#to include exposition

[baisemains]

Elements of Desire

Chapter 1: Freaks & Geeks

single mom!sevika x fem!reader

word count: 2.8k

contains: fluff! just a meet cute really, timebomb as a plot device, age gap technically (reader is early 30’s)

description: your newest student clashing with your brightest might be the best thing that ever happened to you.

ao3 link | spotify playlist

next // sevika masterlist

It was a normal Thursday morning and you were on your way to your chemistry classroom, already late to prep for your first class when your phone beeps. Hearing the tell-tale ring of Outlook, you know it’s something important so you pull it out of your pocket and see that the school secretary has emailed you.

‘New student being added to your first period, updating your roster now.’'

You internally groan, you’ve officially hit max occupancy for the year and it’s only the first week of October.

Taking a deep breath, you reach your classroom and quickly start to put your things in the corner behind your desk before your students start arriving.

Hearing footsteps, you look up and see one of your favorite students, Ekko, walking in.

“Hey dude, ready for today’s quiz?”

He smiles at you, both of you already knowing the answer. Ekko is the top student in your class by a mile, you’ve got no worries when it comes to him.

“Of course, teach, when have I ever let you down?”

You laugh and go back to pulling out your materials for the day.

The rest of your class files in within the next few minutes, and you’re just about to start the day’s lesson when there’s a gentle knock on the door.

Walking over, you open the door confused and see a blue haired girl standing there, nervously twiddling with the straps of her backpack.

“Hi, I’m Powder, they told me this was my first period…?”

You school your face and usher her inside, smiling as she stands at the front of the class, unsure of what to do.

“Everybody, this is Powder, our new student. Make sure you help her out if she needs it, alright?”

Murmurs of agreement float around the room as you turn to Powder.

“Follow me, I’m gonna introduce you to your lab partner.”

You walk her to the very back row of tables and stop next to Ekko’s station.

“Powder, meet Ekko. Ekko, meet Powder, your new partner.”

Ekko looks up from where he was writing in his notebook and furrows his eyebrows.

“…What do you mean, my new partner? I thought you said I could go without one this year.”

“I did, before the district filled up my class and left me no choice.”

“That’s not fair! A partner is just gonna slow me down, I’m gonna have to help her and do my work!”

Ekko starts to plead his case with you, but you hear Powder shuffle behind you and you’re not having it.

“Hey. I know it’s not an ideal situation, dude, but we’ve gotta work with what we’ve got. Give her a chance before you say anything else, alright?”

You raise an eyebrow at him and his shoulders slump, knowing you’re right. He never could really be mad at his favorite teacher.

“Okay, teach, my bad.”

He clears his stuff off of the chair next to him and you gesture for Powder to sit down.

“I’ll be right back with an assessment, okay? Let’s see where your chemistry skills are at.”

You leave the two of them and walk back to your desk to grab a general knowledge test so you can gauge where Powder sits in relation to the rest of your class. You hope she’s at least got the basics down or you’ll really feel bad for making her Ekko’s partner.

Heading over and giving it to her, you tell her to take as long as she needs while you hand out the planned quiz to everyone else.

While the kids are doing that, you sit at your desk and start grading assignments from last class. You’ve barely gotten through a handful when Powder walks up to your desk. Assuming she needs help, you look up at her and smile.

“What’s up Powder?”

Her eyes flicker between you and your computer as she chews on her lip.

“Um, I…finished my test.”

You blink at her. Glancing at your clock, it’s barely been fifteen minutes when it should’ve taken her at least thirty, and that’s comparing it to your brightest students.

Smiling softly to not make her so nervous, you put your hand out and ask to see it.

Scanning it over, you’re in shock. Every answer seems correct so far and all her work is accounted for. You wonder for a second if Ekko had helped her but quickly shot down that thought when you remember how reluctant he was to have a lab partner.

“Powder, this looks…perfect. Have you taken chemistry before?”

She lets out a shy smile as she answers.

“No, I just really like math.”

The gears in your head begin to turn as you realize you may have a star student on your hands.

“That’s great to hear! You think you’d feel comfortable taking today’s quiz? It covers the last couple units we’ve been working on.”

Her smile broadens at that.

“Yeah, that sounds okay.”

By the end of class, Powder’s successfully caught up to the rest of the kids and is starting to become an active participant, much to Ekko’s chagrin.

The next couple weeks of classes pass by quickly, and a new rivalry begins to bloom between Ekko and Powder.

At first, you thought it was just friendly competition between partners but you soon realize it’s more than that.

One day, you hear bickering from the back of the classroom and see Powder trying to reach for a test tube Ekko is holding.

The closer you get, the better you understand them when you hear Ekko yell, “I don’t need your help with this, you’re just gonna jinx me!”

As he says that, he leans back and begins to tilt the test tube directly over the boy standing at the next station.

Almost as if in slow motion, you immediately leap forward and push him out of the way as the liquid pours onto the ground and sizzles.

The entire class goes silent as you stand there staring at your two best students, feeling the smoke pour out of your ears.

The dam finally breaks as you loudly scold them both about safety guidelines and the hazards of the chemicals they’re dealing with.

They have the decency to look embarrassed and apologize to their classmate when you tell them that you’ll be contacting their parents.

Both of them look at you in horror and beg you not to, but your mind is already made up and you head to your desk to email their parents about a conference as soon as possible.

Ekko’s parents are able to meet that evening, a lovely couple that you met at Back To School Night, who apologize profusely for their son’s actions.

You tell them how you’re not going to go too hard on their son because he’s usually your best student and you know this isn’t typical behavior from him, although you do expect him to clean up his act.

Ekko sincerely apologizes and you nod, shooting him a quick smile to let him know you accept.

They thank you for your time and promise that he will no longer be a problem in class, whisking him out of the room with a large hand gripping the back of his neck.

The next night, you’re set to meet Powder’s mom as she was busy the previous one.

Having zero idea what to expect, her very curt reply to your email asking to meet didn’t leave you a whole lot to work with.

You just hope she’s not one of those parents who expect the teacher to be their kid’s only disciplinarian, you have enough of those already.

It’s nearing five o’ clock, the designated time for your meeting so you start organizing your desk a bit, not wanting anyone to think you’re a slob.

As you’re facing away from the entrance, you hear a gentle knock from the doorway and as you turn around to face your visitors, you wish you had googled the name from your email.

The last thing you’d imagined Powder’s mom to be was the hottest woman you’d ever seen, but you remind yourself she was still a parent you needed to talk to, so before you think about it too much, you wave them over.

“Please come in, both of you.”

Powder walks in first, sheepish with her hands behind her back.

Her mom follows, and your eyes trace over her face, having to look up the closer she gets.

You notice her thick eyebrows, slightly furrowed at the moment, framing her daunting grey eyes. Short black hair caresses her face, threatening to hide it from view. Her nose is prominent, and you decide how well it suits her. She also has a labret piercing, which draws your attention to her thick lips, currently situated into a closed half smile.

You don’t even realize you’re looking at her mouth until she starts talking.

“Sevika, Powder’s mom.”

Her large hand stretches out towards you and when you slip your hand into hers, it takes a good amount of effort to not shake it for longer than necessary.

It’s surprisingly soft, even with all of the calluses you can feel, and pleasantly warm. You wonder if she was wearing gloves to protect them from the chilly fall air outside or if she's just blessed with good genes.

Introducing yourself as well, you remove your hand from hers and drop it to your side, already feeling like you’re missing something.

Now looking between the two, you think that Powder is maybe adopted – or looks like her dad, you dreadfully think to yourself – because she doesn’t bear any resemblance to the Amazon in front of you.

Before you can say anything else, the woman in front of you takes a step back and nudges Powder’s shoulder before stuffing both of her hands into the pockets of her leather jacket.

“Go ahead, tell her.”

Your eyes flick up to Sevika, who’s smirking at her daughter and you quickly look back down before you catch her eye.

“I’m sorry for how I’ve been acting lately, I never meant to let it go that far. I promise to lock in and be the student you deserve,” Powder declares with watery eyes, looking down at the floor when she’s done talking.

Pressing your lips together to contain your laugh, you close your eyes for a couple of seconds to gather yourself, finally opening them to see that Sevika is looking right at you.

Breaking the eye contact and clearing your throat, you look down at the girl in front of you and lay your hand on her shoulder.

“Thank you for apologizing Powder, it means a lot. I know you have what it takes to be an amazing student, you’ve been doing it this whole time. You just gotta quit the stuff with Ekko.”

She looks up at you at that, a defiant glint in her eye.

“You got it, teach,” she tells you through gritted teeth.

You giggle at her response, and then remember something else you wanted to bring up in this meeting, gesturing for both of them to sit at the station in the front row.

Grabbing a flyer from your desk, you walk back over and set it down in front of Sevika.

“So there’s a science fair coming up in the spring, and I think Powder should enter.”

Two pairs of eyes look up at you with matching lifted eyebrows, and for the first time tonight, you see a resemblance.

After laughing in your head, you continue on with your explanation.

“It’s open to all high schoolers in the state, and there’s a cash prize for the top three students; $10,000 for third, $25,000 for second, and $50,000 for first.”

Sevika’s eyes widen, letting her stoic mask slip for the first time tonight.

“The idea is to give them a head start on a college fund, but because the prize pool is so large, they require applications to even be able to conduct an actual project. They only accept the top 1,000 submissions, and then they cut it down to 100, but I really feel like Powder has a shot.”

You look between the two sitting in front you, gauging reactions.

Sevika chews the inside of her cheek as she glares at the flyer in front of her.

The first thing that enters her mind is just how life changing that money would be.

Powder's never wanted for anything, but it's also been a struggle to give her the best life Sevika feels she deserves, especially being a single mother.

'...50 grand for first place, huh?"

Sevika looks over the flyer skeptically for a few beats longer before passing it to Powder, who looks like she's about to faint from excitement.

You rub your hand on the back of your neck, suddenly feeling a bit embarrassed for just throwing the idea out there like that.

Sevika's grey eyes flick back over to you after observing her daughter for a couple seconds.

"How much work is a project like this gonna require?"

Breathing an internal sigh of relief, you feel like you have a shot to convince her.

“It is gonna take up most of her free time, until the spring, I won’t lie, but if she can pull this off, it’ll all be worth it.”

Sevika lets out a scoff at that, crossing her arms over her chest as she leans back in her chair.

"So I'm just supposed to let her spend months at your beck and call? No way, I-"

Powder suddenly slams her palm on the table before Sevika can protest further.

"Pleaseee, mom?”

Sevika looks down at her daughter, eyes narrowing at being cut off.

"This could seriously change my life, our life, and I promise it won't get in the way of my school work. I won't let you down.”

Sevika’s demeanor softens at that, seeing Powder’s determination reminds her of herself in a way.

After a few seconds of silence, Sevika turns back to where you’re standing and pierces you with a look.

“I’m not saying yes. I’ll think about it, but I do want you to send me more information about this thing.”

You nod fervently, grabbing the flyer and ripping a piece off the bottom to jot your number onto it.

Passing it to Sevika, you smile warmly.

“Of course, that sounds great. You’ll have my number if you need anything.”

She takes the slip, briefly touching your fingertips as she pulls it away, your cheeks heating up at the contact.

You look down at Powder, and she’s almost in tears with excitement.

Sevika rises from her chair and motions for Powder to follow as she stands in front of you.

“I’m serious about what I said. I want every bit of information you have on this, and then I’ll consider my answer.”

To punctuate her sentence, she sticks her hand out for another handshake, and this time, you grip her palm with the same energy she’s giving you, determined to show her that you’re serious about this.

“Of course, Sevika. You have my word.”

Her mouth twitches up into a small smile when you say her name, deciding she likes the way it sounds.

You notice her small gap for the first time, and feel a little swirl in your stomach.

“We’ll be in touch then, miss. Powder, let’s go babe, I gotta grab your sister and get dinner started.”

She drops your hand – slowly, you realize – and the two of them leave out the way they came, Powder clutching the flyer in hand and waving at you as they disappear from your sight.

Taking a seat in your desk chair, you start drafting up an email with more information about the science fair to Sevika, not wanting to waste any time.

It's almost an hour later when you're finally done detailing everything Sevika needs to know, and once you hit send, you lean back in your chair and finally let out the breath you'd been holding in.

The whole interaction left you feeling a bit frazzled, but not in a bad way.

You couldn't stop thinking about Sevika's face, the crinkle in her eyebrows whenever she looked at you, her eyes boring holes into your very soul.

Really, you can't help but be a bit frustrated at the fact you hadn't been able to stop staring at her the entire time, wondering what's wrong with you for thirsting over one of your students' moms.

With an annoyed groan, you rub your face to hopefully snap yourself out of it and pack up your things to leave for the night, thoughts occupied by this new character in your life.

[intricate-ritualz]

SMASH that like button if u feel personally victimized by the time skip in your friendly neighborhood spider-man!!! 💯🙋‍♀️🙏🙏

[suddencolds]

The Worst Timing | [1/?]

hello!! I've been wanting to write a longer h/c fic for awhile. This is the exposition/first installment to that (4.8k words).

this is an OC fic - here is a list of everything I've written for these two!

Summary: Yves invites Vincent to a wedding, in France, where the rest of his family will be in attendance. It's a very important wedding, so he's definitely not going to let anything—much less the flu—ruin it. (ft. fake dating, an international trip, downplaying illness, sharing a hotel room)

—

“A wedding,” Vincent repeats.

“Yes,” Yves says. “A wedding.”

It’s his cousin Aimee’s wedding—she’s four years older than he is. Back when he’d gone with his family back to France over the summers, she’d been one of the people he’d grown quickly to look up to—someone who knew the ins and outs, it seemed, to every stage of life he was in the process of stumbling through.

Yves has always been used to being looked up to—one of the natural consequences, perhaps, of being the eldest in his immediate family—and he likes to think that he’s good at giving off the impression that he has things figured out. But he’d grown close to Aimee at their family reunions precisely because she was everything he tried to be: strong-willed and resilient, self-sufficient even in the face of hardship.

Aimee’s getting married to Genevieve—someone who Yves has only met a couple times, but who manages to be one of the sweetest people he’s ever met. All in all, it’s a wedding he wouldn’t miss under any circumstances.

Leon, his brother, and Victoire, his sister, will be there, along with Aimee’s friends and the rest of his extended family. The problem is that Leon keeps in touch with Mikhail. Mikhail let slip that Yves has been seeing Vincent. Leon told Victoire, who told Aimee. And now Aimee is offering to pay for Vincent’s plane ticket to their wedding in France in the spring—a bit of a last minute arrangement, but she’d sounded so excited at the prospect that Yves was finally seeing someone new (“I’d love to meet him,” she’d said over the phone, “would it be too much to ask him to take a couple days off work? Oh my gosh, please give me his contact details, I’ll send him an invitation,” and she’d sounded so excited about it that he hadn’t had it in him to turn her down).

“It’s very last minute,” he says, “but my cousin’s getting married, and she really wants to meet you. It’ll be some time in early March, in Provence. She says she’ll pay for your flight, if you want to go, but you’d probably have to take a couple days off.”

“Oh,” Vincent says, blinking at him. “And you want me to be there?”

“Of course I do,” Yves says. “I think it’s more a question of whether you want to be there.”

Vincent looks back at him, his expression carefully blank. “Are you sure you want to introduce me to your family? That doesn’t seem like the kind of thing that you’d take lightly.”

“They want to meet you,” Yves says. “And I wouldn’t mind introducing you. I think they would really like you.”

“It would be a waste of your time,” Vincent says, quietly, “to introduce me as someone you’re serious about if we’re just planning to break things off.”

Yves is well aware of the fact. This arrangement with Vincent—the trust he places in Vincent; the practiced familiarity, the feigned intimacy—has an expiration date. The fact that he doesn’t know when the expiration date is doesn’t change the fact that it will, inevitably, end—when Erika gets the point, or fades from Yves’s life entirely; when Vincent finds someone he considers worthy of pursuing in actuality; when either of them become interested in dating again. Whatever it is that ends up ending things, Yves knows: what he has with Vincent right now is strictly temporary. 

Perhaps it would be disingenuous to lie to his family about who exactly Vincent is to him. But then again, Yves thinks it isn’t much worse than any other relationship, with all of its ups and downs, all its hopes and uncertainties. It’s not like he can ever guarantee that a relationship is certain to work out, no matter how serious he feels about it in the moment. So is there really any harm to introducing Vincent as his current partner—as someone he feels certain about now, but maybe not always—and to leave it at that?

“It’s not really going to be my day, in the first place,” Yves says. “My relationship status is more of a conversation starter than anything. And even if you go by the timeline we told Erika, we haven’t even been together for a year. I don’t think my family will think much of it other than, like, a small and noncommittal window into what I’ve been up to. So it’s really up to you.”

“I think it would be fun,” Vincent says, “though only if you’re sure about having me there.”

“Great. I’m sure,” Yves says. “Everyone will love you.” He does think it’s true. Something about Vincent tends to have that effect, he thinks.

—

The fact that he and Vincent are traveling together is not exactly a secret.

Vincent agrees it’s best shared on a need-to-know basis—they won’t be the ones to bring it up, but if someone asks about it, they’ll answer honestly. It would be more work, Yves thinks, to have to coordinate lies about this.

But he runs into trouble not even two weeks later.

“So you and Vincent are taking the week off,” Cara says to him carefully, over lunch.

“Yes,” Yves says.

“Any plans?”

“I’m actually flying to France,” Yves tells her, uncertain about whether or not he should mention Vincent’s involvement—if Vincent has talked to Cara about this already, there’s no point in hiding anything, but he should be careful with the information he discloses otherwise. “One of my cousins is getting married there.”

“Oh,” Cara says, all too knowingly. “What a coincidence. Vincent told me he’s also planning on going to France.”

“I… heard,” Yves says, slowly. “He’s told me as much.”

“I didn’t realize France was such a popular tourist destination for march,” Cara says, smiling at him. “I thought most people went over the summer.”

“You know what they say,” Yves says. “France’s beauty knows no seasons.” 

“You should ask Vincent which part of France he’s visiting,” Cara says, with a smirk. “Maybe you guys can book a hotel together.”

Yves is positive he’s being laughed at. “It’s the third largest country in Europe,” he says. “I’m sure the chance of us ending up in the same region is statistically very low.”

“I think Cara knows we’re fake dating,” he laments to Vincent later, in the break room. “I mean, the dating part, not the fake part.”

Vincent blinks at him. “Did you tell her?”

“No,” Yves says. He doesn’t think they’ve been that obvious about it. “I just told her I was going to France. She made some undue assumptions.”

“Oh,” Vincent says. “I told her I was attending a wedding there.”

An impromptu trip to France, over the same week at the tail end of busy season, to attend a wedding. Separately. Yves is starting to understand where Cara's suspicions might’ve come from.

“That would do it,” he says.

Perhaps they really need to coordinate what a need-to-know basis means. Cara is, thankfully, not the type of person to gossip, from what Yves has gathered, but if their coworkers know, that could complicate things. “I don’t think she’ll say anything,” he says. “But I’m sorry. I didn’t think she’d assume.”

Vincent seems to consider this. “It’s fine,” he says. “Though it might prove troublesome when we decide to end things.”

“We can figure that out when it happens,” Yves says.  

At some point in the foreseeable future, everything will go back to how it’s always been. Yves had been fine on his own for a long time before he’d met Erika. He’s sure he’ll be prepared for it when it happens.

—

The entire drive to the airport feels surreal.

Mikhail drives them. They leave at the crack of dawn—4am, on the dot. Victoire’s in the passenger seat, dozing off, and Leon, Vincent, and Yves are crammed into the backseat. 

Yves sits in the middle—there’s not much leg room to go around in the first place, but he tries to take up as little space as possible, mostly for Vincent’s sake. He and Leon have been crammed into far smaller cars on far longer road trips.

Leon says, “This is the earliest in the morning I’ve ever third wheeled.”

Victoire, who has her eyes shut, says, “It’s very nice to meet you, Vincent.”

“Likewise,” Vincent says. 

“Yves has told us all about you,” Leon says.

“Oh,” Vincent says, blinking. “What has he said about me?”

“Mostly that you’re super hot,” Leon says. Yves, who is in a perfect position to elbow him, elbows him for that.

“You make me sound so shallow,” Yves says.

“But also that you’re really good at your job,” Leon continues, patting Yves on the leg. “Did you know Yves likes people who he’s slightly intimidated by?”

“I never said that,” Yves says.

“It’s pretty obvious,” Mikhail says. 

“You guys are conspiring against me,” Yves says, and Vincent laughs. 

Leon launches into a series of questions—about how they met, about who asked who out first, about what it’s like at work, about what kinds of things Vincent does for fun.

“No wonder Yves is totally whipped,” Leon says, after Vincent finishes telling a story about how he’d given a presentation at a conference in place of his then-boss, who had—due to unforeseen flight delays—found out last minute that she wouldn’t have been able to make it on time. Yves hasn’t heard this story before, but it doesn’t surprise him that Vincent would be able to pull that sort of thing off, even with such paralyzingly short notice. “You’re exactly his type.”

Just great. If anyone could dig a nice, fitting grave for him over the span of one conversation, Yves thinks, it would be younger brother. 

“I can’t believe he hasn’t invited you over for dinner yet,” Victoire says, her eyes still closed. How much of this conversation she’s actually been awake for, Yves can’t say.

She makes Yves promise that, after their trip to France, Vincent will be over for dinner. (“Sure,” Vincent says. “Just tell me the date in advance. I’ll clear my schedule.” Yves will have to apologize to him after this—for some reason, Vincent has an uncanny talent for ending up invited to half the things Yves is personally involved in.)

Yves is awake enough to hold a conversation, but he finds himself yawning mid-sentence on more than a few occasions. Vincent doesn’t so much as yawn at all over the entirety of the car ride. Yves has no idea if he’s always up this early, or if he’s just naturally immune to tiredness—another signature of his good genetics, next to the fact that he looks like he’s just stepped out of a photoshoot, or the fact that he manages to look good in everything he wears. Some people just win the genetic lottery, Yves supposes.

For some reason, he finds he feels a little more tired than usual. Waking up early is never easy, but usually he’d be distinctly more alert by now. There’s a strange, uncharacteristic heaviness to his limbs—it’s the kind of grogginess he only experiences when he hasn’t been getting enough sleep for awhile.

It’s fine. They have an eight hour flight ahead of them—they’ll be flying into Marseille, and then being driven up to Provence, where the wedding will be taking place. He can catch up on sleep over the flight.

As they’re unloading the suitcases from the back trunk, Vincent says, “Your family’s nice.”

Yves laughs. “I’m relieved they haven’t scared you off yet. Sorry for the… well, interrogation, by the way.”

“I can tell you’re close to them,” Vincent says, a little more quietly.

When Yves looks over, something about Vincent’s smile looks almost wistful. Yves wonders, briefly, how well Vincent has kept up with his own family. If he’d ever been packed into the backseat of a small car, back when he’d lived in Korea; if over some long road trip, he’d ever had to come up with increasingly inventive ways to pass the time. If his relatives ever teased him, then, about the crushes he’d had when he was younger, or anything else. If the ocean that was suddenly between them came with another, less tangible kind of distance, the kind that even phone calls and international flights can never quite bridge.

Yves doesn’t know. He doesn’t even know how he’d go about asking if he wanted to know. How is it that sometimes, he feels like he knows so much about Vincent, but other times, he feels like he knows almost nothing at all?

—

Aimee has booked him a seat next to Vincent. 

They’re a few rows away from the others—I wanted to seat everyone together, Aimee had texted him a few weeks back, but when I was booking Vincent’s ticket, the seats up front were all sold out, so I just moved you so you’d be sitting next to him. 

Now, he watches as Vincent pushes his briefcase gingerly into the overhead compartment.

“You must not be new to flying,” he says.

Vincent nods. “I’m not.”

“Eight more hours,” Yves says, taking the middle seat so that Vincent doesn’t have to. “It’ll be over in no time, especially if you take a nap.”

“I have some work to get done,” Vincent says. “Only after the plane takes off, though.”

Right—no electronics larger than a cell phone until they’re 30,000 feet in the air. “I thought this was supposed to be your week off.”

“It is,” Vincent says. “I just want to make sure everything’s still in one piece by the time I get back.”

Yves has never quite been comfortable on planes. It’s not that he’s afraid of flying, or that the turbulence bothers him—it’s more just the cramped space, the noise, the anticipation, the discomfort—all of it compounds. It’s usually difficult to get to sleep, but he’s so tired right now that maybe this flight will be an exception.

There’s just one problem: whoever is in charge of the air conditioning in the airplane cabin really hates him. Compared to Provence, New York’s climate is generally more extreme—colder in the winters, hotter in the summers—so all he has on him right now is a thin jacket. It’d be perfectly reasonable attire in most situations, except for the fact that this airplane in particular is unusually frigid. It’s definitely cold enough to be distinctly uncomfortable, especially considering that he’s just sitting in place. Yves crosses his arms, suppressing a shiver.

“Do you think Aimee will be convinced?” Vincent asks.

“Convinced?”

“That we’re together.”

“I’m sure she has better things to do than play detective over the state of my relationships,” Yves says, with a laugh. “You don’t have to worry about that.”

“It’s why you invited me,” Vincent says, “is it not?”

“Pardon?”

“To show the rest of your family that you’re not still hung up over Erika.”

“I invited you for a lot of reasons,” Yves says. “For one, you’re good company.”

“So are all your friends.”

“I thought we could both use a week off,” Yves adds. “It’s France, in the springtime. What could be better?”

Vincent says, “I need you to tell me what to do.”

“What?”

“Your cousin paid for my flight,” he lists, counting off his fingers. “Your family is paying for the hotel. Your best friend drove me to the airport.” He says these things as if he’s listing off all the ways in which he’s indebted to them. “It’d be easiest for both of us if you told me how to make a good impression. That’s what I’m here for, right?”

Yves blinks. “I don’t think you’d need my help to make a good impression.”

“You could’ve taken anyone with you, but you’re taking me,” Vincent presses. “There has to be something you need me for.”

If there was nothing, you wouldn’t have invited me. The sentiment hangs between them, unspoken. But Yves can see it in Vincent’s expression. 

“My favorite cousin is getting married,” Yves says, fervently. “To her fiancee—who is also super cool, by the way. My whole family is going to be there. Do you think I’d choose to endure an eight hour plane ride sitting next to someone I didn’t like?”

“Maybe,” Vincent says.

Yves shakes his head. “It’s true that my family wants to meet you. But if I didn’t want you to come to France with me, I could’ve come up with an excuse.”

He twists around in his seat so that he’s facing Vincent directly. Narrowly resists the urge to reach out and grab Vincent’s hand. “I like spending time with you. I wouldn’t have invited you if I didn’t. You don’t have to do anything out of the ordinary—if you have fun on this trip, that’s more than enough.”

Vincent stares back at him, his eyes wide. 

Yves has a feeling he’s said too much. It isn’t Vincent’s fault for assuming this is all just for show, considering everything that’s come before. Part of it is, but another part of him just really wants Vincent to have fun—to take in the sights at the gorgeous venue Aimee’s sent him pictures of, to have a week off in one of the most picturesque countrysides in the world (Yves may be slightly biased, but still) and not have to think too hard about impressing everyone. 

“Is that… okay with you?” Yves asks.

“Yes,” Vincent says. “It’s just unexpected.”

“Which part?”

“All of it.”

“Oh. Well. I’m sorry if I misled you, or anything.”

“You didn’t.” This time, Vincent really does smile—a sly, quicksilver thing. “For the record, I am very excited to go to your cousin’s wedding.”

“Thank god,” Yves says. “That’s good. I was beginning to think I was holding you hostage.”

He leans back into his seat, suppressing another shiver. Something about the changing pressure in the airplane cabin is making his head start to ache. It’s probably the elevation. Perhaps he should try to sleep just so that he doesn’t have to sit for eight hours with a headache brewing.

He shuts his eyes and tries. It’s no use. He’s tired, and the cabin is quiet enough, but it’s too cold to get to sleep—it feels impossible to get comfortable like this.

So he picks up a novel he’d been meaning to get to—something suspenseful, to offset the monotony of the flight.

When the seatbelt sign flickers off, Vincent unclips his seatbelt so that he can retrieve his briefcase from one of the overhead compartments, and spends the next half hour paging through multiple documents and leaving notes in the margins at a dizzying pace. Yves slinks down lower into his seat, trying hard not to shiver. 

“Is it just me, or is it kind of cold in here?” 

Vincent frowns at him in a concerned way that seems to suggest that it really is just him. Then again, Vincent is unfazed by New York’s cold winters, so Yves isn’t sure he’s the best point of reference.

“Do you need my jacket?” he asks.

“No,” Yves says quickly. “It’s not that bad.”

“Okay,” Vincent says. “If you’re certain.”

He turns his attention back to the screen, and Yves resigns himself to reading—or, more accurately, trying and failing to read. It’s mercilessly cold, and his head hurts enough to make focusing on any one thing an uncomfortable task. He gets through another couple chapters, finds himself rereading the same passage over and over again, and—finally, defeated—dog-ears the page and slides the book into the pocket attached to the seat in front of him.

The next time the flight attendants come around, Vincent says something to one of them Yves can’t quite make out. Yves asks for orange juice—it’s not supposed to be symbolic, or anything, but on the off-chance that this headache ends up being a precursor to something more unpleasant, he thinks it might be wise.

The flight attendant pours him the orange juice he’s asked for—no ice (right now, something ice cold is the last thing he needs)—and sets it down on the tray table in front of him. Yves stares down at it, blinking. He hasn’t eaten all day, but strangely, he doesn’t have much of an appetite.

He doesn’t register the flight attendant from before—the one Vincent talked to—is back until he hears Vincent’s quiet “thanks” to his left.

Something brushes against his arm.

He looks up. It’s one of those travel blankets they sometimes carry, neatly folded, though this flight hadn’t given them out to everyone at the start. They must be reserved—given only upon request, maybe. 

“You said you were cold,” Vincent—who’s holding out the blanket for him—says, by way of explanation.

Yves blinks at him. He’s about to reassure Vincent, instinctively, that it’s not that cold—that he would’ve been fine without the blanket, that Vincent didn’t have to go out of his way to ask for one.

But his head hurts. He hasn’t been warm all flight. To say that the blanket is a relief would be a massive understatement.

“Thanks,” he says, taking it. “This is perfect. I won’t be cold with this.”

He ends up wrapping the blanket around his shoulders, pulling it tightly around him—like a cloak, or like the jacket that he might have brought with him if he’d had the foresight to anticipate feeling this cold on a commercial flight.

It’s nice. He’s still a little cold, with the blanket, but it’s enough to keep him from openly shivering.

He should really try to get some sleep, he thinks. It’s going to be evening in France when they land. A seat away from him, the window shutters are pulled up, but he can see, from the crevices around the window, that it’s light out.

“I’m going to try to nap,” he tells Vincent. “But wake me up if I need anything—elbow me if you have to. I’m not usually a heavy sleeper.”

“Okay,” Vincent says. “I’ll try not to wake you.”

“You can wake me whenever,” Yves says, muffling a yawn into his hand. “Don’t work too hard.”

Vincent smiles at him, the kind of smile that implies he thinks he’s working exactly as hard as he should be. “No promises.”

It’s not easy to get to sleep, despite his exhaustion. He lays there for a while, his eyes shut—it’s certainly warmer with the blanket, but for some reason, he feels strangely restless. Maybe it’s the adrenaline of being here, with his family, with Vincent—on the way to see one of the most important people in his life get married. Maybe it’s the cup of black coffee he’d downed this morning to be awake enough to help Mikhail navigate and, subsequently, awake enough to actually be useful at the airport.

In the end, he falls asleep to the static hum of the aircraft, to the sound of Vincent hammering away at his keyboard next to him, incessant and comforting.

—

Yves wakes to someone tapping him on the shoulder. 

“Sorry,” he says. “I’m up.”

“A ‘light sleeper,’ you said,” Vincent says. “We just landed.”

Yves says, “I’m wide awake.” The yawn that he hides behind one hand is apparently not subtle enough, because when Vincent looks away from him in favor of staring straight ahead, it looks like he’s trying not to laugh.

Vincent’s stowed away his laptop already—Yves hopes that’s a sign that he’s done with work for the duration of this trip, but more likely he just had to put it away for landing.

“How was the flight for you?” Yves says.

Vincent looks at him. “Uneventful,” he says, at last.

“Not enthralled by all the financial records you had to go through?”

“They were very enthralling. How was your nap?”

“Good,” Yves says, even though he doesn’t feel particularly rested. He’s just groggy, probably, and the headache is just as bad as it was, if not worse. He’s sure once he gets off the plane and gets some fresh air, he’ll feel much better. “I probably needed it.” His breath hitches, unexpectedly, he turns to the side, raising his arm to his face to shield the oncoming—

“hH-’IZscHH’iew!” 

The sneeze is loud, embarrassingly, and it scrapes unpleasantly against his throat, which feels… off.

“Bless you,” Vincent says, frowning. He looks more concerned than he has any right to be.

Yves flashes Vincent a distracted smile. “Thanks.”

Everything—from the moment they step off the plane—is exhaustingly hectic. 

The hotel in Provence is more than an hour away from the airport they’ve landed at. They have a bus to catch, which means that after they regroup with the others, it’s international customs, baggage claim, and then they’re headed, maneuvering multiple suitcases each, onto the bus. He sits next to Vincent, though on the aisle side, so that he can lean over and interject whenever Leon and Victoire say something that’s worth commenting on.

Other than that, he talks with Vincent, mostly—about Aimee, about how she’s been in his life for longer than he’s known how to write his name, back when his parents would take him back to France once or twice a year. (“She was practically an older sister to me,” he says, “except we never fought,” to which Vincent says, “You make it sound like not getting along is a requirement to be siblings,” to which Yves says, “It definitely is.”)

His parents flew into France yesterday, so they should be settled in already—they’ll catch up with them at the hotel tonight, if it’s not too late. He probably won’t see Aimee and Genevieve until tomorrow morning, at breakfast—and even then, that depends on how busy they are with the various wedding preparations Aimee’s been telling him about.

The roads nearing the hotel are uneven and winding. Halfway through the drive, Yves registers, faintly, that he isn’t really feeling any better from before. His head is still hurting from the flight, and when he swallows, he finds his throat feels perhaps the slightest bit sore.

He’s cold, too, in the sort of uncomfortable, persistent way that’s difficult to alleviate, even with extra layers or with a warm drink. He’s starting to suspect that maybe the airplane cabin hadn’t been the problem after all.

None of that is particularly visible to any of the others—that is, until he finds himself tensing up halfway through a sentence, burying his head into the crook of his elbow as his eyes squeeze shut—

“God, sorry, I— hh-! hHehh’iiZZSCHh’iiEW!”

“Bless you,” Vincent, Victoire, and Leon say to him, all at once.

“You’d better not be getting sick,” Leon says, turning to him, with the sort of tone that implies that he’s joking. “That would really be the worst timing.”

“I’m not,” Yves says, swallowing against the soreness in his throat. “I promise.” Or, perhaps more accurately—he can’t be.

It will be the perfect wedding, he thinks. Aimee has planned it out meticulously, and she’s one of the most thorough people he knows. The weather forecast says this week will be sunny and temperate. He’s here, in France. Tomorrow, he’ll be surrounded by his extended family, and in the afternoon he and Vincent will head off to the welcome party, and he’ll get to give Aimee the gifts he’s gotten for her and introduce Vincent to everyone formally. Everything will go as planned—the welcome party, the wedding rehearsal, the rehearsal dinner, and on Saturday, the wedding and the vows.

It will be perfect, because it has to be. Yves will be present, and attentive, and he’ll give the speech he has prepared at Aimee’s wedding, and they’ll all remember this week fondly. Even considering the small, almost negligible chance that he’s coming down with something, there are more important things he has to worry about right now, which is to say: Yves is going to do this right.

He’s going to make sure of it. 

[ Part 2 ]

[tearlessrain]

oh god I found a secret third version of the linguini incident. on tubi naturally. I know what I'm doing this evening.

[imogenkol]

— 15 LINES OR LESS

I was tagged by @voidika @corvosattano and @kyber-infinitygems thank you!!! 💕💕💕

tag list (ask to be added or removed!): @adelaidedrubman @florbelles @marivenah @simonxriley @inafieldofdaisies @socially-awkward-skeleton @aceghosts @carlosoliveiraa @risingsh0t @unholymilf @thedeadthree @cassietrn @jackiesarch @gwynbleidd @shellibisshe @loriane-elmuerto @katsigian @captastra @simplegenius042 @theelderhazelnut @g0dspeeed

RULES: share 15 or fewer lines of dialogue from an OC, ideally lines that capture their character/personality/vibe. Bonus points for just using dialogue without other details about the scene, but you’re free to include those as well.

“Well, I’ve fucked myself,”

“You really want a werewolf fugitive in your home for longer than necessary? I take it back, you are an idiot,”

“Ivan gave me the authority to remove individuals who display violence on these grounds unprovoked. Which means I get to tell you to promptly fuck off.”

“Others will test me no matter what. They already have, actually. I think I make my point pretty damn clear, so I sure as shit ain’t gonna go and fill out a questionnaire with my personal information like I’m at a werewolf DMV.”

“Like I’d ever let you eat something out of a can.”

“You come anywhere near her again, I won’t have as much restraint as I did today.”

“If he thinks that just because you’re the only one I won’t immediately clock that I’ll actually listen to what you have to say, he’s got another thing coming.”

“You are not my alpha… You never were and you never will be. I don't have an alpha.”

“I was afraid to die because I didn’t want you to remember me as an almost. I didn’t want you to look back and think ‘she almost loved me’, because I do love you. I love you more than I thought I could ever love anyone. And the thought of me dying without you knowing that was too much for me to take.”

She halted by the bar for a second, pointing at Toby and slurring “You owe me…” her brows suddenly furrowed. “Shit, I didn’t do this for any money, did I?”

Jayde cleared her throat. “Listen, Nick,” she started and downed her entire glass of whiskey like it was water. // “It’s Patrick,” he corrected with a scowl. // She shrugged. “Eh, I knew it ended in an ‘ick’.”

Jayde scooped the kitten up and he flopped around in her grip like a ragdoll, trying to gnaw on her fingers. She held him up and tilted him this way and that, her brow furrowed in deep thought. Then she plopped the kitten back down on the bed and looked at Nadya with resolution. “Greg.”

Bonus Nadya Lines!

“I can imagine you’re here because of something bad… But it’s not my job to judge you. It’s my job to help you. And I want to help you, but it’s kind of hard to do that if you won’t at least talk to me.”

“Can’t we just… I don’t know, act like we aren’t doing anything wrong? I mean, that’s how you get away with shoplifting.” Jayde stared questioningly at her. Nadya’s face flushed once again. “N-not that I shoplift, I was just watching a petty crime documentary one night –”

“Did I ever tell you the way you set up a campsite is sexy?”

[solomiracle]

i wish obey me would have more fun with the worldbuilding. we're transported to a whole new world filled with demons and vampires and dragons and stuff but all we get are slivers of it as we're basically confined to the HoL and RAD most of the time :/ and a lot of the worldbuilding is just told to us via another character. i wish we were able to actively learn about the devildom!

imagine an event where you and another character explore some ancient devildom ruins, learning more about past cultures. maybe an ocean one where we sail out to an island and there's a new seaside town to have fun in. heck maybe we find ourselves lost in some woods that'll destroy our human psyche and we gotta navigate our way out of there while the boys try to find and save us.

it would be fun!!

[clownakai]

Pokémon AU two-shot is done💥💥💥💥 i can finally focus on studying for my exams

[collaredphantom]

Mouse Trap

Summary: c!Awesamdream are playing manhunt on Valentine's Day and Sam wins and is delighted to show his little mouse (hybrid) what he prepared for him. (1,4k Words)

Prompt: Tiny Dream with no memories being pampered by a giant Sam

Kinks: size difference, dildo, multiple orgasms, overstimulation, a possible kink for boxes from c!sam and c!sam being the most normal person about c!dream

-----

He had been running. His feet carried him across the forest floor as Sam made attempts at catching him. Good attempts. Many of which Dream had been able to evade thanks to his speed and dexterity. His leg worked with him this time, no deep ache that had existed ever since he woke up in that open field. It made him think this would be another win for him.

What he didn't expect was a cage to pop up out of the ground and snap shut around him. He checked it over, looking for an escape but none seemed available. It was decently big for him. Letting him still move around some but not outside of it. The bars were too narrow for that even with no horizontal ones. He wouldn't be able to slip out and there was no ender pearl in his inventory. The red-coloured metal wouldn't bend, not to the stone pickaxe he had managed to gather in their play so far.

There was no escape. Fear spiked in him in that, one he managed to keep low by reminding himself that Sam would find him before any monsters would. Before anything could get in and hurt him.

Time felt like it was moving through a spiderweb. One he had no shears or sword for to quickly destroy.

His ears flickered as he picked up on all the sounds around. The leaves nearby rustled with the wind. A chicken clucked in the distance. Footsteps rushed to his location.

Footsteps! Familiar footsteps! Ones that he came to associate with green fur, warm hands and a knack for redstone.

He looked towards where he picked up on them and spotted his partner coming out from between trees just seconds later.

"Saaaam," Dream whined as soon as he knew the creeper hybrid would hear him. "You took so long."

Sam chuckled at his antics while leaning down and picking up the cage, carefully. "It's been ten minutes since the cage snapped shut according to my communicator."

"Ten minutes too long."

"Then I shall figure out a way to teleport to the trap that caught you the second it did. But for now, I won and everything is already prepared at our house."

"Oh yeah? What did you have planned?"

"Something you will like." Dream scoffed. He saw the notebook Sam kept with notes on him. Be it something like preferences, body details or something else. He even spotted the one or other drawing of him in there.

He tried to get more details out but Sam wouldn't budge as they continued back to their house with Dream still in the cage. Safe as Sam would always put it. Safe from running into danger. Safe from attacks. His mouth had opened like he wanted to say something else but stopped himself, instead kissing Dream and holding his hand gently.

And Dream could agree. He felt some sense of safety. Monsters that would try to attack him, had to get through the metal first. Had to get inside. There was still some unease always to it. One he figured was just the common fear of being trapped.

Their topic changed to another discussion, from what Sam had planned to what they could do tomorrow. Fishing, Dream had suggested, resulting in a smile from Sam that he would almost call sad. Or rather reminiscence.

He wondered if Sam had fished with his family before he too woke up somewhere in this world.

He wondered - as they entered their home - if Sam had a similar house with his past family. Crafting benches decorated the floor on ground level with oak wood and glass panes making up the walls. An attic with their usual bedroom and two cellars, the lower of the two with obsidian walls that sometimes made Dream nauseous even as Sam explained the purpose. Safety. If something were to happen, it would function as a little safe space. One where explosions wouldn't get them and they could hide out in.

A hand wrapped around him, gently picking him up and out of the cage. They had arrived in their main cellar. The one they usually used for their sexual activities for whenever the attic didn't seem private enough. The one where Sam had been holed up in the last few days and it was easy to see why.

On a table, blankets and pillows formed a nest the perfect size for him. On the same table was a gift box. Soft green with a red heart-patterned bow.

Sam carried him over, placing him down in front of it.

"Sam?" Dream glanced back up at Sam and back to the box.

"Go on. Open it. It's your gift."

The mouse hybrid did just that, standing up with his tail swishing slightly back and forth. It wasn't bigger than him, luckily. Which meant he could easily open it by the bow, removing the wrapping paper after and opening the container. What he found was many items themed after today's holiday. A Buttplug that had a heart at the end, a dildo with a heart-shaped tip and a heart-shaped vibrator.

Things moved quickly from the moment Dream expressed his joy at the presents and the caught man found himself naked on top of the blankets. Sam meanwhile teased his dick and hole by sliding over both with his tongue, only occasionally slipping a small bit inside his hole. Stopping shortly to whisper "What a perfect present. All for me to enjoy and to pleasure,” before continuing. His mouth closed around his dick following the words, sucking on him while Dream bucked into him before being pinned down by his torso. "Just take what I give you, alright?" A kiss on his dick and a breathless yes was all that it took for Sam to continue. Going on until Dream warned he was close at which he slowed before stopping.

While Dream caught his breath, his partner stepped aside, grabbing the new dildo and placing it closer. The same went for a bottle of lubricant.

With familiarity that sometimes seemed more than the weeks they had been together, Sam lubed up his hand and started preparing Dream with his small finger. He took his time, not rushing even as Dream begged for more. When the second finger entered, Dream only tried to buck once before Sam reminded him of his earlier words with another press into the softness beneath him.

Luckily for the impatient little mouse, the next steps came quicker and soon the dildo with the heart patterns and heart-shaped tip was lubed up and pressed against his hole, slowly entering as some of the excess lube slid off it and down Dream's ass. It kept a slow pace after first bottoming out. Speeding up after a while.

His tail was pinned beneath him as Sam shoved the dildo back in again and again, shifting slightly to get a better aim at his prostate.

The moan that left Dream's mouth seconds later showed Sam's success. Again and again, he hit straight on, making Dream more and more of a shaking, writhing mess, sheets gripped to the point, that he nearly ripped them. Sam didn't let up till cum finally spurted from Dream's dick. But even then he didn't stop fully, only slowing down. "Beautiful," he whispered, still loud enough for Dream's ears to pick up.

"Sam."

"Yes, love?"

"More, please. Please. Faster. Need mORE." Sam obeyed, listening to his pleas before finishing them, speeding up again and hitting perfectly each time until Dream spilt again.

After a few more thrusts, Sam removed the tool, watching the lube exit not long after.

"So pretty. So perfect." Dream lifted his head slightly as a hand cradled him and lifted him higher.

"You up for continuing?"

It took him a second to register the question being asked. Another few seconds to decide. "Mhm. Continue. One more."

"One more." Sam repeated, placing a kiss on Dream's head. Then another, lower. And another even lower till his tongue found its way to Dream's crotch again. The next orgasm took a bit longer to reach despite Sam's masterful skills when it came to sucking him off.

Dream was barely present as Sam cleaned them both up. Sleep tugged at his brain, not helped by the warmth of the bath nor Sam's gentle touch as he got them both ready for bed.

[mariocki]

Messiah of Evil (Dead People, 1974)

"Hard to remember back on things... but I - I remember the red moonlight Daddy told me about, only once. Mama gave him a bad look when he talked about it. He was only a boy himself, then. He called it the blood moon. He said that was the night that he lost religion. He learned that men could do... could do horrible things... like animals."

[icewindandboringhorror]

I have a big google doc thing where I keep track of media and stuff (putting everything in loosely ranked categories), which is mostly just for my own reference so I know what tv shows I've already seen before, etc. and I never really look back through it, typically just a quick "okay, watched two movie in the past 8 months, need to quickly slap them somewhere in the lists. okay. done. save document. exit". But today I was actually reading through some of the old notes and there are like... MULTIPLE places where my comment is basically "It would have been good if it were about elves" or "I wish there was a fantasy show made in this same style" or "It's well made, but I just keep thinking about how I would like it more if everyone was an elf or was in old 1700s costumes" or etc like...... lol.... Most biased media ranking system on earth blatantly made by someone with an extremely hyperspecific range of narrow interests. It'd be like if a food reviewer only had 5 foods they actually liked, so they'd just go to a pizza place and be like "eh, the pizza was okay, but I just think it would be better if it was cereal instead. :/ ...2 out of 10"

[vulpine-spectacle]

Me working on a chapter realizing I've forgotten to write Dr. Yueh into Echoes in our Blood as a reference or even foreshadowing and now I'm at a part in the story where he's deeply supposed to be included

[beaniegender]

Going crazy reading the first two books of the scholomance because there's a really really good series here hidden beneath the annoying POV character's internal monologue and the HUGELY unwieldy amount of exposition. Can we please please get a meatier plot and more showing, less telling please

[chimchiri]

Tagged by @mintgalaxia <3 (thank you !!! <3<3 )

9 Favorite Characters

Tagging: @kaddastrophal @mattsmanpain @punky-thera @babydarkstar @evelili @admiraldora @kiose @chaosdraconequus @gummytea

I took the liberty to tag some of you mutuals even though we don't interact much (or at all lmao).

+ Tagging any follower who'd like to do this as well! Feel free to participate!

[thetruearchmagos]

Odd idea, but I'm thinking that, for Chainbreaker at least, the Chapter titles are all gonna be geographically related. I don't know, but names like 'West Of The [River]' or 'At The Foot Of The Tomb' give a real nice 'epic' feel to a story, y'know?

[dancingkirby]

I’m 3k words into my OC-centric Arcadia Movement fic and STILL not sure if I’m getting anywhere with it.

[baronessofmischief]

Rebel Moon on Netflix is sooooooo soso bad guys 😂 like at least there’s space Charlie Hunnam with a Scottish accent and sometimes the main character has a flashback where she has a better haircut AND there’s a sibling duo who have the best costumes in the movie but the story? The script? The movie structure? Cohesiveness? Absolutely terrible. And there’s still 45 minutes left