Chapter Text
I can do this.
For the past twelve hours now Varian had been telling himself that. Not that he didn’t wholeheartedly believe in his abilities, there was no doubt about that, but at a certain point, talking himself up was the only thing he could do to keep himself going. After what he had been through, and what he was going through now, it was only natural that he needed a mantra to cling to when there was nothing else left.
It all began earlier that night—he supposed it was daylight by now—when this unrelenting hell began. When, after putting his heart on the line for help and having it stomped on, he made it back to Old Corona through a raging blizzard only to find out that the worst he’d feared had come true. Good, maybe clumsy intentions gone out of control, abandonment from one of the only friends he even really had, it all came to head as he had returned too late with too little, and was met with the face of his grave mistake. There in front of him was his father Quirin, petrified in an impenetrable amber encasement of Varian’s own creation—he would never forget the stomach-dropping sensation of reality crashing into him like a bucket of ice cold water to the face, and of the loneliness just as unforgiving weighing him down to the ground as he cried endlessly for no one to hear. It tore a part of his soul out, and even after he finally pulled himself up and dried his tears, that sensation clung to him and sunk into his bones as he made a promise he already knew was biting off more than he could chew: he was going to free his father at all costs, no matter what he had to put at stake. His soul, his sanity, his health…
It wouldn’t be long before Varian had to prove the sacrifices he was willing to make. The many hours he’d just spent in the worst blizzard Corona had seen in centuries were all a blur to him, though he could still feel the after effects. He was simply too busy to take a warm bath or change out of his clothes, or even so much as take his shoes off, sloshy with snow as they were. How could he be bothered? There was no time to lose, not if he was the only one now that his father could depend on. At first, adrenaline was running so high that the numbness in his fingers and toes hardly bothered him. He would rub his hands together while he watched for results or tuck them under his arms if he wasn’t preoccupied, but it was to him a minor annoyance that didn’t get in his way. And though he began to develop a worsening cough with each passing hour, it took a good long while before he even spared a thought to it; just to remind himself to cover so he wouldn’t contaminate anything. By hour eight his knees were getting wobbly and his focus was drifting, but undeterred as ever, he poured himself over his blueprints, swearing what had become the only barrier between himself and giving up: I can do it. I can do it.
Now the strike of the turning hour on the clock rang inside his skull like someone had sounded a high-pitched tuning fork as hard as they could right in his ear. The first few hours flew by without hardship, and a decent amount of data had been reaped from his experiments—that was to say, nothing was working. Which was still data nonetheless. But after so long of his best efforts consistently leaving him right where he pitifully began, it became clearer and clearer just how utterly ill he felt.
Up until now he had been perfectly content ignoring his chills getting worse and worse by the second. Then an unexpected shudder caused him to drop a perfectly good test tube of high-potency criotine that almost burned a hole through his pant leg, and he could no longer say he was unbothered. Still, not one to be fazed by lab mishaps, this was carelessly remedied by tying a loose blanket over himself like a cloak, and he was either too stubborn or too out of it to realize how this half-baked solution was doing more harm than good by dragging around his feet and causing him to trip left and right. Soon he even decided to give up on detailing the results of his many failed trials in writing altogether because holding a pencil was a challenge, and reading over his scribbles afterwards was impossible. Unfortunately, committing it to memory was no good either. Varian found himself mixing the same unstable compounds and getting the same explosion in his face, building frustration in the pit of his stomach until he felt ready to explode himself if he wasn’t too tired to do it. In any other circumstance, he would have been happy to take a nap and clear his head, come back to it all later with a fresh mind. This was his father . He couldn’t break his promise like a certain someone did to him. He couldn’t waste time napping. He just…had to work a little harder, that was all. A different chemical reaction, some new data, anything might lead to a breakthrough. There was no time to rest. He was so close…probably.
“Come on, Varian…” he panted, steadying himself against a wooden table that teetered under his full weight. That normally undetectable rocking motion alone had brought on a terrible nauseous spell. Resting his aching neck to the side, he caught an unwanted glimpse of his reflection in a sheet of scrap metal; the hair he took pride in was a sweaty snow-dampened mess about a shade or two duller than its original color, and a rash of feverish red splotches burned across his nose and cheeks. Undaunted (so he convinced himself), he swallowed rather painfully before pushing the sheet out of his sight, then straightened up his back with all the determination he could muster in his condition. Sadly, determination couldn’t stop him from caving right back over when he was hit by chills so strong he thought he’d never stop shivering. “Come on, you got this. It’s all gonna be over soon—“ He cut himself off with dry, congested coughing that he was frankly too exhausted to lift his arm up to cover anymore. The fit racked his small body and left him seeing stars, the feeling of floating in a sea of blackness bleeding into him—hopeless, answerless blackness with no end in sight. “You…You got this…”
He ached all over. Every muscle was sore and stiff from the cold, but if he had to choose, he preferred that to the contradictory sensation of fire under his chin and over his cheeks like someone was holding a match to them. He gave himself a break just to stand there and collect himself, and soon found out that the longer he allowed himself to rest his eyes, the more he wanted to just crawl into bed and sink into sleep. So with a deep breath that came back out coughing and hacking, he forced himself back over to the corner table to ponder his blueprints, or more fittingly to stand there and pretend he could read. Ruddiger weaved through his ankles wildly, pipping and squeaking only to be pushed to the side by Varian’s foot. “I don’t have time to play right now,” he chastised through several attempts to clear his throat. Sadly, it only made his progressing cough worse. “Can’t you see this is important? ” In response, Ruddiger chomped at his ankle. Varian let out a loud yelp, but before he could give the little raccoon delinquent what for, he took a glance down at the ground where Ruddiger was running about and discovered the true intent behind his theatrics.
The floor beneath him was shaking—it actually took him aback for a moment that he hadn’t noticed at all until now. He supposed that while his own entire body was shaking from fatigue, it was easy enough not to feel it from an external force. Across the room he found that the boiler was madly steaming and rattling like a volcano, fit to erupt any moment from overload and destroy his entire lab, himself with it; more importantly, all his hard work with it. He had to have left it on for hours at this point, too caught up in desperation and maybe a little stubbornness to see. Frantically, he made for the handle to shut it off but he tripped on the oversized blanket hanging over his shoulders, crashing onto the floor beside it with just enough strength left to reach up his trembling arm and force the switch down. The power exerted alone to simply pull brought an overwhelming nausea up into his throat that he forced away by screwing his eyes shut tight. It didn’t help that even through his gloves, the heat that radiated off the machine was so intense he could have sworn he was holding onto pure fire. As the boiler slowly began to cool and the tremors came to a stop, Varian raised himself just above his knees and watched the sweat slide down his forehead to his chin and then silently drip onto the ground, a defeated pattern of droplets that stared back at him, and somewhere in the back of his mind he knew he didn’t only just now break into a sweat. Ruddiger timidly padded over to his side and was met with Varian’s glassy bloodshot eyes, his bottom lip quivering.
“What am I supposed to do…?” he whispered, hiccuping and wiping uselessly at the tears rolling down his cheeks—they felt strangely cool against his skin. He could work himself to death and it wouldn’t be enough. By the looks of it, this was beyond him; how it broke his heart to admit that, for there was no one left to turn to but him. “What the hell am I supposed to…D-Dad’s gonna be…”
Thirteen hours. Thirteen hours now he had been working nonstop, wracking his brain for a solution, hadn’t even had the time still to change out of his snow-soaked clothes and honestly, he didn’t care when he was too numb to feel how cold he was anymore. He just wanted to sleep. He wanted desperately to go to bed and wake up to all of this being solved somehow. But he couldn’t, and it wouldn’t. Little by little he felt the weight of his despair dragging him back to the ground just like the moment when he first found his father. It thickened like tar in his chest but to cry at all was agony. The simple act of inhaling made him feel like he was going to drown. Some part of him was aware finally that he had indeed fallen ill, but he had never observed any cold or flu in his past to be quite so painful . That could only lead him to conclude that this was no ordinary cold or flu, that this was beyond something so trivial, which was quite the discouraging news considering the ordinary cold or flu alone could put his frail body out of commission for days. Dejected and alone, he started to relinquish himself to the pain, laying his blazing forehead to the floor and letting endless hacking coughs shred his throat when he felt a voice calling out to him.
“Varian, ”
“Dad? ”
Varian pushed himself up onto his weak, jello-like legs and through his vision full of swirling spots he saw his father, looking directly at him through the orange tint and moving his lips.
“Varian, you must get me out of here. Please, there’s not much time.”
Helplessly, Varian stumbled from the table over to the hallucinated figure before him. He pressed his hands over the maddening wall of amber that separated them like it might somehow have mercy and bend to let him through—never such luck. Shame nearly brought him to his knees, and maybe a dizzy spell on top of it, as he was looked to for the first time by his father for a solution and had none.
“I know, Dad, I-I’m trying, I just…Nothing’s working…” Anguish chipped at his voice as he rubbed tears from his face with his forearm. “Rapunzel won’t help, a-and I think I might’ve gotten sick from being outside but—but—Dad, why did you lie to her about the rocks? What is that note in your hand? What—“
“Don’t give up on me, son. You can’t rest now. You’re the only one who can do this.”
His father’s cold words silenced him. As sweat rolled down his chin and pittered to the icy floor below, he took a short breath, let it stammer in his chest and eased it out, closing his eyes tight to gather any of the remaining courage he might have left inside him. If there was any to salvage, when he felt like he was in pieces.
“I-I can do it… ”
He had to. No matter the cost, no matter the frustration, no matter the sudden strike of chills that made him want to huddle up in a blanket and just lay there for a second or the stabbing pain in his chest when he breathed. The hurt from being abandoned by someone dear to him was fresh enough in his heart, and there was no way he could forgive himself if he abandoned his family the same way. Set in his resolve, Varian turned to face the chaotic spread of blow torches and chisels and powerful reagents scattered across desk and floor, and though it was taking everything in him just to keep himself standing and conscious, he got back to work. Or at least, he was doing something . Whether that something could be considered productive or just his body acting on senseless autopilot…well, it was senseless autopilot.
Like a layman miming a scientist without knowing the first thing about basic alchemy, he began to pour compound after compound into one large beaker with no real hypothesis in mind, just mechanically grabbing and pouring whatever was in his reach. If it was colorful, it was going in the mix. Ruddiger took the liberty of hiding himself far, far away behind an unorganized pile of books as Varian took up the nonsense concoction in his hand, regarding it so tiredly he may as well have been sleepwalking at this point.
“Just you wait, Dad. This is—This is gonna get you outta there for sure.”
He took one step toward his father. Two. His stomach lurched, but all he had to do was pour this mixture over the substance and it would dissolve, and his father would be free at last. He would save the day, his father would apologize for doubting him, Rapunzel for turning her back on him, and they would all hug and laugh and eat ham sandwiches together—maybe not that last part, he was turning green at the thought of anything food related. How long had it been since he last ate anyways? He took another wavering step.
“Don’t you worry, it’s…It’s all gonna be…”
Maybe no more talking either. He had to pour all his focus into keeping himself upright anyway, which was proving more and more of a challenge with each agonizing breath he took.
“Just…”
And then, he could breathe no longer. The spinning of the world around him came to a stop. He felt his face and hands go ice cold—colder than they were before—as he started to cough so hard he felt like retching, his lungs on fire with the sensation that they were about to burst. He couldn’t get any air in between the amount he was expelling, it just kept pounding out from his chest until he was gasping raggedly as the wind had been knocked out of him and clinging to the wall for support, and that’s when the panic set in. He was going to pass out. He knew he was going to pass out. He just wanted some air, anything , he wanted to lay down and rest and surely, it was the relentless coughing that brought tears to his eyes, not how terrified and again how alone he felt. He pushed himself too far—was he going to die? It definitely felt like it. How silly he felt for wishing after her betrayal that Rapunzel was here with him, or really anyone. Just a hand to hold would be enough.
Varian’s frantic efforts to draw in more air found nothing but more choking before darkness began to creep into his eyes. The beaker slipped from his grasp and broke open across the floor, seeping fumes that invited themselves into his throat and scorched it until he was clawing at his chest but couldn’t make it stop. After hacking violently into his palm, he thought it would be the mind-searing pain that knocked him out for good but he was wrong. It was when he pulled his hand away and found it spotted in blood that the wooziness struck him like a certain famous frying pan to the head. All Varian could feel was his heart pounding in his ears and his knees giving from underneath him. With the newly familiar sensation of floating but not at all pleasant, he slipped to the ground, heavier than he had ever felt in his life. He lay there motionless, breathing in whatever toxicity was in that mess of an “experiment”, and couldn’t fight to so much as keep his eyes open anymore. Thirteen hours of hard work, wasted…He didn’t even have the energy left to grieve. He was nothing but a curled up heap on the floorboards, wheezing softly and wishing with the very last of his consciousness that someone, anyone would find him soon.