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withleeknow · 10 months

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wishful thinking. (01)

chapter one: flutter

summary: the instruction was plain and simple: no strings attached. but you should’ve known from the beginning that it could never apply to you and him.

pairing: minho x f!reader rating: 18+ (minors dni) genre: friends to lovers, friends with benefits au, college au; fluff, angst, smut warnings: implied smut, aftercare, mentions of alcohol consumption, hints of oc being a little emotionally constipated lol, barely edited but we should all be used to seeing that from me atp word count: 2.3k note: eeeek my first lino series is here 🥺 there's not much substance in the first part bc we're mostly just setting things up. thank you to my wifeus in the obs server (you know who you are ofc) for being the best cheerleaders, bc i don't think i would've gone through with writing this fic if it wasn't for you. fwb lino probably would've had to gather dust in the attic if you hadn't encouraged me to write him. thank you and love you <3

as always, i’d appreciate any thoughts or comments you may have, and please drop a like and/or reblog if you enjoy reading ♡

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Tomorrow when it's over and we're sober I just want to believe that you'll miss me But I shouldn't 'cause we're just friends Now we're day drunk in the back seat of a taxi And you're telling me you wanna kiss me But we shouldn't 'cause we're just friends

Just Friends - Virginia to Vegas

“Minho.”

“Hmm?”

“Get off of me.”

He doesn’t, of course. Because Minho is stubborn and Minho does whatever he wants sometimes. “No,” he mumbles against your neck, pressing a soft kiss there that makes the stupid thing in your chest flutter against your will. You don’t let yourself indulge in the feeling for too long though, only a second. “You’re too warm.”

“Min,” you scold lightly, but you can’t say that you don’t enjoy having his body on yours like this. It’s different than when you’re having sex, because this is more intimate somehow, just him holding you - or rather, resting the entirety of him on top of you like the human version of a weighted blanket. Wham! Bam! Thank you, ma’am! but with a Minho-esque flare that he doesn’t have to appease you with, but chooses to anyway.

One of the reasons why you don’t let yourself relish in the moment is because intimacy isn’t what you signed up for. In fact, it’s the complete opposite of what you both agreed on. No strings attached - it was the only instruction, plain and simple.

And so you nudge his shoulder again, making him sigh and begrudgingly sit up, in all of his post-sex glory. Disheveled fluffy hair, a couple of fading marks on his neck courtesy of you, kiss-swollen lips and a kind of glow that you’re fairly certain matches your own.

“Hang on,” Minho says, I’ll get you a towel.”

He quickly throws on his boxers - previously discarded on the floor - and heads to your bathroom. He returns to your side just a couple minutes later with said item in hand, dabbing the soft cloth at your core tenderly.

“You okay?” he asks. “I wasn’t too rough on you tonight?”

You like the aftercare, and how tender he always is with you. You’re not sure if that’s the extra effort that he puts in with everyone he’s ever hooked up with, or if you two are just naturally comfortable around each other, but it’s reassuring. It’s nice to know that this agreement between the two of you hasn’t tarnished your friendship.

Yet?

Yet.

“You were perfect,” you tell him with a coy smile. “I was the one who asked for it anyway.”

Minho chuckles, then pats your bare thigh for good measure as he takes one final swipe at your core before chucking the towel into the laundry basket in the corner of your room.

He plops onto your bed again, propping himself on an elbow so he could look down at your face, highlighted only by the dim light of the small lamp on your bedside table. The way that his bicep flexes still puts you in a bit of a trance, even though you’ve seen it probably hundreds of times already.

“You know, I was pretty surprised when you asked me to try that with you,” he says, eyeing your mouth again. “Didn’t think you’d be down for experimenting new things with me.”

“Well, who else am I supposed to try things out with?”

You’re not even sure what you meant - the words just rolled off your tongue - but you don’t miss the instantaneous look of pride on his face. To hear something like that from you is clearly an ego boost for him.

You don’t miss the subtle blush that tints both of his cheeks and the top of his ears either, but you don’t dwell on it for very long.

Come to think of it, you don’t let yourself indulge in a lot of things when you’re around him.

His free hand comes up to draw imaginary patterns along your arm, starting from your shoulder, down to your elbow, then across your forearm until you could feel his fingers on the back of your hand. “I forgot to mention earlier,” he says, tracing what you think is an invisible outline of a heart on your skin. “Hyunjin knows.”

“Knows what?” you ask.

“He knows that we’re hooking up,” Minho tells you, then clarifies when he sees your eyes widening. “Well, he doesn’t know that it’s you. He knows that I’m hooking up with someone.”

You mimic his position, propping yourself up on one elbow so your face is more leveled with his, evidently alarmed at the mention of your friend finding out about a secret that you've been trying to hide for months now.

No, a secret would imply that you have more things you have to conceal. It’s probably more accurate to refer to it as the secret.

Sometimes, even you yourself wonder why this is something you need to hide from everyone.

It’s not like you’re living in the Victorian era where people are scandalized by the appearance of a bare knee. It’s not like your friends are prudes either; most of them have had their fair share of friends with benefits. It’s all casual, all in good fun.

But maybe it’s because it’s Minho that you’re currently… preoccupied with, that makes you feel less inclined to share with the rest of the group.

If any of them catches wind of this, you know they’ll have loads to say about it, starting with a thorough but well-intentioned lecture from Chan.

You were good friends before your thing started.

You had a friendship. You had something to lose.

You don’t know why you would even risk it in the first place.

It just happened.

One particularly lonely night. You had some alcohol in your system, and that always made you more sentimental than usual. There was something romantic in the air, or maybe that’s just what you thought looking at everything through the lenses of three glasses of wine. Not drunk, just buzzed enough to be reminded that Minho was one of the most beautiful people you’d ever laid your eyes upon.

But the accumulation of all those factors didn’t matter - couldn’t have mattered - more than the fact that he was there for you.

He listened to you brood over how suffocated you felt, how stagnant your life was, how nothing seemed to be going the way you wanted no matter how hard you tried. He didn’t offer you unsolicited advice, didn’t make you feel silly for moping. He was a soothing presence and that was enough for you.

Sometimes, your friends liked to say that you two would make a good couple because of how compatible you were. Chan once commented that you and Minho were a perfect fit, and that was what kept plaguing your mind moments before you kissed Minho for the first time.

Maybe you’re the missing piece of my puzzle, you had thought back then. My perfect fit.

You had pulled away after a couple of seconds, mortified, but his reaction was immediate. He’d chased after your lips again, no questions asked.

You knew it was a rash decision, spurred on by the heat of the moment and cheap convenience store rosé. Minho was so… goddamn addictive after just one taste that you couldn’t resist anymore. Having him felt like you finally had a taste of water after spending years deprived.

Needless to say, he ended up in your bed that night. The rest is… well, it doesn’t take a genius to deduce the subsequent series of events that led you here.

“Elaborate,” you say with an arch of your eyebrow.

“You texted when he was hanging out at my place and I was in the bathroom.” Minho shrugs. “That nosy little thing. He scrolled through quite a bit of our texts too.”

You frown. “He read our texts but he doesn’t know it’s me?”

“I don’t have you saved as your name.”

“Then what do you have me saved as?”

Up until now, you never even thought about this, and you’ve always just assumed that you’re in his contacts under your name, like he is in your list. Well, technically you have him saved as ‘Min’, but anyone who comes across it could still easily identify who you’re referring to.

Minho purses his lips, contemplating for a minute before he ultimately decides to withhold this information from you. He gives you a teasing smile, another shrug, before saying, “That’s for me to know and for you to find out when the time comes.”

“I don’t get to know what my own name is in your phone? Even Hyunjin knows, apparently.”

“Yeah, but he doesn’t know it’s you, so what does he really even know?”

“But I have a right-”

“Shhh.” Then he’s leaning forward to shush you with a quick kiss to your lips. It does the job, because you shut right the hell up. It surprises you every time he kisses you when you’re not in the middle of sex. Moments like these are rare, but you’re always rendered speechless by how casually he does it, how familiar the simple action is even when it shouldn’t be, and most of all, you’re dumbstruck by just how right it feels.

“Am I gonna see you before Yeonjun’s party on Saturday?” he asks, like nothing even happened. Your lips are tingling from a simple peck. It’s so silly, considering how just half an hour ago, he was literally inside of you, pounding you into oblivion until you had tears streaming down your face. Until you were crying out his name like it was the only word you’d ever known.

You quickly regain your composure. “I don’t know, maybe. I have a final paper to finish so I’ll probably be holed up here or at the library,” you tell him. “Maybe we’ll catch each other on campus. But if not, then, yeah, I’ll see you at the party.”

Minho seems disappointed, evident from his immediate and adorable pout.

“It’s just a few days.” You roll your eyes harmlessly, lying back down again to snuggle into your pillow. “You’ll live.”

“Will I?” he grumbles. “What am I supposed to do for four whole days?”

“Don’t you have your finals too?”

“All presentations and papers. Finished the last one today.”

“Oh,” you say, mildly impressed by the fact. You always forget how studious he actually is. “Internships?”

“Already sent in my applications.”

“Changbin says you’ve been talking to that girl Hana in your class.”

You don’t know why you brought it up. You don’t even like hearing the words coming out of your own mouth.

Minho makes a face, almost like he’s taken aback that Changbin would even tell you that. “Because we’re in the same group for our final presentation,” he informs you.

“She seems nice, from what I’ve heard about her. Seems like she has a big fat crush on you too.”

“Not to sound mean, but I don’t really care about that.”

A feeling blooms in the pit of your stomach, a feeling that you cannot and will not give a name to. There’s just something about the way he said it, steadfast, without any hesitation.

“It does make you sound a bit mean,” you tell him.

“I’m just not interested in her.”

“I don’t want to hold up the Minho train if there are other options out there that you want to explore.”

Do you mean it? Yes and no. Part of you wants to be nosy and prod until he fesses up about a potential love interest in his life - if there even is one - so that you could be a good friend that tell him to just go for it, but your curiosity is eclipsed by your selfishness, because you realize that you don’t really want to know if it means the end of this.

Are you being a hypocrite?

Yeah, probably.

He bites his bottom lip as if in thought, just briefly, before he rolls over to lie on his back, staring up at your boring ceiling. “I told you, I don’t care. I’m not interested in any other girl,” he says.

Realistically, you know there will be a finale. It’s only inevitable. One day, he’ll get a girlfriend, or you’ll get a boyfriend - the former seems more likely than the latter - and this arrangement between the two of you will have run its course. Null and void.

It’s part of the reason why you never let yourself relish in him, because you will only be thoroughly disappointed when he gets taken away from you.

As if he’s ever been yours to begin with.

You’ve never belonged to him either.

Neither of you owes the other anything at all.

You blink away the dazed look in your eyes, humming a noncommittal noise in irresolute agreement, before reaching for your phone to check the time. It’s not that late, half an hour shy of midnight, and his place isn’t that long a walk from yours. You know full well that it isn’t much of an excuse, and yet…

“It’s late.”

“Can’t I stay over?” He turns his head to look at you. “I’ll be good. I’ll just sleep next to you.”

“No can do,” you say. “I have a class at 10AM.”

“Me too. I can walk you to campus,” he insists.

There’s something unspoken in his gaze that you can sense but can’t translate. It’s been happening more often lately - you not being able to read him as easily as you could before. You have to admit that it makes you a little unsettled. The unknown that swims in the dark sepia of his eyes.

But maybe you’re overthinking this. Maybe you’re making something out of absolutely nothing.

“Go home, Minho,” you decide, leaving him no room to protest. The instant kicked puppy look on his face makes you feel a little bad, thus prompting you to continue, “I’ll try to see you on campus, okay?”

He looks at you for another moment before he sits up unwillingly. It seems like he has something else to say - something other than a butthurt comment about being bored out of his mind over the next few days - but in the end, he gives up. You notice the way his shoulders slightly slump as he exhales, “Okay.”

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mountainficss · 3 months

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hello rae how are you i hope your day is going well🥺🥺

you probably saw the cheol’s videos from rimowa event, he was very impressive and charming🥲 seventeen posted a video on ig and the part where he holds a champagne glass in his hand 🫠

he gives the ex vibe watching his ex girlfriend from afar. it was like they had been separated for a while, it would be exciting to imagine that when he saw that she was dancing with another man in a club, he couldn't stand it and he grab her by the hand, pull her out of there and the two have a hard time resisting each other…can’t imagine that sexual tension😩

(english is not my first language sorry😘💞🥺)

!! mentions of: drinking, jealousy, slight angst, oral sex, unprotected sex, semi-public sex

hi there, my love! my days have been going well, i hope you are doing great <3 i actually haven’t seen the videos, but i can totally imagine the ex boyfriend vibe. it’s so seungcheol.

he’d be seated at the bar, watching you with envy as you dance with another man. he was gripping his champagne glass so hard he was sure it would shatter beneath his fingertips. you two had broken up a few weeks ago, but seungcheol had never truly let you go. he thinks about you almost daily, but his pride gets in the way of reaching out to you and trying to repair what you had. even though he hasn’t spoken to you, seeing you with another man would cause jealousy to bubble in his stomach. he wondered if you had moved on, and the thought almost tore him apart. he needed you, needed you like he needed to breathe. he knew no other man could love you like he did, could give you what you needed. he knew he could truly make you happy, and that caused him to set aside his pride and shoot up from his seat at the bar. he’d slam his glass down, dodging all of the sweaty bodies on the dance floor and making his way towards you. your eyes would widen as you see him standing in front of you, and you’d feel his hand grab yours, wordlessly yanking you away from your dance partner. “seungcheol?” you’d fume over the booming music, the loud sounds of the club becoming faint as he drags you towards the exit. he doesn’t answer, and you don’t fight him, just let yourself be dragged along as he throws open the door and pulls you outside with him. the night air is cool, and it creates goosebumps on your exposed arms. “what do you want?” you’d bite at him, scanning his face for any hint of emotions. his expression was cold, but his eyes softened as he studied your face. you were still the prettiest thing he’d ever seen, even with your face twisted into such a displeased look. and you were wearing his favorite dress too, your silky short one that hugged all the right places. he was a fool to ever let you go. “he was sketchy. i didn’t want you around him,” seungcheol would answer simply, watching as you roll your eyes at him. “it was a dance, cheol. i don’t know what the big fucking deal is. i was having fun,” you’d retort, crossing your arms over your chest defiantly. “you can dance with me next time,” he’d mumble quietly, receiving a loud scoff from you. “you’re unbelievable.” you’d scowl, ripping your gaze from him and staring at the concrete below your heels. as much as you want to stay mad at him, you do miss him. it’s not something you’d like to admit, but you would rather be dancing with seungcheol. “i’m sorry,” he’d apologize gently, his eyes never once leaving your face. you didn’t answer, still focused on kicking at the pebble beneath your heel. the pout adorning your lips was adorable to him, but he did feel a slight guilt knowing he upset you. “can i take you home?” he’d question cautiously, knowing you were still a bit irritated with him. he was expecting you to decline, but a part of him hoped that you would let him. this would give him an opportunity to make things right with you, and he’s not sure if he’ll get another chance again. “fine,” you’d huff, arms still crossed around your chest as you lift your gaze from the ground. you wouldn’t look at seungcheol, would just stare in the direction of the parking lot and wait for him to lead the way. “let’s go.”

he’d offer you his arm to grab, and you’d reluctantly take it after a few beats of hesitation. you wanted to ignore him, but your heels were starting to hurt your feet and you missed the feeling of clinging to his arm (even though you won’t admit it). once he guides you to his car, he’d open the passenger side for you and help you settle in. you’d cross your arms over your chest again, pouting cutely in his front seat as he closes the door for you. everything you do is so endearing to him, even when you’re trying so hard to stay mad at him. he’d sit down into the driver’s seat and start the car, backing out of the parking lot in silence. after a few minutes on the road he’d glance over at you, head turned towards the window and watching the blur of buildings pass by. “i’m sorry,” seungcheol would start softly, finally building up the courage to break the suffocating silence. “for everything. i’m sorry we didn’t work out. i’m sorry i didn’t try harder to fix us.” he’d inhale deeply, gripping the steering wheel a bit tighter. “and i’m sorry i ruined your dance. i know you were enjoying yourself, and i’m sure you’ve moved on by now. i can admit that i haven’t though, so seeing you with someone else made me jealous.” he’d see you slightly crane your head towards him out of his peripheral, and he’d swallow nervously. “you mean so much to me. i never really stopped loving you, and i wish i didn’t let so many weeks pass before i told you all of this. i’m so sorry our relationship turned out the way it did, and i don’t want you to think i ever stopped thinking about you even after we broke up.” by the end of his confession, he had pulled up to your driveway and switched his car to park. he’d unbuckle his seatbelt, turning towards you and shooting you a sad smile. “thank you for letting me get this off my chest. i’ll walk you inside, okay?” he’d turn away from you to reach for his door handle, but before he can grab it you’re fisting his shirt and pulling him in for a heated kiss over the console. his body would freeze with shock, but would soon snap out of it and kiss you back eagerly. he’d bring a hand up to carefully cup your face, tilting his head so he can kiss you deeper. you’d both only pull away to gasp for air, and in between breaths you’d answer him. “i’m sorry too, cheollie,” you’d whisper against his lips, receiving a peck from him. “if it makes you feel better,” you’d continue, undoing the buttons of his shirt lazily. “i never really stopped loving you either.” hearing you say those words would make him go feral, smashing his lips against yours once again with a newfound fervor. his free hand would travel to your chest, groping and squeezing over the fabric as you whine into his mouth. “missed this,” he’d growl, sending shivers up your spine. without a word, you’d completely detach yourself from him, clumsily climbing over the console to his backseat. as you climb back he’d catch a glimpse of your panties underneath your dress, setting a fire off in the pit of his stomach as he ungracefully follows you.

you didn’t care that the backseat was cramped, didn’t care that you were parked in your driveway sitting in your ex’s car, didn’t care. all you wanted was your cheollie, and now you were finally seated on his lap again as he kissed down the curve of your neck. you’d pull his hard cock out of his pants, giving it a few pumps as he whined into your neck. he was aching for you, missing the feeling of your body on top of him and your warm hole enveloping him. you tugged your panties to the side, sinking down onto his erection as you both let out wanton moans. you were positive his car was rocking back and forth as he fucked into you, but you both could care less. “l-let’s make up—ngh—for all the time we missed,” he’d groan as you bounce on him harshly. you’d nod eagerly, tangling your fingers into his hair. “mhm,” you’d agree with a fucked out smile. “let’s fuck again in my bed after this,” you’d choke out, receiving a breathy laugh from seungcheol. his hands would travel eagerly from your waist to your ass, grabbing and caressing every part of your body he could reach in the restricted space. your eyes would roll back into your skull as he hits your sweet spot repeatedly, almost abusing it as he feels you tighten around him. he’d stare up at you with glazed over eyes, his mouth open slightly as lewd sounds escape him. “let me sleep over tonight?” he’d plead, puppy eyes begging you to let him spend time with you. you couldn’t help but smile at his cuteness despite him fucking you stupid in the backseat of his car. “i’d l-love that,” you’d breathe, wondering if it was possible to love cheollie any more. (it was possible when he had you pinned to your bed after your first round in his car, eating you out like a starved man <3)

taglist: @jeonghanpill , @bangantokchy , @caratboy , @bewoyewo , @luvseungcheol , @wonvsmile , @haolovre , @aaniag , @writingbarnes , @dokyeomkyeom , @allieyaaa

#thoughts #seventeen smut #seventeen #smut #svt smut #svt #seungcheol #scoups #choi seungcheol #seungcheol smut #seventeen scoups #mountainficss

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hehetmongi · 21 days

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fever pitch - (kang yeosang/reader)

summary: you're on your period; yeosang comes home early to help you out. also cross posted to ao3

pairing: kang yeosang x reader

tags: alternate universe - modern setting, established relationship, domestic fluff, fluff and smut, menstrual sex, vaginal fingering, shower sex, hurt/comfort, reader uses she/her pronouns, 18+ mdni

word count: 4.1k

note: cis woman reader. centers heavily on menstruation and there's a bit of unsanitary-ness (reader bleeds on the sheets accidentally) so please don't read if it makes you uncomfortable!

due to tumblr's formatting, yeosang's texts are in bold and reader's texts are italicized. if this is difficult for you to read, i highly encourage checking out the ao3 link instead!

You wake to an ache between your legs, and not in a fun way.

You groan as you sit up, the sensations coming in faster and sharper than you anticipate. Your head pounds, your feet feel numb, but the worst of it is your abdomen. The cramping, the exhaustion, the vague feeling like you’ve wet yourself, or something — yeah, you’ve been through this enough times to know this is your period hitting you like a truck.

You can already tell it’ll be a painful one. You’re not exactly regular, and when your period does come in, you’re usually out of it for a few days due to the pain. It’s always been this way, and you can manage fine on your own, but you have to admit that you’d really like Yeosang’s company.

With a glance at the alarm clock — reading 8:42am, from where you can see it over Yeosang’s empty side of the bed — you trudge out of Yeosang’s room. You brace an arm against the wall as you make your way to the bathroom, narrowly dodging Wooyoung’s hip-check as he passes you in the hallway.

“Good morning, sleepyhead!”

You glare daggers at him. When he catches your eyes, he staggers a few exaggerated steps back.

“Geez, you look pissed. ”

You ignore him, deciding he’s not even worth the energy. It takes considerable effort to clean yourself up and into a fresh new pad, but thankfully you didn’t get any blood on your shorts. You take a quick painkiller before heading straight back to bed. You have the day off, but it’s not as though you’re going to spend it relaxing.

You clutch a plushie — a Doberman toy Yeosang gifted you on your third date — toward your abdomen. It’s nice to have something to grasp onto and that reminds you of him, you think, as you roll over to the nightstand by Yeosang’s side of the bed. You grab your phone, quickly glancing at the notifications you haven’t read. You gloss over the emails (mostly ads and a couple of work emails you won’t actually open until you’re on the clock) and smile at your iMessages.

MESSAGES - 45m

yeosang <3

Miss you so much 🥺

MESSAGES - 2h

yeosang <3

Let me know when you wake up!

MESSAGES - 2h

yeosang <3

Good morning 🥰

Your heart swells with warmth. Your relationship with Yeosang is still somewhat new, but every day he reminds you that this is real, and you are incredibly lucky to have someone as kind and loving as him as a partner. So far, your lives seem to slot together perfectly — cute dates, spending the night at each other's apartments, soft touches and meaningful conversations — he was everything you dreamed of, and more. It almost seems too good to be true.

(Admittedly, part of you is waiting for the ball to drop. A relationship this happy has to change eventually. And since Yeosang is such a perfect partner, you suspect you’ll probably be the cause.)

You roll onto your back, tapping a quick message in response. You don’t want him to get too worried, but you figure you should say something so he knows you won’t be responding to any future messages right away.

good morning! 💛💖 sorry i’m late baby!

just got my period :( i feel gross and really tired

You blush a little at your use of a pet name. You know he likes it, but you’re still not sure if it sounds right. You want him to feel as endeared as you do when he uses pet names for you.

His reply comes less than a minute later.

There you are!! Good morning, my dear 🥰

No worries. Please take it easy today. I’ll be thinking of you~

Something in your stomach flips, but you’re not sure if it’s from your period or if that’s the effect Yeosang has on you. You settle on it being a little bit of both as you start to type your reply.

i love you 🫶

wish you were here!

Ah, do you want me to come home early and take care of you?

I’d be happy to do that ^_^

nono i’ll be fine!! promise!!

please don’t worry about me i swear i’m fine :’)

I’ll come home in a heartbeat. Just say the word

You clutch your plushie close to your chest. Having Yeosang take care of you would be a really lovely way to spend the day. Much better than staying holed up in Yeosang’s room, clutching your stomach as you hear Wooyoung fumbling around in the kitchen, at least. But you know Yeosang is working hard, and you really don’t want to take him from that.

I have to go :( send me updates? I want to hear how your day is going

You can let Wooyoung know if you need help too. He’s good with this type of thing.

You scrunch your nose. While you like Wooyoung fine, and he’s pretty good at giving you and Yeosang privacy when you need it, you’re not exactly comfortable asking him for help with something like cramps. It feels… personal, and incredibly burdensome. And if you’re already hesitating to ask Yeosang for that kind of help, what business do you have asking his roommate?

Just then, a knock sounds at the door. It opens a crack before you hear Wooyoung call your name aloud, and you grunt in response. Wooyoung must take it as an affirmative, because he opens it wide.

“Yeosang said you’re not feeling well,” he announces, glancing down at his phone, “and that I should keep an eye on you until he’s home.”

You frown. “Um, thank you, but I don’t really need help.”

Wooyoung raises an eyebrow.

You try to step out of bed, but a knife twists in your gut and pins and needles twist all along your legs. The sensation makes you wince, sucking in a large gulp of air.

Wooyoung rushes to your side, taking your arm to steady you. When he hears your stuttering breath, he shakes his head. “Don’t… do that. Just stay in bed. I’ll cook you something.”

You blanch. “You really don’t have—”

“Shut up,” he says, eyes softening when he meets your gaze. You wonder what you must look like, to him. “Er… just, sit and relax for a sec. I insist.”

You really do try to relax, once he leaves. You scroll through social media as Wooyoung whips up something simple. You shoot Yeosang a quick Wooyoung’s making me breakfast! ❣️ as you wait, to which you receive a bunch of silly looking stickers in return.

“It’s not contagious, is it?” Wooyoung asks a few moments later, carrying a delicious-smelling tray toward your bed.

You realize, then, that Yeosang must have been pretty discreet about what was ailing you in his conversation with Wooyoung. The thought of period cramps being contagious makes you suck in a giggle.

“I really hope not,” you scoff, and when Wooyoung furrows his brow, you explain, “it’s just cramps. I get them really bad.”

Wooyoung’s eyes widen a little. He sets the tray down next to you, and you take it in earnest. It’s a simple meal, just soup and rice and eggs, but somehow it smells amazing. “They’re bad enough that you can’t walk ?”

“It’s like that for a lot of people,” you explain.

Wooyoung only hums, taking a seat in Yeosang’s desk chair and swiveling it around and around. Apparently he's here to stay.

You take a few bites of your meal, letting your mind wander a little. You’ve lost count of the amount of times you’ve spent the night at Yeosang’s place, but you still feel kind of awkward here when it’s just you and Wooyoung. You know they’ve known each other for years — much longer than you’ve known Yeosang — and the thought intimidates you. How many of Yeosang’s partners has Wooyoung known? How many crushes and hookups? Does Yeosang tell Wooyoung things about your relationship that you’re not privy to?

“He’s blowing up my phone, you know,” Wooyoung says suddenly. He turns his phone screen around, and sure enough, you see at least half a dozen messages from Yeosang loaded on his lockscreen. You can’t read them from here, but you can guess that they're about you.

“He doesn’t want me to show you,” Wooyoung continues, “but he’s really concerned. He cares about you a lot.”

You feel yourself flush. This shouldn’t surprise you, not when you’ve been seeing each other for three months already, but something about the earnestness of it all still makes you feel weak in the knees.

You opt not to respond to Wooyoung, focusing on your plate instead. You finish it dutifully, and Wooyoung is by your side in an instant, taking the tray in his hands before moving to leave Yeosang’s room.

“Thank you so much for cooking,” you tell him as he starts to walk away. "You really didn't have to."

“Mmhmm. You’re someone special to him, so,” Wooyoung mutters, just before he exits. You’re left wondering what he could possibly mean by that until sleep finds you again.

When you wake, it’s still morning. Abdominal pain slices you deeper, twisting into an amorphous form, vicious and unrelenting.

You shift, letting out an involuntary whine when you feel something damp pooling beneath you. Sure enough, there is a dark red puddle between your legs, staining Yeosang’s bed sheets. All at once, your body begins to shut down as the pain coils tighter and tighter, leaving you little room to breathe.

You let out a sob. It’s been a long, long time since your cramps have given you this much trouble. Of course it had to happen while you were alone at Yeosang’s apartment. You can already feel the shame and disgust twisting alongside the horrible feeling in your gut.

In a flash, Wooyoung is at the door, footsteps thundering down the hallway. His eyes are wide as saucers as he takes in your slumped form. He rushes to you, and you feel his hands on your shoulders, but your perception of things fades in and out. All you can think of is the sheets, the pool of blood still under your body, how fucking ashamed you are to make a mess of things, that you couldn’t take care of yourself better on your own—

Wooyoung shakes your arm hard, cutting through your panic like a blade.

“Do you need to go to the hospital!?” he shouts, crisp alertness palpable in his bright eyes.

Your breath catches in your throat. “I, um, I don’t think—?”

“Like hell you don’t,” he scowls, grabbing his phone and starting to type out a text. You grab at his wrist, and he gives you a sharp, incredulous look.

“I’m fine, really,” you promise, doing your best to suppress your wince. “But…”

“But what, you’re clearly in pain!”

You let out a shaky breath. The words are tumbling out of your mouth before you can really think them over.

“Could you, maybe, ask for Yeosang to come home?” You suck in a breath, knowing that it’ll be hard to be so vulnerable in front of him but you don’t care — you need his comfort. “I know he’s busy at practice but I… really need him right now. Please.”

At that, Wooyoung seems to soften, pulling his hand softly from your grip. He nods, opening his phone and pulling up Yeosang’s contact. He dials Yeosang’s number, then puts his phone between his ear and his shoulder when Yeosang picks up on the first ring.

“How soon can you be back at the apartment?” Wooyoung asks. His tone seems firm, you think, but you wonder if there’s something else in it Yeosang can hear from him that you can’t. “Yeah, she’s in a lot of pain. I think she had a panic attack, too. Keeps asking for you.”

Wooyoung’s eyes flit over to yours. “He wants to talk to you,” he says, so you nod and take the phone.

“H-hi...”

“Baby,” Yeosang gasps, tight with concern.

Instantly, your eyes well with tears. You miss him. It’s only been a few hours since you were sleeping in his arms, even sooner since you’ve exchanged texts, but you can feel the ache deep in your chest all the same.

“Shhhh,” he coos, gentle as ever. “I’ll be home in fifteen. Will you be okay?”

You take in a small, hiccupping breath. “I… think so.”

“Good girl,” he says, and your heart flutters. You can hear something clicking in the background. “Do you want me to stay on the line until I’m back?”

“Please.”

“It’ll be okay ,” he promises, then breathes out your name in a way that makes your head tingle pleasantly. “Take some deep breaths with me. Can you do that, sweetheart?"

You shake your head. “I ruined your sheets,” you tell him, your voice wobbling. “I’m so, so sorry, Yeo, but there’s so much blood, I don’t think it’ll come out—”

“Y/n,” he says, stern, halting your ramble in its tracks. "It’s fine, I promise. They can be replaced.”

“I just…” you shift, wincing again at the puddle between your thighs. “It feels so gross. I’m disgusting.”

“You’re not,” he assures you. “It’s a perfectly normal thing your body does. You just need to be taken care of.” You don’t agree with him — this is the most disgusting you’ve ever felt in ages — but your heart melts all the same.

You hadn’t noticed Wooyoung slipping out of the room, but he returns carrying a couple of towels that he puts down next to you. You scooch and roll over onto them, a little relieved to not be bleeding directly on the bed anymore. Wooyoung hovers by the door as Yeosang leads you through some deep breathing exercises over the phone. It takes a few minutes, but your heart rate is gradually slowing down.

"I’ll be right there, dear,” Yeosang tells you, your heart finally steady after what has to have been at least twenty rounds of box breathing. You hear his key twisting in the key hole a few moments later and then he’s bursting past Wooyoung and into his room, taking in the sight of you and enveloping you into his strong arms.

You think, though you’re too shy to admit it out loud, that he looks really handsome like this. Sleeves rolled up to his shoulders, dark hair swept back, his full attention on you. You feel your cheeks go pink as he tucks you into his sturdy chest.

He presses a kiss to your temple and just like that, your heart is racing again.

“My strong, beautiful girlfriend,” he murmurs. The sound of his deep voice so close to your ear makes you shudder. “So patient for me. Let’s get you cleaned up.”

He sweeps one arm underneath your legs and you hesitantly circle your arms around his neck, trying your best to avoid your middle touching him too closely.

“Don’t wanna get blood on you,” you mumble into his shoulder.

“Don’t care,” he hums, kissing the tip of your nose, and you allow yourself to believe him.

In moments, Yeosang has you sitting on a stool in the shower. Your bloody shorts have been discarded into the sink, along with the tank top you slept in. Ordinarily, you might’ve felt uncomfortable being so exposed and vulnerable in front of him while you’re not feeling 100%, but now, you just feel content.

When Yeosang pulls off his shirt and pants, leaving him only in a pair of black boxer briefs, you feel something thrum beneath your fingertips. Even after a handful of intimate nights together, you’re still surprised by his boldness, the way that he holds himself so confidently behind closed doors, just for you to see. You feel shy when Yeosang steps into the shower behind you, closing the curtain.

If the dried blood between your legs bothers Yeosang, he shows no indication. He just smiles at you warmly as he gets the water running, gently massaging your upper arms to keep you comfortable. Once the water gets warm enough, he sets you under the stream. The warm water feels delightful on your back, even more so when Yeosang runs a loofa under it and washes your body.

“You really don't have to do all of this,” you tell him, but one of his hands finds your elbow and stops you in your tracks.

“Let me help you,” Yeosang whispers, “please.”

You swallow. There’s something wanting in his eyes that you can’t quite put into words.

The loofa hesitantly brushes against the top of your knee, and you let go.

His touch, solid but gentle, finds you in your most tender spots. His fingers start at your thighs, scrubbing gently at the dried blood. Each time he touches you there is a question in his eyes, an is this okay? that you meet with unhesitant permission.

When his fingers brush the top of your stomach, inching nearer and nearer to your tender breasts, you gasp.

“Sorry,” he giggles, but you hold his hand against the swell of your breast, keeping him there. His slender fingers knead at them softly, leaning down to kiss you. It’s all lips and tongue, sensual and fluid, and when he sucks on your tongue it pulls a needy, involuntary noise from the back of your throat.

Yeosang is good at kissing. It almost embarrasses you when your toes curl from just a few seconds of making out — from experience, you know he’s barely even getting started — but you know how much he likes it when you’re vocal about how much you appreciate him.

“Yeosang,” you gasp, hoping even a fraction of what you feel gets expressed through your tone.

“Sorry,” he smiles against your lips. “Looks like I got a little carried away…”

You try not to feel disappointed when his focus returns back to washing your body. His hands are careful and practiced, putting firm pressure in all of the areas you need washed most. You sigh at the intimacy of it all, but your mind is still elsewhere.

“Something on your mind?” he asks a few moments later, and you shrug.

“I’m just so happy to have a boyfriend that’ll do this for me,” you gesture vaguely at yourself, “even when I’m all disgusting like this.”

You mean it as a joke, sort of, but you can tell he notices something in your words. His hand stills from where it’s been stroking your hip.

“You think you’re disgusting?” he frowns. He searches your eyes for a moment, and then he’s dropping to his knees in between your open legs.

On impulse, you close them.

“Yeosang,” you warn, putting a hand on his shoulder. “We can’t.”

“Why not? Because it’s dirty?” He presses a kiss to the side of your knee, sending chills down your spine. “Baby, I won’t push you, but if you’re worried about me… it’s not like I care about a little blood on my fingers.”

Your eyes widen. Your throat suddenly feels very, very dry.

“I want you to feel cherished,” he whispers into a stretch mark on your thigh, gentle fingers inching closer to your core. “But only if you’ll let me.”

Somewhere in you, the tide shifts. You feel so, so stupid for not remembering it sooner. The love he feels for you is real , even if it’s incomprehensible to you. The realization churns something deep in your gut, stoking the flames from a few moments ago.

“So,” he whispers, soft lips into your wet skin, “what will it be?”

You want him bad, period cramps be damned.

“Please,” you whine, and then he’s surging forward in another kiss.

The kiss is softer this time, almost chaste, making good on his promise to cherish you. His hands, though, are roaming your body in earnest, settling to draw comforting circles against your waist.

He pulls away from the kiss. “Tell me how you want me, baby.”

You shudder at the loss of contact. As much as you want all of him, having sex on your period is new territory for you. And he mentioned not minding blood on his fingers, so…

“Just your fingers,” you tell him. Then, sheepishly, you add: “I love your hands…”

Pleased with your directness, Yeosang kisses the tip of your nose, soft and innocent, before moving his lips down the expanse of your body. You grip lightly at the base of his head when his tongue twists around your nipple. He replaces it with his fingers as he dips deeper, pressing heated kisses down your tummy, to your pubic bone, until finally he’s at the apex of your thighs.

“Love this pussy so much,” he murmurs into the plush of your thigh. When his fingers find your clit, rubbing against it gently, your eyes roll back. “So beautiful, so perfect. Made for me.”

“Yeosang,” you gasp, but it quickly turns into a moan as his fingers find a quicker, pulsing rhythm.

Your body contorts to meet his fingers, but he moves a steadying hand to your hip. His strength, his unabashed adoration of your body, the practiced ministrations against your core — it’s all so incredibly hot that your brain simply can’t keep up.

“Mmm?” he intones, pressing a light kiss dangerously close to your slit that has you keening. “Did you need something, baby?”

“Close,” you admit, too engulfed in the pleasure to be embarrassed at how quickly you’ve begun to feel that tight, coiling feeling in your gut.

Your admission has Yeosang incredibly pleased, a grin stretching across his handsome face.

“Already, baby?” he asks, and you feel yourself burn up at how unbelievably attracted to him you feel right now. “You poor thing, all pent up like that. Must’ve needed me so badly.”

You let out a little whine at Yeosang’s words. You really did need him, didn’t you? All of today, it was him you craved. He knows you so well, so intimately…

“It was a good thing I could come home early, hmm? Take care of you just the way you like.”

You whine louder when he draws tight, concentrated circles against your clit, his other hand holding you still even as you try to meet his thrusts.

“Can you come for me, sweetheart? Want to hear your pretty little voice moaning my name.”

The tension snaps all at once, your orgasm crashing into you with reckless abandon as your body folds into itself. But Yeosang doesn’t stop, just pumps you gently through it as you dutifully let out a cry of his name.

Moments pass, and you’re still twitching from the aftershocks when Yeosang gets up to turn the water off. He’s covering you with a towel before you can process how cold you are. Once you’re dry and warm, he presses a single kiss on your forehead softly before helping you back onto your feet.

“That was really nice,” you tell him, a little shy despite yourself.

He smiles warmly. “I’m glad, baby. I hope you feel a little better.”

“A lot better,” you agree.

He helps you into a new set of clothes, and you smile as he squeezes lightly at your curves.

Just as you’re both about to exit, he hums exaggeratedly. “Though you did cum kind of fast, didn’t you?”

You swat at his shoulder, his laughter ringing in the open air.

That night finds you in Yeosang’s bed again, this time with fresh sheets. You sit snugly with your back against his chest, his arms enveloping you as you watch a movie on his laptop.

Every few minutes, he’ll whisper something in your ear. Sometimes it’s affectionate, about how strong he knows you are for him, how proud he is of you. Sometimes it’s a little snide comment about the characters in the film. The intimacy leaves you with a warm, light feeling in your stomach, as if you’re getting butterflies for him all over again.

At some point, though, the tide shifts back. Your insecurities won’t leave you forever, even with the most loving boyfriend in the world. Your period isn’t making it any easier, either; you’ve always been a hell of a lot more emotional on your heaviest days.��

At the first sign of tears, Yeosang spins you around and embraces you against his soft chest.

“I stay the night,” you choke out between sobs, “and I ruin your bedsheets. I basically make a murder scene in your bathroom. Your roommate cooks for me and all I do is freak him out and beg him not to take me to the hospital. I made you leave your class early , Yeosang, all I do is—”

“Make my life better,” he finishes, halting your words. You meet his eyes, and they’re brimming with nothing but earnest adoration. “All you’ve done is make my life better, ever since we met.”

You sniffle. “Even when I’m like this?”

“Yes,” he replies without hesitation. “And I’ll do whatever it takes to remind you, as often as you need.”

And with a look into his deep, earnest eyes, you decide you can believe him.

#kang yeosang x reader #ateez x reader #yeosang fic #yeosang smut #hehetmongi writes

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bonkwosher · 4 months

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OMGOMGOMG… i saw your dan stevens character x reader post and i’m literally the happiest person alive over how accurate they are 😭😭💖💖 if you don’t mind me requesting (holding back sending so many requests in the future): how would frank/trapper/david react to a partner with stuffed animals/plushies? (as somebody who has a bunch of sanrio ones and kinda gets clowned on by some family members for it 😭) 🥺 + maybe what stuffed animals they’d give to their partner as a gift? THIS ONES SO SPECIFIC BUT 😭💖

A/N: I'm so incredibly glad someone enjoyed my headcanons that much. Also, please send me a million requests it would make me so happy (no pressure). Also Also, I loved reading your reaction through hashtags in your reblog lol

Pairing(s): Travis "Trapper" Beasley x GN!Reader, Adam "Frank" Barnett x GN!Reader (Separate), David Collins x GN!Reader (Separate)

Contains: The boys reacting to the reader having stuffed animals, the boys giving you stuffed animals, sex mentioned with Frank but barely, Frank being a dork, Trapper being a sweetheart, David being a good listener

Frank:

I have a feeling Frank might be a little weirded out, for lack of a better word, at first, especially if there are a lot of them. If you've got a couple he'll be fine with it but if there's a bunch he'll just be a little confused as to why they're important at first. Like this man can't grasp why you have an attachment to them.

As you spend more time together he'll pretty easily get used to them. If they have names he will only refer to them by name, he won't call them stuffed animals, plushies, stuffies, etc. He becomes like the dad that didn't want a pet, then cut to the dad absolutely loving the pet but never admitting it.

Like you two go to sit on the couch together to watch a movie & you left a stuffie on the couch & he fully treats it like a human. Like he nods at the little guy & goes "Gerald," in greeting before scooting the plushie to the side of the couch.

If you store a bunch of them on your bed, he definitely refers to them as "the fellas" regardless of their genders if they have any. Like he'll climb into your bed getting ready to cuddle you & acknowledges them saying, "What's up fellas?" Mainly because it makes you laugh.

He definitely does not like them facing you two when you're having sex or making out. He will turn them to face the wall one by one if he has to.

After finding out that you like plushies so much I think Frank would be the kind of guy to buy you one before he goes on long heists. He did it once & that made you smile so he kept doing it. The first time he brought you a little one, a white cat with yellow spots.

"You know, I'll be on a business trip the next couple days & I thought this one looked like me so I thought it would be a good idea. Now you don't have to miss me or whatever."

You definitely agreed that it looked like him. The little cat had a scowl & everything.

Trapper:

Trapper probably has an old stuffed animal from his childhood that's being held together by many different stitches & still sits on his bed to this day. So when you tell him you have stuffed animals he's not even phased, actually, he shows interest in them.

He wants to know their names, & if they don't have names he wants to name them.

There was a time when you & Trapper had gotten into an argument & he gave you some time to cool down & he stayed in the bedroom. The door was left ajar & you heard some quiet talking. After getting the right angle you manage to catch the man talking to your pile of stuffed animals that lived in the corner of the bed about how sorry he was & how he didn't mean to upset you.

As you watch your hand accidentally knocks the door a little causing it to squeak on its hinges. Trapper immediately turns to you, his face flushing when he realizes you were there. "I'm sorry, your stuffed animals are just really good listeners."

If any of your stuffies get ripped or you find a hole in one you better believe he goes full vet mode. He's had to do stitches before so sewing is nothing. He will play hard into the vet thing to make you laugh, especially if your stuffed animal getting ripped is a big deal for you. He'll whip out a stethoscope, wrap the limb that got ripped in some paw print bandages, etc. He also loves any praise about him being good at his job so please give him some.

I feel like Trapper's stuffie gifts would come with a story. Like the day he took out King Kong's tooth he probably got you a King Kong stuffie & told you all about it. Now next to whatever stuffed animals you have you have all the titans of the world (at least the ones he's worked on) in plushie form.

David:

David, like Frank, will probably have a little bit of a tough time gathering what makes them so special to you but he would probably just straight up ask you. David loves listening to you talk about just about anything, especially when it's something you care about. So when you tell them why they mean so much to you, it only brings him joy.

I imagine before you were even partners & he was heading off to the army (He would not have left if he had the guts to ask you out), you gave him a small stuffed animal to remember you by. As he was getting ready to go & everyone got a little teary-eyed, he swore to you that he would keep that little stuffie until he saw you again. That little guy survived a war & when David returned, you best bet that little guy was alive & well in his backpack. He stays with him in that big ass green backpack to this day.

Whenever you're away on business or don't get home till late, you'll arrive home to see David cuddling one of your stuffies to help him sleep. He claims it has the slightest smell of your perfume/cologne/etc & it reminds him of you.

If the collection grows past space on your bed for all the stuffies, David will build you a shelf for them. You won't even ask him to. He'll just see that you have space in your room for a shelf, you'll off-handedly mention you're running out of space on your bed for the stuffies, then he'll put two & two together & build you that thing. An added bonus, he'll probably be in a tank top or some shirt that shows off his arms on the hot summer day he decides to build it. Maybe even shirtless.

I feel like David wouldn't get you any specific stuffed animals. He would just wait for you to mention the ones you want, literally run across town to get it for you, then run back & it appears in your flock of stuffed animals the next day.

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celabi · 2 years

Note

I’m sorry but scummy scara has been living in my head rent free and I’m always checking your blog to see if you’ve posted more about him alsjshsk.

Here’s some of my brainrot about him:

✩ he once noticed you forgot to eat a few times and now he’s insisted on making lunch for you a few times a week! (Ei’s very shocked to find him in the kitchen with one of her cook books open but after an outburst from him, she doesn’t question it further). He brings you all sorts of things he’s made and watches in delight as you eat it all. You don’t need to know that his cum has been mixed into everything and he’s tucking himself in as close to the table as possible so you can’t see how hard he is as the thought of a part of him being inside of you as you go about your day. It comforts him to know that even when you go to your separate homes at the end of the day, there’s still a part of him with you.

✩ similarly, he’s always worried that you’re not drinking enough and so he’s offering his water bottle to you all the time!! Yeah, it’s so he can have something that you’ve put your mouth on but if you’re staying hydrated too then it’s a win for both of you, right? You don’t need to know how he’ll savour the taste of you (or even your lipgloss) on the bottle when he’s alone.

✩ on the note of makeup, I’m sure your lip balm/stick/gloss/whatever will always go missing because he’s always stealing them. You don’t know that either though, you just know that your friend Scara is kind enough to give you some money when you’re upset about losing your makeup so you can buy some more! He just loves using them and fantasising about how you’ll taste when he kisses you!!

✩ also Scara helping you with some class project and he has this super cool trick to help you filter through searches, he just has to download something for you! Yeah he does what he says but while he does “all the boring technical stuff” that he says you don’t need to pay attention to, he’s downloading his own malware that lets him access your computer remotely whenever he wants. He’ll get off to your pretty face through your webcam when he returns home and omg imagine he finds out about your tumblr blog!

Oof sorry that was a lot lol. I have a few other idea but I’ll save those for another ask ;) Can I be 🫧 anon or 🪷 if bubble is already taken? Hope you had a good Christmas :)

Love this so much, 🫧 anon, welcome 🥺🫶

He’s soooo freaking cute, how he stares at you with excitement bubbling up in his chest when you bite down into the sandwich he had so generously made for you the night before. Wether he used the excuse of ‘I accidentally made a second one’ or not, none of it mattered because when he saw the way your eyes lit up as he handed it to you, or how you so adorably thanked him for his thoughtfulness— he knew he had just gained a few extra points towards his end goal.

“Hm? Theres a weird after taste the mayonnaise leaves on your tongue? Oh, I’m sure it just cause… it’s a knock off brand! So don’t worry about it too much.” He’s smiling at you so innocently, with pure looking eyes that you don’t even bother to pry any longer— and instead accept the offering he had made (specifically) for you. Lol, there’s no possible way he would have mixed his cum inside! Not a chance.

“Speaking of mayonnaise… there’s a little bit uhhh.. right here. Allow me.” Scaramouche knows he’s too impatient, and can’t bother to wait for your response— so he’s quickly leaning in close and brushing his thumb over the edge of your mouth, and ever so slightly slipping his finger between your lips to awkwardly push the sauce against your teeth. He’s blushing profusely about the closeness of your bodies and the way your tongue almost automatically lols out to lick the residue off his thumb, and you’re embarrassed because wow! That’s kinda… embarrassing. Hmm, wonder why my good friend and classmate, Scaramouche is so flushed red and sweating.

I love your brain so much :(( so cute and wholesome Aww. Lmao imagine if you didn’t have a webcam, he’d go home sulking about how his plan was ruined. Maybe he could snag your phone number instead, so he doesn’t have to email you 😕

Hope you have a happy holidays !! 🫶 thanks for interacting, 🫧 <3 (sorry this was so short and rushed, I have family over for New Years!))

#🫧 anon #scummy scara :(#genshin impact x reader #scaramouche x reader #genshin impact smut #x female reader

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mangoshorthand · 1 year

Note

Hii againn, first off I seriously love love LOVE the lucky fucking pillow you did from my first request thank you 🫶 I think this counts as my second request? (I hope it's okay to req again🥺) fluff rather than a smut hehe, this happens after five retired and they live together and reader comes home with a senior cat she decided to adopted (bc it reminded her of five) then he soon comes to love it so much, and up to you! pls a bit of angst. THANKIEE SMM I really enjoyed my first request!! 🩷🩷🩷

You're welkiee again! You can request as often as you like (but I am on hiatus after posting this to work on one or two longer projects). I've saved this one for a bit because I really wanted to do it justice. Sorry it took so long.

Two Old Men | Five Hargreeves / GN Reader Words: 3.3k, rated G

At last, retirement suited him.

He tried first when he was fifty eight and his body was in its teens, but destiny pulled him kicking and screaming back into the chaos. After all that was all done, he tried again, but it didn’t take.

As it turned out, people don’t retire just because they’re mentally tired, they retire because they’re old, and Five’s body and brain tissue being physically young had left him too full of energy to live a life of idleness.

But now, with his body in its early fifties and his consciousness well into its nineties, he felt the body slowing down enough to allow him to take it easy

So, a year ago, you and he bought a few acres of land in Tompkins County. Five was someone who didn’t like to gush- in fact, he tended to find fault if there was any- but even he had to admit it was perfect: it was near enough to Ithaca to access all the restaurants, shops and bars you enjoyed together, and rural enough to satisfy him in his insistence that you retire somewhere where nightfall brought a view of the cosmos unspoiled by city lights.

The farmhouse was small enough to mean it would be easy enough to keep clean as you both aged, but commodious enough to play host to two or three family members at a time.

For New Year, you actually managed four, but that had involved Klaus staying on a blow-up. He'd insisted that his powers kept his body in tip-top shape but it became apparent the following morning that he'd been talking out of his ass: his elderly back could no longer tolerate such treatment, and Five had wrenched his own in pulling him off the mattress.

No, Five couldn’t complain: he had a couple of project cars to tinker with in the barn, and next year you were planning to try planting a little orchard and vineyard to try your hands at making organic wine. His days were filled with pleasant walks, naps and hobbies, and his nights were spent warm in bed with you: what more could a man want from his retirement?

Now, he stretched out on the veranda, hat shading his eyes and sun warming his limbs. He wondered vaguely whether it was worth adding just one more bedroom. He sort of missed having a house full of guests. Or, even better, maybe he could build himself a better place for the cars (his precious Corvette was vulnerable to rust in the barn right now), and then convert the barn into its own little self-contained-

“Five?”

Your shout came to him on the breeze. He put down his book entirely and squinted at your approaching figure, returning from your afternoon walk. He’d left his glasses inside, so he could only see an indistinct shape in your arms. Your gait seemed unusual. Were you hurt?

“What’s up?” he called back, ignoring the slight twinge in his pelvis as he stood.

“Look what I’ve found!”

Not hurt: just slightly urgent. He approached curiously, walking off the little stiffness caused by the twinge. He knew there would probably be a point when it was easier to blink to his feet than heave himself up- he could sense it coming the last time his body was in its fifties, but he was damned if he’d do that until his joints were at least pushing eighty.

You came into view.

Apparently, you were wrestling with your sweater.

It writhed in your arms, wriggling and snarling so fiercely that you nearly dropped it on a couple of occassions.

“What the hell?”

“Open the door for me. I found a cat.”

“A cat?" he said, as if he'd never heard of such a creature.

And, sure enough, a pair of bright green eyes glared out from where their owner was bundled up in the sweater: a tightly- wrapped burrito with murder in its heart.

“I don’t want that thing in the house!” he said, as the burrito gave a threatening growl.

“He’s ill, Five.”

Thirty years together had taught him when you meant business. Your tone was conclusive, so he reluctantly opened the front door.

“Put it in the laundry room,” he said, resentfully, “I don’t want it pissing on the furniture.”

“He, Five.” you said, pointedly.

“Yeah, wouldn’t wanna misgender a goddamn cat,” he mumbled, but he opened the laundry room door and stood aside so you could enter before closing it behind you both.

“Okay- stand back,” you said, lowering the writhing sweater onto the tiles.

Five did step back. He liked dogs, but cats he had no interest in. Let alone one that sounded like it intended them both serious bodily harm. Its constant growls and furious yowls made him feel like he was in the presence of a live grenade.

For a moment, the bundle wriggled, throwing itself around until the cat finally extracted himself. His long fur was a dark gray black, and those jade eyes peered out threateningly from underneath weeping mange-sores. Immediately, he backed off into a corner, fur all on end and spitting at you both with hackles raised. Though he was doing his level best to appear larger, he was rather small and skinny.

Five looked at you, incredulously. There you were, eyes glistening in adoration as you looked down at the brewing hurricane of claws and teeth. It was the same face he fell in love with. You were slightly older than him physically, but you didn’t look it, especially now that your eyes were filled with an excited gleam: you looked young again.

“Look at him, Five!”

Suppressing a loving smile, he looked back at the cat, now growling again.

“He’s kinda gross.”

“No he isn’t!” you said, indignantly, “he's an old man and he’s sick.”

You paused for a moment.

“A bit like you, actually. You’re a sick old man if ever I met one.”

You eyed him knowingly with a little twitch of your eyebrows. Five scowled, but you continued, laughing, as the parallels came upon you one by one.

“He is like you! That must be why I had to bring him home! He’s tiny and old and grumpy and-”

As you said it, the cat let out an indignant, snappish ‘Nyaah’.

“-and he even sounds like you!” you finished, grinning.

“I’m not tiny,” Five said, grumpily, “I’m only an inch or so shorter than average.”

“Look!” you said, pointing between him and the cat, “you’re pulling the same face.”

“God, I married an idiot,” Five replied, schooling his expression back into neutrality. He looked back at the cat with its teeth bared in a silent hiss.

“It looks like it wants to tear our throats out.”

“I know!” you said, rapturously, “he’s so cute!”

Five shook his head at this absurd non-sequitur.

“Whose is it?”

“I found him near the old Montgomery place. I think he must have belonged to Judy.”

His mouth pulled downwards. Five had known Judy to wave to. She was a nice old lady who lived a few farms over. He’d been sorry to hear of her death.

“That means he’s been surviving on his own for two months,” you said.

He looked down at the cat, looking rapidly around itself for a route of escape and finding none. It seemed to try to line up a jump onto the counter, but looked wobbly on its back legs as it did so, so it gave up and went back to eyeing them with those lamp-like eyes.

He really was old.

“Well,” Five said, begrudgingly, “you’re gonna have to take him to the vets. See if he’s chipped and get that shit on his face sorted out.”

“Okay!” you said, brightly, looking around the laundry room with a thoughtful look, “can you blink and get me some twine from the kitchen so we don’t have to open the door.”

“Twine?”

“You just watch.”

***

With many claw marks on your forearms but still smiling like an idiot, you drove the cat to the vets with it trapped in a plastic laundry basket with an identical one on top secured with twine. Five watched you down the drive with a fond shake of the head and returned to his book. There was still a good hour or so of warm, early-afternoon sun before he’d have to go inside and get a jacket.

He spent the afternoon peacefully, sipping a cold beer and occasionally letting his book rest on his chest while he watched the thick cirrocumulous cloud cover crawling gradually by.

When he was forty, he only barely lived through the worst apocalyptic winter. Fuel was low, and he'd been prevented from finding more or seeking shelter elsewhere by the deepest snow drifts he ever experienced.

Out of one of these, he’d dug himself and Dolores a little snow-shelter. He distinctly remembered trying to dry his soaking gloves over the smoldering embers of his last burnable supplies and looking down at his red fingers.

'If I survive this,' he thought then, 'this will all be a memory one day. I can look back on this when I’m warm and comfortable. I can sit in the sun and remember how lucky I am to be there. This is good, actually, because it’ll teach me to be grateful.'

And, although he’d only thought that way to get him through that night, it had actually worked, because Five remembered it now. He remembered the pain in his joints from the physical labor and the burning of his frostbitten fingers and toes. He took a moment to glory in the contrast between then and now.

Back then, he’d only been thinking about surviving until the thaw or the following summer, but now he had more happiness and more comfort than he ever dared to imagine then. He was warm, he was safe, he was home, and he would fall asleep tonight held tight in your arms.

With a warm feeling in his chest, he closed his eyes.

He only awoke from the slight doze at the sound of the car pulling up.

“Hey,” he said, without opening his eyes, “is it all done with? Cat at the shelter?”

“Nyyaaahhh!”

The truculent noise was more than enough to answer his question. Damn cat couldn’t even meow right.

He opened his eyes to see you standing there with the cat in a brand new carrier and a huge bag from the pet store in another.

“Woah, hey!” he said, dismayed, “We didn’t talk about this!”

“Please, Five,” you said, wheedling, “he has nobody else. They read his chip and he was Judy’s. The vet said he’s too old to get adopted and he’d probably die at a shelter.”

“No, I am not keeping that thing in the house,” he protested, “I got this strange liking to having both my eyes!”

He relented slightly at the sight of your pout.

“Fine. He can stay, but he can live in the barn.”

“You go live in the barn,” you said, resentfully, taking the cat and the supplies into the house despite his protestations.

An argument ensued, an argument that didn’t settle down until you both turned in for bed.

When the cat was shut downstairs for the night, fed, bedded and given the run of the kitchen and laundry room, you slid into bed beside Five without acknowledging him.

Five sat there for a minute or so with his arms folded and a scowl on his face. At last, he spoke:

“Fine,” he said, “he can stay in the house, but I got two conditions.”

You gave a small squee and kissed him full on the mouth, squashing his mustache with your fervor. You knew that the thin end of the wedge was embedded. Whatever Five’s conditions were, the cat would find his way around them in time.

“All right, all right,” Five said, from between your hands on his cheeks. Though he was trying to sound stern, suppressing his smile was difficult.

“Number one,” he said, holding up a finger, “he doesn’t get to go beyond the kitchen. I don’t want him ruining our stuff. We’ll get a cat door and he can go out and do whatever cats do during the day, and he can sleep and eat here.”

“Okay,” you said, though with no intention of sticking to this agreement.

Five put up a second finger.

“And two, I get to name him.”

“He already has a name,” you said, bemused, “Judy called him Mr Cuddles, I think.”

“That’s a dumb name,” Five grumbled, “I’m calling him Timothy.”

“Timothy?”

“Timothy.” he said, decisively, “take it or leave it.”

“Can we call him Tim?”

“Nope,” Five said, obstinately, “Timothy.”

***

Timothy didn’t like to be touched. It took him six weeks to tolerate you petting him without tensing up, though it was clear he didn’t really enjoy it. Being picked up was still an absolute no-go, as that would necessitate touching his tummy. That, you were learning, was a guaranteed bite.

Despite this, things had improved for Timothy since he arrived. His mange was gone and he’d grown in confidence, greeting you each morning with a polite ‘Nyah’, and even conferring the odd friendly chirrup upon you now and again.

You spent hours in the kitchen with him, just sitting there, drinking tea and tempting him towards you with treats. You were getting on fine, and Timothy clearly already felt like he owned the place, coming and going as he wished and sunning himself on the veranda.

You were besotted, and Five was happy for you, (anything that made your eyes light up that way was fine by him), but mostly he ignored Timothy, carrying on just the same as ever.

One afternoon, however, Five was in the barn, lying on his mechanic’s creeper under his jacked up 1967 Pontiac. There was a worrying leak coming from somewhere, and, having got so far fixing her up on his own, he was hoping to avoid having to take her into the shop in town.

So intent was he on inspecting the engine bay, he didn’t notice that he wasn’t the only one beneath the car until Timothy was less than an inch from his face.

“Nyaaah?”

Five startled, dropping his flashlight and cursing.

“Shit!”

Timothy’s ears flattened against his head, and he backed off rapidly, stopping a few feet away before hissing at Five, ill-naturedly.

“Stupid cat,” Five muttered, composing himself and returning to the job at hand.

As he continued to work, he stayed aware of Timothy stalking around the car. At one point, he heard a small flump that meant he’d jumped through the Pontiac’s open door.

“Watch the the interior,” Five grumbled, “that’s the original naugahyde. You know how much I paid for her?”

“Nyah.”

“Yup,” he said, “and if you scratch up or pee on any of it, I’ll replace it with catskin. Understood?”

“Nyah,” Timothy repeated.

“Good.”

He became absorbed again, listening to Timothy’s paws pattering around on his precious upholstery. The leak was hard to identify. He chewed at his lower lip and considered before muttering to himself.

“It was brown, so that’s gotta be transmission fluid, right? Maybe brake fluid? Hell, maybe it’s just oil.”

“Nyah.”

“Could be a lube oil leak, I guess,” he said, as if Timothy had suggested this, “but it doesn’t smell bad.”

Timothy landed with only a slight stumble when he jumped down. Five felt the cat butt up and rub himself against his feet where they stuck out from underneath the car.

He tinkered for another fifteen minutes to no avail. He could feel his joints starting to stiffen, so he wheeled himself out from under the car to find Timothy watching him, sitting neatly in a shaft of sunlight at the barn door.

He gave Five a slow blink.

Five wasn’t au fait with cat communication, but the gesture seemed friendly, so he nodded slightly awkwardly at him in acknowledgement.

***

Over the next week or so, Timothy honored Five with his company whenever he worked on the Pontiac.

Five supposed it was a hangover from his life with Dolores, but he found he worked better when he had a presence with him to talk to. Verbalizing his thought processes nearly always helped him problem-solve.

It took him a few days to identify the problem and, just as he was starting to fix it, a sound like an idling Harley Davidson made him look around confusedly for the source. He thought for one, wild moment that the key had been turned in the Pontiac’s ignition but apparently not: as it turned out, this was just how Timothy purred.

He was sitting a few feet away, watching Five work under the car and purring in the warmth of the sunlight. When he saw Five looking, he gave another of those contented slow blinks.

That night, Five didn’t shut Timothy in the kitchen when he went to bed.

***

It was a balmy summer afternoon. You and Five were sitting on the veranda on the twin loungers, drinking iced tea and talking in an idle fashion about building another bedroom.

You favored converting the attic, while Five wanted a full barn conversion. He talked convincingly about how nice it would be to have his niblings and their families over to stay for a few weeks at a stretch, but you suspected it actually had much more to do with the opportunity to build himself a proper mechanic’s shop on the property. He talked about how nice it would be to spend more time with the kids, but you could see the ghost of a hydraulic vehicle lift behind his eyes: there would be no more lying uncomfortably on the creeper then.

But, the decision left unmade, Five had talked himself into a nap. His hand had long since dropped from where you’d been holding it between the two loungers, and he was now sound asleep with his hat over his face.

You were engrossed with a book, relaxed and listening to Five’s soft little snores. It was good he was having a nap now, you thought. Tonight, you’d planned to wait up until it got dark out and stargaze on a rug spread in the back field, like you did when you were younger.

“Nyaah?”

Timothy padded into sight, piercing green eyes x-raying you with assessment. This was another similarity to your husband: even after all these years, Five regularly looked at you as if he were still making up his mind about you.

You patted your thigh, hoping to encourage Timothy onto your lap, but he declined the offer and wandered over to sniff Five’s empty glass instead. Apparently finding nothing to his liking, he looked up at Five.

You watched, shocked, as Timothy first gauged the jump, then decided it was within his capabilities and finally shuffled backwards to line himself up. In a mildly ungainly fashion, he made the leap and walked confidently along Five’s chest until he reached the softer padding of his belly. There, Timothy kneaded him gently before he settled down, turning around and around in a circle before curling up neatly.

This was just typical, you thought, as Timothy began to purr loudly. You’d worked your ass off to get this cat to like you and he still barely tolerated you petting him. All the while, Five had treated Timothy with indifference bordering on dislike and this is how he responded?

As you watched, trying hard not to feel slightly offended, Five stirred and muttered something in which only the word “cat” was discernible. His arms came sleepily up, his fingers laced together and his hands laid themselves across the cat’s abdomen.

Timothy stiffened and made a small, slightly unhappy noise at the unexpected touch, but, after a moment of evaluation, apparently decided to tolerate it. He lay his head back down and closed his eyes.

For a moment, you shook your head and watched the two crotchety old men sleep. Then, smiling, you returned to your book.

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markantonys · 2 years

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AMOL prologue-chapter 8 (note that i mention in this post a huge spoiler from the end of the book that i’m not supposed to know yet but do and i’ve put a warning in that bullet point, although i’m pretty sure 90% of my audience is people who’ve already read the whole series anyway jkfg)

some guy called isam is apparently in a jekyll-and-hyde situation with luc??? what is going on here on this day???? he’s in some creepy town and talking about stuff called Talentless and samma n’sei. to all of this, i say: NO! it is the last goddamn book, and i do NOT want to receive any new information unless it’s about how rand will be able to defeat the dark one and survive the last battle! and i CERTAINLY do not want to be introduced to any new characters, cultures, or lore! i am handing sanderson/rj’s notes a flowchart that reads: is this stuff vital information? if yes, you should’ve established it in an earlier book! if no, throw it in the trash and put me back into the actual important plotlines!

i do love how perrin is the most boring and useless of the main protagonists and his Archnemesis is the most boring and useless of the main antagonists (if slayer can even be considered a main antagonist, which i don’t think he can be). match made in heaven.

“my people live with a grave misconception of the world, bayle. in doing so, they create injustice.” good for egeanin, but why THE FUCK did this arc go to her and not tuon. MINDBOGGLING.

“something had to be done. and yet, in doing it, did she risk causing the entire empire to collapse?” unfortunately egeanin’s still on her “i’ll always be seanchan, must preserve the empire” bullshit for the moment but at least she’s made SOME real and good progress, unlike TUON.

“honestly, the way you lot [sleete and other warders] have been hovering over me lately makes me think of a mother bird who has lost an egg.” “lan is important to many of us, nynaeve sedai.” omg 🥺🥺 one of the books’ only glimpses at Warders As Community, i love it!

nynaeve rips egeanin a new one for letting the seanchan get the male a’dam and says she’s taking her to the amyrlin, and egeanin decides that she’s now da’covale to the amyrlin. the seanchan woman who will help egwene maybe??? i did predict it would be either egeanin or tuon since they’re the only 2 important seanchan women.

talmanes is going to die from a poisoned wound. oh no! anyway.

jkfjg i’m gonna say it.............talmanes was massively overhyped! i don’t dislike him at all, he’s fine and has had a couple fun moments, but i do not understand why people love him so much. i saw his name eeeeeeverywhere before i started the books! and then i kept going “maybe this will be the book when talmanes becomes my beloved” and it never happened. maybe THIS will finally be the book when talmanes becomes my beloved, but also my Becoming My Beloved doors closed around book 5 or 6 so i doubt it. i also don’t understand why people ship him with mat - it’s a perfectly fine ship that i have no issue with, it’s simply that every time the two of them interact i get such strong Heterosexual Bros vibes lmao in my eyes that dynamic is just so devoid of homoeroticism compared to mat and rand, for example (and rand and every male forsaken, for another example). they just remind me of the dril tweet “me n the boys eating messy sandwiches sneaking around with big binoculars looking for girls and letting every one know who runs this tj maxx”

actually maybe i do have a little issue with the ship, and it is that in some ways it takes the place of cauthor in mat’s life and does a worse/less compelling job of filling that role (as is the case with countless “brand new side character coming in after the first 5/6 books to fill a role that used to belong to main character and do a worse job” situations), and that makes me bitter.

aww aviendha’s in a sweat tent and misses wetlander baths! she is going to thrive in the avirandlayne throuple raising their six (6) babies in caemlyn endgame! even if it SHOULD only be two (2) babies since the quadruplets are cursed.

"why would the columns show a despair that cannot change? no. i refuse to believe it. rhuidean has always shown us what we needed to see. to help us, not destroy us. this vision must have a purpose as well.” bair giving me some much-needed hope!!!

“‘the car’a’carn has a...fondness for dramatic presentations,’ bair said, her tone itself fond. ‘he’s like a crockobur who has toiled all night making a nest so that he can sing of it in the morning to all who will listen.’” WHY IS THIS THE MOST WHOLESOME THING I’VE EVER READ 😭 let rand be a stay-at-home papa bird and spend his time making nests and singing about them to all who will listen 2k22! also it’s throwing me back to egwene’s TSR line about “a boy with a lamb nestled inside his coat, proud as a rooster because he had driven off the wolf that tried to take it” which gave me insane emotional damage that to this day i have not recovered from.

okay, so now aviendha is ALSO at merrilor and both rand/avi AND rand/elayne have not bothered to go say hello to each other yet! i mean i guess avi had to talk to the wise ones urgently about rhuidean, but still!! she could’ve spared 5 seconds for kissing rand (and elayne)! he could’ve burst into the sweat tent to be like “hey i just sensed that my girlfriend whom i haven’t talked to in ages is in here”!

“‘her task was not just to teach him,’ amys said. ‘what i wouldn’t give to know that he was safely under the watchful eyes of a good woman.’ she looked at aviendha, face laden with meaning.” amys really said fuck min huh jkjdfg i’m howling!!!!

amys, after an entire month+ in arad doman watching min be plastered to rand’s side and sleep in his room every night: boy i sure wish rand had a good girlfriend min: um amys: is someone speaking?

it’s honestly crazy (and hilarious) how COMPLETELY IRRELEVANT min/rand is to EVERY SINGLE CHARACTER except the two of them and cadsuane. there are SO many people who have SEEN them together and KNOW they’re dating but STILL assume that rand/avi or rand/elayne is the relationship that matters. as they should! crazy and hilarious but also frustrating, since it proves time and time again how totally narratively unnecessary romantic min/rand was. they could’ve remained platonic friends and nothing about the story would be different, except for the many things that would be better!

“‘he will be mine,’ aviendha said, firmly. but not for you, amys, or for our people. she was shocked at the strength of that sentiment within her. she was aiel. her people meant everything to her. but this choice was not their choice. this choice was hers.” ❤️❤️❤️ we LOVE the contrast with min always complaining that loving rand was the pattern’s choice rather than her own (which eventually is intended to be romantic in a “fate itself wanted us together we couldn’t have resisted if we’d tried” sort of way, but i for one have always been firmly in the “the inherent romance of love being a choice” camp).

also, it’s so bizarre how common a take “rand/elayne and rand/aviendha only happened because the pattern made them both be into rand because he needed political things from them in order to defeat the dark one, while rand/min is the genuine relationship that would’ve happened on its own anyway” when “the pattern (slash prophetic knowledge thereof) forced it and they never would have looked twice at each other otherwise” is literally genuinely EXACTLY what happened with rand/min, while elayne and avi both fell for rand naturally rather than forcing feelings Because Fate Said So as min did. and rand is very much attracted to both elayne and avi before they show interest in him, whereas min’s just kind of an “oh, and min” afterthought way waaaaaaay in the back of his mind until she’s literally sitting in his lap kissing him and making him go “huh maybe i do want to kiss her” like he never would’ve had anything more than a subconscious fleeting interest in her if she hadn’t pursued him so aggressively, and she wouldn’t have pursued him if she hadn’t had a viewing that they would fall in love someday. whereas randlayne and avirand happened 100% organically on both sides! but sure, those are the two that the pattern forced and min/rand is the organic one.

haha the audiobook said “[kymer’s] uncle han” but when i went to the print book to type up my quotes i saw it says “her sister-father han” fascinating! the book i have does appear to be the original first publication hardcover version, so maybe that was a last-minute edit after they’d already given the book over to the audiobook narrators to record.

bair advises avi to change the names of one of her kids (from the names that she learned in the vision) in hopes that that will help avert the bad future. or she could just NOT GET PREGNANT WITH THE KIDS AT ALL, BAIR like oh my god this is such an obvious solution! i’d be totally fine if they brought it up but dismissed it as infeasible/undesirable for whatever reason (maybe they point out that heartleaf tea isn’t 100% effective, or maybe aviendha really wants to have kids and isn’t willing to make that sacrifice, though given her characterization i would find that hard to believe), but it’s just so weird to not even ADDRESS this completely obvious thing that they could EASILY control in order to prevent those future visions from coming to pass. again, it would’ve been a MUCH different situation if aviendha was already pregnant when she saw the visions. but of course, that would’ve required rand to speak more than 2 words to her between LOC-AMOL which was obviously impossible to achieve 🙄 like, they could’ve fucked in arad doman and then avi finds out she’s pregnant immediately after she sees the visions and is like “oh shit that future’s already happening” that would’ve been very emotional!

also it’s wack (wack narratively speaking, that is - ofc these things do happen irl and in-world it could simply be that min’s always drinking heartleaf tea and elayne and avi didn’t) that rand knocks up elayne after 1 time having sex with her and avi after 2 times (i assume, as they fuck for the second time later in this chapter chunk), yet he’s fucking min constantly and she never gets pregnant. really does lend weight to @butterflydm’s depressing theory that rj (whether consciously or not) wanted rand’s live-in sex-providing girlfriend to ~maintain her figure~ and be super hot and unencumbered by negative pregnancy side effects and thus available for sex at all times while the 2 sidepieces he never sees are given the job of being his baby machines.

it turns out that the weird stuff going on at the black tower is channelers being forcibly turned to the shadow by that 13 channeler-and-fade combination (or whatever the combo is, it said it somewhere in androl’s section but i already forget and don’t care enough to skim through it again looking for the sentence). huh i forgot that that was a thing. back in TGH i thought that channelers being forcibly turned to the shadow was gonna be a much bigger problem than it ended up being lmao i don’t envy sanderson having to at the eleventh hour bring back and wrap up all these plot threads that rj forgot about/ignored for 10 books and annoying the reader (or THIS reader anyway) by getting into whole new sideplots on the eve of the last battle.

also forgot moghedien is still alive. she’s been horribly punished for her failures, as has lanfear, as has graendal (who was resurrected into a super ugly body). female villains getting endlessly tortured while male villains get a nice clean death is so real.

“demandred wants only one thing. al’thor.” demandred that’s gay. and also relatable.

my man demandred shows up to the meeting, hello king! maybe we’ll see you for more than 5 pages in this book.

moghedien’s all “graendal’s only weapon was her looks so now that she’s ugly she’ll be helpless” this is exactly what graendal, who is secretly the biggest brained forsaken, wanted the others to think! i’m sure a bad bitch won’t let this ugly new body stop her.

taim is made a forsaken, whoa didn’t know you could do that! so now there’s 5 left: taim, moridin, demandred, moghedien, and graendal.

if taim was gonna become a forsaken anyway, why the fuck couldn’t he have just been demandred?? what has demandred been doing this whole time that he couldn’t have been taim? we need to condense some plotlines and characters here, people! on the other hand, demandred is sexy and taim is not sexy so i wouldn’t want them to be the same person. can’t explain that any further, it’s just their respective vibes.

“‘just remember my requirement: i face al’thor on the field of battle. his blood is mine, and no one else’s.’ ...you will have competition with [taim], demandred, moghedien thought. he wants al’thor nearly as much as you do.” everyone wants rand carnally!!!! “demandred had been changing lately. once, he wouldn’t have cared who killed lews therin - so long as the man died. what made demandred insist on doing the deed himself?” he wants to fuck rand so bad it makes him look stupid. also, moghedien, you don’t have any room to judge other people’s antagonistic homoerotic obsessions jkjfg

moridin says that this is the end, so “if you have plots, bring them to completion” a nice little bit of fourth wall breaking lmao

and i have finished my last WOT prologue ever thank fuck!!

rand and perrin are in rand’s tent together catching up and laughing awww! but where the fuck is mat!!!!

rand is spying on elayne and suspects that she’s also spying on him. he hears that elayne has been wakened late at night, suspects she’s receiving urgent news, and............sends spies to find out what it is instead of just going to ask her himself??? what the fuck???? what is this absolute batshit insanity????? that is your GIRLFRIEND rand???? to whom you’re literally soulbonded???? why the fuck are you guys spying on each other rather than going to ask each other what your plans are????? i can’t. i can’t!!!!

“‘she’ll have someone [spying on us], balwer,’ rand said with a smile. ‘she all but taught me how to do this, after all.’” okay that IS cute. but it still makes no sense that they would go to all the effort of setting up spies in each other’s camps instead of just talking to each other!!!! i love a sexy machiavellian relationship of two political powerhouse partners spying on and mistrusting each other as much as the next person, but that has never been the vibe of *rand and elayne’s* relationship.

rand has finally found out about the babies............OFFSCREEN and seemingly from hearsay rather than from elayne or one of his friends, what the fuck!!! why couldn’t we see the moment of him finding out! why the hell did elayne not find him immediately at merrilor to tell him! why the everloving FUCK did rand not find HER immediately to talk to her when he heard the news through the grapevine! more absolute batshit insanity. a few pages in and the amount of suspension of disbelief being asked of me vis-a-vis randlayne’s relationship is already cracking my skull in half.

“pregnant. pregnant with his children. light! he had only just learned of it. why hadn’t she been the one to tell him?” i don’t know maybe because you DIPPED ON HER WHILE SHE WAS SLEEPING AND NEVER BOTHERED TO STAY IN CONTACT WITH HER OR TRAVEL BACK TO SEE HER DESPITE AN ABUNDANCE OF OPPORTUNITIES TO DO SO, RAND. at least he does go on to acknowledge “he hadn’t exactly made himself easy to find” so okay. but he also thinks that she wouldn’t have told him because she would’ve felt his emotions while he was in The Bad Place and “wouldn’t have wanted to confront him with a pregnancy when he’d been in such a state” which is a) absolutely not true, elayne never once had a thought along those lines and b) totally unfair to elayne, to say that while rand’s in a bad state she would consider being his partner and fellow parent of their kids Too Hard and would just opt not to tell him. avoiding rand when being his partner gets hard is a min move, not an elayne move.

“still, it was a shock. i’m going to be a father, he thought, not for the first time. yes, lews therin had had children, and rand could remember them and his love for them. it wasn’t the same. he, rand al’thor, would be a father. assuming he won the last battle.” baby boy!!!! and these are the only thoughts we get from rand on the subject for now, smh i’ve been waiting for BOOKS for him to find out about the babies, i need more reaction and emotions than this!!! i expect nothing and i’m still let down!!!

sidenote: since the show’s beefed up dad!rand (and dad!LTT judging by the fact that his first and thus far only scene showcased him as a dad rather than as a husband) i hope they’ll dwell more on the tragedy of LTT killing his own kids instead of solely ilyena, as it is in the books.

"i [perrin] have people close to elayne. people who keep watch on things for me.” “let’s go talk to them. i have a great deal to do tonight, but...yes, i can’t let this slip.” RAND??? JUST GO???? TALK TO ELAYNE DIRECTLY??????? jesus christ i’m having a fucking aneurysm over this djfgkj IT’S ABSOLUTE BATSHIT INSANITY!!!!!

when gawyn tells elayne that she needs rest: “thank you very much for the advice, which i will ignore, as i ignored birgitte when she said the same thing.” JSKDFJG GO OFF!!! absolute icon. Good For Her.jpg

now elayne is once again arguing that they should let rand break the seals, which is what she said when egwene first shared the news but then in her povs in the second half of TOM she was thinking that it was crazy and they couldn’t let rand do something so stupid. make up your mind, sanderson!

when egwene refers to “one of rand’s crackbrained schemes”: “elayne smiled fondly. light, but she was smitten.” (this is egwene pov calling her smitten not elayne calling herself smitten lmao) and then later “‘he has a fair bit of gleeman in him,’ elayne said, again fondly.” matrandlayne is the ideal throuple because they all adore crackbrained schemes and gleeman-like dramatic showmanship! and avi is the ideal fourth polycule member because she can kick some sense and dignity into them.

guybon brings news to elayne of the attack on caemlyn and when she praises him for his actions, he says “give your reward to the men of the band, your majesty. it was their work.” yeah now i AM retroactively glad that mat and the band weren’t involved in elayne claiming the throne in canon (tho i adore it in fics) because it would’ve turned into this same sort of “mat/talmanes and the band being the heroes of the day and getting all the credit” lmao

“‘here, let us link. i’ll lend you my strength.’ nynaeve looked shocked. ‘mother?’ ‘you are better at healing than i.’ egwene smiled. ‘i may be amyrlin, nynaeve, but i am still aes sedai. servant of all.’” ❤️❤️ egwene is The Best, Truest Aes Sedai, and The Best, Truest Amyrlin. she embodies everything they are supposed to be, as opposed to cadsuane who embodies everything that's wrong/broken with the system. i sure am glad that it’s egwene and not cadsuane who’s amyrlin. i SURE AM glad. sob.

perrin says that in blacksmith-ing if something shatters it’s better to start again than try to fix it, and rand uses the same thing to talk about the seals. “rand, that’s the most reasonable thing anyone has said on this topic. have you explained it that way to egwene?” “she’s not a blacksmith, my friend.” “she’s smart, rand. smarter than either of us. she’ll understand if you explain it the right way.” thank you perrin!!!!! this whole time rand’s been like “ugh why won’t egwene see REASON” it’s because you literally didn’t explain shit to her, you just showed up at the tower and said “i’m gonna break the seals, see you in a month” and left again immediately.

rand learns about caemlyn and once again, bafflingly, talks to perrin about how they can’t let elayne leave rather than going to talk to elayne herself

“rand could feel [elayne], of course, through the bond. her spike of alarm let him know that she’d received this information. should he go to her? perhaps he could send min.” ??????????????????????????? you just learned that your girlfriend’s HOME has FALLEN TO TROLLOCS and you think of sending your other girlfriend to go talk to her in your place because you’re too busy to check on her and see if she’s okay or needs anything?????? i hate to say it but Deadbeat Dad Rand IS becoming tragically real, christ

and rand now suddenly feels avi arrive at merrilor, so this must take place slightly before avi’s prologue scene. i can report that he, of course, has no thought of going to find her and say hello or anything.

“the attack might unnerve elayne, make her more eager to act. perhaps this will make her more vulnerable to agreeing with my plan. this could be a good thing.” WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK RAND!!!! why is randlayne being done so FILTHILY in this chapter!!!! at least perrin frowns at this statement and rand thinks “how quickly i’ve learned to use others” so at least he’s being narratively called out for being a shithead here, BUT STILL this is crazy. genuinely from this chapter alone, bar the lines explicitly stating that elayne is pregnant with rand’s babies, i would have no idea that he cares about her at ALL let alone that she’s his COMMITTED SOULBONDED GIRLFRIEND i hate it here!!! my sole consolation is that min has been asleep offscreen the whole chapter and rand’s had no significant thoughts about her, so at least i don’t have to have min/rand rubbed in my face while randlayne is dragged through the mud.

rand also says “i thought she had that thing guarded!” about the caemlyn waygate, so not only is he a) not bothering to see if elayne’s okay after her home was attacked and b) thinking that her being upset and vulnerable over this could be a good thing for his plans, he is now c) blaming her for the attack happening.

“of all those to turn to the shadow, demandred’s betrayal seemed the most tragic. the man could have been a hero. should have been a hero. i’m to blame for that, too, rand thought. if i’d offered a hand instead of a smirk, if i’d congratulated instead of competed. if i’d been the man then that i am now...” oh.............OH! that is some good good tragic doomed lovers to enemies shit!!! (but also, what sort of man ARE you now, rand? the kind who doesn’t bother to find his partner to say hello and talk about their babies after not having seen her in months and not having known she was pregnant until just now? the kind who doesn’t spare a single thought for how his partner must feel about tragic news from her home except to think that it would be super helpful to him if she were vulnerable about it?)

okay rand FINALLY thinks that he’s going to send to elayne and also send help to evacuate the city, fucking finally, rand! but he’s still just Sending To her rather than sending HIMSELF to her, of course.

moving on from bullying rand (for the moment). 2 chapters in and this is already my mood:

IT’S THE LAST DAMN BOOK!!! STOP WASTING MY TIME WITH RANDOS I DON’T CARE ABOUT!!!!!! you guys know very well how much i’ve always hated side character plotlines, so you can imagine how enraged i am about this kjfg like man, call me rand because the amount i DO NOT CARE about what’s happening at the black tower is ASTRONOMICAL (okay maybe i’m not done bullying rand)

thankfully, next we get avilayne reunion!!! 🥰🥰

as soon as aviendha hears about the attack on caemlyn she goes right to find elayne to talk to her about it. rand take notes.

“[elayne] looked very much in control, very strong, her red-gold hair practically glowing in the lamplight...aviendha was pleased to se the fire in her first-sister’s eyes.” proud and awestruck wife aviendha!!! convenient source of light that makes elayne’s hair glow!!! also, reminds me of the matlayne reunion when mat was describing how radiant elayne looked and how her hair glowed in the firelight. this is elayne’s harem, we’re all just living in it!

then when elayne insists to the lords upon the hard but necessary course of not trying to retake caemlyn: “her face was a mask, her voice as cold as good steel.” rand parallels!! insert my usual ranting about how we were robbed of rand and elayne dealing with the burdens of leadership etc together.

aviendha thinks that elayne always knows “the most interesting curses” aviendha is the little spiderman to elayne’s medium spiderman to mat’s big spiderman when it comes to swearing jkfjg my loves! that’s what a polycule should be all about.

as SOON as she realizes avi is there, elayne sends every single person out of the tent to leave the two of them in private. so that she can kiss her wife!

“i’ve reached the point in my pregnancy where i can channel again reliably” that seems like awfully convenient timing for the last battle lmao was it mentioned initially that channeling would be reliable again in the second trimester? i think i remember monaelle saying it would just get worse and worse as the pregnancy progressed. overall this was just a totally useless thing that didn’t end up affecting the plot in any significant way - there were many times when drama and danger could have been heightened by elayne finding herself unable to grasp the source, but they were never taken and the source was always there when she TRULY needed it.

elayne receives a LETTER from rand rather than rand just walking 10 feet into her camp to talk to her in person, christ almighty. “he insists that i return to caemlyn to see to my people...light, this is clever. he’s obviously trying to bully me into staying. there’s a touch of daes dae’mar in this.” “you seem proud. yet i gather this letter is only one step away from being insulting!” “i am proud. and angry at him. but proud because he knew to make me angry like that. light! we’ll make a king out of you yet, rand.” again, this is cute and funny on the one hand but on the other hand is the sort of Machiavellian Relationship that does not fit with randlayne’s established vibes.

“a fire still burned behind those eyes of hers. elayne was a warrior, as true a one as aviendha had ever known.” ❤️❤️

avi asks elayne for permission to fuck rand tonight since they may not get another chance. elayne gives it and asks if avi’s spent time with min, to which avi replies “not enough, and under other circumstances i would remedy that lack immediately. there is no time...i do think she feels better about me. she did me a great honor in helping me understand the last step to becoming a wise one. it may be appropriate to bend some of the customs.” ugh it’s always been so annoying how min just.......gets to be an exception to the first-sister thing. aviendha was so staunch that she couldn’t be with rand until she and elayne were first-sisters, yet min is basically a STRANGER to her, and a stranger who has demonstrably no interest in learning about or respecting aiel ways let alone participating in them, or even in sharing rand with the two of them at all, but gets to have avi going “eh it’s fine we can make an exception.” min hasn’t earned that!!! and her “great honor” of helping avi with the wise ones was a complete accident lmao all she did was embarrass avi so much by asking why she was doing pointless punishments (which she would’ve known was a shaming question if she’d had any interest in learning about aiel ways) that avi snapped at the wise ones. min had no intention of helping her and never even realized that she did help her!

for real, elayne broke her goddamn back to make this whole polycule work and gets 0 time with rand, while min didn’t put in an ounce of effort (and actively dislikes that she has to let elayne and avi take part in the relationship) and gets to be with him all by herself for over half the series.

it’s very hard to think about the concept of min being likable to me when i’ve been so deep in the trenches of book!min sucking for so long now, but if i try to think objectively then there are some very easy fixes the show can make. 1) don’t make her change her style and personality for rand (and it’s 100% guaranteed the show will indeed not do this, seeing as it’s 2022 and nobody in their right mind would think that shit is acceptable), 2) make her eventual giving in to falling in love with rand feel natural and as a result of getting to know and like him as a person rather than just a random decision she makes while miles away from him Because Fate Said So, 3) get rid of the whole “hunting rand down and seducing him into a relationship” grossness that characterized TFOH and LOC, 4) get rid of her reluctance to share him and make her equally as on board with a poly relationship as elayne and avi are, 5) make her actually spend time with elayne and especially avi and form meaningful relationships with them. and possibly 6) don’t give her such a disproportionately large amount of exclusive screentime with rand while avi and elayne get shafted, but this would not bother me AS much if fixes 4 and 5 had been made, because it COULD actually feel wholesome, like min taking care of rand on elayne and avi’s behalfs while they aren��t able to be with him (and how wonderful would it be if min and rand actually TALKED about elayne and avi during this time, and did so fondly and lovingly!), rather than like she’s trying to hog him all to herself and prove that she’s his One Real Partner.

me: it’s so easy to fix min [gives a whole list of fixes that require completely overhauling her character and relationship with rand]

anyway, elayne and avi plan to talk to min before sending avi to fuck rand, and we later find out that they did so offscreen. just like with the convo about the decision to bond him, we don’t get to actually see the 3 of them sitting down together and talking about rand and their shared feelings for and relationships with him. it’s so weird!! such a wasted opportunity!! i don’t fucking care about androl and pevara, can i please see elayne, avi, and min having a scene all together for ONCE???

once again so so so so grateful for rafe’s commitment to interpersonal relationships in the show, this shit would NEVER happen there! nor would any of the Randlayne Batshit Insanity i’ve been complaining about in this post.

i have read 13 books. i have slogged through thousands of pages and read or listened to every single word, even if i wasn’t always paying super close attention. but androl and pevara’s plotline has for the first time made me resort to skipping scenes and reading summaries instead. no regrets! congratulations, androl and pevara, you’ve finally broken me when not even perrin’s plotlines could. i’m not going to read a single one of their scenes for the rest of the book, i’ve decided. i just want to be done with this series jkdjfg not that i haven’t enjoyed reading it (during certain books and plotlines, anyway), but good god i just want to be done.

“it was still hard to get used to the idea of tam being there, just one camp over. rand had dined with him earlier. it had been awkward, but no more so than expected for a king inviting his father from a rural village to ‘dine.’ they had laughed about it, which had made him feel much better.” 🥺

but also, i see how it is, rand has the time to invite tam over for dinner and perrin over to hang out from a different camp, but not elayne or aviendha 😤 what a perfect opportunity to introduce his dad to his other two girlfriends that he’s just not taking. i bet MIN was invited to family dinner.

avi arrives to see rand thank god!! but his reaction is so baffling. “how have i taken you from [the maidens]?” he says as if he does not know full well that they got into a committed relationship in WH. “light. she was beautiful. but so was elayne...and so was min...and...he was a fool. a light-blinded fool. ‘aviendha,’ he said. ‘i love you, i truly do. but that’s a problem, burn it! i love all three of you. i don’t think i could accept this and choose-’” like literally what the FUCK is happening???? rand!!! do you not remember the ENTIRE CONVERSATION the four of you had where you said you loved all of them and felt bad about it, and they reassured you that they all loved you and were happy to share you, and then they all bonded you as their warder and avi and min gave their blessing for you to fuck elayne?? what the fuck is happening right now!!!! that WH scene truly had ZERO impact on rand and it’s so absolutely absurd. this is beyond asking me to suspend disbelief, it’s straight up trying to gaslight me into thinking that that WH scene never happened!

but the good news is that “she was beautiful, but so was elayne, and so was min, and..................” gives me room to interpret that he’s subconsciously thinking “and so is mat” jdkfjg

also, interesting that rand is fretting that sleeping with avi now would be A Decision when he’s been sleeping with min for months...............implying perhaps that min has always been just sex to him and not A Decision about which of the three he loves 👀

“‘we are first-sisters, rand al’thor, elayne and i. when we get to know her better, min will join us. we three will share in all things.’ first-sisters? he should have suspected, following that odd bonding. he raised a hand to his head. we will share you, they had said to him.” WHAT THE HELL DID YOU THINK THAT CONVERSATION WAS ABOUT, RAND???? JESUS CHRIST currently saying with my whole chest that every time WOT women complain about men being stupid and unobservant is 100% justified. jesus christ.

for my own sanity, i must assume that this is all a result of sanderson Just Not Getting the polycule or at least avirand specifically (since their relationship is by far the worst in terms of “suddenly experienced a total reset in TGS and acted like WH never happened”) and that it would’ve been much different if rj had written it. i don’t like to lean on “this would’ve been better if rj had written it” too much because most of the time the things i’m annoyed about are things he’d already established that sanderson had to run with and claiming that it’s a Sanderson Problem is just using him as a scapegoat for rj’s own bad storytelling decisions, but in this instance i do think it’s true. even as little as avirand and randlayne got in LOC-KOD, i do remember noticing a marked decrease in rand thinking/caring about avi and elayne in TGS which got even worse in TOM since we didn’t have any rand pov.

“is this so terrible a thing to consider, being with the three of us?” “i want it, aviendha. i should hide myself because i do. but the pain...” “you have embraced it, have you not?” “it is not my pain i fear. it is yours.” “are we so weak, then, that we cannot bear what you can?” 👏👏👏 “of course not. but how can i hope for pain in those i love?” “the pain is ours to accept.” 👏👏👏

god rand NEEDED this kind of “yes you might die, and it will hurt us, but that’s our choice to make and we’ll bear that pain” outlook from a partner SO MANY BOOKS AGO instead of min’s constant insistences that she Won’t Let Him die at tarmon gai’don. not saying it isn’t admirable to keep up that kind of optimism or that it isn’t helpful to rand for his partners to have hope for a future with him, but he really needed avi’s different perspective as well to balance it out.

“be warned; it is all three of us, or none of us. we will not let you come between us.” good on you avi but i am 100% certain that min would gladly let it come between you if rand wanted only her lmaooo

also, this seems like the kind of convo they should all 4 be having together (since it APPARENTLY didn’t stick for rand the first time they had it in WH). this brings me to my other point, that the whole “the 3 women discuss who gets to fuck rand today and send that person to him” (which we also kinda saw in WH tho at least they did all talk to him first even if the women had pre-agreed to leave elayne alone with him after) is SO AWKWARD. HUGE harem vibes. like please just have an orgy all together, for fuck’s sake.

i don’t feel strongly about min having romantic relationships with elayne and avi in the show like i do about elayne and avi having one with each other, and in fact it WOULD be kinda cool to see at least one platonic sibling-spouse dynamic, but if all 4 are all dating each other it would remove so much weirdness when it comes to sex lmao especially when you also add in the fact that the warder bonds allow them to feel each other fucking rand! maybe we could do rand dating all 3, elayne dating all 3, and avi-min sibling-spouses, because it would be easier to make min/elayne happen than min/avi since they spend a lot of time together early in the series and establish a close bond early on that could be given more screentime later by including min in more of elayne’s plotlines instead of exclusively rand’s (also, show!min gives off immense queer vibes, whereas Straight Male Gaze Serving book!min could never), and it would still preserve a sibling-spouse dynamic which IS a unique dynamic that i really love and would love much more if it didn’t feel like such a big No Homo the way it does in the books, which would be accomplished by showing that women can be each other’s wives too and aren’t strictly limited to sister-wives (overall i am so so excited for the show to give us a more explicitly queer version of aiel culture as well as brother-husbands in addition to sister-wives! they haven’t actually said they’ll do that but i’ll eat my hat if they don’t.) okay where was i. oh it would also be good because avi and min being bona fide first-sisters would give them their own unique and meaningful relationship with each other, which is sorely needed. ofc i’d prefer the show just do avirandlayne throuple and keep min/rand as platonic friends because that is so much easier and more natural and works so much better in all respects, but given the “3 beautiful women” viewing and the fact that fans would riot if their beloved Rand Girlfriend didn’t get to bang him in the show, i know that won’t happen.

and so, overall, i hate min and min/rand but i really WANT the show to make me able to like them, for my own sanity if nothing else because it was bad enough having to read so many books heavily featuring a ship i hate and i don’t want to go through that again in the show jdkjfg i’m hoping by the time min/rand begins in the show in earnest it’ll be long enough since i’ve read the books that my “flying into a rage every time i so much as hear min’s name” fight or flight instinct will no longer be so strong.

and kinda same with tuon and mat/tuon, actually. villain redemption arcs (especially when Tough Childhoods and Toxic Families are involved) and hero/villain ships are my bread and goddamn butter and i was so disappointed by the teeeeeeerrible execution in the books because i think tuon could have emerged as one of my favorite characters/character arcs and mat/tuon as one of my favorite canon ships if it had been done in a way that fulfilled the fantastic potential of all the godtier tropes that form the basis of it.

okay i’ve gotten SO off track, but all the s2 stuff from nycc has me hyped up and in show mode! back to the book.

i remember somebody reblogged a post of mine a while back and were saying that aviendha doesn’t know what consent is (i think the original post was an ask where we were discussing avi and birgitte’s terrible reactions to seeing tylin harass mat at the end of ACOS) because the first time she had sex with rand, she took advantage of him while he was half-dead from hypothermia, and the second time, she forced him to have sex with her by bringing maidens to surround the tent and kill him if he refused. that interpretation of their first time i knew straightaway was bullshit bc i’d already read TFOH (they were BOTH half-dead from hypothermia and in fact avi was in WAY worse shape than rand was, which was why he got naked to warm her up in the first place) but i was like “i’m also skeptical of the second one but will reserve judgment until i read it for myself.” i can now say that yes, it’s bullshit lmao i don’t even know how that person could POSSIBLY have come to that conclusion. the maidens arrive of their own accord and avi is kinda embarrassed that they did so, and they’re just yelling and not making ANY attempt whatsoever to threaten rand in ANY way (okay there is “several were screaming about what they’d do to certain parts of his body when they caught him” but avi explains right away that they don’t mean it and the whole thing is just a symbolic practice, and besides, they’re yelling at him for taking avi away from them, not yelling at him to try and force him to sleep with her). and rand and avi do have a little exchange wherein it appears avi is calling the shots and rand just has to do what she says, but it’s clearly just flirty banter that our subby boy rand is very much into (and he’s actually the one who first initiates physical intimacy by pulling her close). you know who DID explicitly think that she would bring the maidens in to kill rand if he tried to not have sex with her? MIN during their first time in ACOS.

“aviendha sniffed. ‘enough talk. you will bed me now.’ ‘light!’ he said. ‘a little forward, aren’t you? is that the aiel way of doing things?’ ‘no,’ she said, blushing again. ‘i just...i am not very skilled with this.’ ...he laughed and pulled her close. she was stiff, initially, but then melted against him. ‘so, do i go fight them first?’ he nodded toward the maidens.” like that’s all so cute! doesn’t read at all nonconsensual to me, it’s just how they flirt! and rand is 100% onboard!

the only thing i didn’t care for was “you three decided this, didn’t you? which of you came to me?” and “i’m never going to get to choose, am i?” to both of which aviendha shakes her head, because while i can see the gender role reversal rj was going for with the 3 women deciding everything about rand between them and he just has to go along with it, it has always annoyed me. but after the second head shake is when rand laughs and pulls avi close, so i guess HE has no problem with it, which is what matters! still, defs looking forward to the show making this not only a true polycule rather than a harem, but a polycule between 4 equal partners rather than rand never being involved in conversations or decisions about his own relationship.

moridin meets rand in a dreamshard and says “i knew that if i created this place, you would join me in it. you can’t keep away from me. the pattern won’t allow it. we are drawn together, you and i. time after time after time. two ships moored on the same beach, beating against one another with each new tide.” oh my god. FELLAS. lines that would 100% fit into a romantic relationship (if a rather toxic one) with no alterations needed! this has gotta be his gayest line to rand yet, which is saying something.

moridin says he’ll kill “you, and the golden-haired one, and the aiel woman, and the little dark-haired-” and gets cut off before specifying woman, so i can interpret that he’s referring to mat as rand’s little dark-haired partner 😌 which serves both my #PutMatInThePolycule AND my #ShortKingMat agendas.

“he was reminded, in passing, of mornings during his youth, rising before dawn to milk the cow, which would need milking twice a day. eyes closed, he remembered the sounds of tam - already up - cutting new fence posts in the barn. remembering the chilly air, stomping his feet into his boots, washing his face with water left to warm beside the stove.” 😭😭😭

“‘light, aviendha! why do you need to sneak up on me in the first place?’ ‘for this,’ she said, then jumped forward, snatching his head and kissing him, her body pressed against his. he relaxed, letting the kiss linger.” 🥺🥺🥺 early morning kisses and then rand brings back showers from the AOL and they take a shower together! weeping over this tiny snippet of domestic avirand!!!! now if only elayne was there too (and mat)

“if i am going to live in the wetlands, then i will adopt some wetlander customs.” avirandlayne throuple raising their six (6) babies in (rebuilt) caemlyn endgame is so real y’all!!!! yes!!!

rand remarks that avi no longer seems bothered by a man channeling, but i don’t think she was ever bothered by it? didn’t he say back in TSR or TFOH that the aiel didn’t seem to care about him being a male channeler and the dragon reborn because they only care about him being the car’a’carn?

rand describes the rough calluses of avi’s hands (and how much he likes them) in a passage highly reminiscent of mat describing the rough heron brand on rand’s hand in TFOH, nice.

and we get to the big meeting of all the rulers! way too much going on in this scene for me to break down thoroughly but i’ll reskim to try and remember some specific things i wanted to note.

elayne tells egwene that she spoke to avi about her night with rand but rand didn’t tell avi his intentions for the meeting. the hoops sanderson is jumping through to avoid making elayne and rand just talk to each other directly! what’s the point? why couldn’t elayne have gone to talk to rand WITH avi for a while and then left to give them privacy to fuck? why couldn’t she have and why WOULDN’T she have? it makes no sense.

the king of murandy is a dick, so egwene makes him think the white tower has been pulling strings in murandy (by saying that she’s heard his rule is consolidating nicely and then saying “you’re welcome,” smiling, and riding away). jkjfg queen shit! “‘egwene,’ gawyn said softly, trotting his horse beside hers, ‘did you really just do that?’ ‘does he look troubled?’ gawyn glanced over his shoulder. ‘very.’ ‘excellent.’ gawyn continued riding for a moment, then broke into a deep grin. ‘that was positively evil.’” DJFKGJ i love them your honor! gawyn loves watching egwene get people’s asses as much as i do, bless him! that’s his wife! that’s OUR wife! (also, ARE they literally married yet? they said they were going to but idk if they have.)

“min stood at his side, one hand on his arm.” min showing up to a serious political meeting with rulers of the whole continent and going “i MUST plaster myself to rand to make sure everyone knows i’m his girlfriend” very inappropriate time for physical intimacy, min! especially since elayne and avi are also at the meeting and are not afforded the luxury of flaunting their relationships with rand (although elayne does tell rand she loves him in front of everyone, so they must be wondering what’s going on jkfg “i see what you’re trying to do and i love you for it, but [objection]” is soooomewhat offhand as telling people you love them goes, but still!)

“elayne swept in, the sorrow on her face lightening as rand smiled warmly at her.” ❤️❤️❤️ finally a randlayne crumb!!!!

“the wool-headed woman was still impressed with rand, pleased with how he’d managed to bully everyone into coming here. elayne considered it a matter of pride when he did well.” ❤️❤️❤️ this push-and-pull tension between elayne disagreeing with rand as a fellow leader but being proud of him as a partner (and vice versa) would have been SUCH an interesting thing to explore in detail across the whole series. sigh.

“and you don’t feel a small measure of pride? egwene asked herself. rand al’thor, once a simple village boy and your near-betrothed, now the most powerful man in the world? you don’t feel proud of what he’s done? perhaps a little.” oh my god my HEART 🥺🥺

and we also finally get a bit of randlayne political conflict! but given that elayne’s just one of many rulers voicing the same opinions and she and rand don’t talk directly to each other that much (most of his argument is with egwene while the monarchs are fussing amongst themselves), and that the narrative frames it as “rand wants a peace treaty but all the monarchs including elayne are too selfish and power-hungry to agree,” overall i’m not very satisfied with it. i do think his peace treaty is a great idea and am on his side about it, but i just wish elayne hadn’t been lumped in with the other monarchs. she’s Not Like Other Monarchs, dammit! or i would’ve loved to see rand’s initial treaty be less Good And Righteous than it is, or to see part of this scene from elayne’s pov to see her actual thoughts about the treaty rather than egwene's assumptions about what she thinks, or to have seen her and rand discuss the treaty privately and workshop ways to improve it before bringing it to the full group - because elayne DOES point out some real flaws in the treaty and propose solutions for them, which i loved to see!

“i am [the seals’] watcher.” “in name only. they were only just discovered, and i possess them. it is out of respect for your traditional title that i approached you about them first.” “approached me? you didn’t make a request. you didn’t make a demand. you came, told me what you were going to do, and walked away.” get his ass egwene!! this is exactly what i was saying earlier!

“is this what it’s about? you want saidin to be tainted again. you aes sedai...you’re threatened by the idea of men who can channel, undermining your authority!” ah, now i see where the batshit take of *****MASSIVE SPOILER FOR THE END OF THE BOOK THAT I’M NOT SUPPOSED TO KNOW YET BUT DO***** “it was better for egwene to go out in a blaze of glory in the last battle because she would’ve hated living in a world where saidin is untainted and men who can channel are treated as equals and aes sedai aren’t on top of the world anymore” came from: an obviously ridiculous and paranoia-induced assumption of rand’s that Certain Readers took as inarguable fact about egwene! love that 🙄

“light, egwene. you can still do it, like the sister i never had - tie my mind in knots and have me raving at you and loving you at the same time.” 🥺

“rand looked hesitant, and for a moment, he seemed the child she’d once caught sneaking bites of mistress cauthon’s pies with mat.” cauthor crumb!

rand’s plan is to KILL THE DARK ONE okay damn. given that the whole series is about balance and how light can’t exist without shadow and vice versa, i’m 95% sure that will turn out to be a bad and/or impossible idea and that it will turn out egwene is right in this particular argument and rand will just imprison him again after all. i hope so, i want egwene to win one of their arguments lmao since moiraine comes in and basically calls her out and embarrasses her in front of all the rulers for trying to disagree with rand about the seals.

“for all his complaints about aes sedai, for all of his insistence that he wouldn’t be controlled by them, he was acting more and more like one of them himself.” exactly!!! glad to see that little bit of hypocrisy acknowledged outright by the narrative and not just by me in my own head.

moiraine returns!!!!! and for some reason we are put into perrin’s pov for this scene instead of rand’s or staying in egwene’s. although various channelers flicking the annoying murandian king with the power and perrin being able to tell who it was by them smelling smug WAS hilarious, i’ll admit.

“where had mat gotten to now? why hadn’t he come back with moiraine?” YEAH FOR REAL WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU MAT??????? literally EVERY other character is here, where are you??????? you are RUINING all my hopes and dreams of ef5 reunions!!!! which i always knew would never happen, but they COULD have if mat had gone with moiraine instead of fucking off to wherever he is currently!!! honestly what the hell!!!

“[rand] hesitantly reached out and touched her face. ‘by my mother’s grave,’ rand whispered, then fell to his knees before her. ‘how?’ moiraine smiled, resting a hand on his shoulder. ‘the wheel weaves as the wheel wills, rand. have you forgotten that?’” MOMRAINE!!!

also cracking up at rand: how are you alive? moiraine: the wheel weaves as the wheel wills mat: am i a joke to you?

“‘moiraine,’ egwene said, stepping forward. ‘the white tower welcomes you back with open arms. your service has not been forgotten.’ ‘hmmm,’ moiraine said. ‘yes, i should think that having discovered a future amyrlin would reflect well upon me.’” MOMRAINE!!!

“she passed perrin, and gave him a squeeze on the arm, eyes twinkling.” MOMRAINE!!!

“nynaeve enfolded moiraine in a powerful embrace. moiraine stood for a moment, smelling distinctly shocked, hands out to the sides. finally, she returned the embrace in a somewhat maternal way, patting nynaeve on the back.” MOMRAINE!!! LITERALLY!!!

“nynaeve released her, pulling back, then wiped a tear from her eye. ‘don’t you dare tell lan about this,’ she growled. ‘i would not dream of it,’ moiraine said... ‘insufferable woman,’ nynaeve grumbled as she wiped a tear from the other eye.” MY HEART IS SO FULL

“[elayne was] still staring daggers at rand...oddly, she smelled proud. strange woman.” i love her jkjfg i love Them!!

faile: “if rand persuades [the seanchan to sign the treaty], does that allow them to keep the countries they have now? the women who are damane? are they allowed to slap one of those collars on any woman who passes their border?” THANK you queen faile!!!!

lmao it’s hilarious how every single major character present in this scene is saying stuff and playing an important role in the negotiations.............except for min who has not said a single word and has done nothing but touch rand’s arm twice. she is soooo narratively useless!!! actually, we’re almost 200 pages in and min hasn’t had a single word of dialogue at all or even been present except for in the way background of this one scene. love that for me!

rand gives elayne total control over all the armies at the last battle!!!! that is fucking ROMANCE, baby!!!!! “elayne trakand is a leader to her core; she taught me much of what i know about leadership.” ❤️❤️

rand says he will “try” to “persuade” the seanchan to release the damane and the lands they’ve stolen and go back across the ocean, but aviendha says that they can’t fight the seanchan because they’ll lose. so rand says, “they have done horrible things, but so far, the lands they have taken have benefited from strong leadership.” HATE THIS LATE-SERIES NARRATIVE THAT DIRECTLY CONTRADICTS WHAT WE SAW IN FALME “if forced to it, i am content to allow them the lands they have, so long as they do not spread further. as for the women...what is done is done.” UGH!!!!! i cannot believe i just had to read that load of GARBAGE with my OWN TWO EYES!!!! what the FUCK rand!!!!!! at least he adds “let us worry about the world itself first, then do what we can for those held captive” so MAYBE he’ll try to do SOMETHING, but christ!!! after avi’s visions i feared that “make peace with the seanchan and let them stay, in part because things are ~So Much Better~ under their rule!” would be the “resolution” here, and lo and be fucking hold!!! i’m so mad!!!!!!! rand, go google “appeasement” and rethink your stance here!!!!!

anyway, this tarwin’s gap sequence with lan is sooooo good, i teared up!!! (also, huge spartan 300 vibes which me and my classics degree loved!)

“al chalidholara malkier. for my sweet land malkier. it was the oath a malkieri soldier took during their first posting to the border. lan had never spoken it. he did so now in his heart.” 😭😭😭

“[morgase banishing bryne] hadn’t been elayne’s fault, but she could read the breached trust in bryne’s face.” so bryne is standoffish with elayne because of what her mom did???? fuck that guy. he does later compliment her on her leadership skills and say he doesn’t hold morgase’s actions against her, but still. fuck that guy.

“you will do as you are told.” 😳😳 we may have lost Daddy Rand, but we still have Mommy Elayne!

sidenote while we’re on the subject: baffles me that most people think aviendha tops. did you all read all those scenes of her rushing to do whatever elayne asks and turning into a blushing mess when elayne compliments her?? wake up america. elayne tops always. avilayne, elayne tops. randlayne, elayne tops. matlayne, elayne tops even if mat would never admit it.

anyway. loial returns!!! 🥰 “i am married to erith, though, you see. she’s just over there. did you hear her singing? isn’t her song beautiful? being married is not so bad, perrin. why didn’t you tell me it was not so bad? i think i am rather fond of it.” awwww, warm welcome for loial into the WOT Wifeguy club! also in the club: gawyn, perrin, lan, rand, bashere

“rand needs me.” “rand needs us all.” “he needs me more.” perrin and elayne fighting over their boyfriend jkfg perrin justifies his ummm wild and rude claim that rand needs him more than elayne with min’s viewing that rand will die if perrin isn’t with him at the last battle. now, if only she’d had the same viewing about mat...........

who we learn is IN EBOU DAR????? according to perrin’s color visions. WHAT THE FUCK MAT WHAT ARE YOU DOING THERE???? EVERYBODY ELSE IS OVER HERE GET YOUR ASS HERE NOW!!!! “that man is never where he needs to be.” christ elayne i KNOW!! man.

“the seanchan are the enemy. mat doesn’t seem to understand that, considering what he’s done.” GET HIS ASS ELAYNE!!!!!! TEAR THE BITCH APART!!! it’s still unclear whether she’s aware he’s married to the seanchan empress, but this line implies she might be since idk what else she might mean by What He’s Done

“apparently, rand had specifically told [bashere] to watch over [elayne, while they’re in caemlyn].” another one for the Romantic Or Condescending? debate lmao i’m going to say condescending because rand has time to tell bashere to watch over elayne but doesn’t have time to fucking talk to elayne directly STILL???? they were in the same place for 200 pages and didn’t exchange a word besides as leaders at the big meeting!

tam is part of the contingent who went to caemlyn with elayne, but i’m sure that having an interaction between the two of them will be too much to ask for

elayne notes that bashere doesn’t talk to her “the way a man should a queen” which is absolutely not something rj’s elayne would’ve ever thought, because she was only misinterpreted by others as being a Spoiled Princess but was never actually one.

pregnancy update: the babies are kicking and moving around frequently!!! 🥺🥺 i would like a timeline update because i really didn’t think elayne was far enough into her pregnancy to feel the babies moving THIS strongly and often, and the size of her belly has also lately been described as seemingly much bigger than i would’ve thought it would be (tho that i can excuse as twins making her bigger sooner than a single baby would). google says you typically start feeling movements between 16 and 24 weeks and that they become more regular between 24 and 28 weeks, which would mean elayne’s ~6 months pregnant now, and no way in hell was WH 6 months ago. that was midwinter and we’re still only in spring, i’m pretty sure.

elayne asks bashere if he thinks it’s a mistake for her to go into battle while pregnant and he says no - king shit! then he tells her that she should tell everyone she’s carrying the dragon reborn’s children because it would make them fight harder - opposite of king shit! as we all know, elayne is simply a vessel for rand’s babies and people would care more about fighting for them than for her 🙄

elayne quite rightly points out that this is neither any of bashere’s business nor any of the army’s business, but he says that the heir to the realm is the business of its subjects. yeah, and it’s only their business that that heir is the queen’s kid, the babydaddy is not their business!

“perhaps it will remind them that not everything in this world is dying.” can you believe that rand and elayne’s babies are being used to give a greater emotional impact and sense of hope to an army of randos than to rand? insanity.

“farmers burned their fields in the spring to prepare them for new life. maybe that was what andor was suffering now.” a sense of hope being given to me as well, thank you elayne!

but bashere does tell elayne that she reminds him of faile ❤️❤️ so he earns a few points back. i want to see elayne-faile friendship so bad! they HAVE had a couple fun interactions in this book and the previous one.

elayne does come around and tell birgitte to spread the word that the babies are rand’s. bashere, this is colossally stupid! he claims that she doesn’t have to worry about it making them any greater targets than they already are because she’s already important enough (as high commander of the armies of the light) to make them targets, which on the surface is Hell Yeah Elayne’s Special On Her Own, but if you actually think about it, it’s colossally stupid because rand IS more of a target than elayne. not only in the eyes of the shadow, but in the eyes of regular people and politicians etc. the dragon reborn is hated and feared in so many places, and elayne herself was worried last book about the potential of a Dragon Empire forming after rand’s death with the lands he holds. even were rand to defeat the shadow and die at the last battle, he would still have a dangerous and threatening posthumous legacy among non-shadow people - TONS of people would want to see his kids dead to make sure they couldn’t rise to inherit all the power and thrones and influence he left behind. COLOSSALLY STUPID for bashere to tell elayne she should publicize that he’s her babies’ dad! maybe it’ll make her soldiers fight harder right now, but what about after the last battle, huh? it will cause so many problems for her then! you’ve gotta be thinking long term here!

a shortish chunk of chapters, but the post is getting long and there’s a wonderful wonderful randlayne scene next chapter FINALLY that i know i will have many words about, so i better cut this one off here

#wot #wot book spoilers

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