#orphan source

[kalefaction]

imagine if there were five drums of technetium and germanium stored in a container akin to a Lowes bucket loose in brazil. that'd be pretty weird wouldn't it

oh my god no fucking way

[lunapwrites]

Segment: Like the last one, but different lol

(edit: this is a mostly-duplicate of segment 4 that was posted accidentally but I'm keeping it for reasons.)

Looking back, James thinks some days should come with a warning label. Something to say: maybe stay in bed today. Try again tomorrow.

But that morning, he didn’t suspect a thing. Had no way of knowing.

He met with Lily first: their usual rendezvous point at the old bridge, legs dangling over the edge as they shared the last of his cherry PopTarts, the last of her cigarettes, the story of how the big news had gone over with their parents.

“Could have gone worse,” Lily said, sighing. Pursed her lips to wiggle her septum ring. “Mom cried a lot, Dad left the house, Petunia called me a slut… so, you know, normal Friday night.”

He winced. “If it helps, first thing my mom did was ask when you were moving in.”

Lily huffed out a laugh, flicking ash. “I love your mom. What’d your dad say?”

“Not much, really.” James shrugged. “He was happy for us, though.”

What his dad really had been was quietly disappointed, though he’d still offered to help out while they got their feet under them, offering them both jobs at the office because you can’t support a family on a musician’s salary, Jamie.

Which was currently true, yes, but it didn’t mean he didn’t have PLANS, okay?

Lily nudged him. “When’s the gig?”

“Uh, I think Pete said doors are at six? Sooo…”

“Five, got it.” She stood, brushing off her dark leggings. “Remus isn’t driving again is he?”

James suppressed a shudder; Remus was barely able to fit them and their gear in his beat-up Ford as it was, but adding in his habit of speeding and general disregard for traffic rules… "God, no. Pete's got the van back from his dad. No more TARDIS."

"Thank fuck."

They finished their cigarettes in companionable silence, stubbing the butts out in near unison. Lily held her hand out for his, tucking their discards into an old Altoids case she kept for just this reason, slipped back into the pocket of her hoodie. She stared down at her own body like she could memorize the shape, burn it into her brain.

James took her hand. "You gonna be alright playing tonight?"

"Yeah." She managed a brave smile. "I'll be fine."

She probably would be. Lily was tough like that — tougher than him at any rate.

He was about to ask if she wanted him to help her pack when something behind him caught her attention, green eyes widening in alarm.

She smacked his shoulder. "James, look." Pointed towards the other side of the bridge — or past it, rather, down to the riverbed below. "Do you see that?"

And yeah, he did.

Looking back, he's not sure what made him jump down there. A hunch, maybe. Instinct. But what he was sure of was the fact that when he reached the body that had washed up on the riverbed, legs still floating in the freezing water, that body was still somehow alive.

Lily called for an ambulance, put the dispatcher on speaker so he could walk James through CPR — just keep going till they get there — and he kept time by singing Another One Bites the Dust under his breath. Black humor if he'd ever heard it, protocol or not. He studied the boy's face, deathly pale as it was, framed by half-frozen ringlets of black hair, marred by a hellish bruise on his left cheekbone. A trio of tiny moles curved along his right. Familiar.

The paramedics came, got the boy stripped down and wrapped up in one of those little tinfoil blankets, looking more like a burrito than a maybe-corpse. But he was alive — for now at least. James hoped he'd make it.

The cops hung around, poked around the riverbed. Asked James and Lily for their statements, and no, never seen him before in my life.

It was Lily who voiced the thought nagging at the back of his brain, as he walked her home. "God, he looked just like Sirius, didn't he?"

-

They agreed not to talk about it for now — not because the cops had asked, but because it was bad enough half the band was involved to begin with. No need to freak everyone out over nothing. Because it was nothing. Probably.

Lily packed a few bags and passed them out the window to him, trying to get as much out as they could before her dad came home from work, and he squirreled them away in the spare bedroom across from his. Not because his parents had any puritan ideas about them sleeping in the same bed — no point now, anyway — but rather because he thought she'd like her own space, separate from his.

Pete picked them up at four, Sirius with his feet up on the dash, Remus half hanging out the window behind them like a lanky sheepdog with his stupid shaggy mullet and even stupider mustache that no one — literally no one — could pull off but him. He drummed his hands against the side of the door, grinning.

"Hurry the fuck up, Potter! Things to be, people to do—"

"I'll fucking bite you," James growled, staggering slightly under the weight of half his drum kit. Sirius jumped out of the front seat, coming round to take the cases out of his hands and shouting at Remus to get off his ass and help (which he did, swatting Sirius firmly on the ass as he passed.)

The gig was at some little dive bar in the city — one of those ones that actually had a stage in the back, not like the last time, Pete swore. They’d been stuck in a corner awkwardly for that one, like what the fuck is up Dennys kind of awkward, playing asses to elbows. They couldn’t play like that — Sirius, especially, needed room to breathe.

If you asked any one of them what they played, you’d get a different answer. Sirius would say what if jazz had teeth? Remus would give you about fifteen different subgenres no one’d ever heard of where one would suffice — like, seriously dude, what the fuck is Djent?. Lily would leave it at shit, I dunno, metal I guess. Peter called it progressive if people didn’t know genres, math rock if they did.

James just called it music.

They’d all been band nerds, and later jazz ensemble nerds, and most of them played five or six different instruments except for Remus, who played guitar. And anyone could be forgiven for thinking that made him the weak link of the band somehow — I mean the rest of them could all switch instruments at the drop of a hat, and did sometimes just for shits and giggles. But the truth of it was that they were all just dressing on the sides: Remus was the meat and potatoes. He worshipped at the altar of Tosin Abasi, studied John Petrucci til his fingers fucking bled. Sirius and Lily played guitar; Remus was a guitarist.

This wasn’t to say that they couldn’t keep up, of course. But no one was under any illusions. The crowds they’d been attracting came to watch Sirius and Lily because they played well and they were both insanely hot. But they came to watch Remus to see the face of God.

And sure, Remus could get a bit pretentious about music in general, but he never hogged the stage. Never tried to run away with songs, just kinda grooved in place and let Sirius live out his virtuosic wet dreams in the spotlight, let Lily prove that yes, bass does deserve to be heard, #justiceforjason. They were loud and brash and percussive and strangely symphonic. And James got to accompany them, got to sit there behind his kit and somewhere between the double bass and the high hats would find himself slipping into a rhythm with them as they just fucking jammed. For two hours.

The ride home was quiet, Lily dozing in the front seat with her head against the window. Sirius lay across the backseat, Remus standing in for his pillow, James his footrest. Neither of them minded.

"You've been quiet today," Sirius observed, eyes closed. James still knew it was directed at him.

"Yeah. Long day."

"Wanna talk about it?" he asked.

James caught Lily's gaze in the mirror. She sighed, leaning back against the headrest.

"I moved in with James today."

"I thought you wanted to get your own place first," Remus asked, frowning.

"I did," she allowed, "but I didn't really feel like growing a whole ass person by myself, so…"

The whole van went dead silent as three sets of eyes snapped to her face, Pete whipping around in his seat to gawk.

"Wait, what—?"

"Dude, eyes on the fucking road!" Remus shouted, kicking the back of the driver seat just in time for the rumble strip to prompt Peter back into the correct lane.

Sirius had taken the opportunity to sit up, pulling himself forward by the backs of both seats. "Hang on, are you really?" he asked her, wide-eyed, gasping as she nodded. He turned to look at James, beaming. "No shit?"

"Yeah," James said, suddenly feeling a bit shy.

Remus shot him a wicked grin. "Swim team captain, huh?"

James kicked him in the leg, earning a sharp jab himself, the two of them continuing to trade blows around a cackling Sirius until Pete let out a sharp whistle.

"Yo!" he snapped. "Keep that shit up and I'll turn this car around."

"We're on a bridge," Lily pointed out, laughing.

"Off the bridge then, I'm not fucking picky."

"Oooh, maybe we'll end up like that kid they fished out of the river earlier," Sirius said, stretching out on his back.

"Nah, he wouldn't kill us," drawled Remus, "right Petey?"

"Debatable."

"He wasn't dead," James muttered, shooting a dark look at his friends.

Sirius scoffed. "Yeah, okay. It was freezing this morning, no fucking way he survived."

No, he did," Lily agreed.

"How do you know?"

"Because James and I found him."

The questions came rapid-fire after that: when and why and what happened and yeah I guess you did have a long day, holy shit — you okay?

He didn't know, truth be told.

But he and Lily took turns telling the story, and James described the boy’s face, the way that, for a moment, he’d thought he’d dragged Sirius out of the river. And Sirius sat up straight at that, something fierce and hungry in his face that James didn’t recognize.

“Three moles along his cheekbone, like this,” he clarified, tracing a small triangle in the exact spot. “You’re sure?”

[t4tpolypd]

Hey guys i found this cool chunk of metal . Unrelated but lately I’ve been feeling really dizzy and vomiting a lot haha probably unrelated [experiencing acute radiation sickness]

[march32nd]

had a conversation with my best friend/loml about orphan sources which are like. sources of radiation that are kinda just,,, left there and forgotten about and then found later?

and how we both agree that we do not think we could resist for one reason or another, and that we should keep each other accountable in case we come across one of these in town because neither of us can trust ourselves to avoid it

anyway my friend concluded that we may not have horse girl energy per SE but we do really just act like we are in a fan fiction? and they told to post on Tumblr bc "my niche follower community would get it" so what do you think:

"troy and abed find an orphan source / angst / major character death / community /hurt/comfort / dead dove don't eat" is this anything

[nuclear-breakdown]

Orphan Sources

Humans are prone to misplace things. From car keys to a missing sock, lost objects are a part of our everyday lives. But what if the object was dangerous?

               In the beginning of 2023, headlines were made about how Australia lost a radioactive capsule. Lost radioactive material, known as orphan sources, are, surprisingly, not uncommon. BBC reporter Antoinette Radford writes in an article “Of the nearly 4,000 radioactive sources that have gone missing since the International Atomic Energy Agency started tracking them in 1993, 8% are believed to have been taken for malicious reasons, and 65% were lost accidentally. It is unclear what happened to the rest.”

               Radioactive and nuclear materials are not inherently dangerous. When handled with respect, the materials can power countries, advance scientific discoveries, and help stop cancer. But when accountability for such an important, and dangerous, material is not held with the highest degree of care, preventable accidents are bound to occur.

               While the Australian orphan source was found and properly handled without any known exposure over background level, this has not always been the case. In Goiânia Brazil, 1987, after a hospital closed, their radiotherapy unit was abandoned. Scrap metal dealing is a way to make money in Goiânia, so when two men came across the unit, they began to pick it apart. They found the source, but had no idea of the dangers it held. The cesium-137, a radioisotope, passed from person to person, everyone fascinated with how the powdered substance glimmered and glowed. But soon, the people who had been near the powder began falling ill. Doctors kept putting it off as a tropical disease. It took a while for the authorities to realize what was happening, but by then the contamination had spread across the city. 28 were hospitalized with radiation burns, and four passed away. The youngest victim was six years old.

               Both lifesaving and life ending, radioactive sources must be monitored with the highest degree of care. Efforts to eliminate any potential civilian contact is key if radioactive materials are to continue to be used.

It is unknown how many orphan sources are currently lost throughout the globe.               

[lunapwrites]

Segment the 4th in which I tried to combine all the previous bits.

It is long.

---

Looking back, James thinks some days should come with a warning label. Something to say: maybe stay in bed today. Try again tomorrow.

But that morning, he didn’t suspect a thing. Had no way of knowing.

He met with Lily first: their usual rendezvous point at the old bridge, legs dangling over the edge as they shared the last of his cherry PopTarts, the last of her cigarettes, the story of how the big news had gone over with their parents.

“Could have gone worse,” Lily said, sighing. Pursed her lips to wiggle her septum ring. “Mom cried a lot, Dad left the house, Petunia called me a slut… so, you know, normal Friday night.”

He winced. “If it helps, first thing my mom did was ask when you were moving in.”

Lily huffed out a laugh, flicking ash. “I love your mom. What’d your dad say?”

“Not much, really.” James shrugged. “He was happy for us, though.”

What his dad really had been was quietly disappointed, though he’d still offered to help out while they got their feet under them, offering them both jobs at the office because you can’t support a family on a musician’s salary, Jamie.

Which was currently true, yes, but it didn’t mean he didn’t have PLANS, okay?

Lily nudged him. “When’s the gig?”

“Uh, I think Pete said doors are at six? Sooo…"

“Five, got it.” She stood, brushing off her dark leggings. “Remus isn’t driving again is he?”

James suppressed a shudder; Remus was barely able to fit them and their gear in his beat-up Ford as it was, but adding in his habit of speeding and general disregard for traffic rules… "God, no. Pete's got the van back from his dad. No more TARDIS."

"Thank fuck."

They finished their cigarettes in companionable silence, stubbing the butts out in near unison. Lily held her hand out for his, tucking their discards into an old Altoids case she kept for just this reason, slipped back into the pocket of her hoodie. She stared down at her own body like she could memorize the shape, burn it into her brain.

James took her hand. "You gonna be alright playing tonight?"

"Yeah." She managed a brave smile. "I'll be fine."

She probably would be. Lily was tough like that — tougher than him at any rate.

He was about to ask if she wanted him to help her pack when something behind him caught her attention, green eyes widening in alarm.

She smacked his shoulder. "James, look." Pointed towards the other side of the bridge — or past it, rather, down to the riverbed below. "Do you see that?"

And yeah, he did.

Looking back, he's not sure what made him jump down there. A hunch, maybe. Instinct. But what he was sure of was the fact that when he reached the body that had washed up on the riverbed, legs still floating in the freezing water, that body was still somehow alive.

Lily called for an ambulance, put the dispatcher on speaker so he could walk James through CPR — just keep going till they get there — and he kept time by singing Another One Bites the Dust under his breath. Black humor if he'd ever heard it, protocol or not. He studied the boy's face, deathly pale as it was, framed by half-frozen ringlets of black hair, marred by a hellish bruise on his left cheekbone. A trio of tiny moles curved along his right. Familiar.

The paramedics came, got the boy stripped down and wrapped up in one of those little tinfoil blankets, looking more like a burrito than a maybe-corpse. But he was alive, apparently — for now at least. James hoped he'd make it.

The cops hung around, poked around the riverbed. Asked James and Lily for their statements, and no, never seen him before in my life.

It was Lily who voiced the thought nagging at the back of his brain, as he walked her home. "God, he looked just like Sirius, didn't he?"

—

They agreed not to talk about it for now — not because the cops had asked, but because it was bad enough half the band was involved to begin with. No need to freak everyone out over nothing. Because it was nothing. Probably.

Lily packed a few bags and passed them out the window to him, trying to get as much out as they could before her dad came home from work, and he squirreled them away in the spare bedroom across from his. Not because his parents had any puritan ideas about them sleeping in the same bed — no point now, anyway — but rather because he thought she'd like her own space, separate from his.

Pete picked them up at four, Sirius with his feet up on the dash, Remus half hanging out the window behind them like a lanky sheepdog with his stupid shaggy mullet and even stupider mustache that no one — literally no one — could pull off but him. He drummed his hands against the side of the door, grinning.

"Hurry the fuck up, Potter! Things to be, people to do—"

"I'll fucking bite you," James growled, staggering slightly under the weight of half his drum kit. Sirius jumped out of the front seat, coming round to take the cases out of his hands and shouting at Remus to get off his ass and help (which he did, swatting Sirius firmly on the ass as he passed.)

The gig was at some little dive bar in the city — one of those ones that actually had a stage in the back, not like the last time, Pete swore. They’d been stuck in a corner awkwardly for that one, like what the fuck is up Dennys kind of awkward, playing asses to elbows. They couldn’t play like that — Sirius, especially, needed room to breathe.

If you asked any one of them what they played, you’d get a different answer. Sirius would say what if jazz had teeth? Remus would give you about fifteen different subgenres no one’d ever heard of where one would suffice — like, seriously dude, what the fuck is Djent?. Lily would leave it at shit, I dunno, metal I guess. Peter called it progressive if people didn’t know genres, math rock if they did.

James just called it music.

They’d all been band nerds, and later jazz ensemble nerds, and most of them played five or six different instruments except for Remus, who played guitar. And anyone could be forgiven for thinking that made him the weak link of the band somehow — I mean the rest of them could all switch instruments at the drop of a hat, and did sometimes just for shits and giggles. But the truth of it was that they were all just dressing on the sides: Remus was the meat and potatoes. He worshipped at the altar of Tosin Abasi, studied John Petrucci til his fingers fucking bled. Sirius and Lily played guitar; Remus was a guitarist.

This wasn’t to say that they couldn’t keep up, of course. But no one was under any illusions. The crowds they’d been attracting came to watch Sirius and Lily because they played well and they were both insanely hot. But they came to watch Remus to see the face of God.

And sure, Remus could get a bit pretentious about music in general, but he never hogged the stage. Never tried to run away with songs, just kinda grooved in place and let Sirius live out his virtuosic wet dreams in the spotlight, let Lily prove that yes, bass does deserve to be heard, #justiceforjason. They were loud and brash and percussive and strangely symphonic. And James got to accompany them, got to sit there behind his kit and somewhere between the double bass and the high hats would find himself slipping into a rhythm with them as they just fucking jammed. For two hours.

The ride home was quiet, Lily dozing in the front seat with her head against the window. Sirius lay across the backseat, Remus standing in for his pillow, James his footrest. Neither of them minded.

"You've been quiet today," Sirius observed, eyes closed. James still knew it was directed at him.

"Yeah. Long day."

"Wanna talk about it?" he asked.

James caught Lily's gaze in the mirror. She sighed, leaning back against the headrest.

"I moved in with James today."

"I thought you wanted to get your own place first," Remus asked, frowning.

"I did," she allowed, "but I didn't really feel like growing a whole ass person by myself, so…"

The whole van went dead silent as three sets of eyes snapped to her face, Pete whipping around in his seat to gawk.

"Wait, what—?"

"Dude, eyes on the fucking road!" Remus shouted, kicking the back of the driver seat just in time for the rumble strip to prompt Peter back into the correct lane.

Sirius had taken the opportunity to sit up, pulling himself forward by the backs of both seats. "Hang on, are you really?" he asked her, wide-eyed, gasping as she nodded. He turned to look at James, beaming. "No shit?"

"Yeah," James said, suddenly feeling a bit shy.

Remus shot him a wicked grin. "Swim team captain, huh?"

James kicked him in the leg, earning a sharp jab himself, the two of them continuing to trade blows around a cackling Sirius until Pete let out a sharp whistle.

"Yo!" he snapped. "Keep that shit up and I'll turn this car around."

"We're on a bridge," Lily pointed out, laughing.

"Off the bridge then, I'm not fucking picky."

"Oooh, maybe we'll end up like that kid they fished out of the river earlier," Sirius said, stretching out on his back.

"Nah, he wouldn't kill us," drawled Remus, "right Petey?"

"Debatable."

"He wasn't dead," James muttered, shooting a dark look at his friends.

Sirius scoffed. "Yeah, okay. It was freezing this morning, no fucking way he survived."

"No, he did," Lily agreed.

"How do you know?"

"Because James and I found him."

The questions came rapid-fire after that: when and why and what happened and yeah I guess you did have a long day, holy shit — you okay?

He didn't know, truth be told.

But he and Lily took turns telling the story, and James described the boy’s face, the way that, for a moment, he’d thought he’d dragged Sirius out of the river. And Sirius sat up straight at that, something fierce and hungry in his face that James didn’t recognize.

“Three moles along his cheekbone, like this,” he clarified, tracing a small triangle in the exact spot. “You’re sure?”

James nodded. Sirius pulled out his phone, and called his parents.

(“— Do you think you could — thanks, I know it’s late, but — you don’t have to wake Mom up for this, it’s — I know, I just — yeah, no, we’re still an hour out —”)

Remus had reached over, taking his hand, running the pad of his thumb over Sirius’ knuckles. Lily was chewing her nails, Pete white-knuckling the wheel, alternating between watching the road and watching Sirius in the rearview mirror.

James waited.

“Mim’s gonna check for me,” Sirius explained, slipping his phone back into his pocket.

“Mainland?” Pete asked, and Sirius nodded. “I can drop you off if you need. You don’t have to worry about your stuff, we’ll handle it.”

“Thanks. I’ll let you know.”

The rest of the ride back to town was quiet, a silence only broken by a single text notification — [fwip] “senzu bean!” — and Remus grousing gently that he really needed to change that as Sirius swiped his lockscreen, his face briefly illuminated.

“That offer still open?” he asked quietly.

Pete glanced back. “Yep.”

“Good,” Sirius said, “cuz it’s him.”

—

The thing about Sirius was that James didn’t really know about Sirius — not really. He’d known Pete since they were picking each other’s noses at age three, known Lily since seven — long enough to know her parents should have divorced ages ago. Remus and Sirius showed up attached at the hip at the ripe old age of ten, sharing two moms and not a drop of blood between them, half in love with each other even then. But while Remus had come preloaded with a tragic backstory he liked to evade, if Sirius had one he simply didn’t remember it.

[lunapwrites]

Segment the actual-fifth

In which I had tried to rewrite it all properly with more of a narrative voice and then lost steam way faster.

Anyway, this is the last one. Promise.

-

I: ORPHAN SOURCE

n.; a self-contained radioactive source that is no longer under regulatory control.

“See that guy knock himself out on the railing?”

Sirius is in fine form tonight, grin wide and white, a half-forgotten joint pinched between his fingers.

Lily wrinkles her nose at him, wiggling her septum ring. “What, the jagoff doing spin kicks in the crowd?” Sirius snorts, and she rolls her eyes. “Yeah I saw him — get fucked.”

Remus throws his head back, sending a stream of smoke into the air. “Wre-ecked,” he croaks, then coughs. James can’t help it — he laughs.

Peter flicks his lighter, takes three tries, then takes a drag. “He didn’t hit anyone, I don’t think,” he muses around his cigarette — no pot for Petey tonight, he’s driving. “Frank would have thrown his ass out if he had.”

“Like a fuckin’ javelin,” Remus pipes up again, miming throwing a spear, woosh. “Right out the fuckin’ window.”

“Serve him right,” Lily adds, not done yet because of course she’s not. She’s tying her hair into a topknot, scowling. “It’s a fucking metal show, not an MMA fight; get that Naruto-ass shit out of here.”

This of course prompts Sirius to start doing that stupid little run, arms straight out behind him as he runs down into the parking lot, and, well, James can hardly let him go it alone. He runs out after him, making nonsensical hand signs and pretending to blast Sirius off his feet. And Sirius, quick as ever, pretends to get his absolute shit rocked, sound effects and all.

You’d think they’d be tired after performing for two and a half hours, but they’re all fucking amped. They always are, takes hours for the adrenaline to fade, for James to feel the burn in his arms and calves, for Remus to register that his fingers are bleeding again. Tonight’s no different.

They’re a bit of a motley crew, the five of them. Former band nerds — later jazz ensemble nerds — who loved music enough to want to get weird with it. If anyone asks them what they play, they all give different answers. Lily calls it prog; Sirius, jazz with balls. Remus rattles off about fifteen different subgenres no one’s ever heard of — James still isn’t sure what a Djent is and at this point he’s afraid to ask. Peter keeps it simple: metal.

James just calls it fun.

They pile into Pete’s van, stubbing out their cigarettes and putting out their joints. Lily calls shotgun and James slips in behind her, and Sirius stage-dives across his lap, landing with his face on Remus’s upper thigh. He twists around, snuggling in like a Labrador looking for belly rubs.

"Keep it PG over there," James warns, and Sirius moans dramatically. No one pays him any mind; they’re all used to it by now.

Lily gets carsick about ten minutes in. She hangs her head out the window, breathing through her nose deep and slow while Pete begs her not to puke in his car.

“Technically,” Remus says, “she’s puking outside.”

He’s always saying that sort of shit — technically and actually and if he was anyone else James thinks he might hate him a bit. Thinks they all might. But somehow, no one who ever meets Remus wants to punch him in the face. He’s got a little je ne sais quois that warms people right up to him, inures him to most consequences. Like a puppy pissing on your favorite shoes. You just can’t be mad.

Sirius is like that, too, but in a

IN A WHAT, LP???? WHAT WERE YOU TRYING TO SAY???????? [shakes brain like a busted vending machine]

The only other thing I had on here was the title section for the second chapter:

II: ISLAND OF INVERSION

n: a region in the chart of nuclides where isotopes have enhanced stability in a sea of mostly fleeting and unstable nuclei at the edge of the nuclear map

[lunapwrites]

Relevant to all the bits and bobs I posted last night, here's the playlist (because of course there's a playlist, who do you take me for)