#ok the ending about hope & for him to really hammer it in with talking about. uh

[yuujispinkhair]

How you get the girl

He knows how ironic this is. He is Sukuna, the guy who is known to always wear a smug smirk on his tattoed face and have a snide remark ready at all times. And yet, when you stand in front of him and confess your feelings to him, he is at a total loss for what to do.

Aka Sukuna is a lovesick mess who fucks things up on the first try because being open about his feelings is really not his strength but then makes up for it again.

Pairing: Sukuna x Reader (female) Genre: fluff, College AU Word Count: 1.9k Warnings: Light angst with a happy ending. Sukuna struggles with opening up about his feelings. Kissing. All characters are of age. Minors don't interact.

"And that's why...I mean, what I want to say is, I love you, Sukuna."

You stand in front of him, wringing your hands nervously after saying all those sweet things about him that he never knew he was, and look up at him with a hopeful look in your pretty eyes. And Sukuna feels like he has been hit by a truck as he stares at you with wide maroon eyes and his heart hammering in his chest.

He knows how ironic this is. He is Sukuna, the star player of the basketball team, the popular asshole who gets invited to every party, the guy with the bad boy reputation, who is known to always wear a smug smirk on his tattoed face and have a snide remark ready at all times. And yet, when you stand in front of him and confess your feelings to him, he is at a total loss for what to do.

There are a lot of things going through his head. A lot of things he could confess to you. Like how much he likes spending time with you. Or that he thinks about your smile all day. Or that he likes how you laugh about his jokes and always play along when he says something teasing.

He knows he should be honest and tell you how weirdly full his chest feels when he holds you and that he likes it so much how you fit so perfectly into his arms and against his tall, muscular body. That it makes him want to protect you and care for you, just like the way you care for him so lovingly. He knows he could tell you that you are always his last thought before he falls asleep and the first one when he wakes up.

But he doesn't do any of that. He is frozen somehow. This big bad guy, who is always so loud and confident, is standing there staring at you with wide maroon eyes, nervously pushing his tongue piercing against the back of his incisors while he tries to think of what to say to you.

It's too much, too intense. He is good at flirting. He is good at kissing and fucking and sweet talk. But he isn't good at this!

Sukuna opens his mouth only to close it again, unable to put this overwhelming whirlwind of feelings into words. Or maybe it's not even that. Maybe it's not that he doesn't know what to say, but rather that everything he would say right now would feel too honest, too raw, and that is something that scares him. He has always been the rough one, the one who wears a mask of arrogance and indifference that lets him hide how he really feels.

Maybe that is why all he manages to say is,

"Thank you, princess."

He sees your face fall and hears a shaky breath escape your lips. You try to mask your disappointment, lips lifting in a forced smile as you back away from him with shiny eyes.

"You're welcome... I ... I will just go then. Bye, Sukuna."

He has never felt as helpless as when he stands there with his hands balled into fists as he watches you turn around and leave hastily.

He tries to pretend this moment never happened, tries to tell himself he did nothing wrong. It's fine. His reaction was a normal one. Things will be ok. You will come up to him tomorrow and roll your eyes and tease him about how he stood there like an idiot, and he will laugh and pull you against him and tell you that your beauty left him speechless and that, of course, he feels the same!

But that doesn't happen.

He doesn't see you anywhere in the next few days. There are no texts from you either. You're avoiding him, aren't you? Your friends send death glares his way when he passes them in the hallway.

He loses track of how often he pulls his phone out of the back pocket of his skinny jeans, just for his fingers to hover over your last message to him, unable to find the courage to type something.

The new episode of your favorite show airs tonight. He watches it. Of course, he does. He always does, even though he finds it boring and thinks the actors are super bad. But he watches it because you like it, and so he can talk to you about it. But tonight, you aren't in his bed to watch with him, and you aren't texting him about it either.

So Sukuna grabs his phone and finally texts you. He sends text message after text message all through the episode, commenting on the newest scandal and on the outfits of the main characters.

He doesn't get a reply.

On the fourth day, he sits in the living room with his brother, playing video games and losing round after round because his mind is too occupied with missing you and stressing about why he did what he did. And suddenly, he can't stop himself from throwing the controller on the floor and blurting out,

"I fucked up."

Yuuji looks at him with a questioning look,

"Do you mean in the game or something else? Are you in trouble?"

And Sukuna laughs gruffly and hides his face in his hands as he shakes his head. Luckily, his brother is persistent and doesn't leave him alone. The brat bugs him until Sukuna finally spills it out,

"She told me she loves me."

He doesn't even have to say your name. Yuuji knows. Of course, he does. He blinks at Sukuna in confusion.

"And what is the problem? That is amazing news!"

"I said thank you."

The seconds tick away, and Yuuji stares at him as if waiting for him to say more. Sukuna huffs and shakes his head before he adds,

"That's all. I thanked her... and then she left."

"What do you mean you thanked her, Kuna? What the fuck!? That isn't an acceptable way to reply to a love confession!"

"As if I don't know that! I... shit, I didn't know what to say! I was overwhelmed!"

He glares at his twin, desperation turning him into a hot, angry mess. Maybe he shouldn't have said anything. He should grab his gym bag and go lift some weights and hit a punching bag until he is too exhausted to think!

But Yuuji's voice stops him.

"But.. but don't you like her? You looked so happy with her."

"Of course I do! I like her a lot."

He hates how soft his voice becomes when he says the last part. He hates how weak he feels when he feels his mask slip and knows he isn't able to hide the pain in his heart.

But luckily, this is Yuuji, his twin, the brat that has been practically attached to his hip ever since he was born three minutes after Sukuna. It's ok if he sees Sukuna like that. This is the little brother who loves Sukuna no matter what shitty situation he gets himself into. The brother who is so much better at being open about his feelings. The brother who isn't scared to tell him off when Sukuna does something stupid.

"When what are you still doing here, you idiot? Get the fuck up and go to her and talk to her! I will throw you out and lock the door! I am serious, Kuna! You only come back here after you made things ok again with your girl!"

It's ridiculous that he needs his younger brother to kick his ass and tell him what to do. It's absolutely pathetic that he jogs through the rain in the middle of the night to buy a huge bouquet of red roses and then bangs on your door with his pink hair dripping wet and his soaked-through white t-shirt sticking to his abs uncomfortably.

But maybe it's good to be pathetic sometimes because you don't slam the door into his face but look at him with a hopeful expression on your face and a soft,

"Hey, Sukuna."

He doesn't give a fuck anymore at that point. He doesn't care that he is standing in a small puddle of rainwater dripping down from his wet clothes. He doesn't care that his hand trembles when he pushes the roses into your arms. He doesn't care if the whole dorm hears him when he says,

"I am sorry! I was an idiot. You said all those sweet things to me, and in my head were so many things I wanted to tell you too, but I messed up."

He runs a large hand through his wet hair and slicks it back again, looking at you with eyes that glitter suspiciously, but he can blame it on the rain sticking to his long lashes,

"I like you too. Every minute with you was the best I ever had. I see your face in my mind all the time. Last week, I started laughing in the middle of the grocery store because I remembered something funny you said to me. I messed up my last exam because I was too distracted thinking about how your hand feels in my hair. I only feel ok when you are next to me because if you are not there, I feel like there is a crucial part of me missing. I know I suck at talking about my feelings, but that doesn't mean I don't have a hundred thousand of them when it comes to you, and all of them are fucking good and intense and drive me crazy and... I just.. fuck, I love you, princess. I love you, and I am so sorry!"

He feels out of breath, maybe from running through the rainy streets or maybe from letting out all of those words that make him feel so fucking vulnerable when being vulnerable was the one thing he always tried to avoid at all costs.

But there is this happy smile on your face. The smile he missed so damn much. And he knows it was worth it that he ran through the rain and spilled his heart out in the staircase of your dorm.

It was all worth it because you take a step towards him with happy tears in your eyes and a soft,

"Oh, Kuna."

And the next thing he knows is you are in his arms again, your warm body pressing tightly against his, not caring about his wet clothes. Your arms wrap around his neck, and your fingers play with the short hair of his undercut, making him let out a soft sigh. And you get on your tiptoes to kiss him right when he wraps his tattoed arms around your waist and pulls you even closer.

He can hear loud cheers and applause coming from somewhere in the staircase, but he really doesn't give a fuck anymore who heard his love confession. The whole world can know how he feels about you. He will shout it from the rooftop and punch everyone in the face who has a problem with it, if it means he can hold you again and kiss you and feel your smile against his lips.

I made myself cry thinking about this scene and then I HAD to write it aaaaah. I am so weak when Sukuna is a mess, it just makes me want to hug him and ruffle his hair and never let him go again. I am obsessed I think.

Thank you so much for reading!! I hope you enjoyed it and that you are weak for this mess of a boy too ;)

Comments and reblogs would be very sweet.

#sukuna x reader #sukuna x you #sukuna #jjk x reader #jjk x you #sukuna fluff #sukuna x y/n

[noosayog]

Hi! I saw request were open for your Valentine's Day event! I'm so so so excited! May I request reader x Hinata where reader almost didn't give Hinata chocolates from being so nervous, but eventually works up the courage and Hinata is overjoyed to receive chocolates from his crush? Thanks so much for the consideration and excited to read all the pieces you plan to share with us! <3

thank u for sending a request! this is my first time writing hinata so i hope u like it!

wc: 700

valentine's masterlist, regular masterlist

“Hey, Kageyama.” 

The setter doesn’t look up as he continues to furiously copy your homework. “What?”

“Do you know what day today is?” Hinata asks. 

“February 14th.” 

“That’s not what I meant.” 

“Tuesday.” 

“Not that either. It’s Valentine’s Day.” 

“And?” 

“Did you receive… you know… any…” Hinata’s eyes dart to you for the quickest of seconds. 

“What?

Another voice interrupts. “Talking about these?” 

Hinata looks up to find Tsukishima and Yamaguchi walking into the classroom. Dangling in Tsukishima’s hand are 3 baggies, obviously filled with some sort of chocolate baked good. 

Hinata’s eyes bulge. “You got three already!?” 

Tsukishima smirks, “more than you will, I’m sure.”

Kageyama looks up from his homework. “Oh, yeah,” he says. He reaches into his desk and pulls out his own baggie and a box. “These were in my shoe locker this morning.” 

Hinata falls to his knees and calls out, “Why?!” 

– 

When afterschool practice rolls around, Hinata is at the end of his rope. All throughout drills, he noticed people milling about the entrance, sitting on the bleachers, and calling out to various members of the volleyball team. Each time one of them would return to the gym, expression slightly sheepish and holding a little gift in their hands. Almost everyone, except Hinata, ended the day with at least one present. 

Dejected, Hinata cleans up the gym with the rest of the first-years before picking up his bag and making his way to the bike racks after bidding the group a good evening. 

He lets out a deep sigh, hopping on this bike and hoping his blue spring will come next year. Before he begins pedaling though, a call of his name stops him. 

“Hinata! Wait!” 

Your voice has him swiveling around to find you out of breath and running in his direction. He obediently waits until you’re standing in front of him, hands on your knees to catch your breath. 

Foolishly, Hinata’s hopes fly up like the hammer machine at an amusement park. He watches you with anticipatory eyes, trying to feign nonchalance when he asks you what’s up. 

He watches with bated breath when your hands reach into your bag. He can practically envision himself, tail wagging, ears perked up. 

“Um!” you announce, eyes nervously darting side to side. “Have the rest of the first-years left already?” 

Hinata’s chest deflates just as quickly. “Oh,” he says. “Yeah.” 

“So, it’s just you left?” 

“Yeah. Sorry about that.” 

“What? No! Why are you apologizing?” 

“No reason. Just forget it,” he says, already turning to get back on his bike. “Well…” he trails off awkwardly. “See you tomorrow?” 

You reach a hand out to grab his bag. “Wait! Actually, I was hoping… that you might…” 

He looks at you. 

“Well. I made these,” your hand comes out of your bag to show him a bag of sweets. “And I was hoping… that you might accept them.” your tone rises at the end, making it sound more like a question. 

Hinata’s eyes widen, as he looks from you to the chocolates and back to you. 

“For me?” 

“Yeah… yep.” you nod. “Oh! But if you don’t like chocolate, it’s totally ok. And no hard feelings if you don’t want them. I mean, I totally get it.” You’re really rambling now. “Or maybe you’re… like… allergic? Oh my god, that’s it, huh? I’m so sorry, I promise I’m not trying to kill you and-” 

You’re rambling now and luckily, Hinata stops you by picking you up and spinning you in circles. Your brain barely processes what’s happening, with Hinata’s arms wrapped tightly around your waist, you pressed chest to chest with him, and your legs flailing about as he spins the both of you. 

You look down at him, his unfiltered joy completely and utterly open on display on his face. Soon, you find it hard not to giggle along, evolving into full on belly laughter until he puts you down. 

“Are these really for me?!” he asks. 

You nod, remnants of your laughing session still present as a ghost of a smile on your lips. 

He accepts them and opens it right away to chomp at the chocolate cupcake you prepared. After swallowing the first bite, he grins at you, all teeth. “Thanks! This is great!” 

After he polishes off the last bite, he licks the crumbs off his finger. 

“You know,” he starts. “I was starting to get nervous,” he admits. “I’ve been waiting all day.” 

-for you. 

The last bit goes unsaid but he thinks that this is enough for now.

#noos writes #haikyuu fluff #haikyuu imagines #haikyuu scenarios #haikyuu x you #haikyuu x y/n #haikyuu x reader #hq x y/n #hq x reader #hq x you #hq fluff #hq imagines #hinata shoyo #hinata shouyou #hinata shoyo x reader #hinata shoyo x you #hinata shoyo fluff #hinata fluff

[beelzeballing]

actually i dont think ive posted my thoughts on ofmd s2 overall here yet have i?

ok here goes: i think it had incredibly high highs, and at some parts i genuinely enjoyed it more than i did the first season, episode 6 being peak imo. however, it had equally abysmal lows with some glaring writing-, tone- and pacing issues that all came to a head in the finale.

i once read someone say that, if you ever feel like a finale ruined the whole story, maybe you should take another look at the story. there were most likely cracks and problems all along, and the finale did nothing besides dashing the hope that these would perhaps be addressed later. very rarely do genuinely well written stories go completely off the rails in the finale and ruin the whole thing.

i think this is applicable here in some ways, SPECIFICALLY in regards to edward. good god edward was a MESS this season, and it's so sad because i loved the starting point! the kraken era was absolutely terrifying and iconic as FUCK but... they shouldn't have leaned so hard into the drama and trauma of it all. don't get me wrong, i loved that it did. it's one of my favorite parts of the season and i'm so glad we got it. but if they wanted this arc to work with the overarching plot as they wrote it, they would've had to lighten up the tone here CONSIDERABLY. had they played the kraken era for comedy then sure! edward's bad youtuber apology would've been funny. his fast redemption would've been less jarring. the lack of consequences less disturbing. but as it stands in the show, this arc is too dark to function with the later episodes.

i feel like they wanted to have their cake and eat it too here. they wanted the gritty drama of ed coming off the hinges entirely but also didn't want to deal with the aftermath of such a heavy arc in their silly pirate romcom. be that due to time constraints and budget cuts or because they were simply unwilling to, doesn't really matter in the end. the result is the same either way: a very tonally messy season with some accidentally troubling implications regarding abuse.

and mentioning troubling implications regarding abuse; izzy. my poor, poor izzy... his arc was absolutely glorious. i liked izzy the second he showed up in s1 and i was absolutely EATING this season up in that regard. and i think in this case, they genuinely did fuck it all up in the finale with that one stupid choice:

choosing to kill izzy was the DUMBEST thing they couldve done here.

ive talked about this over and over and over again. ive reblogged so many meta posts. and still i am left absolutely flabbergasted by how stupid of a decision this was. the fridging, playing at the fallen woman trope, killing the beating heart of the season and the character who delivers what is essentially a thesis statement, killing off the character whose arc is about coming to terms with his disability, having him die in edward's arms, comforting him and apologizing after an entire season of finding community and love outside of edward, the absolutely godawful pacing of it all, the extremely easy and obvious solution of just having IZZY become the new captain of the revenge to mirror s1 and hammer home how much he has developed since then in one go... i could go on. and i have. it was a stupid writing decision, completely fucked the tone and pacing of the finale and took away attention and time from things that really would've deserved a better wrap up (lucius and black pete deserved better)

now. the whole prince ricky & zheng plot line... yeah that shit sucked ass, sorry. they bit off more than they could chew here. i honestly think those are the arc words of this season:

✨️ bit off more than they could chew ✨️

right off the bat: i think he was good as a concept. bringing in a foil for stede who just doesn't Get It as stede does could've made for very good comedy and drama (and to be fair there is some of that). but that shit got away from them extremely quickly. nothing about how he's implemented past his first episode works, and i think this is very specifically because he's mostly played as the comic relief in his debut episode. making this completely bumbling fool, who gets his nose hacked off on his first job, the main villain of your entire season is... definitely a choice. idk. he didn't work for me at all.

ok wow mentioning shit getting away from the writers. this definitely got away from me. this was supposed to be a short lil post. well. i guess tl;dr i loved this season but jesus christ there was a lot wrong with it. if you want to hear more thoughts. ask box is open. be my guest. i have more to say so even if you dont ask i might add more to this at some point but im tired and have work tmrw.

#i was going to do shit today and now look at me. #0:18 at night #laying in bed #writing this shit #i havent even eaten. #christtttt #moogsin' #ofmd #izzy hands #our flag means death #ofmd meta #ofmd critical #ofmd s2 #ofmd spoilers #the izcourse #im not tagging any of the other characters cuz i shittalk all of them 😭 #listen i love edward hes my babygirl but this season did him DIRTY.

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

Am I the asshole for telling my guy friends I'am a lesbian?

I (29 F, cis, probably bi? A bit ace, definitely like women more) came out around 9 years ago and have mostly dated women. I’ve had a few makeouts with guys, and slept with one guy, but I am still on the fence about my sexuality overall. I like referring to myself as a “bi lesbian, because the lesbian flag is prettier”.

A few years ago, I was in game design school, and was the only girl in my class. The guys were nice, but I still felt a bit othered. I also was paying a lot of attention to how I dressed, and was very feminine. Then one day I talked about my girlfriend, and their attitudes shifted. I started shaking hands in the morning instead of cheek kisses (we’re french), wearing jeans and sweaters, and I became “one of the guys”. People generally assumed I was a lesbian and I wouldn’t really correct it unless it came up. A friend of mine even openly came out, saying I gave him the confidence to do so because of how open I was about my sexuality, and it was just a really nice vibe for the remainder of my time there.

Ever since then, I’ve started being vague about my sexuality, just saying “I’m gay” or “I’m queer”, or “I like girls” when asked, when interacting with guys I wanted to be friends with, or, and that’s, I think, the biggest assholery there, guys that I think were likely to develop a crush on me or try their chances, but I wasn’t interested. If I felt like a friend was becoming too chummy, I’d find the opportunity to be like “oh yeah I’m a lesbian”.

This happened with my current group of friends. There’s one guy I get along with super well, and he’s awesome, one of my best friends, but I felt that he was treating me a bit differently and feared he’d develop feelings for me, so I really hammered in the fact that I was “a lesbian”.

Today, he asked to talk to me in private, and he confessed his feelings for me. He said he would regret it if he didn’t say anything, and that he values our friendship a lot and doesn’t want things to change between us, but he needed to get it off his chest. I thanked him, and turned him down gently, being like “obviously I can’t reciprocate because I’m a lesbian…” but also pointing out that there were other factors that influenced it (distance, culture, general outlook on life and certain political issues, religion…) but it was a very fruitful conversation, and we ended up chatting about stuff and reiterating how much our friendship counted for us, and how much we liked spending time together as friends.

I would like to say I feel guilty, but the truth is I don’t… It feels easier for me to say I’m a lesbian, and give me a way out of these conversations. I feel like if I went in depth into my feelings towards my sexuality, I’d give some of my friends false hopes that they might have a chance with me and ruin the vibe of our friend group.

Should I come clean? Or is it ok to try to protect myself in this manner?

What are these acronyms?

#aita #am i the asshole

[avastrasposts]

The Pilot and his Girl - ch. 30

We left Frankie in a pretty bad state at the end of the last chapter and now we need to get through that as his girl and the guys begin to really worry about where his actions are leading him. And Joel steps in of course, but perhaps not in the best way.

I just want to add too, that this chapter included a conversation that has been a long time coming but it was very hard to write since neither man wants to talk about it and I can just hope I did them both justice.

I just want to add too, since some people are nervous about it; I LOVE hearing your thoughts and comments on what I write, even if the chapter is months and months old! It's my favourite thing about posting here and on Ao3, hearing your thoughts as you read through the fic, so please, share with me!

Series Master List

Chapter 31 - Warnings have their own post - Word count: 7.7k

You wake with a start, your body jerking you awake with panicked breaths. The bedroom is light, the window faces south and a weak sun is glinting through the closed curtain which means you slept far longer than usual, the sun rises late in the Massachusetts winter months. You rush to push back the comforter and hurry out into the living room. The blanket is pushed back on the couch and Frankie is not there, and not in the kitchen either. As you turn to the bathroom you see what’s missing, his boots, his jacket and backpack. 

“Fuck!” you groan loudly and run back to the bedroom, grabbing your clothes from last night and rushing to put them on. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!” You feel an urgent need to get to Frankie, to talk to him. It’s not like him to leave, certainly not in the middle of an argument, and never, ever, has he left in the morning without saying anything to you. Something is not right, it feels like the two of you have crossed a line that you need to get you both back behind. 

You tie your boots and shrug your winter coat on, your first stop is Pope’s place. You hammer on his door and he throws it open, his face falling when he sees your expression. 

“Frankie came home drunk last night and now he’s left again, I don’t know where he is!” you blurt out as Pope lets you into his apartment. 

“Slow down, hermana,” he says, grabbing hold of your shoulders, steadying you, “From the beginning.” 

“Frankie and I got into an argument about what he did when he was on that run with Will, he couldn’t understand why I thought he was too violent,” you say, trying to calm yourself, but your hands are shaking and Pope grabs them, holding them together between his own. “Then Joel came by, right in the middle of it, something about planning a new run, and Frankie just left with him, saying he needed to think. And then he came back late last night , really drunk and passed out on the couch, and now he’s gone! He never leaves without saying goodbye and I don’t know where he is!” Your voice breaks on the last word and Pope lets go of your hands, bending down to grab his boots. 

“We’ll go find him, we’ll go to Benny’s first, Tommy said something yesterday about meeting there.” He looks up at you while he laces his boots, “Don’t worry, hermana, it’s early still, he can’t have gone that far.” 

…

“Tell me again what this FEDRA guy told you about the raiders?” Benny asks Joel as they duck under a broken piece of the highway and head into an old sewage tunnel. 

“A small FEDRA patrol saw a bunch of them down in Dorchester, if we take them out, we get to keep the supplies,” Joel replies, stepping around a dead rat. 

“And you trust this guy?” 

“Yeah, he owes me a favor, I saved his ass a couple of times. And he’s given me tips before, they’ve always been solid, nothing this big though.” 

“Alright, as long as you think it’s a legit tip,” Benny nods and falls back a bit, Frankie’s right behind him, Tommy taking up the rear. 

“You ok, Fish? You look a bit pale,” Benny says, his voice lower for the benefit of his friend. 

“Yeah, just slept like shit, and we had a fucking early wake up call,” Frankie grumbles, pulling the bill of his cap down lower over his eyes.

“Tell me about it,” Benny sighs, “Eve just woke up to say goodbye, then she went right back to sleep. Wish I could’ve stayed in bed with her.” 

“Mmhm, same,” Frankie mutters, pausing as they come to the end of the tunnel.

“Ok, on your toes now, we've got to go out in the open here,” Joel says, waving the other three men forwards. 

…

The trek down to Dorchester is smooth, and it doesn’t take long for them to find the raiders' small camp. They’ve set up on the top floor of an office building and Benny and Frankie silently take out the two guards at the bottom of the stairs. It gets messy when they reach the top and they have to open fire but Joel tosses in a homemade smoke bomb and after that they can just pick off the raiders as they come stumbling out. 

They pick through the raider’s supplies and fill their packs, it’s a pretty good haul and Benny starts searching for any food they might’ve hidden, coming across a door that’s been blocked off with a filing cabinet. 

“Hey, Catfish! Give me a hand with this!” he calls to Frankie, “Cover me in case they’ve locked a fucking infected in here or something.” 

Frankie stands a few feet from the door with his rifle raised as Benny puts his shoulder to the filing cabinet and pushes it out of the way. The door swings open and Benny jumps out of the way. 

“Oh fuck, shit! Man, that’s foul!” 

The dead boy of a young woman falls out across the doorway, her body must’ve been propped against the door, and judging by the stench, she’s been dead a while. The body of another young woman is curled up on a dirty mattress, she’s less far gone, her emaciated features still clear. Both women are naked and Benny swallows hard and glances back at Frankie as they both realize why the women were locked up. 

“We should’ve killed those fucking raiders slower,” Frankie growls, turning away from the room and Benny follows him. 

“Let’s get the fuck out of here and back to the QZ”. 

Back down at street level again Joel takes the lead and moves down the way they came, covering a couple of blocks before Benny suddenly signals for everyone to halt. 

“Heads up, I hear a car,” he calls in a low voice to the others. 

“More raiders,” Joel says, “C’mon, we’ll ambush them, this is the only cleared street.” He looks around the block they’re on and points to cars that have been pushed aside on either side of the street. “Frankie, Benny, hide behind either car, cover me. Tommy, get behind me. I’ll make them stop, usual way should work, if not, just shoot ‘em.” 

“Joel, you sure?” Benny interrupts, “How do we know they’re raiders? We should hang back and observe, see if they go for the base we cleared.” 

“No, then we just have to clear them out again and this time they’ll be on their guard,” Joel scowls, “Get in position!”

“I don’t think this is a good idea,” Benny shakes his head, looking over at Frankie who’s already moved into cover, “Fish? You ok with this?” 

“Joel’s right, it’s probably the same group of raiders, we need to take them out.” 

“Get in position, Benjamin, or stay the fuck out of our way, they’re almost here,” Joel points to the other car, staring at Benny. The younger man takes a deep breath, glancing over at Frankie again who motions with his head to get behind the car. 

“Fuck!” Benny growls and grips his rifle, ducking behind cover with an angry scowl. 

Joel quickly gets into position as the rumbling engine comes closer, keeping an eye out for the car. As it gets closer Benny sees it, it’s a small beat up sedan with several bullet holes in the sides. He glances over at Frankie and gives him a hand signal, indicating three people inside. Frankie nods and passes on the message to Tommy just as the car drives down the block they’re on. Ahead of him, Benny suddenly hears Joel give up a loud shout, stumbling out of the alley into the path of the car, his hand clutching his side, the other raised to the driver. 

The others watch, guns ready and hidden out of sight, as the car barrells towards Joel, who’s staggering across the road. Suddenly the driver slams the brakes and the car skids to a halt in front of Joel. From his hiding place Benny sees the driver open the door and step up on the instep, aiming a gun at Joel. 

“Hey, I-I need help, p-please,” Joel stutters, holding up the hand that’s not holding his side, where he’s conveniently hidden his handgun. 

“What’s wrong with you?” the driver calls as Joel stumbles closer, the man is still half hidden behind the door and Joel’s trying to get around to his side so he half falls to the side, taking several stuttering steps sideways. 

“You infected?” the driver says, following Joel with his gun, “Can’t help you then I’m afraid.” 

“R-raiders,” Joel coughs, “ran into a whole bunch.” 

Benny looks over at Frankie, he’s got a clear shot at the driver and he’s aiming at him. Benny signals at him to hold his fire, these guys don’t sound like raiders, but Frankie’s shaking his head, squeezing his rifle as the man continues to keep his gun on Joel. 

“Be careful, Dan!” a man in the car suddenly calls and Joel straightens up, pulling his gun, aiming at the man. A shot rings out and the driver slumps forward, a clean shot though his head. 

“God dammit, Frankie!” Benny yells, lifting his own rifle as the man in the car dives for the fallen man’s gun. Joel fires on him but misses and the man takes off running. On his right Ben hears Tommy open fire on the third person in the car as Joel yells. 

“Shoot his leg, Frankie, take him down alive!” The man is running as fast as he can down the block but two shots ring out and he yells, tumbling to the ground as blood bursts from his thigh. 

“Secure him, Benny,” Frankie yells and advances on the car, rifle raised. Benny keeps his gun on the fallen man and moves up to him, he’s splayed on his back, gripping his thigh, whimpering. 

“Oh fuck, please, please don’t kill me!” he says, trying to crawl backwards away from Benny. 

“Just stay still, I’m not gonna hurt you unless you give me a reason,” Benny says, keeping his distance as he glances back at the car. Frankie’s jogging towards him and behind him, Joel steps into the car and a woman screams. 

“No, no, don’t hurt her! She’s my sister!” the man on the ground shouts and Benny turns his head back to him as Frankie joins him. 

“What’s going on, Fish?” he says in a voice low enough for the man not to hear. 

“The third passenger is a woman, Joel’s questioning her about who they are and where they’re going.” 

“Fish! These guys are obviously not raiders, what the fuck are we doing?” Benny glances back at the car as another high pitched scream comes from the woman and the man on the ground shouts. 

“Get off her you fucking prick! I’m gonna fucking kill you!” 

Frankie raises his rifle and aims at the man, “Easy there, he’s just questioning her.” 

“What the fuck, Frankie, this is not how we treat civilians!”

“What fucking civilians? We can’t trust anyone, Benny, you saw what the raiders did to those two women!” Frankie growls. 

“Yeah, but these guys are barely armed!” Benny nudges the dropped gun on the ground with his boot, badly maintained and rusty. 

“And how the fuck were we supposed to know that?” Frankie asks, his rifle still trained on the bleeding man who’s whimpering, clutching his leg and looking towards the car. 

“Maybe we don’t attack just anyone who drives past!” Benny hisses at Frankie, his eyebrows drawn tight with anger and frustration. “This is so fucked up, Fish!”

“Is he still alive?” Joel barks as he walks over, leaving Tommy to watch over the woman in the car. 

“Yeah, but he’s bleeding, we need to get a tourniquet on that leg soon,” Benny replies, “Joel, what the fuck are we doing here? These guys are not raiders.” 

Joel doesn’t reply, instead he walks up to the man on the ground and kneels down, Frankie’s gun is still trained on him, but Benny has let his drop, pointing it at the ground instead. 

“You sister is it?” he asks of the man, putting his hand over the gunshot wound on the thigh. 

The man nods, looking petrified under Joel’s hard stare.He yelps loudly when Joel’s hand squeezes the injured area, digging his fingers in. 

“Your sister told me where you came from, and where you’re going. You’d better tell me the same thing she did, or I’m telling my guy over there to shoot her knee off, you understand?” Joel’s voice is hard and low, slowly squeezing the man’s leg tighter. 

“Worcester!” the younger man blurts out, “We came from Worcester, and we’re heading for the Boston QZ but we got attacked and got lost. Please don’t hurt her, she’s my only family!”

“Have you got any supplies apart from what’s in the car?” 

“No, no, I s-swear, we’ve got n-nothing!” the man stutters, groaning under the pain of Joel’s hand digging into his injured leg, “Please, we’ve got nothing!”

“Good boy,” Joel growls, easing off the man's leg and standing up. 

He comes back to Benny and Frankie, wiping his hand on his trouser leg, “They both say the same thing. I say we leave ‘em and take the car, we can trade for it or stash outside the wall, might come in handy sometime.” 

“Fuck, Joel, we need to take them with us, we can’t leave them out here,” Benny says and looks to Frankie for support but he just gives a hesitant shrug. 

“I don’t know Benny, we can’t trust them,” he says. 

“What fucking choice do we have? Leave them injured out here with no guns?” Benny snarls back at him.

“They’re not our responsibility!” Joel snaps, “Let’s fucking- “ 

All three men freeze as the first tell tale sounds echo between the buildings, the snarling shrieks of dozens of infected reaching them. 

“Runners! Runners!” Tommy yells from the car, “Come on, we need to fucking go!” He rushes to the driver’s side of the car, jumping in and the woman sees her chance, bolting from the car and running for the alley. 

“Leave her, just leave her!” Joel yells as he grabs Frankie and starts running towards the car, “Just start the car, Tommy!”

“Benny, no! Leave him!” Frankie shouts as he sees Benny moving towards the injured man on the ground. “Fucking leave him!” 

“Please, please…just kill me” the man begs, looking back over his shoulder and Benny follows his gaze. 

“Fuck!” he gasps, frozen to the spot for a second before he raises his gun and fires, the man slumping onto the asphalt. Benny spins around and starts running after Frankie, the horde of infected barrelling down the street screeching loudly. 

“Benny! I’m gonna fucking kill you!” Frankie yells, “Get in the car!” 

Tommy’s already got the car moving as Benny catches up, grabbing hold of Frankie’s arm and getting pulled into the back seat. 

“Floor it, Tommy!” Joel shouts, looking back over his shoulder, out the back window. 

…

Thank fuck Tommy’s a good driver, he speeds through the streets, leaving the horde far behind. He only slows down once they enter the area around the QZ and turns off onto a narrow street that Joel directs him to. 

“Here, down there, park between those two cars and we’ll throw some trash on it.” 

The four men quickly make the car look unusable and head towards the QZ, splitting up as they get inside, stepping out into a quiet alley a few blocks from the wall.. 

“Alright, good run, except for the fucking infected,” Joel says, clapping Frankie on the back, “I’ll see you guys at the bar in a couple of days.” 

Frankie nods and Benny throw the brothers a two fingered salute as they leave. 

“Hey Fish, wait up, we need to talk,” Benny says as Frankie turns to leave too. 

“If you’re gonna yell at me for how we handled the people in the car, fucking save it, I already got an earful from Will after our last run,” Frankie says, his shoulders hunched and eyebrows pulled tight, “I don’t need another lecture on how we’re using army tactics on civilians.” 

“Frankie, man, c’mon, you’ve got to admit, that was pretty fucking bad? We should’ve just observed them, not fucking attacked,” Benny rubs his hand over his face, “I mean, why the fuck did Joel even pull that stunt with forcing them to stop? And why did you open fire? I’ve never seen you jump the gun like that, Fish.” 

“The guy in the car, I thought he was about to pull a gun on Joel, so I shot first.” 

“And the interrogation technique? You taught him that?” 

“So what? We do what we need to do to survive.” 

Benny shakes his head, “That was not about survival, I don’t know what the fuck that was!”

“Just fucking leave it, Benny! Ok?” Frankie snaps, scowling at his friend, “I’ll see you later, I need to get something done.” He shoulders his backpack and heads off in the opposite direction of the apartment. 

“Fish, c’mon!” Benny calls after him, but Frankie just gives a dismissive wave of his hand without turning his head as he rounds the corner. 

“Fuck…” Benny mutters and stalks off towards the radio office, he needs to see you. 

…

It feels like deja vu when you find Benny outside the building where Sean lives and has the radio office. 

“I’ve got to talk to you about Frankie,” he says and you feel like your heart stops, you’d been trying to find Frankie all morning, until you had to go to the radio office. Pope promised he’d keep looking, checking back at the apartment during the afternoon. 

“Did something happen to him? Pope and I have been looking for him all day!” you say, grabbing hold of Benny’s arm and his eyebrows shoot up in surprise. 

“He didn’t tell you we were going on a run with Joel and Tommy today?” 

“Benny, is he ok?” You feel like shaking him but you limit yourself to grabbing his arm tighter and Benny nods. 

“Yeah, yeah, he’s fine, he’s fine, he came back with me but he said he had to do something when we got back.” Benny takes in your anxious looking face as it slips into relief and returns your grip on his arm, putting his hand over yours. “He didn’t tell you and he hasn't come to see you yet? Is something going on with you guys?” 

You sigh and feel yourself deflating, your shoulders sagging with relief that Frankie’s ok, but at the same time, that lead weight settles in your stomach as you worry about his behavior again.

“Walk me home, Benny, please,” you ask, “if you have time?” You feel like Benny’s friendly presence next to you is the only thing that will make your feet move down the street as you chew on your bottom lip. 

“Sure, I’ll walk you, I need to get back to Eve but...but maybe that can wait, what’s going on?”

“Tell me what happened when you were with him today,” you say, taking his arm and leaving the front entrance. 

Benny looks around the two of you as you start walking down the street, checking that there is no one near that can overhear first and then he tells you the whole thing. 

“Fuck…” you sigh for what feels like the twentieth time as Benny ends by telling you that Frankie took off after they got back. “His PTSD has been getting worse and both Pope and Will brought it up in the past few days. That last run with Will, things went bad and Pope’s been noticing his behavior being off too.”

You’ve reached the door to your building and you stop, looking up at Benny’s frown. “Yesterday I tried telling him that I think he shouldn’t go on runs with Joel anymore. Joel triggers something in Frankie and…I don’t know…I feel like maybe they aren’t good for each other. They’ve both suffered an unimaginable loss, in the worst possible way, and when Frankie got help, Joel seems to have had to deal with it on his own and it’s made him…just…very dark, like he’s just ‘existing’ and doing what he needs to do to survive…”

“And he has no empathy for others,” Benny fills in, “he didn’t even stop to consider that the people in the car could be just people trying to get to the QZ, and he left them with no second thought when the infected came, it was all about eliminating a potential threat and then about saving himself and Tommy.” Benny swipes his cap off his head and drags his hand through his hair, sighing. “I’m not even sure he would bother to save Frankie and myself, if we hadn’t gotten to that car in time.”

“But Frankie doesn’t see it,” you say, “and when I asked him to not go on runs with Joel anymore because I think it makes his PTSD worse, we got in a huge fight,” you sigh deeply, dropping your eyes to your toes and you feel Benny’s hand on your shoulder. “He got really mad when I said I thought he was too violent with this guy, Frankie threatened to gouge his eye out. But Frankie said he only did what was needed to get the antibiotics for Sean’s grandkid.” You swipe your hand over your cheek as tears start to drip down, “Fuck, I don’t wanna cry again,” you say, anger seeping through your voice, “Fuck!” 

You tilt your head back up and look at Benny’s worried eyes, “Come on, it’s you and Frankie, you’re everything to him, one fight doesn’t ruin it,” he says, rubbing your shoulder

“He walked out, Benny, right in the middle of the fight. He’s never done that before, he just took off with Joel. And then he came home really drunk and we started arguing again and he passed out on the couch, he said he thought I didn’t want him in my bed anymore. And then this morning he left again, without saying anything. He went outside the wall and didn’t even say goodbye.” Tears spill over properly now and you sniffle, trying to stem the flow, but the nerves of the day catches up with you. Benny starts rubbing his hands up and down your arms, trying to comfort you. 

“Let’s get you inside, Frankie might be home already, you two need to talk it out, c’mon,” Benny gently hooks his arm around your shoulder and guides you through the door and up the stairs. You fumble out your keys and unlock your front door, opening up to a still dark apartment. 

“Alright, he’s not home yet, but he’ll be here soon, I’ll wait with you until he turns up,” Benny says and starts to lift off his still heavy backpack and you stop him. 

“No, please, go home to Eve. I know she’s worried about you since you went outside, get back home. I’ll be fine, and Pope’s next door if I need anything.” You put your hands on his chest and try, and fail, to nudge the big man towards the door. 

“You sure? I’ll wait for him, and slap some sense into him if needed, just say the word,” Benny replies, tilting his head down to catch your eyes properly. 

“I’m sure, Benny, please go home,” you give him another pointless shove and he gives with a small smile. 

“Ok, if you’re sure I’ll go, but give me a hug first,” he says and bends down, capturing you between his long arms. Benny’s signature bear hugs are all encompassing and he lifts you up, shaking you gently and making you giggle through your tears. 

“Just remember, it’s you and Frankie, you’re the love of his life. All he does, he does for you, if he’s lost his way, all he needs is for you to bring him back home. To you.” 

“Benny, when did you become so insightful?” you smile weakly as he puts you down on your feet. 

“Not insightful, I’ve just watched you two over the past, what is it? Eleven years now? And with Eve, I get it, what you two have. I’d do anything for her, and I know that’s all Frankie ever wants to do for you.” 

“Get back to her, Benny, before you make me cry again,” you say, giving his arm a final squeeze before he steps through the door. “I’ll see you soon.” 

“I’ll come by the radio tomorrow and check on you, ok?” 

“Ok, Benny, stay safe, love you!”

“Love you too, sis!” he calls as he jogs down the stairs. 

…

You try to keep busy while you wait for Frankie; preparing dinner, cleaning the apartment, you even pull out your gun and start disassembling it on the coffee table to get it cleaned. It’s dark before he comes home, you hear his footsteps in the hallway first and then the key. Even before he opens the door you know something’s wrong, he struggles with the key in the lock, fumbling with the handle and you stand up, leaving the pieces of the gun on the table. 

“Frankie?” you ask as the door shuts behind him, “Are you ok?” You walk over to the front door, and he glances up at you before he drops his backpack by the door. 

“Yeah, ‘s fine,” he mumbles, shrugging off his jacket and hanging it on the hook. “Went out with Benny today.” 

“I know, Benny stopped by the radio,” you say, your body freezing as he shuffles past, only briefly pausing to drop a peck on your cheek, perfunctory. He smells of whiskey, fresh whiskey, like he’s just been drinking. 

You don’t even know where to start as you follow him into the kitchen, the argument last night, him leaving this morning without saying anything, his run with Joel today or the way he stumbles around the kitchen table towards the stove. 

“Frankie…” you say again, making your voice soft, you feel like you’re talking to a child, or a wild animal, not your sweet Frankie who you know so well. When he doesn’t even react, let alone look over at you, you dig your nails into the palms of your hands, reminding yourself that this is his PTSD, this is not your Frankie. 

“Frankie, talk to me please,” you start again, coming up next to him at the counter, you put your hand on his arm. 

“What did Benny tell you? That we went out again?” he says, still not looking at you, his tone clipped. 

“Yes, he said you took out some raiders and then…” you pause, you don’t know how to phrase it but Frankie does it for you. He steps away from you, and leans against the counter on the other side of the kitchen. 

“H-he told you we took out three people in a car, that I shot one of the guys when I shouldn’t have, right? That’s what he told you? T-that I’m out of control and violently torturing civilians?” His voice is harsh, there’s an edge to it you don’t recognise and he’s still not looking at you. 

“He’s worried about you, Frankie, and I’m too,” you say, “you haven’t been yourself these past few months.” You try to find his eyes but he’s got the bill of his cap pulled low, eyes on the floor two feet in front and his fingers are twitching, nervously. 

“I already told you, I do what I need to do, to stay safe,” he mutters, the edge still sharp in his voice, crossing his arms tight over his chest, crossing his legs too, closing himself off from you. 

“Benny said they were civilians, just trying to get to the QZ- “ you start to say but Frankie suddenly flares up. 

“We’d just taken out a gang of raiders! It could’ve been more of them! The guy was about to pull a fucking gun on Joel, so I took the shot!” He throws his arms out, meeting your eyes for the first time. “You can’t fucking trust anyone, it’s us or them and I do what I need to do to survive! They could’ve attacked and killed us instead, then what?” 

“But you were never like that before, Frankie!” you can’t help but raise your voice in frustration. When he worked with Pope in Arlington, or when you traveled up to New York with Benny and Pope, he was never so calloused, so distrusting and rash. “You used to observe, calculate the risks, you never rushed into situations, but since you started working more with Joel…I don’t know Frankie, it’s like he rubs off on you.” You drop your hands to your sides, you suddenly realize you’ve mimicked Frankie and thrown them open but now you sigh, lower them and take a deep breath. 

“Frankie…I know you’re capable of real violence,” you shake your head, sighing, “but you’re not a violent person, it’s like it’s getting away from you when you work with Joel and I do-” 

“Maybe I am a violent person now? This is the person I need to be now, to keep myself safe, to keep us safe!” Frankie slams his hands against the cupboard and stalks out of the kitchen, turning and gripping the back of the couch as he gets to it, looking back at you. “I do it for you, don’t you get it?! Maybe this is the person I have to be now to keep myself safe, for you, to stay alive for you because I have to keep you safe!”

“Then stay here, stay in the QZ,” you follow him towards the living room. “I don’t want you to go out any more if this is what you have to do. It’s destroying you!”

“That's all I can do!” he shouts back at you, “That’s all I’m tra-trained for, I’m the b-best at it! It’s the only thing that makes a difference!”

“Frankie, you don’t have to-” you begin, but Frankie just shakes his head and starts pacing the living room like he can’t hear you.

“E-every time I leave you make me p-promise to come back safe, did you ever stop to think that this is what I have to do to keep that promise to you?! I have to stay alive to keep you safe, I promised you that and now you think I’m a monster for what I have to do?” 

Frankie slams his hands hard against the wall and spins round, stomping across the living room again and you’re worried now, he’s spiraling out of control, his voice becoming more and more unstable. “I d-do this for you, I stay a-alive for you, don’t you get it! I would’ve fucking ki-killed myself after she died! I was so fucking close to it, so-s-so fucking close to just walking into that fucking lake and ending it! If-if it wasn’t for you still in that cabin!” His voice is rising to a shout, spinning around and slamming his fist into the wall again, “I just..I promise to come back every time, I have to come back but you still think I’m just violent, just a fucking monster, just a mo-monster, I-I can’t- “

“Frankie, c’mon man!”

You didn’t even hear the front door open but Pope suddenly walks into the living room. You’re frozen by the kitchen as Frankie paces, more and more agitated, back and forth, his arms waving in front of him as his mind whirls. You can see his glassy eyes, his breathing is starting to get erratic but you have no idea how to stop this. But Pope strides over to his friend and stands in front of him, forcing him to come to a halt. 

“Francisco, cálmate, hermano. Por favor;” he tries to catch Frankie’s eyes, gently placing his hands on his shoulders and holding on as Frankie tries to shrug them off, looking at him with almost unseeing eyes.

“Frankie…fuck…” he sighs as he scans his face, “you’re high as a fucking kite. What did you take?” 

At that Frankie’s eyes snap up to Pope’s, “Fucking nothing!” he snarls, wrenching himself away and stumbling back towards the couch. 

“Fish, I’ve seen you high more times than you can remember, I know when you’ve been using, man,” Pope says as Frankie grabs the back of the couch again, hiding his eyes beneath the bill of his cap again, refusing to look at you or Santi. 

“Frankie…” you try, your voice wobbling as you recognize the signs in him but he just shakes his head. 

“I had a few drinks with Joel, I’m not fucking high,” he mutters but Santi shakes his head. 

“C’mon, Fish, I know you’re struggling, she knows it too, we just wanna help you,” he takes a few steps towards Frankie, the frustration seeping through into his voice and Frankie backs away, turning around and going for his backpack. 

“I’m not fucking high,” he snarls over his shoulder, rifling through his backpack. 

“Fine, you’re not using,” Santi says, “then show us your pack.” He motions towards the bag at Frankie’s feet and the way Frankie reacts makes your stomach sink another notch. His hands clench instinctively around the opening, pulling it closer but Pope steps in and reaches for the bag. Frankie abruptly stands up and stumbles back, grabbing it but his movements are slow and Pope’s faster, he snatches the backpack from Frankie, holding it away from him. 

“Coño, pendejo!” Frankie snarls, trying to grab the bag back from Pope, “What the fuck are you doing?!” “What the fuck are you doing, Frankie?” Pope replies with a sneer, shoving him back and Frankie, already unsteady on his feet, stumbles backwards and falls onto the couch. “You told me yourself, never trust a fucking junkie.” 

Keeping an eye on Frankie, while you stand stunned by the kitchen door, your hands gripping the door frame so hard your fingers ache, Pope opens the backpack and digs through it. It doesn’t take him long, under Frankie’s dull eyes he soon pulls out a small baggie with white pills. Pope sighs and holds it out to Frankie. 

“What is it?” 

“Painkillers,” Frankie mumbles, but his eyes drop from Pope to his feet, his lie so obvious it forces tears into your eyes. 

“Frankie…” you whisper and he glances up at you and meets your eyes for a second before he looks away. But even in that brief glance you see the pain and guilt in his eyes and it pushes you to move, walking around the coffee table and sinking down on the couch next to him. You raise your hand to put it on his shoulder but before you touch him he’s on his feet, snatching the bag from Pope’s hand. 

“It’s fucking painkillers, ok?!” he yells, his aggression flaring up as he stumbles towards the front door.

“Catfish, for fucks sake,” Pope shouts as his patience snaps, “get your fucking shit together, man!”

“Please, Frankie, you know this is your PTSD making you spiral, we’ve been here before,” you plead with him, standing up again as he stops with his back to you and the room. But whatever is in his system has control of him now as he shakes his head, his fingers twitching around the small baggie in his hand. Neither of you are getting through to him now, his body language closed off, even with his back turned you see the walls go up. But still, you go up to him where he stands by the door. His chin is on his chest, his shoulders up by his ears, you can feel the tension rolling off him as he fights whatever demon is in his mind. Gently you put your hand on his arm, and he trembles under your touch, giving the smallest shake of his head. 

“Frankie…” you whisper, “please, stay with me, we’ve done this before, we can do it again, I love you.” 

He shudders, a long held breath rushes out of him and he shakes his head again. 

“I’m sorry,” he mumbles, “I love you, I’m sorry.” He pushes open the door and his arm slips from under your hand. You hear him run down the stairs and Santi comes up behind him, he’s got his coat on. 

“I’ll follow him, I won’t let him get into more trouble, I’ll get him back,” he gives you a quick squeeze and hurries after Frankie. 

…

Frankie rushes through the streets, the bag of oxy burning a hole in his pocket. He has no plan for where to go, he left his coat back at the apartment and the cold March air is making him shiver. Picking up his pace he turns at random, down a street, and then another, losing himself in the narrow alleys of North End, but it doesn’t surprise him when he finds himself in front of Joel’s apartment building, a dirty red brick block. It makes sense; to end up here. He pushes the door open and stumbles up the stairs.

Joel’s slow to answer his front door, Frankie’s almost given up, prepared to sit and wait by the door, when the older man finally opens up and looks him up and down. “Hey Frankie, what’s up? You’ve got no jacket on.” 

“I ran out on it, left in a hurry,” Frankie mumbles in reply, his mind is still foggy, he can’t quite focus on Joel. “I got some of your supply on me, Pope found it in my bag.”

“Ah, bet he wasn’t too happy about that,” Joel says, waving Frankie inside. “He ain’t too happy about me wanting to trade what we got up in Concord.” He closes the door and motions to the couch and Frankie slumps down on it as Joel goes to the kitchen and pulls out two glasses and a bottle. 

“Give me one of those too,” Joel motions to Frankie’s pocket and sits down at the other end of the couch. Frankie pulls out the baggie and pour out the pills on the coffee table, handing one to Joel, taking another one for himself and they both down it with the whiskey. 

Joel’s not one for talking much and Frankie’s grateful, he just needs a place to forget everything for a while. And for a long time both men sit at opposite sides of the couch, lost in their own minds as the chemicals take over. Frankie tilts his head back, his eye following the cracks in the ceiling until they slip closed and he just feels himself breathing, finally peace takes over in his mind as the fog settles. 

Joel slips in another pill and another few large mouthfuls of the liquor, leaning back against the back of the couch and rubbing his eyes with his hand. 

“You lost your daughter,” he says, almost surprising himself when the words come out. 

Frankie doesn’t move, his eyes closed, “Yeah,” he squeezes his eyes shut, little sparks of red and yellow blossoming behind his eyelids, but he sees something else in his mind. 

He tilts his head forward, opening his eyes and focusing on his hands, “Yeah,” he says again, rubbing his thumb over the fleshy part of his hand, he can almost see the blood on it. “I did, right at the beginning.” 

“She got infected?” 

Frankie balks at the question, the image of his little girl, mycelium under her skin, flashes up in his mind. He’s seen multitudes of infected since, killed so many, seen the thin white strands wriggle towards him as they attack and die in front of him, but he never lets himself commit what they look like to memory. This one is the only one that he remembers. 

“Yeah,” he nods, “one of the first days.” 

He and Joel have never talked about this before. He never talks to anyone about Lucía or what happened to her, not even to the one person who knows what he went through in the aftermath. 

 He glances over at Joel, he’s still leaning back on the couch, his hand rubbing over his eyes. 

“D’you ever talk about Sarah?” 

“No.” The answer is fast and curt. 

Both men sit in silence for a few minutes, Joel shifts on the couch, looking over at Frankie, “Everyone’s lost someone. No one wants to hear about her.” 

“How did she die?” Frankie locks eyes with Joel, suddenly it feels important to know how Sarah died. Joel knows how Lucía died, it feels important to know how Sarah died too. Joel meets his eyes for a few beats before he drops his gaze and stares at the wall opposite. 

“It was the first night. We were trying to get away from town, ran into the military perimeter, a soldier shot at us. She…” Joel loses his words, his jaw clenching shut as he grinds his teeth, dropping his head between his shoulders. 

Frankie feels the fog swirl around his mind, letting the minutes slip by while Joel stares down at his watch. 

“I shot Lucía,” Frankie says, like a confession to Joel, to the man whose daughter was also shot. As if it makes a difference how they died. The daughters died and so did the fathers, when they failed.

The fog in his head clears slightly and behind the mist he sees the gun in his hand, aimed at his little girl, who no longer recognises him as she screeches and flails under the weight of her mother’s body. He reaches forward to the coffee table and takes two more pills, swallowing them down with the last of the whiskey in his glass, letting the fog cloud his mind again. 

Joel blinks and looks at Frankie as if he has to think about what the other man just said, “You shot her?”

“I had to, I’d seen what they were turning into. I couldn’t…” 

Joel leans forward, refilling his own glass and Frankies before he leans back, “I would’ve done the same.” 

The two men sit in silence as the fog swirls through them, making thoughts slow to appear and slow to disappear. 

“Sarah,” Frankie says, pushing a thought to the front of his hazy mind, “S-she was a great kid, L-Lucía loved her, fucking loved her. Didn’t stop talking about her for days after we got back.” 

He grips the glass and takes a sip, shaking his head, trying to remember the comforting thought he just had, it’s stuck somewhere in his chest, he can feel it. 

“I don’t…I do-don’t believe in God, I l-lost any faith I had in the army, you know. S-so many fucked up things that I saw, that I did,” he says, lifting his glass, motioning to the world outside. “I don’t believe in any god, any-anything. But I wish I did, because if Sarah d-died on that first night, that means that wherever they went, our kids, our little girls…Sarah was there waiting for Lucía. They weren’t alone,” Frankie pauses, he feels his chest constrict, that feeling like he can’t breathe threatening to overtake him. “I’d like to believe they weren’t alone,” he whispers, but in the quiet room, Joel still hears him.

Frankie slumps back down on the couch, spilling whiskey down his shirt, his burst of clarity suddenly spent, “They would’ve had each other…” 

“We failed them,” Joel says, his voice low, Frankie can hear the fog in his mind too. “We should’ve kept them safe, but all we did was stand there. Couldn’t keep ‘em safe.” 

Frankie nods, he feels his brain slowing down again, “I made so many mistakes…but she was the best mistake I made…couldn’t keep her safe,” he takes a large mouthful of the whiskey, it burns on the way down, distracting his mind for a second as he coughs. 

“I don’t talk about Sarah, not even to Tommy,” Joel says, rubbing his thumb over the rim of the glass. “ ‘S’no point, just makes me angrier, I get by better if I don’t think about her.”

Frankie slumps down deeper into the couch, curling himself around the glass in his hand, watching the whiskey swirl around as the fog in his brain follows the motions. 

“How do you stay alive,” he mumbles to the room and Joel tilts his head to look at the younger man, curled into the corner of the ratty old couch. The question is more for himself than for Joel but Joel answers anyway.

“For family,” he nods slowly, once, to himself, “for family, for Tommy. And for your woman, she kept you alive.” It’s not a question, it’s a statement and Frankie sighs. 

“She doesn’t think I should do runs any more, and she’s right, I know she’s right,” he mutters, pushing his cap off his head and rubbing his temple with his free hand, the fog is lifting again and he feels the edge of panic in his mind, but he can’t remember what he’s should panic about.  

“Why not? The drugs?” Joel motions at the dwindling pile of pills on the coffee table and Frankie grabs two of them, knocking them back with the whiskey still in his hand. 

“My head is fucked up. From the army. ‘S’gets worse sometimes, ‘s’gets worse when I do runs, when I do violent things.” Frankie sighs, “She doesn’t like it.” 

Joel snorts, a mirthless sound, “Men like us, you ‘n me, we do the violent things so others don’t have to, you keep her safe.” 

“S’what I t-told h-her,” Frankie grumbles, he can feel his head getting heavier, the fog is so thick he can’t even push his tongue through it, it’s sticking to his teeth. “I do it-do it, t-to keep he-her safe.” He sinks further into the couch, his head leaning on the back of it as he wills his hand to lift up the glass to his lips and drain it. “I-I do it t-to come b-back t-to h-er.” 

Through the fog in his own mind Joel sees Frankie tip forward, the empty glass in his hand, as he passes out. Joel’s glass clatters to the floor as he stumbles to his feet and staggers into the bedroom, falling onto the bed, passing out as his head hits the pillow. 

Chapter 31

Taglist: @pimosworld @i-own-loki @casa-boiardi @littlenosoul @stormseyer @mxtokko @javicstories @nunya7394 @welcometothepedroverse @harriedandharassed @meveispunk @hiroikegawa @jwritesfanfics @vickie5446

#frankie morales #frankie morales x reader #frankie morales fanfiction #frankie morales x you #pedro pascal character fanfiction #frankie morales fanfic #the last of us #the last of us fanfiction #pedro pascal #joel miller tlou #joel miller #triple frontier fanfiction #triple frontier au #triple frontier #benjamin miller #benny miller #santiago pope garcia #frankie morales x f!reader #frankie morales x fem!reader #frankie morales angst #the last of us fandom #the last of us fanfic #pedrostories #the pilot and his girl

[oneatlatime]

Zuko Alone

I'm hoping for some Appa this episode. It's been too long since he's gotten any good sight gags.

Zuko is cosplaying Clint Eastwood. He's also back to being stupid pale this episode.

You know it's a good thing that Zuko's not in the Fire Nation anymore because he really would have sucked at being Fire Nation. Robbing pregnant women is probably kindergarden level stuff for them.

How is Zuko in such bad shape? Last time we saw him he had a cave full of spoils robbed from rich people. Did he not bother to pack at least some of that stuff? Actually, not thinking far enough ahead to pack would be pretty in character.

Oof that would rub me the wrong way. Not enough money for a meal, but sure, let's use totally edible eggs as ammo.

Where'd the egg go?

Who is the scarred up hat wearing vampire and what happened to the real Zuko? Imposter Zuko just elected to not be provoked into a fight. Real Zuko would already be setting things on fire.

Just a bunch of thugs. Yep. It's consistently awesome how many of the facets of war this show can cover.

Imposter Zuko and Song's horse bird just got kidnapped. Did not see that coming.

Zuko kind of has arm bandages like Sokka has this episode. Also love the character detail that the boy has scraped knees.

Is the kid's dad the same guy as the man at the store? Or maybe this is a one haircut town?

So the guy who was near to fainting off his horse bird this morning is now turning down freely offered food? Could Zuko please shelve his pride for five minutes? Kudos to the mom for accurately reading his distaste for charity and turning it into a request for aid though. Although covering for the boy's egg trick is worth at least a meal.

Tangent!

I don't get Zuko. How can he still have so much pride when he's wearing rags and starving himself to feed Song's horse bird? I'm quite shameless when it comes to accepting help and I've never, ever been able to understand the whole 'too proud to accept charity' mindset. I'm always up for some charity. I have enough manners to offer to do the dishes after, but if you're offering free food I'm eating it. And I've never been in a situation as desperate as Zuko's. So I don't get this.

ok tangent over.

Peak rich kid behaviour. I hope those nails aren't expensive otherwise Zuko doing work for food might end up with this family out of pocket.

Is the wood grain on this ladder an actual photograph of wood grain?

Zuko has more patience this episode than he had for all of season 1 combined. He's also never gone this long without yelling. Either proximity to young children activates Zuko's otherwise mostly slumbering decency, or to fit him into a Fistful of Dollars homage the writers had to make him out of character.

If I had been in this situation when I was a kid, if I had been a) this visibly bored, and b) this nosy around guests, I would have been given a hammer and a bag of nails in three seconds flat. Also, nice to see a Sokka face from Zuko.

I get that 'a man without a past' is a staple of the cowboy genre, but the boy's father bringing up the privacy of the past twice in like two minutes makes me think he's done stuff he doesn't want to talk about. Seems both the parents have read Zuko right though.

Finally! Some pretty! I have been suffering! This may be the first really good pretty all season!

Bad news for the Appa decor on my blog. He may have been supplanted in my affections.

Two things: first, Zuko is a carbon copy of his mom. Second, That is way too much forehead.

Having Zuko's mom introduce herself by talking about the lengths mothers will go to for their children is not giving me foreshadowing anxiety at all.

Azula's been a bitch since birth. Noted.

Sir, your eyebrows. Also, yeah, I wouldn't want to play with her either.

Yikes this is making my teeth itch and my skin crawl. Calling it now, she's rotten to the core.

Zuko and Azula's dad has some weak ass genes. BOTH of his children are carbon copies of their mom.

Also, I was not expecting Zuko's very stupid ponytail to be a pre-scar thing. It is much better with a full head of hair.

If I had spent my childhood hanging out with an untouchable princess who set things on my head on fire for fun whenever I involuntarily displayed emotion, I'd be gloomy and apathetic in self defense too.

Sokka in this episode in spirit, if not in person.

Seriously that's the same face three times over!

Um, no? If Iroh doesn't make it back from the front, doesn't his son become next in line to be Firelord?

Can you hear all the unspoken "father thinks that" and "father says that" in front of every one of Azula's opinions in this whole scene? I stand by my assertion that she's awful anyways, but she's also obviously drunk much too much of her dad's koolaid, if you know what I mean.

This kid is going to get into so much trouble one of these days. Provoking the soldiers, nagging the mysterious stranger with the mysterious past, and now taking his weapons? Kid's sweet but he really needs to learn when to stop pushing his luck.

Stabbing dead, dried wood sounds like a great way to utterly annihilate the edge on those. Hope Zuko packed a whetstone.

Where is this patience coming from? I don't understand and it's BUGGING me.

Hold on. Technical problems.

My very basic DVD player sometimes has difficulty with these disks. Whatever happened between the above two screenshots, I've missed it. So picking back up from the one on the right...

Either these soldiers are impressively cowardly (which, yeah) or Zuko's really been working on his death glare, because they've got him outnumbered and out-armoured and they still back off.

OH it's parallels! Zuko's cousin and the boy's older brother. Got it. Kind of a false parallel though. Grandson of the Firelord does not equal earth kingdom conscript.

Give the demonstrably impulsive and nosy child a knife. That'll work out just fine I'm sure. Pretty sad the kid glommed on to Zuko so quickly, but it's also yet another realistic representation of the consequences of war. This show's good.

*shudders* theatre kids.

She's tiny! Do you know how darkly humourous it is to watch a two foot tall baby spout her father's murderous nonsense? Once again, in this whole scene, not a word out of Azula's mouth is actually Azula's.

"What is wrong with that child?" Apart from budding homicidal and psychopathic tendencies? Her dad. Her dad is what's wrong with that child.

Their dad has no subtlety at all. And also no brain? You think a day after the firelord finds out one of his family died is the right time to very boorishly make a play for the crown with you daughter as a prop? Could you possibly come up with a better demonstration of why this guy shouldn't be in charge?

How did this asshole land such a nice wife?

Yep. Siding with the old firelord on this one.

Does flashback Zuko sleep in his day clothes? Because that's not ok.

I like that their mom sees straight through Azula's lying here. She knows her daughter.

In a move that should surprise no one, everything Zuko touches turns to shit, as usual.

It's the Mexico filter!

Absolute truth from Zuko in that monologue. He's got them pegged. Too bad it fell on deaf ears. It's Zuko's curse, that whenever he approaches being remotely reasonable, he happens to be surrounded by people who will react in such a way that Zuko learns to equate being reasonable with failure.

An earthbender. The bare feet should have clued me in.

Last season Zuko and Iroh laid waste to like ten of these guys. And Iroh didn't even have pants. So what gives? Is he that starved?

Ursa pulling a Mufasa.

Don't answer don't answer don't answer

And he does.

Zuko is so very good at completely misinterpreting the point.

So we can add thief to the list of things that make Azula awful. Also that delivery of "who's going to make me? Mom?" is chilling. Zuko's lost his only defender inside this atrocious family and she knows it, he knows it, hell the turtleducks probably know it.

His dying wish? You guys buying that?

Ozai. That's his name. I'd forgotten that.

So... something something dead firelord something something missing mom something something maybe Azula wasn't actually lying this time?

Final Thoughts

The title wasn't kidding. Let's rename the show 'Avatar: the Guy who's Really Bad at Capturing Him' while we're at it.

There is now no way whatsoever that Zuko is not going to be redeemed. No writing team would invest that much energy and a whole episode into a character we're not ultimately supposed to root for. So somehow he's going to end up joining the Gaang. Don't know how he'll pull that one off. He's done some pretty not great stuff. And it's not like the Gaang watched this episode and unlocked his tragic backstory.

Speaking of, what prompted these reflections? I could understand if Zuko started to contemplate his cousin and the events surrounding his loss in the war after he learned about the family's older brother, but he was having flashbacks before he even got to town. Usually when there are backstory bits, there's a good reason to show them at that time, like how the Storm prompts Aang to think about the last storm he was in, or seeing a boat from his father's fleet prompts Sokka to remember what his dad told him. So what caused Zuko's memories to give him situationally appropriate flashbacks?

Pretty funny that he found the Nice Earth Kingdom Family that Azula predicted for him. And they are really nice! Either Zuko is an open book or the parents' social intelligence is off the charts because they're giving him exactly what he needs to feel at ease after barely a single conversation.

Speaking of Azula, I'm not surprised to find that she's always had deeply awful tendencies, even as a child of (I'm guessing) less than ten. But it cannot be ignored that, from the moment her father took a liking to her (as a tool to boost his own greatness, if not as a person), she didn't stand a chance. You can tell by the number of times that the stuff coming out of her mouth is a thinly veiled repetition of her father's unfiltered opinions, that she's been spending lots of time listening to him, probably while he puts down her mom and brother and talks about how she's the special one. You know what I'm getting at. Azula never stood a chance once her father got involved, and her mom lost the ability to influence her once her father started giving Azula praise for objectively wrong behaviour. That being said, Azula is awful even when she doesn't need to be awful for her father's approval, like when she's with her friends, so it's not all her father's doing. She's not a good person but she also had plenty of help to become that.

I guess Zuko and his mom are Fire Nation anomalies? And maybe Iroh has become that since his son died and he lost the war?

How on earth did Zuko survive as long as he did in the palace without his mom to protect him? What a no-win situation to be in. The only person in a whole nation with empathy.

This episode does makes Season 1 Zuko make more sense. He's been larping his dad as a defense mechanism for surviving the Fire Nation/probably a very futile effort to earn his approval. Although Zuko doesn't seem to care much for his dad if the tone he takes with him by the turtleduck pond is any indication.

Being banished was the best thing that ever happened to Zuko. The more distance between him and his remaining non-uncle family, the better. Between prioritizing his crew over capturing the avatar in the Storm, releasing the Avatar in the Blue Spirit, and now defending a random earth kingdom child this episode, it's hilarious how much Zuko HASN'T learned the lesson that Ozai banished him for not knowing. Don't get me wrong; that's a good thing. This episode plainly shows that behaviour that pleases Ozai is behaviour that should be unlearned as quickly as possible.

Zuko completely missing the point of his mom's last instruction is delightfully on the nose. But it also makes sense, which I may talk more about later.

How did Zuko hold on to his temper (and his volume) for a whole episode?

How did a show named after the main character get away with an episode that doesn't feature him at all? As a concept, this is such a strange episode. The writers were like "how can we kick start the woobification of Zuko? I know! A Spaghetti Western!" and it worked. Who comes up with that?

I now want at least as much, if not more, of Sokka and Katara's childhood via flashbacks. And more Gyatso please. If they can devote a whole episode to the childhood of a guy who isn't even a team member yet, they can show me some Sokka childhood shenanigans as a palette cleanser.

I really don't know what conclusion to draw about this episode. The writers have given me a massive backstory/trauma dump and I'm honestly like:

#atla #avatar: the last airbender #avatar the last airbender #zuko alone #I really don't know what to make of this one

[zoomzooml]

Rewatched Bumblebee movie so Alert: random thoughts of sleep deprived person go--

Bumblebee has hella powerful legs. Not only when he uses them in fight, but also when he jumps.

I just love how Bumblebee uses his legs in combat, like hell yeah dude! They may catchin' those hands but they ain't catchin' those legs (they actually did couple of times but shhhh).

Fight sequences are muah. Love them, the best ones in Transformers movies I think. I'm not sure but I also think they were storyboarded/planned by animator so if it's truth it does explain things lol.

Bumblebee is smaller and weaker than the Decepticons he has come to fight, and he doesn't just use their weight or size against them, but all the time seems to be looking for an advantage in his surroundings. This is likely not very unique to him, but it clearly stands out when his opponents the moment they realized their advantage wanted to simply overpower Bee.

Also love how everyone is trying to use their alt-mode during combat.

They could have done more with the fact that G1 Bumblebee was said to like swimming, and Charlie was swimmer in the past (specifically was in school's dive team if I remember correctly). Like some kind of bonding scene? Whatever, it was just such an opportunity. (And I know we had this seconds-post-end-battle scene but it is not what I'm talking about at all if it makes sense???)

Shatter often folds her hands behind her back in a gesture that I personally associate with a business woman (also in base scene she and military man both hold hands that way when talking so yeah). I feel that this reinforces her image as the leader/representative of the duo when Dropkick maintains a looser posture. Just cool body language.

I didn't pay attention to this in the movie, but I was reminded of how someone noticed the Autobot symbol on Shockwave's arm. If that's true, they could make it cool to pull it up under Senator Shockwave's MTMTE-style backstory, or maybe some variation of the spy (before he was known as a Decepticon, especially a high-level one) in TFA style. As far as I know the entire thing was because of recycling model parts but still.

I don't like Bumblebee's camaro root-mode. Idk, he was all round and huggable almost the entire movie, even when he had jeep as alt-mode, and then he is all blocky :((. Maybe it's because even as jeep he still has his chest mostly flat and as camaro it moves so much forward. His Cybertronian root-mode also has chest moved forward a bit but it's a lot more aerodynamic (you know what I mean) so he still looks round. Like, he is huggable all the time and then his camaro-boob looks like it would cut you. Idk how to say it, hope you get what I'm trying to communicate anyway :')

I really like how Decepticons were casually showing off that they are Triplechangers. I understand why they were doing this from storytelling point of view but it's still funny from in-universe one. ("Look how cool and badass we are.") I'm probably turning it up but oh well.

Also this will be a bit off but I never liked the idea of hammer as Bumblebee's weapon. Like his thing almost always was being small, kinda fast and not very strong and boom. They give him one of the weapons that is most effective welded by someone big, strong who doesn't loose much fighting weapon that kinda slows them down a bit (I think hammer does but you can correct me lol) because damn, this thing is big, at least in his serwos.

Plus, still on the hammer's topic, actual war hammers had this spike on the one end of the head so you could actually pierce armor of your opponent or just your opponent but not this one. This one is just for smashing like your mom's meat mallet. Ok, I'm done with this saltyness lol

But really, hammer as weapon doesn't fit Bee at all. Or it's just me.

#sorry for bad english #transformers #shitpost #maccadam #bumblebee #shatter #my thing #very random #may delete later #sleep deprived post #analysis #kinda???? #all those things propably were told before but oh well #also next TFCheesy comic is almost finished wow #and i think I actually got better at drawing cars?? so profit

[cummin-n-cryin]

Greetings. Can I request male reader rejecting a confession from Jade and Floyd (separately) because he knows how they operate and that it’s highly likely he’ll be kicked to the curb as soon as he’s not interesting to them anymore?

~Thank you for your request!

Unrequited Love

Jade Leech + Floyd Leech x male!Reader (all separate)

Tw: Amab reader, Angst with no happy ending

Wordcount: 1,317 + 1,320

Side Note: I love this request. The tweels really seem like they would do that to you huh? This is from the pov of the characters, not the reader. I've decided to put wordcount now! lemme know if you guys think it's stupid or not lol. Anyway I hope this story turned out ok!

~Jade Leech~

Jade's been thinking of confessing his love to you for a long time now.

He really loves you and truly wants to be with you, but the thought of you rejecting him has been haunting him for the last couple of months or so. It's hard to imagine that Jade could ever be afraid to do something, especially something such as confessing his romantic attraction to a man like you...

But.. it was true. He just couldn't muster the courage to tell you how much he loved you. Not only that, but he wasn't even sure if you reciprocated his feelings. Jade is well known for figuring out deeply personal secrets about people and finding hidden information online about them as well. Nothing is easily hidden from Jade. So, the fact that he was so in the dark about how you really felt about him.. Well simply put, it was quite frustrating.

While Jade couldn't muster the courage to confess, he could show his love to you in smaller ways. He often invited you to the Mostro Lounge so that he could cook for you or make you some tea if you were stressed. He would ask if it was acceptable to walk with you to your classes and if he could he would join them. Jade would also invite you to join him on his hikes through the mountains, perhaps getting some fresh air could be helpful for you.

Being the magicless prefect, your life must be so difficult. It was only natural that he tried to make your life a little easier here at NRC. He doesn't mind doing tasks for you, he honestly just wants you to be happy.

It's been months now. Months of interacting with you, hanging out, sharing his interests with you, and trying to help out whenever he could. Jade was getting tired of waiting around to see if you would be the one to confess. He thought that it may be possible that you were like him? Perhaps you to were too scared to confess or maybe you never even realized Jade loved you all this time? Or worst of all, you simply didn't love him...

No matter the answer, he couldn't keep waiting. He didn't want to keep all of this frustration and repressed feelings from boiling inside him anymore. Jade needed to confess, he had to get all of these feelings off his chest.

After school had ended for the day, Jade searched for you around the school grounds. He eventually found you sitting by yourself on a bench. He approached you and politely asked if he could join you. You gestured to the empty spot on the bench next to yourself, giving him permission to sit there.

As Jade sat down, he tried to hide his nervousness. His hands were shaking. His heart was hammering in his chest. He tried to quietly take deep breaths to calm himself down as he placed his hands on top of each other to stop the shaking.

He made small talk with you. He asked you about how your day was and so on. As Jade seemingly listened to what you were saying, internally, he was trying to mentally prepare himself for what was to come.

After you were done talking, you two sat in silence. It was nice to just sit here with you, watching the sunset from where you two were. But Jade knew what he was here to do, so taking a deep breath to calm his nerves he turned to you.

Finally, after months of repressing his emotions, he had confessed. He finally told you how much he loved you. He told you that he wanted to spend the rest of his life by your side, that you made him happy. It was so difficult to put into words how he felt for you, but he swallowed the lump in his throat and tried his best to put it into words. As he spoke, he could feel this... emotion in his chest. It burned with a desire to be near you, to hold you. He wanted you, he needed you. It was such a strong feeling it nearly overwhelmed him and brought him to tears.

Jade was scared. This was one of the few rare times he was genuinely unsure, and this unsureness of how you would react made him afraid. As strong as his love and desire for you was, his fear of your answer overtook him. He was paralyzed waiting with baited breath for your response. And almost too quickly your response came..

You... rejected him.

.

.

.

"Why?"

It was so quiet, the way he spoke. He felt weak... He didn't mean to ask, but the word slipped out of his mouth. He was in shock and couldn't stop himself from speaking.

Again, you quickly responded to his question. You told him that you simply didn't trust him. You truly believed that someday he would grow bored of you, that he would just throw you off to the side like some toy left to rot away, broken and forgotten.

As you explained more to him about you're reasons for rejecting him, it became easier to see why you had rejected his confession. It is true that he only does things because he enjoys doing them. He doesn't like to be around people or to do anything that may bore him, unless it's part of some ulterior motive. He seeks to be entertained and loves the unexpected.

But for you to assume that he would suddenly abandon a person, especially someone he has grown to love so much, all because of something like that is....

Jade wanted to argue with you. He wanted to say you were wrong. That he wouldn't do that to you. That he wasn't just confessing his love to you. No! He was tearing his heart out for you! For you to assume such terrible things after he spent months of his time and energy to prove to you, to show you that he loved you. That he cared for you!

Of course, you didn't know that. It was his fault... Jade was incapable of telling you how deeply he felt for you, of how profoundly you affected him, in words you could understand. For the love he held for you was incapable of being represented in mere words.

It is a shame, truly, that even though he had tried to spend his time with you, tried to show you he honestly does love you. It seems his reputation and his actions to others had ruined any chance of you loving him back...

Perhaps, Jade brought this upon himself. He should have known better than to think that you would trust him. The ache in his heart burns and he just wants to rip it out.

But, if that's your final choice... Then he won't force you to change your mind.

Jade is heartbroken for sure, but he wasn't going to let you see that. He sat up straight, put on a polite smile and went back to repressing his emotions.

To you, it likely seemed as though he took your rejection well. Perhaps a flash of surprise across his face as you rejected his confession, but that will be the most you get from him.

He told you that he understands and he thanks you for your time as he gets up to leave. Jade may have said it all with a polite smile. But... it never reached his eyes. As Jade turns away, you notice his eyes. Something strange lurks within them, something you don't recognize.

Jade hoped that soon you'd realize that he truly does love you. But if you never do... Well, as they say, there are plenty of fish in the sea. It doesn't make the ache in his chest hurt any less however…

~Floyd Leech~

After meeting you only a handful of times Floyd knew you were the one for him.

When he fell for you, he fell hard. The feeling that rushed through him every time he saw you was addicting. Floyd may not seem like the kind of guy to fall so deeply and so quickly into the hands of love, but unfortunately for him, he was.

However, only a fool would assume that Floyd was just throwing himself into love, full force, out of nowhere. Floyd knows himself. He knows what he wants, and whether you realized it or not at the time Floyd was testing you. Yeah, he thought you were hot, but were you clever? Were you able to keep up with his ever changing mind and personality? And when you showed him that you were capable of doing so, he came to the conclusion that you were the one for him.

Unfortunately, Floyd had a little problem. He was worried that you would reject him. Being afraid is a very rare thing for him, but who wouldn't be afraid to be rejected by someone you love so much?

The other problem was that he really just couldn't tell if you were into him or not. Great Seven, he didn't even know if you were into men! It was sooo confusing and he hated it. Hated that he couldn't figure you out. Hated that he was so afraid of something so stupid as love.

Since Floyd couldn't seem to tell you his feelings, he instead tried to convey his feelings to you in more subtle ways. He tried everything, from sly remarks hinting at something, to literally just straight up flirting with you. He even gave you roses. But somehow, you either didn't seem to realize his feelings were real or you were ignoring it, which made him very frustrated.

But this did not deter Floyd. Being the persistent eel he was, he wasn't going to give up. So, he just made it more and more obvious what his intentions were, until eventually he got so tired of hinting at his feelings he just decided to tell you.

"I love you Shrimpy."

"....Ok." Then you walked off.

What?!

What do you mean, "Ok"?!

He has never been more frustrated than he was right now. Maybe you believed that Floyd was just being his usual weird self and messing with you, or you thought it was some kind of joke.

Why did this have to be so difficult? Why couldn't you see just how much he loved you? He had to convince you that his love was real. He just had to at this point.

However, no matter what he said, items he gifted to you, or how much he interacted with you, you just never seemed to understand that he was being genuine.

And it hurt, it hurt so bad it was like you were rejecting him a hundred times over. What made it even worse was that he still couldn't tell if you were into him or not. He loved you so much and he wanted to be with you so bad. He needed to tell you, to grab you and shake you until you realized in that stupid little brain of yours that he's being serious. Otherwise he would be waiting forever for you to realize he loved you.

So he waited for a chance to truly confess, no hinting, no games, he was gonna tell you just how much he loved you.

After school had ended he searched for you. He saw you walking back to Ramshackle and tried to catch up to you. When he did, he grabbed your arm and started dragging you into a different direction. He told you that he wanted to show you something. Begrudgingly you complied, getting dragged off to wherever Floyd wanted to take you.

Floyd was nervous. His skin felt cold and clammy, and he was beginning to shake. He tried to calm down by taking a few deep breaths as he continued dragging you along.

Eventually you made it to your destination, the botanical garden.

The botanical garden was already a beautiful place as it was, but the specific spot he took you to was exceptionally so. Standing atop a small bridge overlooking a large pond, the setting sun that glowed through the glass panes far above you were reflected within the pond causing it to shimmer with a rainbow-like effect. Not only was it absolutely gorgeous but It was also quite a calming place.

Floyd leaned upon the bridge's railing looking down into the pond's darker depths as he built up the courage to face you.

After silently taking in the scenery for a few more moments, he decided it was time. He turned to you, his face showed nothing of the happy and whimsical Floyd you knew. Instead, he looked scarily determined.

Though it was an act, he was in truth, terrified. This moment was the one he had dreaded for so long. But he had to do this. He had to get these feelings off of his chest.

So, he looked you in the eyes and confessed. Floyd told you how all the things he had said to you were hints towards his true feelings for you. He wasn't messing around or lying when he had told you that he loves you. It wasn't easy for him to put into words how he felt for you. But the feeling he got when he finally confessed was amazing. It felt so freeing. But as sudden as that feeling came, it was gone, as fear suddenly overtook him.

He's glad that it seems your finally taking his feelings seriously, but fear's harsh grip was suffocating him. He was afraid of your answer. It made him feel so small and weak, he hated it. The silence as he awaited your answer was deafening, but thankfully you soon responded.

You rejected him...

.

.

"Wha- why?"

You went on to explain why you didn't return his feelings. That yes, you did initially believe that all of the hints he was giving you was just him messing around. But, you also told him that you had rejected him because you believed that he would eventually grow bored of you, and that when you weren't entertaining enough to him anymore he would discard you like some toy, unloved and forgotten.

Floyd was angry. He's delighted that the reason wasn't because you weren't into men, saves him from that embarrassment, but he was still fuming. He wanted to grab you and tell you how stupid you sounded, how stupid you were to assume something so ridiculous as that. He really wanted to argue with you, to say that you were wrong, that he doesn't just go around wasting his time on random people he doesn't care about.

In truth, Floyd wasn't mad at you but at himself. He realized that it's his fault you believed that about him. Maybe if he had done something different, maybe if he was a nicer, better, whatever person, you would have accepted his feelings. Maybe's and what if's filled his head but none of it mattered. You had chosen your answer and he just had to accept it, whether he liked it or not.

Floyd got up and left, not saying another word. He didn't even look at you.

To you it probably seemed as though he took the rejection well. He didn't put up a fuss, he didn't even try to fight or argue with you either. But that would be very far from the truth.

He was mad. He was upset. He wanted to squeeze someone or something really bad right now. But, he'll get over it eventually, probably. It hurts like hell but he's not going to let this hold him back. What happened had happened, and there's nothing he can do to change it...

#twst x reader #twisted wonderland #twst #jade leech #jade leech x reader #floyd leech #floyd leech x reader #tw angst

[welcome-back-to-hoimycraf]

fWhip was really hoping this stupid party would end soon. 

Yeah, sure, peace was nice- but did he have to stand awkwardly in a loud room packed to the brim with people he didn’t know to keep it? He sighed for probably the millionth time since he’d got here (and maybe the billionth if you counted the days beforehand), even though it’d only been- what an hour? And he got here before the party started! ‘Cause for some reason, Gem had decided to drag him over to the dumb Overgrown for this dumb party to preserve some dumb peace since “the war only ended so recently”. He didn’t get the point of it.

For one, the Cod-Grimlands war had ended, like, five months ago! They'd already had an entire two weeks of nothing but mending the relationship between their empires, why would they need more? Plus, fWhip and Jimmy had been dating for two of those months, and that’d be pretty peace-preserving, if you asked him. Gem had said something about how Katherine wouldn’t know that since they weren’t public yet, and the fae was only trying to help, but he’d tuned her out. Mostly because they just wanted to feel right in not wanting to be at this stupid party for stupid peace and with no other stupid synonyms because his stupid brain was overwhelmed with everyone’s talking and laughing and touching- Goddess did he hate people touching them.

Ok, they’re sick of this. The Count made their way through the crowd, pushing and shoving probably more rudely than he should be. Whatever, their reputation was already fucked anyway. They maneuvered over to where he’d last seen his sister, hoping a familiar face might help in some way. Maybe she’d take pity on them.

They wandered around the castle like a lost child for about ten minutes before giving up on his search, instead changing course to the open-air central garden.

Thankfully, no one else had decided to follow his lead and the place was utterly deserted. He plopped onto one of the uncomfortable stone benches and brought his legs up on the seat, resting their head on his knees to make himself feel better and hopefully get their brain back in working order. They can't imagine willingly going to one of these parties, let alone enjoying one. He truly didn't understand how people worked. 

A loud voice rang out- something about a new esteemed guest arriving, presumably another emperor. fWhip only groaned and cupped his hands over their ears to block the noise. He was way too sober for this, party etiquette be damned. If they were forced to be here, at least let them get hammered before the sun fully set.  

They lost track of time fairly easily now that the world was blocked out and no one was coming to bother them at every turn. They were kind of hoping they'd sit out here all night until it was socially acceptable to go home when footsteps interrupted their train of thought. He sighed. He really couldn't catch a break, could they?

A light tap of their shoulder both surprised and confused him. This was definitely not the ordinary civilian if they just walked up and touched an emperor like this. 

They raised their head suspiciously and spotted the blonde hair and fins he'd grown oh-so familiar with recently. Jimmy tilted his head as they made eye contact, a soft smile growing on his lips. "You gonna come out from your ball, or are you gonna spend some time with me?"

fWhip hummed in thought for a moment. "Dunno. My ball sounds pretty nice right now."

The cod scoffed before both men burst into giggles. fWhip unfurled and stretched, wincing as his bones cracked and popped back into place. "Ugh- parties," the winged complained. 

Jimmy nodded with an expression that said he'd felt the same way more than enough times. "I feel you there," he sighed. 

fWhip cracked a smile and finally took in Jim's appearance... All of Jim's appearance.

Jimmy was wearing a dress. Jimmy was wearing a dress- the Count's face flushed a shade almost as red as their hair and their jaw basically hit the floor. Goddess, this man was going to be the death of him.

The dress wasn't even distasteful or indecent- in fact, it was rather stunning. It was a long and flowy sundress, flattering his long legs nicely. It was mostly a vibrant green, but had gold detailing that made the whole thing feel elegant with its intricate patterning and loose, translucent sleeves. 

The sound of Jimmy's snickering snapped them from his trance. "fWhip?"

The man jumped, shaking his head almost as if he was trying to shake the thoughts from their skull. "Uh- what?"

"Is something the matter?" The Codfather inquired.

fWhip stuttered a bit. "Yeah, of course something's wrong!" They huffed in exasperation, "You look gorgeous!"

Now it was Jim's turn to blush as he turned away and covered his face with his hands, stammering and blubbering the whole time. "Well- that's one way to compliment someone, I guess," he grumbled lightly. 

fWhip rolled their eyes as they stood up and let their hands rest comfortably on Jimmy's hips, leaning back to gawk a bit longer. "You know what I meant, dummy. I've just... never seen you in a dress before." They paused for a second. "It's a nice change."

"Why, thank you, Count," the fish teased. fWhip only rolled his eyes, the smile creeping onto his face betraying the aloof persona he was failing at putting on. "I thought it would be nice for the start of spring. Helps with the heat, y'know?"

“And here I thought you liked the heat,” fWhip chuckled as they bumped their nose against Jimmy’s.

Jim rolled his eyes fondly. “Yeah, doesn’t mean I like to sweat, though. ‘Specially at a party.”

“I could make you sweat in another way,” fWhip grinned and wiggled his eyebrows at his partner. Jimmy flushed and pushed their face away, causing a mischievous cackle to escape from his throat.

“I’m breaking up with you,” The Codfather deadpanned.

That earned a squawk from the other man and a round of bickering that led into the night. They spent most of the party hiding away from the public, only dropping in to not seem suspicious and to attend enough since this event technically was for them. Eventually, the people did trickle out, and the staff made their rounds to wrap it up. The two found themselves back in the garden, lying amongst the flowers and chatting about nothing. 

A comfortable silence had fallen between them. fWhip had taken to picking at the grass near his head- a bad habit. He always needed something to do with his hands or he’d go mad with restlessness. As he mindlessly tore up House Blossom’s carefully planned and put-together lawn, he let his eyes wander over to the man at their side. 

Jimmy was a sight to behold with his long hair sprawling out across the grass, framed by flowers and his dress fluttering slightly in the breeze. He looked rather… feminine, which fWhip found that they liked, surprisingly. 

The cod rolled onto his side as fWhip opened their mouth to speak, “So, what’s with the change?”

Their response was a puzzled look. “What change?”

The redhead shrugged as best they could while laying down. “Just- you haven’t told me of any desire for feminine things before, and I didn’t think you liked that sort of style anyway.” fWhip’s implication was clear. Jimmy’d never been one for anything delicate or graceful, much preferring the more masculine dress of most Codfolk. Thick pants, long boots, and tunics are what you’d likely find the Codfather adorned in. It was practical for the mud and slime of the Codlands, but also a personal choice. Jim had told them of the years of living in Pixandria that he’d felt pressured to dress a certain way, not yet knowing he was a man. Not out of malice, but more out of societal norm. He’d hated it, basically doing anything in his power afterward to be perceived as a man from any and every angle. 

The blonde hummed thoughtfully as he drummed his webbed fingers on his stomach. “‘Dunno. I guess… I guess I just feel more comfortable now?”

fWhip hummed as a sign for Jimmy to continue. 

“I think that I’m more comfortable in the way people see me now. Like,” the man paused to gather his words, “now that I’m the Codfather and I’ve established myself in the public’s eye, I don’t feel so… pressured? Anymore?” He grimaced in his poor explanation. “What I’m trying to say is that I’m comfortable in the way I present- how I choose to present now.”

fWhip chuckled. “I get that.” And really, he did. They’d finally scrubbed their birth name from all Grimlands records only recently, and their citizens seemed to be calling him “Countess” less and less as the days went on- so they understood Jim’s sentiment. Void, he’d only just tried nail polish for the first time last week! So, yeah, he was well-versed in overcompensating masculinity. “It’s like you run away as far as possible from the feminine side of yourself and then approach it slowly from the other side, right?”

“Exactly!” Jimmy exclaimed, sitting up and leaning closer to fWhip with a wondrous grin. “That’s such a good way to say it.”

The Count smirked. “What can I say? I’m just so great with words.”

They yelped when Jimmy’s finger collided with their face as he flicked them, giggling. “Don’t take it too well, your head’s already big enough.”

fWhip playfully grumbled a bit, but ultimately shut up. “Well, I think you look ravishing,” he teased. “And I’d love to ravish you-”

“STOP.”

#fanfic #my fanfic #empiresfic #empires smp #empires s1 #empiresshipping #fwhimmy #fish husbands #fwhip #count fwhip #jimmy solidarity #the codfather

[milkytheholy1]

Everything Ends: Part 6

EE Masterlist. Ultimate Masterlist.

_______________________________________________

Back at the lair

"Soooo, what do we do with this thing?" April questioned, holding the key up in her hand. You and Splinter stood beside the teen, while Splinter choose to tug on his beard in thought, you were still processing certain events.

"We could always burn it, fire gets rid of everything." Splinter rushed out, rather suspiciously. April sent him a side eye, "Uuh huh, I don't even wanna know."

She turned to you with a bright smile, "What about you, (Y/N)? Got any good ide-" her voice faded out. April tilted her head in sympathy, her brows were furrowed and her lips were jutting out. She turned to Splinter who shared a similar look, he waved his hands in a 'go-talk-to-them' motion. 

"Hey, you ok?" April eventually asked after a blanket of silence enclosed the room, you sighed but slowly nodded your head, "Yeah," you all but whispered out. Another shared look. April placed the key down and walked over to you, offering you a warm smile, "Hey, I've known Leo for practically my entire life. He's going to come around, heck, he probably didn't mean it! He's always so into his own mind, maybe he didn't even realise what you said?"

"No, April. He knew exactly what I said, and yet, he still left. I know it was a shitty thing to do, to make him choose, but what else could I have done; he threw a katana at me, April. A katana!"

April shook her head in disapproval, even Splinter piped up, "Blue was wrong, there is no doubt about it. But I raised him better than this, whatever has come over him will fade. I only hope he realises this soon." 

The room fizzled into a quiet atmosphere, the only sounds audible were that of the leaky pipes and honking from taxis above ground. You were all standing around the key, April had previously pulled up a whiteboard, simply titled 'Mission: Key Master' and began jotting down any ideas she could think of.

She then turned to you and Splinter, her hip jutting out, "C'mon guys, I can't be the only one coming up with good ideas...well, ideas."

"Magma!" Splinter shouted out, you shook your head, "No, no, what we need is acid."

"Acid? Are you kidding me?" Splinter laughed, "We need to up the ante, we need a black hole!" You and April both shared a look, "What about the toaster? It burns bread, why not a mystic, alien key?" April added. 

"A wet punch!"

"A big hammer!"

"Katanas!"

"A jackhammer!"

"Lasers!"

"Have we seriously got no good ideas, like really a wet punch? You thought that would work?" (Y/N) glared at Splinter, "Hey, April said we needed ideas, she never clarified whether they had to be good!"

"Guys, guys, we gotta stop fighting, it'll get us nowhere." April chided, she rubbed her hands over her face, dragging her eyes as she glared at the key. You sighed, softening your shoulders, "You're right. I'm sorry Splints, I guess with everything happening I'm just...on edge."

"I believe I owe an apology to you too, I am sorry I raised my voice."

"See? Look what happens when we work together as a team, not fighting like some Z-list bad guys. Now c'mon, we're gonna figure this thing out even if it's the last thing I do!"

A red blaring light flashed haphazardly, illuminating everything in a warning sign. A loud siren bleeds through the air, invading your hearing which caused you to wince, "What's happening!" you cried out. One of the numerous monitors in the lair lit up with a camera feed displaying the secret entrance, and it looks like you had a few visitors.

"This cannot be good," Splinter sighed, "C'mon, we'll head to the garage! It'll be the easiest way outta here!" April rushed, pressing a bunch of buttons, presumably to slow down the Kraang. Before you left the room you swiped the key, fumbling to put it in April's backpack. 

Eventually, though, you made it to the garage, thanking Donnie to high heaven that he made more vehicles than just the Turtle Tank. You saddled with April while Splinter took his own bike, Donnie had designed it specifically to fit his height requirements.

"Aprilllllll Ooooooo'Neil!" the girl in the green jacket yelled out, revving the engine before kicking off of the ground and zooming through the sewer tunnels. You clung on to her sides, your hair whipping against your cheeks as tears flooded your vision. You could faintly hear Splinter behind you as well as the onslaught of laughter and growls. 

The bike skidded and swerved, occasionally you met the odd staircase and felt your insides bounce. April's backpack was slightly open and every time you hit a particular bump you could faintly see the key float in the air. Grabbing it with haste, you held it close to your chest, flinching away from whatever the Kraang were throwing at you.

"Faster!" Splinter yelled out, but it was hard to hear over the blood rushing through your ears, "Faster!" he cried again, now by your side. A large tentacle came crashing down against Splinter's bike, luckily he was no ordinary rat and jumped onto yours. The bike bounced backwards, igniting a large explosion, you could feel the faint heat burning your neck.

"Run while you can, insects! You can't escape!" the alien growled, whipping another tentacle against your bike; this time you weren't so lucky. The bike flew from under you, April rolled off to the side, Splinter was flung straight into a wall, and you were left gliding through the air until the rather uncomfortable ground caught you.

You were bound to feel that in the morning, that's if you'd make it to then. Although your gaze was fuzzy, you could see the key only meters away from you. Crawling towards it, you quickly caught sight of the Kraang charging towards the very same object. You moved quicker, gasping as your lungs burned and your ribs screamed. Your hand collapsed around the key, yanking it back towards you before April could pull you up onto your feet. 

Your free hand clutched your chest, feeling immense pain and tightness. April grabbed your arm, tugging you as she ran away from the beast. You could hear it laughing as it crept closer and closer, it felt like a losing game of cat and mouse. The Kraang sister jumped at you both, flicking you into the air and landing on the hard train tracks of the abandoned subway. You gasped aloud, something definitely popped. 

"Give me the key, human." the alien bellowed out, watching with yellow-tinted eyes as you clutched it closer to your chest. April was cowering beside you, panting. She drew her backpack in front of her, hoping the slight accessory would provide a little bit of protection. She rummaged around, her fingers grasping anything she could find and throwing it at the Kraang; though it did nothing to stop them.

The Kraang slammed itself against you both, one tentacle reaching out for the key while the other moved to crush April. You both screamed, holding the key in a death grip, it felt like this was the end. You'd never get to see Leo again, you'd never get to apologise, never get to tell him you loved him.

All of a sudden, April pulled out a glowing blue substance, throwing it with all her power at the Kraang. The creature immediately backed away, wailing and groaning in pain, it sounded almost human in the way its blood-curdling screams echoed.

"What did you do to me? What did you do to my face?" it shrieked, turning to you both with a fresh new hole where it's eye should have been. You and April released another scream, backing away as quickly as you could. A yellow glow emitted from the Kraangs eye, the sound of a bike getting closer and closer until Splinter pulled up with the same bike as before.

He pulled you up and onto the vehicle, sending you a worried glance at the way you hunched over. April smiled, her eyes full of hope as she pointed at the Kraang, "Ha! I knew that stuff was nasty!"

"Yes, yes, you're a genius! Now let's go!" Splinter hurried out, revving the engine once more and skidding down the tunnel leaving the bad guys in the dust.

Eventually light flooded your vision, you had made it to the surface, finally, you could breathe in fresh air no matter how hard it hurt. April tapped her communicator, calling for Donnie but there was barely an answer, just static.

"Donnie? Donnie, come in! They found us, where should we go? Donnie?" she tried once more. The static warped and morphed until voices came through, "We're trapped!" came his hectic voice. It came in waves, fading in and out, "We are zzt- trapped zzt- in the subway under zzzt- Metro Tower! We-zzt- ing- zzt- low power- nd-zzt- Kraang growth. Zzt- I repeat- zzzt - Apri-"

"APRIL, COME QUICK ZZT- WE'RE BEING ZZZT- SQUISHED!" Mikey's voice yelled out, Splinter put his foot down and the bike practically jumped at the increase.

#tmnt raphael #tmnt raph #tmnt donatello #tmnt donnie #tmnt michelangelo #tmnt mikey #tmnt leonardo #tmnt leo #rottmnt raph #rottmnt raphael #rottmnt donnie #rottmnt donatello #rottmnt mikey #rottmnt michelangelo #rottmnt leonardo #rottmnt leo #rottmnt leo x reader #rottmnt leonardo x reader #tmnt leo x reader #tmnt leonardo x reader #rottmnt #rottmnt movie #rottmnt movie spoilers #fandom #fanfic #oneshot #fanfiction #tmnt #ROTTMNT Leo x reader #everything ends

[megaawkwardhuman]

GUESS WHAT'S FINALLY HERE BITCHESSSSSSSSS!?!?!?

after a rollercoaster of a week for me y'all have NO IDEA how happy this makes me to say but

THE TRAILER FOR SEASON 5 IS OUT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

and that means looking far too much into it!!!!! :D

OK so I have A LOT of thoughts so I'm going to do bullet points

right off the bat (hehehhe bat) nandor never fucking change XD love how he thought that would work

oh yeah speaking of nandor we have a scary lack of him in the trailer or at least what he's going to do this season (mom pick me up I'm scared for my cringefail)

to say what's on everyone's mind OH MY FUCKING GOD FINALLY LET'S GOOOOOOO

MY BOY DID IT HE'S GOING TO BE A VAMPIRE DFOJWEBOKFHEJBKGREHIWLGJHIGKFEIYWLEGUKFELIQPEGDFKIELYUQ;OWDGFKLHI3U1;O

well at some point? by the looks of it we're kinda getting a have your cake and eat it too when it comes to guillermo being a vampire and ngl kinda upset about it if it's going how I think it's going

I swear if he's practically normal until the very fucking end I will raise HELL

also I love how chaotic his turning is XD

"I WASN'T READY" NOBODY IS

colin for office babyyyyyyyy

I see everyone talking about colin and nadja BUT WHY IS NOBODY TALKING ABOUT THIS IJRBH302HGOUFRHI3YGUFE3HI2PUO LMFAOOOOOOO XD

also (DON'T QUOTE ME ON THIS) I think this is the first time we're seeing colin flirt/do anything remotely romantic or whatever to a dude in the show (which confirms that every main character is queer but we already knew that lol)

the scene with the microphone woke me up (well so did vamp guillermo but the mic REALLY woke me up)

so the guy in the promo WAS nandor huh

WLW NADJA LET'S GOOOOOO

love how outdated laszlo's medical stuff is

YAY HE'S NOT GOING TO WEAR ONLY SWEATERS SO HE'S POSSIBLY NOT GOING TO GO BACK IN CHARACTER AS I FEARED

d-did nandor bring guillermo to a basketball game out of jealousy?

IS THAT A HAMMER!?!?!

NANDOR WTF ARE YOU GONNA DO!?!?!?!?!?!??!

nadja pouring coffee on her date's plate XD

ayyyy the sire!

ok I'm assuming part of nadja's and colin's plots will revolve around getting a date??????

THE MALL

I'VE BEEN WANTING TO SEE THE VAMPIRES AT A MALL FOR A WHILE NOW JBIFEWE2OBJFEOGHPI2EFBEJOHIP2E THIS MAKES ME SOOO HAPPY

I'm assuming the store nandor is at is a hot topic/spencer's stand in

if it is PLZ LET THERE BE A LOOKING AT THE BACK OF SPENCER'S SCENE (for those who have never step foot in a spencer's it's basically a common mall store that has edgy shit and the back is known for having sex toys and other nsfw shit in it think of it as the edgy older brother of hot topic)

"that's how we all learn" UHHH TF!??!

glad to see laszlo accept guillermo and help him learn how to vampire :) (let's hope the others will)

also NANDOR YOU SAW NOTHING

DAAAAAAMN COLIN JESUS FUCK

by the looks of it nadja and colin's plots will at some point involve dating??????

AWWWWWW charmaine is supportive of sean

this has been said a million times but NANDOR IS FUCKING CUTE IN HIS SEAN COMING OUT OUTFIT!!!!!! THE LITTLE BELLY!!!!!!!

if I remember correctly (AND I REALLY HOPE I'M WRONG) but the last time we saw nandor THIS happy was during the wellness canter cluster fuck so I'm REALLY glad he's going to be happy this season

YOOOO SEASON 4.5?????? (1 I know it was a talk show in 4.5 2 yeah I made this joke already XD)

WHY IS NADJA A BLONDE?????

theory: whatever happened the guide is happening to nadja

the only thing to back it up: they both be blonde

AW SHIT WHY IS THERE A COP CAR?????

THE GUIDEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

COLIN X NADJA!?!!!?!?

I MEAN SURE I GUESS???????????????

YEAH SAME GUILLERMO

I'm assuming that what he said is in reaction to him being told he's a dhampir or he's immune or something like that

SHE'S TRYING TO GET SOMEONE TO FUCK HER GHOST

hUh weird but ok????

and finally WHAT'S WITH THE MOON SHIT?????

theory: guillermo only shows signs of being a vampire at night which is why he can go out during the day without being burnt to a crisp

overall IJOHEU2P1HIWJBGEU21RPHI2JLGRHILUFHIPUWEQJFU9WGFJDKHIEPQKFVDVGJR THIS HAS BEEN ON MY MIND ALL DAY HOW TF AM I GOING TO BE NORMAL I HAVE A PARTY TODAY?????? 😭😭😭

CAN'T WAIT DEPOJWBJDOEEFBOOEFONFEONFE

#sorry this took a bit to post since funnily enough I was at the mall #and I couldn't work on the draft AT ALL #in fact what I wrote on the way there got fucked up and even after I got home it wouldn't save :( #BUT HERE IT IS NOW #what we do in the shadows #wwdits #guillermo de la cruz #nandor the relentless #colin robinson #laszlo cravensworth #nadja of antipaxos #the guide #wwdits spoilers #wwdits season 5 #wwdits s5 spoilers #wwdits season 5 spoilers #wwdits s5 #word garbage™ #NOBODY TALK TO ME I'M FREAKING OUT ABOUT GAY VAMPIRES #ok time to unbox everything I got at the mall now since it's been just lying on my bed lol

[twistydergcorner]

My CrunchStripe ramblings and how I came to ship it.

Hello tumblr! and my followers! I realized, While I post my art, I never talk about my head canons or the stuff that makes my ship tick or how I characterize said characters. So, I guess I'll start off with my fav ship (And cause my obsession never ends!!) Crunch x Pinstripe. Strange ship, I know. But one day I was at work and I thought to myself. what if they kissed? And thus a crackship would be formed. But, I learned more about the two, and honestly, it became more fun for me. At first, their relationship in my notes started off as a Hatemance. Like they hated each other but wanted to kiss. Cause, I ran with this idea that what if they were both still under Cortex's thumb so to speak. And it was just workplace rivalry. Though, thanks to my close friend, a lot of the dynamic changed. I suppose the best way to describe it would be the confident jock type with the crazy mafioso. It's explosive! it's a joke you don't get! and yet, it makes sense to me in a way. I don't quite have a set canon on how they met. Currently hammering away at a fanfic for a concept of canon, but another time. Honestly, I love the idea that they fall in love many times, and they shall again!!! Mostly cause I could start the story off with Pinstripe needing a body guard and Crunch just happened to be looking for a job. and that's how they meet. and the story escalates with the dramas such a dynamic carries. I guess what appeals to me for the dynamic, is despite the confident tone of Crunch, he is the one that has to bring Pinstripe back down when he gets ahead of himself in his ideas. Or Pinstripe bringing a form of excitement in Crunch's life and not leave him in the background. And to me, the characters are versatile and by the power of fanon, I can't really go wrong. But I understand some interpretations aren't for everyone. And that's ok. Still, I understand it's rather odd. But I am a lover for the unusual shippings.

I'll post my hcs and maybe some story ideas I have planned soon. thank you for reading my ramblings. I at least hope you got some idea on this. buuuuut if there are any questions, I can answer them in the next post^^

#crackship #crunch bandicoot #male x male #shipping #pinstripe potoroo #ramblings #my otp #my nonsense

[kalessinsdaughter]

Mistborn – The Final Empire, Chapter 34

Kalessin reads cosmere

Prologue | Chapter 33 | Chapter 35

"Fear is the tool of tyrants." And the Lord Ruler uses it to the full, long after it can be justified by his own standards.

Alright, I was wrong: the Inquisitor actually focused on Kell, not Vin. And damn, Kelsier is good at Pulling and Pushing metal. But why does the Inquisitor smile all the time? Just to get on Kelsier's nerves? Also, what's with the clawlike hands?

The irony of Kelsier saving Elend is not lost on me.

"Renoux" is dead. But I'm pretty sure the look Kelsier shared with the kandra means that the kandra, whatever a kandra is, survives, just not as Renoux.

The end of Kelsier's fight with the Inquisitor is magnificent! Everything about it, from pinning him by hammering his spikes into the wood, to using his own weapon for the killing blow. Truly the stuff of legends, and this time Kelsier really deserves the crowd's awe. But of course the Lord Ruler has to spoil it.

Oh no! No, no, no, Kelsier!

Dammit, I knew his interest in Sazed's legends about dead leaders meant he was planning something like this! And I hate it!

But his final words. "You can't kill me … I am hope." And then he dies. A legend, yes, but what good is that, when you're dead?

What is the plan now, Kelsier? How is the crew supposed to be able to deal with this? How is Vin supposed to be able to deal with this?

Some thoughts about the first real look at the Lord Ruler: I'm sure the description is significant.

The rings, we knew about those, but I wasn't expecting there to be so many! The nobility only seemed to wear a few pieces of jewellery.

And also, tall and thin, are we talking tall like Kelsier, or tall like an Inquisitor or a Terrisman?

And young… I don't know what to make of that. He's immortal, more or less—as evidenced by the skaa's futile attempt to kill him— so I guess he doesn't age. It's hard to say if his age matches the impression from the logbook: I hadn't thought much about the narrator's age, but he seemed to have a lot of life experience. So yeah, probably unexpectedly young-looking.

The oddest thing to me is the accented voice, though. I would have expected his language to be the same one everyone else in his empire speaks. Or is his accent from a more archaic version of the language?

Finally, about the kandra, I'm still wondering if those mimicking abilities are connected to mistwraiths. But also, what will the kandra do now? Leave with their job done, or stay with the crew? A mimic could be useful still, right? Plus, "Renoux" was deep in their plans, especially … with … Kelsier … waaait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

Ok, I'm very not sure about this, but: what was that nod between Kelsier and "Renoux" really about?

#kalessin reads cosmere #cosmere #mistborn #the final empire #brandon sanderson #the final empire chapter 34

[hauerhoetime]

Tommy's Party P2

Steve Harrington x Reader

Summary: Steve listens to your message...again....and again...and again.

TW: mention of drinking and getting high

An: if you asked for a part 2 I tagged you :)

Tommy's Party P1

Steve Harrington stood with his phone to his ear as he listened to the message over and over again. This has to be the 10th time he's listened to it and this definitely won't be his last. There was something different about this listen though, this time he let himself have the illusion of conversation.

“Hey Steve, it's me. That was some party last night wasn’t it” he heard your voice come through before rushing out a response as if you could hear him.

“Hey! It’s been a while- yeah that party was crazy” he heard your breathy laugh that was a nervous habit of yours.

“You seemed to have fun- I mean you looked pretty hammered to be honest with you. I don’t know if you saw or anything but I was giving all my drinks to my friend I came with” You began to ramble and he smiled along to every word.

“Yeah I got pretty drunk. I’m not surprised you handed off your drinks, you were never much of a fan” he looked at the floor reminiscing on the first time they drank together after he snuck her out of her house and into the woods by Lovers Lake.

There was a moment of pause before your voice came through once again “Oh and I noticed there was some girl that came with you last night? Yeah I didn’t catch her name but she seemed pretty slammed too but you guys seemed to be having fun.”

Steve frowned “Yeah she was meant to be a date but I didn’t end up liking her all that much.” When he thought about the party he didn’t really think about the girl on his arm, he thought about the joy from the music and dancing and how sad he was when he watched you leave.

Steve knew the next question you would ask from his several rounds of listening to this message but when he heard your voice come through his phone the question rattled him as much as it did the first time.

“Do you….do you remember when we used to party like that too-?”

“Of course I do sweetheart-” Steve cut in “I miss it. Not for the parties but for you. I miss having you around all the time.” Steve stopped for a millisecond before asking a question he already knew this recording couldn’t answer for him. “Why did you stop coming round?”

His only response was yet another awkward laugh and how frown deepened.

“sorry I left before saying ‘hi’ but even though I wasn’t drunk I’ll be honest I was at least a little high- ok I was pretty high- but yeah I left before I got too out of hand-” You began to speak again.

“It’s alright sweetheart I understand.” He couldn’t help the somber tone of his voice and he couldn’t help letting the old nickname slip past his lips so easily like it once did.

“I heard on her walk home Nancy threw up- hope she's alright-”

“Yeah she’s fine-” Steve almost dismissed the question; Nancy wasn’t his concern right now, you were.

“I guess I keep saying you seemed to have fun but I never actually asked- how was your night? We didn’t talk so I guess I wouldn’t know but I noticed how you and that girl laughed pretty good ya know like we used to-” Your voice hitched a little at the end as if you didn’t mean to say it.

“I’ve never laughed with someone as much as I laugh with you. I had fun but I wish it was you- I was wishing it was you.” He blurted.

“Hey, remember when we used to sneak out all the time and we'd just hang out-?” Here it comes. The next question was the second question in this recording that rattled him. “Is that what you do with her-?”

Steve took a shaky breath before answering with a soft “No…only you”

The phone line stayed quiet before there was a quiet click. The message was over. Your voice was gone. Only a moment passed before Steve lifted his hand to the phone; playing your message once again.

@madmaxinealt @sublimepenguinpeach-blog

#x reader #fanfic #stranger things #steve harrington x you #steve harrington x y/n #steve harrington x reader #steve harrington #steve harrington stranger things #Spotify

[jmrothwell]

"Why'd you turn the music off?" for the Greater Polyphantoms Polycule?

Reggie stood before his partners nervously fidgeting with the bowl full of names behind his back. He really hoped they wouldn’t mind him suggesting this, but there was no way he’d be able to afford a present for each of them this year. He’d barely managed to get them each something last year. 

Of course, first he’d need to get their attention from where they all were just hanging out. Easy enough, he thought as his hand shot out and turned the speaker off. Actually that might have been a little extreme and a touch too aggressive.  

All the eyes in the room snapped to look at him, a range of confusion and concern. “Why’d you turn the music off?” Luke was asking before his eyes actually landed on Reggie.

The blood drained from Reggie’s face, he really hadn’t thought about what to say. But now they were all staring at him waiting for him to talk. Flynn sat up straighter from where they had been leaning on Willie, “Reggie?”

He ignored the hammering of his heart against his ribs and rushed to say “I had an idea for Christmas this year.”

“Ok?” Alex leaned forward in his seat, brow furrowed and elbows on his knees. His anxiety must have flared up with impatience while Reggie nodded because it didn’t take him long to add, “what is it?”

“I was thinking that it might be fun to do a secret santa for gifts this year?” Reggie plastered a smile on his face as he brought the small bowl of names from behind his back with an enthusiastic shake. He hoped no one would ask why or could see how desperately he really wanted them to accept the idea. 

“Oh, sounds like fun.” Willie chirped as he bounced forward in his seat, sketchbook flung to the side. Reggie’s smile grew more genuine as everyone else agreed as well, handing off the bowl to Willie so they could all pick their names.

This was great, only, Julie hesitated when the bowl finally made its way around the room to her. She stared down at it with a confused pout, “Reg, did you already pick a name?”

“No, why?” 

“Because there is only one name left in here.” 

“What?” Reggie exclaimed as he racked his brain. He knew he didn’t forget anyone. Five names wasn’t that hard to lose track of. 

Shit, did he forget one of them? That’s worse than if he were to have gotten them crap gifts. He’s positive he didn’t forget any of them, though . 

As he recounted the names in his head, and possibly on his fingers, he heard Alex snort. “You remembered to add yourself, right?”

Reggie glared in the boy’s direction because of course he…didn’t. He tried to hide the blush he felt rapidly burn a path across his entire face. At least he only forgot himself and not one of them, right?

“Let’s try this again,” Willie chuckled with the accompanying sound of paper being torn. Probably making new slips with the correct amount of names this time. 

Reggie was really lucky to have them, all of them. And he loved the simple gold bracelet with all their names engraved on it he got for Christmas that year. He ended up cackling when he saw his name had also been included.

#julie and the phantoms fanfic #the greater polyphantoms polycule #christmas fic #secret santa #Carrie isn't in the polycule yet though there is plenty of room on Reggie's bracelet for her name to be added later

[party-in-eldarya]

Playing ANE what a joy ep9 p4

After 4 days of intense training  /s Erika has a day off, and sleeps till noon. 

I mean... Why the writer is so bad at such simple things? The fact that Lysander’s farm is 4hrs away from civilization (and they added a village in wedding ep, but in AL it was in the middle of nowhere), just to explain how Candy CANNOT stay with him and study at same time... And here, they gave us 3 days of training, everyone important in Eel drops everything to teach Erika... for those 3 days, then they let her rot. We know it’s for Earth mission, but we also know that it didn’t help much. It would be wiser to send there Nevra and Lance and maybe Mathieu, and let Erika stay and train in Eel more. Or describe that she has spent intense 3 weeks and is getting better at it. Pls, writing how she got better at fighting just because Lance said wise words “be more active in fighting” is...laughable. Dunno, maybe they will let her traing more in future, after that day of laziness, but for now it looks ridik, and I am sure that I have read fanfictions written with more logic. Becoming a warrior is not an instant ramen, it cannot be done in 3 days. Proof that Erika is indeed Jesus of Eldarya. 

The writer is trying hard to show us how Erika has grown these days: she is walking in Citadel, looking for places to hide, she is also reciting those few facts HC managed to hammer into her memory. Personally, I think that they could have describe her reading a book about first aid, or do some cardio and it would look less silly, but uh. They are the writers of game I waste money on, so maybe they are on something?

Well done Beemoov, Erika decided to train her superpowers when Leif is with her, so he could guide her and see if everything is ok. It is smart, I am really impressed. 

“The day passed, I was wandering around without real goal”. Because??? Why didn’t she train with Mathieu, or go to Absinth and tried to do some basic potions she learnt, or, dunno, do cario? There is a simple, reasonable plot line yet the writer suddenly decides it’s time for Erika to do nothing.  WHY? Am I to believe that no one in Guard had time to train some more with their LAST HOPE AND JESUS ERIKA?

Erika decides to look for Leiftan (not sure if it’s for every Gardienne, or only for those who are on his route): 

It is. Backgrounds, sprites are beautiful this season. Too bad that the spirit of game went to hell, just like Beemoov’s will to do anything good with this game. Wish we (Erika) could explore world more, but ANE is very limited and empty. We only know bunch of characters, the citadel is empty, we get to know new eldarya place in last episodes. 

Except we know and Erika knows that Oracle is Ophelia, so she is here, but it less reasuring. Well, yes- Ophelia is lame guide, only repeating “you will fail, all will die”. The only person who can talk to me like that is Xan, and he belongs to much, MUCH better game than Eldarya. 

“ If we are doomed to fail, could we at least do it faster?! “ 

Xan about state of Eldarya game

It is Leiftan who find us, ofc HH summoned us. OK, action I guess?

After 3 days of training. 

And she was kinda right. Never forget that Beemoov decided to kick out one of LI for almost 2 episodes just because. 

Erika takes initiative, but she thinks that she doesn’t want to scare him. Nice, no irony here, she shows some good sides here and there, but sadly, the writers then forget how to write humans and it ruins her. 

My angel (daemon angel) smiles sweetly when Erika let him read her feelings. This is eally good moments, but I wonder how they work on other routes. Here, they can understand their emotions because of special connection, what about Lance? Mathieu? 

Awww, I always loved scenes when the couple meet in the middle. 

I don’t like illu, but it’s a give in ANE. However, props MAD PROPS to writer for reminding that Leiftan and Erika had an intense relationship before ANE. 

Sadly, Leiftan decides to end this moment because HH, the council, and yes, I get that probably it’s the same line for each LI, but uh. It doesn’t work for him- but then again, after 5th episode of Lysander AL I understood that I got all Beemmoov’s character wrong. 

20 maana on repeating same “we didn’t want to leave, but we had to. We stayed in silence because we didn’t want to leave”. Sadly, it is still one of better moments I have spent with my LI so far. Ok Beemoov, I will give you that- they are under stress, so it worked for this scene. 

I swear, I have read the same line in at least 3 episodes before now. “All members are here, Koori is also here”. “Everyone stood there, but Jamon, he was absent”. I know, I know. It is small detail, but uh. We all know how nicely this season developed, right? Let me me sad bitch. 

Erika wonders what this special mission would be. Will it be a diplomatic mission in Yaqut, to make an alliance with them? Or perhaps a semi-diplomatic mission to: 

Both valuable options, and with better pacing and writing both could be possible this season AND would have some meaning. 

“but how? When I was a lost girl who was missing her family (and who back then still loved my father- you know, the one who taught me how to cook and who adopted a stray kitten), you all told me it is not possible. The only person who swore he would try to find a way to send me back home was romanced Ezarel, and sadly, he run away to play threesome with Anne-Marie and Twylda. I know it sounds fucked, but so is my life here” -said Erika. JK. 

Beemoov, fellow Gardiennes. Listen, that girl has lead a nice, comfortable life on Earth. She had parents, a mother and father- who cooked with her and was a rather chill person. She had friends. She is not a Mathieu, lone in this world and without purpose. It’s good that she tried to build new life on Eldarya, but she has spent there only couple of months, so she should be conflicted, but thrilled. Not sure why writers act like she has spent those 7 years alive and active and bonding with eldarya world.

I know I am bitter, but seeing how Beemoov hypes their new game while giving me shit feels sad. 

END of Ep, next time things will get heated, because an IMPORTANT PERSON will role play a fashion designer because IMPORTANT PERSON. Dont get me wrong, if Erika wasn’t playing Jesus, it would be a nice, fitting (ha) quest. As it is it is a bit insulting, but again, she is just a tool. 

#playing ANE what a joy #rant #like giga rant