#found aluminum cans

[jonathanferraragallery]

Empathy, 2018 - Paul Villinski

[droodlebug]

i found a custom wheelchair model i'd really love to get and would be much better for my needs than the one i have AND could be yellow but its. well. 1500 at best. sad

[daisywords]

the good news: finally started* my new bookbinding project (making a sketchbook for a birthday present for my brother—I think I'm going to do some variant of a sewn boards binding if I can find some kind of card with the right weight. thinking of doing some kind of loz design or at least a sword on the cover? also I found the scraps of gold leaf I scavenged from the trash this has so much potential)

the bad news: it's 1 am and the high of starting something is making me. not tired

*folded the signatures and that's all

[windfighter]

My new storage system is amazing isn't it? x3

[border-collie]

Once I have a full agility set up, I can do USDAA from home and then it's going to be all over for you bitches

[lorawant2sleep]

my desk looks like a trash heap but i'll finish the painting soon🎊🎉

[bettysupremacy]

hii! I was wondering if you could write a fic with reader and any marauder (they all fit) and maybe helping or becoming protective over the reader after a concert or party after a creep follows the reader? 😭

I went through a similar experience with a guy following me around after I went to the restroom after a concert, and it ruined my night if i'm being honest, I was scared 😞 I'm not the most shy of people and usually I can handle myself but it was pretty dark and idk the adrenaline from feeling happy to scared shifted pretty quickly. Luckily I found my friends and let them know and we quickly went back to our car (along with a few dirty looks from my friends god bless lol). I swore I could go to the restroom by myself- will not be doing that again :(

you can ignore this request if it makes you uncomfortable!

thank uu

i’m so sorry that happened to you! “(they all fit)”= poly marauders!

There’s something about post concert depression, especially when you’re with the band.

Your glitter eyeshadow is smudged, eyeliner untouched. You’d been shaken around in the pit of your boyfriends fans, and yet the paint hasn’t budged. God bless water-proof makeup. The world seems prettier like this, touched by alcohol and the feeling of soaring pride for your boyfriends. The glittery lights and signs of time square never fail to dazzle you, even now as you lean against Sirius morosely.

“M’hungry.” You frown, toes tipping up towards Sirius, though you fear the mumble may have been more for yourself.

His attention is diverted towards the boys as they discuss what to do now. Plans of how to get home and where to eat. His finger taps your cheek slowly, his focus paying you no mind. Words like Uber, hotel, room service echo throughout their very repetitive conversation.

“Sirius.”

He looks down, a little shocked and sorry at his own attention. “Yes, lovely?”

“M’hungry.”

“Hungry?” He asks, cringing. You’re about thirty minutes from the hotel, and even then, room service will take another thirty.

“So hungry.”

He sighs, unsure of what to do.

“There’s a hotdog stand over there.” You grab his tattooed bicep to balance yourself as you point to your right.

He thinks, peering down at you. “This won’t ruin your dinner?” It’s midnight, but still.

“No,” you sing, reaching up to cup his cheeks. “I really want a hotdog.

He flushes, looking away from your wandering eyes. Normally he wouldn’t let you out of his sight. They would never let you out of their sight in a place like this. But the cart is in eye view of the boys, and he has faith in you not to stray, even in your inebriated manor. It’s not that they don’t trust you, they just prefer to keep you safe themselves. Is that okay?

“Okay,” He murmurs, pulling out his wallet, handing you his card. “At least get the good toppings.”

“I always get the good toppings.” You pull away.

The walk is short and the cart is colorful. Red and white stripes, curvy calligraphy. It shines in your inebriated vision. Beautiful. The queues not long, just an older man waiting in front of you, but it feels like forever as the generous man (with the toppings as well) takes your order and wraps it in warm aluminum foil.

You take the hotdog eagerly. “Thank you.”

It’s heavy in your hands, warm too. You yell Sirius’ name excitedly, waving the hotdog above your head for him to see. He laughs, thumbs up until you bump into a man, smile fading, concern etching his brows.

“Oh,” you murmur, looking up. “I’m sorry.”

“No problem,” he smiles. It’s uncomfortable, not the smile of a friendly civilian.

You laugh. It’s polite, anyone can see that, but he leans closer. He smells like liquor, a disgusting discovery that has you subconsciously leaning away.

“You new around here?”

An actual laugh stumbles out of your lips. “London? No.”

He takes this as an entrance. “You should show me around.”

“No, thank you.” You try to walk past him. Towards Sirius who’s already walking over. “Goodnight.”

“Wait,” he grabs your arm, pulling you back. His fingers dig into your elbow painfully.

“What the fuck,” you gasp, pulling your arm away roughly. “don’t touch me.”

“C’mon,” The man slurs, fingers reaching for you again. “Don’t be-“

“Hello?” Sirius walks up, all stock. He grabs your forearm pulling you to him firmly, getting in between you and the man. He’s not much taller, but more intimidating in demeanor. “Do we have a problem?”

“No,” the man scoffs.

“Cause it looks like you put your hands on her.”

He scoffs again, clearly inebriated. “We were just talking.”

“Well, conversations over now.”

“She can make her own decisions.”

“Fuck off, bro.” Sirius waves his hand dismissively. Quickly, he walks you towards the boys who are peeking their eyes up from the Uber app.

“She was asking for it.”

Sirius reels back, dropping your forearm to shove the scary stranger in the chest. He pushes hard, the man losing his balance as he falls to the ground in a sickening thud. You gasp loudly, the unexpected conflict startling you. Vaguely you hear Sirius say something to him, but you’re too focused on the way the man looks up at you.

James and Remus are there in seconds, quick on Sirius’s heels. They pull at him, up and off the man. There were no real punches thrown, no real injuring blows, it wasn’t even enough to form a crowd. But still, you’re shaken. You shiver like a leaf under your James’ leather jacket, suddenly not feeling the warmth of the alcohol you’d consumed before the concert.

Slowly, you stumble back and way from your boys, to the bench next to the shitty bar you’d passed on your way home. That had been scary, but you’re safe; that had been scary, but Sirius dealt with it. You bring your hand up to your chest, setting the hotdog you had been eager to buy down next to you.

“Hi,” Remus pushes aside the hotdog to sit next to you. “Are you okay?”

You look up to the boy, blindingly beautiful in the streetlights and advertisements. “Yes.”

He pushes some stray hair from your face. “He didn’t hurt you?”

“I think it was more startling.” James sits on the other side of you, kissing your temple firmly. “I’m sorry he did that.”

“It’s okay, I’m okay.”

“She’s okay.” Sirius gruffs from where he walks over.

He sounds cooler than he thinks he looks. He’s not bruised, bloodied, or bandaged, if he were he thinks he’d look cool enough to breeze over. But then again you look mad, so maybe he doesn’t want that.

“Don’t be upset,” Sirius crouches to your level. You’re in the arms of a solid Remus. “he was a creep.”

“Are you hurt?”

“Are you trying to tell me something?” He laughs roguishly. “I thought I looked good tousled.”

He does, and you know he’ll look good on the tabloids tomorrow too. Sirius black gives black eye? You sigh at the thought.

“You do.” James feeds Sirius.

“At least someone in this relationship cares for my ego.”

“You look good.”

“Oh, now you tell me.”

You laugh, letting Sirius stare at you like you hung the moon.

“Kiss em?” He pushes his knuckles in front of your lips. His fingers throb lightly, you can feel it on your lips.

“That was stupid.”

“C’mon,” Sirius’ eyes roll as he pulls you up. “You’ve got a hotdog to eat.”

[sexilene]

LENEEEE stepbro!john b???? 🎀🎀🎀

OMGGGGG! i haveee an ideaaaaa!!! ᡣ𐭩ྀིྀི₊ ⊹ SMUT!!! ignore any misspellings lol

“m’not whoring around or anything… it's just protection!!” you cry, fat tears rolling down your cheeks. much to our dismay your stepbrother, john b, found your birth control and he’s not thrilled about the idea that his little step-sis is “running round the cut, getting her tiny pussy filled with other guys' dicks”. you reach for the pills that are held tightly in your stepbrother’s hand, only for him to reach the hand way above your head and walk straight to the bathroom.

“do you bring boys in here? into the house?…do i not give you everything you need? hmm?” he disappointedly sighs, not even looking at you as he opens the plastic and aluminum packet.

“no!! i promise i don’t, please just give it back!” you continue to cry, embarrassed, trying to reason with him to give them back to you.

“hm no, you don’t need these, bub.” he taunts, dumping the little pills in the toilet and flushing them faster than you can plead for him to stop.

“go sit on the bed and wait for me, i need a minute.” john b sighs and puts his hands on his hips like he’s disappointed.

“you're so mean ta’me johnny.” you sniffle, wiping the tears from your eyes as you turn to go back to the room like he told you to.

after a painful spanking, he manhandled you to be face down ass up with your cheek squished against your pink pillow, drool evident on the cloth as your stepbrother stretched out your little pussy on his massive length. his strong hands gripping onto the sides of your hips, doing all the work by slamming your ass against his pelvis.

“hurts!” you whine, wanting to crawl away from him but also sooo far gone, so dumb you really can't focus on making full sentences let alone moving.

“you wanted to take birth control like a big girl, you gotta take it like a big girl.” he tuts.

“jombee you didn’t- put a condom!!!” you mumble into the pillow, “don’t cum inside me please jombee please.” you plea, but unfortunately nothing can be heard except for the low grunts of your stepbrother, the sound of skin slapping skin and the wet sloppy squelching of your hole.

“you’re gonna get me pregnant…” whining, you try your best to muster up some energy to crawl away from his thrusts. but the attempt was fruitless because your stepbrother's grip was just too strong.

“that’s what m’doin bub.”

“you can’t!!”

“can and m’gonna, what’s everyone gonna think when they find out your big stepbro put his little baby in you hmm?” he taunts, smacking your pore little sore ass, making a loud crack sound.

“no more stupid boys chasin' you around that’s for sure…should’ve hidden the pills aaaa-lot better baby,” john b pauses his thrusts and you think that for a second he’s decided you’ve had enough of this punishment when he reaches hand over to your face, slipping his thumb into your mouth for you to suck.

“needed that hmmm?” john b coos, making your pussy still pulsate around his dick,

“mmhm!” you moan as he’s slipping his glossy and slobbery digit out of your mouth and leaning back to continue to pound you into the mattress. as he’s back to thrusting into you your cries and whines start back up, even more so when he slips his thumb covered in your saliva into your ass.

"no!! no more!" you scream into the pillow.

“aaaalmost there baby, almost done…” he grunts, smacking your ass again, this time giving you two harsh smacks. "stay with me sweet girl." he watches as your cunt stretches around him and how your ass jiggles with every thrust, and you just know he’s going to knock you up tonight and there is nothing you can do but take it, helplessly. ᡣ𐭩

[geologyin-blog]

Natural Plumbogummite specimen

From Gongcheng, Guangxi

Plumbogummite is a rare mineral . It is a hydrous phosphate of lead and aluminum, often containing some iron and calcium. Its chemical formula can be simplified as PbAl₃(PO₄)₂(OH)₅·H₂O.

This mineral is found in oxidized zones of lead deposits, often associated with other secondary lead minerals.

📹: zouweiling

[jonathanferraragallery]

Memo (Raw) - Paul Villinski

[copperbadge]

I did end up getting one or two things done today!

Most notably, I found out our building is doing a coat drive for a local nonprofit's Friendsgiving program, so I went into the stash of coats I was planning to sell and pulled out some of the nicer/warmer ones to donate, then ran them downstairs to the office and picked up some mail while I was there, including a package with a treat for myself: a Lodge cast iron rectangular casserole.

She's so beautiful.

The pizzas I've been making have been meant for cast iron, and with the round ones I can swing that because I own two cast iron skillets, but for my Detroit pizzas I needed a square pan. I've been baking them in an aluminum tart pan, which was the right size and shape but never got the crust fully, properly browned and also was a coated pan so I couldn't cut the pizza in situ, as it were.

Hoping to lay down some dough this weekend and see how she does.

[mermaidgirl30]

✨Slip Into Me Part 3: This Sticky Mess of Mine✨

QZ! Joel Miller x fem! reader

Series Masterlist

A/N: Here is the final part for these two! I might do some one-shots in the future, but we will see. This one is mostly all in Joel’s POV so enjoy 🥰

Chapter Summary: While you’re indulging in a can of peaches, Joel can’t seem to keep his eyes or his hands off you.

Rating: 18+ only MDNI

Word Count: 4.7k

Tags: Joel’s POV, QZ! Joel, feelings, a day on patrol with Joel, teasing, unprotected piv, oral and face riding (fem receiving), cream pie, smut and lots of fluff, no use y/n, soft! Joel

Dividers by @saradika-graphics

The air is warm as sweat drips off Joel’s tanned skin, running through his slicked back curls as he leans against the rundown walls of an old rundown convenience store. Sunlight glitters off the broken glass shards by the front door. Forest green vines snake their way against the crevice of every corner, even against the ceiling that has mildew corrupting the structure. Picked over shelves and half-opened items litter the cracked ground. But none of that matters because you’re here with him out on patrol. You. The troublemaker that stole his heart back at the QZ. 

   And there you are. Sitting up on the dust-covered cabinet, legs swinging back and forth like you just found the last stash of candy. Hums of satisfaction leave your glossy lips that are now covered with the sticky syrup from the open can of peaches in your hands. And fuck do you look delicious.

   He can’t help but sit back and admire the blush of your cheeks, your beautiful eyes glowing like bright halos as you indulge in one of your favorite sweet treats. Peaches. And God, what he wouldn’t give to be that can of peaches right about now. 

   A smile permeates on his lips, tugging and curling to indent deep dimples in his cheeks, stinging because he can’t stop staring at the angel that sits in his presence. That angel being you, a downright troublemaker. But you’re his troublemaker, and he has no intention of letting you go. Ever. 

   “Good?” he asks, chuckling under his breath as you dip your hand inside the aluminum can and smile up at him, taking the breath from his lungs. 

   “Mmm, so good,” you moan, sucking your sticky-coated fingers in your mouth, licking the syrup slowly from your peach-covered skin. 

   He groans, dragging his fingers along his patchy scruff, undressing you with his eyes, pretending it’s his fingers invading your mouth, commanding you to suck, to taste every inch of his skin. He can feel the saliva coat his skin, can imagine how good your mouth would feel on his fingers, on his lips. Can already taste how fucking soft your lips would feel, his tongue dragging against yours, collecting peach nectar from your mouth, swallowing your moans, slipping his fingers inside your denim shorts, curling them up till you can’t see straight anymore, till you can only say his name again and again and again.

   He drags his tongue against his lower lip seductively, imagining you covered in the sticky syrup, his tongue lapping up every single beautiful inch of you. The smell of nectar and lavender enveloping his senses, getting lost in the sweet taste of your plush thighs, indulging and reveling in how good your pussy tastes. All sweet and messy and perfect for him. Always so perfect. And he wants you. Now. 

   “You want some?” you giggle, kicking your legs with another joyous laugh, your smile flashing in the sunlight trickling through the cracks in the ceiling, covering you in angelic light. 

   His breath hitches and he pushes himself off the wall, stalking toward you like a starving wolf, ready to swallow you whole like you’re a sweet, innocent lamb. But that’s his favorite thing to do. Eat you until you spill everything for him. Always for him. His good girl. 

   He chuckles and shakes his head, stepping in front of you, pushing your legs apart and crowding your space, big hands lingering on your soft skin, jean shorts barely covering your thick thighs. “Think I want something else, darlin’. Why don’t you be a good girl and let me have a taste?”

   “I thought you didn’t like sweets,” you smirk, eyes sparkling with a hint of mischief that he wants to devour fully. 

   “The only sweet thing I like is you, babygirl,” he smiles, his brown eyes melting into yours. And God, those eyes. Those beautiful, sparkling irises he can’t seem to get out of his head. They stick like glue. Permanent, paralyzing, something he wants to never forget. 

   “Is that right?” you ask giddily, a pretty blush staining your cheeks crimson, just like the color of your glossy lips. 

   “S’right. How ‘bout you give me a taste, darlin’?” He gently takes your hand in his and guides it to his mouth, eyes darkening and pupils expanding, giving you that look you know all too well. Your breath hitches when he slips your index and middle finger into his mouth, slowly sucking and gliding his tongue against your soft skin, making sure to clean every single speck of syrupy off your fingers. 

   Your mouth drops open as you gawk at him, watching him ravish your fingers, and it’s probably the sexiest thing you’ve ever seen in your whole existence.

   “S’good, so sweet,” he whispers, prying the can of peaches from your open palm, slowly tipping it to where the savory juice is running down your lips, your neck, your chest. And that’s when he snaps; his body filled with lust and fire pumping through his veins.

   He quickly pulls the cotton t-shirt over your head, leaving you in your lacy black bra and your denim shorts that tease him relentlessly. And as the sticky syrup covers your skin, there’s nothing but an aching need left in every single bone of his body. That need is screaming to devour you, fully and completely. And that’s exactly what he’ll do.

   He takes one more look at your wide doe eyes and jumps, every composure of his control gone in a flash. “C’mere, pretty girl.” His mouth molds to yours in the next second, hands roaming savagely over your body, one hand resting on the small of your back and the other twisting uncontrollably in your hair. 

   A moan slips free when you open your mouth, and it’s like music to his ears. He slots his tongue inside and strokes slowly, eating up every single drop of syrup on your tongue, groaning at the sweet sound of your pretty little moans that fall free as he devours you completely.

   Your fingers lace through his slicked back curls, and a deep groan leaves his throat. He loves the way your fingers brush through his hair, scraping against his scalp, eliciting goosebumps each time you touch him. You’re like lightning, and he’ll gladly accept every single strike you give him.

   Tongues clash wildly together, an uncontrollable wildfire blooming through the abandoned room. All thoughts of infected, raiders, and patrol take flight out the smashed door. There’s nothing in this world that can pry this moment from his fingers. He’ll continue to sink into you until you melt and unravel completely in the palm of his hands.

   He releases from your swollen lips, dragging his tongue down your cheek, sucking the savory skin of your elongated neck, your fingers digging deeper into his scalp as another moan leaves your pretty lips, making him feral with every quiver you breathe. 

   “Joel…” you moan as he unclasps your bra, pulling it free and letting your full breasts spill out for him. He kisses his way down your sticky chest, slowly rolling his tongue over each pebbled nipple, sucking and kneading the supple skin while another moan falls from your lips.

   “S’right, baby. Know jus’ what you need, my little troublemaker,” he smirks, unfastening each button on your denim shorts one at a time, dragging the metal zipper down gracefully and then letting the denim fall in a heap to the floor, leaving you in nothing but lacy underwear that are soaked against your beautiful core. 

   He takes a step back, assessing your arousal, dragging his eyes down your splayed body, your mouth breathing heavily and eyes wide with anticipation. It’s such a gorgeous view that he wishes he had a camera because he so badly wants to remember this moment in full detail. 

   “Look at you, darlin’. Soppin’ wet. Soakin’ right through that lace for me. What a messy girl you are,” he groans, dragging his thumb up the seam of your folds, eliciting a sweet moan from your lips. A choir of angels to his ears.

   “Yes, yes. Messy for you,” you choke out, his hand slipping beneath the drenched lace, rubbing his thumb in tantalizing, slow circles, making you shake beneath his touch.

   “So fuckin’ wet, sweetheart. Let me jus’ slip these off real quick. I’ll make a mess of you yet,” he promises, taking no time in ripping your ruined lace off, eyes wide as you take in the large size of him looming over your bare body. 

   “How are you going to ruin me, Joel?” you ask shakily, your core buzzing for him, your clit already swollen and ready for his meaty hands to ruin you. 

   “For starters, I’m gonna take my time with you. Yeah, gonna take my goddamn time.” He grabs the open can and tips it at a ninety degree angle, letting the syrupy juice of the canned peaches serenade your silky skin, running all the way down until your pretty pink pussy is gushing with the sugary goodness. 

   His hand guides down to your slick folds, rubbing the messy substance over your drenched center, creating the most obscene wet noises that vibrate off the walls, reverberating back into his eardrums like the sweetest sounds he’s ever heard in his entire fucking life. 

   “Goddamn, darlin’. You’re fuckin’ drenched. S’this all for me?” he smirks, eyes blowing out wide with every roll of your tongue, your large eyes burning with need.

   “Yes, it’s all for you. But Joel—fuck. Need you to…”

   “Shhh. I know what you need, sticky girl. Need my tongue, don’t ya?” Without giving you a moment to respond, his tongue darts down your stomach, sinking to his knees slowly, teasing the tip of his tongue over your dripping core, barely brushing against your needy clit.

   “Ohh,” you whine, bucking your hips up in hopes to get the friction you need. But you don’t need to beg because he’s sure to take care of all your needs and leave you completely satisfied and more. 

   “Patience, baby. I’ll give you what you need. Don’t worry,” he assures, guiding your legs over his shoulders slowly, opening your legs wide and sliding you to the very edge of the counter, just enough to let the sticky residue of the syrup slide down and drip into his thick beard.

   He chuckles to himself and licks his lips like he’s about to feast on the most delicious dessert of all. Because that’s exactly what he’ll be doing. Oh, yes. He’s always loved eating messy pussies, but yours takes the cake. 

   “Joel I…”

   He attacks, mouth molding to your perfect pussy, the flat of his tongue licking a clean stripe up the entirety of you, a low moan falling from your lips as he circles meticulously over your puffy clit. 

   “Oh, shit. Feels so good, Joel,” you moan, your arms falling behind you, nails scratching at the chipped wood, legs shaking from the thorough licks of his large tongue. 

   “Yeah, s’right. Take it,” he coaxes, slipping two thick fingers into your dripping hole, curling them up exactly where you like it, right into that spongy spot that makes you lose control.

   He falls into a trance. Licking and teasing and sucking you dry, slurping up the excess peach syrup, tasting the nectar of the gods with every stroke of his tongue. His nose seeps into the curls above your mound, inhaling the sweet aroma of you, drinking you down like he hasn’t tasted water in days. He’s addicted to this. To feasting on you, worshipping you, making you come over and over and over until you spill everything for him.

   He’s selfish for you and he knows it well. He’d gladly get on his knees every single day for the rest of his life if it meant you’d come for him, spill those pretty moans he dreams about night after night. Maybe he’s a mad man, maybe he’s addicted, but God, what it feels like to be addicted to you is like heaven. All consuming and reckless. You wrecked him, but he doesn’t care. You can take all of him, have all of him. He’s yours now. All fucking yours. 

   If this is what a ruined man feels like then so be it. He’s been swept out to sea the moment you stepped foot through his door. He should’ve known he was a goner the first time you laid eyes on him. 

   “Fuck. Joel, I’m gonna come…” you mewl, arching your back and bucking your hips just enough to get his meaty fingers deeper in your core. He knows you love it, him having all the control and ravishing you till you’re nothing but putty in his hands. He fucking loves every second of it.

   “Go on then, messy girl. Get me sticky.” He curls his fingers a little more and pulls hard on your puffy clit, sucking it deep into his mouth and overstimulating your nerve endings just the way you like it. 

   He pumps his fingers once, twice, three more times, and then you’re clenching around him, your walls suffocating his skin. “Spill,” he commands. With one more lick to your bundle of nerves, you’re a goner. 

   Your release floods over his fingers, drips all the way down his bruised knuckles, your high-pitched moans filling the stifling air and knocking the breath from him.

   “Atta fuckin’ girl,” he groans, slowly releasing his fingers from your pulsating core, licking you clean along with his fingers and reveling in the sweet juices of your body.

   “Joel, that was… amazing,” you whisper breathlessly, your body coming down from its orgasmic high.

   “What makes you think I’m done with you, huh?” One eyebrow arches, and a smug smirk curls against his lips, leaving him looking like the devil that he is.

   “Not done with me?” you ask all wide-eyed and surprised. 

   “Oh no, little troublemaker. Not even close.” He tugs at your legs, sending you flailing over the edge of the counter, landing with a thud on his chest, Joel flat on his back.

   You look down in shock, your legs straddled across his broad chest, your center still buzzing with aftershocks of the first orgasm. You should’ve known he wouldn’t leave you with just one. 

   Before you can say a word, he pulls you up to his chin, hovering your open legs right above his mouth, his beard sticky with your release and the remains of the syrupy goodness of the canned peaches. He looks like a mess you wouldn’t mind cleaning up. 

   “Now sit the fuck down and give me another,” he growls with a deep, commanding voice that sends chills down your spine. You obey his command and sit, letting his mouth take you to places you can only reach with his tongue.

   He groans, flicking his tongue up and down the wetness of your slit, pulling on your puffy pink clit, reveling in the glorious moans you fill the hot room with. He’s never tasted someone as sweet as you before, never been this pussy drunk over some girl. But you’re not just some girl to him. No. You’re special, one of a kind that was made just for him. And he plans to keep you for as long as he can. 

   Your fingers pull on his slicked back curls, eliciting a deep groan from his throat while he feasts on your dripping core, smearing your arousal all over his lapping tongue. 

   “So fuckin’ delicious,” he breathes out, diving his tongue inside your slick folds, finding your dripping hole and tongue fucking you till you’re screaming his name. 

   “Joel, Joel, Joel. Oh my GOD,” you moan as he squeezes one hand around your waist, the other drawing slow, languid circles against your bundle of nerves, your walls squeezing the perfect amount before you let another orgasm fall on the tip of his tongue. 

   He laps up every speck of cum that drips down your tight walls, groaning at the sweet taste of you that he just can’t seem to get enough of. You collapse on his chest, but he’s quick to slide you down, right where the tight bulge is struggling to be let free behind his denim jeans. He’s been hard ever since you dipped your finger into the can of peaches, his balls full of his seed, wanting so badly to bend you over and fuck the living daylights out of you. But he’s not selfish like that. He’s selfish for you, needing to consume you in pleasure, forgetting himself entirely until you’re fully satisfied. 

   Maybe it’s the way you always try to put him first, but he’ll be damned if he ever comes first. You’re not just any girl. You’re the fucking goddess that saved his life, the one that showed him a path out of the darkness. You’re the angel in disguise he’s always needed, and he’s forever grateful that he found you in that alleyway so many months ago. He thinks that’s when he fell. And he did. He crashed hard. 

   He grinds your core against his hard cock, digging you against the rough material of his jeans, straining to control himself with your little whimpers. “One more, baby. Give me one more.”

   “Joel, I can’t. It’s too much,” you mewl, brows furrowed in exhaustion.

   “Hey, you trust me?” he asks softly, tracing a strand of hair behind the shell of your ear. 

   “Yes,” you whisper quietly, still grinding against his bulge.

   “You can take one more, sweetheart. Know you can. Think you can try for me?” he asks while he slowly unbuckles his belt, your fingers pulling the zipper down cautiously. He lifts his hips and pushes his denim jeans and boxers down, freeing his hard cock with precum spilling from the tip, desperate to get inside you. 

   “Mhm,” you hum, agreeing to indulge in his ask.

   “That’s my good girl,” he praises, your core sliding against his tip, smearing it in your wet slick. And then you start to ride him slowly. “Ride my cock, cowgirl. There ya go. Attagirl,” he groans as you fully seat yourself down on him, your tight walls squeezing his cock the perfect amount.

   You pick up the pace; grinding and riding him fluidly, your moans melting with his as bliss takes over his body. “Joel, feels so good,” you moan, eyes rolling back every time he kisses your cervix.

   “Damn right it does. That’s my good fuckin’ girl,” he growls. 

   One more motion and he’s wrapping his arm around your waist and rolling you over, pinning you to the ground as he takes control and fucks you relentlessly. His cock is buried deep inside your pussy, eliciting moan after pretty moan as he rocks his hips faster, his lips sucking and licking your glistening skin.

   He’s barely holding on, unable to focus on anything but you. Beautiful and writhing beneath his hips. “So fuckin’ perfect, baby. One more. C’mon. Let me feel you come again.”

   His thumb presses firmly on your puffy clit, circling slowly to draw all the pleasure out from your body. He wants it all, wants everything from you. He can never get enough of you.

   “Joel, I’m gonna—” 

   “Give it to me, sweetheart. Soak my cock,” he growls, thrusting deeper and circling his thumb faster and faster until you’re screaming his name and clenching him so tight he can’t help but to moan himself. 

   “That’s my girl. Good fuckin’ girl,” he says through clenched teeth, feeling your slick drenching his throbbing cock.

   He pumps in and out faster, huffing and groaning through each thrust he gives. You always feel so good, and he can never get enough. He’s like a starving man, dying when he can’t fill you up with his seed. He’d have you every day if he could. You’re a goddess, and he’ll worship you every single day. As long as you’ll let him.

   One more thrust and he’s throwing his head back, his seed filling inside you full, claiming you as his own. He stills above you, slowly pulls out and collapses to the ground in a heap. He pulls you on top of his sweat-coated chest, and then you both lay there just basking in the presence of each other, panting from the intense orgasms.

   He trails his fingertips down your jawline, lingering them on your glowing skin, needing to keep a grasp on your beautiful face.

   He loves the feel of your soft skin against his rough exterior, softening him up with every brush of your lips. He loves your glowing smile, how it always seems to light up every room you walk into. And your scent. God, the aroma of sunshine and violets and raspberry tea cling to his sheets, eliciting want and need that drives him up the walls. And he loves the way you say his name, all soft and slow, like you’re memorizing every syllable to memory, not wanting to forget the name that branded your tongue the night of the thunderstorm. His tongue swallowed you whole with every languid stroke, with every touch he could grasp. 

   Maybe he should’ve fallen for someone his own age, someone like Tess. But you. He couldn’t forget your lips, the way you blush every time he gives you that look, the one that gets him into trouble with his feelings. That deep, awestruck, mesmerizing look you give with every shy smile that curls against your perfect lips. And maybe… maybe it was that first night you stayed with him, that teasing knife practice lesson, the countless shotgun lessons and long patrol days in the blazing sun. Maybe it was that first touch that made him fall head over heels, crashing into the barricaded walls of the QZ. 

   He thinks it’s love. It is love. And God, he’s so fucking in love that he can hardly stand it. 

   It’s the way you're laying on his chest, leaning on your crossed arms, staring up at him with those beautiful glossy eyes, the warmest smile shining over your dewy lips. And that’s it. He’s a complete goner to the sweet girl that never should’ve walked through those QZ gates. Because now you’re his. 

   “We should probably get up. Tess and Nathan might show up any minute now,” you sigh, starry eyes still locked on his. And fuck, you’re so beautiful.

   “Five more minutes,” he groans, pulling you closer, skimming his lips across your forehead.

   “Joel Miller. What if they see?!” you squeak, jaw dropped in amazement.

   “Let ‘em see. I suspect they already know what we’re up to,” he chuckles, fingers brushing down your back in slow circles.

   “Oh? Tess knows?” you ask with your brows raised in question.

   “She might know. Might’ve told her how much I like you. And you live at my place now, darlin’. Think she’s very aware of what we are,” he chuckles softly.

   “And what are we?” you ask with a devious smirk, wanting to hear it from his own lips.

   “We’re together, baby. A couple. You and me.”

   Your beautiful eyes glow under the sunlight basking through the window, your smile knocking the breath from his lungs. “I love hearing you say that,” you murmur dreamily, perched on top of his chest like a glowing angel.

   “I’ll say it every day if y’want me to,” he replies with a smile, his palm brushing softly against your cheek.

   “Please do,” you giggle, eyes softly waning in his wide eyes. He fucking loves when you do that.

   “You know. One of these days, I’m gonna take you away from the QZ gates. Somewhere far far away. Maybe to Jackson where there’s no soldiers, no strict rules, no curfew, jus’ mountains and fresh air and freedom.”

   You bite your bottom lip and brush a tousled curl from his forehead, his hand catching yours and lacing his fingers through yours. “And why would you do that?”

   “‘Cause I…” He pauses, the words running dry from the tip of his tongue. 

   “You what?” you push, wanting to hear the words from his mouth. 

   “‘Cause… I think I’m in love with you,” he whispers out, eyes glossy from the daze of basking in your glory. His sweet little angel.

   “You? You’re in love with me?” you gasp, eyes wide in awe. You never thought you’d hear the words fall off his lips first. 

   “S’right, sweetheart. I’ve fallen for the pretty troublemaker from California. My little smuggler,” he chuckles, cupping your chin between his index finger and thumb.

   You melt into his chest and sigh, eyes soft with love. “And what would you say if I told you I felt the same?”

   He smiles, tears pooling in the back of his eyes because he’s so fucking in love with you. “You feel the same ‘bout an old man like me?”

   “Mhm. I’m so in love with you, Joel Miller. Think I have been for a while now. Grey curls and all.” You push your fingers through his messy curls, and he groans beneath your touch. He’s always been so soft for you. For months now it’s always been you.

   “Well then. Looks like you’re all mine, sweet girl. The world is ours. We can go anywhere you want. Jus’ say the word and I’ll take you. Wherever you want. I’m all yours.”

   You graze your lips against his cheek, his patchy beard brushing against your jawline. “How about for now you just take me back home?”

   He nods and smiles gently. “I can do that. I’d do jus’ about anything for you, pretty girl.”

   When you shift your weight and fall into him more, where he can smell the taste of promises in the air, you look up with eyes that melt him into liquid. “Joel?”

   “Hmm?” he hums, mesmerized by the beauty before him. 

   “Kiss me?” you ask softly.

   He cups the back of your neck and pulls you to him, inches from his lips. “C’mere, love.” He crashes his mouth against yours, starting wildfires in his beating heart. He’ll never get enough of you, never get enough of this. You in his arms, your lips hanging off his, bodies burning for the other. 

   He’s engulfed in you, and he’ll let you swallow him until the only thing he can breathe is you.

   He faintly hears Tess closing in to the area, so he pulls you up and helps you dress, tossing his clothes on the moment you’re back in yours. Grabbing your soft hand in his, he leads you out into the light of the outside world again, breaking the peaceful bubble that only you and him shared. 

   When Tess emerges from behind a tall oak tree, Joel sighs but doesn’t drop his curled fingers that are interlocked tightly with yours. Nathan, one of the other smugglers trails behind, searching for any infected or raiders he might encounter.

   “There you are. What have you two love birds been up to?” she asks with a mischievous smirk, eyes locking on your entwined hands.

   “Wouldn’t you like to know,” Joel chuckles while Tess shakes her head in knowing. 

   “Glad to see you keep this one smiling. He’s a troublemaker, this one,” Tess laughs, your cheeks blazing hot under a pretty blush that stains your flawless skin.

   “You hear that, trouble? Looks like I’m also a troublemaker,” Joel whispers in your ear, his lips brushing against your jawline as he plants a soft kiss on your face.

   “Guess we’re perfect together then,” you smile, biting your lower lip as shyness takes over. God, he loves when you do that.

   “That’s right, baby. Looks like we were meant to be.” He gives you one more kiss atop the crown of your head and steers you forward, fingers still interlocked as the both of you make your way back into the green forest.

   Forever is an awfully long time, but for you? For you, he’d live a thousand lives if it meant he got to be with you. 

   You’re his little smuggler, and he’s never going to let you go.

[inthedayswhenlandswerefew]

In The Gloomy Depths [Chapter 4: Emerald]

Series summary: Five years ago, jewel mining tycoon Daemon Targaryen made a promise in order to win your hand in marriage. Now he has broken it and forced you into a voyage across the Atlantic, betraying you in increasingly horrifying ways and using your son as leverage to ensure your cooperation. You have no friends and no allies, except a destitute viola player you can’t seem to get away from…

Series warnings: Language, sexual content (18+ readers only), parenthood, dolphins, death and peril, violence (including domestic violence), drinking, smoking, freezing temperatures, murder, if you don’t like Titanic you won’t like this fic!!! 😉

Word count: 5.1k

💜 All my writing can be found HERE! 💜

Tagging: @arcielee @nightvyre @mrs-starkgaryen @gemini-mama @ecstaticactus, more in comments 🥰

💎 Let me know if you’d like to be added to the taglist 💎

Back into the sitting room, fleeing like a hare from hounds, but Rush is here trying to grab you. You careen to the door to the private promenade deck and dive out into the bitter starlit cold, your breath fog, your shoes slipping on the yellow pine planks that overlay the steel skeleton of the ship, weight that could drag you down to the ocean floor. Rush is in pursuit; he swipes at your arm and gets ahold of your coat sleeve, soft pink wool. You wrench yourself free, twisting out of the coat and dropping your handbag, colliding with the barrier, Tudor-style timber paneling beneath vast windows the frigid night air pours in through. Your hip bruises against the wood, you can hear black waves crashing below; then you collapse to the deck, your spine pressed to the wall, trying to back away when there’s nowhere left to run to. You realize you are still clutching Aegon’s small aluminum lighter and shove it beneath the skirt of your gown. Rush draws his pistol.

“No no no!” you plead, showing him your palms, cowering beneath one of the windows.

They could throw me out of it. They could say it was an accident or a suicide.

The deck is lined with potted plants and lightweight wicker furniture. Inside, you can hear Rhaenyra saying something, though her words are muffled; it’s a tone you wouldn’t have thought she was capable of. She sounds afraid. Draco and Dagmar must be asleep, Fern tucked away in the tiny maid’s room. There are no witnesses to what will happen next. Your heart thuds in your chest, swollen and sickly. Cold North Atlantic wind washes over your bare skin and leaves you freckled with goosebumps.

Like a lightning storm, like a hurricane, Daemon surges out onto the deck. He is still tying his robe shut. His hair hangs in dark, damp strands over his forehead. You picture it again, though you don’t want to: Daemon with Rhaenyra like he’s never been with you, the impulsive desire, the dire necessity.

Why not in Rhaenyra’s bed? Why would he bring her here?

Because he thought you wouldn’t be back until midnight…and to prove he can get away with it. To succeed where he failed with you this morning. To feel like a man again.

“I didn’t see anything,” you tell him, but you cannot keep the shock and disgust from your face, intractable like a wild animal.

Daemon kicks one of the wicker chairs at you. You bat it away with a scream and press yourself harder against the barrier, trying to disappear, trying to become somebody else, a girl who didn’t agree to marry a renegade of a man who showed up smirking and cavalier at her father’s Connemara marble quarry.

I want to go home, you think with helplessness like a child’s.

“I didn’t see anything,” you say again, sobbing now. With one hand, you claw at the windowsill above you so you have something to hold onto if he tries to drag you away. The wind, sweeping down from the Arctic, burns like blue fire in your lungs. “I don’t know anything.”

Daemon dives to the floor, hooks his fingers into your hair, yanks you closer as you cry out and flinch away from him. “One word, one fucking word, and you’re gone,” he is threatening, a blade-sharp hiss, and you can smell Rhaenyra’s perfume on him, marking his flushed skin like a bloodstain; but Daemon’s deep-set green eyes—emerald, malachite, jade, serpentine, Connemara marble—are fearful. This is strange; this is unlike him, this is a foreign language.

He loves her, you realize. He’s terrified to harm her, to lose her.

“I would never—”

“Over the railing,” Daemon snarls, jerking your head to the side as you whimper. “Your bones at the bottom of the ocean, your name forgotten.”

“I won’t tell, please, Daemon, please, don’t hurt me.” You look at Rush. He’s staring indifferently down at you, his pistol still in his hand. You turn back to Daemon. “I’ve never told anyone.” About the bruises, about the man you really are. “Not my parents, not a soul. I don’t want to tell. I just want to stay with you and Draco. I won’t jeopardize that. Please, Daemon, please—”

“No one would believe you,” he says; but if that was true, he wouldn’t be so frantic. “You’d be a madwoman. They’d lock you up in an asylum, put you in a straightjacket, cut the pieces off of you that made you so hysterical.”

“Yes,” you agree, yielding, toothless.

He rips at your hair again, pulling you away from the barrier and to the center of the floor. Rush steps out of the way to make room. You don’t fight Daemon. You have to convince him your fighting days are over.

Why doesn’t he kill me now? A dagger to the jugular, a body splashing into opaque waves?

Because he needs his perfect family in order to march triumphantly into the skyscrapers-and-streetlights labyrinth of Manhattan. Because he can’t eclipse Viserys if people are whispering that his wife is dead under peculiar circumstances, fallen overboard on Titanic’s famed maiden voyage, insane or drunk or maybe—just maybe—murdered by a man’s rough rageful hands.

“What did you see?” Daemon says, testing you.

“Nothing.”

His palm cracks across your face. You yelp, more startled than in pain. Your skin is going numb from the cold; he’s hit you harder before. Now he doesn’t want to bloody or bruise you, he doesn’t want to leave evidence others could notice. He wants his threats imprinted irrevocably into you like scars. He wants you to listen. “What did you see?!”

“Nothing,” you moan, and then the door to the sitting room opens. You, Daemon, and Rush all whirl towards the noise.

In the doorway stands Fern with a silver-plated tray of tea and biscuits. Her black dress and white apron appear hastily thrown on, rumpled fabric and some buttons left undone. She blinks a few times, but she seems more nervous than shocked. Her eyes flit to you and then settle benignly on a wicker table. She ignores the chair that Daemon kicked earlier, lying overturned at the edge of the deck.

She knew what was happening, you think, grateful, a little awed. She’s here to try to stop it.

“It’s so cold out tonight,” Fern says at last. “I thought I’d make tea.”

Daemon doesn’t know how to respond. He’s never cruel to the staff, that’s one of his charms. His miners worship him, his valets believe him to be their true friend, his housekeepers fret over him as if he’s their husband or their son. Daemon rarely acknowledges Fern directly, as if she doesn’t quite exist to him, a ghost whose silhouette appears on eerie nights, squeaks of door hinges and objects nudged a few mysterious centimeters. He chooses his enemies with great care, like a gardener pruning diseased leaves. Daemon understands that the ones who toil beneath his feet are in the best position to rise up and devour him.

Fern sets the tray down on the wicker table and waits, her hands clasped decorously in front of her. “Will you be requiring anything else, sir?”

There are several electrified seconds—waves thrashing against the ship, wind howling as it tears through your hair—and then Daemon laughs and releases you, as if this has all been a comical misunderstanding. He stands and goes to the tray, picks up a cup of tea, and slurps on it as steam billows up into his face. “How kind of you.”

Fern bows her head in a nod, not leaving. Rush glances between them, then slides his pistol back into its holster.

“Draco should have a mother,” Daemon tells you, looking down from a great height. It sounds like it is meant to be a compromise.

“He should,” you reply. Even if I cannot touch him, cannot be alone with him, cannot teach him to love me.

“It’s not good for boys. When their mothers up and die on them while they’re still so young.” Daemon is reflective for a moment—an unusual skin for him to wear—and then slinks towards the doorway. “Fern, darling, change the bedsheets, will you?”

“Yes, sir. Right away.” She follows him back inside, a brief glimpse at you over one shoulder. Rush glowers at you and disappears with them. You are left alone on the private promenade deck.

Your head spinning, your bones freezing, you struggle to your feet: palms flat on the pine planks, black opal ring glimmering in the moonlight, knees groaning as you lift them. Slowly—stunned, aching—you pull on your pink wool coat. You find Aegon’s lighter and hide it in your handbag, then stand there clutching it like you’re on your way to some glittering social engagement, a tea party, a dinner, a gala, a Christmas party. But what you’re on your way to is purgatory, like the one Dante wrote of, a prison where you will sweat out your sins over and over again.

Why did I believe him? Why did I marry him? Why can’t I find a way out?

You leave the deck like an autumn frosting into winter, bleak, hushed, listless. You do not return to your staterooms but pass through the doorway that leads to the B-Deck hallways. The corridors are quiet and still, occasional stewards running the last errands of the night, a few men in black suits puffing on pipes and cigars, swirling clinking glasses of brandy, ruing all the blights that have incumbered their earnings: foolish wives, Democratic politicians, dissolute immigrants.

You flee towards the stern of the ship, far from the first-class sections. Outside there is a greenish hue to the sky—dim echoes of northern lights—and stars that sparkle like jewels. There is no one lingering by the back railing of Titanic, and for good reason; the air is so cold it bites like fangs, and the roar of the propellers is terrible, so loud and so guttural, sea monsters like the ones early explorers drew into the margins of their maps clawing up from the depths. You fall to the deck and sit with your knees to your chest at the end of a pair of benches—hiding in the shadows where you will not be seen by wandering passengers or lookouts scanning for icebergs—and gaze into the east as Titanic chugs westward, away from Ireland, away from everything your life could have been.

Tears bleed down your cheeks and turn from magma to ice there. You wipe them off your face with the sleeve of your pink wool coat. You ignite a cigarette with Aegon’s aluminum lighter and smoke it all the way down. You light another, and another, poisoning your blood with each breath, polishing the barbs off reality. It’s not enough. You need a drink. How long until you’re just another languishing housewife addicted to laudanum or cocaine? How long until you’re a drunk like Aegon once was?

I want to go home. I want to go home.

There are footsteps, sluggish and clumsy. An intoxicated man. You are about to scramble to your feet and escape when you see who it is. Aegon flops down beside you in a stolen black coat, the pungent miasma of Guinness wafting off of him and his face splotchy and red, looking away from you, ashamed of himself.

You say: “I thought you didn’t drink anymore.”

“And obviously there’s a reason for that,” Aegon slurs. He rubs his eyes, watery and unfocused, bloodshot and despondent. “I’m having a bad night.”

Me too. “Did you know?” you ask, a hoarse voice, a cigarette smoldering between two fingers.

Aegon is confused. “Know what?”

“That Daemon can’t get hard for me because he’d rather be sleeping with his niece.”

“What?” Aegon gapes at you, incredulous, revolted. “Daemon is fucking Rhaenyra?”

You nod, taking a drag. There is a faint orange glow, a warm hit of nicotine to your blood.

“I can’t believe that.”

“I can. I saw it.”

“Jesus,” Aegon mutters, staring out into the endless ink spill of the Atlantic Ocean. Then, more sympathetically: “No, I didn’t know.”

“You never heard anything?”

“Not like that,” he says. “I mean, I remember when I was a kid and people were talking about Daemon being a bad influence on her. But they said he was teaching Rhaenyra to go to parties and stay out too late and swear and smoke, not…you know. Not that he was committing incest with her. That’s some Richard III mischief.”

“Now I understand why you know so much Shakespeare.”

“My parents couldn’t send me to boarding school fast enough. I was shipped off the same week I turned five. Cake and presents one day, shoved on a train the next.”

“I’m afraid Daemon will do that to Draco.” You can’t keep the quiver from your words. “I’m afraid he’ll kill me now that I know the worst of his secrets.”

Aegon turns to you, and through the haze of dark bitter Guinness that’s still sloshing from his stomach into his bloodstream you can see he fears the same thing.

“I want to go home,” you sob, breaking down. Ashes build on your cigarette until you toss it away. Tears spill from your eyes, the River Shannon, the River Clare. “Nobody here cares about me.”

“I do,” Aegon insists, touching your face, trying to make you listen. His sand-colored hair lashes in the wind. “I care about you.”

“You don’t know me.”

“I’m trying to.”

“Why do you care? Why can’t you leave me alone? Did you go to O’Connell’s Bar to spy on me, was all of this to spite Daemon and—?”

“No,” Aegon says, a truthful boyish confession. “No. I didn’t know you’d be there. I didn’t know anything about you except that Daemon had married some quarry heiress. I heard he’d be there for an interview, and I was curious, and I kind of thought it’d be fun to fuck with him if he ended up recognizing me, and so I got a job at O’Connell’s and made sure I’d be playing the night Daemon showed up. That’s all there was to it. And then I saw you in that bar in Galway and you were…” He shakes his head. His voice drops to a whisper, aching and reverent. “You were so sad, and so beautiful, and I…I’ve never done anything important in my entire life. I’ve never helped anyone. But I looked at you and I felt like…I thought…I could save her. And maybe that would make all the rest of my mistakes worth it, the wasted years of drinking myself to sleep every night, the aimlessness, the emptiness, the way I abandoned my mother and Helaena, Aemond, Daeron. I followed you onto Titanic because I had to try to help you. But by leading me home, by bringing me back to my family in New York…maybe you’re helping me too.”

I wish I was yours, you think, so vividly you almost tell him. I wish I was a stone in your mine to be found in the darkness, chiseled from the wall, studied and cut down and polished, set in gold or silver to be worn on your ring finger, your blood pulsing beneath my ageless gleam.

“Please stay away from me,” you beg him. “Please, Aegon. I don’t want you to die.”

He says as his thumbprints clean tears from your cheeks: “What if Daemon was gone?”

“You mean what if I pushed him over a railing and into the Atlantic Ocean?” you ask, sniffling. “Assuming I could get him alone, and he didn’t stab me first or drag me overboard with him, they would know it was me. Rush, Dagmar, Rhaenyra. And they would make me pay. If I lived, I’d spend the rest of my life in a prison or an asylum. I wouldn’t get to go home. I wouldn’t get to keep Draco.”

Aegon doesn’t know what to say, and this is because there are no answers. You aren’t overlooking anything. Sometimes reality is cold and unfeeling and lethal, primordial, reptilian, mindless black eyes like a shark’s.

You smile miserably at him. “I’m going to miss you when the ship docks in New York Harbor.”

“Daemon wanting to fuck Rhaenyra doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with you.”

“Stop,” you say, wincing, standing to leave him. Aegon reaches for your hands, but you hide them in the pockets of your pink wool coat. He gazes up at you, drunk desperate heartbreak. You wonder how clearly he’ll remember this tomorrow.

“If you were my wife, I’d never look away.”

“You have no idea who I am. You’ve never really seen me.” Never held me, never uncovered me, never opened me and filled the void with your own rushing blood. Then you depart before someone can come searching for you and discover Aegon, rip away his disguise, toss him into the roiling frigid surf stirred up by the propellers.

In your staterooms, the lamplit air is silent and warmed by the ship’s furnaces, shoveled full of coal at all hours of the day and night. Fern is waiting on the sofa when you enter. She looks at you as if she is relieved, then vanishes into her tiny maid’s room without a word. Your bedroom has been tidied, the linens changed; but the mineral ether of sex still hangs in the space like tapestries from a wall. You try not to notice your reflection in the mirror.

Daemon never touched me like he touched Rhaenyra. He never wanted me, I never satisfied him.

Daemon doesn’t come back all night. You sleep on the floor.

~~~~~~~~~~

On the morning of Sunday April 14th, you dress in green, the color of the Emerald Isle, the color of deep poisonous envy. You affix small emeralds to your ears and one massive stone around your throat, found in Madagascar in one of Daemon’s Grandidierite mines, a lush verdant glint in a nest of cold blue like deep water, like ice.

Heavy enough to drown me, you think wryly, a swift glance at the mirror, turning away again almost immediately. I’d go straight to the bottom.

Before you leave the bedroom, you slide open the top drawer of Dameon’s writing desk, presently abandoned. His dagger is there, gold hilt and spherical gemstones like miniature planets, all fatefully aligned: amethyst, tiger’s eye, black opal, emerald, ruby, bloodstone, sapphire. You lift up the dagger and study it, circling the tiny emerald world with your index finger. You are jealous of Rhaenyra getting everything she’s ever wanted. You are jealous of any woman who’s ever touched Aegon, who knows what it feels like to lie beneath him, to be known by him.

You place the dagger back in the drawer and slam it shut; the whole desk rattles. Then you go out into the sitting room, where Fern is attempting to wrestle Draco into his black wool coat, a small version of Daemon’s.

“No!” Draco is bellowing. “I don’t want to wear it, I don’t want to, let me go!”

“You’ll freeze to death out there, lad,” Fern says, strands of her long copper-colored hair escaping from her bonnet and a sheen of perspiration on her forehead, looking like she’s been to war.

Draco is stomping on the toes of her shoes to little effect. “No I won’t!”

You peer around, searching for your geriatric nemesis, a banshee, a vampire. She is nowhere to be found. “Where’s Dagmar?”

“She’s feeling seasick,” Fern replies, still struggling with Draco. “So she’s lying down in Draco’s bedroom. I’m sure she’ll be up and around again before you know it. She’s a tough old Cailleach.” And there’s no danger in being overheard; Dagmar wouldn’t know what that means, just like you don’t understand her when she mutters her strange Scandinavian curses.

You immediately scoop up Draco and run with him out of the staterooms, Draco giggling shrilly, you beaming as you fly down the corridors and ascend the Grand Staircase two steps at a time, your green shoes slipping on the English oak wood as you zoom past the bronze cherub statue and the ticking clock. All around you are first-class passengers watching with startled looks, a little baffled, a little amused. High above is the dome of glass and wrought iron, brisk white-gold sunlight streaming through. You carry Draco out onto the Boat Deck, the highest level of the ship, and take him to an unoccupied portion of the railing beside one of the lifeboats. You hold him so he can see over the barrier and out into the calm murky blue of the North Atlantic Ocean, hundreds of miles southeast of Newfoundland. The breeze is icy, the sky infinite and cloudless.

You spot slate grey fins cutting up through the water in arches, a whole pod of them. “Look, look! Dolphins!”

“Dolphins?” Draco says doubtfully. “Dolphins are real? Not just in books?”

“Of course they’re real. And they’re friendly, too. Back in Galway, sometimes they swim right up to the pier hoping the fishermen will share the catch of the day.”

“Neat!” Draco shouts. “Can I throw things at them?”

You pause, unsure how to reply. You resist the urge to shake him and say: Do you crave violence like Daemon, are you burning up inside with his fire? Do you want to be a monster like your father? One day will you paint amethyst bruises on your wife? “Why would you want to do that?”

Draco shrugs. “I like throwing things.”

“Well, throwing things can be fun, but if you throw something at a dolphin you might hurt it. Do you want to hurt the dolphin? It’s a living creature just like you. They have friends and families, and blood in their veins. They can feel it if you cut them.”

“No,” Draco decides. “I don’t really want to hurt the dolphins.”

“You can throw things in other situations, like if you play cricket or hurling or Gaelic football. Or baseball, I guess. Now that we’ll be living in America.”

“Okay,” Draco says, gazing at the ocean. Fern trots over to you, breathing heavily from trying to keep up, but she’s grinning. She has brought the coat Draco refused to put on, and this is fortunate, because now as you hold him on your hip you can feel your son is shivering.

“Do you want to put on your coat now?” you ask him.

“Yeah,” Draco says reluctantly, and you lower him down to the deck and help him tug the sleeves over his tiny arms. You suddenly remember when he was born and being so fascinated by his hands—so small and wrinkled, so powerless, always grasping—and Dagmar forever clawing him out of your arms, bundling him up in blankets and whisking him away to other corners of the castle.

“Fern was trying to help you when she told you to wear your coat. She knew you would be cold, and now you are, aren’t you? When adults tell you to do things, it’s not for no reason. They just want what’s best for you.”

“But I don’t like to do what other people say. I like to do what I want.”

“And that’s totally understandable,” you say. “Sometimes you will get to make your own decisions, especially as you get older. But right now you’re very, very young, and there are just a lot of things you don’t know yet, so you need adults more. Please be kind when Fern is trying to help you with your coat or your shoes. She doesn’t mean to upset you. She wants you to be safe and healthy.”

Fern gives you a modest, thankful smile. Draco is mulling this over. “The older someone is, the more they know?”

“I suppose you could put it that way,” you say.

“So Dagmar knows a lot more than you.”

He’s not trying to be cruel; he’s trying to figure things out. The world is so new to him. You wish you could recall what that feels like, to see everything with vast light wonder. “Well…” you begin delicately. He loves her; you cannot win by bludgeoning her into a mess of bloodstains and bone shards. “Yes, she probably knows more about certain things.”

You pick Draco up again to distract him, and he is captivated by the seagulls swooping through the air, laughing and tracking them with his wide eyes, a sunlit green beneath pale blonde hair that is disheveled from the wind. There is a figure lurking on the periphery of your vision, a man in black, a coat and a hat, hands in his pockets. You turn to see it’s Aegon, perhaps ten feet away and pretending to survey the horizon. Your heartbeat quickens; you stomach drops.

What on earth is he doing here? Why can’t he leave me alone?

But of course, you don’t want him to. You stare at him and instinctively touch the emerald that hangs from your throat, Madagascar, Ireland, treasure, envy. You think of how your bedroom smelled when you returned to it late last night.

Fern seems oblivious to Aegon. “I feel so much better knowing there are lifeboats aboard,” she says, looking at the vessel you are standing beside.

“There aren’t enough of them,” you tell her, a low murmur that Draco pays no attention to.

Fern is alarmed. “No?”

“They can fit about half the passengers, no more. So if anything happens, make sure you don’t waste any time finding yourself a seat.”

“I’ll keep that in mind, ma’am,” Fern says, troubled.

“Have you seen Lord Targaryen today?”

“No, ma’am,” Fern answers, trying to keep her tone neutral. She isn’t sure if it will be a relief to you or a knife to the heart. “He moved some of his things to Rhaenyra’s rooms before he departed last night. I suspect he will spend the rest of Titanic’s journey there.”

“He’s so fond of his niece,” you say flatly.

“Yes.”

“And she is in need of company, as her own husband is always fraternizing with the Parisians.”

Fern isn’t sure what she’s allowed to say. She smirks and bows her head to hide it. Now Aegon is strolling closer, ostensibly casual. “Good morning, ladies!”

Fern curtsies politely. “Good morning, sir.”

He casts Draco a glance—Aegon seems puzzled by him, maybe a little wary, certainly not accustomed to being around children—then extends an open hand to you. “What an engagement ring! Might I trouble you for a quick look?”

You set Draco down and he is promptly enamored by an orange-sized rubber ball someone has left here. “Of course.” You try to act indifferent, but when Aegon takes your left hand in his own you feel a jolt of warmth travel like a wave up the length of your arm.

Aegon turns your hand one way and then the other, inspecting it. Underneath, his fingertips stroke the lines of your palm. A tremor cascades down the rungs of your spine, helpless hypnotic longing. “What is that, onyx? Obsidian? Jet?”

“Black opal. From Australia.”

“A prison colony,” Aegon says, grinning at you from under the brim of his hat. “A place for villains and beasts.” Swiftly, he takes his right hand from his coat pocket and presses something into your palm: a folded piece of paper, a note, a message in a bottle from a castaway. Then he steps back from you as if it takes great effort.

“There you are!” a craggy voice cries out, and Dagmar is crossing the deck. She seems restored, if a bit wan. She swishes over in her charcoal-colored gown, her white hair twisted into a severe bun, and when Draco bolts to her she kneels down and catches him in a fierce, territorial embrace, her gnarled hands encircling his diminutive body. “Out and about without me? And I wager you haven’t even had breakfast yet, have you, my love?” She glares over his little shoulder at you. “You must be famished. How terribly irresponsible to let you suffer.”

“He ate some tea and biscuits when he woke up to tide him over,” Fern offers meekly.

“I was having fun with Mam,” Draco tells Dagmar, and you see the calculations on her cunning ancient face. She can’t scold him, she can’t correct him. She can’t defeat you with naked wrath any more than you can demand he stop loving Dagmar. You have sailed into new waters, a subtle silent war.

Aegon is receding, disappearing into the crowds of first-class passengers strolling the Boat Deck. Dagmar glances at him and then looks again, her jaw dropping open, her attention captured like a jewel in the pocket of a thief.

“What is it?” Fern asks, peeking bewilderedly at the stranger. Draco is chasing the rubber ball around again. Your pulse thuds hot and hectic in your ears.

Dagmar’s sharp blue eyes are uncharacteristically dazed; she shakes her head as if she’s just seen something impossible, an angel or a ghost. “He looks just like Viserys when he was young.”

~~~~~~~~~~

Dagmar spirits Draco off to breakfast, Fern returns to the staterooms to complete her chores for the day. You take the Grand Staircase down to A-Deck and slip into the Reading and Writing Room, mostly unoccupied this early in the day, to read Aegon’s note. Outside on the Promenade Deck, you can hear Daemon and Rhaenyra strolling by with a number of companions, chuckling and chatting away in a world where all their wishes are granted.

Daemon is saying: “There is an Armenian legend about a so-called Queen of the Serpents, who carries in her fanged mouth a stone made of light. Some nights she tosses it up into the air, where it becomes the moon, full and shining, until it inevitably drops back down to the earth. And as the proverb goes, happy is the man who shall catch the stone where it falls…”

You know that story. It was in one of the books you gifted Daemon for your first anniversary.

With trembling hands, you unfold Aegon’s note. He has written in black ink:

Petra,

One last painting?

Don’t go to dinner tonight. Meet me at the stern.

- Picasso

[luna-desert]

five pebbles iterator superstructure is too small so he will use galvanized square steel to expand it. Among other things written text:

Let's transform a 0 square meter space into a functional iterator superstructure. five Pebbles worked diligently for 10 cycles saving 1 million pearls to buy his own superstructure. however the space he could afford was only 0.01 square meters. So tiny that not even his inspector could live there. The only option left was to summon his Rot but since Five Pebbles has a fear of cancer, he found himself crying every night. So he decides to reinstall it like this. First use galvanized square steel to create a frame that extends outside. He can borrow some screws from his neighbor Looks To The Moon. Covering the frame with wood veneer will make it both beautiful and neat. Change the karma gate to the metropolis be permanently locked. Perfect for keeping out slug cats and smelly scavengers. Install large broken bridge aluminum windows for panoramic views. Construct a bed cabinet beneath the window to store rare faction cell. Water and neuron flies. Lay down a soft mattress on the bed cabinet. Making it a cozy sleeping space for both Five Pebbles iterator puppet and his arm. Surround the area with galvanized square steel that doubles as a safety barrier. Then, install a folding table that can be used as both a workspace and a dining table. Folding down when not in use to saving space. above, Beside the bed, install a clothes rail for hanging regularly worn outfits. Next to this, place a storage board where Little Pebble can store essentials before bed. For entertainment, install a small wet cardboard box to play in. Turning the small space into a personal joy. With these enhancements, even in a limited space, Five Pebbles can live a wonderful and fulfilling life. Making the most of his compact superstructure.

[allurilove]

Celebrating the fourth of July with Henry and yandere husband. Also happy 4th of julyyyyy 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸

I'm celebrating by eating a lot of hotdogs! I haven't had them in so long, and I sort of forgot how good they could be.

Your husband grunted as you handed him the aluminum pan, heavy with copious amounts of tiny hamburger sliders you made for the neighborhood party. You made sure that you looked nice and that Henry was presentable too. Your husband wasn't the celebrating type, and he was confused when you handed him a shirt with an American flag printed on the front. He shook his head, refusing to even touch or wear it. It just felt wrong to be overly patriotic like that.

Your husband still wanted to "blend" into the crowd, so he opted to slick his hair back and wear a hat backward, a dark blue t-shirt with a fun graphic on the breast pocket, jean cargo shorts, and his black Sambas. From afar, he looked like a college student—in better words, he looked like the typical frat boy. You were surprised he even had clothes like that.

You held Henry's hand as you walked to your neighbor's backyard. You pushed the gate open for your husband and guided him to the table where the food was. "Now that looks good..." You took a banana pudding cup for you and your son. Your husband huffed and finally put down the heavy tray. He took off the top and tossed it into the trash. He looked around to see the other people who decided to show up, and he gulped as he saw his number one rival... the Skylar family.

Fuck, were they the perfect family.

They could model for Gap or Old Navy with how amazing they looked together. Like the good man he was, your husband approached Lucas Skylar. Lucas was sort of an odd man (your husband thought), and he was a sex therapist who mainly worked with those horrible reality TV couples. You know the ones: people who came onto a show for clout and fame, really only looking to win money and cheat into having an easy life. The ones who pair up with other people who matched their physical aesthetics. It was sort of genius, and your husband slowly started to wish he was in that profession.

"Lucas! It's so great to see you." Your husband opened his arms and pulled him into a "bro" hug. Lucas equally threw himself into the hug. Of course, he was an amazing greeter.

"How are you and your wife? I can see that you guys got down and dirty, huh?" Lucas smirked and nudged your husband. You were about six months pregnant with another child—a girl, as you two had found out. "If you two ever get into a rut, you know where to find me."

Your husband would rather die. This wasn't the first time Lucas Skylar offered his services, and your husband was starting to form an idea in his head that Lucas just wanted to fuck you. I mean, he stares at you way too often. His green eyes would linger on your form, even if he was standing by his wife. Maybe your husband should take up the offer and start boasting about how you two had this amazing sexual chemistry.

"Yeah. Thanks." Your husband laughed humorlessly and slapped Lucas's shoulder a bit too roughly, brushing past him. The pissed-off man went straight for the beers. He spent the rest of the night sulking in the corner, nursing his drink, and watching Henry run around the backyard with lit sparklers in his hands.

"Hey." The man cleared his throat and pushed his body off the fence, his expression softening as you came up to him. You handed him some food and he accepted it gratefully.

"Let me guess..."

"You don't even have to." Your husband groaned and his shoulders tensed up. He rolled his eyes and looked right back down at you. "That prick wants to meddle into our sex life again."

"Why don't you tell him that it's great and he needs to back off?" You shrugged nonchalantly and your husband sighed.

"I... I didn't want to embarrass you like that. Plus, I don't want to create any bad blood between us and them. We still have to live near them after all." Your husbands expression soured. He crushed the empty beer can before making a shot into the trash bag. He then took your hands into his and he pulled you into his embrace.

...

Your husband wanted to make it up to you for pouting all day, and he took the family out to a secluded and open area. He opened the trunk of the car, and he pulled out a box of fireworks. After he was done scolding Henry for not listening to his little safety seminar, he finally lit one and took a step back. The firework shot up into the sky and burst into red and blue colors.

He subtly reached for his phone and took a picture of you and Henry both looking at the sky. Your husband would talk to thousands of guys like Lucas Skylar if this was the end result. His heart warmed at the sight of his two, and soon to be three, favorite people holding hands.

[hotvintagepoll]

Robert Helpmann (The Red Shoes, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang)—an extremely enticing combination of graceful and balletic and scrungly weirdo who looks kind of like if you put fred astaire and young boris karloff circa the black cat into the splicer machine from the fly. a literal actual ballet dancer, choreographer, shakespeare actor, and theater director, who left a mark on the psyches of many children as the terrifying child catcher in chitty chitty bang bang. undeniably scrungly but elegant and spidery in his scrungliness. in powell and pressburger's opera film tales of hoffmann he can be seen playing four different characters!

Jack Haley (The Wizard of Oz)—Whenever i see him out of the tin man costume, I think, what's that jazzy little fella side-eying everybody through fifty tons of eyeliner? And then I realize it's Jack Haley. He did not really have much opportunities to scrungle inside the tin man costume, but I do think any man who hears the previous guy nearly died on the job due to the aluminum makeup then decides to do it anyway in a .....hambone sort of style should be considered scrungly

This is round 1 of the contest. All other polls in this bracket can be found here. If you're confused on what a scrungle is, or any of the rules of the contest, click here.

[additional submitted propaganda + scrungly videos under the cut]

Robert Helpmann:

In the interests of honesty i will say that I have only seen Robert Helpmann in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang , but honestly does it get weirder, scrunglier or more delightfully creepy than the Child Catcher? REALLY. He is so gracefully off-putting (and thereby utterly captivating). One of my very favourite aspects in one of my favorite chilhood movies. And ASIDE from the child catcher, just LOOK AT HIM!!!

I know we all know him from our childhood traumas from Chitty, but he was also an extremely talented dancer. you can see him here in the red shoes (he is the one who plays her lover).

Jack Haley: