#not me just adding in my kinks

[suddencolds]

Atypical Occurrence [2/?]

hello!! 10 drafts and (exactly) 3 months later, I am finally back with part 2 of Atypical Occurrence 😭 You can read part 1 here!

This chapter is a little personal to me. I don't tend to linger on writing scenes like this (in part because they are a little difficult for me), so it took awhile to hammer out the dynamic I wanted. That said, here it is at long last!!

This is an OC fic ft. Vincent and Yves. Here is a list of everything I’ve written for these two! :)

—

Summary: Vincent shows up late to a meeting. It just goes downhill from there. (ft. fake dating, the flu, a house visit, and certain revelations)

—

There’s a grocery store that’s a ten minute drive from Vincent’s apartment. Yves picks out ingredients for chicken soup, two different kinds of cold and flu medicine, a new pack of cough drops, a few boxes of tissues, a small thermometer. All in all, it’s less than a thirty minute excursion—something he’s done many times before in uni, where everyone seemed to catch something in the middle of exam season, and a house visit was just a short walk away.

Chicken noodle soup isn’t difficult. He’s made it a hundred times—he’s experimented with a dozen different variations of it. He puts the groceries in the fridge, washes the vegetables, and gets to work.

While the soup cooks, he half watches it, half busies himself with cleaning the apartment—loading up the dishwasher and hand washing everything that doesn’t fit, stocking the fridge and the medicine cabinet with the groceries he’s gotten, vacuuming the floors with a vacuum cleaner he finds tucked behind the fridge.

Then he shreds the chicken, chops a round of fresh vegetables to add to the broth, and waits.

 It’s comfortably quiet. Outside, rain drums steadily on the windowpane. It shows no signs of stopping soon. It’s dark enough outside—the sun fully set, the clouds heavy overhead—that the lit interior of the apartment kitchen feels like a warm reprieve.

Yves likes cooking. He doesn’t actively enjoy doing chores, but there’s something comforting to how mindless they are. It’s an appreciated distraction. 

The rain outside is loud enough that he doesn’t hear the footsteps, approaching, until Vincent clears his throat from behind him.

Yves jumps.

“You’re up,” he says, spinning on his heels to face him. Vincent looks a little worse for the wear—his hair a little messy, his shirt slightly rumpled from sleep, his glasses perched haphazardly in place.

Yves watches him take everything in—the pot on the stove, the chopping board set out on the counter, the empty paper bags from the grocery run flattened and stacked into neat rectangles.

“And you’re still here,” Vincent says.

“I made soup,” Yves says, by way of explanation. “It’s chicken noodle. I wasn’t sure if you’d be up for trying something new.” He reaches over to lift the lid off of the pot of soup. Steam wafts up from it, carrying with it the faint scent of the aromatics he’d added—thyme, bay leaf, garlic, peppercorns. “Actually, you picked a good time to wake up. I just added in the noodles, so it’s almost done.”

Vincent eyes the pot, his expression unreadable. “Did you leave to get groceries?”

“Earlier, yeah. You weren’t kidding about your fridge being empty.”

Vincent frowns. “I can pay you back. Did you keep the receipt?”

In truth, the price of the groceries is the last thing on Yves’s mind right now. He waves a hand. “Don’t worry about it.”

“It must have taken a long time.”

“Soup is pretty forgiving. You just toss everything into a pot of boiling water and wait. It’s barely any work at all.”

Vincent stares at him for a moment longer. Then he says: “That’s an oversimplification.”

“Not really. Besides, I enjoy cooking,” Yves says. “Thanks for letting me use your kitchen—though, technically, I guess I’m asking forgiveness instead of permission. I’ll clean everything up, by the way.” He’s done dishes along the way, so there isn’t really much to do besides rinse off whatever’s left, load up the dishwasher, and store whatever’s left of the soup in the fridge.

“You don’t have to,” Vincent says, before turning into his elbow with a few harsh, grating coughs. “I can clean up. It’s my apartment.”

“If you think I’m letting you do household chores while you have a fever—”

“It’s not that high,” Vincent interrupts, perhaps a little stubbornly. Yves lets out a disbelieving laugh. He leans over the counter, shifts his weight forwards on his feet to press the back of his hand to Vincent’s forehead.

It’s concerningly hot, still, which isn’t a surprise. Though perhaps the way Vincent blinks, a little tiredly, and leans forward into Yves’s hand is a giveaway on its own.

“It’s definitely over a hundred,” Yves says, withdrawing his hand. “If you don’t believe me, I’ll have you know that I bought a thermometer.”

For a moment, Vincent looks surprised. Then he sighs. “That was an unnecessary purchase.”

“Are you admitting that I’m right?”

Vincent just frowns at him, which—Yves notes—isn’t exactly a denial. “Fever or not, there’s not much I can do except sleep it off.”

“You can go back to sleep after you’ve had something to eat,” Yves says. “What was it that you said? That you haven’t had anything to eat since yesterday?”

“...You won’t leave unless I eat, then,” Vincent says. He says it evenly enough that it barely registers as a question.

Yves smiles at him. It’s not a wrong conclusion. “Exactly,” he says.

—

In between the hallway and Vincent’s kitchen is a small dining area, furnished with a high table and two high chairs. Yves waits until the noodles are cooked just enough. Then he turns off the stove, unrolls a placemat to lay out on the dining table, and carries the pot over.

He gets everything he needs: two bowls, two spoons, some of the fresh parsley he’d chopped earlier, for garnish—and lays it all out.

“I can help,” Vincent says, for maybe the third time. 

He’s seated on one of the chairs, which Yves had pointedly pulled out for him, looking like he’s perhaps a few seconds away from getting out of his seat and doing everything himself. It’s just like Vincent, Yves thinks, to offer to help—even at work, aside from all the work he takes on, it feels like he’s always finding some way or other to be useful. 

Yves says, “When you’re not running a fever, you can ask me again.”

When everything is laid out, he pulls up a chair for himself, so he can sit across from Vincent—who is still perched on his seat, though he looks a little less like he wants to get out of it. “You didn’t have to wait for me,” Yves says.

Vincent blinks at him. “It would have been rude to get started on my own.”

“Nonsense,” Yves says. “I made it for you.”

He takes a bite. The soup tastes fine. That is, it tastes the same as every other time he’s made it—light and comforting. It’s just one of those recipes Yves thinks he can make in his sleep. Nothing about it is particularly inventive. Still, he hasn’t cooked for Vincent before—not formally, at least, other than the dish he’d bought to Joel’s potluck—so it’s a little nerve-wracking to watch Vincent take a bite. 

It’s worse, still, to watch his eyes widen by a fraction. For a moment, Yves wonders if he’s done something wrong—if perhaps, it isn’t to Vincent’s taste, after all. He sets his spoon down. “Is it okay?”

“It’s really good,” Vincent says. “I can see why Mikhail said what he said.” 

“What?”

“That your cooking was half the reason why he roomed with you.”

Yves laughs. “So does that mean you’ll forgive me for trespassing?” 

Vincent smiles back at him. “I’ll consider it.” Now, with his glasses off, Yves can see his eyes a little more clearly—they’re slightly red-rimmed, his eyelashes long and dark, his cheeks flushed brighter with fever. There’s a little crease at the edge of his eyes which shows up when he smiles.

Yves is caught off guard, for a moment. The tightness in his chest is nothing, he tells himself. Certainly not a crush that he shouldn’t be allowed to have. 

A crush. That’s new, too. It’s ironic, considering the terms of their fake relationship. He thinks it’s probably supposed to make him better at this—what better way to feign romantic interest than to not have his feelings be so fake, after all?—but instead, he finds himself at an uncharacteristic loss for words, finds himself stumbling over the most basic of pleasantries. 

Of course, he has no intention of acting on his feelings. Vincent is attractive, yes—but he’s also considerate, and attentive, and hardworking enough to go early and stay late, to take on work he doesn’t get credit for. He’s thoughtful enough to entertain Yves’s friends, to have lunch with Yves’s siblings, to fly all the way to france to meet Yves’s family.

But all of that is inconsequential. None of it is going to amount to anything, because Yves knows how to keep his distance. Because Yves needs this—the perks of their fake relationship—more than he needs to indulge in any inconvenient crush. Because he knows enough to know how things would turn out if he were to say something.

That’s the thing. Vincent isn’t cruel. It’s for that reason, precisely, that Yves knows that he’d drop this arrangement immediately if he knew. Vincent would never string him along knowingly, and that’s what makes this so much worse—Yves has gone and gotten himself stupidly attached. 

Now that they’re sitting across from each other, in Vincent’s apartment, having dinner, Yves thinks—a little selfishly, perhaps—that this is the best that he can ask for. It is all that he can ask for. Far better to keep up the pretense entirely, far better to pretend that this is all just for show. When they put an end to this arrangement—someday, inevitably—Yves will thank Vincent for everything, and then they’ll go their separate ways. He already knows how it will go. There is no need to complicate things.

It’s quiet, for some time. Yves finishes his bowl first, heads over to the sink to rinse it off, and positions it neatly in the lowest compartment of the dishwasher. When he gets back, Vincent is spooning more soup into his bowl. Yves allows himself to feel a little relieved to see that he has an appetite.

“It’s been awhile,” Vincent says, after some time. “Since anyone’s done this for me.”

“Made you chicken soup?” Yves says, a little puzzled. “If you want the recipe, I can give it to you. I make it all the time.”

“No,” Vincent says. His expression is unparseable. “Just— since anyone’s looked after me, in general.”

“Oh.” Yves finds his mind is spinning. “How long have you been living alone?”

“Since university. I had suitemates, in my second year. Then I got an apartment of my own.”

“Because you like the privacy?”

“It was just simplest.”

Yves thinks back to his years, rooming with Mikhail—the conversations they’d have to have to figure out groceries, to alternate cooking dinner and doing dishes, to manage transportation. He has a studio apartment now, too, but he’s over at his neighbors’ house frequently enough, or otherwise at home with Leon and Victoire for dinner, so it doesn’t really get lonely.

“You have a pretty spacious kitchen,” he says. “I hope you don’t mind that I used your pots and pans. I’ll wash them, I swear.”

Vincent takes in a small, sharp breath. Yves looks up just in time to see him twist away from the table, tenting his hands over his nose and mouth.

“hhIHh’IIKTS-HHuhh-!”

“Bless you!” Yves exclaims. Judging by the way Vincent keeps his hands raised over his face, he assumes that there are going to be more. He rises from his seat, heads back into the kitchen in search for—ah. Six boxes of tissue boxes, stacked neatly into a block. He tears off the thin plastic film around them, removes a box from the pile, and pulls off the tab.

When he gets back to the dining table, Vincent is ducking into steepled hands with another—

“hhih’GKKT-SHHh-uuUh! hh’DDZSChh-HHuh! snf-Snf-! hhh… Hh… hh-HH-hh’yIIDDzsSHH-hHUH-!!”

The sneezes seem to scrape painfully against his throat, for the way he winces in their aftermath. He twists away from Yves to cough lightly, after, into his shoulder, his eyes watering. “Bless you!” Yves pushes the tissue box towards him. “Here.”

Vincent takes a tissue from the box, blows his nose quietly. When he emerges, lowering the tissue from his face, his eyes are a little watery. He eyes the tissue box. “Did you buy these earlier, too?”

“I did,” Yves says. “I picked up some medicine, too. I didn’t know what flavor you wanted, so I got a couple different kinds. And some other stuff—your fridge was getting pretty empty, by the way—in case you needed it.”

Vincent lifts his head to study him, as if there’s something he’s trying to understand. Finally, he says, “Do you do this for all of your friends?”

“What?”

Vincent frowns, as if the subject matter should be obvious. “Cook for them. Get groceries. Clean their apartment.”

“Sometimes,” Yves says. He’s certainly no stranger to stopping by to help—sometimes with homemade soup, or tea packed tightly in a thermos, or something else. Then again, that was easier to do back in uni, when everyone lived within a twenty minute radius. “It depends on what they need.”

“So this is just a Yves thing.”

“What? Showing consideration for my friends?” 

“Showing consideration is one thing,” Vincent answers. “You could have left after dropping off the files. You would still have been showing your consideration.”

“I guess that’s true. But at that point, I was already here,” Yves says, with a shrug. “It seemed logical to check up on you.”

“Well, now you’ve checked up on me,” Vincent says. “So you can go.”

Yves supposes this is true. 

“Do you want me to go?” he asks.

Vincent says, “It’s late. I assume you have things to get home to.”

“That’s not what I asked,” Yves says.

Vincent says nothing to that.

But Yves gets the message, even without him saying it. If Vincent is the type of person who prefers to be alone when sick, Yves won’t take it personally. He doesn’t want to overstay his welcome—arguably, he’s already stayed for much longer than Vincent had invited him to.

There’s leftover soup in the fridge—enough to last Vincent a couple days, hopefully through the worst of this—and Vincent’s apartment is reasonably well-stocked now. He has something to take if his fever gets any higher; he has all the basic supplies Yves could think of off the top of his head.

And Vincent is a lot of things, but he isn’t irresponsible. He’s shown himself to be self-sufficient more times than Yves can count. There’s no reason why Yves should have to stay and look after him for any longer—no reason, perhaps, aside from the fact that seeing Vincent ill has left him more worried than he’d like to admit.

“Okay,” he says. “I’ll go. But at least let me clean up first.”

He does dishes, leaves the cutting boards and the pot out to dry on the drying rack, transfers the soup to smaller glass containers to store it in the fridge. He returns the vacuum cleaner to the storage closet he found it in. Then, as promised, he gathers his things—not much, just his phone and his car keys—and heads toward the front door.

Vincent follows him to the door, presumably to lock it after he leaves. 

Yves steps outside, lingers for just a moment on the doorstep. The car is parked close enough that he hadn’t bothered to grab his umbrella, but now it’s dark out, and it’s raining just as hard. 

“I left new cough drops on the kitchen countertop,” Yves says, biding his time under the overhang until he inevitably has to get rained on. “The medicine’s in your bathroom, behind the mirror, with the thermometer. Everything else is either on the counter or in the fridge. Don’t come back to work until your fever’s completely—”

It happens in a moment: Vincent stumbles. Yves is looking at him, which means he sees the exact moment when it happens. Yves doesn’t think, just reacts—he reaches out to grab his arm to keep him from falling entirely. 

“Woah,” he says, steadying him. “Are you—”

Vincent’s hand is concerningly warm, even through the fabric of his sleeve. For a moment, he leans into Yves’s touch, though this seems less intentional as it is inevitable. He’s breathing heavily, his eyes tightly shut, his shoulders rising and falling not as soundlessly as usual.

Yves swallows past the alarm he feels percolating in his chest. Had he been about to pass out? Just how high is his fever right now? “Vincent—”

“Sorry,” Vincent manages, through gritted teeth. He makes an effort to regain his balance, to move away. He sways on his feet, and Yves feels the panic in his chest rise anew. 

He reaches up and slings an arm around his waist. “Hey,” he says, trying for reassuring. “I’ve got you.”

Vincent doesn’t say anything, to that. He just stands there, perfectly still, his eyebrows drawn together, his shoulders a little stiff under Yves’s touch. 

Without letting go of him, Yves shuts the front door gingerly behind him, toes his shoes off at the door again. “I think it would be best if you laid down,” he says. “Do you think you can walk?”

Vincent nods, slowly. Yves tracks the bob of his throat as he swallows. 

“Sorry,” Vincent says, again. “I… didn’t expect it to be an issue.”

He’s frowning, hard, as if he’s upset with himself, though Yves can’t quite piece apart why he’d have reason to be. “Hey, no apologizing,” Yves says. “Save your energy for walking.”

Vincent seems to understand that their current arrangement will not change until he’s in bed, so he lets Yves steer him towards the bedroom. It’s a short walk—down the hallway and then off to the left—but Yves spends half of it distracted by how warm Vincent is. Like this, he practically radiates heat.

It’s not until Vincent is settled on his bed, the blankets pulled loosely over him, that Yves allows himself to let go.

Truthfully, the last thing he wants to do right now is leave. But it isn’t about what he wants, and perhaps Vincent would sleep better if he did.

“Are you warm enough?” Yves asks. The words feel heavy on his tongue.

A nod. 

“Do you need me to get you anything else?”

Vincent shakes his head.

“Okay,” Yves says. “I guess I shouldn’t overstay my welcome, then.”

Vincent will be fine, he tells himself. At the end of the day, they are only coworkers, and Vincent is one of the most independent people he knows. If Vincent doesn’t want him here, the best Yves can do is comply with his wishes. He straightens. “Text me if you need anything, I mean it.”

He lets go of the blanket, rises to his feet. Only, then—

There’s a hand on his sleeve, tugging.

Yves goes very still.

When Vincent notices what he’s done, alarm flashes through his expression, and he pulls his hand away as if he’s burned. 

“Sorry,” he murmurs, again. And just like that, he’s back to how he always is—his expression perfectly, carefully neutral, in a way that can only be constructed. “I’m sorry.” But Yves doesn’t forget what he’s seen. “You can go.”

Yves’s heart aches. He settles back at the edge of the bed, reaches out a hand, settles it gently at the edge of Vincent’s forehead. At the physical contact, Vincent’s breath catches.

And for a second, Yves wonders if he’s made a mistake—if maybe Vincent doesn’t want to be touched, right now. If he’s misread the situation; if Vincent wants him to go, after all. He opens his mouth to apologize.

But then Vincent shuts his eyes. The tenseness to his expression eases, almost imperceptibly, his eyebrows unfurrowing. Oh, Yves realizes. His head must hurt—Yves suspected as much—but if he’s not mistaken, the expression on Vincent’s face right now is…

Relief. Cautiously, Yves traces his fingertips lightly over the edge of Vincent’s temple, combs them slowly through his hair. Vincent’s eyes stay shut, but the furrow to his eyebrows loosens, and his jaw unclenches, just a bit. The change is minute, almost imperceptible. If Yves weren’t paying close attention, he might’ve missed it.

As if he could pay attention to anything else, right now.

Tentatively, Yves cards his fingers through Vincent’s hair, traces slow circles into his scalp, slowly, carefully.  He does it until the heartbeat he feels thrumming under his fingertips—quick and erratic—slows. Until Vincent’s breathing evens out, until the hurt in his expression dulls. Until the tension in his shoulders eases.

By the time he finally withdraws his hand, Vincent is fast asleep. Yves fetches a new glass of water for his nightstand, changes out the plastic bag lining the trash can, and lines the cough drops and medicine up at the edge of Vincent’s desk. He flips through folder 2-A, assessing.

Then he heads back out to his car to get his laptop, and gets to work.

—

He doesn’t remember falling asleep.

But when he wakes at Vincent’s desk, it’s to an unpleasant ache in his neck that spreads laterally into his shoulders—probably from sleeping with his head pillowed awkwardly against his arms. He lifts his head. 

Behind him, there’s a weak, uncertain breath, and then the sort of cough that makes Yves’s chest hurt in sympathy. It sounds wrong, somehow—too quiet, for its proximity. Muffled.

It’s dark inside, aside from the faint glow of Vincent’s digital alarm clock, the pale green digits cutting into the black. He hears the rustling of blankets, followed by another short, painful intake of breath.

The sneeze that follows is stifled into something. Even stifled, it sounds uncharacteristically harsh—all force, pinched off into a short, muffled outburst which sounds barely relieving, at best.

“hH’ih’iNNGKkk-t!”

Yves blinks. Then he leans over the desk to flick on the lamp. Dull golden light suffuses the desk, bright enough to cast Vincent in form and graying color. 

“Are you okay?”

At the light, Vincent’s eyes widen. He looks—stricken, somehow. Then his expression shutters, and he frowns. “Did i—” he stops to cough again into his fist. It sounds as though each breath he’s taking in is an effort of its own, shallow and unsatisfying. When he speaks again, his voice sounds noticeably hoarser. “—Did I wake you?”

Yves opens his mouth to respond. Before he can think up a convincing excuse, Vincent shakes his head dejectedly, as if he already knows the answer.

“Sorry,” he says. “I was - cough, cough - tryidg to be quiet.”

Quiet. As to not wake Yves, presumably. The revelation causes an ache to settle somewhere deep inside of him, heavy and inexorable. Yves is more than certain that this flu is already miserable enough on its own, even without the added challenge of having to be quiet about it. He wants to say, do you really think that’s what matters to me? He wants to ask, how long have you been up dealing with this on your own?

“You don’t have to be quiet,” is all he manages, instead.  It’s a miracle that his voice manages to come out as evenly as it does.

Vincent looks like he’s about to say something. But before he has a chance to, he twists away to cough harshly into his shoulder. Now that he doesn’t make an attempt to muffle the coughing fit, Yves can hear just how harsh it sounds. 

It’s the kind of coughing fit that just sounds exhausting—forceful enough to leave tears brimming at the edges of his eyelashes, his breaths coming in shallowly. 

“Can I get you anything?” Yves asks, when Vincent is done coughing.

Vincent just looks back at him, unmoving. In the dim light of the desk lamp, he looks perhaps more exhausted than Yves has ever seen him—really, he looks as though he hasn’t slept at all. He’s seated with his back against the headboard with a blanket pulled around his shoulders. One of his hands is clenched loosely around it, pinning the corners in place. 

“Tea?” Yves offers, because it’s better than saying nothing. “Water, cough drops. A cold compress?” Vincent doesn’t say anything, but Yves thinks, a little helplessly, that there must be something he can do. “Extra blankets? Tissues? Ibuprofen?”

“Water… would be nice,” Vincent says, as if it takes a lot out of him to admit it. Yves blinks, surprised—he had half expected no answer at all. At Yves’s split second of hesitation, Vincent’s frown deepens, his grip around the blankets tightening slightly. “...If it’s not too much trouble.”

Yves has never gotten out of his seat faster. “Of course,” he says. “I’ll be right back.” he swipes the empty glass from the nightstand and heads out into the hallway.

It’s dark. There aren’t many windows in the hallway to let in light from outside, but once he gets to the dining room, it gets easier to see. Judging by how dark it is outside, there are probably a few hours left until sunrise. It’s still early, then. Early enough that it’s quiet, around them—no traffic out on the streets, save for the original car, headed to who-knows-where; no neighbors going about their early morning routines; just the steady trickle of rain on the windowsill. Yves rinses the cup out in the sink, shakes it dry, and fills it again.

When he makes it back to the bedroom, it’s unusually quiet. Vincent is still sitting at the edge of his bed, looking like he hasn’t moved at all since Yves left the room.

Yves crosses the room to hand him the glass. Vincent blinks up at him, a little blearily.

“I got you water,” Yves says, unnecessarily.

Vincent takes the glass from him with both hands, as if he doesn’t quite trust himself to hold it with just one. Yves looks away as he drinks.  

When Vincent lowers the glass at last, Yves takes it from him and sets it back into place onto the bedside table. He straightens, turns to face Vincent again. “Any better now?”

Vincent nods. It’s quiet, for a moment. Outside, the rain has nearly stopped—the room is soundless, aside from the thin whirring of the air conditioning. “I didn’t think you’d still be here.” 

Yves hums. “To be honest, I didn’t either.” He stifles a yawn into one hand—he’s still a little tired. “I didn’t mean to fall asleep.”

“You must be tired,” Vincent frowns, looking him over. “You came right from a full day of work to check on me. Does your neck hurt?” 

“What?”

Vincent inclines his head towards his desk. “I’ve fallen asleep there before. It’s not very comfortable.”

Yves thinks he shouldn’t be surprised, at this point, that Vincent has picked up on something so subtle. “It’s not that bad,” he says, reaching up with a hand to massage his neck. “My neck would probably be sorer if I’d slept through the whole night. I should thank you for waking me.”

“You could’ve taken the couch instead,” Vincent says, a little disapprovingly. “It would probably have been wiser.”

“I wanted to be here so I could keep an eye on you,” Yves says, because it’s true. “Besides, you sat in a chair while I slept in France. That can’t have been comfortable either.”

“It’s not just about that. You—” Vincent raises a hand up to his face, ducks into his wrist for a sudden: “hh-! hhiH’GKT-sSHuh! snf-!” He sniffles, then presses the wrist closer to his face, his expression shuttering. “Hh…  hh’IIDDZshH’Uhh-!” 

“Bless you!” Yves says, startled.

Vincent blinks, a little teary-eyed, turning over his shoulder to muffle a few harsh coughs into his wrist. “You shouldn’t have slept so close to me. I really don’t want you to catch this.”

He’s frowning, as if it really is a big deal. As if even now, even shivering and feverish, it’s somehow Yves that he’s more worried about right now.

Yves isn’t particularly concerned about that—he has no shortage of  sick time to take off of work, in any case. If he does manage to catch this from Vincent, he’ll just stock up on essentials before the worst of it hits. It would be nothing he hasn’t done before. Still, Vincent looks so—well, so tornby the mere possibility of it that Yves wants to say something to comfort him.

“How about this?” he says. “If you’re so worried about it, you can buy me cough drops next time I come down with something, deal? Then we’ll be even.”

Vincent’s eyebrows furrow. “That’s a terrible deal for you.”

“I’ll get sick at some point in my life, anyways,” Yves says, with a shrug. “If this means I get free cough drops out of it, I’d say it’s a win.”

He moves the desk chair over so he can sit down at the edge of Vincent’s bed. Vincent watches him, uncertain. He looks like he’s resisting the urge to say something—to tell Yves to move further away, probably.

“Relax,” Yves says, reflexively. “It’ll be fine, seriously. I know what I signed up for.” 

He leans forward, presses the back of his hand against Vincent’s forehead. Vincent closes his eyes. A slight tremor passes through his shoulders at the contact, but aside from that, he stays perfectly still.

“Your fever’s worse than before,” Yves says, withdrawing his hand.

“It’s not.” Vincent’s eyes are still shut. “The temperature is just higher because it’s night time.”

The suggestion is so far from comforting that Yves almost laughs. “You know,” he says, “that’s not very reassuring.” The blanket around Vincent’s shoulders starts to slip, so Yves reaches over and snags an edge of it, fluffs the whole thing outwards to lay it neatly around Vincent’s shoulders, like a cloak. Secures it with a loose knot. “Are you feeling any better than before?”

Vincent does open his eyes, now. He looks as though he’s trying hard to figure out how acceptably he can lie. “I…”

“You can be honest.”

Vincent’s jaw clenches. He reaches up with one hand, his fingers curling around the blanket Yves set down around him.

“My head feels heavy,” he says. He screws his eyes shut, his eyebrows furrowing. “And my chest hurts.” He lets out a short, frustrated breath, as if every sentence is a new and difficult admission. “I’m… not used to getting sick like this.”

Yves’s hands still. “Like what?”

“In any way that would necessitate taking time off from work,” Vincent says, looking away. The discomfort sits, plainly and indisputably, in the way he holds himself—his shoulders stiff, his jaw clenched—everything a little too tense, despite his exhaustion.

Yves stares at him for a moment, considering. In the end, it’s the small, impulsive thought that wins out.

He takes a seat at the edge of the bed, next to Vincent. The mattress dips under his weight. 

Vincent has always been taller than him, but sitting down like this, they nearly see eye to eye. It’s a risk, of course, to offer this. He and Vincent haven’t been physically intimate outside of the times where they’ve had to prove their relationship to an audience. But when he thinks back to how Vincent reacted to Yves feeling his forehead, or Yves carding his hands through his hair—if he hasn’t misread, it almost feels like—

Yves opens his arms out in offering, tries on a smile. “I’ve been told I give good hugs. Good enough to cure all ailments, obviously.”

For a moment, Vincent stays perfectly still. Yves has five seconds to overthink all of his actions over the past twenty four hours. 

Then Vincent inches closer, ever so slightly, to lean his head on Yves’s shoulder.

Yves curls his arms around him. There’s the slightest hitch in Vincent’s breath, at the contact. Then the stiffness seeps out of his shoulders, and he presses a little closer—as if he’s allowed himself permission, at last, to let go.

His whole body is concerningly warm. “You’re burning up,” Yves says, softly. He reaches up with one hand to run his fingers through Vincent’s hair.

“...I figured,” Vincent says. The next breath he takes comes in a little shakily. “Whoever gave you the review was right. You are a good hugger.”

Yves laughs, a little surprised. “Careful. You’re going to inflate my ego if you keep talking.”

“I can’t help it if it’s true.”

Yves has hugged a fair share of people in his life. He doesn’t think he’d be able to list them all if he were asked to. It’s different, though, being so close to Vincent—so close that Yves can reach out and let his hair fall through his fingertips. He can lift up his palm and feel the rigid line of his spine, the slope of his shoulders; he could reach out and trace the dip of his wrist, the form of his hand. Vincent’s chin digs slightly into his left shoulder. His nose is turned slightly into Yves’s neck—like this, he is almost perfectly still. Yves can feel the warm brush of air against his neck whenever Vincent exhales. He is so close that Yves is afraid, for a moment, that he might hear how badly his heart is racing.

Would dating Vincent be like this? Would this kind of exchange be given and received as easily as anything? Yves wills himself not to think about it. This is nothing, he tells himself, but a simple offering of comfort between friends. To think otherwise would be disingenuous.

They stay like that for some time. Time slows, or perhaps it expands or collapses—really, Yves would be none the wiser. The whir of the ceiling fan and the light rain on the rooftop a constant. When Vincent pulls away at last, it’s to turn sharply off to the side to muffle a sneeze into his sleeve.

“Hh-! hhIH’IIDZsSHM-FF! snf-!” 

“Bless you,” Yves says, blinking. The sudden absence of warmth is a little jarring. But Vincent isn’t done.

His eyebrows draw together, and he ducks tighter into his elbow, his shoulders jerking forward. “hHIH’iiGKKTsSHH—! Sorry, I— Ihh-! hHHh’DZZSSCHh—uH-!”

“Bless you again,” Yves says, reaching past him to hand over the box of tissues on the nightstand. He holds out the box for Vincent to take.

Vincent turns away to blow his nose. When he returns, he’s a little teary eyed. The flush on the bridge of his nose hasn’t gone away.

“When I asked you to come over,” he says, “I wasn’t expecting you to stay.”

Yves blinks. “Is it so strange for me to be here?”

To that, Vincent is quiet, for a moment. Yves looks out the window, where he can see the skyline, off in the distance, the dark form of the apartment building across the streets, the street in between lit dimly with golden streetlights.

“A little,” he says. “When I was young, if I got sick, it wasn’t really a big deal.”

At Yves’s expression, he amends: “That’s not to say that my family didn’t care, because they did. No one spent too long in my room—better to not risk catching it, if they could help it—but back then, if I didn’t have much stomach room, my mom always cut fruits for me to leave on my desk. Sometimes she made ginseng tea, too.” he shuts his eyes. There’s a strange expression on his face—something a little more complicated than wistfulness.

“We had a habit of keeping the heat off, in the winters, and closing the windows. But if I was running a fever, my brother always made sure to keep the heat on.” His lip twitches, almost imperceptibly. Then: the smallest of smiles. “Sometimes he’d stay outside my door to talk about his day. He was the class lead, back when he was in high school. It was always something inconsequential, like which of his classmates he liked and which ones he held a grudge against, and why. Almost always for the smallest reasons, like someone borrowing a pencil and forgetting to give it back, or someone tossing the ball to him in gym class.”

“Were you and your brother close?” Yves asks.

“Close is relative,” Vincent says. “I never really knew how to—inhabit his world, I guess. When I moved to the states, and when I decided to stay here, part of it was out of some sort of defiance. I didn’t want to have to follow in his footsteps, because then I could only ever be focused on doing things differently.”

He shuts his eyes. “But I felt close to him, then. When he stood outside my room and told me those stories. Even if they were things I wouldn’t have cared about had they happened to me, I guess. It’s strange how that works.”

“I think I know what you mean,” Yves says. He’s always had a good relationship with Leon and Victoire, though that doesn’t mean they’ve always seen eye to eye on things. “Sometimes it’s less about what they say, and more about the fact that they’re saying it.”

Vincent nods. “They all cared about me in their own way,” he says, at last. “I don’t think I appreciated the extent of it at the time. When you’re a kid, you tend to take everything at face value.”

“Do you regret it?” Yves asks. “What?”

“Not appreciating them more, back then.”

Vincent smiles. “I was just a kid. I suppose it’s natural that I didn’t know better.” Yves has a feeling that that statement is perhaps further reaching than Vincent is making it out to be. “I didn’t think much about it at the time.”

“Do you ever miss being part of a large household?”

“It’s peaceful on my own,” Vincent says, at last. “I usually don’t mind it. I usually have other things to worry about.”

He hasn’t asked if the information is useful to Yves, Yves realizes, a little belatedly. Back then, at Joel and Cherie’s potluck, Vincent had seemed to believe that the only way Yves could possibly be interested in him was if the information could serve their fake relationship, somehow.

The realization settles him. Perhaps Vincent has shared this because he knows Yves cares.

“Your apartment is nice,” Yves says, trying to ignore the insistent beat of his heart in his chest, which all of a sudden seems to want to make itself known. “I can see why you would like living here.”

Vincent tilts his head up towards the ceiling. “It’s not the same, of course. As home. Though that’s a given.” Yves notes the usage of the word: home. Here, instead of home, the clarifier salient, even though Vincent’s done nothing to emphasize it. Could it be that after all these years, Vincent still considers Korea to be home, for him? “When I’ve had people over, it was just for dinner. Not for…”

He looks over to Yves, now. Yves knows what he means, knows how to fill in the rest of the sentence: not for the reason you’re here, now.

“I know I’ve intruded a little,” Yves says, with a laugh.

Vincent frowns at him, his eyebrows furrowing. “I wouldn’t consider it an intrusion,” he says. “You’ve helped me a lot. I just—I’m a little embarrassed that your first time over had to be under these circumstances.”

Your first time over. Yves ignores—well, tries to ignore—the implication that this could be the first out of many. That he might have another opportunity, in the future, to swing by. Vincent hasn’t confirmed anything, and it’s not likely that their fake dating arrangement would warrant another house visit, out of the public’s eye. Yves tells himself that the warmth he feels in his chest is misplaced.

“You don’t have to worry about that. I like seeing you,” Yves says.

Vincent raises an eyebrow at him. “Even bedridden with a fever?”

Isn’t it obvious? “Of course.”

“I’ve been terrible company,” Vincent says. “And even worse of a host. I recall I fell asleep yesterday, only for you to spend two hours cleaning my apartment?”

“Vacuuming is therapeutic.”

“You said that about cooking, too,” Vincent says, narrowing his eyes. “Am I supposed to believe that you enjoy doing all household chores?”

“It’s not like you made me do them. I just wanted to be useful, and your vacuum was easy to find.”

“I’ll be sure to hide it thoroughly next time,” Vincent says, deadpan.

Yves laughs. “It’s like I said,” he says. “I like spending time with you. Even—” To steal Vincent’s words from earlier. “—bedridden with a fever.”

Vincent huffs a sigh, a little incredulously. 

“Though, I promise I won’t intrude for much longer,” Yves tells him. “I’ll probably head out in the morning.” He’s almost done with the work Vincent has on his desk—he’d fallen asleep checking over one of the income statements for discrepancies. A few hours should be enough time to make sure that everything is in order. He still has work at eight—he’ll probably be a little tired for it, considering how late he’d slept, but that’s nothing new.

“I’m sorry,” Vincent says, averting his glance. He frowns down at himself, as if he really is apologetic. “You must’ve had other evening plans.”

None as important as taking care of you, Yves catches himself thinking. He can’t say things like that if he wants to keep this—well, this unfortunate recent development, i.e., his feelings for Vincent—to himself.

“It wasn’t just for you,” he says, instead.

“What?”

“I didn’t just do it for you.”

Vincent blinks at him, a little confused. “Are you going to say you get personal gratification out of seeing my apartment clean?”

“It’s like you said,” he says. “I’ve never seen you this unwell. You said this doesn’t happen often, right? When you didn’t show up at work, I…” The next admission feels a little too honest—but there’s a small, unwise part of him that wants to get it across, regardless. “I was really worried. Even though you said you had everything covered, I wanted to make sure you were fine.”

Vincent nods. “I get it. It would be an inconvenience if I were unfit to be your fake—”

“It has nothing to do with that,” Yves interrupts him. His heart hurts a little, with it. “I wanted to see that you were fine because I care about you. To be honest, I think I would’ve spent the entire night worrying if I hadn’t come.” He laughs, a little self-deprecatingly. “It’s a little selfish, I know.”

Vincent’s eyes are very wide.

“Anyways,” Yves says, with the sinking feeling that he’s said too much, “you should try to get some more sleep.” He rearranges the blankets around Vincent, a little unnecessarily, fluffs the extra pillow that’s leaned up against the headboard, and turns away. “It’s still really early. If you’re planning to be back in office next week, it would be best to keep your sleep schedule intact.”

“Yves,” Vincent says, from behind him.

“Hmm?”

“...Thank you.” 

When Yves works up the courage to look over, Vincent is smiling, unreservedly, as if something Yves has said has made him very happy.

Yves’s heart stutters in his chest. Fuck.

(On second thought, it might not be so easy to live with these feelings, after all.)

—

At daybreak, Yves drives home to get changed, takes a quick shower while he’s at it, and heads off for work. He yawns through half his morning meetings, adds an extra espresso shot to the coffee he snags from the break room.

The text arrives halfway through the day, just before he’s intending to head downstairs for lunch.

V: When I asked you to bring folder 2-A, I didn’t mean for you to complete my work along with it.

Yves smiles. He’d emailed Vincent the completed work from yesterday’s late-night work session before he’d left. Vincent must’ve seen it.

Y: some genie i met told me your wish was to have your work done before the deadline

V: What are you talking about?

Y: he also told me you were very stubborn about not redistributing your assignments to anyone else  Y: so you can’t blame me for taking matters into my own hands

V: Yves.

Y: feel free to check it over for errors :)

[atorionsbelt]

phil dunster’s fanfic admission of “only very rarely have i done this…i don’t go looking for it i would stumble rather than search…”

i, too, would say this when caught slipping reading gay ao3 smut in public

[sleepdeprivedlilbean]

ah yes my favorite duo 💃🕺 : centuries old eldridge horror and his ✨favorite man slut✨

close-ups and my ramblings under the cut (it’s a lot guys. i have a lot of feelings about them and i was just YAPPING 😫)

yall really ate up my last post with Nightmare which omg thank u guys so much for that 🥺

now here’s more 😈

anyway

slutty manservant isn’t the only outfit Killer has, but it’s definitely his favorite lmao (the amount of times he’s been asked if he’s a Lust variant is crazy 💀. don’t get me wrong tho they r besties 💅)

the trench coat vibe was also definitely the way to go with Nightmare and i just 😫

now what’s their dynamic?

i definitely feel like my version of Nightmare and Killer are very much a “talks and listens” duo like shown with the chibi little guys

honestly tho, at first their relationship was strictly business and transactional, but the more time they spent together, the more comfortable they got in each others company and eventually became friends and equals and maybe more

and i feel like during all of that it’s just the two of them. Murder and Horror don’t show up until waaay later once Killer and Nightmare’s relationship has already been established

and no their relationship (whatever it may be, romantic or not i’ll be honest i still haven’t decided 🥲) isn’t toxic, as how i c my Nightmare isn’t anything like cannon Nightmare if that wasn’t already clear

my Nightmare, once free from the rage fueled haze of his corruption, is actually rather calm, collected, and dare say kind in his own way (he is a man of action and very few words)

he doesn’t create negativity out of malicious intent, but rather out of necessity, and actively will comfort those who are greatly struggling, which is how he first came into contact with Killer, seeing him isolated in his dying world

Killer was the first person Nightmare had attempted to “comfort” per say, and was freshly free from his corrupted mentality, hence, y he wasn’t very good at it lol. also, the corruption was reason he hadn’t gotten to Killer sooner in the first place, as he as actively enjoying the suffering Killer was going through at the time. if that makes sense???

anyway, sure they might have been cold to each other at first, with a lack of comforting on Nightmare’s part which somehow turned into a partnership?? but nothing was ever abusive within their relationship

i feel like the turning point for them would be that Nightmare admits to Killer in a moment of vulnerability that he was the first and only person to treat him like he wasn’t some, abomination. monster. freak

he’s never judged him based on his poor past actions, nor is role/duty

he accepts him. and all of him. fully and with all of his flaws not that he has any

(god i love them)

i do feel like if they were in a romantic relationship it’d be rather casual in a way that makes it clear there’s something going on between them, but they’re definitely not the type for pda (veeerrry rarely and only in front of people the trust. it’s a different story when they’re in bed tho 😏)

they’re the old married couple that banters and teases each other but with much more sexual tension lol

ok that’s enough yapping from me haha

if you’ve made it this far genuinely ur the best like wow 🥹

this was a looooot of nonsense so thanks for taking the time to read it all

i’ll be honest i still have more to say but like 💀 nah im cut off-

maybe someday tho…

alright bye 😘

[quiet-admirer]

...

[teecupangel]

I come bearing Unity thoughts. How about Yew Branch style Desmond, but in Revolutionary France? And to just make things interesting... As one of the children of Marquis de Sade

Now, I am merely doing Sequence 5 so I have no idea if they show in the game. But! Consider Desmond low-key having fun at the expense of others. Even if it is only because he is bored, he knows who his father is (historically) and modern time sense of modesty does not measure up to those of his now-contemporary France

In short: Desmond finds Cafe de Theatre and has fun making Arno blush. By using modern style innuendo

Before we start, I will confess that I do plan to write a Yew Branch for August 26, Arno’s birthday, but it’s more or less set before Unity because… uuuhhh… plot reasons? XD

Anyway, I will say AC Unity has the easiest time to just kick Desmond anywhere we want because you can pick anyone from the Nomad Assassins in the companion app and bam, you have Desmond’s new identity.

Also, here’s Desmond being reborn as either Arno’s brother or Élise’s brother/twin and, while this is more focused on AC3, here’s Desmond being reborn as Marie Antoinette.

Okay, let’s set up Desmond’s life as Marquis de Sade’s son.

Now, we actually have two options for this (according to wiki):

Louis Marie de Sade (1767) would be a year older than Arno

Donatien Claude Armand de Sade (1769) would be a year younger than Arno

If you wanna go down the ‘Desmond gets a pussy’ route, there’s Madeleine Laure de Sade (1771) as well, but if we’re gonna give Arno some dick, then I like the idea of Madeleine being a secret fangirl who totally ships her brother (and maybe even her father) with that sexy hooded man.

(As far as I remember, they don’t show Marquis de Sade’s children in the game so we’re good to go)

Regardless of who we pick as Desmond’s new identity (an older man showing Arno the ‘ropes’ or a younger man who Arno believes to be the most dangerous of all… in a very different way), Arno’s in for a very… well… informative time of his life.

The de Sade Family:

Marquis de Sade doesn’t formally invites his children to his ‘new kingdom’ but he will welcome them nonetheless if they do join. He and his wife don’t really have a good relationship so he’s not that close to his children. Desmond would definitely be his favorite and, even if Desmond is reborn as his second son (if we’re going for the younger man route), he would still name Desmond as his heir and successor because, as far as he knows, Desmond is his ‘true child’.

Desmond doesn’t want any title or riches or whatever. He does, however, like Marquis de Sade. As a father? Far better than William Miles, hands down. But honestly? Desmond saw how the Marquis was lonely as not many people understood his ‘true self’. Desmond gets it though since he experimented a lot when he left the Farm and learned how sex could be quite enjoyable. Desmond actually knows more than Marquis de Sade and sorta-kinda acts as his proofreader.

In public, Desmond is considered to be polite and as noble as one gets, heavily leaning on Haytham Kenway’s remaining bleeds. In his father’s new kingdom though… total dom. Known to be the bored prince and there’s a lot of people that try to get his attention in any way they can. Desmond is usually just there to make sure his father doesn’t do anything actually illegal or every ‘depravity’ he does would be done with consent on all sides. He does disappear as soon as his father starts… really going because, yeah, he doesn’t have a kink for that one.

The brother we don’t choose will have an inferiority complex against Desmond and think that Desmond is a depraved sick bastard. But he will also remember how kind and understanding Desmond was to him when they were children. Hell, he was still kind to him even when it’s clear that he was trying to bully him (Desmond just thinks it’s cute he thinks he could bully Desmond). This conflicting feelings make him ignore everything that Desmond does in their father’s kingdom while trying to protect both him and their father as much as he could. He would insist he’s protecting the family name though. (His kink is definitely a form of cuckolding)

Desmond’s mother would be distant and ignore all of her children (except maybe her daughter) because the whole relationship was just to keep the power among the nobles so there’s no love lost anywhere. Desmond doesn’t feel anything for her and, yeah, there’s some childish pain there, but he’s good at ignoring his unresolved feelings for his parents at this point anyway.

Madeleine is Desmond’s favorite sibling and she’s quite spoiled. Desmond’s influence makes her more open to their father’s preferences but she’s quite reserve about it, blushing whenever she tries to open up and ends up just going ‘never mind’. Desmond gives her a more clinical explanation to these kinds of things in a form of a notebook of some sort because he thought she would be too embarrassed and awkward if he directly talked to her. This leads her to the path of voyeurism and enjoying erotica so… well… you win some, you lose some. She joins her brother in visiting their father in secret though, because if words got out that the young de Sade girl was a deviant, she’ll be ruined in the eyes of the nobility. Their father and Desmond just go “it’ll be fine.” because they’re actual deviants (by 17th~18th century standard anyway)

His father and sister are the main reason why Desmond stayed in France. He could have gone to America as soon as he turned 13 (maybe even 10 if he was really determined enough) but he didn’t because he didn’t want to leave his little sister and someone has to look after his father without judgmental eyes.

Desmond does, however, send money and supplies to Davenport manor, disguising it as an investment or some sort although the American Brotherhood knows he’s an ally of some kind. He is also Ratonhnhaké:ton’s pen pal.

Arno and Desmond’s Relationship

Arno would see Desmond as a beautiful mysterious man tempting him at every chance. The way he moves, the way he speaks, the way he looks at Arno. It makes Arno feel a lot of things that he had never felt before and he is torn between remaining loyal to Élise who is always running (not from him, Arno doesn’t think that, she’s not… is she?) or finally taking a bite of the fruit the devil keeps dangling in front of him.

Desmond… knows Arno has a crush on him but he actually doesn’t act all that different. He might have a soft spot for Arno because he’s an Assassin who clearly needs help and maybe he pays more attention to Arno than the men and women throwing themselves at the bored prince but, let’s be clear, Desmond isn’t trying to lead him on. He’s flirting with him but it’s more on the side of “I’ve been a bartender far too long that flirting on an easy mark is more of an unconscious choice because I might get more tips” than actual serious flirting.

Unfortunately, Desmond doesn’t know that Arno is having a very confusing bisexual awakening that’s only amped up by all the usual 17th~18th century repression thing soooo, yeah, Desmond doesn’t know he’s affecting the young man more than he was thinking.

Marquis de Sade definitely wants Arno to join in. With him or with his son, he doesn’t care, Arno is just a wonderful specimen to be left in that uptight boring world. He also knows Arno’s ‘crush’ on his son, he keeps pushing him to his son though because that would be fun.

In other words, Desmond is unintentionally creating a love triangle that he honestly have no time or desire to be part of. He doesn’t know about Élise! He honestly thought Arno is single (“He has that pathetic wet virgin kitty vibe to him.” “I don’t think he’s a virgin, my boy.” “Oh, definitely not. Maybe it’ll be better to say he’s ‘pure’?” “Ah. Well then, have fun corrupting him.” “We’ll see, father.”)

Once Desmond learns of Élise, he’ll back off (and even feel a bit icky because he was unintentionally becoming the ‘hoe who the asshole cheated on’) and it’s… it’s gonna get messy, especially considering Desmond’s inclusion in Arno’s life makes Arno wonder if he and Élise are even still together or if… his love for Élise was true and not something twisted by his lonely childhood and his ‘abandonment’ issues.

Oh shit. I just turned this smutty fic idea to angst, abort, abort, abort.

If Desmond and Arno will have a relationship, it’ll be after Dead Kings DLC.

You know what would be funny?

If Arno realized he wasn’t just sexually attracted to Desmond but was in love with him during the ending parts of Dead Kings when he finally accepts Élise’s death.

Then when he returned to Paris?

He learned that Desmond had taken his sister to America and now…

Arno thinks Desmond is the one who got away.

(“Arno, I can’t believe I’m saying this… you can follow him to America. He’s literally living with the American Brotherhood. We know where he is.” “I have missed my chance. There is nothing left for me to do.” “Oh my god. Someone just chokes this drama queen unconscious so we can ship his ass to America!”)

[ladytauria]

me: i’m almost done with this fic! so im gonna finish it tonight :)

me, 500 words later: oooo new idea

[kidfur]

ok yea i need to put pro kink back in my pinned.. its a pain i even need to but anti kink people following me is annoying LOL

[stop-breaking-my-heart-dragonage]

Me, when Sebastian joins my party for the first time: Okay, this time I'm not going to forget about you, Sebastian. I'm going to make an effort to use you a lot this playthrough so I can better understand you.

Also me, immediately forgetting about Sebastian while finishing Act 2 and making it halfway through Act 3 before I finally notice his Faith quest: ......................Oh. Right. My bad.

[oupyfactory]

I'm unsure if i should make a separate blog for more extreme stuff, make my likes public, or just put more extreme stuff on this blog.

[ruthlesslistener]

I always thought the “I need to get him pregnant” was either a sex reference or a kink

Oh no it's 100% that, 'tis what I meant by the monkey brain aspect of 'MUST BREED- oh wait the Consequences'. People don't generally take the joke to completion (heh) because a good chunk of individuals with breeding kinks don't have pregnancy kinks or an actual desire to have kids, which I find funny because it's essentially instincts dangling a carrot in front of our faces in order to trick us into spreading our genes despite us having the cognitive capacity to understand the financial consequences of reproduction

[steaksex]

god!!! im imagining you standing over me with me on my knees under you, looking up at you, your hand pulling my hair back to make sure you can aim right for my mouth.. maybe a line of people waiting to go next, or just watching because they want to see me get put in my place.

im dressed still, but only just so that all of the piss that dribbles down my face leaves a visible mark on my clothes :3

you’re dressed, besides your pants and underwear being pulled down just enough

my mouth is wide open and im sticking my tongue out for you. i dont want to waste a drop

it would be so so hot for you to do a hold and then piss on the camera…. -🐇

God youre fuckin needy. Sure, ill hold so i can piss in your mouth. When you watch it, youre gonna sit on your knees and stick yoir tongue out too.

Jesus. I dont know what to do with you. Cant believe youre getting off on this too. Gonna tell my friends about this new public restroom. Tell em how it even sucks you clean after you go. How much it fuckin loves being used, youre gonna get a hell of a line baby. Some peoppe may not be able to wait, may end up circling you and using you. Bully eachother outta the way for the chance to use your mouth. Maybe one'll pull your pants down and grab your hips and piss in your hole, leave you disgusting and dripping until the next time they need to go. Place you outside a bar so a bunch of drunk idiots go out and use you, cant seem to aim right. Youd fuckin like it too, wouldnt even need to chain you down or nothin. Freak

[wannashiver]

How did you asshole taste mutt ?

like I want more 🤭

[thisisstupidorami]

hey

Wow I really thought I could get away from this site 😭

Anyways I'm back again and I have decided that I won't be replying to direct messages (sorry!)

If you want to interact my blog my ask are always open

Also I will be disappearing from time to time

But uh yeah that's it really

If there are questions my asks are open

Also if you want to send me some dirty ask I'm fine with that too (would love it)

[xaykwolf]

I think I'm starting to pinpoint why things have become progressively harder for me in my program.

So much of psychology doctorate school is learning why we do certain things and avoid other things, especially when we hold others' lives and well-being in space. It starts out simple: administer this test, score and interpret it this way, learn these diagnostic criteria, practice these basic interviewing skills and internalize these theoretical ways people conceptualize clients. After a while, though, the reins get let loose: okay, now apply these things to real people(!!!) and make sure not to hurt them while you do that.

Great. Cool. It's part of the program process, so just don't worry about it, it's FINE.

All oversight is then shifted toward making sure we're doing things the "right" way, whatever supervisors think that looks like. There's liability on the line, and so very often it becomes "how do I keep you from getting me sued while doing this work for me?" instead of "how do I help you develop into the clinician you're meant to be?"

At best, you get a supe that will provide constructive feedback in a warm manner, taking into consideration that this is literally your first or second year of doing therapy. At worst, well...you get my supervisor from two pracs ago (he's now on a blacklist for all doctorate programs in the Chicago area). But when you look at the totality of things, there's something big missing.

"Good job!"

Unadulterated positive feedback, praise that isn't nearly immediately followed up by some other critique or criticism of the work.

I KNOW these programs are here to push us, help us grow, and give us the best tools possible to make the most helpful and ethical choices when working with people. That's great, that's part of what I signed up for in all this, in fact. But at the end of the day, I've spent going on 9 years now pretty much not hearing any unmitigated compliments about my work. Despite the long nights and long semester cramming this information in my exhausted cranium and the years of training I've put in (and had to redo for reasons unrelated to my actual performance).

It almost feels like self-flagellation at this point. Which is to say, it's starting to really hurt.

I DON'T expect my supervisor to give me only praise, but I'm certainly not getting it from anywhere else either. And it's not the same coming from people who are otherwise not involved in my training somehow. The incentives and motives for positivity are different in a pretty significant way.

And it's leaving me progressively more tired with each passing semester.

[brattybottombunny]

do not add to my posts!!! just make your own post!!!

[nostalgia-tblr]

when ur reading a fic and it's fine and then you suddenly get hit with an Unexpected Kink bit and it's not your thing and as we all know kinks you don't share are either "eww gross" or "lol wtf" and either one of those is going to distract you from the plot