#might edit in the morning

[slythepuffle]

I’ve seen Dadnacio things and would like to offer a drabble I made based off of my take on him (+ A scenario I like):

She was looking out the window again.

She knew she wasn’t supposed to. She’d probably get in trouble if she got caught. But she couldn’t help herself.

It was Halloween. Her favorite holiday, though she hadn’t been able to celebrate it in a long time. She could see kids walking around, dressed as various monsters or characters, carrying giant bags of candy. She saw zombies, skeletons, mummies, devils, and, of course.

Angels.

She watched as one passed by the window, shrinking slightly to stay out of sight. Though, it wouldn’t do her much good anyway - The window was completely boarded up.

Ignacio walked into the room behind her, watching her for a few moments. Then, he spoke up.

“Angel.”

She jumped, whirling to face him. There was a guilty look on her face, pressed up against the wall under the window. He was leaning against the hallway frame, expression disappointed.

“I told you to go to bed,” he said, gently scolding. She lowered her eyes to the ground.

“I-I know. Sorry, 'Nacio,” she apologized, refusing to look at him. He didn't seem upset or angry at her disobedience. Simply sighing as he walked up beside her to peer out the window. "...See anyone you know, Angel?"

She hesitated, then slowly nodded, glancing back out the window. "...J-Just Robbie and his friends."

He glanced at her, eyes narrowed. "Did they see you?"

She shook her head quickly. He nodded, satisfied with the answer, and pulled back from the window. She was grasping the little angel hanging from her neck, its cyan eyes gleaming through her fingers as she stared forlornly at the window.

Ignacio saw her expression and looked away, sticking his fist in his pocket. He dug around for a moment, searching for something, before taking it out and shoving his fist in her direction. She leaned back, looking at his fist with a mix of wariness and confusion.

She looked up at him. He didn't look in her direction, just holding his fist out in her direction, waiting. She looked back down and slowly held her hand out under his fist.

He opened it, dropping a few candies into her open hand. She looked down at them, surprised, and looked back up at him.

"I know you wanted to go out and trick-or-treat tonight, but it's not safe. So I decided to just buy candy for you." He finally glanced at her. "You... still like those, right?"

She blinked, then slowly smiled, clutching them in her hand. "Y-Yeah. Thanks, 'Nacio."

He grunted, looking away again. "Whatever. You can eat them in your room, just make sure you're quiet. And that you go to bed."

His tone was harsh at the end, like he was upset at her - She knew by now that wasn't the case. She flashed him a smile, nodding and retreating from the room. She paused in the hallway, glancing at the man still standing in front of the window.

"Good night Da- 'Nacio!" she hastily corrected, scurrying off to her room. She missed the way that the man tensed, unsure of how to react to the slip-up. After a few moments of silence, he finally spoke up, though she was long gone by now.

"Good night, Angel."

[valictini]

Loop experiences Insomnia

Yeah, Loop’s first night doesn’t go as planned. They lose consciousness for like, max 30 minutes overall. So they’re not doing great in the morning! And whoops, their filter is slipping a bit!

This very tired Loop is NOT CONVINCED that it’s just insomnia and panic attacks and is scared it might actually stick at some point! (It IS just insomnia and panic attacks)

Nille sees that and uses her tried and true strategy with the erratic stranger: treat that fella like a sad toddler! Reassure them! Give them a simple and repetitive task to complete when they insist on helping you that day! Get them to pass out in minutes!

Also you might wonder why Nille even bothers with Loop. Like. Why would she even get them in her house during these first days? She doesn’t know them, and people in the village might be better suited for the job!

Well you see, Nille is in dire need of a distraction! If she’s left alone with her thoughts, she starts thinking about Bonnie and how she doesn’t know where they are and how her best bet is to stay there in hopes they come back. And if she has to think about that for more than three seconds, she immediately combusts! So all in all, a high maintenance washed up stranger that panics at everything is the perfect excuse for her to Not Think About It.

[scalierpepper]

necromancy is cool

I really struggled with this angle and I was too stubborn to give up so there's a lot of things that aren't quite right, but I want to call it done and I really like the composition so I send it into the tumblr void for you to see anyways ~~

[lovesodeepandwideandwell]

Put your hands together in prayer for me, ladies--I'm about to submit my first application for a full-time permanent grown-up academic job

[riptid3s]

casts spell of weird dubiously gay glance

[dyke-ified]

btw i made an updated (post endless sunset w/ clips from it) version of this edit i posted a few months ago :3 c!glowduo forever and ever

[entguarde]

Have faith (in yourself)

[Image ID: a digital sketch of Lucretia and Merle Highchurch from The Adventure Zone, set during the Stolen Century.

Lucretia is a young Black woman with long hair in locs which are tied in a ponytail. She’s wearing adventurer’s clothes and large, round glasses.

Sitting on a bench in the background is Merle, a middle-aged dwarf man. He has long, wavy hair in a partial bun and a fluffy beard. He has a protruding fang and a tail like a sea otter. He’s wearing similar clothes to Lucretia.

Lucretia is standing in a battle-ready pose, her right hand outstretched as she casts shield of faith. She looks to Merle with a nervous but excited smile. Merle, with a proud smile, is clapping at her achievement. End description]

[slavhew]

28/01/2024

stars don't twinkle moon doesn't shine

big thanks to @nahrgles for finishing this for me after i hit a wall with colors bg and effects- chromatic aberration blew my fkn mind

pre edit transparent version under cut because i spent too much time cleaning it loll

[sigery]

No idea how plausible this idea is but in the Moon & Sun Minecraft, they apparently have been very clear that Sun and Moon are not brothers. And Eclipse was just introduced as also not family to them (I think). So did they make this show for the celestialcest shippers to explore different relationship dynamics for the characters in hopes the community would go chill in their separate corners?

This is all secondhand information as I haven't seen any of the show (nor have I kept up to date with sams and other sbs lore in general) and me speculating with no actual facts.

this is basically solely based off of these two screenshots I saw on twitter

[matchalovertrait]

I had a hell of a time dressing up Dulce for these prompts!

For @la-llama-sims A Party to Die For ↜₍^ -༝-^₎

Thank you @changingplumbob for the template 🤍

[funsize-cenobites]

Mihawk-Brain-Eating-Syndrome has seized me.

The post that started this whole train of thought came from @manofbeskar who's Mihawk thoughts, Mishanks heartwrenchers, and absolutely gorgeous art are so inspiring I feel chewing-on-the-doorframe feral every time I check their blog.

Mihawk has a complicated relationship with vivre cards. Yet despite all efforts at keeping the world and everyone in it at Yoru length he still manages to keep collecting bits of them.

Not many nowadays, its a rather intimate affair after all; to have someone give you a literal piece of their life so that you may always find them no matter where in the wide seas you may be. Assuring that you'll be the first to know should they leave that world entirely.

Far too intimate. It feels too obvious, too heavy handed, too much like handing him your heart and asking him to carry it. Such a thing is heavier than any blade and all the bloody deeds he can never truly wipe from the steel.

Its gentle and vulnerable and human. All the things Mihawk is convinced he could play at but never truly be again. But... I imagine at the start of his journey, maybe he was a touch more open. Perhaps accepting his first from a mentor as a parting of ways though he didn't yet have one of his own to offer in return.

Strange how a simple piece of card in his palm could feel like an open door. Always there, inviting him home. Always there, until it wasn't.

Mihawk will never forget the first time he felt one burning away into nothing in his hands. It went up so quick.. He had no idea it could take less than a minute to burn a home.

Then perhaps he found a crew, a more tangible place to nest and he suddenly had more vivre cards than he could tuck away on his person in a timely manner. Perhaps it became a ritual of sorts each morning, a part of his routine to tuck each one away. The captain, vice captain, and the rest of the specialists lining the inner band of his hat while the rest of the crew were individually squirreled away. A meditation, grounding and quiet. He would use it to remind himself of his role as the crew's swordsman, as their protector.

How could he forget the sharp sear of each individual card burning away, stuck close to his skin by waterlogged clothing as he dragged himself ashore gasping and choking on sea and blood and smoke. Having been left by marines that assumed he would drown because- perhaps pointed out by one that had deceived him, made Mihawk believe they were his friend to be led back to his family:

"No freak like that could exist without having eaten the devil's fruit."

How could he forget the embers escaping, dancing in the evening gloam like fireflies swarming around him? There were so many.. now there are none and gods he's been so empty since. How could such a small piece of paper take so much of him? To kill a man with a blade, even butchering him inelegantly, would be a greater mercy so long as he was dead.

Nowadays Mihawk knows better. Knows better than to trust or be trusted. That blades might chip and tarnish but they dont burn, never completely.

Yoru hums and sings in his hands as he wields her and she does not feel like home.. but she feels solid and eternal and cold. She will never burn. Her weight is bearable.

Impersonal.

Professional.

Yoru makes death an art in his hands. She is the brush not the paper, spattering fireflies over a night sky.

. . .

For years after, he kept far from others. Deciding to never get so close to anyone ever again. Safe in the knowledge he would never feel the burning sting of loss nor the cold cut of betrayal so acutely. Trust was a double edged blade, perhaps the only one he truly couldn't handle.

He was no protector.. so he wouldn't try to be.

Instead Mihawk would hunt. Chasing the marines mercilessly. Cutting a bloody path through their ranks and burning their fucking fortresses to the ground. At first they spoke of him as an insane lone swordsman, then a one man army, then a monster, a demon. The relentless yellow eyed freak that stalked the seas and nightmares of future vice admirals.

He systematically killed all those that harmed him. A shadow over the shore, a rogue wave swallowing their ships, a curse of vengeance come to reap. He destroyed all the records of his crew that he could get his hands on. If he must be cursed to slowly forget them over time, then the world government didnt deserve their memory either.

And so on it went for a time. Long enough for the hunt to lose its luster. Slaughtering sheep by the herd in search of a rare wolf.

Mihawk had almost forcibly forgotten about Vivre cards as a concept. His own remained untouched, never moving from where he hid it. He had no friends, no family, no nakama. Only a dwindling list of worthy foes to test himself against.

Until the day the king of pirates died. Until their golden age truly began.

Until he met Shanks, who held out a hand and asked him to step out of the monochrome past and into a thousand possible vibrant futures. Ones of lush reds and glittering golds, of polished onyx black and the purest, deepest blue.

.

"Here," Shanks said suddenly one night, holding out a small scrap of paper. The both of them were perched atop the ruins of a high sea wall on some remote island, enjoying the cold breeze from the north after a hard fought duel.

Mihawk, for all his composure, blanched. "What is that?" He knew and he did not take it.

"What do you think it is? Its a piece of my card." He said it so simply. Like it barely occured to him how precious such a thing was. Shanks didn't drop his arm, even as the silence stretched out between them.

"No."

"Come on, Takanome- Dont be like that! We're nak--"

"Rivals." He cut the younger man off abruptly. His chest felt too hot and too tight, burning and burning and, "We are rivals, Akagami."

Shanks must've been pouting, he could hear it in his voice, "Even more reason for you to take it. We could duel every day if you could always find me~ Come on.. Please? I want you to have it."

"...."

Hawkeyes glanced at his best friend rival and immediately regretted it. Shank's face was always full of so much hope, so much faith in... something.. It made Mihawk's heart catch in his throat every time to see those big earnest eyes staring at him almost as if, for a moment, it was faith in him.

"I don't know if I can give you mine.." He murmured. Shanks smiled soft, a little sad, and infuriatingly understanding without needing to know anything.

"I dont need it. I know you'll always find me." He pressed his heart, his home the scrap into Mihawk's palm and closed the swordsman's fingers over it. "And if I need to find you.. I'll just ask the wind."

[proboblynotstriaght]

I put far too much effort into my shitposting and screenshot taking...

Oh well! you all seem to enjoy them! And I like having all my best screenshots in a place that doesn't take up a crazy amount of space in my computer!!

As usual past the cut there are spoilers for episode 40 but I try to keep it away from any major spoilers

(also psst, @raeemar this is for you! your reblog made my day!)

Let's get into Episode 40!!!! Rich : The bean footage is a DM thing I can't say it! ||| Mike : eeeeeehhhh we can change it?

Bro bonding moment, bullying lornings edition

Twig : *explaining fae deals and how to make better deals* |||| Gricko : *not paying attention*

Nikkie : *doing a fantastic Torbek impression!* ||| A++ Nikkie Torbeks voice is hard

"Twig we haven't run a successful business in all the 8 years-" "Woah now!" uh oh! the couple is Fiiiighting

"Think of the margins we'll have on the Displacer Beast piss"

Frost : So are we going to kill these fucker or what?

"I guess that makes sense... fucking nerd"

"I knew a guy who would make and sell this kinda stuff, 5 people died it was a whole thing in the news and everything" "Well how many people did he sell it to" "Like... 5"

"Well, I'm just going to say... shit that was funny"

"How long did it take those goblins to die?" "the last one lingered... for a good three months"

Twigsy, blacked out from all the alcohol, and flailing around as Gideon picks her up

His face haunts my dreams...

Derek : *a punny name for the drink* || Gricko : that's not very good

Frost and Kremy are drunk, Gricko and Gideon are trying to be the smart ones for once

"Frost you realize that you've been writing with a chicken leg, and what you thought was parchment, is now clearly human skin" "Well, I've completed page one of my cookbook, the Necro-Nom-Nom-Nom"

"He is continuing to do whatever Torbek does" "Pump his fists" "NO HE DOES NOT"

Grickos imitation of Gideon, I just need you to know that Mace is laughing so hard that it's not actually audible.

This man is laughing so hard he is completely silent and shaking, I'm genuinely concerned for this mans health

Derek : It doesn't even give Gricko a little wink? Like John Void at the end of Anaconda?

I love when Derek makes a joke because they are funny, but also he's almost laughing himself as he's telling the joke

Richie : I'm sorry I thought he was saying something else

guys it took me like four trays to get the screenshot of his face, IT'S SO FUNNY

MIke in Gricko's voise : Gimmie that Bussay

"The Stream Kill-inator" "beep beep beep"

Husband moments be like. FRosty really likes to irritate Kremy about his hat huh

SHUT THE STREAM DOWN

"BEEP BEEP BEEP"

I don't understand most of the references they make but I like how hard they all laugh at them

Derek telling a ridiculous story of how he had too watch the same movie twice in one day and he hated the movie both times

Nikkie : *Horrifying description of Torbek eating one of the Lornlings* Just kidding that doesn't happen!

Singing : It's Torbek It's Torbek, Everybody hates Torbek

Part 2 of this post is one the way! These posts keep getting longer and longer

Edit : Part 2 is here!!!

https://www.tumblr.com/proboblynotstriaght/760423614759714816/part-2-of-my-episode-40-screenshots-despite-andy?source=share

[youngestdaughtersyndrome]

LONDON BECKONED SONGS ABOUT MONEY WRITTEN BY MACHINES || HEAD (1968)

[grimvestige]

EDIT: IM A FOOL WHO FORGOT A RESULT. If you don't have the badge but do commissions just mark the "I didn't know" one ^^

I'm really curious about this, and I figure it'll be useful information for commission artists on Tumblr besides myself! You know the drill, reblog for a larger sample size ^^

Also if you do commissions and you feel comfortable doing so feel free to say what you voted for + your approximate follow count since it's entirely possible how helpful it is correlates with audience size

[detective-ws]

good morning and good night sebastian picmix gifs!

i really like using these kinds of gifs and i really wanted one for sebastian, so i made my own!

[jamiesfootball]

📓

CONGRATULATIONS. YOU ARE THE LUCKY WINNER OF THE LONGEST RESPONSE. I'M SO SORRY.

Welcome to my Jamie can have more than 1 2 3 4 best friends agenda starring Isaac McAdoo From Isaac’s perspective See the one thing Isaac always had a thing about is people seeing him on his own merits. He knows all too well that his image fits a stereotype—there’s nothing he can do to change that—but what he can do is put the effort in to make sure the other parts of him shine through. So he studies up: on fashion, on kinesics, on Shakespeare. Anything he’s interested in, he puts the effort in. So it’s not enough for Roy to give him the captain’s band- he has to earn it. He has to put the effort in, or it doesn’t count as his.

Then there’s Colin. Colin came to Richmond during the same transfer period as Isaac, and from day one they've been getting scolded for talking during video review. Colin is easy; they share a wavelength. A silliness. Colin is judgy and a bit hot tempered, but also completely easy-going with whatever Isaac suggests. He’s never had to try hard with Colin. When Jamie shows up at Richmond the first time there’s a bit of that too. He’s got some of their silliness and humor, though it’s shrouded in dickish overtones. He’s more willing than Colin is to push back if he doesn’t like something, but there isn’t much he isn’t willing to go along with when Isaac suggests it. Plus Jamie thinks it’s funny when Colin gets into a proper bitch session (Isaac agrees). But Isaac thought Jamie appreciated him for the other stuff. He never came at Isaac the way he came at Sam about the football stuff, so he always assumed that Jamie could see that Isaac was putting the work in. That he respected the effort of trying to do well on a team that wasn’t doing well, but was certainly trying to do better. That he respected Isaac. Then Isaac was throwing a chair through a tv, and more fool on Isaac then- Jamie never respected any of them at all. But Roy gave him the captain's band and Isaac McAdoo always earns what he’s given, so when Jamie comes back to Richmond he knows it’s on him to set an example.

He lets the other lads take the lead, but mentally Isaac’s prepared to have it out if he needs to show Jamie who’s in charge this time around. It doesn’t come to that. Jamie comes sulking back in like a puppy who’s new and nervous to play with the big dogs. He stands there and apologizes. He takes it when the lads throw at him the same complaints that Isaac’s been fielding since he took on the armband- from the valid (Sam’s stewing anger) to the less valid (Richard deserved it) to the….Isaac isn’t sure (‘he unfollowed all of us on Twitter, Dani. It wasn’t just you’).

Jamie never challenges Isaac’s claim to leadership. It irks something awful, and something in Isaac suspects that Jamie still doesn’t respect him.

Then the gaffer goes mental one day, yelling at them like a Loony Tunes character, and Jamie’s the only one of them to say anything about it. Isaac should’ve said something. Someone needed to call the coach out and he should’ve done it. He keeps telling himself to do better as a captain, but then these situations crop up and he doesn’t know what to do until after the thing has happened.

But Jamie didn’t look at him after like he was trying to steal Isaac’s lead. If anything he looked confused, bewildered when the team gave him props for standing up for them. No, it wasn’t a power move on his part. He was just doing the right thing. The right thing that Isaac should’ve done.

Isaac games it out with Colin, the Jamie mess. Colin reassures him that it was a funky situation and that the lads knows Isaac is trying his best. Colin wouldn’t lie to him.

So Isaac figures ‘you get what you give’ right? If Jamie’s going to make an effort, then so is he. If he wants Jamie’s respect, he’ll give a little first. Isaac makes an effort to grease the way on Jamie coming back into the fold. He’s got a handshake with everybody on the team and he makes of point of showing everyone on the pitch that Jamie’s got one too (had one before the rest of them, if he’s being honest; had one since back when they used to hit the clubs together). It’s easier than he thought it’d be, folding Jamie back in to club nights, movie nights, the occasional cheat day brunch.

One morning they’re sipping on cheat-day mimosas at Colin’s (and watching the highlights from the game from the night before in a time-honored tradition of not even pretending they don’t have egos) and Colin finally cracks and tells Jamie his stupid gelled back hair last year made him look like a luge runner. Isaac is proud—that’s the longest Colin’s ever kept his opinion to himself. Jamie snorts orange juice on himself; Colin yells about his couch. Jamie tells them that he was just revisiting old haunts and the mood struck him, yeah? Swear I won’t do it again.

Isaac tells him he better not. Reflects poorly on him as captain if one of his crew shows up looking like a twat. He throws it out without thinking. It’s the first time he’s given voice to the new hierarchy between them and he’s not sure how Jamie will respond.

Jamie responds by complaining that the orange juice burned his nose. Then by texting Isaac the next morning, a photo of himself in the mirror rocking one of those puffy vests he likes and a stiff collared button-up shirt Isaac wouldn’t be caught dead in. His hair is gelled back, but it doesn’t look too awful with the halfway decent fade he sports these days (Isaac could do better, he’s just saying).

The text says, “all good cap??”

Isaac texts back a photo of himself. “needs work bruv”

He’s not sure if its respect, but it’s something good. Something that makes him crack jokes, and hang off of Sam’s shoulders, and defend Isaac’s artistry with the razor to Jan like it’s his own honor at stake. (This in spite of the fact that Jamie has never, not once cashed in his free yearly haircut).

It’s all good and then Wembley happens and Isaac thinks that maybe the real issue is that Jamie’s never seen what respect looks like in his life. Maybe the flaw was never in Isaac as a captain or a player, if this was the man who should’ve taught him what it looked like in the first place.

He tests the waters when Jamie comes to him and Colin panicked after the funeral and tells them he pulled some stupid shit with Keeley (‘the funeral got to me. I don’t know why I said that—Roy’s going to murder me’). Jamie’s got himself all worked up that Roy’s going to talk to the gaffer and they’re going to send him packing—as if—and Isaac tells him full stop that the only way through it is to be responsible for his actions. Tell Roy the truth. Tell him you didn’t mean to step on his relationship, and that you respect him.

Because Jamie does respect Roy. Isaac knows that much. He can see it in the way Jamie followed him around like a lost duckling when Roy first came back to coach. Now that he knows what he’s looking for, he can see it a lot in how Jamie looks at Ted when Ted is doing one of his Ted-talks. He can see it in how Jamie looks at Sam when Sam talks about how Twitter still won’t lay off about the Dubai Air thing but he refuses to let them treat him with disrespect but he also refuses to stoop to their level. Jamie’s respect looks a lot like awe and wonder with just a hint of confusion. Jamie never looks at Isaac like that.

Jamie does take his advice though, and by the end of the season him and Roy seem square. Isaac’ll take the win.

Colin complains that when Roy headbutted him, he got a concussion, but when Jamie gets headbutted he gets a hug.

Isaac and Jamie both go in for a very sarcastic hug at the same time. Maximum silliness reinstated. All is right in the world.

Zava arrives and Isaac, for a while, finds himself swayed and forgetting his purpose as a captain. It’s something he’ll look back at and regret, like the Loony Tunes situation, how he got so caught up in the flow of things that he forgot to ask himself what he should be doing as a captain.

Zava sticks around and Colin gets moved to second string. That, Isaac notices. He may not be the captain he should be, but he knows how to be there for his best friend.

Zava leaves. Isaac, faced with his shortcomings, doesn’t handle it well. He over-corrects and insists on everybody bonding in Amsterdam. He keeps half an eye on the hotel door so he can flag Jamie over when Roy’s done with him, but the night comes and goes and the two of them never show up. When they catch the bus the next morning, the two of them seem better, settled and relaxed the way Roy hasn’t looked all year. Isaac puts that down as another thing to learn: bonding ain’t just about the team. Sometimes the coaches need it too. A year ago he might’ve been worried about Jamie stepping on his heels. He hasn't worried about that in a while.

When Total Football goes awry, he over-corrects again but in the opposite way. Lashes out at Jamie for not scoring goals at his end of the pitch, while Isaac hasn't been holding up his half of the job either. But Jamie's the one with the strategy, and he explains it in a way that makes it seem so obvious to Isaac afterwards.

Jamie has respect now. From the team. From the coaches. From Isaac.

And there's Isaac, and he's still missing shit that should be so obvious.

“I told you boyo. You’re seeing things that aren’t there. You don’t have nothing to worry about,” Colin tells him one week.

The next week finds Isaac footing it after his best friend because Colin's a judgmental arsehole when he wants to be, but this time he's off the mark. The ladies who sent photos to their fellas didn't do anything wrong. Whatever girls sent photos to Colin, Isaac will sort it out. He's not happy that this is the side that Colin’s come down on, but they’ll work it out. He’s his best friend; they’ll work it out. He doesn’t have anything to worry about.

It takes holding Colin's phone in his hand for Isaac to realize he's never seen his best friend with a girl.

It’s like he’s the epicenter of an atom bomb, the way the world fizzles away to nothing in his ears, thoughts blown far from the radius until all he could do is hand the phone back and walk away.

Another one of those things he should’ve noticed, but didn’t. Except worse.

He tells Colin everything, and it feels like Colin’s lied about everything.

It hurts. It’s a ball of rage so deep it takes him out at the knees, and it makes him want to do worse than throw a chair at the TV.

For the next month there’s no cheat-day mimosas. There’s no impromptu late-night FIFA matches and avoiding Roy’s wrath when he catches them yawning the next morning. Colin slinks around him in the locker room and makes jokes with the other lads and looks to Isaac for a sign of a smile like this is just a tiff. Like any day now Isaac’s going to roll his eyes and say ‘okay I’m over it we’re square now.’

Isaac doesn’t know how to be over it. He feels himself tearing up just thinking too hard about it. When he doesn’t say anything back and Colin looks away in disappointment, Isaac wants to do worse than throw chairs.

Isaac’s always tried to make sure he gets what he deserves, but he doesn’t know what he did to deserve this.

If this were anybody else it wouldn’t be happening, he’d call Colin and game plan that shit. But it is Colin, and given the potentially sensitive nature, what Isaac really needs is someone who won’t ask too many questions.

That’s what he tells himself when he hits up Jamie to see if he can carve out some time to grab a drink with Isaac, between Roy’s insane extra workouts and the team’s new everyday insane workouts.

He needn’t have worried about spilling any secrets. Jamie wasn't Colin. Colin had an unassuming way of under-reacting that makes you feel like you could tell him anything and he wouldn’t bat an eye. Which is false—what he actually does is he lets you pour your heart out and then tells you you’re being an idiot (judgmental prick).

Jamie on the other hand finds a bone to pick and then natters you into fighting over it, and before Isaac knows it they’ve spent two hours arguing about the end of Inception and he hasn’t once thought about Colin and the huge, stupid secret Isaac’s got locked inside his chest.

Isaac invites Jamie out again two nights later, when the breathing gets tough. Then again on the weekend, when its starting to dawn on Isaac how a Colin-less life makes a calendar feel like an empty hallway after the party’s over.

He spends a month patching over the Colin-holes with Jamie-shaped gauze.

For a shit month, it's pretty enjoyable.

Around week two they go on a shopping spree. An honest to god break out the champagne full fucking wardrobe shopping spree. (Colin doesn’t really like shopping; Jamie isn’t Colin). When they finish ransacking the first store, Jamie lays down his card and tells the shop assistants, "It’s on me." Isaac gets the tab at the next place. He talks Jamie into expanding his pallet to include more summer colors – sneaks a sky blue hoodie into the pile when Jamie isn’t looking – and in return Jamie hypes him up to hell and back, saying he looks mad fit every time he comes out of the dressing room while daring Isaac into trying some basic color blocks ("Not everything needs a print, mate"). He even finds Isaac a pair of pink-tinted sunglasses that are surprisingly tasteful.

The thing is it's become a habit, Jamie hyping him up. Going on a year later, most days him and Jamie are still swapping pictures of their outfits each day. Slowly but surely, Jamie's style has stopped looking like ‘DSQUARED2 but only the lame parts.' His style now is fresher, more dialed in. Occasionally, Isaac will admit, he looks fucking fly. Not as fly as Isaac, but the effort's there.

(Colin’s fashion choices are atrocious—if he ever complimented him, Isaac would burn the outfit on the spot.)

When they finally split afterwards, Jamie pulls him into a tight hug and thanks him like Isaac’s the one who’s done him the big favor, instead of Jamie being the one anchoring Isaac to sanity.

After a month he's mad at Colin, and he’s mad at himself for still being mad at Colin. He doesn't know how to fix it.

But no one, absolutely no one, is allowed to throw hate at Colin.

The damn breaks when Isaac isn’t ready, and then Roy's pulling him back and he's in the locker room yelling and all the unfairness and the anger and the guilt and the missing-Colin boils to the surface, and Isaac is gonna cry if he doesn’t get out of there.

Isaac isn’t so far gone that he forgets about the armband, the weight of the thing he’s earned but certainly doesn’t deserve right now. He leaves with Sam, with his steadiness and grace and discernment. He'll either keep it safe or give it back, depending on which way the scales tip for Isaac when he leaves the room.

Roy sets him straight. A year ago Roy’s lessons were sharper, lessons under streetlamps that you had to fight through yourself. Since Amsterdam, he’s been as soft with the team as Isaac’s ever seen him. He doesn’t know what Jamie did to bring that out, but he feels a similar softness in himself when Jamie corners him after the game to tell him what went down in the locker room after he left.

Colin came out to the team.

Colin came out to the team for Isaac.

“Everyone was really supportive about it,” Jamie reassures him. He’s tugging his ear, an awkward tick he’s picked up from Sam, and he’s not quite looking Isaac in the eye but Isaac can’t look anybody in the eye right now either so that checks out. “About him, but also about you, in case it were you too.”

That'd be a new level of drama even for this team. Isaac snorts. “Nah, it wasn’t me.”

Jamie huffs, “Yeah. Didn’t think so.” Then he pauses for a second and adds, “But if it ever was something, you could let us know, yeah? We’re here for Colin. We’d be here for you too. If you're upset about something, you can just tell us. You don't got to spend a month making excuses to hang out.”

It’s Isaac’s turn to instigate one of those crushing hugs. Jamie hugs back just as tight.

There’s too much going on for one day, a red card and Roy Kent telling him to calm down and sort himself out and Colin—fuck he’s got to talk to Colin—but one of these days—

—it’s been poking at the back of his mind, the way that Jamie sometimes is a bit like a can of Lynx. It smells like Lynx and it looks like Lynx but sometimes Isaac suspects he only thinks that because he saw the label first. Another one of those things that he learns that'll make more sense after Isaac figures it out, he’s sure. That's for another day.

For now Colin hears him out. Colin lets him talk. Colin says something about one-percent uncertainty feeling like ninety-nine percent terror, and it strikes a chord, harmonizing with the uncertainty he’d felt over the idea that if Colin lied about one thing, then Colin lied about everything.

Colin doesn’t lie to him. Isaac should’ve remembered that. He should’ve let the ninety-nine percent truth bury out the one-percent lie.

Colin does that thing where he lets Isaac talk himself into numerous dumb dead-ends and only sort of mocks him for it afterwards. Judgmental prick. Lighthearted arsehole. Isaac missed him.

He’s so fucking grateful for the return of Colin-time that a good month goes by. Issac doesn't clock the fact that he’s not hung out with Jamie for a while until fucking Roy Kent side-swipes him with it out of nowhere. Roy had been looking for Jamie, and Isaac quips without thinking, "why would I know where he is? I thought you two were attached at the hip these days?"

Roy grits his teeth and says, "Would’ve thought you’d know, you being best friends and all."

He says it with emphasis, like he’s quoting something. Someone. Jamie. Like he’s quoting Jamie.

He says it as if it’s not news to Isaac’s ears.

He says it and Isaac feels like a fucking idiot. He'd replaced his actual best friend with Jamie for like a month, and Jamie had let him even though Jamie knew Isaac was full of shit and making excuses to hang out. And Jamie was being supportive, stepping back and skipping out on cheat-day mimosas while Colin and Isaac re-navigated years’ worth of late-night conversations, now with the pronouns flipped over.

Colin was Isaac’s best friend. But if Jamie thought Isaac was his best friend—

Well.

Isaac wasn’t in the habit of keeping things he hadn’t earned. If Jamie thought Isaac was his best friend, then Isaac was going to earn it.

Maybe he could convince him to start with a haircut.