Hey guys, after quite a long time that I've kept you waiting, here it finally is! Sorry I took so long, but all those circumstances during the last time made it quite difficult to concentrate properly on this project I've started, ranging from school to the beginning of war in Ukraine. My love and support go out to all Ukrainians in this horrible time! I hope I can at least paint a smile on some of your faces, dear readers, when you read this, make you all forget about this horror, pain, and fear that overrules all of our everyday lives. And as a short side note, I'd like to mention that this story will be finished eventually, even if it might not seem like it ;) So, I hope you enjoy reading this part of my work!!!

~~~~

"Joe, we're planning to fly to Marseille for the autumn holidays! And dad said you could bring a friend along, so you won't get too bored!"

Joe couldn't believe his luck as his mother said those words. Without another thought he sprinted over to the phone, picking it up and quickly dialing the number he knew by heart already. Twirling a strand of his dark locks around his forefinger, he waited for the person on the other side of the line to pick up. And after just a few rings there could be heard a male voice.

"Yeah? Savage here, who's there?"

"It's Joe Elliott, I'd like to talk to Rick if that's fine", he replied and the person on the other side of the line hummed, Joe not completely being able to identify which one of Sav's brothers it was.

"Richard!! Phone for you!!"

"Yeah, yeah, I'm comin', John!!", he heard from the back, making him smile. Just hearing his boyfriend's voice made him feel queasy these days.

"Hello? Who's there?", he finally asked into the receiver with that very same voice, and Joe's smile widened even further.

"Hey darlin', it's me. I got something to ask you."

"Go on then, Joe."

"Well, my parents want to go to Marseille for the autumn holidays with me and they said I could bring a friend. So, of course, I was gonna ask you first."

Sav let out an excited squeak at that proposal, clearly wanting to say yes.

"Of course, I'd like to, but I have to ask my parents first. Hang on, my mum is close by."

Joe could hear the receiver being put down and waited patiently before an overly happy voice spoke into it again.

"They say I can go! I can't wait!"

With a smile Joe agreed, talking to his boyfriend for a little longer before disconnecting the call. This was going to be something, he just knew.

~~~~

They were finally on the way to Marseille, the autumn holidays having begun. Joe and Sav were equally excited to see what that holiday, the first holiday they spent together, could bring.

"Look Joe, there's the ocean!", Sav said excitedly, pointing out of the window with an overjoyed expression on his face. They both came out of working-class families, and therefore it was quite rare for both of them to fly somewhere and see the Earth's surface from that particular point of view. But Sav seemed especially excited.

With a chuckle and a smile, Joe nodded, looking out of the window, too, and playing with a strand of his lover's hair in the meantime. Joe was still cautious concerning public affection in front of his dad, but since he was sitting on the other side of the aisle he didn't care so much.

Sav finally raised the armrest between their seats, cuddling into Joe's side and closing his eyes. He was obviously a bit exhausted from all the thrilling events of that day, besides it was still ten o'clock in the morning, and Joe felt more than pleased to be his pillow. Wrapping an arm around him and burying his nose in his lover's hair he closed his eyes, too, sleep taking him into its welcoming arms.

A while later Joe woke up again, not sure what had woken him exactly, but as he yawned and looked around, he noticed his dad's gaze resting on him. Well, more specifically on him and Sav.

"You can push him off, you know?", he finally said, causing Joe to look down at his lover, who was peacefully sleeping with his head on his chest and his fingers curled into his shirt. There was no way for him to be able to push him off if he looked so cute and peaceful and apart from that, it was an excuse for having quite a bit of physical contact.

"I know, but I don't mind it."

His dad just raised an eyebrow at that but let it be, concentrating on the magazine he had been reading again. With a sigh Joe directed his gaze at his lover's face again, tucking some wild curls behind his ear. God, the urge to kiss those lush rosy lips was so immensely strong, he wasn't sure if he could fight it any longer. But he had to, at least during the flight where they were among a lot of other people and had no chance to leave the situation if someone would make a comment or something like that.

The plane finally touched down on French ground, Sav still not making a move of waking up.

"Sav, wake up! We're there!", Joe whispered and gently shook his shoulder. He actually wanted to wake him with a kiss on the forehead and a gentle caress of his cheek, but he knew that he would get looks if he chose to do that.

Sav groaned a bit as he stirred, his eyes finally fluttering open and focusing on Joe who looked down at him. Immediately, there was a smile on his face and he made a move of leaning into a kiss but Joe caught him by the arm.

"Not here, okay? Y'know... My dad...", he whispered and Sav nodded, disappointment lingering in his eyes either way. It hurt Joe to see that expression on that particular human being but they had no choice.

"Ready to go, boys? Get your backpacks and then let's get out of here!", Joe's mother interrupted, especially excited to leave the plane. She always had a slight fear whenever she placed her foot in a plane, so she made sure to always be one of the first to leave it again.

Joe and Sav nodded as an answer and packed up the water bottles they had bought at Heathrow airport, finally shouldering their backpacks and entering the aisle behind Joe's parents. Joe started to smile as he felt a warm pinky holding onto his, and as he gave a light squeeze, he directly got one back, telling him Sav was thankful for the contact as well, even though it was quite little.

~~~~

"So boys, there we are!", Joe's dad exclaimed as they finally arrived in front of a nice little house at the oceanside. They were both mouth-opened as they looked at it, not having expected the house to be that beautiful and more importantly, so close to the beach.

"And before I forget it, your room should be the one on the first floor to the right", Joe Elliott Snr. then added, making them nod absently while they still gazed excitedly at the house.

"C'mon babe, let's check out our room", Joe finally whispered so only Sav could hear and gained a nod in return, the two of them then making their way up the stairs and through the house. As they reached the first floor and were out of Joe's parent's sight, Sav already stumbled into his lover's arms, their lips meeting in a hot and passionate kiss.

"God, it's been much too long", Joe mumbled in between kisses, hoisting Sav up and feeling his legs wrapping around his waist in return to steady himself. Joe then made his way down the hallway, stumbling a bit since he carried a bit of extra weight and was distracted by kisses from time to time. But he finally made out a door to the right and found a bedroom behind it, quickly making his way over to one of the single beds and laying Sav down on it before turning around again to close the door. As he turned around again, he saw Sav already fumbling with the button and zipper of his tight jeans and grinned at the sight, quickly making his way over to his lover again.

"We gotta be quick for now babe, alright? Quick and quiet", he then whispered against the scorching hot skin of Sav's neck, sucking on it soon after as he reached down and took a hold of Sav's length, hearing a desperate moan leaving his lover's lips. So much for being quiet. But Joe didn't mind it, pulling Sav's jeans down further to not get them stained while the latter took care of his own, finally pulling him down onto him and grinding upwards in fast motions, making Joe grit his teeth to not moan too loudly. But with the pace the younger one was setting, they were done quite quickly, either way, getting themselves some tissues from the nightstand and cleaning up before zipping up their jeans again.

"That was... great. I definitely needed that after the flight and all", Joe whispered against Sav's lips as they stood in their room still catching their breath post-orgasmic. The younger one just nodded and pulled him into another deep kiss that made his head spin. But he finally gathered himself, taking Sav's hand and leading him out of the room again to help his parents with getting everything unpacked. That had definitely been a way to start the vacation.

Just a while later they were done with unpacking, deciding to spend the rest of the day on the beach since it was right in front of their little house anyway.

Joe had taken the time to bathe in the sun for a while since sun like that was quite rare to appear in Sheffield. Besides, he needed to close his eyes and avoid looking at Sav for as long as he could, because the lean muscled figure that had droplets of water running down his sun-kissed skin due to the fact that he was in the water, was giving him a boner if he looked for too long. And that would be quite bad in front of his parents.

Suddenly droplets of water rained onto one of his arms, and his eyes immediately shot open.

"Are you coming?", Sav asked, his bangs hanging in wet curly strands to his forehead. The sight reminded him of the one time he had spent the night at Sav's house and they had taken a shower together, of how he had thrown his head back as Joe had gone down on him. A rush of blood went straight to his groin at that memory and Joe inwardly cursed, looking up to check if his parents were looking his way. To his luck, they weren't, they were in conversation on their towel with their whole focus on each other.

"Joe?"

Joe's gaze finally came to a rest on Sav again, who looked at him a bit concerned now.

"Yeah, I'm gonna join you, babe."

Sav seemed visibly happy at that answer, holding out his hand for Joe to take it and pulling him up as he did. They then went over to the water's edge, Sav starting to walk inside and stopping as soon as he noticed Joe wasn't following him.

"What's up?"

"It's cold, Sav. Can't I just stay in the sun?"

Sav seemed to think about it for a minute but then shook his head in a negative.

"Nope. No chance there, babe."

With that, he jumped into the waves, looking expectantly at Joe as he popped up again. The taller young man insecurely looked back at him, holding his toes into the water again.

"Joe, c'mon, don't be a pussy!"

That seemed to have hit his lover, since his expression changed and he dove into the waves himself, making his way over to where Sav was. As he popped up, his green eyes glinted playfully behind his wet dark curls, fixating on Sav.

"You call me a pussy? Just you wait."

And with that, he dove for Sav's legs, causing him to sink beneath the waves with a giggle and reappear looking a bit surprised. He hadn't expected Joe to start a little war. Where was Joe anyway?

As he wanted to turn around, two warm arms wrapped tightly around his waist, holding him close to a from the water cool-skinned but otherwise warm body. He instinctively leaned into Joe, closing his eyes as the sun hit his bare upper body and he felt Joe's warm breath on his neck.

"Gotcha", the taller one finally murmured against Sav's skin, his tongue darting out for a second to taste the freckles across the strong shoulders in front of him.

"Yeah, you do", Sav whispered as a reply, turning his head to the side to be able to look into the emerald green eyes of his lover. Joe gulped heavily at that sight, at the sight of Sav looking up at him out of lidded ocean blue eyes with his lips parted and especially rosy and full from the contact with the water. Instinctively he leaned in like he was in some sort of trance, his nose touching Sav's and their breaths starting to mingle.

"Joe... Your dad...", Sav tried while leaning closer himself, not appearing to be very persuasive.

"Don't care", Joe whispered as a reply, taking the lips in front of his in a passionate and soft kiss, his embrace around Sav loosening a bit and allowing him to turn around and deepen the kiss. So they finally found themselves in a tight embrace, Joe's arms around the small of Sav's back and Sav's around the back of Joe's neck, kissing like there was no one around but them, the sun going down over the horizon and tinting everything in a soft orange glow. Joe briefly thought that a picture of the scenery would make a perfect postcard, but it got drowned out by Sav's tongue getting added to the synchronized dance of their lips, making Joe moan softly and involuntarily.

They eventually parted to catch their breaths, remaining in the embrace with their foreheads leaned together.

"Joe?"

"Yes, babe?", the taller one replied dreamily, tracing the soft curve of Sav's bottom lip with his thumb while still trying to gather his thoughts that had gotten whirled around in his head by that lovely kiss.

"Have you ever thought about having sex with another man?"

That question took him off-guard, mostly because they had never talked about stuff like that before. But still, since they had been together for quite a while at that point in time, the thought of what it would be like to get even closer to his boyfriend, actually as close as he could get, had crossed Joe's mind a few times already. It scared him, to be honest because he didn't know what to do at all, but on the other side, Sav didn't know either. And if they would figure it out as they went, it surely would be alright. He'd actually done some reading about what to pay attention to, and even though the practical thing was new and a bit frightening to him, there was no question that he wanted to try it out. Hell, these days there had been developing such a strong affection, such a primal need to be close to each other that he was permanently searching for any way to get even closer.

"You want to?", Joe simply asked as a reply, seeing Sav blush furiously as he lowered his gaze before he glanced up at him from beneath his long lashes, his blue eyes sparkling.

"Yes, of course. I love you and I want to be close to you. Besides, I want to know what it's like. What about you?"

So he thought of it exactly in the way Joe thought of it. The taller teen smirked as he heard that answer, bumping the tip of his nose against Sav's before answering.

"I want to, too. Hell, how could I not when you're so attractive?"

Sav's blush immediately intensified by those words, his hand curling into a fist and gently hitting Joe against his wet chest.

"Stop making me flustered, Elliott. I still have to face your parents."

Right, the parents. The parents Joe had forgotten about during their little tryst in the waves. His head immediately snapped towards the beach, noticing that both of his parents were looking at them. Uh oh.

"Fuck", he whispered under his breath, unconsciously pulling Sav closer to his chest to have something, or better someone, to hold on to. Was his dad okay with them? Would he be accepted? Would he be abandoned? His body started to tremble at those thoughts and breathing suddenly got a lot harder than before.

Sav noticed his little panic attack approaching and gently lifted his chin upwards, forcing him to face him again.

"Hey, calm down. It's gonna be alright, okay? They love you, Joe, and they don't want to lose you in any way. And I'm here for you, always. We can tell them all about it this evening if you want to, explain everything. But it'll be alright, either way, stop worrying so much."

The sincere look in those sparkling blue eyes of his lover made Joe calm down, at least a little bit, and he nodded as an answer, pulling Sav in again.

"Thank you for making me feel better, I'm just freaking out a bit. But let's get out of here, either way, I'm starting to get cold."

Sav nodded as an answer, pulling Joe into one last kiss again before taking his hand and leading him out of the water.

As soon as they walked towards their towels next to Joe's parents, both of them looked away again, seemingly a bit embarrassed to be caught staring at the young couple. Joe and Sav didn't give them much attention, just picking their towels up from the sand and shaking them to get most of the grains of sand out of them, then wrapping them around their shoulders and sitting down in the sand next to each other.

Realizing everything had been revealed, either way, Joe scooted in between Sav's legs, leaning back against him with his head resting on the younger one's shoulder while sighing contently. This was the way he wanted to be. Being with the one he loved without having to hide anything. He felt free, even though the fear of his dad being disapproving and disappointed still gnawed at the back of his mind. Sav seemed to appreciate the fact that he had finally given a fuck about what other people thought as well, wrapping one arm around Joe to keep him close and letting his fingers dance across his already well-tanned skin, making him sigh again with his head tucking itself beneath Sav's chin.

"Boys? Would you mind eating at a restaurant after you are finished with showering?"

The soft voice of Mrs. Elliott finally interrupted the content silence, causing Sav to look up at her and Joe to open his eyes a bit sleepily since he had been close to dozing off on Sav's chest just a moment ago.

"I'm okay with that, mum, are you, babe?", Joe answered, raising his head a little to look questioningly at Sav. The latter just nodded with a smile on his face, threading his fingers absently through the soft, dark, and still a bit damp curls of his lover. Joe's mother smiled softly at them in return, nodding with a sparkle of fondness in her eyes at the sight before her. She seemed to become used to her son being with another boy, even though she didn't even take it badly at all as Joe had come out to her. And knowing that at least one of his parents would support their relationship directly made Joe feel better.