Work Text:
Varian looked across the crowded dining table at his fiancé. She was laughing as she talked to the man next to her. All around him was laughter and excitement, people a little taken with drink, with the ambience. They were on the world’s finest ship, on her maiden voyage. All around them was luxury, and why shouldn’t there be? Why? When they were born to the world of luxury, and never questioned why some had it, and some did not.
Faith saw him watching her from across the table, and he gave her a reassuring smile. There was no point in worrying her, she had every right to be happy, heading to New York, towards a new life with a husband who would treat her well, and he would, treat her well. She didn’t deserve to know his growing sense of uneasiness. Though was it right to describe it as growing when it had always been there? Faith, his fiancés name should serve to guide him, have faith that everything would turn out well, but he couldn’t help thinking that the promises he had made to his father on his death bed had been made in the haste of the moment.
His father, he had respected the man so much, and Varian knew that he had always wanted the best for him. So, when he had told Varian that the days on the landed gentry seemed to be coming to an end, told him to sell their considerable estates, take Faith abroad, marry her, and start a business more suited to Varian’s particular skills, like a chain of pharmacies, Varian had clasped his father’s hand and promised he would. Varian took his promises very seriously, but here, three months on, he did have to wonder if a promise made in a single moment would lock him into an entire life that wasn’t what he would have chosen. New York maybe wasn’t right for him, pharmacies maybe weren’t right for him, Faith, poor Faith, kind and pretty, patient and steady, maybe Faith wasn’t right for him either. He felt as if the world, this world that he was sailing across, the world that’s horizon changed every day, the world that should seem so large to him now he was outside his small town – was instead growing smaller by the second. It was if his whole life was spread out in front of him, already decided and mapped. A life that many people would envy, one of financial comfort, clear career choices, and a steady marriage. Why was it so hard for him to accept that life? Why did he feel as if there was something out there he was meant to be doing?
He stood up, giving a slight bow to the two women on either side of him to apologise for leaving the table. Faith’s eyes were following him, a sudden look of worry on her face, perhaps she was more in tune to his state of mind than he thought. He gave her a reassuring smile again.
“Just going to take some fresh air up on deck, crab always makes me restless.”
Faith gave a smile.
“Perhaps it’s the way they walk sideways.” She said. The man next to her burst into a roar of laugher as if it were the funniest thing he had ever heard.
“It is scurrying across his stomach in the wrong way, no?” The man answered in a thick accent.
Varian kept his smile plastered on his face.
“Maybe one day I will remember it’s best not eat them.” Varian said with another short bow as he made his way down the long dining table, passing a hundred people. He pushed open the wide doors and found himself on deck, the chill of the Atlantic air hitting him straight away, tinged with the smell of cigarette smoke. He made his way through the group of passengers who were stood smoking and complaining about the cold, until he reached found a place where he was alone with just his thoughts and the saltiness of the sea air. He rested his back against the cold metal of the wall and took a deep breath.
“You can breathe.” He said aloud to himself, trying to remind himself that he wasn’t suffocating, it was just a trick of his brain. He wasn’t stuck, he still had choices… but that promise, that promise weighed so heavily on him.
He tilted his head upwards, there was so many stars out here in the open, it reminded him of when he would ride out in the middle of the night as a teenager, those were days where the whole world seemed full of possibilities. Yet, every decision he made, or was made for him, had acted to restrict those possibilities. His schooling, his university, even in the days before that, the class he was born into, the amount of money and land his family had, all of it had changed the direction of his life. It seemed to him that even those babies freshly born and unaware of the world already had certain pathways either open or closed to them. He was shaken out of his thoughts by a strange noise. A grunt, like an animal.
He straightened and listened carefully, there were defiantly noises, several small thuds, and what was defiantly anther grunt. Curiously, he walked down the empty deck, until he was at the large, pointed bridge of the ship. He hesitated for a moment as he saw what seemed to be a fight between four figures going on near the front railings. He looked around nervously, wondering if he could signal a guard of some of the sailors without drawing too much attention to himself. He couldn’t see anybody around though, and the passengers who had been stood near the dining hall were probably out of hearing range. Swearing softly to himself he looked back to the fight. Now, with his eyes adjusting to the relative darkness of the bridge he could make out that there were four figures, three against one, which was pretty unsportsmanlike, though as he watched he saw that the single figure was fairly able. Then he noticed something else, something that had him rushing forwards with a shout. The single person, although in trousers, was most definitely a woman, being set upon by three men.
“Hey! Stop!”
The three men turned to look at him, the short haired woman they had been attacking took advantage of the situation to punch one squarely in the jaw with a crack loud enough to make Varian wince. The punch served to turn the three attacker’s attention back onto the woman. Varian felt a growing apprehension as he got closer, he was not the fighting type, but he had to do something. He grabbed the man closest to him by the shoulders, trying to drag him backwards, but though the man was shorter than Varian, he was maybe twice as wide. As Varian tried in vain to unbalance the man he realized that the bulk of his size was pure muscle. He felt hands wrap into his suit jacket, and briefly saw deep set brown eyes glinting at him before his was thrown to the floor, his hip connecting with the wood with a sudden resonating pain.
He turned to push himself back up, and was shocked to see one of the attackers land on the floor next to him, floored by a well-aimed kick to the groin, from the wild thing of a woman who was twisting and turning around the other two attackers as if in a dance. Varian managed to find his footing, now it was two against two. Varian made another attempt at grabbing the wide man as he threw a punch towards, the ducking woman.
“Stay out of this.” The man grunted in a rough voice as he turned and grabbed Varian by the shoulders. Varian fought to get him off. His back hit something hard, then there was a dizzying moment, as his body shifted in direction it wasn’t meant to go, he had the strange feeling of the world turning over, and the sense of falling as his hands circled in the air grabbing and holding on tight to a cold cylinder.
“RUN!” He heard a shout.
His head was spinning, he could see his arms stretched out above him, his knuckles white as he clung desperately to the railings. He looked down and saw the dark turning waves below him. He was going to die. To drown with water filling his lungs, or to freeze stranded in the icy water’s miles from anywhere. Would anybody even know what had become of him?
Then a face appeared over the railings, the woman with short black hair, the one who had been fighting. A long fingered pale hand was reaching out to him.
“Take my hand!”
He let go of the bars with one hand, feeling a moment of fear as he let go of the thing keeping him from plummeting into the water. He stretched as far as he could, but it was no use, his fingers were still inches away from hers. She gave a huff and leaned further over the railings, trying to reach him. He swallowed, steeling himself, it was this or the ocean, he had to take the chance. He threw the weight of his body to the left where his hand was starting to come ungripped from the metal and then swung back to the right just as the woman rocked forwards. His hand was grasped in a firm grip. His feet tried to find purchase on the slippery side of the boat, as he was tugged upwards. He managed to get enough pressure on the side of the boat to work his way slightly further upwards and grab the next railing up from the one he had been holding, then again, until the woman managed to hook a hand under his arms and he was dragged unceremoniously back over the railing and to safety.
He landed with a resounding thud on the wooden deck. He bent in on himself panting heavily, as he sensed rather than saw the woman collapsing to her knees next to him. Her own rasping breaths mixing with his own in the quiet of the night.
“Are you hurt?” She asked.
He took another few deep breathes and glanced across at her, and suddenly he found he couldn’t breathe for a whole different reason. He’d not seen much of her face when he was involved in the fight, but now it was like looking into the face of an angel. A moonlit angel with big green eyes, luminescent skin, and raven curls that fell partway across her face.
“I’m not hurt.” He answered.
“What were you doing?” She sounded annoyed, as if he had done something wrong. If Varian hadn’t already been unsettled from having almost fallen to his death then her tone would have disarmed him.
“Trying to save you.”
“I didn’t need saving.”
“Evidently, it turns that I was the one who needed saving. Thank you, milady.” Varian got to his feet and reached down, helping the woman up.
“Milady?” She let out a startled laugh. “I’m not a lady.”
“What’s your name?”
“Cassandra.”
“Why were those men after you?”
“They’re bad at cards, and can’t accept they lost, especially to a woman.”
“Sir, Miss. Is everything alright over there?” Varian jumped at the sound of another voice. He looked up and saw a man in guards uniform walking towards them. Varian found himself annoyed at the man, where had he been five minutes earlier? Why was he disturbing his moment alone with this intense and beautiful woman.
“Yes everything is fine.” Varian said curtly.
The guard continued towards them, raising his lantern up as he did so and looking curiously at Varian and Cassandra.
“This area is for first class guests only Miss.”
Varian turned to look at Cassandra, he’d barely noticed, he’d only found it strange that she was in trousers and not a dress, but now he looked at her again it was clear from her thread worn clothes that she was one of the third class passengers.
“She’s my guest.” Varian said clearly. “She’ll be joining me tomorrow for dinner.”
“I will?” She whispered leaning in close to him.
“Yes.” Varian whispered back. “To say thank you. “She opened her mouth as if to complain but nothing came out. Varian knew there was an argument to be made that he wouldn’t have fallen off the side of the ship if he’d not gotten himself involved with her problems, but the guard was watching them so she just turned to him and smiled.
“Mr… Uh…”
“Varian.” Varian whispered.
“Varian was just walking me back down to steerage. Where I belong.” She said the last words with a bit of a bite to them, and Varian found himself hiding a smirk. This woman was a live wire, that was for sure.
“Okay Sir, Miss, well if there’s no problems.” The guard said, turning and continuing his circling of the ship.
Varian held his arm out for Cassandra.
“What?” She asked.
“I’m escorting you back down to steerage.”
“Do you want to have your pockets picked?”
“Well, maybe just to the stairs then, it’ll give us time to make dinner plans.”
Cassandra looked at him sceptically.
“I’m guessing the food in the first-class dining room is a lot better than what they’ve been serving downstairs.”
“Okay, then.” She finally said taking his arm.
“So, Cassandra.” Varian asked as they walked slowly back across the deck. “What brings you onboard the Titanic?”