohol on the wound to try to sterilise it.
Tommy, still attempting to cover the four of them from the hunters firing at the them while the rest of their group picked them off one by one, glanced back in panic as Tess’ blood made its way across the floor in a river of blood towards him, soaking his trouser leg as he knelt. Joel, still trying to hold Tess still as she got stitched up, didn't move as her hand clung on to his arm hard enough to bruise, her eyes screwed shut with the pain. Even after the medic sat back on his heels, after Tommy and the others had dealt with the other group, Tess and Joel stayed as they were, his hands on her torso, her fingers digging into his elbow as her forehead moved to rest on his bicep as she breathed through the pain.
~~~~~~~
The first time he tasted Tess came a few weeks after she got stabbed, when the group found a liquor store. After drawing straws on who got to stay sober and on guard, everyone else had started drinking, enjoying spirits that most of them would never have been able to afford before cordyceps. Tommy was gleefully partaking in the drinking games (truth or dare, never have I ever, spin the bottle, and a bunch of other juvenile shit Joel was pretty sure people only did in college), whilst Joel and Tess passed a bottle of fancy gin between them, sitting next to each other a little further back from the bonfire.
‘God, I remember being young enough to think that was a good idea,’ Tess said, looking at the others playing games and swigging deeply before passing the bottle back to Joel.
‘Ya’ say that like it was a long time ago,’ Joel said, looking at her. She looked younger than him and Tommy, but he couldn't tell anything beyond late twenties.
‘Certainly feels like it, honestly felt like it before cordyceps too. Think I was done after I ended up getting a tattoo on a dare, then just started skipping straight to the drinking or drugs,’ she shrugged. ‘And besides, it's rude to ask a lady's age, Texas, didn't your Ma ever teach you manners?’
‘She did, hence why I didn't ask. Any information ya’ offer up in response to my statement is on you,’ he said, blushing slightly at being caught, his accent thickening.
Tess laughed, deep and full bodied, limbs heavy and loose from the alcohol.
‘I’m 27. Was born in ‘77. You?’
‘Thirty four,’ Joel responded, ‘Tommy turned 30 last month.’
‘Oh, so he's old now!’ Tess grinned.
‘The fuck does that make me?’
‘Distinguished. A silver fox. Han-’
‘I’m ain't going grey!’ Joel protested, cutting Tess off.
‘Oh?’ she said, rolling her eyes and carefully placing the gin bottle down, then twisting to straddle his lap, all her weight on top of him. He froze, before his arms quickly came up to hold her waist as she listed to one side, steadying her as best he could.
‘Then what, pray tell, is this?’ she said, hands finding a lock of hair and gently tugging, ‘because I hate to break it to you, Texas, but this ain't brown any more.’
Joel's breath caught in his throat as her hands gently combed through his her, their bodies pressed together, his mouth at the same height as her collarbone. He had a sudden impulse to lean forward and press his lips to it, and was halfway there before Tess tugged on his hair again, tilting his head up to look at her.
‘And what do you think you're doing?’ she asked, a twinkle in her eye that Joel was coming to realise meant she was fucking with someone (usually him).
‘I - nothing,’ he said, swallowing as one of her hands came down to his neck, her thumb pressing lightly on the side of his neck.
‘Well that won't do at all,’ Tess murmured, looking down at him, ‘if you aren’t doing anything you might have to think for once, and we can't have that.’ She bowed her head so their foreheads were touching, lips almost brushing his as she spoke.
‘Can I kiss ya’ now, darlin’?’ Joel asked, hands tightening slightly on her waist, carefully avoiding any pressure on the still healing knife wound. Tess smiled at him, a different smile to her usual fake one, and pressed their lips together softly for a few moments.
She tasted of the gin they'd been drinking for the last few hours, the stew they'd had for dinner, the spearmint gum she chewed while they walked. Her hand tangled in his hair as she pulled him back towards her, licking into his mouth as her other hand settled along his jaw, thumb brushing his cheek. And while their lips were pressed together, bodies tangling, laughing as they tried and failed to make it to where Tess was sleeping without falling over, Joel felt his world narrow until it contained only the woman in front of him, freckles barely visible and hair redder than normal in the firelight, Tess turned into flames set to burn him up in her wake. He welcomed it.
~~~~~~~
He realised, after he got Ellie to Lincoln, that he could barely remember all the last good times, not wanting those memories to belong to the ending they'd been dealt.
The last time her saw her remained in his head, the image on repeat of her begging him to take Ellie (as though he wouldn't, as though either of them would ever abandon a child, no matter how much it might hurt them to care for someone who wasn't the one child they wanted with them), arm shaking, the bite on her neck angry and fungus tendrils already snaking out from the wound. The scent of blood and dirt covering her jasmine lotion (the one luxury she afforded herself, always keeping it for herself if they found it or traded it), the shake in her voice as she spoke. She'd always had a way with words, a way of telling people what they wanted to hear and making them think her ideas were their own, so it killed him to hear her weakness, hear her losing what made him love her. The salt from the sweat on her forehead as he kissed her there, not wanting to risk pressing a kiss to her lips in goodbye. The feeling of her hand squeezing his as she told him to run.
Instead, he tried to focus on the good memories.
The last time he'd tasted her, a few days before they'd met Ellie, falling into bed together after a successful run, his head between her thighs as her hands tangled in his hair, holding him there until she was sated, kissing the taste of her off his lips.
The smell of her after she'd showered, making use of a rare period of hot water, the scent of her shampoo (rose scented, this time, a gift from Frank from last time they were in Lincoln) and lotion drifting into his nose as she curled around him in bed, her hair falling onto his chest.
The sight of her the morning before Robert’s men had beaten her up, perched on the kitchen counter and laughing at a joke, hair falling loose in waves around her shoulders in a way she never let it when they were working, wearing one of his shirts and a pair of long socks to combat the cold. He was attempting to cook eggs for breakfast, out of practice after so many years.
The sound of her talking to Ellie as they worked their way through Boston, trying to settle the girl (and him, Joel knew) and distract from the corpses littered around. Her voice as she spoke to Marlene, getting exactly what she wanted while Marlene thought she was getting a good deal. Her quiet words as they went to sleep the first night outside the walls, promises that they’d be okay, that the fireflies would take Ellie, that they’d go and find Tommy wherever he’d ended up.
The feel of her head on his thigh, using him as a pillow as he kept watch over her and Ellie, one of her hands curled around his leg as though to keep him close as one of his hands carded through her hair, gently working out the tangles as she slept, the skin on the back of her neck soft and smooth.
~~~~~~~
He clung to those memories later, sitting by the river, recounting them with each stone he added to her cairn - one for each sense, first and last, until ten stones sat neatly, one atop each other, the best grave he could give the woman he'd loved for so long. He briefly wished he would’ve been able to bury her properly, before remembering a long rant she’d gone on at one point about funerals being dumb and pointless. It made him feel better, at least, to know that she wouldn’t have wanted him to make a big deal of it. The way he mourned her was the same way he’d loved her: quiet, understanded, but always present, and always there.