It's About Devotion And Obsession. It's ALWAYS About Devotion And Obsession. And Hunger. It's Love With

“Beauty is terror. Whatever we call beautiful, we quiver before it.”

― Donna Tartt, The Secret History

End of Watch

Pt. 5 in my Frank Castle: Cat Whisperer series 🫶🏻

Karen’s in the kitchen, making one of Frank’s favorite meals for no reason other than she wants to.

Six pounds of orange fluff is asleep on the sofa.

Music floats softly through the golden-hour-drenched apartment.

And Frank is at the kitchen table cleaning his Kimber Custom II.

He thinks he could get used to this.

His brain does a stutter step at the notion, and he waits for the panic to set in. But it doesn’t. He’s perfectly calm, and he realizes that he really could get used to this. Maybe he already has.

He smiles to himself and drops his attention back to the gun in his hand, disassembling it with practiced ease and laying the pieces on a towel Karen let him ruin weeks ago. Cleaning his weapons is as close to meditation as Frank usually gets, but he’s on autopilot now, more aware of the woman across the room than anything else.

As Frank works, he tracks the way her body moves while she stirs the sauce on the stove, the slight sway of her hips, the way her throat bobs when she sips her wine, the soft tone of her voice as she sings along with the Bon Iver songs Frank only knows because she plays them for him.

Karen pauses mid-stir to look over her shoulder at him and smiles. It’s bright and a little bashful, and the pink tinge creeping up her neck and into her cheeks makes him feel flush all of a sudden.

Fuck, he’ll never get over how goddamn beautiful she is.

No because when Frank was listening to the radio and brought his drink up for a sip, the INSTANT they said "the blonde" he put it down.

Frank Castle moments in gifs [?/∞]

+ bonus:

If anything, I really feel as though that episode cemented the fact that despite their lingering feelings for one another, Matt and Karen are capable of being 'just friends'.

Frank and Karen are not. They will never be able to be around one another without emotional devastation following because their feelings are that strong. There is no such thing as ~casual~ for them, they can't just meet up for diner coffee and gossip because they can't pretend they don't want each other. Frank can't even look her in the eyes without laying his soul bare! There is no reality in which these two people are just casual buddies.

I think they will continue to be in each other's corner, but Karen walking away really cemented that she can't do the halfway in, halfway out thing that she can do with Matt. It's all or nothing.

Either Frank lets her in and the two of them are together for real, or she can't be in his life.

The way Frank sighs and immediately leaves when he hears them mention “the blonde” over the radio SCREAMING CRYING THROWING UP we are so back

"Come on, get in." "Shotgun." "Heh. Don't wanna hear your shit." It's truly just like a mother calling her kids to the car after school. I love them all so much.

I totally get we're all rightfully pointing out Frank being overcome in love in the finale but we need a moment for Karen initiating and getting swept up in that gaze with him and having to shake herself out of it but then getting sucked back in to gaze sadly until Frank has to be the one to break the moment because Matt's awkwardly there while they went off into their own little world. The camera's on Frank when he's fiddling with the mug but you can see from her back she sighs with him.

Yes! I love that she's resisting, but the connection (even after all these years) is so strong she just keeps getting sucked back in. And that Frank only brings Matt back into their bubble after she turns down his offer.