#and those last four lines are canon

[feline-evil]

Dick or no dick confirmation Pickles was always going to be trans to me anyways; if he's swingin' somethin that's phallo babes, if he's not then his t-dick fat. What's not to get.

[contact-guy]

Part 7, the final comic in my SIGN OF THE FOUR chapter. (Part one), (part two), (part three), (part four), (part five), (part six).

The context for this conversation is: Holmes has had no work from Scotland Yard due to rumors about his and Watson's relationship. He responded to this with excessive cocaine use and then working himself unhealthy on the one case that came along; Mary Morstan's. Meanwhile, Watson befriended Mary, who is also gay, and realized that a lavender marriage with her could make him and Holmes safe, as well as granting her more freedom. Watson has not yet told Holmes of his decision.

(This is part of the Watsons sketchbook series!)

canon scene under the cut, which is achingly poignant in its own right:

“Well, and there is the end of our little drama,” I remarked, after we had set some time smoking in silence. “I fear that it may be the last investigation in which I shall have the chance of studying your methods. Miss Morstan has done me the honour to accept me as a husband in prospective.”

He gave a most dismal groan. “I feared as much,” said he. “I really cannot congratulate you.”

I was a little hurt. “Have you any reason to be dissatisfied with my choice?” I asked.

“Not at all. I think she is one of the most charming young ladies I ever met, and might have been most useful in such work as we have been doing. She had a decided genius that way: witness the way in which she preserved that Agra plan from all the other papers of her father. But love is an emotional thing, and whatever is emotional is opposed to that true cold reason which I place above all things. I should never marry myself, lest I bias my judgment.”

“I trust,” said I, laughing, “that my judgment may survive the ordeal. But you look weary.”

“Yes, the reaction is already upon me. I shall be as limp as a rag for a week.”

“Strange,” said I, “how terms of what in another man I should call laziness alternate with your fits of splendid energy and vigour.”

“Yes,” he answered, “there are in me the makings of a very fine loafer and also of a pretty spry sort of fellow. I often think of those lines of old Goethe,—

Schade dass die Natur nur einen Mensch aus Dir schuf, Denn zum würdigen Mann war und zum Schelmen der Stoff.

“By the way, à propos of this Norwood business, you see that they had, as I surmised, a confederate in the house, who could be none other than Lal Rao, the butler: so Jones actually has the undivided honour of having caught one fish in his great haul.”

“The division seems rather unfair,” I remarked. “You have done all the work in this business. I get a wife out of it, Jones gets the credit, pray what remains for you?”

“For me,” said Sherlock Holmes, “there still remains the cocaine-bottle.” And he stretched his long white hand up for it.

[ghost-proofbaby]

kissing lessons

summary: you and robin have already shared several firsts as best friends: your first time holding hands, your first time cuddling someone, your first time flirting. so what's a little platonic kissing?

pairing: robin buckley x fem!reader

warnings: lots of sapphic pining, yearning, etc. assumed unrequited love. hopeless crushing. doing romantic things and claiming they're totally platonic when they very much are not. mentions of reading trying to conform to the 80s standards by dating a boy. reader is explicitly female (which should be given since robin is canonically a lesbian)

wc: 3.4k+

a/n: this one was a long time coming. it's based off of my own first kiss, loosely.

part 2

Being best friends with Robin Buckley has always been about growing – together.

Life has a plethora of lessons for young souls to learn in time, and some of those lessons were simply hard. The first time you picked up a musical instrument and attempted to play your very first note, and it sounded atrocious. Nothing like the movies, more difficult than you could have ever imagined. The first time you walked the halls of your high school, and the terrifying first wave of panic at the realization you’d need to learn the map of the lands in order to navigate that maze for the next four years. The first time you walked into a classroom all of two minutes late, and the first shatter of embarrassment in your chest as every eye in the room turned to you. The first time you trip over your own laces on your way to Chemistry, the first time you impulsively cut your hair with the kitchen scissors, the first time a boy asked you out as a joke, and the first time someone asked you out genuinely only to fumble over every single word. Your first school dance, your first time cooking pasta from scratch, your first time attending a concert without a chaperone. 

Firsts, firsts, firsts. Life is simply full of them, and they never get any easier or kinder, but having a best friend at your side certainly makes it all bearable. 

Robin Buckley was that rock for you. And you, for her. 

It’s sort of how you got into this mess to begin with. 

“It’s going to be weird, isn’t it?” 

“It’s not going to be weird unless we make it weird, Robin.”

“How can I not make it weird? Where would my lips even go?”

You’re both lucky that no one is home to hear all the shrieking currently occurring in your small bedroom. Only the posters on your wall and your teddy bear you’ve had since you were five are witnesses to the current predicament occuring. 

Robin had been the one to suggest it, in all fairness. Graduation was next week, and there had been a lot of reminiscing flying about. All the firsts, all the hopeful lasts, and all the fatal moments you needed to drag by the hair to the backyard and bury six feet under. 

The topic of conversation had veered pretty erratically, turning left towards that one stubborn B left on Robin’s postcard as a result of her refusing to attend her assigned tutoring for Geometry last year, and then sliding right as you’d huffed about that one girl who had been an absolute menace towards you sophomore year when you’d botched your improv solo at a band concert. But in the last five minutes, it had finally straightened out – it had finally begun to follow the trail of a line of remembering that no one else would ever be allowed to know outside of you and Robin. 

You’d brought up the first date you’d ever gone on. A ridiculous milkshake outing with some guy in your freshman English class that had left you feeling more confused than starry eyed or lovesick as the books promised. 

The date that had caused Robin Buckley to offer to hold your hand at random, in private moments, the week leading up to it. Just so you’d know how it felt. Just so you could figure out how to best intertwine your fingers with someone else’s without feeling terrible foreign about it all. 

It had been platonic. You both swore it had been, shrugging carelessly as you’d let your palm meet your best friends. 

And you’d felt more every time your skin brushed hers than you had the entire night with that boy. Spent the entire date wishing it was Robin’s knuckles bumping yours when you’d reached for that damn strawberry milkshake. 

“Against mine, I’d hope.” 

The dissection hadn’t ended at the hand-holding. Next, the two of you had wistfully recalled the sleepover in which you’d first decided to learn how to spoon one another. Robin had read about it in a magazine, you’d never had firsthand experience, and it just felt right to suggest. Robin had rambled for a good five minutes before you’d tugged her back into her bed and commanded her to just lay there as you figured out where you arm should go as your body curved along the back of hers. 

It had been nice. Really nice. 

You’d never gone out on another date after the Great Milkshake Catastrophe, as the two of you had called it. Robin claimed none of the boys at school could handle her eccentricism. Both of you, young girls fumbling about the world, starving for touch completely unaware. You told yourselves everyone cuddled with their friends. You told yourselves it was normal. 

But then, you’d switched positions, Robin being the big spoon as the teen magazine had described, and you swore your heart had burst when her arm wrapped around your waist and her fingers slotted between your own against your abdomen. 

You’d fallen asleep in that position. Awoken to Robin’s face pressed right into your chest as you’d spread out on your back. Ignored the flaky drool stain left behind on your skin when she’d finally joined the living once more. Pretended like you both hadn’t had the best rest of your lives as you’d clung to one another through fading dreams and subtle snores. 

It was normal, right? It had to be, because it was nice, and it had become a part of your normal sleepover rituals. 

Friends used each other’s boobs as pillows all the time, as Robin had defended. 

“Yeah, but, well-” Robin cuts off in her current stricken rambling, throwing her hands out around the air between you two, “What about when it’s more than just pecking? You know? All that gross shit, where tongues get involved and spit is exchanged and, oh God, should we be sucking on some mints right now or something? Oh my God, what if you’re allergic to my chapstic-”

Gross shit. 

The not-so-clever code word the two of you used whenever describing any sort of romantic interactions. Kissing, making out, sex. The things all of your peers were regular experiencing, sometimes even displaying in public, that the two of you only turned your noses up to. 

You didn’t want to suck the face off of Connor in your fifth period pottery class. The only person you could imagine on the receiving end of that that didn’t make your stomach turn was sitting right in front of you now, eyes wide and cheeks flushed as she clearly panicked. 

“I’m not allergic to passion fruit Lip Smackers, Robs.”

The switch to a passion fruit flavor was new. Robin had been using the strawberry flavor religiously prior, but had recently offered it to you with the excuse of your obsession with strawberry flavored things. 

And now, you’d been using it daily. Trying not to think about how many times her lips had been on it prior to yours. Trying not to think about how many ways you could twist it into some sick secondary kissing metaphor, to have your lips slick with the same sticky substance as hers had been so many times before.

Tried not to think about what Robin Buckley’s lips tasted like, period. Easier said than done when the thought crosses your mind every time you lick your lips moment after application, getting the faux sweetness all over your tongue. 

“You could be. And how would we even know? I can’t even drive! If you start to have an allergic reaction, I can’t even take you to the hospital! We don’t have a c-” 

You can’t do it anymore – any other day, you relish in the sound of Robin’s voice as she’ll squeal on and on about everything and anything. But not today. 

You cut her off with a kiss.

The very same kiss you’d both timidly agreed upon when you’d both realized graduation was next week, and neither of you had had your first kiss. 

The same deal as the cuddling. The same deal as the hand-holding. The same deal as all the pick-up lines and flirting you’d try out on each other, the same deal as all the sweet ‘love notes’ you’d write for one another and slip into backpacks and binders alike. 

The same deal as that fluttering in your chest every time she looked up at you at the local pool, eager to see if you’d witnessed her flip beneath the water. The same deal as all the nights you’d cried into your pillow after being pestered about if any boys at school caught your eyes, because you knew they hadn’t and they never would. Your eyes were already too busy, completely captured by the sight of the brunette now pressing her lips against yours. 

None of the boys at school could ever compare. 

Passion fruit and strawberry mingles within the short peck, freckled cheeks and nose smashing against yours in the most awkward fashion possible. It could be weird; it should be weird. 

It’s not. 

When you pull away, Robin is completely stunned into silence for quite possibly the first time in her life. And her lips are shining with some of your residual spit, and her cheeks are the perfect shade of rose that no actual flower could capture.

Mother Nature herself could never replicate the girl in front of you. The girl you’d been best friends with for six years now, the girl you’d pined relentlessly for for just as long. 

Only you’d just recently realized it. Somewhere between the lip smackers exchange and the movie night in which you’d intertwined your legs on the couch and felt the weight of her between your hips as she’d passed out. 

Looking at her now sort of feels like realizing it all over again. Sort of like looking out over a precipice, and taking a deep breath, because you know you’re leaping off the cliff. No scared looks over your shoulder, no hesitation as you throw your foot out into mid-air. 

The kind of rush you’ve never felt with a boy, and never will. 

“Was that…” she whispers, voice hoarse before she clears it, batting her gorgeous lashes and taking the shakiest of breaths, “Was that good?”

“I dunno,” you lie, “I think we should try again.” 

It’s like a dance, you soon realize. Following her steps, guiding her with your own. She slides her way up closer, and you press your back against your headboard. Her hands are shaking when they brush your outer thighs, and your blood is racing as you tug on her elbows to guide her to straddle your lap. 

You both had said, after all, you needed to learn to be better kissers. That you couldn’t leave high school without having shoved your tongue down someone’s throat at least once. Your words, not hers. 

Your desperate attempt to make sure that someone was Robin Buckley. Your pitiful attempt to have the one thing you don’t think you’ll ever be allowed to hold. 

The weight of her on your lap is nice. The feeling of her lips returning to yours is nice. The way neither of your hands know where to go as you let your lips linger together a few seconds longer than the first time is nice. 

It’s far nicer than Connor from English could ever make you feel. It’s far nicer than that poor boy at the diner ever was, though he tried his best. 

You’re the brave one, when it’s all said and done. You’re the first one to let your palms settle at her hips, squeezing ever so gently to feel the softness beneath slot perfectly into your hold. You’re the first one to timidly include tongue, parting both your lips, trying to ignore the shivers running up your spine as all you can taste now is passion fruit lip smackers. 

Even with your own lip balm, you know your lips are horribly chapped. Dreadfully thirsty and desperate to absorb all the love you know isn’t yours to claim at this moment. Chapped lips, quivering hands, shaking breaths. Unsure movements and the ringing question in the back of your head of am I doing this right? 

Is she feeling what I’m feeling? 

Maybe she is, maybe she isn’t. But she’s kissing you back. Her tongue is meeting yours in movements that are nothing like the movies, shy baps that you both will probably laugh about later. Kitten licks to test the waters. 

And then there’s the retreating. The rock of her body as she settles her weight closer to your knees, and her tongue is put away in favor of just letting her lips slot between yours in slow and lazy movements. You can feel every deep breath she takes through her nose between the kisses, you can smell her perfume seeping into your psyche every moment she spends so close to you. 

The only lesson being learned right now is that you were an idiot. You were an absolute fool, and you are absolutely in love with your best friend.

“Better?” she questions when she pulls away entirely, and you try not to whimper. Try not to show her how badly you want this, need this. 

You hate the silence and you nearly wish she’d start babbling again. You wish she’d give you a reason to kiss her and shut her up, if for nothing more than to taste passion fruit and yearning all over again. 

You’re quiet for a few beats, staring at her as your chest heaves and your heart begins to twist up into terrible shapes. “I… Yeah. Yeah. I think we’re getting the hang of it, don’t you?” 

“Oh, absolutely,” her nervous smile breaks, and you wish she wouldn’t continue the thought, but she does, “You’re gonna be a pro in no time, breaking boys hearts left and right when you kiss them like that.” 

You don’t want to break a boy’s heart. You want to break hers – you want to entirely implode her heart the way she has yours, and have the honor to know it was mutual. A mutual destruction you both dove into headfirst. You only want to kiss Robin like this, forever. You only ever want to know how right her hand feels in yours, not some guy who can’t even choke out the right words to invite you to the cinema. 

You want, and you want, and you want. 

And just as you bite your tongue, decide against pouring out all your affections all over your bed sheets and pulling her right back into you again, desperate to share air with her and only her, you can hear your front door slamming over. 

Robin has never moved so quickly in her life. Jumping off your lap, leaping to the edge of the bed as a feverish blush overtakes her entire body. As though she might be embarrassed, as though she might be regretful. 

You still haven’t moved from your position, back sticky with sweat against the headboard, when your parents walk past your open door and say hello. 

They probably don’t even hear your sad and quiet excuse of a returned greeting, too enraptured by Robin’s own excited quip of saying hi. 

Your parents love her. Adore her in a way parents should care for their child’s closest confidant. They treat her like their own daughter, and Robin’s parents do the same for you. Once a month, your mothers meet up for mimosas over brunch and probably giggle about how lucky their girls are to have one another. 

You get it. You love her too. But certainly not in the way you should love your best friend. 

They finally leave, and Robin is quick to turn to you, eyes shining with all the stars and sunshine the Universe could have to offer, “That… um, thank you.”

“For what?” you laugh breathlessly, finally shifting forward, looking down at your thighs that had served as a temporary home to the girl who holds your heart, trying to swallow down any shame and all that rapid longing. 

“For… you know,” she smiles, a secret for the two of you to only ever keep, never sharing with the world. Selfishly, you almost enjoy the sentiment, “I’m sorry I was acting so weird about it before. You were right, it didn’t have to be weird unless we made it weird. I’m lucky to have you as my best friend, you know? And like I said, if you’re…. You know, doing that with boys, you’re going to be a certified heartbreaker. The world isn’t ready for my best friend. Besides! Another thing checked off the list, right?” she pauses, and you swear the smile has gone sad, but you can’t risk the projection, “Now we can both say we’ve done… that… before graduation! And-”

You speak before you can think better of it, interrupting her entirely, “I think I need more practice.” 

She stops in her tracks, eyebrows raising wildly and eyes turning to saucers, “What?”

“I think…” your head reels, desperate to come up with an excuse to kiss her again. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but eventually. “I think I need more lessons, yeah? Like, I don’t know. More practice,” Oxygen evades you in desperation, giving your best puppy dog eyes, system in overdrive as you stare at her lips and your voice drops to a careful whisper, “My parents are out of town next weekend… Maybe we could try again then? Same time?” 

You swear her smile shifts, and you hadn’t even noticed the ingenuity in it previously until she dazzles you with one that must be real. As if you’ve just made her year, lightened her load, offered over your first born to the darling girl. 

“Well….” she moves her eyes across the room, focusing on a polaroid photo of the two of you pinned to the wall above the desk, “I mean, we did say lessons, plural. I can see if Steve will cover my shift on Saturday night if that works?” 

Am I doing this right? 

“That definitely works.”

Is she feeling what I’m feeling?

“Perfect. It’s a…. date, then.” 

“It’s a date.” 

It’s not. Only to you, never to her. 

But it’ll be enough. It’s enough to know next Saturday, she’ll be back here, in your bed and in your lap, getting that passion fruit chapstick all over your lips and shaking your chest from the inside out until it’s ready to burst. 

One day, you might be the brave one, when it’s all said and done. You’ll tell your best friend all the ways she feels so nice, and all the ways you want to capture that niceness in a bottle for the rest of your days. You’ll tell her the way you have no interest in the boys at school and how you’re cursed to forever be the heartbroken, never the heartbreaker, and only ever at her hand. The very same one clasping yours as she stands at your front door, thanking you vaguely once more, grinning ear to ear as she gives you three tight squeezes that are completely lost on you. 

Today’s not the day, though. Today is the day where you spend the night in your self-made cage, face buried in the pillow, noises somewhere between desperately muffled screams of frustration and dry sobs of torture leaving your lips as you picture the way she’d looked after the kiss. Her eyes softly shut, her lips still puckered, her neck entirely exposed as she tilts her chin back to look at your ceiling through her eyelids. Picturing the way that next time, you’ll try to convince her the two of you should learn the art of neck kisses. Picturing the way that next time, maybe you’ll grab her hips a little harder or let your hands wander a bit farther to her thighs. 

Tonight is the night you have no idea amongst your pity party, that Robin Buckley is on the other side of town, experiencing the exact same turmoil as she longs for the girl who tastes like her gifted strawberry lip smackers – the very same one Steve Harrington berated on her to get rid of when she’d vomited out all the ways she hates fake strawberry flavoring, but you love it, and she’d convinced herself if she bathed herself in enough of it, you might just want her the way she wants you. 

Tonight’s not the night, though. 

One day, the kissing lessons will simply be kisses. One day.

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[sanguineterrain]

Hiii i love your writing SO much💕, you're so good with the characterization of the boys it's crazy. I was wondering if I could request a second part of your dick x assistant fic?

thanks sm! i surely can deliver a 2nd part of these two :3 pt 2 to this.

dick grayson x gn!rogue!reader. flirting, canon typical violence, reader being a brat teehee! all fics are rb to @sanguinelibrary

****

This coffee shop is packed.

Normally, you'd say 'fuck it' and just go without caffeine. But you've stayed late for three nights in a row, and Bruce requested coffee ten minutes ago.

And because you work for the local billionaire, you have to buy from the expensive, organic, ridiculously priced coffee shop across town.

The cashier looks up. "Next?"

You step forward in relief, opening your mouth to recite the order you memorized a year ago, when a man cuts you off.

Oh, hell no.

"Hey, what the hell is your problem?" you ask, patience finally snapping. The four people behind you also express their anger at the offending cutter.

He turns around, and suddenly you're looking into blue, blue eyes. Dick smiles apologetically.

"Sorry." He turns. "Sorry, everyone! Everyone's coffee is on me."

That soothes the line completely, and a few even clap. You, however, are unamused.

"I've never seen you in this coffee shop," you say, folding your arms as Dick gets out his wallet.

"Really? I'm here all the time," he says easily. He points to you. "I'll order for them as well."

God. He thinks he can just flash his pretty smile and have you eating out of his—

"...And can I get that with no foam? Thank you," Dick says, finishing the order. He pulls out his card. "D'you mind if I pay ahead for everybody here in line?"

The cashier, predictably, is absolutely dazzled by Gotham's pretty prince, their eyes big and awed. They nod as Dick puts four fifty dollar bills in the tip jar.

"I just wanna say that that was so great, what you did for those kids in the hospital last week," the cashier says. "I live in Blüdhaven, and you're definitely our hero. I mean, wow. Between you and me? You outshine your dad, too."

Dick laughs and hands them another fifty. "Well, someone's gotta keep him sharp, right? You have a good day, okay?"

You stand there blankly until someone behind you says, "You gonna move or what?"

Gotham. City of manners.

You leave the line and walk to the pick-up area, where Dick is chatting with another customer. Good God.

"What was that?" you ask, not caring if you're interrupting.

The lady chatting up Dick begins to protest, but Dick quickly soothes her, apologizing profusely. She leaves.

Dick turns to you, cocking his head. "Hi. What was what?"

"I had to order Mr. Wayne's coffee, too. And mine! What did you even order?"

"I got both of yours," Dick says. He holds out a brown pastry bag. "And I got you a white chocolate raspberry muffin."

"I hate those," you lie.

Dick's face falls, crinkling the bag. "Oh. I thought... uh, sorry. Someone said you..."

You're suddenly hyper-aware of what a jerk you're being. What has Dick done to you, besides be a nice guy?

It's just... you know you should be wary. No guy is this nice and polite and pays for coffee and compliments your laptop stickers and laughs at your jokes and doesn't also have a secret. Dick probably goes American Psycho on the weekends, or does pig's blood sacrifices in his basement. Rich people are weirdos.

He did buy you coffee, though. And a muffin.

"Actually. Sorry. I, uh, thought you said something else. I do like those. Thanks." You take the bag.

Dick perks up. "You're welcome."

You eat the muffin, mildly humiliated but extremely hungry.

"Order for Dick?"

The barista slides a cardboard cupholder with three drinks. He smiles at Dick.

"Hey, man. Nice to see ya! Thanks for the save."

Dick waves his hand. "No trouble at all, Darryl. Take care!"

"And how do you know him?" you ask, following Dick to the creamer station. "Or are you going to tell me it's because you're in here all the time even though I've never seen you here once?"

"Okay, you got me," Dick says, smiling sheepishly. "I don't come here. I know that guy 'cause I found his dog. And saved him from a mugging. Nice guy. He's getting married in November."

"He invited you to his wedding?"

"Yeah! Not sure if I can make it, though, which is too bad. They're having it at the Botanical Gardens. I've always wanted to go there."

"What—" You stop, looking down at the cups. One is Dick's iced caramel mocha, one is Bruce's hot black coffee, and the third is your exact order. "How do you know what I order?"

Dick shrugs. "Just noticed when you bring it to work."

You thought Dick couldn't say what he eats for breakfast, much less what you eat.

"Do you stalk me?" you ask.

"What, no! I don't stalk you. I'm just... observant."

"That's exactly what a stalker would say."

"I would never stalk you." Dick raises his right hand. "Scout's honor."

"I doubt you were ever a scout," you mumble, fixing your own drink.

"You're right. I actually got kicked out of Boy Scouts. I wanted to be a Girl Scout 'cause of the cookies. My little brother was a Scout, though. Got an Honor medal. Never let me forget it."

You turn from the counter, suddenly remembering your exasperation. "Mr. Grayson—"

"Dick! Or Dickie, if you prefer. Why won't you call me Dick?"

"Because it's unprofessional," you say frostily, sipping your drink. "You're my boss' son. And I'm not calling you Dickie."

Dick leans against the counter. "But we're friends now, remember?"

"I don't think I ever agreed to that."

"Pretty sure you did! I have an excellent memory."

You sigh. "Just—"

The TV blares loudly, 'Special Report' popping up on screen.

"And in a shocking turn of events, Brendon Sommer was found dead in his apartment this morning, just two days before his trial. D.A. Colson says this is a tragedy but insists that neither he nor the police suspect foul play. Sommer was a key eyewitness to the Maroni case..."

"What the fuck?" you burst.

No. No way. You had him.

Dick squints at the TV. "This doesn't make any sense."

"Yeah, no shit! Colson is fucking guilty! That had to come out in the trial!"

He raises his brows. "I... didn't know you were following this case so closely."

Shit. Too much. Dial it back.

You fold your arms. "No, I mean, I'm not. Well, I am, but... it's just that Sommer was an assistant, so it's personal to me. The lowest rungs on the ladder are always getting stuck in the shit."

Dick's eyes turn soft and sympathetic. "Yeah. That's true. He was only trying to protect his boss."

Fat lot of good that did him. Those Fortune 500 hotshots are all the same.

You wonder what Nightwing thinks of all of this. You're sure he's full of righteous fury at Sommer's death, but what good can that do? You were at least trying to stop more little people from getting stepped on.

"I have to go," you say, taking your drink. "I have, uh..."

"Work?" Dick offers.

"Yes. Right. Work." You nod. "Thanks for the... and the... you're really, um—you didn't have to—"

Dick grins. "It's no trouble at all. I'd buy you coffee every day if you'd let me."

Seriously, what is wrong with him?

You can't manage anything but an awkward wave in response, bumping into the shop door on your way out.

You're going to the coffee shop by your apartment next time. You doubt Bruce is lucid enough to know the difference.

****

Beeeeep! Beeeeeep! Beeeeeeeeep!

You wince as the museum alarm goes off. You have maybe two minutes before the cops get here. Inept as they are, you don't want to have to slip out of handcuffs.

Hopefully, he gets here before you...

"I thought stealing diamonds wasn't your thing."

Nightwing lands three feet away from you and the display case with the special ruby on display at the Gotham Museum.

The ruby that's now in your hand.

"It's not. Diamonds are overrated. Rubies, however..."

You toss him the ruby. Nightwing catches it one-handed.

"I don't..." He sighs. "Did you do this to get my attention?"

"Not like I can look you up in the phone book, Wing Ding," you say, strutting past him. "C'mon, we have about a minute before the cops show."

Nightwing grabs your arm. "I don't think so. I have you on two counts of breaking and entering and falsified evidence."

"Wing, baby, you'd have me even if I didn't do all that," you say, patting his arm. "And as much fun as it is to be apprehended by you, I can't play with you tonight. We have serious business."

He presses his lips together, and you watch him fight the battle between doing what's right and what's good.

He finally exhales through his nose and puts the ruby back. Which is fine. The diamond necklace you swiped before he came is safely in your pocket. Just because they're overrated doesn't mean you don't have rent to pay.

"Let's go," he says, stalking out of the museum.

You happily bounce after him. "Oh, Wing, I knew you liked me! Am I your favorite thief with a heart of gold? Be honest. I can tell when you're lying."

"You certainly keep things interesting," he says, leading you up a fire escape and onto a rooftop.

"Why, Wing," you say, skipping behind him. "That's the nicest thing you've ever said to me. I'm choked! I'm touched!"

Nightwing stops and turns, hands on his hips.

"I don't feel good about letting you go, so start talking. What happened with Colson?"

You sober at the mention. "I swear, I don't know. He was supposed to be arrested. I laid it all out."

"You turned him to the cops?"

"Yes. I had no choice. Somebody didn't want to help me bring Colson in."

"The way you were doing it was illegal," Nightwing says.

"Yeah, well, Colson's free and Sommer's dead, so it doesn't really matter, does it?" you snap. "I couldn't even get Colson before killing Sommer."

Nightwing steps forward, frowning. "Hey. His death isn't your fault."

"No? Because I could've done anything to make sure Colson got what he deserves, and they got Sommer anyway."

You take a deep breath. You can't get worked up now. Nightwing is a resource you can use to get Colson.

"Why do you care so much about this case anyway?" he asks.

"Because Sommer gave everything, and he was still disposable. That's how all of us little folk are treated. We're just bricks in the wall."

Nightwing tilts his head. "You're including yourself in this analogy?"

Whoops. You shouldn't be giving personal information away. Dammit. How is he so good at putting your defenses down?

"Well, I do have a life outside of this, Wing."

"Really? I don't," he says, grinning.

"No? Not even a special someone?"

"Hm. No comment."

You try not to deflate at that. "Well, anyway, Colson needs to go down. He can't get away with this."

"The circumstances certainly implicate him. But we have no evidence that he was involved in Sommer's death."

You perk up. "We?"

A sigh. "I suppose we can work together, considering the time you've invested into this case. But I have rules," he says.

You grin. "Sure, Batboy. I'll go slow since it's your first time."

He ignores you. "My first rule is that you can't commit any more crimes."

"What!" you say. "But I'm so good at them!"

"Number two is that we have to do things my way, by the book. We can't rely on illegally-obtained evidence. I will help you with every resource I have, but we have to be good and honest about it."

"You're stifling me already, Golden Boy," you say, spinning around him. "Where's your sense of whimsy and joy?"

"I left it at home. Are we clear?"

You stop and heave a dramatic sigh.

"I guess. Are you really dating someone?"

Nightwing scoffs. "Is this you telling me that you're interested?"

"Well, yes. I can fight, by the way. I'll fight for you, babe."

He smiles. "Eh. They're feisty. They can probably fight better than you."

"Ouch! Who's this challenger? Can they promise a dowry of more than five goats and three cows?"

Nightwing laughs a real laugh. You beam at the sound.

"What would I do with goats and cows?" he asks.

"I dunno. Build a farm, I guess."

"I have to build a farm, too? Sounds like a lot of work."

"Marriage is hard work, Wing!"

"Sorry, my heart belongs to someone else."

"I'll court you, yet. I'm an excellent chef. I'll bring us grilled cheeses next time," you say.

He shakes his head, but his posture is relaxed. "You're unbelievable. Really. Criminal, but..."

"I reject the label of criminal. I prefer 'independent contractor.' Or 'director of joy and whimsy.'"

"Okay, Director. No more breaking into museums," he says.

"But how will I get your attention, O Wise and Beautiful?"

Nightwing gets close, breath fanning your cheek. His hand rests on your back. He tilts his head like he's... like he's gonna—

Your heart stutters.

"You've already got it," he murmurs, tongue resting between his teeth. "Meet me here on Friday. Oh, and..."

Nightwing holds up the diamond necklace you took on a single finger. Your eyes widen.

"How did you—"

He grins. "You wouldn't want these, anyway—they're overrated, remember?" Nightwing shoots his grappling gun to the opposite roof and swings away. "Have a good night!"

You watch as he disappears beyond the skyline. You try to muster anger or regret for getting caught and losing the diamonds, but you can't. If anything's criminal, it's that damn smile of his.

God. You are so screwed.

[seraphdesire]

Regarding Donna Beneviento and her characterisation in the fandom, I think it's important to note that she really isn't the shy awkward adorable blushing mess that everyone depicts her as being.

This got long but I did a mildly extensive read on her character under the break! :)

Here are the notes I took a screencap of, written by Mother Miranda, which talks about the suitability of Donna being a vessel for Eva:

There's the evidence you need that she is severely mentally ill, so babying her just feels... wrong anyway, all things considered.

Note - "and has divided her Cadou among her dolls in order to control them from a distance." While I'm on my 3rd replay of re8 I still don't fully get how the Cadou works, but what I think is essentially happening is Donna is literally splitting off parts of herself and putting them in her dolls.

The main one being Angie, of course.

I always used to consider Angie a separate character entirely but she's linked deeply to Donna on a very personal level. Considering what she's like and what all the other dolls are like - loud, funny, sarcastic, rude, etc - and how Donna is literally the one directly controlling Angie (that's the only way she moves lol, because Donna is carrying her places. Which is also why, when you kill Angie, the illusion melts away to reveal that you've actually killed Donna), I think it's safe to say that's what her actual personality is like.

Also, her only spoken line of dialogue? Please listen to it. For those who are hard of hearing, like me, she says: "don't leave... I can't let you."

Bearing in mind the way she speaks? Her tone? She sounds confident imo. Determined. And perhaps even a little angry at Ethan for thinking he can escape her.

Just a last addition as well, can I say that her abilities as one of the Four Lourds is genuinely evil? Everyone else has physical intimidation - Alcina has her height and her claws and mutation, Heisenberg has his ability to control magnetic fields and metal, and Moreau can mutate into that huge fish-with-legs thing that vomits something akin to acid? Oh yeah and he can swallow you whole too.

Donna, on the other hand, doesn't have physical intimidation like that. She only has the threat of psychological damage (which makes sense considering she's severely mentally unwell). When Ethan goes through her gardens and has to solve the puzzles in the house, she makes him hallucinate about his wife whom he thinks is dead, and about his baby who is somewhere in this unknown country with a bunch of mutants who only have bad intentions.

It's even worse in the Shadows of Rose DLC imo. As Rose, Donna makes her hallucinate the bullies from back home, being called a freak and a weirdo, made to relive the worst moments of her life. And the puzzles too? Hell. Having to actually recreate the scenes of her bullying with wooden fucking dolls. I remember feeling really sorry for Rose while playing through that part.

And yet Donna is still "the uwu baby" because what? I don't know. People love to declaw female villains just because they're attractive (looking at Lady Dimitrescu here). They love to reduce the characters down to their looks and not consider their actual lore or background or the role they play in the franchise (looking at Leon especially...)

Which, ya know, of course people are allowed their headcanons for characters and Donna doesn't get enough screentime to really have her personality even thought of, let alone to be made canon. But I think it's fair to say that Angie and Donna are basically one and the same because they're literally the same Cadou.

This is a quick reminder that you are, of course, allowed to disagree with me. Everyone has their own opinions and that's fine. If you would like to politely debate about this in my comments or in my DMs, or even in my asks, then you're more than welcome to! Please remember debating and arguing are two different things though.

If it really irks you that bad then please scroll, it's not hard. If you don't want to do that then feel free to block me - the button is free of charge after all and should be used more to cultivate your feed to your liking.

[dimespin]

How many sophonts are in your world? Are there any you want to add but haven't?

Leaving aside humans and human-derived beings like book animals and those with magical matrix malformation (Peter and Juniper), current canonical count is six - Saratoans, alligator hydras, dryads, L. dexter bees, magiphages, and Agents. 4 natural species and 2 that are closer to "phenomena" derived purely from magic rather than species.

as for want to add - I've been wanting to dig "laughing dragons" back up (I haven't posted about them in like, ten years?) - I will probably aim for a new name for them when that happens. I've been noodling with a redesign for years just haven't hit on something that clicked yet.

Here's something I drew last year as one of my redesign explorations

(They are plumbers so they have opinions on things that cause them more unnecessary work)

With this idea they'd have another variant that is born without the false-smile but also without eyes. I was thinking it could be along the lines of that bird with four sexes, where the two variants largely prefer to hook up with both different sex and different type. I think I was getting somewhere with this design and ideas but need to work on it more it feels like it's not quite there yet.

[vaultdwellerbarbie]

guilty as sin?

cooper adams/f!reader (5.9k wc)

summary upon coming home from your senior year of college, you find out that cooper has volunteered to help watch your sister while your parents are on holiday. just what you need - being home alone with the hot dad from down the street for a week.

content warnings smut, unsafe sex, creampie, vaginal fingering, oral sex (f!receiving), age difference, dark/canon-typical subject material (ie. takes place post trap and it's not cheating because rachel died and he got away au), the ending i guess can kind of be interpreted as dark but it's also like... not that dark

cooper gets a fic named after my favorite taylor swift song. cooper is just that special! i love him. this actually was not the cooper fic i was halfway done writing last night but i had this idea while i was at the cinema seeing trap again and just kind went with it. more cooper soon.

Coming home from college was hard enough - sure, you had a reprieve from your classes for the summer, but you were also moving around and not being in direct contact with your new friends for a few months. It became worse when you realized what questions you were going to be met with by just about everyone in your life for the next three months. “Oh, you just graduated? What next? Grad school, why? What about internships? Any jobs lined up? What was college like? Meet any cute boys?” It was sickening even thinking about it.

With that in mind, you wanted to do your best to do a low-profile. Avoid the neighbors who you were certain were going to ask questions, attend as few little parties in the neighborhood as possible, and definitely don’t interact with the man at the end of the street. 

Cooper Adams had always been a problem for you. When you were younger, you were too nervous to be around him and typically hid in the corner whenever he was in the same place as you. It was unfortunate that he was good friends with your father, since that meant that you were around him a lot more than you wanted to be. Having met him when you were freshly eighteen, you figured that the way that your stomach filled with a disturbing fluttery feeling and your body miraculously always broke out in a sweat when he was near was simply something to do with being a legal adult for the first time. It was surely just exciting to be around an attractive older man now that he wasn’t (legally) off limits for you.

But Cooper was off limits. He was married with two children. He was friends with your father, and his daughter was best friends with your younger sister - by the time you came back from your freshman year of college, your mother was seemingly best friends with his wife. You’d hoped, by then, those feelings would have gone away since you were surrounded by people who were viable partners, but those feelings never quite went away. 

Any boy your age you tried to sleep with was a let down, nothing they did could make you orgasm. So, you tried girls, and that didn’t work either. You branched out to older men, and that worked a little - but the entire time you just wished that you were with Cooper, that was what ultimately brought you over the edge. So, with four (failed) total partners and one total orgasm - courtesy mainly of your imagination - you decided that you were just going to quit sex and romance all together since you could never, ever, sleep with Cooper Adams.

He’d talk to you, sure. He made friendly conversation and offered you some wine when he knew that you were twenty-one, he even invited you to a concert with him and his daughter since your little sister was going with them. He was always kind to you, but that just made you more irritated because you liked talking to him. It was infuriating, and you wanted to spend as little time down the street as possible if you could help it this summer. Your mind would linger on Cooper, you’d think about him late at night when you were in bed, and you’d wonder if he could see you when you were tasked with walking the family dog from time to time, but that was it. You could not be anywhere near him, because you knew he’d talk to you, and you knew you’d like it, and you knew that he was just going to continue to be a massive (emphasis on massive, since he’s so tall and broad that you’re pretty sure he could throw a person with little effort) issue for you. 

Things typically don’t work out for you when it comes to Cooper, though. 

Try as you may to convince your parents that you were just fine with watching your sister for a week while they traveled Europe together, they were certain that would be placing too much of a burden on you since it was only two weeks after you got back from a strenuous semester. Nay nay, they insisted, Cooper volunteered since Rachel is out of town with her parents - he really only needs to be there at night, they said. He can come over after work, they said, it’s just fine, they said! You love Cooper and your sister can spend plenty of time with Riley! It’s a win-win, they insisted. 

What they didn’t quite consider was that you quite literally had nothing to do. Making friends in Philadelphia wasn’t particularly hard - plenty of people around, a nice night life, but mainly you knew that most of your friends had moved away. At some point, you were going to start a summer job, but the job market was absolutely horrendous and it was taking longer than you thought it would to get one. So, with little gas money and no where in particular to go, you really weren’t burdened by watching your sister who wasn’t even there during the day; there was no reason, you figured, for Cooper to need to be in your home at five sharp every afternoon, but he was. 

The first day was fine, overall. Your sister spend the day out with one of her friends from school and came home around four in the afternoon. She begged you to play video games with her, and you were only slightly embarrassed to answer the door for Cooper while fully invested in playing Roblox. 

Cooper, who stood in front of you with a big smile on his face that told you that he was about to either stab you or hug you - sometimes you just couldn’t tell with him, he smiled almost too much. 

“I heard you graduated, congratulations!” Hug it was, then.

You accepted the embrace, but you were sure that he could feel how warm you were against him. Naturally, nobody was that warm, but he really did always make you spontaneously break out in a sweat. “From undergrad, yeah, I’m going to grad school in the fall though.”

“For anything in particular?” He asked, pulling back. Cooper kept a respectable distance, he always did, but you let him close it slightly when you actually let him inside of the house. 

“Still figuring that out.” You responded, leading him to where the kitchen was located in the house. “I’m assuming my parents wanted you to cook, but that kinda… mean. I can cook with you.” 

“Oh, I offered, don’t worry about it.” His voice was reassuring, and if you were being smart, you would just tell him that was fine and go about your business. But you wanted to be accommodating, and the smart part of you that knew it was wise to keep your distance from Cooper just seemed to shut off whenever he was around. Somehow, you always tried to spend even more time with him knowing that you’d just regret it later. Like drinking a coffee late at night or something. 

“You’re still getting used to this kitchen, though. It’s really no problem for me to help you.” 

“I suppose I could always use an extra set of hands.” He responded, setting the grocery bags he had come with down. “But, you have to promise to follow my instructions. I’m very particular about recipes.” 

“You can trust me, I think.” 

“Just try your best, I’m sure you’ll get it.” 

Cooper, despite only having been inside of your home a few times, really had no issue getting acclimated to cooking in your kitchen. He had no issue taking charge, and certainly no issue when making sure that you were doing the right thing. He was incredibly meticulous and organized, but you already knew that from having experienced his behavior and having been in his house before. 

The issue wasn’t so much cooking with him, because you were both pretty into what you were doing. He was methodical, and you were just trying to please him and make sure that you didn’t mess up the food that you were about to eat. The issue was that you were into what you were doing, because you were so distracted that you only realized when the food was in the oven that his hair had started hanging partially in his face. That his hand sometimes grazed your own, and that he was standing about as close as he did when you were at barbeque’s with him and he knew that you weren’t going to be able to hear him otherwise; so close that you were always worried that his wife was going to get mad at you if you moved just a centimeter closer to him. But she wasn’t here right now, and your movement was so imperceptible that you were certain he didn’t even notice it while he cleaned up your cupboards - something that, truly, you probably should have offered to do but you were just so… fascinated by watching him. Plus, he probably wanted that done a particular way, too. 

“Your parents told me you put up quite an argument against me helping out this week.” He finally turned to you, your proximity much more noticeable. But he didn’t move away, he simply folded the towel that he was using at set it down on the cupboard. 

“I just didn’t want you to be inconvenienced… my parents seem to think I have places to be but I don’t.” 

“It’s really no trouble at all,” He was too close, and you were certain that he had moved even closer. You felt like you were so warm you could implode, your needed to take your cardigan off, something to get some relief. “Do you need to air conditioner turned up? You’re a little clammy.” 

His hand on your forehead was the next thing you felt, your eyes not leaving his face for an second, but it was in that instant that you knew that he knew exactly what he was doing to you. 

“You’re burning up, honey. Do you want to sit down?”

“Just dehydrated.” Your voice probably helped sell it, since you could barely get the words out of your throat. Cooper’s hand fell from your forehead, but not without grazing your cheek. Whatever lack of arousal you had felt around other people who you had actively tried to be aroused with was a thing of the past with Cooper, you were pretty sure that you had never been so aroused in your life as you were now, and all he had done was touched your face for less than a minute - how did he have such a hold over you? 

“Let me get you some water.” He turned to the fridge, grabbing a bottle that he was certain belonged to you from the stickers adorning the side. “This you?”

“Mhm.” Holding your hand out, you expected him to just give it to you, but his new goal in life seemed to be tormenting you. He popped the lid open and held it out to you, but he didn’t let you take it from his hand. “Cooper-”

“I’m just taking care of you, we wouldn’t want you to pass out.” He was too close, suffocatingly close, and he was pressing the bottle’s plastic nub to your lips - it was overwhelming. “Drink, please.” 

The sexual nature of what he was doing wasn’t lost on you as you wrapped your lips around the plastic, taking a sip of your water. His eyes were locked on yours, his lips slightly parted as he watched you. He seemed fascinated, but he also definitely knew that everything he was doing had one simple effect on you. Once you were finished with the water. He closed it and reached past you to set it down. 

“You seem so pent up, have the boys at school not been treating you well?” Cooper brought a hand to your forehead, brushing some hair out of your face. You weren’t even sure that this was actually happening, but you went along with it regardless because it was definitely happening.

“I gave up on that like two years ago.” 

“And why’s that?”

“Cooper-” You weren’t sure what exactly to say, but just based upon the way he was looking at you, you were almost convinced that he knew the exact reason. 

“I just want to hear you say it, who did you wish was touching you?”

“I-Is this happening? Am I hallucinating?”

“You’re not hallucinating,” He stepped a bit closer, and any worries that you had about someone walking in were off of your mind - your sister was probably still entranced with her game anyway. “I think it would be rude to pinch a young lady, so I’ll just have to show you another way.” 

The feeling of Cooper’s mouth on yours was immediate, and your response was quicker than you would ever admit to anyone. Your hand grabbed onto his forearm, grounding you while you kissed him back. But his kiss was tantalizingly slow, he knew that he was taunting you and leaving you on edge. For whatever reason, he seemed to be getting enjoyment out of that, but you couldn’t claim that you weren’t enjoying this more than even you believed that you ever would. 

He pulled away after a moment, though. “Can you answer my question now?”

“I was… they couldn’t please me.”

“Why not?” 

“Because they weren’t you.” 

“You’re so sweet.” He pressed a kiss to the corner of your mouth, but pulled away and checked on the food the moment that the timer went off as though nothing had happened. “Why don’t you set the table.”

Wordlessly, you set the dinner table for three - you had been expecting Riley and her little brother to be over, but your sister had explained earlier that Riley and her brother were going to be over for the rest of the week, but not tonight. some sort of obligation that they couldn’t get out of with another family member even though it meant that Cooper needed to drive them there, pick them up, and still deal with babysitting your younger sister and cooking dinner; even though he had volunteered and your complaints had been relatively selfish, you still felt like you were putting too much on his plate. 

Still, your mind was lingering elsewhere. Namely, you couldn’t shake the feeling of his lips on yours, of the way that he looked at you and touched you, how badly you wanted him to do much more than that. How this had even happened was something that you just couldn’t put your finger on. Never had you gotten the impression that Cooper would ever do anything to pursue you. Your families were so close, it was such a risk - but what had happened was real, it did happen, you definitely hadn’t made it up. 

There was a sense of guilt in your mind. In the past, your thoughts were just thoughts. You had never acted on them, and so you couldn’t feel bad for pining over a married man who you knew you could never, and would never, have anything with. But kissing him was already bad enough, hoping that more would happen by the time your sister went to bed made it much worse. It was true that your thoughts were only natural, but you had a responsibility not to act on them - to keep them as pure fantasy. And yet, all you wanted was to forget about that and find out what he looked like underneath his shirt. 

Shaking that thought from your mind as you called for your sister, you joined the two of them for dinner. She carried most of the conversation, but when it shifted to you, you did your best to not show how dazed you had been as you contemplated that anything that was going on meant. Nor did you know how to react when she expressed that a friend down the street had invited her to spend the night, when you were given the authority to decide whether that was okay or not. Normally, it was a yes. Your parents would have said yes, your sister had no school since she had just been let on summer vacation a few days ago, and you had no reason to say no. It shouldn’t have taken as much contemplation as it did, but the expectant way that Cooper looked at you told you simply that your not-so-innocent thoughts had the capacity to become a reality if she wasn’t there for the night.

Against your better judgment, you said yes. 

With that looming in your mind for the rest of dinner, you were reluctant to walk her down the street to see her friend. It was almost a shame how close-knit this community was, because without that you probably wouldn’t even be as close with Cooper as you were to begin with and she certainly wouldn’t be spending the night with someone on a whim. But, here you were. Even the cool night air couldn’t do much to calm you as you recognized that Cooper was still going to be in your home by the time that you got back, and you were going to have to face whatever decision you had made earlier when you let him kiss you. 

Walking back through the doors of your home, you tried your best to act normal under the circumstances. Cooper was just finishing up packing the leftover food into the fridge, and you almost wanted to go straight to your room - but that wasn’t going to solve anything. You were an adult, with adult feelings toward another adult, and you needed to do the responsible thing and face them head-on. It just so happened that the responsible thing, truly, would be telling him that what was happening was wrong, that he was married and at least twenty years older than you… and it also just so happened that you knew that you weren’t going to do that. 

“Cooper?”

“What’s up?” 

What was up? What was your plan in approaching him? ‘Hey Cooper, wanna have sex?’ didn’t really seem like the right move. “Do you need any help?”

“I’m just finishing up, thank you though.” He replied, cleaning off the cupboard one last time before approaching you. “Did you need anything else before I go?”

“You know, you don’t have to go back home. It’s getting late, it could be dangerous.”

“I’m sure I’ll be okay.” He replied, but he didn’t move. Once again, it seemed like he was waiting on you to make the move - but he was letting you, he wanted you to, he seemed to be getting off on making you ask him for it. 

“And you’ll be all alone, you could get bored.”

“I’m pretty tired, I bet I’ll pass right out.”

“I’m scared of being in the house alone, I might need company.” 

“Well we can’t have that, can we?” He stepped a bit closer to you, his large hand covering your cheek. “Do you want me to stay? To protect you?”

“Please stay.” 

“Do you want me to… sleep on the couch?”

“I imagine a bed would be more comfortable.” 

Cooper hummed, but shrugged his shoulders. “Last time I checked, you don’t have a spare bedroom.”

“Cooper-”

“Tell me what you want, or I can’t do anything for you.” 

It was wrong, and you knew that, and he did too. You both knew that what you were doing was wrong. Yet, for whatever reason, he wasn’t stopping it - maybe he was just lonely since his wife was out of town for an undisclosed period of time, some family emergency that you didn’t even know about until your parents told you. Maybe he had been waiting to finally get you alone, maybe he had noticed those longing glances that you were sending him when you figured that he wouldn’t catch you.

“How long have you known?” You asked, your voice shaking a bit.

“Remember that pool party Cindy threw down the street last summer?”

“Yeah…”

“I distinctly remember you, quiet as ever, piping up to complain tirelessly about me refusing to swim.” 

“I mean, they were the first family on the block to get a pool. You were really missing out.” 

“Right… but that wasn’t why you complained, was it?”

“No, not really.” 

“And why did you complain?”

“Because I wanted you to take your shirt off.” You replied, not really knowing what to say other than the truth. Cooper was intelligent, you knew that. He had you figured out even though you were certain that you had kept your distance enough that he wouldn’t have. But, you took solace in the fact that it had taken three years of quiet pining for him to figure it out. “But what made you want… assuming you want to… you know-”

“I’m not sure, exactly.” Not really the best answer, but you knew that he was going to elaborate. “A good answer would be seeing you in your little shorts, or in that bathing suit at the pool party. But I think the first time I thought about it was when you were over around Thanksgiving, fully covered in one of those cute sweaters you like so much.”

“Do you still want me to ask you to have sex with me?”

“I think you just did.” 

Cooper’s lips were pressed against yours again before you could even really contemplate the consequences of it. Whatever issues you were going to have with yourself in the morning for doing this with him were just going to have to be issues for a future version of yourself. For now, the only thing that mattered was how delicately he pushed you against the wall. How he let your fingers roam under his shirt, playing with the hem of it until he disconnected his lips from yours, given you a moment to breathe.

“Would you mind leading me to your bedroom? If your past partners have been unsatisfactory, you at least deserve to do this on a bed.”

Quickly, you nodded and took his hand. Cooper followed you as you brought him into your room, looking around at the items that you had collected. Your room was rather clean, sparing the suitcase that you hadn’t fully unpacked since returning home that sat half-open in the corner of the room. He seemed interested in the posters and albums that filled your room, interested in knowing what each of them actually was since you hardly let him speak to you to begin with. But, he was mainly interested in getting your shirt off and tossing it into your clothing basket - it being in the basket was of particular importance to him. 

He let you remove his shirt as well, your eyes finally taking in the sight of him without it on. You weren’t particularly surprised that he looked good underneath his shirt, you expected nothing less of him. Yet, you couldn’t help the way that your fingers grazed over his skin before finally meeting his eyes. Cooper had his fingers underneath the hem of your leggings rather quickly, watching to see if you were resistant of that for a moment - when he saw no disagreement in your face, he quickly removed the article of clothing from your body before urging you to get onto the bed. 

Admittedly, you wished that you had a larger bed than what you did simply for this purpose - not that you had sex very often, but simply because you felt like you were cramping Cooper. If he minded, he didn’t let on. 

“What was it that those people at school didn’t do for you?” He asked, situating himself in between your legs once you were both on the bed. “Did they not pay enough attention to you? Not worry more about your pleasure than theirs?”

“I don’t even think it was an equal amount.” 

“Well, let’s fix that.” Cooper’s lips were delicate against yours, but they were also fleeting. It wasn’t long before he was kissing down your chest, his hands moving to your back to undo your bra. While you shrugged it off of your body, he took it from your hands to make sure that it ended up in the basket of your dirty clothes. Some part of your mind contemplated the fact that his shirt was in there too, that his scent could linger on your clothing until you washed it, but did you really need to be concerned about that when there was an even better chance that his scent was going to linger in your bed? On your skin? 

His lips distracted you from your thoughts, wrapping gingerly around one of your nipples while his hand descended lower on your body. You could feel his fingers pushing underneath the fabric of your panties, roaming slower and collecting the wetness that you knew had started pooling the moment that you saw him in the doorway.

“Have any of them ever made you this wet before?”

“Only when I started thinking about you.” It was the truth, you had gotten this wet before  during another sexual encounter - it just so happened that it was because you were fantasizing about Cooper during it. 

“That’s a no, then.” 

His fingers were much thicker than yours, that was what you noticed the moment that he pushed them inside of you. He could reach deeper than you could, and it didn’t even seem to be something that he was purposefully trying to do when the heel of his hand ground against your clit as his fingers moved within your cunt. His lips continued to kiss along your skin, your quiet moans spurring him on as he brought another hand to the hem of the fabric of your panties. It almost felt unfair that he still had his pants on throughout this, but you couldn’t bring yourself to really think about that once he had your panties off of your body and his lips pressed gently against your hipbone. 

“Have you ever let anyone put their mouth here?” He inquired, venturing lower and glancing up at you as his teeth sunk into the skin of your thigh.

“Once.”

“And did you finish?”

“I pretended to.” 

“Poor thing, you’re not going to have to pretend with me.” His voice was gentle and reassuring, but it was clear that there were undertones to it that you’ve never heard from him before. 

There really was no time to linger on that, though, as his mouth finally connected with your cunt. His fingers still moved within you, seemingly he had figured out just how to move them to make you moan just a little bit louder. There was some part of you that felt like you needed to try to be quiet, like there was some risk that you were going to get caught even though you knew that wasn’t going to happen. If your sister had to come back, she’d call you. If something came up in any other capacity, you were certain that you would know. There was no way that someone was going to catch you, and no nosy neighbor was going to discuss Cooper having been here until late into the night since everyone knew that he was going to be here. If anything, you weren’t particularly lying when you said that you were nervous to be in the house alone! You’d been spending months in a dorm with people, and when you got back you had been with family. Being alone did make you kind of nervous, so you weren’t actually being dishonest and it wouldn’t be very hard to tell people that if anyone did question if anything happened. 

Regardless, you knew that what you were doing with Cooper was wrong. That alone was enough to make you on edge, but that edginess continually slipped away as his lips latched onto your clit and his fingers curled at just the right angle inside of you to make you feel like you were going to lose your mind. 

Cooper was right, you were incredibly pent up from having spent so long not having any conquests - and, when you had conquests, it just never brought you to the finish line. You needed this, and you specifically needed it with him. 

Your fingers tangled in his hair without you really thinking about what you were doing, and that just made Cooper continue what he was doing with a bit more vigor. He liked the feeling of you touching him, the feeling of you this close. He really had been thinking about it for quite some time, and it only helped a little bit that your little worry about him being married wasn’t that much of a worry for him. 

When he did feel you pulsating around his fingers, he knew that you were close. He continued to work you to the edge, your fingers tightening around his hair as his name escaped your lips more times than you probably even noticed. Finally, you felt the relief of an orgasm flow through you as you came on his fingers, his movements only stalling when he knew that you were coming down from that high.

Your eyes were a bit dazed as you looked at him, as he moved up your body and laughed at how eager you were to pull his lips back to yours. Cooper helped you as you moved to undo his pants, tossing them into the hamper as well before removing the boxers that kept him separated from you. 

“Sure you can take it?”

“Please, Cooper, I’m sure.”

Cooper moved one of his hands to take yours, “Squeeze if you need to.” Being the only thing leaving his mouth. His concern was based in reality - you hadn’t had anyone inside of you in years, and even then, he was bigger than anyone that you had been with before, both in stature and in what he was packing beneath his pants. Of course, you expected this from him. He was tall, he had large hands, you knew the signs. 

Your hand did squeeze his a bit, but the moment he knew you were comfortable was the moment that he started moving. He really didn’t waste any time, his hips snapping into yours and leaving you a whimpering mess underneath him - but that was, ultimately, what Cooper wanted from you. 

“You’re doing so well, being such a good girl; I knew you’d be good for me.” His praise brought that familiar (sickening) fluttering back to your stomach, but you did your best to mask it with another kiss. It was sloppier than it was before, his teeth digging slightly into your lower lip and his tongue pressing against yours. You could taste yourself on his tongue, and that alone was enough to make you yearn for more. More of this, more encounters like this. You’d wanted him for so long, and now the idea of this only happening once was absolutely devastating to you. 

“It feels so good, Cooper - so much better than anyone else.”

“I know, baby, you just needed me to take care of you.” He kept a hand planted on your face, his thumb stroking your cheek. His eyes were so warm, but there was a bit of a darkness behind them - a darkness that you were assuming was lust, though it could always be something more. 

His other hand moved lower, his finger coming in contact with your clit again. Everything he did felt so good, you were certain that nobody had ever made you feel this good before - and you were also certain that nobody else ever would. But, was it not just how badly that you wanted him in particular that had made everyone else pale in comparison? Truly, they probably just never had a fair chance.

Cooper was experienced, but he also seemed to be figuring out exactly what you wanted moment by moment. He seemed focused on making sure that he was pleasing you, but, in the process, his grunts and groans didn’t go unnoticed. To the contrary, each one of them went straight to your core. Truthfully, Cooper had been pent up for a while as well - longer than you actually knew. 

That was probably why neither of you stood a chance at lasting longer than you did, and probably why neither of you even considered the ramifications of him not pulling out of you. But the feeling of him finishing inside of you, of feeling somehow even more full of him than you did before, did something to you. The sight of him above you as you both came to terms with what had happened, as his soft hair hung over his forehead and his eyes - glazed with lust - found yours, you knew that he had ruined any chance of you ever wanting anyone other than him.

“Cooper,” You started, not really sure where to go from there… but you’d had sex with him, hadn’t you? What qualms could you really have about speaking your mind anymore? “You should spend the night.” 

“We’re going to shower first, okay?”

“Alright, okay.” 

So, you took showers (separately, to your chagrin, but he had to use your father’s shower products), and he ultimately did join you in your small, relatively cramped bed. Even as you fell asleep on his chest that night, you were worried that it wouldn’t happen again - that he just wasn’t as interested as you. After all, you were a fun idea, a younger woman who wanted him so badly that you’d do anything he asked of you, not someone to bring home to his children who are only about ten years younger than you. Besides that, Cooper was still married, right?

But you really didn’t have the full picture. 

Cooper, legally, was still married. But you’d saved yourself a lot of trouble refusing to go to that concert with him, that concert that had been a setup from Rachel. It was an odd coincidence that she had a family emergency right after, especially for Riley who was on top of the world before her mother was gone without much word. It was going to be a problem when it became clear that she was actually gone, but for now, that guilt that you felt about potentially being a mistress was… probably not the worry that you should have. But Cooper was happy to keep that from you, at least for now, for as long as he needed to. 

After all, maybe you’d be happier with him than you would have been at grad school? Maybe you wouldn’t turn him into the police if you ever grew suspicious of what exactly he did in his free time. All he knew was that you’d tried - even if you hadn’t realized you were trying - to get him wrapped around your finger, and it had worked. Now, he had you wrapped around his, and he just didn’t really feel like letting that go any time soon. Of course, you wouldn’t protest being with him for longer - he knew that, you wanted to keep him in your life, and he always enjoyed giving you what you wanted.

[beomiracles]

Hi!! May I request just an any member of TXT x reader wherein they are both demigods and go to camp halfblood??

⌞ 𝐃𝐄𝐌𝐈𝐆𝐎𝐃 ⌝

DREAM RECALL stumbling across a hidden camp on the Long Island shore reveals that you are not the only one with a compromised family.

pairings demigod!txt x demigod!reader (gn) warnings none !

#serene adds ✎ anon...you brought out my inner nerd with this one. I've read ALL and I mean all Percy Jackson books. I LOVE THE SERIES. Though this was when I was 12, so I'm sure there are a few details missing BUT hehe, this was sm fun. I couldn't pick just one member so I did head canons for all of them!!!

IF YOU HAVEN'T READ THE BOOKS (shame on you) It's basically a series in which the greek gods occasionally have children with ordinary humans, thus creating a "demigod". These children will grow up to have a fragment of the powers their parents have. Camp half-blood is a sort of safe haven for these children where they're assigned a cabin based off of their godly parent. They train and specialise in their powers in order to defend themselves !

this post makes a lot more sense if you have read the books or seen the movie(s) but I have tried to make it understandable for those who haven't !

either way these are the type of demigods I personally think the members would be, (yes I'm trying to be different).

YEONJUN — son of ZEUS CABIN 1

After spending four long and excruciating summers at camp half blood, Yeonjun finally got acknowledged by his father last year, becoming the first to move into cabin one. 

Thanks to his outgoing nature he's never had any issues making friends despite his unusual parent. — He’s also one of the first to greet you upon your arrival. Making sure you get introduced to everyone and everything as he shows you around, throwing in a quick pick-up line or two as he tours the place for you.  

Most definitely likes shows off, I mean, he’s not Zeus only acknowledged son for nothing. — Summoning large thunderstorms, relishing in the way you cling to his side as he makes lightning strike not far from the two of you. 

Your first nights at camp half-blood are spent in cabin one with Yeonjun, despite the protocol being for unclaimed demigods to stay in Hermes’. 

It’s a little bittersweet to say the least when Aphrodite finally decides to acknowledge you as it meant you had to bid farewell to your new friend’s spacious living quarters. 

Though Yeonjun gets along well with almost everyone, there’s a kid in cabin seven that always seems to get on his every nerve.

SOOBIN — son of ARES CABIN 5

Despite being the son to the God of literal war, Soobin considered himself to be somewhat of a pacifist. Unlike his half siblings, he never engaged in any of the fights usually taking place both inside and outside of cabin five. 

He much preferred spending time with you, picking flowers as he lets you braid them into his hair. Reading poetry together on an open field or going to care for the horses in the stables. 

Soobin knew that his nature got him on his father’s bad side, but he didn’t really mind. Instead he used his almost supreme strength to help out where he was needed, carrying heavy hay bales or helping you move large furniture in your room.

He’s probably too shy to ever admit out loud that he thinks you’re very cute. As one of Aphrodite's children he thinks you must hear that a lot, thus he holds back from showering you with compliments. 

He’s also not one to participate in the many games hosted by your camp, and if he does, he’s always the first one to get sent to the infirmary.

BEOMGYU — son of APOLLO CABIN 7

Has been around for pretty much his whole life, his necklace filled to the brim with beads, representing each summer spent at camp half-blood. 

Very much a show off as well, knows how to use a bow but can also both sing and play the guitar. His ego might just be bigger than Yeonjun’s. 

Quickly introduces himself on your first day there, even though your tour guide (Yeonjun) purposefully avoided cabin 7 as he showed you around. 

Beomgyu often complains that you use your powers on him, as Aphrodite's children are known for their manipulation of both love and lust, and that’s the reason as to why he can’t get you out of his head, dedicating song after song to you as he plays them by the fire each night. 

Often takes joy in casting minor curses on whoever does him dirty, cough, cough. So you’re not surprised when you hear the loud yell coming from Zeus’ cabin on a Saturday morning.

TAEHYUN — son of ATHENA CABIN 6

Unlike the others, Taehyun finds little amusement in anything that involves the outdoors. Cooped up in his room, he spends his days reading and researching the most diverse topics that he can come across. 

You have to practically drag him out of the cabin as you force him to join you and Beomgyu whilst you practice archery. He will most likely just whine and complain the whole time, pointing out your errors as he goes. 

Thanks to his introverted nature, Taehyun doesn’t have a lot of friends, to be honest, you might be his only one. — He will never admit it out loud, but his heart beats a little faster when he sees you skip inside the dimly lit cabin. Ready to listen to him talk about whatever book he had last read. 

He does care for you, not that you would know because he only talks fondly of you when you’re not around. Standing up to whoever might have something negative to say as he quickly shoots them down with a witty remark. 

On a brighter note, there’s little Taehyun doesn’t know and you can always count on him to be able to handle any kind of situation.

HUENINGKAI — son of HADES CABIN 13

Kai almost wanted to cry when his father finally claimed him two years ago. Being associated with death wasn’t exactly something one wished for, especially not Kai. Not to mention the fact that he would have to sleep in the creepy and dark cabin all by himself. 

Quickly becoming an outcast, Kai was very hesitant to approach you, not wanting to scare you off with the literal epitome of death lingering around him. But you liked him from the start, the two of you made for an odd pair but you thought it was kind of charming. 

You ate dinner and breakfast together, and you often visited him in his cabin so that he wouldn’t have to be so lonely. Despite his father being the ruler of hell, Kai was both scared of the dark and any horror movie rated 13+. 

He didn’t care much for the powers passed onto him by his father and thus he never practiced them very much. — If he did use them, it would be in order to bring back your pet cat that had been run over by a car, or saving a mouse that got caught up in a trap. 

Kai did however become quite close with Yeonjun, the fact that they were both the only children of their parents sparked a friendship that no one really saw coming.

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[sigmalaussene]

Top ten weird ways Oswald Cobbepot gets called in Gotham

As I was rewatching Gotham, I decided to write down every name that people in the show canonically call Oswald Cobblepot aka the Penguin. It was a wild ride. Please enjoy

10. "Funny looking fellow"

(season one)

We start with a simple one. This isn't even an insult, it's just a fact. He is, indeed, a funny looking fellow. I'm pretty sure they say it more than once too.

9. "The Dapper Gangland Kingpin"

(season two)

This one it's just silly, especially since it was written on a newspaper. Just... that's weird ? Idk it's silly it makes me chuckle

8. "Yellow rat snitch"

(season one)

We start getting a little weirder. Why a rat? And, more importantly, why yellow???

7. "Stupid lame birdbrain"

(season four)

Just so mean. Especially since this scene it's his dumb husband making a room full of people chant it

6. "Golden goose"

(season one)

Right back to season one and it's incredible dialogue. This one is particularly amazing thanks to Oswald's reply to it, which was, of course: "Honk honk". I can't even start to describe that scene. It's a classic.

5. "Beaky nosed freak"

(season five)

Definitely the best nickname the last season had to offer. Like, you know that moment when a guy kills your bestfriend/girlfriend and you call him the silliest name you can think of? This is one of those times.

4. "Scaley faced bitch"

(season one)

This is the first one in the show, directly from the first episode. I am a firm supporter of calling men bitches when they deserve it, and he did, so I wholeheartedly approve this message. Adding the scaley face part just makes it more poetic.

3. "Sad little breadhead"

(season two)

This one from never fails. Imagine it delivered with the most condicending tone in the world. Just amazing. Makes me laugh every time.

2. "Fruitcake leprechaun"

(season two)

This. This is the one that started it all. It was thinking about this one that I decided that this rewatch I was gonna write down all the nicknames. I dont know if it has something to do with english not being my first language, so I don't have the background of the word "fruitcake" used as an homophobic remark, but this name is one of the funniest things I have ever heard in my life.

1. "Limping little chickenbutt second banana"

(season one)

This couldn't not be on the first place. I am obsessed with the writers of this show, i want to get inside their brains. Because like what does it mean? How did they come up with this? I need to know every thought that crossed their mind for them to write this. This is art. This is poetry. Incredible. Amazing. Absolutely insane. Kudos to the actor who played Maroni because if they gave me that line I wouldn't be able to say it with a straight face.

Bonus:

(For the fans, he is also called "the only thing Nygma cares about". Just... you know, in case you forgot)

Some recurrent nicknames are: "Pengy", "Ozzie", "freak", "cockroach", "punk", bird related names (bird/birdman, feathered friend, chicken, turkey...) and "little"/"tiny" followed by almost anything (man, friend, dirtbag, bastard, creep, twerp, freak, weasel...)

Edit: i realize i didn't mention "Major Crumblepot" and that's on me sorry guys

His haircut is described as "disco vampire hair" at one point (another classic)

He is also called "specimen", which is really funny, and "dewdropper"?? for some reason I don't remember but it was in my notes and I couldn't ignore it lmao

[soleminisanction]

I've always really liked DC's in-house choice of referring to their various superhero groupings as "families," but it has gotten a little frustrating recently with people both in canon and in fandom seeming to forget that families aren't just a parental-unit-and-kids formation. They're complicated, and a lot of the DC families are too messy to fit into that neat little nuclear family mode.

Which is to say... here's some scattered thoughts/summaries about how these families are actually structured in canon, because I think it's interesting:

Supers -- The smaller, more traditional Superfamily (Clark, Lois, Kara, Kon, etc.) is a pretty traditional Midwestern nuclear family, with Jimmy Olsen filling the role of close family friend/goofy neighbor sidekick (in the Silver Age, he was Kara's would-be suitor) and Steel feeling more like part of Clark's personal circle of friends. The recent line up, though, with Jon, the twins, Kong and Nat? Starts to feel more like some old dynasty or noble house, complete with fostered foundlings and the Steels acting almost like knights under a noble's banner, possibly reflective of what the House of El would have been on Krypton.

Arrows -- Might currently be the closet to a traditional nuclear family structure. You've got Ollie and Dinah, their younger sisters, Ollie's adopted and biological children, and Ollie's granddaughter through Roy, plus by some counts Roy's co-parent and her sister as "in-laws." Bonnie and Cissie King-Jones are adjacent to but not technically "part" of the family, though I believe it's implied at one point that Ollie might also be Cissie's bio-dad. Pretty straightforward, these guys are actually family and they act like it, for good and ill.

Shazam Family -- Also a literal, actual family. Not originally, the original golden age "Marvel Family" was considerably more complicated and only Billy and Mary were full siblings, but nowadays the whole point of the modern Shazam family is that they're foster siblings united by familial love and that's fantastic. Meanwhile your average Black Adam story is 75% angsty family drama, 25% Egyptian mythology references.

Flashes -- Technically closer to three nuclear families (the Allens, the Wests and the Garricks; four if you include the Quicks), two of whom are united by marriage and all of whom are bound by the Speedforce, which, given its semi-spiritual connections to things like Speedster afterlives, can act almost like a religious force that connects them to the additional members like Avery, Circuit Breaker and Max as Bart's foster-dad. They're a big, sprawling tree with more cousins than siblings, the kind of family that functionally has a reunion every Christmas and Thanksgiving.

Lanterns -- Now these guys are the exception that proves my point about the whole 'family' thing not being straightforward. The lanterns aren't a family, they're a corps. Soldiers. Space cops. Comrades-in-arms. They respect each other, have each other's backs, might even like or care about each other, but those last two are optional, and they don't have the same kind of assumed obligations towards each other that a family would have. They're friends and co-workers, not family, but that doesn't mean their relationships are less significant, they're just different.

Wonders -- Roughly half of them are either one of Hippolyta's daughters (Diana, Donna, Nubia pre-Crisis) or related to them through the gods (Cassie), and the other half (Artemis, Yara, modern-age Nubia) use sister as a term of endearment more in a utopian lesbian commune kind of way. I think they brought Steve Trevor back recently? He's basically the Ken in this equation and perfectly fine with that role. None of which should be surprising if you've seen Professor Marston and the Wonder Women.

Bats -- This is the one that people get really wrong when they try to force it into a traditional family structure. Don't let WFA fool you, the Bats are and have always been way more a snarled mess of tangled interpersonal relationships than they've ever been a cohesive family. Whether Dick is Bruce's son or his brother depends on what era you're talking about, and the former reading is much more recent than you think -- as in "started cropping up in the early 2000s" recent. Barbara is both Cassandra's sister and her mother. Duke and Steph both have living parents and neither of them want or would ever dream of treating Bruce like their dad; Tim was the same way until his dad died. None of the Robins ever lived in the mansion together, nor did Cass. Babs considered Jean-Paul Valley her brother and Huntress is so close to Tim she once hallucinated him calling her Big Sister. They're a beautiful mess of people finding places where their broken edges fit together into something that works for them and trying to reduce it down to a cozy nuclear family is just so goddamn reductive and lazy.

Blue Beetles -- Are only tangentially related to each other. Seriously, they never even get direct mentoring, each one just takes over when the previous one dies and works on completely different rules from the other two. They're complete strangers bound by a legacy and that's honestly pretty fun.

Zataras -- There's only three of them and they're literally a father, daughter and cousin.

Martians -- Not really a family because there's only the two of them, but an interesting case where the two survivors of what was functionally a war of mutually assured destruction came together in an attempt to find some peace in the aftermath of what they'd lost.

Titans -- The JLA and JSA aren't really in the "family" category, but the Titans lean into it hard, mostly because they're a textbook found family. They don't mirror a nuclear family structure, they're simply a group of people who came together to form a mutual support network. They're the idealized college friends you grew into your own with, some of them childhood companions and others you only met once you leave home for the first time, but all of them friends that you manage to maintain contact with for life, with everyone coming back together even as you scatter and do your own things.

Young Justice -- Meanwhile, this team is the chaotic group of misfits you hung out with when you were a teenager, especially when you were just starting to be allowed to act without adult supervision. You drive each other crazy, none of you know you're all queer as fuck, and you'd fight a bear for any of them even if they asked you not to. They'd probably be insulted if you tried to call them a family. They come out here to get away from their families, thank you very much.

[messiahzzz]

You’re one of the most annoying people on this site. And that really says A LOT because WOW! Shut the Fuck up about Gale wanting to be a father or not. He never says that he doesn’t want to be one. You projecting things onto him doesn’t make it Canon.

on a serious note: i’m certainly not the one that continuously brings up this topic unprompted. i personally really don’t understand the entire controversy around the topic or why fandom feels the need to rehash this conversation almost weekly. i truly believe that there’s nothing more of value to learn from it, to address, or add to it… yet fandom won’t let it rest.

to once again clarify: what i mean by “gale wanting to be a father isn’t canon” is that there is no evidence/neither hints anywhere in any of the dialogue that support the contrary. characters like h*lsin, w*ll and la*’zel have entire adoption subplots. all of them mention their children explicitly during the epilogue:

narrator: *your soul warms thinking of lily aurora ravengard, your adopted daughter. a treasure of a girl, found at the entrance of the open hand temple - one grey eye, one brown.* w*ll: ah, the girl could melt the staunchest heart. she might even have brought a smile to old withers' face! w*ll: but tonight is for us - and lily's only four months of age, besides. i promise, the temple will keep her in good care.

player: and our little hatchling? is he safe? la*'zel: of course. i have complete trust in our newest allies. xan is in fine hands tonight. la*'zel: what a wonder he is. he will be a fine warrior, if he chooses. or a poet, or an explorer, or a scholar.

h*lsin: being away from it... i cannot help but worry how they will fare in our absence. player: we'll be back before they know it. h*lsin: i hope so. the children shall miss their bedtime tale tonight - though perhaps i can glean a few new stories from our friends here, to make up for it.

even shad*wh*art has a line where she briefly mentions that children might be a possibility for her in the future.

shad*wh*art: and i get to see my parents almost every day - i need to make every moment with them count, after so much was stolen from us. but they're doing well, [...] shad*wh*art: who knows? perhaps they'll have grandchildren before long.

gale in comparison? he has none of that. he remains childfree during the entirety of the game + epilogue. in fact, his line in the epilogue that addresses the topic of grandkids is this one:

tara: this is why mrs. dekarios and i will be waiting an eternity more for grandchildren. nodecontext: self-pitying gale: psst! shoo, tara. nodecontext: shooing away tara like one would a naughty cat.

i already wrote a post about this entire discourse here [x] but to repeat myself once more: all of the dialogue that vaguely addresses the topic of children in any way in regards to gale are these snippets

player: gale… how would you feel about having another person in our relationship? gale: what, like a child? i’m not quite sure i’d consider myself father material, plus our current lifestyle isn’t exactly what i’d call settled…

gale, upon spotting oliver during their game of hide and seek: ah, i have you! just a shame i don’t want you.

gale treating the children the group comes across with respect isn’t an indicator either. this is a courtesy gale extends to everyone he meets. he’s a character that approves of a protagonist who systematically commits good deeds. whether it’s sparing animals, helping without compensation in mind, or aiding children. wanting children to be cared for… and you know… for them not to die is common etiquette that every adult should extend to a child in need. those are not “dad goals!!!” it’s quite literally just basic human decency. gale is genuinely kind and caring to everyone he meets, there is no reason why this also wouldn’t apply to children.

i often see fandom mention his encounter with mol at last light and how excited he is to talk to her. which i think greatly misinterprets the context of the scenario since he didn’t have much of a reaction to mol before either — gale is ecstatic about lanceboard. again evident by his reaction to the party finding the life-sized board during the wyrmway trials, and how he immediately offers to give tav pointers. explaining different approaches to them in enthusiastic detail if they allow him to. the man just really likes lanceboard… as well as being the smartest person in the room.

gale: ah, lanceboard! why, this might just be the highlight of our misadventures to date.

gale: lanceboard happens to be a game with which i have more than a passing familiarity. might i offer a suggestion? nodecontext: gale's a badass lanceboard player, anticipating showing off

if you want to headcanon your tav and gale raising a big family together that is more than fine and no one is stopping you. whatever you want to happen to these two after the storyline of the game is up to your respective fantasies. no one is policing you on what you should do with your own character. go wild and create whatever fan content you wish, no justification required.

yet once again, as there is no mention in canon anywhere — neither in the main game nor the epilogue — that this is something gale would ever want (whether that may mean immediately or somewhere down the line) gale wanting to be a father remains a headcanon. while gale being childfree is explicitly shown in the game, in strict comparison to other companions that either have children by the end of the game or voice the desire to (eventually) have them.

my personal preferences are of no relevance here whatsoever. i care about accurate and correct characterization and will point out inconsistencies/false information no matter the topic. i, for one, want to appreciate these characters in the way they're written, not how i ideally want them to be.

[bonezone44]

'Doesn't Nothing Ever Last Forever?' (18+)

Raider!Joel x afab!Reader

Word Count: 5,4k

(FYI: woman in moodboard is a side character.)

Summary: You worked in a brothel outside of a quarantine zone. Every once in a while, you got a visit from Joel and his men. This was your first time being around for one of those visits. (Reader is severely depressed and bisexual [relatable, amiright?]. Reader is not popular at the brothel.)

tags: DEAD DOVE, DO NOT EAT (tagging this to be safe!) Kidnapping, sexual slavery, group sex, overstimulation, rough oral (m). POV switching, canon-typical violence. -- Sex between Reader and Joel is non-con. Reader enjoys it, but the larger context doesn't allow for consent. Fingering, unprotected p-in-v. Degradation. Finger-sucking. Spanking. Orgasm control/denial. Joel is turned on by Reader's history w/ women. Reader is called slut, good girl, bad girl. Reader calls Joel "sir."

A/N: Written for @iamasaddie's writing challenge. ✏ I was so excited by their moodboards, I had to participate. Also, read @toxicanonymity for the original Raider!Joel which heavily inspired this one. 🙏 And special thanks to @milla-frenchy for helping me choose a story line. 😘

story masterlist - main masterlist

+++++

The days bled together, one right after the other. No matter how clear the skies were, a permanent fog had taken over your mind. 

The only reason you woke up that evening was all the commotion. You heard the roar of diesel engines and loud men laughing and yelling. The slamming of car doors. Then those voices got louder and closer. Obviously, they had made their way inside your building. You knew you should rise and shine. Get to work. But you stayed curled up on your bed cushion in the shared room as long as possible. Even after your boss had been calling for you.

It wasn’t the kind of job you punched in and out of. You lived in a brothel. You were paid by the client–and even then sometimes all you got was a spare coin or two. A ration slip, if you were really lucky. But those could only be spent at the nearby Quarantine Zone. And the four hour trek there and back was hell on your feet and knees.

Your boss, Larry, finally opened the door to your room, but didn’t say anything. Instead, he allowed the noise and chaos to do the job of waking you up.

You unfurled from the floor and wandered to the bathrooms, bare fit sticking to the tile floors. You had hoped no one would catch you and make you work. You hadn’t had it in you to do anything that day. What you really wanted to do was float away, fly with the clouds on the wind to somewhere far, far over the rainbow.

You found Trisha at the sinks, under the sickly green lights, already washing cum from her hands. 

“Joel and his crew are here again,” she mumbled. There was a tremor in her voice.

You nodded blankly. Tired.

She turned around and stared at you with wide eyes. “Joel,” she emphasized.

“Okay?” You shrugged. Your eyes bored into a growing mold stain in the corner.  

She scoffed. “Joel is the guy who bought Carrie.”

“What?” … ‘Bought Carrie?’ That didn’t sound right to you. “I just thought… she left.”

Trisha stared at you, aghast. The room was cold, but steam began to fog the mirror. “Are you fucking kidding me? You were there!” She shouted. “You were there when Larry told us he sold her for the fucking water heater!” She pointed at the filling sink.

You blinked. “...Oh.” You wiped your eyes with your hands. “I don’t… really remember.” Her words didn’t quite click it into place for you, but a dull memory played in the back of your mind. You remembered a ‘house meeting’ and hearing Carrie’s name a lot. You remembered getting the water heater. You remembered everyone being upset and yelling at Larry. You remembered curling in the corner, your brain checking out and wandering through the static of your own mind rather than feeling something–anything–in your own body.

That explained all the weird looks you had gotten later when you expressed excitement over the hot water. You had been happy about something for once and everyone responded by staring at you like you were a freak. 

But everyone you had ever met always felt so far away. Like you were so deep in the depths of your own mind that the world around you was a movie you were watching. All the people in your life were characters playing out their roles. So you did, too. You went through the daily motions, following some imaginary script in your mind. Playing a part. Doing whatever you thought you were supposed to.

Trisha started telling you more stories about Joel and his crew. About their violence. But none of it sounded real. It sounded like another movie to you. You stood, unmoving, wishing you had some bleach to clean the mold in the corner. You wanted to scrub the grout until it was pure again. Wipe away the layer of filmy mildew from the ceramic tiles. Disinfect every inch of porcelain in this piece of shit building. 

Another woman entered the bathroom, fully nude. “Well, look who decided to show up!” she spat at you. “Go out there and do your job. I need a fucking break.”

You sighed and resigned yourself to your fate. “Okay,” you muttered without meeting her eyes. You didn’t bother looking in the mirror or worrying about your clothes. You knew that in your line of work, they didn’t make a difference either way.

-

You walked out to the main room and saw about a dozen men scattered around the couches, women in their laps or on their knees. 

One woman was sitting naked in a guy’s lap while another guy roughly rubbed and slapped her clit. His laughter grossed you out. The woman was crying.  

Another woman was getting facefucked and choking. She pulled back to cough and breathe. The man she was sucking on held himself in a tight grip. He pushed the hair from her face and whispered softly to her, wiping away her tears, before shoving his cock right back in.

You nodded at the scene unaffected… well, mostly unaffected. You stared into the middle distance and focused on no one person in particular. The women’s moans were mostly performative–it was obvious. But the men didn’t seem to mind. Their moans were hungry and horny, enjoying whatever stimulation they seemed to be receiving. So that was what you focused on. Their blatant sexual desire. It fueled your own heat. A fire expanding in your chest and between your legs. Your mouth began to water. You sucked in your bottom lip, eager to feel flesh inside you. 

You weren’t sure how long you were standing there, watching. It merely occurred to you at some point that one of the men was walking up to you, blocking your view of the scene. He wore a dark brown leather jacket over a v-neck shirt.  A small, shiny gold cross hung around his neck and against his sunburned skin. He wore blue jeans and work boots.

Your boss, Larry, yammered in one of your ears at him.

“Joel,” he pleaded with clasped hands. “I’m sure you’d prefer someone like Trisha or-or-or Cameron. I’m sure, she’ll be right back out any minute!”

“No,” Joel says gruffly. “Her,” he pointed to you with his chin. 

“I’m sure. I’m sure.” Your boss chuckled uncomfortably and surrendered with empty palms. “Of course!” He grabbed you by the arm and tugged you toward the back of the building. He snarled in your ear. “Don’t fuck this up for me.” 

You wanted to shrug him off, but his grip was bruising. What could you ‘fuck up’ exactly? You had been working there for over a year. You weren’t popular, but you got the job done. You didn’t get along with any of the other women there, but what did that have to do with this guy, Joel?

Larry took you and Joel to one of the farthest rooms. It was the nice one with a real bed instead of a mattress or cushion on the floor. You had never been in it before. Not even to clean it. You looked around appraising the paint on the walls. There was a window, but it was dark out. The noise from the main room was barely audible. You liked being somewhere quiet again. 

#######

Joel and his crew pulled up around dinnertime in two pick-up trucks. The sun had set and the truck’s headlights bathed the front of the old office building in a warm, dull yellow.

The crickets were louder than hell that night. Joel remembered that much.

Not five seconds after his boys hopped out the trucks did the brothel owner come skittering out the front door with a nervous grin on his face.

Joel liked that. Piece o’ shit like that should be nervous. 

Joel hated Larry. The man was fucking pathetic. Weasel-y. So needy and desperate to please. Joel hated that Larry sold him a woman for a water heater. What kinda man would do something like that? This was supposed to be a brothel. The women were supposed to be his employees. He didn’t have the right to sell anybody.

But Joel had wanted her. And taking her outright would have caused more problems than it would have solved. So he figured a water heater would help keep things peaceful between them. Because his boys liked the brothel. Each little trip helped ease their minds. Gave them something to talk about and look forward to–something other than survival.

Joel’s needs were more permanent. He needed something more full-time rather than once every few months.

His boys started hooting and hollering as soon as the payment of supplies were unloaded and they got to hang out inside. The women weren’t even around yet, but they were more than ready for some physical entertainment. Joel remained standing while the rest of them spread out along the decaying leather couches lining the walls. A shitty little cd player sat in the corner playing old R&B music. He heard his brother, Tommy, singing along to it. 

Joel sighed and wiped his face with his hands.

Once Larry brought out a few women, the men started roaring. They were shouting and cheering, pulling their cocks out in excitement. Joel groaned. These boys didn’t know a goddamn thing about seducing a woman and their sad little dicks weren’t gonna get them anywhere neither.

Two of the guys grabbed one of the women, causing her to shout, but Joel was on them not a second later. He gripped their skulls, one in each of his giant hands, and knocked them together like coconut shells. 

“Ouch! What the hell, man?” asked one of them, rubbing the sore spot on his head. 

Joel shook his head with his eyes wide, boring into the depths of their souls. “Not until I say,” he spat.

They both tucked their heads under, murmuring. “Yes, Joel.” “Whatever you say, Joel.”

The woman got back in line while the boys sat down on the couch.

“I’m sure I’ve got a couple more on the way,” said Larry with a forced smile. “They’re just getting themselves cleaned up, I’m sure, after uh…  after finishing dinner.”

Joel grunted. He knew what he wanted–knew what kind of woman he was looking for. And he was quick to realize that none of the women in the room were it. So he waved his hand and his men let loose.

Joel stood with his arms crossed and his back against the front door. He kept his eye on the two troublemakers. Kept his ear on Tommy. Tommy was a talker. He loved to chat up the working women as if he was in a bar back home in Texas and looking to find himself a girlfriend. Joel thought Tommy was being ridiculous—acting like the women could say ‘no’ and walk away. Like he had to put real effort in. It annoyed the hell out of Joel. He wanted his crew to have their fun and be done with it. Why did Tommy have to make it so complicated?

Joel was getting bored and antsy the longer he waited. He was feeling needy, too, with the rough sounds of sex filling the air around him. But he was hopeful, preferring to be patient. And if, in the end, there was no woman he wanted, he would pick one at random and blow off some steam. He would find a replacement some other time or start looking around at the nearest Quarantine Zone.

  Then you walked in. 

And at first, Joel was ready to shrug you off, too. Sure, you were attractive. But looks weren't everything. That's what got him in trouble with the last woman. 

But something in your eyes changed as you scanned the room, taking in the sexual depravity. You didn't shrink in and shut down. You were turned on. He saw the way your chest rose and fell as your breaths shallowed and shortened. The way you chewed your bottom lip. The way you squirmed. That's what Joel needed. Someone as needy as him. 

The brothel owner tried to dissuade him. Huh, Joel wanted to laugh. As if that asshole knew a goddamn thing about what Joel wanted–about what Joel needed.

-

“Take your clothes off ‘n get on the bed,” he ordered after slamming the door shut behind him. He liked how quickly you complied. He didn’t understand why you were so calm, though. He unbuckled his belt, releasing the pressure from his stomach and allowing himself some room to breathe. He let the buckle hang and it jingled as he stepped closer to the bed. 

“All fours.”

Again, you complied swiftly and smoothly, facing the back wall.

He eyed you for any sores. Then he slipped his bare hand around the smooth curve of your ass and his fingertips prodded around your lips and entrance. You were already wet, he realized.  He slid the edge of his fingers forward against your clit. 

You moaned. Something fake and bland. 

He pulled his hand away and slapped you on the ass. “Hey.”  He grabbed you by the cheeks when you didn't immediately face him. Your eyes never met his. “Don't fuckin showboat me,” he warned. 

“Okay,” you said flatly. 

He didn’t like how detached you were. How unafraid. But he willed himself to be patient–the amount of wetness coating his fingers eased his anxiety. He continued to play with your folds as he asked questions.

He cleared his throat. “You like workin here?”

You shrugged. “It’s a job.”

“How long you been here?”

“About a year.”

Joel hummed. “I don’t remember you from last time.”

“Probably had the flu.” 

“You got over it okay?”

“Mm-hmm,” you nodded, closing your eyes. You seemed to like it when he moved his thick fingers around you real slow. He liked that.

“You got anything else? Any diseases?”

You shook your head. “I don’t get a lot of men.”

Joel paused. “Why not?”

You shrugged. “I dunno. They like the other girls better.”

“Why’s that?”

You shrugged again. “They’re better at fakin it.”

Joel didn’t know how to feel about that answer. He continued to rub your clit, feeling you get slicker. “So what? You do handjobs, blowjobs?”

“Mostly.”

He noticed an uptick in the tone of your voice. “You like doin those?”

“If the guy is cute.”

He slid his fingers from your clit to your entrance to your other hole. He didn’t push in, only pressed against it, and you sighed. “What about this?” he asked, biting his lip. “You like gettin your ass played with?”

You hung your head and nodded. “If they do it right,” you said with another uptick in your tone. 

Joel liked that. “Ever have a train run on ya?” He slid his fingers back to your clit.

“Yeah,” you answered with a whimper. 

“You like it?”

Your breath hitched as Joel’s fingers sped up. “Been through worse.”

“Worse? Here?” Joel asked, wondering what could happen at a brothel that was worse than a gang-bang.

“No just… you know…” you sighed with pleasure. “--in general.” 

Joel furrowed his brows. You were being honest with him. Too honest, in his opinion. But you were rolling your hips into his hand. And he didn’t want to make the same mistake twice.

He shoved two fingers inside of you without warning. Your body twitched and you moaned–and it was different this time. Quieter. Realer. Joel liked that. He didn’t mind taking his time to get you ready if he knew you would enjoy it. 

“You like fuckin, huh?”

“Who doesn’t?” You snickered, pushing back into his thrusting hand.

Joel took a deep breath, maintaining his composure. But he knew then that he wanted you. That you were just what he needed and more.

#######

You liked this Joel guy. He took his time. He was asking you questions, trying to get to know you. You don’t remember the last time anyone had done that. …Well, maybe when you first started working there. Trisha and Carrie and a couple of the other women tried, but this felt different for some reason. Like it was leading somewhere. Like there was a promise at the end of it. Like maybe he really wanted to make you come and he wasn’t just there for himself. 

And you liked his voice. It was smoky and deep. He had an accent like a cowboy. It was comforting, in a way.

And his fingers felt nice. He knew what he was doing. You couldn't remember the last time a guy got you that wet with just his hand.

Part of you felt a little hopeful. You thought you might finally get to have some fun like the other girls did. Most of the guys you got were ugly or just plain ol’ depressing. Another part of you couldn’t stop thinking about Carrie for some reason. You’re not sure why she kept coming up in your mind. You two never worked together. You barely knew her at all.

-

“You ever fuck the other women here?” Joel asked. 

“Mm-hmm,” you hummed in proud affirmation. It even pulled a smile from you. 

“What's that mean?”

You weren’t sure how you expected him to react. You weren’t sure why you answered that way. “It means… yeah,” you replied while embarrassment burned your cheeks. You had barely looked at him before, but now you really didn’t want to see his face.

“Yeah, you like fuckin women?” His voice turned breathy. You heard his buckle jingle and the slide of the zipper of his jeans. 

 It turned you on to know that he liked that. Some men hated it. Made you feel like shit for it. But man, this Joel guy was something else. It made you want more of him. More of his fingers. His voice. His skin. “Yeah,” you moaned and shoved yourself harder into his hands, thrusting his fingers deeper.

“So what? You lick their pussies? Rub your little cunts together?”

Your mouth hung open from his words. “yeah,” you said with a hot breath. He pulled his fingers from inside of you and drew circles on your clit. You started whimpering. You nodded your head as fire burned in your core and across your skin. 

“That’s why you work here, huh? You got a needy little cunt?”

His fingers were moving so fast, the muscles in your legs were jumping and your toes were curling. “Uh-huh,” you moaned loud enough for your voice to echo around the bare room.

“That why you left the Q-Z? This slutty hole wasn’t get fucked enough?” His fingers slid back inside your entrance. You’re not sure how many he stuffed in, but it was more than before. 

You nodded with a desperate moan, your right leg slapping the mattress beneath you in frustration. You needed more. His fingers, his words–they weren’t enough. Your body was hot and sparking and you needed-needed-needed. “Joel, please,” you begged, turning to face him, finally opening your eyes again. He was stroking himself and the sight of his cock made you drool. 

“Whatchu need, sweetheart?” He asked and you could almost kill him for it.  

“Please, please fuck me, Joel. Please.”

“Need it that bad, huh?” He kicked off his boots and shoved his pants all the way down to the floor. 

You got out of the way as he crawled into the bed and sat up against the headboard. 

“Come and get this cock, you fuckin slut,” he growled. One hand held his length while the other pulled you by the arm. 

You were too hungry to notice how tightly he gripped you. You hovered over his lap as he lined himself up with your entrance. You stared at the curve of his lips on the way down, the mix of gray and brown hairs in his mustache. But there was white on his cheeks and chin. You briefly wondered how old he was. But you couldn’t bring yourself to get a good look at his face. Too busy melting from the pressure of his cock stretching your walls. Fuck, it felt good. You braced yourself on his firm, wide shoulders and brought your hips back up a few inches before sinking down on his length even further. You groaned and tucked your head into his neck.

#######

You started sucking on his neck and his hips began to thrust up into you.

“It ain’t enough that I’m stuffin your cunt?” he grunted. “You need me in your mouth, too?”

You moaned against his throat, sending goosebumps all over his skin. “Yeah,” you said through panting breaths, before latching back on, teeth and tongue digging into his muscle. 

Joel liked you. He really liked you. You were wet and riding him just right. You weren’t mechanical about it, neither–like Joel was just another job to you. There was a sadness to you, sure. It was probably why you didn’t get a lot of men. Men wanted to forget their troubles at the brothel. Have some fun. They wanted the world outside to disappear with their cock inside a woman.

But Joel had tried that. And it hadn’t worked out so good.

So this time, he looked for someone different. Someone who would understand. Someone who would get why he needed to fuck and when and how he needed to fuck, too. 

And you were telling him everything he needed to know. He was learning what you wanted and what you liked and what he could use to threaten you into compliance. 

He pulled you away from his neck, not sure how he felt about being covered in hickeys. “Here,” Joel prodded your lips with his middle and ring finger. “Suck on this, you greedy little slut.”

And you did, moaning desperately as you rolled your hips in his lap. You gagged as he slid his fingers back and forth on your tongue, saliva spilling from the edges of your lips and down your chin. Your eyes were closed and he knew there was nothing going on in your mind. He knew you were focused on nothing but how good he was making you feel.

You started bouncing on his cock and he slapped your ass with his free hand. He gripped your hip hard enough to bruise, forcing you to stop.

“Did I say you could do that?”

Your eyes popped open–meeting his directly. You tried to pull your head away to answer, but Joel shoved his fingers in even further.

He repeated himself. “You tryin to come right now? Did I say you could?”

You let out a pathetic whine and shook your head.

He slapped your ass again and this time he noticed your pussy clench around him. He heard a small moan grow and die in your throat. “You come when I fuckin say you can come,” he snarled with his teeth clenched. He smacked your asscheek again and thrust up into you. 

You whimpered and squeezed your eyes shut. 

“That turn you on?” He gripped your ass in his hand. “You like takin’ your medicine, bad girl?”

You tried to turn your head, but Joel still had his fingers in your mouth and he held you in place. You looked at him with the most pathetic, pleading look.

“I asked you a question,” Joel growled with wide eyes. His cock twitched inside of you. “You like takin’ your medicine? You like bein told what to do?”

You squeezed your eyes shut again and quietly nodded.

Joel liked that. He liked that a lot. He took his fingers from your mouth and gripped your cheeks. Your eyes popped open again. He licked his lips. “You be a good girl and make me come first, then we’ll see what you get, okay?”

You nodded.

“Now what do you say?”

Your brows furrowed. 

“When I tell you what to do, what do you say?”

Your face softened. You blinked slowly before answering. “Yes, sir.”

“That’s right.” Joel grunted and thrusted his hips. “Now, make me come, you little slut.” His fingers dug into your own hips to guide your rhythm to what he wanted. “Make me come and we’ll see what you get.”

“Yes, sir. Yes, sir,” you murmured again and again.

Your warm, wet cunt sucked him in and stroked him. He could hear it, too, how drippy and turned on you were. It wasn’t long before he tossed you off him with a grunt, throwing you onto your back on the bed. He only fisted his cock twice before shooting his spend on your spread open pussy, on the hair on your mound. He wiped his cum down and around on your clit. “Come on, girl. You can come now. Come on,” he chanted. He rubbed your clit back and forth with the flat of his four fingers. “Give that greedy little cunt what it needs. Come on.”

Your body curled in as you orgasmed and you moaned loudly into your arm. Joel didn’t see the need for you to be quiet, but it was too late to do anything about it now. He rubbed you with his thumb until your legs clasped shut and you squirmed away.

He wiped his hands on the sheets and got up from the bed. He pulled his jeans back on, but waited to buckle his belt. He sat back down and put his shoes on.

You were still lying where he left you. Curled up in the fetal position. It almost looked like you were falling asleep. He figured you might as well rest up now. The drive back home was a bumpy one.

He sighed when he stood up. He figured he should get the liquor bottles out of the truck sooner than later. He huffed. Larry was a real piece of shit for trading a woman for liquor. But Joel wanted you. And he was gonna have you.

#######

You were reeling. Sexually, you were satisfied, but every other emotion bursted and channeled itself through your muscles and across your skin. You felt so vulnerable. This man had seen you–seen you! Like you were a real person or something! Like you weren’t just a ghost or a character in a movie! Everything felt wrong and you couldn’t figure out why. And you couldn’t stop thinking about Carrie for some reason.

You stayed as still as possible until you heard Joel’s booted footsteps leave the room. You were grateful he didn’t say anything or try to touch you again. Your body trembled as you got out of the bed. You walked on shaky legs to the bathrooms to clean yourself. The world around you was so close and too clear. You could hear and differentiate everyone’s voices in the main room. The air was humid and you could taste it–actually taste it like it was a wet, moldy cloud in your mouth. 

Your hands tremored. You tried to exert control over them, but you were barely able to turn on the sink. You mostly swatted at the faucets until water came out. And there was no comfort to be had in the warm, rushing water. You noticed tension in your cheeks and thought you wanted to cry, but couldn’t make any tears come out.

The woman in the mirror scared you. It was you. You knew it was you. But she felt unfamiliar. Three dimensional. You wanted to run. Run away to the Quarantine Zone or—or anywhere but here.

Then you heard screaming, shrill screams from what had to be one of the other women. Suddenly you were being dragged out of the bathroom. Trisha’s hands were on you. Her fingers were small and thin and her skin was smooth and cold. You had never noticed before.

The lights in the main room were so bright that you could see everything. Every small piece of leather that had flaked off each of the couches and landed on the dirty, carpeted floor. The carpet itself was covered in dust and dirt and leaves. Where did the leaves come from? you wondered. How did they get tracked inside? Weren’t people wiping their shoes like they were supposed to?

There were people moving around. Naked. Half-naked. Clothed. All talking over each other. And blood. Bright red blood. One of the women, with long gold hair, was covered in it, shrieking in pain with both her hands on her hip. Two others guided her past you towards the back. One of Joel’s men was apologizing to Larry. He had black curly hair and a thick mustache. Larry was screaming in his face.

You saw Joel from the back as he pushed himself up from the couch. His shoulder rose and fell with deep, heaving breaths. There was blood dripping from his fist and there was someone beneath him. Once he stepped away, you saw an oblong fleshy ball of bright red where a face should have been. The body beneath the ball didn’t move. 

You folded in half and started heaving. Trisha shrieked in your ear. 

“I’m so sick of you assholes coming here and-and-and-and–” Larry was caught in a loop as he pulled his gun from his pocket. It was a small revolver. You watched his gray-skinned thumb pull back the hammer. “I’m sure! I’m sure!” he yelled over the shouting.

The man with the black curly hair lunged at Larry with a curse. 

The gun-shot stilled everyone in the room. It was loud enough that for a moment, you thought you had been shot. The vibrations pierced you to the very center of your being. But then… Larry was on the floor. Sprinkled with dust from the ceiling tile. And then there was more blood. Bright red blood spilling out from his body. 

You breathed in relief. Not only that you were still alive, but that it was Larry that was dead. For a few beautiful seconds, you felt free. Free from his bullshit and free from the brothel. Free to go back to the quarantine zone and start over again.

Trisha’s smooth fingers pulled one of your arms, but something warm and calloused pulled your other. You looked up, confused. It was Joel. Joel’s hand, which had been on you only minutes previous, felt so strange and unfamiliar. You had just shared a bed with him but–that had been a different man. Certainly different than the one that stood before you now with blood-splattered on his clothes and sweat beading around his temples. 

“You can’t take her!” Trisha cried, tears pouring out her eyes. “You can’t take her!”

“Sorry, darlin’,” he said. Joel’s eyes looked sad. “She’s mine now.”

Terror fell over you like a cold, biting wind. He was talking about you.

Your body started trembling again. You tried and failed to pull your arm away from his grip. “NO!” You shouted. Your vision went blurry as you sobbed. “Don’t take me! Please!” That was why you couldn’t stop thinking about Carrie. Joel had bought Carrie. Trisha had told you that Joel had bought Carrie. But the information hadn’t clicked into place. You had spent so long avoiding your body, avoiding feeling any emotion at all that when it spent all night trying to warn you, you couldn’t hear it. You couldn’t feel the siren in your gut telling you to stay away from Joel. And now that siren was loud and clear. But it was far too late for you to do anything about it. “Don’t take me! Pleasepleaseplease!”

Joel didn’t budge. He leaned in real close to you. “Now you told me you like bein told what to do.” Your face went fiery hot with shame. He yanked your arm, pulling you from Tasha’s grip. “And right now, I’m tellin you that you’re comin with me.” He continued to pull you out the front door, towards his truck.

“No! Nonono!” You cried. You tried one more time to shake him off, but it was pointless. He was too strong. You were too weak. And you started to wonder if you could have prevented this or if it was simply your fate. Your own boss hadn’t been able to say ‘no’ to these men. What could someone like you have done?

You sobbed into your hands as you sat in the truck. The man with the black curly hair got in the driver’s seat. Joel sat on the other side of you and rubbed your back in some sick attempt at comfort. “You be good for me–” he said, adjusting himself. “--then we’ll see what you get.” 

+++++

a/n: Please let me know if I missed a tag. Also, idk if it's really a DDDNE story or not. ??

story title taken from the song "Mary the Ice Cube" by Primus.

[stu-dyingstudent]

kid/academy/pre-genin Sakura Haruno fic recs

To be honest, there aren't many kid or academy Sakura fics out there, at least that I can find, and most of which are actually time travel AUs. Now, the tricky thing with it is that most of those tend to start where Sakura is quite young, but by the end of the story she is a genin. So, it gives me the difficult decision of whether of not I should include those on this list (I haven't decided).

Anyway, the other difficult aspect of fanfiction about a young Sakura is the writing itself. There has to be a good balance of childishness and eloquence to ensure that the writing is not just truthful to the character, but that it also flows with the story. These are some of the ones I like!

Started: 2024.07.25

Last Updated: 2024.09.13

note: feel free to check out my master list which has a bunch of Sakura Haruno fic recs (all organized)!

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Satori (Between the Lines) - Jaylene || ffn || gen || T || academy AU || complete

While attending the Academy, Sakura's field experience assignment with the Konohagakure Intelligence Division ends up being more valuable than she'd ever guess.

Sakura lands herself working in Torture & Intelligence??? From the very beginning Sakura has been pegged as a "paper ninja" where she is constantly praised for her intelligence, so Satori (Between the Lines) is academy Sakura putting these skills to use. Super good read and includes characters we don't normally get to see in fics!

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Time Flies Like An Arrow - Katlou303 || ao3 || gen || K || time travel AU || complete

Sakura traveled back in time with the intent of changing everything, but something went wrong, and now she's four years old having nightmares about impossible monsters and losing friends she has yet to meet.

Time Flies Like An Arrow is probably the most interesting take on a time travel AU I have ever read. Sakura ends up going back in time to when she is 4 years old and not even in the academy. The only thing is, she has no clue that this is the second time she's living this life and her mind is still one of a child.

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Two Minds (are better than one) - Lesemaus16 || ao3 || gen || Tobirama as inner AU || complete

Tobirama doesn't generally object to being reborn. He does object to being stuck in the mind of a little girl, though.Sakura grows up with a grumpy voice in her head, telling her to train more.Tobirama's influence on Sakura might very well change the story. Or maybe not, who knows.

note: I think this might actually take place during the genin days, but I have to check since I can't remember.

Tobirama is such a great character (so refreshing) and his interactions with Sakura in this are gold! I hope one day Kishimoto will release some side stories about him and other characters from his time as we really don't know that much about them tbh.

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New Day Dawning - IncompleteSentanc (Erava) || ao3 || narusaku || T || canon divergence || complete

One day, while visiting the grave of Nohara Rin, Obito stumbles across a young girl terrifyingly like her. He decides to ensure she doesn’t meet the same fate.As for Sakura? Sakura had no idea what she was awakening the day she went to visit her parents graves - but she never looked back. One way or another.(Feat. Sakura raised by Obito and the Akatsuki, and her eventual return to Konoha and all those she left behind)

Sakura is brainwashed and manipulated, but loved by notorious killers nonetheless. Incredibly well written and I won't lie when I say that the ending took me a bit by surprise. Also, I should warn you that this does take place over a long time and thus Sakura does not remain a child for the whole thing, but I just really wanted to put New Day Dawning on this list (just read it).

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In Another World - eleventheeggo || ao3 || gen || T || orphan Sakura AU || ongoing

What if Sakura was an orphan instead of Naruto and Sasuke? A story about a socially stunted girl who has a thirst for knowledge and is surrounded by softies who love her all the same.

Orphan!Sakura is not something I knew I needed in my life! She is so precious and it's great to watch all of these characters come together for her sake. In Another World also discusses ROOT a bit, which you know I love, so I can't wait for the story to get there.

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Your Move, Instigator (draw your weapon and hold your tongue) - Laysan_albatross || ao3|| third war extended AU || complete

“We are still under wartime policy,” the recruiter had told her parents. He had an envelope in his hand. He sounded sorry. “She has two parents who are successful ninjas. We would be remiss to overlook her potential based upon that alone.” The Third Shinobi War never ended. Konoha needs more soldiers, grabbing anyone who can fight, especially those who can't say no.

I feel like one of Your Move Instigator's biggest strengths is that it truly gets across the innocence (or loss) of these characters. They themselves don't fully understand what they are doing or why. They are just children following the orders given to them by adults, even if that means taking the life of another. In the beginning, Sakura even recalls times of her spelling and grammar being corrected in her reports along with other childish things. Konoha has shown themselves of not being above dispatching young children to fight, but this story just brings that devastation to new light.

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cut the head off the snake - itsthechocopuff || ao3 || T || time travel AU || complete

when eighteen-year-old, post-war Sakura is thrown back into her tiny, pre-Academy body, she makes a decision. she'd had a childhood once already, and this time, she's more interested in Not Dying when the inevitable shit hits the proverbial fan. so she will work harder, care less, kill more, and smile when she's done. and hey, if she ends up reviving an extinct nature transformation to attract the most corrupt, power-hungry man from her timeline, all the better for her, right?

Probably one of the best time travel AUs out there!! Also, we get to see ROOT!Sakura in here, which I love in addition to Sai (my baby). I know I said it's incomplete, but it's only missing one chapter so you still get plenty of story. Anyway, definitely check out cut the head off the snake!!

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Not so imaginary - FangirlJo || ao3 || gen || T || ghost Tobirama AU || incomplete

Haruno Sakura was 5 when she realises her imaginary friend was not so imaginary at all and resembles the Second Hokage by a lot. Like a lot a lot. In which Senju Tobirama is Sakura's Ghost Sensei. Things change, chaos ensues and Tobirama is once more reminded with the reason he doesn't have kids.

Damn, I just really love Tobirama as a character. This guy rocks and deserves more story time (justice for Tobirama!!).

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Ground Zero - TheIzzatron || ao3 || gen || T || third war extended AU || incomplete

Desperate times call for desperate measures. If this means forcing weapons into the hands of children, then so be it.

A young Sakura is taken advantage of in her parents’ absence at war and is enrolled into the academy's "accelerated" program. The complete unfairness of the situation is skillfully conveyed throughout the story. Sakura is left to wonder why she too isn't learning about flowers and history like Ino? Why Ino isn't learning the fastest way to kill her enemies? The characters and their emotions are so well done that you truly feel just how cheated they are. They aren't heartless, they are children. Highly recommend.

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Inherited Will of Fire - jokergirl2001 || ffn || T || gen || sakura can see ghosts AU || incomplete

She always knew she was a natural at genjutsu but what she didn't know was that being a natural meant she had some immense talent when it comes to spiritual energy. Well at least that's what the cheerful raven haired boy who apparently drowned himself on purpose said.

I only just started reading this now, but Inherited Will of Fire is super cute! Academy Sakura finds she is able to see ghosts after stumbling upon Shisui shortly after the Uchiha massacre.

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One Change in the Story - Aingeal98 || ffn || T || gen || time travel AU || incomplete

It wasn't supposed to be like this. She was only supposed to go back five minutes in time. Instead, Sakura wakes up in a dark room surrounded by people wearing black cloaks with red clouds on them. The worst part? She doesn't have a clue who she is.

Praying for One Change in the Story to be completed!! Sakura lands herself back in time with the mind and body of her four year old self. With Pein being the first one to find her, Sakura's new life purpose is to be the Akatsuki's weapon. Similar to New Day Dawning, Sakura doesn't stay a child for the entirety of this fic, but I still think it is a notable mention. Sakura slowly loses herself to her new roll and in a sense becomes the embodiment of a ROOT agent. It was interesting to see Itachi's internal battle with the situation and Konan's guilt. However, even with Sakura bound to Ame, there are children back in Konoha who have an itch that a pink-haired girl named Sakura is someone important.

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Y'all, please send me some good kid/academy Sakura fics!!!! Or write one...

[princeescaluswords]

Almost Universally Accepted

If you ever wonder why people like me think the Teen Wolf fandom has become fundamentally corrupted by racism, you simply need to recall that there is, as one person on this site remarked recently, an 'almost universally accepted' headcanon among the fandom. Based on a single glance near the end of the first episode of the third season, Tattoo, a large number of people in this fandom believe that Stiles Stilinski helped Derek Hale and his pack look for their kidnapped betas over the summer between Scott's and Stiles's sophomore and junior years. In terms of the television production, this would be the hiatus between Season 2 and Season 3.

At first, it seems a perfectly harmless headcanon, but I believe it's a blatant example of how fandom racism degrades media literacy. Allow me to walk you through my reasoning. To start, most headcanons exist in a neutral state with regards to canon. When you speculate on a character's favorite ice cream flavor or whether they spend Christmases with their grandparents, it is most likely not going to affect how you view the canon. This particular one, however, modifies a crucial canon event, one which establishes both the relationships and a major part of the plot for an entire season. Coincidentally, those relationships and that plot are primary motive forces for the lead protagonist's character arc. Thus, accepting this headcanon requires the viewer to radically reinterpret the starting point of an entire season differently than the production's actual intention. It's such a radical change that any critical thinking requires a person to ask what the goal of this headcanon could possibly be, since it simply cannot fit within the canon itself.

Point One: The headcanon is entirely unsupported. Consider the image at the top of this post. That look on Stiles's face is, as far as I can tell, the sole trigger behind the creation of this suspect headcanon. Stiles makes eye contact with Derek and, apparently, looks guilty to the fandom. From this, Stiles is supposed to be sharing a private moment of remorse with Derek, to which Scott is not privy, about their inability to find Boyd and Erica over the summer.

Even given the possibility that the look on Stiles's face could also be interpreted as genuine concern for the fates of Boyd and Erica, regret that something new is coming for Beacon Hills, or even frustration that Scott is getting involved once more in something dangerous, the headcanon's interpretation does not in any way mesh with the actual lines spoken in the scene.

Derek: A pack of 'em. An Alpha pack. Stiles: All of them? How does that even work? Derek: I hear there's some kind of a leader. He's called Deucalion. We know they have Boyd and Erica. Peter, Isaac, and I have been looking for him for the last four months. Scott: Let's say you find them. How do you deal with an Alpha pack? Derek: With all the help I can get.

If Stiles has been working with Derek all summer to find and rescue Boyd and Erica, this dialogue makes no sense. Wouldn't Stiles already know about the alpha pack and how it works? Why would Derek not list Stiles among the people searching? It would require Stiles and Derek (and later Peter and Isaac) to deliberately decide to exclude Scott. Those who adhere to the headcanon never actually explain why that Stiles and Derek would want to conceal Stiles's participation in the search from Scott, but that's not their point.

Yet, while a conspiracy might explain why they don't reveal the secret here, it doesn't even begin to address while it is never mentioned elsewhere during the season (or any season). It also renders the dialogue between Derek and Stiles and between Peter and Stiles in Chaos Rising (3x02) incongruous. It makes the relationships between Stiles and Isaac and Stiles and Boyd incoherent. It makes the way Stiles treats Derek throughout the rest of the season nonsensical. But that's not all.

Point Two: It shreds characterizations for everyone but Scott. Take Stiles. In the last appearance of Stiles in Season 2, he tells Scott that "you still have me," in an incontrovertible statement of support. Why would a Stiles who made that promise hide this information from Scott; not just in this scene but in every scene about the Alpha Pack to come. If he was trying to keep Scott out of the supernatural things, then he didn't do a very good job; after all, he's the one who tells Scott about the Darach once Stiles discovers it. If he's secretly angry at Scott for something (whether it be not finding him when Gerard kidnapped him or some other fandom-conjured reason such as Scott 'ignoring' him all summer), then why wouldn't he use it when he argues with Scott in Unleashed (3x04), Frayed (3x05), Motel California (3x06) or Currents (3x07)? For this headcanon to be even remotely valid, it has to suppose that Derek and Stiles established a positive working relationship, but Derek is the one person to whom Stiles doesn't bring his ideas about the Darach. Why the sudden and unexplained change in regard?

Take Derek. If Derek trusted Stiles enough to have him help his pack look for Boyd and Erica over the summer, why would Derek so casually and cruelly dismiss Stiles's assistance after the recovery of Isaac ("Not You!"). If Derek is simply trying to keep Scott out of this -- which is actually seen on the screen -- isn't it callous of him to not have tried to keep Stiles out of it? And if Derek is angry enough with Scott not to seek his help over the summer (though this emotions doesn't stop him from accepting and asking for Scott's help visually on the screen), why doesn't Derek ever bring up that he trust Stiles enough to help but not Scott?

Keeping this a secret throughout the entire season doesn't match anyone else's character, either. Why didn't Peter use it to needle Stiles in Chaos Rising or needle Scott in Unleashed? Why does Peter, who is consistently portrayed as manipulative and using other people's misdeeds to excuse his actions ("I'm not the only dysfunctional family member.") not use it to undermine Derek's or Isaac's trust in Scott? For that matter, why doesn't Isaac use it in any of the conflicts he has with Stiles? It simply doesn't fit in with anyone else's behavior or characterizations.

Part Three: It does, however, serve to undermine Scott's role as lead protagonist. This is, at the base, the point. It's not really a starting point for Sterek that they claim it to be; a massive conspiracy doesn't really establish the impetus for their relationship considering how they both canonically treat Scott later. It does, however, serve as a coded way to establish the white male characters in the show as a social group in and of themselves, one from which Scott must be excluded, perhaps because of his inadequacies (he has to go summer school, see, which in Beacon Hill seems to be envisioned as a boot camp-slash-gulag) or his sins (not sacrificing Allison) but there has to be a reason. When you take in the way it doesn't fit into anything happen and doesn't really help what they want to happen, the only logical reason for the creation of this headcanon is that it demonstrates their belief that Scott does not deserve his position as lead protagonist, and that Stiles's professed loyalty is slowly being transferred to a man he had on a list of people responsible for human sacrifices twice.

But it is inevitable that such headcanons go against the themes of the show, the plot of the show, and the established characterizations of the cast, because consistency is not really important to parts of the fandom. What is important is that it suggests the true focus of the story should be where the believe it belongs: any white male character. This ill-fitting whim has become almost universally accepted, to remove a character of color form his position as lead protagonist with a subtext so deep it appears for exactly 2 seconds.

It is indeed racism.

[atinylittlepain]

Apothecary - Chapter Four

joel miller x witchy!reader

series masterlist

questions are answered and truths are revealed. and they both cross lines they won't be coming back from.

warnings | 18+ canon-typical violence, angst, canon-typical descriptions of gore, smut (shhhh don't tell anyone) annnd spooky times, of course

a/n | y'all fucking rock for loving and supporting this series so much <3 my inbox is always open and i love to hear your thoughts about it. also i should mention this chapter is just a little bit longer, so get comfy before reading :)

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The sun is only just rising when she sees him out of her house. Joel finds himself squinting in the faint morning light as he steps out on her porch, his eyes bleary from a night without sleep. 

“We’ll talk more later, right?” She leans against the doorframe, arms crossed as she asks him. He can see the worry lining her furrowed expression and he impulsively ducks his head to press a quick kiss to her lips, wanting to smooth out any uncertainty in her.

“Tonight, after my shift. Can I come by then?” Her expression eases into a smile and she nods, untucking her hand from where it was crossed under her arm to offer him a small tin– of what, he isn’t sure. 

“Salve made with comfrey root. For pain and swelling in those knuckles of yours.” Joel is starting to accept that knowing her is being constantly surprised by her, so he just nods and mumbles a soft thank you, taking the tin from her with his hand that isn’t all bandaged up.

“I’ll see you tonight, Joel.” 

“I’ll be here, darlin.” He’s still getting used to it, being able to reach for her and her reaching back, so his motions are a bit disjointed when he shuffles closer in search of another kiss. She makes it easier, though, bringing a hand to his jaw, a steady guide drawing him in. His nose barely brushes against hers when he jerks away in a flash, biting back a yelp as something brushes up against his ankles. He can tell that she’s holding back a laugh as she smoothly scoops Stevie up in her arms, the feline nuzzling up against her chin immediately.

“I think someone might be a little jealous.” Joel finds himself mirroring her easy smile, shaking his head before leaning in to steal that kiss he had been set on. It’s a quick little thing, Stevie letting out an indignant meow between them as he pulls away.

“You better go before Tommy comes looking for you.” One more look, one more smile, it feels like pulling away from a magnet as he leaves. He moves through town not fully there, his mind swirling with everything she told him last night. But the haze he finds himself walking through quickly clears when he makes it to the gate, finding his brother talking to Mason, who is clearly wound up judging by the way he’s in Tommy’s face. As Joel gets closer, Tommy’s eyes dart over Mason’s shoulder to him, prompting the man to turn around, revealing a clearly broken nose. Mason scoffs, looking once between Tommy and Joel before storming past them.

“Got something you wanna tell me, brother?” Tommy cocks an eyebrow at him, eyes glancing down to Joel’s bandaged hand before settling back on his face. 

“He got what he deserved.” Tommy snorts at that, crossing his arms over his chest. 

“Oh, I know. It’s the talk of the town. Joel Miller went where no man has gone before– the witch’s lair.” He knows his brother is joking by the way he can barely get the words out behind a laugh, but Joel is having a hard time finding it amusing, huffing as he shoulders past Tommy, heading toward the stables to mount up and head out.

He and Tommy work well together, always have, and today is no different as they ride out for patrol, but what is normally a comforting quiet only gives Joel more time to stew over her dizzying story.

As far back as we could trace it– we’ve always been like this.

It’s energetic, really. Where others are closed, we’re open wide. 

I see the world in threads. Everything is tied together. What I do– what people call magic– is pulling on those threads.

He knows that he still doesn’t fully understand, but he reckons that she doesn’t fully understand either. What she could tell him, she did. 

She told him about growing up in Wyoming with her mother, how she first told her about these abilities when she caught her talking to a bird, and it seemed to be talking back. 

She told him how her mother was both revered and repelled in their small town, much the same way she is in Jackson. 

She told him that her mother had a vision the summer before everything fell apart, and took her out of her senior year of high school and up into the mountains to hide away while the world crumbled. 

She told him how they lived well like that for many years, until her mother had another one of her visions behind now milky eyes. A vision that it was time to go. 

She told him about the night before they were planning to leave, raiders coming in the dark and a stray bullet finding a home between her mother’s ribs. She wandered on her own for weeks, willing death to rejoin her with her family, but was instead found by Maria and one of the Jackson patrol groups. 

She told him about her time in Jackson. The people she helped. The lives she got tangled up with. And the men whom she always kept at a distance, beacons of grief and reminders of what people really thought of her.

She spoke as if in a trance, her eyes and voice unwavering save for the shuddering breaths she took between words. And when she finished, Joel had risen from his seat and coaxed her up with him, pressing her close in his arms until the shake in her shoulders steadied. 

He’s gotten the truth now, and he spins it over and over in his mind, his thoughts flitting up into the thin mountain air.

…

She’s being followed. Has been since she set out on her rounds this morning, paying house visits to folks in Jackson that need her care. Stevie lets out a sour hiss from her place tucked in her satchel, and she chances a glance over her shoulder. Sure enough, the black dog is following behind her at a close but respectable distance. If it hadn’t been going on since she left her house this morning, she probably wouldn’t even notice. But it had been sitting right next to her mailbox, head tilted at her as she stepped down from her porch, and she knew then that this wasn’t just a random visitor. It was an omen.

“Go on, get!” She waves her arm behind her, uselessly trying to shoo the dog away, who only looks at her with that same head tilt. 

Four other times this had happened. 

The first time, it had been an inky black crow, squawking and hopping along from house to house, trailing behind her. They brought him back that night, slung over the back of one of the horses, a smear of bullet wounds in his back.

The second time, it had been a rat that skittered along fence posts and wove between people’s feet. He didn’t even make it out of the gates that morning, trampled to death by a newly-trained horse. 

The third time, it had been a beetle, a creature certainly not indigenous to Wyoming. She kept picking it up in a glass jar and taking it outside, but everytime, it found its way back into her shop. A freak accident, people said, for someone so young to have a heart attack so suddenly. 

The fourth time, it had been a black dog, the same black dog following her today, though it’s now much grayer in the face. They didn’t even bring his body back that time, not after he was infected.

Finishing her last house call, she jerkily makes her way toward her shop, trying to ignore the icy prickle shivering up her spine at the sound of paws padding behind her. She’s trying not to look like a freak, but judging by the glances people are giving her as she walks through town, she isn’t doing a very good job of hiding her mounting panic. 

“I said go away.”

“Woah, I thought you told me you needed my help today, but I can go I guess.” She whips around from where she had been scolding the mutt at the sound of Ellie’s voice, finding her waiting in front of the store.

“I’m sorry, Ellie. I wasn’t talking to you, I was– well, I was–” She motions vaguely behind her to the dog that has now sat on its haunches, panting lightly and looking at them. Ellie, however, is entirely unbothered by the animal, walking right over to it and crouching down to pat its scruffy head. The sight makes her feel a bit sick, knowing exactly what the presence of this animal means.

“C-c’mon, that thing probably has fleas. Let’s go inside and get to work, alright?” Ellie smiles up at her, nodding with a sigh as she walks over to where she is unlocking the door to the shop. She keeps her eye on the dog over Ellie’s shoulder, even as she opens the door and motions for the girl to go inside. 

“You’re acting– weird.” She mutters something about not sleeping well, and although Ellie doesn’t seem to buy that, she shuffles inside. Before she follows after Ellie, she sets her satchel down just inside the door, Stevie stepping out and running to the back of the shop in search of the girl. She turns around to face the dog who has now inched closer to her, and does the only thing she can think to do.

The people of Jackson got quite the show that afternoon as she chased the scruffy mutt, her arms waving and muttered curses loosing from her lips, as far away from her shop as she could. 

“You stay. Do you hear me? He’s coming back– h-he is.” With a final huff, she turns on her heel, stomping a direct path back to the shop and slamming the door behind her, Stevie’s and Ellie’s heads whipping up at her blustery entrance. She just huffs at their wide-eyed stares, her shoulders slumping when she glances back through the shop door window and sees that damn dog sitting on the stoop, head eternally tilted.

…

It’s been a slow day of patrol. They rode up around the dam, relieved to not find any raiders, a seemingly perpetual nuisance. It must be late in the afternoon when they decide to start heading back through the thickening woods.

“So, you two are really making a go of it, huh?” Joel glances over at Tommy, grunting at his brother’s prying question.

“Suppose we are.” Tommy chuckles.

“You never did take any of my advice. Good luck, brother. But please, try not to make a habit out of busting people’s faces for her.” It’s meant in jest, but Joel shoots him a hard look from atop his horse.

“You would’ve done the same if you had seen what he did to her.” When Tommy’s brow furrows, Joel lets out a bitter laugh.

“What? Did Mason leave out that detail? I watched that fucker slam her head against a wall, Tommy. If I hadn’t stopped him, he would’ve done much worse.” Tommy mutters a low jesus christ under his breath, shaking his head at Joel’s words.

“Fuck, Joel– I’ll talk to Maria about this–”

“Don’t. Asshole like that– best to just let it go. I think I made my point. But if he tries anything again, I won’t hesitate, Tommy. I just won’t.” Tommy offers him a faint nod, both of them settling back into silence as they continue riding. 

It happens in a flash. Someone– or something– comes bounding out of the trees, spooking Joel’s horse enough that he gets thrown right off. He groans, scrambling to get to his feet as Tommy wheels around, but before Joel can get his bearings, he’s tackled back down to the ground. 

Snapping teeth and garbled shrieks, a disorienting mix as he struggles to push the clicker off of him. He can’t hear anything else, no clue if Tommy is alright, if they have any shot of making it out of this alive. All he can do is flail on the ground with this snarling creature, his bare hands doing little to repel its staggering force.

A cool fear starts to trickle in. A fear that this might be the time he doesn’t make it back.

…

She’s watching the clock, face scrunched into a permanent scowl of worry. The beds of her nails had all been picked raw several hours ago, and she had only stopped when they started to bleed. In her spiraling state, she had sent Ellie off early, not wanting to draw any more attention to her obvious anxiety. Stevie sits in the storefront window, hissing and clawing at the dog who has now laid down in front of the store.

It isn’t her fault. She tells herself this, over and over. She knows that it isn’t her fault. That it hadn’t ever been her fault, not now and not before. Deep down, she knows this, but the nagging voices of Jackson, and what people believe contrarily, seeps in around the edges of her mind, a sour poison that settles thick in her thoughts. And she braces herself for the worst, a full body tensing, waiting for the news to come.

Five o’clock. He should’ve been back an hour ago. But just as the clock rolls over into the new hour, Stevie stops hissing altogether. She gets up from her stool behind the old checkout counter, craning her neck to look out the window, but finds no sign of the dog that had been following her all day. 

She moves before she thinks, leaving the door to the shop ajar as she stumbles out and starts walking briskly toward the town’s gate. When she rounds the corner and the gate comes into her line of sight, the slow creaking of its opening resounding in her bones, her feet kick up into a stilted jog. It barely registers to her that she’s crying, the cool slip of it running down her cheeks. When she only sees Tommy riding in, she stops in her tracks, heart stuttering still in her chest. But she breaks into a sprint when Joel comes into sight, riding in just behind his brother. 

She lets out a yelp of his name, his head jerking up at the sound. A sob breaks in her ribs when his eyes meet hers, and he’s quick to slip down off his horse, taking a few tentative steps forward before she’s crashing right into him. 

A hard breath is pushed out of him as he stumbles back a few paces, his arms wrapping firm around her as she presses her face into his chest, her hands clinging to the fabric of his shirt. When she finally pulls away, she brings her hands to his jaw, holding his face still as her eyes search his.

“Are you– are you ok?” He nods, clearly caught off guard by her frenzied greeting.

“I am, but– how did you– I mean, I’m fine. Just a little bruised. But I’ll live.” His words make a laugh bubble up in her throat, and when she lets it loose he really does look at her like she’s gone crazy.

“The dog was wrong–” She lets out another bright laugh.

“The dog was wrong!” His brow creases in even greater confusion.

“What dog? What’re you talk–” She cuts him off with a hard kiss, a smooch really, the kind that would make a cartoon character’s head explode in a shower of confetti hearts. But Joel’s blush when she pulls away with a sweet smack accomplishes much the same effect.

“I am so glad you’re back.” 

…

“Damn, is this soup magic? Because it’s way better than anything Joel cooks.” 

“Kid.” Ellie looks up at him from where she’s all but face-planted into her bowl of soup, shrugging at his scolding. She takes it in stride, though, laughing at Ellie’s exclamation.

“Not magic– but I’m glad you like it.” It’s a strange sight, her sitting at his kitchen table. It had been even stranger watching her flit around his kitchen, cooking for him and Ellie like she had done it hundreds of times before. But she had insisted after he told her what happened on patrol, not letting him get another word in edgewise as she led him first to her shop to pick up Stevie and that satchel of hers, and then to his house where she had immediately gotten to work with whatever odds and ends she could find in his fridge. Joel would never protest at the promise of a hot meal that he didn’t have to make, and he has to admit that the kid is right, the soup is really fucking good.

The rest of their meal passes quietly, the continuous purrs of Stevie sitting in Ellie’s lap being interrupted only when Ellie finishes her bowl with a contented groan.

“That was so fucking good, seriously. Can you come over more often? Because Joel’s idea of cooking is opening a can of really old chef boyardee beef–”

“Kid.” Joel is entirely mortified, but once again, Ellie just huffs, coaxing Stevie off her lap and standing up to take her bowl to the sink, glancing at them over her shoulder.

“What? It’s true. Anyways, I gotta run– Dina and I are going to movie night together.” Ellie wiggles her eyebrows as she leans back against the sink, but before Joel can even tell her to be safe, she’s already bounding through the house and out the front door with a loud “don’t wait up!” All he can do is slump back in his chair with a huff.

“That nudge you gave Ellie is going to send me to an early grave.” She snorts at that, sitting back in her own chair across from him and crossing her arms over her chest.

“I think it’s sweet– a little young love could do this world some good.” With that, she gets up, grabbing her own bowl as well as his and heading over to the sink. He goes to get up, protesting at her cleaning up after them, but finds himself sitting back down with a wince that catches her attention.

“You feeling alright?”

“I mean– no. Feel like I got thrown off a horse, probably because I did.” She offers him a small smile, tilting her head.

“Let me get this cleaned up, huh? I think I can help with that.”

Just a little while later, when she has him lead her up into his bathroom, Joel reckons that her idea of helping may give him a heart attack.

“Do you like the water really really hot, or just warm?” He has to clear his throat and pull his eyes away from the soft curve of her jeans where she’s bent over the tub, fiddling with the faucet, before he can answer.

“Um, I don’t– I don’t know. I guess I’ve never actually used this thing.” She whips around at that, brow furrowed.

“You’re kidding, right? You have this super nice tub, and you’ve never used it?” When all he does is shrug, she sighs.

“Well, I’ll just have to show you what you’re missing out on then. Can you go grab my bag? I left it right next to the stairs.” He pads out into the hallway, finding her satchel slung over the top of the railing of the stairs just as Stevie comes slinking up the steps. 

“She asked me to get her bag for– Jesus christ, I’m talking to a cat.” He swipes a palm down his face, letting out a long sigh, only slightly shocked when Stevie lets out an inquisitive mrrp that sounds a whole lot like a response. 

“You stay, alright? Go– be creepy somewhere else.” At that, Stevie lets out an indignant mroowww, tilting her head at him. It’s certainly a first for him, having a staredown with a cat, but he assumes he wins when Stevie turns away with another little mrrp, padding silently back down the steps. 

When he reenters the bathroom, a haze of steam has filled up the room, and she’s sitting on the edge of the tub, checking the temperature of the water with her hand.

“There you are, thanks for grabbing that. You didn’t happen to see Stevie out there, did you?”

“Hmm? Oh, um, no, I didn’t. “ Luckily, she buys his answer, shaking her head with a light laugh as she takes her bag from him.

“Probably slinked off to find some trouble for the night. Anyways, let me finish getting this ready for you.” She pulls out a cloth sack from her satchel, digging her hand in and sprinkling what looks like salt over the bath. Before he can even ask, she explains it to him with a smile.

“Epsom salt. There’s a lake up in the mountains that dries out every summer and there’s always tons of this stuff on the lakebed. Mixed with a little lavender and chamomile to calm down inflammation.” He speaks before he can really think about it, feeling like a fool the instant the words leave his mouth.

“You’re amazing, d’you know that?” She laughs, keeping her eyes turned down as she swirls the water a few times with her hand before standing up to look at him.

“It should be all set. I recommend staying in there for at least a half hour, but really, if you can soak for more like an hour that’d be best.” She’s moving and talking so fast, slinging her bag over her shoulder and heading for the door, that Joel can barely stutter out his response, the flush creeping up his neck only burning brighter when he does.

“Wait– I thought you– um, I thought– would you– stay?” Fucking hell, just bury me now, why don’t you? Her eyes widen first, but then soften as a grin crooks across her lips.

“Joel Miller, are you asking me to join you?” 

“Only if you’d say yes.” Her grin broadens, beautiful and blinding. 

“Well, since you asked so nicely.”

…

She realizes a bit too late that she’s nervous, her fingers trembling at the button of her jeans as they both silently undress. Her ears prick to the sound of a belt buckle clinking, the clean sweep of leather being pulled out of belt loops, followed by the quick thrum of a zipper. But she doesn’t look at him, not yet, to save what little nerve she still has worked up.

And then, when they’re both standing in a puddle of clothes, she wills her eyes to peel away from the tiled floor. She sees him in fragments, darting glances over sun-faded skin and soft strength, a thatch of dark curls that she tries not to stare at for too long. She finally looks at his face, and sees that he’s doing much the same, darkened eyes collecting her. She lets him.

“We should, um, we should get in– before the water gets cold.” She mentally kicks herself for the wobble in her voice, but Joel doesn’t seem to notice. In fact, he doesn’t seem to notice at all, his eyes still roaming over her. She says his name, and his focus snaps back to attention.

“Um, right– I’ll just–” There’s nothing graceful about Joel Miller getting into a bathtub, and that’s how she knows she’s really taken with him, because somehow she still finds it endearing. And she just about swoons when he holds a hand out to her over the lip of the tub. 

She doesn’t let herself think too hard about it, sinking into the warm water, her back facing him as she sits down between his legs. A careful hand slips over her hip, causing her to peer over her shoulder at him.

“This ok?” She hums her affirmation, letting him guide her back until she’s pressed up against the warmth of his chest. His palm skates over the top of her thigh, arcing out of the water to rest on top of her bent knee. 

“Just relax, darlin.” “I’m pretty sure you’re the one who’s supposed to be relaxing.” She feels the vibration of his hummed response running up her spine, and it coaxes her to slump further against him, her head resting back on his shoulder.

“Oh, I am, believe me.” She laughs at that, though it fizzles out when his hand dips back down under the water, fingers curling at the crux of her thigh.

“Can I ask you something?” She’s a little too distracted by the way his thumb is rubbing circles into the soft inside of her thigh to be embarrassed by the breathy uh-huh she responds with.

“Heard a rumor about you from some of the women in town.” That makes her stiffen in his hold, only melting a little when he presses a sweet kiss to the side of her neck.

“I bet you heard a lot of rumors from them.” He hums again, low and gravelly.

“I did– but I really wanna know if this one is true.” She tilts her chin up, neck crooking to look at him and the faint smirk he’s sporting.

“They said they’ve seen you out in the middle of the night, dancing naked in your backyard.” Water splashes up against the sides of the tub as she laughs, squawks really, at his words, quickly turning in his hold and tangling her hands behind his neck. She can feel him, warm and hard, resting along her thigh as she straddles him, and she revels in the pretty flush that spreads across his cheeks. She’s got Joel Miller flustered, and she likes it. Taking him for all he’s worth, she leans in, letting her lips trace the shell of his ear as she speaks.

“Only on Halloween, baby.” His fingers grip a little tighter along the plush of her hips, and she has to giggle at the spluttering exhale he lets out.

“Jesus christ– are you serious?” She sighs, tilting her head at him as she tugs lightly at the curls at the nape of his neck.

“I guess you’ll just have to wait and see, huh?” He swallows her laugh, lips finally slotting with hers, his palm trailing up her spine to press her closer, and it’s right then that she realizes how badly she had been jonesing for a kiss from him. This one is different than any they’ve shared before. It’s a kiss that takes its time, a slow exploration punctuated by murmuring sighs and wandering hands. She finds that he’s a stubborn kisser, always trying to get the upper hand, his tongue swiping across her lip before licking into her mouth. But she doesn’t let him have it for long, her teeth grazing his bottom lip, reveling in the little groan he lets out and using it to her advantage as she presses closer to him, the peaked slopes of her nipples dragging across his chest. 

He shifts his hips down and away from the back of the tub, giving her space to wrap her legs around his waist, ankles grazing his low back and she thinks briefly that his bathroom is going to be a mess, water sloshing out over the sides of the tub with their increasingly frantic movements. Though she doesn’t have much time to worry about it when he ducks his head down, pressing a sweet kiss to her sternum that is starkly contrasted by the subsequent drag of his lips over one of her breasts, teeth grazing over her nipple before he laves his tongue over the bud. She lets out a gasp of his name when he sucks the delicate skin into his mouth, no longer trying to hold back the grind of her hips into the coarse hair covering his pelvis, his cock brushing up against her ass with the movement. Seemingly satisfied with his ministrations, he pulls away with a sweet little pop, his eyes impossibly darker as he looks at her.

“Want you, darlin, so bad. Can I– fuck– can I have you?” Afraid of what her voice might sound like, her response to him is another bruising kiss, tugging just a tad unkindly on his hair as she shifts her hips back, both of them groaning when her cunt grazes the underside of his cock. 

“Want you too, Joel, please.” She doesn’t care that it comes out like a whine, too preoccupied with chasing the pleasure of his cock rutting against where she wants him most. But she stills when Joel places a firm hand to her hip, her brow furrowing at him.

“We’re not doing this in a fucking bathtub, not the first time.” She splutters out a laugh at his very serious expression, but she realizes he’s not kidding when he gently untangles her legs from around him, tugging her up along with him, water going everywhere as they step out of the tub in a slipping tangle of limbs. She’s finding that she can’t get enough of him, stealing whatever kisses she can get as he pulls her into the bedroom, her lips dragging down the column of his throat and over the top of his chest. And then a quick blur and breathy oof from Joel has them tumbling back onto his bed, her palms splaying out over his chest as she straddles his hips. They don’t stay like that for long though, Joel squeezing her ass and rolling them over in a surprisingly smooth move, slotting himself between her spread thighs. 

All of a sudden, things start to move slower, thicker, as he drags a palm down her torso, flipping his wrist around when he reaches her pelvis and cupping her heat in a flat press. She cants her hips into his hold, sighing at the firm grind of the heel of his palm over her clit. And while it feels good, it isn’t what she really wants.

“Joel– don’t tease. I just, fuck– just want you.” He grins, the bastard, shifting his hand to dip two of his fingers against her entrance, the stretch sweet and stinging when he pushes in. 

“Not gonna tease you, darlin. Just wanna get you ready f’me. Fuck– you’re driving me crazy.” She knows that he’s not just being arrogant, having gotten a good look, and feel, of his cock, but the steady rhythm of his fingers pumping inside of her is only making her want him more.

“Please, please– I’m ready, I swear. Just, fucking–” He shushes her with a quick kiss, and by giving her what she wants, moving his hand away and hovering over her, the heavy heat of his cock resting against the apex of her thighs. 

It’s all quiet communication. He draws one palm along the outside of her thigh, coaxing her leg up, her knee resting against his waist as she opens up even more for him. She drags her hands down his chest, the soft pudge of his belly, before hooking them under and around to press into the shuddering muscles of his back. It’s a languid motion, her hips tilting up to meet his rolling forward, both of them letting out broken sighs as he fills her completely. 

“Fucking– s’perfect- you’re perfect– I can’t– I– christ.” He breathes out a hard exhale, resting his forehead against her sternum, hips still flush with hers. She presses a smattering of kisses to his hairline, coaxing him to look up at her.

“Don’t think christ has anything to do with it, baby.” His chuckle at her smug words turns into a low groan when she flutters around him, both of them going a little sick with the pleasure of it all.

“Can I move, darlin? Shit– I’m not gonna last like this– feels too fucking good.” All he needs is her jerky nod for him to arc his hips away before snapping back, deep and slow, finding a push and pull that has them both sighing with each thrust. It feels like he’s everywhere, his mouth open and hot across her chest, his damp hair tickling the skin over her collarbone, his murmuring groans mixing with each of her sighs, and his throbbing length, every inch of him spreading her open again and again and again. She has half a mind to be embarrassed by how quickly she’s tipping over the edge of pleasure, but she doesn’t care, not when Joel is coaxing her into it with low drawling praises.

“That’s it, honey– so good like this– so beautiful– shit– come for me, please– need to– need to feel you–” He brings a trembling hand down over her pelvis, deft fingers drawing circles over her clit and it becomes too much all at once, his name leaving her lips in a quiet cry as she falls apart around him. He fucks her through it, his pace slowing into more of a deep grind that jostles them further up the bed with each stroke. All she can do is hold on, fingernails digging into his shoulder blades, her hitched heel pressing into his low back as he chases after his own high. She pieces herself together enough to drag her hand through his hair, pulling his face down so she can murmur in his ear.

“Want it so bad, Joel– please, baby– wanna see you come for me– let me see you– let me have it.” He groans out her name, sounding more like pain than pleasure as he pulls away, leaning back on his haunches to sloppily stroke his glistening cock. She moves in a haze of desire, scrambling onto her hands and knees, her face coming level with his flushed length as she drops her jaw and sticks her tongue out, spit pooling from want as she looks up at him through her lashes. 

She watches him closely as he comes with a slur of curses, breathless as the salt of his spend spurts onto her tongue, smudging across her lips and dripping down her chin. His shoulders slump, chest heaving as he runs a trembling hand through his hair, eyes not leaving hers as she sits back and swipes up the stray come on her skin, sucking her fingers into her mouth with a low hum. She’d never call that taste appealing, but the fact that it came from him, a sign of his pleasure which she had been sovereign over, sends a shiver up her spine as she swirls her tongue over her fingers. 

…

She’s trying to kill him, she has to be, with her little smile and the lewd pop of her fingers leaving her mouth.

“You’re fucking unreal, goddamn.” She laughs at his exclamation and he swallows the sound, pulling her in for a kiss, his mind going fuzzy at the taste of what he assumes is himself on her lips. Even though he feels like he just ran a marathon, he can’t help but deepen the kiss, their mouths molding and moving as they lay down in a close tangle. 

When they do pull away from each other, it’s with a shared sigh, and she rests her cheek on his chest, right where he knows she can hear his racing heart. She presses a kiss to that spot before tilting her chin up to look at him.

“I’m really glad you came back today, Joel.” His brow furrows, thinking back to earlier and the strange things she had said, her frantic greeting, and the relief that had been clear in her eyes. Another piece of her that he doesn’t quite understand. But he’s ok with that, with not knowing everything about her, at least not yet. She’s already unfurled so much of her life for him, and he’s prepared to wait patiently for whatever else she’ll offer him. As long as he gets to have her like this, warm and soft, keening into his touch, eyes hooded with a shared pleasure. 

No other words are needed, not right now. He coaxes her chin up with a gentle press of his fingers, stealing one more kiss before they both settle down in each other’s arms. 

................................

taglist (i added some folks i thought would like to be, let me know if you want added or dropped lmao) : @boofy1998 @misspascaliverse @jasminedragoon @beskarandblasters @daddy-din @subconsciouscollapse @avidreader73 @pedgeitopascal @littlelou22 @wannab-urs @hannahlupinblack @whoiscaroline @leeeesahhh

[therealvinelle]

From what I can tell, in the actual books there's just one line from Sirius saying Alphard left him some gold, and not much other canon mention of him. How did Alphard become such a big character in your fics/Tom Riddle's love interest?

You know, that's a very good question.

The true and full story behind how Alphard Black became an important character in our fics is laden with a lot of spoilers and back-and-forth, though I will say it wouldn't have happened at all if @theoriginalcarnivorousmuffin hadn't already used him in When Harry Met Tom. When we later then needed to add a character for The Man Who Would Be King, Alphard's name lent itself easily and on discussion we found he was the only that really fit the role we needed a character to play. He went on to become a surprisingly large part of secret fic, now we've imprinted on him like baby ducks and he's in everything.

So, what makes Alphard Black so fitting for what we need him to be?

We have little to go on from canon, but compared to some of the other characters fandom has decided on characterisation for, we at least have something to go on when we make stuff up. Oh, we have to conjecture, fabricate, and headcanon away, and for every possible Alphard Black we draft up someone could have used those same clues to create a different Alphard, but we would both be following certain constraints.

By contrast, characters like Alice Longbottom or Abraxas Malfoy have very strong fanon characterizations, a lot read into them, but I'd argue we have just as much, if not slightly more, to go on with Alphard Black.

With that said, here is the information we have on Alphard and how Muffin and I used every bit of it to make up as much as we could.

Teen pregnancy 1.0: Pollux edition

Alphard's sister was born when their father Pollux Black was twelve, and his father married her mother. Going by his young age, I assume this was so Walburga wouldn't be a bastard. Walburga, by her painting's ravings, appears to have spent all her life in 13 Grimmauld Place, she feels a connection to "the house of my fathers" and always had a strong sense of Black identity she tried to pass on to her sons: I think it's a very fair assumption that the Blacks raised the baby, and not her mother's family (as her mother would have been in Hogwarts as well or else a statutory rapist, either case spells a grim homelife for Walburga).

Now, Alphard's birthdate is unknown since he's struck off the family tree, but it was sometime between 1925 and 1938.

Muffin and I have decided that he was born the next year, since this gives Tom a dorm mate, and more importantly it gives Alphard a teen father, one who learned nothing from last year and assumed no responsibility. Tom now has a fucked up dorm mate, and we didn't have to (completely) invent a character.

You now have two kids raised by family members not their parents since their father is a literal thirteen-year-old, and the generational age gap is so narrow that when Walburga starts school her paternal aunt Dorea is canonically a fifth year. They want for nothing materially and the family does step up, but the complete parental absence in their life has an impact.

For the sake of funny, we thought Arcturus Black, who is already raising Lucretia and Orion, is our candidate for raising his cousin's spawn. Now Walburga's marriage to her second cousin is to someone who was raised alongside her, which is funny and so awful. Another feasible candidate is Cygnus Black, Pollux's father and currently raising four kids, but... not as funny.

Teen pregnancy 2.0: Cygnus edition

Cut to 1951. Alphard is a happy bachelor, his father has stopped having kids (legitimate ones anyhow), Walburga's happily married to their cousin, and then... their brother Cygnus does a booboo.

Bellatrix is born, Cygnus is thirteen. Andromeda's birthdate is unknown, but must have been while he was in Hogwarts because Narcissa is born in 1955, while he is still seventeen.

The same problem as with Pollux arises with Bellatrix: who wants baby? And, as with Walburga, I think a fair argument could be made that the Blacks took her in, not the Rosiers.

There are many options here (and can't rule out the Rosiers), but I think it's fair to assume Bellatrix went to live with close family.

Per the Black family, this gives us three options that I find feasible: Walburga, Alphard, and Pollux.

I don't think it was Walburga, I think that would inevitably have come up in canon, either as Walburga lost her shit when Andromeda eloped, handled her grief differently after Regulus died if she had surrogate daughters, or Sirius had a different dynamic with Bellatrix. The Orion-Walburga-Sirius-Regulus family unit doesn't come across at all as having had three nieces raised alongside the boys, so Walburga's a no.

Which leaves us with Alphard, Pollux, someone in the Rosier family, or extended Black family raising Bellatrix.

Pollux, per his wild youth, might not be topping the lists. One could posit that Pollux wants a second shot at parenting and would take in his granddaughter based on this, but he already has Cygnus if he wanted a second shot at parenting. Still, he's a candidate.

So is Alphard, however, who is living alone and has no wife to worry about, no children of his own, and a pile of gold. Per his choice to give Sirius gold after he ran away, one can also assume he's one to come through for family, which fits with taking in his much younger brother's daughter.

TL;DR: we can't prove Alphard Black didn't raise the Black sisters, or at least care for them in their early years, but someone must have and it might as well have been him.

Let there be no pregnancies and no marriages

We then enter the bit that had Muffin go "oh, gay. I will use him in my fic" long before any of the detective nonsense to come up with the above, which is that Alphard did not marry. Now, that could mean anything, perfectly straight people don't marry and gay people do marry.

However, from 1938 through 1960, no Black heirs are born. Which isn't necessarily a long time, on the contrary, Cygnus has been supplying the family with children for years now, luck just had it so they're all daughters who can't pass on the family name.

Still, taking a step back, Orion, Walburga, Alphard, and Lucretia (who married a Prewett) are all adults who are just not having any children. The Orion and Walburga are perhaps not even married, we don't know when they married, and it could be they married specifically because neither of them had found anyone else to marry and there were no sons. Alternatively, they married earlier but then did not have children until they were in their mid-thirties. Considering Lucretia's childless marriage, it might be some Blacks struggled with infertility.

A bit of nerding about why I think Walburga waiting so long to have children is odd

The tldr for Western European demographics is that if you can afford to have children and provide for your family, you will marry and have children early. The upper classes have historically married and had children much younger than the lower classes because of this. The mother's education will also impact when she has children - higher education means having children later.

I think we see this reflected in the wizarding world, in that education is both low (arguably nonexistent, considering the curriculum at Hogwarts) and in magic making material considerations Muggles must make obsolete. And we do see a lot of young parents - Lily and James are both 20 when they have Harry, Andromeda is maximum 24 when she has Nymphadora Tonks, Molly Weasley is 20 when she has Bill, Narcissa is 25 when she has Draco, Fleur would have been 23-25 when she had Victoire, Harry and Ginny are 26 and 25 when they have James Sirius, Hermione and Ron are 26-27 when they have Rose...

Young is the norm.

And with the Blacks, who were lineage obsessed, and where Walburga is never reported to have had a career keeping her busy, I find it very interesting that Walburga doesn't have children until she's 35.

There are three possible explanations I can see:

Walburga and Orion didn't want to have children, and waited for Alphard or Cygnus to get on with it, only for Cygnus to only have daughters and Alphard to have no children at all (bit unlikely since they had two sons, a couple who pointedly did not want children would have called it quits after the first)

They had fertility issues

Walburga and Orion did not instantly marry, but waited for years until it became clear Orion wasn't going to find anybody else, Alphard apparently not either, and Cygnus said "fuck you all, I've contributed three kids already", at which point Walburga and Orion were both single, both cared about the lineage, and went for it.

We've gone for option 2 since it's just funnier to have a pair of cousins all over each other at Hogwarts, "Aren't they-" "Yes and they're very happy together :)", but I think option 3 is pretty feasible too.

Either way, you can read into Walburga and Orion from the late births of their children and you also get free Alphard characterisation, because his choice not to marry starts to look rather pointed.

Back to Alphard

While the Blacks were not dying out at the time, they also weren't swimming in children. Only Cygnus was passing on the family name, and that was exclusively to daughters, and he went on to have no more (legitimate) children after leaving school. Pollux wasn't having any more (legitimate) children, and while there are and grandfathers uncles on the family tree who could do the deed they were quite old, many unmarried, and most importantly they canonically had no children.

We're down to Alphard, Orion, and Cygnus having to pass on the family name, with Orion and Walburga a decade into their marriage with no sons to show for it. Sure, Cygnus could have sons, but that would be placing all their dragon eggs in one dragon basket (and indeed, he had no sons).

Why doesn't Alphard marry?

The family must have brought it up, if not pressured him. Alphard not marrying in a world where arranging a match would have been the easiest thing in the world looks to me like a deliberate refusal.

The giving of the money to the Sirius

This all brings us to the one thing we know for sure that Alphard did in his life: he willed money to Sirius after he'd been disowned.

We know Alphard was not a blood traitor prior to this, or he'd have been burned off earlier.

I frankly take this to mean Alphard most likely subscribed to pureblood supremacy, or at least he did not mind it enough to do anything else to cross his family. Giving money to Sirius isn't a political act, it's an uncle providing for a family member who has suddenly lost everything.

(And, if we assume Alphard himself is gay: it's an uncle who sees his nephew run away from home to be with his best friend, and perhaps drawing a few conclusions of his own about the strength of Sirius's friendship to James. There are many ways to interpret his choice to support Sirius financially, is what I'm saying.)

It also seems a distinct overreaction to me that Walburga would burn him off the family tapestry for something like this, and... it seems very much like one angry, mourning, woman's way of hurting a brother she can no longer confront. If she had been hoping Sirius wouldn't make it out in the wild and be forced to return, then Alphard giving him money would be a betrayal of the highest order.

Walburga putting a cigarette to her wallpaper isn't the same as the entire Black family disowning Alphard posthumously, it's an act of grief and anger.

Where we make things up wholesale

I'll go ahead and assume Alphard was gay, had a good and stable but slightly fucked up family life, and got overly attached to his dorm mate Tom Riddle as a stranger to all of this who perhaps seemed above it all. I also vote he raised Bellatrix, Narcissa, and Andromeda, because it's a more interesting option than Pollux. (In case you didn't notice, Muffin and I subscribe to the Black family being as fucked up as we can reasonably make them.)

Vinelle, what was the point of this?

My point is that we may not have any canon appearances to go on with Alphard Black, but we do have dates, biographical facts, what he did with his will, a few statements from Walburga's insane painting and other characters, and a whole lot of imagination. And an obsessive tendency.

And a willingness to say "Mm, no. Can't read. Sorry, that fact's just wrong." when we don't like things (more specifically, Sirius's phrasing making it sound like Alphard died not too long after Sirius ran away from home, which would make him dead for The Man Who Would Be King, a fic that takes place in 1982. We will assume Sirius meant "gave", not "left".)

Wee.