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Eugene is having a perfectly pleasant morning when Varian’s pointy nosed boyfriend bursts into the kitchen like his ass is on fire.
It isn't- Eugene checks twice because there HAD been an unfortunate incident concerning Hugo and some fireworks that haunt Corona to this day and then he has to mentally slap himself for inadvertently checking out Hugo’s flat ass.
“EUGENE!” Hugo shouts and that's when Eugene knows that it's going to be a Day. Pointy never calls him Eugene, it's always Fitzherbert or class traitor.
“Hugo,” Eugene says back, calmly stirring his carrot soup.
(He thinks it's carrot soup. No telling what the palace cook puts in their meals these days. But it's orange and tastes salty so. Carrots.)
“You're looking unusually…” he squints. “Athletic.”
Hugo is red to the face and out of breath. His wide eyes narrow. “Varian’s gone,” he yells into the mostly empty kitchen.
Fladkis and Victor, both part of the morning kitchen staff, don't even blink in their direction. Eugene supposed that after the past five years shenanigans, it would take something a bit more serious than one of the palace alchemist misplacing his boyfriend to faze them.
“Have you checked-”
Yes.”
Eugene shoves another spoonful of soup into his mouth. “You don't even know what I was going to say.”
“I've checked everywhere.” Hugo’s right eye is twitching disturbingly. “He’s been kidnapped.”
How the turntables, Eugene thinks with no little amusement. As a former kidnapper himself, there were very few people who could manage to get the drop on Varian. In fact, the only person Eugene can recall who has is Cassandra. Who barely counts because she was hopped up on rock juice and evil ghost wizards. Wizard ghosts. Creepy girl children.
Whatever.
“That,” Eugene says, “is very unlikely.”
“I know. That's why I'm worried.” Hugo glares at him. “Are you gonna help me or not?” he demands which is how Eugene ends up spending his morning traipsing through the forest in the sweltering summer heat.
“Really, Rapunzel is the better candidate for this,” Eugene says- even though he’s relatively renowned when it comes to finding lost things. Ha.
“You wanna tell Queen Rapunzel that her baby brother got kidnapped by bandits the day before his birthday?” Hugo deadpans. He pushes a branch out of the way and almost smacks Eugene in the face when he lets go of it. “I like my eardrums intact, thank you.”
He reluctantly has to admit that Hugo has a point. Although Rapunzel is more prone to silent anger than shout-y anger.
But Hugo’s neck is burning pink and he’s studiously avoiding Eugene’s eyes, which immediately makes him…suspicious.
“There-” Hugo points to a note painted in…blood? blood on the Snuggly Ducklings street sign.
HELP!!! -varian.
And just over the “i” in “varian” there's a squiggly heart. Eugene is going to strangle this kid.
“He's fucking with you.”
“That's what I thought, but look!” Hugo points at the ground. Two pairs of tracks that abruptly turns into one and a following indent in the ground that could be a body being dragged. Maybe.
Eugene looks at the stupid note. Walks toward and runs his finger over the drying red. It's raspberry juice.
“DON'T LICK IT!” Hugo screeches, loud enough to be heard in Koto.
“It's berry juice.”
Hugo visibly deflates. “Oh,” he says and looks so relieved that Eugene flushes in embarrassment. Pointy will not make him feel feelings today goddammit.
“When did you see him last?” Eugene asks instead.
“This morning. At dawn.” Pointy is flustered all of the sudden and you know what? Eugene doesn't want to know.
“Did he say anything…?”
If anything, Hugo looks more embarrassed. “Uhm.”
“About where he was going or what he was gonna do today?”
“Scavenger hunt,” Hugo says through his teeth and then turns darker red.
Honestly if this kid turns another pigment in the next five minutes he's gonna die of…something. Nothing pretty and then Eugene’s gonna have to explain to Varian that his boyfriend died via blushed too hard.
“Scavenger hunt,” Eugene feels like he's missing something. “What kind of-”
“It's a thing we do for…his birthday and stuff. He leaves a bunch of clues and I solve them.”
That sounds incredibly boring, but also something Varian would be into. The solving part, not the leaving shit around for Hugo to find. “Why are you getting the fun part when it's his birthday?”
Hugo scowls. “None of your business. Look, can you just help me find him, please?”
Finding him seems to be more troublesome than Eugene had been bargaining for. Turns out their little “scavenger quest” was more in the vein of “hide and seek: the bandit edition which rapidly turns into “hide and seek: CULT edition” when they finally stumble upon the lair Varian is—presumably—being held in.
“We don’t know that it’s a cult,” Pointy whispers, face smushed against Eugene’s arm where he’s trying to lean in. The cave entrance doesn’t allow for a lot of room and Eugene is the Superior Adult Here, so he gets to see what’s happening first.
“They’re wearing robes.”
“Doesn’t mean they’re a cult!”
They turn the corner and find themselves in a massive room with a stone alter in the center bracketed by torches. There’s five people in white robes holding hands and chanting. Eugene gives Hugo a flat expression.
“Aw fuck.”
Varian is tied down to the stone alter, shrieking so loudly it's a wonder they didn't hear him from miles away. Eugene decides to be amused rather than furious that cultists choose him of all people to be part of their ritual sacrifice.
“Nice robe,” he tells Varian, and is confused when Hugo lets out an embarrassed squeak. “They give those out for free?”
“We do not,” says Cultist #3, hands on her hips, instead of, like, attacking him and Hugo when they entered the room.
And then Eugene realizes that Varian is NAKED underneath the nice satin robe and that he now had to kill everyone in this room.
“YOU MADE HIM GET NAKED FOR YOUR RITUAL?!” he shrieks. Hugo begins rapidly shaking his head and making cut off motions across his neck, but no one pays him any mind.
One of the cultists squints at him. “Uh, he was like this when we found him.”
Varian abruptly stops struggling. “Oh SHIT,” he says- the first phrase that isn't I'M GONNA FUCKING KILL YOU I COULD DO IT I ONCE BLEW UP CORONA WITH A MURDER MACHINE out of Varian’s mouth since they found him. “Eugene stop thinking,” he orders, eyes big as dinner saucers but it's too late.
“HUGO WAS YOUR SCAVENGER HUNT A SEX THING.”
Cultist #2 and #3 exchange a glance.
“NO!” Hugo screeches back at approximately the same volume. Varian thunks his head back against the stupid stone alter like he’s trying to knock himself into a different dimension via brain damage.
Cultist #1—and Eugene has him labeled as #1 because he’s the one with the sword (not because he’s tall, dark and intimidatingly handsome, that would be ridiculous)—scowls.
“He’s supposed to be a virgin, idiots!” he yells at Cultists #2 and #3 respectively, who in turn look sheepish.
“It’s weird to ask people that!”
“Now we have to start from scratch!”
“Nobody’s starting from scratch!” Eugene can feel a stress headache coming on top of the stress headache that was already aggravating his Hugo-induced migraine. Why is Eugene’s family like this.
He draws his sword. “I’ll take care of the ho—uh, the tall one,” he tells Hugo, “you take care of the others.”
Predictably, Hugo’s definition of “taking care of the others” is to throw his beanstalk body straight at them. This is the guy that Varian wants.
“Oh my gods, that was hot,” Varian says, eyes wide as Hugo squawks and kicks Cultist #4 in the face from where he’s slumped against the wall, upside-down. Eugene is going to have to invest in a healer to melt his brain when this is all over.
He quickly disarms his opponent and knocks him out. Once they see that their leader is out of commission, the other cultists surrender hilariously quickly.
“Honestly, the sex thing kinda bummed me out for the whole thing anyway,” Cultist #5 said, holding his hands out obediently for Eugene to bind. “Like there’s just some shit you don’t wanna know.”
Eugene grits his teeth. “Can we stop talking about this?” he snaps, over Hugo saying, “you weren’t supposed to get kidnapped for real! I can’t have celebratory sex over rescuing you when I’m having heart palpitations, Goggles.”
“Consider this, Hugo. I’m tied down to a ritualistic alter.”
Eugene wants to die. He lifts the hot, unconscious cultist up and over his shoulder and motions for the other one’s to follow. They don’t even protest, wanting to get as far away from whatever the fuck those two having going on.
“I’m taking them back to the castle,” he says, over his shoulder. Varian is giving what Eugene assumes is his version of…bedroom eyes?! Oh GOD. And Hugo is biting his lip and—
You know what, Eugene has had enough family bonding for the day.