TVD/TO Oneshots

Mad Scientist (Kol Mikaelson)

Written for Fictober 2023 Day 5 on Tumblr!

Summary: Kol's dating a scientist who's buried in college-level work and more than ready for a ridiculous, fun version of science for a break.

Prompt: "You're the smartest person I know."

Shoutout/Credit to The Scientific American for the info on how Mentos-Coke reactions work!

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"Darling? What do you think would happen if I made pancakes with Mountain Dew instead of water?"

I paused, my pen hovering over the page in the middle of summarizing my findings for a lab I'd been working on at my university. I didn't turn around to face my boyfriend, Kol Mikaelson, who stood behind me in the kitchen, instead just staring off in thought for a moment.

"I don't know," I said, finally turning around to look at Kol. "As far as I'm aware, water's not one of the things like baking soda or eggs that's insanely important to the chemistry of baking. As long as you have the same amount of liquid, it should be fine. Maybe a little sweeter than normal, but basically still a pancake."

Kol grinned. "Excellent."

"What exactly brought this on?" I asked, standing from the kitchen table in the Mikaelson compound where I'd been working and wandering towards my boyfriend. "Just out of curiosity."

"Well you see," he said, holding his hands out in a grand presentation gesture and fixing me with a giant grin. "While I was getting the ingredients for making pancakes, I also found Mountain Dew. The rest is history."

"Interesting..."

I trailed off as I finally reached Kol, stopping so I could hold onto his arm and lean around him to look at the ingredients laid out on the counter, Mountain Dew included. My eyes wandered back to my books, still open and waiting for me on the table. I had no desire to go near them again right now, and this was the absolute perfect distraction. I looked back up at the grinning face of my boyfriend.

"Do you need any help?"

Within half an hour, Kol and I's initial experiment had expanded to encompass the entire kitchen and just about every ingredient we had in it. The Mountain Dew pancakes hadn't been much different than the regular pancakes, so we'd gotten progressively more creative in our ingredient substations, snacking on our successes as we went. My books lay long-forgotten on the table, Kol enabling my chaotic science tendencies in the best way possible.

"What if we put pop rocks in it?" asked Kol as he riffled through a drawer of sweet treats in one corner of the kitchen. I hummed to myself as I mixed our latest version, with orange juice instead of water.

"I don't know," I said. "I think we'll just get little pieces of candy in it without the pop, since the liquid in the batter would probably dissolve the candies enough to trigger the reaction before anything else. We won't know for sure unless we test it, though."

I finished stirring, then wandered over to join Kol. He'd set the pop rocks on the table along with a few other types of candies, and now stood in the open door of the fridge. I rested my head on his arm and hummed thoughtfully, until my eyes landed on something else interesting in the fridge.

"Since you've been back in the modern world... has anyone introduced you to the marvel of Coke and Mentos?"

Kol turned to face me, eyebrows furrowed but a smile on his face.

"No love, I can't say they have."

I grinned. "Then I can't wait to be the one to show you."

I snatched the bottle of Coke out of the fridge, snagging the Mentos and a piece of paper with tape too before plopping them both down on the table where we'd been mixing our batter. Excitedly, Kol joined me, wrapping his arms around my waist and resting his chin on my shoulder.