the blood bag boogie

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[bloodbagboogie]

See under cut for fandom and pairing filter quick links. Currently writing: The Wayhaven Chronicles.

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[evilbunnyking]

Picking at ember days again today and went over this bit again from chapter 9 and oh, am I thinking about the dynamic between Nate and Ava where Ava fears losing control, and Nate fears taking control (tier X!), and how they are each other's balm/each other's undoing and I can't stop thinking about it---

Vision: A ceding control to N, the trust they have to give each other this (@nat-seal-well your collar thoughts come to mind ♥️♥️♥️)

Vision: Ava putting herself in Nate's hands, a tool, a blunt instrument, to be used as he wills (tier X bb) and Nate trusting in Ava's trust, that she knows him, has known him from the first, knows what he is and what he can be, that she is strong enough to stop him if needs be (that exchange of power - that acceptance and stepping into what he can be - terrific and terrible, the two of them, for who could stop them?) (imagine them going rogue okay-- yes A is loyal but duty is a coping mechanism and tied to people and so if N wants to leave... A is going with them. Their family. Their other self.)

[evilbunnyking]

In one of my many, many WIPs I have a floating scene where I want to explore Nate and Ava learning how to comprehend and handle his tier X - because Ava is totally susceptible to it, pretty much everyone is (save the detective who just gets a migraine, poor baby). She already knows it's something that came with his turning - I've been meaning to revise Old Gods and put this in more explicitly because those initial night terrors are going to be INTENSE - but I'd say he isn't at full power, then; still recovering from the wreck. And so learning what it is, and how to control it (while Nate hates that this is part of himself)--

A scene, floating for now, of a society ball in the early 18th century. The heat and the evening and the many moving bodies, the press of perfume and sweat and beeswax candles and the wood of the fires and the intoxicating pull of blood drawn to the skin - flushed cheeks, fluttering fans. People dancing, drunk and warm, and Nate dancing too, drunk on all of it, and steadily, slowly, the atmosphere shifts, grows headier. He holds the room in his sway, as if caught in a dream. Sweet as sugared cream. It drowns Ava, too, until she realises it, and she takes his arm, tugs him away. Draws him back to himself. Outside, in the clarity of the night air, he gasps for breath and crumples in on himself because succumbing to the temptation, to his abilities, was so... Intoxicating, and so easy, and if she hasn't stopped him, what might he have---

"But you did stop," she is saying, and he's suddenly unsure whether he was speaking his thoughts aloud, "you stopped, Nathaniel. And so you will the next time. You will learn to recognise this, to control it; it takes practise and time, like all things."

"Look at me, Nathaniel," she says, her hands around his wrists and tugging them away. Her gaze holds his, holds him, as much as he wishes to make himself as small as possible. "You will find control."

(I will not let you do otherwise, she doesn't say, but she doesn't need to)

[evilbunnyking]

You know I HAVE to ask abt the first death of Adam du Mortain

Also asked by @nat-seal-well @ejunkiet and @serial-chillr YOU ALL HAVE GREAT TASTE ...it's the final Breaking the Yearlings chapter. It's taking me a long time, and I'm not sure if it's necessary, yet I can't seem to let it go either...! I've already teased sections of it before (here), so this time, have a conversation that I cut because it didn't fit with what I was going for...

Will this one ever be done HOPEFULLY, EVENTUALLY. I was rereading the fic the other day though, and ohhh, I've done some good work. I want!! To finish it!! This, and Ember Days. I have a novel to get back to now that I've finally figured out how to solve a plot point - I need to plot the rest of it properly now, though...!

[evilbunnyking]

WIP Whenever

Ava x f! Detective x Nate, polymance, from The Ember Days

@/thee-morrigan gifted me a wonderful gift with these three and I'm once more in the Ember Days. Let's retreat to Switzerland again.

--

Dinah finds Ava as promised in the meadow of the cloud-strewn morning, scything the tall grass. Ava has stripped down to her tank top, winding her braid back into a practiced bun, leaving her movement free. The muscles of her shoulders and back pull and stretch with each long sweep of the scythe as she strides across the meadow, and Dinah couldn’t have looked away; she couldn’t have looked away even if she’d wanted to. But she doesn’t, and so she stands in the main room before the window and picks at the charcuterie and the plums from the day before, watching through the bottle glass as Ava clears another stripe of the meadow. 

At the end of the row Ava pauses, swiping her hand over her forehead and looking over her work. Dinah stirs at last, and moves to the door, taking a glass of water with her.

“Good morning,” she calls, walking across the cropped meadow. The mown wildflowers and grasses crush sweet underfoot, stalks pricking at her bare ankles.

Ava looks towards her, resting her hands on the scythe handle. She has a streak of green smudged over her temple, her hair wisping free from her bun. “Good morning," she says, with the hint of a smile. "You are done observing, then?”

So she had caught Dinah at the window; of course she had. Dinah laughs, unabashed. “I am. Thought you might need a drink. Thirsty work, for the morning?”

Ava turns to cast her eye back over the meadow, assessing, and finally satisfied. “Only slightly. It needed to be done; we run the risk of losing the meadow to the forest, otherwise.” 

“Of course,” Dinah says, not hiding her smile.

“Of course,” Ava confirms, wry. She looks over her again, gaze assessing, before asking, “you are not cold?”

Dinah shrugs, the shift moving with the motion, so light the fabric feels like it might float in the breeze. “Not really.” 

Ava holds her gaze a moment before quirking a smile. "If you insist." She looks back over the meadow to where strengthening saplings reach out of the forest. There is a flush high on her cheeks, drawn there by the summer sun. Butterflies rise from the untamed edges of the meadow, flashing colour as they hunt for flowers. The flies are much slower and heavy, drunk with the sun as they cross the meadow and swoop around their heads.

“I am almost done here,” Ava says, and she downs the water before passing her back the glass and returning to her scythe. “I will join you again shortly, if you wish to return to the chalet.”

“Do you have much left to do?”

“Not much. We should return to our research; once Nathaniel returns we will have more supplies, and an idea of our options.”

“Options?”

Ava’s gaze slides back to hers, her mouth firming. “He is looking into what we can secure for transport. When we exhaust the books here, we will need to travel to the larger archives, the larger cities. I — Nathaniel would be able to access our networks there, secure assistance. There will be someone who has experience in this kind of magic.”

Dinah blinks. “...Right. Of course.” Because of course, they would have to look to other possibilities if they could discover no more here. The thought tries to latch on, to take hold, but it keeps sliding away, like water through her fingers. She’s unlike herself, today. Ripples on the surface, something larger beneath. 

A touch on her arm, warm with the work. Ava, her scythe propped against her shoulder. The blade is wet with dew and split grass, dulling the sunlight. “It is only an option,” she says, and Dinah nods and forces a smile, squeezing her hand.

“I know. It’s a good idea. Better to be prepared.”

Ava gives her a smile before nodding her back to the house. “Go on. I will join you soon enough.”

She could. Or… “I could help, if you like?”

Ava’s expression breaks into amusement, sunlight on water. “Perhaps another time, when you are dressed in more than your undergarments.”

And indeed the thin linen chemise becomes almost sheer under the full force of the sunlight. 

[evilbunnyking]

wip wednesday

(it's wednesday already here folks I am Still Suffering from the jetlag)

I was tagged by the wonderful @carry-the-sky @serial-chillr and @nat-seal-well - their wips are FANTASTIC and I am not okay--

I've spent most of my time finishing up a belated (but awesome!) Secret Santa gift for the Wayhaven exchange, and I don't want to spoil it - so here's a glimpse of an Ava/Nat pieces I've been picking at. I have several parts to this, but haven't yet figured out.

This part is definitely a homage to this art by crownleys!!

Tagging: You! Reading this! and also - @tortoisesshells @lellium (you entirely don't have to, but I do love your M thoughts!) @sustainably-du-mortain @nerdierholler @agentnatesewell (when you're ready! I loved your secret santa piece!) and @delucadarling also paging @thee-morrigan because the update for your A/N has me!!!! (Or anything else you might want to share <333)

[evilbunnyking]

what power art thou

Nat x M!Detective, no warnings apply. Approx. 5000 words.

“Oh—” she breathes, looking out beyond him into the trees. “Do you see it? He follows her gaze, peering at the undergrowth as it bursts wild and unruly over the path. “See what?” “There— if you look through the brambles, you should just be able to…” Nat leans down until they are cheek to cheek, the point of her finger finding a branch that swoops towards the canopy. Near its middle, amidst a flourish of leaves, there is — a flicker of movement. A flutter of feathers, as green as the leaves, and finally he sees it, the bird preening itself with a beak as red as holly berries. “How rare,” Nat breathes beside him, her breath grazing his cheek. -- Natalie and her detective spend an afternoon together, the day before he officially becomes an Agent.

Read more

--

This is a slightly belated secret santa gift for the wonderful @fujinstorm - thank you for your patience, wonderful human being, and for letting me borrow Xiang! I really enjoyed getting to know him, and it was a pleasure to write him and Natalie together.

And thanks as well to the amazing @serenpedac for organising the secret santa. It's been wonderful!

[evilbunnyking]

WIP Wednesday

Considering myself tagged by @ejunkiet

Gonna do this a little differently today, as I just finished 'what power thou art' for @fujinstorm as part of the Wayhaven secret santa. Have a few snippets that didn't make the cut:

--

Cute extra details about the office goodbye party:

Sung being Sung and staring contemplatively at golfing green photos:

And then the full story of why Nat is so into ornithology (it just didn't fit!!)

(and I was talking a little to @thee-morrigan about this, but Natalie did indeed order all 16 volumes of the Handbook of the Birds of the World, each one individually as they were released, costing over $2,000 in all, and Ava had the great pleasure of watching each arrive at whichever agency facility they were staying in at the time. "Truly, Natalie? Another?")

Tagging YOU READING THIS and also @agentnatesewell and @nerdierholler and @serenpedac and @delucadarling @nat-seal-well

[evilbunnyking]

-- Breaking the Yearlings

The detective's office has a large window that opens out to the rising forest, and seated in front of it, at the desk, his hair dark and curling and damp from a late shower, Adam sees—

He sees what he hadn't in the dark.

He sees what he missed in the detective's passport photo, blanched of all colour; he smells—what he'd dismissed in the woodsmoke of the fog, the pain of the spray and the thick taste of his own blood. A warmth that curls, sticky and honey sweet, around the man half-hidden by his overflowing in-tray, looking up at him with widening eyes.

“Tobias,” Adam hears himself say. He says it before he can introduce herself, his voice hoarse as if the breath had been punched out of him.

“Tobias-” he’s speaking the wrong tongue, something between old Norman and Old English, from another life. He doesn’t know what he must look like, the expression on his face. “I thought—I knew, that you were-”

“Adam,” Nate says, gently, in the same tongue, and suddenly he is beside him, his hand on his forearm, squeezing. “He cannot understand you like this.” He switches back to modern English. “He cannot understand you.”

--

So I commissioned the wonderful and supremely talented @ladiemars for Tobias and Adam from my reincarnation!AU Breaking the Yearlings and I do not! Have the words! God, I love them so much; this is AMAZING.

Some crops under the cut because!!!!

A lil lore: Tobias of the past was a sword for hire who worked for the du Mortain family and is definitely responsible for Adam taking any interest in learning anglo-saxon/what will become English and Adam is the proud son of the lord who escapes his duty to sneak into the barracks for some quality time with his boyfriend and everything turns out Absolutely Fine For The Two Of Them, why do you ask…??

[evilbunnyking]

Bloody Nose, Bloody Mouth, as I am obsessed with the way you write Tobi and Adam's relationship??

Ohhh, so I do love the idea of this wip even though I'm not sure I have the energy to write everything I had planned for it. Essentially: Adam POV, Tobi and Rebecca go together to the auction, they get caught anyway - both of them this time - and so instead of Bobby or Dougie getting accosted it's... rebecca. Which is a lot of fun. But anyway, the meeting was always a trap/the human traffickers get tipped off about the plan by circumstances outside of Tobi's control, Rebecca breaks cover to try and save him, they both get taken, and UB is left in their mobile-telecoms unit, miles away, listening to static as Adam tries frantically to raise them both on the comms.

Tobias— is the last they hear, a gasp from Agent Rayne’s line. Tobi’s line remains silent Tobias? Tobias! Tobi! Adam’s hands are shaking as he stares at the small screen, the static of the comms filling his thoughts and his head.  The blip that is Agent Rayne is moving, running to follow. Rebecca, Nate says, falteringly. He is as wide-eyed and frozen as Felix is. Please, don't — A burst of noise, a scuffle, confrontation, and then another burst of static before Rebecca’s line also goes dead. Shit, mason snarls, kicking his seat back and rising from the console. Shit, shit, shit—

So UB go in (Adam fraying and desperate but now of all times he must keep a handle on himself, he must plan as well as act, he must get them back) - and they enter as the auction begins (Tobi on his knees and spitting blood after being tazed for his lack of cooperation) and Adam's carefully held onto control almost breaks. Because this is a room full of supernaturals that are all hungry. Cue a saving your beloved/reincarnated lover from the hands of your enemies scene that makes you really FEEL the desperation and the fear there and the lengths a very old, very powerful being will go for the ones they love. Chaos erupts. It was going to erupt anyway, and despite how frantic adam was, they were entering with a plan, and Tobi and Rebecca's precautionary nifty little magic tattoos has led the agency to exactly what they were looking for. Technically, the mission is a success.

Anyway, in the ensuing mayhem, Adam has Tobi, and they are both fighting their way out--battle couple feelings to the max- and they descend into the basement following Anwir and searching for the others find the cages, most of the stolen still present. And then Tobi is once again asking Adam to leave him again, to save and protect the others, to find Rebecca (now revealed to have been injected in Dougie's stead- heck yeah she survives it, too - how cool an element would this have been??). And Adam --- Adam had just almost lost him. (Don't make me leave you. Not again.)

So they end up staying together (Tobi is barely staying on his feet, anyway) and Anwir gets away, but they get the stolen out. They get Rebecca out (still unconscious, head lolling in Adam's arm, as limp as a puppet with its strings cut. She has never seemed so small to Tobi, before). (something something annunaki something I haven't decided everything--)

and in the aftermath, there is a moment of quiet. A breath, before the next thing they will be needed for, the next action. They are bloodied and beaten (physically, emotionally) And Adam, who has been holding himself together with pritstick and odd ends of string, allows himself to succumb to relief.

There is no 'I shouldn't have tried to stop you' conversation afterwards, because that conversation before the mission went down differently. Instead, it's relief, and the need for touch, and be touched, to hold, to feel. A maelstrom of emotion that is all encompassing and all too much, and so Adam breaks away, because he wants this but he can't, he still can't do this. He sounds hoarse, a little broken, ineloquent and far less controlled. But he doesn't pull away. Not at first. And Tobi takes a breath that shakes in the small space between them, and lets him go.

-

Of what I've actually WRITTEN of all of this, there is currently 2.5k of the conversation surrounding their initial divising of the plan to send Tobi and Rebecca in, and parts of the conversation that followed, when Adam accompanies Tobi to his room to change into the suit. The focus is on what Adam trusts himself to say and not to say (at this point, very little, he's remarkedly silent when the conversation is going on). Adam is torn, because if it were anyone else volunteering to enter the belly of the beast and give them their best shot at finally locating the auction, Adam would have agreed to it. The thing is, it's not anyone else. It's Tobi. And that knowledge fills him with a fear so strong that it would immobilise him if he let it.

So he follows Tobi to his room, and helps him get ready. Satisfies himself with only this: this moment, brief touches, this act.

He is scared, Adam can see it in the trembling of his hands. And yet he still does up the buttons, tweaks the collar in the floor length mirror in the corner of the room. He tugs the red tie around his throat and pulls the knot too tight. Wrestles with the cufflinks, the cuff of the ironed shirt flashing ivory over tanned skin. Adam has kissed him on that wrist, just the once. Over the faint impression of the scar there. The lamplight like moonlight and the warm smell of worn leather and fog and Tobi, and Tobi's hand in his own, warm beneath his lips. Forgive me, Adam had wanted to say, into that quiet dark. I promise that next time, I will keep you safe. I will keep you safe. Adam's feet carry him across the room and he sees Tobi look up as he reaches forward, pausing before he touches his shoulder. May I, he asks, his voice low in his throat. Tobi nods, watching him in the mirror. He turns, swallowing as Adam reaches gently for the tie and begins to undo it, his fingers grazing the warmth of his shirt beneath. Be safe. Please. I… will do my best.

Will I finish the entire story? I doubt it - but I do want to finish what I've already written. I might skip ahead as well to that final scene; however, I'm treading pretty similar ground in terms of the kidnapping scene with You as You Were, and I have too many projects and write too slowly to mock this up properly either.

Ahhh, fun scenario to think about though, and definitely Book 3!Tobi's canon.

[evilbunnyking]

Bunny! I'm so happy you decided to do this, since it means I can ask about your WIPs!

What is "The Truth Wills Out" about?

Can I also ask if you have anything from your writing warm ups to share?

I was hoping someone would ask!! Under the cut--

So the Ember Day stories (...by which I don't mean the time travel fic, but extra stories set AFTER the time travel fic) are all Nate's pov on 300 years, while Old Gods are Ava's - two perspectives on the same events and ahhh you know what writing it like that helps me figure out how to get away with structuring it; because if I carry Ava to the present... Have her flow into the time travel fic... And then we have Nate's POV in glimpses explaining hints from Ava's pov and fast forwarding us back into the present heheheh. Am I thinking a lil of the structure of fingersmith, although fingersmith has an actual twist and I just like writing all of their POVs so I'm not sure it works --

But yes! So really, Nate's POV only enters after the events of 'the ember days' time travel fic (because of course I'm writing them all simultaneously) and this one is a thought about Nate finally acknowledging that what happened wasn't a dream; although I've been trying to figure out how much he tells Ava.

--

A memory- walking along some kind of river, the stench and press of humanity—when Ava heard from him in Manchester and came to fetch him, and they walk through the city a final time that evening before she absconds him away, before he can do anything more foolish — like show up on Alyssa’s doorstep, charm his way into her house, hold her once more, as he has wanted since he lost her—

He walks the riverside like the ghost he is, hollowed by his grief at the same time it weighs his limbs, drags his feet, makes him as clumsy as he was after the change.

Ava, he says, feeling his voice rasp in his throat. What might you do, if you knew of what was to come?

He sees her glance at him in the corner of his eye, the way she considers him. The clouds are low today, over the city; he appreciates it, as it would have been worse for the sun to have shone. In this light Ava looks as unchanging as she is. Ivory. Bone.

Why? she asks simply.

He almost tells her the truth. Tells her of the dream, the vision. Of who she, of who they both, will be in time, that unfathomable expanse of centuries.

At his silence she speaks for him. We cannot know the future, she says, as certain as she ever is. No matter how convincing our attempts to predict it.

(to believe anything else, he is sure she might have added, is to court madness- but isn't that what he's become, mad? He cannot forget and he cannot overcome - what he is, what he's done. What he knows. The prospect of centuries of this. Having and losing and waiting until--)

(The letter, in an unfamiliar hand, a half-readable script. English, or what it will become: There will be more wars. Terrible, horrifying wars. You will not be able to stop it. But you will save who you can.)

[evilbunnyking]

Breaking the Yearlings - Chapter 7

(art by the wonderful @ladiemars because I have to keep using it 'kay-)

--

Adam burns under teasing hands and hungry kisses, chasing passion into a locked room in the barracks where his swordsman comes alive in his arms. “ I want —” Adam says, practising his new tongue, this English, and holding the sounds in his mouth—“I need—”

“What do you need?” Tobias breathes against his mouth, native to the language and Adam's best teacher. In the many, many years that had passed since Adam had come to these shores, the language has frustrated him almost as much as its people. But then there was—

“You,” Adam says on a breath, tugging at his lover's shirt. “I want you.”

Read more on AO3:

Note: you need to be logged in, as I have locked my fics against AI scraping

Note 2: I may have woken up and chosen violence for this one but!! It's worth it!!

[evilbunnyking]

Shearing the Rams

Nate x Detective, comfort/comfort gift fic written as part of the @wayhavenficexchange for wifebeast-s

Thank you for letting me borrow Dewey, I really enjoyed learning more about them! I hope you enjoy this!

---

“How about if I wanted to?”

They look at Nate again, as he watches them from his bed. He's leant back against the headboard, the covers half kicked away, his book lowered to his bent knee. Lazy, indulgent, but also somehow intent. They’re never quite sure how to read him, when he is like this. They become aware of the warmth of the room. The fall of their borrowed night shirt, the too-long sleeves bunched at their wrists. They could have salvaged their own from the apartment, but it was easy, so easy, to indulge in this instead.

“You would?” they ask, the question warm in their throat.

Another hum, that low rumble Nate makes when a thought or an idea caught his interest. “I would. If you would allow me.”

---

Nate cuts the detective's hair.

Read more.

[evilbunnyking]

--

Adam can see the scars wrapped around the inside of Tobi’s wrist, close enough for him to touch. He has kissed him there, just the once. The lamplight like moonlight and the warm smell of worn leather and Tobi's hand in his own, chilled by the evening. Forgive me, he'd wanted to say. I promise that next time, I will keep you safe. I will keep you safe.

The Rot and the Honey

--

I commissioned the amazing @kirnet for Adam and I am! in love! Thank you again wonderful human being!

[crownleys]

What you shouldn't forget, Tobias, Adam will say a millennia later, across the deck of the small boat they've weighed anchor just outside of Wayhaven, in view of the harbour; is that we are not human. I know that, Tobias says. And he might believe that he does. Tobias is not ignorant to violence, or the capacity to inflict it. He’s seen war, patched lives back together in the thick of mud and blood. He has seen Adam fight — but it is only how Adam has trained himself to act, and to be seen. The world is as savage as it has always been. It only takes more care to mask it, now. The twilight gathers like a fog, reducing the deck to silhouettes. The trunk of the mast, the swell of the cabin. Tobias, stood by the deck rail and turned towards him, away from the sea, the sea spraying against his back and tossing his hair into his eyes. The echo of another man, a life ago, with eyes like his and a smile like his and as trusting as he had been, as reckless, to place his life into Adam’s hands. No, Adam says, and his throat feels bruised. I don't think you do.

-- "Break the Yearlings" by EvilBunnyKing

Another commission for @evilbunnyking! This time of Knight!Adam. I had so so much fun getting to draw him like this, it was a total blast. Thank you again for commissioning me, Bunny!

[evilbunnyking]

...In that incomplete darkness he sees him, his swordsman, in his shirtsleeves and smiling. Quiet, but quick to laugh; his french as rough as his hands, marked with the calluses and scars of a life by the sword.

How that first night Adam invited him to his rooms, Tobias had entered slowly, cautiously, running his fingers over the fireplace mantle and then the carvings of the bedposts when all that Adam had wanted was for him to touch him, instead.

--

I commissioned the forever wonderful @mariemarion for my OC Tobias, 'as he was' in Breaking the Yearlings. Thank you again, wonderful human being!! I love him so much!

(If you get a chance to commission Mariemarion, you gotta take it - so wonderful!)

[evilbunnyking]

*crack knuckles* I’m gonna make you regret posting that relationship ask, my obsession with Tobi has almost reached “viable for financial compensation”-territory. 45, 48 97 or 15 (I loved the fic about tobi consoling Adam, I was curious about the other way around! Is it the same as the fic where A helps T with the latter’s first bout of bloodlust?)

Thank you for the ask!! Oh this was fun to answer - and thank you, ahhh, I'm so glad you like Tobi as well! I have waaaaay too many thoughts about him and Adam, oh my goodness - I was looking at my spotify 'On Repeat' playlist today and many of the top songs are from the BTY playlist... They have been On My Mind recently indeed...

-

What is the worst things they could say to each other?

(this gets long)

For Adam, it would be confirming some of the things Adam has feared, after he has finally been brave enough to open up and let him in.

“I think - I think you were right. I wish we had never… it would have been better to have never started this. This hurts, Adam. It hurts so much— I wish I had never loved you—”

So this isn't really what Tobi would say but what Adam imagines he might, the words he puts in Tobi’s mouth. He fears that Tobias would regret their relationship, and regret him, in the end. That Adam would destroy him - and the idea of seeing it happen, to know what he's done to the man he loves…

How it will happen Adam doesn't even know; the reason changes, it's just a certainty that he will. In the books he focuses on it as an external fear, right? That his love will be used against them both, and that he would not be able to bear the loss and heartbreak again. That's a very self-focused interp, which is fair, but I feel it goes deeper than that - that is just easier for him to say. He is not a monster, he’s said, but what if he fears that he is? Perhaps because he HAS done monstrous things, and irretrievably hurt the ones he loved — but we all do at some point, intentionally and unintentionally. Because we are fallible, human, and we forgive ourselves and each other. But Adam, he cannot forgive himself, and the depth of that hurt, that pain, is what holds him back.

(In BTY, after losing his family in response to the duel, he then lost the last person he had left — his swordsman, dying alone in the dark and in agony, in Adam’s earshot, because of the choices that Adam had made, and yeah, that messes someone up)

Incidentally I just finished reading Giovanni’s Room this week, and ohh, my goodness, that portrait of destroying yourself and the one you love!!! It helped me get through a section I had been struggling with in BTY - good writing has a way of helping you get the feel for voice again, haha. GR is relevant because I keep thinking of it when I think about the only real way I can see Adam actually deliberately hurting Tobi this much: with continued abrupt and brutal withdrawals; a continuation of the hot and cold over a drawn out and much more emotionally involved stretch of time. A sorta, we are the great loves of each other’s lives but I will keep denying it and violently pushing you away, kinda thing. I'm not sure how long Tobi would be able to keep that up before he draws the hard line and stops letting Adam in, though; shakily and still in love but also, firmly. Even then though, he wouldn't regret the love, I don't think. He wouldn't regret Adam. I don't want that ending for them though...!

On the OTHER side of the spectrum, what would Tobi fear hearing from Adam? Hmm, let's crack him open a lil, haha. So what he wants to hear is, you are worth it. He's a lil lonely, a lil strange. He has stubbornly fought for his self worth, to live his life as he will, but for the brave face he presents, there is this kernel of fear in the heart of him that he simply isn’t enough as he is to be fully loved. So quite simply, the worst thing, deeper in a relationship, would be for Adam to say that he doesn't love him; or he doesn't love him enough. Not enough to stay, to fight for what they have, to make it work. For Tobi to have given him all that he can give, all that he is and all of his love, and to be told that even with all of that, it is not enough to be loved the same in return.

Which… hmm, says a lot about him, and again, is one of those, projected fears. Because he's quite guarded with his heart for fear of this rejection.

…As you can guess, this means that the canon hot/cold seems specially designed to fuck with Tobi’s head, haha. I really mainly play Tobi and Adam in an AU where they are genuinely friends to lovers, with much less hot/cold and more patience, acceptance and friendship (and a tripping into feelings anyway), because I am in denial (: Really though, Tobi wouldn't let the hot/cold get as far as the books have taken it if he could avoid it; he accepts the friend zone after the ghosting following B2, and although he trips deeper into feelings in B3, he's entirely in denial about that until the end of book 3 throws him for a loop. I've said it before, but after that trainwreck, it’s a miracle he hasn’t just said ‘fuck this’ and sailed away from Wayhaven hahaha.

48: If they ever had less than 5 mins to tell their S/O something before never seeing them again, what would they say:

Ohhh, oh I can just see this— so, explicitly dealing with the events in Breaking the Yearlings, you have what Adam wishes he could have told his swordsman (original!Tobias) at the end…

This chapter is very much needed for context. Otherwise, this is going to be super intense and not make much sense.

Adam: I'm sorry, that I did not trust you when you said there would be a way through this. I'm sorry I didn't choose to stay with you, and the life we had; maybe it would have been enough, maybe I could have begun to heal. Maybe I… but I chose, I chose not to stay, and I am so sorry, Tobias. I'm sorry you came after me. I wish you hadn't. I wish it was a choice that only I had made, for my future only, not…

It was my choice, not yours. Why did you do it? Why did you…

(he knows why, though)

I… I’ve loved you, with all that I have to love. I love you. I have not deserved you, not as I am, not how I have been, I know that. I…

(if he’d had the ability to move, to reach him. To pull Tobias into his lap as he moaned and shuddered)

Don’t go, Tobias. (brushing back the sweaty curls from his brow, then holding him close) Please. Don’t go.

…AND SCENE.

(He never would have said this, of course, even if he’d been able to at the time. He has never been so eloquent; but he’s had almost a millenia to think about what he would have wanted to say)

And what Tobias had wanted to tell him in those final weeks while Adam grieved and spiralled… I already wrote part of it in the grief snippet, and that’s part of the reason why I KNEW I had to cut it, for while I really enjoy the emotional catharsis, I feel like I want them to be struggling to communicate more. For Adam to get so wrapped up in his grief as it turns to anger, turns to vengeance, that he forgets what he has, while Tobias struggles to reach him. ...That said, watch me eat my words and then try and put it STRAIGHT BACK IN-

I could start thinking about Modern-Day! Tobi and Adam but this is already LONG so I am gonna pause it here.

(Really I’ve been thinking that I should have given original!Tobias a DIFFERENT name but I also, can’t be asked to go find and replace only the correct instances, haha… so the slight confusion will remain… What would his old name even have been, omg)

I will make a new post for the other questions, as they are happier answers (although don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed these ones and it helps because I am still midway into the final chapter which is going over some of this stuff and it is a lil heavy, haha). Also I can never answer these questions succinctly… Thank you so much for the ask! 

OC asks - still open!

[evilbunnyking]

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