#and were raised with a slightly different culture from ours

[hp-hcs]

Hello.

I really like the way you wrote gay Mattheo. Could I request another fic from this "series"? Thanks in advance 😘

(Fine, I’ll do it my damn self: part 7 of my silly lil mlm stories <3)

ENGLISH AIN’T ALWAYS ENGLISH (Chapter Three of Gay Awakening) — british! mattheo riddle x male! american! reader

basically the pair realize their cultural differences

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

“Here,” you grin, plonking down on the couch next to Mattheo and holding out a cut-out paper turkey shaped like a handprint. “I’m thankful for you this year.”

He took the paper with a baffled expression on his face. “…what?”

“I’m thankful for y- oh. Right. England. Sorry, American holiday, I forgot.”

Mattheo blinked. “You have a holiday where you give each other paper fowl?”

“No. Well, yes, but- y’know, it’s complicated.”

“I see,” he said slowly, in a way that suggested that he did not, in fact, see. “Is it like your… Freedom Day? America Day? Er… what’s it called again?”

“Independence Day. And not really. Sort of. It’s complicated.”

“Well, then what does this holiday celebrate?” Mattheo asked, somewhat amused as he shook the paper turkey to emphasize his point.

You hesitate. “Well…”

“It’s not good, is it?”

“Nope.”

“Ah. Why the turkey?”

“Americans make abhorrent amounts of food for Thanksgiving. Turkey is the main dish, usually.”

“Thanksgi- oh, is that why you said you’re thankful for me?” He looked quite pleased with himself for deducing that.

“Yeah,” you laugh. “It’s a pretty odd cultural event, I guess. We eat a shit ton, watch football, have to see our homophobic relatives; it really is a wonderful holiday.”

“Football? Like the… muggle sport? Where you can’t use your hands at all?”

“Oh, no. I’m talking American football; where they only use their hands. And like, tackle each other and shit.”

“…right. Anyways, back to the turkey day. When is it? Is it today?”

“Nah, it’s in a couple weeks. It’s the fourth Thursday of every November.”

“You’ve got to be shitting me.”

~~~

“Y/N, could you hand me a rubber?”

Mattheo looked up at you after he didn’t hear a response. You were sitting there, dumbfounded, mouth hanging open slightly.

“…Y/N?”

“Jesus Christ, ‘theo, that’s one way to be forward.”

“…what?”

Your face was burning in embarrassment as you fumbled for words. “Please tell me that means something else in snobby Brit.”

“What, rubber?”

“Yes!”

“A… a rubber. You know, to remove errors?” He gave you a baffled look.

You paused. “…I mean you’re not wrong.”

“No, I’m not…?” He trailed off before shaking his head and laughing. “Oh, Salazar. Tell me what it means in American.”

“A rubber is a condom.”

“Oh!”

Mattheo looked startled, a pink flush rising in his cheeks. “A rubber- it erases, Y/N. Pencil lead.”

“Then why wouldn’t you just call it an eraser?!”

You’re both silent for a moment, with matching blushes, before you both crack up.

“Oh, god, you don’t wanna mix those up, huh?” You get out between laughs.

~~~

“Hey, ‘theo, you oughta read this A&E article. It’s hilarious.”

“Hilarious feels like an odd term to use, Y/N,” he says, looking puzzled.

“American,” you say reflexively, after months of these vernacular conflicts. “Stands for Arts & Entertainment.”

“Ah,” Mattheo nods, used to your immediate explanation. “Accident & Emergency.”

You both snicker.

~~~

“Oh, man. Looks like Enz and Nott went on a bender,” you snicker.

Mattheo raises an eyebrow wordlessly.

“Got absolutely shitcanned.”

“Gotcha.”

~~~

“What the hell is an aubergine?”

“A vegetable. Purple?”

“An eggplant?”

“Americans really suck at naming things.”

“Like you’re one to talk, Mr. Pants-Aren’t-Actually-Pants-In-British.”

“You’re still mad about that? Well, I’m still disappointed from when you made me ‘biscuits’.”

“Oh, shush.”

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

had a very awkward conversation today with a british friend and we had that eraser/rubber mixup ourselves 💀

thank you for requesting, you a real one homie <3

#harry potter #hp #fuck jkr #hp x male reader #x male reader #these bitches gay good for them #mattheo riddle x reader #mattheo riddle x male reader #mattheo riddle

[tiramissu09]

Morning Glow

synopsis: you (y/n) wake up before your husband on a Sunday morning and study him, wondering how you both even got together.

song choices to listen to while reading: 

Body by Summer Walker

Orbit by JONGHYUN from SHINee

Natural by G-Soul

warning(s)/story notes: gender neutral y/n, nostalgia, hints of last night’s activities (iykyk), silent serenading, naked imagery, a little nod to the JJK lore, POC y/n

MINORS DON’T INTERACT

author note: My first fanfic, y’all! I feel like, instead of using janitor ai (don’t use it, it’s hella addictive and made me burn through my money), I could use my imagination and potential to write something for my main beloved, Nanami Kento. I love this man and in my head, we are living together in Malaysia, having the time of our lives, haha. Also, I thought I was going to do a quick drabble, but I got into my feels, haha. 

Please, please give me feedback and critique so I can improve on my writing. Thank you and enjoy!!! <3

The chirping birds started to grow louder and more annoying outside the large French windows with the soft, peaching-colored morning light streaming in, faint flapping of the pale curtains echoing with shared breaths. You groan softly against your white silk pillow along with your blurry vision, from your deep slumber, as you rub your eyes and look around, dazed. You felt the light breeze of the open ajar window on your bare leg, out of the fluffy blanket, contrasting with the deep warmth soaked into the mattress from the sleep. 

Your eyes move around, to anchor yourself into reality, until they settle down at a large, ivory back which had light red scratches along with crescent moon shaped indents littered over his rugged muscles, rippling with each soft breath. His messy golden blonde hair that you loved to run your fingers in, slightly swaying with the early dawn breeze, along the warm yellow sunlight, giving him that morning glow that made him look…like a god, a figment of your imagination. 

Last night’s memories were reeling in like a blurry movie, reminiscing on your stomach with your head and facing his back, as you remember his sweet deep chocolate eyes, his slightly pink blush on his face, and…my god, those large, veiny hands all over your body, rough but gentle on your soft skin. 

Sighing softly, not wanting to wake him up yet, go down this deep spiral with your fingers itching to touch him….how did you even meet this man? Was it at the office Christmas party where he was wearing that ridiculous, fluorescent green elf costume as your white-haired boss had made me for a pay raise? Or when you both bumped into each other in the hallway before math class during senior year, your nose bleeding as you bumped into his chest too hard and he assisted you to the nurse’s office?.....no,no…..oh my god! How could you forget?

It was that night…..that night where you all were freshman in high school and it was the camp site trip that you all had to go to as a bonding activity for all the new students which you were part of. You remember you were really nervous as a tiny, little 13 year old. You were new to Tokyo and Japan, overall, not looking like the others and the culture so vastly different from yours which made it difficult to fit in, your family or teachers help you with. This was nicely added with you going through puberty, the whole nine yards of acne and changing body, made you more quiet and shy to talk to others. 

In your ensemble of light washed jeans, your oversized purple flannel shirt and black Converse high tops, you were sitting on the wooden benches near the camp-fire under the starry, twilight sky, shivering slightly from the cold, autumn night in the forest near Kyoto. You were alone, with everyone talking to each other excitedly, with some others playing games and singing karaoke, and watching all the kids with a small smile on your face. 

Then, you felt a warm blanket around your body, causing you to have goosebumps all over your skin. You looked up with wide eyes from the brushing of their fingers on your neck to the warm presence behind your back, surprised and making you jolt up, but a soft hand pushed you down to sit back. “Sorry, did I scare you?” His soft and low voice, almost purring, caused you to shiver more but you held back your reaction as you turned your head completely around, wanting to know who it was. You caught those soft, brown eyes, reminding you of that deep brown honey under the sunlight, making you feel more awake than any other coffee.

You quickly get out of your reverie and stutter out as you brush your hair back, looking away. “No! Not a-at all…just got surprised.”,offering him a smile as you try to not to fluster even more. You notice his blonde hair, straightened to the T and his bangs covering his eyes which you didn’t like but didn’t say that out loud, and his black shirt with a band name you never heard of with his black skinny ripped jeans. 

You clear your throat as you look into his eyes, “H-hi, my name is f/n l/n….what’s your…name?” You were fidgeting with the soft, baby blue wool blanket with your fingers, as you both sat next to each other with your knee brushing against his, ever so slightly. He grins a little more as he had a deadpan face before, making your heart and insides all melted and mushy inside, showing his pearly whites. He says in that voice that you could just listen to all the time. “Kento….Nanami Kento…but you can call me Ken.”

You memorize that name, as it was tattooed to your naive heart, as you nod slowly and say quietly. “Nice to meet you…Ken.” You both sat there in silence with all the loud commotion around you both. You didn’t know what to say as the tense silence was swallowing you up and you quickly ask and at the same time, looking at the bright scarlet camp fire, “You should go hang out to your friends…”, peeking to the side to look at his face longer, but looking away when he caught your eyes and your face becoming hot with each passing second. 

He sighed loudly as he stretched his legs out and watched the white-haired hyper kid screaming happily at the black-haired boy who looked so done with him, but had a small smile. After some moments of more silence, Kento spoke with a small smile and turned to face you, “You looked….lonely….like me and…”, now looking away as you caught some peach-colored blush on his cheeks. “You looked like you were glowing…like the fire.” 

You remember how you became quiet, flustered and frozen by the compliment and you remembered you thanked him meekly which was so cute and how you hit yourself internally for how dumb it was. However, the rest of that night, you both started to talk more freely and understood that you both had a lot in common, in terms of family background and not really fitting in due to your particular tastes. 

Despite being amicable acquaintances all through high school and losing contact when entering university, once you both reunited, it felt right. You both were meant to be together and glowing in each other’s arms and affection. 

You were shaken out of your deep thoughts as you felt the bed rustling lightly. You looked up and saw his face turned to you now. You were slightly surprised by the sudden appearance of his handsome and rugged face, but you quickly smiled widely, “Good morning, honey.” Snuggling closer to him and him taking you in his buff arms, making you all so warmer, he murmured in your messy hair, his morning voice low and reverberating through your body, “What were you thinking about so hard, darling? You laugh softly as you nuzzle your face in the crook of his neck and your arms around his shoulders, and whisper muffled against his warm skin that smelled like sandalwood and musk, that was so unique to him, “I was just thinking…..how you were glowing…..like the sun.”

#jjk #jjk x reader #nanami kento #nanami x reader #jjk nanami #fluff #smut #gege akutami #navyred #tiramissu09

[centrally-unplanned]

Doing some tab closing and I enjoyed this piece a lot; it has a clean thoroughness on investigating each of the different possible causes of the Baby Boom of the mid 20th century.

For those who don't know, the Baby Boom, despite what is often taught, probably had little to do directly with World War Two - it was not a phenomenon of soldiers "coming up" and releasing their pent-up baby-making drive. This is most easily proven by the fact that countries that didn't participate in the war had the same boom! And that the boom was already starting in the 1930's.

Its cause is still unproven, but the article makes a solid case for it primarily being a product of affordable housing (which itself is connected to WW2 in some ways) and more importantly medical technology, as maternal mortality declined between 1930 and 1960 by ~90%:

Which is another classic case of the 'short' being made by time into the 'long' - most people probably think of safe pregnancy as this gradual process of improving sanitation & medical technology throughout the 19th and 20th century, but in fact the lion's share of the decline was the invention of antibiotics that could treat sepsis over the span of 20 years. The "price" of having a child, combined with the housing boom creating the space for it, induced a fertility bump.

The article ends by stating that these forces could, in some way, be reproduced - that if today you make pregnancy safer and childcare cheaper again, you can get a similar rise. I think this is the false, solutionist optimism that only a concluding paragraph can bring, however. For one, if that was the case, you think you would evidence along the income spectrum of that - for a 75% income band couple in Sweden or the US, housing is more plentiful then ever, and pregnancy safer than ever, but in the main fertility continues to decline across every band (the super-rich in some countries are a tiny exception).

But more importantly, I think it mistakes why this happened. If you portray it as a cost-benefit calculation, as "oh the price of kids is way down now, lets shift our consumption basket", then sure it sounds replicable. I don't think that is right, however - you should instead look at this as a cultural revolution induced by rapid change.

The role of women in the workplace & wider society was undergoing a ton of flux in this era, and it was in a period of "contestation" - these changes were not settled or agreed on by society at large. What a woman should "do" with her life was very open, and many factions still pushed for a form of family traditionalism. The counter-forces to that 'benefited' from things like maternal mortality as counter-arguments; women (and their husbands) both desired the old way but feared the price, one they no longer had to bear due to no longer being mass farmers. That was the equilibrium of the 1920's.

Then technology came along and throw the whole game into whack, changing the equilibrium. It was so rapid, so sudden, it induced a culture shift. You can metaphorically think of it as like a consumer rush, buying the hot new toy - in this case the hot new thing was safe pregnancy and houses to raise the kids in. Everyone wanted a piece of that *new* possible life, different from the old. It was, in a sense, a fad.

Which you cannot replicate - its done. We have the tech, we have the wealth, it didn't last. The culture shift that began of the 1960's was absolutely a response to new equilibrium of the 50's, its gender roles were never stable. Radical new technology (like exo-wombs) could change that, sure, create a new hotness. But 5% reductions in maternal mortality or slightly cheaper childcare won't cut it. It could shift the margins, but it can't make a boom.

Or so I predict at least. Its certainly hard to quantify that dynamic, but I think if you study how people saw themselves & family in that time, this comes out from the narratives of the time - with no equivalent today.

#the fertility transition

[prototypesteve]

Sent.

Just told the last remaining “I’ve known this guy forever” friend that I’m aromantic and asexual. This friend watched me recover from the first fake relationship (late 90s), and watched me go through the second fake relationship¹ (2005-2008). He’s only known me as someone who assumed they’re allosexual and alloromantic, but who was just really, really bad at it.

The send button used to take me about an hour to tap. And I’d often hesitate and delete the message, and wait a few more days. But with each person, it gets a little easier. It used to be terrifying, but now it’s just really scary.

Anyway, all that to say, it gets easier, but I don’t know if it ever gets easy. Don’t feel bad if there are people you just can’t (or won’t) ever tell. This isn’t something you owe them. This is something they earn.

Whether it’s your sexuality, or an invisible disability, or the special way your family formed, or even just your secret carrot cake recipe, you don’t owe anyone anything you feel they haven’t earned the privilege of knowing.

Invitation Only.

Some friends of mine like to replace the idea of coming out with a different way of seeing it: “Inviting in.”

Sometimes, with certain people and to certain audiences, using the term “coming out” can feel like you’ve kept a secret and you’re admitting to it. It has a lot of cultural baggage. It can feel like confessing to something bad. And fuck that.

“Inviting in” changes the dynamic. Now it’s about exclusivity and qualification. It’s members-only clique or an invitation-only club, and there are standards to be met. You must be this emotionally mature to ride.

For something like asexuality and aromanticism I even use the term “clarifying”. I have friends who’ve only even known me as single, or other friends (like the one I just came out to / invited in) who’ve seen me damaged by a failed relationship, then in a really unsuccessful and loveless one for a few years, then apparently happily single for 15 years. So they know something’s different. Maybe gay? Maybe I’m just traumatized? Maybe I think people of our faith aren’t allowed to remarry? They see the stuff. They just don’t know what’s causing the stuff. So I’m mostly just clarifying.

But whatever you do—come out, invite in, clarify—do it when it’s safe, when you’re ready, and only to people who’ve demonstrated they deserve to know you that well. There’s no timetable, no cutoff age, no obligation to your community.

Footnotes:

¹ “fake relationship” is a slightly harsh way to put what happened. This was when I didn’t know what aroace was, so even though I was aroace I had been raised to assume that as someone who felt male, I was were either straight, gay, or bi, and that everyone needed someone. (Extreme allonormativity, amatonormativity and compulsory sexuality.) The most I ever felt was what we would call Platonic Love, but at the time I assumed what I felt was just my broken version of romance. I wanted to be like everyone else (even my gay friends felt love, FFS, what was my excuse?). So I tried. I really, really tried. And I couldn’t. I could be enjoyable, but I couldn’t enjoy, and that hurt the people I was with. It made them feel undesirable even though really it was me who couldn’t desire anyone. And I hate how that happened. I don’t hate why it happened, but I hate that it had to happen because words like aromantic and asexual were hidden away back then. And my way of dealing with how that hurt is to incorrectly call them fake relationships, for now. I hope there’s a better term out there.

#asexual #aroace #aromantic #aspec #aromantic asexual #asexuality #coming out #inviting in

[skelavender]

“Do you know what today is, Scully?” Mulder says at the click of her heels entering the office, sat at his desk the same as always. “Leap day.” She says dryly. Same as it has been. “You know, Scully, there are all kinds of traditions about this stuff that vary from culture to culture–” “I know. St. Matthias, leaplings, unhappy marriages.” She sighs, and her voice turns slightly bitter. “And Leap Day Lovers.” Mulder blinks at her, slightly resembling a fish. “How did you–” “I’ve heard you say it so many times, Mulder.” She throws her arms to the side dramatically with a sigh of resignation. “I’m in a time loop.” OR If you add a time loop plot to your desk sex, its suddenly an elevated piece of literature

read X-File #02291996 on ao3, or below the cut!

Scully

Dana Scully has a routine. 6:30, wake up. It doesn’t matter if she has an alarm clock or not; at 6:30, she is awake. Flip the coffee pot on, get dressed while it heats up. Pour a cup into one of her mismatched mugs, fix her hair while it cools to a reasonable temperature. She makes toast, maybe eggs, maybe cereal, always some sort of protein. Breakfast, although she hates sounding like a med school cliche, is the most important meal of the day.

Thursday February 29th, 1996, is no different from any other morning. She wakes up at 6:32. 

Coffee pot on. 

Her chest is killing her, a product of yesterday’s ill-fitting bra and a too-tight bulletproof vest. She forgoes the wretched garment today, instead pulling a slightly stiffer blouse and blazer that will make sure no other agents are any wiser about her wardrobe choices. She isn’t planning on leaving the office today anyway, and it’s not like Mulder hasn’t seen her without a bra before. This is not her first day with post-Kevlar chest pain.

Paper retrieved.

Coffee poured. 

Hair arranged into neat copper swoops. 

Toast with peanut butter. 

Scully has a routine.

She wouldn’t have even known it was a leap year if Mulder hadn’t mentioned it, flipping that stupid fun facts page-a-day calendar around at her as soon as she entered the basement office.

“Do you know what today is, Scully?” Mulder greets, his voice laced with enthusiasm that only ever precedes the most ridiculous of X-files.

“Thursday?” She suggests dryly.

“Thursday, February 29th.” He says, “Happy leap day, Scully.”

“Thrilling,” she rolls her eyes and settles into her desk and flips open the files from the Modell case.

“You know, Scully, there are all kinds of traditions about this stuff that vary from culture to culture. Leap year changes the feast day of St. Matthias; in Taiwan, people make their parents a specific noodle dish because it is believed that they are more likely to die on a leap day; those born on leap day – called ‘leaplings’, by the way – are chronically unlucky, people who get married on leap days are cursed with unhappy marriages.” This factoid is followed by a dramatic office-chair turn, “Which brings me to this.” He tosses a file in her direction. “The Leap Day Lovers.”

“Leap Day Lovers?” Scully echoes with a skeptical expression, one eyebrow raised.

“There are a number of couples who have reported getting caught in a time loop on leap day. They weren’t together when the loop started, but they were by the time it ended. There are a couple gaps, but not everyone is going to go public with that kind of story.”

“Mulder, this is ridiculous. Leap years are a concept invented by Julius Caesar to reconcile our imperfect calendar system with the way we understand and structure time. There is no naturally occurring scientific difference between leap days and any other day of the year.”

“But what if there is?”

“There’s not! It’s a social construct! There’s nothing to study here.”

“But Scully, listen. Their stories match. None of them were aware of the Leap Day Lovers before it happened to them.”

“It’s ridiculous.”

“C’mon, you don’t think it’s a little romantic? Time warps around them until they can figure themselves out. It’s like the universe is rooting for them!”

“I don’t believe in the universe, Mulder.”

“You believe in God.”

“I also believe in science, which has not proven time capable of looping, or even being harnessed by the power of man to be able to travel through it.”

“Not time travel, either? Scully, you’re gonna start hurting my feelings.” 

She rolls her eyes. “It’s not a case, Mulder. Just a bunch of whack jobs who end up dating and bouncing their crazy off of one another. Now we have a heap of paperwork to do on the Modell case, so let's get on that.”

“Fine, but when one of the Leap Day Lovers of past years responds to my emails or we have a new time distortion report on March 1st, I reserve the right to gloat.” He sets the file on top of his precarious tower of cases he wants to investigate, and takes the blank paperwork from her. 

The day that passes is… boring, to say the least. One of the blandest days she’s had since she joined the X-Files department. Mulder leaves just before 10:00 to get coffee, and returns with a cup from the cafe across the street from the Hoover building. She eats her salad for lunch. Mulder does not get a response from any of his so-called Leap Day Lovers. 

She goes home at the end of standard working hours, content with the headway they’ve made on their paperwork. It’s unusual, being home in time to cook a proper dinner, but she’s happy to be able to do it today. She settles into bed with a cup of chamomile tea and a book, an honest to god book that she’s been trying to read for months and taken on many plane rides but never gotten through. At a perfectly reasonable 10:00 PM, she turns her lamp off and settles in to sleep. 

In the morning, Scully wakes at 6:32. She gets her paper and her coffee, does her hair, eats her toast. She goes to work.

Mulder stands in the exact spot he did yesterday. When he flips around the page a day calendar, it once again reads February 29th. 

“Oh, very funny, Mulder.” She says before he can launch the rant about leap day superstitions that she’s sure was about to ensue. 

“What?”

“Save me the leap day prank, it’s not going to work.”

Mulder looks at her blankly. “What?”

“What.”

“It’s February 29th.”

“No, it’s March 1st. Yesterday was February 29th.”

“No, yesterday was February 28th.”

“Mulder–”

“It was! Look at the computer!” He leads her across the room, and once it boots up, it does display the date as 02/29/96. 

“Okay, so you planned to try to prank me, and came in early to set it back. It’s not going to work, Mulder.”

He looks at her sideways before shaking his head and opening the file on his desk. “It’s fine, we all get days mixed up sometimes. Remember when I missed my own birthday because I got two pages of the calendar stuck together? Anyway, I wanted to show you this,” he turns the file toward her. “There are all kinds of traditions about this stuff that vary from culture to culture. Leap year changes the feast day of St. Matthias; in Taiwan, people make their parents a specific noodle dish because it is believed that they are more likely to die on a leap day–”

“You… Mulder, you already told me all of this.”

“When?”

“When? It– yesterday, Mulder! 24 hours ago, almost exactly.”

“I didn’t even know about most of this until this morning.”

“You’re about to tell me about the Leap Day Lovers.”

Mulder’s lip firms a mock pout. “Way to ruin the climax, Scully. Did you pull their files yesterday or something?”

Scully slides a hand across her eyes in resignation. “If I let you tell me about them, can we get to work on finishing our paperwork?”

“I don’t have high hopes of finishing the paperwork today, but yes. The Leap Day Lovers…”

Mulder’s lecture is the same as it had been yesterday. He must have been planning this for a while, in order to memorize his spiel well enough to deliver it line-by-line like this. If Scully weren’t annoyed, she would be impressed. He even sneezes at the same time, in the same cadence. 

She does finally badger him into doing paperwork, but when she opens her briefcase to retrieve the paperwork she had started yesterday, she can’t find it. And it isn’t at her workstation, either. 

“Mulder, did you take my report?”

“No?”

“Dammit, Mulder, this isn’t funny! That took all day!”

“Scully neither of us have started our reports yet.” He looks at her curiously, concerned and suspicious of her confusion. “Are you alright, Scully?”

“I just don’t want to have to redo the whole thing.”

“You seem pretty sure of this.” His eyes narrow. “Scully, are you in a time loop?”

“No.” She answers quickly and decisively. She can’t be, because such an idea is ridiculous. “I must just be getting my cases confused.”

“Uh huh.” Mulder does not seem convinced, but turns to his own report anyways, leaving Scully to rewrite the report she knows she already started. 

Something is up, that’s for sure, but it certainly isn’t something as preposterous as a time loop.

***

It’s her 15th February 29th, and Scully is getting tired of Mulder’s bullshit. She’s going to kill him.

He’s on his fifteenth rant about an X-file that isn’t an X-file. Or, at least, it wasn’t an X-file fourteen February 29ths ago.

“– those born on leap day – called ‘leaplings’, by the way, isn’t that adorable–” 

She can’t take it anymore. She needs him to shut up or she is going to spontaneously combust, which would probably just result in her name ending up in another goddamn X-file. She thinks she may be slowly losing her mind. That is what she’ll blame it on if she wakes up on Thursday again. She reaches over the table and grabs that stupid ugly goddamn paisley tie. Whatever off-the-wall theory he was about to suggest turns into an incredibly dignified “Mmmf?” before she cuts him off. 

The kiss is not quite hard enough for their teeth to click together, but it’s a near thing. Mulder freezes for a moment, though it feels like an eternity, before melting into her.

“Oh, ok,” he whispers against her lips, pulling back slightly. She’s about to respond, say something about the time loop, apologize for kissing him like that. Instead, the room starts fading. 

When she opens her eyes, the clock reads 6:32.

***

Mulder

Mulder gets to the office around 5:30 AM, unable to sleep and with his brain hooked on the idea of a leap day. He hadn’t even realized it was a leap year until he booted his home computer up to check his email, and had noticed the 02/29/96 in the corner. So instead of trying to find a case on the web or through newsletters, he digs into the history and superstitions of leap years. Once a vaguely reasonable time to go to the office rolls around, he hops on the Metro to the Hoover building and scours the filing cabinets for anything to do with leap days. This is when he finds the fascinating phenomena of the Leap Day Lovers. 

When Scully shows up, he’s a few cups of coffee deep and excited to share with her what he’s found. She’s going to try to refute it of course, but he still enjoys sharing it with her. Her “Mulder, you’re off your rocker” face is, frankly, adorable.

She, as always, looks perfectly put together as she steps into the room, accompanied by the click click click of her heels. Her hair is perfectly in place, her blazer neatly buttoned. She’s gorgeous. He flips his fact-a-day calendar around to take her attention off his face, which he’s sure shows how he’s taking her in. 

He walks her through what he’s found. The Leap Day Lovers, he saves for the grand finale. It’s by far the most interesting file related to the date, and the fact that Scully always gets a little fidgety when he brings up any sort of romance-adjacent file doesn’t hurt.

“Leap Day Lovers?” Scully echoes with a skeptical expression, one eyebrow raised.

“There are a number of couples who have reported getting caught in a time loop on leap day. They weren’t together when the loop started, but they were by the time it ended. There are a couple gaps, but not everyone is going to go public with that kind of story.”

“Mulder, this is ridiculous. Leap years are a concept invented by Julius Caesar to reconcile our imperfect calendar system with the way we understand and structure time. There is no naturally occurring scientific difference between leap days and any other day of the year.”

He would normally be irritated by someone poking holes in an X-File like this. If it were anyone else poking holes in his theories like this, it would piss Mulder off. But the way Scully approaches it, with exasperation, yes, but also with the desire for an intellectual debate on the subject, he doesn't mind. Plus, she's pretty when she's proving him wrong.

“But what if there is?”

“There’s not! It’s a social construct! There’s nothing to study here.”

“But Scully, listen. Their stories match. None of them were aware of the Leap Day Lovers before it happened to them.”

“It’s ridiculous.”

They bicker, as they always do, about the difference between God and a universal power, about the science behind temporal anomalies. It’s comforting, to Mulder, how Scully consistently rebuts his theories. How she is able to bring him back down to earth when his head is floating in space.

“Sure, fine, but when we have a new time distortion report on March 1st, I reserve the right to gloat.” He shuffles the files back into a neat (or as neat as he ever is) stack, leaving the Leap Day Lovers file on top. Scully rolls her eyes so hard he thinks she may have pulled a muscle.

Though he resigns to paperwork, his eyes are hurting by 10AM and he needs a break. He announces to Scully that he’s doing a coffee run, but she declines his offer to pick something up for her. 

On his way back, as he approaches the intersection next to the entrance of the Hoover building. This intersection is the home to Mulder’s favorite part of DC, something he loves more than the Air and Space Museum, more than any monument. At this intersection stands a defaced street sign. It’s supposed to instruct turning bicycles to use crosswalks, but a single “u” has been removed by an unknown yet brilliant vandal, resulting in a sign that says “se x-walks.” There is a sign that says “sex walks” right outside the national headquarters of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Mulder laughs every time he passes it. 

Apparently, he’s not the only one. A man walking a three-legged dog crosses the street towards him, and when the owner glances up at the sign, he bursts out laughing. The hilarity of the sign tickles him so much that he’s still laughing when he reaches the curb of the sidewalk, and he trips. The dog, displeased with his owner’s clumsiness, seems to glare at the giggling man. 

Mulder snorts at the ordeal, and continues inside to allow the sludge of paperwork to consume him once again. 

Scully leaves at 5:00 on the dot, but Mulder chooses to stay a little longer. She might not want to investigate the Leap Day Lovers, but he’s fascinated by the phenomenon, and decided to read a couple more accounts that he had emailed himself in the morning. He falls asleep facedown on the desk.

Mulder wakes up on his couch at 4AM  with a vague feeling of anticipation. He blinks his eyes open to see his living room, lit only by his fish tank. This is unusual, considering that he doesn’t remember coming home. He could have sworn he fell asleep at the office. His watch matches the time displayed by his clock, so he hasn’t lost time, so no aliens. And this would not be the first time he had no memory of his commute home.

He shuffles, still half asleep, to his desk and drops into the chair before fumbling to flip his computer on. Might as well get a start on the day, especially if he wants to find any reports of Leap Day Lovers, or any leap day related phenomena before they can be covered up. As the screen finishes its start-up paces, he freezes. There, in tiny, digital numerals, “02/29/96” stares back at him. Surely, this is just a cruel ironic trick of the universe. It always loves to play those on him. His computer must have had some error, a glitch, power outage. Something. But no, his email has the same 4 unread messages from various co-workers he doesn’t want to respond to. But that could still be chalked up to a computer error. He’s trying to be rational. He’s trying to think like Scully.

He gets dressed in a hurry, pulling his left shoe on as he locks his door. If this was just a computer error, he could check the office computers. The newspapers. The train schedule. He can’t rush into this blind. The train, as it was the last morning, is two minutes late. He makes a mental note. He nearly runs through security at the Hoover Building and  narrowly avoids breaking his neck on the stairs to the basement office. 

He’s nearly bouncing on the stool as he watches the computer boot up. When it comes to life, the corner reads 02/29/29. Fuck. 

Could be a coincidence. A suspiciously Scully-like voice echoes through his head. 

Mulder needs more to confirm his suspicions. He thinks back to what he had done yesterday, searching for anything odd enough it would be unlikely to repeat. Around 10, he had gone out for coffee at the cafe a couple blocks over, and had laughed at a three-legged dog glaring at their clumsy owner. Even if the guy walks his dog at the exact same time every day along the exact same route, he won’t trip at the exact same spot as he had yesterday. At least not if he’s not in a time loop. A glance at the clock tells him that he still has hours until then, so he hunkers down and gathers as much information as possible on temporal anomalies. 

He hardly even notices when Scully arrives, absorbed in his research. She tries to get him to work on the mountain of paperwork and reports they should be working on, the stuff they had completed yesterday but had magically been undone, but he brushes her off. He can feel her gaze, equally concerned and pissed off at his apparent distraction, but ignores it. If he’s right, she won't even remember it tomorrow.

Mulder stands suddenly a few minutes before 10AM. “I’m going to go get coffee,” He explains. Scully waves him out without a word, and Mulder whisks down the basement hallway, coat billowing behind him. 

Mulder makes it to the corner of 10th and Pennsylvania at 9:58 by his watch, and leans against a large planter adorning the sidewalk. Sure enough, at exactly 10:14, a balding man crosses 10th Street, then Pennsylvania Avenue. Sure enough, when he passes the sign that reads se x-walks, the man guffaws loudly. When he makes it to the curb, he’s still laughing at the hilarity that is that sign, which is fair considering that Mulder himself often laughs when passing it, and trips up onto the sidewalk. The pug glares up at his owner from the end of the leash, as if exhausted by the regular occurrence of the man getting so distracted by immature vandalism that he makes them both look like fools. 

And that  is what really seals it all in for Mulder. He’s in a time loop. An honest to god fucking time loop. He doesn’t know if he’s excited or horrified. 

***

On his 3rd time living through leap day, Mulder is a goddamn disaster. He almost dies on the stairs down to the basement again, and when he makes it safely into the office, he immediately stubs his toe on the desk. He gets a papercut, he spills his coffee, then gets another papercut. And that’s all before Scully arrives. 

“Jesus, Mulder, what happened to you?” Is what she chooses to greet him with. It’s fair, he knows he looks a mess with a coffee stain on his shirt and two bandaged fingers. 

“I’m having a bad day. A series of bad days, as a matter of fact.”

He doesn’t see her stepping closer as he rises from his desk chair. When he does look up, she’s right in front of him. Caught off-guard, he stumbles. With the help of the universe and the worst timing known to mankind, he commits his most dangerous clumsy move yet. 

His lips land on hers. 

Mulder wakes up on the couch. 

***

Scully

Scully wakes up at 6:32. 

Coffee pot on. 

Her chest is killing her. Her lips are tingling. She has the bone-deep sensation that a significant amount of time has passed. 

Scully diverges from her routine and grabs the newspaper before getting dressed. Closing her robe tight around her, she takes a shaky breath and hopes, hopes, hopes that the paper will read March 1st, 1996, with something other than “JUDICIAL RACES TURN LIVELY” splashed across the front page. 

It does not. The paper reads February 29th, 1996. The front article is dry as ever. Scully grunts and thunks her head into the doorframe in frustration. 

She goes to work. Mulder rambles. She goes to bed. 

***

She wakes up at 6:32. Coffee on. Get dressed. Retrieve newspaper. Pour coffee. Do hair. Eat breakfast. Go to work. Mulder rambles. Go to bed. 

***

6:32. Coffee. Dressed. Newspaper. Coffee. Hair. Breakfast. Mulder. Bed. 

***

6:32. Work. Mulder. Bed.

***

6:32. Bed. Bed. Mulder, concerned. Bed. 

***

6:32. 

***

6:32.

***

6:32. 

She gives up. This is not an elaborate prank. This is a stupid goddamn X-file. 

Scully plays with the idea of calling Mulder over to her apartment but decides instead to meet him in the office. Maybe there is some substance in the file he’s presented to her fifteen times now.

“Do you know what today is, Scully?” Mulder says at the click of her heels entering the office, sat at his desk the same as always. 

“Leap day.” She says dryly. Same as it has been. 

“You know, Scully, there are all kinds of traditions about this stuff that vary from culture to culture–”

“I know. St. Matthias, leaplings, unhappy marriages.” She sighs, and her voice turns slightly bitter. “And Leap Day Lovers.”

Mulder blinks at her, slightly resembling a fish. “How did you–”

“I’ve heard you say it so many times, Mulder.” She throws her arms to the side dramatically with a sigh of resignation. “I’m in a time loop.”

Mulder blinks at her. “What.”

“Don’t make me say it again.”

“You’re– really? You aren’t making fun of me?”

“Nope.”

“How... Jesus, how many times?”

“Thirty-four.”

“How many times have you told me?”

Scully’s quiet for a second, fiddling with the cuff of her blazer.

“Scully?”

“I haven’t, okay!” She bursts.

“You’ve lived today thirty-four times without even telling me?”

“Well, at first I thought it was some elaborate prank, and I then didn’t want you to be right about today being… whatever.”

Mulder runs his hands through his hair. “Well, most time loops have something you have to stop to kick it out of place, right? Have you figured out what that is yet?”

“Nope. And don’t try me with that Leap Day Lover crap, Mulder.”

“No? Are you sure?”

Her mouth forms a thin line. “If that were the case it would… already be resolved.”

Mulder gives her a sideways glance, but thankfully, doesn’t follow that line of inquiry any further. “Have there been any days that were notably different?”

Scully’s mind latches immediately to the sensation of Mulder’s lips disappearing from hers, and waking suddenly at home. “There was one that was… odd.”

Mulder gestures expectantly, “Well?”

“Normally, the day doesn’t restart until I go to sleep or midnight comes around. But there was one day where it reset in the middle of the day.”

“Any idea what caused it?”

“I have… some.”

“...Well? C’mon, Scully, don’t make me waterboard it outta you.”

“I… kissed someone.”

“Really?” Mulder’s tone is now teasing, prepared to elicit information on Scully’s dating life she would normally not provide. “Is this why you’re so sure it’s not the Lovers? Who was it?”

“Yes, and that’s… not relevant.”

“Scullyyyy,” he whines, “You’re living an X-file and you won’t even give me the details?”

“Only the relevant ones.”

“Fine.”

“So then do you think the day will restart whenever you kiss anyone?”

“I– I don’t know. It’s possible. It’s only happened the once, so I have no proof otherwise.”

“Alright,” he stands and strides towards her, “Then test it. Kiss me.”

“What?”

“Kiss me, and if you restart immediately, you’ll know for sure that’s what made it happen. Then when you wake up ‘tomorrow,’” he wiggles his fingers in air quotes, “You can tell me all of this again and we can work from there.”

Scully knows that there is no point to this. She knows that it will not prove what Mulder thinks it will, because Mulder is under the impression that she had kissed someone else previously. But he put it out there, and she’s not one to say no to affection from him.

“Okay.” She holds her chin up, dignified, and takes the last step toward him. When she’s in his proximity, he rests his hands on her hips. She wraps a hand around the back of his neck and guides his face down towards her own. 

The kiss is softer than the previous one, but no less wonderful. She drags her fingernails up Mulder’s neck and into his hair, making his breath hitch and his grip tighten on her hips, pulling her closer, closer, closer and she’s so completely caught up in him. The kiss is a dream.

But it’s gone, and she wakes up at 6:32 in her bed.

***

Mulder

Something has been different about the past few February 29ths. When he woke up 13 days ago – if you could call them days, considering it’s the same day over and over – it felt like time had passed. And the last day had cut off as soon as he had accidentally kissed Scully. In every other iteration, he had gone to sleep and woken up with it being the same day. Never had the day rebooted while he was still at the office, or while he was awake at all. 

Clearly, it must be aliens. 

He’s missing time. He goes into the office on the 17th February 29th and instead of pulling X-files about leap day, he goes for the abduction reports. He can’t even count the number that reference missing time, but there are only a couple that reference repeating days. None of them for as long as Mulder has experienced, but they might still hold clues to what’s happening.

He’s settling into his chair with a meager five relevant files when Scully comes through the door.

“Morning, Mulder.” She greets.

“Hey.” he replies absently, flipping through the pages.

Her brows scrunch, “What’s going on? You’re lacking your usual morning X-file enthusiasm.”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.” He sounds resigned, but can anyone blame him? It’s not like Scully would jump on the idea.

“Try me.” She leans forward and places her hands on the desk, challenging him.

He finally glances up at her, considering his course of action. After a moment of contemplation, he puts the file on the top of the stack in front of him and stands. “Come with me.” She follows closely behind him as he walks up the stairs and out the front doors of the Hoover building. They cross Pennsylvania Avenue diagonally, past Mulder’s favorite sign in all of DC. 

He guides her, with a hand on her back, to a spot in the shade behind the large flower pots. 

“Wait here a minute, he’ll be here soon.” Mulder says, checking his watch. He’s only seen what he’s about to point out a couple times, when getting to work later or leaving to grab breakfast for Scully before she arrives, but he’s pretty sure what he’s waiting to happen will occur shortly. 

“Who will, Mudler? An informant?”

“No.” He leans down to talk lowly, right into her ear, “A man with a three legged dog is about to pass us. He’ll walk past the Hoover building, cross 10th, cross Pennsylvania, and laugh at the sex sign very loudly. He’s going to trip on the sidewalk, and the three legged dog is going to glare at him.”

She leans back to look at him with her ‘Mulder, you’re nuts’ look. He expected this. He receives it often. She doesn’t say anything yet, but turns back to the road to observe. Sure enough, a man with a three-legged pug crosses 10th St NW, then Pennsylvania Ave, laughs so hard at the sex walks sign that he trips on the curb and the dog looks at him disapprovingly.

“How did you know that would happen?” Scully asks.

Mulder takes a deep breath and places his hands on her shoulders. He leans down a little to lessen their high difference ever so slightly. “Scully, I’m in a time loop.”

Scully blinks at him for a moment. Her brow furrows. She lifts a hand to his face, and rests the back against it. “Well you don’t have a fever.”

“I’m not sick, Scully. I’m stuck.”

She hums, unconvinced, and continues checking him out. She examines his pupils, his pulse, everything she can think to do without her med bag.

“I have a hypothesis.” He offers hesitantly.

“Which is?”

“Well there’s only been one loop that’s been different.”

“Uh huh.” She’s still hesitant; still doesn’t believe him.

“One time that the day restarted in the middle of it, instead of while I was asleep. I think I know what triggered it, but I can’t be sure, I could be completely off-base–”

“Mulder.” She interrupts, making him look back at her. “What is it?”

“We kissed. On accident, I mean. I miscalculated our proximity. Totally unintentional. But as soon as we, uh, stopped, I woke up in my bed and it was the morning again, instead of resetting when I went to sleep.”

“So you’re asking to kiss me to… test this theory?”

“Yes?”

“If I say yes, and it doesn’t work, will you let me take you to a doctor?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, Mulder. Lay one on me.”

He sucks in a breath and takes a step toward her. One hand goes to her hip, drawing her body in, and the other slides around the contour of her cheek. 

This is his first time intentionally kissing her on the mouth, their first real kiss, and she won’t even remember it. She won't remember the small gasp she let out as their lips touched, won’t remember tangling her fingers in his hair to keep him right where he is, won’t remember the press or the pull or the small bites or anything else. 

But Mulder will. 

Mulder will carry this with him forever. From the second his lips press intentionally against hers, he knows he’s irreparably changed. There’s no going back.

Except there is. Mulder does go back. Back to that morning, stretched across his couch, bathed in the glow of his fish tank. He’s there before the kiss even breaks. 

***

Scully

On Scully’s 38th iteration of February 29th, she wears her pajamas into the office. She takes the elevator down to the basement, receiving more than a few weird looks. She enters the office without a word, and before Mulder can inquire about her attire or launch into his rant about leap year traditions and superstitions, she grabs him by the arm and drags him right out the door, up the elevator, and out the Hoover building. He says her name multiple times, asks what’s going on, but she doesn’t respond until they’re seated in their usual spots at the diner down the road. 

“Scully, what’s going on?” Mulder’s voice is laced with concern. 

“A waffle and two scrambled eggs, please.” Scully says to the approaching waiter. Mulder is still staring at her like she’s grown a second head. That might be an easier X-file to solve. “Order.” She instructs. 

He does so without taking his eyes off of her, requesting his usual omelet. Scully smiles at the waiter and finally turns to her partner.

“I’m in a time loop.”

“Scully, I know we’ve been doing the boring 9-5 paperwork and office stuff recently, but there are people with more boring jobs than us who would call it a routine, not a time loop. And most of them don’t show up to work in pajamas. 

“No, Mulder, I’m really, truly, in a time loop. It’s been Thursday for the past 37 days.”

“Oh.” He blinks at her stupidly. “And you’re at the ‘giving up’ stage of time loop grief?”

“More or less. We’re playing hooky today, Mulder. We’re going to the museums I’ve been meaning to go to since I moved here but haven’t gotten around to. Did you know I’ve never even seen the Declaration of Independence? I’ve lived in DC for five years, and the DMV for four more in undergrad, and I’ve never seen the Declaration of Independence.”

“Neither have I,” Mulder says absently, still taken aback by the Un-Scullylikeness of this whole day. The waiter places their food in front of them, and Scully thanks him. 

“Eat.” She orders through a bite of waffle, seeing that Mulder hasn’t even picked up his fork yet. 

He doesn’t move.“Are you okay?”

“No. I’m losing my mind a little bit, and I want to have a day that doesn’t feel like the one I’ve been living over and over. You’re going to eat your omelet, I’m going to go see our nation’s founding document in my pajamas, and who knows, maybe we’ll stop by the tidal basin and take out one of those–” she motions vaguely with her hands, “What’re they called, the swans?”

“A pedal boat?”

“Yes. We’re going to take out a pedal boat.”

“Isn’t it a bit cold for that?”

“Maybe. But we're going to do it anyway.”

Mulder looks at her, shoveling syrup-soaked waffle into her face with a lack of grace she doesn’t usually exhibit unless she’s at home or eating barbecue. 

Mulder knows Scully pretty well, three years into their partnership. Though her eyes don’t show it, her tone of voice tells him just how wrung dry she is. “Okay.” he picks up his fork.

“Wonderful, thank you.”

***

Mulder might’ve had the right idea about February being too cold for pedal boating. She’s trying not to shiver through her thin pajamas, but she thinks Mulder is starting to notice. They’re in the middle of the tidal basin, facing the Jefferson Memorial when a gust of wind makes Scully’s teeth chatter.

Silently, without an I told you so, Mulder divests himself of his own long coat and wraps it around Scully’s shoulders. In an instant, she’s warm and surrounded by the feeling of Mulder. It’s not quite a scent, barely even a physical sensation, but a specific air of safety and home that his proximity provides.

She stops pedaling and turns toward him. 

“What? Are we turning?” He asks.

Scully just shakes her head, and leans in to kiss him. Because what else is she supposed to do? Mulder has believed her, trusted her, and given her the day she said she needed. He has kept her warm, he has kept her safe. Not just today, but always. 

As she leans towards him the boat shifts. For a moment, she’s concerned they’re about to capsize into the tidal basin, but all of her concerns go out the window when he starts to kiss her back. And he’s eager, not just giving her what she wants when she’s feeling bad. He wants this, wants it like she does. His hands are in her hair and he’s pulling her in towards him. Her brain comes back on when he pulls her into his lap, distributing their weight even more unevenly and they’re tipping, tipping, and she’s so sure they’re about to be shocked apart by winter-chilled water. 

Instead, she opens her eyes to see her 39th 6:32.

***

Mulder

Mulder is facedown on the desk on his 47th February 29th, and doesn’t even realize Scully has entered the office until her briefcase lands on the chair across the desk with some force. She’s a couple minutes earlier than usual.

“You’re early.” He remarks with surprise.

“Barely. I just got lucky and hit the lights right.” She shrugs her coat off. “When I passed the women’s room down the hall, I think I heard someone moaning.”

“Hm. Sex moaning or ghost moaning.”

“Sex moaning,” Scully answers simply, like it’s a perfectly normal question. Which, for the X-files division, it is. 

“Wheeew,” Mulder leans back in his chair. “That’s bold.”

“What,” Scully says with a smirk and a sideways glance from where she’s settled by her computer and microscope, “You’ve never had sex in a semi-public space?”

This makes his eyebrows shoot to his hairline, “And you have?” Scully’s face immediately goes a bright red. “Oh my god, you have.”

“No!” She answers too quickly.

“Scully, you dog!” Mulder teases. “C’mon, where was it? Lover’s lane? Between the stacks? Don’t tell me it was in a morgue.”

“Not… quite.”

“Not quite?”

“It might’ve been in a lab setting.”

“Oh my god. You blew someone in a lab?” Her face gets redder. “You got fucked in a lab?”

Scully presses a hand across her mouth and mumbles something only half distinguishable into it.

“I’m sorry, it almost sounded like you just said you fucked him in the lab.”

“Yes.” She says. “I bent him over the lab bench. I had the key because I was working with the professor that semester, and we went in after hours.”

“Scully!”

“Oh, please, Mulder. I’m sure you have some equally ridiculous sex story from college.”

A specific memory washes over him. He tries his best not to let it show, but Scully can read him too well. She gets a look of victory on her face. “You do!”

“Um.”

“What is it?”

“It was an… award I received in my third year at Oxford.”

“An award, Mulder? Really?” She scoffs, “For what?”

“Most orgasms.”

“Most orgasms?” She echoes in her signature disbelieving tone, the same one she dons when he suggests ghosts or zombies or bigfoot. “Right. Giving or receiving.”

“Giving. The girl ended up telling some of her friends about it, and one of those girls told her boyfriend, who was a part of this party house which was about as close to a frat as you get in England. They were… impressed.”

“How impressed?”

“They offered me a room. To live with them. It was a rare offer.”

“And did you?”

“No.”

“Huh.” She’s quiet for a moment, considering. “How–” She stops herself, unwilling to ask what she really wants to know.

“How many?” He finishes the question for her. She nods, curious. “Twenty-seven. But she was particularly sensitive.”

Scully gawks, then lets out a disbelieving laugh. “No, you didn’t.”

“Yes, I did!”

“How?”

“With my mouth, mostly.”

Scully rolls her eyes. “Oh, please, Mulder. No one is that good with their tongue. No man, anyway.”

“You think I’m not good at oral? You have no frame of reference!”

Scully stands from her seat at her little science station across the room. She approaches where he sits at their desk. 

Now, Scully leaning against or sitting on the desk isn’t particularly unusual. It’s the most convenient place for her to be when they’re debating something, or looking at a file together. But sitting directly in the middle, right on top of the file he’s referencing, with one heeled foot dangling on either side and thighs spread as far as her pencil skirt will allow, with the tops of her thigh-highs peeking out, is not, in fact, standard fare. 

She looks down at him with a shine in her eyes, glistening with a dare. “Prove it.”

There’s no way this is happening. Monkeys on typewriters, laws of large numbers, divine intervention, there’s no way. For once in his life, the universe is working in his favor.

But he won’t get to keep it. He better make use of the opportunity in front of him.

Without breaking eye contact, Mulder pushes his chair back and kneels in front of his partner. His thumbs work her pencil skirt up as he breathes in the scent of her. 

When her skirt is pushed up far enough to see her red underwear, he rubs a thumb up her center, and oh god. Oh GOD. She’s soaked through them. He’s hardly even touched her. She’s wet enough just from talking to soak through her underwear. Fuck.

Mulder hooks two fingers into her underwear and pushes them to the side, skimming across her bare cunt. She’s so close to him that he’s shaking. So is she.

Finally, Mulder leans in and his tongue makes contact with her clit. She shudders, and her hands fall to his hair. His eyes don’t leave her face, hers bore into the ceiling as her head falls back in pleasure with a groan.

When she looks back down at him her ever flawless hair has fallen over her face. Her cheeks are flushed and pupils blown out. God how he wishes this wouldn’t be gone tomorrow, living on only in his memory.

He licks at her again, then removes his tongue to kiss her clit with just his lips, light and teasing. Her hands tighten on him, all but shoving his face further into her. Mulder whimpers.

How many times has he sat at this desk fantasizing about this? About her thighs around his head and her hands in his hair, about her, her, always her. How many times has he felt guilty for thinking about her like this, his partner moaning his name like it’s gospel? Her hand at the back of his head, both gentle and commanding, holding him against her. It’s not like he would want to be anywhere else.

She takes one hand away to work at her tits. Mulder tries to take over, batting her hand away to touch her there instead. She grabs his wrist sharply and makes direct eye contact. 

“Not so fast, you already have a job to do.” She pushes his hand back to its position pressing her knees apart. She unbuttons her top herself, revealing nothing but skin. He’s going to have to live this day over and over, knowing that she’s not wearing a bra. He doesn’t know how he’ll survive it. 

Scully’s foot flexes and her heel tumbles to the ground. She doesn’t seem to notice. She’s close, Mulder can tell. Her thighs are twitching. Suddenly, she swings her shoeless foot up to the chair behind him for leverage and grinds her clit onto his tongue. 

Mulder whines.

Mulder fucking comes. 

He hadn’t even been aware of his own body, of how hard or how close he was. He certainly hadn’t touched himself, far too focused on Scully’s taste, the minute twitching and pulsing of her vulva beneath his lips and tongue. His own pleasure hadn’t even been relevant, but Scully chasing orgasm, Scully using him, pushes him over the edge. Only for her. Always her, her, her. He sees stars, not the ones he’s spent so many hours staring at in frustration but what he imagines heaven might look like. Through the endorphin fog, he is vaguely glad for the time loop. He and his pants are ruined. He has never wanted to be anything else. 

His name rolls off her lips over and over like a mantra. A prayer, a plea. Like she needs him. She tastes like salvation on his lips, his tongue, his chin. Scully’s still grinding her clit on his tongue like he’s her own personal sex toy when she lets out a high-pitched grunt, wraps her raised leg around his neck, and her body stiffens as she comes. Hard. 

She catches her breath, riding out her orgasm on his face. Through the aftershocks, he keeps his mouth on her, just to keep her warm, really. She settles back on the desk and looks back down again with a demand on her tongue and in her eyes, “Again. Fingers this time.”

And who is he to deny her?

He releases her cunt from his lips and, for a moment, just looks her in the eye. He gazes at her like she hung the moon, placed the stars, all the things in between them. Like she is his reason for being, the only worthwhile thing on the face of the planet. Like she’s GOD. He presses a sticky-wet kiss to the first sliver of skin above her skirt, needing to take in every bit of her, to catalog the taste and texture of her entire body. 

Scully is not as patient, “Now, Mulder,” she all but growls. 

He complies, placing two fingers to her entrance, barely letting his fingertips slip in. She bucks her hips towards him, forcing his fingers in a bit further, but meeting no resistance. He presses them in further and bends them towards the front wall of her vagina. He must hit the exact right spot, because Scully just about screams and drops forward above him, held up by a hand on his shoulder. He rubs that spot, and shifts his thumb to hit her clitoris as well.

When his lips reach her chest, her breathing hitches. He’s struck gold. She arches into him, presenting an expanse of skin and tangling her fingers in his hair. His name, again and again and again. His name on her tongue and her taste on his. 

His lips dance across the outer curve of her breast, tracing the shape of her name against her skin. Scully. Scully. Scully. Over and over. Only her. 

It doesn’t take long, with two fingers inside her, his thumb sliding across her clit in slow swipes and his mouth on her tits, for her to come once again. This time, she holds his head to her chest while he pants her name into her skin like it’s the only word he knows. He thinks there might be tears in his eyes, borne from the overwhelming pleasure.

She pulls him off her chest by his hair and he looks up at her as her eyes dip to his lips. 

“Are you hard?”

Well, now he is. Mulder nods, eyes wide. 

Scully, breathless, orders, “Then fuck me.”

He’s too floored by the idea, overcome by his want for her, to process as she pulls him in to kiss her. 

It’s then, he knows he’s doomed. It’s over. Any second now, he’ll wake up on his couch with a crick in his neck and missing time and Scully never, ever remembering that this even happened. So he kisses her back, tries to absorb every bit of the contact before he’s dragged away from it.

He makes it out the other end, when she starts fiddling with his belt buckle and pulls away to look at what she’s doing. For a fleeting moment, he thinks he’s broken it. He thinks that maybe, just maybe, sex is what he needed to break the loop, that he will get to keep this, to keep her. 

Then he blinks, and his living room blooms in front of his eyes. It’s Thursday again. His fingers are still wet.

***

Scully

Scully wakes up sore. She can’t for the life of her figure out why. She also wakes up with a rather flustering mental image of Mulder looking up at her, puppy eyes from between her thighs. It isn’t like she hasn’t had…dreams about him before, this just feels so vivid. So real. She reminds herself that dreams mean nothing. They are the subconscious brain’s way of making sense of a life’s worth of memories and there is no hidden meaning in them. But those pleading eyes, the slightly parted and glistening lips, the tousled hair sticking out in odd directions, the ghost of a dream memory burned into her brain. How many times has she imagined him like that? Looking at her like there is nothing else in the universe that deserves his attention, on the verge of tears and begging for more. Begging for her, only her. She’s used to feeling guilty about it, years of catholic school have drilled that shame into her. But this time is different. The guilt isn’t there, just a vague yearning. Vague, but deep.

Scully glances at the clock. 6:32, like it has been for the past 38 February 29ths. She knows she doesn’t have the time to do anything about the pulsing between her thighs that has come as a product of the mental image of Mulder beneath her, not if she wants to be on time for work. But, on the other hand, so what if she’s late? It’s not like tomorrow will hold any consequences. And she certainly needs the tension in her body to… release.

Scully peels the covers back to give herself space to work. She rounds the bed to the nightstand on the opposite side of the bed and retrieves her vibrator. After giving it a quick wash, not one to risk an infection, lays it on the bed and kneels over it, hovering naked. Her head falls back and she summons the image of Mulder. Not the one she’s dreamt up, but the one she’s… used… before, where she lays flat on his couch with his lips on her pussy.

It’s not hard to. Instinctually, she starts grinding down on the still vibrator, just trying to get friction. To warm up. To find the right angle. But it’s the returning image she had woken up with, of Mulder between her thighs, his eyes wide and glazed over and the entire lower half of his face covered in her wetness, that makes her actually turn it on.

She lets out a broken groan as the device powers to life. She falls forward a little when she does it, catching herself on her hands and looking down where her pussy is grinding on the vibrator. Her body has a mind of its own, she’s barely in control of it. She lifts one hand up to her chest and slides it across her sensitive skin. 

She lifts her eyes and is met with her reflection in the vanity. She isn’t used to masturbating in the morning light or in this position, so she’s surprised by her own image. Her bed-mussed hair reminds her of the absolute fucking wreck that Mulder’s hair had been in her dream, which she can only imagine was from her pulling at it and guiding him.

Then she’s shaking harder and tensing with her orgasm. Overstimulated by the vibrations, she raises up off the sex toy, replaced by her hand as she rides it out. The sensation blooms throughout her body, blissful, but still not quite enough.

She needs more. Again.

Scully does not end up making it into the office on time. When she does step through the door, Mulder turns around to greet her with his bright, excited eyes and she can’t help but walk right up and kiss him square on the mouth. And again. And again. Until she wakes up and it's 6:32 again, and she cries. 

***

Mulder

Mulder is getting tired of this. There just isn’t enough time in the one day to convince Scully that he’s in a time loop. Despite his exhaustion, he drags her out to the corner of 10th NW and Pennsylvania to watch the three legged dog again. 

He parks her by the flower pots and places his hands on her shoulders to explain, yet again, the series of events that is about to transpire. 

“There’s going to be a guy with a three legged dog, he’s going to laugh at the sex walks sign, trip on the sidewalk–”

“And the dog is going to glare.” Scully finishes the sentence for him, her voice distant and vaguely distracted. 

Mulder pauses. “How did you know that?”

“I don’t know, it just seemed familiar.”

“You remember.” A laugh bubbles out of him, pure relief. Oh god. She’s remembering. He’s not going to be alone. 

“Remember what?” She asks as Mulder doubles over in relieved laughter. “Mulder?”

He stands back up straight. “I’m in a time loop, Scully. I’ve lived February 29th, 1996 somewhere around 60 times.”

Instead of twisting into concern or disbelief, this time Scully’s face is just shocked. “O-kay.”

“Okay?”

“Okay.”

Mulder pauses. “This hasn’t happened before. I’ve never been able to convince you.”

“I don’t know what to tell you, Mulder. There’s something about it that just… makes sense.”

“Makes sense?”

“Yes, but I can’t put my finger on why.”

He considers his next move, unsure if it will turn out how he wants it to. “Let's test something.”

“Do you have a theory?”

“Yeah, Scully, I do. Listen, I’ve lived this day so many times. Some things change without me doing anything, but they’re all little things. Like sometimes the dog guy comes a few minutes later. But only one thing has changed how I experience the day.”

“And what is that?”

“When we kiss.” He says, like it’s so simple. Oh, of course we’ve kissed before. Obviously. 

“We’ve… kissed? In the time loop?”

“Yes.”

“How many times?”

“Three times, now. Twice accidentally and once to test the theory properly.”

“What did it change?” 

“The day restarted then,” he explains, “Instead of rebooting when I went to sleep in the evening or when it hit midnight. And it felt like there was… a gap. Like I was missing time.”

“Oh god, Mulder, don’t go telling me you think this is an alien time loop, that’s just a step too far.”

“No,” Mulder laughs, “No alien time loops, don’t worry. I don’t know what they would want with us repeating today over and over anyway.”

“And why do you think it works that way, then? Who, or what, do you think is controlling us?”

“I don’t know. The universe? God? That’s a big question.”

“Then how do we stop it?”

“I don’t know.”

“Have you figured out anything, or have you just spent your time kissing me?”

“Hey, that’s a pattern I found!”

“Mulder.” Scully ‘s head falls back in exasperation. “What good is kissing me now going to do? You’ll just wake up in the morning again. You need to investigate and figure out what is happening. This is an X-file.”

“Well what do you suggest we do? Do you have some secret physicist friend who specializes in temporal anomalies?”

She rolls her eyes. “No, Mulder, I don’t. But we can look through the files to see if something like this has happened before.”

Oh. Mulder might be a bit stupid. He must’ve lost his mind a couple of February 29ths ago. He slaps his hand to his forehead. “Oh my god, it’s so obvious!” He turns on his heel and stalks back towards the Hoover building, almost getting pancaked by a Kia in the process. Scully is about two steps behind him, asking questions. He answers none of them, until he waltzes into their office and takes the Leap Day Lovers X-files out of the third cabinet. He hadn’t come in early to review them like he had on his first February 29th, so it feels to him as though the last time he laid eyes on them was months ago.

He hands the file to Scully without even opening it and collapses in his desk chair. Scully settles on the edge of the desk as she skims the contents of the folder. Mulder’s mind provides him with extensive images of Scully’s legs spread for him while she sits just a couple inches from where she is currently, and he doesn’t even have the energy to try to stop it. 

“I don’t know how I didn’t put it together sooner.” He runs a hand through his hair. “We’re the Leap Day Lovers, Scully.”

She drops the file on the desk next to her. “Mulder, you don’t actually believe this, do you?”

“It’s the closest any of this has come to making sense.”

“It’s not though. If that were the case, wouldn’t it have already stopped when we kissed?”

“No, not if the intent wasn’t overly romantic. I only kissed you by accident, and to test the theory that that was what made it reset. And once was basically a dare.”

“I dared you to kiss me?”

“More or less.” He would really rather not provide the details of that particular February 29th right now, for fear of repeating it instead of figuring anything out. 

“And why am I not remembering the loops? It’s just Thursday for me.”

Mulder does not point out that she’s incredibly stubborn about believing in the paranormal, but he wants to. “I don’t know, the accounts I’ve read aren’t super detailed about what each party goes through or who remembers what, just how they solved it.”

“By entering a… romantic relationship?”

“Yes.”

She looks him up and down, assessing. “And you’re… open to the idea?”

“Leap Day Lovers don’t tend to be people who are unattached, Scully. They're people who have… pent-up…desires.”

“That’s… alright.” Scully hangs her head for a moment, eyes closed, then lifts to look at him again. “Alright, Mulder, what do we need to do to get you out?”

“Have sex?” He suggests. He doesn’t mention that they have already tried that, but maybe if they’ve discussed the significance first it’ll have a more desired effect. And maybe he’ll be able to finish what he started this time. 

“Oh.” She says. Not out of denial, just surprised at his brazenness. “...Okay, but we need to discuss something else first.”

“What?”

“In case it doesn’t work, I think we should have a word to try to make me remember. A codeword.”

“Something that says ‘hey, remember the last time loop?’”

“Yes.”

“Okay, what do you want it to be?”

Scully bites her lip, thinking. “Philtrum.”

“What is that?”

“It’s the word for the groove between your nose and lip.” Her hand rises to his face, and she drags a finger down his own philtrum, demonstrating. “Right here.”

“Alright. If I wake up at home, I’ll tell you ‘philtrum’ and hopefully it’ll bring you closer to remembering.” Mulder stands and moves between Scully’s legs, towering over her. He places his hands on either side of her face. “Can I kiss you?”

Scully nods, and he leans down towards her. Her mind catches up with her and she opens her mouth to say no, wait, if you kiss me on the mouth you’ll just wake up at home again, but Mulder’ lips are already on hers and she’s lost, lost, lost in him and the feeling and she’s blinking at her alarm clock, reading 6:32, with the phantom sensation of lips against her own.

***

Converge

At 6:32AM on February 29th, 1996, Scully wakes up confused. Something is different. Something has changed. 

Coffee. Paper. Hair. Toast. Work. Mulder. 

She can’t place what is different until she sees him. His presence pulls as a loose thread in her mind, trying to unravel the mystery in front of her. 

His rant about leap day is the same as it usually is. Scully has all but memorized it by now. Just when he’s about to introduce the concept of Leap Day Lovers, he stops in the middle of his sentence. 

“Have I told you about this before?”

This surprises her. Not once in any of her 39 February 29ths has Mulder indicated remembering a previous iteration. 

“What?”

“Have we discussed leap day superstitions before? Or the leap day lovers? I’m getting the strongest deja vu of my life right now.”

Scully blinks at him for a moment. “Yes.”

“When?”

Scully sighs, “Mulder, I need to tell you something. I’ve lived this day 39 times before. Each time I come in here and you tell me about leap day, so yes, we’ve had this conversation before.”

“Huh.” Like that adds anything to the conversation.

“Huh? I, Dana Scully, notorious nonbeliever in anything mystical or supernatural, tell you that I’m in a time loop and all you have to say is huh?”

“Well, that makes sense. It seems… I don’t know, it just makes sense to me.” He ponders for a moment, eyebrows scrunching to indicate he’s thinking hard about something. “Scully, does the word philtrum mean anything to you?”

It’s Scully’s turn to consider this intently. “Yes, it’s the groove between the nose and upper lip.” She hesitates. “And you said it to me… here, in the office. You were showing me a file, we had just come in from the corner outside the Hoover building? With the…” She snaps her fingers, trying to summon the memory. “The dog, and the laughing guy.”

Mulder nods. “And the sex walks sign.”

“I’m not calling it that. But why don’t I remember it fully? It seems like it happened recently, but more recently than things that I know have happened in the time loop. And I can’t remember it all the way. It’s like a dream I can only partially recall.”

“Do you think you’ve just lived today so many times that they’ve started to blend together? To feel like dreams?”

“No, I can remember the rest of them, this is the only one that feels… fuzzy.”

“But I can remember it more clearly. I remember you wearing that outfit, I remember how the flowers smelled. I remember seeing an empty coke bottle in one of the flower beds.” His face lights up, like a cartoon light bulb has been switched on above his head. “Scully, what if we’re both in time loops, and they’re starting to feed into each other?”

“That only works if you subscribe to the multiverse theory, which I don’t, and even if it were true, there is no evidence for the ability to cross between these realities.”

“You didn’t think time loops were possible until now, either, and your own experience proves you were wrong about that.”

Scully sighs in exasperation. “Mulder–”

He cuts off whatever rebuttal she was about to provide. “What if we’re in the same reality, but switching who is able to remember each time we kiss.”

“Somehow a switching time loop is more believable, and I hate you for it.”

“So what do we… do about it?” He asks.

“What does the Leap Day Lovers lore say?”

“You think we’re the Leap Day Lovers?” 

“You suggested it!” She defends.

“No I didn’t!”

“Yes you–” She pauses. “Maybe it was…”

“Last time.” Mulder finishes for her.

Scully rubs a hand across her forehead. “Damnit, this is getting confusing.”

“They aren’t specific about how they broke it, just that solving their relationship issues got them out of it.”

“So how do we… do that? I mean, clearly we’ve discussed it, so that’s not going to help.” Scully tilts her head, considering. “Maybe we just need to have sex.”

Mulder goes red. “Uhh.”

“What?”

“I feel like that might’ve… already happened. A little bit.”

Scully’s eyebrows shoot to her forehead, indignant. “You fucked me in the time loop?”

“Technically, you started it, so I would say you fucked me in the time loop. Not that I was going to complain.”

“And how is that, if I can’t even remember it?”

“I don’t know, I don’t remember the details now either! I just know you started it.”

Scully rolls her eyes. 

“But I don’t think we, uh, got all the way there, if you know what I mean. Hit the home run. So maybe if we do, that will resolve it.”

“Alright Mulder.” Scully looks up at him through her eyelashes. “Let’s fuck. Yours or mine?”

***

They end up at Mulder’s apartment. As soon as they enter, Scully presses him against the door and kisses his jaw, carefully avoiding his lips. She wants to follow through with this, and not be reset halfway through because one of them got too caught up in the moment and kissed the other directly on the mouth. 

Mulder’s head tilts up, bearing his neck to Scully as she kisses her way down towards his collar. Her hands work at the buttons of his dress shirt, freeing up more space to kiss. If she can’t have his lips, she's going to claim as much of his skin as she can. He holds her body as close as possible to his own while still allowing her enough space to remove his clothes. 

She sinks her teeth into the junction of his neck and shoulder, and Mulder gasps. When he says her name, he’s breathless. 

He’s down to his undershirt when Scully grabs him by the belt buckle and pulls him off the door. He’s not entirely sure his legs will carry him, but they do, all the way to the couch, where Scully suavely whips the belt out of its loops and tosses it away. 

She kneels between his legs and places her hand on his cock where it tents his pants. When she squeezes, he lets out a punched-out sound and just barely manages not to come on the spot.

She kisses him atop his pants, hands working the button out of its hole, and he gently pushes her back by her shoulder. “Scully, wait.” Her eyes drift back up to meet his. “That might not be the most… strategic move. For right now.”

A single brow lifts and Scully smirks, cocky. “Oh?”

“Well the end goal is for me to fuck you, right?”

“Yes.”

“If your mouth gets any closer to my dick, we aren’t going to make it there.”

She hums. “What a shame. Another time.” She places a hand on his shoulder and guides him to lay across the couch.

“Uh-huh.” Mulder agrees, brain mush at the thought of a repeat act. 

Scully divests herself of her clothes and straddles him, rubbing the tip of his dick along her pussy. Mulder grunts, sounding punched-out. 

“Scully, please. Please.”

She lets out a satisfied hum and lowers slightly, letting the tip of him just inside her. 

“Scully. Scully.” Mulder reveres, begs, needs. She lowers more, dragging it out to tease him.

When he’s sat fully inside her, Scully lets out a groan of her own, and falls forward slightly . She catches herself with a hand on Mulder’s chest. When she finally, finally lifts her eyes back to his, she lifts and falls again.

When she’s close, Scully’s abdominal muscles flex and she doubles over, leaning down towards Mulder, leaving her lips just barely a hair’s breadth from his. She needs a little more stimulation, just a touch. 

As if he could sense her thoughts, Mulder groans and bucks up into her, hitting her clit just right. Scully seizes and grids down onto him, desperate for the friction to carry through her orgasm. 

Mulder is looking at her lips, and he’s leaning up to kiss her as she’s coming undone on his cock. There’s so much admiration in his eyes, so much love, so much desire, she can’t deny him kissing her while she comes. She can barely kiss him back, lost in the sensation, but her lips are on his, and it’s perfect. 

Until she wakes up. In her own bed, not Mulder’s apartment. 

The first thing she processes is the alarm clock, no longer mocking her with a bright red 6:32. Instead, 4:17 blinks into 4:18 before her. Oh, thank God. 

The second thing she processes is the sound of the front door clicking open. 

***

He kissed her. He’s still on his back on the couch, but the daylight is no longer streaming through the window and lighting up Scully’s bare skin, because Scully is no longer here. It’s dark. Without checking his watch, he knows it’s around 4am. 

He puts on the crumpled jeans from February 28th that have been sitting on his floor as long as he’s been in this damn time loop. He’s put on a suit for work every February 29th that he’s lived through, but he’s not going to work now. He’s going to Scully’s. 

She steps out of her bedroom as he steps into her kitchen. 

“I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy to wake up and see the clock say it’s four in the morning, Mulder,” she greets, rubbing her eye.

“You remember?” He asks. 

She nods. “Leap day. Philtrum. You fucked me in the time loop.”

“I did not– okay, well I did last time. But before that, you fucked me.”

“Sure, Mulder, whatever helps you sleep at night.” Thinking about it does not, in fact, help him sleep. It has the opposite effect.

“It didn’t work.”

“No, it didn’t.” She sighs and switches the coffee pot on. Instead of turning back around to face her partner, she braces her arms on the counter, leaning over the coffee pot as if breathing in the fumes will get the caffeine into her bloodstream faster. 

“So what do we do?”

“More research.” She does turn around now, leaning back against the counter with her arms crossed. “Have you reached out to any of the previous Lovers to try and get their stories? See what specifically they did to make the time loop stop?”

“I emailed some, but never heard back.”

“Then we reach out to the Gunmen to get more info on them, and track them down, and go to Skinner and explain what we can without risking getting separated by the Bureau, and investigate it officially. We may restart, but if we are both remembering our respective loops now, hopefully that means we’ve stopped switching for good and will retain our memories, and keep working on it. The only issue is if we need to travel, because we’ll get sent back to our own apartments when it restarts.”

Mulder knows he's looking at her with starry eyes, but he can’t help it. She’s so damn smart, she’s planned the whole thing out half asleep and in the three minutes he’s been in her apartment. So really, when he leans in to kiss her, he can’t be held responsible. He can’t help it. 

***

This time, when Scully wakes earlier she has grown accustomed to, it’s to Mulder climbing into bed beside her. She shifts over to make room for him, throws an arm over his side, and settles her head on his chest. 

“You kissed me again.” She says, voice rough and tired.

“I did. I couldn’t help myself.” He gives a huff of a laugh and smiles guiltily. “I’m glad we can both remember now, though.”

“Do you think we’ll get the memories of our separate experiences? That they’ll all come back to us?”

“I don’t know, Scully. The accounts from the Leap Day Lovers make it sound like they’re on the same page, so I hope so.”

She nods, and presses closer to him. “We should get up. Start researching.”

“I already called the Gunmen, they’re on it. I think we’ve earned some rest.” He kisses her forehead, a safe spot. “Go back to sleep, Scully.”

She hums, and does just that.

***

A couple hours later, the Gunmen are still digging into information on the previous Leap Day Lovers with no clear leads yet. When 9am hits, Mulder and Scully stand outside Skinner’s door.

“How do we even start to explain this, Mulder.”

“I don’t know. I mean, I proved it to you by making you watch that guy laugh at the sex walks sign and his dog glare at him, we could bring him out there and make him watch that?”

“I think that only worked for me because I had been looking already. Skinner might think we’re pulling his leg and told the guy to do that.” 

“Well, do you have any better ideas?”

Scully sighs, “No, I don’t. So I guess we’ll go with that.”

“Alright.” Mulder pauses, bracing himself. “Let’s do this, Scully.” He grabs the doorknob and boldly turns it.

What the door reveals, no one could expect. Not in a million years. 

Because Alex fucking Krycek is sat in Skinner’s chair, slumped face down over the desk. The back of his skull has been transformed into something akin to a bloody pudding bowl. 

“Mulder?”

“Yes, Scully?”

“Maybe this isn’t… our time loop.”

“I think you might be right.”

#warning it is LONG #LTW: X-File 02291996 #LTWrites #the x files #.txt #fics

[shouldiusemyname]

Only Friends - The Voice of the 80's Babies

Long post

Inspired by this post by @chicademartinica and bestie @thegalwhorants's comment about the wardrobe. Also this post from @blmpff which really made me think I'm in the right direction...

Before I get into this I just wanna say that I'm posting this very hesitantly as it's a very personal view of this show (possibly within the Jojo-verse). I might be reading too much into this and projecting my own experience and the fact that Jojo is about my age, but OF feels very much a reaction of my generation. I realize that most of what I'm going to say will sound familiar and relevant to everyone (not just 80's babies) but I'll try to explain the difference between what I read as a general generational experience and a universal experience.

I said it before and after watching the first ep it has never been clearer that Only Friends is what happens when 80's babies are given a chance to settle scores.

Everything about this show screams I WAS A TEENAGER IN THE 90'S!

First of all - the clothes! EVERYTHING they're wearing is like it's taken from my high school photos 😅 I know fashion is fluid and trends will make a comeback periodically, but given what I feel they're trying to say, I believe it's intentional.

The Sex of it All

It's like a direct reaction to the way we were raised and the relationship my generation has with sex. This is very regional and cultural, but generally speaking sex was not discussed as a natural aspect of life and relationships. Sex was either shameful, dirty, reproductive, or (the worst option) over discussed without healthy boundaries. My parents' generation didn't have the tools to discuss sex with their children in a healthy way because they were also denied this conversation by their parents. So, they either hid it or overshared.

So, my generation was raised (by western media basically) believing that everyone must have sex and our social standing is directly linked to whether or not we were having sex (who said American Pie?). We weren't given the option to have different views. We were trapped by this extremely deformed view of sex and relationships.

Watching this show and the discussion around it feels like creators are calling bullshit on everything we were told about sex.

Stuck in the Middle

I'm going to generalise here, but basically people who are just slightly older than us (meaning my generation) have this very black and white attitude towards sex - there's the right time to start having sex, your partner matters (in the way that you should be in love or in a relationship), relationships are monogamous, and kink is a deviation (don't even get me started on queerness - you were either gay, straight, or a crossdresser).

On the other hand, 90's babies were born into a much wider and open world that gave them the opportunity to get a much broader picture and view about relationships and how sex plays into them. This is even as basic as just having a wider vocabulary to talk about it.

My generation was, however, stuck in the middle, left to really hindsight our way through our perception of sex and its place in relationships.

In my 20's I've witnessed so many conversations where people were analyzed over the fact that they choose not to have sex like there's something wrong with them. Why are you not having sex? What's wrong with you? You're waiting for love? - don't waste your time. You're just going to fuck whoever? - that's just wrong. There's no winning.

Furthermore, when considering what Jojo said about the discussion around queer sex in queer shows and bl - my generation was raised with the idea that being queer (which was then just being gay) was all about who you have sex with. No one ever said anything about love or gender. When I was figuring out my own sexuality, being queer was about who you wanted to sleep with, not who you loved. We still see this today when people believe that our queerness is defined by whether or not we are having queer sex, and I believe this is at least part of what @bengiyo is talking about when he talks about the internalised homophobia. This is so much of my generation carrying and passing it on because we were denied these conversations.

So Now What?

Now, creating a show that is about sex, queer sex, and how it plays into queer relationships is reclaiming the conversation about queerness as an expression of love as well as sexuality. We deserve to discuss these issues as a generation that was denied these conversations whether queer or not. And somehow, these issues are discussed more freely and openly within queerness as it has the advantage of being free of heteronormative notions.

Another reason I believe this is generational is the fact that Jojo is consistently having this discussion within his shows. I don't know how to explain it, but his shows feel like screaming liberation, like he's walking around with a baseball bat (preferably Only Friends branded) and smashing these false ideas one by one. Which is why I believe we need to look at this show as part of the Jojo-verse shows along with The Warp Effect, 3 will be free and Gay OK Bangkok. Jojo is on a mission.

Expression Within The Show

Ok, so what am I getting at after I had you read my trip to the shrink?

I believe that ALL OF THIS is expressed in the show through the group dynamics we see in our friend group. They all represent different notions and they will fight over dominance. This is the power struggle that my generation is trapped in. We need and deserve to say our peace.

This is what I meant when I said that OFTS is what happens when you're an 80's baby with shit to say.

As usual thank you for reading my ramblings. I hope you get what I'm trying to say, and clearly have issues 😅 so feel free to comment and give perspective...

#my trip to the shrink #only friends #ofts #jojo-verse meta

[maddiebuckettebuckley]

casual (is it casual now?)

eddie/tommy angst | 1.1k words | read on ao3

summary: literally just the bucktommy kiss if it had been eddie instead, because lou said it was almost eddie and the show said eddie catholic guilt real and I said oh bet?

Eddie slides Tommy a beer across the table and cracks one open for himself. Despite still feeling the burn of the whiskey from the karaoke bar in his stomach, he takes a swig. “Man, I have to remember to invite Buck next week. You wouldn’t know it from looking at him, but he’s a big trivia buff.”

Tommy hums good-naturedly. “Maybe that way we’d actually break our ten-point record.” He grabs the beer and taps his fingers against the side without taking a drink. “Hey, what’s the deal with you two, if you don’t mind me asking?”

Eddie cocks his head slightly, not entirely understanding the question. “Me and Buck?”

“You talk about each other all the time, and your kid is obsessed with him. His name must have come up a dozen times the other day.”

Eddie shrugs. What is there to say about Buck? He’s Buck. He’s worked his way into every aspect of Eddie’s life, and somehow, unexpectedly, became Eddie’s favorite person in the world, after Chris. Not that he would ever tell him. His head’s big enough as it is.

“We’re like family, I guess. The whole 118 is more than a house. We’re all family.”

“Hah. I noticed.” Tommy’s voice is colored with something like bitterness. Not harsh, though. More… sad. Wistful, maybe. “Wasn’t like that when I was there.”

“Really? How so?” Without meaning to, Eddie inches closer.

Tommy lets out a puff of air and shakes his head slightly. “The whole… culture was different. Very macho. Regressive. Not that different from serving, honestly.”

That Eddie can understand. His team was close, but it was a completely different world than the 118. The jokes were sharper, aimed to hurt as often as not. The conversations shallower. Sometimes it almost felt like they didn’t want to get too close in case someone didn’t make it out. Maybe they had the right idea; he had almost died trying to get them all home. Not that he learns from his mistakes, since he knows from experience he’d stop at nothing to fight for any of his new family. It scares him if he lets it. How much he cares about all of them.

“I get it,” Eddie says, taking another swig of his beer. “You’d fit right in there now, though. The way you threw in with us in that storm.” He whistles. “Pretty fuckin’ cool.”

A small smile appears on Tommy’s face that Eddie finds difficult to read. Could be the whiskey. “You think so?”

“I know so.”

“You wouldn’t get sick of me, seeing me every day?” Tommy asks. He sets down his beer, still untouched, next to Eddie on the table, and Eddie suddenly becomes aware that he’s well within touching distance. He’d barely even have to reach out his hand.

“’Course not. Anyone would be an improvement over Buck.” Why did he say that? He doesn’t think that. But it makes Tommy laugh again. Which makes Eddie smile, even as his stomach turns from the casual cruelty of the joke.

“You’re pretty cool yourself, you know.” The calm intensity of Tommy’s eye contact is setting off alarm bells in the back of Eddie’s mind. He tries to ignore them, because something about it feels nice, like the gaze itself is casting a warm glow over him.

“Oh, am I?” Eddie replies, raising an eyebrow.

“In my book, at least. Whatever that counts for.” Impossibly, Tommy has gotten even closer, so that there’s almost no space between them at all. The alarm bells get louder, more intense, and Eddie can feel his heartbeat throughout his body.

“Definitely counts for something.” Eddie’s words come out quiet. He kind of can’t breathe.

But he doesn’t back away. He doesn’t break eye contact. Even when Tommy closes the distance completely, when his hand is under Eddie’s chin pulling it ever so slightly upwards so that their mouths meet.

Eddie’s swept away in it. The warmth, the strength of his hand, the hint of vanilla vodka still on his lips. It all makes him dizzy, twists up his head so he forgets, well, everything. Just for a moment. And he leans into the kiss until their bodies are pressed flush against each other and his hand finds its way into Tommy’s hair and—

“Shit.” Eddie pulls away abruptly, breathless. The man — the man — in front of him stares back. Kindly, questioning. And they’re the only two people in the room, but Eddie has never been more sure he’s being watched. Panic starts to migrate from the tips of his fingers wrapped in Tommy’s T-shirt and hair, all the way up into Eddie’s chest and settles there. He takes one step back, then another. The look on Tommy’s face as he does is unbearable, so he turns away, balling his hands into fists that will leave purple crescents in his palms. “I’m not… I have a girlfriend.”

“Oh.”

“It’s actually getting pretty serious. We’re moving in together soon.” Eddie winces at the lie. He hasn’t even asked her yet.

“Eddie, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.” A gentle hand on his shoulder tells him that Tommy’s stepped closer. Instinctively, Eddie shrugs it off. And instantly feels sick.

Don’t be a fucking coward. Look him in the face, at least.

He turns to face Tommy, who looks — hurt. Worse, he looks like he’s trying not to look hurt. Eddie swallows, trying to keep down the panic as it crawls up his throat.

“Nah man, it’s on me. I shouldn’t have… I should’ve told you sooner.” Eddie scrubs a hand over his eyes. His skin itches like it’s covered with grime. His fingers twitch like they’re searching for rosary beads. “I think you should probably go. It’s getting late.”

Tommy nods, then opens his mouth as if he’s about to say something. Closes it again.

Eddie walks him to the door, trying to come up with any words that would make this less awful, but when he tries to think there’s only a dark static filling his head with noise.

With one foot outside, Tommy hesitates, lingering in the doorframe.

“Listen, Eddie. I really am sorry for the misunderstanding. But I hope you know that you can call me if you ever need to talk. I’ve been where—” He cuts himself off. Holds eye contact with Eddie for a moment. Sighs. “I’m still here for you, if you need anything.”

Eddie nods lamely. A part of him needs to delete Tommy’s number. A part of him wants to pull him back inside. He’s not even sure what for. “Thanks, Tommy.”

The door clicks shut with Tommy behind it and Eddie slides down the wood paneling to the floor, dropping his head between his knees as a heavy sob escapes his mouth.

#911 abc #911 fic #eddie diaz #tommy kinard #eddie diaz x tommy kinard #feel a little guilty tagging it that because its just like. not in a fun way at all but it is technically true #also everyone please be kind I haven't finished a fic in like two years ack

[pieroulette]

AS THE RED SUN BLOOMS

[ 赤い太陽が咲くように ]

CHAPTER 1: 炎 (Flame) — short teaser

2023 | 18+ | SERIES | NISHIMURA RIKI (X READER)

SUMMARY scent of sweetened florals bouncing off the tatami mats, ashes of coals puffing up to the air, and pale pink petals falling down to their glory and onto your shoulder as you were greeted by the servants of the famous Nishimura family—for whom you would start working for their confectionery shop from now on despite language barriers, cultural differences, and social status.

GENRE coming-of-age, historical romance, 18th century Japan/Edo period, slow burn romance, drama, angst, graphic violence, family, reader isn't a Japanese in this story.

WORD COUNT : 1.7k

WARNING FOR (CHAPTER 1) : prostitution (red light district), graphic violence, profanity.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: this is just a warm-up practice for me, since I haven't posted in a long time 😭✋🏻

• bold dialogues means the characters are speaking in Japanese.

2003 [ PRESENT DAY ]

"So, Lia. Who's your role model and why do you want to be like them?" the teacher asked with a hint of enthusiasm in her voice.

The young girl, slightly abashed—spoke in a voice like a whisper. "My role model.. is Grandma."

"What is her profession then? What did she do when she was young?

"S-she's a.." The young girl looked down, fiddling the hem of her sleeves before finally speaking up.

— • —

Yoshiwara District - 1803 [ Edo Period ]

"Bring me the finest lady you ever had here!" the deep voice of a man in a kimono exclaimed amidst the joyous atmosphere in the main quarters.

A high pitched voice of a woman answers back, clearly delighted by the man's call for attention.

"Ah, milord! Which lady would you like for us to bring you for your prosperous day today? I couldn't be any happier to serve you." red lips and flamboyant jewelries adorned the woman's hair, a smile so bright yet so cunning.

With his chin resting on his palms, a lazy look presented on his scarred feature, his right hand raises an index finger gesturing towards the girl from the farthest corner of the room, standing still and obedient; you.

"That young lady, how much is she worth?"

"Ah! Our (Name)-" She looks at you elated as ever, gesturing for you to come forward, "What a perfect timing! She has reached 18 this year, if you want, you could get her for a cheaper price. Yet, I have to inform you that our dear (Name) is unable to speak our language, milord."

"Why so? Hasn't she stayed here for years?"

A smirk blown past the woman's lips after tucking your hair locks behind your ear, revealing your features to the man before you.

"For taming purposes, my lord. A lady of her worth should be able to obey without any difficulties.” the lady suppressed a giggle with an index finger against her red lips, “A yes, a hush with a finger, come here, go there, do this, do that—such simple commands with the help of your finger have no need for her to speak, she must only obey. Likewise, her serving you would be a better way for her to use her mouth in a better use." The woman eventually lets out a dark giggle, brushing her red tinted lips with her dainty finger much to the man's amusement. "Use her as you wish, milord. Should she escape from your hands, no need to break a sweat for no one would help her and she, too, could never utter a word to anyone to understand her."

“She’s perfect to be your one and only doll, sir.” one of your mates came, swaying her hips and hand as she said so.

— • —

"What is this, such a beautiful sweet!"

"Right? It looks like sakura.."

"I heard the Nishimura family is starting to grow in fame because of the delicate sweets they made, plus the competition to make sweets for the royal family are getting closer. I'm definitely sure they could win!"

High pitched voices from afar, laced with definite enthusiasm yet you couldn't understand a thing of the ladies' conversation, making you look like a turtle isolated in your dark shell.

Yet, somehow, the simplicity of this well made sweet in the form of sakura kind of soothes your heart. The pattern has intricate, careful, pushed in curves that resembles a sakura.

You wonder how it tastes, and so you pick the sweet up between the tip of your fingers—placing it onto the tip of your tongue. It's bitterness spike your tongue almost immediately as it touched it, making your eye crinkled and your eyebrows furrowed—yet suddenly the sweetness hits you like waves of the sea washing over your body on the shore.

Like the bitterness of the golden sun setting away from the glory of the sky, only for you to be hit by the epiphany that it will soon rise tomorrow again—akin to the sweetness.

Somehow, somehow, it felt different—you clutched your chest from where your heart let out a tiny rampant of thuds.

Your dark orbs look down to see the folded paper on the wooden platter and your eyebrows furrowed in confusion at the eccentric look of it. So you leaned forward, picking it up and just as you suspected, it wasn’t a paper used for sweets, almost as if it was a paper used for calligraphy.

Words on paper. Your eyes widened instantly at the realisation.

— • —

"Huh, seems like your eyes had grown somewhat feisty in it? A flame, huh?" He playfully slapped your cheek, as usual.

You opened your mouth, for the first time. "Right, I want to live. That's why."

"What?"

A gut wrenching scream echoes around the quarters—alerting everyone from their respective business. Scattered footsteps approaching from afar and up the hallway—what met their eyes when they frantically slid the door open was you holding the tip of the hairpin against the man’s neck, who was now caged inside your frail arms.

“You- You can’t do that! You can’t do that!”

“Fuck! She won’t understand what we’re saying!”

“Say something!”

“D-darling, hush.” The head of the brothel stuttered, spreading and extending her visibly shakened arms—gesturing for you to come forward, shaking her head slowly, sweat trickling down her powdered cheek and forehead, “That’s n-not right.. Darling!”

A foreboding silence ensues, pushing a magnificent pressure down everyone’s head.

— • —

High above, in the clouds, birds fly so high till they burn their feathers and fly across the blazing rays—signifying the return of the scorching orbs accompanied with the touch of white droplets on your freshly burned hands reaching out for help.

Clouds on the grey sky brought white particles down the ghost quiet town, for people are still in their home asleep. A carriage strolled over at a steady pace across the street. Blooming white consumed the entire pathway, making it difficult for it to pass smoothly—making the old man hissed at the obstacles ahead him.

Yet, his snow-stained feet pauses.

“Am I seeing this right?..” rubbing their eyes and slowly narrowing to the spot of where your unconscious body are laid.

— • —

The massive roof-like mountains adorned with intricate patterns and on its tip rising up akin to a blade, lion statues standing before the gates as if to guard them with their ferocious fangs and the lush garden standing tall, trees so high its branches can be seen behind the gates—as if there were tiny fairies sitting on top of the branches, observing you with lit up orbs.

It gave off absolute serenity as the wind flowed past your hair yet the sight of the sliding door from afar gave you somewhat an uneasy feeling of what is going to happen now in the nearer future.

"I am Yuma." he gestured toward himself. "Yu. Ma. Yuma!"

"Jo! Come on, introduce yourself."

"It's not like she could understand us either."

"Still!"

"This is Jo." Yuma gestured his palms in front of the disinterested tall boy.

"Is she mute or what..?" Sana tilted her head in confusion.

"I don't think that's the case, honestly I had no idea." came Momo who took a bite from the peaches in the basket.

Yuma shaking his head in utter devastation, look over his shoulder only to see a certain someone. "Oh, Taki! Why don't you come over here?"

— • —

You stepped closer to the edge where the breathtaking scene of red fall petals consumed the land, scattering all over the roof and everywhere you could see.

“The current generation of the family now consists of the head, his wife, and their three children.”

It caught your attention, “Three? .. That’s alot.”

“Yes, the eldest daughter, Konon. Graceful and kind, she's the apple of the family's eye. She had a childhood friend who she will marry this fall, not only that, her future husband's family is wealthy enough that it could support the Nishimura's business.”

“Their second daughter and the youngest one is Misola, she turned thirteenth a few months ago. Energetic and beaming as the sun, just like how she should act her age, she often fools around so don't mind it if she randomly comes and pulls her silly pranks on you.”

“I won’t mind.” you said without much thought.

“Finally, their middle child and only son; Riki.” Taki snorted which confused you, “That kid is really tall, and somewhat eccentric than most. Quieter than his siblings, yet he had this humorous vibe that he only shows among those he was close with. Since he's the only son of this family, he's set to inherit this family business."

— • —

White strips wrapped around cut hands and fingers, reaching up to touch the dangling purple florals. Silky black hair with blonde highlights reaching down his neck—blending with the sun rays, robe like coal with an inner white shirt, and a muted blue hakama. Hanafuda earrings, adorned with round red sun with rays swaying along the wind.

"Riki."

"Yeah?" yawning with arms stretched upward, the young man turned with features beaming as the sun, lips pulling up in the brightest smile as he walks forward with the glowing purple wisterias brushing against his face.

"You're neglecting your studies, again."

"Um, did I?" The young boy mumbled, avoiding the intimidating gaze of the older man. "O-oh! I heard there are new apprentices and servants set for the shop, our job is gonna get easier from now on!"

"Quit slacking for once, Riki."

"Yeah, yeah." Riki rolled his eyes, “By the way, how long would it take before we get home though?”

“Judging by the weather, it would take us three months at best.” the middle-aged servant answered, “It will be summer by the time we arrive, milord.”

A long deep sigh emits by the younger boy, “That sure takes long, ah. I just want to slip in to my futons, already.”

“Well, that’s what you deserved for annoying the master."

— • —

With the folded paper on your palms, you look up to the red sun blazing against the freezing winter rain.

"You see, learning how to make wagashi is only for the apprentices.."

You nodded, waiting for him to continue.

"You, as a mere servant, and even more so—as a new one, are quite hasty and too fast to request for something so bold. The master said so." Taki shrugged, "But he didn't say no. He said.. that you have to do your work first."

Your dark orbs sparked as the sun rays from the sky blended with it.

“He would ask his son to teach you and the rest of the apprentices instead, for the sole purpose of evaluating his skills and to train him further.” Taki raised his index finger, swaying it.

"How long.. would it take?"

"Summer, the master's son will be back by summer. Till then, be patient."

"Right, I'll be patient." you nodded in an enthusiastic manner.

"By the way.." you look up to Taki with curiosity adorning his features, "May I ask why do you want to learn how to make wagashi?"

— • —

[ CHAPTER 炎

1: (Flame) ]

— • —

© talesofyuan on tumblr | 2023 | all rights reserved.

🏵️ AS THE RED SUN BLOOMS MASTERLIST

#enha #enhypen #enhypen x reader #enha imagines #enha x reader #enhypen oneshots #enhypen scenarios #enha fanfic #enhypen x female reader #niki x reader #enha niki #enhypen niki #nishimura niki #enhypen riki #riki fluff #enhypen imagines #enhypen fanfiction

[jackhkeynes]

Can you give an overview of your conworld and language for new people?

Absolutely! :D

The World

The setting I write in (hereafter "Boralverse") is an alternate history of Earth. The original difference from our own history (hereafter "IRL") is the existence of the island of Borland (Istr Boral) between Great Britain and Denmark, inspired by the IRL existence of Doggerland.

The human pre-classical history of Borland can be summarised as:

With sea level rise about 8k years ago, Borland was cut off from the continent and from Britain (this is when Doggerland was submerged IRL); some Stone Age people remain. They leave some monuments—burial mounds, the Çadrosc labyrinth—and were farmers, but they had no writing or ironworking.

The Celts arrive in Borland shortly before they settle Britain in the second millennium BCE, taking up iron tools and establishing many tribal groups. Due to some later migration from Britain to Borland, they speak a language (Borland Celtic) which is most closely related to Proto-Brythonic.

I assume that as far as possible the history of the rest of the world is indistinguishable from the IRL history up to this point. I continue to do so while the Romans invade and settle Borland shortly after Britain, despite conceding to credulity and allowing a few classical references:

...in Ptolemy's description of the Pritannoi we can understand he referred to the Insular Kelts of Ireland, Britain and Borland as a whole... ...contrasting Hadrian's policies in Britain and in Borland is vital for understanding their different fates in the post-Classical age...

where I admit that the Roman Empire having an entire additional province should probably have some observable effects.

Once the Western Roman Empire collapses, I start properly diverging Boralverse history from IRL history. This begins with a different pattern of Anglo-Saxon migration; the two petty kingdoms of Angland and Southbar arise in western Borland, while the settlement of England proceeds slightly slower than IRL.

Historical divergence spreads through western Europe over the next few centuries, and by 1000 CE things are beginning to go off the rails all across Eurasia and North Africa. I leave the history of the Americas the same until Old World contact (via Basque fishermen stumbling across Newfoundland in 1470 CE), and likewise with Australia.

The map below shows Europe in 1120, during the Second Tetrarchy Period. At this time, Europe was unusually centralised, with four great empires: the First Drengot Empire (red), the German Empire (brown), the Second Roman Empire (purple) and the Single Caliphate (green).

In the modern era, my hope is that the Boralverse world feels fractally uncanny; at every scale something is unexpectedly different, from political borders and languages to fashion and pop culture references.

For clarity, I employ an inconsistent Translation Convention when writing from a Boralverse perspective, mostly using IRL English but peppering in calques of Boralverse English jargon for flavour, such as threshold force "nuclear power" or jalick "garment socially equivalent to a tuxedo".

The Language

The original motivation for this alternate history setting is Borlish (Borallesc), the Romance language spoken on Borland.

It picked up a few Borland Celtic loanwords from the existing population at the time of the conquest (macquar ~ Welsh magu "raise, rear"; vrug ~ Welsh grug "heather"), but was much more influenced through the first millennium by Anglo-Saxon settlement and then Norse conquest during the Viking Age. The following is an example of late Old Borlish (ca. 1240):

…sovravnt il deft nostre saȝntaðesem eð atavalesem n iȝ atrevre golfhavn seȝ hamar dont y verb divin ismetre ac povre paian. peðiv soul ez font istovent por vn nov cliȝs d istroienz istablir… …uphold our most sacred and ancient duty to let Gulfhaven be the centre from which we will send the Word of God to pagan lands. We ask only for the necessary funds for a new teachinghouse…

The Modern Borlish language has undergone spelling standardisation (most recently deprecated some irregular spellings in 1870), and contains many more Latin and Greek loanwords, along with borrowings from languages across the world.

Y stal zajadau dy marcað nogtorn accis par lamp fumer eð y lun fragnt de mar receven cos equal party a domn pescour pevr jarras e fenogl gostant tan eð eç nobr robað n'ornament fluibond ant queldin raut frigsað ne papir cerous. The night market's various stalls lit by smoky lamps and the sea-shattered moon welcomed flocks of fishwives sampling paprika and fennel as well as notables in flowing finery carrying stir-fried suppers in wax papers.

In terms of sound changes and grammatical developments, the major points include:

Intervocalic lenition /p t k b d g/ > /v ð j ∅ ∅ ∅/: catēna > caðen "chain", dēbēre > deïr "must".

The use of ç (and c before e i y) for /ts/, and the use of g in coda to represent /j/. Along with some vowel shifts, this leads to things like cigl /tsajl/ "darling".

Total loss of final consonants in multisyllable words, including -s, which leads to:

Collapse of noun declension, including number; Borlish does not mark number on nouns, and if it wants to it uses demonstratives or simply relies of verb agreement: l'oc scuir pasc, l'ec scuir pascn "this boy eats, these boys eat".

#conlang #boral #conlanging #boralverse #alternate history #conworld #writing #moist-duckling

[cuprohastes]

Dave The Human vs. Religion

The question of religion had come up, as it does.

Dave The Human, female Tsin muttered something at a high pitch at her tablet and Dave the human, formerly Dave the Atrix, formerly also Dave the Human performed some epic side-eye.

Gondy was filling in for the Atrix member of the group, still slightly scarred from having her helmet smacked hard enough to split during the recent disintegration of the station due to Von Neumann's Space squid.

Raxy, her Little Guy was stuffing his face in a way that you don't normally see on an Atrix that size. This suggested to the Daves that the Little Guy was shortly going to be upskilling, getting certified and getting referred to as female...

Given Atrix really just looked at the whole gender thing and opted out, and the whole male/female thing was labelling for other people's benefit, the Daves formed an unspoken and instant agreement that helping Raxy bulk up was their new hobby.

For two people from radically different biologies and cultures, the Daves were staggeringly similar as though some cosmic author had created them with the same voice.

Tsin Dave waggled the tablet. "Homeworld want to make sure everyone's complying with off-world best practices. They want to ensure that we're... ugh: 'Maintaining tradition in line with oof-world guidance'" she grumped.

"First I'm a heretic and a sky-demon and now they want to make sure I'm the right sort and not making you lot think less of us with my wicked deviant ways."

Gondy paused, as did Rax.

"graaaaak?" Rax said, around one of the mysterious and never explained purple bread rolls.

Meta-note about the purple bread rolls: They're actually Ube potato bread rolls. They're steamed in the Caffeteria. The food services are very aware that everyone who encounters them assumes they're a food from some other species culture. It's the little things that make the day to day fun.

"You never heard about that?" Dave The human said. "Oh well hum..."

Dave the Human gave his buddy full points on her mastery of colloquialism and settled in.

"So there's this legend that many years ago the People - 's us - had an idyllic land, and the concept of evil was unknown. Then one day, Sky Demons, jealous of our ways and our purity of soul absolutely pounded the knekp out of the place and only those of us in the Great Underground Halls, who were devout enough survived. And since that day, to leave the ground is to attract the attention of the Sky Demons."

Gondy raised a claw.

"Boats are OK. Water is theologically still ground."

Gondy put her claw down.

Dave the human said, "That sounds like..."

Dave The Human answered, "Nope, it was Orbital Bombardment. Nation-on nation. The shelters were built because it was a strong possibility that things would get all... ker-blammy."

"Yeesh!"

"Yeah. And the religious angle kind of got shuffled in as this agreement that when everyone got out, nobody wanted to be dancing around pointing claws at other countries and trying to blame them, while it was everyone's fault. Can't really blame them but for a thousand odd years that was the official line."

Gondy said "Wow! I never knew that!"

Dave The Human nodded. "Yeah yeah, it's been pretty common knowledge for a century or so, but still, when we got back into space after the Wallandernoooks showed up to trade, it was a major, major problem and uh well, leaving the Homeworld means you're a Heretic and in league with the Sky Demons according to the Dogma soooo..."

"Huh. And that means...?"

"Not much. Kind of lightly excommunicated. Not really welcome back home where things are a little more traditional. But y'know. No biggie. We're all colonists out here anyway, and we still get Homeworld support. It's just we also have to get audited that we're not giving Homeworld a bad name." She paused and took a long drink of mekp. "Aaaaand this time they want to know if we have a shrine to show you filthy heathens that we're still the number one proper pious type heretical sky demons. F.M.L."

Gondy, Rax and Dave pondered this.

"Gondy... what do Atrix believe in?" Asked Dave the Human.

"Graaak."

"Yeah, Rax, I guess 'some places are lucky' covers it. You know.... good moss, cool rocks, just got a good vibe. The sort of place you can drop a bunch of... what do you call them? Possums."

Dave the Human choked on his water. "Possums?!"

"Grak." Commented Rax and Gondy pulled her tablet out and poked. "Yeah... human smalls." She said, holding up a picture of a possum mis-labelled as an infant human.

"Huh. You guys are adorable when you're young" cooed Dave The Human, who Dave previously rated as about as maternal as a meat grinder.

Dave let it go for now, suspecting this would yield hilarious dividends at some future time, and turned back to Dave the Tsin.

"Ok, this is shaping up to be another wacky hi-jink. What's the gig?

"Gotta build a shrine."

"Any shrine?"

"Pretty much. It's got to be location appropriate. Y'know. The god of the place. To show we're uh... friendly to the local divinities? On theological good terms?"

"OK but... we're all godless atheists, apart form the ones who aren't. Who are you going to build a shrine to?

"Yeah that's kind of it. I mean I don't want to be the grit under anyone's scales..."

"Ohhhh," said Gondy, "Oh oh! Rax, call Garf! I have an idea..."

Several weeks later, the Tsin named Walks-between-Waves arrived as part of the Tsin welfare and general ambassadorial circuit.

O'Patel and Big Ma performed the proper greetings and paperwork, and Dave presented herself.

Walks-Between-Waves ("Just call me Waves") walked up and declaimed, "Heretic, and blasphemer. You bones will never lie with the ancestors, and your meat will rot. You and the demons you dwell with are denied! Cast out as the foul beasts you are. How are you doing? Well I hope?"

Dave bowed, small hands together, big ones outstretched.

"Oh yeah. They're all very nice here." She said. "Did they change the words of the castigation?"

"Oh, no, but some of it needed translating for human language a little," Waves said and added, "such a fun language! Quite the fad back home. And since you're hmm, officially human, I couldn't resist. Now, I believe you have something to show?"

O'Patel looked bemused and said sotto voce to Big Ma, "I think this is going to go well!"

Dave led Waves to the common area where, true enough, there was a shrine. It was made of old pieces of the station recovered from it's partial disassembly. 3D printed and painted panels along the sides showed Tsin, Atrix and Humans, helping each other climb up the sides, to the top of the shrine where someone had creatively frosted some glass and lit it with shifting lights to suggest something exciting and pleasant waited. The thing dripped with moss and a small water feature played down from the back into a shallow bowl of stones.

"Ah!" Said Waves. "Very impressive. Going for extra credit?"

"No..." said Dave. "It's a group effort. Once we started, everyone wanted to help. Especially after we found a small god for the Station that everyone liked... Their name is Arepo."

#tsin #atrix #StationStories #Humans are space orcs #HASO #Dave the human #Arepo #Youtube

[pinkflipphonez]

Hello! Really love your content so far and it makes me so incredibly happy seeing more people reimagining Alfred and Matthew as nonwhite compared to it being controversial 8years ago.

Ever since I joined the fandom I always had the (at the time) unpopular opinion that the NA bros were from mixed heritages (White/Indigenous), which as an American non-white Latino with Indigenous roots made the most sense to me especially considering that even in the manga they don't really represent the government, but the people themselves and both countries (especially the US) are so diverse it absolutely baffled me that they were just plain white boys. I always imagined them being mixed, but never quite fitting in with either groups.

I am sorry if I overstep on this next bit, please feel free to correct me on anything I say, I've just had a long time to think about this and how other countries would react, which is gonna put England/France into a bad light but...they were straight up horrific to the Natives. Even France.

I know you mentioned how in Hetalia, the personifications get along with their overseers/colonizers and that they wouldn't be okay with this, and I think I may have to *slightly* disagree.

I think when it comes to Nations and how they view their fellow personifications, how they look won't matter as much compared to how they act or culture wise. I can see that while the two heavily resemble Native features, when they were taken in by their colonizers they were raised to hold to those same European values that still do plague the country today. I can imagine Arthur making sure that Alfred ignores his Indigenous roots and that he's raised as a proper British colony, speaking and writing in English only, being raised as a proper Christian etc. Forced to assimilate, which has been done to so many people that come from different cultures from the time America was colonized to even now in some places. They may not look completely white, but by god will he makes sure they act like they do.

I don't think he would have ever been okay with his people being killed, tortured, having their cultures and languages erased or even enslaved, because he does not represent the cruel ideas the government has, but the people itself...which also do include the people that *ARE* okay with this. A constant battle Alfred has to deal with, which ends up with him making not the best choices.

Things aren't perfect even today, there's still so many issues that's happening where Indigenous folks are still fighting for basic rights to water, working roads, etc. But at the current time, more Americans these days (especially the much younger generations that were taught/look up about the atrocities that our government has committed, especially now that the Native voices have platforms to speak on), are much more aware. I see the brothers trying to reclaim their roots, and start what will be centuries long reparations on what their people have done to the Indigenous community. Which honestly, reconnecting with cultures after being forced to assimilate to American culture is something big thats happening here all across the United States with Latino-Americans embracing their heritage, African-Americans who were descendents of those stolen from their homeland reconnecting with their culture, Indigenous people bringing their languages and foods back to light.

It's honestly just a very difficult journey I think they would have as they have to deal with Nationhood, but forgetting who they came from and having to give themselves up to a certain group. Again, never fitting in completely with one or the other.

Again, I'm so incredibly sorry if this is overstepping in anyway or if some things don't make sense. It's such a complicated subject that really can't be summed up super easily and I did want to go longer but I felt like this was long enough already @_@

Firstly, you are not overstepping in the slightest! I am legitimately so content and kind of misty-eyed to see so many other native fans of the show both interact within the fandom and give their own interpretation on both canon and OC characters. It was never this wholesome and community-oriented when I first joined the fandom and I'm glad I stuck around to see the tide change.

Secondly, your interpretation of France and England's involvement in Canada and America's assimilation is... very accurate, and while it's something I've fought about with myself in my plotting of Alfred's life (because I don't want to hate them lol), they most definitely did have a hand in his disconnection. However, as much as I agree they are influenced by both their natives and settlers, I do think they very much hold their own reservations and opinions on the social climate around them as any individual human being would.

While American society and most American presidents were anti-indigenous and pro-slavery, there were also vigilant indigenous activists and abolitionists; there were men and women who defended and engrained themselves with native communities and there were men and women who fought mercilessly to free enslaved people. I believe Alfred was one of those people. Alfred noticed the wrong within the society around him and despised it-- but alongside his overseers and the people surrounding him, his thought process was in the minority.

I don't see Alfred participating in the genocide, assimilation, or enslavement of indigenous or Black people-- and it is not because I wish to sanitize this true history, but because I earnestly do not see Alfred being so cruel (as he was someone who also thought himself a better person than his brutal fatherly figure). I do think he did try to feel indifferent most of the time to... well, assimilate, but I also like to think he was infuriated, enraged, while at the same time having convictions on where his help is best suited as a native man with the privileges and appearance of a white man (I hc that he very consciously slaughtered slave-owners and triple k members, especially during the civil war, but I realize that may be a heavy hc to have).

I appreciate you bringing up the increase of younger folks in America beginning their decolonization/reconnection journeys because that is absolutely what I feel Al and Matt are going through actively, but I like to think they began their reconnection journey much earlier, during the rise of AIM in the 1970s. I see them being the biggest activists for all their native communities and they help in every possible way they can. Not only because they want to reconnect and amend their mistakes, but because they altruistically care for their people.

Their hobbies absolutely include remodeling the homes of elders and delivering food to them. They are very much for the landback movement and will call out anti-indigenous sentiment without hesitation. I also think Alfred separates himself from his governmental supervisors in current day and will challenge them now compared to when he stayed relatively compliant as a young nation.

I still have SO MANY theories about Alfred and Matt's origins and experiences with assimilation that I am working out, but I want to carefully plot it all out so as to not trivialize legitimate indigenous trauma, especially as a reconnector. All I can say is that if the land I stand on had a personification, it would be an indigenous being, no question.

#hetalia #hws america / #indigeneity / #assimilation / #if given the chance I will try being more elaborate but #this is a little bit of my thoughts on n8v al + matt if you squint #thank you anon I really do like talking about n8v al #kikitalkz

[max1461]

I will admit I feel a little alienated by advice to the effect of “screaming/yelling during an argument is abuse; if someone does that, cut them out of your life”. I grew up in a family where everyone yells all the time, pretty much, like getting yelled at/yelling back was just my default experience of what arguments were like growing up. Now, I will say that I don’t think this is a good thing, I certainly don’t want to replicate this with my kids or with my romantic partners. But I also don’t think of my parents or my sister (or myself) as “abusers” for this, and the last thing I want to do is cut them out of my life. In the case of my sister especially I don’t perceive any lasting damage from having pretty consistent Big Screaming Matches with her from ages 10-16; as adults our relationship is fantastic.

I still yell sometimes in arguments with my family and they still yell sometimes at me. We all try not to, nobody likes to be yelled at and all of us being basically decent people we try not to do it to each other. But it happens sometimes and none of us really sweat it. So, I guess the “all yelling is abuse” crowd can just... throw us in the incinerator? Idk. But I do think this is kind of a “cultural differences” thing. If you come from a background where yelling is this really taboo thing, I get how it could be something you don’t even want to tolerate once. And I don’t know how to make my life situation sound not-fucked-up to people from that background. But like... trust me, I’m fine? That’s the best I can say. There are things my parents did when raising me that I’m pretty upset about, but this isn’t one of them.

Anyway, I think there are kinda lots of things like this. Things that some group of people will identify as really Bad that someone with a slightly different background will think of as mostly whatever. Again I’m not saying it’s good to yell (I’m certainly not going to raise my kids that way), but genuinely to me, in my life, someone yelling at me is just not a big deal. I don’t know, just some thoughts.

#personal #wanna make this one unrebloggable but I’m on mobile and idk how? so don’t reblog please

[llyfrenfys]

how is welsh not an ethnicity? /gen bc at this point i genuinely don't think i know what an ethnicity is! on forms it tends to be skin colour, but when i google it there's always an emphasis on culture.

This one is a bit of a sticky topic since it is a situation where the same words can mean slightly different things to different people and conflation between similar words is common.

I'm going to use a crochet metaphor for this since it is a non-problematic version of the same problem. So, in crochet, there are various different kinds of stitches, the most common being single and double crochet. However, in the US and the UK, there are terminology differences which can get confusing since they refer to similar (yet distinct) stitches. What is called 'Single Crochet' in the US is called 'Double Crochet' in the UK. And what the US calls 'Double Crochet' is called 'Treble Crochet' in the UK. This kind of thing happens all the time in various situations - be it a hobby, a topic or a concept, linguistic differences can arise in two or more groups which leads to all groups involved using the same terminology, but it meaning wildly different things to different people.

This is the situation when it comes to defining race and ethnicity. Like crochet, in the English-speaking world, the US uses the terms race and ethnicity differently to how the UK does it. Ditto for other Anglophone nations like Australia, New Zealand etc. But for simplicity I will just focus on the US and UK for now. [Note: there will be many caveats and nuanced things which will require a pinch of salt in my answer here, so do keep in mind I'm simplifying a lot here to avoid this post from getting too long]. This is also where I introduce a third term to the mix: Nationality. Nationality is our 'Treble Crochet' in this metaphor.

Ethnicity:

As you point out, on forms ethnicity sometimes is used to refer to skin colour, but in other circumstances there's more of an emphasis on culture. This is where the different people using the same terms for different things starts to cause problems. Using the forms example as a jumping off point, when you fill in a form and get to the section titled ethnicity, the options can often be quite confusing since some of them appear to refer to race, while others do not. In 2021 England and Wales had a census and the government made a list of ethnicities here from the results:

"The main changes to the 2021 Census of England and Wales, compared with the previous Census, were: -the ‘Roma’ group was added under the ‘White’ ethnic group -a write-in response was added for the ‘Black African’ ethnic group"

This, as you can probably see, already has Some Issues. For example, Roma are a distinct ethnic group, but have here been put under the category of white (which is a more racial classification), when many Roma would not identify this way. Some would identify this way- but the problem lies within the creation of rigid boxes with no room for overlap. Ethnicity as a concept overlaps with nationality a fair bit, since there is no agreed upon definition for either term. Things get complicated when some people approach ethnicity with solely race in mind, while others approach ethnicity with solely nationality in mind. Ethnicity can be informed by race and nationality- however - that can get sticky fast depending on context. Just focusing on Wales, however, I would argue Welshness is only informed by nationality and culture, not race. To argue there is a racial component to being Welsh would mean arguing that Welsh people have significant racial identifiers which distinguish them from the neighbouring Scottish and English- as well as the rest of Europe in general. And this, inevitably is how fascism happens. It also raises red flags to go down this road simply because by default, these arguments disqualify nonwhite people from being Welsh at all and we all know what happens when certain white traits are idolised over others...

On the other hand, considering ethnicity from a purely nationality and culture-based approach is much more suitable for Wales as it encapsulates what comes to mind when one thinks of Wales and Welshness. Welsh national dishes and traditional dress are not tied to race in any way. Race simply has not been significant to the formation of Welshness amongst its neighbours (England- more distantly Scotland and Ireland). Whereas race *is* significant to the conception of ethnicity of other nations in the world, such as Aboriginal Australians, whose modern conception of ethnicity is tied to their race in contrast with the arrival of white Australians. In other words, Aboriginal Australians are a racialised people while Welsh people are not. Ergo, it is a highly individual thing as to whether certain nations find race important to their ethnic identity or not.

Official forms may list "White, Welsh" as an option for ethnicity, however, this does not imply that white Welsh people are a separate race to "White, English", "White, Scottish" or "White, Northern Irish" or vice versa, it is more of an appeasement by the government in the census to allow people from Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland to be able to identify as Welsh, Scottish or Northern Irish where they ordinarily would have to begrudgingly select "British". That being said, the government should add "Black, Welsh" etc. options as well, but their absence here is governmental laziness than anything else (they have a box on the census to 'write-in' any ethnicity option not available on the list) so that avoids them from having to formally add in these as options. The bottom line is- it is not possible to be 'racially ethnically Welsh' but it is possible to be 'culturally ethnically Welsh'. Despite this, the latter designation is shied away from simply because 'ethnically Welsh/English/Scottish/Northern Irish' in any context is a dogwhistle used by white supremacists. Most people tend to identify as Welsh/English/Scottish/Northern Irish without any racial component to that identity for this reason.

Nationality:

Nationality is a little easier to define (but cannot be pinned down 100% for a few reasons) but the simplest definition of nationality relates to the country you were born in or are a citizen of. Nationality is not fixed and can change. However, the problems with defining nationality this way is that there are many nations which are not recognised as such internationally. Take Wales for an example- Wales is a country or a nation but it is part of the United Kingdom, which is a State. Here too is where a US/UK divide springs up, since in the US state can refer to the individual States which make up the US. While elsewhere State generally refers to a country or nation with international recognition on the world stage. The US is a State, so is the UK in this metric.

[Important to note that the US is not the only country to have states within it- the system of states within a country is called Federalism and many countries have this system. E.g. Australia has many states, but none of those states are separate countries. Neither are US states (i.e. Oregon is not a separate entity to the US on an international level- it does not send diplomats to the rest of the US or other countries, for example. Ergo it is a constituent part of the US, not separate to it. Ditto the other 48 states on Mainland America. Hawaii is *different*). Part of the confusion stems from the tendency for Americans to view their states as if they were separate countries within a regional organisation, however, this is a misunderstanding of Federalism. Many Americans point to the EU and assume the EU is a country with lots of little European 'states' (small 's') within it. This is false- the EU is essentially just a club the European countries are part of. It's like saying NATO is a country- if you understand how that wouldn't make sense, that's also how calling the EU a country doesn't make sense. Members of the EU like Germany also have Federalism- e.g. Germany has 16 states.]

Back to the point- Wales is a nation which exists within the UK alongside England, Scotland and Northern Ireland. It is possible to get a passport as a citizen of the United Kingdom, but impossible to get a Welsh, English, Scottish or Northern Irish passport. The same way you can get a US passport but not a Maine passport etc. The stickiness lies within the fact that Wales is indisputably a nation, but legally it is not possible to be a citizen of Wales. All people who live or are born in Wales are citizens of the United Kingdom by default. Therefore, defining nationality strictly on where you're born or where you move to live is exclusionary of many nations that aren't Nations (capital 'N'). See also: the Native American Nations that exist within the US who also don't have international recognition as separate nations which can issue (legally recognised) passports. The goal of Welsh nationalism is to establish Wales as an independent country to the United Kingdom, similar to the Scottish independence movement for Scotland. Hence why someone's Nationality can be Welsh without Wales legally being a separate country.

Race:

I have touched on why race isn't relevant to Welshness already a little bit, but I will add a little more here too.

There is a tendency from many people in the US (specifying US as there seems to be a real culture for it there) to identify with a country they have an ancestor from. There isn't anything wrong with celebrating your own heritage. However, this is where the US and rest of the world tend to define things differently. It is not uncommon to find any European lamenting (some) Americans who identify as the country that European is from based purely on having one ancestor from that country hundreds of years ago. This is down to the US conception of race and the racial climate specific to the US (and only the US). E.g, you may get many people in the US who are proud Irish-Americans and go around claiming Irishness because of having 'Irish blood'* from their great-great-great-great grandmother on their father's side (*another dogwhistle which many who do this are not aware of). This, and it cannot be stressed enough, does NOT go down well in Europe. 'X country's blood' harks back to the conception of ethnicity which includes racial aspects- which as I've explained, is a white supremacist dogwhistle. It also very clearly has parallels with 'blood quantum'.

The other complication is that 'Irish-American' to a European would generally be understood to mean someone with dual nationality in Ireland and the US. This terminology is overwhelmingly US based and as such, US concepts of race butt heads with how it is defined in other parts of the world. E.g. in the US it has been common to refer to black Americans as African-American (regardless of how inaccurate that can be) to the point where the term black and African-American are synonymous. This leads to the black British actor Idris Elba being called African-American, when that makes no sense outside of a US context. Furthermore, UK and US terminology differs in other ways. The US uses the acronym POC to refer to People of Colour, while in the UK BAME is sometimes used for Black, Asian, Minority Ethnicities [caveat both have their own issues which we will not get into here].

Bringing this back to Welshness, there is no racial component to being Welsh, ergo race is not a factor in someone's Welshness.

Summary:

Ethnicity is something that may be informed by both race, culture and nationality, just race, just culture or just nationality. Whichever of those a given people has is informed by the historical evolution of the people and its relationship with other peoples. Certain combinations of the above are more suitable for certain peoples than others.

Nationality is something which is usually formally bestowed upon an individual based on either where they were born or if they move and naturalise as a citizen of somewhere different to where they were born. It can also be something which is informally adopted by a person living in or identifying with a nation not currently recognised as independent by the international community, but is nonetheless extant and may even be campaigning for Statehood. Lack of international recognition is not a barrier to national identity.

Race is something which is also bestowed at birth and consists of a set of traits or features associated with different racial groups, such as skin colour.

I hope that this has been useful and informative. Since you're on anon I don't know where you are from exactly, but I hope this at least leaves you feeling less confused. As with all things, there are many asterisks and pinches of salt, so do not take this for gospel. Rather think for yourself and do some research around some of the topics I've mentioned here to get more informed on the topic.

#welsh #cymreig #ethnicity #nationality #race #white supremacist mention #Wales #Welshness #Cymreictod #ask to tag #ask #gofyn #long post

[by-ego]

This is to go with what you asked for about a writing prompt with the Shaw pack mates.

What about a short story of Sam angel babe and sweetheart having a talk while their mates are on a run as wolves 🐺? Just them shooting the shit

I hope this is too your liking and apoligized that it's a bit short. Thank you for the prompt, it's super sweet! <3

Babes hand shot out and caught the mosquito in the air right in front of Angel's face. "Whoa" they said, as their head moved back in surprise. Babe smirked, and Sam nodded, ever so slightly impressed. "That’s more than I can do even with my reflexes," he chuckled. "Well I've got training," they answered with a laugh. "Growing up where I did, mosquitos were a given," they added. 

"Anyone want a drink?" Sweetheart shouted from inside the cabin. “No thank you” Sam answered right back, while Angel asked for something sweet. “Is coke good? Or do you want some lemonade?” They follow up. “Nah, coke sounds great, David banned it together with junk food so I kinda miss it” angel answers and stealth hums loudly in agreement. “And you (babe)?” they asked. “Tea? If there is any I’d like that” Babe calls into the cabin to sweetheart. “I’ll go look” they respond. 

A few minutes later sweetheart comes out with a tray with coke for angel, raspberry tea for Babe and a lemonade for themself. They handed out the drinks to the rest of the group followed by a few thank yous, and took a seat next to angel. “Ah I’m so glad to be able to drink this again without Davy glaring at me” Angel laughed. Sam and Sweetheart laughs with them, while Babe sipps their tea with a smile. “Why would he ban it for you? You’re an adult” Sam asks, raising an eyebrow. “Well he insisted I needed to get healthier eating habits, so he banned it and cleaned out our kitchen of junk food and stuff with a lot of sugar” Angel pretended to wipe a tear from their face. “I am thinking of doing something like that at home,” babe laughs, “all Ash eats is take away pizza and wings and soda”.  “Yeah that sounds like Asher, when I got together with Milo, he still lived with David he did the same” Sweetheart laughed. “Well it just sounds like David traded one for another,” when Sam said this Babe bursts out in laughter and Angel pretends to look offended. “Okay, ignoring that” angel say, while jokingly turning their nose up and away from Sam, “don’t subject Asher to that, because it is torture”. “Yeah, and I am scared that he is going to burn my kitchen down if I take that away from him and he tries to cook. Literally the first time I meet him he is on the phone with David and had apparently let whatever he was cooking flare up” Babe exclaimed, laughing and hiding their face in their hands. They all laugh at Asher's expense, all in a loving fashion. 

“How come you did not take the lemonade, I thought you love lemonade,” sweetheart asked babe, changing the subject. “Well I do, but I tried that one and it was too sweet. Everything here in the US is, it just overpowers the real taste. I prefer to make it myself or buy from a ethnic shop instead” they confess. “Ah that makes sense, I guess when you grow up here, it’s different verses if you don’t” Sweetheart points out. “I suppose there must be a big cultural shock coming from outside the US to here, from a big blossoming culture to the complete lack of one here” Sam ponders, “or well oppression of what was” he adds. 

Suddenly, they can hear the howls of the wolf, echoing through the night, up at the full moon of the winter solstice. Sam looks out into the woods with a smile, babe drinking their tea, a peaceful feeling settling in them all. That’s their mates out there, doing their thing, having fun. And so were they, even if they weren't enjoying it the same way, the night made them all glad they had come up all this way. Finding this additional family, being welcomed into it, entering a new (and for two of them unfamiliar) chapter, an exciting new part of their lives. A partner, a mate, a lover, a soulmate, a friend. Hearing them howl out their passion and joy into the night placed a smile on their faces, even if they did not fully understand their mates feelings, and even if some had not called it mates yet, they felt the joy.

Hope you enjoyed!

<3

#redacted babe #redacted asher #redacted asmr #redacted sweetheart #redacted milo #redacted davey #redacted sam #redacted david #redacted angel #redacted darlin #redacted shaw pack #redacted shifters #redacted wolf pack #redacted wolfs #writing prompt

[soft-persephone]

Scattered Promises 3

Din Djarin x Fem!OriginalCharacter

Rating: Mature // MDNI // WC: 1.2k // warnings: violence, fighting, sexual tension // masterlist // AN: I always write with black women in mind, but remember! Anyone can read it!! // Ch.2. // Ch.4. //

Amiyra hadn’t seen much of Din after her arrival. She stayed one night at the palace until Paz came and opened up his home to her. It had more to do with Penny asking if Amiyra knew any better, but she wasn’t going to bring it up because it would definitely cause another fight, so she only told them it was temporary until she was settled and found a place just for her and the kids. 

Sammy went to some sort of community child group. She called it a daycare, but that got her several hard stairs and a firm, ‘ it isn’t”. 

She made sure not to make that mistake again. 

Jasmine was much older, so she was doing so many things. . .violent things.

She tried no to think about it.

Different cultures have different customs, different rituals, different beliefs and religions, and violence was a part of theirs. Or is it rooted in a love for armor and weaponry? Perhaps an origin of a warrior people. 

All of the above most likely. She listened to the history, but she’d rather just read about it. She knows the people they have teaching her throughout the day get tired of her constant questioning and berating  context. It got so bad that they had Din sent somethign from inside the wall. 

She trekked to the clearing in the deep forest past the willow tree and up the hill. She did not expect a ring of dirt formed through years of use from the many fights held in this area by the Mandalorians in training. There were a few wooden sheds that were worn with age but sturdy to last all these years for equipment as well a small one that served as a med bay, but it did not seem to get much use if anyone asked her about it. 

Mandalorians wouldn’t admit it, but Amiyra found them to be a proud people. They did not ask for much help and tended to push or persevere their way through everything, or at least that was the impression she got from the ones that lived in the village. She hadn’t met many within the city walls, but it was clear that they were different. 

“Change of plans,’ The mandalorian she was being trained by said, “it's not like you’ve never fought before in your life. It is clear you are a survivor.”

She nodded respectfully at his comment. Jamor was not a man of many words.

“Today we have a special warrior who has taken a personal interest in your ability to fight like all Mandalorians. He is brutal, but he comes from a time where we were at our worst as a people. We did not have our home as freely as we do now, and that meant we were in a constant war wherever we were.” he paused. “Children were raised to join that war as soon as possible.”

“I understand.”

He nodded. 

She did not need him to say anymore, and she respected his usual silence to ask him to stop. 

The last children of the great war were to be respected. It was one of the first rules she had learned in her new life in the village. 

She took her position in the center.

More people were here than usual. Most likely to see the new guest Jamor spoke of. He had to be the one who stood closest to the ring. He had an armor that was worn with time but taken care of, it was brown and slightly rusted. In some places it might have been painted over to hide the rust spots that were too bad.

The rest of the warriors gave him a respectful distance, but they stayed as close as possible, looking at the clearing. Still and silent.

It was the most excitable crowd of Mandalorians she had ever seen. 

“READY!” Jamor called out, he paused for a moment before crying out, ‘HUH!” 

Amiyra went low as usual.

Most people who were taller than her always attacked from above, using their size and strength against her so she tends to opt for speed and agility. She dashed and dogged her opponent's advances, lunging to the side, and jumping back.

Sliding past them at a moment's notice, she got the other woman off guard, letting Amiyra strike her at the neck with all her might causing her to lose her balance and fall. She scrambled upon her back and held her down with a knee refusing to let her up. 

Victory.

Everyone looked at the Mandalorian of honor. 

He stared at her for a moment. His helmet did not reveal anything  nor did his body language change. 

“Again.” he called out. 

And Amiyra fought another warrior, and then another, and then another. 

She was about to face her final opponent, but he stopped them, pulling them back by their shoulder. 

“I’ll do it.” he said through his modulator, grating her ears.

Most of her opponents were tall and strong today, but he was not as tall as they were. However, he was  still very big.

She wouldn’t underestimate him. 

As soon as Jamor called out the beginning of the battle, he was immediately upon her. 

She had no time to dodge, and had to immediately attack back. She was not as intimidated by his size, so she opted for a more offensive approach. 

He hit her ribcage, her shoulder, and barely missed her head. His kicks wee just as swift if not faster. After kicking her in the leg it took all her energy to lunge away from a swipe that had enough force to knock her off her feet. Each blow left a throbbing ache in her body.  If he could get one hit in, there were two more that followed it. She could not follow them, so she started to leave herself open on one side to take advantage of small moments to hit him back. 

She knew how insane it looked. But if she had to take a beating just for a sliver chance to fight back in any capacity, she would take it.

She heard him scoff and before she could react she was on the ground. 

Apparently he was holding back. The last blow was stronger than the rest, knocking her into the ground

He pounced on top of her. Rolling his hips with enough force to bounce her head onto the ground. Her teeth clattering with the impact.

Wrapping his hand around her neck, he brought his face closer to hers, “You favor fighting defensively, and it leaves you at a disadvantage. Learn to attack more, be active. ”

She made a choking sound in response and he tightened his grip. 

After a heartbeat, he let her go and walked away.

The crowd parted and watched him go.

Jamor grasped her arm, helping her up. 

He nodded at her. 

Jamor was one of the few mandalorians that still wore the traditional armor, but what she could gather from his body language she could tell he was proud.

She bowed back and made her way to make the same exit. 

Everyone gave her the same nod or even bowed at her. 

What the actual fuck.

She got her ass handed to her, and they were praising her for it. 

What a world.

“And I thought you couldn't get any stupider.”

“Paz!” Penny warned. “He’s still your king.”

“And who gives a shit when he spends his time doing this dumbassery! He could be using it to better our people!” He banged his fist on the table and stood up.

“We have to gather resources to settle the brewing civil war between two tribes before it reeks irreparable damage on our society all in the midst of preparing for an even bigger attack on our entire planet, but our king,”  he mocks, “decides to spend that time pining over a girl he just met!”

Din’s eye twitched for the second time this month alone. 

And without a word, he swiftly stood and gave Paz the hardest punch to the face with every fiber of strength in his body.

It was a low fucking blow, but when is it not when Paz is the receiver of such a hit.

He was annoying. 

Hed be surprised to discover Paz had ever had the grace to receive a hit that wasn’t.

It caught him off guard and he ran right into the wall.

“Don’t you two start this osik in my house!” Penny hissed before continuing in her worst slew of curses in Mandoa.

Neither apologized, but reluctantly stopped for her benefit. 

Din wanted to pounce on him until he bled, but he’ll wait. There was always time to beat the shit out a Paz. 

“Now Din, there are better ways to get the attention of a girl you like.”

Penny softly switched their newest born into her other arm, gently lifting her breast to let her eat. As their baby daughter closed her little eyes before letting out a coo and sucking on her breast with tiny content noises, she continued.

“And usually has the decency to be honest.”

Din ignored her scolding.

Amiyra had no idea she was the king of their people. She simply thought he worked for him like Paz.

He did not have the heart to tell her. Especially after she told him in confidence that she was not ready to face any higher authority of this planet after her talk with the Armorer which raised another issue.

What had they talked about? Why did the conversation leave her in such a state of distress?

“Amiyra. . .doesn't want anyone like that in her life. Putting on my old armor means I can get to know her without adding unneeded pressure to her life.”

Penny’s shoulders fell, pushed back, and dropped just slightly. 

“I’m in no position to tell you what to do,” she said thinly, “but I don’t think this  is going to end as well as you hope it will.” She sighed. 

“Honesty is always the best option but you’re grown man and how you handle this is your business.” 

“I’ll think about it.” 

Din may be stubborn but he wasn’t foolish. However, no one was taking into consideration how this was the best option for his sake. 

He didn’t need the whole court coming down on her and wreaking havoc in his life because he’s taking interest in her. Knowing them, they’d tried to usher them into marriage before the next moon cycle.

Amiyra’s life was in a delicate state.

She and her family are transitioning into a new way of life, and he was going to make sure it happened as naturally and peacefully as possible, and he wouldn’t be so selfish to let the personal stressors of his life get in the way of that. 

Why did no one else see that? 

#din djarin #the mandalorian #the Mandalorian fanfiction #din djarin x original female character #din djarin x reader #din djarin fanfiction #star wars #star wars fanfiction #din djarin x black reader #pedro pascal x reader #pedro pascal fanfiction #pedro pascal x black reader

[ak-vintage]

Quarry - Chapter 9 (Part 2)

Pairing: Din Djarin (The Mandalorian) x f!reader

Summary: Din Djarin is on what he expects to be his last bounty hunt for Greef Karga. After all, Nevarro is swiftly moving away from its previous reputation as a Guild member’s paradise, and Din has more important concerns now, like finding a Jedi to train his mysterious foundling. However, after capturing a wanted starship engineer who would rather go anywhere other than “home,” the Mandalorian is forced to reassess his priorities.

Your taste of freedom had been brief but glorious. Now you are a prisoner of the most infamous bounty hunter in the Outer Rim – it’s only a matter of time before he turns you in. There isn’t much you would not do to keep from being sent home, but as you find yourself growing closer to your captor and his strange little companion, you start to wonder whether escape is really what you want.

Set after Chapter 13: The Jedi but before Chapter 14: The Tragedy.

Chapter Tags & Warnings: 18+ MDNI! Reader is Mando's live-in starship engineer, second-person POV, no use of Y/N, minimal descriptors of reader character, unresolved sexual tension, pining, discussions of blasters, masturbation (f & m), praise kink, hand and finger kink, glove kink (sort of), competence kink

Series Masterlist | Read on AO3

The Match

“Have you ever fired a blaster?”

You frowned slightly at the question, squinting into the sun as you watched Mando arrange several of the items in question on the rocky slab before you. Though you were still on Trevi IV, the search for his latest quarry ongoing, he had brought you many miles outside the city, deep into the barren plains. It was safer, he said, for your first time handling a weapon.

The landscape was dusty, gravely, and sunbaked, dotted only occasionally with brittle shrubs and thin, twisted trees. The Razor Crest provided nominal shade, and you could already feel sweat beginning to trickle down your spine and pool in the small of your back. A part of you wondered whether perhaps there was a better time or place to do this, but when you had woken this morning, foggy-headed and dry-mouthed, your companion had seemingly decided that teaching you how to handle a firearm was at the top of his priority list.

“No, never,” you replied with a shake of your head.

The bounty hunter nodded slowly, almost absently, and began picking up each blaster pistol he had laid out one by one – examining the sights, testing the weight in his palm, pulling back the action to get a look at the power pack, the gas cartridge.

“How much do you know about them – their mechanics, their operation?” he asked.

You shrugged. “Only a little. Small tech has never really been my specialty.” You thought back to all those months ago, when you had considered attempting to disassemble your binder cuffs as a means of escape. “I could probably…tear one apart? Break it down into its components? But I’m not sure I could tell you what the pieces do,” you admitted.

The Mandalorian nodded again. “In my culture, weapons are an integral part of our religion,” he explained. “Children are given blasters as a rite of passage. We go through extensive training on blaster assembly, operation, maintenance, and safety, and we are expected to be highly proficient by our thirteenth birthday.”

As he spoke, he continued the slow, methodical examination of the pistols. Calmly, confidently, he handled each one, and though you weren’t entirely certain what he was assessing, you felt as though you could watch him do it as long as he wished. There was something reverent about it, and suddenly the connection to spirituality made sense.

“After we turn 13, we can begin training with other, more specialized weapons if we so choose, but you will never find a Mandalorian without a blaster as part of their personal arsenal,” he continued. “However, you are neither Mandalorian, nor are you training to become a warrior. As such, your training will have different goals.”

You raised your eyebrows at that, even as a ripple of relief passed through you. “Such as?”

Mando met your gaze finally, setting the last blaster back down on the slab. “First, safety. Most blasters have a ‘stun’ setting, which is what we will be using, but they can also be deadly weapons. In inexperienced hands, a blaster is far more dangerous to the wielder than the target.” He beckoned you forward with a flex of his orange-tipped fingers. “I’ll teach you how to properly handle a blaster – how to manage the different settings, how to carry it, hold it, store it. And I’ll teach you how to safely reload and how to keep it from overheating. Then, target practice,” he added. “We’ll start with large, stationary targets and, over time, introduce smaller, moving targets at greater distances.”

You studied the selection before you, a total of five different blaster pistols of varying sizes, materials, and configurations, and fresh nerves began to flutter in the pit of your stomach. Before you could allow them to take hold of you, however, the bounty hunter’s big, heavy hand came up to grip your arm, and your eyes snapped to his.

“I don’t expect you to be a perfect marksman,” he assured you, his voice softer and gentler then. “But I need to know that you are able to protect yourself. And the child. In time, I want to feel confident that if I’m away, the two of you would be just as safe out in the world as you would be inside the Razor Crest. You deserve to see the galaxy beyond the walls of a gunship. Both of you do.”

The space around your heart melted, settling your nerves and softening the tension in your muscles you hadn’t even realized you had been carrying. The Mandalorian was no less intimidating to you now than he was when you first met, but at least now you were secure in your belief that he was a good man under all that beskar.

So you nodded, and you squared your shoulders, meeting his visor with your gaze. “I understand. I’ll try my best.”

“Good,” he replied. He sounded pleased, almost proud. “Then let’s begin. We’ll start by seeing which of these best fits your body. Pick one to start with.”

The two of you spent the next several minutes evaluating each of the blasters Mando had selected for you, feeling their weight, ensuring that the grip was comfortable for the size of your hands. He had you extend each one as though to fire it so you could feel its balance, and any that you felt were too heavy or impossible to hold steady he set aside.

When you had finally managed to narrow down your options to two, as promised, he began the safety portion of his instruction. You watched carefully as he showed you how to turn the safety settings on and off on each and how to grip them with your finger off the trigger, only moving it into place when you were actually ready to fire.  After demonstrating it himself, he made you practice while he watched – check the safety, pick up the blaster, flick off the safety, gently lay your index finger on the trigger, remove your finger, turn the safety back on, lay the blaster back down.

Only when he was satisfied with the confidence and fluidity of your movements did the Mandalorian move on to showing you how to reload. Open the action, release the spent gas cartridge, click the new cartridge into place, close the action.

Again, he demonstrated, once slowly with verbal explanations and then again faster and silently, and you couldn’t help but be mesmerized by the ease and grace of his leather-clad hands, the dexterity of his long, thick fingers. You recalled the sensation of those hands on your skin – caressing your neck, your jaw, your cheeks. The firm, assertive grip around your arm, the ghost of a touch on the insides of your wrists, the steadying press against the base of your spine in a crowd. Both soothing and inflaming, in equal measure.

You fumbled your way through your own demonstration with your face hot and your throat dry. So thoroughly distracted were you that he forced you to unload and reload both blasters more than ten times each, just to really drive the point home. Only when you complained that the tips of your fingers were starting to go numb did the bounty hunter finally allow you to take a break.

“Think you’re ready to try shooting one?” he asked after giving you a moment to shake out your hands.

You swallowed thickly, the quivering, burning sensation of lust suddenly replaced with nerves. Still, you nodded. You trusted him to keep you safe. And to withhold judgment if you ended up being a piss-poor shot.

Mando inclined his helmet in the direction of a craggy rock formation jutting up out of the dusty desert ground some 20 meters away. It was sizeable, about your height and twice as wide.

“You’re going to try to hit that rockface, as close to the center as you can manage,” he said. Pulling his own blaster out of its holster, he set his feet shoulder width apart and took aim. “Pay attention to how I’m holding my body. My arm is steady but not rigid, my shoulders are relaxed, my footing is firm, solid.”

His invitation had the lust rocketing back up to the surface again as you allowed your gaze to trace his form, silhouetted in gleaming beskar and dark fabric against the sun-washed landscape. Impossibly broad shoulders, long limbs. Thick thighs, strong arms, and his tattered black cape fluttering in the wind, every once in a while giving a glimpse of his perfectly shaped ass. You didn’t know when you had started noticing such things. All you knew was that now, it seemed impossible not to notice.

He oozed competence, and it was intoxicating.

The raspy modulation of his voice pulled you out of your musings, forcing you back into the moment. “We’ll get to shooting while on the move or from different positions eventually,” he said, lowering his blaster and slipping back into its holster. “Today, I just want you to get comfortable standing and stationary. Now, let’s see what you can do. Pick a blaster and give it a try.”

___

“Try again.”

You gritted your teeth and squinted against the relentless clouds of dust kicked up by your missed shots. You had missed so many at this point, you had begun to lose count. Sweat streaked down your back and your temples. It coated your palms, making your grip on the blaster evermore precarious. You could sense Mando losing his patience in the clipped tone of his encouragement, and it made you burn with embarrassment. Leveling the blaster once more in the direction of the rockface, you squeezed the trigger again.

A puff of dust erupted from the ground to the right of the rock formation, and you bit back a curse.

“Again,” Mando commanded, short and gruff.

A wave of bitter frustration rose in your chest, and you sighed heavily, pulling the trigger almost carelessly. That miss was worse, now several inches in front of the target.

A sound something like a growl crackled through the bounty hunter’s helmet modulator, and you heard him mutter something unintelligible in Mando’a before saying, “You’re getting further away.”

“Oh, thanks for that. I hadn’t noticed,” you replied cuttingly. You dropped your blaster arm for a moment, rolling your head on your shoulders in an attempt to release some tension. However, when you brought it back up to take aim once more, you caught sight of your companion’s arm shooting out toward you.

“Stop. Hold there,” he snapped, approaching from where he stood off to the side. “Pay attention to your stance, your grip. Does that feel like what I demonstrated?”

You groaned deeply, your head dropping back on your neck and your eyes sliding closed, almost as though in prayer. “I don’t know any more!”

“Yes, you do. Now pick your head up. What’s wrong with what you’re doing right now?”

“Damn it, Mando – !”

Suddenly, that firm, confident grip was back, his time on your shoulder. The Mandalorian had closed the distance between you, cupping the ball of your shoulder in his palm, his long fingers extending along your trapezius muscle, warming, soothing. “Relax,” he demanded, leaving no room for protest. “You’re getting frustrated, and it’s clouding the connection between your mind and your body. Now, breathe in with me, from your diaphragm. I don’t want to feel your shoulder move, understand?”

You swallowed and nodded stiffly.

“In,” Mando ordered, inhaling deeply. You allowed yourself to follow his lead, careful to breathe from your belly, feeling it expand against the heavy fabric of your new boilersuit. “Out.” You exhaled, sensing the slowing of your heartrate and the gradual dissolution of your aggravation.

He nodded once, seemingly pleased with your capitulation. “Good. Again. In…out.” You obeyed once more, and to your mild annoyance, you felt the last of your irritation evaporate on your exhale.

“Now tune in to your body. What’s out of place?”

Dropping his gaze, you turned your attention inward, sending it out into your limbs, your extremities. The warmth of Mando’s hand on your shoulder was a glowing beacon to your senses, comfortable, happy, content, but the rest…

“I…my knees,” you murmured, your voice breathy and distracted. “My knees are locked.”

Your companion nodded. “Good. Unlock them. A slight bend is safer and more sustainable, especially in this heat,” he said, matching the softness of your tone. The sound, the intimacy of it, made the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. “What else?”

Immediately, you said, “My weight is uneven. I’m leaning more on my right leg than my left.” It was so obvious now that you were paying attention. You were wildly out of balance.

“Yes. Correct it.” You did so instantly, centering yourself completely over both feet. “Now tell me about your shoulders.”

Shifting slightly beneath his grip, you felt the ache in the taut muscle, the way your shoulders had somehow managed to creep up around your ears without your permission. “I’m…I’m tense,” you replied, feeling as though you were stating the obvious. Certainly he could feel how stiff you were.

“Why? What are you afraid of?”

Your eyebrows rose at the unexpected question. “I don’t know.” You thought of the way the blaster jumped back in your hands, small, easily absorbed, but always unexpected. The durasteel felt foreign, cold, and intimidating in your palm. “The recoil, maybe,” you mused. “The…blaster itself.”

You felt more than saw the Mandalorian tilt his helmet in acknowledgment. “Having some fear of a weapon is wise, healthy even. It will help prevent you from getting careless,” he conceded. “But a blaster is merely a tool. It is an extension of yourself. Allowing the fear to take hold will only make it more dangerous.”

You nodded, releasing a sigh. He was right, of course. You worked with tools every day that were just as dangerous as a blaster. Your fusion cutter had been nearly glued to your hip lately, and if you didn’t handle it the way you had been trained, it had just as much potential to harm you as the pistol in your hand. You needed to relax. Mando wouldn’t let anything hurt you.

As though he had read your thoughts, the man in question shifted to stand behind you then, bringing both of his hands up to your shoulders and slowly, purposefully lowering them back down to a more neutral position. You felt your heart rate increase at the touch, all while your rigid muscles warmed and relaxed. His palms were hot through his gloves. If you hadn’t already been sweating in the desert sun, the heavy stretch of his hands on your body would have been enough to start.

“Good,” Mando murmured, his rasping praise almost too soft to register to his vocoder. You felt a swooping, dropping sensation behind your navel at the sound, and it took all your strength to not allow your eyes to close, to not lean into his presence mere inches behind you. “Now, take aim at the rock again. Look down the barrel. The rock should sit directly on top of the sight.”

Clenching your jaw, you did as he said and adjusted your aim, raising your arm just enough so that the rock hovered, barely touching, on top of the sight at the end of the blaster pistol’s barrel.

“Are you ready?” he asked. His hands remained on your shoulders. They held you steady, kept you centered.

Swallowing thickly, you replied, “Yes.”

“Fire.”

You pulled the trigger, firm and quick, before you could lose your nerve...

And another explosion of dust burst from the ground to the right of the rock, choking the air around you.

“You’re holding your breath,” Mando accused.

You let your arm drop back down to your side, defeated, and loosed a colorful curse. “Well, how exactly am I supposed to hold my arm steady if I’m breathing?” you snipped. You could feel the tension bubbling back up in your limbs, in your neck. “I’m swaying all over the place, every time I breathe in!”

The bounty hunter’s hands slipped from your body then, and you glanced over your shoulder just in time to see him bring one up to his helmet, almost as though he was pressing on the bridge of his nose through the layers of beskar and padding. “Show me your stance,” he commanded once again.

You didn’t even attempt to repress your groan. “Mando – ” you started to whine.

But he didn’t allow you to continue. “Show. Me. Your. Stance.” If you didn’t know better, you would guess that he was speaking through his teeth. He was calm, but it was an effortful calm, as though he was now fighting back just as much impatience and frustration as you.

Feeling appropriately chastised, you reset your stance from the ground up – feet shoulder width apart and securely on the ground, knees slightly bent, hips centered, weight evenly distributed, spine straight and tall, arm extended, hand firm but not strangling around the blaster grip, the rock balanced gently on the top of the sights. Everything as it had been moments before.

When you had missed. Again.

“This time, when you’re getting ready to shoot, breathe in slowly, exhale, and then fire,” he instructed once you had settled back in.

You pulled a scowl at that. “What’s the difference between that and just holding my breath?”

The Mandalorian was quiet for a moment, the only sound the desert wind rustling through the sparse shrubs, the wiry trees. You dared a peek over the cap of your shoulder once more and found him standing with his hands on his hips, staring at the ground as though contemplating something carefully. You drew your lower lip between your teeth as you watched him, your confusion growing with the silence, but before you could ask him what was wrong, his gaze snapped back up to yours, and you swore you could feel his eyes on you even though you couldn’t see them through is visor.

“I’ll show you the difference,” he said, a note of finality in his modulated voice. He took one step toward you then another, and then suddenly it felt as though you had blinked and he had crossed the distance between you, sliding up behind your back, his left hand slipping around the front of your body to settle on your belly, his right hand wrapping around yours on the pistol grip.  

A molten wave of heat flushed through your system at the contact, settling high in your cheeks and low in your abdomen, right under where his palm now spread – so gentle, so steady. You felt surrounded, swallowed by him. His presence loomed hardly an inch behind you, the warmth and the breadth and the power of him so close and yet not nearly close enough. Your knees felt watery, your spine prickling, begging to melt back into him, to mold yourself against the hard planes of his cuirass, his thigh armor.

“This all right?” Mando murmured, his deep baritone a hairsbreadth from your ear. You wondered whether he could feel you tremble at the sensation, whether he could sense how he was affecting you. Your brand-new panties were soaked now. Hot and slick, they clung to your lips inside your boilersuit.

Breathlessly, you replied, “Yes.” Because it was all right, you realized. He could touch you whenever he liked, however he liked, and you would welcome it. You knew that now.  

“Then take aim,” he commanded, giving a light squeeze to your right hand where it gripped the blaster. You obeyed instantly, centering the target rock formation over the sight.

“Breathe in.” His abdomen expanded behind you, barely brushing your back, and you copied him unquestioningly. Your belly pressed into the palm of his hand.

“Out.” You exhaled slowly and evenly, and then, at the very bottom of your breath, you felt the pressure over your blaster hand increase. “Fire,” Mando ordered. Your index finger flexed smoothly, easily, and the blaster discharged once more.

Shards of sandy rock burst from the target as the bolt of energy finally collided with its face.

You let out a whoop of victory, nearly collapsing in relief. “Ha! I did it!” you shrieked, gesticulating wildly at the rock formation, pulling yourself out of Mando’s grip.

A chuckle rumbled through his vocoder, and he inclined his helmet in your direction, crossing his arms over his chest. “Kandosii, gotabor’ika. Well done.”

You felt yourself begin to laugh, too, as you swiped the back of your hand across your sweaty forehead. “I can’t believe I hit it.”

“Only just,” the bounty hunter corrected. “You’re still pulling down and to the right when you squeeze the trigger.”

Again, he was correct – the jagged scar from your blaster bolt was nowhere near the center of the rockface where you had meant to be aiming, but you refused to allow such details ruin the rush of your success. “Oh, come on, Mando, that’s the closest I’ve gotten all day! I actually hit the rock. Let me celebrate a little!”

His gaze on you felt warm even through his impassive helmet, as though you could sense a smile on his hidden face. “Of course. We have a way to go, but for your first day of training, you’ve done well. Perhaps we will make a marksman out of you yet,” he said wryly, and oh, you could have melted at the praise.

“Maybe you will,” you replied, the tip of your tongue touching the corner of your smile.

___

The Flame

“Damn it,” you swore softly to yourself as you wrestled with the zipper of your boilersuit. It occurred to you as you writhed and wriggled, working the heavy fabric down your body, that perhaps you hadn’t thought this through. The somewhat claustrophobic confines of the Razor Crest’s bunk alcove weren’t exactly an ideal place to try to disrobe, but when the opportunity for a bit of privacy had presented itself, you hadn’t had time to weigh your options.

The chance to relieve the molten hunger that had been building inside you all day was well worth a bruised elbow or a bump on the head here or there.

The distraction of your minor victory earlier hadn’t lasted long. As soon as the thrill of watching your blaster bolt hit its target for the first time faded, the longing had returned. The weight of the Mandalorian’s hands on your body, his heat wrapped around you like a cloak, his deep, rasping voice dropping praise in your ear… All of it had felt more appropriate to a late-night tryst than a shooting lesson, and your body had responded accordingly. You could hardly remember the last time you had taken someone into your bed, but you were certain that you had never wanted another person the way you had come to want him.

Thankfully, Mando had not made you continue to practice for much longer. You had been allowed to stop shooting all together, eliminating any excuse you may have had to prolong his physical contact. He simply asked you to repeat your demonstrations of the safety and reloading protocols he had taught you earlier, as a review. You had managed to wrangle your frayed concentration long enough to do so, but when he had met your efforts with a soft-spoken “very good, gotabor’ika,” you had been nearly desperate to excuse yourself.

You had feigned fatigue when he invited you to join him and Grogu in the cockpit for the flight back to Trevi City, claiming to need a nap after overexposure to the sun. He had inclined his helmet at you graciously, encouraging you to “take all the time you need.”

His boots had barely disappeared from the top rung of the ladder before you were ripping off your own, diving into the bunk, and hastily shutting the blast doors.

Now, with your boilersuit crumpled in a haphazard ball at the foot of the mattress, clad in nothing but a matching set of black cotton underclothes, you finally allowed your hand to slip down your body to the place that had been aching for attention. Your heart thundered in your ears, your breath loud in the confines of the bunk alcove as you gently, tentatively cupped your sex over your underwear. You smothered a moan in the bend of your other elbow at the delicate pressure. The fabric was hot and absolutely soaked, clinging to your form like a second skin.

Ultimately, Mando had barely touched you. Your shoulders, your hands, your belly. The suggestion of a breath on the back of your neck. If this was how you reacted to so little contact, what would it be like for him to truly touch you?

You felt that same tugging, swooping sensation behind your navel from earlier at the thought, and your pussy throbbed, clenching around nothing. Unable to resist for another moment, you softly, tentatively slid your fingers beneath the waistband of your panties and between your folds.

“Oh, fuck,” you sighed, swallowing heavily against another moan. Maker, it was good. Warm and slick and perfect, the friction of the pads of your fingers making you quake. Your clit was already swollen and sensitive. You could feel your nipples pebble and tighten under your breastband as your touch barely skimmed it, light and suggestive. Normally, you preferred to work yourself up a bit before you got down to it, but you could tell just from that first touch that this wasn’t the day for teasing.

You could feel your body melt into the bunk mattress as you began to play in earnest. Your knees falling apart to give your hand more room to move, your back arching in pleasure, your other hand dropping to grip and massage a breast. A whine slipped out from between your lips at that, and suddenly, it was as though it was Mando’s hand pulling down your breastband, Mando’s fingers teasing and plucking your nipples. It was Mando’s touch between your thighs, rapidly circling your clit, Mando’s fingers sliding down to your entrance, collecting more of your juices.

You wanted him inside you. You could feel your body grasping, thrusting into your own touch, begging for something to fill you up and give you something to bear down on. You whimpered loudly, no longer aware of your own volume enough to keep it in check. You couldn’t take it anymore, you had to –

Thunk.

The sound of something heavy dropping onto the metal deck plating sounded on the other side of the alcove doors. Mando had jumped down into the cargo hold.

Your hands froze, one still buried in your panties, the other gripping one of your breasts. The continued pressure, firm and stationary, was nearly unbearable, but you drew your lips between your teeth and bit down, willing yourself silent and still. Your heart was racing, and you could feel sweat gathering at your temples, in the small of your back, behind your knees. Wordlessly, you prayed to every deity you had ever heard of for him to leave. You were too pent up to have to stop now.

However, your prayers were not to be answered.

You heard the metallic hiss of the ‘fresher door sliding open and closed again, followed by the groan of the shower turning on.

He was taking a shower. Right on the other side of the thin panel of durasteel that made up the alcove wall.

…if you were going to finish, you were going to need to be absolutely silent.

Without allowing yourself to consider it further, you rolled over onto your front, wrapping one of your arms around the thin, threadbare pillow and burying your face in it. Trapping your other hand between your body and the mattress, you slowly, gently slipped your middle and ring fingers inside your pussy.

You moaned into the pillow at the stretch, tight and hot and absolutely dripping. Maker, Mando was so close to you – just on the other side of the wall, likely stripped naked like you were, standing under the steaming rush of the showerhead. Faceless, as he always was in your mind, but with the golden tanned skin you had seen but once, water streaming down his muscled shoulders, his broad, masculine chest, his soft stomach. You thrust your hips into the mattress at the thought, mindlessly fucking yourself on your fingers, grinding your swollen clit into the heel of your palm.

You weren’t going to last much longer. Having the object of your fantasies so close seemed to have sparked an urgency in you, the thought of him perhaps hearing your whimpers and moans so desperately smothered into the pillow lighting your nerves on fire. Your clit pulsed against your hand; your walls clenched around your fingers. Your hips circled and bucked of their own accord, chasing your release. It was too much, all of it was too much. You were going to come –

And then you heard it.

A soft, low groan, muffled against the wall of the ‘fresher. Purely male. Unmodulated. Unmistakable.

“Oh, fuck,” you sighed, feeling your pussy leaking onto your palm, onto the mattress. He was touching himself, too.

You couldn’t have held back your orgasm in that moment if you had tried. You shoved your face deep into the pillow as your pleasure ripped through your body. You could feel yourself drooling into the fabric, your mouth hanging open in a silent cry, but you couldn’t bring yourself to care. The smell of Mando’s soap, woven into the seams of the mattress, seeped into your senses and drew out your trembling.

By the time the last of the aftershocks had passed over you, your breast band hung loose around your waist, much of your hair had escaped from your braid to stick to your sweating forehead, and your underwear had become so twisted and wet that they were now startlingly uncomfortable. Drawing out your hand, dripping and sticky, you barely managed to shove them down your legs to join your boilersuit before you drifted off to sleep.

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