bakerstreet | The Highly Inappropriate Sexual Tension Meme

The Highly Inappropriate Sexual Tension Meme

The Highly Inappropriate Sexual Tension Meme

Touches. Glances. Sides brushing, so close to each other. The moment is, most likely, quite, subdued, and calm. Or it could be loud and full of life, right in the middle of a vivacious party. Yet, no matter the case, your blood is pumping - no, nearly boiling with the passion bubbling between you and your companion.

Unfortunately, this sexual tension is completely and absolutely out of line. Whether it be the place, the time, your relationship with the person (be that literal relation or power difference, age difference, experience difference, and so on), your own lack of knowledge, or personal convictions, you should not act on any building desires.

But here's the thing about tension: it builds. It builds, and it builds, until...

Well, even subtlety can come to an inappropriate head.

HOW TO PLAY

This meme isn't for smut, though smut is allowed. What it is for is the delicious, anticipatory build up and the dances people can do to deny attraction. Foreplay, especially creative foreplay, is encouraged.
Comment with your character, canon, and preferences in the subject. In the comment body, be sure to mention if there are any squicks you have, scenarios you don't/do want to play out, and if you're okay with AUs or handwaved CR.
Reply to others.

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{Prefer non-handwaved cr, but happy to play with new characters for ust goodness. Likely to be the one doing the inappropriate flirting, but willing to be the recipient with the right cr. Crosscanon and castmates welcome.}

Little hole-in-the-wall places like this served two purposes, in Claudia's view: they tended to serve above-decent food and beer, and no one ever seemed to know who she was. While the former was certainly a bonus, the latter was even better. Anywhere she didn't have to be Lady Cherut, heiress and designee of the Cherut Legacy and One Upon Whom All the Family's Hopes Rested, Claudia counted as an island paradise in the midst of stormy seas, indeed. And since this small tavernesque establishment was off the beaten path, though quite a number of students found their way to its doors, it nevertheless served real food, good beer, and kept a semi-quiet, comfortable atmosphere that was long disappearing in the industry.

Over the past weeks, she'd sort of established the second to last booth as her personal table, books and laptop always on the table in front of her while she ate, not averse to the house tap instead of champagne in a crystal glass. She chose not to mingle with any of her classmates--a few other law students frequented this place, as well--but instead kept her head down and her nose either in a book or was otherwise hunched over her computer, fingers whizzing over the keyboard, even on the weekends. She had a very good reason to graduate early, after all.

He'd taken a seat at the bar, as usual, watching all the frantic comings and goings of the humans milled through the place. He sipped his drink and listened to conversations that held little to no interest to him, but he was bored, so he listened in on the housewife cheating on her husband, knowing that said husband was also cheating on her with his best friend's sister. It never failed to surprise him the topics people talked about in public places, assured in their knowledge that no one could hear them if they whispered. Idiots.

There was a girl that had been coming in lately, one who didn't join in on any hushed conversations or revelry, avoided the pool table and made for a booth to read and eat and work, something that had him curious. She wasn't the usual nerdy stereotype, lacking the glasses and the hunched over attempt to fade into the background. All that made her stand out, to him, more than if she'd stood on a table and stripped.

Not that he wouldn't have noticed that, but he noticed her lack of involvement in anything around her more, like she had a wall up between her and the rest of the building. Well, time to go topple those bricks down. Getting a refill on his glass, he took it and made his way over to her table, not asking before he slid into the opposite bench seat. "You realize you can go blind from too much studying, right?"

It wasn't so much the words--and the uninvited interruption--that drew her notice, Claudia was an expert on ignoring those deemed lesser, but rather the sense of the interrupting presence that brought her gaze from her laptop screen to the...being now seated in the other side of her booth. A flash of intuition, intuition she spent a lot of time trying to ignore, advised her to tread with caution, but then when had Claudia Cherut ever stepped lightly?

Yet rather than reply with a scathing retort--which would have done her mother proud, no doubt--she simply adopted a pleasant-seeming smile and closed her computer with a soft click. A shoulder shrugged as she replied, "Perhaps," and reached for her half-full beer stein, taking a delicate swallow. "The same could, in fact, be said of many things." A corner of her lips quirked in wry humor. "Studying being one of the tamest, no?"

He propped the arm still holding the glass up on the back of the booth, bourbon dangling from his fingers as he looked over at her. Clearly this one came from money, apparent if not by her mannerisms than by the very subtle and fragile scent she wore. That wasn't something you picked up at the mall. But he had her attention, which was a good start, and he smiled over at her. "The tamest and definitely the most boring. If I'm going to go blind doing something, I'd better be having more fun than trying to pull off an A for the semester."

Claudia acknowledged the point with a small nod, but said, "Well, I've no intention of going blind at all, so it's rather a moot point. But since my train of thought has been so..." an eyebrow went up slightly, "charmingly derailed, I think my corneas are safe enough for the evening, yes?"

A waitress passed by and placed a fresh full mug of dark beer on the table, Claudia absently nodding her thanks. Trading the old for the new, she sat back and sipped, adding afterwards, "So. What brings you to my table then? I'm sure it's not just a passing concern for optometry."

And because he never let anyone get off that lightly, he added to the end of her answer, "For now."

But the waitress came by with a new beer for her and he sipped at his own drink, feeling the pleasantly familiar sting and eyeing her as he did. "Consider it idle curiosity. I know you're one of the educationally pursuant, but you don't do what the rest of them do when they come into town, which is relax. No, you squirrel yourself away with your laptop and books and study, but I'm curious why you come here to do it. You could always get food to go, but you sit and ignore everyone and study."

"And that's worth notice?" Her lips twitched with humor. "Because I choose not to debase myself with drunken idiocy, or engage in any other sort of moronic activity, like the rest of the herd?" She had to laugh, a somewhat hesitant sound, as if she was unused to doing so.

Taking another swallow of her beer, Claudia shrugged. "I like it here," she answered simply. "The food's better than decent, the beer's always cold, and there're just enough distractions about to keep me from getting too lost in academia." She tilted her stein towards him. "Case in point.

"But tell me," she added, holding the mug in both hands and giving him an inquiring look, "why does my routine spark so much interest? I can't imagine you'd ever be wanting for--company."

"Anything out of the ordinary is worth notice." His smile spread like honey, tongue coming out to lick at his lips before he took another sip. Her hint had him laughing, quirking a brow upward. "Are you calling me a distraction? How apt for someone who's only just met me. You're very perceptive, my dear."

She was also a flatterer, and Damon did so love to be admired and noticed. Call it a flaw of his, but there was a part of him that always sought out validation for his charms and she was stroking his ego nicely. "No, I usually don't, but let's say that I like to keep an eye on things that happen in my home town. And who knows? Maybe a collegiate that doesn't partake of the activities that numb the mind is really a serial killer in disguise. It's my civic duty to keep an eye on you. Just in case."

A childhood and all the following formative years spent in the highest rarefied circles of "high society" had taught Claudia how and what to say; she was no stranger to the game. She'd just not played it herself for, oh...months now, since her goal of early graduation left her precious little time for socialization, much to her mother's chagrin.

Yet she was pleased to see she hadn't lost her touch, judging from the responses directed her way. It was truly uncanny, almost surreal, this conversation; she usually avoided any sort of conversation with random individuals, preferring to focus on more important things, but she supposed she had been getting a bit too far into the curriculum and what would it hurt to take a short breather?

So she wrinkled her nose a bit, replying before taking another cold swallow, "Mmm, hardly that. Such a messy occupation. I think, all things considered, I'd choose a vocation that wouldn't risk me breaking all of my fingernails." A small wry smile quirked her lips.

"As for the former, well, I've always been good at reading people." Green eyes glinted lightly. "Call it a gift, of sorts."

"Ah, vanity. Good to know that it curbs the more violent urges in some." Some not being himself, of course. He could be a vain little peacock, but he'd suffer blood smeared clothes and torn jackets for the sake of a little fun, if the mood struck him.

That had him lifting dark brows, giving her a somewhat cheeky grin even as he wished there was a way to tell if someone was a witch or not. "A gift, mm? And what does your gift say about me?"

Was she really going to play this game? She had a twenty page essay on the evolution of economical law due this coming Friday. But apparently the playful nature of Lady Chareut, which seldom was allowed into the light of day, night, or any light at all, had its foot in the door and wasn't going to budge.

So.

Claudia propped her elbows on the table, laced her fingers and rested her chin atop them, gazing across at her subject. She wasn't deaf to the warning chimes that were tinkling in the back of her hearing--there was something even more dangerous about this individual than his easy smile, roguish charm and cynical wit. Although, she reasoned, those were powerful weapons in their own right.

"Well," she began slowly, lowering her hands to draw lazy circles on the clean tabletop, "I'd say you're someone who enjoys attention, be it from a woman or not, that you rely on your charm to get in close to a potential 'conquest', and that it works nearly every time." Her fingertip rotated in the opposite direction, but she never lowered her eyes.

"You have a...mmm, naughty sense of humor, look at the world from a cynic's point of view, and, once you decide you want something, you never let it escape." One of Claudia's eyebrows arched. "Am I right?"

"Have you been talking to my brother?" He gave her an almost accusing glare, but it morphed back into that charming smile, knowing it was hardly likely that Stefan would say anything quite so... insightful about Damon other than 'stay away from him' to anyone that professed an interest.

Mirroring her position, he set his glass down to rest his elbows on the table, hands drawing nonsense designs as well. "Either you're very astute and picked that all up in the few minutes I've been sitting with you or," he drawled, doing an extra loop that moved his hand closer to hers, "someone hasn't been as distracted by her work as she seems to be. Have you been watching me while you've been here?"

Claudia blinked. "Your brother? I wasn't aware you had one." Hell, she didn't even know his name, let alone anything else. "But apparently I've made some, hmmm, intelligent guesses, no?"

She tapped her finger twice on the table when his came into close proximity, just for propinquity's sake. "Oh, I tend to notice a thing or two now and then. One might even call you a regular, too. Definitely not one of the collegiate, but hardly one of the, shall we say, 'working class'."

Claudia's lips slanted knowingly. "And you don't always leave alone, do you? No, I believe it wouldn't be too far of a stretch to think of this place as one of your particular--" her eyes narrowed mischievously, "--hunting grounds, for lack of a more apt term."

"Yes, well, that's probably because he doesn't like to sully himself by stepping into places where I happen to enjoy going." Bitter? Him? Nah.

His eyes sharpened a bit when she mentioned hunting ground, but he covered it by grabbing his glass and taking a large swallow of his drink. He lifted a hand to signal to the passing waitress for another before he turned to her. "Very observant for someone that has their nose buried behind a book for the majority of the time she's here. Yes, I do happen to enjoy leaving with company. What can I say? I enjoy... life."

Or unlife, but she could make of that what she wanted. "What's the point of living if you don't stop to smell the roses? Or enjoy a few co-eds?" Because those were clearly comparable.

Claudia shrugged a bit nonchalantly. "His loss, I'm sure." She too signaled for a refill, leaning back in the booth and gently crossing her arms.

"Well," she remarked with a soft chuckle, "you do...stand out a bit. To--certain individuals more than others, I'm sure." Yes, she'd been aware of this particular flamboyant before. But she had no intention of making waves; Claudia liked her lakes deep and smooth as glass.

"I'd say mind the thorns, but no doubt you've experience with those sorts of things." Realizing she'd not done so before, Claudia slowly--almost hesitantly--extended one perfectly manicured hand, adding in a quiet, lilting tone, "Claudia Chareut, by the way."

"You say that like it's a bad thing." He finished his drink, pushing the glass to the end of the table for the waitress to take when she came by with their refills. "I'm sure you wouldn't be the slightest bit surprised about what kind of experience I have."

He took her hand, giving it a light squeeze, thumb brushing lightly over the back of her hand. "Damon Salvatore. It's a pleasure."

If her intuition was indeed correct, Claudia suspected she wouldn't be too surprised, but then, all of them were different according to Tante Genvieve. Perhaps it wasn't entirely wise to delve all that far into...shark-infested waters, regardless of her confidence in her swimming skills.

"C'est tout à moi, monsieur," she responded in perfect French, not missing that surreptitious little caress. "I must admit, however, I'm surprised you took pity on a poor academic." Claudia withdrew her hand and propped her chin on it, leaning on the table. "Pickings a bit slim tonight, are they?"

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The Highly Inappropriate Sexual Tension Meme

Damon Salvatore | The Vampire Diaries | OTA

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