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Varian had never really been right.
Not in a town that had shunned and shamed him his whole childhood for being a wizard and a madman.
Not with his science, with almost every single one of his experiments ending in a giant failure, shame and an explosion.
And not in his own goddamn body, with a beautifully blossomed and perfect chest that never felt his own, a name that always sounded like a curse to him when it was called, those big round eyes and soft heart lips of a girl who was eating him alive every single time he looked in the mirror.
It took him years to stop seeing that girl, to stop drowning behind her name, to let himself stop forcing all the lies and hiding and yet there were still so many days he didn’t feel over that guilt. Especially on those fucking days his body just had to remind him that girl wasn’t really gone. She would literally and metaphorically stab him in the back with mind-debilitating cramps that came straight up from hell, waking up to sticky pools of crimson that left him feeling faint and disgusted at the nauseating feeling of it flowing like a gushing river into the rags he stuffed down his pants all fucking week.
The courses of his periods were absolute hell, a disgusting bloody reminder that no matter how hard he tried. He would never truly be right.
But he ignored it as much as he could, fake it till you make it was truly a wonderful motto and he was extremely grateful for the perfect blonde distraction currently wrapping his lanky arms tighter around his waist.
Now he and Hugo were always very diligent workers, always triple checking all their formulas while running through experiments and spending days holed up downstairs in their lab perfecting their machines and forgetting the existence of food and sleep (which was actually pretty helpful with Varian’s Aunt Flo problem but basic human needs and his sister frowned down on that so phooey) as they worked, living on nothing but the presence of each other and theyir respectively beautiful pest children. It was their perfect love language.
But they were entitled to a… proper little break every once in a while.
His lips were warm and soft as Varian bit down on the gently with a fluttery heart, hands around the boys shoulders as he was pulled closer while trying to pull his choppy blonde hair out of that dumb ponytail and Hugo whined softly like a little puppy with pleasure. For a guy who hated having his hair down, he sure had this beautiful little thing for hair pulling.
Good Sun above how Hugo always made things better, after a shitty morning where he woke up feeling weirdly bloated, tired and kinda in the mood to overthrow Corona again. Varian was scolded by stupid Nigel for being late to the lab, cracked his goggles by leaving them on the floor last night and literallywaking up on the wrong side of the bed and caused not one, not two but three fricken explosions that left him covered in goo and ash.
Hugo (who had been managing the Library and dodging Eugene’s endless requests for a de-aging potion all morning) finally walked in on him looking like he was about to strangle poor Ruddiger and smoke pouring out his ears. He somehow worked his gay magic to get through his fiery anger without getting attacked by lava, cleaned him up in the most annoying bitchy way possible while teasing him. Which led to them now making out on the chemical soaked table, Varian sitting comfortably on his lap and Hugo softly tracing the freckles on his back under his shirt.
The kisses were warm and soft and left his cheeks feeling pleasantly hot as Hugo brought one hand up to trace the freckles on his face this time and Varian tugged a little harder of the loose auburn roots of his hair, tangling them between his fingers with delighted hums, but gasped under his breath as a sharp stab of pain shot through his stomach and their lips parted. Hugo half opening his eyes still buzzed on the other’s presence and not hearing the sudden pain behind his voice.
“You good Var?”
“Y-yeah, sorry. I’m fine” Please no, not right now. “Kiss me again?”
Hugo smiled and happily obliged, and he tried to lose himself in the comforting love of his boyfriend again. Trying to focus on warm touches rather than the burning aches that would shoot strike of lightning hot pain that would leave him whimpering under his breath, he was fine. She wasn’t here, he was here, with Hugo. Not bleeding.
His body was right, it was his body and he was just grumpy because of all the shit this morning. It was was his body with his boyfriend and he wasn’t going to bother him just because he was scared and sore. Hugo was making him feel better, everything was fine.
But with each minor movement the pain seemed to get worse, and he became increasingly aware of it’s disgusting familiarity that churned his stomach and him wanna push Hugo away to just curl up in a little ball and die.
Please no, go away
But she wouldn’t leave, he felt her chest swelling under the bandages and groaning with pain. Felt her tears bloom in the corners of his eyes as the gentle kisses faded to nothing in the sharp stabbings in his gut, the feeling of slowly leaking down-
No no no no no shit-
She He was still sitting on Hugo’s lap, lips locked and hips hugged closely together as Varian felt that disgustingly warm blood flow out like spilled barrels from his legs and embarrassment and fear choked his heart. “Hugo- Hugo get off-”
Immediately -thank the Sun- Hugo pulled away, taking his arms away from Varian’s sides and he jumped out of his lap like a scared cat but nearly cried as his worst fear was confirmed. His favorite pants were soaked with crimson red and sticking to his inner thighs, and a spot on the pants of Hugo’s signature green suit was sporting the same damn stain and made it look like the poor blonde had pissed fucking cranberry juice.
She bled on Hugo… I bled on Hugo.
“O-Oh Sun, I’m so sorry I-” Hot tears burned his eyes, pain still radiating from his abdomen. “I didn’t mean to, I’ll get you new ones I promise Hugh, I’m just so fucking sor-”
“Hey, hey… Var-baby it’s okay” He jumped down from the table and grabbed Varian’s shaking hands and bringing them up to cup his cheeks, wiping away tears with his thumb and smiling softly. “I’m not mad. But why didn’t you tell me?”
“I-I didn’t think, it just started and I don’t like it.” His voice was broken with sobs, leaning into Hugo’s warm hands with guilt weighing heavier than the persistent cramping. “Why can’t I just be right.”
He cried harder at the last word, feeling like a whiny baby as Hugo slowly pulled him into his arms and Varian clung to him with all his might, smearing his disgusting tears on his poor boyfriends shirt as if you haven’t ruined enough already you disgusting waste.
“Oh Bluebird no” He said softly, stroking his hair as Varian cried “You are right love, you are right in absolutely every way. No matter what.” He sunk deeper into Hugo, the cramps dulling slightly in the warmth of this love a freak like him didn’t deserve.
“And I know I can't change this” He said, vaguely gesturing to the soiled red on both their pants. “But I'm never gonna judge you for it, never in a million years.”
This only made him cry harder. Sun above he didn’t deserve this, didn’t deserve a guy so kind like Hugo. He deserved shame, hatred, to be silenced and shunned for even dare to cry about this when he brought it upon himself for being a blasphemous freak.
You killed her. This is because you killed the girl you were supposed to be you disgusting scum.
“Hey. Goggles look at me.” Hugo titled his head up so Varian would look him in the eyes, even with his vision still burred with tears and shame and pain he could see the genuine love in Hugo’s eyes. “Whatever’s running through that beautiful little mind of yours is lying, you’re doing nothing wrong my love. Absolutely nothing.”
“I-I-I’m sorry…” he still had to apologize, to himself, to Hugo, to her. “It hurts…”
“It’s okay, I’m right here. Let’s get you more comfortable okay?”
He wanted to argue, say he still had work and could just take the day off and waste Hugo’s time because of his stupid feelings and bodily functions. But another strike of lightning went through his gut and sent another flush of blood flowing through as Hugo picked him up gently into his arms and held him close to his chest. Whispering soft words of love he still didn’t deserve as they made their way up to their room with the stares of random passerby burning into his very soul.
The bed was softer than clouds, hugging his sore body with a groan of the spring as he let out a shaky sigh, eyes still red with tears and cheeks hot with shame. “Ruddiger already put a towel since I know you’re probably too tired to change right now, can you just sit up for a second?”
He let Hugo and his adorable baby boy (to which he apologized over and over for his anger at him earlier) help him sit up in the bed Hugo raised his arms to lift up his shirt. “What are you doing?”
“If we’re gonna take a nap -which we are, no arguments- you’ll be a lot more comfortable without the binder honey.”
His heart dropped and he wrapped his arms around his bandaged chest prospectively. His chest hurt like absolute hell, sore and restrained yet he could feel the swells he’d hated since the day they appeared bludge and bruise against the too-tight wrapping. He didn’t wanna see them right now, didn’t want yet another reminder of that girl still haunting his life.
But Hugo was right, and he really wanted to breathe right now.
“O-Okay…” He let his arms fall back down around his sides and as he felt the bandages get looser and loser, he felt the soreness burst like baby supernovas in his chest when it was finally released from it’s binds. Feeling purple and bruised when it was just angry red with the lines of too-tight bandages creasing between them and the sight of the round breasts made him wanna sob all over again.
“Here” his love handed him a shirt- one of Hugo’s comically oversized sleep shirt that looked huge on him and fit like a goddamn tent over Varian. His favorite.
I’m not gonna cry again, I’m not gonna cry again, I’m not gonna cry again.
“You wanna be lil spoon?” he nodded, laying back down in this heaven of a shirt and waited for Hugo to scoop him back up in his arms, and the boy took a second longer than Varian expected but when he did lay down beside him. His hands held a tiny little mouse who crawled up next to his aching abdomen. Her regular gold plating glowing a little red with the most perfect warmth Varian had ever felt and his pain seemed to magically fade away.
“What-”
“Inner heaters that keep her system warm enough for Ingvarr also can be turned up a bit to make her the perfect hand warmer, used to use it all the time as a kid” Hugo hugged his hands around little glowing Olivia, keeping her in place as she let out little smoking snores and Varian in turn buried his knees in the crook of Hugo’s and felt the warmth of his chin resting on his forehead. Pain giving away to the warmth now resting at his side and the easy breaths flowing through his body.
Because it was his. She was still there, she would ways be there, her ghost, her pain and all thoses years she stayed in hiding, sulently suffering in the cage that was both their bidy will always be there, no matter how hard he tried to push her away. He wasn't getting rid of her.
“Love ya Var, always”
…But maybe that was okay, because he was still him. Even with the guilt of her ghost on his shoulders and the body that would never be quite right in the way he wanted.
But there was this boy, this stupid fake blonde with his big dumb glasses and big dumb smile whenever he would insult Eugene on his grey hairs or ramble with pride about whatever new feature he'd added to Olivia that week.
This boy who held him when he cried over the darkest nightmares or when he was frustrated over a pesky equation, who always cut his hair before it got uncomfortably long and spent hours each day helping him design different binders for the chest Varian hated but Hugo loved in every form and still tied the bandages when he preferred that.
His Hugo, who loved him beyond his body. Hugo, who saw the parts of him that were right.
“I love you too idiot”