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kisakis-boyfriend · 11 months

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Kinktober Day 31: Aftercare

Pairings: Izana x male reader

Warnings: Male!reader, hard dom/top!reader, sub/bottom!Izana, rough sex, spanking, brat taming, lots of fluff and love

Prompt List by: starsandskies 🧡

It was around noon and you were innocently reaching for a plate in a cabinet from your kitchen when his arm entered your vision, sneaking up on you and reaching for the exact same thing that you were. Izana was shorter than you so he had to really press against you to grab what he needed, lightly grinding against your ass in the process

The gesture was certainly on purpose as Izana winked at you while turning to walk back out of the room, his bratty attitude on display for the nth day in a row. You had already cut him a lot of slack with lighter punishments than usual and more warnings than he probably deserved...and this little stunt was the straw that finally broke your patience

Promptly stomping after him, you grabbed Izana's shoulder and spun him around to face you. He looked at you as if he had no idea why you could possibly be pissed right now, feigning innocence as his head tilted to the side quizzically. “You've been rather bold lately, haven't you, dear?” You said sarcastically. The grip on his shoulder becoming tighter with every passing minute

“I don't know what you're talking about~ ” Was the coy answer that rolled off of Izana's tongue, a lie coated in honey that he was hoping you'd fall for. But you had already made up your mind that enough was enough, if you didn't give him a real punishment then he'd never learn and that brattiness would only get worse

Fingers slowly tightened around Izana's tender throat while you spit back, “Yes you fucking do, brat. And I'm getting tired of your cocky attitude.” The glare that you shot at him sent a chill down his spine, goosebumps quickly rising to his skin's surface when Izana realized that he'd gone too far this time. You weren't kidding, you were actually going to punish him for real this time. No gentle spanking or making him suck you off while his hands were tied, whatever you had in mind was going to be intense; he could feel it in his gut

“I've been way too easy on you lately, Izana. I think you need a real punishment, hm?” Your suggestion caused him to gulp, lightly wrapping his fingers around your wrist as your grip tightened, blocking the air flow to his lungs even more. “Strip. Now.”

His mouth opened to protest, but Izana was swiftly cut off by another squeeze around his throat. The hint was obvious enough, he should do what he was fucking told or the punishment would just get worse. So he did, attempting to cover up the nervousness as best as he could, though you're usually pretty perceptive when it comes to him...so you probably already picked up on your partner's true emotions...and you were probably enjoying this right now, grinning as you watched his trembling hands grasp the bottom of his shirt and toss it on the floor

“Now bend over the counter.” Your icy tone made Izana practically shake with every new command, the authority dripping off of every word really did something for him... “I said bend the fuck over.” You yelled while harshly pushing Izana onto the hard surface, a yelp escaping him when bare skin met cold granite. “Spread em.” Was your next command, kicking his feet apart when he didn't move fast enough for your liking. One hand was firmly pressing Izana's head against the counter painfully while you barked another order at your bratty baby, eliciting a tiny sob from him already

“Ow...I-I'm sorry...I won't act like a brat anymore. Promise...” Izana tried to bargain, but you weren't having any of it. Swiftly undoing your belt and sliding your pants down until your cock was free and poking his inner thigh, which earned a little jolt from your boy. “Please baby...I said sorry...”

A shrill moan was ripped from Izana as your thick cock rammed his tight ass, the rough pace you'd set caused his earrings to jingle while they hit the countertop repeatedly. He clawed at the hard surface that he'd been pinned to desperately, begging for a break or for you to slow down at least...his third orgasm approaching while your dick pushed against his prostate, milking him fucking dry while your grunts filled his ears

And after another minute or two, he creamed on your cock again, shooting another round of his milky white liquid onto the floor while you impaled him with your dick. Bruises already blooming on his hips from the way your fingers dug into them; an impossibly tight death grip that eliminated any chance of his escape. Even though Izana had basically collapsed from exhaustion, you kept thrusting like an animal while you chased your own release. Using a heavy hand to silence the brat's whining by pushing his face into the counter, finally painting his warm insides with your cum while his legs shook. A dry orgasm hit Izana from the way you slammed your hips into his, emptying the last drops of cum into his sloppy hole before pulling out to admire your work

Izana's legs were practically jelly after the rough fuck, unable to even hold him up anymore. The only thing preventing him from slipping off of the counter and falling onto the floor was your hand still tangled in his silver hair tightly. You smirked at the pitiful sight before you; Izana drooling on the hard surface dumbly, babbling nonstop imsorryimsorryimsorry's until you shushed him, wiping away a tear with your thumb

“Did you learn your lesson this time?” You asked, trailing your fingers along his spine while he nodded frantically. Pleased with his response, a soft smile graced your lips while you released your grip of his hair. Allowing the poor boy to move his head freely now as he stretched his neck. A delicate hold on his hips prevented Izana from falling as you rubbed the sensitive skin apologetically, your gaze softening while you switched into aftercare mode

Immediately, you asked him if he was ok while you helped him straighten up and turn to face you. Your arms snaked around Izana's waist as you pulled him against you, cooing praise after praise while he leaned into your warmth. “It's ok, baby, we're all done. You can relax now.”

“If you're not too sleepy, will you let me take care of you?” Those words immediately caused Izana to perk up, humming as he nodded a ‘yes’ happily. After placing another kiss on the top of his head, you guided your darling to the bathroom and began preparing a nice bath for the two of you. Carefully making sure the water was hot but not scalding, adding a bit of Izana's favorite scented bubble bath and mixing it in before pulling out your softest towels and placing them on the counter for afterwards

“There. It should be ready now, watch your step.” You said, taking Izana's hand and helping him settle in before you climbed in behind him. Both of you immediately relaxed upon sitting in the warm water, sighing at the pleasurable feeling from the enveloping warmth. Izana leaned back against your chest, smiling as your arms wrapped around him protectively

The way you held him close had already calmed him down significantly. The kisses repeatedly placed on his shoulders helped a bit too, if the content giggling from him was any evidence of this fact. Your hands soothed over Izana's pretty brown skin, trailing your fingers over the places where it hurt the most while you whispered your love for him into his ears. “Love you so much, Zana...you were so good for me.”

Izana wanted nothing more than to remain in your embrace forever, alas...you did have to get out of the water eventually...unless you wanted to completely shrivel up, that is. Your boyfriend pouted the entire time you drained the tub and stepped out to wrap yourself in a towel, even though you were about to pamper him like the king he was. The less-than-60-seconds that you weren't hugging his sore body were just awful...

But you really had no problems allowing him this clinginess, especially after being so rough with your darling. He deserved a bit of extra spoiling every now and then anyways

So you treated Izana as if he were a delicate flower tonight; drying him off with gentle pats, making sure you were extra gentle around any bruised areas. Applying a calming scented lotion to his gorgeous skin with all the care in the world while his eyes fluttered closed from your ministrations. Of course you worked in a few kisses during your treatment, connecting his soft lips to yours while your hands rested on his shoulders. And once you had finished with all of that, you pulled him out into the bedroom to dress him in something extra comfy

Slipping one of your shirts over his head and sighing as your scent flooded his nostrils, Izana smiled while he watched you get ready for bed as well. After you had slipped into something comfortable too you crawled into bed with your beloved, letting him cuddle up with you however he wanted to. A content sigh left him as his fingers curled into your shirt tightly, as if he thought you were going to leave him

“Comfy?” You questioned, carding your hands through Izana's soft hair and lightly scratching his scalp. The comforting gesture began to slowly lull your darling to sleep, not before he yawned an ‘mhm’ to your question though. Drifting away soon after in the comfort of your embrace

Your eyes slowly grew heavier while Izana's breathing lulled you into a content slumber as well, mumbling ‘I love you’s in between sleepy kisses to the crown of his head

Tagging: @steadybreadbluebird @6kabuki

#my writing #kinktober #kinktober 2023 #tokyo rev smut #tokyo revengers smut #tokyo rev x reader #izana kurokawa #izana smut #izana x reader #sub izana #male reader #dom reader #top reader #oneshot

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hoseokhasmyheartxx · 1 year

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41 - Yoongi 😏🤭💜

Love So Loud | MYG

*Pairing: Yoongi x gn!Reader

*Word Count: 2k

*Genre: established relationship, fluff, bit of angst, idol au

*Warnings: no warnings really on this one, but still, MINORS DNI. 18+. alcohol consumption, non-sexual shared shower, bit of crying, Yoongi is just super soft in this one ok?

*Summary: Yoongi returns home from his stateside solo tour, and all you want to do is take care of him.

*A/N: i got hit with an intense desire for someone to be at home waiting for catboy when he gets home from his tour, and this is what happened. thanks for requesting this! sorry it took so long to get to. I hope you enjoy it!

Prompt from this post!

Main Masterlist

“Yoongs!” you shrieked, overjoyed as you threw yourself into the open arms of your boyfriend.

Wrapping your arms around him, you nuzzled your face into the crook of his neck, inhaling his vanilla and grapefruit scented cologne. You felt his big hands against your back, heard him sigh against the side of your head as he enveloped you in one of the most comforting hugs you’d ever received.

Four weeks wasn’t very long for the two of you to be apart. But Yoongi’s schedule had been so hectic the entire month he’d been in the States, you’d barely gotten to talk since he left. You’d followed the news and updates of his tour, so you knew what a success it had been (which didn’t surprise you at all). You’d watched as fans across the country were amazed by his performances, astounded by his energy every night. But now that he was home, in his comfort zone, with you… it was an entirely different story.

“I made you your favorites. I hope you’re hungry,” you said as you finally let go of him. He smiled down at you, his long hair falling in front of his face before he had the chance to push it back. It seemed like it had gotten longer since you last saw him. You reached up to tuck his hair behind one ear, hand resting on his neck as you finished.

“You’re so good to me. I don’t deserve you,” Yoongi replied with a small smile, holding onto your wrist as he leaned down to kiss you. You melted into him, his soft lips touching yours once, twice, three times before he pulled away.

You shook your head, responding with, “Don’t be dumb. Of course you do. I love you.”

Yoongi’s eyes lit up as he replied, “Me too,” following you into the kitchen of his lavish apartment, hand holding yours tightly.

As soon as Yoongi had sent you his flight details, you’d gotten to work. You’d gone shopping for his favorite foods to cook for him, his favorite whiskey so he could relax after his trip back home. You had the key code to his apartment, and you’d let yourself in about an hour before he was due to land, so you’d have time to prep everything before he got home. You’d even tidied up a bit while things were cooking, since a little dust had started to settle on some of the surfaces around the apartment.

“Sit,” you commanded, pointing at the bar stools positioned at the kitchen island. You poured a glass of the whiskey you’d brought, setting it down in front of him as he plopped onto one of the stools. He shot you a small smile as he brought the glass to his lips, sipping from it slowly.

You reached for your serving tools, adding meat and japchae to two plates. As you did so, your mind wandered, hoping that your boyfriend would have the energy to tell you what was wrong. You could sense there was something going on with him from the minute he’d walked in the door, and all you wanted was for him to be comfortable enough to confide in you about it. Sure, he could just be tired, worn out from his month of touring, but you knew him better than that.

Placing both of your plates down on the kitchen island, you sat on the stool next to his. The two of you settled into a comfortable silence, the scrape of chopsticks on plates and the occasional thump of glass hitting granite the only sounds around you.

Yoongi let out a satisfied sigh as he placed his chopsticks on his plate, having finished his food before you. You glanced over at him, waiting for him to say something, anything.

“You okay?” you asked, tilting your head slightly as you looked at him.

He sighed again, taking a few deep breaths, still not speaking. His eyes were bloodshot, brows furrowed, lips in a straight line. You studied him, not wanting to pry, but you couldn’t help but worry.

“I’m just… so tired. Profoundly exhausted. You did all of this for me, and I have no energy to do anything for you,” he finally said. “I’ve been gone for a whole month and I can’t even show you how much I missed you.”

Your eyes widened, finally understanding where his thoughts were. Yoongi’s love language was acts of service. You’d known that since your first date over a year ago, when he’d cooked you your favorite foods in this same kitchen and refused to allow you to lift a finger to help him. Now, you watched him, his head hanging low, with a sad smile on your face. Sometimes you hated the way the world made him feel, like he always owed someone something.

“Yoongi.. I don’t need anything from you. I did this because I wanted to, not because I expected something in return. I just want to take care of you tonight,” you answered, gently touching the back of his hand with your fingertips.

He flipped his hand over, enclosing your tiny hand in his large one, and brought it to his lips. Kissing your knuckles one by one, you felt your heart swell. Yoongi wasn’t always great with words, but he showed his love in other ways, so quietly, yet so loudly. You took your hand from his grasp and stood, taking both of your plates to the sink. Returning to the island where Yoongi still sat, you ran your fingers gently through his hair, placing a soft kiss to the top of his head.

“Come. Let’s shower,” you prodded, tugging on his hoodie. He nodded, following you silently into his bedroom. Grabbing towels and pajamas for the both of you, you entered the master bathroom, closing the door behind you with a loud click. You watched as Yoongi turned on the water, fiddling with the shower knobs until it reached the temperature he wanted. He reached behind his head, grabbing the neckline of his hoodie and pulling it and his shirt off at the same time, sweats coming off next. You undressed next to him and followed him, stepping into the large shower, closing the glass door behind you.

Yoongi stood under the stream of water, letting it run down his shoulders and back before tipping his head back, running his hands through his hair to get all the strands wet. He reached for his shampoo, but you beat him to it.

“I told you, I’m here to take care of you tonight,” you responded as he gave you a questioning look. Pumping a few squirts of his shampoo into your palm, you tapped his shoulder, gesturing for him to move out from under the water and turn around. As he did so, you reached up and began lathering the soap into his hair. You gently scratched your fingernails into his scalp, massaging his head, making sure to get all of his hair clean. You tapped his shoulder again, and he silently turned to rinse his hair. As he did, you grabbed his washcloth and added his favorite citrus body wash to it, waiting for him to finish.

“Turn around,” you directed him. Yoongi turned, his back to you, and you began slowly rubbing the cloth over his shoulders. He leaned his forearms on the shower wall, resting his forehead on his hands, as you continued washing his shoulders and back. As you gently scrubbed, you noticed that his breathing had become labored and shaky. Your hand slowed, but never left his back.

“Hey.. Yoongs?” you tried, hesitant. You took a step closer to him, standing at his left side with your hand still resting on his lower back. He turned his head to the side, wet strands of hair sticking to his cheek and neck. He glanced up at you, a few stray tears falling from the corner of his eye. You squeezed the meat of his lower back, stepping closer until your whole torso was touching him. You wrapped your arms around his waist, resting your cheek on his shoulder blade.

“No one has ever taken care of me the way you do.”

Your breath hitched. It wasn’t often that Yoongi expressed his feelings like this. He tended to be the most vulnerable when you were in the shower together, stripped bare, nothing between you. But still, the few times he had really opened up to you, it took you by surprise. You knew by now that staying quiet, letting him get out whatever he had to say, was the best course of action, and he’d thank you for it later.

“I just— I feel like I don’t tell you enough how much I appreciate you. All of this? You, cooking for me, washing my hair.. I see it. I see you, and I love you. I love you, ____. More than I could ever put into words. And I hope you never forget that,” Yoongi finished, voice shaky, tears flowing more freely now that he had allowed himself to really open up to you for the first time in months.

You kissed his shoulder blade, squeezing his waist tighter. You sighed, then responded, “I love you. You don’t have to be strong all the time. It’s perfectly okay for you to need someone; that’s what I’m here for.” You kissed his cheek, the two of you moving then to finish showering quickly.

You dried yourselves and dressed wordlessly, Yoongi changing into a pair of black sweats with no shirt, you having picked an oversized t-shirt of his from his closet to wear. After dressing, you brushed your teeth and washed your faces, then exited the bathroom into his large master suite. You climbed onto the middle of his king size bed, patting the space in front of you. Yoongi padded his way over to the bed and sat down, legs hanging off the side. You tugged his arm and he scooted back, resting cross-legged in front of you.

You sat up on your knees, beginning to massage his shoulders gently. He dropped his head down, relaxing into the feeling. As you continued, you gradually upped the pressure, finding knots as you went. Every once in a while, Yoongi would groan when you hit a particularly sore spot, but for the most part, he stayed quiet. You’d worked your way halfway down his back when you realized he hadn’t made a sound in quite a while.

“Baby?” you whispered, giggling as you realized he’d fallen asleep sitting up. You tapped his shoulder gently, and he stirred.

“Hmm? Oh.. sorry. I’m so— so tired,” he said, words slurring through his half-asleep state.

You ran your hands over his shoulders and lifted yourself to gently press a kiss to his cheek.

“C’mon, you need some sleep,” you said, gesturing to the pillows behind you. Yoongi moved with no resistance, the two of you settling in under his large down comforter.

As you got comfortable on your side, Yoongi pushed himself all the way against you, molding his body to yours. Wrapping his arms around you snugly, he nuzzled his face into your back, his warm breath seeping through the fabric of the shirt you’d stolen from him.

“Thank you,” he whispered, squeezing you tight in a back hug.

“I’m always here to take care of you, Yoongs,” you whispered back, gripping his forearm with your hand to return his hug.

Within minutes, Yoongi was fast asleep, quiet snores escaping his lips. You drifted off right behind him, at peace in his strong embrace. You knew that, no matter how the world made him feel, you’d always be there to pick him back up, to help him stand on his own two feet again if he let you. He knew that, no matter how much he closed himself off, you’d always be the one person he’d let in, the one person who would love him despite everything.

He slept peacefully, finally home.

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bullet-prooflove · 1 year

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Irish Kings: Filip 'Chibs' Telford x Reader

Tagging: @crazy4chickennuggets @kmc1989 @oureternalbond @anime-weeb-4-life @chaoticqueenie98 @wakeama @iwannabeinthesequalmrghostface @redpoodlern @ravencrow83 @kishie8 @msjava1972 @thelonewolfwillsurvive @thanossexual @nu1freakshow @im-just-a-mississippi-girl @jtelford @the-wandering-lunatic @@lora21 @darqchilddaydreamz @ankhmutes @just-a-girl-who-wrytes @lexondeck @adaydreamaway08 @keyweegirlie @poppyrose33 @belovedbastardremus @crimeshowjunkie @theeyesofthestag @trublu2u @thebaileybugle @ambassadortotrilliusprime @yvette22 @legally-a-bastard @thequeenoftheisleofavalon @joyfulfxckery @thanossexual @justreblogginfics

Story Arc:

Punishment - Chibs never thought the work he does for the club would blow back on you.

Silver & Gold - Chibs underestimates your resilience.

Pound of Flesh - Chibs knows that Galen took more than his pound of flesh.

Only You (NSFW) - Chibs and you share a moment of peace.

Queen - You come face to face with your monster.

Matriarch - Chibs and you take a step forward in your relationship.

Moving On - You and Chibs discuss moving forward.

There’s an Irish King sitting in your kitchen when you return home from work. It strikes you that their involvement in your life is becoming a regular occurrence, an unwelcome one.

Declan Brogan stands at your granite countertop, pouring hot water into a teapot. The scent of Earl Grey fills the air, flooding your nostrils as you step inside of the room. He doesn’t look up, he simply removes two mugs from your cupboard and sets them upon the oak tea tray, alongside a plate of shortbread. The signet ring on his finger catches the light and it takes you back for a moment, to a different time, one where Galen’s hand is wrapped around your throat, his face buried in your hair as he…

Your jaw tenses before you shake off the memory.

“If you’ve come here to kill me, can we take it elsewhere?” You request, thinking about the gun in your bag in the living room. “We both know how tough it is to get blood out of hardwood.”

To your surprise he laughs, it’s a rich hearty sound that resonates through the room as he adds a small milk jug to the tray.

“If I wanted to kill you, you’d already be dead.” He tells you light heartedly before gesturing to the kitchen table. “Shall we sit down and talk over tea like civilised people?”

You take the seat reluctantly, crossing your legs, one over the other as you adjust the hem of your pencil skirt. Declan picks up the tea tray and brings it to the table, setting it gently down in front of you. Out of all your experience with the kings this is the most surreal.

“Shall I be mother?” he says before picking up the teapot and pouring the tea into your cup.

You watch him stoically, your fingertips rapping lightly upon the surface of the table.

“If you aren’t here to kill me…”

“I’m here to thank you.” Declan informs you taking up residence in the seat across from you. He picks up a piece of shortbread and pops it into his mouth. “You solved a problem that has been plaguing us for a number of years.”

You pick up your teacup and look at Declan over the rim.

“You mean the Sons did.”

There’s silence between the two of you as his gaze comes to rest upon you. You take a deliberate sip before setting the teacup down and meeting his eyes.

“Lass, we know what happened.” He tells you. “Do you think you were the only one, the first one?”

For a second, you’re stunned. The implications of the statement rush through your brain as you slot pieces of the puzzle together. You knew there were other victims, Galen had taken great pride in telling you that during your time together, but it wasn’t until now you realised how systemic it was, that the Kings knew, and they did fuck all about it.

Powerful men in powerful positions, you think, and it leaves a bitterness on your tongue.

“So, you knew.” You say unable to keep the ire out of your voice. “You knew what he’s been doing and you just let him keep doing it, because what… its effective? It gets you what you want?”

“We don’t condone his methods…”

“His methods?” You spit at him. “Do you understand what it is like to have something like that happen to you? To have your dignity stripped away from you? You’re soul fucking destroyed because some asshole wants to teach the man you love a lesson? He tortured me in your fucking name, and you helped him get away with it, the same way you have every other fucking time.”

“I know what it’s like to be on the other side of it.” He snaps back at you. “To know it happened to someone that you love, to watch them struggle with the weight of it every single day, I know what it’s like to look at my grandchild and see his eyes and know….” He inhales sharply as he meets your eyes, his own burning with a rage that mirrors your own. “My daughter was a good Catholic girl. When I imposed sanctions because of his behaviour he retaliated by violating her over and over again until she became pregnant. He looked in my face and toasted me the night my grandson was born, and he called it a blessing.”

You collapse back in your seat, shaking your head as you listen to his story. You can see the weight he carries on his shoulders, the emotional toll it takes to live with something like that. It doesn’t change anything, you're still so fucking angry but that pain, the agony that nestles deep down in your chest it’s shared. You aren’t the only one tarnished by Galen.

“He was a fucking monster, but the cause needed him.” Declan says vehemently. “I couldn’t get my hands on him unless he was declared a traitor, it would have torn the True IRA apart, so I had to wait…”

“And then I took care of it.” You state frankly. “The Sons handed you the evidence of his side dealings, and I gave you a body. The whole thing all tied up neatly in a bow.”

“I can never repay you for what you did.” He tells you fiercely. “My daughter can sleep again knowing that her rapist is buried in the ground.”

Your gaze shifts to the kitchen window. There’s a bird house just outside, a pretty wooden one that your niece made with Filip the last time she was over. You watch the birds as they flit in and out of it, chirping to one another. You remember watching the two of them together in the workshop outback of Teller Morrow, how happy Filip had been to create something, to be part of a family again. You think of Tig and his partner Suzy, of the baby they have on the way, of Jax and his two little ones and everyone else, the peace that they all deserve to have in their lives because the last few years have been filled with violence and chaos and right now you have an opportunity to end some of that.

“There is a way you can repay me.” You say quietly as you sip from your teacup. “The Sons want out of the gun business; I want that to happen. No retaliation. No buy out. A clean break, you go your way, and they go theirs.”

It was what had started this whole mess to begin with, it seems fitting that this is how it ends. The very thing that Galen had strove to prevent was now his legacy. You hoped the son of a bitch was turning in his grave.

Declan inclines his head towards you, his gaze meeting yours. You can tell that the deal is done, that this man would have given you anything you asked for because you took away the source of his nightmares, you slayed not only your monster but his as well.

“I’ll put the calls in.” He assures you as he raises to his feet, signalling the end of your exchange.

You follow suit, your hands clasped in front of you as he strides towards the backdoor that you certainly did not leave unlocked. He pauses for a moment before glancing at you over his shoulder.

“Take care deirfiúr bheag.” He says fondly. “And God help the next person that crosses you.”

Love Chibs? Don’t miss any of his stories by joining the taglist here.

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#chibs telford #chibs x reader #soa chibs #chibs imagine #chibs sons of anarchy #filip chibs telford #filip telford #filip telford x reader #filip telford x you

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rock-swag-tournament · 1 year

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Rock Swag Tournament Round 1: Igneous Rocks Part 2

Well, these rocks certainly look like "just some rock" when you compare them to something like granite, but they still have a lot going on!

Both basalt and rhyolite are aphanitic and extrusive rocks, meaning they are fine-grained and formed at earth's surface. You cannot see the individual minerals that make up these rocks without a microscope!

The difference in these rocks is in their composition: basalt is a mafic rock (made of dark colored minerals), while rhyolite is a felsic rock (made of light colored minerals).

Confused about these words? Check out this primer on igneous rocks! I made it myself.

Basalt is the rock that makes up much of the island of Hawai'i. Basalt also forms in places like the Mid-Atlantic Ridge where the North American tectonic plate is moving away from the Eurasian and African plates. Basaltic lava is relatively viscous (it flows quickly) but you could still very easily outrun (or even outwalk) it!

Rhyolite is more commonly found on continents and is associated with much more explosive volcanic eruptions than basalt. Felsic magmas are much more viscous (i.e. thick) and they usually have more volatiles (water, gasses, etc), so they will build up pressure before explosively erupting. These eruptions are, of course, accompanied by a variety of other rocks which will fight to the death in this tournament.

#rock swag tournament round 1 #rock swag tournament igneous rocks #geology

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eksvaized · 6 months

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Part Thirteen [ Previous 〡 Next ] taglist: @kingsprettyangel, @simonsslvt, @herwristsarehercanvas if you want to be added - let me know!

For the first time, you find yourself breaking away from the solitude of your bedroom and, instead, eating your lunch perched on a barstool in the kitchen. Simon stands on the flip side of the counter. His gaze unwavering and fixed on you with an unreadable expression. He didn’t eat, having made a passing comment earlier that the hunger hadn’t quite caught up to him yet.

However, his interest in the fresh and juicy watermelon chunks, which he had meticulously chopped for you earlier, is obvious. He keeps sneaking a few pieces every so often. The corners of his mouth twitch up in a playful smile, a glint of mischief in his eyes as he continues his fruity heist. You catch him in the act, red-handed, and your fork accidentally grazes against his thieving digits. The unexpected contact triggers a deep, resonating chuckle from deep within him. The sound that echoes off the kitchen walls and fills the space.

As you sit there, the familiar texture of the fork in your hand scraping lazily across the cold, hard surface of the plate, the act of chewing seems almost meditative. You’re lost in your thoughts, your gaze drawn to the backyard that unfolds beyond the windowpane. The sight that meets your eyes brings about a sudden, startling realization—a jolt that sends a ripple through the placid surface of your thoughts. You’ve completely lost track of what day it is. The tranquility that permeates the air is deceptive; it feels like the lazy, languid pace of a weekend morning, perhaps a Saturday. But it could just as easily be the start of a new week. A sense of uncertainty descends upon you, leaving you in a state of disarray.

You try your very best to push this troubling thought to the recesses of your mind, not wanting to dwell on it, not wanting it to shatter the peace that the day has brought. But it’s a challenging task, akin to trying to hold the ocean at bay with a broom. The question, persistent and relentless, keeps gnawing at the edges of your consciousness, refusing to be dismissed, refusing to be ignored.

You want to know how much time has passed since the night when Simon approached you outside the nightclub.

You find yourself contemplating whether or not you should ask Simon to get you a calendar. It’s likely that he would be accommodating, but not without first interrogating you with a barrage of questions. You’re not entirely sure if you’re ready to provide him with a detailed explanation as to why you’ve suddenly developed an interest in keeping track of time. Regardless of these concerns, you muster up the courage to ask him another question. You casually pop another juicy piece of watermelon into your mouth. “Is today a Saturday? It feels like it.”

His eyes narrow suspiciously on you. You make a valiant effort not to look away or show any signs of discomfort. After what feels like an eternity, he finally shakes his head. “Wednesday, actually.”

You respond with a simple nod, choosing to continue munching on your watermelon rather than delve further into the conversation.

The sudden, unexpected disturbance in the silence freezes both of you, locking you in your tracks as if time itself has come to a sudden halt. A doorbell rings. Simon, who had been casually leaning against the solid granite countertop, suddenly straightens up, pushing himself off it with a sudden burst of energy. His eyes, once relaxed, now widen in stark surprise, and his brow furrows, creasing with confusion. Your own eyes, in an involuntary reaction, shoot towards the long, dimly lit hallway that leads to the front door.

Ever since the moment you first regained consciousness in this house, it had been only you and Simon. No one else. Although it’s possible that he could have had visitors during the periods when he had you paralyzed, or during your long, lonely hours of isolation in the damp, cold basement, that seems unlikely given his genuinely shocked and surprised expression. It's evident that he wasn't anticipating any visitors; the sudden ringing of the doorbell catches him off guard, just as it does to you.

With a swift motion that is almost too quick to follow, he deftly maneuvers around the counter that separates the two of you. His hand reaches out to you, grasping your arm with an urgency that makes your heart skip a beat. In one fluid movement, he hauls you to your feet. The suddenness of it all causes you to stumble slightly.

As he guides you towards the stairs, leading you away from the kitchen, his grip loosens slightly. However, it is only once you have passed the front door and started climbing up the staircase that you feel the tension in his grip ease.

“Stay here, make no—no fucking sound,” Simon commands once you’re in the bedroom. It’s the first time, you realize, that you’ve heard him swear. And for the first time, he looks genuinely afraid. Indeed, he appears to be on edge, his muscles taut and ready to spring into action, his face a mask of stone.

Before you have the chance to question him or even utter a word, he’s out of the room, leaving you alone. Acting on instinct, you immediately dart to your window, well aware that from this vantage point, you can see the front door.

To get a better view, you have to tilt your body ever so slightly. You press your face against the cool glass, your cheeks squishing against the smooth surface. You manage to catch a glimpse of a man. But before you can get a better look, before you can even start to make out his features, the door swings open and Simon invites him in.

Feeling a sense of frustration slowly creeping up within you, you silently curse under your breath. You can feel the cold floor beneath your feet as you quietly tiptoe towards the door. Each step causing your heart to beat a little faster. You remember Simon’s stern warning — he had explicitly told you to stay in the room, his voice leaving no room for argument. And you, in your obedience, have no intentions of disobeying that clear-cut order. Yet, the curiosity gnawing at you is too strong to ignore. You can’t help but think, perhaps, if you could just crack the door open a tad, just a slither, maybe you might catch a snippet of their conversation.

However, in a turn of events that shakes you to your core, as you extend your trembling hand to push the heavy door open, it stubbornly and resolutely refuses to budge an inch. You’re immediately engulfed by a fresh, overpowering wave of confusion and a touch of panic, especially considering the fact that the aged wooden door doesn’t even have a lock installed on it. As you stand there, your mind racing, it becomes apparent that Simon has found an alternative method to ensure your confinement.

With a resigned sigh, you let gravity pull you down until you’re sitting on the ground. As you sit, your back leans against the coarse texture of the wall, providing a minor comfort amidst the tension that permeates the atmosphere. In desperation, you press your ear as close to the door as physically possible, straining to catch any fragment, any sliver of the conversation that lies just beyond your reach. The faint hum of two distinct voices engaged in an intense discussion greets your ears, tantalizing yet elusive.

Alas, despite your best efforts, the sound remains frustratingly muffled, as if shrouded in a thick, impenetrable veil. The voices, though clearly in the midst of a fervent exchange, are reduced to mere unintelligible murmurs, rendering you unable to decipher the content, the context, or the implications of their secretive conversation.

If you were to start screaming right now, pleading for help, would the stranger who just walked in help you escape?

This question, while unsettling, is not entirely baseless. After all, you’ve been trapped here for what seems like an eternity. The appearance of this stranger, a deviation from the monotonous routine you’ve grown accustomed to, could potentially provide you with a much-needed and long-awaited opportunity to escape from this never-ending nightmare.

The thought of freedom, of finally breaking free from these oppressive shackles, is tantalizing to the point of being intoxicating. It ignites a spark of hope deep within your soul, a fiery beacon that makes your heart pound fiercely in your chest, the pulsating rhythm echoing in your ears. Your lips part, slightly trembling, as you draw in a deep, shaky breath. Your lungs fill up with the stale air. You prepare to let out a piercing, defining scream that might very well be your one and only ticket to freedom. But at the very last moment, you manage to rein in your desperation, barely keeping it in check. You swallow the scream that threatened to spill from your mouth.

You imagine for a moment that this man is truly a stranger, someone who is completely unaware of the horrifying ordeal Simon has subjected you to. In this scenario, there’s a real chance he might feel compelled to step in and intervene on your behalf. There’s the potential that he might extend the life-saving assistance that you are so desperately in need of. But lurking in the shadows of this hopeful possibility, there’s also a terrifying thought that threatens to shatter your fragile hope.

What if this man is not a stranger at all? What if he is entwined in this nightmare, an accomplice, a friend of Simon’s? What if he chooses to ignore your obvious distress, turning a blind eye to your desperate plight, and leaving you to the unpredictable and cruel mercy of Simon’s whims?

While trying to decipher whether Simon knows this unexpected visitor or not, you find yourself leaning towards the latter option, adding to the complexity of the dilemma. The house in which you are trapped is not just secluded. It’s literally in the middle of nowhere, completely isolated from the rest of the world. This goes beyond mere seclusion; it’s a place that’s been deliberately hidden from prying eyes. Therefore, it’s highly unlikely, almost impossible, that anyone would just stumble upon it by mere accident.

This then leads you to another chilling conclusion that sends shivers down your spine. This man, this unexpected visitor, he must know Simon. There’s no other explanation. He must be aware of the house’s precise location and its owner. The implications of this realization are daunting. And just like that, the flicker of hope that had briefly flared within you, offering a fleeting illusion of potential escape, dims, overshadowed by the growing horror that now fills every inch of your being.

Suddenly, a deluge of questions flood your mind. Each one more perplexing and terrifying than the last. Doubts, fears, and uncertainties swirl around in your head, creating a whirlwind of confusion that makes it hard to think straight. Yet, before you’re even given the barest chance to ponder any of these overwhelming inquiries, the harsh and disconcerting noise of the front door opening and then closing with a disquieting finality reaches your ears.

The sound, filled with an ominous undertone, sends an electrifying jolt through your entire body. That one noise, the closing of a door, triggers an instinctual response within you. You jump to your feet, the adrenaline coursing through your veins fueling your movements with an urgency you’ve never known before. Without a second thought, you sprint towards the window.

This time, as the stranger prepares to get into his car, you get a much more detailed look at him. He’s no longer just an unidentified figure lurking in the shadows, but a tangible, living person. He is wearing sweats, the kind that speaks of long nights and exhaustion rather than gym sessions. His face, etched with lines of fatigue, gives off the impression of someone who has been through a lot, leaving you to speculate about the burdens he might be carrying. Inaudible words escape his lips in a continuous stream, as though he is engaged in a never-ending, silent dialogue with himself.

Despite straining your memory, you can’t recall seeing him before. But there’s a certainty in your mind that if you cross paths with him again, his face will be etched in your memory—his most distinctive feature is a mohawk, an intense deviation from his otherwise unremarkable appearance.

As the car finally disappears from sight, swallowed by the dense foliage at the tail end of the winding gravel road, the once prevalent silence is shattered. It is replaced by a new and sudden sound that seems to echo through the house. The screeching noise of your bedroom door creaking open seems to pierce the silence like a knife. At that moment, your heart starts to pound like a drum in your chest. You can feel the blood rushing to your head. With a sudden pivot on your heel, you turn to face the doorway. It’s Simon.

He steps into the room, but offers no explanation or context. He doesn’t clarify why the mysterious stranger had arrived at the doorstep or the purpose of his unexpected visit. Instead, you are left shrouded in an uncomfortable blanket of uncertainty and fear. Your mind races to determine what could have possibly brought about such an unusual occurrence.

Simon’s face is unreadable, his tone solemn as he speaks. His words hang heavy in the air as he states, “For a few days, you will need to move back into the basement.”

A tidal wave of anxiety crashes over you, chilling you to the bone and leaving you physically shaken, trembling with an unshakeable sense of trepidation. It’s as if your worst nightmares have suddenly been thrust into the harsh light of reality.

“Why?” The single word question slips from your lips, a hesitant whisper in the deafening silence.

His reticence is palpable, evident in the way his lips tighten into a firm, straight line. He looks as if he’s bracing himself against an oncoming storm. Simon’s eyes flicker with an unreadable emotion, but he figures that if he offers you some sort of response, some explanation, you might cease your relentless inquiries and comply without any further protest.

With a sigh that seems to drain him of energy, he grudgingly admits, “My friend needs a place to stay. It will be for a few days. No longer than a week at most.”

The prospect of returning to the basement and remaining there indefinitely is daunting. What if his friend — not just a stranger as you had hoped — decides to extend his stay? Filled with desperation and fear, you plead, “Please, don’t make me go back there. I promise, I will behave, I won’t tell him anything—” As your anxiety continues to escalate, words tumble out of your mouth like a relentless torrent, spilling faster than you can process them. “We could pretend that I’m your girlfriend. I promise I won’t talk to him. I won’t even dare to be alone in the same room as him if you aren’t with me… Please—just don’t make me—me… I-I…”

When your voice falters, Simon, who had been standing at the other side of the room, walks up to you. In his eyes, you see reluctance to agree with your plan. His reservations etched plainly on his face. However, as you reach out to him, taking his hand into yours, squeezing it tightly, his gaze softens.

As the tears well up at the corners of your eyes, shimmering like tiny crystal droplets, a soft sniffle escapes your quivering lips. The room fills with a heavy silence, broken only by the faint sound of your heartbeat pounding in your ears. But finally, with a reluctant sigh, he concedes to your plan.

“Fine,” he begins, his voice barely above a whisper, “but—” At his words, you feel the coiled tension in your body, that had been winding tighter with every passing second, unravel slowly. “While Johnny stays here,” he continues, his gaze never leaving yours, “you will stay in my room because your bedroom is the only spare one in this house.”

A/N: Just a heads up—I'm swamped with uni work, so updates may be slower for a while.

#simon riley x reader #simon riley x you #simon ghost riley #cod #writing #call of duty #ghost cod #ghost x y/n #ghost x you #ghost x reader #ghost call of duty #cod ghost #cod x reader #cod fanfic #fem!reader #ao3 fanfic #fanfic #ao3

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horseshoegirl · 8 months

Note

Lucky! You know what I’m going to ask for… I’m always in need of updates about Liz Jake and Sadie, my beloveds 🥰🥰🥰

Beth! This thing has been sitting in my drafts since I finished DTDT, and I'm so happy you sent this in cause it's literally brought me a new life. I've missed these three more than I can say, and I've been feeling a bit down about writing (I can't say why, but I NEEDED this).

I'm sharing more than a paragraph cause I've missed them so much, and I'm sure the DTDT crew who followed their journey would like a big update on these guys, too!

This is the beginning of The four times Sadie's Uncles ruined her dates and the one time they didn't!

“Will asked me to the prom.”

It's a Friday night, on the eve of all the Daggers returning from another deployment on a special assignment. It’s just you and Sadie standing together, washing dishes, discussing everything the two of you wanted to do and catch Jake up on when he returned.

“Oh, how did he do it?” You squealed, knocking her with your hip. Sadie ducked her head and blushed, reaching for more soap for her dish.

“He did the ten things I hate about you bleacher dance.”

“Shut up, he didn’t?” you gasped. You hoped your reply wasn’t too dramatic. You might have let it slip to Alyssa that movie nights now consisted of romantic comedies since your husband hadn't been a participant for the past few months, and Sadie had been impressed by Health Ledger dancing on the steps.

Alyssa was all too happy to relay the message to Will, who happily jumped on the chance, even getting a few of Sadie’s teachers involved. You might have gotten the video from Alyssa earlier today, and you weren’t going to let on, knowing Sadie would want it destroyed if she knew of its existence.

Lately, she hated seeing herself cry.

She nodded, slightly embarrassed at the memory, though you knew she had to be giddy he’d even be that thoughtful or grandiose in his ask.

“We are going to have to go dress shopping soon. Maybe get Nat and Penny involved. Make it a girl's trip.”

Sadie doesn’t offer you a reply. Instead, she hands her plate off to you to dry before pushing herself away to the other side of the kitchen.

“I’m scared, though, Aunt Liz. It’s so bad. I’m not ready for this to happen yet.”

The plate slipped from your hand, falling back into the water. As you turned to face her, Sadie closed her eyes and started to nod rapidly, wincing as you took in her words.

“Sweetheart,” you admonished, stepping away from the counter to stroke her hair away from her face. “Why is that a bad thing? I thought you would want to go to the prom with Will. Is something going on? Is he pressuring you?”

She opened her eyes, worry clearly etched into them. Even as a teenager, how she could puncture your soul with one look had not changed.

“Uncle Jake doesn’t know we’ve been dating. Either does Bradley.”

Ah, the penny drops.

She’s right. It’s been five months since the two of you saw either of them and in that time, Will and Sadie went on several dates. There might have been even a kiss or two shared. And to Sadie’s request, she didn’t want Jake to know in the letters you’ve been sending.

He was, you could say, a bit overprotective of his little girl. And she knew the trouble both he and Bradley could bring on to the both of them, should they wish to.

“Uncle Jake and Uncle Roo are going to kill him.”

“Sadie Seresin-Beck, they aren’t going to…”

She let out a grumbled sound and stepped away from you to the edge of the island so she could lay her upper body across the granite surface. She let out a frustrated cry, threading her fingers through her hair at the back of her head.

“What are we going to do?!”

Honestly?

You had no clue.

#horseshoegirlwrites #damnthosedogtags #jake seresin fanfiction #damn those dog tags #hangman x oc #jake seresin #hangman fanfiction #jake hangman seresin x reader #dtdt sneak peek #dtdt

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darkficsyouneveraskedfor · 2 years

Text

wallflower 6

Warnings: age gap, creepin’, slow burn, stepdad-adjacent, possible noncon/dubcon, abuse, violence, self-harm.

Character: silverfox!Thor

Your mother meets a new man, but he doesn’t seem very interested in her.

Note: Here we go again. Another erratic drabble series. Appreciate any and all feedback. Love you all.

“Please, you don’t have to,” Thor says as he places the stack of dishes beside the sink as you run the faucet and test the water with your fingers. “You’re my guest, just as your mother is.”

“I want to. It’s only polite.”

“You can leave them,” he suggests, “come and enjoy the evening with your mother. I can put on some coffee or tea–”

“Oh, I can do that,” you offer to the sink as you put the stopper in, “just tell me where everything is.”

“Honey,” he intones, “really, I don’t feel right having you and letting you do all this.”

You keep your eyes on the rising water as you add soap and bubbles foam over the surface, “I don’t feel right not doing it.”

He lets out a breath and clicks his tongue, “yes, I know.”

“Really, it’s not a big deal,” you shift the plates carefully into the hot water as he lingers close, adding to the heat of the steam roiling from the faucet.

“Hm,” he sounds unhappy and you squirm as you wet the sponge, “the coffee is above the toaster, tea too. Kettle just over there… if you need help, please ask.”

“Thank you,” you murmur as you plunge your hands into the sink.

“I feel as if I should thank you,” he says as he gives a gentle brush along your back.

You say nothing and keep your attention on the dishes. You hold your breath until he leaves, his steps reluctant and dawdling. When you dare to look back, you drop your shoulders and let yourself relax. You’re thankful for the excuse to be alone.

The familiar clunk of dishes muffled under the suds keeps you distracted as your eyes wander across the granite counter. The stainless steel toaster shines, each appliance the same sparkling sheen. You set the plates in the rack, ignoring the dishwasher as you note the kettle against the wall and the little crystal dish of sugar.

It doesn’t take long to finish the washing and you dry each piece, searching the cupboards and drawers for their place. When all is away, you flip on the kettle and venture across the foyer to the living room, your mother’s manufactured laughter guiding your way.

You stop in the doorway as she stands behind Thor as he sits in a chair. She rubs his chest from behind as she bends over the back of the recliner and mutters into his hair. He grimaces at the room as she lets her hand stray further.

“Er,” you clear your throat, “would you like coffee or tea?”

Thor catches your mother’s hands and pushes them off him, “please, enough. Sorry, honey–”

“I would prefer you leave us alone,” your mother snaps as she stands, wobbling slightly as she slurs.

“Kat,” Thor retorts as he sits up, “I’d like some tea, the breakfast blend is fine, and I think your mother would do well with some coffee.”

“I haven’t finished my wine,” she pouts and she rustles his hair, pulling a few strands loose from the twisted bun.

“Maybe it would be better if you didn’t,” Thor gets up and sighs, pacing across the floor, “did you need any help with that, honey?”

“N-no,” you give a look to your mother as she glowers at you from behind Thor, “no, please, I’m fine. I’ll go… get it on.”

“I’ll be here if you need me,” he offers.

You spin on your heel, fleeing from the doorway. Your mother’s voice floats out behind you, “I need you,” she purrs, “I could pay for her taxi and we could–”

He grunts but you hear nothing else as you enter the haven of the kitchen. You search for the box of breakfast tea before setting up the machine. It’s slightly different than the one at home and takes you a bit of fumbling to get the filter out, but you loud it and push several buttons before it brews.

You bounce on your heels as you wait, wandering back and forth as the kettle slowly comes to a boil and the aroma of coffee fills the air. You pour the hot water over the sachets. You twine your fingers together and bite your knuckles nervously. How long until you can leave? Your mother hardly seems in a rush but you’re only getting in the way.

“Hey, honey,” Thor’s voice draws you around, startling you, “your mother’s not doing so well, I’m going to put her in a spare room. I was gonna tell you not to bother with the coffee but…”

“Oh, sorry,” you tug on your finger, almost until it pops from the socket. He notices the nervous tick but doesn’t mention it.

“No sorry needed, if you’re still up to meet Fen, you can take your tea to the living room.”

“Okay, is mom okay?”

“She’s just had a bit much,” he assures you.

You nod and turn back to the counter. You near and pull out a tea bag. His shadow looms behind you for a moment before he goes. You toss out the used sachets and go to the fridge. You add a small bit of milk to your cup and leave his on the counter as you stop the grinding coffee machine.

The front room is empty as you enter. Uncertain, you put your cup on a wooden coaster and sit on the edge of the chair next to the square end table. You clutch your hands in your lap and stare at your socks. Maybe you should go see if your mom’s alright. It’s not completely unexpected, you often find her passed out on the couch after one of her girls’ nights.

Before you can muster the courage to go check in, Thor appears, carrying his mug with him. He smiles and puts it near the recliner.

“The couch is cozy,” he suggests and gestures to the chair you sit in, “that old thing is stiff as bones.”

“I’m okay,” you assure him as you pick at a fingernail.

“Shall I fetch the old beast?” He asks playfully.

“Um, sure, if you think… it’s alright.”

“Give me a sec, honey.”

He leaves again and you let your eyes crawl around the room. Your mother’s stockings are crumpled up on the floor and her wine glass is empty. Her fourth by your count. You’re almost embarrassed until you think of how ashamed she must be of you.

You hear claws tapping on the floor and sit up, watching the door expectantly. A great grey hound bounds in as Thor chases in after him.

“--back here, you oaf, god–” he stops himself as the dog nears you, “he slipped his collar.”

Thor holds up the thick band as the dog sniffs at you eagerly, wetting your knuckles with his long snout. He’s huge, his grey fur wiry and long, his grey eyes curiously as he looks at you, his nose nearly touching yours as he raises his head. In a moment, he hops up and the chair creaks under his weight as he forces himself into your lap, draping over you as you lean back and let out a squeak of surprise.

“Fenrir, don’t crush the kitten,” Thor booms and hurries towards you.

“It’s fine,” you gulp under the weight, “he’s being friendly.”

You pet him and he wiggles, bound to fall right off of you in his excitement.

“It’s rude,” he says tersely as he waggles his finger at the defiant dog, “but he does seem to like you. He’s usually a bit more standoffish.”

Fen lifts his head and twists to lick your cheek with his large tongue, you giggle and drag your hand over his side.

“He’s funny,” you let yourself smile as the dog’s warmth calms you, “I always wanted a puppy.”

“Ah, yes,” Thor hovers cautiously, ready to rein in the hound at any moment, “I wouldn’t exactly call him a puppy.”

#thor #dark thor #dark!thor #thor x reader #drabble #wallflower #dark drabble #dark!drabble #drabble series #au #silverfox!thor #mcu #marvel #avengers

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xx-vergil-xx · 1 year

Text

sanctus dentes/canem dei

okay u know what –– I just answered an anon ask that brought up the old cori fic I talked about writing months ago, so in the spirit of recollection I was excavating some drafts and I found a part I like –– all that to say, here’s the first vignette of sanctus dentes / canem dei for your consumption :) this is the prologue to the whole kit and caboodle, and it’ll probably get edited and expanded before I post it in earnest, but I really truly haven’t posted writing in so long and today I'm on a good wave of productivity and hey, seize the moment ride the urge etc etc

a TW for gore, blood, violence, and body horror (which I'll also put in the post tags)

SANCTUS DENTES / CANEM DEI (draft, WIP)

EPIGRAPH

“Epopteia, completed sight––meaning the sight that brings us beyond initiation (which only ‘understands’) to ‘contemplation,’ a ‘super-sight’ that is a ‘devouring of the eyes’ (the eye devouring its very self), a grasping and finally a touching: the very absolute of touching, touching-the-other- as being-touched, each being absorbed and devoured in the other.” –– Corpus, Jean-Luc Nancy

GENESIS I: THE PARABLE OF THE DINING ROOM FLOOR

“You don’t love me.”

The blood bubbles in tongues between the split lips. The young man has the eyes of a doe, his pupils blown wide enough they swallow the tawny ring of his shivering iris. His terror is so thick from his pores it might be swiped up with a finger, swept against the tongue, tasted in all its viscous splendor. He reeks of panting sweat, the tar and velvet of post-arousal pheromones crashing into summer-lightning adrenaline that crackles in the nose.

The Corinthian hums into the plate of the sternum. He cradles the tender cheek, licks the soft skin of the purpling undereye, where the threads of capillaries have split beneath the epidermis. The taste is not iron –– such a banal simplification, to call blood near-spilling only, reductively, “metallic”. It’s a bouquet of honeysuckle plasma, fatty satin like good gruyere, platelets of sour rhubarb pie and fresh raspberry. When he bites the thin skin, it tears easily, only so much wet tissue under perfected incisors.

“I don’t?”

"You––" The tears season the meat well –– the Corinthian appreciates the gesture. "You said––"

"Baby," the Corinthian murmurs into the open wound, "didn't your momma ever tell you not to trust a stranger?"

Languorous and immovable, the Corinthian pins the young man's wrists above his bleeding head. In the dark, all things become more and less than what they are. The thick cords of the neck pull taut, strung fierce enough that their columns emerge from the dimness as the spine of some deep-sea horror cresting the sea. He scrapes his teeth against the jaw, where the bone runs close to the surface, and prophesies the sponge of marrow under molar. The body shudders –– glorious, isn't it, how the rigid little mind might strive to save itself from that which thrills the flesh.

"Please. Please."

"Little lamb, what're you begging for?" The Corinthian lays a kiss against the mouth. From the man's overlapping palms issues the hilt of a thin blade –– the other is buried, arrow-like, between his second and third rib. The rasp of the voice is laden with lung collapse, breath that no longer fits into smothered struts. In the valley of the tendons, the heart courses, torrential.

“Mercy. Merciful God, I can’t die like this.”

The Corinthian sinks his teeth into the muscle of the shoulder, at the point it meets the neck. A slobbery gasp surges from the open mouth –– no better music, thinks the Corinthian, as his canines meet the granite edge of the scapula. The heart is racing, ever the traitor. They are all like this. The space between suffering and ecstasy is so minute he could not slide a fingernail into it.

He severs, at last, the tendons, and a slop of meat comes free. The sheets of the hotel bed will be irrecoverable –– mark of a real good night. It's hot and fresh down his throat. He thinks about getting sashimi after he's done here. Though it'll be a long time until the meal has ended.

The man's mind is fading, even while his body yearns after the teeth that destroy it. He babbles, warbling prayers so loose-limbed and slurred they are only a horsehair bow drawn across untuned vocal folds.

"Father who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name, hallowed be thy––"

"Shh, shh shh shh, baby." He chews and swallows, and when he kisses the hollow of the throat it's only to rip the skin loose from the clavicles, to see those nubs of bone glow pearlescent in the night. "Be not afraid."

"––thy king–– thy kingdom come–– thy––"

Once, when he was young, he had eaten only the eyes. He had popped the tart cherries of sight, reveled in the liquor of the vitreous humor, the plasticky chew of the cornea –– he'd gnaw on the lenses for hours, like wads of clear gum. But his life had been long, and his maker had sculpted him from famine, and famine knew no sating. Famine, blooming low in the gut, scaled the spine and hung from the jaw. It grew, and grew, and filled him with gaping mouths. There was no moment he did not hunger. He couldn't satisfy himself on eyes, these days.

"You fear what you don't understand," says the Corinthian. The man's arms are slack enough that when he releases them, they slump limb and immobile. He drags his hands down the flanks, sinks his fingers between two mirrored ribs, and the flesh gives so readily it seems almost eager. "I don't love you?"

With a squelch and groan, the intercostals split apart. The Corinthian curls his grip around the bone, on either side, and grins, threefold.

"––thy will be–– done–– on Earth, as it is–– in Heaven–– give–– give us––"

"Sanctum corpus," he breathes. "Baby, don't be cruel."

"––this day, our daily bread–– forgive–– forgive–– forgive––"

He snaps the ribs apart. The hull of skin and muscle is rent open, and the smell, sacramental wine, bursts forth in heavenly plenitude.

"Hoc est enim corpus meum. Eat of my flesh, and drink of my blood."

The man buckles, chokes. The whites of his eyes shine liquid, pale shells, spilled oil.

"I love you," murmurs the Corinthian. He does.

The Corinthian buries his face in the guts, and takes communion.

#tw: gore #tw: blood #tw: body horror #tw: bodily fluids #tw: violence #the sandman #the sandman fic #the corinthian #the corinthian (sandman)#jean-luc nancy's corpus is a massive influence on this btw #really cool book! highly recommend #anyway this'll be on ao3 at some point as well #after hounds 42 goes up #thanks for reading!#wip

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benihana-circumcision · 7 months

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fucking nasty on top of a $200,000 granite surface plate. laying pipe with aerospace-level precision.

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gottalottarocks · 2 years

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My mother and I saw your post about the mantle being solid and we've got a couple questions.

1. What is a mantle plume in the context of a solid mantle? Is it a column of magma from the outer core through the mantle?

2. How do subduction zones work? Why do subduction volcanoes erupt magma if the mantle is solid? Is that why subduction magma is generally more viscous than mantle plume magma?

I have a diagram! This shows a Mid Ocean Ridge and subduction zone system, I don't have a mantle plume diagram, but the dynamics are similar.

First, let's talk about the three ways you can melt rock:

Increasing the temperature

Decreasing the pressure

Adding volatiles (aka water)

The first one is pretty straight forward- when you increase the heat, things melt. But bodies of hot rock will also melt when they undergo depressurization. Despite the heat, at great depths the overlying pressure will force rock to stay in a solid form. But if that rock is rapidly moved upward through mantle upwelling, you're gonna see some partial melting. This is what we see at mid ocean ridges (point A) and mantle plumes: hot, buoyant rock moves upward and melts due to high temperatures and the release of pressure. It's kinda like when you make stew in an instant pot and it starts to boil when you release the pressure.

So a mantle plume is more like the upward portion of a convection cell, where the rock in the plume is hotter and less dense than the rock in the surrounding mantle. Magma is only produced closer to the surface, where the plume is interacting with the crust and upper mantle. The type of volcanism (and lava) you see associated with a plume depends on whether the plume is interacting with oceanic crust or continental crust. In Hawai'i, a hotspot located under oceanic crust, you get very runny, low-viscosity magmas like this one:

At continental hotspots like Yellowstone you get highly viscous (sticky) magmas that trap gas and produce massive Plinian eruptions.

For your second question about subduction zones, you have to start at the mid ocean ridge. When oceanic plates moves apart, mantle rock moves up to fill the gap and new oceanic crust is produced. Point B represents the hydration of that oceanic crust. Heated water penetrates the oceanic slab through cracks, alters it, and (this is the tricky part) is bound into the rock. When I say that water is incorporated into the rock I don’t mean like a water droplet trapped in pores in the rock, but water is actually incorporated into the mineral structure at an atomic level. This hydrothermal metamorphism makes serpentinites:

This rock is 10% water by weight and it makes up the ocean floor underneath all that sedimentary cover (which also has a decent amount of water associated with it).

Now that mafic oceanic slab is dense, much denser than the buoyant granitic rocks of the continental crust (lmao I know calling granite buoyant makes me sounds crazy, but it is compared to oceanic crust and the mantle). So when those plates collide the oceanic slab goes right under it. The slab descends into the mantle, the heat and pressure increase, and that serpentinized slab is metamorphosed and dehydrated (point C). All that water bound into the rock comes right back out.

That brings us back to the third way you can melt rock: just add water. The influx of all those fluids into the mantle beneath the continent creates magma. Those magmas rise, percolate, combine, rise some more, and result in volcanism. And since you're melting continental crust you're going to get pretty viscous magmas, but the volcanism in subduction zones can be incredibly diverse, you honestly see everything.

#geology #rocks #science #earth #my entire thesis is about point B #and yes that’s one of my thesis rocks lol #once again this is vastly oversimplified #like every part of this diagram can have its own in depth detailed diagram #lava #volcano #minerals #geolife

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mariacallous · 1 year

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Few people on Earth have reached closer to its center than Buzz Speyrer, a drilling engineer with a long career in oil and gas. It’s about 1,800 miles down to the core, smoldering from celestial impacts that date back billions of years and stoked to this day by friction and radioactivity. That heat percolating upwards turns the rock above into a viscous liquid and beyond that into a gelatinous state that geologists call plastic. It’s only within about 100 miles of the surface that rock becomes familiar and hard and drillable.

Right now, Speyrer’s equipment is about 8,500 feet below us, or about 2 percent of the way through that layer, where the heat is already so great that every extra foot, every extra inch, is a hard-won victory. Down there, any liquid you pumped in would become, as Speyrer puts it, hot enough to deep fry a turkey. “Imagine that splashing you,” he says. At that temperature, about 450 degrees Fahrenheit (228 degrees Celsius) his gear can start having problems. Electronics fail. Bearings warp. Hundreds of thousands dollars worth of equipment might go down a borehole, and if it breaks down there, make sure it doesn’t get stuck. In that case, best to just plug that hole, which probably cost millions to drill, tally up your losses, and move on.

Even when things are going well down there, it’s hard to know from up here on the Earth’s surface. “It’s frustrating as hell,” says Joseph Moore, a geologist at the University of Utah, as he watches the halting movements of a 160-foot-tall rig through a trailer window. It’s a cool day in 2022, in a remote western Utah county named Beaver, a breeze whipping off the Mineral Mountains toward hog farms and wind turbines on the valley floor below. The rig looks much like any oil and gas installation dotting the American West. But there are no hydrocarbons in the granite below us, only heat.

Since 2018, Moore has led a $220 million bet by the US Department of Energy (DOE), called FORGE, or the Frontier Observatory for Research in Geothermal Energy, that this heat can be harnessed to produce electricity in most parts of the world. Geothermal energy is today a rare resource, tapped only in places where the crust has cracked a little and heat mingles with groundwater, producing hot springs or geysers that can power electricity-generating turbines. But such watery hot spots are rare. Iceland, straddling two diverging tectonic plates, hits a geological jackpot and produces about a quarter of its electricity that way; in Kenya, volcanism in the Great Rift Valley helps push that figure to more than 40 percent. In the US, it’s just 0.4 percent, almost all of it coming from California and Nevada.

Yet there’s hot rock everywhere, if you drill deep enough. Moore’s project is trying to create an “enhanced” geothermal system, or EGS, by reaching hot, dense rock like granite, cracking it open to form a reservoir, and then pumping in water to soak up heat. The water is then drawn up through a second well, emerging a few hundred degrees hotter than it was before: an artificial hot spring that can drive steam turbines. That design can sound straightforward, plumbing water from point A to point B, but despite a half-century of work, the complexities of engineering and geology have meant no one has managed to make EGS work at practical scale—yet.

Moore is trying to demonstrate it can be done. And in the process, maybe he can get more entrepreneurs and investors as hyped about geothermal as he is. Renewable electricity generation, whether from sun or wind or hot ground, typically offers steady but unremarkable returns once the power starts flowing. That’s fine if your upfront costs are cheap—a requirement wind turbines and solar panels now generally meet. Geothermal happens to require a risky multimillion-dollar drilling project to get started. While clean, dependable power derived from the Earth’s core can complement the on-again, off-again juice from wind and solar, there are safer underground bets for those with the expertise and financing to drill: A geothermal well might take 15 years to pay for itself; a natural gas rig does it in two.

No surprise, then, that there are 2 million active oil and gas wells worldwide, but only 15,000 for geothermal, according to Norwegian energy consultancy Rystad Energy. Nearly all are hydrothermal, relying on those natural sources of hot water. Only a few are EGS. A trio of operating plants in eastern France produce only a trickle of power, having drilled into relatively cool rock. Then there are hotter experiments, like here in Utah and across the border in Nevada, where a Houston startup called Fervo is working to connect two wells of its own, a project that is meant to provide clean power to a Google data center.

Moore believes FORGE can make EGS more attractive by showing it’s possible to go hotter. Every extra degree should mean more energy zapped into the grid and more profit. But drilling hot and hard granite, rather than cooler and softer shale that gas frackers like Speyrer typically split apart, isn’t trivial. Nor is drilling the wide wells required to move large volumes of water for a geothermal plant. Thus, a chicken-and-egg problem: The geothermal industry needs tools and techniques adapted from oil and gas—and in some cases, entirely new ones—but because nobody knows whether EGS will work, they don’t exist yet. Which is where FORGE comes in, playing a role Moore describes as “de-risking” the tools and methods. “Nobody is going to spend that money unless I spend that money,” he says.

In Beaver County, his team is testing a bridge plug—a cap, essentially—that will seal off a section of pipe so that water can be forced into surrounding rock with enough force to crack granite. It’s late morning and a dozen water tankers are parked in imposing formation next to the rig. Around lunchtime, they’ll test whether the plug can hold the pressure, and before dinner should fire “the guns”—small explosive charges—to perforate the pipe. Then they’ll push in the water to split the rock in time for a midnight snack—“if everything goes smoothly,” Moore says.

In other words, a pretty standard frack, the technique that has flooded the US with a bounty of natural gas over the past 15 years. But don’t use the f-word too liberally, please—it’s rather taboo in geothermal, even though the industry’s future may depend on the technology. The sensitivity is not just about the association with fossil fuels. Frack in the wrong place, over some hidden fault, and the earth can tremble with damaging intensity.

The team is closely watching data recorded by eight geophones—acoustic detectors that pick up seismic waves—hanging in nearby boreholes. So far, the only clear signal is that it’s really hot down there. A few minutes before the start of the pressure test, John McLennan, a chemical engineer co-managing the frack, arrives in the trailer with bad news about a pair of geophones.

“Both of them have failed,” he says. “Just can’t handle the temperature.”

“I’m too old for this,” Moore replies.

It had been a long few days. It wasn’t supposed to be a 24-hour operation, but here they were, delayed by high winds and malfunctioning equipment, another long day and night ahead. Now he’d lost a pair of crucial ears telling him what was going on beneath the surface.

While the FORGE team preps for the frack, Moore and I drive into the Mineral Mountains to see why geothermal energy has thus far fallen short of its potential. We stop at the perimeter fence of the Blundell Geothermal Plant, which sits a few miles from FORGE, on the eastern edge of a hot zone stretching hundreds of miles west to the Pacific. The appeal of the location is obvious. Near the site, fissures in the rock reveal places where hot water has burbled to the surface, carrying minerals that hardened into rivulets of crystal. A few hundred feet away, sulfurous clouds rise from the soil around a 19th-century shed where cowboys and miners once took hot soaks.

The plant, which is owned by Portland-based electric utility PacifiCorp, was built during a geothermal boom during the 1970s oil crisis. But by the time its turbines began spinning in 1984, energy prices had fallen and the boom was already fading. The vast majority of US plants operating today still date back to the 1980s—a painful fact for a geothermal enthusiast like Moore. His own journey in the industry began around that time, as he transitioned away from an earlier career prospecting for uranium deposits—itself then a waning industry—that had initially brought him to Utah from his native New York City.

He considers Blundell especially underutilized, pointing to turbines that could be upgraded to produce more energy and spots where PacifiCorp could drill more hydrothermal wells. “It’s just risk aversion,” he says. “They say, ‘I can’t see what’s underground, so I’m skeptical about drilling.’” (PacifiCorp did not respond to requests for comment.)

Only a few companies are exploring new hydrothermal locations. One of them is Reno-based Ormat Technologies, which owns and operates more than 20 geothermal plants worldwide. Paul Thomsen, the company’s vice president for business development, tells me how Ormat established its business by purchasing existing plants and updating their turbines to draw more power from the same hot water. More recently, drawing on its experience with everything from drilling to plant operations, it started building new plants.

But it’s tricky to pick winners, even when there’s an obvious hydrothermal resource to exploit. Desert towns in the American West have rebelled against proposals out of concern groundwater will be drained away. And wherever biologists look in hot springs, they have found unique species deserving of protection. Stack that on top of lengthy permitting processes and challenges with connecting new plants to the grid, and options dwindle. Ormat has had recent setbacks at two of its proposed sites, over groundwater near the Nevada site of Burning Man and over the tiny Dixie Valley toad, a species recently listed as endangered.

The challenges of natural hot springs have made creating artificial ones all the more appealing. In 2006, the DOE, along with researchers at MIT, issued a report describing a plan for making geothermal a major contributor to the US grid to help meet climate goals. The flexibility offered by EGS was at the heart of it. Although the depth at which rock gets hot enough varies—shallower out in the American West than on the East Coast, for example—the scientists reckoned it could be reasonable to drill for heat in most places, either to produce electricity or, at lower temperatures, hot water to warm buildings.

In 2014, the DOE started looking for a place to serve as a testing ground for repurposing tools from oil and gas, and, four years later, picked Beaver County as the experiment’s home. Soon afterward, the agency calculated that geothermal could satisfy 8.5 percent of US electricity demand by 2050—a 26-fold increase from today. All that was missing was proof that EGS worked.

The Forge well descends straight down for about 6,000 feet (1.8 kilometers), reaching granite about two-thirds of the way there before making a 65 degree turn and going nearly 5,000 feet (1.5 kilometers) farther. Among Moore’s passions, enthusiastically demonstrated with hand motions and napkin diagrams, is the internal “stress field” of the granite that determines how it will crack under pressure.

Understanding that stress field is essential. For an efficient power plant, the cracks must extend far enough for water to move efficiently between the two wells—but not too fast, says Teresa Jordan, a geothermal scientist at Cornell University in New York, where she is leading an EGS project aimed at heating campus buildings with geothermal water. “You want it to take its time, spending a lot of time in contact with rocks that will heat it up,” she says. The cracks must also deliver as much water as possible to the second well—and not into hidden fissures along the way—and also stay hot for years of use. Hot rocks can cool to tepid if cold water pumped in soaks up heat faster than the core’s heat can replenish it. Vanishing water and dwindling heat have played a role in past EGS failures, including in New Mexico in the 1980s and in southern Australia in 2015.

Those risks have sent others looking for different approaches, each with their own tradeoffs. One, a “closed-loop” system, involves running sealed pipes down into the hot rock and then back to the surface, preventing any water from draining away underground. But it has proved tricky to get enough heat into liquid that doesn’t touch hot rocks directly. Or maybe you drill really deep—say, 12 miles down—where temperatures can exceed 1,650 Fahrenheit (900 degrees Celsius), enough for the heat to rise straight to the surface up a single well. But the tools to drill at such depths are still experimental. Others think existing oil and gas wells are the answer, saving on drilling costs and unlocking the industry’s abundant tools for its own wells. But the narrower wells used for extracting fossil fuels aren’t built for pushing the vast volumes of water necessary for a power plant.

EGS proponents argue designs like FORGE strike the right balance, adding enough heat and flexibility over traditional geothermal, while being able to take advantage of oil and gas methods, The newest EGS experiments are enabled by advances in horizontal drilling and better fracking models, says Tim Latimer, CEO of Fervo, which is working with FORGE as it develops its own EGS project in Nevada. He tells me he thinks that the projections energy investors use to estimate geothermal drilling costs—ones that make them hesitant—are 15 years out of date. During the drilling of the first FORGE well, he points out, the team demonstrated it could halve the time using a new, diamond-tipped bit, cutting overall costs by 20 percent.

Around 3 pm, after our walk around the Blundell plant, Moore returns to the drill site and sees McLennan jogging over to greet him. He has good news. First up: The plug has held under pressure. Moore lets out a big breath, hands on hips. “I’m glad that’s over with,” he says. Later, after the guns are fired and water pumped in, a “seismic cloud” of tiny quakes picked up by the remaining geophones, suspended at lesser heat and depth, indicates that the cracks extend about 400 feet from the well—the right distance to connect with the second, future well that will draw newly heated water up to the surface. A third piece of good news is that the seismic cloud couldn’t be felt on the surface.

That’s especially good news to Peter Meier, the CEO of Geo-Energie Suisse, a geothermal energy consortium. He traveled to Utah from Switzerland mostly to listen to the geophones. In 2006, a 3.1 magnitude quake occurred after engineers on a Swiss EGS project attempted to create a water reservoir that was too large and disturbed an unmapped fault, damaging homes nearby in Basel. (A geologist faced criminal negligence charges for his role in the quake, but was later acquitted.) Local governments in Switzerland have been wary of EGS operations since.

In 2017, an even bigger quake triggered by an EGS project in South Korea, which injured 82 people, dimmed the concept’s prospects even further. But Meier believes those earthquakes were due to poor planning on the part of engineers—avoidable, with more careful study of the rocks. He sees FORGE as a chance to rescue the reputation of EGS by demonstrating it working safely. “Until we have a success story it’s a discussion about fracking, because basically, it is fracking,” he says.

This spring, Moore returned to Beaver County to drill well number two. After nearly a year of reviewing the data from the initial frack, he felt confident that the production well, drilled straight through the cloud of cracks from the frack, would succeed in getting water back out. Earlier this month, he was proved right: Nearly 76,000 gallons went down the first hole at a rate of about 210 gallons per minute, and came back out the other end hotter. A full-scale test in 2024 will get the flow rates closer to those required for commercial EGS plants, which should cycle more than a thousand gallons per minute.

Part of Moore’s confidence was that he knew he was playing on easy mode. By design, the two wells are too close together to draw up substantial heat for a power plant—the point at this stage was mostly the tools and techniques financed and tested along the way. Prior to the test, Moore was excited to tell me about the new gadgets available for creating the production well, including particle drilling, in which rock is eaten away by shooting small, high-velocity metal balls; a rotary drilling system that they could steer from the surface; and upgraded, more heat resistant geophones.

In the end, all three were less useful than Moore had hoped. The particle drilling and steerable system turned out to be more trouble than they were worth, especially compared with the earlier success of the diamond-tipped bits. The modified geophones still fritzed beyond about 300 degrees Fahrenheit (150 degrees Celsius); Moore says they’ll eventually switch over to heat-proof, fiber optic-based devices. But that’s the point, he says, of “de-risking.” Sometimes it’s helpful to see what breaks.

There are other reasons to feel hopeful. A few days after the FORGE connection, Fervo released results from its own 30-day connection test in Nevada. The result, according to Latimer, is “the most productive enhanced geothermal project ever completed,” producing enough hot water to generate about 3.5 megawatts of electricity. The boreholes were drilled near an existing hydrothermal plant that has room for more capacity, and will produce power by the end of the summer, he says.

“We’ve shown that it works,” Latimer says. “Now the question is how quickly can we bring it down the cost curve.” That includes getting hotter. Fervo’s Nevada wells peaked at 370 degrees Fahrenheit (190 degrees Celsius)—hotter, he points out, than any other horizontal oil and gas well in the US—and hot enough to prove that its own tools can go a bit hotter next time. There are also crucial questions about drilling, he adds: the optimal distance between the wells, the angles, the depth. “It’s not like software where you can iterate quickly,” he says. The industry needs more experiments, more projects, to figure out the most productive combination—each of them bound to be expensive and difficult.

More opportunities to iterate are likely coming. The US Inflation Reduction Act has poured money into green energy infrastructure, adding incentives to geothermal development that put it closer to existing ones available to wind and solar. Meanwhile, the DOE upped its goal for geothermal electricity generation in 2050 by 50 percent, to 90 MW, based in part on improved prospects for EGS technology, and in February announced that it would spend an additional $74 million on pilot EGS demonstrations. None of them are likely to go as hot as FORGE just yet, Moore suspects. “I think we’re going to be looking at temperatures where we know the tools work,” he says. But it’s a start.

Some might try to use that warmth for direct heating, like Jordan’s project at Cornell. Others might drill at the edge of proven hydrothermal areas, where the heat is more accessible. And there are other, creative approaches to maximize revenue. Fervo and others have proposed using their wells as batteries—pumping down water when the grid has excess energy and then bringing it back hot at leaner times to generate power—or building plants alongside power-hungry facilities like data centers or future carbon removal plants, avoiding the challenges of connecting to an overloaded power grid.

Scaling up from there will require much more investment. And the degree to which investors—especially in oil and gas—will pick up the baton remains to be seen. This year, Fervo picked up a $10 million investment from oil and gas company Devon Energy, a pioneer of fracking. Last month, Eavor, a closed-loop geothermal startup, announced BP Ventures had led its latest funding round. “It’s gone from zero to something,” says Henning Bjørvik, who tracks the geothermal industry at Rystad, the energy consultancy. But oil and gas is still as much a competitor—for equipment, expertise, and land—as it is a friend to geothermal, and commitments to clean energy can prove fickle when fossil fuel prices start booming. What investors need to see, Bjørvik says, is that this embryonic industry can scale to hundreds or thousands of plants—with enough potential profit to outweigh the risks of any individual project going south.

The way to do that, Moore believes, is to keep showing how things can get just a little bit hotter. Completing the research at the second FORGE borehole will exhaust its current DOE grant in 2025, but he has applied for new funding to drill wells that are further apart—and, of course, test new tools at ever higher temperatures. By then, he’ll have a new neighbor. The rig for Fervo’s next project is already visible from the FORGE well pad—the start of what’s planned to be a full-scale power plant.

If all goes to plan, it will produce 400 megawatts of energy, Latimer says, enough to power 300,000 homes. It was logical, he says, to drill in the shadow of both FORGE and Blundell. The site has been extensively surveyed and has the grid interconnections to move electricity to Fervo’s initial customers in California. The goal is geothermal energy anywhere. For now, it makes sense to start here.

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toasty-death · 11 months

Text

It's not too late, let's go.

Original Fiction.

Summary: Gale and Blaire have been living their whole lives being told that it's dangerous to go outside. Gale wakes up one morning and his lover Blaire is missing, only to lead him to a beautiful discovery.

Word Count: 1,357

Category: Futuristic, Mind Twist

The silvery waves splashed against the granite sand, looking out you could see the expanse of the Mercury Sea out to the horizon. It was beautiful, but I knew it was time to head back inside since the sun was kissing the surface of the ocean, creating its usual array of blue and red clouds. Night would be upon us soon, but I didn't want to leave. "Come on, Gale, let's head back inside. You don't want to be caught by the rain, you know?" Blaire was right, it was supposed to rain tonight. We'd be dead if we got caught in it, I doubt we'd even last 10 seconds.

We headed back inside the grotto entrance, the steel steps seemed like they would go forever before we reached ground level. The walk was quiet, but I enjoyed her company like this. We didn't have to talk to feel comfortable with each other, that was the kind of relationship we had. My eyes strained against the glow of the neon sign, Paradise Grotto. Right, like this shit-hole was a paradise. We were forced to live here our whole lives, as the rain kills everything on the surface. We were allowed to venture to the surface when the weather reads clear skies for extended periods of time, but the entrance is sealed within an hour of any sign of rainfall. As we walk pass the entrance, the alarm begins to blare for the coming rain.

We made our way through the main entrance hallway, passing by cross sections that leads to the other sections of the Grotto. Our path was pretty straight forward, just down the main hallway and make a left at the recycle plant, then eight halls down. Blaire fumbled for the right key standing outside our apartment, she always had trouble remembering which key was the correct one. "Ugh, this one." She found it.

"I got the lights." I made my way over to the generator and started the process of starting it up. We can't have power running while we're outside of our apartment, just how things work around here. Power began to hum throughout the room as the lights flickered on, home sweet home. Blaire was already in the kitchen setting plates aside to prepare dinner. Probably freeze-dried meatloaf, again. One day I'll have to get us into one of those higher floor apartments, like one of those that the heads of divisions stay in. We'd never eat freeze-dried meatloaf again. I started cleaning around the house as Blaire finished up, it was my routine. Just another thing about how everything works here, you need to keep up a routine. Those who don't have a routine usually don't make it to their 30's, since there really isn't much to do in the Grotto unless you spend all of your earnings drinking it away.

We sat down and ate in silence, afterwards I cleaned the dishes. This is how our lives are here; we wake up at 0500, work from 0600 to 1800, we watch the sunset between 1800 and 1900, we eat at 2000, and sleep at 2100. That was our routine together in our wonderful lives inside the Grotto, we didn't need anything else to be happy.

"See you in the morning." Blaire kisses me goodnight. "And every sunset after." I kiss her back. I fall asleep fairly quickly and let the darkness take me.

I wake up in the morning with the sound of the alarm clock buzzing, I've always hated that noise. I shut it off and rub the sleep from my eyes, it looks like Blaire woke up earlier than normal. Well, I should start getting ready for work now, too.

My normal morning routine is washing my face, then I brush my teeth, then I gargle mouthwash for 30 seconds. After that I take my morning medication, it seems I'm running low on Vitamin D again. After my morning routine I head out to the living area to eat breakfast with Blaire, only the lights are off. "Hun?" I flick the lights on, but the living room is empty. I search the bedroom again, and she isn't there. "Blaire?" I begin to panic, is she hiding? This isn't like her at all. I begin searching everywhere frantically. She isn't anywhere, I open the front door and there she is, fumbling with her keys and soaking wet. "What the hell happened? Why are you wet?" She just stared back at me with wild, wide eyes. "Gale, I need you to come with me." She mumbled just low enough that I could hear her. "What, where? Where have you been? We are going to be late for work."

The next thing I knew she grabbed me by the arm and began pulling me down the hallway. "Hey! Blaire, talk to me!" She stayed focused on leading me somewhere, did she get into an accident? Is she in trouble? Eventually I gave up on trying to ask her what had happened, and I allowed her to lead the way. She leads me eight halls down, we make a right at the recycle plant, and up the main hallway. Paradise Grotto. She stops in front of the neon sign, I can hear the alarm up the stairwell for the signal that it's raining again.

"We need to go up the stairs, do you trust me?" She turns to me with a dead serious expression on her face. Up the stairs? "What's going on, Blaire?" Her eyes are darting between mine. "Gale, I can't explain unless I show you. We need to run up the stairs, we can't stop running. Do you trust me?" My mind is racing with hundreds of thoughts. I look up and see the entrance security has started paying attention to us now as one of the middle-aged guards gets up to walk over to us.

"Yes." We take off up the stairs. The guards shout for us to stop but we have a head start on them. We move as quickly as we can up the hundreds of steep steps. My chest begins to hurt, we've been running for 10 minutes. I can hear Blaire struggling to keep up her pace, eventually I'm the one in the lead, grasping her hand and pulling her along. We keep running, and running, until we reach the top of the stairs. The hatch leading to the outside is in front of us with the red hazard lights on, the alarm is ringing in our ears at this point.

We pause for a moment to catch our breath, and then she reaches for the latch handle. I reach out and grab her wrist to stop her. "Blaire, it's raining, we can't go outside." She places her hand over mine as she leans forward to place her forehead against me. Her hair is still wet and it gets my shirt damp. "I need you to trust me, please." She takes my hand off hers and opens the latch. The sound of the rain pouring down against the earth fills the stairwell, I've never heard such a sound before.

I watch in shock as she bolts outside into the rain with arms wide open. "Blaire!" It's too late, I can't save her. She'll be dead in seconds. Only, she isn't in pain. I stand there baffled, my mouth open as I watch her dance in the rain. It was the most beautiful sight that I've ever witnessed, it was as if she was a piece of art. For the first time in my life, she's the happiest I've ever seen her.

She spins around once more and looks at me with a huge grin. "Come with me." She reaches her hand for mine. My heart was racing, what was even going on? How is this possible? I couldn't get my thoughts straight, I felt dizzy. I think I might throw up.

"Gale, it's not too late, let's go." The rain was dripping from her outstretched fingers.

Suddenly, my mind was blank, and my feet moved on their own. I stepped out into the rain.

#fictober23 #writing #short story #october #fictober event

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