#trailsofpaper

[foolhearts]

☕ Seb and Lewis before Baku 2017?

WOW what an incredibly loaded ask!! you're right we don't talk about pre baku seb/lewis enough even though they have 10+ years of history before baku even happened... i wish i had a detailed timeline. we could dedicate an entire museum to their relationship.

i previously answered an ask about baku being the turning point on their relationship so i won't focus on that except to say the fact that seb says "we were not best friends" makes me crazy. ofc maybe he really means in that immediate post crash moment and it is very evident they're even closer now, but i would like to know how he defines their pre baku relationship bc let's consider the evidence shall we?

so they've been racing against each other since they were teenagers. which is not unusual in f1! but does everyone look at their rival like this? look at their smiles!! the way they look in each other's eyes like nobody else matters! they've been looking at each other this way for years. they have their way of walking together :)

should we talk about how lewis always says he has a terrible memory yet can remember all his battles his podiums his memories with seb no matter how long ago it was? like when they were babies in f3 at zandvoort in 2005?

in formula 1, their first shared podium was suzuka 2009. since then, they've shared a podium SO MANY TIMES and they always look so happy as they flirt and spray champagne. it's all about the delight on their faces at these dumb intricate rituals. and some of their celebrations... obscene. how much champagne have they poured on each other? how many times have their hands touched? can we even count the amount of times they've congratulated each other, celebrated with each other, shared in each other's important moments? thinking about it makes me insane. they should just kiss already.

speaking of podiums, i laugh everytime i think about the time they excluded nico from their photo. it kinda looks like lewis is the one who makes seb take the photo!!! and way nico walks off dejectedly... it's so good. i love all the b*tchy lewis and seb moments. like them mocking the hat throwing incident right in front of nico!!

and then there's the flirting... this exchange about seb's hands when they're doing the hand imprints for the 2014 japanese gp. excuse me seb??? "you know what they say about men with small hands"??? seems like seb is offering to show lewis the answer...

they have such a long history of making everyone feel like a third wheel during press conferences!!! like when they teased valtteri about the finnish word for excited but it was really just an excuse to flirt!! also how many selfies does lewis have? i'd die to see his seb album.

ok i need to wrap it up with a few key moments:

remember malaysia 2015? i honestly could cry thinking about it. them just sitting on the podium together, touching shoulders and feet. seb is overwhelmed with tears of joy after getting his first win with ferrari. and lewis stays there by his side. this whole gifset is so much but the bottom right kills me. lewis's content smile as he watches seb... sharing this huge moment TOGETHER!

then canada 2016... there is SO MUCH in this race. it's the flirting in the cooldown room and saying "i enjoyed chasing you down" and seb asking if lewis noticed his start. i cannot. they both have it SO BAD. and seb's praise kink is showing. and as noted this is the seagulls incident!! seb just leaves his own interview to come and tease lewis about not braking for seagulls. with a lot of touching.

inspector seb apparently touching lewis's car and then they joke about it!! again the flirting and the touching... truly deranged behavior

lastly let us not forget lewis defending seb's honor against jack whitehall. you tell him lewis!!! seb IS very funny!!!

ok i hope you enjoyed my thesis about seb and lewis pre baku 2017. in conclusion, they have SO MUCH HISTORY and evidence points to them being in love way before the baku incident even happened.

[elementalmoments]

Charles/Pierre + breakfast, please!

“You’re getting crumbs on me,” Pierre says, brushing ineffectively at his chest as Charles beams around his mouthful of pain au chocolat. 

“You are the one who asked for breakfast in bed,” Charles informs him. “You should say thank you instead of worrying about a few crumbs.”

Pierre moves his own plate of croissant to the side and tugs Charles up until their faces are level. 

“Thank you,” he says, and kisses the taste of chocolate out of Charles’ mouth.

[semperama]

🐎

Aww, the horsey. <3 I MEAN, what can I even say! You are a true gem of a person and I love you!!! I have mentioned before how much of a treat it's been sharing so many fandoms over the years with you, and that remains true. I feel like we have such similar tastes and interests in fandom things, and it's always special to find someone who aligns with you so much in that respect. I admire your creativity so much and how you always pursue the ideas that bring you the most joy. Your fics are your art are so uniquely you, and that's what makes them so amazing. You're so fun to bounce ideas off of to (and vent to lol), and you're always so kind and encouraging and enthusiastic. There are genuinely fics I would never have written if it weren't for that voice in my head telling me that if nothing else, YOU would enjoy it, and I can't thank you enough for that!! Also I love how willing you are to make art for your own and others' fics. Having that visual element to go with some of my favorite stories is an extra special treat. You are SIMPLY the best!!

[becomeawendybird]

Felt Nothing Like Home by QuickedWeen (61k, E)

With art by @trailsofpaper​, written for @onedirectionbigbang​.

The Bon Appétit YouTube channel has become an unexpected success partly due to the newest series developed by classically trained pastry chef Harry Styles who is intent on making the art of baking accessible to the masses. He and his best friend Louis Tomlinson have been with the magazine for years and they’re unused to the level of online fame they’ve suddenly achieved.

It’s easy for Harry to brush it off and ignore it (despite the teasing they get around the test kitchen) because Louis is happily married and has been for years—since just before they met for the first time. Or, it was easy to brush it off, but at the beginning of the summer, just as they’re leading up to the stress of planning the annual holiday issue, Louis and his husband decide to file for divorce.

Additional Tags: Friends to Lovers, Alternate Universe, Baker Harry, Chef Louis, Bon Appétit Test Kitchen, Divorce, Post-Divorce, New York City, YouTube, Flirting, Sexual Tension, Iced Coffee, Christmas Cookies, Christmas In July | Christmas Out Of Season, Food, California, Vermont, Summer Romance, Sneaking Around, Fluff, Smut

[remythologise]

Listen, as someone who broke up with SPN during season 10 and fully expected my emotional attachment to die, I can now report that watching seasons 11-14 "for completionist reasons" sparked a full renaissance, and im currently writing a 50k destiel fanfic that's an au, but only in the way that "you're doing canon wrong, here let me" is an au. Like I'm fully aware that Supernatural is hot, queerbaity garbage, but I AM along for the ride, unfortunately, and I'm as feral for Dean/Cas as I ever was

RIDE OR DIE, IF YOU WILL, (if you’re not listening to this podcast I thoroughly recommend it but I WILL warn you that it will 100% turn you from not caring about the show anymore and having it struck out from your ‘fandoms list’ on your blog to, after nearly a decade, un-striking-out the word and rolling out the anti-possession tattoo banners from your window,) So, you’re saying that I SHOULD watch the show and it WON’T break the honeymoon and, in fact, ENHANCE it? oh no. I think I broke up with it at the beginning of season 8. (from what I gather, s7-10 are perhaps the worst). Perhaps I, too, should watch the newer seasons for ‘completionist reasons’. I’m honestly torn I think I’ll definitely watch the final crop of episodes but EIGHT WHOLE SEASONS of 24 hours each is a lot of freaking time to watch the writers be obnoxiously bad at their job (I just read about how jensen ackles admitted the writers were just ‘throwing things at the wall and seeing what stuck’ in the mark of cain season, yikes). I’ll probably end up putting it on as background noise to another task....... oh dear, I think you’ve dragged me down with you into this terrible choice,,,,,, on the other hand, I’m fully supportive of any action in favour of more canon-adjacent destiel fanfic so thank you for your service to the cause!!!* ‘Supernatural is hot, queerbaity garbage, but I AM along for the ride, unfortunately, and I'm as feral for Dean/Cas as I ever was’ if that ain’t my current mood, I don’t know what is huh

[throwaway-key]

On the whole, Lovett is far from the image of a studious or dedicated witch. Magic is supposed to flow through you in a way where you feel it in your soul, mind, and body, all aligned to manifest whatever incredible feats your spirit most wishes. It’s not that Lovett has never felt that thrum of electric current when he’s doing something that he knows is important, knows is good, knows he is supposed to be doing- it’s just that it never originated from an alter or a ritual. It came when he finally solved a tricky problem in his homework, or when he was able to write his high school graduation speech in a way that made him look over it and think “yeah... yeah... this is... I’m proud of this.”

Which is why the large golden retriever is a surprise.

Every large witch family has had a familiar somewhere in their history. Witches don’t have things like jail or probation, or really any basic fundamental structure besides getting together and chanting ominously under a full moon or some shit Lovett really doesn’t care to find out, so if a witch does something wrong, something the entire council deems worth punishment, there is instead a system of sentencing that witch to a period of being a familiar, a soul trapped in an animal’s body, forbidden to use magic and assigned to mentor to whatever wayward magic user who could use and benefit from their tutelage. 

Lovett is a math major who’s last working of magic could only be considered when he wiped the salt that remained on his hands from the potato chips he had been eating for breakfast across the chest of his shirt in a bastardization of a protection spell, and that was generous.

“So like...” Lovett trailed off, looking at the dog that had materialized in his dorm room. “Can you maybe explain that this,” he gestures between the two of them, “isn’t gonna work out."

“Yes.” the dog says, shortly. “Because obviously I am who those in power would trust in this situation.” The sarcasm laid flat in front of them. So they seemed to be stuck with each other. 

“This is gonna be the worst odd-couple roommate sitcom.” Lovett mutters to himself.

[pursuingsunshine]

**Sexy Man Hands Andrew**

Bonus:

[elementalmoments]

As requested by @trailsofpaper - with many asides and many exclamation marks

Okay, so! Originally, Fighter Pilot AU wasn’t a Sebastian x Lewis idea, it was a Charles x Pierre idea. The thought was that Pierre was minorly injured in a training accident that killed another pilot (Anthoine) and was medically retired from the Navy. They’re all in the US here, I’m sorry. I can’t work the logistics of another nation’s military system. So Pierre is medically retired, goes into private pilot school, and meets Charles who works (and here the logistics get fuzzy) as part of the flight crew for this luxury private jet company that Pierre is going to be flying with. Seb is (was?) going to be his co-pilot/instructor figure, and it’s about Pierre adapting to civilian life and civilian flying and coping with his grief and learning to love Charles and the people around him. 

But then! More Lewis Fighter Pilot AU content popped up when he raced the jet in Austin. And I think this is when @foolhearts and I batted the idea around for a couple days. Basically: Seb & Lewis are pilots at Top Gun, which is no longer at Miramar, it’s at Fallon, which is in the middle of nowhere and while I’m sure it’s got some built up infrastructure for the base, doesn’t have a lot going on. It’s not *super* far from Reno, but. Well. Let’s just say there are reasons I didn’t go to grad school there. (Reno is, to be fair, ABSOLUTELY gorgeous, worth a visit, and I’m sure can be made a lovely place to live.) 

Anywho! So enter Seb & Lewis who are there for the prestigious and serious Top Gun program. This part tracks pretty well with the movie - they meet and immediately there’s sparks. Hatred or chemistry, who can tell? There’s a lot of back and forth, some pull-em-out-and-measure moments, etc. They annoy each other, have mutually decided This Is My Rival, and most of their classmates have more or less fallen into one of the two camps. 

So one day the base organizes a weekend trip down to Vegas for interested single military personnel (this is a thing the military does - day trips and weekend trips to go skiing or scuba diving or just into a big city with a few organized activities and then back - troop morale etc etc. Would they do this from Fallon to Vegas? Cannot say.). Lewis signs up and he realizes Seb is going too, but whatever, he can deal. It’s not like he hates the guy. On the bus ride down they make some dumb bet about hooking up with someone over the course of that evening when they go out, and anyone who loses has to be the lackey of some sort for the rest of the weekend. Plus be mocked mercilessly for having no game. Rules are simple: You can’t hook up with someone known to be married (this is a military code of conduct rule), you can’t pay for sex (cheating, also against the code of conduct), and you have to have someone who can vouch for your success with a reasonable level of confidence. They tack on there that the sex must be sober and consensual, with sort of an evil eye “that should be obvious” proviso. 

And then they’re off, welcome to Vegas, babyyyyyy. (Sidebar, this is not something @foolhearts and I discussed, but I think Jenson and Daniel have to be in this fic. Like. They gotta. Jenson can be Lewis’ wingman and Daniel can be Seb’s.) They all go out and Lewis starts chatting up this lady and Seb decides he’s going to be a pain in the ass and steal Lewis’ girl so they end up going back and forth with her all evening - she is clever and not stupid, gets her free drinks and has her fun dancing and then peaces right on out! Good for her! But it’s too late for Lewis and Seb to find anyone they feel comfortable checks the “sober” box at this point - they spent all evening working the one lead and now they’re SOL. But neither of them wants to admit defeat, so they’re workshopping ideas and one of them is like. Well, we could. I mean. Together. Right? That would count?

It wasn’t against the rules! It’s not against policy! They didn’t get super clear in the rules about what “sex” entailed, so they figure they’re probably safe just. Giving each other blowjobs? They both kind of wanted to suggest handjobs but thought they’d be getting off too easy and didn’t want to seem like a coward, so. That’s how they end up back in one of their hotel rooms laughing and nervous like they’re going up for the first time all over again. But it’s like. They’re both SO serious about being not good in front of the other guy, lol. So it’s kinda hot, really, and they fall asleep in the same bed like, still half-dressed and whatever. 

The next morning there’s an accounting taken and everyone is so dumbfounded when they say “each other” that nobody even questions it because like. If that’s a lie they’re willing to wear they probably deserve to win anyway? There’s a couple guys who lost the bet and they do have to go get coffees for people and give tokens up or whatever - Lewis and Seb are very smug about their clever plan. 

But that changes something fundamental in their interaction! Because after they get back to base, Seb isn’t irritating to Lewis like “I want to strangle him” anymore, he’s irritating like, “I want to put him up against the wall I want his dick in my mouth I want my mouth on his dick what is going ON.” One of them (maybe Seb?) HAS fooled around with guys a little bit before so this isn’t quite as shocking but like. I mean Lewis is objectively a gorgeous man but he really hadn’t thought about it before and now he like, can’t stop thinking about it. 

And they’re in this small town where an unmarried pilot is prime real estate and it’s hard to just, get a quick easy orgasm, and really, they’ve already done it once, so. It turns into another time. And then another, and then it’s not just blowjobs, because they’re both hyperactive border collie adrenaline freaks. It’s FWB, they maintain, but they’ve also started to respect each other a lot as pilots. Except that Lewis still thinks Seb is too particular and clinical and Seb thinks Lewis is too reckless and takes unnecessary risks. They have a massive fight about it, tails are stepped on, and they don’t talk for like a week.

Then there’s a training accident that kills Jules. And they meet up after but they don’t have sex. Lewis shows up to Seb’s and they barely even talk, just get blackout drunk on the floor together. Neither of them even knew him all that well but. It’s a stark reminder. The next morning, hungover and miserable, Seb makes them both coffee and then they curl up in bed and once they can think a little bit they talk a little bit - nothing like a confession, except they both have to admit their fear for the other’s safety, the way they think more about each other. The way they care about each other, now. And it gets them back to a good place. 

That’s the summary of what was discussed! Handwave handwave Top Gun is only 12 weeks so whatever time distortion needs to happen? Would pilots at TOPGUN (which only admits the top 1% of all naval pilots) go on a weekend trip to Las Vegas? They’re probably going to different squadrons in different places so what happens to the relationship after school? These logistical issues are acknowledged but not addressed, lol. So @foolhearts add anything I forgot, but I think that’s the main body of what we talked about back in October. 

Tag for all headcanon stuff is: this is fighter pilot au

Bonus: