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reasonsforhope · 8 months ago

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"This year the world will make something like 70bn of these solar cells, the vast majority of them in China, and sandwich them between sheets of glass to make what the industry calls modules but most other people call panels: 60 to 72 cells at a time, typically, for most of the modules which end up on residential roofs, more for those destined for commercial plant. Those panels will provide power to family homes, to local electricity collectives, to specific industrial installations and to large electric grids; they will sit unnoticed on roofs, charmingly outside rural schools, controversially across pristine deserts, prosaically on the balconies of blocks of flats and in almost every other setting imaginable.

Once in place they will sit there for decades, making no noise, emitting no fumes, using no resources, costing almost nothing and generating power. It is the least obtrusive revolution imaginable. But it is a revolution nonetheless.

Over the course of 2023 the world’s solar cells, their panels currently covering less than 10,000 square kilometres, produced about 1,600 terawatt-hours of energy (a terawatt, or 1tw, is a trillion watts). That represented about 6% of the electricity generated world wide, and just over 1% of the world’s primary-energy use. That last figure sounds fairly marginal, though rather less so when you consider that the fossil fuels which provide most of the world’s primary energy are much less efficient. More than half the primary energy in coal and oil ends up as waste heat, rather than electricity or forward motion.

What makes solar energy revolutionary is the rate of growth which brought it to this just-beyond-the-marginal state. Michael Liebreich, a veteran analyst of clean-energy technology and economics, puts it this way:

In 2004, it took the world a whole year to install a gigawatt of solar-power capacity... In 2010, it took a month In 2016, a week. In 2023 there were single days which saw a gigawatt of installation worldwide. Over the course of 2024 analysts at BloombergNEF, a data outfit, expect to see 520-655gw of capacity installed: that’s up to two 2004s a day...

And it shows no signs of stopping, or even slowing down. Buying and installing solar panels is currently the largest single category of investment in electricity generation, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA), an intergovernmental think-tank: it expects $500bn this year, not far short of the sum being put into upstream oil and gas. Installed capacity is doubling every three years. According to the International Solar Energy Society:

Solar power is on track to generate more electricity than all the world’s nuclear power plants in 2026 Than its wind turbines in 2027 Tthan its dams in 2028 Its gas-fired power plants in 2030 And its coal-fired ones in 2032.

In an IEA scenario which provides net-zero carbon-dioxide emissions by the middle of the century, solar energy becomes humankind’s largest source of primary energy—not just electricity—by the 2040s...

Expecting exponentials to carry on is rarely a basis for sober forecasting. At some point either demand or supply faces an unavoidable constraint; a graph which was going up exponentially starts to take on the form of an elongated S. And there is a wide variety of plausible stories about possible constraints...

All real issues. But the past 20 years of solar growth have seen naive extrapolations trounce forecasting soberly informed by such concerns again and again. In 2009, when installed solar capacity worldwide was 23gw, the energy experts at the IEA predicted that in the 20 years to 2030 it would increase to 244gw. It hit that milestone in 2016, when only six of the 20 years had passed. According to Nat Bullard, an energy analyst, over most of the 2010s actual solar installations typically beat the IEA’s five-year forecasts by 235% (see chart). The people who have come closest to predicting what has actually happened have been environmentalists poo-pooed for zealotry and economic illiteracy, such as those at Greenpeace who, also in 2009, predicted 921gw of solar capacity by 2030. Yet even that was an underestimate. The world’s solar capacity hit 1,419gw last year.

-via The Economist, June 20, 2024

Note: That graph. Is fucking ridiculous(ly hopeful).

For perspective: the graph shows that in 2023, there were about 350 GW of solar installed. The 5-year prediction from 2023 said that we'd end up around 450 GW by 2030.

We hit over 600 GW in the first half of 2024 alone.

This is what's called an exponential curve. It's a curve that keeps going up at a rate that gets higher and higher with each year.

This, I firmly believe, is a huge part of what is going to let us save the world.

#solar power #solar energy #climate change #fossil fuels #solarpunk #hopepunk #solar age #optimism #renewable #renewable energy #clean energy #green energy #renewables #solar panels #good news #hope

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briarscreek · 3 months ago

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Mediaeval Prisoner!Simon ‘Ghost’ Riley had a problem

this wasn’t part of the plan. falling for the gorgeous dove who sang in his high tower cell when they cleaned the stairs (even though he had never seen you).

it was supposed to be simple: fight at the border, eventually be ‘defeated’, get dragged back to the false king’s castle, quietly feed information to his fellow knights (gaz & soap), and wait for the true king (price) to reclaim his throne.

sir simon had known misery before, he had to befriend it to survive everything he’s been through but this time felt different. he knew his true king and knights would come but he felt the fight for his life continue to slip every time he had closed his eyes to rest. no drop of water nor crust of bread was spared for him per the false king’s orders. truly withering away. maybe they’d give him a proper knights burial when they found his body.

upon one morning he saw it. a plate of fresh fruit and cheese, obviously stolen from the pantry by how squished the food was but he knew who it was from. a soft voice echoing up into his tower from the bottom of the stairs, along with the drag of a wet cloth along stone. it sung melodies both familiar and new. words he understood, feeling connected to each high note or elongated vowel.

he became accustomed to this new routine. he’d hear you sing throughout the day, help lull him to sleep at night and awake to a scrap of breakfast in the morning. he began to long for it everyday. just to hear your voice. just to know you were alright. just to keep his heart beating for you.

he heard them before he saw them, king price with his knights fighting to get through the front gates. it was only a matter of time, until he could slip to one knee and offer his very body and soul to the one servant who kept him alive all this time.

he didn’t know what you looked like but he didn’t care. he’ll find you, he promised to you and himself. he’ll treasure the one gift he was given for the rest of his days on earth.

NEXT>>

#simon ghost riley #task force 141 #simon riley x reader #mediaeval simon riley #prisoner simon riley #mediaeval prisoner!simon riley

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dusterbishop · 6 months ago

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we can go forever until you wanna sit it out

summary. || you are an amplifier gifted with the ability to strengthen the power of other mutants, a skill that earns you a place on team x. learning to work with them is a sharp curve, especially with the lonesome newest member, logan.

pairing. || logan x f!reader (slow burn)

count. || 2.1k

notes. || warning for character death and violence. this is my first time writing for logan, but i have been bewitched by the tiktok edits.

part one. || part two. || part three. || part four.

You meet Logan when you are young, but he is far older than you initially assume.

Stryker takes point in the introductions, as usual. You linger patiently at his back, just a pace behind, idly scuffing the dirt with the toe of your boot. The air is sour with the stench of stale blood and decay. War isn’t new to you. Neither is recruitment for new soldiers.

“Who’s your little friend?” One of the men jeers, a sharp smile edging the curve of his mouth. This one is Victor Creed, you think, and it’s confirmed when you glance to the other side of the cell and see the other brother sitting back, unimpressed. That one is surely Logan.

From the files that Stryker let you and Zero parse through, you expected more… reaction. He has been tracing their movements for the past two months, and you have seen the bullet list of their service history and grim achievements. They are deadly predators, mutated to efficiently slaughter their prey. Animals, Zero had remarked, and you had silently conceded to that point. Not that you haven’t killed, but you also have human hands that do not morph to tear apart flesh.

“Less who she is, and more what she can do for you both,” Stryker says. On cue, you wander a step closer and set your amplifier alight with a flick of your wrist. You’ve mastered the range just enough to brush the soles of their feet, a fleeting-faint taste of your ability. The hand movement is still an instinct you can’t quash despite the disapproving look Stryker gives you when he sees it.

Victor sucks in a deep, rumbling breath, twitching with a suppressed lunge. Logan doesn’t make a noise, but merely closes his eyes as if a weight has been lifted. Your own body tingles with rippling electricity, every nerve set alight with adrenaline. Like a caffeine rush, you’ll feel the impact of the fall later, but for now you neatly dim your amplifier to a low buzz and shuffle back a half-step to escape their range. The pair slumps against the wall the moment it escapes them. Victor bares his teeth in a grin, and Logan gazes at Stryker with half-lidded eyes. It’s a dark, calculating gaze. Weighing the competition, you think.

“Now that I have your attention,” Stryker says, but you can’t help but notice that both the brothers are looking at you, instead. Their mistake.

Three months later, the brothers once again leave you pinned behind metal-gilded crates with enough gunfire to rattle your teeth in your skull.

“Good God,” you spit out, hauling yourself back behind cover. “Can you stop the self-sacrificial antics for a moment?”

“Sacrifice?” Victor laughs. His skin ripples with regeneration, leaving merely a smear of blood behind as proof of the healed bullet hole. His clawed hand flexes at his side, the elongated tips of his fingers scratching lightly against the floor. “I’m not the one dying, Star.”

You pull a face at the name, but you don’t have the time to argue it. Bullets spray in patterned bursts against your cover, and you have to hunch in on yourself to protect your extremities. The perk of your power is that you can keep your team from burning out and improve their reflexes. The downside is that your power does absolutely nothing in terms of protecting you; your protection is your team.

So you draw in a slow breath, flick your wrist, and summon a surging wave of amplification. Victor surges to his feet with a giddy-mad laugh and delves into the fray. Logan follows in close pursuit behind him, though he takes more care to skirt the edges of the bloodbath, cleaning up the loose ends.

The brothers are an odd addition to this mismatched army of mutant soldiers, though Stryker is pleased with their formidable prowess in battle. In the three months you’ve worked with them, you can see why, and there is a foreboding sense of dread that wells inside you as you listen to the choked-off screams of the enemy ahead. You clench your fists and hold the amplifier steady, silently grateful that for the moment, the only mutants in the room are the ones less likely to tear you apart. No doubt Victor would revel in slicing the flesh from your bones to expose what lies beneath your skin. Logan would be less inclined, perhaps, but you know he follows his brother above all else.

Yes, of course Stryker values their addition to Team X. They are nothing but monsters.

Nothing but monsters, and you have a leash on every one of them.

Stryker has a keen interest in your power, or rather what your power does for the team. You aren’t invulnerable, and you don’t have hyper senses. You don’t teleport or shoot with terrifying accuracy. On the surface, you appear nothing more than a young woman with military training and a nervous tic in your hand.

Underneath the surface, you burn bright.

Your father had been an amateur astronomer. When you were growing up, he would sneak you out to the backyard past your bedtime and the two of you would watch the sky and plot the path of constellations. He was the one that taught you about the sun, the moon, and the stars. My girl, he would say, you are made of the cosmos.

He must be partially right. There’s a staggering core of cosmic energy stored in the cradle of your ribcage. You have spent long moments staring at your own bare reflection in the mirror, hoping to catch a glimpse of it. How do you look so ordinary when there is a blazing sun in your chest?

Yet you do. Stryker had been skeptical of your ability when you first met him, but by that point he had recruited Zero and Bradley, so it only took a little wave of your hand to boost their abilities and prove your silent mutation. Proving it had sealed your fate: under the codename Cosmic, you were an infinite battery pack to the newly forged Team X.

Yet it’s moments like this, when you’re stranded in a rare week of downtime, that you feel like an outsider looking in.

It’s been four days since the job that got you shot at, the same job that let Victor unleash utter havoc, and you’re all going a little stir-crazy while you wait for things to cool down. John Wraith has somehow secured a deck of cards, and he’s managed to wrangle Bradley, Victor, and Wade in a game you don’t follow. The rules seem to change the more they drink and bicker over the play, so you toy with your own can of half-drunk beer and stare out the living room window of your temporary housing. There are stray stars speckled in the night sky, and you feel such a deep-ridden surge of grief at the sight of them.

The arguing gets louder around the kitchen table, and none of them notice when you slip out the front door. The night is hushed when you close the door behind you, and some unknown tension eases from your shoulders with the sky exposed high above. It takes some wandering to properly immerse yourself in the pitch dark, but you find a patch of grass cleared of undergrowth and sprawl out on your back, tucking your hands beneath your head. The safe house that Stryker has your team staying in is hours from the nearest large city, and the sky is clear of light pollution. You can see a scattered sea of stars, all of them twinkling in familiar greeting.

My girl, you are made of the cosmos.

You have to swallow back the sudden swell of emotion in your throat. It’s quiet this far from the house. Without any heightened senses, you can’t hear anything other than the soft rustle of the wildlife shuffling through the trees. It’s lonely, but not in the way that you felt lonely sitting in that room with the rest of the team. Their abilities serve them; your ability just makes them more.

You’re reminded of that fact in a fierce strike of terror when a figure appears at the edge of the clearing, moving too quiet for your human hearing to pick up. You bolt upright, curling your hands into fists, all too aware of your pitiful human strength and basic military training. It would do nothing against a mutant intent on rending you apart.

“Thought you were asleep,” Logan grunts, rubbing a hand over his chest in discomfort. The adrenaline from his sudden appearance spiked your amplifier, and you have to focus on leveling your breathing as you slowly retract your power back to your core. “Took you too long to notice me.”

“You were in your room,” you accuse. It’s mostly the fear driving the annoyance in your tone, but you don’t have the patience for an apology. “I wasn’t expecting to see you lurking in the woods.”

The clearing is half-lit by the light of the moon, though Logan lingers near the edges. He’s wearing a short-sleeve white shirt that clings to the curve of his torso, the muscled tone of his arms flexing as he crosses them over his chest. You can barely make out the way he raises a brow at your choice of words, his profile half-shadowed.

“Lurking,” he repeats, almost amused. “Says the stargazer.”

“Cosmic,” you remind him. “Comes with the territory.”

“What, you charge them, too?” You don’t expect him to step closer, but he does. In the moonlight, the tousled curl of his hair softens the incredulous look he’s giving you. There isn’t the same degree of mocking like the kind you would expect from Victor, but then again, you haven’t spoken to Logan much. He’s content to focus on the work rather than the idle play. Unlike Zero, however, there isn’t the same air of arrogant distaste.

He almost seems… ordinary.

“Funny,” you say dryly. You shuffle your weight and lay back down in the grass, pointedly ignoring the low chuckle he gives at your exasperation. There’s a kernel of truth stuck in your throat, so you blurt out, “I think they charge me.”

“Right,” Logan says, his tone decidedly skeptical. “And I get my claws charged up by sunshine and rainbows.”

You shoot him a glare. “I’m serious.”

“So I am, bub.”

He takes another step from the edge of the clearing. He’s closer now, enough that he looms over you. The stars speckle the sky above his head in a crown of twinkling light, and you flex your fingers, silently summoning the rush of energy that the sight of the sky gives you. Logan shivers, cursing under his breath, though he doesn’t back away.

He takes a step closer, nudging your hip with the toe of his boot. His posture doesn’t change, but he’s flexing his fingers into a fist, almost subconsciously. You wonder how it feels for him, to have his bones shift and extend into claw-like weapons. The first time you watched him kill, you grimaced at the sight of his hands. The sharpened claws of Victor’s nails were tame in comparison to the mutation that rearranged Logan’s skeleton.

You’ve never seen any indication that his ability hurts him, yet the way he flexes his hands now makes you wonder. He doesn’t speak for a long moment, only staring down at you with that unapproachable expression. You wonder, too, if he’s out here for the same reason that you are. Surely not; you’ve seen the way he follows Victor, and the way Victor turns to him, expectant in battle. They are tied together in a way that reminds you of a hangman’s noose.

“Sunshine, huh?” You say. “Suits your happy personality.”

“Like you know a fucking thing about me,” he says, and the laugh trailing the end of that sentence is far from amused. When he steps back, you almost miss the warmth of his presence filling the sky above. “Pay attention before you get yourself killed.”

“I’ve seen enough,” you shoot back, stung by the sudden seethe of his tone. You sit up to properly glare at him, but he’s already turned and heading back into the darkness of the woods. You call to his retreating back, “You and that brother of yours are gonna get the wrong people hurt.”

“Save the altruism for someone else,” he calls over his shoulder, and then he’s gone.

You glare up at the sky instead. The yawning black abyss above you feels lonelier than ever.

#logan howlett #wolverine x reader #logan howlett x reader #logan howlett x you #wolverine x you #wolverine imagine #logan imagine #x men imagine

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literaryvein-reblogs · 3 months ago

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Some Tree-related Vocabulary

for your next poem/story

Achene - Small, dry and hard one-seeded fruit.

Afforestation - Establishing a forest on an area which has not previously had trees growing on it.

Allelopathy - The adverse effect on the growth of plants or microorganisms caused by the action of chemicals produced by other living or decaying plants.

Annual rings - a layer of wood (including spring-wood and summer-wood) grown in a single season; best seen in the cross-section of the trunk.

Awl-like leaves - Short leaves that taper evenly to a point; found on junipers and red cedars.

Bole - The main trunk of a tree.

Calyx - Outermost whorl of modified leaves in a flower, usually green, but sometimes showy colored.

Cuneate - Wedge-shaped.

Cyme - Flat-topped flower cluster, central flower opens first.

Defoliation - The loss of leaves or foliage on a plant or tree.

Den tree - A hollow tree used as a home by a mammal.

Drupe - Fleshy fruit with a single stone or pit.

Evergreen - Trees and shrubs that retain their live, green leaves during the winter and for two or more growing seasons.

Heartwood - Nonliving wood (often dark) found in the middle of a tree's stem.

Leaf scar - The mark which remains where a leaf falls off a twig.

Legume - Fruit that is a dry, elongated pod that splits in two, with seeds attached along one edge inside.

Peduncle - Primary flower stalk.

Persistent leaves - Leaves that remain on the tree during winter.

Phloem - Inner bark of a tree that carries food and sugars from the leaves to other parts of the tree.

Pome - Fruit with a fleshy outer coat and a stony layer (similar to plastic) within, with seeds inside the stony layer (apples, pears, etc.).

Samara - Dry fruit with one or two flat wings attached to a seed (as on elms and maples).

Sapwood - Living wood, often light colored, found between the bark or cambium and the heartwood, usually darker colored.

Softwoods - Usually refers to trees that are conifers or cone-bearing; conifers generally have softer wood than angiosperms or hardwoods, but there are many exceptions.

Spring-wood - Wood on the inside of an annual ring, formed during the spring; cells are often thinner-walled.

Summer-wood - Wood on the outside of an annual ring, formed during the summer; this wood is sometimes dark and cells are often thicker-walled.

Sources: 1 2 ⚜ More: Word Lists

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corazondebeskar-reads · 7 months ago

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of rage and ruin - chapter five

of rage and ruin series

chapter five

series masterlist | prev chapter | next chapter

werewolf!alpha!Joel Miller x f!omega!reader

word count: 3.7k

summary: the moon brings about a new change for you and joel.

chapter warnings: dark, dead dove do not eat, a/b/o, alpha/omega dynamics, omegaverse, captivity, canon-typical violence, genre-typical violence, horror themes, graphic violence, abuse by captors (not by either joel or reader), depiction of injury, body horror, typical raider/hunter behavior, mention of cordyceps, angst, viewer discretion is advised, discussions of breeding but this is not a pregnancy story

also on ao3

dividers by @saradika-graphics

When the moon ebbs enough for him to let go of the creature, you’ve been a frequent visitor in his cell. They never leave you overnight, and most days, you’re in your room for breakfast and dinner (though you’re slightly better fed in his).

Like clockwork, the wolf has curled around you, an ever-present inner tube to float you through the endless days. There’s not much to do here in captivity, no enrichment in your enclosure, so instead, you pet his fur and watch the way his eyes follow noises from the upper floor that you can’t hear. He knows when they’re coming far before you do, not that it matters. Not that you can do anything to protect yourselves, to prepare for them.

He doesn’t use his tongue on you again. Maybe it should be comforting, that he was just helping, or that he just had a thirst for blood, but it’s not. Cheryl’s question pecks at your brain until it weeps.

Why hasn’t he done… that? You would have said he wasn’t the type, wasn’t that out of control, wasn’t a real monster.

But she said he had done it before. Claimed, violated another omega.

And he still hasn’t taken the fucking chance to explain anything to you.

You grow tired of it near the new moon.

He’s corralled you away from the cold corner where your cage used to be, a goal you only figured out when he put his teeth on the chain between your handcuffs and began to pull you after ages of nudging had left you both frustrated at the inability to communicate.

Now you sit nestled in the embrace of his great, furry body on his mattress. It is, admittedly, more comfortable than you’ve been since they took you. The mattress sucks, but it hurts your ass less than the tile, and your back yearns to rest there instead of the locker room bench.

He curls the bulk of his body in the corner, you tucked within, but it was never meant for two humans, let alone one human and one… more than human. His elongated, thick limbs spill out over the edge, but it gets easier every day to look at him without feeling nauseated by the sheer otherness of his mutated body.

And he’s warm. It’s fucking frigid down here, and your sports bra and thin cotton panties do little to ease the shivers. But the wolf is warm and soft and mostly content to let you doze there.

You try not to think about why. Why this terrifying apex predator is treating you more like a teddy bear than a snack. Why you’re not more afraid, why you find yourself absentmindedly petting him and putting up no argument as he shuffles you around as he pleases.

“Is this all you did all day before, too?” you ask quietly one afternoon, tired of the way your brain rots and drips out from between your thighs. Sitting here in the silence, with nothing to distract you from his oaky musk, has you leaking that thin, sticky slick like a faucet. He doesn’t seem to mind that you’re dampening the mattress.

Joel huffs, a puff of hot air ruffling the fur on his arm where his head is resting. Despite your frequent naps, you don’t seem to have taken to his crepusculent nature yet. He rumbles, not quite a growl, and closes his eyes so you get the hint.

You don’t. It’s not long before he feels your pointy finger jabbing at his side. “Hey,” you say. “Why haven’t you turned back?”

This time, he does growl, a soft warning of a thing. The wolf doesn’t want the man, and the man doesn’t want you. Or, well. He does. That’s the problem, after all. His human mind stays stubbornly shut, content to let the beast deal with you instead.

It becomes impossible to ignore. He spends his days wrapped around you, trying to ease the tiny tremors. But you’re cold, so cold, and even his body heat isn’t enough.

In fact, it almost makes it worse when he has to get up, leaving you alone on the little bed with scraps to wear.

Joel doesn’t make requests. He doesn’t debase himself to beg them for anything. When he has to? Sure. He has and will again someday humiliate himself for water. But never for anything remotely unnecessary.

But you’re cold.

Now, his reticence makes this harder. He doesn’t ask for things, so they know they’ve won already when he does.

They made him care about this girl, about you, and he can’t hide it. Can’t hide from it. Can’t protect you, can’t protect himself from their manipulations.

But they’ve known since they brought you in. They knew they figured it out and had him made when he got territorial.

So not only do they make him beg, they make him work for it.

It’s only the new moon when he asks, and they make him wait.

Two weeks. He can’t take it.

The wolf doesn’t let him sleep often; he just paces. Paces and paces and paces, even though it makes you a little nervous.

Even worse? He likes you a little nervous. It makes him nauseous and giddy at the same time.

But cold? That’s just unacceptable.

Protect, the wolf whispers. Provide.

The man comes back. His graying hair is ruffled and damp; little droplets of water still cling to his chest and flatten the hair on his stomach. You keep your eyes above the waist, but not quick enough to unsee the way his heavy, flaccid cock lies thick against the plush bed of his balls. It twitches under your gaze, which you lift to find his on you, dark and full of warning.

You shouldn’t be this affected. He’s been walking around nude the whole time you’ve been here. And yet, there’s a rush of warmth flooding you, a tell-tale beat at your core.

Oh. No, it’s an actual flood of warmth. The apple blossom tang of your slick is strong enough that you can smell it, the glistening of your thighs and matted hair between betraying you.

His brows pinch, lip caught between teeth. “We need to talk.”

It’s funny—the universal dread behind those words. This is not when your mother sat you down to break the news of your dog’s passing; this is not when your high school boyfriend decided to have that conversation in a bottlenecked hallway outside the cafeteria. This is a virtual stranger, and yet, that phrase still sends your heart rate skittering and your stomach seizing.

You don’t realize you’ve frozen up until he makes a very irritating tch-tch with his tongue against his teeth.

“Did you hear me, girl? I need to talk to you. And you need to listen.”

“Hi Joel, nice to see you; it’s been a while,” you say instead.

He rolls his eyes. “I’ve been here the whole damn time.”

“Incredibly convenient that when you want to talk, you can be a person, but when I’m bored and lonely in here with your furry ass, you can’t be bothered.”

“First of all,” he says, scrubbing a hand over his face like he’s already exhausted, “you talked plenty for the both of us. Second—” He glares as you open your mouth indignantly— “ second, this is important. And it’s important now.”

You shut your mouth.

“Oh, good, you do know how,” he mutters.

“I’m sorry, is my presence here a bother? Let me just pack up and go home. Oh, wait.”

You don’t know why you’re doing this. The residual bitterness you had scrubbed clean from your lungs is bubbling anew. How dare he have an attitude with you?

He growls. Honest to god growls, even though he’s human, because he can’t truly be, really. Not anymore. The lines between wolf and man are not as fortified as he likes to pretend.

They never really were.

That’s neither here nor there to Joel right now, though. What matters is that you knock this off and listen . “We ain’t got time for this,” he says. “I shoulda realized sooner, but I didn’t. I don’t know how much time we got, but I ain’t about to let you go into this blind.”

Your anger is snuffed by his icy tone, making way for the dread to creep back in.

He sits down with a huff, bare ass on the cold, cratered floor, putting a good half the room between you. A spike of guilt at having stolen his bed rises. At least you have underwear to put between you and the tile.

The guilt festers when he tosses you a small gray bundle.

It’s a blanket.

It’s worn and torn, certainly, and it’s thin. But it’s a blanket.

You’re actually speechless, looking up at him and opening and closing your mouth like a fish.

“Don’t make a big deal about it,” he says gruffly, so you shut your mouth and nod.

“Thanks,” is all you say, and he grunts in response.

You run your hands over the soft fleece and bite your lip. It seems less important to listen to him right now than it is to spread the blanket out on the mattress. You’re aware of his wary stare as you change the positioning over and over before uselessly fluffing the sad, flat pillow and setting it at the top of the bed.

“Shit,” he says. “We got less time than I thought.”

Once you’re satisfied with your one and only “home decoration,” you settle back on the mattress and regard him. “Before what?”

“Before your heat, baby,” he says with forced caution.

Your brain fizzles, like holding Pop Rocks in the back of your throat, when he calls you baby. You should be pissed. If it were any other man calling you something like that apropos of nothing, you’d be pissed.

But Joel says it, and you lose your train of thought.

For all that you’ve malfunctioned from it, Joel doesn’t seem to notice the slip of his tongue. He’s watching you expectantly, which brings the rest of his sentence to the surface.

“Before what?” you say, even though deep down, you know. Even if you didn’t have context for the word, you feel it. What was a low simmer is molten, now, as it churns in your abdomen, leaking from your cunt.

He grimaces. “I know how this is gonna sound. I promise I’m not tryin’ to pull anything over on ya,” he says, hands raised in supplication. “But you gotta know before it’s too late.”

His jaw ticks as he chews on the words he doesn’t want to taste before spitting them out between you. “Look, it ain’t like anyone knows a whole lot about our… conditions. But that’s what they call it.” He glances up at the ceiling, no doubt listening to the raiders stomping around above. “Best guess is a biological breeding imperative. But you’re going to get real… needy. It’s gonna hurt. And I’m not going to be able to stop myself. ”

You consider this, turning it over and over like a gas station hot dog roller. The image of his cock fits a little too well there, but that’s the long and short of it, isn’t it?

Well. There isn’t anything short about it. No, you can’t follow that path right now. You blink and notice he’s staring, waiting for some kind of— any kind of reaction, and clear your throat. “Why?”

You’re not really sure what you’re asking, just looking to take whatever semblance of an answer he can muster.

“Because it’s going to hurt you, and you’re going to beg me to help, and I’m not gonna be able to say no.”

“That seems wildly unfair to you.”

He sputters. “To-to me? Aren’t you listening? I’m telling you I’m going to lose control and violate you while you’re vulnerable, and you’re worried about what’s fair to me?”

“Well, it’s obviously unfair to me too,” you counter. “But, like. Okay, whatever, far be it for me to think you should have some say in this.”

He scrubs his hand over his face, scratches at his beard, and heaves a heavy sigh. A three-for-one in what you’re starting to understand as Joel for “Jesus fucking Christ.”

He completes the set for you.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” he mutters, and then glowers when you snort a wry laugh.

He stands up and paces. It’s the first time you’ve really seen him behave like the wolf while remaining the man. It also, unfortunately, makes it very hard not to look at his cock. He catches you looking and groans, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Sorry,” you say, shifting uncomfortably on the mattress.

“Ain’t your fault,” he says, resuming his figure eight.

You sit, picking at the skin around the nailbed of your left index finger until it bleeds, bringing it to your mouth to soothe the sting.

“Don’t do that,” he scolds when the blood blossoms, but you’re too lost in the realization of what’s coming to listen.

“It’s going to hurt?” you ask finally.

“Yeah, it’s going to fucking hurt,” he snaps and then sighs, shoulders slumping a little. “It’s going to make you feel like you’ll die if you don’t… if I don’t…”

“So, hold up. You get super strength, super hearing, super sharp teeth, and like mighty morphin fursuit powers, and I get… so horny it hurts?”

“What is wrong with you?” he mutters, but you ignore him.

“That’s so fucked. Is there anything cool about being an… an omega?” You don’t like the shape of the word on your tongue, spitting it out. It leaves behind a caustic taste.

“You’re more likely to carry to term successfully than human women,” he says flatly.

The caustic feeling spreads to the twitch of your lip. “Oh, come on. Fucking typical FEDRA. They accidentally created werewolves with a side dose of sexism.”

His jaw ticks. “First of all, we ain’t werewolves. ”

“Uh, you are. You, for sure, are a werewolf,” you interrupt.

The line between his brow deepens, like this conversation is taking years off his life. “Don’t say that,” he says, closing his eyes. “Do not say that again.”

“Dude. You howl at the fucking moon. You turn into a huge hairy beast, all ‘the better to eat you with’ style, like, you’re a motherfucking werewolf.”

He sits down, shaking his head. “Can you quit it?” he barks. Well, not literally. You’ve heard him literally bark. This is just rude.

Except, there’s a teeny, tiny quirk to the corner of his mouth. “Anyway,” he grunts. “It ain’t sexist. Anyone can be an omega.”

“Ok, but still. You get superpowers, and I get a super uterus.”

“I didn’t say it was fair."

You sigh.

“You’re being remarkably calm,” he notes, a little less gruffness and a little more concern in his tone.

“I can panic if you’d like,” you say with a wry grin. “It just doesn’t seem like it’ll help matters.”

“You’re getting complacent,” he counters.

“I learned it by watching you,” you say, mimicking the higher inflection.

He narrows his eyes. “You ain’t old enough to remember that commercial,” he says.

“You don’t have a clue how old I am,” you counter. There’s a surprising lightness in your chest. For all that you and Joel haven’t really spoken beyond the few tense encounters, talking to him is almost fun.

Or maybe you’re really that deep in the Stockholm Syndrome now.

Is it still Stockholm Syndrome if he’s not your captor? Because you sure aren’t warming up to Jim and Cheryl.

When you look back up at Joel, he’s watching you with furrowed brows and a deep-set scowl, the lines around his mouth like cracks in a sidewalk.

It’s haunting, his seriousness.

“What happened to your last omega?” you ask, finally letting the ghoul out from under your bed, hoping his words will disperse it.

“I killed him,” Joel says flatly.

“Oh.”

The silence settles again, less like a shawl and more like the space between the crackle of the intercom summoning you to the principal’s office and the long walk down the empty hall.

This time, though, your grandma isn’t waiting on the other side. There’s only the big bad wolf.

“I didn’t mean to,” he says after a long while. “It was different. He wasn’t mine. But that doesn’t mean you’re safe.”

“What do you mean he wasn’t yours? I’m… also not yours.”

Joel grimaces, which only serves to let the shadows twist his face further. “Yeah, ya are,” he says solemnly. “Sorry. But ya’ve been mine since they brought you in here. Or, the beast’s, anyway.”

His words settle in your stomach like the Edmund Fitzgerald, and all you can do is watch from the dry side of a glass-bottomed tour boat. You’ve been mine since they brought you in here.

There’s not much room left in you for levity, now.

“So that’s it?” you say quietly. “What, I’m going to just have to hope you don’t tear me to shreds while you… while you…”

“I don’t think it’ll hurt you,” he says of his other half. You find the way he speaks of himself so perplexing. You tend to split them, too, but for him to see himself in fragments is enlightening.

And sad.

“But…” he sighs, the burden of what he’s about to ask of you sinking its teeth in, “you can’t fight me. You gotta just… shit, you gotta just take it. If you fight, it might fight back.”

His gruff baritone and its potent words, the low hint of a twang and the undercurrent of a klaxon, put your stomach through a cotton candy machine, wrapping the tendrils of your anxiety into a nice bundle to choke on.

He sees the fear in your eyes and oh, he hates it. The wolf is snapping its jaw around his neck for it. How dare he scare you like this? How dare he threaten his girl? The beast is all teeth and fury and protect protect protect and he doesn’t even notice the change start until you suddenly say, “don’t.”

Don’t.

That’s all it takes.

You watch as the claws recede along with his fur.

“That’s not fair,” you whisper. “You stay here and talk to me about it.”

It stings much in the same way as the time he accidently got his jaws around a porcupine. It was early days in his new life, and in the height of starving season. His desperation cost him then but he wouldn’t let it now.

He settles back down, gritting his teeth. “You’re right. It ain’t fair,” he agrees. “Ain’t nothin’ about this fair to you.”

When it comes, it bears no warning. Maybe because it’s your first heat, you don’t recognize the signs.

True to his word, the man has stayed, though he warned you he couldn’t keep the beast at bay for long. The gibbous is waxing, fattening, bloating above you each night and it’s nearly sounded its call when the fever takes you.

You’re in your room when your abdomen seizes with the first cramp. There’s no mistaking it for your period. It comes with purpose, with rage, the sole horseman of your downfall.

Okay, maybe downfall is a little dramatic.

But you have barely had time to gasp at the wrenching of your insides before he’s calling out to you from across the hall.

You don’t answer, gritting your teeth as you throb at the sound of his voice, and he calls, instead, for them.

He’s never addressed them first, never voiced a need, never invited them into your subterranean den willingly.

And you know.

“Fucking disgusting,” Jim scoffs as he unlocks the door to your room.

“Don’t touch her,” Joel snaps, pressed against the bars with both hands wrapped tightly around them.

You think Jim makes some kind of threat toward you, but there’s none needed. It doesn’t occur to you to run, which haunts you later. In the haze of your aching body, every muscle tensed and ready, you let the call of the moon draw you to Joel, grabbing for his hands through the bars as soon as you can reach.

There’s something in his eyes that you don’t want to see. Something too close to pity, so you don’t look at his face.

Jim has to snap at you both and threaten the shock collar to get you to move away from the door. Joel, still mostly sound of mind, moves obediently to the back of the cell as Jim opens it, letting you stumble past the barrier before the clang echoes.

Joel catches you before you fall, and you grasp his forearms. The room is warm, suffocatingly so, and he looks increasingly concerned with each passing second.

“Too hot,” you whine, still digging your fingernails into his roughened flesh, the gruff hair a balm to your itchy, ill-fitting skin. Your body yearns for the change, to shift and settle into something closer to him, closer to what the moon wants you to be.

“I know,” he croons, sinking to his knees and holding you with your back to his chest, legs sprawled. His hand strokes your head, brushing sweat from your clammy skin. You catch his hand in both of yours, holding it up in front of you and following the lines of his palm, letting your fingertips test the tip of his claws, stroking the hair on the back of each finger.

“So thick,” you marvel.

He sighs, hot breath skittering across the back of your neck. “How’re you so far gone already,” he mutters, not really a question.

Your head spins. “I’m right here,” you say, eliciting another sigh.

“I know,” he placates again before he does something that sends your whole body into overdrive.

He presses a soft kiss to the top of your head. “I know,” he repeats. “I’ve got ya. It’s gonna be okay.”

It isn’t, you think, as the twitching of your shoulders and legs sets off quiet alarms. It isn’t, because there’s no coming back from this. You know this, but right now? Here, in his arms, with his quiet rumbling voice and that kiss? Well, what happens next just isn’t your problem.

He inhales deeply, his lips still pressed to your head, and it slips from you without warning, without intent.

“Alpha,” you whimper on pure instinct, and he knows.

Oh, he knows.

It’s too late for either of you, now.

next chapter

#joel miller x reader #joel miller x you #joel miller fic #werewolf!joel #werewolf joel miller #alpha!joel miller #alpha!joel miller x omega!reader #a/b/o fic #omegaverse #dead dove fic #fic: of rage and ruin #the last of us fic #tlou fic

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glow-worms-are-believers · 9 months ago

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Stealing her Thunder (dp x dc)

Sam really hadn't meant for the night to derail so much. She hadn't even meant to be out tonight, this was all Paulina's fault.

"This is the worst senior trip ever," mumbled Paulina from where she was sitting with her back against the wall, next to Star and Sam. Despite having been essentially kidnapped, she looked just as beautiful and perfect and put-together as she had when she'd come down from her hotel room. Oh, how Sam hated her.

"Maybe if you hadn't snuck into a club while underaged-" Sam hissed to her.

Paulina's shimmering green eyes flashed. "Oh I'm sorry, Susie Nobody, why were you in the club, then?"

"Trying to prevent something like this, you dimwitted, spoiled little princess!"

Paulina's shiny lips opened again to say something equally as inane, and Sam was gearing up to retort when Star elbowed her friend.

"Guys, stop!" Star whisper-shouted. "This is not the time to flirt."

"We're not flirting!" Both girls exclaimed at the same time.

They immediately shut their mouth as they realized they had been much too loud but by then it was too late. With an ominous creak the door to their temporary holding cell was pushed open, and a blond woman walked in as if she owned the place.

"Now, now, girls," she said as she strode towards the three bound girl. "It's not very polite to make a ruckus in someone's home."

Sam couldn't help her snort. The woman raised an eyebrow and Sam smirked.

"That is one ugly ass home," she said as she made a show of looking around the bare cement floor, dirty walls and heavy metal door.

"As much as I hate to agree with Loserville over there, she's right" Paulina sneered, somehow the expression making her look just as attractive as she always was. "This is the ugliest place I've ever been held hostage."

"Maybe if you added a skylight or like, a few prints-" Star added kind-heartedly.

"Enough," the woman said, though her smile had vanished. "I don't have time for this."

Then in just a few strides, she was face to face with Sam. She raised a hand just in front of the girl's face and gave her a smirk as her long silver nails started to lengthen more and more under their eyes.

"That is some free edge," Star mumbled, as her eyes widened.

"I have this fun ability," the woman ignored the blond girl, "where my blood," she looked at her ever elongating nails, "lets me bestow gifts on people."

"Yeah," Sam dragged out as the weird silvery trails started approaching her face. "Not interested."

"I don't even ask much in exchange," the woman said, as she leaned towards the goth teen. "Just a little obedience."

Sam was now struggling in earnest, doing her best to lean back in the restrained space, only just avoiding the weird silver things. "Get away!"

"Get your hands off her, you bottle blond bitch-" she heard Paulina's voice spit out when there was a large boom and a portion of the wall blew open.

The woman was blown back, the silver nails retreating back into herself as she turned to face the newly made hole. And from the hole walked in a woman dressed in a yellow and black reinforced suit.

"Step away from the children, Looker," the new arrival said.

"Thunder," their kidnapper answered with a sneer and that was all that was said before the newly-dubbed-Thunder descended on the woman with a kick, that was evaded.

Not so easily evaded however, was Thunder's punch to the kidnapper's solar plexus that sent her crashing right into the metal door, and falling through the half-opened doorway.

The black-and-yellow-decked woman turned towards the bound teens, and kneeling next to Sam, she ripped apart the girls' restraints as if they were spider's web

"You girls ok?" she said, looking into Sam's eyes.

And here, for the first time in her life, Sam found herself tongue tied. Feeling her cheeks grow warm, she quickly looked down before opening and closing her mouth a few times, until finally-

"A-okay," Sam squeaked out before immediately wishing the ground would swallow her up. A-okay?? Could she be anymore lame?

But Thunder only chuckled and Sam chanced a look up to see the woman smiling at her, and her lips pulled up, feeling shyer than ever.

"We're fine," Paulina's sharp voice cut through, "no thanks to you." Sam turned to see her lips were pulled back in a sneer.

"Paulie, she literally just saved our lives," Star said as she rolled her eyes, while massaging her wrists.

"Yeah, why don't you try being a little grateful?" Sam bit out.

Paulina just sniffed as she crossed her arms and lifted her nose higher. "I'll show you grateful," she mumbled under her breath.

"Ugh," Sam let out. When she turned back towards the hero(?) was looking from Paulina to Sam with a weird little smile on her face.

"What?" Paulina barked, having obviously also noticed it.

"Nothing," Thunder said, the smile still in place, as she got to her feet. "I'm glad you girls are alright. I have to go, but the police should be here soon ok? Just stay in here and you'll be safe"

Sam nodded and she could hear the other two make noises of assent, though Paulina's sounded more like a scoff than anything else. Thunder then clapped her hands together and the wall opposite to them crumbled down. With one last wave, she was off.

Sam watched her go with wide eyes as she heard Paulina grumble.

"What a poser."

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tenth-sentence · 2 years ago

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PIN2, which is localized at the upper side of root epidermal cells and at the upper side and lateral side facing the epidermal cells in cortical cells, conducts auxin away from the lateral root cap to the elongation zone, where auxin acts to stimulate or inhibit cell elongation.

"Plant Physiology and Development" int'l 6e - Taiz, L., Zeiger, E., Møller, I.M., Murphy, A.

#book quote #plant physiology and development #nonfiction #textbook #pin2 #plant cells #epidermal cells #epidermis #cortical cells #cortex #auxin #root cap #elongation zone #cell elongation

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whats-in-a-sentence · 2 years ago

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IAA is delivered to the root apex by a rootward PIN1/ABCB19-directed stream (Figure 18.19). (...) In addition, an auxin reflux loop model in root cortical cells is thought to redirect auxin back into the rootward stelar transport stream at the boundary of the elongation zone (see Figure 18.19).

"Plant Physiology and Development" int'l 6e - Taiz, L., Zeiger, E., Møller, I.M., Murphy, A.

#book quotes #plant physiology and development #nonfiction #textbook #iaa #indole acetic acid #pin1 #abcb19 #atp binding cassette subfamily #auxin reflux loop #root cortex #plant cells #rootward #elongation zone

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loveindefinitely · 1 year ago

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03 — 𝘎𝘖𝘛 𝘔𝘌 𝘋𝘖𝘞𝘕 𝘖𝘕 𝘔𝘠 𝘒𝘕𝘌𝘌𝘚

༊*·˚ LUST FOR LIFE — task force 141 x reader

featuring. simon 'ghost' riley + johnny 'soap' mactavish + kyle 'gaz' garrick + john 'bravo six' price

warnings. nsfw, fem!reader, fmmmm, legal age-gaps, inexperienced reader, angst, graphic violence, slight power imbalance, enemies to lovers, slow burn, betrayal

series masterlist. read on ao3. fanfic playlist.

// NSFW CONTENT UNDER THE CUT //

When you wake up in the morning -- or, you suppose, what you can only guess is the morning -- you're not in the same position you fell asleep in.

No.

When you wake up, it's to free hands. No handcuffs, and no ache in your shoulders from the uncomfortable position. There's a dull throb, but that's more likely from the events that had transpired long before being cuffed to a bed.

What you wouldn't do for some painkillers. Both for your sore muscles, and the impending headache that you have no doubt will appear within the next couple hours, if not minutes.

It's dark. The same pure black that you'd fallen asleep to last night.

Sitting up, allowing yourself a moment of reprieve, you stretch out your back with an elongated sigh, yawning not too shortly after.

Wiping at dreary eyes with the heel of your palm, you think.

Properly, fully, allow yourself to think over the past twenty-four hours. Process it, if not fully, then enough for you to get some sort of hold on your emotions. And, if not those, then at least enough to grapple a sort of understanding with your current predicament.

You were... compromised.

That was putting it lightly, sure, but it was also the truest statement to come out of all of this. You were compromised, at a military base, one which you'd previously never been to before.

The same military base that your father worked at, apparently. One that he served for.

The one that would now be reporting him as KIA. Or, whatever other term they used for murdering their own squad member.

"He did terrible things. Killed people who had made no faults."

That's what Price had said before you'd succumbed to less tangible nightmares than the ones you were currently living in. Your father -- he was awful to you, you were nothing if not aware of that fact, but --

He'd killed people, if Price was to be trusted. And, considering your predicament, he really shouldn't be.

But...

Intel was intel. You'd learnt that through years of living that truth, in circles of gossip and whispering schoolgirls on the playground. Information was, at its core, one of the most sought-after weapons for any army, no matter the size.

Whether that army be a high-school debate team, or one that aimed to create bloodshed at its own hands.

You'd been kidnapped. Fact. You assaulted two very dangerous men. Fact. ...Your father was dead.

Fact.

The door to your -- room? Cell? Death chamber? -- creaks open, light flooding through the opening it's created. When you look up, you swallow down your anxiety as you see the silhouetted frame of Gaz, large hand wrapped around the door handle.

Silence, your most familiar of friends, welcomes you both once more as he shuts the door closed behind himself. Feeling over the wall to his left, he finds the light, turning it on and effectively blinding you.

Pulling your knees to your chest, you squeeze your eyes shut and bury your face into your legs as spots dance in your vision.

"Shit, my bad," Gaz hisses, sounding appropriately genuine. There's something about the insultingly-handsome man that makes your posture soften, your heartbeat slowing in the most comforting of ways.

It's annoying.

He's annoying.

You lift your head from where it rests, but only enough to reveal your unamused glare and cold-bitten nose.

He stands, almost awkward in the small space, looking around it like it will reveal all the secrets he could ever wish to discover. All that they tell him is that Price needs to hire an interior designer.

"How'd you sleep?" The man settles on, a hesitant smile on his face as he meets your glacial eyes.

Those same eyes shift into ones of saccharine falsehoods as you shoot him the fakest smile you've ever had to construct. "Splendid, thank you! Y'know, the handcuffs really are great for comfort, and so is the smell of bleach and... yes, don't worry, the memories of seeing you guys kill my dad is a great feature to have in my dreams."

Watching Gaz's smile slip more and more with every word out of your mouth feels a little like a reward, and you accept it as such.

By the time you've finished, his expression is one displaying full distraught, as though your presence has caused him grey hairs within seconds.

Serves him right, you think triumphantly.

"Look... I dunno what I'm allowed to say," Gaz drags his hand down his face, before leaving it to rest at his chin, as if in thought. "But... you're not a prisoner here."

You scoff a mock of a laugh, no humour in its delivery. "Oh, how could I ever think as much?"

"Come have breakfast." The words -- they spill out, as if crashing into one another like a train wreck. Gaz, for his part, doesn't take his request back. Refuses to go back on his word -- a trait belonging to a seasoned operative.

Men who'd worked on the field were all too aware of their vows' weight in gold.

"With us. Price is 'n meetings and shit, but... join us. Ghost'll cook," Gaz insists, and --

"And I'm supposed to trust the man who shot my father dead to cook for me?" You ask, incredulous as you sit up straighter, gaze zoned in on the man standing before you, like a bomb aiming for its target.

Deadly precision. Deadly consequences.

His dark brows pinch together, and his hand falls from his handsome features reluctantly. "I can cook for you, if you'd prefer."

And maybe you're playing with fire. Being entirely, wholly too trusting, too hopeful that some kindness will be shown to you after the wretched experiences you've had to endure.

Or...

Maybe you just like the feeling of being burnt by the flames.

"Fine," the word comes out as a breath, but it's as loud as a scream when spoken within these four white walls. "I don't want to see Ghost."

Gaz, albeit apprehensively, nods. "That's... alright, love. He'll eat in 'is room."

"Use that pet name for people who reciprocate the feeling," you clip, standing on shaky legs. The mess that was yesterday seems to be affecting you on all fronts, which is nothing if not disappointing.

With a sharp intake of a breath, Gaz sharply nods, before gesturing towards the door with an open palm.

When you leave your, what you've decided to refer to as a cell, Gaz keeps as close to you as possible without your skin brushing. It's oddly thoughtful, considering that your current relationship stood somewhere closer to captor and captee, not cherry-popper and virgin.

...Although, that comparison was still accurate.

Sadly.

Kinda sadly?

Look, they were hot, but in the same way that the Nephilim were deemed to be dangerously attractive. Ruthless, murderous -- and heartachingly beautiful.

The problem came when weighing the value of such characteristics. Shame that you cared about their personality and morals, really.

Looking around, you try and register your surroundings as best as possible.

The hallway is empty. No armed guards, no military personnel -- just paved concrete walls, and a turnoff or door every few paces.

It's not at all what you'd expected of a SAS base, but then again, you didn't exactly have specific blueprints in mind. Kind of hard to research when, not even thirty hours ago, you had thought that your dad was a business man.

...And the fact that you had no clue where in the country you actually were.

"Where are we?" You ask, in a whisper -- although there's no reason for the low tone -- and he responds with a raised brow.

"That's classified information, I'm afraid."

"How do I become classifiable?"

He huffs a laugh, and those dimples of his come out to play once more.

They're as annoying as the rest of him, you think, snapping your head to your left to avoid so much as breathing too close to him.

You stop walking when Gaz does, his footsteps going silent as he levels a knowing look to his right.

It's then that you hear an American, strict voice from the other side of the door Gaz has stopped at. When you shoot him a questioning look, he simply brings his pointer finger to his mouth, tipping his head towards the shut oak door.

Shut up. Got it.

"He's good," that unfamiliar, unnerving -- your mind unhelpfully supplies -- voice says. "And he knows too much. Price, neutralising him is our only bet -- find him, and take him out."

"Didn't realise being a hitman was part of the job requirements," Price snips back. You think that you can hear the puff of a cigar after he speaks those words, but it's difficult to hear with the solidity of the wall between you both.

Your eyes go wide, and when they meet Gaz's own serious ones, he shakes his head so subtly you almost think you've imagined it.

"Son, your 'job requirements' require you to protect the damn state. Killing Andromeda is vital to that end goal."

"I hardly think so. A hacker with no affiliations? Hell, General, you're pulling at straws here." His accent's thicker, more pronounced, when he's pissed off. Not in the way he'd been with you -- this was more raw, more... genuine, in a way.

You don't get long to revel in this discovery, before new ones take the forefront.

The other man in the room's voice is sterner, louder than it had been before when he speaks next. "Andromeda is a threat to humanity. What we do is secret for a reason, soldier. This information gets out, and millions are in danger."

"Andromeda has yet to make a single threat, General."

"And we'd best make sure that he never does."

"I --"

"That's an order, Captain."

Silence remains for a heavy beat after that final command, before Gaz gently grasps your wrist, pulling you to walk swiftly through the hallway by his side.

It isn't until you both meet what you assume to be the mess hall that you finally breathe. You aren't sure when exactly you'd forgotten to perform that basic function, but now that air fills your lungs, it burns.

"What --" You begin, but forcibly halt the word-vomit that was about to explode from your mouth.

Gaz looks tense, uncharacteristically so. His grip hasn't removed from your wrist, so you tug your limb free forcefully. That seems to snap him out of whatever daze he's in, as thoughtful brown eyes meet yours in question.

You swallow, once, before continuing at a much safer speed. "Why did you want to eavesdrop?" You ask at a low tone, and you realise that he's moved you both to the corner of the kitchen, away from prying eyes. He's willing to talk, if that decision means anything.

You hope that it does.

He looks away, for a moment, going to pace nervously on the tiled floor of the cooking area.

There's a few seconds that pass before he answers.

"Needed to hear it for myself," is all he supplies. As if those words are supposed to make any sense to you --

But they do. It's the first thing to make sense in hours.

"So... you lot have to kill this guy?" You ask, voice not wavering once. It's a feat in and of itself.

Gaz halts his pacing abruptly, thumb pulling at his lower lip in an anxious movement. It's a startling thought when you remember how those very lips had been pressed against your own not too long ago.

Now, you could happily die without having to see them again.

...Go figure.

"We have to find him. That's the hard part -- fucker's great at what he does," Gaz grits out the compliment like it's a physical pain, a blow to his side. Dramatic, but effective.

You raise a brow. "And... this is your job... why, exactly? Are you all tech-pros or some shit?"

He makes a grumbling sort of sound, like a petulant child. "...No. We're stuck. And, hell, the guy's done jackshit except bypass all of our servers' firewalls just to prove that he can. No violence. No threats. Nothing."

"Why're you telling me this?" It's not at all the question that needs answering, in fact, it's so far down your importance ranking that it's truly a mystery why you ask it.

He doesn't miss a beat. "I trust you. Trust my gut. Never failed me before, and -- I saw. In your room. You have a setup, yeah?"

The confession startles you, and you nod along with his words, completely hiding your inner shock. Shock that he'd paid close enough attention. "Yeah, I do. Play games and stuff. Why?"

"You can --" His words are disjointed, a myriad of thoughts forming a mess of a sentence, "Need family, yeah? Place to stay? Help us with -- Yeah."

Your eyes narrow. "What the fuck are you on about? I'm not helping a bunch of murderers, just to be charitable."

It's laughable when you put it plain as day, and Gaz groans, realising his absolute disaster of a proposal.

"Fuck. I mean -- if you're good with code. You could help us find him -- you'd be a great asset, you know? And... it'd help you too. We could hire you --"

"Dinnae realise ye were holdin' an interview without us."

You turn, the action instinctual, before your eyes land on Soap, leaning against the bit of wall behind you and Gaz that hides you from sight.

He's got a plaster over his nose, but the swelling and bruising has calmed down a surprising amount considering the time frame.

"How the fuck did that heal so quick? Not a good enough throw, military man?" You goad, as if to catch up for the time you'd spent being civil with Gaz. Needed to keep up your quota somehow.

Soap's smirk deepens, becomes more akin to the one of a devil holding the forbidden fruit in front of your nose. "Quick? Ken a week 'nd a bit is solid."

It takes a moment for those words to hit you properly, and when they do, you take an unsure step back. "What...?"

"Jesus christ, Johnny," Gaz mutters, and you store that little name slip for later. He pulls you back around to face him, face unreadable for once. "You were... out for a ten days."

Ten. Days.

Wincing, you look to the roof for an answer. It doesn't respond, but you reach the conclusion yourself.

....You were so dead.

a/n. thank u all SO MUCH for the love on this fic!! it means so much to me. im gonna be honest. ive planned MULTIPLE plot twists, and i really really really hope that i can pull them off. if u guys have any theories for ANYTHING pls comment them!! tell me all about ur thoughts!! im curious to see if anyone catches anything that will be important later on. also! i made a spotify playlist for this fic!! i highly recommend listening to it while reading -- it's the general vibes i've gone for! again, all comments, reblogs and follows mean the worldddd to me!! mwah mwah

taglist. @captainjamster @alfa-jor @simp4miguell @yaboibauldano @dreamaboutpinkk @guyser @lovewithasideoflust @redz0mbie @ghost-is-my-bbg @astro-ghoul99 @the-faceless-bride @casterousaudrey @cutiecusp @kit-williams @lilpothoscuttings @florabelll @elijahssuit @character---obsessed @ilove-masked-men @arithestrawberry @undercover-smutlover @sugarystuff @khodarling @the-hotsibling @kkaaaagt @sleepyoriana @jalepp @yannauauau @thriving-n-jiving @catmouseggy @jng-yuan @cacacattz @yaebaal @hayleybarnesx @squidalapobre @selcouthsky @ash-tarte @head-slut-in-charge @giannags-billetdoux @creamwhxre @moonlightflorence @maliagurl @airyonna15

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bethanythebogwitch · 3 months ago

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Wet Beast Wednesday: starfish

This week's Wet Beast Wednesday is going to be stellar, as we're reaching for the stars and talking about starfish. Also known as sea stars and asteroids, these echinoderms are a classic in tidepools and touch tanks, so much so that many people don't think much about them. If that's you, you're missing a lot, since there's plenty of interesting things to learn about our radially symmetrical brethren.

(Image: a common starfish (Asterias rubens) resting on sand, seen from above. It is a star-shaped animal with five distinct rays connecting at the base. Its body is orangeish, with small white slumps all over its surface. End ID)

Starfish are echinoderms of the class Asteroidea and when I called them our brethren, I wasn't entirely kidding. Echinoderms are duterostomes, the clade of bilaterally symmetrical animals whose anus forms before the mouth while in embryo. Chordates, which include humans, are also duterostomes. This means you are more closely related to starfish than you are to arthropods, molluscs, or various worms. As with the other echinoderms, starfish are radially symmetrical as adults, but bilaterally symmetrical as larvae, indicating that they evolved from bilaterally symmetrical ancestors. Starfish should not be confused with brittle stars and basket stars (which you can read about here), though they do have the same common ancestor.

I know what you're thinking and shame on you. (Image: the granulated starfish (Choriaster granulatus). It has short rays with rounded heads that have vertical slits on the tips. Its body is a reddish-orange with hard markings, but the tips of the rays are a more pale color. End ID)

Starfish consist of a central disc with appendages called arms or rays extending from it. The term ray is often preferred because they are not actually limbs. They are flexible, though, and are used in locomotion and object manipulation. Most species have five rays, but some can have more. The number of rays is usually a multiple of five (and can reach up to 50 in Labidiaster annulatus), but species with other numbers of rays do exist. The underside of the rays are lined with rows of tube feet. These hollow tubes can be filled with water to extend out of the body and are maneuvered with a complex system of muscles. Each tube foot can be individually controlled and a starfish can have hundreds of them. Tube feet are used for locomotion and object manipulation. While the ends are often suction-cup shaped, they attach to objects using chemical adhesives rather than suction. Tube feet are used to drag the starfish forward and they typically will have one ray that points in the direction they are moving, possibly a remnant of their bilaterally symmetrical ancestors having a front end. Starfish typically move fairly slowly, with about 15 cm (6 in) a minute being a typical top speed. There are exceptions, though, with Luidia foliolata being able to reach almost 3 m (9 ft) per minute. Tube feet are also filled with sensory cells to help the starfish examine its environment. The flexible arms also help starfish flip themselves over if they end up upside down.

(Image: a starfish of the order Brisingida. It is orange and has numerous very long and flexible arms that are held up in the water column. The arms are covered with elongated spiny protrusions used to filter feed. End ID)

The central disc contains the mouth at the center that is opened and closed with a sphincter. The moth leads into a short esophagus which leads to a stomach divided into two segments: the larger cardiac stomach and smaller pyloric stomach. In primitive starfish, food is swallowed hole and passed to the cardiac stomach, where digestion begins, then passed to the pyloric stomach where digestion finishes. In most species, however, the cardiac stomach has been adapted to be ejected out through the mouth to engulf prey and begin digesting it outside of the body, passing broken-down food into the internal pyloric stomach. This allows starfish to consume prey considerably larger than they are. Starfish famously can consume bivalves by using their arms and tube feet to pry the shellfish open and eject their stomachs into the shell. Not all starfish are carnivores. Many will feed partially or totally on algae and detritus and some have adapted to be filter feeders that use their rays to catch plankton and carry it to their mouths. Some species use modified pedicellariae to capture small fish and crustaceans. Pedicellariae are pincer-like structures found on the skin of some species of starfish that have a number of uses, including aiding in feeding and removing objects and small animals from the starfish.

(Image: a close-up of the underside of a starfish. On the bottom of each ray is a channel filled with tube feet, which appear as small, reddish tubes with sucker-shaped endings. The channels meet in the middle where the mouth is visible as a small hole. End ID)

Internally, the starfish is supported by an endoskeleton made of honeycomb-like calcite structures called ossicles. Most ossicles fit together to form a protective yet flexible shell on the top of the starfish. Ossicles are often the only parts of a starfish that fossilize, leaving starfish with a sparse fossil record. Beneath the ossicles are the digestive system (which extends into the arms) as well as the nervous system and water vascular system. The nervous system consists of a nerve ring that surrounds the mouth and branches off into radial nerves that run down the rays. A par of nerve nets run under the skin and in the water vascular system. Starfish are known to sense by touch, smell, and chemoreception, and though they do not have eyes, they do have light-sensitive eyespots at the tips of the rays. The water vascular system is used both for circulation and movement. Water is drawn into the body through a modified ossicle called the madreporite and into a series of canals that run through the body. Muscular action can open or close valves leading to the tube arms. This causes the tube arms to either fill with water and extend, or lose water and contract. The water vascular system is also used to dispose of some waste and to circulate oxygen through the body. The circulatory system (consisting of a heart and 3 ring canals) does not circulate oxygen, only nutrients. Starfish hearts beat at an average of 6 times per minute.

(Image: a sunflower star (Pycnopodia helianthoides) on the seafloor. It is a large, reddish-orange starfish with a large central disc and 20 long, slender arms. End ID)

The majority of starfish are dioecious, meaning they have separate males and females, but some species are hermaphroditic, either simultaneous (both male and female gonads at the same time) or sequential (will transition from one sex to another). Paired gonads are located at the base of each arm and release gametes through gonopores on the discs. Some species will engage in behavior where a male will climb on top of the female and overlap her arms, then they will release gametes together to maximize the chance of fertilization. Most fertilized eggs are released into the water, but some will be placed under rocks and some species will brood the eggs using species structures. Brooding species have larger eggs with lots of yolk that skip the larval stage and hatch as small adults. Most species hatch into a planktonic larval stage called the scaphularia, which is equivalent to the blastula stage of vertebrate embryo development. The scaphularia then develops into a bipinnaria, which has bands of cillia on its body used for movement and feeding, as well as stubby rays. The next larval stage is the brachiolaria, which has more developed rays and attaches itself to the substrate through a stalk. Up until now, the larva has been bilaterally symmetrical, but this is where that changes via a radical metamorphosis. The body rearranges itself so that the left side of the brachiolara becomes the bottom of the starfish and the right side becomes the top. The body cavities are rearranged into the circulatory and water vascular system while the gut, mouth, and anus rearrange themselves. The starfish is now a tiny (usually 1 millimeter) radially symmetrical adult that drops off of the stalk.

(Image: a starfish's larval development from an egg through an amorphous, tentacled brachiolara larva, and to a half- developed juvenile starfish that has not yet formed distinct rays. End ID)

Starfish are famous for their regenerative ability. A starfish that loses rays to predators can grow them back in a process that can take over a year. In many species, a starfish split in half can regenerate into two complete starfish. There are different types of regeneration and different species are capable of different types. The most common is unidirectional regeneration, where a starfish needs the majority of its disc to regenerate. If it is cut in half, only the the piece with over half of the disc will regenerate. Rarer is disc-dependent bidirectional regeneration. This allows a severed ray with at least part of the disc attached to regenerate into a full starfish. Part of the central disc is needed to provide access to the digestive system and mouth. The rarest and most extensive form is disc-independent bidirectional regeneration. This allows a severed ray with none of the original disc to regenerate a full starfish. The severed arm must rely on stored nutrients until the digestive tract regenerates, so only very healthy limbs will last long enough to do so.

(Image: a red starfish regenerating. It has three large, normal rays ans three very small rays branching off of the disc. End ID)

Regeneration occurs in three stages. The first is the repair stage, where the initial wound is healed and the body prepares to the generation of new tissues. This stage is where the starfish is at its most vulnerable to infection or succumbing to the injury. Next is the early regenerative phase, where undifferentiated cells and body structures move toward the regenerating surface. Finally is the advanced regenerative phase, where massive cell replication and differentiation occurs. During this phase, the new ray will grow as a miniature version of the originals and will gradually enlarge until reaching the adult size. This is a vastly oversimplified explanation of regeneration because most of it is cell biology that goes way over my head. Severed rays regrowing a body are sometimes called comets due to having one ray significantly larger than the others. Some species of starfish will deliberately drop a ray if threatened by a predator. This is called autotomy and relies on the predator favoring the easy meal of the dropped body part over continuing to attack the main body.

(image: a comet starfish attached to a glass tank wall, seen from below. It looks like a normal starfish, but with one disproportionately large ray. End ID

Starfish can use their regenerative powers for asexual reproduction. Certain species will engage in fission, splitting themselves apart so both parts will regrow into a full starfish. Some will split off a large section of disc while others can drop a single ray to regenerate. Fission seems to have evolved independently in multiple lineages and presents differently in different species. Some species will only do it as young, while others will do it their entire life. Some species will rarely do it, while others will drop limbs throughout their lives. In at least once species, only males will split themselves. Females of the species Nepanthia belcheri can split into two males. Asexual reproduction usually occurs in adults, but some species can reproduce as larvae in good conditions, either through fission or budding off clones.

(Image: a chocolate chip starfish (Protoreaster nodosus) on sand. It is a five-rayed, white starfish with multiple prominent black spines surrounded by red skin on its top end. End ID)

Starfish are found in every ocean and from the intertidal zone to the abyssal depths. Because they do not have the ability to regulate their internal salt content, starfish are not found in fresh water and only relatively few of their nearly 2000 species live in brackish water. Being relatively large generalist predators or omnivores generally occupying the middle of the food chain, starfish are often keystone species for their environments. Fun fact: the term keystone species was originally used to describe a starfish. Starfish play a large role in regulating benthic micro- and macro-organism densities while also being a food source for larger animals. Places where starfish have been removed have seen population explosions of bivalves and other prey species that lead to an overall decrease of biodiversity. On the other hand, the crown-of-thorns starfish (Acanthaster planci) has seen multiple population explosions due to loss of their predators and are posing a major threat to coral reefs throughout the Indo-Pacific due to their diet of coral. There are also a few invasive species of starfish. Asterias amurensis is on the list of the world's 100 most invasive species. Echinoderms are sensitive to pollution and some species of starfish are used as a bioindicators of the health of their ecosystems. Starfish are threatened by pollution and habitat loss, but appear to be more resistant to ocean acidification than other species with calcareous skeletons.

(Image: a crown-of-thorns starfish on bleached coral. It is a large, purple starfish with 15 rays covered with spines all over. End ID)

#wet beast wednesday #starfish #sea star #echinoderms #invertebrates #invertblr #radial symmetry #marine invertebrates #marine biology #biology #ecology #zoology #animal facts #crown of thorns #educational #informative #image described

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hotmentransformed · 9 months ago

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Undercover Agent

Edgar had always been the quiet type, the kind of boy who preferred the company of books to people. His fascination with the FBI began in childhood, fueled by late-night spy movies and crime novels. Growing up in a small town, his dream of becoming an agent seemed distant and improbable, but Edgar's determination never wavered. He studied hard, earned top grades at an Ivy League, and applied for every opportunity that could bring him closer to his goal.

When he received the letter offering him an internship at the FBI office in Washington D.C., Edgar couldn't believe his luck. He packed his bags and left for the U.S. capital, filled with nervous excitement.

His first day was a whirlwind of introductions, security clearances, and overwhelming awe at the sheer scale of the operation. He was assigned to the administrative department, a role that felt both thrilling and mundane.

Edgar's days were filled with menial tasks: sorting files, delivering messages, and making coffee runs. Yet, every interaction with the agents and every glimpse into their work only deepened his resolve. He longed to be part of their world, to contribute to something meaningful. His unassuming nature meant he often went unnoticed, but he observed everything with keen interest.

One afternoon, as he was delivering a stack of files to a high-security area, Edgar noticed a door slightly ajar. The sign on the door read "Restricted Access: Authorized Personnel Only." His heart skipped a beat. What secrets lay behind that door? His curiosity was piqued. He looked around to make sure no one was watching and then slipped inside.

The room was dimly lit and filled with an array of scientific equipment. Beakers bubbled, machines hummed, and shelves were lined with vials of various colors. One vial, in particular, caught Edgar's eye. It was a luminous blue, glowing faintly in the low light. The label read "Project Chimera: Undercover Agent Enhancement."

Edgar’s curiosity overwhelmed him. He picked up the vial and turned it over in his hands, wondering what kind of enhancement it promised. He imagined himself as a capable, confident agent, ready to take on the world. The thought was intoxicating. Before he could talk himself out of it, Edgar uncorked the vial and drank it down.

The cool liquid had a faint taste of mint, and he swallowed it down in one gulp. At first, nothing happened, and he began to feel foolish for having taken such a reckless risk. Surely he would be fired after they found the empty vial. But then, a warmth spread through his chest, radiating outward like ripples in a pond.

Suddenly, he doubled over, clutching his stomach as a wave of energy surged through his body. It felt as though every cell in his body was being recharged, filling him with a power he had never known. His muscles began to tingle, then burn, as they expanded and hardened. He watched in awe as his biceps bulged, the fabric of his polo straining to contain his growing arms. His chest broadened as dark hair swirled around, pushing its way from the bursting buttons. Each breath he took caused his pectoral muscles to swell and push against the confines of his shirt, threatening to rip it completely from his torso.

His legs thickened with powerful new muscles. He felt his posture straighten, his spine elongating as his back muscles pulled him upright. The once baggy clothes he wore were now tight and restrictive, seams straining under the pressure of his rapidly expanding physique. He could feel his strength increasing with every passing second, the awkwardness of his former self melting away to reveal a body that looked like it belonged to a professional athlete or a comic book superhero.

His vision sharpened, and he instinctively reached up to remove his glasses. He no longer needed them; his eyesight was now perfect, every detail in the room coming into crystal-clear focus. Edgar stumbled to a mirror on the wall, hardly daring to believe what he might see. The reflection staring back at him was almost unrecognizable. The once scrawny intern had been replaced by a tall, muscular young man with chiseled features. His face had changed too—his jawline was stronger, more defined, and his eyes, now a piercing blue, seemed to sparkle with confidence.

Edgar flexed his new muscles, feeling a rush of exhilaration. His biceps, triceps, and deltoids rippled under his skin, each movement revealing the power contained within his new body. He ran his hands over his chest and abs, marveling at the firm, sculpted muscles that had replaced his once soft and unimpressive frame. He felt invincible, every ounce of self-doubt and insecurity evaporating in the face of his newfound strength and confidence.

As he continued to examine himself, the door to the laboratory swung open, and a female service agent walked in. She stopped dead in her tracks, her eyes widening in shock. There was a strange man who had broken into the FBI office. Edgar turned to face her, his new features displaying a calm assurance he had never possessed before.

"It's me, Edgar," he said, his voice deeper and more resonant than he remembered. "I... I drank the serum."

The agent's shock slowly turned to suspicion as she studied him. "You know this is a serious breach of protocol, right?" she said, her tone stern but not unkind.

"Yes, ma'am. But maybe it happened for a reason. Maybe I can help," Edgar replied, feeling a newfound boldness and blinding arrogance.

She looked him up and down, then sighed. "We do have a situation. There's a drug ring operating out of the Alpha Epsilon Pi frat at Georgetown, and we need someone to go undercover. They'd never suspect a new guy like you."

Edgar felt a thrill of excitement. He had the chance to prove himself, to show that he was more than just an intern. Now he was an undercover agent.

#male tf #transformation #tf #transform #male transformation #muscle transformation #muscle tf

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metalhoops · 2 years ago

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// Read Part 1 Here // Read Part 2 Here //

“Can you believe that bullshit, Stevie?” Eddie questioned, from his spot in Steve’s lap.

The two were together on the Munsons’ beaten-up couch. Steve’s day had dragged on like bare feet in river mud. As far as he could gather, Eddie’s had been the same. The room was hot with the ghost of summer, despite it being mid-March. Eddie’s hair between Steve’s fingers was soft and fizzed.

“Can I believe that Lucas refused to ditch the championship game for your fantasy club, that could be rescheduled? Yeah,” Steve paraphrased, feeling Eddie sit slightly as he craned his head to get a better look at Steve.

“You’re on his side, aren’t you?” Eddie mumbled, discontent clear in his voice. Steve didn’t like it. He hummed and leaned down to place a chased kiss on Eddie’s lips.

“You’re not meant to be on his side,” Eddie grumbled, laying back down.

It was rare that the two disagreed. The disagreement had to be big enough to get a rise out of Steve, but if the situation called for it, he’d put his foot down.

“It’s a big deal for him,” Steve reasoned, watching Eddie’s jaw clench.

He’d gotten to know the boy well enough over the past few months. He knew what would come next. If he didn’t act soon, he’d have to sit through a monologue on the sanctity of the game and Lucas’ betrayal at having chosen sports over his friends. Steve didn’t mind the rants. He liked that Eddie was passionate. He did, but Eddie was right. Steve was on Lucas’ side.

“I know this is a big deal for you, too. Getting to the end of the game or whatever, but can’t you just do it another day? It’d mean the world to the kid,” Steve reasoned.

He knew by the rounding of Eddie’s shoulders and the elongated groan that escaped his lips that he’d won.

“Fine, I’ll postpone a week, but you owe me big time. Next date you’re paying.”

Steve didn’t argue. Hell, he liked paying for Eddie. The guy normally wouldn’t have a bar of it.

“Wipe that smug smile off your face, Harrington. I get to pick what we do. I’m going to drag you to the loudest concert this side of the Mississippi the first chance I get.”

Steve nodded, twisting Eddie’s fraying curl between his fingertips.

“In the meantime, I was thinking of heading to the game,” Steve proposed.

Eddie groaned. He knew Steve too well. He knew what was coming next.

“You’re going to drag my ass to the basketball game, aren’t you?”

Eddie sat, switching to the far side of the couch to show his displeasure at the idea. However, he threw his feet in Steve’s lap, so he knew they were okay.

He thought they were okay.

“Lucas will want you to be there.”

“You know we can’t actually go together without people talking,” Eddie noted as Steve drove his thumb into the heel of the boy’s foot absentmindedly.

“I don’t care,” Steve stated.

He meant it. He’d given up on trying to be Hawkins’ golden boy years before. He just wanted to be the type of person he could live with.

“Maybe I do,” Eddie spoke, stopping Steve cold.

Steve worried. He always goddamn worried. Yes, he was waiting for the day he lost someone he cared about to the hell dimension, but it was more than that. He also worried about mundane stuff, like Eddie waking up and deciding they were bullshit. He’d been so sure he and Nancy were in love up until the second she told him they weren’t. That was a blow he wasn’t sure he’d ever heal from.

He must have gone too quiet, sat stock, still in the growing silence. Eddie sat up and tugged at the hem of Steve’s shirt until he lay down beside him. The two were crushed uncomfortably close, side by side. Eddie’s knee was tucked between Steve’s legs. Eddie touched Steve’s face. It was something only he could get away with. If it were anyone else, he would hate it.

“Not what I meant,” Eddie spoke, implicitly knowing where Steve’s train of thought had headed.

“I just meant, I care because I know if any dick head in town had enough brain cells to put two and two together, we’d be screwed,” Eddie began, taking a deep breath. Steve settled back, bracing himself for the monologue.

“Your parents would kick you out. Then the town would try to run me out with pitchforks. I’m not saying we’ll never... you know. I’m just saying we’ve gotta be smart about it. When I’m done with high school and we save up enough money to have an escape plan for when things go to shit, then we can toss around the idea of going to stupid basketball games together.” Steve sighed but nodded, understanding Eddie’s point of view.

Sometimes Steve got sick of being cautious. He got sick of waiting for other people to change their minds about something that didn’t have anything to do with them. He’d had some good goddamn sense knocked into him. He wished someone would do the same for everyone else.

“We can hang out after the game. I’ve got something to do first, but I’ll swing around your place after ten.” Eddie proposed.

Steve didn’t ask what Eddie was doing. If Eddie wanted him to know, he would’ve told him, and despite Steve’s many hang-ups, he trusted Eddie as much as he could trust anyone.

“Ten works,” Steve agreed.

The afternoon faded. Steve left Eddie to go to the game. He watched with his gaggle of kids by his side, glancing down at Robin in the marching band when her high school crush took to the stage with a shit-eating grin. He wanted to be there with Eddie, but this was a good consolation. He was sure he’d have bruises on his side by morning from Dustin constantly elbowing him in the side every time Lucas got the ball.

He was so damn proud of Lucas for scoring the winning point. Though Steve would admit, he’d have been proud of the kid if they’d lost by a mile. He was learning what love was about, love without contingencies. Eddie, Robin and the kids were teaching him the lessons he’d never picked up from his parents.

He got back to his place around nine, took a shower and switched on a mindless T.V. re-run to fill the silence while he waited for Eddie. He was two episodes deep when he felt the familiar sensation of dread begin to well in the pit of his stomach.

Eddie was two hours late when Steve’s worry shifted to full-blown panic. He tried to tell himself everything was fine, that Eddie got caught up and he’d walk through the door any minute. He picked up his bat from beneath his bed and paced the halls like an animal in an enclosure.

It was three in the morning when Steve resigned himself to the fact that Eddie wasn’t coming. He called the Munsons at the god-awful hour of the night, hoping beyond hope that Eddie would pick up. He’d be pissed off at Steve for waking him up, but then he’d let him know what was going on.

He didn’t answer.

Maybe Steve had read things wrong. Maybe he and Eddie had a fight. They were fighting. That’s why Eddie hadn’t shown up.

He lay in bed until the light of morning thawed his bones and set him free from his wide-eyed, paralytic state of unrest. Instead of heading to work, he drove to the trailer park, swerving the Beamer off the dirt track as the blue lights painted the horizon. There was a swarm of cop cars parked outside Eddie’s trailer. Steve’s body moved of its own accord, rushing through the swarm of cops to find Wayne Munson smoking at the picnic benches, a nearly imperceptible tremor to his fingers.

Steve didn’t ask what happened. Not right away. His mind was full of worst-case scenarios, none of which could be true until they were spoken into existence. For now, everything was unknown. For now, there was a chance Eddie was safe. He let his legs buckle beneath him as he sat beside Wayne, wondering when he’d made a habit of having panic attacks with Munson men near picnic benches.

“Was Eddie with you last night?” Wayne asked between drags of the cigarette.

Steve shook his head.

Eddie had told Wayne about them. Steve had sat across the breakfast table from the man half a dozen times, but they’d never really talked without Eddie in the room.

“Was he meant to be?” With a defeated sigh, Steve nodded.

“What happened?” He asked, at last, tired of drawing out the inevitable.

“I came home from my shift and there was a body.” All the colour fell from Steve’s face.

“Not Eddie’s. Some girl. Cops are sayin’ they think he killed her. I reckon we both know that ain’t true.” Steve didn’t know what to do with that information. Eddie was alive.

He listened to Wayne describe the scene with a growing feeling of dread. He’d seen enough of the Upside Down to understand that an eyeless girl, broken and bent like a marionette puppet and a missing boy seemed like part of its M.O. He was late for work.

He needed to let Robin and the kids know what was going on. He skirted past the police and drove to the video store. His body was working on autopilot. To his surprise, Dustin and Max were already there.

He watched as a disgruntled Robin tried to shoo them from behind the register. Steve cleared his throat, hoping beyond hope that the kids didn’t notice the red rim of his eyes as he placed his hands on his hips.

“What the hell are you two doing? Shouldn’t you be at school?” He tried to play it off like it was any other day, as though he was fine. Robin’s watchful eyes let him know she saw right through him.

“We’re looking for places Eddie could hide.” Dustin breathed, stopping Steve in his tracks. He shut up and let them explain.

“We were thinking he could be at Reefer Rick’s place,” Max supplied after Dustin finished his tangent. Steve remained uncharacteristically quiet.

“Alright, well, quick. Get your shit, if we’re doing this.” Steve grumbled, sliding off his video store vest and leaving it on the counter. Eddie wasn’t dead. That was something.

“That’s great and all, Steve, but we still don’t know where the hell we’re going,” Dustin argued at Steve’s heels as the four rushed out into the parking lot.

“I know where he lives,” Steve supplied, catching the disbelieving look shared between Max and Dustin. He hadn’t told the kids about him and Eddie.

It wasn’t that he didn’t want to. It was complicated. Everything about him and Eddie felt complicated. He didn’t want them to be a secret, but it was a necessity to keep them both safe, to keep Eddie safe. He’d told Robin because he knew she was safe. She was an extension of himself. He couldn’t not tell Robin, but the rest of the party was still in the dark.

“I didn’t think you did drugs, Steve,” Dustin spoke sceptically as they piled into the car.

“I don’t do drugs... Put on your seatbelt, Henderson.”

“Then why do you know where a notorious drug dealer lives?” Dustin pushed.

“Seriously, kid. I’m not backing out until you’re buckled in,” Steve warned. Now was not the time to get a D.A.R.E. presentation.

“Steve, should I be worried?” Dustin asked as Max spoke up,

“Of course he does drugs. He’s at Eddie’s place all the time.”

Both Steve and Robin turned back to look at the girl with wide eyes. Of course, Steve should’ve realised Max saw his BMW parked outside the Munsons’ trailer. He hadn’t been thinking.

“What? I wasn’t going to say anything because we’re all going through shit,” Max elaborated as Dustin shot her a look of utter betrayal.

“I didn’t think you guys were... friendly. I didn’t think you liked him,” Dustin gaped, finally buckling up.

Steve tried to drive carefully, keeping his eyes on the road and the car under the speed limit, only sometimes succeeding.

“What makes you think I don’t like Eddie?” Steve asked, trying to keep his mind off the very real potential that Eddie had just been dragged into the world he’d never wanted him to be a part of.

Eddie kept trying to push for answers about what happened to Steve. He kept promising he’d give them to him when the time was right, but he could never bring himself to do it. Sometimes the best thing was to remain ignorant. All the same, Steve couldn’t lie to him either, so they’d remained in limbo.

“You always drop me off at Hellfire, but you never say ‘hi’ to the guy."

“I wave at him,” Steve reasoned.

“From the car, Steve. It’s antisocial.”

It wasn’t long before the group pulled up outside of Rick’s. Steve knew where Eddie would hide if he were there. He led the group to the boathouse, searching the place for any sign of the boy. That led to Steve blindly poking around in the dark with an ore and an odd sense of hope. All of which was thrown out the window the second a body sprung up from the darkness to shove him against a wall.

It happened too quickly for Steve to process. There was a weight holding him in place and a sharp pressure at his throat. It wasn’t until Dustin’s calls that Steve made out Eddie’s body in the dim light.

“Woah, Eddie. It’s me. It’s Dustin,” the kid called from behind them.

The rest of the world fell away as he met Eddie’s wide, panicked eyes. He was safe. Scared as hell, but safe. The broken bottle Eddie held at his throat dropped from his hand in an instant, as did the ore from Steve’s grasp.

“It’s Steve, Eddie.”

Recognition flashed across Eddie’s face and suddenly Steve was being crushed again, this time under the weight of Eddie’s arms. The boy clung onto Steve as a drowning man would cling to driftwood. He buried his face into the nape of Steve’s neck and inhaled deeply. Steve could feel Eddie’s heart pounding against his chest. He snaked a hand around to hold the back of Eddie’s neck, forcing the boy to look at him.

“Hey. You’re okay. Just breathe with me for a second, alright?” Steve spoke, echoing Eddie’s words from the first night the two had gotten together. He watched as the rapid rise and fall of Eddie’s chest slowed.

“That’s it,” Steve soothed.

“Stevie,” he whispered, his voice hoarse.

“M’sorry I didn’t... I couldn’t go to your place, Steve. I wanted to,” Eddie continued, his hand having moved to grasp the fabric of Steve’s shirt.

“I didn’t... I didn’t know if it’d follow me. I don’t know what the hell happened, I... you won’t believe me,” He finished at last, resting his forehead against Steve’s.

It was slick with sweat but Steve didn’t care. The others in the room had fallen away entirely. There was only Eddie.

“I think I should probably talk to you about that thing we keep meaning to talk about,” Steve breathed, drawing circles in Eddie’s skin.

“Why now?” The boy asked, disbelievingly, a hysterical laugh slipping from his lips.

“Because no matter how crazy what you’re going to tell me sounds, I believe you.”

“Alright, anyone care to tell me what the hell is going on? I thought you two hated each other,” Dustin called, shattering the moment between them.

They pulled apart, though Eddie still kept his hand laced in Steve’s shirt while his hand migrated to the middle of Eddie’s back.

“Why would I hate my boyfriend?” Eddie breathed, clearly not thinking, hopped up on adrenaline.

“You’re what?” Dustin spoke, gawking open-mouthed at the boys.

Steve inhaled deeply, squeezed Eddie’s hip and levelled Dustin with his best, unimpressed glare, practically daring him to push on.

“That makes more sense,” Max muttered to herself as Dustin’s eyes continued to flicker between the two.

“Shut your mouth, Henderson. You’ll catch flies. We’ve got more pressing issues here,” Steve muttered, trying to work out how exactly he could explain everything to Eddie.

“I thought you were secretly dating Robin, not Eddie. What the hell, man? Neither of you told me,” Dustin pushed forward while Robin snorted, her nose scrunching at the idea.

“Really not the time, Henderson,” Eddie confirmed, his fingers worrying away at Steve’s shirt.

“That’s not fair. You’re not meant to be on his side, dude,” Dustin remarked.

“Can we all just focus for two seconds? Eddie, what happened last night at your trailer?” Steve questioned, somehow managing to wrangle the group back to the task at hand.

Steve knew by Eddie’s deep breath and trembling fingers what he was about to say. The world Steve had tried to protect the boy from had come to find him anyway. Now all Steve would do was be there to hold his hand as they walked through whatever hell the Upside Down had to offer.

Steve would keep him safe. Steve would always keep Eddie safe, no matter what.

#steddie drabble #steddie #multipost fic #steve harrington #eddie munson #wayne munson #bi steve harrington #back by popular demand #stranger things #stranger things 4 #kinda a fix it #season 4 retelling #steddie fic #steddie ficlet #ficlet #Metalhoops writes

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