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pettyprocrastination · 1 year

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Tess and Joel having their will-they-won’t-they going on until one day Joel walks in on you and Tess making out against the wall and goes ‘hey >:[ ’ because he’s secretly wanted Tess for a while and thought he was obvious wants to kiss her too

big thank you to @madhyanas and @thesadvampire for being my lovely readers and @alwaysbethewest for listening to my senseless rambles about this amazing woman

pairing: Tess Servopoulos x Fem!Reader

warnings: Mention of death, foul language, mention of violence because its TLOU lmao

____

Nostalgia was a deadly thing.

Tess learned this when she began smuggling six months after outbreak day.

Military bases were strict on what was allowed and what wasn't; everything vital- medicine, spare clothing, food- was kept under lock and key with the threat of execution if anybody even thought about taking it.

It started out of desperation. Sneaking extra pills to the parents whose daughter couldn't speak two words without her body shaking with a wet, rasping cough, snagging formula for the fifteen year old who had to take care of her four month old brother because her parents got gunned down on outbreak night and she’s all he has left, an act of kindness because Tess-Theresa was somebody with a bleeding heart.

But overtime, it began to dry out.

People didn’t stop asking- God no, they relied on her. But as time went on she began to set up prices. You want extra rations? Sure. Drugs? That’s fine. But it won’t come for free. She doesn’t slip past the guards every other month and risk getting bitten for charity.

There were others, of course. Who slipped from the shadows after every sanitation shift whispering promises of “I can get you good shit, I’m reliable” to those far too exhausted to question them before slipping ration cards into their pocket.

Which she didn’t mind. The QZ was big enough for more than a few businesses to take place beneath the glazed over eyes of FEDRA.

As time went on, it wasn’t the necessities that people wanted from her. They got themselves used to living half starved, eating whatever rations they could buy with their credits earned from burning bodies and cleaning up rubble from every Firefly attack the week before and washing it down with water that always tasted a little bit like iron.

They began to ask for small things. Weird things.

“Can you find this book for me?” “I had this toy as a little girl, and I want it for my son, you think you can get it? I’ll pay whatever you want.”

Things that weren’t necessary. Unneeded to survive in a world where the threat of death- be it by public execution of feeling your own body turn against you and meld into the fungal-fueled cannibalistic hive-mind you’ve been running from for the past twenty years.

But people didn’t want to survive anymore.

They wanted to live.

Hobbies, trinkets, CDs that skip on the same song every time because your kid scratched it a few weeks back but you don’t bother with getting a new one.

Domesticity became a drug that nobody could say they weren’t addicted to.

Anything that could give them a shred of the normalcy that they once had and took for granted before the world began to consume itself alive, rot and all.

That’s where you came in.

Tess wasn’t sure how you did it. What routes you used or what nights you snuck out from the QZ only to return the next morning with only a few bruises and a bag full of oddities to show for it.

She asked you once, after seeing you proudly display a stack of vintage playboys on your rickety dinner table that you claimed were already set up for a buyer.

All you did was smile.

“You’re gonna have to take me out to dinner first if you want me to spill all my dirty secrets.”

But there was an agreement. A sharing of stock and profits each week that came with an understanding. Protection in the shape of the shadow that followed her everywhere and hardly spoke whenever you were in the same room.

That’s why, when she first found the aged tube of lipstick, she thought of you.

It was essentially useless. Most likely years past its expiration date and its label was rubbed off through years of sitting in a building covered in rubble and dust that kept it hidden from wandering eyes until she found it on her latest run with Joel.

Somebody would buy it. A overworked mother in the QZ who spent her days working in the sun and the rot of the sanitation zone before going back home to a husband that ached just the same but still held her in his arms because they were all they had left. She’d shell out her hard earned money because it would give her a moment of relief where she could pretend she was still a housewife with three rambunctious young boys and a husband that despite his hemming and hawing loved it when she kissed him goodbye each day before he left for work.

When she hands it to you in a trade-off, off-handedly mentioning “maybe you can pawn this to somebody” after you trade her hunting equipment that's old enough to have gone dull but still sharp enough to be sought after, your eyes go wide and you snatch it from her hands.

“No fucking way.”

Tess watches the look of shock on your face melt into pure joy at the plastic tube you held like a trophy. Realization dawns on her and she nearly laughs at your reaction to something so small. “You used this shit?”

“Are you kidding me? This was my fucking staple! I had one in my car, my bag, and in my bathroom back home.” You turned over the small tube with a smile she hadn’t seen before. Not one of that smug confidence you always wore, but one that held memories of the life you once had.

“Crazy how small stuff like this gets through the cracks, right?”

“You should keep it.”

She shouldn’t have said that. Tess doesn’t keep merchandise, she sells it. She scrapes everything for a profit that's written down in a notebook so she can keep track to know who shorted her so she can get even but God- something about that look of pure unadulterated joy on your face made her speak out of turn and suddenly you looked at her like she had grown a second head and her face felt hot.

“Oh, god. No I- I couldn't, really.” You attempt to hand it back to her but she holds her hands up in surrender.

“It’s fine.”

It wasn’t. You had seen Tess send Joel out to scare those who ripper her off on bad deals countless times. Where he’d break their bones until they coughed up the money that was rightfully hers to the point where sometimes you’d look over your earnings in the dead of night just to make sure you didn’t have too much out of fear of the same happening to you someday.

But she insists. A scarred hand pushes against yours and her eyes lock onto yours before skirting around the room. “Really-'' Her lips pull into a tight smile and the room feels tense, but maybe that was just you. She had that effect. “I don’t think anybody else would want something like this.”

A lie. But one you accept nonetheless.

You nod, fingers curling around the tip of red lipstick and feeling that smile, the type you can’t help, grow on your face again until it spreads to Tess and you're both smiling like schoolgirls that have shared a secret on the playground.

“I uh. Thanks. I appreciate this.”

Tess wonders what you were like before the outbreak.

Were you always outgoing? The boisterous laugh that echoes in a crowded room and a smile that pulls people in even if they don’t want to. Did you wear this color- this deep crimson in the darkened corners of a restaurant while smiling at a stranger at the bar, pulling them closer until they are sitting next to you and offering to buy you another drink because they just can’t stop looking at you in that dress.

She imagines you putting it on in your bathroom mirror, back before the world began to eat itself alive. The counter of your sink is messy, but organized in a way that only makes sense to yourself. There’s a song playing from the hall and you absentmindedly sing-mumble the lyrics as you get ready for the day. A pet, maybe a dog- you seemed like the type, weaves between your legs and you reach down to scratch behind their ear before painting your lips red in the mirror. You’d pull back to check if any lines were out of place, running a finger along a smudge that dipped over your cupid's bow before pulling back and smiling at your reflection.

There’s a small scar that begins at the side of your chin and swipes up to the corner of your lip. Has it always been there?

“You should put it on.”

You whip your head towards her as if she has spoken another language. A silence settles over the two of you, she can hear the FEDRA guards outside shouting orders and the shuffling of feet from the floor above you both.

It’s too close. She’s teetering over a line she hasn’t crossed with anybody, not even Joel.

But where he holds her at arm's length, you welcome and challenge her further every time.

“Really?”

“Why not?” she shrugs. “It could be pretty.”

Tess wonders if you were married.

If there was somebody who wore your lipstick stains each night with a grumble as they wiped at their face, only further smearing your declaration of affection as you laughed by their side before kissing them again and again until they were rushing to unlock the front door and tug you inside behind them. Somebody you fell asleep with, curled under their arms and woke up to with bad breath and messy hair but you mumbled “g’morning” and kissed them just the same.

Somebody you loved.

Somebody you had a life with.

Somebody you watched get ripped from your arms when the world turned to shit on September 26th, 2003.

But none of it mattered, really. Who anybody was before the outbreak. Those people, the mothers and fathers, the soft spoken girlfriends and sweet neighbors who worked a 9 to 5 and went on date nights each saturday died when the cordyceps took over every body they found and the military gunned down each man, woman, and child in sight that couldn’t fit on base.

“How do I look?”

But she sees it- just for a moment. In your painted lips, ever so slightly smudged in the corner of your lips and the look in your eyes that makes her chest tighten in a way she hasn’t felt in years.

Tess sees somebody she would have watched run the crosswalk on a saturday morning, a mess of hair and a crooked smile would just barely glance in her direction before vanishing into the crowd onto the sidewalk but would refuse to leave her mind for the rest of the day.

When Joel returns to the apartment, he eats in silence as Tess tells him their next run will be in two weeks. Until then they have a stock of pills to sell and some additional supplies you handed off to last them for now.

He says nothing about the faint red smudge on the corner of her mouth, nor the one peeking out from the collar of her shirt.

#joel miller x tess servopoulos x reader #tess servopoulos x you #tess servopoulos x reader #wild child verse #sorry joel doesnt get any action this time but he WILL I PROMISE #i wrote this late at night so if it makes no sense thats why im sorry asdjkskj #i really hope tumblr doesnt fuck with the formatting before I have to go to practice #joel miller x tess servopoulos #wild child tag

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randomnameless · 12 days

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what do you think would realistically edelgerd's fate post AG?

We know Doylist wise she was Supreme Puppet'd to have her, somehow, survive (when we know how she reacts to military defeat in AM!) and removing all of her agency - Supreme Puppet was Puppet'd, so she cannot be hold accountable for what she did as Lobotogard, or with her regressed state, cannot be accountable the things she did with her mind intact.

I've already ranted about this special plot device to make sure the waifu escapes the axe and its sexist undertones, but damn if thinking about it to this day pisses me to no ends.

Faced with Regressed!Leader, Dimitri dgaf and moves on (or rather, away from her, reminiscing of AM - he has other things to do than to linger on his relationship with Supreme Leader).

I'd say -

Dimtri dgaf and leaves her to her own devices (which would be a nod to the "parley"? Now that Supreme Leader became one of the "weaks" what is she going to do? Bootstraps or rely on a support system she so much decried?) and move to Enbarr to put an end to the War.

But thinking in more serious terms?

His bannermen, friends and people wouldn't settle for anything else than Supreme Leader's death (maybe not on the gates on Enbarr?). She's the one who started this war and had so many people killed in her imperialist bid, so the only way Supreme Leader escapes death is with the Church.

Now, Supreme Puppet'd by Thales and maybe acknowledging Supreme Leader's second crust, Rhea might be more partial to her - she had been used as a plaything by Agarthans (hopefully she developped her racist tendencies after the experiments?) - and could see her as a victim.

On the other hand, she did start this war, and had more agency than expected given how she petitionned the CoS to war against the Agarthans who infiltrated her Empire - and yet, she still launched her attack on the monastery of her own free will.

Rhea is a compassionate person (Yuri still exists even after killing her knights!) so I think, with all things considered - Supreme Leader's status as a victim of Agarthans, Supreme Puppet and Lobotogard, but also, the war she declared and planned, sacking Garreg Mach, attacking the CoS both spiritually (the Southern Church thing was meant to be a direct "contradiction?" to what she preaches?) and martially, and MAGA > Peace - I'd say Rhea'd agree on not killing Supreme Leader, but at the only condition that she remains with the CoS, in something like her sentence will be to rebuild what she destroyed and mend the wounds she caused so that she might have a different outlook on Fodlan and its people (aka, not going all "i don't mind sacrificing them to reach my goals") when she will remember what she did/who she was, and/or will not become the same "tyrant" she was when she will "grow up" (mentally speaking?).

But that's at the only condition that she never gets to rule anything ever again or hold any kind of political power returning to Adrestia/Enbarr - if those conditions aren't met, she will be executed.

(and maybe to appease the people she's now supposed to work with, Rhea will lend her some old bottle of hairdye, maybe people will not see her as the former emperor who bled the continent for her whims, but as someone who is living a new life)

Rhea might thus "request custody" of Supreme Puppet and while the Kingdom might want her dead, the Church, as the main victim of the war, can have the last say (besides Dimitri might be relieved that Supreme Leader will not be executed), however, the Church asks to everyone present to tell their people that the "Supreme Leader who declared this war of unification died and is no more", maybe taking her crown and Aymr away, as proof she's "dead".

It sounds a bit too merciful coming from Rhea, when we see her in Tru Piss and with her history as Seiros the Warrior - but post!AG!Rhea imo is in a different mood, first of all, with Thales gone there are no people who will target Nabateans because of their race (so no genocide PTSD anymore?) and/or try to make new relics, and unlike the events of FE16, Rhea spent the last few years living with humans who demonstrated they could be trustworthy and actually helped her when she was in need (tfw Rhea doesn't know about Dimitro).

I can see her having more faith in humans and a future in Fodlan for everyone post!AG, as Dimitri and the Kingdom people seem to be trustworthy, than in FE16 when all of the events we play through in WC are basically triggering her genocide trauma (people hunting bones and crest stones, killing Jerry, turning her beloved wards in demonic beasts, some people targeting her for no plausible reason (unless the Western Church knew she had pointy ears?), Hresvelg becoming the new Nemesis, etc...)

That being said...

If Clout tries, during the epilogue, to take a shot at Rhea - when people are celebrating the end of the war - I cannot see things not turning sour for him.

Granted, if you want realism, Clout and GW cannot function because they expect the people involved to be completely stupid, but for this AU's sake, let's say Clout and Dimitro had their heart to heart in Zahrofl, he holds her at Failnaught range and demands her death/resignation/removal of her church.

If he shots and kills her (because Rhea would have dropped her guard, thinking she is surrounded by allies!), I cannot see anyone/anything preventing Claude from being dismembered/slaughtered in the seconds after Rhea's death - not even Dimitro because, hey, Clout said he will accept the consequences of his actions to "change" Fodlan, right? - by Church forces, Kingdom forces and, if we want to push the realism card, even Alliance forces (why the fuck did he do that? Maybe it's a weird doppelganger like those dark mages use! Or Erwin will behead him himself - sure this guy did that, but he doesn't represent the Alliance!).

In the chaos and confusion following Rhea's death, Supreme Leader is executed ("if she never started her war, nothing like this would have ever happened") and Fodlan is fucked when Sothis eventually pops up.

If Clout only holds Rhea at "Failnaught range" and she wonders wtf and asks him to explain - while the entire host of people from, again, the Kingdom, the CoS and KoS, the former BL and maybe some peeps from the GD and Leicester are there - Clout gives his bonker

"Who steals your freedom and gives you an endless list of duties and obligations simply because you have a Crest? Who forces you and your friends into a bunch of unwanted marriages and positions of power? The church even forbids any official contact with outside regions! Not exactly great for Faerghus, right? Being as close to Sreng and Albinea as you are."

reasons, Rhea's first reaction might be to crush him (because now she's on guard!) but if Dimitro says this is not a matter partaining to Faerghus and would rather stay aside (which would throw a wrench in Rhea's previous belief that humanity can be trusted again!) the CoS/Kos, Kingdom and Alliance people might just call crap and bullshit and debunk his baseless accusations (rekindling Rhea's faith in people and Fodlan?) from Annette telling him that they already trade with Albinea, Duscur generals and even Dedue telling him they witnessed the Church helping them regardless of their place of birth, Ingrid saying that her marriage to Glenn had not be organised or planned by the Church, but out of the affection they both had for each other and Ashe telling him those obligations and duties he seems to resent don't exist because he has a crest, but out of a genuine desire to help people.

Maybe we can add Judith wondering wtf is going on with Clout-boy, has he forgotten people get responsabilities and duties because they want them or because Nobility exists well beyond Fodlan's borders? "And I thought you had more common sense than this!"

A Goneril bannerman/loldier might add that the Archbishop asked them to treat Almyran as something else than nuisances and parasites when she came to visit and left with an Almyran kid in tow, but hey - they always attack them for no reason and create strife in Goneril for no reason, haven't they attacked just before the Academy closed?

Basically everyone debunking his claims, Clout realising that said claims were sprouted from his ass so he gets some tissue and wipes it clean.

Clout then relents (tfw no allies to support him) and the Alliance's roundtable finally vote to elect a branch member of the Riegan fam as head of the House - Clout leaves Failnaught and departs "somewhere far away".

(maybe he returns as Almyra's King later on, or as a crown prince, with a treaty/offer of peace, wishing for prosperity between the two lands).

-> all jokes aside and in a more serious setting, even with Dimitro not outwardly condemning him, Clout's course of action would be frowned upon by every party - Alliance included - and depending on his involvment, Dimitro himself might be challenged by his vassals/friends "Sure it's not about Faerghus' safety, but are we really going to let this guy target and ice and bring more chaos by eliminating our ally - who repaid our hospitality with kindness and supported our war efforts - when the Alliance refused to assist us when the Empire swore to Make Adrestia Great Again and warred against us?"

Granted, in this more serious setting, Dimitro doesn't exist because the plot doesn't bend backwards to accomodate Clout so...

Even if Clout doesn't try to ice Rhea asap and waits maybe 8 months after GM's recovery and the end of the war, I cannot see the Lords of the Alliance - when they can try to do "business as usual" with the former Adrestia lands - endorse a military campaing against the Church to, uh, decalcify Fodlan's current order to put YOLO in place. Clout suggesting this is basically handing to Erwin/anyone reason enough to depose him from his seat as Riegan's representative (the alliance has more to win with rebuilding Adrestia/Fodlan than to wage a pointless war that will alienate everyone and leave their backs open to an Almyran attack), and he either runs away to Almyra or dies in a pointless attempt to start a civil war/rebellion to garner troops to target the Church.

For sure this looks like an ideal "and everything ends good AU!" but in a more serious setting, where people have common sense and don't suddenly hold idiot plot balls to make sure Clout seems to have a point... his POV doesn't hold under scrutiny and no one can normally follow him, unless they have another agenda (Make Leicester Great Again?)

#anon #replies #3 nopes #tbh if you want a serious setting in Nopes #erase GW from the plot #while I can see an alliance with Adrestia I can't see the Federation existing without serious civil unrest in Leicester #we bow to no king and no emperor cannot be overthrown in one night by Clout who listened to Barney #in b4 Supreme Leader when she recovers her memories still want to throw a continental war to unify the world #it will depend on how far in MAGA + lizards bad Supreme Leader was before the experiments #Rhea's anger at Supreme Leader is qualmed in this AG AU bcs she realises Supreme Leader was puppet'd by Agarthans #and yet actions have consequences #let her heal and help the ones she maimed #what happens in Adrestia though? I guess it's under Faerghus' jurisdiction #and it either becomes a hell hole or is a temporary hell hole until some random becomes Emperor or tris to make a government #maybe a republic? Even if we know how they end in the FE verse...#sorry anon i disgressed on clout when you asked about supreme puppet but #they go hand in hand in this game #and i happened on a fanfic i'm not fond of so here goes

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