Just Bumblin' Along

Absolute perfection by @kenobiwanx . I keep staring at their expressions and am so in love.

✶ through your pain shine for us ✶

okay so im thinking like tommy maria and talia are out on a patrol sometime down the line in my fear of heights verse

something goes wrong and they basically get ambushed by some desperate men looking to steal their food and weapons and probably worse

tommy and maria both push talia out of the way and try to handle things because, as good as shes gotten with her gun, theyre both the type to take the lead in a dangerous situation like this one

so its tommy and maria against maybe three/four dudes. tommy takes out one with a quick shot, maria takes out the other with swift throw of her axe, and they take the third one down together, tommy rushing him when he tries to shoot at talia and maria knocking him out with a pistol whip to the head

tommy moves to check that talia didnt get shot; he turns his back just soon enough that he doesnt see another raider coming out of the bushes a few years away, pointing at his back with a pistol. maria doesnt think, she just moves. tries to get tommy out of the way

and then she’s down

she hears talia scream and tommy shout and then another shot, but shes in too much pain to make sense of what any of that means. she’s on the forest floor—when did she get on the floor—and her side feels like its on fire. someone is groaning out a panicked “fuck, fuck, fuckfuckfuck,” right next to her ear, and it’s annoying the fuck out of her. she wishes they would stop

“stop, maria, stop, just breathe. i got ya, just breathe. fuck! talia, gimme, your fuckin’ jacket!”

ah. it’s her. she stops. suddenly tommy’s face is above her, but it’s sort of not his face: it’s more warped than she’s ever seen it. his mouth is turned down in a frown so deep, the corners of his mustache are almost at his chin. his brows are furrowed so close together that he looks like he has a unibrow, nose and forehead tense—it reminds her, suddenly, of squidward tentacles’s house. maria snorts at the thought, then groans and winces—the fire comes back anew, and she tries to push away the hands that press down on them, making things burn worse.

“fuckin’ stop, maria, let me see!”

“owww—!” maria tries to stop her pained groaning by gritting her teeth, squeezing her eyes shut, but barely finds reprieve.

“keep your eyes open, maria,” talia says, somewhere on her left. maria hears her bag rustling frantically, and takes a second to thank every god out there upon remembering that talia has a knack for emergency first aid. she’s panicking as she speaks, a little, but she gives maria good advice: “just keep your eyes open, okay? it’s just a graze, it’s just a graze! you’ll be okay, but you need to stay awake. don’t pass out.”

maria heeds her directions, looking up into tommy’s grumpyface once again. she feels him press down, and the fires grow worse. her hands comes up to clench like claws around his wrists, as she groans, “fucking ow, tommy! shit! motherfucker!”

“don’t motherfucker me! what you were fuckin’ thinking? takin’ a fuckin’ bullet, like a goddamn fuckin’ idiot—!”

“that’s really not helpful right now, tommy,” talia tries, somewhere right above them now. it doesn’t stop maria from responding, of course. nothing would—not even a bullet would, apparently.

“are you—? are you seriously fucking mad at me right now?”

“you’re goddamn right i’m mad at you right now—!”

“guys—,”

“tommy, he was going to shoot you!”

“so what, you gettin’ shot is a better solution?”

“guys—!”

“i’m fucking fine! you heard talia! it’s barely a graze!”

“you’re bleeding onto my fuckin’ hands right now, maria! please, i love you, but shut the hell up!”

And again Maria throw herself in front of him because he was not paying attention, he was too late again and she's bleeding from her side, and she's gasping from pain. And Tommy is just in his head, spiraling as the two images start to superimpose on one another. And suddenly he's shaking and he can't breathe and now Talia's got two people she has to deal with.

Like Talia is finally able to get him get it together and they get Maria back to the clinic in Jackson. He's silent and supportive through getting Maria all checked out and good to go. He walks her back home and they end up fighting in her living room. Maria is expecting a lecture from him and it starts that way but then Tommy starts to unravel and talking about how he's always too late and he's not gonna be able to keep her safe.

im torn between tommy not being able to emotionally regulate in the moment bc of his ptsd triggers and getting upset in the moment (once it’s pretty clear it’s just a graze and she’ll obviously be okay) and waiting to be pissed until after they’re back in jackson and she’s all patched up, which is more along what i imagine joel would do. either way he’d be pissed bc he wouldn’t know how to handle that trigger/fear

but yeah i def feel bad for talia 😭 homegirl is trying to patch up a bullet would and these two are bickering 😭 im just imagine maria to have a CRAZY high pain tolerance bc of her chronic pain thing too, so she’s on the floor but still basically like “its just a GRAZE tommy will you stop FREAKING OUT”

and then after a deeper convo about him being triggered sarah (maybe she knew at this point that she died and he watched, but not exactly how), she understands more why he freaked the way he did

Also, I am so here for the comedic relief of Talia just being like "Not my circus, not my monkeys" once she gets back to Jackson. Girl deserves a break.

You write this for us @mariatesstruther and I'll love you forever!

Also co-signing everything you said about Tommy ☺️

https://archiveofourown.org/works/70676251/chapters/224641636

Thanks to the wonderful @bumblepony for the tag❤️❤️

well

the foreseeable future, I guess 🫣

I hope we're all still here when that day comes 😂