Chapter Text
It starts like this: Varian dies.
Or, perhaps, to be more precise—he should have died.
In all honesty, he’s still a bit pissed about that. Oh, sure, Eugene gets to die, and he comes back to a castle and friends and a new love of his life. But hey! That’s fair! Eugene didn’t want to die, so kudos to him and all that. But Varian? Varian never asked for this.
Which, okay, to be fair. It’s not like he wanted to die. Dying hurt! It sucked! It was super painful, bloody, emotionally taxing, and just all in all…. inconvenient. Yes, that’s the word. Inconvenient. It was a goddamn painful inconvenience, and maybe he was crying at the time, Varian isn’t entirely sure. In short: it was messy, and it was awful.
Out of all the bad choices Varian’s made over the years, he thinks dying takes the cake. Not a very wise choice, death. No one ever really mentions how its excruciating, or drawn-out, or horrifically scarring of both the mental and physical variety. And worst of all, if done poorly, it ends up leaving everyone involved in a really awkward—and inconvenient! —situation.
And hey, maybe Varian didn’t want to die, but is it so hard to understand that maybe he’d like to stay dead once it happened? He wasn’t Eugene! He wasn’t looking for a happy ending or forgiveness or… or whatever this is that Rapunzel and the others have started doing, the weirdos. Lighthearted stalking? Creepy amounts of importance placed on his living situation? There’s a word for this, he’s certain—caring, maybe.
Varian never asked them to care.
It’s an absolute mess, is what it is.
And really, is that so much to ask for? If he’s going to die, no matter how awful or painful it is, he’d like to stay dead, thanks. Isn’t that how it’s supposed to work? You get impaled by a shiny rock, you cry because of the shiny rock, your worst enemy cries with you and asks terribly annoying questions like “Why,” and “I thought you hated me, why did you—” and “Please, please, hold on! Just hold on!”
Which is all well and good, when you’re dying. Not so well and good when you wake up again.
No, no, Varian is getting ahead of himself here. Perhaps he should just start back at the beginning, give this whole thing a second try. Slower this time, start the long and complicated tale over again.
See, the whole mess starts like this: Varian dies.
-
Varian dies saving Rapunzel.
He doesn’t plan on it. It’s not exactly an event he anticipated, or really even a conscious choice on his part. There is no time for thinking, in that moment—on that day.
The beginning of this whole convoluted tale feels like it happened in a different world, a different time. There is an enemy, someone new, a man whose name Varian never bothered to remember. A foe that cares not for killing everyone but really just cares about killing Rapunzel, and those closest to her heart. Varian had been there only by happenstance—only because revenge had been at the forefront of his mind, and at the time, he’d thought Rapunzel dying was what he wanted.
He never thought the bad guy would win.
That day is seared into Varian’s memory in flashes, distorted by adrenaline. Blurs of motion and color running through his mind, voices crying out and words snatched out of thin air by a howling wind. The world had gone dark, the sky obscured by red clouds, the sun set and the moon hidden from view. Fires had spotted the desolate landscape, their high flame glinting off the many black rocks sprouting throughout the land. Beneath his feet, the earth—dead and cold, hard as stone.
He can remember the black rocks—hundreds of them, it had felt like, budding like wicked flowers from the cold ground, unfurling into dangerous clusters. Controlled not by Rapunzel, but by her foe, controlled using a potion Varian himself had created.
(He hadn’t thought it would actually work—)
Most if not all of that fight is a haze. Insults exchanged, pleas and bargains, the conflict dragging on long into the night. Cassandra and Eugene, separated and captured. Rapunzel, left alone in the dust, caged in by stone. Varian, beside her—betrayed by the villain, because of course he had been.
And yet, even in all that chaos, one memory alone rings out clearly.
Varian had been on his feet. So had Rapunzel. Shouting at each other, maybe, screaming, all those old wounds torn open once again. Rapunzel asking him for help—Varian denying her—her voice, clear and bright, rising above the din—
“Varian, please! Cass and Eugene—he’ll kill them, please, if we were ever friends—please, I know I failed you, but they don’t deserve this, please just help me—!”
Varian had pulled himself up to his full height to shout back, furious words rising to his tongue. He had breathed in to speak, and then his eyes had caught on a glint of light, his attention diverted by the reflection of fire against dark stone.
He had looked without thinking, and he had seen the black rocks rise up over Rapunzel’s shoulder.
It is strange how slowly the world turns, when tragedy comes striking. In that moment, on that day, Varian sees the rocks rise up and understands with sudden clarity what is about to happen. The world hesitates, time halted, as if waiting for him to piece together the truth, waiting for him to decide what he will do about it.
The rocks rise up, move forward, a wave of deadly spires. In this chaos, Rapunzel cannot hear their approach. She will not see them. She will not turn.
They will run her through the heart, and she will die here, on this dead and burning land. She will die alone, or as good as, no friends or family by her side. Only Varian. Only enemies.
She will die, and she will die alone.
She’ll die, Varian thinks, and it’s funny, isn’t it, the thought that follows after that. But—but she can’t die.
It’s a silly thought; it’s a strange thought. The thought of a child, of someone who once looked upon Rapunzel with awe, and in seeing her thought her near-immortal. She is too bright to die in a place like this. She is too beloved. She has too much left to live for.
And perhaps that is the truth of it. She is Rapunzel, princess of Corona. She has family, friends, and a kingdom that adores her. She has people who love her. People who will miss her. People who will mourn.
(Is he one of them?)
(Varian came to kill Rapunzel, but he never thought he would succeed.)
He sees the rocks rise over her shoulder and it’s like a bolt of clarity striking his heart. People will miss her. They will not miss him; there is no-one left to miss him. And Rapunzel—
Varian hates her. He does. Truly and honestly. But he does not want her to die, not like this, not here, not alone.
In his heart, he knows that she doesn’t deserve it.
These thoughts flash through Varian’s mind in less than a second. It is not really a choice, not quite—it is too quick, too instinctive to truly be called deliberate. What is known in the heart is not always echoed in the mind. But there is enough thought behind it to drive him forward, to get him moving. He lunges for her, reaches her in three steps, and then Varian throws her out of the way.
He tries to move back the moment Rapunzel is in the clear. Varian doesn’t want to die, after all. But by then—by then, it is far too late.
He turns to run, and the black rocks run him through.
Everything gets rather fuzzy, after that. Blood roars in his ears and rises in his throat, the coppery taste sharp and tangy on his tongue. Red coats his hands and paints his chest, drips from his lips when he tries to cough. There is a sharp pain at his chest, at his back, an agony that would drive him to his knees if Varian were not forced to keep standing by the spike in his chest.
The world blurs for a reason other than adrenaline now. Colors swim before his eyes, noise condensing and then rising, at times so soft he feels deafened and then so loud it nearly makes him cry. Screaming and yelling and the laughter of a man whose name Varian never bothered to learn, but loudest of all is Rapunzel.
“Why,” she is saying, and he can hear her suddenly and sharply, her wrecked and ruined voice echoing in his ears. “I thought you hated me, why did you—oh, god, Varian—!”
The world is clouding before his eyes, but he can see her, still, her figure indistinct, silhouetted and shining against the dark sky. She is crying, and this realization is a distant one, his thoughts slow as if dragged through a heavy fog. She is crying as Varian has never seen her cry before, great heaving sobs that wrack her whole frame, horror in her wide eyes, grief in her twisted lip and pale face. She is standing beside him, swaying on her feet. Her outstretched hands hover uselessly by his chest, trembling so badly they are a blur in his unfocused vision. Her words are near-indistinguishable through her sobs.
“Oh, Varian,” she says, and something in the way she says that makes him feel cold, pained in a way that has nothing to do with the spike impaling him through the chest. “W-why?”
He can’t remember what he says to her, if he says anything at all. No lungs left, probably, no breath, no words. He can remember trying to speak, and the agony spiking—he thinks he might scream, and when the world swims back into focus he’s crying, and trying not to, because every sob makes him hurt a little more.
“Hold on,” Rapunzel whispers, and this moment here is the clearest memory he will have of this event. “Hold on,” Rapunzel says, tears pooling in her eyes, and Varian stares up at her pale face and thinks, a bit hysterical and perhaps uncharitably, that it would have been nice to die a little faster, thanks, before he had to see this.
“Please, just—hold on, h-hold on, please…”
She takes his hand, her hold tight, her palm warm against his cold skin. Varian’s fingers twitch in a vain attempt to pull out of her grasp. I didn’t do it for you, Varian thinks, which in hindsight is not a very logical thought. I didn’t do it for you, I didn’t, stop crying, it hurts bad enough without you crying…
“Please, please, stay with me…”
Stop crying.
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry—”
His vision goes faint, head spinning. Sound slips away. So does light, so does Rapunzel, so the world, so does everything else. Death, come at last, bringing with it a ravenous darkness and a blessed escape.
Varian feels strangely relieved. Are you proud of me, Dad? he thinks, and then he doesn’t think anything else for a very long time.
-
And then, the unthinkable.
Varian wakes up.
-
He regains consciousness on the third day.
Awareness is slow to return, reality more so. Varian blinks open bleary eyes to the sight of a local infirmary. His chest is tight, his head ringing faintly with a slight ache. He tries to move and notes bemusedly that he cannot, his limbs pinned down by rough blankets.
He stares blankly at the ceiling for a long moment. His mind is muddled, his emotions dull with a bizarre contentment. He feels—not bad, actually. But weird. His chest is kind of tight, almost taut, and it is also unnaturally warm, like a pit of light has settled by his heart and curled up to rest.
Something about that strikes him as strange. Varian blinks up at the ceiling, rolling the thought in his mind like he might candy on his tongue. Pieces of a puzzle, and if he can place them in the right order, he might know what picture they create. His chest is tight, he doesn’t know where he is, and… he’s covered in—bandages?
“Varian!”
He wakes up very quickly, after that.
Varian shoots upright in the bed, momentarily caught in the covers. He slams back against the pillow and wastes precious seconds struggling against the unyielding sheets. When he is finally free of the cotton death trap, he throws them off completely, and is abruptly brought face-to-face with—Rapunzel.
Rapunzel, who is… smiling at him? What?
“Varian!” she repeats, voice bright with genuine relief, finally leaning back. Her hands cover her mouth and then drop, fluttering in the air as if in her emotion she isn’t quite sure what to do with them. “You’re okay!”
He opens his mouth. No sound comes out.
Memory comes rushing back, in sync with and complemented by Rapunzel’s running commentary. “Oh, gosh, you’ve finally woken up—thank god—they said my tears reacted weird with the rocks so I wasn’t sure—”
He’d been impaled, Varian remembers. He’d died. He had—he had died.
Rapunzel clasps her hands. She’s beaming at him. She has literal tears in her eyes, actual joy in her face. Varian is alive and he should be dead, and—looking back—didn’t he die because—
Oh no. Oh no, ohhhhh no no no—
“But you’re okay!” says Rapunzel, like they’re old buddies instead of enemies.
Ohhhhhh shit—
“So it’s all good!”
Oh shit, oh damn, oh no—
Her smile is faltering. “Uh, Varian? Are you—you look—um…”
Varian sucks in a deep breath, and finally finds his voice.
“No!” he shouts, and then, with feeling, “FUCK!” and then, because what else he supposed to do in this situation, really— Varian lunges for the window.
Rapunzel yelps, and Varian finds himself abruptly jerked back before he can even touch the windowsill. Rapunzel has a hand wrapped around his bicep and locked under one shoulder, her eyes wide and her voice strained.
“Varian, please—”
“No!” Varian shouts back, and tries to squirm out of her hold. Her fingers are like a vice around his arm, and she’s holding him off the ground and against her chest like he weighs less than a sack of coin, keeping him from lunging forward. His legs kick uselessly and furiously at the air. “No, no, no—”
“Varian!”
“Nope! I refuse! I’m not doing this!”
“Varian, for the love of—”
“NOT TALKING TO YOU,” Varian shouts, which isn’t his finest comeback, but well—he just died, and now he’s fucking alive, so really, Varian deserves a pass. He’s in shock, probably. The time for proper smart-ass comments will be much later. “Nope, nope—let me go!”
“Stop trying to jump out the window!”
“Who made you the boss of me!?” Varian replies sullenly, and kicks futilely at the air again. “I can’t believe I’m alive! What the hell! How could you!?”
Apparently, this comment is enough of a shock that Rapunzel’s hold loosens, just a bit. Varian triumphantly slips free of her grasp, takes two wobbly steps forward, and nearly brains himself on the wall.
Rapunzel stares at him, but hesitates to reach for him again. “Um—are you…?”
“Fine!” Varian shouts. His fingers scrabble at the windowsill to no avail, the glass stuck firmly shut. “I’m—I’m just peachy!”
Her face pinches, and her hand reaches out, as if to pull him back again. Well, hah! She’s already brought him back, offense number one; he’s definitely not going to let her manhandle him!
Varian ducks beneath her arm and fast-walks to the door. He’s almost there, almost free, and Rapunzel’s still a bit in shock so maybe, maybe he can actually do this—
He throws open the infirmary door, slams face-first into a walking beanpole dressed in a blue vest, and goes tumbling.
“Ow!”
“What the hell?”
On the floor, once again, Varian blinks bleary eyes at the ceiling. He sits up slowly, rubbing his head, heart sinking in his chest. He recognizes that voice. God damn it, he recognizes that voice. There’s only one person Varian knows who wears a dumb blue vest and can look utterly unaffected even after having 90 pounds of underweight teen fly into him.
Varian looks up.
Eugene stares back.
“I hate you,” Varian tells him, because actually in hindsight he might be a little bit drugged, “and everything you stand for.”
“That’s nice,” says Eugene, and makes to grab Varian’s arm.
Eugene by the door, and Rapunzel by the window. And Varian—somehow alive, half-dressed and bandaged all up his torso, no staff or Rudiger or alchemy in sight, trapped in a room with two people he really, really doesn’t want to see.
Well, then.
“Ah, fuck,” Varian says, and books it.