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He searches for a way.
Quirin walks into his son's room to find him practically hanging off the windowsill.
In that split second, all time stands still, and timelessness finds his feet as he surges forward with all he has, reaching out for all he is. The only thing in his entire line of sight is his boy-the very possibly last glimpse of his boy.
The boy is leaving-he is very nearly gone, about to drag his father’s screams in ears numb as he into the cold, unforgiving earth.
Only he doesn’t.
He doesn’t, because Quirin promptly catches Varian’s leg as the rest of his son’s body disappears off the window. The boy’s limp form stiffens and jerks to a halt before it can properly fall, and he swings backwards haphazardly like a rag doll. A startled cry escapes Varian, shrill with panic and dismay-was he truly afraid or disappointed? Then, a sickening crack as Varian’s head-or was it his face?- impacts the concrete wall underneath, and Quirin finds himself hanging halfway out of the window, one arm clutching feebly to the thin end and the other arm dangling a limp, unconscious boy he had only gotten back yesterday.
Breath tries to appropriate Quirin’s being, yet he can find none, see none. All that exists is his boy, hanging from his tight grip, and the ephemeral yet perilous vastness of the world beneath him at this height, the sheer fraught that the very easy idea of death wrangles within him. It is too easy to die like this, for his grip to merely slip and plunge both of them into a painful descent. The window clamors uneasily, gentle in the turbulent wind yet heavy with his weight, matching the scorch in his muscles as Quirin strains to climb back up the sill.
Quirin hasn’t realized that all breath had been knocked out of him until he finds himself braced against the carpet of Varian’s room, staring directly down at the boy’s slackened, pale face. Tears strangle his speech as a crippling wave of shock and devastation seizes him and overwhelms his every sense, culminating every sensation to only the roaring gush of blood in his ears and the thundering in his bones. He gasps and gulps desperately, unsure of whether he’s choking for air or scrambling for words to say.
The world spins, his ears ring, and the howling wind seems to sing.
All he could see was his son’s bloody head, his beautiful eyes half-closed and disoriented.
“Va-Vari-“ He tries, his voice quivering uncontrollably with trepidation and his mind too broken to fully form speech.
Quirin barely manages to clasp Varian’s cheek with his trembling fingers, heart wilting disconsolately at the alarming amount of blood caked onto Varian's head and the tender yet thick purple mark running along his cheekbone, before shakily trailing his forefinger down to his carotid artery and checking for a pulse. The soft yet powerful sensation throbs through his skin, and a soft gasp escapes the boy before his eyes fly open, mouth agape and body nearly seizing with every breath, as though awakening from a deep slumber.
His frantic eyes meet Quirin and widen as though he is simultaneously astonished and appalled. Varian looks at him as though he has never seen him before, and Quirin can swear that despite just rescuing his son from the gaping jaws of death mere moments ago, he has never felt so horrified in his life. His boy’s eyes crawl over his face as thought trying gauge his every feature, before glazing over with a haunting sheen of tears.
Then something heavy settles into Varian’s face, a leaden aura of unsettling dismay, and he turns his face away, eyes fixated unseeingly into space.
Quirin’s heart jolts. His apprehension grows thick and heavy in his gut.
Then something in Quirin snaps.
Quirin immediately crouches over Varian’s lain figure, frantic despair lacing his movements and horrific distress coating his speech. Tears clog his sight and choke his breathless sobs as he grabs Varian by the face, but the boy’s eyes don’t move.
The concern, despair, and frustration that Quirin has felt in the past minute rapidly erupts into an agonized bout of sobs when Varian doesn’t so much as spare him a single glance, let alone blink.
Ascertaining that no other parts of him are hurt, Quirin hauls the boy forcefully into a seated position and throws his arms around him, trying to ascertain that he is still here-Varian was alive, and breathing, and in his arms right now, complete fine. Except he isn’t fine. Varian’s arms remain limp at his sides, his head is limp as it rolls against his chest, his eyes are limp as they stare at a space beyond him.
Something is wrong, something is broken, and Quirin doesn’t know how to fix it.
Still holding the boy, Quirin shakes him abruptly by the shoulders, pandering him with endless questions fractured with the force of endless tears.
“What were you thinking?!”
No response.
“Why would you try to leave me?”
Nothing.
“Why would you try to do this to yourself? To me?” Quirin’s voice escalates into a strident demand with every question, voice still weak with shock and disbelief.
Through it all, Varian does not blink, giving no indication of hearing Quirin whatsoever. His eyes sparkle with a buried sorrow, an unfathomable pain that borders on disappointment, but he does not hug his father back. He does not cry. He does not faint at the sight of blood on his shirt. He does not so much as move.
Quirin frets and fusses over him profusely, frantically examining him for injury, but Varian only curls in on himself, head bowed and eyes still aghast.
Finally, out of breath and tears and unanswerable questions, Quirin encompasses the boy in another embrace, burying his face into his hair and inhaling his scent deeply as though it is the last time he would ever hold him. Varian is alright for now-he isn’t completely alright, but he is alive nevertheless- and for now, that was all that mattered.
Quirin cannot suppress the surprise that paralyses him when his boy begins to nod off in his arms. How-how could Varian be able to sleep after what had just transpired?
Quirin wants nothing more than to shake him awake and yell and sob and prod at him further. He will never be able to recover from this-from what Varian has just attempted to do. Neither of them would.
How can he sleep, knowing what could have just happened?
Quirin lifts them both off the carpet, body heavy with fatigue and still tingling with the aftermath of the crippling shock. He sets Varian down onto the bed and stares at the slumbering form with wide, disbelieving eyes, utterly debilitated with consternation. What should he do? What can he do?
Varian hadn’t broken any bones. But every inch and bit of him seems broken-his broken boy- tiny, sinking against the large mattress, pale in the darkness of the room.
Drained, Quirin allows himself to sob openly, drily, the scorching cascades of tears streaming down his face as he settles into the bed and cocoons Varian in his arms tightly, crushing him to his chest and savoring the evident thrumming of his boy’s heart with complete and utter relief.
Varian’s eyes scintillate with a foreign emotion that Quirin can’t quite identify, gentle in his eyes yet heavy in his gut, before they close.
He wonders why Varian would want to do what he had just attempted.
…
And so he searches for a reason.
He has failed Varian. In some way, somehow, he has failed his son when he had been falling apart right in front of him. He had turned a blind eye to his son’s depression and ultimately, self-destruction. His son could have quite possibly died thinking his father never loved him. Varian had refused to seek help or comfort in Quirin.
What hurt him the worst was that his son had been aware that he wouldn’t come in time. Varian had assumed he wouldn’t come-he had stood there, at the windowsill, for God Knows how long, contemplating death. Quirin’s heart stutters and skips a beat. Varian had thought he wouldn’t come.
Quirin can recall it all so vividly, from the cowering figure to the reposeful weight of Varian’s eyes, intently fixed on him during the entirety of their conversation as he told him of the king’s offer to send him away, waiting, expecting something, anything from his father.
“Believe me, I’m your son!”
“I don’t even know what you are, Varian.”
He had left his son-depressed, helpless, seeking guidance and comfort- in tears.
Varian hadn’t even talked to him before going to bed, hadn’t sought those last moments of comfort in his father’s embrace like he should have before he went and climbed onto that windowsill.
And what had he, Quirin, as Varian’s father, done? What had Quirin been doing, while his son intended to end his own life? What had stopped Quirin from walking in sooner?
The thought grips onto Quirin’s dwindling confidence, and his blood runs cold.
What if Quirin hadn’t come in time? What if he had gone to bed blissfully guiltless and unaware of his world ending that very moment? If he had instead opened the door at dawn to find Varian’s lifeless form sprawled across the pavement, stiff and cold as the rotting produce?
He was the one who hadn’t hugged his son. He was the one who hadn’t apologized.
Somewhere in between when Quirin had talked to him and when Quirin had come to his room to apologize - to find the door locked - Varian had made the decision to take his own life.
Quirin cannot help but feel like he had driven his son to kill himself, in some way, somehow.
But surely there was more. Varian had been trying to tell him more. There was more.
But what more was there that he didn’t know about his son? What more could Varian had gone through while he was trapped in amber.
The question remains gentle in the silence yet heavy on Quirin’s mind.
He wonders if Varian will ever recover.
…
He searches for his boy.
Quirin awakes to a soft sound. It is soft, yet powerful.
And it is a dreadful, heart-shattering sound that shakes Quirin’s world like an earthquake, threatening to tear his entire being apart.
His boy-his only child, is weeping silently.
Varian has intentionally oriented his face away from Quirin, sinking fully against the pillow defeatedly- devastatedly aghast.
Quirin’s lips fall open, yet he searches for the right thing to do, to say.
He reaches his arm cautiously around the wavering form, hand searching for Varian's own.
“Sh, no, son- “
Immediately, a hoarse, pained cry escapes his Varian’s mouth, before it quickly descends into agonized, petrified whimpers and mewling sobs that he seems to have been straining so desperately to withhold. Varian curls away, tensing and trembling and tearing his father’ heart, trying to duck his head as his overgrown hair covers a large portion of his bruised eye. His face is still contorted into a pained grimace as the tears flow endlessly down his cheeks.
Quirin gets out of the bed and rushes over to the other side, crawling in and fully encasing his son in his arms. The boy stills and looks up, eyes wide and frantic, uncomprehending and unperceiving.
“D-Daddy? Daddy.” Varian calls out as though he cannot process that Quirin’s there, voice hoarse and weak as his eyes frantically flit over Quirin’s face.
“Andrew!” Varian’s weak voice reels with a newfound despair, shrill and quivering as a new wave of tears roll down his cheeks, shattering Quirin’s heart. “Andrew, I’m seeing my dad again.”
“V-Varian.” Quirin nearly draws back in sheer shock, robbed of all speech before he resumes his sorrowful, pleading countenance. He cannot help but feel simultaneously perplexed and alarmed. Who was Andrew? Was he a fellow who had helped Varian while Quirin was trapped? Could he help him now? “Varian, it’s me. You’re not-you’re not seeing things, silly boy.” He wants the phrase to sound light and flippant, but he knows it rings with thin fraught. Cupping Varian’s cheek gently yet urgently, Quirin steadies the moving head until the boy’s eyes lock on him fixedly. “It’s Daddy. Daddy’s here.” He cradles the small palms delicately in his larger hands, emphasizes the word with a kiss to the knuckles.
Something perceptive flickers in Varian’s eyes, a hint of realization and recognition. Then they glaze over, and he stiffens.
A deafening silence ensues before Varian speaks again, his features slowly sinking into a scarily steady, unfathomable countenance.
“Why didn’t you come?” His young face twists, bathed in the dim glow of the sombre moon, the soft glint of his tears overcast by the dark shadows underneath his eyes.
“Why didn’t you come for me, Daddy?” He sobs much quieter this time, and every gasp of air following his sob sounds as if it is clawing its way out into a distressed wheeze. “Why do you want to send me away?”
Quirin’s eyes lock on his son’s. All breath leaves him, all reason flees him, and all fear bereaves him.
“I said I was sorry.” Varian continues, evading Quirin’s futile attempts to hush him. “I did. I promise. Why. Does. It. Still. Hurt?”
The voice is uncoordinated, like an arrow thrown without aim, and unsettles Quirin to the core. It sounds like a ticking bomb, the calm before the storm. Sure enough, when he quickly tugs the boy back into his tight embrace, he can do little to muffle what comes next.
“Whyyyy…why!” The sudden wails are blood-curdling and sharp, without any ostensible reign or direction, faltering and flailing, heightened and hurting. They continue for a time, until Quirin is sure he should be out of tears to cry, until Varian once again proves him completely wrong.
“D-Daddy-y-y!” The word spills and stumbles, bleeding out of Varian’s soul and sinking deep into Quirin’s. It, too, is so soft yet too powerful, brokenly repeated over and over again like a despairing, strangulated plea for help, interspersed with a horrendous bout of breathless sobs and untethered wails that hammers into Quirin’s chest. Every cry maliciously impales Quirin’s heart like a scalding poker, twisting and tearing this way and that as though it wants to sear through his sparingly crumbling sanity and tear his wavering certainty from the foundations, completely and mercilessly.
Varian’s eyes open only slightly, groggily, too full with tears that spill over the rim, too wrinkled with a sorrowful grimace to be able to properly see Quirin. But for the first time since the father was freed-here, in the dark, scrambling and clinging and grappling for answers- Quirin can properly see Varian.
These are not the cries of a hurt child-they are the lament of a much older prisoner trapped in the body of a child, a grieving soul with afflictions that stretched and seeped deeper than the stories he would never share and tears he would forever weep.
It is a horror- horrors, that haunt his nights and herald his days. Horrors that glue him to his feet as the world berates him, chase him away from all he knows as his memories taunt him, cajole him to open windowsills on fateful nights.
The entire ordeal elicits a new wave of anguish that jerk more tears to his eyes and fears to his heart. Quirin bites his lip and steels himself against a sob, overwhelmed by utter self-condemnation and pure rage for a moment. He can’t cry. He doesn’t deserve to cry. Whatever his son is going through, he has to search for and take care of. He has to be strong for Varian. His crying will not help anything.
Instead, Quirin lifts Varian off of the bed and envelopes him fiercely to his chest once more, as though he is a toddler again, sobbing after a nightmare that would fade away by morning instead of haunting every morning, an irrational fear instead of a very frightening reality. Pressing his lips to his temple, Quirin preciously cradles the side of Varian’s face in one hand, hoping his open palm will radiate some warmth into that pallid cheek. “Sh, baby, sh.”
As Varian drifts into another world, his head stirs and comfortably buries itself against Quirin’s still form, gentle on his chest and heavy on his heart.
It makes Quirin want to clutch him tighter and longer and farther into the future that he can’t see.
He wonders if Varian will ever tell.
…
And so he searches for a clue.
Sniffling and inhaling shakily, Quirin hastily runs his hand through his wayward hair, trying to make himself look decent despite the dark bags hanging under his eyes, the wrinkles etched into his face, the enervating outline of red veins around his irises that makes him look like a madman. He will go to the castle today for a little adventure of his own-an investigation, of sorts. He figures if there was any place where he could find out more about what was wrong with Varian, it has to be where he had spent the past eventful year.
He does not have any choice but to bring Varian along. The boy sleeps peacefully in the cart that Quirin wheels, blissfully oblivious to where they are going. That raccoon of his-Ruddiger?- chitters in an almost nervous manner, as though anxious about approaching the man and his boy. Quirin realizes this is the first he’s seen of the raccoon since he was encased, and he keeps his eyes glued to the horizon as if to indicate that he can come along. Sure enough, Ruddiger hops onto Varian’s sleeping form, sniffing it cautiously before sadly nuzzling into him.
Upon arriving at the palace, Quirin requests to see the king and sets the cart just to the side of the hallway in front of the main entrance, which is unusually empty today. “Look after him.” He gruffly speaks to Ruddiger before marching to the throne room.
Quirin is not a man of science, like his son, nor a particularly passionate academic, like his late wife. He is one to withhold answers to protect others, not actively search for them. If there is anything useful his time in the Brotherhood had taught him, it is that he is a simple man by nature, comfortable with not knowing everything, not needing to risking it all to tread into uncharted territory. The only right time to take action is when something threatened those he loved or swore loyalty to. In his personal opinion, it is primarily reliability and duty, not ingenuity or a thirst for answers, that makes a good leader and protector. He especially is not used to someone holding the truth from him, let alone against him.
So, when the King abruptly cuts him off mid-sentence to claim that there is absolutely nothing to worry about regarding Varian’s treatment in prison and advises him to tread with caution on the matter as it is inherently accusatory to the reputation of the Royal Guard, Quirin fights his instinct to dutifully obey and succumb to his usually silent, stoic demeanor.
It could very well be nothing.
How could he say that? Could Varian have wanted to end his life over nothing?
The very audacity of the flippant phrase incited a sudden surge of impatient, white-hot fury within him, overwhelming him for a full minute as the dull pounding in his ears that persisted amidst his consistent worries erupting into a full-scaled roar.
“With all due respect, Your Majesty, I know Varian well enough to see there is clearly something wrong!” His voice strains to moderate a volume and tone of respect, but it is particularly difficult, with his heart thundering in his head and his every nerve tingling with sickening anticipation.
“Something is wrong, dear old friend.” Frederich manages in an uncharacteristically strained hiss. “You clearly don’t know your son as well as you think. He is a very unstable and dangerous boy. It could very well be a phase. He’s probably still trying to recover from what just happened, as we all are.”
Had this been told to him a year ago, Quirin would have modestly calmed the person speaking, offered compensations for whatever damage Varian had accidentally caused, apologies for his son’s ‘behavior,’ assured with that charming smile of his that it would never happen again.
Now, however, Quirin can barely contain his piqued vexation, fists clenched and posture faltering as his voice cracks with the next sentence.
“Varian is neither of those things.”
“Oh?” The king allows, skepticism creeping into his sharp tone. “I beg to differ, Quirin. You may now know what he’s done, but you were not there when he did it. You were not there when he terrorized and threatened the kingdom you had sworn loyalty to, the people I try to protect.” Before Quirin can interject, he continues. “I’m not one for rumours, but I heard he tried to kill himself.” He throws this out nonchalantly, as though he is discussing some casual gossip he can not care less about, and not the broken son of the shocked man in front of him. King Frederic doesn’t even spare Quirin a glance as he stands up from his throne and leisurely strolls to the large window panel. “Look, old friend, I am not angry with your outbursts. I understand why all of this has been difficult for you. It’s not your fault your only son turned out to be-well, that. But there’s really no telling with children, and you can’t blame yourself for it. I know you are a good and honest man, and it is such a pity that Varian could not live up to that.”
Dumbfounded, Quirin’s face pales, eyes wide and and brows knitting at the blunt remarks.
He feels strongly about many things regarding Varian, but pity is not one of them.
Varian was not a disappointment. He was…different, but it seems unfair to Quirin to expect his son to be exactly like him. Yes, he wants his son to be good and honest-he always has. But as far as he was concerned (in that case, before the amber incident), his son was everything he needed to be, if not needing guidance and attention from time to time. Yes, he hadn’t been able to spend much time with his son, but his son had seemed to be getting along fine.
Then again, there hadn’t exactly been a proper exchange of words between them since he had been told of what happened.
“What-what about Andrew?” It is a last resort, a blind shot from a desperate dip into his memory.
The king turns, perplexed. His brows furrow, as though he is disturbed as to how Quirin knows the name. “What about him?”
“Varian mentioned him. Was he a friend of his?” Quirin presses hopefully. Perhaps this Andrew fellow would help. Was Andrew a doctor, a psychologist, a guard Varian had confided in? Surely his son must have had some source of comfort while he was gone.
The king’s face contorts into a bitter scowl. “Yes, he was the Saporian traitor who Varian joined to destroy Corona. Did I not mention that before?” The phrase is pitying, patronizing.
The worried father’s heart drops, and every inch of him suddenly wants to excuse himself and get out, away from the stifling, suffocating atmosphere where he fumbles nervously for ways to defend his son while essentially getting nowhere with regards to how he could be helped. He feels as helpless as he had found his son’s still form on the windowsill, lifelessly gazing back at him-
He is ridden with a crippling sting of simultaneous grief and shame, but not at Varian. He feels shameful for having annoyed the good king, practically interrogating him on matters that he ought to know of himself. He feels shame at how sensible the king’s words sound, even if he disagrees with them to an extent. He feels shame at not knowing his son enough to defend or speak for him.
He feels shame for the fact that the king thinks he is bantering him because of the insinuation that he thinks he is a bad father.
With words gentle to the ear and heavy on his mind, Quirin excuses himself and begins to walk out of the throne room. Begins, because he almost stumbles into a frantic doctor trying to keep up with a criminal hunkered with chains and flanked by two guards. Sporting an awful black eye and an even more menacing grin, the criminal’s eyes glint with a maniacal imperceptiveness upon seeing Quirin, and the father is left bewildered as he shrewdly observes the doctor practically herd the brute into a separate room-the healing quarters, no doubt.
Suddenly, today, Quirin has a good idea.
He wonders if he will ever truly know what’s wrong with his boy.
…
And so he searches for the truth.
Quirin hesitantly opens the door and nods to the doctor as if giving silent permission to enter. He feels gutted, ashamed - as though he was violating the sanctity that was Varian’s infrequent yet short moments of peaceful slumber.
Quirin can no longer gaze wistfully at his son’s slackened face as he seeks warmth and safety in his arms, nor intently observe every twitch of his brow as he encountered another silent battle in his sleep.
He needs help. Varian needs help.
As the doctor slowly unbuckles his briefcase and begins to pick out the instruments he needs, Quirin cautiously hovers next to the sleeping body. “Do-do you want me to wake him up?”
The doctor shakes his head. “No, just pick him into a seated position, if you will.”
Quirin gulps away the hesitance that usually accompanies initiating any touch with Varian, inhaling deeply and scooping the boy effortlessly into his lap. One arm is braced around Varian’s upper back and another winds around his middle so that Varian’s limp head can be secured underneath his chin. Varian’s feverish forehead rubs against Quirin’s throat, and his breath hitches as he squirms slightly at the slight disturbance, before returning to the soft breaths of an imperceptive bliss, each contented sigh a healing thread sown into the father’s troubled heart.
“Shall I assess him now?” The doctor’s patient voice is for him, not Varian, so he nods against the disheveled mop of unruly hair.
First goes the shirt. Even as they slowly peel it away, Quirin can barely withhold his gasp of shock and horror.
(*Graphic description of injury. Read at your own discretion)
His son’s entire back is an array, a gruesome mosaic of bright red lacerations, inflamed with open gashes of different lengths that run deep and wide into his pink skin. Varian’s front is littered with cuts and bruises of varying sizes and colors, the deep ones particularly darkened across the jutting ridges of his rub cage, which is adorned with a sagging valley of sunken skin that should have been his stomach. An abnormally large tear in Varian’s side pulses angrily, as though something was embedded in and jarred to maximize the pain for as long as possible.
Like the cold sting of salt in a wound, it reminds Quirin of Hector’s arm after the man had been held captive and tortured by a rival kingdom. It was a method a king had used to coax information out of him. After he was free, Hector had attempted to hide the wound, but with the days it was left untreated, it became infected, and its agony only grew. Quirin is suddenly left wondering how Varian is not writhing or hollering in pain as Hector did that awful morning he was carried away for his amputation.
As Quirin’s eyes flood with tears of terror and confusion, he scrutinizingly observes every mark on his son’s body, trying to fathom where and what each could have come from. The small, precise cuts scaling the length of his arm, just above the vein yet superficial to the skin. The uncoordinated zig-zags across his lower left side, much older than the tear in his right side, caked and cracked with dried blood. A cluster of blossoming purple bruises extending down to his legs.
God, Quirin knows torture when he sees it- he has seen it before. But this-this was beyond anything he could ever deduce or comprehend.
(Description over)
The doctor quickly and vigilantly assesses everything he needs to- he has to look at Varian before fixing him, because he has to know where he’s broken. Quirin supposes that makes sense, and intently watches as the stethoscope measures Varian’s slightly uneven breaths, tools prod and smooth painlessly over his broken bones, and soft hands lather strange-smelling and moist ointments over his numerous cuts and bruises,
Then his boy was being gently lowered onto the soft mattress, sinking into its blissful depths.
Quirin assumes it’s over, until the doctor briefly grabs the waistband of Varian’s pants.
Suddenly, Varian jolts awake with a small gasp, mouth agape and entire being stiffening as his back immediately arches from where he lay. His eyes flits this way and that rapidly before staring up to meet Quirin’s.
All breath flees the man- for all of the horrible abuse he has seen on his son’s body, he can swear he has never seen such an awful thing before.
Varian’s eyes swim with helplessness and hurt - gleaming with utter betrayal and a desperate plea.
In that moment, they are the same eyes that flash across Quirin’s mind with every crippling wave of memory-eyes that glistened with despair as he rocked him to sleep, eyes that pleaded as he yelled at him, eyes that stared into his soul defeatedly and unabashedly as they teetered off a windowsill and gauged his every attempt to remain steady and secure on the search for answers, for sanity, for peace. They are heavily saddened because of him, for him.
“Is that really necessary?” Quirin clears his throat, the reposeful weight of Varian’s eyes burning into him.
“You did say a full check-up, yes?” The doctor asks, confused.
“I-I just don’t think-“ Quirin is flustered, at a loss for words.
The doctor seems to understand his discomfort and nods.
“Right then, I’ll get started on his back.”
Then the doctor rolls Varian onto his stomach and instructs Quirin to hold him down as he applies the healing cream. Varian jerks again, as though he’s been burnt by the touch, and begins to thrash and squirm and cry. His cries are quiet and hoarse, dampened from disuse and dry with misery.
Quirin’s eyes immediately blur with tears as he feels his son stiffen in his hold, flailing and writhing to get away, held down only by the sheer strength of Quirin’s large arm. It reminds him of an animal being held down for slaughter, an insect wriggling futilely under the weight of his shoe.
For a moment, Quirin wants to let Varian go. He wants to let Varian roll over into any position he finds comfortable and cry to his heart’s content at how unfair it all was. He wants to alleviate his son’s every fear and pain, scoop him into his arms, rock and lull him to sleep with endless apologies. He wants to hold his face and look into his eyes and kiss away his tears because his poor boy must be so scared, and in so much pain…
“My poor boy.” The murmur is sudden and soft, consoling and cautious. Quirin’s lips purse and tremble, and there is a refurbished fear that he will openly weep in front of Varian. No, no, he can’t.
If Varian can be stronger than that, Quirin can be stronger than this.
This doesn’t mean that the shock of it all doesn’t pulsate through him like a jolt of electricity, stinging his head with inexhaustible strings of questions and insinuations with no answer nor consolation.
Quicker than he thought himself capable, Quirin moves the blankets and lies down on his side to fully encompass Varian’s sobbing form in his arms, only to lift him off of the bed and turn so that he lay on his back, and Varian on his stomach on top of him.
Varian was hurt.
The boy still trembles like a leaf in the turbulent autumn wind, face burying against his neck as his hot tears seep out of his eyes and soak into Quirin’s flesh. Despite his shaking, Varian’s hand clutches his tunic tightly, desperately, as though he will fly away and disappear into the wind if he dares to loosen his grip.
Varian needed him.
Quirin can feel every thrum of his son’s soft yet powerful heartbeat, erratically racing and thundering against that bony ribcage, digging and sinking painfully into his own chest. He is sure Varian could feel his, too, though perhaps not so profoundly.
“My brave, strong boy.” Quirin whispers this time, aiming to steady himself, correct himself. His shaky fingers gently thread and weave through the thick yet soft locks of dark hair, finally finding the familiar groove of his neck and running smoothly against it in an attempt to cup the boy’s head in the cusp of his large palm. He leans in and nuzzles their foreheads together, his larger nose brushing against Varian’s tiny one, his cool breaths no doubt pleasant to his feverish skin.
“You’re my bravest boy.” Quirin could only console, voice weak with grief and misery as his son's eyes squeezed shut tightly, his face contorted into an agonising grimace of horror as the tears cascade down his freckled cheeks - his hollow, ashen cheeks.
Quirin presses his lips prolongedly against the bridge of his nose and the space between his eyes. His other hand reaches to clasp the boy’s trembling hand securely, completely. Rubbing his thumb smoothly over the knuckles, he holds his boy’s hand against his own face, watching Varian relax for him, because of him. As the treatment proceeds, Varian continues to sob silently into Quirin’s shoulder, and Quirin continues to whisper tender endearments, punctuated by soft kisses to Varian’s forehead. He would hold his son as he fell apart, he would hold him so he would not have to go searching for the pieces to put him back together.
Varian’s cries become muffled, tired and wilted with hiccups, and he succumbs to the soothing vibrations he finds against his father' throat and the trusting warmth, his hands curled against the burly frame. Quirin keeps himself there, losing all sense of time as he alternates between softly kissing Varian’s knuckles and head, until the doctor indicates that he’s done with the back, and the boy is half-asleep, his eyes fluttering and fighting the fatigue.
Quirin is unaware of his weeping until he pulls away and sees the wet patch on Varian’s clothes.
The doctor clears his throat awkwardly. “Quirin, we need to check his lower half.”
Quirin’s heart stammers in place, and he frowns. “Why? He doesn’t seem to have issues walking.”
Quirin hopes that does not sound as stressed as he feels.
The doctor seems to avoid his gaze for a minute before continuing. “It’s better to check, you know.”
The entire aura of the small exchange leaves Quirin terribly anxious and uncomfortable. Check for what? What could possibly be left? But then Quirin deflates and relents. If Varian’s upper half is this bad, there was no reason his lower half wouldn’t be affected at all. What would be the harm in checking?
Quirin collects his limp son in his arms, eyes catching only a small glimpse of the bright red and purple array on Varian’s bony legs before averting his eyes to focus dolefully on Varian’s slackened face and contented breaths. He wishes he can join Varian in this dreamless sleep.
Sometime during the examination, Quirin notices the doctor bristle and give him a strange look. Quirin assumes that what he’s about to do can make Varian uncomfortable, and only clutches his son harder. The concern in him only grows. He does not dare to look at the doctor again until the man quietly tells him that he’s finished.
“Quirin.” The forlorn, sympathetic tone instantly causes Quirin’s heart to drop further. “He’s very weak. And the blow to his head is too severe to speed up his body’s recovery. If anything, there’s just going to be more delay, and that would lead to more painful and..unpleasant complications. If he had come in earlier, it wouldn’t have escalated to this. But now that the wounds on his back and side are infected, we can only drain them out and give something for the pain.”
Quirin’s heart leaps into his throat, and he can scarcely breathe from the shock he remembers upon seeing his boy’s torn body.
“And-Quirin.” The doctor clears his throat uncomfortably. “There’s-there’s evidence of… sexual abuse.”
The very word culminates into a searing, excruciating pain that only proliferates in his being, and resounds in his skull, in tandem to his thundering heart and throbbing bones. He can only hear the rush of blood roaring in his ears as the unsettling and very abrupt wave of nausea overwhelms his every senses.
“How-how can I help him? How will he get better?” He hoarsely asks, his voice thick with tears as he cradles his slumbering son tightly against himself, trying to soothe himself in the notion that he was still there.
As the doctor drones on about the medicines for infection, tonics for sleep and treatments for wounds, Quirin cannot help but feel overwhelmed once more. It sounds like another list of problems he will have to find a solution to, questions that need answers, wounds that need healing, a mental and emotional concern underlying every lash and bruise.
Quirin's eyes fill with tears. “I-I can’t.” He finally croaks.
The doctor looks at him questioningly.
“I can’t. He’s-he’s so weak. He hurts too much. I can’t-”
“No. He is strong.” The doctor interrupts, his voice steady and firm with confidence. “Varian is a strong boy. Most of my patients with this kind of thing-Quirin, they never recover. These traumas eat up their lives, often leads them to suicide.”
Quern tenses immediately at the word, struck with the painful memory. The twinge of it throbs vibrantly like a growing plaque in an open wound, thriving alongside every electrified jolt he feels when he spares a glance into those not-Varian eyes.
“Varian needs you, Quirin, more than any medicine I can recommend.”
The doctor leaves.
Suddenly, today, Quirin is at a loss of what to do.
With words gentle to his heart yet heavy on his tongue, Quirin ducks his head against his son's and allows his silent tears to trickle into his son’s hair, his face frozen in disbelief and shock. “I’ll take care of you. I promise.”
He wonders if Varian still remembers.
…
And so he searches for an answer.
Quirin sighs worriedly as he pours another dose of the medicine into a glass.
He hates drugging his son, hates that his son has to suffer, hates that he continues to suffer because he isn’t enough. Quirin isn’t enough.
It had been exactly one week since that awful night. Seven uneventful, stress-ridden, equivalently awful days since he had walked into his son’s room to find him standing at an open window, ready to fall.
He still remembers everything so vividly, as though a fresh page of nightmare.
The thought jerked out a fresh bout of tears, because he thinks Varian should be tired enough to sleep without the medicine, after that whole awful night. Lately, Varian had been continuously crying, screaming and thrashing in his sleep, and by the time dawn cracked Quirin too had begun to cry out of helplessness. The two had eventually fallen asleep, Varian still whimpering softly and Quirin still jolting awake from time to time just so that he could pat Varian’s chest and stroke away his hair, trying to ascertain that his son was still there, with him, safe and alive however broken he seemed. To Quirin’s great despair, Varian did not react much to Ruddiger’s consolations either, flinching or curling away whenever the raccoon tried to nose him or snuggle with them
Swallowing back the suffocating lump in his throat and painful coil in his chest, Quirin made his way towards the exhausted lad, who was hanging by a thread, just ready to topple over and sleep. His eyes are wide and bloodshot, accentuated with dark, puffy red circles and sparkling with a haunting sheen of tears.
Quirin’s heart clenches and constricts when he turns to look at him slowly, trying not to step back and sob at how unfamiliar he looked. Thankfully, it doesn’t last-Varian quickly grabs the drink and downs it in one sip, hands shaking because he is just as desperate to escape his reality and just fall into a euphoric unconsciousness.
Quirin bites his lip and carefully curls his arms underneath his back and knees, scooping Varian into his lap and praying he won’t resist, knowing he himself wouldn’t last if his son tried that one more time. Luckily, he doesn’t, and much to his relief, Quirin watches Varian’s heavy eyes droop and his head sink itself into his chest.
Quirin is about to put Varian down when he realized his grip on him tighten, and a sudden wave of emotion strikes him like a chord.
Choking back a sob, he remembers with agony the last time his son had clung to him. When he had been freed from amber, Varian had flung himself into his arms and buried his face into his shoulder, sobbing and smiling and serenely secure. And Quirin had believed it. He had naively believed that Varian was alright.
Then Quirin had pushed him away, slumbering as Varian bore a world of hell and now Varian wasn’t here-only this shell of a person that his son was not, with a pain that was not his, bearing knowledge of a thing that did not…this wasn’t him, it couldn’t have happened, this wasn’t-
Quirin’s breath hitches, caught and trampled in the back of his throat. A helpless cry escaped his lips, tears flooding his eyes and cascading his face once more. He is holding his son’s dead body in his arms, shamelessly, on the same bed that he forgot to tuck him into ever since Alda left, the same one he was supposed to sleep in peacefully instead of stepping up onto that windowsill and churning everything he knew to be true.
Quirin had tried to protect Varian from every kind of pain, only to throw him at its feet the moment he had pushed him away-away from the cold, unforgiving grip of the amber and into the even colder grip of an unforgiving world.
Varian is still breathing, but it isn’t Varian, not really.
It is someone different, someone older and wiser and too broken to be put back together.
It is someone too hurt and weakened to scream or even speak.
His once flawless, young skin is littered, tainted with dark bruises, dark secrets, dark traumas that Quirin can never touch and never know.
His son - the real Varian, his Varian, the Varian who loves ham sandwiches and tinkering and sound sleep - had died in a time and place where Quirin wasn’t there to hold his hand, hush his cries, kiss away the tears on his face or heal the fears etched into his heart.
Now, this Varian refuses to even speak to him.
Quirin thinks back to the night they had come back home, the night when he had figuratively tipped the beaker, broken the glass. The night the questions began, with answers and sorrows and more questions that never ended.
He had yelled at Varian, asking him if he had a choice. He had told him he was sending him to the asylum, to be alone again. To be untrusted and abandoned and punished again.
Suddenly, today, amongst the whirlwind of guilt, Quirin finds an answer.
Varian hadn’t tried to kill himself that night.
He had killed his son.
He had killed his beloved little Varian.
And the knowledge finally kills him.
It-the knowledge, the realisation, the agony of what it has wrought-seeps into his heaving lungs, battering his heart for and with every effortful breath. It finally reaches the depths of his sanity to grab the excruciating pain with frigid fingers and tear it raspingly through his core and out of his sore throat.
An unbidden scream finally erupts from deep within his heart, and Quirin allows it to wrack him completely, not caring if he woke the boy up. All of his senses devolve to accommodate that one thought, that one guilt-ridden realization entrenched deep in his gut, and the man cannot hold himself together any longer, not while being aware of it.
It is grief and guilt unbound and unleashed, a prolonged, animalistic wail of misery that wrenches from his heart and freely echoes into the deafening silence of the thriving night, dissolving all words, reason, aim, answer, and question. The horror twists readily into his stomach, making it lurch violently, unexpectedly, and the hitch in his breath briefly chokes him, leaves him spluttering on his own.
Quirin allows his son’s pain to become his own-to engulf him, smother him completely. It pounds on him from all sides, like a pulsing heart, a bleeding wound that will remain forever open.
He throws himself onto the limp form, encapsulating it frantically in his arms as though the touch would make it less real-more reassuring. Burying his face against his son’s shoulder, his tears freely trickle into the soft clothing, soaking through it in a matter of minutes. The torn flesh absorbs the new, reeling bout of gut-torn sobs that follow, so different from the soft and silent cries of the body that adorned them.
Quirin wants to say something, he does. He searches for the right thing to say. He searches for a way for it all to be untrue. He searches for a hope, a sign, a clue. He is left with the knowledge-the arrant, unrepentant knowledge that shines brightly amongst his blurred vision and ringing ears and clouded judgement. It is a staggering slap to the face, a cruel jeer to his meek attempts to try and search for something that was lost in time yet forever etched into his son’s life. It is an unforgiving reminder, an unbearable test, an unrelenting punishment.
Quirin wants to shower Varian with endless apologies and countless consolations because he cannot help but feel that this-some of it, much of it, all of it-is his fault. He wants to apologize to Varian for withholding the truth, for lying to him, for being stupid enough to leave him alone, for leaving him at all, for fighting with him, for yelling at him, for not asking how he was, for taking the king’s word and overlooking his boy as he was hurting, hurting without healing. The only encounter Quirin can remember without any semblance of guilt is his son wringing out a wet cloth as he fussed over his rest, every limb of his aching from the paralysis of the amber prison as his Varian’s sad eyes stared up at him hopefully, pleadingly. Varian’s sad eyes, filled to the brim with tears as he yelled at him, shattered him. Varian’s sad eyes, daring him to step forward as he hung off the windowsill.
Instead, Quirin allows his sobs to escalate into a crippling alternation of ugly, heartbroken wails and shrill, hapless cries as he recalls what he has come to know about his son’s suffering.
Varian’s life was ruined, Varian was gone, and it was his fault-in some way.
And yet, the absence of the knowledge Quirin now seeks weighs gentle on his mind and heavy on his memory.
He wonders how anything can ever be the same again.
…
And so he searches for escape.
Who does he turn to? Who does he blame?
How could Quirin possibly search for so much? What was he even searching for now?
Quirin realizes Varian has truth serum. He knows this and yet, he also knows he can’t bring himself to do it. Or perhaps he can’t help but hope he would hear the lies for a little while longer, until the truth once again rears its ugly head and tears them apart, tears Quirin’s heart and Varian’s sanity and everything he had hoped would return to normal apart.
It hits Quirin after he has rocked Varian to sleep. A blinding rage roughly yanks his reins, more powerful and empowering than the helpless grief he is drowning in, though in some ways a product of it. It is aggressive, relentless, clawing impatiently at his insides as though it will tear him apart if it is not let out and used. Quirin’s infuriated roar is raw with aimless anger and frustration, allowing his son to limply slip from his grasp onto the soft bed before hastily getting off, uncoordinated yet firm with resolve as he hobbled to the outhouse with long, purposeful strides and quick, heavy footsteps.
When I get my hands on that sorry excuse of a-
Quirin’s fingers find the familiar grasp of soothing wood and grating memories. It all embeds into his curled palm with a tremulous weight that matches his heart as he swings wheresoever he pleases, attempting to govern with caprice and coordination the inconsolable turmoil that rages within him.
With his faith, the axe does not fall-it flies and chides every last semblance of reason with its sharp aim and sharper impact, slicing through the meager pieces of what once was until it all lay in a scattered array of splinters and splendor, spent and solemn at his feet.
They took advantage of him. The wooden table collapses.
They hurt him when he needed help. The dashboard above the shelves explodes.
Someone touched my little Varian.
Quirin put everything into his final swing, his sight beginning to clear and his heart beginning to throb and his might beginning to wean as he realizes that it is time to stop.
All time stops.
Someone broke my Varian.
The axe slips from Quirin’s fingers, and what is once heavy in his hand becomes gentle in the air, spinning gracefully despite his utter disregard for skill and digging itself deep into the opposing wooden wall.
He wonders how he can find what’s he’s looking for, and whether he knows what he’s searching for.
…
And so he searches for hope.
Quirin has never felt so anxious and out of place before.
Before the amber incident, it was usually his son trying to talk to him, not the other way around.
Quirin has been teetering on the very edge these past few days after Varian stopped jolting awake in his sleep, only to be treated to more long moments of that dreadful silence that was not Varian.
His son, for lack of a better phrase, is a complete wreck. His hair was irreparably ruffled and more tangled than usual, hanging over his eyes and looming over most of his face like an unforgiving shadow. He looks utterly emaciated- the ashen face gaunt and slack with untold exhaustion, sharp cheekbones poking through the pallid skin, lips cracked and skin taut against his sunken, malnourished figure. And his eyes-his son’s eyes, Varian’s eyes, Alda’s eyes- are glazed and lifeless, accentuated by dark red circles. The eyes are wide open, though they do not seem attentive in the least, unseeing and unfeeling as they stare into space.
Sometimes, Quirin is frightened out of his wits when his son stares back at him blankly, unsure of whether he is truly conscious or sane or perceiving, as he indefinitely hopes he is. He tries to fake a simple smile, gently turning his chin with two fingers and forcing him to look at him while he was talking. And he does not want to say that his son looks surprised, mistrustful, or afraid, for those eyes are always with wide with an unfathomable emotion, but the expression alone does make him want to step back-back from this un-Varian creature that remains of his boy.
Quirin fights the compulsive urge to wrap Varian in his arms, cuddle the thing that is and is not Varian. He fights the instinct to grab his face and shake him and tell him that he won’t let him go, that he can’t scare him off, that he will stand by him until everything gets better and nothing he does-nothing he has done, will change anything.
Quirin fights it because he is terrified it’s too soon, that perhaps Varian isn’t ready yet.
Quirin is also afraid that he himself isn’t ready yet.
He’s afraid that it’s not the complete truth, because he doesn’t know it to be, not yet.
“Son.” He whispers cautiously as he treads into the room, as though approaching a wild animal caught in a trap.
His son doesn’t blink nor respond, his head bowed and arms limp, however neatly folded on his lap, as though nervous. Slow approaching him with caution and tact, Quirin settles on the edge of his bed before gently closing the shutters. Open windows are now forbidden in this house, he decides.
Quirin then scoots forward so that he is seated directly in front of Varian in front of him and feels a sudden rush of tears at the mere thought that his son is not acknowledging him at all. His heart is thudding powerfully into his throat, as it always did when he was faced with his son’s dilemma ever since his “incident.”
“We-we need to talk.” He broaches hopefully, and his throat finally dries up. To his despair, his son still doesn’t reply. Carefully, Quirin lifts his chin so that his son’s piercing eyes stared directly into him-and is struck painfully by how familiar yet unsettling his gaze was.
“I-“ Quirin hesitates, discouraged and dispossessed of all speech, but he still searches for all he has to say. He needs to. Varian needs this.
“When-when you….fell ill, I-had the doctor examine you.” Immediately yet for a short moment, Quirin observes with alarm the shell-shocked horror that flashes across Varian’s face. So many emotions played in his eyes; guilt, betrayal, heartbreak, fear, shame, and mortification. Yet something more defiant and painful prods through and quells it as quickly as it arose. Varian continues to keep his gaze trained on his lap.
“Varian, my boy. A long time ago, you asked me why I didn’t tell you. About-About the rocks. I didn’t tell you, not because you weren’t ready-but because I wasn’t ready. Son, I know what it’s like to-to not be able to speak about the past. To be afraid and ashamed of things that happened outside of my control. But me not telling…hurt you. It hurt you more than I can say, because it hurt me too. And-and can’t you see? You not telling me will only hurt me and you.” Quirin blinks away tears, though they begin to seep into his sentences, fracturing his steady path of words into a grating, grueling journey. He searches Varian’s hurting eyes, he searches his own hurting soul, and he cannot find anything to help him stop now that he’s started. “And-and I know you’re already hurting. But can’t you see that watching you hurt makes me hurt too?”
He looks at Varian. The boy’s eyes are trained on his knees, but they are sharpened, focused as his brows furrow quizzically. Varian’s perceiving. Varian’s listening. Varian’s thinking about what he’s saying.
Hope reignited, Quirin hastily leans forward, arms braced against the space in front of Varian and neck slightly crouched so that he’s fully in the boy’s view. “You may have failed to kill yourself. But don’t you see that-that catching you from open windows, holding you while you sleep, watching you wince every time you move-kills me? Every. Single. Time?”
Varian’s eyes slowly turn to him, flicker with a foreign emotion that Quirin can’t quite identify, before they fill with a glistening sheen of tears again. Fearful that this is the only light he will ever see in his son’s eyes again, that Varian will turn away again, Quirin grabs the boy’s arms urgently and leans in further.
Quirin stares into Varian’s baby blue irises, hoping his eyes can convey all he wishes he could say as easily as Varian’s did when he refuses to speak at all. “I know. I know that I may never know everything. I know that I will never know what you need me to, and you’ll never know what I want you to. All this time, I’ve been looking for the answers, when I should have been looking after you. But you, son-" Quirin rapidly brings his hands up to cup Varian’s face preciously. All he knows is the small, startled face in between his warm palms, the hollow cheekbones jutting out underneath his large thumbs. “You get to choose what I get to know, whenever you feel ready. Just-tell me what I should know, so that I can help you. Tell me, so that we can both stop hurting. Please.”
Quirin finally chokes on his own tears, swallowing away the dry lump of sorrow deep in his throat. The sound of Varian’s silence soars above his quaking breaths and constricting hope, disallowing him from continuing and further weakening his resolve.
Varian’s face is drained of the little blood that remained, and Quirin has never seen him look so mortified and helpless, hyperventilating and stumbling over tears. He purses his lips, and nods, and stares at him again with those sad eyes.
Varian’s tears slip out, and the boy raises his arms, as though reaching out blindly for a light only he can see.
“I’m hurting, Daddy.” The words are gentle to his ear, and heavy on his heart.
Quirin scoops him up immediately-this hurt Varian, not Varian, new Varian- cradling his broken, healing body preciously in his strong arms and crushing him against his chest..
“I love you, I love you, I love you.” He whispers between the kisses repeatedly like a broken record, his voice strangled under the unquestionable weight of sobs that run out of breath, questions that run out of answers, fears that run out of tears, and time that runs out of hope as it all slips away beneath him. It leaves him to cling desperately to the withering thing that is his child and all he knows to be true, to the illusionary thing that is the windowsill he hangs limply off of as Varian once did, as they both now did, every time they pretended that everything was going to be alright when it wasn’t-Varian wasn’t going to alright for a while…
Yet suddenly, today, Quirin knows hope.
It is in the way this new-Varian lifts his head and gazes up at him, perceiving, with recognition and realisation. It is there, sparkling within the depths of his azure irises, plentiful and powerful. It is a not a plea, but rather a prism, and though Quirin still knows nothing to satisfy his questions, the only answer he needs is clear and shimmers like a new sunrise in his son’s eyes. His Varian’s eyes, this Varian’s eyes, new-Varian’s eyes.
His son is able to be saved.
Quirin finds himself staring into expecting eyes-the same eyes that had looked at him so coldly moments before they had prepared to close permanently. Eyes that had sparkled with joy and inquisitiveness when he had rocked him to sleep in a different time, a different world-eyes that glistened with tears as he outstretched his arms, as though offering a plea to be held and loved, gazed up at him as though searching with a willing, undying faith.
Varian is not alright yet, not entirely, but Quirin would be there if-when he was, and would pick up the pieces to what wasn’t only Varian’s mess-Varian’s pains-Varian’s ordeals, but his own.
Quirin will continue to seek. He will seek answers. He will seek justice. He will seek peace.
For Varian. For Varian’s sake only.
He would search the ends of the earth and the last of his tether until he found that peace, until Varian could sleep without screaming and smile without saddening and live without hurting.
So Quirin closes the door, opens the window, and crawls into bed with Varian. He encapsulates the boy fully in his arms, and the hope remains alive, as real as the soft yet powerful heartbeat of a boy who is still there and a life that can still be saved and a bond that can still be salvaged.
As Quirin gently strokes the overgrown hair away from those eyes and begins to pepper every inch of Varian's face with small, tender-loving kisses, he wonders what it will take for his boy to heal and for the hope to remain real.
And so he sought.