#character: lou bloom

[gyllenhaalstories]

What do you think Lou Bloom’s zodiac sign is?

hi!!! i'm assuming this is the same person who sent the detective loki question so i'll spare the i-know-nothing-about-zodiac monologue!!!

I googled it and this website suggests he is "an unhealthy" Scorpio. They also add this: "As a Scorpio zodiac sign, Louis Bloom is full of passion and embraces challenges in all areas of his life. This fire can be taken to the extreme though and he can become angry or hostile when he doesn’t get what he wants. People of the Scorpio zodiac sign can also be manipulative." Allure says this about Scorpios: "What makes this water sign unique is its distinctive venomous sting. Like their celestial animal representation, the scorpion, Scorpios lie in wait and strike when least expected. Life is a game of chess for these calculating water signs, who are constantly plotting several steps ahead in order to orchestrate an eventual checkmate." This article brings up the concept of venom often, which made me think of a trivia element mentioned on Lou's villain wiki page. It says: "During an interview, director Dan Gilroy said he views Lou's evilness as an 'infection' that spreads to every character Lou interacts with throughout the film. At the end of the movie, where Lou's company vans split up on different streets, Gilroy described the scene as 'the infection spreading through the veins of the city'."

i mean, based off that, i have to agree. i like to think that all the jake characters have a virgo placement somewhere so i can feel validated but we'll never know!

thank you for the ask! once again, i'm sorry that i'm the least knowledgeable person when it comes to astrology (and, well, almost everything). i'd be curious to know if other people who are well-versed in the zodiac signs would agree! i'd be especially curious to know what lou thinks about astrology!!! what i would give to have a conversation with jake's characters! (and more obviously, but shh details).

i also looked up, for funsies, a chart that categorizes american serial killers based off their zodiac signs. i know lou is not a serial killer but it's still some neat information. according to this page, cancer, pisces, sagittarius and scorpios count the most serial killers out of all the zodiac signs (but capricorn seems to be the sign associated with the killers with the most victims). i'm truly disappointed with virgos, i thought we'd rank higher! aren't we supposed to be analytical and methodical and practical and everything? i wouldn't know since i'm a virgo scam but like come on, these are useful characteristics. anyway, interesting.

[sparklypinkflightsuit]

Predator and Prey: Chapter Four

Pairing: Tommy Cahill x Reader

Warnings: 18+ ONLY, Minors do not interact, Slow Burn, War Inaccuracies, Swearing, Mention of PTSD but barely, Stalking, Abuse, Sexual Themes, Alcohol & Drugs, I think that’s it?

Summary: You reach breaking point as you realise someone has been inside your home. Tommy protects you.

- Chapter Three Here -

———————————

The next week went well, with you and Tommy hanging out at every chance you got.

He would meet you at the book store most days and even helped out with straightening the shelves, or helping customers find books they were after. Most of the locals were less than pleased to see Tommy at first, but after a while they began to change their opinion of him, seeing a lighter side to Tommy they hadn’t seen before.

On Wednesday you and Tommy worked in the soup kitchen again, where you accidentally let slip that your home was broken into, and the next day Tommy took you to the tech store to pick out some security cameras. He walked you home to make sure you arrived safely, as it had began to get dark by the time you’d left the store.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to install those for you?” Tommy asked again, walking with his hands in his jeans pocket to keep them from freezing.

“Nah it’s ok, I think I can manage. Plus you’ve done enough work for me at the store, I think if I make you do anymore I’d need to put you on the payroll.” You joked, shivering under your beanie.

Tommy laughed, “You know I’m doing it because we’re friends right?”

You smiled up at him, “Yeah I know. I appreciate everything you’re doing. It’s nice to finally have someone to talk to.”

Tommy grinned from ear to ear and playfully ruffled your beanie, causing this to mess up your hair underneath.

“Hey!” You giggled, jabbing his arm with a light punch, causing him to clutch his arm in mock pain.

You were both too busy laughing to notice the footsteps following not too far behind, the shadow slinking in between trees and behind bushes as it followed.

Tommy hugged you goodnight when you were safely at your front door, stopping just before he walked out of sight to make sure you were safely inside. He made his way by foot back to his apartment on the outskirts of town.

It wasn’t a particularly long walk, but the cold was getting to him and he just kept thinking of the hot shower that awaited him when he got home.

About halfway back, Tommy realised he still had the bag containing your security cameras that he had offered to carry. Cursing himself for not realising, Tommy breathed into his hands to warm them up and turned back around.

You walked through your front door and locked it, before being greeted by Jet like he had been starved of human attention for days.

“You drama queen.” You said, giving him a big fuss. “I bet you want some dinner now huh? Ok let’s go see what’s on the menu tonight.”

You walked into the kitchen and got Jets dog food out, preparing it for him before laying it on the floor. When you stood back up you noticed a new letter on your counter top… You didn’t remember bringing in any new mail, but thought if you could forget to close a window you could probably have forgotten that you’d brought the mail in.

Flipping the letter over you noticed it didn’t have an address on the front and wondered how it could have been delivered that way. Carefully, you tore the letter open and read the contents, which turned you stone cold;

“Hi (Y/N),

I like what you’ve done with the place, did you paint the walls yourself? You always did love blue.

Jet’s gotten big, but he still remembers me. We enjoyed a bit of catching up while we waited for you to get home.

Say, is the guy who walks you home sometimes your new boyfriend? I sure hope not. I think you know full well that you’re meant to be with me, after all, He chose us together.

I still can’t go to Him without you, and he’s getting impatient. I might have to start really trying to persuade you soon.

Love,

Jason.”

You dropped the letter and your eyes darted around the small kitchen. You couldn’t see any evidence of him being in here, no open window or smashed windowsill pots and jars. Jet was still happily eating his dinner, tail wagging without a worry in the world, but your heart was in your throat as you slowly walked out of the kitchen and into the living room.

Nothing seemed out of the ordinary there, and again you were left with checking the dark hallway, bedroom and bathroom, but you couldn’t make your legs move.

Slowly, one step at a time, you forced yourself to move as quietly as you could down the dark hallway, too scared to turn any of the lights on in case you alerted whoever was hiding in the shadows.

You could hear your pulse, as your heart thudded against your ribcage. Slowly, you pushed your bedroom door, edging it open as carefully as you could….

Knock knock knock!

You jumped when three sharp knocks resounded against your front door. Swinging around, you ran to the front door, terrified the knocking had alerted whoever was in the house, you knew it was Jason but you refused to acknowledge it out loud, and that they’d come running out of the bedroom and pull you into the darkness.

You threw open the front door in tears, and grabbed Tommy by the jacket before pulling him inside and shutting the door.

“(Y/N), what-“

“Tommy! T-Tommy he’s here! He’s in the house!” You sobbed, running to the kitchen to grab the note.

Tommy’s eyes were wide with confusion as he followed you to the kitchen, putting the bag of security cameras on the counter top.

“L-look! See, I got home and this, this, was already here, on the counter. I didn’t bring it in and- and it had no address on it so he must be inside.” You cried, your body shaking all over.

Tommy read the note quickly, and looked at your inconsolable face.

“Stay here.” He instructed firmly, quickly looking around and grabbing a closed bottle of white wine you had on the side.

Tommy left the kitchen and made his way down the dark hallway, flicking the light switches on as he went, bottle in hand and ready to strike. He pushed open your bedroom door hard, sending the door crashing against the wall, the light from the hallway illuminating most of your bedroom while he found the switch. He walked in slowly, peeking around the chest of drawers next to your bedroom door, and inside the wardrobe. Nothing.

He then made his way to the only other room in the house, the bathroom, and it was obvious right away that no one was there.

After double checking the bedroom, Tommy made his way back to the kitchen, where you stood against the back counter, shaking and waiting for him to come back, hopefully in one piece.

He put the bottle of wine back down, and walked over to you, pulling you in for a hug. You buried your face into his chest and tried to control your breathing as he ran his hand up and down your back in attempts to calm you down.

“He must have let himself out.” Tommy sighed, “You should call the cops again, (Y/N).”

“That means he’s been letting himself inside the house. How is he getting in without breaking and entering?” You sniffled, looking up at Tommy with watery eyes.

Your faces were close enough to feel each others breaths, but now was not the time, so Tommy rested his chin on the top of your head and continued to rub circles into your back until your breathing calmed.

You decided not to call the police again, as all you had to go by was the note. There was no evidence of a break in and you had thrown away the first note he had sent you years ago, so you couldn’t even prove this was a recurring thing. You wanted the cops to believe you if there was a real incident at hand, so opted not to get on their bad side by calling them out for something so small.

But it wasn’t small to you, you were terrified. You thought you had finally rid yourself of him, but he had obviously found you and decided he wouldn’t let you go a second time.

Tommy stayed with you that night, and he slept on the couch after helping you set up the security cameras. One in the living room, facing the front door and couch. A second in the hallway capturing the bedroom and bathroom doors. And the third in the kitchen.

You felt that covered all places he might be getting in and out, or you hoped.

You struggled to get any sleep that night, despite knowing Tommy was out there, every noise and creek sounded louder than anything you’d heard in that house in the three years since you’d moved in, and around 2am you had decided to get up to get a glass of water.

You crept quietly past the living room where Tommy slept and into the kitchen, quietly pouring a glass of water, before walking back to your bedroom, failing to notice the face that peered in through the window of the living room.

————————————

- Chapter Five Here -

[urween]

"Suis-moi"

Louis Bloom x GNreader

notes : j'ai essayé de tout faire pour garder un gender neutral reader pour cette première publication ! ;)

! warnings : manipulation, crimes, sang, language cru, voyeurisme, violence

résumé : tu rêves de rejoindre une entreprise depuis plusieurs années et ce jour devient enfin réalité lorsque tu rencontres le patron, Louis Bloom.

1950 mots

- Description à la deuxième personne

Deux ans que tu essayes en vain d’obtenir ce job, via des candidatures envoyées, des courriers papiers ou même des déplacements réels. La réponse est toujours la même : “pas besoin de personnels”. Tu rêves d’être dans ses voitures, de tenir cette caméra, de le voir.

Tout a commencé devant la télé de tes parents, un dimanche soir comme les autres. Ta mère voulait absolument regarder les informations, tout l’inverse de ton père qui avait posé un casque sur ses oreilles, toi, tu ne t’en préoccupais pas réellement, tu préférais t’occuper du repas. Mais une musique a fait relevé ton regard de la planche à découper, un bandeau rouge prenait la moitié de l’écran télévisé, en gros une phrase apparut : “interruption spéciale”. Un journaliste expliqua une situation qu’il décrivait de sanglante, il glissa rapidement quelques mots pour prévenir des images potentiellement choquantes qui allaient suivre. Soudain, un corps inerte fut montré en gros plan, une voix en fond expliquait le contexte mais tu n’écoutais déjà plus. Ton esprit était comme absorbé par cette vision. Le sang sur le sol, les lumières bleues, les ombres paniquées, et puis, cette précision dans le mouvement de caméra, cette gestuelle fluide et non tremblante, comme un poisson dans l’eau, passant dans un banc de sardines déchiquetées. Le flash de la caméra fut activé et tu laissas échapper un couinement, que ta mère prit pour de la peur.

« Tu as raison c’est affreux, quelle honte de montrer ce genre de choses à la télé, rouspéta-t-elle en attrapant la télécommande  »

L’écran devint noir sous tes yeux, mais tu eus le temps d’y lire une dernière chose, peut-être la plus importante : “Video Production News”.

Depuis ce jour, ton but est de te faire engager par cette entreprise. Tu as toujours aimé faire des vidéos, de ta famille principalement mais aussi beaucoup de la ville, des bâtiments, rues, voitures, pelouses, tout ce qui pouvait attirer ton oeil tu le filmais. Pour ton seizième anniversaire ta tante avait acheté une caméra, ta première vraie caméra, que tu as épuisé jusqu’à sa dernière seconde de vie. Aujourd’hui, tu peux compter au moins quatre caméras dans ton tiroir de commode, chacune utilisée pour différentes raisons. Malgré tout ça, tu ne parviens pas à rentrer dans cette entreprise, alors tu dois te contenter de filmer pour quelques marques qui font appel à toi via ton site internet. Tes parents te soutiennent dans ton projet, même si au fond ils espèrent que tu laisses tomber cette idée folle. Tu n’as pas vraiment d’amis proches, ils finissent tous par partir car tu ne passes pas assez de temps avec eux. Mais depuis ton enfance tu n’as jamais été proche des autres enfants, ils t’agaçaient avec leurs cris stridants et leurs petites mains tactiles. Tu n’as jamais été très tactile de toute façon, le contact physique est précieux à tes yeux, il doit être fait avec des personnes proches et importantes, comme tes parents par exemple. C’est aussi pour cette raison que tu n’as pas d’animaux de compagnie, pas que tu n’aimes pas ça, tu ne te sens simplement pas à la hauteur de prendre soin d’un être dépendant de toi. Alors ton appartement est assez vide, peu de décorations et de meubles, juste ce dont tu as besoin. Ton seul plaisir coupable est les vêtements, tu aimes beaucoup t’habiller et tu prends souvent tout ton temps devant le miroir pour le faire. Ton armoire est sûrement pleine à craquer mais tu te réconfortes en te disant que toi au moins tu portes absolument tout ce qu’elle contient contrairement à ta tante qui accumule sans utiliser. Ton père aime dire que tu es quelqu’un de très précis et déterminé, c’est aussi pour ça que depuis ce matin tu attends dans ta voiture que l’immense bâtiment Video Production News ouvre ses portes. Et ta patience finira par payer.

Tu passes les portillons de sécurité, pour la douzième fois, continuant ton chemin. Dans un coin, deux hommes sont assis et parlent, dans l’autre la femme qui gère l’accueil soupire en te voyant arriver.

« Bonjour Myriam, belle journée n’est-ce-pas ? Ta voix enjouée la fit rouler des yeux »

« Il pleut depuis hier soir, je n'appelle pas ça une belle journée, rétorqua-t-elle en lançant un regard ennuyé vers l’extérieur »

« La pluie offre de superbes images, elle créait des reflets n’importe où, ton sourire fit soupirer davantage la femme en face, ne penses-tu pas que je serais incroyable dans cette entreprise ? Aller laisses moi avoir ne serait-ce qu’un petit entretien avec le patron »

Derrière ses écrans, Myriam secoue la tête de gauche à droite, mais ta détermination reste entière.

« Tu prends donc les décisions pour lui ? Je ne trouve pas ça très professionnel de ta part, n’est-il pas assez grand pour décider ? La fossette qui creuse ta joue gauche attire le regard de la secrétaire alors tu continues, il pourrait sûrement te mettre à la porte pour ça non ? Je pense que si, j’ai entendu dire qu’il était très exigeant et je le suis aussi, je reviendrais Myriam tu le sais donc laisses moi le voir, s’il te plait »

Un silence passe entre vous deux, Myriam attrape nerveusement sa lèvre inférieure entre ses dents avant de se pencher vers le téléphone à sa droite. Un éclat d’espoir traverse tes iris lorsqu’elle porte l’appareil à son oreille, tu peux entendre la sonnerie retentir, une, deux, trois fois.

« Bonjour monsieur je- oui je sais excusez-moi, Myriam gratta nerveusement son cou, oui une personne souhaiterait vous rencontrer dans le cadre d’un entretien d’embauche, mh oui exactement, plusieurs fois oui, d’accord je fais transmettre, au revoir monsieur Bloom »

Ton pouls n’a certainement jamais été aussi puissant, Myriam repose le téléphone sur son socle et te regarde avec ennui.

« Aujourd’hui quatorze heures, devant le bâtiment »

Tu as passé une heure et demie dans ta chambre à choisir la tenue, sortant toutes tes vestes, chaussures et même chaussettes, tout doit être parfait. Et comme toujours, tu as réussi à rendre ton apparence parfaite dans le miroir.

Le vent est froid, tu préfères laisser tes mains dans tes poches de veste. Tu as quinze minutes d’avance mais ça te rassure, comme ça tu as le temps de t'habituer à l’environnement, voir les points faibles et forts, mais surtout le voir arriver.

Louis Bloom, dirigeant de l’entreprise Video Production News depuis plusieurs années, cinq précisément. Il contrôle tout cet endroit à lui seul, pas d’assistant, seulement des équipes qu’il envoie à travers la ville et ses alentours pour filmer tous les accidents et crimes qu'il estime précieux. D’après ce que tu as trouvé sur lui, il est difficile de le voir physiquement dans le bâtiment principal, bien qu’il y passe beaucoup de temps il aime filmer lui-même les plus grands “chefs-d’œuvre de son entreprise”, comme il était décrit dans l’article que tu as lu. Tu as vu des photos de lui, toujours dans un cadre professionnel. En fait, tu n’as absolument rien trouvé qui ne soit pas professionnel à son sujet. Aucun profil sur les réseaux sociaux ni de proches pouvant publier des photos de lui. Il n’est jamais vraiment accompagné, seulement entouré de ses employés ou bien seul avec sa caméra. Tu as enregistré une photo de lui dans ton téléphone, juste une, pour la regarder sur le chemin et te préparer à affronter ce regard bleu. Malheureusement, aucun entraînement ne peut préparer à Louis Bloom, et tu allais vite le comprendre.

Dans sa voiture rouge, Louis t’observait derrière ses lunettes de soleil, son pouce massant sa cuisse dans de lents mouvements. Il était ici depuis une heure, attendant de te voir arriver. Il n’avait pas été surpris en voyant ton avance, tu étais toujours en avance pour l’ouverture du bâtiment, depuis le début, dans ta petite voiture noire aux roues salles, avec ce regard, le même qu’à présent. Il devait par contre avoué avoir été surpris de ta détermination. Toutes les semaines, un courrier portant ton nom arrivait sur son bureau, il ne le lisait pas, il préférait te regarder l’écrire depuis ton salon. Ta patience, il l’apprécie également. La façon dont tu ajustes tes cadres photos dans ta chambre presque tous les soirs, il n’arrive jamais à te quitter des yeux lorsque tu le fais. Puis ton doux visage fatigué lorsque tu te retiens de t’endormir dans le canapé, il doit toujours fermer les yeux après pour reprendre son souffle, tu sembles si docile dans cette position, ça le rend dingue. Comme maintenant, tu attends, tu l’attends lui et seulement lui, et ça le fait vriller. Mais il doit se calmer, il faut qu’il se calme, car c’est le moment le plus important dans le processus.

Tes joues brûlent légèrement avec le froid, ton corps est pourtant bouillant d’impatience. Plusieurs personnes sont entrées et sorties du bâtiment depuis ton arrivée, quelques-unes t’ont souris et tu leur a sûrement répondu. Le sol est encore mouillé de la pluie qu’il a dû supporter, tes chaussures laissent de légères marques humides sur les endroits secs du trottoir, tu t’amuses à y dessiner un cœur avec. Mais un son proche te fait relever la tête de ton dessin.

« Je suis heureux de voir que tu sembles être quelqu’un de créatif, c’est une qualité que je recherche »

Ton cœur rate un battement en voyant monsieur Bloom devant toi. Tu as vu qu’il fait un mètre quatre-vingt deux mais quelque chose en le voyant te fait te sentir minuscule. Un sourire étire ses lèvres, marquant au passage deux grosses fossettes dans ses joues creusées, et tu te rends compte qu’il faut que tu parles.

« J’avais hâte de vous rencontrer monsieur, j’espère que je ne prends pas un temps que vous auriez pu placer ailleurs, tu articules clairement en faisant ton possible pour ne pas détourner ton regard de lui » 

Dans un mouvement rapide, il enlève ses lunettes noires et les accroche à son col de chemise. Tu parviens à maintenir tes lèvres fermées, même si l’envie de laisser ta mâchoire tomber au sol est très grande. Ses yeux sont encore plus grands en vrai, plus brillants, bleus et surtout, plus transperçant. Un frisson passe dans ta nuque, et au fond de ton esprit une voix s’inquiète de l’aura angoissante que dégage cet homme, mais tu ne peux t’empêcher de serrer les cuisses.

« Je place toujours mon temps dans les meilleurs endroits, son regard ne te quitte pas une seule seconde, et j’apprécie que tu te soucis de mon emploi du temps, tu accumules les bons points »

Une chaleur agréable passe dans ton corps, tu souris poliment à l’homme qui te fait face, tout en espérant que tes yeux ne trahissent pas ton surplu de joie.

« J’aurais juste une question pour toi, une seule et unique question mais prends le temps d’y répondre, mes questions sont toujours importantes et cruciales, tu dois le savoir dès à présent »

Louis observe ton corps réagir merveilleusement bien à ses mots, ton buste est légèrement penché vers lui et ton cou à porter, tous ces signes qu'inconsciemment tu lui envoies lui font perdre la tête. Il doit se contenir, tellement se contenir, pour ne pas te plaquer contre le mur et te faire pleurer sous ses baisers, détruire ce sourire angélique et massacrer l’innocence que tu émanes, pour que tout le monde comprennent que tu n’es à présent qu’une épave, une poupée que seul lui contrôle du bout des doigts.

« Serais-tu capable de me suivre en pleine nuit si je t’appelais ? »

Une lumière traverse tes yeux, rapide, mais il a pu la voir et il sait la réponse, il connaît la suite maintenant, il adore la suite.

« Oui, oui je vous suivrais, monsieur Bloom »

[charliehoennam]

Finally got around to watching Nightcrawler (i know, shut up) and binge-watched The Bear in one day.

I 👏🏽have 👏🏽never 👏🏽cried 👏🏽so 👏🏽much👏🏽 watching 👏🏽a👏🏽 show

on the other hand, I wanna get fucking railed by Lou Bloom. he's terrible, I know but unnnnfffff y'all can expect a dark fic in a little byeeeee

[danime25]

Hiii are you taking any requests for Jakes characters???

Yes! I can do Lou Bloom or Detective Loki since those are the two movies that I've seen! Not sure if I'd be willing to write Donnie, but I could probably swing Jimmy if you so desire.

[witchembrace-a]

2/???

[burnyouwithacigarettelighter]

IT’S YOU, HAPPY ALL THE TIME ─── jonathan breech ✧☾𖦹

ೃ⁀�� “I ask Jessica what drowning feels like and she says not everything feels like something else." — ‘Jessica gives me a chill pill’, Angie Sijun Lou.

pairing. jonathan breech x reader

summary. you’ve bared your heart to your bestfriend, jonathan, more times than you can count, whilst knowing practically nothing at all about him. what is friendship if it is not equal… what is love if it is not returned? can your relationship survive such one-sidedness?

warnings. swearing, TW mention & description of suicide/attempts & depression, very introspective/kind of a character study???, alcohol & drug use, pining, ANGST!!!!, crying, fluff, smut with feelings, p in v, unprotected sex, oral sex (f), SMUT UNDER THE CUT! 

word count. 10k (WTF??!?!!??)

a/n. the title is from “she won’t go away” by faye webster:) btw this is… rly angsty (and SO long omg im still in shock) so beware🫡 ALSO IM SO SORRY FOR NOT POSTING IN WHILE!! SCHOOL IS KICKING MY BUTT & THIS FIC WAS AN ABSOLUTE MONSTER TO WRITE LMAO

i. 

There are very few words in your vocabulary you can use to accurately describe Jonathan Breech. 

The boy is an enigma, a matryoshka doll that never ends: he is witty and lighthearted and sarcastic, but you’ll always catch that edge, the air of malaise he carries around himself, the unspoken elephant in the room that screams WHO ARE YOU REALLY?

He had always been more of a figure, a landscape; something to witness, observe-- experience without letting it do the same to you. You don’t know if that’s something you want, either: there’s an imbalance in his hilarity, and he always takes things a step too far. Jonathan lights matches and lets them burn all the way down to his fingertips; he shaves and lets the blade leave stinging little nicks, rivulets of blood running down his neck; he chainsmokes cigarettes in his room and only opens the window when he feels his heart hammering in his chest, desperate for air. 

You meet him — or, first experience him in a similar fashion: he had been in the university library, standing on top of a creaky, old bookshelf, shouting something you couldn’t understand over the music blasting through your headphones. You could certainly see him though, gesturing animatedly, dressed eccentrically in his signature winter trapper hat and a velvet blazer. That thin, effeminate figure of his was making winding, marionette-ish steps along the wood, an action that had everyone readying themselves to catch his inevitable fall. 

Then, seemingly out of nowhere and catching you completely off guard, you caught his eye. He began stepping from one shaky shelf to the next, a complete miracle none of them toppled over, before stopping on one close enough for you to read his lips. 

“Hi,” he mouthed, shifting uneasily on his left foot before regaining a steady balance, “you’re in my class, right?”

You nodded, hesitantly— yes, truthfully, you’d seen him in your Introduction to Literary Studies course a couple of weeks ago, sporting the same outfit as he did now, but you thought nothing of him. He’d been generally well-behaved then, asking slightly odd but in-tune questions that more or less answered all your inquiries, so you didn’t think the guy would have a penchant for, well… book-shelf hopping. 

He grinned, about to say something else, before something — or someone, made him flinch. A professor, probably, considering the unintelligibly muffled, booming voice behind you. However, Jonathan made quick work of the situation, sneakily climbing down and escaping out the door. 

The next time you see him, he’s sidled up beside you in your shared class. “Mind if I sit here?” a familiar voice had asked, to which you murmured a non-committal knock y’self out, before realizing with wide eyes.  His presence had caught you off-guard, as he so often did, and you sensed a pattern blooming. 

Jonathan certainly made for an odd desk-partner; his personality warped the environment around you, and it was suddenly so much easier to tear your eyes away from the lecture and land on Jonathan’s own. It’s something you never thought you’d ever do, because you adore the material being taught. 

At the end of class, he asks you out for a drink: he’s just found the best Irish stout in the entire city, and what better way to make it known than to take anyone and everyone he knows there?

Rejection is written on your face clear as day— you have class tomorrow, an essay that needs to be finished, and honestly, pubs just aren’t really your scene. 

But in the end… you still bite. You can’t help it: he’s disarming and warm and looks like he should smell like a bonfire. Somehow, that just does it for your brain; it’s here you learn of the charm that is Jonathan Breech. 

That night goes everything and nothing like you expected: you expected not to be able to predict his actions, and that’s exactly what happens. When you meet Jonathan at the aforementioned pub, it’s not actually the one he’s meaning to take you to— it’s just the closest public place to the on-campus dorm, which is where he says he’s rooming. 

“‘ve got a neighbor m’pretty sure is trying to sleep with me,” he says absently, ushering you onto the back of his bike, which had been leaning against a NO PARKING sign. “He’s always toget’er wit’ our dorm advisor, so I should l reject him before I get kicked out, if y’get what I mean.”

Now, you honestly should’ve expected this from a guy who jumped from six-foot book shelves, but Jonathan’s biking is all swift turns and jilted stops, mere milliseconds from repeatedly running red lights. You want to ask if he just learned how to ride the thing yesterday, but can’t, not with how utterly reckless and shameless he is about it, his terrible steering making you instinctively wrap your arms around his chest. 

You clutch him tightly, making him hum in approval, and you feel your ears burn flusteredly. You would’ve pulled away, but then he cut from the right lane to the left in one swift move, barely missing several cars, and you practically shrieked instead. “Oh my god!”

“Sorry,” he apologizes quickly. You can’t see his face, having shut your eyes in fear, but after hearing the blatant cheekiness in his tone, you can imagine clear as day how gleefully it contorts. You want to slap him somewhere, anywhere, but that’d defeat the point of being mad at his recklessness, so you squeeze him tighter instead, and he chokes on his breath. “Jesus-- m’sorry, really!”

When the two of you make it to the pub — alive and uninjured! — annoyingly all the way across town, your first few steps off his bike are stuttered, dizzy: “We are-- not going by bike next time,” you gasp, leaning against a random brick wall. 

“Next time, eh?” He grins, and this time you really do slap him— just on the arm, bless your self-control and niceties not to beat this oddly comfortable-to-be-around near-stranger to death. 

The pub, with its forgettable name and dingy stools, has a minimal, lackluster crowd. A kitschy neon sign flickers and dies as you walk in, making you raise a brow, but Jonathan merely drags you by the arm to a cozy corner table, then disappearing deeper within the venue before returning moments later with two pints of black beer in tow.

“Go on, then,” he gestures, setting the tall glass on the table, sitting down in the chair in front of you and taking a hearty sip of his own drink.

You let out a little hesitant sigh at his words, before relenting and taking in a long gulp of the liquid. “…Huh,” you remark, impressed. Jonathan smiled knowingly behind his glass, letting out a smug little ah, you see? 

“Worth the long ride?” he inquired innocently, as if that was the only thing wrong with the night.

“Worth the ride, but not worth almost dying for,” you rolled your eyes goodheartedly, knocking back the rest of the bitter drink and making him whistle. 

The rest of the night goes like this: Jonathan orders two more rounds of the quality Irish stout before the two’ve you are stumbling out of the pub, exploring all the nightlife there is to offer, like the crowd surrounding an out-door live comedy group performing down the street that has you and Jonathan giggling for hours after, or the underground speakeasy you accidentally find yourselves shoved into, a nasally guitarist singing on a smoky stage, several more drinks finding themselves in your system despite how nauseous you already feel.

“You-- d’you fancy him?” Jonathan slurs behind you, steadying himself by pressing his hands to your waist.

“F-fancy who?” you blink blearily, leaning into his warm touch.

“Who else m’I talkin’ about, girl? The singer!”

You shake your head no numbly, practically collapsing into his arms now, your head lulling on his chest. You’re so close you can smell the distinct scent of his skin, that unique musk everyone has, and it’s strangely familiar, like those smells that evoke old, nostalgic memories. It’s like how sunscreen summons the smell of the sun after a childhood beach day, or how vanilla extract takes you back to the smell of your mother’s baked goods on a specific winter evening.

“Reckoned you wouldn’t,” he assumes, hands coming away from your waist to wrap his arms around your shoulders, swaying to the music slightly in the crowded club, “looks like a -- right bleedin’ dope… wit’ that mop of hair.”

You giggle, alcohol riddled beyond belief, unable to formulate a response with the conflicting blurry thoughts in your head: it’s telling you Jonathan Breech isn’t the crowd you want, that you need to go home and work, that you let loose too easily— but it also tells you that you can see yourself becoming friends with him very, very quickly. 

It’s there, in that club, Jonathan Breech moves into your life and fills a gaping hole you didn’t know existed, like a hole in your stockings you only notice when you get home. You have friends, certainly, more than you can count on both hands, but they never get as close as Jonathan does. After that night, an unknown force pulls the two of you together, making you run into him everywhere, and a tight friendship blooms like a lilypad in a raging storm; beauty within the chaos. In the multitude of close friendships you’ve harbored, he is the first to see so many sides of you. The last thing that did was your mother; it had only ever been your mother. 

He is an endearing, amazing friend, both the intent listener and the charismatic speaker all at once; he knows his friends like the back of his hand, can recount their life like he can count the number of moles on his face-- but you, and everyone else, know absolutely nothing about him. 

At least, close to nothing-- you know he likes ice cream and hanging out and going to the pub; you know he likes biking and doing drugs and women; you know he hates the sea and his brother and his father, but you don’t know him. All you’ve ever seen him do is smile or laugh or shout in mock anger; there is a carefully glued mask on his face he takes meticulous caution in preserving-- he is terrified to let go, despite the blasé persona he lets on.

Or maybe the mysterious matter of your bestfriend is tripping you up for no reason; maybe you’re psychoanalyzing something that doesn’t need to be psychoanalyzed, reading between lines that don’t exist. But if you were asked to answer honestly, there’s just something about Jonathan you don’t get. There is a split seam in the tapestry of his life, missing pieces in the story he pretends to tell with utmost accuracy. There are things that he never talks about, that he recoils when asked like you’ve poked a tender wound. 

“So, what were you doing before… all this?” You ask him once, laying on his messy bed in his dorm-room and scanning the water-damage constellations dotted along his popcorn ceiling. By all this you mean going to university, being the resident party boy, aimlessly pursuing a degree you’re 99% sure he picked blindfolded (culinary science) and standing here, with you, snorting a line of something on his creaky wooden desk. 

Jonathan freezes, still hunched over. “What d’you-- what d’you mean?” he says, tone breezy but, uncharacteristically tense… jilted and preoccupied. You could’ve brushed it off as him being seriously focussed on his drugs, but the way he shifts, how his shoulders curl in like he wants to disappear, tells you otherwise. 

“I mean, before going to school here… y’know, what were you like as a dumb teenager?”

You two’re twenty, barely not-teenagers, but it still makes a world of a difference: you’re living away from home, doing what you want, experiencing (a juvenile, naive version of) freedom and adulthood.

“I dunno… kind of a tool, that's f’sure,” he chuckled, rubbing his nose roughly. He’s being funny on purpose, a jester’s distraction: he doesn’t want you to realize his answers’ not really one at all. 

You shifted on his bed, now leaning against his headboard. His answer strikes you as odd and uncharacteristic despite his attempts to evade suspicion: usually, Jonathan pounces at the chance to yap on and on. “What, the great Jonathan Breech doesn’t have any wild stories to tell? No bones broken, girls dumped, houses trashed?” 

He snorted at that, like some inside joke you weren’t privy to was brought up in your words, and he descended back down on a carefully partitioned line of white. “I broke my baby finger once,” he relented vaguely when he finished, dusting off the table and licking the remains off his hand. “I cried and I cried and I cried.”

“Did it hurt that much?” you grinned, mind trailing off to imagine a baby-faced Jonathan Breech, a juvenile highschool boy, doing something silly to break that finger. Maybe he accidentally flung off his bike, broke it because of a dare, or maybe it happened just by slipping and falling. 

“It - uh… didn’t hurt enough,” Jonathan smiled, tight-lipped and paltry. All at once the air in the room had changed, like someone attached a vacuum to the window and sucked everything out. 

Your grin fell, and you watched him carefully: perhaps, had you not been as close to him as you were, he’d have let something show. A twitch in the smile, a break in the facade. But you were, and his face stayed the same, and your thoughts ran circles around themselves. This was… something else, something belonging to the part of his life he didn’t talk about. 

The atmosphere had grown tense, taut, a rubber band twisted ‘round and round, threatening to burst, so you leave the matter of his injury alone; of his life alone. You go back to staring at his ceiling, he goes back to his drugs; Jonathan collapses within himself, and you don’t notice how badly he suffocates… how suffering in silence is also accompanied by the overwhelming desire to be found.

ii.

Sometimes, despite his self-imposed distance, Jonathan lets someone look inside his head. 

You are both the sometimes and the someone; you don’t know why it’s always you, but you chalk it up to the fact that beneath his unpredictable demeanor, the murky and unreadable feelings he holds for others, is this uncharacteristic constant: he holds a softness for you. It’s what lets you know there’s something haunted lurking beneath his happy-go-lucky surface. 

You don’t know where this softness comes from, either. But you know you see it, in lingering touches, tender duchenne smiles unlike the devilish tilt his lips usually hold, how he clasps his hand around yours after a night at the pub and walks you home because he knows you get paranoid. You see it in how he comes over to your apartment when you don’t answer anyone's calls during exam season, how he remembers what your mother’s name is and what your childhood pet was and what your favorite flowers are. How his lips brush past your cheek when he pulls away from hugs, his hands shuddering around your shoulders, like he’s afraid he’ll crush you.

You only wish you could do the same. You want to sit by his side and mend his heart, lend an ear to his most mundane fears, you want to take his hand into your own and kiss it softly, return all that he has done for you, take the same as you have given to him: what is friendship if it is not equal, what is love if it is not returned? It is something broken, unable; split halves of one heart, an imbalance in the scale, Bonnie without her Clyde, a fish out of water. 

Jonathan pours his heart into your own, filling holes you know you don’t have, and you think he may be overcompensating for something else, seeing things in you that really belong to him. It is maddening, and you just want to beg and plead he lets you in. 

But you settle for the gentle pokes, the prodding, and try to decipher the vague answers he gives you. Most days, you can’t really make sense of it. 

“Sorry,” you apologize, about to leave the outing you planned with Jonathan — studying, or, trying to study, at an intimate coffeebar the two of you frequented — “my dad’s gotten drunk with his lads and my mum needs help dragging him home.”

 “Hey, hey, don’t worry. I get it: my dad used to do that all the time,” he waves your words off casually, but you don’t miss how jilted he says used to and the pain in his tone at all the time.

“Oh, surely she was fit to go to the madhouse?” you laughed once, responding to Jonathan’s complaints about an eccentric classmate in his agricultural studies. He laughs back, he always does, but this one is hollow, forced; barely stopping a grimace from coloring his tone. 

You notice these things like it’s a shadow following someone in the sun. He is lying, hiding; about something you don’t know but it is happening. It is happening, and you are so very curious: you pick up on the littlest tendrils of him, fed wholly on any information you can squeeze out. He is a mystery you want to delve within completely; answer that question of WHO ARE YOU REALLY? and leave no room for error. 

You’d give yourself to him the very same if he merely asked; you’d whisper childhood fears and tell the origin stories of faded scars on your knees and why you check under your bed before sleeping. You’d detail your entire life from sunset birth to starry night end if he even made a passing comment about knowing; you would trust your love, your heart, your entire life in his beautiful, shaky hands. This is the relationship you have built around yourselves, and it is beginning to feel terribly one-sided. 

Alas, your curiosity overwhelms him, and you take it too far, just once. Only once. 

“Where’d this come from?” you murmur, brushing your fingers over a scar above his eyebrow. It’s something you see only now, his hair mussed and wild from the various blankets and pillows on your dinky couch. 

He’s crashing at your apartment tonight, an invited event, because you often miss him like you miss home; the boy is sneaky— he slinks away like a street cat and only comes back for food. It’s only fair he lets you wrangle him back like this, making him stay by your side at least once a week.  

Your words make him freeze, like he often does; it reminds you of hikers, who freeze when they see mountain lions— he thinks if he stops and stares and pretends to disappear you’ll look the other way, drop the question, forget him completely.

But you don’t. You don’t know what’s affecting him -- not that he wants you to -- so you just stare back into his cornflower blue eyes. You stop and stare and see right through him; you hold the question like a knife to his neck, and commit him to memory. 

“The scar?” Jonathan pales, shuddering despite it having long since been healed over. The aftershocks of an earthquake. 

You simply nod, fingers pulling away. You’re still closer than ever though, the two of you being the only things in your cramped concrete apartment, the chosen movie on your telly still running and long forgotten. 

Your attention remains on him, brandished into something dangerous, like you’ll carve the answer out of him if you have to— but the moment passes. He doesn’t say anything and you accept that as the answer. Gone is your razor-sharp focus, and there is nothing more to the matter. 

But Jonathan doesn’t register this, no, he’s thinking, gears in his head turning and creaking. His tongue grazes against the backs of his teeth, jaw chattering like it was as cold as it was when… as cold as it was back then, and he doesn’t want to tell anyone— but it’s you. You’re not just anyone. 

You’re the one he holds a certain softness for. The one he equally bares his heart to and holds the most secrets from. The one he’s most terrified to know. The only one he wants to know. 

So, he decides to tell a partial truth— something digestible. People adore that which can easily slide down the gullet: news headlines don’t detail the goriness of a murder, they give the “insider” scoop of the scared neighbor. To be able to digest information is what makes the world go round, and he does not think you could digest the full truth-- he does not think he wants you to. 

He feels ill at the thought of anything between you changing— oh, how ruined he’d feel if you began treating him like fucking glass.

This abhorrent social pressure is what makes Jonathan grit this sentence through his teeth: “I got into a car accident,” he gulps dry, “when I was nineteen. Was drunk… went fer a spin. I skidded off a -- um, an empty highway. The tall sorts; high up, y’know. Fell.”

His voice makes you look back up at him, and your eyes are beautiful and tense— it breaks his heart. He knows you’re probably thinking it was in-character, how expected that is of Jonathan Breech, how you’ll easily take this partial truth, how you’ll never know the full one until it comes in a letter under your door and he’s long gone. 

“Tell me,” you ask him, lips falling into a near-frown instead of laughing or grinning wider. It’s hushed, whispered like a secret, “What did it feel like? Falling, I mean.”

Jonathan licks his lips, bores his shaking gaze into your own, and tells you not everything feels like something else. That the word connotes all you need to know. Falling meant he was falling; his arms raised and the air took him and that was it. 

It makes your brows twist and your lips press into a thin line: his nonchalance is worrying, no more his signature characteristic— there is something wrong about this apathy toward injury, toward the potential death. 

“Is that how you broke your finger?” You murmur, and it startles him. How you pieced the two things together, how you weaved a web from what little you knew about him; how futile his attempts to hide could be.

“What?” he responds, hoarse. There is a lurking shadow in his bones telling him he’ll taint you, telling him to be ashamed, telling him how badly you will never be his. It is such a damning reality, that no matter how much he may yearn for you, he is too incomplete to meet your needs; he is too hurt not to hurt you too. 

“The car accident. Is that how you broke your pinkie?” you repeat, and you gripped his hand resting at your side, bringing it up to present the finger to him like he forgot where his pinkie was. 

Jonathan’s gaze darts from you to the finger, and he feels his insides quiver; so badly does he want to spill his entire soul to you. But that internal reminder -- hurt people hurt people hurt people -- makes him settle for nodding, parted lips locking closed. 

Nothing special happens that night, no shocking revelation or bombarded confession; Jonathan nods, keeps his lips sealed, and gets up from the couch, figure dreary and fatigued. He murmurs an incomplete excuse, something half-baked and blatantly unconvincing that he has to leave, and you let him go. You think you’re imagining the shudder in his shoulders, the shake in his voice as he says goodbye, and you let him go. 

It’s there, like that club so long ago, you discover another thing about Jonathan Breech: push too far and he shuts down, closes shop and puts up his guard forever. It’s the mere fact of how attentive you are to his words; you remember how he broke his finger, and he realizes he cannot hide from you any longer. 

You’re reaching a point in your friendship -- your relationship, no matter platonic or romantic for all lines have been crossed; nobody is so raw to one another with love not involved -- where you’ll bare your hearts on your sleeves, share your every thought and dream and fear. But Jonathan won’t be able to reciprocate, and the very thought of rejecting you, betraying you, makes his stomach twist in knots. That crestfallen face of yours would haunt him for all time, your every melancholy feature burning into his memory like the scars left by cigarettes on skin.

So he leaves, hurt people hurt people hurt people echoes in his ears all the way home; he turns into an alleyway shortcut and prays death swoops down and takes him right there. He leaves his consciousness curled lovingly in your arms; his shell walks home and prays you’re none the wiser. But you’ve already reached that point in your relationship; you already know. 

When people die, or friendships do, sometimes they end with just a goodbye, a mild, casual goodbye because you think there’ll be dozens, hundreds more-- but there won’t be. Suddenly, alone in that cramped apartment, the buzzing from the tv filling your ears, your couch still warm from someone long gone, you know.

You know you startled him, that he’s left your apartment and he’ll never come back. Your heart cools, and she whispers that you took it too far, that you crossed a line you were never made aware of, that when you see him in class tomorrow he might not sit next to you, he might not talk to you, that you might lose him forever because he is too stubborn to open up and you are too stubborn to let him go. 

Well, you were too stubborn to let him go. 

It’s three weeks before you speak to Jonathan again. Three long, dragging weeks, moments in time where he avoided your gaze, evaded your presence, slipped past you before you got too close. You certainly try, of course— you seek him out every chance you get, trying to get an I’m sorry, please talk to me out before he runs off, but it’s virtually impossible.

Once, after class, you’d caught him in the middle of a flurry of exiting students by the velvet blazer, your hands curled around the lapel. “Jonathan,” you panted, trying to drag him off to the side to escape the bustling activity around you, “please, we need to talk--“

But then Jonathan had faced you, eyes widened and spooked like he’d seen a ghost, a never-before-seen-by-you fear covering his gracefully cut features, before he tugged off the black blazer and escaped into the crowd. He had seen you, widened his eyes, left. Such a simple action tore your heart in two; it had confirmed your suspicions— you’d gone too far, he was never coming back, and you were all alone. There you stood, fingers wrapped around one of his favorite articles of clothing starkly without its beloved owner, completely alone. 

In three measly weeks, he has put up a biting winter of distance between you two. 

Your feelings are unable to comprehend themselves— they fight and sob and run circles around your mind, they make you doubt, crumble, devour yourself from the inside out; they make you ask yourself what you can do to salvage this, what can you do to fix this? What is there to make of him, of his behavior; what do you do with yourself and this guilt?

If you could imagine time was a construct, you were certain you could convince yourself this stretch of time was nothing… propel yourself into a present where Jonathan does not afflict your mind, take over your every thought— does not ruin you like so. If only you could do that, you could close your eyes and reopen them when you’ve let go. But you were always too stubborn to let him go, weren’t you?

It’s three weeks to the day before you speak to Jonathan again, and it happens through the crack of his dorm door, your arm wedged through it because you know he is not cruel; he will let you in without a doubt.  

“Please,” you plead to Jonathan, “just— I just want to talk. Please?”

He stares at you straight, expression cold and reserved, before he breaks and pulls away; bites his lip, lets you in his room, doesn’t look you in the eye. Looking around, you sense something in his dorm has changed; it had gained a bereft quality, like it was attuned to Jonathan’s state of mind and felt depressed beyond your comprehension. There was a cold air to the place, an utmost frigid demeanor to a room incredibly warm just weeks prior. In your absence, the dorm had been neglected, gutted, abandoned. 

“I’m sorry,” are the first words that tumble out of your mouth. “I- I know you don’t like… talking about -- about your life before here, and I’m sorry. But please, Jonathan, just talk to me. Tell me what I can do to make it up to you.”

He sits down on the edge of his weak bedframe, pulling his knees up and pressing his face into them. “You don’t need to-- don’t… don’t apologize. You don’t need t’make it better, either. All’s grand.” he promises, words muffled and shaky. It’s a weeping kind of tone; you could just as easily imagine him sobbing with that voice. 

Your brows knit. Your emotions are wavering, treading brutally between disbelief, despair and rancor. “Then -- then why?”

“Why what?”

“Why did you avoid me? Why did you - why did we spend these last three weeks playing cat and mouse, if you weren’t mad at me? Is this your sick idea of a joke?”

“No! I-- jesus christ,” Jonathan looked up from his hands before immediately pressing two fingers between his eyes, “I wasn’t … avoiding you.”

“I haven’t seen you in weeks!” you point out painfully, exasperated. “You know, you’ve been avoiding me for longer than this. You— you push me away any chance you get. You’re afraid. I don’t know of what, but you’re- so fucking secretive, and it’s tearing me apart.”

“I’m not - afraid of anything. I’m just a private person— you know this. Would you, if I ‘pushed you away?!’” 

At his denying deflection, something within you snaps: “Why won’t you - fucking let me in? I’ve — I’ve bared my soul to you; you know me from the inside out. I trust you with my life— why, why can’t you do the same?”

“I didn’t ask you to do that! And I didn’t — I didn’t mean t’get so close to you, okay?!” He bursts, and you flinch. His hands shakily come up to his face once more; he wipes roughly but it’s no use— you’ve already seen his delicate tears threatening to spill, and it burns more holes in your heart than you thought his suffering would.

“What are you talking about?” you pry, now without any cautious reservations about his demeanor.

“I didn’t mean to get so fucking attached, because - ‘cause I…” Jonathan’s hands clenched into fists at his sides, “fuck.”

“What?” you repeat, but it’s softer, concerned; how quickly his body language shifted from irritated to terrified has you scrambling to support him. “Talk to me,” you ask, taking nervous steps closer, like you were approaching a wounded animal.

He sucks in a sharp breath, and holds it, like he did cigarette smoke, before exhaling heavily. “Okay- okay. When I was - nineteen, I drove a car… I drove off a cliff and tried t’kill myself. I was-- admitted to a psychiatric hospital for a year, and when I got out I moved here f’school. I- I… promised m’self I wouldn’t let anyone get too close.”

The confession hangs in the air, a lonely little thing; it’s a bleeding piece of his own heart he’s plucked and placed in your palms. He shudders, and you want to nurture it like nothing else. This is a culmination of a year’s worth of evasion coming to a close; you’re seeing him completely, rawly, for the first time.

“But- but why? You don’t have to— Jonathan, you don’t need to do that just because you - you… y’know.”

“I’m- I know that,” he starts brashly, defensively. “It’s b’cause I am very, very aware of my - of m’own self destructiveness…” His words taper off into something of grief; the Sisyphean struggle of wanting to live, while that depressive boulder pushes him back, colors him completely. “I just… I didn’t want to - t’hurt anyone in case I -- in case next time I succeeded.”

“Next time?” you repeat, and your voice broke in a way you wish was less vulnerable, less blatantly miserable.

“This is why I didn’t want to—“ Jonathan sighs, deflates, “I’m not telling you this because I want you to - t’fucking save me, okay? I’m telling you this because you wanted to know, and I couldn’t hide from you anymore. Because you asked.”

“You didn’t need t’hide it in the first place!” you exclaimed, coming closer to him. “You’ve never had to hide a fucking ‘ting from me.”

“You wouldn’t have understood!” He said back, volume nearing a shout. “You’ll treat me differently now, you see, you’ll look at me fuckin’ different—“

It made your heart sink-- how sure his words were, how certain he was of your rejection. How little trust did he have in you? 

(You remember he wanted to sink, too-- lose himself in the baby blue sea; let it swallow him whole and never be seen again.)

“You - you really think I’ll treat y’differently because of this? You know my every crevice, my every thought-- I have never once doubted that you’ll accept me.”

“I-I… why should I - expect any of this to stay the same?”

Suddenly, you took his face into your hands. “Because I-- I fucking love you, okay? And it’s not just friendly, or romantic, even if it’s both— I’m… I love you like nothing I’ve ever loved before. I accept and adore your every skill and flaw and antic; you wormed your way into my heart and I want to worm my way into yours.”

“That doesn’t mean—“ Jonathan tried to interject, a noise all utter disbelief. You cut him off, though, continuing your sudden confession; you hadn’t been privy to these own romantic feelings of yours till moments prior, but everything being said just felt right. 

“Jonathan, I don’t care if you drove a car off a cliff or cyanide-poisoned our professor or blew something up, because I love you. You, with all your problems and great, big, beautiful life. All I want is for you to want that life; I want you to want me in it. I feel it in my bones that I’m meant to love you; you are meant to be my home, you are everything I am supposed to know. It won’t fix you or fix anything at all but I just need you to know-- I need you to know the why to my every action. It’s because I love you.”

He looked up at you, wide-eyed, head resting in your gentle hold. “I - don’t know what to say… are you - for real?”

“As real as can be,” you smiled back at him, tracing circles along his smooth skin; you could’ve drank in that attentive stare of his for hours upon hours. “I love you, and nothing and no-one, not even you, can change that.” An aching grip had clenched around your heart at his words, that blatant disbelief: are you for real? God, had you ever been-- had you ever fucking been. 

Jonathan’s mouth opened to speak, but instead, he let out an agonizing sort of cry; an exclamation of utter surprise at the loving acceptance. Then, he hesitantly leaned into your touch, as if he’d never hugged before, wrapping his arms around your waist to snatch you as close to him as possible. He held you tighter and tighter as the seconds went by, like this was all a mocking dream his yearning mind had made up; that if he closed his eyes now he’d wake up desolate, alone, without you for eternity. His worst nightmare. 

“…God, I’m so - fucking stupid,” he grumbled, sounding angry, but you could feel vulnerable, hot tears soaking into the fabric of your shirt. “To assume you, of all people, would act that way… you of all people.” He said that tenderly; you of all people certainly meant miles more things you weren’t explicitly aware of, but you still felt the sentiment. “I’m not -- poetic or anything like that… but I love you, too.”

You chuckled a beautiful, wet laugh. “You don’t hafta’ say anything sweet or special. You’re everything to me.”

He squeezed his eyes shut, before wrapping his fingers around your wrist and pulling you onto the mattress with him. He flipped you beneath him, and held himself up by the forearms laying on either side of your head. “Fuck, I love you. I love you.” Jonathan repeated the words several more times, strange and foreign but right at home being said to you. Like his mouth was made to only ever say I love you to you. 

Suddenly, you pressed your lips to his, shutting him up momentarily. You could still feel the vibrations of I love you rumbling in his throat as you kissed him. Your tongues danced along one another, an all consuming waltz; you wanted to know everything about him, down to the taste of his tongue, memorize how sweet his mouth felt on yours. Oh, how you longed for this moment; how could you ever think about love again, and yearn for it, without thinking of Jonathan?

You reckoned that’s what this had been the whole time; your love started as a little flame, something under the guise of friendship, but the two of you had fanned it, nurtured it-- all of a sudden the miniature warmth of platonic love burst into a raging, adoring fire. You’d fed this flame with tenderness, and it responded in kind; you could never again look at Jonathan without a certain intimate reverie. Perhaps that’d been why Jonathan found it so hard to cut off this relationship as he had dozens others: something primal and unconscious within him had begged him not to let you go— some higher being knew his home was only ever in your arms. 

Jonathan deepened the kiss hungrily, pressing his weight onto you and pushing you into the mattress. Your head was spinning from the lack of air, and one of your hands had to sneak beneath his hat and tug at his hair to get him to stop. “Hey,” you panted, looking worriedly into his eyes, “what’s up?”

“Sorry,” he apologized sheepishly, hanging his head lowly for a moment before meeting your gaze once more, batting his long lashes. “Jus’ missed you. Thas’ all.”

“Missed y’too,” you murmured, pulling him back down to kiss you again. Your hands left the crown of his head and trailed down his backside, tracing over the curves and bumps of his frumpy yellow v-neck sweater. 

That touch of yours seemed to spur him on even more, and his kisses began to travel; along your jaw, to your pulse, down the long ravine of your neck, tongue darting out to lick the hollow of your collarbone, making you squeal. He chuckled against your skin, a genuine amusement rather than the mocking one you two so frequently practiced, and it all went downhill from there. His hands skillfully tugged off your tank top, knee between your clenched thighs, more teasing kisses being planted along your now bare -- save for your bra -- chest.

You didn’t mean to come over, profess your love and suddenly jump into a steamy, yearning makeout session (which, you were pretty sure was venturing off into sex…) but you supposed that apologizing— arguing, whatever —meant your relationship went back on track to wherever it was heading… which may have been set to end with an ardor romance anyway. This love of yours would’ve bursted at the seams of friendship; it could not be confined by such mere things as labels. 

“Fuck,” you groaned, arching into his teasing kisses along the peaks of your breasts, his hands ghosting around your clothed chest but never touching. “Please, Jon.”

You could feel his cheeky grin on your skin, “Tell me what you want, love.”

“…Take this off,” you demanded gently, referring to Jonathan’s sweater.

“Your wish is my command.” he snickered, obliging and removing the yellow knit-- as well as his white undershirt and pajama bottoms. He was left in a pair of boxer-shorts and that silly, silly winter-trapper hat, his fingers sneaking up to your supple thighs and tickling the edges of your jean-shorts; a silent plea. 

“Eager,” you mumbled, noticing his over-compliance in completely stripping, smiling and guiding his hands to the waistband of your shorts to tug the tight article off. 

When he did so, you shivered, both at the feeling of being only in your underwear, as well as Jonathan’s sharp, attentive gaze. “You’re so beautiful,” he panted, eyes exploring your every sweet feature. 

He was enamored with your bare body, not in a sexual way despite the blatantly sexual situation, but rather in a worshiping, religiously devoted way. It may’ve been blasphemous to think so, but Jonathan’s sudden chaste kisses along the curve of waist only seemed to prove you right; his mouth on you was gentle, like he’d held you before, except now without any guilt or hesitation. It was a holy way of loving you; something all-consuming, becoming the epicenter of a life, becoming the purpose, motivation, and belief all at once. 

That familiar broiling in your gut occurred as he made his way closer to the pulsing, lace-covered place between your legs; your hands were gripping the sheets tightly in pure anticipation, his hot breath on your sensitive skin. “Don’t be such a tease,” you pouted, legs fumbling for purchase along his body, trying to pull him closer to you.

“We’ve got all the time in the world,” he hummed, but his fingers still curled into the band of your baby-blue panties and dragged them down in one desperate go, “but I do wanna taste you….”

Jonathan’s veiny hands pried your quivering thighs apart, murmuring an offhand already stole y’panties, don’t get all shy on me now when you whimpered flusteredly, before he descended on your dripping lips, licking a flat-tongued stripe up to your clit. 

You gasped at the sudden action, but it quickly morphed into a choked moan when he pressed himself further and parted your lips, nose to your pelvic bone; he made quick work of you, artfully curling his long tongue into your hole and slurping your slick. 

“So sweet,” he praised, the vibrations of his voice making your thighs clench around his head. He hummed in amusement at your reaction, lapping you up quicker; he kitten-licked and slobbered, feeding on your sticky cunt, tongue darting in every direction, feeling your walls and prying deeper into your hot hole, which ached for the cock straining against the mattress now. The bottom half of Jonathan’s face was now positively soaked, glistening with his own drool and your needy wetness, all of it mixing dirtily and sliding down the length of his neck. 

“Jon!” you mewled, hands tearing off his trapper hat and flinging it elsewhere before curling your hands into his mousy brown hair and pushing his face deeper into your pussy, desperate to come. You were riding his face now — or, attempting to, more accurately bucking up into him — adoring his unceasing ministrations. He was basically fucking you with his tongue, overstimulating your clit with teasing licks then pulling away, feeling along the ridges of your walls.

“Pick m’hat up later, love,” he tutted, pulling away slightly to see where you’d haphazardly thrown it, and your desperate whine neared a sob. He breathed in sharply, taking in how quickly he’d undone you: in a matter of minutes, your expression had grown wanton, eyes blown out, drooling, hair askew, bra riding up your tits and revealing your sweet, puffy nipples. 

Jonathan quickly forgot about the state of his beloved hat, and went back down on you, mouth devouring in full force once again. You rolled your hips forward, and when he pulled his tongue out of your wet hole to suckle softly on your fleshy nub, your eyes rolled back into your head and your legs shook around his face, toes curling tightly. A choked moan left you alongside the sudden climax, sounding a hundred percent pornographic and all for him. 

You panted, silent and unmoving for a moment, and Jonathan began moving to get up and let you take a breather before continuing, absolutely terrified to push you too far or do anything you didn’t want to do— he was the spontaneous one, and you were the responsible one, but that didn’t mean he ever wanted to force anything upon you. His simultaneous decisions were made mostly in part with your interests in mind; he made the decisions you were too nervous and over-thinking to choose quicker. 

However, you took a long breath, then trailed your hand over the painfully noticeable bulge within his soft boxers. “Wan’… make you feel good,” you murmured, flattening your hand against his erection. 

Jonathan inhaled sharply, pitifully affected by the minor touch but holding back with an incredible amount of self restraint. “I can wait,” he offered sweetly, one of his hands coming up to your flattened hand’s forearm to rub the skin. 

You shook your head foggily, cupping him through the fabric, slowly adding friction by sliding your hand up and down. 

“S-shit,” he bit his lip, “you want this now, baby?”

You nodded vehemently with a whimper, and to make more of a point, you reached behind and unclasped your bra, tossing it elsewhere on his dirty dorm floor, before beginning to slip off his underwear. 

The hand on your arm stopped you, though, in favor of doing it himself and pressing his weight further onto you, your chests flush with one another. You were only able to take in thin breaths, making your head spin, but it also amplified the  arousal blooming in your cunt when Jonathan slotted himself at your soaking entrance, collecting his saliva and your slick on his tip. 

Before he pushed in, however, his head dipped into the hollow of your neck, plush lips brushing past the shell of your ear. “Is this okay?” he murmured, pressing a wet kiss to your temple. 

“Please,” you whined, hands pushing flat on his back to bring him closer to you.

With that, Jonathan slowly buried his length within your cunt, making your breath hitch. “I love you,” he groaned, entering you inch by inch, relishing how your warmth swallowed him whole. “Fuck, I love you so much.”

Your hole was stuffed beyond belief, but Jonathan was gentle with you, caressing your waist with the rough pads of his fingers and massaging you, trying to ease his entrance into something painless. Obviously, with that length and thickness it couldn’t be painless at all, but his attempts helped your mind drift off elsewhere and take some of the attention off the stinging stretch. 

After a long moment of ragged breathing, Jonathan cooing words of praise into your neck as he kissed you without moving, you dug your fingers into the skin of his back: “More,” you choked out, the fullness in your cunt now feeling delicious rather than cringeworthy. 

He smirked against your skin, “Looks like you’re t’eager one now.”

“Oh, get on with it,” you rasped and he let out a low chuckle, sliding out of your hole before thrusting back in. That first movement already made your hips jerk up into him, back arching. It was like all the warmth in your body had collected in your cunt, leaving you freezing from the tips of your toes to the top of your head, but still with a needy, burning fire in your insides. 

Jonathan’s pace was affectionate and rhythmic: you could feel the tenderness in his each and every gentle roll of the hips. It made you feel like the sun, how attentive he was, but he was also so fucking slow. If anything, that had your walls clenching onto him harder than if he hammered into you— that slow build-up of friction was dizzying. You squirmed, cunt clenching and contracting around his smooth thrusts— you wanted to take him within you completely, cause more friction for you were going stir-crazy with this lazy speed. 

“F-fuck! Faster, please,” you cried out, unable to take his sensual movements any longer. Your legs were twitching with his patient movements, and you could’ve sworn you saw a cheeky grin on his lips. The bastard— even in sex was he teasing you, wanting to torture you until you gave in to the pleasure and begged him to ruin you.  

Sure, this was your first time together, and was going extremely pleasantly and sweetly, but you were actually pretty fond of the idea of letting him pound into you like there was no tomorrow… 

At the lewd thought, your walls pulsed around his cock, making him buck up unintentionally, hitting that sweet spot within you. He grunted at the feeling of your tightened cunt, while you cried out his name, pleasure running like a current through your body. Your face was on fire, reminiscent of a raging fever, and your insides were coiling— god, how did his cock just feel so perfect within you?

“Oh,” he grinned in a pant, “found y’spot, didn’t I?”

Jonathan didn’t give you a chance to speak before he pulled out so far his tip was the only thing in your hole, before slamming back in and making your eyes roll to the back of your head. Props to him-- he hit your g-spot with utmost accuracy, and you let out a long, stuttered mewl, scratching at his freckled back, legs twitching. Your wail was almost catatonic, loud and cock-drunk, dripping unabashed, filthy pleasure. 

“Makin’ such sweet noises f’me,” he praised huskily, hair sticking to the sweat on his forehead, “fuck, ‘ve gotta hear that again.”

He must’ve noticed your neediness earlier, when he was slow and languid, for the new speed he set was double- no, triple that: his hips were snapping against yours, balls smacking filthily against your lips, left hand pinning your hips down and letting him sink into you faster. Shocks of pleasure tore through you at the sudden increase in speed- he’d inured you so well to the torturously slow pace from earlier that this new frenzied one felt like getting hit by a bullet train. You were overstimulated and needing more of him all at once, practically vibrating with need under his touch. 

“I’ve- hnngh- wanted this…” you gasped between moans, “f-for so long…”

“Wanted m’cock?” Jonathan questioned in a hiss, feeling with his every inch how your walls absolutely soaked him. His tone was, obviously, sarcastic, but it still made you feel incredibly lewd. 

You shook your head numbly, “Wanted you… I love you, Jon!”

“So fuckin’ beautiful,” he purred, fucking you faster and making you writhe beneath him, “love you s’much.”

Jonathan targeted the spongy, swollen spot deep within your cunt, suddenly filled with a renewed vigor and motivation to make you come as quickly as possible, and he pounded into that one, specific spot, watching how you twitched and squirmed, heavy moans exiting you. He was relentless, hands reaching to hook under your knees and spread you wider. 

At the new angle, his cock penetrated you even deeper, fuller, which you thought wasn’t possible with how goddamn full you already felt, but when his thick cockhead brushed up against your cervix you thought you were going to burst. Then, one of his hands came up to your tits to knead the flesh, and you squeaked when he tweaked your soft nipples. He was pawing at your sweet tits, fondling you in a needy, boyish way, like yours were the first pair of boobs he’d ever felt. 

“M’close!” you gasped, mind going fuzzy with pure ecstacy. Your skin prickled with goosebumps, cold  sweat running down your spine, a terribly stark in contrast feeling to the warmth buzzing under your skin. 

“C-can’t last much longer either,” he choked, still pumping in and out of your sticky hole and savoring the feeling of your tight warmness on his long length. He looked absolutely exquisite above you, and you lost yourself in the ethereal picture. Maybe you were in love, or maybe he really was just an empyrean beauty; you took in the sight of his focussed iceberg blue eyes, the cute flush spreading along his pale cheeks and bare chest, how he bit his pink lips to muffle his needy grunts and moans. 

Then, you mewled and convulsed around him, your walls spasming and contracting as you came undone, reaching the precipice of your pleasure. That made him fall off the edge— you had tensed all over- all over, and Jonathan couldn’t help how his hips stuttered, knees buckled, cock twitched; he only gave one last, powerful thrust into you before spilling himself inside of you. He painted your soft walls white, and you felt that familiar heat spreading within you; you welcomed it completely, and wanted such warmth to be there forever. 

You milked him for every last drop, cunt like a vice grip, and Jonathan gave you another wet kiss, this time on your lips, and your hands wrapped around his neck, allowing you to kiss him back. Your brows knitted at the sour taste of yourself on his lips, but it just made everything feel so real— Jonathan and you had “made love”. It was a phrase you always wrinkled your nose at, feeling uncomfortable and juvenile at the intimacy it entailed, but now you understood it completely. 

“I love you,” you repeated for what felt like the hundredth time, unable to say anything else that conveyed what you felt for him. 

Honestly, you weren’t sure anything could accurately do so— you felt infinitely about him, your love touching all edges of your mind, heart and soul, filling you completely. You supposed you felt about Jonathan how the sun felt about the moon— without one, there could not be the other. 

“I love you-- too,” he responded, pausing in the middle at the aftershocks of your orgasm, which had caused you to tighten around his softening, sensitive cock for a second. 

You peered deep into his baby-blue eyes, watching the utter love that coloured them; it was like submerging yourself in a great blue ocean, except you didn’t want to come out, because you knew you wouldn’t drown in those eyes. No, you knew Jonathan would always be there to pull you out. 

Speaking of pulling out… Jonathan slipped himself out of you softly, careful not to agitate that first stretch any more than necessary, before collapsing back into your arms. The two of you tangled yourselves in a messy flurry of limbs on his cushy mattress, sweaty and breathy, something that should’ve been terribly uncomfortable but just wasn’t— you swore you could fall asleep anywhere, no matter your own state or the circumstance, as long as you were with him. 

Blearily, both your eyes began to droop, until you gave into the familiar presence of deep, dark sleep. It was a dreamless sleep for you, but you had an ever present comfort at his weight on yours, something you could feel even in unconsciousness. 

Hours later, in a brisk, shuddering early-morning that you felt all over due to Jonathan’s unruly habit of opening his window at the peak of the day’s hottest weather and forgetting to close it before cold nightfall fell, you awoke to Jonathan watching you carefully, so close you could feel his warm exhales of breath on your cheek. 

There was no goodmorning or anything like that, just pure, uninhibited being, reveling in the space you two occupied together. Like you two were the only things left in the world. 

When Jonathan noticed you woke up, he shifted, presumably to extract himself from your grip. You stopped him, though, wrapping an arm around his shoulders and bringing him closer to you.

“What did it feel like?” you asked instead, for the last time. You brushed your fingers over his scar, and, knowing exactly what you were asking, this time Jonathan doesn’t flinch away. This time, he leans into your touch: it doesn’t burn, not anymore, and he wants your tenderness to swallow him whole. 

You didn’t mean what it actually felt like, of course. You meant, what were you thinking? What have you done, and what will you do to yourself? You meant, I love you.

“It felt like,” falling; not everything feels like something else; I raised my arms and the air took me and that was it-- “it felt like… giving in. Letting my desperation find its purpose. It felt like I’d reached a point of peace… gained clarity after a long stretching, wounded moment came to an end. It felt like becoming something only meant to be talked about in past tense.”

You don’t say anything to that; you know he doesn’t want you to. There’s no need for you to hush or plead or make better, you just need to listen, and love him. He knows you accept him for everything he is, all his flaws and his strengths; he knows your love is all accepting- it veers on saintly. 

At your silence, he melts into your arms and you can finally relax; there is an admission in the action, a release, an acknowledgement -- is suffering in silence not also accompanied by the overwhelming desire to be found? -- you have found him, at last, and you will never, ever let go.

You take it too far, just once. Only once. And you let him go just once, only once; never again. 

[lemotmo]

Queer-coded Eddie Diaz theory

Okay, walk with me here. I have this theory.

I’ve been thinking about what Lou said in his interview. He said that the Tommy storyline was initially meant for Eddie. (Which still sets me reeling whenever I think about it.) But they changed their mind because something fell through and they decided to give the storyline to Buck. Which I’m happy about to be honest. Eddie is a whole different case of ‘being in the closet’. That man will need a lot more time to come to terms with his sexuality than Buck.

But, let’s imagine they would have stuck with the Eddie/Tommy storyline:

Obviously Marisol would have quietly disappeared in between seasons and Eddie would have been single again.

They hired Lou, a big bulky white man, to play his love interest. I know that we often say that Eddie is the Latin Lou, but he could also be a slightly bigger Buck (if you squint).

They would have bonded over the many shared interests and their army past. From there on their romance would have started and bloomed.

Buck would have probably still been with Nathalia or perhaps he would have also been single. Not sure about that. It would have depended on the actress being available or not.

In his interview, Tim Minear has stated that Buck has always been queer-coded, from season 1 on.

So, if we follow that line of thinking, wouldn’t Eddie have been queer-coded as well? Because, after all, he would have been the one in a romantic relationship with Tommy.

And then what? Would Buck have found his inner bisexual by being jealous of Eddie and Tommy? Like something we saw play out in 7x04. Everyone would assume, in the beginning, that Buck was just jealous of having to share Eddie’s attention with Tommy. But then, after a few episodes, it would have been revealed that he was actually in love with Eddie? Because, remember, according to Tim Minear, Buck has always been queer-coded. So it would only be logical to continue the storyline like that. Especially because everyone seems to lean into it this season. Oliver, Ryan, Tim and even Lou have been talking about Buddie.

Then what? Would Eddie have found out about Buck? Would he have realised that he loved Buck back, breaking up with Tommy, only to be with Buck? Or would Tommy have set him free from the relationship?

See the logic here? If Buck has always been queer-coded, why did they plan to have Eddie come out? It doesn’t make any sense, UNLESS Eddie has always been queer-coded as well (whether gay, demisexual or something else).

Now, if we go back to the current story that is playing out on our screens right now. If we take the above Eddie/Tommy scenario and change it to Buck/Tommy, then it would only be logical for the second character that has also been queer-coded since season 2 (Eddie) to end up with the other queer-coded character, now established bisexual (Buck).

Whichever way you look at it, all roads eventually lead to Buddie.

Mind you, this is only my train of thought and my opinion. Also no hate on Tommy or Buck/Tommy. This is just something that has been slow cooking in my brain ever since those articles from Tim and Lou came out. Couple that with Ryan’s interview, where he clearly states that Eddie has lived a very different life from Buck. He talks about how Eddie always looks for a mom-figure for Christopher in a relationship, and that he has always lived a ‘straight’- laced life. But that he is slowly discovering parts about himself he didn’t know were there in the first place. And now with the whole ‘catholic guilt’ storyline suddenly popping up out of nowhere, it just would make so much sense for Eddie to be some flavour of queer.

It would set up such an interesting storyline for his character as well. He would potentially struggle with his feelings, a lot more than Buck ever did. He might even have problems with accepting that side of himself. But ultimately it would all come down to Buck and his feelings for him. And Eddie has always been brave, so he would eventually own up to it and tell Buck.

All of this makes so much sense to me and I can't shake it.

Tell me, am I losing my mind here? Has 911 and Buddie finally broken me beyond repair? Have I boarded the train to delulu-land? Talk to me.

[hlficlibrary]

HL Fic Library 💙 Disabled Character Fics

Remember to leave kudos and a comment on the fics you enjoyed to show your appreciation! You can find the library's other recs here.

✨ Take My Breath Away by @realitybetterthanfiction {E, 153k}

There is a prestigious school in the British Royal Navy classified as Premier Delta - or as it is known by its flyers, 1D. These select pilots are an elite set of Naval lieutenants who are trained in the skill of aggressive aerial combat. They are instruments of war, trained in times of peace. They are dogfighters, relentless and fearless in their mission to protect their beloved country. From their lofty vantage, they are always watching, waiting, and ready to lay it all on the line.

Lt. Harry Styles, call sign Sparrow, is a prodigy when it comes to flying. The owner of an unrivaled Naval pedigree, being a pilot was always written in the stars for Harry. With his trusty RIO, Lt. Niall Horan, Harry has made an unprecedented ascension in the ranks of the Naval aerial combat elite, and has been recruited to the esteemed Premier Delta flight school, carrying on his family’s legacy. What he finds there are unexpected friendships, perilous challenges, and something beyond what he ever thought possible. Because as his father had always told him, before the great Captain Styles went tragically missing in combat, you don’t fall in love with the sky, you fall in love with what keeps you on the ground.

✨ And What If I Were You by jacaranda_bloom / @jacaranda-bloom {E, 109k}

For Louis, will losing his sight give him the clarity to realise what is right in front of him?

For Harry, will losing the love of his life give him the strength to finally open his heart?

And can they find their way back, before they lose each other forever?

A story of love. A story of loss. A story of fighting for each other, no matter the odds.

✨ We're What's Right In This World by BriaMaria / @briannamarguerite {E, 48k}

“Why did you talk like that in Brighton? If you weren’t planning on ever telling me?” Louis asked. “Is it because you think you’re going to die?”

“It’s war, Lou,” Harry said finally.

The words were a knife slipped between his ribs. Everything hurt and he was bleeding. He shifted up, his palms cradling Harry’s jaw, his lips against his boy’s. Not kissing, just resting there, so Louis could feel him. “Promise you’ll come back to me.”

Harry’s hands smoothed down the sides of Louis’ body. “You know I can’t do that. I’ll never lie to you.”

“Promise me. We’re going to have our cottage. And our dogs. And our breakfast in the garden where nothing grows because of the wind from the sea. Promise me.”

“I won’t.” Stubborn as always, his boy. “I’ll promise you, I’ll love you all my life. I’ll promise you, you’ll never leave my thoughts. I’ll promise you, you’re my forever and my always. But promising you something I can’t cheapens the things I can.”

Or the World War II AU where Harry goes off to fight and all Louis wants to do is be the boy who brings him home.

✨ Seeing Blind by zedi {E, 46k}

Louis finally turns his head in Liam’s direction, knows his face is showing the longing he’s been aching with ever since it took root in his chest. “What the fuck do I do, Liam? He wouldn’t want me like that, but I want-” his voice cracks, and he turns his face back downwards. “What do you do when you’re not perfect for the person who’s perfect for you?”

OR the one where Harry’s an independent omega who likes to have his fun and Louis is the blind alpha that changes Harry’s priorities.

✨ It Feels Different When You’re With Me by Rearviewdreamer / @all-these-larrythings {M, 45k}

Harry fell in love with sign language as a kid. He never imagined the first love of his life would lead him straight to his second.

✨ fondre ton absence by @scrunchyharry {T, 41k}

Harry had never really given much thought to the future. He preferred to let life steer him forward and to follow in the footsteps of Louis, his best friend from as far as his memory went, his lover, his everything. Louis knew better than he did what was good for him.

It changed drastically when Louis was ripped away from him, drafted and sent to the front to fight in a war that Harry had always been sure would never reach him. Too young and too sickly to follow, Harry was left on his own for the first time in his life.

When he thought things could not possibly get worse, Louis went missing at the Somme and was declared dead. While everyone buried and mourned him, Harry never moved on. If Louis were dead, he was sure that he would know it. Their lives were too entwined, he would know if half of his heart had died.

Determined to find Louis, Harry did everything he could in his quest to be reunited with him, except prepare for the state Louis might be in.

He did not prepare for the harsh truth he would have to face: was love possible without memories?

✨ Bitter Ends Turn Sweet by @allwaswell16 {E, 30k}

It had been four years since Harry first heard the song his ex wrote about him and far longer since they broke up. He forgave Louis long ago, and now his life was focused on his career, his family, and especially his son, Max. But Louis was back in Chicago, after all this time, and he’s not an easy man to ignore.

Or a songfic inspired by the song Chicago

✨ my strange girl by curlockholmes / @dykesteddie {E, 30k}

Harry works in a cafe kitchen; making bagels, snarking with Zayn, and generally trying to exist as an autistic girl working in hospitality.

Louis is the captain of the local women's rugby team who takes a shine to her.

✨ To Give You a Hand to Hold by gettingaphdinlarry {NR, 26k}

When he spoke again, Harry’s voice was low. “Ever think of how many birthdays they don’t get?”

Louis avoided Harry’s eyes. “What do you mean?”

“Martinez was what, nineteen? Missed a good sixty of them.” Harry took the last of his cake and passed the plate to Louis. “Figure sixty missed birthdays each. Just on our side. How many is that?”

Louis used the edge of his fork to scrape frosting off the plate. “Never thought about it.”

“What would your shrink say?”

“‘Focus on the positive.’”

Harry ran a hand over his head and scratched the back of his neck. “How’s that working?”

Marine Louis Tomlinson is medically discharged when an IED explodes in Afghanistan. Months later, he's reunited Stateside with his Navy medic Harry Styles. The two of them shelter each other even as they refuse to admit they're in the throes of PTSD, until one night nearly destroys them.

✨ the dead things we carry by MediaWhore / @mediawhorefics {M, 25k}

September ‘49  He hasn’t seen him since that day in France, that horrible muddy day where for one terrifyingly long second, Louis really thought he was going to die. He winces with the phantom pain, the hand not holding his cane going to his stomach automatically, remembering the franticness, the tenderness, of Harry’s hands while Louis was bleeding out.

This is the man who saved Louis’ life.

For one second, Louis fears Harry won’t recognise him, but his eyes widen when he turns to his left and they meet Louis’. He takes a step forward, reaching for him with a shaky hand before stopping himself.

“Louis,’ Harry says with a shudder and Louis doesn’t think his name has ever carried more weight.

This is the only man Louis ever thought about kissing for real.

“Oh,” Mrs. Padley says, clearly taken aback. “You two know each other?”

There are some things people never fully come home from. Until, one day, if they’re lucky, home comes to them.

✨ Don't Act Like It's a Bad Thing to Fall in Love by nightwideopen / @themarshalstale {G, 23k}

Louis was born blind, completely blind, leaving him with nothing but the absolute blackness that his lack of vision produces.

Harry, on the other hand, is deaf. No sound can be registered by the two tiny ears his rowdy, chocolate curls obscure so well.

The first time Louis and Harry meet, it’s sort of an accident.

✨ the sanctity of patience by @scrunchyharry {T, 22k}

When young Lord Harry was chosen by King Louis of Bavaria to become his husband and prince consort, Harry thought all of his dreams had come through. His illusions came crashing down when he understood it meant living in isolation in the alpine castle of Neuschwanstein with a husband who turned out to be far from what he had hoped for.

His illusions vanished, Harry will have learn to appreciate what has and even, perhaps, fall in love with his imperfect husband and his castle.

✨ some evening in springtime by delsicle / @eeveedel {M, 20k}

Fresh out of veterinary school, Louis moves to a sleepy small town in Texas to take over the local animal clinic. But his new life is quickly interrupted by a middle aged rancher with a bad leg and a mysterious past, who really needs Louis's yoga skills.

✨ Blind Faith by @2tiedships2 {M, 18k}

“Harry?” Liam prompted.

“I’m blind,” Harry eventually said, trying his best to keep himself from crying.

Liam was silent for a few moments, before responding, “That’s not exactly news, H. You were blind when I met you a year and a half ago. Have you been in denial this whole time or something?”

“No, Liam,” Harry cut in. “This is different. I’m not legally blind like I used to say. It’s not just my night vision. The tunnel from my tunnel vision has closed. I’m fucking blind! I moved halfway around the world in the hope of finding my soulmate and it’s obviously not happening now. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Not even a soulmate is going to want to put up with a blind alpha."

✨ Our love is special because it's you and I (series) by sweetkisses {NR, 11k}

"So what are you studying?" Harry asks.

"Accounting." Louis says quietly.

"Sweet. I don't know much about accounting but I do know that it means you must be pretty damn smart." Harry says nodding his head.

"Thanks." Louis giggles out and Harry didn't know it was possible for him to be more beautiful. "What, um, what are you studying?"

"Law." Harry says and lays his legs out in front of him as he places his hands behind him and tilts his head towards the sun.

"You must be pretty smart if you're studying law." Louis mocks with a smirk. Harry didn't expect the next words to ever come out of his mouth but this boy just does things to him.

"Two smart people make a genius couple."

or the four times Harry sees the beautiful boy in the wheelchair

✨ Heart Eyes by @snowy38 {E, 10k}

He fidgeted nervously, long fingers pushed through his soft fringe, fingertips lingering on the thick curls that he felt formed there. He hoped his hair looked okay. He hoped he looked okay.

He hoped-

“Oi oi!” Niall’s loud, Irish voice cut into the small space along with the loud chatter of the party; the door assumingly opened. He swallowed.

“Fuck off!” A northern accent complained; the sound of bodies wrestling before it went quiet again; the clunk of the lock confirming to him that his suitor was now locked inside.

Harry knew the voice. He knew. And if he hadn’t known the voice, he would have known the smoky, sweet scent of the boy before him. Seventeen years old, friends since they were eight, and they’d never been pushed into the kissing cupboard together before.

✨ Deep Within The Mystery of Your Eyes (I Am Home At Last) by patdkitten / @babyarcanacasey {M, 10k}

It's a world where you discover your soulmate after skin contact and finding your world exploding in colour. Louis has been blind his entire life. He makes do quite well, thank you very much, and he's glad that he doesn't have to see colours fade in and out of his world. Harry trains disability dogs, and, during a chance meeting with Louis at a local market, he discovers that Louis' his soulmate. He comes up with a wild scheme - train his current dog to be the perfect dog for Louis - in order to keep Louis in his life, and maybe convince him they're soulmates.

✨ the pain never leaves, but neither do you. (series) by Anonymous {M, 10}

Harry has fibromyalgia and Niall is an idiot, leaving Louis to bump into Harry at 6am in a hospital corridor. It ends up as something much more wonderful than Harry ever could have expected, stood with a walker in his ratty PJs after a nasty flare-up, and he finally finds someone who can love him just the way he is.

✨ I Roll 'til I Change My Luck by larry_hiatus / @larry-hiatus {T, 8k}

Dating is hard enough when you're gay. When Louis reveals to his Tinder matches that he uses a wheelchair and has a service dog, things tend to get even more complicated. Too bad the guys on dating apps aren't as sweet and understanding as his best friend Harry...

✨ Struggle by @1diamondinthesun {NR, 3k}

Louis had accepted long ago that he would always be alone in the world. Yet he often wondered what defined us as people: the cards we’d been dealt, or how we played them to survive.

Or, Louis is living with a chronic illness and growing tired of going it alone.

[batmannotes]

The Epic Saga Concludes with Part Three of the Highly Anticipated Trilogy!

Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths – Part Three   

Based on DC’s iconic comic book limited series ‘Crisis on Infinite Earths’ by Marv Wolfman and George Pérez, join DC Super Heroes from across the multiverse in the action-packed conclusion of the three-part DC animated film Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths – Part Three. The eagerly awaited film brings to a close the thrilling trilogy that marks the end to the Tomorrowverse story arc.

Produced by Warner Bros. Animation, DC and Warner Bros. Home Entertainment, the all-new, action-packed DC animated film features some of DC’s most famous Super Heroes from multiple universes including Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman, who come together to stop an impending threat of doom and destruction. Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths – Part Three will be available to purchase exclusively on digital on July 16 and on 4K UHD in limited edition steelbook packaging and Blu-ray on July 23.

Fans of this superhero adventure will also be able to indulge in a range of bonus features including interviews with the filmmakers on how they created a comprehensive universe across seven films.

Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths – Part One and Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths – Part Two are currently available on Digital, 4K UHD and Blu-ray.

Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths – Part Three features returning popular voice cast members: Jensen Ackles (Supernatural, The Boys, The Winchesters) as Batman/Bruce Wayne, Emmy winner Darren Criss (The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story, Glee) as Superman & Earth-2 Superman, Aldis Hodge (Straight Outta Compton, Black Adam) as Green Lantern/John Stewart, Meg Donnelly (Legion of Super-Heroes, High School Musical: The Musical: The Series,) as Supergirl & Harbinger, and Stana Katic (Castle, Absentia) as Wonder Woman & Superwoman, along with Corey Stoll (Ant-Man, Black Mass) as Lex Luthor.

The star-studded ensemble voice cast also includes Gideon Adlon as Batgirl, Ike Amadi as Martian Manhunter/J’Onn J’Onzz, Geoffrey Arend as Psycho Pirate/Charles Halstead, Troy Baker as The Joker & Spider Guild Lantern, Brian Bloom as Adam Strange & Sidewinder, Matt Bomer as The Flash, Ashly Burch as Nightshade & Queen Mera, Zach Callison as Earth-2 Robin & Robin/Damian Wayne, Kevin Conroy as Earth-12 Batman, Alexandra Daddario as Lois Lane, Brett Dalton as Bat Lash & Captain Atom, John Dimaggio as Lobo, Ato Essandoh as Mr. Terrific, Keith Ferguson as Doctor Fate & Two-Face, Will Friedle as Batman Beyond & Kamandi, Jennifer Hale as Hippolyta & Green Lantern Aya, Mark Hamill as Earth-12 The Joker, Jamie Gray Hyder as Hawkgirl & Young Diana, Erika Ishii as Doctor Light/Dr. Hoshi & Huntress, David Kaye as The Question & Cardonian Lantern, Matt Lanter as Blue Beetle, Liam McIntryre as Aquaman, Cynthia Kaye McWilliams as Dr. Beth Chapel & The Cheetah, Lou Diamond Phillips as The Spectre, Elysia Rotaru as Black Canary & Black Canary II, Matt Ryan as Constantine, Katee Sackhoff as Poison Ivy, Keesha Sharp as Vixen, Jimmi Simpson as Green Arrow, Jason Spisak as Blue Lantern Razer & Hayseed, Armen Taylor as The Flash/Jay Garrick, Gas Soldier & Executioner, and Dean Winters as Captain Storm.

Justice League Crisis on Infinite Earths – Part Three is produced by Jim Krieg and Kimberly S. Moreau and executive produced by Butch Lukic, Sam Register, and Michael Uslan. The film is directed by Jeff Wamester from a script by Jim Krieg. Casting and voice direction is by Wes Gleason. The film is based on characters from DC and the graphic novel “Crisis on Infinite Earths” by Marv Wolfman and George Pérez

Justice League Crisis on Infinite Earths – Part Three will be available on July 16 to purchase digitally from Amazon Prime Video, AppleTV, Google Play, Vudu and more. On July 23 the film will be available to purchase on 4K Ultra HD in limited edition steelbook packaging and Blu-ray Discs online and in-store at major retailers. Pre-order your copy now.

Additionally, the Justice League Crisis on Infinite Earths Trilogy will be available on July 16 to purchase digitally from Amazon Prime Video, AppleTV, Google Play, Vudu and more, and features an exclusive special feature - An Epic Challenge: Crisis in Comics and Animation.

SYNOPSIS:

Now fully revealed as the ultimate threat to existence, the ANTI-MONITOR wages an unrelenting attack on the surviving Earths that struggle for survival in a pocket universe. One-by-one, these worlds and all their inhabitants are vaporized! On the planets that remain, even time itself is shattered and heroes from the past join the Justice League and their rag-tag allies against the epitome of evil. But as they make their last stand, will the sacrifice of the superheroes be enough to save us all?​

SPECIAL FEATURES INCLUDE:

Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths – Part Three - Physical and Digital

A Multiverse of Inspiration

Jon and John: Stewart and Constantine

Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths Trilogy (Digital only)

An Epic Challenge: Crisis in Comics and Animation

Running Time: 98:06

Rated PG-13 for some violence and language.

*Digital version not available in Canada

Available exclusively on Digital on July 16

4K UHD in limited edition steelbook packaging and Blu-ray arriving on July 23

Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths Trilogy Also      

Available exclusively on Digital on July 16

Preorder at Amazon.

[whatsnewalycat]

acting lesson

pairing: dieter bravo x ofc louella

Summary: Dieter convinces you to roleplay with him.

Rating: Explicit (18+ ONLY)

Content Tags/Warnings: LDR, roleplay, bar, drinking alcohol (casual), dirty talk, swearing, public bathroom sex, D/s elements, fluff, impact play, pet names, hair pulling, blow job, unprotected piv sex, graffiti, football mention

Word Count: 4.3k+

Notes: In the Psychomanteum universe between Ch 12 & 13. Could be read as a one-shot. Based on this ask from @frannyzooey:

Dieter and Lou — roleplay He’s an actor, she’s….not 👀👀 How does he indulge her? ❤️

The idea first came up during one of your many phone calls with Dieter.

It was the kind of call that works as a surrogate for sitting in the room together, despite the some-odd 2,600 miles keeping you apart. Comfortable silences between organic conversation, running parallel to your evening routines. In LA, Dieter hummed to himself while rifling through his kitchen cabinets for snacks. In New York, you stared at up the marigold painting hung above your bed, and you asked him, “How do you act?”

“When I’m with you, like a fool.”

His voice purred through your phone speaker, low and warm. Heat bloomed in your chest and crept up your neck.

You giggled, “I mean, like, for your job. How do you do that?”

“I don’t know. I guess I try to channel the character and pretend to be them. You ever do plays in school or anything like that?”

“In fourth grade I got to play a munchkin in The Wizard of Oz. I had one line and I completely butchered it.”

He laughed, “Seems about right.”

“What is that supposed to mean?!”

“You’re just… very good at being yourself,” he said, and you could hear the smile in his words, “It’s not a bad thing, doll. I like that about you.”

A smile spread across your face. You hummed in acknowledgement.

“If you want, I can show you how I do it. Give you an acting lesson. You could be my scene partner,” he lowered his voice an octave, “We could make it fun.”

Something about this pricked your skin with excitement. You twisted a strand of hair around your finger and smirked, “How’s that?”

“Have you ever done roleplay?”

“Oh no,” you laughed, shaking your head, “I would be terrible at that—”

“Wait wait wait, hear me out,” he protested, “What if you got to play yourself?”

You quietly pondered this, then asked, “Who would you be?”

“I would be… a stranger at a bar. You’d just have to play along,” he rumbled, “Treat me like one of your hookups.”

Warmth trickled down your spine and pooled between your legs. You licked your lips and traced your collarbone over your shirt, “You’ve thought about this before.”

“Maybe.”

“I’m not opposed to the idea. It could be… hot.”

“Yeah?”

“Maybe next time I see you,” you conceded.

And so, this morning, while sipping coffee together out on his patio, he brought it up again.

“Do you remember when we talked about… an acting lesson?”

Your eyebrow quirked and you glanced over at him, “You mean roleplay?”

He shrugged, draping an arm around your shoulders, working his thumb against the starfruit tattoo on your arm, “How do you feel about it?”

“I wondered what it would have been like to meet you like that.”

“Me too,” he said, then scooted closer and murmured, “You know, I’ve always thought that was something so fucking sexy about you. The way you chew men up and spit them out.”

“Really?” you studied him.

The corner of his mouth tucked up in a smirk. His gaze bore into yours, “Abso-fucking-lutely.”

“Not you, though,” you brought your hand to his cheek and smoothed your palm along his cheek, “I like you.”

“No, not me,” he agreed, nuzzling into your touch, “But we can pretend. It’ll be an acting lesson, remember?”

“An acting lesson, yeah, that’s why you wanna do this. Not because you wanna fuck me in a bathroom stall, right?”

“It can be both,” he said, a devilish grin playing on his lips.

You couldn’t help but smile as you stared at him. His dark eyes flicked around your face, searching for an answer. When you released a reluctant sigh and frowned down into your coffee cup, he continued.

“I’ll give you some pointers beforehand, love. It’ll be fun. You just be you and pretend you don’t know me,” he purred, his voice growing lower and more persuasive, “I wanna see what it’s like to be used by you, Lua. Please. Let me be your piece of meat. Chew me up and spit me out.”

How could you say no?

When you step inside the door, it slams behind you. Outside, the sun still douses Los Angeles in daylight, but the underground bar shows no signs of it. Your eyes sting as they adjust to the darkness, and you find yourself momentarily blinded.

Slowly, things start to come into focus.

Neon beer signs and pucks of dim, golden light studding the low ceiling make their surroundings glow, reflecting off the dark wooden bar and high-top tables. A few clusters of people are scattered around at the tables, and one androgynous person sits at the bar, scrolling on their phone while taking occasional sips from a tall glass of beer. Over the speakers, “You Make Loving Fun” by Fleetwood Mac plays just a decibel too loud, but you have a feeling this is the standard music volume here.

It’s one of those places that seems unchanging. Static. You bet that if you walked in here at any moment, on any day, it would look and feel mostly the same.

You approach the bar and take a seat in one of the tattered barstools. Its red pleather sticks to your legs and back. One of the advantages and disadvantages of wearing your most fuckable dress: it’s really goddamn short.

“What’ll you be having tonight, miss?”

You look to the portly bartender and smile, “Vodka cranberry, please.”

He walks away, returning a minute later with your drink. You slide a twenty across the counter and thank him.

When the bartender brings you your change, he nods at the man pulling out the barstool next to you, who says, “Old fashioned.”

The bartender makes his drink and brings back your change. You leave a few bills on the rail as a tip, then lean back in your chair and look up at the TV. Two college football teams slam into each other on the screen.

The man sitting next to you is not discreet about his ogling. His eyes burn your skin, but you pay him no mind. You lift the drink to your lips and take a few quick gulps to hush the excitement bubbling up your neck.

He does the same, then you feel him lean towards you and ask, “Why do bars always play the most boring shit on TV?”

You look over at him, looking up and down his very expensive looking, and thusly very out-of-place, navy suit, obviously tailored just for him. The top three buttons are undone, revealing his smooth chest that gleams gold in the dim lighting. A lusty ache twists at your center.

You smirk and meet his deep brown eyes, “What, you don’t find the underlying threat of concussion-induced brain injuries to be exhilarating?”

The handsome “stranger” laughs, exposing this big, contagious smile, dimples tugging at his cheeks and everything, “I guess I never thought about it that way.”

You grin, staring down at your drink for a moment, then say, “I’ve found that if I go into it pretending it’s the first half of a horror story I’ll never know the ending to, it’s not as, umm,” a giggle escapes your throat, “fucking boring, y’know?”

“Wow,” he chuckles and shakes his head, “I’m not sure if I want to run for the hills or ask for your hand in marriage.”

“The first option is probably safer,” you wink, then take a sip of your drink.

His gaze lingers on you for a beat before he stammers, “I’m Diego, by the way.”

“Louella,” you take his outstretched hand and shake it.

He holds it there, grazing his thumb along your knuckles before pulling back, “What brings you out tonight? Meeting friends or something?”

You tilt your head at him, dragging your eyes across the broad expanse of his body, “Just, you know… seeing what’s out there.”

His throat rumbles and he drops his gaze to your lips, “Find anything?”

“Maybe,” you grin and take a sip of your drink, “What about you, Diego?”

“What about me?”

“You’re here, having a drink, talking to me. Is your evening going as you’d hoped?”

“Much better, actually,” he murmurs, leaning close, “Didn’t think I’d come across someone as gorgeous as you.”

You smile, and find yourself restraining laughter. Not because he’s doing bad or anything, but because he’s doing so good.

“Quite the smooth-talker, aren’t you?”

He grins, bobbing his shoulders in a shrug, “Is it working?”

At this, you do laugh. You tuck your hair behind your ear and depart from his lustful gaze, glancing down at your drink. A wide palm slides onto your back, warming the skin between your shoulder blades. The magnetic force of his body drawing close makes your breathing stutter.

“Listen,” his voice seems to melt, low and heated, into your ear, the baritone dripping down your spine, pooling between your legs, “If this is too forward, feel free to tell me to fuck off, but… do you want to have sex with me?”

You turn to find him just inches away, hooded eyes dark and heavy with want, flitting around your face like he’s brainstorming ways to make it contort with pleasure. You love seeing him like this. Needy. Aching. Putty in your hands.

“Tell me what you want to do to me, Diego,” you tell him in a throaty whisper, “And I’ll consider it.”

A flash of his pink tongue breaches his lips. He glances around as he scoots his barstool closer, knee brushing against yours, and murmurs in your ear, “As far as the venue goes, we have a couple options. Bathroom, out back, in my car—”

“Romantic,” you tease.

He raises an eyebrow at you, dragging his gaze from your face, down your neck, following the curve of your body, “But you don’t want romance, do you, Louella? That’s not why you’re here.”

“Oh yeah?” you tilt your head and bat your lashes at him, “Then why am I here?”

His throat rumbles. He leans so close, his breath scatters across your cheek when he says, “You’re here because you want to get fucked. Hard, preferably. You want me to bring you into that disgusting bathroom and stretch your sweet little cunt out with my fat cock, isn’t that right? You want me to squeeze your tits and use my teeth. You want it to hurt, not a lot, not enough to draw blood, but enough to make you feel something. Enough to make you feel… real,” he pauses here, smirking at you, licking his lips as he drops his gaze to your mouth, “Hmm? Isn’t that right, Louella?”

You swallow hard and nod, and realize you’re holding your breath. When you draw air in, it’s shaky and subdued.

“Will you let me do that for you?”

His touch trails up your bare leg and makes you shiver.

“Yes.”

He stands from the barstool and takes a cursory glance around, then nods at you, “Lead the way.”

Miraculously, the bathroom at this shitty dive bar is one of those no-stall, single-toilet situations with a deadbolt to keep the outside world at bay.

Dieter guides you through the threshold with his hand at the small of your back. You peer around the small, dim room, studying the graffitied black tile walls. Colorful tags, crudely drawn dicks, and witty remarks surround you on all sides. The scent of bleach burns your nostrils, which is a little disorientating, but you suppose it’s better than the alternative.

The lock clicks in place behind you.

When you turn to look at him, he’s already burying his fist in your hair and pushing your cheek against the cool tile wall. You gasp with surprise at the force he uses, exhaling a giddy laugh, and he murmurs in your ear, “What’s your safe word, baby?”

Your eyes dart around for inspiration, and you focus in on a cartoon giraffe wearing sunglasses, a cigarette dangling from his lips, next to a word bubble that reads: Giraffiti is cool!

“Giraffe.”

“Giraffe,” he repeats, and you nod as much as his grasp on your hair will allow.

He slides your skin-tight dress up to your waist and yanks your underwear down to your ankles, rumbling, “Fuck, look at this ass.”

His palm slides warm and gentle across one cheek, then he digs his fingers into the soft flesh and groans when you whimper. He lets go, and the deep, bruising grip is quickly replaced with a sharp, hard slap.

A gasp expands your lungs as heat tingles across the site.

“How’s that?”

“Fucking perfect,” you breathe, eyes drifting closed, mouth falling open. He does it again, same spot. Smack. This time you moan.

When he releases your hair, you stay where you are, with your hands and face all smushed up against the tile. He smooths gentle circles into your unmarred ass cheek. When it draws away, you flinch in anticipation, and he chuckles, “Too hard?”

“No.”

It’s followed by another smack, by pain and heat, and you hiss, “Fuck yes.”

His throat makes this noise that’s somewhere between a growl and a moan. He slides his hand around your front, between your legs, and he purrs, “You fucking love this, don’t you, Louella?”

“I do,” you whimper at his soft, exploratory touch, at the gentle way he spreads your arousal up and down your wet, hot middle. Fingertips dig into the curve of your ass and hold there. The contrast between his two hands is excruciating.

“What’s my name?”

Not thinking, you exhale, “Dieter.”

His gentle hand freezes against you. The other lays down a sharp smack that burns your skin and makes you whimper. He grinds out, “That’s not my fucking name. What’s my name?”

“Diego.”

“That’s right, sweetheart,” he coos, putting the hand against your pussy in motion, tracing around your clit, not touching it directly, flooding your body with a tingling, frustrated kind of excitement that makes your heart race and your breathing quicken.

You reach down and grab his wrist, pressing his hand into you harder, rolling your hips against it, and moan at the pressure it relieves.

He yanks his hand away from your grasp and buries it in your hair, pulling the strands taught, smacking your ass again, “Don’t you fucking dare.”

“Please,” you pout, arching your hips back towards him, “Please fuck me, Diego.”

All the air leaves his lungs and scatters across your back.

“Louella,” he rumbles, and all your insides clench at his low, patient cadence, at the way your name vibrates off his lips onto your shoulder, then he says, “You are fucking demanding, aren’t you?”

“No—”

Smack

A hot, searing pain from your battered ass cheek makes you gasp, then whimper. Arousal shoots up your spine. Your cunt aches with need.

“I’ll be patient—I’ll do whatever the fuck you want, Diego, please—”

“That’s it,” he coos, “You’re gonna be my little slut, hmm? Let me fuck you the way I want?”

“Yes.”

The word comes out with a throaty, needy force, almost a fucking sob. You want him so bad it hurts. He chuckles at this, at how fucking desperate you are right now.

“Get on your knees, baby.”

He releases you and steps back. You turn to face him, holding his lust-blown gaze as you drop to your knees like he asked.

“Show me how bad you want it.”

You nod in understanding, your shaky hands clambering at his belt buckle, unzipping his slacks, the mechanism all strained with the force of his bulge. You pull his pants and briefs down with a frantic kind of energy that makes him hum with amusement as he watches you.

His cock bobs out as his pants fall to his feet. You admire it for a moment. How it’s so thick and swollen and twitchy with need, delicate skin pulled taught, a sticky little bead of arousal sprouting up at the tip. You test its weight in your palm, grinning when you look up and see Dieter’s lips part and his eyelids flutter.

“That’s it, baby, show me how bad you want me to fuck that pretty little pussy.”

You open your mouth, batting your eyelashes up at him as you drag your tongue up his length. Again and again, painting his cock with your saliva, using flat, firm strokes, until it’s shiny and soaked with spit.

He moans when you stretch your lips out around him, rolling your tongue against the tip, the salty, heady dribble of pre-cum smearing into your tastebuds. You slide your lips further down his shaft and start to suck him off at a steady rhythm, bobbing your head along his length.

“Oh my fucking god,” he gasps, eyebrows threading together, nodding down at you, “You’re so fucking good at that. Do you like sucking cock, baby, hmm?”

You look up to meet his eyes, mouth all full and stretched out from him, and answer anyway, “Mhmm.”

“Fuck yes you do—you fucking love it, don’t you?”

You pull off of him, replacing your mouth with your hand, jerking him off as you whine, “Yes I do, I fucking love it—”

He grabs your hair and forces his cock back in your mouth, gritting out, “Did I fucking tell you to stop?”

A moan surfaces from your guts. His head rolls back and he twitches against your tongue. You take the length of his cock faster now, the stretched-out band of your lips slick and tingling. He pets your hair and holds your gaze, watching you with awe as you work, quiet groans falling from his parted lips.

The doorknob jiggles, then there’s a knock.

“Occu—”

You sit up higher to plunge your mouth down on him, jamming his cock down your throat. His mouth falls open and he moans while you move in short, quick strokes. A wet gurgling noise echoes off the tiles back into your ears.

There’s another jiggle. Another knock. A faint, feminine, “Hello?”

You pull off of him, gasping for air while you wrap your hand around his cock and stroke him as he hollers, “Occupied!”

A beat goes by while he stares at the door before he brings his focus back to you, shaking his head, kicking his pants off over his shoes, “Get up.”

Your underwear tangle around your heels and trip you up. By the time you yank them off and toss them aside, Dieter has grown impatient. He rips you off the floor by your armpits, pushing your back against the cool tile wall.

Beneath you, your shaky legs buckle, but he slips an arm around your waist to prevent you falling.

As if second nature, he looks you over and draws his body close, cupping your cheek with his palm.

And… fuck, the way he stares at you, with this warm, attentive gaze… you know he wants to kiss you. You know he wants to hold you close and whisper sweet somethings in your ear. He wants to tell you he loves you and that he’ll never stop loving you, forever and ever until he’s dust, and maybe even then, if dust has feelings.

It’s all Dieter, not Diego.

You grin and search his face, then whisper, “You broke character.”

He narrows his eyes for just a moment, as if trying to process what you said. When he realizes you’re right, this big amused smile spreads across his face and he chuckles, “You hush.”

You link your hands at the back of his neck, “We can rewind.”

His throat rumbles as he considers this, brushing his knuckles along the side of your face, glancing down at your lips. The grip around your waist tightens and his hips sway a little.

“You just wanna kiss me and make sweet, sweet love to me, don’t you?”

“Maybe,” he grins, pressing his forehead against yours.

You giggle and comb your fingertips through his mess of curls, “You big softie.”

His smile falters a little and he shrugs, “Sorry.”

Your stomach twists.

“Hey, no,” you pull back enough to meet his eyes and shake your head, “It’s one of my very favorite things about you.”

He furrows his brow and blinks, “Really?”

“Yes,” you giggle, rubbing your palm against his cheek. He nuzzles into your touch and you tell him, “Diego is hot, but Dieter? My Dee? I fucking love him. And he’s hot.”

A bright, bashful smile spreads across his face. He meets your gaze with those loving, loving eyes and asks, “Can I fucking kiss you now?”

“Oh my god, plea—”

His lips cut you off, pressing into yours with passionate force. From its place pinned between your bodies, his cock twitches. He brings a hand to the back of your head and renews the kiss, pulling you closer, slotting his mouth against yours.

You whimper at the velvet of his tongue. The tug of his fingers clamping down in your hair. The persistent, pulsing current where your bodies meet.

The two of you seem to lose yourself here, in the heated kissing and touching and writhing, forgetting your presence in the restroom has a time limit.

Another knock on the door. Harder. Impatient.

Dieter parts from your swollen lips, his mouth a mess of your red lipstick, and hollers at the door, “Give me a minute!”

Then he turns back to you, his gaze all obsidian want, and mutters, “We better hurry before they ram the goddamn door down.”

“How do you want me?” you ask, batting your lashes at him, trailing a fingernail along his jawline.

“Just like this.”

Sometimes you forget how strong he is.

When he lifts your hips you let out a little yelp of surprise and hook your arms around his shoulders.

“Legs around my back, love, I got you,” he breathes. The wall bears some of your weight as you lean against it and wrap your legs around him. He settles in closer, shifting his hips under yours. The tip of his cock nudges your entrance.

“Are you ready?” he asks, caressing your cheek with the slope of his nose.

Normally, he has to work himself in slow. Let your body adjust to the stretch of him in increments. So you know what he means when he asks this.

But when you nod, and he loosens his grip to let gravity take you down, it still shocks you. The pain is immediate. And exquisite. You bury a deep, guttural moan into his shoulder and dig your nails into his skin. Your eyes flutter shut and you inhale a few sharp breaths.

“Fffffuck,” he hisses when you can go no further, “So fucking tight, holy fuck.”

All you can respond with is a whimper. He holds you here, impaled, not moving, as you start to relax around him and the pain condenses into a gooey ember right at the center of you.

“That’s it, love.”

His hips start to roll slow, dragging his cock along your walls, sending sparks up your spine.

“Fuck, Dee,” you gasp.

He snatches a kiss from your trembling lips and asks, “Too much?”

Your mouth gapes open with a ragged moan and you press your sweaty forehead into his, “Issss perfect—So fuuucking good—“

He lets out a raspy chuckle, “Listen to you, Lua, all fucking cock drunk, fuck—”

The laugh you release is delirious, and quickly devolves into moaning as he starts to fuck you faster. He’s not wrong. You feel disoriented and tingly, like you’ve been launched into space and you’re no longer on Earth, but on Planet Dieter.

You can tell he’s starting to unravel when he pants all kinds of filthy things against your frantic breathes, fueling the fire licking your insides, pulling you closer and closer to your ascent.

“You fucking love when I stretch your cunt out, don’t you doll? Hmm?”

You whimper and nod.

“Say it.”

“I—I fucking love w-when you stretch my cunt out.”

“Who’s my little slut?”

“I’m your little slut, Dee—oh, fuck—”

“That’s fucking right, baby,” he grunts, fucking you harder, faster. You clamber up his body, tugging on his hair, pulling him closer, gasping at the brilliant heat expanding at the base of your spine.

“Don’t fucking stop, don’t fucking stop, fuck fuck fuckfuckfuck,” you sob, drawing one more sharp inhale before you fall off the edge, ecstasy shattering you into a thousand pieces, then bringing you back together whole.

“Fuck yes, baby, there we go—oh my fucking god—”

Dieter’s hips drive up into you with a handful of rough, deep thrusts, while your whole body shudders and you release a choked moan. His echoes alongside yours, harmonizing in this unrestrained, unmistakably feral noise.

Every ounce of pressure held under your sweat-drenched, tingling skin deflates.

“Holy fucking shit, Dee,” you pant, ripping your sticky legs away from his, trying to find solid ground.

He lowers you to your feet, and you both stumble back a little, chests heaving, grinning at each other like mad.

“God, I love you,” he says, shaking his head as he doubles over to catch his breath, then he glances around and mutters, “I need to lay down.”

Three hard bangs against the door make you both jump.

“Are you done fucking yet?”

Your wide eyes meet his for a terrified moment, then you both burst with laughter.

“Yeah, give us a second,” Dieter calls back, then scoops his pants off the ground. After adjusting your dress and collecting your underwear, you walk to the sink to wash your hands and notice something resting between the faucet and wall: a metallic silver sharpie.

A smile spreads across your face. You grab it and hold it up to Dieter, who’s buckling his pants, “Do you want to do the honors, or should I?”

He raises his eyebrows when he glances up at you, and when he realizes what you’re implying, grins like a madman, “May I?”

You hand him the sharpie and he finds an unmarred section of black tile on which to write the message, framing the words with a frilly Valentine’s Day heart: DEE + LUA 4EVA!

[sparklypinkflightsuit]

Predator and Prey: Chapter Three

Pairing: Tommy Cahill x Reader

Warnings: 18+ ONLY, Minors do not interact, Slow Burn, War Inaccuracies, Swearing, Mention of PTSD but barely, Stalking, Abuse, Sexual Themes, Alcohol & Drugs, I think that’s it?

Summary: You and Tommy open up to one another about your difficult pasts.

- Chapter Two Here -

—————————-

The police had come and gone and they weren’t able to find anyone in your house. They’d checked the window latch which worked fine and said you must have opened the window to let in some fresh air and forgotten to close this, and the intruder must have taken what they wanted and left.

Regardless, you still didn’t feel safe, nothing was missing and you pretty much never opened the windows in the winter months, you were not a fan of the cold, and you couldn’t understand why Jet hadn’t scared them away. After all he was a big Alsatian and looked scary to anyone who didn’t know him as the goofball he actually was.

You didn’t sleep that night, instead you held up in the living room with Jet and watched reruns of The Office in the hopes of lightening your mood.

By morning you were exhausted, but you got up and left for work like any other morning, and made a mental note to buy some security cameras next time you went to the tech store.

The next few days passed uneventfully, and despite the discomfort you now felt in your own home, you were looking forward to your coffee date with Tommy.

Saturday morning arrived and you got dressed in your favourite jeans and oversized sweater, and gave Jet a big fuss before leaving. You made sure to double check that you had locked the door and windows before leaving, something you never second guessed before this week, and made your way to the local Cafe, the Toasted Bean.

Tommy waited for you outside, and quickly stubbed out his cigarette when he noticed you walking up to him.

“Sorry.” He mumbled with a sheepish grin, grinding his heel into the cigarette to make sure it was out, and held the door open for you to go in.

Once you had ordered drinks, you both sat near the window. You spoke about light hearted subjects for the first hour or so, only getting up to replace your drinks, and found it easy to be in each others presence.

“So…. You don’t have to tell me if you don’t feel comfortable, but, do you mind me asking what you went to prison for?” You asked, smiling gently and not wanting Tommy to think it was a dealbreaker. He had said it was nothing too terrible anyway.

Tommy grimaced and rubbed the back of his head, before looking you in the eye and sighing.

“I don’t mind, I just don’t want you to think I’m a bad guy or anything.” He looked a little sad, before continuing. “But I guess if you don’t hear it from me you’ll hear it from someone else, so here goes…”

Tommy told you the story of how he robbed a woman at gun point when he was desperate for money, having been in a dark place and too proud to ask his father or brother, he felt he had no other choice. He told you detail by detail how it had gone wrong, the woman had recognised him as Hank Cahills son and the police were called. He had never intended on using the gun and it wasn’t actually loaded, but the whole thing looked extremely bad and he was sentenced to 3 years. He told you how he had apologised to the woman when he got out and how she was thankful, and Tommy said he could never bring himself to do something like that ever again.

You believed him and gave him a soft smile, reaching across the table to squeeze his hand gently.

“I don’t think that makes you a bad guy.” You said. “I just think everyone has at least one shitty point in their lives when they do something totally out of character, and it seems that was yours.”

Tommy smiled and squeezed your hand back.

“What about you, I’ve been meaning to ask what your life was like before you left New York?” He asked, not realising he’d touched on a sensitive subject.

You took a sharp intake of breath and slowly pulled your hand out of his before putting your hands in your lap.

“Well, I guess since you’ve told me yours I better tell you mine.” You laughed awkwardly.

You then told Tommy how you had been living in and working in New York after college and you had met Jason when you’d gone out for drinks with some colleagues.

He had seemed charming at first, and you’d started dating, eventually moving in together and getting your dog Jet as a puppy. The first 3 years were idillic, and Jason was charismatic, kind, fun and everything you could have asked for.

Everything changed suddenly one night when Jason went to a rave with his friends, having taken some unknown drugs, something in him changed and he was never the same after that night.

Jason started waking up in a frenzy most nights, pacing up and down the hallway muttering to himself. Once you had made the mistake of trying to wake him from his crazed sleep walking, only for him to pin you against the wall by your throat, muttering “He’s coming, he’s coming for us.”

You had been terrified, and when you’d confronted him about it the next day, he didn’t remember a thing and called you crazy.

The nights were bad but eventually the days became even worse, with Jason’s temper getting the best of him. He’d began accusing you of bringing men home in the night, and having secret relationships in the apartment under his nose, and that you’d sent men after him to assassinate him so you could move on with your life. He’d started smashing plates against walls, kicking furniture across the room, and the straw that broke the camels back was when he started hitting you.

You’d called it quits, and you were quite tearful despite how afraid you now were of him, because you had had the best 3 years with him before that awful night, but this was not the life you signed up for.

You moved into a new apartment with Jet and tried to move on, but the problem was that all of your friends were originally Jason’s friends to begin with, and their loyalties lay with him. Jason had told everyone that the reason you’d ended things was because you were cheating on him with someone else, and his friends believed him over your “far fetched” story.

Jason had asked your friends to keep tabs on you, and at first you couldn’t understand how he’d kept turning up to the same events and bars as you, just lurking in the corners of rooms with a dark look in his eyes, but eventually you’d clocked on that your friends had been involved.

You decided to withdraw from social engagements altogether, and saved every dime you had instead. You were good at saving and already had a rather decent sum, although you had no idea what you planned to do with it.

One night while you and Jet were curled up on the sofa in your new apartment watching a movie, there was a knock on your door.

You had ordered pizza that night so assumed it was the delivery boy, and got money from your purse before walking to the door. You didn’t think to check before opening it, and were met with Jason leaning against your door frame with a maniacal grin on his face.

“Jason! How did you know were to find me?” You stuttered out, surprised, stumbling backwards. Big mistake.

Jason pushed his way into your apartment and closed the door behind him, blocking the exit. He didn’t answer, but you’d assumed one of your mutual friends had given him your new address.

Jason looked deranged, his hair wet and plastered to his forehead, his unfaltering grin and his hands in his jacket pockets.

“I’m gonna need you to leave.” You stated coldly.

Jet jumped off the sofa and went to greet Jason with a wag in his tail, you stopped him before he got too close. “Jet, no boy. Go lay down.” You instructed. Jet obeyed and slunk off with a huff to the sofa, laying down with puppy dog eyes, upset he didn’t get to say hello.

“See how much he misses me, (Y/N)?” Jason finally spoke. “I think it’s time you came home.”

You laughed a sarcastic laugh, shaking your head.

“You can’t be serious. After everything? No, Jason, you need to leave or I’ll have to call the cops.” You said, grabbing your phone from the kitchen counter top.

Before you could dial anything, Jason pulled his hand out of his pocket revealing a long, thin knife, one typically used to fillet beef. He must have had to poke a hole in his pocket to fit it in there.

The air left your lungs as all rational thinking stopped. You froze in the spot, unsure of what to do.

“You honestly think I’m just going to let you go huh? So that you can move on with someone else? You’ve wasted 3 fucking years of my life, (Y/N)!” He shouted, an angry expression replacing the grin.

“He’s finally here, (Y/N), he’s come for us and he won’t take me without you. If you don’t come willingly, well…. He didn’t say he needed you alive.” He laughed sinisterly.

This was all a game to Jason now, he didn’t actually care about you, he just wanted revenge or to feed whatever messed up hallucinations he was having.

“Who has come for us, Jason? Are you in trouble with someone? Do you owe money? I can give you the money you need!” You spluttered, your mind racing for any way to get out of this situation. You knew if you went with him you would never leave, so that was absolutely not an option.

Jason laughed and gripped the sides of his head as if trying to stop it from falling off, and looked at you with an exasperated expression, the knife precariously close to his eye.

“You just don’t get it do you? You never did! This is the problem with people like you, (Y/N), you scum of the earth ruin all things good for people like me!” He shouted, pointing the knife at you like an appendage, spit flying out of his mouth.

At this point you were shaking, the man in front of you was not rational, nothing you could say would bring him off the edge, and you knew he was on the brink of snapping.

You looked right out of the corner of your eye, mentally calculating if you could make the short distance to the couch to grab Jet and sprint to the bathroom. It seemed unlikely, Jason was too close to you, but you refused to go anywhere without your dog, as you had no idea just how far this man would go to get to you.

You spied a heavy vase on your kitchen island, and without a second thought you grabbed it and launched it at Jason’s head.

It landed with a heavy crashing noise and you took the opportunity. You turned on your heel and sprinted towards the couch.

Jason dizzily gripped his head, blood dripping onto his hands. He shook his head in an attempt to clear his vision.

You grabbed Jet with all of your strength, thinking it quicker to scoop the large dog into your arms than to take him by the collar. The adrenaline making him feel lighter than he was. Jason had regained his sense of awareness and started to close the short gap, a dead look now cast over him.

You skid into the bathroom, lobbing Jet as carefully as you could inside before swinging around to shut the door, but Jason was too quick, grabbing you by the hair and slamming your head onto the bathrooms tiled floor.

His weight on top of you was too much to shift and now you felt dizzy, trying your best to push the knifed hand away from your neck without much luck. You could feel the blade cutting the skin while Jets barking faded into muffled sounds, you had realised this was it.

You closed your eyes, not wanting your last memory to be of those cold, disturbed eyes you had once loved. You waited for the cold blade to penetrate your windpipe. You waited, and waited, and suddenly the weight on top of you lifted.

Slowly you opened your eyes, and your hearing rushed back, loud and intrusive, with Jets booming barks continuing.

Jason was now slumped over next to you, unconscious. The pizza delivery boy stood over him with a heavy stone paperweight from your coffee table, eyes wide and hands shaking.

The pizza boy waited with you until the police arrived, after they took his statement you thanked him profusely and gave him the biggest tip he had seen in his life.

You gave the police the full run down of how things with Jason had been since that night, and they took him away.

You made a decision that night to pack your things and get the hell out of dodge, not stopping until you found somewhere far enough to settle down.

You finished your story and finally looked up to Tommy, thinking he’d laugh at you and call your story far fetched, but instead he looked wracked with guilt for something he didn’t do. He got out of his chair without another word, walked around to your side and gently grabbed your arm to pull you into a standing position. He looked at you incredulously for a second, before pulling you into a hug.

You were surprised for a moment, but after a few seconds you melted into his warmth. You knew this would be a good thing, Tommy held no malice, something you had to realise not all men had.

——————————

- Chapter Four Here -

[harmonity-vibes]

Pick your favorite character❤️‍🔥

[charliehoennam]

rule: post a poll with five of your favorite characters and let your followers choose their favorite

thanks to @sizzlingcloudmentality for the tag! I just know this is gonna be hard as hell 🥺

tagging @laurfilijames, @gyllenhaalstories, @harmonity-vibes, @potter-solomons, @velocibeewords @gyll-yee-haw & anyone else who like to take part and tag me!

Sorry if you've been tagged before!

[danime25]

So uh guess im adding Lou Bloom and Detective Loki to my list of characters I'll take requests on. Just FYI

[lust4life01]

Hi! 💛

I saw this in another fandom and now I'm sending the same question to a bunch of Jake girlies (gn) because it’s so interesting seeing everybody’s answers!

Who are your Top 3 Jake boys and why? Is there a specific piece of art (fic, gif, fan art, etc.) for them that you like a lot?

Hello!!💘

I’m honoured to answer this question 👏

It’s so hard to choose because let’s be real here there hasn’t been a single era that hasn’t made me feral, BUT, I would 100% say I prefer older Jake.

In terms of character I would say my top three are probably;

1.) Anthony Swofford - Jar Head (even though he’s not old😭)

• Something about him in this ALWAYS gets me, like it’s criminal too be that fine. Plus I wanna lick his bald head ;)) -literally any TikTok edit will have me giggling tbh

2.) David Loki and Adam Bell - Prisoner + Enemy

• They are on a similar level for me. Love a sad little tortured man portrayed by Denis Villeneuve. Whilst they’re pretty different characters that element of mystery that surrounds them is so infatuating to me.

I also just think Jake with a gun or in a white shirt is so hot 😽

- I think I’ve potentially read every fic for David Loki on this app and again the edit for him do not disappoint. Although I would love to see more stuff for Adam Bell </3

3.) Recently Dalton - Road House has taken the third spot potentially, maybe before it was Joe from The Guilty?. ALTHOUGH, Rusty from ‘Presumed Innocent’ just from the preview it looks highly probable that he will become my number one after June 12th😩

- @gyllenhaalstories blog has both incredible fics for Dalton as well as jaw dropping gifs from the ‘Presumed Innocent’ preview!

Underrated characters: WILDLIFE!! Jake as a pathetic dilf from the 60s?? HELLO?

Slightly ashamed to say but Lou Bloom🫣 I cannot explain this one. Scary? Yes. Would I smash? Yes.

In terms of era (even though all are great) I would say recent years Jake ranks highly as well as Spider man era. (I think about these pictures TOO much)

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THE QUESTION!! The obsessive rant is now over 🎀