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Varian didn’t really remember exactly when or how it had happened, no matter how many more details he remembered and wished he could forget.
One minute, he had been living a relatively normal life - bidding goodbye to Dad as he left for another day of work at the palace, rolling his eyes when he stumbled over his own toes and dropped his books. The next, he was being grabbed from behind, hit over the head, tossed into a bag and hauled over someone’s shoulder.
He doesn’t remember many names or faces - not even many of their voices. Every time he dares to allow his mind to wander, it seems to spasm, and disoriented, disjointed bits of light and voices seem to mash together incoherently, as though some grand entrance to the full memory in his mind is adamantly refusing to let him in, to let him hurt again. He’s grateful, because he still remembers how he hurt.
They wanted…answers, he thinks. Or maybe they were questions. It made sense to want answers - he wanted answers too, and they promised if he gave them the answers they needed, they’d tell him everything, and they’d let him go. Sometimes when he tries desperately to connect the broken fragments of his memory, he can recall bits and pieces.
Varian is used to having people want answers from him. That was what he was there for - now, at least. After the…the incident where he had turned on the kingdom. It was how he could be of help, more particularly the best kind of help (or rather, the best he was used to being). And that was the very essence of science - questions upon answers upon more questions, a refurbishing endless cycle solidified by unyielding, comforting, ever-present logic that he could depend on.
But usually, when people wanted answers, they’d look at him with despair or impatience - like the faint, disapproving crinkle of concern in his father’s brow when he sternly asked Varian why he had chosen to adopt a raccoon out of all animals, or the soft tilt of the older man’s thumb underneath the boy’s feverish chin when he asked why he had stayed up so late and pressed his lips against his forehead - or they’d give him encouragements, praises, sweet bribery - like the quiet, warm squeeze of Eugene’s hand on his shoulder or Rapunzel’s gleaming eyes, filled with pride and praise as he showed her his newest invention.
No, when these…people wanted answers…they hurt him. They hurt him in ways worse than he remembers hurting.
They hurt him the way Rapunzel’s and Eugene’s disapproving and untrusting gazes quietly watched his begging, his tattered clothes bagged at his ankles, his withering heart and turned him to the mercy of glistening armor and dark empty hallways and degrading jeers.
They hurt him the way Cassandra’s quiet glares of indifference and bitterness did as he once writhed and choked under the power of the truth serum.
They hurt him the way Dad’s rage-filled, barely restrained stare had, the way he had spit out biting words pent up in his chest.
They hurt him in all of the ways he begs them to not and more. They say he’s been bad - he didn’t give the answers they wanted - and he doesn’t remember if he tried or not.
And the worst thing is that Varian can’t remember any specific thing about what they said beyond one stale, gruff voice with breaths of cigar - “we’re going to need everything you’ve got, boy. Even if it means breaking all of you.”
At first, Varian remembers spitting at them, for sure - one sarcastic remark after another, a threat or misleading comment or mocking jeer, emboldened by their growing frustration despite the evolving voice in the back of his mind begging him to shut the fuck up . He remembers wanting to mold whatever pain he’s been dealt with and disfigure it, crumple and redesign it to his liking just to see it soar past his fingers and right into their faces. He remembers the broiling sense of indignity, fear and humiliation blustering in his gut and splattering over the edges of his thinning composure. He mocked that they’d never be able to break them - he had tried to seem prideful, capable of defending his family, friends and country like the honourable, reformed person he had thought he was.
And never had he thought he would regret such a thing.
First came his toes - they lay him on his back, arms and legs bound to the cold hard surface he was pressed against, head forcefully turned upwards by two strong hands clamped at either side of his face. Varian had stared up at the ceiling, eyes wide and chest heaving in alarm, and then a sudden sharp sensation had pricked his little toe, a wave of needle-like pricks crawling up his toe to his foot and lower leg. He jolted, even shrieked in pain and asked what they were doing, but they held him down forcefully as they proceeded to the next one almost rhythmically, fluidly - practiced fingers, straining the pads of his toes and the soles of his feet, audibly cracking bones and skewering flesh with small needles. Every time he yelped, strained and pulled against the arms over him, they tighten into more bruising grips around his shoulder blades and upper arms, adding to his immense discomfort.
He was a trembling, sweating mess by the end of it, but he still didn’t speak what they wanted him to, gulping in air like a fish out of water and trying to convince himself that that was nothing - they were just toes, and bones, and needles - it would all repair itself in time, and he had been through worse.
Then the firm hands wrapped around his ankles, locking with the joint and twisting in swift, agonising motions that sent fire pumping through his veins. Varian screamed at the excruciating sensation, feeling whatever nerve bundles bunched there set alight and the sensation borrowing heavily into him like a scalding poker intent on replacing the blood underneath his flesh. He saw spots dance before his very eyes, a dizzying sense of despair and confusion clogging his senses as numbness begins to creep in.
They don’t let him fall unconscious. A foul-smelling cloth is shoved into his face, clamped over his nose and mouth as he shudders with every horrid inhalation, and something in his mind ignites, infuriating and alive, clenching at his fading consciousness and wrangling it, refusing to let it rest in peace.
He is thrust back into that nauseating swarm of agony and heat and noise only a few minutes later, when they have dragged him by the legs over rough and dirty floor tiles to their ‘cell’. It doesn’t look like a cell - more like a room with a very dark door, almost swallowed by the surrounding walls as though it knew the fate of those who entered.
He had then been thrown like dirty laundry - and well, he supposed he was dirty, but he hits the opposing wall hard, slumping backwards helplessly as his broken ankles twitch without being able to support his weight and the rest of him slams into the floor.
Varian had gasped, spluttered and begged for them to let him rest, just a moment - it seemed silly in hindsight, but he had hoped they’d believe he would give it to them…the - the answers. And yet they only keep shoving and pulling at him - threading and yanking thick fingers through his dishevelled hair and tearing chunks from the scalp, pushing and kicking and punching at any part of him they - he - whoever is now tormenting him can reach. Varian stops registering anything beyond the fact that it all fucking hurts - too much, unbearably so.
They then leave him in the dark, quiet room by himself for the nights, and let the rest of the silence and the echoes of his sobs and pleas reap more misery on their own.
A part of Varian wishes for death. That they’d relent from all of the questions and demands and torment, and hand him an easy way out. That they’d give up.
Another part of him is disgusted that he gave up on hope, on his friends - and on his own loyalty so quickly. No - he would bare it, he would bare it all, if only to prove himself.
There are questions - about the kingdom’s weapon supplies, about his father, about his friends in the royal family and their treasury and the escape routes in the city and their enemies.
There are questions meant to evoke something in him - to gauge him for any doubt, any sliver of regret, any wilted tail of his former self and his rage, grief, loneliness. Did he regret helping Corona after trying? Was he still angry at specific people? Did he ever, in the quiet of the night, still think of the cold, dark metal fingers of his inhumane contraptions squeezing the living daylights out of someone who had wronged him?
There are questions meant to throw him off course, suspending him above the abyss of grief and fears he had once believed were long dead. What would his father think of him, being so weak as to being kidnapped like this and becoming a burden on the royal family? Did he really think his friends cared about him - if it had been this long and they hadn’t yet come to rescue him? Maybe he’d give in before they came, and prove them right.
All the while, he alternates - at one point, he is screaming in pain and pleading in despair, before his voice seems to morph as time stretches on and his body is pushed, pushed, pushed over the edge. The voice no longer seems like his own, though it definitely seems to reverberate somewhere from within his belly and blunder upwards, hacking through his throat so sharply it leaves scratches and searing out of his grit teeth. It’s…a different voice, weakened - thinning, spun and ragged and hoarse and pierced with his tears.
The voice lingers, echoes back fruitlessly in his ears whenever he screams, pleads, yells and cries. It pervades between his reality and more terrifying nightmares.
Finally, after God Knows how many days, the voice confesses - it betrays him, and his friends and family and country and everything he had known to be true about himself. Half-conscious, he tearfully spills the secrets he had been with-holding, admits anything and everything.
At one point, the voice disappears - the one thing he needed to get out, the one thing he could use to do anything for anyone now - vanished like sand spilling between his fingers and configuring into black wisps of smoke. All that’s left is dry breath in its wake - hardly enough to carry the dying fire burning in his chest. It is then the realisation hits Varian. He can’t…speak. He ran out…of his own voice…
Maybe it had been snatched from him, as punishment for the traitorous tongue poised at the cage of his teeth, flickering and ready to swipe with those traitorous words and traitorous truths.
Without his voice, he had…nothing left to offer. His wrists and ankles were broken, his machines confiscated, his mind too frazzled by all that had been happening to think of an invention - his voice had been all that he had left.
They thought it was temporary. They thought he was pretending. They thought they could pummel more out of him. But it takes him falling unconscious a few more times when they realise he really is useless.
Useless…he hadn’t even been able to save himself, cleverly offer a bargain like he had before. He hadn’t been able to spare his friends and family from needing to confront his enemy or put themselves at risk - he hadn’t been able to outsmart his opponents like he usually did, or resist long enough, keep a strong facade strong enough like other times. He had just - sat there, pitifully, weeping like some idiot and withering helplessly under the stupid, very escapable torment. Like some…child. No - like a useless, ungrateful, weak subject. A weak son, a weak scientist, a weak friend.
He had maybe thought such of himself like other times, but this hadn’t been like any other time.
They - the masked figures he cannot really remember - slap a price on him, call over a ransom -a grand sum. Because Rapunzel and the others probably don’t know how useless he is yet.
Luckily, Varian manages to catch this much dialogue, only because he thought it necessary to know just how much he was supposed to be worth.
“5000 Coronan quid. No less. They’ve been turning over every stone looking for it.”
“You broke him.”
“They don’t know that.”
“They might just thank us.”
Chuckling, coughing and then shuffling. His feet being lifted. His tattered shirt crumpling as he is dragged into a burst of blinding light, the creak of doors opening and rapid, thunderous footsteps approaching.
Varian had never thought his uselessness would be the very thing that saved him, especially when he had only ever survived by being useful.
He can’t even bring himself to cry when he hears his father’s hoarse, despairing cries and endlessly worried calls of his name spill into his ears, and strong, familiar, warm arms grasp tightly around him. He only welcomes the darkness that follows - it swallows him whole, encases him like he had once encased the one holding him.
…
Varian sometimes finds himself staring at his bandaged toes for many moments on end. He’d find it easy to do, especially when Quirin tried sitting with him, talking to him and expecting him to talk back.
A lot had changed since then.
They hadn’t talked too much about the…incident. The first moments of aftermath had been swarmed in blind panic and relief - Rapunzel and Eugene had been running this way and that with angry, desperate demands and fights, sending waves of guards to apprehend those who had taken their alchemist and money. Quirin had been too busy fussing over Varian - which the boy was grateful for, because he had fallen unconscious far too often in the time between to register what the fuck was going on, and Varian is pretty damn sure he would have forgotten to breathe had Dad not been constantly hovering over him, brushing through his hair or cleaning his wounds or kissing his face.
They hadn’t registered that he had lost his voice, at first.
They had swarmed him, panicked and rapid and all at once, and he had shrunken away at the overstimulation in terror and pain, not ready to face anyone. Guards…Rapunzel, Eugene, Lance. Even the former Queen Arianna herself, he thinks. They had asked questions, catapulting him over and over with words and demands he couldn’t answer - “are you okay? Can you breathe? What did they do to you? What happened? What did they look like? Where were they headed? Did you tell them anything?”
He’s - he’s a scientist, and he’s supposed to be a better friend now to. He was supposed to answer all of them and their questions. But Varian had (stupidly, in his opinion) broken down, burying his face into his knees and wailing wordlessly and trembling uncontrollably until Dad had encompassed him in his arms again and barked at the others to give him space, back away .
Varian didn’t see the looks on their faces as the realisation hit only days later, when they had taken out the feeding tube and masks he was made to wear. He didn’t see the looks on their faces or hear what they said as he tried to speak but all that came out were struggling, strangled breaths and wheezes. He doesn’t remember too much of Eugene’s thumbs rubbing over his knuckles as the man slowly hushes him with soft, worried croons. He doesn’t remember Rapunzel’s sobbing and apologies. All he registered was that he had let them down.
And then everyone but Dad leaves. The voices in his room begin to die down, filter out one by one, and Varian is left alone. All to himself…feeling, in the very painful moment, despite all that he had endured… that all of him was still alive .
Varian was ever so grateful to Dad, despite the harrowing, sinking feeling at the pit of his stomach that he had betrayed his friends - he had given away crucial information, proven himself to be nothing but a burden to them, unraveled all of the hard work he had put into showing how much he had changed for the betterment of the kingdom. He’s grateful to Dad for pestering someone into lending him a wheelchair.
He was grateful to Dad for pressing his lips against his cold cheek, gently stroking his arm over his bandaged limbs and holding him close and tight, promising over and over again that he wouldn’t let go - that he’d never let go of Varian again. He was grateful to Dad for the long hours kept up at night rubbing his bigger palms against the boy’s bruised back, whispering soft consolations that lingered in Varian’s ears until sunrise. He was grateful to Dad for leaving the curtains closed and hugging him to his chest in the quiet hours of the morning, hands braced against his curled up form neatly tucked in his blanket.
But he wished that Dad hated him as much as he hated himself…as much as his friends seemed to. He wished that Dad left him alone with that shuttering familiarity of failure and loneliness, with abandonment and self-hate and betrayal.
Varian hated himself. He has hated himself before, for more stupid and insignificant incidents. But this takes the fucking cake, and with no way to truly communicate beyond quiet sniffles and bits of sign language he had managed to pick up to carry small necessary words between him and his father, he is left to hate himself even more.
He didn’t deserve this. Not after what happened. He didn’t deserve Dad, didn’t deserve to expect anything from his friends - didn’t deserve to live.
He couldn’t even - make up for it. He couldn’t do anything. He was going to be bed-ridden for at least a week or two, shivering and feverish and useless , and even after that he wouldn’t be able to write or invent or create anything. Oh, and all the while, HE COULDN’T SPEAK.
The burning frustration and grief at the centre of Varian’s chest can’t be carried in the quiet gestures of affection reserved for Dad, and they can’t be splayed by cold blades against his pale skin either, despite how much he thinks of hurting himself. He had already been a burden anyways, and hurting himself outwardly would add to whatever damage his body had took. If he could internalise anything to the point that he seemed fine and could seem to be…the person they needed him to be, Varian was ready to go as far as ingest the poisonous feelings and memories brewing in the back of his head, gulping it down and feeling it set his being on fire all over again.
…
Varian can’t remember the last time he felt this alone, though it feels more familiar than he’d like to admit. He has to talk sometime! They checked his throat - doctors and apothecaries and specialists - they saw there wasn’t anything that could physically, actually hurt his voice. They - the people who had kidnapped him - hadn’t choked him, or fed him much beyond bread. How could he simply lose his voice? It made no sense.
He needed to do so much with it. He needed - needed to fix whatever rift had grown between him and the rest of his once-friends (friends sounded too close and ex-friends too daunting, he stuck with once-friends. He begins to think not being able to speak is affecting how he thinks of language too.) Rapunzel and Eugene hadn’t visited once when he was awake ever since the kidnapping - Quirin had told him they had when he was sleeping and that they were “very worried”, but the man didn’t take Varian to the palace…mostly because their house was no surrounded by guards who monitored whoever came at their door and left.
“The queen’s and Captain’s orders.” Quirin had softly comforted Varian, when the boy had jolted in fright. “They want you safe. All of the time.”
More information came regarding his kidnapping, though honestly everyone else seemed much more interested in it than Varian was. Some enemies to the former king Frederic and queen Arianna who had been frustrated with Rapunzel’s coronation and reforms, and with Eugene’s new law enforcement, and apparently they had been tracking down Varian for months in the hopes of him leading them to the kingdom’s weaponry and treasury. Varian quietly wonders if the bustling townsfolk would have liked to publish what he had said if he could speak, splay it on propaganda posters about how great Rapunzel and Eugene were for ‘saving’ him and shit, play it off like a horror story to read to one’s child before bedtime with an equally stupid lesson, like ‘don’t talk to strangers’, ‘don’t wander out alone’, ‘don’t be that one idiot alchemist who got kidnapped in broad daylight and was too weak to fight back and betrayed his country because he couldn’t take a bit of hitting.’ It’s the only time he feels grateful for not being able to utter a sound.
But then again…maybe it was better for everyone that Varian didn’t speak. Maybe Rapunzel and Eugene were secretly relieved, delighted. If all Varian had been was a burden to them, his chatter incessant yet necessary - maybe beyond pity, there was nothing truly there, and they considered themselves free of him. After all, Varian had just given away crucial information. They might be tracking down those…kidnappers, making sure they were caught and didn’t hurt the kingdom because of Varian.
Back before his turn to villainy, too many townsfolk and passerby had joked when they thought Varian couldn’t hear them - that he “just couldn’t shut up.” He couldn’t keep secrets even if he wanted to - not because he was stupid in particular or even if he was in a tight situation. No - he’d betray little things - if not with the slip of a boastful tongue, then with a twitch of the eye.
The folks at the time were harmless. Just rolling their eyes, muttering annoyances or chuckling soft slights under their breath as they trudged past him.
But now those same whispers seem to come back and haunt him. Everything haunts him. Things he didn’t think he could remember, things he had long since come to peace with and even forgotten - they all stumble and stammer back into his torn mind, latching onto every corner and growing, branching, festering like parasites. He felt like a terrible person for it.
They sliver and squirm their way into his aching chest, and splinter every breath and sob - but he can’t bring himself to speak. It’s not as though his voice can somehow dispel it - course through his being and chain those doubts, cast them out, hurt them like they hurt him .
A dark part of him wants to scream and break things, wail about how unfair it felt even though it technically wasn’t - he had lost his voice after screaming pathetically and giving away precious secrets, he deserved what he had gotten.
Despite now being safe, Varian grows paranoid, untrusting - weaker.
Because - he doesn’t remember like he used to, he can’t talk or invent or be useful like he used to. He’s nothing .
Rapunzel’s and Eugene’s absence just about proves it. They knew it all along. The fact that no neighbours had come by proved it. The fact that they hadn’t talked to him in person proved it. There was the answer Varian had long anticipated and yet dreaded - while he had rot away in cold dark rooms and mocking jeers ringing in his ears.
And now that Varian can’t speak, he can’t ask them why.
Why pretend to be his friend when this had to happen?
Why befriend him, give him false hope and then turn their back on him after all?
Why did nearly everyone he cared for, everyone important, seemed to love to - to hurt him?
Maybe they hadn’t wanted Varian back. Maybe them getting Varian back was only strategic - they needed an alchemist and they now found out he was a useless alchemist, and barely an alchemist with his work so long out of commission, and now that he wasn’t an alchemist, not really - and - and he was already a terrible friend, for giving into torture and - Oh God, he couldn’t breathe -
…
Varian can’t remember the last time he felt so angry. Those bitches assigned him therapy.
Not - not continuous positive airway pressure, the way he had suggested before the Quirin had comfortingly squeezed his hand and the snotty doctor who got him had scoffed that “you can’t be the patient and scientist”. Not sleeping medicine or those new air pumps some happy-go-lucky scientist better than him had invented.
Fucking. Therapy.
Because what better way to help a person who couldn’t speak than by encouraging them that they were being listened to, right?
Except that was the - the fucking problem. Varian knew that he had been listened to, and more importantly, that he had failed to respond. He had failed to answer questions, failed to offer help, failed to compensate for his moments of betrayal and weakness. The failure of his failure still lingered, all the wrong memories and emotions in one place, and he couldn’t simply relieve the pressure or depressing ache by crying into someone else’s shoulder (he tried with Dad, and that only led to the man hugging Varian and crying to himself, which made Varian more guilty).
The therapist is okay, but nosy as hell, especially for someone who had been explicitly told that Varian can only answer with nods and shakes of the head. Varian doesn’t make it two days in without the guy asking stupid things, like “did the people who kidnap you say something that made you feel inadequate for your family?” And “do you think any past relationships are influencing how you think of yourself?”
That bastard. What sense did any of that make?
The only good thing is that there was a new doctor checking on his progress, and she had assigned him some sleeping pills and lessons to learn more sign language that both he and his therapist could attend. Varian’s wrists are healing - soon, he might be able to write again.
So…so it’s all good. He’s technically getting help. He should be getting better. He will…maybe.
He still needs the wheelchair - it’s better than being bunched up in Dad’s lap. He wishes he made some of it himself - any of it. He wishes he had been useful enough, alive enough to think up something cool and inventive, like a brain-computer interface or something to translate electrochemical waves through neurotransmitters into audible speech. He wishes he had been resourceful and independent enough to just…be his old self. To wake up one day and just decide to take on such a gruelling and exciting task with no fear or insecurity attached.
He just had to accept that Rapunzel and Eugene didn’t want to see him. The way Cass had decided not to see him before leaving for her glorious adventure after hurting him, the way the king hadn’t wanted to see his face after he had been arrested back after the Battle of Old Corona. He had to accept…that though he had somehow come out of that horrific situation alive, his usefulness to the kingdom and his relationship with his once-friends was now as dead as his voice.
No amount of bloody fists shattering mirrors, no amount of shrieking and sobbing, no amount of ‘therapy’ and stupid questions with no answers would resurrect that.
…
Varian can’t remember the last time he felt so tired.
The medicines give him good enough sleep - Dad gives him good enough embraces, curled up quietly against him in thought, probably thinking about him. Varian tries not to sleep before his bedtime - even though nowadays he feels like sleeping all the time. Good enough. He licks his lips, wanting to say the word. Wanting to say anything .
‘Good enough,’ he writes quietly onto his new notebook. New - it was supposed to be new, a blank slate like him apparently. He wasn’t using the words right - he didn’t use a lot of words right since he stopped talking and paused writing for so long.
‘Dad gives me…embraces that are good enough.’ He corrects in his notebook, rubbing his still sore wrist. The bones have started to mend, join together as though something in him is slowly awakening, despite how…unawake he feels.
‘Opposite of unawake’ - he writes, before biting his lip. He didn’t think ‘unawake’ was a real word. ‘Sleepy? Dead.’
Varian thinks of the word. He had thought about it before. A lot of things about him and his life were dead now, so he thought about it a lot. He still needed…the medicines, the wheelchair, the breathing exercises before sleep. He still needed the constant worries and theories about where his friends could be, still needed to stare at his toes and wonder if they were still really on.
The crow of birds above and the bristling of trees distract him, and he looks up, sucking in air as though to remind himself he was alive. That’s why he likes sitting outside now. He’s no longer afraid of going out without Dad, and he sometimes sits on the porch where Dad can see him, smile and wave at him.
He wonders if he had ever heard this much, back when he used to talk. Used to be able to talk, at least.
The world, it breathes - after such a long time of snuffing his light out and kicking him down, it almost begs him to speak.
And he has nothing to say. Sometimes, he doubts he’s even breathing. For fuck’s sake, you’re not dead. He reminds himself.
“Oh…my goodness…” He hears a soft, familiar gasp he never thought he would hear again, and he blinks in shock and incomprehension, head snapping up to see who it was.
In front of him stood the very people he had thought were avoiding him, Queen Rapunzel and Captain Eugene in their casual wear, seeming frazzled and taken aback by the sight of him.
“Varian! You’re - you’re here!” Rapunzel is the first to exclaim, an immediate watery smile of sentiment and relief sprouting across her face as she rushes forward and swoops her arms around his shoulders in that familiar way she used to - he missed it so much but - he didn’t really care. He shouldn’t, if he didn’t want to be disappointed.
Her words confuse Varian, and he bristles at her sudden response instead. Where else would he be?
Rapunzel pulls away, breathing shallow as her beaming eyes gleam with shared sorrow and worry, and they flit over his dishevelled but still somehow living form, as though taking in the sight of him for the first time this close. Maybe it was. “I - we thought- you used to be asleep often when we visited. But oh - wow - I’m so happy we got to see you like this. Are - how are you feeling?” She asks and stammers with an almost pleading look as her palms find his shoulders this time, but her face falls when Varian only stares back dumbfounded with a mixture of confusion, hurt and skepticism.
“…Varian, buddy?” Eugene finally steps in to ask, walking forward slowly before leaning on one knee and putting a hand on Rapunzel’s shoulder, leaning forward enough to be able to face the stunned boy.
Varian’s mind reels. They had…they had asked him a question, and they needed an answer, and he could write now so he wasn’t completely useless so he needed to give them an answer, but - but - he couldn’t think straight. What were they doing here? What did they want from him?
Instead, Varian instinctively points at a word on his notebook - “dead” - and the royals’ brows shoot up, necks snapping to give each other alarmed and saddened glances as they turn back to Varian with sympathetic eyes and tightened lips.
“You - you mean-?” Eugene almost dares to ask, and he grabs Varian’s wrists, checking them over. Varian at first stiffens and pulls away, before realising that Eugene had assumed he was hurting himself. Why…? Even if he was, why would this man care?
‘Sorry. I’m sorry. Wanted to write earlier but couldn’t. Sorry, sorry, sorry.’ Varian writes on the notebook and shows it to them, pointing. Not angrily, he wasn’t angry - anger meant blame, and he wouldn’t dare blame them. He begins to break off pieces of himself in the hopes of relieving the crushing weight in his chest, allow every sentiment and fear to seep into the page and pour out his deepest sorrows. ‘So sorry for telling them and causing you trouble. So sorry for ruining our friendship. Sorry for being kidnapped. Sorry for being an idiot. For not remembering their faces.’
The royals seem - upset by his statement, taken aback and even more disheartened that he was talking about that in particular. Rapunzel brushes a strand of brown hair behind her ear, face as pale as Eugene’s and disturbed as she sits in front of Varian at the porch, about eye-level to him as she lowers her voice.
“Oh, Varian, don’t you say you’re sorry. Why would you apologise for - for being kidnapped? I’m - I’m so sorry. We’re so sorry. They - they hurt you in ways they shouldn’t have, and no one can blame you for acting the way you did.” Rapunzel gasps first, tears beginning to leak into her words as Eugene bites his lip, seeming to hold in his own sentiment. “
‘But you can. And now I can’t properly be sorry for it because I’m useless .’ Varian frantically underlines, hand starting to shake as his breaths quicken and tears fill his eyes. What if they mocked him when he cried? Ran away and told him they’d come another time?
Eugene gasps, as though Varian had said something unthinkable and forbidden, not something that he internalised and deeply believed every day. “Varian - buddy, why would you write that? You’re not useless. And you don’t need to make up for anything - what happened there wasn’t your fault.”
‘Am. Can’t remember, can’t work or study or memorize. Can’t invent. I am. A. Fucking useless idiot bastard boy.’ Varian disjointedly writes, a part of his mind yelling at him to stop - it was the same one that had thrashed and protested against his kidnappers, that had gotten him hurt so many times, and if Varian had begun hating every inch of himself, then this had definitely been the first thing to hate. He couldn’t believe he just wrote that in front of his friends. How stupid would they think him now?
“Wh-What does that say?” Rapunzel approaches, squinting at his messy writing, and Varian panics, stealing the view from her gaze and tearing at the paper in tears of frustration. His once-friends protest and try to salvage it, but Varian robs them of the opportunity, suddenly feeling relieved and powerful that he had been able to control that much. “Varian! I was reading that!”
Varian sticks his tongue out, and the first tear spills.
It’s a useless tear - not a word or a voice, not an answer, not anything that really helps. But Rapunzel’s eyes soften and she gently holds out a wavering finger, catching the tear and stroking her finger carefully along his cheek, as though silently asking for permission to touch his face. “Hey there…”
Varian leans into her hand, even though he knows he shouldn’t. He looks up at her questioningly.
“All of you is precious. It doesn’t matter how - how useful you are to us, or for your inventions and puzzles and schemes. The best thing you can do is just …be here today. With us.”
Eugene offers a trembling smile as well, and he places an ungloved hand over Varian’s own, letting the boy hold his pencil and squeezing his knuckles slowly. “Varian…the fact that you’re alive, and here now - struggling but strong, messy but still whole - is more than enough. You don’t have to make up for the lesser things - mistakes and money are the least of our worries here. All we care about is you.”
Through his tears, Varian stares at them longingly before shakily scribbling a word. ‘Thought…you hated me. For talking…wrong. And now I can’t talk. Why didn’t you come? Why why why?’
Eugene’s eyes water, and he turns and clenches his jaw, Rapunzel showing a similar hesitance. “We’re…we’re sorry for that too, Varian. We see how that could have been misleading. We just… wanted to make sure you and everyone else was safe, and we didn’t really know…how to handle all of it.” Upon seeing Varian’s expression fall, Eugene quickly leans forward. “Not because you caused us trouble or anything! We just…”
“I didn’t know what to say. We had already failed so much, being good enough friends for you and helping you in your time of need.” Rapunzel confesses. “We didn’t know…how we could help without making things seem worse…without making you feel like…making you hurt more than you already have.”
Eugene holds him by the shoulders, rubbing against the familiar spot and looking Varian in the eyes. “We want to support you, help you - we still do. We’re going to make this right, Varian. Just know that - we would never abandon you.” He says sincerely, almost pleadingly - as though he’s the one desperately offering answers for Varian’s unspoken questions, as though - for once, Varian doesn’t have to talk at all.
Varian’s brows knit together, even as he feels them closing in on him for an embrace. At first, he limply sinks between them, letting their shoulders press into his cheeks and their combined warmth cocoon them. He had suffered so much with himself and his father, to the point that he wonders if there’s even time for Rapunzel and Eugene to come in now and aid him in his journey. Maybe they still can. Maybe they weren’t too late now.
‘Not getting much better. Keep…running in circles. It hurts.’ Varian writes. ‘Dad helps and everyone helps but it hurts and I think I’m bad for not getting better when everyone wants me too - I don’t feel right and I can’t speak even though I know I should be able to. What’s wrong with me?’
Rapunzel’s lips twitch sadly as she pulls away. “Varian - it’s going to be okay.” She tries to calm him. Varian’s hands run over the page, crumpling it violently in his small fists. “It’s okay to feel as you do, as long as you know you’re allowed to feel.”
‘Not.’ Varian writes, shaking his head quickly. He’s not doing this right.
“Yes, it is.” Eugene tries to say, but Varian scribbles, circles, underlines and points frantically at the word.
‘Hate you.’ Varian inwardly seethes then, pencil beginning to break in his grip as he stabs the tip into the page. ‘Gave me fucking therapy. Didn’t visit. HATE YOU BOTH. All of you. If I had my voice back it would be the first thing I said. Hate you.’
He breathes heavily - this is the part where they get angry, this is the part they leave. No wonder he doesn’t have his voice back yet - he had used it for wretched things, and this was his punishment. He should be grateful they came for him.
Rapunzel lowers her voice in sadness, trembling. “Varian…” She seems at a loss of words, hurt by the statement. “It’s…it’s okay.”
‘NOT .’ Varian pauses, before swiping. ‘ I’M. WEAK.'
Eugene finally grabs the page, swiping it from him and holding him by the upper arms. Varian freezes at his stern expression, but eases back into the hold. “Listen here, Varian Quirinson.” He says with the command of an unfamiliar captain, and yet with the genuine worry of an old friend. There is not a moment of disgust or impatience in his voice. “You are one of the strongest, smartest kids I know and have ever known. And I’ve met a lot of kids. If you’re feeling the way you do right now, it’s not because you’re weak, it’s because you’re tired . And you know what? You’re allowed to be!” He points a finger to his chest, and Varian blinks in surprise. “And you’re allowed to think that we’re jerks who need to make it up to you, and you’re allowed to throw this at us and kick us out the front door. You’re not weak for not being able to forget all of the terrible things that have happened, or forgetting the good things that have. You’re not weak for not being able to do as much about your situation as you expected. You’re not weak for having needed help .” The man’s eyes glisten. “You can deal with this however you like, but please-“ he pleads, letting go of a stunned Varian’s arms. “Don’t take this out on yourself, or think that we’ll think any less of you for something like this…Okay?” He looks to see if the kid caught any of that.
Varian stares back at him dumbfounded, tears blurring his vision.
Rapunzel pauses, before sighing and putting a hand on his wheelchair to steady them on the porch. Her eyes sparkle with a hidden wisdom and empathy, of someone who has known dark rooms and isolation and torment before. “I don’t need you to speak or think or even feel right if you can’t.” She whispers, brushing a strand of hair behind his ear. “I just want you to breathe . Because I know you want and need to, too.”
Rapunzel and Eugene haven’t really answered most of his questions, and what they said was not even a straight answer, but it’s all Varian needs before he throw one arm around her neck and the other around Eugene’s without thinking, pulling both of them close to him for fear of losing them again - for daring to think that he’d lose this again, even when they both had insisted he hadn’t lost anything.
He doesn’t remember everything about the embrace however much he wants to - he vaguely recalls inhaling their scent, beginning to shudder with sobs when he feels Eugene’s familiar hand at the back of his head pressing his forehead against his shoulder. He recalls Rapunzel’s soft velvet pressed against his cheek, and her careful quick kiss to his messy hair. He remembers Dad coming in surprise to find them all bunched up on the porch, panicking and thinking they were his kidnappers before realising it was only the queen and captain. He remembers spending an evening finally being able to smile truthfully, being able to listen to his father and friends talking and joking about even though they didn’t expect him to answer, but still acknowledging him there, waiting for him to write or sign with his hands. He remembers, before falling asleep, the silent promise that they’d come back the next day, and that they’d come more often and write to him when they couldn’t.
It doesn’t erase the abandonment and insecurities he had felt, the betrayal and loneliness.
But it’s enough to begin to ease the knot in his chest, and tightness in his throat - that maybe he would be alright, and that he had kept more from the kidnapping that ‘ruined’ his life, that he had been more than the failure of his own expectations and the scorn of others’. That he had meant more just existing - and that that was enough, with no strings attached or conditions to be fulfilled. It’s a step forward.
Maybe him confessing to his kidnappers really had just been something that couldn’t be changed. That maybe him suffering wasn’t meant to be a compensation for anything - that it just needed to be a time that passed as any other time he had struggled, with more healing and coping and learning new things about himself and others. That maybe he’d come out of this alright, just as the times before, even though his priorities and perception of how ‘useful’ he was to others had changed. Maybe…in a way, his kidnappers had been right. All of him was changing - not broken but still mending.
A knot seems to loosen in Varian’s chest, unraveling as he breathes for what feels like the first time in years. The fire coursing in his veins, the distant ache of knowing what had happened to him and what he had lost begins withering as his tears drip freely into his pillow - tears of happiness, this time, tears like rain.
Varian still can’t speak. Someday, he might. And Varian can’t wait to make it a memory with his friends and family, one that despite all they had been through together and apart, he would never forget. All of it.