Silver ||Joel Miller||

Christmas trees and bacon

JOEL

Tommy was alive. Tommy was fucking alive and had been living a much nicer life than Joel could have imagined. The town was near picturesque, especially after all the shit he'd seen, and Tommy lived there with a wife and everything.

Even though the shock that a place like this existed still hadn't passed, there was one lingering question in the back of his mind. Why didn't Tommy tell him?

"It's been a long time," Joel said as he sat down at the bar. An actual bar, unlike the one he'd met Laura in seven years prior. In the giddiness of it all he let out a chuckle. "Doesn't seem like you aged much." It was true, Tommy seemed to look exactly the same as he did when he left.

"You, on the other hand..." His brother said as he poured a drink and handed it to Joel. He didn't just look like he'd aged, he felt it right down to his bones. "Thanks for still giving a shit about me." Joel smiled in response before he took his first sip of the drink. "We're working on raising some hogs, too. Once we get bacon, I mean, what's even left?" Joel laughed.

"Christmas trees and bacon?" He asked as he stood up and walked over to some pictures on the wall. "Pretty decent setup." There was a blissful moment of quiet, where he could hear his own thoughts for a moment... not that he wanted to listen to them.

"So... how's Tess?" Fuck. Of course Tommy was going to ask about Tess. Why wouldn't he?

"She's fine. She's alright," Joel lied before he took another swig. Only one thing could possibly make this worse...

"Good then." Please have the conversation end there. "And the kid?" Shit. Joel turned to look at his brother and prepared himself to continue lying his ass off.

"Oh, yeah. She's the daughter of some Firefly muckety-muck. We're trying to find her family somewhere out here. I was heading in this direction, so..." Yeah. That was damn good cover. Extremely believable.

"Really? Goodness of your heart?" For fuck's sake, he thought if he got away from Ellie he'd get away from all these questions.

"There's a payment," Joel replied as he worked his way around the room. Honestly, this place truly amazed him.

"That makes a little more sense," Tommy said. "And what about this... Laura?" Fucking hell. He was never going to be able to escape interrogations again.

"She took care of Ellie back in Boston. We've had to work together to keep the kid safe for the last three months." That wasn't a lie. It just also wasn't the whole truth, but Tommy didn't have to know that.

"Yeah, that's not all of it. I noticed the bracelets." Fuck.

"It's not what it looks like."

"Well, it looks like yours says Laura Miller so..." Tommy said with a smile. Joel nudged the bracelet on his wrist and shook his head.

"I got taken by this... cult, she came to save me but we had to play along for a bit before we could get out. It was safest for Laura if we pretended that we were..." Joel trailed off, as he looked at the steel. "Their marriage bands are these bracelets they weld together while they're on you so you can't take them off. And you get the name of your spouse engraved on them so, she has one too."

"We can get them taken off for you then." Joel's eyes shot up to his brother at the offer.

"Um..." Why did he not want it taken off?

"So there is something going on between you two," Tommy said. Was it really that obvious to everyone around them?

"No, it's... complicated." That might be the best word for it, even though it wasn't entirely true. It wasn't complicated at all. All he had to do was make a fucking decision over what to do, and every minute made it harder to do so. The way she'd looked at him when he agreed to catch up with Tommy... he thought she might be happy that he found his brother alive.