The In-Between Places
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Listing Series
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Muscle Memory by Bumblepony for Ameerawrites
Fandoms: The Last of Us (Video Games), The Last of Us (TV)
24 Sep 2023
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Summary
“Well, kid, it looks like you got a case of hand, foot, and mouth disease,” Joel says while pulling the sock off her other foot and verifying that, yes, the spots are there too.
“What you say? Nose, ear, and tongue disease?” Ellie asks, her arm now flung over her head on her makeshift pillow.
“No hand, foot, and mouth.”
“Elbows, knees, and toes?” She says, a little twist of her lip being the only thing that gives her away.
"Har har, you're hilarious."
IE: Ellie gets sick a week out from Kansas City, and Joel has to take care of her.
Series
- Part 5 of Bad Things Happen All the Time
- Part 1 of The In-Between Places
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Inertia by Bumblepony for flannelfeelings
Fandoms: The Last of Us (Video Games), The Last of Us (TV)
07 Dec 2023
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Summary
“So is this just something you guys used to do all the time, or was it like a special occasion thing?” Ellie stands by a dilapidated windmill, pushing the blades that still miraculously spun.
“Well, for us, it was a once-in-a-while type of activity. Tommy really liked the one near us that had a waterfall.” Joel walks over to a kidney-shaped depression in the ground filled with standing water. Faded green outdoor carpet, ripped and torn lays beneath his feet.
“These places had waterfalls!” Ellie whistles, or at least tries to, as she squats down and peers into the hole at the base of the windmill.
“Little ones weren't real a’course. Man-made, but they looked neat when they was runnin’.” Joel crunches past the pool and moves around the corner, a mini-mountain off to his left.
“Joel! Holy shit, look what I found,” Ellie calls to him, and he spins around to see Ellie pulling her hand out of the hole she was peering into, a faded blue golf ball in her hand.
IE: Ellie and Joel Find a miniature golf course, shenanigans ensue, and Joel starts to find himself again.
Series
- Part 2 of The In-Between Places
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So I Hung My Head And Cried by Bumblepony
Fandoms: The Last of Us (Video Games), The Last of Us (TV)
11 Dec 2023
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Summary
“I think these are the ones,” she calls, and Joel’s head pops up from behind a shelf. He looks so much like one of those groundhogs he’d pointed out to her a couple of days back that Ellie can’t help laughing.
“What the hell’s wrong with you?” he asks, brow furrowed as she walks over to her.
“Nothing, it’s just you looked like one of those groundpigs from the other day,” Ellie smirks when Joel rolls his eyes and drops the basket on the floor, motioning for her to sit down so he can look at her boots.
“It’s a groundhog, kid. Now wiggle your toes for me,” Joel presses his thumb to the front of her boot and she wiggles her toes as requested. “That’s good. Got a little room to grow but not so much that you're gonna start chaffin’. How they feel to you?” His hands keep fiddling with the laces of the boots as she stares down at him. How the hell does he know all this stuff?
IE: Ellie and Joel make a stop to get some winter gear before making their way into Wyoming; Ellie learns some things about the past and about where she and Joel stand.
Series
- Part 3 of The In-Between Places
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He Shall Provide by Bumblepony for probsdeleteltr
Fandoms: The Last of Us (Video Games), The Last of Us (TV)
15 Mar 2024
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Summary
It only took one little girl with a messy ponytail, ratty-ass Converse sneakers, shitty puns, and a generally annoying personality to get his ass out of the grave he’d buried himself in all those years ago in Texas. One girl who was unwilling to give him up even after he told her ‘she wasn’t his daughter and he sure as hell wasn’t her dad’, failed her by getting stabbed and leaving her to fend for herself, shoved her away when she was trying to save his sorry carcass.
All it took was for her small, shaking, blood covered fingers to curl into his own for Joel to finally see that this girl owned him now. That she had carved his broken heart out of his chest, put all the pieces back together with spit and pure stubbornness, and now carried it around in her delicate, precious, grasping hands. There was no going back for Joel now.
IE: Post Episode 8, Joel finds himself again.
Series
- Part 15 of Tumblr Ficlets
- Part 4 of The In-Between Places
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Do You Ever Wonder by Bumblepony
Fandoms: The Last of Us (Video Games), The Last of Us (TV)
30 Mar 2025
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Summary
“You ever wonder what happened to them all?” Ellie asks, her face pressed nearly to the glass.
“No.” Joel keeps his eyes solidly on the road. He’d already had to dodge at least three potholes as big as a fucking German shepherd. He wasn't looking to pop a tire or, worse yet, crack an axle on their second day of driving.
“Dude, they're all just sitting there. You really never once wondered where all the soldiers went?” She turns to him, her eyes piercing.
IE: Joel and Ellie on the road. 5 times, Ellie wonders about things, and 1 time Joel does.
Series
- Part 5 of The In-Between Places
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Being Too Far Gone by Bumblepony for marchflower
Fandoms: The Last of Us (Video Games), The Last of Us (TV)
01 Mar 2025
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Summary
Maria comes to stand by him on the back porch, hands wrapped around the railing inches from his. She watches the sky change from black to lavender and pink, then orange and yellow. When she speaks it's quiet, measured, reasoning, “I think we should take some time apart.”
Tommy doesn't react at first, his gaze still locked on the horizon. It takes a few moments for her words to penetrate his reverie. When they finally do, his shoulders slump, his fingers tighten on the wood under his fingers, and his head turns to her. She doesn't look at him; just keeps her eyes on the sky.
He clears his throat, “You wanna take some time apart? What does that mean?”
“I think, it might be good for both of us to have some distance.”
“Distance from what?”
“From each other. From us.”
IE: Post Seattle Tommy and Maria and how they got to "We're takin' some time apart" and whether they were able to find their way back.
Series
- Part 6 of Tommy/Maria Week 2025
- Part 17 of Tommy and Maria Stories
- Part 6 of The In-Between Places
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A Testament to Sorrow and Joy by Bumblepony
Fandoms: The Last of Us (Video Games), The Last of Us (TV)
08 May 2025
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Summary
Ellie lies beneath the expansive blanket of night, one arm resting behind her head and the other on her belly, her Walkman clasped in her hand. A quilt made from squares of soft, worn flannel, lovingly stitched by Maria from different shirts of Joel’s, cushions her body from the hard ground. As she watches the stars travel across the sky, Ellie likes to run her fingers reverently across the fabric.
IE: Ellie thinks of Joel as she listens to the tape he gave her for her birthday
Series
- Part 7 of The In-Between Places
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Reachin' For The Bottom by Bumblepony
Fandoms: The Last of Us (Video Games), The Last of Us (TV)
26 Feb 2025
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Summary
Tommy sits on the floor, legs splayed out in front of him, hair hanging sticky and matted around his face, blood dripping from a cut at his hairline, a large reddish-pink bruise already forming around it. His arm, the one with the bone sticking out of it, is cradled in his lap by his uninjured hand. Panting, he looks up at her, eyes glassy with pain, “Somethin’ wrong with my arm, darlin’?”
“Jesus,” Maria kneels, yanking her bag from her shoulders, “The bone."
“Tis but a scratch.”
“Tommy, it’s coming out of your skin.”
“I’ve had worse.”
“What are you even saying right now.”
“It’s just a flesh wound.”
Maria pauses, hand on the trauma kit in her bag, and looks at him incredulously, “Tommy Miller, tell me you are not quoting Monty Python right now?”
IE: Maria and Tommy get in a tight spot with some raiders. People get hurt, and Tommy cracks some bad jokes.
Series
- Part 4 of Tommy/Maria Week 2025
- Part 15 of Tommy and Maria Stories
- Part 8 of The In-Between Places
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Poured Out Your Heart by Bumblepony
Fandoms: The Last of Us (Video Games), The Last of Us (TV)
23 Feb 2025
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Summary
“Damn it, damn it, damn it!” Maria swears, her voice hard to hear over the howling wind. Everything has been going reasonably well after their detour; the hill trail proves to be free of any unexpected dangers. But out of nowhere, the once clear sky turns dark, filling with ominous clouds, and the wind picks up, whipping fiercely around them. The horses huff and shy away, and it takes all their concentration to keep them calm.
“I think we need to find some shelter; I don’t like the looks of this,” Tommy calls to her, his voice sharp. Maria glances at him, her expression worried as she looks up at the churning clouds above them and nods in agreement.
IE: A surprise rainstorm hits Tommy and Maria on patrol. Emergency shelter is sought, a harrowing rescue ensues, and to top it all off, there's only one bed.
Series
- Part 12 of Tommy and Maria Stories
- Part 2 of Tommy/Maria Week 2025
- Part 9 of The In-Between Places
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The Night’s Arms by Bumblepony
Fandoms: The Last of Us (Video Games), The Last of Us (TV)
22 Feb 2025
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Summary
Tilting her head, Maria leans into him, their noses brushing against each other and his breath cooling her heated skin. The hairs of his mustache tickle the skin above her lip as his mouth pauses centimeters from hers, waiting. She presses forward, erasing the space between them.
At the forest edge, the buck, uninterested in the scene unfolding before it, turns and fades into the maze of pine trees.
IE: Maria and Tommy share a quiet moment by a lake.
Series
- Part 11 of Tommy and Maria Stories
- Part 1 of Tommy/Maria Week 2025
- Part 10 of The In-Between Places