#if you see typos just ignore them. unless it's incoherent in that case please ask me to clarify bc i Will. lord knows i will

[ichorblossoms]

okay, bear with me as i try to articulate a mess of thoughts and vibes into coherent words here

part of what's so compelling to me about p2 of honeybee is that it's the only real span of time in-story that grimm and yarrow get together that's (mostly) devoid of some sort of extreme circumstance, and it forces them both to work on their own issues with intimacy but the thing is both of them have a a belief that they don't deserve the love they're given and default strategy of avoidance and that they can and do resort to, but at the cost of hurting the other

actually this got long so i'm putting this under a cut. ig cw bc i talk abt sex but nothing explicit

grimm is, for understandable reasons given their past, scared of attachment, more people you love means more you lose means more of yourself that's vulnerable means devotion you don't know how far you'll go for. so when it feels itself beginning to love yarrow again, it gets antsy and restless because it feels wrong but good but also like a death sentence but also like a new life and it knows it can't just give yarrow all of those feelings because what is yarrow going to do about that if grimm doesn't even know what to do? and so it runs away, or leaves yarrow's bed to sleep in the other room, or hovers in the doorway without coming in.

they also don't really see themself as A Human Person and have only really known either a solitary life of drifting or resolute loyalty to someone who only has selfish interests in mind, therefore it doesn't know how to live this sort of...domestic life and it didn't even think it wanted that until yarrow showed it that comfort is something grimm can have. but even if it knows it can have it, grimm still has a lto fo grief becuase it doesn't feel like it, an animal with blood on its hands, could ever do anything to deserve that, and that also feeds the restlesness and desire to run away, even when it knows it will only feel worse for doing so

yarrow's issues are more of a result of just being jaded with romantic relationships. he's consistently put in more effort with his partners than he has received in turn and is kind of fighting not to fall in love again because he doesn't want to endure yet another heartbreak, least of all with the person who left him to fuck off for five years (grimm does feel guilty about that and that fuels some of its self-punishment too). there's also subtle rejection/transphobia from past partners in the mix affecting his self-esteem, but more on that in a min. despite all that, he's softhearted and finds it difficult to fight his own feelings because he can't help but having some hope that just maybe, the past won't repeat itself and even though grimm left, they also came back like they promised. kinda just "i am doomed to give more than i can ever take and i don't know how much i have left to give, but i will do so anyways because i don't know how else to exist"

unlike grimm, they refuse to shut people out or close themself off, so it's not entirely obvious that he has any of these issues until most of grimm's problems have been confronted. yarrow also keeps that sort of stuff very close to their chest, so realistically i'm not sure how much anyone but grimm would find that out either

so you have grimm, who wants to just, be a person and live this life with yarrow, but it doesn't know how to do any of this and fucks up a lot in the process. and naturally, grimm doing shit like running off again (and coming back by that evening, but still) and constantly pulling away from affection makes yarrow feel like shit. even though he knows he has nothing to do with what grimm's going through, it's still setting off his rsd while he's trapped in this dilemma of "i have no reason to kick grimm out or cut things off and i genuinely love this person but at the same time they're indirectly hurting me and reopening old wounds." like sure, communicating does fix their problems to an extent, but it's mostly just like, time and patience, which makes it actually kind of tricky for me to accurately put a time frame of p2 until i actually finish writing things

and ALSO, because of how they do and don't deal with their various problems, this fascinating sort of switch happens between the two of them as they actually, finally settle into something they're happy to call a relationship and feel comfortable enough to have sex. where grimm WAS the one to punish itself and deny things mostly out of fear of being hurt, it isn't as much when it comes to sex (ofc they still do for above reasons, and trying to talk about it is mortifying at times bc it's still yarrow they want to fuck and taking off their clothes means not hiding that they're humod) but because they've had hookups and casual sex with people before there's an element of, "well i've already submitted to the mortifying ordeal of being known, it's not like showing you my dick is going to make anything worse". meanwhile yarrow, who has been pretty open and affectionate up until now is like "i'm stone and do not want to be touched during sex". kinda elaborated on some of this stuff here back in sept but there's been some development..? now yarrow is not actually stone per se (and my using of the term may change bc i don't want to invalidate ppl who are actually stone by having a character misusing the term), but has convinced themself that they feel enough sexual gratification through their partners to avoid confronting the fact that no one has made yarrow's pleasure a priority, instead they've internalized that as "while i am not disgusted with what i am, my body is fucking weird to everyone else and no one will actually find what i am attractive". so now GRIMM is the one who has to deal with desire and the rejection of those desires.

they're verse4verse so it's like, fine for awhile. eventually that comes to a head and they get over things and settle the fuck down but MAN it takes them a lot to get there. basically with how i envision honeybee, there are several plot-relevant sex scenes bc it's impossible to disentangle that from the wider developments the two of them have irt to intimacy and just. human connection and whatnot

but yeah all in all they're both products of their environments and relationships, and it's really fun to play with how they really do want to love each other, but there's a lot of pain they cause one another before they actually get to settle into something that's comfortable and fulfilling for the two of them, and that's JUST part 2. we're not even factoring in what happens after grimm's past and decisions come back to fuck things over for the both of them tee hee