#attlu

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Chapters: 10/18 Fandom: Critical Role (Web Series) Rating: Mature Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Astrid/Eodwulf/Essek Thelyss, Essek Thelyss/Caleb Widogast, Astrid/Eodwulf/Essek Thelyss/Caleb Widogast Characters: Essek Thelyss, Astrid (Critical Role), Eodwulf (Critical Role), Caleb Widogast, The Mighty Nein Additional Tags: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Enemies to Lovers, Slow Burn, Pining, Intrigue, Politics, Panic Attacks, discussions of suicidality/euthanasia, Polyamory Negotiations, Flirting (with danger), Canon-Typical Wizard Drama, the looming specter of your own mortality, reformed villains who still act sketchy out of habit, grieving what could have been, openly declaring your mutual distrust can be a love language if you do it right Summary:

Essek goes home, and there is no one waiting at his door. This should be some manner of relief. But his towers haven't felt like a safe haven for a long time now, long before errant scourgers appeared to harass him with strange questions. He misses the immediacy of that threat, prefers it over the slow and indulgent terror of whatever punishment is coming for him, someday soon.

He tells himself that he misses only that, the simplicity of being unsafe in the company of predators, and that he does not miss the company itself.

(In which a pair of scourgers shows up at Essek’s doorstep and saves him from himself.)

What I mean when I tag something as slow burn:

it does not happen quickly

just for you anon, here is a snippet that I wrote today in which I torture caleb more and there is no kissing

4: What’s your favorite line of dialogue?

There's some pretty good lines of dialogue, but I have to go with this one:

“What do you want most from him?” Essek asks. “His love, his trust, or his forgiveness?”

...because that was the line that made go oh. I have to finish this fic.

9: Were there any alternate versions of this fic?

Kind of! Many of the conversations between Essek and Caleb came from a fic I'd attempted to write earlier, originally from Caleb's POV. It never had any clear beginning or resolution, but I'm glad I managed to find a way to recycle most of the concepts I came up with, because it was some good shit. (You can read it here, if you're interested. It's a pretty good example of what my writing looks like before editing lmao)

I'd also tried to fit the little detail about Veth asking Caleb to burn her to death because she was thinking about endothermic reactions into like...three separate fics before this one. So I'm glad I found a way to fit it in chapter 11.

11: What do you like best about this fic?

There is something immensely amusing about Essek starting the fic saying, I don't trust the scourgers and they're terrifying (meaning that he doesn't trust the scourgers and that they are terrifying,) and ending the fic still saying I don't trust the scourgers and they're terrifying (by which he actually means that he loves them and they're hot.) I didn't want this relationship to be one where they change for each other or become less dysfunctional--I just wanted the internal experience of it to shift over time.

Thank you for the kind message, anon <3 I'm doing mostly okay--shoulder is still vaguely iffy, but not bad enough that it's preventing me from typing.

And the last chapter is getting close to being done! I have a complete draft, ~2000 words of which needs heavy editing. It's taken so long because a) my writing process usually relies on momentum and I've been chipping away at it in 100-word increments instead of thousands of words in a day, b) this fucker is going to be over 5000 words long, c) the fic has a lot of kudos now and large numbers are scary, and d) I've been procrastinating on editing the rough draft by writing an entirely different fic, and because I am very good at procrastinating said fic is 21000 words long -.-

5: What part was hardest to write?

I ended up writing chapter 7 three times (a rough draft to get everything down, an editing retype that I did for the entire rough draft, and the third time because I was so intensely dissatisfied with it that trying to edit it was like pulling teeth.) Other than that, the long conversations in chapters 14 and 19 took a long time to get right. (The sex scenes were also hard because I'm mostly ace and there was a lot of ???? is this sexy ???? why am I doing this? involved.)

11: What do you like best about this fic?

Already answered this one, but I'm procrastinating so I'm gonna talk about the thing I like second best: all the fucking callbacks. There are ones that ended up being foreshadowing for important plot points, and there are ones that are just echoes of earlier moments, but my god are there a lot of them.